On Aunt Flo and Things We're Not Supposed to Talk About

We're going to talk about something that's going to alienate my male readers for a bit.

Periods.

And that is precisely why we're going to talk about them.  Because we don't talk about them.  Because half the world's population has them or has had them.  And they're perfectly natural and normal and, y'know, actually a good thing for your body, and women are expected to treat them like a dirty little secret.

I watched a video the other day about stupid things women have to deal with, and one of the things it mentioned was having to sneak a tampon to the bathroom.  I'll be the first to admit, I'm embarrassed to have to buy "feminine hygiene products"...especially from a male clerk.  But my question becomes why?  Why is there a taboo against a natural, healthy, normal thing?  Just because it's a little gross?  Yeah, well, so are farts, but it's something you can't control and, I've noticed, most guys don't feel bad about doing in public anyway.

Now, I am by no means saying you have to love your period.  Is it a great sign that everything's hunky-dory in your endocrine system?  Absolutely.  In fact, it's a great indicator that you're eating right, your ladybits are all in order, and that you're not too stressed, as any of those can affect the frequency or heaviness of your period.  But, let's be serious, periods can really suck.

Aside from having to spend several days crafting schemes to somehow get everything you need into the bathroom without anyone noticing, there's all the crazy stuff that happens to your body.  I had a (male, obviously) friend once tell me that there has been no medical link found between PMS hormones and mood swings (and that therefore the mood swings are all in your head).

My response was to look him in the eyes and tell him that, even if that were true, there are plenty of not-in-our-head reasons for mood swings on your period.  PMS hormones cause bloating, fatigue, bizarre food cravings, headaches, breast sensitivity, cramps, nausea, and a whole host of unfortunate physical happenings.  So, no, maybe my emotions are not directly impacted by the change in hormones.  But tell me how you feel when you're sore and tired, feeling fat because your clothes don't fit right, and still can't stop yourself from craving potato chips.  Like I said, periods suck.

But just because they suck and are maybe a little bit gross doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about them.  It's just another one of those things we're taught not to talk about because it's not polite -- but then how do you know what a warning sign is for when something isn't right?  Period problems can get really out of hand, and it's important that we be okay enough as a society that when a girl's health is at risk, she isn't ashamed to talk about the fact that it's her time of the month.  Also, it would be nice to not have to bring my purse to the bathroom every day for a week.  Thanks.

Your Friend (the PMS Tiger (great meme, look it up)),
Rachel Leigh

Update

Hello lovelies!

So this happened yesterday:

Yes, that is my laptop.  So, if my posting is more limited than usual, you know why.  I suppose that's what I get for naming my laptop after a character in a Shakespeare tragedy.  Sorry, Desdemona.

In other news, this blog is now a Project Wonderful publisher, which, yknow, means I'm now a massive sell-out and should immediately forsake my writing for the purposes of preserving my soul.  Or something like that.  But, in all seriousness, Project Wonderful is an independent ad site which runs the ads for several of my favorite blogs and webcomics, and I'm actually pretty honored to have joined the Project Wonderful family.

For the record, I am taking name suggestions for Desdemona's little brother/sister, when he/she arrives.  Maybe something a little less tragic.

Best,
Rachel Leigh

On Street Fairs, Weather, and Bad Parenting

There are certain days when I wish I wrote a food blog.  Like today, when my stomach is full of delicious Richmond Greek Festival moussaka and duck fat french fries from a place called Rox, who had a booth at a street festival called Broad Appetit.

But the fact is that I don't run a food blog, and even if I did, that's still probably not what I would be talking about today.

Because, well, I need to rant.

This was not a place for your infants or pets.  It was 90 degrees today in Richmond (which is, admittedly, not all that unusual) and is, honestly, perfectly fine weather for a street food festival.  It is not, however, fine for babies and dogs.  The National Weather Service points to any temperature above 82 degrees with high humidity as a reason to use extreme caution for risks of heat stroke, dehydration, or hyperthermia.*  These risks are significantly greater for children and the elderly.  Also, I'm sure your poodle in full winter coat isn't appreciating it either (although, shoutout to the SPCA for having an air-conditioned RV and water for all the dogs who were out there in this heat anyway).

I also don't know where people get the idea that large crowds, particularly large crowds where people will be drinking, are a good atmosphere for a small child or pet.  They could get tripped on, spilled on, or in any way hurt extraordinarily easily in those kinds of situations, and aside from that, it's incredibly overstimulating.  Your child is not appreciating the street food and craft beers that you are currently purchasing beer tickets for.  As a matter of fact, he's red in the face and on the verge of unconsciousness and I'm pretty sure you should go find a doctor.

Hire a babysitter.  Leave the dog at home with water and air conditioning.  You're not doing anyone a favor by bringing them to events like these.

Yours in frustration,
Rachel Leigh

*http://www.nws.noaa.gov/os/heat/index.shtml#wwa

On TV and Hormones

There must be some clause in every television writer's contract that says that, if you write for a television series aimed at anyone from their early teens to their late twenties, you must have one episode entitled "Let's Talk About Sex."

In this episode, the main character (or even several members of the cast) have some sort of crazy sexual awakening that ultimately leads to "the Talk" with either their partner or their parents, and several uncomfortable hijinks ensue for all involved! It's super funny and super awkward! Lol hormones and condoms!

As of right now, there are at least 8 series which have had this same episode, and while Salt 'n' Pepa gave us all a great song title with which to encompass this extraordinarily old plot device, it's time to give it a rest. It's a cliche title for a cliche idea, which reflects a time when most kids didn't have access to sex education -- or the Internet. No one's first exposure to the idea of condoms or birth control or STDs or pregnancy is from The Talk anymore. Sex Ed, 16 and Pregnant, every teen show on television, and Wikipedia have all made sure of that. (Of course, that still doesn't insure people will be safe about it, either.). Sure, the Talk is still a big moment in any coming of age show. I doubt there will ever be a time in history when talking to your parents about sex isn't uncomfortable. But there are less cliche ways to address the issue. Or at least come up with a new title. I really like the sound of "Lol Hormones and Condoms!"

Unclichedly yours,
Rachel Leigh

On Digital Humanities and My Job

I don't often talk about my work, but seeing as I'll be doing it 40 hours a week for the next seven weeks, maybe it's not such a bad idea to give everyone a little 'splaining.

If you followed the other blog linked to this account, you probably know I'm a writing consultant, as I used that blog to discuss the training process and the challenges I expected to face as a writing consultant.  But what you may or may not know is that for the last three years, I have worked at the UR Digital Scholarship Lab.

The DSL is a Digital Humanities research lab.  To a lot of people, digital humanities sounds like something of an oxymoron, because the humanities (history, philosophy, etc) tend to be pursuits we naturally link with neo-Luddism.  Okay, no, most people don't think it's an oxymoron -- mostly, they just kind of look at me like "huh?"

Our work in the lab is some bizarre hybrid of historical research and computer science skills that come together to create interesting historical resources which match the modern age -- interactive maps, updated digital archives, things which make often inaccessible research or concepts modern and graspable.

My pet project since I've worked there has to be Visualizing Emancipation -- an interactive map of the emancipation process during the Civil War.  A lot of people think (and we're certainly taught) that Emancipation happened when Lincoln made the Emancipation Proclamation and, like a magic spell, all the slaves were free.  Maybe, if your education was a little more in-depth, you were taught that what gave the emancipation of slaves legal teeth was the passing of the 13th Amendment.  Yay no more slaves!

What VE shows is the fact that the process was much more complex than that, and also precisely that -- it WAS a process.  Every emancipation event in the database corresponds to a primary or secondary source which can point to the exact date at which a slave ran away, was liberated, was re-enslaved, or any number of other major events which focus on the fact we're not just talking about a historical or political moment in time.  We're looking at the lives of people with real agency and whose freedom was not simply given to them.

This is not even to touch on the continuing plight of slaves and human trafficking victims which persists in a country that points to a point in history as the time when Americans stopped owning other Americans.  But that's a topic for another day.

For the time being, if you want to check out what I've been up to or the Visualizing project, you can go to http://dsl.richmond.edu, http://dsl.richmond.edu/emancipation, or follow the project on twitter at @vizemancipation.

Historically (and digitally) yours,
Rachel Leigh

On Summer in the City

Greetings, reader-type people!

I moved in yesterday to THIS lovely space:

That's right -- I'm living in a single (well, a single room in a suite) for the next eight weeks while I work at school.  I'll be spending the summer in Richmond for the first time ever, which is both really exciting and kind of bizarre.  As you can tell, I am clearly doing fun things all the time since I am clearly not blogging ever at all ever.

But I'm actually looking forward to the chance to get to know myself and this area/city a lot better over the next few weeks -- I'll get to experience what an actual 40-hour work week feels like (and figure out if I'm cut out for it at all), and hopefully get to spend time with some of my favorite people when I'm not at work.

Looking forward,
Rachel Leigh

On Monsanto and Frankenfood

When a friend of mine suggested I write a post about Monsanto, my first response was, "What about Monsanto?  Pretty much everything they do is evil."

...Exactly.

Monsanto, for those who don't know (though I suspect most of you do) is the number one producer of GMOs (genetically-modified organisms) and GMO seeds in the world.

Now I am not one of those people who is personally against GMOs as a food source.  And I think the use of the term "frankenfoods" to discuss crops which have been genetically-modified to be pesticide-resistant (or to grow faster or any number of the interesting things we've been able to do to seed to increase their growth and distribution potential) is a detriment to the debate because it starts out leaving a bad taste (ha, pun) in everyone's mouth.  In all honesty, I think GMOs could be the future of food production and the solution to the global food crisis, because they allow for greater and more fruitful production of food products.

My problem with Monsanto is how they USE their GMOs.  First, they have a patenting process which is entirely antithetical to their supposed goal of providing "poor people" with "cheap food," as their CEO stated just today.*  If the goal is to allow access to cheap food, then patenting the seeds you've designed to grow more efficiently is entirely hypocritical -- it creates a monopoly, which by the very nature of a monopoly drives the price up.  Sure, your foods are cheap now, but imagine how much cheaper they would be if you allowed for market competition.

The second problem I have with Monsanto is which products they make cheaper and more accessible to poor people -- corn and soy.  Two products which are precisely not what we need to further incentivize in the American diet.  The cost of corn is already artificially low, thanks to the subsidies corn farmers receive from the government (though that is a rant for another day), and as a result, you find it in nearly every cheaper (and worse for you) food alternative in every step of the food manufacturing process.  Corn-fed beef as opposed to grass-fed.  High fructose corn syrup as an alternative to natural sugars.  And, surprise surprise, these ingredients sneak their way into all those foods which are responsible for a nation-wide obesity epidemic, which primarily hits those lower-income shoppers who are supposedly "helped" by Monsanto's cheaper products.

Finally, of course, there are the massive sets of human rights abuse allegations against Monsanto, ranging from the domination of small farms to health concerns to widespread rumors about the use of child labor in their supply line.  Leaving out the questions of health or business practice, these are simply ethical concerns.  Monsanto is responsible for a number of major concerns, which have repeatedly landed them on human rights watch lists,** and the sum total of their egregiously-questionable business decisions make them a reasonable target for criticism.  I don't think Monsanto can be the be-all-end-all of the GMO debate because, if they are, the future of GMOs looks grim.

Yours (in some strange combination of hunger and disgust),
Rachel Leigh

*http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/16/hugh-grant-monsanto-elitism_n_3285378.html?utm_hp_ref=business
**http://www.globalexchange.org/corporateHRviolators#Monsanto

On Mental Health and Confessions

Back when I started this blog, I anticipated a lot of late-night rambles.  I think, however, that this is only the second late-night post I've written since I started this.

One of my big blogging idols, who runs the blog Hyperbole and a Half and is easily one of the funniest and most talented bloggers I have encountered in my time on the internet, has made two of her most recent posts (although one of them was admittedly about a year ago) about depression and how depression has impacted her work.

If you've followed me at all, you know I am a huge mental health advocate.  I can talk to you about what a comprehensive mental health policy on a college campus looks like (and what it doesn't, here's looking at YOU, Cornell).  I can tell you that 1 in 4 Americans will suffer from a mental illness in their lifetime, that many of those who do not get help will consider or attempt suicide, and that 1,000 college students will take their own lives this year.  I can also, and will, tell you that your mental illness or mental health concern does not define you, nor does it make you any less whole or less worthy a person, and that no one worth having in your life will love you any less because of it.

But I will admit, I am ashamed of my mental illness.  Anxiety disorders, severe confidence issues, and intermittent depression have dominated my interactions with myself, my work, and others for as far back as I can remember.  I have also come to realize that when any of those concerns become stressed, I have a hard time maintaining a healthy relationship with food -- I either eat far too much and cannot control myself or I find the idea of food so unappealing that I may not eat all day unless I force myself to.

I'm making this post not to force my issues on others -- I do have a small group of people in my life who have been absolutely wonderful resources for me to work through my issues -- but because I feel, as someone who pushes so strongly for people to not see mental illness as a failing of character or something to be ashamed of, that I have been terrible when it comes to practicing what I preach.  I have no right to push for people to own their battle scars if I cannot do it myself.

Yours,
Rachel Leigh

On Finals Week (Page 6 of 8)

It's the last Sunday of the semester, and I'm holed up in the library writing a blog post.  You know what that means -- it's Finals week, and I'm once again using this blog as an excuse to procrastinate on whatever it is I am actually supposed to be doing.  Finals Week posts tend to be, in some ways, reflective, as I get a chance to look back on a semester of life lessons and stories and stupid generalizations (like my post about judging you based on where you study).

This one's a little different, because most of the time, Finals Week comes with a sense of finality.  Instead, I find myself already thinking ahead to three weeks from now when I'll be moving all of my stuff back into the dorms at U of R for my summer job.  It feels like nothing's really ending, which I think is compounded by my fundamental inability to grasp the fact that I'm going to be a senior in about two weeks.  None of it seems real -- nothing's ending, nothing's starting, it's just kind of fading into itself.  Is this what the real world is like?  Who knows?

For those of you who have finished your finals already -- well, I hate you.  For those of you still struggling through, best of luck!

'Twas the night before finals
And all through UR...

I'll come up with a way to finish that rhyme someday.

Good luck,
Rachel Leigh

On Take Back the Night

As I take a break from taking notes on why Paul Feyerabend thinks we should throw method in science out with the bathwater, I want to talk about Tuesday night.

Tuesday, April 9th at UR was Take Back the Night.  For those of you who don't know what Take Back the Night is, it began in Philadelphia in the 1970s in response to the problems that women face walking alone at night.  Women are taught to fear the dark and the things that go bump within it, and Take Back the Night is intended to empower women and reclaim what has repeatedly been taken away.  It is primarily a sexual assault/rape awareness campaign, and at UR involves an open-mic style speaking event and a candlelight vigil.

It is a really moving event, but I think more than anything what I love about Take Back the Night is the extent to which it 1) puts a face to the idea of a survivor of sexual assault and 2) forces you to look at people as whole, complex individuals who have faced things and have proven themselves to be extraordinarily strong in the face of something that breaks a lot of people.  I know that I, personally, have this overwhelmingly powerful reaction whenever I see someone now who I have seen speak at TBtN in the past.  It is a combination of sympathy, empathy, and respect, sadness for what they have gone through, and pride for the strong and wonderful people they continue to be in spite of it.

I was heartbroken to see the sheer number of women who are a part of my daily campus community who went up to speak about something that no one should have to face and extraordinarily impressed and inspired by the number of strong, brave, beautiful women who refuse to let their rapists, stalkers, abusers, or scars define them.

I am proud to know you.  I am proud to fight with you.

Yours,
Rachel Leigh

On Margaret Thatcher

As I'm sure you've heard, Margaret Thatcher passed away.  (So did Lilly Pulitzer.  Sorry, I go to a southern school, I am required to know these things.)  If you haven't heard that Margaret Thatcher passed away, then, well, I'm sorry you're getting your news from me.  I am far from a reliable news source.  If you don't know who Margaret Thatcher is, well, then... I'm concerned.  Go to Wikipedia.

Anyway, may the Iron Lady of Britain's conservative age rest in peace.  We may not have agreed on all our politics (though, hey, she started one of the world's first free needle-exchange programs to prevent the spread of blood-communicable diseases among drug users, so we're not in complete opposititon!), but the fact remains that a political giant has passed.

In a lot of ways, I admire Margaret Thatcher in spite of her politics, because she was a woman in politics, who was widely-respected as a force to be reckoned with on the global stage.  She may have been a lot of things, including more conservative than I even pretend to be, but she was a truly strong and powerful woman.

Rest in Peace, Iron Lady.  I'm Sure the Doctor misses you fondly.

Politically,
Rachel Leigh

On North Korea (and an update!)

Greetings, darling readers!  It is now April, and after making many an obnoxious comment about March's terrible weather (in like a lion, out like a lamb, my ass -- more like out like a yeti), a weekend of glorious weather has befallen our humble university community.

Just in time to find me holed up in the library working on about 40 pages worth of papers.  Yay college?

This weekend was the glorious occasion of Pig Roast, which gave me a chance to escape from fears about North Korea losing their minds and deciding to fire missiles at all of us.  Has anybody seen Ze End of Ze World?  Because apparently North Korea has decided that "those ___ sons of a b*tches are going down."  Now we just need some French guy complaining he's too Le Tired to fire back.

Forgive me for making light of such a serious situation, but realistically, if there is some power hungry little man in North Korea who thinks that launching a nuclear bomb in the direction of any U.S. military station, be in South Korea, Japan, or Guam, is going to end with anything short of his country getting wiped off the map in retaliation, I sadly have no other response but to laugh.  Mostly because there are very few forces in this world more powerful than a desperate man with nothing to lose.  Those people do some pretty crazy things.

That being said, I hope we somehow avoid a nuclear holocaust long enough for me to continue updating you all on the thoughts that go through my head.  Keep on the lookout for posts on mental health, summer, and exams, all coming soon!

Building my panic room as we speak,
Rachel Leigh

On March Madness

It's March.  If you don't live under a rock, you know what that means.  It means that every college sports fan you know, and even some people who aren't, will be glued in front of the television for the next few weekends.

It also means brackets.  Now, brackets are just an interesting statistical experiment, because a) despite the painstaking efforts that go into determining seeds for the tournament, they never really seem to hold in practice and b) no matter how much effort you put in, it seems like there's always that one person who lucks their way into a better bracket than yours.

Don't get me wrong, I get why some people make three and four brackets, each differentiated by a few key decisions.  But I also kind of...don't.  Sure, it's exciting, but unless you're an intense gambler with a lot of time on your hands, I really don't get the hype.

Maybe someone can explain it to me.  Meanwhile, time to return to stressing over mine.

Madly,
Rachel Leigh

On Major Life Decisions

"Everyone I know is getting married or pregnant. I'm just getting more awesome."

~Barney Stinson, How I Met Your Mother

Okay, hold the phone.  Who told everyone around me that it was okay to start getting engaged and married or popping out babies?  When did I miss the memo on this whole life-changing-decisions thing?

I feel like I've got my life in order when both my socks match and I wake up before noon.  How is it possible that people my age are making these huge decisions about spending the rest of their lives with someone?  Or multiple someones, apparently.

I guess I'm torn, because I've read a number of things about how this generation is wasting our 20s, because we think we have our whole lives ahead of us to make these huge decisions, so it doesn't matter if we don't settle down or figure our lives out.  And I rationally know that that really just isn't the case.  But I don't feel like I'm emotionally or personally ready to start making those kinds of choices.

And I think a lot of this comes down to another big difference between Denmark and the States -- because in Denmark, most people don't get married until their 30s, at least, and most people older than I am are still in college and figuring out their lives.  And I feel like that shouldn't be a crime.  But unfortunately, in our system, it seems like not having everything figured out already puts you behind the 8-ball.

So now I'm suddenly having these visions of browsing the Help Wanted ads and spending my nights searching cheap dating sites (since my broke, unemployed, imaginary butt clearly couldn't afford the good ones), taking care of cats that somehow came into my possession, hoping to figure out my life.  And it seems like it's way too soon for those kinds of thoughts.

I guess I'm just not sure if everyone else is moving too fast or if I'm just going too slow to keep up, but either way, my head is spinning and something seems off.  I really just want to watch some cartoons and play with Legos.

Peter Pan-ing with the best of 'em,
Rachel Leigh

On 150!

Today is a very special day.  Not only is it special because it's Spring Break, and I've been moderately productive.  It is special because this is my 150th post!

150!
Woohoo 150! 

I figured that since this is my 150th post and more than three years after I started this blog, I'd do a little bit of looking back.  Sometimes retrospective is good.  I founded this blog on January 22, 2010, in the aftermath of approximately four similar projects which went under at various times for various reasons.  I was, at the time, a senior in high school who was dead-set on attending Columbia University and thought she pretty much had the world figured out.

I've always liked to write, so it made sense that eventually I would end up blogging.  I originally tried to keep my blog politically-neutral, but I realized pretty quickly that that was doing a service to neither me nor my (often sparse) readership.  So I dropped the attempts at professionalism and started writing what I know -- snarky, sarcastic, politically-charged looks at the world around me.

There was a brief attempt to monetize the blog, but that fell through when one of my friends decided to artificially inflate my view numbers.  Oh well, worse things have happened.

These days, I'm a second-semester junior (they've referred to me as a "Rising Senior" a few times already, and that is really disconcerting) readjusting to life in the States and trying to sort my life out one day at a time.  I'm proud of the work I've done so far, and I hope to see it continue to grow.

Here's to three more years,
Rachel Leigh

Greetings my darling readers!

I'm sorry that I've been such an awful blogger since I've been back.  By which I mean since always.  I guess it's just a combination of writer's block and being busy.  Hopefully I'll be able to put some interesting content out soon.

In the meantime, I guess I can tell you what I've been up to recently.  Since I've been back, I've been working on - album art for a friend's mashup album, a grant application, Ethics Bowl, Vagina Monologues, honors society applications, classes, work, classes, and other such shenanigans.

I've also been dragging myself out to basketball games and such related things.  It's been a great time to be a Spider.

Back to procrastinating on Midterm prep.

On My Plans for Valentine's Day

This week is the Vagina Monologues, which in addition to being a great time with an amazing group of women, is one of my favorite times of the year because it allows me the opportunity to make people extraordinarily uncomfortable by yelling at them about vaginas.

 Now, the reason I enjoy making people uncomfortable by yelling at them about vaginas is not simply because I like making people uncomfortable.  The fact is that I like pointing out the ways in which your discomfort doesn't make sense.  The word "vagina," and the legions of college girls yelling about them in the Student Commons, are considered weird or offensive because we are taught from a very young age that vaginas and the things they do and the things they're used for ought to be shameful and secretive.  All you need to know to know that is to look at the ways a girl will go out of her way to hide the fact that she's on her period -- which is, y'know, entirely out of our control and completely natural.

So girls are taught that our bits are supposed to be secrets that ought to be kept quiet, out of sight, and out of mind.  But while it's weird and disconcerting for women to be tabling about their vaginas (and, more honestly, about the violence which is perpetrated against those people who possess them), it's totally fine for men to be yelling about testicular cancer or to draw penises in public.  But people see our weird emoticon-vaginas on our posters and think they're creepy and wrong.

{( )}

For the record, they look like that.  Is that weird?

So, yes, I will continue to yell at you, professor who is refusing to make eye contact, about the wonders of vaginas and the things we say about them and the things we don't say about them (the things that lead to illness and violence because we're AFRAID or ashamed to talk about them), because I want to force you to think about why exactly the most quintessential piece of female human anatomy should be seen as creepy or wrong.  I mean, yeah, I get that they're all flaps and doo-dads, but I'll keep yelling about them Until the Violence Stops.

Yours in Vagina-Love,
Rachel Leigh

For the record, any one in the area of the University of Richmond, the show is the 13th, 14th, and 15th in the Pier (Tyler Haynes Commons) at 9 pm. You can get tickets, t-shirts, or chocolate vagina lollipops in the Commons every day.

On Identity

Thanks to the internet, we've learned over the years (and had it driven home with the whole Te'o fiasco), we can be anyone.  We can be any version of unreal we want -- whether it's simply the best possible version of ourselves or someone entirely different.

We've been trained in the Lady Gaga school of Identity: reveal enough that interests people, and you can control the questions they ask.  You can end up an entirely different person, simply by marshaling what you share and what you choose to keep a secret.

This pliability of identity can be liberating, and to some extent, it can be amazing.  But, of course, it also has its negative upshots -- complete anonymity and shifting identity lets people believe they can't be held responsible for the things they do...in spite of the fact that, very often, you can.

But the fact of the matter is that I can be the best, wittiest, happiest version of myself on the internet... more so than I ever could be in the offline world.  Even the name I use in my blog is a partial construction, pruned to be the person I choose to be.

I'm still tossing this idea around, but I think this idea of constructed identities is really necessary.

Identifiably yours,
Rachel Leigh

So this weekend was Ring Dance -- for those of you who DON'T go to a preppy Southern school that does things like this, Ring Dance is an annual tradition which Westhampton College uses as a way to honor the achievements of Junior women.  It involves getting all dressed up and going to the swankiest hotel in Richmond and trying not to fall down the stairs as they call out your name and major.  Technically they're supposed to present your class ring as well, but if you know anything about me and my complete aversion to jewelry, you know I wouldn't have spent money on that.

But basically, it was a great excuse to get my family to come down and to go shopping for a nice dress and spend some time with some really wonderful people.  But between that and the Super Bowl, I can sufficiently say that I am beyond exhausted.

Hopefully there will be more real posts soon (be happy, I spared you all from a post about periods), and I'm hoping to do something big or interesting for the 150th post.

Lots of love to my darling readers,
Rachel Leigh

On Happiness

It's been a month and a half back stateside, and today in class my professor brought up the fact that the Danes are the happiest people in the world.  Now, I've spent years trying to be the best possible version of myself.  The problem, I think, is that what I've considered the "best" version of myself has varied greatly at different times in my life.

I think at this point, my goal is just to try to be happy and to do the best I can within those confines.  And, for that, I'm trying to pull some lessons from my time in Denmark.

So, without further ado, Rachel's Keys to Happiness (The Danish Way):

• Don't Try to Do or Be Everything: This is completely antithetical to the UR way of life, and I know that.  I go to a school of over-achievers and the over-involved.  But from now on, I'm going to try and stick to only those things that I have the time to do and do well, rather than beating myself up for not having three majors, two minors, and being the president of six clubs.
• Don't Forget to Take Care of Yourself: I've noticed I feel a lot better about myself when I take the time to take care of myself -- to eat foods that make me feel good, drink enough water, work out.  They take up time, but I end up feeling like an entirely different person.
• Don't Judge Yourself in Comparison to Others: Thank you Jantelov.  This set of the tenets of Danish life come down to "Don't think you're better or smarter or more deserving than anyone else"...but at the same time realizing that it means you're no less of those things either.
• Don't Take Life Too Seriously: If there's one thing I really learned from the Danes, it's that when it comes to joking, nothing is off limits.  And not taking life or any one aspect of it too seriously is a struggle that I need to remind myself of on a regular basis -- but one that will ultimately leave me a lot less stressed and a lot happier.
• Don't Be Afraid to Take Some Time: Danes put off going to college longer than we do.  Danes put off marriage and kids longer than we do.  And that time to make the big decisions, I think, probably gives you some analytical distance and maturity to help make those decisions when the time is right.  I'm not as a afraid to not know RIGHT NOW what I want or need to do.
• LOWER YOUR EXPECTATIONS: The secret to happiness is low expectations. Seriously.

So that's the life goal right now -- live life just a bit more Danish (and embrace the happy that hopefully follows).  So I have the keys... now I just have to look for the locks.

Keyed in,
Rachel Leigh