#and deciding to query my existing published book is also…really scary

[onmywaytobe]

Started looking into querying agents today and HOO BOY am I overwhelmed

Luckily all I really have to do is write the query letter, I’m really good at impulsively hitting send on things

[little-peril-stories]

2024

It's the time of year where many of us think about the future and what's to come. I don't really do New Year's resolutions, and I've never done a real list of goals before. But as I'm thinking about what 2024 will bring, I'm feeling for the first time the desire to lay out my goals - or, at the very least, create a to-do list.

It might be interesting to see how much I overestimated my ability to get stuff done next year. 😅

No pressure to read this, it's largely for myself!

The Queen of Lies

Continue posting semi-regularly. Given the way the first half of the school year has gone, I figure that's probably the best I can do.

Rewrite Act 3. I'm actually so excited for this, and it's all planned out! But it's still not written, even if a lot of the juicy dialogue is sandwiched between bullet points of what happens.

Edit it...eventually. Perhaps in the latter half of the year. Or perhaps that's a 2025 job. Who knows?

angsty heist wip

Reveal the title. Coming sooner than you think.

Post the WIP intro early. TPOT's came when it was about half posted, and TQOL's came only a day before Chapter 1. I think I'll mix it up for angsty heist wip. Nobody peek on my drafts and see how long the wip intro has been chilling there. 😅

FINISH WRITING THIS DAMN BOOK. It's just got to happen. I've hit 2/4 POV character's midpoints, and the delicious confrontation/finale still needs to be written. It's all the good stuff!

Figure out posting plans. It's not coming until TQOL is done, so this is a very vague and fluid goal.

Book 1

Review beta feedback thoroughly.

Make a concrete plan for what I actually want to change and what I don't.

Apply feedback.

Reread and edit for typos/little things.

Do a second beta round.

Start preparing query materials in earnest.

Book 2

lol. start it again? postpone to 2025? who knows. low priority.

The Prince of Thieves -- the journey to self-publishing

Okay, real talk: the list below is long. I've never done any of this before, so I have NO clue of what's realistic and what's not. Is all of this possible in the year 2024? Maybe not. Is that okay? It's gonna have to be! The point of it isn't to marry myself to this list or else I've FAILED, but to have a clear idea of what commonly needs to be done in order to self-publish a novel. If some of the stuff doesn't happen, well, so be it! I’m also quite aware that the list below is not exhaustive. There are probably a million things I haven’t thought of!!

DONE - ISBN account made and approved

DONE - decide on pen name. Finally!

Beta stuff! Send it off, wait for feedback, review feedback, and then apply it. I'm almost there.

Attempt cover design. I am 73% confident in my ability to do it well. With an artist AND a graphic designer/marketer in my family, I think I've got a team who can help me with the technical/Photoshop stuff.

Hire cover designer if failure. (Definitely a possibility.)

Decide on book format/interior design elements. Pretty confident I can do this myself. 96% sure.

Make an author website. For realsies. (aaahhhhhhhhh)

Increase social media presence. Try not to cry about the existence of TikTok. Try not to get in my own head about this. The truth is the thought kind of makes my skin crawl but I also understand how it is is pretty much a necessity.

Learn marketing and create a marketing plan. I got this. probably. maybe. ennnhhhh.

Consider character/scene art commissions. I am uncertain about this one. Finances will determine whether this happens or not.

Cry a lot and be okay with that. I think I'm going to struggle a lot with this whole process. And you know what? That's all right. I will learn a lot. And even if it's scary...well, that will make it all the more rewarding in the end. 💕

[thetypedwriter]

Only Mostly Devastated Book Review

Only Mostly Devastated Book Review by Sophie Gonzales

You know those feel good movies that are short and sweet and fun while you’re watching it, but mostly forgettable? You all know what I’m talking about. It’s the experience of something that is fine, enjoyable even, but largely unnoticed on the grand scheme of things?

Only Mostly Devastated is like that. 

Now, before the fangirls attack, let me just say that what I commented above is not an inherent criticism. Not every novel that I read, or people want to read, has to be a masterful prose full of epistemological queries and agonizing philosophies on life.

 Sometimes you want something sweet and fluffy, like cotton candy, to fill in the times when your brain needs a break. A good book does not necessarily equate to a challenging book, although English teachers in school will have you believe otherwise. 

Sometimes books can just be fun. 

Only Mostly Devastated tells the queer book version of Grease, down to allusions making its way even on the front cover. The plot is basic in its storytelling. The main character, Oliver, is staying in North Carolina for the summer with his parents as they help out his aunt while she receives treatment for cancer. During the summer, Oliver has a not-so-summer-fling with a boy named Will that both think will end when Oliver moves back to California at the end of the season. 

But lo and behold! Oliver’s parents decide to stay in North Carolina for a year to help out, forcing Oliver to spend his last year of high school far away from home and unbeknownst to him, attend the same high school as his beloved Will from the summer. 

However, predictably, Will from summer and Will the basketball player that Oliver meets in high school, seem to be two different people, with Oliver trying to reconcile why the boy he loves is pretending like he doesn’t exist. 

This book...isn’t original. In any way, shape, or form. From the plot, the characters, the dialogue, and even the writing, nothing about this stands out too much to me. 

Again, this does not make it a bad read, sometimes you want light and easy and predictable, but it does make it a forgettable one. 

The plot is fine. It’s sturdy, it works for what Gonzales is trying to achieve, which is mainly the love story between Will and Oliver. She does try to throw some other things in there, like putting a side character who is struggling with being bisexual, another side character with PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome), some light stuff on body image, other airy commentary on fetishizing people’s sexualization, and of course, the death and loss of a loved one and the grieving process that goes with it. 

Now, you might be saying, wow, thetypedwriter, what are you thinking? That is so much stuff that she put into her book! Incredible! How can you call it shallow and predictable?

Well, for one, the book is short. While again, nice for those readers who want something light to carry on their way to tan by the pool, great, but for those readers who want something more, this can be frustrating. 

For an in-depth reading experience for any of those themes above, hitting the tip of the iceberg would be putting it lightly. The book skims the surface of those topics, but they aren’t delved into in any semblance of sophistication or depth that would actually make this a more memorable read. 

Reason two, Sophie Gonzales does come across quite preachy sometimes. 

Now, this can be tricky so let me explain. Putting forth your agenda or your beliefs and values in a book is not an erroneous thing to do. Actually, it’s an amazing thing to do and people have been using books as a form of expression for these types of things for centuries. Some may argue that the intrinsic value of a book is to express such opinions. 

However, this is not Sophie Gonzales’ biography, nor is it an opinion article about how she feels about the fetishization of girls kissing girls for male entertainment. When you are going to put your opinions and beliefs into your book, it needs to make sense in the scheme of the characters. 

For example, if J.K. Rowling randomly had Ron go on a speech about women’s rights and toxic masculinity, it would be out-of-character and baffling since Ron would not be the character to say such a thing. 

However, if Hermione were to give such a speech, the ideas and beliefs would be passed along, message received, but without breaking character or pulling me out of the universe to think what the hell because a sermon came out of left field that held no continuity in the scheme of the novel as a whole. 

This happened to me quite a lot in Only Mostly Devastated. It was like Sohpie Gonzales got to a certain point, told her characters to step aside, and then got on her soapbox to preach about love and acceptance. 

Once again, I’m not against any of the messages she’s portraying at all. 

What I think lacked finesse, however, was the way in which she got those messages across, which was often out-of-character and forced the plot to go certain places just so she could get the chance to talk about those issues. 

With that out of the way, other slight criticisms I have mainly are to be found with the characters and the writing itself. 

The characters were all likable enough. I’m not about to go write fanfiction about any of them though. They were largely generic, although entertaining enough for what this book is offering. They were also all pretty forgettable and formed pretty forgettable relationships as well. 

Do I really remember any of Will’s friends? Nope. What about Oliver’s girl squad? Kind of? I did appreciate the attempt at including more characters of color, including Will.

I do think that Lara was the most interesting character. I honestly would have preferred to have had a whole novel about her rather than told from Oliver’s point-of-view, simply as Oliver is basic as all hell (white boy that plays guitar and is slightly awkward. I’ve only seen this character about 10 million thousand times before).

 And if Gonzales had written this novel about Lara instead, all of her themes would have worked infinitely better. You still get the struggle with sexuality, you still get the side POC characters with PCOS and body image issues, and you could still have the plot of loss and death if you wanted to. 

The friendship with the girls would make so much more sense, the fetishization topic could have been delved into way more thoroughly, and Lara was kind of a bitch, and I appreciated that about her. You would even still get a musical person in the form of Juliette even without Oliver on the scene. 

But, nope. We get Oliver. Which is...fine. Mediocre, but fine, I guess. 

Lastly, Gonzales is a perfectly average writer. The story flowed, it was funny, it had its moments of nuance and sarcasm, but there were moments where she would make comparisons, always with similes or metaphors, that left me literally confounded because of how bizarre and out-of-place I found them. 

Some examples:

1. “Up close, she smelled like sugary flowers.” 

-I’m sorry, but what do sugary flowers smell like? Why are the flowers sugary? Who would even sugar their flowers in the first place?

2. “Deep inside my chest, my heart was beating as though it was trying to tear free from bondage.”

-Just...an extremely odd choice of words. Why bondage, Sophie Gonzales, why?

3. “I’d rather floss with barbed wire, than watch a live sports match…”

-Ummm eww and scary?

I could go on and on with the frankly awful choices for comparison that are made in this book with incessant use, but I think you get the point. The similes and metaphors were downright baffling. Not really sure what Gonzales was going for with them, but...no. Just no. 

Lastly, Oliver’s nickname Ollie-oop made me want to curl up and die. It didn’t make them seem like better friends. In fact, the whole rose gold-girl-group and Oliver was such a dumpster fire of a friendship that lacked any and all actual solid foundations for a relationship that it annoyed me, especially in the end when Oliver decides to stay in North Carolina to be with people he’s not even close to. 

Additionally, the inclusion of Oliver’s two friends from back home was just...pointless, utterly pointless. I don’t even know why she bothered to write them into the story honestly. They added nothing. 

Again, her themes are good in nature and provocative in theory, but the book was just too short and shallow to justify writing in any of it when really all she cared about was Will and Oliver sitting in a tree K-I-S-S-I-N-G. It was almost like fanfiction, but published. Actually, nope, I think fanfiction is better. 

Wow, I guess I had more feelings about this book than I thought, mostly negative too. 

Once more, I want to heavily emphasize that I DIDN’T HATE IT. It was a super, light, super cute, very simple book that I’m sure a ton of people will appreciate right now with everything heavy going on in the world.

 If you need a book in cloud form, this is your novel. But....if you wanted something more like me, if you found it just a little too simplistic in nature, just a little too forgettable, then that’s okay too. 

Recommendation: If you’re too burdened down by carrying your sunscreen and your cooler out to the pool, this is the perfect light summer reading to tuck under one arm and melt your worries away for a little while. If you want an actually good, actually complex and refined LGBTQ+ coming of age novel then I’d definitely go for the likes of Red, White, and Royal Blue or Autoboyagraphy instead. 

Score: 5/10 

[airoasis]

A Day in the Life: Harvard Law School Student

New Post has been published on https://hititem.kr/a-day-in-the-life-harvard-law-school-student/

A Day in the Life: Harvard Law School Student

(bright music) – hello i am Heather, i am a 1L at Harvard regulation institution, and that i also went to Harvard university as an undergrad. (kick back song) So trendy just a little bit distinct, I probably have classification at eight:20 however in these days i have a little little bit of time before torts at 9:50. Usually i’m going to get up a bit early, overview my readings, might be do a pair chores. And then around lunchtime i’ll meet up with a pair humans in my part for learn staff, to head over some issues for civil method. Then i have a bit of bit of time to move to the library with my associates and do some reading earlier than my property type. And then tonight, one of my pals in my section it’s her birthday, so we’re all gonna go out to the campus bar and show her a good time. (relax song) – Why law institution? – I’ve continually wanted to get into civil rights legislation, i am now not fully sure what that appears like, optimistically work for the ACLU, or division of Justice in the future, however undoubtedly fascinated about the general public interest route.- while you have been an undergrad at Harvard did you know the whole time that you just desired to enter law school? – I did, I did know I desired to do it. Ever when you consider that I was once a kid I wanted to be a attorney but I did take some years off to make sure that’s fairly what I desired to do. There’s a massive change between seeing something in a film, and what it can be like in actual existence. So I took two years to work as a guide for Booz Allen Hamilton in D.C, which used to be a great experience. I gotten smaller at division of Justice which made me quite recognize I wanted to be a lawyer.So it all labored out ultimately. – What kind of labor were you doing at Booz Allen? – I was truely contracting with the division of Justice’s govt office for immigration evaluate, so it can be the immigration courtroom method of the us. – So you have got handiest now been at regulation university for two weeks? – sure. – What has the transition been like? – it can be variety of been trial via hearth, but in a good way. It can be simultaneously being compelled to be an adult and being caught in kindergarten in every single place again.You get particularly nearly the people in your part because you spend 20 hours per week in school with the equal folks, sitting within the identical seats. But it’s simply been a relatively wild trip, and the opportunities listed below are simply past imaginable, it is amazing. – Why did you decide on Harvard legislation in designated? – well I had a quite robust attachment to Harvard undergrad, where we went together (laughs). I fairly enjoy the campus, I notion Harvard had all these brilliant opportunities. Primarily pass-learning with the other departments and the other faculties here. Harvard regulation’s additionally bought unparalleled status. The gigantic dimension of the class permits you to get to understand persons from a kind of exceptional backgrounds. You identify it like race, gender, ethnicity, political stances, you’ve acquired ’em all in bucketloads here, which is the satisfactory a part of getting an schooling right here. – fine, so what does your course load appear like right now? – So in 1L year you have got set course load, so all people takes the same lessons.You will have bought your private home, your torts, your contracts, that variety of thing. So we’ve got five lessons in the fall that we’re all taking collectively, the 80 of us in a single section. At the same time the opposite sections will take 5 classes that will not be the equal, but at the finish of the 12 months we will be able to have all taken the same lessons collectively. So it’s the 200th anniversary of HLS, and my first week of college right here the Dean sincerely dedicated this plaque to the enslaved folks whose labor generated the wealth to observed the regulation school. So I believe it used to be very significant to kick off the two hundredth yr anniversary party to commemorate the slaves owned with the aid of the royal family, who endowed the primary 12 months here at Harvard regulation.(sit back track) – How is a legislation classroom run in perhaps another method than an undergrad classification that you’ve got been in? – proper, so in undergrad mostly you’ve very enthusiastic folks put up their hands to answer questions, it’s the whole reverse in law university, you do not need to be requested a question. We’ve a bloodless-calling procedure founded on the case method, so most of our lessons will read Supreme courtroom decisions, or different court selections, after which a professor will ask a individual or a number of men and women to, what we call transient a case. So they are going to ask us like what are the details of the case, what is the legal query here, how did the court docket maintain.So everyone does the studying, but you variety of financial institution on being the seventy nine out of 80 who is not going to get cold-referred to as that day. – okay gotcha, have you been cold-known as but? – sure, i’ve been bloodless-known as in I believe every single type and at any time when it used to be a thrill (laughs). – A thrill, enjoyable, fun. I assume, would you’ve got any advice for anybody going into legislation school, who might be intimidated through that style of factor? – No, I consider it is very scary the first time, and then I consider the primary time you clearly mess up, and also you fully grasp that nobody to your category remembers you messed up, because they have been too busy freaking out about not being bloodless-known as, that’s whilst you stop taking it too significantly and you simply recognize that this is a first-class approach to learn, there may be a cause why they do it, it makes you read intently, makes you pay attention in class. I certainly choose it to the way we studied at undergrad. – satisfactory, pleasant. What advice would you may have for any one who’s no longer definite if they need to observe to law university or no longer? – i might say you will have to relatively, really be certain.If you’re not definite at all, might be you isn’t doing it before you talk to different humans who are at legislation tuition. Regulation college is rather costly, the debt can also be overwhelming, and if you’re now not certain in the event you wanna be a legal professional, i am now not definite if that debt is worth venture. It’s a very miserable reply, but the fiscal truth is that you just will have to be sure earlier than you commit, and if you are now not sure, read a couple regulation books, watch a pair films, speak to your acquaintances, speak to your school law college councilor, talk to humans that you realize who’re currently in legislation college and notice what they feel after the fact. But be certain earlier than you apply, due to the fact that it is now not worth the money if you are not certain. – don’t go to law tuition for the sake of going to law tuition. (sluggish song) What type of factor do you do outside of sophistication at Harvard law? – (laughs) what’s outside of sophistication at Harvard law? I’m kidding, there’s actually rather a lot to do. Each lunch there is typically some kind of event, I think last week that they had an occasion hosted by using the federalist society about whether or not or now not people should be obligated to bake cakes for homosexual couples who are getting married.So companies will carry in audio system, prominent audio system from around the country, for lunchtime kind movements. Then there is additionally a whole sort of social routine hosted through HL imperative, which is just like the get together institution it looks as if on campus, or the scholar observe organizations, or the affiliation organizations. So the Asian-Pacific Islander workforce will host a completely happy hour, or the LGBT group will host a board game night time. So there may be a variety of things on campus to try this don’t seem to be type related. And then there’s of course just normal striking round Cambridge, it’s an amazing city. There may be a great nightlife, fine places to simply get espresso or get a drink, something’s your style. So yeah there may be a lot to do. So once I was an undergrad I felt obligated to join quite a few extracurriculars, and so I felt like I split my time 50/50, if not swinging extra closer to extracurricular movements than school room. Whereas at law college, chiefly as a 1L, you are expected to devote the mammoth majority of your time to your studying, considering the fact that there’s various it.And i honestly recognize that much more, it puts various, it takes off a variety of pressure to do numerous these extracurriculars. Also soldiering by way of the readings with the equal eighty people collectively kind of bonds you collectively in a way that in undergrad used to be one of a kind on account that you were all taking one-of-a-kind classes, oftentimes you felt slightly bit on my own. It can be no longer the case in regulation college. – What was the applying approach like for you, from undergrad to law institution? – correct so, after you graduate, you need to take the LSAT if you have not already. This was the law college Admissions experiment. It can be scored out of 180, you ought to sit down it to put up a legislation tuition software. That experiment is weighed very heavily on your legislation tuition software, so you need to do pretty good in it. Then you ship in a resume as good as a few letters of recommendation, and an essay. And that is in most cases it, there sincerely is not that much more to it, however I suppose learning for the examination is what stresses people out essentially the most.- What variety of recommendation would you supply any person who perhaps going via that utility method? – i would say my greatest piece of advice is that you should relatively suppose tough earlier than you take a seat the LSAT, if you’re ready for it. You should not do what I did and rush taking an examination that you are not ready for, when you consider that you can’t cancel your score and resitting the examination is quite a few work. And on prime of that, lots of regulation schools do look at each ratings and they either do not common them out or they take the bottom ranking, that sort of factor. So i might say be very, very definite of your self earlier than you walk into the examination room. And even if you think fairly unprepared, you shouldn’t take it and just wait for the following generation. – right, and so you stated you wanna become going into civil rights legislation, something with the ACLU, whatever alongside these traces. What’s going to the subsequent couple years appear like, i suppose external of the academic yr in terms of pursuing that do you believe? – Do you mean like summer season internships, or– – Yeah, summer time internships that style of, yeah.- proper so, actually i haven’t given it too much concept but. It can be a nationwide policy virtually that 1Ls can’t follow to summer season internships unless December 1st. So that’s across all regulation colleges and all firms within the country. So it does provide you with some respiration room, but when December 1st comes i am pondering of applying to GLAAD or other LGBT associated motives just like the ACLU LGBT workplace, or to human rights campaign. I feel that is in most cases the place i am heading on my first summer time, fingers crossed. But that’s approach down the road. – right, ok. (stress-free track) – well I suppose a lot of films, whether or not it can be Legally Blonde or Paper Chase, or even like Cousin Vinny, form of impressed upon me that Harvard law school be very competitive and cutthroat, and that is simply without doubt now not the case. At least my section is fairly collaborative, rather enjoyable, we send notes to each other, outlines, we ship places of free food to one another over our team chat. – enormous. – yes, gigantic, huge and significant. And all of that’s primary to me as a individual, chiefly the meals bit.I feel the geniality and the camaraderie has rather surprised me more than some thing else. (sit back music) for those who loved this video and you wanna be trained more about prime schools, take into account to subscribe. .

[batterymonster2021]

A Day in the Life: Harvard Law School Student

New Post has been published on https://hititem.kr/a-day-in-the-life-harvard-law-school-student/

A Day in the Life: Harvard Law School Student

(bright music) – hello i am Heather, i am a 1L at Harvard regulation institution, and that i also went to Harvard university as an undergrad. (kick back song) So trendy just a little bit distinct, I probably have classification at eight:20 however in these days i have a little little bit of time before torts at 9:50. Usually i’m going to get up a bit early, overview my readings, might be do a pair chores. And then around lunchtime i’ll meet up with a pair humans in my part for learn staff, to head over some issues for civil method. Then i have a bit of bit of time to move to the library with my associates and do some reading earlier than my property type. And then tonight, one of my pals in my section it’s her birthday, so we’re all gonna go out to the campus bar and show her a good time. (relax song) – Why law institution? – I’ve continually wanted to get into civil rights legislation, i am now not fully sure what that appears like, optimistically work for the ACLU, or division of Justice in the future, however undoubtedly fascinated about the general public interest route.- while you have been an undergrad at Harvard did you know the whole time that you just desired to enter law school? – I did, I did know I desired to do it. Ever when you consider that I was once a kid I wanted to be a attorney but I did take some years off to make sure that’s fairly what I desired to do. There’s a massive change between seeing something in a film, and what it can be like in actual existence. So I took two years to work as a guide for Booz Allen Hamilton in D.C, which used to be a great experience. I gotten smaller at division of Justice which made me quite recognize I wanted to be a lawyer.So it all labored out ultimately. – What kind of labor were you doing at Booz Allen? – I was truely contracting with the division of Justice’s govt office for immigration evaluate, so it can be the immigration courtroom method of the us. – So you have got handiest now been at regulation university for two weeks? – sure. – What has the transition been like? – it can be variety of been trial via hearth, but in a good way. It can be simultaneously being compelled to be an adult and being caught in kindergarten in every single place again.You get particularly nearly the people in your part because you spend 20 hours per week in school with the equal folks, sitting within the identical seats. But it’s simply been a relatively wild trip, and the opportunities listed below are simply past imaginable, it is amazing. – Why did you decide on Harvard legislation in designated? – well I had a quite robust attachment to Harvard undergrad, where we went together (laughs). I fairly enjoy the campus, I notion Harvard had all these brilliant opportunities. Primarily pass-learning with the other departments and the other faculties here. Harvard regulation’s additionally bought unparalleled status. The gigantic dimension of the class permits you to get to understand persons from a kind of exceptional backgrounds. You identify it like race, gender, ethnicity, political stances, you’ve acquired ’em all in bucketloads here, which is the satisfactory a part of getting an schooling right here. – fine, so what does your course load appear like right now? – So in 1L year you have got set course load, so all people takes the same lessons.You will have bought your private home, your torts, your contracts, that variety of thing. So we’ve got five lessons in the fall that we’re all taking collectively, the 80 of us in a single section. At the same time the opposite sections will take 5 classes that will not be the equal, but at the finish of the 12 months we will be able to have all taken the same lessons collectively. So it’s the 200th anniversary of HLS, and my first week of college right here the Dean sincerely dedicated this plaque to the enslaved folks whose labor generated the wealth to observed the regulation school. So I believe it used to be very significant to kick off the two hundredth yr anniversary party to commemorate the slaves owned with the aid of the royal family, who endowed the primary 12 months here at Harvard regulation.(sit back track) – How is a legislation classroom run in perhaps another method than an undergrad classification that you’ve got been in? – proper, so in undergrad mostly you’ve very enthusiastic folks put up their hands to answer questions, it’s the whole reverse in law university, you do not need to be requested a question. We’ve a bloodless-calling procedure founded on the case method, so most of our lessons will read Supreme courtroom decisions, or different court selections, after which a professor will ask a individual or a number of men and women to, what we call transient a case. So they are going to ask us like what are the details of the case, what is the legal query here, how did the court docket maintain.So everyone does the studying, but you variety of financial institution on being the seventy nine out of 80 who is not going to get cold-referred to as that day. – okay gotcha, have you been cold-known as but? – sure, i’ve been bloodless-known as in I believe every single type and at any time when it used to be a thrill (laughs). – A thrill, enjoyable, fun. I assume, would you’ve got any advice for anybody going into legislation school, who might be intimidated through that style of factor? – No, I consider it is very scary the first time, and then I consider the primary time you clearly mess up, and also you fully grasp that nobody to your category remembers you messed up, because they have been too busy freaking out about not being bloodless-known as, that’s whilst you stop taking it too significantly and you simply recognize that this is a first-class approach to learn, there may be a cause why they do it, it makes you read intently, makes you pay attention in class. I certainly choose it to the way we studied at undergrad. – satisfactory, pleasant. What advice would you may have for any one who’s no longer definite if they need to observe to law university or no longer? – i might say you will have to relatively, really be certain.If you’re not definite at all, might be you isn’t doing it before you talk to different humans who are at legislation tuition. Regulation college is rather costly, the debt can also be overwhelming, and if you’re now not certain in the event you wanna be a legal professional, i am now not definite if that debt is worth venture. It’s a very miserable reply, but the fiscal truth is that you just will have to be sure earlier than you commit, and if you are now not sure, read a couple regulation books, watch a pair films, speak to your acquaintances, speak to your school law college councilor, talk to humans that you realize who’re currently in legislation college and notice what they feel after the fact. But be certain earlier than you apply, due to the fact that it is now not worth the money if you are not certain. – don’t go to law tuition for the sake of going to law tuition. (sluggish song) What type of factor do you do outside of sophistication at Harvard law? – (laughs) what’s outside of sophistication at Harvard law? I’m kidding, there’s actually rather a lot to do. Each lunch there is typically some kind of event, I think last week that they had an occasion hosted by using the federalist society about whether or not or now not people should be obligated to bake cakes for homosexual couples who are getting married.So companies will carry in audio system, prominent audio system from around the country, for lunchtime kind movements. Then there is additionally a whole sort of social routine hosted through HL imperative, which is just like the get together institution it looks as if on campus, or the scholar observe organizations, or the affiliation organizations. So the Asian-Pacific Islander workforce will host a completely happy hour, or the LGBT group will host a board game night time. So there may be a variety of things on campus to try this don’t seem to be type related. And then there’s of course just normal striking round Cambridge, it’s an amazing city. There may be a great nightlife, fine places to simply get espresso or get a drink, something’s your style. So yeah there may be a lot to do. So once I was an undergrad I felt obligated to join quite a few extracurriculars, and so I felt like I split my time 50/50, if not swinging extra closer to extracurricular movements than school room. Whereas at law college, chiefly as a 1L, you are expected to devote the mammoth majority of your time to your studying, considering the fact that there’s various it.And i honestly recognize that much more, it puts various, it takes off a variety of pressure to do numerous these extracurriculars. Also soldiering by way of the readings with the equal eighty people collectively kind of bonds you collectively in a way that in undergrad used to be one of a kind on account that you were all taking one-of-a-kind classes, oftentimes you felt slightly bit on my own. It can be no longer the case in regulation college. – What was the applying approach like for you, from undergrad to law institution? – correct so, after you graduate, you need to take the LSAT if you have not already. This was the law college Admissions experiment. It can be scored out of 180, you ought to sit down it to put up a legislation tuition software. That experiment is weighed very heavily on your legislation tuition software, so you need to do pretty good in it. Then you ship in a resume as good as a few letters of recommendation, and an essay. And that is in most cases it, there sincerely is not that much more to it, however I suppose learning for the examination is what stresses people out essentially the most.- What variety of recommendation would you supply any person who perhaps going via that utility method? – i would say my greatest piece of advice is that you should relatively suppose tough earlier than you take a seat the LSAT, if you’re ready for it. You should not do what I did and rush taking an examination that you are not ready for, when you consider that you can’t cancel your score and resitting the examination is quite a few work. And on prime of that, lots of regulation schools do look at each ratings and they either do not common them out or they take the bottom ranking, that sort of factor. So i might say be very, very definite of your self earlier than you walk into the examination room. And even if you think fairly unprepared, you shouldn’t take it and just wait for the following generation. – right, and so you stated you wanna become going into civil rights legislation, something with the ACLU, whatever alongside these traces. What’s going to the subsequent couple years appear like, i suppose external of the academic yr in terms of pursuing that do you believe? – Do you mean like summer season internships, or– – Yeah, summer time internships that style of, yeah.- proper so, actually i haven’t given it too much concept but. It can be a nationwide policy virtually that 1Ls can’t follow to summer season internships unless December 1st. So that’s across all regulation colleges and all firms within the country. So it does provide you with some respiration room, but when December 1st comes i am pondering of applying to GLAAD or other LGBT associated motives just like the ACLU LGBT workplace, or to human rights campaign. I feel that is in most cases the place i am heading on my first summer time, fingers crossed. But that’s approach down the road. – right, ok. (stress-free track) – well I suppose a lot of films, whether or not it can be Legally Blonde or Paper Chase, or even like Cousin Vinny, form of impressed upon me that Harvard law school be very competitive and cutthroat, and that is simply without doubt now not the case. At least my section is fairly collaborative, rather enjoyable, we send notes to each other, outlines, we ship places of free food to one another over our team chat. – enormous. – yes, gigantic, huge and significant. And all of that’s primary to me as a individual, chiefly the meals bit.I feel the geniality and the camaraderie has rather surprised me more than some thing else. (sit back music) for those who loved this video and you wanna be trained more about prime schools, take into account to subscribe. .

[kidsviral-blog]

Fireworks And Brimstone: The Personal God Of Katy Perry

New Post has been published on https://kidsviral.info/fireworks-and-brimstone-the-personal-god-of-katy-perry/

Fireworks And Brimstone: The Personal God Of Katy Perry

The pop star’s Pentecostalism asserts that God plays an intimate role in every decision she makes, no matter how large or small.

View this image ›

Jenny Chang / BuzzFeed

What Katy Perry prays for, Katy Perry gets. She was just 11 when she asked God for “boobs so big that I can’t see my feet when I’m lying down.” It was the kind of prayer no one would expect God to take seriously, but Perry hails from a religious background that believes in a God who is eager to answer anyone’s prayers, no matter how small (or, ahem, big), as a way of proving His existence.

It’s the same God Perry prayed to on Feb. 1, when, as a fully grown pop superstar at the height of her career, she performed during halftime of the Super Bowl for an audience of 114 million. “I was praying and I got a word from God and He says, ‘You got this and I got you,'” Perry told Ryan Seacrest days later on the red carpet at the Grammy Awards.

When Perry talks about her relationship with God, it always sounds both personal and somehow refreshing. No other pop star talks about God so regularly and sounds so candid doing it. “I do not believe God is an old guy sitting on a throne with a long beard,” she once told GQ, and it shows. Her God is deeply interested in the details of her personal life, from her Super Bowl performance to her relationships to her cup size.

It’s not strange for someone raised in the Pentecostal church — someone who once said, “Speaking in tongues is as normal to me as ‘pass the salt'” — to feel like her success is the direct result of, and always dependent on, prayer. Her God is deeply invested in individual flourishing and prosperity. And a spirit as colorful as Perry’s would, in some ways, be a natural fit for Pentecostalism, which, with its emphasis on speaking in tongues and boldness in prayer, is one of the more fantastical forms of Christianity.

Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images

Jason Merritt / Getty

  It’s not what good girls do/ Not how they should behave/ My head gets so confused/ Hard to obey –Katy Perry, “I Kissed a Girl”

When “I Kissed a Girl” came out, I was just out of college — a small, Christian liberal arts college in Santa Barbara, Perry’s hometown. I went to a lot of weddings that year (There are a rash of weddings immediately after every Christian college graduation.) We had just graduated from a school that proscribed same-sex relationships, but everyone, young and old alike, was singing along on the dance floor: “It felt so wrong/ It felt so right/ Don’t mean I’m in love tonight.” Such was the broad appeal of Katy Perry.

She’s the closest thing we’ve got to a human emoticon — a totally lovable, expressive, candy-colored wink to pop culture. A word you keep coming across when reading about Perry is “cartoonish.” And cartoonish works for her image, but what it doesn’t do is tell us much about the person underneath the persona. “I have always been this character,” she told Glamour in 2010, “but I kind of cartoon-ized myself a little bit [in my stage persona]. So when someone really likes me, it’s like [she mimes opening a curtain] here comes a person! I wonder if you can handle this.”

Born Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson (she changed her last name to avoid being confused with the actress Kate Hudson) in Santa Barbara, California, in 1984, Perry’s childhood was tumultuous. Her parents, Keith and Mary Hudson, were Pentecostal preachers who moved wherever they felt the Holy Spirit call them, eventually settling back into Santa Barbara, where they founded the now-defunct Oasis Christian Center. “We were traveling all the time,” Angela Hudson, Katy’s older sister, said in the 2012 documentary Katy Perry: Part of Me. A traveling pastor’s salary — even doubled — isn’t much to survive on, so Perry’s family would occasionally eat from the food bank their church stocked. Katy, Angela, and their younger brother, David, weren’t allowed to eat Lucky Charms (“Luck” was too reminiscent of “Lucifer”) and had to call deviled eggs “angel eggs.”

It would be another 10 years before Keith Hudson would call his daughter a “devil child” in a sermon, and those 10 years held a world of change.

Katy Perry, like most of us, contains multitudes. The year she turned 16, she lost her virginity in Nashville in the front seat of a Volvo. The same year, she released Katy Hudson, an album of contemporary Christian music with songs like “My Own Monster” and lyrics like “Where can I go where can I hide from these evil sufferings?/ Oh these images painted on my walls/ They say there’s a place that I can hide in the shadow of your wings/ Oh Lord, bring me to this place of refuge.”

It’s precisely this tension between pastor’s daughter and good girl gone bad that makes Perry so intriguing — and, at first blush, cartoonish. But there’s a lot more under the surface, both to her appeal and to her life. “People love the story of good girl gone bad,” she said in Part of Me, “and they think my parents have disowned me, but that’s not the story at all.”

Keith and Mary Hudson have lived lives that evangelical Christians love to hear about, of the “I once was lost but now I’m found” variety. He played tambourine with Sly & the Family Stone and took LSD; she danced with Jimi Hendrix and got married in Zimbabwe, but was divorced before she met Keith. They became Christians and planted churches together across America while their children were young, preaching to new crowds on a weekly basis. There is a moment in Part of Me when we see Keith Hudson in front of a group of people in a small church with an eagle emblem on the wall behind him and, above it, the phrase “DECLARE HIS WORD IN ACTION.” He owns the room, as charismatic preachers do.

View this image ›

Amazon

A hallmark of the charismatic church is the belief in an active, intimately involved God. Stanford anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann wrote a book about the American evangelical relationship with God, When God Talks Back. “Over the last few decades,” she writes, “this generation of Americans has sought out an intensely personal God; a God who not only cares about your welfare, but worries with you about whether to paint the kitchen table.” This upbringing has undoubtedly influenced Perry as it has so many of the faithful; to them, God isn’t a distant grandfather type but an omnipotent being who has an opinion about every possible decision they have to make, no matter how small.

When Perry talks about praying before her Super Bowl performance, she is talking about (and to) this kind of God. The charismatic God “really is unconditionally loving,” says Luhrmann over the phone from her home. He’s “a loving God and a buddy God…people do this back and forth when they’re talking to God, the way two young girls talk to each other. They’re sharing everything.”

Another observation Luhrmann makes is how much some charismatic worship songs “are almost sexual, with a touch so light that the suggestion could slip past.” She cites the song “Dwell,” which includes a line, addressed to God, in which the supplicants ask the man upstairs to “Come and have your way.” Perry subverts images and practices in this way — from religious to sexual — on her song “Spiritual,” from Prism: “Lay me down at your altar, baby/ I’m a slave to this love/ Your electric lips have got me speaking in tongues.”

Perry regularly incorporates her religious background into her public persona, whether she’s performing or on the red carpet or writing song lyrics. Rather than run from questions of faith, she embraces them in the same way she responds to queries about her family — with nuance. Her songs often point to what evangelicals would call “a hunger for something more,” whether it be the deep questioning from “Lost” (“So if I pray, am I just sending words into outer space?”), the Biblical reference in “Who Am I Living For?” (“So I pray for a favor like Esther/ I need your strength to handle the pressure”), or the sexual overtones of “Spiritual” (“Lost in sweet ecstasy/ Found a nirvana finally”). She has managed to integrate prayer and meditation, speaking in tongues and singing to arenas, support for LGBT rights and an open line to a personal God.

giphy.com

giphy.com

  One of the most affecting things about Katy Perry — something that is easy to overlook at first glance, but impossible to ignore as you spend time learning about her — is her vulnerability. I suspect it’s part of what makes her music so moving to her devoted fans, and it’s also what lets her get away with her cartoonish persona. Perry performed a medley of hit songs at the Super Bowl halftime show, complete with dancing sharks and costume changes, and turned around a week later and sang about overcoming suicidal thoughts at the Grammys in a relatively minimalistic performance. In that song, “By the Grace of God,” Perry recalls her frame of mind just after then-husband Russell Brand left her: “By the grace of God (there was no other way)/ I picked myself back up (I knew I had to stay)/ And put one foot in front of the other/ And I looked in the mirror and decided to stay.”

It’s a far cry from Katy Hudson’s Christian music album, which was written with about as much vulnerability as a phone book. But there’s something human in the fact that it’s taken some time for Perry to bare her inner life to the public. It’s a scary thing to write about one’s fragile mental state; scarier even than singing about kissing girls. (Although that proved difficult for Perry, too, who asked her sister to tell their parents that “I Kissed a Girl” was going to be her first single.)

The charismatic church presents a friendly God because it is concerned primarily that people might not know God at all, that they might be put off by an angry God. Where other denominations, like the Southern Baptists, are most focused on making sure people aren’t heretics, the charismatic church, to put it crudely, wants to make sure that people believe. That is both a cause and result of their conception of God as unconditionally loving, and unconditional love is a prominent theme in Perry’s music. Her song “Unconditionally” was written for John Mayer after their first breakup.

To talk about your own need for unconditional love — and your willingness to love unconditionally — is this really vulnerable thing. It’s rooted, for Perry, in this idea that God is all-loving and very close, not judging you but ready to hear whatever is on your heart, even when what’s on your heart is only pain. There was a scene in Part of Me where Katy, hours before a sold-out performance, is sobbing alone in a chair. Her marriage has started to fall apart, but she hasn’t told anyone in her inner circle. They fret about her, ask her if she wants to cancel, offer her water and a washcloth. Like many of us, she doesn’t really know what she needs.

In March 2013, Mary Hudson published an article on Charisma magazine’s website titled “How to Pray for your Prodigal.” Aside from an author bio at the beginning, Hudson never name-checks her famous daughter. “Satan’s assault on our youth is relentless,” she writes, and makes mention of the evils found in “movies, television, music and the Internet.” But, in a kind of unexpected and sweet aside, she also encourages parents not to hound their unbelieving or wayward children: “The people around you, including your child or unsaved relative, are not the ones who need to hear your prayers. Only God needs to hear them.”

“You just love her,” Perry’s mother says in Part of Me. “No matter what she was doing or what she was singing about, she’s just a blessing.”

Though public perception of Perry’s faith has led some to view her like an alien who has successfully adopted the form of a human being — “How did a fire-and-brimstone-preacher’s daughter become America’s sexiest pop star?” Rolling Stone asked — her life and lyrics point to an answer: “With help from my buddy God.”

Read more: http://www.buzzfeed.com/lauraturner/katy-perry-god

[kidsviral-blog]

Fireworks And Brimstone: The Personal God Of Katy Perry

New Post has been published on https://kidsviral.info/fireworks-and-brimstone-the-personal-god-of-katy-perry/

Fireworks And Brimstone: The Personal God Of Katy Perry

The pop star’s Pentecostalism asserts that God plays an intimate role in every decision she makes, no matter how large or small.

View this image ›

Jenny Chang / BuzzFeed

What Katy Perry prays for, Katy Perry gets. She was just 11 when she asked God for “boobs so big that I can’t see my feet when I’m lying down.” It was the kind of prayer no one would expect God to take seriously, but Perry hails from a religious background that believes in a God who is eager to answer anyone’s prayers, no matter how small (or, ahem, big), as a way of proving His existence.

It’s the same God Perry prayed to on Feb. 1, when, as a fully grown pop superstar at the height of her career, she performed during halftime of the Super Bowl for an audience of 114 million. “I was praying and I got a word from God and He says, ‘You got this and I got you,'” Perry told Ryan Seacrest days later on the red carpet at the Grammy Awards.

When Perry talks about her relationship with God, it always sounds both personal and somehow refreshing. No other pop star talks about God so regularly and sounds so candid doing it. “I do not believe God is an old guy sitting on a throne with a long beard,” she once told GQ, and it shows. Her God is deeply interested in the details of her personal life, from her Super Bowl performance to her relationships to her cup size.

It’s not strange for someone raised in the Pentecostal church — someone who once said, “Speaking in tongues is as normal to me as ‘pass the salt'” — to feel like her success is the direct result of, and always dependent on, prayer. Her God is deeply invested in individual flourishing and prosperity. And a spirit as colorful as Perry’s would, in some ways, be a natural fit for Pentecostalism, which, with its emphasis on speaking in tongues and boldness in prayer, is one of the more fantastical forms of Christianity.

Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images

Jason Merritt / Getty

  It’s not what good girls do/ Not how they should behave/ My head gets so confused/ Hard to obey –Katy Perry, “I Kissed a Girl”

When “I Kissed a Girl” came out, I was just out of college — a small, Christian liberal arts college in Santa Barbara, Perry’s hometown. I went to a lot of weddings that year (There are a rash of weddings immediately after every Christian college graduation.) We had just graduated from a school that proscribed same-sex relationships, but everyone, young and old alike, was singing along on the dance floor: “It felt so wrong/ It felt so right/ Don’t mean I’m in love tonight.” Such was the broad appeal of Katy Perry.

She’s the closest thing we’ve got to a human emoticon — a totally lovable, expressive, candy-colored wink to pop culture. A word you keep coming across when reading about Perry is “cartoonish.” And cartoonish works for her image, but what it doesn’t do is tell us much about the person underneath the persona. “I have always been this character,” she told Glamour in 2010, “but I kind of cartoon-ized myself a little bit [in my stage persona]. So when someone really likes me, it’s like [she mimes opening a curtain] here comes a person! I wonder if you can handle this.”

Born Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson (she changed her last name to avoid being confused with the actress Kate Hudson) in Santa Barbara, California, in 1984, Perry’s childhood was tumultuous. Her parents, Keith and Mary Hudson, were Pentecostal preachers who moved wherever they felt the Holy Spirit call them, eventually settling back into Santa Barbara, where they founded the now-defunct Oasis Christian Center. “We were traveling all the time,” Angela Hudson, Katy’s older sister, said in the 2012 documentary Katy Perry: Part of Me. A traveling pastor’s salary — even doubled — isn’t much to survive on, so Perry’s family would occasionally eat from the food bank their church stocked. Katy, Angela, and their younger brother, David, weren’t allowed to eat Lucky Charms (“Luck” was too reminiscent of “Lucifer”) and had to call deviled eggs “angel eggs.”

It would be another 10 years before Keith Hudson would call his daughter a “devil child” in a sermon, and those 10 years held a world of change.

Katy Perry, like most of us, contains multitudes. The year she turned 16, she lost her virginity in Nashville in the front seat of a Volvo. The same year, she released Katy Hudson, an album of contemporary Christian music with songs like “My Own Monster” and lyrics like “Where can I go where can I hide from these evil sufferings?/ Oh these images painted on my walls/ They say there’s a place that I can hide in the shadow of your wings/ Oh Lord, bring me to this place of refuge.”

It’s precisely this tension between pastor’s daughter and good girl gone bad that makes Perry so intriguing — and, at first blush, cartoonish. But there’s a lot more under the surface, both to her appeal and to her life. “People love the story of good girl gone bad,” she said in Part of Me, “and they think my parents have disowned me, but that’s not the story at all.”

Keith and Mary Hudson have lived lives that evangelical Christians love to hear about, of the “I once was lost but now I’m found” variety. He played tambourine with Sly & the Family Stone and took LSD; she danced with Jimi Hendrix and got married in Zimbabwe, but was divorced before she met Keith. They became Christians and planted churches together across America while their children were young, preaching to new crowds on a weekly basis. There is a moment in Part of Me when we see Keith Hudson in front of a group of people in a small church with an eagle emblem on the wall behind him and, above it, the phrase “DECLARE HIS WORD IN ACTION.” He owns the room, as charismatic preachers do.

View this image ›

Amazon

A hallmark of the charismatic church is the belief in an active, intimately involved God. Stanford anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann wrote a book about the American evangelical relationship with God, When God Talks Back. “Over the last few decades,” she writes, “this generation of Americans has sought out an intensely personal God; a God who not only cares about your welfare, but worries with you about whether to paint the kitchen table.” This upbringing has undoubtedly influenced Perry as it has so many of the faithful; to them, God isn’t a distant grandfather type but an omnipotent being who has an opinion about every possible decision they have to make, no matter how small.

When Perry talks about praying before her Super Bowl performance, she is talking about (and to) this kind of God. The charismatic God “really is unconditionally loving,” says Luhrmann over the phone from her home. He’s “a loving God and a buddy God…people do this back and forth when they’re talking to God, the way two young girls talk to each other. They’re sharing everything.”

Another observation Luhrmann makes is how much some charismatic worship songs “are almost sexual, with a touch so light that the suggestion could slip past.” She cites the song “Dwell,” which includes a line, addressed to God, in which the supplicants ask the man upstairs to “Come and have your way.” Perry subverts images and practices in this way — from religious to sexual — on her song “Spiritual,” from Prism: “Lay me down at your altar, baby/ I’m a slave to this love/ Your electric lips have got me speaking in tongues.”

Perry regularly incorporates her religious background into her public persona, whether she’s performing or on the red carpet or writing song lyrics. Rather than run from questions of faith, she embraces them in the same way she responds to queries about her family — with nuance. Her songs often point to what evangelicals would call “a hunger for something more,” whether it be the deep questioning from “Lost” (“So if I pray, am I just sending words into outer space?”), the Biblical reference in “Who Am I Living For?” (“So I pray for a favor like Esther/ I need your strength to handle the pressure”), or the sexual overtones of “Spiritual” (“Lost in sweet ecstasy/ Found a nirvana finally”). She has managed to integrate prayer and meditation, speaking in tongues and singing to arenas, support for LGBT rights and an open line to a personal God.

giphy.com

giphy.com

  One of the most affecting things about Katy Perry — something that is easy to overlook at first glance, but impossible to ignore as you spend time learning about her — is her vulnerability. I suspect it’s part of what makes her music so moving to her devoted fans, and it’s also what lets her get away with her cartoonish persona. Perry performed a medley of hit songs at the Super Bowl halftime show, complete with dancing sharks and costume changes, and turned around a week later and sang about overcoming suicidal thoughts at the Grammys in a relatively minimalistic performance. In that song, “By the Grace of God,” Perry recalls her frame of mind just after then-husband Russell Brand left her: “By the grace of God (there was no other way)/ I picked myself back up (I knew I had to stay)/ And put one foot in front of the other/ And I looked in the mirror and decided to stay.”

It’s a far cry from Katy Hudson’s Christian music album, which was written with about as much vulnerability as a phone book. But there’s something human in the fact that it’s taken some time for Perry to bare her inner life to the public. It’s a scary thing to write about one’s fragile mental state; scarier even than singing about kissing girls. (Although that proved difficult for Perry, too, who asked her sister to tell their parents that “I Kissed a Girl” was going to be her first single.)

The charismatic church presents a friendly God because it is concerned primarily that people might not know God at all, that they might be put off by an angry God. Where other denominations, like the Southern Baptists, are most focused on making sure people aren’t heretics, the charismatic church, to put it crudely, wants to make sure that people believe. That is both a cause and result of their conception of God as unconditionally loving, and unconditional love is a prominent theme in Perry’s music. Her song “Unconditionally” was written for John Mayer after their first breakup.

To talk about your own need for unconditional love — and your willingness to love unconditionally — is this really vulnerable thing. It’s rooted, for Perry, in this idea that God is all-loving and very close, not judging you but ready to hear whatever is on your heart, even when what’s on your heart is only pain. There was a scene in Part of Me where Katy, hours before a sold-out performance, is sobbing alone in a chair. Her marriage has started to fall apart, but she hasn’t told anyone in her inner circle. They fret about her, ask her if she wants to cancel, offer her water and a washcloth. Like many of us, she doesn’t really know what she needs.

In March 2013, Mary Hudson published an article on Charisma magazine’s website titled “How to Pray for your Prodigal.” Aside from an author bio at the beginning, Hudson never name-checks her famous daughter. “Satan’s assault on our youth is relentless,” she writes, and makes mention of the evils found in “movies, television, music and the Internet.” But, in a kind of unexpected and sweet aside, she also encourages parents not to hound their unbelieving or wayward children: “The people around you, including your child or unsaved relative, are not the ones who need to hear your prayers. Only God needs to hear them.”

“You just love her,” Perry’s mother says in Part of Me. “No matter what she was doing or what she was singing about, she’s just a blessing.”

Though public perception of Perry’s faith has led some to view her like an alien who has successfully adopted the form of a human being — “How did a fire-and-brimstone-preacher’s daughter become America’s sexiest pop star?” Rolling Stone asked — her life and lyrics point to an answer: “With help from my buddy God.”

Read more: http://www.buzzfeed.com/lauraturner/katy-perry-god