Dailies: The Post-It Notes Reading Series

Since being in grad school and on Long Island has dried up my shutterbug-juices, I thought blogging about positive things, deleting old emo posts, hitting up the gym to get a bit skinnier so those relatives will stop pinching my sides, and maybe diving into the dating pool could make my 2010 a much better year than this past one. Also, I need to cure myself of my facebook-procrastinating addiction...

And so, after seeing a post from a friend about NPR's "This American Life"'s 2008 episode on Valentine's heartbreak and single-dom, I happened upon The Post-it Note Stories website.

Apparently, there are open reading events at the KGB Bar downtown in the East Village.
Events: V-day Slideshow & Cartoons w/ Tim Krieder

Seems to be the coolest thing I've found lately, and is inspiring me to re-wet my creative juices (that stuff that died at some point during my first semester of grad school). I think everyone should try it!
Post-it Note Stories Blog
Post-it Note Stories Website

life-track: Search Your Heart

Search Your Heart - Break Up Videos #4 of 9 video series from Get Rare! on Vimeo.

1,2,2
and you search your heart x4
I just wanna tell you
I don't know why
If you find the answer
I'll be inside
arranging time
You won't find another dummy who wait for you
So I hate the one who lives for you

Don't blame me for your trouble

and you search your heart x2

I don't need an answer
I just don't know
If you find it one day
I know that you're strenght is gone
and you are shattered

Don't hate me for I live for you
Don't make me do things you won't do
Don't blame me for your trouble

Cos' you know once you're over the top of the hill
You're life ain't no supermarket store
And you know this
And it shows x2

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

So I blame the boy who's there for you
Don't make him do things you won't do

Don't blame me for your trouble
Don't hate me for your trouble
Don't blame me for your, oh oh oh

And you search your heart x2
And you search your

life-track: I Don't Know What to Do

I Don't Know What To Do - Break Up Videos #3 of 9 video series from Get Rare! on Vimeo.

life-track: Wear & Tear

Wear and Tear video #2 of 9 videos in a series from Get Rare! on Vimeo.

life-track...on the repeat-list

Relator video #1 of 9 videos in a series Break Up videos from Get Rare! on Vimeo.

"You can leave whenever you want out..."

No One Laughs at God

PostSecrets. I like the ones with the silver lining best.
Regina Spektor, you, ma'am, have a way with words. Even when I have you playing in the background, you always end up making me listen.



***
No one laughs at God in a hospital
No one laughs at God in a war
No one’s laughing at God
When they’re starving or freezing or so very poor

No one laughs at God
When the doctor calls after some routine tests
No one’s laughing at God
When it’s gotten real late
And their kid’s not back from the party yet

No one laughs at God
When their airplane start to uncontrollably shake
No one’s laughing at God
When they see the one they love, hand in hand with someone else
And they hope that they’re mistaken

No one laughs at God
When the cops knock on their door
And they say we got some bad news, sir
No one’s laughing at God
When there’s a famine or fire or flood

*Chorus*
But God can be funny
At a cocktail party when listening to a good God-themed joke, or
Or when the crazies say He hates us
And they get so red in the head you think they’re ‘bout to choke
God can be funny,
When told he’ll give you money if you just pray the right way
And when presented like a genie who does magic like Houdini
Or grants wishes like Jiminy Cricket and Santa Claus
God can be so hilarious
Ha ha
Ha ha

No one laughs at God in a hospital
No one laughs at God in a war
No one’s laughing at God
When they’ve lost all they’ve got
And they don’t know what for

No one laughs at God on the day they realize
That the last sight they’ll ever see is a pair of hateful eyes
No one’s laughing at God when they’re saying their goodbyes
But God can be funny
At a cocktail party when listening to a good God-themed joke, or
Or when the crazies say He hates us
And they get so red in the head you think they’re ‘bout to choke
God can be funny,
When told he’ll give you money if you just pray the right way
And when presented like a genie who does magic like Houdini
Or grants wishes like Jiminy Cricket and Santa Claus
God can be so hilarious

No one laughs at God in a hospital
No one laughs at God in a war
No one laughs at God in a hospital
No one laughs at God in a war
No one laughing at God in hospital
No one’s laughing at God in a war
No one’s laughing at God when they’re starving or freezing or so very
poor

No one’s laughing at God
No one’s laughing at God
No one’s laughing at God
We’re all laughing with God

-Laughing With. Regina Spektor.

Chelsea Market

Marrakesh in Chelsea.

Justice Tonight!

Somewhere in the shadows of the elm, a tempest brews amongst the animals of the farm.
Sweetbriar Nature Reserve. Smithtown, Long Island.

Gradschool Update

It has been far too long. My 2-pair underwear journey got very busy ever since I left for the Philippines and the field in May.

May 20-June 20: Philippine island hopping, where I saw family, rejoiced in sun, sand, and debauchery, and learned how to scuba.
June 24-June 25: London to pick up lovely Saskia
June 26: Ryan-air bound for Faro in the Algarve region of Portugal
June 26-28: Lagos, Portugal beach hopping, kayaking, and learning how to properly dip and dive the way old Portugese ladies do it
June 28-30: Sevilla
June 30: a day in Cordoba
June 30-31: Aranjuez, Madrid with Ana Pantoja
July 1-July 26: Excavaciones en los yacimientos de Atapuerca, good times in Burgos and Portalon
July 28-30: Gijon, Asturias
July 30-31: Back to Burgos
July 31-August 3: Soria for the Enclave de Agua 2009 music festival
August 3: NYC-bound

August 21: moving into Port Jefferson Station, Long island
August 31: day 1 of GRADUATE SCHOOL

Fast forward to the past couple of weeks:
October 11-21: Midterms HELL WEEK


Must update soon... I'll keep this blog posted!

shuttercal and an opus in progress

As with every summer, I try to promise myself to chronicle as much as possible. As per usual, I end up being too busy "living" that I forget to jot down the best bits and pieces. Here's to hoping for a summer a bit more productive...considering it'll be the last one before grad school.

Man, I feel like I'm getting married or entering a convent.

The Grad School Waiting Game is like dating... sometime they're just not that into you

Program Acceptance vs. Rejection...

• NSF Graduate Research Fellowship
• Ford Foundation Diversity Fellowship
• Washington St. Louis
  
• Harvard University
• George Washington University
• University of Missouri - Columbia
• SUNY Stony Brook

in love completely and unconditionally

Ah... I love me my physical anthropologist rock stars.

How are they all so brilliant, so friendly, so supportive, so warm, and so hot at the same time? How is that even possible?

*sigh* I don't even care anymore that I go rejected from Mizzou or Wash U. I don't even think I care much anymore if I get on the shortlist to GW (granted that after my botched phone conversation with the GW prof I adore...thank you phone-star-struckness...lord, i'm such a dork). They are all too awesome, and I know for sure one day I'll be working with them.

C.W. ... sooooo awesome. Best speaker I've ever heard. Brilliant, engaging, and always thinks out of the box.

B.R. ... thank you for thinking it was kind of funny that i was stuffing my drunk face with oily pizza at the bar last night. I was mortified I bombed getting the chance to chat with you at the bar, but THANK YOU for finding me at the poster session, coming up to me and chatting with me. My lord, if only you were still single... I don't mind that I won't be going to GWs anymore. At least I got to laugh it up with you (brilliant hot rock star, you).

T.H. ... still the most supportive professor ever.
S.A. ... you're awesome and hilarious. I owe you a drink.
T.D. ... you will always be Prof. McDreamy, you over-caffeinated primatologist you.


I am so glad the pieces are finally falling into place. CAN'T WAIT FOR CHICAGO! Hello future 6 years in intense gradschool. Hello FUTURE. yaaaaaaaaaay!!!

"i wanna hold your hand"

The Beatles got it right. It's not about the sex now or the happily ever after. It's all about just wanting to hold your hand. That's all.

Plain and simple. We like to keep it simple. Simple is good. Simple is happy. Simple is bliss.

So fuck the complications. Forget the "he's just not that into you" a-holes. Just hold my hand and I'm good. Life is good. Things are set for the next 6 years. Busy. Science. Learning. Inspiring. Logical.

Now it's just finding someone to hold your hand, even if it's just for the summer. Even if it's just for the month.



***
Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist.

HOORAAAAAAAAAY!!!

I am battling sickness, but even the mean weather and my body falling apart CANNOT trump my spirits:

Program Acceptance vs. Rejection...

• NSF Graduate Research Fellowship
• Ford Foundation Diversity Fellowship
• Washington St. Louis
  
• Harvard University
• George Washington University
• University of Missouri - Columbia
• SUNY Stony Brook

GREEN LIGHT: I'm going to GRAD SCHOOL!!!

feeling like a gradschool reject

Stupid recession... this is making it harder. Why can't people just let us become what we want to become???

I'm a little heartbroken. I'm beginning applications to the UK.


Program Acceptance vs. Rejection...

• NSF Graduate Research Fellowship
• Ford Foundation Diversity Fellowship
• Washington St. Louis
  
• Harvard University
• George Washington University
• University of Missouri - Columbia
• SUNY Stony Brook

more applications

I've never been much of a gambler. I love taking risks and pushing the limits, but always with a plan B.

In this spirit, I have begun my graduate school applications for UK MPhil programs. At the moment, I'm looking at Cambridge and UCL. I can't take the anxiety anymore, and since it is now officially the 3rd week of February, either the programs have made the decisions are are making the decisions as we speak.

A one-year program in the UK wouldn't hurt (except it would make me bankrupt). However, it will be a much needed respite from New York City. My nomadic soul needs a change of pace.

restless spirit

My soul is feeling restless... inquieto. It is calling for a drastic change.

I think I may go into a hiatus from life in May-June. Go back to the Philippines. Go to the jungle. Volunteer to build homes, schools, etc. Teach. Learn. Reconnect.

I want to feel useful again. Wanted. Needed.


I think this can be the beginning of my grandest opus.

flow

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)

A regular mentioned this the other day at Alice's.

I have to say that I enter this state quite often. Most noticeably when I was living in Florence a few years ago. Dianne would most likely attest to this.

Volleyball. Art. Travel. Excavating. These for me induce a meditative state of mind that melt the world and my troubles away. Too much of it is also quite degenerative.

A secret I've never shared with anyone: in high school, I was an inadvertent anorexic. Because of my passion for volleyball, and the state of "flow" I was in, I would often forget to eat. Exhausted, I would crash once home and fall asleep losing all my appetite and need to do anything but drink water, learn, and play hard.

That was why I tore my knee so terribly my first year in college.



No one knew. That was how I broke my own spirit. Florence mended and renewed it.

update

I think I just might be able to survive February without moving if I get more interviews with the folks I want to work with and am kept busy with conferences...

Still trying to save up to spend some time just living somewhere else. It'll happen.


***
I am also TELLING the universe that these folk WILL love me and take me into their program. I am awesome and it's the right time this year. This is my year.

my wanderlust calls

"The world is a great volume, and man the index of that book; even in the body of man, you may turn to the whole world." - John Donne


The mini-vacation to London, Madrid and Granada has been fantastic. Bridging my two lives by sharing it with a very good and close friend has been so much fun. As Martin Heidegger said, "The world is what I share with others." It is what I share with the ones I most care about.

Being a nomadic soul, I have found that I am quite lucky in having so many people love and care about me all over the world. But the one melancholy footnote in my book is not being able to bridge my chapters together. I have grown and changed immensely from page to page of my life but I have become too accustomed to leaving the last page, never turning it back and never sharing it with anyone.

It can be pretty lonely realizing that though people know you and how you are, there is not a single soul in the world that actually knows you completely. My experiences have come to define me so strongly but no one knows my details. I have only seen everyone passing through bits and pieces of my life and have become so used to it (and so guarded because of it) that opening up to find someone who could keep up, appreciate, and understand my story has yet to happen. My story just hasn't been too conducive to life-long anything, and I now understand that that is what keeps me damaged.

I am in limbo. Limbo sucks.



So I'm thinking of drastically changing my life again so I can run away from my internal conflict. Moving to London, Spain, or Southeast Asia for the spring? Teaching English in some remote village of Thailand or Vietnam. Maybe join my cousin in the Philippine jungle to help poor farmers survive? Something that would divert my attention to positivity and helping the betterment of the world.

My wanderlust is calling, but traveling for me is my time to be alone and to think, reassess and renew myself. I can be a ghost--an observer with no identity. I can be a nobody that objectively unravels the beauty and complexity of the outside world. I travel alone to understand my relationship to the universe, but I think I've finally had my fill, and I feel the need for change.

Another chapter... I'll just try to be better at leaving certain pages open with ellipses.