Language and Perspective Shape the Way We Live

Details: Jeans-American Apparel, Shirt-UNIF, Plaid-Urban Outfitters, Shoes-Converse, Bracelets-same as I always wear; "I have issues" from Kenneth Cole, "Bite Me" from Ryan Porter, Gold Friendship Bracelet is a gift

Today's pictures are from a lovely coffee date with one of my best friends Caroline who is now going to be helping me churn out pictures for the blog. She's armed with a nice camera and a desire to get more photography experience so I think we make a pretty great team. I've said this before and I'll say it again, but the hardest thing for me that keeps me from committing to this blog is the whole process of being one of those people who take pictures everywhere. I was talking about this with my roommates and Caroline this weekend when we went to San Francisco. I didn't really get a whole lot of pictures from the experience and I was disappointed in myself because I really want to start documenting my life more. My roommate Lydia then pointed out that people who have to stop and take pictures all the time aren't actually enjoying their life as much, and that really resinated with me. When I'm worrying about getting pictures for my blog or simply documenting my life I tend to let my anxiety overshadow the actual experience I'm having. Therefore I think I'm going to start designating a quick 5 minutes to take outfit pictures and such whenever I go out. This way I'll go into the experience knowing that there will be a time for documenting and a time for simply living. 

Additionally, I find myself looking at pictures I take for the blog and getting somewhat down on myself. They say the camera adds 10 pounds, and I don't know if that's true or not, but I do feel that often when I look at myself in the mirror I think "wow I look really good today, like I look in shape and hot and great" and then I look at pictures someone takes of me and I say "ok wait, when did my arms get that huge? And where is this double chin situation coming from? I didn't have that this morning". But I think it's really a two-fold process of learning how to pose better in pictures and really getting myself in shape, which I'm hoping to be more dedicated to this semester. I've been going to the gym every weekday after classes and I'm trying to eat better by simply not buying "bad" foods when I go to the grocery store and instead saving my extra calories for when I'm out and about with friends. If I really do end up committing to this and seeing a difference I'll definitely make a post about my exercise routine and diet plan, but for now there's no telling how this will go. I'm hoping it will be a positive experience though!

Today's song is "Salt" by Bad Suns. I've gotten really into them lately despite the fact that I knew about them in summer. I just heard "Cardiac Arrest" and thought "I like this" but didn't really look into the band, but then I heard "Salt" on Jimmy Kimmel the other night and fell in love. I went from 0 to 100 in about 5 minutes and I now have their entire album (and every song is amazing, not a bad seed in there) and I'm completely head over heels for their singer Christo Bowman. I haven't stopped listening to the album for the past 6 days and I bought tickets to their concert tonight about 10 minutes after hearing "Salt". Hopefully I'll get some pictures at the concert that I'll post on my instagram if not on here. But until then, I'll be jamming out to "Salt" and the rest of Language and Perspective. 

*The video and the content of the song lyrics is also really great and I'm so glad that someone wrote a song about the experiences of transgender people and depicted it in such an honest way*

Much love,

Karis the Baybonnet

Sinking into Sweet Uncertainty

Details: Dress-Free People, Boots-Aldo

Hello! So I realize that it's been ages since I last posted but I've been busy. *Kim K voice* Can I LIVE? Anyways, the other day I had some pictures done by a friend of mine from high school who I was in band with. She's a talented photographer and really knows how to use natural lighting. We shot at a park in our hometown, which was interesting to me because the only time I had ever been there was in high school when my friends and I would get taco bell and eat it there at night. Anyways, I chose to wear this outfit because it's one of my new favorite go-to's. First of all, I'm in LOVE with this Free People dress. Seriously, everyone should invest in one. At first I thought it was going to be too baggy on me (because contrary to popular belief, even to me, there is a point where things become too baggy), but I actually really love the way it falls on my body, and I imagine that it would look good on most body types. I paired it with my over-the-knee boots which I've been pairing with dresses and skirts a lot lately. I don't really ever wear them with jeans because I'm not a huge fan of the whole tall boots with jeans thing, but to each their own.

As far as life goes, since my last post I've endured a 10-page research paper on the Middle East, dead week, finals week, a finals-driven mental breakdown that involved a lot of pop-punk music, a statistics final that I thought for sure I would fail (I actually did really well thanks to all my early 2000s Fall Out Boy fueled studying), and the beginning of winter break. I think that at the end of the break I might make a little post with some pictures and tidbits about it. In short, I spent a week in North Carolina with my dad, step-mom, and two little step-siblings and now I'm back in Dallas soaking up that hometown goodness while also cringing at the locals a little bit. All in all, I'm super excited to go back to the Berk and extra excited because my lovely friend Caroline just got a new camera lens and said she would help me shoot for the blog (yaas)! 

Despite the fact that my pop-punk finals week breakdown is in the past, I never got to post anything about it while it was actually happening. So I'll end this post with one of the many songs I sang along to while doing copious amounts of statistics practice problems and sobbing a little.

Karis the Baybonnet