story of a girl

    Battle of the bulge- known as a famous battle during World War II as well as the battle each insecure, weight-conscious person faces every day.  The pressure to be thin in today's society is omnipresent.  It's all over the news, making the covers of magazines, and glorified in billboards we see everyday in Times Square.  When Lindsay Lohan began losing weight she started to shock the public when she became deemed "Surprisingly Thin" on the cover of US Weekly magazine.  But when have we made the distinction of how thin is too thin? Have we as a culture taken our obsession with weight and beauty too far?

    Well let's look a little deeper into this cultural epidemic.  Where does all of this pressure stem from?  Well, for starters, we are surrounded by pretty faces and thin bodies in magazines and fashion ads.  Skinny is beautiful.  But have we all fallen into this stigma that equates super thin bodies with beauty?  For example, I see girls all the time who read Vogue magazine cover to cover and glorify the models that grace each glossy page.  I've looked at all of the girls in those magazines with envy, but I think all girls go through that phase where they wish they could have the "perfect" body, whatever that means.  With Gisele as the center of the publics attention, as the "It-est it girl" in the fashion world , I began to think, is Gisele really happy?  Are models in general happy with their lifestyle?  Most of them don't eat and deprive themselves.  Most of them have eating disorders which in any circumstance are not worth the payoff of being a model, specifically the wealth one may accumulate.  Eating disorders and depravity are not on my top 10 list of a glamorous lifestyle.  So why do we idolize them?  Why has society glorified the skinny girl as the ideal body type?  During the Renaissance, bigger girls were considered beautiful, and were chosen as the subject of many famous painting still around today.  If we look at the Renaissance as a period of rebirth, then why can't we as a culture have our own renaissance?  They do say that history has a tendency to repeat itself. 
 

To blog or not to blog, that is the question.  And for me the answer to that question was, why the hell not.  After reading many of willa's witty blog entries, i decided i wanted to write more and get my thoughts out there.  So here it is folks: the inner workings of a tortured artist....haha not really, that just sounded cool.

Today maked the end of a three year lifeguarding job at a pool i've grown to loathe.  Yes, it was a bitter sweet ending, leaving the humble confines of the public pool of Williston Park, a gem in itself really.  At five o'clock today, when my sits for the day were completed, I folded my towel, packed up my bag, and found myself reluctant to leave.  I had been counting down the days that week untill i would get to leave the pitiful establishment known to us guards as the "Willie P pool", but at that moment, when the clock struck 5, i couldnt do it.  I had to leave all of the people who i had become very close with and who were leaving for college in a matter of days, but more importantly, i was leaving the comforts of my three-year summer job, my first real job.  Oh, the memories!

Now with just one more week until i treck back into the big city, I come to wonder, what the hell did i accomplish this summer?  This summer did not, by any means whatsoever, compare to last summer.  Coming back to a group of friends separated by distance at universities all over the place was a bit, well, upsetting.  People definately changed.  Im not saying for worse, or for better, but definately changed.  It's hard to explain and i don't know if i'll ever be able to pin-point exactly how everyone differs from last summer.  There was more camraderie last summer because we were all going away and we wanted to spend every last second with each other, and now, nothing.  Everyone does their own thing, everyone has a job and new friends from college, and some even have forgotten their old friends.  It's tragic really.  But, hey, i guess that's growing up, right? 

My last summer in Williston Park has been, well, mediocre, definately not comparable to last summer.  Last summer was eventful, which i liked because it kept me busy, and for the most part, entertained.  The random "pool-people" hook-ups and drunk nights out with the "WPP crew" were always entertaining.  This summer there was less of that, wihch was mildly upsetting, but i soon got over it.  I found myself working a lot more than I used to, still hanging out with the same crew, more or less. 

I had a good run at the fine establishment, aka theWillie P pool, that I called home for 3 summers.  Who knows where I'll go from here.  Back to the city definately, but from there who knows.  And that's where the excitement lies, not knowing where you're going to end up.  It's scary for some, but for me, it's an adrenaline rush.  And that ladies and gentlemen, was my first blog entry....I hope you enjoyed it.  Hopefully there will be more to come.

~x~