day three.

you know that movie "stardust"? yeah, its pretty amazing.

i have decided to watch a chick flick (of some kind or degree) every night in celebration of the fourteen days of valentines. is this a waste of my time? typically, yes. however, i have taken it upon myself to learn about love, so i'm going to, dangit!! and that includes what to do and what NOT to do in relation to love. so why not learn from those in movies? i mean, they're all real situations, right? riiight...

anywho. stardust. i watched it last night (kinda. i fell asleep pretty fast... but that's beside the point...) I LOVE THIS MOVIE. if you haven't seen it, SEE IT. i feel its a modern-day "princess bride" (not that... princess bride is THAT old...)

its about a star that falls from the sky and is now in human form. she has been taken "hostage" as a gift for a woman that the man, tristan, is solely set on marrying. the only problem is, the girl will only marry him if he brings her back something magnificent from ""the other side of the wall." specifically this star. now, as they begin their journey, the star, names yvaine, does not like being attached to, and forced to follow this boy, tristan. throughout their journey of meeting pirates, witches, princes, goats, and men-who-chirp-like-a-bird, tristan and yvaine begin to fall for each other. (typical, right?) there is one point in the movie where tristan has been turned into a mouse, and yvaine is so worried about him that she confesses the following:

“You know when I said I knew little about love? That wasn’t true. I know a lot about love. I’ve seen it, centuries and centuries of it, and it was the only thing that made watching your world bearable. All those wars... pain, lies, hate... It made me want to turn away and never look down again. But when I see the way that mankind loves... You could search to the furthest reaches of the universe and never find anything more beautiful. So yes, I know that love is unconditional. But I also know that it can be unpredictable, unexpected, uncontrollable, unbearable and strangely easy to mistake for loathing, and... What I’m trying to say, Tristan is...I think I love you. Is this love, Tristan? I never imagined I'd know it for myself. My heart... It feels like my chest can barely contain it. Like it’s trying to escape because it doesn't belong to me any more. It belongs to you. And if you wanted it, I’d wish for nothing in exchange...no gifts. No goods. No demonstrations of devotion. Nothing but knowing you loved me too. Just your heart, in exchange for mine.”

isn't that just beautiful? now, i'm sure you can predict the ending, but that's beside the point. go back and read it all again. i mean, REALLY read it.

*re-reads quote*

(PS if you didn't get anything out of that, i'm just gonna say that you're a LOST CAUSE.)

the first time i saw this movie, this quote, RIGHT HERE, solidified my love for the movie... love is such a complicated thing. but... this quote shows you how simple it can be, and how powerful a simple thing like love can be. "i'd wish for nothing in exchange... nothing bu knowing you loved me, too."

three simple words. "i love you." those words are the solution to all of your problems!! all you have to do is say those words and truly mean them, and it can make all the difference in the world. it can make all the difference TO the world. yvaine was right - there are a lot of sad and terrible things that happen in our world. thank goodness for love, or there'd be nothing to wake up for tomorrow.


yvaine glows when she is happy... when she feels love!

love game.

so... since we're supposed to eat chocolate every day and everything... here's a little game to help keep you from going too far. or... it may make you eat all the chocolate you own in one sitting. confused? read on.

here are the rules to "the love game" according to lynette (and since she came up with it, she can make the rules!):

If you play this game well, it can help you fulfill your duty of eating chocolate every day!

FIRST.
get some candy (chocolate is clearly preferred) and put it in a bowl in a place MOST tempting for you.

NEXT.
get some writing utensils and surfaces, (ie notecards and pens or pencils and paper, etc.) and place them next to the candy.

NOW.
whenever you want to eat some of that delicious chocolate, you must write down one thing you love for that ONE piece of chocolate.

The rewards for this game are many:
1) you get chocolate.
2) you get to count your many blessings.
3) if you are like me and crave chocolate when you are depressed, you are forced to think of happy things before you eat said chocolate.

"Now think lovely thoughts..."


chocolate + love = perfection.

day two. officially.

wow. three posts in one day. this is getting out of control...

anywho.

day two.

new song. completely different direction. kinda...

"Love Hurts" by Incubus



LYRICS:
Tonight we drink to youth and holding fast to truth
Don't wanna lose what I had as a boy
My heart still has a beat but love is now a feat
As common as a cold day in LA

BRIDGE
Sometimes when I'm alone I wonder
Is there a spell that I am under
Keeping me from seeing the real thing?

CHORUS
Love hurts
But sometimes it's a good hurt
And it feels like I'm alive

Love sings
When it transcends the bad things
Have a heart and try me
'Cause without love I won't survive

I'm fettered and abused, stand naked and accused
Should I surface this one man submarine?
I only want the truth so tonight we drink to youth
I'll never lose what I had as a boy


take-home message: love hurts. that's all there is to it. no matter how much you love, it doesn't always work out. this could be for lots of reasons: break-up, death, etc. truth is, when you have a companion with you that can suddenly be ripped away from you... that hurts. when you give your love, something that is a part of you, to someone else, and they don't reciprocate or... disappear, or something, it hurts. BUT. (two things) 1)that is such a great thing, and if you think about it... we have been given the AMAZING opportunity TO love. to experience those feelings, those desires... and what wonderful feelings those are!! they really do make us feel alive. without love, we would be alone... we would not feel alive. and 2) when we are in love and ARE loved, we feel as if nothing bad could happen. if we all had love in us, nothing bad would happen in the world. i truly believe that... *sigh* i don't know what else to say except... love is just so wonderful :)

day one. unofficially.

i absolutely love music. it speaks better to me than anything else ever has. and i understand it, too... that's the crazy part. i have a feeling a lot of the things that i share over the next few weeks will be a song of some kind.

so. here it is. day one. and who else could start it off better than bryce avary, also known as the rocket summer...? you'll have to answer that yourself.

but here... take a listen. fall in love.

"So Much Love" by The Rocket Summer



LYRICS:

Hearts need a beat, like awake needs asleep
Like a pen needs a page, to learn right you need a mistake

Hearts need a mind, like a clock needs the time
Like white needs black, if you leave I hope you need to come back

BRIDGE
Oh, I swear, I know, I believe it
Oh, I can't stop hearing all the singing
Oh, my soul has never had this feeling
and it feels like gold

CHORUS
You got so much love in you
You got so much love in you
I'm amazed that I'm talkin' to you
You look like the songs that I've heard my whole life coming true

Strike all the bells, hit 'em hard make 'em all yell
Celebrate, infatuate, lock us up yeah incarcerate oh!

BRIDGE

CHORUS (X2)

take ho me message: everything has a companion in this life. no one is meant to go through it alone. LOVE can be that companion. and even better? its something that you can SHARE with others and that can bring those that you share it with TOGETHER. what more could you want from life? make love your companion, and you will have many much more companions to share it with :)

the fourteen days of valentines.

now, i'm a little belated in starting this, but... technically i started on facebook yesterday. i just didn't think to do it on my blog until just now :)

anywho. it is now february. a brand new month. a time to find a new focus. since this month is the month of love, why not take some time to truly learn of love and the many forms it can take? that is what i have challenged myself to do.

i've never been a huge fan of valentine's day, and in more recent years, i have become a fan of calling it the cynical "singles-awareness day." well, NOT THIS YEAR! i plan to change my viewpoint this year. my good friend, lynette, celebrates the 14 days of valentine's day. though she celebrates a more hardcore version than i do (i figure i'll wean myself into her super-excited ways, haha...)she is the reason i have decided to so this.

here are the specific rules for the 14 days of valentines:

1. Wear something pink or red every day
2. Eat some chocolate every day
3. Find a new love quote everyday (any kind of love, romantic love, friend love, gospel love, it all works)
4. Read other talks, articles, etc. on love.
5. Listen to love songs. Obviously. NO breakup songs. That is like the cardinal sin of Valentine's Day, only slightly behind wearing black on V-day, that's just blasphemous people.
And finally.
6. SHOW love by doing at least one nice thing for someone every day.

NOW. obviously, if anyone knows me, i do not own any pink. and hardly any red. and i dance three days a week and that determines my wardrobe more than a silly holiday does, haha...

ALSO. all of this chocolate is probably going to ruin my new "kate moss philosophy" that i have decided to instigate in my life (nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.)

AND LASTLY. everyone knows how music is to me. though there are lost of break-up songs out there, they can, in a way, be seen as love songs. (just think about it, logically, it makes sense, right? yup, told you!!)

SO. i will have these rules as an outline (guidelines?) for my celebration of the 14 days of valentines. like i said, maybe one day i'll celebrate it just the way lynette does...

lynette has converted many a friend to this new holiday, and i'm so excited for what i will learn over these next 2 weeks. in the following posts, (which... i can tell you there will be a lot to come due to recent events and the many thoughts that are plaguing my mind about life) i will share all of my insights and new loves that i gain in the following days.

feel free to join me in loving :)

where are you christmas?

my favorite part of college is the end of fall semester. finals are over and i don't have to work and i can just go home and veg for two weeks and just... enjoy the feeling of christmas and being with my family. unfortunately this year... it was very different. i'm still not sure how i feel about it...

a few weeks ago my family was so wonderful to fly to utah to see me and my older brother in our different performances the first weekend. i had my folk dance show and evan had his choir concert. that sunday was our grandma's birthday so we got to have all of my dad's side together for a night. that was really nice :)

saturday night after our shows, evan and i drove to stay the night at my grandma's house. i always love sleeping at my grandma's! i head straight for the m&m jar, then make my way back to grandma's tv room to give her a big hug. i am the only child that gets an actual room to sleep in - the boys get pull-out couches, haha.

sunday morning, my parents walked in at 8:30am to wake me up, but they could tell i was exhausted. i had set my alarm for 9, and though i heard them come in, i pretended to still be asleep - because that's where i wanted to be. they let me sleep until 9, then they came in to wake me up again. as they left, they told me to hurry out so they could talk to us. i had no idea what was going on, but was too tired to really care. i plopped down on the chair in grandma's piano room, half-awake. i forget whether it was mom or dad that said it all...

they sold our house. sold it. their initial plan was to come and just tell us that the house was on the market (like it had been the past two months...) they found out in the airport on their way to utah that it had sold. the sale was closing the end on january and... they were looking for a place to move to, but all the houses they initially wanted were sold out from under them. they weren't sure what they were going to do.

i just sat there. i couldn't look at my parents. i had so many thoughts racing, i could't stop one for a second to make sense of it. i just sat there in tears. there was no way to hide it, either. i looked up at my mom for a second and she felt my pain. i hate to say it, but i don't think my mother had felt pain in this situation until then. she never really liked the house, i don't think. she had been wanting to move for years. and it didn't take her long after remodeling the kitchen to continue to complain about the house and how small it was... i wanted to be able to bring my children home to the house that i grew up in -- just like my dad did. he lived in my grandma's house every single day until he went to college. another reason i love this house so much is because when i'm here... i feel like ryan is here. there are so many memories of him around the house: the dent in the wall where he hit his head on the wall; the pantry where he would stand and eat cereal shamelessly; the stain on the carpet where he opened my yellow medicine bottle and dumped it all over... not to mention the neighbors that know our family - even ryan - and our history. mom knew i would be upset... evan seemed bummed, but all he said was "its just a house..." all sean could do was talk about the pool they were gonna get...

since the house was on the market, they told us that when we came home for christmas, things were going to be different. first of all, there's the monstrous and depressing sign out front... thankfully, there's not a SOLD sign at the bottom. i don't know where it is, but i don't think i could handle it if it were there... furniture is in storage; things are moved around to make it more 'spacious'. christmas is mostly still in boxes; all of the decorations just made the house look 'cluttered'. pictures of christ and our family and history had been removed from the walls; the white walls were to 'reflect more light' and 'make it more personable' for others - like its their blank canvas or something.

as sad as it was to hear it, it was nice to have the warning. had i come home and been given no warning, there would have been... who knows what kind of a reaction. i must admit though, one of my favorite things about coming home for christmas is going from no christmas decorations to an overwhelming amount. but not this year... no lights outside. no carolers. no lights above the kitchen cabinets. not even christmas music... I KNOW! my mom wanted a new display case for the TV and other such things... so my dad built one and painted it black. it looks very nice but... then they decided to get a new TV. which really isn't the problem... the problem is that my mom hated the sound system that we had, so she had my dad take it down. its currently sitting in the garage... so we have no way to listen to our christmas music. we can play one CD at a time on the blu-ray player... but that's it. its just... not the same.

that's something i keep saying to myself this time around. about a lot of things. not just the house, not just christmas. construction is always being done in tucson; its always changing and it hasn't been the same since i left. every time i come home, i have fewer friends to spend time with. not that i don't enjoy time with my family but... there are so many memories of friends as i drive and think of other past memories and i'd love to at least catch up with old friends but... none of them seem interested. and even the ones that are still here and could possibly be interested... married. marriage gets the best of all of 'em. gah.

i just wish i'd had one last normal, traditional christmas in this house, knowing it would be that last. i would give anything for that.

hugs.

i'm a huggy person. i always have been... i think. maybe not. but i've always been one to love and really care about others. my dad always told me that compassion and kindness were my greatest strengths. i never really thought anything of it and how it affected others. but the other day i got an email from a friend that really changed how i feel about it all.

here's just a portion of the letter:

I [...] want to tell you something that I have wanted to tell you for a while and due to recent events I think now would be a good time. Do you remember back [...] when we had the flamenco dance workshop? Something happened that day and you really helped me. I'm sure you don't remember this but when that class got over I went to check my phone and I read a text from my Mom. Right after I was called over to talk to you [and others]. That's when you hugged me and said a kind word. You don't know the effect that this simple little act of kindness had on me that day and it will be something that I will never forget. A week earlier our family was surprised to find out that my Dad had kidney cancer and we didn't know if it had spread or not nor would we until he had surgery. The text that my Mom sent me right before you gave me a hug read, "Dad just went into surgery." Thank you for being there for me when I needed someone. You didn't know the comforting effect that had on me and I just wanted to let you know and sincerely thank you. Thank you for always being my friend. Just like you said in your devotional last week, just being who you are can influence those around you for good, just like you influenced me. My Dad is doing very well now. It didn't spread and last week he had some radiation treatment and I think he's going to be ok. Only [two others] and now you know about this from back up and I think I'd like to keep it that way. I hope you know what a wonderful person you are and the good that you exert on other people through your kindness and thank you for sharing it with me.

...

the quote that my friend was referring to is by David O. McKay; He said the following:

“There is one responsibility which no man can evade; that responsibility is his personal influence. Man's unconscious influence is the silent, subtle radiation of personality – the effect of his words and his actions on others. This radiation is tremendous. Every moment of life man is changing, to a degree, the life of the whole world. Every man has an atmosphere which is affecting every other man, He cannot escape for one moment from this radiation of his character, this constant weakening or strengthening of others. Man cannot evade the responsibility by merely saying it is an unconscious influence. […] Man can select the qualities he would permit to be radiated […] And by these qualities he will constantly affect the world. This radiation to which a refer, comes from what a person really is, not from what he pretends to be. Every man by his mere living is radiating. […] Life is a state of radiation and absorption. To exist is to radiate; to exist is to be the recipient of radiation.”

you may not think that your attitude, your hug, or even something as small as your smile can impact someone. well, here is an example if just how much it can help someone. i encourage everyone who reads this to really become aware of what attitude you carry with you. whether you think it or not, you are easy to read and it does influence others. so... just smile. that's all you have to do. smile :)

creativity project idea...

I would love to choreograph a dance for my creativity project. I have been looking into specifically doing a dance with Indian choreography. The bharatanatyam style is what I would specifically do, which usually tells stories. I would tell the “story”, the creativity of the Indian people. I don't have enough research done yet to know what story I would tell. How does this sound for a possible creativity project?

i'm baaack!

hello friends!

i haven't used this in forever. the main reason i got and began using this blog is because i needed to rhetorically analyze advertisements, songs and movies for my persuasive writing class. i have not used it since, but have been inspired (by my good friend blake, to start writing here again. and i mean, really writing here. i have endless thoughts plaguing my mind, and would love for people's opinions on certain matters. some days, it might just be a little thing that made me smile. some days, it may be a longer post, but still with nothing but trivial matters posted. on other days, i may just need to post an emo post. (...i'm not gonna go slit my wrists to the song "hey, hey, little razor blade" by the pink spiders or anything, so don't worry.) you can comment on those posts as well, if you'd like, or you don't have to read them at all. this is just a way for me to vent to no one in particular and everyone at the same time. if you have the time and the interest to care, then by all means, do. say what you feel - i'm not easily offended (unless you swear at me... then i might hurt you.) anyway, i'm sure i'll post something more here in the next few days. until then...

kelsey :)

Rhetorical Analysis: Source for Paper C

1. ARGUMENT/ENTHYMEME – There really was no argument but... one that could be taken from the article is... Affirmative action should be not determine who is accepted into schools or who should be hired because affirmative action is the cause of what it is trying to prevent: racial discrimination.

2. AUDIENCE – There is really nothing to go off of to determine the audience except for the word choice and the sources used. A lot of different court cases and decisions were cited, so the article was obviously directed more toward adults, probably professionals of some kind with lots a great amount of influence.

3. GOAL – The goal of this source is to mostly analyze/inform their audience of the effects of affirmative action on k-12 education and introduce the idea of it needing to be removed before 2028.

4. HOW THE ARGUMENT IS MADE - ethos, pathos, logos; sufficient, typical, accurate, relevant...

Logos & Sufficient - In order to make a logical argument, the authors had to take from a sufficient amount of sources, from both sides of the argument. Because they addressed both sides, but didn't take a side, it was clear to say that they were just putting information in one place for others to see and then gain their own opinion.

5. WAS THE ARTICLE EFFECTIVE – The article took from many different sources. I felt like they weren't trying to persuade me of anything (obviously if they were, they failed...) So i think the fact that they put a bunch of information in one place, it was very helpful and informative.