And The Wall's Come Tumbling Down & Punishment

Hi, Aoife here.
Welcome to Saturday's post - Insecurities.

I would love to say that I don't have any and that I am strong enough to not care what others think of me but alas that is not the case. I am sure that plenty of people out there share some of my fears because after all beneath everything, we all have things that we are to afraid to show.


My biggest insecurity is that people won't accept me for who I am and that in being myself I lose the ones that I care about. I know that people would say that if someone can't accept you for who you are then they aren't real friends and I do accept that. But that does change the fact that it still hurts to lose someone who you consider a friend. I spent a lot of time when I was younger inside my own head and inside the worlds I found in books not because I was afraid of people but because I was afraid of what the thought of me. I have changed a lot since those days and gained confidence that wasn't there before. This change was mainly due to finding people who accepted me as I was and helping draw me out of myself.
School, I find tends to send me back into myself, not completely but enough to change how I view myself. Outside of school, I feel more free to be myself and act myself but in school I don't talk as much or act as impulsively.

Insecurity Number 2: Appearance
When I am talking about appearance, I don't just mean your weight, height and facial features. I mean how you conduct yourself and what you wear also. I mean we live in a consumer world where almost everything we see is influenced by the media, from the way we talk to the clothes we wear. I always feel like there is this invisible pressure to be like everyone else, to go with all the latest trends and buy branded clothes just because everyone else has. I think there is also a lot of emphasis on looking a certain way-skinny, gorgeous and more often than not, tall. I'm not very tall which doesn't bother me that much except when I am surrounded a group of much taller people, which does make me feel like they are looking down on me. I'm not very insecure but looking at rake thin models makes me so frustrated towards the influence that drove them to look like walking skeletons.

I know that I have plenty more to say about insecurities but unfortunately I am exhausted so I'm going to keep it short and sweet.
There are always things that we wish we could change, either in the world or in ourselves. However things don't just fix themselves because you want them to, you have to work for change or learn acceptance of how things are. But you should be proud of who you are because no one else in the 7 billion people on the planet in the same as you. So maybe it's in accepting ourselves as the crazy, misfits that we are that we find the strength to become something more then we were before.

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind.” 
― Bernard M. Baruch
(Easy to say but hard to do)

See you next week,
Aoife

P.S: Happy Birthday to our wonderful Orla! :)

P.P.S: Punishment
My punishment for not posting last saturday was to eat a Blenderised Salad and post the pictures of my next post so here they are:

And voila: the Blenderised Salad.
Ingredients:
Half a head of lettuce,
4 tomatoes,
Sweet and Sour Sauce,
Milk (optional)
1 cooked egg

I used sweet and sour sauce because we didn't have any salad dressing and the milk is to tone down the saltiness of the sauce.

Overall Verdict:
Not terrible but I certainly don't want to drink it again.

School Blues

Good afternoon,my dear readers.
It's Aoife here again for my first blog of the school year.

Back to School;
This weeks theme is back to school, which I'm sure everyone has something to say about, so here's my piece.
I love learning and being challenged to approach things for different perspectives but that doesn't mean I love school. In fact, sometimes I thinks it exactly the opposite. In school we learn to beat the exam and how to pass tests by cramming as much knowledge into our heads in the five minutes before the exam as possible. But that is not what school should be about, school should be a place where learning is encouraged and curiosity is rewarded rather than a place where you are punished for not having the correct jacket or forgetting to bring in a piece of homework which you did complete. In my opinion schools are too focused on results and so actually learning for learning's sake gets pushed to the wayside.
Exams and test all focus on accessing your ability to parrot what others have said without actually accessing your understanding and ability to apply that knowledge to the world around you. The exam system teaches us not to think for ourselves but to simple reiterate the same old spiel of why we think that Romeo is our favourite character in Romeo and Juliet, when really we think Romeo is a self-obsessed fool who wouldn't know what sense is if it smacked him in the face with his own story.

Sorry but sometimes school just feels like a cage meant to strangle all creativity and imagination until all that's left is a hollow husk of half understood theories and phrases. Sometimes I wonder what it is that the Education System is trying to teach us but as far I can see, it certainly isn't independent thought and the dive to gain a better understanding of the world.

Also I think the whole idea of school is too set in it's way of teaching and accessing potential. There are so many gifted people in this world who struggle with school simple because they see things in a different light. Some people struggle with all the learning involved in school and feel foolish for it but it is just that they excel in area's that aren't measured by tests. For instance, a kid who is totally gifted with technology of any kind, who could explain the mechanics of a V8 engine by the time he was eight gets letters home because his grades in English, Spanish and Irish are terrible. It doesn't mean that he is a fool or that he doesn't work hard, it's just that he can't parrot back what the teacher tells him. For me, this is one of the biggest failings of the Education system- in that it can't understand or except those who can not follow it's rules.

I could go on all day about this but I'm pretty busy doing all this pointless homework so I better wrap this up.

For all it's faults and failings, there are some things I like about school. I love to learn and understand new things, I love meeting with my friends, I love the teachers that love to teach and are very good at it and lastly I love the fact that I have access to education and the possibilities that it brings.

I think that about wraps things up.
I'll see you next week unless I die of Education overdose before then,
See ya,
Aoife

P.S: I'll go the punishment tonight once I buy some eggs. I tell you how it goes in next weeks post.
It should be......interesting( definitely), memorable (probably) and tasty (hopefully)

Mirror Models

Hi all,

It's Aoife, who is seriously depressed to find out that she has to do a punishment :( *sigh*
Anyway, my laptop decided to say "sayonara" to the land of the living, which means I have had to resort to stealing my brother's in order to post this blog.
Hopeful it can be resurrected but we'll just have to see.

Anyway, this week theme is" Role Models" which for me is a toughie.
To be honest I've never really thought about who I would consider my role models.
But since people mirror in other what they wish to see in themselves, I suppose I do have quite a few.
For me as a kid while I looked up to plenty of people, I never really wanted to be like them. I thought that my older cousins were some of the wisest coolest people on planet but I didn't want to be them.My friend had a new doll but you could never part five year old me from the battered Barbie I had. I think I just wanted to be me, only problem was that I didn't know who "me" was yet and I'm still working on it.

The people who most drastically changed the way I view life and others has to be the Vlogbrothers, John and Hank Green. Those two made me really look at what I had and value it. They made be feel like it was okay to be different, to chose a path other than the one most well worn. They made me realise that you must imagine people complexly and that empathy is a gift that is too often neglected. They changed my world view and I can never thank them enough for that. It seems incredible that they have managed to touch so many people's lives especially those they have never met but it seems that they have become the role models for many people who just want to be themselves. I won't go on about them for too long seeing as Danielle already explained about them so well.

My second group of role models are my basketball club members. They taught me that dedication and hard work lead to their own rewards and have shown me such kindness over the years. I think that I have always looked up to them and admired the way they treat new people as family. If I can ever achieve that level of kindness and openness with people I don't know then I consider myself content. Plus I always admired the fact that they are actually on time for things which is a skill I REALLY need to learn.

In the end, I think that we all model ourselves off everyone we see, after all that's how we learn as kid's. We take a little bit everyone we meet and add it to the jumbled mix of thoughts, emotions and experiences that make us who we are. In turn we become role models for others whether we realise it or not. So there's something to think about for the weekend!

'Til next time,
Aoife