Pensive by Emily

Hey everyone, it’s Emily again! Today I’m writing about a couple ads by GAP for children’s clothing. There’s one for boys and one for girls, and some of you are ahead of me on where this post is going.  The major differences between the two GAP ads are the way the children are depicted. The smiling boy is depicted as intelligent and candid , while the “social girl” is pouty and posed. Looking at the first ad, I was pleased that GAP wanted to inspire young children to pursue scholarly careers. The girls’ ad brought everything crashing down. Instead of encouraging children, they’re supporting stereotypes. I’m a little disappointed in these ads. The implication here is that girls should be social instead of intelligent. It also implies that only boys can be intelligent and that they can’t be social. I’m not really okay with these ads. There’s a culture of sensitivity surrounding bigotry lately, but this is serious enough to cause a problem. I don’t think they warrant a huge storm...

Hey everyone, Emily again! Today we’re going to be discussing happiness: the lusted-after emotion that money allegedly can’t buy. Personally, I find there are a limited number of occurrences which make me truly happy and don’t provide a brief distraction from my general unhappiness. Those are as follows: spending time with people (and animals!) I care about, the freedom to be and express myself to the capacity I desire, and the basic needs of eating enough and sleeping enough. I find I’m happiest when I’ve had a day off from work, school, and homework. I’ve probably eaten three decent meals and had enough water. If I’m lucky I might’ve slept enough the night before. And, more than likely, I have a cat on my lap and I’m with my friends, having a good time and being myself. Of course, taking my antidepressants always helps, but that’s not really the point of this post. The small nation of Bhutan began keeping track of their nation’s happiness using a nationwide survey, or an "...