How Do YOU Define Yourself - Lizzie Velasquez at TEDxAustinWomen

In the time where many teenage girls watched some of their celebrity crushes openly bash and describe the things they want a girl to do in order to impress them, I'm finally proud that one girl, one amazingly beautiful girl named Lizzie Velasquez decided to speak on.

Lizzie was born with an extremely rare disorder that only 3 known people in the world have. This disorder would also steal her eyesight and cause her to not gain any weight, regardless of what she eats or the amount of food she eats. Although Lizzie herself considers this a perk and looks on the brighter side of life, many people in her past took this as a way to bully her.

In her TEDx talk, she spoke on how she never realized how she was different looking until she got into kindergarten and many of the children openly didn't want to be near her. She carried on in life despising her looks and wanted nothing more than to get rid of this disorder that was causing people to look at her differently. Then, she saw a video of herself that a classmate of hers posted on YouTube stating that she was the "World's Ugliest Woman" and she cried for days. But even though the video was intended to bring her down, Lizzie didn't react. In fact, she took the negativity to bring herself up to show the people who were being rude that she could do the exact same things they did, regardless of her outer looks.

Years later, Lizzie graduated college, continued with her hopes of being a motivational speaker, and proved to women and men everywhere that looks don't define you, but what your mentality is like does.

Thank you to Charly Cox on the JacksGap site for writing a post about Lizzie. Watching the video meant a lot to me and it helped me see life differently. 

-Emilee

I Believe In This

I believe that the most brilliant thoughts might be hidden in the people who live in third world countries or are poverty stricken. The only reason why I believe in this is because simply, these are the people who have to endure the most struggles in the world. The rest of us, especially Americans, tend to be inconsiderate of the things we have handed to us and not the things we have to work for. We fail to realize that there are people who live in other countries who don't even half a quarter of the stuff that we have. And that actually kind of makes my heart hurt when I think about it.

I believe that the cure to cancer might be hidden in the mind of a person whose family cannot afford to send him/her to school. I believe in this simply because we always tend to believe that the students who go to school are the ones who will have the best future and will be the ones to find a cure to a disease that people have been fighting to find the cure for for centuries. But what we fail to realize is that there might be one brilliant human being hiding in the midst of poverty who has the most brilliant idea and solution to cure cancer.

I believe that we're all hypocrites. You might criticize me for saying that but I believe that we tend to say one thing but do the exact opposite. I believe that we shouldn't be so hypocritical when it comes to life. As humans, we tend to bully one person for making a really big mistake and we criticize the hell out of them. And then when that person loses their life to suicide, everyone simply becomes saints and says, "Oh, they were beautiful. They're really going to be missed."

Last, I believe that we all have a chance to impact something in the world. It might not even be big. We might even can impact someone's life. That's what I believe.

What do you believe in?

-Emilee

Something I'd Like for Guys to Know

Dear every single teenage male on this planet,

I'd like to tell you something right here, right now and I damn well hope y'all will take the time to read it because I put a lot of effort into explaining some stuff that girls do when they like a guy or just what girls do in general, from a girl's POV and not a guy making fun of a girl's POV.

Us girls are pretty fragile, especially when it comes to things like fangirling over boy bands, celebrities, or just anything that the girls you see freak out about. So I'd just like to say that treating a girl like shit because she likes those things is pretty hypocritical when y'all act the same way over baseball, football, basketball, or whatever weird thing that y'all like.

Second, when a girl says that she doesn't feel pretty, she's not saying that to get sympathy or free compliments from people, we say it because we 100% don't feel pretty whatsoever because we try to adjust ourselves to fit the standards of society and what the guys we have crushes on want from us. So if a guy says they want a girl that's skinny or has a clear face with no acne, we try so freaking hard to make ourselves do that and it gets to the point where it's kind of sickening to see what extent girls go to just to impress a guy that they're not even gonna be married to in the future.

Third, I'm sick and tired of y'all saying that all girls are more beautiful when they're in sweats and no makeup because we all know damn well that it's a lie coming from y'all's mouths. Let's put it into two options:

You have-

1. An average brunette haired girl in just sweatpants, a big t-shirt, no makeup, messy bun, and practically eating everything and spends her time on the computer

or

2. A plastic looking blonde haired girl who wears skimpy outfits, too much makeup, and only looks pretty because of makeup

Most of y'all would choose the second option.

Fourth, do not ever criticize a girl by her weight because that's just a turn off right then and there. For the guys that take the time to criticize a woman's self-worth because of her weight is the type of guy that I'll never ever want to be seen around. Ever. And the guys that are the ones criticizing a girl because of her weight are usually the ones that have their own self-esteem issues of themselves so safe to say: don't do something that you wouldn't want your friends making fun of you for.

Last, don't expect a girl to go out always looking like Jennifer Lawrence or whoever the heck y'all admire because we seriously won't unless you give us about 5 days in advance. We're not gonna automatically be like, "Oh my God! I need to wear a really cute outfit and put on makeup!" just for you guys. If we do it, we must really freaking like you or we're going to some really nice event that requires that effort. We're not spending $20 on blush just to impress you guys.

So, if you're a guy and you read this, take it deep into thought. I'd really like to see what you'd have to say for girls to know.

-Emilee

Oak Grove's fake field goal

Nice recap video from my school's 6A State Championship game! This play won us the game by a touchdown and we owe it all to assistant Coach Bobby DeLeon for coming up with the play. It took Kirk McCarty, Luke Little, and Logan Scott and the rest of the offense to make it work. So props to them.

Something I've Never Understood - Part 2

I never understood how a simple letter could define a person's skills and talents.

I have never understood it at all.

I know a number of students at my school who have talents that an A, B, C, D, and F couldn't contain. Every person in the world is gifted in their own way, so why should a stupid letter tell colleges and other higher education institutions on how you really are? One of my friends isn't necessarily the best when it comes to academics, but when you place him on a baseball field, he's one of the most talented out there. So that leads me back to my point, why should school work define what your talents are?

Some of us aren't gifted in math, science, English, reading, history, or the basic subjects we get taught at school every. single. day. Some of us are gifted athletically, artistically, and technologically wise. But education today believes that the only things that prove our talents are stupid subjects that are taught on a repetitive basis. The only thing that changes when we learn is the difficulty. Other than that, nothing changes.

I believe that each school should have classes tailored towards the interests of each student rather than the same old things we learn each day. And truly, I believe that we would be more interested in school if we got to learn the things we wanted to learn and not what the government and state feels what's required. Of course, the subjects we learn are necessary for the future, but right now, teenagers just want to do what they like, and I feel like having more options for classes would give us just what we want.

Second, I've never understood why students are pressured into having to tryout for the sports they want to do. There's a reason why we want to do it, and it's not to get shamed in front of every single one of our peers at tryouts. A lot of students want to play sports but don't get the chance to because of the fact that they believe that they're not "good enough" and not as "talented" as the other guys. Truly, if principals and school administration wanted to see a raise in student participation, they should allow students to play sports without tryouts and allow them to learn as they go, which helps coaches get a better perspective on how they are really impacting our lives.

In the end, I just never understood those things. It's crazy knowing that this is how life is now, but hopefully it'll change.

-Emilee

Music Mondays - 4/4 of Blogs That I Haven't Posted

Every Monday, I'll post a roundup of songs or artists that have fascinated me over the week. Sometimes I might not be able to post weekly, but when I do, I'll do it. I started this blog on the JacksGap website, but not a lot of people have seen it, so I chose to bring it here. {http://jacksgap.com/community/t/music-mondays/} I got inspiration from one of Finn Harries's blog ideas, which is called Music Mondays as well. But here you go! Here are some songs that I'm obsessed with at the moment, regardless of it being new or old.

Seven Lions with Myon & Shane54 - Strangers (feat. Tove Lo)

https://soundcloud.com/seven-lions/seven-lions-with-myon-and

ASTR - Hold On We're Going Home (Drake Cover)

https://soundcloud.com/astr_music/hold-on-were-going-home-drake

Perseus - Shadow of the Beast

https://soundcloud.com/perseus/shadow-of-the-beast

MØ feat. Diplo - XXX88 (Joe Hertz Remix)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPj4Jk-Sdt8

CHVRCHES - Gun

https://soundcloud.com/chvrches/gun

Every song has literally been on repeat for the past 2 weeks. There'll be more next week. I promise, haha.

-Emilee

Demons Run When A Good Man Goes to War - 2/2 Football Blogs

“Demons run when a good man goes to war
Night will fall and drown the sun
When a good man goes to war

Friendship dies and true love lies
Night will fall and the dark will rise
When a good man goes to war

Demons run, but count the cost
The battle's won, but the child is lost”

― Steven Moffat

            Last weekend, we played an excruciatingly tough game against the Petal Panthers for the second round of playoffs. Of course, we won, but during the time we were playing, bystanders on the sidelines witnessed one of our most collected players go from calm to angry. Senior quarterback Kirk McCarty is one of Mississippi’s truest talents with a knack for football, baseball, and most surprisingly, newspaper. But that isn’t what I’m getting to. He is one of the few people, alongside teammates Logan Scott and Luke Little, who are calm and collected on the field and off the field. So when fans and spectators heard of a change in Kirk’s attitude, everyone became a lot more shocked than usual.

            When a Petal player decided to take typical Petal trash talk onto the field, they targeted McCarty directly, using their time on defense as a way to scream insults at the quarterback. After tackling him one time and insulting him and taunting him, the player went from careful to raging. During the 3^rd quarter, Kirk suddenly had a change in thoughts and instead of playing it safe and throwing the ball to Logan Scott and Jordan Duncan, who were wide open, he took the game into his own hands…literally. He ran the ball himself every chance he had, proving to the Petal players, who were taunting him earlier, that he was not a force to be reckoned with. In fact, McCarty took the time to get back at one of the players and telling the referee that the fight was not even his to begin with. That same player got in trouble by the refs for using foul language. Lesson learned? Don't mess with him.

            The Panthers proved to be a worthy match, but not worthy enough, in the end. McCarty and his Warriors pulled through until the end, showing Petal that the cockiest people get beat the worst. It took a lot to make him angry, and that event proved that you must’ve pissed him off badly to make him react like that. But in the end, just like the quote says, “Demons run when a good man goes to war.”