Remodeling the Cabin

In the fall of 2000, my dad built a little cabin in our backyard woods, made from reclaimed barn wood from my grandpa's farm. It is not big, but it is just enough to enjoy a good board game, invite some friends over, or tell scary stories in it. Oddly enough, I almost never go in it. This is mostly because it is either too hot or too cold outside, and when it is too hot outside, that also usually means there is poison ivy along the pathway that leads to the cabin. Not to mention, it is scary sleeping in the cabin because of wild animals making noises in the night, such as deer, coyotes, or raccoons.

 But I've realized these are not the only things keeping me from wanting to use the cute little house in the woods. Remember my earlier posts about hating oak woodwork in homes? Well, I also hate anything that looks like a log cabin. You see, the walls in the cabin are made of stacked boards of knotty pine wood. It looks very rustic, but it is just not my style. What I would like to do is make the place look more like a New England cottage. We already have some of the things needed for this. For example, all the windows and doors we salvaged from an old house that was being torn down, probably built in the early 1920s or 1930s or so. And there are nice wood floors in the cabin, too.

And now I have realized what needs to be done in order for me to like this cabin. All I need to do is paint the walls and maybe change the furniture and bedspreads. In addition, I will have my dad stain the wooden beams on the ceilings to a darker color and maybe either stain or paint the catwalk at the top of the cabin. Here is a photo of what I am thinking of the place looking like when it is finished:



You can see from this photo that the walls are made of individual pieces of wood, just like in our cabin, so if I paint the walls in it, they may resemble this photo. I was also thinking that painting the walls will brighten up the place and make it feel homier. I will also accessorize with colorful blue pillows that have a coastal/beach home/New England feel because once the walls are painted white (I think that is the color I will choose), it will already have that feel to it.

For extra storage and a better use of space, I think I will try to find a wicker coffee table/storage bin like the one pictured above so that people can have a place to rest their feet, play a board game, have a snack, or store coats, pillows, board games, etc. Maybe I will post some photos of the before and after and see what you guys think.

Brutal Boyfriend Murder

I recently finished watching the news on the murder case of Travis Alexander. It is a very strange case. It is believed that Jodi Arias is the murderer. There is evidence from her hand prints and blood on the bathroom shower walls, where she killed him. So the question is not whether or not she did it, but rather why did she do it? What reason did she have for murdering Travis Alexander? Or if she did not do it, why were her hand prints and blood at the scene of the murder?

It is strange because Jodi acts totally innocent, as if she does not remember anything or even that she did anything wrong. It is as though she was not aware of what she was doing or why. She still claims she is innocent, despite the obvious evidence. She claims she had no reason to harm him or kill him. She had nothing against him, no evil intentions. She quote "would never hurt him". Yet she now has three different stories telling what happened the days leading up to and on the day of the murder. She also says something about her grandfather's gun having been stolen from his home.

The other strange part is that she had more than one weapon with her. It is believed that Jodi shot Travis first, and the reason she also used a knife to kill him was because she could not get the gun to fire a second time. But why would she have planned in advance to bring a backup weapon with her? What would have made her think to do that, to think that maybe the gun would not get the job done? One would think that most people would only bring the one weapon, the gun. So this leads to other questions, such as whether or not there were other people involved in the murder, at the crime scene? Or was she maybe forced to kill Travis?

Something else I find truly bizarre is is that the other girls and roommates she lives with in jail think she should be freed from prison. They think she is an innocent girl with a big heart, that she would never have hurt her boyfriend, Travis. But if you were those other girls in prison, wouldn't freeing her be the last thing you would want for her? Wouldn't you be jealous that she would get to be freed but you would still have to live in a prison cell for who knows how many more years, if not the entire rest of your life? Her inmates think her behavior is very normal, and that nothing seems wrong with her, but they can tell she is hurt by all of this.

And the fact that some people believe the gun shot came last really confuses me because Travis was much bigger than her and you would think that Jodi would want to shoot him before stabbing her so that he could not defend himself and hurt her. You would think that because he is so big, he would have had more defensive wounds if she had stabbed him first and then shot him.

Here is a video of Jodi Arias' police interrogation.

So what do you think happened? Do you think Jodi Arias is innocent or guilty of committing the murder of her boyfriend, Travis Alexander? Or do you think she was forced to murder him and was a victim of domestic violence? I look forward to finding out more information on the murder case. We shall see what happens next.

Disney/Gender Roles

As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, our class is watching a documentary called "Miss Representation" in AP Lang and Comp. The film is about the media and how it negatively influences and/or portrays women. In one segment of the film, a statistic stated that between 1937 and 2005, only one Disney character was not seeking love as a main aspiration. The question I will be answering is "Between 1937 and 2005, which Disney character was not aspiring for love?". The answer to this question was found on this website.

So, what is the answer to this question? Which disney princess was not seeking romance? The answer is Mulan. Mulan was the only disney princess that was not looking for a handsome prince. Her mother and father kept pushing her to find a husband and get married, but Mulan did not want to. As a girl, her duty was to bring honor to the family and make herself a desirable bride according to Chinese tradition. Instead, Mulan pretends to be a man in order to fight in the war in place of her aged and woulded father. She chops off her hair, steals her father's armor, and takes off on the family's horse without telling anyone. She defies gender stereotypes and fights to save China. She trains to be a strong warrior with all the other men and does not want to be treated differently based on her gender.

Later on in the movie, Mulan is stabbed and her true gender is revealed when her wound is bandaged. The other men are outraged and leave Mulan on the mountain while they go to spread the news of the Huns' defeat. Mulan was treated as an outcast simply based on the fact that she was a woman, and the men thought they were the only ones who could fight for their country and be warriors. In the end, Mulan proves she is capable of more than what people expect of her when she tricks the Hun onto the rooftop and challenges him to combat. The hun is eventually killed and Mulan is praised by the emperor.

Mulan brought honor to her family through a greater act than making herself a desireable bride. She saved China and kept her dad from having to fight when he was too frail to do so himself. The emperor was proud of Mulan and this made her family very proud.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulan

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120762/plotsummary

http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/disney-princess/articles/45394/title/disney-princesses-role-models-young-girls

"For women, their value is how they look."

“For women, their value is how they look.”

A few days ago, in AP Lang and Comp, our class started watching a documentary called “Miss Representation”, a film about the harmful ways women and girls are portrayed in the media. With facts and statistics about the number of hours teens spend per day on media consumption, which would include listening to music, reading magazines, watching TV and movies, or simply being online on the internet, the documentary presented a case for girls in our culture growing up with unrealistic, impossible, frustrating or demoralizing images of what they are supposed to look like. Regardless of how accurate the data is, I am sure we could all agree that girls today are exposed to a daily onslaught of messages, direct or indirect, and that these messages define our cultural ideals, set standards, and plant ideas in little girls, teens and women on how they should look, how they should act, what they should like, what to buy and wear, and how to get guys to notice. 


“For women, their value is how they look,”the documentary states. There is this idea that a woman has to be perfect. They have to be skeletally thin and six feet tall. They have to wear lots of makeup. Their hair has to be perfect. Their skin has to be flawless. Their cheekbones have to be high. Teeth must be straightened and whitened. Asian women pay to have their eyes surgically altered to look more deep set. Women are trying to attain such an appearance that is simply unattainable. Even supermodels get photo-shopped to make their waists look smaller, or their chest bigger, or to cover up blemishes.Lips are injected to swell to bee-sting proportions, but noses are supposed to be smaller, not bigger. Ears can be cut and stitched closer to the head. Where does it end? If even the supermodels are not considered perfect, who is? Why are we comparing ourselves to something so unattainable? Just because the media makes us feel terrible for not being a certain way?

From a very early age, girls learn what the “ideal” woman should look like. They play with Barbies, see pictures of women in magazines, watch TV and see what actresses in Hollywood look like—we learn very early on what society expects of us. However, pretty much nobody ever lives up to these expectations. Some fall short more than others. Girls obsess over their skin, hair, height, build, weight, face shape, everything. Pretty girls tend to be popular, and less attractive girls may be socially shunned. Those who have the money to dress up with the latest trends have more friends than the girls wearing WalMart clothes or hand-me-downs. Self esteem plummets. It’s no wonder the depression rate has increased at such a high rate, along with anxiety and other mental disorders.

For all the alarming and compelling facts this film presents, I do find one thing I find that the focus is exclusively on females, and almost nothing is ever mentioned about men and how they too might suffer from how the media presents an ideal for them to live up to. Their fashion choices and hair styles may not be as excessive, but boys and men are pressured to look and act a certain way to fit in in this society. Just take a look at stores like Abercrombie and Fitch or Hollister or even Calvin Klein. Women and girls are seen only with slender, handsome men who have six-pack abs, bulging biceps and a golden sun-tan. Teenage boys take protein powders and lift weights constantly trying to “bulk-up” and meet the standard. It is considered a bad thing for boys to be skinny. Guys are pressured to be athletic and strong and to play sports. It seems to be true in every school that it's always the football players who are the most popular with all the hottest girls.

Male or female, all of us are being pressured to fit in and look just right. Women and girls may suffer the most pressure and the most uncomfortable fashions, such as high heels with narrow toes that resemble nobody's feet, and mascara, eye shadow, lipsticks, and other expensive little things that require us to buy a purse to carry it all around in. Guys get to carry a wallet in a back packet and not have to apply make up or wobble around in high heels or worry about a run in panty hose or a loose bra strap.  Guys don’t have to update their wardrobes as often, but they do have to look trendy and cool, whether the trend is pleated pants or flat fronts, distressed denim or the new palette of colored denim.I hope the day never comes when men, too, are expected to wear makeup, straighten or curl their hair, and buy a whole new wardrobe every season. I also hope that our culture's obsession with how we look will someday relax. We should be free to wear what feels good and looks just right, and to use our wardrobes, jewelry and hair styles to express who we are, not to make us all match each other like peas in a pod. Variety is under-rated. Conformity is over-rated. People who work in the media should try harder to send a message of being happy as we are, rather than making people feel they can never be as desirable as movie stars and models.

What should I blog about?

What should I blog about? Every week I am supposed to write three blogs totaling 1200 words for AP Lang and Comp class at my school. Every Sunday night I spend bent over the computer trying to find something to write about and get my word count up to 1200 words. Most of the time I get points docked for not having enough posts or not getting to the high-enough word count. Besides, why does anyone want to even read my blog? Why should people care about what I have to say if I don't even have anything that I want to say to write down on my blog? It is very frustrating and, personally, I don't think it is fair to expect this of students. What we say will be on the internet forever for our future employers to look at and it's not like we're even thinking about what we are writing half of the time. We are only writing these things because we are forced to for our AP class. How is that fair? What is does is it forces us to write  as many words as possible and use as many filler words as possible just to satisfy the requirement of 1200 words per week instead of writing quality posts with only the words that are necessary. That is the problem of many writers today. They simply use too many words and are therefore forced to cut out lots of parts from their novels or stories. But instead, I'm here trying to do the opposite. I'm TRYING to write as many words as possible instead of getting clearly to the point. And I'm not proud of it. If it were up to me, all my posts would be pretty short and concise. I would be straight to the point and say what I needed to say and then I'd be done with it. It would be much easier for readers to read anyway. Who wants to read really long posts with lots of unnecessary words? Definitely not me. Certainly not.

The Vampire Diaries: The Book vs. The TV Series

I recently read The Vampire Diaries by J.L. Smith after having seen the popular TV show series (which I never thought I would be so engrossed in) and so I decided I would compare/contrast the TV series to the books the show was actually based on. In fact, I had started watching the show before I had ever known the books existed. When I first started watching it with my mom, I was actually very skeptical. I thought it was just a knock-off of the Twilight Saga. There were so many similarities. For example, an ordinary brown-haired, brown-eyed teenage girl falls in love with the mysterious, exotic new guy who is inhumanly beautiful. All the girls are in love with him but they know they'll never have a chance with him. At first, it seems as though the guy hates her, but she finds out he actually loves her. Then the girl finds out he is a vampire, but she still loves him anyway, etc. etc. I'm sure you get the point: the two stories are very similar. But to my surprise, it turns out the Vampire Diaries was written way before Twilight ever became popular. If anyone is a copycat, it's Stephenie Meyer for stealing ideas from J.L. Smith. But that's not why I'm writing this. Please do not think I have anything against Stephenie Meyer. I was, after all  hooked on the Twilight Series like every other girl, but my goal here is to compare/contrast The Vampire Diaries TV series with the books.

As with every other novel that is turned in to a TV series, there will be many similarities, but also many differences. One of the biggest differences is in the protagonist of the story, Elena Gilbert. In the book, she is frequently described as a beautiful blonde with very fair skin and blue eyes, but on the show she is a beautiful brunette with brown eyes. Many fans were furious when the cast list came out and they discovered the actress wasn't blonde. Also, on the show the town she lives in is Mystic Falls but in the book the town she lives in is Fell's Church, Virginia. The next difference I noticed was that in TV series, the popular football player and jerk is named Tyler Lockwood, but in the book his name is Tyler Smallwood. This happens with a few other characters as well, such as Bonnie Bennett (Bonnie McCullough in the books) and Matt Donovan (Matt Honeycutt in the novel). Also, on the show, Bonnie is African American with brown hair and green-ish eyes, but in the books she has red curly hair and fair skin.

There are some characters that exist in the book but not in the show. For example, one of Elena's best friends, Meredith, is not mentioned on the show. There is also another friend of Tyler's named Dick Carter that exists in the book but not the TV series. Instead of Jeremy for a brother, Elena has a younger, four-year-old sister in the books named Margaret, and instead of living with her aunt Jenna like on the TV series, Elena lives with an Aunt Judith and her fiance Robert.

On the show, Caroline Forbes is a rival of Elena's at first, but not nearly as bad as in the books, and instead of having blonde hair like on TV, Caroline is a brunette in the novel. Also, in the novel, Caroline steals Elena's precious diary that she writes in every night and threatens to read it to the entire school. This is after Mr. Tanner was attacked and killed by a vampire the night of the school dance/Halloween party. The entire school believes Stephen to be the killer, and Elena's diary mentions that he has been acting strange lately and keeping secrets from her. If Caroline were to read Elena's private diary to the entire school, it could reveal Stephen's big secret. This never happened in the show. It only happened in the book. In addition, Caroline does not date Damon in the books like she did on the show, and the evil villain Klaus has not been mentioned in the books so far either (I am just now starting the second book, so he may be mentioned later on).

In the books, Stephen Salvatore is described as "Short-Dark-and-Handsome", but on the show he is of average height if not fairly tall. He lives in the Salvatore Boarding House with an old woman named Mrs. Flowers in the books, but on the show he lives with his nephew (Yes--his nephew. He looks much older than Stephen but you have to remember that Stephen is a very old vampire). This also brings up the topic of Stephen's age. So you may be wondering, "Exactly how old is Stephen?". Well, on the TV series he says he has been seventeen years old since 1864, but in the novel Stephen says he has been seventeen since the 15th century.

Matt is essentially the same in the book and the TV show, besides the last name. In the book it says, "Matt Honeycutt was all-American. His blond hair was cropped short for the football season, and his skin was sun burnt from working outdoors on his grandparents' farm. His blue eyes were honest and straightforward." Matt is Elena's ex-boyfriend and he is genuinely a nice guy. He doesn't have a lot of money but he is Elena's best friend and he is always there for her. He is genial with Stephen when most of the other boys at school cold-shoulder him. He allows Stephen to borrow his car to pick vervain for Elena when he has no idea what is is for. Matt is a very trustworthy, likable character. In the books, however, I don't think Vikki is Matt's sister.

Just as on the show, Alaric Saltzman takes over for the class when Mr. Tanner is killed/attacked by a vampire the night of the school dance. And just as Stephen's evil brother Damon has a black crow that scares people, it is the same in the books. The one difference, however, is that Elena discovers that Damon is her future husband (in the novel--not the TV show) when Bonnie practices witchcraft in the attic.

Remodeling the Master Bathroom

I am absolutely thrilled. It seems as though I have convinced by parents to remodel/update their master bathroom. It's about time! For almost fourteen years now that bathroom floor has been covered in wall-to-wall sea foam green carpeting. (Yes, carpeting in a bathroom! Yuck.) The cabinets are cheap, white particle board and with a plastic laminate, and the light fixtures are outdated. The shower is nothing impressive at all, a beige, one-piece, fiberglass or plastic shell that is forever grimy with hard water deposits, even though we have a water softener, and we have to squeegee the water off the walls after every shower. It's time for Dad and me (no, not Mom, she apparently does not care) to get to work on replacing the junk with quality stuff that also looks a million times better!

The great thing about my parents' master bathroom is that it is HUGE. My mom has actually always complained about that, for some reason. "Wasted space." The bedroom is "too big," and the master bath is bigger than her dining room was in the Bowman Woods, and in fact, we have no dining room in this house. She would prefer a small bedroom and tiny bathroom if it meant keeping a big dining room, or any size dining room. She thinks it is totally unnecessary for a bathroom to be so big, but on the contrary, most home buyers complain that the master bathroom is not big enough. Double sinks area  must, in this day in age, and my mom's much-maligned bathroom has it all. It surprises me, given the horrible taste of the woman who designed this house, that I have a lot to work with. The biggest problem is the aesthetics . All I have to do is remodel and it will soon feel like a luxury suite--actually, a luxury cave.

You see, my mom has always loved natural stone and has always dreamed of living in a cave--a slightly strange preoccupation, you might think, except when you consider that cave floors are rock and dirt, and windows would have not glass to keep clean. As Mom loves to say, the sun and wind are great housekeepers. (She, on the other hand, is not).

My idea is to recreate the cozy, rock-solid feel of a cave by installing Brazilian black slate flooring: 12 x 24 inch tiles laid in a staggered pattern, the way brick walls are, for visual interest. In addition, the shower walls will be covered in natural limestone. My inspiration comes from --please do not make fun of it unless you try it; Damon is known to be as addicting as sugar and crack cocaine are said to be--a TV show set in the South, with scenes filmed in an actual mansion in Virginia, called....drum rolls....The Vampire Diaries. (Yes, it is true: I have watched all four seasons.) Damon Salvatore's bathroom has black slate floors and a stone shower wall stacked all the way up to the ceiling. It is my idea of the perfect bathroom (with or without Damon in it). As for the walls, I will be painting them a warm gray because it seems to be the only paint color that goes well with oak woodwork. Speaking of oak woodwork, that reminds me, I will have the cheap cabinets in their bathroom replaced with high-quality quarter sawn oak because it looks fantastic with the slate floors.

As for the sinks, I have not yet made up my mind. As it is, the stone going up the shower walls will be expensive enough at $15 per square foot. I had originally thought of doing vessel sinks, like an onyx sink bowl, but they start at around $500 to $800 each! How terribly unfortunate. Oh well, maybe I can convince them it will be worth the money because my mom loves onyx so much. After all, our fireplace is faced in honey onyx.

Stay tuned, and I'll let you know what sinks I've decided on. Never mind that Dad says he absolutely will not replace the existing sinks. I will convince him. He has agreed to replace the floor and paint the walls. After that, he will see how awful the fake-wood, white cabinets look, and if he replaces those, he is sure to notice how scratched and rusty the white porcelian sinks are. The faucets are drippy and coated with lime, rust and I don't want to know what else. Once Dad notices and replaces the sinks, the ugly shower stall will surely start to bother him. How out of place it will look! First the floor and newly painted walls, then the cabinets, then the rest of the room. After all, nations have been annexed and conquered more gradually and unstoppably than that.

Before I go, I will share with you a few of the images that have inspired me. Feel free to cast your vote here: yes, Tim and Carol, you should, by all means, update your bathroom!

Here is just one example of an onyx sink bowl:


Pretty impressive, right? It is almost transparent.

Another option is a sink bowl made of stone:


This is neat, but I feel as though it might be a little too weird.

Here is an example of black slate flooring next to oak woodwork:



Here is a photo of Damon Salvatore's bathroom from The Vampire Diaries:


No. I did not include Damon. You will have to tune in to "The Vampire Diaries" to see for yourself. You could google Ian Somerhelder, the actor who plays Damon, but it really would not be the same.