Shiona Rae

Today was a very quiet day at work, with no new art requests and the only thing to look forward to being a meeting at 3. So what do I do on a quiet day at work? I watch YouTube videos and doodle in a notebook. Today I watched a couple of series created by the channel SoulPancake on the Science of Happiness and the Science of Love which made me really think about my interactions with others. I got hooked on the science of happiness because I used to be such an optimistic person, viewing each day as a fresh start and looking at the future as something with a ton of potential. Something changed in me my freshman year at college and the world started to become more corrupt and depressing. My teenaged angst became a venom that turned into anxiety and depression, a fear of not being accepted and I built emotional walls to keep people out. I became more outgoing outwardly while retreating further into myself. I kept up the facade of optimism because it was what people were used to seeing, b...

A few years ago I came across an article that stated some psychologists had found 36 questions that could make people fall in love with you. I, being the ambitious lonely person I was, decided that I should take these questions with me to meet with a friend and see if I really could make someone fall in love with me over 36 questions. The questions are divided in to equal thirds, with each third getting gradually more difficult and stirring up emotions and memories that people don't regularly share with one another. The first twelve questions went smoothly. My friend and I already knew most of these things about one another. There were a couple of questions that made us chuckle, and we moved pretty quickly through this section. The second set of questions made us slow down more. We spent more time listening to what the other had to say. We shared more personal memories and things that broke down our emotional barriers further. We may have been sitting in a public cafete...

Last night I came across a very interesting article on Facebook about a young man who made a resume in order to "apply" to go to a formal dance with a young woman at his school who was having a hard time finding someone to join her. His dating resume quickly gained interest from many news and social media accounts. The dating resume in itself is a wonderful idea to "streamline" dating, and frankly it's kind of funny. So I made one for myself.

As I am only 23 years old I should have plenty of time left in my life to do the things that I want. But we aren't guaranteed a long and healthy life, so I would rather work on getting things checked off my bucket list sooner rather than later. Some things I still want to do with my life: 1. Make a few YouTube videos with my sister of us singing 2. Get a tattoo 3. Travel around Europe with my friend Melanie 4. Design and sell some stationery 5. Move to England 6. Open a store (not sure if I want it to be a stationery store or a tea shop with art for sale... thinking the latter) 7. Sing in front of a crowd 8. Start a family 9. Learn how to play the guitar *Not necessarily in that order I have never been an adrenaline junkie, so I know for a fact that if I added anything like "go skydiving" I would never look at this list again. I wanted to keep this list as short and realistic as possible, only including the things that have been on my heart and mind for a l...

I did it. I graduated from college, I got a job that takes advantage of the degree I worked so hard on. And yet... I still live with my parents. I lack encouragement to create anything new. I feel under-appreciated. And I feel more alone than ever. My parents are wonderful, caring, loving and supportive people. I was lucky in that they supported every decision that I've made in my life, even when I decided to pursue a degree in the Liberal Arts. They had previously urged me to consider a more "proper" field, as any sane parents should, yet knew as I did that my heart was where the art was. When I got out of college I did a brief stint as an intern with a political organization in DC. I found that the posters I created and the advertisements I put out were some of the more fun things I'd created in my life, even compared to the branding projects from school. I felt productive, encouraged, and like a flower blooming in the sunlight. Every morning I would get to the ...