Take Back Your Life!

I’m in essay writing mode, which means I’m reading a lot of essay/memoirish type books these days.

One with spectacular writing is The Anthropology of Turquoise by Ellen Meloy (2002, Pulitzer Prize Finalist). I majored in Anthropology and love the word. The clothing store chain spells it Anthropologie, which I like too. Funny how words become in vogue after sitting in obscurity for years. I’ve heard that anthropology is one of the most popular majors at my alma mater. I must be a trendsetter of sorts. When I attended the program had about 40 students majoring in it — if that.

I loved the classes and teachers and subject. We went to Safari type places, studied the Yanomamo on the Orinoco River, genetic drift, vervets, cultures and people. Offbeat, fascinating stuff that I’ve come to appreciate the last 10 years or so. I’m so tired of everyone saying all the jobs will be in math and engineering. How can that even be true? Imagine if everyone majored in one of them, nothing else. Would that create more jobs? I don’t think so. (more…)

I’m back into essay writing mode. Perhaps, it’s because I have a lot of interests – not sure exactly – but I go through phases where all I want to do is paint or draw, then I enter a new phases were all I want to do is write op-ed pieces, then writing, then savings things.

Well, I’m back in essay writing mode after a 3-month hiatus. Wrote one and am onto a few more. I’ve always wanted to write about the benefits of getting lost. Will script some ideas for the essay here on the blog.

Am not a GPS fan. During our Christmas drive up the Pacific Coast Highway in California, the female voice shouting out of the box mounted on the rental car dashboard while we zoomed around LA got so annoying I had to turn it off. “TAKE A LEFT HERE. TAKE A RIGHT THERE.  1 MILE AHEAD.” Her proclamations kept interrupting our conversation. But even worse, I began to feel like a helpless creature who couldn’t find her way out of a driveway. (more…)

Advice often gets a bad rap. People advise you not listen to advice, which is, of course, advice.

Yet, words of wisdom from another person often make our journey on earth much easier. They may have already experienced something you are going through now. Or, they’ve lived longer and know what worked for them during the more trying times of life. While some advice may not be right for you, other advice may be. (more…)

As a child I saw the movie Pollyanna starring Haley Mills and never forgot it, especially the scenes where prisms created rainbows on the walls. As an adult, I used to frequent antique stores looking for a lamp just like the one I saw in the movie. I wanted pretty rainbows to dance  on my walls, too.

Recently, I rented the film in the children’s section of the library. I’ve watched it twice. Even better than I remembered because the moral of the story clearly seemed directed at adults. In the film, Pollyanna Whittier’s parents die, so she goes to live in a huge Victorian with her wealthy, spinster aunt Polly Harrington in the town of Harrington. Polly treats her in a cold manner, even giving her a small, dusty room way up in the attic. But Pollyanna’s grateful for the room because she’s never had her own room. (more…)