I often consider myself a strong woman who would never stand for injustice and indecency, and some people have this strange impression of me, too. I am cool as a cucumber; nothing fazes me. I have all of these ideas about changing the world and putting a stop to rape culture, and I get excited by all of the wonderful possibilities.

And then, every once in a while I get reminded that I'm not as grown-up as I think I am. In some ways, I'm still that stupid, naive little girl I was nine years ago. I still find myself opting for the easy way out instead of the "right" way, and I stupidly turn a blind eye to things rather than address them. It seems I'd rather curl up in a ball and close my eyes instead of tell someone that they are a dick and that what they are doing is wrong.

I don't like being that girl, and maybe that's why I've disillusioned myself to think that I'm not (HAH!). I forget all of the advice I tell other people, and I let important points slip my mind.

If you are unhappy with who you are, change. Be the person you want to become. Quit naming all of the things you would like to do and just start bloody doing them. And stop letting yourself forget.

So, anyway, today is the day I start striving towards being more brave and independent and compassionate and just an overall awesome person. :)

Give me a smack across the head if I start going in the opposite direction.

"We teach females that in relationships, compromise is what women do. We raise girls to see each other as competitors, not for jobs or for accomplishments — which I think can be a good thing — but for the attention of men. We teach girls that they cannot be sexual beings in the way that boys are. If we have sons, we don’t mind knowing about our sons’ girlfriends, but our daughters boyfriends? ‘God forbid!’ But of course when the time is right, we expect those girls to bring back the perfect man to be their husband. We police girls, we praise girls for virginity, but we don’t praise boys for virginity. And it’s always made me wonder how exactly this is supposed to work out because *laughs* the loss of virginity is usually a process that involves *laughs*… We teach girls shame. ‘Close your legs!’ ‘Cover yourself!’ We make them feel as though by being born female, they are already guilty of something. And so, girls grow up to be women who cannot say they have desire. They grow up to be women who silence themselves. They grow up to be women who cannot say what they truly think. And they grow up — and this is the worst thing we do to girls — they grow up to be women who have turned pretense into an artform." - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie