This is not really an over used phrase surprisingly, no one has ever said this to me though these days I find myself saying it to other people. I caught it from a couple of movies I watched recently, and then I did a bit of research to find that this phrase originated from the bible, and there was a story on Solomon as well, with this being the moral. I don’t mean to bore ya’all but thought the background was essential.
So yes shit happens (best way to put it) and you find yourself thinking all sorts of stuff, “why me!!”…”my life sucks” … Blah blah blah. Well I’ve been training myself from saying these things, naturally cause I know I don’t mean them. Something goes wrong and I blame Life? That’s a huge, huge uncalled for sort of picking on. So when something goes right what, “my life” is awesome? Now that’s not how things work. Things happen. Like how they’re meant to. You tend to forget you make things happen, or the fact that you can.
Anyway, when you are facing this feeling, if you feel yourself having too much weight on your shoulders, if you feel problems are ALL you can think of, and you know, getting all “emo” or even anywhere close to being dangerously suicidal (you never know who’s reading this!), just remember: this too shall pass. Like how you got through something complicated in the past, this too WILL pass ! Smile ! While you still have teeth … =)
This is Rachel. Rachel loves red, or was it pink now?
Rachel gives the best hugs in the world. And, I liked her smile.
I’ve been told to make a thesis on the topic “Current debates surrounding the popularity of leather“ and so I thought, I’ll do my research and write an article on it first then I’ll get a better hang of it… so here we go.
As I hope you all know, leather really comes from animals. Dead animals. I’m not trying to emphasize that but it’s a huge deal. Most leather out there is made out of cattle skin, though apparently there are exceptions. Lamb and deerskin are used for soft leather in quite expensive apparel, whereas deer and elkskin are used to a great extent in work gloves and indoor shoes; pigskin used in apparel and seats of saddles; quite a scary amount of animals are used in terms of leather- buffalo, goats, alligators, dogs, snakes, ostriches, kangaroos, oxen and yaks.”Ostrich leather” is used for upholstery purposes, footwear, automotive products, accessories and clothing; many huge fashion houses like Prada, Gucci, LV, etc uses this. (I personally don’t find this a good discovery). Sting ray leather is used for making wallets and belts as that sort is rather tough and durable. This is no joke. Back in the days however, leather came from particular species of snakes and crocodiles which were hunted for the purpose.
The production process is slightly disturbing, what they do to the animals to get the leather. The natural stages begin when the skin is prepared for a process called “tanning”; this may include: preservation, soaking, liming, unhairing, fleshing, splitting, reliming, deliming, bating, degreasing, frizing, bleaching, pickling, and depickling. Some of these are self explanatory; liming, reliming and deliming are all to do with getting four objectives done by adding alkaline solution- removing certain proteins etc, pretty dry stuff if you ask me. The process continues with crusting and certain other finishing operations; if you require pure leather it’s necessary to include most of these processes. As the quality would really depend on that, naturally.
I’m sorry that must’ve been pretty boring but think about it. Take a moment and just think, is it really worth it? Do you really want to go around wearing animal skin *after all that’s been done to get it made the way it is* ? I’m really not one to judge but harming animals is not the way to go, sorry. This is where the environmental concerns kick in. PETA and other such organisations take action against the use of leather. It’s no drug but I believe it should be long gone. In case you weren’t aware, the whole process behind it, all the chemicals that get used in it, cause terrible pollution and a rather uncomfortable atmosphere altogether as well.
This video says a lot. Watch it and I hope it’ll make some difference to the way you approach to leather. It’s pretty gruesome and I for one, don’t ever wanna own anything leather hereafter. And I really mean that.
How about an alternative?
There’s always Faux leather. Instead of being made out of animal skins, these fabrics are made of other materials and they go under a number of processes that eventually gives it the look of leather, and certain common attributes. There are many names under which faux leather may be sold, and these include leatherette, pleather, and naugahyde.
The market for fake leather isn’t that wide right now but I hope one day it will be. I’m somebody who doesn’t like settling for fake or you know, maybe a by-product, but this is of huge concern to me and I feel like I’ll be doing a favour to the natural enviornment here if I choose faux over real. There’s not much worse than animal cruelty. Don’t you agree?
One huge factor that amazes me about Mumbai, that I LOVE about this city, is how so many of the places here have so much of character. It is amazing. Cafes, restaurants, other than your usual Mcdy’s, Subway or KFC.
My favourite place here in Mumbai is Colaba, for that one reason (& more to be fair). The restaurants in Colaba appeal to me so much that I just keep going back there for more. Leopolds, Modegar’s, Churchill, Theos.. oh where do I begin ?! I love it all!
Here’s a couple of pics from Mondy’s, me and my friend visited last december (2011). Christmas season, so very colourful and oh soo lovelyyyyy. You have to go there to feel it. And to top it all off, the food from these places are also excellent! More coming up. (:
I’ll get some more photos that emphasize the restaurant, next time.
I don’t wanna talk much cause, well, that could get boring right away… I could put up some cool pictures I have however, which really, should speak for itself! And well, it could date a lil while back, possibly even a year old. Since I have this blog now, and not a year ago, well then that explains why the photos are coming up now. Silly. 🙂
Somedays I might just ramble on about random things that interest me or caught my attention, maybe write a short report on some event, somebody inspiring, you know, stuff. So watch out.
Through my lens, I see ... 