In my small group on Tuesday, we talked about the criticism Beyonce faced following the release of "Formation" from people who claimed she only brought race into her music when it had become a "hot topic" and thus "fashionable" and marketable to include. Kamara also joked about people who listened to Beyonce's music before Lemonade came out, and who were suddenly struck by the realization, "Oh...she's black??" In reality, of course, Beyonce was not not black until she talked about it--instead, she was a black woman working within the confines of a racist, patriarchal, and capitalist system which demanded that she make herself less political and more palatable to succeed.

For my avatar photo, I chose a photo of some flowers that were growing in the neighborhood where I grew up. I took this photo on some sort of nature walk, or at least as close to a nature walk as it could get in a smaller suburban city. Lately, flowers have become some sort of reminder to me to take note that there is more to my surroundings than what I usually see on the daily. I tend to focus on things that I need or want to do and taking a nature walk or even just stopping to look at my surroundings let's me pause to think about the nicer things that are rarely seen. I've started to take photos of flowers recently, small reminders that there are things of beauty surrounding me while I go about my day. 

My avator is picture of a beach on the Domincan Republic. Two summers ago I spent a week tutoring children in Monte Cristi, Domincan Republic with a few other students from my high school. The classroom consisted of a concrete floor and a frail wooden roof, and the children came from low income families. Coming from a student who had an opposite education experience it was a very life changing moment. All the children remained with great similes on their faces and a strong eager to learn, which was truly admirable. After this trip I found an even greater importance for education from seeing it through the lense of these Dominican children. 

The pale, somewhat confused looking little avatar I chose is actually a character from a music video called FML by the female rapper K.flay. Hopefully everyone knows what fml means, but for those who don't it is an acronym for "Fuck my life". The song itself is about those little terrible moments that compliment the greater things that are simetaneously occuring. K.flay described it as having a hangover while on tour. She woke up one morining with a horrible headache and immediatley said fml because at that moment she felt miserable. however she remembered why she even she had the hangover. She was on tour, in europe with some of her favorite people in the world. The song's chorus actually goes "Fuck my life, I love my life". It was kind of my anthem in my senior year of highschool.

My avatar is a picture of the sculpture called "Memory". The popular interpretation is that the sculptor, Daniel Chester French, was portraying a vain woman, remembering how beautiful she used to be and clinging to her fading youth. When I came face to face with this sculpture two summers ago, I was struck by French's hypocrisy. He criticizes her for caring about beauty while using a medium focused solely on aesthetics. I wanted to know more about the woman who modeled for the sculpture, to give her a voice rather than just see her image. So I began researching, and found out that the model's name was Audrey Munson, and she had a much richer history than I had initially anticipated.

The image I selected as my avatar is of a butterfly that reminds me of the journey I took across the Peruvian Inca trails last summer. The word butterflies translates to "mariposas" in spanish, and the insects themselves which are prevalent in the amazonian cloud forest region are both gorgeous and diverse. The hike was a four day trek up and down the Andes mountains at altitudes of more than thirteen thousand feet above sea level. The trail runs along steep cliff edges and has thousands of stairs built by the Incan people centuries ago. I traveled with my mother, her wife, my brother, my sisters, and my step aunts. There, I was introduce by Eric, our guide, to the beauty and abundance of the earth goddess, Pachamama, and treated as a partaker rather than a tourist.

Two messily spray painted plastic chairs sit empty on the dock that overlooks the swimming hole we at my summer camp fondly call the “goon,” short for lagoon. I love this picture because it captures a quiet moment, of which there are few at my camp, but it also contains potential for action. Any two people could come sit in those chairs and enjoy a conversation, while either looking over the still water or watching rowdy campers swim and play. I chose this photo because my overnight camp is very important to my identity. The community I found as a camper helped me find confidence and certainly shaped who I am today. I gained an appreciation for nature and a respect for silence, but I also found strength, energy, goofiness, and leadership inside me.

       Green tea matcha, the thick swirl of coconut speckled with green tea. Shaking it as my hand clenches the slippery, warming shake. Lime green spreading across my lips, moistening them. Crisp, yet somehow processed freshness. Knowing the flavor is familiar, reminds me of easy dates, charged study routines, and people bustling around me. Makes you pause as heaviness creeps up the straw, slowly, begging for mixture. It calls extra attention, the bits, straggling at the bottom, melting yet still firm and moist. Swirling the slurpy ice pieces around my mouth, pressing the matcha chunks against the side of my mouth. Crunchy chunks, enjoying the process of consuming the drink. Lasting taste, a little too thick, too hard.

My avatar is a picture of an egg. I was making brownies and I cracked one egg and there was a white thing in it, so I decided to open that up. There was another little white thing inside of that too. I couldn't sleep that night until I had a scientific explanation for this, so I learned that chickens can actually produce eggs that have eggs inside of their egg. If there is a blockage in the cloaca, eggs will move their way into another egg before the shell is calcified around it.