Thursday, April 29, 2010
The Journey is sometimes more important than the destination
Life is a journey.
Treat it like one.
Every day is a new part of it.
No need to waste even one.
Be thankful for what you have.
Despite the hard times.
Strive to make yourself better and stronger.
Live freely, but cautiously.
Cherish every moment.
Make a difference and leave your mark.
Life is a journey worth living.
You have seen what has been dancing through my head in just one part of my journey in life... and my thoughts just keep dancing, dancing.
Young adults who haven’t grown up yet
They may have physically grown to the size of young adults. But, I can not believe how many of my peers are just so immature. At 20 years old, I am no longer a teenager anymore. It is about time for people my age to act their age. I do not understand the incompetence of some people. Life sucks sometimes but there is no need to whine about it like you are four years old.
There is also a freedom in knowing that you can live without your parents anymore. Learn to do your own laundry, cook your own food, take care of yourselves, mommy is always going to love you but its time you begin to act your age.
I am glad that I went to college far from home because I did learn to grow up real fast and be an independent and sustainable young adult.
College is the perfect time to do this because you have a buffer between you and the real world. This is your time to test it out and find yourself.
Retreat from the city
My grandparents and some other family live out in the country in Nebraska. I go out there every so often to visit them. There is absolutely nothing there except for wide open fields and the occasional barn or house. I am definitely a city girl at heart, but I do love retreating to the country. The world just seems to never end, you can see out forever. This gives me a sense of calmness in nature to see the corn stalks blow in the wind and watch as the clouds appear to touch the ground in the distance.
My grandmother's house has a swing seat in the backyard that I used to sit in alone sometimes as the rest of the family was inside chatting and helping in the kitchen to cook our meal.
Under a Cruel Star Book Review
Below is an excerpt of what I wrote after reading this great book:
Heda Margolius Kovaly writes in her autobiography that “truth alone does not prevail. When it clashes with power, truth often loses. It prevails only when people are strong enough to defend it.” In her life as a Jewish woman, she witnessed the horrors of the Holocaust in the concentration camps. She also lived through the post war time in Prague where Communism seemed to be the most appropriate solution to the economic conditions of the time. Through all this, there was always a figurehead as “the leader” in power. First it was Hitler, a fascist, and then Stalin, a communist. Moreover, Under a Cruel Star offers its readers a better understanding of what can happen to the truth under authority and what must be done to restore truth for humanity.
It is important to be challenged to read books like this one in school in order to better understand history so that we do not repeat it. After reading this book, I am thankful for freedom and the progress that we have made in the US as a society. However, I do also realize that the human race is inevitably going to be violent, or emit unfair suffering to people.
I hope that someday we can all find peace, but who knows if we can maintain that?
The Smartphone Epedemic
My dad just got a new blackberry for his work so that he can get emails to his phone. It seems like nowadays everyone is discovering the wonders of the smartphone.
Getting emails on your phone is so helpful. I sometimes wonder how I did without them We all have such busy lives that it is very useful to be able to check and respond to emails on the go. They are especially important when there is a time sensitive announcement, because who knows you could be far away from your computer for hours and miss out on an opportunity or waste your time going somewhere to find out that it was cancelled, you just didn’t know because that message was sitting in bold in your Inbox.
I think that email on your phone is the Smartphone’s greatest feature. I use it every day and do not know how I would go back to life without it.
It’s funny how we adapt our necessities as technology changes. Who knows maybe in 20 years people will say they cannot live without something that doesn’t even exist yet!
Social Responsibility of Advertising
Let's face it, we live in a world full of mass media and advertisements are all around us. From Billboards, to computer popups, to TV spots and posters on public buses to snail mail. Pretty much everywhere you go, you can find an ad for something. Because advertising is so visible to our daily lives and to all of humanity, advertising has a great responsibility.
Every individual ad represents the business as a whole and can affect society. If is important to think about this responsibility when making an ad rather than purely just selling the product. Advertising as a whole has done a much better job of being socially responsible than they were in the past. Today there is industry self regulation with the NAD/NARB that enforces this responsibility.
The first step to being more socially responsible in advertising is being conscious of the issue and thinking outside the box to how someone could possibly interpret your ad or what it could be associated with?
Adverting is a powerful force that can reach many people across the globe and with that great power comes much responsibility.
Questions to ask:
-Will this ad reach children?
- Will they understand it?
- Is the joke offensive to anyone?
-Is it racist, sexist?
-What is the underlying meaning?
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
What can you do with that space?
It is amazing that when you look at this room you could think of so many different ways to decorate it. I have recently been hooked to HGTV's "House Hunter's" and "My First Place." I love seeing what different homes look like and what the designers and new homeowners do with the space they have.
The best part is that you can experiment with it because by just painting a wall a different color, adding a new bookshelf or picture on the wall can completely change the feel. Thanks to HGTV, I may have found my new form of creative expression- room decoration and arrangement!