what a guy, what a guy

So, remember my post about Sean Rowe? And seeing a link to my review posted on his record company website?

Probably not.

But the nicest thing happened a couple weeks ago: he sent me an email thanking me for the review!

What a nice guy!

More reviews and another interview coming soon! In the mean time, check out what everyone else is writing!!  http://www.inyourspeakers.com 

the knower and the know cannot be separated

doing a little post-positivist theories in my nationalism class

Karl Popper and squishy knowledge.

He says every branch of knowledge requires a degree of faith. Knowledge changes your world view, your reality. Everyone has different experiences and connections that mix with said knowledge to shade reality. Therefore, everyone's reality is different. Everything is relative.

What do you think?

happy happy joy joy

Why have I waited this long to post this?

My dear sweet wonderful roommate Katie is getting married! To my super friend Nate!

The other night I was sleeping and then I heard Collette screaming and then I saw something shiny on Katie's hand. And then we all screamed and stayed up really late. I'm very very very very excited for them.

This is a picture I took from Nate's blog. See more here.
Read a snippet at Cup of Jo. And read the whole story at Glamour's Smitten blog.
Oh how seeing other people so happy just makes my heart so happy! Seriously, congratulations you two!
Love,
erika

living rooftops

Latest National Geographic has a sweeeet article about living rooftops.

They cut back on storm-water runoff
increase energy efficiency by reducing heating and cooling costs

provide a home to friendly little insects, birds, and small critters

have the capacity to nourish vegetation, replacing land we've lost on the gound

"Think of the millions of acres of unnatural rooftops around the gobe. And now imagine returning some of that enormous human footprint to nature -- creating green spaces where there was once only asphalt and gravel. If a certain sum of human happiness is the by-product, who's to complain?"

really

how many times can life turn upside down in a year?

entering panic mode

summer reading

:: Going Out: The Rise and Fall of Public Amusement (David Nasaw)
:: The Giver (Lois Lowry)
:: Finding Freedom: Writings from Death Row (Jarvis Jay Masters)
:: The Greengage Summer (Rumer Godden)
:: Nerds: Who They Are and Why We Need More of Them (David Anderegg)
:: A Confederacy of Dunces (John Kennedy Toole)
:: Up the Amazon Without a Paddle (Doug Lansky)
:: The Neon Bible (John Kennedy Toole)
:: Kitchen Literacy: How We Lost Our Knowledge of Where Food Comes From and Why We Need to Get it Back (Ann Vileisis)
:: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (Dave Eggers)
:: Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are (Rob Walker)
:: Reading in the Dark (Seamus Deane)
:: Freedom for the Thought That We Hate: A Biography of the First Ammendment (Anthony Lewis)
:: Locked in the Cabinet (Robert B. Reich)
:: Smarts: Are We Hardwired for Success? (Chuck Martin)
:: Memoirs (Pablo Neruda)
:: If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence, and Spirit (Brenda Ueland)
:: Up the Down Staircase (Bel Kaufman)
:: The Year of Magical Thinking (Joan Didion)
:: The Awakening (Kate Chopin)
:: We (Yevegeny Zamyatin)
:: A Short History of Nearly Everything (Bill Bryson)
:: A Man For All Seasons (Robert Bolt)
:: My Name is Asher Lev (Chaim Potok)
:: Why We Hate Us: American Discontent in the New Millennium (Dick Meyer)

any suggestions?

art stuffs

projects of the past year (and past years) that i happen to have with me at my hawaii home

Okay, so this first is a collaborative effort. our senior year of high school, Ella, Severie, and I painted this giant..painting. Every few minutes we would turn the paper, painting and repainting. We cut it into thirds and we each took a piece with us to college. We are planning to do another this summer. I can hardly wait!
oil pastels

chalk pastels!

collage time

an old, old painting. "I Will Love You"

hah! blind work. i used an ink pen, and could not look at the paper, so dipping and refilling ink, then trying to reposition the pen was interesting =)

team effort. dinner drawing

backdrop? for something?

squished little Ganesh

Easter Sunday

Pattern For Living No.1965

"They must not weigh us down -- these tragic things. How can they, if we find a heart that laughs and sings, some part of every day? I think that surely God approves of play, so whimsical is He in His way..."

wisdom from a retired navy-woman

"If I'm going to die happy, well, I'm going to die happy. Even if my teeth aren't brushed and they're full of pizza."
-- my aunt shirley

I think I may go ahead and have that ice cream sandwich for breakfast.

que [ustedes] tengan un buen dia

future maybe?

Doing my research on grad schools. I searched real hard last fall, thinking I'd graduate in June. Then in October I applied for the Peace Corps. In January I got my passport, and in February I received my baggage tag and another letter letting me know I would get my assignment in the next few months. And then I went home.

And I'm no longer graduating in June...
And they cancelled my Peace Corps application.

And now I don't know what I want at all.
I will graduate in December. And it's looking like I will move to Salt Lake. Good friends, enough connections to find a place to live and to get a job until I decide what's next.

Today my mom suggested I look at U of U. My oldest sister applied there (and ended up in Illinois for a year before getting married, finishing at UNI, and now she and her hubby are getting their Ph.D.'s at LSU) but I had never considered it.

So far, I like the looks of this: Environmental Humanities -- "a humanities perspective on environmental ares of scholarship...The program is designed to provide students with a broad-based understanding of social, cultural, ethical, historical, communication, and literary perspectives and with a focus on how these humanities perspectives intersect with and influence public policy, scientific, legal, industrial, and corporate concerns."

The courses are taken from the Communications, English, History, Languages & Literature, Linguistics, and Philosophy departments. I'm a big fan of the range of all of the courses, and I've already taken several of them in undergrad studies (International Cultural Studies/World Humanities). But I really like the looks of Contemporary Social Movements, Public Relations Issues and Campaigns, Community Engagement, History of Rhetorical Movements, Studies in Nonfiction Prose, Environmental Writing, Ecocriticism, Wonder, and the Spiritual Imagination, Folklore Method and Theory (even though it looks a lot like my Narrative, Identity, and Culture class), Global Environmental History, Colonies and Cultures, Philosophy of Language, and Comtemporary Ethical Theory.

I have no idea what I would do with that after, but I likes the looks of it. I think this program may be worth looking into.

(p.s. how many times can i write "i like the looks of" in one blogpost?)

so this is kinda cool

So I wandered over to Collar City Records this morning to do a little research on my next review -- Matthew Loiacono -- and low and behold, I saw thisA link to my review for the album Magic! Click here to see the review for yourself!