Please don't call where I grew up "Home"

Just a prelude, I did not do the blog challenge that I was so committed to doing. End of comment.

Anyways...

People like to call where I am from "home". I am not sure why, I have never referred to my mom's house as home since I moved into my apartment with my fiancé. Sure, it is the last house I lived in, technically but it is not home. I hate those cheesy statements like "home is where the heart is" but it is kind of true. Home is with my fiancé in our one-bedroom apartment. It is not in the house I grew up in, it is not in my mom's house now.

The reason I am bringing this up is because people from work and school refer to where I was from before I went to school "my home". Not every student goes to school and goes back home for the summer. Where I stay in the summer is my home. The city I was in before I went to university is not my home, I am not there, am I? No. I am here. Even though I would not call the city I am in now my home either.

Where I am living is my home, I suppose.

But that feeling of comfort associated with "being home" really is in the shared space I have with my fiancé. I am sure wherever we move that it will be home to us. We actually hate the city we live in now, we despise it, so calling it home is not even a pleasure that we partake in.

So that was my small rant for today.

What do you consider to be your home?

10 Year Old Girl can't get Abortion

Today I will do challenge #20: a response to something ridiculous. 

I love Ricky Gervais. He is an amazing person all around and super funny and proves to the world that atheists are not the devil. As a fellow atheist I love what he says about atheism and religion. He is very outspoken and is not afraid in the slightest to say what he feels. 

Not too long ago he posted this: https://www.amnesty.org.uk/actions/child-denied-abortion-after-rape-save-her-life. Essentially a little girl is denied abortion after being raped by her step-father. I suggest you read more about the story here.

It is just disgusting that in Paraguay you have to have life-threatening effects from pregnancy to be able to have an abortion. This angers me to no end because not only does that leave the "life threatening" up to the speculation of doctors but it removes the ability for someone to choose the rest of their life, or at least the next 9 months. 

If I were to get pregnant I would get an abortion right away because I never want children. I don't even want to risk my body for another human in that way. As terrible as it sounds I don't want to cosmetically sacrifice my body for human life. I admire people that do sacrifice for their children but that is not something I want. I don't want children anyways so there is not a huge problem there. 

My point is that this girl needs to have an abortion for health reasons, even though she has "Stabilized". Some doctors are arguing it would put more strain on her body to have the abortion than the birth, I'm not sure how true this is. If that is true than I would argue not to put her at risk.

The other thing that angers me is that her mother is in jail now for failing her duty to care. That's all her mother was trying to do. I am not sure what the fuck Paraguay is up to right now. 

The other thing to do with abortion is that not only is she 10 but she was raped. She didn't even choose to have sex, her step-father raped her. Some people "for abortion" argue it should only be used for the reasons of rape and instability and that is exactly what this is. 

What do you think? This whole situation makes me angry. 

1. A Short Story
2. Things I love and hate about running
3. A Picture I've drawn/created
4. Talk about something on this wikipedia list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsolved_problems_in_philosophy
5. 20 Things to do before I turn 20
6. What I like and dislike about my City
7. An Obit to my Father 
8. Should there be limits to freedom of expression?
9. How I feel about Hedonism
10. Writing Advice
11. Letters to my future self
12. A Picture of my life every hour (Set a timer on my phone and take a picture every hour of what I am doing, on the hour from wake until sleep)
13. The Advantages and Disadvantages of being a philosophy major
14. Something funny
15. Describe something (My day? My job? I'll decide later) in 5, 50 and 500 words (We'll see how this works out)
16. Things that make me happy
17. Why monogamy and marriage are dead and I am still getting married
18. Why sex is natural
19. Thoughts on Minimalism
20. A response to something ridiculous, whether an article or event, something
21. Map Test: I will try to label 3 maps Canada (where I live), the US (where most of my readers are from) and a world Map. All in order to embarrass myself. 
22. My 5 favourites: TV shows, books, celebrities, comedians, music, food, movies, stores, makeup, clothing styles, drinks
23. A recipe
24. Why I love Nick (a list)
25. My Life (so my followers who don't know me in RL can get a feel of what I do outside of my blog)
26. A thought experiment (What if...?)
27. Why I haven't been caring for the environment AKA Why I am selfish
28. ?
29. ?
30. ?
31. What I learned from this blog challenge

Things I love and hate about running

Alright, so I messed up. I missed several days of my blog challenge. I have immediately failed. Whoops. I blame the fact that I have been busy working. I picked up a bunch of shifts which is awesome but I also then forgot about my blog. On my time off I wanted to spend it with Nick so I just completely ignored my blog. Anyways, I'm posting this post today and maybe another one tonight. I am going to complete all 31 challenges but I may post more than once a day or it might go into June (whoops).

So today's post is things I love and hate about running. I've been running for about 4 years now and in that time I've run 2 half-marathons (2012, Ottawa, 2:01:35) and (2013, Toronto, 1:58:37), a 30k (2013, Hamilton, 3:09:08) and a marathon (2014, Toronto, 5:12:20). I also did cross country while I was in high school with my record time being 21:19 for 5k.

As any runner might be able to tell, as time goes on I haven't necessarily gotten better (see my marathon time, oops). I am running my third half marathon in Ottawa this month on the 24th. My goal was to run it in under 1:50, which I felt was a good goal when I signed up after my marathon because my split time at the half-way point for the marathon was 2:20 and I was pacing myself to run the marathon. Now I feel like my half-marathon time is probably going to be worse than past years, which makes me sad. It will still probably be around 2:15. But I have gotten caught up in life and have been running less.

Anyways, here is what I hate and love about running.

What I love:
- I get to see new parts of where I live that I never noticed before
- I get to make trips out of going to run different places
- It makes me healthier and makes me feel healthier
- It's something that I can choose to do on my own volition as it is not a requirement of society to do it
- It gives me something to work towards and look forward to
- It is an individual sport


What I hate:
- Sometimes I get injuries from running
- Being "weather dependant" on whether or not I run
- Getting stuck in rain storms (not a little bit of rain, that's pretty nice, but when it starts POURING)
- The pressure to never stop! I've started running but I feel like it will never ever stop. I don't know how! I don't want to stop yet but it just feels like it will never happen
- I hate when I get tired halfway through a run and I am about 10km away from the house
- Repetitive scenery. Sometimes it's hard to change it up when you've seen everything in the city there is to see and more.
- Having to bring water. Quite often I just won't carry water with me.
- Trying to keep my phone, keys, sometimes energy packs and water with me while I run
- Spending money on shoes constantly. I need a pair of shoes right now and I am broke!

Speaking of broke and needing new shoes, here is a shameless plug. I have a GoFundMe page to get a new pair of running shoes: http://www.gofundme.com/sarahsshoes. I'm trying to get the $150 I need so I can have a good-working pair of shoes that aren't worn down.


Anyways. Good luck to all of the runners out there. It's running event season right now because the weather is perfect.

1. A Short Story
2. Things I love and hate about running
3. A Picture I've drawn/created
4. Talk about something on this wikipedia list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsolved_problems_in_philosophy
5. 20 Things to do before I turn 20
6. What I like and dislike about my City
7. An Obit to my Father 
8. Should there be limits to freedom of expression?
9. How I feel about Hedonism
10. Writing Advice
11. Letters to my future self
12. A Picture of my life every hour (Set a timer on my phone and take a picture every hour of what I am doing, on the hour from wake until sleep)
13. The Advantages and Disadvantages of being a philosophy major
14. Something funny
15. Describe something (My day? My job? I'll decide later) in 5, 50 and 500 words (We'll see how this works out)
16. Things that make me happy
17. Why monogamy and marriage are dead and I am still getting married
18. Why sex is natural
19. Thoughts on Minimalism
20. A response to something ridiculous, whether an article or event, something
21. Map Test: I will try to label 3 maps Canada (where I live), the US (where most of my readers are from) and a world Map. All in order to embarrass myself. 
22. My 5 favourites: TV shows, books, celebrities, comedians, music, food, movies, stores, makeup, clothing styles, drinks
23. A recipe
24. Why I love Nick (a list)
25. My Life (so my followers who don't know me in RL can get a feel of what I do outside of my blog)
26. A thought experiment (What if...?)
27. Why I haven't been caring for the environment AKA Why I am selfish
28. ?
29. ?
30. ?
31. What I learned from this blog challenge

What makes me Happy? Day 1: 31 Day blog challenge

This is day one of my 31 day blog challenge. If you don't know what I am doing, click here. I have chosen to do #16 on my list.

Things that Make Me Happy

Happiness is weird. I like happiness. I am not an optimist in any way shape or form and I think that happiness and optimism are separate of each other. Optimism has shown to allow more happiness to come but correlation does not prove causation (am I right psych majors?). Anyways. Happiness is... an experience that is enjoyed. As odd as that definition is I think it is correct. Happiness isn't just a feeling and is certainly not an emotion. It is an experience that is enjoyed. 

Happiness doesn't just brew from positives. Sociopaths might find happiness from things most people find twisted. So happiness can't be associated with whole positives. The positives that happiness can be associated with are the positives that one has from within. So happiness is experience exclusively to the individual. Happiness can be shared between people but it is still experienced differently. Some psychologists might argue that the facial expressions of happiness is one of the most universal. But I also know that the facial expression of happiness is the same across many different emotions like joy, love, success, etc. 

Anyways. Some of the things that make me happy on this list are 

- Being surprised by my fiancé, a call, a gift, a text, a picture, a note, anything except when he hides behind a door and scares me 

- When I find success, through a DIY project, a grade on an essay, cooking a recipe that turns out perfectly

- When I am content. When I am sitting doing nothing, maybe watching something, I can be at my most happiest. I am probably at one of the happiest I can be when I an content, which is not the same for all people

- When I am doing things with friends, sometimes. I don't always like social interaction but doing things with friends can definitely cheer me up

- When my rabbit comes up to me and cuddles with me without me trying to force her

- WHEN NEW EPISODES OF MAD MEN COME OUT LIKE OMG

- When I do my makeup and it turns out well

- Having all of the windows open in the apartment when the weather is beautiful

- Finishing a book

- Going for walks

- Doing things for my fiancé like packing his lunch, doing his laundry, helping him out when he needs me. I can't explain why but it makes me happy to help

- When I am working with one of my favourite coworkers

- That feeling when I leave the gym after a good workout

- Good conversation makes me happy, like a good intellectual conversation in one of my philosophy classes

- Date night with my fiancé/spending time with him

- Finding a new piece of clothing that I really like (I know, such a girl)

- Eating something delicious

- Burning candles

- Listening to ASMR 

- Looking at nature 

I can't really think of many more right now. I'm sure this list could be 1000 things long, but I think I covered the basics. A lot of the things I wrote about are things I enjoy doing that make me content. Which is why I think I am just really happy when I am content. If I am slightly stimulated by activity I can still be happy but if there is too much going on I become unhappy.

I hate articles that are like "Here is how to be happy" because even though those things work for most people, the more simple way to figure out how to be happier is to make your own list. 

Anyways, come back again tomorrow. Hopefully I remember to write again! I'm sure I'll forget one of these days. 

1. A Short Story
2. Things I love and hate about running
3. A Picture I've drawn/created
4. Talk about something on this wikipedia list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsolved_problems_in_philosophy
5. 20 Things to do before I turn 20
6. What I like and dislike about my City
7. An Obit to my Father 
8. Should there be limits to freedom of expression?
9. How I feel about Hedonism
10. Writing Advice
11. Letters to my future self
12. A Picture of my life every hour (Set a timer on my phone and take a picture every hour of what I am doing, on the hour from wake until sleep)
13. The Advantages and Disadvantages of being a philosophy major
14. Something funny
15. Describe something (My day? My job? I'll decide later) in 5, 50 and 500 words (We'll see how this works out)
16. Things that make me happy
17. Why monogamy and marriage are dead and I am still getting married
18. Why sex is natural
19. Thoughts on Minimalism
20. A response to something ridiculous, whether an article or event, something
21. Map Test: I will try to label 3 maps Canada (where I live), the US (where most of my readers are from) and a world Map. All in order to embarrass myself. 
22. My 5 favourites: TV shows, books, celebrities, comedians, music, food, movies, stores, makeup, clothing styles, drinks
23. A recipe
24. Why I love Nick (a list)
25. My Life (so my followers who don't know me in RL can get a feel of what I do outside of my blog)
26. A thought experiment (What if...?)
27. Why I haven't been caring for the environment AKA Why I am selfish
28. ?
29. ?
30. ?
31. What I learned from this blog challenge