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Showing posts from April, 2013

Festival International

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Fantastic weekend, find out more below!

TSwift Throwdown with Tina and The-Amy

I tried with the blog post title, I really did. Amy Poehler has no T's. Oh well So I didn't watch the Golden Globes and apparently Tina Fey and my favorite Amy Poehler poked a little fun at people, doing what they do best, and Taylor Swift was not too happy about it. I read this article from the Guardian and I thought it was very interesting. I'll be honest I can totally jam out to Taylor's songs, I've been to one of her concerts, and I might even want to go to another one since her new album came out. Do I think she's my role model? Hell no, I'm 20 years old, why would I take on after her anyway? As for younger women, I don't know. I sure am glad I'm not a mother, I would probably just tell my youngings to sit tight and take everything with a grain of salt, maybe throw a couple of feminist books at them. Just kidding, I would watch Parks and Recreation with them and other media with strong female leads, because these are role models I can appr

Miss Korea Contestants Controversy

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This went viral on Reddit, of course. And controversies spark. South Korea's plastic surgery rates are infamous, and people jump at the chance that all the contestants may look so similar from plastic surgery, outrage outrage outrage. I go on Tumblr and people are raging, too. Except most of them don't read into stories, and immediately reblog this image, saying how crazy it is, how disappointed they are, judging Korean girls and their plastic surgery left and right. No names but a cursory scroll through the #Miss Korea hashtag and a Tumblr user claimed she/he (probably a she?) has very low self esteem but still considers her/him-self to be more attractive than these contestants. Another user thinks that these contestants look quite beautiful without make up on. I'm disappointed, as usual, at how fast people like to jump to conclusions, and social media has facilitated that speed. I think social media is fantastic, I just think people egg each other on. Granted, I get m

Wikipedia Assignments

So I minor in this thing called Poverty, Justice, and Human Capabilities. We study gender, poverty, and development, essentially. It's disheartening most of the times, because there truly are a lot of problems out there. Since our first priority is academics, one way that we can  help is to share our academic knowledge. We do this through working with Wikipedia to revise and add articles on topics related to our courses. Last semester, I worked on revising the Wikipedia article on obstetric fistulas. Check out how far the article has come! This semester, I'm working on revising the human trafficking article . Yes, that's right, you read it correctly, I'm tackling THE human trafficking article. It was kind of a mess, I kind of was interested and knew some stuff about it already, so... why not? It's obviously a huge work in progress, so bear with me, folks, and also, I'm only one of many contributors, please please please help add to it! To clarify, I'm

Glee's Shooting Star episode

http://www.buzzfeed.com/louispeitzman/why-school-shooting-episodes-need-to-stop My sentiments exactly. Glee executed it poorly, the shooting made no sense, and it horrified me to no end unnecessarily.

Festival International at Lafayette, LA

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I bought my greyhound tickets today to visit Lafayette, Louisiana, next Thursday. I will be attending the annual Festival International de Louisiane. Here's a short paragraph from the website on what the festival is about: Festival International de Louisiane is a community-based, non-profit arts organization formed in 1986 to produce an annual visual and performing arts festival celebrating the French cultural heritage of southern Louisiana - primarily a combination of French, African, Caribbean and Hispanic influences. The largest outdoor, FREE Francophone event in the U.S., the Festival places special emphasis on highlighting the connections between Acadiana and the Francophone world. Each year performing, and visual artists from Europe, Africa, Canada, the Caribbean and the Americas are invited to share their talents with Louisiana artists, residents and visitors. I'm excited because there will be great weather, interesting music that I don't normally listen to, fo

Japanese Festival

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I was running on the outer loop of Rice campus, struggling and failing from lack of grit, when I came upon a Japanese mother taking photos of her little Japanese daughter dressed in a kimono. I approached and asked her where they were heading to, and she told me there's a Japanese festival at Hermann Park, right arcoss the street from Rice. I was pretty excited, and indeed, an adventure did unfold, an adventure that led me to begin this blog...

My College Essay

I will have you know that this is a little embarrassing to put up, as it always is when you look back at something personal you wrote so long ago, and it was emotional for me to read my college essay again. But here it goes.           I was a Fresh Air kid. Growing up on the cement streets of Hong Kong and New York City, I was unfamiliar with fresh air and green grass. In the industrialized cities filled with stores, buildings, and busy traffic, I was constantly moving and neglected any space or time to enjoy nature. However, when I was 9, a year after immigrating to the U.S., I participated in a 2-week program hosted by the Fresh Air Fund to live with a host family in the tranquil suburbs. As I stepped aboard the Fresh Air Fund coach bus, the scenery slowly changed from a gray landscape of cement and dull skyscrapers to a forest of green earth and countryside. As in an ordinary family, I called my host parents, Maida and Lonnie, “Mom” and “Dad.” In the small borough of Doylestown,