Charity

This Monday, July 27th, I am traveling to a remote village in Costa Rica to work on an organic farm and study rainforest ecology for 10 days. This is going to be a highlight of not only my summer but also my high school experience. Within this village there is a small elementary school that is always short on supplies and money. So, along with my hiking shorts made from 100% recycled fabrics, and my ecology notes and star-gazing guide, I am packing an assortment of notebooks, pens, and pencils to bring down there with me.

This got me thinking about all the charitable efforts I've gone to. I've raised $1800 for the nonprofit organization Invisible Children, I've given to GoodWill, I've donated blood, I've raked leaves and mowed lawns. I've given everything a person can give: money, possessions, actual bodily fluids, and time. However, I've never really met the people whose lives are changed by my donation. I didn't fly to Uganda and use the $1800 to administer HIV medication, I didn't go door to door giving my clothing to whomever answered, and I didn't personally bring my pint of donated blood to the person dying in the hospital. However, this time, it's different.

Within the next week I'll be personally giving those notebooks and pencils to students who desperately need them. All it took was a $20 run to Target, but these children don't have access to cheap school supplies. This time, I get to see the faces of the children who will now be able to better themselves with the help of my donation.

I am just writing this post as a way to show the joy a person can get simply from giving of themselves and also how much more amazing it is when a person can see where their donation is going and how it is being used. This is an amazing opportunity and I'm so excited that I'll be able to help people that may not have had these items otherwise.

If you are interested in my trip, check out the group blog that we'll be updating every night of the trip.

See you August 6th!

Eco-chic

This past week I have gone through my own small eco revolution.

In the past decade, 'going green' has gone from an activity solely for the burnt out hippie to a wide-spread, popular trend. Everywhere you look, celebrities are wearing t-shirts advertising organic cotton or living green. Some of the trendiest designers and labels have developed their very own line of earth-friendly clothing (American Apparel's is my favorite: affordable and simple), and even large corporations like Target and Sam's Club are carrying organic or recycled goods. And as this trend grows, many people are questioning it: is it truly authentic to go green now or is it just for looks? And many people say consumers simply buy organic so they can fit in with this growing trend. This is very true. Organic has become a luxury label. With skyrocketing prices on non-organic food, the pesticide-free, certified stuff is only getting more expensive and, therefore, more 'glamorous' to purchase. While I am often one to go against current fads and trends, this one I find to be worth following.

Even if you don't believe that the ice caps are melting, polar bears are dying, and the worsening greenhouse affect is causing us to die slowly in our man-made, atmospheric gas chamber, it is still our duty as humans and inhabitants of this earth to take care of the land we call home. For once, I believe that the mainstream media has actually done something worthy with it's power: make popular a movement that could potentially change the course of our planet's declining natural resources and protect future generations from the destruction that the past 100 years of urban development has brought about.

My eco-revolution came after volunteering at a pesticide-free, educational working farm in my area. Everything used on the farm came from the animals or the garden, and each animal had it's own work to do and it's own products to give. Everything that could went into the compost pile and everything else was saved and reused or fed to our live garbage disposals: the pigs. After spending so much time in this environment, I couldn't help but come home every day and notice all the unnatural chemicals I was putting in and around my body on a daily basis. My deodorant had aluminum in it, my mouthwash a cancer-causing dye, my shampoo a plethora of perfume and color-enhancing chemicals whose names I couldn't pronounce.

I realized that these chemicals were produced somewhere in a factory using test tubes and synthetic materials. Humans are supposed to be outside in nature, hunting for food that grazed it's entire life on the open plains, eating berries found right on the bush, and bathing in crystal clear streams that have never seen garbage or human waste. While I am quite aware that this existence is impossible in today's environment, I have decided to try and get a bit closer to that original state. So, I went to my best friend's house bearing gifts last week. I gave her all my hair products, perfumes, makeup, and nail polish, leaving the shelves in my bathroom satisfyingly clear of almost everything except for my Burt's Bees collection. I also went to Lakewinds, probably one of my favorite places in the tri-state area, purchased a pound of wheat berries, watched a couple videos on YouTube, and sprouted and grew my own wheat grass, which I plan to cut and juice every morning once the stalks have reached the right length. I've borrowed my neighbor's ice cream maker twice, and I have enough homemade strawberry jam to last me through the winter. I am aware that these small changes from just one person are not a revolution that will change the planet. However, it is a revolution and reformation of my own way of living, a revolution within myself and my mind, one that I think, through my own fervent excitement of the cause, will transpire into the lives of people whom I may inspire to follow my lead. And, if I inspire no one but myself, I will still feel altogether satisfied with my eco-chic organic cotton t-shirt, cooly sipping on my wheat grass infused smoothie, as I think of more ways to try and conserve this small, vulnerable planet that I live on.

Unemployment

Today is the 4th of July. This morning, while everyone else in this country was waking up with a hang over or getting an early start on the one they'll have tomorrow, I was at work. Where do I work, you might ask? Well, I work at this great little local restaurant called Scotty B's where the food is always good and the company even better.

I hope you sense the sarcasm in my writing.

If not, well, that was sarcastic.

I have been working as a waitress at this place for the past three years. Getting a job at 14 in a restaurant is not something I would suggest to anyone, really. Restaurants have this amazing way of drawing in some of the most dysfunctional people, all under one unfortunate roof, and allowing them to co mingle. Quite frankly, I'm surprised I got a job there considering the fact that I don't A) experiment with a wide range of illegal substances, B) frequent a local jail cell, or C) have a highly unstable family life. Don't get me wrong, I love most of the people I work with, most of them are just very different from me. Fraternizing with people like this at 14 opens your eyes to a world of human and chemical interaction that my fairly sheltered mind had not yet explored, and it definitely forced me to mature more quickly than many of my friends. Meeting the people I have at Scotty's has made me realize how similar we all are, no matter where life has happened to take us. We all want the same things: money, acceptance, appreciation, friendship. We just go about it in different ways and working at Scotty's has helped me recognize that and appreciate it.
This post is not titled 'Unemployment' for no reason, however. This morning, after three long years, I finally called it quits and put in my two week's notice. While I grew to love the staff at Scotty's, there was no way for me to grow to love the demeaning way in which my bosses constantly treated me. Generally, my achievements and improvements went unnoticed and unrewarded while my shortcomings were quickly noted and scorned. My failure was always anticipated, even before I had the chance to succeed and my intelligence meant nothing if I didn't have my food out of the window and onto the tables fast enough.
I understand that the job I was working was a minimum wage, minimum requirements job, however I don't think anyone deserves to be treated the way I was, no matter what they're getting paid per hour. Every human deserves respect and if we don't demand it from people then they'll walk all over us. I know I'm better than the way they made me feel every night when I left work, and I know that I can't put up with it anymore, not even for the year I have left in Minnesota. I owe it to myself to not let anyone make me feel less than what I am, even if that means that I'll have to stop going to the hair salon and buy all my clothes on the clearance racks. If there's one thing that my mom has taught me (and the woman has taught me a lot) it's how to live on next to nothing until you get your feet back on the ground. No amount of humiliation is worth the extra money, even if that means I'll have to hold my highlight-free head high and proudly walk up and down the aisles of Good Will. I don't need fancy clothing or hairstyles to show that I'm confident in myself and my abilities. So while unemployment looms in my near future, I can rest easy in knowing that today truly is Independence Day.

Technology: The Crux of Humanity or the Bain of Our Existence?

Once in a while, when I'm having an artistically inspired streak, I like to try to break out the old sound equipment and give it a whirl. I've got a plethora of songs (aka three) in my head that I need to get written down and recorded into real, live sound waves. In a perfect world, I would do this all the time, spending days writing music and recording it and uploading it to myspace and youtube. Then I'd sit back and watch the fans roll in.

Well, this is definitely not a perfect world, and I haven't fully recorded or uploaded one of my songs in years. I've never really recorded and uploaded a song of mine that I'd actually want multitudes of people to hear, either. So today I thought to myself, 'Self, today you're going to record those songs. You owe it to yourself to get your music out there.' It's times like these when I can tell that my self-esteem is way up because I think maybe if I do get them uploaded, people will actually listen. Who knows if they would, all I know is that my 'recording sesh' didn't go quite as planned.

This is where I reach my point. So I'm all set up with my dinky little sound equipment, my keyboard plugged in, and my Sound Forge Studio all set up. It's a primitive way of life, but I've grown used to it. Then I record my first take; a decent run, I think, as I'm about to replay the recorded sound and take a listen. The sound that comes out of the speakers, however, is not exactly anywhere near what I'd call 'decent'. Somewhere between my keyboard, the wires connecting it to my recording equipment, and my computer, the sound has been distorted from grand piano to a scratchy, tinny, rusty sound equivalent to the sound I imagine a cat might make while being dragged behind a four wheeler.

After an hour and a half of readjusting, repositioning, and rebooting, I gave up my quest for fame via cheap recording equipment and myspace, having just wasted precious minutes of my life in a futile pursuit. The incident got me to thinking of how much time humanity wastes not only on using technology, but on fixing it. Murphy's law comes into play whenever booting up an old computer or fiddling with a VCR. Even the new things we buy seem to always malfunction the first time we try to use them. We tinker around, read the instructions, swear and kick, and eventually call customer service, who tell us to do the same thing over again. Things like this have been happening to me ever since I was six, when my mom's Mac flashed me the blue screen of death and turned off for good. I can't imagine what it'd be like to live in a world where I wouldn't have to worry every other minute whether or not my internet connection will last or if my iPhone will freeze up. I also can't imagine the amount of time I've wasted sitting around and messing with technology, only to leave frustrated and bewildered.

I say humanity should go on strike from the technology that has taken up so much of our time. While I will admit that functioning without my internet and iPhone sounds bleak and slightly impossible, I think it would be a noble pursuit for myself or anyone to set down the blackberry, log off of Twitter, close the laptop and just go run through a field or lay in the sun for a while. As for me, I'm taking the less extreme route by shunning my recording equipment until the next time I have a genius bout of inspiration. I'll deal with it then.

Strawberry Fields Forever

This past weekend I went strawberry picking, a task with which I obtained a sore back and five pounds of strawberries. As I stood in my kitchen next to a cauldron of boiling strawberries, waiting for them to turn into jam while my fresh baked cobbler cooled, I couldn't help but notice that "Strawberry Fields Forever" kept playing on repeat in my head. I began to think about my relationship to the Beatles and how often in my day I reference or am influenced by the band's music.
Every time I enter a Target store now, "Hello, Goodbye" plays quietly in the recesses of my mind. A government overthrown? "You say you want a revolution, well, you know...". Once in a while I refer to my yellow Chevy as my yellow submarine in which I sail the seas. I do not have any close friends named Michelle, but if I did I would sing to her "Michelle, my belle..." and she would probably look at me funny because it seems as though no one my age gets any of my references and, well, they should. The Beatles affect them more than they know. Their music is on our commercials, being remade on our radios, in the background of movies, and referred to in pop culture and books. It's amazing to think that a single band could have so much influence on society almost half a century after first hitting the top of the pop charts.
As I stood there watching my strawberries slowly turning over and thickening, I decided that maybe a little Beatles appreciation was in order, whipped out my Magical Mystery Tour LP, and cranked up the volume on my ancient record player, the sound carrying out of my room and engulfing the rest of my house as I sang along... "Strawberry fields forever!"
~LeejaKelly~

New CD Release: The Gossip

On June 23, The Gossip released their newest album, "Music for Men", a spine-tingling, powerful collection full of dance beats and electric guitar. Beth Ditto's voice continuously knocks the listener's socks off with every belted note.

"Heavy Cross", the album's first single, is a wildly uplifting anthem that inspires all to stand up and tell the world to go screw itself in a melodically pleasing and powerful way. The title track on the album crosses societal lines, makes us want to dance, and implements the use of a cowbell, all in one artistically sweeping feat of a song. In the final track on the deluxe edition of the album (available on iTunes), which features the song "Vertical Rhythm" live at the Paradiso, Ditto's emotion is movingly apparent as she develops a tone that borders on Joplin-esque. This poses the question: is there anything Beth Ditto can't do with those pipes?

~LeejaKelly~

Rock the Garden: An Anti-Climactic Finish

Thousands of people streamed into the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden last Saturday for MPR's annual Rock the Garden show. This year's headliners: Solid Gold, Yeasayer, Calexico, and The Decemberists.

The crowd was elated for the full evening of music they had ahead of them. After sitting in the 90 degree heat with the sun beating on my back and the sweat dripping in places I didn't know I could sweat (like my eyeballs), I was more than ready when the first band hit the stage at 4:30. It was worth the wait, however. Solid Gold blew my mind and the minds of everyone in the crowd with their energy and upbeat songs which pulsated out of the speakers and into our waiting ear canals. Yeasayer brought an equal amount of energy to the stage and, with synthesizers blaring, brought the show to a whole new level.

Next came Calexico, a band with an alternative beat and a mariachi vibe. While I do enjoy the occasional Calexico song on the highway with the windows rolled down and the sun on my face, at Rock the Garden the band made for a very random choice. Their sound didn't fit with the rock beats of Solid Gold, the synthesizers of Yeasayers, or the mellowed-out sounds of the Decemberists. While this might have been the intention of MPR when choosing the Rock the Garden line-up, I wasn't entirely digging it. The half-drunk, chubby girl in the muumuu and headscarf dancing around in front of me really seemed into it, however.

The final band of the night was the Decemberists. Often described as literary and lyrical, the band has garnered many fans throughout its existence. The music was tuneful and strangely beautiful, the crowed was totally mellow and digging it, but I left disappointed. After having been so pumped up by Solid Gold and the Yeasayers, the Decemberists proved to be a rather anti-climactic finish for me. Overall, though, the experience was great, the people watching always fantastic, and I will definitely be back next year.

~LeejaKelly~