Finding life in song lyrics

So as you know, or rather you probably don't know because I don't talk about my music choices a lot other than Kike...but I really like the music of the Nozuka brothers, well the whole family actually. But I digress. I was introduced to the music of Justin Nozuka first; his voice is soo smooth, full of soul. Then I discovered his brother George, who does r&b, which I don't usually like but he does well. Both have that same smooth voice. But what really gets me is the lyrics for some of their songs.
Anyways, their songs deal with real life issues that are not usually sung about; most songs are about universal themes of love gained and lost, angst, betrayal, cheating partners, etc. Three songs standout as unusually mature in both nature and delivery by either Justin or George.

The two songs by Justin are Lullaby and Save Him.

Save Him is about a couple stuck in an abusive relationship.

At first, everything is sparkles and rainbows, a young couple in love:

She loves him more
He loves her more,
Seems like they won't ever let each other go,
Laughing and kissing it's a match made in heaven 

But then we see a darker side to their marriage, one that is not noticeable in the light of day:

Deep at night I'm awakened from my dreams,
Next door, yelling cries mercy she is begging please
"Don't end my life you're all I need and darling I will never leave"

I will leave the rest of the 'story' to be discovered but the way Justin delivers the lyrics with such emotion in his voice, we have to wonder if Justin ever witnessed this type of scenario in his own familial relationships. (I think not because even though their father left, it was never described as abusive.) But the maturity and believability in which Justin delivers the haunting vocals is just chilling. It is also refreshing in comparison to the more shallower lyrics found in music today-this is real life, something that occurs to millions of women. In a way, Justin is giving a voice to those women in similar situations.

George has a similar song, a departure from his more upbeat songs, entitled Hurting Child.

This could be a companion song to Save Him, as it is from a child's perspective of familial relations.

In the middle of the night,
no one heard the boy
who cried himself to sleep
didn't care about himself cuz he
hurt too much, he was hurt too much

In the middle of the fight
no one saw the girl who thought it
was her fault, didn't know about her pain
though it was right there
no one said they cared

Both perspectives look at the affects of difficult family relationships, such as divorcing parents, abusive parents, single parents, have on the children, something that is often forgotten. George sings with such sincerity and truthfulness, and this time, he apparently reveals why:

sing for the children, dream for the children,
cry for the children now
so I sing for the children, dream for the children,
smile for the children
...I was that hurting child

Whatever the validity of George's lyric, he makes sure that a child's perspective is not lost; it confronts the listener with the potentially hurtful truth. Many times, we prefer to avoid to the truth to avoid unnecessary pain, emotional pain. Both songs by George and Justin force the listener to confront these painful realities, but at the same time, the listener can remain unattached, for one can easily stop listening nor is one forced to go out and try to change the world. Rather, I think that they hope that by providing these perspectives, they can raise awareness of the situations that people find themselves in, as well as provide comfort and acknowledgement to those in similar situations.

 Lullaby I'll do later when I get more sleep/don't have a paper to finish.

More Black and White Photos: Graciela Iturbide

Mujer ángel, desierto de Sonora, México
Graciela Iturbide, 1979
Gelatin silver print 

Guaimie Woman
Mujer guaimie
Panamá
1974

 

 

 

http://www.rosegallery.net/index.php#s=0&mi=13&pt=1&pi=10000&p=0&a=23&at=2 

or search Rosegallery.net and then look under artists. Her work is amazing.

 

I try and try but time keeps eluding my grasp...Its already November!!!

In my very chaotic life, there are moments where I have some downtime to read for a few minutes before diving back into my work.
This week I have:
-2 5-6 page papers due, one tomorrow, the other thursday,
-reading for the wednesday class
- +50 pages of reading between 2 classes on thursday
-have to call at least 5 tribal councils/governing bodies to set up interviews for thesis and ME ODIO hablando en el telefono....
-have to try to set up an interview/time to chat with alumni about jobs
-outline and 2nd chapter of thesis with original analysis by Friday
-Remember to brush my hair in the morning and put on clothes....
-Go to work and not forget my closed-toe shoes
-Going to the gym is naught but a pipe dream right now..soccer on thursday though!
SOOO MUCH TO DO!!

But in one of those downtimes, I read this article, entitled A Message to Women From a Man: You Are Not "Crazy"


The link is here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/yashar-hedayat/a-message-to-women-from-a_1_b_958859.html?ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false


PLEase read it. It is fascinating and an obvious indicator that our society has not progressed as far as we thought it has in terms of feminism. 

Black and White

Having gained an appreciation for black and white photography, I was looking for ideas for my photo midterm and I stumbled across Paul Caponigro, a black and white Photographer. I like his formalist style that looks at the beauty in everyday objects. The "Galaxy Apple" is the best example of that everyday beauty that people don't normally notice and might not have shown up in color.  

"Two Pears"

 "Galaxy Apple" 

                                                                       "Flowers"

"Two Leaves"

Modern Japanese Style/Influenced Art

I follow this blog called Lines and Colors, which does a weekly focus on different artists/painters/styles.

One week, they focused on Keiko Tanabe, who I really like. She has a modern take on japanese style.

Below is an example of a artist, Ralph Kiggell who was influenced by the ancient woodblock prints

Being Part of the Technology/Texting Generation

So I have reached the stage of my research where I have to start calling various governmental departments and the like requesting badly-needed information for my thesis. Now I don't like talking on the phone but it is a skill that I have acquired and use when necessary; I mean it was hard to avoid not answer and talking on the phone in the Congresswoman's office. Its just a matter of psyching myself up and sitting down and calling whoever it is I need to call.

In reality, I know that the person of the other side of the phone is a bored intern/receptionist who is just waiting for a call and then that call will be passed on to the appropriate person and that intern dreads the call just as much as I am dreading making it. As a former intern, there was always the possibility that the person on the other end is some angry constituent demanding to speak to the superior! No one likes those types of calls.

I really think this phone dread also comes from the generation that I grew up with-I was part of the generation that really grew up with technology (each year, there was a new piece of technology to try and integrate easily into our lives) like mac computers, texting, the iphone, etc. The generation after me is even more connected with technology. They literally grow up using technology from day 1. There is that over reliance on non-personal connection with other people-we use technology as proxies for actual communication with real people.

Research

 Right now, I am researching the case of Cobell v. Salazar, the landmark class-action lawsuit brought by American Indian representatives against two U.S. Gov't departments. The plaintiffs claim that the U.S. government has incorrectly accounted for Indian trust assets, which belong to individual Native Americans (as beneficial owners) but are managed by the Dept. of Interior (as the legal owner and fiduciary trustee). 


As I was reading through the case, I saw that one of the judges was kicked off the case for loosing his treasured impartiality-he kept ruling for the American Indians and lambasting the Interior and government. He even tried to hold the various Interior Secretaries in contempt of the court.


See for your self below:


The Court wrote that Judge Lamberth believed that racism at the Dept. of Interior continued and is "a dinosaur – the morally and culturally oblivious hand-me-down of a disgracefully racist and imperialist government that should have been buried a century ago, the last pathetic outpost of the indifference and anglocentrism we thought we had left behind."


Lamberth writes that "the entire record in this case tells the dreary story of Interior's degenerate tenure as Trustee-Delegate for the Indian trust -- a story shot through with bureaucratic blunders, flubs, goofs and foul-ups, and peppered with scandals, deception, dirty tricks and outright villainy -- the end of which is nowhere in sight."


On numerous occasions over the last nine years," Lamberth wrote in the now-infamous July 12 memo, "the Court has wanted to simply wash its hands of Interior and its iniquities once and for all.''


Those are some pretty harsh comments. The case took 10 YEARS. No wonder Lamberth is fed up. He is known for speaking his mind. And he is from Texas. And one of the most respected and skilled judges on the Court. 


This is why I like Wikipedia: I can easily expand my knowledge base about subjects that are found in 1 concise area and don't have to trawl through stacks of files or PDF's to search for gems of information like this. 

I'm up with an earache. Well either its a regular earache or its a I-poked-my-eardrum-with-my-headphones-and-now-i'm-going-deaf earache.....I hope its not the latter.

I have this theory that when all of the good wax is taken out of the ear, you are taking away this protective layer and then your ear is more susceptible to earaches and the like. This time is no different.

It just occurred to me that since I'm up, I might as well do some homework. I find that slightly depressing although it is a reality that we seniors face. I wonder what it is about senior year that the moment we become seniors, a profound psychological/mental change is adopted; we automatically become stressed from the first moment of being seniors, making the whole thesis process ten times more stressful than it actually is. Homework for regular class is slacked on, and the handy excuse of "I'm a senior" comes into play without guilt. We use the excuse "I'm a senior, I'm allowed to miss/do X, Y, and Z" without thought, masking our intentions behind this flimsy facade. Perhaps the use of that phrase is us seniors running away from whatever assignment it may be, knowing that this will probably be one of the few times in our professional/academic career where such an excuse is viable. It also may be that we are trying to escape the looming confines of the real world and it manifests itself in this senior year mentality. What do seniors think?

Euphoria in LA

‎"It was like the entire show," said Will Smith. "It was almost like people were coming there specifically to scream. And like the girls were taking turns going 'Yeah!' And when [one girl's] getting ready to stop, she points to her girlfriend to take over. It was like, damn, just hours of sustained screaming."

The night of Thursday October 7th was the reason I didn't turn in my civil libs and fundamental rights essay and only had 7 pages for senior seminar but it was soo worth it. I would honestly say that it was a different kind of learning that can't take place in the classroom but can only be learnt through experience.

I went to Enrique Iglesia's Euphoria concert in Los Angeles at the Staples Center, and let me tell you, it was the best decision of my life. In fact, it ranks as the best 3 hours of my life. Kike is just..amazing. He really cares about making a connection with his fans, it down to earth, and very unpretentious. At one point, I was literally less than 10 feet away from him, and would have been closer if it wasn't for dumb security (and no, I didn't have front row seats but I did have back-floor seats)!!!!

I was really nervous about traveling and spending the night in LA alone and navigating the train and metro system in LA by myself. I was extremely early (I arrived at 4, when the concert 'started' at 7). And on the way back, the train to Claremont left at 7:45, and I arrived at the train station at 7, having woken up at 6:30...and I was only 10 minutes late to work. Not bad. I was glad though that I decided to go by myself and navigate the trains in L.A. because now I am definitely more comfortable traveling to LA if I need to by myself. Spending several months in a country where the language is not your first and just a simple trip around the block can be an ordeal will definitely boost one's confidence levels and ability to act independently. Gracias Buenos Aires por todos.

So right now my throat is killing me because I was sustained screaming like a crazy fangirl for 3 hours, just like Will Smith said. But it was soo worth it. My next step is getting a VIP package where I can meet Kike...but they are expensive. The cheapest is $300, I believe. I think I'll wait a year or two and then spring for it.

I know it has been ages since I posted on this blog but I have been so caught up with the realities of Senior Year at Scripps-It feels like it has been ages when it reality, its only been a month and a couple of weeks. Right now the biggest challenge for me right now is finding a topic for Senior Thesis. Right now its a roller coaster of topics and boy do I hate roller coasters...More on that later, because this is me procrastinating on a civil libs and fundamental rights essay.

This picture is kinda making me sick just to look at....

A positive thing is that I am taking Beginning Photography, which is mainly black and white but it is very fun and relaxing and I get credit for it! 

Avoidance of the end

I also want to live in that house below.



My friends and I went to this Cafe called EL Gato Negro. It smelled amazing bc it had rows upon rows on spices in jars! Spices!!!! After being so long in spiceless-buenos aires, spices are amazing. I would like to live there just for the smells.



Above is the vainilla and canela tea that I ordered, as well as the typical sandwhiches de miga, which are crustless white bread sandwhiches that are ubuiquitous here.

River Relegated; Buenos Aires goes Nuts!

One of the most famous fútbol clubs in Buenos Aires, River Plate, was just relegated to Round B after a match with Belgrano Cordoba.
"River Plate, the record 33 times Argentine league champions, suffered their biggest humiliation ever with relegation to the second division for the first time.
River drew 1-1 with Belgrano of the Nacional B division in the second leg of a relegation-promotion playoff at the Monumental after a 2-0 defeat in the first leg in Cordoba on Wednesday.
Fans in the 60,000 plus crowd at the Monumental went wild with rage, throwing objects on to the pitch and some tried to climb over perimeter fencing to storm on to the field.
Players of both sides had to leave the pitch under protection of stewards while police used high power hoses to try to the rioting fans."

Fans were crying at the "end" of the game, a game that was stopped before the official ending thanks to the angry and upset fans. This is especially humiliating since Belgrano is a relatively unknown team in comparison to River, who is known as Los Millonarios, in reference to the expensive transfer of players from other clubs.

So what does this mean?





Violence, mass mayhem, destruction, fires, you name it. The River fans are very upset and things are suppose to get worse as the night goes on.

Iguazú Falls

I went to Iguazú Falls with a friend at least 2-3 weeks ago and here are some pictures. I have a ton more of these beautiful photos on my fb page. It was amazing and my first time seeing waterfalls up close. These falls have been compared to the Niagra Falls in the U.S./Canada in beauty. Definitely worth going.

Its already June...

I can't believe it. June already and then July, and then I am gone. I need more time; a year abroad would have been great but hindsight is a killer. Ths means that I have a bunch of papers and evaluations coming up: this week alone I have a final exam tomorrow, a parcial exam on Wednesday, and oral exam on Tuesday, regular homework for the tuesday class, 1 ten page paper due on the 22nd about arte/arquitectura to start, a 13-15 page paper to start on politics, a 4 page paper about argentine women to start...

I haven't had much time to write let alone know what I want to say. My friend sums it up the best in a porcion I borrowed from one of her posts:
" I haven't been writing, because I've felt like my ability to express myself has declined while the scope and depth of what I long to express continues to expand, to the extent where I'm standing at the edge of a chasm that widens and widens until it requires a great leap of faith to reach the other side without the necessary tools. I picture my thoughts and memories falling into this abyss, lost to the subconscious, leaving me paralyzed momentarily."

But at least somethings never change: my host mom is watching reruns of Law and Order on tv, a show that aires re-runs on Sundays tradicionally...

Ramblings

I have been living in Buenos Aires for about 3 months now and I can say that now I truely feel at home. I know how to get to my classes, which Collectivo to take, my favorite place to get a cafe con leche and tres medialunas, who I regularly hang out with on a regular basis. Recently, I just discovered a new favorite place to get chinese food and I don´t even have to go all the way to Belgrano to do so! I´ve started taking tango lessons, with a little help from my host mom. I look forward to dinner every night with my host mom as we chat about world events, funny personals on the radio, my castellano classes at IFSA, and whethere it is appropriate to say "estoy llena" at the dinner table. (It's more lower class and there are more acceptable alternatives, such as "es suficiente")...The smell of burning wood as the old trains on Line A shudder to a stop. I am definently going to miss living in this city and I really want to come back to live here.

random Photos

Cemetario Recoleta


A strange truck parked on the street near Museo de Bellas Artes in Recoleta


A park sign also in Recoleta near the Museo de Bellas Artes

Just little things in Buenos Aires that one can see on the street.

What I learned in Class Today

Today I had my Castellano Class at the IFSA office. We were suppose to be discussing this book called La Cuidad Vista de Beatriz Sarlo. She mainly writes about Buenos Aires, and the chapter today was on el Shopping y vendedores ambulantes (street vendors).

Its funny because "Shopping" has crept into the Argentine lexicon, capitalised and all. It is used to describe shopping at the mall, so one would say "Where are you going? Shopping in Abasto."

My castellano teacher is v. funny and v. dramatic, which is hilarious in spanish. ( i think it's because she's of italian descent). She likes to act out certain words or grammar that we don't understand. The phone impressions are the best.

I learned today that:

Argentines are Italians who speak Spanish and think like the French.

Apparently pipi cucu means a elegant person from uruguay but I don't have proof. What I did find is that Pipi Cucu is the name of a chi-chi restaurant in Belgrano..

And Quilombo is slang for big disorder. This is a very informal word, and to those higher up the intellectual food chain, it is considered a bad word only because they most likely don't know the history behind it. The history behind the word is from Brazil, where Quilombo signified a place where escaped Africans lived. It was literally jam packed with all the people who escaped, mothers, daughters, children, men, women, abuelas, you name it. Thus, because of all the people living in one place, which can be a bit noisy, you have the word Quilombo. But you shouldn't take this as the gospel truth from me. Go google quilombo/africa/ meaning and you'll get a whole bunch of factual texts.

Fire on a Train

So I was looking at the news this morning on BBC and what do I see?

THIS: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-13263367

http://www.thejournal.ie/train-delays-in-argentina-drive-angry-mobs-to-burn-out-carriages-130230-May2011/

I can't embed the video bc I don't know how, but you have to watch it. The people on the delayed train got soo MAD that they actually set the train ALIGHT/ON FIRE!!!!!

I mean, I know Argentines are fond of their right to huelga aka one usually happens every day somewhere in Buenos Aires and more power to the obreros, but this was no worker strike here. This is pure rage/frustration! So glad I don't have to commute into the city.

To add insult to injury, when the brave bomberos came to put out the fire, some people threw ROCKS at them simply because they were trying to do their job. Because of this incedent, the rest of the communter trains were shut down, causing headaches for everyone else. Way to go, angry mobbers.

End Result:

Semana Salta Part 1

Last weekend for Semana Santa (Easter) I went to Salta. The province of Salta is located in the north of Argentina; a 22 hours bus ride! It basically takes a day to get there but it is so worth it. We left on Wednesday afternoon at 5. The omnibus was suppose to leave at 4 but, as usual, the bus was delayed in arriving to the station. I, traveling with 5 of my friends from IFSA boarded the bus with trepidation and excitement. How glad we were to arrive at our hostel, 7 Duendes, after that 20 odd hour bus ride. The rest of the day was spent figuring out what to do/walking around.

The next day, we went to San Lorenzo, which was 15 mins away, where there was hiking and zip-lining in the mountains. It was an amazing day to hike. The views were gorgeous and the hike was perfect, although I was a little out of breath during one or two parts. I blame the thin mountain air. ;)







The view at the top was totally worth it. We could see the whole of Salta from the top.

Stained Glass Windows at Recoleta Cemetery

Empanadas

How could I not mention empanadas, the snack food of argentina???? ridiculously cheap and on the go food, it is the preferred choice of everyone for a snack. at first i didn't like them bc a lot of them had hardboiled egg in it and they were cold.

(The flavors are usually chicken, meat, veggie, mozarella). Empanadas can be baked (Salta style) or fried (Tucuman style). They may also contain ham, fish, humita (sweetcorn with white sauce) or spinach; a fruit filling is used to create a dessert empanada. Actually, just go read the wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empanada. I didn't even know there was a dessert empanada. i know what my next quest will be: find that dessert empanada!

I got the chicken empanadas below from a italian place next to the ifsa office. warm, they are the empanadas i like the most so far.




This is a potato tortilla that my host mom has made a couple of times before. it is really yummy, kind of like the spanish tortilla.

First Man in Space

Although this has nothing to do with Buenos Aires, my attention was caught by today's Google drawing; a video picture of a rocket blasting off into space with a astronaut in the foreground. At first I thought it was Neil Armstrong or somebody but i was wrong. It is celebrating the achievements of Yuri Gagarin, the first man who successfully entered space and came back alive.





Before Gagarin, no-one knew for sure if a human could withstand the conditions in space, says the BBC's Steve Rosenberg in Moscow; some believed weightlessness would induce madness, that the G-forces on take off and re-entry would crush the body, and there was concern over the effects of radiation.

On 12 April 1961, to the cry of "Let's go!", Yuri Gagarin embarked on a voyage lasting 108 minutes in a tiny two-metre-wide (6ft) capsule, then ejected and parachuted down into a field in central Russia.

But when Gagarin's face and voice were beamed down from space, the world saw that the cosmos was not to be feared - it was to be explored.

"The most emotional moment was when we heard he was walking and waving; his arms and legs were whole. We understood in one sigh that our five to six years of hard work had paid off and we had achieved something huge," said veteran cosmonaut Georgy Grechko, now 79, who worked as an engineer on Gagarin's space capsule. (BBC News)




Gagarin was hailed as a hero around the world, except prolly in the U.S. back then because of Cold War tensions, and was feted wherever he visited. Unfortunately for the world, he died in 1968 in a plane crash. Even the famous U.S. astronauts and NASA have realized his important contribution to the world of space travel. (see plaque above) Many say that if it wasn't for Gagarin's successful space travel, the U.S. would have lacked the impetus to send a man to the moon in only a decade.

So today i am commemorating this very important day in world history, one that everyone should celebrate.