500mph

numbers cannot fix this

Peace out

Hello children. I hope you're all enjoying the holidays and staying warm in the midst of this freaking cold. No posts as I took off for a few days and now I'm back, faced with the ever sharpening picture that is supposed to be my reality. No worries, everything seems better when it's set to a worthy soundtrack. Will post when a thought makes its way through the void.

I'm reeling at the collective tragedy that has hit much of South Asia. In a matter of hours so many thousands of lives have ended and millions' more have been indelibly altered. Praying for a sense of calm in all this destruction, puts my own senseless crap in perspective. God bless.

Loose ends

I never really thought I'd miss university, but my weekend in Boston has reminded how much I miss my friends. I don't miss being at school, actually I'm quite happy to be done but the time I spent with friends has made me so nostalgic for times gone by. Many of them are still lulling around there working and pissing around without the nonsense of college overshadowing 5am 'nights'. The last lot are graduating this year, and will be going back to their random corners of the world and who knows when I'll see them again. I wouldn't miss this as much if I was with the ape, but living at home is crap. Need to get a move on.

Sometime soon, I'll tell you all about how my friends, a group of prime suspects, were pulled over in Maine by Homeland Security on their way home from a camping trip. It doesn't get more colorful than that.

Mira, my partner in crime on our DC trip, gave me a pot of this stuff and I haven't been able to stop touching my skin since I used it. Defeating the purpose, but it feels amazing. At $110 an ounce, I don't think I can afford this addiction.

After all my moaning, I had to take this home for fear of this wreaking havoc and causing this to cancel. It was absolutely lovely, no security and probably took less time door to door than if I had flown. Who would have guessed?

I also saw Ocean's Twelve last week. I didn't think it was as bad as everyone is saying, but it is easy to lose track of what's going on. Needless to say, I was more surprised than most at the ending. The song you must hear is The A La Menthe by Nikkfurie.

straight lines

I've been decidedly brain-dead these past few weeks. I was a bit stressed about my exams, and the last one passed today without much flourish. I'm relieved, but mostly just exhausted. Still trying to make sense of my decision to take this position, as the more I learn, the more I am realizing that I need to get out of it as soon as I can. On to something more interesting, engaging. I'm naive yes, but I have no intention of overcoming that. There is something better, and I will bitch and moan until I get there. I don't care, don't give me shit about being grateful. I'm better than this, and sick of nodding and smiling to placate the excuse-makers. I think I'd love to join the Foreign Service. I've already passed the exam, but never went through the interview process because, well, I'm not prepared to start defending the bullshit this administration is pushing. I've worked in an Embassy, and I was intoxicated by the environment. There are some seriously smart people around there, the kind who find themselves shaking their heads at the irony of the context of their position and the reality of the situation. I don't think I'm prepared to do what I really want yet. I mean I'm not mature enough, I still think that right and wrong exist. Again, I'm not interested in changing. I tend to find clear-cut and irrefutable conclusions, and am hypocrtical and contradict myself all the time. I don't really know what to say about that, it's just me.

Sometimes, I get this eerie feeling that this isn't real. Usually this comes after a sleep and it takes awhile to remember where I am, to make sense of my surroundings, of who I am. When I figure it out, I get so sad and promise myself that this isn't it. Sometimes I get this feeling completely randomly, I'll be walking down the street and have to stop my thoughts and think.. what's the point, this isn't real. It just isn't. How can it be? I mean the majority fo everything we care about, that we think is important is all constructed by us, for us. Think about all the things that we do because we are supposed to them, and if etiquette or some arbitrarily derived sense of responsibility didn't drive us, we wouldn't do it. Like giving gifts on someone's birthday. I was worried about exams that really have no value or weight in the real scheme of things. Reality is the jungle. The real, living, breathing one, not the concrete, paved, sterile life we've built up here. The one where thing's aren't 'fair'. I'm thinking this is a fairly generic feeling. Ugh, I sound like a smelly hippie. That's not it, I swear.

My paternal grandfather completed a PhD in Agriculture here in the States and went back to the motherland to work on development. My memories are a bit blurry, but suffice it to say he was a high-ranking government official and travelled all over the world researching various plants and crops that would be viable back home. He would always experiment with weird plants in his house, from varieties of cotton to Malaysian palms to whatever else is out there. He and I always planted a mini-field of sunflowers when I was fortunate enough to visit. One summer, I may have been 8 or 9. Or 12. I don't know. Two of my other cousins and I were permitted to accompany him to a rainforest in Bangladesh where he was collecting samples and things. We lived in a house on stilts for a week, accessible by a ladder that had to be pulled up at night to prevent unwanted visitors stopping by. I don't remember being scared when I heard the howls, screeches and whatever other noises imaginable at night. I remember trying to figure out what everyone was talking about, what was happening. I remember being so excited when the thought dawned on me: it was life. This was where the real shit happened. You died if you made a mistake, you lived another day if you were fortunate to have the right combination of skill were under the graces of luck. That was all there was. There were fires lit around the base of our hut to dissuade any of the more ambitious creatures wishing to make our acquaintance. There was also a tribe living nearby, not fond of outsiders but, not surprisingly, welcomed my grandfather. They lived. They faced the most crucial decisions each and every day, the ones that really mattered. I don't know what it was about this that stirred me, and I think that my resentment now goes back to this. The shit I care about now doesn't really matter. I hate myself for it, for considering things that are irrelevant in the long run. For honoring the constructions, the molded plastic.

I am not sure what I'm talking about, but I figure I might as well talk and eventually something will make its way through to let me move forward.

Swindle

I have managed to destroy not one but two power source things during the two point five years this laptop has graced my life. In both instances, the rubber coating cracked and the underlying wires were exposed and ruined at the point of connection to my computer. Thus the adaptor has forsaken its duty of charging the battery. The first was the result of mishandling on my part. I had this nasty habit of pulling on the cord to bring it within reach, like pulling a stubborn Staffie on a lead. Charming, I know. I learned my lesson when I had to drop 80 dollars for a second one. However careful I was this time, it has succumbed to the same fate. Not counting this one time my sister tripped on the cord (which was neatly tucked under the desk, mind) and completed a gold medal-deserving face plant into the plush carpeting. She is talented on many fronts, it runs in the family. The computer's potentially tragic fall was broken by the cushion of the seat, thankfully. Because the warranty on this power source has just expired last month (and I have long since thrown the receipt), I have decided to swindle Apple and have it replaced under my brother's warranty. This is my confession.

Good Question

In Kuwait, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld takes questions from U.S. soldiers bound for Iraq. Spc. Thomas Wilson of the Tennessee Army National Guard asked the secretary why soldiers have to scrounge around in scrap piles to find material to armor their vehicles.

Listen to the short NPR clip here.

I don't know what's more worrisome - the poignant question or the shameless, insolent, arrogant and irrelevant response. Rotten bastards. And they have the nerve to talk about supporting our troops.

Iraq Uncensored

For months on end, these seven independent photographers and filmmakers have worked exclusively in Iraq documenting US troops and Iraqi civilians, resistance fighters and child laborers, imprisoned women and incarcerated youths. Using varied media and narrative styles ranging from photojournalism to first person narratives, cinema verite and found photography, Iraq Uncensored photographers present insights and subtleties beyond what daily news reporting can provide.

Together they will present rare windows on Iraq, the land that cradled what we now call civilization.

LINK

Found on Anselpixel's ever-resourceful site.

procrastination works

Allright, so I was going to fail my exam today with about 95% certainty. It is the easiest of all my exams but doesn't matter how straightforward the questions are if I straightforward-ly don't know my shit. I pissed around all weekend and these past two days (during which I'm paid to prepare). Had my requisite cram session last night, peppered with a bit of blogging of course. Slept a few fitful hours, not because I was studying but because I was thinking about the wonders of the world. This morning I complete another hour of stuffing information into my apple-shaped head, and have a shower. Notice my mobile ringing, look at the NYC area code and think, 'What a bastard for calling me before my exam. Doesn't he know better than to call me now?' Rings again from the same number, I ignore it. Third time, I'm feeling a bit bitchy. Okay time to relieve some tension. Instead of being greeted with the cheeky response of a friend who doesn't write me off even though I'm quite probably the worst mate ever, I hear a sugar-coated voice on the other end telling me that the proctor is ill, they don't have a replacement and the test centre will not be opening today, I will have to reschedule.

I'm going shopping.

Befuddled

Am I the only one in the world who doesn't know what 'emo' means? I suspect it has something to do with 'indie', which with my astute powers of deduction I have determined to be short for 'independent' and often used to describe music. I am also suspicious that 'emo' is short for 'emotional'. From here, I'm not sure where to take the fork in the road.

Another prime example of my version of deep thoughts as an attempt to abate the panic of failing an exam. What does such a reaction mean? Does it mean I try to avoid discomfort? But then who is the idiot who wants to run into a wall of fire? Aside from a hero, I guess. So does that mean I'm a coward? Or maybe I need to do this to 'dumb' my brain down to take something on merits, as a problem to solve rather than approaching it as the ominous giant it has become?

On an unrelated note, the spinning instructor had a classic rock cd on today. The last working song, usually the most difficult, ended with a 4 minute jam session by The Grateful Dead. I generally hate jam sessions unless I'm at a fabulous show at a fabulous venue. What kind of torturous human being plays a session with no predictable ending at the end of a spinning class?

GDBO

Varsity match tomorrow.

EDIT
Okay so the Dark Side was class, and are justly victorious by all accounts. Pfft.
Ape's dearest friend was knocked out in the 23rd minute, woke up during halftime to get up and warm up to get back on the pitch. South African beast. I wish I was there.

Tiananman Square

That, my friends, is not only poor printing but also a whole lot of haze and humidity. I feel hot just looking at the photos from that day. No, not that kind of hot. Chairman Mao's well-preserved body is on display here in a glass coffin, for the viewing pleasure of a neverending line. I couldn't stop picturing tanks rolling in when I was walking around here.

Temple

This is the same temple I mentioned below, located in Wuhan. It is the only photo that I edited with Photoshop - I took out a strategically placed rubbish bin and two people who jumped into the frame. My first adventure with Photoshop, are the editions obvious? Is it bad I enjoyed erasing people? For the record, I hate being a tourist and particularly try to avoid taking photos in sacred places. At this particular location, they marketed themselves for tourisits including selling the same shoes the monks wore at the gift shop, as well as film. That and the architecture was too beautiful to pass up. I left the interiors in peace.

Fortuneteller

He charged a small fee to let me take his photo. I couldn't resist.

Documenting my fortune: I will have good luck.

Perspective

These fellows were keeping watch over a Buddhist temple in Wuhan.

Just a glimpse of thoughtful detail found throughout the Forbidden City.

Daylight

I don't have anything more interesting to report than the fact that I bought new trainers. They are great, thanks for asking.

I think of things I'd like to blog during my day but my brain is blank when I come here to explore them. Hopefully, as I get adjusted to this working nonsense, I will soon have enough stamina to command thought during the entire day rather than in fits and spurts as is the case now.