Tea Leaves, Virgins, Monkeys, Tea Houses

One of the most exciting professors at UM (a man who is the chair of the Classics Department) loves tea. He is a tea connoisseur. He will not drink tea from a bag, he will not drink tea from America. He orders his tea from China and/or Taiwan. He has a tea blog. He called the Religious Studies Department from Hong Kong in order to tell me how delicious the tea was and how he doesn't want to leave his leaves and his friends. Upon his return, my friend Navied and I were engaging him in a teas-cussion and he told some Asian teas are marketed like so: "These leaves were handpicked by virgins." "Monkey-picked" tea. There is a legend that the most exquisite leaves in existence are located on this one cliff that humans can simply NOT get to. Therefore, a few keen men taught monkeys to acquire that which they wanted. How they taught the monkeys to pick the leaves and bring them back? Neither Kirby, Navied, nor I can answer you this question. I told the two about an incredible tea place I had been to with Andrew: "Dushanbe Tea House" in Boulder. Kirby lost it and asked for the pictures I had taken. Look above, reader. Boulder, CO is a sister-city with Dushabe in Tajikistan. In celebration of their union, Mayor Maksud Ikramov decided to build the jonint. It is incredible. Andrew and I spent lunchtime talking, kicking eachothers feet, sipping delicious tea (i had blueberry tea) and sharing samosas. Reader, if you have the opportunity to go to Dushanbe Tea House in Boulder... then you go to Dushanbe Tea House in Boulder. 

i feel like a little girl

who has licked the ice cream off of the cone right onto the sidewalk. my eyes well with liquid but my cheeks remain dry. man. i am not fond of self-pity, self-loathing, und so weiter; however, i do believe that wallowing every once in a while is a healthy yet arduous task. the pains may be strong, but i am going to appreciate them for what they are. 

early this morning i decided that i need to be more mindful of my emotions. i occasionally drift when i talk, when people talk to me... it isn't necessarily a bad quality. i'd like to be more "present" without ignoring my emotions and using Christian language, Eckhart Tolle!

i am not sad. i am not resentful. i am just disappointed that i have not yet been accepted in the programs that i have applied to religious studies. i can't help but not question myself and my abilities. sure, i have a great gpa. ok, i thought my essays were quite good. i don't get it. and then i wonder if i am being too confident... i don't want to tell anyone in my family, because (excluding my Aunt Annie) they think i'm "strange" for (1) being me (2) pursuing that which interests me (e.g. religious studies, while i am "without religion") (3) my vegetarianism. sadly, i am neither joking nor exaggerating. i would love to call my dad and tell him how disappointed i feel and how i want to cry but the tears aren't coming because i know that i'll be ok wherever i end up because i am me... but i can't. 

today is the first day he expressed any interest in what i have been learning in school this year. he asked me about my reading ability in german. i felt surprised and excited that he seemed to genuinely care. i told him about it and how i am so excited because i am growing and learning and remembering and practicing... this is what i do! this is who i am! 

man. (long, exasperated exhale) 

i don't know. i feel overwhelmed and impotent.

1984 or 2008?

america, we love you. i am sitting in a terminal, watching peoples faces and the orange signs... apparently one is at a high risk flying, for there is an elevated fear of a terrorist attack. i wonder why the airport officials don't tell us why. luckily, fort lauderdale hollywood airport offers free wireless. i trekked to the US homeland security website to try to discover why. Apparently "[t]he National Intelligence Estimate cited heightened activity overseas and [theyre] mindful of the recent arrests in Europe. There has also been an upward trend in propaganda tapes ad messages coming from Al Qaeda and affiliated networks over the past year." Has there been? Why don't we hear about it? Well, the media is backed by the government. I relish in the name of the committee, "the National Intelligence Estimate." I think that such heightened awareness of "the Other" contributes to feeling of discrimination and danger in the atmosphere of an airport. Is it more likely that a little dark-haired "typical" teenager is a terrorist or a Hasidic Jew? Sometimes I feel like finding George Orwell's grave, waking his bones, and letting him know that he is right. I think it would be much safer to not live in America. I think it would be safer to support a politician who advocates hope and change. I think the White House needs to make a serious change before more countries begin to harbor pure hatred toward us. I don't think it is easy to be an American these days. I don't think it ever was easy to be an American. We have had such a problematic existence. We have made our homes on the land of those who look and behave differently. I don't think that our actions from a few hundred years ago differ from our actions today. 

Les poesies

I don't think I slept at all. According to my research this morning (4:58 am), I experienced a WILD. A "wake-initiated lucid dream"... this occurs "when the dreamer goes from a normal waking state directly into a dream state with no apparent consciousness." I feel as though I have not slept, but I did. My consciousness did not shift, however. Instead of feeling poorly...whining, drinking lots of coffee, und so weiter, I decided to engage my emotions and I wrote a little poem. After writing one little poem I wrote another (that has no proper rhythm). Please ignore the absence of accents, for some reason the blogger won't allow me to copy and paste symbols. Yes, they are in French again! 

Le corps derive avec les sons du soir,

je voyage dehors.

Les jambes marchent a l'origine de toutes,

Je marcherai loin.

La pluie tombe au ciel,

Je n'ai pas besoin d'un impermeable

Les feuille me servent au

Parapluie, et pour memoire de toi. 

C'est pas parfait, mais j'aime ecrire les petites poesies. 

Et une autre...

"Je suis un immigre en terre etrangere" 

Je ne sais pas que le monde est gris

J'espere que les couleurs fondent 

enchaine des larmes.

Je ne comprends pas les mots que j'entends 

Je souhaite que je peux. 

Je me sens comme un immigre

Je n'appartiens pas

Je me sens comme un immigre

Je n'appartiens jamais. 

Elles sont tristes, je pense. Cependant je les aime. 

are you a speculator?

The hour is before midnight and I am lost in the cobbled streets of Paris. The Amelie soundtrack has transported me there. Last night, I fell asleep to the timid eddies of strings and the diving, pulsing ripples of the accordion. Tonight, I will fall asleep to the timid eddies of strings and the diving, pulsing ripples of the accordion. 

I ought to read for my classes tomorrow, but I cannot stay focused. I feel like resting and listening and speculating and drifting. 

A friend left me a note today on the Facebook; on my Wall (of all places), she stated that she is going to reevaluate our friendship. I am not ruffled if she is serious, I am not ruffled if she is joking. She and I are not the friends we were in elementary, middle, and high school. We are different. I am different than I was when I wrote this sentence. I think the inconsistencies of the self are beautiful. We are ever-changing beings. How can anyone be exactly the same all the time? I have migrated (literally and figuratively, I guess). I believe that some people grow in parallel lines and others become perpendicular. There is one solid commonality... but everything else has changed, whether it be positive or negative (that's for all you math nerds out there). 

I like the process of whittling down. There are a few individuals who I care deeply for, as comrades, as kin. Their ages span decades. Some individuals I have known for many years, some I have known for one, and some I have met in August. Fancy that. These people know me better than others who have known me since... who knows when. I love that they know me. I love that I exude who I am so strongly that they cannot not know. I love that they exude who they are so strongly that I cannot not know them. 

Some people are really special. 

Epic Walks

The hour is before midnight and I am in Ireland. I am walking for hours without intention and direction. I am thinking about my predecessors, the Romantics. The men and women who set out for Europe and walked in order to experience nature and the depths of their imaginations. I would like to abandon responsibility, and set forth. 

I am re-experiencing a memory of running around the Aran Islands, thinking that I hadn't been this happy in months, that this is true happiness, that there was so beauty I felt like crying. I felt childlike, which is perhaps the most wondrous feeling existent. 

I wish I could share these thoughts with him now. I laid in bed day-dreaming not too long ago, listening to Heima...I envisioned smiling with and walking alongside Andrew... setting off into the verdant ocean of leaves, trees, and shrubbery. The greens overwhelmingly green, the odors were fresh and pungent. It was such a soft descent into another world. A world that does exist. I do not want to live where my surroundings are gray. Sometimes I wonder if one day we (the collective human) will awaken to find a world without color and vibrance... all that exists will be smoke, fog, sidewalks and cellphones (I believe that most people like to stare at these items while walking)... There is so much more. There is so much more! Bruce Springsteen once (maybe more than once) said in concert, "IS ANYBODY ALIVE OUT THERE?!" Well, is there? 

Oh, you.

I am envious of Goethe. I am envious of John Keats. Their contributions to world literature astound me. I feel as though both men could have never felt stagnant, or lethargic, or bleh... they were prolific writers who we talk about after death. after their death. What I like about Goethe, especially... is that he calls for others to act. He acknowledges that "yes, you too may possess a poetic eye, however it is no good if you solely ponder the universe and your surroundings. Get up and DO SOMETHING!" He is concerned with the process of becoming, opposed to the individuals who "are," as in they no longer become. And here I am, type-typing away on the blog. Oh well.