Running on Fumes

02.18.09 am

Oh boy, I am extremely exhausted. I didn't make it to bed until 3 am. i may need to rethink this whole hair thing. I love it, don't get me wrong, but I wanted to twist it up last night and realized that I was sort of at the point of no return and had to wash it at 1 am or risk spending several hours prying through it after it dreaded up.

you'd think after having such a poor classroom showing yesterday i'd have wanted to be as well rested as possible in order to greet my long day, but in all honest, vanity has gotten the best of me in the lieu of petty conflict, and if I am to appear to be gracious and look fabulous when I do it, a couple of hours of sleep was a concession that I was certainly glad to make.

You'd have probably laughed at me yesterday as I banished myself to the library's research carral for 4 hours literally buried in a mound of homework. i didn't even have time to write my grandmother who'd sent me a bit of mail. i just recorded a thank you on my portable webcam and extended my gratitude to her and went back to drawing icons for my chinese vocabulary words up on the white board so that i could make a mental association with them. yeah, visual kinetic learning methods.

anyhow, here is the course rundown for my day yesterday

mth 125

i struggled with the assignment last week and waited until the last possible moment to hack out the problems and ended up with only having about half of the assignment done. fortunately my TA made the same mistake, so there will be a bit of leniency as we both realized a bit too late that we'd been assigned with approximate 3 hours worth of work and interpretaion. whuh oh. i let him know right away that i was going to probably need extensive help to get caught up with the review, but all in all i am very happy with the class. one of the guys in the class complained that he didn't care for our professor's teaching style, but i love it. i'm female so i love having the cross correlation of definitions, diagrams and real world models used. plus, she audio records every lecture and posts a written transcription of her notes on blackboard. perhaps that's why she can get away with assigning 3 hours worth of assignments. i also enjoy that she has a relatable sense of humor and sucks what could have been any form of anxiety out of the room. the class feels much more supportive and this could be because she is my age, but i feel as if the class takes on more of a study group feel than that of a boring old lecture.

chi 102
would have been great. i'm almost caught up on the dialog and drills, but I came in late because my advisor took forever to converse with me while i was trying to get my add/drop form signed and i never took the time to finish my stroke tracing worksheet that was due. this is also another lesson as to why i shouldnt wait until the last minute to do things. It certainly won't happen again.

i spent the rest of the day at work prewriting an article on Dr Vibert White's Lecture, "The Black Presence in the Middle East: A Contemporary and Historical Analysis" or something like that. Now I just have to wait and see how they hack my story up. some of the quotes were rather long.

On that note I will mention that I did keep the audio from the story of the infamous question and answer session in which Naji, my nemisis thought that this would be a great opportunity to refute the speaker's argument by asserting that there were no structural or institutional disparities that existed in the middle east because the color of skin was not an issue and then proceeded to think, and i'm not sure why he thinks this is okay, use the word "ni-", "the n-word" and then finally just went out and dropped the n-bomb. only in berea can a some jerk get away with something like that and not find themselves in a flaming car cascading into the ohio river or something. this isn't the first time that i've adressed this issue. over the break i expressed concern with one of the faculty members of hearing internationals use the word and the response was adequate, but it just continues to keep happening and i am not only disheartened but also beginning to really understand how generational privilege of not being exposed to this kind of racist behavior has sheltered me from how common it all takes place in this community and beyond.

unfortunately the events that i wished to attend; the gymnastics and dance exhibition, the primitive arts and tech informational meeting, and the social documentary "the rich have their own photographers," had to be curtailed and put off because of my poor classroom performance today... my way of negatively reinforcing the behavior. i did a fair amount of reading and processing instead and i think i'm going to write my health analysis on overcoming adrenaline addiction and stress management for one of my wellness goals.
http://eport.maricopa.edu/published/i/ha/iharkleroad/tdocument/1/
http://ezinearticles.com/?Adrenaline-Addiction-Can-Kill-You=&id=1342503

i did get my physics club flyer done, finally. i missed the meeting over the weekend. here is the final copy. now i must go eat breakfast and catch up on the reading i need to do.

this website is pretty cool. i just thought i'd add it as a resource. http://www.uusu.org/content/index.php?page=3695

other things of note:

flamenco music


not as good for studying as samba or bossa nova, but still very enjoyable



a bit cheesy, questionably offensive, but entertaining to watch



very helpful and will be noted in the future

To Dump or Not to Dump

A debate has arisen in my dormitory suite over one of my suitemates not flushing the toilet. Yes, we have a mad pooper. Not really, there are seemingly legitamate reasons for not flushing the toilet linked to water conservation, but from the stand point of basic sanitation principles, the whole idea of hovering over someone else's festering bacteria just creeps me out. I caught shigella once in a middle school pandemic from using door and fountains that other people used who didn't wash their hands. So I tend to side with those who think that whoever came up with this method of water conservation should be slapped. I could see if it was a private home with a toilet tank that could be treated with environmentally friendly enzymes to make it safer, but not in a dorm. I don't even want mono from my suitemates, so you know I don't want to share butt germs.

There are so many other ways to offset this usage of water, like putting buckets there for the showers in the morning that usually take 5 minutes to make the conversion from icy to tolerable. That water could be poured down to flush and reduce waste. There's also a group on campus, HEAL, through the CELTS program, who has been going around campus installing low flow aerators in the sinks and showerheads. I know we're going to need someone to help us get grants and people to aid us if we approve the idea of installing low flow toilets. I personally would love to see us get something similar to what the eco village has like those dual flow toilets. I know this semester we are still trying to work toward installing this particular dorm with aerators for the shower heads. There are a variety of ways to be more sustainable without getting people sick or having to blindside everyone. There are 16 girls in here and we shouldn't have to reserve a toilet to serve the needs of one person unless that person has a legitimate disability. Perhaps the person hasn't heard both sides of the argument. But I'm pretty sure based upon what I've seen that the toilet issue is less of that of sustainability one and more of an issue of her not being hygenic. But at least she's showering more now that she's engaged. That's none of my business. I suppose we'll find out either way after we put this issue to a vote tomorrow.

back at square 1

on a personal note: i think this last experience with loss has made me overlook the fact that i'm being blown off by someone that i care about. it's my own fault. i got impatient and i pushed. i just hate being swept off to the margins without any sort of consideration or anything. hopefully i'll be like those smarty pants who get treated like dirt and use the experience to liberate myself from this fixation upon my growing affinity for jerks. sometimes a spade is just a spade.

ok, i'm a jerk, i know. i have dropped the ball. here is how i have resolved the issue of updating you. i have a couple of course journals, so i may as well compile the info in summation so that you have some sort of an idea of how i spent my day.

02.16.09

I’m playing around with the idea of doing a process journal… here’s my attempt.

Art 115
I think my prof seemed to be impressed with my un-coached sketching. I did a little bit of the reading and tried to make sure I remembered the usage of vertical and horizontal lines and perspective even though I didn’t have the foggiest idea of what I was doing. He read us a walt Whitman poem and I drew a picture, even though I hadn’t conceptualized it of a negro baseball player holding up a baseball and basking in the sun. I don’t know how the pencil found it, it just sort of emerged from the strokes of my mechanical pencil. For someone with no ability, it was cool to me just that it looked like something. But then I am always that person who has to attach some evocative meaning to my stuff to overcompensate for the deficiencies, so I attached a haiku and wrote a 1 sentence description that read, this piece signifies when the colored man felt as if it were acceptable for once to feel like a boy. I even started the etching of the number 44 on the back of his jersey, but left it as more of a symbolic implication instead. Once I build up my technical ability, perhaps there will be hope for me to expand my artistic media. When I get the chance I’ll grab a shot of the pic and upload it. Oh yeah, there’s an archaeological illustration seminar going on this weekend. I need to make sure I email the lady sponsoring it so that I can get on that list. I already logged it on my calendar.


There Was a Child Went Forth

There was a child went forth every day;
And the first object he look'd upon,
thatobject he became;
And that object became part of him for the day,
or a certain part ofthe day,
or for many years,
or stretching cycles of years.
The early lilacs became part of this child,
And grass,
and white and red morning-glories,
and white and red clover,
and the song of the phoebe-bird,
And the Third-month lambs,
and the sow's pink-faint litter,
and the mare's foal,
and the cow's calf,
And the noisy brood of the barn-yard,
or by the mire of the pond-side,
And the fish suspending themselves so curiously below there--
and the beautiful curious liquid,
And the water-plants with their graceful flat heads--
all became part of him.
The field-sprouts of Fourth-month and Fifth-month
became part of him;
Winter-grain sprouts,
and those of the light-yellow corn,
and the esculent roots of the garden,
And the apple-trees cover'd with blossoms,
and the fruit afterward,
and wood-berries,
and the commonest weeds by the road;
And the old drunkard staggering home from the out-house of the tavern,
whence he had lately risen,
And the school-mistress that pass'd on her way to the school,
And the friendly boys that pass'd--
and the quarrelsome boys,
And the tidy and fresh-cheek'd girls--
and the barefoot negro boy and girl,
And all the changes of city and country,
wherever he went.
His own parents,
He that had father'd him,
and she that had conceiv'd him in her womb,
and birth'd him,
They gave this child more of themselves than that;
They gave him afterward every day--
they became part of him.
The mother at home,
quietly placing the dishes on the supper-table;
The mother with mild words--
clean her cap and gown,
a wholesome odor falling off her person and clothes as she walks by;
The father, strong, self-sufficient, manly,mean, anger'd, unjust;
The blow, the quick loud word, the tight bargain, the
crafty lure,The family usages, the language, the company, the furniture--
the yearning and swelling heart,
Affection that will not be gainsay'd--
the sense of what is real--
the thought if, after all, it should prove unreal,
The doubts of day-time and the doubts of night-time--
the curious whether and how,
Whether that which appears so is so,
or is it all flashes and specks?
Men and women crowding fast in the streets--
if they are not flashes and specks, what are they?
The streets themselves,
and the façades of houses,
and goods in the windows,
Vehicles, teams, the heavy-plank'd wharves--
the huge crossing at the ferries,
The village on the highland, seen from afar at sunset--
the river between,Shadows, aureola and mist,
the light falling on roofs and gables of white or brown, three miles off,
The schooner near by, sleepily dropping down the tide--
the little boat slack-tow'd astern,
The hurrying tumbling waves,quick-broken crests, slapping,
The strata of color'd clouds, the long bar of maroon-tint, away
solitary by itself--
the spread of purity it lies motionless in,
The horizon's edge,
the flying sea-crow,
the fragrance of salt marsh and shore mud;
These became part of that child who went forth every day,
and who now goes,
and will always go forth every day.

-Walt Whitman


Chi 102
Is still a beast but at least I didn’t make an ass out of myself like I did last Wednesday. I’m definitely going to have to try some alternative approaches. Today I did a little vocab review on the white board drawing pics of the words and that seemed to help me get a sense of immersion and imagery. I still need to get caught up on the drills though.


PEH 100
I got the assessment done at 7-something this morning. I’m surprised because I envision myself to be healthier overall than I thought. That’s awesome. We didn’t have any tornadoes this time to distract us, and we’re going to have daily quizzes, so that should be exciting. I’m a bit perturbed that we already have a writing assignment, but I’m sure I can find something innovative to add coming from my cultural background and a holistic approach.


GSTR 210
So the first day of class was intimidating. I’m not sure what to expect, but hopefully once we delve into the coursework the class will prove to be much more engaging. I worry that I’ve gotten in over my head. I read the course description beforehand but the truth is; I do not know much about the professor or his expectations. Once I find a way to get over the shock of being scolded for popping my arthritic knuckles I will readjust my level of receptivity to figure out which skills can best be taken from this course in order to improve my writing. I’ve been dreading the idea of writing a formal paper for quite some time. It must have something to do with those daunting annotations and citations. But I have many ideas and little tolerance for wasting class time, so perhaps this experience will prove much more fruitful than my prior GSTR experience in which my professor didn’t even grant the courtesy of regularly showing up.
I suppose it wouldn’t kill me to develop some interpersonal skills. I’m going into engineering. I assume that I will eventually have to encounter clients and peers with similar communication styles that clash with how I learn. My goal is to adjust and emerge this semester having grown a bit more patient and wise. Perhaps I just need to grow thicker skin. I’m sure that I can learn more gracious ways to endure. I can either choose to be overwhelmed by my fear or I can choose to make the most of this experience. Thank goodness my friends here are nurturing and engaging so I won’t feel as if I have to be the old cranky lady in the back of the room. In all honesty, I think this may very well be the first class that I’ve ever taken that I’ve been terrified to engage in for fear of being critiqued. Even now I’m feeling unnervingly anxious as my joints lock up.


I attended a couple of events this evening and it gave me a moment to reflect upon my chaotic day. It gave me a moment to assess how my attitude is making me less receptive than I need to be in order to transform this experience into one that I can maximize and learn from. Instead of letting my pride and fear inhibit my ability to connect with the goals of the course, I should stop being unreasonable, even if my apprehension might seem legitimate at this time. I’m actually a bit excited because I came up with a theme for my term paper during the lecture I attended on the black presence in the Middle East. One of my peers made it a point to insult and refute the speaker. He even went so far as to drop the n-word without any consideration of how inappropriate and insensitive his comments were.


It was then that I wondered if perhaps I was being arrogant in assuming that just because I had been fortunate to have the privilege of being properly trained in etiquette and the development of interpersonal skills that there were many who don’t have that luxury or experience. Whether brought about by disparities in class or cultural dynamics, perhaps it was wrong of me to expect that others would be respectful toward me as if I am entitled to be treated with common courtesy. There are many cultures with which I must learn to interact, particularly if end up getting to travel abroad. Perhaps it is the curse of my own generational privilege to simply assume.


Other notes…. Scheduling has been a beast. I keep adding things, perhaps cause it’s Monday and I am in the black on most days, yet I still find ways to procrastinate. Why haven’t I done my math. I’ve been avoiding it ever since I realized that I don’t know what the hell I am doing. Yeesh, I should get to bed so that I can get up wicked early and try to get caught up. Although with my track record lately, that could be a losing battle. Better safe than less than safe and still sorry I suppose. Sleep is but a distant memory.
http://www.facade.com/tarot/personal/?UID=981560&Date=2%2F16%2F2009&Name=Anonymous&Query=&Deck=&Reading=&Reverse=on

This seriously felt like my day today. Although the thing that distresses me more than snotty professors and mysterious gag orders is the fact that a week has passed and I have not done my math homework. I’m going to have to pull an overhaul on the alarms to get up early enough to do it. Here’s incentive, no homework: no primitive art and tech club. I hope real egg Tuesday turns out to be more rewarding than back to the grind Monday.



big things that need to happen: math and chinese hw, write article on black presence in the middle east, email physic club about planetarium show, read art & wellness as well as 100+ pages of history of appalachia, primitive survival and tech club.... no wonder i've been sacrificing food and sleep. maybe not food, but i need to definitely watch that so that it doesn't catch up with me. ugh

Are they really making Ameros?

so it occurred to me that even though we haven't really had a chance to talk that I it might be beneficial to take advantage of some of the wonderful technology that I've been taking for granted. I left a SIFE presentation tonight, primarily because I wasn't content with how the panel had chosen to address some of the concerns. I left also because I had quite a few questions regarding the economic impact of the financial markets and I thought that rather than disrupt the panel with my bleak and loaded questions that it might be better served to dialog with someone who was a little less biased on the issue. That being said, I am aware that there have been times that I have been prone to paranoia. A discussion that I had about the Ameros, however, has stimulated some deep thought that I may need to get a little bit of clarity on before I spend time ruminating over the issue.



Ameros
I did read a little bit about the rumored currency and I haven't quite decided how I feel about it. I'm not exactly clear on who is pushing to unify the currency and what their motivation is behind it. It seems that with three large centralized monetary systems that the potential for a considerable amount of conflict could arise particularly considering that the three governments propsed for the arrangements operate on three such different paradigms. I don't know that it would be beneficial for Mexico or Canada to devalue their own financial markets to accomodate such a finicky and fluctuating consumerist culture here that is driven mostly by erratic market trends. While I can't say the same for Mexico, Canada appears to have a lot to lose from entering into such an agreement with the united States, because this country doesn't really have all of its "ducks in a row" when it comes to the universal funding of its healthcare and educational systems. If the markets continue to deteriorate here, even with the adoption of the new currency, that's not going to leave those Americans left with any sense many options of places to run to ;) .

In all seriousness, I'm beginning to feel that before any other nation could consider making such a bold and risky move, there would have to be more evidence of financial stability and cohesiveness in the activities of each nation's markets in order to be most effective. Because each of the economies are based upon such different modes of implementation and are central to such different types of lifestyles, I don't know that having a unified currency would serve the best interest of those whom we'd like to see benefit from making such a move. As you alluded earlier, it would probably take something quite drastic to push these nations into such a hasty agreement without having an intricate system of checks and balances in place, and I haven't seen where any of these nations have demonstrated the capacity to implement something this delicate without there being a ridiculous amount of opportunities for corruption to take place. Who would be in charge of ensuring that this system wasn't exploited to the detriment of the rest of us, whom they've failed to involve? Would the national treasuries be in charge of circulation or would they have to organize a new agency to handle these matters? Who would make this determination and who would decide who to put into place in order to bring these changes about?

I just worry that trying to spread our poor economic influence over other nations with are growing debt isn't going to create more problems for us in the future. It kind of feels like the Great Britain cycle of spreading itself out too thin which inevitably met its demise. I can't tell if we're deregulating our own faulty system or creating one that's going to be even more detrimental to everyone in the long run. But then, if the American dollar has deflated as much as it has been rumored, then perhaps we won't have much of a choice. Perhaps I'm looking at this from the wrong perspective. In that case, by all means, please direct me where I can get a better understanding of the issue.



Deflating Markets
I also had questions about that crisis someone was talking about. I watched this video and Colin Powell seemed very definitive about the affirmation that there would be a crisis. Is this based upon existing intelligence or speculation? Have you heard anything further about this assertion? It sounds very dangerous whatever it is and I pray that it has nothing to do with our financial markets. It did get me thinking, however, about a few questions.

• Who stands to benefit if our markets collapse?
• Is there someone or some organization out there that is pushing for that kind of a crisis?
  Do you think that people here would purposely create the conditions for a situation like that to happen?
• If so, what lengths do you think that they'd be willing to go and how do we best prepare ourselves?
• If not, and it hypothetically happens ourside of our domain, how are crisises like this generally handled?
• How do you think the new administration would respond? I don't know that we can continue to pull bailouts and stimulus packages out of thin air. Would we even have enough funding and support to fix it?
• Is there way to prevent something like that from occurring, or are we doomed to the ill fates brought about by others?
• How effective would martial law even be and would they be able to even implement it with the state of credibility that the united states government and military (not to mention funding) has lost over the years?

And I suppose the biggest question upon my mind is should I be paranoid?

I feel like I have spent years avoiding thinking about worse case scenarios, and yet when they occur I find that my biggest distress comes from not having been adequately prepared. I certainly don't want to see things degenerate into chaos, but if something climactic like that were to occur, I'm going to have to start making a lot of ethical decisions about what I'm going to be willing to stand for and I would just like to have an idea of what I'm up against. You certainly aren't obligated to answer any of these questions. I just think in lieu of tonight's topics that it was good for me to get some of it off of my mind. I didn't know who to ask about my concerns and you seemed to be the most knowledgable on the subject, so you kind of got to be the lucky candidate.
-"phi*G"

"By believing passionately in something that still does not exist, we create it. The non-existent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired."
-- Nikos Kazantzakis

Election Day Blues

After two botched elections
I can’t bear to watch
I just hope for the best
And move forward
I just hope that the people
who are voting
will remember
Exactly what we’re moving toward

A historic election
Though they may often find
They don’t care much for the choice
But the choice, it does matter
And they should choose wisely
When they exercise their voice

Popularity doesn’t matter
lives are at stake
It's the fate of the world
can't you see
I just hope they remember
When they fill out their ballots
use prudence
And vote responsibly

I have already voted
Now the rest is contingent
Upon what other people decide
In the meantime I’m hiding
Scared of what they’re deciding
And I pray that they pick the best side

Inside I could explode
Watch my future implode
Based on who other people select
I just hope they’ve all learned
From the bridges we’ve burned
And they’re mindful of who they elect

Will tomorrow be sunny
Or will I take of running
Off to new lands
I’d have to explore
Or will they do us proud
Etch history in the clouds
And proclaim that our future’s restored.

I know that I must admit
That it show’s little faith
In the democratic process
I just hope for the best
And I pray that we’re blessed
And we’re all met with future success

Amazing footage....

I stumbled across these today