What Football Means To Me –A Note On Nationalism

Illustration: Donald "Drawbertson" for CR Fashion Book

When studying the history of fashion, nationalism is definitely a key issue, as it helped build unify diverse peoples into one single State. Caterina de Medici exported her typical Italian style, resulting in the first steps to achieving the worldwide phenomenon now known as Made in Italy. Elizabeth I translated the English wealth into her beautiful clothes, showing her power through fine jewellery and materials in her dresses. The Spaniards –and later on the Dutch– showed their strong religious beliefs in the austerity of their garments, without willing to leave behind luxury, which was achieved through the use of materials. And Versailles, the magical paradise of the French courts, showed the power of the nobles and their fashionable lifestyles. 

Fashion and nationalist styles have definitely helped build a common culture in many countries, which might have helped these nations subsist through the years. But nationalism need not be exclusively a fashion phenomenon, and not even the political monster that took humanity into several wars in the past. Nationalism, I believe, can also be achieved through sports, and what better than football, now that we're in the middle of the FIFA World Cup?

Today was Colombia's first match in the championship. Many believe this game showed how Colombians can stand together and hold hands when talking about football and being united for just one match. People talk about second opportunities and peace, all in the context of football.

Of course, I do believe in all these things. And more than anything else, I believe in a better future for my beloved country. But why can't we show this same group work and tolerance to each other in our daily lives? Why can't we hold hands when trying to end the internal conflict, or when trying to help the poor –who actually comprise a huge percentage of the country's population? Why can't we give second chances to those who were part of the country's conflict? Why can't we fight more intensely to actually achieve peace?

Before going to sleep last night, I was thinking about Colombia's performance in this World Cup. I was thinking about Colombia winning today's game––and maybe even winning the Cup! But what I really liked about the idea was not partying or having red, blue and yellow painted on my face. It was the idea of taking our first step into the social reconstruction of the country. I think Colombians need to see that we have something in common, something that unites us all, regardless of social or ethnic background, cultural beliefs, and education. And if football can bring this to us, I really hope we can win the World Cup!

We might not have––yet?––a common fashion to export––although I have seen espadrilles, bags and other accessories that are part of traditional Colombian outfits out in runways lately––but I believe we can become a peace reconstruction example. We have a bright future ahead, and hopefully football can be the beginning of Colombia's path to achieve greatness!

Love,

Travelling Opens Your Eyes (Or Why I Went To Italy)

I was asked while I was in Italy what was the purpose of my trip. Although I did go to overstuff myself with pasta and pizza, the official reason for my Italian adventures was that I was participating as a Director in the Italian Model UN Conference.

What is Model UN?

For those of you who don't know what that means, I'll try to explain it as simply as I can. It's a conference where people (delegates) pretend to be diplomats at the UN and change the world. More formally, I would say it's an experience of education though simulation, in which students –in this case high school students– represent a nation in a specific UN committee, and discuss solutions to real-life current issues, such as human trafficking, environmental refugees, and women's empowerment.

But the educational experience is not just for the delegates. As a director, I was meant to guide the delegates through the debate process, and act as a moderator. But I learned from them in the process. And I reunited with my old self, which was the most important part.

My love for helping others

Ever since I was a little girl, I knew I was meant to help people around the world. My mum still tells me how I always tried to defend children who were being bullied during elementary school. Then came Social Service in High School, when I refused to stay at the library and clean books, and wanted to always go out and have some real contact with people. Kindergarten visits were probably my favourite part of Social Services. Two years ago, I had the opportunity to work as a riding instructor in a Summer Camp, where I was in charge––among other things––of doing special horse rides for people with disabilities. This was a life-changing experience, and I will certainly never forget it!

However, with all the economic models and crises I've been studying in the past couple of years, I must confess I had forgotten what all of this was about. To me, people had been reduced to the rational individual you find in any economics textbook.

But going to Italy made me get back in touch with my old self, the helper. Seeing the joy in the eyes of the delegates when their good performance as negotiators and peace keepers was recognised, the happiness of those who were given scholarships to attend other Model UN Conferences, and the ideas––sometimes a little out of the box––they came up with reminded me of how much I can do for the world.

Then came Jen's story. Even if I probably won't be able to change the world by myself, it does count if I do my best.

If I hadn't gone to Italy, I might have never found myself again. Or maybe I would have, but it would have been too late. Or maybe not. Who knows.

The truth is that I'm absolutely grateful because I was chosen to go to Italy. This experience changed me, and shaped the person I am now. It would probably be too extreme to say there was a pre-Italy Laura and a post-Italy one, but I am certainly different, in a way. And hopefully it will take me on a path where I can help the people around the world, especially those who really need a hand.

Love,

Photography: Laura Beltran-Rubio

Thanksgiving Outfit

Every year, my tradition for Thanksgiving is to have dinner with my friends. We all share amazing moments over food, and of course take the time to write Thank-You Notes and be happy altogether. I love dressing up for the occasion, so I was trying to plan an outfit idea that could work for it. And this is what I came up with!

What will you wear for Thanksgiving? Do you have any exciting plans?

Love,

The Promise

One of my favourite blogs out there has got to be Gala Darling. I love how this woman's always full of energy and good feeling, I love her absolutely amazing way of writing, and I love her mission: transmitting what she calls radical self love.

I was just reading her blog, and realized today's the day when she posts her "Things I Love Thursday," where she basically shares all those things she's thankful for... This inspired me to make my own thankful post.

When I started this blog, I remember choosing Laura of the Valley as its name because it made me think of lilies, my favorite flowers. And, among them, lilies of the valley are particularly special because they are a symbol of returning to happiness. I remember saying that moment of my life was my definite return to happiness...

And I think I've achieved it!

Being happy doesn't mean you can't feel sad, angry, disappointed or frustrated. To me, being happy is learning to accept this moments and working to get over them. Being happy doesn't depend on a specific moment in your life, but it is something that happens in the long term.

I was born in a rush. And this made my life quite stressful until a couple of years ago. But I realized that this was taking me nowhere, and I needed to take life easier; only that way, I'd be able to enjoy it completely! Of course, there are some ups and downs (nipples and thorns, some good friends of mine would call them), but, in general, I'm aware that if I keep my happy objective in mind, I will definitely achieve it.

In the end, happiness is a state of mind, isn't it?

That means that only we can work to achieve our own happiness! It doesn't depend on friends, relationships or material things (although I guess these might help a little bit). It's something we do for ourselves. And this is probably one of the things I admire the most in Gala Darling. I'm pretty sure she knows there are some hard times in life, but she manages to make it worth every single day. And she teaches women to love themselves -which is, to me, the ultimate form of happiness-, which is even more admiring!

Today I went back to that first post of this blog, and realized how happy I am. I'm still learning to know myself, and I'm trying to find who I am. Over the past few years, I've changed a lot, and I'm pretty sure that the girls who's starting her senior year in college is very different from the one that graduated from high school. But, in the end, it's the same Laura and the same baby her mum always admired for laughing hard, even in difficult times... And it's the same Laura that loves exploring life and finding loving, happy moments in every single atom of it!

And it's the same Laura that made a promise to be happy and share her happiness to the world... A promise I want to restate today!

Thank you for reading!

Love,

A very opinionated post...

As many of you might already know, today we're celebrating the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr's I Have a Dream speech. I remember hearing it for the first time when I was in middle school, and it was used as an example of how to give a good speech. We studied all the literary figures he used and we analyzed the way he spoke...

But I remember that I had a difficult time doing this job (even though I already was a big nerd by then...) because I couldn't help but get distracted about discrimination, which is, indeed, the big idea he's talking about. I was born and raised in a family that claims to disagree with discrimination but, unfortunately, the society that shaped their way of thinking is nothing but discriminating. I live in a country where, unfortunately, Afro-descendants and natives don't have the same opportunities as white people, where women face gender-based violence of all forms in a day-to-day basis and where there is a general lack of acceptance and tolerance towards what's different. All in all, I live in a place where discrimination is present all the time!

One particular form of discrimination––probably the one that bothers me the most––is the one faced by those who are disabled. Mentally or physically. (And I'm really sorry if I'm not being PC here, but I just want to make my point clear). I could say I'm already over the lack of infrastructure and facilities especially adapted for people who need them. There are no elevators, if they don't have a car and/or enough money to pay for a cab, public transport will definitely not work for them... And nobody is willing to help. The government does have a limited budget, but a great part of it is probably being lost in corruption and not reaching those parts of the population that really need a little bit of investment on their welfare.

I'm also over the whole health issue. To be honest, health services just suck in Colombia. There's no coverage and those who do have access to health services need to be healthy and rich in order to get them. If there's someone handicapped, then they won't get all they need because health insurance companies won't cover them at all.

But what I'm not over is the lack of opportunities for education and everything that's related to it. At my university––which is so proud of being "the best" in the country, and is supposed to have the best educated students here––, there's one special boy who has a limited ability to walk. He's been improving, and I really admire him because I honestly don't understand how he manages to live here. It takes huge guts to have made it so far (I'd say over 2 years). But whenever people see him around, nobody gives him the chance to go by, or let him take the way. Everybody is just so into being "the best" that they don't give a penny for the rest of the world. To me, this is far from well educated and the best university. We don't only need to learn mathematical models, but we need to become citizens of a democracy, where there are some people who deserve special attention just because they don't have the same opportunities as we do.

Now, going to another university... I honestly had some hope for this one, especially in this human focus mine clearly doesn't have. But I was probably wrong...

A beautiful girl who has some physical issues that make her learning process really complicated and much slower than ours, was given the opportunity to enter one of the most demanded courses in the country. This university made a compromise and decided to acquire the responsibility of helping her––and this included making the lecturers help her as well––in her special learning process. But truth is, this probably won't work.

I realised it when mid-terms came. All the students in one of her history classes had to write some sort of paper -during the exam- about the topics they had studied during the semester. She had also studied, and I'm pretty sure she would have been able to write this paper, if she was given a laptop and some extra time. When she told me everything she'd learned, I could have easily confused her with the lecturer. She was a pro.

But the professor––if that's how he's supposed to be called––decided to "make it easy" for her, and give her an oral exam. Cool, I thought, she'll just need to tell him everything she just told me. The problem was that this guy wasn't willing to spend more than 10 minutes on this examination, and he asked her two questions she could only answer I with a couple of words. Is it me, or this is just unfair?

Instead of giving better opportunities to these people––and I'm sure these two cases I know are only a few––universities are probably making life a lot harder on them. And the government doesn't help... And we don't do either! So what's going to happen to them?

Going back to Martin Luther King Jr, I'd say this is clearly a new form of discrimination. And our societies need to become aware of this. There's nothing the government will do if we don't ask for it, as citizens. And we probably won't do so because we're too sunk in our own lives to think about others and to realise there are people out there who need some of our help.

My contribution is fighting with everybody who gets in the way of this kid at my university. Or with people who use parking spaces that are specially designed for people with disabilities while they're in perfect shape. Or with people who fill up elevators when they see there are people in wheelchairs waiting to use them...

I hope this blog post also makes a little contribution. I hope it, at least, makes you think about it. Maybe the next time, you'll take the escalators. If you do, I'll send you a big virtual hug!

Love,