pop culture, 2011

fill in the blank

1.   I am looking forward to      graduation. But that is also something that I am dreading. It means the start of real life, moving away from the people I have spent the past four years with, and not being in school anymore. I have spent the past 16 years in school - it is about time to try something new.

2.  Something kind of embarassing that I still love anyway is   the movies "The Land Before Time," "Anastasia," and "The Swan Princess." I have recently watched all three (I own the last two, and LBT was on Netflix instant play so the roomies and I watched in a few days ago). I love singing the songs in Anastasia and the Swan Princess - I've got the Anastasia soundtrack on my iPod. Nothing is better than movies that bring you back to your childhood.

3.  My favorite car is    I don't have one. I actually don't know too much about cars. I mean, I like certain types of cars, but no models in perticular.

4.  If I could pick one type of weather to live with for the rest of my life it would be   California weather, the kind you find in San Francisco. It gets warm in the summer in the summer and cool in the winter - but not to the extreme. I also don't mind the fog - have you ever seen the Golden Gate Bridge when it is surrounded by fog? It is beautiful.

5.  My favorite thing to do after a bad/stressful day is    sit on the couch with a glass of wine. Also, if the day has been particularly bad I like to have a good cry.

6.  This weekend     I will spend my time relaxing, doing a little bit of homework, and looking for jobs. If anybody knows of any public relations jobs that are open let me know! hehe

7.  If I were a color, I'd be       green      because,      I get jealous pretty easily (I'm working on it!) and certain shades of green remind me a little bit of anxiety which happens to me pretty easily as well (I'm working on that too!) Green is also the color of my eyes and I just love the color.

in defense of the royal wedding

Want to know what I am more sick of than hearing news about the royal wedding? People saying how sick they are of hearing news about the royal wedding.

Now, I might not be the best person to speak out about this – I absolutely love weddings and everything about them – but I am not quite sure why people are getting so angry about hearing about this major event. These people will one day be the king and queen of England! Even if they are just figurehead positions, that is a role that comes with a lot of social responsibility. I, for one, love hearing about a famous couple who really has no choice about whether they are famous or not – he was born into it and she just happened to fall in love with him – and are dignified, sophisticated, and elegant in the public eye. Cut them some slack.


We had a conversation about this at work the other day and one of the women I work for made a great point: our society is so centered around “celebrities” – Jersey Shore, Paris Hilton, Lindsey Lohan, the Kardashians, Charlie Sheen, the list goes on and on – what is so wrong with England and the rest of the world being excited about one of the biggest weddings of this century? The royal family and the importance of weddings goes back many, many generations. It is a tradition – a solid, important, and beautiful tradition. I mean, hello, 750 million people watched Princess Diana and Prince Charles’ wedding while 600,000 more people lined the streets to catch a glimpse of the couple. Not to mention that we still talk about that wedding – the dress, the enormity, all of it – and it’s 30 years later!

So will I turn on my TV at 2 a.m. tonight to watch the wedding? Well, probably not. But do I look forward to reading articles about it and will I check entertainment websites and watch TLC tomorrow to see photos and videos of the wedding? You better believe it!

As far as celebrities and media obsessions go – William and Kate are probably on the bottom end of the “ridiculous” scale. I would much rather hear about them than some of the other crap that is covered by our media.

And hey, what girl doesn’t fantasize of being a princess? She is living every little girl’s dream. (Not to mention – look at that ring!)

other things

Hello all! It has been so long since I wrote on this blog - but there is (relatively) good reason for it. I have been taking a class this quarter that is based on multi media reporting and we had to develop a blog on Wordpress for that class. I have been blogging a lot in that class, not just for class assignments but also just for fun. We are studying how multi-media affects reporting and how social media sites can be used to promote different stories/blogs/web based media.

I am also taking a video editing class, so I have been using YouTube and Vimeo a lot. I have been posting fun things on that site because it allows for me to have more on that blog than just the regular assignments. I don't use it as a super personal blog the way I do with this one, but it still has some light hearted and fun aspects to it. I am also getting used to the WordPress way of doing things which, I have to say, I kind of like.

Here are the links to my blog and my YouTube channel, just in case you miss me and want to check them out :)

WordPress: www.racheleganjour410.wordpress.com
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/rachel88e?feature=mhum

dance

Happy Easter! I just got back to school after celebrating Easter at home. I got to spend some time with my mom's family today and I had a little bit of time to spend with my dad's family yesterday at a seder (yes, I know, that is a Jewish celebration). 

I have so much to do tomorrow - luckily I don't have class - but as for right now, I am finishing watching the movie Center Stage (have you seen it? I love it!) and putting together a to-do list for tomorrow. 

Enjoy this final dance scene from Center Stage. It is one of my favorite movie scenes ever.

giants love

Came across this video when I was on the SF Giants website looking for the game schedule and ticket prices. It makes me fall in love with that team more than I already am.



Amazing.

i love you, i hate you

My friend Liz posted this on her Tumblr today and I absolutely fell in love with it. It is from a site called Thought Catalog which has some pretty cool posts/articles/videos/pictures. 
Enjoy :)


I Love You, I Hate You
by Ryan O'Connell

If you love someone, you run the risk of not loving them one day. You run the risk of seeing them in a grocery store years later and hiding behind the display of bananas so you won’t have to say anything to them and pretend that the love never happened. It’s funny, isn’t it? When you run into someone like your childhood best friend (the one you haven’t seen in years, the one who became a Christian and has a Coach bag), you say hello. You hug, quickly find out what they’re doing with their life, if they’re happy, and then you move on. Sure, it’s awkward, and there might be a temporary ache in your chest afterwards (time can be unkind) but you acknowledge them, you pay tribute with a smile, a hug, a “How are you doing?”


With the people you once loved, the people that once had an all-access pass to the most intimate details of your life, you sometimes can’t pay tribute. You can’t ask them about their work, their travels, or god forbid, their family. Your mind can’t process it. They can only exist in black and white; they can either be everything or nothing. You say hello to the person you played with when you were five, and ignore the person whose cum you swallowed, who once cried to you in a cab because everything was going wrong and oh my god, you wanted to help them, wanted to save them.


Who do we hold on to and who do we force ourselves to forget? The hardest thing about love often seems to be the extremes. How quickly it can go from “hold me through the night” to “get fuck off of me.” One day you’re in a hotel gift shop with the person you love and you look over at them and start to see different things, things you wish you were never able to see. This is the beginning of the end, the beginning of “get the fuck off of me.” You know in that moment that you’ll be ignoring them five years from now in a grocery store.


You always have the ability to hate someone you love. Hate is passion just like love is passion. You must know this when you sign the love contract. “I hereby acknowledge that loving you carries the potential for disaster. I hereby acknowledge the possibility of hating your fucking guts!!!” Will this stop anyone from loving? More importantly, should it? No.


In a way, hate can be the best compliment next to love. Because the second you’re able to come up to your ex in that grocery store or on the street, you’ve healed and moved on.  The love exists now in a healthy compartment in your brain or not at all. This is all very well and good, but it also means that it’s truly done. Technically, this is what’s supposed to happen. This is the path you’re supposed to be on. But losing the passion can sometimes be the hardest thing to give up. Holding on to feelings, whether it’s love or hate, reminds you that you’re still alive and that the relationship happened. Or something.

courage

I just re-read To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee for my Adolescent Literature class. I forgot how much I liked that book. The story is riveting, the characters are relatable, and although the story is sad, it also gives you hope.

"I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. you rarely win, but sometimes you do." - Atticus Finch, To Kill a Mockingbird

I think that I need more of that type of courage... or just more courage in general.

What are battles that you are willing to fight even if the risk of failure is higher than the chance of success?

xox

sharptooth!!

My roommates and I just set up the PlayStation so that we could watch Netflix instant streaming. First movie to christen the new setup? The Land Before Time!!!

That movie was one of my favorite movies when I was a kid - I haven't seen it in years. Christine and I decided to watch it and it turned out that Stephanie had never seen it! So sad.

Did you ever watch The Land Before Time when you were a kid? What were your favorite children's movies? What movies do you still love now that you are an adult?

fill in the blank Friday

Fill in the blank Friday - and a picture from the super long and intense hail storm that occurred about an hour ago. The hail was so big it was painful!! And mind you - I live on the beautiful California Central Coast which means we don't get much of any type of weather besides sunshine 330 days out of the year.

This is the view from our court. The hail covered the street and probably dented a few cars. It seemed as though, despite the large pieces of ice falling from the sky, the entire neighborhood was out watching (and playing - snowballs!)

1. Something that makes me a great friend is, I listen to what they have to say and try to help in any way I can. I am honest and give advice, but I am also there if they just need to vent or get something off their chest.

2. I am gullible, looking for a job, hopeful, trustworthy.

3. I am not perfect, comfortable in skirts or dresses, ready for the "real world", 

4. If I had to describe myself in 3 words, they would be  driven, anxious, compassionate.

5. Something I'm really cheap about is makeup. I know I should spend more money to get nicer makeup because the cheap stuff isn't as good for our skin - but for some reason it isn't something that I have been able to justify spending a bunch of money on.

6. Something I'm willing to splurge on is food, and more recently - clothing. I have decided that a person's wardrobe says a lot about them. Up until recently my wardrobe hasn't said anything good - so I am changing that .

7. I would trade money for happiness in a heartbeat. (I know, it's cheesy, but I couldn't think of anything else!)

baby conversations

This video was posted on my friend Hannah's Facebook wall and I thought it was hilarious.



I looked up the original one, but it wasn't as funny without Jimmy Kimmel's commentary. But just in case you want to see it, here is the link.

cow training

It is only 9 p.m. and I have been fighting against sleep for at least the past three hours. This past weekend my girlfriends and I went to Las Vegas (more on that later) and we definitely didn't get very much sleep.

Today was a very long day, but I actually have somewhere to be at 9:30 or 10, which means that I don't get to go to sleep for at least another two hours.

On the plus side, my friend Erica posted this story about a girl whose parents wouldn't buy her a horse so she bought a cow and trained it to do jumps and tricks. It made me smile to read it and it was probably the best part of my day. Here is a picture of the girl and her cow:

Kind of cute and heart warming, wouldn't you say?

xox

ten years ago

Ten years ago today my dad's sister - my amazing Aunt Judy - passed away from cancer. She was a wonderful, creative, and loving woman and I was devastated by her passing. I still am.

She lived across the country so we only saw her once or twice a year when we went to visit her or she came out here to visit us, but those visits were full of exciting adventures and parties. Tea parties, beanie baby parties, scavenger hunts, pool parties, picnics - you name it, she made it incredible. She couldn't have children of her own so she treated her nieces like princesses. She would have been a wonderful mother - her child would have been the luckiest kid in the entire world.

The day I found out she passed away was one of the worst days in my life (probably the worst). Her funeral was even worse. The church was packed - the pews were completely full and there were people crowded in the back, standing room only. People had wonderfully kind words to say. I was a mess.

I miss her every single day. Although I don't cry about it as much anymore, I do think about her all the time. I think about what our relationship would be like now if she was still around. I think of the ways she would influence my life if I was still able to talk to her an visit her.

I wish I had a photo of her that I could post on here, but all of my pictures of her are hard copies - she passed away before the development of digital cameras.

Ten years ago today the world became a little bit worse because it lost one of the most amazing people to have ever walked its streets. Even though the world is a little worse because of her loss, those who knew her are better people because of her presence in our lives.

You would have loved my Aunt Judy.

What I wouldn't give for one more tea party with her. One more conversation. One more hug. 

learning ballet

Seriously one of the most precious videos I have ever seen. Not to mention the fact that I looked like this when I was little and was probably the least talented ballet dancer in my class.



Thanks Joanna at A Cup of Jo for posting this video! So cute.

This little girl is a prime example of never giving up. Perseverance my dear, perseverance. 

xox

letters

I absolutely love handwritten letters. I wrote a few this weekend - to my aunts on my mom's side.
I also absolutely love this picture.

Have a beautiful night.

 xox

back

Hello everybody!

So sorry that it has been so long since I posted anything - however there are a few relatively good reasons for my lack of blog activity.

1. I have been finishing my senior project paper (remember the Love Out Loud Campaign?) It ended up being 37 pages and is now published on our school's website. I am currently taking a break from LOL stuff, simply because my brain can't handle it right now. But that does not mean that I am giving it up for good.

2. A week ago we had finals which meant that I was studying, working, writing, etc.

3. While I was studying for finals and preparing for the end of the quarter, I was also getting ready to head to Europe for a week with Christine. I had all that packing stuff to do, along with figuring out what we were going to be doing in each city (Prague and Munich).

4. In the middle of all that stuff (aka the studying and packing), I got SUPER sick and ended up going to the health clinic on that Monday (the 14th) and then the ER the next night because I had a high fever and couldn't breathe because my throat was so swollen and painful. Everything turned out okay (they gave me an IV so that I got hydrated, as well as numbing stuff for my throat, pain meds, and amoxicillin). Needless to say, the doctor (along with my family) were not too thrilled when I said I was still planning on going to Europe, despite my sickly condition.

In any case, I finished my finals, I got well again, and I went to Europe. Which means that I have hundreds (yes hundreds) of pictures to go through, as well as all your lovely blog posts to read from the past few weeks. Here is a photo from the trip, just because I'm not a huge fan of all text blog posts. (It's not the best because it was taken at night, but I really like the clouds.)

Luckily I am wide awake right now (it is 7 in the morning for me - Munich time) which means that some photo editing can happen. I'm kind of excited to see the pictures that we took while we were there.

Check in within the next few days to see pictures from the trip - hopefully there will be some good ones.

xox

P.S. There are also some things that I get to cross off my "101 in 1001" list - I will get to those within the next few days too.

before i die

I came across this amazing mural that a woman named Candy Chang. She painted this big chalkboard mural on an abandoned house in New Orleans with the statement "Before I die...." and a bunch of blanks for people to fill in with the provided chalk. 

My favorites? "Before I die I want to understand." and then right next to it: "Before I die I want to be ok with NOT understanding." There is so much truth in both of those statements. 

Before I die I want to make a positive difference in the world - even if it is just a positive difference in the world of one or two people. I don't need to be remembered in the text of history books or for some great epic thing that I accomplish - I just want to be remembered in the life of a few others.

What do YOU want to do before YOU die?

I'd love to know.

xox

fill in the blank Saturday

Alright, so I'm a day late for Fill In The Blank Friday, but I figured I'd participate anyway.

1.   My biggest accomplishment in life thus far is       my senior project - The Love Out Loud Campaign. I just turned in my 37 page paper yesterday and it will be published in the Cal Poly library. Also, my advisor wants to nominate me for a senior accomplishment award for that project - I will keep you posted on whether or not I get the award.

2.  My favorite place to sit in my house is    depends on which house I'm at (I have three - My dad's, my mom's, and my house at school). At school I either like to be in my bed or on the love seat in our living room (which is basically where I spend all my time when I'm home). Dad's - in one of the big comfy chairs we have in the living room. Mom's - the corner of the couch in the living room. See a trend?

3.  My fashion philosophy is    comfort. I absolutely LOVE being comfortable (obviously). I am most comfortable in jeans and a t-shirt/sweatshirt, but I also want to reach out my fashion horizons and dress more stylishly and fashionable. I found the following picture on a website a few days ago and I want to get an outfit that looks like it. It is my fashion inspiration for the time being... I love it :)

4.  Something every girl should have is     the perfect nail polish color (I'm still searching for mine).

5.  If you looked in my purse right now you'd find....     just about nothing because I am in the process of switching purses but normally you can find a wallet, pens, pencils, a tampon, band aids, my planner, a few note cards, etc.

6.  My favorite music right now is       The Beatles. I have been taking an AMAZING class about the Beatles this quarter and it has just made me look at their music in a very different way.

7.  My favorite part of my body is       my eyes. Probably because I get the most compliments on them. I mean, they suck because I am practically blind and have to wear glasses or contacts which irritate my eyes, but I like how they look. I like the colors, I like the shape, etc.

dead week

This week is crazy. Even though it's supposed to be "dead week" aka the week you do nothing in your classes because finals are next week, this week is crazy.
I have papers, I have presentations, I have hoops to jump through.

On the bright side, this quarter is almost done.
And then I go to Europe.
And then I go to Vegas.
And then I go to Wine Fest.

Until then, this quarter is crazy. I probably shouldn't even be blogging right now because there is so much to do.

I won't even have a social life until after this quarter is over.

Not to mention that I have heard the saying "You can always retake the test, you can never relive the party" more times in the past week than I have in the past four years... too bad, at this point in my education, having to retake the test means not being able to graduate.

So I have no other option but to log off of Facebook, turn off my computer, and move on to my reading for Spanish.

Hope your week is better than mine.

inspired video

Although I am still processing the events of this past weekend (The Love Out Loud Show), I wanted to share a video with you.

This video was made by Aubrea who did new media for the campaign, including our other video, designing the entire web page, etc.

I just wanted to share. I hope you are as inspired by it as I was. It brought me to tears.