More to Life

Dear Aunty,

I feel foolish writing this letter to you now. For one, it is just too late. You're gone. Secondly, you don't really know any English, so why am I writing this in English, even if you would ever get to read it..? English wouldn't help. Well, I don't know where to begin, so I'll just do my best to spew out whatever I'm thinking somewhat coherently.

I found out about your death earlier this week. Or maybe it was over the weekend, or late last week. I don't really remember. It was over an e-mail that my mom sent me, I think. But I was so busy, and wrapped up in my own little world, and my own problems, that I totally glossed over your death and didn't take a second to pause and think about what that meant. I'm so ashamed about that, I'm so sorry.

But tonight, after I had turned off the computer, and once I was ready to go to bed, thoughts drifted through my mind as they normally do before I end a day. You came to mind. And I stopped, and I gasped, and I realized what it meant, that you are gone...

I'm sad that I didn't get to spend any time with you over the past couple years, almost ten. I remember seeing you over grandma's house a lot. On weekends, for Friday night dinners. You were there, you were family. When people broke out the deck of cards, you were always up for a good game, and if you weren't playing and beating everyone, you were always eager to watch. You used to smoke a lot. I didn't like that so much, but everyone in your generation in our family seemed to smoke, so I can't really blame you.

Well, then a year before we left to America, I stopped seeing you. After catching on to the fact that you weren't around for extended family dinners, I started to wonder. I missed you, I wondered why such a frequent guest turned into a constant no-show. I was 11 years old. I asked about you, and all the adults crumpled their faces at me. They said, "oh," and "well," but no one really explained. With time I found out that you got into a big fight with grandma, or something like that, and since grandma was pretty much the only person who kept the family together, you were out. (I've always been a bit upset at Dad for not maintaining our connections to his side of the family).

I wanted to see you again, and I wanted to hear your hoarse voice again, and watch you sit around a deck of cards, and be in your company. But at 11 years old, I didn't know what to do. I let it be known that I send you my warmest regards and that I want to see you again, but the adults didn't ever make that happen.

But then we moved to America. And we only came back to visit the family for short two short visits, and I think things between you and grandma, your sister-in-law, still weren't so good, so I never got to see you. But all of a sudden, this past year grandma started talking about you over our occassional international phone calls. She said you were sick. You had a stroke, maybe a couple. You weren't doing well, that's what I remember. Apparently grandma finally came around, and in your last couple months of living, she decided to take care of you. I was happy about that, but sad that you weren't doing well, and sad that we hadn't seen each other in 9 years.

And then grandma called again. And she said you had a really bad stroke. It paralyzed you. You couldn't move. It took your voice from you. You were almost like a vegetable. The doctors told grandma that it was over, you couldn't even understand what people were saying to you anymore. Your brain was fried. But grandma vehemently disagreed with the doctors. She said the doctors were lying, and she brought the doctors and the nurses to your room in the hospital and started talking to you. "Hi, can you hear me," she said to you in front of the doctors. You blinked and tried to move your head. "Your hair is messy and it needs to be colored again. I will bring someone to fix your hair for you," my grandma continued. You tried to move your lips and nod your head, but you couldn't speak a word. Grandma took that as a sign that you were still alive and beating, and just as human as ever. The doctors said you were over.

But you weren't. You lived for a couple more months. But you didn't get much better. I don't think you could ever talk again. I don't think you could ever move again. All I remember is when I asked about you, grandma said that you weren't doing well... and that was that. And this past week you died.

I feel foolish writing this to you, because when I talked to my dad, your nephew, on the phone tonight, I told him that I have really fond memories of you. He was surprised for a second, thinking I was too young to even remember you. But I remember you. I remember you well, and I'm so sad you never had a chance to watch me grow up, and for me to watch you grow old.

I never knew much about you, but apparently you never had an easy life. You grew up in a pretty small town, but apparently just because everyone knows everyone doesn't mean everyone is nice to everyone. On the phone tonight dad blurted out that you had an abusive husband. I had never heard that before. You were always so full of happiness that I never thought you carried with you such a heavy burden. Dad hesitated when I exclaimed in shock. He mentioned that your husband used to beat you a lot, but then he changed the subject and we didn't talk about you anymore. I guess even though I'm 19, I'm still the kid, and the adults still feel like they have to shield me from the ugly.

Aunty, I'm going through a hard time right now. I know the fact that you're gone isn't a big change in my life since I hadn't seen you for almost half of my life. But somehow, knowing you're alive, I always clung onto the hope that we could still meet again some day. All the warm memories I had of you, I just wanted them to come to life one more time... The table covered with cards. The black coffee, the pistachios, maybe even the smoke that you could never let go of. Your deep voice, your generous laughter. Your big nose, and your heart that was even bigger...

I'm so sorry you're gone, and for the rest of my life I will miss you. I wish you had a better life while you were here on earth. I wish things could be simple and make sense. I wish I got to spend more time with you. I wish I got to say goodbye.

I will love you forever, and in my small, beating heart you will always remain alive.

Love,
Amir

I want to drop out of college right now because I feel like I'm wasting my life here. I'm bored as hell with my classes, I'm frustrated with them. I understand everything, but I can't solve anything.

I want to drop out because college is over-rated. This place is a shit-hole, and I'm so sick of everything. I'm sick of the ivy league professors who are supposedly the best in their field, so they think they have earned the right to an elitest attitude. I'm sick of the students who think they're so great because now they're ivy leaguers. I'm sick of the rich snobs who got here because of their money. I'm sick of the legacy snobs who are here because their whole friggin family line can be traced to this school. I'm sick of the dumb jocks who get admitted here for being good at sports, smart at nothing, and still loose almost all of our games. I'm sick of the smokers who think they're so cool standing outside of every entrance stinking up my air (if they only knew what smoking put my family through).

I'm sick of the drunks who drink alcohol like it's water and their life depends on it. I'm sick of the hos (guys and girls) who fuck around so much you'd think they're getting paid for it. I'm sick of walking between classes and seeing bitter faces, people looking the other way, and pretending I don't exist. I'm sick of the administration that gives me an attitude everywhere I go because they're always right and I'm always wrong. I'm sick of my roommate who never leaves the room and rarely budges from the computer. I'm sick of my nasty jail cell I'm supposed to call a room. I'm sick of my nasty old dorm where shit flushes out of the toilet instead of down. I'm so sick of this place, I want to puke, barf, and vomit till all this negativity has leaves my system.

I'm sick of the damn clubs which advertise themselves as "come join us so you can do this, this, and this." When in reality, you join a club and get ignored more than anything else. Rarely do people care what you think if you're soft spoken and shy like me. The big blabber mouths, who have an opinion about everything (mind you, usually negative) and mouth off at every possible chance, are heard. For some reason they're taken seriously. TAKEN SERIOUSLY!!!

So today, when someone leafletting in the plaza shoved a piece of paper into my hand to join a club, I glanced at it briefly as I kept on walking. "Concert commission, come join us and bring your favorite bands to campus." Bull f*ing shit. Come join us so you can hear a bunch of big headed people dictate for everyone what music people like and who we should therefore bring to perform. Come join us so you can tell us who you like to listen to and be totally glossed over, like get a life, no one listens to that.

In an angry, fed-up fury, I ripped up the neon green paper into as many tiny pieces as I possibly could. It was passing time, the sidewalks were crowded with students, and I hesitated. If a policeman were around would I get in trouble? I scanned the area briefly, and in a moment of letting-go, I tossed all the tiny pieces of neon green paper into the air. They fluttered and twisted in the air and slowly fell to the ground behind me as I marched forward. Some people glance, surprised, confused. I felt cleansed. Such an awful thing, yet the highlight of my day, and it felt great.

Here is an excerpt from a letter I wrote a couple days ago to a dear friend of mine. It's not so often that I take a second to reflect upon where I've gone and where I'm doing. Or, during the rare occasions when I do, I'm usually far from any computers, paper, or tape recorder to record what I was thinking. So here's a rare moment that I've managed to capture, and I'll probably be revisiting...

"I guess that the other big "change" in my life or worldview is that I see my long and (at times) very fruitful journey with environmental advocacy coming to an end. Though I still care deeply about the issues, I am no longer able to be involved in them in the same passionate capacity as I was during the Cleaner Bus campaign in Minnesota. I've climbed so high up the leadership ladder on the national level that now I spend almost all of my time on conference calls, bureaucratic committees, and boom-and-bust conferences. AsI learn more about the movement and the big environmental organizations, I also find myself unable to play by the rules of their game, or see eye to eye with them on some important issues. I had hoped that by taking on more serious leadership roles, I would be receiving dozens of e-mails from excited students across the country whom I would be able to guide and advise. Instead, I am receiving dozens of e-mails daily about (boring) conference calls, notes, plans, and other things that zap one's energy but yield little, if any, results.

My environmental work took me very far, from gracing the covers of Teen People alongside Hilary Duff, to meeting Ben Affleck, and to meeting the Democratic Presidential candidates and urging them to support clean energy. It has been exciting and impressive and has done a good job at making my head spin. However, if I am ever remembered for something, I don't want it to be for meeting Ben Affleck and shaking John Edward's hand several times. I'd want it to be for inspiring other people and helping them make a difference in their lives.

The past couple years have been a true whirlwind for me, high, low, and spinning fast. As silly as it sounds at my young age, I feel like I am now ready to hit the "game over" button and take a break. I am now working on wrapping up my responsibilities with the environmental coalitions I took part in. This semester I'm taking it (relatively) easier than in the past. I think it's time to detox from years of overstimulation. I'm very much looking forward to devoting more time to myself and to discovering more about myself than I know right now. I have no idea as to what kind of a person I will emerge once things calm down, but I am looking forward to finding that out."

If you're curious for some more perspective, venture here, here, and here.

That I think too much. Or at least that's what my TA said to me when I came to get help on a problem set. If blogger didn't fail on me last night, you would have learned that I spent four hours last night in the library working on one problem set, which I didn't even manage to finish. Frustrating to say the least. But when I went to office hours all the hopelessness dissipated. I had done everything I needed to do. The teacher didn't even know the answers to my questions. I think about things too much.

I've heard that a million times from a million people. So my way apparently isn't the right way. I think too much, people don't have the answers, people don't want to be bothered, so just shut up and keep it simple. Keeping it simple has its virtues, but we're never going to push the enveloppe and grow and evolve and make real changes if we keep everything so simple all the time.

I look at all the people around me. Save the few undecideds, which are fewer that we think, everyone's got some plan in college. He wants to be a doctor. She's going to be an earth scientist. They're going to be journalists, businessmen, pyschologists. And I look at them, and most people have no f*in clue what they're doing or the meaning of what they're studying. They're at office hours because they're just trying to get the remotest grasp of what the heck they're supposed to know.

And me? I have no clue what I want to do, who I want to be, but I know too much, and no one wants to be bothered with someone like that.

Ahh, this one goes out to blogger. You guys, I love you for hosting my blog for free, but sometimes I feel like you cause me as much grief as joy. I just finished typing up an entry, and when I clicked publish I got some crazy error page. When I hit "back" to re-publish the post, the post was completely gone, but the title still appeared in the "Title" field.

This is the second time this has happened to me this week. It's such a huge bummer because after pouring out whatever's on my mind, the biggest catharsis is hitting that publish button knowing that I've officially recorded my thoughts--they're there and they won't get lost. Well, that is, unless the publishing doesn't work and the entry gets lost in the process!

Aww, you guys... :)

Do you ever get that feeling? My day was reasonably relaxing. I worked pretty hard, and I don't need to be up till 3 a.m. doing homework. I finished all of my pressing assignments, and now I just feel like relaxing. But I've spent at least the past half hour doing exactly that. I've reached the point where I don't really have much else to do in terms of relaxing (which, for me, usually means aimlessly surfing the net), but I can't seem to wrap it up and go to bed.

If I would go shower and hit the sack now, I'd get 8 hours of sleep. That's awesome for a day when I have to wake up earlier than usual. But I'm sitting here, and I don't feel like moving or doing much. In the back of my mind I have an unarticulated idea of something I want to do. On the tip of my fingers I'm feeling there's something I could write or some destination to click to. On the tip of my tongue there's something really great that I want to say.

But I don't know what it is, I don't know what any of those things are. So instead, I'm just sitting around and hoping that maybe, in my idleness, the biggest light bulb will turn on in my head, and that then I'll be inspired and motivated and I'll get a move-on. Or is it just the inertia of years of sleepless nights, of working into the wee hours of the morning, that's keeping me up--because that's what's normal, what's familiar?

I used to interpret these moments as moments of sheer inspiration. Like, wow, there are so many problems in this world, and now I have time, and right now I'm going to work on solving them. So I would use this time to do research, or write letters, or create brochures, or plan things. That got me into Teen People, but it's not taking me any further. Like it's time to outsmart, to reinvent, to figure out a new way to do something meaningful.

After that slightly uplifting post yesterday, I think that I'm back to my "regular" self. Although, I can't really argue that since I'm actually being sort of "social," which is somewhat of a departure from the norm. I've been running into people on campus I know, and granted they're like the same 10 people, but hey, with time they introduce you to their friends and you introduce them to yours, and (maybe) within a couple weeks those ten people will turn into 20? Eh, I don't know.

It's good though, in a way. I can sense the "improvement," but, well, I don't know if that's what I should call it. I go back and remember the weeks upon weeks I'd eat dinner alone last semester--not because I wanted to, but because I didn't really have anyone to eat with. And now? I think I've only had dinner alone twice this week. Maybe even once? That's crazy. Weird.

But how am I being "social?" Aside from dinners and chatting, I'm making some plans. Tonight I went to see a movie with two friends. Tomorrow I'm going with some friends to hear Aaron Brown from CNN give a lecture about covering 9/11 and the elections. I'm kind of excited about that. Keeping busy, I guess.

But after a week's worth of dabbling in this social stuff-business, I'm getting a bit overwhelmed and a little frustrated. You know, it's only a matter of time before people start inviting me out to do things I don't really want to do (like go to parties and get drunk, etc), or before people invite me to various fundraisers for whatever clubs they're in (and hoping I'll dish out some pretty pennies). And it's annoying because I don't want to turn people down, but I don't really want to fake it either.

Tonight I went to see the movie Saved! starring Mandy Moore, Jena Malone, Macaulay Culkin, among others. Originally I was just going to go with 'Ellen,' a girl I met last year. We never really hung out too much, but one day this week we ran into each other. She suggested we see a movie. I blurted that we should see Saved! and that was that. She suggested we invite 'Lyon' a mutual friend of ours, so I gladly did. Little did I remember how good of friends the two of them are. So it was awkward. They were chatting the whole time, and the night I was supposed to spend with Ellen turned out to be the night Lyon got to spend with Ellen. And she came late, and she left right after the movie, and night was over and I was kind of bummed.

The movie also sort of stirred up some old, unpleasant memories for me... So, I went back to my dorm feeling kind of crummy. Another friend of mine called and asked if I wanted to go to bowling with a bunch of his friends, but I just wasn't in the mood to go out anymore. Much less to be social and meet lots of people--that kind of thing tends to zap my energy (welcome to the world of an introvert). Eh. I feel bad, too, because this is the second time in a row I've turned him down, and I feel like the number of times he will take a polite "no thanks" or "I'm doing something else" excuse from me is getting to be pretty limited.

It's funny how one crummy experience can just lead to a landslide of them. So my Friday night is over early. What an anticlimactic way to end such an intense week. I'm still wondering if I should have gone bowling anyway. Hmmph.

Today was another wonderfully gray, rainy day. Actually, the day started out with no rain at all, but the clouds were dark and heavy. Still, I managed to go to all my classes till 2 p.m. without a drop of liquid falling on me. I was happy about it and hoped that it would stay that way. My reasons for not wanting rain were a bit more than the usual. I had an outdoor field lab for 2 hours and 45 minutes.

You probably know where I'm going with this. So the minute my outdoor lab started, it started to drizzle. Whatever, that was bearable, but within minutes it turned into a complete downpour. As I stood there under my umbrella (which did no good in keeping me dry) trying to make out what the professor is talking about, I found myself thinking that I should be feeling totally miserable. Aside from getting soaked, and being in no mood to do a lab outside under these conditions, I was worried that my calculator, cellphone, and Ipod wouldn't make it through nearly 3 hours of intensive liquid bombardment.

I was physically there as raindrop after raindrop wet my shoes, my socks, my pants and my bag, and as the professor yacked on, but mentally I was probably a couple light years away. I found myself thinking that now--when part of me wants to scream "misery!"--would be a good time to count my blessings. So that's what I did: I have a wonderful family. I'm fortunate enough to go to a great (in some respects...) school. As much as I hate my dorm, I have a bed, and a roof above my head, and a place to shower. I have uhm... a meal plan, so I never go hungry. I'm healthy, and I'm fortunate enough to have a bunch of other things going for me.

Phew, that was good. It's so easy to get carried away when you're feeling down, and it's so easy to find a million things to complain about. But I guess it's also important to also take a moment to recognize that as bad as things may be, the end of the world isn't even around the corner. As No Doubt puts it, "...and when it's really bad, I guess it's not that bad." :)

The headline in my college newspaper today is, "Students Charged With Illegal Taping." My first hunch was that it had something to do with the ongoing media copyright wars. I got a hold of a copy of the newspaper during breakfast, and I read the article...

Apparently two frat boys are in trouble because they were caught taping a couple having sex without the couple's consent. The frat wants to make it clear that the fact they did this has nothing to do with their membership in the fraternity. Oh dare we even insinuate such an idea? Aside from the few academic/community service ones, frats are known to be oh-so-responsible and respectful.

I don't know how long this link will work, but if you want to read the article, give it a try.

Of the many blogs I read, there seems to be a trend lately to post much less, if at all. Almost no one's been visiting this blog lately, either. I guess it just figures. When people need people to listen the most, they just happen not to be there.

Jumping off a bridge appears to be the suicide method of choice around here. "Ithaca is gorges" read way too many t-shirts around here. Since my campus is in Ithaca, we have a few gorges of our own. They're deep, narrow river valleys that cut through the campus. To get around them, the geniuses around here built a couple bridges. It makes for an awesome walk and a cool view. Looking down from a bridge, the river is quite a distance below. In some cases there are little waterfalls. In one case there's a really big waterfall right beside a bridge. After a rainfall you can get wet just walking past it.

Every year, or every couple years, several students jump off one of the many bridges on campus and take their lives along with them. It's dramatic. It's shocking. It's so public and everyone can see if the police don't get to the scene fast enough. It's incredibly, terribly, depressingly tragic.

I don't think I've ever considered jumping off one of the bridges or committing suicide at all, but tonight I was feeling a bit more down than usual. At 11:30 p.m. I packed my bag with some homework, grabbed my hat, filled up my water bottle, snuck my Ipod into my pocket, and left the room. I walked to the bridge on the south edge of campus and I stood leaning against the railing of each side for several minutes, listening to the sound of the water and watching a small trickle of people passing me by. I was thinking about all the generations of students who had taken their lives by jumping off this bridge, and how bridge jumping is such a big deal on campus here. I watched some people look at me funny, and I wondered if they were wondering if they'd wake up the next day to a headline in the daily college newspaper, "Student Jumps of Bridge, Takes His Life."

I trekked the length of campus from south to north where I arrived at two bridges near the more impressive waterfall on campus. It was dark, chilly, windy, but not too sinister. I was listening to Avril Lavigne sing, "It's a damn cold night, trying to figure out this life..." When I got to the bridge closer to the waterfall, I leaned against the cold, metallic railing. It looked higher to me than last year. I felt caged and I wondered what the reason behind the new, high fence was. Let's cage people to prevent them from jumping, trap them even more. There's no way out.

I walked through a small stretch of woods, and it was already past midnight. The smell of the trees and raw soil was particularly strong tonight. As I walked through the woods, I thought about the freshman girl who was raped right around here last year, around this same time of the year, around this same time of day. I got back to the campus and made my way down the sidewalk I used to walk down every morning last year on my way to class. It took on a whole new feeling in the dark and without the throngs of sleepy students making their way to class. Every once in a while I walked past another person heading back up to the North Residential campus. No one looked my way. I wondered what they were doing around here. Just returning from the library? Hooking up with a teacher or a TA late at night? Who parties on Monday nights?

I walked up to the roof of the library cafe where there are several large concrete benches. I lied down on one of them, and it felt so soothing to just look at the sky and listen to my music. I got a bit nervous about it being dark and nobody around, so after two songs I got up and came to the library, and here I am. I've been writing a bunch of my posts from the library lately. I really can't stand my room, or my dorm. I miss my friends, but then again, I don't know who to miss, I never really had many at all.

What makes me want to barf about this place sometimes are the stark hypocricies that are in your face but people pretend not to notice, or not to care. What's been on my mind lately are the people, the aura, the legacies, the eliteness, the wealth, the snottiness, the immaturity, the disgracefulness.

I got invited to go to a frat party this Saturday. I didn't know if I should take it as a compliment, or as an insult, so I just took it as a matter of fact. Already a year of college had gone by and I had never even set foot in one such party. A friend of mine invited me. To be polite, and also because I thought it would be nice to dance my worries off of me for a bit, and maybe to meet new people, I told him that I'd like to come.

Then he asked me if I drink, and I said I don't.

Oh.

At this point, he politely suggested that I not come. I guess it's just not cool to hang out with sober people anymore.

And that's what bothers me, and so maybe now excuse me because I'm about to climb onto my soapbox and mouth off. What's wrong with people these days? It seems like more and more people are equating fun with getting drunk. Is that fun? I don't know. I can't say I've ever tried, so maybe I'm not one to be talking. But I've seen drunk people, and I have all too good of a sense of where things go and what this leads to. So why? People tell me that they like getting drunk because it helps them ease up and meet people. Oh lordy what have we come to now if our friendships are formed on drunken encounters? Is this the best we can do? Is this how a whole generation of people is going to begin relating to others?

I hear about social, but I only see antisocial. It's like if you're not drunk you don't have a reason to meet people anymore. Being drunk is the only way to meet people. It's so sad it drives me up the wall. You walk around campus and everyone's either frowning at you or looking the other way. Dang, are we that offended by sober people now, too? We gotta walk around and give each other a sour attitude?

I'm sad to report that, in my limited view, the distinction between the craziest party school and the "toughest ivy league to get out of" has nearly approached nil. Let's work hard, let's party hard. What ever happened to moderation? Let's slack our asses off and then cram till the last second. Let's get high till we float and let's come crashing down the next day when it's all over. Let's get so drunk so we can have fun and be social and meet people only to wake up the next day so hung over and not remembering the person you were making out with for half an hour last night. Let's have casual sex with the first person willing because we're so horny, and let's do it again and again, and let's make babies and abort them one by one. Let's use each other because it feels good, and let's do it as much as possible so we never feel the pain and what it means when, for once, we're trying to be real. Let's act like it's a race, like no one else matters except for ourselves. Let's be selfish, egotistical, ugly inside but as beautiful as we can be outside. Let's cover ourselves with a thin layer of plastic and lies that smell good and look good and sound good. Let's compete, let's stress. Let's not fight, so we'll have sex as much as we can with as many as we can because that's love, right? Let's spread the love.

I came back from dinner and marched into my room in a fury. I tossed my German textbook, three notebooks, and a calculator in my backpack. I grabbed my cell phone, made sure I had my keys and wallet, tossed on an old, gray raggedy sweater with a white hoodie and stormed out of the room as quickly as I entered. September 5, 2004, and I'm wearing a sweater. So the winter's starting early this year.

I tried making phone calls to a few friends with whom I wanted to talk, in whom I could confide because I needed a friendly voice on the line and I needed an ear that would listen. No one answered, so I kept climbing the steep hill leading up to main campus. I felt the cool wind blowing strongly and flapping the left side of my hoodie against my face. I got to the top of the hill and walked to edge of the steepest part.

I could see the rain rolling in between the eroded mountains. To the south, the small passageway between the ancient hills was covered in a dense gray obscurity. To the north I could see Cayuga Lake, narrow and long, nestled between two hills. In the middle, in the valley I could see the small city of Ithaca, renowned for its "charm," its friendliness towards small businesses and the last of the hippies. On the southern edge of the city, I could see the new developments, a Wal-Mart, a K-Mart, an Office Max, a Barnes and Noble. Just beyond the developments I could see the last traffic jam leading out of the city. I watched it, red, and I saw it turn green. I followed the gray road past the dot of green and watched it blend in with the ominous clouds in the distance. I could smell the rain coming.

She's Palestinian and I'm Israeli, probably the last two people you'd expect to see friends these days. We met sometime last year. She was living next to a girl in my writing seminar with whom I'd become friendly. Quickly after she heard my name, she asked if I was Arab. Between my dark brown hair and brown eyes and Arabic-sounding name, she wasn't so far off. But, no, I told her, my name was Hebrew. I remember the awkward silence that settled in quickly when we learned about each other's nationalities. Her lips tightened, and I could feel my heartbeat rise for a second.

But I smiled, and she smiled, and I said, "Oh well, whatever, we can still be friends." And she said definitely, and so it was. We ran into each other a couple times last year, and everytime we met she was really friendly, and we had great conversations. I don't think we ever really talked about the conflict. In a sense it was better that way. There was so much tension in the Middle East back then, I don't know if we could agree on anything. So instead, we found other things we could agree about.

A couple days after I moved back to school this year, we bumped into each other again. She was particularly friendly this time. She greeted me with a warm hug, she gave me her phone number, called be names like "babe" and "hon," and gave me a hug when we said goodbye. We've spoken on the phone twice and we ran into each other a couple times since then. It's been great.

Today, during an hour break between my classes, I stumbled into the library cafe. I was really just looking for a comfy chair so I could sit down and bust out the bagel and cream cheese I packed for breakfast. As soon as I stepped into the cafe I heard someone calling my name. After looking around for a bit, I spotted her with another one of her friends I had already met. I sat down with the two of them and we chatted for a while.

I noticed that she was wearing a pretty golden necklace because the golden thing dangling from it had such an unusual shape. It looked like a flat ship, or a disfigured boot. I didn't really get it. She kept on moving so the necklace kept dangling and I couldn't get a good view. When she finally sat still for a while, I could make out the shape of the necklace. It was a map of Israel (though she might beg to differ). Oh okay, that's nice, I thought, though feeling uneasy about it. My first reaction was to see if the Palestinian Territories were demarcated on country, but there was nothing of the sort. In the middle of the country, though, I did spot a little square. I squinted and fixed my eyes on the necklace, and then I saw it: three strips, and a red triangle. It was the Palestinian flag.

I was shocked, confused, insulted, and a million other things. So what was she trying to show with that necklace? Is she conveying that the whole country should belong to the Palestinians? Why was this a map of all of Israel and not one of the Palestinian Territories? I wanted to ask her those questions, and make her consider my point of view, too.

But then I thought, bringing up something like this would be like tearing open a healing wound and sprinkling salt all over it, for both of us. The whole conflict over there is so ugly, was it really worth letting that destroy our budding friendship? Sure, we could argue about it, and get mad at each other, but ultimately, the two of us wouldn't have the power to even make a dent in the conflict. So why let it make a dent in our friendship?

Besides, maybe, after all, in our own little way, by putting our differences aside and seeing each other as human beings, not enemies, we were doing our own little bit in putting an end to an ugly war.

Tonight I am blogging from the University library. If you read on you'll find out why...

Poor guy. Apparently after he finished doing his business, he wanted to flush the toilet, but instead of going down, the water went up. I can only imagine his reaction as the water full of his shit flooded out of the toilet and all over the dorm's bathroom floor.

A couple minutes later, I went to the bathroom, where I could not avoid stepping all over the disastrous outcome as I made my way to a stall. Oh gross. I decided that I've had enough with this dorm for today, so I packed up a bag-full of homework and made my way up to main campus.

With that image in mind, I had a tough time swallowing my dinner tonight. On the other hand, I had a really good, big dinner. I haven't eaten too much in a while, so yay for a good meal.

You guys, there is a guy a couple computers down from me who was surfing porn. All of a sudden I saw boobies on his monitor! Is that allowed in a library?

This scene is so familiar to me. It's very close to 1 a.m. and I just finished my homework. It's not because I had so much, I just didn't really want to do it, so I put it off a little too much. I had a really busy day actually. I guess it's my first busy day since I got here. Aside from my four classes, it was my first day at work. I'm going to work at the same place I did last year, teaching elementary school kids, but more on that later. After that I had to attend a reception for a special program in my university to which I was admitted this summer.

The program is called the college scholar program. Each year, the school admits 40 students who just finished their freshman year into this program. It's competitive, it requires some work (a proposal, letter of recommendation, and supporting materials), but it's so worth. I had been eyeing this program well before I ended high school, and I was lucky enough to have been admitted this summer. The perk is that for these 40 students, almost all graduation requirements are waived. No general eds, no distribution requirements. We're even waived from the requirement to declare a major. Aside from having to accrue a certain amount of credits and complete a project about a topic of our choice, we're pretty much free birds.

So tonight, all 40 of us got together along with our academic Dean and a couple of the faculty members on the board. We had the obligatory go-around, where every student had to say "1 sentence" about the project/field they're interested in. Of course I cheated, there's no way I can define myself or my interests in 1 sentence. I think I may have even muttered 3.

Anyway, maybe this is just me, but what struck me so much is that almost every student's project stayed very safely within the confines of "standard academia." Politics, government, international relations, human rights, agriculture, cultural studies, various philosophical theories, psychology, yada, yada, yada. Don't get me wrong. I'm not mocking these kids. They're super motivated, and dang smart. But with a chance like this to really break free, you'd thing they'd really push the envelope, be edgy, controversial, pose probing questions, investigate their very own lives...

So my turn came along, and well, I'm not that conventional, so the conventional academic fields that exist didn't help me (as much as they helped other students) to define my project in one sentence. I said that I want to study how society and all the systems associated with it (government, economics, education...) are changing with modernization. I want to focus on the effects this changing society is having on teenagers and college-aged students, particularly with regard to stress. The twist is, that I want to present my understandings in the form of creative non-fiction stories (as opposed to a research paper).

There you have it. My job description for the next couple years. I'm going to be knocking on your door and finding out why you're so tired, depressed, frustrated, stressed or unhappy. I'm going to be questioning the universities and seeing how much they care for their students versus how much they care for their endowments and prestige. I'm going to be turning and inquisitive eye on our political system to see how much our democracy is really about empowering people, and looking out for the common good. I'm going to be looking at how education and business is changing, how everything seems to become more and more competitive. All that stuff is only a backdrop to my real interest: what toll is this changing society having on us? What is the human price we pay for living the way we do?