Who are you?

Having been infected with some nasty virus that makes me feel as though I'm coughing up a lung, I decided to refer to my favorite medicine to get me through. It's not DayQuil, Tylenol, or Advil. It's a two hour movie called Breakfast At Tiffany's, starring Audrey Hepburn.

Many people around campus have posters of Audrey in their dorm room...I am one of them! Something about her elegance in her black dress and sparkly jewelry, with that extended cigarette holder really makes you want to BE her. Or at least meet her. While this will never happen, watching her character Holly Golightly, is as close as I will ever get, and I've come to accept that. What surprises me though, is that from all the research I have done on Audrey Hepburn makes it clear that the real Audrey is nothing like the character she plays in Breakfast at Tiffany's. 

Holly Golightly is a flirtatious, eccentric, lost little girl in a big city. Audrey Hepburn was a strong independent woman with a love of charity and peace. She mentioned in interviews that she felt no connection with Holly, but felt that she could portray her from an actresses stand point. While this is, not going to lie, a disappointment, I feel somewhat comforted that a woman that so many look up to was not just one-sided. 

I connect with the independence of Audrey, and I always imagined her being just like her character in Breakfast at Tiffany's. I'm pretty sure the people with her picture plastered on their dorm walls feel the same way. But when I realized that Audrey Hepburn was not a flighty young girl who wore black dresses all the time with jewels cascading off her body, I took a moment to look at who I was.

I realized that I see myself as not a single facet. I am multi-faceted and go through these facets at an alarming rate. Sure, we're all different around our parents, and our friends, and our teachers. Yet, even when I'm with these different groups, I realized that I have different sides to me within my major personalities. I don't mean to make myself sound like I have multiple personality disorder! But I believe we all have different sides.

Many people see me as outgoing, sarcastic, and friendly. My mom saw me as a young girl who was shy, quiet, and unwilling to leave her side. I don't think I lost all of that, and I see these different sides of me more now, than ever before.

Living on my own in college is really a life experience that everyone should have. I now see myself as a whole individual. While I lived at home, I was loved and loved everyone around me. Now that I'm away, I know my family loves me, and I love them...it's just that I don't see it everyday. This has led me to look into myself, and realize that I love ME. I don't have a lot of time to myself here, with all my classes and friends and clubs. But when I am alone, I'm content. I don't try to distract myself from loneliness. I believe that sometimes loneliness is needed.

I encourage everyone to look at themselves and see how many different facets they have, just like Audrey Hepburn or Holly Golightly. You'll most likely become more comfortable by yourself if you can see who you really are. I don't mean to make this sound annoyingly deep, but it's something that I've noticed lately. 

I've been so much happier here at school, than I ever was when I didn't know WHO i was.

Ishmael Beah: Inspiration to Everyone

Ohio University has a great program that brings influential speakers to the campus and presents these people to the students and people in the community, sometimes free of charge. Tonight's speaker, was on a whole other level.

Ishmael Beah is 28 years old and has already experienced more horror, destruction and overall madness than most people experience in their lifetime. He is a former child soldier from Sierra Leone during the Civil War that erupted in the early 1990's. At just 11 years old, he was thrust from his home, had his parents and brother ripped away from him forever, and was brainwashed with drugs and violent training to become a child killing machine. 

While I won't relay his entire life story, it's hard for me to accept that such horrid things happen in the world. It is apparent to me that I am living in amazing conditions, with amazing people in my life. Yet, I am guilty of taking this for granted on a daily basis. What struck me most about Ishmael, was his current appreciation for the small things.

He told us a story of how he once found it funny to see his classmates (in New York after he had been rescued from Sierra Leone) complain about not having the best and the coolest gadgets out on the market. When they asked him what he was laughing about, he didn't give them an answer. What he confided to us, was that he found it funny to complain about something material like that, when he had nearly lost his life on a daily basis.

This was just one small story in the hour and half presentation he gave. While there were no pictures, no videos, and no sound clips, the way he used his words and the way he illustrated his experience with us gave just as much of a view into his past than a video would have done. 

I can't even begin to touch on the horror he described and the intensity in which he lived over those war years, and I plan on reading his memoirs, "A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier" and I encourage everyone else to do so as well. If it covers even a small bit of his past, it will open as many inspirations in you as it did in me. 

This is his website, and I hope that his story spreads even more than it already has.

http://www.alongwaygone.com/

  It is definitely a story that needs to be heard.

A Day In History

Well...it's been a whole quarter since I've written. It seems fitting that my first post back comes on one of the most historic days I have ever witnessed. Today, Barack Obama became President.

While many Obama supporters would enter in with a "YES WE DID" I'll keep it to a minimum. 

I come from a mainly Republican family, filled with McCain supporters and Obama haters. I hate to admit, but I was guilty of the hating as well. Yet, being on my own here at school has helped me to see both sides, and has helped me to have a more level head. (Something my father is in desperate need of!)

You can't really help who you support before you get to college. When you live with your parents, that's really all you have to go on. It was almost an instant thing when I arrived at college...the thought that I HAVE my own thoughts! Sure, I always considered myself independent and a free thinker...what I didn't realize was that I was too consumed with what I was surrounded with to actually be a free thinker. 

Barack Obama is making history, and I have finally come to accept that. I'm sick of the arguments going back and forth on Facebook walls, the ignorant insult throwing at one another across the street in front of the library, and I'm even sick of the factual arguments that go on in my upper level classes. It doesn't matter to me who THINKS they're right. We're never going to concede to let somebody of (GASP!) the OTHER SIDE win. In my mind, I don't really know what's the truth and what's not.

What I do know, is that we have the duty as Americans to support a person who is being thrust (sure, by choice, but nonetheless thrust) into a position where a 100% approval rating is virtually impossible. Obama will have his haters, and he will have his lovers. I hope to land somewhere in between. 

While it is important to have strong opinions, it is not so important that you should bash others beliefs or repeat your factual knowledge so many times it becomes background noise. How are people supposed to form opinions if they have two sides opinions crashing into their ears on either side. I believe that politics brings out an ugly side of people, and I hope that others have found their inner peace with this election result.

Anger is still a choice, bitterness is almost inevitable, yet it's done. It's over with. Now, as I've come to accept, we must live our lives and support our country in every way possible. 

(as a side note, I hope to actually keep updating this blog. hopefully I will be able to find interesting media clips, exciting stories, or somewhat intelligent commentary on what is going on in our world.)