Hasta La Gadget!

Christmas is the season for family and friends. And DIY projects that come out sparkling and beautiful. Unfortunately, I am a bit DIY challenged. Give me a glue gun and I will have 10 burned fingers within 30 seconds and I just might be glued to the wall. Glitter? One small bottle will envelope my house in a cloud of fairy dust that I will still be vacuuming up in July.

Regardless, every Christmas I think “This year will be different. Surely I’m not THAT hopeless.” An hour later when I am glued to the wall covered in glitter, I realize the error in my ways. This year, though, a little Christmas miracle happened. I actually made a DIY Christmas wreath that looks good. There were burned fingers and it doesn’t even call for glitter. Maybe I’ve broken my DIY curse? Or maybe, as my father-in-law likes to say “Even a blind squirrel finds a nut sometimes”. Either way I will take it.

So here are some DIY Christmas Decoration ideas that even the DIY challenged like me can handle. Good luck!

DIY Grapevine and Burlap Wreath from Merry About Town

My Christmas Miracle wreath. Yep, it is that easy.

Easy Christmas Wreath from Home to Heather

Who needs to buy a wreath? Make this super cute yarn wreath to decorate your home.

DIY Christmas Chandelier from Ruff Ruminations

An easy way to make your dining room look very, very Christmassy.

Super Easy Initial Wreath from Maija’s Mommy Moments

Love the look of this this initial wreath and that it is really easy.

And last but not least….No Glue Yarn Christmas Trees from Home to Heather

You can’t get much easier than a DIY Christmas decoration that doesn’t even require glue!

Happy Crafting and may the glue gun be with you!

The next time Snooki beats that beat up, it’ll be as a newly wed.

Nicole Polizzi, a.k.a. Snooki, officially tied the knot with fiance Jionni LaValle on Saturday, Nov. 29, according to Us Weekly. The “Jersey Shore” star wore two dresses from Bridal Reflections and celebrated with a “Great Gatsby”-themed wedding.

Polizzi had “Jersey Shore” co-star Jenni Farley, a.k.a. J-Woww, as one of her bridesmaids, and the couple’s two children, two-year-old Lorenzo and three-month-old Giovanna Marie, were apart of the wedding as well.

Polizzi recently explained to NJ Advanced Media why it was so important to have the children involved:

Our children are our lives, so it would be wrong not to include them on our special day. A wedding resembles a family’s commitment to each other and I feel like the kids need to be involved.

Polizzi shared the first photo of her special day via Twitter and reminded fans to tune in to MTV’s “Snooki & JWOWW” to see her walk down the aisle:

Sharing my first photo from my wedding today… http://t.co/UXJJG5l4mJ

— Nicole Polizzi (@snooki) November 29, 2014

For more, head to Us Weekly.

Earlier this year, I had the pleasure of speaking with a Haitian cabbie on my way to class. We talked about, well, pretty much everything, and I was mad at myself for forgetting to ask him for his contact information once I reached my destination.

But as we all know, life operates in interesting and ironic ways.

This past Monday afternoon, I hailed a taxi from Midtown to the Lower East Side. Sure enough, it was the same cabbie I met months prior.

“Helloooo, America. Hello, New York City. My name is Pierre Beauzile. Sometimes you only see me once in the course of this life, but I’ll always leave you with an impression.”

This is how Beauzile greets all of his passengers.

We immediately recognized each other and fist pounded–naturally.

“This is what I love most about life,” said Beauzile. “It’s spectacularly spontaneous.”

And that’s for sure. Beauzile has experienced many different walks of life, and a lot of his past pursuits have surprised him. He worked for Trans World Airline and Time Warner Cable, as a school teacher, real estate agent, social worker, actor, and of course, cab driver.

This is Beauzile’s second shot at driving cabs. He spent eight years as a taxi driver during his twenties and began again after the Haitian earthquake in 2010.

“My mother passed away five months after the quake, and I returned to cab driving.” He looked back at me and added, “I returned to cab driving as therapy.”

I asked him what he found to be therapeutic about his current job. Without hesitation, he replied,

“The best part about my job is meeting different people who make you forget about your personal problems. Cab driving’s allowed me to put things into perspective, to encounter happiness, to resolve issues, to find success. After all, that’s what New York City is all about.”

Have you been living the dream?

“Oh, yes,” said Beauzile with confidence. “The American Dream is still very much alive and well.”

Interestingly, Beauzile is writing a book titled Cab Driving in New York City. He said that, at first, his intention was to document his understanding of Haiti. But after many passengers insisted he publish a book about cabbing in New York, he decided he’d take the idea and run with it.

Do you have a favorite kind of passenger?

“A passenger that walks into a cab, says hello, and realizes that as soon as they’re sitting where you are now, we’re in a partnership. We’re dancing.”

What do you want everyone who’s reading this profile to know?

“There will be obstacles, there will be red lights, there will be bumps, there will be curves.” He continued, “I encourage you, all of you, to ask yourself what you loved about yesterday. I then encourage you even more to relive that moment in a meaningful way.”

The cab stopped. It was time for me to go about my day and for Pierre to go about his.

“See you next time,” he said.

“You think?” I asked.

“You know, one learns by driving a yellow cab in New York City.” There was a long, thoughtful pause. “One learns.”

A couple weeks ago, I contacted my cousin in Iran to ask him a few questions relating to my research paper on gender and sexual politics in Iran. As an Iranian-American who is pretty passionate about LGBT issues, I was beyond excited to hear my cousin’s perspective. I wanted to be sure that I went into the conversation with an unassuming and open-minded attitude. This, I came to find, was much easier said than done.

I started by asking him if he knew of any people who are “out of the closet,” what I preemptively presumed to be a rather simple question. My cousin took a quick pause and responded by asking me what “out of the closet” meant. Assuming an English to Farsi translation issue was causing my cousin’s confusion, I tried to reframe my question by asking him if he knew of any people who are publicly gay, people who have announced their homosexuality to their friends and family. He responded by asking me why anyone would do that.

I immediately assumed my cousin’s lack of knowledge about “coming out” signified that homosexuals in Iran endure adversity. The fact that my 20-or-so year-old, relatively liberal cousin did not know of any “out” homosexuals proved to me that homosexuality is completely taboo in Iranian society. I found the answer I was subconsciously thirsty for right off the bat — homosexuals are oppressed in Iran.

I moved onto my next question. I asked my cousin if he broadly had any knowledge of same-sex practice in Iran. He told me that, in his experience, many Iranians experiment with homosexuality. He said that this most often occurs in the younger generations at parties and social gatherings, though he did mention that some older married men secretly have male lovers. I was shocked; how could such seemingly fluid sexuality exist in a society that, according my cousin, did not have “out” homosexuals?

I did some research. Mahdavi Paris’ “Passionate Uprisings: Young People, Sexuality and Politics in Post-Revolutionary Iran” clarified a lot of my confusion. In this article, Mahdavi explains that many young Iranian people, as part of the greater underground “sexual revolution,” experiment with homosexuality. They see it as a way to resist conservative, seemingly outdated societal norms the Iranian government imposes. Same-sex experimentation, for many, is an extension of youthfulness, nonconformity, and fun — not necessarily any indicator of identity.

Why is Western society — myself included — so obsessed with pulling people into certain categories? In an era when sexuality is increasingly understood to be a fluid spectrum, why must we assume that any non-oppressive society must have its fair share of “out-of-the-closet” homosexuals?

All too often, I hear people obsessing over whether someone is “gay” or “straight.” This inherently makes it difficult for a heterosexual-leaning person to experiment with the same sex without receiving judgment. Identity is built by the experiences, places, people, thoughts, creeds, and so on in our lives. It is practically impossible to monolithically group identities together on the grounds of perceived commonalities. We may be forcing non-heteronormative people to flee towards “gay” or “straight” as safe-havens, even if they might not necessarily fit the associated paradigms. In the growingly “progressive” West, the gay-straight binary ironically fosters prejudice against those who might fall in between and those who might not see their sexuality as indicative of their identity.

We need to be aware of our own cultural constructs in our discourse on gender and sexuality in other parts of the world. While there may be some Iranians who fit into the Western homosexual paradigm, there seems to be a significant Iranian population that does not see experimentation as a part of their identity and thus does not feel the need to “come out.” Trying to understand foreign phenomena through the lens of our own is extremely dangerous and can engender a Western-superiority complex. It may impose the need for other places to play “cultural catch-up,” blinding us from our own shortfalls in the process.

More than anything, my conversation with my cousin allowed me to better understand some of the weaknesses of the Western-supported model of sexuality. Maybe, instead of solely criticizing sexual politics in Iran and elsewhere, Western society should also be open towards learning from these different experiences and modes of living. Doing so may help us move past the Western superiority complex and enter a phase of cross-cultural collaboration, improvement, and learning.

Elsa may be back!

Word of a “Frozen” sequel first started circulating back in February when Disney chief Bob Iger hinted at the movie’s franchise potential. Back in April, however, Disney chairman Alan Horn melted the sequel excitement when he said the studio was focusing more on a stage adaptation of the hit movie before a second film. Now, “Frozen” star Idina Menzel has revealed that a sequel is indeed in the works and that she hopes to return for it.

When recently asked by The Telegraph what she could reveal about the sequel and stage musical, the actress said, “That they’re all in the works!” Don’t expect to see Menzel on the stage as the Snow Queen, though. When asked if she was involved in either project, she responded, “Ah, yeah sure … Not the stage show, I don’t know what will happen with that, but the movie hopefully. We’ll see.”

There’s no further word on when either will happen, but we at least have the “Frozen” short film to look forward to. The short, “Frozen Fever,” will be about Anna’s birthday and is expected to be released in spring 2015.

For more, head to The Telegraph.