So I'm knee deep in the College Admissions Process; MIT's app is out, and another 50 page glossy view book (and application) arrived today. The pile of college mail is threatening to take over my room if I don't attack it with more cardboard boxes, in a serious way. The applications may be even harder to effectively deal with (perhaps I'll have to bring in pens).

Fun and games aside, this has caused a lot of my thought cycles to be donated to the college thing, and perhaps a little stress too (though not much, I'm sure it'll all work itself out in the end.)

On the note of the misguided:

Numbers. Some people seem to feel that numbers are everything that college admissionsis about, even everything you represent. These people never fail to upset me in some fundamental way. Even if you disagree, I'm sure you can understand the sentiment. I recently discussed the college admissions scene with just such a person. Astounding to him* was that her credentials (i.e., resume type material,) and racial background, did not facilitate their acceptance at many top-tier institutions of learning. This was, in fact, mind-blowingly surprising, but obviously due to the fact that the 'qualified' college applicant pool is increasing, and not, say, because the person had no personality. They followed this with some sound advice (I'm sure) regarding the admissions process, and proceded to reassure me that I had better chances than most, since, anyway, I am a girl.

Obviously, I am much more attractive to a college because I'm female. Wrong. Firstly, if demographics are all the institution cares about, then they have experienced rectal-cranial inversion in the worst way. I am not applying to a university to study sexuality in any way, so I really fail to see how my gender comes into play. If someone asks me who I am, I don't start with "Well, you see, I am a girl.."

The second most irritating thing to being told my "chances" are better because of my gender, is the inevitable smirk follow-up of "you got in because you're a girl." No, I did not, and if I had, I will not be enrolling there.

Let me tell you about Yale. Yale has worked extremely hard to woo my interest in their institution. Two of the three postcards Yale has sent me are signed 'from the Directory of Minority Recruitment'.

Excuse me?

If all I am to Yale is a head-count, some magical beast with elusive rare blood, then, really, they can keep it. I am not interested in the study of eugenics or genealogy, and the fact that they seem to believe that a measly postcard that says Yale on it, followed by affirmation (a new kind of affirmative action, I suppose) that I really mean nothing to them other than as an African American, has led me to come to this conclusion: If the university does not care about who I am, I don't care about the university.

Diversity is not "people who look different". Try as they might, the "popular" girls at my school still look different from one another, and yet, I would not call them a diverse group (strangely enough). Diversity is in people who are different, who think differently, who will open each others minds to new ideas.

New ideas need to be introduced to the college admissions departments.

*gender changed to protect identity

So today's one of those Saturdays where you can't do anything but lay around in the sunshine, or just the heat, and in my case... knit. And think. The thinking part is the important one here. Sometimes I think too much, and sometimes I just exist, but this is one of those thinky days. I was thinking about language, which always has hidden secrets, and part of a lecture Newman gave two years ago (almost three?) in my Alg. II/Trig class, about the conventions of the cartesian system, and why left and down are negative.

The first, left-right is from the idea that left-handed people had something wrong with them or were bad-luck'd. Many will recognize the Latin [ah, latin..] words for left and right: sinister and dexter. It is this very reason why today someone who is dexterous is skilled, but someone who is sinister is not. (This is where the knitting came in). It also occured to me that even today to say that something is sinister is merely to say it is 'left-handed'. The up-down is something more apparent: heaven and hell.

I think these religious constructs, despite the assertions I've come across in works like those of Bill Hicks and Arthur Miller that religious ideas are outdated (e.g., the devil), will exist forever in society because firstly of societal memory, and secondly, because of the profound ways that the ideas are twisted (heh.. no pun) into the common language (I am dealing with latinate or romantic languages, english specifically). Take for instance 'inferiority' and 'superiority'. They ideas are common enough, but it is not often that you look at a word like inferiority and see firstly the up-down implications (someone who is inferior is always 'beneath' you), but then the ties between 'inferior' and 'infernal' and how hell is still there and below us all in the most basic of linguistic transactions.

It occurs to me, as a girl/woman/female that I am always going to be subject to these ideas. One day, I will quite probably be someone's "wife". Even this title bears the strain of inferiority/superiority ideas through the modern day. It bothers me, the way men are expected to be able to have a wife and a life and a job and a hobby as a 'husband', but that women as wives will be expected to have "wife" as the primary job title. The way when someone says "oh, he's my husband" the notion of attachment follows, but that when someone says "oh, she's my wife" it's not there, or if at all, much less so. The way it's so much different to say "she's my woman" than "he's my man".

It's not so much that I want to be some man-hating feminist superiorist (there we go again), but that I ultimately want to destroy the words, and through those, the ideas of inequality entirely. Why should I not be able to say "I'm as much a man as you are!" without the titterings of people making lesbian jokes? Why do I still have to cover myself differently in public? I don't see myself through the filter of "she's-a-girl-and-therefore..' so why do I have to live by it?

I didn't realize how having a job would leave me with so little free time. I think I was seduced though. Drawn in. "Oh.. money.. and the resume.. and fun.. and nonboring summers.." And really it has been fun. I'm just a little stressed about how I'm ever going to finish my scanner.

Just like my hair. I had it of varying length for most of my life, until a weekend in sixth grade when I almost whimsically decided to cut it all off. Well, okay, my mom convinced me to have the hairdresser do it.. but it was done, nontheless, and I couldn't've been happier. Then HPA and middle school and a new environment and wanting to fit in, and I started growing it out again (with a few lapses.. heh). Now it's finally long enough to say it's back to being about where it was then.

I'm on my way to going to work (morningggggs....) don't have time to shower, and decided to brush it out. Ouch. My scalp feels more teased than one of those styled poodles. And that's just from trying to get a brush to run through it. Exacerbated by my non-sympathetic straight-haired mom's decision to purchase only plastic brushes. See.. curly hair is only curly if you brush it while it's wet. Certainly not while it's dry. Anyway, it's all brushed out and straight and poofy and whatchamacall now, I guess I'll be okay.

I am definitely going to cut this again though. And I mean 'cut off like in sixth grade'. Tomorrow? Probably not. Graduation? Next year? After that?

I have just discovered a new artist, Makana. As with Michael Franti (who he opened for!), I discovered Makana through the Maui Film Festival; this time in Wailea, not at the MACC. Three nights in a row, I was entranced by his voice before the showings at the large outdoor screen (47'?) on the golf course.. finally, and thankfully, someone mentioned his name before fading out the music. His voice is amazing, wavery and high, but heartfelt and passionate. Possibly the only "Hawaiian" genre music I've every *really* liked. He has now trumped M. Ward's Transistor Radio as the artist whose next CD I'd like to buy. He also just happens to be the sexiest guy alive. Hehe.. see the website.

So I had to hang out at the mall today for about two hours before work started at MCC nearby. It was about as interesting as malls usually are, which is probably about as interesting as malls ever get. What was interesting, however, was seeing everything shut down, off... it's like watching someone wake up, except it's the mall itself, so it's this massive piecewise entity.. which is interesting in itself since it's of course the people that make it seem alive, and the people are always there or they aren't.

I waited at Starbucks for a while. I was shocked to recognize, while trying to read a book, M. Ward's "Hi-Fi" playing. Who knew Starbucks had musical taste! I went to go order a hot chocolate just so I could stand in the line under the speakers and have the music pour over me like a shower. Unfortunately, they followed it with some crap that sounded like the B-52s, but I enjoyed it while it lasted. Then walking up the down and up escalators, which were actually staircases pretending to be off escalators. Walked the lower level. Walked the upper level. Took the elevator back to the first level. I went to see if Waldenbooks/Borders was open too, and came across a man who appeared to be kneeling in worship of one of the (in this case, running) escalators. He had his head bowed and was kneeling on the stepway just before the moving stairs, with his arms outstretched to hold on to the two railings. Then I noticed the washclothes in his hands. He was cleaning the handrails.

It occurs to me that if the smells of Maui weren't so familiar, I would feel like a complete tourist here. Nothing looks the way it used to, even in the enclosed and sheltered mall. I wonder if I will ever be completely unfamiliar with the place. I wonder at the same time whether I will miss Maui, and then, whether I would ever want to come back. I'm not the type who gets homesick.. but there's still this immutable quality to Maui that I immediately recognize and indentify with when it's encountered.

so apparently...


I am Pacman.

I am an aggressive sort of personality, out to get what I can, when I can. I prefer to avoid confrontation, but sometimes when it's called for, I can be a powerful character. I tend to be afflicted with munchies constantly. What Video Game Character Are You?

So here it is. My. First. Post. Ever. (The audiographical interpretation of baby steps)

Hurray!