Reflections on 2015

Okay, this will be a really cheesy reflection post. You've been warned.

This year, 2015, has been the hardest year of my life. I am not asking for sympathy or complaining, I never want to be the person (though I admit, sometimes I sink into self-pity). My year started off with my mom having brain surgery while my friend still battled cancer, I then had a really hard break-up, one of my best friends and I had a rough patch, another guy friend almost destroyed his and myself's friendship, and one of my friends died in September. Throughout it all, I will own up to the fact that I was not one of the easiest people to be around and I became very cynical and very stressed as a way to numb myself from everything that was going on my life. My mental and emotional state was heavily affected by the amount of rocky change I went through this year.

But this isn't a sad post. I want to set up my year so I can explain the amount of change I went through. I grew as a person. I am not the same person I was at the beginning of the year. I still mess up and I still cry and I still get stressed and frustrated easily, even when I shouldn't, but I have grown. Growth can't be measured, so I am not sure how to explain how I feel like I've grown, in all honesty, but I will try my best.

I learned that I can't make excuses for myself. At the beginning of 2015, I cut myself a lot of slack when it came to school work because of everything that was going on in my life at the time. That ended up biting me in the butt at the end of the semester because my grades just couldn't be picked up when it came to crunch time. I learned my lesson. This semester, when my friend died, to be blunt, my world stopped spinning for a few weeks, but everyone else's, it seemed, kept on spinning. I couldn't make excuses for myself because I knew from the previous semester that every grade counted. It was extremely hard. I had a lot of tears this semester, but I had to push myself through it because I didn't have any other choice. No one else was going to do my work for me.

In all honesty, I was probably way too hard on myself. But it paid off (I got better grades this semester than I did previously). I studied and I studied more. I took excellent notes. I didn't let myself fall behind. It wasn't easy. But I learned that sometimes life knocks you down, but you can't let it get the best of you. That was my biggest lesson of the year.

I also had many great experiences this year. I had one of the best summers of life! I visited family in Minnesota, became a CIT II at camp, went to Universal Studios with one of my friends, traveled to Europe (Germany, Austria, and France), and went back to my childhood home of Tennessee for the first time since moving to Colorado. There are bright spots in every year, you just have to enjoy it while it lasts.

Every year, I choose a new word or phrase that becomes my motto or goal for the rest of the year. I didn't have one this year (which I think is a good example of my mental state then). But for 2016, I've chosen the word patient. I need to be more patient. I was very grateful to have so many patient people in my life this year, who didn't take my irritability personally and were always welcome with hugs. I want to be that same kind of person to everyone else, every day in my life. I am not a naturally patient person. I have a hard time waiting for little things, but I also have a really hard time being patient with myself and everyone else. I am hard on myself, and I stress about the littlest things. I have a hard time relaxing. I let that get the best of me and I can get really frustrated with people in my life when I really shouldn't, when I should be patient and understanding of them like they are of me. My goal this year is to be more patient: to not be anxious, to give myself time to relax, to be patient with other people and to help them the way I have been helped, to try and be as forgiving as I can be, to not take things so personally.

This year has been a year of immense change and growth. I've learned a lot about helping people and being there for people and that's I really want to act on in 2016. This is a pretty cheesy post, but I really just wanted to share my reflections and everything I've learned this year. I hope everyone has a good new years! :)

Why Rey Is So Important

Hey! I have not blogged for quite a while, but now that it is Christmas Break and the hustle and bustle of the holidays has declined, I hope to get some posts lined up. I have plenty of new makeup favorites to share and I will be going to Sephora tomorrow to purchase a foundation, so look for a post on that soon.

photo credit

Anyways, I want to talk today about Rey, the heroine and protagonist of the new Star Wars movie. Let me first start off by saying that I thought the film was fantastic. It has a good plot line, phenomenal character development, and it brings back the flair and "feel" of the original Star Wars. I join the bandwagon by saying it's a great film. I'm going to focus on Rey (obviously) so there could be some spoilers!

My favorite part of the film, however, would have to be that the heroine of the movie was a woman. Before anyone starts freaking out that I am skipping over Leia, I am not. Believe me, I am a huge Leia fan, however, Luke was the main hero of the original Star Wars. I love seeing good triumph evil in every Star Wars, but it's important to acknowledge that women are capable and deserving of that battle too. Leia was a sidekick. In this film, the main hero is a girl, Rey, and I couldn't be happier. 

It's not everyday you watch a film with a female protagonist. In a report from The Guardian, it was stated, "According to a 2014 study by the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, in both the US and UK just 30% of the highest-grossing movies had female leads or co-leads." Can you believe that? Women make up 50% of the world population, yet are only represented 30% of the time as a lead or co-lead. There have been plenty of great gains in film representation equality in the past few years: Katniss in The Hunger Games and Tris in Divergent shines a whole new light on dynamic female heroines, Bradley Cooper said he would join his female coworkers when negotiating contracts to ensure equal pay, and Sandra Bullock fought for a role written for men. The rise of powerful women in Hollywood is a promising sign of leveling the playing field, both financially and in terms of roles available to women.

Rey, played by Daisy Ridley (who is an incredible actress, by the way), showcases the movement of powerful women. Rey is the heroine of the film. Instead of the film largely being focused on males, like in the original Star Wars, and instead of having women fit into the traditional Hollywood boxes for women: side-kick, mother, unable to live without the love of a man (*cough* Padme *cough*), Rey leads the pack. She breaks out of prison, she doesn't wait for anyone to come and rescue her. She fights (the main villain--and wins). She does it all without wearing a gold bikini.

Leia's gold bikini turned a strong female lead (who strangled Jabba the Hut, no less) into an iconic sex symbol. It objectified the strongest female lead the original Star Wars movies had. The bikini shouldn't matter. It's a type of clothing. But it had a tremendous amount of impact, nonetheless  It turned Leia into a sexual object used to glorify Luke's rescue of her. Leia was forced to wear it, as it was her slave costume. Leia wasn't showing off her body because she wanted to (I, for one, am in full support of women wearing whatever they want, though I respect that everyone has different modesty convictions), she was showing off her body because she was forced too as Jabba's slave. It's disgusting. It wasn't necessary. But, every movie needs sex right? 

Seeing as Star Wars: the Force Awakens has made a record-breaking $1 billion faster than any film in history, I would argue no. The film has a 94% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and continues to sell out theaters. No bikinis in sight. No objectification of women (or men) needed.

Rey, and the lovely General Leia, prove to filmmakers that women do not need to be put in traditional boxes in order for films to be successful. They do not need to wear revealing clothing to sell tickets. They do not need to be objectified in order for men to further themselves as a hero. Audiences are clearly accepting of seeing a woman lead.

That's why Rey is so important. She expands on the diversity of the Star Wars universe and proves that women are just as capable as men, and do not need to have their body exploited in order to do so. The rest of the cast adds to this: there were no demeaning comments on Rey or her gender throughout the film, no one questioning if she could handle something. Rey was treated as an equal, because she is one. She can fight just as well as any man in any Star Wars film. The other characters respected her, as they did with General Leia. She embodied power and resourcefulness and independence, traits not often see by female leads in Hollywood, and rarely seen in combination. Rey is refreshing. She's the role model I want my future children looking up to. I don't want my daughters to watch Star Wars (believe me they will) and think that a man's love defines them (Padme) or that they should wait to have a guy come and rescue them (Leia). I want them to see Rey and know that, they too, can fight with the rest of the boys and rescue themselves. Rey has a pivotal role, not just in Star Wars, but in the equalizing of Hollywood. I can't wait to see the outcome of either. :)