Love the Skin You’re In, for Heaven’s Sake!

Skin color has always been a cause for debate, be it involving how it dictates how people are treated or what privileges we have. Of course, for the most part we’re all cool with each other no matter what skin color we are, but here’s something I found interesting.

In countries like the United States, we strive for beautiful buttery bronze skin. Example here:

… Now, I know this isn’t the best example out there – there are tanning lotions that don’t have the horrible (but laughable, sorry, guys) stigma attached to fake baking and spraytanning (What the hell@spraytanning, by the way). I see chicks all around school that come to school fine one day and the next they have weird circles around their eyes because they had those goggle thingies on when they had a nap in the tanning bed. They looked gorgeous the day before, and now they’ve fried themselves and brought themselves that much closer to skin cancer! I hear people talk about their appointments and ask why they think it’s so, well, worth it.

On the other side of the spectrum, those who can get pretty tans or have naturally tan skin, such as those in tropical or perpetually sunny parts of Asia, strive for flawless white skin. Example here:

I saw these actual products on many a trip to the Philippines, and when I was a little punk, I wanted to know WHY they wanted to be so light when everyone where I came from wanted their tans. It just didn’t make sense.

Perhaps it’s the influence from the other that’s motivating the other for their kind of skin. The eastern hemisphere wants light skin that signifies not working outdoors and instead enjoying luxuries indoors whereas those chilling on the western hemisphere want that tan from being out in the sun because it’s better than looking pasty all the time because of the lack of perpetual sunlight.

Why can’t we look outside ourselves and see that we’re striving for the other’s natural look while normally having the look they’re killing for? It doesn’t make sense. Especially when Olay’s slogan is “love the skin you’re in” and they’re making whitening products. (I JUST bought some Olay products today, so I’m not exactly bashing them. I just find it odd.)

I believe that we should love how we look without changing our skin color in any way other than the natural tanning out in the sun that HAS to happen some time. We’re like this for a reason; some people have lighter skin because they needed to adapt to the cold, and others retained tanner skin because they didn’t have to adapt to the weather as much. (Thank you Mr. Royster!) Look at yourselves! You’re beautiful just the way you are. Stop polluting your skin with weird chemicals. Chemical burns can and will happen, and lord knows what can happen if you stay in tanning beds too much x_x

People are too vain as it is. Mess with your hair, tweak your makeup, pierce yourself as much as you want. Just for everyone’s sake don’t fake bake or use whitening lotion. You’ll either look like a ghost or you’ll make Oompa Loompas jealous. Neither one of those looks work for ANYONE.

Leaving to tackle acne (lol),
Patricia

Lesson Learned

“It’s called the past ’cause I’m getting past and I ain’t nothin’ like I was before; you should see me now.“
-Alicia Keys, Lesson Learned

Hi. My name is Patricia, and here’s a little background. I was born in NYC, raised in Jersey, and had the pleasure of going through freshman year in MAHS before my parents decided to move to Surprise, AZ. Quite a different atmosphere, lemme tell you.

Anyway, I came here to let things breathe. (Of course, why else would you be here, silly?)

I turned sixteen a few weeks ago, and to be totally honest, I feel like I’ve hit rock bottom. School’s getting monotonous. I feel like I’m getting a lot of things expected of me, like getting a job and learning how to drive (oh how I’d love to learn how to drive!) but now I’ve come into this crazy cycle that goes as follows: I bust my ass at school every weekday looking forward to the weekend so I can rest up on the weekend and forget to do homework and then bust my ass all over again. The problem is I’m shortchanging my parents because I just get so lazy over the weekends and they expect me to still help out. It’s frustrating to me, it’s frustrating to my parents. Another vicious little cycle I’ve succumbed to.

Overall, too, I’ve just dropped into this crippling ennui. I don’t find anything really interesting anymore. It’s getting quite destructive to all my other efforts (or lack thereof – did that make any sense?) but I really don’t care anymore. I talked to one of my friends about this, though, and she made me feel so much better. She told me that she had gone through the same exact thing when she was younger.

This is where I start smiling my head off because I remember a promise I made to my parents when I was a wee little troublemaker: I’d never succumb to the teenage rebellion stage. Ever. Of course I never kept that promise, or at the very least I stayed away from the extremes. I brought this promise up to my dad in the car one day and he smiled a little. He asked me if I knew why I made that promise. Of course, I had no idea. It was so long ago! Then, he enlightened me:

“You did it because you loved us.”

Like the little wuss I am I almost cried, but it really was true. And of course I still love my parents. I just happen to express it in a different way =)Aside from that little fuzzy daddy’s girl moment, sixteen’s been full of suck. The school I’m in now offers International Baccalaureate and Advanced Placement (gosh, I’m really jumping all over the place!) , and it starts junior year. My problem now is whether or not to go for IB or stick with AP. So far, my decision has been to run with the latter. However, my friend who is in IB bugged the crap out of me by asking me if I wanted to be number one.Come on now, I came from Macadamia land, of course I’m gonna wanna strive for number one! I’ve been striving for number one since I was little: I was in the HOPE class in my elementary school, Academy I kids scared the crap out of me freshman year but I still kept going (and in ironies of ironies I’ve been the girlfriend of one for a year now) and now I’m kicking ass as the token Asian “genius” (haha no) in my current school now. But then she told me that all the IB kids snatch up the number one spots because of their higher GPAs because of their extra amount of classes. I’ve been trying not to let it get to me but it really bothers me.

What is a class rank, anyway? It really only measures grades at face value. It doesn’t measure work ethic. It doesn’t measure the hours, the painstaking hours you spent studying your ass off just to get a B. It sure as hell doesn’t measure heart and character. But why do people strive for it?

Well, I guess we’re all naturally very competitive. Survival of the fittest in the best and worst manner. If you really don’t give a crap about class ranks, then more power to you. I just hate how a stupid number eats me up inside.

Then again, that stupid number does weigh in on college. Ah dammit, my life is full of vicious cycles!

This is an exhilarating time of my life, really. I’m acclimating to a totally new environment. I’ve hit sixteen, for heaven’s sake. It’s quite a milestone, in my opinion. I’m really coming into my own now, I think. Is this how all new sixteen-year-olds felt? New, scared, and grasping for something solid and stable? It’s like a rebirth. It’s frightening and exciting all at the same time.

I just know that life will never be the same and every little experience I’ve had, am having, and will have will be beautiful in their own rights. I’m really trying to live without regrets but sometimes it’s inevitable. You really just have to take everything one step at a time. After all, nobody can really make a SparkNotes for life.