Outside this window...

Life goes on outside this window
The wheels go ‘round
But they don’t make a sound
That resounds and reaches the other side of the window.

Life goes on across the sea
They walk and talk and wonder what if
What if the girl where still here

Life goes on outside the city walls
That protect and defend
They stand tall and strong
The life inside the city
Walls

Life goes on outside this tenement
With its tenants forgotten in abysmal silence
Life forgotten
Frozen in time
They do not go on but
Life goes on outside this tenement

Life goes on outside this window
Look down, but they don’t look up
At who
Who are you?
Who is this inside the walls protected by this transparent
Window?

Life does go on my friend
A fool would think otherwise.
Life goes on outside this window.
Here’s to you, one more time,
And for the last

Life goes on outside this window.


Socratic Buddha, on recovering old creative writing class pieces.

Carl Solomon...I am with you in Rockland where you accuse your doctors of insanity...

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"Passion points toward purpose"-A.C. Ping

Something is happening

Going Abump in

The night I can't

Quite put my finger on it but there

Is a change in the tides

Socratic Buddha on deconstructing unpredictability

Self Care Manifesto...

Looking back on my last semester I can only think one thing...

HOW IN THE WORLD DID I SURVIVE THAT?!?!?!

I was close to dropping out....

THIS CLOSE ::pinches thumb and index fingers reeeealllly close together::

So close in fact that I found this:

http://ask.metafilter.com/114104/Life-after-dropping-out-of-grad-school

Yup that close. I finally broke down and shared my thoughts with my mom, the person who always tells me "Failure is NOT an option"...she was understanding and said if my mental health was in jeopardy I should jump on the next flight home and high tail it out of the south.

I shared it with my close friend, and ex-coworker, who told me she would be extremely disappointed in me if I gave up on something that I had worked so hard to get.

My other ex-coworker...same

Ex-boss...same

Former adviser... the person who I owed a manuscript to, told me it was going to be ok, worked on the paper, sent me the last version and just asked me to take a look at it and approve changes. She also had an ex-lab member, and very close friend check up on me.

I was at a crux, beaten down, and having extreme anxiety--near full blown panic attack every hour or so. I couldn't sleep, eat, think. I was a walking zombie, barely functioning. I cried at one point for 4 days straight (ok maybe three, I'm exaggerating). And then it hit me... "what the hell am I doing to myself?" There I was near the end of the semester and I was ready to give it all up. One morning I woke up and said:

"Now (blank) get yourself together study for those finals and get done with this semester. You don't need to prove yourself to anyone, you're smart and you'll get through this, so what if you don't get an A...B's are just as good. You know you will never be able to live with yourself if you give all this up. Do you know how many people would give their right eye to be where you are?"

And that my friends was the turning point for me. I decided to take control and take care of me. I tied up some loose ends, rid myself of some toxic energy that was keeping me from moving forward, picked myself up, dusted my shoulders off and then looked straight ahead and said:

"Fuck you grad school, you're not gonna stop me...I'm a fucking WARRIOR!"

After May 15th, a weight was lifted off my shoulders, although I haven't had more than a 1 week break the summer has been relatively lighter. I am still taking classes and seeing clients, but I am in such a different place now because I have decided to re-engage in SELF-CARE! Remember that elusive concept? That thing that our graduate advisers always tell us to do, right before they bombard us with 60 hours worth of work. Well guess what, they are right we need it to be effective in our work with clients, them, and classes. They need to be reminded of this: HEY REMEMBER WHEN YOU WERE A GRAD STUDENT?!?!?!

Here's my self care manifesto:

GRAD SCHOOL IS NOT SUPPOSED TO MAKE ME FEEL LIKE I AM LOSING MY MIND...IT IS NOT SUPPOSED TO MAKE ME SICK TO MY STOMACH EVERY LIVING SECOND, IT IS NOT SUPPOSED TO MAKE ME FEEL LIKE MY HEART IS GOING TO POP OUT OF MY CHEST!

I SHOULD BE ABLE TO ENJOY MY WORK

I SHOULD BE ABLE TO BREATH

I SAY NO TO YOUR UNREALISTIC DEMANDS

I SAY NO TO YOUR EMAILS DURING THE WEEKEND

I SAY NO TO YOUR EMAILS DURING MY VACATION

I WILL NOT FEEL GUILTY WHEN I AM NOT WORKING AND TAKING CARE OF ME!

I WILL TAKE MATTERS INTO MY OWN HANDS AND ENJOY MY TIME HERE

I WILL TAKE MATTERS INTO MY OWN HANDS AND LEARN AS MUCH AS I CAN SO THAT I CAN SECURE A GOOD INTERSHIP!


I WILL SAY NO!

I WILL TAKE CARE OF MY MIND, BODY, AND SPIRIT!


So rise up brothers and sisters... set boundaries, stick to them, and reclaim self-care!

Socratic Buddha on deconstructing self-care and your sanity.

P.s. My yoga practice today was dedicated to my fellow grad-school warriors!

Gratitude and big-ups to my new kick ass full-time GA-ship boss who still remembers what it is like to be at the bottom of the academic food chain.

Photographic Memory...

The saddest picture you will ever see.
It represents
the shadow
of what we once
were.

Traces will
always remain
captured in these images.
Where time
stands still
for us.

A fleeting moment
never to happen
again
immortalized in a frame.

A
frozen
memory
in time
cannot be touched
but held forever.

Socratic Buddha on deconstructing memories.

The Invitation...

The Invitation

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your hearts longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dreams, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain!

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, or to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul.

I want to know if you can be faithful and therefore be trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see beauty even if its not pretty every day, and if you can source your life from The presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of a lake and shout to the sliver of the full moon, "Yes!"

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done for the children.

It doesn't interest me who you are and how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself, and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.


Socratic Buddha on deconstructing late Friday nights.

Oriah Mountain Dreamer, Indian Elder May 1994

The Haunted

It haunts me
your breath
your smile

Can't believe you're gone
But time
it
goes
on.

Cause I'm huanted
with every breath you take
and every
step you take
you're with me still.

I feel you
runnin'
round these here
parts
cause i can't hold this taste anymore,
understand me
more?

Please stand this fantasy
what have I done?
It's taken
me over

Do you recognize me anymore?
Do you dread this fantasy?
What have I done?
This uncertainty
has taken me over.

WHAT HAVE I DONE?
THIS UNCERTAINTY HAS TAKEN ME OVER!

Is it all over?
Yeah?
Has it taken me over?

~~~Thanks Portihead for the inspiration~~~

Some words by yours truly, others by Portishead.

Socratic Buddha on "Aha" moments, feeling liberated, and unearthing myspace blogs...

Support our brothers and sisters in P.R.

Dear all, I have sent the letter below to the New York Times, I urge you to contact appropriate news outlets that you feel are not giving sufficient attention to this strike.

To: nytnews@nytimes.com

Hello,

I am writing to inquire whether your newspaper has any plans to cover the historic strike that has been taking place for several weeks at the University of Puerto Rico.

Students have been occupying the university for weeks, and have shut down the entire university system for 22 days now in order to protest recently proposed budget cuts (which would increase tuition costs and eliminate much merit based aid and athletic fellowships etc), in addition to the general corruption and mismanagement of the institution.

The strike speaks directly to the issues being faced by universities across the United States in the face of reduced government funding and the move towards greater privatization of public education.

Today is proving to be particularly important, as students voted yesterday to continue the strike indefinitely and the university administration is threatening to cut off water and electricity in the campus as a way of smoking them out. They have also increased police presence and there have been incidents of police brutality against parents trying to bring food and water to their children on strike.

These events are crucially important not only to the residents of Puerto Rico, but to the wider landscape of higher education in the US as they bring into stark relief the obstacles that university faculty and students face in protesting recent changes at their institutions (most notably in California), as well as the increasing turn in academia towards antidemocratic governance and the denial of public education to its citizens.

I feel like if these events were happening within the continental US they would have received substantial news coverage and I do not understand why there has been no mention of this in the New York Times, which is such an important source of news for the broad US public, including its many Puerto Rican readers.

I urge you to please cover this important current event, and extend myself to you as a resource (I am a political anthropologist and a Caribbean specialist). I would be happy to collaborate in any way and to help you connect to appropriate informants in Puerto Rico.

Thank you, I look forward to your timely response.

Sincerely,
Yarimar Bonilla


Socratic Buddha on reading others deconstucting student protests and wondering why there has not been more coverage of these events.

Layers of an onion, or spikes of an artichoke.

I finally have found some time to sift through the articles that have piled up over the semester.

One thing about me-->Sometimes I consider myself an atheist, other times an agnostic, most times however I reject labels and just am who I am. This being said, I have to say that coming across this article today was meant to happen--serendipity or superstition you choose.

Reference:

Hoskins, M, & Loseho, J. (1996). Changing Metaphors of the Self: Implications for counseling. Journal of Counseling and Development, 74(3), 243-252.

"...it would embarrass me to be told that more than a single self is a kind of disease. The great difference, which keeps me feeling normal, is that mine (ours) has turned up one after the other, on an orderly schedule...it is the simultaneity of their appearance that is the real problem and I should think psychiatry would do better by simply pursuading them to queue up and wait thier turn, as happens in the 'normal' rest of us" (p. 244).

Quotes around "normal" added by yours truly.

"So the narrative psychologist believes that scientific theories present refined stories (or rich metaphors) meant to depict complex causal processes in the world. And when human thought turns to such issues of 'What caused something to occur', many would argue compellingly that scientific stories represent the best analysis available. But when our thinking is drawn to a consideration of issues of meanings in our lives (For example, What do I wish to achieve in my life? What would be the moral or ethical action in a particular circumstance? What is the good life?), scientific stories might lack the rich resources of other non-scientific perspectives like philosophy, literature, clinical wisdom, and religion." (p. 248).

Socratic Buddha on deconstructing the "Self" and "Science".

A good way to procrastinate.

A weird thing has happened to me since I started grad school...

My family relationships have changed...

My relationships with childhood friends have change.

Often times I feel as though we are in different worlds, speaking a different language. I was bred in a totally non-academic environment. That doesn't mean that my family and friends are not educated, or intelligent. I think the two are often confused...lack of formal education all too often becomes synonymous with lack of "intelligence" and it shouldn't. My mom has her master's from NYU. My grandmother never made it through elementary school, yet I have never met people as smart, savvy, and wise as they are. I'd pay good money to see someone descend from the Ivory Tower and operate, navigate, and survive as well as my childhood friends can.

But I digress, my point is that I am being bred in new kind of culture. A culture where all their is is grad school. I get so consumed with the day to day of it all, that I often don't even feel like talking. I wonder what it feels like to them, do they think that I have become a different person? It breaks my heart everytime I talk to my grandma and she tells me ,"Don't forget about me, give me a call from time to time", oftentimes I find myself rolling my eyes and saying, "yes grandma" and thinking, "if she only knew". But it breaks my heart... It breaks my heart, because there is a kind of chasm that is forming between me and my family, and YES, I blame grad school for it. My grandma came to visit and all I kept thinking about was all the work I was falling behind on. My aunt came to visit, and ALL I KEPT THINKING ABOUT WAS ALL THE READING I WAS FALLING BEHIND ON. I couldn't enjoy them because I was consumed with worry and guilt about what I wasn't getting accomplished. Grad school is the center of my universe, and that is foreign to me. So much so, that I often, VERY OFTEN, break into a mental fever over it; just as your body does to protect itself when a foreign organism has invaded it.

Last week I called home, I was going out to eat with my friend and was having a conversation with my mom at the same time. Feeling as though I was being rude, I kept apologizing to my friend. "I am sorry..." I kept saying, "...now my mom wants me to talk to my aunt...","I am sorry..." I said, "...now they want me to talk to my other aunt who is visiting from the Dominican Republic"..."I am sorry..." I said, "...now they want me to talk to my cousin". And that's when it hit me, what hit me was the sack of pennies named "this is how much I HAVE changed"--I had nothing to talk to my cousin about. This is a cousin that I have grown-up with, super close, until the grad school chasm started to form.

It's not just me...I have another cousin... she's getting her master's in nursing, looking into getting her Ph.D. and when I go home and ask about her her other cousin says, "You know, she's in her own world. She thinks she's white now".

AND THAT ALWAYS GET TO ME! Now because someone wants to further their education that seems to become analogous to being White. I wonder what they think about me when I go home and stay home, in bed, catching up on sleep instead of going to visit them. Do they say "Well you know, she thinks she's white, too good for us". Have I lost my "cred"?

There's this kind of culture limbo that I often find myself in, not quite a part of the one grew up in, but not a part of the one I am now being "raised" in.

It's sad, really, how the gap seems to be widening--on both sides.

Socratic Buddha on deconstructing family relations during grad school.

Really, it's not you...it's me.

Google search term "breaking up with facebook"...results:


A break up letter to facebook, from a 21 year old named Kyle:

‘Facebook, we need to have a DTR (defining the relationship) talk…It’s not all your fault, it’s mostly mine…This is the end of you and me, Facebook. I’m leaving you because I have spent more time browsing your pages than I have been spending in the pages of The Good Book. And I can’t live like that anymore. I’ve let you become a monster…you’ve taken too much of my time and my thoughts. Maybe it’s just my lack of self-control or discipline, but you’re addictive to me. I’m ashamed of the number of times I check you daily. If I were able to grasp how much time I have spent swimming though your endless ocean of profiles, I would be able to bear the guilt.

Here’s why: because of your profiles, I’ve become lazy. Because of you I found myself talking with person after person, asking them questions that I already knew the answers to. On many levels I’ve substituted and even avoided personal interactions with people because of your artificial and superficial means of communication. You have diluted my perception of true social interaction.

You’ve made me a coward. There’s a difference between a Facebook friend and an actual friend. Everyone knows the difference, but when one tries to reach across the barrier from Facebook friends to actual friends it just isn’t the same.

Facebook, you’re not all bad. You have your benefits. I must admit, you allow me to network and keep in touch with people with whom I normally wouldn’t have been able to…but at what cost? Wasting time Facebooking people I’ll never meet has distracted me from meeting the person sitting next to me in class, or has kept me from calling up and hanging out with an old friend because Facebooking is just as good? I beg to differ.

In some form or another, you’ve hindered my investment in the relationships with those genuine people hiding behind the idealistic profiles they’ve made of themselves. Let’s face it, I don’t perceive myself in the same way someone else perceives me. From now on, I only want to know people for whom they truly are; not for what you (Facebook) says they are. I just can’t trust you.

‘This might seem radical, but I have to make up for lost time. This hurts me just as much as it hurts you, but I have to take a stand.

Logging out for good,

Kyle.’

I have taken the bold step of breaking up with facebook as well, for good. No more of this back and forth. I have started to minimize the sources of stress in my life, minimize the things that I want to expend mental and emotional energy on, and facebook just had to go. Like Kyle above, I don't think facebook should bear all the burden of blame. I am culpable as well. I let it become the monster that it did.

Self disclosure alert:

I went through a breakup, and yes, I got burned bad...and thanks to facebook, and my lack of self-control, I continued to experience that burn...over and over...and over. I just could not stop. I was like a junkie, and I think that I finally hit rock bottom. I had to take a step back, a deep breath, reevaluate and say "no more". I don't think I am the only one that has gone through this... Cue "YOU ARE NOT ALONE"...here is an NPR article that talks about this phenomenon:

www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123501060

But it's not just about the redefinition of relationships and break ups in the social networking era. It's a little bit more than that. It's about the constant need for external validation..."here's my status update", "here's what I'm listening to", "see I am still a part of (enter person's name here) world". It's also about how we have come to view who does and does not like us, based on who "friends" us, who "unfriends" us, who comments and/or likes our updates, and the self-evaluations that come along with that; who we like and do not like, and the passive-aggressive ways we express this in facebook-world. I don't speak about all facebookers, just the facebooker that I became.

I guess I have moved from one existential exhibitionist venue to another...maybe so, but at least I feel as though I have taken a step to reclaim my sanity, my dignity, creativity, and TIME.

Socratic Buddha on deconstructing facebook.