Pleasing Sights and Pleasing Sounds: Dance Edition*

What music makes you feel your best self? What sounds inspire you to to get dancing? 

What Will the Next Ten Years Look Like For You?

There's so much more I want to say and dive into politically and socially but I will leave that for another blog post. For now, I'm back to blogging because there so much I want to say. Everything seems so connected and disjointed at the same time. To clarify, a few months ago I decided to truly dive back into the fiction genre. I started by buying several series by Octavia Butler. Octavia Butler is a Black Woman scifi writer who won many awards and is a major mainstay in the scifi genre. The first book I started with was Parable of the Sower and that book could not be anymore scary for its prophesying. I implore you as a reader to buy her novel and start reading. Everything that is happening now has been alluded in her book, which is categorized as fiction. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction, and sometimes fiction tells the real truth, while reality is just a glamorized lie. Because of her book, I started to amp up my prepper stash which I am glad I did. Stores in my area started to close early, limit purchase amounts, and many online small companies started having a surge in customers. I made sure to purchase what I considered very necessary items such a large water filter, small deep freezer, gardening seeds, potting soil, and first aid kit supplies.

So now, to come back full circle on this new blog post, and how it connects with Octavia Butler. This wonderful women gave the world and myself two profound gifts. The first one was her large work of marvelous science fiction series. The second was her belief in writing her world into existence. On the latter, Octavia Butler literally wrote her wishes and dreams and how she wanted them idealized into tangible goals. Ms. Butler literally wrote her life into existence. The picture posted above is from one of the pages of her notebooks and is her written manifestations. This has reignited my thinking into planning a road map for my life story.

I want to write on how I plan to make use of the next ten years. The next ten years will be a crucial time period in my life as that will a few years before transitioning into my mid thirties. My last published blog post focused on being consistent with my goals and having daily and weekly challenges to encourage long term habits. Well, some goals were definitely met and exceeded and others are still in progress. My most major goals such as owning my own car, having a savings fund of $1,000, and having a stable full time job that I could live on have not only been met, but have been exceeded! Since I last blogged, I accepted a new position in a new department at work and moved across the country! I saved ten times the amount I needed for my emergency savings, which I am so grateful I was able to do so in light of  the current events now. All of the things I achieved were goals I had written down in my journal, two summers ago. They were very easily tangible goals but very important to me in my young adult years. So in the next upcoming blog posts I will be talking about life roadmaps, goal planning, and strategies. I will also list my main goals for the next ten years.

Consistency Makes All the Difference

Consistency makes all the difference in establishing effective habits and accomplishing one's goals. So this year I am establishing daily positive habits and routines that will push me into accomplishing this years goals and furthering my self development.

Fluency in Spanish

I am aiming towards reaching the intermediate level in Spanish. At the moment I can comprehend, and communicate beginners Spanish adequately. However, I need to push my comprehension skills further and absorb the Spanish language at a more accelerated pace. So I will be giving myself a curriculum with flashcards, Spanish textbook, Memrise app, and the Spanish media. A daily study of two hours a day is my daily language goal. Currently at my part time job I am surrounded by Spanish speakers, so immersing myself in the language several hours a day at work will definitely be beneficial for me.

$1000 Emergency Savings Fund

Having an emergency savings for a rainy day is so crucial and fundamental to being an independent adult. Many financial advisers and books I've come across seem to agree having at minimum a $1000 emergency savings is a good starting point. So for this year I will be following a build a $1000 emergency saving challenge that takes 44 weeks. Although this is one year long financial goal, I have several financial habits I want to establish routinely. One habit I am implementing rigorously is staying on budget. Whatever the established rules are I must follow and that includes having to focus on my needs versus my wants. In another blog post I will cover needs versus wants in budgeting. Staying on task with proper budgeting to me means being less of a mindless consumer. There is always going to be new things I want but sometimes you must delay instant gratification for long term satisfaction.

Thriving Blog

My very first published blog post was in January 2014. That was four years ago to be exact! I had so many topics, areas, and ideas I wanted to cover and write about. I still have a plethora of topics I want and will publish in the near future. However I want to see this blog go forward with a specific vision and thrive this year. So going forward I will establish weekly habits to research my blog topics, write, doodle, and plan them, and then publish on a weekly basis. Considering my usual posting style on this blog was not on a consistent basis, this year I am pushing my limits to do much better.

Clear Radiant Skin

Clear radiant skin has always appeared elusive to me due to my acne scarring and hyper pigmentation. This year I am adamant about changing my skin for the better. I've always had a decent skincare routine consisting of cleansing, moisturizing, and the occasional face mask. I love the idea of using both traditional skincare methods such as clay, rosewater, diy natural facial masks, and modern skincare such as advanced sunscreen, chemical peels, and vitamin extracted serums. Nonetheless, this year I am in the process of implementing a strict morning and night routine complete with double cleansing, moisturizing, vitamin c serums, peels, daily masks, and upping my water intake.

Reading Goals

I have a moderate sized and eccentric book collection that surprisingly fits in my closet shelf next to my purse collection. In my collection there are titles on the history of bohemians, art of seduction, hostessing for the modern woman, gardening, herbs A-Z, baking in America, history of spices, African American history, and novels of all sorts. However a good portion of these books are unread and sadly untouched. I unfortunately have that tragic habit of buying an intriguing book based on its subject or synopsis but never making the plans to actually read the book in it's entirety. This year I intend on correcting that tragic habit by reading all the books already in my collection and the necessary books on my pinterest list. The books I deem necessary on my pinterest list are to further my self improvement goals and become further well read. For every month I will have a streamlined book reading list that subjects will cover strategy, relationships, self-improvement, and biographies.

Pleasing Sights and Pleasing Sounds: Linkin Park Fan Tribute Edition

I'm dearly sorry to all my readers to have been gone so long. It's been a while since I last published a blog post. I finished my last semester in college and now I'm standing at the crossroads between being a young adult and a full fledged grown adult. It's pretty scary to be honest. As of now my focus is on securing a job and saving money while living at home with family. My thoughts are on how I will branch out in the world and truly start living. In entering this new chapter in my life I'm centering my thoughts on homesteading, budgeting, being thrifty, and practicing a somewhat minimalist and zero waste living lifestyle. In this new chapter I'm reevaluating where my finances, work ethics, and where I place my time and efforts into. So look forward to seeing blog posts on these topics.

Moving On to Today's Post:

My tribute to the late Chester Bennington, lead singer of my childhood favorite rock band Linkin Park. Linkin Park was my first ever taste of rock music in middle school and the first music group I could claim as my own. Linkin Park was not music that my parents or grandparents introduced me to, this band was for me and my ears, my emotions, and my style. My family didn't understand it and my attraction to the music, but my soul could understand it. Their music was the refuge for my sadness and my feelings of angst. Their music was my way of overcoming my shyness and befriending others who shared a mutual taste in music. Their music was the gateway band that led me to truly becoming a music fiend. It is truly saddening to see how Chester's haunting and heartfelt vocals comforted me and many other fans, but could not save him in the end. This band saved me from my depression and utter feelings of loneliness in my childhood and teenage years. Now as an adult almost 15 years later I still am in love with their music. I'm truly sorry I never was able to see Linkin Park live in concert. May there music live on forever and may Chester Bennington rest in peace!

Cultivating Friendships

My grandmother has a daily ritual of laying down in her bed, pulling out her address book, and dialing up the number of a loved one she wanted to speak with. She does this everyday, calls someone she hasn't heard from in a while or she calls someone she spoke with just recently. The length of time never really mattered to her. See my grandmother in her old age values and cherishes her friendships simply because she has valued them in her youth. She sees the value of wonderful healthy friendships, so she has actively cultivated them in her younger years. Tending to them with love, and attention, growing the friendship with time and devotion and patience throughout the years. I unfortunately cannot the same thing for myself. I have, and have had wonderful girlfriends but somewhere along the line the phone calls become less frequent, the lunch dates began to dwindle, and the friendship ends short. So I'm at this point in my life wondering where did I go wrong and how can go forward and do better? The other day I was recently listening to a television show in where the judge said a very important line that caught my attention: "Some people are so self-involved, that they don't have room for anybody else." That particular line tugged at my heart because I saw myself in what she said. Sometimes I become so self involved with myself and my own life I forget to check in with others and touch base. I essentially become a ghost to the people that were originally close to me. When your by yourself so long constantly consumed by your own thoughts and feelings its difficult to jump out of your self indulged world and into reality. One of the reasons I'm writing this blog post is to be more intentional about cultivating and maintaining my friendships. The habit of not keeping in touch with others is a poor and an inadequate way of navigating life. In fact it's a terrible character flaw I need to work on immensely. Having lasting friendships is about being committed and being supportive of someone other than myself.  This is one of those beneath the surface issues that I tend to ignore and not face reality about. However, it's something I can no longer ignore. So in going forward and doing better I will intentionally work on cultivating and continuously nurturing my friendships. These are some of the ways in which I am intentionally going about cultivating lasting friendships:

• Open your phone book at least twice a week and pick a friend to call
• Check in with a local friend and schedule a lunch date for the month
• Take the time to think and reflect and write a personal touching letter to a dear friend
• Make a care package for an out of state friend
• Be more flexible and less flaky on scheduling time together
• Be thoughtful and offer help in any way needed gas money, studying together, a listening ear, babysitting days
• Write down a friend's accomplishment in my agenda and find a way to celebrate it. Perhaps bake their favorite sweets, offer dinner, buy a bouquet of their favorite flowers

If you have any ways of cultivating and maintaining lasting friendship please share below in the comments.

What's On my Bookshelf

Lately these past few months my head has been swirling with the concepts and topics of: mobility, class, manipulation, and power tactics. Below is a few books that have grabbed my attention and provided good reading material and learning lessons. A fictional book about a character named Eileen who marries Ed Leary and hopes to claim a stake in the American Dream. The book really delves into the daily aspects of marriage, education, social mobility, on one's values, and growing old. I identified with the lead character Eileen on her staunch values, hopes and aspirations of moving up from working class, and her conviction on staying married. 
There were so many good tidbits in the book with such passionate writing that I will mention here:

• She wore neat shoes, but they covered a sprawling account of an overtaxed life, and there was no hiding the truth when she took them off.
• Money was not a guarantor of dignity.
• In that regard he was more prepared for the loneliness of senescence than she was, He'd been a stranger in the world for most of his life.
• Every move he made had the imprimatur of purposefulness.
• This was his final gift to her: to silence her regrets about the paths she hadn't taken.
• "There's a reason he can't accept nice things" he said. "His family's been in this country a hundred years, they never owned a house. That's a sin. If you're not in a house by the time I'm dead, I'll haunt you from my grave."
• She resented the way Connell walked around oblivious of how carefree his existence was, how little responsibility he had.

Everyone has an agenda and everything is fair game. That is something to always keep in mind and remember when reading this book. Accepting that everyone has different personalities and different pulls of attraction is a good start in understanding the rules of attraction. This book does not center on being attractive to all but rather details the tactics to become seductive and use that to your advantage. One of the key points I've noticed this book mention is to always have good timing, and to always work on mastering your skills and seductive traits. It's about being a beacon of seductive and pulling energy. Being seductive requires thinking before you talk, feeling the other person's energy and feeding their ego, being less self absorbed, and possessing a charismatic personality.

• Seduction is all about focusing on the other person, good seducers pay great attention to detail, the other persons facial expressions, gestures, etc.
• Seduction should not be rushed at all, because all great seduction takes time.
• There is no better word than a rightly timed pause.
• Charm is a way of getting the answer yes without having had asked a clear question.
• Noticing a persons weakness and playing it to your advantage, by making a person more reliant on you. 

Money, religion, and politics are three topics that are touchy sensitive areas at the dinner table among peers. It would be a lie to say class does not exist here in the United States, an even bigger lie to say class differences one day will cease to exists.. Classes are apart of all human societies but the traits, characteristics, values, and commonalities differ across cultures. This book is as witty as it is informative. The author's detailed observations are extremely on point and accurate even 30 years later after this was published. It's very interesting how even values are different across class lines in America. For example having a housewife in considered respectable in the middle class but with the lower and upper classes working women are the praised norm. I find myself rereading this book with new sentences to highlight every year since I've bought it.

• The rewards...in this life are esteem and admiration of others - the punishment are neglect and contempt.
• Because he is essentially a salesman, the middle class man develops a salesman style. Hence his optimism and his belief in the likelihood of self improvement if you'll just hurl yourself into it.
• The degree to which your work is overseen by a supervisor suggests your real class more accurately than the amount you take home from it.
• the upper class'es inattention to ideas is why Arnold call them Barbarian, and he imputes their serenity specifically to they're "never having had any ideas to trouble them."
• Another way to estimate a city's undesirability is to measure the degree to which religious fundamentalism is identifies with it. 
• Because 62% of Americans are overweight, a cheap way to achieve a sort of distinction is to be thin.

What Would Heaven Sound Like?