Quite a Quote: The Dali Lama

"Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional."  -The Dali Lama

This is just a quick post because I saw this quote & had to share. They're good words to remember in our day-to-day lives. We control our own thoughts & feelings. I'm going to try to remember this while I push through in my dissertation. I'm here because I love philosophy, & I shouldn't feel pressure & stress when I can feel excitement & curiosity & love for learning.


Hopefully I'll get a chance to post something more substantial soon. Have a lovely end of the week!


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Song of the Day: Lipstick Jungle

I'm obsessing over the song 'Lipstick Jungle' by Newton Faulkner:

Isn't it addicting?

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Rights for Women Around the World

I recently reconnected with a friend of mine from high school, who is now teaching in Korea. She has started a blog dedicated to spreading the word about the status of women's rights across the globe, & she's hoping to start an organization to make a change. Please check out her blog Rights for Women Around the World. Please pass her link on, & if you're interested in getting involved (like I am!), then let her know!

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Random Tuesday: Garlic-icious

* I love getting postal surprises, but how ridiculous is my mom's most recent package?? (See below.) I kind of understand her reasoning behind it (I won't go into it now), but that doesn't take much away from how silly it is that she spent so much on shipping to send me a giant jar of garlic when I move in three weeks. So every meal between now and then will be... garlic-icious.

* Isn't Christoph Niemann's NY Times blog Article City great? My favorite is The Haunted Household.

* I desperately want to make lemon-poppy seed cookies. Speaking of cookies, did you know that Martha Stewart puts out a Cookie of the Day?

* This comic strip illustrates my life well.

* My first chapter needs to be done by Thursday night!!! Freaking out, ahhhh!

* That's all for now! Happy Random Tuesday!

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Scattered {blog, dissertation, Brighton} Thoughts

* I'm sure I'm not the first to say this but how exciting is the CA Prop 8 overturn?!?! Woop woop for California, my home!

* How cool is it that you can get your blog turned into a book? I'm a bit tempted to get a physical copy of all of my ramblings from the past year or so. It's pretty fun just to see a free preview!

* Oh my! My first post was on July 23, 2009. So I've been on this here site for over a year. Crazy.

* I'm a bit of a blogger failure at the moment: not much posting lately, the past few Thursdays have gone by without Travel writings, my camera has been tucked away in my desk drawer. I'm going to try to be more vigilant, but I can't make any promises with my dissertation deadline in only six weeks! Ahhhh!!!

* Speaking of the big project, it's actually kind of coming along. I have 1,500 words, which is only a tenth of the target (15,000), but it's a start. I also found this awesome program called Scrivener (Macs only - sorry PC users!) that helps organize large pieces of writing. {image above via the Scrivener site}

* New goal dissertation word count goal: 3,000 words per week!

* Jonty & I are heading down to Brighton tomorrow!!!!! I'm too excited for words. It is one of the places in the UK that I've always known I'll like, always wanted to visit, but have never been to. AND it's Gay Pride Weekend!!! I couldn't be more stoked. I can't wait to celebrate the Prop 8 overturn & read & picnic by the sea with my boy! It's definitely a necessary break from dissertation brain-frying.

What are you guys doing this weekend? Let's all post lovely photos at the start of next week! :.)

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