Meant To Be
March 27th, 2009
“Everything happens for a reason.”
I hear this statement everywhere these days, especially in the form of “this was meant to be.” As a consistent agnostic, leaning toward atheist individual… I disagree. Admitting that an outside force is out there controlling what happens to us to any extent is the same as confirming the existence of a higher power, unless you like to make the joke that everything happens for a reason even if it’s “just because.”
A lot of things do happen for a reason. Girls get pregnant because they’ve been inseminated, people decide to go to college because they think it’s a good investment - hell, I ate Cinnamon Toast Crunch this morning because I felt like it. But these are things that happened based on conscious decision. For whatever reason, they were made to happen because someone wanted them to. But it wasn’t God, and it wasn’t an outside force either, not unless peer pressure was involved. I am of the opinion that if God exists, he/she/it is way too busy doing Godly stuff to watch every human being simultaneously, but I’ll get into that rant at another time.
The problem I have with someone declaring that an event was meant to happen is that it is essentially a romanticized view of the world based on ideals rather than realism. So you meet someone that you really hit it off with at the same place at the same time; there is another word for this, and it is called coincidence (unless of course you or that person purposely set things up so you could meet). And while I agree that a string of coincidences seems highly unlikely, well… what percent of the world believes in Darwin’s evolution theory again? Adaption itself is not a coincidence in theory, but what I am pointing at here in particular is the evolution of life itself. Life started with bacteria and tiny molecules, right? (That’s the theory I’m sticking with, anyway.) Now, how long do you think it took its development to actually take place, and while we’re on that train of thought, how many times do you think it failed before things worked together sufficiently? The amount of times it took is coincidence, as is the success of the adaption in question. Trial and error.
I mean, let’s say I’m walking and I trip and fall, causing me to earn yet another scar for my leg. Was that meant to be? No, that was me being very clumsy and not watching what I was doing carefully enough. Let’s adjust it. Let’s say I’m walking behind someone, trip, fall, and land on them. We then introduce ourselves, get talking, become friends, get married, have children and are eventually buried next to each other. Was that meant to be? In a way, yes, it was. Meeting them was a complete accident, but the communication afterward opened more doors to possible futures.
Do you see what I’m getting at? Your life is what you do with it, your relationships are built upon the actions between you and the other person, your talents are yours and formed by the amount of practice you have at them, and ultimately, your future is only created based on what you have or have not done to achieve it. It is a disservice to the amount of effort you deposit into your life to lay it all down on God’s table. Stand up and take a bow; this success is yours, with maybe a bit of blame on luck. 
P.S. I know this isn’t the best blog post I’ve ever written, but I knew that if I didn’t publish it today it would never get done. I’ll revisit it later with a hopefully more tied in approach to (my) life with less vague examples, I just needed to get this out there.
Oh Lord
March 8th, 2009
I am kind of, totally, well, utterly disappointed with how I’ve let Dark Rose sit here in silence for another three weeks. My ability to completly ignore my own personal website is kind of depressing, but not nearly as much as the fact as how I’ve been trying to make a bright new design for it for ages and still have nothing to show for it.
One of the things that I’ve noticed recently with my websites is that I can whip up a design pretty quickly for just about everything but my personal website. My fanlistings? Cake, I remember getting four or five layouts done over the course of a week for them. My friends? The design I made for Kae took me one night and I think it both fits her personality and website fairly well and also looks rather nice.
But man, if it’s for me? I can’t do it. I just can’t. It took me a few weeks to make the current layout too, and even then I don’t think it especially screams my name. This site is mine, it should have “AMBER” written in bolded, italic, neon, capital serif letters (okay, maybe not neon, I hate neon) stamped all over it. Because your website’s design is supposed to reflect who you are, right? At least, that’s what I always read, same goes for content too.
Actually, maybe my current layout does say enough about me. “Hi, I’m Amber, and I am completely uninspired at the moment. In the mean time: my fondness for typography and color use, let me show you them.” Don’t get me wrong, I do like my layout, but I feel like it’s a fairly weak version of my skills. I’d like to feature my art in a design again and make it truly mine, instead of using precise preset shapes; that’s not me, I’m fully capable of making my own stuff, so what am I doing? And yet every time I do go to make a new theme, I end up losing my inspiration or getting a new one. So often do I find myself loving a layout that I’m in the process of making and then suddenly trashing it because I began to hate it half an hour later.
Usually when I lose my inspiration for something, I try to listen to music and get a feel for the outcome I’m looking for. Once I find the song that fits the idea I’m going with most, I listen to it on repeat. Over and over. As I do this habitually on a regular basis, it does not drive me insane and instead keeps me going with my idea. I also like to go to Color Schemers and Color Lovers to try and find schemes that I like enough to incorporate into a design. Ironically, I’ve been uploading color schemes that I’ve both used in past designs and randomly come up with and yet I’m still completely stuck. Apparently there’s ideas in there, I just have to force ‘em out…
A Quest for Skin Care Products
February 3rd, 2009
My mom tells me that I have pretty good skin, but then of course she does, she’s my mom. It’s not like I am so pimply that I am a bona fide pizza face, but I have those sort of red blotches underneath my skin and it’s also sort of oily in some places and dry in others. Oh yes - apparently, my skin type is combination. I also get pimples here and there too, but nothing serious.
Now that I have money and work in a supermarket of all places, I am at liberty to buy skin care products for myself and see what works and what doesn’t. It’s almost intimidating to go to the beauty section and see the various bottle shapes and wonder which one to invest in. While it has only been a little less than two weeks since I started trying out some new products, I’ve already developed an opinion on some of the products that I have been using and thought I would share them with you today.
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Neutrogena Transparent Facial Bar
This is actually a product that I’ve been using for about a year and a half. I like these bars a lot because they’re kind to my sensitive skin and really do help keep acne at bay. Before I started using them, I’d have pimples all over the place and get them randomly, but I’ve only been getting them here and there every few weeks and sometimes even months. I will say that, as with all products, you want to rinse your skin really thoroughly after washing your face with it because it will make your skin dry in those areas where you didn’t rinse enough. On the other hand, the facial bars are also good for moisturizing the skin a little bit, because I used to get dry patches throughout the day prior to using them.
Price: They cost differently depending on where you go, but at my supermarket they’re about a dollar.
Verdict: Thumbs up! -
Clean & Clear Morning Burst Detoxifying Facial Cleanser
I was very excited when I bought this because it’s not so much the surface of my skin that I dislike, but I think the red blotches underneath it are caused by trapped dirt that my trusty Neutrogena bar can’t really get to. I wanted a cleanser to really get down there and do the job, and since I read a lot of nice reviews about Clean & Clear on product pages and was entranced by the commercials (yeah, okay, I’m gullible, sue me), I thought I’d give one of their products a shot.
The detoxifying cleanser has bursting beads inside it that are supposed to release antioxidants and make your skin feel all fresh, clean and healthy. When I first applied it, I felt very clean, felt the tingle, and totally thought “WOW, I DON’T REGRET BUYING THIS AT ALL!”
Two days later? Yeah, I got a big ass pimple on my cheek that’s actually still stuck on my face. I’m also having smaller breakouts around my mouth and on my nose, and seeing as I haven’t even had a breakout for months, I’m going to blame it on this product. It also dried some of my skin in the same areas where there are now pimples. Maybe I didn’t wash it thoroughly enough, or maybe the ingredients are too strong for sensitive skin, but I would not recommend this product to anyone who isn’t planning on joining a chess club.
So, while it does wake you up, soften your skin and make you feel fresh, it does nothing good for your complexion.
Price: $6-$8
Verdict: No, just no. -
Clean & Clear Oil-Free Dual Action Moisturizer
I bought this moisturizer with the cleanser to help make my skin softer and protect it a little better. For the most part, my feelings on this are mostly apathetic, because it is supposed to keep my skin healthy and help protect it from breakouts, the latter of which has clearly failed (i.e. giant cheek pimple and smaller breakouts). It’s also supposed to keep my skin from forming those dry patches, which it also didn’t do after the cleanser did its, uh, thing.
So really, my skin hasn’t really improved or been exacerbated as a result of using this product.
Price: $4-$5
Verdict: Eh. It’s pretty ineffective, so I wouldn’t recommend it to you, but it could just be me, too. -
St. Ives Apricot Scrub (Renew and Firm)
I actually bought this on a recommendation from a YouTube video, because the girl actually went through and explained how it helped and I felt like I could really trust her. I know that sounds weird, but I’d rather buy something on a recommendation than on a random whim. So anyway, I bought it and brought it home, and… it’s amazing. There are grains in the cream that smooth your skin out (though don’t scrub the hell out of your skin with it, and it’s precisely because of those grains that you don’t want to do that) and make it so the cleanser can penetrate the skin and actually get down in there and clear it out.
On its own, the scrub made my skin really soft, and I noticed a difference in my skin within the first few HOURS. The clear bumps I had on my forehead vanished and my skin became really polished. It has also been very helpful with getting rid of the Clean & Clear massacre that was my face. My pimple is still here, but now it’s more of a dull patch of color on my skin as opposed to the pulsating volcano it was before I bought it. (I bought the scrub a few days after the cleanser, so it hasn’t taken that long for it to kick in.)
You might be thinking that the renew and firm is a bit ridiculous for me to have when I’m 19 right now, but trust me, I’m not using it because I think I look totally old (people think I’m 15 at work, dude). I chose it because it has alpha hydroxy in it, and so it gets rid of all my gross little dead skin cell thingies. It also made my skin look brighter (I didn’t think it was possible LOL), but in a good way!
Price: I bought mine for $2.99, but it’s also a sale item at my store. :3
Verdict: BUY IT.
After all of this, I’m ironically still using the Clean & Clear products in conjunction with St. Ives and Neutrogena. What can I say? I’m cheap! Plus, there’s still a lot of stuff in their containers and I’m thinking that I wasn’t rinsing well enough when I first started using the cleanser, which certainly couldn’t have helped the Squidtastic version of the Red Scare. However, once they’re through (or if I get another breakout), I’ll be switching to a more gentle cleanser and hopefully a more effective moisturizer.
Anyway, I hope this has been helpful or at least amusing to read, and I’ll be sure to share any further notable results.
