Sneaking a kiss through the Berlin Wall.

Chess time ;) - Imgur

Life on the other side of a border fence… - Imgur

D: - Imgur

Teletubbies - Imgur

Living Like Monks

   Hundreds of years ago in the Benedictine order in Novgorod, all monks that were newly accepted into the monastery were told to go outside and dig the biggest hole they could. Each monk would withstand the brutal, Russian climate, putting in full effort as their hands were blistered by the roughness of the shovel, and their arms grew sore from pushing through the hard, icy earth. At the end of the day, they were all told to go back and fill their hole in completely, undoing all of their previous work. This odd tradition may at first seem counter productive; however, looking past its physical result, one realizes that the exercise was actually preparing the men for their future monastic lives. This rite of passage taught the monks valuable lessons like obedience and determination, while strengthening their character and work ethic.

     Each week, I spend over 15 hours training for something that I will never pursue as a career; however, I would not at all consider this a waste of time. I get more out of those 15 hours than anything else I do. They make me who I am. In truth, they are 15 hours of blood, sweat and tears, my time to blaze in the painful bliss of ballet class. Ballet is both exhausting on the emotional and physical levels. So why would I put myself through so much stress and agony knowing that I have no desire to become a professional dancer? I do it because it is my passion and it teaches me valuable life skills.

     Throughout my 12 years at the School of Oregon Ballet Theatre, my teacher, Damara, has influenced my worldview on so many levels. The 4 pillars of her philosophy are integrity, work ethic, determination, and the belief that nobody can be great without suffering first. I admire Damara; however I sometimes find that she is easily comparable to the Qin emperor Shi Huangdi. She conducts a legalist system at Oregon Ballet Theatre in which she possesses the two handles: the power to punish and the power to reward. Through fear, she wins her younger students’ respect, displayed through sweat-drenched leotards, bloody toes, and neat hair. The hard work she has gotten out of us has built a successful ballet school; but it takes more than the drive of fear to build a successful person.  I have grown out of my desire to simply please Damara, and I have finally come to discover the wisdom embedded in her philosophy. Each day, when most of my peers head home to relax or get their homework done, I go to the studio. Even if I am sick or have a lot of homework, I will muscle through it and stay up later in order to make time to go to ballet class. I no longer do this out of fear that missing a class will displease Damara, but I do it because I am passionate about dancing and I want to develop determination and commitment.

     These virtues have helped me in so many sectors of life, and I am so grateful for the opportunity to have learned them through dance. But, a time came when I had reached a fork in the explicitly defined path of ballet. My clearest options were to pursue the life of a dancer, or quit ballet and focus on school. So which corsus honorum would I choose? I decided that I wanted to go to college, get a degree, and follow that pathway onward; however, I could not simply quit ballet after it had given me so much. I then took on the difficult task of completing my education and dancing at the same time. Throughout the stresses of high school and preparing for college, I chose to continue with the long hours of ballet classes and rehearsals, which is not something commonly done at my level. But ballet hasn’t just been around to take up time I could use to be doing homework. The beliefs that Damara instilled in me, dissatisfaction with mediocrity, and the enthusiasm for breaking boundaries, are tools that allow me to reach my goals in school, in ballet, and in life.

   At the end of each day, my toes my be blistered, my legs may be sore, and I may be worrying about the few hours I have left to do homework as I think of all the time I have just spent doing something seemingly unimportant, but just like with the monks in Novgorod, the hole may have been filled in, but what matters are the lessons learned and the building of character that will guide me through life no matter which path I have chosen. 

thirdw0rld:

itsyourhomegirl:

perfect cake for my brother, well both of em.

(via indomita)

(Source: nerdball)

Freshman Year: I am a quilter

I am a quilter and my life is the quilt

Each patch is a part of me

Each patch is a place I’ve been

Each patch is something close to me

I am a quilter and my life is the quilt

There are so many patches

Of so many colors

Sewn uniquely together

To make me who I am

I am a quilter and my life is the quilt

There are patches for my family

There are patches for my friends

There are patches for my memories, the good ones and the bad

I am a quilter and my life is the quilt

Some fabrics, I get from my parents

Some fabrics, I get from the store

Some fabrics, I get from my teachers

Some fabrics, I get from my friends

I am a quilter and my life is the quilt

Each quilt is unique, but everybody has one

I choose what to sew and how I’m going to sew it

I am a quilter and my life is the quilt

A quilt is something special

So hang it on your wall

Because it’s only one patch of a bigger quilt

We are the quilters and the world is the quilt

(Source: musicbabes)

(Source: sundayfloral)

(Source: stylemeelise)

bahamamama:

paint on meee

(Source: threedeadkings)

Ain’t I a Woman? (and can I act like it?)

A couple days ago,  my Theology class was talking about Black Liberation Theology. We read a newspaper article called “Racism, Mostly Quieter but More Hurtful, Students Say” and later had a class discussion about our thoughts on it. The discussion went predictably: we talked about racism’s subtleties, and how we are still living in a quite segregated society. The class agreed on pretty much everything; we nodded at each other in consent, and took turns repeating the same things over and over again in different ways. Then, one of my friends brought up a point about the last sentence in the article. It read: “’If we don’t do nothing about it, how is it going to change?’” My friend said she disagreed with the author’s choice of putting in a quote that used bad grammar. “It insults black people by ending on a note that suggests they are dumb and uneducated.” Understandably, this friend is the daughter of an English teacher and I could see what she meant, but her comment made me think about the mentality white people have about what is considered “correct” and “incorrect” in our society. I thought about the person that was quoted at the end of the article. Did this boy make that statement intentionally or did he really not know he was making grammatical errors? I concluded that that was just the way he talked, and for him, it was the “correct” way, the “cool” way, or the most natural way of speaking. That boy knew that his grammar was considered incorrect, but he was confident enough in himself to refuse to conform to the white-invented “right” way of speaking.

A few weeks prior, my theology class had read a feminist essay about one woman’s experience living with a working mother. Our follow-up discussion was much like the Black Theology one, but perhaps even more enthusiastic. There was what seemed to be 100% consensus on everything that was said. Naturally, in a room full of empowered young women, the points being brought to the table were rather harsh. Most of the comments scorned women who “gave into societal pressures” and decided to be stay-at-home/“spandex” moms. I didn’t know how to respond, so I didn’t raise my hand. I personally have a lot of Cultural Feminist beliefs, and I don’t believe that just because a person (man or woman) decides to sacrifice his or her career to take care of the kids, that person is, by any means, weak. As I said before, housewife criticism is understandable (especially for St. Mary’s girls) because it’s the way much of our society has started to think. I mean… when was the last time you thought of a stay-at-home parent as being as powerful and important as a working parent?

What these two discussions made me realize is that by saying that traditional feminine roles, and generalized African American traits are inferior or incorrect makes anybody who wants to be taken seriously have to conform to white-male characteristics.

To support my claim, I will use the cases of Barak Obama and Hilary Clinton, two classic examples of people who are powerful, strong, and have overcome racist and sexist adversity. African Americans and Women can look up to these two figures and say “Wow, if they could do it, I can do it.” That’s great, but there is a subliminal message that is also being received by these people. Obama is black and Hilary is a woman, yet they both need act, talk, and dress like a white man to be taken seriously. Hmm… (Now, before you start thinking I’m racist or sexist, please know that I am consciously making generalizations in order to speak realistically about our cultural traditions and stereotypes that the majority of us can admit that we make.)

Now, I want you to ask yourself: Why does “housewife” have a negative connotation? Why is it that a Muslim woman is considered more driven if she takes off her burka? Why is the “black” way of talking grammatically incorrect? Why does a pantsuit tell us whether or not a woman is serious about her career? Why are girls who wear make up assumed to be sluts? Why are cornrows unacceptable for the workplace? Who made these rules anyway? White men! Without realizing it, society decides who is powerful and worth being taken seriously based on how closely one resembles a white man, and how well they follow the white man’s rules.

The reason why we find it hard to visualize, say, a congresswoman wearing a dress, or a president who “talks like he’s black” is because traditionally “feminine” and traditionally “black” attributes are considered to be less correct and less powerful than the traditional “white male” attributes. I am a cultural feminist because I believe that diversity is needed for equality. Feminine and African American qualities should not only be acknowledged, but valued in our society. Instead of thinking of equality as something that is achieved when everybody has the opportunity to become important and powerful by taking-on the persona of a white man, I believe we should think of it as what is achieved when we learn to consider all cultures, ways of life, and appearances as important and powerful. When will housewives be seen as powerful? When will burkas be seen as powerful? When will a black woman’s natural hair be seen as powerful? When will “black” dialect be seen as powerful? When will blond hair be seen as powerful? When will cornrows are seen as powerful? When we finally achieve this, we can then work towards the day when a man with feminine values and mannerisms can be treated equally without being viewed as a person who has taken on an inferior identity. “Obliged to you for hearing me, and now [I] ain’t got nothing more to say.”