Friday, July 29, 2011
Nature
For all technical purposes there is nothing out of the ordinary in these pictures. They are just two photos I look in my grandmas backyard. I don't know what it is, but there is something I love about her backyard. I think it's because no matter what direction you look, you are surrounded by so much green. You feel as if you have stepped out of the world and into nature, even though its not really located in a place full of nature. Even the sky is full of blue and green, and be it a rabbit, a squirrel, or a stray dog or cat, there is always some type of random animal around. It's so peaceful.
Hair!
Relaxers had damaged my hair, so last summer, I cut it all off. There was probably about less than half an inch of hair on my head. And even now, I'm still trying to figure out how to manage my natural hair texture.
This is how my hair looks right after I wash it. In this photo, It's still wet.
When it dries, and i sometimes starts to do really weird and awkward things.
I may THINK my hair looks like this.
But it really looks crazy and like this.
Annoyed with the way it get's tangled and becomes hard to manage, I sometimes straighten it and it looks like this.
But I honestly don't like the way it looks straight anymore. Since I was about four my hair has always fallen past my shoudlers, so maybe I will like it straightened again when it's longer (no relaxer ever again though). But for now, I'll just keep fighting with it and trying to figure out how to manage it.
This is how my hair looks right after I wash it. In this photo, It's still wet.
When it dries, and i sometimes starts to do really weird and awkward things.
I may THINK my hair looks like this.
But it really looks crazy and like this.
Annoyed with the way it get's tangled and becomes hard to manage, I sometimes straighten it and it looks like this.
But I honestly don't like the way it looks straight anymore. Since I was about four my hair has always fallen past my shoudlers, so maybe I will like it straightened again when it's longer (no relaxer ever again though). But for now, I'll just keep fighting with it and trying to figure out how to manage it.
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Art and Fashion
There is this really cool local artiest that I had the opportunity to Interview for The Indianapolis Recorder. Not only are his paintings amazing, but he turns the scraps of his canvases into purses and other assessors.
This is Kevin West, owner of Gifted Custom Arts.
And these are his accessories , which can be purchased at Roqstars Boutique. Check it out
I kind of want one of those pocketbooks.
This is Kevin West, owner of Gifted Custom Arts.
And these are his accessories , which can be purchased at Roqstars Boutique. Check it out
I kind of want one of those pocketbooks.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Stories
I asked our internship coordinator about her tattoo today, which launched us into her telling us about her mentor and childhood, and it got me thinking about story.
She was saying how that if she didn’t meet her mentor she would be a completely different person. And I was thinking of the people I met through out my life that if I didn’t meet I would be a completely different person.
I thought of my 8-13 year old self, when during which I was suspended from school at least three times for “fighting” with people who bullied me. I thought of the fourth-grade friend who told me about God and showed me there were more important things than hating and fighting. I thought of that one substitute teacher I had that day in the fifth grade that took me and two of my friends told us about “lines” and why we shouldn’t walk on them. In the end, he was teaching us to decide who we would become. I thought of the many who never cared, or the people who I thought cared but didn’t, and how even they played a part of shaping who I am.
I think that even as a writer I get impatient with words sometimes. I get tired of sentences, especially the commas in them. The only thing I hate more than commas is when you get to the end of the line, see the period and you still have to write a whole other sentence after it. I always want to get to the ending without trudging through all the mess.
But there is something beautiful about adverbs and adjectives and commas and even question marks. There is something about the pause there in between two lines. It’s important.
To the people who cared, even offering the smallest smile on a cloudy day. Thank you thank you thank you. I hope your story turns out as beautiful as your heart.
And to the people who keep trying to make me punch them in the face, shame on you. shame, shame, shame on you. punching people hurts, and none of you would have ever been worth me not being able to grip my pen.
Monday, July 25, 2011
Keep going Forward
So last week I went to a Indiana Fever game with Erica, the new newsroom manager at The Recorder, and Rachel, the other intern. While I was there I ran into a past teacher of mine from elementary school, Miss. Cain.
It’s hard to believe that she even spotted me, a girl who is barley five feet tall among the sea of people that were inside Lucus Oil Stadium. (Mabye it was because I was awkwardly sitting at a table reserved for the media, surround by mostly 40-year-old white men in suites, with big curly hair and a purple dress.) I think its good for teachers to see past students, and for students to see past teachers, because it causes you to remember things you might have forgotten.
She said it was good to see that I was still writing, obviously remembering how I use to write little fiction stories and that my favorite time of the year was when we wrote “young author books” and put them on display for our parents to read during the school choir show. (I wonder what happened to all of those books?). I remember writing a story about four girls with a magical map who saw the Loch Ness Monster, and a story about Author from the TV show.
The next day she had sent me a facebook message, telling me she had read some of the articles I had written for The Recorder online, and that she really liked the one about family togetherness and summer reading, and that she was glad I doing well. (I’m glad I’m doing well two. I’m sure she wasn’t sure with 11-year-old me. How 11-year-old me evolved into 21-year-old me is beyond me. But I know that, even at 21, I’m not even halfway there yet)
I think it kind of messes with your sense of time to see someone from awhile ago, but in a good way because it pushes you forward. I told my friend Kate, who I knew since elementary school, that I saw Miss. Cane because she knew her too. I don’t really know where I’m going with this post, but its getting lengthy so I’ll stop now.
We all float on
It’s hard to believe that she even spotted me, a girl who is barley five feet tall among the sea of people that were inside Lucus Oil Stadium. (Mabye it was because I was awkwardly sitting at a table reserved for the media, surround by mostly 40-year-old white men in suites, with big curly hair and a purple dress.) I think its good for teachers to see past students, and for students to see past teachers, because it causes you to remember things you might have forgotten.
She said it was good to see that I was still writing, obviously remembering how I use to write little fiction stories and that my favorite time of the year was when we wrote “young author books” and put them on display for our parents to read during the school choir show. (I wonder what happened to all of those books?). I remember writing a story about four girls with a magical map who saw the Loch Ness Monster, and a story about Author from the TV show.
The next day she had sent me a facebook message, telling me she had read some of the articles I had written for The Recorder online, and that she really liked the one about family togetherness and summer reading, and that she was glad I doing well. (I’m glad I’m doing well two. I’m sure she wasn’t sure with 11-year-old me. How 11-year-old me evolved into 21-year-old me is beyond me. But I know that, even at 21, I’m not even halfway there yet)
I think it kind of messes with your sense of time to see someone from awhile ago, but in a good way because it pushes you forward. I told my friend Kate, who I knew since elementary school, that I saw Miss. Cane because she knew her too. I don’t really know where I’m going with this post, but its getting lengthy so I’ll stop now.
We all float on
strengths and weaknesses
Our new internship coordinator Erica was talking to us about overcoming obstacles and just growing as a person professional and one of the things she said she really had to learn was how to be nice to people. She kept emphasizing the importance of being nice, and I was stumped at this because in my mind I was thinking, ‘How can it be so hard to just be nice?’ But everyone is different, and everyone has to learn different things and overcome different things. And I think its good to know what your strengths and weaknesses are.
So I just wanted to share something that I think could help with that, the knowing what you are good at and knowing what you still need to work on.
The MBIT personality typing test gives you a lovely list of your own personal strengths and weekends. As in INFP, these are mine, copied from the internet.
Nearly all INFPs will recognize the following characteristics in themselves. They should embrace and nourish these strengths:
Highly creative, artistic and spiritual, they can produce wonderful works of art, music and literature
They're more spiritually aware than most people, and are more in touch with their soul than others.
INFPs are very aware of social injustice, and empathize with the underdog. They may be teachers, ministers, writers, counsellors or psychologists, but they will most likely all spend extra time trying to help people with special problems.
They're usually good listeners who genuinely want to hear about someone's problems, and genuinely want to help them.
They accept and value people as individuals, and are strongly egalitarian.
Usually deep and intelligent, they're able to grasp difficult concepts with relative ease.
Warmly concerned and caring towards others
Deep capacity for love and caring
Driven to meet other's needs
Able to express themselves well
can be somewhat spontaneous and impulsive (strength or weakness)
Has high standards and are perfectionist (strength or weakness)
Flexible, laid-back and diverse
INFP may show some or all of the following weaknesses in varying degrees:
May tend to be shy
Don't like to have their "space" invaded
Extreme dislike of conflict
Extreme dislike of criticism
Strong need to receive praise and positive affirmation
May react very emotionally to stressful situations
Have difficulty leaving a bad relationship
Have difficulty scolding or punishing others
Tend to be reserved about expressing their feelings
Perfectionistic tendancies may cause them to not give themselves enough credit
Tendency to blame themselves for problems.
So I just wanted to share something that I think could help with that, the knowing what you are good at and knowing what you still need to work on.
The MBIT personality typing test gives you a lovely list of your own personal strengths and weekends. As in INFP, these are mine, copied from the internet.
Nearly all INFPs will recognize the following characteristics in themselves. They should embrace and nourish these strengths:
Highly creative, artistic and spiritual, they can produce wonderful works of art, music and literature
They're more spiritually aware than most people, and are more in touch with their soul than others.
INFPs are very aware of social injustice, and empathize with the underdog. They may be teachers, ministers, writers, counsellors or psychologists, but they will most likely all spend extra time trying to help people with special problems.
They're usually good listeners who genuinely want to hear about someone's problems, and genuinely want to help them.
They accept and value people as individuals, and are strongly egalitarian.
Usually deep and intelligent, they're able to grasp difficult concepts with relative ease.
Warmly concerned and caring towards others
Deep capacity for love and caring
Driven to meet other's needs
Able to express themselves well
can be somewhat spontaneous and impulsive (strength or weakness)
Has high standards and are perfectionist (strength or weakness)
Flexible, laid-back and diverse
INFP may show some or all of the following weaknesses in varying degrees:
May tend to be shy
Don't like to have their "space" invaded
Extreme dislike of conflict
Extreme dislike of criticism
Strong need to receive praise and positive affirmation
May react very emotionally to stressful situations
Have difficulty leaving a bad relationship
Have difficulty scolding or punishing others
Tend to be reserved about expressing their feelings
Perfectionistic tendancies may cause them to not give themselves enough credit
Tendency to blame themselves for problems.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Today, I met a 90 year old woman
Our boss Erica took us to her house just to visit her. She had met her during a three part story that she won an award for, and they are still friends. I feel really inspired now.
The old woman had an interesting story, but she didn't even tell us that much of it. I guess, she just had an interesting presence and I just felt inspired. Maybe there are some people who are so much of something that when you are around them you become something too.
One of the things she kept saying was how she doesn't plan anymore, and how our plans may not work our but the plan will, you know? I think so much we get so ahead of ourselves with our ideals and what we want to do for ourselves, for other people or for the world that we forget this.
The old woman had an interesting story, but she didn't even tell us that much of it. I guess, she just had an interesting presence and I just felt inspired. Maybe there are some people who are so much of something that when you are around them you become something too.
One of the things she kept saying was how she doesn't plan anymore, and how our plans may not work our but the plan will, you know? I think so much we get so ahead of ourselves with our ideals and what we want to do for ourselves, for other people or for the world that we forget this.
Monday, July 18, 2011
So I was looking through old photos on my computer and I came across a sequence of photos that made me smile. Last summer, I went on a missions trip to chicago with Campus Crusade for Christ. One of the things we did was travel to different campuses around the city to help with different campus movements. My groups two campus was Chicago State (a campus with a high percentage of African-Americans) where we worked with the IMPACT movement, and IIT (A campus with a high percentage of International students.) where we worked with the Bridges movement.
Anyway, the following photos took place at IIT. Trust me, we never acted like this with any of the actual students we met with on our campuses but I guess we felt the need to make fun of ourselves for a little while. In the following photos, they played the role of crazed evangelist. I was the photographer, and I felt the need to put the photos together in the sequence.
But trust me, this photoshoot was just for fun. In actuality, our actual evangelism time looked more like this
It was a fun thing to remember.
Anyway, the following photos took place at IIT. Trust me, we never acted like this with any of the actual students we met with on our campuses but I guess we felt the need to make fun of ourselves for a little while. In the following photos, they played the role of crazed evangelist. I was the photographer, and I felt the need to put the photos together in the sequence.
But trust me, this photoshoot was just for fun. In actuality, our actual evangelism time looked more like this
It was a fun thing to remember.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
PhotoJournalism
Thats me!For my internship I've been taking a LOT of photos lately of things going on around indy, some of which have been published. So, i decided to post some of these lovely photos on here. I'm still learning, but I think they look okay.
Friday, July 8, 2011
Books!
I did a story for the Indianapolis Reorder about summer reading and it made me want to go pick up a new book.
During the course of writing this story I also learned that, despite the fact that the first page of BlackExpressions may make it seem like African American authors only write sex-novels that take place in urban setting (judging by the covers), they actually write about a whole lot more than that.
I discovered so many mystery, adventure, memories, and science fiction book. I even found an African-American vampire series that has rave reviews. The author, Tananarive Due, has won all types of awards for her stories. I bet its better than Twilight.
My favorite AA novel I’ve read thus far is “There eyes were watching God” (Read it for school. its not about anyone watching God, but it is a good story everyone should read.)
Such diversity in African-American novels. If I really want to write fiction someday, I need to write more fiction now. If you don't force yourself to write you will never get over never ending writers block.
This is my article.
I think I will read the book by Due.
I also found this YA book, (and if I ever write a book I know it will be for a YA audience) that seems interesting. Kind of reminds me of Scott Westerfelds's Uglies series, only with Love instead of Beauty. Its not an AA book, but I think I will read it.
During the course of writing this story I also learned that, despite the fact that the first page of BlackExpressions may make it seem like African American authors only write sex-novels that take place in urban setting (judging by the covers), they actually write about a whole lot more than that.
I discovered so many mystery, adventure, memories, and science fiction book. I even found an African-American vampire series that has rave reviews. The author, Tananarive Due, has won all types of awards for her stories. I bet its better than Twilight.
My favorite AA novel I’ve read thus far is “There eyes were watching God” (Read it for school. its not about anyone watching God, but it is a good story everyone should read.)
Such diversity in African-American novels. If I really want to write fiction someday, I need to write more fiction now. If you don't force yourself to write you will never get over never ending writers block.
This is my article.
I think I will read the book by Due.
I also found this YA book, (and if I ever write a book I know it will be for a YA audience) that seems interesting. Kind of reminds me of Scott Westerfelds's Uglies series, only with Love instead of Beauty. Its not an AA book, but I think I will read it.
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
On not being perfect
I feel like I failed whenever I do anything wrong.
Today, at my internship, I put the photo captions in the wrong folder. This caused everyone to have uproar all day looking for the captions. It frustrates me, because I feel like even when I think im being extra careful not to mess anything up, I wind up messing something up anyways. Its inevitable, and I just want one week where I do everything right.
But I’m not perfect. And that’s the point of this internship anyways, right? To learn. So I guess I’ll just keep pushing through it, mishaps and mistakes and all.
I think when people make mistakes, they should own up to them and admit they were wrong, then try to change the situation so it will not happen again. That’s all a person can do.
It’s okay not to be perfect.
Today, at my internship, I put the photo captions in the wrong folder. This caused everyone to have uproar all day looking for the captions. It frustrates me, because I feel like even when I think im being extra careful not to mess anything up, I wind up messing something up anyways. Its inevitable, and I just want one week where I do everything right.
But I’m not perfect. And that’s the point of this internship anyways, right? To learn. So I guess I’ll just keep pushing through it, mishaps and mistakes and all.
I think when people make mistakes, they should own up to them and admit they were wrong, then try to change the situation so it will not happen again. That’s all a person can do.
It’s okay not to be perfect.
Demand It!
I have a confession to make
I survived 18 years without a drives license. After getting my license at age 18, I survived another year without a car. Now, with car and license, at the age of 21, I am still getting use to driving.
No, that’s not the word for it. I can drive; I just don’t know where everything is located. But I have been navigating the streets of Indianapolis this summer just fine. (Which mainly involves going to my internship, Going wherever my Internship coordinator sends me off too, maybe going to other locations like Casselton, and avoiding the downtown aria at all cost (too many one way streets!).
But there is one thing I still haven’t been able to manage: The Highway. Not because I’m afraid to drive on the highway, but because, according to my mom, “I don’t have the nerves for it.” As in, she doesn’t have the “nerves” to let me drive on the highway. I’ve tried convincing her to drive on the high way with her in the car with me and she says that would make her nervous as well.
Im assuming she just dosen't want to see this happen
or this
But I think this would most likely happen
I think being able to drive on the highway would be pretty convenient. I would be able to navigate between my university (Ball State) and Indianapolis. I would be able to get places without a 30-minute drive in my not air-conditioned car. (Apparently my air-conditioner was installed backwards, and it cost $2000 to get it turned around. That’s $2000 more than this unpaid summer intern has.)
On one hand, I know that she is my mom and I should respect her highway-limitation. On the other hand, I feel like it’s a bit silly. My goal was that, by the end of this summer, to be able to navigate between ball state and Indianapolis. But sense she isn’t letting me drive on the highway.
I’m not going to drive on the Highway without her okay, but I think I will have to demand it. See if she will let me drive (with her in the car with me) on the highway. And persistently, consistently demand it.
It’s the only way.
I survived 18 years without a drives license. After getting my license at age 18, I survived another year without a car. Now, with car and license, at the age of 21, I am still getting use to driving.
No, that’s not the word for it. I can drive; I just don’t know where everything is located. But I have been navigating the streets of Indianapolis this summer just fine. (Which mainly involves going to my internship, Going wherever my Internship coordinator sends me off too, maybe going to other locations like Casselton, and avoiding the downtown aria at all cost (too many one way streets!).
But there is one thing I still haven’t been able to manage: The Highway. Not because I’m afraid to drive on the highway, but because, according to my mom, “I don’t have the nerves for it.” As in, she doesn’t have the “nerves” to let me drive on the highway. I’ve tried convincing her to drive on the high way with her in the car with me and she says that would make her nervous as well.
Im assuming she just dosen't want to see this happen
or this
But I think this would most likely happen
I think being able to drive on the highway would be pretty convenient. I would be able to navigate between my university (Ball State) and Indianapolis. I would be able to get places without a 30-minute drive in my not air-conditioned car. (Apparently my air-conditioner was installed backwards, and it cost $2000 to get it turned around. That’s $2000 more than this unpaid summer intern has.)
On one hand, I know that she is my mom and I should respect her highway-limitation. On the other hand, I feel like it’s a bit silly. My goal was that, by the end of this summer, to be able to navigate between ball state and Indianapolis. But sense she isn’t letting me drive on the highway.
I’m not going to drive on the Highway without her okay, but I think I will have to demand it. See if she will let me drive (with her in the car with me) on the highway. And persistently, consistently demand it.
It’s the only way.
So this last weekend was the 4th of July weekend, and I basically spent it with friends and family. On Saturday I caught up with an old friend from high school. We went to Casselton and shopped and just talked about life. Then on Monday (the actual holiday). My family had a get-together at the park. I watched fireworks and took photos of random things.
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