principles that i live by

1. do no harm.
this is pretty self-explanatory. i'm not a vengeful person, i would never egg someone's house, or break someone's toys, etc. i try to set my actions by a trajectory that won't hurt people unnecessarily. when someone texts me, i text back; when someone talks to me, i engage with them fully and don't look around the room waiting for them to stop talking, because the fact that someone is talking to me is a gift.

2. be honest in being and in action.
i used to think that lying was the worst, that i should never lie. now i feel that lying is okay, but most of the time unnecessary. i should live my life in a way that doesn't necessitate lying. the important thing is that i'm honest with myself, honest with the people who have a stake in my truth - i wouldn't string along someone if there was no future, and i would never lie about who i am. if there is something that makes me feel like i'm acting untrue, i stop doing that thing.

3. don't let others get in the way of your happiness.
this one is possibly the hardest to follow through with. there is always a balancing act between an individual and the community they are a part of. sometimes one of them calls trump. sometimes you desperately don't want to show that something is upsetting you because you don't want to cause conflict. but if something is really important, i will be 'that person' who complains when something is wrong. i will be that person that calls someone out on their shit, and i'm proud of it.
another facet of this that is less hard to live by is acting in a way that makes me happy even when other people let me down. continuing to be happy in myself is the only way i can really cope with those things.

4. be happy in yourself. (preachy mostly because i don't feel comfortable using I pronouns).
you should be able to spend a day alone and be perfectly content. not all the time, no one is all the time. but you should be okay with being alone, you should feel pleased by what you do in your self-time. you should be able to spend a day recounting your own personal triumphs and feeling happy that you take up a small portion of the world with your own thoughts and mind, and that in itself -- is good.
and in interactions with others, you should be able to hold your own, because you have a unique personhood, and you have thoughts that are worthy of note.

5. treat others with respect.
i treat others as equals. it's basically the golden rule. do unto others as you would have them do unto you. don't treat someone like shit and expect not to get it back in return. be polite and civil, and expect others to uphold those same standards.
i feel that respect is what keeps us from being animals. in a sense i'm also talking about one-to-one respect, which includes hearing someone out, giving someone's thoughts and experience their due importance, and actually giving their point of view some thought. i can disagree with someone completely, i can disrespect all of their viewpoints, but i will still level with them.

6. surround yourself with people who are good.
it matters to me if my friends are assholes. i won't be friends with someone who doesn't treat others with respect, even if they treat me with respect. it is offensive to me if a person disrespects someone else in front of me.

7. on what being a good friend means to me.
i will come to your gigs, recitals, art shows, parties, fundraisers, whatever, as often as my schedule permits, which should be often. i will also get other people to come as much as i can.
i will talk to you about things you are sad about but don't want to act like you're sad about if you want to talk about them.
i will make you mix CDs that hold the songs i think you will like, and think you need to hear.
i will not flake on you, unless there's some kind of emergency, in which case i will always text or call you to inform you that the flaking is happening with as much advance notice as humanly possible.
i will always think you are attractive, but not because i like you, but because you are very attractive and i would be friends with you just because of your looks if i were that kind of person anyway.
i might not always be on time, but i will keep you in the loop about where i am in the getting there process.
i will stick up for you.
i will go with you to something DOA just so we can talk to each other and not feel awkward.
i will tell you what i think about the guys you like, but give you the freedom to make your own judgment calls about what you want to do.
i will post funny things to your wall like once a month at least.
you can always text me when you're bored, and i will text back as soon as possible.
you can tell me any secret and i'll never tell anyone.
i will always wake up and talk to you if you are crying.

8. don't be jealous of other people.
this goes with being happy in yourself, i guess. everyone's different, and jealousy is just counting someone else's blessings instead of your own. i don't remember who said that, but it's very true.

9. approach your problems independently, but seek help as necessary.
i attempt to fix something before i ask for help. i rarely find that anything is impossible, so i try not to be overwhelmed before i even attempt to fix the problem. most problems can be sorted out by:
a. turning it off and then turning it back on
b. a Google search
c. a thorough analysis of the system and what went wrong in the first place
d. reading directions and making sure everything is set up properly
if none of these work, then i ask for help. it's annoying when people ask for my help without attempting something first. it's like, what would you do if i wasn't here? would you hunt me down? or would you try figuring it out by yourself?
this is something i encounter with my students a lot. i feel like it stems from a lack of academic self-confidence. when you don't feel confident, you feel like you have to ask someone before doing anything, but often just turning off the freak-out button is enough to fuel you toward an answer.

10. listen/observe, remember, then judge.
i always feel that it's best to analyze all of the facts before making a judgment. our emotions and thin-slicing tell us a lot in a short amount of time, it's true. but we must be careful to also remember the facts rather than our emotions and quick judgments, because these can be wrong. our facts are what we actually have to go on.
i find that when people don't do this, they actually come away from a situation not understanding what the true outcome of the situation was, because they were too busy thought-commentating instead of listening to what went on.

----
i don't really know why i did this. i guess i felt like i had to write some of these things down, at this point in my life. hopefully i won't have to amend this too much, and i didn't leave out anything important.
anyhow, happy holidays yo. 

breaking up

it's no walk in the park. i am usually the master of distracting myself from shit by using my really resilient memory and my ability to pretend that putting nice things on my wall and play songs with myself on the guitar are roughly equivalent to always having a willing dance and songwriting partner. 

something about now is getting to me. i just listen to the wrong song, and get all lost in my thoughts. suddenly i get flashes of things like seattle streets and kosher bagel places that look eerily like einstein bagels but make better, spicier, tomatoey-er bagels. suddenly i feel like i ruined everything good i ever knew. i can't listen to music anymore. the songs i used to love and connect with now describe the pain of a lost love and a feeling that is now only a memory. i know i'm not saying anything new. 

it's like that awful feeling you get when the only person who can truly make you feel better is the person you can't talk to. it's also awful to feel like you don't have control over when you're going to get some intense emotional reaction to something stupid that's going to stop you from being able to study. it's also sucky that they're replacing that bagel place with just einstein's because then they will get rid of that other, better bagel. it sucks that you will talk to other people about your feelings but they won't be able to wrap their arms around you and make you feel like you're 100% again. they do what they can, and i love them for it. so much. 

i knew it had to happen. we both did. 

one day all this pain will make sense

but wouldn't you know i ended up having a wonderful day

everything was a mess and i was a wreck. 


i pattered and preened and quibbled and driveled all while wearing a smile and pretending everything was dandy. i don't really deal with things as much as i ring them out and hang them up to dry. i will always have the shape of some people etched into my heart. 


i will never value anyone more than i value the people that make the time to see me face to face, the people that tell me what i need to hear without me asking for it, and the people who know me well enough to tell me the truth but not hurt me with it. i value you those people who see the good in me when i don't see it, and the people who dream for me what i haven't yet dreamed. 


it's easy for me to let people in, it's easy for me to make friends. what's hard for me is knowing if i can be myself completely around people. i just want to know people i can be myself completely around at some moment. i think we all crave that. there are some people who can make you better just by being around you and just by talking to you.  those are the people you want in your life. 


this will all make perfect sense some day. a john mayer lyric, but true nonetheless. a better quote to end on is this: 


“[...] the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes 'Awww!' What did they call such young people in Goethe's Germany?” 
― Jack Kerouac, On the Road


I guess I just think all of my friends are crazy insane, but I can't like people who aren't crazy anyway.

you're a peach

best compliment i've ever gotten, hands down.

tell me something i don't know

a certain population of my friends (i have so many friends, don't even bother guessing,) is obsessed with google analytics. they use them to track who is looking at their web-posted information, like blogs or whatever, to figure out WHO is viewing their content.

like with crossword puzzles, i kind of missed the analytics boat. i mean, yeah, it's a good use of time when you've got nothing else to do, and there is something intrinsically valuable about them, but at most points in time, it's just time that could be spent thinking about something else. there is something nice about people checking in on you without talking to you about it. you can't really put a price-tag on that, i suppose, but there is also something to be said for the fact that they haven't said anything to you about it. as a somewhat empirical person, i try to set more by what people say and do with me that proves they were listening to what i was saying.

i'll admit there is something insidiously interesting about analytics, of course. they are interesting when tracking how many plays my band gets on its bandcamp, but become boring when confirming obvious facts like the fact that no one besides perhaps 3 people who are close to me (and my parents and brother when they google me) read my blog. (also some random spam people and indian people who google my name) and yeah, it would be a little more awesome if you could google analytics your facebook page and find out who was looking at you.

i think i would prefer analytics if it measured things i participate in say if there were analytic data about my conversations with people in person. it would measure useful things, like
% of eye contact
average interpersonal distance
frequency of interaction
duration of average interaction
amount of self-related pronouns used in conversation
amount of times they used my name in conversation
amount of times i used theirs
amount of times i used the word "like"
posture, position
pitch
audibility

you know, useful shit like that. i think that would be the holy grail of analytics, because i'm pretty sure people are kind of obvious if you pay attention to those types of things. there should be a rule that everyone has to tell you if they're reading your blog anyway. 

There is nothing for me here anymore.

That has been the resounding cry permeating my life as of late. I have this thing where I self-isolate and I don't include myself even in the what I am included in. My passions are far-reaching, but somehow remote. I have somehow compartmentalized every part of my life to the point where I am only somewhat included within them and not immersed in anything fully. I feel like I'm playing hard-to-get in everything I do, whether it be making my room a temple, or making plans with the people I care about, for example.

It confuses me that everything goes on without me. Coming to this realization has catapulted me into even greater withdrawal, and self-isolation. I have a headache, I can't write this anymore

sometimes failure is just failure

sometimes, you should just stop

bring me a dream!

me: hey

 becca: hey what's up

12:54 AM me: not too much gonna go to the old sandman

  and sleep with him

  or something

 becca: yeah i was 'bout to do the same

  we're tight me and that sandman dude

  he came to me earlier today, too

 me: hands off sister

 becca: i think he has a thing for me

  he like, visits me during class and stuff

 me: we have this mad crazy chemistry

  it's like we want each other

  but like, we're both too afraid to say so

12:55 AM becca: well, for all the time you spend avoiding him at night he's probably getting the wrong idea

 me: i have priorities

  i can't just wait around for him

12:56 AM he always comes to me in the end though

 becca: too far

  goodnight

  :D

  sleep tight

  hope he brings you good dreams

  hahah

  i'm exhausted, srrsly i gotta sleep

 me: he practically won't let me get up in the morning

 becca: oh yeah, i guess you guys do have that special time

 me: hehehee

 becca: that morning time when he won't let you go

  he's like

  obsessed with you or something

  whatever

  GOOD NIGHT

12:57 AM sandwoman

 me: night!

i know, i'll never be lonely. i've got songs in my blood!

i'm trying to keep a better record of my feelings of the day as a part of an initiative to not lose control in the hustle and bustle that is my daily life.

things that i liked today:
-i suppose you readers will tire of hearing this, but i like the amazing stillness and tranquility that comes with bouncing from place to place with headphones on. this feeling is amplified (haha) by the fact that around me there is actually much noise, lots of drama and activity and PEOPLE all around me. but i have created a space of peace within myself, within the sound.

-i like thinking funny little thoughts. things like, "oh chemistry applies to love given the fact that bond distance is the point of time where you are not too close that your negative charges repel their negative charges, and not too far that there's no interaction at all, but you're at just the length that you can maximize the positive to negative charge balance in the most effective way to reduce individual energy." yeah, little thoughts like that.

-i like noticing things that other people did well. like today, one of the daily cardinal comics made an arrested development joke out of the blue. i love that!

-i like knowing and loving the people that live with me. i love becca whose birthday it is today, and i love connie, and the fact that we constantly analyze each other.

-i like having a great conversation with someone i barely know, or someone i just met. it makes me feel that people are really good at heart, and all worth meeting.

-i like to make playlists. i make them for days, seasons, concepts, and mostly, people. when i make someone a mix, i keep it forever. i listen to it and think of them. it's like my own narrative (through other people's words and music) of that person and what they were to me at that time.

-i like it when i get a test back and i go through all the things i actually did correctly. in that moment i think, oh my, i've learned so much. i could do this and i bask in that small delight before i look at the final score and how things conspiratorially stacked up against me.

-i like feeling that there's no end to the knowledge that can be gained and discovered but also at the fact that i could live my life just reading all the books i have now over and over again and i'd still probably have loads to think about. and i'm really not even that into books except for harry potter and random other stuff like wayside school and a series of unfortunate events and freakonomics, shrug

-i love my journalism professor, she's so smart and capable, but also she levels with us and is hilarious, and sometimes uses clips from SNL just for the hell of it. :)

-i like those mornings where i just don't talk. instead, i listen to everything i learn with open ears and no mental commentary.

- i like reaching out to people and having them like it.

i don't like:

-feeling overwhelmed by schoolwork, or feeling like i can't control my own progress.

-knowing i feel like listening to a certain song, but not knowing which song it is. or having that looming feeling that the song i want to listen to doesn't exist yet.

-admitting to myself or someone else that i suck at something, or that i'm not entirely sure of myself.

-the feeling that i want to just do what i want and act how i feel, but realizing that doing such things invites consequences and interpretations i can't control. but i try to remember, "be who you are and say how you feel because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind." that dr. seuss seemed like he was doing lots of drugs from his illustrations, but he knows his shit, let me tell you.

-feeling like everything in my future is set in stone

-staying up late doing something crazy. :/

:)

i kept walking down the streets, and the sun was bouncing across everything, and there was a song on my lips and surrounding my ears, and i couldn't help but keep this goofy grin on my face the entire day

the west coast is not the same if i'm not with my best friend

there is some chemical reaction that occurs when one is in the process of making a new friend.
it's like an infrared spectrometer is turned on, and suddenly all of your bonds are rotating and vibrating. anyway that's how it feels.

it's so interesting how you can go from day 1 indifference to day 2 interest to day 3 oh my god, where were you before? did you exist before you entered my life?

many, if not most, of my friends i've discovered over time. it's not always friendship at first sight. most of the time, it's more of a growing process. i always like to say that people grow into my life like benign tumors.

you barely even realize that they're there until you look around after a few months, and they're a part of the fabric of your existence, they've somehow implanted themselves into your life. and it's funny because once someone's in your life, they create a little world, right there in the middle of your already fixed structure.  suddenly their ecosystem is linked into yours. every person you have a relationship with has a little narrative attached to their existence in your narrative.

and you just can't undo it. some people get so wrapped up in your fabric that if you remove them from your life, you'll have to unweave all of it, and re-sew it back up (and it will be smaller when that's over). some people are more like sequins sewn on sloppily whose presence isn't really that missed. but most people are patches. they hold you together, and maybe they can replaced, but they'll never be able to fill exactly the same space as the old patch did.

</mushy post> 

these are my confessions

1. just when i thought i said all i could say, my chick on the side said she's got one on the way. full disclosure: this was the first song i liked by usher

2. i take video at most concerts, but then i can't do anything with it because i sing along and it's very embarrassing.

3. i have an obsessive personality. i have a tendency to LOVE things that i like. like, i watch tv-shows non--stop or listen to songs over and over again in one day or start a project at 3AM. i'm not very rational when i'm excited about something.

4. one time, gina and i got in trouble for singing this song in bio class.  we were doing a really good job too. whatever. https://mywebspace.wisc.edu/agni/15%20Utopia.mp3

5. i think i'm the only person who noticed that in the 7th harry potter movie, the lightning-bolted P of Potter in the logo grew an extra ridge.

6.  i believe that sometimes talking about problems just makes them worse. but i also believe that if you think your gripes all the way through about 90 times, you'll bore yourself to death with how repetitive your thoughts are and just move on to something more interesting.

7. words i use that lots of other people i know don't use: "dope" "lolz" (usually not out-loud) "boss" "zomg" (online only as well) and of course "badonk" and "ridonkulous" whateva, i do what i want

8. if i were going to spend a day with any singer/actress women, they would be: regina spektor, amy poehler, tina fey, mila kunis, alia shawkat

9. if i were going to date any fictional men, they'd be: tom from daria, floyd from 30 rock (jason sudeikis), ben from parks and recreation (adam scott), ron from harry potter, jim from the office, michael scott (like the way he is when he leaves the office), michael bluth, marshall from how i met your mother, henry from party down (also, adam scott), sean from boy meets world, ron from kim possible, darryn from as told my ginger, arnold from hey arnold (hey, i was little when i watched that show), cappie from greek, dave (who dated lane for one season) on gilmore girls, gilbert blythe from anne of green gables, that guy from a wrinkle in time with the red hair, michael from the princess diaries (and i met the guy who played him in real life (because he's the lead singer of rooney), and he totally initiated a hug with me! crazy) --> god, i'd date a lot of fictional men.

10. i think that colors matter so much. you might not remember them, but they hit you right in the eye and they make your memories different in weird ways. they affect the way you perceived a mood, and can alter history. when they finally invent time machines, or those "what-if" machines like on futurama, they will change colors of things and see how it changed history.

11. this confessions list devolved into a talk about random things list. ah well.

12. i will always like these songs no matter how overrated they become:
i try- macy gray, somebody to love - queen, diamonds and rust- joan baez, in the middle of the night; piano man - billy joel, faith - george michael, high and dry- radiohead, kissing the lipless- the shins, dream a little dream of me - doris day, or someone else, the best is yet to come - frank sinatra, sound of silence - simon & garfunkel, you're going to make me lonesome when you go - bob dylan, stand by me - ben e. king,  a tisket a tasket - ella fitzgerald, just my imagination - the temptations, strange fruit - billie holiday, ragged wood - fleet foxes, it doesn't matter anymore - buddy holly, lullaby - cat empire

13. singing is the only thing in the whole world that always makes me happy 

a mehpdate

currently i'm miserable with school stuff. so i was thinking, maybe just maybe, i could drop my biology major and just do international studies and a journalism degree plus my pre-med requirements of which i have more than half fulfilled. that way if it's even possible, i can apply to public health school or madison's MD/MPH program, and i could do some kind of public health related strategic communication.

this is all so new i can't stand it. i'm worried though that if i go through with this idea, all of the science i've done will be invalidated. i just want to make the most of my time in undergrad, i want to hone the skills that i'm really, really good at. i'm okay at science, i'm pretty good at best. but what i'm really good at is taking what i know in science and realizing how it applies to the bigger picture. i'm not going to be one of those people who studies one micro-organism forever. so i think i could actually, despite my bad test-taking experiences, become a good doctor if that's what i want to do, but currently, i'm pretty sure i'm interested in something related more to public health, and i'm best at analysis on an in-depth scale and skills related to journalism. but i don't believe in "creating awareness" as much as changing behaviors. i think with something like strategic communication i could try to essentially market better health behaviors and outcomes to people, but also working to change conditions in an environment that structures risk.

i guess the reason i don't want to do a bio major is because i don't want to kill myself. i exist for reasons other than school. i'm good at things other than science. things that also deserve respect for reasons other than getting good grades. i know, yeah, i could put in minimal effort and ace those classes but they're too important for that. i take classes to better myself, not to achieve the bare minimum.

oh god, that club behind my apartment is SO ANNOYING. i can tell the lead singer is way overconfident just because he's probably had a few or 12. i've never heard such a bad rendition of sweet caroline, and i've heard some REALLY BAD ones. he's not even in key.

this shit is bananas

don't let the title of this video deter you from watching it.  this SHOULD be seen. it sheds light on a gaping problem that people seem to straight up ignore.

Miss Representation 8 min. Trailer 8/23/11 from Miss Representation on Vimeo.

don't look down at the chasm, keep your eye on the horizon

i always hope that i can just start typing here and stumble onto something to write about. that's what happens whenever i get the 'feeling' i want to write a blog entry. sometimes i'm legitimately processing something and it feeds its way out of my fingers, but lately there hasn't been one thing on the forefront of my mind. i always knew that if i studied too much, i'd get boring.

things have settled into something of a schedule although everything is different beyond what i could've imagined. at the beginning of this year, i was in a vastly different place than i am now. i feel as if there have been multiple phase shifts this year; maybe this year is about trying on a bunch of different hats- the journalistic hat, the singer hat, the taking-more-of-a-proactive-role-in-my-own-life hat, the i-don't-care-what-you-think-of-my-relationships hat, the yes-i-will-drive-900-miles-to-see-my-favorite-band hat, and on top of that, the i-will-finally-learn-guitar hat.

disclaimer: i don't really like hats that much. itchy head, hat hair, you know the drill.

weird, weird things develop in my life, and little happenchances become reality. the funny thing is that i can pinpoint the decisions leading up to this point in my life, taking an ethnic studies over the summer, for example, or looking for guitarists for our band. my brain always does this thing where it jumps into a let's-do-it mentality. doing things just leads to me doing other things in an exponential fashion... i'm trying to reel it in this hyper-stressful semester.

i don't believe in fate. in fact, i epically don't believe in fate. i believe in controlled randomness. while it may seem like something was supposed to happen, i think it's actually that there are certain things in life that are extremely probable if x situation occurs. i have this creepy ability to call things. but the reason i can do those things is because i'm kind of good at reading people.

isn't it odd that some people notice things that other people don't? what i mean is that each person has a unique set of criteria for looking at the world, and thus they notice different things in their quotidian world. when i walk around, i notice probably 80% the same things as most other people, but that extra 20% could make all the difference. i notice that some people make really hilarious facial expressions when they walk, i monitor the numbers of people listening to iPods and those who are just talking, or count how many people i can pass. those kinds of things. i started thinking about this because i've discussed with people what they like about certain things- e.g. music- and they like different things than i do, and object to different things than i do. for example, i don't like bon iver's voice at all. i find it to be breath-y and i think the whole thing is so low key that there's nothing to latch on to, but someone else who listens to it may enjoy the music for its atmospheric quality, and not find his weird voice to be a deal-breaker. i can't decide other people's deal-breakers for them. (although sometimes i really wish i could...)

going back to the hat thing, i'm striving to be the best me i can be in the student/appreciating-and-gaining-from-my-education/person. i'm confident in myself, i know that i have something great to offer the world. it's a matter of knowing this and matching my actions to this philosophy so that i can be the optimal me- the one that minimizes her weaknesses and amplifies her strengths. that's at least the best example i can set for my brother and the students i teach at the Free Press. that means being proactive, being friendly, reaching out to people, and being creative-- but those are the things i'm already good at. it also means not procrastinating, giving everything my all, putting in the time to teach myself all that i need to know, living and letting live, watching what i say sometimes, and not second-guessing myself too much.

i think there were a lot of things in this post that could've made their own posts.... i'm warming back up, please forgive me my digressions, it's 3AM. i tried to not to stay up this late.

p.s. i'm afraid i might suddenly start liking bon iver like tomorrow. in which case, i'm sorry, and i will post an edit. but as of yet, i don't get what the big deal is. i like music with flourishes and tempo, melodic or dynamic changes that reflect the intensity of life. bon iver's music seems to not have anything jump out of its fabric. 

i miss playing music

something must be done.

people in my life

the people in my life often upset me, in unspoken ways.

i never talk about it. part of me feels that it's a storm in me that will pass, and part of me feels that it's a storm within the other person that needs to be dealt with before i can pass judgment. i tend to think these that petty fights and unspoken tensions are transient, when in reality many of them are structural problems. 

to clarify, what i'm talking about is those points of contention that people who are close have, those points that they don't talk about. in my life, i feel like the healthiest relationships i have are with my brother and with that person- the person who was my boyfriend, but isn't anymore- or whatever you call it. 

the reason for that is that i feel i can say whatever it is i'm thinking to that person, and still have their respect, and their love, because i know that they will never question my essence, the fact that i'm inherently someone worth caring about. in that way, i feel that some people just lend themselves to being confidants. you feel like you can just open up your heart to and have them listen, and care, and you will know that they care because they don't get angry with you for feeling the way you do, but they will still slowly jolt you back to reality, toward what is right. you know that they care about you because they demonstrate the fact that they have thought of you, not in a superficial, i remembered your birthday type of way, but in a i noticed you sneeze when we go camping, so i brought benadryl just in case. 

 

but some people you could tell just about everything to you, but there will still not be the feeling of deep caring, of carefulness, and of thought. maybe you're afraid to get too close and realize it wasn't real, or maybe you're just two people living your lives away from each other, but still warmly. 

some relationships have space built into them. some people in your life maybe never got too close, or aren't close enough to talk about what's weighing on your heart with. some people, you might be able to tell about your worries and your joys, but you still can't admit to them that you love them.  some people can go away for days without you missing them or without them missing you, but when you see them, you enjoy each other. and some people you miss, and they miss you too, but for some reason, you've forgotten the words to be able to let them know it.

i wish i always had the courage to tell people how i feel without the fear of them judging me, or telling people when they hurt me without fighting with them, or expressing my love sincerely instead of through teasing and humor. 

i wish i could interpret distance as something other than a reflection of another's regard for me. i wish i knew if it was just stormy season or a stormy climate. 

This is a downtown thing.

So I was looking for this blog, and I made the wonderful mistake of using dot com instead of dot org and stumbled onto this sexy thing (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXnd8DoCPpk):

This is another one of those pieces of culture that makes me want to go to New York and live out my fantasies. Jelly Jells is a multi-tasking New York-based musician, who has his own record company and DJs weekly/nightly in addition to this project, as well as a band called the Harlem James Gang that was on America's Got Talent (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKHdEz2iLyA):  

 

Obviously the music is fresh, but the ambition is more refreshing. I guess being on holiday has made me long for something fresh in my home life, and I love the idea of someone taking a good idea and running with it-- I love the idea of building an empire up from the ground, fired by the fuel of one's own passion.

*Check him out http://jellyjells.tumblr.com

*Check out the incarnation of my passion, The Rose Lights.

reflections on my ethnic studies

so i'm taking a class.

journalism 662: mass media and minorities not only fulfills my ethnic studies requirement, but also serves as a bridge over which I could amble toward journalistic study. it's really an excellent class, and i've been learning about stuff that i'm actually interested in in a real way. that is to say, i'm learning about stuff that i might have already given a damn about before entering the classroom. it appeals to me because caring about what the media does is often deemed a frivolous activity that should be cast aside in favor of studying subatomic particles or something, but this class gives it importance.

if you think about it, media portrayals are really important because they reveal how the power structure and the artistic elite view the world and its history (usually in a really racist, bigoted way). because of this class, more than ever, i feel like those responsible for the dissemination of information are among the most powerful people in the world. they have the surreptitious and sometimes insidious power to shape opinion by presenting sympathetic portrayals or stereotypes. this is especially true when there is little exposure to the group of people or subject being represented.

take for example, my changing views about sexual orientation, specifically "gayness" as i was growing up.
i remember my first exposure to homosexuality. my mom took me to her co-worker's house for a mary kay party when i was about 10 years old.
as we slipped in, my mom nonchalantly whispered to me, "oh by the way, ____ is ____'s partner."
"like her work partner? i thought you were her work partner?"
"no. they're romantic partners."
"WHAT? that's... gross..." i said, barely understanding what was going on. i had heard about gay men, but not gay women. i had thought they were fictional anyway.
"NO." my mom said, "it's not gross. they are in love, and they have a daughter."

i still thought it was kind of gross (even at that age not understanding what sex was and that people did it routinely,) but i shut up about it and played with her partner's partner's daughter from a previous marriage. i asked her if it was hard, and she said, at first it was hard to explain but now no one really cares, and i said, "that's cool." she had two moms, one of whom made good-tasting cheese-cupcake-looking-things and was really nice.

we spent the rest of the afternoon putting on makeup and my mom's co-worker's partner told my mom her eyes were sexy. my mom bashfully said, "oh, nonsense," but i piped up in whole-hearted agreement and then said something attention-seeking like, "..but we have the same eyes!"

i didn't think much of it later, except to whisper about it to some friend at some later date. i remember it being like a dirty secret i had to hide away. the whole idea seemed so austere, so unlike anything i'd ever encountered. it wasn't until i watched degrassi that the whole matter of gayness came up again.

say what you will about degrassi, it broke down barriers in the agni household. yes, it's over the top. yes, sometimes the dialogue is silly and forced. yes, their canadian accents are funny. but it also shed light on a lot of things that i would've been embarrassed to think about. like getting your period, or thinking about having sex, or whatever. they talked about condoms and bullying and cutting and a whole bunch of other stuff.

it was this show that replaced all the fuzzy cotton contained in my brain about gay people with solid facts and empathy. i watched as the character marco struggled with his sexuality, how he wanted desperately to fit in, to date this girl that he felt nothing but friendship toward, how he couldn't reveal this part of himself to his own family, and how he dealt with bullying when he finally came out. this show did more to educate me about human sexuality than any health class ever did. it humanized gay people, who had previously been reduced to some freak novelty in my childish mind. it wasn't my fault either. other than marco, there were no portrayals in the media i consumed, and no gays that i knew from my community.
after more portrayals and encounters... theatre experience and bend it like beckham in particular had effects on me ("but you're indian!")... questions of orientation just kind of brushed off of me, it no longer had great importance in my life.

it was later that i noticed gay people were all around me and i realized i didn't really care what sexual orientation a person was unless i wanted to get sexy with them. after having several people tell me they were bisexual, i just kind of stopped keeping track. i'm not trying to be insensitive.. it just seemed to me a fact of life that some people like boys and some people like girls and some people like both, and this fact is mutually exclusive of their gender. that is not to take away importance from the LGBT community at all.

i've talked to my brother about this too and he agrees that the sympathetic portrayal of a gay character marco on degrassi also made him understanding and sympathetic of homosexuality as a whole. i think people don't even realize how media depictions affect them. if you don't think that's true, think of what you know about native americans, and who they are. is your image accurate? would you even know if it is?

i know that i for one do not have any knowledge on the subject due to a lack of research and/or personal encounters with native americans, but i cannot say that every person with the same amount of exposure would claim the same thing.

a similar logic can be applied to africans and their media portrayal. i still hear left and right the racist sentiment that african conflict is fueled by some kind of primitive 'tribal hatred;' this is a direct (and absurd) result of rhetoric perpetuated by mainstream media stereotyping and stupid talking heads in the political arena that use such stereotypes to leverage agendas of inaction.

the problem with media is that it makes you feel like you know something about someone, when you don't, especially in this day and age where people feel like experts for having read an article on some subject. the best media can do is to portray any kind of minority in an individual, sympathetic manner, instead of reinforcing some negative stereotype that feeds directly into the minds of the ignorant and impressionable.

note: here i've talked about tv, but stereotypes are reinforced by the news, film, magazines, books, and advertising. (...duh.) even if you don't watch a ton of tv, you are probably still very affected by media portrayals.

nonsense

things much haven't been going. i grammatical sentences make not. why bother? it hot be and i roast.

the first sentence of this post is ludicrous. things much have been going, episodically. but not much of particular interest and importance to a reader of average attention span. can you believe that i am not approaching this post with a thought process but merely a series of micro-decisions occurring at each word birth?

i think so.

i shall see this again on facebook in approximately half a month. facebook sucks.