Come Sail Away

I've been following the story of Jose Salvador Alvarenga, the apparent castaway from Mexico and El Salvador who turned up in the Marshall Islands recently. It's been interesting to see the media and all the people skeptical of his story try to figure out what really happened to him and whether or not his story is plausible. When it comes to the crux of his story - that he was away at sea for over a year - many people are saying his story has to be a hoax. They point to his physical condition (he has some meat on his bones), "paleness," and the implausibility of him surviving such a scenario as evidence that he's making the whole thing up.

But sometimes, you know, the truth is really stranger than fiction.

Personally, I'm not on board with the people who say Alvarenga's story is a complete fabrication. As part of my law school education, I'm currently taking Evidence. Although the class itself is really concerned with learning the rules of evidence, it's based heavily in logic - and what facts can potentially be inferred by evidence, i.e. the ways in which evidence may be interpreted by a jury. If you look at the evidence available to prove or disprove Alvarenga's story, thus far, it weighs heavily in his favor.

Thus far, we have:

• Statements by the government of the Marshall Islands that he washed up there and was found with a dilapidated boat on a remote atoll. They have also said they have found no reason to doubt his story and that he was hospitalized on the Islands.
• Statements from the hospital in the Marshall Islands where he was treated indicating he arrived in poor health and was readmitted after he was initially released.
• Statements from Mexican officials saying everything they've heard thus far adds up, as far as they can be sure.
• Statements from Alvarenga's family that they hadn't seen him in eight years and assumed he was either dead or in jail.
• Statements from people who worked with/for Alvarenga's employer in Mexico that document him, his boat, and his companion going missing in November 2012. A search was said to have been conducted, but it was unsuccessful in locating the boat or the two men.

Now, unless news media has fabricated this evidence and flat-out lied about speaking to his family members, government officials, and others involved, you have people in at least three countries corroborating his story. Of course, that doesn't mean that it's conclusively true, but it lends credence to his tale. It's possible that the information provided and statements made by these people are fabricated, but what motivation do they have to lie? Unless you're a big believer in transnational conspiracy theories, they really have no good reason to do so.

Alvarenga, who's currently getting his 15 minutes of fame, also can't be said to have a strong motivation to make the whole thing up. In order to make the story plausible, he would have to somehow make himself so unhealthy that he was admitted to a hospital, venture to a remote part of the world and somehow get his boat there, make his companion permanently disappear, and lie low enough in some other part of the world so as not to be easily detected. This guy was a fisherman working in Mexico who seems to have come from an economically challenged background - do we really think that he came up with the world's greatest hoax and went to such extreme lengths to carry it out? No, I don't think he did.

I think Alvarenga was a man who was thrown into extreme circumstances and found out exactly what he was capable of. Life-threatening circumstances have made things that seem impossible possible before; it's not a new phenomenon. You can find any number of stories about ordinary people lifting extraordinary weight when a family member or friend is trapped under something, even though they never should have been able to have the strength to. You hear about horrible historical events like the Holocaust, where some people were miraculously able to survive work camps even though they had no food, no water, had to work constantly, were beaten, were abused in every way possible, had no sanitation, etc. Sometimes, against all odds, people are able to survive. Just because we don't understand it doesn't mean it's not possible.

Do you believe that truth can be stranger than fiction?

Old and New

Sometimes, the law library feels like my second home. I spend so much time in here reading (and relaxing, when I have the time); it was almost strange to be elsewhere during break. Yes, my law school classes have started up again... too early! I could have used another week or two of break.

But now I'm back to the daily grind, which honestly isn't so bad. I'm one of those people who's only happy when I know I'm doing something with my life; little breaks and vacations are great, but too much time spent lazing around always ends up making me depressed. I tend to feel like I'm stagnating if I'm not working towards some sort of goal, which is why 2013 was a difficult year for me but also felt like a turning point in my life.

I started off 2013 with the flu and the one-year anniversary of my car accident, where I was hit from behind while stopped. I was depressed that I wasn't in school or employed, and I was really nervous about finishing my transfer applications and pretty down on myself in general. Losing my scholarship in law school, though the circumstances were extreme (shingles during fall finals, allergic reaction and cellulitis before spring finals, a debilitating care accident at the beginning of the spring semester which left me in PT 3x per week and unable to drive for a month, with horrendous, I-need-to-lay-down-NOW headaches, my mother's cancer scare and surgery in February, and there being a power surge that shut down my computer during my Transnational Law final and a proctor with no idea what to do) and my grades weren't bad (loads of B+s, a few Bs, and a B- in Transnational Law), made me question everything. Before starting law school, I was so sure it was exactly where I was supposed to be, and everything devastated me so much that I spent a lot of time wondering if maybe everything that happened was just a sign that I wasn't supposed to be in law school. My boyfriend, who hadn't had a car for over a year and was struggling with unemployment due to the job market and his bachelor's degree in sociology, managed to find a temp position, save enough money to afford to lease a new Nissan at a manageable price, and finally, finally get back into school, something he'd been intending to do since we met. To my surprise, I was accepted into a higher ranked law school than my former law school, AND the higher ranked school, which actually cost slightly less than my former law school, offered me significant scholarship money. (I'll still have boatloads of student loan debt when I graduate, but every bit of help helps!) I was nervous about attending, still in the midst of my quarter-life crisis, but everything ended up working out really well. I honestly believe that everything I went through with my former law school was so that I'd end up here. I hated my first year in law school, but the environment here is so different, so much more open and welcoming. I've made a few friends, gotten involved in a student organization, met some great professors, and I'm about 25,000x happier than I was at my former law school. I didn't apply to this school right out of college for several reasons, all of which I've thankfully found out were baseless worries. I was diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome in the last months of 2013, which evoked a lot of mixed emotions that weren't always easy to deal with, but at least now I can begin getting the kind of care I need to preserve my not-already-shot joints and my the rest of my health. I found a wonderful online support group for the condition, and I've begun educating friends and family members about EDS, which has helped me a lot.

2013 was also a big year for me in terms of my genealogy research. I found and connected with numerous modern-day descendants of my ancestors on both sides of my family, getting in touch with everyone from third cousins living locally and fifth half-cousins once removed living an ocean away in Denmark. I got all the paperwork together to finally order my great-grandfather's death certificate to find out the names of his parents and be able to start tracing the family back in Italy, and I found out some crazy information about my mother's father's mother's side of the family.

All in all, 2013 was a really big year for me. It had its struggles, but without them, I wouldn't be moving forward. I'm glad to be. 2014 has been fine thus far; my professors don't seem terrible, nor do my classes. My schedule isn't the most convenient thing in the world, but it's not bad either - it should allow me to get a lot of work done at school, which will be nice, since it means I'll have less to do on the weekends. I also did order my great-grandfather's death certificate, and to my surprise, the office was able to give it to me right away - I didn't have to wait the 4 to 6 weeks I thought I would have to for them to send it to me. I've already found another family member on my father's side that's more closely related to us than I thought I'd be able to find, and the grades I've received thus far - and the grades my boyfriend has received in the classes he took this past semester - have been pretty good. I finally got an A in law school (and in a subject in the field I want to work in), which was pretty awesome.

A very happy new year to all of you out there!

How did 2013 go for you? Did you hit any turning points in your life this year?

Spirit of Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving for Americans is tomorrow, and it's always been a bit of a strange holiday for me. There's always the normal stuff: food, family, and watching at least a little bit of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on TV. But... Thanksgiving has always been a bit different for me, because I literally would not be here without it.

Since I was a little girl, I knew that I was descended from one of the Mayflower Pilgrims. Our genealogy is well-documented, and I grew up fascinated with my father's copy of the Mayflower Compact and all the information about my ancestors that came along with the book on the first four generations of that family in America. My 9th great-grandfather was one of the few who survived the first harsh New England winter; around half of the original passengers died. Not only did he survive, but he went on to have... more children than I could ever fathom having, went from being an indentured-servant to a well-off landowner, and died when he was in his eighties. None of that would have been possible without the help the Pilgrims received from the Native Americans that permitted them to get through another winter.

A lot of people like to talk about how Thanksgiving is a BS holiday, given the many conflicts between the Europeans and Native Americans that came after. As far as I'm concerned, those people are missing the point. No matter what came after, the First Thanksgiving was the result of people who could hardly be more different coming together, working together, and tolerating each other. What's more, the Pilgrims expressed that they were grateful for it. In a nation built on personal freedoms, it's easy for us to get caught up in idealogical battles and forget what we can accomplish when we set aside our differences and prejudices and simply try our best to tolerate each other, whether or not we actually accept each other.

For me, Thanksgiving has always been about the virtue of tolerance, of being grateful we live in a society where people are different, because when we pressure ourselves to get along, we can accomplish great things. The fate of our nation depends on our tolerance of differing points of view, of realizing that we all have something to bring to the table, if everyone can be respectful enough to let us.

My family has never been the type to go around the dinner table and have everyone say what we're thankful for. That isn't because we're not thankful, it's because we're hyperaware that we have so much to be thankful for, including the fact that we're even here to celebrate the holiday at all. This year, I discovered that my family is actually descended from another Mayflower Pilgrim, a few generations down the line, one of my 9th great-grandfather's descendants (who was also a great-grandfather of mine) married a descendant of another man who came over on the Mayflower, and I'm descended from their children. This wasn't unexpected, since most of the families in the area married each other at some point or another, but now I know there wasn't just one person that needed to survive that second winter for me to be here, but two. I am thankful I was given the opportunity to be alive, to be on this earth and breathing. I've been through a lot of ugly stuff, but I'm still here. I'm still breathing; I'm still living. I don't need to "count my blessings" - I'm aware they're numerous. And isn't that the point? To realize that no matter how hard things may be, we still have hope, because we're here, aren't we?

Happy Thanksgiving to all of the Americans celebrating tomorrow - and a Happy Hanukkah to those who begin celebrating it tonight!

Finding "Home"

I think most people have heard the quote, "Home is where the heart is." Since it's craft fair season, I've been seeing it a lot on homemade items for sale - dish towels, wooden plaques, wall hangings, etc. The emphasis is clearly on home as a place, and it makes me wonder if "home," for most people, is a place. For me, "home" is sometimes a place, but sometimes it isn't. Sometimes, home for me is a person - or a feeling.

This week, October 20th to 26th, makes me dwell on the concept of home. If my Nana was still alive, she would have turned ninety-five this week, and this week also marks the nineteenth anniversary of her death. Nineteen years. How have nineteen years passed since she died? It seems absurd. She still has such an active presence in my life, yet she's been gone nineteen years already. Where did the time go?

My Nana died when I was five years old. She was a huge part of my upbringing from the time I was born; I saw her almost every day, I was constantly sleeping over her house, and in many ways, she felt more like my third parent than my grandmother. All my early memories are of her; I have almost none of my parents. My parents and I lived with her for the first two years of my life, and then while my parents were at work or needed some time for themselves as a couple, she was the one who watched me. When I was an infant, she was one of people who got up at night when I cried. From the day my mother brought me home from the hospital until she went to the hospital days before she died, she soothed me. She fed me, she changed my diapers, she bathed me, and she tucked me in at night. She held me, she played with me, and she helped me learn to walk and talk. She took me everywhere - to the park, to the docks, to my friend's house... had she ever learned to drive, she probably would have taken me to school. She loved me to pieces, as I loved her.

When she died, the one thing I never did was blame her. I felt absolutely shattered, but I knew that if she had the choice, she wouldn't have left me then. I learned, at a very early age, that even when people want to be there for you and say they'll never leave, sometimes they don't have a choice. It doesn't mean they love you any less. It doesn't mean they've abandoned you. And the one thing I've constantly thought since then is that even though in a way she left, she's never really ever left me at all.

My home was her. My home was a person, the person who made me feel safe and protected and loved. It wasn't a building, it was her. When she died, I craved a place to feel close to her. My parents and I used to drive past her house every holiday on the way to or from my aunts' house. It was almost like visiting her grave, since she had chosen to be cremated and have her ashes scattered. For the longest time, I thought it was the place that felt like home, but it isn't so much as the place itself as it is the feelings it allows me to bring forth. It's painful to think about loss, and being in that place helps me get home; home to her and those feelings of being safe and protected and loved.

Over the years, my home has expanded - it's been places, mostly, and sometimes feelings. The feeling of freedom that college provided me with and my dorm room were my home for a few years. My father's house has been my home, on and off - or rather, my bedroom has been, maybe even just my bed, at times. My Nana, to this day, is still a part of my home. When people say you can't go home again, I think they're wrong - sometimes you can. Some homes will always be there for you to go back to.

It took my boyfriend saying that his home wasn't a place, it was a person, for me to finally understand why I didn't feel like my house was my home. It took him telling me that I was his home for me to realize that he has become a huge part of mine. When I was around my Nana, she made me feel like I could do anything; I didn't have to fear the world. I knew she'd be right there to help me back up if I fell, and she'd never love me less for trying. He makes me feel, in many respects, the same way. Around him, I can do things I never believed I would be able to, because I finally have the ability to let myself. He's reminded me that I have a home, that I don't need a place. And all I have to do is look into my heart, because the people and feelings that are my home can always be found there. I can be home anywhere, as long as I remember my heart.

What is "home" for you?

Still Processing

At the moment, I should really be doing my reading for Trusts and Estates, but as it's been a day full of a whirlwind of emotions for me, I wanted to take some time out to talk about what today is to me.

Twelve years ago, as I was sitting in my morning homeroom class, I had no idea that my life was about to change. It was, for all intents and purposes, a routine, sunny day that would be spent in class; the school year had started only recently, and I probably wasn't thinking about anything in particular. As the day drew on, it became clear that something was amiss - there was an announcement made over the loudspeaker that teachers were not to turn on classroom TVs under any circumstances, and the phones started ringing in all the classrooms, calling to let lots of students know that their parents had arrived to pick them up. I found out some time around lunch what had happened.

Today, twelve years after that day, I'm still trying to process what happened to me and the people around me because of what we bore witness to. Every year there are memorials held, moments of silence conducted, news articles written, and speeches made about remembering, about the importance of not forgetting what happened to us - as individuals, as people, as a nation. Frankly, this confuses me, because even though I was fortunate enough not to have been in Manhattan that day or to have lost anyone close to me as a result of the terrorist attack, I still lost a lot that day - and part of me would do anything to forget.

I think about the events of September 11, 2001 almost every day, sometimes multiple times daily. I feel uneasy every time I see the a digital clock that reading 9:11. I live near a small, private airport, as well as within 50 miles of two major airports, and I get the same feeling every time I see or hear a plane. I constantly wonder if it's flying too low, if there's a chance it could crash into a home or a business or a landmark or the cars near and around me on the highway. When I'm inside my house and hear the roaring of an airplane engine, I feel a pressing need to look out the window and make sure everything's okay - that I am still safe, that it isn't about to rip through my window. On the anniversary of the attacks, every year, I feel guilty. I feel like if I don't say anything about it, if I go about my daily business, if I allow it to be a normal day, I am somehow disrespecting the horrors suffered by others as a result of those events. I feel like I can't let myself be happy today, because somehow that would mean I'm forgetting, and forgetting isn't allowed.

For the first time since the events of September 11th, I'm in one of the boroughs of New York City on the anniversary of that day. I go to school here now, and I can't just miss class, but today has been... especially stressful. On the drive in, all I could think about was if it was really safe to be driving into the city. I worried about the risk of repeat attacks, and what I would do if the local county borders were closed, like some were on that day. I wondered about the advisability of studying on the floor of the library I prefer today - it's several floors up, and I wonder if that's safe; if I could get downstairs fast enough in the case of an emergency. I feel like there's almost a haze over reality today, like something crazy could happen, and I wouldn't be at all surprised. I am on edge.

I had several relatives in NYC when the attacks took place. Each and every time we've gathered as a family since then, they talk about their experiences. It's like they're stuck in an infinite loop of repetition - they can't stop talking about it, and they can't really talk about anything else. I've heard a hundred times about how transportation was shut down. I've heard a hundred times that the city was in a panic, because no one knew what was happening. I've heard a hundred times that my aunt, who was home after emergency eye surgery, though she was dreaming when she first saw the tower on the news, how she later found out that the building she worked in, WTC 7, was destroyed after being hit from the debris flying off of WTC 1 and 2. I've heard a hundred times about my aunt's partner arriving home late that evening, having walked over the Brooklyn Bridge covered in ash, having witnessed people jumping to their death from the towers, choosing not to spend their last seconds huddled in a death trap, knowing their fate had been sealed.

I would do anything to be able to forget 9/11. I don't want to remember the horrors, I don't want to remember the feelings of vulnerability, I don't want to remember the sick, twisted events that took away whatever remained of my childhood, I don't want to remember the stress I still feel every day, on a subconscious level, because of those events. I just don't. Is that so bad?

Summer Adventures

Happy Labor Day! The unofficial end of summer is bittersweet; I love the fall (I was an autumn baby) and all it brings, but this summer has been amazing, so I can't help but be a little sad to see it go.

For a while now, I have had the worst case of wanderlust. I want to go everywhere and see everything; I want to explore the world. However, because of some medical issues and finances (law school is expensive), I can't really go very far from home. I'm hoping that'll change in the future, but this summer, I needed a way to sate my lust. As it turns out, local adventuring was the way to go.

Bayard Cutting Arboretum in Great River

 

Long Island, where I live, is rich in history, culture, and surprisingly affordable things to do. The surrounding area is great too; it just tends to be a lot more expensive, especially in terms of travel costs. (Parking costs in NYC can be really high, and the last time I took the train into Manhattan about six months ago, it was $16 for a round-trip ticket. That doesn't include transportation once you get into the City, admission fees, or food costs, if you spend the day.) I decided to devote my summer to finding mostly free and cheap (and local) things for my boyfriend and I to do, and I think I did pretty well. This summer, we went all over.

"Butterfly Zoo"at the Main Street Nursery in Huntington

 

Our adventures started on Memorial Day with the Jones Beach Air Show. If you've never seen an air show before, it's basically a bunch of planes doing lots of different types of stunts - flying in formation, skywriting, flying upside-down, etc. It's the type of thing you don't normally see outside of military movies. This air show had both civilian and military people in the air, but unfortunately, no one from the U.S. military this year due to spending cuts.

 

Air Show at Jones Beach

 

Over the 4th of July weekend, besides going to the beach, we went to Belmont Lake State Park for paddle-boating. It was gorgeous out on the lake, and I had a lot of fun. Paddle-boating is particularly awesome for me because it's something I can do even with my crazy joints; the way the boat is structured, it offloads the pressure on my ankles. Thankfully, the boat's also really simple to guide through the water.
 

On the water at Belmont Lake State Park in Babylon


One of my favorite trips was out for lunch on the Nautical Mile in Freeport. We went to a really dive-y place known as Jeremy's Ale House, and when I say dive-y, I mean there were bras hanging from the ceiling and everything was served on paper or styrofoam. But the food was out of this world! Like, seriously, I'm still craving the Cajun breaded fried shrimp we got; it was hands down THE best shrimp I'd ever had. The Manhattan clam chowder was phenomenal, as was the fried calamari legs starter that we got - every piece was perfectly cooked. The food was extremely reasonably priced to boot, and we're definitely going back soon.

Fried shrimp OF MY DREAMS! from Jeremy's Ale House in Freeport

I also headed off the Island into the Bronx for the day a few weeks ago, to explore the Bronx Zoo. I've been going there since I was a little girl; my aunts used to take my sister and I out there for the day. We always got home exhausted from all of the walking, but since I can no longer walk those sorts of distances, I rented a wheelchair after we arrived. We spent a lot of time at the tiger exhibit and got to see a snow leopard the zoo is borrowing from zoo in Pakistan, plus (obviously) a whole bunch of other animals. My favorite animal at the zoo didn't seem to be feeling very social that day, unfortunately. He was hiding so that you couldn't really see his face, but... I still love red pandas.

C.V. Starr Tiger Valley at the Bronx Zoo

Other places we went this summer included Robert Moses State Park (where we were surprised by a deer running across the beach at sunset), Crab Meadow Beach (for a first birthday party), Bayard Cutting Arboretum (where we saw a huge snapping turtle and baby swans), Heckscher State Park, Clark Botanical Gardens, the Hicksville Gregory Museum (which had dinosaur eggs and lots of fossils), and the Gibson-Mack-Holt House (where I crazily found my father's original newborn picture - I had no idea they got the pictures from the hospital he was born in).

On Saturday, I rounded out my summer by hitting the Labor Day Sales at a local outlet center... which just happened to be holding a free summer concert series. We decided to stay for the last concert, which featured Owl City.

Owl City performing a free Labor Day Weekend concert in Deer Park

 

All in all, it's been a fantastic summer. What did you do/where did you go this summer? Did you get to travel, either just locally or far, far away?

Exes + Social Media = Nope, Not For Me.

Earlier today, someone I'm friends with posted this article to one of their social media accounts. It's all about how members of the social media generation can keep up - and apparently frequently choose to keep up, with their exes. I know that a lot of other members of my generation do choose to do this, but I don't understand why.

Ultimately, exes are exes for a reason. I think most people, immediately after a break-up, go through a period where they can't think about cutting their ex out of their life completely. I know I sure have, in past relationships. When you care about someone, it's hard to stop overnight. But as time goes on, eventually, I would expect that the majority of people would not want to keep up with their exes - or at least not with many of them. There are certain situations where I could understand having a way to keep in touch with an ex, but I feel like those are likely to be few and far between.

For example, I currently have one person that I consider an ex friended on one of my social media accounts. We dated for a very short period of time when we were young teens, but since we were both in a special program for "advanced" students in our school, we were stuck together  - with the same group of people - from third grade through tenth, both long before and long after we were a couple. The fact that we were ever together is pretty insignificant to our history; the group of kids we were thrown together with was more like a family then anything. It's kind of uncomfortable to think about the fact that we were ever involved, because looking back, it feels vaguely incestual. Needless to say, I don't believe either of us think of our brief involvement as anything particularly noteworthy or important. We have each other friended because the program we were in created a unique kinship between everyone in it; even those of us who weren't friends or didn't like each other had to get along, and we all bore witness to the trials and tribulations of all of us growing up. We were forcibly connected to each other for almost half of our lives, and so we know each other better than almost anyone else. Even if our connections are now more tenuous, it's not so easy to just completely forget them.

All of my other exes were pretty much written out of my life as soon as I was over the relationship enough to remind myself that it was the healthiest thing to do. Why cling to a relationship with someone that it didn't work out with? Sure, at some point you cared about them, but why waste your energy and emotions continuing to do so when that clearly isn't going to get you anywhere? Why prevent yourself from moving forward by keeping yourself tied to someone? I mean, it's great if you guys had a great friendship first and/or a totally amicable break-up because you genuinely like each other but agree you definitely aren't meant to be together. But why would anyone choose to remain connected to someone who didn't want to be with them, who they didn't want to be with, who didn't treat them right, who they didn't care much about to begin with, or who didn't care much about them to begin with? What in the world is the purpose of remaining connected to someone that was just a fling or who you only casually dated for a few weeks or who had no regard for your feelings?

Do you have exes friended on social media?

The Messy Zimmerman Trial

Disclaimer: This post includes discussion of law-related topics. Although I am a law student, I am not an attorney, and I cannot give legal advice. The opinions expressed in this post are not meant as legal advice and cannot/should not be relied upon in any way. Consult a lawyer if you need legal advice or have questions about your rights.

The trial of George Zimmerman, the man who shot and killed Trayvon Martin in February 2012, is something I've watched extremely closely. As a law student entering my second year of law school this fall, justice is something I'm extremely interested in, and the Trayvon Martin case is something that caught my attention very early on. I remember being shocked when I first found out about it; I could not understand how a grown man could shoot and kill an unarmed teenager but not be arrested simply because he claimed self-defense. I was one of the people who signed the Change.org petition calling for George Zimmerman's arrest, along with over two million other individuals. I believe our justice system is in place for a reason, and when a high school kid gets shot on his way home from 7-Eleven, the justice system is supposed to step in and figure out what happened and what should be done.

I was extremely upset when the jury found George Zimmerman not guilty, but not too surprised. When the prosecution rested, I felt very uneasy. Later on, they had an excellent closing argument, but they should have done a much better job of humanizing Trayvon Martin and presenting their theory of the case. Why didn't they have witnesses that attested to Trayvon Martin's character? Why didn't they talk with his parents or brother about his hopes and dreams? Why didn't they have any witness that talked about what Trayvon's hobbies were, what he did in his spare time? The Miami Herald posted an article about a month after the killing, including quotes from several of Trayvon's friends and his family members. Apparently, Trayvon dreamed of working in aviation, spent hours on his phone and listening to music (like most teenagers), was described as a sweet, respectful, non-agressive kid by the teacher of the honors English class he had taken during his sophomore year, had a "voracious appetite," and wanted to attend college in Florida. Why wasn't any of that information presented at trial? And how had Trayvon ended up dead? The prosecution cast a lot of doubt on Zimmerman's account of the altercation and what had happened before, during, and after it, but until their closing argument, they didn't really hit home with a distinct theory of what actually happened.

The statements made by members of the jury post-trial, specifically Juror B37, reveal disturbing information about how they thought about the trial. It seems like they didn't think race had anything to do with the killing (meaning the prosecution really failed at addressing the racial aspects of the case and the idea that Trayvon was racially profiled), that they wanted to convict Zimmerman of something but couldn't under Florida's Stand Your Ground Law (which appeared in jury instructions but which the prosecution also really didn't talk about), and that they didn't really think of Trayvon as a child - a child that could ultimately have been their own (another failing of the prosecution to humanize him and make him more than a dead body).

Realistically, I believe Zimmerman should have been convicted, if not of second-degree murder, then at least of manslaughter. As a law student who has studied criminal law and related statutes, I feel like he would have been convicted in other jurisdictions where the Stand Your Ground Laws aren't on the books. As quoted in this article, Attorney General Eric Holder believes, "By allowing - and perhaps encouraging - violent situations to escalate in public, such laws [as Stand Your Ground] undermine public safety." I agree 100%. Some people seem to think that without SYG laws, they don't have the right to defend themselves. But people DO legally have the right to defend themselves, AND to use deadly force to do so in a number of situations where it's arguably necessary.

Without SYG laws on the books, an individual who isn't inside their home and who fears imminent death or great bodily harm is permitted to use force, including deadly force, if a safe means of retreat that would avoid the harm is not available. Basically, an individual has a legal duty to leave the situation if they can do so safely. In most situations where a person would feel compelled to consider deadly force, safe retreat probably isn't an option. If someone is holding a gun to your head or is choking you, chances are an affirmative defense of self-defense will be a given if you wind up killing the person.

With SYG laws on the books, a person basically doesn't have a duty to retreat, even if they could do so safely and avoid the harm. If they fear imminent death or great bodily harm, even if that and harm to the other person could be avoided by safely retreating, they're allowed to take the law into their own hands and use deadly force against the other person. The threat of imminent death or great bodily harm doesn't even need to be actual; it can just be a perceived threat.

What did you think about the way the George Zimmerman trial played out?

How Am I Supposed to Feel?

There are a bunch of posts I've been working on finishing up lately, but yesterday, things came to a screeching halt for me when I found out that an old classmate had died.

I am no stranger to death. I have lost a number of family members over the years, as well as friends, pets, and friends of friends. Death has had an enormous impact on how I view life and on how I choose to live it. And while death can be devastating to the ones left behind, it's also something that, for me personally, isn't nearly as scary as it used to be. I think about being born - I have no memory of it, but how traumatizing must it have been? How could I have understood what was happening or where I was going? How could I have had any concept of what living was? Dying is something I've come to view as the natural partner to birth, if you will: everyone who is born must also someday die. In the same way that no one knows what comes after death before they have died (though they may have beliefs about it), no one knew what came after birth before they were born. But being born seemed to work out okay, didn't it?

Learning about my classmate's death has left me confused and wondering how I'm supposed to feel. This guy was in my 7th and 8th grade homeroom. I remember other people talking to him or about it. I know he was very close to another person who was one of the few people who was actually nice to me in high school. (I hated high school. One of the happiest days of my life was the day I graduated. I have a million-watt smile in all of the pictures people took that day, let me tell ya.) He had parents that loved him, a brother, a girlfriend, friends, and extended family. He didn't influence my life until he died, but he influenced a lot of others.

How am I supposed to feel about that? He wasn't my friend. He was barely even an acquaintance. But he was close to some of the people I care about, who are now grieving. I can't really be sad; I hardly remembered him. At the same time, I can't be totally unfeeling: I did know him at some point, he was young, his death was a horrible accident, and he was cared about by people I cared about. How am I supposed to feel?

Have you ever found yourself in a similar situation? How did you feel?

State of the Woman, Part II: Freedom to Choose Our Futures

  As a girl growing up in the 21st century, I grew up in a very different world from my older female relatives. I was raised in the era of girl power, where opportunities for women were cropping up everywhere, and people had really begun to realize that women could do a lot of good in the world without devoting themselves to being mothers and wives. My peers and I were encouraged to dream big and make it happen, to not let our sex ever hold us back. We were taught, generally, to value ourselves as women, to know that we were wonderful and powerful all on our own. No man should ever make or break us, and we should never have to depend on a man. We could make our own way in the world and our own choices. Gone were the days when a woman's only real option in the eyes of society was to get married and have a family. We women could now do whatever we wanted.

Or at least, that's what we were told.

In recent years, I've come to question how much freedom modern American women actually have to choose their own path. I would like to think we've come a long way from our grandparents' generation, where women usually married early and then had children, entering domestic life instead of building a career. The women who came before today's generation worked hard to ensure that building our lives around a husband and children wasn't our only option. In doing so, did they really win the fight for women's autonomy, for our freedom to choose what we do? Or did society just change what it expected from us, without giving us any more real options?

I find myself more and more inclined to believe the latter - that women now having the right to choose what their lives will be like is mostly a bunch of BS. Maybe I'm just naive, but at twenty-three, I don't feel like I have real options. I feel like my peers and I must obtain at least a college degree or technical training. Sure, we can technically still choose to get marry young and have children while doing all of this, but how many of us actually feel like that's a viable option? How many of us are actually comfortable attempting to maintain a marriage and a family at the age our grandparents were able to? As women today, it feels like we have so much more to do before we can "settle down," and the definition of settling down has changed. Settling down used to mean our family became our sole focus, with very few distractions or other things, like a career, to focus on. Women devoted themselves to their husbands and children. Now, settling down is more about committing - to a person, a career, and a more moderate, responsible lifestyle. We're expected to keep a steady head while doing it all: maintaining a marriage, raising kids, and managing a career.

As a society, we have gone from nearly forcing women to sit tight as full-time housewives to nearly forcing women to divide their time and energy between work and family life. Without one or the other, women are so often objects of scorn and ridicule. If a woman wants to be a full-time mother and wife, at the expense of her career, others accuse her of setting women's rights back, because she isn't taking advantage of everything her fellow females fought for over generations. Many will judge her as weak. If a woman wants to focus solely on her career and doesn't care to be a wife or a mother, people will judge her as frigid and odd.

It seems like since America now allows women to be mothers and wives in addition to having a career, American women must do it all, and they are judged harshly by many if they do not. Is that really freedom to choose?

State of the Woman, Introduction & Part I: Why I Won't Call Myself a Feminist

This blog entry will be the first in a series I plan on posting focused on the state of women in America today. New entries in the series will be posted weekly for at least the next four weeks, in addition to posts outside the series. As a general warning, topics posted will reflect my own opinions and mine alone, which may be controversial. You are absolutely free to disagree and post your own opinions and feelings in the comments or elsewhere - and I encourage you to do so - but please keep your language free of bashing/hate speech. Comments that contain hateful language and/or personal attacks will be deleted.


When someone asks me, "Are you a feminist?" it's difficult for me to say, "No," as calmly as I should. I do believe in gender equality, and I think that whether you are female, male, or otherwise, you should have the same amount of autonomy as everyone else. But the words feminist and feminism get my blood boiling. Why do I loathe them so much?

Because I do not think the words themselves promote gender equality.

I am all for the empowerment of all people and for gender equality. I don't like the idea of us as Americans living in the world of George Orwell's Animal Farm, where "all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." I feel like the words feminist and feminism, being so close to  the word female, send the wrong message. They imply that feminism is about female empowerment, not gender equality. To me, the two are no longer one and the same.

I know the definition of the term has changed over time. Technically, according to Merriam-Webster Online, one of the two current definitions for the word feminism is "the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes." However, the second definition is "organized activity on behalf of women's rights and interests." To me, those definitions are at odds with each other. Today, working for women's rights is not necessarily the same thing as working for gender equality. In a lot of situations it is, but there are a number of situations in which it isn't, meaning that women's rights ≠ gender equality. The two concepts aren't mutually exclusive, but they also can't be accurately substituted for each other in every situation.

Consider the hypothetical situation in which a city opens shelters for female domestic violence victims. Since the majority of domestic violence is perpetrated against females, this makes perfect sense, and women should have a place to go in order to escape being abused and get help safely exiting such a situation. No woman deserves to suffer at the hands of an abuser or be trapped with one. No one does. So, what do you do when a man is in need of the same services?

I realize that many people may scoff at that image - after all, male domestic violence victims are widely considered to be in the minority. That's great, but that doesn't mean they don't exist or that they have any less of a need for help. Since many shelters for battered women are for women only (for obvious reasons), how can you make sure people that are not female have the same right to help? How do you even define equal rights in this situation? Does each gender have equal rights if they have facilities in proportion with the predicted number of people of that gender who need them, or does the number and quality of facilities need to be equal? Is there gender equality if a man needs to travel further than a woman to obtain the same services?

In this hypothetical, whether you believe in women's rights or equal rights for all genders can matter quite a bit. Those who are primarily concerned with women's rights will applaud the decision, as these types of shelters are obviously clearly needed in many areas. Those who are truly concerned with gender equality will be uneasy. Sure, it's great that these resources are available to females, but what about the males in need of the same services? What about people that are transgendered? Even if more females need these services than anyone else, can there honestly be said to be equal rights among genders in this type of a situation? I don't think so.

Though many people who believe in gender equality will call themselves feminists, it's not a term I will ever be comfortable using to describe myself, because so many people associate it only with female empowerment. Every group, whether historically marginalized and disenfranchised or not, should be able to have the same rights to life, liberty, and happiness. Traditionally, that's what female empowerment was all about, allowing women to have the same rights as men. Today, in many ways, men and women are not equal - but women are not the only ones suffering because of it. That's why, in good conscience, I cannot identify as a feminist. Regardless of gender, all humans are should be equal, and some humans should not be more equal than others.