Movies to watch + random + seemingly dissonance galore!

I've only watched a small snippet of this film, but the attention to detail is great. Especially the scene where the old grandmother-like servant is cooking. You literally smell the food she is stir frying. The film captures the sounds of Vietnam very well. Vietnam is really noisy if you are quiet. You can always hear something whether it be a fan buzzing, an air conditioner humming, a motorbike whizzing, a Vietnamese neighbor (người hàng xóm) blabbering about the drama in her family, birds, crickets, everything is always talking.

Here's a good review of the movie.

The Scent of Green Papaya:

Full length version (no subtitles):

Vertical Ray of the Sun:

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Half the Sky. Women are part of the solution not the problem.

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Just completed CAY project's 4th health workshop for trafficking survivors. It's going well, the pace is much slower. Change can't happen over night, but at least maybe we can try. Today we talked about "burdens" and ways in which we can release that "burden" so we can be healthy.

I saw them build a tree today. We were working with wires.

"I can't do it"
"This hurts my hands"
"There is no way (to make it tall)"
"This is enough"
"I can't cut this"

One of them kept shaking her head from left to right very quickly, as if to say "no" but she never did say it. We were building a box in order to "warm up" before we build the bigger tree. She had made two squares, and tossed them on the ground. "Bó Tay" (tied hands) you might say. I was getting a bit frustrated at her giving up so early.

"Why do you keep shaking your head like that?"
"Can't do it"
"Do you have a shaking head disease? Stop doing that" I begin to shake my head too.
I took up the two pieces.

"Now you have these two squares, now what, how can you connect them?"

We begin to connect the two squares to make a box.
I knick my hand with the wire while I am helping her. It begins to bleed a bit but I keep going.

She sees that I am bleeding. She takes the half finished box from me.

"Here let me take it" She finished the box.

Another girl tells me she can't finish the box and wants help.

"Come here and sit next to me"
"Alright what do you do to connect the two boxes?" I repeat. Guiding her. I've never built a box out of wire before. She completes the box.

The next task was to build a tree as tall as you can with the wires.

Two of the three girls sat idly to the side. Slowly though, I am unsure what suddenly clicked in their head, but all three worked together to build the tree and it stood tall. It was a beautiful sight to see, both the tree and the girls working together to build it. You can tell they were beginning to really believe they could build it. Seeing that transformation was a wonderful feeling for me. For them to be able to step up (bước lên) and build the tree together and communicate from not even wanting to touch the wires is at least to me a small step forward.

We were painting ideas of how to "relieve our stress." One girl put down her paint brush and then dipped her fingers into the paint and painted her hand. I loved the spontaneity. I think you have to understand that here, spontaneity is rare.

"I like to paint, be messy with paint"
"I liked the painting because it helps relieve my stress"
"I painted a house because I miss my home. I miss my mom. I miss sleeping next to her"

I personally forgot how much I love the texture of paint. Especially how it feels on a brush and when it gets on you. I don't like to wash off paint when it gets on my clothes. I think it gives it more character.

It's because all their lives they've been told they could not do anything by society. That they are at the bottom. Now they stop themselves before they even try. I hope to change that. They are so capable and able, I want them to believe it and know it. This is so hard to do.

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Flies in Vietnam are ferocious and behave differently from flies in America. In America we kill them. In Vietnam we don't. Fly swatters aren't readily available. I think this makes the flies more tenacious. The flies in America, if you swat at them they run away. The ones here don't and they buzz in your ear.

There is a stupid fly in my room right now and I am scared.
Mosquitos in Vietnam are smart. They bite you before they buzz in your ear. The ones in America buzz in your ear before they bite you.

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In Vietnamese there is a distinction between Vietnamese grandparents on your mom side and Vietnamese parents on your dad side.

ông nội: Grandfather - Dad's side
bà nội: Grandmother - Dad's side
ông ngoại: Grandfather - Mom's side
bà ngoại: Grandmother - Mom's side

Familial lineage is strongly linked to the male, so much so that even the name implies it. When referring to grandparents on the mother's side the word "ngoại" is used which means "outside."

There are many distinctions in the language that I don't comprehend. There are many words for the color of red and black.

Stir-frying is distinctly different from frying.

Lots of euphemisms that go over my head.

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Pop song fun.  I love catching up with pop culture. As of recently pop songs are beginning to delight me - maybe Vietnam has simplified my expectations of music. I suppose it's a guilty pleasure of mine (save me now) I can't help but love the following songs:

"Pop culture is my religion" - Lady Gaga

I really like this gaga song. JESUS. JUDAS. I'm such a holy fool. Oh baby it's so cruel.

This kid is pretty damn talented. Add him to my list of kids my age who are "pretty fuckin' accomplished." My affinity towards talented musicians is no exception to Jimmy (Chaz who? Hahaha.)-  a self-employed musician and artist currently living in L.A he spends his days making two videos a week. His remake of Britney Spear's new single is SO GOOD. He also makes a good response to that ching chong ling long girl from U.C.L.A.

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Can't wait to come back to go to shows. SHOOOOOOOOOOWS.

I usually only enjoy shows where I know the songs/artists. Pre-party for the ears!

If I can have an ideal life it would look something like this.

1. go to shows. 2. have a nice house decorated like the movie "Scent of a Green Papaya" in a cool, airy place 3. work at the radio station. 4. be near/accessible to my family 5. have the ability travel

I've gone to shows by myself before. That's how much I love them.

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Sharpening my pencil. writing.

My friend Patricia recently gave me this awesome tiger balm stuff that is from Thailand. It makes my hands all warm. Helps with the carpel tunnel? Well I'll type anyways, even if it's the death of my hands.

It has come to my attention that I've been making many solecisms as of late. Poor writing, learning a new language, and trying to fix people's passive voice has lead to my writing abilities demise. (I think that was passive).



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Things that make me extremely happy:

Damn Vietnamese coffee.

People who are my age (approx) who are pretty fuckin' accomplished

anyways i'm tired. my stomach hurts. i ate eggs that were left outside for too long (donna i think you warned me about this one).

i will purchase my ticket home today I think...I've been avoiding it for a while and having nightmares about it. 

If you haven't already - I went through a mad pop music catch up the other day. I tend to be really late with this kind of stuff but whatever. 

This video is great for very obvious reasons. Lots of awesome hair flippage. I want to be able to be able to dance walk in heals like that. I find Beyonce's music interesting especially since she decides to focus on women's empowerment. Of course you got your feminist critics (I read a few articles), but eh, there are bigger fish to fry. I'm glad a mainstream artists decides to focus on women issues in general. If you look at all her videos, you hardly ever see a man and the focus is usually on her vs pop music videos where men are in it (see timberland videos for reference lol.)  - you gotta have a woman or else you aren't cool. Think about it.

Knitta, please.

This is probably the best play on word of the day via a recent nytimes article.

Knitta, please is the website of yarn artist Magna Sayeg.
Her blog is also playfully called Knitta, por favor.

Also for overall knitting greatness, have a look at my friend's blog: Aromy's Originals. Not only does she have a bad ass name, she knits pretty bad ass things. Here's some of her awesomely cute work:

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Just had a talk with the mother. My uncle is taking my grandpa and grandma to France on First Class (or so we hear).

"I have no idea when you will be able to pay for me a first class trip to France."
"How old is uncle?"
"He is two years younger than me."
"Ok, so 50 years old?"
"Yeah"
"Ok when I'm 50."

In the background I hear my dad ask "How is work?" That's how he usually talks to me, through the background when I talk to my mom. She hands the phone off to my dad. And I chit chat with him for a bit. I tell him about the poor people I met in rural villages of Vietnam.

"That's why I went to America"

I've been entertaining the idea of going to Taiwan on my way back. I'd really like to see the country side and visit a shelter for abused foreign brides and trafficking victims (with a good amount being Vietnamese). Also I want to use my Chinese and Vietnamese. I had tried to use my Chinese in Laos with the Chinese community there. They immediately gave me a better price.

"Why didn't you say you could speak Chinese earlier? I could of chatted it up with you"

In Vietnam, there is this ongoing joke about the Chinese who live in Vietnam.

"Oh you are one of them"

Apparently our existence is very furtive, as people can rarely identify the fact that I am Chinese unless I tell them so.

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One of my favorite topics and least favorite topics to think about is racial identity. I suppose I can't get away from it seeing that I studied it in University. I have a theory as to why Vietnamese locals consistently identify me as Japanese or Korean.

A foreign Asian can never be considered American. American to Vietnamese locals means white.
Due to this formula, Vietnamese locals need to label my foreignness as something, but obviously it cannot be American because I am not white.

Therefore I have to be the "next best thing" and the explanation of my foreignness would be a foreign asian in the category of Japanese or Korean.

Rarely Vietnamese-American, this category does not truly exist at its core.

"You look Japanese or Korean"
"It's because I'm American. You probably don't know what a Vietnamese American looks like huh?"

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I'm a strong believer of "friendship vibes." That is when you suddenly think of a friend (without trying) and they pop into your life randomly in the next few days via email or gchat or phone or something else.

(Temporarily) quitting facebook was a good idea

I'm reading an incredible amount (at least in my book) of ny times articles. This doesn't make me smarter but because it is my homepage, it is the first thing that pops up. So I read.

Sometimes, I feel stupid for having read a stupid article. Did I just let that piece of information really enter my brain? For the most part the articles are alright, and reaching the nytimes.com limit is driving me crazy. Nytimes is interesting because this is the hegemonic discourse that dominates many social issues that are chosen to be "important." Who are the people who decide what is important to be on front page?

I really like reading sex scandals of politicians and high ranking people. There is something about that news that delights me, something about imperfection being revealed (very publicly so), just like dystopias! I love dystopia stories.  Just goes to show you, we're all just human and people need to be nice and check themselves.

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I mentally come to conclusions very quickly. Often times, unfortunately, this results in silence, or me being nonchalant about something. I just can't engage when I know my thoughts don't really contribute to the conclusion.

But I've learned that dominant society likes to talk. Talk talk talk talk talk. They talk about what they know, and with conviction.  Their thoughts don't inhibit them. Maybe I should start doing that.

"I'd like to preface my speech with the fact that I am right. Everything I say will be right. Anything you say will have no influence on my thoughts. I'll let you have some feeble attempts at convincing me. I'll nod and smile. Maybe even laugh. But I'll think you're stupid nevertheless. So let us begin..."

I kid (a bit). But some people honestly talk like that sometimes. It's a bit excruciating to take in. This is not to say that I don't like to talk or listen to people talk. I'm talking about a specific kind of talk, the kind that comes with narrow lens, and it usually comes from a person who has the inability to shift lens.

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Don't be an activist. Just be human.

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Live a little. Literally. Stop staring at the screen and thinking other people's lives are better than you because it's not. Just because:

A. someone knows how to use the self timer button on their camera to take pictures of themselves
B. goes to the club every weekend
C. goes to las vegas
D. shops at Forever 21 and H&M
E. travels/ lives in another country

...this does not make them cool. 

I'm not targeting anyone - the above listed have made me jealous of people, then I get a bit sad, and then I realize that I just haven't posted cool photos in a long time nor gotten any comments. Facebook psychological affects you.

Despite the said benefits of quitting facebook, I did sadly miss the announcement of one of my high school best friend's engagement. I wonder what else am I missing...

Often times when I am on a caffeine high I wonder what drugs would do for my writing.

However, seeing that I'm rather naive, paranoid about health dangers, scared in general of dying and of taking risks, I will probably never know.

I once hallucinated after taking nyquil when I was 12, that was scary. Try making a planet in order to save a friend. You would think it's scary too.

Lately anything MSG or caffeine or overly sugar related -  I can feel it in my cheeks. It feels a bit heavy.

But caffeine, especially Vietnamese coffee does something very good for my mind. About an hour into drinking the coffee, things seem very clear and happy lasting approximately 2.5 hours. Then afterwards, I am tired and my hands start trembling (if I haven't had breakfast).

She reached over to get the pepper and for a short second he thought about molecules. Not because her skin was soft and smooth despite her disgust of water and her haphazard use of lotion.  He had a chemistry final coming up in 4 weeks. CO2, H2O, H2, HCl, NHCl, and whatever combination of letters least used in society. She was talking but logic wasn't coming out. CO2 definitely was. Did you know that mosquitoes are attracted to the CO2 that we breath? Not because of the smell of your blood, or the perfume you put on. That shit doesn't matter. It's all about the molecules.


He loved her or so he thought. In school he was not taught to recognize love. He can read formulas, molecules, atoms, acidity, ions, salt, elements and predict their reactions. Bonding. Yes I definitely understood bonding. That was simple. Double bonds, triple bonds. 

I definitely don't understand her. He breathed in O2 and let out some CO2. Her face faded into the diner the way red barns do among rustic wheat fields. 

Right now things are very clear and happy.

Certain songs can make me feel that way. Right now the combination of Daft Punk and Vietnamese coffee ain't all that bad. You should try it.

Temporal clarity and elation can exhaust you. Which may be a good metaphor to life anyways...

Can't be fucking happy all the time, you would annoy the fuck out of people, cos we know it isn't real.


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Last night/early in the wee mornings a fellow volunteer and I were staying up late, I was working on a film clip and she was doing an email catch up. We also wanted to keep a certain mouse company. I think he/she was hungry because it was running everywhere. I screamed and jumped on my chair each time I saw it. Hey buddy. It ran around and when it saw me it would screech to a halt, catch itself and run into a different direction. Nhu Tien got a box ready to catch it.

Nhu Tien: Volunteer by day... from Kim Dam on Vimeo.

We never did catch that mouse (and another one!) updated: 5/19/2011


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The sun sets pink over the horizon.

A young girl working right side her family picking these bull horn looking potato tasting snack.

The Mekong Delta snakes through southern Vietnam. Most of the rural families rely on it for fish, food, and other forms of income.

Noodles on the go.

The back of the room where we did anti-human trafficking workshops. This is the hat of a mother, she uses it to cover the hot sun while picking chili peppers.

The mekong delta.

Smart way of rocking the baby and resting.

Preventing human trafficking of girls like her.

Eating pho in rural areas.

Her fingers are not black from dirt. It is the residue from picking chili peppers, they snap it with their fingers because they are not given cutting tools. They are paid 3,000 VND (17 cents) for every kilo of chili peppers they pick. She does this on top of going to school.

I've recently returned from the rural areas after doing anti-human trafficking and the importance of education for our scholarship recipients and their parents. I'm also messign with Adobe Premiere Pro its pretty fun =) more GRE procrastination. Will post the video once its final.

things to make you cry, because i cried too.

jesus LOUISE!!!!!!!!

dammit cute old people, asian americans, and love!! any form of that combination kills me each time.

i have such an old soul.






Vietnamese words in commericals also make me cry:



Well actually, anything Vietnamese related:

Theresa Nguyen (L) talks to her daughter, Stephanie (R), about balancing their Vietnamese heritage with raising a family in the United States.

This Vietnamese movie following a father, his son and daughter, and a prostitute - features the Mekong Delta - where I work!!! Watch it hear. Had me balling my eyes out.

Let's give it a go with one of my favorite authors.

via wikipedia.

In his book Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction, Vonnegut listed eight rules for writing a short story:

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a Sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To hell with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

I'd also recommend reading this, How to Write With Style, by Kurt Vonnegut. 

1. Find a subject you care about

2. Do not ramble, though

3. Keep it simple

4. Have guts to cut

5. Sound like yourself

6. Say what you mean

7. Pity the readers

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The above mentioned advice has nothing to do with my GRE stories. In fact my GRE stories probably go against most of the said above. Good Real Effort (GRE)  I wonder if this is really my way of studying or really just a way to condone my procrastination. Anyways I decided to make the GRE stories real life (much harder) instead of made up pseudometaphors and parallels about themes of what I see and feel in life. 

I did see a grave in rice paddies though.

There was once a time when photos did not exist. There was no way to capture a moment in time, with all its truth and honesty. Mendacious paintings trying to do a photo's job obstructed the truth. But photos today fall in the same lines as august, affected constructed paintings of the wealthy. They are glibs that skewed reality and made others invidious, wanting a life that is really not what they think it to be. 

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Today I found out sort of life changing current news from a few friends. All in one day! I am very happy for each of them. 

I am a big believer of "friendship vibes" that is when I think about a friend and miss them, they suddenly pop into my life in some way or form.

My friend Ai recently entertained the idea of me living in Austin, Texas. She or maybe Lillian, can't remember talked about a friend who used to live in New York, and went/moved to Austin and was blown away by the music scene. Que Divertido! She said she will be blogging Austin cafe scene and whatever not to convince me to move there. Living costs are really low too!

I really just want a life, where I have friends, family and see a lot of shows and art - and to end human trafficking. I've got a few years to accomplish that.

My California goal is to learn spanish pero quiero hablar espanol muy. Ir a la playa y escuchar y talk with the community.  I think this is a very doable endeavor.  Might as well up the anty with the number of languages I can speak to 4. 

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and now random pictures in my computer to delight the reader, in no particular sense:

A temple in Vietnam. It's a fake tree with REAL BIRDS living in it. Talk about living in denial. Literally.

I did this circle art activity with the girls at the shelter, where we had to complete each other's drawings. I'm not too sure if that is an upside v-neck or saggy boobs that reach into my arms. The likeness is uncanny.

This photo looks familiar.  I guess I wasn't nostalgically staring into the distance and reflecting. Like all facebook profile pictures, they are skewed reality. I was just sitting next to my mama on the Melbourne subway yappin' my ass off. Good job brother for capturing that.

The first time I ate a chicken after seeing it alive a few hours ago. GUILT. 

This popped up on my facebook (when I was on it) and I laughed out loud. Sally is now one ocean closer to me!! =)

Productivity at its best. "Hey Sally how's the roller coaster ride?" "Really peaceful, relaxing" "Hey Tam how's the nice hot weather on the beach? "The air conditioner is making me cold" "Kim how's the fishes?" "There's a surprising amount of oxygen down here"

Touch. The. Dinosaur. I really miss those holey jeans.

This is my last show in the states. Metric! God we're sooooo legit. This is after walking past the metric t-shirt hawkers.  Aline is my friend the the far left. She's uber legit,  can dance AND she lives in Kansas. That probably calls for a upgrade to uber legit midwesterner (If my California geography is correct) I love midwesterners.

I learned how to eat these spicy critters. I certainly feel legit.

Beginning signs of carpel tunnel sucks.

Oh well. Will have to calm down with the computer typing. Have to think about computer time more wisely.  Helps that I haven't been on face book for 1 month! woo.

22 GRE words chosen at random:

a literal metaphor


My mother often compares me 
to my stubborn father 
I stubbornly choose
not to believe her. 


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Easing into a lethargic somber, the swaying green placated the graves.  The seeping dirt held such repose that any form of dissonance dissipated into the abyss. Despite living mold and growing cracks, the ossified reverse was happening inside. Souls were hardening.

On the east end of the fields, two kites hovered over four sportive children, the birds languid over the occasion flew by without a second look. The anodyne kites soothed their unwashed little hands; the strings held onto the gold. Ephemeral, this would only last a few more years. Soon their hands would be wizened - soon not later. The sun would find refuge in the crevices of their palms, relentless like a potentate ruling over his empire. The children would eventually fall into lassitude, exhausted. Living in penury, they had nothing but their kites. The kites had nothing but their children. Both had the sky.

The children did not believe the apocryphal tales of a creature who lured the night whose stare would leave a curse. This did not keep them up at night. What kept them up was the pejorative comments their invidious parents yelled to one another. Their children did not sleep nor did they.

There was something unconscionable about their love. It was an unfair kind of love. It wasn't the type of love you saw in the movies. It also wasn't the unimaginable type of love. It was the kind of love that once existed but died. It was a lost kind of love.  He hoped that she would take note of his subtle obsequious attempts to please her but she had already fallen deep in her thoughts. She often found herself in investitures, gaining power and authority. In these ceremonies she would rise in grandiose gowns. No kites flew high here. The weather was always pristine. She had everything, but her kites.

Words are fun to play with.

Called mama for mother's day. I tell her I found old Vietnamese records from the 1940's to 1970's. She tells me that back in the day everything was recorded live, not by a machine and not in separate parts. The guitarist, the drummer, the singers, they all had to be there. I was delighted by this little piece of information. She asks me how I'm going to play the records. I said daddy had one. I hope he still has it. The sounds that come off those records are beautiful, archaic, lost.  She then goes on to tell me about her purchases at Kohl's yesterday.

I spoke to my grandma in Vietnamese for the first time today. We had a full conversation that lasted maybe 5 minutes, but this is the longest ever in my life. I asked her what she was doing, she said she was cooking Bun Ca but a special kind from Chau Doc. I told her that  Bun Ca in Long Xuyen didn't taste so good. I asked who she was cooking it for. She listed it off for me. It was nice being able to speak to a woman whose taken care of you since you were little for the first time. She yelled at me really bad once when I took her lipstick and drew it all over my hands. I remember trying to wash it off as she was yelling at me. I ran into my uncles room.  Love right there. I usually call my grandpa only, so she was very surprised to get a phone call from me. Her voice a bit older than a few years ago, I can see her gray hairs. But still has cheerful and fluffy as she has always been. She tells me how the other day she went to eat sushi with my cousin Rebecca and I ask her about her upcoming trip to France. She is going for about 20 days. Leaving on July 4th and coming back around July 26th.  I'm really excited for her. I tell her I really want to go. She entertains the idea for a little bit before realizing that I won't return until the end of August. I try to tell her in the most simplest terms that Joseph (my cousin) read something that I wrote my work in Vietnam and he's doing good too. She laughs and sounds happy about it. She says something about us cousins doing good together.

I talk to my aunt who I call Mommy, appropriate day to call her. She just awoke because last night she went to see a music show. One of her favorite things to do. Mine as well.  We talk about Vietnam and the people we know. I update her on how people are doing. She talks to me about her daughter Rebecca who bought her a pretty black purse for mother's day since she now has a job as a volleyball coach. She's proud. I like listening to her talk. She always talks with so much passion and knowledge. In fact, I like to listen to all the women in our family talk. It's actually a pass time of mine when I was little and well into highschool.

Whenever I would hear my mom get on the phone with my grandma at 9:00 pm because minutes were free then, I sat around and listened because this was the only way I could really get to know them, by listening. I couldn't speak the language they spoke over the phone but I can damn well listen to it.

Happy Mother's Day mama, mommy, and abo. I miss you.

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I realized that if I combine my love for story writing and gre words, I will remember them better! Get your dictionaries out. I've also been reading Kurt Vonneget's Slaughter House Five - maybe I'm influenced by it.


"The cockles of Billy's heart, at any rate, were glowing coals. What made them so hot was Billy's belief that he was going to comfort so many people with the truth about time. " - Slaughter House Five, Kurt Vonnegut Jr.


20 words chosen at random:

Her hoarding idiosyncrasies were beginning to carve a place between her implacable urges of unrequited love and her hyperbolic tendency to express her love for strangers after a few drinks. She was a mess. Casual conversations with strangers became a rather grievous event. She had unfortunately become a garrulous parrot. It didn't make sense. She was "happy" with work, as happy as a 20 something single woman can be. She was liberal or rather voted for Obama on accident when she was distracted by the handsome young man in the booth next to her, was your average impious church attendee, attending church only when her mom reminded her to, and was an impetuous shopper having just purchased a $200 pen because it was pretty? Surprisingly she felt stuck, in an impasse unable to overcome her inability to satisfy herself with material goods. Fucking pen. 

There was something inchoate inside of her, she felt disorganized despite her three separate work stacks. TO DO. IN REVIEW. COMPLETE. Three simple categories to make sense of her mundane shifting of papers, documents, folders, excel sheets, word documents. She lived by these three categories unconsciously. Yet, she knowingly kept a fourth category at the bottom third drawer to the left. Undetected by the average passerby or nosy gossiper, the achingly plain brown forth drawer was where she garnered her growing collection of bread crust. It started as her need to husband food scraps so she could have a snack throughout the day, but it escalated. The drawer full of bread crust comforted her. At least that was absolute. At least she had control over that forth category. This is not a legerdemain, I'm telling the truth, I swear I am. Maybe a guile, but definitely not a legerdemain.

On Friday nights she found herself in stiff imperturbable rituals. 5:00 pm get off work. 6:00 pm get home after commute. 7:00 pm shower after doing nothing 8:00 pm attempt at fancy dinner/food while being frugal 8:22 pm realize that that's impossible and opt for frozen tv dinner 9:00 pm so exhausted, facebook 11:40 pm what the heck. 12:45 pm knock out, feeling rather bummed at the night's lack of fortuitous events

Repeat Saturday and Sunday too. She knew she would blight any chances of having friends if she went to the bars. She often behaved fatuously unable to control her emotions, she could be found in the corner crying to some poor fellow who thought she was cute. Lethargic after her tv dinner she shifts into unreachable dreams. Fucking pen. She writes in her dreams.

What does it really mean to have patience?

If you measure people's capacity for patience I think you learn a lot about them, not everything but a lot.

People who state things rather "matter of factly" I think are people who are incapable of acknowledging they may be wrong. This is how A is, and A will be like that because I said so.

If you think about it, nothing we say can truly be fact, absoluted, definite. How can something so complicated be reduced to something a single human utters? Sometimes I can't express this to people, because well, it's complicated

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In order to help me study for my GRE's I am going to use 10 GRE words picked at random in the following paragraph:


Sometimes I can feel the stagnation of America across oceans, through the voices, emails, and g-chat pings of people, there is something that is still and heavy that lingers in the background, every so quiescently. Maybe it's their inability to understand what I've learned in the last 2 years of my life abroad. Maybe it's my tendency towards taciturn expression. Maybe it's distance. Broken into routine, their myopic lives have little that challenge them. And when I talk about challenge I'm not talking about the oblique challenges that some tend to make up these days, shifting the blame to excuses that aren't very valid and skew the honest to god core truth.

"My iphone doesn't work"
"Stupid waiter didn't get my order right"
"You live too far"
"I don't have time"
"I'm tired"
"Gas is expensive"

What I say to this, is that life can be much worse. Trust me. After traveling, and seeing how others live and how people are. Things can be much worse. My prescient decisions on where to go are knowing that with displacement and removal I tend to learn much more than if I stayed in one place. I know this. I stayed for 13 years of my life in the safe quiet Ontario, and I was stagnate but my dad took me on trips to see most of the U.S. I appreciate that only now. My experience there would set stage for several years of movement. My job itself requires me to move an incredible amount. I ride my bike to places, I spend at least 12 hours of travel almost every week. I know this is possible if there is a will, it's possible - no one can tell me I am too far, if I spent the last 1.5 years traveling for 10 hours for friends. Time is only as valuable to you as you use it. In our lives we have a lot of hours, how do you use it? Do you use it on facebook? Do you use it to inspire? Do you use it with technology? Do you use it to rest and revitalize yourself? Do you use it to seek acknowledge-ment or do you use it to acknowledge others?

What do you remember?
What were your proudest moments and what were your saddest moments?
What made you most happy?
 What left you satisfied? What left you fufilled?

Ask yourself what you value. Certain movements have given me a proclivity for certain values. I appreciate movement and displacement and what it forces me to learn, what it allows me to learn. Yet, I think its something more, if I dare be so audacious to say so. Something that is born inside individuals through experiences, irreplaceable, and most of the time incomprehensible.

Lately, and I know I shouldn't, but I get disappointed. I cannot put my finger on it yet, but I am disappointed. Although I speak about a will, a certain prudence, there is also the issue of money, which for many will be a deciding factor for many things, it plays a big role in my life but it should not be the only role. Don't let it limit you when it doesn't have to.

Some people in my life don't quiet understand this. And that's understandable. Sometimes I want to upbraid my friends for not understanding, for being lazy, for not being able to value certain things in life as they should. But that would be useless.

Now as I navigate through this rather nascent stage of my life I know the clock is ticking folks. At the very least, don't forget that. We still have plenty of time though.

I've been having a series of strange dreams.

It leaves me exhausted when I awake into reality. It's like both worlds are keeping me awake, sleepily navigating reality, I remember what I can, absorb what I can, do what I can.

Lately the words of "meaning of life" have been surfacing. I'm not sure why, but I suppose the combination of exhaustion and work and maybe some stress have something to do with that. Stress. The constant stress of trying to convey my thoughts clearly to the external tires me. I think it tires me more than I would like to admit.

Today I talk to friends about "shifting blame" if the whole world can just suck it up, admit they're wrong, then maybe we would all just get along. But since the "downfall of man was that he was once a child" I suppose this will never be.

I have gray bags under my eyes. I wonder if they will go away once appeared.

"If the accident will..."