While wandering around the internet the other day, dodging CommenTrolls and other fearsome WeBeasts, I found an article extolling the virtues of life without shampoo (here it is). Since it is the summer and I therefore have nothing to lose I figure I should should give it a month's test run, documenting my hair's progress along the way. This morning was the official last usage of my rapidly depleting Garnier Fructis shampoo and hopefully it all works out.
Wish me luck!
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Monday, July 25, 2011
Housing
Recently I have started to understand something about my mother.
When I was very young, living in the bad part of town because it was closer to the hospital, my family lived in an apartment. It was a nice apartment with a great fireplace, plenty of room for our small three person family, and we even had the advantage of living on the ground floor because of my father's wheelchair bound state at the time. However, as soon as my father got on the crutches and my mother got settled into her new job she started to clamor for a house of her own. With a backyard. And a garden. Those were the important parts. I, being four, was reluctant. I had friends in the apartments; I was comfortable there. Most importantly, the complex had a pool. But my mother wanted her garden, so we moved to the other side of town.
I had never understood before why she wanted a garden so badly. Sure she liked plants, our house has always been full of tropical vines winding around the dining room, giant "elephant ears" that would never fit through the door way if we tried to move them at their present, advanced state. Now, in the middle of this cramped city she grew up in, I can understand.
My family's house here is uncommonly nice; it's all cinder-block and concrete but the furniture is as expensive as can be expected in a city where the storm drains regularly fail and ground floors are flooded. I'm even using the family WiFi. The problem is: everyone lives here. This house, in the U.S. would probably hold a family of four, maybe five, comfortably. Here, the entire extended family (except mine) lives in the same house. The problem is not even that it's cramped (which it isn't); the problem is that it doesn't really definitively belong to anyone. No one in the family really owns the entire house, it's like a commune without all of the creepy breeding tactics or nudity. Most importantly, there is no backyard. In local commercials here the average family is seen in a house that would not be out of place in suburban America but the truth is that houses like that can't be found in any places other than those of the fabulously wealthy. A garden is so out of place here because most people can't afford to buy the extra land if they aren't even going to live on it.
At home I always thought that my mother's dream was uncommonly small, not ambitious enough but when compared my life at home seems incredibly lucky.
When I was very young, living in the bad part of town because it was closer to the hospital, my family lived in an apartment. It was a nice apartment with a great fireplace, plenty of room for our small three person family, and we even had the advantage of living on the ground floor because of my father's wheelchair bound state at the time. However, as soon as my father got on the crutches and my mother got settled into her new job she started to clamor for a house of her own. With a backyard. And a garden. Those were the important parts. I, being four, was reluctant. I had friends in the apartments; I was comfortable there. Most importantly, the complex had a pool. But my mother wanted her garden, so we moved to the other side of town.
I had never understood before why she wanted a garden so badly. Sure she liked plants, our house has always been full of tropical vines winding around the dining room, giant "elephant ears" that would never fit through the door way if we tried to move them at their present, advanced state. Now, in the middle of this cramped city she grew up in, I can understand.
My family's house here is uncommonly nice; it's all cinder-block and concrete but the furniture is as expensive as can be expected in a city where the storm drains regularly fail and ground floors are flooded. I'm even using the family WiFi. The problem is: everyone lives here. This house, in the U.S. would probably hold a family of four, maybe five, comfortably. Here, the entire extended family (except mine) lives in the same house. The problem is not even that it's cramped (which it isn't); the problem is that it doesn't really definitively belong to anyone. No one in the family really owns the entire house, it's like a commune without all of the creepy breeding tactics or nudity. Most importantly, there is no backyard. In local commercials here the average family is seen in a house that would not be out of place in suburban America but the truth is that houses like that can't be found in any places other than those of the fabulously wealthy. A garden is so out of place here because most people can't afford to buy the extra land if they aren't even going to live on it.
At home I always thought that my mother's dream was uncommonly small, not ambitious enough but when compared my life at home seems incredibly lucky.
Friday, June 24, 2011
Hemingway in the Rain
I have recently developed a crippling addiction to StumbleUpon and now waste more time giggling at funny pictures and anecdotes than anyone, I mean anyone, ever should.
Today I "Stumbled" into a list of the "Top English Language Fiction of the Twentieth Century", supposedly compiled by Stanford. It was a list of books that are, frankly, mostly the type of book that is so boring that the reader is left feeling as if only they were smarter they might have understood and enjoyed it more and therefore walk away gushing about the complexities and nuances while in reality not understanding them at all. To be fair they did have a few jewels in there like The Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood (my all time favorite author), Winnie the Pooh, Watership Down, Corelli's Mandolin, everything George Orwell has ever written, and Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver. However, I was hugely disappointed to see the disgusting abundance of James Joyce and Ernest Hemingway littering the top ten with their pretentious rambling (fine, I'm a hypocrite, sue me).
Take it from someone who can understand them, they're not worth it. What is the point of fiction? To entertain. True it is often used to project the author's views on society but the central focus should always be to entertain. Now I challenge anyone to try and make it through an entire volume of Hemingway without wanting to shoot him yourself by the time you are finished. If you manage it then you are a more patient soul than I.
Today I "Stumbled" into a list of the "Top English Language Fiction of the Twentieth Century", supposedly compiled by Stanford. It was a list of books that are, frankly, mostly the type of book that is so boring that the reader is left feeling as if only they were smarter they might have understood and enjoyed it more and therefore walk away gushing about the complexities and nuances while in reality not understanding them at all. To be fair they did have a few jewels in there like The Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood (my all time favorite author), Winnie the Pooh, Watership Down, Corelli's Mandolin, everything George Orwell has ever written, and Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver. However, I was hugely disappointed to see the disgusting abundance of James Joyce and Ernest Hemingway littering the top ten with their pretentious rambling (fine, I'm a hypocrite, sue me).
Take it from someone who can understand them, they're not worth it. What is the point of fiction? To entertain. True it is often used to project the author's views on society but the central focus should always be to entertain. Now I challenge anyone to try and make it through an entire volume of Hemingway without wanting to shoot him yourself by the time you are finished. If you manage it then you are a more patient soul than I.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
I'm Feelin' Weepy
Since I am leaving for the Philippines on Saturday and my Best Friend is set to leave for Hungary right before I get back and just left for Seiku for the week, today was most likely the last time I will see her for a year (unless my mother actually pulls through and we go to visit her during spring break).
When we were little we always used to talk about how strange it would be to live so far away that to talk to her face to face would take more than a couple blocks walk and now it's happening about eight years before we had anticipated (assuming we were to go to college together and get our first studio apartment together (yes, I still have the floor plan we made in 5th grade)). So as she was leaving we hugged super awkwardly (neither of us are people who hug very often, maybe it's because we developed most of our aversions together) and I'm still sort of teary eyed.
Love, love, love that girl. Definitely going to miss her the most.
When we were little we always used to talk about how strange it would be to live so far away that to talk to her face to face would take more than a couple blocks walk and now it's happening about eight years before we had anticipated (assuming we were to go to college together and get our first studio apartment together (yes, I still have the floor plan we made in 5th grade)). So as she was leaving we hugged super awkwardly (neither of us are people who hug very often, maybe it's because we developed most of our aversions together) and I'm still sort of teary eyed.
Love, love, love that girl. Definitely going to miss her the most.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
What I'm Watching Right Now
My friend sent me this video link and while I'm still signed on I thought my hordes of imaginary adoring fans should check it out. (It's about Glee).
Bad Habit
I have this horribly bad habit of reading the comments at the bottom of the news stories I read.
Just now I was reading an article about the BBC which, in the comments, turned into an argument about how the liberal news networks have been pushing lies to the public with such "europhile" tactics as giving all distances in kilometers and treating global warming as a real, current news issue.
So liberals are horrible people for telling the truth and using local measurement systems instead of a confusing, outdated system that is only really used in one country?
Well I guess I'm glad that those seem to be the worst of our problems. I'd hate for my political beliefs to be associated with baby killing... oh wait, never mind.
Just now I was reading an article about the BBC which, in the comments, turned into an argument about how the liberal news networks have been pushing lies to the public with such "europhile" tactics as giving all distances in kilometers and treating global warming as a real, current news issue.
So liberals are horrible people for telling the truth and using local measurement systems instead of a confusing, outdated system that is only really used in one country?
Well I guess I'm glad that those seem to be the worst of our problems. I'd hate for my political beliefs to be associated with baby killing... oh wait, never mind.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
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