Poetry Sunday: Phenomenal Women

One of my friends was presenting a short film at a Women's History event on International Women's Day. Another person I sort of know, a grad student who is in my small group in my Leadership in Community Service class, performed this poem and it was lovely. She is really beautiful, and this poem is pretty empowering to strong women.

Phenomenal Woman

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It's the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can't touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can't see.
I say,
It's in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I'm a woman

Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed.
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It's in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me. 

Magic - Coldplay

I have a couple of friends who hate Coldplay because they think that everybody makes too big of a deal out of them. They think that Coldplay lyrics aren't particularly beautiful or meaningful, like they're a cop-out or something.

I personally rather enjoy Coldplay. I don't need music to touch my soul every time I listen, I just want it to make me feel something. In this case, Coldplay's Magic makes me happy.

Mid-Morning Thoughts

• I wish I had breakfast foods in my room.
• I actually do have some food in my room, I'm just going to have to be resourceful.
• I love that my curtains block out the sun so fervently.
• I have been sleeping until 9 or 9:30 and I hate it. I am excited for the day I can live in an apartment and have a kitchen and wake up at seven and make tea and eggs on toast, then go for a run around the neighborhood, or to the nearby hot yoga studio. I ride my bike there, a really cool bike that's like a gorgeous kelly green color.
• Okay, let me tell you about what I would consider to be an ideal weekend day in a happy life for me: After my hot yoga class, I come home to my small but bright-with-natural-light apartment. I feed my adorable cat, and then I go to a farmer's market, because hopefully they have that peanut butter goat's milk fudge that they always have at farmer's markets near Minerva. If not, I'll settle with some basil and cherry tomatoes and avocados and homemade salsa and beets and bell peppers. Then I get lunch with my friend, hopefully Erin or Gabrielle or Leanna or Jonathan (even though they probably don't live where I live, but wouldn't that be nice?), or I guess I could have lunch with a new friend. We get tacos. Then, we go see that new movie that will be coming out with all of my favorite actors, a happy romantic comedy starring John Krasinski and like Mindy Kaling, Justin Timberlake, Andy Samberg, the cop from Bridesmaids and Tina Fey. After that, I go back to my bright apartment and go swimming, because we have a pool in our apartment complex, and I make small talk with the nice new neighbors, but not too much small talk because that's the worst. Finally, it's like seven p.m. so I go back to my apartment and my really nice roommate and I have a light dinner of salad (spring mix, beets, corn, chickpeas, onions, feta, cilantro vinaigrette like I get at school). We have a  show that's on at 8, so we make some tea and do our nails and what the show, that's probably a dating show, a talent show, or something really funny like the Office (even though nothing can really compare). I end the night by calling my mom, then reading a new Jhumpa Lahiri book and going to sleep.
• I'm probably going to go make ramen in a second.
• Beer has SO MANY calories in it, and it tastes awful. What is the point?
• Alcohol in general: What is the point? I think I quit.
• I wish I liked the Higher Ed program at UT Austin better, because that would be really fun.
• The school I think I'll apply to so far are UT Austin, University of Michigan (booo), Ohio State (True love), Vanderbilt and UPenn. That seems like plenty for me. Do I have to keep researching? :(
• I played Battleship last night and it was a BLAST. Teams of four sit in canoes and try to capsize the other teams.
• I wish my room weren't a mess.
• Is it going to be warm ever again?

"Original Kindle"

Poetry Sunday: She Walks in Beauty

One time in high school we did a unit on poetry, and we went outside and did poetry readings like in the movie The Dead Poet's Society. We each could share a poem we wrote, or read a poem from a poetry book. I chose this little love poem by Lord Byron, not remembering that it is featured in The Dead Poet Society when they are in that weird tiny cave.

She Walks in Beauty

She walks in beauty, like the night

   Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

And all that’s best of dark and bright

   Meet in her aspect and her eyes;

Thus mellowed to that tender light

   Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,

   Had half impaired the nameless grace

Which waves in every raven tress,

   Or softly lightens o’er her face;

Where thoughts serenely sweet express,

   How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,

   So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,

The smiles that win, the tints that glow,

   But tell of days in goodness spent,

A mind at peace with all below,

   A heart whose love is innocent!

Top Five

Rock Climbing
I went rock climbing for the first time today! It was really challenging, but also really thrilling. Although I couldn't reach the top of two of the three walls I climbed, I am still am feeling challenged by them and I want to return as soon as I can find time in order to improve. The feeling of defeating a strange synthetic mountain with shapely, brightly-colored plastic "rocks" jutting out from a flat surface is oddly empowering. The Adventure Recreation Center also had a slackline, which I felt really challenged by as well. I'm glad that I got a taste of this now because I hope I can enjoy doing it more often in the future.



Beets
I have been eating beets so often lately. Something about that gorgeous natural red juice, the tender texture and the slightly sweet yet neutral flavor have been making be get salads solely as a vehicle for beets. Am I Dwight Schrute?


Networking
Although meeting with people is really uncomfortable sometimes, just requesting to meet with someone who could potentially have any information to connect you to resources for your future makes a world of difference. I've found that even if they don't have particularly specific information to give you, having had that one-on-one conversation will make  most people want you to succeed, and will give their hand in doing that. I have met with several people this week to talk about graduate school programs and their advice really inspired me. Networking truly is important.

Like Crazy
I watched a movie on Netflix the other day called Like Crazy. I wasn't exactly "crazy" about it (Oh, Marisa, you're so funny), but it was a really realistic portrayal of how hard long distance relationships are, and how much struggle, disappointment one's heart goes through. It was a beautiful movie, but I wasn't quite satisfied with the choice of main actor (Anton Yelchin), who stole my heart as Charlie Bartlett and doesn't seem like quite interested enough in the relationship to fit the character of Jacob. In fact, I just had to Google his character name, that is how disinterested I was in the character. I found myself identifying much more strongly with the female lead Anna, played by British actress Felicity Jones. Overall, a good movie to speculate about, even if it didn't ruin me emotionally like The Notebook or Hunchback of Notre Dame or something.


Herbal Essences Shampoo 
I just ran out of the shampoo that my dad bought me for Christmas, Paul Mitchell Shampoo One, which smells like a dream. I replaced it with Herbal Essences Moroccan My Shine. I'm rather embarrassed by the pun, but it smells nice and it's blue. I don't know what this obsession with Moroccan argan oil is, but I thought I'd give it a cheap try, as I imagine that Herbal Essences probably adds something like 3 drops per bottle.

One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories by B.J. Novak

As I've mentioned before, I'm a massive fan of The Office. I started watching it in December and somehow laughed and cried through 9 years of television in two months. Oddly enough, one of my favorite characters in the show is Ryan, the slightly delusional, self-centered jerk who thinks he has everything to prove and spends the entire nine years torturing the heart of his dramatic co-worker Kelly Kapoor. When I did a little more research on the actors behind the show, I found that the actor who played Ryan, B.J. Novak, actually spent most of his time in the writer's room rather than on set in The Office, and actually considers himself a writer, not an actor.



I also found that he recently released a book, One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories. During my swift obsession with The Office, I swung by my local bookstore and bought a copy. Luckily, I love short stories, and his absurd sense of humor is right up my alley. I found myself laughing aloud through some of the stories. Some of my favorites were the shortest pieces in the book, lasting only a sentence or two. Although the stories were mostly unrelated, there were several tiny details that connected the stories in a really funny way. They weren't purely for comedy, either. I found some of the stories to have a touching and sad undertone, even if only to end with some ironic punchline, like Kellogg's (or: The Last Wholesome Fantasy of the Middle School Boy), where a boy finds out that he wins a cereal sweepstakes and his parents don't let him cash the prize because his real father is the CEO of Kellogg's.



My top 5 picks from the book were, in order of how they appear in the book:
No One Goes to Heaven to See Dan Fogelberg
Missed Connection: Grocery Spill at 21st and 6th 2:30 pm on Wednesday
Kindness Among Cakes
MONSTER: The Roller Coaster
The World's Biggest Rip-Off




I would recommend the book to fans of short fiction, comedy and the Ryan/Kelly romance.

Poetry Sunday: If I Should Have a Daughter

This is an amazing spoken word poem by Sarah Kay, a brilliant woman who creates poetry as performance in a way that I relate to very closely. This discovery is one of the best that I have found in my many years of dedicated youtube-browsing.

When your boots will fill with rain, and you’ll be up to your knees in disappointment, and those are the very days you have all the more reason to say, “Thank you.” Because there’s nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shore line, no matter how many times it’s sent away.

Everything's Bigger in Texas

Houston Texas, Baby
As a self-proclaimed Beyonce connoisseur, I was excited to see exactly what her hometown is like.
Houston is a massive city with a very strange plan. I have never seen anything like it. Apparently, there is no zoning in the city of Houston, which implies that anyone can put up a store or school or house in any place they want, and it shows. The first thing I noticed were a lot of strange strip malls with independent store that sold very specific products, like carpets or lamps exclusively. We also went a really strange mini mall with a bunch of fake purses and jewelry.

There's one section of the city seems like a giant knotted ball of yarn, but it's really a bunch of freeways piled on top of each other. I found a picture on Google.


My favorite part about the city was how multicultural it is, and how that translated to food. While I was there for three days, I had awesome fajitas at Ninfa's with fresh and soft flour tortillas, Chinese dumplings and milk tea, and awesome barbecue (which was actually ironically in Columbus, Texas).



Keep Austin Weird
I went into Austin as a skeptic. We were warned by Houstonians about all of the strange things we were set to see in Austin. With its long-standing unofficial slogan "Keep Austin Weird," I wanted to know just how weird it could be. As a girl who grew up hopping around the world and living in carnivals, I needed to know exactly what made this city so "weird."


As we drove into the city, I immediately saw some stereotypes of the city walking around on the streets. Women in carefully composed outfits made to look like a clean 1970's hippies were traipsing along, while fit bearded men in their twenties rode bikes to their jobs at app development firms. It truly is a hipster central, especially in the wake of the yearly South by Southwest festival, which brings people from all over the world with interests technology and live music. I personally really enjoyed all of the promotional bits of SXSW, because we got a lot of free stuff and got to do fun activities. 



The city itself has a very manageable and cool feel, without feeling too big like other metropolises I've visited before. The public train only has two cars, and a man we met (at his hip app development office that I mistook for a small apartment building, of course) said that he took the train in to work from another nearby neighborhood. Overall, I find Austin to be a city that a lot of young people would enjoy spending time in.

High Tide or Low Tide

Bob Marley wrote this song for his kids. If I ever get married, I want it to be my father/daughter song.

More late night thoughts

• I had a really awkward interaction today, and I can't stop thinking about it because it was really embarrassing. Like, I want to go back and apologize to the guy for my horrible ability to interact. 
• I'm flying to Texas in four hours (five hours?), and I can't sleep. I'm not even sort of tired.
• The reason for the time confusion is because of Daylight Savings because I have a really hard time understanding how it works.
• I locked myself out of my room after the front desk closed for the break. It was right after I went to the gym, and I had to sit outside of my room for half an hour  and wait for the maintenance guy to come.
• I went to Target by myself today and felt very alone, and I bought a belt that was more expensive than I expected, but I like it anyway. I also bought cheap shoes, which is a true downfall of mine because shoes are important.
• I am one of five-ish people in my building right now and it is so scary. 
• International Women's Day was a blast. I appreciate the women in my life.
• I utilized something I learned on Pinterest today! I used contacts cases for holding a small amount of gel on an airplane.
• I ate two Kit Kat bars tonight because of the uncomfortable situation.
• I had a lovely dinner with my friend Johnny in the lobby. A chicken gyro and a Buckeye donut. 
• I am really looking forward to the end of the semester, because that means the beginning of a lot of adventure.
• Why am I awake?
• The song "White Houses" always make me feel nostalgic, even though I've never experienced anything like the song. I've read a lot of books that have experiences like the song, though because I read a lot of YA fiction. That was before I realized that being an only child isn't normal.
• Running three miles today felt amazing. Did I have a runner's high? I used to think that was a lie. I know it's not much, but it's something.

Poetry Sunday: Jilted

Sylvia Plath's life story is really sad, and it makes me sad to think about it. I have tried to read The Bell Jar a lot of times, but I can't really get into it, even though I think Sylvia Plath is such an interesting woman. However, I love her poem Jilted.

Jilted

My thoughts are crabbed and sallow,
My tears like vinegar,
Or the bitter blinking yellow
Of an acetic star.

Tonight the caustic wind, love,
Gossips late and soon,
And I wear the wry-faced pucker of
The sour lemon moon.

While like an early summer plum,
Puny, green, and tart,
Droops upon its wizened stem
My lean, unripened heart.

Travels

I have three major travels planned for the near future, and I can't even describe how I feel. My mom says that I'm touring the world like a rock star. I am so lucky to have been in the right place at the right time, to be raised by parents who have worked hard to give me incredible experiences, to love education, to have amazing friends, and to be the kind of girl who reads e-mails. If I could toot my own horn for a second, I did work pretty hard to be able to have the financial freedom and competitiveness to be able to receive scholarships and study abroad three times, BUT the truth is, I am just fortunate to be where I am because of the hard work of everyone around me. Thank you, mom and dad. Thank you universe. I love you.

Trip 1: Texas
This one is Spring Break, the only "just for fun" trip I have planned. I have talked about it before in my Top Five blog, but it is happening in just a few days and I am really excited. I will be providing the blog with photos I've actually taken myself (!!!).
Anticipations: Meeting Austin-ites, seeing my best friend, being a temporary hipster, being a 21-year-old in a cool city, not saying y'all
Concerns: getting all of my liquids onto a carry-on and getting to the airport

Trip 2: Ecuador
I am spending my Maymester teaching Ecuadorian children English and hanging out with university students from the University of Ecuador. Listen, we get to go to hot springs. The people I'm going with seem really awesome, I'm taking a class with all of them now. Also, I get to network with a bunch of Higher Ed grads, which is a dream because I think that's the program I want to do eventually.
Anticipations: Practicing Spanish, teaching English, hot springs, potentially getting some Chilean pisco, Spanish poetry/music/lit, mountains, avocados (basically, I love South America and I'm so excited).
Concerns: Altitude sickness, motion sickness, and guinea pigs


Trip 3: Indonesia
My life is a dream. I was awarded a Critical Language Scholarship to study Bahasa Indonesia in Malang, Indonesia. What? Pinch me. Seriously. I know it is going to be an intensive language learning experience, but I know it will be life-changing. I'm so fortunate. I met a guy today who was awarded a CLS and he said his life hasn't been the same since. Can you believe I'll be living in a place called Java? Like the coffee?
Anticipations: Meeting the other scholars, the beach, volcano, mosques/architecture, FOOD, tea plantation, warm weather
Concerns: Jet lag, getting sick

Poetry Sunday: Annabel Lee

This poetry Sunday, I've got a wonderful poem that I fell in love with during my childhood obsession with the novel and film Holes by Louis Sachar. It's Edgar Allen Poe's Annabel Lee, and in the film two lovers bond over the poem, the school teacher and the onion salesman. They couldn't be together because of race, and his murder caused her to because a Wild West outlaw who kissed her deceased victims. Anyway, the poem is great.

It was many and many a year ago,

   In a kingdom by the sea,

That a maiden there lived whom you may know

   By the name of Annabel Lee;

And this maiden she lived with no other thought

   Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,

   In this kingdom by the sea,

But we loved with a love that was more than love—

   I and my Annabel Lee—

With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven

   Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,

   In this kingdom by the sea,

A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling

   My beautiful Annabel Lee;

So that her highborn kinsmen came

   And bore her away from me,

To shut her up in a sepulchre

   In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,

   Went envying her and me—

Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,

   In this kingdom by the sea)

That the wind came out of the cloud by night,

   Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love

   Of those who were older than we—

   Of many far wiser than we—

And neither the angels in Heaven above

   Nor the demons down under the sea

Can ever dissever my soul from the soul

   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams

   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes

   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side

   Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,

   In her sepulchre there by the sea—

   In her tomb by the sounding sea.

Late Night Thoughts: Stream of Consciousness

I just came home from seeing Rocky Horror Picture Show. I fell asleep in the theater and drank Frostop root beer from tap (Yum). I originally spelled theater "theatre," I think because it was just that kind of place. It's 2:28 a.m. right now, and I can't remember the last time I saw this time of day because I'm an early bird. My "Keep Calm and Carry On" poster keeps falling and I think that's symbolic in someway, like maybe I shouldn't have spent the entire week coming straight back to my room any chance I had to watch The Office, even though I barely have any homework and it made me so happy. I want a love like Jim and Pam, just like everyone else in the world, but I definitely don't want to spend 12 years in an office, even if TV made it seem wonderful. I literally cried for the entire finale episode because it was all so beautiful. Anyway, I think I'm developing a cold, so it looks like I'll have to start finding some Netflix movies to watch if I get any sicker and need to rest. I played laser tag today and my player name was "Megatron," and I am awful at laser tag. I think this summer might make all of my dreams come true. Well, I don't actually think that, but I do think it will be life-changing in some way. I just sneezed. Here comes the sickness. I haven't been sick at all this year, which is incredible, because last year, I hardly remember any times when I didn't have an awful cold. I ran on Tuesday and it was horrible because I ate junk food all weekend, so I think I might try to run again tomorrow unless I develop that cold. I can't imagine why I'm getting a cold since I've had like a million tangerines over the past week, and that's a lot of vitamin C. Can you ever feel yourself getting more annoying the more tired you get? And you can't stop being annoying even though you're totally aware? That happened to me today. I washed my pillowcases today and my curtains are closed, so I'm in for a lovely slumber.