Tuesday, 14 June 2011
Monday, 13 June 2011
Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.
The title of this post is a quote I really like, by William James.
Although I haven't got a lot of money to spare now that I'm going to Australia, I do try to donate a little bit of money to charities now and then. I like to think that what I do makes a difference in the world, no matter how small. I try to remember to put my change in charity jars in shops if they have them, I put old clothes in charity containers and sometimes I just donate some money to a charity, or sponsor friends that are fundraising.
I'm an organ donor, I used to donate blood, I had to stop now that I'm going to Australia, but I will look into maybe donating blood there as well. If I can't, then I'll go back to doing it when/if I get back. And I want to sign up to be a bone marrow donor. I give the books I don't want to keep to the library so that other people can enjoy them. When I was getting ready to move back to Norway from England, I gave most of my books to Oxfam. I try to buy Fair Trade products when possible, and if I can afford them. For my dad's birthday last month, I bought a bottle of Fair Trade olive oil along with a Body Shop Shaving Cream he likes.
Pilgrim does one product every year for Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), where the proceeds goes to MSF. This years it's a bracelet. It seems it can't be bought through Pilgrims internet store though, so if you want one, go to the nearest store that sells Pilgrim and get them to order it for you if they don't have it either. One year (2006 or 2007 I think) I bought 2 of the necklaces they did for MSF that year. One for my mother and one for a friend. I also bought one in 2008 for myself.
I think charity gifts can be great presents for birthdays and Christmas. For example for someone that has "everything", or for someone that doesn't know what they want, or doesn't really want anything (like grandparents). Often charities has online shops, where you can either donate money, and get a card where it says you have donated, which you can then give to the person you want to, or sometimes the online shops have product that you can buy. If you choose to buy a "proper" product, you can of course also just go to a charity shop, if there is one nearby, instead of buying it online, saves postage.
I try to help the environment. The place where I live is actually one of the worst places in our county at recycling. I don't get it though, we used to have separate paper, plastic and food/organic waste collections a few years back, then they stopped doing it! Probably became to expensive..
Hopefully it will get better this autumn though as there is a new trash collecting company coming. They sent some information through the post a few weeks ago about how they were going to bring back the recycling. Let's hope they stick with it.
I am thinking about doing some volunteer work while I'm in Australia. Maybe instead of travelling on a couple of the days I have off while I'm working as an au pair? Just so that I'm making money at the same time, and can travel later. Does anybody know of any volunteering opportunities in or around Brisbane?
Just to end this post I want to see if I can help a friend who's doing the Race for Life next month. Please don't feel pressured to give anything, but if you can/want to, please sponsor my friend here.
Although I haven't got a lot of money to spare now that I'm going to Australia, I do try to donate a little bit of money to charities now and then. I like to think that what I do makes a difference in the world, no matter how small. I try to remember to put my change in charity jars in shops if they have them, I put old clothes in charity containers and sometimes I just donate some money to a charity, or sponsor friends that are fundraising.
I'm an organ donor, I used to donate blood, I had to stop now that I'm going to Australia, but I will look into maybe donating blood there as well. If I can't, then I'll go back to doing it when/if I get back. And I want to sign up to be a bone marrow donor. I give the books I don't want to keep to the library so that other people can enjoy them. When I was getting ready to move back to Norway from England, I gave most of my books to Oxfam. I try to buy Fair Trade products when possible, and if I can afford them. For my dad's birthday last month, I bought a bottle of Fair Trade olive oil along with a Body Shop Shaving Cream he likes.
 |
| My 2008 MSF necklace |
I think charity gifts can be great presents for birthdays and Christmas. For example for someone that has "everything", or for someone that doesn't know what they want, or doesn't really want anything (like grandparents). Often charities has online shops, where you can either donate money, and get a card where it says you have donated, which you can then give to the person you want to, or sometimes the online shops have product that you can buy. If you choose to buy a "proper" product, you can of course also just go to a charity shop, if there is one nearby, instead of buying it online, saves postage.
I try to help the environment. The place where I live is actually one of the worst places in our county at recycling. I don't get it though, we used to have separate paper, plastic and food/organic waste collections a few years back, then they stopped doing it! Probably became to expensive..
Hopefully it will get better this autumn though as there is a new trash collecting company coming. They sent some information through the post a few weeks ago about how they were going to bring back the recycling. Let's hope they stick with it.
I am thinking about doing some volunteer work while I'm in Australia. Maybe instead of travelling on a couple of the days I have off while I'm working as an au pair? Just so that I'm making money at the same time, and can travel later. Does anybody know of any volunteering opportunities in or around Brisbane?
Just to end this post I want to see if I can help a friend who's doing the Race for Life next month. Please don't feel pressured to give anything, but if you can/want to, please sponsor my friend here.
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| This year's MSF Pilgrim product. |
Sunday, 12 June 2011
The Romance Reader
Fourth Book in the 100+ Reading Challenge
The Romance Reader
by Pearl Abraham
Inner front cover: Rachel Benjamin lives in an insular environment, protected by her family from the temptations and freedom the modern world offers. As the rabbi's eldest daughter, Rachel is expected to set a moral example for her brothers and sisters and for the community: she must wear thick tights with seams; she must never wear a bathing suit in public; she is not to read books in English.
But Rachel does read forbidden books: she reads the books of Barbara Cartland, Victoria Holt and Charlotte Brontë, paperbacks bought with babysitting money or stolen from the supermarket or borrowed from the library that she has been forbidden to join. She starts to wear sheet stockings and to take classes to become a lifeguard. She craves independence but does not know how best to achieve it. As the prospect of an arranged marriage draws nearer, Rachel is torn between the opportunity it offers to leave her family and the realization that it is not a genuine escape.
Another library book. I picked it because I though the title sounded promising, like maybe it would give me more ideas for books to read, as if I need any!
The book is about Rachel and her life as a teenager as a Hasidic Jew. She wants to be more independent than what she is, and she always finds new ways to "rebel". Rachel basically seems like any other teenager: the hating of parents, and rule-breaking. I could kind of sympathize with her through most of the book, but not at all in some places, and not just because of our difference in upbringing.
My favorite part of the book was when the mother and father went away for a while. It was kind of exciting to see what would happen, and I was nervous all the time that something bad would happen, and at the same time I was looking forward to reading what would happen when the parents came back.
I don't really know much about the different types of Jews. I think at school we've learned more about the general religious views, and about Jews during the Second World War, and not much else. So it was interesting to read about this world I don't know anything about. I didn't know what a lot of the Jewish words meant, and since I read a lot of the book in my lunch breaks at work, I couldn't really look them up, but I understood most of them from the context, and some others I looked up online when I got home.
The book was okay. It was interesting to read about a different way of living, but it wasn't so exciting that it held my attention. For such a small book (296 pages) it took me a long time to finish, because whenever I put it down I wasn't in a "hurry" to pick it back up again to find out what happened next.
The Romance Readerby Pearl Abraham
Inner front cover: Rachel Benjamin lives in an insular environment, protected by her family from the temptations and freedom the modern world offers. As the rabbi's eldest daughter, Rachel is expected to set a moral example for her brothers and sisters and for the community: she must wear thick tights with seams; she must never wear a bathing suit in public; she is not to read books in English.
But Rachel does read forbidden books: she reads the books of Barbara Cartland, Victoria Holt and Charlotte Brontë, paperbacks bought with babysitting money or stolen from the supermarket or borrowed from the library that she has been forbidden to join. She starts to wear sheet stockings and to take classes to become a lifeguard. She craves independence but does not know how best to achieve it. As the prospect of an arranged marriage draws nearer, Rachel is torn between the opportunity it offers to leave her family and the realization that it is not a genuine escape.
Another library book. I picked it because I though the title sounded promising, like maybe it would give me more ideas for books to read, as if I need any!
The book is about Rachel and her life as a teenager as a Hasidic Jew. She wants to be more independent than what she is, and she always finds new ways to "rebel". Rachel basically seems like any other teenager: the hating of parents, and rule-breaking. I could kind of sympathize with her through most of the book, but not at all in some places, and not just because of our difference in upbringing.
My favorite part of the book was when the mother and father went away for a while. It was kind of exciting to see what would happen, and I was nervous all the time that something bad would happen, and at the same time I was looking forward to reading what would happen when the parents came back.
I don't really know much about the different types of Jews. I think at school we've learned more about the general religious views, and about Jews during the Second World War, and not much else. So it was interesting to read about this world I don't know anything about. I didn't know what a lot of the Jewish words meant, and since I read a lot of the book in my lunch breaks at work, I couldn't really look them up, but I understood most of them from the context, and some others I looked up online when I got home.
The book was okay. It was interesting to read about a different way of living, but it wasn't so exciting that it held my attention. For such a small book (296 pages) it took me a long time to finish, because whenever I put it down I wasn't in a "hurry" to pick it back up again to find out what happened next.
#12 - Black & White
Black text on a white page. A page from the book I'm currently reading: The Romance Reader by Pearl Abraham
30 Day Photographic Challenge
by Pearl Abraham
Saturday, 11 June 2011
Plastic surgery
I'm kind of on the fence when it comes to plastic surgery.
On the one hand I think people should be happy with the body that they were born with, everybody's different, and if people don't like you for the way you look, then they're idiots. Some people also get addicted to plastic surgery. That's the people you see on telly with size 32ZZ bra and a face so stretched they're eyeballs are about to pop out of their scull! Not a pretty picture. Why would anyone want to do that to themselves?
I don't understand people that put implants in their lips, bum, breasts, you name it. I don't understand how people can be that unhappy with a body part. How anyone can think that a part of their body is too small. Don't you need to change implants? What about when they get old? What if they don't want the implants anymore? The skin where they have been will be very saggy... They're going to need plastic surgery to fix it...
On the other hand I think that if you're so unhappy with the way you look that it's making you depressed and unable to lead a happy life, or if you've been in an accident that has made you unhappy with the way you look, then I think you should be allowed to make the necessary changes. But to make yourself happy, not because of anyone else, or because of what you think anyone else wants.
One of my aunts got breast implants a few years ago. She had been unhappy with the size of her breasts for a long time. They had drastically shrunk after she had her second child. She was almost completely flat in that region... (Bright side: no saggy boobs.) So she got some implants. I didn't even know about it until the day she went to get it done. I think she wanted as few people as possible to know. Anyway, I didn't see why she wanted them, she was perfect the way she was. I was also worried that she would come back with two watermelons attached to her chest. But I also knew that she hadn't been happy with her bra size for as long as I could remember.
When my aunt came back after the surgery, and when I see her now, I don't think about the fact that she's got implants. I don't know what cup size she got, but I don't think it can be much, because I honestly can't tell the difference. I mean, I never stare at her boobs anyway, but if she'd gone for size watermelon, you don't need to stare at the breasts to see a difference... She probably only went up a cup or two...
But now I want to talk about something I really AM against when it comes to plastic surgery. I read this article on Smosh.com yesterday. The article is about a mum who gives her 7 year old daughter, Poppy, a boob-job voucher for her birthday! And no, that is not a typo, 7, SEVEN years old!
Okay, the girl is spoiled, she gets everything she points at, and she WISHED for a voucher for surgery. But that doesn't mean you GIVE it to her. The mother, Sarah, defends herself by saying: "Poppy isn't interested in bouncy castles or pass the parcel, so I splashed out on something a little more grown up. " She also stated: "Poppy begged me for a boob job, so I gave her the voucher so she can have it after she's 16, when it's legal. If she develops naturally big boobs, she can have something else done with it." Oh, so that makes it fine then.
I'm sorry, but a 7 year old shouldn't even know what a boob job is. And the fact that she wished for it is almost worse than the fact that she got one (I said ALMOST!). You shouldn't teach your daughter that looks is everything. I wonder what that little girl will be like when she grows up. Will she ever be happy with the way she looks? Will she get loads of surgery done because that's what her mother has done, and she thinks it's normal?
I'm kind of hoping that this is all a publicity stunt, and that it's not true. Maybe a late April Fools joke...
What are your views on plastic surgery?
On the one hand I think people should be happy with the body that they were born with, everybody's different, and if people don't like you for the way you look, then they're idiots. Some people also get addicted to plastic surgery. That's the people you see on telly with size 32ZZ bra and a face so stretched they're eyeballs are about to pop out of their scull! Not a pretty picture. Why would anyone want to do that to themselves?
I don't understand people that put implants in their lips, bum, breasts, you name it. I don't understand how people can be that unhappy with a body part. How anyone can think that a part of their body is too small. Don't you need to change implants? What about when they get old? What if they don't want the implants anymore? The skin where they have been will be very saggy... They're going to need plastic surgery to fix it...
On the other hand I think that if you're so unhappy with the way you look that it's making you depressed and unable to lead a happy life, or if you've been in an accident that has made you unhappy with the way you look, then I think you should be allowed to make the necessary changes. But to make yourself happy, not because of anyone else, or because of what you think anyone else wants.
One of my aunts got breast implants a few years ago. She had been unhappy with the size of her breasts for a long time. They had drastically shrunk after she had her second child. She was almost completely flat in that region... (Bright side: no saggy boobs.) So she got some implants. I didn't even know about it until the day she went to get it done. I think she wanted as few people as possible to know. Anyway, I didn't see why she wanted them, she was perfect the way she was. I was also worried that she would come back with two watermelons attached to her chest. But I also knew that she hadn't been happy with her bra size for as long as I could remember.
When my aunt came back after the surgery, and when I see her now, I don't think about the fact that she's got implants. I don't know what cup size she got, but I don't think it can be much, because I honestly can't tell the difference. I mean, I never stare at her boobs anyway, but if she'd gone for size watermelon, you don't need to stare at the breasts to see a difference... She probably only went up a cup or two...
But now I want to talk about something I really AM against when it comes to plastic surgery. I read this article on Smosh.com yesterday. The article is about a mum who gives her 7 year old daughter, Poppy, a boob-job voucher for her birthday! And no, that is not a typo, 7, SEVEN years old!
Okay, the girl is spoiled, she gets everything she points at, and she WISHED for a voucher for surgery. But that doesn't mean you GIVE it to her. The mother, Sarah, defends herself by saying: "Poppy isn't interested in bouncy castles or pass the parcel, so I splashed out on something a little more grown up. " She also stated: "Poppy begged me for a boob job, so I gave her the voucher so she can have it after she's 16, when it's legal. If she develops naturally big boobs, she can have something else done with it." Oh, so that makes it fine then.
I'm sorry, but a 7 year old shouldn't even know what a boob job is. And the fact that she wished for it is almost worse than the fact that she got one (I said ALMOST!). You shouldn't teach your daughter that looks is everything. I wonder what that little girl will be like when she grows up. Will she ever be happy with the way she looks? Will she get loads of surgery done because that's what her mother has done, and she thinks it's normal?
I'm kind of hoping that this is all a publicity stunt, and that it's not true. Maybe a late April Fools joke...
What are your views on plastic surgery?
#11 - A Fridge
This is our fridge. It's full of my mother's magnets. She gets one from every place she visits, so there are magnets from the places she's been in the UK, USA, Turkey, Sweden, etc.
Do you collect anything from your travels?
30 Day Photographic Challenge
Do you collect anything from your travels?
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