On March 1, 2011, I got an email from NYU’s Graduate School informing me that I had been accepted into the MA program. My first reaction was obviously of complete and utter happiness, but reality started to settle in soon after. NYU’s MA program would end up costing me somewhere around $100,000. OUCH! Although I know my parents would help me out if this figure was somewhere around $20,000-$30,000, asking them for $100k seemed a bit too much. So, I started doing research for scholarships, grants, loans, etc. Unfortunately, I found myself running into many dead-ends: most deadlines for scholarships had already passed (at least for 2011) and most decent loans (and by decent, I mean loans not having skyscraper-high interest rates) required me to be a US resident. At the same time, my mother was diagnosed with a serious medical condition and was told that she probably needed surgery (she’d already been told that she needed 2 other surgeries for other reasons.) Some of you know that my older brother also has an ongoing medical issue and might need surgery as well. Furthermore, my family and I are still waiting for a final decision with regards to our US residency. All of this just added up and I decided that at this particular moment, graduate school didn’t seem like a viable option for me.
However, I’ve requested deferral from NYU for a year, and will soon get a response. If I were able to defer for one year, then it would probably be ideal. By then, I think that all of my pending issues will have been resolved and I’d be able to be walking the halls of prestigious NYU in 2012.
Oh, and as far as Columbia goes (yea, you might remember that my preferred school was Columbia University), I did get a response, and it wasn't positive. However, it wasn't entirely bad. Although I wasn't accepted into Columbia for 2011, they said that academically I was an ideal candidate. What I was lacking was more professional experience, and this is something that I had been expecting (considering that I was applying to the public policy school.) In the letter they sent me, they actually encouraged me to get more experience, saying that they'd keep my documents on file for 2 years in case I wanted to reapply in the future. I guess this is always another option.
I’ve made it this far, what’s a little more waiting, eh? I’ll keep you posted on what happens, but I’m optimistic. No matter what path I end up taking, I know I’ll be alright.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Love
I’m an extremely analytical person and so I’ve created a sort of checklist to allow myself to know when I’m in love with someone. Why is this necessary you might ask? Well, it’s important for me to be aware of my own emotions. I’m not the kind of girl who pursues shallow relationships just to satisfy my own needs, and so having a method to categorize my emotions becomes necessary in order for me to know how much of myself and my time I’m willing to devote to someone else. Some of these requirements actually come from the definition of the word “love” itself and are pretty straight forward. Either way, here goes:
- Having a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person
- Possessing a warm and personal attachment to someone else, as well as an affectionate concern for that person’s well-being (usually represented as a willingness to put that person’s needs and desires over my own)
- Having a sexual passion and desire for the individual in question (i.e., being physically attracted to the person)
- Recognizing their flaws and being willing to not only see past them, but to try to help them overcome them.
- Having a physical, intellectual, and spiritual connection.
- Having an insatiable curiosity to know about the other person: their goals, interests, thoughts, lifestyle, etc.
Believe it or not, there have only been 2 individuals who have met all of these standards, and although both cases have been unsuccessful and quite hurtful, they have also left me important lessons about love. Interestingly enough, I was reading Rainer Maria Rilke’s “Letters to a young poet,” and I came across a section that talked about love. It was very surprising to me how Rilke’s views on love are almost exactly the same as my own, and it is for this reason that I have decided to share:
“It is also good to love: because love is difficult. For one human being to love another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been entrusted to us, the ultimate task, the final test and proof, the work for which all other work is merely preparation. That is why young people, who are beginners in everything, are not yet capable of love: it is something they must learn. With their whole being, with all their forces, gathered around their solitary, anxious, upward-beating heart, they must learn to love. But learning-time is always a long, secluded time, and therefore loving, for a long time ahead and far on into life, is: solitude, a heightened and deepened kind of aloneness for the person who loves. Loving does not at first mean merging, surrendering, and uniting with another person (for what would a union be of two people who are unclarified, unfinished, and still incoherent?), it is a high inducement for the individual to ripen, to become something in himself, to become world, to become world in himself for the sake of another person; it is a great, demanding claim on him, something that chooses him and calls him to vast distances. Only in this sense, as the task of working on themselves ("to hearken and to hammer day and night"), may young people use the love that is given to them. Merging and surrendering and every kind of communion is not for them (who must still, for a long, long time, save and gather themselves); it is the ultimate, is perhaps that for which human lives are as yet barely large enough.
But this is what young people are so often and so disastrously wrong in doing: they (who by their very nature are impatient) fling themselves at each other when love takes hold of them, they scatter themselves, just as they are, in all their messiness, disorder, bewilderment. And what can happen then? What can life do with this heap of half-broken things that they call their communion and that they would like to call their happiness, if that were possible, and their future? And so each of them loses himself for the sake of the other person, and loses the other, and many others who still wanted to come. And loses the vast distances and possibilities, gives up the approaching and fleeing of gentle, prescient Things in exchange for an unfruitful confusion, out of which nothing more can come; nothing but a bit of disgust, disappointment, and poverty, and the escape into one of the many conventions that have been put up in great numbers like public shelters on this most dangerous road. No area of human experience is so extensively provided with conventions as this one is: there are life-preservers of the most varied invention, boats and water wings; society has been able to create refuges of every sort, for since it preferred to take love life as an amusement, it also had to give it an easy form, cheap, safe, and sure, as public amusements are.
It is true that many young people who love falsely, i.e., simply surrendering themselves and giving up their solitude (the average person will of course always go on doing that), feel oppressed by their failure and want to make the situation they have landed in livable and fruitful in their own, personal way. For their nature tells them that the questions of love, even more than everything else that is important, cannot be resolved publicly and according to this or that agreement; that they are questions, intimate questions from one human being to another, which in any case require a new, special, wholly personal answer. But how can they, who have already flung themselves together and can no longer tell whose outlines are whose, who thus no longer possess anything of their own, how can they find a way out of themselves, out of the depths of their already buried solitude?
They act out of mutual helplessness, and then if, with the best of intentions, they try to escape the convention that is approaching them (marriage, for example), they fall into the clutches of some less obvious but just as deadly conventional solution. For then everything around them is convention. Wherever people act out of a prematurely fused, muddy communion, every action is conventional: every relation that such confusion leads to has its own convention, how ever unusual (i.e., in the ordinary sense immoral) it may be; even separating would be a conventional step, an impersonal, accidental decision without strength and without fruit.”
- Having a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person
- Possessing a warm and personal attachment to someone else, as well as an affectionate concern for that person’s well-being (usually represented as a willingness to put that person’s needs and desires over my own)
- Having a sexual passion and desire for the individual in question (i.e., being physically attracted to the person)
- Recognizing their flaws and being willing to not only see past them, but to try to help them overcome them.
- Having a physical, intellectual, and spiritual connection.
- Having an insatiable curiosity to know about the other person: their goals, interests, thoughts, lifestyle, etc.
Believe it or not, there have only been 2 individuals who have met all of these standards, and although both cases have been unsuccessful and quite hurtful, they have also left me important lessons about love. Interestingly enough, I was reading Rainer Maria Rilke’s “Letters to a young poet,” and I came across a section that talked about love. It was very surprising to me how Rilke’s views on love are almost exactly the same as my own, and it is for this reason that I have decided to share:
“It is also good to love: because love is difficult. For one human being to love another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been entrusted to us, the ultimate task, the final test and proof, the work for which all other work is merely preparation. That is why young people, who are beginners in everything, are not yet capable of love: it is something they must learn. With their whole being, with all their forces, gathered around their solitary, anxious, upward-beating heart, they must learn to love. But learning-time is always a long, secluded time, and therefore loving, for a long time ahead and far on into life, is: solitude, a heightened and deepened kind of aloneness for the person who loves. Loving does not at first mean merging, surrendering, and uniting with another person (for what would a union be of two people who are unclarified, unfinished, and still incoherent?), it is a high inducement for the individual to ripen, to become something in himself, to become world, to become world in himself for the sake of another person; it is a great, demanding claim on him, something that chooses him and calls him to vast distances. Only in this sense, as the task of working on themselves ("to hearken and to hammer day and night"), may young people use the love that is given to them. Merging and surrendering and every kind of communion is not for them (who must still, for a long, long time, save and gather themselves); it is the ultimate, is perhaps that for which human lives are as yet barely large enough.
But this is what young people are so often and so disastrously wrong in doing: they (who by their very nature are impatient) fling themselves at each other when love takes hold of them, they scatter themselves, just as they are, in all their messiness, disorder, bewilderment. And what can happen then? What can life do with this heap of half-broken things that they call their communion and that they would like to call their happiness, if that were possible, and their future? And so each of them loses himself for the sake of the other person, and loses the other, and many others who still wanted to come. And loses the vast distances and possibilities, gives up the approaching and fleeing of gentle, prescient Things in exchange for an unfruitful confusion, out of which nothing more can come; nothing but a bit of disgust, disappointment, and poverty, and the escape into one of the many conventions that have been put up in great numbers like public shelters on this most dangerous road. No area of human experience is so extensively provided with conventions as this one is: there are life-preservers of the most varied invention, boats and water wings; society has been able to create refuges of every sort, for since it preferred to take love life as an amusement, it also had to give it an easy form, cheap, safe, and sure, as public amusements are.
It is true that many young people who love falsely, i.e., simply surrendering themselves and giving up their solitude (the average person will of course always go on doing that), feel oppressed by their failure and want to make the situation they have landed in livable and fruitful in their own, personal way. For their nature tells them that the questions of love, even more than everything else that is important, cannot be resolved publicly and according to this or that agreement; that they are questions, intimate questions from one human being to another, which in any case require a new, special, wholly personal answer. But how can they, who have already flung themselves together and can no longer tell whose outlines are whose, who thus no longer possess anything of their own, how can they find a way out of themselves, out of the depths of their already buried solitude?
They act out of mutual helplessness, and then if, with the best of intentions, they try to escape the convention that is approaching them (marriage, for example), they fall into the clutches of some less obvious but just as deadly conventional solution. For then everything around them is convention. Wherever people act out of a prematurely fused, muddy communion, every action is conventional: every relation that such confusion leads to has its own convention, how ever unusual (i.e., in the ordinary sense immoral) it may be; even separating would be a conventional step, an impersonal, accidental decision without strength and without fruit.”
The Monster Ball
More pictures to come soon, but the Lady Gaga concert was amazing (these were taken from Jenny, all credit goes to her! Arigato.) When I left Miami in January, one of my biggest regrets was the fact that I was going to miss the Lady Gaga concert. As I've told some of you already, I don't think I've been this crazed over an artist since the Backstreet Boys. In any case, I went to Miami for the concert, to file my taxes, and to visit my friends, and had a fantastic time!
Lady Gaga is a really talented artist/performer, regardless of what anyone says. I was in section 105, which was really close to the stage, and I have no regrets about the lengths I went through in order to get there. This was not the first time that I traveled internationally for a concert (and I'm really hoping it won't be the last: all of you know that I'm a passionate music lover!) The good news is that I do have my tourist visa now, which means that I can travel to the United States freely while I wait for my residency to come through. I also got a chance to make even more unforgettable memories with my lovely friends. All in all, I had a great time in Miami this past week and I have come back to Honduras determined to continue working on my weight loss goal, amongst other things.
Anyways, this was just a mini-update. I'll be writing more soon!
Lady Gaga is a really talented artist/performer, regardless of what anyone says. I was in section 105, which was really close to the stage, and I have no regrets about the lengths I went through in order to get there. This was not the first time that I traveled internationally for a concert (and I'm really hoping it won't be the last: all of you know that I'm a passionate music lover!) The good news is that I do have my tourist visa now, which means that I can travel to the United States freely while I wait for my residency to come through. I also got a chance to make even more unforgettable memories with my lovely friends. All in all, I had a great time in Miami this past week and I have come back to Honduras determined to continue working on my weight loss goal, amongst other things.
Anyways, this was just a mini-update. I'll be writing more soon!
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
You never were and you never will be mine...
Another one of those songs that just speaks to my heart.
Robyn - Be Mine
It's a good thing tears never show in the pouring rain
As if a good thing ever could make up for all the pain
There'll be no last chance to promise to never mess it up again
Just the sweet pain of watching your back as you walk
As I'm watching you walk away
And now you're gone, there's like an echo in my head
And I remember every word you said
It's a cruel thing you'll never know all the ways I tried
It's a hard thing, faking a smile when I feel
like I'm falling apart inside
And now you're gone, there's like an echo in my head
And I remember every word you said
And you never were, and you never will be mine
No, you never were, and you never will be mine
For the first time, there is no mercy in your eyes
And the cold wind is hitting my face and you're gone
And you're walking away (away)
And now I'm helpless sometimes
Wishing's just no good
'Cause you don't see me like I wish you would
'Cause you never were, and you never will be mine
No, you never were, and you never will be mine
There's a moment to seize everytime that we meet
But you always keep passing me by
No, you never were, and you never will be mine
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Food for thought
(If you can find it, play the song “Floating,” by Katherine Liner while reading this.)
We are constantly bombarded by choices everyday. In fact, I’m even tempted to say that our entire life is one big choice in itself. What should I have for breakfast? Do I go out tonight or do I stay in? Should I go to college or start working immediately after high school? I’m not going to talk about the consequences of the choices we make. I’m sure that most of us are aware of this already. Many of us have had to learn how to cope with the consequences of the decisions we’d made, whether positive or negative. What I’ve become fascinated with recently is the possibility that for every choice we make, there is an alternate reality where we’ve chosen the opposite. According to the field of quantum physics, these alternate realities are not only possible, but they are real. Quantum physics argues, amongst it many precepts, that it is possible for things to be in two places at once. I’m currently sitting at my desk, typing away, but is it possible that there is another me who’s chosen to go out tonight and is drinking a Mojito as we speak? Being curious about these sorts of things may seem pointless to many. They’d argue that we’ll never know the truth, so it is futile to waste time and energy thinking about them. However, it is my belief that it’s essential for us as cognitive beings to spend some time pondering these matters. To me, choosing not to spend time dwelling on these issues is almost the same as being brain dead.
Did you know that the human brain processes 4 billion bits of information every second, but that on average we’re only aware of 2,000 of these? Meditation techniques are supposed to teach us how to become more aware of our world. In the Buddhist tradition, if we ever reach nirvana, we would be able to be in a state of complete awareness, even if it were to only last for a few seconds. I’m not going to pretend that I’ve ever reached nirvana, or that I’ve made significant strides in becoming more aware of reality. In fact, I’m still not even sure what reality really entails. If our brains only process 2,000 bits of information every second, what happens to the rest? Does it remain lodged in our brains – accessible to those who have the right tools and techniques? Or is it lost forever? Maybe I’m just rambling on and should be trying to meditate instead. Perhaps then I’d have something more concrete to relate.
Another exercise that is supposed to help us increase our awareness, at least about ourselves, is trying to see yourself through someone else’s eyes. Try to disengage yourself from your reality and the things you know and pretend for a second that you’re a total stranger and suddenly bumped into yourself at a crowded train station. How would you react? Would you care about trying to get to know you more? What would your thoughts be?
All of this is just food for thought. I truly think that one of the worst things that plagues society these days is the inability of human beings to disconnect from the world and give importance to the self. To some this may just be a bunch of mumbo-jumbo, but I truly think that if we individually spent more time trying to be at peace with ourselves (which is only possible if we truly know and accept who we are), the world would be a much better place.
I know that it’s hard. Unfortunately, society has placed too much importance on material and physical things. In the old days, people respected those who belonged to the class of intellectuals; nowadays, they call us bums/good-for-nothings/hippies, etc. Oh well, c’est la vie. I’m sure there are still a few of us left who believe in “cogito, ergo sum.”
We are constantly bombarded by choices everyday. In fact, I’m even tempted to say that our entire life is one big choice in itself. What should I have for breakfast? Do I go out tonight or do I stay in? Should I go to college or start working immediately after high school? I’m not going to talk about the consequences of the choices we make. I’m sure that most of us are aware of this already. Many of us have had to learn how to cope with the consequences of the decisions we’d made, whether positive or negative. What I’ve become fascinated with recently is the possibility that for every choice we make, there is an alternate reality where we’ve chosen the opposite. According to the field of quantum physics, these alternate realities are not only possible, but they are real. Quantum physics argues, amongst it many precepts, that it is possible for things to be in two places at once. I’m currently sitting at my desk, typing away, but is it possible that there is another me who’s chosen to go out tonight and is drinking a Mojito as we speak? Being curious about these sorts of things may seem pointless to many. They’d argue that we’ll never know the truth, so it is futile to waste time and energy thinking about them. However, it is my belief that it’s essential for us as cognitive beings to spend some time pondering these matters. To me, choosing not to spend time dwelling on these issues is almost the same as being brain dead.
Did you know that the human brain processes 4 billion bits of information every second, but that on average we’re only aware of 2,000 of these? Meditation techniques are supposed to teach us how to become more aware of our world. In the Buddhist tradition, if we ever reach nirvana, we would be able to be in a state of complete awareness, even if it were to only last for a few seconds. I’m not going to pretend that I’ve ever reached nirvana, or that I’ve made significant strides in becoming more aware of reality. In fact, I’m still not even sure what reality really entails. If our brains only process 2,000 bits of information every second, what happens to the rest? Does it remain lodged in our brains – accessible to those who have the right tools and techniques? Or is it lost forever? Maybe I’m just rambling on and should be trying to meditate instead. Perhaps then I’d have something more concrete to relate.
Another exercise that is supposed to help us increase our awareness, at least about ourselves, is trying to see yourself through someone else’s eyes. Try to disengage yourself from your reality and the things you know and pretend for a second that you’re a total stranger and suddenly bumped into yourself at a crowded train station. How would you react? Would you care about trying to get to know you more? What would your thoughts be?
All of this is just food for thought. I truly think that one of the worst things that plagues society these days is the inability of human beings to disconnect from the world and give importance to the self. To some this may just be a bunch of mumbo-jumbo, but I truly think that if we individually spent more time trying to be at peace with ourselves (which is only possible if we truly know and accept who we are), the world would be a much better place.
I know that it’s hard. Unfortunately, society has placed too much importance on material and physical things. In the old days, people respected those who belonged to the class of intellectuals; nowadays, they call us bums/good-for-nothings/hippies, etc. Oh well, c’est la vie. I’m sure there are still a few of us left who believe in “cogito, ergo sum.”
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Someone like you
Adele, thank you for this. THIS is how I feel (still.) Nothing more, nothing less.
I heard that you're settled down.
That you found a girl and you're married now.
I heard that your dreams came true.
Guess she gave you things I didn't give to you.
Old friend, why are you so shy?
It ain't like you to hold back or hide from the light
I hate to turn up out of the blue uninvited,
But I couldn't stay away, I couldn't fight it.
I'd hoped you'd see my face & that you'd be reminded,
That for me, it isn't over.
Nevermind, I'll find someone like you.
I wish nothing but the best for you too.
Don't forget me, I beg, I'll remember you said:
"Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead"
Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead.
You'd know how the time flies.
Only yesterday was the time of our lives.
We were born and raised in a summer haze.
Bound by the surprise of our glory days.
I hate to turn up out of the blue uninvited,
But I couldn't stay away, I couldn't fight it.
I'd hoped you'd see my face & that you'd be reminded,
That for me, it isn't over yet.
Nevermind, I'll find someone like you.
I wish nothing but the best for you too.
Don't forget me, I beg, I'll remember you said:
"Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead".
Nothing compares, no worries or cares.
Regret's and mistakes they're memories made.
Who would have known how bittersweet this would taste?
Nevermind, I'll find someone like you.
I wish nothing but the best for you too.
Don't forget me, I beg, I'll remember you said:
"Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead"
Nevermind, I'll find someone like you.
I wish nothing but the best for you too.
Don't forget me, I beg, I'll remember you said:
"Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead"
Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead.
Friday, March 11, 2011
Japan
It is in this grave hour that our humanitarian side must really shine through. Though I have been following the events in Japan closely, I am still appalled and mesmerized with the images that I see. Images of complete towns being swept away by ocean waves, of huge flames consuming entire buildings. It’s so hard to believe that this is happening in my dear Japan, a country that opened its heart and soul to me. The magnitude of the devastation has yet to be assessed and I truly fear the effects of this catastrophe. With that said however, I trust that people around the world feel for Japan and will quickly rush to help. My heart goes out to you, Nihon. Stay strong my brothers and sisters, but above all, stay safe.
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