TBT: Teenage Emulation

At the request of a friend, here is my contribution to ThrowBack Thursday:

In emulation of Eve’s lament in Paradise Lost that begins at line 914 in Book 10. I know it’s short and rather dramatic; I didn’t want to overly bore anyone in my AP Language class.

Forlorn in sorrow, Elan thus deplores.

Forlorn in sorrow, Elan thus deplores.

O! What terror Fate has wrought;

To be so bound for to strengthen

Our numbers and alliance few.

White and Yellow; I and Thy

Thou fiery essence scalds my leafy veins

And sears my mind with flame

To trust the flora to the blaze

Mad folly and to save one people

With the sacrifice of two

And so fleeing from him

Marek catches her with humble plaint

How can we, as insubstantial singles,

Prevail against such binding?

Better to concede defeat and endure together

Forgive mine quintessence its heat,

And I thine green heart

We who want to live forever

Shall be linked and in so coupled

Save our race and dwell in memory

Eternally after we have become that

Element with which our souls equate.

And so moved by his supplication Elan

Tearfully acquiesces, all angst lost.

 

 

 

 

Word of the week July 29th

Irascible- adj. “having or showing a tendency to be easily angered” (Oxford Dictionary)

These days she struggled with her temper; some might call her an irascible woman but they hardly knew what they were saying.

What did you say about my mother?

Empowering Women

I have a confession to make. These words and their many variations make me cringe. I know that sounds iniquitous, that I’m against “progress” or “equality” (coincidentally I don’t like those words either). I think I struggle with those words because they don’t mean anything. They’re words sapped of meaning, like “social justice,” “diversity,” and “tolerance.” Each of them have a definition and a proper connotation, but they’re been abused so often that they took off to a corner somewhere and the Oxford dictionary can’t even help us find them. So, let’s agree to define our terms so we’re talking together not above, under, around, and through each other.

This is not what I ordered…

Now back to this “empowering women” issue. We talk about it a lot: in classes, on retreats, with our friends, the media loves to talk about it. What does “empowering women” mean? We all know the statistic that women are not paid the same wage as men for the same work. I don’t know if it’s true or an accurate interpretation of statistics, but it is believable. I don’t know who sterilized the word “empowerment,” but they did a number on it.

Now, I think I can say that femininity is a bit more difficult to pin down then masculinity. As women have moved from the purely private sphere into the public one, our roles have changed and what is expected of us has as well. This is not to say that men have fared any better, but I’m not talking about them right now. We’ll arrive there later. To empower is to “give (someone) the authority and power to do something.”  Said differently, to empower someone is to “make [them] stronger and more confident, especially in controlling their life and claiming their rights (Oxford Dictionary, American English).”

So, if people really want to “empower women” (as if we are a different species) they should allow us to control our lives and claim our rights: to be wives and mothers, to serve God as a religious and spiritual mother, to follow a career path to which we are called, to change the world for the better.

Being a Woman

If I can actually get on a schedule, I have a series of posts rolling out soon. For now, this is Dustin Hoffman in an interview.

Dustin Hoffman on Being a Woman

Word of the week June 3rd

I read Anna Karenina in March and very much enjoyed it. So, this one is inspired by Mr. Leo Tolstoy.

Jocose- adj. “playful or humorous” (Oxford Dictionary)

She watched her cousins play at being princesses and had to smile at their jocose game.

We decided Dr. Li selected me to be sacrificed in the caves at the end of our river trip. (Don’t worry I survived)

 

And we’re back!

I know that only a few people read this, but it doesn’t matter. I love you.

Anyway, I’ve been invisible for a while now and I apologize. I’ve been busy with life: mainly moving out from my parents’ house. It’s an interesting feeling. I went to college and moved out at the end of every summer only to move back home at the conclusion of each semester. This time I am fully on my own (well I have a roommate, so not totally). I’d say I feel like an adult, but I really don’t know if that feeling will ever find me. I’ll be 85 and still feel like I know nothing. Sea lo que sea.

My favorite animal has always been the panda bear. I have no idea when I decided this but bears and I are friends.

Naturally, I have many pandas in my collection (which was never intentionally a collection…I don’t collect pandas: that would be illegal. You have to have special permission from the PRC to keep a panda.). Four days prior to my moving day I was attempting to pack by sitting on my bedroom floor reading palancas and other things from years past. My mom found me like that, just staring at the material things that accumulated in the 20 odd years I’ve been alive. “You need me to help you, don’t you Jude?”

“Yup. I seem to be lost in a sea of memories.”

So she proceeded to lift me up and take over (that’s one of the many reasons why God created mothers) and the packing was mostly done in 20 minutes. As this happened, it occurred to me that 14 stuffed pandas made their way into my new apartment as stuffing to protect my things. Three years ago, my parents redid my room when I was in college and I was annoyed and a little freaked out to have my things moved without me seeing where they went. To my horror, many of my pandas went into the attic. This time, moving didn’t send me into a panic like I thought it would. Seeing the sum of my material possessions loaded into a truck labelled “Starving Students” did not cause me to lose it. One would surmise that I’m a little less attached to these things and maybe now they are just things. (I blame you Disney! How can a kid watch Toy Story and not have doubts that Tootsie and Pandie don’t really come to life when she turns her back. (-_-) )

It’s still nice to have 14 familiar faces here in this ocean of memories.

Hello Again

Hi!

I’ve been quite lax in updating, my apologies. I wish I could say that I have really good reasons for not posting, but I don’t. I’m not very good at blogging; I have yet to figure out the short post.

I haven’t been doing very well on my resolutions. My one exception is reading at least a book a month. I’m at five so far and am about to finish another one this week. Let’s talk about the Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. I read it in February. It was written in 1988 and since it was published two decades ago, no complaining about “spoiling” it is allowed.

It follows a shepherd from Spain as he pursues his “Personal Legend” that he discovered in a dream about a treasure in Egypt. He sells his sheep (practically an extension of himself), meets Melchizedek, becomes the Alchemist’s apprentice, transforms into the wind, and realizes his Personal Legend.

It was a fast read and interesting. I enjoyed it as I was reading and could hardly put it down. After it released its grip, I was left dissatisfied. It took me a while to figure out what I experienced. It’s highly praised and one of the best selling novels by a living author and all that, but it’s so empty. I felt desolate in a way I don’t think was intended. It seems to have all this meaning, but it is barren. Santiago faces bandits who are set to kill him and I didn’t care: there was no way he would be killed. You start reading it and you know it’s just going to keep going. By the end I just wanted to get it over with because my brain was reading it and going “lalalalala.” I’d say it’s like a dream, but my dreams tend to be more lucid and physical than this novel. There was no danger, no real excitement, no sacrifice. Everything just flowed like he was sitting in a zen garden.

Maybe there is something wrong with me, but I want my hero or even anti hero to live, and I mean LIVE. I want to care, even if it’s about mundane existence. There is beauty in the mundane. There is no beauty in this book. I found myself skimming sections like when an author provides too much detail and describes flowers for a half page and it really as no place in carrying the plot along. Make me care. Isn’t that what a writer is trying to do? That’s my goal as a writer: to move you, to provide catharsis, I want to help you live. It looks like many people were affected by this story that is reminiscent of a famous book originally printed in Arabic. I am not among them.

Life is a struggle and you can tell me that it’s because I’m not living my “personal legend,” that “when you really want something to happen, the whole universe conspires so that your wish comes true” but that sounds like cotton candy nonsense to me. We live in a fallen world, stuck in the mire of sin, and you’re telling me if I wish for something hard enough “the universe” is going to help me?

Life means climbing and descending the Stairs of Terror, the universe be damned. It did not offer to help in 2009 but these stairs may have been too intense for it. 

What I know is that we messed up in the beginning and we fell from grace; that’s obvious from turning on the TV. We suffer, we struggle, we die. BUT, we were not left here to languish alone. GOD, taking the form of us the fallen, came to endure the sorrow and humiliation with us out of love. Love that I can’t even fathom. Perfection, Love, Goodness came down into a helpless human body to be with every single one of us personally as we struggle and suffer, as we rejoice and celebrate.

Fighting through life sucks. It hurts, physically and worst of all mentally. However, I would not give it up for the fluffy “the universe will conspire to help you.” It makes life worth living. Sorrow is called bittersweet for there is sweetness in it. This long sometimes brutal exertion makes me a better person. Redemptive suffering is real, scary and hard, but real. Redemption is possible. God can save us without any effort on our part but I know the greatest lessons I’ve learned, retained, and became I combated something to get there. It cost me something even if that something was what I needed to be rid of to grow. Give me something real to hold onto.

Phil 2: 5-11

You are my Sunshine

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You make me happy when skies are gray
You’ll never know dear, how much I love you
Please don’t take my sunshine away

The other night dear, as I lay sleeping
I dreamed I held you in my arms
But when I awoke dear, I was mistaken
And I hung my head and cried

My Gram was and is an amazing woman. She was a second mom to me, my sister, and my brother. Meimei and I loved to play and to be at her house; we would beg Mom to let us stay the night. She always made us pancakes for dinner and cookies for breakfast (Cookie Crisp got nuthin’ on real cookies). We were lucky, we grew up about ten minutes from her and spent so much time at her house, it seemed to be an extension of ours. She picked us up from school sometimes and most days Mom would take us there afterwards for cookies and milk (we like cookies).

 

She called me Princess (I was her first grandbaby) and I called her Garbo, thinking that was her name. My sister was her Angel and my little brother was her Little Peanut. She loved us with a fierce and tender love. Meimei and I were her only girl grandbabies. On our birthdays every year, she would take us out for lunch and then we would pick out a few birthday presents. It was awesome. We usually went to Toys’r’us (we moved out here right before I turned ten). Upon reflection, its weird that I never went crazy and asked for everything. Meimei chose a Gameboy one year and I think one year I was really into Polly Pocket and Barbie (Teresa though, never Barbie. She was the bad barbie). Moving out here was difficult. We said goodbye to Gram for the first time, before we started our purgatory drive to California. I remember her face, tears awash in her blue blue eyes, and I will never forget. I cried like the nine year old I was. I missed her then and I miss her now.

I wish so many things. I wish that I had asked her about her life, that I knew more about her family. I wish she was in the bleachers for my high school graduation. I wish she was in the JCP when I walked across the stage and shook Dr. Lyon’s hand. I wish I could call her and talk to her, or better yet, I wish I could fly into her home, into her arms.

She died from ALS my Junior year of high school, in 2006. I could tell you all about what that is and what it’s like. I’m not going to because: screw ALS; it’s a terrible disease and it’s a blip in my Gram’s life. She died less then a year after the diagnosis. I remember the pain of watching…of knowing, of praying, of sobbing, of praying, of fearing, of praying, of praying. Oh Lord, mercy. I used to pray every night that God would let us share muscles, share strength and health of body until there was a cure. I prayed and I cried myself to sleep most nights.

She died before I could really learn who she was before she was my super Gram. The weight of that huge gap in knowing nearly sends me into a panic attack every time I think on it. I’m caught in this weird in between place. I love my Gram as a child loves: purely with confidence. Still, I love my Gram as an adult loves: passionately with understanding. It’s been seven years today; and I can still feel this sharp stab in my heart that takes my breath away. The pain of this physical separation becomes acute and focused. A few years ago, I really struggled. For my college graduation I wanted Gram, I wanted my Garbo. I had my family, Grandma B and a few of my aunts. I was in this epic battle between what was real and able to be, and what I wanted more than any temporal good. I was wrestling angels and it wasn’t looking good. I told Dad. He is her son and he understood. He hugged me and told me she would be there, that she would see, that she knew and was proud of me. It was a small consolation. How I still wish I saw her smiling (in all likelihood dabbing her eyes) from the seats!

I love that she would call us her little pumpkins. I love that she would call and we would talk for hours. I love that she called me ‘princess.’ I love that she thought I was beautiful and lovable. I love that she mixed the cookie dough by hand, that she ate ketchup with noodles (Meimei does too). I love that she made my sister and I pink Christmas Story bunny costumes and my brother a carrot, that she was enchanted by Asia (我也是).

As I understand it we are the Communion of Saints, a part of the Body of Christ. I know one day, we will be together again and we will worship our Lord together. Until then, I hope and place my trust in Him. Phil 4:4-9

I love you Garbo, this you Shirley know.

The Catholic Church, Celibacy, Contraception

Fr. Longenecker is a wonderful blogger (I’m sure he is a fantastic priest as well, but I only know him by his online presence). He’s very insightful and great at explaining Catholic teachings in a way I can actually remember long after I’ve read the post. Lately I’ve had several conversations with friends, Catholic and not, about the priesthood, celibacy, and contraception. So enjoy this post and we’ll get back to our usual programing starting Monday.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/standingonmyhead/2013/03/contraception-and-celibacy.html

Mind the hilly road

Because I am totally uninspired this week and the one post I have prepared is not being published until Monday, I’m posting a link to an interesting article on how to handle the press. If only I could remember all that and be poised enough to say it, then again, Jesus said not to rehearse such things.

Luke 21:14-15

“Settle it therefore in your minds, not to meditate beforehand how to answer, for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict.”

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/faithonthecouch/2013/03/and-the-gates-of-the-ny-times-shall-not-prevail-against-it-catholics-can-beat-the-press-3-easy-steps/