Love Yourself.

So after this two month hiatus, I am back. Hopefully more consistently than I was the last time I said I was back (e.g. the last post I wrote said I intended on writing more and then I didn't write for two months).

For my first post back, I am not going to write much (lazy, I know). Over the last few months I have learned how important it is to do things that make me happy and to be happy with who I am and where I am in life. That way, I can let in wonderful people and things into my life.

I found this online and it struck a cord so I thought I would share it with you. Enjoy and remember, love yourself!

Found on Love or Above.

Elephants.

Hello friends! After this one week, March Break hiatus, I am back and hopefully in full force. My blogging has been sorely lacking lately and I hope to hop back into it. To start again, I am going to write a blog about elephants. That's right, you read correctly! I am sitting in the airport with my sister, on a lay-over and we got bored. We eventually hit the topic of how elephants are better than humans.

I found this shot a while back. I just think it is absolutely beautiful.
There is something peaceful and serene about it.
Photo by Maaike van Oorschot

Here is a list of the characteristics we came up with that make elephants so amazing:

- They are caring animals. Elephants live in herds and they all help to care for each other. There are even stories of elephants that take in another elephant's child or even stray baby animals from other species. They all have each others' backs and work together like one big happy family.

- "An elephant never forgets anything!" I have heard that so many times. I am not 100% sure that it is true but I have heard many times about elephants' amazing memory. I wish I had an amazing memory because I am constantly forgetting little things.

- Elephants are honest about their emotions; if another elephant dies, they actually drink rotting fruit to get drunk and forget about their emotions. Isn't that so sad? Apparently they quite enjoy drinking, even when they are not sad.

- My sister also pointed out that elephants are incredibly environmentally friendly. When they do drink wine (e.g. rotting fruit), they don't bottle it, helping to decrease the amount of waste in today's world.

- Elephants are not self-conscious about the hair on their bodies; all animals are born with hair. They realize this. You don't see them shaving their whole bodies every other day!

Sometimes I feel that this is what I look/feel like...
Photo by Andrew Perry

- Elephants maximize their body use by giving body parts multiple purposes. Okay, so mostly it's their nose. They use their nose/trunk for so many different things and our just sits on our face, breaking and getting stuffy. Not so great.

See? Elephants are pretty cool critters. My sister and I hope to create a list like this for animals once a month. If you have any other cool facts or stories about elephants, please share! Hope you all had a fantastic week!

These orphan baby elephants wear rain coats to ward off pneumonia.
Photo by Michael Nichols

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P.S. We were scared to forget our ideas so we wrote an awesome list on the back of a boarding pass while eating our lunch! We're definitely super nerds. And don't have the memory of an elephant...

Good News On Monday!

So, I've never been a believer of apocalyptical theories. The first one I really remember is the year 2000; everything would shut down, the technology keeping the world in order would stop working, and we would all slowly die of starvation and cold. Oh, and lack of cable television and computers. Unless you had accumulated enough rations for your whole family to survive until they found a way to get everything up again, of course. Duh!

It seems that, for most people, preparing for these events is the same as preparing for the "Zombie Apocalypse"; lock your doors, cover your windows, stock pile as much food as possible, and don't let them smell you! Also, it's like people turn into crazed wild creatures, fighting each other for the last can of chicken noodle soup at the grocery store.

All this leads to the latest apocalyptical craze: 2012. Books were written, movies were made, people freaked out. All because a group of people thousands of years ago made a calendar that stopped in 2012. Now my theory, which is supported by some, is that they just ran out of space.  I mean that things is huge to begin with and they probably figured someone would just make another when the time came or something. Little did they know their population would almost die out.

Mayan Calendar
Museum, Mexico City

Others say that it is not a count of years, but a count of days and that the scientists had it right and we are all doomed. Others say it will just be a period of great change. Others say that we messed up our calendar a bunch of times and that our day counts for our calendar are not accurate; the apocalypse will come, just not in 2012. Who really knows, but...

I am here to spread some good news. On Facebook today, I read something that someone overheard on a news cast or science show or something (not sure which - tried to Google it, no luck). Obviously it is not very reliable source but it still made me laugh. This is what was written: "There have been about 514 Leap Years since Caesar created it in 45BC. Without the extra day every 4 years, today would be July 28, 2013. Also, the Mayan calendar did not account for leap year. So technically the world should have ended 7 months ago." Makes sense, I guess.

Anyway, I just wanted to share the news folks! It's not all over. We are not all doomed! So enjoy your week.

Alright Folks! It's Over!

As you all know (if you ever read my blogs), there have been interesting experiences throughout this term. Mostly, I blogged about our art and our science class. Science was definitely tenser, but the tears came out during Art. I thought I'd share with you some of the final results of these classes.

In art class, we did lots of different projects and it was fun to see what we could do when we had some really good instruction.

We made coil pots out of clay. So much fun! Hope to
have a Clay Café-y party sometime.

We learned the proportions of the face while drawing a portrait.
It's not modelled off anyone but it was still fun!

A couple weeks ago, we made a balanced plasticine meal.
Looks delicious, right? I made the baked sweet potato.

Here is my groups totem representing our groups
teaching values. Any guesses at meaning?

In science class, we had to raise some mealworms. My group was quite successful; by the end of it, nine out of ten of our wittle babies had made it through their life cycles and become beetles. Wanna see the progress? Check out my group's website!

Mealworms! They were actually kind of cute.  It may sound silly
but they all kind of had their own personality.

It's in!

Alright folks. I ordered a necklace online recently and was so excited to get it. I ordered it off Etsy and was a little worried that I wouldn't get it (it was my first time ordering off this kind of website - here is the link for the store). Anyway, the order came in today. And I was so excited and it is so perfect! I love, love, love it!

This is what was waiting for me! Yay!

Even the box was beautiful. 

I like the little things. It may sound silly but the effort put
into the this box makes me happy!

Ta-da! Ain't it purdy? Love it so much!

Anyway. All of this to say that I am so glad that I got the necklace of that website. My tip to you would be to check out the reviews on the shops, to make sure they are reliable. Happy shopping!

Breathe.

Remembering this is important at this point in the term. This may not be the most appropriate thing for me to post right now because I am so congested that I can't really breathe. So I guess it might actually be a pretty appropriate time for this...

By Yumi Sakugawa
through Intent Blog

I Wish I Could Do This!

Wow.