Stories From Away

I made four videos this past year about my year studying abroad and the transformations and challenges that I experienced. I made them for my school’s study abroad department, in hopes of connecting to other students. I made the videos in the hope that my stories might help others get the most out of their travels, but also cope better with coming back.

Feel free to check out the other videos and let me know what you think.

New Career Choice?

“My vibrator just died at the most ill timed moment imaginable. I think you are perhaps the only person in my life who a) would not be freaked out by this text and b) truly feel for how much that really sucks. Sigh.”

The above is a text message I got from a friend of mine last week. Last week I also had a bunch of other people message/call/email me on the topic of sex. While I get fielded this questions fairly regularly (I do suppose I know a fair bit), last week was just a higher frequency than normal.

The conversations ranged from practical concerns such as advice about certain performances and their safety (or their enhancements), to more cerebral questions such as ideal partners, and the link between good dance-partner to good sex-partner, or how some people get mistaken for being a top/dominant in the bedroom, just because they take on leadership roles (people make that mistake about me fairly often, without knowing about my masochism). Other topics included how to talk about sex with their partners, how to understand and accept one’s fetishes (as well as figure them out), to just say “I really love sex. I just wanted to say that. I just wanted to talk to someone about it. Thanks for listening” ..and so on.

Don’t get me wrong. I love discussing both sex-and sensuality. I’m a lover, after all. I do try to understand and research as much as I can, so that I can give people the best information possible. So it’s not that I mind people coming to me (I enjoy most conversations), I just felt bad that they always said that they have no one else to discuss this with. That no one else would actually listen, comfortably, and if not commiserate, at least not judge.

Not for the first time in my life, I’m wondering if I should pursue a career in sex therapy. I know, years of work, but that doesn’t bother me, psych fascinates me, and I was going to major in it in college, but my mother said she wouldn’t give me a penny for it. Regardless, I don’t think I’d be too shabby at it.

Well, if NGO’s don’t work out…

50 Questions

50 Questions That Will Free Your Mind

I think these questions rock, and they made my night. I’m re-posting them here to save everyone the extra click, but feel free to check out the blog. Later on, I will attempt to answer them. Feel free to comment with your answers. Sure, this is meme-y, but I actually enjoyed thinking about the answers. I really would like to ask some of these in conversation later on.

1. How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?
2. Which is worse, failing or never trying?

Click on image to enlarge.

‘My life is my message.’ – Gandhi

Gandhi’s message was his life, and yours is your life. What message are you giving the world, through your actions, how you live, how you treat others, what you accomplish, how you choose to be, every moment of every day?

Are you an angry rant? A ballad? An epic poem?

Perhaps a sonnet, a limerick, a haiku?

I actually stopped to think about what my life would be. Epic poem sounds very close. Do modern consciousness-free epic poems exist?

Paying Attention to Song Lyrics (Janet Jackson – Feedback)

Flyer than a pelican find another chick better than I don’t see her
Cause my swag is serious
Something heavy like a first day period

Seriously?

I Want To Be Wild

You have no idea how badly I want this jammy set.

I’d live in my world of jammies with ears and tails and invite people for constant tea parties.

Although I did recently find my old 101 Dalmation kid’s hoodie that I used to wear during my freshman year of college…and it has floppy dog ears on the hood. I shall post a photo eventually.

This was one of the first books I encountered in America. It was a big deal for my brother and I. I don’t think I ever really grew out of it, as anyone close to me can attest. Enough of my communication is in chirps, purrs, and barks. I perch on furniture. Some people enjoy it, and others close to me seemed to hate it. It’s a side I only let out when I’m comfortable.

Standing Up

The Guardian reports that a Tory Member of Parliament, Nadine Dorries, wrote on her blog:

“I’m 5ft 3in and need every inch of my Louboutin heels to look my male colleagues in the eye. If high heels were banned in Westminster, no one would be able to find me.”

Mary Turner from the British Trade Union has fired back: “If you need to wear high heels to stand up to men than I feel very sorry for you.”

“Beware of Skinny Friends Who Eat”

So there’s a study out that claims that people adjusted how much they ate depending on who they dined with. If their friend was obese/fat, the other person “unconsciously” (I’m not sure how much is an unconscious decision) will eat less. Yet, if a dieting friend is with a skinny friend, who eats a lot, the dieting friend will end up eating more than they should (or more or than if they were eating with an obese friend).

There might be some truth to this. Yet the very very small sample size of the study makes it hard to accept unquestioningly. Sure, I can see people, unconsciously thinking “Well x is so small, and if they eat so much, it’s okay.” Or maybe a person’s brain freaks out when it sees a person who is obese eating, and so it starts backtracking. Maybe the brain is unused to seeing a skinny person eat a lot.

Yet, it’s well-known that the people around you can and will affect you, unconsciously. That’s why we worry about who our kids hang out with. That’s why they recommend having a gym-buddy. That’s why if you’re quitting smoking or drinking, going back to your friends who only drink or smoke isn’t a good deal. So why wouldn’t other health decisions, such as how much you eat, also be influenced by the people around you, as everything else, to some degree, seems to be? I guess it’s the whole “fat person makes you eat less, skinny person makes you eat more” ooooo factor. That it’s not the skinny girls that make us eat less and freak out but the fat ones…But still. Meh.

The scare-tactics reporting by SD bothers me.

U.S.S