No Child Left Behind (teaching to the test) -- AGHHHHHHHHH!
Distributive justice (is it possible? Under what conditions? What would it require or presuppose?)
Equity not the same as equality. (Distribution)
Why search for definitive answers?
Statistics - wtf?
Tax cuts (Walmart, the wealthy)
Importance of health
(Dis)ability
Mom

Productivity, Reunion, Happiness

I'm finally settling into my niche at Rutgers. I don't really like New Brunswick, but the university itself is really providing me with great multi-faceted resources for the various aspects of my education. The social scene here has also been getting better as I've been spending more time on campus. I've joined an organization called Tent State, which has really been motivating me to be more active within the community as well as to research questions I have about problems abroad, specifically the War in Iraq. As opposed to sitting here and tossing around my own ideas about what should be done in Iraq, I have been trying to get at good sources that will inform me about as much of the situation as I can get at. As Kurt Vonnegut wrote in "A Man Without a Country" people tend to guess too much, and I am as much a product of that as anybody else. Here (and elsewhere) I am learning to correct my tendency to guess through research. Speaking of getting involved in the community, I just reread what I have just written and am rethinking what I said about not liking New Brunswick. It's definitely not an attractive city and crime and noise here are pretty rampant; yet there's a lot that can be done to make things better here. So I am going to try and do as much as I can to help while I'm a part of the university to give back to the town. I think Tent State is great for that, especially now that we're trying to get Street U going. Street U is a medium through which Rutgers students can mentor kids in secondary schools in New Brunswick and surrounding areas. It's pretty important and necessary considering the schools here aren't very well funded.

In addition to Tent State I've recently begun going to Salsa Club on Monday nights with my friend Adam and belly dancing classes by myself on Wednesday nights. My instructor, Yudita, is really great and has really been inspiring me to practice really hard so that I can get better. She seems to think that I can do really well in it if I keep practicing. It's a great release, really good exercise, and tons of fun. I came out of yesterday's class feeling extremely refreshed. I have a feeling it's going to become a hobby I'll be very passionate about.

This past weekend was especially refreshing. I had been (and still am) extremely stressed out about schoolwork and managing a lot of different things at once, and was really looking forward to visiting my friends in Worcester, MA. I was originally only supposed to stay until early evening on Sunday, but ended up making an impromptu decision to stay longer. I went to a wedding with my friends that was much more poignant than I had expected it to be. I think it was a combination of the fact that the couple getting married was so incredibly happy and also the fact that I was there with people who were all really happy to be there witnessing that together. We had spent a really fun weekend together just laughing non-stop, and the merriment the wedding provided was just a great plus. I ended up skipping all my classes on Monday in a huge act of irresponsibility, but I'm honestly not regretting my decision. I posted a couple of pictures from the weekend somewhere below. (Sorry it's messy, but I really don't have the patience to make it look pretty).

This weekend I will be studying a lot and catching up on work, and also picking Nick up from the airport in Washington DC on Sunday! YAY! =)

"We Are All One Unit"

It's almost five in the morning and I feel like my eyelids are going to close shop on me at any moment, and yet my body is so filled with energy that I can't make myself go to bed. I'm so afraid I might forget everything that's running through my mind right now, everything I'm feeling. I know that it's already slipping away, that it's already fundamentally different from how it was the moment I realized I should write this down. 

It's incredible how periods of absolute confusion and uncertainty can sometimes lead to moments of almost perfect lucidity; it's not almost perfect because it eradicates the doubt, but because it makes you feel like doubt is okay and natural. I'm being incredibly abstract. Let me explain. A few days ago I had a sort of crisis where I felt like I had absolutely no idea where my academic career was heading. I was worried about how I would balance out my personal life with my career, how I would support myself financially, how I'd get the most out of my life in general. I was trying to understand how many parts of each sector of life I needed to make a good whole; I was essentially trying to make a recipe out of life. I know that I am not the only one who does this; we all over-analyze our lives and how much of what we're actually putting into them is beneficial, worthy, good, bad, etc. The lucidity doesn't come on it's own (or if it does then it hasn't in my experience). I've always had the urge to discuss my inner dilemmas with people whom I trust, and a lot of the time they point things out to me that seem obvious when I hear them, but that I didn't realize because I'm so close to the issues at hand. 

So armed with advice from a loved one, I set out to try and appease my insecurities by talking to people who've probably had the same kinds of questions--my TA's and professors. I'm still in the process of doing this, but I've already talked to one TA who cleared things up for me a little bit. She encouraged me to go to graduate school for Cultural Anthropology, and assured me that there were many more options than I had originally anticipated there being. She told me that, yes, Cultural Anthropology and Graduate School take you away from many social things you may not wanted to have missed, but it's worth it and you learn a lot from the experience. This really comforted me; I remembered that I don't want to live a generic life. I want my life to be both very painful and very happy at different points in time. The last thing I want is to lead a mediocre lifestyle. After talking to Nell (my TA) I realized that I really do want to work in Cultural Anthropology and that I don't have to know exactly what I want to study within the field right now. I should just let things flow. 

Pretty much as soon as I decided to let things take their own course (to an extent), I forced myself to calm down and sit and listen to people more. I've been so busy with schoolwork and extracurricular activities that I didn't even realize I was shushing people I really wanted to hear from because I thought I didn't have time for them. So tonight after I finished my reading for tomorrow I went outside into my living room and sat down with my roommates and my friend to talk. It was already very late and I knew that I should have been getting to bed in order to function properly tomorrow, but I knew that I needed to just sit down and participate in discussions within my own household. Afterall I'm going to be a Cultural Anthropologist, listening is what we DO. And really, the more I think about it, the more I value stopping and listening and talking to people over other kinds of priorities. Because the most valuable things I'm going to learn during the course of my lifetime are NOT going to be things that I read in textbooks, or papers that I write, or even research that I conduct. The most valuable things I will learn are things I will probably think about on my deathbed, are things I learned from people that I met and interacted with, people who've challenged me and taught me things and made me feel uncomfortable. 

Basically I live with two guys. Both of them are immigrants; one is form Palestine and the other is from Egypt. Until recently I had been too immersed in work to really sit down and talk to them for a very long period of time, but now I've realized how exhilirating talking to them really is, how much they're going to teach me, the power manifested in our triangular relationsihp. I feel so ashamed even mentioning that I had been too busy to talk to them for very long earlier; I'm studying Anthropology! How could I place texts over people? How could I allocate time in such a way as to ignore that which I'm going to learn the most from? It's completely beyond me, but I'm so glad that it smacked me across the face tonight. (Or maybe it did a couple of days ago...) Anyway, we sat down in our living room with my friend, Jenya, and discussed the differences in our cultures, religions, and origins. We discussed the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, communism, immigration, refugees, cultural boundaries, marriage, sex, family, race, rules, and authority. I wanted to tape record the whole thing, but they said they'd feel uncomfortable and that maybe I could take notes. But I realized that these are my friends, I'm not studying them, I don't want to sit there with a notepad and write things down instead of looking them in the eye. I just listened and knew that I'd feel the urge to write later. We sat there as the hours went by and really LEARNED things about one another. We talked about how we were different, about what we were afraid of. My roommates asked me how I felt upon finding out where they were from originally. Jenya and I asked them how they felt about our being Jews. We tried to figure out why so many different people hate Jews and we couldn't find an answer, or why there's such hostility towards Muslims now in Ameirca. We talked about the differences between Israel vs. Palestine and Judaism vs. Islam. We discussed things that were uncomfortable, and yet when we finally decided to go to bed I felt like I was part of a new family, and like I had stumbled upon something so magnifacent, so valuable that I have to share it with everyone. I came upon these two fascinating people who can teach me SO much, and together maybe we can educate others, maybe we can teach the world a thing or two. I know I'm very ideallistic, but I don't see how experiences like these wouldn't produce such grandoise hopes. If I can sit in a room with a rather religious Jewish girl and two devout Muslims (one of which is from Palestine) and discuss these things peacefully, and UNANIMOUSLY come up with the conclusion that "We Are All One Unit" (as my Palestinian roommate said to me) then why can't we help others realize that?

There's so much more I can write about, but I'm seriously falling asleep. Hopefully this entry will serve as an outline for me tomorrow so that I may elaborate later. 

Nolite te bastardes carborundorum!

My work shift today was pretty damn strange. It began when this gawky, clearly socially inept Indian guy came in thinking he was hired; it turned out he wasn't at all, but he asked me some questions about the job and then asked me if I was single, waited for Hoda and then tried to convince her to let him be a cook in the kitchen even though he has no experience. She acquiesced after a long while of pleading, and so he'll start on Monday. He's a weird one, but hell, if you need a job you need a job.

Once he left the only customer left in the restaurant was a black pastor whom I had not met before. Some lady called to place an order for delivery and the other waitress took the call; less than a minute later she hung up angrily. Apparently the lady had insulted her by saying that she wants to speak to someone who "actually speaks English." The waitress has a slight Hispanic/new York accent and was really infuriated by the comment. The pastor gave us a rather long semi-sermon about why people are so rude to others. At first I was disinclined to take what he said seriously; after all he is a pastor and I am not religious. He obviously has very partisan views. Yet some things that he said resonated with me. He spoke about how people are rude or do bad things to others because someone else had wronged them, and they feel the need to project that negativity onto someone else who may or may not deserve it. He said the only way to prevent this vicious cycle of malice is to resist the urge to pass along the anger, which sounds like a really good way to end up a push-over, but there's still some worth in that I think. How many people that you know project their bad experiences in past relationships onto their new ones? Like cheating for example. If you've been cheated on, are you more likely to cheat on the next person you date? I know a lot of people who would. I also know a few who wouldn't, and they give me a lot of hope and inspiration.

Anyway, then Pastor Art started asking me questions about where I'm from, what I'm studying, etc. I told him I'm an Anthropology major and somehow a discussion about academic success led to a very long discussion about familial obligations, and he learned my family history very quickly. Sometimes I wonder if I disclose too much personal stuff to strangers. But he's a pastor, and was very good at extracting information from me. So he learned my parents are divorced, and I asked him what he thought was the cause of the rising divorce rate. I actually just recently took a class about that sort of thing, so I know the sociological theories behind the rise. Women entering the workforce, working class men earning less money, fewer working class jobs are mostly cited as the causes. Pastor says it's the media. People are tempted by what the images they see on TV and in magazines, he says, and they pursue those images because they think they are better than what they have. So if you see a hot supermodel you'll want him/her more than what you've got. He says (and I believe this to be 100% true regardless of some of the other crazy shit he said) that people tend to gravitate to dominant ideals. If media is what creates dominant ideals, then the media determines what we want. I don't know if the media is entirely responsible, but I think it may play a very large role. Pastor thinks it is entirely responsible for what he calls the "dominant thought." He also said he thinks financial troubles are the other cause of divorce, which I think is much more pertinent. Couples fight when they can't pay the bills.

Another interesting thing we talked about which made me a bit uncomfortable, was what makes men more likely to cheat on their wives. I didn't ask him about this, but he decided I should know for the future. He used the example of a lawyer and his secretary (which I found to be extremely ironic for obvious reasons, Or maybe it's not so obvious to some--who the hell reads this anyway? Reveal yourselves)! Here was his example (with my commentary in bold :P ):

A lawyer notices one morning that his wife did not cook him breakfast. Clearly she's not
paying as much attention to him as she used to. (mmkay wtf?) So he goes to work. His
secretary watches him closely every morning; there's not much else for her to do so she
studies him; she knows what he likes and what he doesn't like. One day he tells her he likes
the color red. So she comes in one day wearing red, and what do you know?! He's
interested. He runs off with the secretary. Now what the wife SHOULD have done, was
never have let the communication slip. She should not have stopped paying attention to
him, and if something was wrong she should have mentioned it. When (you mean if...) he
told her about the flirty secretary she should have told him to tell her he's married. (he has
to be told to tell the secretary this?) The woman should keep an EYE on the husband!
(I wonder what this guy has to say about female infidelity...) That's the bottom
line. She has to take care of him and communication has to be the everlasting foundation of
the relationship.

Okay, women need to be taken care of, too! Sheesh. Now I know a guy's not going to run off because a girl doesn't make him breakfast one morning (though I know that's what triggers my father to do so), so I know this example was kinda ridiculous, but I thought it was interesting anyway. Just for the irony.

So I talked to pastor for about 3 hours, and then had a pretty quick brain switch to the real subject of this entry: achievement. Remember Stephen Hoffman? I wrote about him in the entry right before this one. Here's a similar example (also from National Geo, sorry): About five years ago researchers discovered that the Iceman was murdered. They've been trying to piece together more details about the crime scene, and one researcher found four different types of blood stains on the Iceman's prehistoric garments; he believes that this means there were four men involved in the Iceman's murder. This sounds pretty damn plausible to me. Yet because his work has not yet been published, no body is taking his theory seriously. I feel that way too many serious scientists and researchers out there are being put down because they are not renowned. Some of them don't give a damn; they pursue their goals anyway, regardless of whether they think they'll succeed in the end or not. Yet I know that there are many who are intimidated by bureaucracy and hardheadedness. One of the best parts in the Handmaid's Tale is when Offred discovers a hidden mock-Latin engraving in her dresser when none of the handmaids were supposed to be allowed to read or write: "Nolite te bastardes carborundorum!" which means "Don't let the bastards get you down!" Don't let them stop you from reading and feeling and living, in the case of the handmaids--don't let them stop you from fulfilling your dreams in the case of everyone else who feels people are standing in their way. Because a lot of the time, the people standing in your way are robots following stupid rules, traditionalists--people who think that traditionally a popular name is more dependable than an unknown one, or that only doctors and lawyers make good money, or that if you're an Egyptian guy you can't marry a Lebanese girl. How STUPID are these traditions? Are you going to let some guy who believes in a brainless tradition stand in your way of pursuing your goals? I really hope not. I know I'm certainly not. If you don't believe in me then screw you, unless you've got a valid reason; tradition is NOT a valid reason. Not to mention---how contradictory is believing in tradition anyway?? We don't learn from history and yet we believe in stupid traditions that we carry on....what the fuck's up with that?! Some of the greatest scientists in history were ignored because they were unusual, because their ideas were new and they had no publications, and now we revere them. Yet we STILL continue ignoring those who have great ideas. AGHH!

That was all over the place; forgive me.


I spent some time talking to one of the cooks, Tomás, about education for Mexican immigrants. He's this really nice pudgy cherub-faced guy in his late 30's, and he was lamenting that he had no time or money to go to school here. We spoke in Spanish, so it was great practice for me. That made me really sad, too. Maybe one day if i have enough money I'll set up a non-profit school where older illegal immigrants can take classes...or maybe I'll go to Mexico and set something up there. I bet the administration wouldn't like that, but ya know, don't let the bastards get you down, right? :D

If You're Not Living On the Edge You Take Up Too Much Room

I haven't written here in a while, but tonight I had the greatest urge to. So this will be another long one.

Yesterday I moved into my new apartment in New Brunswick; I have two great roommates whom I hadn't met prior to giving them my first rent check. One is Egyptian and the other is Palestinian. They are both named Mohamed; the Egyptian is 28 and the Palestinian is 25. I'm loving sharing an apartment with them so far--they've been extremely hospitable and they're both really funny and great to talk to. They plan on teaching me Arabic :) I also started my new job last night, at a diner called Nuebies, owned by a Lebanese family. It is by FAR the most laid back job I've ever had; I wear jeans and a t-shirt to work, bring reading material, and talk to personnel and customers throughout my entire shift. I don't make nearly as much money as I had at previous jobs, but I realized tonight that I don't care. Of course I need money desperately, but I enjoy being there so much because it relaxes me. When I'm home my time is mostly occupied by my computer, or by worries and stress and chores, but when I'm at the diner it's just me, my job, my books and magazines, and really nice people. Tonight I read an article about Malaria in the newest National Geographic issue and it was one of the most peaceful reading experiences I've ever had; how strange is that?! Even though it was sometimes interrupted by my waitressing duties, I felt so comfortable there just reading. My manager and a delivery guy asked me what I was reading about and we talked about malaria for a while. Then this guy about my age came in to place an order for pick-up, and we talked for a pretty long while about what we wanted to do with our lives. He's a biotechnology major, and he said he wants to be the guy to make what people consider to be science fiction a reality. I told him about my tentative plans and he seemed really interested, so we talked about immigration for a while. When he left I went back to reading. I can't even relay how relaxing I find this job to be. It gives me so much time to think and just be myself. My manager, Hoda, is the sweetest lady, obviously going through menopause because she sweats like a beast one minute and then says she is freezing the next. But she and I talk about lots of different things, like what she likes to do on the weekends (she just takes the car and drives long distances to get away; since getting her car in December she's put 38,000 miles on her car)! I feel pretty bad for her because during the week she's there for 12 hours a day or more; it's pretty clear that she's exhausted. She often takes naps at the back of the restaurant. She asked me if I could work from 11 am to midnight tomorrow, but I told her I really can't handle that. I feel really sorry for her; she can't find anyone that will work the crazy hours she does. You know, I feel kind of strange saying "I feel sorry for her;" it sounds like an insult these days. People don't like to be pitied, but what do you say?

So now about that National Geographic article, the one about Malaria. It's one of the best written informative articles I've ever read. There was one part in the article in particular that really struck me. There is a man by the name of Stephen Hoffman who owns the only company in the world that is dedicated to the sole purpose of finding a vaccine for Malaria. He's been devoted to the cause for decades, and the author describes him as extremely optimistic about his chances of finding the vaccine, though many other researchers and scientists are becoming doubtful. Creating a working, lasting vaccine for Malaria has been an impossible task to achieve because there are many strains for the disease and parasites quickly develop mutations that resist drugs and vaccines that are developed to fight them. Still, Hoffman believes he will discover it. In fact, he thinks he may have the vaccine. He combined Ruth Nussenzweig's past research with his own and believes that if you expose mosquitoes carrying falciparum parasites to radiation, and then remove their salivary glands which carry the irradicated parasites, you can use these irradicated parasites as a vaccine for Malaria. The vaccine has been tested on mice and has proven to be effective. Hoffman wants to eventually administer this vaccine to all new-borns in Sub-Saharan Africa, for he believes this vaccine could protect 90% of them from Malaria, but administration stands in his way. It would take FIVE YEARS, if at all, for his vaccine to be approved by the FDA and other administration. It seems that with the Sub-Saharan African population becoming infected so quickly, and new-borns fastest of all, we don't have five years to wait for an approval. Of course this is a very delicate issue, and the vaccine must be tested meticulously and these things take time, but I think there may be a bit too much bureaucracy involved in this. But what do I know...

I leafed through the rest of the National Geographic magazine, saving more reading material for tomorrow night's shift, but I found this pretty cool bit that I couldn't resist reading, about this couple that got married on the Mendenhall Glacier in the Tongas of Alaska. How AWESOME is that?! It made me realize that if I get married, that's the kind of wedding I'd want to have. No guests, nothing superfluous, just me and my husband on a glacier or out in the wilderness somewhere. It seems that's what marriage should be about anyway; it's you and your spouse together forever with and against the entire world and all its splendor, danger, troubles, stresses, doubts, contradictions, hilarity, complexity, and simplicity. And I think having a wedding like that, on a glacier somewhere, just encapsulates all of that and makes a wedding all the more symbolic and memorable.

And then I realized, I'm not as pessimistic about marriage as I lead myself and others on to believe. I think inherently I want to have a lifelong partner. Of course the divorce rate, and infidelity, and childbearing/rearing scares the ever-loving shit out of me, but when it comes down to it I want someone whom I can share things with at the latest hour of the night, whom I can wake up next to in the morning and know that they'll be there for me next year, and the year after that, and ten years from now. Friends are great and they enrich your life tremendously, but nothing can guarantee that they'll be around for the next few years; they're not committed or devoted to you, even if they care about you deeply. I want someone whom I can travel with, cook for, share everything with, learn from--all of those ideals. And I don't think they're impossible. I think you just need to keep things fresh and don't fall too quickly into routines, which I think for me is pretty easy 'cause I'm constantly mixing things up (I, myself, am very mixed up). There's a great song called Heavy Weight Champion of the World, and the best line in the whole song is "If you're not living on the edge you take up too much room." Hells yea! And I don't think you need to abandon all traditions to live on the edge; you just need to keep things spicy.

Bedazzled

I should really be sleeping right now, but I just discovered something wonderful in a very unlikely place. I was at my dad's house, sitting in the backyard drinking tea with my dad, stepmom, and two of their friends discussing artwork, when my dad brought up an exhibit he had recently gone to with Bella's relatives. The exhibit was called "An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar" and was displayed at the Whitney Museum of American Art in NYC until the 24th of june. My dad was so enthralled by this exhibit that he tried to describe it to us to the best of his ability; I was astonished.

The artist's name is Taryn Simon. Her goal, put simply, with this exhibition was to capture views that relayed previously unknown information to the American public. She spent a lot of time conducting research about unknown and unfamiliar facts in American history, and went on a journey throughout the United States to photograph the evidence of their existence. The result, from what I've heard and seen online, is breathtaking. I will give an example. The first photograph in the exhibition is of a stark white wall. Two red cables come up out of the ground in front of the ground and are plugged into the wall. You look at the photo, come up closer to read the caption, and then back away after knowing what the photo is trully of. Apparently, there are two cables that flow underneath the Atlantic from England to a small city in New Jersey; these cables are responsible for all intercontinental interaction between Europe and America, and the only place in America that you can see the origin of this interaction is in this room, in this building, in some small city in New Jersey, of which this photo was taken. The most shocking and captivating image my dad described, was a black canvas, with black orbs surrounded by a neon blue aura. Upon reading the caption the viewer learns that the photo is actually of nuclear waste capsules at the extremely well guarded and enclosed, partly-underwater Nuclear Waste Storage Facilities in Arizona. An extremely limited number of people is allowed into this facility, due to high radioactive activity and extreme security, but she was allowed in for only a few minutes to take her photo so that she may reveal it to the American public in this exhibition. Fascinating. I couldn't find a sharper image of it because the exhibition took place so recently, but the image I found is in the upper left hand corner of this post. 

The exhibition was closed down in New York, but the next stop will be Frankfurt, Germany in September, and I'm almost crazy enough to go there to check it out. 

My dad's description of the exhibition made me think about a lot of things. It made me think about creativity, limiting access to information, and about how we process information in the first place. The creativity part is pretty self-evident; the woman's incredible, but what's even more interesting is how difficult it was for her to access these places, get to these objects/scenes/views and photograph them so that America can see what the truth looks like. I think it's great that she did eventually gain access to these places and displayed and explained what she found, but how much work did it take? Who is granted this sort of access? Who is not?

Even more interesting, when you look at one of these photos without reading the caption, what do you think of? Certainly (or at least probably) not of nuclear waste capsules. You just see the image and make as much sense out of it as you can. You look at colors, you make associations, you probably take the environment you're in into account, try to piece together what you already know with the information in front of you and make sense out of it. And once you've made sense out of it you see the image in a whole new light. It's no longer just a bunch of random colors and shapes. And what's unique about all this is the human capacity and tendency of eluminating things for other humans, for starting from something that is completely unknown and building upon it for generations and generations until we have very strong grounds for knowledge, textbooks, facts, laws of nature. 

This exhibition is incredible because we are bridging what we know and what we don't know with our instincts, our very basic processing of information--the interception of colors and shapes, our intuition, our emotions--and we are calling it art. 

Life Less Ordinary

This is probably going to be a long one (and somewhat disconnected since there's a lot to cover). 

I've been doing a lot of soul searching these past few days. Maybe it's because I've been spending more time than usual on my own, which I've come to find has been pretty beneficial to my efforts at self-improvement. I still see friends every day because I need them and love their company (I'm a very social person), but I'm trying to spend my time more wisely and to leave more time for myself. Aside from waitressing I've been practicing a lot of piano, watching some History Channel, and spending a great deal of time at the bookstore, just picking out books and reading them. Lately I've been picking up a lot of History/Anthropology books, but hopefully by the end of the summer I'll have moved on to something else. Today I picked up a fantastic book called "Human," which is basically an encyclopedia of all the things that make us both similar to and different from the other mammals in the Animal Kingdom. I'm really excited about reading as much of it as I can over the next couple of weeks at the store, and I'd even buy it if didn't cost $50. The book had a great foreward about humans' progress; the co-author wrote about how our uniquely super-inquisitve nature will no doubt lead to more human progress, but that it has already led to advances that could also lead to our downfall. He didn't at all expand the last point, but the magnitude of our inqusitiveness struck me then. It's stricken me like that before, but it's always just a fleeting realization, kind of like when I look right into the sun and then am forced to look away. Normally I attribute our progress/possible self-destruction to our need/search for power, but all that is just an arm of our inquisitve nature. With a brain three times the size of our chimp ancestors, we are much more curious, and thus yearn for much more than what is "mapped out for us." That's why we try so hard to exceed expectations, why we keep crossing borders, breaking limits, setting new goals. One begins to wonder why we ever stay within the lines of red tape in the first place. But then although we are curious, we are also very community-driven (though modern society tries to tell us otherwise). Humans would never have been able to survive if it weren't for community; they needed to protect one another in order to triumph against nature's forces and predators, since physically we are mostly inferior to the majority of the earth's predators. It is only our brain and a very few other physical assets that have issued us the upper hand. I think that part of our problem with the possibility of eventual self-destruction, is our recent inability to balance the need for community with inquisitiveness. We've begun to associate inquisitiveness with stark individuality, and have forgotten that family and community are essential to our survival. We've begun to weigh one against the other--funny how we lost sight of that. I know I did for a while. 

The other book I've been spending a lot of time reading in the past week is a History Book about the 70 greatest human voyages of all time; the voyages are listed chronologically and then backed up by archaeological and historical evidence. Very interesting stuff. Turns out Herodotus wasn't just the "Father of History;" he is also one of the world's most ancient inquisitive explorers!  I thought that was pretty cool; I don't know if anybody else would share my fascination, though. 

I feel like, lately, good old change has been slapping me across the face every morning to wake me up. I keep having to remind myself that I like challenges, that they're good for me, that overcoming obstacles is always worth it in the end---you know, all the good pep talk stuff. A new, messed up car, moving into a new apartment (hopefully), and socially--the graduation of the WPI guys. I think that's what reminded me of how much social connections really mean to me. I've gotten so close to those guys, so used to their being around, that now I feel pretty lost. Of course the most difficult thing now is realizing that Nick will no longer be in driving distance, and though I've been feeling pretty low because of it, I know we can totally work with the distance--because we need one another--and that's one of the most beautiful thing about human relations I think. 

Now let's talk about what seems to be a lack of true human relations. Waitressing (I warned you this post would be jumpy.) I have been working as a waitress for about a month now at the Original Pancake House in Fort Lee, New Jersey. It's good money, but it's an extremely tedious and exhausting job. Part of the reaon is of course being on your feet all day, but I found that even more tiring is feeling like a machine for 7 hours in a row. Not only do I feel like a machine when I'm waitressing, but I feel like I am serving machines as well. The entire process is completely mechanical: bring the water/syrup/table setup, take the drink orders, bring the drinks, take the order, take the menus, bring the food, bring the check, refill coffee, repeat. And try as I may to be friendly or chatty, there is minimal eye contact and very little interaction with the waitor or waitress. And that bothers me. It was so refreshing when only yesterday, after about a month of minimal interaction between customers and staff at the pancake house, I had a twenty minute long conversation about acupuncture and psychology with a father and daughter who came there for the first time. It was so refreshing that for the rest of the day I felt revitalized, like I hadn't just been standing on my feet for four hours, handling food in oppresive kitchen heat. I understand that waitressing is about serving people, but surely there should be more interaction, more humanity in it. No?

In other news, I am SUPER-excited about visiting the UK in less than two weeks :) I'm actually going to cut this post short because I'm realizing how much planning has yet to be done. Arrivederci!

New Shoes

Lately I've been thinking a lot about self-improvement, probably because I've been told that there are certain character traits I should work on. I was told that I should pay more attention to details and think things through more. Since then I've been trying to notice when I make the mistake of making a careless decision or when I'm not being observant enough; I've come to find that it is extremely difficult to make changes to traits that are so deeply engrained in my character and habits. I'm still very much intent upon improving these flaws, but I've been thinking a lot about their origin and how it is that I became so comfortable with making the same kinds of mistakes repeatedly; I think that because my childhood was so restricted and sheltered and decisions were typically made for me throughout most of it, I never fully learned how to make proper decisions--so now I make them hastily. All actions have consequences, however, and so I've recently been learning from the effects of my past slipshod decisions. I'm slowly learning how to think things through. The clumsiness will take a while, but I'm tryin'. 

To Be an Instant, or in this Case a Really Long Post...

Follow me through this; I will meander, but I have a destination. And he (or she) who does not stray a bit from the set path is missing out on a hell of a lot of sightseeing.

I just realized that I never explained the reasoning behind the web address of this blog. "Ser un Instante" is one of my favorite Spanish poems of all time. [I haven't actually read enough Spanish poetry to make such a bold statement, but this poem is so incredible that I honestly can't see how it can't be among the best Spanish poems ever.] It is by Rafael Guillén, a major leader and spokesperson for the Zapatista Army of National Liberation. In addition to being a political leader, he wrote many philosophical essays, and apparently poems, which inspired and invigorated many. "Ser un Instante" means "To Be an Instant" and the poem, translated, reads:

Certitude comes as a bedazzlement,
instants of light. Or blackness.
The rest is just hours passing, the backdrop,
gray for contrast. The rest is the void.

It's a moment. The body untenants itself, sets free
that transparency with which it can see itself.
It moves into things, materializes in matter,
and we can sense it from some distant place.

I remember an instant when Paris struck me
with the weight of a burnt-out star.
I remember that total rain. Paris is sad.
Everything lovely is sad while time exists.

To live is to pause with one foot lifted;
losing a step, to gain a second.
Watching a river flow, we don't see the water.
to live is to see the water, to hold its patterns.

I was lazily propped on my elbows over the iron railing
of the Pont des Arts. Suddenly, life flashed out.
It was raining over the Seine and the water, riddled,
turned into stone, the ash of hardened lava.

Nothing alters its order. It's only one heartbeat
of a self which, by surprise, becomes perceptible.
And the density of iron is sensed from within,
and we become the glance that pierces us.

Lucidity always selects unforeseen moments,
as when in the projection room, a failure
interrupts the action, leaving a still-shot.
The motion begins again, and we sink into it.

The heavy silhouette of the Louvre
no longer took up space, but was installed
in some part of me, part of that total consciousness
split by a ray whose aim is absolute.

To be one instant. Yourself immersed in other
things that are. Afterwards, nothing. The universe
continues its whirling death in the void.
But for one moment, it pauses, fully alive.

I remember it rained over Paris. Even the trees
on the banks became eternal. The next moment
the water renewed its course and once more I
watched it, seeing nothing, lose itself under the bridge.
------------------
I stumbled upon this poem randomly; I was searching for the author of another one of my favorite Spanish poems entitled "Mata del Anima Sola" or "Tree of a Lonely Soul," the poem that sparked my interest in Spanish poetry. I initially heard it not in the form of a poem, but in the form of a song, when I heard it at my very first Bergen County Chorus Rehearsal in 2005, during which we were given 3 days to memorize 5 complicated choral pieces before the official performance. "Mata del Anima Sola" was one of the songs we learned to sing, and it was sung completely A capella. We sang it perfectly, and the music we made at the final performance seemed to make the walls shudder; I swear I almost felt as though God was in the room with us, and I don't even believe in God. I remember being so mesmerized by the song that I looked it up, and found that it was adapted into a song from a poem by Alberto Arvelo Torrealba.

The poem (song), translated, reads:

Tree of the lonely soul, wide opening on the riverside--
Now you will be able to say: here slept a clear song.
With the whistle and the sting of the twisted wind,
the dappled and violet dusk quietly entered the corral.
The night, tired mare, shakes her mane and black tail above the riverside
and in its silence, your heart of phantoms is astounded.

While looking for this information, I came upon this webpage of world famous poetry via Google. I spent countless hours over the next few days reading the various poetry on this website, and found myself reading "Ser un Instante" over and over; I was so enchanted by it! It reminded me of the book "Siddhartha" by Herman Hesse. Towards the end of the book there is a scene in which Siddhartha realizes that the river is everywhere at once, that there is no difference between the past, the present, and the future. This poem was my second encounter with this kind of thinking, and I am stupefied by the possibilities such thinking affords, by the endless realm of thought and the ubiquity (or perhaps needlessness?) of time. How different would our lives be if we truly believed that time has no significance? It seems pretty ridiculous just writing about it. These days life comes in blocks of time, each of which is afforded to you in order that you accomplish what society expects of you within that time.

But what about these random encounters, these momentary glimpses of something (or someone) strange or enchanting? Sometimes these encounters aren't actually just momentary; they could last for months, or years, but when we look back at them they really do seem to have lasted only an instant, or perhaps not at all. Perhaps they seemed irrelevant at the same time, but now or in the future they will become useful. Maybe you have no idea what I'm talking about, but this happens to me all the time. I marvel at my encounters and links with these strange things, places, poems that make me euphoric or contemplative, or with people who seem to come from an entirely different world from the one that I have comfortably nested myself into. For example, on Friday I sat next to an army runaway on the bus, sent to jail for a hit and run and expelled from high school for trying to murder somebody. A year and a half ago I sat next to an old couple at a restaurant that gave me what seemed to be random advice at the time, but which happens to be extremely pertinent to me now. A year ago I was randomly sent to London for my first semester abroad and unknowingly changed the course of both my academic and personal pursuits.

Where do these instants fit in with blocked, success-metered time? Do you even notice them? Do you consider them significant? What is significant? What should be?

All questions that I'm too tired to continue thinking about right now.

Sorry, I guess there is no destination tonight. Or perhaps a question is a better ending to something like this than some clearly insufficient answer.

Restless Ramblings

Every few days I am overcome with bursts of intermittent restlessness. This restlessness is usually just mental, but every so often it manifests itself physically. I try to think of the physical uneasiness as a positive thing, for it usually inspires me to go to the gym, but the mental disquietude has really been getting to me.

The physical restlessness probably stems from my desire to travel and to see new things. In my old room at Skidmore I had a map of the world up on my wall, with pins marking off the many countries I want to visit before I die. I miss looking up at it and feeling invigorated by it. Unfortunately the walls at Rutgers aren't very pin-friendly, so when I am struck by the need for travel I just imagine things. At the moment I am thinking of Von Humboldt's journal about the nocturnal life of animals in the primeval forests of South America. He so vividly described the transition from the certainty that daylight in the jungle affords to the fear of night in the wild, marked by unidentifiable animal noises and blackness, where the human is no longer the predator or the spy. I imagine what that would feel like, to spend an entire 24 hours or more in a jungle like that (preferably with someone else), and how radically different that would feel from the safe dullness by which I am currently engrossed here in the comfort of my desk chair.

My mental uneasiness is probably due to the fact that I've been thinking a lot about my future. I love that I don't know what it promises me. At the same time I feel the need for my life to be meaningful in the sense of its being edifying and fulfilling. I think of all the things I'd like to do while I am still relatively young: world travel, Peace Corps, some sort of PhD, published ethnographic writing, sky diving, learn a few more languages, how to paint....

And then I am reminded of the things I need to do. I need to be able to take care of my parents as they grow old, to provide for my mom. How can I do that with the meager salary that any of my prospective jobs would provide me and still hope to accomplish all of those individualistic things? Am I being self-centered?

Today I read an interesting article called "Pricing the Priceless Child" about the nature of childhood in the United States over the past fifty years. The author wrote about how previously children were much more productive and useful in contributing to their family's well-being, whereas now children are raised to be much more individualistic and are not expected to contribute much or anything at all; instead parents are now selflessly spending tremendous amounts of money on their children's education, cultural enrichment, and living expenses without much economic return. I myself am a product of this kind of upbringing. I worked a number of odd jobs growing up, but the money that I earned was always dispensed into my checking account; I never contributed much to my family's financial well-being. The article made me think about how disturbing this emphasis on individualization could be if it leads to familial neglect. I don't want to neglect my parents [even if they do drive me crazy] and I don't want to neglect my dreams.

I wonder how I'll manage. I wonder if it's going to be as hard as it now seems it would be.


P.S.

James, I am sorry for stealing your pen.


NOT!

Just kidding, I really am.