Beginnings.

"Maybe you should write a memoir," my little cousin suggested. "About the lemon tree. Sounds like a story."

I paused at her words for a moment as she continued to brush her hair while looking at her reflection in my bedroom mirror. Sure, I had been itching to write about something. But, my severe apathy quelled that mild desire for the last couple of months. Hearing her verbalize it, though, struck a cord.

"Hhm. I should. I've been ignoring the muses lately."

The narratives have been brewing for the better part of the past decade. Now is any time as any to make them materialize into something more than passing thoughts and disconnected recollections.

Self-loathing.

I have become the kind of person I despise. 

Lazy, dispassionate, inexplicably agitated. Life isn't that cruel. So why do I continue to live as if I have a heavy heart?

Uncertainty consumes my waking hours. There is little I look forward to during my daily routine. There is no real joy to extract from many of my days. 

I was not always this way. I had a passion for my studies, an optimism for the near future that fueled my desire to excel. When did this extinguish? It is impossible to pinpoint. I wonder why this feeling evades me now.

Oh, I put a good enough front. Laughing and cracking jokes at appropriate and inappropriate times. Making seemingly witty remarks throughout the day on social media. Everything to indicate that I am quite fine and take joy in the minutia, even the banal occurrences. However, I do not.

I have to come to the conclusion that I have become ugly. Not just in a physical sense. But, I do not want to stare at mirrors for too long, hardly recognizing my reflection. There is only the grotesque version my mind and soul wishes I was not. 

I undoubtedly hate this me. I cannot, I refuse to continue living this way, watching my youth pass by me and sinking further into disrepair. Change, a significant shift, is absolutely essential. This destructive rut will only lead to overwhelming self pity, which is really the last thing I need. 

"Snap the fuck out of it," I tell myself on a daily basis, as I shuffle from point A, to B, to C, and back to A again. But how? How to break the bonds of this unwarranted lethargy? 

I do not know the answer. I do now this: the days might be long, but the years are short. I intend on making this year count. 

Valentine's Day.

Valentine's Day is almost upon us.

Normally, I do not pay much attention to this holiday. My reaction year to year shifts from indifference to mild annoyance to involuntary eyebrow twitching-level irritation at the sheer ridiculousness of it all. It's advertised as a pompous celebration of romantic love for heterosexual couples, seeking to express their undying love by buying heart shaped chocolates, overpriced dinners, and tacky jewelry. Even more exasperating than the propaganda to celebrate this holiday is the backlash from people who lament the existence of said propaganda. When I had Facebook, most status updates this time of the year were somewhere around the lines of "Fuck valentines day, I dun need no man," followed by a lyric from a Destiny's Child song circa 2001. Or, they were something like "Oh, haha, I totally forgot it was Valentines Day, that's why I'm totally letting my 534 friends know that my life is so completely awesome that I totally forgot the holiday that I've been thinking about since I walked into CVS in early January when I had to buy emergency eyeliner and saw a bunch of pink hearts and shit and went home and cried about Jose cheating on me with that girl with tacky blonde highlights." Or, even better: "OMG i have the bestest boyfriend evaaaaaa xoxoxo love you Jeremy DaOnePlaya Rodriguez 01.07.09 <333333."

All these reactions make me sick. 

Valentine's Day is such a strange phenomena in the US. We love to hate it. We hate to love it. Either way, there's a whole lot of wailing that goes down the days leading towards it. When I lived in the Dominican Republic, Valentine's Day was (and still is, I suppose) known as "El Dia del Amor y Amistad." Translated simply, it means the day of love and friendship. In school, we were encouraged to regard it as a day to appreciate the people in our lives and say "Thanks for being awesome, have a cookie." It was pretty nice.

So, this Valentine's Day, I'm not going to take to the internet and lament about sappy couples showing off their love in spite of my crippling singledom. I'm not going to deny it would be nice to have a oh so special someone to remind me how oh so special I am to them too. Instead, I'm celebrating by having a tacky ass dinner with a couple of pretty cool friends. Knowing that I have people in my life that are willing to tolerate (and inspire) my bizarre antics, lack of a decent attention span, my loud booming shrill laugh, and willingness to finish everybody's leftovers comforts me enough, for the most part. 

Do not fret my fellow single (or miserably taken) people! Our day will come.  

Deluded.

It's difficult to construct a coherent piece when attempting to be discreet about the very subject I wish to discuss. This is a relatively public forum, even if it is visited by a microscopic portion of the public. Relatively speaking, this being my little corner of the internet, I should be able to say whatever I damn well please! But I shall refrain from being explicit, somewhat. Let's see if I can articulate myself one way or the other.

Still with me? No? Okay. Me neither.

Ahem. I'll be brief, if vague. To paraphrase from Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, it would be pretty to think so. Very much so. However, all I have is an assumption. An assumption that is most likely completely and utterly wrong. But so be it. I'll allow my imagination to get the best of me; I'll bask in the warmth the superflous possibility brings.

Throwing out all logic on this one, folks, as you can detect from the complete lack of reason in the previous paragraph. In conclusion, I'm feeling some type of way. For once, I'll let it run its course.

Reevaluate.

This word has been bouncing around my mind for a couple of weeks now. Towards the end of every calendar year this tends to happen: the sense newness approaches, and with this newness comes an opportunity to create meaningful changes. Granted, one can make change whenever they choose so, but there's something about the completion of the earth's celestial orbiting that makes the need to change that much more signifcant, pressing.

Last year was the only year in recent memory I decided to make some resolutions. My first resolution was to not stress the arbitrary; I needed to focus on goals that I wanted and not worry about the trivial happenings. Hilariously enough, I did quite the opposite. I spent a good part of the year pining for someone I couldn't have, in turn wasting time and, even more tragically, brain cells on an arbitrary issue. I made none of the changes I pledged to impliment. If anything, those problems I wanted to rectify have become even more cumbersome.

Those resolutions were utter failures. I do not plan on making those mistakes again. Sometimes one cannot dismiss the trivial minutiae of the everyday. So what if I spend time on something seemingly unnecessary? It is inevitable.
This time around, I do not have resolutions. Instead, I have to reevaluate. What's working? What's not? What's bogging me down? There is one thing I actively want to create: contentment. For a number of years I have fallen into a comfortable pattern of disillusionment and unfulfillment. As I age further into adulthood, I realize I am the only one capable of changing my circumstances. It seems as if that would be an intuitive idea, but I have also come to realize it is not. At least for me. So, I have to reasses what values to internalize in order to create the contenment I so desperately crave.

It's a decidely abstract and lofty idea. However, it is not necessarily a concrete goal; it's a blueprint, a compass if you will, to make lasting differences. I am tired of being my own biggest disappointment.

This post is as vauge as the idea I am trying to pursue. I hope that in the coming year, these changes will become transparent. Perhaps the path of contentment will be as dependable as the passing of our measured time.

Purpose.

For some time now, I've had an unshakable feeling that there was something inherently missing. What this was, I had no idea. Perhaps for the first time in my life, I felt that there was nothing I was amounting to. Sure, there are my dual bachelor degrees I am very close to completing (English and History). My entire conscious life has been dedicated to the moment that is less than a year away: my college graduation. As my junior year drew to a close, my purpose has never been less clear.

It's highly discomforting, even as I write this. What am I trying to say: that these past few years have been a complete waste of time? Certainly not: I've enjoyed my undergraduate education. It has not been exactly how I imagined it as a naive high school junior, intent on going to a private university. The reality of being a relatively poor immigrant kid, as well as my own financial blunders, have thwarted those ambitions a long time ago. I had hoped to study abroad before my time as an undergraduate is done, and perhaps with more pragmatic approaches to spending and saving can make that particular ambition come true. All in all however, I've been highly content with my decision to study in Brooklyn as opposed to Hamilton, New York.

No, I concluded, it was not my education that felt lacking. Could it possibly be my personal life? As I've hinted at length in this blog, I've been unlucky in love. Although I have not attempted to actively seek out someone to date, or made any outright effort to make myself dateable, I do not think this is what's missing. In all honestly, I've sabotaged any sliver of a chance to date someone who showed genuine interest. Anyway, that's neither here nor there. I have fun, caring, intelligent, hilarious friends and family: I have surrounded myself with people who build me up, not tear me down. Those poisonous relationships, as I have discussed, I have successfully eliminated: they did nothing but plague me with unsolicited stress and heartbreaking disappointment. My personal life, as of right now, has been nothing but joyful.

So, what could this incessant nagging feeling of ineptitude possibly be? Surely some comfort could be taken in the fact I managed to (finally!) achieve a 3.925 GPA this semester (why that A- couldn't be an A in one of my English courses, I don't know). Or take some solace that I do relatively well at my part-time job, being named May's Employee of the Month (I'm not going to lie, it would have been nice to get a bonus but I didn't hold my breath for it). Still, the feeling remains.

Question is: where is this all leading to?

I'm not alone in this despair. My best friend in college shared her concerns on the day we both finished finals.

"I feel like I need to do something," she said, while she gesticulated as if this "something" was going to pour out of her chest.

"Hhmm," I said, as I played with the contents of the gyro I no longer had an appetite for eating. "Like what?"

" I don't know. I'm tired of just coming to classes, day in and day out. Sitting in a classroom, taking notes, then taking the bus back home. What is this all amounting to?"

I didn't immediately respond. I looked across from us: students cheerfully sipping their Starbucks, lounging in the shade on the wooden structures close to the Campus Road entrance. Did they share the same concern? Or were they perfectly content drinking their sugary coffee drinks while shuffling between classes?

"I often feel the same way," I said finally, resigned. "So what are you going to do?"

"I don't know. Obviously I have to finish my degree."

"It wouldn't make sense to drop out, especially since you're so close to the end."

"Yeah I know. But what am I going to do next?"

Neither of us had a satisfying answer. In the days to come, she told me of her newfound interest: joining the Peace Corps after graduating, helping people in another country as she tried to figure out the next step. I told her that it sounded like a good idea; perhaps it would shed light on what her life's passion really is.

I fear that my sense of purpose might not come as swiftly. This is crunch time everyone (including myself) keeps reminding me: executive decisions need to be taken for our post-graduate plans. I have a few ideas, but nothing solid.

Today, I checked my student email in hopes of landing a free trial of Amazon Prime, but instead found an email from the Scholarship office, urging me (and a number of other students) to consider a couple of opportunities, including the Fulbright and Rhodes Scholarship. I'm not sure whether this was a mass email to the undergraduate population, or to a certain number of possible candidates (I'm thinking the former, given the population of the school; I highly doubt someone took the time to copy and paste only certain people). I love academia, even if I've shown less enthusiasm for some classes than others. While I do not fit the criteria for a Rhodes Scholar (apparently you need to do sports too?), some other ones seem plausible.

I also received an email from my school's career center about a graduate school fair  taking place in two weeks (free!) that I have already RSVPed for. For my fellow college students, I hope you can accompany me to the event.

Perhaps this new information hasn't quelled my thirst for a greater purpose, but its certainly a good start. For now, knowing these opportunities exist have provided a greater comfort about my future than my ability to fold clothing for 4.5 hours a day ever will.

Pseudo Feminism.

In this week's edition of New York Magazine, there's a feature about the recent happenings on Wall Street and it's major players. New York has the tendency of catching its readers up on the latest scandal or morally deficient happenings of this city's financial center every three months or so. One particular article grabbed this reader's attention immediately, fittingly named What Does it Take for a Female Tycoon to Get Noticed Around Here?. The article discusses Lynn Tilton,"founder and CEO of Patriarch Partners, a private-equity firm that specializes in the takeover of distressed manufacturers of a decidedly masculine nature..." Perhaps I had never noticed before, but in the two years I've subscribed to New York Magazine I have never read anything about a female CEO. The article does a profile of Tilton, discussing her relatively humble beginnings in New Jersey to how she became a self made millionaire through her business savvy. More so, the article uncovers what Tilton is attempting to save nearly bankrupt companies in this Great Recession and how she is doing it. As always, when there is a woman involved there is a great deal of discussion of gender roles, and this article was no exception.

From the opening paragraph, it is quite clear that Tilton is a rarity in her field: an older woman strutting around in tight designer dresses, Gucci heels, and decidedly a has "brand of femininity [that] is so over-the-top, so cartoonish, it's as if she were plating a part, the Wonder Woman of Wall Street."
Tilton tells the journalist:

"'I can take pride in the fact that I can be all woman in a man's world. And,' she adds, lowering her already deep Mae West voice another octave, 'as you may have noticed, I am all woman.'"

The article is riddled with literary nuances and explicit commentary about Tilton's exuberant femininity juxtaposed in the manly world of corporations and finance. While it is fascinating, I can't help but wonder: Is this a problem? What kind of implications does Tilton's presence have on a 21st century idea of a business woman? Is Tilton a feminist? And why, dear Lord why, did she feel the need to get naked in front if this journalist? 


In terms of my last question, Tilton seems quite comfortable with herself and her body: to the dismay of her previous coworkers and current employees, Tilton often sports cleavage bearing clothing and flashy jewelry. One person reported that it made him feel uncomfortable because (and I'll paraphrase because I do not feel like flipping through the article) "no one wants to see that much boob." I wonder, still, if Tilton was a couple of years younger, would he have minded it then?

While it might seem trivial to consider Tilton's choice of clothing while she works, it is a source of great pride for Tilton and a the source of a great deal of discussion among others. And while I can pontificate all night long about how one's clothing should not be the determining factor in judging someone, the fact of the matter is how one dresses actually is extremely important. Especially in the corporate world, and especially if you are a woman. Still, I commend Tilton to challenge the norms of what women can wear while still being the boss.

However, I find it slightly problematic, Ms. Tilton that is. From what I gather, she enjoys being very "feminine" by wearing flashy clothing and having professionals get her makeup and hair done. That's all good and well. She demands respect, regardless of her wardrobe choices. That's all good and well. However, from a number of accounts, she gets verbally abusive and regularly commits acts that can be considered sexual assault to her male employees. While she vehemently denies this, she admits to throwing a couple of people around during meetings. Hm. Last time I checked, throwing tantrums to get decisions made and manage people does not earn anyone respect.

Perhaps I am ignorant to the tactics of multi-millionaire tycoons. I'm sure acts that are morally suggestive are committed every single day in corporations large and small. But when you are one of the few women that are wildly successful at this finance game, I do not feel intimidating someone by throwing various objects of people you are trying to strike deals with, or asking male employees to take body shots off you for your birthday, is really the ideals you want to instill on budding female business women in the United States. If anything, she is simply adding fuel to a fire that just will not quit.

Tilton's narrative reminds me of some articles I read for my English seminar. I'll edit this post once I find the articles in question. Anyway, the author discusses the portrayal of women in the first decade of the 21st century in popular culture. To make a long story short, there was an overwhelming emphasis on women being cast as meek, oversexed nympho maniacs, incapable of making any logical decisions while men are needed to clean up their messes and provide the strength women simply do not possess. This particular author argues there has been a regression of women in the public sphere, noting that the 1990's did not have as many examples as we do now. I completely agree. Without naming any names, the most profitable women this day in age sell their sexuality by any means necessary. And while there are powerful women in popular culture that are admired for their intelligence and accomplishments, the most profitable women are those who talk about their love of being on the "drunk diet."

Take the recent scandal when Rutgers University paid reality show stable Snooki more than Nobel Prize winning author Toni Morrison (seriously, read The Bluest Eye. It's life changing.). What is America's pop culture communicating to it's young women? From what I can tell it's "Get drunk, flash your tits, have sex with random people and we'll pay you."

While Tilton is a far cry from our beloved Snooks, I do not think she's improving America's new notion about the successful woman. Ancient ideas of women being hysterical, incapable of succeeding in the public sphere, especially finance, is becoming popularized again, albeit differently than before. One can defend or dismiss Tilton as a feminist symbol. Honestly, it can go both ways. But, with an increasingly shrinking awareness of why a feminist movement was needed, I don't think Tilton's love of ass pinching young men that work for her is helping matters.