Selfies, Animals, Food, Journals

The past few weeks have been really fun! Over thanksgiving break, Madeline and I went to this little animal farm where you can feed the animals and took at lot selfies with the animals. I've also been working in my journal a lot, so I'm posting photos of that too. I went through finals week last week which was INCREDIBLY stressful, but I do have a few cool projects to share! Keep your eye out for those in upcoming posts. 

(Three days until my birthday!!! And my family got a tree!! Holiday season is happening!)

 sMOOch

Madeline taking selfies with this goat, who tried to eat her phone

notes from class that I thought looked really pretty

this goat tried to eat my sleeve!

Madeline took these of me...I'm obsessed with this dress, but I kinda hate the pattern/colours so I think I'm gonna try to recreate it next semester!

Left: Drawing of myself--I thought I looked like this emoji that day cause I had a bunch of blush on and I was smiling//Right: actual lines made when I was running on an elliptical at the Y, put the journal on the stand and held the pen loosely as I ran

I found this selfie on my computer that I never posted anywhere and I  love it and can't believe I didn't post it anywhere. 

I found these photos at the East Bay Center for Creative Reuse and the colours are so beautiful?? and they happened to go with this other angsty/stressed entry I'd made earlier 

drawing I did of Zach (in the photo he has a kiss mark on his cheek), there are glasses inside his head when you pull up. 

we matched!

We saw puppies at this adoption event and they let us hold themmmm

Selfies with all the animals (the goat was really into it)

The little thing attached with a string is an envelope

illustration I did for this post of Tessa's

journal entry from when I went to the CCA Holiday Fair and held puppies and got burgers at The Smokehouse with Zach

Drawing of my friends Maren and Emma as animals (Mouse//Cat)

xoxo
Maya

Old Endings, New Beginnings

 I made this post for The Pulp Zine originally, but on The Pulp Zine, when you click to enlarge the gifs, they stop moving! And apparently there's no way to change that which is a major bummer, but here they are in order here!

The theme of TPZ this month is change, so this is a sort of narrative about the transition from this summer to the beginning of college. Going from being with my friends all the time who know me really well to a room full of strangers who don't know me. Going from a place where people know my personality, my quirks, my ~thing~, already, to a place where no one knows or gets my ~thing~. I've had a hard time with it (as I've posted about before).

 

xoxo
Maya

drive thru see thru

<3

Hello lovelies!

I'm posting so soon after my last post?! I know..it's shocking. I also have another post coming up very soon. And another one half formulated in my head...so...PRODUCTION IS HAPPENING FINALLY. I think this is probably mostly because having people home makes me take a lot of photos, and because of Thanksgiving a lot of my friends are home.  I actually had a really nice Thanksgiving (despite the fact that obviously I do not support where the holiday came from, my family celebrates it). My mom had a big dinner at our house (which we never do) and made a million dishes of amazing food and deserts (most of which we are still eating for leftovers, so...score!?) 

Now we're beginning the holiday season that I absolutely LOVE: CHRSITMAS & MY BIRTHDAY!?!>!>!>!>!??!??!?!? I am excited for aproximately 387,876,584,093 reasons. 1. my friends are coming home!!!! 2. I love buying people gifts, especially when I have ideas for them!!  3. shopping a lot for gifts/myself 4. colder weather and cute people layering 4. cozy things like hot cocoa or hot mochas 5. I love peppermint bark 6. also all chocolate 7. MOST OBVIOUSLY MY BIRTHDAY!!!! I'm a big birthday person. I just love my birthday. I don't know why because I don't do anything that fun or crazy. I guess I just love the attention. (no surprises there)

~~~~~~~~~~~~

As I was talking about in my October AF post, I've been really into sheer stuff lately. Ever since I found this striped American Apparel bralette literally on the ground (??), I've been obsessed with wearing sheer stuff over it. I only have four photos of the outfit I wore, all of which I've turned into artistic gifs (which I absolutely love tbh??), but I've fleshed this post out with photos of new clothes and journal pages etc. 

Left: journal entry/drawing thing that I did before my sewing class. It happened to match the cutting mat I was drawing on!//Right: A photo I took for this The Pulp Zine post about new clothes. I paired my new clothes with a journal entry I'd done that happened to match them. (I have gingivitis (tmi??), hence the bloody gums in the drawing) 

Left: Another photo for that same post:obsessed with the cut of this new dress//Right: A photocollage I did two summers ago when I was in Europe. Background is a photo of the coolest fitted sheet ever, feet photos are of my feet, mosaic/broken plates thing is from wrapping paper my grandma designed, strawberries are from our English friends' garden, and the main photo is a painting I did over photo of Hollie

This one seriously took forever. Getting it to be a loop took a lot of tries haha....

Left: a selfie from when I did my makeup to look like I was cold from snow and added freckles to be adorable//Right: the same TPZ post as the above two

Left: Photoshop collage from a good day when Zach and I hung out//Right: In progress journal page AKA me cutting out a lot of butterflies

This is another photocollage from over the summer when I was in Europe. I just found them in a folder on my computer and rememnbered how cool they were. These aren't done in photoshop, I made them on my phone/my dad's ipad when we didn't have any Wifi or cell service and I got bored. These are all photos from my phone; the background is from when we went to see the William Morris exibit, the cactuses are a watercolour I did in Italy, the strawberries are from our English friends garden, and The drawing of the girl is something I did right before I left of my friend Natalie. 

This is my new header! About time; my TEEN WITCH header has been up far past the time I changed my blog URL. 

Hope you're all having a lovely week--if you're heading into finals week, stay healthy, get enough sleep, love you all, sending good vibes your way <3 <3 

xoxoxo 

Maya 

****************

If you're interested in my last post and are wondering about what's going on in Ferguson, I URGE you to keep paying attention, keep reading news (from all sides), keep looking rumours that you hear up to decide if they are true. I'm also updating a decent amount on my tumblr. And plenty of other people are staying woke as well; check out anyone I reblog Ferguson posts from, and you can see their posts as well. For those of you that don't have a tumblr, I'll be reblogging (posting) updates under my #staywoke tag, which I have not started yet, but will be here. 

Lastly, I just saw this post today, which I thought was really incredible. Definitely watch it if you have a minute.  

Stay Woke

So I don't believe in staying silent on any social media site, and this issue is extremely important. Even though I don't have as many followers here as I do on my tumblr and I don't usually make posts like this on here, this is the world right now, and I think it's important to #staywoke.

(before you read on TW Police Brutality, Murder, Shootings, Racism, Anti-Black Racism)

If you have not heard, this past week the Grand Jury made the decision not to indict Darren Wilson, a cop who shot an 18 year old black boy at least six times (twice in the head), for reasons which in my opinion are based clearly in institutionalized racism ingrained in the training of cops, though which he would argue are that Brown reached for his gun and punched him in the face. However, there is TONS of evidence to make me question any of Wilson's testimony; like the fact that he didn't file an incident report after he literally shot someone to death (giving him all the months up until the grand jury decision to weave a story), the fact that he left the body for 4 and a half hours lying in the street, the fact that wounds in Brown's arms make it clear that his arms were up when he was shot (and eyewitnesses agree), the fact that Wilson testified that he feared for his life from the beating Brown gave him, but has only a small bruise on his right cheek, and MUCH MUCH MORE.
The failure of indictment is an absolute TRAVESTY; there was clear and reasonable doubt among the evidence presented, and yet there was no indictment. After this news hit, a wave of protests began. All the way from Ferguson (where the shooting occurred), to Oakland, California, to New York, to Washington DC, even to London, England! And these protests are not only about Michael Brown. These protests are about needing to put a stop to police brutality against black men. The use of violence against black men is extremely disproportionate to the use of force against white individuals (see the chart below for examples).

There have been some AMAZING photos shared of these incredibly brave individuals protesting for their right to LIVE quite literally, and some amazing posts and points being made all over tumblr.

 Ferguson Artist Damon Davis created beautiful wall art inspired by the "Hands Up Don't Shoot" chant that protesters have been using because Michael Brown was shot with his arms up (clearly a sign of surrender) (Source)

Both black and white images above from Chicago Protests. Photos by Lawrence Agyei

Roses on the street where Michael Brown was shot. 

CultureHISTORY: Faces Of #Ferguson - November 2014

 Protesters trying to protect their mouths/throats from tear gas. Ferguson, MO.
CultureHISTORY: Faces Of #Ferguson - November 2014

These amazing and beautiful "Black Lives Matter" photos have been circulating, and they are extremely powerful. (Source)

Image out of Ferguson, Missouri at 10 PM on November 24th, 2014

 Michael Brown's mother after hearing the Grand Jury decision. (Source)

 By artist Pheobie Wahl (link)

 Protests in DC (Source)

 Protesters wave an upside-down American flag after blocking an intersection.

People are calling this the Tank Man of the 21st century. 

A "dead-in" where protesters lay on the ground for four and a half minutes to symbolize the four and a half hours brown was left in the street dead. Washington, DC (Source)

Black Lives Matter Ferguson, November 25, Photo by Daily Sabah

From the Protests in London (Source)

literal demonization of black men....

So, WHAT CAN YOU DO??

Donate: to the ferguson food bank (without school a lot of kids are not getting meals), the public library, and here's a masterpost of other places to donate to.
Call your racist friends out: this is the time for white people (like myself) to be good white allies--call people out on their shit. Also, if someone's spouting racist stuff on twitter, tumblr, facebook, etc, you can call their job and straight up get them fired. Here's a masterpost of other things you can do.

stay safe, stay woke
xx
Maya