The art of showering

It's gotten cold here. Not very cold, I guess, probably just in the low 60s or high 50s, but I'm freezing. Sometimes I think about all the stories I've read and all the important historical figures I know, and I am in awe that they lived in a time before central heating. I feel like I expend half my energy just getting up to make some oatmeal, remembering to flip the switch for hot water first so it has at least ten minutes to warm up. Since my shower is outside (enclosed but not insulated) on the balcony, I do a terrific dance of jumping in in the morning. I first spend a few minutes struggling with the slide door thats off its tracks, then shed my clothes quickly, thrusting them onto a nearby chair, then try to slip into my flip-flops before running into the bathroom area and shutting the door before any of the neighbors see my bare ass. I live in one of those apartment complexes where I can only see other balconies in every direction- sort of like Rear Window. Since the water is sometimes still too cold to handle, I first use the hand-held shower head and point it away from me, and then try to set it back in place over my head while trying to keep my mouth closed and my eyes from burning (I also have to remember to take the toilet paper roll outside, otherwise it gets completely soaked). The hot water only lasts about 5 minutes, so I sort of have an ongoing rotation in terms of which body parts to wash first. The bathroom is also tiny, so I constantly try to not stumble over the broken toilet in front of me and not hit my back with the different pipes and such behind me (in fact, it's so small that I have to sit sideways when using the toilet, and the shower head still drips on my feet). Afterwards, I grab the towel from the clothesline, quickly change into real clothes with the slide door still open because it's too much of an effort to open and close it so many times. I should probably get that fixed. It's certainly going to get much worse in the next two months, so I should save the rest of this rant until then.

I bought a jacket, though. I don't love it, but after obsessing over it for a week now and having three different coats on hold, I guess I'm just happy it's over. But I continue to browse Chictopia with a jealous eye, trying to spot styles I SHOULD have bought...

Fail, fail, fail

Lest I soon forget my latest cooking-on-a-hot-plate debacle, here's the summary:

Last week, after watching "Julie & Julia", a movie I thought was pretty forgettable actually, despite the rave reviews, I was still inspired enough to do some of my own cooking. Now, I'm not really a newbie to cooking. I lived in a co-op for a semester where we had to cook for twenty people at once, and after that I slowly learned to cook a few staples. I'm at the point where I can look at a recipe and it'll turn out pretty good, but I wouldn't dare to begin innovating. Well, I've been spending way too much money eating out for every meal here, but its easy to do since a meal is really only about $3, so it doesn't feel like much. But at the same time, if you can buy a cartload of veggies and herbs and such for only $1.50 (rough estimations), then you're still spending way more than you need to. The problem is that I only have a microwave and a hot plate. Now before coming to China, I've never heard of hot plates as cooking devices... I thought they were only for chemistry class. So not only have I never used one before, but I've never used one before that solely has Chinese characters written on it.

Despite this, I went out in the pouring rain last week and decided to buy string beans, cilantro, broccoli, eggplant, garlic, onions, the works. So far I've been able to use the hot plate to heat a pot of water to make oatmeal, but when I put the broccoli in, the damn thing wouldn't heat up. It would start, then make a sudden beeping noise and then turn off. I tried pressing all the buttons but after 45 minutes or so (now, still wet and starving), I ended up microwaving all of it. It wasn't the best, but with enough black bean sauce, it was edible.
Today, I decided to go for something much simpler. Hard boiled eggs. The water actually boiled this time, but after removing the eggs from heat, they were soft and gooey and basically, repulsive. I scooped out the little yolks and tried to mix it together like scrambled eggs. I reached for the pepper shaker, when I realized that I used the SAME pepper shaker a month earlier as a rock for my turtles' aquarium. I had brought the turtles home and immediately started freaking out after reading that they need a surface in which they can dry off... otherwise, their shells will grow moldy and they'll die. In my sudden panic, I took the pepper shaker and stuck it in with the turtles, thinking I really never cook anyway. Anyway, I have no idea if I've washed it since then. Then, I tried to find the salt. The only reason I have pepper in the house is because the girl from last year left it in the room and the only reason I have salt is because when I had a sore throat a friend I had just met that very day went out and bought me salt to mix with hot water and drink. Well, it's just been sitting in this plastic bag and needless to say, half of the salt came pouring out onto the pan with the pathetic tiny yolks scrambled around enough to look like jaundiced mucus. I took one bite, and immediately had to gargle with a cold glass of black tea that has green tea leaves in it from last week.


I just washed everything. No matter how hard I try to get my life in order, things seem to fall apart so much faster than I can take care of them. If I do laundry, I don't actually collect the dry items from the clothesline for a good week. If I remember to wash the pans, then that apparently takes up too much brain power and I forget to feed the turtles. Something always has to give.
This is getting too long. My one rule was to keep these short.



On the upside, I finally bought a top similar to this Complex Geometries one, but in navy and with a few studs... actually, I think mine is way cooler.

pretty things!

(becauseimaddicted.net) What a beautiful bracelet. I could totally do that. I spent the day in Dongmen, which is a kind of absurd shopping area pretty much always TEEMING with people. I found all these great rings for about $15 US, which I realize isn't a lot but for here it kind of is and I left with zero rings. I never know what to do about rings. On one hand I think they're so pretty, but then I just KNOW that I'll lose it within a couple months. It's happened to me so many times before. It's just not worth it. Or is it? I had a somewhat fruitful day other than that... found a really poofy skirt that looks like its made out of old curtains and dark heart tights, which'll sure be useful. I somehow didn't realize that Shenzhen would have winter. I thought it'd be in the 70s year-round and not that its already falling into the low 60s, I don't know what to do with myself. I need a coat, surely. Well! My first day of tutoring babies is tomorrow, we'll see how that goes. As long as I can remember the words to "If you're happy and you know it" and "Take me out to the ball game" I think I should be fine...

What if the whole world spoke only English?

I've been thinking about this article for a few days now. I even emailed the link to one of my old professors to see what he thought about it. I know no one actually reads this because this blog has absolutely no real theme, no consistency, no interesting images, and I post maybe once every six months. Well, on that note, for the invisible reader, this article is about English becoming a global language. The author argues that its somewhat politically correct to fear the loss of native languages with people moving into cities and all that, but that losing language actually doesn't have anything to do with losing culture- that this concern for language is a purely aesthetic concern. He also argues that the only reason we have this total hang-up against it is because English automatically has colonial associations, so we would be much less perturbed by the idea of one global language if that language were, say, Inuit, instead of English. I was really excited to stumble upon this article because in my last four months here (in China, I'm living in China now), I still haven't gotten used to the fact that there's so much English around. It's one of those things that I know-- I've traveled quite a bit, and its not 'surprising' to me, per se, but it just pops into my head once and again. It's like being amazed that the world is so big and there are so many people in it- it's something you already KNOW, but is still amazing, every time you think about it. This is how I am with seeing English around. Of course I know all the historical reasons that led up to English being such a huge force here, but it still feels so strange and arbitrary sometimes! Like going to an ex-pat bar in Hong Kong and hearing all these different people speaking English is tons of different accents. All these people from all over the world, and the default being English. It makes me realize (again, and again and again) how strange it is for us Americans, to never HAVE to learn another language. This must seriously make us so different from the rest of the world, have such a different frame of mind. I was eating lunch in a Vietnamese restaurant today reading "The Blind Assassin" when suddenly I heard The Star Spangled Banner playing on a Chinese news station on the TV. The song was dubbed in Chinese, though. So bizarre.

That felt good, actually. Maybe I'll start updating here more often. Pictures, rants, all that jazz.

http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/2009%20-%20Fall/full-McWhorter-Fall-2009.html

PS. Since Mad Men is over, I need a new fix. I'm starting on "In Treatment" tonight... we'll see how it goes

PPS. I've been thinking it over, and how can language NOT be a part of culture though? This past summer I helped my mother translate a Bengali short story into English for this online literary magazine and it was so much more difficult than I would've imagined. I knew all the right words, but it just didn't sound the same. Words have completely different tones and implications in different languages. I feel like a different person almost when I speak in Bengali, my other self. Is this just me not sufficiently being able to express myself in both languages? What's lost in it?

gilmore girls nostalgia...

The last couple days, I have been on a constant Gilmore Girls kick. I started watching this show at age 13, and continued watching faithfully for the first three seasons or so. It was a good influence on me, I think. Here was a smart, witty character who knew as much about Dickens as she did 80s pop culture… pretty much the exact image I was trying for in my early teens. Actually, forget trying. Impressing others really didn’t require much. Since 90% of the other teenagers around were too obsessed with Kate Spade backpacks and John Mayer to read, it was pretty easy to stand out. I read a lot of books and knew about music played with real instruments- pretty much all I needed to gain the respect of parents, teachers, whoever. As a teenager, you could be precocious. By 14, I read the completed works of Oscar Wilde, tried to get into Virginia Woolf. I was lucky to have a few friends who were equally interested, so we could throw out Dorothy Parker verses to each other and then snuggle up and watch Vincent Gallo movies. Twenty-two year olds can’t be precocious. Maybe you still have potential, but no one really cares about what you could do anymore, just if what you are currently doing is respectable or not. In your twenties, you have fewer excuses. The other day at school (this time as a teacher), I was having a particularly off-day and couldn’t help myself from crying. Several of the other teachers in the office tried to offer me solace and asked me my age. I muttered “21” without even thinking about it, and it took me a second to realize I’ve been 22 for eight months. She exclaimed, “Oh! You’re still a baby!” and I felt better. Yes, yes I am still a baby and I’d like to stay one for awhile, please. But why am I already starting to lie about my age? When you’re a precocious teenager, you’re special and there aren’t too many of you. But then, over time, like when you finally get to that elite college you’ve been trying for all this time, you realize you’re a little less special. By the time you graduate, you’re hardly special at all (like me, I participated in almost zero extracurricular activities and my GPA was astonishingly average and I certainly wasn’t even the most avid reader in my school). And now, post-graduation? I am suddenly jealous of people who were definitely non-precocious teenagers eight years back, people who happen to be doing more interesting things than I am. Why didn’t I go to art school to become a children’s book illustrator? Anyway, watching Gilmore Girls is like watching the end of an era for me, the last time I was smart, the last time being smart was good enough. The last time I thought I could make a swift transition from the best reader in high school to senior officer at the UN. Ah well. Makes me wonder— if Rory were real, what would she be doing now?

Well

I completely forgot I had this. I do that a lot, I think I've signed up for a million different sites over the years, including orkut (India's facebook) and Going and xanga and Twitter, and after a month I hardly ever go back. Which of course makes me wonder about how much shit there is floating around on in the internet somewhere about me, but since there's already so much, it doesn't really matter. It's like this friend I have who's still afraid of getting Facebook because she hates the idea of having her email address and information stored somewhere... but that in return reminds me of this project they had at school where there were hidden video cameras everywhere, but basically when there's a million times more footage than people watching, it all becomes somewhat meaningless, right? and that's how I feel about the online information being saved... since there's way too much information than people looking at it, it's like it doesn't even exist. My laptop stopped working a good two weeks ago and I think anyone else would have freaked out by now and tried to have gotten it fixed, but maybe it's just that I'm lazy (or that I've pretty much moved into my bf's room) but I feel like I don't even mind all the music and photos and documents being erased, because half of it's online anyway, right?

Anyway, the reason I found this again was just because I found a new blog I adore.
http://thesnailandthecyclops.blogspot.com/

I want to start spending more time decorating and making pretty things. That's my new goal. I have unlimited free time now and while I do enjoy what I do (which is mostly reading The House of Mirth and watching movies), I keep thinking I should study for the GREs or learn to knit or something. Maybe this summer I'll have something going. I need to find some sort of job first.

I love this kid

17 Year-Old Gay Vermont Youth Speaks Out On Marriage Equality
http://community.livejournal.com/ontd_political/2629934.html

fashion protest?

I want you (and by you I mean the literally one or two people who may read this) to understand that very little thinking goes into these blog posts, which is why more often that not I end up posting something trivial to bitch about, but I don't quite know myself what in particular bothers me. It's more like I'm vaguely disturbed and instead of thinking about it at a deeper level, I'd rather just put it out there even while my thoughts are still fuzzy and undecided.

And so, HOW WEIRD IS THIS AD? I guess a major point of anxiety for me has been trying to reconcile my love of aesthetics and fashion with my interest in politics. Not that they're necessarily at odds with each other, but yes, sometimes the worship of fashion gods and labels feels extravagant and wasteful in comparison to subalterns and postcoloniality and blahblahblah. But looking at this ad sort of clarifies for me (just like that Erin Wasson image) just how distant the world of Marc Jacobs and Karl Lagerfeld is from the one of actual political protests and activism and ANGER. It's, once again, almost mocking.

It reminds me of this piece on hipsterdom from Adbusters, that states "Less a subculture, the hipster is a consumer group – using their capital to purchase empty authenticity and rebellion... The cultural zeitgeists of the past have always been sparked by furious indignation and are reactionary movements. But the hipster’s self-involved and isolated maintenance does nothing to feed cultural evolution." (I'm equating the 'hipster' with the 'fashion-conscious' because even if the hipster is set up as the anti-label, they feed off each other so its essentially the same thing). My point? That we are at a loss for actual movements, that the well of protests has run dry and now the only thing worth marching for isn't human rights or protecting the earth or or... anything like that, but consumerism. The only thing worth protesting is the cut and design of textiles as a sign of social status?

At least, that's the message I get from this.

Images

Meulen Hotel in El Calafate
Perito Merino Glacier
Iguazu Falls
Buenos Aires

Back from the Southern Hemisphere

And I don't know what to do with myself.

Before leaving, I thought that a trip might be really productive just because I seriously needed to get out of Poughkeepsie. It worked out better than I had expected. I still don't have any idea about a career path, but at least now I feel motivated to find work, just so I can save up to head back to Buenos Aires for at least a few months. I also want to learn Spanish.

At the hostel, one of the people I met was a fairly successful writer working on a project about global belief systems. I was a little jealous because she seemed pretty young and said that she didn't have any unpaid internships. Editors just called her based on her work in college. She seemed to have a pretty easy go of it, getting paid to travel for a full year and conduct interviews. But when I looked up the project (utruthproject.org) I had some misgivings about it... instead of attempting to "discover commonalities within the human drama that supersede surface differences" so many of the answers just reinforce past assumptions, such as women from Southeast Asia claiming that family is most important. Maybe it was just the wording that bothered me ("going where no woman has gone before") as if leaving the United States is some huge accomplishment, or that people from other nations are just scenery to be discovered and not "men" or "women" themselves. When I spoke to her about it, she said that she disliked Southeast Asia the most because people there seemed more cold and unwilling to respond to her. But if the only way to get answers out of them is to ask them to fill in the blank: I believe that ___, the wording already allows for very few answers. Also, why should people be willing to share their deepest beliefs to a near stranger, before said stranger has made any attempt to humble herself and respect the people she meets? I think her intentions are admirable, but its so privileged and kind of egotistical to assume that all the people she meets should respond to her in the way that she's looking for. Her inability to understand that, and her inability to accept potential language/cultural barriers kind of shows how her project is faulty.

I guess she can be lucky as a writer, but that doesn't make her that much more enlightened than the rest of us.

AeroGarden? Maybe?

The other night I was about to walk back to my house but then I suddenly saw the campus shuttle in front of the building. I got on the shuttle, but the driver, this woman in her 50s, was chatting on her phone really loudly for a good six minutes or so, and I felt it would be rude to just leave, so I just sat there. She kept talking on her phone, so I didn't get the chance to tell her where I needed to go and she started driving in the completely wrong direction, and I didn't want to say anything. Eventually, we arrived somewhat near my house (maybe ten minutes away instead of fifteen), so I said I could just get off, but she insisted she'd drive me closer. But when she started driving, I realized we were going a super-long route again so in the meantime she asked me about my major and what I thought I'd do after graduation. Of course I had no idea what to say, so I blurted something out about "social work", the way I sometimes blurt out "teaching" or "being a carpenter" without a second thought. She then said that that used to be her field too, before she retired. She told me about how draining it was, and how it wasn't really rewarding too often, but maybe once in awhile it was. I realized it never even occurred to me she had a different career before driving the shuttle, and that was so ignorant of me. She told me a little more about her daughter and by the time she stopped talking, we passed my stop again. When I got off the shuttle, it had been almost twenty-odd minutes and I ended up maybe 500ft. from where I started, but I was pretty okay with it. Just another one of those moments.

I'm graduating pretty soon. I'm going to Argentina tomorrow. I've been having one of those graduation-crises... the whole what should I do, what gives life meaning deals. But then I signed on to LJ and I read this entry from a girl I don't actually know about how she started running, writing, reading, making pies and having tea dates, and it calmed me down so much.

Funny how that happens.

Now You Little Monkeys Wanna Be Guerillas

So I know this image is at least two years old, but I just found it and it kind of irked me. I'll be the first to admit I don't really understand the huge appeal of Erin Wasson- she's always seemed kind of like an airhead to me... especially since she tries to give off a certain image of being grounded and chill, that just makes it worse. BUT my issue is with the t-shirt itself. What the hell does that mean? Am I being too sensitive when I think of it as somewhat bizarre? I know there was the entire Obama controversy over the phrase "little monkeys" as racist, and I can see both sides of that issue, but when it so blatantly mocks the idea of said "monkeys" wanting to be "guerrillas" (what I think of as unconventional warfare against an oppressive minority) it really makes me wonder. Is it ridiculous for me to think that her shirt trivializes the plight and resistance of the subalterns, whether it be Che or whoever? The tone is completely condescending, and yeah, sure, we can laugh at those "little monkeys" who want to be "guerrillas" since hey, we're apathetic and aren't in want of anything. Goddamn.

Well, the shower's occupied

(format from nogoodforme.com)
Listening: Grouper, a Portland based singer named Liz Harris. Also, the Roja/Bombay cassette my mother found in a box, Grass Skirt- All Girl Summer Fun Band (because its too cold up here)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJLUnDMVIsY

Watching: Vicky Cristina Barcelona off watch-movies.net, House, Gossip Girl, and I recently saw Revolutionary Road, which actually disappointed me... maybe I'll post more about that later


Reading: White Mughals by William Dalrymple. So good! It's about the phenomenon of British officers marrying Mughal princesses in India in the 16/1700s, and adopting the culture. This was actually somewhat accepted until the mid 1800s, where there was a complete turn in terms of attitude and instead of appreciating the culture the British attitude became much more imperialistic, exploitative, and condescending... I like it because it complicates the trajectory of colonialism. ON THE READING LIST: Susan Sontag's journals... I read an excerpt and was immediately hooked, I need to get my hands on it


Wearing: Uhm, actually just what I was wearing yesterday and fell asleep in... plaid square-neck top and leggings


Wanting: To have gone to Restaurant Week dinner with all my friends, but taking the train was too much of a hassle so I missed the apparently delish Tribeca Grill dinner.


And also...
Aurelia Cardigan http://www.allsaintsshop.co.uk/product/?searchtext=&area=W&category_id=26&page=1&all=1&position=11&prod_desc_id=5051214382555
I want that so badly, but I can't quite justify it
http://www.allsaintsshop.co.uk/product/?searchtext=&area=W&category_id=26&page=1&all=1&position=18&prod_desc_id=5051214382883

ALSO WANTING: My thesis to be finished already

Keeping busy in Po-town...

(image courtesy of Noah Fowler)

So after years of finding myself drained from 14-hour days of unproductive blog-reading, I finally decided 'Goddamn, I need to do something with my life. I need to have routine and obligations, a space to think, something to show for these long days of doing absolutely nothing.' After all, I spent 80% of my internet time lengthening my Favorites list of more items I couldn't possibly afford or bookmarking cooking recipes or crafts projects I won't get to... so instead of starting on that long list, I figured I'd just showcase my favorites and at least this way, I'll be able to look back on all those things I've briefly thought about. I tend to ramble on... most of my days here are spent waking up around 10, browsing the internet for another hour until I take an hour long shower (every day I try to save water but it hasn't happened yet), and then I move from friend's houses to coffeehouses to nearby restaurants to converse with other people about the same old shit. But my point was that I tend to ramble on, so my one major rule for this blog is to KEEP IT SHORT. We'll see how that goes.