This is Love

As my light rail train was pulling into the St. James station, I saw this teenage couple running to catch it. I looked up from my book just in time to see the young lady trip and fall down. She hit her knee on the elevated platform, and her book bag spilled its contents.

The young man seemed to sense the young lady's plight, and, almost instinctually, the young man helped her to her feet. The doors of the train were open, and the brave girl sprinted the last 30 feet on an injured leg carrying the contents of her bag in her arms.

They made it on the train, and I smiled for I know what it's like to chase after a light rail train in less-than athletic attire, like collared shirts and ties.

The young man looked relieved, but as the adrenaline wore off, the young lady started to cry. Her knee was badly injured from the fall. Even now, I'm surprised she was able to board the train. I probably would have given up; I probably would have rolled into the fetal position and cried if my knee was both bruised and covered in fleshy raspberries.

The young man slipped his arms around her. At this point I was a full-on voyeur. I heard him whisper, "Thanks for running. I'm proud of you." He then got out his seat, dropped his shopping bags on the floor, and knelt down on one knee. He gingerly kissed his young love's injury like it was her lips on their first kiss. His designer jeans and his shopping bags were resting on old McDonald's bags and gum, but he didn't care about the mess on the floor. He whispered again, but this time more softly, "I'm proud of you."

The young lady looked down at him and shook her head. "You're stupid," she said as she coyly rolled her eyes. She pulled the crook of his arm and forced him back into the seat next to her. They gave each other the indescribable lover's smile, and I took their picture.

Passed!

Loyal readers might be wondering about my exam I took on April 11th. Well...I passed! I owned that test!














I thought I would hear about my test results last Friday, so imagine my consternation when I woke today (Wednesday) still unaware if I had passed my exam. I've been checking my email to an obsessive degree these last few days. Friday was the worst since I didn't have much else to keep me busy.

I felt an intense relief when I found this note in my email:
I am so happy to tell you that you have passed part 2 of the MA exam.

The pure excitement was no doubt due to the fact that I failed this section of the exam last November.

These words stung bad. I'm not going to lie.
I'm sorry to tell you that you did not pass part 2 of the MA comprehensive exam.

So today, the news was direct retribution to last November. I felt like I conquered an insurmountable task. The platitudes from 5 months ago would not be needed today.

But even with this excellent news, today was an overall strange experience. I certainly was happy, even elated, when I read this email. But the feeling was fleeting. After a few hours, the euphoria faded. I only really told my immediate family.

I told my brother first, but he was in the Urology Clinic, so he could only respond to my jubilation with a subdued, "Congratulations." He called me a few hours later, but by that time his shouts and war cries seemed like celebrating a victory 50 years after the battle.

I saw some friends for an unrelated get-together, but I didn't even bother telling them. I might have been slightly less inhibited at the party than usual—I might have been celebrating internally—but my victory seemed so insignificant a mere 10 hours after I received the news. They might have said a "good job" or a "congratulations," but by that point, even I, the person who braved the trials of the exam itself, trivialized the accomplishment. By that point, the celebration with my friends would have been a formality. I thought it best to just stay quiet.

I wonder why the failure stalked me for five months, and the celebration could only stay for a few hours. My relaxation, relief, and pride after the test don't seem to outweigh my worry, preparation, and nervousness prior to the test.

Maybe the weekend will grant me my true respite from those feelings of tension. Maybe I'll treat myself to the Wolverine movie. I think a formal celebration will help me gain some perspective on my personal accomplishment. Will you come celebrate with me, dear reader?

I am happy though. Honestly. I feel gratified. I feel like I belong in the program.

Memories Lost in Waynoka, Oklahoma

The clothes line ran between the broad side of the tool shed and the Leyland Cypress 20 feet away. I sat in my metal folding chair watching 10 shirts dry, and I sipped on Country Time lemonade. Every time I pull the chair out of the shed, it has a layer of dust on it. It's gritty to the touch. After I wipe it down with my bare hands, it feels like I sanded some pine with 220 grit sand paper.

I love my bad posture. I slouched in my metal folding chair, my right leg extended farther than my left. My back curved with the pressure from the seat and the back rest. I rested my sweaty Country Time on my pant leg, on a coaster of dampness. I rubbed my thumb over the condensation, and I slowly tasted the liquid on my fingers half expecting to taste like salt sweat or lemonade itself. But it was clean water, gently spiked with Oklahoma air.

My shirts waved in the Oklahoma wind. Each shirt is a flag, a symbol of pride. The orange, collared shirt would be the flag for some ostentatious country full of artists and poets high on heroin or drunk on alcohol. The gray polo would be the flag for a drab country of architects and statisticians slowly calculating figures. And the white, ribbed undershirt, would certainly be the emblem of the romantic country, where unconditional love needs no colors or imported fabrics. I almost felt like saluting them, but I didn't want to stand up.

And the clouds darkened. The sirens blared down the street. This is one of the dangers of living in Tornado Alley. I almost felt like running, but I didn't want to stand up. This one would be small. I could feel it.

The "finger of God" touched down south of my house. An EF0 on the Fujita scale. I was right. My house was fine. My tool shed was fine. But a branch from the Leyland broke loose and snapped the clothes line. My United Nations fell to the ground. Disgruntled, I stood up and started collecting my shirts. But I only had 9 now. I couldn't remember which shirt was missing. Memorizing the laundry load is low on the priority list.

The tornado took away one of my shirts. I can imagine it floating like a plastic bag escaped from the garbage can. I thought about searching for the shirt, but it could anywhere in the county. It happens every year, losing my clothes to the tornadoes. I just folded up my chair and took my damp shirts back inside the house to wash them again.

Cannibalism

I slowly bit into the softest side:
the tissue section right below your ribs.
My fangs engorged on thickened blood, adrift
by death. The fur around my mouth was dyed
maroon. I ate your chest until your spine
was separate from your organs. Feces mixed
with spit, I crushed your skull—my jaws unhinged
your jaw. Just a pool of blood left behind.

The greatest sorrow is to bury a child.
But I don't know that pain; you have a pulse.
Like pregnancy, you'll live within my womb.
I ate your heart that it might beat in time
with mine. And that's my gift: To take your spots
and make your pelt my own, my stillborn cub.


Inspired by this story.

Artistic Graffiti?

I don't quite understand why people deface public property. The people who clean graffiti work for the city, and the person who vandalized the property pays for its eventual removal with their own taxes. With that in mind, it might be easy to label this vandal as "stupid" and lacking foresight, but if we dissect the messages written, we might find this rapscallion intelligent—even if their trade is disreputable.


I find this first graffito tag to be quite ironic. I define the word "ironic" as the aesthetic exploitation between what is known or expected and what is experienced. The tagger is aesthetically aware that his own message is a criminal act violating Chapter 9.58 of the San Jose Municipal Code. The City of San Jose defines "graffiti" as the "unauthorized inscription, word, figure, mark, design or other inscribed material that is written, marked, etched, scratched, drawn, or painted on any real or personal property." In the eyes of the City, this "Don't be a Criminal" graffito is written by a criminal. This tagger has cleverly exploited the medium in which the message is expressed. While not the most amazing irony, it certainly is a valiant effort.


This second graffito tag is interesting based on its message. "Fame is hard to come by." I believe the author of this message is using "fame" not to mean "famous" like a celebrity, but "fame" as in living a life to one's own personal best. Reaching your own maximum potential is a difficult task for youth today. Drugs, gangs, vandalism (glaring eye) all distract youth from attaining their ultimate "fame." This tagger, by saying "fame is hard to come by," might be referring to themself: "Reaching my own potential is difficult because I have devoted myself to a life of frivolous graffito tagging." Again, while the act of vandalism is less than admirable, the self-awareness and heightened critique of society may be admirable.


This third tag is by far the least impressive. First of all, "Fuck" is spelled incorrectly. I have no patience for purposefully misspelling words. A typo or error now and then is perfectly acceptable, but the purposeful manipulation of words for no apparent aesthetic reason is the unnecessary degradation of the language. But I do wonder what this tagger meant by the phrase "Fuck Everyone." Did they mean "Have intercourse with everyone"? or "Disregard everyone"? This ambiguity makes the sentence somewhat interesting, although I find the lack of irony and lack of self-awareness to be less exciting than the author's previous two artistic exploits.

By blogging about the tagger, I might be gratifying the tagger, perhaps even motivating them to strike again. But I don't think I am condoning the act of vandalism, in fact, I think it quite ridiculous and unethical. What I am doing is dissecting the author's skills at art and observation. I think it incorrect to label this individual as "stupid." The tagger is actually smart and clever—they just need to find a better medium in which to express their artwork. Public benches that cost taxpayers money will hardly win the favor of the artistic community. But if they wrote a blog or opened a gallery, I would certainly give the person my full attention and respect.

A Letter from Carnegiea gigantea

My Dear Rain,

Tomorrow is the eighty-second day
I've been apart from you—my dear, my rain.
The Arizona heat can kill a stray,
but waiting here, I braved the desert flames.

To bring you back, I grew a ruby flower
at night, in secret, using water saved
from last you gave me kisses from the clouds.
I grew the stone with rain—your rain—and faith.

Caressed my nettles, licked my waxy flesh—
I know, deep down, you felt these feelings too.
Come back to me. My roots are shallow, fresh
are your storms, and I have a life to lose.

Gone. Gone away. I kissed the Flicker's beak.
He drank the you from me: the life of me.

Mythopoesis in "The Giving Tree"

Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree was first published in 1964, and it is timeless. Is the tree selfless or self-sacrificing? Is the boy selfish or reasonable? This ambiguity has led to many interpretations of the children's book and has contributed to its longevity. I remember reading this book as a child. I didn't truly grasp the magnitude of the story. I understood it was inherently sad, but the multiple interpretations were over my head.

I believe the story has many different valid interpretations. I like the analysis regarding self-sacrifice and selfishness and general human motivations. I don't particularly like interpretations that use the story as an environmental fable mostly because those interpretations, even in formal settings, turn into heavy-handed "Captain Planet" speeches. While I don't think of my theory as the "end all" of Giving Tree interpretations, I do feel I have a valid point that the story is a mythopoetic retelling of Ovid's version of the Daphne and Apollo myth. Come with me, reader, as I explore an old children's book related to an even older myth.

I refer to The Giving Tree as a "retelling" because the two stories have similar themes of love and sacrifice. The two stories differ in that that Ovid's myth starts with parasitic love and evolves into mutual love, and Silverstein's story starts with mutual love and devolves into parasitic love. The two stories are the same—they simply unfold in reverse order.

I have divided the both stories into three categories based on plot. Beginning, Transformation, and Ending.

Section 1: Beginning Parasitic love between Daphne and Apollo. Symbiotic love between the boy and the tree.

At the start of the Ovid myth, the love between Daphne and Apollo is one-sided or parasitic. Apollo loves Daphne dearly, but she does not reciprocate his love.

...serving
to drive all love away, and this blunt arrow
[Cupid] used on Daphne, but he fired the other,
The sharp and golden shaft, piercing Apollo
Through bones, through marrow, and at once he loved
And she at once fled from the name of lover,
Rejoicing in the woodland hiding places. (17)

This original one-sided love in Ovid's version of the myth differs from Silverstein's initial mutual love between the Giving Tree and the young boy. At first, the boy and the tree have a symbiotic relationship. They both gain positive emotional energy from the relationship as seen in the pictures below.














Section 2: Transformation
Daphne Transforms into a Tree. The boy grows older.

As Daphne continues to reject Apollo, she eventually gives up her human form as a means of escape:

..."O help me,
If there is any power in the rivers,
Change and destroy the body which has given
Too much delight!" And hardly had she finished,
When her limbs grew numb and heavy, her soft breasts
Were closed with delicate bark, her hair was leaves,
Her arms were branches, and her speedy feet
Rooted and held, and her head became a tree top.
Everything gone except her grace, her shining.
Apollo loved her still. (19-20)

Even after the river god transforms Daphne into a tree, Apollo "loved her still." For Apollo, his love is beyond the sexual desires of the human form. Apollo loves Daphne despite her becoming a tree.

Contrasted to Daphne's magical transformation, the boy simply grows older. The boy begins dating other humans, and the Giving Tree is left more and more alone. As the boy grows older, his love becomes more conditional.














The stories aesthetically oppose each other not only in the thematic of love, but in the presentation of gender. Apollo, the male character, portrays the same kind of unwavering love as the Giving Tree, the female character. Apollo, like the Giving Tree, has a love that transcends the physical form. Similarly, Daphne's love is changed when she becomes a tree, much like the boy's love is changed by growing older.

Section 3: Ending Symbiotic love between Daphne and Apollo. Parasitic love between the boy and the tree.

As Apollo catches Daphne, he attempts to convince her of his love for her new form.

He placed his hand
Where he had hoped and felt the hear still beating
Under the bark; and he embraced the branches
As if they were still limbs, and kissed the wood.
The wood shrank from his kisses, and the god
Exclaimed, "Since you can never be my bride,
My tree at least you shall be! Let the laurel
Adorn, henceforth, my hair, my lyre, my quiver.
Let Roman victors, in the long procession,
Wear laurel wreaths for triumph and ovation.
Beside Agustus' portals let the laurel
Guard and watch over the oak, and as my head
Is always youthful, let the laurel always
Be green and shining!" He said no more.
The Laurel, Stirring, seemed to consent, to be saying yes. (20)

Here, we see that Apollo has convinced Daphne is his love. Daphne and Apollo move from a parasitic love to a mutual love—a love where Apollo and Daphne both willingly consent to the relationship. Apollo has proved that his love transcends the physical realm; he wishes to honor Daphne by having his countrymen wear laurels in their hair.

This mutual relationship between Daphne and Apollo at the end of the myth is a strong contrast to the parasitic relationship that develops between the boy and the Giving Tree. After the boy’s transformation into an adult, he takes the apples and branches and tree trunk as a way to selfishly prosper in a life away from the Giving Tree. Unlike Daphne, who could run away from the parasitic relationship with Apollo, the Giving Tree, rooted in her own unconditional love, sacrifices her own well-being for the boy.













One might argue that the Giving Tree and the boy reclaim their mutual love at the end of the book, when the boy sits on the Giving Tree. But this is not the same type of mutual love at the start of the poem. Here, the Giving Tree has given away all of her body to the boy. The Giving Tree might feel happy again, but this is not the same type of happiness as the mutual love at the start of the book. The Giving Tree nostalgically remembers the time when she was truly happy—the boy sitting on her is a false happiness echoing from the past. The boy show no real growth or regret for abusing the tree. He returns, and the Giving Tree simply gives herself away again. At the end of The Giving Tree, the love is birthed from desperation and loneliness.













Connection of Language to Illustrations:

It is also important to note that some of the illustrations by Silverstein directly relate to quotations from the Ovid myth.

Let Roman victors, in the long procession,
Wear laurel wreaths for triumph and ovation. (20)

he embraced the branches
As if they were still limbs(20)

He placed his hand
Where he had hoped and felt the hear still beating
Under the bark. (20)













In terms of the cycle, it is important to note that the quotations from the Ovid myth come from the post-transformation section (when Daphne and Apollo are in the mutual love stage) and the Silverstein illustrations come from the pre-transformation section (when the boy and Giving tree are in the mutual love stage). As displayed in the chart below, the mutual love occurs at the beginning for the Giving Tree and at the end for the Ovid myth.

Conclusion:

The Giving Tree is a mythopoetic retelling of the Daphne and Apollo myth. The two stories hinge on their respective transformation sections. Ovid's myth uses the transformation section to shift Daphne's rejection of Apollo into mutual love. Silverstein, on the other hand, uses the transformation to change the boy's love into selfish exploitation.

The relationship between the two couples is cyclical. I’ve made a diagram to show the two stories thematically cycle upon one another.

It is impossible to know to what extent Silverstein was familiar with the myth, but it seems highly probable that there was some connection between the Ovid myth and the creation of his classic children’s book.

I believe Silverstein inverted the thematic progression of love, as well as the genders, from the original myth because this thematic inversion aesthetically challenges the Ovid myth. Silverstein, in essence, immortalizes himself as a type of poet like Ovid. Like Shakespeare and his source materials, I believe The Giving Tree, Silverstein's most impressive work, builds upon, reexamines, and improves upon his source material.

Works Cited:
Ovid. Metamorphoses. Trans. Rolfe Humphries. Bloomington, IN: Indiana U.P., 1983.
Silverstein, Shel. The Giving Tree. New York: Harper and Row, 1964.

An Elegant Dinner at Red Robin

I was having a charming Banzai Burger at Red Robin last Friday night, and I noticed this party of five youths obviously dressed for some sort of Prom or Junior Formal. You can't tell from the picture, but the two girls were wearing corsages, which are simply too fancy and out-of-place for a simple “Friday Date Night.” Based on my limited high school experience, Corsages = Formal Dance.

Considering my Prom Dinner was about $50 a plate, a dinner at Red Robin seemed somewhat cheap and cheesy. BBQ sauce and 3-piece suits don't seem to match aesthetically. Weren't there other more-fancy places? At first, I judged these children at choosing such an informal locale for their special evening, but as the night wore on, I was forced to change my mind.

In contrast to the usual Red Robin rabble like the morbidly obese father and his five-year-old son with a mohawk, these five surprisingly chic youths captured my attention. I simply could not look away. There was a certain confidence and pride palpable in the immediate area surrounding them—and I was lucky to fall within that aura. They didn't need a dimly lit, overly expensive dinner to have a good time. They defined "elegance" and "prom dinner" on their own terms.

Looking closely at the picture, reader, you'll notice five youths. The gentleman on the end of the table was without a date. I thought his lady friend might be arriving late, but after 20 minutes and placing their order, I realized he was attending the function stag. My initial emotion was pity. I felt bad for this fellow who could not obtain a date for the evening. His two friends and their dates were nestled closely together while this one fellow sat solo at the head of the table, conspicuously blocking the aisles. But this single man was did not deserve my pity. He confidently told jokes and laughed with his friends as if nothing was wrong. He did not wallow in self-pity. He had just as grand a time as the couples.

There was something charming and nostalgic about seeing a prom party in my usual Friday-night hangout. I usually don't see prom parties in restaurants; I don't frequent restaurants that are classy enough for such a coincidence. Sure, the venue might have been a little unorthodox for a Prom dinner, but you'd never know that based on the way the girls stared dreamily into their dates' eyes. You'd never know that the way the boys chivalrously held the girls' coats. You'd never know that we were at a $7-a-dinner restaurant based on the way they were celebrating.

It was hard to turn away from that kind of priceless happiness.

To Catch Your Gaze

I danced with feet of stone inside a pit
of sand to catch your gaze. You smiled and cheered,
but still you walked away and left me here.
Forgotten shadows pull me down to sit
and watch you gaze at others walking past.
I picked you ten carnations, one for each
expired moment when I failed to breach
the nervous bounds and confess my love at last.

You never saw the way I pined for you,
the way I sold my soul to simply wave
in your direction. Give your gaze to me
and see: I've danced the dance of desperate fools,
I've search the world for flowers of fire, and braved
my fears in hopes you'd brightly smile at me.

EPT

During the course of this blog, I've seen many things on the ground. Teddy Grahams, bananas, dog urine--all these simple things have engendered thoughtful moments. But out of all the trinkets, trash, and treasure I've seen so far, this discarded EPT is the most important.

My camera phone could not capture the faint plus sign in the window, but it was there. Based on my limited experience with pregnancy tests, I assume a plus sign means the woman is pregnant.

I wonder how the EPT ended up in a parking lot. I've never been involved with someone taking the test personally, but don't women usually like to take this type of test in the privacy of their own homes? Apparently, this EPT owner needed to know the results of her test immediately. She bought the product and used it in the store bathroom. Emotions running high, she didn't have the fortitude to drive all the way home.

I guess the bigger question is why this life-changing object, this indicator of a most-sacred thing, was cast away into the parking lot with fast food cups and empty Doritos bags.

One explanation could be that the EPT was not discarded but celebrated. Perhaps the mother-to-be was so elated with the pregnancy that she threw the stick into the air like a winning player throws the basketball as time expires in a Final Four game. But that isn't the truth. That kind of jubilation couldn't come from a woman who took the test at the supermarket. The EPT used in a public bathroom is reserved for the woman wishing not to be pregnant. The woman who truly desires the baby would have a ready stock of tests at home. The woman who truly delights in the pregnancy would save the test to show to her friends and family.

No. In this parking lot, a woman received some bad news. She felt destroyed by her predicament and the ensuing choices she will need to make. She didn't slam the test into the ground--the fragile plastic edges of the test were intact against the asphalt. She simply dropped the test in disbelief and drove home to face her life contextualized by a pregnancy. The proof of a new life will be swept up with trash and dirt and leaves.

This picture is just a blog post to me, but to one particular woman, this picture represents the dividing point between her everything before and everything after.

A Haunting Image of Love

A Story About the Body
By: Robert Haas

The young composer, working that summer at an artist's colony, had watched her for a week. She was Japanese, a painter, almost sixty, and he thought he was in love with her. He loved her work, and her work was like the way she moved her body, used her hands, looked at him directly when she made amused or considered answers to his questions. One night, walking back from a concert, they came to her door and she turned to him and said, "I think you would like to have me. I would like that too, but I must tell you I have had a double mastectomy," and when he didn't understand, "I've lost both my breasts." The radiance that he had carried around in his belly and chest cavity--like music--withered, very quickly, and he made himself look at her when he said, "I'm sorry. I don't think I could." He walked back to his own cabin through the pines, and in the morning he found a small blue bowl on the porch outside his door. It looked to be full of rose petals, but he found when he picked it up that the rose petals were on top; the rest of the bowl--she must have swept them from the corners of her studio--was full of dead bees.

Easter Today

This is probably the one holiday I only associate only with my grandparents. Christmas is my mother's holiday. Thanksgiving belongs to my whole family. But Easter is reserved for my mother's parents. I'm sorry, but I have no religious context for the resurrection.

My grandparents have this gorgeous backyard with wood walkways and tiered decks. There are these huge pine trees that my grandma said came in small tubes as advertisements from gardening companies. Now, 50 years later, it would take a crew of men to bring down one of these behemoths. There are bushes and flowers, stone gardens and grass. Hundreds of wonderful places to hide the plastic eggs that split in half.



Grandpa and Grandma would hide eggs out back while we were waiting inside. My cousins, my brother, and I would wait, and, once they were done hiding the eggs, we would be unleashed into the backyard. The eggs had quarters, dimes, and dollar bills inside, but, to a young person, money really isn't that useful. We would all tear into the eggs for the almighty PRIZE paper. With this ticket, we could pick out an item from the prize box. And this prize box was not stuffed with useless prizes Smarties or Sweet Tarts—this prize box was full of action figures and hand-held games.

There were about ten PRIZE tickets for the four of us. Even if the grandchildren didn't get equal numbers of PRIZE coupons, Grandpa would discreetly pass by dropping more into the “losing” person's pile. Equality was always key to avoiding tears.

My cousins stopped coming to the eggs hunts when they were in high school, but my brother and I continued to have egg hunts all the way until Grandpa died, which was only a few years ago. My mom and Grandma have given an egg hunt now and then, but not with the same consistency as when Grandpa was at the helm. I don't really blame them. I'm older now, and the memory of past traditions is sometimes more painful than the enjoyment of the present moment.

Easter today was simple. Just a small family get together. No cousins or brothers. Grandma was too tired to make a ham or turkey, and she got somewhat upset when my mom or I offered to help cook the “Easter foods.” So, we had Easter sukiyaki.

This Easter Sunday was a lot like countless other Sunday's at my grandma's house. We sat at the table having a conversation perfectly between banal and intimate. We ate our food slowly. Time seems to expand when visiting old people; everything takes just a bit longer than in the non-old people world. Walking, talking, eating, channel surfing--everything seems to slow down.

Suddenly I realized that besides the Easter cupcake, there was nothing eventful, nothing "Easter" about today. I asked my Mom, "So what's so 'Easter' about today? We're just sitting here like we always do." She replied, somewhat uncharacteristically, with the profound answer, "It's Easter today because it's Easter today." Well said.

This Easter managed to resurrect some old, fond memories, and that's pretty "Easter" about today even if there wasn't an egg hunt.

Naked Weekend

The test is over and done. It was no more or less difficult than I imagined. There were three sections, Poetry, Novels, and World Literature. Each section had the option of three essay prompts. I had three and half hours to write three essays, one from each category.

I can't remember all the options or the exact wording. My recollection of the prompts I didn't choose is much more vague since I didn't need to formulate a thesis about it. Here's what I remember:

Poetry:
I picked this option.
Discuss the 19th Century split of opinions that Nature has either a harmonious or monstrous relationship with humans. Then take 20th Century poetry and examine how it fits in with the previous time period's exploration of harmony vs. monstrosity. Use at least four poems, at least one British, one American, two 19th Century, two 20th Century.

The second option.
Write about poems that have another piece of art as their inspiration. Auden's “The Shield of Achilles” comes to mind. Take about some poems that have their inspiration in other art pieces and how that affects their aesthetics.

I can't remember the third option.

Novels:
I picked this option.
Discuss structure (not the plot) in a novel. Talk about how that particular non-linear or anachronistic structure affects the psychology and aesthetic values of the novel. Four novels, one British, one American, at least one pre-1950.

I can't remember the other two options.

World Literature:
I picked this option.
Discuss the image or idea of borders in three literary works. Borders can be cultural or geographic or anything.

The second option. I barely remember this prompt. I thought it too hard to answer concisely, so I stayed away from it.
Discuss the ways in which one novel from a particular country can represent the entire culture simply on the grounds that there is limited literature from said country. Discuss how this can be both helpful and harmful to cultural diversity.

I can't remember the third option.

So there you go. Over two years at school and over 24 years of reading condensed into three questions. I thought they were pretty fair questions. Nothing esoteric or ridiculously hard.

I had the most trouble with the Poetry question (even though I feel that is my strongest area) because the question was much more specific than the other two. My strategy was to answer the hardest question first because my hand and mind would be the least tired. If I fail one part, I fail the whole test, so I put the most quality energy into the question I felt was the most difficult. So the order I addressed the questions was Poetry, Novels, World Literature.

By the end of the test, my hand hurt.

I'll know the results in about two weeks. I'm sure I'll start getting nervous around the 24th, but for right now, I'm feeling free, unrestricted, and uninhibited. Relaxation Friday is always followed by the Naked Weekend. I need no armor nor clothing to protect myself from the world. I am enjoying the ephemeral invulnerability of knowing that I survived the test.

Thank you for the positive vibes.

Relaxation Friday

Nothing momentous happened today. I just studied. I have coined the term "Relaxation Friday" to describe the period of unwinding before my test. The goal of Relaxation Friday is to relax. It is from this state of calm and peace that I hope my most effective and insightful writing will spawn.

My dinner consisted of an elegant California Dreaming Safeway sandwich. My dessert was a delightfully sweet Maple Bar, also from Safeway, and a tall glass of soy milk.












I spent the last waking hours of this Relaxation Friday eating in front of the TV watching old episodes of Frasier. I find my version of Relaxation Friday to be fairly standard--the last two Relaxation Fridays I had in November both consisted of similar foods and activities.

It makes me wonder how other people in the world decompress before a big test or big job interview or just a big day. Everyone has their own version of the "Maple Bar." I wonder what ordinary things in my life are someone's key to relaxation. And that's the great thing about Relaxation Friday: It need not be expensive or grand. It just needs to be relaxing.

It's wonderful in a small way, isn't it? How a $0.47 Maple Bar is worth so much.


T minus 10 hours.

T Minus 33 Hours

I have a big test coming up Saturday morning. April 11th has been circled on my calendar since Thanksgiving. I have been studying empirical facts for the test, but I believe, hopefully not incorrectly, that my passing this test is predicated on my writing skills rather than my knowledge. Thus, in preparation, I'm trying to stay calm rather than trying to know every date and every theory.

It would be a gross hyperbole to say this is the most important test of my life. I've taken lots of tests that all amounted to something important.

Looking back on SATs and AP tests, GREs and finals, I think my biggest weakness is my mental toughness. I let the situation get the best of me. The negative result, the failing, hangs over my head like the Sword of Damocles. I imagine that sinking feeling in your chest when you realize you've failed. You gave it your best shot, and, at the time, it wasn't enough. It's hard not to take failure personally.

It might be a gross hyperbole to say this is the most important test of my life. But it would be an equally gross litotes to say this Saturday is just another day. This test is a gateway to so many things. I want to pass this test. So, in the scope of my life, this test is certainly the most important test this week and is probably the most important test I'll take this calendar year. But I'm sure there will be other important tests in the future to scare me.

This blog post has calmed me down a bit. Just thinking "out loud" is helping me get some perspective. But just in case mind mind wanders down the path of insecurity in the next 33 hours, I ask you, dear reader, for a favor. Please send me positive vibes Saturday morning. I'm nervous. And I want to pass.

Patience

All the studies and reports are right: my generation has no patience. Blame it on the video games. Blame it on the TV. Whatever the reason, I don't have the strength of mind to apply myself for extended periods of time.















These three objects are physical symbols of patience from a past generation. The purple flower on the left is actually a button made out of cantaloupe seeds and small shells. The two turtles on the right are carved pieces of wood. My grandma made these objects.

These crafts astound me every time I see them. But it's not the art that amazes me. It is the patience. I can barely save money let alone cantaloupe seeds. I couldn't carve intricate turtles--I cut myself making dinner. And these objects weren't made in one day. My grandma had to sit and come back to these activities with a determination like a runner in the 26th mile.

Grandma sifted through the Utah sands searching for shells like a gold miner. She protected the perfect pieces of wood from barbed wire fences. She sat calmly making these crafts and waited patiently for release. It's hard to imagine the patience or honor required to sit in the face of such a harsh climate.

I asked my grandma about these objects. She looked at them factually. "These are cantaloupe seeds. These are shells. And these are pieces of wood I found in the remnants pile." No stories about how much she hated life those days. No tears for her abandoned dog Skippy. Just an echo from the 1940s inside her eyes.

She doesn't begrudge the small turtles, the melon-seed brooch, or the situation that created them. She keeps them all in an old cookie box stored in the dining room teak hutch. These small trinkets remind me that she can make it out of tough times. She may be small in stature, and may be dying from radiation and cancer, but she has a patience and a determination forged in the desert winds of Topaz.

A Broken-Hearted Banana

Broken

The world keeps spinning.
People are giving.
I am alone.
And you are on your phone.
How could you keep me back!
Now you go and talk smack!
F*** you!
How dare you!
I loved you!

~By: Jessica Singler





NOTE: Let me clarify that I am not mocking this poet or poem. I wanted a passionate teenager break-up poem to accompany my latest picture of an abandoned banana. After reading many poems on many sites, I tried to write my own, but it didn't have the correct emotion. I wanted a poem birthed by teenage passion and heartache, so I had to borrow upon Jessica's work. I find this poem humorous not in the attempt at poetics but in the vulnerability of teenage love. How love can change with maturity and experience! I read this poem not with a malicious laugh but with a nostalgic chuckle.

Be strong, Jessica. You'll get through it.

Wasps

Near my Light Rail station, I found this beginning of a wasp nest. If you look closely, you can see the queen tucked inside the dried pieces of wood and saliva.















The corner of North 1st and Gish in San Jose is dangerous. Recently, the city has placed crossing guards at the corners before and after school to help the Bachrodt Elementary School students travel safety. At this dangerous intersection, there is traffic, Light Rail trains, and, now, a wasp nest.

Some people are deadly allergic to stings from such creatures, and I thought it unsafe to have potentially violent insects along the sidewalk where children commute to school. I thought about calling someone to remove the hazard before it got any bigger, but whom would I call? I thought about smashing the hive with my shoe, killing the queen, and then running like Usain Bolt, but I'm not Jamaican.

Who am I to destroy this young monarch's fledgling kingdom?

I remember last year, there was a spider whose web spanned between two columns. The web must have been 5 feet across. And the spider, with a large web, had an equally large body. The spider hovered in the night like a ghost. I know it was looking down, but that giant backside of the spider looked like a face, laughing at me and taunting me just before it attacked.

I couldn't help myself. I took a branch and tore the spider's webbing from the columns. The spider fell the ground collapsing into a ball with tentacles frantically trying to upright itself. The once ominous and terrifying spider was not ominous or terrifying at all—it was simply a creature trying to make a home. Its masterpiece web, which must have taken days to complete, was destroyed in an instant by an insecure child.

Reader, I am at an impasse. The wasp nest can potentially hurt children, but how can I destroy something so extraordinary?


What brought the kindred spider to that height,
Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
What but design of darkness to appall?--
If design govern in a thing so small.
~Robert Frost

Ridin' Shotgun with Hobodog and QuickD13

“The car's back” is one of the most frequently used phrases when my brother and I play Halo 3. For the neophytes to this blog: my brother lives far away from me, and because of this, we spend more time together, hour for hour, Online than in person.

It might seem frivolous from the outside, but some of our most trenchant and intimate conversations happen over a game of Halo 3.

We've recently been sticking to Big Team Battles, which are 8 on 8 battles on larger maps. We like the bigger battles because the game puts Warthogs on the larger maps. A Warthog is essentially a jeep with a large turret mounted on the back. The brilliance of this vehicle rests in its principle: in order to be an effective killing machine, at least 2 people need to ride the same Warthog. One person must drive, and another person must operate the turret. Each person is at the mercy of the other. The driver is unable to shoot while behind the wheel, and the gunner, without a driver, would be an easy target.

Both the driver and the gunner have limited fields of vision, so to be truly effective, the two players must be in constant communication. And the Warthog isn't invulnerable. A well-placed enemy grenade or a laser can destroy the precious Warthog and its passengers in an instant.

Over the last few weeks, my brother and I have developed a special language to communicate while I drive and he guns. The language must be concise due to a slight Online lag, but detailed enough to explain particular enemy patterns. With some practice, we've learned to predict each other's movements. I know how he shoots, and he knows how I drive. And this has made us successful as teammates.

I've posted some of our post-game statistics below. To the Halo 3 laymen, these are strong stats.





















I know this is not the most impressive skill to have, but with a brother that lives so far away, Online games are our only way to spend time together. It may not seem as such, but to my brother and me, Halo 3 is no more nerdy than other respected activities like playing in a band or being on the same basketball team. All the activities require time commitment, patience, communication, some kind of skill, and, above all, dedication to an idea larger than one's own self. Instead of guitars and basketballs, we bond with jeeps and turrets.

Brothers always love each other, but they don't always like each other. I only have one brother, I feel pretty excited that he and I actually like each other.

Think not of our Halo 3 accomplishments as nerdy; think of these accomplishments as testaments to how much my brother and I have worked to keep our relationship intact even though he moved away almost 10 years ago. The act of playing Halo 3 might be ridiculous, but our skills in the virtual world are rooted in our ability to keep a brother as a best friend.

Why Superman Isn't My Soul Mate

Superman and I used to date back in the late 1980s. All my boyfriends after Superman felt incredibly insecure, and who could blame them? Superman's rock-hard physique and his Kryptonian-on-Earth powers made him unbelievably sexual. I had pictures of him in my room, and, even though I was dating him, I would dream about him in bed with the lights off.

Sometimes, before I left for work, I'd stare at his square jaw and remember our perfect embraces while flying over Metropolis. My Man of Steel had perfectly supple hair. I'd run my fingers through it whenever he chivalrously kissed me. There was something so pure, so powerful, and so invulnerable about him. I loved him like someone loves their high school sweetheart: complete surrender.

After about 2 years though, I began to see his flaws. Yes, the Last Son of Krypton is perfectly moral and practically immortal, but I began to see past his invincibility. I couldn't love a Kryptonian--at least not a Kryptonian on Earth. The only thing that could hurt him was Kryptonite, and that bothered me.

Superman would simply put his one true weakness in a lead box and hide it. With the Kryptonite safely stored away, my dear Superman was forever invulnerable. But who wants to fuck perfection? I felt like he was always judging me while I was naked. I put on a few pounds, and I'm sure his vision saw everything.

I gave him my love. I gave him my intimacy. He knew all my secrets. And that is dangerous because I'm simply a regular woman. For humans, romantic intimacy is giving your partner your true self. Your partner with whom you are intimate, will know all the ways to hurt you because they know all about you. True intimacy is giving your personal version of "Kryptonite" to your partner and trusting that they will not use it against you. Superman had my Kryptonite. He knew how to make me cry. He knew how to make me angry. He knew how to make me vulnerable. Superman had my Kryptonite, but he never gave me his. "It's too dangerous to give it to you. I'll keep it safe in my Fortress of Solitude. Don't worry."

Maybe he didn't trust me. Maybe he didn't want to risk his life. But being a soul mate is about reciprocity. I couldn't stay with a man, even a super man, if we weren't equal partners risking equal amounts of ourselves. I would never, ever, use the green rock against him, but I wanted him to trust me enough to give me a piece. Even a small shard.

I see him every now and then. He's tried to make himself more human with Superman For All Seasons and Red Son, but I know that stupid "S" on his chest is as impenetrable as ever. I need a human. I need someone who knows what it's like to have mortal, ephemeral blood pumping through their veins. The woman in me might concede some meaningless sex; after all, he is the man of steel. But I will never again give him my heart.

Happy Friendship Day!

Today is a strange type of holiday. April Fool’s Day. A day where pranks and practical jokes are forgiven and condoned. I admit that I was not the victim of a hoax this year, but I doled out a harmless trick or two.

Some people often criticize this holiday as sophomoric and mean-spirited, but after some analysis, I disagree. The April Fool’s joke is actually a sign of friendship and true camaraderie.

I believe that no one does an April Fool’s joke to be truly mean. Practical jokes are, by nature, having fun at someone’s expense, so there is a certain innate mean-spiritedness. But the sub-genre of practice jokes, the April Fool’s joke, is rooted in friendship. Of course there may be the aberrant “I’m-a-jerk” April Fool’s joke where someone uses the prank as a means to boost their own self-esteem, but this is another type of malicious prank that coincidentally occurs on April Fool’s Day. I believe that the true April Fool’s Day jokes only occur between true friends.

Think about it. Aren’t all the April Fool’s jokes you can remember between friends? Who would take the time to sign-up their mortal enemy’s email on 50 gay porn sites? Enemies fight their battles with passive-aggressive behaviors. Enemies shoot each other. Enemies sabotage one another’s careers. But enemies don’t play practical jokes on one another.

Like enemies, April Fool’s jokes don’t often occur between neutral acquaintances or strangers either. I can’t imagine clowning one of my co-workers whom I met this semester—I don’t know them well enough. The true hilarity of the April Fool’s joke is the aesthetic exploitation of someone’s inner traits. Sure, I can dump paint on someone’s head, but it is much more funny and relevant to mock the grammarian with comma splices and nominalization in fake interoffice emails.

That being said, April Fool’s is one of the few days that people can use their knowledge of their friends to mock with immunity and impunity. Of course it’s mean spirited, and of course feelings can get hurt. But what kind of friend can’t take one of your jokes? If they’re truly your friend and not simply an acquaintance, chances are that they’ll be laughing as hard as you once they realize they’ve been April Fooled. So relax and have a big laugh with your close friends. And there’s always next year for revenge.