Tie-dye!

I've always been fond of tie-dye. All these colors and patterns you could never make purposely, the spontaneous coincidences of the paint settling in one spot of fabric rather than the other, for reasons you could never tell. However, I have never had a chance to wear tie-dye, or do something way more exciting - make it myself. So, as you could guess, I finally did it. Accompanied by my English Studies' classmate, who is also here for one semester, I went to this tie-dye workshop, organised by the arts society of Newcastle university. The  cafe accommodating the event got crowded in no time, and the atmosphere was welcoming with everyone splashing colorful paint on white t-shirts, rolled in tiny balls and restrained with rubber bands. I had so much fun! And, of course, now I am all happy and excited, seeing (and using) what came out of this colorful and 'splashy' experience.

Opportunities that enrich

   One of the courses I am having, called "Introduction to Social and Cultural Studies", has been giving me a lot of thought recently, especially concerning the issues of racism, obesity, and disability and how society 'copes' with it, especially in the post-soviet Europe. I was comparing the views of people from small towns to ones of those coming from bigger cities. Then I thought about the small town I grew up in. People were crazy about football there, and we had two black players in out team, who were the only one making the local community interracial. People loved the sport, and the two guys did really well on the team, but still there were racist comments coming from the crowd every time they were in the field. The black players were being judged and picked on for slightest mistakes they made much more intensely than the other players. Everyone still loved the team but things were different than before.

   What I settled with was just a pile of questions I was going through over and over for the past two or three days. What really struck me was the final understanding that what all this fuss was ans still is about is really just the matter of 'otherness'. Offensively enough, I was able to compare it to a situation where a little child sees something other than  himself and radiates distrust. at it or..gets scared. And maybe that's just it, maybe we're just scared at the sight of someone entering the bubble of trust our society has formed easily enough because we were all similar physically? 

   But then I think about the western culture where the interracial background has been on much longer. Does this have to do with the national character? The soviets and their enclosure on the east part of Europe? The economy? It gets complex as different all these different aspects pile up, but what I think it's going to turn out to be is a matter of time. Time needed for a child to grow up and realize that all he feared was just another opportunity to make his life richer.

Feeling photography

This morning, finally, my long-awaited camera arrived right at my door. So excited !!! New classy pictures coming up soon! Moreover, since it's my first digital camera, I'll have to figure out how everything in here works first :D

One of my first shots :