‘Cause people seem to only post the 20-something Audrey Hepburn.
Audrey Hepburn was the granddaughter of a baron, the daughter of a nazi sympathizer, spent her teens doing ballet to secretly raise money for the dutch resistance against the nazis, and spent her post-film career as a goodwill ambassador of UNICEF, winning the presidential medal of freedom for her efforts.
…and history remembers her as pretty.
Vincent van Gogh: Plain Near Auvers, (1890)
I’m back! I have an MFA degree and a sunburn from a wonderful week in Disneyworld, and I am looking forward to all that life offers a bird-crazy illustrator!
I have posted a few of these, but I thought it would make sense to have them all in one post. This is the result of my final project for my MFA—a series of recently extinct birds. Someday I hope I can make this into a full-fledged (pun unintended) book! It was a great learning experience and I look forward to continuing work on it.
Sad - Maroon 5
But I’m scared to death that there may not be another one like this and I confess that I’m only holding on by a thin thread.
An 87 Year Old College Student Named Rose
The first day of school our professor introduced himself and challenged us to get to know someone we didn’t already know.
I stood up to look around when a gentle hand touched my shoulder. I turned round to find a wrinkled, little old lady beaming up at me
with a smile that lit up her entire being.
She said, “Hi handsome. My name is Rose. I’m eighty-seven years old. Can I give you a hug?”
I laughed and enthusiastically responded, “Of course you may!” and she gave me a giant squeeze.
“Why are you in college at such a young, innocent age?” I asked.
She jokingly replied, “I’m here to meet a rich husband, get married, and have a couple of kids…”
“No seriously,” I asked. I was curious what may have motivated her to be taking on this challenge at her age.
“I always dreamed of having a college education and now I’m getting one!” she told me.
After class we walked to the student union building and shared a chocolate milkshake.We became instant friends. Every day for the
next three months, we would leave class together and talk nonstop. I was always mesmerized listening to this “time machine”
as she shared her wisdom and experience with me.
Over the course of the year, Rose became a campus icon and she easily made friends wherever she went. She loved to dress up and
she reveled in the attention bestowed upon her from the other students. She was living it up.
At the end of the semester we invited Rose to speak at our football banquet. I’ll never forget what she taught us. She was
introduced and stepped up to the podium.
As she began to deliver her prepared speech, she dropped her three by five cards on the floor. Frustrated and a little embarrassed she leaned into the microphone and simply said, “I’m sorry I’m so jittery. I gave up beer for Lent and this whiskey is killing me! I’ll never get my speech back in order so let me just tell
you what I know.”
As we laughed she cleared her throat and began, “We do not stop playing because we are old; we grow old because we stop
playing. There are only four secrets to staying young, being happy, and achieving success. You have to laugh and find humor every day.
You’ve got to have a dream. When you lose your dreams, you die.
We have so many people walking around who are dead and don’t even know it!There is a huge difference between growing
older and growing up.
If you are nineteen years old and lie in bed for one full year and don’t do one productive thing, you will turn twenty years old.
If I am eighty-seven years old and stay in bed for a year and never do anything I will turn eighty-eight.
Anybody can grow older. That doesn’t take any talent or ability. The idea is to grow up by always finding opportunity in change.
Have no regrets.
The elderly usually don’t have regrets for what we did, but rather for things we did not do. The only people who fear death are those
with regrets.”
She concluded her speech by courageously singing “The Rose.”
She challenged each of us to study the lyrics and live them out in our daily lives.
At the year’s end Rose finished the college degree she had begun all those years ago. One week after graduation Rose died
peacefully in her sleep.
Over two thousand college students attended her funeral in tribute to the wonderful woman who taught by example that it’s
never too late to be all you can possibly be .When you finish reading this, please send this peaceful word of advice to your friends and family, they’ll really enjoy it!
These words have been passed along in loving memory of ROSE.
REMEMBER, GROWING OLDER IS MANDATORY. GROWING UP IS
OPTIONAL.
We make a Living by what we get, We make a Life by what we give.
boys aren’t supposed to wear dresses?
He knows how to girl better than I do. How is this even a thing you glorious creature?
There is a beast in every man.
He also:
- told Neville to stand up to people
- confronted a full-sized mountain troll to save a girl he couldn’t stand
- said it didn’t matter whether someone was a pureblood, half-blood, or Muggle-born
- gave Dobby his sweater
- faced a bunch of giant spiders in the hopes of saving the school and clearing Hagrid’s name
- told Luna he loved her Quidditch commentary, and very sincerely tried to convince her he wasn’t teasing her
- stood up on a broken leg, trying to protect Harry
- gave up his grudge against Hermione the moment he learned how much she, Hagrid, and Buckbeak needed him
- realized he was wrong about Harry putting his name in the Goblet of Fire, and promptly went to apologize
- jumped into a freezing pond to save Harry and retrieve the Sword of Gryffindor
- confronted his best friend to prevent his sister’s heart being broken any further than it already was
- begged Bellatrix to torture him in place of Hermione
- couldn’t break up with a girl who drove him nuts because he didn’t want to hurt her feelings
- remembered the Hogwarts House Elves when no one else did, and wanted to make them evacuate, rather than order them to fight
- tried to go back to Harry and Hermione as soon as he left them
- didn’t make excuses for leaving, he came right out and admitted he had been wrong
- didn’t get angry at Hermione for taking a long time to forgive him
- saved Tonks’s life (while impersonating Harry to lower Harry’s chances of being killed, at the same time increasing his own)
- told Hermione not to curse Draco, even though he hates him
In conclusion, Ron is awesome. The end.
