The simplest things can be some of the most perplexing things to understand. At least that is the way I feel.

Last night, I saw one of my favorite artists, Polo G, perform at a concert. It was something that I had been waiting for months to go to and experience. While I was standing there, I realized how truly great humans are.

Not only did the man performing less than 20 yards away from me make music that people loved enough to spend money on a ticket to see him rap; he came up with this music out of his personal experiences. His wrong doings. His mistakes. His greatest moments. His worst moments. 

He created something universal that all types of people can relate to.

However, the most important take away to me to be where your feet are. Often times a cliché and overused statement, but something that holds so much truth and validity.

I could feel the base in my body. I could hear him and thousands around me sing the songs I love most. I could feel the thousands of people around me. 

While something as small as attending a concert may not require any afterthought, it can also highlight what the human body, and mind, is truly capable of.  

We should learn to appreciate the finer things. (Also one of my favorite songs by Polo G)

One of my favorite video games to play is called Valorant. Valorant is a multiplayer first person shooter (FPS) released in June 2020. It’s already become very popular for all ages. Sometimes when I play a game some of my teammates are in middle school, while others are in college or older. While there is a large age range, Valorant definitely has more male players than female players. And while I enjoy the game a lot, as a woman, it can be very toxic. Many of the male players play very competitively and have this general idea that women who play video games are naturally bad. Because of this they make it their goal to make any girl playing feel like absolute shit. 

I started playing Valorant during quarantine after seeing some of my favorite streamers play. It seemed like a fun game to play with friends, and it was not like your typical FPS where you are shooting people down in a war torn city. There are different characters, called agents, you can play that have special abilities and generally the game is very aesthetically pleasing. Prior to Valorant the only games I would play were Animal Crossing, Pokemon, Mario, Stardew Valley etc. These games are all very peaceful and not competitive at all. So when I first started playing Valorant I was awful. I was not familiar with the maps, the different agents, their powers and I had never played a FPS before. I also had no idea how toxic the Valorant community can be. My first time experiencing a few toxic players was very early on. I was placed with four other random teammates and we were losing by a lot. I was already not good at the game and I was missing almost every shot and dying early on in each round. Then I made the mistake of making a callout of where an enemy was on voice chat. As soon as my other teammates heard I was a girl, the taunts and harassment began. The first guy said “You’re a girl? So that’s why we’re losing.” Another teammate turned on their voice chat and said “Shouldn’t you be in the kitchen right now?” Every time that I made a mistake or died, one of them would make a comment taunting me. When we lost the game, they cussed me out one last time. I remember after that game I turned off my PC, took off my headphones, and cried. It already sucks when you’re playing badly, but when there are other people constantly saying awful things it makes it so much worse and tears you down mentally. And incidents like these have happened multiple times to me. Now I never use voice chat unless I know I am doing really well and I am confident the people I am playing with are not assholes. It sucks because communicating with your teammates during the game is very important and helps a lot. Instead, I have to quickly type out different callouts in the text chat. I also had to change my username from my name to something more “gender neutral.” 

I have seen a lot of video clips of women having similar experiences and feeling the exact same way. Valorant has a report system, and almost every time I have reported a teammate for bullying they have been penalized… but the punishment is only temporary and it does not help the overall problem. Despite all of the toxicity I have had to deal with, I still enjoy playing Valorant a lot. Instead of playing with random people, I have a few friends who will get on a discord call with me and we play together. I have so much more fun playing this way, especially because all of my friends play the game to actually have fun. A lot of Valorant players take the game so seriously, and it just sucks the fun out of it. I have noticed a lot more girls playing Valorant which is really exciting. I hope one day this ridiculous idea that women are bad at video games goes away. So many times my girl friends and I will outperform the men that are playing. And honestly it feels so good humbling them, maybe the next time they play with a girl they’ll shut the fuck up. 🙂

Before coming to this class I had some experience with terrible accessibility. One of my best friends in high school had Multiple Sclerosis and was in a wheelchair. No one at school ever treated her differently and she was an amazing friend. But our school had terrible accessibility. We had one big elevator that she would use. That thing looked like it was 100 years old. It would squeak and the lights would flicker. Half the time it would be down and wouldn’t work. It would have so many techinal difficulties thorughout the school year. Our school had 3 levels which meant some classes were on different floors. Everyone would have to take the stairs between each class, but for my friend she would have to take the elevator which would barely work. She would have to miss classes and stay in homeroom which is totally messed up on the school’s part. It is a necessity to have accessibility that actually works and is not old as dirt. When I came to UMBC I was thinking accessibility would be better since it’s not an old high school in Delaware, but to my surprise this campus is so many stairs. My friend would not have an easy time navigating UMBC which is so sad to me everyone deserves a chance to experience college like everyone else. Colleges and all schools should prioritize accessibility and make it modern and up to date. There is no excuse for faulty elevators or anything like that. There needs to be accessible for everyone. Not one single person deserves to do something if someone else cannot. It is unfair and wrong. I personally do need accessibility, but many people do and it’s not fair for universities and public schools to overlook such a huge issue that needs to be fixed. This is a problem that needs to be fixed so we can be inclusive to everyone and let everyone have a chance to what they want.

Burnout is a common experience that many college students undergo with the fluctuations in stress-levels in school. According to Merriam-Webster, burnout can be defined as “exhaustion of physical or emotional strength or motivation usually as a result of prolonged stress or frustration”. In simpler terms, burnout is feeling an extreme amount of stress after working so hard, whether it’s physical or mental. According to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, there is a “rising prevalence of burnout among clinicians” which can not only threaten the safety of their patients but also lead to impaired functions in physicians, leading to a deteriorating mental health. 

As a pre-med student, this is a common term that I’ve consistently heard and experienced. We work ourselves to the point of physical and mental exhaustion for the sake of a career that still results in the same outcome. But there are ways to combat burnout, one of the main ones being to take time off from working and occupy yourself with a more relaxing activity. This can be particularly difficult for someone in the healthcare field, who rarely gets time off or someone in medical school whose future depends on their performance in academics. I think the main premise I want to get across is how important it is to have mental health resources for students but also physicians, who are responsible for people’s livelihoods. There are so many measures that medical schools can take to promote mental health such as changes in the curriculum, helping to limit student loan debt, promote a positive learning environment instead of a cutthroat one, provide more services for people experiencing burnout without stigma. While our careers may be the most important goals we have at this time, our health is just as important if not more. Especially as a physician, who is responsible for the wellbeing of hundreds of patients, they should be receiving the best treatment and prevention for burnout and mental illnesses.

Citations:

“Dictionary by Merriam-Webster: America’s Most-Trusted Online Dictionary.” Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/. 

Grose, Jessica. “How to Avoid Burnout When You Have Little Ones.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 15 Apr. 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/article/parental-burnout-guide.html. 

Helen Murrin was in her early 60’s when a stranger snapped this photo without her permission. Murrin was relaxing on the beach with her husband when he asked to take a picture of her. Posing for her husband, she says she was trying to “look good” for him. Unbeknownst to them, a photographer was lurking from a distance with a long-range camera lens. This photo quickly went viral. Inspiring women of a certain age everywhere to post bikini photos. Murrin however stated she never felt comfortable in her body until she got older.

More recently actress Justin Bateman has faced online ridicule for the way she is aging. The comments have been brutal. She had admitted to making the mistake of googling herself

Bad move. Bad move.

However, Bateman has come to the conclusion. She no longer gives a damn what people think f her aging face. And has written a book about it.

If you don’t know by now, we all will change if we are lucky to live long enough.

Unrealistic images of physical beauty affect even us girls of a certain age. I know it affects me more now than it did when I was younger. How many times did I check my image before I went into my first virtual class? I aint even lying. 

 I look at Jennifer Lopez or Janet Jackson and others and think, “damn why don’t I….

No, I don’t.

 Instead, I think, “Damn I wish I had the money to afford a personal chef and personal trainer like they do.”  

They ARE beauties but even they don’t look like Jennifer Lopez and Janet Jackson when they wake up. And that’s ok. Now that’s not to say they don’t wake up beautiful. We all do.  But unfortunately for us older gals the pressure to look a certain way can be overwhelming especially when you are expected to remain forever young. I listen as I hear female friends fall into the trap.

“ Im 62 but people tell me I look 45 all the time.” My thoughts, “girl stop.” But I don’t say that. But I was thinkin  it.

“Can u guess who’s the mother and who’s the daughter.” 

Me with my RBF, “Why?” But I don’t say that. But I was thinkin it.

Or 

50 is the new 30. 

BULLSHIT!

50 is just…50! And it’s fabulous no matter how many wrinkles you have. How many stretch marks you have or dont have and regardless of your weight. The Fabulousness of 50 is how you live your life…full.

My personal favorite. (side-eye)

When 20 somethings make comments about another woman’s age or looks. We girls of a certain age are jealous of their youth.

No BITCH!Been there. Done it. Good luck with your next 300 periods, 3 roommates, and high-ass car insurance.

YES, It would do us well as a society if we stopped commenting on changing physical appearances.

Stop placing unrealistic expectations on what we should all look like.

Accept that beauty is all shapes, sizes, genders, and ageless. 

WE ALL change. And change isn’t necessarily bad.

Hey, my ass is wayyy bigger than it use to be. My thighs ughhh and my quarantine 15 quickly became a quarantine 25, but who’s counting right. 

But after 5 babies I can say with a smile on my face, I still have some nice boobs!

I used to love my hometown. I loved everything about it as a child! My neighborhood was so children centered.. always doing things for the kids. It wasn’t until I got older and started really paying attention that I realized where I live is kind of a messed up place..

One thing in particular that really needs to change is the stress that is put on children/teens. From the time these children are 4 years old they’re expected to be the best at sports, the smartest in preschool and all around be the most successful. Yup.. the most successful at 4 years old. I never really saw it like this when I was young because my parents wouldn’t dream of raising me this way. Long story short- there is truly a suicide epidemic in my hometown. I could name 10 people I have personally known that have committed suicide in the last 8 years, from my high school alone. The parents around here don’t care, the schools don’t care. A 16 year old took her life around 8 months ago. And someone had the nerve to say, “just get on medicine, how are you that sad?” 

WHAT????

Where are people supposed to turn? If you aren’t apart of a picture perfect family around here then you might as well not exist. The pressure and stress put on kids, especially high schoolers is like nothing I’ve seen. High school isn’t supposed to be like that!!!!! No one is there for you, not even your parents. It’s all a competition to these people, and it’s so so sad to see now that I’m older. 

I work with the absolute sweetest girl, we’ll call her K. She breaks my heart everyday because high school has destroyed her mental health. All her parents care about is her getting into a prestigious college like her sisters. They don’t listen to her cries for help and it’s honestly one of the most horrible things I’ve ever seen. This is just one of wayyyy too many examples that happen everyday. I wish I could hug every single person in high school, because I know I needed it. 

This post was hectic! It’s just something that hurts my heart and I’m sure others can relate. 

Prior to reading the chapter readings and completing the assignments about accessibility, it was never something that crossed my mind very often. I mean with a mom with Multiple Sclerosis who will end up in a wheel chair some day, I told myself it’s probably something I should educate myself in. This biggest takeaway I have from these readings and also the further research I did is that accessibility is never a problem until it’s happening to you. Sure I can say that as an individual who can walk without assistance, not have to worry about money, and am not held back in society in any way that I believe we need to change. But as many of you reading this probably think, oh she’s just saying that to fit 300 words in for this blog post but the point is that, that isn’t the truth.

This topic is something has began to become a pretty sensitive topic for me. It took me a good while to try and understand the severity of accessibility and its limitations, but I found a way and it’s opened my eyes to a whole new way of thinking.

Growing up my mom and I always were shopping. It could be the middle of a blizzard and we were up and out early on Saturdays to go shop our whole entire day away. My moms absolute favorite place to shop is a strip of boutiques in a little town in North Carolina. I know this might seem like I am getting off track, which I very likely may be because finals are coming and I am stressed, but this story comes full circle. This little boutique strip is on the top of a huge hill and looking back now, it has no other way of getting to the top other than walking up a huge set of stairs.

The idea that one day when my moms MS gets to later stages she may not be able to go shop at her favorite shopping place because she will be in a wheelchair, breaks my heart. I know this is something that may seem so small compared to other accessibility issues, but this is what opens my eyes and makes me realize how many individuals lives are affected because of accessibility issues.

Throughout this class I have learned and been exposed to so many new topics and problems in society that it is crazy. I originally took this class for credits and honestly did not believe I was going to enjoy it in any way shape or form. I am very glad I was wrong because accessibility is just a small sliver of what we covered and I could type for hours about the countless information I have retained from this class.

I can safely say I feel a lot less ignorant to our society after taking this course and have been completely convinced to start doing everything I can, even though it may be very small, to make changes because for me some of these topics become very personal.

Over the course of the semester I’ve gained several new viewpoints. This class has really given me valuable information, that as 21 years old it’s sad I didn’t know about. Why don’t we learn about invisible disabilities in high school? Why didn’t we learn about Crip Camp in history? To me that seems like a major historical event…. The history of women regarding their bodies, labor, reproduction, was never talked about.

There are so many topics touched on in this class that should have been taught in middle/high school. When I tell people (who have never been in one) that I am in a gender studies class they assume it’s easy. Or that it’s just a filler elective and they don’t really understand what we cover. This class and these topics are things everyone should know about. The fact that some of these topics are brand new is depressing.

I feel like this class has given me a better idea of what people go through. It only reiterates the idea that you never know what it’s like to be in someone else’s shoes. Also, the importance of awareness, open-mindedness, and kindness. We’re all from different backgrounds and taught different things and that’s ok. We just have to be willing to listen to each other and learn so we can do better.