I Love Anthropology

I love my Anthropology class. I've never learned so much or gained so much perspective on the world.
We've entered a new unit that covers Cultural Anthropology, and today's lesson was about Race. Today I learned how race is non-existant. And it was so hard to wrap my mind around it at first.
Here in America we define people's race by their skin color. In China it's based off how much hair you have. Eskimos define race based off the roundness or thinness of someone's body shape. Brazilians define race by looking at the different thinness of noses, size of lips, color of hair, color of eyes, and color of skin. Brazilians have over 40 different "tipos" which translates to types or races in America.
SO. Race isn't something that's set in stone, it's not a biological definition of someone. One's race can change by simply getting on a plane and landing in a new country.
I thought this was so crazy! We went over how biology really has nothing to do with race...which was complicated so I won't be putting it on here. But, seriously!! I love how we run all these studies and come to the conclusion that, "Okay. So this disease is more prevalent in black people than white people," or, "Okay, these white people may be smarter than these black people." NO NO NO NO NO NO! We can't say that. We can't test people on race?! They can put down that they are a certain race on a sheet of medical files, but we can't biologically test it.
Bleh. This is word vomit. But I was just sooooo blown away by this. As I always am in Anthropology. Seriously though. We've have so many racial problems, and we still classify people by skin color. When race is non-existant. And we'll keep running these studies, and conducting this research and come out with results like, "20% of white people, 50% of black people..." etc. Race is not genetic, it's a social classification.
So interesting. I just had to blog about it. Hope it was interesting for others to read too :)

----Side note: Went to go looking for pictures of different races in different coutnries. It's harder than you think! Race is so hard to define! BAH! Okay. Sorry, mind is still blown!

Just Beautiful

Mamihlapinatapai could possibly be my favorite word.
I saw someone explain it in the documentary "A Life in a Day" ...but obviously could not remember what in the world it was.
I came across it again today.
It's from is a word from the Yaghan language of Tierra del Fuego which is now a dead language.
It's a complex word to translate but it basically means: A look or feeling shared by two people, each wishing that the other will offer something that they both desire but are unwilling to do.
So many times I feel like this is the case with people. And I wish the English language had words like this. That could sum up such a complex idea in one word. Ah. Life.

Journal Decorating!

So, this is not a difficult project, but! I thought I'd still post some steps on how I decorated my journal/sketchbooks. I have two that I decorated. (One is the journal, and then the other is the sketchbook on the bottom left.)
Step 1: Get a bunch of magazines to get cut outs from!

Step 2: Get scissors and your book you would like to decorate.
Step 3: Start cutting and placing the pieces of the magazine the way you like it.
Step 4: Buy a spray adhesive, I found Scotch super 77, and it worked great.
After you've found that, make sure you spray about 6-8 inches away from the surface and wait about 10 seconds before sticking the clippings to the journal.
Step 5: Once you've stuck all the pieces on trim the sides. It's hard to get everything lined up perfectly so just sticking them on and then trimming after is easiest and looks cleaner.
Step 6: Decorate with whatever you want! Obviously this journal was decorated with some scrapbook stuff I had, and the one on the bottom left was left with just the clippings.
This was fun and super super easy, and now my journals and sketchbooks like much more interesting than they did before!

Happy-ness

Right now, I'm just constantly inspired and constantly happy. I'm obsessed with music. I'm obsessed with art. I'm obsessed with good friends. I'm obsessed with the way people feel. I'm obsessed with nature. I'm obsessed with the city. I'm just obsessed, and I'm so excited for my break coming up because I'm ready to kind of get some rest from everything. I'm having fun here obviously, but I can't wait to actually get the chance to take a trip to the city, or walk in the park, instead of PRETENDING. See that girl on the left??? I wish that was me!...but it's not....
BUT, it will be soon! And I cannot wait.
Life is so beautiful. There's always something happy to focus on. And if there isn't, you can always make something that you can be happy about. And that's something I'm...obssessed with? Ha. :)

....you may ask why I talk about happiness and then decide "let's put in the most depressing song errr!!!! so they get super confused"...no. I just love piano, and I love her voice, and I miss this kind of music. And I can just listen to it and close my eyes and imagine things. Which I love.


BTW....arranging pictures/videos/text is super annoying on here. I'm always inserting things and they look fine in compose mode and then when I look at my blog they're all jumbled...grr. Oh well! I promise I'm not terrible at laying out things to look nice.

Right now, I'm getting inspired by things that don't match up.
LIKE...hmm...
Indoors vs. outdoors
City buildings vs. farm homes
Fantasy vs. reality
Old mixed with new!
Like even the cover of this pretty lights album below is inspiring to me.

I've found photographs like with people's beds hanging from trees....OR...
Lights that you find inside hanging from bare trees...things like that.
Within this song they have the new techno-y beat feel mixed with an obviously older sounding song.
I'm just obsessed.
So I'll probably be posting a lot of videos/songs with pictures that have been inspiring to me lately.
If you can think of anymore things that are out of the ordinary that may be of inspiration, leave a comment! :)

Sometimes I wish I lived in a far away place. Somewhere I can only imagine. Somewhere different from this reality I see every day. There's nothing wrong with now, or here. But there's something exciting about the unseen.

"I climbed the top. I climbed the tree to see world."

"And when the Gods came around to blow me down, I held on as tightly as you held onto me."
"Held on as tightly as you held on

Rain boot or duck boots?

As I've repeated numerous times before, a lot of people here are EXTREMELY similar.

Everyone wears the same exact things.

I don't want people to get the vibe that I'm like, "LOOK HOW COOL I AM I'M NOT LIKE EVERYONE ELSE."

No. I'm just saying...I get looked like I'm from another planet when I wear something other than sperry's and gym attire.

I wore my new duck boots out today. Granted...it's not snowing but our drainage at Truman State is terrible so there are just MASSIVE puddles everywhere. So I decided I'd throw these bad boys on. Immediately, looks of disgust. C'mon now, I like 'em!! I'm actually quite obsessed with these boots actually.

I'd like to think I'm not a weirdo. Maybe I just am. But here are my boots...that I'm super pumped about....

Btw, check out Etsy shops for some of this stuff. Sometimes the shipping is ridiculous so I don't buy things, but if you can find shops in your area sometimes you find the coolest things at the cheapest prices! Love it! :)

Inspiration! Inspirrrrrration? INSPIRATION! InSpIrAtIoN. inSPIRation.

Basically all I do is look at pictures, and thinking of activities I can do with time I don't have? I'm so realistic it hurts sometimes. But! I'm posting this because this is something I REALLY want to stick too. SO! Being a college student, I have...oh yeah, no money?! Sooo not like this is some super cheap alternative, but with Christmas around the corner I've already started thinking of things I can do to make my presents meaningful, fun, and inexpensive.

I've decided to start fabric painting. I think it's a really awesome idea, and it combines a lot of my interests, and will make my gifts personal. My sister loves her t-shirts, and has her quirky interests, so I think being able to make a t-shirt for her with a band logo, or weird saying will be much easier if made by myself rather than searching every store in the universe to find something that she'd probably wear once in her lifetime.

Once I get to the thrift store to get some plain weird fabrics, and to the paint store to get certain dyes and paints I'll probably post a tutorial!! I'm super excited about this. I'll probably spend my weekend experimenting!

Get Inspired

I currently live in Kirksville, Missouri.
No offense to this place, but it's nothing like a city, which a playground for inspiration.
I think most people can say here, that many of the people dress the same, act the same, listen to the same music, etc. ...but there are the few who don't.
And with these people, we're on a mission to find things that can inspire us in a place that would typically be uninspiring, so here we go.

First inspiration in awhile:
Florence + the Machine's new album -- Ceremonies.

It really makes any type of artist get inspired. It's so different compared to the things I've been hearing.
I either hear those same old indie bands, with the male singer with the quirky (most likely foreign voice) mixing old sounds with some new ones, OR I hear the stuff people listen to here...which is pop...which is also my least favorite music to listen to ever...EVER.
But I think Florence is really giving a new definition to pop. We're progressing? Woa, a band that isn't channeling our generation's obsessionwith retro shtuff. Needless to say I'm inspired. Love it.

Um....

So, my friend sent me a Facebook message telling a few of her friends how she was starting a blog about living as life as Christian (http://mythirstisquenched.blogspot.com/). Then I was like "OMG THIS IS SO COOL."
Then I realized I had a blog....
Then I realized it's about absolutely nothing and it's basically me talking to a wall.
I like music, I like fashion, I like life, I like talking about my Christian faith with my amazing friends like the one I mentioned above :), etc.
I feel like not having a focus will get me nowhere.
Can I talk about college?
Some changes may be happening soon!
I want this to be something people want to read! I just gotta find out how....