TSWRA & slightly more fluffy controversy

TSWRA stands for "The South Will Rise Again," something that is said (not chanted, as a chant is defined by repetition) at the end of "Dixie, With Love" when it is played at Ole Miss football games. There has been quite a bit of controversy over the phrase, opponents stating that it is a throwback from a racist past; supporters of the phrase claim that it means something different now, that it represents all that the South could be--they claim it's been redefined as a battle cry for progress.
Which group better defines TSWRA is not important; what is important is the University's official stance on the issue: any student caught "chanting" (I've already went over why it's not a chant) this phrase will be punished. What "punishment" is exactly has not been specified: it could be something as simply unpleasant as being escorted from Vault-Hemingway Stadium or it could be as severe as a fine (the bane of every student's existence) or even expulsion. The chancellor has reserved the right to dish out any of these punishments by not saying how students will be disciplined for their participation in saying TSWRA. This is a problem.
Another problem is the restriction of free speech inherent in this sort of stance. Racist or not, progressive or not, shouting out, "THE SOUTH WILL RISE AGAIN!" is every student's right as defined by the Constitution. The bleeding hearts will tell you to have compassion on those who used to be oppressed under the phrase; I say that if men can constitutionally speak out on abortion (something that is supposed to be a woman's right), I should be able to voice my opinion concerning my own right to shout whatever I want at a football game. This phrase has been screamed out in Vault for 7 years & only now that we have a new chancellor is it being brought up. And people thought our former chancellor was being unreasonable with the taking away of Colonel Reb. Yeah, that was pretty stupid, too, but at least it was within his right. Colonel Reb was a school emblem, therefore, he could do whatever he [the chancellor] wanted to with the mascot. TSWRA is not an official school anything; it was started by the students in 2002. This means that the university should have no control over it.
The most valid reason I have heard over banning TSWRA is that we will lose funding, but even this is a weak arguement. It would be like calling for the disbandment of CAN because a pro-war financier of the university was offended by its activities on campus. It's bogus. If someone is anti-Constitution (which you are if you agree with the unreasonable restriction of freedom of speech), then I don't want your money anyway. I'd rather pay more tuition (especially, admittedly, since I don't pay my tuition--ironically, the government does) than have my rights restricted because some people think it's wrong to not hide "the bad South," as TSWRA has quickly become associated with, in a closet & pretending it didn't happen. I'm not racist, I just don't believe that the freedom of speech should be restricted because someone finds it offensive.
Now that I've gotten that bit out of my system, I'm onto slightly less dire sources of controversy, such as the ending to Breaking Dawn. Many people believe that the ending would've been better served with a death; I disagree with every fiber of my being. I'm not normally an HEA kind of girl, but I felt this was the most appropriate ending to the series. Someone on a discussion board actually suggested that Renesmee should've never been born (which is pretty common, even though I think it's rather bogus) and that Bella & Edward should've sacrificed themselves for their family. WHAT?! That's like letting the bad guys win. Even if Edward & Bella's family defeated the villians or the sacrifices they made directly caused the villians' downfall, it still wouldn't have felt like victory to me. "Well, it's the last book, might as well kill everyone," is J.K. Rowling's style, not Stephenie Meyer's. If Bella & Edward would've died, I would've taken my copy of Breaking Dawn back to the store & demanded that they let me exchange it for something a little less lame and sold my copies of the other books on Amazon. I wouldn't have ever been able to see the Twilight Saga the same way again.
I feel terrible for not updating in weeks like I haven't, but I promise, I will start updating more often. Life just keeps getting in the way of my blog updates--ugh, stupid responsibilities.

Official Fanfic Author

That is what I am--an official fanfiction author. I've wrote the first chapters of 2 fanfics & posted a second chapter of one of the two. The New Moon fic I blogged about earler is called Alpha Girl and has the first chapter up--it's rated T for coarse language and violence; my other fanfic is a slashfic called Lovers and Friends--it's rated M for language and sex. Alpha Girl is a Romance/Angst fic & Lovers and Friends is a Romance/Drama fic. I'm pretty proud of both of them. I have a playlist for Alpha Girl--I'm considering posting the song list to my FF.Net profile.

Sometimes I despise my literary nature

I have a very literary heart--I love to read, but I also enjoy writing. For the longest time it has been original short stories that I only let small numbers of people read; lately though, I have begun writing a novel that I plan to submit for publishing. That's put on the backburner though because I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to get where I want to go with the story.Now I'm thinking of writing a New Moon fanfiction (the idea of re-interpreting any Twilight book is actually scarier than thoughts of the publishing process). I'm thinking of writing New Moon from Emily's POV. I've thought alot about alternative POVs because recently we read Supplement to the Voyage of Bougainville in English 222 (Lit. before 1650) and just now I read this character analysis on Leah & Emily (which I plan on bookmarking). It talked about how the second-in-command in a wolf pack is the Alpha's mate (the Alpha Female), which would make Emily an incredibly powerful woman. Then I started thinking, "What would the events of New Moon look like to [Emily as] the second-in-command of the werewolf pack? Would it conflict with how she felt about them privately?" and that's where I got the idea for the fanfic. I also plan to explore Emily's feelings about her imprint with Sam and her possible guilt over how it affected Leah.
Well, I have to start writing now--when I get an idea in my head, I can't rest until I put it into action (hence why it sometimes sucks to have such a literary soul). I will post the link to the story as soon as I have the first chapter written & on a fanfic site (assuming I don't just write it on LivJournal for the sake of simplicity).

Sorry for the Sporadic Posts

Ugh, I am getting so lazy with this blog, but I promise I'm going to try to do better. Anyway, tomorrow's my 20th birthday & I'm psyched. My roommate made me a Twilight-themed birthday cake. Here are some pictures of the cake:

front view

right view

left view

top view

rear view

Pretty sweet cake, huh? The figurines are Edward, Bella, Jacob, & Renesmee; then there's the apple from the Twilight cover & the chess pieces and board from the Breaking Dawn cover; the grass is from the meadow; and the stuff around the cake represents First Beach (roomie is a wolf girl after all--gotta put some Rez in there somewhere).

I've had some romantic trouble recently, but I'm over that now--never make someone a priority that considers you an option.

I think I'm going to help my mom get a Facebook--I know I said I don't think parents who have teens on FB should be on Facebook, but mom won't use hers to spy on me (and after tomorrow I won't be a teen anymore anyway--haha). I still think there are some rules of ettiquette if you are the parent of a FB user who wants to get a Facebook; they are as follows:

1. Don't use it to spy on your kid; Facebook was created for social networking, not parental snooping
2. Don't post anything embarassing on your kid's Wall or any humiliating photos in your albums
3. Be careful when adding your kid's friends--it's better they come to you, especially if you've only met them recently

These are just some basics rules to follow--anything else is on a case-to-case basis between you and your kid.

I got the Us Weekly's special New Moon issue; I split the posters with my roomie because 1)I wanted to show her that I appreciated the effort it took to make that cake 2) I have no idea where I would put 7 posters--4 is much more manageable.

AngstGoddess003 wrote a one-shot to tide over her readers while she slaves over the Wide Awake epilogue--it's called Great Vexations. It's a slashfic, which I thought I would never like, but I do how she wrote it. It is SO GOOD! Go read it--now.

P.S.: For any of you on Twitter, you can follow my random ramblings here.

Catching Up

Sorry I haven't posted in so long--I didn't have much in the way of an Internet connection this summer. Anyway, I have a new apartment and constant Internet access is mine once again--yays! So, my bff had a baby boy--he's so cute and sweet! When you tell him that you love him, he tries to say it back. Also, I went to see Wicked at the Orpheum--so good! It followed the storline of the book pretty well, while at the same time showing some creative license that mixed really well. I also went to the Brooks Art Museum and the Memphis Zoo the same week. I got some awesome Andy Warhol magnets while I was there--they were $10 for 4 of them which is sort of steep, but I <3 Andy Warhol.
Also, I went to see my grandparents in July. It was nice, but I always feel like they refuse to see how much I've grown up, especially my grandfather. It's nice to be back where people look at me as an adult.
I bought this book in the campus bookstore called, You're Being Lied To by Russ Kick. He writes a few things in there, but it's mostly compiled by him--he asked alot of people from alot of different backgrounds. They're aren't alot of conservative opinions in there because Rush Limbough told them not to do it they didn't have anything to say. It doesn't have all the answers, but it does show how the "answers" we have now are wrong.
I joined the Campus Anti-War Network. No, that does not mean that I am anti-military--in fact, one of our goals is for all of those who served in the armed forces to get full physical and mental health benefits and educational funds, regardless of discharge status. We even have a guy who served in Iraq in our group and no one treats him badly or indifferently because he was in the military. The reason I joined CAN is because I don't believe we should be in Iraq, and we're actually in Afganistan for all the wrong reasons. We went over there to look for Osama bin Laden and his Al-Queda operatives and we're not even actually focused on that anymore. I also don't believe we should get involved in the civil wars of other nations or use the military to supposedly spread democracy. That's what being in CAN is about.