Baking can be creative too

This weekend I got to do two things that I love: Celebrate a birthday and bake. My friend Lyssa turned 21 so I decided to bake her a red velvet cake. Generally when I bake something I make it from scratch, but I was pressed for time so I had to give into buying a Duncan Hines cake mix. 


Even though I didn't get to be as domestic as I usually am, the cake still turned out pretty well. I coated the entire cake with cream cheese frosting and then bought decorating icing so that I could doodle all over it. The decorating icing made it easy because it came with four different tips that produced different patterns. I normally don't consider myself a crafty person, but I felt pretty artistic after I made this cake. 


Making this cake made me realize that people really don't have any excuses if they say that they're not creative. Whether it's baking, taking a different route to work, or coming up with an excuse to not go out on a date with someone, you can bring creativity to your everyday life in any shape or form. 

10 Things I Love About Fall

1. Cooler weather that doesn't cause you to break a sweat when you walk to class begins to emerge on a consistent basis
2. Everything pumpkin appears (pumpkin spice lattes, pumpkin cheesecake, etc.)
3. Ghosts, bats, and witches guard people's front yards as Halloween approaches
4. The much-needed Fall Break occurs
5. Football season really comes into swing since the weather gets cooler
6. You can start wearing jeans again-- for the first time since March if you're in Texas
7. The leaves change colors and take the remaining summer baggage with them as they fall off the trees
8. You can burn your Autumn Spice candle in your house on a daily basis
9. The best time of the year to go camping is in full swing
10. You get to eat turkey, spend time with family, and get excited because Christmas is just around the corner

Caring Is Creepy

When I'm in a pondering mood, I listen to "Caring Is Creepy" by The Shins and mull over the following lyrics:

I think I'll go home and mull this over

Before I cram it down my throat

At long last it's crashed, its colossal mass

Has broken up into bits in my moat.

Lift the mattress off the floor

Walk the cramps off

Go meander in the cold

Hail to your dark skin

Hiding the fact you're dead again

Undeneath the power lines seeking shade

Far above our heads are the icy heights that contain all reason

It's a luscious mix of words and tricks

That let us bet when we know we should fold

On rocks i dreamt of where we'd stepped

And of the whole mess of roads we're now on.

Hold your glass up, hold it in

Never betray the way you've always known it is.

One day I'll be wondering how

I got so old just wondering how

never got cold wearing nothing in the snow.

This is way beyond my remote concern

Of being condescending

All these squawking birds won't quit.

Building nothing, laying bricks.

Every time I listen to this song, I ask the same question to myself at the end: Is it more worth it to not care and feel protected or to care and feel vulnerable? Clearly certain events in life make it easy to become numb in order to block out the pain. But what benefit does that alternative give you in the long run? If all you know is to be numb to something, what happens when something happens in your life that should make you really happy and you don't feel anything?

On the other hand, deciding to care about every little detail, every up and down, every right turn and wrong turn in life causes the scary feeling of vulnerability. When you're vulnerable, everything feels magnified; the good things in life make you feel so high that you're worlds away from reality, and the bad things in life cause a pain that is so bitingly raw that all you want to do is curl up in a ball. But with these intensified feelings, you come to a new truth: whether the emotion is good or bad, you've never felt so alive.

So which will you choose? You can either choose to live your life in a state of numbness and never get hurt, or you can live your life with feeling and risk getting hurt. Even if you take that risk and get hurt, you'll be happy you did in the end when the joyful events of life occur, because they will make all of the hurt worth it. 

10 Things That Make Me Sick:

1. The smell of sour milk
2. The taste of vodka
3. Preppy guys who are better-dressed than I am for class
4. Girls who are walking skeletons because they're so skinny
5. Not sleeping enough
6. Staying inside for too long
7. Having too many things on my mind
8. Conflict in the world
9. People who are good and get nothing that they want
10. People who are bad and get everything that they want

Funny how quickly a list can go from simple to complicated. I think that sickness has more than one meaning; you can be physically sick, psychologically sick, culturally sick, or morally sick. With all of the different definitions of sickness, is there an equation to perfect health?

Oh no, I'm turning into my parents...

The day I realized I was becoming more like my mother was anything but an "Oh no” moment. It occurred when I was 16 years old when I got in a terrible ski accident three days before Christmas. I had to be in the hospital for a week, four of those days being in intensive care. I fractured my collarbone, hipbone, and skull. I had to get a spleenectomy because my spleen was in three pieces and I was hemorrhaging. For about two and a half weeks after my accident I was seeing double.

With all of this damage to my body, I had to miss a month of school. I had to go to physical therapy a few times a week so I could gain my strength back and my drive to train for varsity tennis tryouts. I had to force myself to have the willpower to practice the piano so I could get ready for the UIL competition that was coming up. I had all of these obstacles, and yet, I didn't let anything get in my way. I ended up improving my grades during that grading period. I scored a "1" in UIL which allowed me to proceed to the state competition. My coach saw the drive I had in me and moved me up to the varsity team the following fall.

I like to think that I inherited all of this strength from my mother. When my mother was only 26, she had her first brain tumor. She had to go bald for the first time in her life. She had to learn how to properly walk again and do basic things that one could not imagine not having the ability to do. At the time she had no health insurance. Though the surgery put her in debt for many years, she got through it and even bought a pair of diamond earrings during the process that I inherited for my 20^th birthday.

After this brain tumor, she got another one in her early thirties. When I was eight years old she got diagnosed with breast cancer and had to go through the brutal process of chemotherapy and lose all of her hair again. When I was twelve, my parents and I were in a terrible car accident and my mom shattered her tibia. She had to have pins in her leg for months and would later have to get a knee replacement. Every surgeon we talked to said it was the worst break they had seen in their lives; the first two we talked to said my mom may have to lose her leg.

She got through all of these things. How she did, I do not know. But I do know that she has a hell of a fighting spirit. After my accident, I'd like to think that I have at least a fraction of my mom's spirit. For various reasons, things have been hard for me lately, but my outlook is what solely gets me though everything. I think that through my mom I have inherited this mindset that says "An obstacle? To hell with it, I'm gonna make that obstacle sorry that it ever burdened me.”

Like my mother, I'm strong. Like my mother, I'm independent. Like my mother, nothing will get in my way of achieving my goals. The accidents, the heartbreaks, the poisons of burden that try to block my way; nothing is going to bring me down.  

Maybe it's not so bad...

                                     

About 99 percent of the time, the thought of death scares the jeepers out of me. I can't even imagine how I am going to die. To my knowledge death is a topic that nobody likes to think about. It's already scary enough how short life is, so why put thought into the way your short life is going to end? 

However, when I was in this cemetery pictured above-- located in the Highlands of Scotland-- I felt at ease with death. This is the only cemetery I've been in where I did not feel creeped out or mournful. As I looked around at these intricately-detailed tombstones that overlooked miles and miles of emerald hills, I remembered that above anything, death is the passage to heaven. And if heaven looks something like this, I'll be happy. 

This month is the seven-year mark of the death of my remaining two grandparents. While it was heartbreaking to see them go, I like to think that their passing into the new life looked as peaceful as this.  

Is It Ironic?

Is it ironic that we use explosives on the 4th of July to celebrate our independence, when every single day a new terrorist in the Middle East blows himself up and takes away thousands of people's lives and freedom? And each new terrorist is the reason more and more people enlist in the armed forces to fight for our country and other country's freedom, and do so by using more explosives to blow up the enemy?

Call me crazy, but it just seems to be an odd coincidence. 

Noise Or Genius?

Over time, our society has created a very troubling norm: When you see a piano, don't bang on it. Generally when you're in a nice hotel lobby or a church or a retirement home, you see a folded stand-up sign resting on the ivory-colored keyboard that tells you "Do Not Touch.” Though the intent is to save your grandma's already failing hearing from suffering from some kid's thunderous bangs on the keyboard, is this restriction more of a benefit or more of an impedance to creativity?

When I was in London this summer I came across this piano in Canary Wharf (which is our equivalent to Wall Street). I had never seen anything like it before. As I was sitting on a bench enjoying (or attempting to) a cappuccino and biscotti from the nearby Italian coffee shop, I watched kid after kid sit on this piano bench and slam the hell out of the keyboard. Being a classically trained pianist, I was slightly annoyed by this noise since all I wanted to do was sit down and play Clair de Lune to compensate the bystanders and appease their ears.

At the same time, I was captivated. Last year I took a music history class and when we studied the modern era of music, some of the music sounded exactly like what these kids were banging on the keyboard. What was considered noise in the U.S. was considered Shoenberg's great next work over in the UK. I realized that what I was hearing was not insignificant noise, but a child's creation. This piano inspired kids to create something rather than sit back and play by the rules. 

Sometimes when we're in a society full of rules and proper etiquette, I think we lose some of what really matters. That's why creativity is so great--- nobody gives a damn about rules. As long as you're creating you're doing something right.

Something my mind map says about me...

When I created my mind map, I realized how much I could relate some of my personal experiences to my creativity. I think that after this assignment I realized how personalized everybody’s creativity is. If it weren't for our own unique experiences, creativity would not be as interesting to study as it actually is.

I also realized how connected everything is in my mind. There were some items on my mind map that I was really surprised I could connect--- many seemed completely unrelated. But I guess that's just how our minds work: Our minds like trying to make sense of things; therefore, connecting topics is sometimes the best method. It will be interesting to see if I ever use this brainstorming method after I start my career. This brainstorming method definitely seems like the type that would help creatives get to the light-bulb moment when they least expect it. 

A little thing that drives me crazy...

A little thing that drives me crazy is Texas weather. Take today for an example. It should have either poured all day or not rained at all.  Instead it decided to be a monsoon in the morning and then a cloudy, humid mess in the afternoon. In the winter it won't be any different. On Christmas it will be sunny and 75 outside (so much for a white Christmas) and on the alleged first day of Spring it will snow.

Today I wore rain boots and a rain jacket for the entire day. While these items were useful in the morning when it was raining cats and dogs outside, they became unnecessary and sweaty by the time it hit 12:30. The worst part about it was I had class until 6:20 because of my breaks in between my three classes and I couldn't change; the weather forecast claimed that there would be a 100% chance of heavy rain by the time my 5 o' clock class rolled around. The forecast lied. There was a light drizzle, if anything.

Sometimes I like to think that life is just like Texas weather. 


Sometimes the forecast you make with something has a completely different outcome than anticipated. Sometimes when your day is dark and gloomy, the sunshine randomly appears when somebody does something nice for you. Sometimes stressful, unexpected events come at you like hail and all you want to do is run away and hide. Life takes you on an endless journey of unknowns. All you can do is take the prediction at hand, dress accordingly, and hope for the best.