Fashion Month

Fashion month is a significant event for the fashion industry. Starting on February 1st, fashion enthusiast from all over the world meet in New York, London, Paris, and Milan to watch models strut their stuff down the most prominent runways.

During fashion month, designers show off their newest collections and decide the biggest trends for the upcoming season. This year, designers delved into themes such as the swinging 60’s, sportswear chic, and global traveler. Valentino, Chanel, and Burberry had superior collections that brought these themes to life on the runway.

The 1960’s is making a groovy reappearance, rearing its youthful spirit on miniskirts, knee high boots, and short dresses. Valentino had the audience in awe.  Models took the stage in 60’s mod prints, wide legged trousers, and bright red go-go boots that had the older audience members wiping away nostalgic tears. “Designers like Valentino are exactly what the world needs right now,” said Katie Fagan, senior fashion design student at the University of Texas, “Clothes can be fun and funky, and the 60’s style is all about letting go and having fun.” The funky patterns and bright colors prove that fashion can be fun.

Sportswear was also extensively seen on the runway. Think soccer mom meets Anna Wintour. The mash-up of athletic wear and high fashion has hard working women everywhere drooling. Karl Lagerfeld’s “Chanel Shopping Center” show included a Supermarket set, taking a mundane errand and making it into a fashion statement. Tweed tops, amped-up sweat sets, and trainers took the everyday soccer mom attire to a new level. “It’s beautiful really,” said Hana Lang, a Los Angeles based fashion designer, “Women are becoming so powerful in today’s society. Major fashion designers are creating clothes based on the working women. It’s getting to the point where woman are dressing for themselves instead of dressing to impress men.”

Besides frequently taking trips to the disco and the grocery store, women tend to suffer from wanderlust. Wanderlust is a strong, innate desire to travel about. This is where the global traveler theme came from. Signified by layers, fur, far-off patters and earth tones, this look defines the gypsies and the free spirits. No one showed it clearer than Christopher Bailey at Burberry. A study in layering (or packing for a worldly adventure), he piled shearlings, blanket capes, scarves and ponchos over artisanal floral-print dresses and coats. The accessories were essential too: ethnic-inspired booties to covet and the hand-painted Bloomsbury totes that were to die for.

This year’s fashion month was about empowering women. These themes prove that you can work hard, have fun, and look fabulous while doing so. This is the age of the powerful women, dress like you own the world.

The Couragious Story of a Rape Victim

Mary Chapman exhales the cigarette smoke from her lungs as she rubs her cigarette butt into the dirt. With shaky hands she reaches into her pack of Turkish Silvers and lights another one, her third one today. She looks tired, eye liner from the night before smudged under her eyes and the smell of stale beer on her breath. This is who she likes to call “weekend Mary”, the Mary who lets loose every Friday night after spending all day meeting with women who have a history that is just as tragic as her own. She deserves those weekend drinks and cigarettes.

Her life has been surrounded by tragedy since she turned thirteen. It used to be just her own tragedy, but she’s moved on from that. Now, it is other women’s lives that she is consumed with; other women who grew up like her, other women who can relate to her story.

“I will never forget the night my stepdad stole my innocence, I was thirteen. It was the night my life changed forever.” She sucks on her cigarette, breathes in deep, and then looks up at the sky and exhales slowly. “That night I saw the world for what it truly was, I was no longer a child.” The cigarette smoke escapes her mouth and slithers up into the sky, gone forever.

Mary was a happy young girl. She loved soccer, Brittney Spears, and her corgi named Dandy.  She lived in a happy little bubble, surrounded by safety and people who loved her. She had no idea that the night she agreed to spend at her mom’s house was the night that perfect bubble would be popped.

Friday night, at exactly midnight, Mary’s stepfather tip toed into her room, making sure to be as quiet as he could so he wouldn’t wake up his wife and five year old son that were peacefully sleeping in their bedrooms down the hall. He grabbed Mary, and he didn’t let go until the life that she always knew was torn from her, escaping from her body up into the night sky where it would never be seen again, just like her cigarette smoke.

An hour later, Mary sat on the cold tile floor of her bathroom, silently crying and using hand soap to scrub the memories of that awful night off of her favorite Power Puff Girl printed pajama bottoms. Her stepfather was already back in his bed, cuddling his wife who had a small smile on her face as she slept soundly. No one knew. 

“About a week after that night I tried to tell my mom what happened to me, I couldn’t keep it inside anymore,” Mary says as she stubs out her third cigarette and starts fiddling with the messy bun sitting on top of her head. “My mom called me a liar, and it hurt even more than the actual assault. I needed comfort, and since I couldn’t get it from my mother, I went to my brothers.”

“I was seeing red when Mary told me what happened, it took everything in me to not go over there and beat his face in. I still want to beat his face in.” says Randy, Mary’s younger brother. “Mary made us promise we wouldn’t tell anyone. I was young then; I didn’t know what to do, so I promised I wouldn’t do anything.”

“It was a big stupid mistake to promise Mary we wouldn’t say anything. We had no idea the toll it took on her, we had no idea how big the war in her mind was,” says John.

Mary was fighting a brutal battle in her mind. A couple years went by, and then, at the age of fifteen, Mary was addicted to cocaine.

“My best friend at the time was trouble. Her mom was a coke dealer, she kept a large pile of cocaine on their coffee tables at all times,” says Mary. “After school I would go burry my face in that pile until I couldn’t even remember my own name, numbing out my feelings was the only way I could survive.”

Cocaine was Mary’s way out. It was a way for her to escape her life, a way for her to feel nothing. She lived comfortably numb, and when the feeling wore off, she went back to that pile of cocaine and made the hurt go away. She was a moth to the flame.

Months went by; her father was clueless. He was clueless to the rape, clueless to the cocaine. Until one day he hacked into her Facebook and saw messages she had written to friends about doing coke.

“I just couldn’t believe that my baby girl was doing drugs,” says Mary’s father David. He furrows his brow, still frustrated from the events of the past. “I took action right away.”

Mary was thrown into church groups and sentenced to four years grounding by her father. Every day at school a police officer would stroll into Mary’s classrooms, take her out into the hall, and search her backpack for cocaine. He even took apart her peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, just to make sure there weren’t any drugs hiding between the two slices of bread.

Mary was permanently embarrassed. Students watched her closely as she left her classroom with the police officer every day. Rumors spread, people found out. Mary was labeled a druggie.

“I realized that wasn’t the way I wanted people to remember me. I didn’t want that reputation, so I decided to change,” says Mary.

It had been two years since the rape, and Mary still had those questions buzzing around in her head; pounding in her brain like a bad headache. Why me? Am I undesirable now that I’ve had sex with my stepdad? Will I ever trust a man again? She needed these question answered before she could truly move on and start living a life she could be proud of. She needed the soldiers in her mind to seize fire and for the war to end.

Mary started attending group therapy for women and young girls who had been sexually assaulted. Every night, even though it was for just an hour, she felt free. She was surrounded by people who understood; surrounded by people who didn’t judge her. She finally found the comfort and support that she needed. The war was over, the white flags were raised. She could smile again.

Mary’s father still didn’t know about the assault. So during the day, while she was grounded, Mary threw herself into her studies. All day she did homework and studied for tests, until 7:30 pm when she met with her therapy group. She would heave a sigh of relief as she walked into her therapy session. She would walk around the room, hugging all of the women and young girls who knew her secret. They were the greatest friends Mary had ever had.

“Those meetings and those women saved my life in more ways than one; they are the reason that I am doing social work today. I owe them everything,” says Mary as her eyes well up with tears. Reminiscing on all of her old therapy friends brings back a swarm of feelings and memories.

Mary stuck with her therapy group all the way until she graduated from Westwood High School on June 6, 2010. She left her group behind when she went off the Texas State University, where she majored in Social Work.

“Social Work was something I needed to do,” says Mary. “I need girls to know that they aren’t alone in their fight.”

Now, recently graduated, Mary works for SafePlace, a domestic violence women’s shelter in Austin, Texas. Mary runs therapy sessions five days a week with women who have dealt with sexual assault.

“My therapy sessions were the only place I felt safe. Now, I get to provide that need for other women. It’s the best feeling,” says Mary. She looks up at the sky once again and smiles as the warm sunshine hits her face. The work she does make’s her happy, it’s obvious.

 “There are so many girls who come in here in the same situation that I was in. Society often blames women for being raped, hell my mother still hasn’t talked to me and she is STILL married to that asshole who stole my childhood,” says Mary.

Mary is proof that any women can move on from the tragic events of their past. Her story is so important to the world because thousands of girls are sexually assaulted every day, and most of those girls are too scared to get help.

Ladies of the world, this is a message to you. Don’t ever think that rape is your fault, and don’t ever be afraid to get help.

Living With Lyme Disease

It was July in Texas. The air was thick and hot, the sun hung lazily in the sky, bright and beating down rays of scolding hot light, showing no mercy. Vern Hollingsworth was tending to his tomato garden, listening to his grandchildren laugh and play in the distance. He could hear their little feet padding through the tall grass that grew near the lake; they were playing hide and seek. The tall grass was his granddaughter Holly’s favorite place to hide. Life on the Hollingsworth ranch was safe and peaceful. Vern taught his grandchildren at a young age which plants were poisonous and which animals to avoid. They knew what noises rattlesnakes made when they were mad, they knew how to properly tag cattle, and they knew how to kill and cook a rabbit in less than thirty minutes. His grandchildren were smart and savvy; he was proud of them, and he knew he had nothing to worry about. He smiled to himself as he thought about this, he picked his tomatoes and let the sound of his children playing hide and seek wash over him.

A week later Holly was sick in bed, Vern brought her some tomato soup made from the tomatoes he picked a week ago. He didn’t think anything of her sickness, but little did he know that this flue he thought she had would turn into something bigger, something worse; something that would control her life until well after he had passed away.

***

Holly slowly makes her way into her large, open kitchen. Her husband, Manny, and five year old daughter, Marisol, are standing at the kitchen counter chopping vegetables. Last year, Manny and Holly bought Marisol a kitchen knife kit for kids. Cooking is one of the many things Marisol enjoys doing with her parents. “I’m out of bed,” Holly exclaims excitedly as she walks over to her daughter and gives her a big kiss on the forehead. “These days if I can make it out of bed I take that as a huge win for me.” Holly suffers from Lyme disease. She caught it from a tick when she was six, the day she was playing hide and seek in the tall grass by the lake on her grandpa Vern’s ranch.

Lyme disease is the most common tick-borne illness in North America. It is caused by the bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi. Deer ticks, which feed on the blood of humans and animals, can harbor the bacteria and spread it when feeding. 

Holly and Marisol start chattering away with each other, Marisol is telling Holly about today’s piano lesson as Holly walks over to a brown drawer next to the stove, she calls it her pill drawer. Forty bottles of pills are stacked one on top of the other in this normal, brown drawer. She stands there, still excitedly talking to her daughter, and starts taking one pill from every single bottle.

Holly smiles at her daughter as she swallows forty different pills, and Marisol and Manny don’t even blink. This is a normal day in the Hollingsworth household.

“The pills aren’t even the worst part,” Holly says as she gulps down another handful of blue, orange, and white pills, “I think the worst part is the fatigue, I will go weeks without getting out of bed. I can’t walk around; I can’t even lift my fingers to type on my phone or write emails to friends. It’s like I’m paralyzed.” She takes another hand full of pills, and washes it down with another large gulp of water.

Besides causing severe fatigue, Lyme disease also causes hepatitis, terrible joint pain, numbness in your limbs, meningitis, and Bell’s Palsy. These are all conditions that Holly wakes up to and faces every day. The fatigue is the most painful part of having lyme disease, because it means she has to miss out on a lot of Marisol’s active life.

“Mommy had to miss my birthday party this year because she was so tired, she has to miss a lot of events, but she always lets me sit next to her in bed so I can tell her everything she’s missing out on,” Marisol says as she continues to chop vegetables next to her dad. Holly’s eyes start to glaze over; a sad expression washes across her face as she continues down the line of pills.

“Mommy always tries hard to be there for you, you know how much she loves you, she gives you everything you could ever need” Manny chimes in as he gives his daughter a little nudge. Marisol giggles and agrees with her dad, Holly smiles weakly.

It is true; before even talking to Manny and Holly about Marisol I could tell they wanted to give the entire world to this beautiful child. When you step foot into Marisol’s bedroom you can tell that she already has more life experience than you do. Her walls are decorated with her drawings, Swords that she uses during her Tuesday night sword fighting lessons lean against her bed post, soccer balls and ballet tutus cover every inch of her floor, packages filled with beautiful clothes that her mother ordered online and surprised her with sit torn open on her desk, and dozens of “learn how to speak French” tapes litter the big love seat that sits by her window. Her parents have put her into every single activity under the sun and she loves every second of it. She is intelligent, outspoken, and she knows exactly what is wrong with her mother. They have never tried to sugar coat Holly’s condition. Marisol could tell you more about Lyme disease than google could.  

“Yeah, she is definitely a spoiled child,” Holly laughs, “but she is our miracle baby. She gave us hope when we didn’t have anything left. She gave me life and happiness, and for that, she deserves the world.”

Before Marisol was born, Manny and Holly had tried countless times to have a child. They all led to miscarriages. Holly has had a total of 12 miscarriages, all happening when she was three or four months pregnant. The Lyme disease had made it nearly impossible for her body to nurture and conceive a child. Somehow, Marisol fought through the lyme disease and made it out of her mother’s body unharmed, they thank her every day for making it out alive.

“I don’t want you to feel bad for me,” Holly explains. “I have everything I could ever want in life; I have a supportive husband and a beautiful child, which is more than a lot of people in my condition can say.”

Like anyone with a life threatening illness, Holly has her ups and downs, her good days and her bad days. Some days she feels strong enough to get out of bed and spend time with her family, but other days are full of suffering and pain.

“We all support each other,” Manny says as he thoughtfully looks from his daughter to his wife. “No matter what life throws at us we will always be here for each other.” Manny and Marisol are there for every doctor’s appointment and physical therapy appointment. Marisol is there to feed Holly oatmeal when her limbs go numb, and Manny is always there to carry her to the bathroom if her joint pains are so bad that she can’t walk there herself. Their lives are tragic and beautiful all at the same time. This is true love. This family is the definitely of love and compassion.

“I love my parents this much!” Yells Marisol as she stretches her arms out as wide as they can go. Manny and Holly laugh, they stare at her with such appreciation, their devotion to each other is electric.

***

“Life is always going to be hard, but I can’t throw myself a pity party and let my pain control my life. My family supports me, and their love is stronger than any pain my body wants to throw at me.” Today has been a good day for Holly and her health. Holly finishes taking all of her pills and grabs Marisol’s right arm. She brings her into a tight embrace and Marisol shouts in protest but the giggles never stop escaping her lips. Holly swings Marisol around and they start fox trotting around the kitchen, stopping only when Holly wants to plant a kiss on Manny’s lips.

“Life is hard and unfair sometimes,” Manny explains as he throws the chopped up vegetables into a big wooden bowl, “but you have to take it for what it is and just go with it. It breaks my heart when Holly is in pain, but when she is happy and alive like she is now, it makes me realize how truly lucky we are to have each other. We’ll never stop fighting for this beautiful life that we live.” Manny stops transporting the vegetables and takes a moment to smile at his dancing wife and child. “I don’t care how much pills or treatment for Holly cost, there isn’t any amount of money in the world that could ever get me to give this up.” At that moment, the laughter and affection for one another is all that I can hear.

March Down Congress for Texas Schools

            Teachers, educators, parents, and supporters alike banned together in protest on the capitol steps in attempt to save Texas schools.

Saturday Feb. 23 2013 at 10:45 a.m. thousands of people gathered on the corner of Riverside and Congress to march across Congress Avenue Bridge to the steps of the Texas State Capitol. Members of Save Texas Schools, a nonpartisan volunteer organization consisting of parents, teachers, educators, business leaders, concerned citizens, community groups, and faith organizations, are coming together to fight for quality public education for all Texas students pre-k through college.

 The Save Texas Schools organization wants state elected officials to hear their motto of “saying no to underfunding and over-testing and yes to great schools for all Texas children.” Said Ken Baliker President of Clear Creek ISD Board of Trustees, the first school district to join the Save Texas Schools organization.

Saturday morning’s rally consisted of many Save Texas Schools support speakers, Edgewood Independent School District Board of Trustees President Joseph M. Guerra said, “There are two major problems in Texas public schools, Dan Patrick’s Texas Senate Bill 2 and funding.”

Senator Patrick’s Senate Bill 2 is said to consist of removing the cap on charter schools in Texas. The current cap is 215, leaving more than 100,000 students on waiting lists to get in. His bill would set up a commission charged with approving and overseeing charter school performance. Schools that don't meet academic or economic standards three out of their first five years could be closed by the commission. Charter schools could also purchase or lease unused facilities from school districts at a fair market value said the Texas Senate News.

36^th Comptroller of Public Accounts, Carole Keeton Strayhorn said, “We have a crisis, and the crisis is; the public sector wants to take away our public schools and the private sectors want to privatize our public schools.”

Guerra said, “Equal education opportunities for all Texas students’ starts with keeping our kids in school, and taking back the $5.4 billion dollars cut from public education over the past two years. The answer is to focus on public schools, not investing money into private state funded charter schools.”

Supporters of the Save Texas Schools rally are motivated to have standardized testing removed from public schools and begin treating each student as an individual, Strayhorn says “Media outlets say public schools are failing, but it is not true. The test scores today on the National Assessment of Educational Progress federal test are the highest they have ever been in history.”

“Test are the highest they have ever been for white children, black children, Hispanic children, and Asian children; that’s a secret public officials don’t want you to know, and it’s not because of testing it’s because of our superb teachers” said Strayhorn.

Texas leads the nation in both math and science examination passing rates, and have achieved and 80 percent passing rate on reading exams reported CBS News on Feb. 21, 2013.

“Texas’ future relies on the education of its children and all of its children, we have to take action and provide the education these children deserve or suffer consequences later” said Strayhorn. 

Dell's new Structure

Dell Computers has always been a major power house in the world of computers, but recently they have been sending some of their top employees out the door, jobless. In the years since the recession started, Dell has decided to get rid of some major jobs, add new technology to the mix, and try even harder to keep their name on people’s lips.

Last year, Dell had revenues of $61.1 billion with an income of $51.1 billion, and revenues have jumped up this year to $62.1 billion. They are also known to keep very low inventory levels to save costs for costumers and keep technology relevant.

Dell’s bestselling products now are X86 based servers. They have the number 1 market share in the United States and 2nd world-wide, and its growing that market share every quarter. Last quarter, market share in servers grew 3%, According to Direct2Dell, the company’s corporate blog. Dell still feels the need to accomplish more.

“The company is every changing,” Dell’s former Vice President of Global Sales, Paul Carney, said. “It started out as simply a PC company. Now it is moving rapidly to diversify into servers, storage, networking and software. Its biggest change is the software business which Dell wasn’t in before. This business brings higher margins than hardware.”

Paul was recently laid off from his job as Vice President of Global Sales because the company is drastically adjusting their organization to meet the demands of the market. “That means that sometimes jobs are no longer needed or they redistributed organizations to other areas which eliminate the need for some leadership,” Carney said.

The new reorganized global business structure that Dell decided to use, calls for restructuring and for management changes that will move things around for its global business.

“The new reorganization comes as the computer maker has announced that it is reorganizing its business globally around three major customer segments – large enterprise, public sector and small and medium businesses,” Dell salesman Tiel Jones said.

Each group will possess greater global accountability and responsibility for responding to customer needs and leading industry change. Michael Dell, chairman/CEO, attributed the changes as a response to customer desire “for faster innovation and globally standardized products and services.”

Dell has been offering many high paying positions around the company, like VP’s, payment deals if they will leave the company peacefully. Besides Paul, the President of Global Operations, Michael Cannon, and CMO Mark Jarvis will leave their posts.  The company has agreed to pay these three men their full salary until the end of next April.

It is very strange for a successful company to start firing their most efficient employees, especially since they are making more money than they ever have. “They are not technically downsizing,” Jones said. “They are organizing appropriately to meet new customer demands. That means sometimes that jobs that used to be needed are not anymore, but they are adding people to certain areas of growth, like software.”

Dell’s organizational structure plays a crucial role in development and market performance. As any company, Dell Corporation must look for new trends in business development.