Working for my friends

Acknowledgement. I finally met a photography student who really thanked me for helping her out as a model.

I enjoy being able to hell out my friends as a model, but at the same time it stresses me out. They are not always clear as to exactly what they want the style to be. Half the time they tell me to just wear what I usually do because I'm stylish.

Here's the thing. I wear a huge variety of clothes. It's not just me, all my friends say so as well. So when you tell me to just wear what I usually do, well that could be anything!

At least I've learned from this as a photographer myself, be specific to your models. They will not stress as much, therefor keeping hair on their head and pimples off their skin.

Brain mush

This week has been quite a week. I find that I'll be talking to someone and then my brain goes blank mid-sentence.... This is what being in college does to a person. Having school, a job and being involved on campus. It's curious, and we all say how excited we will be when school ends, but there's always the craziness of the unknown. I'm not sure we will ever find the balance. I guess we can hope for the best. Not much more to do. Just gotta live life and keep on going.

Fuzzy legs

Oh the woes of a girl. We all say how much easier it would be to be a boy. This is extraordinarily true. We could act like boys, but then we would be brutally judged and called some rather offensive names. Girls are viscous when it comes to appearance. That is why so many girls feel they always need to look nice. Over 75% of the time a girl isn't dressing up for a guy, no she's dressing up to compete with other girls.
Girls have so much pruning to do. Making sure all their facial issues are covered and their bodies hairless. This is where my predicament comes into play.

Shaving legs. Shaving my legs every(ish) day.

It's annoying and causes me to take long showers, only to realize after I get out of the shower a missed a spot, or to become very cold quickly making it pointless that I had shaven at all.

Waxing. Waxing my legs.

See I hate hair on my body. I like smooth silky skin, even if no one else is feeling it. Therefor I shave a lot. But I want to try waxing because I heard of all the benefits it does. Problem is in order to wax there must be hair on your legs. Not just some hair, at least 1/4 an inch if not more.

So here comes me, wanting to wax but loathing hair on my body. I must allow the hair on my legs to grow out.

I'm going insane.

I'm not sure how much longer I can deal with this fuzzy nonsense. How embarrassed I am when my leg hairs peak through at the end of my leggings or jeans. How at this moment my roommates lamp is making the hairs on my legs shine.

This must end.

But I must be strong.

Oh did I mention how weird it feels to have hairy legs in jeans. Not comfortable let me tell you. Not comfortable at all.

Distance

I haven't blogged in say, well I have chosen not to say because it is rather sad making. I just struggle when it comes to blogging without real purpose. If I have purpose behind it then I feel empowered and the words seem to just come. Blogging on my own though, well I don't want to sound like some juvenile lovesick teen. But I'm a writer. Blogging is healthy for writers. Therefor I must blog. So today what is on my heart is the fact that the spaces between my fingers are rather empty. I understand when people tell me at least I have someone who loves me and I get to spend my future with, but at the same time, how painful is it to know that I have someone that lights up my world yet I rarely see them because of the life of distance I chose and he chose. I know he is out there, miles away, and our little phones connect us. Tiny pixels form into letters. But these screens are not the soft skin of his hands. His words are nice, but they are nothing like the feel of his fingers brushing across my cheek or rubbing my stomach when I feel sick. I wouldn't trade our love for anything, but distance is torture. We have the hope of our future together, and the knowledge that life is better with each other in it than not at all. So for now I'll survive the distance, I keep to my day dreams about the day to come and I'll keep wishing on those shooting stars.

Where did everybody go?

War: a word that brings such hatred and fear into the hearts of many.
Yet what do people do now in the face of war?

As a student at a University I do not have a great amount of options when trying to go out and help the world… besides mission trips, feeding the homeless and getting the word out. This is why I stay connected to programs like “TOMs shoes” and “Falling Whistles.” They both deal with providing help to those who need it. Falling Whistles is a program that was created to make people see that a war is happening in Congo that most do not know about or just overlook. To be in support of Falling Whistles, one can buy the whistle from their site and wear it as a symbol of being a “Whistleblower for peace.”  The war in Congo is ongoing, yet our government has not done anything about it. Obama said he would and even signed an agreement, but nothing has happened. So as of right now a petition has been going around with now over 20,000 signatures to send to our government, petitioning that we send a convoy to Congo to protect those in need. Come to find that the organization “Invisible Children” also deals with many of the war affected children.  

               “Over the past 15 years war in the Democratic Republic of Congo has consumed as many as 5m lives, often gruesomely: children murdering in gangs, civilians massacred by the thousand, rape as common as petty thievery. And yet, who can name the man responsible?” said The Economist when writing about Jason Stearns, a man who travels through the Congo area, speaking the dialects to get information out of as many people as possible.

               That is the question to be asking, “Who can name the man responsible?” The leaders of Congo have been shot, ignored and killed through the years, so it is utter insanity there. Rape is as common as small thefts. Millions of people are dying. There seem to be no restrictions, similar to a Holocaust, yet who is the one charging it on? Although there is not much of an answer to that, the more important question is how the rest of the world is allowing this kind of behavior to continually happen? Why is no one doing anything about it? Is the world not supposed to work together? Why do we have the UN and not use it? America has its solders in Afghanistan, and although there is still a fight there, does it compare to what is happening in Congo.

               At my school, California Baptist University, we have many students from Rwanda. I never was able to really get to know them except for one, but I haven’t really asked about life back there. I know she and her mother do not live there anymore and had moved away, but The Economist’s article spoke of how close Rwanda is to Congo, how the war enters into that country. This is very scary, and it makes me worried for all the families back in Rwanda from our students here, how much pain must be in their hearts.

               It breaks my heart that although organizations such as Falling Whistles and Invisible Children work so hard to inform the public and reach the government officials, people ignore or do not care enough to put all their support behind the cause. Our world has become extremely self-centered, and it is truly heart breaking.

               “Despite at one time having the world’s biggest UN peacekeeping mission, Congo, Jason Stearns argues, should be ranked alongside Germany, Russia and China as one of the great vortexes of recent human violence. The conflict sucked in armies from nine nations, spawning at least 20 rebel groups that fought 40 or 50 interlocking wars within wars in a country as big as western Europe, but with few roads. Ethnic rivalry, lust for power, security concerns, poverty and greed all played a role, yet no side had a clear objective.”

               These people are fighting for nothing. Yes there might be an abundance of minerals, but it is an uncontrolled war going on. But because the minerals are not necessarily oil and gas, America is not as keen to get in on the fight, to clear up the war, unlike the war that started in Iraq. The wars in Congo have not necessarily been directed on America like crashing a plane into our Twin Towers, but it’s still a war, an unnecessary war that is harmful, and if not controlled soon, will start consumed and spreading to neighboring countries.

               Are you a Whistle-blower for peace?

http://www.economist.com/node/18617876

Franglais speaking love

Today I reread the journal I kept during my stay in France this past summer. Half of it was in French which I now wish I could still do. It is sad how one could know a language so well for a while, but then put out of practice it no longer is a good as it once was. I now have a lot of trouble understanding when people talk to me in French. I find myself using the igoogle translator more and more. It truly is sad. I have a friend back in Oklahoma who speaks French as well, but she has forgotten most of it as well, and we do not get to talk very often because of our busy schedules. So I don't have many options for finding people to regularly speak French with me.
I know that there are Rwanda students on campus, a good amount of them speak French, but part of their language is different because they are from a different country, and many French speaking countries have different dialects and vocabulary. Even in France itself has different Vocabulary differing from North France to South France. In a way it's like how there are different slang words in North California compares to South California. Hecka is a common one up North, but people in SoCal think it's ridiculous, (I personally think it is really funny, and because I hang out with a lot of people from NorCal I find myself sometimes saying it).
Language is just a peculair thing... I could go on forever of how ridiculous English is, as well as French. Who puts a k in the front of knife, that is ubsurd, and French will look one way written, but when pronounced it sounds like an entirely different word.
Oh people, I would love to go back in time and knock (there's another k word) some sense into the men who created the French verb tenses dealing with only a set of 20 verbs that have to be treated special compared to the others. How on earth am I supposed to memorize them all and differ between them?
Well, I guess it's a journey. but hopefully it will end happy (if only I can remember all the French I knew this summer...)

Busy Busy Busy

So i sent a package to Camille full of jewelry, paintings I did and Cd's I made her.

She received it this week and was so very very excited which makes me very happy. So all week she's been listening to the Cd's I made her, which really makes me happy.

On Facebook as her status's she will sometimes now put song lyrics from some of what I sent her. It is super cute. But I love how even through music we can connect. Sometimes she will text me with songs I should listen to, and sometimes I'll do the same for her.

People in France actually listen to more music made in America than in France, this also happens with films. France has their own culture, but America's culture has a great influence now.

I believe this is both a good and a bad thing, but at least our worlds are connected to one another.