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Posts Tagged love

Why you should leave your first love

As intoxicating as romance may be, teenagers should not be fooled into thinking the object of their affection is The One

Couple on beach

‘Teens need to hear that the first love, the one they should protect at all costs, is themselves.’ Photograph: Tom Merton/Getty Images

One of the smartest things I ever did, up there with learning how to make a good roux, training myself not to be sick in taxis and realising that “dry clean only” is not an instruction that can be enforced by law, was to break up with my very first boyfriend.

There was nothing wrong with either of us, but we were completely wrong for each other. However, at 15, the ferocity of our feelings was strong enough to glue us together for years. We had so much in common! We were both 15! We both really, really, really wanted a boyfriend or girlfriend! We both read books and felt a bit self-conscious about things and sometimes got teased for being quite good at history! This was meant to be!

By the time I was 21, I realised that if fate had anything in store for me, it was not that relationship. We had no idea who we were and what we wanted at 15, but the intoxicating power of first love meant we came perilously close to settling down and being unhappy ever after.

It wasn’t until I was out of my teens that I realised I could have fallen in thrilling, all-consuming love with about 10% of the male population, had I put my mind to it. Hormones heightened my emotions and made me crave my own relationship. Every book I read and every song I heard was about love, and armed with the idea that a good partner is one you have plenty in common with, I’d fantasise about compatible boys because they too ate cereal, watched Neighbours and had hands.

When I was a staff writer for the teen magazine Bliss, I’d talk to many girls who were just as lovestruck as I was when I was their age. A few would say that their friends were boy-crazy and they weren’t bothered; a few told me they were happy to wait until they met the right one; and quite a lot were on a mission to meet The One – or thought they had met The One and planned to make it work at all costs.

Twilight was their bible, and Bella, the young woman who falls in love with vampire Edward Cullen, was their heroine. The Twilight series captivated teens because it trades on the idea that first love is perfect love. The character of Bella is written as a cipher – she’s supposed to be beautiful but other than that, we don’t really know what she looks like, never mind the facets of her personality. Any teen can easily, instantly imagine themselves as her, in her world. Edward makes such an appealing love interest because his main interest is Bella. He can’t sleep with her, because he is a vampire, but he can offer her endless hours of chaste devotion. It’s easy to understand why the story appeals to young, nervous teens. They’re warned to keep away from boys who will sleep with them and leave them – and here’s one who doesn’t want sex, but will stay with them forever. It’s a lovely fantasy, but makes for a dangerous and damaging reality.

Part of the fun of first love is the giddy, relentless woosh of adrenaline that comes with it. You feel like the only person to have ever had those feelings. Bella and Edward, Antony and Cleopatra, and Burton and Taylor had nothing on you. But that first love thrill is often heady enough to mask some sizeable flaws.

I would never tell a teen not to read Twilight, but with all my heart, I’d urge them not to start the quest for The One immediately afterwards. Teens are, like Bella, relatively undefined and free of context. They don’t know who they will become. Dating can be a good way to explore and discover what makes you happy and what you won’t put up with. It’s time to learn that obstacles haven’t been put there by the universe to strengthen your first love – they’re usually a big, clear sign that the relationship doesn’t have enough legs to run.

Teens need to hear that the first love, the one they should protect at all costs, is themselves. That there’s nothing noble about enduring pain and ignoring one’s own feelings to fit an imaginary narrative, but knowing when to stop throwing good time after bad is the only way to reach the happy ending. We can’t stop adolescents from thinking of themselves as the stars of a story, but we can teach them that early relationships make up the first, not the final chapters.

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Tearful President Obama calls for action after school shooting: Pakistani Americans have a heavy heart, children belong to us all!

At least 27 children and adults killed in US school shooting

 
 

 

 

NEWTOWN: At least 27 people, including 18 children, were killed on Friday when at least one shooter opened fire at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, CBS News reported, citing unnamed officials.

If confirmed, it would be one of the worst mass shootings in US history. It comes after a series of shooting rampages in the United States this year that have killed multiple victims.

The principal and school psychologist were among the dead, CNN said.

The shooter, an adult, was dead and two handguns were recovered from the scene, NBC News reported without citing a source.

There were unconfirmed reports of a second shooter after witnesses reported hearing dozens of shots, CBS reported.

Sandy Hook Elementary School teaches children from kindergarten through fourth grade – roughly ages 5 to 10.

“It was horrendous,” said parent Brenda Lebinski, who rushed to the school where her daughter is in the third grade.

“Everyone was in hysterics – parents, students. There were kids coming out of the school bloodied. I don’t know if they were shot, but they were bloodied.”

Television images showed police and ambulances at the scene, and parents rushing toward the school. Parents were seen reuniting with their children and taking them home.

“This is going to be bad,” a state official told Reuters, requesting anonymity because the scope of the tragedy remained uncertain. All Newtown schools were placed in lockdown after the shooting, the Newtown Public School District said.

Lebinski said a mother who was at the school during the shooting told her a “masked man” entered the principal’s office and may have shot the principal. Lebinski, who is friends with the mother who was at the school, said the principal was “severely injured.”

Lebinski’s daughter’s teacher “immediately locked the door to the classroom and put all the kids in the corner of the room.”

Danbury Hospital, about 11 miles (18 km) west of the school, had received three patients from the scene, a hospital spokeswoman told NBC Connecticut. The mayor of Danbury, Mark Boughton, told MSNBC: “They are very serious injuries.”

A girl interviewed by NBC Connecticut described hearing seven loud “booms” as she was in gym class. Other children began crying and teachers moved the students to a nearby office, she said.

“A police officer came in and told us to run outside and so we did,” the unidentified girl said on camera.

One child was carried from Sandy Hook Elementary School by a police officer, and the child appeared to have been wounded, the town’s weekly newspaper, the Newtown Bee, said on its website.

Connecticut State Police said its officers were at the scene with local police but provided no additional details. The emergency call to police occurred at 9:41 a.m., state police said.

An individual answering the phone at the Newtown Police Department declined to comment.

Newtown, with a population about 27,000, is in northern Fairfield County, about 45 miles (70 km) southwest of Hartford and 80 miles (130 km) northeast of New York City.

Sandy Hook is one of four elementary schools in the district.

The United States has experienced a number of mass shooting rampages this year, most recently in Oregon, where a gunman opened fire at a shopping mall on Tuesday, killing two people and then himself.

The deadliest attack came in July at a midnight screening of a Batman film in Colorado that killed 12 people and wounded 58.

 

 

 

 

Tearful President Obama calls for “meaningful action” after school shooting

 
Video

3:38pm EST

 
 
U.S. President Barack Obama wipes a tear as he speaks about the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, during a press briefing at the White House in Washington December 14, 2012. REUTERS-Larry Downing
U.S. President Barack Obama wipes a tear as he speaks about the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, during a press briefing at the White House in Washington December 14, 2012. REUTERS-Yuri Gripas
 
 
 
 
Family members embrace near Sandy Hook Elementary School, where a gunman opened fire on school children and staff in Newtown, Connecticut December 14, 2012. REUTERS-Adrees Latif
 

 

WASHINGTON | Fri Dec 14, 2012 9:09pm EST

(Reuters) – Choking up and wiping away tears, President Barack Obama said on Friday that “our hearts are broken” for the victims of a deadly shooting rampage at a Connecticut elementary school and called for “meaningful action” to curb gun violence.

“We’ve endured too many of these tragedies in the past few years,” Obama said during a somber televised appearance in the White House briefing room just hours after one of the worst mass shootings in U.S. history.

Pausing to collect himself as he expressed “overwhelming grief” as a parent, Obama deplored the “heinous” attack by a heavily armed gunman who killed at least 27 people, including 20 children and himself, at a school in Newtown, Connecticut.

Obama, who has responded to previous shooting massacres by citing the need for a national conversation about gun violence, again stopped short of calling for tougher gun-control laws, considered politically risky in a country known for its flourishing gun culture.

But, little more than a month after his decisive re-election to a second term, he suggested that in the aftermath of Friday’s tragedy he might be open to considering a less cautious approach.

“As a country, we have been through this too many times,” Obama said, ticking off a list of recent shootings.

“And we’re going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics,” he said, in an apparent reference to the influence of the National Rifle Association, a powerful pro-gun lobby, in Congress.

Obama avoided making direct calls for gun control during his bitterly fought campaign for a second term, which he secured in the November 6 election.

But New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who co-chairs a coalition of mayors on gun-control policy, urged the Democratic president to tackle the issue despite likely opposition from Republicans who control the U.S. House of Representatives.

“We have heard all the rhetoric before. What we have not seen is leadership – not from the White House and not from Congress. That must end today,” Bloomberg said in a statement

Outside the White House gates, about 200 people rallied Friday evening in favor of gun restrictions. “No more lives shattered by gun violence,” read one placard.

PA– — USE IN PARTISAN BICKERING

Meantime, partisan bickering in Washington, divided as much as ever before by a battle over a looming “fiscal cliff” of tax hikes and spending cuts, was put on hold on Friday amid mourning for the dead at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Obama ordered flags at federal buildings to be lowered to half-mast and he canceled an official trip to Maine scheduled for Wednesday. There was no immediate word from the White House on when the president might visit Connecticut to console grieving families.

“Our hearts are broken today, for the parents, and grandparents, sisters and brothers of these little children and for the families of the adults who were lost,” Obama said, his voice cracking with emotion.

“Our hearts are broken for the parents of the survivors as well, for as blessed as they are to have their children home tonight, they know that their children’s innocence has been torn away from them too early and there are no words that will ease their pain,” he said.

Obama, who has two young daughters, looked grim when he entered the briefing room, and he paused and blinked hard after mentioning the ages of the dead children – from 5 to 10 years old.

“I know there’s not a parent in America who doesn’t feel the same overwhelming grief that I do,” he said.

Obama raised a finger and dabbed at the corner of his eye on several occasions. While speaking, he set his jaw several times. At the end of his statement, there was a tear visible below his left eye and that side of his face was slightly wet.

Obama has issued public statements before in the aftermath of shooting massacres.

Following the killing of six people at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin in early August, he said such incidents should prompt soul-searching by all Americans.

But when asked then whether he would push for further gun-control measures in the wake of the shootings, Obama said only that he wanted to bring together leaders at all levels of American society to examine ways to curb gun violence.

The president has said he supports the reinstatement of a ban on assault weapons sales, but he did little in his first term to advance it.

Asked about gun control on Friday, White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters that the immediate aftermath of the Connecticut shooting was not the right time for policy debates.

(Additional reporting by Jeff Mason and Steve Holland; Editing by Peter Cooney, David Brunnstrom and Paul Simao)

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