Or in this case, a collage of some of the things I love. I wasn’t able to take a hole lot of pictures, and so I scavenged through the ones I already had to make this collage.
Things I love: dusk after the rain, the written word (journals), morning tea, Starbucks, dragons, literature, mail, sunsets, and San Francisco.
Hello Everyone,
Since all of you know how much of a dork I am, I figured I’d share what came in my mail earlier this morning with you all: My new Cross fountain pen! This is the Cross Bailey, which I ordered on Amazon a few days ago. Originally I had a Cross Coventry (the blue model) but let’s just say puppy: 1, Cross Pen: 0. So, I needed to replace it. Luckily I found it cheaper online than it originally is, because, let’s admit, no way in hell am I paying $45 for a fountain pen with my measly budget. The reason I got this too is because I loved my old Cross Coventry, the weight felt good in my hand and the metal body gave it a cool smooth texture. (Yes, metal and the puppy still won.) I have yet to use this one, as I’m waiting for the ink to settle in the nib. But I can’t wait to use it!
So, anyone order anything neat lately?
Hello Everyone,
Playing another round of catch-up here. However, I am finally proud to let you all know that my newest page is now up and ready for your perusal. It is called Glimpses, and dedicated to photographs I will be taking with my new handy dandy blogging gadget (find out more here in case you don’t know) over the year. I thought it would be nice to have a place where you can all take a look at them and not have to skim through paragraphs and paragraphs of text. So, enjoy!
I am excited to share with all of you my latest blogging tool. For a while now I have been really unhappy with my cell phone’s photo quality, and so, I decided to get a new camera. The only worry I had about this was that the camera would be too bulky, since I like to travel light and hate dealing with clunky devics. That’s when I saw the commercial for a small pocket Nikon, which I rejected after a bit of research. But, that’s also when I ran into the Canon Powershot N in the suggestions section the Nikon’s product page, on Amazon, and fell in love with it. I got it, and after almost a week of waiting, it finally arrived yesterday just before I went to work. I have yet to put it through the test, but plan to soon enough.
It came with a camera jacket, and this leather neck strap that I am not sure I will use. I had to buy a micro SD card and case for it separately. What blogging tools do you all use besides your laptops?
PS: There’s a new mail post on Snailmail Is Still In Fashion! Photo taken with the camera.
Hello Everyone!
So, what widgets did you decide to put up on your blog? I chose to put the Top Posts & Pages widget on the left sidebar, and the Goodreads widget on the right bar. Man, guess this means I can’t slack off on my reading anymore. New New Years Resolution: finish at least ten books by the end of the year! (Excluding textbooks.)
How are your new years resolutions going?
Hello Everyone,
I hope you all met the new year well and are having a blast. I am spending the first hour with my family, watching Parker on Netflix (parents are addicted to it. . . Netflix I mean). I have no idea what this movie is about but that’s okay, I’m not paying much attention to it since I’ve been online and also working off a wine cooler. (Which, lets admit, doesn’t have much of a kick after a glass of wine and a glass of coke and Kahlua.) Still, this gives me the opportunity to observe my family in their natural habitat (Insert Australian accent here). I rarely get to spend such calm times with them anymore, what with living several cities away and constantly being at work and/or school. It’s nice, real nice, but also kinda sad. My parents are getting older, I can see that in their faces, and especially in their eyes as they occasionally nod off. I wonder about you guys, when did you realize that you parents are quite human, and quite finite? Daunting, I know. But this just means I have to love them even more, and strive more to give them the happiness, or contentedness, that they deserve.
Here’s another discovery, and not a dreary one at that: 2014 is the year of the horse. This is my year, as a 1990 baby. So now, with renewed vigor, I will face this year and make it MY year. Yep folks, see the flames rise around me. (Yes, that is the alcohol talking . . . I think.)
Goodnight!
Aloe Blacc’s version of Avicii’s “Wake Me Up”. I noticed the song because it’s been playing a lot on the radio lately, but then my sister showed me this video. I just finished watching it and . . . be prepared to cry. For everyone out there with immigrant parents, or who are immigrants themselves, this video strikes a serious chord. I didn’t think I would cry even though my sister said I might, but by the end of it I was crying with mocos and everything. And the reason for this is because I myself am first generation, while my family originates from Latin America. I think about all the pain and suffering my parents went through so we would end up where we are now, and so I and my siblings could live the way that we do now. I never forget that what I have is thanks to them, and it is thanks to them that I have the chance to live, and to find out who I am meant to become.
My sister is listening to a Disney station on Spotify (or Pandora, I’m not sure) and the Little Mermaid’s song “Part of that World” just played. This song always evokes a bittersweet ache in my chest, along with a sense of nostalgia. I used to love this movie as a kid, but now it can be a bit painful to watch. In the Disney version, Ariel lives happily ever after with her prince, but in Andersen’s original fairy tale she (Marina in the old cartoon adaptation) is unable to make the prince love her and so dies, becomes foam on the sea’s waves as angels take her soul to heaven. To me, these two versions of the Little Mermaid’s tale are like life, childhood and adulthood, a dreamer exposed to reality. Of course, I don’t hate the story, in fact I love it. I admire Marina. She killed herself so she wouldn’t have to kill the one she loved, she chose to die so he could be happy with another. I don’t know that kind of love, I sometimes don’t believe in love at all, but I’d like to believe in it. I’d like to know it.
I just finished a private tutoring session about half an hour ago; I was at a neighborhood Starbucks and trying to ignore the loud music playing but it didn’t work so well. I had my earphones on so some of the noise was eliminated and I took another Advil (Stupid Excedrin recall!) to get rid of my gradually intensifying headache. But the noise was too much so I ended up leaving and headed for the Public Library. Much to my surprise it was closed this Sunday so I had no choice but to return to my apartment where I could easily be distracted. Currently I am making myself some soup, I sautéed the onions and added in the veggies, once those are almost done I’ll be adding in the water so everything can boil a bit before adding the pasta and seasonings.
Anyway, before leaving the library I ran into a homeless man standing near one of the benches to the side of the building’s entrance. He was a tall, thin, African-American man and the one who told me that the library was closed as I walked up to the front doors. I thanked him and was about to walk away when he asked me what other libraries might be open. I hesitated but ended up stopping to reply. Given that I am not overly familiar with most of the area, I told him that there might be a chance that the library in nearby Castro Valley might be open, and proceeded to give him directions. But when I mentioned that he could take a specific route that I knew he said that he had to go through public transportation because he was homeless. He needed to take advantage of the resources available to him, and for a moment I didn’t know what to say. Then I told him that yes, he could take the bus that went through Castro Valley Boulevard in order to get to the library there. He introduced himself but I didn’t catch his name because I was too far away, and he also called himself peculiar. He said that he loved beauty, so he was homeless because he could go wherever he wanted. He said he loved nature and even said that I was beautiful (I froze there too before thanking him, it was strange to hear).
As I drove away from the library I couldn’t help but think about this person. Sure, I was annoyed that the library was closed because I wanted to get some more work done, but at the same time I knew that I was meant to meet this person. I was curious to be honest, to know more about this individual’s life. His motivation behind his existence, but of course I wasn’t going to ask him all of this. My instincts told me not to get too close and I listened, but still, chance meetings like these are important to pay attention to. Even though I will probably never meet him again, I came away with a feeling of shock and something else. Appreciation maybe, it’s hard to name. I am amazed at this person’s life, the ability to live off the earth and travel wherever he wants to go. And I wish deep down that I could do the same but I can’t, not at the point I am at now in my life. And even when I’m older, I don’t think I can go to as many places as I wish to simply because I am a woman, without taking anyone with me I will put myself in danger because the world is a cruel place, maliciousness mixes so easily with kindness that sometimes it is difficult to differentiate between the two. I can never travel alone like he can, and I am jealous.
On another note, my session today involved helping a student and friend work on a history paper for her Women in History course. (Perhaps this is the motivation behind my previous train of thought.) It was on the Civil Rights Movement and the integration of Little Rock’s Central High School. The assignment was to explain how Melba Pattillo Beals’ memoir Warriors Don’t Cry (1994) and an article of the student’s choice (in our case: Aprele Elliott’s “Ella Baker: Free Agent in the Civil Rights Movement”, 1996) enhanced the student’s understanding of the Civil Rights Movement in the 50s and 60s. As we worked on her essay, I became more and more familiar with Beals’ accounts of the integration, and even though I knew something about this from my own studies, I was nonetheless horrified at the injustices she and the other eight African-American students had to face. This women had acid thrown in her face and was almost lit on fire by her fellow classmates, simply because she was colored. Because she was different. I even had to hold back tears when I read what her grandmother told her, that she was special, that God had something great planned for her. Whether or not this was true I am not sure, I cannot speak for God, but I can say this: she did do something great. Because of her hundreds of thousands of people know about Little Rock, we know what happened there and we know who was at fault. As a writer she made sure that everyone knew, and not only this, because of her and those eight other students, we are able to go to school with people of various ethnicities, we are one race and we are able to see each other for who we really are. Many of us now see color as insignificant. The fact that I am able to think in this way is partly thanks to her.
I remember when I was in middle school; this was in the early 2000s. Schools were still segregated, not by laws or regulations, but by the students themselves. Each ethnic group would distance itself from the other, and if either angered the other there would be a gang fight, then if not after school. But I watched as things changed, with each generation, my own for example, we left that tension behind. I cannot speak for others, but for my own mixed group, we wanted to connect with others and we wanted peace. It was difficult of course; we faced a lot of slack from people who thought they were better than us. Once, my best friend (who happened to be Hmong) and I had to hide in the back of a school bus simply because there was a gang fight outside, Asians against Mexicans. How stupid is that? What did color matter if we liked the same music? The same clothes or the same foods? Color became irrelevant to us. This to me was miraculous, and I am very thankful for this experience because it is one of those landmark experiences that an individual goes through in order to become “me/he/she”. Without it, I don’t know how different I might be from the person I am now. And even though I am no longer friends with this girl, I still wish I could see her again and tell her thank you. I miss her and still have all the letters she gave me throughout elementary and middle school, before we became distanced and changed into new people. Still, from the bottom of my heart I hope that she is doing well and is truly happy. (And secretly, I hope she misses me too.)
I was born without that blindfold that protects children from seeing the real world, and it was hard growing up this way. I hated so many people, even wished for theirs and my own death, but now that isn’t so. I am proud of myself, at what I’ve achieved so far and hope to achieve much more in the future. I was able to live up to this point and educate myself, I changed my fate from the one I might have had otherwise, unlike my classmates from previous schools who are now thugs, pregnant, or dead, I have the chance to accomplish something beneficial for myself and for others.
And, Like Beals, as a writer I hope to make sure that I am heard as much as possible, that I leave something behind to influence countless others; or, at least to leave something behind when I am gone. But I also know that there will always be people in the world who hate others, who are racist and are ruled by ignorance or pure clouding hatred; because whether we like it or not, they are also a part of the human race. All the types of people that exist on this planet all compile to form “the human mind”. We are flawed but we are also capable of making up for these flaws. Whether we allow ourselves to do it or not is the question. In my eyes, what does it matter to be better than another? Why hold hatred against another? At the end of the day that type of thought doesn’t matter, it won’t save anyone. We will all die, we will all disappear into obscurity, and even though we can leave that hatred behind, it will eventually fade. It’s just a matter of when.
Living in the Moment 