Conflicted Virtue

This may be the most insufficient post I've done, but here it is -

I'm going to the city of Merida, state of Yucatan, Mexico, tomorrow at 7am! It's for a bombass job/research thing, and it's going to rock the party.

I'll be there until July 28. Mmmhmm. Time for bed. ohhh bed.

Hey bitchaz.

So, I haven't updated in forever, but I'm not going to write a big sum-up thing, because those are fucking boring, and I have something much more urgent to bring to your attention.

the RAINBOW PARTY

sooooo this young adult author wrote a book about a so-called Rainbow Party. As one would expect for a book with such a title, this book is about BLOWJOBS. lots of blowjobs. One for each of six girls' lipstick colors at a party times the number of boys at the party.

Of course, this concept is easy to poke holes in. Not only is it impractical (dayamn, those boys must have some balls on them) and messy (rubbing off and smudging would certainly be a problem), but Michelle Malkin the massive bitch doesn't like it. Plus, it sounds much more like a gay-men-kinda-thang than a straight-middle-schoolers-kinda-thang.

But despite all these reasons to disbelieve, middle school parents are freaking out about it. Personally, I'm more worried about the choking. But oh, america.

Wow, I dominated my classes. Rock!!
The Superpaper on Latin American ecotourism for my Environmental Econ and Politics of Latin America classes turned out well in the end, despite my not believing in it.

I'm going to Chile next semester beeotches! Leaving Feb 5, getting back after july 11... maybe in late august if all awesome Latin American plans work out as I wish. Anybody want to party with me in Latin America? (by party I mean hang with me in Santiago or travel around the continent) Please comment or email!

And I'll hopefully be living in an indigenous community on Lake Titicaca july-early august. Hopefully... omg it would be awesome.

OK kids, time for summore christmas goodness.

I'm back to claremont january 8th. Little to do before then. Partying in Bethesda on New Year's.

RMHS Chorus concert tomorrow!

7:30

Show up y'all!

Random quiz baby

Your Seduction Style: The Natural

You don't really try to seduce people... it just seems to happen. Fun loving and free spirited, you bring out the inner child in people. You are spontaneous, sincere, and unpretentious - a hard combo to find! People drop their guard around you, and find themselves falling fast.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/10/AR2005091001053_2.html

Jesus fucking Christ! *Preemptive* nuclear weapons use? What the fuck!

What the fuck! What a *bad* idea! Even when we were only *responding* to nuclear attacks in kind, we got damn close to causing a global holocaust just from unlucky circumstances, stress, and people being stupid. With *preemptive* attacks in the mix, oh god oh god oh god.

I do not have that kind of faith in our government.

Today, my opinion on Bush grew from "He's a closed-minded and probably bad man" to "I hate that fucking bastard."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/08/AR2005090800354.html
The Bush Administration, or FEMA or whatever, is preventing reporters from going on rescue boats. And claiming it's about "propriety to victims" rather than damage control. Fuck those fucking assholes. People died and had their lives destroyed, and the Bush administration thinks about *damage control.* FUCK YOU!!

I know I "shouldn't" care more about the victims of Katrina than about the thousands of people who have been hurt or neglected by Bush's past policies, but I do. Bush, you and your cronies are going down.

I don't think I'm up to really processing the dead people on an emotional level yet, but the doggies:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-et-pets8sep08,0,3817557.story?coll=la-story-footer&track=pacifictime

so so sad. This situation makes me cry a lot, and I think that's appropriate.

Goddamn Bushies.

I spent the first few weeks of summer wishing Tahir would give me something to do so that I wouldn't feel so worthless. Those weeks of boredom and guilt were miserable, but now I have too much to do! It might even (gasp!) keep me from taking a day off to go backpacking this weekend. Oh, this mercurial world....

But the job is really good for me; opening up some really good contacts that would serve me tremendously well if I decided to go into development econ. I might work a day at Harvard and a week at the World Bank while I'm out on the East Coast, and meet the famed Asim (the "rising young economist"), Jishnu (the "taskmaster of the project"), and Tristan (the "research stud"). Yayah. Plus, I'm getting into it... a couple of weeks ago I had my first Pakistani education dream, about our data organization.... It was not very coherent, and more a nightmare than anything, but this stuff is sinking in to my consciousness! Last night I had a dream that we had some extremely important and groundbreaking result (which we kind of don't at all), but we forgot to put it in. scary....

I haven't been sleeping tremendously well this week.... My housemate needs less sleep than I do, and I tend to go to bed at the same time as her (if not later) and get up almost as early as she does because we go swimming together, so sleep is precious.

But we are being absurdly healthy together (aside from some alcohol consumption): swimming most mornings, making dinner for each other (healthy fresh vegetarian fare), and generally being sane counterparts to our out-of-control school year selves.

I climbed the 3 highest (real) peaks in Southern California in the last two weeks, not really intending to have some kind of mountaineering achievement, but just finding mountaineering fun and going on two of the trips with my boss. w00t.
San Gorgonio (11,500)
San Jacinto (10,800)
San Antonio (10,500)

Most fun: Gorgonio
Easiest: Antonio
Most beautiful: Jacinto
one without headlamp hiking: there wasn't one. wait, most of us forgot our headlamps for jacinto, so I guess that counts :-p.

I wish I were organized and literary enough to keep my posts to one topic, but I'm just not. Back in MD July 16! Apparently I'll be working in DC during the week sometimes, so I'll come see y'all with real jobs or whatever.
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Yeah so yeah.

I'm back in Claremont for the summer! If you know the story of last summer in Claremont, you will instantly think this is a bad idea.
And, indeed, for the first few weeks, I guilted myself out on not doing enough work, and felt miserable sometimes. But I think I'm finally past that - doing a little bit more work, but basically just deciding that the twin objectiveds of working are to learn stuff and keep on my boss's good side.
And given that I'm taking a class in STATA on the department's money and learning about Item Response Theory and figuring out how to do empirical data work, I certainly am learning stuff.
And given that I went backpacking with my boss last weekend(!), I think we're on good terms. Fuck yeah.

I'm living off campus with this girl Stephanie... it's amazing, dorms are gross and expensive, and I'm staying here next semester. It'll be awesome, y'o!

Back in Maryland July 16, for a month! Can't wait to see you kids!

'Cuz you should.

Last night, I saw Dred King perform. She's a drag king (dresses up as men for much of the show, VERY convincingly I might add). The show is billed as a "spiritual healing," although I did not know that coming. I was expecting just a humorous, campy drag performance. What I got was so much more. I feel peaceful and loving even this morning. Thank you, milDRED!

to see how crazy i am:
http://www.dredking.com/index.html

Other news: staying in Claremont for about 6 weeks at the beginning of summer. For those of you who know about my experience last summer, I have little response. My prof is cooler this semester, and has actual communication skillz. My project is bombass (education report in Pakistan) and will involve lots of number-crunching and programming. And there will be people here, so I won't be lonely. Zach, Max, Lisa [INTENSE running buddy], perhaps Pete, Steph, Praween, Shobhit, yeah. It'll be a fucking partay.

Holy slut, a newspaper was fined and its editor jailed in 1977 in the UK for blasphemy. Blasphemy! In the last quarter of the twentieth century! WTFUCK??

Gay News had published a poem chronicling a centurion's (sometime-necrophilic) love for Jesus. Indecency, maybe. BLASPHEMY? That is SO fucked up.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/04/03/ngay03.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/04/03/ixhome.html

Oh, and some gay priest dude humorously intimated that Jesus might have been the gay, and now evangelicals are protesting him. Whatevah. That's so much less interesting than being PROSECUTED for blasphemy.

WHAT THE SLUTTING QUEEF??

I saw "Hotel Rwanda" on Wednesday. It had a very strong effect on everyone in the room. It drove home the explicit realization for me that I need to something with my life that helps the world. I am not going to be satisfied with a picket-fence life. There are an infinity of paths to compassion and kindness, and I need to be sure to choose one of them.

OMG. Gus Mattox is pretty frickin' awesome.

Straight-Acting Gays says a lot about my idea of how little gender norms should matter to me. I don't think I actually achieve this goal, but it's in my mind.

More later. The blog is not deceased.

This comic strip is so good. and it's in the grand tradition of dinosaur-obsessed comix.

Holy slut, it's like warmer outside than it is in this damn house.

That probably means it's going to rain. Gotta beat the rain. Going for a walk. Cya kids!

Anybody want to play settlers of catan or any of those other crazy games (jagdschloss!) or anything else? this is not related to the partay-esque thing tomorrow, but talk to me! i'm feeling game-deprived.

PARTAY!!
like it's 2004

So yeah, RM kids, come to my house tomorrow, tuesday, december 28 at 8:00 for a funfun partay. It'll be shizzle in the dizzle.

As for alcohol, my parents are OK with two caveats:
1) your parents know you're drinking
2) DON'T DRIVE YOU FOOLS

so if you have any alcohol or access thereto, talk to me.

Also, sub-free or sub-free-esque kids, please don't be afraid. We're still the big dorks you knew in high school, nobody drinks to excess ('cept perhaps boedecker mwah!) and it won't be evil and scary and bad.

Home is good. Not as much sleep as y'all are probably getting - oh the east coast insomnia! but lots of food, a little shopping, a lot of entertaining wrapping, and lots of family. mmmm vegetarian indian food, wild salmon with orzo, spinach lasagna, bittersweet decadence cookies. I love home.

I'm learning chinese! My mom recommended these CDs at the library, and I'm trying them out. I can now say that I suck at chinese like three different ways now: "I speak a little chinese." "I don't speak chinese very well." "I don't understand what you are saying." C'est fun. We'll see if I keep with it and join the pomona pain.

I guess I'll start the summer job thing, and the going abroad thing, in a little while. But for now I'm just recovering. Five classes: never again!

Wanna go Back to School?

Hey RM kids -

I'm going back to RM on Thursday morning - probably at lunchtime (no way I'm getting up at 7:30). Anyone wanna come? it'll be good times.

Yep, back in CrabbyLand.