One of the best feelings in the world
is when you find the perfect gift for a good friend. It’s even better than getting a gift. I’m so excited!
Last night around 3:00 I got up and went downstairs to make some toast. I couldn’t sleep because my mind was so full of stuff, thinking about traveling and classes and careers and just LIFE. I was about to go back to my room when my roommate came down. She was having the saaaaaame problem I was. So we made tea and talked about our futures, about France (we’re both going), and we made plans to go hiking in SC for spring break. We finally went back to our rooms around 4:30.
It’s so great to know someone whose brain is doing the exact same thing your brain is doing.
kleinmania: Spreadsheet (prototype)soultrain: I would buy it in an instant.
sickofthesouth: holy shit i want thiseastling: Math 120 nightmares EVERY SINGLE NIGHT.
sickofthesouth: lol i LOVED math 120 until we got to the part where he was all ORIGAMIZ TRIG MATHS ANGLE RAWR. the rest of it was easy sauce.
Yeah, I was failing and dropped it waaaay before we got to the origami part. All I remember are the never-ending spreadsheets of doom.
sickofthesouth: I HAVE A NEW CAR MY LIFE IS AWESOME AND EVERYONE I LOVE EXCEPT JADENESS IS IN WILMORE THIS WEEKEND!
in other news, drankin an ale-8, broke as hell, and fixin to go admire my new wheels for a little while. yeah i said drankin, so what. you wanna fight?
:( :( :( :( :(
I miss you toooooooooooo.
Oh! Use your new car and roadtrip it down to Savannah. This solves everything.
sickofthesouth: now past the 48 hour mark without a cigarette. the next 48 are key. may require being locked in a room to prevent a nicotine deprivation-fueled murderous rampage. as for right now i am merely cranky.You’re quitting?? I never thought I’d see the day, hahaha. Go Rhea!!
sickofthesouth: in other news, the one day i write a non fiction piece related to WoW, dr hurlow has me read out loud. dammit, now everone knows i am a nerd. booooo.
Hahahahaha. Post it post it post it.
This is my friend Sam. He is awesome.
Life is beautiful
raychelmendez: This makes me so happy.
I come to the library quite often. It’s not my favorite place in the world, but it’s an excellent place to get work done. It’s quiet, no one bothers me and there is an endless supply of information. There are also very friendly people that work here. My favorite thing about the library has to be the security guard that always greets me when I enter. His name is Stoney. He reminds me of Bill Cosby to some extent, except much sweeter and less sarcastic. Every time I enter he always greets me with a big smile and every time I leave he always says something funny to me. I always laugh at his comments and tell him to have a good day. They are always comments that don’t make much sense but that make me smile. Today I entered and he asked me if I brought him any food, I replied with a chuckle and a ‘no’ but a promise that I would bring him food next time. I continued to walk upstairs to my study spot. Ten minutes later he knocks on my door and sees that I brought chicken curry, which is AGAINST the library rules. He chuckled and told me that he would keep it a secret. I told him that I was not planning on eating it since I had no fork. He returned five minutes later with a fork from Quizno’s and said, ‘I don’t know why I’m doing this. Don’t ask me, but there’s something about you that is different.’ I felt so touched that I had sparked this friendship with this old man and I will continue to interact with him. This is the way the world was meant to be.
I made him a deal that I would bring him a Hershey’s bar next time. I actually plan on bringing him one every time. It’s nice to love strangers.
This is my roommate. She’s one of the greatest people on the planet.
Art exhibit deals with female body image
Ashley is an amazing artist and such a cool person. I wish I could be there to see her show… it sounds wonderful. Definitely something Asbury’s never seen before.
I hate myself. I look at my thighs; I grab and give them a good shake. The jiggling motion disgusts me. My own hateful eyes turn their scrutiny to my fleshy belly. One short finger pokes it; the skin softly rebounds into its folds. Tears swell in my eyes as I am reminded of the impossible standards I’m held up to by society. I want bony limbs and a concave stomach, jutting clavicles and an angular silhouette.
I am me, and I am you. I am a modern woman who has been severely punished by society for having a body that does not live up to the ideals placed on my shoulders by fashion designers and other sad, self-loathing women.
But, when I look in my friend’s slightly distorted full-length mirror, I see a tall, lithe woman. She has my face and my outift, but she has a different — in my eyes, better — body, than I have. Her legs and arms are thin; her hips do not curve out; her neck is lean and elegant.
Ashley Jeffries has attacked this very issue in her recent exhibit, “Distorted Perceptions,” which is a group of nude paintings in which she deals with society’s, as well as her own, struggles with perception and distorted self-image.
This deeply personal exhibit attacks the ideas that plague all women and, as Jeffries said in an interview, “the lies [women] believe because of judgment and comparison.”
She said, “The label ‘eating disorder’ is so much broader than anorexia or bulimia.” She discussed that several pieces were inspired by her own struggle with exercise obsession. For instance, the painting “Food Baby,” at surface level, depicts a woman who is slightly bloated-looking, presumably after having eaten a big meal. Jeffries said, “’Food Baby’ stems from jokes about eating too much, but, honestly, that’s when I feel the most miserable. When I feel like that, exercise makes me feel safe, and I’ll do it until I’m ready to collapse.”
Another heartbreakingly relatable piece was “Ceramic Coffin,” which depicted a woman’s body submerged in a bathtub. This vulnerable scene aptly portrays what at first may seem an ordinary scene in an extraordinary and almost desperate light. “The bathtub distorts your body, and you’re all out there in front of yourself,” Jeffries said.
Three pieces that stuck out as some of the most emotional and personal were, “Distorted Perceptions,” “Did You Think I’d Order a F***ing Salad?” and “Problem Areas.”
Of “Distorted Perceptions,” which depicts two women of extremely different sizes and shapes, Jeffries said, “People see it differently. Many see confidence in the ‘bigger woman.’” The incredible thing about “Distorted Perceptions” is that it can be interpreted in different ways by different women.
“Did You Think I’d Order a F***ing Salad?” addresses an actual experience in Jeffries’ life. The scene depicted is that of a girl in a McDonald’s eating a hamburger. Jeffries has installed chains from her wrists to her hips, a sign of the extreme restraint that women are expected to show in their eating habits. In the real story, the McDonald’s was an Italian restaurant and the burger was a bowl of pasta. “A family member took me out to lunch,” said Jeffries, “and he asked if I was on a high-carb diet when I ordered pasta and breadsticks.”
“The wrong outfit can make you feel so much worse about yourself,” said Ashley as we moved on to discuss “Problem Areas.” This painting, one of the more abstract of the bunch, also has 3D media involved corset-like strips of fabric seem to pull and suck in the figures’ “problem areas.”
“For [‘Problem Areas’], I just shut off my mind and let it happen,” said Jeffries. “I painted it, then wrote all over it.” This piece is the largest and is the most blatant about society’s pressure to be thin. Jeffries’ original plan for the painting was to actually sew the corset pieces onto it. However, while working on the piece, she was so overcome by emotion at one point that she literally ripped off her T-shirt. It was a significant revelation for Jeffries, as she felt like she was tearing off old, bad feelings along with the shirt — a shirt from high school that had all the signatures of members of her senior class on it. Instead of sewing, she tied pieces of fabric from the shirt onto the painting. These symbolic pieces worked wonderfully because of their roughness and rawness.
Jeffries discussed that, especially after working on this project, she no longer knows what an “ideal” body should look like. “What is beautiful? I think it’s about, despite a lack of answers, loving who you are anyway… Studying [the exhibit] after I realized I had a problem was really interesting. They’ve all spoken to me about the lies that I believe.”
Jeffries’ self-portrait “Self Portrait” shows just how skewed and false our perceptions of ourselves really can be. “I believed it wasn’t distorted, but after I had finished it, a girl was looking at it and said, ‘The shoulders are too big.’”
Though she is unsure now of what she thinks is the “perfect” body, Jeffries said that of her paintings, “This Skin I’m In” is the closest to her own ideals. Though this painting was the second of the series that she started, it was the last one she finished - she had such a hard time with it, in fact, that she considered not including it in the exhibit. However, after hearing her discuss the piece, it is clear that “This Skin I’m In” is an integral part to the exhibit. The colors and brisk brushstrokes depict “the feeling of skin crawling, always changing.” Ashley said that “This Skin I’m In,” in addition to the other paintings, helped her realize that, “it’s okay to have a woman’s body. How can you define [your body] as a size? It is always growing and always getting older.”
“It’s definitely been therapeutic,” she said, “Crying… letting people know. I still have days where I don’t wanna eat or where I feel disgusting… It was really interesting not only to realize you’re not alone, but also that it’s not your fault you feel that way, and that it’s okay if there’s no real answer.”
Ashley’s exhibit opened April 14 and the exhibit was in the Grill. Prices are not currently available on the paintings, as Ashley plans on entering some of them into contests, but she would be willing to sell pieces if someone was really touched by and interested in one of them.
![Beards are awesome and prolific Hotlanta watercolor artist Sam Ellis knows it. [beard·revue: First Thursday Beard Art]
Yay!! Sam got on Beard Review!](http://6.media.tumblr.com/BcG3Hg8wXltaz1wp6tMngKI0o1_400.jpg)
Beards are awesome and prolific Hotlanta watercolor artist Sam Ellis knows it. [beard·revue: First Thursday Beard Art]
Yay!! Sam got on Beard Review!
laurenmliggett: That’s one very happy Collegian staff. Prof. Wheeler was so proud!Oh I miss you guys! Katie informed me that I won an award for some photo essay… I think that’s hilarious.
AND NOW! We bring you... a Leslie-ism.
eastling: Dan wrote this on his Facebook about Leslie, and it makes me sooo so so so happy.
Über. This word is derived from the German language. It is a cognate of both Latin “super” and Greek “hyper,” as well as English “over.” As a Leslie-ism, it is usually used in an uber excited, uber enthusiastic, uber irritating way.*
Usage: 1. I am uber excited to see BOY tonight!! Be excited for me! 2. You hung up on me! ÜBER LAME! #. That girl just ran by me wearing only a tank top and jogging shorts, covered in several colors of paint. Über weird.
Stay tuned for the upcoming event extraordinaire, where we dive into the pool of etymology and retrieve the jewel: sketch.
*Irritating only in the lovable way that Leslie alone can pull off.kalaleia: Did you see the first Leslie-ism he wrote? I’ll provide it:
And now for something new.
Leslie-isms: an exciting in-depth look into the words and phrases beloved by our own Leslie Kay.
Our first installment concerns itself with the word: LAME.
Typically, the word lame can be synonymous with words such as feeble, cripple, or square. As a Leslie-ism, the word becomes a multifaceted combination of all three of the above.
Usage: 1. You didn’t answer your phone! Lame. 2. The link didn’t work? Lame. 3. The boy that supposedly liked me hid his grin when I fell on my ass in the snow on the way back to my car. Lame.
Stay tuned for our next installment, a delicious morsel dedicated to the word: ÜBER, as in “ÜBER LAME.”
I like that the examples in both definitions involved A) the phone, B) boys, and C) random things to complain about. THAT IS SO YOU.
AND NOW! We bring you... a Leslie-ism.
Dan wrote this on his Facebook about Leslie, and it makes me sooo so so so happy.
Über. This word is derived from the German language. It is a cognate of both Latin “super” and Greek “hyper,” as well as English “over.” As a Leslie-ism, it is usually used in an uber excited, uber enthusiastic, uber irritating way.*
Usage: 1. I am uber excited to see BOY tonight!! Be excited for me! 2. You hung up on me! ÜBER LAME! #. That girl just ran by me wearing only a tank top and jogging shorts, covered in several colors of paint. Über weird.
Stay tuned for the upcoming event extraordinaire, where we dive into the pool of etymology and retrieve the jewel: sketch.
*Irritating only in the lovable way that Leslie alone can pull off.
kalaleia: from ullam.typepad.com
I want to decorate a forest like this and have a steampunk/tea/freaking amazing party next autumn. Eastling, you had better be in.
Of course I am, are you kidding? <3
I like that I have such well-traveled friends.
