Moment

"You're strong but you're needy,
Humble but you're greedy
Based on the body language and shorty cursive
I've been reading." -Jason Mraz

I am getting out of the Echo miraculously early; to think of it is quite astonishing. It was an 11 p.m. night, I never have those, I suppose the more one knows the easier it gets. I suppose the more one builds thick skin around overly direct people and surrounds herself with people who foster learning, it becomes more efficient --- or maybe it was just a good week. So I contemplate what to do with myself to waste the moments because God forbid that I'm given adequate time to sleep. So, I, the broke college student, buy myself a ridiculously expensive Odwalla drink, it is the most delicious thing I've ever had.

When smart college students, somewhere between the teen years and adulthood, get sick, it is almost adorable. They are away from home; but they are men, so esteemed and eloquent, yet still vulnerable to the virus like the elderly and young -- and they're away from home.

Through exasperation and fatigue, my heart still smiles easily. The momentary moments that don't mean anything but are impossible to catch... they make everything good.
Putting my poem on here before Blevins and classmates tear it to pieces tomorrow. It seems clear to me but it is me I'm speaking about.

-----
Longing

You dare stand out whiter than the white chalk on that blackboard piquing my curiosity.
You don’t see the pitch black of your arms from afar--- darker than
the shadow that overwhelms the naïve light’s ability to run from it.

The footsteps clap, clap: snap, snap against right direction.

Then your swagger overwhelms my inhibitions and intelligence.
I am the dreaded eraser clearing away the equinox letting whiteness fade into grayness
And the grayness into dust
And the dust into a questionable hallucination that nothing created this accumulation of the
air’s remaining molecules of ungraspable dust.

I trace back and let the dust polish and pray the equinox lasts longer than mere seconds so I could ghastly swoon to Norah Jones’ “come away with me through the night.”

At the equinox, where I see the white strands before they bleed to night
Or are erased by the day’s hurry,
I take a breath and breathe in
at that moment
at that place
To yearn for the taste of the phallic confection and
devour it through my lungs
to let the admired scar be for always

Hence, the bulwark knows to render whenever the wind hits my spot
on these dusty black nights,
soft like the sweat of that swagger

I devour baby pink starbursts on these dusty white nights when Norah Jones sings in these present day songs about the one she wrote
of the dusty white chalk’s fizzing disappearance
as the equinox turns to white.

Self discovery

"Meet in on the equinox
Meet me half-way
When the sun is perched
at its highest peak
in the middle of the day" -Death Cab for Cutie

Adrian Blevins tells of how she never knows what her arguments will be or where her poems are going until she (or it) gets there. The writing itself is a journey consisting of a list of questions that will lead to that final 'self discovery.' She is my professor, prodigy of Gerald Stern (whom I had the great great great honor to meet today) and a renowned poet herself but she is oh so human. She's one of those people you look at and say, "she laughs, she hurts, she's introspective, she cusses, her flesh is real, her Virginian accent is thick, there is no wall- there is a chance at vulnerability."

And so this blog, along with my journals, and everything that causes me to think is creating questions and guiding me to me. The oldest advice in the books is to "be yourself" but who is yourself and what does it consist of?

For example: the discovery of being reserved. As mentioned previously, I know that I'm reserved and I've been for most, if not all, of my life. Why else would I be a writer, right? But, in a sense, what part of practicing being reserved and making that a norm disables the ability to express and lead to inarticulation? (People who know me know this.) Sometimes, the words, the movements and the emotions to express myself simply don't come up, as though they're either lethargic or can't define and fetch themselves. When my brain reaches for that word that I'm feeling so powerfully at that moment, it's not there. It's almost like the old old files in the old old archives has been deleted because they were never utilized.

It's an idea I've expressed for several years now where, even if I wanted to push the wall down, the brain will persistently keep it up.

It leads to a prospect (or I suppose reality) of being distant, unapproachable, dry, very unlike Adrian Blevins. Either that or I go through waves where I mellow down-- like I don't give effort to things that mean something to me, even though within my mind, the thing that's unable to articulate itself really wishes to, and wishes to have at least a say in how I run my life. There's me that goes wild at a party then there's me at editorial meetings and in classrooms, the me that I think is the real me-- the day to day me-- I don't know her at all. The reason she can't articulate herself to others is because she has to first pull down the wall for herself and allow self understanding before she lets anyone else in. The dots don't always connect, others notice it, but I notice it first.

For instance, my redefinition of femininity, race, worth, and beauty over the last few years. The college is full of everything beautiful- magazine beautiful. White, thin, intelligent, blonde, multi-tasking, well dressed, always happy, quick witted perfection. Some take it as a facade. If I or anyone like me were to speak, dress, think, be great at everything and disgustingly kind all the time, the question would arise, "ok so, who are you really?" Where's the "realness"? Say "umm" once in a while, fall once in a while, get a B once in a while, cry once in a while, cuss once in a while, forget the organic bullshit and eat a cheeseburger every once in a while. But then who's to dictate what's real and what's fake? What if this culture that seems so artificial to a maddening point is actually these peoples' real culture.

So I could be mad, and I am saying that I am upset, that these fake women with their fake femininity and bureacracy, and standard language and who seem to always be branding themselves, are winning the war and taking away the quality men because they don't pick up on the facade.... (everyone knows what I mean) from women like me who don't really have the effort to be all that and who for the mere purpose of existence is more imperfect and thus authentic than that. I have flaws aplenty and it makes me feel inadequate to the standards aplenty-- an inadequacy with stories that are real and tangible compared to a branding so perfect that you can barely see fine print-- with a standard and robotic coverage.

But if that, in their world growing up, was authentic, and if that is all they've known then... I don't know. It's like living for competition but not enjoying it. At the same time that they're being presumably real and true to themselves while having casual conversations with acquaintances (aka ME!), I'm being reserved to keep up with this very artificial, polite, small talk.

So to recap, if any of this made since whatsoever at 2 a.m., in a really fake-formal setting where fake-formal things happen, where a wall is up, and imperfection doesn't quite exist-- maybe it's just me and my 'reserved' manner that's being fake. But then, I can't help it.

Some crazy fruit for thought.

Total Chaos

"I'm just tryna change the color on your mood ring" -Kanye West

Tuesday night in the Echo offices.

These Tuesday nights come after the Monday evenings, come after the Sunday afternoons, come after the Saturday nights of reading, writing, editing, and laying out.

The first week is learn-on-the-go week. Boy, am I learning on the go. Tajreen must look like Tajreen, follow the purple on the lay-out for pictures, the green for print, the tool tab for spell check, the view tab for framework.... no dashes, no spacing---- in a sense I am dying. But only a little bit.

Because I put this on myself, not because the Tuesdays nights are symbolic of... well... sacrificing a life, a love... a nap. Considering all that could and did go wrong, midnight is an early night to be finished with the section. Yet, if the life is sucked out of me, why is that all I could think about is Blevin's poetry class, an obnoxious- lovely cockiness, and the other things I've taken on to ensure that sleep is no option?

In 3 of the classes, there is nothing but white, left white, right white, front white. White activists and white anthropologists wanting to study things obscure to the white, the nations obscure to the white, the primitive beings seeming so odd to the white.... in a politically correct way of course.

So they admit to the injustices they've done as they strive to understand; they admit to their privilege and our oppression, they speak as though their hearts are open- and they as the socially conscious will be the generation that changes this- a generation which no longer tolerates 'discrimination' although people from discriminated groups still fascinate them-- almost as if they were really ACTUALLY not really the same. 'Hypocritical' puts it lightly. 'Patronizing' , 'Condescending' puts it correctly.

On the Echo, a staff of white men and women... though the women are in charge. I should editorialize about how I don't like 'powerful' women as my bosses. The school of thought is wrong, it is sexist, no doubt it will touch on a sensitive nerve, but it is true. I like my confident men, I like my kind women.

And in my mind, it is all chaotic. The anthro class is self righteous, it teaches people how to study people, how to look at people, how to analyze people, in a way that follows the tradition of the contemporary, male dominated, Western dominated, white dominated texts. But I will have to take it next year.

And so I breathe as I step into my Tuesday morning class, and see familiar caramel, brown, and yellow faces, so beautiful, so cultured. And I breathe as I step into my Wednesday afternoon lecture and see the definition of brilliance, in the form of a young, confident, beautiful, brown-faced woman- she is my professor. She is before me.

And I think, I'm developing an unhealthy internal (perhaps displaced) resentment against white people. I don't know where it came from but it is here now.

Perhaps I shall get out, drink beer with non-white people- cuss with non-white people.

I asked a friend to describe me, and he said 'reserved' I thought "brilliant, he hit the nail on the head!" He didn't say 'shy' or 'quiet' or 'kind' or 'awkward'. He said 'reserved' as though what is there is limited and precious, and reserved only for those who I let in. He said 'reserved' but neither shy nor quiet, as though, there's an anger there, there is introspection there, there is love there, there is moodiness and kindness there, there is much more ego there than many know. Everything is there.

Brilliant.

Perhaps I shall get out, be unreserved around non-white people.

Because sometimes without it....

When I did think I was over the desperately shy phase of my life, it springs back in surprising and unexpected situations- catching me off guard. Mainly when I meet people I admire, whom I wish to be like. My body freezes up as though I'm having an out of body experience. I can't speak, I can't look, then I'm awkward, then I have no choice as to whether I choose to be reserved.... whatever chose to control me at that point is also real, though sometimes, often, because I gain no reward from the unexpected realness and awkwardness that the reserved can mask to those I care not for, I wish for the real to go away and for the body to be in control again.

September

"I don't care what you think as long as it's about me." -Fall Out Boy

I can't imagine.

I can't imagine what it's like being on the front line of war. I can't imagine leaving behind everything one has for a chance at death and to see your brother die. I can't imagine World War 2, Vietnam and Afghanistan.

It must take a lot for an 18 year old to enlist. Mostly because I'm 21 and still a child; second because war is so cruel that there is no room for emotion and fear. Boys are and have always been raised in a culture where it's unacceptable to show weakness and ask for help. They're trained to be even more robotic as they head into combat for months, shipped to who knows where, away from friends- from family, from anywhere where they could feel at ease.

And so many do it with dignity. These boys see and are forced to do horrendous things often for a government's political agenda; men in their 50s and 60s behind their desks wondering how to advance their country while boys in their teens and twenties are dying.

History books write about political figures so valiantly and their countries so patriotically that we get a shrewd perception of the event and of the equally painful suffering from the other side. The axis and the allies, we paint one side patriotically and the other side as though they're evil doers while on each side men were laying their lives on the line.

I don't believe what the United States did during the World Wars were right. To portray it as a celebratory event for this country can't be right. The men did what they had to but killing thousands of people who had futures and aspirations shouldn't be a celebratory event.

We throw parades for a day or two, then their bravery but more importantly their pain along with their families' pain is forgotten. They go into war as boys with obnoxious, annoying, boyish innocence and if they come back, they bear an unimaginable amount of pain and guilt.

Learning Vietnam's history from American history books is difficult but not as difficult as hearing the heart wrenching songs written by soldiers in the front line of that war.

I believe it's great that there's a lot of concentration and advancement for women and women's rights. Women seem to be more vocal when it comes to their fights and to get the abuse or emotional pain they've suffered out there. Men, and especially young men, contrarily barely speak about abuse or emotional pain, let along fight for it. Depression is higher in men along with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder; there seems to be very little attention paid to that and a barely visible fight for men who aren't encouraged to speak and who've been through a lot in their lives. There's definitely a lower level of tolerance for male emotions.

I don't know; I feel as though my Asian side is very traditional in a sense that I believe that in the busy effort of trying to get ahead, women no longer take care of their men. Men as stoic as they are, don't know how to open up to their families, and it creates another cycle of pain as well as many generations of children who don't appreciate their fathers nearly as much as they appreciate their mothers.

Sometimes I hate men, but I understand and I feel for the fathers and brothers out there. People celebrate their homecomings but no one seems to recognize their wars abroad, their wars with poor neighborhoods and bad living conditions at home, and their continuing internal wars when they come home and actually have to live with the horror they've experienced.