{we shall not cease from exploration}

Merry almost Christmas!

Done with school (or more accurately, done with exams) for three and a half wonderful weeks. I have a stack of books, a list of movies, a mental file-folder full of recipes to try, miles of running routes, and a sunny house filled with family. This is going to be a quiet break, which is exactly what I need—nothing as exotic as last year (seriously, who goes to Hawaii for Christmas with their best friends?)

About three-quarters of my bucket list involves travel. Hiking Kilimanjaro, seeing the Northern Lights, yachting off Capri, hiking to Macchu Picchu (actually, come to think of it, most of my bucket list also involves hiking…hmm).

 

I speculate that this stems from a pre-emptive strike against my fear that I will end up living in the suburbs for the rest of my life and never get to see what else is on this pale blue dot we call home.

I started this blog at the beginning of the summer because even with a full-time job, I had more free time than ever before. The name “A Life Explored” was more wishful than anything. I didn’t feel like I was doing a whole lot of exploration. Everything in my life was familiar, and not that exciting. That was a concept especially hard to swallow when my original plan for the summer had been to go to Japan, to learn about and explore a place entirely different from what I knew. And granted, it ended up better than expected—I reconnected with old friends and found little pockets of happiness that lightened the tone of the whole summer back into positive territory. But that summer has ended, and now a new chapter of life is on the horizon.

Well, 2012 is already looking up to be a more geographical kind of exploration-based year. On the docket (so far): Honduras, Israel, Turkey, Greece, Italy, and Sweden. Three separate trips I’m equal parts excited and thankful for. And I’m determined that this isn’t going to become ‘that year in college when I traveled’, but the beginning of a lifetime of travel, of exploring creation, of living my life to the fullest out of gratitude for the fact that I did not do anything to deserve or earn this life but was given it, out of God’s grace.

Here’s to adventure. Here’s to exploration. Here’s to life.

Now let's get off the Internet and go live it.  

Why I will yell at you if you tell me I look like Taylor Swift

Every couple weeks (without a new album of hers out, its getting less and less frequent), someone comes up to me and goes "Hey! You look like Taylor Swift!"

These occurrences fall into one of two categories: strangers and friends/acquaintances. 

The ones from strangers are funny and I generally take them in stride and just use them as anecdote fodder. Check-out people at Target, random pre-teen girls at Starbucks, lots of moms, waiters--all feel the need to tell me that I look like Taylor Swift. The best ones are the people who look at me and go, "You look familiar..." but can't place it. Or better yet, the people who ask me if I am Taylor Swift. Doesn't happen that often, but its so, so funny when it does. Yes, Taylor Swift lives in a suburb in Atlanta and nannies in her free time. 

The worst is people who ask me, "Has anyone ever told you you look like Taylor Swift?", as if they've just had this really unique epiphany about my appearance. I read this article by a journalist who resembles Harry Potter, or I guess technically Daniel Radcliffe, and resonated with it at pretty much every point,  (read it here: http://www.observer.com/2011/07/regarding-harry), one of the main ones being the general public's lack of creativity with this observation. Or even more tiring, their utter unawareness of their lack of creativity. If someone ever came up to me and quoted song lyrics, I would think that was hilarious.  

The ones from friends/acquaintances, however, are not funny. I literally give people extra points mentally if they never bring it up. Its a small list, and its always groan-inducing when someone I've met a few times is so close to being good enough friends with me I would assume we'd talked about it already

and then they go and say it. C'mon man. 

So, why do I object so strongly to being told I look like T-Swift or even being associated with her? 

Here is my exhaustive, comprehensive, and conclusive opinion on the subject. For anyone whose ever been subjected to my pouting after trying to pay me a compliment, most likely, here's why:

[1.] I don't look like Taylor Swift.

Hear me out. Do I fall into the same type category as Taylor Swift? Absolutely. We are both 5'10 and have similar hair. And, granted, there was one time I saw a picture and went, "Whoa, I totally don't remember being here--" and then realizing that it was actually a picture of her. But it was this picture:

Taken from far away. Could've happened to anyone. 

Back to my point. We look similar, from some aspects. But our face structures are completely different. And generally I would say one's face is one's most distinguishing aspect. Also, no one ever told me I looked liked her when I used to straighten the heck out of my hair, so more accurately people should say that my hair looks like her hair, not me generally.

[2.]  I don't really like being associated with her.
Originally I liked Taylor Swift. When her first album came out and she was the new face out of Nashville, I loved her music. It was relatable, original country-pop and it wasn't overplayed. However, the third album is an entirely different story. Its one thing to be singing about boys who done you wrong and mean girls at your high school from the perspective of an up-and-coming artist, its another to act the victim when you're one of the most successful artists in the world. Using your number one album to chronicle every terrible awful thing anyone else has ever done to you is petty. And she knows it, otherwise the song "Better Than Revenge" wouldn't exist. Also, I'm unconvinced that she deserves the immense amount of fame she has. There are better technical and more acclaimed singers out there who should be winning those best album/best artist Grammys. And in her interviews she always seems kind of neurotic to me. 

Caveat: Once I decide I dislike something, or really someone, everything they do is viewed through that perspective. If someone else had given the same interview I probably wouldn't even have noticed. I realize I'm probably being a little harsh. 

[3.] Reason three is less legitimate (reason four is better, bear with me). Like most teenage girls, I relate to her song lyrics. (A friend of mine once said, "you cannot have an emotion that Taylor Swift hasn't written about," which is relatively true, especially on relationship issues). So of course when I was experiencing those emotions when Speak Now dropped, I listened to those corresponding songs. So "Sparks Fly" and "Enchanted" remind me of a guy that I really liked. And then when things fell apart with him, I maybe overdosed a little bit on "Story of Us", "Haunted", etc. So Taylor Swift now reminds me of that part of last year, which isn't something I particularly like to be reminded of. However...that's really not her fault. 

Back to the legitimate reasons why I don't like being told I look like Taylor Swift:

[4.] I really, really resent being "the girl who looks like Taylor Swift".
This, more than anything else, is the core of why the whole thing bothers me. Its like my identity has been reduced to looking like someone famous. People I've never met refer to me as the GWLLTS. Friends describe me to other people as the GWLLTS because its that, over my name, major, activities, who I'm friends with, that sparks recognition. At one point last year, I had a crush on someone and was talking to friend about it and she said, "Oh, he definitely likes you." When I asked how she knew, she said, "Because he has like a huge thing for Taylor Swift." 

Um. 

Well, thanks Taylor. Apparently you and my resemblance to you is the only thing getting me guys. Glad to know that my personality's irrelevant. 

And yes, I realize that people are usually trying to compliment me. But it would be a lot more thoughtful to actually compliment me, because its not even calling me pretty, its just telling me I look like someone who is pretty. It reduces my identity to my appearance--and not even my appearance, but its similarity to someone else's. 

And this has actually become a fear. That when guys I don't know introduce themselves that they just want to meet the Taylor Swift lookalike. And why I start getting nervous when I notice the posters and calendars in the room, the listening to Fearless on Spotify, the fact that I'm in their phone as "Taylor Swift".... (true story. that's really happened.). 

I haven't done the best job handling the whole situation. I definitely complicate the issue by sometimes going along with it. Mostly because when you meet someone and they say, "Hey, you're the girl who looks like Taylor Swift!", as annoying as it is, I don't really want to launch into my diatribe of Lauren's Fourteen Long-Winded Reasons Why You Shouldn't Have Said That. This was especially true during freshmen orientation. People could have called me whatever they wanted, I was just happy they remembered me. Also, I sometimes do things like change my profile picture to her during Celebrity Doppelganger Week on Facebook or dress up like her on Halloween. That really doesn't help. 

I should probably be more gracious about the whole thing. But what I'm really trying to avoid is going from "The Girl Who Looks Like Taylor Swift" to "The Girl Who Thinks She Looks Like Taylor Swift". I figured vehemently fighting against the comparison would be the best way to avoid the second nickname. Or printing this out and distributing it as leaflets.

The other complicated thing is that if you are good friends with me, it doesn't bother me. I know that sounds really weird after like four pages of whining about the issue, but if we're buds, I know its a joke. With acquaintances, I'm never completely sure. So don't feel like I'm going to punch you in the face if you make a Kanye joke or slip a little TSwift nickname in somewhere. I'll probably laugh. I would just prefer something more original, thats all.
I think that about says it all.

Anyone else besides the Harry Potter guy have celebrity lookalike issues?

up in the air

A word on airports.

I’ve spent a lot of time in airports. I’m kind of like an airport anthropologist, constantly people watching and analyzing ‘air world’ culture. Not as exciting as it sounds though. In the last year I’ve clocked sixteen separate flights on the Chicago-Atlanta route alone. So while I’m fairly well-traveled, I often spend most of my time “traveling” sitting in terminal E12 of O’Hare International.

Airports fall into a pretty definite dichotomy. There are the airports with energy, and then there are the other airports. Airports with energy, that je ne se quoi of excitement and the promise of world travel, are awesome. Businessmen striding purposefully off to make multi-million dollar deals and bragging about their frequent flyer miles, people from every country walking around, dramatic send-offs for loved ones. Great for people-watching and for the feeling that at any moment your life could change: you could swap out your boring domestic ticket for Berlin, Paris, Shanghai or Sydney. You could sit down on the plane and your seatmate could be a media mogul, an actor, an international jetsetter. This has a lot to do with what kind of city its in. LA, New York, London all have it. The Dallas and Atlanta airports, surprisingly enough, have it. Major train stations in Europe have it. That feeling that you are somewhere where things are happening.

But then there are all the other airports. They mainly do domestic routes. They are filled with families with small children, people going to routine business meetings and people from the suburbs going to visit their relatives in Ohio. The airport is lackluster. You sit down next to a mid-level businessman from a small company somewhere in the flyover states. It is utterly predictable and utterly devoid of anything interesting after about the fourth time you fly. This only gets worse if, like me, you end up in the same gate of the same airport two out of three times.

Also, the show Pan-Am has been ruined for me. Don’t get me wrong, its entertaining and I’m kind of hooked but after growing up with my dad in the industry I can’t really romanticize being a flight attendant.

The upside is, I rock those airports. Spending that much time anywhere, you start to figure out how things work.