It’s interesting how stress has different effects on different people. For instance, when women get stressed, they look haggard, whereas stress does not have this effect on men. Some people eat when they get stressed, while some people can’t eat when they’re stressed. I for one, get emotional when I’m stressed, which I doubt is very uncommon. Some people can’t sleep when stressed and for some people, stress induces sleep. For some people, stress acts as motivation while in others, it destroys their confidence.
So why do we put ourselves in positions of stress? It almost always disrupts our lives and yet many of us thrive on that feeling you get when you’ve waited to the last minute to do something or when you’re almost at your breaking point. Especially in iB where we all have those horribly stressful nights but we can’t really complain because we signed up for it. So I guess it’s just our masochistic nature.

Jack-o-...Radish?

The other day my French class learned about the legend of the jack-o-lantern. It is an Irish legend in which a mean spirited drunkard named Jack tricked the devil into a deal in which the devil could not take his soul when Jack died. However, the devil tricked him right back because when Jack died, he was shut out of heaven for being so mean spirited and the devil wouldn’t let him into hell. So, he was forced to wander in the darkness forever with only the ember from hell that the devil had given him placed inside a turnip. So every Halloween the Irish put out turnips with lights in them to ward off evil spirits and Jack.
It’s funny how we get from a turnip to pumpkin. I’m sure the Irish brought the legend over with the great immigration of Irish people to the United States in the eighteen hundreds. I wonder if someone just decided that a pumpkin looked cooler than a radish… However, today it is such a prevalent tradition. It’s interesting how Americans like to put their own stamp on things.

Tender Loving Care...? I beg to differ.

I really like the show What Not to Wear so I watch it whenever it is on television. The channel it is on is called TLC and it has some other pretty good shows like Wedded to Perfection, Say Yes to the Dress and John and Kate Plus Eight (which I personally don’t like but which some people watch religiously). However, one of the shows it televises is called Toddlers and Tiaras. I do not think I have ever seen a more morally corrupt and unethical show in my life. The show is basically an exploitation of little children by showing beauty pageants that they are involved in. And you should see some of these mothers. They brainwash their little girls into Barbies, put them on diets, dye their hair, put makeup on their flawless faces and in one case I saw, the mother actually made her daughter undergo oral surgery at age eight so she could look “perfect” for the competition. It would be unfair to say that all the mothers are these horrible momzillas—some of them are just in it for the fun and for a bonding experience with their daughters. However there are mothers with little girls in the competitions who won’t speak to their daughters if they don’t win. It’s truly sick. Some women just should not be mothers. I’m all for beauty pageants and Miss Teen whatever contests—they can be really beneficial to young women, especially with the scholarships they offer. But this is just taking it too far. What has our society come to if we’re willing to exploit our children?

Fame or shame?

I’m pretty sure everyone has heard about the recent hot air balloon incident. What I would like to know is what the heck these people were thinking? I mean there are ways of getting publicity that don’t involve jail terms. Seriously, were they that desperate to be stars? I guess some people really will go to extremes to attain fame.
Which brings me to another point: why is fame so glamorous? I suppose it’s because we see the lives of stars and think prestige and riches, but that’s because we only see what they want us to. My mom used to work in PR—she knows this. People see Britney Spears and all her issues and think it’s so ludicrous, but in some cases, it’s really not all that far off the lives of other stars. Famous people have this allure but sometimes, and not always, their lives are really corrupt—filled with financial issues and infidelity of spouses. Things are not always as they appear.

Model behavior? I think not.

Recently, there was quite a bit of controversy over Ralph Lauren’s firing of a model named Filippa Hamilton in April. The act was done on grounds of the model not fulfilling her contract requirements, but rumors have circulated that the real reason was because the company thought she was too fat. I looked further into the news articles surrounding the topic and found that Filippa is 5’8’’ and weighs 120 lbs. If that is fat then I think many of us are in big trouble. The company also published a supposedly unauthorized ad with her in it in which she was photo-shopped down to almost nothing. The picture in question displays a completely emaciated five foot eight woman who can’t possibly weigh more than 90 pounds.
Whether or not the ad was authorized, Ralph Lauren has still made a relatively poignant comment on the concept of beauty. The company has made an apology, but I doubt that what has happened will be forgotten any time soon. As for me, if you have to be tall and under one hundred pounds to be beautiful, count me out.

Julian Beever’s sidewalk chalk paintings are amazing. It’s completely crazy how he gets everything to be so perfectly proportionate especially considering how he has to stretch everything out so much. It must take him so long to finish them all—they’re all so detailed. It’s such a shame, however, that when it rains they all just wash away. Which made me start to think about how things are so impermanent (I know, very philosophical) in life. But then there are things like the Coliseum and the pyramids in Egypt that have been around for so long and will stay around long after we are gone.
And then there are things that aren’t concrete, like the hippie ideas that existed in the sixties and seventies, that come and go. But there are also non-concrete ideas like religion that have lasted for thousands upon thousands of years and will most likely stick around forever.
People are afraid of change, but it happens whether we like it or not. And some things stay the same whether we like it or not. There is always going to be war and strife, just like the Detroit Pistons can be really good one year and then the next year be really bad (obviously…ahem). There’s pretty much nothing we can do about it. So I guess if I were a philosopher I would say, go with the flow. Take each new challenge as it comes... which people hate hearing so I guess it’s a good thing I’m not a philosopher.

The Truman Show

I am henceforth a big fan of “The Truman Show”. I have always loved Jim Carey for his humor and ability to really take on the character he plays, while adding some of his own personality to the character. But I’m even more impressed with his portrayal of Truman in this particular movie. The film has such a unique concept. How weird would it be to live your whole life with the faith that it was completely normal, only to find out after however many years that the life you live is completely unprecedented and unusual and nothing like how you thought it was? I suppose that the memories you experienced would still be your memories, but I can’t help but wonder if knowing that everyone in your life was paid to treat you a certain way would or would not taint those memories. I think it would for me, at least.
I also wonder what would have happened if Truman had stayed in his little bubble of a world. Would he ever be able to forget that it was all kind of a sham? I feel like I would go completely crazy, overanalyzing everything and everyone in my life. It seems to me that Truman really only had one choice at the end of the movie and that was to go out into the “real” world and take whatever came his way…