Keeping life pretty clean, pretty green, and just plain pretty

There have been a lot changes in my life this past year. Some fairly minor, some more dramatic. Some changes haven't been so great, but I would say that the majority of the changes I've made have been an effort towards making life more positive - for myself and others around me. 

Along with maintaining a 4.0 GPA in my 2nd year of college, I've been getting more involved with the community - on campus and off. I'm a member of the French Club (as an English/Communications major, taking a foreign language is a requirement toward my degree, so I chose French), and I'm also a senior research assistant to a professor working on his doctorate. (We're studying the impact that successful entertainment franchises have on shaping the ideologies in our culture.) I've also volunteered several times recently with local theatre groups and was a team leader for a huge hunger drive a couple of months ago. We packaged thousands of meals to ship off for communities and families in need. 

Below are a few of the other changes I've made towards a healthier, cleaner, and prettier lifestyle:

SLEEP & SCHEDULE:

Being a full-time college student and balancing it with a part-time research assistant job, pursuing an acting and entertainment career, and attempting to finish up the final stretch of my aviation training in the next few months, I've had to make a real effort to prioritize my time and stay focused. I've made a gradual change in my sleep and schedule habits. Instead of the late-night hours I used to keep because of bartending, I now typically am in bed by 10 p.m. or earlier and generally am up by 5 a.m. nearly every morning of the week. I drink a full bottle of water, take a shower (been taking more cold ones lately), do my morning stretches, and start my cleaning, which brings me to...

CLEANLINESS:

I vacuum 1-2 x's per week, dust bi-weekly, put aside recyclable items daily, and do laundry several times a week. I usually try to get the majority of whatever cleaning tasks I've assigned for myself done for the day before I even make my coffee, so that I can sit down and relax with it as my reward for staying focused on first things first. I generally do a thorough kitchen and bathroom cleaning about once per week. As far as recycling goes, I keep a separate bag and receptacle reserved just for recycling. There's always room for improvement, but I'm continuing to get better about having environmental awareness.

WELLNESS, HEALTH & BEAUTY:

Aside from cleanliness and recycling being a regular habit for me, I've also made wellness and simple beauty routines a regular regimen! I'm too frugal for big extravagances, but I do like quality, so I usually start my day with a cup of French-pressed coffee, a piece of dark chocolate and at the end of the day, I like a glass of red wine (usually a Cabernet.) I don't bother with buying bottles as much anymore, because I don't always finish them, so it gets wasteful. Nowadays, I get the little 500 ml boxes that contain 3-5 servings and cost around $5-7. As much as I like to try different varietals and vintners from various regions, at the end of the day, wine is wine, and I mainly drink it for the relaxation and health benefits. 

I don't exercise quite as much as I feel I should, but I bike ride somewhat regularly for long durations (around 20 miles or more at a time), and I'm fairly active in general, so hopefully that counts. I don't withhold anything from myself as far as diet, but I don't overeat either. I get massages about every other week to help keep my back from going out, and I try to stretch several times per day. Also, I paid $30 towards a yoga center, which I will hopefully start attending regularly one day. Baby steps, baby steps.

I get bi-weekly manicures/pedicures, too! Every other month or so, I get my hair trimmed and maybe colored. I kind of like to have a different hair color for every season. (Right now, it's a dark honey blonde. Next month it might be a warmer spicier hue, like cinnamon.)

As far as beauty in the household (other than Melody being in it), I try to buy fresh flowers every 7-10 days to keep in a vase at the center of the kitchen! I'm a big believer in keeping some sort of live plant in the household. They give a sense of vibrancy, color, and warmth to it (along with a couple of kitties, of course!) :)

THE YELLOW WALLPAPER - analysis of mental health treatment for women of 19th Century

Analyzing Oppressive Treatment of Women in late 19th Century Psychiatric Medicine

in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”

I have heard psychiatry be referenced to as the “baby” of medicine. New treatments and medications are being presented for evaluation every day, and often the efficacy of these treatments are up for subjective opinion, both on the part of the patient and the physician. The power dynamic is often shifted in favor of the physician, or other care giver, to decide if the treatment or therapy prescribed is benefiting the patient. The possible dangers of such an approach to treating psychiatric maladies, particularly towards women in the late 19th century, are explored in “The Yellow Wallpaper”, and examples can be found for how the primary character longs for liberation from an oppressive psychiatric therapy.

The main character has been diagnosed as having a “temporary nervous depression - a slight hysterical tendency” by a physician of high standing (310). It should be noted that this condition was primarily designated for females around the time this story was written. The fact that this physician is her “own husband” is the first troubling example, which is even pointed out when she mentions that “perhaps that is one reason I do not get well faster” (310). His diagnosis is backed up by her brother, who is also a physician. While seemingly loving and attentive enough, we get the sense that her husband is a domineering and controlling man, as shown by the statement that she is “absolutely forbidden to ‘work’ until I am well again” (310). There are several questions that arise from this statement. The first one that comes to mind is what exactly constitutes “work”? The fact that the writer has put this word in quotes within her statement suggests that she does not agree with the idea that, in her case, writing or painting or anything else artistic or intellectual to freely pass her time, should be considered work. The second question that arises is who decides when she has gotten “well again”? She herself? Or her husband/physician? To expand on that, how and who was it that decided she needed treatment in the first place?

The main character/patient is secured in the “nursery at the top of the house” (311). The room is described as a “big, airy room” with lots of windows facing all directions, letting plenty of fresh air and sunshine in, but which also have bars on them. This gives the feeling that although she is allowed a sense of freedom, it is measured and controlled. The object of focus for her, to the point of obsession, is the yellow wallpaper in the room. At first she finds it “repellant”, then she slowly begins to tolerate it, and then finally towards the end, she is fascinated by it and spends most of her time studying its “sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin” (311). She tries to get her husband to take her away from the place, but he persuades her to stick it out. Then he has her believe that he will “repaper the room” only to change his mind with the reasoning that she was letting it get the better of her, “and that nothing was worse for a nervous patient than to give way to such fancies” (312). She “tried to have a real earnest reasonable talk with him” to tell him how she wished to visit cousins, whom she felt would be a positive influence on her. He refused, causing her to break down in tears, which she felt weakened her own case, not his (315).

It is possible that the wallpaper is a reflection of the patient’s own mind, which eventually gives way to delusion. She describes it as being “dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide” - plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard-of contradictions” (311). I find this statement curious, because I wonder if she considers herself “dull” (low self-esteem, perhaps) but knows that she has a mentality that can at times be “irritating” and provokes her husband to “study” her. One might wonder if her husband diagnosed and instituted this treatment on her so that he could control the degrees of interaction he would have with her, thereby keeping the power dynamic pendulum swinging in his favor. The patterns destroying themselves in unheard-of contradictions is foreshadowing of her own imminent transformation at the end of the story, to the horror of her husband.

Nearing the end of the narrative, we begin to see evidence of her liberation from, and even defiance of, her husband by means of the wallpaper. One example of this is when she notes that John is pleased to see her improve, and that he “laughed a little the other day, and said I seemed to be flourishing in spite of my wallpaper”. She then reveals to us, almost smugly, that she “had no intention of telling him it was because of the wallpaper--” (317). She begins to imagine a woman “trying to climb through” (318.) I feel she is transferring her own emotions into the wallpaper and imagining herself as the woman, because she feels “nobody could climb through that pattern--it strangles so” (318). Perhaps she feels that her situation is impossible to escape from, even though she longs for liberation.

She eventually does get some form of liberation when she imagines herself getting up to “help” the woman escape from the strangling pattern of the wallpaper, which she tears from the wall (319). Finally, her liberation is complete when she becomes the woman and can “creep around” as she pleases, and the visible result is such that it causes her husband to cry out and faint, which could be considered a feminine act, thereby reversing the roles of gender and the power dynamic, since he is now helpless on the floor and she is able to creep over him.

Work Cited

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Literature: Reading to Write.
Ed. Elizabeth Howells. New York: Pearson, 2010. 6873. Print.