February 15, 2015: Sunday Night Catchall

The New York Times front page on the day of Nelson Mandela's release

“As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn't leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I'd still be in prison." - Nelson Mandela

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If you know me well, you now I love Nelson Mandela. Long Walk to Freedom is my favorite book. Madiba proved that peaceful revolutions are possible and effective. This week was the fifteenth anniversary of Madiba being released from prison.

The San Francisco Panhandlers Steel Drum Band

Had a blast playing in a concert with my fellow San Francisco Panhandlers Steel Drum Band members at Ashkenaz last night. I still think drums are romantic. My lack of a love life means I must be right about that ... okay, on second thought, ignore me completely. And congrats to the Trinidad All Stars for winning Panorama last night (biggest steel drum competition in the world)! I linked to their song above.

Discovered that my beloved school badminton team follows some anti-social/outcast stereotypes when I tried to make a Facebook group for team members and discovered that 70% of members did not have Facebook accounts. Badminton is cool. I say this with the conviction with which I say that drums are romantic. :)

February 8, 2015: Sunday Night Catchall

"In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." - Martin Luther King Jr. 

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The quote above has been on my mind this week. There are positives and negatives to all events. The negative of what has unfolded at my school this week is I had the unfortunate experience of seeing how many people at my school are content being bystanders in situations of online harassment. The positive is that I learned to value that much more the people who weren't bystanders. I find the quote above very true. I won't remember what hurtful comments were said by my classmates this week in a year or even in a few months. I will, however, remember the silence of all those who watched and did nothing.

On a similarly serious (but more positive) note, huge shout-outs to Obama, Katy Perry, and Brooke Axtell for raising awareness about domestic violence at the GRAMMY Awards! I was similarly impressed by last Sunday's powerful Superbowl ad from NOMORE.org. These two TV events sandwiched an incredibly powerful week on Twitter with the #TheresNoPerfectVictim hashtag, which I encourage you to check out if it won't be triggering for you.

On a lighter note, I want to repeat to anyone who thinks otherwise that badminton is a sport! Some people at my school think otherwise ... somehow ...

January 25, 2015: Sunday Night Catchall

Random SFPD car

My Wednesday afternoon took an unexpected turn. The majority of the comments under that article say something along the lines of, "Well, I guess somebody didn't want to take that Physics test!" That's probably (hopefully?) something along the lines of what happened, but seriously, people, think of better/safer/more creative ways to get out of test taking next time besides calling in a bomb threat, okay?!

My organization made it past 500 likes on Facebook! Actually, it somehow got from 475 to 550 in less than 48 hours. I don't exactly know how. But yay! Now send me more LGBTQ-related YA book suggestions! Or, if you're a writer, write more books with LGBTQ characters. :)

I can sum up senior year in one anecdote from Friday. I sometimes send my teachers random NY Times articles relevant to something they taught during the day if the article happens to appear. But this semester, instead of sending my teacher a NY Times article, I sent my teacher an Onion article that felt relevant.

#DeflateGate has been dragged on and on and on, but one beautiful thing the endless discussions yielded was Bill Nye kicking some butt!

And per my usual, this is my favorite Onion article of the week ("Nation’s Historians Warn The Past Is Expanding At Alarming Rate")

January 18, 2015: Sunday Night Catchall

"We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies." -- Martin Luther King Jr.

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Crazy end to Packers vs. Seahawks game! Wow. As much as I dislike the Seahawks (I'm from San Francisco; what do you expect?), that was epic.

The Oscars have decided we need to just honor more white people than we already do. Um ... what?

On the subject of racism and movies, you might want to research more about Selma before you take how events were portrayed in the movie as historical fact. This article by Roger Stone and Phillip Nelson is a good place to start.

It's only January of senior year and I already identify with this kid in The Onion.

I'm attempting to use Twitter! Now how one transitions from 50,000 words to 140 characters, I have not a clue. But it's a good challenge.

My brother informed me a few days ago that Unwind by Neal Shusterman is now the beginning of a series. So an added plus of senior year that I'm discovering: having the time to go back and read more Young Adult books! If you haven't read Unwind, I highly recommend it. It's one of my favorites.

Coming Out to Siri (January 13, 2015)

I'm using an iPhone (not the one pictured) and I'm a few operating systems behind, so I'd like to think my phone will evolve from here. This is surprisingly on point with what many LGBTQ teens face in reality, which is humorous.

Me: “Hey Siri, what if I told you I’m gay?”

Siri: “Hmm. Let me think. OK, I found this on the web for ‘if I told you I’m gay.’”

Me: “Siri, I’m gay.”

Siri: “I don’t know what that means. If you like, I can search the web for ‘Siri I’m gay.’”

Me: “I’m gay.”

Siri: “I don’t know how to respond to that.”

Me: “What do you think?”

Siri: “It’s nice of you to ask, but it doesn’t really matter what I think.”

Me: “This wasn’t easy to tell you.”

Siri: “Who, me?”

Me: “Yes, I just came out to you.”

Siri: “I thought so.”