Treacle tart

Things you swear you'll never do in College

Never buy the -insert school-'s colors.

          Before attending Amherst College I had not realized how gorgeous purple and white can be together.

Well sh*t

Though my wardrobe certainly doesn't consist of AMHERST COLLEGE labeled gear most of my clothing is made up of white and variations of purple.

A New...

year, summer, day, night... just everything.

I have new roommates of which there are about 20. We are living it up in Newport.

I'm in the Pioneer Valley Citizen Summer Program here at Amherst and love my time at CONNECTIONS After-school and Out-of-school program so far. I honestly can't wait for things to really start picking up. It's already kind of crazy as things stand but in a good way.

I was somewhat successful in making potato salad. Though I say somewhat because I had basically put in too much of everything but potatoes...

In fact...

 I cut them potatoes

 and carrots

 barely boiled some eggs

 and potatoes

 and squished out the juice of relish

 and BAM

 potato salad!

I also made Pumpkin Pasties. MMMM soooo tasty.

Duality

I'm black. I'm asian. I'm African-American. I'm Korean.

People know I'm different when they look at my face and my hair. They can't connect the dots and see that I'm mixed.

You're full-blooded Cherokee! You're a Chinese rice paddy worker with a weave! What are you?

You love fried chicken right? Your black senses must be going off like crazy!
Did you eat dog growing up?

I respect your curiosity but it leaves me wondering. What is this duality?

My how times have changed...

Had an eye-opening experience in my Black Sexualities class with Khary Polk. He had us google Jet and Ebony magazine back in the 50s and on, searching for ads that represented the Supermasculine Menial and/or any Black woman archetypes. Here's just a few that I found.

I'm not even sure what to say about this. It looks like a cheesy photoshop but this is just how they wanted to advertise for what I can only assume is a skin lightening cream.

Because women are dainty? I wish I had a male focused cigarette ad to compare these two potentially very different ad campaigns. When people think of Black women they might not have dainty come to mind. In fact they might, myself included, think of the strong, powerful, in charge woman.

Now we start to see the Black is Beautiful movement. It's an advertisement for hair care products that emphasize the fro.

But the same year in a different magazine emphasizes Black is beautiful not through hair but through "a girl for every month". This girl in particular does not rock the natural do as the previous image. I'm even inclined to think that quiet, dainty, Black women is beautiful but the afro'd, loud, powerful woman is not.

Maybe I'll look into more of these stark images.
Til next time

-Kimdolion

"Invincible" Superstars

"Even though she's one of the most famous women in the world, the singer said she still struggles to maintain her weight and feel good about her body."


People seem to forget that superstars are people too. They have fears, wants, problems, etc that we are likely familiar with. 


We all want this or that; to be thinner, to look and feel pretty.


Love thyself before you wreck yourself further.

Whisk me away

School, friends, work, and love.

How are the college years flying by?