BEE

Imagine this room: the window on the back is open. In front of the window, there's a table with a base, in which fresh rose stands. A painting of flowers hangs on the opposite wall. A bee flies into the room through the open window, straight to the painting and not the real flowers instead.

WHY?

1.

The bee's got 2 options: real flower vs flower painting. The first one is better! Since it is a wise bee, he believes that a little bit patience won't hurt anybody. So there he is, exploring the room first then coming to the fresh rose after he's tired travelling the room.

2.

The painting was painted with nectar- infused ink, duh!

3.

He is an artistic bee and he is thriving for inspiration.

4. 

 He saw his friend (another bee) trapped inside the room. 

5.

It was a hot day outside and the room is cool with AC.

6.

Or... it was raining that poor bee needed to find a shelter first.

7.

The flowers outside the window are not fresh, they turned out to be professionally-made fake flowers.

8.

The painting might be so huge/ an embossed 3D painting (so eye catching)  that the bee was curious and intrigued to find out whether it's real bunch of flowers

9.

The hungry bee knew it was a painting since the beginning. But... the real rose was on fire!! Knowing that, the bee secretly hoped that the flower painting could turn into reality any time.

10.

 It was painting of only flowers... until you observe more, zoom it in and find that ATTRACTIVE HOT FEMALE bees are painted along with the flowers as well.



All images except for number 1&3 are courtesy of Google and Pinterest :-)

Rule Breaker - My Role Model

"Breaking the rules just for fun is too easy-- the real challenges lie in perfecting the art of knowing which rules to accept and which to rewrite."

Meet Sophia Amoruso, founder and CEO of NASTY GAL, an global online-based shopping destination of fashion clothing, shoes and accessories for young women. Sophia is a badass; a really smart one. The story of how she went from being a high-school drop out; rejected hippie young shoplifter to one of the richest women to have been listed on Inc. Magazine's 30 under 30 is awe- inspiring. She definitely has marked her print in the new age of female-empowerment.

The cover of the book she wrote, published May this year

When I put down this book after reading it quite a while ago, I swear I could not wait to get my shit together and get working on whatever I should be doing.

Sophia Amoruso is a badass; a really smart one. I chose her because I can relate to her story quite a lot. And hopefully someday I will be someone who inspires a lot of young women too.

Who is #GIRLBOSS?

According to Sophia, A #GIRLBOSS is someone who is:

·        in charge of her own life

·        She gets what she wants she wants because she works for it.

·        She takes control and accepts responsibility

·        A fighter – who knows when to throw punches and when to roll with them

·        She knows where she’s going, but can’t do it without having some fun along the way

·        She takes her life seriously, but don’t take herself too seriously

·        She values honesty over perfection

·        She asks questions

·        She’s going to take over the world, and change it in the process.

Beyonce is a definite example of a #GIRLBOSS.

Cinderella Story

Since childhood, Sophia has always been different. She grew up hating school and having to change to new places (schools) a lot because it was difficult fot her to find a place to fit in. She left home at 17 after her parents divorced, intending on a life of anarchy and getting by for free in Olympia, Washington. A community college drop-out, she developed a hernia and so started work as a security guard checking IDs at an art school - a job she took for the health insurance it provided.

She shoplifted to support her life since she had this belief that everything in the nature should be free and that she did not want to ‘fooled’ by giant corporates which made ‘too much, profit. It all changed when she was caught shoptlifting in 2003. That incident became a wake-up call for her, making her realized that from then on she should live her life as an adult. From there, a #GIRLBOSS was born. She started a simple eBay store selling vintage items in 2006, naming it Nasty Gal Vintage, after a song and album by the jazz singer Betty Davis, second wife of the legendary Miles Davis.

Her early mistakes helped her in building Nasty Gal from a simple eBay store selling vintage items in 2006 to a $100m (£60m) business with more than 350 employees selling cool, quirky new and used clothing items to millions of women around the world now.

She pioneered the idea of styling outfits from head to toe and mixing old and new, expensive and cheap and made sure that Nasty Gal wasn't just a retail website, but a lifestyle that could appeal to a certain type of woman.

Why I found Sophia Amoruso really inspiring:

·        She proves that the school path isn’t for everyone. You don’t need a prestigious college/university degree to be successful.

·        She makes good use of all her past experience to where she is staying right now. 

·        She finds creativity in everything, even in making Subway sandwiches& cookies (one of her past jobs)

·        She’s hardworking and doesn’t let anything constrain her from her goals. 

I believe if I took her words of wisdom and apply them in everything I do, I can be a successful figure too someday. So I am going to get my things done, and I'm going to compete with no one but myself.

Signing off with love,

a new #GIRLBOSS

Routinization

Wish??

Yes. Sadly these things are still in my "imagination" state of mind rather than reality. I was quite upset when I reflected upon myself why this happens just now. Anyhow let us analyze what prevents me from doing these things, and whether in the future I can work something out.

1.Cook

Cooking is one of my favorite things to do. It makes me feel calm and relax, and making the food myself satisfies me in the overall experience. Especially if I get to share my cooking with other people. I believe food as a way to bond people together. I cook normally at least once a week during school days, doing convenient food such as pancakes, oatmeal and rice to have the week afterwards as breakfast. I like desserts and other savory dishes, and I wish I can cook more often of them. 

MONEY and TIME are barriers when it comes to cooking. Often times I have to cancel a recipe that I want to cook due to many ingredients which will exceed my budget, and other times I find it would be a waste of money to buy some ingredients that I won't be using frequently in the future.

Second, time. Since I'm a student, I have homework and assignments to do after school. Cooking and cleaning the dishes afterwards will surely kill my time and make me exhausted before I do anything else.

2. Do Homework

I'm very good at planning stuffs I should do, especially with HW and assignments. Once the lists are done, I will feel relieved and the riddle in my mind would untangle a bit. Sometimes, just even by writing those lists I would feel happy as if I have actually put my 'to-do's into realization, while I totally haven't. 

But then, there is this devilish behavior that I try to fight but in times I could not resist; when it comes to doing the things I should be doing : PROCRASTINATION.

This has been my ultimate barrier so far, and throughout time I have been trying hard to detach myself from it. To me procrastination happens because of these factors/aspects:

*A 'perfectionist' attitude

-> To spend too much time thinking/ wondering/ waiting for the 'right' time to do something in order to get the best result out of that. But I learn from experience that there is no such thing as perfect timing and actually the best thing you can do is to firstly get started.

*Laziness

->doesn't need to be explained, right?

3. Travel

I wish I could discover new places everyday. Although public transportation in this country is regarded as really good, I still can't go everywhere without wasting my time. I live in a place with the MRT route still being constructed, so I go by buses most of the time. My place is also quite remote, so DISTANCE  matter occurs here. I do hope, though, in a few years time I could travel a lot more. I also do not own a car, which I believe will save a lot of time and able to bring me to a lot of exciting places I want to go. 

4. Read

I had this goal to read more in this year and currently I still manage to try my best to do it. I regularly visit libraries to see and borrow the books that interest me. Buuuut, sometimes after borrowing the times, I neglect them for a few days/ a week because I'm tempted to do other things. 

(Lack of) CONCENTRATION  is another thing that disturbs me when I read. Often times my mind flies somewhere else while reading something.

But hey, I'm really working on this one! YEah!

5. Train my arts (and other hobbies)

Do creative things like painting, making collage, illustrate, hand embroidery, crafts, etc.

SO, at the end, do you think it is possible to do these things daily from now on?

Yyyyyyya. I think I'm able to do homework, reading, and train my arts if I'm really willing to do them; and somehow they are related to each other. As an art student, by doing my homework I also train my arts and while doing some research for assignments, I enrich myself with knowledge that surely is useful for me. Score!

20 Best Ways to Kill A Cockroach

I paired up with Tracey for this assignment. We picked one of those 20 ideas that we thought was the best, and developed the idea into something really practical in real life. And that is....

BAKING IT!

We found baking cockroaches is really practical and exciting, especially during the Halloween. Hey, what could be spookier than finding roaches inside cupcakes and on cookies?! 

This becomes even more practical because we can make a business out of it and sell 'em as Halloween treats. It's awesome!

Back to beginning, killing cockroaches using microwave and oven also has higher chance to kill them compared to other ways, such as smacking them with books, slippers, etc. Killing them with insect spray is way too boring, either. We are arts people! So we should apply creativity to anything we do.

You might be wondering, is cockroach even edible?

Quoted from a Thailand website: http://healthclover.com/cockroaches-edible-healthy-eat/ , it is.

Yes, cockroaches are edible and healthy to eat provided that they are cooked properly to ensure that bacteria present on the body is killed prior to eating.

You probably consider eating a cockroach disgusting, as in Western society we do not value insects as a food source. But in many cultures, especially Asian cultures, insects including cockroaches are commonly included in the diet.

Here in Thailand, insects are served in many local dishes and are usually fried in vegetable oil prior to eating. It has high amount of protein inside its bodies, providing a health source for human.

Some of the Thailand snacks with insects:

And this what you've been waiting for: the fried roaches.

( I hope you did not just chuck/ vomit in front of your precious gadget!)

Knowing that it is edible, we are even more sure of our idea of baking it. Although it might be not so practical and easy to do, it is a unique& different new way of killing it.

And no waste will be thrown away, since we can eat it right away baked...

kinda true.

100 Ways to Kill A Cockroach

I will never get the idea why cockroaches exist in our world.

I mean, I even completed the whole text for this entry before posting the picture above because I would be too afraid they'll come to life and crawl out of the screen.

Cockroaches are my ultimate fear. But yet weirdly, they disgust me so much at the same time. They're unlike other scary things: ghosts, great heights, dark magic, clowns, spiders. They are neither spooky or serious at all. They're just those little unflattering brown creatures with fat bodies and tiny, tiny legs and sometimes wings to intimidate even more.

Ewwwwwwwwww.

Yet still,  they scare me to death.

Not only me, but they also bring troubles and drive a lot of other people crazy. Cockroaches spread diseases and germs, pollute food with droppings, damage things such as cloth and paper by chewing, and do harms to agriculture as a pest.

This is only the positive thing I found related to cockroach:

The "Oggy and the Cockroaches" Cartoon

Other than that, n o t h i n g. 

Nothing. 

Truly.

And that's why my group mates and I chose the topic on ways to kill cockroaches during the latest Creative Thinking class. We did three papers as instructed, and these are the outcome:

FIRST

For the first attempt, our group decided to just come up with random ideas and sketch them out on the paper as fast as we could. We did not realize what we did was quite messy using this method, because the ideas were scattered all over the paper. We tend to use more of doodling and graphics than text, causing us to be not effective in using the time. Considering this is the warm up session, I think it was normal that we had difficulty in gathering the ideas. But overall, it visually looks quite good due to the harmonious colors we applied. 

No. of ideas gathered: 16

Pros: 

*Visually pleasing (good use of color)

Cons:

*Too much time spent focusing on drawing, causing

*Very few ideas on "Ways To Kill" (the main objective)

*Messy (hard to navigate viewers' eyes to focus)

*There isn't any title

SECOND

For the second attempt, we did quick reflection on how we could do better than the first one. We tried the mind mapping method, where we divided the paper into 4 categories of tools/ things/ objects that can be used in killing roaches and quickly filling them in. We also did division of work where each member worked more into one sub branch, though we were opened to discussion of ideas as well. Using categorization, we could gather more ideas in less time because we know the sections, and only had to find the ideas within them.

No. of ideas gathered: 26

Pros:
*It looks neater
*We can see the focus
*Effective use of color
*More ideas gathered

Cons:
*The use of space (not enough ideas yet we almost fully occupy the whole mahjong paper)
*Probably still too visual
*Still too few ideas

 THIRD

We realized that the first 2 papers had something in common that we should get rid off: they have too little ideas to meet the requirement. So we tried to be more effective in gathering the ideas, and one of the ways is to keep track on how many we have done, so we wouldn't lose count and the work would appear neater. In this paper, it was achieved by using:

1. Numbers 

2. Lists

3. Branches

And we tried to balance out the amount of text and doodles used so we could communicate our ideas faster; thus achieving much more ideas. We also did the drawings quicker. We kept the branching idea (mind mapping) because we believed it is a good way to do brainstorming effectively.

No. of ideas gathered: >60

CONCLUSION

In my opinion, our group has developed a lot through the process of doing this project. The last paper was the best among others in term of the number of ideas gathered, as well as its presentation. We tried hard to work with the time, too. At the end we haven't completed the work because we ran out of ideas. But we have done our best and the progress is quite compelling.



WAYS TO KILL A COCKROACH could be your handy guide to... kill any cockroach you will ever encounter no matter where you are. Although I'm disappointed to find out they aren't likely to ever extinct [I mean, they can eat everything! Quoted from my friend, they even eat shit], we can always kill them because human is a lot more powerful than cockroaches. And I hope this guide will give you a boost of self- esteem.

It totally does me a favor, personally.

Bye!