August 2010
1 post
Telling Tails
I’ve spent my summer working with high school students on their college applications. My forte in the office is editing essays— passing opinion on as many as five or six each afternoon, delivered face to face to 16 and 17 year olds.
But many times I will read an essay and then set it aside, and then spend my time simply talking to the student about themselves. Tell me about your...
May 2010
1 post
Someone Else's Dangerous Idea #1
JAMES O’DONNELL Classicist; Cultural Historian; Provost, Georgetown University; Author, Avatars of the Word
Marx was right: the “state” will evaporate and cease to have useful meaning as a form of human organization
From the earliest Babylonian and Chinese moments of “civilization”, we have agreed that human affairs depend on an organizing power in the hands...
February 2010
2 posts
EVE aint even so bad
Working on a paper on Milton’s Paradise Lost— on the fall of Adam and Eve.
Trying to work through a problem that I came up w while reading the text: What must be the circumstances through which Adam and Eve could fall from paradise? What compelled them to eat that fruit?
WHAT HAPPENED: Our original sin was initiated by our eating the fruit. In that moment, we chose to disobey God. We...
The Riddle of Consciousness (New York Times) →
What is life?
Or, to reject the simple black and white of it all: When are we living?
I read this article today—
The Riddle of Consciousness (New York Times):
psychotherapy:
The deeper that investigators dig, the more hidden chambers they find. Last Wednesday, scientists in England and Belgium reported that five people with severe brain injuries who had been identified as “vegetative,”...
December 2009
5 posts
4 tags
The Neon Zee →
Back on the CC campus, my good friend Ali Abraham is doing great things with a TypePad blog, titled “The Neon Zee”.
ALI WORDS: Poet, brilliant, ridiculous, insane, GaGa fanatic, penis fascination, ketchup, romantic, hopeless, hopeful, stubborn romantic, chef, tree climber, philosophy, crazy, octopus.
You should know these things cause Ali has really taken off as a thinker/blogger in...
Race
The last part of the paper I wrote for my Media, Race, and Politics class. You can find the first part here, the second part here, and the third part here… although you don’t really need to read them to read this last one. Just read…
I have heard it said: “Why should I feel guilty about what my ancestors did (as slave owners), I didn’t do anything?”
Another: “I want to...
1 tag
Race
This is the third part of a paper I wrote for my Media, Race and Politics seminar. You can see the first part here and the second part here. I lied… there’s one more part. I’m going to post that on Thursday.
Every time someone tries to engage someone else on the issue of race they run up against the same fundamental issue; that those in the racial majority have been brought up...
November 2009
12 posts
My Internship-- Dress Code
It was interesting trying to figure out the dress code in LCBH during my first few weeks. I noticed that some of the other interns that we worked alongside were dressed very formally, with suits and ironed pants. My supervisor and some of the other staff that I worked with dressed only semi-formal, with collared shirts and sweaters, while some of the staff dressed formally everyday.
Without...
Race
This is the second part of a paper on the topic of race that I had for my Media, Race and Politics class. The first part is here. I’m going to post the last part on Tuesday.
I will say that the occasions when I feel aware of my own race are very rare. My friends have recognized my denial of my race, and Asian jokes/references/conversations are kept to a minimum. I am not deeply affected...
Time Lapse of Unemployment in America
Woah… Sure is nice to be in college right now…
(Click on picture for link)
What’s the weather like in North Dakota? Allll aboard for ND!
What art is, how art is, why art is--
Excerpt from “The Sparrow”, by Mary Doria Russell:
“And so he turned his aesthetic sensibilities to the experience of orgasm and found the courage to sing of that evanescent moment which, for the fertile, brings the weight of the past to bear on the future, which holds all moments in its embrace, which links ancestry and posterity in the chain of being from which he was barred...
Eat Pray Live!
I am thankful for the opportunity I get each day, by the possibility of each day… simply given to me by my being, by my doing, by my being, my being.
Oneiric Theory
By Miranda Field
Forests are where you hear the trees— a foreign film murmuring.
Undercover life forces tunnel, restructure the strata of decay, fumbling the wet & bronze & rosewood needles, nudging & moving...
a sumptuous Destitution-
I might have just passed through a slump. I’m only able to write about it presently, as I have hopefully emerged on the other side of it and can now move from it. I know that I’ve at least become able to talk with my friends about my struggling these past few weeks. I think that, for me, speaking like that about myself is a sign of my putting things behind me.
SO, TO THE FRIENDS THAT...
I had been secretly hoping this would turn into a...
I’ve been reading a good amount of poetry this semester. I only get little breaks in my day, on the bus or while dealing with feeding myself, so poetry ends up fitting nicely into my schedule. One of the contemporary poets that I’ve read a lot of recently has been Olena Kalytiak Davis. She really seems to exemplify the kind of writing I can see myself trying— lyric poetry with...
Race
This is the first part of a paper on the topic of race that I had for my Media, Race and Politics class. We could write about whatever we chose to. I’m going to post the next part on Sunday.
Part I:
A group of ACM students and I were recently visiting Woodlawn elementary school, watching their students take part in their daily morning ritual. During the ritual students sing and play...
October 2009
4 posts
gah i’m bad at communicating with people. i really want to make the effort to stay in touch with people though.
As I briefly mentioned on my twitter line, I got very excited on thursday when i got to have an outside conversation with my internship supervisor Manny Camargo, when I decided to do my independent study project with the Lawyer’s Committee for Better Housing. Namely,...
New day
Finished up our community asset mapping project this week. For the last month or so, a group of about a dozen students and myself living in Hyde Park have been conducting interviews and gathering information about the ‘assets’ of Hyde Park. Assets are something that actively participates in aiding/helping a community. My asset was the University of Chicago— definitely a tricky...
My internship-- Working with Manny Camargo
My internship with Lawyer’s Committee for Better Housing began on Monday. I’m going to go every Mondays and Wednesdays, and am going to be primarily working with Emanuel Camargo, who we call Manny for short.
Before I had started my internship I sat down with Manny for lunch to discuss what I would be doing for the semester. First Manny wanted to hear from me about my own experiences...
Weekend
And thank goodness for the weekend! These weeks really do take something of a toll— mainly because it is such a hassle to go out to Logan Square or to Canterbury and just see one another, such a special occasion is often relegated to the weekends. And this weekend came with great timing— i made all sorts of plans to accomplish, places to see, events to be at this weekend. Mostly...
September 2009
7 posts
I don’t know how many people listen to The...
Comments!
And I forgot to mention, I’ve recently figured out how to add a comments feature to the bottom of my posts. Much harder than you would think.
It’d be so great to get some comments from all yall. Some encouraging comments here and there would be very encouraging. Critical comments would be very… critical. Either way, I would really welcome it. Makes me feel less like a crazy...
What I've been up to.
One of the main reasons that I have this blog is so that my friends and family could see what I’ve been up to. So, the things that I’ve been up to…
I declared Comparative Literature. I figure I learn best though reading. And I don’t think I’m too bad at it either. This means Spanish Literature though, in which I will struggle.
I got a slooow start to the summer. The job...
Thinkings and Linkings
I got a variety of things on the brain today, and I’ve found myself with a few extra hours in my day to say it. SO:
One of the first homework assignments that was given to us was an excerpt from Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed. I found the link to it on a Marxist website, which should tell you a bit about its aspirations. To summarize, Freire believes that modern system of...
Chicago Tour- Billy Goat Tavern, Hancock Tower,...
Took this tour last Friday afternoon. A great way to close out the week. It was about 70 degrees, the sky was a perfectly cloudless, and everyone in the city seemed to be exuding the same good spirits that I was feeling. It was Friday after all.
The idea behind this tour was gather a list of iconic non-tourist-tour visits that we could deconstruct the deeper meaning behind. For example… big...
Be a hero
The urban studies program takes the idea of a liberal arts education to heart. The idea of a liberal arts education is to allow the individual the liberty of freedom in thought. In order to do this the liberal arts educators will ideally provide the individual with the education and resources to help guide the individual in their thinking.
A way of thinking about this is to say that the common...
From Chicago
First post from Chicago. I’ve arrived here in Chicago. I’ve arrived. The process of ending my summer was tough and somewhat exhausting. And the first few days here in Chicago have been exciting and somewhat exhausting I’m exhausted.
Yesterday after arriving in Chicago I got to meet my new roommates, whom I had previously only stalked over facebook. Facebook had told me that I would have two...
August 2009
4 posts
What I Couldn't Say
If I cut off some part of my body
would it fix one red point in the swirling world
or just join the kaleidoscope’s world rubble?
-Charles Hartman
I’ve been working around the idea of having a blog for some time now… Well, pretty much since the 5th grade I’ve been thinking about having one. This will be my very first attempt to upkeep a personal blog, with all that...
Today.
Today I made a tumblr account.