Blog 17

A lot of people don’t know that I paint, and some actually act surprised when I say I do.  I guess I’m not the stereotypical sacrifice-for-your-work, paint-your-nails-black, artsy being, but I do paint.  In my art class last year I created a portfolio of work totaling twenty four pieces.  This may not seem like an accomplishment, but it means I had to create about a piece each week, and not just an average piece but something that was “AP Quality” according to my ever-hovering-over-my-shoulder art teacher.  Meeting both her and my standards took a great deal of time and patience and I ended up spending most of my senior year in the art room.  The room is placed near the very back edge of the building, where there isn’t much traffic so none of my friends ever came and disturbed me, except that I wished they would in order to take my mind off of the ever-hovering woman that always wanted me to put something extra in my piece. This was usually some sort of strange, abstract thing that would make my piece belong in a modern museum.  This is great and all, except that I was more about reality than abstract.  I liked to paint portraits, and with them being portraits of my friends, I wanted them to look realistic.  This ever-hovering woman drove me to drop my paint brush as soon as I had finished my final piece.  I haven’t painted since, but I plan on trying to when I kind find the supplies and the space to set up a miniature studio (which would not have worked in my dorm last year).

Blog 16

When I heard the crash, I didn’t understand what was happening until I looked through my rear window and saw the tree, and the million pieces of glass that came crashing down into my trunk.  I didn’t understand how this could happen, I was so careful backing up in my driveway, but somehow I missed that branch.  I was calm up until the point where I had to confront my Dad, the one who gave me the car as a graduation gift, and tell him that I broke my car.  I felt so disappointed with myself, and on top of that I have to dig into my already shallow pool of money to pay for the damage.  To top that off, when I was picking up the pieces on the concrete my aunt called to tell us that my grandmother had fallen. Needless to say, I am stressed out, and the only way to relieve my stress is to put my body under more stress by working out.  Isn’t that ironic?

When I’m running or on the elliptical and my headphones are blasting, I don’t have to think about anything except for what I’m doing right at that moment.  I’m called out of previous state of stress and forced to focus on my endurance instead.  Plus, there are these great things called endorphins that really keep you motivated.  I believe that exercise is one of the best, most productive tactics of relieving stress.  It naturally makes you happier while simultaneously distracting you from your current issues.

Blog 15

A lot has changed for me in the last four months.  January started with rush.  Rush was by far the most stressful weeks of my life.  Yes, more stressful than SATs, ACTs, AP Exams and finals.  Combined.  Why? Because it’s personal.  You’re shoved into a room packed with overly excited girls with aching smiles on their faces from being up far too early to be as peppy as they are expected to be.  You have about half an hour to make an impression on these girls, and hopefully a good one.  They have also met and uncountable number of girls and are struggling to remember your name and how are simultaneously deciding how they are going to vote on you.  These votes are a crucial part of the process of getting your bid.  By bid day, where you find out who’s accepted you into their sorority, you’re exhausted.  You’ve thought over and over again about what you said, what you did, obsessed about your outfit and your hair and whether the piercing in the cartilage in your ear made them decide to vote against you.  I’ve never been through a process quite like this before and I never plan on going through it again.  It changed me in ways where it made me think twice about how people choose their friends and the people they are associated with.  I chose the sorority who accepted me for who I am and my unique qualities.  They weren’t the cookie cutter sorority girl who was blonde, rich, and stuck up.  I felt accepted there.  This sorority, Kappa Alpha Theta, has changed my life for the better.  Sounds cheesy, right? But these girls really are chill and are not afraid to be themselves, qualities that I admire.

Blog 13

Just for the record, I think this blog is kind of awkward… I rather read someone else’s that has no idea that I’m writing about them, but here it goes…

I read a blog about a girl who dreamed about becoming a supermodel, regardless of her shorter stature.  I used to share this dream as well when I was in middle school, when I still had a tiny frame but was awkwardly gangly and tall.  My dreams were crushed when I stopped growing just shy of 5’7″ and I found an undying love for great food.  I thought it was so unfair that girls who were trained to be anorexic and grew to insane heights got to enter this world of glamour and materialistic worship of themselves.  I’ve watched a couple girls from my school enter this world with envy, including one of my closest friends who is six feet tall and skinnier than any five foot girl should be.  She would always get stopped when we were shopping by model scouts who wanted to send her to Paris and Milan to start off her career.  She never could accept the offers because she had to finish out school and her education came first.  She was probably smart in not dropping everything and moving to Europe to get swallowed into a life of vanity, but how great would it be to be approached by a modeling scout? That was my dream, just to receive that compliment that I could be a girl that millions looked at in magazines and looked up to.

Statistics show that only 2% of the population has the natural gene for the model stature.  So I shouldn’t feel too bad, right?

Blog 14

So I found this blog called Gizmodo about technology and other things that I’m not very interested in, however, there was an entry about an oven that cooks pizzas.  In your car.  Who thought of this one?

Yes, it would be great to have a place to cook your pizza conveniently whenever you want it, but I’m pretty sure cooking it in your car is crossing the line of over-convenience.  How lazy do you really have to be to buy an oven to place on your car for your daily commute? And warm pizza for breakfast sounds less than appetizing to me.  Especially when it was cooked in your car.  

Imagine seeing your overpaid boss pull up into his reserved parking space in his black Mercedes or BMW (he only takes the Bentley out on weekends) and he pulls a fresh-baked pizza from nowhere and starts chowing down.  And you hope that melted cheese spills on his leather seats or splatters on his touch-screen GPS.  Or maybe the poorly constructed oven will spontaneously burst into flames because he left his seat heater on and the device overheated.  Because really, who would buy something like that unless you have everything else?

Inventions like this are lucky if they become fads.  For example, a parent of a friend of mine bought an upside-down hanging tomato plant.  Just because it was upside down. According to Home Depot, “it’s the biggest thing right now, everyone has one!”  Americans tend to become entranced with strange inventions such as these, and it’s no wonder we are the object of European jokes.

Blog 12

I wasn’t very excited about this blog assignment at first, but I rented Dances With Wolves, watched it (over the time period of two days) and actually enjoyed it.  I was surprised because Costner isn’t exactly my favorite actor and I’m not a huge fan of movies set during the Civil War.  I liked how it showed the peaceful side of the Indians that the Lieutenant encounters and the friendships that form between them. 

I thought the negative way the white man is portrayed throughout the movie was very interesting.  In the beginning, the Officer that sends Costner’s character to the frontier is an insane man.  When Costner leaves the Officer stands up, announces that “I’ve just pissed my pants and there is nothing anyone can do about it” and later shoots himself as Costner exits the town on the wagon.  The Lieutenant’s traveling partner is also very crude and not quite “with it.”  Towards the end of the movie the white soldiers that capture Costner’s character are unsympathetic and cruel towards him even though he is white.  They don’t care that the Sioux are peaceful, they only care about accusing the Lieutenant as a traitor and punishing him.  The portrayal of the white men makes the viewer feel sympathy for the Sioux and puts the viewer in the Lieutenant’s state of mind.

I enjoyed the cinematography in this movie, and it makes me wish that the frontier still looked like that. The wildlife (the scenes with the wolf and the buffalo) were also interesting to see.  

The movie takes a predetermined opinion that the Indians are evil and sheds a new light on their loyalty, friendships, and respect for nature and quite frankly makes the white man look stupid, ignorant, and almost evil.

Blog 11

Opening credit: Strawberry Fields Forever – The Beatles: One of my favorite songs by them.  I remember after seeing “Across the Universe” with my friends, the scene is very trippy.

Waking up: Love Lockdown – Kanye West:  This one is on my workout playlist so it reminds me of running.
First Day of School: Let The Drummer Kick – Citizen Cope:  I remember a discussion about this song.  My friend’s sister thought the lyrics were “Let the Drama Kid Die” instead of “Let the Drummer Kick that.” She was very offended because she was into theater.

Falling in Love: Hands Down – Dashboard Confessional:  Flashback to middle school.
Fight Song: Happiness Is a Warm Gun – The Beatles:  Not my favorite song, but it seems to fit the “Fight Song” category well.

Breaking Up: Hey Stephen – Taylor Swift:  Everyone at Baylor (including the guys) seems to be obsessed with Taylor Swift, so this song reminds me of my guy friends blasting “Love Story” in their dorm room.

Prom: What Else Is There? – Royksopp:  The club remix to this song was my friends’ theme song for senior year.  I remember driving down the highway with the windows down and blasting this song.

Life: Sunday Best – Augustana:  I don’t remember even buying this song, but it’s good.

Mental Breakdown: I Love College – Asher Roth: Theme song of college life.  Every time I was at a party someone HAD to play this song.

Driving: I Can – Nas:  I still enjoy this song even today, and I can play the background to it (Fur Elise) on the piano.

Flashback: Roses – Outkast:  This music video makes me laugh.

Wedding: I’m Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance With You (Remix) – Black Kids:  Really fun song that my roommate introduced me to, then her brother introduced me to the remix.  Their family has good taste in music.

Birth Of Child: Without You – Matt Ryczek:  Very relaxing, beautiful song that my sister introduced me to.

Final Battle: Start Me Up – The Rolling Stones:  Classic.

Death Scene: Skinny Love – Ben Iver:  This song also was introduced to me by my roommate.

Funeral Song: Life In Technicolor – Coldplay: I find this ironic that this song is the “Funeral Song” when my friend wants to walk down the aisle to this song.

End Credits: Sirens – Angles and Airwaves

Blog 10

As I rummaged through my hidden drawer in my dresser, the one I always shove things in when I don’t know where to put them, I came across a letter from my Grandmother.  I tossed it aside at first thinking it was probably just a letter talking about how proud she was of me or something typical that grandparents tend to repeat over the years due to menial things, but something made me return to the letter and read it. 

I realized the date at the top read June 28, 1993.  This is odd that my Grandmother would write something so lengthy for a three-year-old.  I soon realized that while she wrote it when I was three, but gave it to my mother to deliver when I was ten.  It was an account of my Great-Grandmother Russell who had turned 100 the year she wrote the letter, but passed away a few months later.  It told of her father William coming to America when he was sixteen to avoid being drafted into the army in Germany, how he found his first wife, tragically lost her and all three of his children and finally met his second wife Rachel.  William and Rachel had nine children before he passed away a year after the youngest was born from leukemia.  Rachel was left to raise nine children on her own.  My Great-Grandmother was so thankful that my parents named me Rachel.  I had forgotten about this letter that I probably read and put away without thinking twice.  Now I understand where my name comes from, and am very proud to be named after such a strong and admirable woman.

Blog 9

When I was young, I had a special love for animals.  Not just the cute fuzzy ones, but even bugs and snails and other such creatures that a girl should probably squeal when she sees.  I saw all the grownups working around me, but none of their jobs had anything to do with animals.  I didn’t understand why anyone wouldn’t want to spend their day with a puppy or a frog or something you could give a name and love.  The only job I knew of that I would consider was a veterinarian.  

This ended as soon as my parents told me I wouldn’t be able to do it.

Their reason wasn’t that I wasn’t smart enough, it was that I wouldn’t want to.  I wouldn’t want to see the animals that I had such a deep affection for sick or hurting, but mostly I wouldn’t want to see blood.

I have a huge phobia of needles, pain, blood, and almost anything to do with the medical world.  I’ve fainted multiple times due to my squeamishness.  Once, when I was a toddler I saw the blood on my pricked finger and fell out of my mother’s arms.  Another time I was in my fifth grade science class reading a magazine article about a football player who broke his leg.  I excused myself, went to the bathroom and washed my face, and as I was walking back to the bathroom I collapsed and hit my head, all in front of a tour group.  I woke up with a circle of unfamiliar faces floating about my bruised head.  Needless to say, I would not be the best candidate for a vet or any kind of doctor for that matter.  This made it easy to choose my later when I entered the college world.

Blog 8

I took my focus off the numbers displaying on the elliptical in front of me long enough to read the headline on the television dangling from the ceiling.  ”Alabama Football Put On Probation For Three Years.”  I feel guilty saying this, but I felt a satisfying relief coming over me.  I thought of all the people from my high school class that chose Alabama, their obnoxious facebook statuses screaming “Roll Tide Roll!”  It became old after a while.  

Some of the student athletes used their scholarships to get books for other students.  It wasn’t the major violation of rules that I had expected for a three year probation sentence.  Probably a simple act that the students thought would help their peers.  It was nothing like what had happened at Baylor, my own University, six years ago.

Patrick Dennehy was supposed to play for Baylor men’s Basketball in the 2003-2004 season.  Unfortunately, he never had the chance.  His friend and teammate Carlton Dotson took his life the summer before his first season as a Bear. 

Most of my family has attended Baylor.  My parents met on campus.  Baylor has without a doubt played an important part in my life, even though I had no idea that I would one day attend.  It hurt for me to see Baylor portrayed so terribly in the news, although the reports only reflected the action of a small population within the community.  The university’s probation will not be lifted until 2010.

I am passionate about Baylor University, as my high school friends are about Alabama, so I can understand the pain that they feel when their school’s name is tarnished because of a small group of people’s mistakes.