the real me

To me, these pictures do a pretty good job of touching on the real me. I honestly did not even know that they existed until about half an hour ago, when I rediscovered them deeply tucked away in an insignificant file on my laptop. I most definitely got distracted as these pictures and others made me smile, laugh and remember the little girl I used to be.

On his blog, Greg had the following quote:

"When one is told to be good, to mind your manners, to not be so noisy, to be nice, and so on, one becomes a 'mature' adult. Something is gained and something is lost. In this process of socialization, making one 'proper' for the world, you start to put things in a bag that you drag behind you: your exuberance, some of your joy and spontaneity. You might spend the first 25 years of your life filling the bag. One spends the rest of one's life trying to get many of those things back out again;"

Reading that quote, I could not help think of myself. Whether it has been the stress of finals, the drain of the semester, or simply growing up, I feel like I have started to put parts of me 'in that bag that I drag behind me.' I suppose some of the most obvious are a care-free spirit and that overwhelming, emanating joy. When I look at these pictures I see delight and am reminded of the truth that God DELIGHTS in me. It seems so easy for me to forget, and as I forget that truth about me, my own delight slips into my bag. I mentioned above that one of the other things in my bag would be a care-free spirit. These past years have not been easy and I have slowly become more and more weighed down by worries and cares. Looking back at these pictures help me gain perspective by giving me a physical image that reflects the beauty of freedom and the truth of that freedom that Christ wants me to live in. While these pictures are pictures of the little girl I used to be, they remain pictures of the little girl I am today. I may look a little different, but inside I am still the same.

If I had to only pick one image, it would be the first one, but I couldn't not put the other one up too.... notice also how both pictures are set on beaches. Outside of what I was saying about freedom and delight, beaches are definitely an integral part of my true self =)

"Layers"

Below you will find the url of the movie my group made to go along with our mask project. The movie is called "Layers" and cannot be found without this url. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdYkuTTYZtE

true gold fears no fire

landscape- or landscaping?

In thinking about landscapes in the 21st century, my mind kept wandering back to how the world is becoming increasingly developed with more and more cities and seemingly ceaseless construction of new and better buildings. With this in mind, it seems that we have stopped to work around nature and rather made nature work around us. Instead of conforming to nature, we have made nature conform to us. In the construction of a college campus, the layout of a city, or the placement of private houses, the buildings come first and then trees, bushes, flowers, and grass are placed strategically around them. It is interesting that this process is called "landscaping." In the 21st century, we have turned the word "landscape" from a noun into a verb, something we make, rather than something that is. Granted there is beautiful nature in this earth that remains untouched by humans, but on the whole this switch from landscape to landscaping is defining the 21st century.

In contrasting landscapes with earthworks a landscape is generally seen as natural and not manipulated, whereas an earthwork is by nature unnatural to a degree because something within nature has been manipulated. My landscape picture differs from our earthwork project because I used nature to manipulate a cityscape rather than bringing parts of civilization into nature or simply manipulate things within nature. Also, by nature of its name, a landscape typically includes both some sort of land or nature and some sort of sky. An earthwork, by contrast, does not need to include the sky.