One Last Time Now
September 6, 2004 | 0 Comments
This post was written by guest author, Salina.
June twenty-something, 2001: orientation at Florida State University, I am at the ripe “old” age of eighteen. Being a high school graduate, I perceive myself as being so scholarly from four years of pitter-pattering in AP programs, Honors classes, and studying for the SAT’s. Yep, I am as ignorant, innocent, and unacquainted with the world as they come. And by world, I mean college. Even more, to my delayed horror, I have yet to realize the very narrow bridge materializing before me that transitions me from my ingenuous high school ceremony into the unclaimed, undiscovered world of bottomless kegs, masquerades of sorority girls, stoned roommates, and kitchen floors so sticky from the party two weeks ago that you dare not go without shoes while fabricating an excuse to use on your professor for why your research paper sucked so bad, and oh you’d just do anything to make it up to him or her. (Take a breath here.)
Now, some of this may be reality for you all out there who are in smack dab of college, or it may all be senselessness, depending on which side of the campus you’re on. Wait, did I say campus? I meant which side of the keg. In my own experience, knowledge of the “keg” and parties didn’t even come until late sophomore year. My freshman year I dated a sophomore, an ex-football player who had about the same amount of brain power and charisma as a laboratory rat. We all know that sort. Of course, it wasn’t until months after we broke up that I discovered the wonderful world of meeting people in the depths of Friday nights where you wait until ten o’clock at night to spend two hours getting ready for a party where everyone is too wasted to notice the color of your eyes anyways. That’s the beauty of such college experiences, specifically in Tallahassee: as long as you got a red plastic cup in hand, perhaps a beer in the pocket, and, for some ladies, ensuring that seventy-five percent of the body exposed, then you’re in. Even more astonishing about some parties you might throw is that you probably won’t even know about eighty percent of the people there, and they sure as hell won’t even know that it was your keg and mudslides and vodka they drank so greedily at your 21st birthday party that you barely had a sip of anything. And no, I am not bitter at all about that.
I’ve had some very memorable experiences at particular parties, some of which had themes, which to me can be the best part of the party. My first experience with a theme-toned party was the all-time awesome “toga” party where it took my friend Caity about two hours to figure out (using the internet as a source, of course) how to fashion a toga and then come help me pin up my blue pin-striped sheet. About twenty minutes into arriving at the house, Caity and our mutual friend Erin, managed to climb onto an oak table that had belonged to someone like the great-great grandmother of the hostess, boogie on it to the lyrics of Get busy, just shake that booty non-stop and then suddenly WHAM!, I hear from all the way out on the porch the enormous thuds of two 110 pound bodies hitting the floor, practically breaking that precious oak table practically in half.
Surely, there is definitely more to just the free-for-all parties that serve up every imaginable kind of golden fizz that you can think of. Football games are prime times to justify becoming intoxicated, but I’ve only gone to about three my entire college career, so I am not one to say. One thing I have come to realize is that one of the only differences between a party and football game is that instead of getting wasted at night, everyone gets wasted in broad daylight. What’s more hilarious of a pursuit is when some end up getting trashed during parents’ weekend where the hidden truths of “innocent” college students are crudely revealed when fathers may see, say, some Sigma Nu boy doing a body shot off his own daughter. (Of course, that never, ever happened to me… not even on Super bowl Sunday, but that’s an entirely different scenario, and thank God my father wasn’t there.)
Some of us go to college to find ourselves, find love, find our knack in the world. I don’t know if I have done any of this, but I do know that I don’t have any regrets, and I hope you won’t either. We may make tremendous mistakes but I know that they were at least fun most of the time. So, whether you find your true love in college or just give yourself cirrhosis of the liver, I wish that you experience college just like Gandhi says, “Learn as if you were to live forever, live as if you were to die tomorrow.” Go to class, it actually makes more of a difference than I thought because most of the test questions are practically spelled out on the board and once in a while you might actually get lucky enough to get a really hot graduate student for an instructor. For everyone, whether you’re a first-semester freshman or a seventh-year senior, take up every opportunity like it is your last. Almost every class I’ve been to has given me some piece of knowledge to remember, and almost every person I’ve met has impacted my life in sometimes enormous ways. You never know when introducing yourself to that hottie across the room just might change your entire life.
*Oh, and don’t ever think that people at your party are nice, they will steal your cell phone off your own kitchen counter and call your family members at 4 am and then lead you on a wild goose-chase to find the damn phone which never is found anyways because the thief passed out before you could find out where he’s hiding it. Ok, that’s it.
The Extraordinary Passion
March 14, 2004 | 1 Comment
This post was written by guest author, Salina.
Forget for a few minutes about the anti-Semite accusations, arguments about religion. Forget about who is to blame and what could have been avoided if only this, if only that. This is about one man and the last twelve hours of his life. You may either believe he was just a carpenter, or the son of God, your Savior. Or maybe you have no conviction about Jesus Christ at all.
The Passion of the Christ is probably the most powerful movie I have ever seen, and hopefully it will be for you as well. I can only hope it will be. Perhaps you go into the theater excited and curious, much like I was, eager to watch the last hours of Jesus’ life unravel on screen. Opening night, the biggest auditorium was packed to the max. In the theater were priests, Christian youth groups, random college students, entire families. And regardless of age, ethnicity, and religion, we all had one thing in common that night: to watch what happened to Jesus the day he died and all the events leading up to that point. The authentic Aramaic and Latin spoken and the unknown actors so sincere in their conveyance of these Biblical characters made it difficult to believe that this wasn’t actually happening right then before my eyes. I watched when Jesus was arrested, whipped to shreds, spit on, laughed at, humiliated, beaten, nailed to the cross, crucified. I watched with disbelieving eyes. The rawness of the suffering, the pain was all too excruciating. Needless to say, I cried the whole time but I know it was necessary to watch. It enhanced my personal faith and beliefs as well as my understanding of the sequence of events during those fateful twelve hours of Jesus’ life, death.
There are possibly no words to describe, review, or critique this movie. At least I am not one to judge a film so devastatingly powerful. Upon leaving the theater, I am sure I was not the only one who felt completely submersed in emotions never felt before: blend of absolute bitterness, outrage, despair. How something so awful, so indescribably horrifying, could happen to a man who committed no crime. So many times he came close to being released, so many times he was found innocent by Pontius Pilate and just a whipping was to be his punishment. How did it go so far? How did Jesus manage to be beaten, whipped, and crucified while a murderer was set free? That in itself was something I could not personally comprehend.
However, the movie does have a happy ending, one I think I forgot the entire time. I was so absorbed in the horror of the movie, I almost didn’t recall that this was just twelve hours. After he died, there would be eternity of salvation, for those who believe in that.
I could go into the specifics of the actors, the accuracy of the storyline, even the miracles that happened while filming the movie. But we all can read about that online, and most of you probably already have. I want to pose some questions for discussion, maybe regarding your own thoughts about the movie and how it affected you. Were you turned off by the violence, or was it necessary to make the movie as accurate as possible? What were you beliefs going into the movie and coming out? Was the movie what you thought it was going to be? What are your opinions regarding Mel Gibson and his own beliefs while directing this movie? I’d love to hear your responses.
The Fuss Over the Bust: Part 2
January 9, 2004 | 5 Comments
This post was written by guest author, Salina.
I feel the groove of the black marker lining my skin, icy gloved hands manipulating my flesh, the thin wisp of gown hovering at my waist. My mother and the nurse are grasping onto the curtains, closing them while I sit vulnerable and quivering. The day has come. And I am terrified. Ironically, I am in the recovery room even before the knife has grazed my skin and awaiting the IV to slink into my vein and bless me with blissful sleep. My handsome surgeon stops drawing, his magical hands a profound enigma to my uneducated eyes, and he crooks his head to the side. He is satisfied with his sketch, finally, and his eyes are full of wisdom and power. The IV pinches my skin. Even as I am asking the male nurse how long it takes for the anesthesia to take effect, I begin to feel drowsy as they wheel me into surgery. My heart is withering into shreds of nervousness and I look up into the white lights, remembering how much I had been waiting for this momentous day. It is 12/12/03, and I will never forget the Jesus shirt I was wearing that morning and the pigtails that I fashioned for myself. It was the strangest thing to be wheeled around on a gurney like all those patients on ER, and this was the last thing I remembered.
The throbbing. Cotton balls invaded my mouth. Wait, I was just extremely thirsty and my mother was right there next to me, thank goodness. She slid some ice onto my lips, and they immediately absorbed the moisture, my tongue urgent for more. Intense pain ripped through my chest and I felt tightness, very much aware that a part of me was missing. Morphine, Demerol, and Perkiset gushed through my body. Finally, I was awake and I had lost a total of 3 pounds of flesh from my chest. It was kind of like missing a limb, you know it’s gone but you can still feel it there. Except this time I immediately knew that I was smaller and lighter, the best feeling in the world cascaded over me even through my dehydration and the pain. I later realized that they had completely removed my nipples and my stitches went all the way around them, then down the middle of my breasts, and then made half moons under my breasts all the way to my armpits.
Almost 2 hours later, while floating in and out of consciousness, I was wheeled into my private room with my mom and I had an IV still in my hand, one with fluids the other with morphine. As soon as we got into the room, my mother left for only 10 minutes to get herself some food and it was then that the urge to pee hit me like a semi truck. I was alone, the nurse never came even after I hit the call button, and so just 2 hours after surgery I hoisted myself out of bed and staggered into the bathroom, IV pole and all. This happened every hour for the next 24 hours while the IV was still in me. The rest of the day drifted by silently, with the television and my mother accompanying me, along with a bunch of her co-workers that came to visit me from upstairs on the neo-natal unit. They were astounded at how well I was doing: I was clearly conscious, fully aware and able to make myself comfortable, and experiencing barely any pain.
The next morning I was discharged, and able to dress myself without much grimacing. I remember the first time I looked in the mirror at my flat chest, bandaged and taped, and noticed how wonderful I felt. I was a new woman, relieved of pressure and bondage, and able to lift my head up high at my newfound glory. My new small breasts were ugly, yellowing with bruises, and stitched to the max, but to me they were the most beautiful things I had ever seen. In the days following, I would wear only button-down shirts and admire my new flatness in the mirror as much as possible, knowing that I would never have such an experience again in my life. I couldn’t tolerate much movement in my upper body at all and could only sleep on my back for several days, but it was all worth it. Now, four weeks later, I can sleep however I want to and experience no pain whatsoever. It’s been a rapid recovery, and even my surgeon is surprised at how good I look in such a short amount of time. The surgery was a wonderful success with zero complications, and I have been healing rapidly due to good health and young age. I am so thankful to my surgeon and to my insurance company who paid the whopping 30,000 dollar bill.
Today I went on my very first run since having my new breasts. It was surely the most liberating run I’ve ever been on, and I can’t wait for the next few months to see what else I can do, wear, and experience. Let ya know soon…
The Fuss Over the Bust: Part 1
November 18, 2003 | 3 Comments
This post was written by guest author, Salina.
They are what every woman desires bigger and better, what every man persistently daydreams about, and what used to make the difference between a PG-13 movie as opposed to a rated R movie.
Breasts. Round, perky, supple, they come in every shape and size from barely A to, well, the largest I’ve ever heard were triple F’s. Women most often use them to their advantage, perhaps to get ahead in the work world by creating the magical art of cleavage and tantalizing the boss, or seducing a man whose weakness is never being able to reject the handful of breast that is being offered for his groping pleasure. There have been all sorts of bras to support these novelty body parts, everything from water bras to push-up bra to sports bras. They are emphasized in nearly every type of media, given pet names, and admired as the most beautiful body part on a woman’s body, most of the time. And having too much of them is not always a good thing.
As a naturally large-breasted twenty-year old female, I have always found my breasts somewhat overwhelming. I am a 34 D, almost DD, and I flat out despise my breasts. They have prevented me from wearing all the cutest trendy tops: halter tops, tube tops, spaghetti strap tank tops, triangle top bikini tops. I have always been envious of those small-breasted girls who flounce around braless in nothing but tiny tops and no excessive bouncing to worry about. These girls don’t give a second thought to how good they have it, how they never had to think twice about wearing the skimpiest top, and how they can exercise without pain. I love to run, but have always found it a strain to run with large breasts. Sure, I wear the tightest sports bra I can find, but after a while the red marks and lesions turned into engraved scars underneath my breasts. I can only wear thick-strapped, sporty looking bras on a daily basis in order to fit into most of my tops without looking like I’m trying to create an illusion of undue bustiness. As you can see, I am not one to be proud of my breasts. I am sure some of you girls and women out there know what I’m talking about: while most yearn for enhanced breasts, we want to just be able to exercise without having neck pain or, sadly enough, without having to duct tape our breasts down because sports bras just don’t do the trick. My dream? To one day know what it’s like to run fast because I won’t have my breasts weighing me down. To one day meet people, and not have them think of me as a large-breasted girl. I typically don’t think of myself as large all-around, but due to my breasts and how they are the central “theme” of my body, I want to be able to have them balance out with the rest of my body. Most of all, I want to be able to know I can be comfortable during the evening hours when wearing a bra is plain burdensome.
As a result, several months ago, March to be exact, I told my parents how I wanted to see a surgeon about a reduction. It took two months for them to become comfortable with the idea, and then two more months for our insurance to kick in and let us schedule an appointment with a surgeon. In July we were finally able to make an appointment, and then another two months later in September the most looked forward day of my life (besides having the surgery actually done) was before me. Pictures were taken, breasts were fondled (professionally), and grams were estimated. Another grueling two months passed, these two months being the most aggravating and anticipatory of my life, and I waited for the insurance to review my case file. Finally, on Wednesday, November 13th, two months and two days after the meeting with the surgeon, my insurance gave me an answer as to whether I was large enough, uncomfortable enough, and suitable enough to have the surgery be done absolutely free. Thankfully, the answer was yes. Surgery date is set for December 12th, and I am counting down the days until the day I can be blessed with a smaller chest. To be continued…