Good news!  According to this 1948 pop quiz, “You can be a real he-man and still like to make a cheese soufflé.”

The article also says, “It’s no reflection on your masculinity if you are a man and sometimes prefer feminine things.  Nor should you feel dismayed if you are a woman and have some masculine tastes.”  Well that’s a relief, because I scored a 7 which supposedly means I have masculine interests.

This stuff kills me!  So funny.  What’s your score?

via Retronaut

I didn’t think twice about the color pink when I was little.  I never was the doll-playing girly type, but I actually wore pink quite a bit as it didn’t mean anything to me. It wasn’t until I got a little older that I really started to dislike it. What disturbs me about it is the way it’s mass marketed in the U.S. as strictly a female color.

The clearest example of this is how toys and clothes are marketed to kids. You can’t walk into a major department store without seeing pink dominating the girls section. Have you seen the new pink Legos “for girls”?  There’s a lot of gender stereotyping controversy going around about the new product (here and here) since it has a beauty shop, a cafe, and a pool.  Things you don’t see in a typical set of Legos which are marketed toward boys. I think Riley sums it up best in this video, “Some girls like superheroes, and some girls like princesses!  So why do all the girls have to buy pink stuff and the boys have to buy different color stuff?”

But pink hasn’t always been seen as a girl’s color.  Get this, did you know that pink used to be considered a boy’s color and blue a girl’s color?!  A June 1918 article from the trade publication Earnshaw’s Infants’ Department said, “The generally accepted rule is pink for the boys, and blue for the girls. The reason is that pink, being a more decided and stronger color, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl.”  Time magazine even published this color chart that was displayed in department stores to show people what color to buy for babies (mostly pink for boys and blue for girls).  The color switch was made by retailers in the early 40′s but the pink and blue fad didn’t kick in with full force until the early 80′s.  The big reason was due to prenatal testing.  When expectant parents found out the sex of their baby, they could then shop for “girl” or “boy” merchandise.  “The more you individualize clothing, the more you can sell,” says author and professor Jo B. Paoletti who has been studying the color pink for over 30 years. Why pink vs. blue? “It’s really a story of what happened to neutral clothing,” says Paoletti. For centuries, both boy and girl babies wore white dresses. “What was once a matter of practicality—you dress your baby in white dresses and diapers; white cotton can be bleached—became a matter of ‘Oh my God, if I dress my baby in the wrong thing, they’ll grow up perverted,’ ” Paoletti says.

The thing that irks me is that it’s often perceived as a dainty delicate color and many people tend to automatically assume that pink = female. Remember this TED talk I posted with New Yorker cartoonist, Liza Donnelly? She mentions how we’re being conditioned at a young age to believe that all girls should like the color pink and are supposed to play with dolls. This assumption sticks with us as we get older because I see the unnecessary use of pink all the time in things that are women specific. For example, I found this ad for a women’s mountain biking clinic on a local race blog and was completely turned off by it for number of reasons:

First, did they have to slap pink all over it just because it’s geared toward women?  Secondly, am I supposed to get behind the slogan, Courageous Women of Dirt?!  So lame. Last but not least is the registration url shown at the bottom: www.rocknroadcyclery.net/DIVAS. Really?? Divas?! That’s just an insult. So essentially what this poster is saying is that I’m considered to be a “Courageous Pink Diva of Dirt” just because I’m a girl who likes to mountain bike. WTF.

Fact is we’re all different…some girls like pink and some don’t. You simply can’t define an entire gender by a color. Pink ≠ female.

Sources: Pinkisforboys.org, Smithsonian Magazine

Shot at the Presidio with the Fuji x100

Do you ever travel solo?

Up until last November, I hadn’t taken a true vacay by myself in years.  Scott was headed to Hawaii on a week long photo gig, so I decided to take a last minute road trip to San Francisco for some creative inspiration.  I just threw some clothes in a bag, booked a reservation at my fave SF hotel (was lucky to find a cheap deal on Travelocity), and took off the next morning.

While driving in the car for 6 hours, I wondered what I was going to do when I got there.  Since my goal was to gain some inspiration, I set a rule for this trip: don’t over-plan everything and just wing it.  I love to research and plan my travels to death, so this fall-where-ever-I-land approach was very freeing.  I hung out at the Golden Gate bridge, chose to walk everywhere one day instead of taking mass transit, had Spam musubi at a Japanese tea garden, and indulged by eating ice cream every day (Ghirardelli freshly made waffle cones…yes please!).  It also led to making little discoveries like La Boulange, an amazing place to eat brunch and macarons (I have an obsession with French bistros).  And instead of taking the freeway back home, I bit the bullet and drove the long way home along the coastline since I’ve been dying to do it for years.  The view was UNREAL!

Traveling by yourself is a great way to get inspired, but it can also be daunting and isolating (depending on the situation).  During the four days I was gone, I felt lonely at times…especially while sightseeing and eating at nicer restaurants since these are usually more social activities.  I always wished I had someone there to share a laugh with.

I definitely prefer traveling with Scott or with friends because I think it’s more fun that way.  But I like vacationing by myself too.  It was a completely different type of trip.  It allowed my brain to work on another wavelength and I was able to see things from a different perspective…which is always inspiring.

Party of one, right this way please…

View from the top of Coit Tower

Tourists at the Golden Gate bridge

I love you, La Boulange

Museum of Natural Sciences living roof

Green tea and Spam musubi at the Japanese Tea Garden

Butterfly at the Rainforest inside of the Museum of Natural Sciences

Ben & Jerry’s

Haight – Ashbury

Gull shadow.

The drive along the coast.  Was a beautiful day.

Photos shot with my iPhone and Fuji x100, The squares are Instagram: @leahsak

I melted when I read this letter posted on Brain Pickings that was written to Einstein by a young girl…

In a letter dated September 19, 1946, a young girl from South Africa named Tyfanny writes:  “I forgot to tell you, in my last letter, that I was a girl. I mean I am a girl. I have always regretted this a great deal, but by now I have become more or less resigned to the fact. Anyway, I hate dresses and dances and all the kind of rot girls usually like. I much prefer horses and riding. Long ago, before I wanted to become a scientist, I wanted to be a jockey and ride horses in races. But that was ages ago, now. I hope you will not think any the less of me for being a girl!”

Einstein replies: “I do not mind that you are a girl, but the main thing is that you yourself do not mind. There is no reason for it.”

Excerpts from the book Dear Professor Einstein: Albert Einstein’s Letters to and from Children

Photo of Einstein with his wife Elsa via Wiki, Source: Brain Pickings

I can’t get over the new Patagonia surf catalog.  They always kill it with their photography and their marketing direction.  Love how they capture real girls doing real things…so great to see girls in their element doing what they love.

(Dying to learn how to free dive!)

Photos: Scanned from the spring 2012 Patagonia Catalog

In case you were wondering…

When naming my blog a few years ago, I put two things together: VELO + KOVA.  VELO is from the term escape velocity: the speed needed to break free from a gravitational force, and KOVA is from cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova: the first woman in space.  Here’s some inspiring things about her…

In 1963, right before she took off in the Vostok 6 she yelled, “Hey, sky, take your hat off!” and then orbited the Earth 48 times.  She also graduated from the Air Force Academy with honors, became part of many women’s organizations, and was the recipient of many awards including the United Nations Gold Medal of Peace.  She even has a crater on the far side of the moon named after her.

A few years ago she told Vladimir Putin that she’d like to fly to Mars even if it meant it was a one way ticket!  I love how she still has an adventurous streak in her…she just turned 75.

(By the way, how great is “cosmonette”?!)

Photos & Sources: ruvr.ru, RIA Novosti, Gadling, wikimedia

Okay, I’m ready to pack my backpack after watching this video… (This couple spent five weeks traveling through Chile and Patagonia.)

One of my favorite hotels is the literary themed Hotel Rex in San Francisco.  It’s a small boutique hotel with a fantastic 1920′s – ’30s vibe.  They have a cozy library bar that serves a free glass of wine every night, live jazz, an old movie night, inspiring excerpts from books painted on the walls, and an adorable 20 lb. resident pug that hangs out on the couch by the front desk. (His name is Maximo.)  The staff is always very friendly and helpful too.  The Joie de Vivre hotel group always seems to “get it” and after reading this post on Tim Ferriss’s blog, now I know why.

The CEO, Chip Conley has learned to become a “Chief Emotions Officer”.  He explains by using baggage as a metaphor, “Countless times I’ve seen people show up at our hotel front desks with all kinds of baggage, and only some of it the physical kind… Lugging that baggage around for years is noticeable in how that person shows up at the metaphorical front desk of life.  If you are a Chief Emotions Officer, you are more aware of all the bags you’re carrying and how to open your luggage up and make sense of what’s inside.”

In his new book, Emotional Equations, he uses equations (such as Anxiety = Uncertainty x Powerlessness) to help make sense of emotions that are weighing you down.  He says, “Creating your own internal logic regarding your emotional baggage will allow you to carry a lighter bag… one that’s eminently easier to unpack.”

Now I love Hotel Rex even more… (By the way, remember this old post?)

Photos:  My own (except for the one of Maximo)
Source:  Four-Hour Workweek

Damn, I love this.

Looking at satellite images of Earth never gets old.  This is a new composite image taken on January 4, 2012.  At 8,000 x 8,000 pixels, it’s the highest resolution photo ever taken of Earth.  Is it gorgeous or what?

Wish I could be a space photographer!

(‘Blue Marble’ shot with the Visible Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite instrument (VIIRS) on NASA’s newest Earth-observing satellite: Suomi NPP.)

Source:  Gizmodo, NASA Goddard Flickr

(Me with my mom on the porch… was a windy night!  Shot with the Fuji Instax (my new toy!)

(Photos below are via Instagram.  You can find me @leahsak)


Happy New Year!!!  Hope you all had a great time over the holidays!  Scott and I went to Florida to visit the fam.  We had a fun time hanging out with everyone and making our Greek family recipes.  We also made our way over to Orlando to spend the day at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.  I’m such a huge HP fan… photos coming soon!

So I was tagged by Betül from Ballad of Seasons to answer 11 questions and to also include 11 things about me.  I’ve also tagged 11 other bloggers at the end of the post… can’t wait to read your answers!

RULES:
1.  You must post these rules.
2.  Each person must post 11 things about themselves on their blog.
3.  Answer the questions the tagger set for you in their post and create 11 new questions for the people you tag to answer.
4.  You have to choose 11 people to tag and link them on the post.
5.  Go to their page and tell them you have linked him or her.
6.  No tag backs.
7.  No stuff in the tagging section about ‘you are tagged if you are reading this.’  You legitimately have to tag 11 people.

11 THINGS ABOUT ME
1.  I collect matchbooks, stickers, and small decorative dessert plates.
2.  I’m part of a big fat Greek family (3 sisters, 1 brother, and 12 nieces and nephews) and I’ve always lived in warm climates near the ocean.  I was born in Florida and moved to southern California 10 years ago.
3.  I was a member of the Orange County Astronomer’s club for a year.
4.  For some reason I have a really great memory.  I usually remember specific details about things that people would normally forget with time (like what color shirt a friend was wearing at a party 10 years ago).  Weird.
5.  My new liquor drink of choice is a Hemingway daiquiri (when it’s made right).
6.  I’ve hated dolls and the color pink since the day I was born.
7.  I love trekking and camping in the mountains just as much as I love getting dressed up and going out to dinner in Vegas.
8.  Somewhere in the gene pool I acquired some pretty great coordination skills and can pick up a new sport (or video game) quickly.
9.  Some people call me a dude because I’ve always liked “dude-like” things, but I’m not a dude, I’m just myself.
10.  Small talk has never come naturally to me and I tend to keep to myself, but I’m always working to change that.  Also, I never get caught up in gossip.
11.  I make a mean minestrone soup!

Betül’s Questions:
1.  Describe yourself with three words and give three words that describes the person you want to be (are they the same three? lucky you!)
Explorer, Open-minded, Honest…….. Fearless, Patient, Photographer!

2.  Tea or coffee?
I love fresh brewed white or oolong tea.

3.  Who is the most beautiful woman on earth? and the most elegant one?  same for men?
I really admire my mom!  She’s beautiful inside and out.  She’s the most loving, altruistic, fun, optimistic, and stylish woman I know.  Also, my other half, Scott, is such a stud.  He’s an incredibly positive person and helps me see that anything is possible.  Also, Grace Kelly always oozed elegance in all the old Hitchcock films and I really miss Paul Newman.  What a man.

4.  Have you ever been deeply affected (positif or negatif) by a movie?  which one?
E.T.!  I love everything about it… the story, the music, the characters, the lighting, the humor… and I cry every time during the scene where E.T. “dies”.

5.  What would be the best movie to watch on Christmas (doesn’t have to contain Jingle Bell tones, can be anything)
The original Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (or Christmas Vacation).

6.  What are your recent three favorite blogs? (honest answer please)
Seth Godin, Yatzer, Foodgawker

7.  What is your must-have in your hand bag?
Alba organic lip balm in pineapple flavor and a camera.

8.  Paris or New York?
Paris (but I love NY too!)

9.  Can you inspire us with a photo?  (just put a photo of your choice as an answer)

10.  What do you want to do/become before you die? (hm. is it a hard question?)
I want to continue to learn, grow, and challenge myself to become a better person every day.  There’s lots of traveling on my list too… Antarctica, climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro, and outer space just name a few places!  Speaking of, can I borrow $200,000?

11.  What are you hoping for yourself in 2012?  Tell us three of your resolutions.
Well, I’m in the middle of a transitional phase.  After seven years of having my own biz as a jewelry designer, I’ve decided to leave it behind so I can dive head first into something I love – photography!  I love to cook and I’m dying to learn how to make some gourmet French dishes.  Also, I’m going to make more conversation with strangers (something I normally don’t do).

My questions for the 11 people I’ve tagged below:
1.  List 3 words and a color that describes you the best.
2.  If you had to pick one, which Muppet would you be?  Why?
3.  Share three different photos from your travels and tell us a little about them.
4.  What’s your favorite video game of all time?
5.  What is one accomplishment you are most proud of doing in 2011 and what is one thing you’d like to accomplish in 2012?
6.  What is the most adventurous thing you’ve ever done?
7.  What are your “go-to” pair of shoes right now?
8.  What was the last thing you bought online?
9.  What are three websites that you visit on a regular basis (besides Google, Twitter, FB)?
10.  Winter or Summer?
11.  What are you most passionate about?

I’m breaking the rules and tagging 12 people:  Lea Barlow, Lea Michalopoulos, Maryse Coziol, Kimia Kline, Jennifer Chong, Katherina, Elissa Braun, Karen & Valerie, Krystal, Ashley, Gregory Han, and Scott Gold