blog, i apologize. i'm all caught up with this rat race called college. i'm trying to big-picture it, not get so caught up and stressed out, enjoy myself. (ha). so...i can't guarantee the pace of my posts. but i'm still alive.
20090228
20090222
what have i been doing lately?tried to dance away my cares last night.
had dinner with my potential future housemates on friday.
brad doing double desserts at kava
sipping strawberry italian sodaalso
making national geographic paper crane mobiles
created a resume
doing outrageous amounts of history reading
bought 5 books for $6 at an used books sale. don't know when i'll get to them.
ran across this test today. don't know how credible this method is, or how badly we can rationalize ourselves into believing these things, but it seemed pretty accurate.
20090219
so many of these things i am not
10-31 A good woman is hard to find,and worth far more than diamonds.
Her husband trusts her without reserve,
and never has reason to regret it.
Never spiteful, she treats him generously
all her life long.
She shops around for the best yarns and cottons,
and enjoys knitting and sewing.
She's like a trading ship that sails to faraway places
and brings back exotic surprises.
She's up before dawn, preparing breakfast
for her family and organizing her day.
She looks over a field and buys it,
then, with money she's put aside, plants a garden.
First thing in the morning, she dresses for work,
rolls up her sleeves, eager to get started.
She senses the worth of her work,
is in no hurry to call it quits for the day.
She's skilled in the crafts of home and hearth,
diligent in homemaking.
She's quick to assist anyone in need,
reaches out to help the poor.
She doesn't worry about her family when it snows;
their winter clothes are all mended and ready to wear.
She makes her own clothing,
and dresses in colorful linens and silks.
Her husband is greatly respected
when he deliberates with the city fathers.
She designs gowns and sells them,
brings the sweaters she knits to the dress shops.
Her clothes are well-made and elegant,
and she always faces tomorrow with a smile.
When she speaks she has something worthwhile to say,
and she always says it kindly.
She keeps an eye on everyone in her household,
and keeps them all busy and productive.
Her children respect and bless her;
her husband joins in with words of praise:
"Many women have done wonderful things,
but you've outclassed them all!"
Charm can mislead and beauty soon fades.
The woman to be admired and praised
is the woman who lives in the Fear-of-God.
Give her everything she deserves!
Festoon her life with praises!
-Proverbs 31:10-31
20090216
a magical, fantastic fleet foxes video.
brightened my evening
my evening of...
blogging
talking to a high school friend
writing
making garlands for my room out of old national geographics
generally just doing anything but homework.
brightened my evening
my evening of...
blogging
talking to a high school friend
writing
making garlands for my room out of old national geographics
generally just doing anything but homework.
20090215
no deep thoughts for today
recycled science journals put to good use
obesity and speed spring collection...
i am finally able to relax color (besides black, white, gray, and purple) back into my wardrobe, beginning with a thrifted teal pullover. perfectly worn and fraying and textured- i have lived in it this weekend.
20090213
20090212
last night i ate many many pancakes and laughed a lot.this morning is not welcome.
...
"how vain it is to sit down and write when you have not stood up to live." -henry david thoreau
...
oh my goodness check out these babies
20090211
it has been so gloriously warm here these past few days! 50 degrees- a heat wave in michigan. but now it is raining cold...i picked up this book for 50 cents at the thrift store this weekend, Are You Running With Me, Jesus? by Malcolm Boyd. it's an unusual book of prayers written by this streetwise priest in the 1960's. as i understand it, the book was relatively controversial but very well-received because Malcolm attacks issues of the day, the nitty-gritty of all the suffering he was witessing, and he did it in everyday laymen's terms. i am almost finished with it, and definitely recommend it.
here are a few of my favorites:
You said there is perfect freedom in your service, Lord. You're over there where I'm keeping you, outside my real life. How can I go on being such a lousy hypocrite? Come over here, where I don;t want You to come. Let me quit playing this blasphemous game of religion with You. Jesus, help me to let You be Yourself in my life- so that I can be myself.
And, Lord, please keep us human and capable of weathering such minor- and major- disasters. Don't let us turn ourselves into machines, no matter how hard we seem to be trying.
I know we can't pass over this situation, yet we are somehow supposed to live with the outrage of doing exactly that. I see the beauty of your creation, and I am grateful, but then I see in my mind's eye the very real possibility of its destruction. How can I stand this, Jesus? What is prayer supposed to mean if I am passively accepting a peril which it is sinful to accept? I don;t want to misuse prayer to lull me about this crisis, Lord. I want to accept my responsibility of cooperating with you in the continuing and present act of creation. How can I do it?
20090209
just two photos I really like, from facehunter and the sartorialist.well, i have many subjects i would like to write about, but my mind is jumbled with to-do lists. i will start here: this semester the cultural discerners are reading Everyday Apocalyspe by David Dark. Here are some parts from the first chapter that I found significant:
Confusing redemption for escape, real injustice- political and personal- goes mostly unengaged, and the actual, everyday world gets left behind...
Genuine apocalyptic expression is a radical declaration...Its job is to reflect...the tensions and paradoxes that constitute our understanding of reality...
Given our tendency to see and hear what we want to see and hear while disregarding the rest, we need whatever we can get in the way of an awakening...
We were made for something better than what we're getting and whatever it is we're settling for...
the media is crippling people's sould, setting up barriers between man and the crucial questions of his existence, his consciousness of himself and a spiritual being...
"I am interested in making up a good case for distortion, as I am coming to believe it is the only way to make people see"
- Flannery O'Connor
isn't that the truth?
20090208
"And now I'm back and the old rhythm must resume its pace. This January I remembered that learning can be a joy. This first week, that memory feels like a butterfly gripped in my hand; I can't grip it or it will be crushed, but if I do not concentrate on it, it will fly away again...the classroom may not always be inspiring, refreshing, and enlivening...but I'll know when I get my diploma that I have thrived because of and despite my classroom education. Forgive my moment of intellectual pride, but that's an accomplishment...So, professors, forgive me if my eyes occasionally glaze over or I let out a wistful sigh as I stare toward the window. I'm grasping at memories and searching for joy."-From the Editor of the Chimes paper, Bethany Duemler, Feb. 5 2009. Bethany was my roommate during my interim in New England last month, and summs up many of our thoughts very well in this piece.
-postcard from postsecret.
-postcard from postsecret.
20090206
a tribute to the nice girls
By Jessica Leigh Griffith
This is my tribute to the nice girls. To the nice girls who are overlooked, who become friends and nothing more, who spend hours fixating upon their looks and their personalities and their actions because it must be they that are doing something wrong. This is for the girls who don’t give it up on the first date, who don’t want to play mind games, who provide a comforting hug and a supportive audience for a story they’ve heard a thousand times. This is for the girls who understand that they aren’t perfect and that the guys they’re interested in aren’t either, for the girls who flirt and laugh and worry and obsess over the slightest glance, whisper, touch, because somehow they are able to keep alive that hope that maybe… maybe this time he’ll have understood. This is an homage to the girls who laugh loud and often, who are comfortable in skirts and sweats and combat boots, who care more than they should for guys who don’t deserve their attention. This is for those girls who have been in the trenches, who have watched other girls time and time again fake up and make up and fuck up the guys in their lives without saying a word. This is for the girls who have been there from the beginning and have heard the trite words of advice, from “there are plenty of fish in the sea,” to “time heals all wounds.” This is to honor those girls who know that guys are just as scared as they are, who know that they deserve better, who are seeking to find it.
This is for the girls who have never been in love, but know that it’s an experience that they don’t want to miss out on. For the girls who have sought a night with friends and been greeted by a night of catcalling, rude comments and explicit invitations that they’d rather not have experienced. This is for the girls who have spent their weekends sitting on the sidelines of a beer pong tournament or a case race, or playing Florence Nightingale for a vomiting guy friend or a comatose crush, who have received a drunk phone call just before dawn from someone who doesn’t care enough to invite them over but is still willing to pass out in their bed. This is for the girls who have left sad song lyrics in their away messages, who have tried to make someone understand through a subliminally appealing profile, who have time and time again dropped their male friend hint after hint after hint only to watch him chase after the first blonde girl in a skirt. This is for the girls who have been told that they’re too good or too smart or too pretty, who have been given compliments as a way of breaking off a relationship, who have ever been told they are only wanted as a friend.
This one’s for the girls who you can take home to mom, but won’t because it’s easier to sleep with a whore than foster a relationship; this is for the girls who have been led on by words and kisses and touches, all of which were either only true for the moment, or never real to begin with. This is for the girls who have allowed a guy into their head and heart and bed, only to discover that he’s just not ready, he’s just not over her, he’s just not looking to be tied down; this is for the girls who believe the excuses because it’s easier to believe that it’s not that they don’t want you, it’s that they don’t want anyone. This is for the girls who have had their hearts broken and their hopes dashed by someone too cavalier to have cared in the first place; this is for the nights spent dissecting every word and syllable and inflection in his speech, for the nights when you’ve returned home alone, for the nights when you’ve seen from across the room him leaning a little too close, or standing a little too near, or talking a little too softly for the girl he’s with to be a random hookup. This is for the girls who have endured party after party in his presence, finally having realized that it wasn’t that he didn’t want a relationship: it was that he didn’t want you. I honor you for the night his dog died or his grandmother died or his little brother crashed his car and you held him, thinking that if you only comforted him just right, or said the right words, or rubbed his back in the right way then perhaps he’d realize what it was that he already had. This is for the night you realized that it would never happen, and the sunrise you saw the next morning after failing to sleep.
This is for the “I really like you, so let’s still be friends” comment after you read more into a situation than he ever intended; this is for never realizing that when you choose friends, you seldom choose those which make you cry yourself to sleep. This is for the hugs you’ve received from your female friends, for the nights they’ve reassured you that you are beautiful and intelligent and amazing and loyal and truly worthy of a great guy; this is for the despair you all felt as you sat in the aftermath of your tears, knowing that that night the only companionship you’d have was with a pillow and your teddy bear. This is for the girls who have been used and abused, who have endured what he was giving because at least he was giving something; this is for the stupidity of the nights we’ve believed that something was better than nothing, though his something was nothing we’d have ever wanted. This is for the girls who have been satisfied with too little and who have learned never to expect anything more: for the girls who don’t think that they deserve more, because they’ve been conditioned for so long to accept the scraps thrown to them by guys.
This is what I don’t understand. Men sit and question and whine that girls are only attracted to the mean guys, the guys who berate them and belittle them and don’t appreciate them and don’t want them; who use them for sex and think of little else than where their next conquest will be made. Men complain that they never meet nice girls, girls who are genuinely interested and compelling, who are intelligent and sweet and smart and beautiful; men despair that no good women want to share in their lives, that girls play mind games, that girls love to keep them hanging. Yet, men, I ask you: were you to meet one of these genuinely interested, thrillingly compelling, interesting and intelligent and sweet and beautiful and smart girls, were you to give her your number and wait for her to call… and if you were to receive a call from her the next day and she, in her truthful, loyal, intelligent and straightforward nice girl fashion, were to tell you that she finds you intriguing and attractive and interesting and worth her time and perhaps material from which she could fashion a boyfriend, would you or would you not immediately call your friends to tell them of the “stalker chick” you’d met the night prior, who called you and wore her heart on her sleeve and told the truth? And would you, or would you not, refuse to make plans with her, speak with her, see her again, and once again return to the bar or club or party scene and search once more for this “nice girl” who you just cannot seem to find? Because therein lies the truth, guys: we nice girls are everywhere. But you’re not looking for a nice girl. You’re not looking for someone genuinely interested in your intramural basketball game, or your anatomy midterm grade, or that argument you keep having with your father; you’re looking for a quick fix, a night when you can pretend to have a connection with another human being which is just as disposable as the condom you were using during it.
So don’t say you’re on the lookout for nice girls, guys, when you pass us up on every step you take. Sometimes we go undercover; sometimes we go in disguise: sometimes when that girl in the low cut shirt or the too tight miniskirt won’t answer your catcalls, sometimes you’re looking at a nice girl in whore’s clothing - - we might say we like the attention, we might blush and giggle and turn back to our friends, but we’re all thinking the same thing: “This isn’t me. Tomorrow morning, I’ll be wearing a t-shirt and flannel shorts, I’ll have slept alone and I’ll be making my hungover best friend breakfast. See through the disguise. See me.” You never do. Why? Because you only see the exterior, you only see the slutty girl who welcomes those advances. You don’t want the nice girl.. so don’t say you’re looking for a relationship: relationships take time and energy and intent, three things we’re willing to extend - - but in return, we’re looking for compassion and loyalty and trust, three things you never seem willing to express. Maybe nice guys finish last, but in the race they’re running they’re chasing after the whores and the sluts and the easy-targets… the nice girls are waiting at the finish line with water and towels and a congratulatory hug (and yes, if she’s a nice girl and she likes you, the sweatiness probably won’t matter), hoping against hope that maybe you’ll realize that they’re the ones that you want at the end of that silly race.
So maybe it won’t last forever. Maybe some of those guys in that race will turn in their running shoes and make their way to the concession stand where we’re waiting; however, until that happens, we still have each other, that silly race to watch, and all the chocolate we can eat (because what’s a concession stand at a race without some chocolate?)
...
found on this is my heart
This is my tribute to the nice girls. To the nice girls who are overlooked, who become friends and nothing more, who spend hours fixating upon their looks and their personalities and their actions because it must be they that are doing something wrong. This is for the girls who don’t give it up on the first date, who don’t want to play mind games, who provide a comforting hug and a supportive audience for a story they’ve heard a thousand times. This is for the girls who understand that they aren’t perfect and that the guys they’re interested in aren’t either, for the girls who flirt and laugh and worry and obsess over the slightest glance, whisper, touch, because somehow they are able to keep alive that hope that maybe… maybe this time he’ll have understood. This is an homage to the girls who laugh loud and often, who are comfortable in skirts and sweats and combat boots, who care more than they should for guys who don’t deserve their attention. This is for those girls who have been in the trenches, who have watched other girls time and time again fake up and make up and fuck up the guys in their lives without saying a word. This is for the girls who have been there from the beginning and have heard the trite words of advice, from “there are plenty of fish in the sea,” to “time heals all wounds.” This is to honor those girls who know that guys are just as scared as they are, who know that they deserve better, who are seeking to find it.
This is for the girls who have never been in love, but know that it’s an experience that they don’t want to miss out on. For the girls who have sought a night with friends and been greeted by a night of catcalling, rude comments and explicit invitations that they’d rather not have experienced. This is for the girls who have spent their weekends sitting on the sidelines of a beer pong tournament or a case race, or playing Florence Nightingale for a vomiting guy friend or a comatose crush, who have received a drunk phone call just before dawn from someone who doesn’t care enough to invite them over but is still willing to pass out in their bed. This is for the girls who have left sad song lyrics in their away messages, who have tried to make someone understand through a subliminally appealing profile, who have time and time again dropped their male friend hint after hint after hint only to watch him chase after the first blonde girl in a skirt. This is for the girls who have been told that they’re too good or too smart or too pretty, who have been given compliments as a way of breaking off a relationship, who have ever been told they are only wanted as a friend.
This one’s for the girls who you can take home to mom, but won’t because it’s easier to sleep with a whore than foster a relationship; this is for the girls who have been led on by words and kisses and touches, all of which were either only true for the moment, or never real to begin with. This is for the girls who have allowed a guy into their head and heart and bed, only to discover that he’s just not ready, he’s just not over her, he’s just not looking to be tied down; this is for the girls who believe the excuses because it’s easier to believe that it’s not that they don’t want you, it’s that they don’t want anyone. This is for the girls who have had their hearts broken and their hopes dashed by someone too cavalier to have cared in the first place; this is for the nights spent dissecting every word and syllable and inflection in his speech, for the nights when you’ve returned home alone, for the nights when you’ve seen from across the room him leaning a little too close, or standing a little too near, or talking a little too softly for the girl he’s with to be a random hookup. This is for the girls who have endured party after party in his presence, finally having realized that it wasn’t that he didn’t want a relationship: it was that he didn’t want you. I honor you for the night his dog died or his grandmother died or his little brother crashed his car and you held him, thinking that if you only comforted him just right, or said the right words, or rubbed his back in the right way then perhaps he’d realize what it was that he already had. This is for the night you realized that it would never happen, and the sunrise you saw the next morning after failing to sleep.
This is for the “I really like you, so let’s still be friends” comment after you read more into a situation than he ever intended; this is for never realizing that when you choose friends, you seldom choose those which make you cry yourself to sleep. This is for the hugs you’ve received from your female friends, for the nights they’ve reassured you that you are beautiful and intelligent and amazing and loyal and truly worthy of a great guy; this is for the despair you all felt as you sat in the aftermath of your tears, knowing that that night the only companionship you’d have was with a pillow and your teddy bear. This is for the girls who have been used and abused, who have endured what he was giving because at least he was giving something; this is for the stupidity of the nights we’ve believed that something was better than nothing, though his something was nothing we’d have ever wanted. This is for the girls who have been satisfied with too little and who have learned never to expect anything more: for the girls who don’t think that they deserve more, because they’ve been conditioned for so long to accept the scraps thrown to them by guys.
This is what I don’t understand. Men sit and question and whine that girls are only attracted to the mean guys, the guys who berate them and belittle them and don’t appreciate them and don’t want them; who use them for sex and think of little else than where their next conquest will be made. Men complain that they never meet nice girls, girls who are genuinely interested and compelling, who are intelligent and sweet and smart and beautiful; men despair that no good women want to share in their lives, that girls play mind games, that girls love to keep them hanging. Yet, men, I ask you: were you to meet one of these genuinely interested, thrillingly compelling, interesting and intelligent and sweet and beautiful and smart girls, were you to give her your number and wait for her to call… and if you were to receive a call from her the next day and she, in her truthful, loyal, intelligent and straightforward nice girl fashion, were to tell you that she finds you intriguing and attractive and interesting and worth her time and perhaps material from which she could fashion a boyfriend, would you or would you not immediately call your friends to tell them of the “stalker chick” you’d met the night prior, who called you and wore her heart on her sleeve and told the truth? And would you, or would you not, refuse to make plans with her, speak with her, see her again, and once again return to the bar or club or party scene and search once more for this “nice girl” who you just cannot seem to find? Because therein lies the truth, guys: we nice girls are everywhere. But you’re not looking for a nice girl. You’re not looking for someone genuinely interested in your intramural basketball game, or your anatomy midterm grade, or that argument you keep having with your father; you’re looking for a quick fix, a night when you can pretend to have a connection with another human being which is just as disposable as the condom you were using during it.
So don’t say you’re on the lookout for nice girls, guys, when you pass us up on every step you take. Sometimes we go undercover; sometimes we go in disguise: sometimes when that girl in the low cut shirt or the too tight miniskirt won’t answer your catcalls, sometimes you’re looking at a nice girl in whore’s clothing - - we might say we like the attention, we might blush and giggle and turn back to our friends, but we’re all thinking the same thing: “This isn’t me. Tomorrow morning, I’ll be wearing a t-shirt and flannel shorts, I’ll have slept alone and I’ll be making my hungover best friend breakfast. See through the disguise. See me.” You never do. Why? Because you only see the exterior, you only see the slutty girl who welcomes those advances. You don’t want the nice girl.. so don’t say you’re looking for a relationship: relationships take time and energy and intent, three things we’re willing to extend - - but in return, we’re looking for compassion and loyalty and trust, three things you never seem willing to express. Maybe nice guys finish last, but in the race they’re running they’re chasing after the whores and the sluts and the easy-targets… the nice girls are waiting at the finish line with water and towels and a congratulatory hug (and yes, if she’s a nice girl and she likes you, the sweatiness probably won’t matter), hoping against hope that maybe you’ll realize that they’re the ones that you want at the end of that silly race.
So maybe it won’t last forever. Maybe some of those guys in that race will turn in their running shoes and make their way to the concession stand where we’re waiting; however, until that happens, we still have each other, that silly race to watch, and all the chocolate we can eat (because what’s a concession stand at a race without some chocolate?)
...
found on this is my heart
20090205
lara stone, alison delal, unknown, camille from childhood flames, charlie on stockholm street stylebesides the fact that i've had more important things on my mind, i have been relatively uninspired in fashion of late. i grow tired of the aa double u-neck top, high waist skirt, ankle bootie combo, or the skinny jeans and trendy top combo. personally i have been in easy to throw no grunge style (bandage dresses and skirts, flannel plaid, boots, chucks, leather jackets), and have not felt that anything i've had on lately was worthy of photographing.
however, today in avoidance of homework i read through my favorite fashion blogs, and these images are my finds for today.
...
"most people are other people. their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a a mimicry, their passions a quotation." - oscar wilde, via this is my heart.
20090204
dusty foot philosopher
surroundingsi've had a fairly hectic beginning to the semester. the weight of all my commitments is beginning to sink in. i've just started a new job, and i have what i'm sure is the heftiest courseload i've ever attempted. in addition, i'm determined to preserve my health by making it to the gym most days of the week. i must simply put myself in the state of mind to accept that i will have very little free time. it will be an exercise for me, a spiritual discipline, to avoid falling into dead time. laziness. much of last semester was spent slacking, in my eyes, and i know i can do better. i will have to. what i'm trying to say is right now i am trying to be optimistic about my situation. i am incredibly blessed to even be in college, so later on when i feel like doing the opposite of diligently applying myself, i can look at this and find some kind of manna to see me through.
...
a provocative declaration i read in adbusters magazine today:
"world war 4 is a guerilla information war, a clash of idealogies, buisness models, economic paradigms, religious beliefs & alternative visions of the future, happening inside your head right now. becoming a combatant in this meme war is the only way to be truly alive in the 21st century"
...
when i am battling to keep my weight in check and avoid sugary choices, i need to be remembering the children and families in haiti and other countries who have to augment their food shortages with mud cookies, made of dirt, salt, and vegetable shortening.
LISTENING TO: k'naan "the dusty foot philosopher" cd
i was recently introduced to this artist. k'naan is from somalia. his father went to new york to work and sent his son rap cd's. k'naan learned to rap before he learned english, which happened after he and his mom escaped somalia on the last commercial flight to leave the country in the early 1990's. his story runs much deeper and thicker than i will tell here. maybe his lyrics, which focus on the plight of children and communities in poverty, on the real ghettos and injustices, will tell the story better. i have my favorite tracks, but the cd is pretty solid. check him out on myspace or wikipedia.