beauty is in the brain of the beholder.

A new scientific study claims that women appreciate beauty better than men. Women apparently use their whole brain to absorb beauty, while men only use the right side of their brain. The researchers think this is linked to the way men and women process spatial information..men look at the image as a whole, while women pay more attention to the smaller details.

This makes sense to me, but it also makes me question the antithesis of this finding. Are women more apt to notice ugliness or flaws, also, then? Are we as females genetically predispositioned to notice the smallest details in things, including our own bodies and those of others, and react to them?

My logic may be way off. The fact that the sample size of this experiment was 20 people doesn't help either.

SHARP IdEa

I'm more intrigued by using this blog as a place to gather various things that I like online than I am by using it as a journal.

With ad internship deadlines approaching, I've been stalking online ad websites to find THE ads that I love and hate.

Interactive Sharpie billboards:
These allow consumers to physically interact with the product through art. And remember how satisfying it was to sign someone's blank white cast canvas?
Grade: A-



Tagline: "Keep obesity away from your child"
This fat Barbie ad is sponsored by an organization called Active Life Movement. I don't like that the premise of this ad is that Barbie in her natural form (by natural, I mean unnatural) is what's considered healthy or active. Plus, I think it focuses too much on the unattractiveness of obesity instead of the positive aspects of being healthy.
Grade: C



Yesyesyes. Go Veet.
This ad was politically relevant, clever, relatively inexpensive & striking in newspapers filled with red, white and blue.
Grade: A

teradactyl love

I am bad at updating this. I have 3 or 4 started posts that I never end up finishing. I decided to post a few of them just so they would stop annoying me.

Audra and I were talking about this a few days ago (over cafe and dulce de leche cheesecake) and I have way too much to say to even attempt to sum it up in a blog post. 18 pages later, I'd still barely be making a dent in the descriptions that I have. I never have any idea how to start these or make them coherent whatsoever. So I just don't write. Going to work on this. In summary:

We had a group trip to Tigre a few days ago, a little town north of B.A. I had no idea what to expect, but ended up really enjoying the day. Tigre is a small town where two rivers come together to make the imposing Rio del Plata. We went on a boat tour of the rivers where we saw hundreds of small houses on the banks of the river. These people take a boat to get to work everyday, and get their groceries delivered by boat. There's even a Quilmes (beer) boat that picks up old bottles and refills them. At some point in my life, I would like to spend a week by myself on a hammock at one of these little houses and have waiting for the Quilmes boat be the highlight of my day. It was pouring while we were there, which I of course was in love with, despite the grumbling of the others. This lead to the fantastic idea of sharing a few bottles of Vasco Viejo (the Argentine version of Franzia) with my friend and going puddle hopping in the rain. Twas fantastic.

My camera is broken. This frustrates me. Attempting to go to a camera store and explain technology problems in Spanish is probably going to frustrate me even more.

I've discovered that running is my favorite way of exploring the city. I'm hoping the novelty of this doesn't wear off, as exercise is fantastic for both my mood and for offsetting the results of eating pizza every.single.day.

Speaking Spanish (more like Spanglish) with locals at bars is officially my favorite way of learning the language. I learn so so much more while making conversation than I do sitting in a classroom learning words to describe my job. (Last week's theme. Very fun. Not.) I met a precious new friend last night who is going to show my gringo self around Buenos Aires the local way.

It's fantastic that Audra's here now. We were talking about the fact that we've only actually hung out in person twice, but how naturally friendship comes.

I adore my roommates.

Argentines put ham and hardboiled eggs on absolutely everything. I find this unnecessary.

I've always wished that I could combine all the worlds that I know and love. This still holds true. I want all the people I love to live in a place that combines all the elements I love about different places around the world. I used the word love too much in the past few sentences. It's ok. I'm feeling a lot of it.

i knew you'd be watching.

I am so in love with the movie Slumdog Millionaire.
Here's to hoping it wins the Oscar.

pleasure

yes, that's right, she's all wrapped up in herself, lost in that world she carries inside her, that she's just beginning to discover.
- manuel puig

I seem to only get the urge to update this on rainy days. I love the heat and the smell and the general mass chaos of this city, but today is a meganday. The gentle drizzle almost seems to calm the city and all its inhabitants. The usual hustle and bustle is replaced with freshness and peace and I wandered around in the rain listening to my ipod for about an hour today. Rainy days are good for the soul.

On this walk, I discovered one of my new favorite places in the city: a hole in the wall used bookstore. I've had an intense craving for books in English since I got here, to the point of harassing my fellow students to read their books faster so I could have them when they were done. Today I stepped inside this little bookstore on a whim, to get out of the rain for a minute, and felt more at peace than I have this entire trip. The smell of old books and rain permeated the warmly lit room while jazz music softly played in the background. I happily browsed for awhile before I purchased 3 of the only English books they had. I had extremely good intentions when I first got here and bought Harry Potter and Little Women in Spanish, only to get beyond frustrated when it takes me 20 minutes to read one page. Reading has always been pure pleasure for me, and I've wanted books to accompany this otherwise pleasure-filled vacation so badly. I would kill for a Barnes & Noble day in the US.

Anyway, the quote at the top is from Kiss of the Spider Woman, a classic by an Argentine author that I'm reading right now. If you ever get a chance to read it, please do. The language is fucking beautiful. If the translation is this profound, I can only imagine what the Spanish version is like.

mis companeras

These are my roommates, the girls that I spend a ridiculous amount of my waking time with. I am somehow not sick of either of them yet, which is surprising considering how much Megan time I usually need.

Calla, the curly haired redhead on the left is one of my favorite people on the program. She's made up of sunshine and rainbows and everything nice, but has enough spice and sarcasm to make her interesting. She started out as a nursing major at Mayo Clinic, but transferred to the U and is now a Global Studies major. Considering I'm always with her, awkward individual shots of Calla make up the majority of the pictures I have on my camera. She was a lovely sidekick to pick up.

Renee is on the right, a psychology major from the University of Illinois-Chicago. She's very very blunt, down to earth and also married (!). She also knows random facts about everything, which are a welcome addition to our nightly wine talks around the table. The three of us balance each other nicely..Calla's the optimist, Renee's the realist and I'm somewhere in the middle. Our conversations are almost always interesting, as we're all from completely different backgrounds, yet are all very opinionated. Last night's talk was regarding if love at first sight is actually possible. If I'm feeling particularly inspired, I might dive into this subject on a later post. The other thing that I appreciate about my roommates is that we are capable of comfortable silences. No one feels the need to chatter to fill up empty spaces in the conversation..we are content to leave it be and be alone with our thoughts. We went to an outdoor cafe last night to get pizza and beer ('MERICA!) and eventually I noticed that we'd been sitting in silence for about 8 minutes, without it being the slightest bit awkward. And I liked that.

This weekend, a small group of us is taking a bus 6 hours south to Mar del Plata, the biggest seaside beach resort in Argentina. A round trip bus ticket costs US $45 and the hostel we're staying in is going to end up costing us approximately $3 each. I'm ridiculously excited about this trip for a few reasons:

- It has a beach and ocean (the obvious)

- I like the idea of going with a small group -- it makes it a lot easier to get to know people when we're not in a cozy group of 30.

- I managed to arrange the entire trip speaking Spanish. Somewhere along the way, I became the group spokesperson (no idea how this happened). Managing to find an obscure bus station and procuring round trip tickets for 5 people while speaking solely in Spanish gave me the biggest sense of accomplishment I've had in awhile.

- We might do water activities. By 'water activities', I do not mean swimming. I mean windsurfing, deep sea diving, etc.

There are definitely a few people from my group that are starting to get on my nerves a bit (read: annoy the hell out of me), but the main thing that bothers me is how few people want to speak Spanish outside of class. When we go to bars, etc...we're the obnoxious, loud Americans speaking English. This does not help us make friends. I'm amazingly fluent in English..I want to learn Spanish.

I'm excited for Audra to get here.

I eat too much pizza. More on the food here later.

It's rainy today, which far from making me unhappy, is making me even happier. I need a good, gloomy day once in awhile. I've been curled up in bed reading The Hobbit, and I think we're going to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button later.

Life is still good. I'm essentially on vacation here, and this weekend I'm taking a vacation from my vacation. What? Feeling lucky and grateful and 1.4% homesick.