One is Free: BFA Thesis Exhibition

So this self-portraiture project I’ve been working on since before I started this blog is finally coming to an end. (Sort of.) It will hang in all its glory in less than a month. Awesome? Yes. Nerve wracking? Yes. Still ridiculously awesome? Most definitely.

Here’s what my postcard looks like on the front:

that's right, I designed the postcard

And check out my website for all the details. Yay!

Imagine This

Today I thought “Hmm. I’ve been so busy with preparing for school that I haven’t had time to even think about another blogpost.” But I found something in the final hours of the day. I read another article on human trafficking at Change.org, but this time it was an apology to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. for our lack of progress. As much as I usually enjoy Amanda Kloer‘s articles, I found this one particularly useless and painful to read. Yes, there are many who believe racism is dead in the US because now we have a black president. Yes, the Golden Globes were a clear example of our seemingly frivolous ways of spending money here while many besides Haiti across the world suffer. And yes, this article in the San Jose Mercury News may be a feel good piece about teens making a difference in the Bay Area.

But these are not things to apologize for.

As Hard As I Try

Recently I commented on this post at Change.org about making divorce illegal in Oklahoma. This morning I was thinking about my mom and her somewhat recent denouncement of her faith. And in all of these thoughts, I have, once again, come to realize why I took a vow of celibacy, why I don’t think I want to marry, and ultimately why I find it so terribly and painfully urgent to encourage beauty and love in education. As I’ve quoted before from one of my favorite books Still Life with Woodpecker:

…yes, to make sexual love so secure and same and sanitary, so slick and frolicsome, so casual that it is not a manifestation of love at all, but a near anonymous, near autonomous, hedonistic scratching of a bunny itch, an itch far removed from any direct relation to the feverish enigmas of Life and Death, and a scratching programmed so that it would in no way interfere with the real purpose of human beings in a capitalistic, puritanical society, which is to produce goods and consume them?

Love and beauty are taken so lightly in this country (in this century, even), that marriage seems like the ultimate expression of love. And when people lose that lovin’ feeling, they end it like it was just a bad dream. With all the pressure to be married and to have children, people will settle for less because they think it’s the right thing to do.

It seems people do not value love and beauty like they value science and economics. Without appreciation for love and beauty, social structures and individual worth deteriorate. Maybe if we focused a little more on being human, the world may be in better shape. Though I guess that’s a rather large statement to say that love and beauty are human, instead of science and math and economics and politics and other whatnot.

I guess to be fair I’ll end on another quote from Woodpecker:

Humans are the most advanced of mammals – although a case could be made for dolphins – because they seldom grow up….Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature.

In conclusion, my thoughts are over the place. I just needed to say these few things. Maybe I need a nap.

Someday You Will Find Me

My internship gives me a lot to think about. I’m constantly researching films, filmmakers, hot topics, youth organizations, and anything else you could think of pertaining to human rights and media. Today I watched a number of youth films about immigration rights. They all touch upon the fact that the United States’s economy depends on immigrant labor, and that families should not be separated.

I enjoyed watching these movies because I felt changed. I didn’t feel as if they repeated my own sentiments. For a while I’ve felt torn on the issue of immigration. My grandfather bought a name and passport and came here illegally, but at the same time, I believe in the law. With that said, it doesn’t mean that the law shouldn’t change. I listen to the arguments about immigrants taking jobs from Americans, to which I reply “do you want those jobs? Will you take those jobs?”

Last time I checked, everyone wants the American dream. More and more people are going to college and applying for white collar jobs. Have you heard about an explosion in the agricultural job market? Are there hundreds of thousands of Americans trying to work on farms or clean houses or do restaurant work? I think not. So what jobs are immigrants taking from “real” Americans?

Those who are not accepted as real Americans almost always do the hardest, ugliest work. And I am a product of two of those groups – my mother’s Irish side and my father’s Chinese side. So how can I deny immigrants their human rights? Just because I’m a natural-born American citizen? How can we deny people reasonable working conditions and minimum wage? Anyway, just some things I was thinking about today.

3rd Stone from the Sun

Recently I read this post about why white people make movies like Avatar. I found this amusing because I was wondering the exact same things while I was watching. The actress who plays Neytiri is black. The actor who plays her father is Native American, and the actor who plays her love interest is also black. The main character is white. I’m sure Cameron didn’t overlook these details. I loved Avatar. But really, why couldn’t the Na’vi people be played by white actors?