a loss of words.

these are two five year old girls.

they are being carried to their own weddings ceremonies.

in america, it's impossible for most of us to fathom getting married at such a young age. but in many countries across the world, it's a tradition. a somber one, at that.

despite many lax laws that have been put in place to try and stop child marriages, approximately 64 million women were married before the age of 18. why?

in most cases, it's an issue of money. a groom's family often pays what's known as a "bride price", and the younger the bride, the more the groom pays. most families "sell" their daughters to support themselves.

besides the fact that it's a clear violation of a person's human rights to be married against their will, it's also traumatizing and dangerous.

tahani, a young girl from the city of hajjah, yemen, was only 6 years old when she was married to a 25 year old man. "whenever i saw him, i hid. i hated to see him," she said.

another 13 year old girl in yemen was killed after her husband forced her to have sex with him. he ruptured her vaginal canal, and she eventually bled to her death.

it's painful to think that some people are forced to learn to love someone. potentially someone that can hurt them. the idea of falling in love is almost unheard of. these girls are rushed into marriages while they are still young children, and should be off playing.

what's even more upsetting is that marriage has no value in these cases. there's no love. there's no connection. it's two young children, being forced to get married. for money.

it's a demoralizing tradition. when you read stories about these poor child brides, you can't help but cry. and you can't help but be so thankful that it's not you. and then, you realize, you have to help.

i ask you to please help these children that are mired in poverty. to help these children that will never know life. never know love. it's our responsibility as humans to help our brothers, our sisters, that are struggling. because you know what?

it just as easily could have been you.

http://www.care.org/campaigns/childmarriage/index.asp

run fast for your mother

my little girl
she is my princess
and i leave her the world
and i know
someday
 a change is gonna come.

nostalgia

                                                          fucking quote of the day

last year at this time, my life was different. my life was a shallow pond, nothing more than what you could see with your two eyes. i used to see a wavy reflection of myself in the pool of water and wonder what i was supposed to be.

i would go to school and pretend. come home and pretend. i was a puppet, my arms and legs moving without a thought, this way and that, back and forth.

the rhythm of my life was slow and steady. a predictable beat that narrated my life. i was so excited for change.

a change that would come. a change that would free me from who i was. a change that would make me who i wanted to be.

but instead i got this.

i became the small rain drops that fell from the sky when the world was parched. i became the mosquito bite on your leg that you knew was there, but still tried not to itch.

and so i became who i never thought i would. i became the opposite of my dream. but sometimes, that's okay.

sometimes, it's okay to take an ice-cold shower because all the hot water ran out. sometimes it's okay to let go.

but sometimes i let go too much. i become the spool of thread that's too unwound, and gets pushed to the back of the closet. i become the person who gives up. the silver medal. the first loser.

and i become the person i never wanted to be.

songs you should check out + finals

skinny love by bon iver.

bon iver is one of my favorite bands. not to mention that it's a play on the french phrase "bon hiver", meaning "good winter". i love all of bon iver's music, especially their songs from for emma, but there's something about skinny love that gets to me. i'm not even sure what. the lyrics are so powerful, yet so simple.

make you feel my love by adele.

i've been an adele fan for a while, long before this whole rolling in the deep nonsense (honestly, i don't think that's one of her best songs). this song haunts me. adele's voice is so perfect, so raw, yet so polished, and it gets me every single time. her voice has notes of heartbreak in it, but it stays so strong, that it kills me. this is one of the most beautiful fucking songs i've ever heard, and adele should win a grammy or some shit like that for this.

someday by the strokes.

last year at this time, my favorite bands was easily the strokes. and i still love them, but i've forgotten them. my ipod was on shuffle, and this song came up. needless to say, i'm completely obsessed again. i think this song is, dare i say, a bit lighter than some of their other songs, but still has the same beauty as all of their music does.

hey finals. you're 16 days away. fuck you.

the buddha + the terrorist

every once in a while, you encounter a profound story that challenges what you thought of okay.



the buddha and the terrorist, my friends, is that very book. this book, written by satish kumar, questions our society's stance on violence. we've all grown up in a society that's war-torn, and it seems like even our own leaders are confused about how to deal with problems. their solution? violence. this book breaks down the wall of violence we all have built up, and truly is a message of hope.

in the book, a murderer named angulimala mindlessly kills people. one day, the buddha comes up to him, and questions him: why does he kill people he doesn't even know? the buddha finally gets to him, and causes a complete transformation in angulimala. when the buddha brings him back to the village where he killed so many people, all of the villagers want him killed.

then the buddha asks,
"angulimala killed people because he was filled with anger. you too are filled with anger and wish to kill him. how can anyone dissolve anger with more anger? fire cannot be extinguished by adding more fire- only water can extinguish fire. only with love can we overcome hate. only with trust can we overcome fear."

these powerful words made me question the way we live our lives. we're always taught to never let people take advantage of us, and to always fight back. but maybe that's the problem. maybe the reason our country is so messed up is because we just can't admit that we're wrong. and what's worse, we're not capable of forgiveness. we're not capable of forgiving people who have messed up because we're so certain that they'll mess up. we forget that all humans are capable of change.

"we are all changing all the time. the only thing we cannot do is to stop the process of change. only through change do we grow and evolve, so let us not be afraid of change."

you hear that? let us not fear change. let us embrace every inch of it. because the only way we will be able to overcome the violence that plagues this world is change. plain and simple. 

cupcakes + cashmere

cupcakes and cashmere is perhaps one of my favorite fashion blogs.

all photos are respective property of cupcakes and cashmere.

i wish i could pull off something as simple and breezy as this and still look effortlessly gorgeous. a lot of the times, i'm wary of wearing bland colors together, but this outfit is a great example of how a pale pink and a creamy beige can really compliment each other.

bell bottoms are the yoga pants of fashion- they are perhaps the most comfortable pants in your closet, but people will give you some weird looks if you wear them in public. in addition, they can swallow up short people. regardless, i love the look of them.  i would have steered away from choosing a looser shirt for the top, but i think it really accents the shape of the jeans without making it costume-y.

there are so many things i absolutely adore about this look. i love the neutral color palette with a pop of a bright color. it's something that's in, but i've liked it for a while. what's even more interesting is that she chose to mix two colors from the same family: a bright red orange, and a paler, more yellow-toned orange. together, they really do brighten up anyone's day.

tumblr + artist of the week

it's shameless self-promotion time, my friends.

first up, tumblr.

loneliestplanet.tumblr.com

i legitametely love tumblr, and i pray that it doesn't become as mainstream as say, facebook. the tumblr community is hilarious, and i can easily spend hours on tumblr. instead of doing more important things. like you know, maybe writing an english paper. cough cough.

artist of the week time!

this is moby. last week at this time, i had no idea he existed. ever since i got into my MIA pandora station again, this little fellow's been popping up. and for good reason.

and as awesome as it would be if it were true, his name is not moby. it's richard melville hall. yeah. i would stick with moby too. it's hard to put his music into a specific genre, but it's just happy music. the kind of music you hear that just makes you kind of dance around in your chair, because you're way too dignified to get up and start dancing. ahem. 

the funny thing is, when you look at his lyrics, they're really, well, christian. but he sings in such a way that you can never really understand his lyrics. they just sound really cool. i really like him, and even if it's just a face, he's a refreshing face in the music industry. 

fly presidents + cool face washes

cool is the word of the day.

i'm already obama's biggest fan, but this speech really made me gain a lot of respect for him. he managed to accomplish something that no other president could, and he reached a huge goal that he set for himself when he took over back in 2009. however, he was so incredibly humble and maybe even a bit solemn, making sure that everyone knew that while this was a great achievement, there were still somber notes when talking about those who were killed in 9/11. i don't understand why president obama doesn't have more supporters- he took over when our country was in the worst crisis it's seen in years, and i think people automatically expected him to fix everything. and since he couldn't do that in a mere two years, people are starting to question his position as commander in chief. i, however, have an immense amount of respect for president obama, and will be campaigning for him in the next election.

normally when i see gimmicky stuff like this, i think it's cool but never actually buy it. i saw this in rite aid one day when i was with some friends, and i just bought it on impulse. i mean, come on. it has a squishy scrublet. if you're not drawn to that, then you probably also hate summer because it means rambunctious children frolicking around the neighborhood. anyways, i got this stuff, and it instantly makes my shower ten times better. if you need a dose of happy in your life, look no further.

currently playing: young folks by peter, bjorn, and john

osama + may

currently playing: natural blues by moby.

ding dong, the witch is dead.

yes, my friends. this dumbass.

i found out on facebook last night. that's the kind of age we live in. i didn't really believe it at first. and then it kind of struck me. i'm paranoid of losing my family, and every night i pray for them to be okay. and my mind is strange. i'll inadvertently think horrific things. i don't even know that i'm thinking them. and i sure as hell don't mean them. and whenever i caught myself in the middle of one of them, i would change the person's name to osama. but now he's gone. and i pray to god my family stays okay.

it seems like the entire fucking country thinks we're safe. ahh, no. the way terrorist groups like al-qaeda work is this: you kill me, i kill you. sure, we killed their leader. that's the goal obama set for this war. but now he's dead. and al-qaeda will want revenge on us. what does this mean? it means living in fear. it means being afraid of whether your flight home will be hijacked. so i'm taking it to an extreme. but america, as a country, has accomplished this. and now we must pay the consequences. 

now on a totally different subject, it's may. i love may. i love the warm weather that's not too hot but not cold. because even i get sick of the cold sometimes, and i love it. and then one more month of school. ahh, may. not a day too early. 

bonjour + a hundred things

bonjour. this is my blog. created on a whim. let's see where it takes us.

1 i'm 15
2 i'm a freshman
3 my birthday is january 10
4 i love the rain
5 i have big dreams
6 i can easily drink my weight in coffee
7 i hate posers
8 i lose respect for people who are walking billboards
9 my favorite artist is lykke li
10 but i have a lot of others
11 i would probably drive you crazy listing them all
12 i have a biology test to be studying for
13 i want to have something to remember myself by
14 i want to be somebody
15 i wish i wasn't so awkward
16 i'm indian
17 no, i will not do your homework for you
18 no, i do not eat curry for every meal
19 my biggest fear is losing my family
20 my friends aren't the best company
21 i've never smoked pot
22 i want to go to columbia or the university of pennsylvania
23 i want to live in new york city
24 sometimes i'm scared that i'll never find someone who loves me
25 i hate painting my fingernails
26 i'm afraid of leaving home
27 i can get jealous easily
28 i waste my life wishing about what i could have
29 i never acknowledge what i have
30 i want to work in an orphanage one summer
31 maybe this summer
32 but i would have to get shots
33 and i detest needles
34 when i was 10, i pretended i had a serious stomach illness
35 because i just wanted the attention
36 spending all that time in the hospital made me want to be a doctor
37 but sometimes i feel like that's so cliche
38 an indian doctor
39 not like there are a million of those in the world
40 i have a crush on the guy i sit behind in spanish
41 also the one i sit next to in bio
42 it amazes me how some people can waste their whole lives
43 waking up, going to work, coming home, sleeping
44 never making a difference
45 sometimes the world really pisses me off
46 we can spend $20 million on a fucking royal wedding
47 but not feed 17% of americans that go to sleep hungry every night
48 people think i'm a lot smarter than i actually am
49 i can't stand racists
50 i'm contributing to your economy, without my people, you wouldn't have half of your doctors
51 so please shut the fuck up
52 i'm a liberal
53 i was driving behind someone with a "anybody but obama in 2012" bumper sticker yesterday
54 sure america. expect obama to fix eight years worth of bush's bull shit in two years.
55 go crawling back to the people who got us in this mess in the first place
56 i admire people who can come out in high school
57 i'm not a lesbian, but those people must have so much courage
58 everybody tells you to be yourself
59 but don't pretend like you've never judged that crazy kid you see in the hallways sometimes
69 i don't really know what people want from me
70 haha, that was number 69
71 one year ago, i thought my life would be so much more different than it is now
72 i still have a bio test to study for
73 sometimes i want to be famous
74 just so that people would be obsessed with me
75 i'm very impatient
76 come to think of it, MIA is also pretty good
77 the strokes aren't too shabby either
78 i would buy every fucking thing in urban outfitters if i could
79 i hate when people wear nerd glasses and think they're a hipster
80 no, my friend. try again.
81 i love to eat
82 like actually
83 i hate when people ask stupid questions
84 yeah. there is such a thing.
85 i sound like a bitch
86 but people take advantage of me all the time
87 because i never want to hurt anyone
88 my favorite kids' show is arthur
89 but sesame street comes in a close second
90 i can sleep through the afternoon if you wake me up
91 i don't understand why the fuck high school starts so early
92 i love to make jewelry
93 i'm making this deck silver ring right now
94 i don't really understand my religioni
95 but i know it will make sense some day
96 i'm close to my family
97 i'm so afraid of losing them
98 i'm trying to figure out why i'm here
99 because no one ever gets out alive anyways
100 and you should join me.