"To love truly, we must be free. To be free, then, we must discover our innate self-worth... Erich Fromm, a noted psychologist and social philosopher, considers love an art that 'requires knowledge and effort'; he defines love as 'the active concern for the life and growth of that which we love' (The Art of Loving, pp. 1, 25).
If love is one's capacity to wish and act for the happiness and freedom of another person, a fundamental solution to the suffering of love must be sought not outward but in the development of the character and inner strength that make us capable of loving more genuinely and powerfully."

iTunes meme
from redappleskin and givethesignal 

( tra la la )

In other news, I just came back from an awesome evening hanging around with my Ecuadorian friend, Alejandro, a classmate from my architecture class at Unv. Catolica. He took me to a spectacular indies cinema that was connected to an open bar with great music (and the place was called "Ocho medio" or "8 1/2"--clearly after Fellini; how perfect is that?) We watched a Spanish documentary of an anarchist who goes on to create a whole business with counterfeit bills and passports. After the film, Alejo drove us to one of his favorite places on the top of a hill that overlooks the city. We talked about our childhood and art fascinations over hot wine and free garlic toast. All in all, it was an awesome night! :D

I've been listening to soundtracks lately: Amelie from Montmartre, O Brother, Where Art Thou, and Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. Amelie is just all round awesome--Yann Tiersen's accordion and piano compositions are just remarkable. This album for me is like water for fish. And although I had the O Brother soundtrack before, I don't know when or where I lost it. But Stan playing his banjo and me having a craving for acoustic blue grass was enough incentive for me to pay itunes for it again. And although I thought I had grown tired of HP soundtracks, Nicholas Hooper did a fascinating job with HBP. I especially love how he's referenced the past composers on a subtle level, but he's exercised his own particular style to really stir up the emotions from the picture. Listening to it as I read, I just want to drop my history reading assignments and go watch the movie again. I mean it only costs $3.25 here anyway (with reclining seats!)

So recently, I've been missing Japanese food... Dennis and I have tried sushi here, as well as tonkatsu:

 

Hi guys. So Thursdays are basically Fridays for me, except cooler because they come right before a 3 day weekend. c: I should've been catching up with Latin American anthro reading assignments, but I was in too good of a mood this evening because I cooked Japanese curry for my host family for the first time here! It was delicious and I am proud. So instead of being a good productive student, I made some icons from Le fabuleux destin d'Amelie Poulain, which I adore, and I thought I'd share them with you guys, too. There are also a number of Michael Sowa artworks in this batch, too. I'm no icon maker but if any of you are interested, feel free to take them.

Oh, Disclaimer: I was an idiot and made them all JPG so they're all too big for LJ. You have to convert them to PNG... and I'm feeling way to lazy to do that for you guys. Yeah, I'm a big help.

Teasers:




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 FREEDOM AND HEALTH FEEL AMAAAAZING!!!

I celebrated this day of liberation by going to visit Natalia and spending some time with her family. We ended up playing a few games of Spit and Pictionary. The latter is pretty tricky when you're quite limited in your Spanish vocabulary but it was fun all the same. The best was when I got "dinosaur" and when I tried to impersonate a T-Rex, someone hollered "Michael Jackson" and "Thriller."

Luego, we met up with Masaru, Emiko and Dennis and had delicious sushi for dinner. After seven days of bread and apples, Japanese rice and fish tasted soooooooooooooo good. I almost cried in my haven of raw pescados. 

Tomorrow I finally start classes!! Yaaaaay!!