Blogs, Blogs, Blogs

Most websites that I look at are blogs. Photography blogs mostly, or a combo of photos and other interesting music/videos. Most blogs are easy to navigate around on, and you can view one picture or post at a time if you wish. Tumblr.com has really awesome ways of posting quotes, pics, videos, and songs. I also read news websites such as CNN.com which is fairly simple to find what you are looking for because they have links at the top for each page you can view. Pages like world news, u.s, politics, videos, business, etc. I hate sites that are ugly, hard to figure out or navigate through because I just get frustrated and I give up and look for another place that I can get the information I am looking at. I hope that with the site I am creating for the final that it reflects the cool, easy to use websites that I like.

Send Me The Moon

sweet sun, send me to moon.

empty the skies out

bringing me one step closer to you.

send it soon.

and i will breathe in, breathe out.

until you come in and out

of you.

distance can't take what was is hidden here

safe in my chest.

i'll wait for the day

when we finally say now or never.

until then i'll be here

wanting more.

as i settle for at most fear.

-sara.b

Antichrist Barbie

One of my favorite poems from Kinky is Antichrist Barbie. It is short, sweet and to the point.

She could turn her head all the way around

like Linda Blair in The Exorcist.

Her bare high-heeled feet were begging to be nailed,

Jesus-style, to a cross. Mother's saw their daughter's dolls

levitate above pink carrying cases,

then tip upside down, arms straight out to their sides.

Barbie's an angel, cried the little girls who loved her,

who would mortgage their souls to be like her,

who would do anything she asked.

I love this poem. I like how little girls' view of Barbie is shown, a love and devotion to the shiny, cold, plastic, lifeless doll. And how Barbie is also shown as 'evil' because in a way she is...making girls want to be her. They really would do anything for their favorite doll, no matter what. Everyone views Barbie as sweet and innocent and then, bam. She is secretly the antichrist. Hahaha

Don't Say Yes, Run Away Now.

I Can't Help But Think This Somedays.

“Everyone edits themselves here,

and it makes me wonder

whether you’re ever actually connected to real people,

or just the people they all wish they were.”

(via: goodmorningandgoodnight)

4,000 Photos In 2 Minutes

Morocco & Spain from Mike Matas on Vimeo.

Just Be...

(via: goodmorningandgoodnight)

I Keep On Running, Keep On Running, And Nothing Works

I am Barbie.

In Mondo Barbie I was just flipping through the pages and I came across this very short poem entitled Barbie - by Jose Padua. I'll type it out so you can all enjoy it as much as I did.

I am Barbie.

I live in your dollhouse.

You change my clothes everyday.

If I could get out

of here I would

kill you all.

In one word, hilarious.

I also read Inner Visions in Body Outlaws. I enjoyed this reading a lot. It talks about how you don't doubt yourself before the age of 13 and how your body is fine and you can do anything. Then how something snaps and suddenly everyone is unsure of themselves and how we wish we could go back to before. The author is blind and the last image she has of her body is from when she was 13. The closing lines are awesome. She says, "The last clear self-portrait in my mind remains that of a plump, ebullient thirteen-year-old with pimples and too many curls. And I am glad about that. I never want to forget her. She had so much spirit."

I think that I loved these closing sentences because it seems lately that my friends and I talk about the past quite frequently. And how sometimes we wish we could go back. I mean who doesn't. You're care free, naive and accepting of everyone. If only all adults acted like 13 year olds in this sense...maybe the world would be better off....

Hairy, Hairy, Hairy

For reading number eight in Body Outlaws I read Memoirs of a (sorta) Ex-Shaver. The reading is about a woman who talks about how woman are have hair naturally, but we shave it off because it is the social norm. She talks about how she went on a backpacking trip where she could only bring the essentials and didn't have a razor and her leg and armpit hair grew out. She shaved it all after the trip, but then in college she tried not shaving for a period of time. Just how different it feels and how people reacted. I chose it because when we were assigned the readings I hadn't shaved in a while, and I was thinking about it that day. I am happy with this choice of reading, it was funny, interesting and I can relate because sometimes I don't shave for a while. Not because I am going against what society tells me to do, but because I am too lazy to and don't really care what other people think about it. Boys don't even understand what a pain in the ass it really is to keep up with this shit! I enjoyed the reading a lot.

Ruthless

If there is anything thing that I have learned over the past 21 years of life about friendship, it's this: "Friends come for a reason, a season, or a lifetime."

Thank you April Glonek for sharing this with me all those years ago. I hope you know it has stuck with me and is one of the truest things I have heard.

I'm not sure that I will ever understand people in general, but it hurts the most when it turns out to be one of your best friends.

I'll close with some words from Emerson:

"For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else."

Follow Your Bliss..

I love this quote, "follow your bliss." It's simple and to the point. Do what makes you happy and you will reap the benefits. I don't know that I have witnessed anything incredible yet, but I hope to and I hope that my major will allow me this pleasure. I want to capture it, share it, show it to the world. Somehow use my visual storytelling abilities to change the world, or at least someone's life. I hope to never lose my sense of wonder, always ask myself if I am doing what I am passionate about. So far, I am. And I'd say thats a damn good thing compared to most adults. I also think I have a lot more of the little things in life figured out, more than most people my age that is. Here is a cool photo and quote from another blog I look at...

Weekend Posting

Sorry this is late.

I am going to react to bullet four, on whether or not writing can be generated online. Coming from a journalistic stand point, I say yes. This is the new generation, non-print media. What are we doing in this class? Writing online. Blogging our thoughts, feelings, opinions. Instead of picking up a paper to read, people get online to read quick headlines, and flip through photos in just a couple seconds. I don't know if I like this new online writing, but it's what is to come. This is like when photography made the transition from film to the digital era. It all takes some getting used to and time to work out how it will reach an audience. Here's a great example: http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/ Here you can get photos of the day, long term photo stories, and get different links instantly.

Now onto why blogs are way cool as opposed to a normal journal... did ya click the link above? That allows the reader to visually explore and understand what I am talking about in my post. a-w-e-s-o-m-e.

Women and Writing 1st post

This is my first post in over a year, and I will be updating my blog regularly now, with thanks to my women and writing class. We are required to keep a blog and put up new post weekly. So I am hoping I can incorporate some of my photos from this quarter in the posts as well. Our first post for class is just an intro of ourselves. So here it goes..

My name is Kristen Norman and I am a junior at OU majoring in photojournalism. I live in house with five other girls on Palmer street, which so far has lived up to its 'party street' reputation. My sister is a freshman this year here and I am so excited to be able to spend part of my college experience with her here. I love to capture moments and the way I am feeling through a still image. I can't begin t express how awesome I think photography is and I can't wait to be able to share some of it with the class.

I am in this class because it is a required junior comp class. I had no idea what to really expect for this course, and after the first day and couple of weeks, I am thrilled that I signed up for this one. I think that this class will be a ton of fun and get me back into writing, which I adore. The first two years of my major were pretty grueling and I haven't done much extensive writing since high school, so I'm very excited for that.

I love the title of this course and of our text books. I honestly didn't play with Barbies much as a child, dolls, any and all, have always freaked me out. I do feel that Barbie gives society a false perception of what beauty and a woman should be. Which when you really think about it, it's repulsive. I think that many girls and women of my generation can say the same thing about their opinions of Barbie. It will be interesting to see other's opinions on the topic.

So now that I have rambled on long enough ( I believe this is my longest post ever) I will end this here.