Thursday, June 30, 2005

City Bus Philosopy
(God definately has a sense of humor.)

I was riding the bus to school yesterday morning. It was the same as most other mornings: hit the snooze twice before waking up, then rush to get ready to leave by 7, speedwalk/jog to the bus stop and pray the whole way that I don't miss the bus. Regular morning.

Well, this particular day my prayers didn't exactly work. As I was half a block away from the bus stop, I saw the bus zoom by. This is not cool when I have just speed-walked 5.5 blocks. I make the long trudge back home, lugging my bag and purse, which are killing my shoulders, and wearing the same sandals I said I would never walk signifigant distances in again.

The next bus I took was the one that comes right by my house. For some reason, I almost missed that one too. As I was about to cross the street (2-way traffic) I saw it approaching, and I seriously had to weigh the pros and cons of nearly getting hit by a car to catch the bus, or missing statistics class. Well, nevertheless I made it to class.

Two women that also go to my school were on there, talking about classes and general chit-chat. When one mentioned that she was taking philosophy, I immediately thought of 2ra. She (let's call her Myrtle) talked about how much she hated it, the other woman (lets call her Kim) wholeheartedly agreed.

Kim: I hate philosophy! Gawd, its the worst! Have you leaned about
Socrates yet? ooo, ooo, did you learn about SoandSo's theory on this?? or what
about What'shisname's theory on that?? OH MAN I HATE PHILOSOPHY!!!!!


Yeah. She was awfully enthused about this philosophy thing. Tina had a look of contained freaked-outness as Kim rambled and rambled, and became louder and louder. She went on her own tangent, completely leaving Myrtle behind, about every philosophical theory she could think of on the spot, and whose theory it was, and what it meant. I'm tellin ya, she really hated philosophy.

I'm telling you, this woman was so animated, loud, and excited you wouldn't believe it. She then asked Myrtle,
"Do you know what the ultimate philosophical question is?"
Myrtyle, with a look of scared-confusedness replied,
"Um, no."
Kim with her LOUD self said,
"DOES GOD LUV IT BECUZ ITS GOOD, O IZ IT GOOD BECUZ GOD LUVS IT?!?!?!"
as if she had just made a profound declaration of the end-all of everything that is deep. Yeah.

Bus Driver: Well I don't really know.
Myrtle: Hm, well I guess. . .
Kim: YEA, SEE, I TOLD YA. YOO CAN'T FIGGA IT OUT!
Bus Driver: It could be either one, because God can do anything he wants.
Kim: YEA! HE CAN EVEN MICROWAVE A BURRITO SO HOT THAT EVEN HE COULDN'T EAT IT!
BUT THEN HE COULDN'T EAT IT.
SO DEN, CAN HE REALLY DO ANTHING??

Kim the proceeded to crack up and bust a gut at her own joke. She was both the comedian and entire comic-view audience. I woulda turned Apollo up in that mug, and dragged her crazy self off the bus. Her city-bus philosophy was just too much for me. I figured it would be better to stay quiet and blogaboutit.

I wish you coulda been there.
Dream On

What is a dream
but a bubble in the space of my mind?
Fragile, iridescent, transparent
floating in time


What is a dream
but my lifeline?
though deferred making hearts ill,
to defer a dream can kill

For it is by our dreams
that we aspire
to grasp the unreachable
teach the unteachable
go where we've never been before
by our dreams we are unstoppable
didn't you know?

What is a dream
but a shiny pretty thing?
sparkling in rays of hope
dimming in light of reality


What is a dream
but foundation for everything

For it is by our dreams that we achieve
for what has ability without support of dreams?
The world is made greater because of these
see the influence of Ghandi and King?
Even they have no more power than we
but were able both to see and believe
in the power of their dreams

So, what then is a dream
but life-both to the world and us
Fear not ambitious reveries
Dream on! Dream on we must!

Tuesday, June 28, 2005

Zzzzzzzzzzzz. . .

Problem: I cannot stay awake in my statistics class. It's not that it's so boring, its me. It's not that I don't sleep at night, because I usually do. I don't know what it is, but its getting to a ridiculous point. Yesterday it was so bad that I left class halfway through because I could literally stay awake for only 5 or so minutes at a time before dozing off. I fight the sleep so so hard, but its like I'm a classroom narcaleptic, and it's really becoming a problem. And you should see my notes. Nothing like that drifting off to sleep writing. But I've tried everything to keep myself awake! I tried drinking something to awaken my senses, shaking my leg, tapping my foot, stretching, breathing deep to get some oxygen to my brain, biting my lip or tongue, doodling, even putting my bare foot or leg on the freezing cold pole that holds up the table to shock the mess out of myself. Nothing works.

Then to add fuel to the fire, I drank an orange Mountain Dew last night at work (I was tired ok!). It took me forever to get to sleep, and all I could think was "I'm so not gonna be able to stay awake in class tomorrow". I even cried because of my plight, but eventually I slept.

Solution: I hate to resort to this, but something's gotta give. I'd rather not go this route, but I have no other choice. NoDoz has again become my drug of choice. I only turn to it in extreme cases, i.e. last spring semester when I would'nt sleep the whole night to finish a paper/speech due the next day at 8 a.m. only to face a whole nother day of classes and work. Extreme right? I figured if I took one shortly after I wake up (6 something) then by 8:00 it should be in my system and working quite nicely. Today I stayed awake.

However, even though I was indeed awake, and am still awake, I feel so strange. I feel like my body is really sleeping. It feels like my eyelids are heavy, and about to drop to a close, but are being yanked wide open by the fingers of my caffeine pills. *sigh* I don't like this but I feel like I have to do it. If you know of anything else I can do to help myself stay awake, please help a sista out. Please.

Pleeease.

Wednesday, June 22, 2005

Hooooold Up

You've got to be kidding me!

I'm in the computer lab, and somebody's cell phone went off. First of all, it was loud and should have been put on vibrate. But no. And of course it had to ring with a ringtone. All I heard was a couple of strange beats, then a loud male whine of AWWWWWW, DIRTY POP!

Dirty Pop??? Of all the ringtones (realtones, not that polyphonic junk) you need to pick Dirty Pop? I would not normally be mad if a cell phone rang in the lab, its not like I'm really doing anything important. However, my belief is that if you wish to keep your ringer on, on its loudest setting, at least get some good music on there! Something I can bop my head to and a song I won't mind being stuck in my head all day.

Dirty Pop does not fall into that category.

So I whip my head around to see who's phone is Dirty Pop'in, expecting to see some young, fresh out of highschool white girl with a pink flip phone that has a light-up antenna. Imagine my surprise when I see a 20-something MAN answer the call. A grown man bumpin Dirty Pop on his cell phone? What's next? "I Want You Back", or "Bye, Bye, Bye"?

Scary man, Scary

Monday, June 20, 2005

ah, the glory of the opposable thumb

Today my statistics teacher spent about 10 minutes in a discussion about today's generation's dexterity of thumbs. I lie not. It started with him asking us which do we use more, the index finger or the thumb?

His father, who is a construction worker, noticed this boy keying in the garage code with his thumb, and thought it quite strange. Strange, because the father himself would have keyed in the code with his index finger.

He then came upon the realization that today's generation use their thumbs more than his own. This attributed mostly to video games, where thumbs are, of course, most handy. Most people also use their thumbs to punch in numbers on their cell phones. (I have seen those in older generations use their fingers to type on their cell phone, and yes, it looks quite silly.) Then the teacher asked, which do you use when operating your calculator?

I laughed to myself. I use my fingers of course! What madness is this?? But some fear embedded in the back of my mind knew there must be some validity to this question. I held my calculator in my hand, slid it into its cover, and preceded to turn it on.

WITH MY THUMB!!!!

Surely this was not right, he must've tricked me into using the opposable phalange! But as I continued to feverishly type in random numbers, It was all thumb, thumb, thumb!!

I was distraught
I was dissapointed in myself
I cried.

Then I realized that yes, I can proudly say I use my thumbs on a daily basis, and so what? Besides, taking an observational stance, I conclude that thumbs are primarily used when the fingers are occupied. The new trend is, the fingers hold, the thumbs get ta workin'.

It all makes sense!
(after that, I preceded to fall asleep during the lecture on Table B, Random Digits)

Tuesday, June 14, 2005

Unfinished

one mug of tepid tea
a thousand crumbs from cut french bread
knife still readied to butter
left in haste

scraps from a new dress carelessly strewn
multicolored threads decorate wooden floors
opened scissors, straight pins piercing the tomato
quickly forgotten

one page,one pen
a thousand floating thoughts
tens of fleeing words
never completely caught
-lyric