November 27, 2007
Great Thanksgiving Followed By A Week From Hell
Thanksgiving was awesome.
I went to New Jersey to be with my friends’ family and it turned out to be the best Thanksgiving i’ve ever had.
It really felt like I was a part of the family, rather than just there for the turkey. That’s a new experience.
New Jersey was really pretty too. The leaves were all yellow and it was a nice cold, a nice contrast to the shatty North Carolina weather.
But once I got back, hell started all over again.
I have an exam this Wednesday that I am not prepared for at ALL.
I studied all night yesterday, but I had to wake up at 4:30 because I’m working on this photo assignment for my photojournalism class.
I’m following this guy in town around and capturing his average day.
But once I got to his place at 5:30, I find out my camera’s memory card is broken.
I can’t figure out what’s wrong, so I realize I studied and woke up early and decided to skip all my classes for shit.
I’m pretty pissed off, but I came to school to try to see if anyone here can help me.
Turns out no one’s here in the Visual Communications department until 9.
I’ve been here since 7:20.
I’m so pissed off, tired and murderous.
I’ve been nauseous all night and it’s still not going away.
This is the first time this semester I’ve freaked out.
I see no end in sight.
October 10, 2007
Holding Out For A Hero
Somaly Mam, a former brothel worker herself, receives death threats and faces a corrupt justice system every day. But she soldiers on, because her cause is more important than even her own life.
She works to free the girls stuck in a child sex slavery industry.
Her work in Cambodia has freed 3488 girls in the last 11 years. She helps them learn trades for normal work and gives them hope. The girls, many of whom were sold for as little as $150 to brothel owners, are told they are loved and that they don’t need to hurt themselves anymore.
They are told that rescue is coming. They are told that they are not commodities.
Somaly Mam is a hero. If only there were more people like her in the world.
Acting For Women In Distressing Situations
International Justice Mission
Justice for Children International
October 9, 2007
The Other Side
I’m starving. I could go for a bag of chips, a sandwich and a nice cold soda right now. My mouth waters and my stomach whines at me for food.
But that’s all it does. It whines and whines.
Most all of us have been spoiled by capitalism and a society that says more is better and that you should get the best for your money.
Think about how much the food industry has dictated your life:
What’s the name of the McDonald’s mascot?
How many different McDonald’s phrases can you remember?
What was your favorite McDonald’s Happy Meal toy?
Where can you get the most pizza for the least amount of money in your town?
What’s the most expensive meal you ever had?
…
Every year, 15 million children die of hunger.
The World Health Organization says that one-third of this planet is well-fed, one-third is under-fed and the last third are starving.
A third of us are starving.
and here we are – here I am – on our MacBooks, Dolce & Gabbana designer eyeglasses and $60 flip-flops, complaining about how nasty the food is.
All those numbers up there, that’s just all they are.
Numbers.
Statistics.
Empirical.
When are we going to take up our crosses, sell all our possessions and let people see the Christ in us?
A girl and I are fasting one meal a day until fall break. Its not going to help us feel even a fraction of what those other two thirds feel every day of their lives, but its a start to help us reflect how spoiled we are and how much we take for granted every day of our lives.
Anyone else who wants to join, try to fast one meal a day for a week. During that week, read Shane Claiborne’s The Irresistible Revolution.
October 4, 2007
Self-Identity (or, I am me. You are me. But we are they.)
Did a lifelong mime like Marcel Marceau remember what his own voice sounded like before he died? Did that last yelp, gasp, sigh or choke before he died mean much more because he wasn’t an everyday speaker like us?
Did he ever wonder to himself, ‘Who am I behind this mask?’
When he mourned, did he mourn in silence?
How do you mourn in silence?
When a surgeon loses a hand, what is she?
A man. A woman. A nobody.
It’s not that she shouldn’t be able to provide for herself.
Keep reading →
October 3, 2007
Revelation 3:15-17
I once knew a guy who took up smoking for artistic expression. He did it for his career. He said he was a photographer in Serbia and that his excessive smoking always leaked into his snapshots of life, be it violence, romance, death, comedy or tragedy. It adds a missing element, he’d tell me. Plus, nobody else knew what Serbia looked like so always having smoke in the shot made it look that much more enigmatic.
National Geographic photographers used to carry around something red to make their images pop, but I use my cigarettes, he’d say. He was right, I guess. He only shot in black and white on this beautiful old Leica R3 Safari – he wouldn’t shoot with anything else – and the faint hint of smoke always added a special something to his photos. You could almost smell the sweet tobacco just by looking at his photographs.
He died last year from lung cancer. There was only one photograph presented at the funeral. It wasn’t the little Serbian children playing on the cobblestone streets, the street brawls he’d captured on film or even that young boy who bent over to kiss the hand of the young girl that one Sunday morning. It was a horribly-composed color photograph of my friend standing against a brick wall, smoking. This was his farewell.
The mourners, dressed in black and white, gazed monotonously at this photo until the pastor was done speaking, at which point they got up and walked passed his body one by one, pitying him.
He died for his art, they’d say.
I wouldn’t done anything different, he’d reply from beyond the grave.
October 1, 2007
Sensory Experience No. 1: Smell
A man who smelled strongly of strawberries
A friend who forgot to brush his teeth
An musty music building mixed with the smell of brass valve oil and aging wooden stringed instruments
Bold sumatra coffee
Rotten fermented chinese cabbage
Car exhaust mixed with the smell of corporate pastries and municipal waste.Sensory Color: Brown Gray
September 26, 2007
Why I Don’t Talk To My Family.
Because they drop bombs on me, like when my mom tells me she needs me to come home this week to pick up my stuff, because she’s moving to California in a week and a half.
September 17, 2007
The Night
is one of my favorite things about cold weather.
The weather during the day was a cool 75 degrees, but its the nights that make me smile.
I love my late-night drives in 58 degree darkness, with my cars headlamps as my only guiding light back home. I love wearing a scarf, long-sleeve and a jacket and sticking my arm out the window while I’m hypnotized by Sigur Rós’ hopelandic.
My hand begins to feel the consequences of the rushing wind as it becomes more and more numb and a faux rigor mortis sets in. My teeth clench uncontrollably, but I smile and close my eyes for as long as I can whilst trying to maintain the car in the lane.
My body shakes a little from the cold. I initially fight it, but I love that I can feel the cold again and welcome the shudders. This is what I need. To be able to feel the cold and know that I can live through it.
I bring my hand back in at the last possible second. The blood already starts rushing back in, trying to warm the freezing skin and bones. For about half an hour afterward, I can still feel my blood trying to warm me. It feels so good.
God speaks to me at those moments. I can feel God rushing to warm me like my blood rushes to warm my hand after the cold. After the rigor mortis. I can feel God rushing through me right then, under all those layers that I’m wearing and under all those burdens that I’m carrying.
The nights. They’re why I love the cold weather.
