The power to forget

Today I went to a friend's house who rooms with a guy that used to be my best friend during the first semester of college...it was a pretty strange experience since now we don't talk. At all. And seeing each other again brought back a lot of memories and confusion...

You know you always have that one friend in high school, middle school, elementary school, or even in college who you used to hang out with all the time, who you told all your secrets to, and with whom you felt super connected. You never even considered the possibility of loosing them and the world revolved around happily in those moments you shared together. THEN suddenly everything changes and for some reason that friend decides to act as if all of those things you shared together never existed, and you feel sad, confused, and hurt. 

Well, yes that is the power to forget. 

You know also that first boyfriend or girlfriend you had, who you were obsessed with at one time and with whom you started to learn what a relationship was like, and with who you shared moments and feelings you felt were impossible to surpass. THEN you break up, a few years pass by and suddenly you remember them and think WOW I really liked that person a lot back then...how funny now to think about.

Again, that is the power to forget.

Then, going a little more personal, you had those moments when mom and dad maybe had a big fight, and you had that intense fear in your heart of thinking that maybe your family was no longer going to be family...it would just become mom and me or dad and me. And maybe dad did leave or mom did leave, but time passed and you grew up and got so accustomed to just having one at a time that now when you see them both sitting in the car together you think...WEIRD? 

The power to forget...

It is an amazing phenomenon that together with time can work wonders, and which for me has worked some wonders unwillingly...but at the same time its sad because seeing that time has passed and seeing that I have forgotten also puts me face-to-face with the reality that maybe the moment I am living right now will be forgotten. 

So...summary: Carpe diem, live every single moment, and most importantly don't be afraid to make mistakes because they might be forgotten in the end or remembered as triumphs forever.

Talent conspiracy

Yesterday was the grand Oscars night of 2011. The winners cried, laughed, yelled in awe, and almost jumped in the air at times (except for Natalie Portman who was pregnant, she just cried emotionally). I enjoyed seeing the dresses the actresses (and actor, thanks James Franco) were wearing and I particularly enjoyed the ads that were more impressive than usual, especially by coca-cola.

I always tend to feel though, that in these kinds of award shows like the Oscars, the Academy Awards, MTV music awards, and even Miss Universe there is some sense of conspiracy. It seems as if the winners have already been picked and as if the candidates chosen as finalists are always chosen based on some bias, because if you think about it, who picks the winners? Can you really say the judges are neutral, specially in the case of Miss Universe?
Who knows maybe the winners have been chosen well in advance before the movie was even made! Maybe the movie was made with already the objective in mind that it was going to be an Oscar winning movie and that is what makes it exceed the standards and expectations. The larger the scale is, the more distrust there is of the process carried out to pick the winners.

Who's fault is it anyway?

I was eating and studying with a couple of my good friends and we were discussing (or lamenting) how boring things seem to be lately in the romance department. And, usually in the end of these discussions we come to realize that in college, boys suffer from a "no strings" syndrome, and sometimes even after college it can transfer into their whole identity. As a result of this phenomenon, girls feel used, neglected, and unappreciated...But I think about it, and if I was a boy in the United States college system I would not want to have a serious relationship when I can have beautiful, available girls willing to satisfy my desires without much effort. Basically, men here have the right to be lazy and still reap in the benefits. So, is it the boys' fault? 

I would argue that in the end, the ones responsible for their own domination by boys are the girls: the girls that will easily and willingly subside to the temptation of men...what does that suggest about Adam and Eve? Tempting men so freely and openly? Basically, in the end, women themselves have caused their own degradation...AND we keep doing it. Yes, we are only human and sometimes we want to have a little bit of freedom and fun, but it's important to think about the consequences and what that means for all women in the big canvas of college and life.

Picture is worth a thousand words...

What do these pictures say to you? Can you find one word that is defined by all of them?

 The answer is...PASSION

The power of an image is what makes the film industry, photography, and advertising so successful. An image has the capability to make you think and look at something from a different angle and it can tell you a whole story. 


I chose passion because passion is what makes everything in life worth living. When you have passion for something you can enter the dimension of FLOW and feel as if nothing else matters, just that one moment and that one feeling of absolute focus. 

With passion you have a purpose, you have a voice,

and you have a heart ♥.

Hero, the alter ego

Who is your hero?

Is it a guitar hero?
…A super hero?
…A family member or a close friend?
…A celebrity?
…A professional in your field?

What makes a hero?

According to my six year old brother a hero is “somebody who saves people and fixes things and gets people out of things”…simple enough.

There are many different types of heroes, but mainly it seems to be like it’s someone that people look up to, or someone that has done something to save people’s lives. They have something that we wish we could have whether it is courage, strength, supernatural ability, or even money (Ironman has all of those :P). Heroes can represent that part of ourselves that we wish we could let free. I walked out of the movie theater like I could conquer the world after watching Ironman, and I felt like I really wanted to have one of those suits. Freedom perhaps is the most important element in all of this because, think about the feeling you get when you imagine a super hero flying through the air, or when you see any hero triumph…it’s a feeling of awe and power that inspires us to do anything that we dream of and that we feel is possible. That is the beauty of heroes: their ability to optimize our own performance and give us a sentiment of power and freedom. 

FEEL THE FREEDOM...

 

Open door privacy

If you look closely at the constitution there is no mention whatsoever of the word privacy, and honestly nowadays it seems like not being private is the new trend. Let's just say that PDA (public display of affection) has reached a new level and... 

...of course who can forget the new private life exposure boom that has hit thanks to facebook! 

Now people feel the need to report everything they are doing, feeling, thinking, and even where they are with the new "check in" feature! And then you wonder how kidnappers find their victims...but openness and exposure of the private life is fascinating and that is why facebook is a billion dollar enterprise now. Who doesn't want to know what other people are doing?? Thanks to twitter also you can find out what celebrities are thinking and what they like which has immensely factored in some numbers for the advertising industry with a new media outlet.

It's pretty interesting though, how the exposure of private life can still be private...there are "private" profiles and you have many options on screening what kind of information to show to which people. And oh are those people sneaky sometimes. 

This fascination of the "private life unplugged" though, has to have some explanation. Sometimes you want people to care about what you are doing, sometimes you want people to see that you are in all of those pictures from the party last weekend...I mean, that's why you tag yourself right? ...There is some type of egoistic source to all of this privacy exposure. Why else do you expose your privacy? In the end its all about you...

Hairy you

Your hair is an important part of who you are...if you think about it, its the most identifiable part of you. Yes some might say your eyes, or that dimple you get on your cheek when you smile...but cut the hair and see how all of those other things drastically change. Or you don't even have to cut it, just dye it and suddenly you seem a new more fresh person, or if having bad luck you might end up looking like a smurf...

 

In many ways the way you dress and the way your hair looks sends out a message about who it is that you are, who it is that you want to be, or maybe simply what it is that you like. However, there is room for error since some people may look very intimidating but turn out to be a very amiable person; but why is hair so important?? 

It seems like there is some kind of emotional attachment to hair...something about it that has a power to define your whole self. Ever heard of "having a bad hair day"? Seems like having bad hair strips people of their confidence, or of something to do with their identities, bad hair can have the power of altering your emotions...and consequently good hair can give you power and confidence. Your image, many would argue, is not the most important thing about yourself, but it seems to me like it plays a pretty important part in defining our emotions and how others treat us despite how much we might want to ignore this fact. 

He sure thinks he looks good :P

Truth is...we are all, to some degree, self-conscious and a bit shallow. It's part of life, and it does not need to have such a negative connotation because we are all victims of it and it can have an impact on how we feel.

Free Food

Is it just me or is this the best thing that exists in the world?? 

Just saying...especially since Free pancake day is coming up next week at IHOP...interested? Here's the link to prove it: FREE pancake day at IHOP indulge yourself :)

For college students free food is like saying its the last day to breathe on earth. Everyone rushes with incredible inertia (no one can stop that kind of velocity) to the fountain of eternal life and "discretely" passes by a couple of times to enjoy the fruits. So is this why not everything is free in the world? Well you would wonder...My favorite is around final exams: waffle and coffe night. Way to go on encouragement. Honestly I think that sometimes this final exam "coffe break" idea is kind of harmful. Although we students might depend on these excuses to part from too much knowledge in the brain at once, encouraging us to take in more caffeine is a suggestion implanted in our heads to say that we are tired. If we were never offered coffee breaks then we would not really know that we need it...but of course there is a limit to this, because at certain points we do need the breaks BUT why do our librarians here feel the need to keep announcing it over the intercom? 

Went a little off topic but going back to free food...why shouldn't food be free? The answer is because we simply don't live in the old days anymore when we used to grow, harvest, and trade our edible goods. So when we have to factor in all of this the answer is man labor. In the end we are paying for labor not the actual food. Yes, you might pay for that special combination of ingredients that make that taste so unique, but in the end it is someone's hands that are involved in cutting those tomatoes and stirring that soup...and those hands are very special! Thanks to that person you are savoring life and in some special way there is a connection between all of the hands that have picked those ingredients, taken them to the factory, then to the restaurant, separated, categorized them, finally minced, cooked, stirred, and served them perfectly into that delicious plate of Tomato Basil Pasta...yumm. There is so much that goes into it, that in the end that plate of food you are eating is worth much more than the $10.00 you are actually paying...there is the hard work, dedication, and meticulous care of those hands that crafted the final masterpiece entering your digestive chambers...

Something to think about next time you go out to eat and when you receive  

free food.

Support or Motivation?

Think about your life for a second and all of the important steps you have taken...hasn't there always been somebody there to support you and tell you that what you are working on or what you dream about or what you will accomplish will be a success and to keep going through with it? What would happen if there was nobody there to fill that spot? 

Its surprising how people find motivation despite being told all of their life that they can't do something and despite having obstacles that seem to make it more impossible every day. However, it is also surprising how some people depend on this "SUPPORT" completely and can't function without it. 

Since the day we are born though we depend completely on someone for survival: our mothers. Dependability is part of life and support is a part of life. We need it almost as we need water. 

So how did this kid do it?

In case you haven't seen the movie, this is a scene from Slumdog Millionaire, the story about a boy that goes through a pretty hard life as an orphan and achieves the success of his dreams keeping a good heart. Even though in the beginning of the story he has his friend for support, we find out early on that there is some support force from within him that keeps him going despite how many things attempt to bring him down. His own determination (and a little bit of destiny you could say) and his ability to stay motivated to live are the things that grant him the adventure and the happiness of his lifetime. 

So...feeling a little down, depressed, alone, unsupported or unmotivated? Watch this movie and remember to keep the force within you alive to reach your dreams.

If you always set the bar low, you will never look up high.

Emergency call for creativity

Who creates music videos?? I was just watching this music video and it really went in a direction that I completely did not expect...

 

What connection may I ask is there between dynamite and partying with a bunch of women working in a mechanic shop? Music videos are the perfect venue to express the song in question and they give UNLIMITED possibilities to the pool of creativity...

But at the same time, music videos have been slowly becoming an alternate branch of the more conservative pornographic genre. Sexy women dancing provocatively on singers in order to give them an image of power and sexual desire. But, of course we can't forget the specific type of music videos we are talking about because not all genres of music inspire this kind of image. Howeverr...Can we step out of the box please? 

Music is a form of art and so are the videos that express its meaning so why not take this as an opportunity to generate ideas and go crazy fun? What would you have done to express this song differently??

Everyone has a different take on it...but to me it has to do with "letting go" of all of the troubles and stress of the week and "throw your hands up" and relax, just dance and "live your life"...and I don't know I guess I was just disappointed at the cliche use of women in a mechanic environment on a hot summer day rubbing soap and water on each other.

I would have maybe played around with the dynamite idea...maybe a mine theme? I really like how this video takes hold of the creative opportunity even though its for a genre of music that can also call for sexy women dancing dirty...It's in spanish but the title means "Emergency call" and just by sticking to it until the end you will see the strength of its message even if you don't understand the language because of the power in the images they use to narrate a kind of story: 

What to expect when you're NOT expecting

Today I was conversing with a friend and for some reason the topic of EXPECTATION came up...

My friend observed that in some cases when people don't have 

expectations in life then their wishes to stay alive and excel diminish...

which can be true, however I think that not always.

Sometimes when you are not expecting anything it allows for life to hand you some pleasurable surprises...and the best part is that if there is no surprise you will be able to continue along happily without knowing any different. This allows for there to not be any disappointments since nothing was expected in the first place...this perspective allows instead for satisfaction at having an unexpected outcome...

Is that why this whole "No strings attached" fad is spreading around Hollywood, college, and just all the way around? Not expecting anything out of a relationship makes it all more successful in the end ???

Something that drives me crazy...

Is how VARIETY has exploded...

I've been a little sick for the last few days and I went to the store to buy me a decent soup for the night-time munchies and this is what I ran into...^

I was just amazed at the immense quantity of different kinds of chicken noodle soup there were on the shelf...BIG cans, small cans, creamy, non-creamy, with noodle, just broth, Campbell's ®, Healthy Choice™, V8 ®, Progresso ® (which one is your favorite?) and many many many more obscure brands and types...What happened to the days when people went to the market and just said "aspirin" and they would have the choice of one or two brands??

This many choices gives my mind a headache specially since I tend to over analyze and get really overwhelmed when I have to make choices...However, you could argue that variety makes life more fruitful and full of advantage to us as human beings. This in some way prepares us for life I guess...in the sense that the small decisions give you practice in analyzing pros and cons and therefore prepares you to do so when making the 

BIGGER decisions...

Amigos x100pre [friends forever>:]

With valentine's day approaching sometimes it seems like people have difficulty in defining friendship. It might be dependability, loyalty, care, or in some cases just holding a conversation; but what is it really? 
We are surrounded with images of friendship...it tends to be a good feeling, it has a fuzzy, good connotation. These images usually depict cute animals or children, some hearts? This idea seems to revolve on the meaning of support, you know, the common "Lean on me," which is why I found this advertisement peculiarly funny since it completely tears down that image with a humorous and successful effect in the end with the "ask for more" tagline-->. 

 

There is also the all-time famous tv series Friends.  

Who can forget that image of trust, dependability, and survival under the same roof?

But...it varies by culture, for example in muslim countries people of different genders cannot be friends, although many swear that in our cultures they can't either. 
I find that even though there are common grounds for defining friendship the most basic sentiment should be based on simple comfort of being in the company of that person. In my case, I love having the attention of other people, but I also feel that for it to be a true friendship there should be mutual care and dependability. Along with this mutual care comes the idea of comfort. I have many friends with whom I enjoy company and times engaging in the same activities, but the ones I can truly call friends are those that gain my trust and with whom I feel comfortable enough to open myself up and express myself as I am. 

There is such -Beauty- in the art of socializing.