The science of happiness.

I was just guessing/at numbers and figures,
pulling your puzzles apart,
Questions of science/science and progress,
do not speak as loud as my heart.-Coldplay

The above lyrics are from one of my favorite songs of all time. It's called "The Scientist" by Coldplay. The song has a lot of meanings to it, I think it was intentionally written to refer to the end of a relationship, but I like using the song to describe the way I think in general. There's always those people who use science, logic, facts, and data to explain everything. I'm not one of those people. Sometimes I believe there are some things that just go beyond science. Not everything can be explained. Not everything can be *fixed*.

In Nick Bostrom's TED Talk, he talks about the "problem" of death. He starts laying out statistics about how the one of highest causes of death is natural causes. He asks how do we prevent this? This is the part where I go...

Huh?

Prevent death? Wipe out suffering? Wouldn't that make us...not human?

Nick Bostrom I know is not the only one out there who are coming up with biological solutions to our natural human suffering. Drugs like anti-depressants...trust me I know that there are people who most definitely benefit from them. At the same time, I also know that anti-depressants are over-prescibed, and that people are looking to these pills as solutions to their sadness. Everyone gets sad. Everyone has problems. But there is a difference between people who actually are depressed, and those who have a difficult time handling a hard phase of life. They use these pills to make them happy, but that's not the way anti-depressants work.

All the other biological "solutions" that were listed on the handout, these are just band-aids. They cover up a problem. They can't possibly bring anyone happiness. Or at least the kind of genuine happiness we all desire.

Kees in Kenya

My group worked long and hard on our video, and I think we did a pretty good job in the end! I made a group video last semester as well, but this experience proved to be a totally different learning experience. I never had the chance to work with the editing last semester, so using I-Movie was definitely challenging. Getting every little piece the way we wanted it, became time consuming and stressful. But through a collaborative effort, I think we made a video that brings Kees' story to a wider audience, a story that might have not been told otherwise.

As challenging as it was, I'm glad of all things I learned through using the program, because I can hopefully use it to my advantage in my future career (whatever that may be). My favorite part was filming the interview itself. I loved just sitting there and listening to both Michael and Kees talk to us. The whole time I was trying to concentrate on the framing and trying not to shake the camera, all the while I was so engaged in the stories they told us.

Project Report

So I really enjoyed watching everyone's videos on Monday. It was cool to see what everyone came up with in the last two weeks. And I loved how each group had a unique subject. A man living with HIV/AIDS, a young girl overcoming OCD, and the lady at Bill's Market, all three of these videos illustrated a person who is making a difference in our society.

There are a lot of little technical mistakes that can be fixed in all the videos though. I know my group and I still have a lot of progress in perfecting our video. I know and hope we will, as Brit Keesling worked as a great profile to subject. Overall, my favorite part of the project so far was filming the interview with Kees and her friend, and listening to her story. I learned a lot of myself, and see Brit as such a huge inspiration to get off my butt do something! Maybe not go to Kenya, but something!

Diversity

So we're asked to write a blog entry on diversity. Where do I start? Diversity...it's such a broad and "diverse" topic in itself.

Tomorrow I leave for the Apppalachian Experience. So I'm getting antsy. It's kind of all I can think about. For the entire week, me and a group of students from St. Joe's wll be headed to Roanoke, Va to do some good ol' community service.

This is the third year I'm participating. The other two experiences I have been on were so rewarding and life changing for so many reasons. One of the great things about these two trips was immersing myself in the culture in the southern Appalachian region, and getting to know the people in the town. Both trips were almost culture shocks for me, someone who grew up in Philadelphia her whole life. Traveling down south, personally for me, is like going to a different country. Yet these places aren't too far from where I live, there's still such a diversity between our ways of life.

I can't wait to go to Roanoke tomorrow, and hopefully meet and help a whole new group of people, and I know will learn so much.

Neon, Kentucky


Alleghany Highlands, Virginia

Make yourself feel like crap in one easy step!

Beauty magazines. I admit it...I read them...often. I've been reading them as long as I can remember actually. Growing up in my awkward teen years I looked to all these magazines for solutions to all my problems. These magazines promised to make me beatiful and to make guys fall in love with me because guys love it when you're beautiful. But what these magazines define as beautiful is impossible and almost out of every girl's reach.

I've come to realize that every beauty magazine usually follows the same format:
1. First couple of pages are about gorgeous celebrities that I'll never look like.
2. Another section of pages of expensive beauty products that promise to buy you happiness.
3. Ways to please your man. How to make guys like you. Quotes from random guys saying, "I hate when my girlfriend does this...", etc.
4. "Health" section aka what kind of salads to make to lose weight. Because losing weight=happiness.
5. Skinny airbrushed model shoots.
6. Horoscopes. (I like horoscopes.)

I always buy and read these magazines, but I always feel like *crap* afterwards. I don't have money to buy all these clothes or buy all this makeup, so I will never be happy and guys won't like me.

As I grow up I realize that beauty magazines are a complete illusion and they rely entirely on false advertising. Just because I buy the clothes in the maagzine, this won't make me happy. Keeping guys do's and don't's of what they like in girls will only make me more insecure and not be myself around someone I like.

I just think it's kind of funny. We read these magazines and read to see what supposedly all guys like and try to change our ways. What do guys read? Playboy. Guys don't read magazines on changing their personalities and looks to get us to like them. They just look at naked pictures of us. It doesn't make sense, really.

*End rant.

He thought he could, and he did.

DETERMINATION

TED Talk

A preview or review? I may be a little late on this. Anywho...

Kaitlin, a senior English major at Saint Joseph's University, discusses the film genre that has stood the test of time, musicals. She reveals her love for musicals and begs the question why these films are so popular. She discusses how musicals can communicate and tell a story in a way that no other film genre can.