daubachsgirl23

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 23:42:23 GMT

i have insane amounts of homework. the sheer volume of papers and reading i have to complete over the last two weeks of the semester is overwhelming. i wanted to write something meaningful in this entry, but i can't gather my thoughts together coherently enough to do so.

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 02:22:17 GMT

i'm happy. life is good. :):):)

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 10:50:34 GMT

this week has been an absolute mess so far. this will be cryptic.

i have been betrayed by my best friend. i don't know if she thinks i don't know how she's portrayed me, or if she thinks i'm too dumb to figure it out, or if she thinks she's better than me and therefore it's okay, or whatever she thinks. but i do know that she has made negative reflections regarding my character, critiqued my past, and portrayed me as a bitch, a slut, pathetic, lonely, unhappy, selfish, uncaring, and just about everything else you can think of that has an entirely negative denotation. and she has expressed these opinions to people who exercise incredible amounts of control over the particular conflict i have found myself in.

i refuse to believe that there is something inherently wrong with me. i have done nothing but be honest. i have not turned this into an attack on anyone's morals, character, intentions, personality, or anything like that. i have done everything i can to keep this incredibly civil. i am so hurt that she has manipulated and exploited our friendship in order to get what she wants with no regard for my feelings.

and the only person who i have right now, the only one who understands, is the one person i'm not supposed to be relating to. it's not an issue of ruining a friendship. in my heart, it's already been ruined with what has been said and done. nothing will ever be the same. the trust is entirely gone. and while i struggle with what ultimately will be for the best, i have this feeling that, for once, i need to do what's right and best for me. i live my life concerned about others, and the one time i ask others to be concerned about me, i am treated like this.

my head is spinning.

Sun, 09 Mar 2008 00:16:21 GMT

please, everyone, watch this documentary:
http://freedocumentaries.org/film.php?id=91

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 14:53:44 GMT

let's see, let's see.

saw keller williams on thursday. amazing. not quite as good as raq a few weeks ago, but phenomenal nonetheless. the (not so) new radiohead album is incredible. going to bonnaroo in june...can't wait to see allman, phil lesh, state radio, and bisco. there is nothing quite like live music--the way it can move you, make you feel something, make you dance.

classes are going rather well. for my last undergrad semester, i seem to have given myself the most work i've had yet. and i love it. my classes are interesting, i have kids to study with for three of them, and i'm just kind of loving learning. i find that i want to know as much as i can about everything. i was once bored by a lot of things, but the distinct (and often unpredictable) way everything is linked is so incredibly fascinating. everything is interesting--the world is beautiful and melancholy and amazing.

i have this feeling that i can do better for people. i don't know how to explain that. i guess it's kind of a naive notion that i can help change the world. and i want to. i sincerely believe that everyone deserves a peaceful, happy life with the same services and opportunities as everyone else. and i do think this is possible.

i've developed a friendship with a kid who is disillusioned with suffolk and with college itself. he has no idea what he wants to do and no idea how to do it. and i think he is absolutely brilliant. i can hear it when i talk to him. i think there are so many people like that. he could do great things, and i want that for him. so i hope he finds what he loves and he does it, because that's what life is about. love your your life, love each other.

man. my heart swells out of my chest sometimes.

peace and love<3

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 04:50:23 GMT

i have been studying like crazy for the last few days. i have one paper left for thursday and my schoolwork-intensive week will be over and i will only then have to focus on my big term paper for my environmental history of latin america class.

in taking two courses on latin america (environmental history and caribbean & central american politics) i have quickly fallen in love with the region. while my passion is still undoubtedly in africa, latin america is incredibly fascinating. the volume of revolutions, coups, socialist movements, and brutal repression is awe-inspiring. i find myself reading as much as i can about the sandanistas in nicaragua. though they were ousted in 1990, their socialist reforms (while some weren't completely socialist, like their land reform policy) gives me hope that radical change is possible.

of course, i do not think that a corporate, left-moderate democrat like barack obama or a war hawk like hilary clinton will create effective social programs to deal with poverty, health care, education, resource privilization, and the like. our two-party electoral system puts significant constraints on the ideologies of prospective candidates. the only way any kind of social change could be facilitated would be through a complete overthrow of the government, and it would undoubtedly be violent. quite a conundrum, it seems. violence or equality?

anyway, i digress. latin america is very interesting. it's remarkable how involved the US was in the affairs many of these countries (the main ones being Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Panama), though foreign involvement in former colonial countries is never truly surprising. Nicaragua, with the Iran-Contra Scandal of 1986, and Panama, with chemical weapons tested by the US, are the two most interesting. I wish I could have been a Sandanista.

peace<3

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 14:14:48 GMT

yesterday feels like a daze. i don't know why. but looking back on it, it was long and surreal and strange. i did and said a variety of stupid things that i have a feeling will come back to me. not even in the karma-way, because i didn't do anything bad, but i feel like i may have presented myself as vulnerable, and that scares me.

shit.

Sun, 17 Feb 2008 21:22:19 GMT

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7249048.stm
so our president has traveled to africa and urged that the zimbabwe elections be held freely and fairly.

this is funny to me, because the US rarely supports "free and fair elections." when daniel ortega, member of the "communist" sandanista party, was elected in nicaragua in 1984, the election was hailed as the freest and fairest in nicaraguan history by many independent polling agencies. however, the US still used all its political strength to destabilize the sandanistas, who replaced the US-backed dictator ubico. funny thing, the sandanistas were not sympathetic to US economic and hegemonic intentions in nicaragua or latin america.

so is "free and fair" really a policy of the US? of course not. don't bullshit us, Pres.

Fri, 15 Feb 2008 16:14:41 GMT

for valentine's day last night, i went out with adrienne and michael from my work. i had so much fun, and it was nice to be with people i genuinely care about. valentine's day is so silly to me, and i don't say that because i'm bitter and single or something. it just seems to trite and forced to choose one day a year to confess your love to someone in particular. i try to tell everyone i love them as much as i can. i don't want anyone i know to ever forget that.

:)

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 19:53:23 GMT

hmmmmm. i don't even know.
i have had more fun in the past three days than i've had in a while. raq was amazing saturday night; i got to chill with marishka and some cool kids and dance and get snowed on while smoking cigarettes without a jacket. i went to ricky's fencing meet, hung out with some new friends, slept til 1:30, and enjoyed the company of someone i'd like to get to know better.
we'll see, we'll see.

peace <3

Sat, 09 Feb 2008 12:34:34 GMT

i need to sleep more. over the last month, i think there have been three days when i've gotten over five hours of sleep. i felt very woozy when i woke up this morning, and that can't possibly be good. i don't think i've been eating enough lately, either, and that can't help. yeesh.
i've been feeling kind of homesick lately. i miss the stability and normalcy of being home, and i miss my parents.

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 05:18:01 GMT

we very well could be watching the onset of ethnic cleansing in kenya.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080130/ap_on_re_af/kenya_ethnic_cleansing

of course, the press coverage is focused on guiliani's withdrawal and subsequent support of mccain and edward's withdrawal without backing obama or clinton. this is one of the things that i find most frustrating about the media in the US: there is little concern for the international community, unless it's preaching against the arab threat and terrorism. rwanda was ignored until conservative estimates of 500,000 tutsis were slaughtered and hundreds of thousands of others forced into refugee camps. darfur was largely ignored, and even when colin powell publically called it "genocide" the coverage was minimal and fleeting. and now we could be seeing a repeat of the 1994 rwandan genocide (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7217462.stm).

in rwanda, the international community failed to intervene until significant numbers of tutsis (and moderate hutus) were killed. in darfur (an on-going situation in which a militia group allied with the government has killed an estimated 400,000 non-arab sudanese and displaced nearly 2 million people since 2003), the international community has done little to facilitate peace agreements and has offered virtually no military support. while i largely oppose military intervention, in a case where the people are being massacred by their own government, it seems a necessary evil. while the numbers of dead and displaced in kenya are comparatively low, it seems likely that the violence will further escalate into an all-out genocide.

while i don't discredit the importance of domestic politics in any country, the volume of coverage regarding both the darfur conflict and the beginnings of the ethnic cleansing of the kikuyu in kenya is abysmal. popular opinion is a huge factor in shaping policy in congress (in fact, congressmen and women are remarkably responsive to the desires of their constituents), but public outcries are difficult to facilitate when the public is largely unaware or under-aware of global conflicts and the facts surrounding them. i hope that the international community can employ all available diplomatic measures as soon as possible to halt the progression of genocide. it's such a sad situation, and we should use all peaceful measures to protect people around the world from such blatant (and all) human rights abuses.

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 01:45:32 GMT

i have to admit, sometimes my far-left viewpoints draw funny looks from people outside of my government classes. but i am totally cool with that, because i try my best to live my life loving others and facilitating peace in the lives of people i meet, and that translates into my socialist views. i think that everyone is brilliant, beautiful, and amazing, and i genuinely have high hopes for the world. i want to dedicate my life to helping people, and i am honoured to be in classes with people feel the same way.

i suppose i am naive in the idea that i truly believe a loving, peaceful world is possible, and i fear that the road to such a world will not be loving, nor will it be peaceful. i have not completely resigned myself to the philosophy of "the ends justifies the means" but i suppose it may, depending exactly what the end is and what the means are.

on a mildly related topic, it's nice to know people who loathe neoliberalism as much as i do. i find the implementation of structural adjustment programs to be nauseating forms of modern-day indentured servitude. chris refers to it as "debt slavery" and i think that may be a more accurate analysis. neoliberalism solely benefits western powers, mainly the united states, especially economically. it fortifies a market for western goods in third world countries and allows for the west to artifically lower prices, effectively decimate the domestic producers of goods in the third world, only to have the west then artifically raise prices to profit more. poverty becomes an even more rampant problem, the disparity between the rich and the poor continue to grow, and the capitalist west develops a pseudo-monopoly on goods. anyone who knows me has heard this lecture many times, but i cannot emphasise it enough. neoliberalism programs are ineffective, not conducive to social or economic growth in the third world, and simply evil. i firmly and whole-heartedly believe that.

end rant about neoliberalism and capitalism.

but i am totally and completely filled with love for people. i hope i can spread that feeling to people in my life and people i have not been lucky enough to know yet.
peace and love <3333

Sat, 19 Jan 2008 01:39:46 GMT

cynthia (my good friend from work) asked me to come to her first ultrasound with her today. we got there and they looked at the baby and you could see it on the screen: this tiny little round being in a fetal position. and it was so small and so beautiful and it looked absolutely perfect.

but there was no heartbeat. she had miscarried. it was the saddest thing i've ever experienced, allbeit second hand. i can only imagine what she's going through right now; i became very attached to this tiny baby just seeing it in black and white on the screen. i had no part in its life, nothing to do with its existance except for being friends with its mother. but hearing that it hadn't made it and hadn't continued forming touched me deeply. and there was nothing i could do for her.

what a day :-\

Wed, 26 Dec 2007 16:59:18 GMT

today, i watched a documentary called "The Origin of AIDS". you can find it here: http://www.afrostyly.com/english/afro/videos/aids.htm or, if you prefer, here: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3629596641040836790&q=the+origin+of+aids&total=78&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=1

it discusses the polio vaccine theory of the origin of AIDS--the "disproven" theory that AIDS originated from chimpanzee tissue cultures infected with SIV (the predecessor to HIV) that were subsequently used for oral polio vaccines in northern Africa, most notably the DRC. admittedly, this study (or any study, realistically) cannot prove that AIDS was transmitted to humans through medical testing, but its arguments are certainly convincing. i won't try to summarize it because i've only watched it once and do not think i can do the theory justice, but if anyone has an hour and a half of idle time to kill, i would certainly recommend it. it's fascinating and sad.

ah yes, optimism.

Wed, 28 Nov 2007 22:17:48 GMT

let's see if i can put this into words.

today in my politics of africa class we were having a discussion about apartheid in south africa. it was active, as usual. it's amazing how invested you can become in a continent and a people whom you've never met, who have endured conditions you can never fathom, who have triumphed over incredible adversity but are still failures in the global scheme of things. the discussion reached a climax, and it seemed that the whole class collectively inhaled at the same time. and the feeling in that breath--there was such optimism and sadness and love and confusion. there was this idea, a knowledge that we all wanted better, that each one of us felt (as minute a sampling as it was) the injustice in some personal way, and we all wanted to change the wrongdoings, to reverse everything and make the world a sweet, happy, loving place. it was the realization of a melancholy hopefulness combined with a passionate love for people, for humanity. at that moment, we all felt the need for betterment in lives other than our own. we were all hungry for change.

and we will all go home and get wrapped up in trivial matters. we will focus on what we're eating for dinner, what tv show we will watch, what senseless youtube video we will enjoy. everything we felt and everything we knew in that moment will be pushed aside. while i don't think that this is necessarily an evil or bad thing, i think it's sad that we are so wrapped up in a cold, capitalist society in which social injustices and human rights abuses are something that we don't contemplate or have the motivation to change. i qualify this with the knowledge that i do this myself, and often at that. i want social change, and i want to be active in social change, but the movement in this country is so diluted that mobilization is easily pushed aside.

that being said, i cannot accurately explain the love that i feel for everything. i want to hug everyone; i want to personally tell everyone that i love them. life is so lovely, every bit of it, and i want to somehow make everyone feel that.

democratic debate

Thu, 27 Sep 2007 01:38:38 GMT

ugh.
i am watching the democratic candidates debate and the issue of iran has come up. bill richardson said "50% of iran's foodstuffs are imported" and went on to say that he proposed using economic sanctions to prevent iran from becoming a nuclear power. so essentially, he supports cutting off 50% of the food supply to iran.
politicians forget that such policies don't affect iranian politicians who are actually making the decisions. economic sanctions will starve the everyday iranian. the actual politicians who are continuing iran's nuclear programme (which i support, but that is a completely different issue) will always have food on their table. the working class iranians will see half of their food supply cut off. but it's okay, because they are certainly terrorists anyway. i hope my sarcasm was aptly noted.
this is such a sad time in the world. this is such a sad time in this country.

at least kuc wants to withdraw from NAFTA and the WTO. ilu dennis kucinich.

Mon, 28 May 2007 02:04:36 GMT

So a genocide is going on in Sudan. Our government is turning a blind eye, ignoring UNSC resolutions' and the global community's cry for involvement. We are letting these Sudanese civilians be slaughtered by their own government.
Things like this make me ashamed to be an American. We are too busy fighting an illegal, amoral war to intervene somewhere where the human rights situation is so dire it begs for global aid.

Sun, 13 May 2007 15:32:31 GMT

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070513/ap_on_go_pr_wh/cheney

Now if Iran's uranium enrichment program is such a threat to US national security, why would the US refuse to negotiate with or even just talk to Iran about it? Iran has insisted that they are not making nuclear weapons, there is no evidence that they are doing more than enriching uranium for energy programs, and the US still insists that this is a threat to national security. And now Iran agrees to negotiations, and the US says no?

Come on now. Obviously this is a matter of asserting (or reasserting) US power and hegemony abroad, and I find that awful.

Mon, 05 Mar 2007 20:14:28 GMT

i feel like the world is changing.
and, holy shit, it's pretty amazing.

:]

Wed, 31 Jan 2007 14:09:06 GMT

this made me smile:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=PpzkHhgcZG4

i hope everyone watches it =]

Sat, 30 Dec 2006 21:22:24 GMT

don't get me wrong. i don't think testing mustard gas on your own people and slaughtering others is by any means nice,

but am i the only person who thinks sadaam hussein was unfairly tried?
where is the debate on this? everyone seems to have just accepted it and that's it.
where is everyone on this? come on, people.

sometimes i am surprised that i haven't been investigated by the CIA yet...

Tue, 05 Dec 2006 01:18:37 GMT

i think i will cut this entry. it's going to be pretty odd.

i've been thinking about a lot of things that i'm not sure people my age think much, or enough, about.

70% of liberians live off of US$1 a day. i spend more than three times that every day at dunkin donuts.
that is incredibly sad.

this christmas i'm going to receive gifts i certainly don't deserve. and people who need basic things like food, shelter, running water, and sanitation will walk twenty-five miles to the nearest clean-water well and lug wooden buckets filled with moderately-clean, unfiltered water back to their huts and use that for all their every day tasks. and that is if they are even lucky enough to be anywhere near a clean-water well. a lot of people will scoop up sewage water and risk bacteria and disease because they simply don't have any other option.

this notion has prompted me to ask my father to donate to oxfam as my christmas gift.
i feel guilty opening gifts on christmas knowing that there is such incredible widespread poverty. i am so blessed to be dealt the situation i have been. all the everyday concerns i have are absolutely ineffectual on a global scale. i will have clean water, food, and electricity on christmas, and the day after, and the day after that. that won't be true for so many people. that saddens me so much.

over the last year or so, i've been trying to do my part to help assuage such suffering. i've been sponsoring a little indonesian girl and regularly donating to charities. and still i feel like i haven't been doing nearly enough. i guess this plays into my fear of failure. i'm scared that i will try to change the world and fail miserably, not because i'm incompetant but because it's just too much. that's a terrible notion, that i could be the smartest, richest person in the world, but no matter what i will never be able to help everyone.

and i say this all after i bought two pairs of shoes, a pair of jeans, and a new shirt yesterday. i think that might make me a hypocrite.

i wonder if other people think about these things. i wonder if it's normal to think about these things.

in other news, i hope it snows soon. really snows. i want to watch it from my window.

Mon, 23 Oct 2006 21:52:11 GMT

i think we, collectively as a young generation, are not angry enough. things don't directly affect us, so we don't care. we are the youth of the sole imperial superpower, the last great hegemony (whether we see that as a good or bad thing), and no one gives a shit.

we should be angry.