all is optional

Go to a quote generating website. Find things said by old, white men that hold true to your beliefs, values, habits, etc. Here are some examples:

• You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus. - Mark Twain
• If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh; otherwise, they will kill you. - Oscar Wilde
• Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something. - Henry David Thoreau
• Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted. - John Lennon
• Affection is responsible for nine-tenths of whatever solid and durable happiness there is in our lives. - C.S. Lewis

When that’s over, leave it the fates of your music player by selecting the shuffle option and hitting next for each question asked. Something along the lines of this:

Opening Credits: Happiness is a Warm Gun by The Beatles
Waking Up: Woman is the Nigger of the World
Falling in Love: Red, Red, Red by Fiona Apple
Fight Song: Funky Monks by Red Hot Chili Peppers
Breaking Up: Bottle of Blues by Beck
Making Up: Busted Stuff by Dave Matthews Band
Life is Okay: Heavenly by The Dandy Wahols
Mental Breakdown: Fond Farewell by Elliot Smith
Driving: Rose by A Perfect Circle
Flashbacks: There’s No Home for You Here by The White Stripes
Regrets: Clarity by John Mayer
Final Battle: Undertow by Tool
Death Scene: Mother Nature’s Son by The Beatles

Once you’ve told everyone what to do. Ask them how they would do it.

Talk to her about kool aid and acid while she is cooking tots.

I’ve been craving an Apple Powerbook for well over a year now. This summer, five orientations and many very boring days at DoIT later, I plunked down the $2000 to make it all real. Zephyr, my 12 inch powerbook, should arrive in my mailbox by Wednesday, 24 August 2005. I’m fuckin’ stoked!

p.s. the iPod mini blue is a birthday present for my brother, Ham, and it’s actually completely free. I just have to fill out some rebate paper work and $50 off the Office package, too. So, it’s $250 less than the total shown here.

Bolton appointed US envoy to UN

US President George W Bush has formally appointed John Bolton as US ambassador to the United Nations, without waiting for approval from the Senate.

Mr Bush said Democrats had forced him to bypass Congress by using “shameful delaying tactics” to prevent a vote.

“This post is too important to leave vacant any longer, especially during a war and a vital debate about UN reform,” Mr Bush said.

In layman’s terms, our president elect just appointed a man, who hates the very idea of the United Nations, as the country’s spokesperson to an international body dedicated to bettering foreign relations, being the watchdog for human rights violations, and furthering economic development in our war-torn world.

Defined here
democracy: a political system in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who can elect people to represent them
a form of government whose head of state is not a monarch; “the head of state in a republic is usually a president”
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

A republic, in its basic sense, is a state in which sovereignty derives ultimately from the people (however defined), rather than from an hereditary principle.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic

Historical Linkage:
Profile: John Bolton
Bolton denied Senate vote again 21 June 2005
US Senate delays vote on Bolton 27 May 2005
Bush pressured to drop UN choice 13 May 2005

It’s 5 p.m. on an ordinary Wednesday and your feet shuffle quickly down Nassau Street. There are freshmen to meet. “Sarah Morris, I’m here,” you yell from down the hall.

“Oh, Neelofer, remember to get some sleep tonight,” she says, shaking her head at you. “Sign here,” she says as she hands you the keys to your room and to the freshmen’s room and money to feed the early arrivals.

You’re giddy with excitement as you take your newly found treasures to the 14th floor of Maria’s Tower, your home for the next two nights. On your way out, you run into more of your fellow orientation leaders and return to Sarah Morris’ office with them each time. There’s something in being together with all of them, all of them wearing those terrible baseball style white and blue shirts that they love to hate and others love to love.

You’ll find them sitting with their sleeping bags and pillows and bags on the corner of One Pace Plaza between the horrendous modern art the University tries to impress upon its students. “Hi, I’m Neelofer,” you’ll say with energy you never knew you had. This orientation gig has really brought out your confident, extrovert side… at least, superficially.

You’ll all lug your belongings into the Tower and agree upon meeting times for food. Perhaps, you’ll buy a pie from Rosella’s to split between all of you or if it’s the last orientation and you’re planning on going out in style, near all twenty something orientation leaders with their four early arrivals will take the metro up to 56th Street for some good ol’ fashioned fun at Hooter’s.

The 14th floor is where the party’s at and they all know it, too. Mattresses are pulled into 1406. We can fit ten people in here. Ten. Nevermind that the fire code prohibits more than six to a room. You’ll talk about all things under the sun but mostly you let them talk about themselves. It’s so heartwarming to see how open and trusting they are. You’ll wonder if you’re deserving enough to know about their lives, their triumps, their losses.

3:00 a.m. blinks red in your face and the group of you considers sleep. 7:00 a.m. comes awfully quick when you’ve had no sleep. You and your partner in crime, well, you’ll be up just a few more hours but the energy within you for the next day will astound even the most energetic human being.

(more…)

Wine and cheese will be your saving grace when you’ve got a bad case of the Mondays. The weather forecast will be akin to for as many days as you can see into the future. All you wanted was another go at the Bryant Park Film Series with 10,000 people, including yourself.

It wasn’t going to happen. So, you made the samosas your mom brought you, burning only a few. Finishing all twenty of them between the three of you within minutes, there were hours to go until bedtime and not a thing to do as rain drip-dropped outside the windows of your prison. Rain is supposed to be cleansing but, in the city, it is always disgusting because it brings the grime from the highest skyscraper to the bottom of your feet.

Another joined the party and four were clearly too much for your room to handle so you went to the 3rd floor lounge and passed out on the couches. You notice a flag at half-mast and launch into a tirade. You’re sick of bullshit politics.

“I’ll pee on the flag,” she said, jumping onto the window ledge.

The editor of your newspaper shows up and questions the four of you about all-nighters. You have a lot to say. They are your favourite part about college but she doesn’t want to listen to you. You are not a boy and she’s lacking input from the male of the species.

Shortly thereafter walks in Mr. President. You had a memo to send him about recycling on campus. He’ll argue with everything you say and you wonder when he went from an advocate of the student body to the administration’s puppet.You’re being unncessarily harsh but hours of bantering follow.
(more…)

The white walls surrounding you reek of the sterile, square space you plan on calling home for the next three months. Because you’ll only be here for a few days at first, quickly claim your territory. Mark it with your collection of books. Nothing makes you feel quite as home as being surrounded by miles upon miles of paper.

Next, make your bed for the first and probably only time of the summer. It’s okay. Beds weren’t created to be made. Position it in such a way that you fall asleep to the bright city lights flickering as the garbage collector hums by in the dark of the night. The last sight you see is the most beautiful building New York City has to offer.

Then, invite over the musical genius for your first guitar lesson for the summer. You’re a bit rusty but he’s nothing except complimentary. Half of “Here Comes the Sun” under your belt, you part ways until the following Wednesday. Better practice.

Last but not least, add some life. It’ll die inside of a week because you’re terrible at dealing with all matters of life but it’s not for a lack of effort… at least not in the plant sense of it. Read up about plants for the future. A sufficient amount of greenery is imperative to living in concrete jungles.

perfection personified on a chilly-autumn, typically New York day with the most lush red-wine and daffodil yellow coloured leaves whispering with the winds…walking down a path that seemed to have been created for our serendipitous moments…pale sunlight silting through the castle and the trees…they weren’t real new yorkers said the nypd officer but what did he know… today, they were the most new york they had ever been.

it’s all fake
but it’s so beautiful
i don’t doubt if for a moment

the playwright and the director. they had been as naive as the world would allow; the bitter, hardened cynic taking a day off. they had changed but they were still the same, as flawless as they had been the first day. a day spent is a day less they had but a brand new world awaited and it’d be just as cosmically wonderous as this one.

and i wish i had lived like that…a bundled up child on a nippy autumn afternoon on a day trip to one of the greatest museums in the world so that i’d grow as an aesthete…thanks in part to my bohemia-inspired parents, to walk through impeccable man-made-nature, to take in the most cultured of worlds.

just to sit and to be…to let the world, in all of its glory, wash over me. but i’m not all that different because i’ve longed for this before i knew of it.

“you’ve got the accent and she’s got the look. you’re perfect together.”

Little Italy served as the backdrop to a colorful painting of love - new and old - that night in June. There was a wedding reception happening as we ambled down the street. First we, like normal pedestrians every where else, walked on the crowded sidewalks, some times single file, some times as a cohesive entity. It was loud and bright but it didn’t bother me. It made me feel alive. Every person, every trinket, every natural object gave off an aura of happiness - absolute delight that it existed, in this moment, in this wonderful city.

We walked aimlessly from one side of the street to the other, stopping randomly to point out something or the other to one of our fellows. We stopped for ices and gelatto. He hoisted me on to his shoulders so I could see the bride and groom taking pictures, surrounded by loving, doting family members who embodied everything Italian.

And somewhere along the way, our friends disappeared. They were off further down the street, I suppose. The music was still as loud as ever and the lights just as bright. We stood in the middle of the street and it felt as if we were the only two people left on Earth. You could see the stars in the Manhattan sky that night, I remember, only because he had pointed them out to me. He stood directly in front of me, told me his heart was racing, asked me to listen and so I obliged. It was racing. I looked up at him and smiled. He asked if his hanging around me all day had bothered me. He would bugger off if I asked. A bit taken back, I defensively replied, “No way, you aren’t bothering me at all.” He smiled back at me. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced - or seemed to face - the whole eternal world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just so far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey.¹

Looking back upon the still frame photograph of that night in my mind, I see myself - an insecurely secure girl, wearing khakis and a black shirt, lovely dark brown caressing her face as a slight wind breezes past her on a humid summer night, looking up at a boy, a boy who told her that she made his heart race - and in that moment, I swear we were infinite. ²

1. F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
2. Stephen Chobsky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

People always say actions speak louder than words but what exactly do you preceive words to be? After all, speaking is an action and speech is formed by words. If not then, what about the written word? Writing is an action; speech is an action thus words are actions. How about them apples?

You know you go through this phase in life when you’re desperately searching for yourself, trying to find who you want to be, who everyone else wants you to be. Quinlan said, “The saddest thing in life is not knowing who the person you were meant to be is.” Now, is this true or is it just recycled garbage, written in teacher’s manuals that they are told to spout off to us to give us some sense of inspiration so we may find ourselves and think back and say, “Wow, that teacher made a difference. That teacher helped me find who I am today.” Everyone wants to be the smart one, the pretty one, the funny one, the skinny one, the one that everyone always remembers. Which one are you? Are you the one that I will look back upon years from now and say yeah, that one was the smart one, the pretty one, the funny one, the skinny one, the one I will always remember?

I remember in my high school yearbook, one of the categories for “Class Favorites” was “Most Memorable Boy/Girl,” the girl who won had some form of Tourettes (no joke). People said they would remember her because of her outbursts in their math class or during the ACT even though she was all the way at the end of the building on a completely different floor. Will I remember her when I look back upon high school twenty years from now? It’s possible but probably not. Who knows what I will remember? I will probably be some senile fool at the age of 40. A bunch of people told me that they put me down for that category because I was “The Asian” and everyone loves asians, right? Well, except for the right wingers who want to throw all of us out of the country because apparently we’re all terrorists but that’s a different spiel for a different hour. Was I disappointed when I was sitting in the back of the yearbook room, counting votes, when I found out that some kid with Tourettes is more memorable than me? Probably just a little bit but why does it matter? Why does it matter if PBHS’ graduating class of 2003 finds her more memorable than me? Am I going to remember all of them? Am I going to remember any of them? I’m sure the ones that I will remember will remember me just the same and if they don’t, why should it be any skin off my back?

Why do we let other people dictate our lives? Why are other people’s expectations the yard stick we measure our self worth by? Everyone wants to be the smart one, the pretty one, the funny one, the skinny one, the one who everyone always remembers. You want to be the smart one, the pretty one, the funny one, the skinny one, the one who everyone will always remember. I’ll admit, I want to be the smart one, the pretty one, the funny one, the skinny one, the one who everyone will always remember. We live by the expectations of others to convince ourselves that we do exist, that our lives are not insignificant muddled moments. We live by others so we know that some how some where we do matter to some one.

You know it’s pretty rough finding out that you are just another expendable item in someone’s pantry. Say you knew someone who just loved Teddy Grahams, the chocolate kind and you were Teddy Grahams, except you were the chocolate chip kind and this someone liked you for a while because you were new and different but still had the original good stuff - chocolate - in you. One day this someone forgot you existed. And over the time when this someone was eating your brother, sister, auntie, and uncle out of the Teddy Graham box, you grew close to this person, began to care deeply for this person (because they had a great eating technique or something…whatever) and then the person just threw you into the back of the pantry one day, never to open the box again. You sat there, wondering, waiting, wishing to see daylight again. The time never came. You grew stale. You grew moldy. You died. And when you died, a part of me died because I am just like you. There was a time when I was the whole world and still more to someone but now that person doesn’t even remember my name. I wonder, would you like me better if there were a new improved version of me? I wonder, do I care enough to provide that? I wonder, when did I forget that I matter? I wonder why I have convinced myself that I can only be me if you can love that me. I wonder why I put you on that pedastal. You must be someone awful special to matter that much. If you are that special then why do memories of you leave a bittersweet taste in my mouth?

You only like me because I make you laugh. You only like me because you think I’m pretty. You only like me because you think you can hold an intelligent conversation with me. If these were the things I wanted to be liked for, why do I feel so unsatisfied? Am I an ungrateful self absorbed brat? No, I don’t think so. I feel unsatisfied because all of the above are expendable. I want you to like me for who I am, even if neither one of us know exactly what that is. I want to matter when I’m not funny, when I’m not pretty, when I’m not smart.

It hurts the most when you find yourself within inches of finding what you want most, knowing that when you reach out to grasp it, it will vanish right before your eyes and the earth shattering, heart breaking reassurance that you are all alone will hit you like a blow to the face.

original livejournal.com post