Why is it that so many people feel the need to alter themselves in some way to please others?  We all want to be liked, no one can deny that.  However, it irritates me to no end how some people will go to extremes to try and fit in.  Everyone knows what I am talking about, because we’ve all done it at some point or another.  It’s practically a high school requirement: “In order to graduate you must pretend to be someone you’re not in order to climb the social ladder for a minimum of one semester.”  But at some point it becomes ridiculous.  We are legal adults, it should be assumed that the way we act is a reflection of who we are.

It’s so obnoxious!  Little groups of lost souls traveling around in packs, agreeing on everything.  News Flash: You can’t possibly all have the same exact taste in everything!!!  Favorite movie, favorite music, weekend plans, it’s just not probable (and I’m in a stats class, so I should know!).  You really want to be accepted, join a cult.  They would welcome you with open arms and plenty of Kool-aid.   

Not to bash on my own gender, but women are especially guilty of faking their way through life.  How many times has a girl dumbed herself down or demonstrated her best impression of a doormat just to get the attention of like, oh my god, the most amazing guy ever!  It can’t really be that satisfying to feign unintelligence and pretend to be interested in monster trucks in order to spend time with a guy who probably doesn’t appreciate you and most likely just wants to get laid.  

Hiding your quirks so people won’t judge you or like you better is one thing, flaunting them is something completely different.  Another irksome habit: being flamboyantly different.  I get it, you’re “unique.”  Yeah, well, so is everybody else.  We are all the same in that we are all different, get over it.  People who try to be different just for the sake of being different bother me.  Really, if you were actually as quirky as you would like us to think, you wouldn’t have to try this hard.  Also, telling everyone how quirky you are all the time doesn’t make it true, fyi. 

In conclusion: quit being fake, just be yourself.  If that’s too difficult, at least avoid me as much as possible. 

The Lily

The modest Rose puts forth a thorn,
The humble sheep a threat’ning horn:
While the lily white shall in love delight,
Nor a thorn nor a threat stain her beauty bright.

William Blake

With every photo I take, my desire to run away and become a traveling photo-journalist grows.  It’s a pretty ridiculous dream, especially since I have very little knowledge of photography and absolutely no means to travel beyond maybe the Twin Cities.  However, I had quite a fun week in terms of photography, mostly in Canal, and I wanted to share some of my favorites! 

Let me know what you think!

A collection of various quotes from various places that have some sort of meaning to me and that I absolutely adore.

“You are everything I never knew I always wanted.”
     ~Fools Rush In

“It’s amazing the difference a little sky can make.”
     ~Shel Silverstein, Sky Seasoning 

“Love is the irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.”
     ~Robert Frost

“We is always so much better than I.”
     ~James Patterson, Suzanne’s Diary for Nicholas

“Ford, you’re turning into a penguin.  Stop it.”
     ~Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“But the blindness of love led her to believe what she wanted to be true, and her love was so great that it seemed impossible to her that it should not in turn awake an equal love.”
     ~W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence 

“Love is where you find it.  I think it is foolish to go looking for it, and I think it can often be poisonous.”
     ~Kurt Vonnegut, Slapstick 

“She thought: At this moment the glass stem between his fingers feels just like the one between mine; we have this much in common…”
     ~Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

Happy Birthday to me!  I am feeling quite old but also very young at the same time, it’s rather strange.  I’m really excited for the day, even though it’s all rainy and gray outside.  Kudos to my family though, they have been very efficient with the birthday phone calls.  So far my mother has advised me not to get drunk and sleep with anyone, my father assured me that he would not try to track me down at the bars, and my underage brother encouraged me to “go to town at the bars.”  Okay then! 

So, quick history lesson for the day. 
Here is a list of events that have occurred throughout history on this day, August 12:
1. 1851- Isaac Singer patents the sewing machine
2. 1877- Edison develops the phonograph
3. 1898- Hawaii is formerly annexed into the United States
4. 1961- East Germany begins construction on the Berlin Wall
5. 1966- John Lennon apologizes for saying that The Beatles were “bigger than Jesus”
6. 1981- IBM’s first PC is completed
7. 1994- “Sue” the Tyrannosaurus Rex is discovered
Neato!

Other August 12 Birthdays
Sir Mix-A-Lot
Michael Ian Black
Casey Affleck
Pete Sampras

I think August 12 is pretty darn cool!  Granted, I am a little biased, but some major events happened today!  So if you aren’t celebrating my birthday, at least put on ”Baby Got Back” and have a party for somebody! 

Life tends to make no sense and is, for lack of a better term, a bitch sometimes.  The people you love don’t always love you back, things refuse to work out the way you would like them to, and the second you think you have it even slightly figured out you take a look around and everything is completely different.  That’s just the way it is, and it sucks sometimes, but at least you can’t say it’s not surprising!  The “roller coaster” analogy of life is pretty accurate; it has it’s ups and downs, backs and forths, might hurl you upside down without warning, and you never quite know when some jerk is going to take an extremely unattractive picture of you! 

Something about the general “way of the world” that consistently bugs me is that bad things often happen to good people.  Granted, I suppose good things can’t happen all the time, there needs to be some sort of give and take.  But it seems like nice, good, caring people end up with the short end of the stick way too often, and it pisses me off!  It always feels like things fall to pieces far more often than they work out.   

I am a pretty big believer in karma, and the idea that the good you put into the world will make its way back to you.  What goes around comes around, you’ll get whats coming to you, all that jazz.  But why does it always seem to be so elusive?  A small glimpse of happiness and then, whoosh!  It disappears almost as soon as it arrives, making you wonder if it was ever there to begin with.  Being that I am only 21 (or nearly so) I’m not yet bitter about the fact that my supposedly deserved happiness hasn’t made it back to me yet.  I have loads of time, and I am prepared to be patient while tossing some more goodness of my own into the wind.  Plus I’m a perpetual optimist, which helps!  It is common to assume that the obstacles life is throwing at you are penance of some kind, something I was guilty of assuming too often until I saw this Postsecret.  Okay, end of rant. 

p.s. Bonus points to the first person who can tell me where the title of this post came from!  Triple bonus points if you can do it from memory without looking it up!
 

I love poetry.  It’s amazing that just a few stanzas can contain and evoke so much emotion and meaning, and how some poets can twist and arrange words into combinations I had never considered.  I am a particular fan of the poetry of Robert Frost, as unoriginal as that may sound.  I cross my heart, I am not just name dropping the only poet most high school students remember to sound impressive.  Although this does bring back memories of high school knowledge bowl and the tradition that for every unknown poetry question (read: every poetry question) there was a smart aleck shouting ”Robert Frost!” in the background! 

No, I legitimately like his work.  Correction, really, really like it.  I can’t explain quite what it is…it just gets to me!  I realize how convincing that sounds, so to prove that I am not a poser, I would like to share with you the Frost poem that has been my absolute favorite for nearly 5 years.  How does this prove anything, you ask?  Well, the proof lies in the fact that the following poem is not “The Road Less Traveled.”  I rest my case. 

Flower-Gathering
I left you in the morning,
And in the morning glow,
You walked a way beside me
To make me sad to go.
Do you know me in the gloaming,
Gaunt and dusty gray with roaming?
Are you dumb because you know me not,
Or dumb because you know?

All for me And not a question
For the faded flowers gay
That could take me from beside you
For the ages of a day?
They are yours, and be the measure
Of their worth for you to treasure,
The measure of the little while
That I’ve been long away.
 
Sigh.  Below are a few more that I highly, highly recommend by Mr. Frost.  Let me know what you think!
A Passing Glimpse
Bond and Free
Wind and Window Flower
Meeting and Passing

After attending a wedding a few weeks ago and while preparing to be a bridesmaid in another coming up in September, I have noticed myself becoming a bit wedding-minded lately.  This is odd, since I am not remotely close to getting engaged or married, nor do I think I am quite ready for it.  Although since I am female I guess it is a bit more normal, since we have all supposedly been planning our weddings since birth.  Anyway, all this wedding mumbo-jumbo has made me really excited for my own wedding, which makes no sense at all since it is x number of years in the future to my fiance, y, who I have potentially not even met yet.  It’s ridiculous, I know this, but still sort of fun.  And hey, it’s always nice to have something to look forward to!

Also, how fun will it be to get proposed to?  (Sorry fellas, but that area is totally left up to you!)  I suppose it could be equally fun to be the one proposing as well, but it does include the added pressure of waiting for an answer! 

I have never understood people who say they never want to get married.  Granted, this could either mean that they want to play the field forever or would rather just have a committed relationship without the hassle of marriage, but still.  I, on the other hand, have always known that I want to be married.  And not just in an “I’m young and want to get married because that seems to be the thing do when you get older” sort of way, but really wanted to.  I can’t wait to have someone I love so much want to share their life with me.  I can’t wait to be able to kiss someone good moring and good night every day, someone to buy a house with and have lazy Sundays with.  I am aware that marriage is not all flowers and sunshine, but I am so excited for that challenge!   Just not for a few years though, I think.  I can’t imagine being married now, I still feel so new to the world! 

So, I got the idea somewhere to get married in a planetarium and immediately adopted it as my own.  I love, love, love stars, so it seems fitting.  And, how cool!  I’m pretty much a loser and may have found the perfect one: The Adler Planetarium in Chicago.  It is the oldest planetarium still in existence, and it is right on Lake Michigan.  Amazing.  The word “magical” comes to mind.  The likelihood of this actually happening is slim, since I most likely will not be living in Chicago or even anywhere near it, but I can dream!  Wait, solution!  I just have to find a guy who loves stars just as much as I do!  Shouldn’t be too hard….right?

It’s no secret that I love musicals.  Whether it be Hairspray, Mamma Mia, Grease or Cabaret, there are few musicals that don’t brighten my mood and put a smile on my face.  Of course, there are one or two exceptions.  But usually without fail every time I finish watching a musical- whether it be on stage or a television screen- one feeling prevails: I want to live the musical, I want to be the lead character, and I want to sing about it and dance in unison with everyone else in the room! 

So, after some thought, I came up with a few reasons why life would be better as a musical:

1.  Everyone has an amazing singing voice
I love singing, but am not especially talented at it.  In a musical, every character seems to have the gift of song, no matter if they are a lawyer or a garbage man.  Since you and everyone around you is so musically inclined, it only makes sense to sing about every event or emotion that arises instead of talking about it like boring normal people.  I mean, how much more satisfying is it to belt out a ballad about your broken heart or deepest desire, with friends, neighbors, and anyone else who happened to be nearby harmonizing behind you? 

2. Everyone is an accomplished dancer
Not only can everybody sing, they are all exceptional dancers as well.  The only thing that can make your upbeat, incredibly well-sung musical number better is a troupe of perfectly choreographed townspeople getting jiggy with it alongside you.  Don’t deny it, after you watch one of those ginormous dance scenes you can’t fight the urge to learn every dance move so that you can dance along.  It just looks so fun!  Coordinated dancing can also help to ease the tension of a situation.  Come on, it’s hard to continue hating your enemies when you are all swing dancing together on the roofs of taxi cabs. 

3. There is always a love story
Being the hopeless romantic type that I am, I’m a sucker for a good love story.  Musicals seldom disappoint, and you can bet that there will be lovestruck teenagers pining for each other (but neither knows it), lead characters hopelessly in love with people they’re sure they will never have (but inevitably get), or two people that initially detest each other but as the story progresses realize their hate is actually passion and won’t admit it (but they always figure it out).  Whatever flavor romance a musical provides you, rest assured that it will leave you with a pleasant taste in your mouth.

4.  There is almost always a happy ending
Musicals are happy affairs, that’s just the way they are.  There is the moment of conflict in the middle, but inevitably everyone exits happy and cheerful and in love and, most likely, singing and dancing.  The story generally closes with the main characters all getting exactly what they wanted (except for villains, they pay!) and learning a valuable life lesson that has changed their way of viewing the world.  Not only do they get all of this, but there will be a final song that explains the moral and really demonstrates how happy and content the characters have become in the course of 2.5 hours.  What a way to go!

So, let’s review.  If my life was a musical, I would be an excellent singer and dancer and I would fall passionately in love and live happily ever after, with many comedic hijinks along the way that would provide me with knowledge I would use for the rest of my days.  Wow, sounds rough.  Where do I sign up?

So, I love photography.  I don’t really have any idea what I am doing, but I think I take some pretty darn good pictures nonetheless.  I love pictures of pretty scenery, architecture, and really anything with a sort of nostalgic feel.  However, if you have seen any of my photo albums you know that probably my favorite thing to photograph are sunsets.

I don’t know what exactly it is about sunsets that attracts me so strongly.  Maybe it’s the way the blue sky and the sinking sun combine and almost explode in that incredible array of vibrant colors.  Maybe it’s the way that no two sunsets look quite the same, each one has it’s own unique hues and personality.  Or, maybe it’s the way a sunset can really get inside you and trigger a rush of emotions and memories you forgot you had, and make you believe that there just might be something bigger than you out there somewhere.  Whenever I watch a sunset, I always get the feeling like it’s setting just for me, as if it knew I would be coming and wanted to really knock my socks off this time.

Possibly my favorite thing about sunsets?  I will have the chance to watch one at every end of every day, for the rest of my life.

Here are a few of my favorite sunset photos!

So, although I may not know where exactly I want my life to lead me, at least I have a pretty good collection of sunsets so far.