Monday, May 30, 2011

this is your brain on fame

she's the people's choice and big money's crack baby
she has no face
sold it years ago to the industry
for a generous paycheck and a spot on BET Late Night
where her body is both shown off and shared
you'll know she's coming
dollar bills fall in her footsteps and camera flashes are her fanfare
her favorite melody is the cha-ching of the cash register
after successful transactions

satisfaction is what young girls see when they look at her
wishing they could have the boys follow behind them like
back-up dancers, like she does
and i watch them grow up
in houses with distorted mirrors
and shattered self esteem
sitting right next to the television

and it breaks my heart to hear them say they
think they're in love with their radio, not knowing
there are subliminal messages in the static that could hurt them
and i want to march over, turn down the music
and tell them i walked down that
boulevard of broken dreams
the stars in my eyes blinding me
and i couldn't see that
i was building an altar to an american idol
couldn't tell that
my self was the sacrifice
that the quest for fast cars and easy money
was stealing my identity
i was willing to
sell my face to the industry
for a generous paycheck
not realizing what it would cost me in the process

but i'm better now
have since repented
turned from an uncertain unhappy little girl
into the beautiful woman that i always was
and i decided that i'd rather
have a fistful of monopoly money and keep my head held high
than make it rain real dollars and lose my face.

Saturday, May 21, 2011

the "end of the world" - a rant by yours truly

people said that today would be our last day on earth as we know it.  but unless something happens in the next 3 hours or so, it seems that our planet will still be spinning on its axis in the morning.

see, the Bible says in Matthew 24:36 that nobody knows when the rapture is going to take place.  nobody.

so if you're the type of person who likes to make guesses about the second coming, please stop.  because whatever so-called logic you use to predict the end of the world will crumble, you'll lose whatever money you bet on the date and time, and you'll end up making Christianity look bad instead of scaring people into coming to faith.  

while i'm at it, let's get this out there too: the Mayans never predicted the end of the world.  the Mayan calendrical system consisted of many units of time, one of the longer ones being the baktun.  the only thing the Mayans predicted about 12/24/12 was that the 13th baktun would end.  no apocalypse, no great flood, just the equivalent of flipping over another page in the calendar.  honestly, i think it's more likely for Santa Claus to make an appearance on Christmas Eve 2012 than for the world to spontaneously cease to exist.

in closing, instead of trying to figure out when the world's going to end, why don't you make sure you're ready for whenever the hour might be?  call up old friends, go to church more than once a month, take up a hobby, something.  just stop trying to play the fortune teller...for all of our sakes.

thus ends my little rant.  sorry if it's a bit rough. 

Monday, May 16, 2011

waiting for the sunrise...

(Now Playing: "Bright Morningstar" -- Tiesto)

it's finally sunken in that junior year is over.  it took a full day of packing and a great deal of distance from campus to make that happen.  as i sit here in my grandparents' house in new york, surfing the web as my mom and grandmother carry an air mattress into the living room, everything that's happened recently--exams, final projects, move-out--is beginning to feel real.

i'm looking forward to this summer.  somewhere among finishing another song, working on the AMCAS application, attempting to pick up snippets of a new language online, and considering a part-time job (and a subsequent switch from PC to Mac if the money's there), i know i have some growing to do.  senior year is slowly creeping up on the horizon, like a sunrise long-awaited but somehow slightly unsettling...and i need to be ready for both the fun times and the work that needs to be done once the new day has dawned.


Sunday, May 1, 2011

more thoughts on the breaking news

a friend's most recent Facebook status:
Ok, that's just creepy.  10 years ago, on the day before I started at Harvard, Osama bin Laden entered the everyday vocabulary of Americans.  Today, two days after my [dissertation] defense, he's dead.  His name has capped both ends of my Harvard experience.
i'm just sitting here, thinking about how many significant things i have witnessed in a mere 20 years.  buildings have crumbled, governments have undergone phenomenal changes worldwide, lives have been transformed in interesting ways.  honestly, given all that i've seen or heard in my lifetime--even since December--i sometimes feel a lot older than i am.

call me a cynic...

according to a number of sources (including Twitter and Facebook), Osama bin Laden is dead.  now that we know the announcement is legitimate, i do believe celebration is in order.  this is, after all, very exciting news.

but in the midst of it all, i have to wonder...how much of what the world is going through is really going to change because of this?  i'm not trying to be cynical, or undermine the efforts of anyone who may have been involved.  i just have this burning question.