Jellyfish

Walking along the beach in Destin, Florida, I always see a lot of jellyfish. I have gone to Destin the past two spring breaks and one of my favorite things is walking besides the water and seeing all the jellyfish and shells buried in the sand. Of course at this point the jellyfish are all dead because they have washed up and gotten stuck in the sand. But it does not make it any less fascinating to look at their clear bodies and try to find the biggest jellyfish that I can. Last summer as I was walking with my friends we came across this one, which is the largest that I have ever found. Two of the boys decided it would be fun to cut it up, so they actually borrowed a family's shovel used to build a sand castle to dissect the jellyfish with. Soon after I took the picture the only thing left was a pile of clear and gooey mush. They each took a small piece back to our condo and searched what a safe way to eat a jellyfish is so that there is no possible way that poison might be left in it. Turns out that one must soak it in water and keep it refrigerated for a certain amount of time and then either boil it or grill it. I doubt that it tasted very good when they finally ate it, and their parents were not to happy about it either. But they seemed proud to have found such a ginormous jellyfish and, like all guys would, figured out a way to consume it.

Love Song

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbKGsEK_T9g

The love song that I chose is I've Just Seen A Face by The Beatles. The lyrics are pretty simple and repetitive but carry a theme that is important. It talks about how he has just seen a girl for the first time and can not forget that moment. He is not necesarily saying that he is in love with this girl yet, but that he hopes love will come. In fact, he is so excited that he wants to shout it to the whole world what he has just experienced. This song was written a while ago, and I think love songs have definitely changed since then. There are rarely songs written now about the simplicity of meeting a girl for the first time and wanting something more out of that.

Arrowhead Lake

Last summer I discovered my favorite town that I have ever been to. With the majority of my relatives living in Hollywood, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Sacramento; most would think that family vacations could not get much better. But last year my Grandma Helen passed away and one of her wishes was to have her ashes scattered in a small stream running from Arrowhead Lake in Mammoth, California. Mammoth is where my aunt grew up and where her and my uncle live now. It is a tiny town based around a ski resort on Mammoth Mountain. I have gone to California every year since I was born, but for some reason our relatives and us have never vacationed in Mammoth. Because of my grandma's last request about her ashes, she brought us all together in Mammoth last summer. Her four children plus husbands, wives, children, and children's children. When I found out that Mammoth is all mountains and that I would be hiking, mountain biking, and going fishing, I was less than thrilled. All I wanted was a summer lying out in the sun. Not hiking on mountains that still had mass remnants of snow on them. But after saying goodbye to my grandma one last time in the stream, we hiked the rest of the way to the top of the mountain. When I caught my first glance of Arrowhead Lake, I immediately fell in love with Mammoth. I understood how my aunt had lived there her whole life, because I never wanted to leave. I stopped complaining about all the "outdoorsy" things I would be doing for the next week, and absolutely loved every single thing that I did. I caught my first fish where my grandma caught hers, mountain biked, and became obsessed with Ben and Jerry's ice cream. I will never be more grateful for my grandma bringing my family together in such an amazing town.

Eiffel Tower Texas Style

Although you can not see it, in this picture my friends and I are standing under the Eiffel Tower. Not the Eiffel tower in Paris, France as most would think. But the Eiffel tower in Paris, Texas. It is not nearly as tall as the real one in France, but to make up for its lack of height it has a cowboy hat on top. Not many people take summer vacations to Paris, Texas, but I have for the past two summers. My friend Bird moved to San Antonio, Texas a few years ago. She can not come up to visit a lot, she my friends and I planned a surprise visit to her one summer. Me and five other girls drove twenty hours down to her house and arrived there when she was not home. Her brother had taken her out to distract her so that she would not know that we were arriving. We hid under a single blanket on her bed, completely obvious to her that people were under there. When she walked in to her room we jumped out yelling SURPRISE! She had no idea that we were coming at all. On the way home from her house, we stopped for a few days in Paris because to visit with her grandma. It is a very small town but has lots of character, especially because it has its own Eiffel tower. I don't know if I will ever go to the real Paris to see the real Eiffel tower, but if not, at least I can say that I have been to this one.

Barbie Cake

At first glance, this cake just looks like a disgusting mess of frosting and Barbie dolls. But it really was much more than that, carrying on a birthday cake tradition that lasted for a year. This cake never would have been created if it was not for six friends being bored one summer day. It was Lizzie's birthday, and five of us decided to bake her a cake. This lead to the decision that we should all get together whenever one of us had a birthday to surprise the birthday girl with an amazing cake. They started off being shaped and decorated like ladybugs, Ipods, hearts, and other creative designs. But as the school year went on, we all started getting tired of decorating cakes. Which explains the mess of a cake above. The last birthday girl, Olivia, insisted that she absolutely had to get a cake. So we all got together, bought our last box of cake mix, and the adventure began. Cake mix, water, eggs, and oil were mixed together and baked for barely enough time to be called a cake. Vanilla frosting was messily swirled together with pink and purple food coloring. Brains were searched as to what the theme of the cake should be. After we spread the icing on to the still hot cake, someone declared that it reminded them of a Barbie. We raided the house and found old Barbie dolls, sticking their legs into the melted icing and gooey vanilla cake. After a surprise delivery to her house, it was declared the best cake we had ever made.

Auto Pilot

In this article, it discusses how humans are on "auto pilot" for nearly half the time they are awake. This means that instead of being focused on tasks at hand, they are looking into their own thoughts. A study was done earlier in the year which displayed how humans interact with the world. One of the ways is called the default network, and it becomes active when not much is going on around someone. When thinking through this network, people tend to plan and worry about the future rather than enjoy the present. In my opinion, I do not think people would think like this as much if society was not pressuring them into it. Thinking back on the past fourteen and a half years of school I have gone through, it seems to be the major area of my life where I have been taught to think only of the future. Every year we are told that what we are doing is preparing us for the next year of school. When questioned about something, teachers have always used the excuse that, "We are preparing you for next year." I understand that it is important to be prepared, but I think that society has placed too much importance on it. If we are always preparing for the future, we are never really living. Studies have also shown that this mind wandering does not make people happy. All the depression seen today starts to make sense when you hear these statistics. Our society has become so focused on being the best and being perfect that it has become impossible to not think of what will come next. I think that everyone should try and relax and wait for the surprises the future has in store instead of constantly worrying and planning ahead.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/your-brain-work/201011/new-study-shows-humans-are-auto-pilot-nearly-half-the-time

Isabelle Caro

A few days ago one of my friends was talking about a model who had recently died from anorexia. She said that she was only 59 pounds when she passed away, and I honestly did not believe her at first. I thought it must have just been a rumor she had heard- I did not actually think it was possible for a twenty-eight year old to be 59 pounds. But as I was searching for an article today, I came across the story of Isabelle Caro. Her recent death caused by anorexia is entirely true. Caro began struggling with an eating disorder when she was thirteen years old, and it continued up until her death. I learned that in her late stages of anorexia she began posing for posters that read "No Anorexia." She knew that she was entirely too thin, stating that she was the opposite of what beauty should be. The controversy of these photos arises because they were un-knowingly taken and posted on pro-anorexia websites. Critics argue that the pictures of Caro only made people with eating disorders strive to be as thin as her. On the other hand, Isabelle Caro and her photographer argue that the photos actually helped people with eating disorders to see how dangerous it can get. I looked up the pictures myself, and was absolutely horrified. She literally looks like a skeleton with skin hanging off of her. I have no idea how she survived so long looking like that, or how she did not reverse her anorexia when she realized she was slowly killing herself.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/you-must-be-hungry/201101/the-death-the-little-girl-who-didnt-want-get-fat