1. I don't 'get' Twitter. Not at all. I'm not sure I care to figure it out.
2. I miss my long hair a whole whole whole whole whole whole whole whole whole lot. I realized I keep cutting it short because I hate hate hate medium hair.
3. I like the way tumblr looks but hate how it's spelled, so I will stick to blogspot, even though it's visually displeasing.
4. Remember when getting my hair cut meant finding a pair of scissors and cutting off pieces I didn't like?
5. Just look at me with long, long hair (ignore that I look kind of gross).
6. Soon, I'm going to write about how I miss feeling young, like I do in the picture.
7. I miss England.

Somali Pirates

I was blog-browsing and came across this poem that really well encapsulates my thoughts on the pirate situation.

http://amirsulaiman.blogspot.com/2009/04/of-criminals-and-crime.html#comments


I have a hard time condemning/passing judgment on people in terrible situations for doing terrible things. I'm in a really amazing, blessed position in the world, and yet my consumption of "stuff" results in global hurt: pollution, sweatshop labor, and things like helping pay for the destruction of Iraq and Afghanistan. And I do these things because they are convenient, etc. I wouldn't be able to look the people I inadvertently oppress in the face--I guess since I don't really have to, I let it not matter. It also would be very simple for me to say that pirates should find legal "alternatives", but as I've not really bothered challenging the legality of so much I do, who am I to really say a thing? I still will say something.

In terms of cowardice, I have those pirates beat. I'm afraid I'm the real criminal, to have so much and concede so little.

The Flamingo Cafe

Today, during my after school nap, I received a few texts and phone calls. In my nap-induced dream delirium, I texted and called my friends back. I woke up, disappointed about Wayne not making it to the movies and waiting for Jake to return from the Flamingo Cafe in Progreso, Mexico.
The thing is, I know no Wayne and there is no Flamingo Cafe... yet!!!

When I grow up and by some twist of fate decide to open a restaurant, it is going to be called The Flamingo Cafe. The sign will be neon. The structure will be an open-air tiki hut. True to my Indian roots, I will serve hot tea and spicy snacks through scorching summers. I might also have hot soups and ciabatta bread pizzas. The only cold beverages will be mango lassi, Kool-Aid, cantaloupe granitas, and, during Ramadan, falooda. There might be a fountain that customers can roll their pants up and dip their feet into. The chairs upon which they sit will be of the plastic lawn sort.
There will be a small, cozy inside section to the tiki hut, with books and books and books and books to take outside and read on the hammocks. Wi-fi will, of course, be provided free-of-charge. If somehow I can get a dolphin, there will be a dolphin.

dust

I have identified three aspects of the Rio Grande Valley as Particular Impositions. They are: the sun; the wind; and the dust.

Between the first two, there is no relief. There is heat, interrupted--though these interruptions grow less intense as the nights grow shorter--by the wind, which then rattles my eardrums. They both force my eyes shut and find ways into my home, overwhelming the AC or music with which I seek to drown both out.

The dust, akin to heat and wind only insomuch as they exasperate one another, must be considered as a monster in its own right. It is not incessant. But when it is, it overwhelms. It obstructs; it chokes; it scratches. I see it clouding at my feet with every misstep and behind cars with any swerve. It is so grainy on overheated skin and so everywhere after unexpected gusts of wind.

And even though the dust is not always, when I imagine the Valley, it settles itself onto everything.

I miss New Orleans

and Who Cakes in New Orleans, or rather, Kenner

Lately I have been considering and discussing writing a blog post on God billboards, but I can't seem to get around to actually doing it.

As I write this, I'm switching back and forth between my blog tab, a tab with a New York Times piece on concentration, a tab with a New York Times article on genius, and facebook. The first article explains that I can't actually be reading/writing all this at once and am losing productivity in the process; the second tells me that if I were to just focus on writing, I might become a great writer; and facebook is so much fun that I'll never get around to developing "a deliberate, strenuous and boring practice routine" and stick to it and become a genius.

What gets me is this:
1) In order to reach one's full potential, one must be able to concentrate.
2) In order to concentrate, one must be able to tune out other stimuli.
3) I can't tune out facebook. How are my students supposed to tune out hunger, abuse, violence, drug- and alcohol-addicted parents, poverty, and just being teenagers?

I always, always tell my kids that they CAN develop their brains into anything. They can be smart enough to do anything, to become anything. They are not inherently anything--anyone can shape themselves into anything.
I do believe that whole-heartedly. I COULD tune out facebook, and they could tune out reality.

I also know, that my genius kids, all else tuned out, will have to work 7 million times harder to be on par with their wealthier counterparts. They've already lost years of practice and learning that others have on them. And it kills me how much potential and intellect is lost--cures for cancer and hilarious comedy shows and historical perspective--because so few of them believe that the 7 million times harder work will actually pay off. Because so few of them even know what that--genius, discovery, innovation--looks like. And, of course, my students are NOT stupid, even the most difficult of them, they've just focused on all the more immediately stimulating things.

I don't know really what more to say. It's just heartbreaking. As a teacher, it's basically my point to refocus them. But to this effect, and to their overwhelmed brains and bodies, I'm kind of beside the point. What I teach is often no where near the point. And for many of my little kiddies, there is no point.

It is really one of the most wonderful feelings to recognize oneself in another's writing. I don't mean finding which characters were inspired by you in friends' stories; but rather, realizing that your emotions can, and have, been put into words. Sometimes I don't even know that I'm feeling something until I see that it is capable of being felt.

I'm getting married soonish. I never took marriage or love or gross stuff like that seriously before. It seemed irrational and oppressive. But now,

Let the lover be disgraceful, crazy,

absentminded. Someone sober

will worry about things going badly.

Let the lover be.

From Essential Rumi

by Coleman Barks


I wish I had a dreamy photograph that I could insert here.