Walking in wonder

Ideals

2006-11-16T01:29:00.000-05:00

Who is my ideal man?

When I meet him, he will appear before me as someone who covers me with comfort and wisdom. I will be able to lie beside him, trusting my fate and my faith to him. He will match my stride, and even leap ahead of it. I will be in awe of him, and him of me. I will neither have to hide from him my sharp mind, nor my many-times-broken heart. He will judge me for neither. He will not be too strong to need or acknowledge my care, but we will not be dependent on each other. He will value himself as much as he values me.

Sometimes I think I will only find the right man in intellectual circles (something I had always rejected, because I thought if I limited myself to that, I’d be alone forever). But I have always thought of intellectuals as competitive people who have no time or sympathy for those who may seem weak in any way. I think that is particularly true of the men. I also fear that intellectuals are by and large atheistic, and as much as I have issues with my previous understanding of my religion, I will by no means deny my God, nor deny that I think, no, believe, His word is the truth.

For now, I will content myself with dreaming that one day, somewhere at an academic conference, perhaps, or maybe on some travel or other, I will meet the man who meets my criteria – for I find I cannot abandon any of them. Until then, I am content with my life, who I am, and what I am doing. I don’t need another half to complete me, just to make my life a little happier someday.

Geography Rocks! Pt. II

2006-11-14T23:17:00.000-05:00

There are days when I really love what I'm studying. I came across this wonderful insight in a book I was reading today:

"Most of the writing that has dominated what the world calls knowledge has been produced by people living in western countries in the past three or more centuries, and thus it is this kind of knowledge that is elaborated within and sanctioned by the academy, the institutional knowledge corporation. The origins of much of this knowledge, particularly mathematic and scientific, came from the Arab world, which is why today even westerners write in Arabic whenever they write a number. Much emphasis in western schools is placed on the Latin and Greek inheritance of western civilization, but most westerners remain completely unaware of the fact that they read and write Arabic every day. Imagine the headline: "Al-gebra banned in US schools after Al-Qaeda link discovered."

Source: Young, R.J.C. (2003). Postcolonialism: a very short introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 18-20.

Vive la géographie culturelle!

A Rose by Any Other Name...

2006-11-09T11:00:00.000-05:00

As my cousin/brother selects a name for his new baby, I am led to think about how I got my own name. I have always thought it was one of the most precious gifts my father ever gave me. It was clearly the result of a lot of loving thought, and expresses just how he must have felt when I was born. Today he played for me the aria from which he got the name. He also explained why he gave me my first and middle names in the specific order in which they appear; the first means "rich," and the second means "blessing." This first qualifies the second. My father is certainly not the mushy type, but I can find no better thing to say than: "That's so sweet!"

Here are the words to my song :-):

Celeste Aida
Celeste Aida, forma divina,
mistico serto di luce fior,
del mio pensiero tu sei regina,
tu di mia vita sei lo splendor.
Il tuo bel cielo vorrei ridarti,
le dolci brezze del patrio suol,
un regal serto sul crin posarti,
ergerti un trono vicino al sol.

Celeste Aida, forma divina,
mistico raggio di luce fior,
del mio pensiero tu sei regina,
tu di mia vita sei lo splendor.
Il tuo bel cielo vorrei ridarti,
le dolci brezze del patrio suol,
un regal serto sul crin posarti,
ergerti un trono vicino al sol.

Heavenly Aïda
Heavenly Aïda, divine form,
mystic crown of light and flowers,
you are the queen of my thoughts,
you are the splendor of my life.
I would return to you the lovely skies,
the sweet breezes of your native land,
place a royal crown upon your brow,
build you a throne close to the sun!

Heavenly Aïda, divine form,
mystic ray of light and flowers,
you are the queen of my thoughts,
you are the splendor of my life.
I would return to you the lovely skies,
the sweet breezes of your native land,
place a royal crown upon your brow,
build you a throne close to the sun!

From the opera: Aida
Libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni, music: Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901). translation: a.l.

My Father assures me that the choice of name turned out to be quite appropriate :-).

To be and not to be, that is the question

2006-10-18T18:50:00.000-05:00

Have you ever felt that you were something, yet at the same time you weren’t? Have you ever known, objectively and verifiably, that something was true of you, that it was indeed a fact, yet somehow you still didn’t believe it? Well, let me tell you, I am on the verge of writing a letter to God asking him to recalculate my age, because I just cannot be on the verge of 26! That’s the wrong side of 25. No, God must have pressed a wrong button somewhere.

In talking to a couple of friends I’ve expressed this discomfort with turning 26, and they seemed to immediately assume that I wished I were younger. One even suggested ways I could make myself feel younger. But, there’s the rub: I don’t want to feel younger. I’d actually settle for feeling my age.

Sometimes I think this sense of not really being my age comes from feeling that I haven’t accomplished enough for my years. But if I look at it objectively, I have accomplished a lot. Okay, so I’m not married and don’t have my own home (not even my own car anymore :-( ), but I have a university degree, several years work experience and a lot of stamps in my passport. That should count for something.

So, it’s not my accomplishments that are lacking. Then what is it? I just don’t feel 26 years old in my head. What is 26 years old supposed to feel like anyway? Does this mean I need to grow up?

Honestly, I really think it would be easier if God would just redo His math :-).

Quote of the Week

2006-05-30T16:20:00.000-05:00

"Girlfiends last as long as they last...
Ex-girlfriends are forever."

Crutches

2006-05-24T17:08:00.000-05:00

What is a crutch?
An excuse for the crippled to blame others,
or an excuse for others to blame the crippled?
Who is pointing the finger,
and on whom are turned the other four?
Self-pity or insensitivity,
Cowardice or cruelty –
on whose part?

I don't want to be...

2006-05-18T04:28:00.000-05:00

I don't want to be anything other than what I've been trying to be lately.
I don’t want to be anything but the very essence of who I am.
I don’t want to slave away at anything just because it pays the bills.
I don’t want to do anything that isn’t a part of me.
I don’t want to stop demanding the very best from life.
I don’t want to stop being perfectionist,
‘Cause it means what I have to settle for is good enough.
I don’t want to be any less complicated,
‘Cause every random experience counts.
I don't have to be anyone other than a birth of two conflicting souls in one,
‘Cause that means I can understand anyone.
I don’t want to be forced to choose a box,
‘Cause I can almost do it all.
I don’t want to live within the limits of who others say I am.

Inspired by Gavin DeGraw

I wish I said that!

2006-05-12T22:49:00.000-05:00

I don't have time for a proper post, but just to keep the momentum going (and not disappoint my fans - wink, wink!), here are a few words of wisdom I came across this week that I wish I had produced myself:

"I got a dog for my husband.....
....it was a fair trade."
(refigerator magnet)

Hugh Laurie (a.k.a. Dr. House) on raising his daughter:
"Girls are complicated. The instruction manual that comes with girls is 800 pages, with chapters 14, 19, 26 and 32 missing, and it's badly translated, hard to figure out."
(source: www.imdb.com)

Geography Rocks!

2006-05-01T18:28:00.000-05:00

To the cynics (and geologists - smile) out there, who see madness in my instinctive geographical analysis of “Ice Age 2,” and my yearning for the “romance of ‘far-away places with strange-sounding names,’” this one’s for you:

Seven Cultural Geographical Ideas That Changed the World

Maps
Human adaptation to habitat
Human transformation of the earth
Sense of place
Spatial organization and interdependence
Central Place Theory
Megalopolis

(Abridged from Hanson, Susan E. (ed.) 1996. Ten Geographic Ideas That Have Changed the World. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, printed in Jordan-Bychkov T. G. and Domosh, M. 2003. The Human Mosaic. NY: W.H. Freeman & Co)

Cultural Diffusion: A 100% American
(an example of “geographical idea that changed the world” #5)

Our solid American Citizen awakens in a bed built on a pattern that originated in the Near East but that was modified in Northern Europe before it was transmitted to America. He throws back covers made from cotton, domesticated in India; or linen, domesticated in the Near East; or silk, the use of which was discovered in China. All of these materials have been spun and woven by processes invented in the Near East. He slips into his moccasins, invented by the Indians of the Eastern woodlands, and goes to the bathroom, whose fixtures are a mixture of European and American inventions, both of recent date. He takes off his pyjamas, a garment invented in India, and washes with soap, invented by the ancient Gauls. He then shaves – a masochistic rite that seems to have been derived from either Sumer or Ancient Egypt….

On his way to breakfast, he stops to buy a paper, paying for it with coins, an ancient Lydian invention. At the restaurant, a whole new series of borrowed elements confronts him. His plate is made from pottery invented in China. His knife is of steel, an alloy first made in southern India; his fork, a medieval Italian invention; and his spoon, a derivative of a Roman original….

When our friend has finished eating,…he reads the news of the day, imprinted in characters invented by the ancient Semites upon a material invented in China by a process invented in Germany. As he absorbs the accounts of foreign trouble, he will, if he is a good, conservative citizen, thank a Hebrew deity in an Indo-European language that he is 100 per cent American.

(From Linton, Ralph. 1936. The Study of Man: An Introduction. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.)

Those of you who have no idea what or where some of the places mentioned above are, please consult “geographical idea that changed the world” #1.

Perhaps if George W. Bush were more aware of this kind of thing, he would make less of a mess of things. A bit more respect for cultural geography will make you think, sound and act less like the world’s most famous C-student.

Thanks for the thrills, Murph

2006-04-29T03:22:00.000-05:00

Why are we so fascinated by movie stars? Why is couch-jumping as performed by Tom Cruise so much more enthralling than our own mundane pursuits? We do things in couches all the time.

I know: it’s the illusion that their lives are more exciting, on a grander scale, filled with the thrills, the rush against time and the odds, the stuff of Mission Impossible.

Mission Impossible? My life is every bit as exciting.

Mission Impossible. Opening Saturday.
Plot summary:
I have to get there no matter what. It’s a matter of life……
and boredom. I have until 8.

I plan my strategy carefully. I had cut my hair and changed the style months back so that I wouldn’t have to spend hours at the hairdresser. That’s a crucial step. At just after 4, I arrive at the plaza where the hairdresser is located. My planning is airtight. Go to the ATM. Withdraw a certain sum, knowing exactly how much money it will take to get everything done, with a little extra for contingencies. Buy lunch. Go to the hairdresser. Be done by 6.30 at the latest.

The hairdresser decides to trim my hair as well, now I need more money and have less time. No problem, I’ve planned my route so there is not one, but two ATMs right on the way, no detour necessary. By 7.30, I’ll still be well on my way after going home, having a bath, changing…

…but there’s no water. No problem. I’ve been through two hurricanes; better than any action hero, I know how to bathe out of a Pepsi bottle.

7.40. Now I’m leaving, still enough time to get there at 8 on the nose.

7.47. I arrive at the gas station, and am in front the ATM in seconds. The other patron senses my urgency and instantly steps out of my way. This sort of deference is always due to the star of the show. In less than thirty seconds, I have entered my code, got my receipt and am waiting for the cash.

The cash. It’s not coming out of the machine. I check the receipt; the withdrawal has indeed been deducted from my account. Seconds, minutes pass. No money, just a message: Please check the amount received before leaving the machine. Oh, I’ve checked alright, and it’s definitely short. But no matter, the bank can be called, the transaction undone, and there’s still another gas station with an ATM on the way. The adrenaline’s really pumping. With a little reinterpretation of the speed limit, Hollywood style, I can be there in less than ten minutes.

And here I am. I scan from afar for a parking space, no time to waste. I see…I see…funny, I don’t think I've ever seen quite so many motorcycles at any one gas station before. And all those bright lights, it’s like there’s some kind of motorcycle show or something taking over the entire parking lot – no room for me unless I’m going to park my car at a pump. Okay, no problem, umm…if I go straight up Hope Road and through Irvine gate I can get to the ATM without going over the sleeping police force called Ring Road, withdraw the money and get there by 8.10 or 8.15 at the latest. Ah, Irvine gate, maybe that renovation wasn’t such a waste now that the gate is open more.

But the gate isn’t open. The lights in the palatial guard house are on, and the guard is indeed there, having a good laugh with his friend; but the big, shiny black gate sensibly placed quite some distance away from the guard house is very much locked!

This isn’t entertaining anymore. Now I will have to drive a distance greater than the circumference of the entire campus just to get to the other gate, wake up half of the police force, withdraw the money and pray that there are still tickets to the show when I get there… at 8.30.

As they say on the award shows: “First of all I’d like to thank God…,”
and thank you, Murphy, for your incontrovertible Law.

…when the phone company decides to build a highway.

2006-01-19T04:11:00.000-05:00

I didn’t fully understand the whole to-do about Bouygues Construction and Highway 2000 last December, but the one thing that appeared clear was that Bouygues was mostly doing some noisy posturing. What really gave me fodder to chew on was the realization that the name Bouygues (and the underlying personality) was very familiar. I had come across it somewhere before. Oh, yes: in

France

. But wait…I seem to remember it being the name of the phone company.

Yes, it was the phone company! – that wretched phone company that came to represent for me a crystallization of French business culture. The basic operating principles of this culture are as follows:

You haven’t done your job if you haven’t made something simple difficult.
The client must always be frustrated.

I was educated about these principles by the experience of unblocking my cell phone. The experience began with what appeared to be a simple regulation: if a customer purchases a phone from a company as part of a package deal, after 6 months of using that company as his cellular provider, the company then becomes obligated to unblock the phone free of charge.

Straightforward.

An attractive deal.

If only it were really that simple.

A week before leaving the country, I called Bouygues and asked them to unlock my phone. I was given a code to enter into the phone, and I listened carefully and took copious notes while the customer service rep. repeated the step-by-step instructions several times. This took about 10 minutes. By the way, the customer has to pay for calls to customer service at a per-minute rate that is higher than making a regular phone call. I hung up. I entered the code. The phone returned an error message. I called back. Of course, I happened upon a different customer service rep. this time. I explained that the code I had been given before had not worked. I was asked to painstakingly describe the process the last rep. had given me. The new rep. suggested that there may have been an error in the code. Then he repeated the same instructions I had been given before. There went another 15 minutes.

I followed the “new” set of instructions. I got the same error message. I (perhaps foolishly) called customer service again. The same process was repeated, costing me another ten minutes.

So I went to the nearest Bouygues dealer. I explained the problem and the details of the three failed attempts to solve it. The saleswoman then called customer service (why, of course, I hadn’t thought of doing that myself!). She gave the person on the phone the code and explained that it did not work. The agent on the phone then offered a new code, which was, in fact, an exact repetition of the one that didn’t work. At this point the exasperated look on the saleswoman’s seemed to suggest she had some inkling of my frustration. (I suppose this served as confirmation that she and her colleagues had successfully followed principle #2). After some discussion, she hung up the phone and informed me that she and the rep. had come to the conclusion that the company had been given the wrong code. They would have to ask the manufacturer, Nokia, for the correct code. This would take 1 to 3 weeks.

What! But by this point in the whole ordeal I only had three days left before my departure. And what on earth could possibly take so long? To speed the process up, I asked if they could give me a way of contacting Nokia myself, so that I could ask them directly, after providing proof that I had legally purchased the phone and legally had the right to unblock it, for the correct code. Now, if I had been told that only the company could make such a request, perhaps my only complaint would have been that the 1- to 3-week delay meant the company had a policy of laziness. Instead, I was told that neither the dealer, nor the company’s central customer service department had either address, phone or fax number for Nokia. How then, I asked, would they send a request to a recipient for whom they had no contact information? This was met with a dismissive shrug. I suggested that perhaps she could discuss the situation with a manager at the customer service department instead of the operators who may not fully understand the inner workings of the system. She quickly responded that there was no manager to talk to. This to me was a clear indication that “ils se foutaient de ma gueule.” (If that sounds like I’m cursing some bad words, then you’ve got the idea).

At this point I was furious. If the salesperson was at a loss, fine, but her dismissive attitude ticked me off. I said firmly that I was not asking for a favour, but for a service for which I had already paid, and that I was not leaving the store until someone found a solution. At this point, the salesperson seemed to have the profound insight that working in the service industry actually implied serving. She consulted with another salesperson and assured me that if I paid to have the phone unblocked at a phone accessory store then the company would reimburse me.

Desperate, I put aside the instinctive feeling that this was too good to be true, and went to the store they recommended. The price quoted there for unblocking the phone was almost as much as I had paid for the phone itself. I came crashing back down to earth and decided that I was not going to fork out that kind of money without being absolutely certain of reimbursement. I went back to the Bouygues dealer (where I happened upon a different salesperson, of course), and asked her to confirm whether I would be reimbursed or not. She duly called one of my dear friends at customer service, and they both shared a hearty chuckle at the idea. Of course I would not be reimbursed.

Rather than risk deportation by blackin’ di people dem road, I simply resolved to just find another phone to use when I got home. In the final analysis, I did get the phone unblocked in Jamaica, for the tidy sum of J$1500 (which was a little over half what I would have been charged in France).

Bouygues Construction and Bouygues Telecommunications are indeed subsidiaries of the same company. Maybe the real problem was that Bouygues is really a construction company, and really has no business meddling in the telecommunications industry (or perhaps, it’s the other way around). Or maybe it’s one of those precious cultural differences that so many of us cherish and hold up as what makes us who we are (makes them not who we are). In that case, I really ought to respect the fact that the French simply have a different way of doing things, and not make the arrogant presumption that I can tell them how to do it better. That is certainly the essence of the principle of tolerance on which I have always prided myself. It is also, after all, the very thing we wish America would do instead of telling the whole world how to live. But, good God, it’s frustrating! How then, can we all just get along?

...you just never know

2005-11-03T02:45:00.000-05:00

It’s really been a long time
Since I let somebody hold me
Since I felt safe in somebody’s arms,
You were a good friend I could confide in
But after all the lies he told me
I couldn’t let nobody in my heart
I was torn apart
All this time you’ve been right here
He’s been doing nothing but wrong
And though the best thing in my life was
Here with me all along

I never knew
Right beside me there was an angel
I never knew
You’d give my heart the wings to fly
Because of you
Everything in my life is changing
Turning it to
The kind of heaven that I never knew

He kissed away my tears
And now they’ve disappeared
You make me feel safe in somebody’s arms
You’re the kind that can do me no harm
Can’t let up
Can’t tell anybody that you’re not from around here
They don’t know that you’re an angel
But now it’s all so clear

I never knew
Right beside me there was an angel
I never knew
You’d give my heart the wings to fly
Because of you
Everything in my life is changing
Turning it to
The kind of heaven that I never knew

Is this a dream
Are you for real
You got me honey
Feeling things that I never thought I’d feel
You taught me love
Don’t have to break my heart in two
That’s just one more of those things
That I never, never knew

I never knew
Right beside me
There was an angel
I never, never knew (that my heart could fly)
It’s all because of you baby
My life is changing
Turning it to
The kind of heaven that I never knew

Gloria Gaynor

Flowers in the Attic

2005-11-03T02:07:00.000-05:00

I watched part of the movie “Flowers in the Attic” the other day. It’s a very sad movie about four children who are held prisoner by their mother in the attic of her parents’ house because if word gets out that she has children from her first marriage, she’ll be disinherited. While she holds them prisoner, she secretly slips them cookies laced with arsenic.

As I watched, the more I thought about the title and theme of the movie, the more I thought: I am a flower in the attic.

The attic of my grandparents’, no, my great-grandparents’ house.

I am held prisoner by my parents.

And they have been slowly poisoning me all my life.

Okay, before you call the police, let me explain.

Have you ever thought about how some of your problems in life just seem to emanate from who you are, your very personality? And when you look around you, in the living room of your house, at the family reunion, do certain problems seem uncannily familiar? Like they’re happening to everyone around you? Like a hereditary disease?

I’ve come to realize that there is a certain personality type that is inherited in my family: the cynical loner. Oh, on the surface we may be quite friendly, but underneath, we’ve been bred and raised to pride ourselves on a superior reasoning ability that makes us think that it’s best to keep our distance from most people. Or at least, that’s what we tell ourselves to mask the fact that we just don’t feel understood by other people – we feel different from them, they keep telling us we’re different, so we don’t trust them a great deal.

While this should lead to a valuable independence it really creates more dysfunction than anything else. Yes, we can exist on our own, but we’re not very good at existing with other people. Perhaps that’s why the very first unhappy marriage began in my great-grandparents’ house, and got written into the title deed that was passed down to my grandparents.

And I’m trapped in the attic. I want to get out, but I’m imprisoned in the structure built by my family. Who I feel I am, or who I want to be is locked up in what I have inherited.

Furthermore, my parents’ own misguided, unsuccessful quest to make their own lives what they wanted have left traces of poison in my life.

But the good thing is that the name of the story is “flowers in the attic.” If I’m in the one in the attic, that makes me a… beautiful thing.

And I can’t help but think of the attic as the upper room in the structure I’ve inherited: my mind. That’s where I’m trapped.

I suppose it’s a good thing that, in reality, all that I inherited from my grandfather’s estate was some silverware.

...what's beneath a glamorous surface

2005-10-21T03:24:00.000-05:00

I recently came across this article which spoke to me very strongly. It's about how someone who seems very successful could actually be suffering greatly underneath. And that very success that is coveted by so many can be the cause of that suffering, because the first success means the stakes are higher next time around, expectations are higher; it's got to be better, it's got be....perfect.

Rosie Interviews Donny About Panic Attacks

For years Donny Osmond smiled onstage, but in the real world he battled panic and anxiety.

by Rosie O'Donnell - 07/03/2002

Donny Osmond: My panic started long ago, when I was 11 years old. But at age 32, after I made a comeback in 1989 with two hit songs, Soldier of Love and Sacred Emotion, it was much worse because the expectations were so high.

RO: From the public, from the record company or from yourself?

DO: From myself. It's all inner-related—any panic and depression—it's in your mind. I watched A Beautiful Mind again the other night, and I can relate to that movie so much because I know it is possible to create your own unrealistic reality in your mind. And that's what I was doing.

RO: Then you took a career turn, doing the tour of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

DO: I tried so hard to get back on the charts, and here I am throwing that away by putting it on the back burner. But I thought, "I still have to reinvent myself, because these two records are considered a novelty." So I took a chance with a Broadway musical. But knowing the history of Little Johnny Jones [a musical he had been in in 1982] opening and closing the same night, you can imagine what's going on in my mind.

RO: You were scared?

DO: Oh, yes. Opening night, Rosie, Andrew Lloyd Webber himself was out there—all the press, cameras, everything. The only thing I can remember is the curtain opening and closing.

RO: That's it? Nothing else?

DO: That's it. Andrew came up onstage at the very end of the show to take the final curtain call. As the curtain was coming down, he turned to me and said, "Where have you been keeping that voice all these years?"

RO: That must have made you feel great.

DO: Yes and no. You see, in my mind, that created a bigger expectation. Now, when the reviews are coming out and it's fantastic, you would think my confidence would come back. But instead I think, "I've got to be even better." It all gets down to that: having to be perfect.

RO: Do you think that's from your childhood?

DO: I remember when I was six or seven years old, and we were appearing on The Andy Williams Show. It was a running joke that Andy would throw anything at us, and we could do it. He said, "Next week you're gonna play pianos." So we all had to learn to play the piano. And it was great. And, "Next week you're gonna learn to ice-skate for my Christmas show." And we did. [But] there was one time that I couldn't pull something off. Andy asked me to do an Ella Fitzgerald song, and I couldn't really do it.

RO: 'Cause it was jazz and...

DO: ...I was six. And I remember feeling like a failure.

RO: Now, were you in a family that was able to discuss things like that?

DO: The train was going down the track so fast, I couldn't stop. I hated our rehearsal studio because so many hours were spent out there.

RO: So it wasn't as though you had stage parents.

DO: No. But my father had to make a hard decision because he had a real-estate business, an insurance business, everything—he gave it all up for us. And when Andy said, "Who else is at home?" Donny was next. I auditioned for Andy, and he said, "You're on the show, buddy."

RO: And were you scared?

DO: Not at all. I didn't know millions of people were watching me. Next thing I know, Mother gets a call from Father. He's with Andy Williams and the Brothers doing a Christmas tour. And they said, "We got so much mail response, we want Donny to come." So they flew me out to Chicago, and I went onstage. I sang my song, and there was thunderous applause and flashbulbs were going off—it scared me.

RO: It did.

DO: Scared me half to death. And I ran offstage. And the audience ate it up. And then the expectations really started, because then I became a full-fledged member of the group.

RO: Do you mean you're-not-able-to-get-out-of-bed kind of breakdowns or...?

DO: No, I did my job. But then I would lock myself in my room. Even today I have to force myself to get out of my hotel room because it's so easy for me to close it up again.

RO: Now, in the Mormon religion, is it frowned upon to go to a shrink?

DO: Oh, no. Not at all. And that's what saved me. And I'll be the first to admit that I took medication as well.

RO: Me too. Every day. Who said you need to talk to someone? Or did you know instinctively?

DO: Instinctively. I said, "I have to do something drastic." You know my religious convictions—I don't drink or smoke or anything. But I was this close to going out to the store to get some liquor. Because everybody kept saying, "You know, just a little nip will calm your nerves." I didn't know what I had. I didn't know about social anxiety disorder. It wasn't until I got on Paxil, and things like that, that I was helped.

Source

Rosie Magazine

...if you'll get a glimpse of the past

2005-10-09T19:06:00.000-05:00

It wasn’t the bright lights or the shiny, colourful costume that gave me the thrill. Perhaps it was the way the dance made me feel – the sense that all my limbs and my face were extensions of my emotions; as if the long, wide robe swishing around me flowed from inside. Was it the full house? Or was it the music, exhilarating and steadying, infusing me with the energy to move, while measuring my steps?

What was it about that dance? That night, I received an e-mail from a friend, saying: “You guys made people happier tonight. I envy you.” I was struck by the assertion that I helped make others happier. Me? Me! Until then, it seemed that all the compliments I had received had had something to do with academics, and I resented them, though they were well meant. I felt the description of me was incomplete. The others just didn’t know the most important thing about me.

That night they got to know – and so did I. We both understood what thrilled me about dancing. I fed off of the other dancers. I loved making eye contact with them and sharing smiles. I loved seeing the joy on the faces of the audience. I loved making people happy. And I had done it.

Someone who desires to bring joy to others should be more selfless than I felt after that e-mail. But I couldn’t help it – I had always felt I had a point to prove. I had accepted the descriptions I had always heard of myself: studious…reserved…different. I had taken dance lessons on and off for most of my life, but was always too timid to stand out. Yet, I believed I was more expressive than others saw. That night, I had finally worked up the courage just to be myself onstage, and it paid off.

I should commit this essay to memory. I should recite it every time I doubt myself – which is too often. It would remind me that I enjoy entertaining, and can do it, even if it takes a while to build up skill and courage. I did do it, though I was always thought stiff and studious.

I have many dreams that seem contrary to my personality, and even I doubt whether they are in my nature. But I know that they are in there somewhere – I just have to tease them out.

...what if, my friends

2005-10-09T18:41:00.000-05:00

What if... my friend?

My friend is seated next to me,
His eyes trying to meet mine;
Trying to find their design,
What he searches for,
What I won't let him see.

My friend gazes for a glance
At the secret of my silence;
But if I say: "my fading innocence,"
Such words, of his regard,
Would ruin every chance.

My friend becomes angry,
For I must keep my tongue.
His soul is so young,
Its journey into mine
Would end in misery.

What can he grasp
Of hurtful exaltation,
Of joyful lamentation,
The incongruous emotion
That in privacy I clasp?

What can he know
Of crowded solitude,
Of trembling fortitude,
Of failing success,
Or chaos in a row?

What am I supposed to say
To any peering, pleading friend
Before a bitter, brutal end,
So he can, in illumination,
See my twilight in the day?

If he understood
That if I could,
I never would
Sit in silence.
I would not hurt him this way.

...if you would one day do a thing like this

2005-10-09T17:49:00.000-05:00

So here I am joining the kind of thing I swore I'd never join. I always said "I don't have time for this internet stuff. If anyone really wants to talk to me, they'll call me."

Gradually, with rising calling costs, I grudgingly joined the e-mail masses, and then, due to a phenomenal laziness regarding reading and writing e-mails, I consented to download various instant messengers.

I suppose that when I was younger, I thought you had to always get the right answer, and you had to get it on the first attempt. (I can almost hear certain of my friends mumble: "mm-hmm, perfectionist overachiever.") But from recent experiences I'm beginning to let go of this obsession with being right - now. Doing this blog is just one more of those things about which I have to admit "they are right - I have always been wrong."

I've come to realize that the advantage of this particular burdensome internet activity (I still do find e-mails, instant messaging etc. disruptive. Once I start I can never get anything else done!) is that I get to do one thing I love very much without the frustration that has stopped me from doing it for the last few years. I love writing - I just find words beautiful, in all different languages - but I've stopped because (apart from being too lazy to keep a consistent journal) I found myself only perpetuating my isolation because I only wrote for me and thought I could never tell those things to anyone else. Somewhere in the back of my mind I always wanted to be a published author in whose work others could find a piece of themselves, the way I saw my own partial image looking back at me in the pages of some of my favourite authors (once again my friends will snicker at the books they always see me read). Yet I always thought that the things I thought about and what I had to say would never be relevant to anyone else (partly because my friends all snicker at my choice of leisure reading!), but maybe that's not true. And the only way I will ever find out for sure is if I open my mouth (or pull out my keyboard) and say what I want to say. Doing it this way means I don't actually have to hear my friends snickering :).

I don't really care if anyone reads, likes or comments on what I have to say. At least I will have written.