girl's night out.

so.. today at work, we had our first "girl's night out." All the female staff members (there's 5 of us) went out with the 5th and 6th grade girls to the mall/movies. it was pretty fun... and interesting. lol. but anyway... we ended up watching Twilight with the kids. prior to tonight, i really had no interest in watching it... but, it actually ended up being better than i thought it would. I can't say that i think it's a "great movie," because, well, frankly i don't think it is... but there are certain aspects about it that i really did like.

We all know that when it comes to reading books or watching movies, the reader (or viewer) intreprets things differently than someone else... we all see our own little stories within the story that's actually written... so... i totally saw things in that movie that probably don't even tie into it all... but they did for me. hah. lol.



i like this part (you can barely see it though, i know the video's crappy but it's the only one i could find)... the vampire guy and the girl have their first kiss..and it starts getting all passionate or what not.. and it LOOKS like the kissing about to lead to touching... and eventually sex, but RIGHT when it seems like it's really starting to pass the boundary line of kissing for love and kissing for lust, he STOPS. he forces himself to and says "i can never lose control over you." ... he says that he's "stronger than he thought," implying that it takes STRENGTH to have self control. then he goes on to half sitting up half laying next to her in bed, and TALKING to her, having a CONVERSATION with her. he's close to her, but there's no sex. and i just loved that. it shows self-control and true relationship development. THAT's how you get closer to someone, you TALK to them, and have CONVERSATIONS with them... you hold off on the sex part until you actually KNOW eachother pretty well and have BEEN THROUGH things together. you don't just rush into it.

it's like... the whole movie can be intrepreted like that. it's about this family (of vampires) that restrain themselves from "being evil monsters." ... they train themselves to stop doing something that they love and yearn for because they know the outcome of it is really bad (killing people.) and it's like... a message telling us that we should learn to restrain ourselves from things that cause pain or negative energy to ourselves and those around us. This family puts THEIR OWN values before the values and ways of their species... they stray away from the "norm" of their species in order to make a positive change for themselves.

haha, anyway... i feel like i'm going to start going off on a tangent here... so i'll end it here.

<3

with WIDTH comes no DEPTH.

mmmm... i had a conversation with a friend last night.

it started out talking about church and my faith. she's the main leader for the youth ministry i volunteer for... and i had told her that i no longer feel as though i should be a leader for the ministry because i feel that i'm there for the wrong reasons. for selfish reasons. i've been struggling with and questioning my faith for almost a year now.. and it's like... how can i minister to these kids when i don't even know what i believe in? it's like offering someone dinner when you don't even have any food to give. so anyway... we started talking about why i don't believe anymore... and all that.. but... somehow we got to the point where i confessed another one of my biggest fears/obstacles. I've known it to be a problem for quite some time now.. but i never said it outloud until last night =/

basically. i'm scared of commitment (to almost ANYTHING) and concrete ideas. it's like.. i use to be so stuck on God and on Church... on Jesus and Catholicism.. because of my Confirmation class i started going to junior year.. it was a NEW faith for me.. it was a NEW way of thinking and living.. i was LEARNING.. and i love learning. but you know, to make a long story short, 3 years pass... and i'm presented with NEW ideas, other NEW ways of thinking and living. I got scared. I started asking myself, what if Catholicism is bad? what if it's just NOT for me? i was exposed to a few wonderfully amazing people (some Catholic, and others not), and i started thinking about the NONcatholics who were amazing... i figured, if they're so wonderful and so happy WITHOUT being Catholic, maybe i could be too. I'm scared of making the wrong choices and decisions. I was scared of devoting my life to this faith at such a young age.. i didn't want to be "stuck" on that way of life... It's like.. i wanna expose myself to A WHOLE BUNCH of different ideologies and ways of thinking... and see which one suits me best... which on makes me the happiest.

But anyway... i answer a lot of questions with "i don't know" because... i simply don't know.. and it's bad sometimes... because people won't accept i don't knows. this world will not allow me to say I DON'T KNOW. i will never succeed answering the world's questions with I DONT KNOW. in this world, i NEED TO KNOW where i stand... what i want.. etc. or so it seems. and it's so hard for me. i'm scared of hypocrisy (although i acknowlege that we are all hypocrites).. i'm scared of telling myself that certain things are right and certain things are wrong OVER AND OVER again until it's nearly impossible to think otherwise. i want to stay open minded. but... i think it's possible to be TOO open minded. for example, i'm so EASILY lured.. so EASILY influenced about certain ideas an beliefs (sure, i'll always think murdering is bad, i'll always think drugs are bad, etc.. but with other things, i don't have a firm stance)... i need to develop more concrete beliefs.. so that i can stand up what i believe in. ahh. i'm such a ball of confusion right now...

i've been told that with WIDTH comes no DEPTH. i can TRY to do many things at once... live many lifestyles... pracitce different faiths.. carry out different ideologies... or what not.. but the more i put on my plate, the wider the set of things will become.. i'll never be able to MASTER anything. whereas, if i pick one thing, and focus on it, live it, learn it, i'll be able to add and add on to it.. it'll have depth. and yes, i want to be a "deep" person. hah.

sorry if none of this made sense. i just felt the need to go on a ramble about this subject. writing, in so many ways, is my form of communicating.. speaking.. thinking etc.

Dove =]

i love Dove's Real Beauty Campaign =]

even though it's "old news" now. =P





and at the same time, i know, it's like.. who am i trying to kid? i mean, i KNOW that i have certain standards of beauty.. i know i do.. and i hate that i do.. it's just so hard to steer away from it you know?... but i have, a couple of times =] and i hope that i continue to do it more often in the future.

it's a real shame that the media and society has written out the definition of beauty for us... rather than let us think and feel on our OWN.. it's a shame that most of us (including myself most of the time) are blinded from beautiful things and beautiful people... we'll never be able to see all the REAL beauty within our world...

i'm making a pledge to myself.. to redefine beauty. will YOU?

i don't like to talk very much.

usually, i don't say too much at all. why?.. i'm not so sure, but i think it's a mixture of "i know that i'm a hyprocrite, and i know that i've got a lot to learn, and therefore reluctant to say what it is i have on my mind because i know how easy it'll be to be proven wrong." AND "most of the time, when people criticize me, i don't fight back, i take it. i'm too scared to face confrontations."

and so, i think maybe... i lack confidence in myself and my ideas... and the really sad part is that i know this problem is big enough to shape the outcome of my future.. i feel that i'm not going to be able to get anywhere unless i start SPEAKING up, for MYSELF, and for others.. but more specifically MYSELF... i feel as though i've been taught (while growing up) that questioning authority is wrong, that speaking out of turn is wrong, etc... and i've really taken it to heart. it's hindering me from growing, and i know i'm going to have to grow out of it.. it's just REALLY, EXTREMELY hard for me.. i have NO IDEA why.. it's like.. one of my biggest fears... i just don't understand why i feel that way.

i never posted my poem from last year.. but i think this post calls for it:

Here I go, using WORDS again.. HOARDS and HOARDS of words, Some of them full of MEANING, but others as EMPTY as unwanted silence. And these words are words that I THINK are true, but no, some of them spell out as nasty as vomit, Vomit as NASTY as lies. These words. Where did these words come from? They came from a LANGUAGE I so-called LEARNED, a language that WITHIN ITSELF can be spoken and written a million other different ways, a language different from those of my parents, my parents who brought me here in the FIRST PLACE, a language that creates wars and creates HATRED, creates BLOOD and creates death. The SAME language that can create LOVE and beauty. Language that CHANGES when spoken from a 42 year old Punjabi woman to a 15 year old Caucasian boy. Same language? No. Different language? no? same language? Confusion within these mixture of letters, letters, so many different letters, creating so many different words, words with hyphens, words without, words with I's before e's except after c's expect for the few times when those e's come before those I's even though they come after the c's.

And I wish that it would CEASE.

I'm standing here speaking, these WORDS, whatever words are, are coming out but I don't know what I'm saying anymore. I'm just using my TONGUE and using my TEETH, using my JAWS and using my CHEEKS. Breathing IN breathing OUT, these sounds are coming out. But I still DON'T KNOW what I'm saying.

And so for a while I don't speak at all.

I stay quiet.

But then people question. Question what I have to say just because I say I have nothing TO say. And I just don't like speaking because I DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M SAYING. I'd rather stroke a face or shake a hand; feel the texture, feel the smoothness. Because, i know my hands don't lie, they tell the truth; they touch, and i know that what they're feeling is true. I'd rather feel than describe; stupid words, stupid lies.

Hypocrisy.

One question. One Answer.

And the altering of lives.

The utterance of wrong words thrown into a sentence

could quite possible make all the difference.

And so for now I'll stop using these words, knowing that some of them will be lies, in HOPES of one day being able to speak in a way that is, at this point in time, unimaginable to me. Hopes that one day I will no longer speak with CHUNKS of vomit as I spit out those CHUNKS OF LIES but instead speak with the consistency, the purity, the strength, and the honesty of the biggest fresh water river anyone's ever seen in their life. Hopes of one day being able to truly "speak."

today..

today, i broke up with my boyfriend.



why? because i have TOO much to focus on for MYSELF, i'm 19 years old, i need time for ME... i dont know what i want... i don't know where i'm going... i dont want to "be in a relationship" at this point in my life. i need to further discover what it is that I'M about, what it is I'M for, what it is I DREAM for.. I LONG for... once i form a better image of those things.. then maybe i can allow someone else into "my picture." and then maybe i'll be able to allow him in for the RIGHT reasons.

This may sound a bit cynical, but i don't believe in "ROMANTIC LOVE." i believe in LOVE. and i believe in LUST. i believe that they are TWO DIFFERENT things. i believe that when you're with someone... you should love them in the sense that you CARE about them, that you want the best for them, that you're willing to put them before you at times, that you're left with JUST THE RIGHT AMOUNT of pride while you're with them (i.e., you have enough pride to tell him/her when he/she is wrong, but not so much pride that you're unwilling to admit that sometimes YOU are the one who's wrong).. they should be your "PARTNER," your "TEAM MEMBER," and by this i mean someone who'll be there to help YOU when you're in need, and someone who YOU'RE willing to help when he/she is in need. I think that the person you're "with" should be both similar and different when compared to you. Similar in the sense that you both define LIFE (in general) in similar ways, that you both have similar priorities (not priorities like, oh, the football game ALWAYS comes before grocery shopping; i mean priorities like, family comes before work, or the bills come before gadgets, etc.)... i think you should both have similar IDEOLOGIES... etc... but it's okay (and probably preferable) to be different in personality and character. say for instance, if one of you is loud, it may be preferable that the other is quiet. One is outgoing, the other reserved. etc. I think it's also okay to have different likings, as long as you do have atleast SOME similar ones. and yeah.

all those FEELINGS you get... "butterflies in the tummy" or "oh i love it when you kiss my ear".. "he makes me melt"... "i get lost in his eyes/smile" etc... are all just things that the MEDIA and other things have caused us to set along side with the word "love."...when really.. that's not love at all.

anyway... it's been a long day.

anddd.. i dont know what im talking about anymore... so.. i shall end this blog HERE.

Election '08

today,

was my first time voting. =] yay. =]


and today,

a "colored" man was made the president of the United States,

and yes,

today, racism still exists,
today, people of color are still discriminated against and oppressed,
today, is, in certain ways, both different from, and the same as, yesterday,
but today will always be the present,
whereas yesterday will always be the past.

Today we proved that change in possible.

And for tomorrow, the future, we can only HOPE for more.


"A long time ago,
An enslaved people heading toward freedom
Made up a song:
Keep Your Hand On The Plow! Hold on!
That plow plowed a new furrow
Across the field of history.
Into that furrow the freedom seed was dropped.
From that seed a tree grew, is growing, will ever grow.
That tree is for everybody,
For all America, for all the world.
May its branches spread and its shelter grow
Until all races and all peoples know its shade.

KEEP YOUR HAND ON THE PLOW!
HOLD ON!"
_Langston Hughes

trust.

i've recently discovered..

that i have developed really bad trust issues.
i just...
can't seem to put all my trust..
into another human being..
well... besides my mom, i guess, hah.

it's really unfortunate.

and i'm trying my best.. i really am.
i just don't know how this happened.



i've ALSO recently discovered that..
although i recognized that people other than myself might look at me as, a brown girl, a mexican person, a minority, or what not (at first glance)..
i NEVER had (until now) thought about how being "brown" might change my outlook (or in this case, inlook?) on MYSELF.

i was at a local library reading this story entitled "La Guera" for my "Woman Of Color in the U.S." class .. and it HIT me.. this whole time.. i've been allowing myself to act certain ways just because of the fact that i'm "brown."
here i am, talking about racial discrimination or what not.. posting blogs about how i "don't understand why the color of my skin means so much to you".. and yet here i am, doing the SAME thing to MYSELF.

i had told my sister to "stay quiet, and try and make the least amount of sounds possible" while we were in the "quiet room" at the library because..well.. it's the "QUIET room" of course. i figure, i come in here because it's silent.. all these other people in here probably feel the same way, and so, i should let my sister in on the deal-io. but then i started thinking about it from another light, and.. i realized that part of the fact why i wanted her to be so quiet is because i wanted to BE LIKE THEM, i wanted to FIT IN to the NORM, i didn't want us to be the "loud MEXICAN girls who came in a disrupted our silence." i wanted to be "bleached," i didn't want to be "mexican," i wanted to be like "them." and this holds true for when we're in other locations as well, not just the library. and it's so weird.. how i never realized it until now.

so anyway.. i looked around the "quiet" room.. and i realized that everyone in there was a minority. hah. interesting.

and then i thought, hm, well i guess that makes sense... i mean, why do people come to the library? because they want a quiet place to do homework or general work? a SPACIOUS, COMFORTABLE place. a WELL LIT place. a place with a DESK. a place with free INTERNET and RESOURCES. all things that they perhaps DON'T have at HOME.

... i don't know where i'm going with this blog anymore. & plus, i have a presentation to work on.. so i guess i'll just randomly end it HERE.