2 eyes, 1 mirror

So for psychology class I had a new assignment: to sit down in front of a mirror and look at myself for 20 minutes. Then I had to write about my experience including thoughts I had about myself, who I see myself as, where I think my future is headed, yadayada. So when I did this exercise, I didn't think I would get anything out of it. I thought I would stop myself after the first minute upon feeling uncomfortable. But (bear with me here), when I looked into my eyes for so long, there was a point when I realized I was looking at a stranger. I felt as if I didn't even recognize the person staring back. Is this really me?, I thought. Then, Is this who I want to be?

I'm not sure if my eyes got me, or if it was just staring at my reflection for so long that I became a stranger to myself. Either way, through this unorthodox assignment, I came to a conclusion that I don't self-reflect enough. Sure, I think about what others think of me (even though I know sometimes I shouldn't) and I think of where I want to be in 10 years, but I've never looked in the mirror and encountered myself before. It was just an overall odd yet somewhat enlightening experience that I thought I should share. Give it a try. I hadn't believed in the saying before, but maybe eyes really are the windows into our own souls...

The Happiness Project by Gretchin Rubin

A lot of us make new year resolutions we can't keep: eat healthier, work out more, be nice. At the beginning of the year it starts out well and we think we actually have a chance of attaining our goals for the rest of the year. But after the third week of going to the gym or eating solely a banana and yogurt for breakfast, it slowly dies down. Why make a resolution that can't be kept? The problem with these kinds of resolutions: specificity. What I learned from reading The Happiness Project is that if you're really determined, being specific actually does helps you achieve your goals.

"A 'happiness project' is an approach to changing your life," (Rubin xvii). Gretchin Rubin is a writer living in upstate New York who last year decided to start a "happiness project". Her project serves the dual purpose of creating a grateful sentiment and positive outlook on life. "I had everything I could possibly want, yet I was failing to appreciate it," (2). In this book, Rubin refers to Benjamin Franklin's virtues and uses them as somewhat of a template for her project. For example, January's resolution was to boost energy. She then chose 5 things that would help her boost her energy: going to sleep earlier, working out better, tossing, storing, and reorganizing, tackling a nagging task, and finally acting more energetic. In the book, throughout the chapter "January" she would go into depth the details of those 5 points and how she was going to accomplish them. Once February rolled around she would do February's resolution in addition to January's and likewise she would keep adding on with the ensuing months so that by December she would be working on all the 11 other month's resolutions.

I thought this project was an interesting idea. Rubin clearly isn't a depressed woman but rather someone who would like to appreciate everything life has to offer her. If Plato and Thoreau explained that the quest for happiness is at the essence of all humans, then why shouldn't I make an effort now to be as happy and grateful as can be? This year I will be off to college starting a new chapter in my life. I don't want to be unhappy and certainly not ungrateful. Plus, having a little project of my own is fun and different and makes me think that this year I will be able to sustain my resolutions throughout the whole course of the year.

I copied Rubin's January resolution by stating the need to boost energy and I think 5 days into the new year I have been good at boosting my energy. Two nights ago I went to bed at 9pm and got 3 more hours of sleep than usual. All I have to say about that is that it is such a great feeling not being so groggy and getting a massive headache during the day. That experience was enough proof for me that the tedious work of the project actually pays off.



Yesterday in my psychology class we were talking about our new year goals- not necessarily our resolutions but what we would like to achieve this 2012. If we were to chose one thing, what would we want to accomplish by the end of the year. I decided on one thing: fight for yourself and stand up for your decisions; you don't need to listen to anyone else but yourself at this point in your life. Hopefully this goal will help me make the right college and career decisions and help me become more aggressive and determined.

This book inspired me to want to become a happier, healthier person without changing anything or anyone in my life. If you're ready to become a new improved you, well you know what you've got to do: pick up this book and take look. There's much inside to discover. You'll finish it in no time, cover to cover.













http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4071/4709856546_7b781aec41.jpg
http://www.happiness-project.com/TheHappinessProjectPB-large.png

Culturally Aesthestic

Here's a topic I rarely touch on: aesthetics. I was holiday shopping with my mom at Sephora, a cosmetics store similar to ULTA. She was looking for a particular brand of perfume. I wasn't looking around for anything since I rarely wear makeup or care to search for any beauty products for myself. Naturally, this left me to observe the handful of young and old women employees. They were all in the same uniform: black dress pants and blouse, most with very high heels. Their hair was either straightened or curled, nothing was natural. Most lips were glamoured with various shades of red lipstick and their eyes heavily brushed with shadow and mascara.

Don't get me wrong- they all looked pretty. But that is the point of makeup, right? Makeup for women is supposed to lift self-esteem and enhance the face. But sometimes I wonder what those women actually look like. They signed up to doll themselves up everyday, which would be a fun job, but I wonder if they ever get tired of having to put on all that makeup and dress like that everyday? I wish I could ask them how they feel when they wake up in the morning and look in the mirror. Is putting on makeup a way of hiding oneself from others? Is it a way to hide from oneself?

To what extent does modern culture affect the way young women choose to dress themselves? At beauty product stores like Sephora, most young women enter seaching for a product that will help them look better. Of course the employees need to display their products by putting it on themselves, but how much does it affect their customers? Do teenagers feel pressured to look like these women?

I also wonder how much this drives sales. My guess is that the women employees in the store who flaunt their products on their own bodies, convince their customers enough to buy those products and more. What I find most interesting however is that one look at a person can unconsciously have an effect on your own personal ways and habits.

"What a day for a daydream"

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-power-daydreaming/201001/how-work-your-daydreams

"I've been havin’ a sweet dream
I been dreamin’ since I woke up today
It’s starrin’ me and my sweet dream
Cause she's the one that makes me feel this way..." -Lovin Spoonful

Sometimes I catch my mind drifting, slowly but surely detaching itself from the present when suddenly and abruptly it's interrupted by reality. I daydream, like most people, about many different things. I'll think about what would happen if I were to just stand up on a table in the middle of a lecture and curse the teacher. Would anyone laugh? What would the expression on my teacher's face be? Would I ever actually have the guts to do it? But really, I have thought about this several times during some boring lectures. It's a thought that keeps me entertained and more importantly, awake.

Often times however, I daydream about very emotional experiences. Yesterday was the 3 year death anniversary of my grandma. Throughout that whole dreadful Monday, my mind kept wandering to the events that surrounded that same day 3 years previous. During all my morning classes, I could almost smell the flowers, feel the cold marble floor of the basilica under my feet, see a procession of cars all with the same red flag on their antennas, and practically hear my own weeping. A wave of sorrow took over me. Daydreams can be both positive and negative, and are powerful all the same.

Six Degrees of Separation

Today, our resource informationalist at school was providing us with various tools to use to best maximize our reader pool when blogging. I was curious to know whether or not my friends were the only ones reading my blogs. So on this blog, The Blak Umbrella, I was looking under the "Stats" tab and found that people from the U.S., Germany, Russia, and even 1 person from Malaysia read, or at least stumbled upon, my blog at one point. As a result, this ultimately got me thinking about the world's interconnectedness. Ostensibly, the internet can have two people across the world connected within a matter of several button pushings and mouse clickings. It's becoming easier and easier to connect with strangers.

For example, chatroulette is a website that allows one to video chat with strangers. At the push of a button, a new stranger will appear.

Omegle is a website where one can simply have a conversation with a stranger. It's like facebook chat except there are no user names, no pictures of you, no webcams, and the amount of personal information you choose to give out is up to your own discretion.

The scary thing is how easy it is to utilize these social websites. You don't need to sign up for anything, nor create a profile. Anyone and everyone can access it as anonymously as they want.

Here's a fun fact that I heard awhile back (not sure if it's true): you pass a person at least 7 times before actually meeting them. I constantly think about this idea when I meet someone new: how many times have I passed you before in my life? This weekend I just met a volleyball coach at a coaching clinic. He looked very familiar and I couldn't help thinking: how many times have our teams been in the same tournaments? Did you go watch USA play Poland this summer too? Were you sitting in front of me? And then another question: do you know my uncle (who is a volleyball coach too)?

I wondered if he knew my uncle because the volleyball world is so small and I couldn't understand where I knew him from. Then I played a game with myself: I wonder how many degrees of separation there is between him and I. Who does he know who has a friend who has a friend who has a friend who is friends with me?

This summer in the magazine Muse, I read about the idea of the six degrees of separation on Facebook. If you were to pick any stranger in the world on facebook, you could most likely find a friend of theirs who has a friend who has a friend (and so on for six times) who is friends with you. I think this theory might be true, especially since I've befriended people on Facebook who live across the country and and yet we have at least 1 mutual friend. If I were to befriend someone from Denmark, I think it could be possible to have on average, a sixth degree of separation with that stranger. Crazy, isn't it? Want to know something crazier? In this ABC article from November this year, Facebook's recent experiements show stats that say the sixth degree is now the 4.74 degree!

Our connectedness as a world shows the power of influence we have on each other, be it through our ideas or simply through our social connections, our interconnectedness makes the world smaller and the strangers on the streets less..strange.


Read more about six degrees on Wikipedia (There are more links if you scroll to the bottom where it says "external links". There are some fascinating ones.)

Read about the "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" trivia game. That's just funny and yet so incredibly mind-blowing.


Picture source:
http://futurefilm.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/footloose.jpg

Stopping the Stereotype

I was thinking about how to create a blog post about stereotypes and Thanksgiving when I thought about how Native Americans are amongst the several frequently stereotyped groups in America. This got me thinking about the controversy over University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign's mascot, Chief Illiniwek. I found the article released by the University in 2007 regarding the NCAA's banning of the mascot. I personally don't mind the name "Fighting Illini" or the outfit of the mascot. When the Chief was first installed into the University in 1926, I think it would have been if anything an empowering and encouraging sentiment towards the natives of America. At that point, I don't think it was ever an insult nor a stereotype.

However, over time things change. Native American culture is sadly slowly fading and as the younger generations are becoming more integrated into Westernized America, they are losing touch with their native tongue, traditions, and ideals of their ancestors. Native Americans my age dress like me, talk like me, and are apart of the same school systems as I am. I can see how it would be offensive to a Native American if they saw Chief Illiniwek as representative of their culture, especially now. The article talked about how the half-time dance was offensive as well. I had never seen the dance so I did a classic youtube search and I now completely understand why the NCAA would want to ban the performance. For me, the dance portrays a mocking attitude towards Native American culture as a whole. We live in an era where stereotyping of any kind of culture is incessant and yet intolerable. I wish I could hear the perspective of a Native American because hearing their view might change mine. I think U of I has their own personal right to keep the mascot they've had for 81 years, but if the culture it represented was outraged, then I would have to respect that and let go of the tradition. At the same time, I'm sure for Illini alumni and current students, it might hurt a lot, but it being a tradition doesn't make it any less of a stereotype.

I'm clearly still very mixed on this issue...what do you think?

Metaphorical Mysteries

In class we read chapter one of "Metaphors We Live By" by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson who talk about how metaphors are mechanisms for our perceptions of the world. They shape how we understand concepts, make meaning out of ideas, and relate to other people. I never really thought about how I just naturally incorporate metaphors not only into my everyday language but also into my writing. Metaphors shape our thoughts and have become so intrinsically involved in our language.

I took this idea further by thinking about how often musical artists use metaphors as their overarching idea for a song. I scrolled through the music in my iPod and here are some songs I found that may have some underlying metaphorical meanings:

Straightjacket Feeling- All American Rejects
Life is a Highway- Rascal Flatts
Skinny Love- Bon Iver
Broken Strings- James Morrison
Boulevard of Broken Dreams- Green Day
Just Like a Pill- Pink

How effective is a metaphor in the way that we relate to a song or an artist?


For example, Broken Strings is a song that is largely about the broken relationship between a man and woman and how it's hard to make up for the mistakes just like how strings of an instrument are unplayable when they are broken. The reason why I like this song (and why I like many songs) is because of its lyrical appeal. In my head I get the image of someone struggling to play a song on a guitar with a few snapped strings. I see frustration and I can only imagine the awful sound it would produce. Only then can I understand the struggle between this man and woman. From a songwriting perspective I've learned that it's best to take a simple idea and say it through abstract or profound lyrics which make the song more interesting. The listener then has an image attached to the idea or at least something to compare it to in order to fully understand and appreciate the meaning of the song.

Here's a psychology blog called The Metaphorical Mind that I stumbled upon. Would you agree with the blog's author, Christopher Ramey, that metaphors are a way of achieving some kind of poetic syntax which makes a text flow more easily and create an emotional or imaginative attachment? I would like to know from you to what extent do metaphors shape our thinking, learning, and overall understanding of this world? Until next time...