Freedom Fighters in unexpected people and places

SMU is quickly evolving into a more full throttle "liberal arts" education. I know the university has technically been this way for the majority of its existence, but I am finally wholeheartedly believing those words. Granted, I don't think SMU will ever truly become a liberally minded institution, but hey, you never know :)  To be one of the few universities to offer a minor in human rights is exceptional, no doubt about it, and according to Dr. Rick Halperin, Director of the Embrey Human Rights Program here at SMU, we will soon be the only university to offer a Human Rights major! How about that, I may have to come on back for grad school...

Anywho, I am always interested in the speakers who come to visit SMU, the on-campus events that are held, and the significant increase in action ever since construction of Bush Library began. It is hard to support an administration whose politics and decisions I did not necessarily support or agree with, but it's not fair to hold grudges. George and Laura Bush have recently done so much for SMU, in addition to their work in Afghanistan. Mrs. Bush has spearheaded the effort to increase liberty in the recently democratized Afghanistan, free of the Taliban, specifically in order to promote women's freedom and advance their economic opportunity. Through my human rights minor, I was invited to attend the Afghan Conference at SMU, properly titled "Building Afghanistan's Future." I got to attend a dinner, followed by words from both George and Laura Bush, leading up to the opening panel discussion "Promoting Women's Freedom." Panelists included:

Asila Wardak Jamal, Director General of Human Rights and International Women's Affairs in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Afghanistan;

The Honorable Zalmay Khalilzad, President and Chief Executive Officer, Gryphon Capital Partners, Former United States Ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq and the United Nations; 

and The Honorable Melanne Verveer, Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women's Issues, U.S. Department of State Co-Chair, U.S.-Afghan Women's Council.

Each of the panelists was able to speak, followed by  joint discussion, and then questions from the audience. Of the many issues discussed, this was highlighted: "Afghanistan must make the critical decision to include and protect the rights of all of its citizens, both men and women, or risk the inevitable return to instability and failure by oppressing and excluding women from fully contributing to society. The prevalence of intimidation and violence against women raises important questions for those working to establish this young democracy." Ms. Jamal made it clear that many Afghan women "express serious concerns that their rights will be bargained away as a price for peace with the Taliban, erasing hard-won gains in acess to education, health care and political and economic opportunity. As the process unfolds, the safeguarding of these basic human rights will be critical." 

This conference opened my eyes to a dilemma which I knew existed, but had never so thoroughly experienced. It's opportunities like these at SMU that I will sorely miss once I graduate. Thankfully I still have a year ahead of me, and hopefully many more progressive Afghan conferences to come...

You go, girl.

Officially a Portrait Photographer

I have my fifth photo project due tonight, it's a portrait assignment (9 shots of someone else and 3 shots depicting self-portraits), and I was a bit dubious about the task at first. This entire semester we've been taking pictures of THINGS, inanimate objects, sometimes a random human being would find their way into my field of view, but otherwise no specific assignment made use of one person, and one person only as the subject matter. I knew I needed someone who is comfortable in front of the camera, but not obnoxious, someone who knows their body and wouldn't be afraid to go a little crazy. Of course all of my lovely friends who are dance majors at SMU came to mind, and fortunately one of my best friends was able to sacrifice 3+ hours of her day to gypsy around the outskirts of downtown with me on a misty Sunday afternoon. The pictures turned out really cool! I wanted to do a good job of creating photos that she would want to keep, as well as nail my project, so it worked out well. It's a completely different experience taking pictures of a living, breathing, human who can shift, twitch, chat, and be self-conscious. I actually really enjoyed it, more so than wandering around by myself to find surfaces and settings that interest me, but I love having the freedom to do just that and explore as well. I think I just like the fact that I am able to give something meaningful back to my friend, Jessalyn, who took so much of her own time to help me. Hope you enjoy these!

 Just to give you a few good chuckles... I'm throwing in the 3 self-portrait photos we were assigned to do.. try your best not to at least smile, I dare you.

FOOD

I love FOOD. I consider it a healthy obsession. I love to cook it (especially breakfast foods and Italian dishes), I love to try it, I LOVE it all. I like to eat healthy, but it has to taste good, otherwise, what's the point. I've been trying some old-fashioned Italian recipes lately, my favorite being a chicken ratatouille dish that tastes likes it's straight outta southern Italy. I morphed the recipe into a veggie pasta sauce, which I've been tweaking week to week, it's simple and delicious. Basically all you need are a ton of veggies and tomatoes, garlic, pepper, and whatever spices you like (I'm a big fan of basil and oregano with this recipe). Oh, and maybe some pasta to put it on top of, and a slice of garlic bread to go with it.

While the water is boiling for the pasta, here's what I usually start out with:

3-4 vine ripened tomatoes

1 zucchini

1 bell pepper

a handful of mushrooms

1/2-3/4 of an onion (white or red)

a couple big handfuls of spinach

2-4 cloves of garlic, diced

 Heat up a big pan with a few generous glugs of olive oil, and sauté

the garlic and onions until they start to slightly brown, toss in the rest of your chopped up veggies, but leave out the spinach and tomatoes. Let the tough veggies simmer for about 5 minutes, then throw in the spinach, let it wilt, and toss in the diced tomatoes, stirring continually. Add your pepper, oregano, basil, and whatever spices you love, keep on stirring, until a soft, sauce-like consistency happens.

Looks like a hot mess, but tastes delicious! Put a hefty portion of your sauce on some spaghetti or angel hair pasta, and call it a night. Add some vino to the equation and you're golden... buon appetito!

The Southern Experience

The South. Where does it end, where does it begin... coming from the coast of southern California, I couldn't really tell ya. My first time to Texas was during my junior year of high school, when I came to Dallas for a volleyball tournament, and ended up visiting SMU and UT. I remember being totally out of my element, but only because I was expecting cowboys, saloons, roaming cattle and horses, and the works. Guessing that vision came from a scene in one of Clint Eastwood's spaghetti westerns? Disregarding where my vision of the South had spurred from (no pun intended...my apologies), I still feel like Dallas is not a truly full-fledged southern city. Granted, republicans make up the clear majority of the city, there is a Bubba's across the street from SMU, and Tex-Mex and serious steakhouses are plentiful (all of which I consider amenities of the South, but correct me if I'm wrong), but until this past spring break, I felt as though I was still missing out on some true southern grit.

My search for the South was completed in due course, by way of a 12-hour road trip to Destin, Florida with some of my favorite guys and gals at SMU. We pushed through east Texas at warp speed, but I was able to convince the guys that we needed at least one "authentic" pit stop in every state. My favorite side-of-the-road find was somewhere in Mississippi (quite possibly could have been Alabama...), and exuded the comforts of southern cuisine...

 

Boiled peanuts??? What a concept. Kind of had the consistency of lima beans, but the Cajun spice was awesome! Needless to say I purchased a pound of the suckers and continued on my way into Florida, thinking that my tour of southern comfort would be over as soon as we crossed the border. Little did I know that the Gulf side of Florida would offer authentic southern "Cajun" cuisine like I had never experienced. Who knew that crab legs, corn on the cob, potatoes and "hushpuppies" could make a perfectly suitable and absolutely delicious meal? I am now a believer. I don't think I've ever eaten so much seafood in my 20 years of living. My favorite was a place called Stinky's...at first I was dubious about the naming choice, but soon discovered that the only thing stinky about the place were everyone's hands after manhandling the undersea critters in front of us. I made the wise decision to order the famed Stinky's Stew, preempted by a set of Rockafeller style oysters(YUM!!) The Stew consisted of shrimp, mussels, oysters, fish, crab legs flying out of the bowl, in a broth filled with corn, potatoes and tomatoes....I died a little that night. Even in a stew, seafood in Florida cannot go without the potatoes and corn....I feel like I've had a revelation. Somehow my mind digressed from  contemplating the image of the South to an off-skew of Southern cuisine... it's quite possible that I have a minor food obsession, and I'm perfectly fine with it. So thank you, Gulf Coast of Florida, for showing me some good ol' Southern hospitality (and food).

Peace of Mind

Two exams and a photography project looming in the distance that is tomorrow, so it's easy for a quick case of A.D.D. to kick in, typical. Stressing out is imminent in any college student's life, no matter how Buddha-esque your mindset. Everyone has their happy place designated for relief during crunch time, and mine just so happens to be far, far away from me at the moment. The ocean is my stress-reliever, no matter if I stop by to gaze at the rolling waves at my favorite lookout point at home in San Clemente, CA, or jump in for a quick solo surf session at any time of the year (granted, I may need a couple layers of wetsuit in the winter, but it's still possible). 

Lasuens beach lookout point in San Clemente

 It was at the start of this semester that I finally found my happy place at SMU...photography. I'm currently taking an intro to photo class, and these pictures are proof that I've loved messing with pictures for quite some time now (I took these right before I came to Dallas). When I'm out shooting for my photography assignments, I can do the two things I love most simultaneously; wandering and listening to music. I look forward to whenever I'm able to get out and explore Dallas for my projects, and any other time I bring my camera with me. THANK YOU PHOTO CLASS! 

Strands beach in Dana Point, CA

also from Strands

 

 

 

Invisible Children

Earlier tonight I attended the Invisible Children screening in Hughes-Trigg Student Center Theater on campus at SMU, where I was able to hear Tony speak! Tony is the Ugandan man around whom the film revolves, and he traveled all the way from Uganda to speak with us after the movie---needless to say it was unreal. The idea of Invisible Children is to "call on the youth of the world to help their fellow youth in Northern Uganda and Central Africa." The group travels around the US, to high schools, colleges, and universities with the hopes of creating exposure to an issue of international criminal justice, that many students are simply unaware of. Being a part of the Human Rights minor program at SMU has propelled me to believe wholeheartedly the idea we have the ability to embrace as a global community, to protect each other, to individually be aware that we have the responsibility to become engaged as global citizens. As proof of the momentum the Invisible Children movement has created, an international awareness event was held last spring called The Rescue: over 80,000 young supporters slept outside for up to 6 days to rally support for the arrest of Joseph Kony, the man who is committing atrocities in Northern Uganda and Central Africa. The momentum from the event carried on to Washington D.C. and resulted in the "largest African issue lobby day in the United States."  Invisible Children is creating tangible change with a movement, something I would love to be a part of. Here is the trailer from the incredible film Tony:

Bad Ads

I tend to focus on the brighter side of life, finding the positive in the seemingly negative, but at the same time I realize the necessity of acknowledging what is undeniably wrong in order to facilitate change. Today, in creativity class, our professor (what up, Dr. G) wanted to show us a "painful (but necessary) overview of bad advertising," making it clear that inherently "good" advertising that is well-circulated within society falls to a meager 2, maybe 4% of all advertising. Discouraging, yes. Motivating? Oh yeah. If it was easy to do the "good stuff," said Dr. G, everybody would be doing it, and that goes for every profession, I think. Ethics comes into question in every field, and it is just oh-so-much easier for bigger corporations to look towards the quick-and-dirty approach to a problem as the most efficient way of finding a solution. This especially is true for how most people view the institution of advertising, and Superbowl ads this year (namely Sketchers, Groupon.com, and Godaddy.com) were able to further claims that "all advertising is terrible." What people need to know, is that the size of the publication or air-time of a commercial is in no way indicative of an ad's quality or goodness. It is clear that advertising, and what people think of it will not change unless people in the business want to change it. I like to think that a little bit of a creative revolution is upon us, that my generation of college graduates will be able to slowly but surely make the change in advertising that has been so desperately needed and displayed. It's not like there's no hope out there today; innovative, radical ad agencies have been going at it since day one. The campaign by Casanova Pendrill (located in Costa Mesa, CA) was the creative genius behind UNICEF's Dirty Water Project, see for yourself what an impact it had on the American public:

Campaigns like these are what drew me towards advertising in the first place: advertising for a cause, creating public awareness about local and global humanitarian issues is important to me, and what I hope to be doing with my future. Of course, to make good advertising, it's not necessary to save the world (I want to make that very clear). There are plenty of campaigns and solitary ads that are inherently good, with inspired creativity apparent and abundant. Take some of the Superbowl XLV ads for example:

A True Survivor

Earlier tonight, I  attended a lecture presented by SMU Meadows School of the Arts called "Death As A Text: The Rhetoric of Genocide." The speaker was an absolutely amazing woman by the name of Agi Geva, a Holocaust survivor. 

Originally from Hungary, she suffered through the most difficult year of her life at the young age of thirteen. At the onset of the German occupation in Hungary, her father passed away, so along with her sister, only a year older than she, and her mother, the three women found themselves on a crowded train car, to where...they did not know. Their destination ended up being the infamous concentration camp of Auschwitz, and she has the tattoo of an "A" followed by various numbers on her forearm as a reminder of the tragedy. I sat in absolute awe as she detailed her experience; her trips from Auschwitz, to another, even more unbearable and inhumane concentration camp, and back to Auschwitz once more. 

Last year I was able to take Dr. Donald Niewyk's class on the Holocaust at SMU, and hearing Agi speak brought my perception of understanding to an entirely new level. Reading about the event which will undoubtedly have its far-reaching effects extend to generations to come is one thing, but to be able to listen to an individual who experienced the Holocaust brings an entirely new meaning to it. I have been to the Holocaust museum in Los Angeles, which is an experience in itself, but actualizing, and being able to empathize with this direct account of human suffering and strength was unreal. The experience further enforced the fact that we, as a country, as well as globally, need to revisit the events that have shaped how we perceive the world today, especially those that need to never, ever, be repeated.

We can assume that nothing in proportion to the Holocaust will ever happen again, but at closer inspection, human tragedy, genocide, basic human rights violations, and atrocities are happening all over the world today. Agi stressed the fact that many Holocaust survivors are not able to recount the details of their experience, for fear of reliving the past that they so desperately want to forget, which is by all means understandable. It is so important that people like Agi Geva are able to so strongly and defiantly tell their stories of such magnitude, for want of awareness about something so unimaginable to be given a human face. That Agi was able to laugh about the little things that gave her hope during her time at Auschwitz, that she told of her encounter with Josef Mengele, feared Nazi SS guard, whom she told "No" when ordered to be separated from her family, was truly inspiring. I will never forget it! Here's her website if you'd like to check it out: Agi Geva

A generation in question

Stumbling upon a lengthy article via a friend entitled "What is it About 20-Somethings?" by Robin Marantz Henig from the New York Time Magazine gave me a little bit of fresh perspective. I didn't need to scroll through the entire ten pages to get the gist of it. Take from it what you will, but I found these couple of paragraphs sum it up quite nicely:

"We’re in the thick of what one sociologist calls “the changing timetable for adulthood.” Sociologists traditionally define the “transition to adulthood” as marked by five milestones: completing school, leaving home, becoming financially independent, marrying and having a child. In 1960, 77 percent of women and 65 percent of men had, by the time they reached 30, passed all five milestones. Among 30-year-olds in 2000, according to data from the United States Census Bureau, fewer than half of the women and one-third of the men had done so. A Canadian study reported that a typical 30-year-old in 2001 had completed the same number of milestones as a 25-year-old in the early ’70s.

The whole idea of milestones, of course, is something of an anachronism; it implies a lockstep march toward adulthood that is rare these days. Kids don’t shuffle along in unison on the road to maturity. They slouch toward adulthood at an uneven, highly individual pace. Some never achieve all five milestones, including those who are single or childless by choice, or unable to marry even if they wanted to because they’re gay. Others reach the milestones completely out of order, advancing professionally before committing to a monogamous relationship, having children young and marrying later, leaving school to go to work and returning to school long after becoming financially secure.

Even if some traditional milestones are never reached, one thing is clear: Getting to what we would generally call adulthood is happening later than ever. But why? That’s the subject of lively debate among policy makers and academics. To some, what we’re seeing is a transient epiphenomenon, the byproduct of cultural and economic forces. To others, the longer road to adulthood signifies something deep, durable and maybe better-suited to our neurological hard-wiring. What we’re seeing, they insist, is the dawning of a new life stage — a stage that all of us need to adjust to." 

 The tone of the article is undoubtedly coming from an author in an age range greater than the "20-somethings" that she is referring to so discouragingly. It is not overt disapproval that she is projecting, but it is apparent that she possesses some sort of disdain, or maybe it is something as simple as coming from a place of parental anxiety for her kids. Granted, I know absolutely nothing about the author, aside from this article, but I'm trying to prove a point. It could be that generations ahead of my own have an inherent sense of tradition flowing through their veins, and are uncomfortable with the drastically different lifestyle of the average "20-something," but I personally find this to be untrue, at least with the 30- , 40-, and 50-somethings that I have encountered throughout my 20 years of chillin' on this planet. The natural tendency of generations is to evolve, to possess alternative perspectives from previous generations, to make their own mark; the decades of the 1900s in the US have make this trend undeniably clear. I like to think that the natural tendency of human nature is simply the cause of generational disdain, also known as the "mere-exposure effect"(Zajonc 1968): "people most like what is familiar. Although people may value creativity because it will bring progress, they are often uncomfortable with it, and hence may initially react negatively to creative work"(Sternberg and Lubart 1995). In this sense, we, as 20-somethings, are bringing new and progressive "creative work" to the table, and it would only be normal to fear any sort of deviation from the norm. Doing the same things over and over again gives us, as rational human beings, a sense of comfort, and any sort of change from that pattern can seem scary. This is how history is written my friends, and we are all a part of it right now, at this very moment.

Wishful thinking

I am thoroughly convinced that in a past life, I was a dancer, specifically in the Meadows dance program at SMU. Clearly, it's not going to happen in this life, and I am perfectly fine with enjoying dance as a bystander. I am a music fanatic, I have quite an extensive and diverse iTunes library: I just love music in general, which is why I think I love dance so much, because a choreographer has the ability to draw from a song a meaning that is then able to be individually interpreted by any viewer of the piece that is presented.  I am an avid supporter of our dance program, since many of my close friends are a part of it. I 100% believe that if you are a part of the SMU community, and you haven't been to a single Brown Bag performance, there is most definitely something wrong with you (sorry I'm not sorry, as I like to say). So, as a favor to all you non-Brown-Baggers out there, I snapped some photos from this past week of Brown Bag for your enjoyment. They definitely don't do the performances justice, so you'll just have to go see it next semester, do it!