Garden Gnome

Garden Gnome by cheeriolink2 featuring floral dresses

made this set off the shirt which reminded me of a garden

New Soul

New Soul by cheeriolink2 featuring proenza schouler bags

inspired by Yael Naim's "New Soul"

Julie & Julia

Julie & Julia (2009)

          Just a few hours ago I watched the movie Julie & Julia starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams with my dad. Meryl Streep plays Julia Child, the famous chef, author, TV personality, and wife of Paul Child. Amy Adams plays Julie Powell, an unpublished writer with a passion for cooking. 


          The movie flips back and forth between the two main characters' storylines. One story is about Julia Child and how she became a chef and published the book Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Her story begins in Paris, France in the early 1950s. The second story is Julie Powell's and is set 2002. It's about her experiences in writing a blog while cooking all the recipes in Julia Child's recipe book. Julie sets out to make all 524 recipes in 365 days. I found the movie *quite* entertaining, and after watching it, I felt compelled to reevaluate what I wanted to do with my blog.

          I’m a dreamer, and I usually don’t follow through with all my ideas. I don’t have much discipline, so I procrastinate quite a lot. I come up with fantastic ideas, but I just don’t make the effort to carry them out. In these ways, I am like Julie Powell. Julie wants to accomplish a task, so she sets a deadline to make sure she follows through. I plan to experiment with this method to see if it works for me.

          Over time, unfinished projects have accumulated in the corners of my room. I have so much more free time now that I’m not doing theatre, so I have decided to be more productive and finish them all. If all goes according to plan, I can finally be done with all my projects and have a clean room. Talk about killing two birds with one stone. 


          I have a totally rad idea for my first project, so I can't wait to get started. I want to make personalized bookmarks to give as gifts. I've set the deadline as exactly 7 days from tomorrow, so I should be finished by New Year's Day. I’ll post more about the project tomorrow because, right now, I’m bushed.

[I don’t think I’ve ever put so much thought into a post before. I'll try and make all my posts more thoughtful from now on. :)]

Guest Writer

I'm hosting a guest writer today! [Yay! XD]

Here's a post by good friend and editor Eben T.

Welcome to Discworld

It’s a book series. It’s a place. It’s—well, it’s a “geological pizza without the anchovies,” in the words of the brilliant author, Sir Terry Pratchett.  The Discworld is a disc resting on the backs of four giant elephants which stand on the back of the World Turtle, Great A’Tuin. Don't worry about it. People don't talk about it, any more than we say, "Wow, we're standing a few thousand miles above a ball of molten iron!" (yes, that’s Terry talking again). It’s a world that parodies, satirizes, challenges, and resonates of our own, with characters that are so deftly and wonderfully portrayed they must be real. There are wizards, Assassins, witches, History Monks, DEATH (and his extended family), the Nac Mac Feegle and the Watch, a sourcerer, a Thieves’ Guild, opera ghost, heroes and barbarians, a Patrician and The Luggage (it eats people). The largest city on the Disc is Ankh-Morpork, pearl of cities—that is, something that was stuck in the body of an oyster and irritated it to such an extent that it covered it in mucus and spat it back out (the river Ankh, which divides the city, regularly catches fire). There’s Klatch, which bears no resemblance to Africa whatsoever; the Ramtops, where the weather tends to ignore the season; the Aegetean Empire, birthplace of the first tourist; and XXXX that has these bloomin’ great kangaroos hopping around. There are a bunch of other places too, but like Terry says, “You can’t map a sense of humor.” Oh, and it’s got real vampires and werewolves. Huzzah!

The Discworld series is different than other series in that it doesn’t have to be read straight from Book 1 to Book 38 (yes, there are 38 books in the series—and trust me, that’s too few). Really, you could pick up any book in the series, read it, and if you have a basic grasp of fantasy then you’ll be able to understand it and enjoy it enormously. Inside of the whole, giant series are smaller “mini-series” (for lack of a better phrase) that follow a character or set of characters as they be awesome. Lots of times these are categorized into sets of books, like ‘the Watch books’ or ‘the DEATH books’ but Terry himself doesn’t much like this separation. He prefers it if you read it in chronological order, and really, that’s the way I’d recommend. If you do it that way, you get all the inside jokes. :)

 

Once you start reading the Discworld series you will fall madly in love. The characters are complex, unique, and realistic, with strong female characters that aren’t always the ‘fairest of them all’ (a fact I quite appreciate) who are super awesome next to their (also) awesome male counterparts. These characters have strengths and weaknesses, trials and triumphs, face both the evil in the world and the in themselves, and you’ll be cheering for them until the end. You’ll laugh out loud at Terry’s brilliant wit, cry with sadness, and stay up under the covers reading far into the night (or, erm, morning. It was an exciting part, okay?!). There’s a reason that Terry was knighted for his services to literature and is the most popular writer in Britain. He’s a genius, and it shows in his books.

So go to your nearest bookstore, library, or awesome friend who already has the books, grab The Color of Magic, and start your adventure. You’ll thank me.

  

Welcome to Discworld—welcome to your new obsession. And always remember, ”just because we've heard a spine-chilling, blood-curdling scream of the sort to make your very marrow freeze in your bones doesn't automatically mean there's anything wrong."

-Eben Thomas

 
For more information on Terry Pratchett, the Discworld series, or his other works check out http://www.terrypratchettbooks.com/  (the American site),  http://www.terrypratchett.co.uk/ (the UK Site) or http://www.lspace.org/ (the largest fan site I can find)

Days 1-6

These photos some of the ones that I took at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. It's a relatively new museum that opened in September of 2004. When I went, there was an exhibit called "Strange Comfort" by a Canadian artist name Brian Jungen. Basically Mr. Jungen's technique is called "found art." That's when art is created from everyday objects that are modified, but aren't usually considered art. I really like his work, so I think this will be a week based of Brian Jungen's art. By the way, I titled these shots myself. If Mr. Jungen and I happened to title our things the same, it was purely coincidence.




Fuel of Life



  

Hominidae



The American Dream

 

Whalebone






Cascus vultus avis



Hero of a Nation



Mea Culpa

School's been pretty bad lately. Projects, tests, quizzes, and homework just keep piling up. My goal for this blog, ideally, was to write everyday. Realistically, I changed it to everyother day. Now reality has dumped a huge bucket on my head, and I realized that my posts will be sporadic. Hopefully, they can be really insightful and inspiring. Most likely they'll be me venting about something or random facts you could live without but are still impressed with because they're just that awesome. Anyways, I'm starting my photo blog today- October 6, 2010. However, I'm going to post 5 more pictures to make up for "lost time". I just want to see where the daily photoblog takes me. I'm sort of interested in photography, and I want to progress and work on my photography skills. Please feel free to critique them. Post your opinions or more technical advice. I care not because anything will help. :)

It's Been One Week...

Trivia: This post's title is based off a song. What is its title? Who sings it?


ONE MORE WEEK 'TIL I START MY PHOTOBLOG! I would like to see what the general consensus is of the matter. Should I make a new blog and link it from here (like my friend Madison did), or should I just post the pictures along with my writing? 


I found a really cool picture of watermelon on the 'net Tuesday afternoon. I find watermelons extremely tasty, but since I didn't know very much about them, I decided to look up some cool facts. :)


What do you think of when you hear the word watermelon? Some may think of summertime, barbecues, pool parties, or picnics in the park. Watermelon just so happens to be one of my most favorite fruits ever. Btdubs, these *are* facts. I looked them up, and cited them.

Watermelon is considered the most common type of melon, but, actually, it's a berry.  It's a pepo, which is a berry with a hard outer rind and a fleshy center.


Some people think that they originated in southern Africa. There's also evidence of people cultivating watermelons in Egypt as early as the second millennium (BC). Watermelon seeds were even recovered from King Tutankhamen's tomb.

China began cultivating watermelons in the 10th century AD. China is now the world's single largest producer of watermelons. In the U.S., watermelon is grown in 44 states. The largest producers of these states are Georgia, Florida, Texas, California and Arizona.


Japanese farmers have discovered a way to grow cubic watermelons. They first planted the fruits in a glass box, and let them assume the shape of the receptacle as they grew. They used a square to make the melons easier to stack and store. However, the square watermelons are usually more than double the price of normal ones. Pyramid shaped watermelons have also been developed and any polyhedral shape could be used.


Cubic Watermelon



Pyramidal Watermelon

[Both images above courtesy of :http://kuweight64.blogspot.com/2011/05/time-for-indulgence-time-for-watermelon.html]


A watermelon is about 6% sugar and 92% water. Contrary to popular belief, watermelon rinds are edible and nutritional. The rind contains large amounts of the amino acid citrulline. Citrulline is helpful in the diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis, the regulation of the urea cycle, and for the relaxation of blood vessels. Interestingly enough, "citrulline" comes from the Latin word for watermelon, citrullus. Watermelons are also rich in vitamin C, beta carotene, and lycopene. Beta carotene and lycopene protect us from breast and skin cancer and heart disease. In China, rinds are stir-fried, stewed, or most commonly often pickled. In the southern U.S., pickled rinds are a common dish.


There are more than 1200  varieties of watermelon, including:


Orangeglo

http://www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/orangeglo-watermelon-zm0z11zrog.aspx

The Moon and Stars

http://themoodyfashionista.blogspot.com/2010/07/moon-stars-watermelon.html

Cream of Saskatchewan

http://agsyst.wsu.edu/watermelonphotos.html

Densuke

http://www.inquisitr.com/116292/densuke-watermelon-4000-japanese-fruit/


Watermelons play a part in various cultures throughout the world. During the Vietnamese New Year's holiday, Tết, watermelon seeds are a common snack. Oklahoma made watermelon their official state vegetable in 2007 (but there's still some controversy about watermelon being a vegetable....). In Canadian football, Saskatchewan Roughrider fans hollow out and wear watermelons as football helmets. The town of Chinchilla in Queensland, Australia holds a biannual festival celebrating all things melon.


Last but not least, the Ten-lined June beetle's nickname is the Watermelon Beetle, due to the pattern on its back which resembles a watermelon rind.

-  

Somewhere in the Eschaton

I'm sorry for not writing a post yesterday. I had planned to write a cool post about watermelons, but my geometry homework kept getting in the way. Sorry about that. Shout-out to Charlotte for not posting my awesome watermelon article.


Also, a shout-out to Madison for her awesome photoblog. I'm stealing her idea to take one picture a day for 365 days. I'm planning on starting it next month on October 1st. Stay tuned.


Here's her site if you're interested: http://my365daysofphotography.blogspot.com/
All of her stuff is beautiful.

Salutations

Greetings and salutations,

I decided to start writing this blog, "Teenage Treasure Trove," in order to share my tidbits of knowledge with the whole world. I consider myself quite adept at finding hidden treasures on the internet, so my blog will encompass a wide variety of topics. I hope you come back to visit every once in a while. You can even bookmark my page!