house

I am sitting back at the command center. The air dancing inside is brisk. I had no idea summers were this cool toward the end of august in Europe. The city hums. It vibrates with life.  The engines of cars pulsating through the street. Voices ricocheting off of buildings.  having an open window not only lets you hear the city but you also taste it. I taste the cigarettes wafting in and I taste the food being prepared in the cafe directly below me.  When i am at the flat I spend 50% of my time here. It is the room with the most natural light so I eat here and it is where I connect to the outside world so I sit here for that too. The only time I am not sitting here is when i am sleeping. This place is far too big for me. There is so much space that goes unused, and during the day I am hardly here. But then again I think that part of the reason that I spend so little time here is that I don’t really feel like this my house even though I am renting. I feel like a house guest…even more than if it was a hotel. Like, this furniture means something to the owner. The house is filled with memories and and they aren’t mine. While a hotel is also a cabinet of memories they house the memories of faceless strangers. This place has pictures of the family. Keep sakes strewn across the walls. I just feel odd. I feel like I shouldn’t be here in this house. Like I broke in. It is strange living somewhere and owning nothing. Not even the dishes. Nothing but the clothes on my back and this electronic window to the outside world is mine. Totally bizarre.

My Ipod iz DEAD…almost

I was really excited to meet the day’s events with a soundtrack.  I had it all planned. A little Cash, some Modest Mouse, maybe even a little My Bloody Valentine to cap things off. But to my dismay I was never able to make it through.  Actually I had nothing to do with it. In fact, the blame falls on Apple, and what I suspect is their scheme to force you buy new equipment. I swear that their devices have a built in self-detonator to fuck up in two years time.  An Apple product (ipod really) lasting longer than that is Mission Impossible (a funny…cause in that movie things self-destruct).  Recently, as in today and a few days prior, mine has been cramping up.  It will play, and then suddenly (while fully charged) will freeze.  Nothing i do can defrost it. So it just lays there paralyzed until the battery runs out.  It is like seeing a loved one in a coma.  You know the parts are still moving but you cannot get any kind of response.  This is that much more frustrating and frightening because this new computer has 0 tunes on it. Yes it has some new techno bangers, but none of the classics. No modest mouse, no pavement, no elliot smith. Worse, my little i touch also has none of these alternative gems.  If the big Kahuna dies, I will be left musically destitute half way across the world from my hard drive.  I think if that day comes…wait who am I kidding…when that day comes I am going to suffer a minor break down.  The kind of break down one experiences when seeing a pet pass or a grandmother.  This ipod is more than some technological device.  It is medication. It is comfort. It is company. The count down begins. How long, who knows…

Final Destination

While interviewing at the Graffiti shop, I was asked to move a bench. I did. 20 minutes later a part of the balcony from 2 stories up came crashing to the ground..colliding with exactly the same spot I would have been had I not moved. I cheated death. Final Destination.

Ok Itunes I take it back

A while ago I wrote a few posts lambasting Itunes.  You can read those Here and Here. But today is a new day, and I would like to apologize because Itunes totally redeemed itself.  No they did not buy me chocolates and and say “baby baby, I love you” after smacking me across the face. What they did do was start offering Itunes U, which has been around a while, but is new to me.  What is it? It is a bunch of lectures offered for FREES in the tunes store (they are located on the left side of the home page under itunes latino).  I just listened to a Stanford lecture on the literature of Crisis. It was awesome, and there are 25 more.  The reason I am so jazzed, is that one of my greatest fears is a lack of intellectual stimulation, and when you are abroad and outside the ivory college gates, this can seem like a really legit prospect.  But thanks to itunes my fears are assuaged.  They are not only giving anyone with internet connection an opportunity to see what a lecture at stanford might be like, but also providing people like me with fodder for dinner conversation…no longer will we have to solely rely on the Ny times, npr, the new yorker, and the atlantic monthly for our material.  So thanks Itunes, you really aren’t so bad.

Phi Beta Kappa

Giving a Speech @ Phi Beta Kappa Ceremony. This is what I am going to say.

Wow Rebecca I am blushing. Thanks so much for that warm and flattering introduction. To be honest being here right now is pretty surreal.

I mean before last week I had no idea what Phi Beta Kappa even was.

I was convinced it was just some money making scam—you know, send 60 dollars and we will send you some plastic framed certificate that means about as much as a facebook friend request.

But fortunately for me this education taught me to investigate everything and not just make assumptions—So I did what every college student would do when confronted with something they don’t know…I looked it up on Wikipedia

Which told me that it was a good grades club with a secret handshake, which is kinda funny given the college’s egalitarian ethos.

But whatever right.  I mean I was not about to let something as insignificant as ideological hypocrisy deter me from being a part of something that provides me with the opportunity to wear a cloak and chill with paul walker and Joshua Jackson.

Unfortunately it was after writing the check that I found out that no cloaks were involved and that Paul Walker and Joshua Jackson were in the skulls and not Phi Beta Kappa.

No biggie though, good grade club is fine by me.  Lets just hope that Bates doesn’t start handling the matter of good grades the way the MLB handles ever increasing home run records.

I mean could you imagine if the college started testing for performance enhancing drugs, and started putting little **** next to gpa of 3.8 or higher reading student was mainlining aderol at the time.

But I guess we don’t really have to worry about that cause god knows it wasn’t the drugs that got us here—rather the hard work and the endless support of staff and faculty.

Which is why it is so important that I take a minute to thank_____________

Without your help I know I would not be the student/person that I am now.

Like there is no way that I would be able to rationalize things as well as I can.

Take smoking.  Thanks to you I no longer look at myself as a dirty addict, but rather someone who is actively resisting pressure to be some docile highly disciplined body.

Or buying a paper online.  Some could say that is plagiarizing. This education however, made me realize that it is just applying the economic principle of OUTSOURCING.

Yep for 160,000 dollars I have the ability to live a guilt free existence.  Which if you think about it is kind of a bargain.

Seriously thought, you have all had a profound impact on me.  Thanks to my studies in the WGS and AAS programs, which are also know as inquiries into power, pain, suffering, ebonics, girl talk, sensitivity, urban marketing, and that which is forgotten I see the entire world differently.

I am what we in the liberal arts call a critical thinker.  Thanks to this education I have realized that everything is on a spectrum, there is no truth, nothing is empty or straight forward, and the only things you can count on are chicken patties on Saturdays, Burgers and Greg Waters during short term, and girls in JB and Village freaking out when someone puts on Don’t Stop Believing by Journey.

Take for example kids that camp out in the library and commandeer an oversized desk that is supposed to fit 6 during finals week.  Most would see this as someone who is very committed to their studies.  I however see this as a colonial project and the monopolization of resources.

Or take for example the amount of kids that go on to graduate school after bates.

Many would just think that this signifies the success of the bates education.  Oh but a critical thinker sees this as proof that after four years of college we are not hireable.

Unfortunately for me, my first visit to the OCS made it undeniably clear that highlighting skills are not resume material.

On a side note it is really unfortunate how so many employers confuse being well rounded with being mediocre at a lot.

No but I am sure we are all going to be just fine once we realize that one 930 class twice a week is not how the working world operates and that in the real world drug possession and vandalizing personal property leads to jail and a court date and not a letter home and a bill.

Yeah it is going to be crazy how things change after college. Like drinking at the pub on Tuesday, attending the Shapiro party on wed, the goose on Thursday, and then something random on Friday will no longer mean you are social but rather an alcoholic.

Ambulances will no longer make us think of some first year who is ambitious with liquor, but rather an old woman or a car accident.

Yeah college is a far cry from the real world but we will be ok.  This education has prepared us for  a lot.  I mean even though the only car problem I can handle is when the E lights up, I know the necessary steps for solving a problem.
1. Consult the text. 2. Cite the experts 3. And if all else fails go back to school.

The Final Daze of College

I am always learning things

Did you know:

Phi Beta Kappa has a secret Handshake?

That this could be the first year in three years that there has not be an incident with someone being called the “N” word at this college?

It is impossible to give up on “Feelings?”

160,000 dollar education teaches you how to rationalize anything…meaning a $160,00$ education prevents you from ever feeling guilty?

Senior Week=School sponsored Alcoholism?

Drinking Problems only happen after you graduate…During college you are just participating in a Tradition?

So What is your Major?

Inevitably adults and peers alike ask me, “what’s your major?”

When I respond by saying “women and gender studies and African American studies double major” the interested party usually kind of winces and or smiles awkwardly.  They then ask “what are you going to do with that” or just change the subject.

Consequently I have compiled a list of things I say as either a comical defense mechanism or to skip over the two other predictable responses.

Here are some other ways to say you major in Women and Gender Studies and African American Studies

1.) I major in the study of Power

2.) I major in Sensitivity

3.) I major in urban marketing

4.) Politics

5.) The necessity for higher education

6.) Anger Studies

7.) That Which is Forgotten

8.) Post Modern Accounts and Intellectual Masturbation

9.) Pain and Suffering

10.) Ebonics and Girl Talk

What Your Purchases Say About You

The digital age never lets you forget. There is no memory loss in the digital world. Our mistakes and our other selves are cataloged forever. Sometimes we are reminded of this while scrolling through facebook.  Other times it is while purchasing a mother’s day gift from Amazon.

Amazon has this “you might also like” function that suggests things based on your recent purchases.  Some see this as convenient, me, I see this as a peep hole into who I was/am/will be.

In this particular case they were suggesting I buy a Jefferey Brown comic, A Bob Marly DVD, and the DVD series UnDeclared.

What this says about me and my past is this:

1.) I am not just a comic book nerd, but one who reads the comics that can be called graphic novels. I am silently pretentious.  geek glam. I am straddling two worlds because while comics are not really cool these types are deemed alt. cool and provide me with indie street cred and license to feel better than people who just don’t get “it.”

2.) I went through a stage where I thought that smoking pot made me more creative and more in touch with peace. I was once a college cliche. I once thought a riveting  friday night was chiefing and watch Marly play music on DVD. Now that the bong smoke has passed I can see how fucking typical i was back then (i know I am just as typical now…variations on a theme).

3.) I have a fascination with tv shows that are deemed ahead of their time for their ability to accurately capture youthful awkwardness, get canceled after the first season, and again are not widely thought of as cool but allow me to feel as if I have a heightened sense of humor.  Also these types of shows allow me to say “hey i remember seth rogen back when he was doing freaks and geeks and undeclared” which is kind of like saying you own the Japanese EP of a Sonic Youth Album on Vinyl.

Life Audit

College is Almost Officially Over. Three weeks or something. and this approaching end has got me thinking about some things that will change as of the end of may.

1.) Drinking 4-5 times a week will soon qualify as alcoholism

2.) The just got out of bed look that was hip in college will soon lead to more statements/questions like:

“you should get more rest.”

“Are you a night owl and not a morning person”

“You should probably “get some coffee.” ****All of these things were actually said to me at woik this morning.

3.) Skipping obligations will start to get me fired

4.) Match.com will soon become bookmark on my web-browser.

5.) 9:30 am will not be early

Shallow Thoughts about College Admissions and Email

Everyday on my way to work I pass by my school’s admissions office. There is this part of me that really wants to post a sign below the admissions part that says “rejections.” I mean they are not admissions for everyone. For the majority it is the rejections office. Not only would this show that our school has a sense of humor and that we understand the idea of opposites being co-dependent, but it would also really reinforce the idea that we are an exclusive institution.

Something else I have started to think about is email flirting. Is email the 2000’s version of passing notes? Is it a way to say “hey girl, I think you something special?” Cool thing about email is that unlike notes you can include links to things that they find interesting meaning emails can be notes and mixtapes at the same time. Wow we are efficient these days.

Maybe poking on facebook is a more appropriate comparison. But I feel like poking is more like playground flirting. Like kicking the girl and running away, cause it could be so many different things.