Room to Think

Today's blog is about nail polish. (take a deep breath, boys.  I'll keep it short.) My younger sister hasn't taken much interest in video games, like my brother and I have.  She also dislikes being an over-achiever in school (like my brother an I are), and she's an all around athlete (so unlike us).   She still gets good grades, and plays video games once in awhile on the Wii, but she genuinely loves crafts.   Oh yeah...she can cook better than me too. She's a genius at artsy things.   She'll make her own headbands, make her own feather chains to put in her hair, draw clever pictures for birthday cards, scrapbook like a pro...If it's crafty, she will learn it--and be good at it. One of these crafty passions she's in at the moment involves painting her nails.  And it's not just the boring one-color paint job like I do on mine: My nails: a suspicious shade of lime green I was gifted for Christmas. Thank goodness it's al...

THIS JUST IN: I was checking my blog stats the other day, and it said I had 130 pageviews, and when I went to break it down, it showed: 129 America, 1 Germany. That's right people.  I have an  international audience.     Hallo Germany! They're probably the 2% running Linux, too.  Too cool, Germany.  Too cool. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ...anyhow. TODAY IS FLORENCE FRIDAY!!!!!!  And that calls for a picture. ah! it snows it Florence too!  =D  I'm so happy!  Those umbrellas confuse me, though... The photo above is from Melinda Gallo 's facebook page.  I just googled "Florence Italy blog" and hers was right on top.  I think, perhaps, I'll start following her...if only for the pictures.  =) I ought to make a checklist of all the things I need to do before I go.  Oh wait.  I already have one...and it keeps GROWING. On the ...

Sorry guys. I know it's not Tuesday.  It's not even Thursday anymore, as far as many of you are concerned. Most of my excuses pertain to the recent PNW snowfall, and an onset of recklessness, laziness, procrastination, and a simple willingness to just be outside. What was I saying about general recklessness? I DID mean to post on Tuesday.  In fact, I watched several TEDtalks that day; videos ranging from a cool statistics program  with a speaker who is like a sports commentator, to a pair of hilarious jugglers , a man who nearly died from healthy living, and a slew of videos about the brain and how it works , and how that will change computing . So...I've been busy.  I just haven't blogged. I gave you a bunch of links to my recent escapades through TEDland, and since I know 99% of you DIDN'T watch my last TED video, I figure I'll just skip to my thoughts and let you explore as you want this week. The reason I watched so many TEDtalks on ...

I'll just leave this here. Yep.  Right in the middle of the Red Square fountain.  Honestly, do snowmen have NO decency? I had planned a longer post for today, but I'm too excited from the snow I can see falling beneath the streetlights outside my window to write much (and much too far behind in homework). So...just know that my weekend ROCKED (despite having my pants freeze to my legs), and the snow just topped things off. I'll leave you with this tidbit of trippyness my friend Cirque mentioned to me: Go outside when it's dark and snowing, and try to focus on one or two snowflakes at a time. It's trippy, and you're likely to end up on your butt in the snow if you do it while you're walking. Enjoy the view. Happy snow day!  =)

Welcome to Florence, Italy Firenze, Italia Last year, I was rejected from the graphic design program at WWU.  I don't blame them.  At the time, I blamed budget cuts and the fact that I was already a Junior for my rejection.  But now I can't even open my portfolio without wanting to change something. I procrastinated, rushed, and came out with design pieces that were definitely below par.  I'm actually glad they rejected me.  Because that forced me to pursue plan B:  sending myself to an international design school in Italy.   It's called the Florence Design Academy .  And it's "50metres away from the Piazza Duomo"...which I hear is tourist central.  The school teaches classes in English... which is GREAT.  But also offers an Italian language course so  I can read my way home should I get lost  exploring...or be able to convince some cute Italian boy to walk me home. =) I chose the school because it was i...

12:34am I've decided that's it's not best or most productive for me to write later than about this time of the night.  Tuesday night got a little crazy--definitely a little out of hand.  And though when I read through those posts, my only thoughts were: "Wow, I can still write cohesively at 3 in the morning!" and "Wow, I can get incredibly carried away" especially when my fingers can manage to keep up with the strings of thoughts as they pass through the ticker in my head that is in charge of motor control. A wordle of Tedtalk Tuesday--Happiness vs. Satisfaction I apologize. I love words. I love having things to say, and multiple ways of saying them.  But sometimes I feel like I should revel more in the beauty of being succinct. Last quarter I took a workshop class where I was required to write critiques for my classmates' work, and in return, they would critique mine.  It was  Kate Trueblood's senior seminar for fiction writing, s...

"It was more as if she had brought them up—perhaps through indifference or through laziness or even through some kind of possessive cruelty—with an imperfect sense of right and wrong . It was as if they could never know when they were being good or when they were being bad." -on a young Sir Gawaine and his brothers  in T.H.White's The Once and Future King, pg 214  This quote comes from one of my favorite pieces of literature--one of the few books on the "classics" list that I've picked up and really, really enjoyed reading.  I'm more of a reader of contemporary young adult novels of the fantasy/sci-fi realm ( The Hunger Games , The Ender Universe, His Dark Materials , The Lost Years of Merlin ...and, Twilight , unfortunately.  But it was a necessary part of growing up.)  So The Once and Future King sorta fits that fantasy/coming of age novel feel, minus the "contemporary" bit.   I read this book when I was a freshman in high school...