"New Color?"

Ok. So I've been thinking for like two weeks now about dying my hair. Again.
My hair is dark blonde, so I always do gold-like highlights. But I was wondering if maybe a little bit of red, or caramel red might look good?
I was also looking for a haircut. I now have it past shoulder length, and, I'm tired and bored of it. I was thinking of doing something maybe like Kate Moss' blonde bob? Or maybe something like Keira Knightley back when she had it about chin length.
If you have any ideas, please speak up.
WG

"Burqa"

Sorry for the lack of posts recently. My life has been insane.

I have a costume party this weekend! I am wearing a pirate costume that looks amazing, and the funny part is it was completely improvised out of my closet. This party promises to be good.

The other day I was doing a debate on France and religion, secularisim, Sarkozy and his 'positive secularism'. When I first heard the controversial topic of the banning of the burqas, I couldn't help but disagree, I thought that they deserved freedom to wear what they wanted.,

But after doing appropiate research, I changed my mind. I totally support Sarkozy. The burqa is a sign of women subordination under man within the Muslim religion. I can't accept that. After reading One Thousand Splendid Suns, I saw what Muslim women go through. I saw their sufferings and can't say that I support that. I can't. Women have to be free. We are in the 21st century, not in 10th, and we still treat women like slaves?

Then there is the matter of security. With weekly news about kidnappings and murders I, as a school owner, couldn't allow completely covered people claiming childs. How do I know it's truly their parents and not some strange murderer?. I studied a case of a Muslim teen who was abused and beaten by her father, leaving her face disfigured, but nobody ever found out because of the burqa. And the girl lived with that. We can't accept that.

The resolution we presented was for muslim women to wear a scarf that covered their heads and complete body except for their faces; and to start wearing it after graduating from high school, when they are mature enough to decide wether or not they want to be part of such a religion.

That is not racism. That is the first step towards letting women live under the freelance of hope, opportunities and freedom all of us enjoy. This is the first step towards showing muslim faith the world is ruled by human rights and universal rights, instead of sharia law.

We must act towards that.
WG

"Happiness"

I read this article today on the living section of, I promise, the best online newspaper, The Huffington Post.
It is a quite intersting piece. If you read the antecendent, you might like it even more, nevertheless, as a stand alone piece, it's good. A bit cruel. But realist.
Here I adhere the http direction for you to read it: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/russell-bishop/men-arent-all-that-happy_b_325414.html.
Here are a few points I wanted to comment about.
"The quality of your life experience may have less to do with what happens to you and more to do with how you choose to respond". This is part of the article. And is what I've always saying. Things might come with a reason, but you give them the purpose,outcome and mission. By choosing. By reacting. By perspective. As Russel points, we can't live our lives with the infamous "If only", like I often do; an example being my entry about how IF I had the money things would be easier. It's true. But not real. And why getting all worked up over fiction? better to focus on real things that we can actually change here and now. Also, the article talks about how little "If only" succesful people and situations exist. When we win, of course we never blame it neither on the circumstance nor on someone else. But when it comes to failures or incapacities, which might not be our fault or decision, we disguise it. Blaming. But let's not blame, but look for solutions.

"In general, people are unhappy because they have compromised in some way. They either compromised in the relationship they got involved in, the job their working etc. When you settle for less than you desire or deserve, you aren't quite as happy. We are the some total of the choices we have made in life. What we are now is the result of how much we've compromised."
This is an intersting analisis on the situation by a site commentarist. Interpreting it, I think this might have something to do with being mediocre. Or al least the part of "when you settle for less than you desire or deserve". And the last part reminds me of "bet big, win big". More direct way of saying it, though.

"And on and on. Women are EXPECTED to have emotions and are encouraged to express them. Men are told in many ways, both overt and subvert, to NOT express them, and when they do, the ones they express are somehow inappropriate. I gave up a long time ago. This comment is absolutely serious, but it's so ingrained in our culture that most people never notice it."
This is also a commetary. I have to admit, I didn't expect this. I guess subconsiously I always knew this, but decided not to aknowledge it. Because I'm a huge feminist. And this was the moment I recognized men's troubles and charges as well. We women might be harshly judged by society in almost everything, but society also puts really harsh laws on men. At least women are recognized to have the right to say how we feel, and it's okay, since we are 'hormonal' 'susceptible' 'soft' 'intense' 'overwhelmingly emotional' 'jumping to conclusions easily', etc. Men, are supposed to be 'tough' 'practical' 'permanent poker faces' 'masculine' 'full of testosterone and empty of feelings' 'not sensitive' 'in charge', etc. And it actually got me wondering what is worse: To have a huge charge, but to be able to show it, and therefore your overcoming publicly acknowkedged; or to have a huge charge, but this one being secret, so that even if you manage to gain success, it is not so acknowledged since your purpose and desires are unknown to everyone but yourself? What is more frustrating?
I was really really really becoming less of a feminist when I read that and started thinking. Until another comment was published:
"I'm happy as long as I'm getting laid
you see that is the key to happiness as a man"
To whoever wrote that, I'd like you to know you totally screw it.
I think it is so inmature to say that. Sex is totally overrated by men (and, ok, some women). Not that I don't like it, but c'mon, are you really putting the weight of your happiness and fullfillment on a booty call or spontaneous hookup with someone either drunk or so frustrated that can't find someone that actually cares about them to have sex with? C'mon. That must definately be a lame, cliche, inmature excuse and/or cover. No human being can actually believe that is happiness. Not real happiness at least. Joy? Perhaps. But I remind you, the difference between joy and happiness is that joy is temporal and defined by moments and happiness is more permanent and defined by our personal satisfaction with ourselves.
Want to be joyful? Me too. We all want that. But first I want to be happy.
Like I once read, "Happiness is not only what you recorded, but also how you choose to remember".
"You could not chance the facts; only change the lens through which you looked at them"



WG

"To Do List"

I was thinking today about all of the things I wanted to do before dying. Here are some of them:
1. Free Falling (you go really high in the sky in a helicopter and then jump, go half way free fall, half way parachuting). This is a really exciting one, since I'm planning on doing it when I graduate from high school with my mom as a sign of being free, happy and everywhere.
2. Getting a Tattoo. Ok. So my parents don't know this yet. But I don't think they'll oppose, they have never said no, they have always taught me to have my own criteria and make my own life choices. There's a catch to this one, though, I have noo idea what the tattoo will be. I have a few options, but nothing for sure. If you guys know of any word that might be great for tattooing, please say. Maybe something french, latin or italian. Also planning on getting this done by graduation.
3. Man Haircut. I've always wanted to do this. I have a feeling this might be soon. I'm going shorter than chin length next week. We'll see when I'm ready for this.
4. Dedicating at least two entire summers to go help in Africa.
5. Living one entire summer at the shore of some exotic beach, hopefully in Greece, living out of fishing, bathing, swimming, partying and doing yoga.
6. Going to Milan Fashion Week.
7. Knowing Moscow, Helsinki, South Africa, Ireland, Naples, St. Tropez, India, Morrocco.
8. Writing a book.
9. Designing and Constructing my own house.
10. Participating actively on politics.
11. Having an inmense walking closet with the most amazing collection of shoes and clothes ever known to man.
12. Running the New York marathon.
13. Swimming the Canal that links France and England (don't remember the name right now).
14. Spending all of my money while I'm still alive. Not leaving anything to anybody or any place. Enjoy everything I've earned.
15. Becoming a yoga master.

The list goes on, but those are the most important. The vital ones.
What do you guys want to do before dying?
I better get started, right?

WG

I'm grieving. Grieving for the things I so much wish I could have. Those things that would make my dreams real. Those things that would make them more reachable and easy to achieve.
It's been years since I cried my heart out the way I did today.
And it's weird to know that I have never felt as sad, frustrated, disencouraged, down, as I do right now, not even with my mom's sickness or my grandma's death. Never have I felt this way.
It's as if I have just discovered Santa doesn't really exist. As if I finally opened my eyes and saw that I couldn't get everything I wanted, not even if I deserved it or worked harder than anyone else to have it. At least not when it's not entirely up to me.
This is the first time (and I have a feeling it won't be the last one) that money has really gotten in the way. In the past, I always got away with something. If I couldn't travel, I would work and have a blast. If I couldn't fulfill my dream of knowing the world in five stars hotels, then I did it some other way. But this time, is not as simple.
The things money could give. The pressure it would let off my shoulders, just to know, that maybe, I don't need to work so hard. That it's okay to have a break. Because, you know, you have benefits. It would be so great to make that decision, pay for it, and then just doing the minimal, already having planned and achieved in advance your future goals. With just one paycheck. With lots of ceros.
But no. That's not the way it's supposed to happen to me. I'm the girl with no money. The girl that can't write that paycheck without sacrificing waaay to much. The girl that has to get used to doing ten times what others do in order to get the same. The girl, that ok, maybe she will have a more rewarding expirience and merit and blah blah blah (also very important), but, what if she is equally or even more good than the ones that get it, but she doesn't, because she can't afford the benefits? She will have no merit, since success is limited and chances are she wouldn't get it by herself. Rewarding expirience? I don't think so.
If just she had the money. The money to assure herself success.

Maybe that is just life. And maybe I just have to learn to live with it. I know. But it's hard. Everyday the fight gets harder, sometimes disencouraging me to keep my eyes and mind in the price, but to instead just give up. So many times I have being tempted to let go of my dreams. I never had. But now, I don't know if maybe it is best to let go and find some other dream. To change it. To surrender. To just accept the idea that what I want is practically impossible. Perhaps that's what I should do. Perhaps that is what is right.
There is a quote that I used to love until know that it might be applicable to give up. It says: "To let go is to overcome". In the past, I only thought of it as in relationships and that sort of things so I thought it was right. But now, I'm not so sure. To let go is to overcome? As if I give up-surrender-let go of my all-time-childhood-dream I OVERCOME??? overcome what, exactly? Failure?

Possible. But I don't think I can accept that. Today's sob was proof of it. I rather torture myself with my dreams even though I know they probably won't happen.
I will put myself the frim purpose of never letting myself loose hope as I am doing now. Of learning to live in frustation.
I will try to keep going with what I have, and let the chips fall as they may. After all, I'm not ready to steal a bank in order to reach my dreams fast and easy. Not that I shouldn't consider that option.

WG

"Thoughts"

Does fear of failure get in the way of success?

"To be ambitious for wealth, and yet always expecting to be poor; to be always doubting your ability to get what you long for, is like trying to reach east by tragveling west. No matter how hard you work for success, if your thought is saturated with the fear of failure, it will kill your efforts, neutralize your endeavors, and make success impossible" Charles Baudouin.

"The most dangerous leadership myth is that leaders are born-that there is a genetic factor to leadership. This myth asserts that people simply either have certain charismatic qualities or not. That's nonsense; in fact, the opposite is true. Leaders are made rather than born" Warren G Bennis.

"Goodbye my lover, goodbye my friend"

It's easy talking about success.
But it is more didactic when you talk about success after having failed.
Remember what I said to you about the exam for the delegation? I did it.
Passed it. Went to the interview. Got the job.
My secret?
Being myself.

Last year, I went to the interview trying to be what I thought they wanted for the position. I pretended. I acted. I tried as hard as I could to show them that I was what they needed.
This year, I was myself. I went in there to sell myself. To show them, not who they wanted, but who I am. I made them understand that what you see is what you get. And they liked me more than last's year 'perfect' girl.
What I want to tell you is, well, someone has what you want. And you have what someone else wants. Someone is out there looking for you. You are what others need. Not a perfect person. You. With all your flaws and mostly, your virtues.

I have learned that I shall never pretend to be something I'm not in order to get a job, a friend.. Never ever again... I will be myself, and surely, they will like me. I'll have something they need.

Don't be afraid. If they don't choose you, it's not because you're bad, but because there is something better that needs you.
Be loyal to yourself. Be happy. Be joyful. Be free to say what you mean. Everywhere. Anytime. No restrictions when it comes to saying your opinion. Be bold. Live. Love. LAUGH.

I'm going to the beach tommorrow, so I'll be completlely out of internet for a few days.
Let you know when I'm back.
I'll miss writing to whoever is reading.

WG

I'm officially succesfull. Thanks for all who wished me well.

Moving on.

There was one phrase I heard the other day that managed to tune me out completetly in deep thought. It said: "How do I stop the monster without becoming one myself?"

This was said on a science-fiction context. With vampires and monsters and stuff. But can this be true and applicable to our daily lives? I mean, can we stop the evil of the world without becoming bad ourselves? This remainds me of "the end justifies the mean".
Does it? Are we really able to do enything in order to achieve something? Are we able to sacrify hundreds of lives in order to save thousands? Does the saving people justifies the killing of others?
Can we continue to proclaim ourselves as part of the "good people" in the world after committing murder to an assasin? Do we condemn those who justify it?- This resembles Nineteen Minutes, a novel by Jodi Picoult.

-What would you do if trapped in a situation in which aggressor and victim happen to be the same person? Would you feel guilty, knowing that sometimes, people, including yourself, are only what society pushes them to be, which is not necessarily the equal to good, love, and everything we “believe” in? Are you able to still be yourself, even when it means you’ll be rejected, bullied, and loveless? Are you brave enough? Or most importantly, could you convict, or blame someone for freeing itself? Without contradicting everyone’s right to life?
And- could someone blame you for wanting to be accepted? Isn’t that what we are all seeking for? Acceptance? Love? Friends? Success?. Even when it comes at the expense of becoming into someone we don’t want to be?. Is there anyone- at all- that is innocent enough to throw the first rock, to judge, to be exonerated from any punishment, even when the crime was committed under pressure?
These are just some of the incalculable interrogants and controversies the book Nineteen Minutes brings to your head, your heart; restlessly testing your judgment. It is, as many of Jodi Picoult’s books, a very polemic story told in the most realistic of settings- an all-American teenage lifestyle- and everything that comes with it- peer pressure, happiness, the interminable search for who we are, justice, love and; of course, the ancient law of the jungle- survival of the fittest. Teaching us, that there are many kinds of oppressors and oppressed in our society, as well as different types of killing, of evaporating someone.
The book focuses on a terrible tragedy, a school shooting. It tells the history before it, the meanwhile and its details, and how things changed and didn’t changed, how we sometimes prefer to forget, than to learn and evolve.
The author is able to wrap the reader in an overwhelming web of emotions, pushing it to walk in the shoes of every person that is involved- the killed, the witnesses, the families, the friends, the so called innocents, the extras, the shooter -and who is truly the one to blame.
The most scary and gut-wrenching thing about this book is not the story it tells, since we have already witnessed through the news a few times, nor the circumstances the actions happen in, because it is exactly the world we live in; but the details, the feelings. How understandable- yet unjustifiable- is the act. How guilty we all are sometimes without realizing it, without really looking and paying attention not to what we are doing but how the others feel about it. How our very least important actions- such as just a slight stare or a hello- might change someone’s life entirely. How easily can we, ourselves, create the very bunker we feel trapped in. Because of our lack of courage, because we feel that we must be what others expect us to be- something entirely opposite from what we are, and what we want. Because sometimes, we think that it is better to be loved for something we are not than to be hated for what we are. Maybe it can be because we don’t have enough confidence- and we fall in comparisons. Maybe it is our parent’s faults. Maybe it is us who were born wrong-minded. Maybe it’s our surroundings. Maybe it’s only fate. Or maybe, just maybe, it is that bad things happen to remind us what good is supposed to be.
The complexion is that all of the above and some etceteras’ are all accurate when it comes to whose fault it is. Because, really, there’s no specific culprit in the majority of crimes- I believe it is a mixture of circumstances, reactions, and acts that justify and precede the event, sometimes turning it into just an innocent response- a normal self-defense act. I think this because I can assure you that if you get to go to a prison and ask the convicts if it was entirely their fault- or if they really did it, and you’ll be warned about what you’ll hear- it was not them- and if it were- they had a very obvious and necessary reason.
And I’m not saying that then no one’s entirely guilty. Or that the victim is guilty for what happened to thee, since I do agree with death penalty and that you get what you give. BUT I’m also conscious that there are some things that are necessary, some things that need to be done, and it doesn’t makes you a bad person, or does it? When you’re killing the main contributors to your unhappiness and misery? It is NOT justifiable, nor I would ever do it, but it IS understandable. I’m just stating that sometimes, things happen for a reason. Sometimes we misunderstand. Sometimes, we’re not strong enough to move on and let go. Sometimes, we either fight back at all costs, or face something worse- loosing ourselves.
There are a lot of things that you will never forget about this book. Things you’ll sacrifice your sleep for just to think about them and to find the answers to the questions the characters have so long been asking: Am I what I portray? If not, who am I? Am I afraid of myself, and if not, am I willing to do whatever it takes to defend who I am and what I believe in?
After reading Nineteen Minutes, you will never buy a CD based on its cover. You will listen to the music first, and then proceed to check the lyrics. You will never criticize it, nor judge it, without really listening, really understanding. You will always, no matter what, stay true to yourself and know that things, aren’t often what they seem.

In this book, Peter wasn't able to defeat the monster without turning into one himself.

Now the question lays: Are we capable?

WG

"?"

Someone very nice sent me a survey/questionary through my e-mail for me to complete and publish in the blog.

So, here I go:


1. Pro-life or pro-choice: Pro-Life.

2. Celebrity you'd like to meet: Can't decide between Madonna, Tyra and Jack Nicholson.

3. Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohan: Mm. None?

4. A place you'd rather be right now: India.

5. Perfect date: Unexpected. Different. Dynamic. Real.

6. Role Model: Have none. I believe everyone's got something worth admiring, no one has everything to admire.

7. Currently Reading: World Without End by Ken Follet.

8. Weakness: Irreverent.

9. Strength: Bold, determined, passionate, authentic, honest.

10. Something I had to learn the hard way: "Not everything in life is black and white"

11. Something nobody knows about me: I'm a geek at heart.

12. Level of akwardness: More than most.

13. Favorite dessert: Tiramisu.

14. Eye color: Brown.

15. Hair: Now shoulder length, kindda chocolate brown with layers.

16. Height: Short. Reaally short.

17. Body tipe: Athletic.

18. Favorite TV Show: 90210, Lipstick Jungle, ANTM, Project Runway.

19. Favorite Designer: This season? Emilio Pucci, Balmain, Balenciaga, Louis V, Stella McCartney, Miu Miu, Gucci.

20. Favorite Store: Macy's, Topshop, Zara, Forever21.

21. Quote that defines you: "Between righteousness and peace, I choose righteousness"

Well, that was it.
Having an important event tommorrow, I'll explain later.
Wish me luck, hope and mostly, success.

WG

"Finding magic"

Mercedes- Benz. The commercial. The one were the blond woman goes into a library and tells the librarian she wants a burger and a milkshake. The librarian tells her they're in a library. The woman seems to look around and realize. Then she asks again in a lower voice.
Letters appear. Beauty without inteligence is nothing.

But what else can we say about this commercial besides the obvious?
Coherence.
We all are like that woman sometimes. We go to mass and even though we know we can't talk, we do it anyways. And then, we procalim we really believe Jesus is standing before us.
And that is just a little example of how incoherent we are sometimes, when we say some things, believe others, and do, well, none of the above.
Our lives lack coherence, logic and sense. But sometimes, it is not because we do things that don't go according to what we say we believe, but because we really don't know neither what to believe in nor who we are.
And how can we be coherent with ourselves if we are not yet aware of what defines us and what we stand up for?
That's the main question we need to start asking ourselves. Who are we. What we believe in. What we stand for. What defines us. What we think. And then, we can proceed to make action and self, one. We can start being coherent.

And one part of figuring out who we are, is understanding what virtues we have to improve. What we have to give.

As I like to think about it, "The magician with his tricks. You, with what?"

Once you figure out the answer, stick to it. Do things that if translated would mean your definition. Because sometimes, what we do speaks so loudly that others can't hear what we have to say. Just like the commercial.

WG