A Letter

Dear religious people,
Standing outside the Humanities building with giant signs saying "GOD HATES SIN" and a giant picture of an aborted fetus isn't making you seem tolerant. It's definitely not making me like you any better.

I have a plan though. I stumbled across a picture of Freddie Mercury with a unicorn a few weeks ago. I'm going to make that into a giant sign (because seriously, who doesn't like Freddie Mercury and unicorns?) and then go stand in Library Mall holding that sign and yell about how if you have an abortion it's no biggie or if you're gay it's all good. You're not going to hell for making a mistake or being yourself. I'll yell that everyone can believe whatever they want and I won't hold it against you. I may want to have intelligent conversations about it, but I definitely won't call you stupid or evil or any other nonsense.

I'm sick of the churches and religions making everyone so afraid. It's why I left that life. Most of my childhood, I only pretended to believe in the Lutheran teachings because I was terrified of spending an eternity burning. Who thinks it's a good idea to scare children into mindlessly believing something with the threat of SUFFERING FOR ETERNITY?! How does anyone raised in that mindset come out normal? I'm so glad I made it out alive.

I'm not saying it's a bad thing to believe all that stuff. Each person deserves to do whatever makes him or her happiest. But raising your children like that isn't letting them decide what will make them happy. It's telling them that this one thing should make them happy and if it doesn't, there's something wrong with them.

That's what I thought. I thought there was something wrong with me because I never really felt that connection that everyone else seemed to feel. I never had those instances when I knew God was watching over me. And as I grew up and went through being mercilessly teased by everyone in my class throughout grade school, becoming depressed, talking about suicide with the only person in the school that would talk to me, and then going to high school and becoming even more depressed and alone and helpless, my lack of connection with God became even less. When I reached out for help, do you know what they told me? They didn't tell me there was something wrong with the chemicals in my brain. They didn't tell me that I needed to see a professional for help.

They told me to pray.

So I did. Every. Single. Night.

I sat on my floor in my room. I cried. I begged. And you know what I got in return? Nothing. No one ever helped me. No benevolent being saw my suffering and decided it was enough, decided that he should reach out to a helpless little kid. I had to get myself out of that alone. I was all on my own.

So before you invade my campus with disgusting signs and call me a heathen, maybe you should try to think about my perspective. I know I'm not the only one who has a story like that. And it makes me dislike you even more when you judge me without even thinking about where I've been.

With love,
Syd

Grandma Heide

Heart of Darkness...Without The Jungle Or The Natives

I believe in free will. When I was younger, I hated the thought of someone else in control. I couldn't accept that my choices, actions, words, everything I did wasn't mine, that it was all determined to happen. It pissed me off. I don't understand what would be the point in doing anything if it was all predetermined.

As I get older, however, there's a giant flaw in my logic staring me in the face every day: I must take responsibility for everything I do. Which isn't a problem usually. If I make a mistake I have no problem admitting it. And if I do something right, I simply write it off as part of my awesomeness. But last semester it really struck me how absolutely destructive this line of thinking could be.

Toward the end of last October, I made a decision that accidentally ended something that made me really happy. It wasn't my decision to end it but I guess something I said caused him to. I was sitting there consciously trying to decide if I should say what was on my mind. I decided he was right, that it would be better if I just said it. It was the stupidest decision I've made in a long time. But it was MY decision and I had to accept and own that. And that was absolutely the hardest part.

I began a two month long descent into darkness. I couldn't see the point anymore. I gave up on everything. I abandoned my faith in humanity.

As I was spiraling down into madness, as I was crying myself to sleep every night and barely able to keep it together during the day, I began to worry that someone had finally broken me. After going through almost the exact same situation of deception and leading me on with at least six guys before him, I began convincing myself that this ass of a man finally was the one to do it. He finally ruined me.

I started genuinely believing I would be alone forever. I was convinced that there was something wrong with me. So many different men have all done the same thing to me, that it must be something about me that makes them drawn to me and then back off quite abruptly. But no one would tell me what it was. No one would tell me so I could fix it and not face a life of total solitude. I hate being alone. It was driving me insane.

I was terrified that I would be like that for a long time. I was slowly convincing myself I would be alone forever. That I should never say what was on my mind again. I can't even convey the mental abuse I put myself through.

But something completely unexpected happened. I became reckless. Something that I have never really been in my life. It made me just not care anymore. I put myself out there. I'm the girl to be used. That's how everyone has treated me up until now so why not just embrace that. Because it's not going to change. I just don't care anymore. I'm the one guys use while they're looking for the one they actually want to be with.

The moral of the story kids? Your beliefs will someday completely destroy and damn near kill you.

Syd

I Fell In Love Then Got Really Angry Because He's Not Real

I am an avid Doctor Who watcher. Anyone who talks with me for more than five minutes will inevitably hear some reference to Who or, if they are foolish enough to admit to also being a Who fan, will be subjected to talking about it for the rest of the night. The first question I always ask a person when they say they're a Who fan is “Who's your favorite Doctor?” Almost every single person says Matt Smith for reasons that are lost to me. Don't get me wrong, Matt Smith makes a perfectly acceptable Doctor: he's quirky, he's not horrible looking, he acts just like a big kid. Eccleston too has reasons of why I like him (his ears, his badassedry). But for me, David Tennant is the best Doctor they've ever had, and I'm willing to say, the best Doctor the show ever will have. And here's why.

4. Tennant is an amazing actor.

Even with the questionable writing in his later series (especially series 4, that's a rough one), he's still able to act his butt off and make it bearable. And it's not just his ability to make the rougher series bearable (if Smith, throwing away how confusing it would make everything ever, had to act his way through series 4, I'm sure he would have done an acceptable job [I really didn't like series 4 if you didn't pick that up already, except for the music which is amazing]). What really made me stop and realize David Tennant is my favorite actor ever is the episode Doomsday (series 2, episode 13).

It made me cry.

I'm not one to cry at shows or movies. I think it's silly. I mean people who do it shouldn't be ashamed or anything; more power to you for being able to show that much emotion. But that's not me. The only times I find myself crying at little things like that is when I'm really depressed. But when I watched this episode for the first time, I was happy. I was at a point in my life when everything was going swimmingly so there was no reason for me to be emotional. And it wasn't (SPOILERS) that he had to leave Rose in the alternate universe. I lost it because of his face when he's saying goodbye to Rose at Bad Wolf Bay. Now I know others cried at the same part. But Tennant's face was so perfect. His acting is so believable. I just get pulled in by him unlike any other Doctor.

It's everything he acts in though, not just Doctor Who. There's a version of Hamlet I stumbled across not too long ago that he stars in. It's amazing. I highly suggest watching it, even if you're usually not a Shakespeare fan (how is that possible?).

Also check out New Earth, series 2 episode 2 (the part where Cassandra takes over his body. I'd like to see Eccleston or Smith pull that one off).

3. He evolves.

The one amazing thing Davies did while he was in charge of writing for the show was have the Doctor evolve. When we first meet Tennant, he has a young personality. He's crazy, he's like a kid. And by his last specials, he's serious and melancholy. He goes from never wanting to disrupt the timeline to (SPOILERS) saving Captain Burke and two crew members from the colony on Mars when it's overrun by...parasitic water. Whatever. I'm sure he explains exactly what it is in the show but I'm too lazy to look it up and if you've seen the special you know exactly what I'm talking about. And if you haven't seen it why are you wasting time reading this stupid thing when you could be watching David Tennant be awesome?!

These three people weren't supposed to be saved. They were all supposed to die on Mars. Captain Burke kills herself when she gets home because her death causes the future. The Doctor causes her death. When he's saving them he yells, “The laws of time are mine and they will obey me!” He has lost everything he loved. He had to let Rose go. He lost Donna. He is completely alone and he finally snaps.

I heard someone describe it as Tennant becoming too whiny and bitter and angry. But that's exactly what he would be. He's alone after losing everything and is only trying to be the Time Lord victorious but that is something he can never be. This is something the Doctor needed to go through. And Tennant was the best person for that job. There's no way the Eccleston or Smith Doctors could have pulled that off. That just wasn't their personalities. I assure everyone that if the Doctor had not gone through this evolution of personality and power, no one would love the Smith Doctor as much as they do. Even if you weren't particularly taken with Tennant, it was in these series that you really fell in love with the Doctor as a person and realized that he has more in common with humans than originally thought.

2. His relationship with Rose.

I'm going to get a lot of crap for this one. I've never met another person who likes Rose that much. I actually have a friend who actively hates her. But he does so for a stupid reason. Mickey's just as much to blame for the situation he found himself in. Anyway, that's a different discussion. She's my favorite companion. Yes, that means I like her more than Amy. Just accept it.

His relationship with Rose gives him a human element that the other companions didn't give Tennant's Doctor or the other two. Even when Rose was with Eccleston, she didn't affect him as much as she did Tennant. She kept him in check, grounded. He shows one of the most human emotions, love, for her and only her. The rest of his companions show care and love for him but he barely reciprocates. And most of that is after Rose, because he lost Rose.

When he's traveling with Martha, he just wants Rose back. In The Shakespeare Code (Series 3, episode 3) he's in a tiny bed with Martha, and you can tell what she wants (wink wink). But, while trying to figure out the witch craft he says, “Rose would know. A friend of mine, Rose. Right now she'd say exactly the right thing.” At this point, we must remember that this reboot is taking into account all the past Doctors as well. Which means he's been through countless companions. He has had to say goodbye to countless people, and he never longs for any of them as much as he does for Rose. (Of course I'm saying that as an educated guess because I have just started watching through the old ones. But at least for sure in the reboot, he never longs for any like he does for Rose.)

You could make the argument that his relationship with Amy, while not love in the romantic sense, could rival that of the one with Rose. However, Smith's Doctor actively let Amy go. (SPOILERS) He told River that it wasn't really he who would be dying on that beach, he could have just as easily told Amy. But he didn't. He let her believe he was dead. Tennant's Doctor was going to let Rose leave her mother and alternate-universe-father forever just so she could stay with him. The Doctor cared more for Rose than any other companion and it made him show human emotions that he didn't normally show. It made him selfish and, once he lost her, destructive.

And don't give me the River relationship as a counterexample. It's not the same at all. That relationship feels more like an inside joke instead of the true love of Tennant and Rose's. Maybe it was supposed to feel like the relationship with Rose, but then that failing would fall on Matt Smith's lack of acting. It's a perfect example of the type of story line Tennant could pull off that the other Doctors couldn't. Sure they can all act like crazy kids, but only one of them could go from that to being in love with a human, to eccentric, melancholy, and ultimately destructive to those he wants to save the most once he loses that human.

1. He's adorable. (Yeah I just pulled that card.)

Look at him. He's cute. He's adorable. Compare him to Eccleston's elephant ears (which actually isn't that big a deal for me) or Smith's giant chin (and unfortunate resemblance to an ex-boyfriend which is obviously something that only applies to me but it's my blog so screw you guys). His hair. His smile.

His beautiful big brown eyes. His red converses with his blue suit (my favorite outfit of his. His brown one with the white converses is adorable, but boring). Damn guys, how could he not be your favorite?

Syd

The Doctor Would Be Proud

Hey look! I made a TARDIS. And that's my cat, Nala walking all over it.


I'm also working on a persuasive list explaining why David Tennant is the best Doctor the show has ever had and will have. Stay tuned. It'll come soon.

Syd