Monday, November 10, 2008

Elections Over, Now What?


Campus has returned to a sense of normalcy after Obama's victory last Tuesday. All the tension and build-up in the days running up to Election Day have evaporated. You wouldn't know if the election even happened with the way things are now.

The campus erupted within seconds after CNN announced Obama the winner. The mood on everyone's faces—and I mean everyone—could only be described as euphoria. I could here chants of Obama's name and the now infamous "Yes We Can" from outside my window.

An hour later some friends and I went to the White House to get people's reaction there. The front gates were surrounded by happy—and drunk—pedestrians who were not afraid to speak their minds to still-President Bush. I still remember the scent cold air, sweat, and beer a week later. Hundreds of people joined to sing "Nay, nay, nay, hey, hey, hey, good bye" and—to my surprise—the Star-Spangled Banner. Whether this was genuine patriotism or just the booze singing I still can't figure out. But what was certain is that, if you were there, you had a feeling the entire District came together to celebrate their contempt for the president and the hope for something new. One man captured best the nation's feelings toward the still-President. Staring brazenly at the White House he yelled out, "You fucked up this country for eight years you bastard!"

But now that the celebration has dropped to a minimum and people are more focused on their pocketbooks, I am slightly worried about how the public will scrutinize soon-to-be President Obama. Many people expect him to fix the economy almost overnight. Conservative Republicans are crossing their fingers hoping that he will crush under the pressure of expectation. I have faith that Obama knows what is asked of him, all we can do is sit and watch how he handles his new job.

Pictures from both campus and the White House: http://picasaweb.google.com/asi3989/ObamaVictoryMarchToTheWhiteHouse#

Monday, September 8, 2008

Night (Sonnet)

Here is another poem that I wrote for my poetry class:

Mama Nature's breath eases through my room,
filling calmly the space with boon.
weaving best through nightly loom,
twilight wrapped in a crickety tune.

No moon in sight of my glassy view,
only black versus street lamp light.
My mind relaxes in this colorless hue,
when Silence traps all in its quiet might.

At times I lay on velvety green,
pointing toes and fingers at myriad stars.
The endless dark absorbs my being,
listening to Night's soothing moon guitar.

Mama, keep Night longer in your earthly clutch
since your sun mocks all with his burning touch.

Friday, August 29, 2008

Arse Poetika™

For my poetry class I had to read a poem called "Ars Poetica" by Archibald MacLeish which is a poem about what a poem should be. If we wanted to we could write our own satirical poem about the poem that talks about what a poem should be. The original work can be found in this link: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15222. Read he orginal poem first so it makes more sense.

A poem is useless yet invigorates,
like fresh cow manure
to the growing plant.

The words of the poem
buried in the gooey jelly
of a powdered doughnut.

A poem walks aimlessly through time
mocking the Old Man.
Leaving the moon behind
While each night the moon asks
‘Why are you still here?’

A poem should be equal to:
Hell No!!!
For the griever,
the bloody-eyed raven screeching
‘I told you so.’
For the lover,
the skin-enticing leather and the cracking whip.
And the casual onlooker would say,
‘I don’t get it.’

Friday, August 22, 2008

La Vita Nova: Part Two

Coming back to DC offers a strange transitional period to someone who has lived in a small town for almost all his or her life. The first time I stepped onto this campus I felt like a small fish that was suddenly taken from his humble pond to a massive ocean full of strange yet wondrous creatures. When I came back to North Carolina I felt restrained by the smallness of my former pond, being used to the almost limitless reaches of the ocean of the District. And now that I am here again I feel a strange emotion that I can't explain. The scenery is familiar, I know where most of everything is, but I still feel sense of novelty towards my surroundings. To be honest, I will never feel that I truly belong in the District as I feel that I will never feel that I belong in North Carolina as I was born and raised in the murky streets of Baltimore until I was ten (and not feeling like a belong there either). Nonetheless, I am once again the small fish now looking to retrace my steps and swim to new places in the ocean.

But getting back to my baseline was for some reason more trouble than when I moved here the first time. I had trouble connecting to the school's internet (which took me almost an hour), I left a chaotic mess of near-empty boxes all around my room. And to top it all off I dropped my bookcase on my right foot when moving my things around (it hasn't felt the same since). In my mild frustration I was compelled to stop all that I was doing, get some food, and go to bed early. But I knew that I couldn’t do since I hate waking up to a bedlam of a room (just ask my last roommate). So I soldiered on one foot and finished unpacking everything two hours after my injury.

Fate would give me a reward for my patience and resilience. As I was on my way to the bathroom I meet up with a spunky freshman who was trying to get people have dinner in the school's cafeteria. Her efforts paid off as she brought about a dozen people with her for our dorm. In the cafeteria I was reunited with the semi-fresh smell of food as well as the large crowd of people that I constantly had to dodge to avoid crashing into while filling my plates. I returned to my college staple of a heap of salad, a handful of fries, a bowel of honeydew and cantaloupe, a toasted bagel, and a glass of orange juice. I was the only upperclassman so every asked me questions of the best places to eat, watch a movie, and go clubbing.

After dinner me the freshman did what every other college student does in DC after eating, go to the National Mall. I was honestly surprised that these newcomers would be more willing to see a bunch of monuments rather than go out to the ever-pervasive frat party. When ended up taking the metro to downtown DC and walked to the Mall. Night filled the sky and the lights of the area gave the monuments more aesthetic than what could have been seen during the day. We did not get a chance to see all of the Mall but made the best of what we did see (laying on your back up close to the Washington Monument makes it seem like you can walk on it).

All in all, my first day back helped me realize the limitless possibilities that this strange place has to offer. I honestly have no plans on what to do here, but I now that Fate will guide me to whatever I set myself up to. I am looking forward to starting my new life…again.

Monday, April 21, 2008

What Do You See?

Today I was looking at Benetton ads on the internet for a class project. Some of the highly controversial advertisements that appeared on Google Image included a priest and nun kissing each other, a newborn straight freshly out of his mother's womb (umbilical cord still attached and all), and a male model's mid section in profile with the phrase "H.I.V. Positive" tattooed on his left arm. There was one particular ad that grabbed my attention: a picture of a black woman breastfeeding a white baby with only her exposed breasts in arms in full view with the child. Beside seeing the clear racial overtones of the photo I tried to see a deeper meaning in the work.

This powerful photo reminded me of my time in art class when we had to paint a female nude model. We had sketched three other models beforehand (two being men and another being a mid-aged black woman) so we were used seeing nakedness. But this woman was different, she was a young white woman in her early twenties and had a level of attractiveness higher than all the previous models combined. Both male and female students initially were uncomfortable painting this pretty white girl, giving off signs of nervousness but trying to keep their composure for the teacher. Half way through the class we would all get into painting and we started to loosen up. Students would talk to the model and advice what would be a better and more comfortable pose for both the painters and for the model. Sometimes we would even joke with her, but kept it to a minimum for the professor's sake. Her nakedness was no longer an issue. We did not see as someone naked and out of place, but something natural and accepting.

That is what I saw in the Benetton photo pass the initially shock of seeing a woman's breasts for a magazine ad. I did not see a woman posing in a controversial manner but someone committing the beautiful god-given act of breastfeeding a child. When people think of breast we firstly think of the them as pornographic, perverted, and mundane. Social etiquette, television, and conversional wisdom tell us that they should be covered up for the sake of decency. The Benetton ad shows something different, it shows the female body as something unabashedly normal. If we tear through the social stigmas of certain subjects we can see them for what they naturally are. And once we see these subjects for what they are, as with the female model, we can appreciate them for their natural beauty.

Saturday, March 29, 2008

I Haven't Abandoned This Thing Yet

Spring has been steadily returning to the lonely nation's capital, along with my inspiration for writing a new entry for this sprouting blog. It's been months since I was able to enjoy sitting outside and drinking in the warmness of the day. in the late afternoon I sat near the university's amphitheatre as I would in the beginning of the school year when the last remnants of summer were making a final stand.

The grass was still battered from last winter's barrage of snow and hail, but nonetheless comfortable enough to lay my feet on. A gentle breeze frequently fluttered in the air as if the wind itself came to say "I'm sorry" for all the harsh blowing it did since November. I laid my back across the already flattened grass to look up at the sky. Naked and unabashed branches stretched across a scene of Carolina blue. Looking up at the sky reunited me with that feeling you get when you realize that you are just a fragment of the universe. It gives me an appreciation for things outside my control and to remind me to always keep myself grounded in the real. I admit that I'm not the most earthy of individuals but there's something about the simplicity of nature that gets me going.

I feel that I will never understand this whole metropolitan thing...

Until the next month I post my next entry, this is just a poet wishing everyone a happy spring.

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Readings From The Symposium

Socrates: Let’s sum up our conclusions then: Love is first the love of things, and then of things he now lacks. Isn’t that so?

Agathon: Yes.

Socrates: …can Love be anything except the love of beauty.

Agathon: No.

Socrates: Didn’t we agree that he lacks what he loves and doesn’t have it?

Agatho: Yes.

Socrates: So Love must lack beauty and not have it.

Agathon: That follows.

Socartes: Then do you still say that Love is beautiful.

Agathon: I’m afraid I didn’t know what I was talking about when I said it.

Socrates: Do you think that whatever is beautiful is also good?

Agathon: Yes, I do.

Socrates: Therefore if Love lacks beautiful things, and if beautiful things are good, then Love must also lack good things.

Agathon: Have it your way Socrates, I can’t contradict you.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Religious Discussion about the Afterlife

Student: What do you think of people of other faiths attaining heaven?
Priest: Well, salvation is through Jesus Christ, however there are exceptions. When it all comes down to it, we. Do. Not. Tell God what to do.
Rabbi: ...We do.

Sunday, February 24, 2008

I've Been Busy

I apologize to the few people who do read this blog for taking such a long time to write another post. I've been busy: busy with homework, busy with class work, busy with preparing for exams, busy failing exams (just kidding…). By Friday night I was completely exhausted and glad that I was finally able to do the things that I wanted to do like go to the Smithsonian and National Gallery of Art (which is not part of the Smithsonian).

So I woke up on Saturday fully energized to start my day of relaxation. Something went terribly wrong with the Metro earlier that day so everyone had to use the same track to go to their destination. Waiting for extremely long periods of time added more to the frustration. I reevaluated my decision to go to the Smithsonian, being that they were going to close by the time I got there (thank you Metro), and I decided to go to my default choice of DuPont Circle. I was eager to go to find a consignment shop that I looked up online that, I soon realized that it was further than I expected. Walking for almost an hour around I realized that I was running in circles around the embassy residence's of Mozambique, Argentina, and Columbia. To make matters worse, the weather was drastically declining and I had to stop at local Starbucks's every five minutes to keep myself warm. In the end I decided to forget the consignment shop and go back to my dorm and sleep.

I don't know exactly now many miles I walked yesterday, but by the time I came back to my dorm that my legs were as tired as they were on Friday. I realized that I completely wasted my day and had little to no time to relax. I didn't have the energy to write this blog yesterday. My "day of relaxation" was not really as relaxing as I hoped it would be. Even if my day went as smoothly as I wanted it to I would most likely be as tired as I am anyways. With those activities I was not taking the break that I wanted, I was filling my Saturday with more unnecessary energy-guzzling activities.

The best way to relax is to not do anything that you know would take large amounts of your time or energy. Looking back now I wish I just laid in my bed all day and reflected on how stressful last week was and how to make the coming week less stressful. My energy would have been put into better use if I were to do that. But the truth is that I did not, and know I have to prepare for the stressfulness of the coming week. Alas, I hope that I won't be too busy to write my next blog entry...

Thursday, January 31, 2008

Bust that Cycle

Last night I watched video clips my favorite internet guru Ze Frank, a video blogger whose known for his intelligent (yet sometimes crude) sense of humor and philosophical discussions. In this particular video, during Happy Week (in which Ze is forced by the League of Awesomeness to not talk about current events and talk about happy things), he discussed the process of "busting cycles", things we do to break our usual routine. He explained that if we bust the right cycles and routines we might able to see the world in almost a wholly different perspective and see a whole new realm of possibilities. One of the things he would do to bust his cycle would be to walk around town at five o' clock in the morning to see it slowly .

Ze's advice had me thinking about what would happen if I woke up at an extremely early time of day and walked around the city. I've been wanting to do this ever since I started living in DC anyways. So today I woke up at five o' clock, got dressed, walked to the nearest Metro stop, and rode the train to DuPont Circle.

Of course, the illuminated streets of DuPont were ghost-like, save the occasional jogger. The purple-rimmed indigo landscape was filled with cool morning air, making the trip worth it. I walked around DuPont for around thirty minutes trying to find place to eat a nice breakfast. It's amazing that throughout this metropolitan area full of nightclubs, chic cafés and sushi bars I could not find a single diner that cooked pancakes and scrambled eggs. I ended up finding a "French" café called Au Bon Pain. It was somewhat hilarious because the place sold itself as an authentic French café but everyone who worked there were middle-aged Hispanic woman (unexpectedly ironic yet overly obvious at the same time). After I bought a egg sandwich with a cup of coffee, I looked through the large window and watched the morning blue slowly ooze across the dark skyline. As the sky brightened, the streets gradually filled with people. The classical music flowing throughout café made the scenery more amusing. The people outside looked as if they were walking in rhythm to the rushing violins.


Even though I had a good time, it was also a great learning experience. Today I learned how quickly DC comes to life, from joggers in the wee hours of the morning to businessmen with newspapers bumrushing the coffee shops when the sun comes up. I also learned that given five minutes of post-sleep and a hot shower I can pretty much be active at any time of the day. I advise anyone who wants to a quick escape from the daily hustle to observe your routines, shift them, bust them. No only will it be fun but you'll also learn a lot about yourself along the way.

To watch the Ze Frank video, click the link below: http://www.zefrank.com/theshow/archives/2006/09/092006.html

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Momma, Guess Who Came To My School!?



Yesterday, political rock star Barack Obama passed by my school (guess where that is) with Ted Kennedy to announce that the Massachusetts Senator will have his support during his campaign. I hardly ever get excited about politicians talking to the masses, but I couldn't help but get a little excited, especially with everyone else I knew almost falling on themselves trying to see the presidential candidate in person. Unfortunately, I had to work hat day so I couldn't go to the event.

On my way to work there was a line towards the entrance of Bender Arena, the place where the rally was being held. The line reached to far for my eyes to see the end and I was beginning to second guess going to see. Besides, the school's library, where I work, presented the event on television and told us all to take a break to watch the rally. The main lobby was filled with people, probably more than the amount go to the library building daily. I was amazed at the turn out of people who wanted to see the speech on television. I could not see this ever happening to a candidate like Mitt Romney or even Hilary Clinton.

I tend to shun my ears whenever a politician talks in any situation. Usually when a public figure talks, it almost always falls under the lines of "If you elect me as President, I will…" or "The liberals/conservatives in office are hurting America!" There is something different about this Obama guy. When I heard him speak about coming together regardless of race, religion, sex, or even political ideology, I felt as if I actually believed him. As cliché this may sound, there was something in his charismatic words that restored a dying sense hope and inspired me to do better as both an individual and as a citizen of this country. Rarely do I get inspired by a public speaker. Rarely do I see someone grab the attention of the people of my generation as Obama did. Who knows, perhaps there is a change in the way our government works.

Sunday, January 27, 2008

The Gradual Dissent of Social Action, Responsibilty, and Public Discourse

My roommate is at it again, this time by stamping a large pro-life sign on our door for everyone to see. The sign has the picture of a baby with the phrase “Face it, abortion kills!” Not to my surprise, the responses from other people were more than negative. One person has gone has gone so far as to place the words ‘outlawing’ over the sign making it say ‘Face it, outlawing abortion kills!” and to add more shock value, this person placed a clothes hanger over the sign as well.

My friends advise me that I should counter my roommate’s poster with another that follows what I believe, assuming that I am against abortion (or am I?). I feel that it is pointless for me to expound whatever political belief that I have, there are enough people in the world who do it as it is. People wear t-shirts that say ‘Impeach Bush’, people go on cable news channels and scream at viewers to follow their way of thinking. And in this battle of media, nothing in a real sense seems to ever get done. There are still people in this country that still can’t pay for health care, let alone eat. Education continues to deteriorate as many children can’t even point out the United States on a world map.

Wearing your ideology on your sleeve does not make you a better person than the one you oppose, nor does it make the situation any better. It is this polarized version of politics and public discourse that continues to tear our already dull-minded country apart. To really make a difference is to commit to action for others, anything lease is a form of meaningless posturing.

Friday, January 11, 2008

Black-Winged One

White, not the colour of purity and innocence,
but the colour of absence, nothingness,
the blank page of a book,;
not the colour of my God.

My God is dark,
the colour of morose night,
colour of the infinite unknown.
Known to me as the black-winged one…

He allows me to suffer
and to feel pain
since to feel pain, I believe
is to truly be alive, to be human.
For when your soul is finally presented to the Divine,
it will be shown exposed, naked,
ripped from the garments of original sin,
scarred yet spiritually veteran.

When I pray to my God,
I do not entreat during my lightest times,
but, silently, through my darkest times.

When I pray to my God,
I do not pray for Him to fix my problems,
But for Him to give me the strength,
to survive my own dark crisis.

And as I lick my tender wounds,
quietly waiting for them to heal,
I do not show anger at Him, and should never.
After all, we are the ones who inflict our own scars,
and inflict unto others…