My outside is finally catching up with the inside...if that makes any sense.

I feel so unbelievably comfortable with my new red-striped hair. Never thought it would make such a difference in my self-perception.
Now I want to get my nose pierced.
I also want to keep my job in education, get enrolled in a competitive master's program, and become a k-12 teacher, all in the near future. Yeah.

In the west women wearing ear rings are considered so normal, yet pretty much any other form of piercing is still frowned upon in professional circles. I remember, growing up in Eastern Europe I felt like an odd ball not wearing any ear rings. It was so common then for parents to pierce their daughters' ears from an early age.

Pierced ear lobe or a pierced ear cartilage - is there really such a principal difference that we need to address it separately in a dress code policy? My first sentence seems to make more sense than this.

Our last night

We were sitting on the risers left by the huge Christmas tree at my school's memorial union. It was about 1 a.m. The wedding, celebrated above, was coming to an end. You'd see dressed up people, who just a few hours ago were probably all posh and proper, come out sweating and drunk. A rather nice-looking girl in high hills and a mini skirt gleefully went down the stairs, followed by a guy who maybe had a little too much and now was cursing very loudly.

My friend turned his head away from the scene, "Someone is going to get some action." We sat in silence and stared more at the couple, "...and I'm not". I was going to joke and ask how he was so sure, but then decided against it. I knew he wasn't getting any that night.

We didn't talk for a while thinking about our own things and listening to the sound of slow, distant music. It's amazing how comfortable it can be to simply sit together quietly if you are with someone you know very well. There is some sort of connection you feel and no one needs to say anything to acknowledge it.

"I wonder how different my life would be if I wasn't..attractive. You know? Would we be friends?". I looked at my friend waiting for an answer, but he didn't turn, "Yeah...I wouldn't have even started talking to you." He gave a faint smile.

Bastard. I knew he was honest. I smiled too.

Do I hear a bid for $9?

Someone in my home town wrote a blog post about a charity date auction. There girls showed off their pictures for other people to bid for a date, with all proceedings eventually going to local orphanages. The auction was organized through vkontakte.ru, an Eastern-European equivalent of Facebook. Out of curiosity I followed the link and looked at an album with pictures of the lots.

As expected, there was a ton of flirty pictures of girls smiling in the camera. Some were eagerly, accidentally on purpose, exposing their cleavages.

There were a few that just really stood out. Above is one of them. I'm happy to note the lot got one of the highest bids...a few pennies short of 9 bucks.

What is it about sexy women taking their own pics?

I don't intend to be sexist, but I find this more often with females. You probably know what I mean. An attractive woman indulging in taking her own pictures and sharing them online or somehow else. You can spot them rather easily. They take care of themselves, don't miss an opportunity to look at their reflection, and have a bunch of glossy profile pictures sometimes taken on their own. I have my own reasons for liking such women. They make for fantastic models if you are into photography. Some of them project the strength and confidence I can only admire. They like themselves and invite you to like them.

I had a friend from my dorm who had a whole collection of provocative shots of herself displayed near her bed. I wouldn't say she was too egocentric, but she definitely found herself attractive, and to my great surprise, while she wasn't anywhere on par with the most beautiful girls I knew, males were drawn to her like flies to honey.

So, what is it? Internal confidence in your appearance prompting you to share beauty with the world? Or maybe narcissistic views and simple preoccupation with one's self? Again, some of such women I knew were not necessarily the hottest in my opinion and also were not that arrogant.

To be honest, I myself have experienced something similar. It started just recently when I became more confident in my looks, and now enjoy more what I see when someone takes my picture. Nevertheless, I'm still a bit reluctant to share any sets of me-only shots with people I know. It doesn't seem very humble. Not even sure if it's good or bad.

Are you the same you?

"Appearances are not held to be a clue to the truth. But we seem to have no other."

Ivy Compton-Burnett

There was a boy who liked a girl...or at least that's what she thought. He followed her around and occupied her mind with interesting stories on the way to classes. Every single morning he met her at her locker and walked her down the hallway. One day it stopped. And she noticed.

Today, five years later, I spoke to the boy again. His appearance changed so drastically, I could hardly recognize him at all. It was a man now. His body went through puberty. He grew in height, lost 125 pounds, changed his hair style, gave up glasses for contacts, and overall looked like a new person. While enjoying our very warm conversation, reminiscing for over an hour, I caught myself asking the question, "Are you the same 'you'?"

Oh what an experiment! Get close to somebody. Learn to trust them. Spend a few years away. Put the person in a completely different body. Get back and talk. Record the results.

"Don't judge a book by its cover" was something that came to me through experience very early on. Still, the book's cover is a part of the book. Keep the content, but change the cover and it's almost like a new book you haven't read. Maybe it is...

Is gender that important?

Imagine that you are an exchange student in a foreign country. High school. Sophomore/junior level. You are not familiar yet with people's names and some other aspects of this country's culture. You go to class and next thing you know, right next to you sits this awesome person who is a little weird but very friendly and interesting. For two weeks you keep talking after class, you even make plans to go to the movies together. She finds out that you collect coins and gives you this amazing chipped off coin supposedly minted in the 19th century. Life is great. What else can you ask for?

Then one day you talk to someone from that class and hear them say "he" referring to your female friend. They repeat it several times and all your hopes for a slip of the tongue are gone. How does that feel?

I stood in the hallway barely paying attention to anything around me, trying to stop this violent whirl of thoughts in my head. So, she is a he. I could not believe it. In the end, I'm not in preschool to not be able to figure out if that's a boy or a girl in front of me. Granted, my friend was always wearing pants and really didn't seem to care how "she" looks. But isn't that pretty common in our era of androgynous teenage girls? In my defense, the person didn't have any facial hair, had a slender body, spoke with a fairly high-pitched voice, and had a shoulder-length hair. And how on earth could I know that unlike Jordan, Brandon is not a unisex name? After giving it much thought, I realized he was hitting on me.

Shocked. Confused. Bewildered. I avoided the guy ever since.