Life is Good

Mind you, I'm not going to be one of those douchebaggy, John Mayer types with the visors, bumper stickers, and frisbees, but it is a statement I will endorse. There are 17 days of paper left in my journal, which is just long enough to document my first full day away from home. Realizing this, I went back to see if all this writing had its intended effect, for me to be able to read the words and remember all the left out detail and emotions. Selecting two days at random, one from May and another mid-June, it appears to work! From the sentence, "We went to the mall." I remembered where and why we went and the conversations had along the way. I'm glad to see that my gifts were put to good use and so pertinent in recording this particular summer. Maybe this winter I'll read through the entries and hopefully just as easily say, "life is good."

Privileged

This evening, after the art museum, after my hair cut and half-slice of "Chocolate Lovin' Spoonful Cake," I retreated to the hammock in an attempt to get through Tortillas, Beans, and M-16s. Content wise, the book offers a fascinating insight into the guerrilla war of El Salvador during the mid 1980s. The author is a photographer, not a writer. I have to drag myself through her writing style. Her attempts at deep understanding and platitude fall very short from the mark. And I hate her whiny white person attitude, but appreciate that she does not portray herself as a tireless saint. Those complaints out of the way, I love the personal, intimate encounters with poverty. Because the author of the book primarily set out to document the war through photojournalism, her writings detail the daily lives of people fighting and supporting the "compas.*" While I've learned a lot about the nature of this particular war, the book draws my attention for highlighting the abyssal gulf between American perceptions and reality.

Poverty not necessarily in the sense of abject lack compared to an American middle-class standard of living, but how that absolute absence shapes and defines an entire culture. I feel so utterly self-absorbed and unaware as I read. Firstly, I have never traveled outside of the United States. I have never felt a need to understand in great detail the political and military histories of any countries that weren't covered in Euro. Especially those in South and Central America, Asia, and Africa, which is roughly greater than 70% of the world I would imagine. Secondly, my sense of how poverty affects the human psyche has always been in the terms of the American poor. The fact that other countries have different cultures as a result of their economic standing never occurred to me. I had naively assumed it was the different histories and geographies. I'm sure those factors play some part, most likely because they are the cause of poverty.

For all of the information and wealth and privilege that has surrounded me since I was born, nothing has ever prompted me to think like this. No public school education. No parental guidance. No other book I've read, fiction or nonfiction. The only thing that even got close to this consideration was Jeff's voyage abroad, because he personally narrated stories of the differences. Being in the AP track, my historical education was solely Euro-centric. Sure, while I hold the belief that the majority of "cultural exposure" classes are hastily designed to satisfy some politically correct agenda, by God, how much more could my horizons have expanded if I'd known? Every mention of poverty in school seems to instill the idea, "Aren't you proud to live in America and not these horrible other places?" No, I'm not proud, I feel guilty now that by lottery of fate and genetics, I am here, writing in my interblog on my nice laptop in my swivel chair with running water, electricity, and a half-slice of "Chocolate Lovin' Spoonful Cake" left in the fridge. And that I will still do nothing about distant oppression.

I'll get over the guilt, it's a white person thing. Admittedly, I'll probably even forget my initial horror at how ignorant I was. Still, I wish this wasn't some revolutionary, adolescent discovery. I guess if every child was inducted at an early age to realize how precious and tenuous their life is, they'd be more satisfied with themselves. They wouldn't need to buy so much, and then maybe they'd have a little more money and a little more time to actually do something about the problem.

*compas is short for compañero/as, "friend" similar to comrade

Judicial Review

The Christian idea of Judgment Day is a very cruel notion. Obviously, an omnipotent, omniscient being should have the ability to instantaneously determine "your" fate. Instead, it's been fabricated as a Holy courtroom to exploit human fears of shame and public speaking.

Text

Jack and I went to see Inception again this evening. It definitely proved its worth in rewatching, and a solid use of his free tickets. Nearly all of the early scenes dust in subtlety that requires an understanding of the whole. A second viewing also helped me solidly pin down thoughts about the movie and ideas it represents. Still, my mind wandered very far from the cinema. Forty minutes in, my mom texted me out of the blue. I hadn't spoken to her that day, and it made me sad I'd never realized that she probably spends a lot of time thinking about me when we're apart. Of course, technophobe as she is, she sent it in drastically abbreviated "txt tlk." Her text, short and broken as it was, summarized a nagging thought too tantalizing to ignore, but too painful to answer. As a practical utilitarian, I hope that she's wrong. As a cynic and a skeptic, I tell myself that she is wrong. As a selfish girl experiencing something more than anything I've ever lived through, I wish that she was right. I don't want an answer. I try not to think about it, try not to come to a solid conclusion. Because without a definitive answer, everything is beautiful and nothing hurts.

August 1st

The beginning of the end has begun.

Last night, the very late evening of August 1st and the very early morning of August 2nd, I snuck out to visit a friend. While waiting for their mom to fall asleep, I climbed up onto the roof of a nearby building and gazed up at the stars, reflecting on the joy of the day and how few days are left. I cried with my sweater all stretched out to cover my legs from the air and the bugs. I cried for the phrase " I don't know when I'll see you again," and the long hugs that follow. I thought about how lucky I was that this day, this perfect representation of everything I could want from a goodbye summer, wasn't over. I smiled and smiled and hugged myself and laughed for how happy I was. All thanks to friends.

Alcohol-Wise

For Temple, as for many colleges, I have to a mandatory alcohol awareness course. Some of it is informational, but it is a very condescending course. Also, its free-response sections are not very comprehensive.

For the prompt, "In your opinion, how would drinking rank on your list of fun things to do and what would be number one on your list. "

I responded, "#1 fun thing would be learning something with friends or going out, and because I don't drink, drinking would probably be at the bottom of the fun things list. "

No matter how I arranged that, I kept getting the response, "You must provide a relevant answer. Use at least three words in your entries, and DO NOT use any profanity." *sigh* I guess learning is not a fun thing. I'll probably have to put shopping or going to the movies or something abhorrent like that.