Aphros

Our school has a literary magazine called Aphros, where students get poems and short stories and pictures of their artwork published. I had no idea this existed until I was working the booth for Writing Center Awareness Week (people walking by only noticed the candy we gave out) and I became addicted to reading other students' work. I might submit my "Tag Team" inspired by Ginsberg thing, but I'm not sure if it's a poem or prose or what. I write like this a lot. It isn't poetry; it doesn't really have stanzas, but it has short paragraph-type things that eventually taper into one or two lines.

I've edited it a little... I added more lines that reference Ginsberg from the original "America" and sprinkled in some Buddhist thought. Note the balloon boy reference as well. Haha!


Tag Team- inspired by the Beats

America he gave you all and he became nothing.
America when will we be told the real truths? When will you stop these nervous breakdowns over the newest fad catastrophe?
When will your people, and the other people, become capable of selflessness? What, even, is selflessness? What is there to care for, to listen to above the incessant murmur from your weary citizens? They care, but often for the wrong things. Perhaps I care about the wrong things too. How can we even be sure? America when can we appreciate the Beats without sending accusations flying about insincerity? Where is Kerouac when we need him?

We seek to become nothing.

America I grow nervous, not tired. Is this your intention? With the fumes of the Times the poisonous blogs and your noxious CNN? Pandemics and rages and who blew up, flew up into the sky this week. It's the impression we get. This is your second letter, America, to my knowledge, and you failed to listen when Ginsberg first wailed a lonely howl to your polluted sky.

Nothing, he learned, is all we can be.

America I could boycott your food and hurt only myself. America I could boycott your culture and nothing would change. America if I boycott my native country I shall end up on a boat slowly going insane like the man who already did that once in revolutionary era. Wasn't that a Vonnegut?

There is no chase: strive for nothing. It's all we can do.

America why didn't you listen to Ginsberg?

Dharma Bums is my favoritest.

I made a meme

I JUST LOVE HIS LAST FACE SO FREAKING MUCH.

Triphallus, to Punctuate!

I believe as human beings we operate under many different philosophies.

In studying the various philosoph(ers/ies) I've come to name some of the life philosophies I adopt depending on my situation. It isn't even a conscious thing, but the way I function in certain times can be labeled as one of the philosophies I've studied. Lemme explain...


When I audition or wait to hear a result, I am a solipsist. My thoughts can affect the outcome. If I believe something will happen, it won't; If I convince myself it won't, it will. (This also attributes to my theory of balance of good and bad in a day, which is pretty solipsist because it ends up being a self-fulfilling prophecy anyway, and it is all a product of my mind.) The solipsist believes, at its most extreme, that their mind is the only thing that exists and everything around them is a product of their imagination and can therefore be controlled by it. I simply believe that the way I think will affect something I have no control over in the first place. I never said it was right, in fact, I accept its ridiculousness.

When I become angered by others, I am a moral absolutist. People are either completely good or completely bad and harmful. In my more neutral mind, I know this isn't true, but it comes out in the worst way when this happens. I don't forgive, I only forget to be mad. Terrible philosophy to adopt.

When I get discouraged by my own actions, I am an existentialist. Life is absurd. People are absurd, and act in such a way. I am absurd. You are absurd. Existence is absurd and surreal. Nothing matters, yet it completely does. I am a failure waiting for Godot who will never come.

When I am determined, I am a utilitarian. The things I strive for, I strive for based only on their ability to make me happy in the future. This usually fails me. When I become determined to dance well, for example, the actual act of dancing makes me so unhappy that it erases all trace of utilitarianism, no matter how good my initial intentions may be.

When I am sad, I am generally still existentialist, because life is absurd and pretty much sucks balls.

But most of the time I have to forget everything shitty around me and fall into some form of Zen, the only "philosophy" (if one can really call it that) that doesn't pull me one way or another. My head is tired from all the thinking I do every day. I tend to zone out, all the time. I'm not lost in a zone of "no-thought," in fact, I'm doing the opposite: I think too much. I follow a thought and follow and follow and the thought grows and becomes global:
Why can't I keep my balance on that pirouette?
Why don't I have good balance at all?
What if this affected the way I walk?
How will me doing a turn help anyone in the world?
Am I following a selfish profession? (I'm not, btw)
Why are people allergic to shellfish?
I heard somewhere that alpacas are the fastest growing industry...
Etc, etc, etc.
It's a vicious cycle.


My mind doesn't wander.
It sprints.
Into a manhole.
And through the sewers.

Don't even read this

I would like to introduce Pickle Relish
And this is the reason I spend too much time on the internet.

You see, facebook has this terrible little app called Pet Society. You make a little creature and you earn coins to decorate their house and buy them clothes. Most of the pets look like rabbits, or hamsters, or something.

I don't know what Pickle Relish is supposed to look like. I bought her a giant retro red wig, a lolita outfit, and obscenely large sunglasses, and now she's a little punk hooker. Hamster. Thing. I'm not really sure.

I'll make a really good post one of these days, I promise.

I agree with Calvin, actually

^^^^ click to enlarge! The tiny size doesn't do it justice at all! ^^^^


And this just because I found it really funny...

Ur doin it rong

こんばんは。

I feel like I really need some positive affirmation right now. But then again, the only person who can give me that is myself... or so positive people say.

Today was one of those days where I felt like I'm the only person in the world who makes dumb mistakes. I know that isn't true (entirely,) but today was one of those days that just made me want to curl up into a little ball and read Calvin and Hobbes until I forgot about my mistakes.

Now I'm gonna go study for a Japanese quiz. さよなら。ありがとう

To make this post a bit merrier, here is a story from an audition.

There is a young guy and an older guy waiting to go in. The audition is strictly Gilbert and Sullivan.

Young guy: So what're you singing?
Older guy: Pirate king.
Young guy: Oh really? What's that from?
Kate: *facepalm*
[/operetta joke]

Sidebar: video.