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.

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.

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.

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...

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