Archive for the ‘Life’ Category
Literature.
The word means so many things to so many people. Fiction, non-fiction, poetry, prose, a long novel, a porno with a plot… But to me, above all else, literature is a means of escape.
Fiction is my drug of choice when something unpleasant, stressful, or downright miserable happens in life. Opening a book and getting lost in a world where things are more magical, romantic, but most importantly different is a wonderful way to deal with distress.
The interesting thing is, there was a point in my life when I simply didn’t read any books outside of school textbooks. I’d say it started sometime in high school and lasted up until a few months ago. I realize now that I didn’t read because I was fairly content with my life and had no need to escape into another one. As of late, I find certain aspects of my daily life incredibly taxing to my poor nerves (this message brought to you by Jane Austen) and so have rediscovered my love of fantasy. I am currently re-reading The Lord of the Rings series- already finished The Hobbit and am nearly done with The Fellowship of the Ring- and I find myself thinking about the alternate universe of Middle Earth throughout the day. For example, last evening I saw a small murder of crows flying above my house; I thought to myself, “Could those be crebain from Isengard?” Now that, my friend, is powerful (also somewhat sad on my part).
Seriously though, isn’t it amazing how truly powerful literature is? We all succumb to it eventually, if we’re lucky, and it forever holds us in its powerful grip. It influences our society in ways we’re not even consciously aware of!
Well, now that this entry has taken a disturbingly cheesy turn, I think it best to conclude with a question:
What does literature mean to you?
“Have you even been in love? Horrible, isn’t it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens your heart and it means someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses. You build up this whole armor, for years, so nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life… and you give them a piece of you. They don’t ask for it. They do something dumb one day like kiss you, or smile at you, and then your life isn’t your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so a simple phrase like “maybe we should just be friends” or “how very perceptive” turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It’s a soul-hurt, a body-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.” –Neil Gaimon; The Sandman
The more I think about it, the more difficult this thing called life is—especially love. I’m a serial dater (meaning that I tend to have short, meaningless relationships for no reason than to have fun in search of that thing called love). More often than not, I mess up. But sometimes, especially this last time, I don’t understand what happens.
Love is difficult. I try my hardest to be happy, to have fun, to make a difference and I am crushed. What do I do? Try again.
Who knows, maybe this weekend I will meet my future husband and be happy forever. (You pessimists, don’t take this thought away from me.)
Always an optimist,
Elizabeth!
P.S. I only wrote this because I’m in a nostalgic mood and no one has posted anything in a long while. Though what I said really wasn’t that interesting, god I love that quote from Neil Gaimon.
P.S.S. Read Good Omens by Neil Gaimon. Good stuff. Or the Sandman comic book… also good stuff.
P.S.S.S. Damnit, Elaine posted something today 🙁 THIS REALLY WAS POINTLESS!
It feels like it’s been too long since somebody posted a blog on here. Therefore, I feel the need to give some life (albeit unsubstantial life) back to BRBcoffee.
But what to write about? So many things come to mind; my recent obsession with late-80’s/early-90’s R&B/Hip Hop, and um, no…that’s actually about all that comes to mind (which proves how deeply this fixation has a hold on me). As I write, I am slowly building a playlist of songs that come to mind. So far: “Poison” by Bell Biv Devoe (effing brilliant song, you all must listen!), “Rhythm Nation” by Janet Jackson, “Pony” by Ginuwine, and “Too Close” by Next. This last song, I must elaborate on because it makes me laugh.
Let me begin by saying that I used to love and sing along to “Too Close” when I was in elementary school. Back then, all I cared about was a catchy hook and a sweet beat *facepalm!*. Recently, I re-discovered the song and stumbled upon a dark, dark secret I was unaware of as a child: the song is entirely about a man and woman grinding at a club and the man consequently getting a boner. Yep. Here are some gems of lyrics you can find in this magical song:
“The way that you shake it on me,
Makes me want you so bad sexually
Oh girl!”
(and we can’t forget…)
“Step back you’re dancing kinda close,
I feel a little poke coming through,
On you.”
Just a little poke? Clearly they’re not grinding close enough.
Click here to watch the music video.
Man, the image of me singing along to this is just so utterly fucked up that I cannot help but laugh.
Ooh ooh! More additions to the playlist: “Never Gonna Get It” by En Vogue (En Vogue is so amazing), “My Prerogative” by Bobby Brown, “Candy Girl” by New Edition, and “I’ll Make Love To You” by Boyz II Men (please don’t make fun of me).
I have no idea what has prompted this recent musical endeavor (if I may call it that) of mine. I am a bit prone to what I call “musical obsessions.” I don’t know what sparks them or why they even happen, but every once in awhile I simply get hooked on a certain facet of music, almost like a drug. Some of my past obsessions: Randy Travis’ “I Told You So,” New Kids On the Block, Eminem, Michael Jackson of course (that’s more like a lifelong fixation really), etc. [On a side note, “etc.” is such a lazy expression. It basically means you got tired of listing stuff and instead of saying something like “and so on and so forth,” you just type three letters and a period and call it a day. But I digress…]
The only bad things that come along with these episodes (despite how that sounds, I’m not really a drug addict!) is me usually looking like a fool and wasting time that should be spent on things like, oh I don’t know, homework or getting scholarships maybe? But nooo, my time is spent trying to find the music video for that one song from back in the day I used to dance to that goes something like “du du duu duuu, du du dududud du!” Oh the hours that go into such a search. *Shakes head ashamedly*
How does one end a blog like this? And by ‘this,’ I mean a frenzied rambling on a topic very few give a biscuit about. I think this will suffice:
Hi again. Long entry today, sorry about that.
Society is all about money. The accumulation of wealth has become the driving force of the capitalist society, and everything else comes second. This is really not debatable, so I’m not going to spend much time on this specifically. What I want to talk about, is work.
First, I’m going to postulate that there are 2 kinds of people (in this context). People who need to work in order to survive, and people who survive on others work. The 
people who survive on the work of other people, are the owners. Those lucky few who own factories or stocks in companies, who get to sit on their asses and watch as their factories make money for them. Most people, however, need a job to survive. A job where you produce something, be it raw materials, finished goods or services. We get hired by a company of some sort, we get told what to do with the materials at hand, and we make stuff. We don’t have anything to sell but ourselves, so we sell our work to our bosses. This is where it gets interesting. Because no matter how hard you work, you get paid the same. Allow me to demonstrate.
Meet Bob. Bob works in a factory. In one week, Bob produces 100 items, which is sold by other branches of the company. These 100 items earn the company 1000 dollars. For his one week of work, Bob gets 500 dollars paid. The next week, Bob decides to give everything he’s got, and he manages to double his productivity! Wow, amazing! Well done, Bob, you just earned the company 2000 dollars instead. For this feat, you still get 500 dollars. The week after, Bob is demoralized, and only produces 50 items. The company only earns 500 dollars, and Bob still gets his 500 dollars pay.
My point here is that no matter how productive us workers are under capitalism, we get the same amount of money. As long as we produce enough to make the company survive, there really is no motivation for us to work as hard as we can. If Bob doubles his productivity, the only person who gains from it is his boss. So why should he?
My place of work recently won a cash prize because of an index. I work in a pizzashop which is part of a chain, which measures how much each branch earns in relation to what the workers earn. Basically, its an index of which branch pays the smallest part of their profit to their workers.
Marx talked about the exploitation of the workers. Capitalism can’t survive without profit, and the bosses, the owners of companies, won’t run their companies unless they earn a healthy profit. The exploitation of workers is a problem, because in the end the work we do doesn’t benefit society, it benefits our boss.
So why not turn it around? If all the factories, companies etc. that are today privately owned, are owned by the people in stead, the profit would benefit everyone. Thats the kind of world I would like to live in.
Vegard
Listen up, girls! If you’re shorter than 5’5″, have ever had one spot of acne in your life, and/or look like you eat food on a regular basis, then guess what, you’re ugly! At least that’s what we- the American media- want you to think.
I just read a news story about the 18-year old Filipino singer, Charice, getting botox and other “cosmetic procedures” done in order to “look less round-faced” for her up and coming appearance on the American television show, Glee. WTF? She’s 18 years old, people! Why on earth would an 18-year old feel the need to get appearance-altering procedures before singing on the tele? Oh, maybe because of magazines like this:
The aforementioned example with Charice is not the only shining illustration of what’s wrong with the American body image. Just this morning as I was flipping through the channels, I saw a music video for Katy Perry’s song, “California Girls.” Every single female in that video looks pretty much same: perfect body (aka re-touching), perfect skin (or should I say makeup?), “perfect” everything.
Click here to watch Katy Perry shoot whipped cream from her tits!
Of course, throughout the years there’s been somewhat of a public outcry against such a limited representation of real American females. I present to you, the few and far between “fatties” of the American media world!
Excuse me, but in some parts of this country, ^these^ women would be on the skinny end of the spectrum.
The most sickening thing of all is how deeply the media affects our own personal standards of beauty. Much of it is subliminal, and I don’t think it’s anywhere near outlandish of me to say that we’re all a little brainwashed. Even I, a fairly typical-looking girl (if I do say so myself…and I do), have been prey to such soul-sucking carnivores. We all have doubts when it comes to how we look, but the amount of exposure we get to such unrealistic standards is simply a recipe for disaster.
You have to break yourself off from the ridiculousness all around you and wake up a little in order to realize that how we look means almost nothing in the grand scheme of things. Appearance is a fanciful thing; one we all indulge in at least occasionally, and that’s absolutely fine- that is, until it gets deep within you and starts messing with your self-worth and self-confidence. If somebody judges you for your appearance alone, then they aren’t worth your or anyone else’s time. And if there’s no one out there who values deeper things, then this world is in a whole lotta trouble and we got bigger fish to fry than what shade of lipstick best compliments your skin tone.
On that note, I’m going to go eat a cookie.
Peace!