A serial vantage point

I passed this sight on the interstate in my car, and it nearly ran me off the road. Isn't that a gorgeous view?

I don't know what it is about pictures like these, but if I stare at them long enough, inevitably I feel wanderlust creep into my veins.

Read the perilous future

Wiry sinews draped in dust
till the fields, scatter the pores
The hoary temple slumps in the mist
Wet black eyes and pointed ears
guard nothing and point to your weakness
All those who came before haunt their gaze
reflections rippled with a tremulous reach
as prodigal dreams drip doleful shame

Fear their honor, ache in guilt
Don't let them sustain your descent.

Those fitted jeans, those tailored shirts
that milky white belt with its steely rings
Light pours forth from its silhouette
Austere countenance and regal gait
reveal the stark difference in stature
Each and every one an ideal
whispering desire and rapture unrequited
as meager senses drown in reality

Mourn your worth, reject your pride
Don't let them kill your love.

Words and code rounded in anathema
trace the thicket of your fallow life
Dusk settles in with a sleepy haze
Idle hands and furious mind
hurtle toward the death of imminent certainty
Nothing can escape but everything has vanished
grasping and clutching for familiar ground
as horizons shift in ambivalent birth.

Possess your shame, bask in release
Don't let them decide your fate.

I'm going to China to escape my problems. Finally nomading again, right? Don't worry, they'll be waiting for me when I return in 2 weeks.

Fluttering wings of disquiet

Today, I woke up at 7:30AM.
I brushed my teeth, took a shower, and wiped my face down with astringent.
I put on my "nippy weather" clothes, untangled my iPod, and headed out the door.
I went to French and sat through a review of the past, imperfect, and pluperfect tenses.
I went to Empirical Methods and aced Quiz #3.
I went home and made mushroom couscous and sautéed spinach for lunch.
I met with my adviser to discuss and coordinate my summer and fall course schedule.
And I am now in the AIESEC office, doing not much of anything as I wait for my Accounting class at 6PM.






...I wish I were nomading.

Vicariism in a bottle

I don't think I'll be able to maintain any kind of interest in the primaries anymore, especially since my state is over and done. I've suddenly made the realization that this whole thing is like the previews before the movie... seriously, who cares? When the two candidates are finally selected and finally get to the real meat of their campaign platforms, I'll pay attention again.



Hillary won Florida. I can't say I'm too surprised. And for the record, I'm not calling her by her first name because of some misogynistic agenda. Every time I hear "Clinton" I think of Bill, so this is my way of differentiating between the power couple.



Alas, Edwards is out of the race. He didn't even win South Carolina, his home state. No word yet on who he's endorsing. I'm hoping he gets the Vice President slot when that time comes.

Shanky's on the long road to Kenya. But the long road has also been good to him. Check him out.

I'm so jealous.

My makeshift safari

Went out on the town last night with Gina. Ran into Sumeet, Saie, Nick, and Naya. Good times.

However, being in such a provincial town as G'ville made me really appreciate the AIESEC way of life. I couldn't wait to get back to Atlanta.

But! Some interesting things I ran into that night.



Guess who. And it was handcrafted too. We ended up at Saie's friend's apartment watching Superbad, and this was right next to their front door.




I feel like I could create a lawlcat caption to go with that. This was at the next house we went to. The guys there got a kitten and let it run around on their couches. The above pic is the result of kitty exploration.

Poise and rapture

I'm so fed up with politics.

There is no right, there is no wrong. However, there is legal and illegal. These are not to be confused with right and wrong, and subsequently moral and immoral.

Party lines are a farce. People hide behind them to push their values onto others and avoid the appearance of zealous righteousness. It is not the right of any politician, no matter what their office is, to assert a blatant moral decision upon others. Law may be derived from morality, but morality cannot be the law. Sadly, we can't seem to realize this in the international arena, much less the domestic arena. It has become a juvenile system of "us" versus "them", not too dissimilar to high school rivalry. You're a conservative, so you must be either a stupid hick or a selfish millionaire. You're a liberal, so you must be a dirty treehugger or a naive intellectual. What the fuck does any of that have to do with anything that matters? No one cares about the good of the whole anymore, just what they think the world ought to be.

I look out across the face of American culture and what it has become, and I see this reflected in almost everything. Is this really who we are? Are we so obsessed with taking sides that we let it permeate the very fabric of our daily lives and allow it to dictate our reactions before we can even think about them?

Money and power. In the end, that's all a politician sees... most of the ones currently in office, at least. Visions of grandeur that defeat the purpose of their job and title always seem to foul it up. Whenever they get elected, you always hear them say how honored they feel to have gotten chosen. But so few of them actually grasp the most important trait they could have: humility. Instead, it's all about keeping their so-called constituents happy. Newsflash for you all: your constituents go beyond those who give you money and who voted for you, and those other people are no less important or deserving of your time. You may have been elected in a ridiculous high school popularity contest set-up, but your position calls for you to unify both sides in effective policy.



I yearn for the day when I fear for my job prospects because my degree is suddenly not useful.

Kept in mind

I'm sure many more people are going to be writing about it... maybe, maybe not. But it's the kind of thing that you can't help but feel powerfully about. I have to say something.

The deathtoll numbers at Virginia Tech are conservatively estimated to be in the low 30s. That number is only going to rise as people count the dead and injured, and as people fight for their lives in various hospitals. Apparently someone just got some guns and just... started shooting into classes.

I'm sitting in my Monday night GPM right now. It's so frustrating and so painful to think that things like this can still happen in this country. And it's my generation, my peers. I also have to admit that I was a little upset that all the reporters were so quick to label the shooter racially. It doesn't matter what race he was. It doesn't matter what he was dressed in. The guy was a monster, purely and simply.

I hate this country.