Cats of Ephesus

Have you ever been to ancient ruins and been surprised about some of the tenants? Because I sure have. This past summer my family visited Ephesus in Turkey and I was more than amused by what I found in the ancient ruins. Not only was this where an apostle of Jesus came to preach or the home of one of the last ancient libraries but today there are dozens of members of the feline species roaming around the ancient ruins.

This was the first cat I encountered as we entered the site. A cute little kitty sunbathing on an ancient pillar, how quaint. I wondered if anyone else had noticed this phenomenon and did a google search to find out. Not only are there other blogs written about the felines that call this place home, but tons of google images show up featuring the cats and the ruins. This blog I found was by far my favorite with a short but sweet description and a lot of cat pictures. I will reiterate what that blog states- I traveled thousands of miles to see some of the most well preserved ancient Roman ruins and took pictures of cats…

Hopefully these little cats wandering around ancient roman ruins brightened your day. If you would like to learn more about ancient Ephesus click here.

Feeling Lucky?

Have you ever pressed the ‘feeling lucky’ option on google? Neither have I…so why not do it together and discover what happens.

See that little button on the right? Want to see what it does? Alright, I clicked on it- here is what appeared. Click here to see the page yourself.I want to know why google took me to this, so the obvious way to answer this question is to do a google search on what exactly ‘I’m feeling Lucky’ actually does. About.com had an excellent answer for me.

Basically, the article says that if you type in a phrase and then press the button it will bring you to the first result in the google list. If you put in no content it does just as we discovered, sends you to the google doodles page. Since it had sent me there I spent some time looking through the google doodles, I’ll share a few of them here:

Google is always interesting, and is such a powerhouse it is fun to explore it every once and a while. I plan on using the ‘I’m feeling Lucky’ button more now that I actually know what it does.

 

 

#equestrian

There is no finish without the beginning.

As an equestrian I’ve found the above words to be more helpful than not. I’ve been riding competitively for almost 10 years, but I’ve been learning to ride a horse since I was 5 years old. That’s the thing about this sport, you never stop learning. Just a few years ago I would have looked blankly at my trainer when they asked me ‘how many strides I got in that line’ or ‘did you not see a distance?’. Just in a few short years my riding has come a long way, but I often have people asking me why I’m not jumping higher. The answer is, I’m not ready, I’m still learning.

The height of the jump has become something I no longer care about. Yes, I do get excited when the jumps go up to 3ft or higher, but it does not rule how I classify my ride. I could have the best ride in a month and all I’ve done is walk/trot/canter, but if it feels right then I can call it a good day. So many people in our sport just run through the ranks and never really appreciate the ride, they just want to get up to doing those big jumper classes and nothing else. I’m not saying that these people don’t have the skill set to be able to do stuff like that, but I am saying that there is no shame in taking your time.

No, I did not win big medal classes as a junior, in fact I never competed in USEF shows as a junior. I can choose to spend my time being bitter that I never got my junior years in or that I never was a pony hunter champion but there is so much that I have accomplished. I can focus on the things that I’m proud about- the fact that I’ve been in the ribbons for the year end awards for the past three years I’ve had my mare, the fact that I’ve gotten a whole wall of ribbons to decorate my dorm room, and the fact that I’ve met my very best friends in this sport.

This is just the beginning, not even close to the end. I still have my entire life ahead of me and plenty of time to keep learning how to ride and maybe one day I’ll be up in the world rankings for hunter/jumper riders. It can’t hurt to dream, right?

The Language Barrier: Part 2

So, I’ve downloaded duolingo and as promised I’ve been learning and practicing my Spanish almost daily. I’m starting to feel comfortable with more words, but I get easily frustrated with words I’ve not yet mastered and with conjugations.

I’m now in the process of mastering occupations and those words that go along with them. However, I’ve found that if I do not go back ant practice weak skills the new lessons are almost impossible. So I’ve learned that the phrase ‘practice makes perfect’ really does serve true. The more I master the other skills I’ve gone through already, the easier the new lessons are. Although I feel discouraged at some points, I know that I am getting better and better every day. It also is nice to learn a language at my own pace and just repeat things as many times as I need, unlike I was taught in grade school and other classes I’ve taken for school.

So far I’ve been humbled by the fact that I know so little, I’m encouraged by the fact that I’ve learned more than I knew before, and I’m anxious to keep learning more and keep decreasing my language barrier. I hope that by the time I go through all of these skills I am able to completely communicate in Spanish and I will be one step closer to being a global citizen.

Now off to learn my occupation vocabulary words and speak to my phone in hushed Spanish as not to wake my roommates.

The Second Screening

It seems like no one just watches television anymore, twitter has become a way of letting the world know what you think about things  that go on not only in the entertainment world but also in politics. I’ve done it quite a few times, especially now during the Olympics. Some might say that the second screen adds to the viewing experience as you are able to immediately see other reactions to whatever content you are following. However I think that the second screen really distracts me from actually watching whatever content is going on. I notice myself updating my twitter feed more than I am paying attention to the television program when I use a second screen. When I do use a second screen, I often post my reactions on twitter in real time or sometimes even on Facebook if my reaction to whatever I am watching is particularly entertaining.

I have been following the Olympics on twitter and since there is such a time change I have found this both a great way to find out what went on at the games while I had been sleeping but also a terrible spoiler alert. However the twitter feeds have a lot of information relating to the Olympics such as TV listings and information about the medal winners and the medal count.

I just recently used twitter this morning to find out all that happened in the finals for the two man bobsled competition earlier today in Sochi, and by just typing in the event I wanted to know about I got all the information I needed and wanted to know:

Obvious drawbacks include the set of viewers that live on the west coast, so they often have to experience reactions about things they have not yet had access to view. Other drawbacks include that there is often a lot of negative feedback that gets exposed to a wide audience on twitter. My least favorite drawback is the fact that twitter is one big spoiler alert, if there is anything that happens on TV that you are waiting to watch yourself later, better not set foot on twitter because it will be impossible to avoid learning whatever it is you are trying to avoid seeing until you watch something yourself. I often see a lot of tweets about shows like Pretty Little Liars and The Walking Dead, however just because I see these posts does not really trigger any need for me to go sit down and watch these shows. In fact it often just frustrates me and I try to filter out those tweets.

Stumbling around the Internet

I spend way to much time online. However I wouldn’t say that I waste that time when I’m wandering around on the internet. I can honestly say I’ve found some of my best ideas on the internet especially when it comes to ideas for my photography. The best site I’ve stumbled upon in my hours I spend on my phone looking at twitter updates is Light Stalking. This website is amazing for photographers and I’ve used many of their hints and tips to better my photography and give my ideas for some of my upcoming shoots.

I feel like now that I’m on even more social media sites that I’m finding myself having to set my phone down and let my profiles on all these different networks just sit for a while. When I first got LinkedIn I spent hours checking to see if I had gotten connections until I downloaded the app that notified me when I got a new connection. I also feel that it’s important to set aside time without social media to just soak in life without thinking of the perfect hashtag. The other thing I worry about is if I share information that I probably shouldn’t while I’m on all of these networks, but at the same time I’m trying to market myself and paint the best picture of who I am. This article discusses the downsides of social media and includes many of my concerns about social networks.

Although I have benefited from the expanded use of social networking. I now use twitter in a different way. I’m trying to follow more news channels and newspapers as well as important members of the US government as well as in foreign governments such as the UK. I’ve learned about so many news events through twitter and I often already know all about the main news stories that show up on the local and national news in the evening.

I do believe that my random stumbling around on twitter, facebook, instagram and other sites really do add to my creativity and give me ideas I otherwise never would have thought of. I can honestly say that I probably will not be changing my internet habits anytime soon. In fact, I plan on spending most of my time after I publish this blog going onto twitter and reading articles about the Olympics.

Picture Perfect

Welcome to my series of photo blogs. I’m in the process of editing all my photos from my travels over the past year. I will try to post quite a few on here with descriptions every so often. Here’s the first batch! Enjoy!

Abbey Road in London, made famous by the Beatles.

 

A bike along a canal in Amsterdam.

A tree in Brugge, Belgium. A peaceful little town full of character and chocolate.

Come back for more photos from my adventures. Comment if you’d like to learn more about any of these locations and photos.

 

 

The Language Barrier: Part 1

Ever since I’ve finished my required two years of Spanish in high school and two semesters of German in college, learning new languages has been something I’ve put on the back burner. However, it’s been brought to my attention that knowing a second language or even a third language is something that will probably be necessary in my future. So I’ve brought it upon myself to get back into learning Spanish. How? God bless the iPhone, they have an app for that.

I downloaded duolingo, a free app from the app store. Now I’m on my way to getting back into Spanish! I decided to blog about it because just sitting on the couch speaking a different language into the microphone of my iPhone made me realize how much more of a global citizen I’ve become. After studying abroad I realized that most of the kids that lived in the neighborhood around me spoke not only English but also Spanish or French or Arabic, and all fluently. Here I am struggling to just force myself to learn only a second language.

When visiting other countries I often found myself struggling to read signage written in a different language. At the time I found it inconvenient, but now I see the need for me to learn more languages to become a global citizen.

With the help of my little app, I’ll be reading street signs like this in no time!

This is only the beginning of my language adventure. I have just started the Spanish part of my language experience. My goal is to learn Spanish, French, Italian and German to the point where I can roughly communicate. I also want to learn more about each culture before I move on to the next language. Stay tuned for more updates on me crossing my language barrier. Feel free to comment with any advice and encouragement!

Travel Photos: From blah to AH!

Many people come back from amazing vacations, but their photos don’t ever seem to be as amazing as their trip sounded. That’s because they are taking the wrong kinds of pictures. Everyone’s googled or seen on pinterest the basic photos of the Sydney Opera House or Tower Bridge, obviously take those too just to say you’ve got them but there’s so much more to travel photography. Light stalking recently posted an article about not wanting to come home with those ‘basic vacation photos’, or basically just those boring posed photos in front of the White House or something similar.

My first tip: capture something funny and unexpected.

I found lots of cats running around in the ruins in Ephesus. Entertaining and unexpected so I documented it.

Second tip: make boring posed photos funny memories.

I made my sister pose like a pillar. Makes for a fun photo that is posed but takes on a different quality from the usual posed travel photo.

Third tip: take photos of the food you eat. That will most definitely be one of the most fun things to look back and remember when you get back to normal life.

Greek salad in Athens, looks good enough to eat right?

And fourth and final tip. Take photos of the details. Walk down those allies that don’t have signs in English. Look to see where the locals go and how they live. Try to grasp little parts of the culture in photos that focus in on little details.

Off the beaten path in Greece I found this window with more character then the perfectly painted homes closer to the tourist district.

This is my first of many photography and travel photography blogs. Check back often for more photo ideas and blogs relating to photography. For now click here for another link to tips on photographing puppies in light of the puppy bowl.

 

 

 

Virtual Me

My personal brand on the internet is something I’ve just been made more aware of. I feel that I am pretty connected online as I have accounts on social media sites ranging from google+ to foursquare and everything in between. As it is important to show potential employers not only your best side but to also quickly inform them what you can do and who you are. Since I want to be sure my personal brand is on its way to becoming solidified and something that is easily apparent, I googled myself.

This is what I found when I googled my name.

Luckily, I appear to be one of the only Julianna Zieno’s so I was relatively happy with what I found. My photography company Facebook page was the first hit. I’m glad this comes up first because it really shows my professional side and showcases a lot of my most recent work I’ve done and I update it regularly. I also like that my google+ page shows up on the side so I know that as soon as I finish that profile completely and professionally it will be a quick and easy way for people to learn about me.

I also am happy with the fact that when you go through the google image search that comes up with my name it links to my websites that currently house some of my graphic design and photography. My twitter profile also is one of the first things that comes up in the search which means that is something that I have to strive to make professional and a good reflection of myself.

Overall, I think I have well branded myself as a photographer and graphic designer. This is currently the skills I am comfortable with and would be looking for a job in and I think that all of my social media reflects that well except for my twitter. I think that my twitter is more of a personal account still so I need to put some thought into whether I want to make a second account to be personal and a main account that focuses on presenting my photography and design side rather than mostly horse things like my current account does. I believe that from googling me right now a stranger would see me as an aspiring photographer and designer. I believe that to improve my personal brand online I need to professionalize my twitter and make the most out of google+ as well as continuing to improve my Facebook photography page.