Beautiful Things

The search for a friend, who exists in your heart.



The search for beauty...



...although you are already beautiful.

The clipped wings of an angel,



mounted on the wall.

These are some of those beautiful things.

Ballerinas, Nutella, and Belly Flops

My school is one of those places where if you walk through the cafeteria carrying, say, a grilled reuben sandwich, some girl will stop you and say, "Animals are gross! They make you fat!"

It makes me sad--not because this actually happened to me a few weeks back (It did.) but because a lot of the younger generation these days believe that your figure needs to resemble beef jerky before you can have respect.

Take my girl friends at school. I love them. They're awesome friends. But I've been eating lunch with the guys instead for 3 months now.

I mean, I can take it if someone says "That nutella sandwich will make you fat" once. But if they do it every day for a year and going? Eventually, you crack--kind of like a nutcracker, which serves as my segue into the article I want to share.

You can find it here. This brave, beautiful NYC ballerina would not let critics get to her. Jenifer Ringer is my hero of the day. She is gorgeous, stunning, she knows it, and she won't let a critic tell her otherwise. Heck, she doesn't even need his apology. She's that good.

It's like how the other day at my school, we were having a belly flop contest. One of the contestants from the sophomore class was overweight. When he stepped onto the diving board in shorts, my friends targeted him instantly. "He has no self control. He's a total loser. He's so fat. Do his parents do anything about it?"

I listened for about five minutes, after which I turned to my friends and told them, "At least he's proud of it."

And that shut everybody up.

They gave me a disbelieving, WHAT-ARE-YOU-ON look. I shrugged and added, "I think he's kind of cool. He's not ashamed of the way he looks. He's proud. I wish more people thought like that."

There was more awkward silence, before one of my friends finally piped up, "Yeah, you're kind of right."

I smiled and gave her a high five.

But she's 1 out of 9.

What sucks is that although I'm now recovered, I started the eating disorder trend among my friends 3 years ago, and within my school, it has now spread to affect 3 grades, countless girls, and too many bright, shining lives.

Right now, I want to fix it, one little bit at a time through subtle gestures like making my Facebook status, "I love you all just the way you are" or "Friends are like snowflakes, beautiful but different" (The Window of Starbucks, Thanksgiving day)<--Look! Proper MLA citation!!! (I'm still jaded from finals). Anyways, I read somewhere out there that 50% of women want to lose weight, and I guess what I'm really trying to say is: You are beautiful. You are strong. You are wise. You don't need to change.

This New Years, resolve to love yourself! Love who you are and everything that makes you who you are! Love nutella and banana sandwiches, which are an alternate heaven!

Totie Fields once said, "I've been on a diet for two weeks, and all I've lost is two weeks."

Once upon a time, I was on a crash diet for 2 years, and honestly, all I can say is that I've lost 2 years. And more, if you count all the dinners with Mom that I vetoed in favor of eating one bowl of cheerios, a banana, and some strawberries. I've never regretted anything more in my life. Those two years were the prime of my high school, that I should've spent having fun with friends and doing crazy stuff, not penned up in my room dreaming nightmares that involved eating chocolate cake.

If I could save anyone in the world, it would be all the girls out there who stand victim to body image criticism.

Everyone out there, please stay strong!!!

Owls!!!

Okay--this is the cutest thing ever.

So I walked into Urban Outfitters the other day, and I found this little basket that was full of owls. The cutest owls ever. They weren't outrageously expensive, and it's almost Christmas. I owe my friends gifts that are cute (just like them) that'll make them smile and think of me whenever they see them. These owls were perfect.

So I decided to buy all of them.

Bear in mind--everyone else is here for the designer dresses or boots/scarves, some of the coolest winter fashion ever. Imagine the cashier's face when I piled 11 little pastel-colored stuffed owls up at register. Shopping lines are deadly this close to Christmas, and my arms were getting sore from hugging all those owls without dropping them. I kind of just...let them spill on the desk. And they rolled around a bit. So freaking unbelievably CUTE.

I think the guy working at the desk just stared for a second, and then he said something like, "That's a lot of owls." To which I replied cheerfully, "Yup." So I took home 11 owls.

And then I realized they were too cute to give up. So I'm keeping 5 of them. I got my other friends (who aren't getting owls) scarves.

The green owls are my favorite. The tag on it says "Harley+Boss" (that's the brand I assume) and then "This is not a toy, it's for adult collectors." And then this is what gets me. At the bottom it says "Made in China" but at the top it says "ToyTokyo." So it's not a toy but it's made by a company called ToyTokyo. And It's ToyTokyo but it's made in China. Hmm...

The three different colors. There was only 1 yellow left.

Everyone tumbling out of the bag.

Group photo.

Awwwwww!

And then I looked at the bag again and realized that I forgot one!!!

Everybody.


Yeah, I know. I'm totally crazy to get so excited over a bunch of stuffed owls and snap a million photos of them on my phone. But I'm so excited about them!!! Partly because of the sheer randomness. The five I'm keeping are sitting on my desk right now against the tissue box and the calendar. One of them is tangled in my AC adapter cord. They are so unbelievably cute!!! I don't think I've been this excited over stuffed animals since I was three...

On the subject of randomness and photos, I also need to share my anglerfish experience.

I had this totally whacked conversation with Michelle last night. I'm not sure what made me so hyper, but we were webcamming. And then we split off (with the webcam still on). I worked on TRTP while Mich IMed guys on GChat while we shared music through the Yahoo! Messenger box (That's what I love about YIM. You can watch videos together).

And then randomly, I decided to become an anglerfish! (Which means, I tied a small lock hair up and attached a tea light to it--an electronic tea light. For a second, Mich thought I lit my hair on fire.) I can only tell you one thing: Being an anglerfish is awesome.

Today, when I was driving down Highway 280 (I think), I saw the sign that said "Adopt a Highway: A Random Act of Kindness." I went home and searched up what A Random Act of Kindness was. I discovered RAK. It's awesome. Check it out.

Hmm. I think from now until Christmas, I'm going to try one of those out every day. The only one I don't agree with is "Clean up graffiti." I know graffiti is wrong and it's a form of vandalism, but I'm an urban decay girl and to me, graffiti is pretty and artistic.

RAK also has inspirational quotes. Here's one:
"Remember that you are needed. There is at least one important work to be done that will not be done unless you do it." -Charles L. Allen

And on that note, time for me to finish studying Calculus. Tomorrow is the last day of formal school for 2010. And then four finals and I'm FREE.

Yay.

Best Detentions Ever

Location: Desk (That's in the Awesome Possum Bedroom)
Music: "Only Girl in the World" by Rihanna
Mood: Bouncy *smiley fox*

I thought I'd share this website. Best (or worst, arguably) detentions ever. This actually came up because of a paragraph in TRTP where I was describing a ridiculous detention. I ended up settling for wearing a t-shirt that said "Leave me alone."

:)

Which of course, made me think of MY best detention. I think it was one day when I was late for school because it was raining outside, and I walked to school without an umbrella. Not even nearly as epic as the ones on the Huffington Post.

So... dreams for yesterday night. I dreamed of rocky road ice cream. And then buying strawberry mochi because the ice cream container didn't contain enough for the party I was throwing for JCL.

Again, this is stress related. Originally, the other JCL officers and I divided the food up into two categories: ice cream and stuff you pile ice cream on (e.g. brownies, pizookies, you get the point). I was busy with work, so I asked my grandma (who was visiting) to buy some ice cream for me. She said okay.

She ended up buying cinnamon rolls.

Thus in my nightmare, only one other officer showed up with a tiny carton of ice cream. I went "ACH. How are 20 people gonna eat that???" So, in the nightmare I went to Ranch 99 and bought strawberry mochi.

The dream dictionary says:

"To see or eat ice cream in your dream, denotes good luck, pleasure, success in love and satisfaction with your life. You need to savor the moment and enjoy it. Alternatively, the dream may suggest that you need to cool off and not let your temper get out of hand. On the other hand, the ice cream may be a pun on "I scream". Perhaps there is something that you need to let out."

Cool. Supposing the first part holds true, I'm waiting for this "success in love" and "satisfaction with your life" to show up. :P I guess it did, because I got to work on TRTP today while blasting music on a YIM window with Mich and discussing the meaning of life. Best way to spend my night.

As for the "I scream" interpretation, there are many things I want to scream about. For example, "EVERYONE IS MORE THAN A NUMBER"--on a test, on a scale, whatever. Worth is not determined by numbers.

My new favorite song is "Papa Can You Hear Me?" by N-Dubz. It's my sound track whenever I'm having a bad day, which I did today. And that's totally wierd, because we screamed and played freeze tag and acted like kindergarteners in Biology today. And that's awesome.

^ Isn't that the most AWESOME building ever? It actually exists. In New Orleans off the Mississippi River. Urban decay for the win. This photo was taken by Briantmurphy.

Btw, did I mention that once, I accidentally said the Mississippi River was in New York (and meant it on accident)? TO a history teacher? In front of 32 people? And not my history teacher--he was subbing. Very embarassing.

One more funny moment--a few weeks back at the mall, I was eating in the food court. This little kid was sitting next to me with his parents. Every time his parents weren't looking, he would reach over with his fork and steal my food. Like, he would just poke his fork into my southwest chicken pasta salad and eat it. And it happened like 10 times. I had no idea what to do, so I just sat there. Very awkward.

Okay, it's 3:45 a.m. and I need to be at the gym by 7:50 tomorrow morning. Good night!

P.S. I considered making a label called "funny," but I think all my posts contain something funny. (I try, anyways). Just in case you care about the deep thought process behind my labels.