Every Song Ends, is That Any Reason Not To Enjoy the Music?

Wish this was still alive on my wall

Summer

Just doesn't make me want to grow up.

So much time.

To waste.

I love summer.

SummerStage

So, since last August, I had been looking for internships and jobs. I had been looking in all the wrong departments. I was searching to work in a lab or a record label or something huge. And suddenly, someone mentioned something about Summerstage volunteering in Central Park and I realized that the best things don't need searching. This volunteering job came to me and it is actually so amazing. Listening to free music and just hanging out with people who are all there for the same reason: music...it's just amazing.

Childish Gambino - Outside

City Parks Foundation » Alabama Shakes / Diamond Rugs / Robert Ellis

City Parks Foundation » Alabama Shakes / Diamond Rugs / Robert Ellis

Working at this concert!
Come watch

This is probably going to get quoted in every publication just because I said it. And I’m not even saying anything. I’m not talking about my films, I’m not talking about my life, and I’m not talking about the world. And yet, the media will print it simply because I said it. And at this moment in time, I bet there is an artist around the corner of this hotel, on the street, with a mind far beyond ours, but we will never listen to him simply because he has not appeared in a movie. And that is what is fucked up about our culture.

- Robert Downey Jr. 

Juanes

"Tu piel tiene el color de un rojo atardecer
Y es por ti
que late mi corazón
Y es por ti
que brillan mis ojos hoy
Y es por ti
Que he vuelto a hablar de amor
Y es por ti
Que calma mi dolor
y cada vez que te busco."

The Road Not Taken

For some reason, no matter how cliché this poem may be, I will always end up coming back to it. Not only is it now going to take over my life seeing as a majority of my extended essay is going to be on it, but I felt like I had to write/share what this poem seems to convey.

The Road not Taken seems to be about a man that has to choose between two paths that lay before him. He ends up choosing one in the end and teaches us that the road he took was worth everything he has now. Yet, what I learned this year was that the poem is a trick. It ends with a hopeful finish..."And that has made all the difference." But, what Robert Frost apparently really wanted to say was...how will you ever know that the path you took is as great as you make it out to seem if you never took the other path to compare it to? Is the life you chose really everything you think it is? Have you really reached your true potential? 

I guess that this poem really slapped me in the face. When I envision poetry, I envision it as a soliloquy of our souls...it is just our words and our most inner thoughts being compressed into the most beautiful of all words. The Road not Taken does everything but that. It is coated with the most supernatural imagery and the most incredible of all metaphors and beneath it all, it's just like..."You can hide yourself with all this beauty but face it, life is not all that we make it out to be." So, ever since I really understood this poem, I started to become allured by all poems and novels and even songs that slapped me in the face with realism. 

Through poems like the Road not Taken, I came up with a final thesis for my extended essay: The division that Robert Frost creates between mankind and nature. For the first time in a while, I'm finally inspired to write.

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;	5
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,	10
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.	15
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.	20

I'll make it my duty to capture every single 4th of July
Because I've just come to realize that it is actually just my favorite holiday

"We are only beginning to learn what to say in a photograph. The world we live in is a succession of fleeting moments, any one which might say something significant." - Alfred Eisenstaedt

The Killers - Joy ride (Album Version)

Things I miss about my childhood

Tamagotchi
I remember the phase when everybody had one of these.
Everyone would walk around and face the red beams at each other.
Now, apparently, they can barely fit in your palm. 

Moon Boots.
I don't know why. But these shoes were actually in style at one point.
So many young girls would wear them.
The boots were 3x their legs. 

Cardboard Robots.
This is a memory that probably only pertains to me.
Considering I'm an only child,  I had to find ways to entertain myself when I was bored.
I really liked to make creative things and so, cardboard robots, I found, were fun to make.

Mr. Sketch Scented Markers
My dad would get me these almost every month.
They smelled amazing. Each color smelled of a different fruit.
Still find them lying around my house sometimes.

Ring Pops. 
Ring pops, along with Baby Bottle Pops, were raging in the market at one point.
As kids, a lot of us would "propose" to each other with them.
Most portable/convenient candy ever. 

The Wild Thornberries.
Finally, this one is definitely the most missed.
The Wild Thornberries was on every single day on nickelodeon and it was my absolute favorite show.
After it stopped running, The Wild Thornberies movie came out and then the Rugrats crossover.
But, the show never came back, regardless of its popularity.

Mama Says

She wakes up singing
Like a bird, she whistles until the cheek skin chafes
And she rises with the palpitating sun
Falls back with the lullabies of the moon
The melodies pumping inside her head
Racing, racing, racing--
Mama says, she turns her lights out with the voices of the comets

Rock and Roll Queen - The Subways

If only this song didn't have screamo...

Like Crazy - Official Trailer [HD]

Frida blogged this.
Felt like it was worth blogging as well.

God

So I've been studying philosophy for my upcoming exams next week and reviewing philosophy of religion has really stirred old emotions towards the topic. Let me just start off by saying that it was probably one of my favorite units that I've ever studied, regardless of the subject. I've never really been one to follow religion. However, studying this in class made me realize a lot of things. Firstly, I realized what my idea of God really is. And secondly, I've realized what I fear. 

Freud described the concept of god by using children as examples. As small infants, we believed that our parents were all powerful and we felt helpless in front of them. We didn't really know what was right from wrong and thus, we relied on them to guide us. I guess, that my concept of god is somewhat the same. When I was younger, they were my version of god. I really expected them to show me all the routes to take. Now that I am older, they have not really outgrown or should I say, I--have not really outgrown the idea of them being god to me. They are still the people that I accomplish things for and who I turn to for guidance. Yet, it would be naïve of me to say that they are all I will work for in life. I'd like to believe that there is something out there or "up" there if I were to be cliché that is bigger, greater, stronger than us. Everyday I see small children wearing torn up clothes and old men and women that are laying on the streets with their eyes barely open begging for just a coin to get them through the day. There has to be something better than all of this, there has to be something better than what this world is. I'm not saying that I believe in a god, but I believe in what people define to be god--"perfection." I guess I believe in perfection. I believe that perhaps there is something grander that guides us and for me, that is the idea of perfection. Without perfection, I don't think I could actually wake up every morning and do what I do everyday, it simply gives me strength. God, in my opinion, is not some kind of giant human or a supernatural being that is standing over our shoulders granting us our wishes and watching over us. God is simply a concept. For me, God is not perfection, Perfection is God. 

Now, the second part that we studied in the religion unit was the problem of evil. The problem of evil is that it ultimately contradicts what monotheistic religions make out god to be. He is defined as some supernatural being that is all mighty, all benevolent, all well--perfect. The problem with evil is that it completely goes against that. If god created this world, then did he implant this evil too? Why would he do that? But, if there is evil in this world and god is meant to have created a purely perfect world, then does he not exist? Does he just not care enough? I, personally don't care about god and the evil in this world, whatever. I think that we just defined good and evil wrong. I think that for perfection to exist, there must be imperfection as well. Now, what I've realized that I fear is that there is nothing good out there. I want to see if there's something better than what I witness every single day. If god, or at least my definition of god, doesn't exist, then what am I striving for everyday?

Graduation of 2012

So, yesterday I went to the graduation of the 2012 class (one more year till I graduate!!). The student speaker was someone that seemed so together as a person. She had developed two sides: her humorous one and her purely mature and sensitive one. One of the things that stood out to me in her speech was about success. (I recorded it on my camera)

"But, I do hope that these are some of the most important years of your life. These past four years have helped us become more mature. They have helped us decide who we are and helped us decide who we want to be. And as a result, we leave UNIS different, older, and wiser people then we once were. And if there is one thing UNIS has taught me, it is how to measure success. Success is not measured by how much money you have or how many cars you collect, or anything like that. There are some people in this world that have all those things and still wake up in the morning wondering if their lives are worth living. Success is when you wake up every day happy."