When I Die I Want To Be A Japanese White Birch

By Jasmine Blennau

This is the coolest damn thing I've ever seen in my life. Instead of leaving your ashes on the mantle, or having them sprinkled in the sea, you can become a plant. What the biodegradable urn company, Bios Urn, has done is take its business to the next level by adding technology.

Let's start with the basic facts.

1. There are too many people on this Earth for all of us to be buried and get a headstone. There just is not enough space. We are running out of burial space and it is not sustainable.
2. I don't like the idea of my body sitting inside a metal box in the ground forever.
3. Plants make everything better.

Louis C.K. jokes about his grandma donating her body to a medical school.
"Imagine being the body where the kid got an F on you?"

Imagine being the remains that doesn't grow the seed into a plant?

The biodegradable urn accessory, Bios Incube, is preventing just that. Adding this sensor to the mix to ensure that your plant GROWS. It keeps track of the water, humidity, sunlight and more so that you don't overwater your loved ones remains to death. Pretty smart.

When I die I want to be a Japanese White Birch.

How Do You Leave?

By Jasmine Blennau


The question, "how do you leave," has stuck with me for a couple of weeks now. Depending on what a person is going through at this particular time of their life, he or she may interpret the question differently.

How do I leave my lifelong home for a job in a different state?

How do I leave this relationship that isn't fulfilling?

How do I leave my roommates at college when I graduate?

How do I leave this unbalanced friendship?

How do I leave my parents and get my own place?

How do I leave?

The answer is, you just do it. It's going to hurt but if it's going to lead to what you really want you have to do it. Leaving is difficult because change is scary. Nobody likes the idea of leaving a life behind in New York to start over somewhere else. Nobody likes going through a break up. Nobody likes saying goodbye to people they care about. The truth is that if going through that pain is leading you to a place where you want to be: the start of your career, the freedom to be solo, or just a fresh start, then it's worth it.

The way I see it, the idea of staying can be more frightening than leaving.
Sometimes you have to take a risk in order to grow.

Appreciating the Human Form

Appreciating the Human Form 

By Jasmine Blennau

This winter my sister went to Costa Rica. She came home a new woman with a different perspective on the Earth and peoples. It wasn’t until she removed herself from modern society to live on an organic farm, that she could see how much society controls us. 

She said that on the nature preserve where she was living, the people did not see the body in terms of sexuality, but rather a vessel for the soul to reside. She told me about the freedom they all had to expose themselves to nature in the most pure and natural way – nude. 

Nudity was not something the be ashamed of, or even something to flaunt in a sexual light. It was natural. It was the way that we came into this world. The people on the preserve didn’t have advertisements telling them how to live. They live back to basics, back to the environment. 

The human form is a beautiful. It’s truly excellent. And we can only appreciate it if we strip from ourselves the voices in our heads screaming “SEX.” Over and over and over again.

Now, it’s not our faults that all we can think about is sex, or money. The society that we are part of pushes big breasts, large penises, asses and sex talk on all of us, every day. It’s time to take your self back and not be another zombie of consumerism. 

The only way I have been able to detach myself from the superficial, erotica-seeking millennial it is easy to become has been yoga. It was in yoga that I learned to appreciate the body as an incredible and strong piece of art instead of something to be judged or maintained for the public’s gaze. 

I once met a young man in yoga who I found to be very beautiful. He wasn’t traditionally handsome. He didn’t have rock hard abs or giant arms. He was slim and he was strong. He had an aura of respect and poise about him. I admired him in a nonsexual way. It was more of wanting to be like him, rather than wanting him. 

It was as easy as that. If we could see each other and respect each other as people and not as men or women, I think we could break down this sex culture. Gender and body parts are dividing us in more ways than one and it is sad because there is so much more to the human experience than sex and buying things. 

Mind Mapping

By Jasmine Blennau 

Mind mapping is a form of brainstorming. It is a way to graphically represent your thoughts. When I was in grade school we did brainstorming on paper. Now there are apps that can make these diagrams neat for presentations. Here are some photos from class today.

Professor Baldwin mind maps on his MacBook. 

The beginnings of SAB HAB Backpack Project.

Branches of ideas for the product. 

In the Stony Brook School of Journalism we use mind mapping when we are thinking of sources for stories. For example, if your story was about President Stanley you would put him in the center. Branching off of his bubble would be the things he identifies as (University President, an M.D., a researcher, a husband, a New Yorker). Then branching off of those things would be questions. Where did he go to medical school? Who has he done research with? What is his wife like? Where does he live? All of these questions and data points can be organized in a mind map. The point is to think freely and not discredit anything without giving it a chance.