New Year, New Blog!

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If Britney Spears could make a comeback, then dammit so can I!

I'm having a bit of an end-of-semester crisis, kind of comparable to an end-of-life crisis. I think I sat here caffeinated for about 5 hours doing absolutely nothing, lamenting over the fact that I didn't read this dreadful 800 page book and henceforth am unable to complete my 15 page paper. I have done EVERYTHING to avoid the task, including unhealthy amounts of Facebooking and wiki-ing. Thousands of brain cells must have jumped ship. Coupled with all my journalism profs telling me that picking Journalism as a major will be the worst mistake of my life, I'm going to be jobless and everything that they taught me is pretty much outdated and useless, this is just depressing!

I don't know. I can't bring myself to study as hard as I used to, now that I've discovered there are better things in life. Like taking care of my body, fulfilling relationships, pondering life OUTSIDE of the box. And school's just taking that all away from me at this point. This was the most useless semester of classes to date. Have I learned everything I can in my field as an undergrad?

I have some hardcore prioritizing to do. One thing that's getting hacked off the list are JOURNALISM CLASSES. At least any that require any actual work. Or books. They do exist.

I was reading a Rolling Stone article about Britney Spears and somehow I felt a lot less bleak. (God, I'm really going down hill) A year ago, she was a nutbag slumping around onstage in lingerie and now she's looking fit and catchy as ever with her "Womanizer" single. What gives! If she can bounce back like that, then dammit, I will too. If I can't get dean's list again, I think I can look good trying at least.

Ugh, tangent, tangent.. trains of thought don't exist at 5 AM.


The sort of sad part about getting older is that you run out of people to look up to and you have to start figuring things out on your own. Unfortunately it seems many people are very bad at doing this. I really have to give it up to Marilyn Manson for pushing me toward matters of the intellect (somehow, as opposed to sex drugs and rock & roll which he was very much an advocate for too). If it weren't for him, his book and his warped convoluted approach toward philosophy, I don't think I would've even known what philosophy was at the age of 10 when I started listening to him. He really made me bring my A-Game... come on.. how many middle schoolers knew who Nietzsche was? I did. And it's all thanks to a skinny guy in makeup.

State of Affairs: Mid-Fall Semester 2008

It has been a while since I made a SoA entry, and admittedly, I have been neglecting this blog. The semester is not yet over but it's a good time to go over what I've been doing, especially since I realized I'm doing a LOT. I have two semesters until my career as a Rutgers undergrad are done for good, so I have filled my plate to the brim with the things that I couldn't get to over the last 3 years (see previous State of Affairs) due to bad living/commute situations, psychological states, etc. Overall I have been feeling great, albeit unhumanly busy, but everything I have been doing so far has been extremely rewarding.

Film class: I am taking a film making class through the English department. Our goal is to learn the Final Cut software and create video essays on a topic of our choice using our own footage and interviews and any other collected media. My project is on the idea of being "bicultural" (in my case, being raised with Filipino traditions and culture, and how that affects my life and identity as an American). It's my biggest and most meaningful project of the semester. As I work on it, in the back of my mind is always the idea that it is an homage to my family and a thanks to them for giving me a most priceless gift to keep alive: the history of my ancestors, and the traditions of the homeland they had to leave.

Tutoring: I now work as a tutor at the writing center. I help expos students understand the torturous process of writing college-level papers for the first time. It can get frustrating when I get a student who doesn't want to work, but ultimately it has been a rewarding experience. I find that I give back as much as a student puts into the process, and it's really nice to see the students' hard work pay off. It's the kind of job I've been seeking: one that requires me to use and exercise my brain, and allows me to be useful and helpful to others.

Working out: I thought I would get back into shape again over the summer, but this was not the case. And so I've enlisted the help of an awesome personal trainer to help me figure out how to work those weird machines, get over my gym phobia and how to exercise properly in general (important, since I messed up something in my right side yet to be determined while exercising like a monster 2 summers ago). I am still very much a work in process, but I definitely feel much, much stronger. My problem is that I need to get into the gym more often. I look forward to my training sessions as a source of stress ventilation, but time is my enemy - I need to learn how to prioritize and manage it effectively, and self-maintainance should be on the top of the list. Anyhow, even pumping iron just once a week has done wonders for keeping me nice and calm, and straightens out my eating habits without effort. My sore bottom and arm muscles act very effectively as my conscience. My goal is to get more gym time in, get nice, lean and jacked, and maintain better eating habits.

Photography: So with all this going on, unfortunately my photography has suffered. I'm doing an independent study on photojournalism, but I haven't been doing a great job of gathering photos. It's kind of hard to carry an SLR around along with textbooks, food, gym gear and a hard drive and camcorder for my film project every single day. In loading up my plate, I kind of pushed photography into the backburner. I don't know if this is a subconscious excuse for me not wanting to do photography anymore, or if its the fact that maybe I'm just not in many photogenic situations. I love the thrill of being behind the lens when there is something going on to capture, but honestly, photographing journalism students studying isn't the most scintillating thing, and also, moving into the realm of film has proved to be very exciting, if not more than photography. It also could be that I don't see the world the way I used to, which I very much think has affected my photography in a negative way. My adviser is understanding of these things. It may just be that my passions have shifted away from photos, and maybe I'm just not willing to accept that yet. I'm not really sure how I feel about that.

Classes: And of course, classes: the ultimate waste of time. Besides film and independent study, my classes are an overall letdown this semester. Tedious Quark assignments (not to mention how HORRIBLE of a program Quark is!), boring readings... I haven't cracked a book open for one class and the midterm is this Wednesday. Senioritis at large.

An exhaustive account of activity.. I don't even know how to end this post!

Victory March.

At least a thousand students took over the streets of New Brunswick around midnight and they marched without knowing where they were going. The people have been stirred, revived from the dead. The air last night was electric, and the normally blase and braindead masses of college students exhibited a genuine passion and unified joy I have never witnessed in a crowd in my lifetime. Strangers joined hands, raised their voices without shame or contradiction to celebrate what I hope will be a true victory for our country - only time will tell us. It is an indescribable feeling to be part of what may be the beginning of a real movement, progress. To be part of history in the making at all is amazing in itself.

Photos may be found here. My hand was not steady because I was too excited. They are not my best pictures, but I am glad to have taken them, to at least capture the moment I was in, knowing it cannot be duplicated. These are the kind of moments that have attracted me to journalism and photography, and I look forward to witnessing more as we continue to make history...

FLOOD.

INERTIA.

My life is aimless. This is the basic thought that has been floating around in my head for several weeks, but I have not had the inspiration to articulate it without sounding like I'm whining and complaining, which is not quite the attitude I've been struck with. It was more like something was incomplete, a backwards vertigo, nausea from not moving enough within. I feel like I've mentioned this before, still not quite figuring out what's missing or what it is that I want. Today I was moved to passion in a way that I have not been moved in a while, allowing me to finally articulate what it is that's going on inside me.

I feel aimless because I have spent the last 3 years rearranging punctuation in sentences like a grammar monkey, taking pictures of kids doing nothing, attending dry lectures that put the world's most dire problems into paradigms and theories. It's supposed to mean something, to hold some kind of significance and weight in the world, but it does nothing to remedy the problems we face, as a species, as individuals. Every day, people are killed for their convictions, their race, religion or simply for being at the wrong place at the wrong time... they cannot rest for fear of what will come next - and I am just sitting here bullshitting in my books. Which one of us is trying to survive? No paradigm will stop a suicide bomber, no well-written and perfectly proportioned headline will save a starving child, and while photography may bring the face of suffering to the eyes of the ignorant and blase sitting comfortably in houses they can't afford, will it change their minds? Who are these professors kidding? People will continue to suffer, die and get shafted from what they deserve, and more people will continue to turn their heads. Scholars think and theorize about everything, supposedly they hold the key to the problem, but do they always actually get their hands dirty and DO something half the time? I want to do something more meaningful with my life than push pencils and socialize. Journalists (at least the ones I'm around) are almost as bad as the born and bred politicians without half a brain but still manage to buy their way into office with their degrees and titles, spewing hot air but nothing else. They think they're actually doing something with their deadlines and headlines but it's bullshit. Some huge wave could come and wash all their equipment and books and research away and it will mean nothing, and they will BE nothing. I think today may officially be the day that I can honestly announce that I want nothing to do with it anymore, and mean it. These people have no souls and they're in charge of the whole damn operation and meanwhile the rest of us with hearts are misled every which way, by the media and politicians.



Sam Pollard, Spike Lee's producer came to my school today and screened a part of their documentary "When The Levees Broke," more of which I saw in my film class this morning. Maybe it's just the shock of seeing dead bodies floating into streets and listen to people's horrifying and tragic stories early in the morning, but that's what got my brain going. When Hurricane Katrina hit, I was 18 years old and too absorbed in myself and being stupid to realize the full scope of what had occurred, and I didn't realize it until today either. What I hated most about the story of "Levees" was the indifference of our president, who took 2 weeks to get down there and survey the damage, and the fact that officials knew the levees would not hold. And still they did nothing, even after the entire city was practically wiped out. This catastrophic thing happened in our own country, and they had to call in Canadian police because our country's leaders, or whoever is supposed to be in charge, were not enough.

It's maddening to me. Maybe this is the cycle of death that cannot be broken. Animals kill one another out of instinct sometimes. The intelligence and free-will of human beings is nothing more than a liability at times. I wish not knowing any better could be an excuse for the atrocities of governments, individuals against one another. But people DO know better. They just don't CARE, and maybe that's why I feel so alienated about the world.

I learned more - about myself, about what I want to with my life, about storytelling and about film - in this one day than I have in 8 weeks of my 3 other classes. There is so much to see, to do and to understand in this life, in this world. I don't want to waste my time. I wish, for my life, that I can see and tell these stories, that I won't grow frivolous as I age and understand that there will always be suffering, and that there is something greater to put my mind to than grades and books, politics and headlines, making and spending money.

A fine moment in photojournalism.

Now I remember why I got into this!

Bye wisdom teeth!

So I got my teeth ripped out today (yesterday), 4 of 'em. Intravenous anesthetic, knocked me out as soon as the needle got in. It was like I temporarily stopped existing. NO thoughts in my head at all, no dreams, no concept of time passing. Now that's magic. My mom almost tried to convince me to get local but I told her I would GIVE her $400 to put me to sleep. And thank god I decided to do so. 2 were impacted. Oh, and perhaps the only drug that actually doesn't make me more of a raging bull than I already am: vicodin. At its peak, I think it also helped my Tekken game somehow (10-0!!!). At first it made me very calm, but now it's just making me feel like I have slight dementia. My face is getting bigger, I can barely open my mouth at this point, it's still bleeding, my jaw hurts despite the second dose of vicodin and I'm a dizzy space cadet. Leave a message, I'll get back to you in 5 days. I got to save my extracted teeth, one of which looked like it had a siamese mutant tooth growing off it. I will make a witch necklace out of them and shake them at people who cross me the wrong way, inflicting them with questionable juju. Very painful but an interesting experience by far.