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LoveAshley @ Ultimate Blog Party 2012!

Apr17

Ultimate Blog Party 2012

While doing my daily blog surfing, I came about this blog, 5MinutesForMom, talking about their Ultimate Blog Party 2012 and I knew I had to join. Bloggers are placed into categories, mine would best be described as a daily life and opinion blog, so this is my introductory post.

If you are from the blog party, my name is Ashley. I am a 20-something, not your average woman. I’m not married (yet) I don’t have any children. I do however, have many aspirations, interests, and thoughts. I’m working on a degree in journalism. I would love to write for a magazine but I’d also like to be able to do other kinds of journalism. I’ve been blogging on and off for about 10 years and I am by no means perfect at it, but writing and blogging are great passions of mine.

I’m a state pageant title holder, Miss Indiana International 2012, going for the title of Miss International this summer in Chicago. My personal platform I have chosen is raising awareness and prevention of domestic abuse. If you want to know more about that , visit here .

I tend to write thoughts on a variety of things from social commentary, feminist issues, thoughts on love and life, ways of the world, things that inspire me, and I also reveal a bit about my personal life and express myself through writing. This blog is a piece of who I am.

If you would like to know more about me, feel free to visit my About page. I have a photo album that I update at least weekly on flickr and also a youtube page where you can catch me hoop dancing and some other random home videos. Enjoy!

Stupid Things Men Do

Apr7

You knew it was coming. Here are some things that some men do that I personally just don’t understand.

Ogle underage girls.
A girl is walking and she is cat called. She has definitely developed, but she carries a Hello Kitty backpack and is still wearing braces. Doesn’t that indicate to you that she is still a child? Just wait until you have a teenage daughter, or try to hit on some 15 year old and get a bullet in your ass from her dad’s AK.

You think she won’t find out. (What you did last night, what you lied about, that you looked at porn on her computer even though you deleted the history, etc)
She will. Never underestimate a woman’s ability to find things out.

You like girl on girl action.
Why? I don’t get it. Chances are you aren’t going to be getting any.

You don’t understand when to back off sexually.
When we are sick or not feeling well, don’t say “I know what will make you feel better.” *wink* No. Here’s a magazine and some tissue and call me in the morning.

Going to strip clubs.
Why do you go to strip clubs, a place where you have to pay to see some (probably) average looking girl’s boobs when you have a good looking woman at home that you can see for free, plus more? I don’t get it.

You forget romance.
Sure you can pull out your smooth moves while trying to pursue us, but you think it’s ok to just throw that out the window 5 years down the road. If you hate romance, don’t be fake in the beginning. Oh and saying “I love you” every now and then doesn’t really count. See here.

When you get all upset and then say “I don’t give a F***”
Clearly you give at least something, otherwise you wouldn’t be fuming from your ears while you say it.

You eat a full meal in 5 minutes.
Do you chew your food at all? Did you even taste it? Men take 5 minutes to eat and 30 minutes evacuating it. What is up with that?

Thoughts?

My Worst Date Ever

Apr3

I was going to create a post about this on another site but I decided to make this a blog post instead.

My worst dating experience, I’m going to estimate the time to be around 2004. I met this guy in one of my classes and he added me to facebook back when facebook was still primarily college students from selected schools. He was only in my class for a short time until he transferred out, but we still talked online. He asked for my number and we started talking over the phone too. A few weeks progress and he seemed really into me, but I wasn’t too sure how into him I was. To be honest, his profile threw me off a bit with the hundreds of photos at parties and many of them with different girls hanging on him and pics with beer in his hands. I had my doubts but I tried to think, “Don’t judge a book by it’s cover.” He finally asked me out on an official date and I figured I could only give him a chance and see where it went. He said we’d probably go out to eat. That sounded good to me so I agreed to go out with him. That night he picks me up and we stop by his apartment which is on BSU campus first, I can’t exactly remember why. His roommate comes and and starts talking about some campus party that was supposed to be later that night. I assumed this would be after our date but then he asks me if I’d be up for going to this thing. I was like, um hmmm, suuure why not, actually thinking, “There’s a chance for this to be good or bad.” We hang out at his apartment for another half hour or so and then takes me through the McDonald’s drive thru….yeeeah I guess that was supposed to be dinner, and then we drive around town for a while. Meanwhile he’s going on and on talking about himself trying to make himself sound really cool, talking about all these trips he goes on, cars he has owned, parties he goes to, his frat buddies, blah blah. It all sounded really phony and cliche though. I mean how much money can a 21 year old college student have who works at the bookstore on campus that not his parents money?

We go back by his apartment again and then there are 4 other people there and I am hoping this “date” or whatever it was picks up for the better. They appoint a DD out of the group and we all end up piling into one car to go to this party, which turns out to be some girl I don’t know’s 19th birthday party. “Oh, goody!” There was a line to the door half way down the block where they were charging $5 for a refillable cup for the keg. I didn’t have any cash on me at the time and my guy didn’t even acknowledged to offer so I politely asked him and he panted like he was annoyed and like I was dumb for not having cash on me. “Sorry I didn’t know we were attending Buffie’s birthday kegger!” (I didn’t say that, but I was thinking that)

So we get in and there’s tons of people I don’t know which for an introvert like me, was uncomfortable for me to begin with. I know this might sound a little condescending but by that time I was already over the whole campus party scene with a bunch of underage binge drinking, just not for me. I would only want to attend if it was people close to me, otherwise I’d rather go to a bar. So anyway my guy doesn’t introduce me to a single person. I try to jump into some conversations with people who come up and talk to us, but my guy quickly forgets I am even there and starts going off doing his own thing. At this point I am thinking, “This is not a date at all.” When I hadn’t seen him in a while, I hear one of his friends say he took a few people to the liquor store because they wanted their own thing. He was gone for 30-45 mins.

He gets back and continues to act like he barely knows me so I just decide to forget him too. I started in on a game of beer pong and flippy cup and was terrible at it but at least it was entertaining for a little bit. Some time later I find him trying to dance up on this really drunk, overtanned, scantily clad girl that was gyrating like a stripper in the middle of the living room and I swear I could see drool coming down his face. I went over to him and said “When you find the strength to pry yourself from this skankaroo, I am ready to go.” He was like, “…are you mad at me?” I said, “Something like that.” A few minutes later we get back in the car and I ask him if he’s good to drive and he says yes but as we started driving I was a bit doubtful but we make it home safe and then in my driveway the weirdest thing happened. He suddenly lunges at me to hug me goodbye and tries to kiss me and I turn my head and he barely got my cheek. Then he says he’s sorry and reaches his hand back around my lower back and gives me a side hug and his hand grazed my butt and I was like “Ok! I gotta go, later!” wasn’t sure what had just happened but it just felt really messed up for him to suddenly try to touch on me after he had ignored me all night. I just didn’t get it. Was that a normal thing now?

Needless to say, I never spoke to him again and he never tried to contact me again either. I think he knows he made an ass out of himself. God that was the worst excuse for a “date” I have ever encountered. Maybe I should have trusted my instinct from the beginning.

The Ninja Troll: “You’re Chunky”

Mar22

There are some crazy people out there in the world that are trolling the internet. A troll came by this blog a couple weeks ago during my time away from the internet. I found a comment from them as soon as I checked my stats page and recent comments and I immediately deleted it. It was made by someone with a fake name and email. The name was a guy’s name but I suspected the comment had to be from a female because of the content of the comment,which included insulting a certain part of my body in a catty way that any straight male would just not do. I could have been wrong of course but I wasn’t betting on it. At the time I thought they had just made the comment here and that’s it, which isn’t totally unusual. I don’t really have much of a problem with trolls or haters on here, but an occasional snarky comment comes and goes. So I just deleted it and forgot about it.

What I didn’t know until several days later (about 4 days ago from today), was that after this person left the comment on a blog post, they also went to my flickr account and made more detailed attacks on about 10 of my photos. I didn’t know this right away because I don’t check my flickr stats and comments every day. I know it was the same person who commented on my blog post because post timing matched up pretty close together. These comments were probably typical for your average troll, but very new and hilarious to me personally. Apparently, she found my blog through a website that gives fashion tips for naturally thin women and in several comments she told me I looked “pretty chunky” in my photos, that I thought I was something special, etc. She went on and on insulting my appearance, but mainly kept trying to make me feel like I was this huge ugly fatass because she repeatedly said I wasn’t thin.  After reading these comments, I decided to shoot her a message on flickr saying how self loathing she must be to attack a stranger online like this. She replied to me with 3 different messages calling me another round of names, with emphasis again on how damn fat she thinks I am. I also noticed that the account she had on flickr was recently made had nothing on it so it was specifically made for attacking me.

THEN she deleted her flickr account before I  could reply, and this is where I came up with the term “ninja troll.”  They attack anonymously or with a fake alias and then run away so you can’t reply to them. Cute.

Ok so my thoughts are either she is trolling some BS insults to get a rise out of me, or she has a genuine body dysmorphic  problem for thinking someone like me is fat. My BMI has always been in the underweight category.   I am just wondering what would possess someone to see someone as  thin as I am, as chunky. It just blows my mind, unless she was just trying to get me to feel fat to bring me down, which brings me to another thought: Why are females so competitive and catty to each other? It’s like the only way they can feel better about themselves is if they bring someone else down. Apparently it really pisses other girls off when someone is happy with how they look, because they hate the way they look.

I don’t know. Either way, this troll is one for the books because I laughed so hard at this girl, whoever she was.

Gaining Perspective

Mar9

It has been a little while since my last post. My internet connection was down for a while from becoming behind on payments for reasons involving roommates and it took some time for us to make up the difference to get it back on, but all is well now. Also, I have been quite preoccupied for the past 3 weeks. On Feb 17th while Dayne and I were at work at Target, he was in a potentially fatal accident. A pallet of heavy tables were stacked on top of each other  on a shelf above where the freight truck docs when we unload, which was something the corporate had recently done. He was lifting the truck door open with a crown and since he was not used to anything being above it, part of the crown had pushed up the shelf and the pallet slid down, aiming down directly on top of him. As I watched this happened, I tried to yell for him to get out of the way but the noise of the crown was too much for him to hear me. Thankfully he heard the sound of it falling just in time to move away, but it had partially hit his back, arm, and landed on top of his left foot. I was standing about 20 feet away when all of this happened,  as was another guy we work with, and I would estimate the pallet of table to have been around 400 lbs. Somewhere between 3 to 5 hundred lbs coming down on him. He went down on his front side and I rushed over to see if he was ok. He was fully conscience but he wouldn’t move much. I was pretty panicked at this time, and the other guy ran to get our boss. When our boss came back and we all realized how serious this was, she called the ambulance and our store manager who rushed over and went to the ER with us. It was a long day at the hospital, but x-rays were taken and his back and arm were not injured, just pretty bruised up. His left foot however was suffering from 6 breaks, most of which were on the top of his foot which definitely needed surgery. Our store manager drove us around trying to get everything taken care of about about 10 hours that day and making sure this went through on workman’s comp.

Like I said, I saw this happen and it could have easily killed him if he hadn’t moved out of the way just in time. It’s a really scary thing to watch happen and to think about. If it would have been someone small like me, I would definitely not be here. His surgery was on Tuesday. It went well and he has been in and out of pain. He has been moving around only a little, on crutches and a wheelchair, but mainly just to take showers and I have been trying to be a good nurse to him. It can be stressful trying to make sure he has everything he needs and is comfortable as can be, but I can’t complain because it’s him that is doing the suffering, and it’s hard to watch someone you love be in pain and not be able to walk. He is looking at about a 6 month recovery, and I can only do my best at being his caregiver and helping him through this. His family has been a big help as well. :)

Body Memes

Jan30

I’m noticing a trend lately on facebook, blogs, tumblrs, etc of “This body is better than that body” and “When did this become hotter than this?” What it has become, is annoying.

I see…

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And

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And I’m like

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And then I saw

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And it made me

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Disclaimer: I know story memes are like, so 2011, but this was my first attempt at it, so…

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Dubstep & Female Vocals

Jan8

I have become quite drawn to dubstep music within the past year. I love the different sound and slower paced beats. I have noticed that I tend to most like the tracks with women vocals in them. I’m not trying to downplay the ones with male vocals or no vocals at all. I just think there is something so beautiful and hypnotizing about dubstep + female voice that takes me away to a new place and time.

Ok so here is a list of some of my most favorite ones, and most of these happen to be remixes of already popular songs (many are even better than the original in my opinion).

If you have any suggestions of dubstep tracks, post them!

2011 Meme

Jan1

I needed an appropriate themed post for the New Year, so I decided to steal this survey from Clarissa’s Blog.

1. What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before?
Fired a handgun for the first time
Appeared in a calendar
Signed an autograph

2. Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I’ve never been big on resolutions. I didn’t make any last year and I probably won’t this year. I guess I make resolutions on a regular basis, so to make one for New Years just seems silly.

3. How will you be spending New Year’s Eve?
Not quite sure yet. No big plans at the moment.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Luckily no.

5. What countries did you visit?
I did not venture out of the US this year.

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?
More spending money and better opportunity to travel.

7. What date from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
No date in particular

8. What was your biggest achievement(s) of the year?
Winning Miss Indiana International

9. What was your biggest failure?
Haven’t yet landed a better job.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Just a cold or two

11. What was the best thing you bought?
Clothes

12. Where did most of your money go?
Rent, bills, and food

13. What song will always remind you of 2011?
Sierra Leone

14. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Poetry writing

15. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Waste time by being distracted

16. What was your favorite TV program?
America’s Next Top Model, although after the horrible All Star cycle, that might be dwindling.

17. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
I don’t really hate anyone. I have stronger dislike for certain people and qualities in humankind though.

18. What was the best book you read?
Sadly, I haven’t read any books this year. Well I guess that is one thing to do for 2012. Any suggestions?

19. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Dubstep

20. What was your favorite film of this year?
Not sure.

21. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 27 and I visited my mom down near Bloomington.

22. What kept you sane?
My boyfriend and my best friend.

23. Who did you miss?
My family

24. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned.
Everyone gets older, but not everyone grows up.

25. What does 2012 hold for me?
Preparing for Miss International and promoting my platform.
Hopefully getting a new job, lots of fun, and new opportunities.