Notes from an exhibition

Notes from an exhibition takes place in Penzance, England where the writer Patrick Gale grew up (a lot of his books actually takes place in the countryside familiar to where he grew up). It tells the story about Rachel Kelly, an odd woman often on medication who mostly spends her time in the studio, her husband Anthony and their four children. Up until now is seems as a rather common and to be honest, borrowing book, but when Rachel suddenly dies in her studio the rest of the family wants to find out about her unknown past and are chocked by what they discover.

What is interesting and engaging about this book is the four children of Rachel and Anthony. We get to meet and know them in separate chapters, first as they are young and then when they return as adults. We follow each of them as they are trying to cope with their mother’s illness.

The part I remember the strongest about this book is when Rachel is in her studio painting and her youngest son Petroc comes to find her. He has something he wants to show her that he collected from the Cornish beach when the whole family was together. In his hand he´s got a collection of rocks, sex rocks to be exact, each representing a member of the family. Rachel gets so touch by this despite her daze mind. She uses the rocks for inspiration for many of her coming paintings.
I think she saw the rocks as comfort and knew that even if she was not always present in her family’s, life they would always be there to support and love her.
Later when Rachel is found dead in her studio, Anthony notice that one of the rocks has been thrown across the room and has even broke a window. The question still remains; whose rook was thrown out the window, one of the children’s, her husband or maybe Rachel’s own rock?

"Life in the digital now"

The speech that Abha Daweser held at TEDGlobal 2013 was so inspiring and I agree with so much of it. When she spoke about hurricane Sandy I was almost frightened about how we as the human race are so caught up in technology and the digital now. That people are willing to stand in the middle of the street in the rain charging their phones to get connected to the rest of the world. Maybe they were just trying to reach their family but I am sure some of them were working, checking emails and tweeting.

What also scared me is that I realized how dependent I actually am of technology. The first thing I do every morning is check my Instagram, sometimes even before I go the bathroom! If the Internet is down or really slow I get aggravated and try everything to fix it. My boyfriend gets especially angry when this happens because he is a huge gamer.
When I think about this behavior it gets me sad that we are so caught up in the digital world that we can’t function properly without it. 

   

When I was in London a couple of weeks ago I didn’t have Internet or free Wifi at all times. I wasn’t constantly connected to Facebook or Instagram and I actually enjoyed it. It was nice not to think about technology and not get stressed out over emails popping up. Maybe this was because I was on holiday and couldn’t be bothered but I didn’t think about updating my page and that felt good.
Now days pretty much all of us have a cell phone, so how about instead of tweeting or writing on Facebook we could call each other?   

Can a City Really Ban Cars from Its Streets?

This is an article that makes you wonder and hopefully think twice about the future of the environment.
 I think that Hamburg is on to something good, even something great but getting there won’t be easy. Having car free streets would probably be the ideal plan for a better environment, less pollution and better air in big cities is a struggle.
This is a good idea in theory but what seems to be forgotten is that people are lazy and most of all comfortable. If you have the choice of waiting for the bus/train or quickly jumping in your car and drive directly to your destination, door to door, I guarantee that you would choose the car every time. I know I would. And that is the big problem; people are way too lazy to be bothered to wait for public transportation.
 I do think people think about the environment but just not enough. We need something drastic too happen that makes people wake up and start realizing that our planet won’t last forever if we keep treating like this.   

If Hamburg succeed with this then great! That would be amazing and others will for sure follow, if they can do it, we can do it. But let’s remember what we are dealing with, man of 2014 likes to be comfortable...   

Celebrities dying young

It occurred to me just the other day when I was watching a movie with Brittany Murphy, she’s no longer alive. Why? The answer is unfortunately too common these days when it comes to celebrities, drugs.
Drugs – and alcohol addictions among the rich and famous is the single most common reason for young deaths. I have trouble understanding why so many choose the path of substance abuse when they are so talented actors/actresses, singers and musicians. The know it’s bad for them and may cause problems in their career or even death like in so many cases, Brittney Murphy is just one of the young talented stars that have passed on before her time.

I think it’s all the presser they have to deal with being in the public eye. They always have to look good, eat right, be thin and presentable since someone is always watching and judging them. It can’t be easy but it’s really a petty when they get stuck in an addiction, can’t get out and eventually ends up destroying their careers or even dying. Being a public figure means that you always have to struggle more than “ordinary people” and this is no exception. We can only hope that coming generations learn from previous mistakes and stick around longer.  

Blog assignment 1 - Recycling

Recycling is part of our everyday life, or at least it should be. Some countries in the world take this extremely seriously, some don’t. To make our planet run and function we need to take recycling and our waste to a much higher level.

This is a long and slowly moving process so in the timeframe of 1-5 lying years I don’t think that there would be a lot of changes. It takes time to teach people about the right way to recycle and were to throw their garbage. Also people don’t seem to get the message that this is a serious matter and that the world is a disposable place.

In 5-65 years we probably could have a ton a waste just lying on the streets. All the recycling stations would be so packed with rubbish that there wouldn’t be any room to put it all. People would get sick from breathing in all the toxics and we would literally live in our own dirt...

 But all this is preventable if we start to take this issue more seriously. One key factor would be not to use so much disposable material and stuff that you only use ones and then throws away. Everybody needs to make a change to help save the world, otherwise our planet would probably look a lot different for the next generations.

Story of stuff

First of all, Annie Leonard gives the impression of a very negative person. She is talking about extremely important things and issues but in a negative tone. I don’t know about you, but this makes me not want to listen or pay attention which is too bad since we are the only ones that can reduce the problems that we have started in the first place.

She is absolutely right when talking about our massive disposal, who needs a new computer, TV or iPod every year? But isn’t that the way we humans are programmed to function? We always want the latest in technology and fashion and unfortunately this is necessary for the distribution and commerce. If we didn’t purchase the latest stuff, stores would go out of business and people would lose their jobs.
So this discussion is a really tough one and I don’t think it can be solved in the near future.

When it comes to the massive amount of garbage the solution is simple, stop wasting and throwing everything away, but how? I think that a lot of waste comes from one-time-use stuff, plastic cutlery, plastic plates, plastic cups, plastic packaging, the list goes on and on. The use of this stuff is a very fast way to destroy our planet and ruin the future for our grandkids. People need to start thinking with their heads instead of just thinking about their comfort and the fastest way to get around.
It’s time to make a change and start thinking about the next generation, but one thing will never change: you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.