being sarah marie
They love to plant...
Pull, then Push
Savage Minds
The Trick is to...
For the Relief of Unbearable Urges, Nathan Englander
Bad Dirt, Annie Proulx
Brown, Richard Rodriguez
Namesake
Rewind to the present
Two long but fascinating articles about China and ...
I wish I knew where to start or how to begin. Ther...
I guess it's time to start coming out of hiberatio...
Privacy and the Net
Blogging and Free Speech
Month of Discontent
Sister Issues/My Hunger Strike
February 24, 2006
Easy and Bookish on Friday
Freshman year Fridays were the day I dreaded most because class began at 9 a.m. and the hell-sent day with no breaks spat me out around 4:30 p.m. only after a finale of 4 torturous hours in chemistry lab. The weekend didn't start out all too well either because I often left lab reliving the horrors of experiments almost exploding in my face, bitchy impatient lab-assistants, or completely knocked out after inhaling some sort of noxious fume for far too long.
This year, Fridays are easy. I made sure my course-load would not tax me on this day, and I refused to let the physicists include this day in my work schedule. This semester, I roll out of bed around 10:30 a.m. as more of a formality than an obligation. I plop myself in a classroom from 11:15 a.m. to 12:05 p.m. and then I indulge in a little tradition I seem to be developing this semester. I go to our main library, and head to the room with the big windows where they display all the magazines and journals they get from all over the world. I take off my heavy winter coat that makes me look like a walking penguin, grab a small or medium cup of chai tea, and settle down with a Newsweek or Times or on occasion a random equivalent in French (in what seems a losing-battle attempt to retain the bits of that language I remember).
I was tired today, having stayed up late reading a story I just couldn't put down in Bad Dirt. When I woke up the first thing on my mind was how I was going to sprint back to my room after class and pass out in my bed to make up for a less-than-8-hour night of sleep. After class, though, the sun came out and I felt free enough to forgo my nap; it's not like there was an assignment I had to be rested up enough to do today. Instead, I went to the library to return a book I just finished a few nights ago and then to indulge in my Friday tradition.
This last day of the week parallels just what I wanted out of my last semester in college. I wanted to avoid heavy schedules and let myself unwind from a prior period of intensity. Speaking of which, this week was one of my few slightly crazy weeks this semester. I had two exams, neither of which I cared to freak out about. I also covered my two middle fingers with superglue in a little occupational accident. After a slight freak-out period over that, a day's worth of rubbing and chaffing has since returned my fingers to normal. I'm not expecting another "high-intensity" week until sometime in mid-April (the me of a year ago would laugh and growl at this me calling this a high-intensity week), although I ought to start working on that senior thesis project sometime soon...
In other news, I'm adding a little book section to the left sidebar. I'm not delusional enough to think I can make money off of posting what I'm reading, although if I ever become an internet superstar I may attempt to. In the meantime it's just a stringless way to keep track of another aspect of my life. Now that I have a little spare time in my life, I like losing myself every so often in a book or five that I don't have to read for school. I'm much better at checking books out of the library than actually finishing them, though, so I'll make that distinction.
Oh and for sanity's sake, India Arie is not her hair, and I'm not the books I read. Like she says, we're the souls that lie within. So unless you have a key or care to ask, don't judge. I'm just trying to keep an open mind/learn/entertain myself. *Smph* The qualifiers we burden ourselves with these days.
February 19, 2006
Cents on the weekends
If you're perceptive, you'll see them on the weekends digging through the trashbins, hoping to be the first to collect the empty beer bottles and cans that accumulated during the previous day and night's worth of partying. They're the ones we see on a daily basis strolling through our halls. They clean up our ivy-league shit and piss stains off the toilets, each and every one. They empty out trashcans with the vomit of our irresponsible indulgence, day to day.
I spent two years in oblivion, thinking if I ever saw one that they were just paid to come in on the weekends and do a little service, emptying our recycling and all. In all honesty, I can't even say I specifically remember noticing at all. It wasn't until a few weeks ago that the guy who cleans our floor told me on his way out, "save your bottles for me from over the weekend, and hey, tell your friends!"
I stared and listened, incredulous but attempting a polite interest as he continued. "Yeah, last weekend I came in, picked up your cans and bottles, turned 'em in and got $22. Five cents a bottle, that's a whole lot of them." I blinked, processing. He does what?!? "But you gotta save them for me or else the other service staff will come in and grab 'em before me. If I could get that again it would be awesome. 22 bucks man, that bought me a good night out with the guys and a couple beers. Only way I could get away from the wife. Man, she drives me nuts sometimes!"
After that I started to notice. One weekend I saw the round, short guy who always wears that red hat and has a beard that looks like he hasn't shaved in years carrying a bag almost his height and width full of our recyclables. I also noticed the skinny, emaciated lady with limp, sparse hair run through the hall on our floor with a few bottles she gleaned from our trash room one Saturday. Then, a weekend or two later, I saw another lady dressed in her service uniform standing outside in the frigid northeastern cold digging through a smelly metallic dumpster, with a few bags plopped beside her feet.
Does anyone else understand that these people are not simply doing their job? The Monday through Friday uniform they don on the weekends betrays the true reason they crawl through campus on the days they're not paid to come in. They come hoping to supplement what their Monday through Friday jobs at an institution that houses tomorrow's CEOs, lawyers, surgeons and diplomats fails to provide them. They clean our nasty shit for a living and on weekends they dig through our shit to find enough bottles and cans to trade in for a dollar or two. What we consume, toss, and deem useless makes up their only chance to live a little, treat themselves just a little. That's right... Is that right?
We don't mind them emptying out our trash on Sundays, we just figure it's what they're paid to do.
February 11, 2006
Wild Guests
My brain is ringing with echoes of foreign accents. They crossed several continents and oceans, a distant cousin and two friends. They wanted to see what an "American Uni" was like, and perhaps they got more than they bargained for.
For weeks before their arrival I had been rehearsing my one plea, "just promise me you won't get drunk and sick." Before we went out, I managed to squeeze out my request, but perhaps without the same gusto that I mustered while rehearsing. Either way my request feel upon at least 2 deaf ears.
It's not my "scene" at all. I don't go out dropping various alcohol bombs in restaurants, or practicing my aim with beer pong. Never done it, probably don't intend to... but as an overly accommodating host, I put myself in that position, staying beyond sober the whole time, and promising to watch over my hyperexcited guests.
It had to be the cousin, the one who lost control, the one who was spending the night in my room. I begged and pleaded while the night was still young and he was starting to look dazed and glazed. Please no more, please, please! But he was having too much fun and refused to listen, the fresh doses of alcohol continued to poison his veins.
Later that night at a party, he was beginning to slow down. He spilled a bottle of beer on the guy's couch and got up and walked away. Being the nice relative-host I tried to be, I began to clean up his mess, but then handed him some paper towels, "come help me clean." He stumbled my way, sloppily grabbed the paper towels and wiped the beer-stained ass crack on his jeans.
He could hardly walk home. He couldn't stand straight. "Right to bed," he mumbled. I tried to feed him water, but he refused. When I forced him, he took a drunk sip that just drooled out of his mouth.
We got to my room at 1:45 a.m. and he collapsed on my floor, "goodnight." He wouldn't even get in the sleeping bag, wouldn't change clothes, wouldn't brush his teeth, refused a sobering-cleansing shower. His friends said I should let him be, that he'll be fine in the morning.
Five minutes later I open my door and a fetid stench of vomit explodes from my door crack. My trash was full of an acidified and liquefied version of tonight's dinner. The morning will tell how much was left on the carpet.
I clean the mess and resort to my best: Mom. "I'm sorry for waking you up at 2 a.m., Mom. I'm OK, don't worry, but I really need your help... I've never dealt with drunk people like this before, don't know what to do!" She heard me out and referred me to Dad, whose slightly wilder years granted him a bit more say on the subject.
They helped. They calmed me down and gave me some tips. I got the other two hyper friends to bed, and now the last person to take care of is myself. Y'all, what a night. I'm the only one who maintained a grain of sanity, yet I'm so frustrated and embarrassed. Can anyone explain this to me?
February 10, 2006
Zip it
Sometimes my mind drifts to a place where I wonder what is there left to live for? I know the answer to that question: I have a loving family, I've had an overall good life, I've had a good education and maybe I have potential to do something good some day. I live for the people I love and who love me, and I live for the hope that I could someday take part in making the world just a little more livable and tolerable for some people.
But sometimes it's that latter hook that gets loose in my mind. Sometimes I remind myself of one of those hopeless people suffering neurasthenia, trying to find something fulfilling in a dizzying anomic world.
These days I just can't sleep well anymore. I stay up until 3 or 4 a.m., reading or tossing and turning in bed, only to have to wake up at 10 a.m. feeling exhausted. I drag myself through days where I can hardly keep my eyes open or think a positive thought; my mind fixated on the warm, rejuvenating comfort of bed. Sometimes I crash in a mid-day nap only to have to wake up to do homework and try to maintain a semblance of a "normal" schedule.
My taste gravitates to sad or weird songs. If I'm not mourning or drowning in my imaginary misery, I'm contemplating some oddity or weirdness. I'm surrounded by beautiful people on campus every day. We touch, brushing shoulders constantly, but the physical proximity betrays light-years of isolation that separate us beyond contact. It's lifeless. Their eyes are glazed and see right through me like a ghost. My shoulder flings backward upon impact, but they walk right on by.
I think about the fumingly infuriated boy who hurled a banana at me and my friend today with such force that it exploded as it bombarded the elevator wall. I reminds me that I'm drowning in a sea of hatred and intolerance, and I can't escape. Misunderstandings and miscommunication are mistaken and these misinterpretations fuel fiery impulsive anger that explodes at any point of friction.
From the dorm, to the classroom, to the city, to the state, to the country, to the global village we live in.
Social justice! Social justice! Activism! Get involved! We can make a difference! But these chants of hope have been used so much that their content is now empty. Making a difference means going to conference, means spending money, means sitting on a boring conference call for 3 hours, means signing on the dotted line and hoping that the fine print ain't too damning, means, means, means... I get short of breath at the thought.
Must I defer my potential to bring tolerance and equality to this world to UN ambassador-celebrities like Nicole Kidman and Angelina Jolie? I envy them, knowing I will never be them, knowing I could work just as hard and never get the power to do what they do. Do I need to have been married Tom Cruise for a few years or do I need to be having Brad Pitt's baby in order to promote women's rights and stop child trafficking? And tell me why these noble causes need to be juggled with, sometimes taking a backseat to, stints at movie-making?
Freedom of speech; but I can hardly mouth a word I believe in. Who's going to pull up dirt on me 30 years from now if I run for office? Who's going to take what I wrote out of context? Who's going to accuse me of saying something I may have written in an e-mail to a close friend that was never meant to be shared with the whole world? Who's going to get hold of every little digitized detail of my past and waive it in my face one day, blackmailing me with the potential to ruin my life?
Who's going to read these words in such a busy world? Who's going to promise not to write and publish junk just to make a buck? We're drowning in information, who's to know what's worth paying attention to anymore? Attempt to be that educated, informed person for one day and you'll feel like you've been dropped into the middle of a 75mph superhighway. They're honking at you and screaming at you and flicking you off. Go this way, go that way! They're cursing you. Next thing you know you've been run over or the cops arrest you for disturbing the traffic flow.
These days good intentions and good deeds won't get you very far at all. Walk a foot and you're bound to crash into someone who thinks you're just plain evil (unless of course you freak out, appease, and decide to agree with their fast-to-judge, quick-to-speak banter).
I listen and read at least ten times more than I talk and write. Why? But really, why do I even bother to talk and write at all?... when I know that if I dare, someone's waiting around the corner to shoot me down, bomb me, drop missiles, slap me, scream, crush, act personally offended, rudely disagree, or hurl 100-mph flying bananas my way?
February 06, 2006
Job Prospects = Dim
The say that if you go to a college like this you should have a bright future. We live in an elite (-ist?) society so all the Ivy Leaguers, Stanfordians, Northwesterners and the like are supposed to have bright employment opportunities. Most of the graduates eagerly work their way into the vicious bureaucracies and tangled up hierarchies of corporate America. The few who don't tend to follow the non-profit route. They say they'll "take time off" to do something they enjoy, or at least believe in, before they "get serious." *Smph.* As if working for a noble cause only ought to be a self-indulgent side-project, or otherwise something to do before "getting serious" with one's life--serious all too often and sadly implying Graduate School ("anything to put off our need to be a part of the real world!") or falling into the ranks of corporate USA (blinding ourselves with the myth of job security; anything for that comfy middle class lifestyle).
Being among that supposed "elite" crowd and having a nice-point.oh GPA, I shouldn't be fretting about my future, and I'm not too much. But there's no certainty in my future, and there are no employers a-knocking on my door. Part of it is my own fault. While some of my friends went off and signed juicy mega-corporate multiple-year contracts with starting salaries of over $100,000 per year as early as October 2005, I've exiled myself from those opportunities. Not to blindly vilify all corporations--I've learned, heard, and witnessed enough to know that at this point my life I rather not get sucked into mainstream corporate America. I'm not one to get rich while the poor in this country get poorer. Not one to buy a Mercedes SUV to make myself feel good. Not one to stress out, freak out, live that insane life just for money and material thangs. Nuh uh. No thank you. Not for me.
At the same time, I've been involved in the non-profit sector enough to know that's not a direction in which I'll hastily run again. I don't want to canvass and get door-to-door slammed on me. Don't want to get spat on by big money interests. Don't want to realize all over again how bureaucratized and corporatized even many of our beloved non-profits have become (because I haven't yet forgotten). Most of all, at this point in my life, if I'm going to work my ass off, I'd rather pass on a job that will pay me a yearly salary that is half of my college loan debt.
Momma's been urging me to spend some time at the University's Career Services Office. Last year I took her advice, and after several assessments and meetings with counselors I've come to the conclusion that it should be renamed Corporate Services Office. Sure that's not what they really are, and consequently they pay nice lip-service to "alternative" options like AmeriCorps, Teach for America, The SCA, etc. But let's get serious here, shan't we? Who comes to campus and does interviews, and recruits? It's extremely overwhelmingly the JP Morgans and Goldman Sachses, the Mercks, the Microsofts, the GEs, the blah de blah, blah, blah.
20 years old and too jaded to get a job after college.
February 01, 2006
Hump Day Slump
11:15 a.m. I wake up in a sticky, confused sweat, although feeling bewilderingly refreshed--something that doesn't happen on weekday mornings. I slept through my alarm clock, and as I was rolling out of bed my first class was already beginning.
Damn, I think, jumping out of bed, hoping to toss on some decent clothes, snag my backpack and run up to class. I quickly abandoned the idea, statistics just doesn't entice me enough to make that manic effort. Besides, that era when I would try to salvage the rare days my body kept me in bed past my alarm now seem long gone.
I slow down and call my mom, who better to talk to first thing in the morning. Then it's toothbrushing and a little breakfast at the dining hall. I savored the slow pace, the lack of pressure and hurry. But I had to cut breakfast short. Even though I figured I'd just skip the whole class rather than waltz in sweaty and short of breath halfway though class, I still needed to make an appearance. Our first problem set was due today in class, and 10% slashes in grades per day were guaranteed to all those who handed in work late.
I took my time walking to class, made it there about 2 minutes before the session was over and waited until I saw my classmates packing up to leave. As the first student left the classroom I snuck in. Feeling beyond shady, I made a dash for the teacher's table where all the homework assignments were stacked and added mine to the pile. Luckily the professor had his back towards me as another student was busy kissing his ass, so the whole maneuver was quick, mostly unnoticed, and just shameless.
Where has my ambition gone? Who is this person with declining motivation? I walk around campus like a bum, slow steps whenever possible, the clunky hood of my oversized winter jacket falling over my eyes, earphones in my ear, and I tune 'em all out. I can always find ways to make the time go by, boredom is no problem. I'm just so bored with my life these days, so what am I to do?
