It takes guts to be gentle and kind

I seem to be watching a lot of group panels of women in the Film and TV industry. Obviously, I watched the Hollywood Reporter roundtables with Reese Witherspoon - whom I now have a new found respect for - and Julianna Moore - who I've always had respect for. But I also watched the likes of Mindy Kaling and Lena Dunham talking about writing TV shows and films and when they were talking I just felt completely and utterly jealous. I realised that's what I want to do. These women are so influential to me and so many other young women worldwide and I just can't help but feel that it would be the greatest feeling. 

Mindy and Lena make they're shows real life (Lena in particular) by showing on-screen what no one usually talks about. This resonates with me so much because it makes me realise that what I thought was 'weird' is actually completely normal - it's society who is weird. They, and many other female writers, come under so much scrutiny because of this though, because apparently it's 'too much information'. But since when was information too much? Surely what we all want is to learn. To learn about different experiences, different cultures different ideas. Girls and The Mindy Project teach us these things, and as a young female, I need to hear it to know I'm not the only one.

That's what is so amazing about art in general - it makes you feel apart of something. You realise you're not the only one feeling a specific way. All I want in life is for more people to appreciate humanities and the arts. Being an English student can be hard. The question 'what do you study?' Sometimes haunts me, because you can't tell how they're going to react. A lot of this generation is obsessed with getting a job and this makes me incredibly sad. Why can't people do things because they love it? I'm sick of people asking me what I'm going to do with my degree after I've finished University because right now, I'm grateful that I'm even here in the first place.

So many people don't have an education in this world, and I feel many people take their's for granted. An education is the most important thing that we go through. It is a chance to discover worlds outside of your own and find your likes and dislikes. I feel most people now have a one-track mind and are not appreciating what is around them. Sometimes I do have doubts about everything though. What am I going to do? Am I just wasting my time while everyone else is working for the future? But I love English. Don't let those bullies get into your brain!

See, you don't have to be famous to be ridiculed and judged. We're all human. Read a book, it'll help you realise that and you'll gain so much empathy for people. In my view, that's the ticket to being a nice person - fully understanding how other's are feeling and adjusting yourself to fit with them. 

My youth is gone like a dream...

I finally turned 18 last week! I'm an adult! That must mean that I won't be posting any more blog posts moaning about life...oh wait, I'm still technically a 'teen' and everyone moans about life, not just teenagers, right? Other than turning 18, I've also gone past my 1 year anniversary of having this blog and, oh god, do I moan a lot. But, everyone knows, and seems to forget, it's hard growing up. I had the nicest email from Rosalindis last week and it made me realise that I'm not alone in my struggles and that's comforting for me. If anyone else would like to send me an email about anything (nothing rude though) then my email is at the bottom of my blog.

I do know how lucky I am. I have great friends and through that I have been able to do amazing things with them. One of my friends, for my birthday, got me loads of photographs of our fun times together. While my family were looking through them, each one said how lucky I was and they never had a teenage life like it. I know. I'm super lucky. That doesn't mean that things still don't get me down. Everyone feels down at some point. College gets too stressful or your friends are having an argument. Either way, we all want somewhere to vent...weirdly enough, I choose to do that online where anyone and everyone can read it.

Rosie also said something that made me scream in my head "YES, YES, YES! You get it!" "I guess going over the top is the whole point of being a teenager. If we cant be radical now, then when can we?!" We're all a bunch of mopey teenagers that feel like they have something to say and want to say it. What's the harm in that? And that idea has been going on for centuries. I'm currently doing coursework comparing Charlotte Bronte's 'Jane Eyre' with Jean Rhys' 'Wide Sargasso Sea' and both of those authors were incredibly grumpy. They lived with their heart of their sleeve. My favourite quote by Charlotte Bronte was when it was her birthday she wrote, "My youth is gone like a dream; and very little use have I ever made of it." I like to think that we're all wearing our hearts on our sleeves like Charlotte.

Jean Rhys also said one of my favourite quotes,

 “When I was excited about life, I didn't want to write at all. I've never written when I was happy. I didn't want to. But I've never had a long period of being happy, Do you think anyone has? I think you can be peaceful for a long time, When I think about it, if I had to choose, I'd rather be happy than write. You see, there's very little invention in my books. What came first with most of them was the wish to get rid of this awful sadness that weighed me down . I found when I was a child that if I could put the hurt into words, it would go. It leaves a sort of melancholy behind and then it goes.” 

Whenever I write, it's usually because I'm unhappy about something and want to be rid of it. Jean has literally managed to get my whole concept of writing this blog in a paragraph, and I love her for it. I like to think that each generation of teenage girls are filled with hopeless romantics like Jean, Charlotte, me, the people who read my blog and the people I follow. It's not that we're not 'lucky' it's just sometimes life gets us down and we like to write about it. We might over-emphasise a factor of something, but isn't that just to engage the reader more? Isn't that what you do when you're a hopeless romantic? So many people have made a living out of it so we must be doing something right.