Sunday, December 30, 2012

Love Quotes

Being in love definitely brings out the sappy side of me, and some of these quotes perfectly capture those amazing feelings! 
I love this quote, since I am stunned how quickly time passes, and even if you haven't been dating for very long, it already feels like it's been the most important part of your life. And the smiles, laughs, and kisses are some of the best moments. :)


I am always amazed by the hours spent with someone you love pass by in what seems to be mere minutes.

Simple, but true. It is the greatest thing ever!


Life becomes the greatest adventure of all. Whatever it is or will be, I am excited for it! 

 Cuddling is my favorite, so yes! Especially in the winter months :)
I love love love this image and think the choice to make it black and white added to the charm and made it more whimsical!
Source: http://evpeace.polyvore.com/

Sometimes I feel as though I could write a novel with all of the happy thoughts and feelings that are going through my head, and yet other times I feel completely speechless because I am so amazed!

Perhaps this can justify the lack of sleep because I am thinking about him or spending time with him? Just kidding, but the real deal blows any illusion, dream, or storyline out of the water.


I love that feeling of loving someone unconditionally, and just adoring every little bit of them, regardless of the scenario or anything else. Everything about them becomes adorable, amazing, and inspiring, and just draws me even closer to them.

With that, I want to wish all of you the greatest feelings of love and happiness in the coming year, since you deserve nothing less! And this is officially my last post of 2012!

Saturday, December 29, 2012

Quotes for the New Year

Now that a new year is nearly upon us, I feel like it is a great chance to reflect on what has occurred in the past year and think about what we hope we will accomplish in the year ahead. As we prepare for a whole new set of amazing experiences and great opportunities, here are a few thoughts that, to me, help remind us what is most important as well as staying true to ourselves and trusting what we stand for. 




Happy New Year to you! I hope it is all that you hope for!

I also wanted to thank not only my loyal readers, but also those who have somehow happened on this blog! I have just reached 8,000 pageviews! It has been a lot of fun writing about random things, and knowing there are people out there, all around the world, who are reading! Thank you!! :)

Friday, December 28, 2012

Why I Have the Greatest Sister Ever

Hello! As the year is winding down, I typically find myself in a very reflective mood and think about a wide variety of things. Actually, I guess I always find myself reflective about a lot of things, somewhere in the crazyness of my brain. Anyway, I realized (once again) that I have the greatest, most amazing sister in the world, and also that I haven't posted about her, even though I have posted about both of my parents on specific holidays.

As a whole, here's the deal about my sister, Lizzie. She is completely awesome! She is a real sweetheart, but also says the funniest things. I love talking to her about lots of random stuff, getting fashion advice from her, sharing music, and being completely silly and crazy.

I feel like this is Lizzie and I sometimes! :)

What is so great about Lizzie is that I always can count on her and trust her, and I always feel so proud of all her accomplishments. She isn't always as vocal about some these accomplishments and is definitely more humble than I am, so when I do discover over and over again how great she is, I am just blown away! She really means so much to so many people, even people she doesn't even know personally. It excites me to have the honor of being her sister, and I can't wait to see where this journey of life will take her! She honestly deserves the world, and nothing less, and I want her to know that.

Lizzie, keep up all of your great work, and continue making this world a brighter place and inspiring people every day! Keep your heart open, because I know you have so much love to give and share with this world! Stay beautiful both on this inside and out! Thank you for being the greatest sister I could have ever imagined.

And, for a special treat, I have included two images that no one, besides Lizzie, will understand. However, since I know she reads this blog, I know that they will make her laugh, and it is truly a gift whenever she smiles!



I love you Lizzie!!

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

My Green U Presentation!

Hello everyone! I cannot believe that it is already December 18th, where did this year go?! Anyway, my Green U presentation was just uploaded on the Teens Turning Green Youtube page, so I have included the video below!
Note: some of the awkward pauses are me struggling with the powerpoint clicker, which had a tendency of moving forward or backward with a mind of its own. :)


It was such an honor to be chosen as a Project Green Challenge finalist, and this weekend truly changed my life! I can't wait to work more with the organization in the future, as well as post more about the experience over the upcoming days now that my finals are over!

Have a delightful day!

Friday, December 14, 2012

Green U Update!

Hello everyone! They are beginning to post the videos from the student presentations during Green University. This is my friend Alyssa, who did an amazing job with spoken word poetry.


Sunday, December 9, 2012

Same Love

Hello all! I found this music video to be so heartwarming and beautiful, so I had to share it! I hope you check it out! The song is called "Same Love" by Macklemore.

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

My experience at Green U!

Hello everyone! I know it has been quite a while since I have posted, but I just wanted to give a brief overview of my experience with Green U, the culmination of Project Green Challenge with the 14 finalists! Overall, this weekend was life changing and one of the best of my entire life! I loved nearly every minute of it and it has inspired me so much! Basically, I will have lots of different posts about it in the upcoming days/weeks, but I thought I would include a few pictures in the meantime!

 On Friday after we flew in, we had our eco-makeovers, and my roommate during the weekend, Anna, and I took a picture together! She was the best (and won second place in the event...she blew me away!)
 Some of the finalists after our eco-makeovers! From left to right... Kristen, Annie, Anna, Alyssa, Grayson, me, Alison, Natalie, Tavneet, and Ruthie! I love these people!
 A lot of the ladies with our Green U shirts and posing with Mr. Eco!
We were able to do a touch of sightseeing on Saturday night after a day full of inspiring speakers and discussions, so here is a photo of many of the finalists at Ghirardelli Square.

There will be much more to come! I hope all is well!

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

MissRepresentation

I first became aware of the documentary MissRepresentation a long while ago, but finally had the opportunity to watch it earlier this month. I must say, it was one of the best documentaries I have ever seen, and I think it is a message that everyone, male or female, could benefit from, as we are all consumers of the media.

In today's society, American teenagers spend nearly 11 hours a day consuming media, via television, the internet, books, magazines, looking at advertisements, and more. Clearly, if we are spending such a large percentage of our time looking at media, some of what we see is going to shape the way we think or live. MissRepresentation breaks down society's notions that women can only draw power from their youth, beauty, and sexuality. The film featured many surprising, yet important statistics and testimonies that really resonated with me.

One prime example of the way we view women and their sexuality comes from Disney princesses. Growing up, I know that I loved myself some Disney princesses, and I remembered even dressing up as a princess for a few years during elementary school for Halloween. (Don't even get me started on Halloween costumes for women and girls... that will probably be it's own post later on). As a girl, I think these "princesses" do shape how we grow to understand concept of beauty on the societal level. And yet, when watching MissRepresentation, I was horrified when they revisited images of several popular characters.

What the heck! Despite such a young target age group, these characters are wearing so little clothing. Once grown up, I think that everyone should be able to wear whatever makes them happy, and if that is more revealing clothing, that is okay if it is their choice. What is not okay to me is if individuals do that because they think they have to, or because they think it's expected of them if they want to get anywhere in society or if they think they have to, to get a man, which is exactly what many of the Disney princesses went after. 

Another prime example of how the media views women is with the number of male protagonists compared with the number of female protagonists in film and television. Typically, female protagonists only exist in romantic comedies, while the men seem to dominated action, drama, and comedies, often with a younger, beautiful woman as their sexy sidekick, who is often many years younger and tries to seduce the older man. Here is just one example that is very popular today with the new Skyfall movie.

An interesting statistic presented by the film was that while the United States is perceived as having gender equality, women actually only hold about 16.9% of the seats or offices in government, which ranks 91st in the world. How is it okay for the United States, a nation that prides itself on our supposed equality and competitiveness in the global arena, to rank 91st in terms of women in government? I just don't understand, especially when the government affects us in so many ways.

Jennifer Siebel Newsom, who wrote and directed the film, created it because she was scared about the world that her young daughter was going to grow up in. I wonder what the world will be like for my future daughters, as I can see the self-esteem and body image struggles of so many of those around me right now. Coming from my own body image struggles in the past, I truly want to do anything I can to make sure everyone, but women in particular, feel empowered about who they are and what they can do, regardless of their age, body, or sexuality.  As far as I see it, the only limitations are how society trains us to look at our faults rather than seeing the beautiful, capable and remarkable individuals we are.

One of the film's themes is "you can't be what you can't see", and I think this can reach
Moving forward, we should challenge ourselves to be the sorts of leaders who we don't yet see in today's society. Regardless of gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, language, age, class, religion, or any other factor, there are others counting on us that we might not even know. Our world is continuously expanding in unprecedented ways, and we have to power to control what we put out there and what we buy into. Therefore, this is a huge opportunity to be the example of what we to see and stand up for what matters to us.

If you have not watched the film, I strongly suggest that you check it out, as it is most definitely worth your ninety minutes. In the meantime, check out the MissRepresentation youtube channel here or watch  Jennifer Siebel Newsom's TED talk.
I truly believe that we can have a huge impact even if we just shift our thinking a little bit in how we view some of these gender norms, power relationships, and ideas of beauty. Rather than criticize each other, why don't we work together to try to empower one another, and to make people believe that everyone has the power and ability to be a strong leaders and create meaningful change.

Thank you for your time!

Saturday, November 17, 2012

Friday, November 9, 2012

I am a Project Green Challenge Finalist!

Hello all! How is it already November? I just wanted to share that this evening I found out I was selected as one of the 14 finalists for Project Green Challenge! I am sooo excited and honored! It has truly been an awesome journey that has pushed me in new ways! The Green U conference will be at the end of November/early December in San Francisco! There are so many amazing activities planned, and I will give my final presentation and meet with a variety of eco-leaders!!

To tide you over before I start posting about normal things again, here is the final music video I made that is a parody of the song "Gangnam Style". It's called PGC Style!
*my apologies for not having the best singing voice!*

Friday, November 2, 2012

Final PGC Speech

Hello and happy weekend! For one of the final challenges, I gave a talk in the residence hall where I work about my experiences the past month. The first video also opens with a quick panorama of many of my amazing residents! I am sooo lucky! Also, the lighting and general quality of the speech aren't the best, but my computer had sort of crashed the day of, so I sort of winged the presentation and assembled a powerpoint really quickly. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it!



Monday, October 29, 2012

Project Green Challenge Video Recap

Hello everyone! I just completed one of the final challenges for Project Green Challenges! I have done many more of the challenges than I have posted, that's for sure. I hope you have had a great month of October! Here is the video!

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

What is Fair Trade?


For those of you who are not familiar with it, I used the Wordle website to generate my own definition of fair trade for today's PGC challenge!


Saturday, October 13, 2012

PGC Feast!

Happy weekend! One of the PGC challenges from about a week ago was rather difficult, but it challenged me and I actually won! We had to host a dinner party for a group of friends, and prepare a main course, side dish, dessert, and beverage that was entirely sustainable, fair-trade, or organic, and all of this for $2 a person. I ended up hosting my dinner party for 4 of my residents and I, and I made it breakfast themed! Our final total came to $9.96! And here is my entry...


Since my definition of sustainable food involved maintaining a nurturing relationship with the food from seed to what ends up on your plate, I looked for foods that were organic, harvested by workers who were paid a fair wage, and harvested locally to maximize freshness and minimize transportation costs and energy. When planning my menu, I wanted something that was all vegetarian, produce that was fresh and locally grown, and food that wasn’t going to be too expensive, especially with the price constraint of no more than $2.00 a person.

The shopping:
County Market:
Phil’s Farm Fresh Eggs: cage-free, antibiotic-free, grain-fed      
$2.74
Bob’s Red Mill Buttermilk Pancake and Waffle Whole Grain Mix made with organic flour      
$4.99 for the whole package (I used 1/3 of the package)
= $1.67
Organic Grape Tomatoes
$2.99 for the whole pack, we used 1/3
= $1.00
Target:
Archer Farms Organic Milk:
$3.79 for half gallon, we used half
= $1.90
Common Ground Food Co-op:
(I did not ask for a receipt, but the total came to $2.65)
Equal Exchange Chocolates (organic and fairly traded)
Locally grown, organic, and seasonal red pepper
Locally grown and organic potatoes

Total:
= $9.96
Cost per person (for 5 people)
= $1.99

In the campus community of Champaign-Urbana, County Market is a very popular grocery store, although not especially sustainable or unique. I also had to run errands at Target, so I picked up the organic milk while I was there. However, the Common Ground Food Co-op is where things get exciting!

This was my first time ever being in the co-op, and I loved it! Every produce label tells you where it was grown and who grew it. For example, the red pepper I bought was grown by the Moore Family Farm in Watseka, IL. It adds a real personal touch the food that we buy, and I really liked that the co-op provided this information.

This is a picture of Anna, who is an employee at the Common Ground Food Co-op in Urbana, IL. Her title on her nametag said “Change Maker”, and I liked that, since this co-op is making a difference in the Urbana community. She was very helpful and taught me a lot about the co-op. To become a member of the co-op, you pay a fee that supports the co-op and also technically makes you an “owner”, which gives you extra benefits that include potlucks, cooking classes, and voting on important matters within the co-op. The vibe of the co-op is really warm and laid back, with people working who are very happy with what they do!

The Meal:
Now for the fun part… the meal!

The theme was breakfast for dinner. After all, it’s too early to get maximum enjoyment out of scrumptious breakfast foods in the morning. I made all elements of the meal without recipes, but had made all of them before.

 Our main course was frittatas, made with the cage-free eggs, local and organic red pepper, and organic grape tomatoes, and a splash of organic milk. This recipe couldn’t be easier. I mixed 10 eggs with probably around ¼ cup of milk with the chopped up red pepper and grape tomatoes, and added some salt and pepper. I poured the egg mixture into a muffin tin and baked until they were fluffy and golden at the top.
The side dish was oven-roasted potatoes, which were locally grown. I cut up four small potatoes and mixed them with a little olive oil and seasoned them with salt and pepper. I put them on a baking sheet and baked them at 400 degrees Fahrenheit until they started to brown and were soft on the inside.

My “dessert” was chocolate chunk pancakes that were stuffed with chocolate chunks. The chocolate was definitely the star of the show! I purchased Equal Exchange Organic Milk Chocolate with a hint of hazelnut, and it was honestly the best chocolate I have ever had in my entire life. I cut up chunks to put inside the pancakes and made some chocolate shavings to put on top of the pancakes. I prepared one cup of Bob’s Red Mill Pancake mix using one of the two remaining eggs, a tablespoon of oil, and ¾ cups of water. I mixed these ingredients together, added the chocolate chunks, and cooked the pancakes!

We drank organic milk for our beverage.


I would say that our dinner party was a huge success. I must admit, when I first heard of the challenge, I thought it was going to be really tough to buy all organic/fair trade/locally grown foods for such a small budget. However, the whole thing was easier than I thought and was a lot of fun too! My friend Samar even said they were the best pancakes she ever had! I am so happy I went to the Common Ground Food Co-op for the first time! This was definitely my favorite challenge thus far… and the most delicious!
From left to right: Christian, Pavan, me, Heather, and Samar
These are some of my residents and we had a late night feast in the main lounge of our residence hall. I am the RA on a floor for environmental sustainability, so they were all excited when they heard about this challenge (and when I invited them to dinner!)





Thursday, October 11, 2012

PGC: The Math of Being Green

Hey everyone! I have continued to enter most of the PGC challenges, and this is another one of the challenges I won. The premise of this challenge was to analyze five issues in sustainability on campus, so I decided to get a little mathematical with my entry to indicate the bigger picture and ideologies that go into making changes. I hope you enjoy them!






Tuesday, October 9, 2012

PGC: Vegetarian Recipes 101

In today's world, it seems as though becoming vegetarian or vegan is the trendy thing to do. However, eating vegetarian or vegan, even for just one meal, really helps the environment! For example, if everyone in the United States gave up meat on Mondays, it would save approximately 12 billion gallons of gasoline! (Source: PGC)

I was raised in a very vegetarian friendly environment since my sister was always a vegetarian, so when I finally decided to become vegetarian too, the transition was relatively painless.

Need some scrumptious vegetarian recipes to try? Here is a sample menu to "go veg" for a day!

For breakfast...
For lunch...

For dinner...






































Do you like what you see? If so, here are just a few of the amazing vegetarian or vegan blogs in the blogosphere! 

Craving something sweet? Check some of Chocolate Covered Katie's amazing vegan dessert recipes! She has developed creative and delicious recipes for everything!

A blog that features both vegetarian and vegan options is Oh My Veggies! Some of the highlights include pesto quesadillas, roasted butternut squash, and edamame hummus.

For even more vegetarian options, visit Herbivoracious!  Boasting over 127,000 readers, some of the recipe highlights include blueberry bars, rigatoni, and avocado tomatillo salsa.



Best Vegetarian Cookbooks:
1. Passionate Vegetarian
2. The Conscious Cook

3. Vegan Lunch Box

Looking for even more resources? Have unanswered questions? Still skeptical? Hit up this links!

Have an awesome day!

Sunday, October 7, 2012

PGC Day 2

Hey guys! For day 2 of Project Green Challenge, we addressed where we live and how that relates to sustainability. For PGC "extra credit", I made a youtube video with a tour of my room and addressed some of what I did for the greener and greenest challenges!

Warning: it's a little cheesy! :)
Have a great week!

PGC Day 1: The Dark Side of Beauty


Hey guys! So, I have been very busy with Project Green Challenge! There are 3-4 challenges posted every day, and I try to do as many as I can. I will blog a few of my favorite entries/challenges so you can see some of what I have been working on. Also, here is the link to Project Green Challenge if you want to check out the contest yourself:
http://projectgreenchallenge.com/pages/home
It is pretty big, with 2,280 people around the world currently signed up! Also, my username is longlivepassions if you want to see my rankings on the leaderboard!

The premise behind this challenge was too select 5 of our conventional beauty products we use and narrow it down to one. We had to look up some of the ingredients and talk about them.

The Dark Side of Beauty



Revlon Grow Luscious Mascara
TRESemmé Freshstart Dry Shampoo
Bath and Body Works Lemon Body Lotion
Dove Ultimate GoFresh Cool Essentials Anti-Perspirant Deodorant
Neutrogena Skin Clearing Blemish Concealer Stick

Ingredients for my Revlon Grow Luscious Mascara:
Aqua (water) EAU), Parafin, Stearic Acid, Cera Alba ((Beeswax) Cire D'Abeille), Isododecane, Trimethylsiloxysilicate, Hydrogenated Polycyclopentadiene, Trisiloxane, C30 45 Alkyl Dimethicone, Cera Carnauba (Copernicia Cerifera Wax), Cera Carnauba ((Copernicia Cerifera (Carnauba) Wax) Cire De Carnauba), Triethanolamine, Bis Vinyl Dimethicone Copolymer, Polymethylsilsesquioxane, Dimethicone, Hydrogenated Olive Oil Stearyl Esters, Isosteareth 200 Linoleate, Acacia Gum (Acacia Senegal), Hydrolyzed Wheat Protein/PVP Crosspolymer, Phytantriol, Nylon 6, Tocopherol Acetate, Magnesium Ascorbyl Phosphate, Panthenol, Methoxy Amodimethicone/Silsequioxane Copolymer, Silica, Calcium Aluminum Borosilicate, Simethicone, Butylene Glycol, Hexylene Glycol, Phenoxyethanol, Caprylyl Glycol, 1,2 Hexanediol, May Contain, Titanium Dioxide (CI 77897), Black 2 (CI 77266), Iron Oxides (CI 77491, 77492, 77499), Ultramarines (CI 77007)

This mascara contains paraffin, which may be cancer causing and has actually been restricted in other countries because of it. It is produced with petroleum based chemicals and could promote drying of the skin or make the skin more sensitive to sun damage.

Dimethicone is also in this mascara, which is considered a probable carcinogen by the EPA and may disrupt the endocrine system.

Sunday, September 30, 2012

Green Challenge #2 Results and Microwave Pancakes

Hello again! This upcoming week I start the 30-day Project Green Challenge, and I am very excited for that journey!

This past week I collected my garbage (well, most of it) to see what I was throwing away and how much I was. During the week, I generated about one small garbage can worth of trash that weighed about 8 lbs. Most of it was food related, some food and lots of food packaging that is not recyclable. Some culprits were granola bar wrappers, yogurt containers (since we can only recycle plastics #1 and #2).  Unfortunately, I don't really have the option of composting at this point in my life, but I would love to in the future, and that would help with some of the food waste. A few of the other things include kleenex and dental floss. I am sort of happy since I threw away about one pound of garbage each day, which is much less than the national average of 4.4 lbs a day. However, I would like to cut this number down significantly, since at the rate of one pound of garbage per day, I will create 365 lbs per year, and 3,650 lbs by the time I am 30. Eww. That is a lot of garbage and lot to ask of Mother Nature.

In other news, I made pancakes for the first time in the microwave. They were surprisingly amazing and my room smelled like pancakes! :)  Basically, make pancake batter like you normally would, and then put it on a greased, microwave safe plate. Microwave for 90 seconds to 3 minutes, depending on the strength of your microwave and how big you make it. The pancakes were not as fluffy, but just as delicious as regular pancakes and much easier clean up! Perhaps this will be my new midnight snack!

Happy almost October!

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Green Challenge #2

Hello strangers! I know it has been a little while! I am very happy that it is the weekend and that I am getting caught up with things. School/RA stuff/ teaching stuff is plenty busy!

The month of October will probably have an increased number of posts, since I will be participating in Project Green Challenge, which is an awesome contest that puts out optional daily challenges that teach about various "green" aspects of life. I am very excited, and will participate as time allows! Some of last year's challenges involved writing blog posts, or writing various reflections, so I will be sharing that!

Also, this week I will be looking at the quantity of garbage I produce. Starting Sunday, Sept 23rd, I will collect everything I throw away or waste during the week to see how much it adds up to! I am looking forward to this challenge. I feel like I already do a pretty good job, but measuring it in specific numbers will be helpful.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend and will try my best to post more often! Thank you for being loyal readers!

Sunday, September 9, 2012

A music video!

Hello all! This is a music video I made for the residence hall I work at, and I thought I would share! We changed the lyrics to Payphone by Maroon 5! Have a wonderful week!


Saturday, September 8, 2012

Bringing your own sunshine...


Source: http://simagjewelry.blogspot.com/2011_02_01_archive.html

Today was a bit of a gloomy day, but I just woke up and felt great! While blue sky sunny days are usually my favorite, today the rain felt really chill and peaceful. Also, I was jamming to a very peppy, rather cheesy song by the British singer Olly Murs! Here is the music video if you want to listen to it!


Not a whole lot of substance today...
And for those of you who know me well, you know that hugs are basically my favorite things in the whole wide world!  I have also included a few quotes about hugs!



Have a wonderful weekend! A post with more substance is on it's way!

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

America's Wilderness


My environmental politics professor showed this video clip today in class, and it literally gave me chills! (Well, it was pretty cold in the classroom too...) I just loved the combination of footage from all of these different natural parks, the music, and the quotes! Definitely worth 3 minutes of your time!

Saturday, September 1, 2012

Environmental Quotes Part 2!

Happy weekend! This past week has been my first week of classes, and I am lucky enough to be taking two courses that deal with the environment! Woot! And there have been many perks of RAing on the new Environmental Sustainability living learning community in our building! My first post about environmental quotes has been my most visited post out of all 100 posts, so I figured it was time for a part 2! All of the background images come from pictures I took this summer.

I completely agree with this quote from John Ruskin. I truly feel that there is natural beauty is all around us, just as there was in the Alpujarras Mountains, in Granada, Spain.

My Environmental Politics professor included this Thoreau quote in class this week, and I put it with a photo from Ronda, Spain.

Sunsets always amaze me, so here is a sun quote from Henry Ward Beecher with a photo of a sunset over the city of Florence, Italy.

I love love love trees, and this picture is from camping at Starved Rock State Park in Illinois.

Have a delightful day!