baking is therapeutic!

Just made some psychedelic Alice-In-Wonderland-looking swirly cupcakes with food coloring for a friend's birthday... will post photos! I think it was just what I needed... it feels good to create something and get such immediate gratification and... create something. Just some thoughts!

Halp

Indecision: I don't know how to deal with it. (ha.)

How do you make decisions (both on a daily basis and re more long-term choices)? It seems like sometimes there are too many choices. I just want someone to tell me exactly what to do to make me most happy and effective, haha.

Atlas Shrugged [E-mailed]

Here's an e-mail I received from a friend that I thought was interesting enough to post verbatim. I've never read Atlas Shrugged (I know, so sue me) but now my interest is piqued -- is the entire book very good?

___________________________________

From: [Dartmouth '10 retracted]

Date: 28 Dec 2009 19:23:31 -0500

Subject: interesting little tidbit
To: [Group of sender's friends including Georgina]
Reply-To: [Nickname retracted]

sooooo this break i've been reading ayn rand's atlas shrugged - really really interesting. buuut here's a passage i just HAD to share

about sex. you can interchange the him and her as you wish

"He will always be attracted to the woman who reflects his deepest vision of himself, the woman whose surrender permits him to experience - or to fake - a sense of self-esteem. The man who is proudly certain of his own value, will want the highest type of woman he can find, the woman he admires, the strongest, the hardest to conquer - because only the possession of a heroine will give him the sense of an achievement, not the possession of a brainless slut."

a little harsh on the "brainless slut" part - but sort of interesting when we think about people we're attracted to

sorry if this bores you, i just had to share, and am sitting at home reading alone, so obvi blitz [e-mail] comes to the rescue.

anywaysssssss happppy new years!

___________________________________

But since I've never read Atlas Shrugged, I'm left wondering: who is "he" in this quote?

Princeton University

I visited Princeton University this weekend, where several of my sorority sisters and I were invited as dates to Winter Formal at an eating club. Along with our formal dresses and heels, we also brought our pong paddles to show our Princeton counterparts a good clean time post-formal. At first some members of the eating club were seriously opposed to pong (with paddles), but we soon had a crowd of boys in tuxes and girls in dresses watching, with people lining up to get next on table. We daughters of Dartmouth are very altruistic -- spreading free fun and cheer wherever we go.

I always think it's extremely interesting to visit other schools, especially ones which I seriously considered attending or at one point was convinced was the perfect school for me. In this case, I fell in love with Princeton's Gothic peaks and sun-dappled stone facades when I visited the campus in 9th grade -- it was the first college I visited as a prospective student, not counting the requisite Harvard University visit at an unreasonably young age.

The age and experience differential in returning as a college senior (for the first time since visiting as a high school freshman), not to mention actually staying with and speaking with Princeton students, offers a vastly different perspective, and I can now confirm to myself that it was puppy love back in 9th grade. Although I couldn't imagine any forward-looking 9th grader not falling in love -- the campus is gorgeous, the word Princeton rolls off the tongue, and F. Scott Fitzgerald is an alumnus. Not to mention the small and bright student body, small capped classes, undergraduate University focus, and other reasons that translate directly from the list of why I love Dartmouth.

Comparing the social and academic atmospheres of Dartmouth and Princeton -- and even Cornell, which I visited earlier this year -- is an enlightening exercise. I've ascertained that there is a lot of eating club-derived social pressure at Princeton that requires a level of foresight, planning, and anxiety (in one's social life alone!) not as necessary at other schools. Also I can confirm that we generally enjoy life (party) MUCH more at Dartmouth.

I had a wonderful time this weekend, very much enjoyed the company of the people I met, and would love to visit Princeton again... but I am so, so, so happy I went to (go to) Dartmouth.

P.S. Also, I played 'beirut' for the first time in my 21 years of existence. Some things take time.
P.P.S. This weekend, I met three Princeton students who had visited Dartmouth before, and two of the three experienced being arrested by Hanover Police during their brief visits (for underage intoxication). What does this say about ... everything?

Cloister Inn, an eating club on The Street

Whitman College at Princeton University

 

Newly completed in 2007

Some excerpts from a 2007 NYT article:

F. Scott Fitzgerald, a Princeton alumnus, offered a primer on the distinct character and social standing of the clubs in his 1920 novel, “This Side of Paradise.” He pegged the exclusive Ivy Club as “detached and breathlessly aristocratic” and Tiger Inn as “broad-shouldered and athletic, vitalized by an honest elaboration of prep-school standards” — both descriptions that could apply today. Fitzgerald was a member of the University Cottage Club, “an impressive mélange of brilliant adventurers and well-dressed philanderers.”

While not every eating club is easily defined, many have established identities that attract like-minded members. The Cap and Gown Club is said to attract athletes, though swimmers and rowers (“floaters and boaters”) favor Cloister Inn. 

And the best one:

"Tiger Inn — often called Princeton’s “Animal House”..."

Higher Education

"I feel older, but not wiser."

-- The protagonist in An Education

Thoughts on the future/ abnormal blog entry

Do you ever feel like there's a larger purpose for you in life? Sometimes I forget it, but I very much feel like I'm working towards something larger. I'm not completely sure what it is yet, but there are so many people in the world who we - as highly educated people with so many resources - can help. I feel like I'm moving in that direction. I'm still figuring it out and searching for how, but I'm going to do something to affect humanity for the better. And effect change in the world. Sometimes one just needs to be reminded, but I know I can do something, and I feel like everything I'm doing now is to equip me to do that huge, significant thing. So far, I think my liberal arts education has been a step forward. So I just need to keep moving forward and keep the larger picture in mind, even if I can't yet see it clearly. I think I can see it more clearly than ever before, though, and that is good. I feel myself moving from more micro-type life goals to now seriously considering more macro goals that I've only thought about more in passing. Oh, senior year of college.



How about you? Thoughts?



/end scene

Another personal clothing item

Thoughts on wearability of this jean jacket in Hanover, NH (that'd be the near-antithesis of NYC) for this coming fall? Perhaps not with the sleeves cuffed.

2004

CSS

Looking through my iTunes, I realized that 2004-2005 was the year of the hipster ra-ra band. You know what I mean--The Go! Team, The Sounds, Shout Out Louds, CSS...

the sounds

They all have that childish, school sound that can be fun and pump you up, but at the same time it can be really annoying. Too much American Apparel.
I will admit to a huge Shout Out Louds phase sophomore year of high school (right during the OC years...TV shows just don't have the same soundtracks anymore).


The question here is why, during these years, this sound became so popular? What was the social context? Did we feel like we needed to revert back to a young, computery sound because, well, young adults at the time were living sheltered lives?

What do you think?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBpYLvmUhfU&feature=related
^the sounds
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIhJC2-UNZA
^css
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWHVQA26g94&feature=PlayList&p=963A2143FBCC3024&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=7 ^the go! team
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBFa-OaF7KE
^shout out louds

Mountains Beyond Mountains

Just finished readings Mountains Beyond Mountains, a book about Dr. Paul Farmer and his work to eradicate TB and HIV/AIDS in some of the world's poorest regions. I was a bit underwhelmed by the book, but it offers a clear, even-keeled viewpoint on Dr. Paul Farmer - it doesn't evangelicize him. I chose to read this book because I knew Paul Farmer worked with Dr. Jim Yong Kim, the new President of Dartmouth College. The book also offers a very incisive look into JKY as well - his motives, his methods, his mindset.

This books follows up on something I've been struggling with a lot recently - how to make a difference in the world. Especially after I learned a bit more about JYK and what he did, I've been thinking more and more about what I'll be doing in the near future, after school. How can I positively effect change? I need to do something that matters with my life. Mountains Beyond Mountains reveals one (amazing, albeit extreme and controversial) way to do this - the Farmer method, doing everything and anything to help the individual on a mass scale. But it also shows how important other roles are as well - for one, the entire Partners In Health operation that Paul Farmer founded would have literally been impossible had it not been bankrolled (by the millions) by his contact Tom White, who owns a large Boston construction firm - far from medicine or microfinance or global environmental health or all those other Big Ideas that I ponder and that Matter. So the biography, since it is a biography about Paul Farmer, mostly goes to show how important the work of one person was/is, through direct action and hard work and perseverence. But I can't help but also take away the message that funding is so incredibly important to getting anything done. That, as much as Paul Farmer has done, incredible as it was, much of it would not have been happened without Tom White or other sources of funding. So donations do matter. It's not just an outlet for expunging that Catholic/Jewish/Christian/Buddhist guilt and getting some tax credit along the way. I remember someone (a professional in the Chicago area, I believe) saying that to me a few years back at some summer conference too. That one can only help change the world for real with money. But maybe I'm only wont to think this way because I'm priming the excuse for going into finance or some branch that won't Matter as much as what Paul Farmer has been doing. I really want to help Matter. The font change is to bring up the question of: do I just want to do something that matters in the world so I matter? How much does self-perception and ego play into this? I also very much wish I had seen Paul Farmer speak at our school last year. Priorities, priorities.

Lots to think about.