A year ago today, Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life was released on Netflix.
I had been anticipating on the Gilmore Girls revival because I had grown up with the series and wanted to not only find out what the last four words creator and writer Amy Sherman-Palladino had anticipated on ending the show during its original run, but also see how time his treating the characters and how they have developed in the past ten years since we had last seen them in Stars Hollow.
There have been so many disappointments with the revival, primarily regarding how it was written and shot, more than how the characters turned out. Inevitably, good characters falter; us real people do as well. We have our bad times and our good; we have the times when we're figuring things out and reevaluating our lives, which was the premise of A Year in the Life.
You might be asking: Joss, why are you barely posting this a year later?
Well, I wanted to parallel a year in their lives with a year in my life and evaluate how life is treating me so far. What have I accomplished in a year? And all that jazz. So I watched an episode per season and was content and inspired after each one. Additionally, I'm surprised that I was patient enough to actually wait for the seasons to pass to finally finish the revival.
Here is "Reflecting Light" by Sam Phillips. You might recognize it from the very ending of the revival, during which, SPOILER, Luke and Lorelai finally get married (took them their sweet ass time), but right before the much anticipated final four words are revealed. You might also recognize it from Liz's wedding in Season 5, where you could see Luke and Lorelai dancing. Full freaking circle. Right?
Anyways, the song is reflective, nostalgic, and romantic and has helped brainstorm and clear my head whether on the bus or just walking back to my dorm.
How have you changed in the last year? Let me know!
I spoke with Ana Ortiz and Mark Indelicato who both starred in Ugly Betty as well as Judy Reyes from Scrubs.
On the topic of the accusations against Harvey Weinstein and sexual assault, Reyes said, “I think we’re all literally haunted, constantly every day. It’s been a hard reality in our lives, all of our lives, particularly people of color.”
Ortiz added, “Especially women and anyone in the LGBTQ community.”
It is a reality that women are disproportionately victims of assault, but particularly women of color and those in the LGBTQ+ community, like transgender women who are often killed or brutally assaulted.
“I’m [. . .] happy that action is being taken, and that it’s been swift, and that so many people continue to speak out; [there’s] strength in numbers,” Reyes said.
Ortiz said, “I think it’s our turn to feel emboldened. I think the predators have felt emboldened for so long, and they have [gotten away with it]. And now I think we’re seeing that they can’t if we recognize our own voice and our own power. And I think that these people who are coming forward and tonight is a testament to it that we’re not going to be quiet, we’re not going to be silent.”
From left: Judy Reyes, Mark Indelicato, me, and Ana Ortiz
America Ferrera, star of the eponymous show Ugly Betty, recently took to Instagram to reveal that she was assaulted at the young age of nine. Her former cast mates told me that they are “of course” supporting her.
“She’s so eloquent, so well-spoken; she’s such a good spokesperson for whatever it is that she puts out there. She’s just one of those people that you want to watch and stand next to, and hold her hand,” Ortiz said.
They said that we need people like Ferrera be the foundation of acceptance and support for our future children and the next generation. Reyes and Ortiz, whose children are friends, admit that they try to instill these values in their children, especially when it comes to accepting our transgender peers.
Recently, on Good Morning America, Blake Lively (Ferrera’s BFF and fellow Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants alumna) said that we can’t just tweet about sexual assault; we need to be actively supportive of victims. “But it’s more than just like we’re talking about it and we’re supporting it; it’s action. Everybody says that they stand in solidarity, but you have to show that you stand in solidarity.”
Indelicato said besides tweeting, “being an ally is as important as coming forward, and those that are coming forward have nothing to gain and nothing to lose, and they have to know that they have a community around them that is standing in solidarity with them. I think that that is what emboldens survivors or victims to come forward." He added, “I think that having a strong community to stand in solidarity [with], that’s really the kind of crux of all of these social movements that we’re seeing today, the idea of standing in solidarity with one another [and] strength in numbers.”
Sexual assault and the conversation of sexual assault is not a new concept, nothing new. It happens every day and will unfortunately still occur.
It is a frequent occurrence in the entertainment industry, especially with young, aspiring actresses who are at the start of their career, though assault does not discriminate against any industry. Regardless of age, men and women are harassed; however, the younger or less experienced (in terms of the work field) a person is, the more vulnerable they are to assault from their male co-workers and higher-ups. And even worse, their stories may not always be believed because people with more power silence them and use their power to their own advantage.
Actress Ellen Paige has commented on sexual abuse in the media: “Look at the history of what’s happened to minors who’ve described sexual abuse in Hollywood. Some of them are no longer with us, lost to substance abuse and suicide. Their victimizers? Still working. Protected even as I write this. You know who they are; they’ve been discussed behind closed doors as often as Weinstein was.” Such celebrities as Rosanna Arquette justify this by claiming that people like Weinstein have ruined their careers, and this happens all the time when there’s a power dynamic involved. Former child actor Corey Feldman has publicly spoken out about the substance abuse and subsequent suicide of friend and actor Corey Haim, who is just one of the many examples of actors as described by Paige. Asia Argento, one of Weinstein’s victims, expressed to The New Yorker that Weinstein forcibly performed oral sex on her and she had not spoken out until now because “I know he has crushed a lot of people before. That’s why this story -- in my case, it’s 20 years old; some of them are older -- has never come out.”
Vocalizing sexual assault does not come easy to the victim, especially when there are power relations and a clear superiority complex that invalidates or at the very least not prioritizes the stories of the assault victims. One such example includes one of Weinstein’s victims, model Ambra Battilana Gutierrez who actually did go to NYPD in 2015 to accuse Weinstein and they sent her to record a confession from him. Despite voice recording evidence, which revealed Weinstein admitting his assault to Gutierrez and forcibly coaxing her into his room, the police deemed the evidence as not substantial. She and other women eventually signed a non-disclosure agreement so that their accusations would not make it into the press. A lot of actresses or just women in general are too afraid to jeopardize their career and any other possible opportunities if they do not comply to their assaulters. However, this was not an issue for Gutierrez who courageously and intuitively went to the police, only to be ignored and silenced.
The allegations against Weinstein remain remarkably similar to each other. These allegations include how he would isolate his victims, proposition them, ask them to massage him, touch them in vulnerable areas, or overtly masturbate in front them. Sickening, right? Isolation, sedation, and coercion are common tactics when it comes to assault. Bill Cosby, who also had a lot of rumors speculating him that happened to be true, would drug his victims as well.
The idea of Harvey Weinstein being, for lack of a better word, a perv, is not a new idea either. And numerous jokes have surfaced over the years, suggesting that this had been a rumor. The most notable joke includes the 2013 Academy Awards, in which Seth MacFarlane joked, “Congratulations you five ladies no longer have to pretend to be attracted to Harvey Weinstein.” MacFarlane has recently noted that the joke was predicated on Jessica Barth’s accusations against Weinstein.
According to Ana Kasparian from The Young Turks, a progressive Youtube broadcast news channel, “He got away with it for so long--for decades! And what’s amazing was that it was like this dirty little secret.” Quentin Tarantino admits that he had known about this secret about Weinstein and his reputation for harassing women and regrettably so.
In a recent interview, he said, “I knew enough to do more than I did. . . . I’m calling on the other guys who knew more to not be scared. Don’t just give out statements. Acknowledge that there was something rotten in Denmark. Vow to do better by our sisters.”
He calls himself out and apologizes for not using his power and voice to prevent other women from experiencing this assault in the industry, especially as his past girlfriend, Maria Sordino, was assaulted by Weinstein herself.
Through Tarantino’s confession and Terry Crews (among other male celebrities who have admitted to being assaulted), we are continuously recognizing that sexual assault is not just a woman’s issue; it is a human issue that affects our brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers and aunts and uncles and nephews and nieces and friends alike, whether we are victims, supporters of victims, the voice of the victim, the ear for the victim, or the witness.
Rape culture is essentially the perpetuation of silencing women who have been assaulted and encouraging boys and men to objectify and violate women. If we do not actually educate young men and women, the new generations, about consent, STI’s, and recovery and support, “locker room talk” will still be a thing, men and women’s stories will still not be believed while the perpetrator gets away with a “get out of jail free” card. A lot of this silencing actually may take decades to come out.
At Elle’s Women in Hollywood event mid-October, Reese Witherspoon, for example, discussed, “I have my own experiences that have come back to me very vividly and I have found it hard to sleep, hard to think, hard to communicate. A lot of the feelings I’ve been having about anxiety, about being honest, the guilt for not speaking up earlier or taking action.”
She continued, “And I wish I could tell you that that was [the only] incident in my career [when assaulted at age 16], but sadly, it wasn’t. I’ve had multiple experiences of harassment and sexual assault, and I don’t speak about them very often, but after hearing all the stories these past few days and hearing these brave women speak up . . . the things that we’re kind of told to sweep under the rug and not talk about, it’s made me want to speak up and speak up loudly because I felt less alone this week than I’ve ever felt in my entire career.”
We still live in a reality when women are silenced and accused of seducing men as if men are uncontrollably impulsive and weak in the knees for some female skin. The irony in this argument is that men are usually depicted as strong and authoritative; however, in the court of law, they can be seen as weak as we justify that they couldn’t help themselves. And let’s not get started on Brock Turner.
Let’s be real, Weinstein is a grown man; he knows what he’s been doing, even though he denies the allegations of 13+ victims. First of all, the numbers are climbing; don’t deny that, Mr. Weinstein. Second of all, the fact that you think you could get away with it is deplorable. You’re just an older bully, the way you lure and trap women, then provoke their dignities and prey on their vulnerabilities. Though he has been fired from his own company, The Weinstein Company, he and his team claim that he “resigned,” which says a lot about how he likes to sweep things under the rug.
If a rapist doesn’t take accountability for his or her actions, they must consider not only what they have to live with, but what their victim(s) has/have to live with for the rest of their lives. These experiences are not forgettable and correlate with numerous long-term mental, emotional, social, and even physiological effects.
So Weinstein did us a favor. We’re talking about sexual assault by the masses now. We’re having discussions about this issue because they greatly violate our bodies and cause us much trauma, anguish and more.
If you’re a sexual assault victim and you’re ready to come out, use the #metoo. We need to hear YOUR story and if you’re not ready, take your time, but do not give your harasser the power they get off on. We need other victims who may not know that there are other victims out there to know that they are not alone; their experiences are very common.
If you or someone you know has experienced sexual assault, please call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800-656-HOPE (4673) or visit these resources for more information: End Rape on Campus (http://endrapeoncampus.org), Know Your IX (https://www.knowyourix.org), National Sexual Violence Resource Center (https://www.nsvrc.org), and RAINN (Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network) (https://www.rainn.org).
This is a continuation of my UCLA College Talks series and as you may know, the UC application has already opened this past Monday, November 1, 2017.
Instead of worrying you with "the clock starts clicking" and all of that, I want to give you an idea of what to expect when applying to the Universities of California.
Here are a few things I will repeat throughout the article: 1) You can edit any of the info you include in your application at any time before you turn in your application. Otherwise, you will have a complicated time trying to reach admissions, which is a possibility; 2) the UC's have a holistic admissions process, meaning that they are competitive to apply to, but they won't reject you for stupid reasons or even just one tiny reason. They look at all aspects of your application and consider everything as whole.
Basic Info
First thing's first, your basic info--legal name, address, phone number, etc.
You will also be asked about your residency. As you may or may not know, the UC's are on in-state, out-of-state, and international basis. They primarily accept applicants from in-state or who have lived in California for at least 3 years. Such people would be residents and should they choose to accept one of the UC's admission offers, they will pay in-state tuition. Otherwise, you would not be a resident.
Additionally, you will be asked about your citizenship and social security info. If you are an international student, you will be asked about other documents.
Campuses and Majors
Next, you get to choose the UC's you want to apply to. You can apply to as few as one of the eight undergraduate UC's (UC San Francisco is a graduate school and is the ninth UC) or as many as all eight of them, though be wary that if you get free/reduced lunch or qualify for other any other indicator that suggests that paying for application will pose as a financial hardship, you will only be able to apply up to four exams for FREE; any number of schools after the four free ones you apply to will cost you some dough you may not want to spend. You can change which schools and the number of schools you apply to.
MAJORS!!
Okay, don't freak out! You don't have to worry about which major you want to declare just yet. You have until the end of your second year to choose a major, so if you don't know what you want to do (or conversely, if you're like me, and you have too many interests), you can put undeclared. There's this misconception that colleges don't like when prospective students put that they are undeclared. That's dumb. Again, the UC's have a holistic process. As long as you justify why you are undeclared in your essays, you're as solid as this guy right here:
Also understand that some majors are MORE selective and may require a supplemental application, which is an application on top of the UC application, which is even more time-consuming. You will have to choose these selective majors as your FIRST choice major in order for your supplemental application.
If you have more than one major that you may be interested in, you will have the opportunity to choose an alternate major for each school. If you get into any of the UC's you may not get in for your first choice major and instead for you alternate major due to the capacity of people or how impacted the major is. This can be changed once you attend the school--if you choose to attend the school. Additionally, if your first choice major is selective as I mentioned above, and you have an alternate major, and you don't get in with your first choice major, you won't even be considered for you alternate major. You just get in with that major or not.
You may need to take a breather after this part of the application. Please do so. In the meantime, check out this guy right here:
Ain´t he cute? I know, huh?
Scholarships
Very briefly, you will have the opportunity to apply up to 16 scholarships, which you will be considered for if/when you get your acceptance letter.
The categories include academic major/interest; affiliation with group, program, or organization; career plans; ethnicity, national origin, or religion; health/disabilities; miscellaneous; school or geographic affiliation. Check the boxes if you feel they apply to you.
More Info About You
To be fair, all of the application is info about you . . .
So to be specific, this part of the application has to do with what languages you speak (your 1st/2nd spoken languages and which you frequently speak) as well as if you're independent or dependent, if you have served in the U.S. military, if you are or have been in the foster system, etc.
You will be asked about your parent(s)/guardian(s) and their jobs and educational background.
Academic History
You will be asked about what schools you have attended and when, the school's grading system (ABCDF, %, etc.) as well as its term system (quarter, semester, trimester, etc.), and all of the courses you've taken throughout your secondary education, what grades you had received in these courses, and whether or not they are honors/AP or not. Each year must try to fit the A-G requirements.
Please, please, please include summer courses you have taken, courses you have taken at other colleges/institutions, and courses that are in progress for your term at these schools/institutions.
Here's a tip: Don't lie. If you get accepted into one or more of the UC's, they will eventually ask for your transcripts to ensure that you're not BS'ing them. So have an excuse prepared if you do choose to lie about your grades to look better in your application. Warning: they will eventually find out, so you best tell the truth, even if you're not proud of your grades. I personally wasn't proud of most of my grades. I got two D's, several C's, and primarily A's and B's and I still got into UCLA, so please calm down.
Understand that grades don't define you.
Activities, Awards, Educational Programs, Volunteer/Community Service, Work Experience, Etc.
Besides the essays, which I will eventually get to, this is probably the most cumbersome portion of the application. I would suggest compiling all of your awards or in my case, all of my one award, and a list of everything you've done extensively. You can only put up to five activities per subsection. So, for example, you will only have to choose up to five volunteer/community service activities you have participated in, up to five awards, etc. So choose the ones that best represent you. You can eventually write an essay justifying these experiences to demonstrate that you weren't participating in stuff just to get into college and instead have a degree of passion in these activities and experiences.
If you haven't participated in much, that's okay too, considering your circumstances. Otherwise, if your school does offer a lot of clubs, activities, and such and you don't really participate or participate for a minimal amount of time, it'd be best if you didn't include this in your application unless you can defend that there's passion in this activity or experience.
You will have to indicate when you participate in each activity or program or when you received your award as well as the frequency of participation in hours and weeks.
Test Scores
SAT/SAT Subject Test scores, AP, IB, TOEFL or IELTS or other international external exams. This is pretty self-explanatory.
I do have a tip though: Show your good scores and your "bad" scores. The UC's don't want to see how perfect you are. After all, there's no perfect student. They want to see that you're able to fail and recover. They also want to see that you challenged yourself with collegiate material by taking an assessment. Taking an exam [and passing or failing] is a better indicator than not taking the exam at all.
Submission
I turned mine in on November 29th even though I could have well turned it in earlier. Don't worry. UC's don't judge you based on when you turned; they'll just judge you based on what you turned in.
My journey will not replicate yours and that is a fact. 100% affirmative.
Understand that it's not the worst case scenario if you don't get in.
This week, I'm going to be talking about something pretty serious and personal to me. I was going to do Part II of the HOW I GOT INTO UCLA this week until I realized that there was something more urgent I felt I should disclose to you.
TRIGGER WARNING
5 Years ago this past Thursday, I attempted suicide for the last time. I had thought about killing myself throughout several months of my attempts and I was finally over life. It seemed that there was no possibility of things ever getting better.
Where do I start?
Well, I wanted to kill myself on my 14th birthday, but when things became abundantly clear that I did not want to even have another birthday and celebrate another year of hopeless life, I decided I wanted to get the job done before my birthday.
My suicidal thoughts were not concealed from my peers. Luckily, they knew because if it were not for them, I probably would not be alive today. It is because someone told the school administration what I was going to do to myself that I was restrained from harming myself.
At the time, I was mad at whoever told the administration. Now, I'm grateful for the anonymous person, whoever he or she was. I remained in the front office after school hours and had a profound conversation with my band instructor, who sedated me from my anger. I am too grateful for this interaction between the two of us. My parents arrived, concerned, as I might imagine. How could their youngest child ever do this?At the time, I thought, Great, I'm giving them another burden, another thing to worry about. Jesus Christ, if I were dead, then I'd stop being such a disappointment to them.
Several hours later, after police arrived, I was discharged to a hospital in Alhambra, I believe. Alhambra was probably the furthest I had been from my family at the time; this would be my last adventure, I thought. I mean, seriously, how often do you ride in a police car without the possibility of getting incarcerated?
Anyways, my parents followed suit, my sister (who was in nursing school at the time, and thus, did not have time to be distracted from her studies) eventually came while my other siblings stayed home (as it was a school night) and there were several silent exchanges between my family and me. They told me to be honest with the investigators, nurses, etc.
The fact of the matter was, I didn't want to see my parents anymore. Ugh, parents. Who needs 'em? Well, I did. Although I probably would not have wanted to admit that, I needed my parents. They fostered most of my best memories. They were always there for me and raised me and to kill myself would beyond slap away the hands that nurtured me.
I don't claim to know what the "afterlife" is like, but I just know that if I had killed myself, there'd be a lot of lingering guilt. A part of me knew that my parents and siblings would not recover just as I know that if I somehow die right now or in the near future, they will experience a lot of anguish, turmoil, depression, and maybe anger.
I went to a mental hospital and was obviously in the pediatric ward. It was fun and free. It didn't go without its limitations, obviously, but I had fun. I met an adolescent, now young gay man for the first time (not including my brother) and many people with very complex, technicolor issues that I was only beginning tounderstand more and more. In other words, I met people who do hardcore drugs for the first time, the second time of which was several weeks ago when I started at UCLA. I guess you can tell that I don't do drugs. Anyways, at the heart of this community, I was among people around my age, people of different backgrounds, people with different and immature quirks. People who almost snapped and reached the borderline, like me.
I actually did celebrate my birthday (yes, at the hospital), but it took several years to begin to appreciate birthdays and even New Years again. I was still unhappy but all I was thinking about at the time was making it in time for drumline practice Friday afternoon. I eventually went and bragged about my experience as if there was anything to brag about.
Now that I think about it, the hospital food was 5 STARS!!!! And the movie-watching privileges were great! So many options. It was like I was on vacation from school during the school year. This is just a side-note. Carry on!
There is so much I would not have experienced, so many ups and downs (and realistically, more ups than downs than I could probably give credit for), so many people I would not have met, and yeah, a lot of disappointed. Admittedly, I'm still depressed, but thankfully, I am not suicidal. I have dreams to strive for, but I'm just not where I want to be in life, not even close, as if getting what I want validates any happiness I will feel. There remains so much disappointment I harbor and cage in something as reflective of a Golgi apparatus that stores and ships all of my emotions and feelings outward.
We look at other people and see their successes, but we don't consider what these people see in themselves, because, well, we can't. We don't know what these people are insecure about themselves or what they like and hate about themselves because these qualities, these questions we don't and shouldn't consider are non-visible, intangible, introspective. I put a smile on and gave several jolly laughs and was still suicidal. No one could have suspected me of being depressed unless they saw me on the inside or even just witnessed my interactions with my family. I was miserable; a part of me still is. But now I can distinguish between the misery then and now and I got to be honest, it was unbearably crushing. Now, it's manageable; some good days compensate for those that are less than fulfilling.
To this day, my family still does not know all the reasons of why I was suicidal. Yes, many reasons had to do with my rapidly changing views of what it was going to mean for me to be publicly transgender and transgender in general. I will not share all of those reasons with you either as they are personal and I do not want to revisit the eating disorder, the idea of growing up male when I felt female, and the idea of not being a kid anymore. I will also not disclose how I tried killing myself. Please respect this.
I was bullied, though that was not a factor in my suicide. If anything, with my death, I actually wanted my bullies to feel guilty, though that was it, like in 13 Reasons Why. I did not want to kill myself because I was bullied.
To think that there was a time when I was at my absolute lowest is unimaginable now when there's so much to live for, so much I've wanted to experienced, so much I will experience. Then, I didn't have any goals in life, nothing long-term. Now, I have so many goals in life that it's all so overwhelming! Five years later, and I'm happier, more fulfilled, and excited for the future! Five years later and I want to celebrate life more. Five years, half a decade. That was only a fraction of my life. I will not be able to express how much I would have missed it that was only a fraction of my life ago.
My advice: find the resources you need to get help. Please call the Trevor hotline at (866) 488-7386 or text "Trevor" at (202) 304-1200 or simply visit The Trevor Project, reach out to your school counselors, get therapy, and please, Please, PLEASE call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255; it's an anonymous, 24/7 phone line that will get you the help that you need.
To finish this off, my roommate showed me this song regarding suicide. It's very empowering and hopefully, you find your outlet, your hope through it.
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.
"You want to know the formula to get in. Take out your pencils."
This is a quote from Admissions, starring Tina Fey, Paul Rudd, Nat Wolff, and Lily Tomlin. Tina Fey plays a Princeton University admissions counselor and this quote is the beginning of every speech she makes when encouraging prospective students to apply.
The thing is. I'm not exactly sure how I got into UCLA, which might come as quite a shock for you. With that said, I have no guidelines or any instructions to provide you. I just have my experiences. I emphasize my, because they are personal and unique to me. If you get into UCLA or any school for that matter, you'll find that in many ways you are similar to your peers, but you never share the same background or life or appearance. And you're not supposed to.
I have no experience with reading admissions essays, but I am completely adamant that the admissions readers could smell fabrication by the click of a button. They understand that you may have done the bare minimum to get in and they'll for sure see if you if you're catering to UCLA specifically by being the "perfect student".
