Thursday, May 31, 2007
on the whole "johazelwoods" thing
just thought, seeing as I often get asked about it, I'd give an official explanation for the "johazelwoods" thing. When I started out doing internet-y things it became clear that using my real name would be a bad idea a) because of it's ridiculous length, and b) because I don't really want to be stalked and/or killed. So basically it's my internet name, hence has no relation to my actual name (except the jo part, that's the real deal haha), 'but then why', you may ask, 'hazelwoods'? Well, my inquisitive friend, a few years ago, actually quite a few years ago, I found a reference in a book to a poem by W.B. Yeats called "The Song Of The Wandering Aengus" which looked interesting. So I looked it up and, as I had suspected I would, given the context I found it in, I adored it. 'You still haven't explained yourself, moron', I hear you say with mild aggravation. Well, keep your facial features pretty, I'm getting there. The first line of the poem is "I went out to the hazel wood because a fire was in my head," and it grew from there. Oh, and the more exceptional of you may have also come to witness me referred to as "g.i.johazelwoods", which is basically the original with the addition of g.i. (as in g.i.joe). This appeared in my head after I saw G.I. Jane & placed it teary-eyed right into my top ten films list. Awesome movie. So there you have it; the story of the birth and early childhood of johazelwoods and her older, queerer, cousin g.i.johazelwoods.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
"life's a bitch."?
"life's difficult whichever way you look at it.", "life's a bitch & then you die.", et cetera, et cetera. People are always saying stuff like that, & I really hate it. What kind of perspective on life are you giving your child by telling them that "life's not fair." every time something goes wrong? Do you want your children to grow up cold and pessimistic (like you have, you despondent old loser)? I doubt it. Realistic, maybe; prepared for any turbulence headed their way, sure. But they will become neither of these things by growing up with the idea firmly planted in their head that life sucks. Life might suck for you, but that's your problem not your kid's-they might just manage to have an awesome life & fulfil all of their dreams despite your cynical parenting so give them a damn fighting chance at least! I'm side-tracking, but my point is that life is not a bitch-not even close, if you live it right. Life is an eighty or thirty or ten year course-& like any course, really, it is what you make it. If you walk into the class at the start of each lesson thinking oh god not this again, you'll never learn anything & probably never enjoy anything either. If you walk in thinking hey this could be pretty interesting, well, you get the idea. So, yeah, bad things do happen, & I know full well that we don't get to choose every lesson that we have to sit through, but if we can find it in ourselves to look for the good & learn from the bad, we can get to the point where we can drop the subjects we don't like & focus on what we want to do. It just takes a little (ok sometimes a lot) perserverence & faith in yourself.
jo
xxx
post scriptum
"What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing."
Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan
In the place of a quote, I suggest you go here www.missyhiggins.com , and listen to "Steer" as it is an awesome song which fits perfectly and she is just an awesome artist =]
jo
xxx
post scriptum
"What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing."
Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan
In the place of a quote, I suggest you go here www.missyhiggins.com , and listen to "Steer" as it is an awesome song which fits perfectly and she is just an awesome artist =]
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
marriage.
Here are some old rants I've unearthed from my journal, from a while back, on this could-you-find-a-more-biased-opinion topic. Though I must point out that I'm not quite so painfully pessimistic about the whole idea as I was at the time of writing, & I am aware that many people out there have managed to continue a happy marriage for a long time...(congratulations, by the way, if you're one of those people...woah.). It does make fairly entertaining reading though...haha...oh, and apologies for the shamelessly horrific sexism in the second one...haha...
January 2nd , '06
Ok, so, maybe 'love is like a drug', but I much prefer my analogy that marriage is like one of those reckless, irresponsible things that people do while high, like sleeping with a stranger, or jumping off a cliff...then, of course, there's that not dissimilar feeling of dread and depression on waking the next day, or, in the case of a marriage, in a few years, and finding that the person lying next to you is either someone you can't talk to, or someone you're not attracted to (or even both, if you're really unfortunate). Unluckily for the married, they can't just creep out before the other person wakes up & never see them again, until an embarrasing encounter while out shopping one day...it's not unheard of though...
January 18th, '06
Marriage. Who in their right mind would find that idea appealing? I mean, say, absolute best case scenario, you do actually find a soulmate/kindred/whatever, and you want to spend the rest of your life with them, why on Earth would you want to have some big ceremony and then sign a bit of paper which legally binds the two of you, meaning that if something ever does go tragically wrong, you have to go through the painful & expensive process of a divorce: which potentially irreversibly screws up any offspring which may have occured during the marriage, and leaves a phenomenally large hole in your no-longer-joint-bank-account to add to the pain & remind you of your lost love? Why? Why? Why?! Plus, if you intend on marrying a man, which I'm assuming far too many women are these days, due to the clear insanity which has driven them to do so for the last however long, the chances of an unhappy ending are increasingly likely due to what complete a******s they are. Ugh.
My revised & slightly more developed opinion...
Due to the fact that I can't really effectively (without hypocrisy...) argue for gay marriages while still arguing against marriages in general, I've re-thought my opinion on the constitution of marriage...(hangs head in shame...). Although more & more marriages are ending in divorce in various countries at the moment (which can't be an encouraging sign) there's no avoiding the fact that some people meet their soulmate at the age of sixteen, & they get married, & produce lots of wonderful children, & overcome everything that comes their way, & die, holding hands, still painfully in love. Therefore, I cannot completely discard marriage as pointless & pathetic as, clearly, some people are perfectly suited to it; my wonderful make-believe example couple may have thought of calling it quits a few times but stayed together for the one reason of the golden bands around their fingers, & realised, after everything was resolved, how terrible it would have been had they ever left one another's sides (where are these people, anyways? I'm assured they exist...). However (&, of course, there is a 'however'), I do strongly maintain that far too many people, whose situation doesn't even vaguely represent my Mr & Mr/Mrs & Mrs/ Mrs & Mr Perfect (boy, equality can be tiring) example, could quite happily have their huge ceremony, & eat cake, & buy clothes which they will only wear once for extortionate prices, & declare their love for eachother to everybody-hell, they can even wear rings if they want!-and not sign a contract. That way, they can have all the-I don't know-whatever it is people like about marriage ceremonies-& avoid all the trouble if they, at some point, come to the decision that they don't want to be together anymore.
Now, doesn't that sound like a far better idea?
jo
xxx
post scriptum
"fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed, in view of the silliness of the majority of makind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible."-Bertrand Russel, Marriage and Morals
If you are a normal American living in a large metropolitan area marrying a normal college-educated American who is looking for the American dream (a nice house, kids, good life), then you have over 95% chance of either getting divorced or trapped in a miserable marriage.
4 out of 5 men regret marrying.
January 2nd , '06
Ok, so, maybe 'love is like a drug', but I much prefer my analogy that marriage is like one of those reckless, irresponsible things that people do while high, like sleeping with a stranger, or jumping off a cliff...then, of course, there's that not dissimilar feeling of dread and depression on waking the next day, or, in the case of a marriage, in a few years, and finding that the person lying next to you is either someone you can't talk to, or someone you're not attracted to (or even both, if you're really unfortunate). Unluckily for the married, they can't just creep out before the other person wakes up & never see them again, until an embarrasing encounter while out shopping one day...it's not unheard of though...
January 18th, '06
Marriage. Who in their right mind would find that idea appealing? I mean, say, absolute best case scenario, you do actually find a soulmate/kindred/whatever, and you want to spend the rest of your life with them, why on Earth would you want to have some big ceremony and then sign a bit of paper which legally binds the two of you, meaning that if something ever does go tragically wrong, you have to go through the painful & expensive process of a divorce: which potentially irreversibly screws up any offspring which may have occured during the marriage, and leaves a phenomenally large hole in your no-longer-joint-bank-account to add to the pain & remind you of your lost love? Why? Why? Why?! Plus, if you intend on marrying a man, which I'm assuming far too many women are these days, due to the clear insanity which has driven them to do so for the last however long, the chances of an unhappy ending are increasingly likely due to what complete a******s they are. Ugh.
My revised & slightly more developed opinion...
Due to the fact that I can't really effectively (without hypocrisy...) argue for gay marriages while still arguing against marriages in general, I've re-thought my opinion on the constitution of marriage...(hangs head in shame...). Although more & more marriages are ending in divorce in various countries at the moment (which can't be an encouraging sign) there's no avoiding the fact that some people meet their soulmate at the age of sixteen, & they get married, & produce lots of wonderful children, & overcome everything that comes their way, & die, holding hands, still painfully in love. Therefore, I cannot completely discard marriage as pointless & pathetic as, clearly, some people are perfectly suited to it; my wonderful make-believe example couple may have thought of calling it quits a few times but stayed together for the one reason of the golden bands around their fingers, & realised, after everything was resolved, how terrible it would have been had they ever left one another's sides (where are these people, anyways? I'm assured they exist...). However (&, of course, there is a 'however'), I do strongly maintain that far too many people, whose situation doesn't even vaguely represent my Mr & Mr/Mrs & Mrs/ Mrs & Mr Perfect (boy, equality can be tiring) example, could quite happily have their huge ceremony, & eat cake, & buy clothes which they will only wear once for extortionate prices, & declare their love for eachother to everybody-hell, they can even wear rings if they want!-and not sign a contract. That way, they can have all the-I don't know-whatever it is people like about marriage ceremonies-& avoid all the trouble if they, at some point, come to the decision that they don't want to be together anymore.
Now, doesn't that sound like a far better idea?
jo
xxx
post scriptum
"fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed, in view of the silliness of the majority of makind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible."-Bertrand Russel, Marriage and Morals
If you are a normal American living in a large metropolitan area marrying a normal college-educated American who is looking for the American dream (a nice house, kids, good life), then you have over 95% chance of either getting divorced or trapped in a miserable marriage.
4 out of 5 men regret marrying.
Monday, August 07, 2006
salve omnis...
Just thought I'd do an 'opening blog' type thing to introduce myself, & explain why I'm doing a blog, & what it's likely to contain. Basically I'm Jo; I'm 15 (at time of writing), I'm a liberal feminist, I recently discovered moveon.org & have deduced from the fact that I agree with most of their campaigns that, if anything, I'm a democrat. I have the second-hand experience of two divorces through my parents, I have moved house over nine times (including living on Staten Island for a year), and as a result I've been to seven different schools; a pretty crazy childhood, but I don't think I could've asked for a more admonitory, though kind of unavoidably callousing, preporatory period to adult life (not that I'm quite there yet, but I'm on the way, I guess. My, that was some sentence; did you see that?!). I'm a singer-songwriter & guitarist, I love cities, I love languages (especially Latin), & I love people (well, not all people, obviously...but interesting, decent people who I can have real conversations with). I'm half American (Native a while back, apparently.) & half Irish, & I was raised in London until about five years ago.
I have decided to start a blog basically because I love to write, & I have strong opinions on quite a few issues which (you never know) other people might find interesting. I've always written anyway, & if I wasn't raving on in a blog I'd be doing it in my journal so...hell, why not? I know I just spent an entirely narcissistic (I can't believe I spelt that right haha) amount of time describing myself, but I just figured I'd give a background to whatever I might write in here-I can assure you (if there even is or will be a 'you', considering that that insinuates the unlikely future existence of an audience.) that this really won't be just me going on about myself. What it will more likely be is a series of short essay-type rants about issues that I'm interested in, or random little thoughts that appear in my my mind for no reason, or accounts of places I've visited or situations I've found myself in. I'll also (if I manage to find time between my a-levels) try to find an interesting or worth-contemplating fact or statistic & funny or inspirational quote (possibly song lyrics) to put as a post scriptum (though likely not actually scriptum post, but oh well) at the end of each post (just a random idea...don't ask; I don't know)...so...well, I hope it makes good reading.
jo
xxx
Post Scriptum
"In the beginning there was nothing. God said, 'Let there be light!' And there was light. There was still nothing, but you could see it a whole lot better."-Ellen Degeneres
According to research carried out by Stonewall, gay people and their lives are five times more likely to be portrayed in negative than positive terms on the BBC.
I have decided to start a blog basically because I love to write, & I have strong opinions on quite a few issues which (you never know) other people might find interesting. I've always written anyway, & if I wasn't raving on in a blog I'd be doing it in my journal so...hell, why not? I know I just spent an entirely narcissistic (I can't believe I spelt that right haha) amount of time describing myself, but I just figured I'd give a background to whatever I might write in here-I can assure you (if there even is or will be a 'you', considering that that insinuates the unlikely future existence of an audience.) that this really won't be just me going on about myself. What it will more likely be is a series of short essay-type rants about issues that I'm interested in, or random little thoughts that appear in my my mind for no reason, or accounts of places I've visited or situations I've found myself in. I'll also (if I manage to find time between my a-levels) try to find an interesting or worth-contemplating fact or statistic & funny or inspirational quote (possibly song lyrics) to put as a post scriptum (though likely not actually scriptum post, but oh well) at the end of each post (just a random idea...don't ask; I don't know)...so...well, I hope it makes good reading.
jo
xxx
Post Scriptum
"In the beginning there was nothing. God said, 'Let there be light!' And there was light. There was still nothing, but you could see it a whole lot better."-Ellen Degeneres
According to research carried out by Stonewall, gay people and their lives are five times more likely to be portrayed in negative than positive terms on the BBC.
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