MY COMING OUT STORY | LGBTQ+ Talks

Okay, this is going to be a dense subject post; I'm just going to start off by saying that. 

TRIGGER WARNING!! 

I do discuss suicide, eating disorder, and several other subjects that you may not be comfortable reading. I want to provide a safe space to you all, but I don't want to leave anything unsaid or sugarcoat anything because this is my reality as a transgender woman and my story as a human being. But first, in order to establish a well-grounded safe space, I need you to trust me, know who I am, what I've gone through, what I am all about and hopefully you can relate, but hopefully you may never have to see anyone go through anything like I have or experience any of this yourself. I will acknowledge that I have faired in better conditions than most trans-women and trans people in general and I am fortunate for not only that but also the fact that I have survived and that I pass, while many of my trans fellows may not. 

Additionally, I have never come out, but I also come out almost on a daily basis to strangers that I meet around campus. Though I did not feel that it was necessary to reveal to my family about my transgender identity and hopefully the future generations will follow. I mean, most people don't have to come out as cisgender or straight, so I feel I didn't have to reveal that I'm transgender.

Well, here we go. 

5 Reasons Why I Continue Blogging

Hello fellow Nurds,

So I was thinking about it only en route to my summer classes: Why do I still blog if seemingly no one is listening? And a lot of ideas, which could only be condensed into five solid ideas, swarmed into my head, before I nearly drifted to sleep a few minutes away from campus (obviously).

1) Blogging opens my horizons

Through this blog, I am able to explore my music, art form, poetry, and other areas of creativity in ways I wouldn't otherwise experience. This blog gives me an excuse to explore other outlets that inspire me 

avoid reality in a way. By posting weekly (and with that said, a deadline), I'm keeping this blog grounded and open-minded. With my outlets, namely Youtube (and the various channels it has to offer), of course of world of literature, inspiring women out there (especially women of color)m, and now Tumblr (if you haven't heard from last week's post, I created a Tumblr, so check out that post here and my Tumblr page here).

2) Therapy

Blogging just exposes a part of me that I cannot share to even the closest people in my life. That's not to say that I'm going to be ranting about peeps in my personal life. I want to discuss real content--events and phenomena that are actually happening in the world as well as any personal experiences that I could possibly offer from being multiethnic, transgender, and a multipotentialite.

I hope that the next nurd who stops by can get a sense of what this blog is all about (or rather what it will be about), you know, before they decide to never come back. Haha the point is, I hope this blog has some inch of influence, whether it be something learned, something thought upon, or something, reflected in some way. With that said, if someone stumbles on this site and I happen to help said someone who's struggling with the same issues or overcoming something I previously went through, then I'm glad this said helped them in whatever way it could. 

3) The opportunity for improvement

Even while on hiatus, I've been improving my blog mentally. The time away gave me an opportunity to rediscover and redirect the focus of my blog. I have been introduced and even reintroduced to outlets that support my focus on social activism and what I feel should be discussed in this light. I'm still fine that no one may be listening, but I hope to expand and I think optimism will get me there! There was an opportunity for change and I'm taking it. I look back at old blog posts and so many mistakes I've made, that I now know what direction I want to go in (even though I'm damn well sure I'm going to continue making mistakes). Oh well. It's all a learning process, right?

4) I have bigger and better plans

Yes, peeps. Although this blog may not seem like much more than me ranting or expressing my thoughts via one-ended discussions, I still do have plans to expand this blog to be what I've always envisioned it to be, but lost touch visualizing. As you may know, I was on a huge hiatus and even though I wasn't blogging, I was still thinking and planning. I found a direction. Not much will be said about these plans, but keep your eyes open. Currently, I'm attempting to code animals to adorn this blog, and more specifically, endangered species to raise awareness to these species that isn't publicized. So instead of me being a plain panda bear, I'll be a red panda bear!! YaY :D

On a side note, I'm doing a UCLA - College Talk series here come late August, so look out for that!

5) I WANT TO!  

Does this really need an explanation? This is my decision and my blog and what I say goes. So I'm glad I have the authority to make decisions for this blog that I can't make in my life. As someone who's been so limited, growing up as a lower-middle class citizen, it's just assuring to know that I am in control to some degree. 

What ideas do you peeps have for me? Anything you want to see on this blog? Just let me know in the comments below! :)

SO I CREATED A TUMBLR!!

Hey Nurds!!

I had a blog post created for the day, but it wasn't quite finished and there would need to be some time to finish it, so I thought I might want to create a relatively short post this week, which should be a relief to all of you because I can write and type--A LOT!! With that said, I have finals and I'll just publish that post next week, after my finals end.

In other news, I'll be coding a unicorn by which I hail unilords. Yes, I did say unilords and I worship them pretty hard. There actually a huge part of the animal dynamic of this blog. In fact, I'm think about making this blog more animal-oriented and create a page with several animals and their whole purpose on the blog.

As you may know, pandas are pretty huge on here, but I'll be switching the whole panda theme to a red panda theme (in which I will code more red pandas, so look out for those pretty soon), because red pandas are endangered and I think it's important to raise awareness to red pandas while I have a voice and degree of influence online, despite my affection for these furry creatures!

Am I not cute anymore?

Getting right into the actual purpose of this post, I STARTED A TUMBLR!! Y'all can check it out here and don't worry, I've linked all of my blog posts from here to there so you can check me out on this platform or Tumblr with little difficulty. The format is not as up to par as I would have hoped, but it was a bit of a hassle getting all of that content on there in the first place, so I'm pretty content and knd of impressed that I actually did it. In any case, you have all of that Funky Nurd glory on yet another platform so enjoy!

With constant love,

Joss Glenn

P.S. If you're not appreciating the whole black-and-white panda to red panda thing, hopefully these pictures will convince you that the change won't be too much of a dilemma.

Aren't I cute?

I'm adorable and trust me, I know it.

LOVE ME!!!

Followers!

I'm going to be completely honest, virtually nobody is reading this, and yeah, I'm pretty sure of that! In case someone out there is actually reading this, I'm Joss.

Now that we have been officially acquainted, I wanted to add that although it is amazing to know that someone not limited to your select group of friends is listening to you (cuz trust me, that seems spectacular) it doesn't matter who or how many people are following you. I totally get it, so-and-so has 11,018 followers and that just seems so perfectly extreme, right, to know that so-and-so is so popular? I'm the type of person to deny being popular. But yeah, I had a followers thingy for people to follow this blog and was ashamed to find that only 6 people or less were listening to what I had to say. I had been longing for a "bigger crowd", not just 6 people! You can laugh now. I am, right now!

*HaHaHaH...(choke)*

I just considered like less than an hour ago that the number of followers should absolutely not make me feel shameful or lousy, that's just Mr. Negative hoping to ruin me! One person, none, or a hundred are fine with me, seriously! I want anyone reading my blog to have a pleasurable time, leave a message, and I'll respond, cuz I truly wanna blog like for the same reasons that you want to read your favorite magazine.

Blogging, or just writing in general is calming and inspiring to me. Writing just has so many, uhhh, obscure (yeah, I'll use this word) aspects to it. Everything changes, everywhere, every second, and we can never change our pasts, so that right there, is the perfect layout to blog just about whatever, and right whatever! Besides writing and blogging, it try to squeeze in a bit of time to just read. I desperately need to catch up  on my reading, because, like musical artists/bands, there is just so much to read ranging from a manuscript (which I enjoy reading until I get to the instructions), recipes, menus, playwrights, blog or social media posts, movie summary, it's (ahh *I need a breather*) just endless!

Personally, I am an aspiring writer, journalist, and graphic designer. In case you are new to this blog, I try to incorporate my own artwork via Photoshop or Picmonkey on here, because it's fun to explore art and writing. If your daring, try painting a mural or writing a movie script. It's not easy, but I am ready for just about any constructive criticism, because the positive thing I find about constructive criticism is that it is in, and of itself, supposed to you better!

On heel to my "followers" synopsis, I just feel that it is not necessary to see the number of people following, rather I would just love to read you input/comments to make my day! All of this is just a result of me taking a turn in my confidence. I have gradually become more spontaneous, and you can probably tell from the language of my very first blog post! With confidence, I just want to know that there is a positive to every negative and if you can't find one, look harder through that dark haystack, because you'll find it eventually?

...and just cuz every word deserves a picture

Playlists

Hey Weekenders!

         Just so you know, I won't officially blog cuz I'm doing something for all us here! Cool Beans, I know, well it was my own idea. It occured to me whem I created playlists on Youtube, so I decided that y'all should hear what I love. I'm sure it willl introduce you to a variety of new tastes, genres, and those songs that just won't get out of your head, probably will never leave, so that's on you!

         This doesn't include any Justin Bieber or Carly Rae Jepson, just cuz! I officially kick them out of the Canadian club that I just made right now. Click!

          Will just update, so it's kinda blogging everyday. How much you wanna bet I slack of, cuz I think I totally will!