Scribbles:{Someplace to Nowhere}

a tribute to 2011

2012-01-01T17:37:00.001-05:00

To the birds that I know, with those wings, what does it feel like to fly so care free? Why cannot my heart find peace for the past year and a half? If I traded something I valued for your wings, then would that bring back that smile to my life? I wouldn't know what to do if I had nowhere to turn to.

#02 Spades

2011-07-04T13:54:00.001-04:00

July 4, 2011

I wanted to take a peek at Facebook, so I did, and there were well over a hundred wall posts that all said pretty much the same thing : happy birthday! I honestly want to say thanks to every person that wrote me, but I don't have time. That's the only reason. But I'll thank all of you guys here.

Thank you.

It makes me detest the hell of a place I am in right now, and yearn for the day I get honorably discharged after 2 years of service in the Marines. It reminds me that I'm not such a wretched piece of soul after all, and that there actually is an end to this tunnel. It signifies hope. Hope. It's such a powerful force that moves people to endure and persevere until a change for the better arrives... Still now, I don't know why I am in this kind of situation. If I could send a letter to myself in the past, then 99% of its content would be about persuading my past self not to enlist. And you know what he would say?

Thank you.

And you know what I would tell him if he decides not to join?

Thank you. And you're such a genius for making such a wise choice in life. But hell, I don't know if I would be able to say the same thing once I'm done with the Marines. Cuz, you know, there's this pride that all Marines have... And you know what? I wish I could be with my family right now.

(If you're looking for someone to pray for tonight or tomorrow night or any other night, then please pray for me.)

#01 Note

2011-06-25T14:44:00.002-04:00

Feeling nostalgic
Listening to nothing

I'm going to start putting some thoughts up here so I can share them with people who care. Writing letters by hand and writing some clunks of phrases and words down on my blog are different, and quite a bit, too.

I'm just going to write for the sake of writing where only a few will be reading, so it's going to take on a certain tone of itself. And I'm not writing anythere here that can put me in risk of court martial... until I'm discharged from the Corps. Sorry, but hope you ... enjoy?

2011. 6. 26 Sunday

The weather's been quite horrible - it's been raining constantly for the past 4 days, punctuated by brief 3~4 hour periods of just cloudiness.

It's been over 10 months now since I've enlisted in the Marine Corps. I think I've gone through a damn lot more than I thought I would. Actually, no. I am sure I've gone through a damn lot more than I thought I would. Quite positive about it.

I don't know which is better for the soul: to deny a problem of its existence or to wholeheartedly acknowledge it. Sometimes - maybe every other month or so - during brief periods of tranquility of the mind, I get a pang of homesickness so bad that I can feel it right here in my chest. It feels like some cancerous lump that has been growing little by little for an unknown period of time, and I just want to get it out of my system for good. But how? Why can't I just be rid of that kind of nostalgia? Why is it so hard to gain independence from it?

Untitled

2011-04-25T06:39:00.001-04:00

Man. I really don't know how much more bullshit I can take from this. And I can't believe I'm still kicking myself for this.

Day 560: Life in the Korean Army

2010-08-10T15:09:00.002-04:00

Part 2 of the Military Service series from Ask A Korean, focusing on the Infantry, where combat-fit Korean men get allocated to. Most probably the remaining 3 members I would think… The subject is pretty heavy, but I think The Korean’s little funny references make it very readable
You can read his original article HERE. Part 3 has yet to be released, but I’ll update once that’s out…
————————————————————

Vast majority of Korean men spend their time during their service as a regular ground infantry, only differing in their base location and job description. So what do these men go through?

Which Eric and Dongwan had already gone through, and what the other 3 are about to go through…

Training Center/Boot Camp
First comes the 5-week stint at the training center/boot camp. In the first three days, new recruits receive their supplies. These supplies include everything, including uniform, boots, and underwear. Strictly speaking, no soldier in the training center is allowed to have any private item – everything is provided by the military. In practice, soldiers in the training center are generally allowed to have a spare pair of glasses, a watch, a small amount of cash, etc. There is more leeway with respect to personal items once the men are assigned to their bases.

(Picture of the training center at Nonsan)
The recruits’ personal items – usually the clothes in which they come into the boot camp – are packed up and sent back to their parents. It is the quintessential Korean mother’s experience to cry over her son’s dusty clothes mailed back to her after she sent her son away for his military service.
New recruits are then given a physical. Although it is extremely rare to be sent home at this stage, there are a few whose health has significantly deteriorated below draft eligibility between the time when they received the initial physical and the time when they report to the training center. These men are sent home.
Then the new recruits receive an exam that would determine their specialty as a soldier. This is based on their college major, career background, etc. However, this is far from a scientific process; more like a rough guess. For example, many math majors are assigned to artillery because firing a cannon requires a quick number-crunching ability. But it is not as if these men are tested as to how fast they can actually calculate things.
Once the specialties are assigned, the new recruits are trained to be soldiers. They receive their weapons, learn how to shoot rifles and throw grenades, learn how to march and patrol, etc. It is more or less the training you might see in a movie – they go through marches with full gear (around 55 to 60 pounds) during the day and at night, learn how to fight with bayonet, train how to use their hazmat masks and sit through tear gas, learn how to dig trenches and encamp, learn first aid, etc. After five weeks of this, the soldiers are assigned to their bases.

Ok…the following will apply as long as they are not public service officers…

At the Base
The long haul begins at the bases. The life at the bases can differ vastly depending on where the base is, and what your specialty is. The unanimous worst placement is the bases in the mountainous range in eastern Korea, along the Armistice Line. Staring directly into North Korea, these soldiers must constantly patrol in the blistering cold, often in minefields. In comparison, soldiers assigned to a supply center base in the southern parts of Korea have an easier time. Training continues to happen at the base, but the intensity of such training is vastly different depending on the specialty. However, at least once a year, every soldier goes through a pretty intense combat training.
Amenities differ significantly from base to base as well. The luckiest few bases sometimes have karaoke, Internet café, arcade, etc, as well as indoor plumbing and shower facilities. The unlucky ones will have outdoor plumbing, no hot water, and only a dirt field that doubles as a soccer pitch. Generally each squad shares a single room to sleep in, and the room tends to have a television. Of course, the channel showing on that television is entirely up to the sergeant, who is usually the highest-ranking officer in a squad.
A little more explanation on soccer in the base is warranted, because it is such a universal part of the military experience. The soccer experience is called “Gundaesliga”, a parody of “Bundesliga” or the Federal League in Germany. (“Gundae” is Korean for “military”.) Because soccer is popular in Korea, and also because the game can entertain 22 men with a single ball, playing soccer is nearly a ubiquitous experience for all Korean men who served in the military. Each squad would usually play as a team, sometimes with each sergeant of the squad betting snacks or drinks. Long discipline process such as running several miles, etc. usually awaits the losing team. It is said that for a gifted soccer player, life in the military comes easily. Because inter-squad soccer games factor so much into the military life, the ranking soldiers take it a little easy on the star players.

(A parody, popular among Korean websites, showing “Gundaesliga” created from the Winning Eleven, a soccer video game.)
When it comes right down to it, daily life at the base is rather boring. Assignments range from serious (patrolling) to petty (cleaning the base), but they generally end by 5 p.m. After 5 p.m., soldiers play soccer, read, study, or generally do anything to kill time.
Soldiers enter the base as a private, and gradually move up the rank up to sergeant over time. Sergeants, since they are closing in on finishing their duties, are known to be lazier and more slovenly in their uniforms.

The following explains why Hyesung sometimes gets to hang out with Kangta even though Kangta’s serving out his duty right now… LOL

Furloughs are permitted intermittently throughout the soldier’s career. It starts with the “100 day furlough” – time outside, usually for 4-5 days, given after 100 days of military service. After that, soldiers get the total of 10 furlough days for the rest of their time in the military. In addition, there are special furlough days given out as a reward for a variety of things – ranging from something important like good marksmanship to something trivial like being the crowd favorite in the battalion talent show. A squad mate of the Korean’s friend won a furlough day for randomly saluting at a helicopter flying nearby, which happened to carry a general who saw the salute. Soldiers are also given furloughs for personal circumstances, e.g. death in the family.
Soldiers can have visitors, but usually they need to ask for permission ahead of time. Soldiers can also receive packages. But keep in mind that all packages will be searched, and soldiers are expected to share any food coming from outside with their squad mates. If you are sending food, send plenty and in small packets.
Also, soldiers get paid in nominal amounts. Privates receive around $55 a month, and sergeants receive around $80 a month or so.

Life at the Base, and Aftermath
So, now we know what the nitty-gritties are in the Korean military, but what is it really like? Obviously, this answer strongly depends on the particular assignment and the superiors, but some common elements exist – emphasis on hierarchy, working as an organization, and learning to tolerate loads and loads of bullshit.
After all, these soldiers are in the military. And military does not function without the willingness of lower-ranking soldiers to follow the directions of higher-ranking soldiers. Therefore, in a regular squad, sergeants are kings. They control everything good in the squad, e.g. the first cut of the chocolate that a private’s girlfriend sent from outside the base, what channel the squad television would show, etc.
At one point, indiscriminate beating was commonplace in the military. Although (at least nominally) beating is not allowed Korean military anymore, there are plenty of ways in which the ranking officer can make a soldier’s life miserable. Other types of physical discipline such as running laps or Wonsan Pokgyeok are plenty available, and there is virtually no limit to insults and condescension.

(The Wonsan pok-gyeok, which translates to “bombing of Wonsan.” Wonsan is a port city in North Korea. This punishment is applied liberally for various causes, such as being slow in marching, losing a soccer game, or overcooking your seargeant’s ramen.)
Another thing to keep in mind is that Korean army is a place with a ton of manpower, but little money. Therefore, even the most menial task – such as cleaning the pool of the general’s house – falls on the soldiers. Also, like other parts of Korean bureaucracy, professionalism is missing at times and rules are frequently bent in the Korean military.
This often results in many hilarious situations. For example, the Korean has a friend who spent his military years in the eastern mountain range in Korea. One day, the general decided that he would have fresh sashimi for his guest. The Korean’s friend and his squad mate drove in a truck for two hours to the shore, and managed to acquire fresh, live fish. But how to bring them home fresh and alive?
A normal person’s answer would be, “Rent a truck with equipped with a tank and an air compressor, the kind that would deliver live fish to sushi restaurants.” But remember, this is the Korean military. It does not have the money to rent such a truck, but it does have the manpower of two soldiers.
So what did the Korean’s friend do? He sat in the back of the truck, churning the water in the tub so that air would go in and the fish would be kept alive. (His squad mate got to drive the truck because he joined the military a few months ahead of the Korean’s friend, therefore outranking him.) This was in the middle of winter, and the truck bed was exposed to the freezing wind as the truck drove into the mountains. The Korean’s friend nearly froze to death, but the fish were alive until they were served on a plate that evening.
Stories of this type, coming out of Korean military, are dime a dozen. A brother of the Korean’s friend was in the Special Forces, and he recalls his platoon carving out a side of a mountain to build a swimming pool using only the tiny field spades. The Korean Uncle, a doctor specializing in internal medicine, routinely performed appendectomy as a medic in the military because, in his words, “I wanted to practice.”
For some of today’s Korean young men, who have gone soft since the days of their fathers, military experience can be unbearable. Physical exercise is grueling, the superiors can be arbitrary and insulting, and your squad mates could shun you if you are responsible for putting the whole squad in trouble. Given that these guys, just like any other soldiers in Korea, can access guns and grenades, it should be no surprise that recently there has been a string of incidents in which a draftee shoots up his squad or toss a grenade in the squad room, killing many.

However, most Korean men go through with the service without a huge incident. Few Korean men truly love their military experience. (Those who do have the option to stay in the military and continue their service as career soldiers.) But Korean men generally tolerate it and find life lessons to be learned from the experience, mostly because it is something that everyone has to go through.
And there are definitely good life lessons to be learned from the experience, although it may be debatable whether learning those lessons is a good use of 2 to 3 years of young men in their prime. To put it bluntly, the military experience builds Korean men’s tolerance for all the life’s bullshit. As the Korean described so far, there is no shortage of bullshit – some of them perhaps the worst to be encountered in life – in the military. Exhausting physical training, insults and condescension from the superiors, and wasting time on arbitrary and trivial errands are all part of the experience. For young Korean men in the military, there is no choice but to simply grin and bear them. Once they finish bearing it, they know that most difficulties in life would be easier than what they already went through. The combination of such tolerance and insight, some may call it maturity – because, as anyone who has had a regular job can tell you, life as an adult has a lot of crap that we must simply grin and bear.

Day 557: Yeeeee Muffins

2010-08-08T23:01:00.000-04:00

Day 549: My Summer of 2010

2010-08-01T15:22:00.004-04:00

Up on Melancholy Hill
There's a plastic tree
Are you here with me?
Just looking out on the day of another dream

Well, you can't get what you want, but you can get me
So let's set up and see
'Cause you are my medicine
When you're close to me, when you're close to me

So call in the submarine
'Round the world we'll go
Does anybody know
If we're looking out on the day of another dream

If you can't get what you want
Then you come with me

Up on Melancholy Hill
Sits a manatee
Just looking out for the day
When you're close to me, when you're close to me

Day 538: How to Fight

2010-07-22T15:02:00.001-04:00

How to Fight

(http://www.violentacres.com)

The summer I turned 6 years old, some of the neighborhood boys started bullying me. Back then, I owned a pair of cabbage patch kid roller-skates and my favorite activity was skating around the block singing nursery rhymes at the top of my lungs. One day, a few boys in the 8-10 range thought it would be pretty humorous to push me around and watch me flail. I tried to run from them, but I couldn’t skate faster than they could run. They taunted me for a while and then knocked me down. Angry, humiliated, and with two freshly skinned knees, I did what any 6 year old girl would do in my position.

I went home and told my Dad.

My Father was an ex marine and always preached the benefits of learning self defense. Unlike most parents, he had no interest in calling the parents of my bullies to ‘open up a dialogue’ or some other such tripe. Instead, he planned to teach me to kick a little ass.

My Mother balked at this idea. She didn’t think little girls should be fighting. Little girls were supposed to have tea parties and then play dress up. Fighting was for little boys.

“What if someday a vicious serial killer kidnaps her?” my Father asked, “Do you want her to die weeping and begging for her life? Or would you rather she have the courage to wrench the knife from the killer’s hand and stab him in the throat?”

He paused, mid tirade, and said to me, “If that ever happens, V, stab and twist. Stab and twist.”

With my Mother temporarily mollified, My Father took me into the back yard to teach me how to fight.

Nervously, I explained to my Father that not only was I outnumbered by the boys, but they were bigger and stronger than I was. There was no way that I could beat them. My Father merely brushed my fears aside. He said that while they had the advantage of size and strength on their side, I could develop my own advantages. Here are some tips that he gave me:

1. Always Respond to Threats with Complete Confidence
Sometimes all it takes to make a bully re-think pounding you into a pulp is to make it very clear to him exactly how unafraid you are of a physical confrontation. When a bully threatens you, he is trying to invoke in you some fear in which he can feed off of. If you respond to his threats with confidence, even eagerness, it will give him a pause. If he doesn’t chicken out right then and there, he will enter the fight with a slight feeling of unease. His apprehension is your advantage.

2. Fighting Dirty is Fighting Smart
A fist fight isn’t the same as a karate tournament with judges and points. Your opponent is trying to hurt you, so don’t let some silly moral argument prevent you from kicking the little bastard in the nuts. Throw sand in his eyes, kick him in the back of the knees, bite him, or punch him in the stomach hard enough to knock the wind out of him. If he’s got you pinned down and you happen to see a rock out of the corner of your eye? Don’t be afraid to grab that rock and smash his face with it. There is no shiny trophy waiting for you at the end of this fight, so everything goes.

3. Talk Some Shit
Nothing will rattle your opponent faster than you screaming a steady stream of shit at him while you’re engaged in combat. The crazier you sound the better. If you can’t think of anything tough to yell, yell nonsense like, “I’m going to eat your eyes!” If you can’t think of any nonsense to yell, just plain scream. The second your opponent suspects that you’re a freaking lunatic he’s going to get scared. Fear causes people to make mistakes.

4. When You Lose, Claim It Didn’t Hurt
Sometimes you’re just outmatched. But even losing a fight can be used to your advantage. When it’s over, feel free to spit blood in his face and tell him that it ‘didn’t hurt.’ Laugh when he walks away. You might have just gotten your ass kicked six ways from Sunday, but I guarantee you that anyone watching that fight will think twice about ever messing with you in the future. No one wants to fuck with the crazy kid who feels no pain.

Armed with my new tips and tricks, I laced up my skates and headed out to face the jungle that is childhood. When the boys confronted me again, I dared them to mess with me. One ballsy kid lunged towards me with the intent of pushing me down. Quickly, I kicked that kid squarely between the legs with my skate. He crumpled to the ground as I hysterically screamed at his friends, “I’LL EAT YOUR EYES! I’LL EAT ALL OF YOUR EYES!” Terrified, those boys got up and ran like Hell. I’ve never felt so empowered in my entire life.

In retrospect, I think my Father was just trying to teach me a little something about fear and courage. Back then, and even more so today, it became quite popular to advise your children to: Run. Hide. Look away. Go get someone bigger. Be afraid. As a result, modern children and adults alike are easily paralyzed by fear and have no idea how to defend themselves.

After reading certain articles on my website, I’ve even seen people comment, “What is she going to do if she says the wrong thing to the wrong person? She’s going to end up getting hurt or killed.”

I feel sorry for those people. So paralyzed by fear of what might happen, that they lack the courage to stand up for themselves or for someone weaker. I refuse to live my life afraid to say what I feel or do what is right because there might be some mysterious villain lurking in the shadows who is bigger and stronger. Better to be dead, than to live your life afraid.

Besides, I could just as easily spend my life acting meek and compliant only to still end up with a bullet in my head. However, because my Father taught me courage, it’s not likely that I’d go down without a fight. Who knows? I may even end up wrenching a knife from some psycho’s hands and stabbing him in the throat with it.

Of course, I’ll remember to stab and twist.

Day 537.5: ROK Marines Admission I

2010-07-21T15:38:00.004-04:00

Hey friends. It's 2:01 AM in Bangkok right as you're reading this very sentence, and here I am listening to Chopin while writing this very message to you in a desperate attempt to dispel the anxiety that holds me.

In 5 hours, I will get to know whether I will be in the ROK Marines or not.

As you may or may not know, depending on whether there was an opportunity do so, all male x citizens are required to go through physical/mental examinations and serve some national duty. Upon applying to the Marines division, I entered a competitive admissions process in mid-June, where I had to be examined, interviewed and screened (I can tell you more about this process later!).

I applied to the Marines because I want to change - for better or worse - and grow before I resume my studies back in Vermont. Now, I don't know whether I will mature/grow in the military, but what I do know is that time will help me to see things differently - again, for better or worse, but I'm just banking on better.

I also applied to the military now because I wanted to take a break from school. No, nothing is wrong with college-level education, but I just hate the people there. Or is it? Maybe I hate the majority of Americans, but it's probably because I'm unconsciously comparing them to you Kyle, Moki and Joel. Or maybe I hate the actual social structure and the way things are in the real world. Or maybe that's the result of forced transitioning out from the "fantastic" bubble we grew up in during high school. Or maybe I'm just having a hard time waking up from being so disillusioned? I really don't like how I ended up here; I want to blame something or someone, but what will I get from it? How will I benefit? Am I only debilitating myself by pointing a finger?

I don't know the answer, but I will only give an indifferent shrug. What's happened has happened, and here I am to get up and go. Even though a lot of people have advised me against it, I want to go into the Marines.

Okay thanks for reading! Got that off my chest.

Day 537: Do you belong there?

2010-07-21T14:51:00.001-04:00

Where would I be?

(http://educationceo.wordpress.com)

As I read through emails, tweets, blogs, and Facebook statuses this morning, I came across one from @HalonaBlack that really made me stop and evaluate some things. Her post, which you better should read, discusses how some first-generation college students arrive on campus with the short-sighted goal of choosing a major that will help them earn money, in the shortest amount of time possible. Well, as soon as I retweeted it my college roommate posted the following comment on my page:

Roomie: “I can relate to this on so many levels. My Dad (even though he didn’t raise me he thought he had a voice in this) basically told me no “BS” majors (e.g. Communications,journalism, etc). I needed a “real” major so right off I felt limited in my choices. And even going to law school, it shocked me how prepared some of the well to do students were. They had outlines, knew the inside tricks, etc. Always vowed my kid would never start that far behind and would have the ability to pursue whatever she wanted.”

Whew! That hit so close to home it stopped me in my tracks. Now when I chose which college I would attend, no one in my family weighed in on majors, etc. Honestly, the only advice/words of wisdom I received came from my grandfather as he was driving me home from work one day (as we passed the University of Notre Dame):

“Don’t you let anyone tell you or make you feel like you don’t belong there, because you do. You have as much right to be there as they do.” Anyone who knows anything about Notre Dame, or any predominantly White college/university, can guess to whom he referred; it’s not rocket science. But that was the way we were raised: We were never taught that we were inferior to anyone. We are all as comfortable, if not more so, in a room where we are the only minority versus being in a room where we are in the majority. (Oh lord I get so sidetracked!) BTW: That’s not me in the pic. It’s Katie Odette Washington, Notre Dame’s first Black Valedictorian.

Day 503: Today's Lesson - How to Kill a Child's Self-Esteem

2010-06-18T22:59:00.000-04:00

Today’s Lesson: How to kill a kid’s self-esteem
(http://educationceo.wordpress.com)

Students in Gwinnett County Schools are down to the last 3 days and End-of-Year celebrations are in full-swing. I just returned from attending the celebration for my 3rd grader. On my way out of the building, I asked the Kindergarten teacher if I missed the note or email about their celebration. She informed me that their designated time was between breakfast and lunch last Friday, with lunch being served at 10:30 a.m. Needless to say, the Kindergarten team decided against over-loading kids on food that day, and I do not blame them one bit. The kids were treated to a ‘Game Day’ instead and based on the reports I received from my Kindergarten student, it was pretty fun. But that’s not why I felt compelled to rush home and get this blog written so let me get back on track…

So I am helping the long-term substitute with today’s celebration, i.e., serving the kids, cleaning-up messes, etc. (pretty much the same thing I do at home) when the awards ‘ceremony’ begins. Students received awards for successfully participating in the school-wide Reading program, Perfect Attendance, Testing Achievement, Honor Roll, and Principal’s Honor Roll. Several kids, including my 3rd grader (shameless shout-out), received multiple awards. I will admit that I was a little disappointed deeply offended by the fact that the principal only signed the Principal’s Honor Roll awards. My child and the others who maintained A’s and B’s during the last 9-week grading period worked just as hard as those who made the other list. Before you say,”Well, she probably had a lot of awards to sign,” my response is “Get a damn signature stamp then.’ Besides, the old adage is true: Excuses are like butt holes. Everybody has one and most of them stink. I can remember every award I ever received having the signature of at least one principal on them.

The celebration (partaking of the food) continues and the teacher walks over to me and tells me that one of the students was crying because he didn’t receive any awards. I’m not sure if the parent or common-sense teacher in me took over, but I became really livid at that point. I sat there thinking about this kid, who I had seen struggle with Math during the year, and his disappointment. Then all the research and data began going through my mind, especially because this kid is African American, he’s in 3rd grade, and just took a high-stakes test a few weeks ago. For those of you who don’t know, research shows that states develop their prison plans based on 3rd grade Reading achievement data…interesting. My motherly instinct kicked-in and I went over to him, bent down, and asked:

“Why are you crying?”

Sobbing and wiping tears, he answered “Because I never win anything.”

“It’s o.k. I understand why you are upset and I agree with you. You should be recognized for your efforts. Trust me, you are going to be o.k. Your *teacher knows that you try really hard and she also knows that you have improved this year.”

His parents entered the room a few minutes later and I am sure his dad had the same conversation with him. At least I hope he did. Now I will spend the rest of the afternoon in prayer, asking for some guidance/wisdom/financial blessing so I can give some of these kids what they need most: An opportunity to feel successful. Then I am off to Office Depot to print awards and beg area businesses to donate some certificates for the students.

*The classroom teacher has been gone 2 weeks due to a death in the family. I have no doubt in my mind that she would have given some type of award to every student.

Day 487: Inspiration from Bruce Lee

2010-06-03T14:46:00.000-04:00

An excerpt from The Art of Expressing the Human Body by Bruce Lee & John Little:

Bruce had me up to three miles a day, really at a good pace. We'd run the three miles in twenty one or twenty-two minutes. Just under eight minutes a mile [Note: when runing on his own in 1968, Lee would get his time down to six-and-a-half minutes per mile]. So this morning he said to me "We're going to go five." I said, "Bruce, I can't go five. I'm a helluva lot older than you are, and I can't do five." He said, When we get to three, we'll shift gears and it's only two more and you'll do it." I said "Okay, hell, I'll go for it." So we get to three, we go into the fourth mile and I'm okay for three or fout minutes, and then I really begin to give out. I'm tired, my heart's pounding, I can't go any more and so I say to him, "Bruce if I run any more,"-and we're still running-"if I run any more I'm liable to have a heart attack and die."

He said, "Then die." It made me so mad that I went the full five miles. Afterward I went to the shower and then I wanted to talk to him about it. I said, you know; "Why did you say that?" He said, "Because you might as well be dead. Seriously, if you always put limits on what you can do, physical or anything else, it'll spread over into the rest of your life. It'll spread into your work, into your morality, into your entire being. There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you. A man must constantly exceed his level."

Day 484: Parental Guidance

2010-05-31T23:00:00.001-04:00

Author: Nancy Gibbs (TIMES Essayist); May 17, 2010

Cancer hands you red-hot shoes and makes you dance with death every day for the rest of your life. So the question is, Who gets to lead? And what can the rest of us learn from watching?

Bruce Feiler is a writer with diverse interests and an adventurous spirit. His best seller Walking the Bible, about his 10,000-mile trek through the Holy Lands, became a hit PBS series; he wrote a book about his year as a circus clown and one on Abraham--nine books total, but none like his latest, The Council of Dads. It was basically born the day doctors told him there was a malignant, aggressive 7-in. tumor in his femur, a cancer so rare fewer than 100 adults get it a year. He was 43 years old, lying on his bed, wrapped in sudden uncertainty, when his 3-year-old twin daughters raced in, twirling and laughing. "I crumbled," he recalls. "I kept imagining all the walks I might not take with them, the ballet recitals I might not see ... the boyfriends I might not scowl at, the aisles I might not walk down."
(See the Landscape of Cancer Treatment.)

From that dark place came the need; a few days later came the notion, when he began making a list of men who represented, in concentrated form, all the qualities and memories he most wanted his girls to encounter, which they might not get the chance to absorb from him. One of those men he had known since the sandbox, one had been a camp counselor, another a college roommate, another a business partner, six of them in all. My girls have a great mom and a loving family, he told them. "But they may not have me. Will you help be their dad?"

And thus was born the Council of Dads, the friends he hoped would teach the lessons, send the signals, say the things he would have when his daughters fail a test, win a prize, fall in love. Proposing membership, Feiler recalls, felt like proposing marriage. The conversations defy the image of awkward men allergic to sentiment. Cancer was "a passport to intimacy"; it drove him to tell his friends why they mattered, ask them to be more involved in his life and particularly in his daughters'.

You could say that he reversed the normal arc: having close friends and having children is like trying to play hopscotch and knit at the same time--theoretically possible but requiring more dexterity than most of us can manage. During our prime parenting years, juggling work and home is hard enough; few of us are so emotionally double-jointed that we can manage much more than a book group, a chat with the other parents in the bleachers, intimacy on the run.

Reading The Council of Dads made me wonder at the great opportunity we miss. Sometime after you have kids, you are told to make a will, name some guardians, and on that occasion you wave, politely and formally, to your mortality as you carefully cross to the other side of the street. It's natural to avoid thinking about what your children would do without you. But being a parent involves planned obsolescence. We actually want children, as they grow, to expand emotionally, explore independently. Teenagers especially need advice from women who are not their mother, guidance from men who are not their dad.

This was once the province of godparents: in Renaissance-era Florence, a child could have a dozen of them--an extended family of providers and protectors. But since then, the role has evolved from spiritual mentor to social fixer. In some ZIP codes, preschool admissions officers find they get a lot of requests to serve, and Hallmark now makes a couple dozen Christmas-card designs for godparents to send, which is a sure sign the relationship has lost much of its meaning. "Always a godfather, never a god," lamented the much recruited author Gore Vidal.

Hillary Clinton said it takes a village, and she was mocked, but she was right. Is there any greater gift we can give our children than to be loved and lifted by as many adults as possible, beyond immediate family? Single and divorced parents do this informally all the time. Feiler, whose latest tests show him to be, for now, cancer-free, is working with the National Fatherhood Initiative, which has kiosks in 1,500 military bases around the world. The plan is to distribute literature about The Council of Dads and invite soldiers to convene their own; these are men and women who live with mortality and separation.

But maybe it's an exercise for everyone, not just in parenting, but in friendship and self-discovery. I'd like my daughters to have a Council of Dads, a Council of Moms--not, God willing, to replace my husband or me, but to remind us which values we value most, and help us make sure we transmit them.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1987596-2,00.html#ixzz0pZByapVS

Day 470: Empire of the Sun - Walking on a Dream

2010-05-17T03:57:00.000-04:00

Walking on a dream
How can I explain
Talking to myself
Will I see again

We are always running for the thrill of it, thrill of it
Always pushing up the hill searching for the thrill of it
On and on and on we are calling out and out again
Never looking down I'm just in awe of what's in front of me

Is it real now
When two people become one
I can feel it
When two people become one

Thought I'd never see
The love you found in me
Now it's changing all the time
Living in a rhythm where the minutes working overtime

Catch me I'm falling down
Catch me I'm falling down

Don't stop just keep going on
I'm your shoulder lean upon
So come on deliver from inside
All we got is tonight that is right till first light

Day 467: Goodbye, Cruel World

2010-05-14T04:11:00.002-04:00

Courtesy: buttersafe.com

Day 466: Free Lunch

2010-05-13T04:53:00.000-04:00

Courtesy: toothpastefordinner.com

Day 465: Best Thing I've Read All Year

2010-05-12T16:47:00.002-04:00

The Best Thing I've Read All Year

Published on May 04, 2000

Sunday, April 30, 2000

By SHARON UNDERWOOD

For the Valley News (White River Junction, VT)

Many letters have been sent to the Valley News concerning the homosexual menace in Vermont. I am the mother of a gay son and I've taken enough from you good people.

I'm tired of your foolish rhetoric about the "homosexual agenda" and your allegations that accepting homosexuality is the same thing as advocating sex with children. You are cruel and ignorant. You have been robbing me of the joys of motherhood ever since my children were tiny.

My firstborn son started suffering at the hands of the moral little thugs from your moral, upright families from the time he was in the first grade. He was physically and verbally abused from first grade straight through high school because he was perceived to be gay.

He never professed to be gay or had any association with anything gay, but he had the misfortune not to walk or have gestures like the other boys. He was called "fag" incessantly, starting when he was 6.

In high school, while your children were doing what kids that age should be doing, mine labored over a suicide note, drafting and redrafting it to be sure his family knew how much he loved them. My sobbing 17-year-old tore the heart out of me as he choked out that he just couldn't bear to continue living any longer, that he didn't want to be gay and that he couldn't face a life without dignity.

You have the audacity to talk about protecting families and children from the homosexual menace, while you yourselves tear apart families and drive children to despair. I don't know why my son is gay, but I do know that God didn't put him, and millions like him, on this Earth to give you someone to abuse. God gave you brains so that you could think, and it's about time you started doing that.

At the core of all your misguided beliefs is the belief that this could never happen to you, that there is some kind of subculture out there that people have chosen to join. The fact is that if it can happen to my family, it can happen to yours, and you won't get to choose. Whether it is genetic or whether something occurs during a critical time of fetal development, I don't know. I can only tell you with an absolute certainty that it is inborn.

If you want to tout your own morality, you'd best come up with something more substantive than your heterosexuality. You did nothing to earn it; it was given to you. If you disagree, I would be interested in hearing your story, because my own heterosexuality was a blessing I received with no effort whatsoever on my part. It is so woven into the very soul of me that nothing could ever change it. For those of you who reduce sexual orientation to a simple choice, a character issue, a bad habit or something that can be changed by a 10-step program, I'm puzzled. Are you saying that your own sexual orientation is nothing more than something you have chosen, that you could change it at will? If that's not the case, then why would you suggest that someone else can?

A popular theme in your letters is that Vermont has been infiltrated by outsiders. Both sides of my family have lived in Vermont for generations. I am heart and soul a Vermonter, so I'll thank you to stop saying that you are speaking for "true Vermonters."

You invoke the memory of the brave people who have fought on the battlefield for this great country, saying that they didn't give their lives so that the "homosexual agenda" could tear down the principles they died defending. My 83-year-old father fought in some of the most horrific battles of World War II, was wounded and awarded the Purple Heart.

He shakes his head in sadness at the life his grandson has had to live. He says he fought alongside homosexuals in those battles, that they did their part and bothered no one. One of his best friends in the service was gay, and he never knew it until the end, and when he did find out, it mattered not at all. That wasn't the measure of the man.

You religious folk just can't bear the thought that as my son emerges from the hell that was his childhood he might like to find a lifelong companion and have a measure of happiness. It offends your sensibilities that he should request the right to visit that companion in the hospital, to make medical decisions for him or to benefit from tax laws governing inheritance.

How dare he? you say. These outrageous requests would threaten the very existence of your family, would undermine the sanctity of marriage.

You use religion to abdicate your responsibility to be thinking human beings. There are vast numbers of religious people who find your attitudes repugnant. God is not for the privileged majority, and God knows my son has committed no sin.

The deep-thinking author of a letter to the April 12 Valley News who lectures about homosexual sin and tells us about "those of us who have been blessed with the benefits of a religious upbringing" asks: "What ever happened to the idea of striving . . . to be better human beings than we are?"

Indeed, sir, what ever happened to that?

"Sharon Underwood's e-mail is: sundervt@hotmail.com. I had the chance to speak with her yesterday. Her son is doing fine now, the first in his family to graduate from college.

If you have friends who think Jesus would have been a Republican -- on the side of billionaire Pat Robertson, et al, in opposing Hate Crimes Legislation, opposing the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and, yes, opposing Vermont's extension of economic benefits to same-sex couples -- please feel free to forward this column to as many of them as you like. Can't you just see it? Jesus arm-in-arm with the NRA trying to maintain the gun-show loophole? Stumping the Holy Land in favor of a massive tax cut for the rich, while opposing a hike in the minimum wage? Somehow, I think not."

Source: http://www.andrewtobias.com/newcolumns/000504.html

Day 462: Underachievers

2010-05-09T03:15:00.003-04:00

"We were underachievers. That's why we came to Middlebury. Chuckle."

-C Burleigh

Day 457: Worship of the Intellectual Mind

2010-05-04T13:48:00.001-04:00

Listening to Deadmau5 - I Remember
Feeling like time's runnin out!

Health.

My mother always told me to prioritize my own health (and among others) over schoolwork and GPA's. No matter how many times I would nod in agreement but just do my own thing, she still never ceased urging me to get a good night's rest and finish the rest of my work early in the morning. She would tell me that by overly occupying myself with schoolwork, I would lose out on the good things in life - my health would suffer, and I would miss out on precious relationships with other people. Really - who knows what amazing relationships you could have built if you have devoted more time into them.

One thing I complain too often about Middlebury College is the agonizing difficulty in forming meaningful relationships with people. People here in general are just obsessed with "success". Without trying to sound too naive, what if everyone prioritized other good things over academics? How differently would people behave, and what kind of community would we see?

Kids should listen to their parents, and even more when they have important things to say.

Day 453: One Time We Lived

2010-04-30T16:20:00.000-04:00

One time we lived
Like the time would never leave
What time we had
The luxury to breathe
I couldn't see an end
There was no end in sight
Time has risen up time has pulled us down
Bringing darkness to the light

I remember the way you looked
The sun had set
The lights were down
I remember the light in your eyes
Do you remember at all?
Do you remember at all?

Isn't that what we wanted?
Isn't that what we wanted?
isn't that what we had?
Do we know what we need?
Now that its gone anekatips.com
Isn't that what we wanted?
Isn't that what we wanted?
Isn't that what we had?
Do we know what we need?

One time we lived
Like the time would never end
And now it breaks
Those left alone again
And while the waters course
By the old and pale light
See just what I've lost
And die into the night

I remember the way you looked
The sun had set
The lights were down
I remember the light in your eyes
Do you remember at all?
Do you remember at all?

Isn't that what we wanted?
Isn't that what we wanted?
Isn't that what we had?
Do we know what we need?
Now that its gone

Day 441: Silence Within

2010-04-18T02:32:00.001-04:00

How is it possible to reach inner silence? Sometimes we are apparently silent, and yet we have great discussions within, struggling with imaginary partners or with ourselves. Calming our souls requires a kind of simplicity: "I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvellous for me." [Ps. 131:1] Silence means recognising that my worries can't do much. Silence means leaving to God what is beyond my reach and capacity. A moment of silence, even very short, is like a holy stop, a sabbatical rest, a truce of worries. ...

Brother Roger

I remember the feeling of being forced to stay awake for an hour, sometimes two - even three - by voices that repeatedly resound in my head. Sleep, sleep! Where is it. Restlessness that comes to find me usually before I lay down into slumber keeps me captive, in the weakest state that it can find me. I struggle, I fight.

Will we find inner peace? Silence? Is it something achievable?

Day 426: Napalm Sticks to Kids

2010-04-05T14:36:00.000-04:00

A viral video of a US Apache (a helicopter gunship) massacring a dozen Iraqi innocents has been going around since early this morning, thanks to Wikileaks.

We shoot the sick, the young, the lame,
We do our best to maim,
Because the kills all count the same,
Napalm sticks to kids.

Chorus: Napalm sticks to kids,
Napalm sticks to kids.

Flying low across the trees,
Pilots doing what they please,
Dropping frags on refugees,
Napalm sticks to kids.

Gooks in the open, making hay,
But I can hear the gunships say,
"There'll be no Chieu Hoi today,"
Napalm sticks to kids.

See those farmers over there,
Watch me get them with a pair,
Blood and guts just everywhere,
Napalm sticks to kids.

I've only seen it happen twice,
But both times it was mighty nice,
Shooting peasants planting rice,
Napalm sticks to kids.

Napalm, son, is lots of fun,
Dropped in a bomb or shot from a gun,
It gets the gooks when on the run,
Napalm sticks to kids.

Drop some napalm on a farm,
It won't do them any harm,
Just burn off their legs and arms,
Napalm sticks to kids.

CIA with guns for hire,
Montagnards around a fire,
Napalm makes the fire go higher,
Napalm sticks to kids.

I've been told it's not so neat,
To catch gooks burning in the street,
But burning flesh, it smells to sweet,
Napalm sticks to kids.

Day 425: Blatant Racism

2010-04-04T21:35:00.002-04:00

As I was walking down the sidewalk from the dining hall, a guy in a passing car stuck his head out and yelled a racial slur at me.

A few minutes later, the same thing happened again, but this time, they yelled a horrible attempt at Chinese.

Thinking back to it, I didn't like it.

But, seriously, why?

Day 394: Procrastinator or Incubator?

2010-03-04T15:33:00.001-05:00

A story that I picked up from the interwebs...

As a university instructor, the close of each academic term is always the same for me: I get a flurry of apologetic e-mails from panicked students who have put off their homework and term papers until the last possible moment. They beg for an extension.

Procrastination is a phenomenon that is familiar to everyone, even outside of academia.

Who really likes to wash laundry, balance checkbooks or fill out complicated tax forms? Most folks put these activities off in favor of more pleasant pastimes like socializing, going out to eat or reading a good book.

Procrastination is the result of having very little motivation for a boring or unpleasant activity and it is something everyone experiences. The real problem is that procrastination can sometimes overshadow a hidden strength.

Incubation is not procrastination.

I once coached an extraordinary young man, whom I'll call Mark. Mark was at the tail end of his training at a prestigious medical school. When we met on a Monday of his last week, Mark told me he felt the stress of a number of weighty assignments, all of which had pressing deadlines.

He had only a handful of days to write applications for internships, turn in final papers and secure letters of recommendation. It was a tremendous amount of difficult work to be completed in a short period of time. Mark asked me to check back with him midweek to crack the whip and make sure he was still making progress on his work.

When we spoke again on Wednesday, Mark had fallen into a deep funk. Not only was there no progress, but he had frittered away hours in meaningless pastimes like downloading music and walking in the park.

Mark uttered the all-too-familiar phrase, "I am such a procrastinator!"

He vilified himself for checking e-mail, having lunch with his wife and other activities that appeared to be in the service of avoiding his more pressing tasks.

Something about the word "procrastinator" just didn't fit with what I was seeing. Here was a young man about to graduate from an elite medical school with a flawless academic record extending back into his middle school years.

My instincts told me that it was not a lifetime of chronic procrastination that led Mark to his current situation.

On a hunch, I asked him a crucial question, "When you get around to completing your work -- and we both know that you eventually will -- how will the quality be?"

My client seemed taken aback by the question. He answered with confidence, a single word: "Superior!"

I realized, in that moment, that there may be a subtle but important difference between the "back burner" mentality I saw in my client and the traditional way a procrastinator works.

Procrastinators may have a habit of putting off important work. They may not ever get to projects or leave projects half finished. Importantly, when they do complete projects, the quality might be mediocre as a result of their lack of engagement or inability to work well under pressure.

What Mark presented was something qualitatively different: a clear sense of deadlines, confidence that the work would be complete on time, certainty that the work would be of superior quality and the ability to subconsciously process important ideas while doing other -- often recreational -- activities.

I realized I was looking at a strength, one I called "incubator." When I shared this term with Mark, he felt as if the weight of the world had been lifted off his shoulders.

What does incubation mean?

One of the greatest difficulties with identifying an incubator is that they often look like procrastinators. People with both work styles tend to put off work until the last moment, and both seem to be best motivated by external pressures such as deadlines.

Importantly, people with both work styles are likely to be hard on themselves and consider themselves lazy.

In a pilot study with 184 undergraduate university students, we were able to isolate specific items that distinguished incubators from the rest of the pack. Incubators were the only students who had superior-quality work but who also worked at the last moment, under pressure, motivated by a looming deadline.

This set them apart from the classic "good students," the planners who strategically start working long before assignments are due, and from the procrastinators, who wait until the last minute but then hand in shoddy work or hand it in late.

For most incubators, having a label that is less pejorative than "procrastinator" can be a breath of fresh air.

Incubators tend to be bright, creative people with an amazing gift to work hard under pressure. As such, they can be very dependable in work situations that require last-minute changes or tight deadlines.

The other side of this coin is that they can be frustrating to work with because they appear to sit idle for so long. For incubators, it can be as helpful to appraise friends, family members and co-workers of your natural work style so the people around you can adjust their expectations accordingly.

Setting realistic expectations for yourself can let you off the emotional hook as you appear to waste time, solid in the knowledge that your projects will be completed when they need to be.

My former coaching client, Mark, actually built in "incubation time" during which he could watch movies, listen to music or other goof-off activities, knowing that -- below the surface -- his mind was preparing for work and that he would snap into action when the time was right. As for my students requesting extensions for their term papers, they should have planned ahead!

Day 381: Common Ground

2010-02-19T01:03:00.000-05:00

What more is there to say?
I dont really want to know

Just wanna be here now
But you are not here now

Will we ever be on common ground?
So close, but so far away

Day 376: Pain

2010-02-14T12:49:00.002-05:00

As humans, we are men of a myriad of things. One is a man of choice and decisions. With the exception of those affected by disorders one way or another, we all make choices.

One choice that surprises me is how we subconsciously choose our emotional state of being.... just so discreetly. We can choose to be sad, cheerful, surprised, or even fake whatever emotion we want to fake. Many people (mostly who are not yet mature enough) say that emotions are out of our control, but this is not true at all!

Think about when you were last disappointed by an outcome of an event - maybe a sudden and unexpected breakup with your girlfriend or your boyfriend. Our emotion may be of regret, sorrow, and/or loss... but remember that I said we choose our own emotions? We can totally block this out and treat it as something insignificant. It's possible... you just have to become aware of how you can control your emotions.

However, I want to express my deep sorrow in how people can be so used to controlling their emotions that they become less and less human over time. Sure, nobody likes pain - I mean who does? Pain is a part of life; it's inevitable, but remember that along with pain comes joy and vice versa. But you just can't numb your pain all the time... that's not real. And you become less real too.

.... I think I'm guilty of going far enough to judge people in order to block out at least some of the pain that I've been going through. With ability comes responsibility...

(Written two years ago)

Day 369: Third Culture Bolshevik

2010-02-07T22:47:00.000-05:00

“In every generation there are a few souls, call them lucky or cursed, who are simply born not belonging, who come into the world without strong affiliation to family or location or nation or race. Those who value stability, who fear transience, uncertainty, change, have erected a powerful system of stigmas and taboos against rootlessness so that we mostly conform, we hide our secret identities beneath false skins of those identities which bear the belongers’ seal of approval. But the truth leaks out in our dreams; alone in our beds—because we are alone at night, even if we do not sleep by ourselves—we soar, we fly, we flee.”

-Salman Rushdie

After reading John H Quinley's post of Salman Rushdie's quote, I felt a need to confess about a few things.

Rootlessness - what is it? How is it so that one can define such terms without understanding its meaning? Why does society deem us as outcasts, just as any other foreigner, alien, outsider?

Sometimes at night, when I'm alone in the dark, comfortable solitude before going to sleep, a veil of uncertainty envelops me. It's not necessarily a sensation of ... pain one would feel, but rather one that strangles the rootless mentally and emotionally. Sometimes, you just discard them as you would with any problem when your life is on a high. Sometimes, you have no choice but to struggle with it; sometimes so long that it will keep you awake throughout the night... for hours.

But even night after night after night, how is it that we fail to find a solution to this problem in our lives? Isn't it supposed to be one of those problems where you have to think about it for a while, make a mental adjustment to your thought process, and get over it - just like that?

It's almost as if I've been running around in circles where you'd think you're getting somewhere. As a third culture kid in college, you're even more distinct from the "international" crowd in the school population - you're an international third culture kid. The first few months of your college career would go fine, because you're all so excited to be in a new country, new town, new school, in a new community. But then when reality hits you and when your heart starts to asks you strange questions, like- why is it so difficult adjusting? I thought I'm liking this place pretty fine? Why is it so hard to make meaningful connections with the people around me, even though these guys and girls are really friendly? Is it something that I'm doing wrong?

You swat those thoughts away, because they can only make you depressed and more self-conscious. But as time rolls on and you find yourself less happy and spending a lot of time THINKING, you can't help but start to take these questions more seriously and notice that you're a broken water jar (for a lack of better analogies). And the only sensible, sane thing to do is to fill up that jar that's draining all your emotional energy. So, what do you do - you do all sorts of things to make yourself feel content, happy, pleased. And that can be anything you can think of: overworking yourself in academics and getting a grade that makes you happy. Meeting new people in hopes that you'd find a best friend - that would make you happy. Smoking weed and doing shat with your friends so your problems won't haunt you for that night. Getting smashed at a party or social gathering so you would feel less worried. Finding a hookup buddy, working out in the gym, writing your feelings down on paper, obsessing yourself with video games... whatever. Whatever you can find. But I don't think it takes too long before you come to realize that there's not much you can do about it. Like I said, it's almost as if you're running in circles, only coming to know you really haven't gotten anywhere. You thought you were going somewhere, but you really haven't.

But even after thinking and writing and shedding tears and trying to find an answer for years and years, I still don't know anything! It's so stupid and fruitless, this whole thing. I don't know anything but one thing: that I am rootless. Like, yeah, I learned some things on the way, and I've built character from these social barriers that I had to face, and I've changed the way I would talk to people, but that's basically identifying the bolshevik problems that you were born into this world with - hooray.

I don't know. After a while, you become somewhat numb to this stuff, but I think you can still confess to yourself that you still have those times where this rootlessness issue keeps you awake at night and it makes you feel so, so, so homesick sometimes and so starved for that special something that you become emaciated. Not literally.

Again, I don't know. People react to such situations differently, but I'm sure a bunch of you out there can relate to this. Keep up the good work, and don't be afraid to be who you are. Most people we meet don't really give a dog's poo anyways. Let's just be the best rootless people.

Day 365: Anniversary?

2010-02-03T15:34:00.000-05:00

-Salman Rushdie

Day 347: For Entertainment Purposes Only

2010-01-16T18:47:00.000-05:00

"Love is a verb."
Joyce Meyer
Runner up, only because I heard it in 2010: "'No' is a complete sentence."

"If money can fix it, it's not really a problem."
S Pitts

"People are either frustrating or fascinating. The choice is yours."
J Blasko

"Ignorance isn't the problem. The problem is the ignorance of ignorance."
A Sweeney (Heard this last week. Added it anyway :)

"Nobody wants to buy a drill but everybody wants a hole."
J Dwyer (I'm sure this one was recycled from somewhere)

"The pole vaulter doesn't know how high he can jump until he knocks down the pole."
Dr. Robert Schuller from the book "You Can Become the Person You Want to be"

"Be it if you want to be it."
Dr. J Davis
First runner up: "Explode the box!"

"The difference between try and triumph is a little UMPH!"
Rev. Run via Dr. Robert Schuller

"People that are fearful are easy to control."
Dani Johnson
First runner up: "Quit needing it and GO GET IT!"

"I learned that I could be a giver by simply bringing a smile to another person."
Maya Angelou
(Bonus)"...when I walk in, they may like me or dislike me, but everybody knows I'm here.

Day 334: Contemplation

2010-01-03T01:46:00.000-05:00

We rationalize and justify whatever it is we end up doing and wherever it is we end up going, because contemplating those roads not taken is a fruitless task.

Day 326: Thanks

2009-12-26T02:45:00.002-05:00

Give thanks.
Give thanks for the adversities we go through because without them, we wouldn't be able to experience joy or be aware of all the goodness we are blessed with.

Day 321: Glass Cannon

2009-12-20T05:33:00.003-05:00

“I am glad that I paid so little attention to good advice; had I abided by it I might have been saved from some of my most valuable mistakes.”

-Gene Fowler

Through all the rushing hustles
And the hustling rushes
And during raucous silences
And hush-hush commotions
With the chittering chatters
And the mindless mutterings
Of your matterful matters
On vowelful platters
Of all sorts of shapes
And colors and hues
And sizes
And smells
I wrinkle my nose
Then formulate my prose
Of what I ought
But not naught
To be
To see
To do
To undo
I ponder for moment
Just for a little while
Just to take a breath
Just for a wee while
Should I motion a motion?
To pronounce a notion
Especially a question
That I would like to protest
That my hopes
Many of them
Maybe dreams
Some I do have
My aspirations
My wishes
Few in mind
Though nice at first
Are they all
After all
But a waste?

Sometimes, I am filled with suitable ideas of what I want to do later in life. After all, I don't want to be stuck in a career that I absolutely detest. I wouldn't want to work in some financial firm, even though I might make bank and get to do a lot of things that I want to do later in life. But where's the sense in that? I would much rather team up with others in some NGO and do some developmental work in a third world country.

But the more and more I relish on such thoughts, I find myself asking that ugly and dreadful question, "What if this/that is not what I'm meant to do?"

I feel like a glass cannon much at times. Being fearless can, after all, lead to undesirable outcomes. I'm totally not afraid of doing what I'm meant to do or what I passionately want to achieve, but what I am afraid of is being wrong. I feel that being wrong about it when you're 40 years down into life is just horrible.

Day 298: You and I

2009-11-27T21:44:00.000-05:00

from reddit
by arcadeguy

Here's my favorite memory that took place with you and, likely, my favorite memory of all of my memories:

It was the day you drove down to visit me in the Dells after we had recently broken up. I had worked 35 hours the previous three consecutive days. You arrived, and I got to introduce you to my friends, and then we went grocery shopping and came back to the apartment to make dinner and watch a movie.

I am trying so hard to articulate the significance of that day to you, yet I am completely failing. Ever since I can remember, I have worried incessantly about finding a career that I enjoyed because I could not imagine going to work each day unhappy with it. But that one day with you, that single, bracketed eight hours of time with you hit me over the head with this brick of clarity -- that I was so content with spending the rest of my time with you that very little else mattered at all. I had an amazing family and an equally wonderful few friends, and you. Whether I disliked anything else would never have mattered again because, at the end of it, I would have been able to come home to you. Sweet, funny, beautiful, loving, wonderful you. That was it. After all of my worrying, job-switching, moving, idle days, you made everything make sense and be okay. Better than okay.

You were so young, and I was so naive to think that, at that point in time, it would all just magically work out. I am, more than you could believe, so sorry that you had to go through all that and that I wasn't responsible enough to think more with my head and less with my heart. I would never say that I wish I could go back and change any of it, but I'm still sorry. Additionally, I am sorry that I've allowed talks like this to go on for the past two years. There is no part of me anymore that wants (or believes we could) simply pick up where we left off. There's no part of me that thinks either of us could be the same people we were before. There is a large part of me (all of me, actually) that remembers exactly how it felt to love you so completely, though, and would always be willing to try it again from the beginning, consequences thrown to the wind.

I don't know what else to say.

Day 287: Deep in the Fields

2009-11-16T00:31:00.000-05:00

Feeling impatient
Listening to Death and All His Friends - Coldplay

When I'm left alone in the wee hours of morning, when I'm reflecting back on the events that happened throughout the day, when I'm faced with my bothersome troubles, why do I feel so vulnerable? Why am I so afraid? Why are we left to don our masks and be dancers to a senseless rhythm?

Why do I feel like I am functioning perfectly well, yet so broken? Why do I feel like I don't need anyone else to rely on, but feel like I need a shoulder to lean on?

Why do I feel my soul's empty like a dried up well? Why do I feel like I'm half a man? What is it exactly that keeps me awake at night?

Day 273: What Makes Me - You - Us - Them ... Human?

2009-11-03T02:01:00.003-05:00

Feeling hungry
Listening to Edvard Grieg - Stambogsblad

I think everyone faces this question every once in a while, after taking a long, unbiased look at oneself and the people that surround him.

What makes that person as much as human as I am? What qualities of that person render them human? What makes them deserving of my good feelings?

Yeah.

Not a human, but human.

I think peace will come only when the whole world realizes that we are all the same beings. Beings with feelings, conscience, hurts, blessings, weaknesses, and a constant hunger to be cared for, listened to, and loved. But until then.

Day 257: Sweet Sunday

2009-10-18T19:32:00.001-04:00

Feeling bitter
Listening to Turbo - 회상

Why is it that when I most need another one to talk to, I can't find anyone? Why do I present to the world a happy image of myself when I am bruising and hurting inside? Why do I feel so fine and well and yet my heart throbs, my face tenses, and the tears come? Why do I tell myself that I am doing alright when I am not so? Why is it that I tell myself a lie, and believe?

I feel happy, act happy, and yet then when I'm all alone, when it's late at night, and I'm left all to my own devices, why does everything dissolve and boil down to nothing? When I'm in the dark and broken apart, why do all my efforts seem fruitless and my good ambitions to have failed? Why does everything seem so hollow?

Why does it seem that I have nowhere else to run, and nothing else to hold on to? At the same time, why is it that I feel like letting go of everything and laying down wherever I may be to just hold my hands up to the sky and scream?

Why am I surrounded by kind people and friends yet I have no one? Sometimes I just want to hug someone and rest my head on them, but I can't. It doesn't matter who, even.

Why is the most comfortable pillow so much less comforting than another human, even without words? Why is a shoulder, however bony, softer than the softest feathers? How is it that we feel a sense of relief when we crumble under the pressure and unleash the tears we held up inside?

Day 252: Temporary Constructs of Feeble Human Intellect

2009-10-18T17:26:00.001-04:00

Lies. I should go die. In the morning. Get run over by a car in the morning. All a lie. Vagaries of perception. Illusions. For what? An insipid existence of justifying the human intellect's temporary construct of one's significance in the world? Like an inventor knowing the meaning of his inventions, then what is our blueprint? Simple as from ashes to ashes, dust to dust? An endless cycle of pointless meandering?

Night 232: The Insult Remains With You

2009-09-23T22:45:00.002-04:00

You do not need to be Buddhist to see the wisdom in this.

It is the thought for the day. Do not allow others to dictate your feelings, moods and thoughts. Once you realize you control these things you will find your days much less stressful.

One day, the Buddha was sitting upon some steps meditating when a group of boys came by and began insulting and taunting him, attempting to make him angry. After some time, one of the boys observed that the insults were having no affect upon the Buddha, who remained sitting quietly on the steps. The boy finally asked the Buddha how he could just sit there and not become enraged at the terrible treatment he was receiving. The Buddha answered the question with a question of his own, saying,

“If someone offers you a gift and you refuse to accept it, to whom does the gift belong?”

The boy thought for a moment and then replied, “Why, it continues to belong to the one offering the gift.”

The Buddha then told him, “Likewise, I am refusing to accept your insults, therefore they remain with you.”

Day 232: Doing Your Best

2009-09-23T14:29:00.001-04:00

An old Italian lived alone in New Jersey. He wanted to plant his annual tomato garden, but it was very difficult work as the ground was hard. His only son, Vincent, who used to help him, was in prison. The old man wrote a letter to his son and described his predicament:

Dear Vincent,

I am feeling pretty sad because it looks like I won't be able to plant my tomato garden this year.
I'm just getting too old to be digging up a garden plot. I know if you were here my troubles would be over.
I know you would be happy to dig the plot for me, like in the old days.

Love, Papa

A few days later he received a letter from his son.

Dear Pop,

Don't dig up that garden. That's where the bodies are buried.

Love, Vinnie

At 4 a.m. the next morning, FBI agents and local police arrived and dug up the entire area without finding any bodies. They apologized to the old man and left. Later that same day the old man received a telegram from his son.

Dear Pop,

Go ahead and plant the tomatoes now. That's the best I could do under the circumstances.

Love you, Vinnie

Day 211: Advice to Young Men from an Old Man

2009-09-02T15:18:00.002-04:00

best of craigslist > SF bay area > Advice to Young Men from an Old Man

Originally Posted: Thu, 15 Feb 09:08 PST

Advice to Young Men from an Old Man

Date: 2007-02-15, 9:08AM PST

Advice to Young Men from an Old Man
1. Don�t pick on the weak. It�s immoral. Don�t antagonize the strong without cause, its stupid.
2. Don�t hate women. It�s a waste of time
3. Invest in yourself. Material things come to those that have self actualized.
4. Get in a fistfight, even if you are going to lose.
5. As a former Marine, take it from me. Don�t join the military, unless you want to risk getting your balls blown off to secure other people�s economic or political interests.
6. If something has a direct benefit to an individual or a class of people, and a theoretical, abstract, or amorphous benefit to everybody else, realize that the proponent�s intentions are to benefit the former, not the latter, no matter what bullshit they try to feed you.
7. Don�t be a Republican. They are self-dealing crooks with no sense of honor or patriotism to their fellow citizens. If you must be a Republican, don�t be a �conservative.� They are whining, bitching, complaining, simple-minded self-righteous idiots who think they�re perpetual victims. Listen to talk radio for a while, you�ll see what I mean.
8. Don�t take proffered advice without a critical analysis. 90% of all advice is intended to benefit the proponent, not the recipient. Actually, the number is probably closer to 97%, but I don�t want to come off as cynical.
9. You�ll spend your entire life listening to people tell you how much you owe them. You don�t owe the vast majority of people shit.
10. Don�t undermine your fellow young men. Mentor the young men that come after you. Society recognizes that you have the potential to be the most power force in society. It scares them. Society does not find young men sympathetic. They are afraid of you, both individually and collectively. Law enforcement�s primary purpose is to suppress you.
11. As a young man, you�re on your own. Society divides and conquers. Unlike women who have advocates looking out for them (NOW, Women�s Study Departments, government, non-profit organizations, political advocacy groups) almost no one is looking out for you.
12. Young men provide the genius and muscle by which our society thrives. Look at the Silicone Valley. By in large, it was not old men or women that created the revolution we live. Realize that society steals your contributions, secures it with our intellectual property laws, and then takes credit and the rewards where none is due.
13. Know that few people have your best interests at heart. Your mother does. Your father probably does (if he stuck around). Your siblings are on your side. Everybody else worries about themselves.
14. Don�t be afraid to tell people to �Fuck off� when need be. It is an important skill to acquire. As they say, speak your piece, even if your voice shakes.
15. Acquire empathy, good interpersonal skills, and confidence. Learn to read body language and non-verbal communication. Don�t just concentrate on your vocational or technical skills, or you�ll find your wife fucking somebody else.
16. Keep fit.
17. Don�t speak ill of your wife/girlfriend. Back her up against the world, even if she�s wrong. She should know that you have her back. When she needs your help, give it. She should know that you�ll take her part.
18. Don�t cheat on your wife/girlfriend. If you must cheat, don�t humiliate her. Don�t risk having your transgressions come back to her or her friends. Don�t do it where you live. Don�t do it with people in your social circle. Don�t shit in your own back yard.
19. If your girlfriend doesn�t make you feel good about yourself and bring joy to your life, fire her. That�s what girlfriends are for.
20. Don�t bother with �emotional affairs.� They are just a vehicle for women to flirt and have someone make them feel good about themselves. That�s the part of a relationship they want. For you it is a lot of work and investment in time. If they are having an emotional affair with you, they�re probably fucking someone else.
21. Becoming a woman�s friend and confidant is not going to get you into an intimate relationship. If you haven�t gotten the girl within a reasonably short period of time, chances are you won�t ever get her. She�ll end up confiding to you about the sexual adventures she�s having with someone else.
22. Have and nurture friendships with women.
23. Realize that love is a numbers game. Guys fall in love easily. You�re going to see some girl and feel like you�ll die if you don�t get her. If she rejects you, move on to the next one. It�s her loss.
24. Don�t be an internet troll. Got out and live life. There is not a cadre of beautiful women advertising on Craigslist to have NSA sex with you. Beautiful women don�t need to advertise. The websites that advertise with attractive women�s photos and claims of loneliness are baloney. All they want is your money and your personal information so that they can market to you. The posts on Craigslist by young �women� seeking NSA sex, and asking for a picture are just a bunch of gay troll pic collectors. This is especially true if the post uses common gay lexicon like �hole� as in �fuck my hole� or seeks �masculine� men, or uses the word cock (except in the context of �Don�t send a cock shot.�) There are women on Craigslist. They are easily recognizable by their 2-5 paragraph postings. Most are in their 30's or older.
25. When you become a man in full, know that people will get in your way. People who are attracted to you will somehow manage to step in your path. Gay guys will give you �the look.� Old people will somehow stumble in front of you at the worst time. Don�t get frustrated. Just step aside and go about your business. Know that these are passive aggressive methods to get you to acknowledge their existence.
26. Don�t gay bash. Don�t mentally or physically abuse people because of who they are, or how they present themselves. It�s none of your business to try to intimidate people into conformity.
27. If your gay, admit it to yourself, your parents, your friends and society at large. Be prepared to get harassed. See rule 14. If someone threatens you or assaults you, call the cops. Have them arrested. You have no obligation to self sacrifice because of who you are. As a gay person, you�ll have more social freedom than straight men. Use it to protect yourself. Be prepared to get out of Dodge if your orientation makes your life unbearable. Move to San Francisco, New York, Atlanta, or New Orleans. You�ll find a welcoming community there.
28. Don�t be a poser. Avoid being one of those dudes who puts a surfboard on top of their car, but never surfs, or a dude with a powder coated fixed gear bike and a messenger bag, but was never a messenger. Live the life. Earn your bona fides.
29. Don�t believe the crap about the patriarchy. More women are accepted and attend college. More degrees are awarded to women than men. Women outlive men. More men commit suicide. Men are twice as likely to be victims of violence, including murder. If you consider sexual assaults in prisons, twice as many men are raped as women (society thinks prison rape is funny). The streets are littered with homeless men, sprinkled with a few homeless women. Statically, women are happier than men. The myth that girls are being cheated by are educational system is belied by the fact that schools are bastions of femininity, mostly run by and taught by women. Girls outperform boys in school. It is the boys in school getting fucked over, and prescribed ritalin for being boys. Real wages for men are falling, while real wages for women are rising. Just because someone says something enough times, doesn�t make it true. You have nothing to feel guilty about.
30. Remember, 97% of all advice is worthless. Take what you can use, and trash the rest.

Day 207: Shameful Financial Aid Letter

2009-08-29T01:35:00.006-04:00

Feeling like a shamed, poor man

Listening to Kewlaid - Wild Berries

It's half past one in the morning

Autumn is just around the corner! My weather sense has been tingling for the past week, though I think it is arriving too soon. I really don't like taking ice cold showers in the morning. Ew.

Just now, I wrote this request letter for financial aid in this 2-week reading skill enhancement course that's being offered in Middlebury College this September. I just got to the information letter (in an envelope) just a moment ago, so I had no choice except to get on my hands and knees and literally beg in the format of an e-mail of the Center for Teaching, Learning and Research (Midd lingo - C.T.L.R.) department coordinator, JoAnn Brewer, for consideration.

So, I just want to share with you what I wrote. It's pretty shameful, I know, but I did enjoy the funny five minutes that I spent on crafting it. Ugh. I really need this aid! To be honest, it really sucks having to beg for help all the time. Feels like being a beggar begging for expensive things, like college education. Totally senseless.

Hello JoAnn,

I hope you're having a fine day!
My name is -----, Midd class of '12.5, and I'm writing to you about requesting much-needed financial aid for the Reading and Study Skills course that is offered this coming September.

Yes! I am fully aware that it is past the deadline, but I shamefully admit that I *now* just got to read the letter. It's a bummer, but I would like to go ahead and ask of you anyway. I want to tell you how badly I want to take part in this, but I don't quite think I can enroll without financial aid from the school! So, please, if you can consider this plea just for a second or two - be it yea or nay - I will be thankful.

Thank you for your time and consideration!

Much sincerely,
-------

Day 202: Middkid Uses Facebook to Raise Tuition Funds

2009-08-24T02:23:00.002-04:00

Published Sunday, August 22, 2009

Written by John on Midd-Blog.com

If you were loitering around Facebook Friday afternoon, then the chances are that you got to see our College Book Store manager Robert Jansen's hard-to-miss shout out (a rather rare occasion) to over 1,900 of his Facebook friends:

"Please help Anna so she can return to Middlebury for the Fall Semester. As a thank you - you can earn a poem from her all the way to being her friend for life. Please check out the event, join the event, have your friends join too, and most importantly donate to this great cause!"

And more importantly, what followed was a link to a public Facebook event page named in bold capital letters "SEND ANNA TO SCHOOL" where Anna, "after debating on whether or not to do [it], 'cause it seems a bit low and desperate," explains her financial situation and straight-up asks her Facebook friends for help:

"I am $3500 away from going to Middlebury in the Fall. The school costs $52 grand, so I'm not too far off. I am maxed out on loans, and so are my parents, so I'm reaching out to friends and family to try and do a little fund-raising."

Anna digs poetry, and she seems to be a poet herself. As a way to say "Thank You!" to her generous donors and scholarship sponsors, she promises poems, pictures, poetry collections, and even framed poems (oh, that I like!) depending on the amount of tuition funds one decides to give her.

And there's more. Anna writes:

"I have 360ish friends, and if I got $10 from everyone, I could go! But, I doubt that everyone on my friend list would/could chip in. However, its worth a shot, right?"

Unfortunately though, not everyone will offer help. That's where Mr. Jansen (or Bookstore Bob) comes in. He is a co-admin of the Facebook event. Compared to Anna's 360-something peer count on Facebook, Robert pulls 1,900 friends into the event, thus raising awareness for this cause to, thru simple addition, more than two thousand folks.

And really, who cares even if they don't really know her? Help a Middkid out! It doesn't have to be big, even. How about, say, five dollars? That's like holding back on a trip to the Grille for a Love Me Tender or the Wilson Cafe for one of the Specialty Latte's (and a cookie, yum), isn't it? But I guess no pressure here.

This is an example of something deeper, more meaningful than the simple fundraiser. This is our community at work and Bob Jansen helped turn an appeal to a few friends into an appeal to Middlebury at large. But why? Is it online social media savvy, a simple act of kindness, or both?

You decide. As for me, here's a slow clap for Mr. Jansen and a wish to see Anna here in the Fall.

Anna Gallagher is in the Middlebury College Class of 2012. If you're feeling generous today, then why not log into Facebook and check out her page here!

Preparing for More than a Quiz

2009-08-23T16:04:00.001-04:00

These are crazy parents. As always, Korean moms have crazy expectations. Wait, lemme rephrase that - not crazy, but unrealistic. I mean, there can only be a select few that are in the top x percentile. Not every kid can be the best, idiots!

----

Preparing for More Than a Quiz
Korean-Inspired 'Cram Schools' Still Pile On Tests But Also Help Young Students Navigate U.S. Lifestyle

By Michael Alison Chandler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 5, 2009

When Aran Park directed a tutoring center in South Korea, her workday ended at 3 a.m. That's when her last class let out. "We have a saying in Korea: If you sleep three hours, you succeed; if you sleep four hours, you fail," she said.

Park opened another tutoring center in the corner of a Centreville office building last year. At the Living Stone Academy, she runs a strict program with daily quizzes and lots of homework, but on a distinctly American schedule that ends by 4 p.m. "It is summer vacation," she said, laughing. "I don't want to take away all the fun they deserve."

Many Koreans who move to the United States are relieved to be rid of the expensive and energy-sapping cram schools where, driven by intense competition to get into top universities, students spend most of their waking hours after the school day ends.

But a new and gentler version of cram school is emerging in the United States. Over the past 15 years, scores of Korean-run academies have opened in strip malls and office buildings in such immigrant enclaves as Ellicott City and Annandale. Names such as Elite Academy and Einstein Academy reflect the educational goals that brought families halfway around the world.

This summer, thousands of Korean American students, along with an increasing number of non-Koreans, will attend them to prepare for next year's math classes, SAT tests or the entrance exam for Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology.

The schools are designed to give students a competitive edge, but many offer far more than academic support. They help newcomers adjust to a new culture, new expectations and a dramatically different public school system. For some families, they are a lifeline between the old world and the new.

"It's not all academics in America. You have to get involved in other things," said Matthew Lee, who emigrated from Korea as a teenager and established Best Academy in 1994. It has campuses in Springfield, Sterling and Columbia.

Getting involved can be a difficult concept for students who for years have been pushed to make academics their primary focus. So Lee, a guidance counselor in Fairfax County schools, offers academic classes in the morning and fills the afternoon with extracurricular activities that many public schools offer and American colleges expect to see on applications. He also counsels parents who are unfamiliar with American education traditions.

Best Academy charges $1,100 for an eight-week enrichment program for elementary and middle school students. Many academies' rates are far higher. In the fall, students go once or twice a week after the regular school day.

This summer, they are taking art classes, going on field trips and volunteering on political campaigns. They go to the pool, and they watch movies. The school offers clubs for origami, journalism and mental math.

On a sunny afternoon this week, two dozen third- and fourth-graders in art class concentrated on a blank page. Their task, the teacher said, was to draw a jar and fill it with something large and "outside the ordinary." With colored pencils, they filled the space with a dragon, a candy store, a beach and a man.

Lee tries to introduce newcomers to American public school traditions. "Spirit days," such as Funny Hat Day or Pajama Day, are commonplace in American schools but baffling to students accustomed to regimens and uniforms. He lets them practice the goofy tradition at his academy first, "where they feel more safe," he said.

Mira Chae, a Korean-born parent whose three children have attended the Best Academy, said the school helped her children feel more comfortable and less shy at the private and public schools they attended. It also helped bridge the cultural gap between her and her American-born children. "Report cards are not everything," she said.
Fewer Korean families seek out cram schools in the United States than in Korea, said Kyeyoung Park, associate professor of anthropology and Asian American studies at the University of California at Los Angeles. But the cram school industry is still booming, with families' needs changing.

More families rely on two incomes here and need a safe place for day care, Park said. Some are hoping to replicate the intensity of Korea's schools, and others are interested in the golf lessons or taekwondo some schools offer.

Einstein Academy, tucked next to a Korean church in a Fairfax City office building, markets to middle and high school students and maintains an academic focus. The school advertises a high pass rate for students on the Thomas Jefferson High School entrance exam and a heavy homework load.

But it tailors its academic courses to American expectations, said Executive Director Don Shim, with creative teaching techniques and different types of classes. This summer, the academy is offering a debate class to bolster students' communication skills. "Many students know the answer, but they don't know how to explain it," Shim said. "They just mumble."

For some parents, the American-style cram schools are not rigorous enough. Several of Shim's students are returning to Korea this summer for more-intense programs, he said.

One of those students is Fred Jin, 16, a rising sophomore at Paul VI Catholic High School in Fairfax City. He will spend four weeks at a kind of academic boot camp near Seoul, where study sessions begin at 7:30 a.m. and end at 11:30 p.m.

"Most important thing," said his mother, Youna Jin, with one finger raised in the air. "No computer." That means no cellphone, no Facebook, no MP3s.

She brought her two sons to the United States four years ago, leaving her husband behind, because she thought they would find better schools and have a better chance at getting into a prestigious college. America, she has found, is lonely for her and full of distractions for her sons, particularly online distractions. Given tight competition for Ivy League schools, she is worried her sons are wasting too much time.

Recently, she has taken to putting a mirror behind them when they are doing homework on their laptops so she can monitor their Facebook use. Five thousand dollars for four weeks, plus airfare, seems a fair price to limit that access.

Fred Jin, who prefers tennis to academics, said he expects the boot camp to be "tiring." But when it comes time to take the SAT, he said, he expects he "will get results from it."

Night 189: At the Edge of This Mountain

2009-08-11T22:59:00.003-04:00

Listening to Mango & Aqua Diva
Feeling like a happy, n00b swing dancer!

I saw your smile
When you first two met
Then all your troubles faded

You knew from the start
Where this all would fly
Falling down to nowhere
Yeah

But being careless,
You know you do not want to hear me
I know you truly want to stay here
Lingering in the clouds

And somewhere in the deepest part of your dreams
At the edge of this mountain
You close your eyes and weep

Oh somewhere in the deepest part of those clouds
Just close your eyes and dream

I heard you cry
For a distant love
Who will never come back

I saw your face
In a flood of tears
Your eyes so empty

But now hear me
You know I never want to hurt you
I know you can't resist it
In your dreams you taste their lips

Hear me, heal me
Sweetness, feelings, love and since so many blames and stories

And somewhere in the deepest part of your dreams
At the edge of this mountain
We just close our eyes and breathe

Oh somewhere in the deepest part of my dreams
At the edge of this mountain
We close our eyes and forget

Oh somewhere in the deepest part of our dreams
At the edge of this mountain
We close our eyes and repeat

Day 188: Wait, sir.

2009-08-10T15:31:00.003-04:00

Following is a quote by MLK. I found it difficult to keep a tear from forming. Have you ever stopped and wondered how lucky your people must be to not have ever endured through so much pain and agony?

"Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five year old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness"--then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait."

-MLK

Night 187: Freak on a Trip

2009-08-09T23:01:00.001-04:00

An interesting story I found about some college kid tripping..
The second and last time I'd smoke marijuana during my freshman year of college, I decided to visit an upperclassman friend that I know of in another dorm one night. I didn't think that I would be getting high in under 2 minutes, but for sure I was proved wrong.

I jogged the last 50 yard stretch before the back door of the dorm building. I passed by a student under the orange light of the street lamp, looked back, and something told me that this guy was following me. I tried not to think of it. "Just be normal, and get to the door," I told myself.

During the next five seconds, I passed by a couple that was walking towards the same direction. I looked back, and I was sure for a fact that they were following me. I panic, turn my attention to the door that's in front of me, and decide to run for it. I look back, and their shadowy figures in the darkness become so menacing that I slam my ID to the card scanner, open the door, and hurry inside the building.

I watch the building door close behind me, and turn to the stairs, just to realize that there is another dark figure waiting for me right beside the stairwell (of course, this is just another innocent person about to go outside). I snap and run past him and up the stairs to the third floor.

Getting to the right floor, I sprint until I'm at my friend's room, and furiously knock on her door. I hear her reply, but I can't make it out, so I knock again, this time stronger, and not stopping until she opens the door.

The instant the door opens, I kick open the door, and tell her, "Help. Help. Help. Help. Someone's ... someone's.... there's someone.." but my mouth fails to iterate the words that my mind is freaking over to get out. With my whole body shaking, I crumple into a ball on one side of her room, and rock myself forward and back. I remember myself repeatedly muttering, "People... following... people... following... they're outside. They're outside. They're outside!" until she just waits for me to calm down.

I move to a corner of the room, and decide that I should just sit and not move. She tells me that I really should try making friends at school, and that it's okay for me to tell her about my problems.

I snarl back, denying her claim about me having problems. This is when the weed hits me again, and I keep stuttering to her, "I don't have any problems. I don't have any problems. I really don't, really. Really," over and over again, until I realize that she's not buying it. So, I guess it becomes apparent to myself that I am really having problems, and I am having a hard time finding friends at school. I feel an overwhelming urge to cry, but I'm hit one more time. There I am, looking up at the ceiling, trying my absolute hardest to muffle my sniffles and not let a single drop of tear come out of my eyes for about a cold, long and hard five minutes.

I feel that she's looking at me, but something tells me that she's not. I breathe long and deep a few times, apologize for being so messed up, run back home, and sleep.

Did anyone else have trips like these?

Day 187: Haters Anonymous Pt II

2009-08-09T02:09:00.005-04:00

So it might seem to you that this love/hate relationship between Middlebury College and I is kinda overdramatic. Well, then .. you can go screw yourself. Press the red X on the top right corner of the browser =)

As I write this, I'm having to fight back these tears that are just begging to be let out, but I can't - my roommate is here in the room, 2 in the morning. Who do you think I am, some crybaby?

First of all, I just don't know myself anymore. I used to think I did, but I don't anymore. Why, I don't know. Coming into Middlebury College as a freshman feb was a really jolly, exciting time for me, but that's something of the past now. It's almost second semester already, and I'm going through a turb..

Nevermind. It's no use.

I've said I won't care anymore, but my mind just can't do it. DAMN it. It's almost there, but just caring about things doesn't make me so tough against what the world throws at me.

I can close my eyes, think back to my mom's cooking, and cry for over an hour, but that's all I can do to let loose whatever I had within me. But for a moment, trading emotional hurt for physical pain doesn't seem so bad right now. It seems like a very good trade, actually.

Just think of Spencer. Think of that person who doesn't seem to have any emotional wants or needs, and can just be that nice guy. No hurts, no pain, nothing. Good.

Damn. Middlebury College.

I think I need help.

Day 186: Those Aren't Fighting Words, My Dear

2009-08-08T12:43:00.001-04:00

By LAURA A. MUNSON
Published: July 31, 2009

LET’S say you have what you believe to be a healthy marriage. You’re still friends and lovers after spending more than half of your lives together. The dreams you set out to achieve in your 20s — gazing into each other’s eyes in candlelit city bistros when you were single and skinny — have for the most part come true.

Two decades later you have the 20 acres of land, the farmhouse, the children, the dogs and horses. You’re the parents you said you would be, full of love and guidance. You’ve done it all: Disneyland, camping, Hawaii, Mexico, city living, stargazing.
Sure, you have your marital issues, but on the whole you feel so self-satisfied about how things have worked out that you would never, in your wildest nightmares, think you would hear these words from your husband one fine summer day: “I don’t love you anymore. I’m not sure I ever did. I’m moving out. The kids will understand. They’ll want me to be happy.”
But wait. This isn’t the divorce story you think it is. Neither is it a begging-him-to-stay story. It’s a story about hearing your husband say “I don’t love you anymore” and deciding not to believe him. And what can happen as a result.
Here’s a visual: Child throws a temper tantrum. Tries to hit his mother. But the mother doesn’t hit back, lecture or punish. Instead, she ducks. Then she tries to go about her business as if the tantrum isn’t happening. She doesn’t “reward” the tantrum. She simply doesn’t take the tantrum personally because, after all, it’s not about her.
Let me be clear: I’m not saying my husband was throwing a child’s tantrum. No. He was in the grip of something else — a profound and far more troubling meltdown that comes not in childhood but in midlife, when we perceive that our personal trajectory is no longer arcing reliably upward as it once did. But I decided to respond the same way I’d responded to my children’s tantrums. And I kept responding to it that way. For four months.
“I don’t love you anymore. I’m not sure I ever did.”
His words came at me like a speeding fist, like a sucker punch, yet somehow in that moment I was able to duck. And once I recovered and composed myself, I managed to say, “I don’t buy it.” Because I didn’t.
He drew back in surprise. Apparently he’d expected me to burst into tears, to rage at him, to threaten him with a custody battle. Or beg him to change his mind.
So he turned mean. “I don’t like what you’ve become.”
Gut-wrenching pause. How could he say such a thing? That’s when I really wanted to fight. To rage. To cry. But I didn’t.
Instead, a shroud of calm enveloped me, and I repeated those words: “I don’t buy it.”
You see, I’d recently committed to a non-negotiable understanding with myself. I’d committed to “The End of Suffering.” I’d finally managed to exile the voices in my head that told me my personal happiness was only as good as my outward success, rooted in things that were often outside my control. I’d seen the insanity of that equation and decided to take responsibility for my own happiness. And I mean all of it.
My husband hadn’t yet come to this understanding with himself. He had enjoyed many years of hard work, and its rewards had supported our family of four all along. But his new endeavor hadn’t been going so well, and his ability to be the breadwinner was in rapid decline. He’d been miserable about this, felt useless, was losing himself emotionally and letting himself go physically. And now he wanted out of our marriage; to be done with our family.
But I wasn’t buying it.
I said: “It’s not age-appropriate to expect children to be concerned with their parents’ happiness. Not unless you want to create co-dependents who’ll spend their lives in bad relationships and therapy. There are times in every relationship when the parties involved need a break. What can we do to give you the distance you need, without hurting the family?”
“Huh?” he said.
“Go trekking in Nepal. Build a yurt in the back meadow. Turn the garage studio into a man-cave. Get that drum set you’ve always wanted. Anything but hurting the children and me with a reckless move like the one you’re talking about.”
Then I repeated my line, “What can we do to give you the distance you need, without hurting the family?”
“Huh?”
“How can we have a responsible distance?”
“I don’t want distance,” he said. “I want to move out.”
My mind raced. Was it another woman? Drugs? Unconscionable secrets? But I stopped myself. I would not suffer.
Instead, I went to my desk, Googled “responsible separation” and came up with a list. It included things like: Who’s allowed to use what credit cards? Who are the children allowed to see you with in town? Who’s allowed keys to what?
I looked through the list and passed it on to him.
His response: “Keys? We don’t even have keys to our house.”
I remained stoic. I could see pain in his eyes. Pain I recognized.
“Oh, I see what you’re doing,” he said. “You’re going to make me go into therapy. You’re not going to let me move out. You’re going to use the kids against me.”
“I never said that. I just asked: What can we do to give you the distance you need ... ”
“Stop saying that!”
Well, he didn’t move out.
Instead, he spent the summer being unreliable. He stopped coming home at his usual six o’clock. He would stay out late and not call. He blew off our entire Fourth of July — the parade, the barbecue, the fireworks — to go to someone else’s party. When he was at home, he was distant. He wouldn’t look me in the eye. He didn’t even wish me “Happy Birthday.”
But I didn’t play into it. I walked my line. I told the kids: “Daddy’s having a hard time as adults often do. But we’re a family, no matter what.” I was not going to suffer. And neither were they.
MY trusted friends were irate on my behalf. “How can you just stand by and accept this behavior? Kick him out! Get a lawyer!”
I walked my line with them, too. This man was hurting, yet his problem wasn’t mine to solve. In fact, I needed to get out of his way so he could solve it.
I know what you’re thinking: I’m a pushover. I’m weak and scared and would put up with anything to keep the family together. I’m probably one of those women who would endure physical abuse. But I can assure you, I’m not. I load 1,500-pound horses into trailers and gallop through the high country of Montana all summer. I went through Pitocin-induced natural childbirth. And a Caesarean section without follow-up drugs. I am handy with a chain saw.
I simply had come to understand that I was not at the root of my husband’s problem. He was. If he could turn his problem into a marital fight, he could make it about us. I needed to get out of the way so that wouldn’t happen.
Privately, I decided to give him time. Six months.
I had good days, and I had bad days. On the good days, I took the high road. I ignored his lashing out, his merciless jabs. On bad days, I would fester in the August sun while the kids ran through sprinklers, raging at him in my mind. But I never wavered. Although it may sound ridiculous to say “Don’t take it personally” when your husband tells you he no longer loves you, sometimes that’s exactly what you have to do.
Instead of issuing ultimatums, yelling, crying or begging, I presented him with options. I created a summer of fun for our family and welcomed him to share in it, or not — it was up to him. If he chose not to come along, we would miss him, but we would be just fine, thank you very much. And we were.
And, yeah, you can bet I wanted to sit him down and persuade him to stay. To love me. To fight for what we’ve created. You can bet I wanted to.
But I didn’t.
I barbecued. Made lemonade. Set the table for four. Loved him from afar.
And one day, there he was, home from work early, mowing the lawn. A man doesn’t mow his lawn if he’s going to leave it. Not this man. Then he fixed a door that had been broken for eight years. He made a comment about our front porch needing paint. Our front porch. He mentioned needing wood for next winter. The future. Little by little, he started talking about the future.
It was Thanksgiving dinner that sealed it. My husband bowed his head humbly and said, “I’m thankful for my family.”
He was back.
And I saw what had been missing: pride. He’d lost pride in himself. Maybe that’s what happens when our egos take a hit in midlife and we realize we’re not as young and golden anymore.
When life’s knocked us around. And our childhood myths reveal themselves to be just that. The truth feels like the biggest sucker-punch of them all: it’s not a spouse or land or a job or money that brings us happiness. Those achievements, those relationships, can enhance our happiness, yes, but happiness has to start from within. Relying on any other equation can be lethal.
My husband had become lost in the myth. But he found his way out. We’ve since had the hard conversations. In fact, he encouraged me to write about our ordeal. To help other couples who arrive at this juncture in life. People who feel scared and stuck. Who believe their temporary feelings are permanent. Who see an easy out, and think they can escape.
My husband tried to strike a deal. Blame me for his pain. Unload his feelings of personal disgrace onto me.
But I ducked. And I waited. And it worked.
Laura A. Munson is a writer who lives in Whitefish, Mont.

Laws of Infernal Dynamics, Murphy's Way

2009-08-04T20:26:00.002-04:00

The laws of infernal dynamics are an adage about the cursedness of the universe. Attributed to Science fiction author David Gerrold, the laws are as follows:

An object in motion will be moving in the wrong direction.
An object at rest will be in the wrong place.
The energy required to move an object in the correct direction, or put it in the right place, will be more than you wish to expend but not so much as to make the task impossible.

The laws are a parody on the first and second of Newton's laws of motion in the spirit of Murphy's law. Newton's first law of motion has here been split into two parts, the first two laws. Newton's third law of motion is left unparodied, though a separate adage states that "for every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism."

Law of conservation of misery: Misery is never created or destroyed, just transferred.

Murphy's law is sometimes strengthened, as Finagle's law. The comparative of Murphy's law then is: If anything can go even worse, it will go even worse. Or more comprehensive, as: "Whatever can go wrong will go wrong, and at the worst possible time, in the worst possible way."

Day 182: Haters Anonymous Pt I

2009-08-04T01:53:00.002-04:00

I don't know how else to put it. I'm not happy. I don't like it here. I don't like the majority of the people, and the small, but handful of people that I can actually look at and smile is not enough to overpower the feelings I have toward this place.

Sometimes I look at and tell myself that I'm just being overdramatic. Oh, fuck. Are you kidding me? Do you think I'm making all this shit up just so that I can have another reason to be in this fucking mood for the whole day? Just so that I can be like this for one more day?

"The pain of life overrides the joy to the point that joy does not exist." -Kevin Carter, Pulitzer Prize recipient

Damn you, Middlebury College. I didn't even want to come here in the first place.

Monologing Reminescence

2009-08-02T14:50:00.003-04:00

Day 174: And You Still Call Me Colored?

2009-07-27T21:45:00.004-04:00

An African kid wrote the following poem, and the UN declared it the best poem of 2006.

When I born, I black

When I grow up, I black

When I go in Sun, I black

When I scared, I black

When I sick, I black

And when I die, I still black

And you white fellow

When you born, you pink

When you grow up, you white

When you go in sun, you red

When you cold, you blue

When you scared, you yellow

When you sick, you green

And when you die, you gray

And you calling me colored??

Day 170.5: Open Your Eyes, United States!

2009-07-23T11:27:00.001-04:00

Photos of US Torture of Iraqi Prisoners At The Abu Ghraib Prison In Iraq

by sources
Friday Apr 30th, 2004 5:06 PM

Graphic photographs showing the torture and sexual abuse of Iraqi prisoners in a US-run prison outside Baghdad emerged yesterday from a military inquiry which has left six soldiers facing a possible court martial and a general under investigation.
The scandal has also brought to light the growing and largely unregulated role of private contractors in the interrogation of detainees.

iraq_torture_a.jpg

According to lawyers for some of the soldiers, they claimed to be acting in part under the instruction of mercenary interrogators hired by the Pentagon.
US military investigators discovered the photographs, which include images of a hooded prisoner with wires fixed to his body, and nude inmates piled in a human pyramid.
The pictures, which were obtained by an American TV network, also show a dog attacking a prisoner and other inmates being forced to simulate sex with each other. It is thought the abuses took place in November and December last year.
...
Lawyers for the soldiers argue they are being made scapegoats for a rogue military prison system in which mercenaries give orders without legal accountability.
A military report into the Abu Ghraib case - parts of which were made available to the Guardian - makes it clear that private contractors were supervising interrogations in the prison, which was notorious for torture and executions under Saddam Hussein.
One civilian contractor was accused of raping a young male prisoner but has not been charged because military law has no jurisdiction over him.
Hired guns from a wide array of private security firms are playing a central role in the US-led occupation of Iraq.
The killing of four private contractors in Falluja on March 31 led to the current siege of the city.
But this is the first time the privatisation of interrogation and intelligence-gathering has come to light. The investigation names two US contractors, CACI International Inc and the Titan Corporation, for their involvement in Abu Ghraib.
Titan, based in San Diego, describes itself as a "a leading provider of comprehensive information and communications products, solutions and services for national security". It recently won a big contract for providing translation services to the US army.
CACI, which has headquarters in Virginia, claims on its website to "help America's intelligence community collect, analyse and share global information in the war on terrorism".
Neither responded to calls for comment yesterday.
According to the military report on Abu Ghraib, both played an important role at the prison.
...
Colonel Jill Morgenthaler, speaking for central command, told the Guardian: "One contractor was originally included with six soldiers, accused for his treatment of the prisoners, but we had no jurisdiction over him. It was left up to the contractor on how to deal with him."
She did not specify the accusation facing the contractor, but according to several sources with detailed knowledge of the case, he raped an Iraqi inmate in his mid-teens.

Read More
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1206725,00.html

Full Text Of Taguba Report
http://www.indybay.org/news/2004/05/1679599.php
Full Text Of ICRC Report
http://www.indybay.org/news/2004/05/1680479.php
Photos From The New Yorker
http://www.newyorker.com/online/slideshows/pop/?040510onslpo_prison
Seymour Hersh's Story In The New Yorker
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040510fa_fact
60 Minutes II Report:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/04/27/60II/main614063.shtml
Video from 60 Minutes II:
http://www.indybay.org/news/2004/04/1678870.php
More Pictures From The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5623-2004May5.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/flash/photo/world/2004-05-03_prisonabuse/movie.htm

More On Indybay's Iraq Page:
http://www.indybay.org/iraq

US military in torture scandal