happy birthday, caram!!

It's okay to be gay! -- now in India!


bbc

[21:56] Henry: I heard that you and other Sarah had some fun times with my mom?



yes we did ;)

The clouds keep coming.

It's not even raining now, but this morning or later or eventually, the drops will come down. All of the sunshine we've been getting lately has been short lived. :/ I'm ready for my weeks of sunshine. I'm ready for a drought.

We slid under the fence surrounding springer and drew a unicorn pooping a rainbow, hippie quotes, and inspirational messages, and all of our graffiti was in chalk.

:)

I've been having a lot of deep and fulfilling conversations lately. I feel like something is missing on the off days. But right now, my little kitty has come to say "I love you" which she's been doing a lot. She's decided she really loves people since I came home from college.

But I say "I love you" regularly as is.



ALSO anti-discrimination bill is going through DE senate for gays! Anyone interested in calling senators with me???

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8075603.stm

This article reads like Mousavi's entire platform revolves around women's rights. I love him. :D :D

Also, the state of women's rights in Iran:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7600670.stm

Anyone interested in starting a mini book club? Ami and I are in.

Building a web page! Yayyy

I love creating things :D :D

BBC Earth News: Evolution is Slowing Snails Down

So fucking cool. XD Scientists in Chile have found a correlation between the survival rate of snails and their metabolism. Natural selection is pressuring garden snails to have more efficient metabolisms.

hee

And I love snails :D

Eat it, kohai :D

holyfuckingshit distance never hurt so much

but I'm learning

"
As for the last little blurb. We are all inexperienced at love. If people ever actually get around to figuring it out I think humanity will have lost something ineffably vital to our existence. My point is, you feel like you have no fucking clue what you're doing right? good. me too. it's normal, it's called being in love and it's wonderful. Even the times that suck are wonderful; if nothing else, be glad that you are alive to feel. It's a cheesy movie, but Equilibrium does have some valid points =P."

I love him.

Hate comes with all of the opposite feelings of love. Disgust when you see your object of animosity, a desire to inflict pain, destroy, a deep loathing, that burning, weighted frustration. And then there's this obsessive passion. Love has that one too actually.

Alissa had to work HC duty, so she was stranded in her dorm. I showed up with a couple of movies that never got watched (we've seen five in three days, so lol yesterday became our break), and Ellie showed up too. We kept Alissa company. Every once in a while, she'd have to go off on an HC run to check up on the floor mates. Ellie and I talked about all of the people we realized we hated from our London crowd. But I guess we don't really hate them that much. I'm just pissed off by their existence, and I have no need to be around them ever, so I just don't. Simple problem. My life is happy. I have other people.

But shiiit I do hate someone. I remembered about an argument I got into with one of my friends earlier that day. Holyshit. Essentially, he feels that, as a woman, I am only capable of so much, and I am limited by the competency of the man I get hitched with. My influence over this individual is the extent of the influence I have over the world, because, again, as a woman, I can't do anything in this society. Are you fucking shitting me? Exactly what year do we live in? But no, he's entirely serious, and he tells me I live outside of reality, and everything I say is bullshit. What the fuck? It's sickening because I never knew he felt this way, and his opinions blatantly deny my existence. How can I hang around with someone who can't respect me as an equal no matter what I accomplish?

I talked to Nik, and he told me about how hate is an obsession just like love and how I shouldn't hate. It's intuitive, really. And I have a choice about these things. I can't be friends, and to be enemies is to hate, so... eradicate from my life.

*exhale*

Time to go work on my philosophy paper now. I finished my linear exam yesterday, and once my paper is done, I just have some studying to do. Study, finish up my final four work shifts, two exams, and then I go home.

Will miss Nik.

But I love you all, so I'm happy to go home and see friends :D :D Really miss Brendan and my brother, and I feel obligated to look out for those two too.

Yum. Free cone day at Ben & Jerry's. Almost makes up for Free Rita's Waterice Day, whenever that was supposed to happen. The texts that I got from Zach were: "Can I buy you a free had cream @ 6?" and then "Free come day? what do you mean what is this?" Ohhh myyyy :P

Room selection this Friday! Yayyy. Except not really. I was hoping I could "go back into the pool" for a new double next year because I had no desire to room with someone I knew after this semester's fantastic explosion, but apparently this concept is entirely beyond the comprehension of the lady organizing room selections. She was like, "like make a book where people write about themselves, and then people can just choose who they want to room with?" Like... a compatibility questionnaire like every other college? Aside from the fact that her interpretation of what I was saying is totally sketch. >< It'd be so awkward to pick roomies like that. Ellie and I are in the same boat, wanting to go into a random double, but not with each other even tho we're the most low key people imaginable. Eh. Skidmore ><<< why you so retarded ><<< but is cool

Oh ya, and happy belated 4/20! We used to be the number one reefer school according to Princeton review. loooooool I was told there would be tents, but it was a miserable day, so everyone was getting high out of sight in the comfort of their hot boxed rooms. (I still don't do pot). My math teacher thought it was Friday and let us out early. lool? No complaints. And I got in a fight with ex who was creeping on me a little. :(

I go home May 9th. Let me know when you go home! My birthday is May 13, so I'm caught in college people limbo, because I'm no longer with college people, but not everyone is home. *sad sad* Miss you guys lots. :( And holyshit this semester is so close to being over!! Time to be even more sparkly shiny with my classes than normal :P

Time to pretend to do work. Adios & love, all :P

Happy Passover!!!

Fuck. So I may have made the hugest mistake of my life, but I don't really want to talk about that now. I'll just add another coat of black lacquer and wait with the rain. phhhh

New topic: I want to build a website and also host art on it as a portfolio. Do you have any ideas for a name? I want something creative and expressive. I'm using 110mb for hosting.

Economy & environmental legislation. And now we're experiencing the consequences of our overwhelming lobbying efforts early last month, and it feels good. :D Yum.

The Tedisco/Scott Murphy election in NY is so fucking close. It happened last Tuesday, and we still don't know who won. I believe the final count prior to absentee ballots was such that Murphy had an 80 vote lead. When each of the candidates had over 77,000 votes, 80 is a pretty fucking small margin. It could go either way. Murphy is the unknown in a predominantly Republican area. Despite how amazing he is, we're amazed at the progress he's made.

It could go either way so easily.

But I need to work and maybe sleep off a little more mono. *hugs*

Yayyy religion

Or rather, I can excuse the rationality behind this because it agrees with me -- and that's clearly what counts. :D :D (not really, guys ><< but there is still a valid point in this)

God will not intervene to prevent humanity from wreaking disastrous damage to the environment, the Archbishop of Canterbury has warned. I love the fact that environmentalism is becoming an increasingly mainstream topic. This fact was evidenced in part by the overwhelming absence of hippie-types at Powershift. We might be unusually passionate about our concerns, but so is anyone else who gives a fuck in the realm of politics. This in itself is a sad concept -- the fact that to give a fuck even to the smallest degree such that you'd go out and vote is unique. So, while not everyone may listen to the Archbishop of Canterbury, the influence of religion is undeniably powerful to some, and those some may now become responsible individuals.

Also, I give a fuck.

Two days ago, I called Tedisco's Albany office. There's an impending district election in NY, and Steph is organizing a small faction of Skidmore's EAC (environmental action coalition). Tedisco is the opposition. Each of us have been calling on different days, saying we represent different demographics (but not lying -- ie: I am representing a group of new female voters) with two goals in mind. We want to learn the specifics of his platforms including whether he intends to support our agendas. We also want him and his campaign office to feel pressured to give a shit about the things that we give a shit about because so many callers are asking about environmental issues. I call him the opposition because we attended Scott Murphy's Q & A on campus, and he is kick ass. Not only is he an incredibly competent businessman, but he loves what Obama is doing, supports green jobs, carbon reduction, legislation to end mountain-top coal mining, etc, etc. The only downside is that he supports nuclear energy which we can lobby about once he's been elected. He was an unknown relative to Tedisco, but he's been steadily gaining in the polls. We have hope. :D :D

Philosophy. I suppose this takes me back to the subject of religion. I love my philosophy class. :D :D Last week, we read and discussed articles by Nagel, specifically "What is it like to be a bat?" which refutes the concept of physicalism and asserts that there exists some consciousness independent of the brain. Our class is small, but we have an interesting variety of people. And this piece is particularly interesting because I disagree with it passionately. I would argue that to state that you have elements of your identity which lack roots in your corporeal body is the same thing as asserting the existence of a soul, even though it is not stated explicitly. On a very fundamental level, I disagree with this by principle of being atheist. But Ryan and I brought neuroscience into play. I mean, it's one thing to argue that, in the future, we may have science to explain the phenomenon of experience, but... you don't even have to do it because we know enough now. I can excuse Einstein for coming up with thought experiments independent of concrete empirical experiments, but Nagel is no neurologist. He doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about. We can explain why people have unique perceptions of reality through the brain, and we don't need an abstract idea such as a consciousness independent of the brain to help us explain what we don't understand. We might not be able to stare at the individual twistings and variations of neurons and be able to read what it means to the person in question the same way we'd read a book, but we can explain thoughts, perceptions, experiences, ideas, etc. And maybe some day we would even be able through some algorithm to compute what the nondiscrete distances between synaptic terminals, and lengths, and densities, and hormonal interactions mean in real time. But we don't need to reach that state to refute the necessity of a consciousness independent of the brain because it can all be explained biologically.

So cool.

And today we focused on Descartes who is even more hardcore than Nagel. He 'proves' that the mind is different and more powerful than the body and later the explicit existence of the soul, God, etc. Thank you for your Cartesian coordinates, but...

I want to learn about Existentialism.

Also, new anime: anyone heard of/watched Karas? And I finished Rah-Xephon.

Aaron is a ho.

My best piece so far :D :D

I'm home!

Here begins the oxytocin withdrawal, so if you're home, lets hang out!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/27/coal-environment
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/mar2009/2009-03-02-03.asp
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2237588/capitol-hill-moves-green-dc
http://www.chesapeakeclimate.org/campaigns/campaign_detail.cfm?id=102
http://planetsave.com/blog/2009/02/27/alert-dc-coal-plant-target-of-civil-disobedience/

http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/03/02/coal_plant/
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=District_of_Columbia_and_coal
http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/climate-concerns-spur-power-plant-protest-2009-03-02.html
http://www.alternet.org/environment/129630/live_from_dc:_thousands_converge_for_capitol_climate_action_against_dirty_coal_/
http://www.rushmoredrive.com/LatestNews/Capitol_Hill_moves_to_green_DC_coal_plant.aspx?ArticleId=5420746191758297063

Holy fucking shit.

This weekend, I was an activist in the largest environmental non-violent direct action protest in the US history.

A group of over 40 Skidmore students drove 7 hours south to Washington DC for the Powershift '09 conference. It opened up with a number of phenomenal speakers including the legendary Van Jones. We were pumped, and we were screaming, and there were 12,000 of us. The only thing that could have made it more intense was if Obama himself had shown up. The following two days were filled with panels and workshops on varying subjects such as human rights, global injustice, and the connection between poverty, environmental devastation, and corporate exploitation. We were trained and enthused. Sunday night, I was in the shady (exposed bricks, holes in the thin floor, broken glass) basement of a theatre building. Somehow we managed to pack almost 1000 people in the space, and this was only one of three training sessions that had happened that day for Monday's protest. We learned chants, were taught how to go limp when arrested, were prepped about hypothermia by our medics (only one per 1,000 people), along with them stressing the importance of non-violence and our terms as an organized group, and I still have a legal number written in sharpie on my arm in the event that I get arrested and my cellphone is taken.

On Monday morning, I walked to the Hart US Senate building where I lobbied in Senator Tom Carper's office with a small group of other members of DE youth. We then went to a rally of screaming activists with more speakers and sign distributions.

The protest started in the middle of Washington DC and we walked as a procession of groups to the Capitol Power Plant. It was so fucking close. The city districts morphed into tiny houses where we were assaulted by the scent of the coal plant, and then it was right fucking there when we turned the corner. A small band of counter protesters there to "celebrate coal" were waiting on the corner. Their signs read things like "our economy is run on coal," "keep energy affordable," and, sadly, "it's the sun spots, stupid." Our thousands with our chants, drumming, and waves of posters walked by their maybe 20 without even heckling them. People linked arms and blocked the gates while the rest of us circled around as support. It was so fucking intense and went on for hours.

I didn't make any new years resolutions for '09.

We were part of something huge.

This weekend is Powershift!! These are the workshops and panels that will be at the conference:
powershift '09. I'm super pumped. :D :D There will be guest speakers and bands. We're also having a lobbying day in which we apply our new skills to talk to representatives from different regions. On one of the days (we leave friday morning, return tues morning), we're going to be at a protest to shut down a coal plant in DC sponsored by Green Peace with the potential that we might be arrested, but that doesn't matter. I'm so fucking excited!! XD

Making up work/school missed -- not so fun. In less than half an hour, I start my first three hour make up shift. I've got four of these: half two hours, half of them are three hours long.

Charter also has a new mission and belief statement:
here
I haven't read it yet, but apparently Russo's termination is still in the air and is up for review. More documents have accumulated on top of the Board's, and they're all very contradictory, so we're back to we don't know what the truth is. The nature of the Board's president and the mutual enmity with Russo is such that the sexual misconduct allegations might be trumped up and fabricated. What ze hell >< I want more transparency.

Oh ya, and Rachelle and I are friends again. ahahaha I came home late last night, and there were pages slipped underneath my door. I saw that a couple of them were old artworks that I had drawn in Rachelle's notebooks and I got a little pissed off. ^^ It's like the ultimate form of rejection to start returning things that in the most insignificant forms belong to another person -- like doodles. "I don't want your doodles anymore." So I chose to not read the note because I really needed to sleep and study and couldn't do either while pissed off. So I took the notes to lunch with me today while I was with Ellie. And the entire note was this long apology and everything. What ze hell Rachelle. XD So I figured she meant it as "here are your arts cuz I know you like them if we're not going to be friends" and "here is a not in case we could be friends again." It's like she's covering both bases. Which still makes no sense. XD What ze hell Rachelle. XD But I read the note and was like *melt.* Ellie told me that I should let Rachelle know we're friends again next time I see her, and I was like, "next time I see her, she is getting a huge as fuck hug." I love this girl. XD Both of them. hahahaha So ya. Forgiven and resolved :D :D :D

eee powershift :D :D

And well, I have to finish shitfuck homework between work study and our powershift meet tonight. ehnn

Happy happy :D