north fork!

i never realized how refreshing a long weekend can actually be. especially one free of communicative technology and millions of people. i went to southold this weekend with my boyfriend and his cousins were nice enough to let us stay at the house they have out there. friday we hit up some antique shops and an amazing winery called sparkling pointe. we were expecting the meat and cheese spread to be pretty fancy, aka extremely small portions positioned thoughtfully, considering how beautiful the winery was. but, we literally were served a huge helping of goat cheese and an entire sausage. no one was there on friday, so it was just us and the rows of vines. it was amazing to sit in the sun and just feel so calm. i've had quite the past 2 weeks, and this was exactly what i needed. the weekend continued with sunsets at the beach, more wineries, more goat cheese, cupcakes, underwear dancing and a cab driver named cindy. cindy actually grew up with a pet fox named, "foxy." that should give you an idea of how different southold is from manhattan. here are a few pictures from the weekend, more to follow!

before i go to sleep..

i pull the curtain back a little from my window so that the sun hits my face and wakes me up instead of my alarm.

drivin down the 101.

there are certain things from my teenage years that i can text to one of my friends and they'll completely get the same feeling that i do and know exactly what i mean. my friend amanda and i do this often with the "o.c." i can literally text her and say what's the GPRA and she'll know. it's weird to me to think of a show having so much of an impact on my life, but it really did. especially a show like the o.c. feelings and situations happening in my own life have been put with specific portions of the show, so when i see it, it really brings me back. i also worked at hollister, which for any of you living under a rock, know that it's california themed. and i feel like our lives kind of revolved around our fake california themed world for that period of time. this all came about because i was thinking of how much i wanted to be watching the o.c. right now instead of writing a human rights paper on child soldiers. it's never a good thing to start when you have work, because it never ends. kind of like SVU marathons.

smushed faced pups.

i have a huge obsession with dogs. not just any types of dogs, though. smushed faced ones. my obsession started back in high school when i discovered the french bulldog. i vowed that i would one day have one and name him nelson mandela. when it came time to go to the pet store and buy a pup however, frenchies were nowhere to be found, and the ones i did find were way out of my price range. so then i came across norah/bean/beaner face/the big big bean/NB, and she was perfect...and on sale. we now know why. i fell in love with this little creature and it really just reaffirmed my love for smushed faced pups. some pugs are seriously not the cutest, but bean is an actual beauty queen. such a model. my parents made me give her up for adoption (which turned out ok since my good friends took her), but i was heart broken and ended up crying on the shoulder of a very sympathetic waiter at benny's burritos. my parent's new dog is pretty cute too for a psychopath. anyway. whenever i'm bored/sad/happy/trying to avoid paper writing, i like to look up pictures of pups. this is turning into a really, really weird blog post and i probably sound like a huge freak. but i found this amazing website from pinterest called: The Daily Frenchie. i am about to become 10 times less productive.

KONY 2012?

i feel this immense sense of confusion and joy, hope and fear. first of all, i'm not sure how people have not heard of "invisible children" before. maybe that is me just being ignorant, but i guess i was under the impression that it was a known cause. regardless, it is getting people talking and hopefully learning. but although i can't say who you should and shouldn't fund, i think matters like this deserve a bit of research.

what the rebel leaders in Uganda have been doing to these children for decades is DISGUSTING and DISTURBING. but what i think invisible children doesn't tell us is that this is not an isolated issue. this happens everywhere around the world, but in africa known child soldiers are found in: sudan, yemen, guinea, sierra leone, liberia, cote d'ivoire, chad, republic of congo, democratic republic of congo, burundi, rwanda, central african republic, somalia & angola. uganda, i will say, probably has one of the worst cases, but so do places like sierra leone and the DRC. i guess my point here is that so much is going on, and that these problems did not just come out of the blue. they are fed from years of colonization, corrupt governments, marginalization and poverty. there are other structural issues to look into and i'm urging all of you interested in "invisible children" to do that. it's impossible for you to research every country, but look into one and try and learn all that you can. you'll be amazed. this is not just a problem for the children.

here's a good organization with a lot of good background information for those that are interested: http://www.child-soldiers.org/home

CSW Reception 2012

last week i had the privilege of taking photos at the UN Commission on the Status of Women Reception at the Turkish Center. after months and months of planning, the event was a huge success! the CSW is a 2 week long forum where women from all over the world come to meetings and events, discuss important issues and network and learn from one another. this year's theme was "rural women," so it was amazing to see midtown east flooded with beautiful clothing and different faces. here's a sneak peak at some of the photos from the event: