Wednesday, April 30, 2003

"Who Would Jesus Bomb?"

That was a bumper sticker I saw the other day when I was on my way home. Pretty powerful message, no? I thought so...

Anyway, I finally spoke to the nurse today to find the results of my throat culture and she said it was normal. Hunh? I thought I had strep? But, apparently, I didn't. She said something like it could have been some viral something or that it was or wasn't bacteria or whatever. I don't get that science mumbo-jumbo. Hehe. Anyways, she said whatever my deal was, my body must of resolved it itself, that it could have been allergies or whatever. Whatever... I feel better. I should be happy. And I am.

But now I gotta write papers. Boo... I don't wanna. :(

Oh, today I went to a mass in Arabic. This pastor of the Lebanon Maronite church said mass. It was done partially in English and Arabic. And what's cool about Maronite services is that there are parts in Aramaic. That's one of the important characteristics of Arab Christians. They carry on the traditions of the old churches. The Palestinians, for example, are, like, the descendants of the disciples of Christians. They have this continuity that some one like me can only be almost envious of. So, yeah, there were parts in an ancient language. The Bishop who presided over mass pointed out how they include in their services the actual language that Jesus spoke. Neat. And I thought the singing was nice. I wonder how it would be to really go to the mass completely in Arabic. Perhaps I'll go to one when I return to the Arab world one day. Until then, the Vietnamese mass I attended over a year ago was the best by far!

Anyhoo... I hope I get to meet this Puerto Rican hottie Friday. *crossing fingers* hehe... I should get back to research. Peace out, B's!

Tuesday, April 29, 2003

I overslept yesterday. I thought I had set my alarm for 10am. Enough time to study before I met with my class at 2:30 and do whatever else I had to do. I woke up several times throughout the morning, but I just kept going back to sleep thinking, "I'll just wake up when my alarm goes off." Well, when I finally did decided to "get up-get up," I saw that it was just about 2:30. D'oh! Usually, I can pull of a "out the door in 10 minutes" bit, but it just didn't work this time. I knew it was posta be hot, so I wanted to wear something different. And I just had trouble with the outfit I picked, but I was determined to wear it. So, I didn't leave the house until about an hour later. I got to class all late, missed everything. But I was there in time to fill out the evaluations, which is what the prof wanted.

Anyhoo... I'm still experimenting with fashion. I mean, I don't really have an extensive wardrobe, so, I can't really wear the things I want, but sometimes I try stuff... If I had money, I would re-vamp my wardrobe. And I don't have a particular style. Just like my music tastes, so are my tastes in clothes. Yesterday, I was more punk casual or something. And today, I don't know whatchoo call it, but it's attracting attention. Everyone's staring at me. I don't know what the girls are thinkin', but the blue-collared workers like it. Hehe... Walkin' down the street to campus: *honk honk* *woo woo* *hey hey* LoL... And this one guy was like, "When can I take you out to lunch?" or "What time you want to go to lunch?" Silly man.

I'm such a slacker... I'm just wastin' time. Should do some research. But I really don't feel like it... Hope I get to go somewhere this summer...

Sunday, April 27, 2003

Celebrity Sighting

Beautiful weather tonight. Sunny, breezy, cloudless. Went to campus today. Thought I'd try to get some work done then head to mass. I wanted to find a spot somewhere to plug into ethernet. But to no avail. Everybody was inside and outside. The white kids all sun-tanning everywhere. Wait just a few more years when they have skin cancer and saggy skin and sunspots all over. See if they think it was all worth it. If you are pigmentally challenged or melanin deficient, accept it! :-P

So, anyways, when I was walking to the library, there were chairs set up as if they were having commencement and a few cops and an ambulance (for just-in-case). This one police lady was directing people to walk around whatever was goin' on to get to the library. I was confused cuz we ain't done the semester yet, so I couldn't understand why they'd be having graduation right now or any kind of practice like this. As I was walking behind it all, at the top of the stairs of this one building to get to the graduation stage appeared a few figures and someone announcing the President of the United States and the president of the university. Well, whatever name the announced for the U.S. President, I was like, hunh? But I kept walking...

I was moving around and about on campus. Then I saw a flier on a bulletin board that was for a lottery to be an extra in the filming of the "West Wing" for today's date. So, then I figured it out. And that's why I didn't recognize the Prez's name. Hehe... And check this, I was like 15 feet away from Martin Sheen. They were allowin' some students to take pics with him. He's mad short. Wish I could've spoken to him, give him props for bein' the activist that he is. He's the man. :)

So, after mass, which was longer than usually because there were a few initiates (I don't know what they're called - the people who are formally becoming members of the Catholic Church. In other words, converts) and confirmation candidates there, I went to the shopping district to look around. I wanted to check this one shoe store, but it was closed. But I went into Urban Outfitters and this other store with punk kinda stuff. I'll hafta go back sometime. Figures I would decided to not bring my money and credit card, when I usually always have them on me. But that's okay. Maybe it was for the better. :-P

But anyways, now I'm home and waiting for the number one show on ABC to come on: "Alias." =) 25 more minutes.

Friday, April 25, 2003

"Idolater, your soul is required in hell!"

That was a quote from the 1991 film "New Jack City." I just now saw it for the very first time last night. Took me long enough. I usually find time for things I really don't have time for when I have lots of homework to do. It's one of my procrastination techniques. Heh... But yeah, this quote was said by the old man to Nino Brown. And I believe it's applicable to much of the Bush administration. :-P There were some murders in the film. But you know what? So were there in the city of my birth. Goodness, Washington is back at number one in terms of homicides. It's murder rate has increased, making it once again the Murder Capital of the World. What an honor, right? And damn, in my homestate of Maryland, Baltimore placed a lofty number three. Greeeattt.

But, ah... that's what America's all about. Then I'm reminded of all those people who say America is the greatest country in the world and I'm like, riiighht. The murderers are on a roll these days. In the D.C. Metropolitan area, while the President has his compound safely guarded, just short distances away, people are getting killed, there are homeless people loitering around, there are hookers. It just doesn't make sense. I think three people were shot at a playground in the suburbs of D.C. last week or so. And there was some other shooting at a tavern before then. And just over this weekend, I believe, a father killed his three sons and then himself. Then there was an attempted murder-suicide at a parking garage on the campus of College Park. And then another man kills his estranged wife and in-laws in the county where I grew up. What the fuck? I guess that's democracy for you. Every one can have their guns and are free to choose their victims. Man, I need to go see Michael Moore's "Bowling for Colombine" where I hear he talks about our gun problem.

I think I should become a Dixie Chicks fan. They were talking with Diane Sawyer last night. I can't believe the backlash they've received. Kinda makes me wanna go out and buy their records. I like to support people who've got something good to say. One of the members of the group recited a quote by ex-President Theodore Roosevelt: "To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public." (I also found this quote in an article, which is relevant to my views.) How is it that in this country, the KKK by law is allowed to "peacefully" protest knowing full well what they feel about your and my peoples, but the Dixie Chicks can't voice an opinion, on foreign soil, even, without getting harrassed. Something just ain't right.

Enough of that crap... I've got a soar throat. I hope I don't got the SARS. Syke. Went to the doctor's yesterday and he said my tonsils look terrible, my lymphs were swollen or whatever. And my temperature was a little high. Ninety-nine something. He did a throat culture, but I gotta wait 'til Monday to find the damn results. Dr. Walsh said it's probably Strep since I'm not exhibiting any of the other symptoms associated with cold viruses. But he also told me if it wasn't strep, the next thing they would check is to see if it's Mono. Ewww... I don't want it to be mono! That's the kissing disease, ain't it? Well, damn. That's probably how I got it. Note to self: beware of handsome, over-confident Dominican men. But dang - he knew he had it goin' on. LoL. Mmm... those Latinos. I think I'm in a Latino phase again. As much as I got love for the Middle Easterners and South Asians and stuff (haha - and "stuff"), I don't know... Latinos just have this... sabor! ¿Sabes? Hehe... My friend, Shireen, asked me, "What is up with you and Latin men?" I'm like, come on now - she GOT to know. Who isn't drawn, at least initially or for some kind of split second to a fine man? :-P And my girl, Nadine, when I was tellin' her about some Latino guys, she was like, Sheena, I can see you with an ethnic man; I can't picture you with anyone else. Hehe. Me neither! And there's that comment crackhead Tara made, "Look at your most recent track record. They've all been Ricky Ricardos." D'oh! Whatever. ¡Viva la Raza!

Monday, April 21, 2003

Happy Easter to the Western rite Christians! and next week for ya'll Eastern Orthodox peeps! :)

Kelly Clarkson on why she would never go the anorexic Hollywood route: “What? Don’t eat carbs? I’m gonna eat bread. Jesus ate bread. Eat bread! Shoot, I ain’t got this ghetto booty and big cheeks for nothin’.” Puwahaha. That made me laugh. I don't know how badly I misquoted her, but I saw that on one of them shows like ET or Access Hollywood or sumfin' last night.

I saw "Anger Management" with Tara and Taneka last Monday. It wasn't that good. I was rather disappointed with how stupid it was. And how there were idiots in the theatre laughing all hard, stompin' their feet during parts. It was really not all that funny. Wait for it to come out on TV to watch the subliminal messages in this film. They kept showin' this one billboard I swear was a recruitment for the Army. They even mentioned twice in the airplane scene that our country is going through a tough time. Hmph. We shoulda gone and seen "Bend it Like Beckham" or whatever it's called. I only heard that movie earlier that day from my translation professor and my Pakistani classmate cuz they were discussing it as we were on our way to visit this Arabic translator at the World Bank. Then I asked one of my other Pakistani friends if she'd seen the movie. She had and she said it was good. Wish I woulda gone and seen that one instead. Ah, well...

The next night, Tuesday, I went and saw the Afro-Cuban All Stars. Some may be familiar with the Buena Vista Social Club, a famous Cuban band. Well, a member of the BVSC started the ACAS. His name was something like Juan de Marcos Rodriguez. And the Afro-Cuban All Stars is an inter-generational band. It combines old and young members playing traditional music with contemporary innovations. It was cool. They played about 2 hours. The one guy who played the violin was cute. Most the girls in the group I was with agreed. Hehe. I went with people from my undergrad institution. I've still got my old e-mail address and I'm on this e-mail list and I saw there were free tickets to this show, so, hey - free's the magic word. They were actually posta have this show a while back, but after all 9/11, because of whatever security concerns, the concert was cancelled.

Anyhow, since I went with peeps from my old uni, I saw two of my old Spanish professors. I caught Dr. Schneider and Dr. Bell on what I was up to. Professor Schneider was happy to hear about what I was doing and curious as to what I thought of everything. You know, Iraq crap and what not. She was telling me how she holds peace protests/vigils around her neighborhood and occasionally you get the cars that drive by yelling at them. She said that one time this guy starts yelling at them. She had to leave early, but some of the other women stayed and were able to get this irrate man to stop and talk to them. In the end, do you know what he said? That fool said something along the lines of: "Well, after September 11, we had to go after somebody, right?" Arghh! Isn't that the kinda stuff that makes you wanna pull out your hair? To think, he is not alone in how he feels. Stupid Americans...

And Dr. Bell wants me to e-mail him my info cuz he wants to publish a little sumpin-sumpin' 'bout me in my old department's newsletter. He also told me how he wants to form an Islamic Studies program there. He said we owe it to the UMBC community, with all it's diversity and given the current situation. He said he's working in conjunction with another one of my old professors in the Poli Sci department. Dr. Bell would take care of helping institute the Arabic language aspect of the program (since he's in the language department) and my ex-prof, Dr. Cantori, would handle the Islamic studies, since that's more his area. I think that's cool if they get this goin'. But they still need more contacts cuz it's gonna take some more people to be able to run such an endeavor. Yup...

So, what the heck is up with "them" putting in Garner as the interim leader of Iraq? What kind of sense does it make to put a pro-Israeli butthole in charge of an Arab country like that? Oh, how sensitive the US is to other people's feelings. Jerks. Got some Zionist tellin' them what to do. I'd be mad if I were Iraqi. Actually, I kinda am. That was something we talked about in my one class: how General Garner was appointed interim president and that he was pro-Israeli. He signed public documents that testify to that. And he was also president of a company that manufactured missiles. So, where the heck are those weapons of mass destruction we were posta find over there? Could it be cuz that's not even the real freakin' reason we bombed the hell out of them? Well, it's not. Check out this article by Arianna Huffington. She's someone I wanna check out now. Her latest book is "Pigs at the Trough." Maybe I'll check it out along with Michael Moore's "Stupid White Men."

Anyways, I'm gonna go chat with Tara 'til I start to get sleepy. It's 10am and I should go to sleep soon. Heh - told y'all - I'm a vampire. :-P

Saturday, April 19, 2003

:*(

I just got off the phone with my mother and found out that my favorite priest died: Father O'Meara. He suffered a stroke and was in the hospital, unable to really respond. He was an elderly gentlemen with a lot of spunk. I think he was a lot older in age, but he didn't act like it. He may have been in his 80s. 86, maybe? He was from the old school and he spoke his mind. He always said what some people didn't wanna hear. But that's because the truth hurts. He would tell it like it is from a Catholic perspective. I admit I was a tad scared of him, but I respected him. He would always say what he thought. The Catholic Church today is quite lax, I think. It's more or less "come as you are," so, oftentimes people are wearing things like jeans and t-shirts. Just dressed very casually. But I remember when Fr. O'Meara was gonna preside over the mass the following week, we would be warned beforehand to make sure we came in our "Sunday Best." lol, cuz Fr. O. would complain about coming to church dressed as bums. Like I mentioned before, he was from the old school, when life was harder, yet simpler, and things were just stricter.

Fr. O. also once made a comment about how a young female in another mass he said was dressed. He was talking about how this young girl was wearing an inappropriate outfit and how he was thinking, wow, does this girl's mother know how she's dressed? And then he sees his answer: this girl's mother is dressed the same way. He would just tell us these things. One time around Valentine's, I think this was last year, how he was in the mall and he passed by Victoria's Secret and saw the underwear with hearts on it, and he stopped and added, "I'm a priest, but I'm not blind." hehe... That man. I loved him. I hope there are still plenty of other Church leaders like him left. This world we live in is just way too liberal and I need some more strong moral guides.

I remember once I forwarded Fr. O'Meara an article about the dwindling population of Palestinian Christians in the Holy Land. He wrote me back with this response:

Sheena,

Before your piece, I knew about the Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant populations in Israel. Five years ago I was subjected to Israel "security" during my visit to the HOLY LAND. At the airport, a padre companion and I, in our clericals, were grilled about our intensions in visiting and our relationship. After our first night in Jerusalem, we were boarding a bus with other tourists, when two truckloads of young
Israel troops suddenly appeared, cordened off the street, pushed people up against walls, surrounded the bus with pointed rifles and demanded our documents. All the places and shrines were closely policed by Israelis. They were the conquerers

I applaud your efforts to separate the US and Israel. Tanks against rifles is hardly a "level playing field". Compare the number of Palastinian fatalities with the Israelis. Israel cannot be trusted to accept agreements. Nuff said!

Blessings,

Fr. O


May you rest in peace, Father O'Meara. You will be missed!

Friday, April 11, 2003

God Bless America?

On one of the websites of which I am a member, there's a message board where people talk about a variety of issues and, also, a lot of nothing. Naturally, people voice their opinions on many topics. One of the forums had a post entitled "God Bless America!", from the end of February. It was some bullcrap forward one of the members received and enjoyed. One of those forwards that brings out the psuedo-patriot in some idiots. In other words, propaganda. What came thereafter were many responses expressing different persuasions. What follows is one of my responses to some of the things that were said. The opening quote is actually what one of the stupids in the forum said:

Monday Feb 24, 2003

"ain't noone coming to shoot you and your family"
say what?? i fear for my life more on an American street than in some strange country. shiet - u can get shot by one of ur fellow americans for ur nike air jordans. what kinda b.s. is that in such a 'civilized' country?

and i grew up on a military installation and know people who have been, are, or went into the service (including my dad and sis). i can tell u that a good number of them are NOT patriotic (unless they get brainwashed enuff). they go into the military out of need - not any desire to serve this country. they go cuz they can't pay for skool or whatever other reason. so, while our government officials are safe in their mansions, my friends and family are gettin' sent over to fight some war that they don't even want. and whatever happend to the hunt for osama and what israel's pullin' on the palestinians? this war propaganda sure is takin' our minds and eyes off these and many other issues.

and hey - iraq is guilty of killing iraqi kurds and the U.S. condemns 'em for it. but turkey has killed an even greater number of its kurdish population, yet we're givin' the turks money so we can use their land for this stupid azz war. well, good for turkey for gettin' the U.S. to give them extra dough for use of their land. (and too bad for us tax-payers.)

and in this 'great' country of ours, did ya'll know that about 40% of the wealth lies in only 1% of the population?? yeah, stuff that in your pipes and smoke it, you warmongers.

and please - never-ever tell someone if they don't like amerikkka to F'in' leave. thass bullcrap right there. we complainin' about our government for bein' so cruddy. so that means we should leave? well, if that's the case, people like martin luther king, jr. should have been told to get the hell out this country for complainin'.

finally.... GOD BLESS AMERICA????? fukkkk that --> God Bless EVERYone!!!!! :)

Wednesday, April 09, 2003

Mommy Didn't Abort Me!

What is up with this weather? I hate it. It's so fickle. Before I went to London, I was hopeful that Spring was well on its way. It was sunny, cool, and fresh. There were dozens of little Robin Red Breasts feeding in the grass. Yet we even had some snow after the first day of Spring had already passed. One weekend I looked outside and saw sleet. Another evening I was walking home from school through an extremely light snowfall. I don't get it. We have these beautiful spring days intermingled with cold fall/winter-like days. Last week I wore a skirt and t-shirt and needed no kind of jacket. Then the very next day I've got my gloves on. I wish the weather would stay warm already. This week is rainy. Rain depresses me. In conjunction with gray skies - I just don't like it.

Know what I also don't like? The way this country works. Last week, MSNBC gave foreign correspondent Peter Arnett the axe. Again in my one class on Global Terrorism and Islam we talked a little about this. Professor was saying how that when Mr. Arnett had initially made his comments to Iraqi TV, they were applauding him for giving his analysis on the American military. The next minute, they've retracted their approval and fired Peter. (Mr. Arnet is now working for the British "The Daily Mirror." At least the Brits' media isn't as censored as ours). Yet, on this same note, widely disliked Geraldo Rivera discloses sensitive info that the Pentagon says could have given the Iraqi army an idea as to the location of American troops. He potentially reveals the position of the Americans, possibly giving the Iraqis a slight one-up, endangering our troops. But does this man get the boot? Nope. So this Jewish man releases classified information and he's just told to leave Iraq, while a sharp man like Arnett who speaks the truth gets fired. Our professor also had told us that MSNBC got rid of Phil Donahue for being too pro-Arab. So much for freedom of speech. Bastards.

Now, I've got no problem with Jews. I just dislike the blatant prejudices demonstrated by Zionists and the favortism that America shows for Israel. You know how espionage is punishable by death. Well, several years back, this Jew, Jonathan Pollard (check out Court TV's Crime Library to read about Mr. Pollard, the American who committed treason), stole stacks of files from the Pentagon to give to Israel, files he was not really privy to. But hardly got punished. He got away with it. Had anyone else done that same mess, all hell woulda broke lose. The double-standards are just unbelievable.



Thus, modern, mature democracies representing the end of ideology have, in effect, separated ethics from politics; and modern ideology, in so far as it continues to exist as a force in society, is nothing more than a cynical propaganda cover for the specific self-interest of competing groups. (from "American Politics and the End of Ideology" by Stephen W. Rousseas and James Farganis).