the circumstances of existence are pretty glorious.

syntax

2012-01-31T02:20:00.000+07:00

and if
I were to say

I love you and
I do love you

and I say it
now and again

and again would say

parataxis
would you see

the world revolves
anew

its axis
you
--Maureen N. McLane

2012-01-27T04:43:00.001+07:00

2012-01-19T22:17:00.001+07:00

Tonight No Poetry Will Serve

2011-12-22T04:36:00.000+07:00

Saw you walking barefoot
taking a long look
at the new moon's eyelid

later spread
sleep-fallen, naked in your dark hair
asleep but not oblivious
of the unslept unsleeping
elsewhere

Tonight I think
no poetry
will serve

Syntax of rendition:

verb pilots the plane
adverb modifies action

verb force-feeds noun
submerges the subject
noun is choking
verb disgraced goes on doing

now diagram the sentence

--Adrienne Rich

it's good sometimes

2011-12-12T11:18:00.001+07:00

okay, i'll be the first to admit it. i absolutely hate living alone.

its lonely to cook for one and i don't like not having anyone to talk to when i come home. i went from living in a family of five, to living with five other girls, to living completely by myself. i miss the noise, the laughter and the chatter.

but, i realized today that i do in fact like it sometimes. i suppose i don't ever truly come to understand my own feelings until i'm by myself. when i'm driving home alone to spend the rest of the evening with myself, i have a lot of time to use my brain and really think about things. it's nice, sometimes.

lessons in being a grown up: being alone is good for you sometimes.

but definitely not all the time!

2011-11-09T10:17:00.002+07:00

wolfgang.

2011-11-05T23:28:00.001+07:00

2011-11-02T00:16:00.001+07:00

2011-11-02T00:15:00.001+07:00

2011-11-01T12:58:00.001+07:00

Nicki Minaj - Save Me - Pink Friday Vidéo MrMusic sélectionnée dans Musique

The end of an era

2011-07-16T02:55:00.002+07:00

I can't believe that tonight, in a few short hours, I'll be watching the last Harry Potter movie! I seriously feel like my childhood officially ends here. How ironic that I would finally get a job offer post-grad on the same day that I will watch the final installment of the book/film series that has been the centerpiece of every school break I've had since the age of eleven.

My generation really, truly did grow up with Harry Potter. He entered and exited our lives exactly when we needed him, when he was most relevant. I've heard many kids younger than me complain that the language was too difficult for them to understand in the series later novels. The writing style matured with the characters, and with us. With books coming out basically every year and a half, we were always the same age as the three major protagonists and Rowling's themes, plot devices, metaphors and language grew as we did. Harry, Ron and Hermione taught us lessons and we learned from them with every book and every movie. Its no wonder this final release is such an emotional moment for so many.

As a recent college graduate, I can feel that my life is gaining momentum, about to change. I feel as though I've finally settled into the person I'm going to be. We reached adulthood at the same time, and the end of this summer signifies a transition into the real world for me, and my beloved heroes.

Here's the end of an era! I'll never forget Fluffy, Quirell, Snape, McGonagall, Dumbledore, the Weasleys, Hagrid, Scabbers, Sirius, Luna, Neville, Nagini, Draco, Bellatrix, Aragog, Slughorn, Mad Eye, Barty Crouch, Ludo Bagman, Fleur, Viktor, Cho, Cedric, Oliver Wood, Angelina, Katie Bell, Seamus, Dean, Ginny, Justin Finch-Fletchley, Professor Sprout, Professor Binns, Lupin, Tonks, Kingsley, Umbridge, Bathilda Bagshot, Lily, James, the Dursleys, Mrs. Figg, Ron, Hermione and Harry, or anyone else I haven't listed.

I am so excited to see this movie in a few hours.

real life.

2011-06-16T13:24:00.000+07:00

There's a lot of crazy shit going on in the world right now.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/national-security/arrest-indicates-pakistan-leaders-face-rising-pressure-to-curb-us-role/2011/06/12/AGrSi2VH_story.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/16/world/asia/16pakistan.html?_r=1&hp

The Listeners

2011-04-28T07:40:00.002+07:00

'Is there anybody there?' said the Traveller,
Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champed the grasses
Of the forest's ferny floor:
And a bird flew up out of the turret,
Above the Traveller's head:
And he smote upon the door again a second time;
'Is there anybody there?' he said.
But no one descended to the Traveller;
No head from the leaf-fringed sill
Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,
Where he stood perplexed and still.
But only a host of phantom listeners
That dwelt in the lone house then
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight
To that voice from the world of men:
Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,
That goes down to the empty hall,
Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken
By the lonely Traveller's call.
And he felt in his heart their strangeness,
Their stillness answering his cry,
While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,
'Neath the starred and leafy sky;
For he suddenly smote on the door, even
Louder, and lifted his head:--
'Tell them I came, and no one answered,
That I kept my word,' he said.
Never the least stir made the listeners,
Though every word he spake
Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house
From the one man left awake:
Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,
And the sound of iron on stone,
And how the silence surged softly backward,
When the plunging hoofs were gone.
--Walter de la Mare

John Stuart Mill

2011-04-20T15:17:00.001+07:00

"Hardly anything can be of greater value to a man of theory and speculation who employs himself not in collecting materials of knowledge by observation, but in working them up by processes of thought into comprehensive truths of science and laws of conduct, than to carry on his speculations in the companionship, and under the criticism, of a really superior woman."
-John Stuart Mill, The Subjection of Women

Elusive

2011-04-20T03:14:00.001+07:00

I wonder sometimes if it will always be
like this:
catching at happiness in butterfly nets & dragonfly jars.

It probably always will be,
the simple pleasure of grass in my hair
& the waiting to capture you as you stroll along.

We're always reaching for something else
to grab onto or hold in the cupped bed
of our hands until

the next happy
flies along.

revenge

2011-04-07T02:03:00.000+07:00

Love Letters

2011-04-06T10:11:00.003+07:00

"I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own, than when you almost broke it eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant. You alone have brought me to Bath. For you alone I think and plan. --Have you not seen this? Can you fail to have understood my wishes?--I had not waited even these ten days, could I have read your feelings, as I think you must have penetrated mine. I can hardly write. I am every instant hearing something which overpowers me. You sink your voice, but I can distinguish the tones of that voice, when they would be lost on others.--Too good, too excellent creature! You do us justice indeed. You do believe that there is true attachment and constancy among men. Believe it to be most fervent, most undeviating in."
-F.W.
'I must go, uncertain of my fate; but I shall return hither, or follow your party, as soon as possible. A word, a look will be enough to decide whether I enter your father's house this evening, or never.'

-Persuasion, Jane Austen

A Litany for Survival

2011-04-04T02:37:00.002+07:00

For those of us who live at the shoreline
standing upon the constant edges of decision
crucial and alone
for those of us who cannot indulge
the passing dreams of choice
who love in doorways of coming and going
in the hours between dawns
looking inward and outward
at once before and after
seeking a now that can breed
futures
like bread in our children's mouths
so their dreams will not reflect
the death of ours;

For those of us
who were imprinted with fear
like a faint line in the center of our foreheads
learning to be afraid with our mother's milk
for by this weapon
this illusion of some safety to be found
the heavy-footed hoped to silence us
For all of us
this instant and this triumph
We were never meant to survive.

And when the sun rises we are afraid
it might not remain
when the sun sets we are afraid
it might not rise in the morning
when our stomachs are full we are afraid
of indigestion
when our stomachs are empty we are afraid
we may never eat again
when we are loved we are afraid
love will vanish
when we are alone we are afraid
love will never return
and when we speak we are afraid
our words will not be heard
nor welcomed
but when we are silent
we are still afraid.

So it is better to speak
remembering
we were never meant to survive.
-Audre Lorde

lessons

2011-03-30T02:48:00.001+07:00

sometimes there are things
more important than work,
like touching the soles of your feet

like touching the soles of your feet
with a piece of tall grass just because
I want you to remember things like that

I want you to remember things like that
time when you stopped under a rust bitten bridge and
everything started over into something beautiful

everything started over into something beautiful
to remind me to remember that
sometimes there are things
more important than work.

Persuasion

2011-03-29T18:23:00.002+07:00

"...she thought it was the misfortune of poetry, to be seldom safely enjoyed by those who enjoyed it completely; and that the strong feelings which alone could estimate it truly, were the very feelings which ought to taste it but sparingly."
-Jane Austen

an afternoon with Rawls

2011-03-24T05:35:00.001+07:00

"Injustice, then, is simply inequalities that are not to the benefit of all."

bees

2011-03-21T11:25:00.002+07:00

the windows stayed open too long
but spring is coming.
i noticed that outside the library
today when the light
blew the leftover specks of
winter through my hair around 7 pm
and you

thought today might be
a time for second
chances (you always did
like the spring).
you should know

that once is good enough:
just ask the bees--
one sting, dead.
and they were never meant to fly.

anachronisms

2011-03-17T19:11:00.002+07:00

The world is changing, I think.
2 gay guys kissed on Fox
last night & Carla is applying for jobs
that require skills in social media, like
the art of literary economy, they
only allow you 140 characters to
speak your mind, but
I can't tell if that's honestly
too little
or too many.

Yes, the world is definitely
changing, I told you before and I meant it.
I know it must be because
I can't
just sleep
anymore. I'm always thinking future
things, past things, BraveNewWorldCameTrue
things. I don't know what to
do with it all, you know?

I have a friend who can't
find books by himself in the library. How
can he survive between all the
characters & pound
signs if the Dewey Decimal system is too
confusing?

The world is changing & I'm
trying to decide if I'm an
anachronism or not. Listen,
I'm all about
equality & Carla finding a
job, I'm just not ready to

read books without
pages or write
poems without paper,

you know?

driving

2011-03-15T22:41:00.001+07:00

my sister's driving now and
when i watch her pulling out
of the driveway, her nose in the
air to avoid the glare of a falling
sun on the black pavement i
think about how my father must
have felt on the first day i drove
a car by myself. he - hopeless with
his feet still on the ground, waving
slowly. me - on the road, windows cracked.
it could have ended differently, but
time moves us to leave him behind.

new plan

2011-03-15T06:55:00.000+07:00

I decided last night that I'm going to try to write every night in the same journal until it has no paper left.

This is going to be tough, but since I'm still waiting to see if I'll get into any MFA programs for next year, the only thing I can do is keep writing, so I have a ton of stuff to choose from when/if I apply again!

I'll only post the good stuff. :)

Bedmates

2011-02-25T01:09:00.002+07:00

I heard Marge Piercy never cared
much for books. Not until she got
sick as a child and happened upon
them while looking for a way out of her
sickbed, so last night I asked the
spider crawling around my ceiling if he
thought there would have been a
Marge Piercy if her family could have
afforded a television in the 40s. He says no,

and I'm going to have to agree with Mr. Spider,
but I guess it doesn't much matter because
the fact is the lady wrote 17 volumes of
poetry and 15 novels and one book of essays
and one nonfiction title and one memoir. And, like,
all of those were really important to
feminism and I'm writing
in my panties sharing my musings with a
fucking spider.

Mad Girl's Love Song

2011-02-21T05:19:00.001+07:00

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

-Sylvia Plath

Tuesday

2011-02-16T00:29:00.001+07:00

I slipped this morning with a coffee mug. The
contents of which is wet on my sleeve and
my elbow and I haven't been able to do

anything at work today because I haven't
eaten properly since Saturday and I'd like
to have a cigarette to curb the hunger pangs

but I don't think that's allowed and the
girl in the office next to me is listening
to bad 80s music. I haven't written

a poem in a while and I thought
the pen and paper might like to know
what I've been up to.
-Anonymous

October (section 1)

2011-02-07T03:13:00.002+07:00

Is it winter again, is it cold again,
didn't Frank just slip on the ice,
didn't he heal, weren't the spring seeds planted

didn't the night end,
didn't the melting ice
flood the narrow gutters

wasn't my body
rescued, wasn't it safe

didn't the scar form, invisible
above the injury

terror and cold,
didn't they just end, wasn't the back garden
harrowed and planted--

I remember how the earth felt, red and dense,
in stiff rows, weren't the seeds planted,
didn't vines climb the south wall

I can't hear your voice
for the wind's cries, whistling over the bare ground

I no longer care
what sound it makes

when was I silenced, when did it first seem
pointless to describe that sound

what it sounds like can't change what it is--

didn't the night end, wasn't the earth
safe when it was planted

didn't we plant the seeds,
weren't we necessary to the earth,

the vines, were they harvested?
--Louise Gluck

Where I'm from you have to cross rivers

2010-12-07T15:00:00.000+07:00

to get out. The bridges have crisis hot-line numbers.
I don't work for them, but I can imagine what they
say. Where I'm from, airplanes are always
flying. On the weekends, I lay on landing
strips between the tall grass. I try to touch
the plane-bellies with my fingertips. I hope
no one is coming home from a funeral in
there. Where I'm from, people are always
dying. My grandma can't get buried next to
my grandpa because the cemetery ran
out of space. I think I'll reserve my plot
in advance so that I can be buried next
to her, so she'll never be alone. Where I'm
from, the leaves are on fire. They fall like
ash from on high and we bathe in it somewhere
between the rake and not having enough time for
anything anymore. Where I come from, we don't
talk about things. We count train cars
instead of speaking the words that really
matter at stoplights and crossroads. We never
say I love you. I'm sorry. That hurt me.
We count train cars so at the very least
we know something. I feel and I count and
I slip up sometimes because we've got
death all around us on the train-tracks,
grave markers, seasons and river rocks. I want
you to know that where I come from, I
don't know if I belong because I can't stay quiet
and because I need more than the number of cars
on the freight train to keep myself alive.

Summer

2010-12-01T07:08:00.000+07:00

You crack the egg into the
frying pan and the room
already smells like spice on
last night's baked potatoes
and the fire alarm will
probably go off because
it's always being so temperamental
during breakfast. When it does,
it will wake the whole house.
I'll be sorry that I asked
you to make me breakfast so
soon because now you have
to cook for everyone else and
we're never going to finish
the Sunday crossword with our
coffee.

Ars Poetica

2010-11-17T04:48:00.002+07:00

A poem should be palpable and mute
As a globed fruit,

Dumb
As old medallions to the thumb,

Silent as the sleeve-worn stone
Of casement ledges where the moss has grown-

A poem should be wordless
As the flight of birds.

*

A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs,

Leaving, as the moon releases
Twig by twig the night-entangled trees,

Leaving as the moon behind the winter leaves,
Memory by memory the mind-

A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs.

*

A poem should be equal to:
Not true.

For all the history of grief
An empty doorway and a maple leaf.

For love
The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea-

A poem should not mean
But be.
--Archibald MacLeish

spill

2010-11-08T13:43:00.000+07:00

tonight, i'm giving in.
i don't know how to stand tall anyway
and tonight, i don't want to. i'll let
you take me where you want to, i
swear it, i will. you can pay, if
you want and we can pretend that
mattered anyway.
i don't mind much, you know.
i don't mind much about the cold
or the sheets or getting to work
on time or how many cookies you left me
because tonight, i'm giving
in to the way you cover my toes with
the last corner of the blanket like
you're putting white-out on my
heart because you know how much i
hate it when there are cross-outs in
my notebooks. i just can't stand it.
tonight, i'm giving in
just after you put my toes in their house.
you take off your glasses (mine, too). you unsettle
your hair and i'm thinking of letting go now,
like that message in a bottle, cracked
against an ocean rock, leaking ink
into the fish eyes and the seaweed arms.
a blue/black/white/red disaster of colors
and a giving in to the wave.

lately....

2010-11-08T13:42:00.002+07:00

OADN forevaaa!

Writing

2010-10-26T21:32:00.001+07:00

often it is the only
thing
between you and
impossibility.
no drink,
no woman's love,
no wealth
can
match it.
nothing can save
you
except
writing.
it keeps the walls
from
failing.
the hordes from
closing in.
it blasts the
darkness.
writing is the
ultimate
psychiatrist,
the kindliest
god of all the
gods.
writing stalks
death.
it knows no
quit.
and writing
laughs
at itself,
at pain.
it is the last
explanation.
that's
what it
is.
--Charles Bukowski

Having a Coke with You

2010-10-21T03:29:00.002+07:00

is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irun, Henadaye,
Biarritz, Bayone
or being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia in
Barcelona
partly because in your orange shirt you look like a better
happier St. Sebastian
partly because of my love for you, partly because of your love
for yoghurt
partly because of the secrecy our smiles take on before people
and statuary
it is hard to believe when I'm with you that there can be
anything as still
as solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in
front of it
in the warm New York 4 o'clock light we are drifting back and
forth
between each other like a tree breathing through its
spectacles
and the portrait show seems to have no faces in it at all, just
paint
you suddenly wonder why in the world anyone ever did them
I look
at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the
world
except possible for the Polish Rider occasionally and anyway it's
in the Frick
which thank heavens you haven't gone to yet so we can go
together the first time
and the fact that you move so beautifully more or less takes
care of Futurism
just as at home I never think of the Nude Descending a Staircase or
at a rehearsal a single drawing of Leonardo or Michelangelo
that used to wow me
and what good does all the research of the Impressionists do
them
when they never got the right person to stand near the tree
when the sun sank
or for that matter Marino Marini when he didn't pick the rider
as carefully
as the horse
it seems they were all cheated of some
marvellous experience
which is not going to go wasted on me which is why I'm
telling you about it

--Frank O'Hara

Slow Dance

2010-10-19T04:58:00.003+07:00

More than putting another man on the moon,
more than a New Year's resolution of yogurt and yoga,
we need the opportunity to dance
with really exquisite strangers. A slow dance
between the couch and dining room table, at the end
of the party, while the person we love has gone
to bring the car around
because it's begun to rain and would break their heart
if any part of us got wet. A slow dance
to bring the evening home, to knock it out of the park. Two people
rocking back and forth like a buoy. Nothing extravagant.
A little music. An empty bottle of whiskey.
It's a little like cheating. Your head resting
on his shoulder, your breath moving up his neck.
Your hands along her spine. Her hips
unfolding like a cotton napkin
and you begin to think about how all the stars in the sky
are dead. The my body
is talking to your body slow dance. The Unchained Melody,
Stairway to Heaven, power-cord slow dance. All my life
I've made mistakes. Small
and cruel. I made my plans.
I never arrived. I ate my food. I drank my wine.
The slow dance doesn't care. It's all kindness like children
before they turn four. Like being held in the arms
of my brother. The slow dance of siblings.
Two men in the middle of the room. When I dance with him,
one of my great loves, he is absolutely human,
and when he turns to dip me
or I step on his foot because we are both leading,
I know that one of us will die first and the other will suffer.
The slow dance of what's to come
and the slow dance of insomnia
pouring across the floor like bath water.
When the woman I'm sleeping with
stands naked in the bathroom,
brushing her teeth, the slow dance of ritual is being spit
into the sink. There is no one to save us
because there is no need to be saved.
I've hurt you. I've loved you. I've mowed
the front yard. When the stranger wearing a shear white dress
covered in a million beads
comes toward me like an over-sexed chandelier suddenly come to life,
I take her hand in mine. I spin her out
and bring her in. This is the almond grove
in the dark slow dance.
It is what we should be doing right now. Scrapping
for joy. The haiku and honey. The orange and orangutang slow dance.

--Matthew Dickman

How to Please

2010-09-17T03:58:00.001+07:00

This is a please
a please do not tell me
I'm going. A please do not open a door I can
open. A please after last night's stars
just gas somewhere and probably
already burnt out.

This is a please
make me write something that
means something to someone
other than me. A please read it without asking
and find your place inside it like
the leaves falling down, weighing around your
shoulders like a shawl. A please, please
pretty please in a white Sunday dress and
Mary Janes, just hoping to be noticed in line.

This is a please
a short please with blue eyes & long hair
a please with hope & a please with longing
a me please & a you please
a please do not tell me where
I'm going.

Amber

2010-09-09T07:07:00.001+07:00

She gave me this, he said.
It was hers, to protect her when she was a child.
He takes off the necklace so
that I can see its deep amber pendant,
smooth with black markings on the back
smeared like ink that rubs across his
bare brown chest.

So, now I’m thinking of you
with the mosquito heat breathing around my heart
and your face off in the
distance, a mirage of home, stuck
in the amber of the other side of the world.
You’re protecting me in the perfect symmetry
of the Boston and New York skylines.

In Defense of Our Overgrown Garden

2010-09-03T05:21:00.000+07:00

Last night the apple trees shook and gave each lettuce a heart
Six hard red apples broke through the greenhouse glass and
Landed in the middle of those ever-so-slightly green leaves
That seem no mix of seeds and soil but of pastels and light and
Chalk x's mark our oaks that are supposed to be cut down
I've seen the neighbors frown when they look over the fence
And see our espalier pear trees bowing out of shape I did like that
They looked like candelabras against the wall but what's the sense
In swooning over pruning I said as much to Mrs. Jones and I swear
She threw her cane at me and walked off down the street without
It has always puzzled me that people coo over bonsai trees when
You can squint your eyes and shrink anything without much of
A struggle ensued with some starlings and the strawberry nets
So after untangling the two I took the nets off and watched birds
With red beaks fly by all morning at the window I reread your letter
About how the castles you flew over made crenellated shadows on
The water in the rainbarrel has overflowed and made a small swamp
I think the potatoes might turn out slightly damp don't worry
If there is no fog on the day you come home I will build a bonfire
So the smoke will make the cedars look the way you like them
To close I'm sorry there won't be any salad and I love you

--Matthea Harvey

beaches, banks and other fun things.

2010-08-04T22:19:00.003+07:00

Since I've been home, all I've been doing is sitting, eating as much food as humanly possible (with as much grease as humanly possible), going to the beach with my mother and trying to work out all of the crap that happened with my stupid bank account while I was gone.

Its been very relaxing to be home, but I miss Vietnam very much. Its really strange to not have any obligations. No class, no work, no plans for the weekend. I'm sure my mother would disagree about me being the opposite of busy, but this is nothing to what I'm used to. I forgot how to relax!

On Sunday, Lauren is coming to spend a week at the beach, which I'm really, really looking forward to. It will be so nice to have my pal back (especially since I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night wondering why she's not on the other top bunk here in Westerly. Seriously. Once it actually scared me because I thought something was wrong)! My mom might be looking forward to it more than I am, though. :)

Oh, yeah. And Maggie's gone for the week at camp, so I'm really enjoying my unlimited access to her MacBook. :)

home.

2010-08-04T08:06:00.001+07:00

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pur whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you?
--Charles Bukowski

da biet, hanoi

2010-07-27T17:59:00.003+07:00

For my last night in Hanoi, I'm staying by myself in the Hanoi Gecko Hotel. I tried to stay with my French friends at another place, but their hotel was booked, so here I am!

I got into Hanoi, stayed in the room for a bit to finish my book (Love in the Time of the Cholera) and then went to finish my gift shopping. As of 6 pm, I'm not completely finished, but close enough. All I have left are Jay and Bobby, but that's because I refused to pay how much the woman asked for what I wanted to get them. :) I wish I could haggle at home... It was a successful venture and I was even able to find my way back to the hotel on my own after wandering for about four hours.

When I got back, I found that my computer was no longer charging. I don't know if that's because of the computer itself or the charger, but either way, I'm not happy. That means all of my pictures are stuck in the technological abyss and that I can't upload any of them to facebook or print them out. Not a happy camper. Hopefully, I can mail my computer to CNS and have it fixed...I guess I'm just happy it waited until now to die.

Now, I'm going to try and meet up with the French girls before the rest of our friends from Peace House come to take us out for our last night!!

See you all tomorrow! XOXO

two more sleeps!

2010-07-26T21:39:00.003+07:00

Today I had my last afternoon class. The kids brought a whole bunch of fruit and snacks for us to share. One of them got me the sweetest gift I think I've ever gotten. It was two small glass bottles filled with what looks like pills. In the card she gave me, she told me that the larger of the two is for every day use and the smaller for when I'm having a bad day. Each of them is filled with a small slip of paper, either to brighten my day or cheer me up. How incredibly sweet is that?

After class, they took me for snails at a local place on the street. After that, they told me that they're all coming to the airport on Wednesday to see me off. When I got home tonight, Maya asked me what in the world I did to make my students like me so much. Honestly, I'm not sure, but I feel so lucky!

'me old dad asked me to help him with his garden...'

2010-07-25T19:13:00.016+07:00

The title of this blog is only a bit of a quote that perfectly sums up our weekend in Giao Xuan. 'Me old Dad asked me to him with his garden, but I said, 'No, Dad. I'd rather pay 500 quid to take an international flight and do some weeding in Vietnam.'

Other than that, our weekend in Giao Xuan was incredible. It is such a beautiful village and it was really amazing to see what Vietnam is really like, in a place where there are zero tourists and tons of culture. We did a homestay with the sweetest family on the planet, ate some incredible food, planted mangroves, biked to the beach, slept on bamboo mats, helped weed a garden, and did a festival to teach local kids about mangroves and how to help preserve mangrove swamps.

On Friday, we arrived in Giao Xuan pretty late. There were three different homestays with about six people in each, but I was luckily enough to stay at the one where we ate all of our meals as well, so I rarely had to move and got to sleep until 6:30 am as opposed to 6:00. When we got there, dinner was almost ready. The man who owned the house I stayed in and where we ate is a BIG rice wine drinker, so he kept pouring us all more and more shots of it. Let me tell you, rice wine does NOT taste good at all. It only took a few for me to tell him, as politely as possible, 'No, thanks.'

my bed.
the lady of the house.
dinner! prawns, tofu, crab soup, pork fat with bamboo leaves and spring rolls.

After dinner, we played some team building games...including the human knot.

We went to sleep and then woke up at the crack of dawn to go to the beach.

Kit, helping the women search for clams.

After the beach, we had lunch and then went to the Ecolife Cafe for our festival...but no one showed up. So, then we went and gardened at a local school. It was a little miserable, but we survived. We then attempted to go watch the sunset at the beach, but it was a bit too cloudy.
lunch!

After dinner, we were able to convince the Vietnamese volunteers NOT to play any games and actually got to sleep. Woohoo. The next morning we woke up at the crack of dawn again to go plant mangroves. I felt like a five year old making mud pies.

We went, covered in mud, back to the Ecolife Cafe for our festival. We sang and beat boxed and danced to, 'If You're Happy and You Know It, Clap Your Hands' and then went home to take quick showers, have lunch, and get on the incredibly small, uncomfortable bus home with no air conditioning.

lunch! fish, tofu, omelette, pork and mushrooms and crab soup again.
almost everyone, with our host family!

It was such a great weekend and I'm so glad that I got to spend my last weekend in Vietnam planting mangroves and not getting enough sleep. :) I can't believe that my time here is almost over! Tomorrow, I'll have my last afternoon class. Then on Tuesday, I'll have my last morning class and go into the Old Quarter to finish up some gift shopping and then spend the night at a hotel before I leave at 9 am for the airport! I have a feeling this just might be the longest plane ride known to man...

See you all so soon!

'you have just to accept it.'

2010-07-22T21:55:00.006+07:00

Alright, it's official. David's gone and I'm the only one left who also arrived when I got here in June. Its really quite strange not having any of them around. There's no one I went to Halong Bay or Sapa with, no one who I've been going out with in the evenings or on the weekends since the beginning. I've made some other friends, but the group I became close with at first were by far the people I felt closest to and had the most fun with. Luckily, I'll be pretty busy for the next five days!

Here are some photos from David's last night. My camera died pretty early, so I only have a few photos.
Liam, David and Eli with their motorbikes.
Liam, attempting to eat a ham and cheese sandwich with chopsticks. He spilled half of it on the floor, obviously.

Today, I went around the Old Quarter with David doing all the things that he wanted to do before he went back to Switzerland. For example: eat street food, drink sugar cane juice, go to Fanny and have a mango smoothie. After he left, I did a bit of shopping by myself and bought some dvds. I can't say which because a few of them will be gifts, but I did buy Alice in Wonderland and Fantastic Mr. Fox for myself.

I'm feeling a little better, so I'm sure I'll be perfectly fine by the time I go home. I've read all of the books I've brought with me except for...you guessed it...Harry Potter, so that's what I'll be doing on my flight home. 5 more days in Hanoi! I can't believe how quickly this has all gone by. This weekend I'll be in Giao Xuan until late Sunday night. Then Monday, I have my last afternoon class. Tuesday, I'll go to my morning class to say goodbye to the kids and then go into the Old Quarter to do the rest of my gift shopping. Then I'll stay at a hostel with Maya, Liam and Eli and head to the airport around 9 on Wednesday morning!

Its so bittersweet. I wish I was staying longer, but I also can't wait to get home. But, as David would say, 'You have just to accept it'.

postcards from far away.

2010-07-21T11:37:00.002+07:00

Also, just because I'm on the other side of the world doesn't mean this isn't still (albeit sometimes) a literary blog. There's been a new poet laureate chosen in the US, W. S. Merwin.

On the Subject of Poetry
I do not understand the world, Father.
By the millpond at the end of the garden
There is a man who slouches listening
To the wheel revolving in the stream, only
There is no wheel there to revolve.

He sits on the end of March, but sits also
In the end of the garden; his hands are in
His pockets. It is not expectation
On which he is intent, nor yesterday
To which he listens. It is a wheel turning.

When I speak, Father, it is the world
That I must mention. He does not move
His feet nor so much as raise his head
For fear he should disturb the sound he hears
Like a pain without a cry, where he listens.

I do not think I am fond, Father,
Of the way in which always before he listens
He prepares himself by listening. It is
Unequal, Father, like the reason
For which the wheel turns, though there is no wheel.

I speak of him, Father, because he is
There with his hands in his pockets, in the end
Of the garden listening to the turning
Wheel that is not there, but it is the world,
Father, that I do not understand.
-- W. S. Merwin

'i think i've just drank my body weight in peach tea.'

2010-07-20T23:20:00.003+07:00

I'm doing the best I can to get better before I come home. This has so far involved not going to my morning class and drinking a lot of tea. I'm getting better, but more sleep is definitely necessary.

Tomorrow is David's last night, so I'm sure we'll have plenty of adventures before he leaves on Thursday morning. I'll keep you posted.

On Friday, I'm going for a weekend trip to Giao Xuan, a beach village famous for its mangrove swamp. Within the last 10 years the number of mangrove trees has decreased by half, so we're trying to raise awareness and plant some new trees. I think its going to be a perfect last weekend in Vietnam because we're really trying to make a difference. On Sunday morning we're having a small festival at a local coffee shop and I have to sing (!!!) with my friend Kit. We're also doing a Perc Circle, for all the OADNers reading this. Don't worry, I'll take a video and dedicate it to you girls!

We've been having a few conversations recently about how different British-English, American-English and Australian-English really are. Apparently, the Brits say 'it costs a bomb' when something is really expensive. We've also had countless arguments about bangs...you know, the hair that covers your forehead. Apparently, the proper term is fringe. Its funny to think about how many differences there are, even when we're speaking essentially the same language.

I was just talking to Lauren and told her that I want there to be fast food waiting for me when I get off the airplane. I don't think I've ever said anything more American in my life, but its the truth. I want french fries and I want them now.

very much a lot.

2010-07-19T12:43:00.002+07:00

Yesterday, we went to a water park. I don't have many pictures, but it was awesome. They had a million slides and lazy rivers and things like that. Of course, we picked the ONE day that wasn't a million degrees, but it was still a good time.

Other than that I've just been relaxing. I have a sore throat and I'm really getting exhausted, so I'm sleeping as much as possible because I REALLY don't want to be sick for all of the last week I'm here...or when I get home...or on the airplane...etc.

whoopsie.

2010-07-17T10:50:00.007+07:00

The other day, David and I left our passports at the hotel we stayed at. We had to drive all the way back to the Old Quarter to retrieve them. I hate driving with David on the motorbike because he drives like a crazy person. On our way to the Old Quarter, he got a flat tire!

David has also been being a bit of a princess recently, asking us to wash his dishes and make plates of food for him. Therefore, Maya and I made him a tiara out of pipe-cleaners.

Yesterday, Maya came to class with me. We went on a field trip to a park and taught the kids about holidays. Afterwards, we had an Easter egg hunt with different colored balloons. While I was hiding them, Maya climbed trees with the kids.

We've decided to stay in Hanoi for the weekend again. We didn't even sleep out last night! Maya and I went to a bar called Top Pub.

We made friends with a guy who was born in England, but lived in Australia and also spoke French. We convinced him to climb on the roof of another building. Apparently, we are not good friends to make while traveling or drinking.

On Sunday, we're going to a water park, but for now...we're going to go sunbathe on the roof!!

Miss you all.

THE BEST OF NEWS.

2010-07-15T09:37:00.000+07:00

Peace House now has an air conditioner in the office.

YES.

'you're waving your american flag so high right now'

2010-07-13T08:22:00.002+07:00

Being a liberal from Connecticut has sometimes made me forget about the way the rest of the world stereotypes Americans. A friend of mine from England was all excited to see that I had an Obama sticker on my laptop and enjoys talking to me about both British and American politics because I actually know and understand what's going on.

I've spent weeks defending the intelligence of America. I know that sounds ridiculous, because it is, but it's true. All the people here, Europeans especially, expect that Americans don't know anything about international relations or about how the world works outside of America. It really offended me at first, but now, I can see exactly where they're coming from. And sometimes its funny, for instance this morning. We always have toast with peanut butter or nutella for breakfast and a kind of fruit. Today the fruit was bananas and I decided to make a sandwich with peanut butter, nutella and bananas. My friend Maya laughed and told me 'You're waving your American flag so high right now!'

But, my east coast bubble sometimes makes me forget that there are other people out there...it's a big country.

There is a woman who is here with her daughter. When we found out that this was going to be happening, we assumed that the daughter was going to be young, but when they arrived we found that the daughter is 23. Her mom was worried about her traveling alone, so they came together. The mother is over 50 and this is the first time she's ever been out of the country, with the exception of a trip to Singapore that her husband won through some contest.

Recently, someone asked them both to participate, along with some other people, to help make a game for new volunteers to play during orientation about national stereotypes. When discussing American culture, the mother said she thought America had too many cultures due to the diversity of the people and that we need 'less culture'. She has also been conducting interviews with some university students in the area who want to work for VPV and give city tours to volunteers. She refuses to hire any of them because their English isn't good enough and they said they wanted to learn more English. According to her, giving the city tour isn't meant for that. Its obviously not a good opportunity for them to practice English...oh, no.

I don't understand how someone can come here and still be so closed-minded. Why travel if you don't want to open your mind to things? Why Vietnam? Why can't a 23 year old girl travel on her own? How can you live in a nation of immigrants and say that we have too many cultures?

Diversity is one of the best things about America and that's something I've really come to better understand since I've been here. The reason the Vietnamese are so fascinated by me is because there aren't white people here. There isn't any diversity. The reason I'm not fascinated by them is because, while I'm part of the ethnic majority in the United States(for now), I see Asian people all the time.

It's frustrating to me that this woman doesn't appreciate where she is and they experience she's having. It's even more frustrating that she can claim to be patriotic, yet she doesn't appreciate one of the best things the United States has to offer. I hope that even if she doesn't want to let this place effect her, it will anyway. At least somewhere deep down.

and then, there were two.

2010-07-12T12:24:00.014+07:00

So, everyone is gone and all that is left of my original group of friends is David. :( We spent the weekend together and taking our traditional 'family photo' wasn't the same at all!

On Salman's last night, we went out with a bunch of people from Peace House and our German friend, Marlen.

Then, we stayed in the city and went to Perfume Pagoda on Saturday morning. The Pagoda is up a river and in a cave, so it took quite a while to get there. We drove about two hours and then hopped on a boat up the river. It was sunny and there were a million women trying to get me to buy a hat.

Getting tan is the last thing that Vietnamese women want. They want to keep their skin as white as possible, so they wear these little overcoats when they go anywhere, and sometimes even gloves and socks with their sandals. As if all that isn't enough when the weather is over 100 degrees, they also use whitening soap in the shower...these people are crazy. That being said, in the same way that I can't understand their desire to be as pasty as possible, they're having a really hard time understanding that I like the sun!! They wouldn't leave me alone about buying a hat, but eventually we got on the boat and all was okay (except for the fact that people kept trying to take pictures of me...the hatless blonde).

Perfume Pagoda was interesting...not my favorite place that I've visited so far, but it was nice and cool in the cave! We took a cable car up to the cave, but walked back down.
the not-family-photo family photo
just so you all know, nothing has changed. especially not this face.

On our walk back down the mountain, we saw a monkey on a chain, which immediately made me think of Dave Matthews Band and I felt very Connecticut.

On Saturday night, we went to this insane club which had men dancing in drag. I wasn't allowed to take pictures...the bartenders almost took my camera away when I took it out of my bag!

On Sunday, we went to Ninh Bihn, which was great! We walked around two temples and then took a boat ride up and down the river and through a couple of caves. Again, people were a little shocked by David and I not wearing hats, but...they got over it.

this guy wanted me to pay for this picture.

Last night, we went to Le Pub to watch the final World Cup match. Zach was flying out of Hanoi early this morning, so he came out to watch the match with David and I. It was really nice to see him again...we all keep saying goodbye to each other and then finding that we're able to see each other again, which only makes the second or third goodbye more difficult. I managed to stay awake for the whole thing! It was a good weekend, although its pretty quiet without Salman and Ching-yu!

I have some things I need to write about some REALLY ignorant people who are staying here at Peace House, but this entry is getting pretty long, so I'll wait until later. I have the day off, so I'm going to read! I've finished three books since I've been here and one of my students gave the new Dan Brown book, The Lost Symbol to read. I hated it at first, but it's growing on me!

Miss you all!
xoxo

honeypoo and tadpoles.

2010-07-08T09:56:00.000+07:00

We're saying goodbye to ANOTHER friend. Salman had his last day yesterday and he leaves Hanoi on Friday. Its such a strange feeling being here for so much longer than everyone else. It's hard to watch everyone come and go. I'm feeling less homesick now, though. It comes and goes. I get especially homesick when I'm on the bus by myself because there's no one to talk to and nothing to do but think about what everyone else is doing at home. I know its hot there, but you guys can rest assured that its hotter here...it got up to 122 yesterday...I'm used to it by now, though!

snakes on a plate

2010-07-07T19:20:00.000+07:00

I suppose all I ever do around here is eat weird, weird stuff.

There's a famous part of Hanoi which is called 'Snake Village'. I'm sure you can gather why. I have some pretty crazy videos of the cook at the restaurant beating the snakes head against the wall to knock it out before she sliced open the stomach with a razor and then pulling out the heart. It was still beating for a good five minutes on the plate and...David ate it.

They drained the blood from the snake and put it in a bottle of vodka and we all drank some of it. So disgusting. SO disgusting.
yum.

Then, the meal began and we ate just about snake everything...snake soup, snake spring rolls, snake ribs on pancakes, snake nuggets, fried snake skin, snake stir-fry, etc. It was insane how many dishes they were able to make out of one snake!!

Other than that, I've just been going to my classes and things. After a lot of arguing and trouble with one of the staff members here I've finally been taught to get back and forth to my placements without having to take a taxi, which is significantly cheaper, although I still hate the bus. Its also really nice to finally feel like I'm independent...I don't have to rely on my students to take me home or show me the way!

ATTN: LAUREN CUMMINGS
Please email me back. You're making me crazy and I miss you and I'm having separation anxiety. You have a blackberry now, therefore you have no excuse for your behavior!!!!!!!

Miss you all.

my week/weekend

2010-07-05T13:39:00.000+07:00

Its been a pretty hectic couple days. On Wednesday, my closest friend here, Ching-Yu came home for the last time (she had gone on a trip to Ho Chi Minh City), and we all went out to celebrate her last night. We went to some sort of a club on a house boat...it was quite the adventure.

The next morning, Ching-Yu came to the Ho Chi Minh Museum with me because I had to go with my children's class. It was quite an adventure...there was even a woman petting a statue of his face. They have some of the most ridiculous things on display...his underwear and toothbrush, for example. They also attempted to relate some pretty strange things to 'Uncle Ho'. IE: three foot pieces of fruit on a huge table were supposed to represent the youth of Vietnam and how Ho Chi Minh wanted them to protect the environment. Go figure.
Ching-Yu and Ho Chi Minh. Just hanging out.
giant fruit aforementioned.

After we went to the museum, Ching-Yu left. David, Salman and I went to the Old Quarter so they could watch me be miserable about it for a while and we ended up staying the night there. The following day, we traveled to Thai Binh to visit the hometown of my student, Linh. On the first day she took us to visit a pagoda and while I had my camera, I left the battery charging in my room. It was probably for the best though because we were already in trouble...

All of the people we had seen on our way into the pagoda were perfectly friendly, all smiling at us and asking where we were from. Once we got into the first pagoda building, there was an older man sitting in a chair. Linh was with a guide doing doing all of the traditional prayers, so the three of us were kind of wandering around the first room while we waited for her and the guide to continue into the next. The older man got up, tapped us on the shoulder and started grunting, looking really angry and motioning towards his legs. Turns out, he was offended because even though I had jeans on, I had rolled up the bottoms a bit too keep them from getting muddy and my ankles were very offensive to him. He wasn't pleased about the boys being in shorts either, but he made it clear that my ankles were the biggest concern he had at the moment. It was a little scary, but what were we supposed to do? It was a little late.

After that, we went to dinner and then for a walk to see the center of town. On the way back Linh had an overwhelming desire to sing, so she took us to the cafe which was having an open mic. The guy who was running it was the first openly gay person I have seen since coming to Vietnam. He was FABULOUS. He asked all our names and where we were from and announced it before doing a stripper dance by the column in front of us. I was laughing hysterically, but David and Salman seemed a bit frightened. I wish I could have taken a picture of their faces without it being rude.

the birds we had for dinner. they were actually really good.

The next day we went to the fishing village about an hour away from Linh's.

breakfast.

And then we went to Linh's house for lunch. Her family was wonderful.

more sapa and what i ate today.

2010-06-29T18:26:00.000+07:00

Today, I ate this:
that would be a duck fetus. yup, you heard me.

I don't recommend them, but...when in Rome!

Here's some more pictures of Sapa:

'are you in the army? you speak like a tiger.'

2010-06-28T09:57:00.000+07:00

Home safely from Sapa and wishing that the weather in Hanoi was anything remotely close to as nice. We had an amazing trip, though.

We went on a hike to see a local village after we arrived on Saturday morning. When we left the hotel with our tour guide, we were followed by a group of local people, all traditionally dressed. Some of them, the kids especially, spoke really good English, so they were chatting with us, asking where we came from, whether or not we were married to each other, etc. We felt so special that they were taking interest in us and were all shocked at how nice the local people were, to escort us through their land.

they made us presents!
our very special new friends.

It was only a short time before we realized what they were all about...They just wanted us to buy things from them. When we got to a certain point in the walk they told us they couldn't come any farther because we were about to enter the village of another tribe, so they wanted to know if we would buy something from them. Then, they attacked. Zach, Salman and Justin managed to escape, but David, Ching-Yu and I got suckered into buying a whole bunch of useless jewelry and things. I wish I had a picture of the 30 little kids surrounding us, but we were all too busy being attacked to snap a good photo.

Ching-Yu got a little tired on the way back...

After the hike, we walked around the main village for a while and then went back to the hotel for dinner. After dinner, we went to see the 'Love Market'. Every Saturday, the local people host the Love Market in order to help the young adults find significant others. The single men have to dance and play instruments to impress the girls. If a girl chooses a boy, they spend three days getting to know each other better. If after those three days they're still interested, they continue to be a couple, but if the girls decide he isn't suitable, that's the end of that and they go through the process again next Saturday.

The next day we went on another hike, which was really long, but also really beautiful. Ching-yu made it the whole way without leaning on anyone or needing a piggy back, but she assures us that she'll never hike again. :) I have to make another post because I've maxed out the number of photos I can put in one post!!

Sapa!

2010-06-26T14:44:00.000+07:00

We've arrived safely in Sapa and its beautiful and I never want to leave.

Last night we came in a sleeper train. All six of us were in one room and it was pretty miserable, but its been worth it. It's so lovely here and the weather is perfect and we're having a great time...I only wish we didn't have to leave!

Tomorrow we're going on a hike and heading home after dinner time, so we should arrive back in Hanoi around 5 am on Monday morning. I wish we could stay forever! Pictures Monday. Miss you all.

P.S. Everyone here wishes a happy birthday weekend to my girlfriend and the godmother to my hypothetical children, Lauren Gabriella Cummings. :) Wish I was there! xoxo

project motorbike and other things.

2010-06-24T11:19:00.000+07:00

Project Motorbike commenced today. It lasted for approximately two minutes.

This morning, practically everyone decided not to go to work. I'm really not quite sure why, but everyone slept it. Thursday is my morning of, so I'm usually just walking aimlessly around the house anyway, but today, I have company. Ching Yu and I spent a lot of time sitting outside talking and after about three hours went by, we decided it was time to wake David up so that he could teach me to ride the motorbike.

We threw some pillows at him over the wall and he told me to wake Alexis up instead because he would be a better teacher. I told him over and over again that I wanted him to teach me, not Alexis, but he wouldn't listen. Alexis walked in while we were having the conversation and David threw him the keys over the wall. I was less than pleased.

Alexis told me that he would take me for a ride and then it would be my turn to drive. We didn't even leave Coma 6 before he tried to turn onto the road and we fell over. I got caught underneath the bike, but at least I didn't get hurt. Alexis has quite a few cuts.

So, Project Motorbike isn't going so well. I'm making David teach me later.

Here's some pictures from the ice cream shop that we went to the other night (and plan to go to again tomorrow night for Ching Yu and Justin's last night in Hanoi before we leave for Sapa):
we're not sure what this was, but it was great.

our chocolate fondue!

There are more things I want to write about and pictures I want to upload, but I really don't have the patience...it takes forever! I'll try later. Miss you!
xoxo

i. hate. the. bus.

2010-06-23T06:31:00.000+07:00

For the first couple of days here I had a few 'why-the-hell-did-I-do-this-I-feel-like-a-crazy-person' moments. Normal, I'm sure. I mean, this place is NOTHING like home, or any other place I've been to in my life (for example, last night I saw a small child pooping on the sidewalk in one of the busiest areas of Hanoi with his mother crouched by him, watching).

That being said, now that I've made some friends and come into my own a bit, I'm having a lot of fun here. But, the only thing I literally cannot stand is taking the bus.

I'm the only person on my project, as I mentioned before. This means that I have to leave the house at 7:45 am to walk a half a mile down the road in the dust (or mud, as is the case now that it's started raining) and wait for the bus. Then, I have to switch to another us and then walk about a mile to get to my first class. The first day I was here, a staff member at VPV took me, so I didn't have to ride the bus alone. We waited underneath an over pass and it turned out alright. The next day, it was time for me to do it by myself.

I chose to wait where Lam had showed me before...underneath the overpass, in the shade out of the sun. I mean, it was over 100 degrees out, but that was apparently a huge mistake. all of the creepy dirty men who were sitting there dragged me over to sit with them at these plastic tables and started petting my skin, touching my earrings, pulling my hair, touching the tattoo on my ankle and one even tried to clip my fingernails. Then they started talking to me in Vietnamese and I can only imagine what they were saying because every time they said something, they would all break out into hysteric laughter. As if all this wasn't bad enough, by the time I finally got on the bus, the woman behind me was puking in a sandwich bag.

Yesterday, I took the bus for the second time, but made the executive decision that I would rather be late for class than ever take that stupid bus again by myself. I waited an extra 45 minutes to leave so that I could take the first bus with three other girls at Peace House. We did NOT wait under the overpass, but in the sun on the side of the road after trekking through the mud. Even so, these two guys pulled up, rolled down the window and motioned to us to get it. Terri, a girl from England who is here with me just looked at him and shouted, 'No!!!' repeatedly until the drove away. After the did, she was like, 'Get in your car? My mother would be so proud of me if I did THAT.' The rest of the ride was pretty much without incident.

As of last night, I have officially decided to rent a motorbike because I refuse to do this ANYMORE. It only costs about $10 a week and while the traffic here is nuts and a few people here have had pretty painful accidents, I would much prefer that risk to getting pet by dirty men.

That being said, things here are wonderful and last night I had the world's most delicious ice cream and will post a picture later (possibly...the power was supposed to have gone out here an hour ago for the whole day).

p.s. Mom, please don't be worried. I promise, I will never get on the bus alone again and will spend all day Monday practicing with my motorbike before I actually rent one.

motor bikes, music and hangman.

2010-06-21T23:51:00.000+07:00

I'm not sure who it was that was telling my parents about how crazy the traffic was in Vietnam, but they weren't kidding. Its probably the single most terrifying thing ever. I have been riding on the back of various people's motorbikes throughout the last week, and while I'm starting to get used to it (and am even considering renting one myself because taking the bus is equally terrifying...I get pet and prodded on a regular basis), it's nothing like I've ever seen before! Here's a picture I took from the back of one of my students motorbikes. It really doesn't do the insanity justice.

I also have been eating tons and tons of weird things, so here's a couple of examples:
apparently around here instead of pretzels or peanuts at the bar, they serve little pieces of fried fish. crunchy, spicy and surprisingly good!
i have no idea what this is called, but it was delicious.

And HERE is a picture of the younger class that I teach. It's dedicated especially to Lauren because I showed them a picture of her during the class I taught about friendship, and they wanted to send one to her in return.
cute as a button.

'i have question for you, these american guys. what is the deal with this prom queen??'

2010-06-20T21:22:00.000+07:00

So, I'm back from a great weekend at Halong Bay with six of my roommates at Peace House. I wasn't there when the boys booked the tickets, but apparently our rooms weren't exactly what we expected...but they were fine nonetheless.

We spend the first day and night on a boat called 'Asia Cruise'. We cruised around the bay, visited a cave and went swimming.

our boat!

our room!

all of us in the cave.

After we went exploring in the cave, we went kayaking. I got into the kayak with David thinking that if I were to get into a paddle boat with a large Swiss guy, I'd be safe. I was wrong. We paddled over to cave to go exploring. I was in the front of the boat and told David that the cave had a dead end and we need to turn around. Full of European attitude, David decided that he was going to make me paddle alone the entire way out and that he was going to sit outside of his seat while he watched. So, David pulled himself up a bit and was sitting above his seat on the top of the kayak. Needless to say, we tipped over, and both had to struggle to climb back in. I went first, and once I had gotten back in my seat, David handed me his very heavy paddle to hold while he pulled himself back in. Needless to say, I dropped it. On his way back into the boat, David managed to cut his hand and knee pretty badly on a rock, so I decided that since I dropped it and he was hurt that I would dive back in to rescue the paddle. Needless to say, I got hurt in the process. I kicked my leg against a rock. Here are our wounds (slightly graphic, so that you know!)

my bloody foot.

cut on David's knee, which is not nearly as bad.

for dad. happy fathers day!

everyone playing bananagrams!

Unfortunately, after this point my camera died, so I don't have pictures of the following two days. My friend Zack took a ton of pictures, so as soon as the two of us have time, I'll upload a few. After we spent the night on the boat, we went to a national park where we hiked the top of a mountain. Normally a hike to the top of a mountain wouldn't be too big of a deal, especially considering it only took about 35 minutes, but in this kind of heat...oh, dear. Chang Yu and I were almost dying. From the beginning, she was super hot and I was worried about whether or not she was going to pass out, so the two of us took it slowly and ended up pretty far behind everyone else. We made it and all Chang Yu could say was, 'This is very green. I am confused. Why did we do this?'. The view was beautiful, of course. You could see the mountains all around and the ocean on one side...but we were too hot to function and the rocks we had to climb on the way had taken a lot out of us.

After the hike, we went to the Monkey Island Resort, which had a private beach and a ton of huts on the beach. We went rock climbing to see the monkeys (without harnesses...there are no rules in Vietnam) and saw a couple monkeys, and some really gorgeous views of the island. Our tour guide walked us halfway up and then left, so he gave us the combination to let ourselves out of the gated area where the monkeys are. After we climbed down the mountain to the gate, we tried the combination (0-1-2-3) and it wouldn't open. We tried for about 15 minutes to figure it out and then finally, I said that I could probably climb the fence if the boys held it and try to get help. I climbed all the way down the rest of the mountain by myself, but when I got to the beach the tour guide just kept shouting, 'Combination 0-1-2-3!!!' like I was retarded and refused to get out of the paddle boat he was in (serving happy hour in the ocean to all the other guests) to help us get out. So, I climbed back up, told everyone that the guy (whose name was Phuc...pronounced Fook...imagine the F-word jokes that followed this event...) refused to help. Eventually, he sent someone else to help us, but LOW AND BEHOLD, he couldn't open the door either. The boys were pretty upset, to say the least.

After that though, we had a nice night out on the porch playing bananagrams and goofing off. Then, this morning, we had lunch in Cat Ba, a larger tourist city by Halong Bay and then came home.

I'm so glad I've got some time to travel with my friends here. I think next weekend we'll be going to Sapa, an ancient village in the mountains a little farther north. I am SUCH a lucky girl.

I have some pictures of my students and some of the food I've been eating, but it took me almost two hours to upload the photos on this entry alone, so I'm going to wait until tomorrow!

Missing you all! Email me if you have the time at sblackbu@drew.edu. Its so nice to hear from home!
XOXO

GO SWISS!

2010-06-17T07:10:00.000+07:00

so, yesterday was my first day of classes. it was terrifying and wonderful all at the same time.

my first class is seven kids between the ages of 11 and 16. some of them know significantly more than others, but they're all adorable. i teach them on tuesdays and wednesdays and then on fridays, their parents arrange for a field trip. i don't know where we'll go next week, but apparently this past week they went to the zoo.

my second class is every afternoon and is ten local volunteers of VPV. they're about my age and from what i saw yesterday are doing some pretty advanced stuff. they're reading scholarly articles and things like that in order to gain vocabulary.

last night i went to the bar with a bunch of people and one of my friends here is from switzerland, so he's still on cloud nine this morning.

pictures later. miss you all!

greetings from hanoi!!

2010-06-15T14:19:00.000+07:00

hello, everyone! while both my facebook and cellphone have decided not to work, the internet is working just fine.

i'm here! i haven't done much yet other than listen to the orientation slide show (no sex or drugs allowed. oh, and make sure your showers are short) and have lunch (which was...different), i'm hopeful!

i took a few quick pictures of my room and the view from my window. other than that, it's hot here and i can't wait to shower. i also hope that the other new kids like bananagrams as much as i do.

i have a meeting in a half-hour about exactly what my project placement is, but according to miriam, the project coordinator who picked me up from the airport, i'm going to be ALL BY MYSELF. i don't know about this...

Track 1: Lush Life

2010-06-07T08:08:00.000+07:00

The woman with the microphone sings to hurt you,
To see you shake your head. The mic may as well
Be a leather belt. You drive to the center of town
To be whipped by a woman's voice. You can't tell
The difference between a leather belt and a lover's
Tongue. A lover's tongue might call you bitch,
A term of endearment where you come from, a kind
Of compliment preceded by the word sing
In certain nightclubs. A lush little tongue
You have: you can yell, Sing bitch, and, I love you,
With a shot of Patron at the end of each phrase
From the same barstool every Saturday night, but you can't
Remember your father's leather belt without shaking
Your head. That's what satisfies her, the woman
With the microphone. She does not mean to entertain
You, and neither do I. Speak to me in a lover's tongue--
Call me your bitch, and I'll sing the whole night long.
--Jericho Brown

How to Please

2010-06-02T05:07:00.000+07:00

This is a please;
a please do not tell me
I’m going. A please do not open a door I can
open. A please after last night’s stars
just gas somewhere and probably
already burnt out.

This is a please;
make me write something that
means something to someone
other than me. A please read it without asking
and find your place inside it like
a sky falling down, weighing around your
shoulders like a shawl. A please, please
pretty please in a white Sunday dress and
Mary Janes, just hoping to be noticed in line.

This is a please;
a short please with blue eyes & long hair
a please with hope & a please with longing
a me please & a you please
a please do not tell me where
I’m going.

I don't want to think about my trip....

2010-06-01T12:23:00.000+07:00

...or the people I'm going to miss or worry about whether or not I'm going to get sold into sex trafficking or think about how weird it's going to be talk to 90% of the people I love through internet/bbm only.

What do I want to do is play with babies at the beach, watch movies on couches, drink wine with Lauren and Maggie, read books, and lay under the stars.

I want two weeks of perfect and then to start on my crazy adventure, all the while secretly hoping all the people I'll be missing are missing me, too.

Watching 'The Hangover' with my mother

2010-05-20T09:27:00.000+07:00

She asked me what a roofie was.

Oh, world.

If I ever want to get into a grad program for writing, I need to write more. After today, my goal is to write all five days of the week. Wish me luck.

The Map Room

2010-05-19T00:53:00.000+07:00

We moved into a house with 6 rooms: the Bedroom,
the Map Room, the Vegas Room, Cities
in the Flood Plains, the West, & the Room Which Contains All
of Mexico. We honeymooned in the Vegas Room where
lounge acts wasted our precious time. Then there was the junta's
high command, sick dogs of the Map Room, heel-
prints everywhere, pushing model armies into the unfurnished
West. At night: stories of their abandoned homes in the Cities
in the Flood Plains, how they had loved each other
mercilessly, in rusting cars, until the drive-in went under.
From the Bedroom we called the decorator & demanded
a figurehead... the one true diva to be had
in All of Mexico: Maria Felix [star of The Devourer, star
of The Lady General]. Nightly in Vegas, "It's Not Unusual"
or the Sex Pistols medley. Nothing ever comes back
from the West, it's a one-way door, a one-shot deal,--
the one room we never slept in together. My wife
wants to rename it The Ugly Truth. I love my wife for her
wonderful, light, creamy, highly reflective skin;
if there's an illumination from the submerged Cities,
that's her. She suspects me of certain acts involving Maria Felix,
the gambling debts mount...but when she sends the junta off to Bed
we rendezvous in the Map Room & sprawl across the New World
with our heads to the West. I sing her romantic melodies from the Room
Which Contains All of Mexico, tunes which keep arriving
like heaven, in waves of raw data, & though I wrote
none of the songs myself & can't pronounce them, these are my
greatest hits

--Joshua Clover

A Teamster's Farewell

2010-05-14T00:42:00.000+07:00

Sobs En Route to a Penitentiary

Good-by now to the streets and the class of wheels and
locking hubs,
The sun coming on the brass buckles and harness knobs.
The muscles of the horses sliding under their heavy
haunches,
Good-by now to the traffic policeman and his whistle,
The smash of the iron hoof on the stones,
All the crazy wonderful slamming roar of the street--
O God, there's noises I'm going to be hungry for.
--Carl Sandburg

girlfriends.

2010-05-08T00:24:00.000+07:00

craziness.

2010-05-07T05:25:00.000+07:00

Finals are driving me crazy. I knew that I should have started all of my papers and things earlier, but how am I supposed to get things done when I am constantly being asked to do more? I've always liked being busy, so I don't really want to complain.

I got a message from an old friend last night at about one in the morning who was clearly doing all the same things I was doing...chugging red bull, not studying or actually doing work, but thinking about all the people and things that I have been missing. I love Drew and I'm so lucky to have finally found my place here, but there are so many things about home and the life that I really don't have anymore that I miss.

But for now, I'm sitting at the library with Hope and Carla watching Carla work hard on her paper for her Independent Study in Spanish and Hope looking at someone's blog titled, 'Fuck You Very Much'. I don't really want to think about what my life is going to be like when I graduate from this place and I won't be sitting here, drinking red bull, complaining about all the work I should be doing and secretly adoring the most wonderful friends in the world.

Girlfriends are so incredibly underrated. I don't really want anything else in the world but this, and maybe some things from my old life to reappear across the table.

Fourth Floor, Dawn, Up All Night Writing Letters

2010-05-06T00:45:00.000+07:00

Pigeons shake their wings on the copper church roof
out my window across the street, a bird perched on the cross
surveys the city's blue-grey clouds. Larry Rivers
'll come at 10 AM and take my picture. I'm taking
your picture, pigeons. I'm writing you down, Dawn.
I'm immortalizing your exhaust, Avenue A bus.
O Thought, now you'll have to think the same thing forever!
--Allen Ginsberg

excuse me? how much do i pay to go here?

2010-05-02T23:30:00.000+07:00

Listen, I don't want to be at the library anymore. I feel like my computer and the empty shelves on d-level are my home and I've barely seen my friends at all this week.

That being said, I have a 20 page paper due tomorrow at 4 pm and I am never going to get it done because THE LIBRARY DOESN'T OPEN UNTIL 1 PM. Excuse me, Drew University?? This school has the highest tuition in the state of New Jersey and they can't open the library before 1 pm on a Sunday? This is absurd. I'm transferring.

They also close at 7 on Fridays and Saturdays, fyi.

Bullshit.

Odd Girl Out

2010-04-30T10:57:00.000+07:00

'Girls need to make peace with conflict, and they need our help. This means providing girls not only with a healthier relationship to aggression, but with permission to experience the uncomfortable feelings that often precede anger and conflict. We need to stop rewarding manipulation. We must encourage girls to embrace respectful acts of assertion and provide them with representations of female aggression that are neither sensationalized nor the stuff of fantasy. The responsibility begins at the moment of socialization, and it belongs to all of us--parents, teachers, and girls.'

--Rachel Simmons

Othello

2010-04-29T06:46:00.000+07:00

I would much rather be writing short stories and poems than doing this. And yes, those are three RedBulls.

For Estey

2010-04-27T01:47:00.000+07:00

He called me Vandalizer.
12 years old and about to
step on an unopened packet of ketchup

and he stopped me, my leg
bent at knee about to slam
down. 'Watch it, Vandalizer', he said.

He taught Ethics. I never
cared and he thought me
a vandal so I avoided him, but never his wife.
She taught English and I loved her
blonde eyelashes and the extra credit
questions about Bob Dylan and
the Democratic party. She loved me too
because I knew The Grapes of Wrath like it
was my very own road trip through
a drought.

She asked me to babysit
for her children, son and daughter
while she and Ethics went out. I played

dress up and backgammon
for hours while she played
the violin and he drank his seventh Blue Moon at the bar

his eyes on the wood
of the floor, his left hand
resting on the edge of his leg the other
wrapped tightly around the glass, the
coolness of it just like rain scooped around the
neck and held there as he walked down the street
to the house of his lover (she taught
sign language to my little sister). She's
not beautiful and she doesn't play
the violin.

There are reasons
for ethics and for
drought.

Making Love To Concrete

2010-04-26T08:17:00.000+07:00

An upright abutment in the mouth
of the Willis Avenue bridge
a beige Honda leaps the divider
like a steel gazelle inescapable
sleek leather boots on the pavement
rat-a-tat-tat best intentions
going down for the third time
stuck in the particular

You cannot make love to concrete
if you care about being
non-essential wrong or worn thin
if you fear ever becoming
diamonds or lard
you cannot make love to concrete
if you cannot pretend
concrete needs your loving

To make love to concrete
you need an indelible feather
white dresses before you are ten
a confirmation lace veil milk-large bones
and air raid drills in your nightmares
no stars till you go to the country
and one summer when you are twelve
Con Edison pulls the plug
on the street-corner moons Walpurgisnacht
and there are sudden new lights in the sky
stone chips that forget you need
to become a light rope a hammer
a repeatable bridge
garden-fresh broccoli two dozen dropped eggs
and a hint of you
caught up between my fingers
the lesson of a wooden beam
propped up on barrels
across a mined terrain

between forgiving too easily
and never giving at all.

--Audre Lorde

This Is Just To Say

2010-04-21T07:42:00.001+07:00

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
--William Carlos Williams

from Song of Myself

2010-04-16T22:05:00.000+07:00

I exist as I am, that is enough,
If no other in the world be aware I sit content,
And if each and all be aware I sit content.

One world is aware and by far the largest to me, and that is myself,
And whether I come to my own to-day or in ten thousand or ten million years,
I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can wait.
--Walt Whitman

photograph taken from the teacup pages

minimizing the 'i'

2010-04-16T04:54:00.000+07:00

When I was in high school, we did a poetry workshop with one of my favorite teachers for the Creative Arts Diploma Program I did. She passed out a poem about her infant son and how it felt to have given life to him and then watch him grow into infancy. Throughout her poem, the only capitalized words were when she spoke his name, 'Oscar'. All of her 'I's became 'i's in order to minimize her part in the actions she spoke of.

Recently while clicking around Facebook I found the link to a blog a friend from school was keeping. When I opened the page the first thing that came up was an entry about this lecture and the poetic choice our teacher made.

My friend thinks that what our teacher did was a contradiction: to write about how she feels but minimize her 'I' at the same time. I have to disagree with him.

Maybe it's just my poet's brain. I told someone I was just getting to know the other day that if I could do anything with my life, I'd be a writer. He laughed and called me a little hippie. Maybe it's just my poet's brain that tells me that dream could be possible. Published or unpublished, I will always consider myself a writer.

Maybe it's just my poet's brain that tells me that I have every right to minimize myself for the words.

To be of use

2010-04-13T04:31:00.000+07:00

The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.
--Marge Piercy

blank pages

2010-04-08T07:17:00.000+07:00

I've finally started writing again, which as been great. I had a really long talk with my best friend's father (who has his first book coming out in August!) about how scary blank pages can be to writers, and he assured me that once you get going, it really will be okay, so I listened. I mean, he's about to be a published writer...if I can't take his advice, whose can I take?

For one of my assignments in my short fiction writing class, we had to tell a story from a 'different perspective'. Again, Tiphanie gives the most frustratingly vague assignments in the world (she also had her first book published about a month ago...How to Escape From a Leper Colony and its fantastic!). I choose the fairytale 'Bluebeard'. She also required us to write in a sex scene. I'm not sold on it, but whatever.

I was born in fire, in a vat of molten metal under a melting roof. When they gave me to my master, he took me and with reverence attached me to the chain. He knew I was going to save him. His hands were rough, other-worldly. I wondered if he hadn’t been born in the same fire.

The first wife never touched me. I do not know what became of her or why he hurt her. I only know that when he was about to strangle her neck, I could feel the warmth of his body in his pocket through his pant leg. He pulsed and he pulsed, instantly cool when she had breathed her last breath.

The second wife had the touch of Helen of Troy. She was beautiful and her hands felt beautiful on my body, warm and soft like a home. I was scared for her. When she moved my legs toward the lock, I tried to deny her. I tried to reject the lock like the northern side of a magnet. It was no use. She opened the door and cried out and I wished so much that I could help her. She closed the door, pushed me back into the lock with hands like ice, shaking. He came home and found her with the chain in her hand. She screamed, but he lifted her with his arms like a beast and walked toward my room. He fingered his way past the lock, though I tried to be like fire to his touch. This time, he slit her throat. He let her blood spill all over the floor. It smelled like rust and looked like the Red Sea, though it did not part. It just poured and poured around my master’s feet. When he finally put me back into his pocket with the other keys, his body had cooled, his heart had slowed.

My master could not have this happen again. He built a fire and threw me into the yellow flames. As I burned, he chanted and the ash swirled but, once I had cooled down, he took me in his hands and placed me back onto the chain. He married again, determined to find the woman who would obey, the woman who would never question the stench of rusty blood and rotting corpses which pours into the halls like smoke, under the doorways and towards the ceiling, never allowing an inch to stay clear.

The first night she spent in the manor, she was frightened. Master walked quickly toward the door to the master bedroom in anticipation of their marriage consummation, but his legs stopped, his trousers stopped brushing against me in his pocket and he would turn around to wait for her. Her heels never made a sound, but I knew how slowly she moved because I felt my master’s blood, hot and impatient. When they entered the chamber, pulled her close to him, and with his bearded face against her soft white skin he kissed her. I could not feel her resist, though the roughness of his grasp made her solid and her muscled tensed with duty. She knew she must sleep with him. He pushed her to the bed and his thighs relaxed as he tore at the buttons from the nape of her neck to the flat of her back. I felt the hem of her dress brush his pocket as he threw in to the floor. ‘Take off my belt,’ he commanded. She did, and I felt myself sliding down his leg and onto the stone tile.

The third wife was not as beautiful as the second, nor as disobedient as the first. It took her quite some time to become curious. Master told her that he was leaving for business, but it was merely a test. He needed to see if she could truly be trusted with his home and with his secrets. She came upon the locked door and wondered. Her sister told her to use to key to unlock the door, the idle woman that she is. She second guessed herself, but the curiosity and the influence of her sister was too much and she touched each key on the ring tenderly until she found me. She must have known it was me from first look. Though I am not the oldest, the wrinkles have formed and the tears have left stains on my skin. She pushed me through the lock, though I tried ever harder to resist.

When she opened the door, she did not scream. She went to the first wife and she touched the bruising on her neck softly, like a mother would. She closed the eyes my master had left open in horror all this time and she moved to the second wife. Taking a handkerchief from her pocket she wiped the blood clean from her neck. She took the necklace from her neck and placed it around her to hide the gash. Finally when she was satisfied, she left the room and as she looked at me twisting inside the lock, she realized that I too was covered in blood.

In her chambers she tried to wipe me clean of the marks, but though under water they seemed to have disappeared, once I was dry the blood shown again. When master came home, he found her with only me in her hand, the chain cast aside. Furious, he told her he should behead her on the spot, but the third wife asked for a few moments to pray. Master took her to the highest tower and locked her there. He thought that allowing her to pray would save him from the fate he might encounter in the afterlife. From the tallest tower, he threw me out the window down, down to the ground.

This is how I am feeling...

2010-02-19T06:15:00.001+07:00

The sky looks pissed
The wind talks back
My bones are shifting in my skin
And you, my love, are gone.

My room seems wrong
The bed won't fit
I cannot seem to operate
And you, my love, are gone.

So glide away on soapy heels
And promise not to promise anymore
And if you come around again
Then I will take, then I will take the chain from off the door

I'll never say I'll never love
But I don't say a lot of things
And you, my love, are gone.

So glide away on soapy heels
And promise not to promise anymore
And if you come around again
Then I will take, then I will take the chain from off the door.

--The Chain, by Ingrid Michaelson

break!

2010-01-15T05:09:00.001+07:00

Once I have photos, I'll post some...but for now, please enjoy this:

http://averagewizard.com/

relaxation

2009-12-19T15:11:00.001+07:00

home has never felt so good!!!!

that is all. :)

finals, finals, finals

2009-12-15T07:01:00.000+07:00

I am currently embarking on a ten page study guide for my comparative final, which I need to do well on.

I am obviously not getting very far, because I am blogging.

I cannot wait to be finished with this semester and all that has come with it. It will feel so nice to be home with my Mom, Dad, little sister, Lauren, Jay and Bobby. As much as I've enjoyed my time here this fall (at times), I'm hoping that being home and having some time to think (and breathe) to myself will help me get prepared for all that I have to do this spring...like take the LSATS. I love my friends, but I'm tired of feeling left out all the time, and being home will hopefully renew my excitement about school.

I'm grateful that my finals this semester weren't TOO bad, although I know I'll be scrambling to get things done at the end the next semester.

But, most of all, I can't wait to go home. I guess that's all I'm trying to say. College has really made me understand how much I love and appreciate my family. :)

poems about poems

2009-12-08T10:19:00.000+07:00

I was looking for an epigraph for my response paper about my experience in Spoken Word, and while I didn't use either of these poems, I came across them and wanted to share. Enjoy!

a 340 dollar horse and a hundred dollar whore
by Charles Bukowski

don’t ever get the idea I am a poet; you can see me
at the racetrack any day half drunk
betting quarters, sidewheelers and straight thoroughs,
but let me tell you, there are some women there
who go where the money goes, and sometimes when you
look at these whores these onehundreddollar whores
you wonder sometimes if nature isn’t playing a joke
dealing out so much breast and ass and the way
it’s all hung together, you look and you look and
you look and you can’t believe it; there are ordinary women
and then there is something else that wants to make you
tear up paintings and break albums of Beethoven
across the back of the john; anyhow, the season
was dragging and the big boys were getting busted,
all the non-pros, the producers, the cameraman,
the pushers of Mary, the fur salesman, the owners
themselves, and Saint Louie was running this day:
a sidewheeler that broke when he got in close;
he ran with his head down and was mean and ugly
and 35 to 1, and I put a ten down on him.
the driver broke him wide
took him out by the fence where he’d be alone
even if he had to travel four times as far,
and that’s the way he went it
all the way by the outer fence
traveling two miles in one
and he won like he was mad as hell
and he wasn’t even tired,
and the biggest blonde of all
all ass and breast, hardly anything else
went to the payoff window with me.

that night I couldn’t destroy her
although the springs shot sparks
and they pounded on the walls.
later she sat there in her slip
drinking Old Grandad
and she said
what’s a guy like you doing
living in a dump like this?
and I said
I’m a poet

and she threw back her beautiful head and laughed.

you? you . . . a poet?

I guess you’re right, I said, I guess you’re right.

but still she looked good to me, she still looked good,
and all thanks to an ugly horse
who wrote this poem.

andddddddd,

A Poem Without a Single Bird in It
by Jack Spicer

What can I say to you, darling,
When you ask me for help?
I do not even know the future
Or even what poetry
We are going to write.
Commit suicide. Go mad. Better people
Than either of us have tried it.
I loved you once but
I do not know the future.
I only know that I love strength in my friends
And greatness
And hate the way their bodies crack when they die
And are eaten by images.
The fun’s over. The picnic’s over.
Go mad. Commit suicide. There will be nothing left
After you die or go mad,
But the calmness of poetry.

epic fail.

2009-12-08T08:42:00.000+07:00

okay, well, henry was too busy being a nuyroican judge during the group slam to take a video, but don't worry. he gave my group a 9/10!

we didn't win, but we came in second. :)

afterward, we had an open mic and i figured i may as well read, especially since tiphanie told us it was going to be difficult to get a A in her class. it can't hurt to try and participate a little extra, right? it was a little nerve racking.

this is the first time i have performed anything since my grandfather's funeral and i always forget how much of a rush i feel when i'm finished (although this was under much happier circumstances). i miss performing on a regular basis and i think i'm going to try again for one of the a capella groups this spring.

now, back to work. :)

off with their heads!

2009-12-07T12:53:00.000+07:00

i am so sick and tired of doing work and the brunt of it has yet to come! i'm not looking forward to finals. i do, on the other hand, have a performance tomorrow for my spoken word class and i'll have Henry film it so that you can all watch, too!

i just finished Northanger Abbey for my english survey course and it was nothing short of fabulous. i can't believe i hadn't read it before!

our annual holiday ball was last night, and here are a few pictures of our nonsense.

okay, that's all for now!

jazz prose piece

2009-11-24T06:14:00.000+07:00

So, Professor Yanique has this wonderful and terrible habit of making her writing assignments very broad. This week we had to write a prose piece after reading 'Jazz', a short story by Toni Morrison. I tried to keep in the jazz theme, and wrote this piece.

I grew up with Penny Panzoni singing Lena Horne in the slim, slender leather boots I inherited, saving them from the stale cellar air. She slips into the spotlight with her microphone sounds like a star. Her momma sews seed-bag underwear and saves pennies for school days and safe ways to keep her little girl out of those slinky jazz bars with her skin-tight boots and sultry sound. ‘Stormy weather/since my man and I ain’t together/keeps raining all the time’, she sings like sadness in a short skirt and silver jewelry sliding her hips side to side like a daydream.
Penny doesn’t sound her age and she dances real slow. She just wants to show them. I mean, she wants to show the kids who made fun of her in grade school because her mother couldn’t afford to buy her real underwear. She made them out of woven sacks and when Penny flies off the swing-set and her shirt-dress moves with the wind, they see her itchy home-sewed bloomers and laugh.
And when Penny met Stuart he told her he’d make her dreams come true, even after she lied about her name. Her momma tried so hard, so hard. But when Penny, who was really named Mary put those slim, slender leather boots on nobody could say no. Not the bar owner, not her daddy and certainly not Stuart who left Iwo Jima with a piece of grenade in his eye. So Mary gave Penny’s boots away because it was time to say goodbye to single girls and saxophone lilts. And I found them in an old trunk, along with a pair of cowboy boots, a silvery pink slip, and a sleek trench coat. They were always fashion bees, Penny and Mary.

My Maraca Earrings

2009-11-13T03:40:00.001+07:00

This is a piece I wrote last spring. As my high school English teacher told me, you've got to keep on writing it out.

My Maraca Earrings

His little messenger bag is full;
My brother Hermes, his feet in flight, leaving
our home again. Different this time, though.
He didn’t pack clothes or steal my cans of soup,
but he did take our things—
A pair of maraca earrings, a recipe for
meatballs, two wedding pictures, a tiny stuffed
bear, a golf-tee, a plastic horse, a bag of
seeds, a pink popcorn bowl—
If they’re taking him back to the men with the
lab coats, he doesn’t want to forget. Lithium
makes him forget. And he climbs down
from the tree house our mother built silently,
reaching for his little messenger bag
so that when he loses his mind
he won’t lose us, too.

ta-da!

2009-11-12T06:53:00.001+07:00

So, here's the ghazal, a little adapted, but I stayed pretty true to the form!

Freddie Mercury: 11/24/1991

gay as a daffodil on stage I will be anybody’s Queen,
but I’m quiet in my own time, not anybody’s Queen.

home Tanzania calls me their ‘famous asian’
and time magazine thinks my voice Queen.

my voice belongs to no one, lovers know me
under pressure, breaking down on this Queen.

I cannot be your martyr and no glory in HIV
my disease is no stage and I not your Queen.

I am always polite but not today, my death
day, day for eternal rest as my own Queen.

and it’s alright not to talk real-talk, my darlings.
I speak no movement, I sing no revolutions
for when there is nothing to say to them,
there be nothing to sing to you.
not this time.

What do you think!?

a ghazal

2009-11-12T03:19:00.000+07:00

I'm currently working on a piece which scares me...because it subscribes to an actual poetic form. I hate that.

But, my professor, Tiphanie Yanique, said it best to me today when she recommended a Ukrainian poet (the ghazal originated in the middle east). I can't remember the name of the poet, but I'll ask her when I see her again shortly.

I hate forms because they are constricting, but Tiphanie suggested I mess with it a little. Take a poem I've been working on about Freddie Mercury, make a ghazal and fit the other pieces that aren't a part of the ghazal around it. I'm working on it, I guess. But it feels strange to deconstruct someone else's form. But, many poets, even poets in the region ghazals come from, are 'fucking with them', which makes me feel like I have a little more license.

But, for inspirations sake, here's another ghazal by an American poet, Robert Bly.

The Night Abraham Called to the Stars

Do you remember the night Abraham first saw
The stars? He cried to Saturn: "You are my Lord!"
How happy he was! When he saw the Dawn Star,

He cried, ""You are my Lord!" How destroyed he was
When he watched them set. Friends, he is like us:
We take as our Lord the stars that go down.

We are faithful companions to the unfaithful stars.
We are diggers, like badgers; we love to feel
The dirt flying out from behind our back claws.

And no one can convince us that mud is not
Beautiful. It is our badger soul that thinks so.
We are ready to spend the rest of our life

Walking with muddy shoes in the wet fields.
We resemble exiles in the kingdom of the serpent.
We stand in the onion fields looking up at the night.

My heart is a calm potato by day, and a weeping
Abandoned woman by night. Friend, tell me what to do,
Since I am a man in love with the setting stars.
--by Robert Bly ()

Piano

2009-11-11T08:17:00.001+07:00

Touched by your goodness, I am like
that grand piano we found one night on Willoughby
that someone had smashed and somehow
heaved through an open window.

And you might think by this I mean I'm broken
or abandoned, or unloved. Truth is, I don't
know exactly what I am, any more
than the wreckage in the alley knows
it's a piano, filling with trash and yellow leaves.

Maybe I'm all that's left of what I was.
But touching me, I know, you are the good
breeze blowing across its rusted strings.

What would you call that feeling when the wood,
even with its cracked harp, starts to sing?

--Professor Patrick Phillips, from his book Boy

change of plans!

2009-11-11T08:12:00.000+07:00

Looks like I'll be going to Vietnam instead, to do a different program. I'm not sure whether I'll be in Ho Chi Min City or Hanoi, or even what project I'm working on until I arrive in Vietnam. The program starts on June 15th and I'll be working on one of three projects: teaching English, helping children and young adults affected by Agent Orange or working for an NGO in Hanoi.

I'm really looking forward to it! I'm so glad that my plans to go abroad are finally working out.

After my trip during the spring semester or my senior year, I plan to work on a collection of poems about my trip as an independent study with my one of my advisers (and a professional poet himself), Patrick Phillips.

thailand, here i come!

2009-10-25T06:41:00.000+07:00

Alright, well, I finally have something worth writing about...

On July 3rd, I'm going to Thailand for six weeks where I'll be doing a volunteer teaching program in a small Muslim community. After a month, I will be certified to teach English as a foreign language (TEFL), which is amazing! Not only will be certified (through a program which will find me job placement doing such if I so choose), but I'll be getting certified while I work directly in the field!

I'll be staying in a communal base owned by the organization who runs the program (gviusa.com, if you'd like to take a look), which has cold running water, plumbing, a full kitchen and patio. But, most exciting to me, there's a library in the base (!!). I can't wait for the trip, as well as all the opportunities I'll have after I'm finished! More to come!

best day ever.

2009-04-06T11:36:00.000+07:00

They are making a 'Where the Wild Things Are' film, complete with Jim Henson muppets as the monsters and James Gandolfini as the voice of Carol.

you carry

2009-03-19T09:07:00.000+07:00

make a home to keep on your back and you will never be homeless;
carry it. shalack it. keep shellshock out. it's yours to weigh, to protect.

and if you've done it right, it will sigh like your ems and mms of content
as my lips brush your nose. no safety in numbers, we can carry it together.

i know we have too many books between us to carry, but if you bring one
i haven't yet read, that will be enough for me. you can read it to me.