Jungle Fever

I'm getting an error when I try to post my Girl-talk videos from the summer, so iIll talk about this instead:

My roomie just admitted until recently he thought that Jungle fever was a legit medical thing... When his friend told him she had jungle fever, he asked "What are the symptoms? Are you ok?" But seriously, jungle fever is the new pink - it's hott. Go for it! Why get caught up with fear, worry and other silly things? Brown skin is sexy. You know you want to...

Flakes, bookshops and Camus

Visited a great little used bookstore in Harvard Square the other day. One of my friends opened Camus' "The Plague" and found a tax return check for $475. She takes it to the counter and the man there breaks out laughing. "She works here," he says. "She's such a flake!"

I thought about it. That is ridiculous, but exactly the kind of thing I would do. She placed her check -probably as a bookmark - into the book, and somehow, without remembering, shelved it in the bookstore and then - responsibly - filed for a new check, but still...

That woman, is me . I love her, with all her flaws.

Acutane

My roomie is going on acutane for her acne and brought back this huge reader that she has to go through before she starts the 5 month course. Supposedly we have to watch her for depresison and crying spells while she's on the pills. More than that though... Apparently you SHOULD NOT GET PREGNANT while on the meds. So the reader has a whole set of sections trying to dispel the myths around sex and getting pregnant so that the patients don't accidently knock themselves up.

My favourite myth of all:

" 'Sexually active' means that you move during sex. If you don't move, you can't get pregnant."

I have no words

Retired confessions... that is all.

I got paid yesterday. Kaching!!! So I am DETERMINED to retire this confession:

" I don't know how to manage money. I spend too much. Where did I get these expectations for the kind of life I want to live? Perhaps I have illusions about who I am. "

This check is going to last a looooong time - if I can help it. I'll let you know when I decide who I am. In the meanwhile I have a new confessions, based wholly in my job, my anger and my frustration:

"me hate authority. Authority hate me."

This is in part in honour of the pallindrome that is now Na's age. Welcome to 22 Na and thanks for the shoutout. You boosted my mood. With the crap that's been happening, I'm due for an upturn in life.

Lessons from The Fountainhead, part 2

It seems that this book is still haunting my existence. I am playing with ads by google and one of them popped up about ayn rand. So it seems I should return to my little reflection on The Fountainhead.


My other posts on it are under the 'literature' tab. So here's another installment.

"It was not malice. It was not judgement passed upon his merit. They did not think he was worthless. They simply did not care to find out whether he was good. Sometimes, he was asked to show his sketches; he extended them across a desk, feeling a contraction of shame in the muscles of his hand; it was like having the clothes torn off his body, and the shame was not that his body was exposed, but that it was exposed to indifferent eyes." page 99.

So many things come to mind. The most immediate is the art of blogging. You always have the choice of making these thing public. What is worse than people hating you... people not caring. Almost makes me want to shut down on those privacy setting and make it for my eyes only. But then, how would I ever discover if I was good. How would you?

But on a larger note... It's true that people usually don't give you the chance to show that you are good. Many people usually dont care. Few people are willing to take a chance on a stranger. Thats why, in my PSCI class on Social Capital, I thought that sometimes, social capital is a bad thing. It encourages nepotism and closed-mindedness.

Why dont we all take a chance on someone and something new today.

My Company

pic courtesy of the bbc:

My company is approximately 3% black. Of the 10 people in that 3% about 2 are African American, or rather, American at all. How does that make you feel?

In other news, the economy went to shit today. What the US need was a good Finsac-king. Jamaican style. Omar Davies style. Ah well.

I found out today that in about 2 years, people in my position usually do an externship with another company/organization. I wonder if I can get a job in Jamaica... in the government somewhere. I guess I can start planning from now eh...

Girl Talk

This guy is hott. Check out his stuff. You can get his latest CD for free! (although you should probably pay him)

He layers the most incongruous samples, to create pure danceability. Will I see you NYC Nov 15th?

Passion

"In the context of passion, the brain's judgment and fear centers are on leave." reference upon reference

Judgement and fear...? Check! Still there. Maybe I haven't encountered passion yet.

Cool Runnings

So, every Jamaican who has ever left the island has had to encounter the world's obsession with certain Jamaican things. They play Bob Marley in McLeod Ganj - a small Northern Indian city near the Tibetan border, home of the Dalai Lama. They fake Jerk Chicken in Williamstown - a small one street town in the bushes of Massachussets. But everybody, and I mean EVERYBODY has watched and LOVED Cool Runnings.

Yeah it's a heart warming story. Sure, I'll give you that. And those fake Jamaican accents are so cute and charming. But really... can the world get over it please? The actors werent even Jamaican! Did you know that they show Finnish children the movie and have them send money for the Jamaican bob-sled team.

Either way, I came face to face with this odd phenomenon yesterday when my co-workers insisted that we have a bonding cool-runnings party. They did it in good faith and in good taste. Maybe I'll play along this time...


Today I retire today's confession : I am lazy. Instead let's confess something else: I don't know how to manage money. I spend too much. Where did I get these expectations for the kind of life I want to live? Perhaps I have illusions about who I am.

My work place

Is this a bad sign? What does it say that my work-place is across the street from a Nieman Marcus?

It takes about 50mins for me to get to work from home. Shittastic...

I'm here Bitches!

The other night when i was out on the town, some old white guy stared the shit out of me. I have officially arrived in Boston!

Love is Blind, right? - Newsweek

"Not surprisingly, love also engages a whole lot of brain. Areas that are deeply involved include the insula, anterior cingulate, hippocampus and nucleus accumbens— in other words, parts of the brain that involve body and emotional perception, memory and reward. There is also an increase in neurotransmitter activity along circuits governing attachment and bonding, as well as reward (there's that word again). And there's scientific evidence that love really is blind; romantic love turns down or shuts off activity in the reasoning part of the brain and the amygdala. In the context of passion, the brain's judgment and fear centers are on leave. Love also shuts down the centers necessary to mentalize or sustain a theory of mind. Lovers stop differentiating you from me." reference here...

Love is blind, eh? But to get someone to love you , you still have to go through that thorough period of close investigation, right? You have to earn or win it, right?

And if love is blind, how do we ever manage to fall out of love?

BOSTON!

Well folks.... I moved to Boston. Still don't know much about it yet. I haven't really explored. I don't even have furniture in my room yet. Last night was the first glorious night sleeping on my bed.

I had the weirdest dream though. I was traveling with friends. I was broke, but I scrounged together some money and went back to India and then Russia. There was all kind of scandal happening and so I decided to go back to India from there, while some of my friends continued on - to China I think. Sometime during the dream, my dream-self lost consciousness. I weirdly just attributed it to the fact that I was dreaming. But on the way back to India someone sent me a package. It was a box. Inside the box was my gall bladder. Someone had knocked me unconscious, opened me up, taken out my gall bladder and then mailed it back to me. I think I was set to find/ meet up with this person in India back at school.


How messed up is that? What does a dream like that even mean?

...

The Root of All Evil

My granny told me that the root of all evil was actually ENVY.

That's an interesting idea. The old adage says that the root of evil is 'money'. But fighting tooth and nail for money implies that one has a goal. To use money, one needs ideas, things you want to do, stuff you want to buy, actual desires! But lacking even that most basic sort of creativity, perhaps the average person falls back on envy of those who want and live and desire and achieve. Ayn Rand would call it... second hand living...


(In case you were wondering. the picture is the personification of Envy from Full Metal Alchemist. He had the power to assume anyone's shape. fitting no?)

This Shit... and it's anniversary

"Gone Abroad" is approaching it's 1st anniversay and I'm still trying to figure out what this blog should be. I hope I have become a better writer since it began. Regardless, most of my hits come from 'colonial girl school' (I post I did ages ago. might have been my first), and my only non-relative comment was prompted by Ayn Rand. Perhaps some more focused content would help. I have to give all this some thought but in the meanwhile...

This shit is about to get illustrated... bitches!

get excited

Olympic understatement and the Economist

"At the Beijing Olympic, Michael Phelps won his eighth gold medal at the games, beating the record of seven set in 1972 by another American swimmer, Mark Spitz; Jamaican runners won the men's and women's 100-metre races; and Britain chalked up its best medal tally since 1908 by dominating the cycling events. Liu Xiang, China's hurdling hero, apologised to the nation for an injury that caused him to withdraw from his race." Economist August 23rd - 29th 2008, page 6

Ok, so we can tolarate all the silly arguments about who is the better athlete, Phelps or Bolt. (Talk about apples and oranges!) But how can you possibly have an olympic 'report' without even mentioning Bolt's name? No mention of the stunning new world records! No mention of Jamaica dominating the Birdnest! Not even a peep about Bolt's Rogge-baiting dancing antics! But there is more than enough detail about the American and British victories and they even (helpfully) included a little historical data to let the readers know how monumental their achievements were. 'Bias' is a bitter-tasting word, but sometimes it has to be said.

Let's end this rant with a little bit of sillyness

Catchin Up...

wow, third confession for the day... I guess I have a lot of catching up to do. Right now I just want to retire today's confession and make a reminder note for things I must write about:

Let us set aside old confessions: "I don't know if I have the strength for real change"

and face our new bits of self-discovery: "I am lazy"


To write about:

Jamaica and the Olympics

Bisexuality

Grandma

Visiting Home

Saundrene's wedding - and meeting the fiance

Cooking


maybe I can tackle these in groups...

The Souls Of Black Folk

I figured I should find something out about black americans since I am going to be lumped in with them when I move to the States.

A non-black friend of mine was reading this book - I can only imagine to understand his black girlfriend - so I picked it up when I saw it on sale at Strand Bookshop off Union square.

When Saundrene saw me with it, she said that I should be reading some Marcus Garvey - who back in the day considered (and called) Dubois a roast breadfruit (read oreo, coconut, uncle tom). To tell the truth, the first chapter was rather passive and speaks from a point of view wholly outside the direct black experience.

Marcus Garvey is the next read I suppose. Why does it always come back to Jamaicans? :) Maybe our vanity is a little bit justified.

Fun fact : it was a Jamaican Obeah man (boukman ?) who instigated the Haitian revolution. Too bad France made Haiti pay for it's independence (25 billion gold francs) or else they would be the proud beacon of black spirit that they should be.

(all facts taken from my dad the recreational historian. Must remember to fact-check later.)

Boston and Hospital Haikus

Written just before my ultrasound:


Pain sings like echoes
stuck rebounding between these
narrow pelvic walls


I move to Boston on the first of September. I'm kind of pissed actually. I am in Jamaica now feeling that olympic frenzy. I arrived on the 20th and only planned to leave on the 30th so I could make it to Boston in time to move in with the roomies. Turns out the boys struck a deal and are moving in on the 30th. In response, Didem is moving in on the 31st. I will be last to arrive and last to pick a room. What portends! Is this what is to come? Am I ready for Boston and this new life...

Than again, things have always had a stunning way of working out in my favour. Maybe Boston is not ready for me... :)

Give it a listen

music

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