"You must be willing to accomodate changing times, but cling to unchanging principles." --Jimmy Carter

"Turning 20 is a time to turn and reflect on your childhood and look forward to your adulthood."

"I've already reflected upon my teenage years and now I'm a mature human being."

--Hanson Wong

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HANNY!!! One of my bestest friends, Hanson, turns the big two-oh today. And he's already a wise philosopher. Wow. hehe

And now, like every year, my birthday is next, in exactly three days to be exact. Then Danny's birthday will be fourteen days after mine. It's crazy that the three of us all have our birthdays within twenty days of each other. Although D is turning the big two-one this year heeeaaaaay gettin' busy now gettin' busy now. take it to tha flo' take it to the flo' now scrub the ground scrub the ground. hehehe

I want to be a homebody. People, and crowds, intimidate me sometimes. I like plodding around. Not that I'm boring.... anyway.....

So I have mad crazy work to do that I'm stupidly procrastinating right now. Bad me. Bad. I can't wait till this weekend! GO TECH! :)

Goodnight world. and Happy Birthday Hanny!

FUCK!

(Please excuse the language, Ladies)

Since when did common curtesy, common sense, and common ______ (I've run out of commons! Alas! Fetch me a thesarus!) give way in society to rudeness, idiocity, ignorance, and the ability to rationalize yourself as always be right (even when you're actually a huge meanie and grossly incorrect). What gives anyone the right to be such a complete BITCH?! (I regret the use of the word, but there really isn't any other adequate noun that can be used to describe this one particular person).

Let me just use a quote from said person's webjournal as an example of her cruelty, ignorance, and ability to twist situations around so that she becomes the victim (when in actuality, she's the instigator and shows a complete lack of want or ability to see the other side of things than her own position. this all equals one bad apple in the sack of red delicious): "Oh, and another thing that pissed me off yesterday (and every Friday): the Technique is the most worthless piece of shit I've ever had the displeasure to read. Get a fucking clue, I'd be ashamed to have my name associated with any such uninformed, unreadable trash." or "1. we're never all here to communicate, and that is the sappiest shit I've ever heard. fuck communication. Besides, what the fuck is a sign if it isn't FUCKING communication. Seriously, anyone that takes the meaning of a sign asking you to clean up after yourself (nicely) as a "lack of communication" should be shot, because that is pathetic. The world is being fucking overrun by psychologists and touchy-feely fucking pussies. I don't give a shit about this fad of over-emphasis about "communication" that is bullshit and I want nothing to do with it.

2. My stuff, while maybe an annoyance, has been in a pile, off to the side, never dominating the entire fucking counter AND both end tables AND stove AND filling the fucking sink with stuff that, oh, begins to smell after it's been a few days. AND, it's never been tacitly expected that someone would clean up after me if I left it out there long enough b/c it's NOT A FUCKING MESS OF GARBAGE. But, it's not out there anymore. And, I don't expect that it will be. I do not think that those are comparable at all."

All of that? Complete lies. And I have tried to look at the situation from her side as well, so as to prevent myself from being a hypocrit, and while I once thought that she was just mistaken and unjustly upset and just needed to talk about it with the room (bc maybe her expectations are different from the rest of us), now I think she's just a pompous bastard who is self-centered and stupid. Especially since (as anyone who's ever been in this great room of ours) our room is always so clean. Especially since three of us are the only ones who have vaccuumed and swiffered the main room this year (and on a regular basis, no less).

Oye!! But it (and this person) is not worth getting the blood pressure up - instead, in my mind I know that I will go on to be a successful person in my life, fulfilled emotionally, spiritually, mentally, while you are going to be stuck withyourself, the self-pitying personality you've created for yourself, and many walls of distrust, frustration, sadness, and resentment up between yourself and the rest of the real world. So instead of anger, I feel sorry for you - sorry that you can't move on past your own self-pity to see beyond yourself and recognize that there's a world out there that doesn't circle around you and doesn't care about you, and won't ever unless you give it good reason to.

I must make one more comment on this, though, before I move on. And this comment is in reference to the Nique comment. The emotions I felt (overwhelming sorrow, like I was about to cry; as if my baby had been kicked on the playground) made me feel slightly dorky for feeling such ownership of and taking such pride in this piece of work that comes out weekly, but at the same time, I wanted to go punch your lights out for being so...ugghhhh! I don't even know what word to insert here - for being so ignorant? quick with words but not with the thought necessary behind them before they should be said? for being stupid and just complaining without really giving any reason for the complaints (why are you so opposed to said paper? is it not nearly as important to campus as your precious RHA? Um, yea...we could have words on that). AAAHHHHHH I am feeling fiercly protective of my little newprint...

In other news, last week was one of the best I've had - I got to see Jimmy Carter speak at the annual Emory Town Hall meeting (from a seat in the front row, nonetheless! he's my hero...incredible); I saw Better Than Ezra from the very very front row (as in, my boobs rested on the railing separating me from the lead singer...an oh how that lead singer looked...ahhh....especially as he stared into my eyes....*sigh*); thursday was, well, good stuff as well, and friday was death by disco murder mystery theater, which was pretty cool. and this weekend - got to go shopping. man it felt good. :)

that's all i can do for now. this girl's got to go reacquaint herself with her pillow. See you cats later.

man oh man there are things that i want that i can't have. sometimes, morals just really get in the way of living.

why is creative expression so fleeting? it makes me feel helpless.

i look at other people expressing themselves through dance, and i want to do that. i see a pretty painting and i want to be a talented artist. i see someone running super fast and i want to be able to do that. i want to play an instrument. why can't i do anything cool?

this is a "life's not fair" moment. rarr.

Save the Last Dance, the second DVD to be added to my collection of four, is on the WB tonight and with the first strands of K-Ci and Jo-Jo's song "Tell me it's real" (I think), I was immediately pulled back into my junior year of high school and my gigantic crush on J.E. (ehem, I think you all know who I'm referring to), the finest and most intelligent black man I have ever met (and I've met many black men in my day). I distinctly remember this one specific moment; it's one of those moments that I am frequently reminded of whenever I have the startling realization of the beauty that surrounds me. Jason and I were sitting on the bench between second and third hall -- the wooden bench beneath the huuuuge banyon tree, whose branches and shade stretched for miles -- and he was helping me with my AP Chemistry homework (which, I must finally admit, I didn't need as much help with as I proclaimed I did. Isn't that awful? That I abused his intense intelligence as an excuse to hang out with him? How immature, yet strikingly brilliant of me!). We would drift off topic (but why oh why did the topic never quite drift to prom...and him asking me to be his date...why did Ivan have to be the one who asked me?? Oye.), one of us would say something funny, he would laugh that great laugh of his (it was deep, true, from his belly) and his delicious brown eyes would crinkle in that cute kind of way, and he'd lightly throw his head back, so the sunlight streaking through the banyon leaves would dapple his face gently. Oh how I loved those study sessions...leaning in close over the book...arms lightly brushing...So that moment that occurred once while studying with him that has left such an impression in my mind and heart is this feeling. It was a feeling I had never felt before. It was this feeling of everything becoming sharper. Of life being in focus. Like I was being treated with a glimpse of the future in that millisecond of look at the tree. In looking at that tree, I felt like I saw every single vain on its leaves, like every edge of every leaf was in perfect contrast to the perfect blue of the sky. In that instance, I felt composure, peace, excitment, hope, optimism, a feeling that I lived in a world where Jason could like me too, that I could lean in for a smooch like in the movies and he would look deep into my eyes and proclaim how beautiful he thought I was. A feeling of clarity. Serene clarity. Maybe that was the first time in my life I felt like I could love someone. No, I didn't love JE; that would be a little silly. It was the feeling of optimism that I could love someone, and even better, that they would be able (and want to) love me in return. A feeling that the world was amazing, beautiful, gorgeous, how lucky I was to be in it, how amazing nature was for having such awe-inspiring colors, shapes, lines. I've always felt a special allegiance to nature, the earth, with special and empowering, body controlling emotions that can only be triggered by a perfectly white moon, a dazzling display of the ocean's power on a shore line, the gentle sound of trees rustling outside my grandparent's old house, watching a slug crawl purposefully across the human jungle we've emprisoned it by...and it's incredible. I love feeling overtaken by the lapping of the waves on a hull, being mesmerized by a cloud meandering across the orange-streaked sky. Wow. I feel overtaken even now, just thinking about how great the world we live in is, how much it offers while we stamp on it, disregard it, and trash it. Another scene imprinted in my mind: a view while walking from the student center to SAC in which the sun was setting, and the row of trees along the walk next to the IC was perfectly framed and the yellow light fell perfectly through the leafless branches. Words cannot describe such incredulity that passes by the eyes.

Whew, got a little carried away there guys. Lo siento. I haven't felt that feeling very often in my life, more than usually, it's a feeling spurred by a sudden remembrance of the way the branches looked, the feeling of unknowing in sitting next to JE, seeing the sun looking particularly glorious.

Other times I felt that sudden feeling? (I feel like crying) Studying abroad - with Nich in Switzerland, besides the intense beauty of the literally snow-capped mountains, feeling like life was mine for the taking, I could do anything, the world was at peace in my heart. I was at peace with myself. I..I...I don't know. In Brussels, riding the metro by myself on the way to a meeting point - realing I was a real person. A full, complete human being with my own mind and feelings and control over my body. Looking around the car at the other passengers, that self-aware feeling of, I am I. I am ME. No one else here knows ME. Me. me. I'm me. I carried everything in my past, looked forward to the future knowing it was fully MINE, and possessed everything in my present. Or when I was in my room in my host family's house, feeling desolate, alone, and scared of being all of me because it meant I was no longer my parent's, and got a letter from Jody. Pouring over that letter, with my tears staining all of his thoughtfully written words; bawling because I knew then that there was someone thousands of miles away who loved me because they wanted to, and loved me enough they wanted me to know and feel special. Saying "I love you." Finally seeing my dad. Holding my grandfather's hand for the last time, with Jeopardy (his favorite show) on in the background. Times that made me feel like the world was a horrible place I wanted to take myself out of? Seeing my dad Thanksgiving freshman year (the worst "feast" in my life. ever.). Getting the call that my grandma died, after I had made the decision to not leave school to go see her one last time because I had a test. or something equally nonmeaningful in the grand scheme of things. Fall, sophomore year when I hated myself and the sprout. My parents not being at the Vagina Monologues because of my dad. Sometimes, I think about how unfair the world is and how unfairly it works. Yet I am I and me fully wholey completely. Moving on.

So Anyway (after that insanely long aside), Save the Last Dance really gets to me (my heart aches), because it's so analagous to my JE experience (in the movie, he taught her to dance, J taught me chemistry...get it?). Except mine didn't have the cool ending with him kissing me and me getting into Juliard. Instead, he went to Harvard and I got a good grade on my AP Chem exam. Oh life....why do you treat me so? Why did it take a school of "ugly" girls for me to get some action?

Song recommendation: Keith Sweat, "Twisted" (it's playing on my TDK Digital MixMaster right now. woot woot)

I miss my friends. I miss home. I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving. I miss my family. I miss my grandpa. I miss carefree-ness. I miss my blade of grass in the FIU parking lot. I miss my grandma. I miss myself.

And, I didn't write this post in the order it appears.

I have to go hug Oscar now and blow my nose.

why is it that when I write down lyrics (usually for AIM profiles...::insert dork joke here::) they never seem provoking or thoughtful, but when I read the exact same song on someone else's medium, it seems deep. meaningful. hrmm.

dear mr. calvi: liars never prosper. people who are in the possession of html books (wait, does that mean the html book owns the person?) have happiness and joy. so there. :)

dear world: today was excellent. my first trip to a SuperWal*Mart ever. Ever! It was so awesome. Playing homemaker to myself was awesome too - I made the best spaghetti with meat sauce (with fresh garlic and green pepper, no less) and garlic bread today, and cut up some fresh strawberries and prepared my lunch for tomorrow. I cleaned the toilet and sink. Sadly, no homework was done for this week, which includes a total of 4 homework assignments due, 2 tests, and the start of my research with an EAS prof (which, btw, I'm super stoked about. wahooooooo). Plus, I have the best boyfriend in the world. Ok, so I don't think I have the breadth (that doesn't seem like the right word. hrm) to speak of best in the world, so we'll just go with super great. I will stress tomorrow, but that's ok. For right this second all is good, and all I want to think about is right this second. With all this coolness arriving in one day, you might ask, how can something top the list. Well, the best part of the day was getting to talk to one of my bestest friends in the whole wide world for like an hour on the phone - Mr. Daniel de los Santos. He rocks my socks off. Plus, there was much excitement and roommate bonding in the two-oh-seven tonight AND I got to talk to my Egan, which was also much excellence. I love my roommates. I love D. I love E. I love life, this second. I love this second. I love love. ::love::

"leave me with no handle to climb back down ill just wait for a landslide made up my mind to make me whole again take up your time when im alone. dont want to be be so anxious dont want to stand in line...." heard on my TDK Digital Mixmaster this lovely second.

oh, and my fingers smell like garlic. that's when you know life [this second] is good. way good.

Goodnight world!

Well well well. Where do I begin on this journey of explaining those emotions that run together in my mind and cause me to do the things I do to the very person who once knew me perhaps better than I did; to the one person who believed in who I was when all I wanted was to be exactly the opposite of that?

It's been a long time. And I don't know that my meager abilities with the turn of phrase will be able to tell you what I want to; need to. But you deserve me to try. And I deserve that you read this with an open mind and open heart. (hehe, I always thought it'd be cool to have the noteriety of being mentioned in someone else's weblog, but not for this reason. pangs.)

A letter to one of my best friends in the entire world:

Dear Andymay, (if I may still call you by my favorite nickname)

The most important thing for you to remember and know, is that I love you. I always have and always will, even when I'm being the shitiest a shity friend can be. (Hey Egan [if I may also still call you by my favorite nickname], if you are reading this, please know that the same goes for you. Even though we haven't been close in years and years, you're always in my heart and mind, and I'm always wishing there was some way for me to snap my fingers and make all your pain go away. But alas, I guess that magic finger snap would really just be being a good friend).

I never purposefully distanced our best-friend-ship. I constantly think about you and wonder how you're doing and wish things could be like they were in high school. But they aren't. I'm going to be brutally honest, here, Mandy, and it's probably going to hurt your feelings but I know I have already anyway, so I might as well put it all out there, right? We're completely different people now than we were in high school. (you're thinking, "duh," I know, I know) I feel like our lives are in completely different places right now. I feel like you are at a point in which you are still flirting with so many ideas of what you want to do with your life, which I guess people do their entire lives, but you don't seem to be doing anything to try to get there. You seem to constantly be getting stuck in ruts. You seem to be afraid to leap out on a limb, risk everything for what you want. You've forever talked about going to school in Pennsylvania. But all you think about is money. And granted, it's hard to do things in life without money, but you're young - you don't have money now, and unless you get an education, you're going to continue working menial jobs that won't bring you enough money to get out of your current situation, so why not fuck it all, go to school full time and finish, go into debt, and get a higher paying job that will allow you to change your station in life. You put everyone else's needs ahead of your own, without demanding what you need or even want. I like Erich alot as a person, Mandy, but I don't like what being with him does to you -- and it's not his fault. It's your own mentality. It's your own fear of losing him that makes you pander to him, follow him around like a lost puppy dog, and go crawling back to him [i think] because you are too afraid of what your life will be like without him, since he's the one constant you seem to have in your life. You are constantly angry/frustrated with your parents and don't want to be there. But I think that you could learn alot from your parents. Like, what not to do. Sure, it all has worked out for them and that's awesome, and I love Donna and Richard as much as if they were my own parents, but I think that they would probably wish a different start to life for you - they seem to have worked so hard their whole lives to give you and myles all they could, and now you're not going anywhere! It's true, I am disappointed in you. But that doesn't mean that I don't want to be your friend or help you or anything. But it's so hard for me to be cheery around you when I see you six months after the last time I saw you and I see youre in the same place, mentally, emotionally...I feel like I can't talk to you anymore, like you wouldn't care about the stuff I have to say because it's all about school. And I feel almost guilty for talking about it sometimes too, because I don't want to make you feel bad or left out or regretful. But school is my life right now - when you're at a full time college, that is life. And I don't want to bore you with that when i know you have bills to pay and your boyfriend to pour your entire life into. After reading this, you're probably going to say that I just don't understand, that I'm ignorant to how hard your life is. But Mandy, it's what you make of it. Maybe society dealt you a harder hand to play, but that doesn't mean it's an automatic loss. If you put your mind to something, I know you can do it. I have complete confidence in you.

Another reason I feel awkward around you now a days is because I think you are anorexic. Maybe bulimic (but I've never seen you throw up, so I'm doubtful on this one). You never eat. You never exercise and yet you've lost like 35 pounds. When you do eat, it's like one pretzel a day. And because I'm a wimp and couldnt ask you about it in person because i was afraid you'd freak out on me, it made me not want to hang out with you. if i ignored it was there, i couldnt feel guilty for not saying something. i really do think that you are unhealthy. and i hate that you smoke, because i care about you so much and i know you know how awful for you it is. and i feel like you only do it because erich and your other friends do and so youve just caved into the peer pressure. my grandma smokes too, and i hate it too. but i always yell at her for it, but i feel like you'll get really mad at me if i say something to you, and then i hate being around myself around you because im not being me - i'm treading carefully, not saying whats really on my mind, and where's the friendship in that? i want to be able to tell you anything, share everything with you. i want to call you every three weeks and not get yelled at for not calling you more often. you have to understand that we're different kinds of people. just because i love you and consider you my best friend, doesn't mean i can not do my homework, study, and take care of stuff here too to talk to you everyday...it's harder and busier here than you think, and it makes me mad when you get soooo mad at me for doing this. it's not personal. it's who i am - everyone yells at me for not keeping in touch better- mom,dad,hanson,danny, everyone. it's who i am. and if you want to be my friend, too, you have to love me for who i am too, and work with me and my personality, just like i try to do with you. you making me feel guilty for being who i am makes me want to call you even less- why call someone who's just going to make you feel like a piece of human trash??

i think that's all for now. i'm sure i've completely pissed you off, but i just want you to understand my point of view. and you may consider me on your evil list, but i still (and will always) consider you one of my bestest friends, because you've taught me more about life, myself, other people, relationships, the world,music...everything...than anyone else ever has or ever could and i will always value what we had (and what i think we still have/can have) and will always think about you and will always still assume that on that far off day when i want ot get married that you will automatically be my maid of honor. i love you, mandy, from the very bottom of my heart, and hope that your frustration with my behavior this summer (which i should also address quickly: all of the above, and the fact that i had class everyday and spent the night at my grandma's twice a week and wasnt even around and so when i was i wanted to hang with my parents and the fact that i was mildly saddened because i missed jody and because when i hung out with hanson and danny i didn't constantly have to worry about what we were going to do that wouldn't involve money and, well, i'm sorry but at the same time i wish you would have understood more) can be overcome so that our friendship won't unravel so dramatically...we're still going to someday own a whole block together, right? :)

with much love,
your biznatch,
jen

I just popped in the new OLP Live CD that Chris burned for me, in preparation for jotting some things down.

I want to leave. As in, knowing how much else there is out there in this big huge world of ours, I'm feeling trapped by the confines of Ferst Drive, wanting to explore the mountains and sleep under the stars surrounded by blackness, in which the only contaminate to the perfectly clear sky is my less than 20/20 vision. I want to meet new people, who don't understand how to use a paper towel holder in a public bathroom, like the woman I met today. I want to see my favorite blade of grass sway in the wind in my big concrete jungle of a parking lot and have Danny hanging over my desk because the seats are too close together and want to smell the salty air and breathe the water-thickened air as I listen to the wind, watch my tell-tales, and tack about.

I want to walk home from a metro stop at midnight and not be fearful of being raped or shot.

I want to live in a place where my neighbors value human life for what it is, not for what it can bring them (ie money fame power). To find myself in a place where everyone looks the same, not because they are the same color, but because they are all kindhearted --- they look the same on the inside. Sadly, I don't see any of this happening in my lifetime, but if I don't try to believe that it will, how can I try to change it? Is it worth it, is it worth to fight ignorance, history, tradition, beliefs. But if lil' ol' me gives up, how can I expect others to carry the torch, to march on for equality, peace, love, and a free and open market for everyone?

Today was two years. That's a long time. But it's flown by. Anyway, we went to Stone Mountain Park, to wander around and to see the laser show (which was incredibly awesome, by the way), which is what got me thinking about everything. About the fact that I first realized after returning from Europe two summers ago, the fact that the world is so much bigger than this. Than this room, this school, these classes, job prospects....I want to invest in other people, not in my "future," which is going to happen whether or not I "invest" in it. But friendships? Love? Trust, loyalty, laughter?? That's what takes the capital, that's what takes time and emotions to evolve. That's what I want to put in the bank now. Life is so tenative, it can end any second, and there's a fear of exactly that happening...I want to be able to stare a cocked gun down its barrel and confidently think, not only would you be sending me to my God, but I've already seen the world and experienced amazing things. It's alright. I want to be fearless, but not in the stupid, jump-off-a-bridge kind of way, but in the confident-in-life-because-I've-experienced-it kind of way.

Why is it that staring up at a clear sky, into the twinkling of a particular star, and music playing in the background, that I can totally lose touch with all that is around me and become absorbed physically in my thoughts, my dreams...only to be brought back by the sprout sitting next to me. It's a great feeling, that escape. Maybe that's why people do drugs, because they don't have darkened nights with tinkling stars and hazy, crescent-shaped moons.

I miss my grandpa.

That's all for now. Gotta keep chin-up and all that. This is good to think about, it will drive me to make sure I don't just wait around and wait for life to happen to me, but that I make it. And make it what I want. And what I want is not a 4.0. It's not money. It's just you, me, the stars, and a good conversation. So goodnight, World, for now. We will meet again, of this I assure you.