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Heidi Montag on Beauty

I apologize if this is really random, especially after not having posted in months, but I needed some sort of outlet and I turned to this.

I know. It's weird for me to all of a sudden be so fascinated with Heidi Montag. I never really followed Laguna Beach/The Hills/whatever and never truly took an interest in anything that relates to her before this. But I was intrigued by an article on Yahoo! about her recent plastic surgery and was shocked at what I read and saw.

One of my friends had reblogged this on her Tumblr and I found this video above that just reminded me of it:

How can having green contacts when you’re brown-eyed and long hair extensions when your hair is really cut short be considered “beautiful”? IT’S NOT FUCKING REAL.
That is so sad. You’re admiring superficial products; all of you.

Throughout my life, I've heard people say repeatedly "beauty is within," and "it's inner beauty that counts." After seeing this video, I further lost faith in the media. I was truly disappointed hearing those people being interviewed almost praising plastic surgery for cosmetic reasons. Plastic surgery can do wonders and help people with serious need for it, but I feel that it's wrong when it's used so that other people can find you more attractive, especially when you were already attractive in the first place. I also feel like what they said, especially towards the end, reinforces the point that people's concept of beauty within others is superficial. Very superficial. Knowing that that show has been broad casted and viewed by so many people in the U.S. and the world makes me wonder how many more will continue to buy into this bullshit and how many realize that they're not speaking the truth.

There were so many conflicting emotions and confused moments that I had with the first video. It's really saddening to hear her responses to the questions. She is obviously unhappy with herself, especially with the way she looks. You hear her say in the beginning of her interview that "[double D breasts] don't look that big," hinting that she may want even bigger ones done.

Heidi also defends what she says about the message she's trying to send to little girls. She wants people to know that beauty comes from within, but her actions portray a completely different message. She says that "those other girls" aren't in the same industry that she's in, but that shouldn't matter. I understand that there are so many pressures to look perfect within Hollywood and the entertainment industry. Even though I may never be able to empathize to those women working in that industry, I feel like she's still sending out the wrong message. To me, her actions send out the message that natural talent and natural beauty is no longer enough to succeed in this world. And it may not be.

It really astonishes and scares me that Heidi is only 23 years old. She's only two years older than me. TWO. It scares me knowing that age-wise, she is my peer, but she has such extremely different feelings about herself than what I feel is normal for a young woman in her 20s feels. I can't even begin to think about how many other 20-somethings have had cosmetic surgery done because they can't find a way to deal and find acceptance of themselves.

It's hard to say and know that we live in a superficial world, but I think that it's still important for people to teach others, especially the little children who are so easily influenced at their young age, that there is beauty to be found in everyone. It may not be so apparent and skin deep, but it's there.

Epic & Getting to Know

Well. Survived the first week of school! What a crazy week.. I don't quite know what to say about it. It was what it was!

Living off-campus is different, but I'm pretty sure I like it better. It's a little bit less convenient. I now have to get up two hours before my classes to take the bus to campus and it takes about half-an hour to get home. It's okay. I do like relieving the feeling of not being at school all the time. It feels nicer, and I like the feeling of living in a real home.

School and life is as busy as ever. It's hard for me to believe that just last week, I was back home sleeping my days away. My brain is starting to work hard again, and I really hope that it speeds up soon. I need it! I know that I haven't been functioning well these past couple of days, but I believe that had something to do with the lack of proper sleep as well though.

Tonight, PCE had it's first event, inviting new members to our club called "Getting to Know." It's basically a social and gave a little preview of what's to come. I met a lot of new people, but I probably can't remember a lot of them yet. Hopefully I'll see them around more and I'll remember them soon! It's so exciting! I just wish that I could do all the things that I did last year (and probably more), but the pressure is on and I realize that I can't keep putting off my studies for more social time. It's a lot of fun though! We'll see how it goes. I would probably be really tired all the time, but it was really fun last year! I don't regret doing everything last year, but it's time to grow up a little bit more and pick and choose which events are worth going to.

First days of school

I can't believe it's my third year in college! Even though it's only been two years, I feel like it's been so much longer! Is that a good thing or not? Eep.

I say it's a good thing. Looking back on my past two years, I feel like I've been able to do a lot. It's definitely been a very full two years and I'm about to start another one. It's been a crazy blur but a very fun one!

I'm starting school tomorrow! I should really be sleeping but I'm filled with excitement and worries that I might forget something. Hoping to get an early start tomorrow though. Get things ready for the new quarter. It's looking like a tough one, class-wise, but definitely looking forward to being busy and productive again!

Okay so..

I really don't want to complain about anything, but I guess this will be more of a 'what makes me really sad' post.

It makes me really sad living off-campus without a car. Even though my roommates and my friends all have cars, it's so inconvenient not having my own. If I need to go out to run errands of my own or need to be somewhere, I don't want to ask them to take me, especially if they don't need to be there. I feel so bad! All my roomies have boyfriends too, so they're not home too often. I knew this was coming, that I'd be home by myself a lot. I just didn't expect that I wouldn't be able to go out when I wanted.

So.. here's to the many days and nights spent inside my room! Pictures soon! I'm still tidying up. =]

Oh man

Lesson learned. Don't upgrade to iTunes 9 or iPhone 3.1 just yet. O jeez.

I'm afraid that if I sleep now, I won't wake up in time to pack my things up for SLO in the morning. But I guess if I put it off longer, I might crash even harder later on.

Farewell to my family and friends back home! I hope to see you soon! I'll try to keep this blog updated as much as I can. I'm a little tired for a long post right now. =/ Hopefully tomorrow night!

Because this song makes me feel good

while I'm trying to fix this mess that I'm in.. updating my brother's iPhone...

Wanna be starting something

Tomorrow, I'll be away for a weekend at the beach with this year's staff! No phones, no Internet. I'll have my laptop with me though. I have those privileges this year! It should be a nice break from being unplugged as well.

This past week has been fun, being able to chill with friends before the hectic and demanding schedule of the school year starts. I'm still settling into my house and my room, but it's been great so far! It's nice having a place off-campus. Surprisingly enough, my friends and I still live close to each other, which is nice! Not too close but not too far away as well.

We also got Cable and Internet on Tuesday and the TV has been on all week all day. It kind of makes me sad, actually, to have such things. The two days that I was here without being plugged in was nice. People were over and we didn't need such things to have a decent conversation. I guess our conversations still remain the same, but background noise just increased. I must admit, though, that the Internet helps us communicate with others in a faster way.

Well, what do I have coming up this weekend? Staff retreat with lots of fun and bonding! It should be great and I'm getting really psyched for this year to come, in terms of PCE. Afterwards, I'll be back home for a week to spend just a little more time with family and hometown friends. :)

And so it begins...

Tomorrow, or later today I should say, I'll be going back to San Luis Obispo for more than a weekend visit. Though I'll be coming back home soon after a week away, I'd like to say that this is when my third year of college will start to commence. A lot has changed, and more will continue to take place. I'd like to say that I've learned a lot from the past two years of college, but I know there is still more to learn.

Even though I'm not quite moving away just yet (I still have a few more trips back and forth before I go home for a while), I'm feeling more like I did back in the summer before college: excited to go to school and experience new things, but sad to leave friends and family behind. I really wish everyone I know and love just lived in the same place! But right now, I'm letting everyone go their separate ways, as I should be doing as well.

Let's meet again, in one year. I'll try to post more during the year!

Something that I want to try soon

Homemade Ice Cream with One Ingredient

courtesy of The Kitchn, sister site of Apartment Therapy

<3

34 A recent find

Okay... I keep way too much stuff from the past to not make a scrapbook. I only wish that I had started it earlier! Omygoodness. -_-

We recently moved and I'm trying to unpack all of the boxes that I have in my room. I'm uncovering a lot of things that I've kept all the way from elementary school. I'm a pack-rat and I have a problem. I love keeping things that may not necessarily be important, but I keep them anyways. I have collections of old letters, postcards, and birthday greetings. I keep all of my movie stubs and fortune cookie fortunes, no matter how silly they are. I keep all kinds of ticket stubs and airplane tickets and stickers that I like... I keep some old homework assignments and projects because I remember I worked so hard on them. But now, they aren't useful to me. I no longer need to know about every single section of the Constitution or every department of the government or the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. Yet I can't seem to throw them away... What should I do with them though? =/

33 Definitely bookmark this

www.wolframalpha.com

I think it's a nice link for reference. It's kind of like Wikipedia and Google combined. You can perform calculations and find out quick little tidbits about anything. Look up your birthday and find out exactly how long you've been living! You can also find out what your expected lifespan would be, but I forget how to do so... When I find that other link where I found out about Wolfram Alpha, I'll be sure to post it up! :)

32 Update

Yesterday, my mom and I went out to the mall to get our free mini facial at Origins. I guess that it wasn't a limited time promo. They had small postcards at the cashier area advertising free mini facials everyday and another one for a free mini spa day with an option to get your make-up done! I sort of wish that we had gone for the mini spa day instead, but it's alright. My mom was right and they of course sold us things. I made it out without opening my wallet, but my mom didn't! We came out with a facial scrub and mask, but also with refreshed faces. It was a nice, little relaxing treatment to get in the middle of the week. Gotta hand it to my mom though, to be polite and give them some business in exchange for their mini service.

Another free thing!

Not sure how many of you are coffee lovers, but in case you are, get a free sample!

Some friendly notes about signing up for things online, or at least here's what I do:

- Use a nickname or a fake name. Some forms check the length of the last/first name, so I usually go for two letters for my last name instead of an initial.

- For e-mails, use a fake e-mail, making sure there's an "@" symbol and a ".com" or ".net" or whichever. Or if they verify e-mail addresses, use an e-mail address that you don't mind getting junk mail in, or make a new one.

- Don't check the box that asks you if you would like to receive more information/future offers (unless you do want to hear more from them).

- Don't type in your phone number. I don't know about you, but I don't like getting random calls on my cell phone about promos. I'm just a little wary of getting calls from phone numbers that I don't know.

- If they ask you to sign up for other free offers, forget it. It's just a waste of time and you'll just end up with more junk than you want or need.

- Most importantly, never give away your social security number or credit card numbers if you're supposed to be getting a freebie!

Hope that helps! I apologize that I'm not posting up free offers everyday. This is just a blog for fun and not completely dedicated to finding free things. I assure you that there are many other blogs that do just that. It's just up to you to find it! I'll make sure to post ones that I like. :)

31 Oh, Recession...

Inspired by a recent Tyra Show that my sister saved, I've been looking around to see if I truly can live my life accumulating free things and free services. As I browse through the Internet and get free stuff, I'll post about them and share the "wealth."

In the past few days, here's what I've accumulated:

- a free T-shirt from Yogurtland -- they had a grand opening here in San Ramon and my friends and I lined up early to score one. Unfortunately, by the time we got to the T-shirts, they ran out of normal adult sizes. My sister and I ended up with youth mediums, which fits her perfectly. I'll have to do something else with mine, haha.

- a free pint of Starbucks ice cream -- they had a promo over Facebook and were giving out coupons for free ice cream. Sorry if you didn't see it! It was a while ago and I could only send out one. I sent it to my mom. :)

Until August 3, Origins is giving away free mini facials! I called the store nearest us today and scheduled an appointment for me and my mom on Wednesday! She's pessimistic and says that they'll probably try to sell us some stuff, which is probably true, but I'd just like to get my free mini facial. We'll see if I can make it through without taking my wallet out!

McDonald's also gives away free ice Mocha samples on Mondays, but I'm not sure if the ones nearest us are participating stores. =/

30 Trying to refrain

Oh how quickly the weeks go by... Trying to figure out what I'd like to do with my time during the summer. I guess it's nice to lounge around, but I don't think I'm the type to do that, at least not for extended periods of time. I should stop... haha, random post.

Currently reading

Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson

It was a hard decision to put the book down! I would still be reading it if I didn't start to feel bad. I was up at 2 reading very slowly when I could be packing up all the junk in my room like I meant to do all weekend.

Enjoying the read so far and amazed at how quickly I got engrossed in the book and the man's life and accomplishments. Blogging to say I'm still alive despite my reclusion away from the outside world!

My iPhone has taken over

Wow this is amazing. So long as I have Wi-Fi, I can pretty much do all that I do online on my iPhone! There seems to be an app for everything... Twitter, AIM, Facebook, ... I can pretty much use anything Google ... Now I can blog too?? Haha. Oh technology... How easy it is for you to keep me at one spot for endless hours at a time...

26 Some time...

... for total and internal reflection. Thank you for your support, especially to those that I've been talking to lately. I swear I'm okay! I've just lost focus and need to regain it back. You know how it goes. =]

25 Is it really me?

It's been about a year since the idea of once again keeping up a blog came about, but in all honesty, this hasn't been updated as much as it should've been. I'm starting to wonder whether I should continue with this blog. I've been so busy and I wish that I could've documented everything that's happened. At the same time, and I know this is weird to say, I wonder if my thoughts and experiences are even worth documenting. I think this is one of the reasons why I haven't been able to keep up with one blog throughout these years. Even though all the thoughts I've sent out to the world are mine and mine alone, there's some part of me that feels like such a poser, as though I'm only doing things so that I feel like I'm part of something cool. I feel like I'm just imitating thoughts and art that I see instead of learning from them and creating something that is mine.

And so summer begins. This is really the first time in a while that I've been able to sit down and reflect with a keyboard and a piece of electronic paper.

24 Getting back

These last few weeks has been a rollercoaster. Actually, this whole year has... Sorry that I'm so vague right now. I only do so because I don't have much time to write it all out right now. I'll come back to revisit though.

I just feel like school should just end now. I deserve summer vacation after these past crazy weeks.. haha. But anyway, I'm seeking for advice. How do I get myself back into school mode?? This weekend has been filled with BBQs, pancakes, and sleep, something I've been lacking. But now how do I stop?? It seems now that I've relearned how, I can't keep myself in a living state!