Another birthday!
05.14.08
music: None... in class
mood: Tired
This Sunday my family celebrated Mother's Day, my birthday, and my cousin's birthday. My mom made an amazing vegan lasagna and chocolate cake!! It was so exciting to have such good vegan food for a change after eating in my school's horrible dining hall. I love veganism so much. My mom also gave me a bag of black bean tortilla chips with pineapple salsa, which is amazing. Also... I GOT MY NEW CAMERA! A Panasonic Lumix TZ4 with a 10x optical zoom!!
After this week, classes are over and I just have to take 3 exams. I'm so ready to get out of this place, but I'm nervous for my internship!
I'm scared of getting older. I want to just stay 20something forever. Once you get older you have to act more and more professional. You don't see 50 year old men running around playgrounds like kids. I wish I could do that still as I get older. But society thinks that's creepy. You have to "act your age." What is age, anyway?
My rose tattoo still needs a third touchup... I never realized it was so hard to cover up a tattoo. This has definitely taught me to do a lot of research on my artist before I randomly get a tattoo like I did with my rainbow. I just hope it can be completely covered. I'm also debating whether I want to get the quote about slaughterhouses or simply "vegan" as my next one.
08:50 AM EST
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Birthday and Poetry
05.04.08
music: Paramore - "Misery Business"
mood: Melancholy
My 20th birthday was wonderful. Joshua gave me a mold thing of his hand, a vegan t-shirt he made, and one more gift on the way... His grandma also gave me one of her rings. We went ice skating which was so much fun. I hadn't been in so long so I was really rusty with my spins especially.... And sadly, their website misinformed us that public skating would last longer than it did, so we only were able to skate for 45 minutes or so. But then we drove really far to Sunflower, an amazing vegetarian restaurant, and on the way back we passed a park that I used to go to with my grandparents when I was young. Josh rented a boat for us and we went out onto the lake. There was an island that we stopped on but soon realized it was off limits due to goose nesting... scary experience! I wanted to go on the train that goes through the park like I used to when I was little, but it was already closed. When we came home we watched
Juno, which Josh's friend Plummer gave me. Overall it was a happy birthday and Joshua made me feel really special...
Today I read my poem "Raindrops in Your Hair" (I posted it here a while back) in the Poetry and Song Concert at my school because I won first place in the poetry concert. I was really nervous but I think I did well! My mom was also here as support. Next weekend my family is going to be celebrating May birthdays and Mother's Day.
Once again I'm sad to be back on campus. It's like walking around and seeing people I have nothing in common with and don't want to be surrounded by anymore.... that's what makes it so bad. I think I didn't mind last year because I was distracted by a relationship that was right there in my face all the time so I forgot about my surroundings and I was content with that. Now I have Josh who is far away and I have to choice but to open my eyes and look around. I guess in some ways that's good, but in another sense, I'm unable to find things that make me happy in a world of grey.
Here's another poem I wrote a long time ago...
Black Crow (April 21, 2003)
You sit atop the highest tree,
casting rays of black elegance unto the land.
You see the world through your velvet eyes,
taking in every sharp detail
and allowing nothing to slip past your glare.
You turn heads with every swift movement,
We only see your stiffening luxury.
And your mind is a sealed away mystery,
silent and unbroken, but a herald of awe.
But you, you sit in solitude in all your glory,
your path of vision reaching every horizon.
Through midnight and dusk, thunder and flood,
the world is your crystal ball.
But that world, it lights your fiery mind;
That world, it's all you know.
06:19 PM EST
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Concerts and inequalities
05.01.08
music: Jimmy Eat World - "Electable"
mood: Jittery
Last Saturday I went to my first concert with Josh and his brother - Paramore and Jimmy Eat World. It was amazing! The experience itself was not very enjoyable with 14 year old emo girls everywhere and the incessant crowd-surfing, but just being in the presence of live music is what gives me the thrill. Now I can't get Paramore out of my head! I did not realize that Hayley Williams was younger than me... It's kind of interesting because when I was a young teen, all my favorite artists were much older than me. Now I'm heading into the reverse pattern, a signal that I'm getting older... yay. By the way, I turn 20 in 2 days.
Tomorrow I am finally getting my rose finished on my wrist to cover up the rainbow completely. So excited... I've been waiting 3 weeks for the final product! I'm planning to get a vegetarian quote tattooed on me somewhere as well, but I need it to be in a discreet location because of the controversial nature. I don't want to have to comply with this, butI need to be reasonable if I want a successful career. Speaking of careers - I have an internship with a watershed group this summer!! After getting rejected from several, I'm really glad to have this one! Hopefully I will do well... I'm pretty nervous.
In case I forgot to mention, my veganism is going really well and it's been over 3 weeks now. No slip-ups or anything. Last time was such a failure. Today I almost gave into some cheese, but as long as I remind myself why I'm doing this, I think I will be ok.
I miss having Mango with me! I was scared to keep her in the dorm anymore for fear of getting caught so now she's staying with Josh. I'm glad I'll get to be with them over the summer!! I also miss my puppies. They are getting older so fast and I feel like college has taken me away from them for the past 2 years... The other day I went home and took a nap with Lexi for several hours. It was nice.
Today in my Environmental Ethics class we were discussing the cost/benefit analysis of economic growth and its measurement in Gross National Product (GNP). The professor asked us our opinion of the growth overall. Some people were saying it was good, we needed to expand, keep our dominance in the global sphere, etc. And their focus was entirely on how our economy compares to other economies based solely on our total measure of GNP. Then I spoke up and said that GNP is a poor measure of a nation's successes because it fails to take into account the huge disparities between the rich and the poor, as well as individual health/well-being. We are so focused on accumulating more and more wealth that we forget this. People believe Adam Smith's notion that there is some sort of "invisible hand" guiding us and that as we pursue our "American dream" it will benefit the rest of the public. But this is not so. The Gini Index is a measure of economic inequalities, and for a developed nation, the US has a VERY high Gini coefficient, higher than the countries of Europe. We have so many internal problems but are so concerned with being powerful in the global economy. People in my class were thinking on the lines of, "Everyone in the US has an equal chance to succeed," and "There is equal opportunity for all." So after I had that little rant, the professor responds, "Well..." and we proceeded to move back to the global economy.
06:25 PM EST
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Laura Lee:: I am vegan. I am tattooed. I love the earth. I believe in love regardless of gender or race. I will spend my life fighting oppression and spreading compassion. Sometimes my dogs are my favorite people in the world. My family has a second home on the big island of Hawaii, and that is where my heart is. I wish I could fly away...
