Lost in Dot

I'm going to be honest; there's no one that I'm completely honest with 100% of the time. Now, that might sound terrible, but let's think about it. I've lied to my parents about how much money I spent at Taco Bell in a week (it's SO good), to my brother about losing his sweatshirt (oops), and to my friends about how I'm almost at their house when I'm actually fifteen minutes away. Some of these could be considered white lies, but would it have made a difference if I told the truth? We seem to advertise the truth as a divine virtue. As children, we are taught to be honest, while our parents tell us about Santa Claus. In school, we are told to never waver from the truth, while our textbooks emit information from the darker portions of American history (I didn't learn until internment camps of WW2 until 8th grade). This "hypocrisy is a human universal", making it almost socially accepted to relieve the truth in favor of "what looks best...

Recently, I've had numerous discussions about how close I am to being a senior. It's kind of crazy honestly; I've never imagined actually getting to that point. When my brother was a senior, I used to look at him and see a mature, independent, and respected person. He seemed to have his life together and know exactly what he was doing all the time. However, when I look at myself, I don't feel that I embody the same qualities that define "senior" to me. Granted, I am a junior, but I don't think I can suddenly get everything together in less than a year. As I write this post, I definitely don't have my life "together". There's so much homework left to do, projects to complete, activities to attend, and more. My life is no way serene; there is a constant amount of balanced chaos underlying it. Maybe that's stressful for me a lot of the time, but I still wonder if I would ever want it to be fully tranquil. "The moth having righ...

When some people picture a "typical wedding", they might imagine one that takes place at a chapel with the bride in a beautiful white dress and the groom in a tuxedo. There's most likely bridesmaids, a flower girl, a best man, etc. Meanwhile, when I imagine a "typical wedding", I think of a beautiful South Indian wedding full of lots of colors, food, and festivities. The bride is probably in a lovely saree, fully decked out in jewelry, and the venue is bursting with conversation and music. However, this difference brings me to wonder what the "typical wedding" actually is. Putting cultures aside, as each culture has its own unique traditions, let's focus on types of weddings. If you ask any of my cousins living in India if they want a non-arranged marriage, their answer is a clear "No". You might wonder, why would they want an arranged marriage? Most Americans seem to find the idea repulsive, as they believe in finding love before ma...

Irtahd was first brought to my attention last year, after a colleague of mine found her in a small province of the Michigan Peninsula. At a stature of average height, she seemed to have originated from somewhere in the South Asian region. Though her childlike face seemed to point to her being a young creature, it was later discovered that she was of age 16. The fundamental belief of this creature seemed to simply be to optimize efficiency, in order to allocate  greater amounts of time to critical activities such as slumber and nutrient consumption. This was evident from the start of her day, as she would only stir from her mattress at a time of 6:45, though her soundbox would repeat a series of bothersome notes from 6:30 (all of which she would ignore). Around 6:47, Irtahd would trudge into the bathroom, at which point she would begin her daily "ritual" of facial purification. Starting with her oral components, she compressed a tube of colored paste onto a small circular ...

Maybe I just really enjoyed starting off a post with a quote last week, so here's another one! "All of these foods might be found in any Dupster and can be evaluated...largely based on appearance...foods which cannot be correctly evaluated with additional information." - Barbara Eighner When speaking on the wastefulness brought by consumerism in America, Eighner points out how we tend to judge food based on what it looks like, in order to determine its longevity. However, this mere look that we give some bread or milk or even chocolate could create a total misjudgment, especially when we are unaware of what "expired food" actually is. If we are so easily able to do this to something like food, how easy does it become for us to judge people? I would like to say that I don't judge people by their appearances, but the truth is that I do, and you probably do too. Unfortunately, it doesn't stop there. To be completely honest, I have probably created so...

Instead of my usual blog structure, I have decided to start this post off with a quote: "I wish you would ever write me a Letter half as long as I write you..."         - Abigail Adams When I first read this, I was reminded of one of my biggest pet peeves: writing a long paragraph over text and getting an uninterested response. It's that feeling that you get when you rant about something that makes your blood boil, and you're hit with an "okay" or "that sucks". I definitely have a lot of pet peeves. My biggest one, by far, is cocky people, but I also have problems with the fact that most jeans for women have 2 cm deep pockets. Seeing as these petty ideas seem to peeve me (haha see what I did there), I decided to try and see how many pet peeves I could think of in two minutes. I came up with 30, which may not seem like a lot, but that's about one every 4 seconds. As a comparison, I tried repeating the same activity, but instead, I wanted ...