ce que nous pensons nous savons

It is amazing what we think we know.

Our perspectives have been tainted, but some questions remain: to what extent...and in what way?

No doubt the media has changed the way we look at just about anything, particularly with regard to those who in some way seek the limelight. The sexual orientation and recreational preferences of an elected official are afforded more attention than the same circumstances would be when attached to a person who lives her/his life outside the Beltway.

Likewise...this situation regarding Will Smith has been bothering me. Those who live in the public eye have a greater responsibility to monitor their words and overcome their prejudices, the results of the opposite being apparent in stories such as the Mel Gibson DUI encounter. The words came loud and clear from Gibson's own mouth: he clearly harbors anti-Jewish sentiment.

Unfortunately, I believe that incident further tainted our perspectives when approaching Will Smith's comments to the Scottish Daily Record: "Even Hitler didn't wake up going, 'let me do the most evil thing I can do today.' I think he woke up in the morning and using a twisted, backwards logic, he set out to do what he thought was 'good.' " The media has since had a field day with the conclusion that Smith is at best naively convinced of everyone's inherent goodness and at worst a supporter of the Jewish Holocaust.

Let's just pause for a second, rewind, and repeat what Smith said (emphasis mine): "Even Hitler didn't wake up going, 'let me do the most evil thing I can do today.' I think he woke up in the morning and using a twisted, backwards logic, he set out to do what he thought was 'good.' "

Wait. So, Smith did not say "I think Hitler was working to do good." Oh whew, that was confusing for a second.

Returning to regularly scheduled program...

I am Jewish. Gibson's anti-Jewish comments incensed me and caused me to lose all respect for him despite his many career successes. I believe that he shirked his responsibility to maintain his reputation as a role model, one adopted peripherally by all those who choose to lead public lives. However, the frenzy surrounding Smith's recent comments is completely misplaced in an effort to criminalize an unpopular opinion.

I personally agree with Smith's statement. Does that mean that I believe the Holocaust was justified and that the deaths of six million Jews, with whom I have chosen to identify, was for the good? Of course not - it simply illustrates what is already widely known about Hitler, that he was psychotic. How else does one explain the systematic murder of Jews, Catholics, Gypsies, blacks, homosexuals and other "impure" peoples, unless to say that it is the result of pure evil?

Smith later followed up his comments with a similar sentiment. Smart for him, that he would choose to confront those who perverted his words to sell more copies, and good of him in the first place to express what I'm sure he realized would be an unpopular idea.

What have we learned from all of this? Check the facts. Pay attention to context. And, though common law is both popular and useful in some situations, be sure that situations are analogically similar enough to indicate that a similar judgment be passed. Also, and more importantly, while it is crucial to recognize and confront bigotry and hatred in its myriad forms, there are enough instances of both in the world without searching for hidden meanings in plain statements. Rather than castigate the good, we should be on our guard and always seek the truth.

The truth will set you free.

j'écris la poésie au lieu d'étudier.

This one doesn't have a title.

I feel the lack of you in midnight hours,
darkness that echoes cold and silence
Sunrise brings solitude without warmth...
and I miss you.
Foolish, it seems, that I should seek you
in all the places you aren't
The light in corners can't make you clear...
and I'm alone.
So much of life is you, from hallways and windows
to quiet rooms
Your voice comes right beside me...
and you're far away.
Absence is not lasting or eternal,
for that which leaves one point arrives somewhere
Though I'll feel you pass behind me you'll be distant...
you're never quite as far as when you're near.

I generally like it. It's a little more than I've put into recent work.

beaucoup de considération à avoir...

I need to get over this. Just, get. over. it.

Funny, but I don't see that happening particularly soon.

I should be thinking about finals. I should be thinking about my future.

Well...I am. Just, not in the most productive way.

There is much consideration to be had over the state of my world...well, not the state of my union - it's disunity.

...more later...

l'artiste dévergondé, recherchant un rêve viennent vrai...

Friday night I made a sketch. I was just fooling around, but suddenly it came alive under my hand. I don't function under the pretense that I have any particular artistic talent, but somehow the picture was just there.

It took some time...a few hours, anyway...but when I was finished I felt as if I was looking into the portrait of some deep magic. I'm astounded at the technical correctness (if not mastery), but more at the message that came through.

I decided to make it a real piece of artwork. I bought the canvas and the pencils, and sketched it out. But black and white just isn't appropriate when I see it in large scale. I needed paint. So I have paint, now...

I don't know why this is so important to me. Somehow, though, it feels as if something crucial to my being will come out in this painting.

I need an outlet for all of the feelings careening around...an outlet that will perhaps tell me how I really feel. Who knows if everything that's so far come out is right...even the greatest exposure to the worst or least important kind of thing can take on a universe of importance.

The more I consider what I'm going to do with my life the more I wonder if what I'm going to do is the right thing. There are so many things that I want to accomplish - but am I going about things the wrong way?

I was sitting in my staff meeting talking to administrators last night and I thought, "I could do this. This could make a difference." But ultimately...would it make me happy?

Can anything really make me happy anymore?

Mon rêve, tenant le premier rôle:

Les similitudes frappent... la dévotion, les visites, les tentatives de se maintenir dans l'esprit (et le coeur ?) des autres...

Il préoccupe de voir les parallèles, pour ce que si les résultats sont un même et des extrémités différentes de personne hauts avec un coeur cassé ? Bien que, naturellement, ce soit la vie. Naturellement, les possibilités présentées là-dedans sont sans fin. De l'autre côté... il y a toujours la chance qu'il obtiendra la fin de film qu'il a toujours voulue.

Pourquoi, pourquoi quand tous que je veux le film est-il fin j'obtiennent-ils simplement le rôle de support?

tomber en morceaux

I feel like I'm falling apart.

There are no simple answers, but I guess the larger issue is that there are no simple questions. That would be the rub of it, that in order to get close to the answers one must articulate the questions.

That is nearly impossible.

I don't know if I'm simply imagining things or if there really is something there. It confuses me and I don't know how to fix it or if I should just give up on hope and move on. Could I do that? And really, why should I?

It would be nice to come out on the happy end of a story of love, rather than as the friend on the sidelines who gets to smile at her friends as they find their hearts' desires and goes home wishing that someday it will be her. That oversimplifies matters to the point of parody, but it's how I feel. Even in the midst of relationship tumult and uncertainty, there is always another option for everyone else.

What about me?

I want to be loved. Instead of people coming to me and asking how they should handle their latest problem or how they should tell the girl that they love...that they love her...I want him to come to me and tell me that I'm the one he can't live without.

peut-être je suis fatigué

I miss the days when love was innocent and simple...souvenez-vous? Until a certain point in our lives we do not realize that love comes with pain, or that it doesn't follow automatically that someone will love us if we only love them. I remember the moment when "I love you" became something not so simple, when it suddenly became all-important to be loved and, for the first time, love came with fear that love would disappear.

...I crunched through the leaves on the way to class today and it made me sad. Well, not sad so much as wistful - all those leaves, raked into piles, still more falling and begging for someone to jump in them, play with them...and we all walk by unaware. I could jump in the leaves, but only at the risk of facing incredulity and mockery at the hands of my peers. What of fun, innocence, laughter? We now find entertainment in such complicated things...what ever happened to just basking in the sunlight?

Maybe I'm jaded.

suffisant pas plus...

So I've reached my threshold of how much shit I'm willing to take.

As in, no more. I'm from this point on not dealing with anything.

Just this past Friday I was standing in the campus center after having decided to cast a ballot to nominate a Homecoming court. This is not something that particularly interests me, but I figured hey, why not...

The unfortunate part of this whole story is that for the whole week Caitlyn had been telling me to nominate her. Issue with this: I don't want to nominate Caitlyn. Really, I have little respect for people who badger others about stupid shit like Homecoming.

So anyway - back to Friday. Mandi walks up to me and says "Oh, nominate Caitlyn!" This of course just pisses me off, so instead of leaving it blank as I intended to do I write down Mandi's name instead. When Caitlyn walks by Mandi grabs her and says, "I told her to vote for you but she wouldn't!"

In the real world, this would have elicited a shrug and a whatever. But in girl world... Caitlyn launches into a tirade about how I should nominate her especially if I don't care and that I'm violating the "self" by going against their vote. My claim of personal autonomy is scoffed at because, according to her, I don't have personal autonomy if I've been supermajoritied. So I tell her she needs to get over it.

A note on the "self": This was a concept developed by Caitlyn to explain our connection. That is, she and McKenzie function as two halves of the same person, and McKenzie and I often function in the same way...which obviously means that we're all the same person. Small problem with that...I don't want to be the same person as Caitlyn. See...people actually like me. It's really a useless designation and something that causes me more trouble than not.

It's tragic, really...apparently McKenzie used to be Caitlyn's double, but she's grown up since she started college. True, she may have her faults, but who doesn't? She certainly doesn't always have to be right, even about stupid shit...she doesn't assume that people like her when they actually vehemently hate her...

Yeah, so this whole rant is to underscore my previous point - I'm through with taking shit. So if I act like a "bitch" because I'm telling it like it is...

...deal with it.

Apres la soiree...

So I feel bad for all of the people who don't know what it's like to have an RA who cares enough to not just go out and drink or ignore their residents, but to take time to build community and mutual respect, not to mention take the time and money and effort to put up nice bulletin boards meant to engage the residents, educate them, and at the very least be visually stimulating.

I feel bad because that must be the reason that people continue to disrupt my bulletin board...right? I mean, obviously we have an RA who doesn't show their residents what it means to be respectful.

Oh wait...no we don't. All of our Res Life staff is awesome.

So that means it's just a bunch of punks.

The next time...the bunch of punks can replace what they damaged. They can take the time.

c'est ridicule...

She said 'you don't know me, you don't care at all...'

Senior year is supposed to be amazing.

Senior year is supposed to be fun.

Senior year is supposed to be a time of anticipation and some anxiety.

Senior year is supposed to be about remembering the good times, and looking back on how far we've come.

Senior year...is none of those things.

I don't think it's possible to fully articulate the disappointment I feel at my senior year right now. Maybe I'm overextended (at least, that's what my boss says). Maybe I'm seeing too much anxiety and not enough fun - maybe the formula's bad.

All I know is that it's week four. I want to go home more than words can say. I miss my old friends like I've never missed them before (and that says something). I wish for trips to McDonald's before drama...when drama was on stage and not in my hallway. I dream about bus trips and random singalongs and of how it felt to know that I was never really alone, and that if I was single it didn't matter because I was only a kid anyway.

I'm not a kid anymore.

Decisions I made with certain outcomes in mind are now materializing as something warped and unfamiliar. I thought I would belong, and not feel so outside the curve. I underestimated just what taking this on would mean. I'm talking in circles and not even sure that I understand what I'm saying.

I don't feel comfortable pulling others in when I'm so desperate to get out.

I need clarity...contentment...coffee...and some cuddling wouldn't hurt either.

I didn't grow up to feel so alone.

celui qui est dans la commande

So I need to take some time to think about my life. Where am I going, how will I get there, when will this entire charade play out to a happy resolution?

I'm irritated right now...well, not exactly right now...it's more the memory of the irritation I had yesterday, when I was thinking about things. As much as I love my job and I love being an RA and so involved, yesterday it felt like I was reaching a breaking point. And it's only September.

B is amazing. Great supervisor, wonderful friend potential if it wasn't for that ineffable boundary between professional and personal. It should be there, because we wouldn't be able to work together if he saw us all as friends first. But that's beyond the point of my thinking here. I'm just a little fed up with inconsistency. I set up my schedule with certain understood things in mind, and I've now had to deal with the third shake-up to which I'm expected to adjust with no complaint and pure cooperation. I want to articulate this to him but I'm not sure how to do it without sounding critical or, worse, petulant.

I hate being petulant.

Talked to Mom today. She sounds like she's doing better...I really miss her. She actually cried when she told me she wanted to see me - I think she's coming down at the end of the month, after the High Holy Days are finished, to spend an afternoon - she may even be here for Jello!

And then there's the sorority. When I signed my bid and joined DZ I felt so complete, like I was somewhere I belonged. And now...there's so much bureaucracy and the requirement to do so much that wasn't articulated before. Rather than feeling a sense of belonging and completion, now I feel like it's just another obligation I would be better off without. Come January, I may give it up for good...

Try as I might (well, not try, I do everything on my schedule) I feel like I'm slipping and forgetting little things here and there. I hate it; I hate not feeling like I'm 100% in control of my life.

But hey...I'm not.

les problems...

Personally, I feel completely stressed out... Being sick means that whatever snippets of free time I manage to carve out are miserable or, usually, spent sleeping. I've become a buffer in the meantime for everyone's personal drama and I don't know how to just say "no" to people, because it makes me feel like I'm being callous. All I need is the space and support to maybe fall apart a little and not feel like a) someone is going to start a pissing contest with me or b) I'm being insensitive to someone else's stress, as is what usually happens when you start venting to someone only to find out that their problems are so much worse.

Besides, I'm strong, right?

...right?

The stress doesn't just come from school, or clubs, or residents (ha, they're my lowest source of stress), or even my friends here. There's so much going on at home, same story with no chance of getting better. Mom's sick right now because (in part) she won't slow down and behave like an adult with limitations. She goes out at all hours of the night with kids half her age, eats poorly and doesn't get enough rest, then expects to be able to go to school and work every day without falling apart. I'm 21 years old and I'm incapable of doing that day in and day out. The thing is, she's lonely and so desperate for friendship that she's willing to do just about anything to get it.

What makes it worse is...well, one of her pals is one of my best friends (awkward). The other is my ex-boyfriend (trés awkward). I feel by going home I'm either forced to see someone I don't care for or she ends up having to decide whether it's more important to see her daughter or her "friend". And it's just a weird relationship, if you ask me, except nobody asks me. I feel like I'm being put in the middle of a situation I can't stand.

Then she says she doesn't want to get back together with my dad, and it's just fine as long as she's the one doing the rejecting. Let him say he doesn't want to be with her, though, and she gets depressed.

She's suicidal. Whenever someone confronts her with all of this and she feels cornered, she'll say that she just wants to die. Last semester I spent a night on the phone with her, both of us crying, and I couldn't go to bed until the guys promised me they wouldn't leave her alone. I'm sitting in a room three hours away, not knowing if my mom would make it through the night. Just last month when I was home I told her I'd had enough of feeling like this, and she tried to leave - she even called my brother to tell him goodbye. I left with her and we talked her down...that time.

I'm afraid that I'll wake up one morning to the news that nobody was there to stop her.

I've lived my whole life with the shadow of suicide, but it was my dad talking, my dad holding the gun, my dad wanting to throw it all away. Now that it's my mom...I'm scared. She, I think, has the wherewithal to actually do it.

But don't worry about me. I love life too much.

It's just...j'ai les problems...

Espoirs à tiret...

Coming home has been...interesting. Interesting in that it's the last time I'll be home as a free individual.

Okay, so that sounds a bit melodramatic. What I mean is, when I go back to campus I'll start staff training within 48 hours, after which point my soul will quite literally belong to OWU - for another nine months, anyway. And, while there may be a few more breaks where I can come home and unwind, this is the time for me to really say goodbye. When the earth circles around to May again, it will be time for me to pick up the life I've begun and move it, come what may.

I won't think about that now...not actively, at any rate. It's always there, in the recesses of my mind.

Dammit...I had a mind for a good long rant and now I can hardly concentrate. Please believe that I'll fix that straightaway.

Les miserables...

I'm not really miserable. Not yet, anyway. But it's cold outside, and since it is in fact the middle of July I find that highly unacceptable. As I thought this morning, maybe Hell has finally frozen over.

No matter.

I went on a roadtrip to look at grad schools with McKenzie last week...getting to visit D.C. and New York was fabulous, and Boston is always the best experience ever. It doesn't hurt that I got to see Greg, and got some closure on that particular situation. I do like him, and he's a good friend, but I've been waiting for something that will probably never happen.

What is interesting is that I've met someone who is pretty much the greatest thing to ever happen to me. Austin is a senior at West Virginia State, majoring in Politics and Government, converted to Judaism, all around wonderful. I can't even describe him without smiling. The thing is, he seems to be interested in me too, at least from a platonic standpoint. Maybe if we lived closer to one another...

Things are just so dull here. Ugh. Can't stand it... I need something to happen. Something good, of course, because I don't think I could handle a tragedy at this point.

Enough for now.

A tes souhaits...

Oh, what a tangled web we weave...

So I decided to come home for the weekend. I haven't told very many people, and I won't even go so far as to say that I've only told the people who matter - there are plenty of people who matter and who I still will not see. I hope they don't feel bad...it's just that I only have a certain amount of time and there are people who need me more than others. There are things I need to do.

I'm sitting at Chris's house, and I feel honor-bound to justify that by saying that he isn't here, and I came to see his mom. Regardless, he'll be off work at midnight and I invited him to join in on Wii fun with Mike and me. It's strange...but I don't like not being friends with him. To be honest, half the time I don't like being friends with him either, but I figure that enough time has passed for the two of us to be civil and see if maybe we can have a friendship that will work. So we'll see. It's not comforting to know, however, that he spends his time hanging out with Gabriella and talking about what a bitch I am. A bitch I am, to be sure, but it isn't for him to say. Neither is it for them to discuss the fact that they think I'm a whore for whatever reason. People in glass houses, you know...

I'm having crises of the mind, crises of the heart. I don't know what to do, and I hate it. On the one hand, I've been talking to Harry again. I don't honestly think that anything could work between us, but it's nice to be talking to him after so long. And who knows, we could have fun together...but we're in such different places that to even think of pursuing something serious or longer lived than a few days (maybe weeks) is foolish.

Then there's Greg. God, I haven't thought seriously about Greg in about a month, and the biggest thought I had is "This is it, I can't keep waiting for something to happen when I know it won't." But I told Sarah as much when we went to coffee this afternoon, she gave me good advice - don't give up hope, because even if it doesn't work there's always a world of thought to be had out of a good idea. And, of course, she knows Greg well enough to know that the way he acted with me was way out of character for someone who is generally only interested in the physical. When we go to Boston, we'll see what happens...

And there's a third. I keep trying to deny that I have feelings of any kind for him, but it's pretty pointless to pretend. As poorly as I feel about it, I was almost happy when I heard that he and his girlfriend broke up, even as I felt horrible that he was upset. I'm happy that he's happy, but when we talk, when we're together, I still wonder. And we're such a good match, a lot of people have said. Don't wish, don't start...wishing only wounds the heart...

This is what happens when I go home for the weekend.

Well, that and Legends of the Hidden Temple.

Je souviens...

I remember the first day we were together. The Air Show...the way you told Jack not to mess with me, that I was "your girl"...We had many good times, didn't we?

I remember the biggest mistake I made when we were so young, so unwise...in my insecurity I held so tightly to you that I pushed you away, and then I deceived you to take the last step. I'm so sorry, though you've long since forgiven me.

Seven years...seven years later, and I wonder what may have been had things gone differently. And I wonder where things are going, and what it means.

I started tonight intending to retell our story, but now I'm left with wonder.

And wonder will continue.

sans vous...

Je ne me souviens pas comment parler français. Alors, je n'ai pas etudié français il y a 3 ans... et je suis très triste, parce que j'aime cette langue. Mais, tristement, je ne me souviens pas.

I should try to remember. I should work to remember. There's no reason that I should let 5 years of study and practice go to waste.

This will be my study and practice record. As I improve, as my skills with the keyboard and the language grow stronger, I will rely less on my native tongue and more on that which I first adopted.