More to Life

I'll admit it. I've been so glued to the TV in the past couple days, it's just disgusting. I blame it almost entirely on the the Democratic National Convention. If you listen or watch long enough, politics sucks you in and makes you miserably, willingly and so unwillingly, come back for more. This year, more than ever, I've deluded myself into falling into the trap that is politics. Maybe it's because I was in Iowa for the nation's first caucuses where I got see all the major candidates up close and personal, immerse myself in campaign-talk, and even shake good ol' Edwards' hand twice. Or maybe it's because, with age, I've become more aware of all this stuff. Or maybe I'm just so concerned about how this country seems to become more divided and the world a crazier place each day that I can't help but cling onto the sofa desperately and fix my eyes on the TV till the news announces some dramatic change of events for the better.

So I've been watching, a lot, and you'd think that I'd actually enjoy it, but it really hasn't been all that fun. I've always thought that something about politics didn't quite add up for me, and this convention seems to underscore all that. For a person who's so looking forward to some change, some optimism, and some genuinely good leadership in this country, you'd think that all the ra-ra-ra speeches at the convention would get my booty off that couch and cheering like a political cheerleader, but they haven't at all.

The one thing that keeps running through my mind is how fake everything in politics can be. Sure, I've heard wonderful speeches, full of wonderful ideas, but they're just words, words, words. Words can be so empty. Politicians talk too much. I want to see some action, dammit! You tell me you're going to fight for better healthcare and reduce socioeconomic and racial inequality in America? Well, come on, Kerry you've been in office for how many years?! Even Edwards spent some time in the senate -- but how much does he have to show for it? What I'm trying to say is, you don't need to be a President or Vice President to make a difference. Having the power of a Senator in the US Congress should give people a lot to work with, but I wonder how much it really has...?

I'm tired of all the talk. It's not easy to make a difference, but if there is a will there is a way. We all saw how a bombastic piece of legislation like the Patriot Act got through Congress in no time. Surely there was an urgency and timeliness to the issues it addressed. But what about healthcare, and poverty, unemployment, and equal opportunity? Aren't these issues pressing as well? How long have we been clamoring about them, and how long have politicians been making us empty promises about healthcare and jobs? Does the horror of millions of people living without money to buy food, medication, or necessary trips to the doctor in a country where you need big bucks to afford a decent quality of life not provide enough of an urgency to take decisive action on the matter? In my opinion, it provides more urgency than we should have ever waited for. Senators Kerry and Edwards, if this is important enough as you assert, then why not champion the cause in Congress? Raise hell! Pass that bill and those benefits like millions of people's lives depend on it... because they do.

So I'm tired of all the talk. I'm also tired of how politics seems like more of an overly-rehearsed show than the genuine high-flying passion that's supposed to underlie the democratic process of fighting for causes and changes. Ideas and messages are reduced to catchy little soundbytes. "Hope is on the way," "We can do better," "Stronger at home, respected in the world." They're nice, and they work, but to me they just reek of hours of polling, strategizing, researching, and calculated marketing. To hear Edwards say "hope is on the way" during his speech could have been inspiring. It is a great message. It would have been even better knowing it came from him--he came up with it, wrote it, and was presenting it as his own words. But that was not the case. When Edwards started to recite "hope is on the way" tonight, thousands of "hope is on the way" signs decorated the audience. *Sigh* it was all planned ahead of time. That line was inserted into his speech and coordinated with the event planners so they could create thousands of matching signs well in advance...

People, people, people, you might think this is silly and I'm totally over-reacting, but I don't... I saw this in Iowa on campaign trail, and I'm seeing this now again. Where's the charisma, the spontaneity, the uniqueness? They're taking our democracy and selling it to us like a cheap Wal-Mart product. Pre-planned ideas, consumer tested messaging, professionally stylized. I can't expect everyone to agree with me on this one, and I'll respect your opinion if you respect mine. But maybe you will also wake up one day and feel a little ripped off...

I don't at all mean to mock the seriousness of the presidential elections. That's a vote you definitely must rock, but until that rolls around, here's a different type of vote to think about. Maybe it's a bit silly of me to be plugging the MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs), but as much as "serious people" like to downplay MTV, it'd be hard to deny the influence it has on millions and millions of kids, teens, college students, and beyond.

The music industry is a multibillion dollar industry. More and more people (especially youth) are tuning into lyrics and beats these days more than anything else. It's hard to argue that to a certain degree the messages we jam to in our favorite songs can inadvertantly affect our behavior, values, or whatever. So if I have the slightest chance to make a dent in the type of music (or, indirectly, the messages) MTV rewards, I'll give it a try.

One of the VMA awards is the Viewer's Choice Award. This year, for the first time, instead of presenting us with 5 or 6 choices, they're laying out 40 of the year's biggest hits. From 50 Cent to Evanescene to all the pop and punk in between you can vote for 20 as two songs face off at a time. Silly? Maybe a little. But you know how much money gets pumped into this business, and how many people it reaches out to. Sure, this won't change overnight the songs people hear, but it's a start. So go vote! I already have!

It probably doesn't come as shocking news to anyone that if you want to run a good campaign you need to have lots of money. That point was just driven home to me by a short article I read about the Kerry campaign.

Rewind to December 2003. Back then, Kerry wasn't highly regarded as the likely Democratic candidate for the presidency. If my memory serves me right, people were talking the most about Geppy, and Dean, but Kerry? Meh...

Kerry made a big splash in January 2004, when he came in first place in the Iowan caucuses. I think that's what really thrusted him into the limelight. But how did he go from not doing so well in the polls to all of a sudden coming in first place in most of the state caucuses and primaries?

Well, if you read the article, you'll learn that Kerry took out a $6.4 million loan to boost his campaign funding at a time when he wasn't doing so well. I'm not saying that he bought his way to where he his now, but at the same time $6.4 million goes a long way...

The thing that bothers me is that Kerry was the same Kerry then as he is now. Same ideas, same message, same vision. I wonder how well he would be doing now if he hadn't taken out that personal loan to fund his campaign. This leads to the irksome conclusion that maybe a person's financial assets matter just as much as his/her message and vision when running for public office. Obviously a well funded campaign can reach out to more people, but can we really expect people to come up with $6.4 million out of his/her own money to contribute to the campaign? And if some people can, and some can't, isn't it maybe an unfair advantage to those who can?

A little bird whispered into my ear that someone searching yahoo for "'Sierra Student Coalition' blog" found his or her way to this site. When I first learned this, I a wave of nervous anxiety rushed through me. After I got over that initial shock, my brain started rushing thoughts through my head at a million miles per hour: Why would someone search for a Sierra Student Coalition blogger? Who was this person? Did he or she find what he/she wanted on my blog? Does this person know me?

When I first started writing in this blog, I did not tell anybody I previously knew about it. I believe that most of you who read this only came to know me after I started blogging. By blogging, I hoped to break free of the "image" I carved out for myself. I wanted to tear away from the way people expected me to behave based on how they knew me. I badly needed the chance to express myself without the judgment of those who knew me. 

That's exactly what I found this blog and the people who read it. I can honestly write about my life, my thoughts, my feelings, and not be mocked or criticized. The chatty, funny, encouraging comments that you have all left me have showed me that there are people who won't expect me to say what they want to hear. That has been a huge boost for me.

So there is a clear reason that I did not want to tell anybody I previously knew, be it friends, family, teachers, whatever, about this blog. I did that partially because I just wanted to get away from them, to start out totally fresh, new, clean. So when I learned about someone in search of an SSC blogger making his or her way to my site, I freaked out. It was probably the closest I ever been to feeling the way a 12 year-old girl feels when her older brother reads through her private journal. I didn't want this person, who may very well know me or be able to find out more about me, to secretly read these entries and laugh at my attempt to be truer to myself, or worse yet, spread the word to other people I knew.

I'm still a bit uneasy about this and curious to know who that person is. But I've had a night to sleep on this issue, and if this person will ever read here again, I just want to say one thing, "Welcome." Welcome to you, and to everyone in the future who may know me and who stumbles upon this site uninvited. Feel free to read through my entries. Should you find yourself wanting to mock me or burn me, remind yourself that you have better things to do and go away. It would be nice if you leave a comment in the box below to say hi, or drop me an e-mail. Better to be friends than clandestine spies.

I was watching MTV's Total Request Live today for my daily dose of enlightenment, and who else appeared if not the most frequent visitor to the show--P. Diddy. The topic of today's PDRL was his new project, Citizen Change. I rushed to check out the website after the show for more info, but don't expect to find too much there...

So Diddy has now taken on the noble cause of trying "to educate, motivate and empower millions of young Americans to access their power and vote on November 2nd." He's non-partisan, non-profit, and he's got a whole machine of celebrities and sponsors supporting him on this.

I think it's great that someone like P. Diddy is trying to take this on, but I don't know. Every election year a bunch of initiatives pop up with a mission to mobilize throngs of "disenfranchised youth" to exercise their power at the polls. If my limited memory serves me right, none has been too successful. Who's to say this will be? Besides, has it struck anyone that there may be something about our very political process or social fabric that is getting in between youth and the voter booths? Try fixing that and see how many youth will turn out.

But you know what, I'm not too fond of immediate skeptics. This is a great cause, and I support it. Let's see how much of a difference massive celebrity support for this initiative along with Echo, Sean Jean, and Rock-a-wear (among other brand name) t-shirts with the slogan of "Vote or Die!" can make this time around.

In the meantime, if you're a citizen, get your ass registered to vote!

I didn't intend to stay up so late tonight, but in the process of surfing the web before hitting the sack, I came across something that's been on my mind ever since. I need to thank Sarah for bringing this to my attention--I read about it first on her blog.
 
A woman by the name of Annie Jacobsen published an article called Terror in the Skies, Again?. It's a first-hand account of some suspicious behavior she came across in a recent flight. I warn you, this article is long, but if you find this half as interesting as I did, you'll read it in a jiffy. The article bothered me so much, that I decided to do a search for "Annie Jacobsen" to read up more about this. Many people have questioned the article based on the elaborate details it offers. It may be embellished, but federal agencies back up much of her account rendering most criticism obsolete.
 
People, it seems like the whole internet is buzzing about this story! So much so that Annie Jacobsen wrote a follow up piece. Even the "mainstream media" is picking up on this story. MSNBC news aired a long segment on Scarborough Country where they interviewed Annie and her husband about their experience on the flight.
 
If you ever plan on flying, this directly affects you. Even if you don't fly, this could affect the security of the whole nation. This article brings back vivid memories from 9/11, and rekindles discussions that were sparked at the time. Are we still at risk, or just overly paranoid? Is political correctness necessary to promote fairness and equality, or is it making us blind and oblivious to real threats? Were those 14 Syrian men conducting a dry-run test to assemble a bomb during the flight, or were they doing something completely different and harmless?
 
I don't know, I'm not taking sides yet. But I do think that until we do make up our minds and take a stand, we must at least become aware of this issue.  

It's a wrap, but I don't feel too good about this one. I hugged my grandparents and cousin goodbye today as they took off to the airport, wrapping up almost two months of intense family-time together. A sense of tacit unease settled in as we stood together getting ready to say our goodbyes. My grandparents stood a cool couple of feet away from me, and looked at me for a few moments. I did the same trying to muster up a smile and find something to say. "I don't think he wants us to kiss him goodbye," my grandma mouthed aloud quietly.
 
Ouch, that hurt. The look on my face iced over. I didn't really know how to respond to that. My grandpa, who was standing behind my grandma, broke the awkward silence declaring, "well if you won't, then I will." He walked up to me and lay a prickly, goateed kiss on my cheek and gave me a hug. I smiled, that was a relief. Mechanically, my grandmother followed course. We hugged, but it wasn't the tight, long hug I grew so used to receiving from her. This one started as quick as it ended, and next thing I knew I was hugging goodbye my goofy little cousin.
 
We each walked away in our separate directions and that was that. I felt really bad about the way this all ended, and for that matter, the way the past two months went by. Previously, our goodbyes used to last for hours, or days in some cases. We'd spend gobs of time recounting all that we experienced together in the last visit, maybe indulging in some memories and family stories, and then summing things up with some words of wisdom, compliments, and wishes for the future.  This time around not much was said at all. It was short, cold, and distant. That kind of hurt.
 
The visit? Well, I'm glad my grandparents came, and I'm especially glad they brought along one of my little cousins this time. I appreciate the huge effort they made to come over, especially since we see each other so infrequently (last time was in December, and last time I saw the cousin was a year and a half ago), but this was a combination of bad timing and a lack of moderation.
 
My grandma flew in first. She arrived four days after I returned home from college. Pooped doesn't even begin to describe how I was feeling at that time. I was coming right out of a wildly crazy first year at college, 24 hours in which I had to pass 3 final exams and submit 25 pages of final papers, and then a three-day drive out of New York back to the northern Heartland. I figured it would take me the whole summer to recuperate from all of that, so suffice to say that after four days I was in no shape to start entertaining.

But it mostly fell on me. Since it was still mid-may, my sister was still in school during the day and working in the evening, and my parents both worked full days, too. Q. Guess who was left home with Grams 24/7? A. Moi. So I tried. I half rested, and half spent time with her. After a week of that, I took her on a week-long road trip to the Badlands and the mountains of South Dakota and Wyoming. It was exhilaratingly fun and fulfilling, but then again, y'all know how intense something like that can get.
 
June and July thus far were scattered with down-time at home, and trips. It was more of the same, but it chugged by confusingly at the speed of a heartbeat. It's like I've just been spit out of a surreal vortex where time stood still, but didn't at the same time. So here I am now, at 11:40pm on July 19th, over two months after I got home from college, although I feel like I could have very well just returned a couple hours ago.
 
So here I am, the same old wacko I was when I finished the school year but with one more piece of baggage to carry along with me. I don't feel great about the time I spent with my grandparents and cousin. Since I get to see them so seldom there was this insane pressure to make every second count. How do you do that for two months without going nuts?
 
I think the hardest thing about it all was just seeing how old my grandparents have become. I'm not just talking about age, I'm talking about their ability to function. They've become so forgetful, repeating the same questions they asked about a minute ago, and within five minutes forgetting almost everything you talked about. After two months of riding in our car they were still asking how to open the car door, or how to open the car window. It's been two months of hearing so many of the same stories, so many times, and by our last week together it seemed like we were still having the same conversation we had the day we met.
 
Well, I digress... the point I've been so long windedly trying to make is that I still feel like the same person I was two months ago--angry, depressed, confused, disoriented, and mostly, terribly burnt out. The idea is that now I have a month (exactly) to pick up the pieces and try to get the rest and relaxation and therapy I so adamantly tried to reserve this summer for.
 
The sad thing? I know how these things go... I left too much for too little time, and I'm sure plenty of distractions will pop up in this next month. Nevertheless, let my attempt to recharge my human batteries begin. Wish me luck, or something like that...

Most of you have probably had the chance to be annoyed at hearing someone really fortunate complaining about their fortunate situations. In my senior year at high school, the prime example was the kid who threw a huge tantrum because s/he couldn't decide whether to accept their admission to Harvard or Princeton. Oh please, who wants to listen to that when you got rejected from both schools, or when you didn't get into any college at all? And what about the stereotypical genius who freaks out about getting an A- instead of an A, while others are struggling to get a passing grade in the same course?
 
Well, anyway, I think you get my point. So here's my thing. I love to travel. I've always wanted to travel more, more, and more. For me, not much compares to the excitement of seeing new places and new faces. There's something humbling about seeing worlds totally different than mine. It disorients me, confuses me, fascinates me, and helps me put my life into perspective (sometimes?).  This year, it looks like my wish has come true. Or has it?
 
I kicked off the new year in a plane, flying from hot, sunny, warm Jamaica back home to the frozen, northern tundra of the USA. The way I spent new year's day seems to characterize this year because I've flown over 30 times since January 1st, 2004 (I stopped keeping track after I hit 30 sometime in June), and I still have a couple more flights lined up before 2005 rolls around. For a travel junkie like me, this should be heaven, right? Wrong! Obviously there's a difference between flying all over the place like a madman and actually taking the time to spend an enjoyable vacation where ever.
 
So here I am, probably for the first time in my life, complaining about traveling too much. I just got back from an intense rendez-vous with SoCal, which means that in the context of everything else going on, I'm definitely ready for 6 months of quiet and dullness at home.
 
But no, my grandparents and a cousin are visiting from overseas and they want to tour the whole country. So two days after getting back from California, I'm already gearing up to hit the road again. This time it's only a 3-day-weekend road trip to the Minnesota and Wisconsin shores of Lake Superior, which should be beautiful, but... well you know.
 
To their credit, they only "invited" me to join them--they didn't force me. And to my credit, I played all wishy-washy telling them I'd "think about it." But they have made sure to bring it up several times a day, and frankly they're leaving in less than a week. I don't quiet have the heart to brush off the last couple days I get to spend with them. They are from overseas, and it's not like I get to see them so often, and they are close family anyway.
 
So, I'm going to take a deep breath again, and pack my bags again, and let this blog fossilize a bit over the weekend again. Enjoy your weekend!

Gosh everybody! It was so nice to come back from a week away and see all those comments from you! It makes me want to go away for a week-long vacation after every entry I blog :P.

It was definitely good to out of the house and see some new places, new faces, but now that I'm back, I don't miss California too much. Aside from two days in San Diego, we stayed in a small, cheap (by CA standards I suppose) hotel on the border between Los Angeles and Hollywood. I've been to California before, but I don't think it ever made me feel so uneasy as it did this time.

Not to be so black and white, but to almost every story there's more than one side. So even LA, the city of stars and angels, has a dark, dirty flipside. If you're looking for some balance, LA is not the place to find it. It's like an intense roller coaster ride that rushes you from one extreme to the next. You've got the glitzy, exclusive shops, the multimillion dollar homes, the commercialized, commodified beaches, and the beautiful people who look like they've walked straight out of a movie set meshed with so many homeless people all dirty, wearing layers of old, ripped clothes, and begging for pennies from the drivers behind the Mercedes Benz, the BMW, and the Lexus.

So now that I'm back home, I'm saying goodbye for a while to Los Angeles and its double-deckered streets, and seven-lane highways that still aren't enough to relieve the mammoth traffic jams. I won't really be missing the hazy, yellow, polluted skies which, on a good day, obscure the rugged mountains that engulf the city. It's going to be good to get away from the mad-rush of tourists hoping to spot a celebrity, or all the young wide-eyes hoping to become one.

I don't know the whole city made me so dizzy I can't even figure myself out anymore.

So what do you do when it's been raining, gray, and cold for the past two days? You go to warm, sunny Southern California! Well, at least that's what I'm doing! That's right, so Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, Brad Pitt and all y'all down there make some room because I am coming to town!

Haha, just kidding. It's not that spontaneous. I'm going with my family to meet up with the extended family. It should be nice. The sad thing is that I will be gone for a week, and this blog might just fossilize in that time. Should you be bored, or whatever, here are a few people who might be able to supply you with your daily dose of quality bloggage while I'm gone :)

Wed: step into my parlour...
Thurs: dare i smile
Fri: Davenetics
Sat: Jus' Writin' Life
Sun: Jamalyn's Jovial Journal
Mon: Oh No Chicken Little...
Tues: I'm Not Joking...

There it is. One blog for each day I'm gone! Enjoy, have a good, sane week and be sure to check back next Wednesday!

With all the attention Fahrenheit 9/11 has gotten, a documentary explosion might be imminent. Or it might already be occurring. In a previous post, I postulated that someone could make a documentary showing the flipside to the story Moore puts forth. Well it looks like someone's taken it one step further, and is doing a documentary about the very Mr. Moore himself. And I don't think it's going to be a positive one...

Michael Moore Hates America (ouch) is the movie, and it's slated to hit theaters later this summer. I don't know. Should be interesting, to say the least. I really hope this doesn't get too ugly though. The last thing we need is for movie theaters to become the latest battleground.

This is going to be my first coy attempt at giving some advice through this blog. But because the country I live in seems to be in love with lawsuits, I'm going to forward this post with a disclaimer. Whatever I post here (and in all my other entries) are my opinions, with which you can agree or not. Anything you do after reading this is at your own risk, and you absolve me from any responsibility. Blah, blah, blah. Ugh, I hate disclaimers.

Anyway, after my nightmare with spyware, adware, torjans, and all other sorts of virtual nasties taking over my computer, I had to spend over a day trying to clean up my computer from all traces of these hard-drive polluters. In the hope that other people won't have to go through what I did, and in the hope of empowering people not to become powerless to the evil that is spyware, here are my findings...

First of all, don't assume you're safe just because you have an antivirus program. I have one, but my internet still went caput. In fact, spyware and the like aren't necessarily classified as viruses. They're bad, but they don't always actively destroy your computer. They can track your web activity. Some can record key-strokes, thereby recording passwords to your various accounts. Many are responsible for those nasty pop-ups that severely impair your websurfing experience, and some can actually change your computer settings (like your browser's homepage, etc.).

The first thing I did, which initially revealed the seriousness of the situation to me, was to start downloading software that searches for spyware on your computer. I downloaded and ran Spybot Search & Destroy, which turned up some 30+ spyware programs on my computer. The program can automatically delete them. I thought that was the end of it. But in reality that didn't solve my problems. I quickly realized that some spyware programs could automatically replant themselves after deletion...

I searched for and ran several other programs (like Bazooka Spyware Scanner and Lavasoft Ad-aware 6) to search and destroy all the spyware on my computer. That was a good idea, because each program turned up stuff that other programs didn't. The final solution, however, did not come from downloading zillions of programs.

I ended up going to the Microsoft website. I figured that since security compromises in their software were part the reason I got into this mess in the first place, they might have some suggestions to get me out of this mess... They did. This Microsoft website referred me to another website called Pest Patrol. Pest Patrol can scan your computer for free and then will actually show you the location of malignant files on your computer. They want you to purchase their software in order to remove those files, but if you have the patience, you can look up the files they found and delete them on your own... It takes forever to do, but that's what finally got rid of all the junk in my computer's trunk.

I hope this helps a bit. I know it's a lot of info. I wish I could simplify it, but the honest truth is that it took me at least five hours to figure this all out and solve the problem, which shows how out of control this can get. If anything, I'd suggest that you download some free program that will scan your computer for spyware and then destroy it. That's my advice. Take it or leave it, but either way, for the sake of your sanity, protect your computer!

I HATE SPYWARE!!!! I hate all the crud that sneakily implants itself onto your hard-drive and then screws up your whole computer!! For the past couple of weeks I have been plagued by an obscene amount of pop-ups. Every time I click a link, open a new browser, or even close internet explorer I am inundated with pop-ups. I can take it for a while, but ultimately it just drives me nuts!!

This evening when I opened internet explorer, a different page showed up instead of my usual homepage. Not only that, it was accompanied by a couple pop-ups. They all mentioned something about my computer having spyware, which is ironic since spyware itself is responsible for those pop-ups. Anyway, one window featured several pairs of cartoon parasites in a series of outrageous positions-- 69, doggy, missionary, oh lordy go figure. And the text in that window read something like, "your computer has been parasitized." Well, duh.

Anyway, that was all I needed to see. To feel powerless to a bunch of cartoon crickets going at it was going to be my last draw. I decided to fight this time. I downloaded a bunch of spyware searchers and destroyers, which swept my computer and deleted a bunch of junk. But it didn't fix my internet problem. Everytime I set my homepage back to Yahoo!, the spyware website and all its accompanying pop-ups showed up instead. I wanted to tear all my hair out with frustration!!!

So I got extreme. I downloaded Netscape, and then proceeded to completely delete internet explorer from my computer. Then I redownloaded internet explorer. Things were messed up at first, but finally now at 3:45am, after too many hours of fighting nasty computer bugs. I think I managed to set things straight for the time being. Oh goodness. Why do I feel like this isn't my last battle against internet junk? But for now it's time for a good night's victory-nap.