A Couple Failures

A terrifying red mushroom that appeared in my yard and collapsed partially under its own weight.

Allow for me to give a detailed account of the things I didn't do this past month:

I didn't make it to 50,000 words this NaNoWriMo;
I didn't meet my personal fundraising goal for Project As[I]Am to put out another issue;
I got a dramatic injury and didn't go to my first derby practice league meetup;
Due to the same dramatic injury, I did nothing for Thanksgiving other than binge watch TV shows;
Much of my work felt like it got away from me.

All this... and nothing major happened. There was no fiery explosion. My airbags didn't even inflate.

Too often I hold on to a lot of self-judgment about not meeting my own (admittedly very high) expectations. For a few months now, I have been skidding along on my own efficiency - I am incredibly good at working and getting things in on deadline, even if it means that I'm working up to the last minute. But this month was riddled with more than the usual ebbs and flows in productivity. I first got a cold, then another one. I got a tailbone injury which had me unable to easily sit upright.  And, of course, you know what else happened last month. The secondary trauma response that fired up in me post-election was as searing as the tailbone pain, radiating outward in waves. There's a reflection to be written about that sometime - I'll add it to my already tall stack of deadlines.

I got particularly anxious this month when I started feeling like the things on my plate were piling ever higher. I would have a day when I could get back to my usual productivity and then crashed completely the next. I started using a goal-setting calendar app that gives you reminders and there would be 5-7 sitting on my home screen all day everyday. What a guilt trap.

But I also found myself relying on the oft-repeated advice to be gentle and kind to oneself. No one is clamoring to read my book. No one needs me to speak on a panel or facilitate a workshop (though I'd gladly take the gig). No one is blowing up my social media about when my next piece is coming out. Though it may sound like a cold comfort, I was reminded that there is a kind of luxury in not having a completely public life.

Instead I've been relishing smaller behind-the-scenes victories like working with my first doula client in over a year. I've been doing the #100RejectionsChallenge and submitting far more often than ever before. I have been truly absorbed by good literature and lectures, particularly this one by Sheila Heti. Paradoxically, all those reminders on my phone are helping me remember what I really want to be doing rather than just moving from task to task like an automaton. In that way, I am setting a solid foundation for myself while the world around me is shifting in so many perceptible and imperceptible ways. It's time to be safe and take the best care that we can.

A Year Ahead; A Year Behind

If you haven't already done so, I highly encourage you to check out the "Our Greatest Resource" issue just released at Project As[I]Am. It features love letters, poetry, visual and audio art about the world we want to create. You can also hear our editors speak on the issue in our audio letter -- edited and hosted by me!

A quote I saw on the wall of a 5th grade classroom - "It's about progress, not perfection" in a loopy calligraphy script.

It was my 25th birthday yesterday and I had a bad cold (of course). It turned my brain foggy at work; it was a relief when finally I got to my three days off and could sleep in.


In my last post, I talked about creative drought. Somehow, while I was in the middle of it, a few public readings fell into my lap. I performed at Subdrift (a South Asian open mic that has come to Seattle) and read a piece of the novel draft for the first time in a public forum. It was fairly low stakes since it was an open mic, but the positive feedback really enlivened me. I read another draft piece as part of the QTPOC Artists of Color (volume 2!) book launch reading last night.

There's an effect called response-shift bias that I've learned while doing evaluation work. People come into a training feeling relatively confident that they know the material, but by the end they realize how much they don't know. So they rate themselves as having less knowledge than when they walked in the door. That's the place that I've gotten to in my research -- I've been anxious to begin new parts of the draft because it feels like there's a wealth more to do. What kind of bats would be in that tree? What is the archetypal trickster animal in that region? Where can I put in this detail without disrupting the flow? Elena Rose (who also read last night and co-edited the volume), described this process as "cat-vacuuming"-- when you're looking for more things to do to put off the actual project.

The past several years I've spent hopping from thing to thing, collecting experiences and research and deciding where to focus my energies. Years of discovery. I feel like this year, however, is one of depth rather than breadth. Not to say that discovery is over forever, but for now my desires have shifted away from acquiring a bunch of new skills to tunneling deep into the behind-the-scenes work. You may not see me a lot this year -- I'll be poking around at a few invisible behemoths, trying to see how big they are by feel -- but I'm sure that you'll hear a great deal about how it's all going. For now, I'm going back to my ginger tea and ruminating.

Convulsions, Premonitions

I feel like I have had a certain conversation on repeat for the past few weeks, but I can’t stop myself. The words are there right under my skin.

“it is this time
 that matters

 it is this history
 I care about

 the one we make together
 awkward
 inconsistent
 as a lame cat on the loose
 or quick as kids freed by the bell
 or else as strictly
 once
 as only life must mean
 a once upon a time”
        -- June Jordan, “On A New Year’s Eve”

I have sunk deep into this text. There is an awful but necessary type of witnessing that happens there. In June Jordan’s poetry, we hear clearly the continuity of violence and the preciousness of human life. In Melissa Harris Perry’s note, we read raw grief. I’ve curated myself away from Facebook posts, away from mainstream news, and have instead immersed myself in artistic responses and music. I have been reading aloud poetry by friends and strangers to my empty room, finding myself too often in tears. I want to have the energy to organize and make meaning but the part of me on loop keeps circling around and asking the same unanswerable questions. Why? What is the point of continuing forward?

The majority of my work is intangible. It’s about making connections between people and resources, people and ideas, people and other people. Even my writing work, the most concrete and visible part of the process, requires so much connective energy that I often feel overwhelmed by its weight. It’s very easy for me to feel too much – whatever that means – and yet at the same time desire to compress it all into a short period of time and space.

I took great time for myself last year to process burnout. I took great time for myself to travel and make space for my writing practices. I took great time, and now I feel like it has disappeared. Dried up. Just a few weeks ago, visibility took prime focus in my life. Now there is an impulse to fold in on myself and hibernate till the long winter is over. But really, when is it ever over?

Outside there are new plants reaching towards the sun. My immediate safety is not under threat -- a significant privilege. I’ve come off a month of extra shifts and moving at high speeds; what once felt productive now feels unsustainable. So I have been hardcore nesting and making my space as comfortable as possible, being selfish with the ways I use my time outside of work. I am consoled by my own gratitude for this life, for the reminder that we return to Allah’s light at the end of the journey, whenever that may be. It is our time to bear witness to those who have died and not turn away from the reality and the ritual of it. Orlando, Istanbul, Dhaka, Baghdad, Medina, and further. Philando Castile and Alton Sterling and…

Come to the NYC Feminist Zine Fest on March 7th!

It feels like it's been eons since last Monday. Last Monday, I was attending a birth and still adjusting my sleep schedule from being a creature of the night back to being a creature of the day. I was also running around trying to respond to a subpoena from the Bronx juror system (more innocuous than it sounds) and fix my broken phone all while doing my regular duties. But! It all got finished and we had a lovely event on Saturday that made up for all the madness.

Organizers of the NYC Feminist Zine Fest really want you to come join us - our creepy hands and all.

Last weekend we had a successful zine reading at Bluestockings with all the organizers of the Feminist Zine Fest, which is coming up this weekend (yes, I did somehow manage to get a draft of my zine down on paper and to keep up with the organizers' tasks!). You can find me, my new zines, and a crew of amazing tablers and organizers there; here are the deets in case you want to check it out:

Saturday March 7th from 12-6pm
Barnard College, 4th floor of Barnard Hall (main building when you walk in)
We have zine readings, workshops, a library tour, and (of course) our tablers! Check out further info at the FZF NYC website.

Reading at the Eyes on Bangladesh Exhibit!

Calling all New Yorkers: I'm excited to announce that this Saturday at 6pm I will be reading as part of the Eyes on Bangladesh photography exhibit! The exhibit is showcasing the work of Bengali photographers who show a different side of Bangladesh not often seen in the West, and wants to begin a dialogue between first and second generation Bangladeshis.

I will be reading a piece written in response to one of the amazing photographers being shown, specifically the powerful Taslima Akhter, a labor rights activist who is most famously known for her work documenting the Rana factory collapse and the Tazreen factory fire. I am honored to be reading a piece inspired by her work and cannot wait to see what the other creators have to share as well!

Doors open at 5:30pm, so come early and I hope to see you there! Also, check out the rest of their programming over on the Eyes on Bangladesh website.

Carry Forward, Carry On (or, What to Do When the News is Bad)

I found a title for my short story collection this week. It's often hard for me to find titles -- I'm more of a longform writer in the first place, so if short stories are hard, then you can imagine how a three-word title would send me into hours of contemplation.

I've also been learning a lot about domestic violence and sexual assault response in the past few weeks, and it's often majorly depressing. Anyone can be an abuser and anyone can be a victim/survivor. There are so many ways that people have and can be cruel to one another. As I flip through pages, the story gets bleaker and bleaker. To take a break, I go online and start reading -- about typhoon Haiyan. Perhaps not the best judgment call. I read about all the organizations attempting to provide relief and the hundreds of bodies that haven't yet been found... after a while, I'm closing browser tabs left and right trying to get away from it.

The radical in me is always jotting down notes like this one: "Thinking about how to build people up emotionally in the face of disaster -- give them the power and materials to build their own houses, give them the cash to carry forward with their lives." It's what they try to do with domestic violence cases, to give power to the survivor so they can carry on. Survivors of all kinds share this -- you can't change their experiences, but you can help them integrate the experiences. To weave them into the fabric of their lives, even if some nights they still wake up overtaken by grief and memory.

Sometimes it's the little things that make the most difference.

I can't always read the news as it happens. Sometimes I need to bookmark it and set it aside. I need to think about the big picture sometimes, yes, so that I am able to critique how we provide services and think about how things can be made better (like providing more resources for LGBT survivors of abuse or where I want to donate for Haiyan relief). But other times, I really need to sit back and remember that we can't get to the ideal place by making myself sick with worry. Or depression. Pain is a part of the human condition, I know. But so is resilience.

That three word title, however long they take to get on the page, hold me together through the hundreds and thousands of words detailing casualties and atrocities happening around the world. It is the little thing that keeps me wanting to carry forward. Keep reading, and keep caring.

Writing in Transit

Mural on the side of Marcus Books in Oakland, CA

"Hi there, miss, what are you reading?"

I rarely just sit on the subway. More often, my face is buried in a book or I am scribbling away in an oversized notebook, causing passengers around me to squirm as they try to read my loopy handwriting (yes, I see you!). Where others use Ipod headphones to block out strangers, I just pretend to be absorbed. I returned the man's gaze with a less-than-amused look.

"It's about Arkansas in the 1950s," I replied.

The book was really about a murder in Arkansas in 1955, but the funny smirk on his face told me that that wasn't what he was interested in. He launched into a disconnected monologue about how it was important to learn about the past, anything to keep on talking to me. I turned back to the book. Yet another awkward catcall in NYC, yet another moment when I disappear into the rabbit hole of good writing.

I recently finished Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, most of which was read in transit. It was such a necessary read for me -- I was sucked into the main character's world, the parts I could relate to and the ones I didn't. For a very brief overview, the book is about a Nigerian immigrant to the United States who becomes a blogger about race and being non-American black in the US. It's also kind of a love story. But, as several people expressed at a dinner party last Tuesday, that's not really the point. The point, we reasoned, was to tell a political narrative using some good word choice and a set of relatable characters.

I'm writing a short story to gear up for National Novel Writing Month and these are the sorts of thoughts that preoccupy me. If I could reduce the story into a single sentence, it would be: "two childhood friends are forced to say a painful goodbye." But the "message" is more like understanding how we deal with intimacy and estrangement in our everyday lives. It's obvious more in the feeling of the story than the text. And yet I'm still crossing out sections and drawing arrows every third word, nervous that I am not striking the right balance. It's a luxury to be confident, there is no doubt.

When the man gets up at the next station, I exhale heavily through my nose. I had been reading the same sentence over and over again, wondering whether he would try to talk to me again. It crosses my mind that I worry a lot about things that I can't control. I put the book away and dig into my bag for a pen. Sometimes, you just have to react.

Posts from Memory Lane: Voices in My Head

These posts were written during the summer while I was in Bangladesh, in preparation for the upcoming academic year. Long story short: when I looked back at the archive, I didn't have the desire  or the time to put them up. But now, since I'm coming back to the blog, I decided that some of them aren't half bad. Read on!
 

After reading a good book (or even a not-so-good one) for a period of time, I take on the tone and attitude of the narrator for a few hours afterward. Does anyone else have this happen to them? I think of it as being overcome by that person's presence and finding myself thinking thoughts and speaking and moving in the manner that I imagine they would.

It's nothing short of bizarre.

Reading at the SAWCC Creative Commons Literary Festival!

I am excited to announce that this week I am going to be reading my own fiction at Asian American Writer's Workshop! Come see me read my work at the MIXTAPE - the opening event for the South Asian Women's Creative Collective's transmedia literary festival this Friday at 7pm. More info below:

Creative Commons: A Transmedia Literary Festival

Friday, November 30–Saturday, December 1, 2012

Storytelling and creative processes have undergone a revolution in the digital age. We dip in and out of different forms of media, borrow from each other every day, and create completely new forms of communication and expression. Inspired by these shifts, SAWCC presents Creative Commons, a two-day transmedia literary festival featuring authors, comedians, filmmakers, and other storytellers writing at the intersection of literature, media, and performance.

Friday, November 30, 7 pm | Mixtape: Reading

@ the Asian American Writers’ Workshop
110-112 West 27th Street, 6th Floor (btwn 6th and 7th Aves)
$5 at the door
The festival kicks off with an evening of song-inspired readings by South Asian women. From ghazals to indie rock, bhangra to electronica, these writers will celebrate the crossovers of music and literature and explore the ways in which songs and music influence poetry and prose. Featuring Jordan Alam, Roohi Choudhry, Kavita Das, Swati Khurana, Bhumika Muchhala, Bushra Rehman, and Roopa Singh.
Alongside the reading, artist and writer Swati Khurana presents “Scrolling Texts,” a participatory project in which attendees can have their saved text messages transcribed onto scrolls, tied with thread.

Summer Reading: My Five Favorite Poe Pieces

This summer, I decided that I would read the entire collection of a writer that I consider great. I thought about going after so many different people - everyone from Octavia Butler to Shakespeare - but finally settled on someone (creepily) close to my heart: Edgar Allan Poe!

There's my little Poe button. Whoo!

Caught My Eye: "Old" Books

At the beginning of every new semester, my shelves are graced with the delicate smells of the paper factory and the used bookstore. Thick textbooks and reprints of novels I haven't read come in waves through our mail system, and even two weeks in I am still receiving packages loaded down with titles like And Introduction to Behavioral Endocrinology and Songs in Praise of Lord Krishna. I'll hoist my bag on home and dump them all on my bed, in awe that by the end of three months, all (or at least most) of these books will have been read and may possibly have to be shipped off to another destination.

As you might imagine, it can get kind of overwhelming.

So, today I will indulge my instinct to run away from all that is new to the comfort and safety of my favorite "old" books, which in themselves are not aged, but I came across them much earlier in my life and am eager to reread them. Remember that little girl version of me that wanted to read all the books in the world? She read these books and deemed them so important that she bought them for keeps and now carts most of them around whenever she moves to any new destination like, oh say, to New York City. Here's the short list:

The Selected Odes of Pablo Neruda - Pablo Neruda
Bird by Bird - Anne Lamott
The Pocket Muse - Monica Wood
Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurston
The Abhorsen Trilogy - Garth Nix
The Namesake - Jhumpa Lahiri

What are your old favorites? Tell them to me in the comments!

Also, if you are clamoring for something new to read, I'm always posting up interesting articles and books over at my Tumblr page.

Gentle Goals & Soft Manifestations (Or How I Stopped Obsessing Over Books)

There once was a girl who wanted to read all the books in the world. She believed sincerely that she could chew her way through book after book, never re-reading and never looking back. She would read the good with the bad, the classics with the post-modern, and eventually conquer all the material there was out there.

That girl grew up a little bit, started writing her own work in the same proportion as she was reading. Created many good stories, learned a great deal of lessons about writing and publishing and how expansive the world of literature is. But she still held on to the idea that she could finish every book in the world someday. Someday.

And then the fated day came when that little girl became a teenager and felt like the entire world was too overwhelming. Including the world of books. She threw her head down on her desk, long hair flowing, and felt her illusions unraveling - there was simply too much to get through! Oh, the crushing defeat...

Ok, so perhaps my childhood fantasy went on a little too long. But, at one point in my life, I sincerely believed I could conquer all the written material in the world. I realize that's impossible now. And this hyperbolic personal example serves to illustrate my greater point: expansive expectations are the stuff of fantasies. They are bound to disappoint.

Gentle goals and soft manifestations, however, make magic happen.

Work Week

I have long since given up my maxim "never start a book at night."
There are just so many books to read! Both for class and for pleasure, late into the night we are glued to the pages of text. But that makes me feel great sometimes because it is an accomplishment to finish each little stretch of reading - it's probably something I'll never have to do again after my college years. Anyway...
This week, I embarked on the first week of my new job! I got a job in the mail room and it's pretty good so far. I also got a second job at the library, which is ideal for me, being a book nerd as mentioned above. Now I can actually afford to eat meals! I can't wait till I can finally pay my dad back something... but my goal right now is to just make sure that my expenses at the end of the month add up to the amount I make from these two jobs. We'll see how it goes.
I have been starting to work out when I get stressed or unable to do schoolwork any longer. I literally skid out of my Decolonization class thinking "I need to go swimming." At least it's something that's good for my body but, as I've been saying literally every time I get out of the pool, I feel like an old person. I just haven't worked out in a long while and it's taking some time for my body to adjust; not to the soreness, but just to the regular exercise. Hopefully that changes when I get massively toned abs and arms (ha, not). It's another one of my gentle introduction things - so far it is paying off.
I sense that the weeks to come will be more interesting than the weeks that have passed; I have been carrying all these grand ideas in my head lately but haven't been able yet to write them down, so I think my next gentle introduction will be into writing a little on the weekends so that it comes out (yay, fiction class!) as well as going to a lot of campus events again. It's just been too cold to do anything else. There is no snow, even though they said there was going to be a lot but the wind has been bone-chilling so I have just been waiting it out in my dorm room, venturing out into the world only to eat, work, go to class, and exercise. Hmm, that should probably change.

Momentary Pauses

440 pages.
That was the amount that I read in three days here. Not that I'm complaining, because it was for really enjoyable classes and I expected this semester to be harder than the last, but still! It feels like an astronomical calculation - amazingly, though I do wonder at it, I do not want to complain.

I have been slowly realizing what this year is about for me: gentle incorporation.
What does that mean? Well, for me, it means calmly and quietly bringing in some of those principles that I had previously tried to force into my life. My major examples:
- It's not about sneaking in time to do something, it's about choosing what you really want to do for that moment.
- Have a schedule, but always be willing to break it.
- Eat! Just make sure that you're taking care of yourself at the same time.
- Write and read and create and smile when you want to. Just don't force any of those things down your own throat!
- Take a few calm breaths before embarking on anything.

The difference between this and last year is that I'm realizing that if I try to impose something upon myself (like, write 500 words a day or something) it's not the route that gets anything done. I guess I had read those articles about 'habit-forming' and such but taken them too closely to heart. When I came stumbled upon 2010, I had an enlightenment - what if we were easy on ourselves?
It makes me happy to note that I have a lot of stuff that I want to do and will make time to do it. In my slower moments, I hope that I can continue to do it; the future is not going to be nearly as busy as this (unless I have something to do with it!) and so I need to start self-motivating in a way that doesn't drain me of my senses.
Anyway, this is a momentary pause in between the ledgers of different classes, assignments and understandings. So now I must fly!

Believe

This is such the more epic tennis shot than the one they gave me for sports photos! (Curse those fools! They cut out my multi-colored socks!)
Anyway, I have been reading a lot of blogs, articles, and things-that-generally-aren't-books in the past few days and realizing: they're just as valuable. I have not had the urge to pick up a novel recently; blogs, poems, Adbusters, National Geographic, and psychology texts like Brain Rules have been filling my radar. Enriching in a completely different way.
...
I think that I'm talking about all this stuff because I haven't been doing anything out of the ordinary. Other than the wayward dilettante affair with art-planning or lazing about the house, I have really just been playing tennis, going to school, and being the average kid that I am. It's nice, in some ways, but it also makes me think that what I'm doing in class is meaningless push-around before the exam. Nevertheless, we trudge onward.
Maybe I should just make my all-famous lists.

Things I'm Looking Forward To:
- College
- Graduation (oh! I wrote my speech draft, yay!)
- Getting a Sidekick
- Prom (once all this crazy planning stuff is finalized)
- Intramural all-year-long tennis (I have recently discovered that this sport, which I love, will keep me in shape forever)
- Finishing my college blanket (so huge and warm...)
- Taking apart my room to pack
- All the friends and family coming for graduation
- Growing my fingernails out (which is code for 'stop biting!')
- Sewing and crafting and knitting
- Coming back to the earth and the love of God
- Writing my next poem or short story
- You.

Anyway, after this moment of flappery, I think I'm going to do some light bio reading and nod off - another thing I've done for the past few days (not exciting, but definitely out of the ordinary) was to sleep in extra-much. I went to bed at 8PM last night and woke up at 3AM because of it. Then I fell back asleep and felt completely refreshed at 5AM when I really did get up. Ah... the strange life ness.

Check out some more posts featuring my photography.

Mother

Mother

Picture Dictionary is back! Mother was my word today - apparently the reason that it sounds so similar cross-culturally is because there are root words for it in many of the base languages (mat in Sanskrit and mater in Latin, etc.) according to Word Nerd. I had always wondered about that actually... not sure why.
Other than that, today was slow as all nonsense. School, tennis pictures, paying off items, convincing people to go to tolo... you know, regular stuff. Joshka is back to being a friend of mine [hoorah!] but other than that, no social development. I have got to start doing something creative again.
And, as I sat here in this very state of mind, I got the email.
ScriptFrenzy is in April and the NaNoWriMo people encourage everyone to do it! So I shall... 100 pages of scripted work in 30 days [whoo!] Hopefully this will recharge my creative juices and get me moving on something outside of school. Vikram and My Avatar this Friday will fuel my creative spice, tolo will fuel my energy, and then I can sprint off the blocks and venture into that new type of writing that I have worked with but never tried. Good luck, me!
Anyway, for now life is just a mess of tests and unattractive work opportunities. Thank goodness I have nothing to do today - a little rest period, you know?
Au revoir!

Check out some more posts featuring my photography.

Now

I feel like such a whiner. Though I am still fairly down, I have buoyed myself up on a raft of progress and am no longer spiraling into terror. Hooray?

So I must now list some "magical cures" for sudden depressive flashes:
- Take a walk
- Narrate your life [preferably as you walk, with a friend on the phone or next to you in an equally depressive situation (I heart you, Charlotte)]
- Write out all your feelings... in different forms... again... and again... and again...
- Do something spontaneous [like driving somewhere completely foreign and getting lost]
- Failing that, do something crazy in your own home [like dancing and mouthing the words to old Britney Spears or other trashy pop songs]
- Call your friends
- Read Christopher Moore [Fool is a really great book - not yet above A Dirty Job for me, but awesome nonetheless]
- Do crafts
- Make a list of things that you're happy with in your life
- Work out [and leave all your frustrations in the gym]
- Sleep really early
- Sign up for something, make a new plan, work on something completely different [hooray random class sign up at Hugo House!]
- Put off all your responsibilities for later
- Remember that God and the universe provide and care for you; your incompleteness is not a fault, but an opportunity

Hopefully these ideas will keep my little raft afloat for a while. I really need to get out of here.

Check out some more posts featuring my photography.

Do

In all the days of my stringent Goal of the Month to write 250 words per day, yesterday was my failing. I simply completely totally forgot about it all. So, instead of panicking and jettisoning the entire thing, I am resolved to write 500 words today. Aha!
As it stands, I think I am going to wait until 2nd semester to start any new workout program. I am having a lot of trouble with doing it in the morning because I have never been one of those 'happy risers' and I usually have a ton of other stuff to do during this time anyway. The other thing I need to make sure of is that I'm going to bed at 9pm and waking up at 5am. I have been going to bed 10 minutes late and waking up ten minutes late for the last few days and I just don't like it.
In general, plan revision is a lot easier for me these days. I used to just cancel everything I was doing or let it fade away if I was finding it difficult - now I actually feel pretty guilty or angry if I don't do things. But that's another story.
I've started reading another book [I used to read like 3 books at a time and I think that I can get back into that] called Brain Rules. Since I am a nerd at heart, I am reading introductory psychology texts - not classroom level but just 'interested' level on basic brain functions. It's fascinating! I miss reading a lot... I read National Geographic yesterday and started the other two books the day before. Soon I will be able to read again - very soon.
Anyway, I guess my credo is still the same as when the Dalai Lama said at his Seeds of Compassion festival in Seattle - "whatever you choose to do, be serious."

Check out some more posts featuring my photography.

5 Hours

Five hours until I am supposed to go to bed and I have... a lot of stuff that I want to do before then. So, this probably will be brief. Probably.
I have lost 3.8 pounds! And I am pretty happy about it because that gets me back to my original weight of about 140. That means that, (knock on wood) if I continue in the way that I am going, I will get down to 130 [my goal weight] in no time! Hooray! I am glad to see that all my changes and choices are naught for naught (haha).
And hence this week ushers in the new exercise plan I was talking about yesterday and as well a new treatment of myself. Right now I am supremely freaking out about a lot of stuff so I think that giving myself exercise time will at least get the blood flowing instead. Who knows?
As of this moment, I have started reading again. I am now reading the book A Golden Age which is about the split between Bangladesh and Pakistan [it starts out very sad] and listening to a book When You Are Engulfed in Flames which is completely different [and started out with worms burrowing in someone's leg]. Eventually, I might review them... hmm.
And last but not least, I got my headphones back! And that's why the dramatic glossy product shot of my Sansa Fuze and Skullcandy headphones is my photograph for today [natural lighting is my weekend best friend]. I love them. *sigh*

Check out some more posts featuring my photography.

Des Bouquins, Des Magazines, Des Feuilles... Mais Pas De Temps!

I wrote too much yesterday. So today I am just going to say exactly what I want.
I want TIME TO READ!

Check out some more posts featuring my photography.