Weddings :)

Indian weddings are known to be long, lavish affairs with tons of food, glitter, music, and dancing. I'm super excited to be attending a wedding in just over a month!! I've compiled an inspiration board full of lovely images of Indian weddings in all their glory.
Enjoy!! :)

 

Do click on it to see it larger :)

A Little bit of Serenity Under the Stars

I'm blogging from my porch - my feet up on the wooden railing, surrounded by soft, dusky light, fireflies, and the heady smell of summer flowers. A perfect way to end a long, hot, and tiring day :)

The Little Things :)

Finally, I'm all done with school!! I came home yesterday to find my garden and porch abloom with a riot of colors. Take a look!!

Do click on the photos to see them larger. Hope all of you have an amazing start to your summers!!

:)

The Light at the end of the...

...School year! It's basically the home stretch now - only two more weeks left! Which means that in the next two weeks I will:
*eat lots of Ramen and Lean Cuisine
*spread my endless notes and textbooks all over my room, much to annoyance of the roomie
*consume ridiculous amounts of coffee (and other caffeinated beverages - read: Monster!) like the true coffee-holic that I am
*make many trips to the library
*maybe start to look like a hobo (yikes!)

My trusty Cinnamon Dolce Latte (thank God for a Starbucks on campus!!!), textbooks, and a portion of my notes...

So...I am firmly bidding adieu to the blog-o-sphere for the next weeks...and I shall see you all once I have successfully finished and aced every exam.
Beware- I may look a little different when I am finished.... ;)

 

(Image from kf6nvr.net)

And if necessary, I shall use this method to relieve any exam-related stress:

(Image from voices.mysanantonio.com)

Spring Craft Fair

We had a Spring Craft Fair at my university today. I took a couple of photos but didn't get a lot since the it was disgustingly hot and humid outside, and I was super busy with multiple meetings for multiple clubs!!
Here are the few photos that I took --

These lovely necklaces, baskets, and bracelets were all made by men and women from Uganda who are HIV positive, and all of the profits go towards clothing, feeding, and educating their children, some of whom are also HIV positive.

I bought this cute yellow beads necklace. 

The men and women who created this jewelery and other crafts are sponsored by the Maa-Ma and Paa-pa group, which provides HIV+ men and women with a method to become economically stable by selling handmade items like jewelry, bags, baskets, leather good, and more. The website says:

  

Through the creation of beautiful Ugandan inspired handicrafts, the MaaMa- PaaPa psychosocial group provides its members with a chance at a life of economic stability and opportunity.  

MaaMa-PaaPa Handicrafts not only teaches participants to make arts and crafts and manage a business, but to create for themselves hope in a life where there is little left.  

For these HIV+ mothers and fathers, MaaMa-PaaPa Handicrafts is a last chance at making a life for  themselves and their families before the disease takes control. 

Be sure to check out the Maa-ma and Paa-pa website for more information and how you can help! 

China Blue

Today in my introductory sociology class, we finished a documentary called China Blue. The documentary chronicles the new life of a 17-year-old jeans factory worker, Jasmine Lee. Jasmine moves from her village in  to work at a denim factory in the city. She works nearly 18 hours a day, sometimes even working overnight to finish orders before shipping deadlines, without any overtime. Jasmine is a thread cutter, and clips loose thread from finished jeans before they are shipped. She gets paid about half a yuan, or about 6 cents, per pair of jeans that she finishes.

They live crowded together in cement factory dormitories where water has to be carried upstairs in buckets. Their meals and rent are deducted from their wages, which amount to less than a dollar a day. Most of the jeans they make in the factory are purchased by retailers in the U.S. and other countries. CHINA BLUE takes viewers inside a blue jeans factory in southern China, where teenage workers struggle to survive harsh working conditions. Providing perspectives from both the top and bottom levels of the factory’s hierarchy, the film looks at complex issues of globalization from the human level.
-The Synopsis on PBS's website

(Image from www.facingthefuture.org)

Jeans are considered a very everyday commodity for most people, and as a college student I wear jeans or denim in some form nearly everyday. It was heartbreaking to see how much time and effort goes behind one pair on jeans, and how poorly the workers that labour behind our jeans get treated and payed. In the documentary, Jasmine says that they are given midday meals by the factory and she had thought that they are free, but it turns out that they are deducted from their wages. All the workers get fined for each minute that they are late to work. Many new workers like Jasmine Lee don't get their first month wages until much later (and sometimes never) as an incentive to continue working at the factory.

The documentary is about an hour and 25 minutes long, and at the end you read that in the time it took to watch the documentary, Jasmine Lee and her friends prepared 15 pairs of jeans for shipping. Together, they only made $1.45.

Here's the website where you can read more about China Blue.

 Read more about China's labor laws and the jeans business in China.

I hope that watching this documentary will make us all appreciate all that we have, and just how much we take for granted.