Being Politically Correct

So it's been a while, but I've been thinking of revamping this blog and seeing where it goes. IT could work or crash and burn miserably. There's only one way to find out! Let's move on to today's rant: Being politically correct.

Being a TCK (Third culture kid) from Central America, I have never quite understood certain aspects of the U.S. One of these aspects is the concept of being politically correct. As a latina in heart and soul, I have grown accustomed to a certain ability to speak freely without feeling like I have to very carefully pick my words so that I won't offend people with words like "fat," "black," or "gay." But in the last roughly three months that I have been in the U.S. for college I have had to learn what's okay to say in what crowd. Among my other international peers it is perfectly acceptable to make "racist" jokes and speak freely, but among the rest of the student body I have observed that people use words that I have to keep from laughing or rolling my eyes at. 

I often stop to wonder if people realize just how ridiculous they sound. We all know what they're avoiding saying, so why not just come right out with it? Now, I'm not saying that people should be rude or insensitive about it, but really what's the point of dancing around it? You're just feeding the beast by blowing it out of proportion with special words to avoid offending everyone. 

A prime example of this happened when I was hanging out with one of my other international friends and a girl I faintly knew because of another friend. This girl is from Kansas but is of latin decent. Now, my friend likes to joke around about me being a Mexican and just makes jokes about latin culture and such. I never take offense to it because why should I? They're just jokes, and neither of us really mean what we're saying or they're things that are actually true. But this girl turned to my friend after he made a joke about latins and told him she was sick of his racism. He tried to defend himself by saying that he's not being racist because it was just statements. This got her mad. She told him that it was his tone that made it racist. Now, I was getting a bit uncomfortable about it all because I didn't really know this girl, and to be honest I thought she was being a little obnoxious about it, but I did not know what to say. She got in his face and told him not to mess with her. I made a halfhearted statement about not messing with latinas, despite not really knowing how latina she actually is. This was met with silence. But when he tried to defend himself again, just stating that he realized she could handle herself she smacked him in the face and told him there was more if he kept it up. 

Now, if you, dear reader, do not know a lot about latinas then here's a little piece of information to keep in mind. You do not want to make a latina mad. And you especially do not want to mess with family, which in this case my international friends have become a form of family for me. Now most latina girls are small but feisty. And I am no exception in the feisty department or the fierce loyalty to friends and family. I have a true latina anger mode, and I just about whipped it out on this girl. It took a lot of self-control not to show her what a real latina can do all the while yelling at her in Spanish. I just sat there staring at her in silence. And it dawned on me just how stupid it is to get upset over something so dumb. I've never grasped the concept of being politically correct, and in that moment where a girl playing latina got upset over "racist" jokes, I realized that political correctness is cultivating offense over things that other cultures brush off. 

I am not about to bash U.S. cultures. They are different from my own, but I am not saying that there's one "right" or "wrong" culture. But I am saying that political correctness is handing people the right to pull the "racist" card on anything, and teaching them to use it in ignorant ways. But that's just my opinion.

Chocolate surprise cupcakes

Okay so I know, I know it's been a while and I promised to get better at this. I apologize, and unfortunately due to unforeseen circumstances (and the fact that I suck) I haven't been able to keep up with the daily challenge. I didn't realize how much time baking/selling would take out of my day and with that and school and trying to actually get my friend to come out of his cave to do something other than watch Adventure Time and Austin and Ally I've been kind of swamped.

And here soon I'll be working on SAT, skateboarding, and a college application. But! I'm going to start reminding myself to try to actually blog. I know it's pretty bad and if I ever actually had an audience (however small) I probably lost it by my sucky posting. So it goes. 

But back to the point of this post! I've been doing a whole lot of baking lately and before this, I never really realized just how exhausting baking can be. I don't know what it is about it, but it can really wear you out. But it is fun and business is going well, so I can't really complain. Yeahhh... So again, back to the point! My mom and I decided that we wanted to do some baking just for ourselves because I have eaten a grand total of one of my own muffins and we bought a giant muffin tin that we've been dying to use. 

So we had some Snickers around that had been bought on impulse a few weeks ago, and I thought why not? We looked up a super delicious chocolate cupcake recipe on allshecooks.com and decided to trade the Hershey's kisses for chunks of Snickers. Now, with them being jumbo and chocolate the baking time was a little harder to guess and they did turn out a little dry. But they are still certainly worth it and I have to say its definitely a keeper! The way we did it, it made 8 cupcakes (6 jumbo and 2 regular), but if you're making just normal cupcakes I think it would make about 15-16 cupcakes more or less. Or 7 jumbo. And as not to steal her thunder because she did such a lovely job, I'm just putting up the ingredients so you can waltz over to her lovely site and check out how to make these scrumptious cupcakes. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup of butter (1 stick)
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 cups flour
• 3/4 cup cocoa (we used just a tad bit less and it still turned out wonderfully chocolatey)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 snickers bar, cut in slices. (if you are making the full recipe but in small cupcakes then you will need at least 2 Snickers or smaller slices)

As you are pouring them into the cupcake tin only fill about half then drop in the Snickers slice and then fill the rest of the way. 

Day 2

And the next drawing!

This is of my favorite animal: a zebra! Unfortunately I couldn't get it to stay flipped for some reason, so this is how it's going until I can fix that.

Day 1

So here's day 1's picture!
It's a little bit dark, but I am trying to get decent pictures of drawings with an iPod, so not going to be terrific. I am going to try to upload each from the scanner sometime soon.

30 Day Challenge

So wow, I keep saying I'm going to try to keep up with this blog, but things keep getting in the way (darn you, life!). We have had a lot happen in the last few months, but things are finally calming down enough that I think I can try to do a weekly post of whatever happens to come to mind when it happens, and a few random posts on other days of the week. And I might even have some new recipes to throw out there.

I'm starting a business (hopefully) of selling muffins and cookies to the students, teachers and other employees on the campus that we are living on so I'll be doing a whole lot of baking and experimenting with recipes! Tomorrow we are going to buy the supplies for selling them so we will see how well this goes. I sold nine today in less than fifteen minutes so that's a good sign, right?

Anyways, on to the point. I've started doing a 30 day drawing challenge that I saw on Pinterest a while back and had been promising myself that I'd do it. Well, I'm finally doing it! I started a couple of days ago, but after all of the baking I did yesterday I messed up and missed a day, so today I am posting 4 of them and then the rest of the days will  be done daily to keep myself disciplined.



So woohoo! We'll see how well this goes.

My newest obsession

So in my last post I said I was going to try and figure out what this blog is for and to get into a better routine. The routine might take time since I am still transitioning from my home to my old country/new apartment, but I'm trying my best. 

But today is going to be one of those random pats that the fashion freaks like me will enjoy if you haven't already had the pleasure (and time loss) of discovering this wonderful thing. A couple of days ago I was browsing Appsfire (also fantastic) which is an app that shows you what apps are on sale/free (temporarily and permanently) and I happened to see an app I wasn't familiar with. It was called Polyvore. I thought the name was kind of odd so I decided to check the description. A fashion app? Eh, I figured why not! The second I opened the app I realized I would not be disappointed. I had been trying to figure out how people were posting those outfits to Pinterest like the modern princesses and things like that. And I got my answer: Polyvore! For this unfamiliar with it, the nifty app lets you browse through outfits and fashion collages people have made and make your own using their stock from different websites and I believe you can upload your own content. 

Now, I'm kind of a fashion freak. I love coming up with new outfits and have a blast matching things with accessories. So for me, Polyvore is now my favorite app and I am only upset that it requires Internet so I can't design in the car. But really if you like that sort of thing and haven't already checked it out, do! It's free and loads of fun! 

This is pointless rambling

So it's been a while I guess. I know from the start it hasn't been exactly consistent but even I have to admit this is bad. I honestly have meant to post but things have been a little tough around here. It's been nonstop packing since we got back from the States and I honestly haven't found any time to do much of anything. Last week I got my wisdom teeth pulled so that's also had me pretty much incapacitated for the last week and even now I've managed to find myself feeling under the weather and awake at 2 AM. Not a huge surprise honestly. Though I have been wondering what the point of this post is. I never started this blot with the intention of writing personal stuff on it. I never really thought anyone would read any of the posts. But it has been read. And I am awake at this hour writing personal stuff. It's my blog right? I can do that. I can write about how I just found myself wandering around downstairs in the kitchen at 1:45 AM for cornstarch to try a dry shampoo remedy because I am incapable of actually getting any sleep for the second night in a row. This is my blog. I can ramble on about utter nonsense if I like. I can rant about how my kindle fire won't let me type this post in the actual compose section so I have to type in the HTML and hope it works. This is my blog after all. I apologise (sorry if I spelled that wrong but it won't even acknowledge that as a word in general.) if I offend anyone. But honestly I am still working out what I want to do with this blog. I might actually use it just to blog sometimes. You know, like most people. I might use it to test out popular pins (myths) on Pinterest and test the accuracy of them. I might use it to put recipes I've found that I enjoyed and thought others might like to try too. I might put up some of my own things I've done. I might put up artwork. I might rant. I might post photos. I might post vlogs from future trips. I might do journals from future trips. I might just talk. I might talk about stuff that matters. I might talk about pointless things. I don't really know. But one thing I do know is that I can't control whether or not you read any of it. That's your choice. You don't have to. This blog is my blog. But if you like it you can read it and contribute your own thoughts and opinions and ideas. That's your choice and your right. I cant stop you from it. So here's to spreading our wings and figuring stuff out along the way.