Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Marina's LiveJournal:

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Wednesday, August 8th, 2007
8:25 am	I am alive and posting again...though not here. For updates on my random thoughts/happenings go to marinabythesea.blogspot.com . (Comment on this)
Tuesday, July 25th, 2006
10:29 pm	It's amazing how a few words from a freind can just make you suddenly feel better. Something as simple as a joke can make a really shitty day seem pretty awsome. Just taking stalk of life's tiny blessings...while a bit tipsy. What the hell...It's my last week in Philly! (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, July 24th, 2006
3:32 pm	Gripes Gripe 1: Class gap Depite that I have always been and will forever remain a proponent of scientific advancement, this kind of thing just makes me angry. How can some people spend $35 million to spend a few days in spacae when hundereds of kids in the Israili and Lebanese refuge camps could be fed and clothed with just a fraction of that money. http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/07/24/spacewalk.for.sale.ap/index.html Gripe 2: The Democracy has a king? For any of you with illusions that we still live in a democracy. It's a tyrany perpetuated so well but the beuracracy of the government, the incredibly obsolete electoral votes system, and politics of interest that have currently resuted in the Big Brother always watching via the Patriot Act and similar legislation. http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/07/24/lawyers.bush.ap/index.html Current Mood: aggravated Current Music: Someone in lab grinding up mouse tissue... (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, July 22nd, 2006
6:02 pm	Cliches The human heart is incredibly resiliant. Some of you may say its girly of me, but two months ago I didn't think I could meet someone else who inspired in me the kind of love I had for him. No matter how cliche this fear was, it was real because I did genuinely love. The past two months haven't been easy because I was forced to deal with heartbreak while thousands of miles from the support of my freinds and family...because I had to learn to live in a new city that exposed me to challenges much harder to overcome than learning the layout of new streets...because I had to, for the first time in my life, learn to be by myself. Times like these force you to look into yourself, examine who you are, look at things with a completely different perspective, and very often realise that there are things you don't like about yourself. That realization is difficult, but often vital. I have always prided myself on making all of my life decisions rationally and yet I had somehow managed to plan out my future based on one person. In fact, I came to Philly indirectly because of him. But despite the fact that I made the choice to come here for the wrong reasons I'm grateful that I did. When I walked accross that stage in the Greek Theater in May I was unsure of everything...What carrer do I pick? Which of the freinds that I have made will remain with me for a lifetime and which will I loose the second college is over? Where do I belong in society or in a relationship? I felt incredibly alone and uncertain, which is probably why I attepted to cling to this image of "us" that was never a reality. I wanted something that was certain in my life and in my despiration I somehow made that something him. Two months have passed since the night he told me that he wasn't going to be that something for me...that he couldn't and I'm happy that he did. That rejection somehow forced me to become the girl I had let go of...to stand on my two feet and take charge. I made the mistake of confusing love with helplessness. It was ridiculous to ask this of him because, fundamentally he's just as young and possibly unsure of his future as I am. We never know why suddenly we love others so unquestioningly. Eric loved me that way. A love that I never returned, which caused him a whole lot of misery especially after I told him I loved someone else when he offered up heart, his future to me. Not loving him doesn't make me a bad person. As much as I tried I just couldn't. As we all know life enjoys a good dose of irony...it seems that I learned exactly what Eric was going through just a year later. It took me some time to realise that it's not me or him...but wheather it be hormones or something else, but he just didn't feel for me what I felt for him and that is alright. In the end, maybe we all need a heartbreak to realise exactly what we are looking for in life. I would some day like to spend my life with a man/woman I love. I want children and a more or less conventional family. But I'm my own person. I may be intimidating to some guys, unatractive to others, or plain weird for a lot of them, but I don't need many guys...I need one. And life is too short to wait for him or go looking for him. Eventually he will come along and if he doesn't life is amazing enough to enjoy it in other ways. A character in an incredibly silly movie once said "Don't go looking for Mr. Right. Look for Mr. Right Now and if it really works the NOW part will fall away all by itself." So maybe I should thank him for being that influence in my life that put me in a place where I realised how much I really do love science, for realising that eventhough I'm currently far away from my freinds they won't dissapear and will be there for me whatever the distance between us, and also for realising that I am enough for my own happiness. I don't need someone else to fill that void, because if I'm trully happy with myself there will not be a void at all and that someone else will simply complement me. In a week I leave Philly a stronger person that the scared girl that came here. I don't know if we ever really stop loving someone, but maybe getting over a love is simply opening our hearts wider to make space for another one. I no longer day dream of a future together or feel a pinch in my heart when I see guys who look like him. I thought that if he and I didn't give "us" a try I would forever regret it, but I don't. Life doesn't end at 21...or even 30 or 55. Yes, I loved and it didn't happen, but I know just a little bit better what I do want and will hopefully never make the mistake of being the weak, clingy, female that doesn't see a life without that big strong man she has mushi feelings for. My life forever the cliche: What doesn't kill you really does make you stronger. Current Mood: content Current Music: "Everybody's Changing" - Keane (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, July 19th, 2006
3:02 pm	Dilemma I've been looking at grad schools today during the incubation times in my experiments and let me share this fact...I AM SOOO FREAKED OUT! The majority of the really well rated schools in my field are either places I will shoot myself before going there because they are so insanely competative (Berkeley undergrad was plenty...thank you very much. I have payed my debt to society...NEVA AGAIN!) or are in places I would not want to live in for the next 4-7 years of my life. On the other hand, I know I'm a decent applicant and I want to go to a school that will not only challenge me but provide me with the amazing resources I have seen at Penn, which would make research just soooo much easier. Current Mood: confused Current Music: My officemate's mutterings over his code not working out. (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, July 15th, 2006
3:11 pm	Passion = Hypocracy? It's Saturday and I sit working in lab (or taking a break currently). Despite the fact that it's the weekend, I don't mind being here because for the first time in a long time I feel like I'm actually part of a lab. Up until now I have always been "the undergrad", which in essence was true but out of 3 labs I have worked in until this one in 2 of them I was treated with complete lack of respect. In the Portnoy (Berkeley) and Lin labs (Harvard) the fact that I lacked a degree on par with other in lab basically meant that I had to be unable to process any kind of information and was unable to perform even the simplest analytical tasks. This resulted in me either being used to perform repetative manual labor or the giving me of the now infamous project that was not supposed to work and then yelling at me for failing to do something two grad students have failed to do before me (my thesis project for MCB). So basically for two years I either had people explaining remedial tasks to me as if I was retarded, using me to perform only remedial procedures (ones that my limited mind could handle so that I wouldn't fuck up) over and over and over and over again until any brain cells that I actually did possess atrophied from boredom, or then giving me a project with no possible chance of success and then demeaning me for not getting any actual results. For me this summer was my last chance to see if science was really for me. If this experience had been a dejavu of the preivious two years of my life, I would applied to Teach for America after Denmark, did that or some similar kind of nonprofit work for 2 years, and then continued school either through a Public Health degree or Law School. But it seems that again, it's impossible to plan life. I love my lab! Yes there are petty people who will both passivly and actively sabotage those that appear to be doing better than them, but for the first time I am suddenly an equal. I'm running my own project, proposing hypothesis to a PI (primary investigator...basically the Proff that runs the lab) who actually listens, and getting results that could, even on a small level, effect the understanding of stomach development. IT'S AWSOME!!! Whether the gruelling training of 4 years at Berkeley has finally kicked in or my Bachelors actually gives me new found confidence in my scientific knowledge...or maybe this lab is just a better environment...but suddenly I'm excited to be at work. I read journal articles, talk "shop" over lunch, and come in on Saturdays. I am a scientist...an equal. However, what do I do now? Do I apply to grad school after Denmark and scram the whole idea of giving back to a clearly flawed society that propels certain individuals to the top purely based on the accident of birth and prevents others from achieving their potential because they were born on the wrong side of the tracks (in Philly this is actually a literal issue)? If I was to apply next fall I would get better recomendations, will be a better applicant I wouldn't have "wasted" 2 years of my life outside of the science field, and those connections that I have made will be fresher and potentially more useful because as much as we don't want to believe it - success in this world is much more who you know than what you know. Thus, without question if I was to apply in a year I would get into a significantly better program than if I wait two years and apply during my second year of Teach for America. Yet, does this make me a hypocrite for preaching social awareness and then forgoing it in favor of personal achievement. A year ago, I was convinced that I was not passionate for science and was planning on not persuing it as a carreer, but after this summer I feel that maybe this is really something I can do. I like it. I'm good at it. It exicites me. Whatever I may think of Philly, I genuinly enjoy my work here. Could I have found my calling? But how can I one day attend grad school here without helping those around me when the grad school stands in the middle of the West Philly ghetto? Can I live with myself? And more importantly, did my origianal motivation to help those around me come from the desire to help or guilt that I have always known that I was blessed with more? Kind of a scary thought... Current Mood: confused Current Music: The rain outside...yes again! (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, July 12th, 2006
5:38 pm	Pink Eye! I got pink-eye from a mouse! This blows major balls because eventhough I feel fine I was banned from my lab for two days and have to be bored at home since I'm really contageous! So apparently now I catch diseases from rodents, I'm not getting payed for the next two days, and I have to sit at home with my white supremisist roomate for two days! GRRRRRR!!! I'm soooooooo overdue for good charma right about now! Current Mood: aggravated (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, July 9th, 2006
9:26 am	Yo Yo! In the spirit of remembering last year I would like to share a very special and particularly annoying song: You take the high road And I'll take the low road And I'll be in Scotland before ye But never will I see my true love again On the bonnie bonnie banks of Loch Lommond I will forever love the person who will find me the music to this song....anyone? anyone? Elliot? ;-) Other recommendations on the music front: BLOODHOUND GANG!!! Their music, their videos...sooooo good and dirty!!! Also, go all watch the new Pirates of the Carribean movie. It's hillarious! Though I think that Kristin and I were the only ones that were laughing every few min. The people around us appeared to be watching a serious movie...silly silly! And even if you don't find hillarious - Johnny Depp is soooooooooo beautiful and in this movie develops an unatural obsession with a jar of dirt! To find out more...go watch! Off to Brighton Beach to watch the World Cup finally and hang out with thousands of Russians...I hear no one speaks English there! Current Mood: bouncy Current Music: Ballad of Chasye Lane - Bloodhound Gang (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, July 4th, 2006
9:38 am	9:38 am...Just woke up - STILL DRUNK!!! WOOHOO! (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, June 29th, 2006
11:33 pm	Social education Hate is a scary thing. It's one of the fundamental emotions - Love, Hate, Fear, Happiness, Dispair...we all experience them to some extent. Yet I have never in my entire 21.5 years come into contact with such pure and deep rooted fear and hatered as I have in the past few days. Growing up in California...in the Bay Area, which is mostly a hub of politically correct liberalism where intracial marriages are common and sexual diversity is celebrated or at least accepted. I have never felt especially radical or openminded for having freinds with skin color of every possible shade and orietations that fall at practically every point on the spectrum of sexuality. In high school most of my friends were asian and side from having to learn to use chopsticks, I never felt there was a tremendous difference between us. In college, most of my freinds are gay men and again when I look at them I do not see "gay" or "queer" or "queen". I see Brandon, Will, Steve, Jimmy... Yes they date people of the same sex, but then again so do I on occasion. There's nothing frightening or threatening about them. They are just people searching for the same thing we all do...companionship, love, personal and proffesional success, fullment. They play sports, watch silly TV shows, get moody, and laugh at each other. Yet the rest of the country sees them as attacking the fundamentals of a "normal" hetero relationship, attacking the intitution of marriage, corrupting the minds of our children. Yet a question none of those attacking the gay community has answered - How are the gays doing all this? Some even view homosexuality as a disease...a serious mental illness to be cured only using such extreme and horrible remedies like shock therapy or a lobotomy. If, however, those don't work...some recommend simply shotting the gay to rid society of this spreading illness because AIDS is clearly not doing the job fast enough. It's beyond me how people can hate like that. I have known Brandon for 4 years, over which he became my family. How can someone want to hurt the boy who held me when I cried, cheared me up when I was lonely...a boy who sat so frightened and brave on my couch a year and a half ago and told me "Marina...I think I'm gay". I myself do not feel "wrong" when I'm with a woman. I feel nervous, excited, turned on, hopeful...all those things that "normal" straight people feel when they are with someone they attracted to or care about. My feelings are natural and should not be suppressed. Yet, so many people would prevent me and my freinds from expressing our commitments by getting married to the people we love. How is it that if I was to marry a man it is suddenly right, but marrying a woman is wrong? I am not mentally ill and would even be inclined to say that those who think me so are the ill ones. However, I do not understand the hate... Do they fear that by wanting to express our sexuality we will infect them? Does our liberation threaten their suppression? If a woman can't get an orgasm with her man, does that mean orgasms are impossible or wrong? Are they afraid that if they tried letting go of thier inhibitions, they may like it? Like it enough to keep doing it? Shockingly, coming here I was more aware of the extent of hate toward the homosexual population than I was toward people of color. Never before have I encountered such blatent racism. Over the past few days I have heard justifications of slavery, a desire to throw all minorities out of this country of "normal" white people, as well as a declaration that there's apparently some sort of scientific proof that supports a misguided myth that black people's brains are apparently inferior to whites' brains which is why black people are fundamentally dumber and their subsequent poverty is a simple result of their inferior brain function. To say that I was stunned is an understatment. I never knew people like this existed...I have heard of such things but I felt that this sort of rationalle died during the Civil Rights Movement. Apparently not. It seems that I know shockingly little about racism. Yes I lived in West Oakland, but I was young and have a vague recollection of the taunts made about my pale complection...also, I didn't actauly speak much English at the time. Still, when I look at a person their race has about as much impact on me as eye or hair color. Elliot is white, Juhi is brown, I am so white I'm usually pink, Frank is black, Camie is yellow, and, last Halloween, Brandon was blue. Pick a color...we got it. When we look at each other we see people, who are very different but our differences lie in our outlooks on life, carreer goals, or nationalities...the shade of skin we were born with does not define us. Brandon likes Asian boys, Juhi likes Russian men, I tend to enjoy variety. We don't judge each other or even care what race we are and what race our partners are. Chances are Brandon, Juhi, and I will all end up in inter-racial relationships. The only result of that will be a wider variety of food at our dinner tables. Yet here I have met people who fear the blacks, dislike the asians, and look down on the Latin population. They do not even see people of race as humans, but rather a higher form of animal that will either rape them, push them aside to get ahead, or steel things from them. Living in West Philly, which is mostly very poor and about 99% black, once you get away from the private school campuses of Drexel and Penn, it has been a culture shock. I have never felt this white or realised the chasm that often exists between the races. This chasm is highlighted both by white people who appear to hate the blacks simply becasue they don't understand them and stereotype them as criminals and by black people who respond to this white racism with a racism of thier own. Neither side is helping the situation, but it is the white supremisists that are making it as intense as it appears here. Blacks here appear to be angrily weary of whites, though what else could we expect if some members of "our race" have told some of them "to go to the back of the bus, where they belong"... Some of the most inteligent, hard working, caring individuals I have in my life are people of color...all colors, yet it seems that here that kind of freinship is shocking and wrong to many whites...as wrong as that disease of homosexulaity. It sadnes and scares me because I am no longer in safe haven of California where I could walk hand in hand with either a woman or a black man and feel completely accepted and even welcome. I have been told of such racism and narrowmindeness, but frankly never believed it to be true. Fear is a powerful emotion and if made powerful enough, this fear breads hate. And hate tends to perpetuate itself. I have graduated from college, and yet only now am I getting a social education. This education is a lot harder to stomach than one where I had exams and labs to deal with. Current Mood: disappointed (Comment on this)
Tuesday, June 27th, 2006
10:37 am	Something to remember when dating black men in Philly: Make absolultely sure they do NOT have children because even if they are 21 and single they often still have one or two "accidents" hanging around. Current Mood: amused (9 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, June 26th, 2006
6:07 pm	UKRAINE ROCKS!!! UKRAINE WON! THE CRAZIEST GAME EVER!!! 0:0 tie all through the game and through all 30 minutes of the overtime (almost never do you see overtime go that long in futball!) and then 3 penalty goals Ukraine and no goals Switzarland! WOW!!! This is just soooo amazing! My whole family is going crazy right now as we call each other from different parts of the world! YES! Current Mood: ecstatic (5 Comments |Comment on this)
5:03 pm	Memories It's interesting that I have been remembering more of last summer in the past few days than I have in the past 9 months...I get these flashbacks when I'm analyzing data or taking pictures of mutant stomachs after immunohistochemistry. These tasks, when done enough times, become simply a monotone repetition of the hand and it is then, when my mind drifts, that I remember. Little things he said...a walk in the downs...the look in his eyes...things I thought I had forgotten, but things that had apparently just burried themselves in the back of my memorry and now are coming back. It appears my mind is making a story...now that the ending is clear, it's formulating a cohensive set of memories. Or possibly my subconscience is letting me look at last summer again and feel all that I felt then, only to close the door on this part of my life. Is this part of moving on? Healing? Or simply rehashing what can never be and stupidly letting me cling on to the memories? Current Mood: contemplative Current Music: The rain...it will never stop...never ever... (3 Comments |Comment on this)
12:21 pm	Summers in the Northeast The calendar tells me it summer, but I wouldn't know that by looking out the window. About 2/3 of the 5 weeks that I have been here it has...rained, stormed, thundered, lightninged (not sure that's a word...). This morning I woke up to a downpour so strong that I could barely see the other dorm which is only a few hundred yards away from my building. To my utter joy I had forgotten my umbrella in Jersey at Kristin's plaace three weeks ago and despite seeing her every few days I have yet to get it back. Thus, I had to waddle to school in the pouring rain, hoping that the plastic bag that I covered my laptop inside my backback would hold out against the rain. Upon getting to work I had to experience the joy of having my jeans, shirt, bra, underwear, socks and shoes dry on my person while I had to sit through an incredibly dull meeting on why exactly some machine in our lab does not work. Currently I am planing out the best way to get lunch and not get soaked again, which will take me twice as long because I have to walk through the maze that is the conglomiration of Penn-affiliated Hospitols. However, to put things in perspective, at least it's not as bad here as it is in DC where large chunks of the city are flooded and daily activity has pretty much come to a halt. Once again - YAY Northeastern Summer YAY! Current Music: The rain...thankfully outside (Comment on this)
Wednesday, June 21st, 2006
8:11 pm	Safety! Current police update: 14 armed cops, 5 police cars, 3 campus security...all within 100 yards of my dorm. How safe do I feel now?!?! (9 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, June 14th, 2006
10:57 pm	NOOOOOOOOO!!!! Ukraine lost to Spain 0:4. It was pathetic, devastating, and depressing at the same time! The only things that rediems this loss just a bit is that the Russian team didn't even qualify for the World Cup! Take that! (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, June 9th, 2006
10:20 am	This morning I found that yesterday that a freind of mine from Middle School died yesterday from a rock-climbing accident. Despite the fact that I haven't really spoken to him to him in the past 4 years, I sat there in shock. When a friend of mine told me this morning, everything I said and felt sounded so utterly hollow and cliche. All morning I've been numb, watching myself work but not really registering what was actually happening. I've been around death before, somewhat frequently during certain parts of my life, but somehow every time it happends to a person we know....we feel the same surprized shock, disbelief, and wonder how could this possibly happen to someone so young... It seems that just a few days after graduating from college, Nick went rock climbing to Mt. Diablo. After falling 52 feet, he was pronounced brain dead that afternoon at John Muir Hospital. That's it...so quite and simple. No one noticed, but the brooding kid from my Algebra class was no longer around... (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, June 7th, 2006
11:28 pm	...and for everything else you have Mastercard! Solving mouse problem a Penn dorm...a few mousetraps provided by Penn housekeeping. Killing 16 mice for RNA extraction and pathway signaling experiments...3 hours of time and a loss of appetite. Ability to be freinds with someone one was intimate with...Priceless. Today has been an odd day. It started around 11pm the previous evening when my roomate Kalyca called me to let me know, in a very high pitched voice, that we had mice. After discovering that part of her wall was indeed hollow and attempting to stuff plastic bags into all obvious mouse holes (creativity was indeed lacking at that late hour), I returned to my own only to witness two gray mice of my own exploring the inside of my shoes...GROSS!!! After a restless night of both Kalyca and I succumbing to intense paranoia, which resulted in us frequently waking up to mice scratching in our walls it was off to work by 8 am. True to my luck, however, every available door to the lab was locked and instead of starting the experiment I had woken up at 7 am to do, I ended up sitting in the freezing lounge and analyzing data until lab members started showing up. Of course at that point I had missed my assigned time with the Q-PCR machine, which meant I had to stay until almost 7 pm to finish up..and anyone who knows me even a little will remember how incredibly cranky I get after 11 hours of work. The day continued with me having to walk, in the pouring rain (of course), to the opposite side of campus only to be told that my ID card was perfectly active and that someone just accidentally pressed the wrong button (due to Penn's insanely high security measures I need the ID to get into my dorm and a week ago it was deactivated for no apparent reason)...yay for beauracracy! The day culminated with me using one of the cruelest methods imaginable to murder 16 mice because it seems that my lab had run out of the drug used to put mice to sleep before the actual breaking of the spine, but since data needed to be collected mice had to die...humanely or not. Still despite all of these minor annoyances, the thought that bothered me all day was "Can one really be freinds with someone one was intimate with?"...really freinds, not just "we kinda talk, but really I want him to hurt as much as he hurm me" mentality that many of my sex addopt. From personal experience, I have not managed to remain close freinds with any of my non-gay intimate past involvements. Every intimate connection (I don't want to use "relationship" here because not all of my "significant" experiences have been with people I was "official" with) that ends does so for a reason and that reason is rarely pleasant. So not only do the two people have to get over that reason but they have to ignore the very basis of why they were together...be it sex or some other form of physical intimacy, but if that intimacy was at all significant it's hard to replace it with the platonic "hey, I'm happy u're now intimate with someone else". Still the basis of any real freindship is honesty, which is exaclty the thing that is lacking in freinships between ex's and people who shared this physical intimacy. It's an odd place to be...you can talk and laugh, but somehow you're so very aware that the intimacy is gone and often knowing that the physical will never be prevents platonic intimacy. Elliot, Juhi, Lauren, Kim are all people I love deeply but they are also people I have never been physically intimate with and our intimacy is based solely on platonic closeness. The very immage of them in a sexual situation is a bit on the disturbing side. This is not the case with someone I have really "been" with. Somehow, despite the fact that Juhi and Kim and Lauren and Elliot know me so well they will never know the side of me that my lovers have seen. I don't know how to go from having myself so completely open to someone to pretending that this person suddenly doesn't know every side of me...but they do. There's something very powerful in sharing both your body and your soul...my platonic freinds know my soul, my hoock-ups got a glimplse or even an eye-full of my body...but the combination of the two is a very powerful and dangerous thing. On the primal level...its all about power. Sharing just a part of ourselves, allows us to keep a significant portion of that precious control and thus keep that power over ourselves. Sharing it all means surrendering that power to someone else and once given up, that power is hard to take back. It's always a risk when we give up this elusive power and a severing of physical intimacy forces us to retract to our basic instincts - protect ourselves, take back that power and keep it! From this we must conclude: Is the decision to remain freinds simply a form of masochism? Is it the ultimate illogical act because instead of severing that connection forever, we continue to tease ourselves with reminders of what we no longer have? If, however, one decides to take the optimistic track, who should make the effort? Should it be equal? Or should the person who did the rejecting make that step forward...show that the power they were entrusted with won't be misused? On a personal level, should I try...having taken the first...and then the second step I'm wondering if my faith has failed me once again. I'm a pretty forgiving person and I'm all for allowing people the benefit of the doubt, but should I try to keep him in my life even if the fundamental reason for why we ever attempted the sharade of friedns in the first place is gone forever? Should I ignore what happen? Or cut my losses, leave him in my past and one day hope that I will remember with fondness a boy I once loved, who gave me an amazing summer and who never really asnwered the questions I asked... Current Mood: indescribable Current Music: Mice scurrying in the walls :-( (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, June 6th, 2006
11:27 pm	GAY MARRIAGE = BAD BAD BAD!!! 10 Reasons Why Gay Marriage is Wrong: 1) Being gay is not natural. Real Americans always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning. 2) Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall. 3) Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven't adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans. 4) Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn't changed at all; women are still property, blacks still can't marry whites, and divorce is still illegal. 5) Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed; the sanctity of Brittany Spears' 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed. 6) Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn't be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren't full yet, and the world needs more children. 7) Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children. 8) Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That's why we have only one religion in America. 9) Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That's why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children. 10) Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract. Stolen from Oleg...if I knew more about computers I could just link you all to his post, but I don't so I use the dumby way - Copy and Paste! Current Mood: amused (3 Comments |Comment on this)
8:10 pm	Philly...oddly beautiful... I think we are luckiest when not only are we happy, but we are aware of the fact. So often we think of happiness in the past tense because while we are actually happy we are so wrapped up in the moment that we don't realize it. For so long I thought that this overwhelming, all incompassing happiness that forces us to live in the moment is the only kind that exists. Today, while running along the train tracks behind Drexel University, I realised there was also another kind of happy - the quite, content type when all of a sudden you can look out into the world with wonder and realize that, despite mundane struggles, life is an amazing thing. After Bay to Breakers, I decided to take up running and after only two weeks its become my drug. Confined to the small area of my lab, I work 8-10 hour days and I usually come home completely exhasted, but somehow putting on my running shoes and going for that run completely reenergises me. While I run, my mind is usually completely empty and I can concentrate on my brething, my feet hitting the ground, the people passing by me, the wind...It sounds cliche but running clears my head and keeps me objective. I try to run through the city, rather than keeping to the campus or the frats, which would probably be the safer choice. Over these runs I have realized that I don't hate Philly as I did my first few days here, and I even enjoy it. Philly is raw and honest. It's a place that doesn't hide its industrial past, its not-so-attractive neighborhoods, or its social problems behind the rhetoric of political correctness of San Francisco, behind the fast paced life of NYC, or the upscale culture and history of Boston. Instead, Philly proudly shows off its origins. Yes, that freight train passing over Drexel is not beautiful, but we don't live in a field of flowers and loving something doesn't require it to be physically beautiful. Somehow, being in Philly right now seems right because I am at a point in my life when I crave clarity and honestly. I don't care if something or someone is ugly...I just no longer want to pretend or wonder. Here everything is on the surface. I may not like the fact that the second I step off of campus I'm being judged purely based on the color of my skin and my form of dress, but at least I know what criteria are being used for this judgement. I did not like Philly at first...I hated it even. But like so many people, I hated what I was ignorant of. I didn't understand this city or how it worked and I probably still don't. But the second I stoped being afraid, the second I let my guard down a little I realized that all the smog and dust of constant construction simply throw a veil over other people, who like me may have ended up somewhere they did not plan but are trying to make the best of it. Small things, like giving a worried mother directions to the emergency room or chatting with an orderly in line for my sandwich, make me realize that I have a place here, however temporary. In Berkeley I had so much - amazing freinds, school that challenged me, family in close proximity, constant parties and entertainement. Yet it took me to travel thousands of miles to a place where only a week ago I knew exactly two people to realize how lucky I really was. I have a job that I enjoy, which actually pays the rent/food. I have freinds who will still be there after I come back from doing whatever it is I need to do right now. I have a supportive family, with whom I may fight but who will hug and comfort me when it really matters. Yes, things may not always go the way I want, but if they did I would probably never appreciate just how beautiful a train may be. Leaving my freinds two weeks ago left me doubtful. Would this be a repeat of high school? Will I loose contant with many of the people without whom I could not imagine life? Yet, after barely speaking in two years, Kristin and I fell back into our freindly banter and sarcasm when I saw her in Philly a week and a half ago. It seemed as if the time that we ran across the Charles River in the rain to buy beer was only a few weeks ago...everything seemed so easy. Somehow she reafirmed my faltering belief in freindship - maybe the connections I have with people are stronger than I give them credit for because after spending two years living completely different lives, we can't wait to hang out every weekend and I'm even going to her family's farm in Upstate New York this weekend. Granted her dragging me to a lesbain a capela performance in a Catholic Church on the Penn campus reminded us very clearly of all the crazy things we did in Boston. Right now I'm simply trying to understand this odd city of contradictions. A city in which both the Amish farmers and Indians in a Pow-wow can find their place....where the brutal unfainess and poverty of our society mixes so starkly with the wealth of those who keep this society in its status quo. In less than 30 minutes, I spoke to a man who takes home millions for his ground-breaking work in science and passed by teenagers being arrested for shotting at each other not half a block from my dorm. These are things we don't want to see because those of us who live comfortable lives of fufulment and actually have time for depression can't even imagine how it's like for those who don't know where their next loaf of bread is coming from. Somehow, my personal homesickness and heartbreak pale in comparison to what most of these people go through. When I got here I was afriad to run through thier neighborhood...today, I want to know thier story. There's not much I can do to help and many of them will probably respond to my offer with well-practiced hostility, but the fact that I am no longer afraid and even curious is a step, at least for me. Current Mood: calm Current Music: Rio - Duran Duran (1 Comment |Comment on this)