blog being moved again

Blogger is irritating me as it is difficult to navigate and has these occasional hiccups where it doesn't want to do what I have asked it to. I am moving to tumblr. My new address is

mechanicalimagination.tumblr.com

eh, crafty blog title

There are not enough words to truly state how much I'm looking forward to fall. Yes, yes, the first day of fall has come and gone but, to me, it hasn't. To me, August is summer and fall starts the first day of October. What about September? Well, I think September is an in-between month that doesn't belong to any season on account of telling people they can't wear white and keeping my birthday from getting here faster. That's what you get September. Do better.

Anyway, the main reason I can't wait until October (besides my birthday, con, and Halloween) is I have decided to go all Julie and Julia on that biatch! Well, except no French cooking... replace that with random Halloween inspired deliciousness. I have decided I want to learn how to cook from mostly scratch and, since I'm busy the rest of this month, I have decided to start October first. Well, maybe September 30th...we shall see. I have never been known to be a patient person.

As for things that happened today, well, that can be summed up in one sentence.

Lemon ice cream with chocolate on top is freakin' awesome!!!

Okay, yeah, I've been told I'm weird but its seriously one of my favorite flavor combinations in the world. On a whim, I took myself to TCBY and, when I found out they had a new lemon sherbet, I was like "put some chocolate on that biatch!!!" I encourage you to try it. Double chocolate or chocolate chunk may be too extreme so stick with regular. If you can't handle that much, then try it with two sample spoons. Either way, life is all about broadening the horizons and it's Carly approved.

Update

It was brought to my attention that I haven't updated this in a while. Sorry about that.

Well, so far this semester is not going how I thought it would. For some reason I imagined excitement and friends but all I've gotten is a near breakdown and people I don't have time to see. Funny how that all works out.

This semester I'm sorta packing on the stress so my last semester wont be so bad. I have two honors classes and some research to do for my thesis and, when I write that out, it doesn't seem so bad. Well, you're wrong. I'm not sure if its having classes from 7am-8:30pm twice a week while working all the other days or if it's the fact that everything evil in this universe decided to pop straight up outta hell and announce that it was gonna make a class called "Logic" and then require me to take it...either way, this semester is ticking me off and we are just on the third week.

What's not ticking me off though is my relationship. DHF has to be the single most wonderful man in existence and I have this huge cocky smile from knowing he's mine. I dunno how he does it but he manages to balance work, friends, family, me (my bullshit included) and gracefully cut down on smoking. Seriously. I mean, he managed to keep me from going postal at twelve this morning even though he worked a twelve hour shift and had to wake up the next morning at 5:30. He didn't even get irritated. He just smiled and told me to chill. Amazingly, it worked.

In happy news, I should be asking for my Saturdays back starting next month. DHF and I both figure it will help me chill and what makes it more awesome is this will allow me to visit my friends out of state more often. Considering almost all of my friends have moved out of state for graduate school, that's more awesome than I can say.

Another thing that makes me super psyched, I've almost got all my credit cards payed off. I only have three left to go and one of them should be gone by October 1st. Whoot!!!!

I dunno, I got a lot to be happy for...I guess the reason I'm so stressed is that I'm in the homestretch and nothing has really come to pass yet. It's like I've been underwater too long and I'm swimming to the top and my lungs feel like they are on fire but I haven't broke the surface yet. Make sense?

Okay, back to studying. I have a logic exam Thursday.... ew.

hecticness

I know I haven't posted anything in a while and that isn't from a lack of things going on in my life-it was too much. Literally, there was so much going on that I couldn't bring myself to write about it. I thought if I spoke about it one more time I would go crazy. I did write a quick blog about some of it back when it happened but I never posted it. I have been working a lot, my brother had emergency brain surgery, I cleaned out a section of my dad's apartment, I got a new car, I started school, I got approved for my thesis....the list goes on and on and, frankly, I need a break. I may post what was going on with my brother soon but, as for now, I still don't wanna deal with it. My plans for tonight involve Spike TV, drinking a smirnoff, and working on some logic homework. Forget doing anything else.

What I got out of Drop Dead Gorgeous

To be clear, I am discussing the independent mock-documentary by Philip Alberton about a dead body being used on modeling shoots and not the comedy about a beauty pageant by Michael Patrick Jann.

I just wanted to be clear since the comedy is the one I thought I was watching but was misinformed and just got physically ill. Instead of passing it up as possibly life-scarring bad luck, I thought I would write a blog about it and discuss what I got out of the movie since I can't seem to find many websites discussing it.

The premise of the movie is a documentary group have come to follow the rise of a young model, Cynthia, as she lands a big modeling contract with a very famous fashion designer. However, on the set, she dies (they suggest an overdose) but the photographer keeps shooting her. The modeling company decide that, in order to stay on schedule, they will continue to use her dead body and excitedly talk about starting a revolution in the fashion industry.

The message from the movie is pretty clear for anyone who can manage to listen to the dialogue over their stomach flipping at the sight of..well,...everything on screen: to the advertising industry, women are meat. We have no soul, no personality, and that is what is truly desired. The photographer in the movie doesn't look at the models' faces when he speaks to them but instead focuses his attention between their legs. When the models' go 'off-screen' to wretch, no one looks twice and later encourages them to lose more weight. The people 'interviewed' who work in the fashion field talk about how the worsts things about the models' are their relationships, their looks, and their need to be accepted. The photographer goes so far as to say that, for these women to be beautiful, they need to be used, abused, and sexualized, and-once they are on the verge of being ruined spiritually- give the impression of innocence and virginity.

Once Cynthia dies, a whole new world opens for the fashion world. No longer is she difficult to work with because they can prop her up, paint her, and dress her as they see fit. They no longer have to worry about complaints of long hours, relationships, and a life outside of her career. They move her and place her as they need and she goes on ice afterwards to await a new day of being used. Because she is dead, she is no longer the problem, it is now the other models who they call in to work with her. They become the ones who are difficult to work with as they don't want to be so close to a body or because, since one happens to be in her twenties, they are too old. One quote from the movie, "For Cynthia, it was too much too soon...wait, how old was she? 18? Then it was too much too late."

In the end of the movie, the advertisement was pulled from magazines and billboards but, because it was so shocking, kept getting reprinted. The designer she was working with went from being hated to admired for his revolution. Models killed themselves to get better work and her agent became the lead agent in dead models. Nothing was learned because society refused to.

Perhaps the dead body thing is a bit far-fetched but, honestly, advertising agencies aren't telling us much different. Women are screamed at from every side and a very early age; this is how you should look, how you should be, what you should be. You are worth nothing if you aren't these things. The images they present to us are unobtainable and often contradictions. We must be sexual virgins, submissive fighters, and commonly exotic. Our worth is determined by our body, our personality is irrelevant. In the end, we become something less than human. Models become mannequins and the end result leaves us with a picture asking a simple question....

Is she even real?

If you would like more information on the topic of how women are used in advertising (I assure you the following video will be more entertaining and better put together than my spur of the moment blog) then Watch Killing Us Softly By Clicking Here

Step One for Self-Sufficiency

If you ask me what my dreams for the future are, you'll get two answers: 1) that I will be a college professor/sociologist without borders 2) that I will be as self-sufficient as economically possible.

I want lots of land, preferably with some woods on it, and a little cottage home with a porch. When I'm not at my job, my time will be taken up tending to the produce DHF and I grow and cooking in a kitchen whose size will not cause me to have a nervous fit (my current one would make a cockroach claustrophobic).

It's funny because, when I was little, I grew up on a farm near the woods. My time was taken up chasing chickens around, avoiding the geese (they get testy), exploring the woods, and playing on the train tracks. I would help my grandmother shell peas and, on a couple of occasions, churn butter and I would wake up to the smell of biscuits and bacon in the morning.

Needless to say, my dream growing up was getting the hell away from their. I wanted city-life, the sounds of cars and people, and the pulse that only downtown can give. Then I moved there and I can the sounds of cars, sirens, and people yelling and the smell of dumpsters and homeless that only a neglected downtown can give.

It's funny 'cuz my dream for the future is the one thing I never wanted. It's weird how that works.

Currently though, DHF and I can't do much for self-sufficiency right now. I'm finishing up my last year as an undergrad (translation=broke and time consumed) and he's working a new job that calls for 12 hour shifts. Neither of us can afford a house here and we find it kind of pointless since we will be moving out of state after I graduate for graduate school. So, since we can't do many of the things we want, we have decided to start planning for when we can.

Our step one involves paying off as much of our debt as possible. He's already succeeded in most of that since he works full time but I'm just getting started today. I have decided to aim for credit cards since my hope for the future is only having one and for emergencies only. Currently, I have five and have plans in the works to bring it down to four by August 26th. Eep! Excitement! Today I plan on setting up a 'pay off schedule' that will help me form a budget and get them all paid off by next May. I may not have a really good idea of it until after I get my car but at least I'll have a general one.

Activist Post: Anonymous Threatens to Kill Facebook on Nov. 5

For Caterpillar:

(Click on the link below for more information)

Activist Post: Anonymous Threatens to Kill Facebook on Nov. 5

A lot of people complain that this attack is idiotic but I disagree. What Facebook is doing is wrong and they are destroying lives of people who are unaware that they've become addicts. There is no longer a sense of privacy. Facebook apps can take your personal contacts out of your iphone (look it up), they keep tabs on things you discuss, and businesses can check their employees or possible employees pictures, statuses, and comments. People have lost their jobs because somewhere in an album is a picture of them holding a beer. Never-mind that they never drank at their job and were at their own house because, with Facebook's help, what you do in your free time is also your boss's business.

We have a right to privacy. Stop selling information. If Facebook continues, they should respect the 'privacy settings' set up by their users. That doesn't just go for other users, it should apply to companies and government agencies.