I haven't posted many pictures of myself, so I figured I might post a lot. I was bored, had a camera, and voilá.

I hope you know I place all of my blame on my wonderful boyfriend. He makes me feel pretty :p

If you don't appreciate my vanity, go away. This is my journal. I can do what I want. Nyanny-nyanny-poo-poo.












When you see this, run away.



And in case you were wondering what I looked like in colour. Horrible, low-quality colour.

Some people have the strange belief that popular music is somehow inherently inferior to music that is not popular. I know people who automatically dislike a song simply because it has been played on the radio. I've heard words like "meaningless," "superficial," and "not relevant to the real world."

A little anecdote: Brooke Fraser, popular singer and songwriter, traveled to Rwanda. There she met an orphaned girl named Albertine, whose life had been saved by the very guide who was showing Fraser around the country. The guide asked her to write a song about Albertine.

Most of you probably are aware that the assumption that popular music is automatically meaningless is ridiculous. I will clarify why, but not in my own words.


I am sitting still
I think of Angelique
Her mother's voice over me
And the bullets in the wall where it fell silent
And on a thousandth hill, I think of Albertine
There in her eyes what I don't see with my own

[CHORUS]
Rwanda
Now that I have seen, I am responsible
Faith without deeds is dead
Now that I have held you in my own arms, I cannot let go till you are

I am on a plane across a distant sea
But I carry you in me
And the dust on, the dust on, the dust on my feet

[BRIGDE]
I will tell the world, I will tell them where I've been
I will keep my word
I will tell them Albertine

I am on a stage, a thousand eyes on me
I will tell them, Albertine
I will tell them, Albertine
—Brook Fraser, "Albertine"

( More meaningful lyrics.... )

...and words can always hurt me.

Please read the post below this one for the explanation about this post (I felt some people might find it a bit daunting if I put it all together).


Miriam: actually, you ARE whiny and childish, and you do NOT have any more rights to be here than others... you are restricting yourself if you DECIDE to leave just because someone offends you.

Just A Pseudonym: You're kidding, right?
If you disallow someone to do pretty much anything on the Internet, THAT is taking away freedom.
But nobody allows someone to be mistreated more than the supposed "victim" themselves. There is no real harm to it, so any trouble they have with it is what they have personally allowed.

Me: Wonderful, caring people. Perhaps you are unaware of the psychological damage that verbal/written abuse can cause. Learn a little about sociology, anthropology, and the fact that above all else, humans are social beings. Language is our foundation, and it affects us as profoundly as anything else. It can be used to begin movements, start revolutions, and strike fear into people.

Glenn: Personally, I say you go girl!!!
The only way to hone your opinion is to air it and gain thoughts and feedback that provide unexplored insights and perspectives. I don't see you as whiny and childish, I see you as an explorer of your inner mind traveling by bungee cord. Look after the cord and don't let it snap.
Miriam, Great input, even if a little harshly put.

Tanya: I do think there has to be some limits. Following from our discussion on my opinion, if someone is using the internet only as a means to harass others, they should be removed. In the case of iThink, because they are misusing the application not to protect the 'victim'.
Personally, I havent seen any examples where someone has been seriously harassed. Have you? Conflict is healthy, insults and all.

Nikolaiy: You are whiny and childish. Just deal with it.

Me: As long as a society blames the "tattle-tales," they are giving assholes the freedom to do as they please. And inevitably, they are therefore taking freedom away from good people who wish to have access to the same resources anyone else does (i.e. internet). I find it amazing that people will jump at the chance to attack a sensitive person, but allow a cruel person to get away unscathed.

Me: Please compare your "whiny and childish" remark to my comments, and then determine which one of us seems more mature.

Miriam: assholes like you have the freedom to do as they please, too. you should be happy about it.

Hella: We have the freedom to do as we please, that includes being nasty to you and your ilk. If you don't like it then deal with it in whatever way you see fit, nobody is going to stop you. Nobody is forcing you to leave anywhere, you decide that yourself.

Sri Lalitha: agree with Miriam

Materese: i think the exchange of opinions so far proves your point if it needs be proving...personally, i like to take the abusers by their horns and see how they take their own medicines when i shove them down their throat.....as somone once said " never under estimate the predictability of stupid

Miriam: which point has been proven? because as i see it, no one's freedom has been taken away so far... on the contrary, everyone has the freedom to state what they think, including sandy and you. so, again: which point has been proven?

Glenn: Here's a different take...Sandy probably isn't going to leave, she's been here far longer that a lot of us. It's a great comment that has gained a lot of input and will probably make it to a great number of votes. Everyone gets abuse, those with the strongest insights get the most abuse. Perhaps it is just a carefully sculpted iThought.

Me: Cheers, Glenn.
Holy crap! 15 comments in half an hour! I should write more opinions that inadvertently piss people off.
I'm not going to leave my own opinion just because someone attacked me personally for defending those who are mistreated. I have gotten a fair bit of abuse at some opinions, which I did have to leave.

Ben: You can't be serious....
You know what you are saying Sandy?
"The stuff I find offensive is an absolute value and should be prescribed across everyone's personal freedom of speech. You are taking away my freedom by insulting me, so to remedy this .. what am I going to do? TAKE AWAY YOUR FREEDOM"
The hypocrisy is inordinate.
"mistreat" "insult".. these are all subjective terms. You're just a hypocrite to state what your personal view on these things should be relevant to us all.
I've had death threats against me - people saying I should be locked up, executed, all sorts of hateful things - and you know what I've done??? Laughed, insulted them, and moved on.
DEAL WITH IT.

Me: Especially on iThink, verbal abuse is not conducive to a debate; in fact, it usually destroys it. It makes both parties too emotional to argue rationally. Ben - I'm a hypocrite to state a personal view...and I'm taking away your freedom by keeping you from stating things. Got it.

That's what we tell our precious children. For, it is more important to us that they grow a tough skin than that we become aware of who is being bullying and abusive. And if you can catch a bully at a young age, you are much more likely to prevent them from becoming worse and worse.

But the wounds go deeper. This isn't just about children in school. Many siblings may remember their older siblings being cruel and sadistic towards them, then telling them not to "tattle," so their parents never know what's wrong. What's worse, some parents punish the younger sibling if they do "tattle," instead of the older one for being a brat.

Yet even deeper. Truly abusive children and adults alike use this logic because it permeates our society, and any child can be forced to obey it. I am very close to many people who were abused and told not to "tell." One was molested by their twelve-year-old babysitter, then told not to be a tattle tale. Another by their teacher. Yet another was sexually abused by their grandparents. But it's a secret. "Our little secret."

This is a culture of silence. Silence infests our ghettos and Third World countries; silence imprisons the weak and the helpless; silence saturates every crevice, every corner of our society. If you are attacked on a street in broad daylight, chances are nobody will come to your aid. We are the innocent bystanders. Feeling sick yet? If you're not, perhaps you're not paying attention.

As a child, I was ridiculed in school. I was treated like shit from age 6 to 13. I had several physical threats during that time. Yet I was never hit or attacked. Why? Because my mother taught me to tell. "If someone is hurting you, either your feelings or your body, tell someone." I was trained that if one adult wouldn't listen, to keep telling until somebody did. This helped perpetuate the ridicule to an extent, but really it was my insecure attitude more than anything else. And nobody touched me.

Language can be used for control through fear, inspiration, anger, and pain. You can hurt somebody with words, even if you're not looking at them. You can do it through the internet. Most people, however, believe that if you are hurt by somebody's written verbal abuse, you should DEAL WITH IT. I put that in capitals, because that's how they've said it to me. I'm not talking about someone saying, "you're an asshole." That's just silly. I'm talking about persistent, cruel, sadistic attacks.

I belong to an opinion network (application on Facebook), and was getting really tired of the opinions I saw about how "If you report abuse you suck cock" and you should "Stop being whiny and childish." I was told time and again that it was my CHOICE to be insulted or hurt by cruel people. All of the responsibility is put on the person being mistreated. This was not new for me. I decided to post an opinion of my own:

"When you allow someone to mistreat people on the internet, you are taking away those people's freedom."

The comment follow-up for the opinion is as follows:

Don't call me "whiny" and "childish;" I should have more of a right to be here than people who are cruel. And if you tell me to "just deal with it," I'll probably have to leave, which restricts ME as opposed to the asshole responsible.

Please read the post above for the lovely responses I gained within half an hour.

A Short Exercise: Translate the following passage into layman's terms:

Because a project’s originator is volatile when confronted with skepticism, independent critical analyses are essential to retain equilibrium within a consensus prerequisite. Thus, the ontological utility of the proponent’s innovative design is inversely related to its epistemic discourse.

Though the counterargument to the latter is essential to dictate, disquiet has been revealed about the frequency of the unsubstantiated generalizations about the legitimacy of a proposed adaptive framework, regardless of whether or not its analysis is apropos of quantitative measurement.

In conclusion, a specialised process has been operationalised to assemble linkages between proposals of participatory representative categories, and indicators that operate within an epistemological framework.

Can't figure it out? The answer is ( here. )

Still think academia isn't elist?

A Step-By-Step Analysis of Academese, for the Layperson

Despite the automatic assumption to the contrary, academics cannot write worth shit. It’s true. When it comes to writing, brevity (or at least lucidity) is the soul of wit. These creatures don’t understand the concept of comprehension. Apparently, academics are a rare breed that, unlike the rest of the human race, is exempt from the social requirement of being able to communicate with their fellow human being.

I say this, having the utmost respect for my professors, some of whom write the most obscure journal articles known to man.



(Fact: More than 90% of university professors consider their work to be above average. Statistically speaking, this is impossible.)


Example

Here is my favourite example. You can’t help but feel sorry for them, really. Poor things didn’t pay attention in grammar school.

“Instead, we argue that the pragmatic utility of an idea is more important than the epistemic authority of its proponent.” (Carr and Wilkinson, 2005)

Linguistic critique: First of all, this sentence is painfully passive. So let’s change the beginning to:

“…an idea’s pragmatic utility...”

Doesn’t make any sense still, right? That’s cause we’re not done. The words “pragmatic” and “utility” have common-use synonyms that even laypeople will understand. This is how you translate academese:

Pragmatic=practical
Utility=use/usefulness

Now for the second part, “…the epistemic authority of its proponent.” We could make that part less passive, too, by saying, “its proponent’s epistemic authority,” but we don’t wish to use the word “proponent” at all, since it’s primarily endemic—er, exclusive—to the world of academia. The synonyms for “proponent” (supporter, advocate) in this instance don’t necessarily specify what the authors mean. So instead, let’s change it to “the person who promotes that idea.” Concise? No. Comprehensible? Yes.

As for “epistemic authority,” how about, oh I dunno…“qualifications?” Concise? Yes. Comprehensible? Yes.

So, in conclusion, the sentence is this: “Instead, we argue that an idea’s practical use is more important than the qualifications of the person who promotes that idea.”

Wow, suddenly you can understand it!

And now, for your reading pleasure:

This paper has argued that the legitimacy of agri-environmental programmes needs to be re-conceptualised as an effect of specific assemblages of governing. Rather than a response by governments to epochal crises, legitimacy problems are a constitutive feature of the ‘failure’ of governing to achieve its desired effects. Such failure is by no means negative, in the sense of regulation being void of order or durability, but is productive in problematising the legitimate boundaries and limits of public and private intervention, and in creating new spaces and objects of governing. From this perspective, the rise to political prominence of seemingly contradictory agri-environmental initiatives—standards schemes and direct forms of government regulation—represents part of broader efforts to make existing neoliberal practices of governing workable. Such initiatives are more than simply a means for authorities to provide legitimacy for their actions while doing little in reality to address environmental problems. —Lockie and Higgins, 2007

(In bold: either academic jargon, or other complex terms that can be simplified.)

Sources
Lockie, S. and Higgins, V. (2007) Roll-out Neoliberalism and Hybrid Practices of Regulation in Australian Agri-environmental Governance Society and Natural Resources, 23, pp. 1-11
Carr, A. and Wilkinson, R. (2005) Beyond Participation: Boundary Organizations as a New Space for Farmers and Scientists to Interact, Journal of Rural Studies, 18, pp. 255-265

The Existentialist Poetry of Donald Rumsfeld

As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know we don't know.

-Donald Rumsfeld, during a Pentagon press briefing.

Who knew we had a beatnik in our administration? (I tip my beret to you)

The end.

=)

© 2008, Deep Thoughts, by Sitakali.

Oh my god, I love Stephen Colbert! Most of you know about my hatred of Ayn Rand. Watch this, it's classic.


"Fountainheaded"



"I am Howard Roark!" lol

For those of you who don't know, Howard Roark is the "protagonist" (if you want to call him that) of Rand's book, The Fountainhead, described (too kindly) as an "uncompromising individualist."

Written by someone on a pro-Ayn Rand forum, about the video clip:

"It was not presented in a flattering manner. It was, in fact, sheer mockery of Objectivism.

But I must say, except for on one minor point, he did not mis-represent the philosophy that I can recall. He even stated clearly that it was a philosophy of "rational self-interest", he didn't use any "poison" words (e.g., calling it a philosophy of "selfishness" -- meaning that in the typical negative sense --, as he might have done)."

Hmm....I've been feeling rather sick lately. Having insomnia, even more trouble eating than usual, feeling weak (obviously as a result) and dizzy. Just overall anxious. Bleh.

The silliest things can get my heart-rate going. Just reading people's political opinions that I don't agree with, especially if they're laced with contempt or sarcasm, makes me have to do some calming exercises.

I hope this doesn't last long. I have a field trip I have to go on in a few weeks, that I'm anxious about already. I need to be able to function once the semester starts. Hell, I need to be able to function so I can go to work every day. I don't want to give the overall impression that I'm "sickly" or "in a bad mood" all the time.

But, no worries, as they say here. I'm sure "this too shall pass" quite soon. It generally does.

Time for Beatles cheering-up.

This is a sonnet (not written by Shakespeare) that really speaks to me. It was written in 1883, by a woman named Emma Lazarus. It is about my motherland, a country that has claimed for a while to be a safe haven for the downtrodden, and a country that continues to create more downtrodden, and turn them away.

My country both nurtured and abused me, taught me and betrayed me. So it is with a confused mixture of sadness and hope that I post this poem:


The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

—As was written on the Statue of Liberty, and the plaque remains there today.

I am such a freak. Since I was thirteen years old, I though that was cool. I was proud to be different, because there were always other people who were equally different (not in the same way, of course), so I didn't feel alone.

I went to a high school that was so diverse that anyone could find their own clique. Hell, I bet there was a loner clique. Then I went to Antioch College, a clothing-optional campus, where in the summer I could wear my bikini top and short-shorts to class and no one would look at me twice. In my home town of Berkeley, I would wear my black-and-red striped stockings with my miniskirt, or get all elegantly Gothed up and no one would judge me for it.

I'm used to having my own sense of style, and being outspoken. I'm used to thinking that if someone doesn't like what I think or the way I dress, then they don't deserve to know me in the first place. But that was all until I moved here.

Suddenly, I'm walking around with my shoulders tensed up, concerned about what people think about me. I'm wearing boring clothes that I don't feel good or interesting in. In classes, I don't talk, because I fear that in the middle of my sentence, I'll get all flustered or just forget what I was going to say altogether. For the first time, I'm worried that not enough people will share my views on the gender binary, or the socio-economic system, or race, or loving your body (fat-positive issues, etc.).

During my first job, at an electronics store, I had a couple bosses who were sexist. I had an intelligent conversation with one of them, and he said he wasn't used to talking to such a smart woman. I laughed, and decided that smashing a desk chair on his head would put me at a financial disadvantage. He was also Maori, and loved to make jokes about how Maori were criminals. I understand the whole self-deprecating humour thing, cause Jews do it, too. But it got old after a while.

Then I worked at a video store, where my boss and another coworker made comments about how you couldn't trust Indians (the Asian kind), because they were manipulative with money or something. Sounded a bit like the stereotype for Jews. And another coworker told me very sincerely about how the Maori used to eat Europeans when they ran out of pigs. I found that especially interesting, since pigs didn't exist in New Zealand until Europeans brought them here.

The whole time, these people would state the disclaimer, "I'm not racist, but...." Hahahahaha! Love it. If you honestly feel the need to say that, just don't bother. You're being a hypocrite already. If I was going to say something about Indians being dishonest or something, I'd say, "I know I'm a bit racist, but this is what I've noticed," or something like that. And seriously, if I'm a bit racist, then the people mentioned above must be oozing racism!

I suppose that's the price I pay for being sheltered from the more bigoted aspects of society my whole life. At the video store I mentioned, there was also a guy there who went on about how he would see gay men making out on K Road (red light district in Auckland). He said it like it was the most disgusting thing in the world. I said, "what's wrong with that?" thinking it might just be a Public Display of Affection issue. Some people just can't handle PDAs that well. He said, "Gays can do whatever they want in their own home, but I don't want to see that shit. It's not natural."

I asked him if it would bother him to see two women making out, and he said no. I pointed out the double standard, and suggested that perhaps his aversion to gays had to do with the possibility that their presence threatened his masculinity. Of course, I wasn't trying to convince him of anything by that point; I was merely amusing myself by seeing how he would react to that hypothesis.

Yeah, I'm not too tolerant of intolerance. Luckily, my violence has only taken the form of fantasies so far. If you could read my mind, you'd probably think I was a bloodthirsty, self-righteous lunatic. If you had a conversation with me, the latter would be confirmed =)

This is where I stand.
On the edge of a canyon whose mouth seems to stretch out for eternity.
There is no going back.
There is nothing but a barren wasteland behind me.
—Me

I don't know where I stand. I'm beginning to wonder what I stand for. Maybe I should just sit down already.

I'm tired. I'm tired of monotony, and tired of being afraid. Afraid of taking risks, of putting myself out there, even of speaking my mind. My voice has gotten more and more silent this past year. But fear is debilitating; it exhausts me as much as repetitive boredom. Everyone says take risks. It's so easy to see that that's my only real choice in life, lest I amount to nothing.

Easy to see it, yes, but not easy to do something about it.

This feeling of an abyss in front of me began when I graduated college. I thought, "Shit. Now I have to make decisions that will affect me for the rest of my life. I have to be in the real world, find a job that I enjoy, and am qualified for" (which is about as easy as fitting a grapefruit into a gerbil's mouth. Yes, I made that up just now).

I no longer look forward to the future. I dwell on happy memories, and fantasies. That's it. The idea of planning my future makes me almost nauseous. I know I'm gonna have to wake up and do something about it eventually.

Listen as the wind blows
From across the great divide.
Voices trapped in yearning,
Memories trapped in time.
The night is my companion
And solitude my guide
Would I spend forever here
And not be satisfied?....

Into this night I wander
Its morning that I dread
Another day of knowing of
The path I fear to tread.
Into this sea of waking dreams
I follow without pride....

Yeah, I know, I'm leaving out the last line. But that line reeks of passion and self-determination.

Cause nothing stands between us here
And I won’t be denied.
—Sarah McLachlan

Wait...um...

A big-budget movie about prehistory is about to come out, in March of 2008! It's called 10,000 BC. I just have a few questions...

1. Why isn't it called "10,000 BCE?" For all those who sneer at "PC" terms, let me explain. It is one thing to call an old person "chronologically advanced," since the word "old" means the same thing. It is another thing to call a black person a "nigger." Oh, but PC is stupid! So go on, call them the "N" word. There's nothing really wrong with that, right?

As for "BC" and "BCE," the two mean two different things. "BC" is based on Christianity. Although we have been measuring time this way for a while, it is time to start calling it "Before the Common Era," because frankly, using what we know now about the New Testament, Christ would have been born in 4 AD anyway (that is, if he existed at all). On IMDB, it says that it's called "BC" because "Christians find BCE offensive." Talk about being PC! What about the rest of the population on Earth, you don't think any of them find BC offensive? There are a lot of minority groups who get offended every day, but we're protecting Christians. Riiiiiiight.

2. Seriously, 10,000 BCE?! I don't think so. It refers to an "empire." There were no empires before the agricultural revolution, in 8,000 BCE. Sumer would have existed, using the most liberal estimates, around 8,500 BCE, though most scholars put it closer to 4,000 BCE.

3. Woolly mammoths in Africa? Think evolution. Wool + arid climate = ...disaster, anyone? That's all I have to say about that.

4. What's up with the wars and the "good vs. evil" bullshit? The polarizing concept of "good vs. evil" is fairly new, compared to human history. In 10,000 BCE, populations were not large enough to have full-fledged warfare, and hunter-gatherers made up the majority of the world. Hunter-gatherers live in egalitarian bands. They're not known for their warlike-ness.



So, another movie filmed partially in New Zealand. New Zealand is the place, if you're looking for large, uninhabited scenery. Hmm...maybe woolly mammoths lived in New Zealand. Yeah...

Imagine getting an email with the following subject line: "Ship Child Staircase Clock Dress." Wouldn't you be dying to read it?!

I have the good luck not to get very much spam, especially those ones with really bizarre subject headings. But my father does, and he allowed me to write down a few of my favourites, which I will now share with you.

Car-Race Television Fungus Chess Board Slave Egg Triangle

Come of specialty farm. and roses chefs

Balloon Sphere Shower Tiger Treadmill Snail Bible

Maze Baby Ice Bomb Star Electricity Record

Skeleton

Game Passport Map Dung Leg Rope Mosquito


Man, this is making me think of David Bowie. I should send him some of these ;)

The people who will make a positive difference in this world are intuitive, innovative and care about this world. They do not dismiss compassion and optimism as "bleeding-heart idealism." They are aware of their faults; of their prejudices, hypocrisies, and fears. And they try very hard to be less hypocritical and prejudiced, while acknowledging that some of those faults will always exist.

The most important thing is to admit that we're human. Then we must step back and think about what it means to be human. It means we are capable of terrible horrors and great wonders; of infinite stupidity and astonishing brilliance; of hideous destruction and breathtaking beauty. If we take into account that we make up the grey areas of every spectrum, we will understand this: reality is not merely dualism, but also what is in between each pair of extremes. We can no longer simply label each other as "evil," "good," "patriotic," and "terrorists." Or we will lose sense of ourselves, and our kinship with each other.

It's a bird, it's a plane...



Yeah, I know two different superhero references.

Apparently, LiveJournal decided that they would cut off my entry, so here's the rest:

And if you want to listen to the Evanescence version:



There doesn't seem to be an actual music video for it, which makes me sad.

If anyone knows how I could find free piano sheet music for the original Mozart version, it would be most appreciated!

I have recently become obsessed with Mozart's "Lacrymosa" from his "Requiem" piece. I can't find the piano version that I so desperately want for free! It's so annoying.

I tried translating the latin into English with online translators and dictionaries, but they kept getting stuck on the same things. "Lacrymosa," which even I know means "tearful" ("lagrimas" in Spanish means "tears"), can't be translated according to those stupid programmes. Neither can the word "resurget," which I believe means "arise."

Lacrimosa dies illa,
Qua resurget ex favilla,
Judicandus homo reus:
Huic ergo parce Deus
Pie Jesu domine,
Dona eis requiem. amen.

It's quite Biblical, and since I don't like the translation that's been taken for granted, I was hoping to translate it word for word and come up with my own parallel meaning. You may be able to figure out my views on Christianity by looking at the icon for this entry ;)

That day of tears and mourning,
When from the ashes shall arise,
All humanity to be judged.
Spare us by your mercy, lord,
Gentle lord jesus,
Grant them eternal rest. amen.

I was introduced to it by Evanescence, who by the way does a beautiful version of the piece, regardless of what classical snobs say. As someone who has been playing classical piano pieces since I was eight years old, I believe I know what I'm talking about.

This is the version I want:



And if you want to listen to the Evanescence version: