Motivation for Truth

Maybe I've been in philosophy class far too long, and soon I'll find myself sitting in the back of a room, muttering, "none of it's real!" I've been a firm believer in simple minded facts--as long as they're not suffocated by x= and y is three less than that formula that's coming out of your ears. For the most part, I haven't argued with the claims that physical beings, or objects, or fat men that crawl down your chimney, are real. They're attainable. What gets me is the reality of acts: Did that person really eat an entire pizza because he was hungry, or was he trying to impress his buddies? Did the people who invented black nail polish ever think it was a good idea, or were they just pretending to be non-mainstream? And why, please tell me, are people still wearing crocks?
Motivation drives most of what we do, but I'd always thought that if I could just get inside a person's head--if I could analyze every force that makes them do something--I'd have "the truth." Unfortunately, truth, much to our generation's shagrin, is not easily wrapped up in a facebook status. If we lived according to "truth is?" statuses, we'd be hearing a hell of a lot more surface compliments, and people would actually have to learn to pronounce "cuteeeeeeeeee" and "textttttttttt." I don't know about you, but I'm a fan of vowels in between its consonants. But I mean, let's be real, most people are still figuring out their motivations themselves. Life isn't that line you walk on to make sure you aren't drunk--people's emotions vary. Their ideals change. The truth can really only come from your perception of your surroundings. I've spent so much time wondering, analyzing even, why so many college students think the only acceptable way to have fun and grow as a person is to forget everything that happened that night--like being told just kidding, they're actually faking having fun, would automatically make their actions clearer. I've pondered about why so many guys are eighteen going on eight. I've tormented my mind about what I ever did to my hair to make it lash out at me every morning, seeing as being burned by a hot iron at five o'clock is just no way to live.
We can make hypotheses and explanations for the oddities of human behavior, but there will always be questions following the answers we come across. We're not see-through creatures, unless that new sheer fabric came back into style. It may seem scary as hell, but how we interpret the world is the world--and to quote Theory of a Deadman here, many people's explanations end up being as solid as, "the truth is, I lied about everything."  

Murality

You know how some people get that brain itch, like they've forgotten something? Usually it's to mail their grandparents a nice, censored letter about how college is going, to floss their teeth, or to find a new route to the dining hall that does not involve passing the hookah smokers. I haven't accomplished any of these tasks, but that's beside the point. My brain itch comes from going a week without buying a single thing. Not even a pack of gum, I shit you not. By Wednesday, I was going through the shakes, after passing every single store downtown that exhibited shiny things. So proud of having exceptionally strong will power, I thought it would be safe, the day before my next paycheck, to walk into Urban Outfitters, where they will charge you fifty bucks just to look at the swirl of Hipsters 'R Us selections. I'm just kidding, they'll only charge you thirty.
Boy, what a mistake that was. My friend Sarah could walk past the studded jeans and beaded dresses, admire them for a second, and be done with it. I was practically drooling. "Material Girl" may as well have been playing in the background, if it weren't for the fact that we're not stuck in the '80s.
"Get me out of here," I gasped to Sarah. We had almost passed the quality reading selection about French curse words, when I found this:

Sneezing paint onto fabric, or an artsy statement? The world will never know.

 A sane person would pass this thing, decide not to be a walking mural, and go buy some Penn State shirts. Yet after going through a million and one sleepless nights in the sweatbox some people call a dorm room, I thought it was a fabulous idea to announce to the world that I was feeling artsy. Plus, twenty bucks at that store is like getting something for free anywhere else. It's perfectly logical, don't give me that look. Okay, it's somewhat logical.





After a ten minute panic attack--in which I appeared to be having some allergic reaction to shopping--the weirdest thing happened. I returned to my room, and started writing....not the usual "woe is me, life is terrible because I stubbed my toe" that's scrawled on EVERY FREAKING PAGE of my journal (historians are going to think teenage girls of the 21st century had terribly boring lives). For once, I was typing my story--the same story I've been working on for weeks, mind you--and feeling pretty kickass. Not the song, although that tune has evoked quite a few creative moments...flashmob, anyone?
Could this dress actually have made me more artsy? I'm not saying that clothes have magical powers to turn someone into the top dog of their field. I know I'm nowhere close to winning the creative race. I mean, please, I'm not Charlie Sheen. But what was once an interesting article of clothing has turned into inspiration. Or maybe it's just the fact that I'm no longer sweating into the ten pairs of jeans I mistakenly thought to bring to an un-airconditioned dorm in the middle of the summer. That's a possibility too.

In the meantime...

Adults disagree on quite a few things: What political party to vote for, what to make for dinner, and if wearing mismatched socks is, in fact, acceptable (I vote yes). But one thing that adults are in unanimous agreement about, is that past that eighteenth birthday, time seems to double speed. What we think is five minutes of farmville-ing is actually five hours. Okay, that's way more than doubling, but you get my point. Besides, you're an adult, get off that virtual farm. We squeeze every second out of grabbing coffee with a friend and acting insane off of said caffeine high, because we know the next 23 hours of that day will consist of the usual paying bills, doing laundry, and hiding evidence that you rummaged through the chocolate drawer again. So much of our time is spent doing things for other people, and while that's very new Grinch-esque ("his heart grew three sizes that day"), I know I can see time slipping through my fingers--not literally of course; most clocks are far too big to slip through anyone's fingers--and I feel pressure to set aside an hour or so just to hibernate in my room and do my own thing. Perhaps this is part of my secret wish to act more European and not be surrounded by people 24/7, or I just read too much Calvin & Hobbes as a kid. I don't know.
I was talking to a co-worker yesterday, and he encouraged me to take up running, or just to try a marathon. I almost took it as an insult at first; was it really that obvious that me and the freshman 15 were becoming more than just pals? But he went on to say, "I don't run for anyone else, not my wife, my son--I run for myself." I'm not about to make my lungs and heart scream bloody murder to get that runner's high people get after a bajillion miles, but that statement made me think about why I journal and do yoga. Sure, it's fun to see my friends' stricken reactions when they take my diary hostage and realize the insanity that is my brain, but that's not the main point of scribbling down every "I'm happy, I'm sad, I'm happy and sad at the same time" moment (hey, I'm a girl. Don't judge). Sometimes, emotions that stay in your head can feel like scrambled eggs. I don't know about you, but I'm not a fan of scrambled eggs. I'm much more into omelets. Journaling provides omeletet-ish emotions. Either that, or it makes me really hungry for eggs. I'm not sure which. Plus, since my memory is about the same quality as Dory's from Finding Nemo, it's nice to have something to look back at and say, "oh, that's when I wore nothing but sparkles in middle school and got the shit kicked out of me." Good times.
As for yoga, you could say I do that for other people, and you would agree if you witnessed my moods after two weeks of being sorely lacking in a practice. If someone takes the last piece of cake, in my yoga-less state, my reaction might be somewhere along the lines of "CURSE YOU ALL! ALL THE CAKE IN THE WORLD WILL BE MINE!" And then I have nothing sweet to drown my sorrows in. After an hour on the mat, I would breathe through the lack of dessert, the ten piles of homework due the next day, and facing the enemies I just made through screaming at them about cake domination. So in that sense, that weird bendy thing I'm doing on the lawn is for you. Insert wink here. But really--for the sake of all our sanity--let me do that weird bendy thing. Sometimes, it doesn't take much to calm down and feel like a person again, but that hour of "me" time--whether it be hauling your butt up a hill, or whining about how much your legs hurt after hiking said hill--shouldn't evoke guilt. Yes, we all have obligations, and I'm in no way advocating not caring about other people. But in the meantime, take some time to chillax. It's a quality thing to do.

Of Course I am French, why else would I be talking in zhees outrageous accent??

Excuse the Monty Python reference. All I've been watching for the past three weeks is Gilmore Girls, so I've been waiting for an excuse to hear something other than Sheryl Crow's voice belting out the theme song, or sniffles about that boy who Rory Gilmore just can't live without. Heard it, done it, obsessed about it, don't want to see it on TV. Thus, I would like to discuss with you my desire to be French. Or, rather, defend myself, because as soon as I almost get run over by a car as I chase a group of French people, I often get the "you're crazy" look from my friends. I suppose this is better than the "you're dead" look, so thank you, Maria, for tugging me away from the street. The only French thing I would be by then is toast.

Maybe it's because I can't do that weird Spanish tongue rolling thing, or that any culture with 400 different kinds of cheese is one that any sane person should be obsessed with. But I have always felt connected to the air of observation the French exhibit. What's looked at as snobbish behavior can more closely be viewed as sophistication. America is a very "hi, hi, how are you, and I just met you, and this is crazy..." type culture. The French are more wary. They're slow to gain loyalty. People smile at one another if there is something worth smiling about, otherwise they are very reserved and wrapped up in their existentialist thoughts. This makes for a group of people who can write a coherent sentence and other things college professors can no longer take for granted. I, like the French, am quiet and reserved the first few months of knowing someone, and you will probably find me in my dorm room munching on some Brie cheese. Often this is regarded as being cold or un-interested in people; really though, I'm just not inclined to announce where I'm from, how my toe got this weird bruise, what kind of cereal I ate this morning (though I do provide people with the anecdote that I eat oatmeal with peanut butter because it's positively delicious). The French love people. Really. Stop giving me that look. They're just not fans of insta-friends, because that would mean twice as many people coming to dinner parties and downing their expensive wine.

Also, their accents are really cool. If I had a French accent, everything would sound sexy. Even hamburgers sound delightful after watching Pink Panther.

Namaste.

A crabby day

This, dear friends, is Phyrso the crab. Now, I know what you're thinking--how could I go from a fashionista blog to a stuffed animal blog? Maybe it's because I have the maturity level of someone who still says "fashionista." If it helps any, this particular stuffed animal is named after a bar downtown (or what I thought was a bar called Phyrso, which is actually called Phyrst. Not that I'm an English major or anything).
Friends who I introduce to my dorm can instantly tell my bed apart from my roommate's due to the swarm of stuffed animals that surround my pillow--or who are, in some cases, my pillow itself. I can almost cue the heavy sigh, the raised eyebrow look that clearly says, "are you really in college?"
No, I'm secretly an alien who had some desperate desire to use my free time to read tiny print books about camera angles and to live in a sweatbox. Of course I'm in college! Here, I even have the "I haven't slept in weeks" stumble and the wide eyed "help, I'm lost" stare to prove it.
So what is it about inanimate pets that are childish? Personally, I think any five year old would freak out if she saw a hot pink crab staring her in the face. I mean, look at those claws. Don't undermine the glitter--sparkly things can still do some serious damage. Maybe it's not the most sophisticated thing in universe, but neither is getting wasted enough to vomit all over the place. One just happens to be more socially acceptable than the other. I'd take a cute and fuzzy souvenir of freshman year before any hangover.
I've had a few crabby days these past few weeks, but instead of throwing a "woe is me" pity party (that is soo high school, which, let's be real, was so long ago), I'm just going to take a look at Phyrso and realize that even the crabby moments are shiny and cute--until they're ruined by creepy philosophical movies that involve psychotic men drilling into their skulls. Hey, that's college for ya'.

Namaste.

Love Fashion

I realize there are a bajillion fashion blogs out there, and that my whole point of starting Coffee Yoga and Life's Other Necessities was to talk about things that were unique to me. Plus, that whole goal to not be as much of a broke college student makes it, in theory, impossible to buy new cute things that I can show off to the internet world. Then again, I was never good at theories. Perhaps this is why I never took physics in high school. But my roommate's sister Amanda saw my blog, and said, "hey, I used to have a blog! I took pictures of myself wearing a different shirt and explained how or why I got it." Well, there goes my whole money saving scheme and my new shirt-sporting theme. Not to be confused with sporty shirts, because for all the diversity that Penn State has, it doesn't change the fact that I have seen at least a hundred PSU tank tops swarming the campus. I'll just go duck and cover in my hippie dress, and try to hide the wheat grass that I'm chomping on. We're not a preppy campus, but if you admit the fact that you don't have ten million blue and white tanks, nor did you jump online  to buy football tickets, you're either poor or crazy.  Maybe my ecclectic shopping style makes me both poor and crazy, but hey, at least I'm guaranteed not to get shot during hunting season with this lovely purchase:

Hah, get it, lovely? Okay, that will be first and last corny joke, because I was gonna make a joke about cheese, but that would just be too cheesy. Alright, seriously, I'm done. We can all go back to serious scholar mode. After all, that's what the rest of the universe does on a college Friday night.

So. The shirt. I found this at Target, which is slightly depressing, because I would love to be like the women I met at Shoshoni and say I found it while I was dumpster diving, or an old lady from Scotland gave it to me only if I promised to supply her with a lifetime supply of Haggas. Unfortunately, no Haggas was involved, only debit cards that see paychecks flying out the window. Bland location aside, what struck me about this shirt was its serene message displayed in such a loud way. Love is hardly portrayed as bam, unless you're a horny teenager who displays lifelong commitment by sticking his/her tongue into their significant other's throat. Love usually creeps up on us, is soft and comforting, while hot pink is more like "hey, who's ready to party?" If, you know, colors could talk. I'm not usually into tee-shirts with print, seeing as its slightly awkward for people to stare at my chest while they're searching for reading material. My only other printed shirt consists of a burger asking his fellow hot dog "what's up dog?" So this is certainly a contrast to items that give away my secret wish to be twelve years old. It's odd how a piece of fabric can instantly make me feel more open; I suppose it makes sense, as I've always been more comfortable with the written word. Instead of telling people, "hey you, I only look like I'm going to eat your face off, but I actually love most anything and everything," I can shorten what would come out as a stutter and awkward eye contact as a simple word. The only thing that's missing is a picture of coffee and chocolate under the words "fucking adore." Then my entire self would be displayed in one article of clothing.

Namaste. 

Hide and Seek with the Soul

I've been encouraged to do quite a few things as a college student: To study the second I get back from class, to stick to eating healthy food in the dining halls, and to start drinking now so that I lose interest by the time I'm 21. All quality pieces of advice, but the universal thing that I hear is that this is the age when we're supposed to "find ourselves." I'm not exactly sure how piling on ten million rhetorical analyses will help me find my true self, except that I can, with utmost confidence, say that I'm that kind of person who uses hyperboles as a rhetorical appeal. But most days, I can barely find time to crank out five essays; what am I supposed to do, put "find soul" on my to do list? Let me just do that between breakfast and lunch. It'll be a fine time.
At least I've discovered that after much denial, and wondering if I do yoga just to have nice abs, I really am a  yoga geek. In the midst of "we are!" and football jerseys, I'm the girl who's omm-ing in the background, and talking about the vibrant shakti of this campus. Any sane person would say there's a vibrant energy of Penn State Pride. When you're bitten by the yoga bug, you don't just start putting your legs behind your head in between (or during) homework. You start using freaky vocabulary that people wonder if you've just made up. I may be creative, but right now my brain is way too exhausted to pull Sri Shambhavananda yogi out at the top of my head. Especially when said head is upside down, leaning against a wall.
I've been pining for yoga ever since I started college, because let's face it, spending twenty minutes on the mat in your dorm isn't the same as going to an actual yoga class, no matter how much you chant next to the drunken basketball game outside your window.
 Throughout the time I'd normally be stretching and lunging, I've been able to reflect more on how many places encourage this search for the soul. Shoshoni was also about finding yourself, but with much less of the bam-factor that a college campus would. At an ashram, you find yourself by scrubbing floors, and video chatting with people who have meditated for a hundred years. You learn by persisting. In college, you learn by scrubbing the alcohol smell off in a shower the size of a cardboard box, video chatting with people you're just met off of Pottermore, and experimenting. Both Shoshoni and Penn State succeed in the final result of its participators realizing they know absolutely nothing, and are just a tiny speck in the sea of yogis and frightened freshmen alike. It's funny how two completely different atmospheres can have the same ultimate goal. I'll let you know when my "true self" decides to stop hiding in between a massive pile of textbooks and yoga mats.

Namaste.

Narrative

You're probably the first to guess that I'm a fan of writing. I almost went to a Saturday night party so a friend and I could spend the time doing character studies of drunk college students, just so we could have material for future stories. And maybe to laugh at people falling over tables and chairs. But mainly of course, for pure intellectual purposes. I could scrawl out stories and poems until my hand starts bleeding onto my pencil--that is, until my English teacher assigns a narrative. Suddenly, telling outlandish stories about my life seems like the most torturous task imaginable. All that floats through my sleep-deprived brain (thank you, construction workers, for that one) are the typical "my first kiss" stories (lame), the new family puppy that ended up trying to eat my brother and I alive, and everyone's rite of passage, the first meditation class in which we were told to open up our sex chakras. So that's a thing that happened.
It's strange how a graded assignment can be a block to creativity. Sure, my friends judge the stories and poems that I do for fun, but it's more like "hey, you've written the boy meets girl, girl feels awkward story ten million times," and then I sulk in my room for a few hours about how I can only write what I know and my life is so transparent that I might as well be walking around with a sheet on my head. The red pen of doom makes having a voice so much more difficult, and the scholarly voice seems to jump onto the page. Trouble is, I am not a scholar. I barely have expertise in my own left foot, much less the jumble of the English language. My use of words such as "ostentatious" and "plethora," make me sound like that person at a party who sits on a couch with her arms crossed, and a judgmental foot tapping onto a beer-vomit soaked floor. The graded assignments are labeled differently, but I know I shouldn't let the context scare me, especially seeing as my teacher looks like someone I could have coffee with and not be scared shitless. But putting a percentage next to my creativity makes me feel as I've had America's Next Top Boring Life, and I should really just write a narrative about how I ate cereal for breakfast. Or something.