Sari discoveries.

I've recently discovered a few things about sari's.

You really need to be able to carry yourself upright and in a sleek manner to pull off wearing a sari as a non-indian and actually look good (not awkward) (Also, need to know how to drape it properly :p).

You also need to be aware that if you're young and amazingly beautiful such as myself... :) ...and you wear a sari in public (esp. in america), rather than detest you for seemingly being a wannabe, local pakistanis and indians' eyes will inevitably be drawn to you and they'll oogle their hearts out and possibly ask for an autograph.

And one more thing... "western" (still can't use it without parenthesis) women seem to walk much much differently than indian women. Could be the jeans, or such a fast paced... everything. But wow, sari's teach me.... IT'S OKAY TO STROLL.

:)

Purpose

I was just thinking..
How American... how the "western" thought process is.
Question Question Question. Skepicism. Cynical. Purpose.
This is all general, of course... but
we can't do something just for the sake of doing it. We have to ask, why? Why should I do this? What do I get out of this? What's the payoff?

For example... someone I know went to thailand at some point and somehow managed to get this very prestigious buddhist monk guy to teach him. It was very very lucky because this guy didn't speak english and had always refused to instruct any "westerner's" previously. Anyway... I wont go into much detail.. but he had my friend do a lot of this gruesome meditation stuff. Very difficult. Eventually, my friend was about to give up...He went and asked the monk "Why am I doing this?" "What am I getting out of this?" And the monk just laughed at him, because he knew that his thailand students would never ever even think of questioning him. And it was one reason he never taught westerners.

Anyway... in some ways it's an asset. The cautiousness and such keep you out of trouble in some situations. But... when you think about it... maybe it came from materialism. You have to get something in return or it's just no point.

Well, was just thinking about it.
I'm gonna start meditating just to meditate.

White Elephant: noun. a possession that is unwanted by its owner.

Been studying Hills Like White Elephants for the passed 2 weeks. Almost an hour an a half every day just dissecting it, analyzing it. My teacher (who thinks he's a professor)... Told us on the first few days to read it and take it home and annotate it. So... I read it once, then wrote a couple lame questions in the margins.

When he finally decided to bring it up in class.... I was... ugh, it's such a boring pointless story that doesn't even make sense because you can't even tell who's talking when. But he did his socratic thing and suddenly everyone in the class wasn't bored anymore. It only tooka couple clever questions to make me want to read that story again so badly.

So I went and read it a second time. And it was really strange. It was an entirely different story than I'd read the first time. This time, I filled the margins and circled words and drew arrows all over the pages. Since then, we've been having discussions about this 3 page story as a class (We actually weren't told the title til later, so that we wouldn't think to look it up online). It's been really interesting. I mean, sometimes you can really over-analyze and read too much into these things but we've been good about avoiding that. A complete transformation. This story is probably one of my favorites as of yet.

But this post isn't about analyzing this story. It's just about that experience. I think I liked that experience more than the actual story! It was just amazing what I found out about writing, symbolism, transformation, assumtions, things I found out about myself and about what can be.

• "Of course it does. But I don't want anybody but you. I don't want any one else. And I know it's perfectly simple."
• "Yes, you know it's perfectly simple."
• "It's all right for you to say that, but I do know it."
• "Would you do something for me now?"
• "I'd do anything for you."
• "Would you please please please please please please please Stop talking." --from Hills Like White Elephants, Ernest Hemingway

Reminder #14

BREATHE!!!!!!

Anger RAawrrrr

:(
I saw a very sad thing today. (I already tweeted it :p )
:(
I was walking down the road, and a car drove passed and I saw a man hitting and punching something in the passenger seat. So, I looked and there was a girl hunkered down in the passenger seat :( I couldn't tell how old she was, adult or teenager. This man, is driving and beating this girl at the same time. What a way to multi-task.

What do you do with something like that? Take down the lisence plate and call it in? I mean... nothing... absolutely nothing.
It got me thinking though. There are a LOT of angry people in this neighborhood. Or maybe I'm just noticing it lately.
For example, there's a few faculty at the school that I somehow circuitous-ly found out later had gotten pink slips and there last day is the 23rd of april. They are especially grumpy and mean and impatient lately. I smile at them and they growl at me.
Also, the other day, I was walking a few blocks back to my house and there was a woman screaming and cussing into her cell phone as she walked behind me. She crossed the four lane road and I could still hear her screaming angrily all the way home (Now, I dunno.. but, it seems like yelling at somebody through a phone for an hour wouldn't be quite as effective....).
Another day, I was walking and saw some guy yelling at some other guy saying something about money and saying "fucking" every other word.

Anyway... there's too much anger around here. Public stunts like those too. Maybe it's a city thing i'm just not used to, or maybe just a low-income neighborhood thing, or maybe there is some other reason...
I don't know. But...people should just be happy. They would be so much... happier...if they'd just be happy.


"If you want to be happy, be." ~Leo Tolstoy

Demeter

YAY Sooo Spring Equinox was yesterday. But I'm pretending it's sunday, because that's when I'm celebrating. And you know... Sacramento is perfect. It was a little cold all week, but yesterday, it was nice and warm :)

Flowers are blooming and we've got them in vases all over the house. Aaaahhhh spring. Winter was so horrible. Even without the snow, it was sloooowww and depressing. Of course, that could be for other reasons too but.... ugh, what is it about winter?

Anyway, doesn't matter now, I can breathe (despite the allergies :p ) now.

Spring Equinox always reminds me of Demeter and Persephone. There was this one story I had to translate from Latin to English in my Latin class a long time ago. I can't remember it exactly, but I know it explains why the seasons exist and it's sad. Something about....

Once upon a time, Demeter (the goddess of agriculture) blah blah, and Perseophone had to marry Hades and blah blah. Hades took Persephone to live with him in the Underworld. Blah blah blee. Demeter was too sad and just let all the crops die and the people of the earth were begging her to let their crops grow back so she got help from Zeus and He-blah blah to get her daughter Persephone back home. Demeter went to get her daughter blah blah made a deal with Hades blah blah pomegranite blah. Persephone was bound to spend 6 months of the year with her mother and 6 months in the Underworld with Hades. Everytime Persephone goes to Hades, Demeter gets too sad and lets all the crops die...and when Persephone comes home, Demeter is happy and makes the flowers grow :) Thus explains the seasons.

aaaahh... I'm such a good story-teller.

'Spring is nature's way of saying, "Let's party!"' ~Robin Williams

Pink slips flying all around

Why isn't education a priority in this country??

That really bothers me.

We're just reaching the peak of this "recession", or rather... lowest of the low, so it's going to hit me hard next year trying to get into college. SOoooo many factors will be working against me simply because of the budget cuts. The major thing I have going for me is that I'm faaar from middle class and even farther from upper....ironically, that's what'll save me (people WANT to give poor people scholarships :P ).

Why cut the most funding to schools and universities? It just doesn't make sense. An apres moi le deluge thing (been dying to use that phrase :) ). Don't care that this country will die if the next generation isn't educated enough to take care of it. Don't care that the education system was created in the 50s, and is now holding students back from the advances in knowledge that the world has made. Money money money. Well... everything should be free. At least education and healthcare. If you're gonna spend money somewhere shouldn't it be there?

:( just makes me sad for this country.... So proud of being The Best, and yet we're sooooo far behind other parts of the world.

hmmph.

Reminder #13

You don't have to conform.


(heh.. been reading Emerson)

When things fall apart

I don't remember exactly the name of the person who conducted this experiment (it's hard to remember names given to me by word of mouth), but anyway... maybe I'll add it later if I can figure it out. So, it went like this... Babies of each sex were set up in front of a big tv screen with lots of colorful patterns playing on it. There was a string attached to their wrist that was also attached to the on-off switch for the tv. The babies would get excited about the colors and patterns they were watching and move their arms around, then the tv would turn off when they pulled the string attatched to their wrist. They studied how long it took the babies to figure out that whenever the tv turned off, all they had to do to turn it back on was wave their arms around.
Then, they set up a new experiment with the same babies. This time, once the babies turned the tv off, it couldn't be turned back on.
What they really were testing for was how do babies react when things "fall apart".
The interesting thing about it was that after the tv turned off, most of the baby boys would focus hard on that string and continue to pull it over and over again, seemingly determined to make it work, to turn the tv back on, to fix it. Most of the baby girls on the other hand.... gave up and started to cry (of course, for a baby, this is the most effective way to get help).

Anyway... okay, so it doesn't say much for me, being female.

:) But luckily, as we grow, despite what are tendencies are, we can choose our strategy of dealing when things fall apart. We're more aware of the other options. When we're older, we can think, "okay, what exactly is the problem here?" "is this fixable?" "Does it need to be fixed, or just needs some attention?" and what strategy is going to do something for the initial problem.

The thing I always seem to forget is that there are more "strategies" than just the ones that are easy for me. That I should choose it based on the problem, not based on what i feel like doing. Like in Pema Chodron's (a female monk) book (which I've never read, but I heard this story), i'll shorten it, basically, there's a vicious temple dog loose coming straight for them, ready to attack. Rather than running away, they run towards it, and it gets scared and goes away. So... If I chose the strategy of "Denial", it probably wouldn't be the best tactic in a problem like that.

Sometimes, I've got to run straight into the fear, difficulties..etc. I guess it just depends on the problem. Over all, I think I just need to stop taking myself so seriously. I'm a pretty laid back person, but sometimes, c'mon....this is ridiculous, why am i making it so serious? Just laugh.

"Life itself is more like a river than a rock. Life is in flux, it changes, twists and turns, ebbs and flows. When a river encounters a boulder, the boulder may win for a while. But eventually, even the most massive stone is worn away by the currents of time....learn to swim in the river rather than climb out of it onto the rock." --Rev. Doug Kraft