Nonsense, Drivel, and Balderdash

When you grow up overseas, your visions of American life are mostly formed by what you have seen on-screen. As a kid who had actually been to the US, I often found myself having to correct people's incorrect, Hollywood-created opinions. I would shake my head and smile at the Spaniards who thought that America was either some variant of Malibu opulence or a ghetto survivalism, that American cuisine was exclusively pizza and hamburgers, etc. These stereotypes were easy to make into movies and theme parks, but they were inaccurate. In many ways, Hollywood works almost exclusively with archetypes and stereotypes. I had spent so many years refuting these gross over-generalizations  that I was genuinely surprised when I arrived in the public school classroom that I will be teaching in this year. For someone who never went to school in America, it feels strange and surreal to enter a public school building here. It feels like you are on the set of a movie or television show, becaus...

You know those people who jump at the possibility of doing good? I am not one of those people. A good example can be seen underground. If you have ever been on a subway then you know what I am talking about. An elderly person comes into the subway car and all the seats are taken so someone gets up and offers them theirs. A lot of times these generous donors seem to leap out of their seats at the slightest chance of doing well. Superman couldn't have done it faster, in fact, he would still be in the phonebooth struggling to pull his underwear over his tights by the time these others have the old guy sitting down. Sure, we are just judging on outward actions, but if we stop to think a moment we can all come up with several acquaintances that are truly benevolent inside as well as out. I often find it funny when people say something positive about my character. I can begrudgingly accept people telling me that I've acted well, or praising some talent like singing or something... bu...

It's late and I can't sleep. I have spent a while lying in bed, staring into the dark at objects that are no longer concrete. All around me the gloom is thick with the lack of sound; that nighttime feeling where the very silence becomes more real and concrete than actual noise, like the darkness has become a presence, not merely the absence of light. And I have been lyin in my bed, my breathing roaring in my ears, and the sound of my body against the sheets wearing my patience down like waves against a seashore. It's just going to be one of those nights. My mind wanders from thought to thought, from truth to lie, trying to make sense of life. But in the dark nothing is clear, and I find myself going back to the same desire for sleep to come and rid me of the burden of consciousness. There is nothing as frustrating as being tired and unable to sleep. My bed is currently propped up on one side, to elevate my upper body in order to help my throat heal. I propped it up a few we...

Methinks that in looking at things spiritual, we are too much like oysters observing the sun through the water, and think that thick water the thinnest of air. Methinks my body is but the lees of a better being. In fact, take my body who will , take it I say, it is not me. H. Melville Death is an odd thing. Humans, as much as we all know that it is coming, are never ready for it. It is the scene in the slasher film that you know is right around that corner, that you expect, but that you jump at anyway when the killer jumps out of the closet with a knife. Very few people are ready to embrace death. I have heard of a few people that came to terms with their own death, but we are never fully ready for the passing of someone else. It feels unnatural. I believe that it is because we are spiritual beings at the core of it all. We were built to endure. We were created to love indefinitely. Our primary function, our primary essence, is a hint of eternity. And so it feels unfair when someone d...

I haven't been able to get to sleep earlier than 3 or 4 in the morning lately. It is America's fault, like most things these days, according to european news sources. Ever since I came back from the States I haven't been able to sleep at night. Maybe I'm haunted by its lingering memories, maybe enamored with its visions, or maybe I just haven't tried getting over jetlag. Because I don't work mornings, or at all lately, I can sleep in as long as I want... not the best motivator to get up early and get into a normal schedule. To be honest, it is only a bit of a nuisance because the rest of the world doesn't function like I do. But other than that, I am really enjoying my late nights. I am a night owl, though most of my life I haven't been able to indulge that facet of my personality. I like staying up late. I think I like the solitude of it, though I love a late night conversation. I am not so much a fan of late night group madness. To me, nighttime is loa...

I hate that feeling of frustration and despair that comes when you wake from a dream where nothing exciting has taken place. Where another night has been wasted filing imaginary papers, or mowing imaginary lawns, or dreaming things that give you no respite from your daily dullness at all. Sometimes it seems like I am trying to wake up from one of those dreams, only I realize that I'm not dreaming. The papers I am filing are real, the hamburger I'm cooking is the same one I ate last week, the routine is making my life fade into overlapping film slides where the images are blurring and mixing into nothing in particular.Do you ever get the feeling where you look around and realize that you life seems hazy ? One of those moments where you feel like you are waking out of a dream; where you realize that nothing really seems nitid and the image isn't sharp. I think we live most of our lives that way without realizing it. The depressing part comes when we arrive at that in between ...

I am in Spain again. It is past midnight and I am sitting in the dark, in my old room. It is strange to think of it as my room, because though it is, I have not really lived here for a while. If one were to look around it, at the walls and shelves, in the drawers and on the desk, it would be hard to prove that I have been alive for the past 4 years. Only some new books and CDs have joined the rest of the stuff that litters a room that has otherwise been frozen in time since I left for college. My bits and pieces, my recent clothing, my newly accumulated junk all lies scattered across the globe and my old room has gone from being a functional living space to a storageplace for my memories. So here I sit in the dark, enjoying a feeling I have not had in a while: it is hot in here. A dry natural heat stored up from a warm spring day in Spain. 3 days ago I was still a coat wearing kid, rambling up and down the cobblestone streets of a cold Oxford; a city that was still trying to shake off ...

I am sitting in my lilliputian sized room, at what can scarcely be called a desk, in the ringing silence of my Oxford house. How was that for an opening line? Catchy? Have a... "ring"... to it? I caught the attention of the reader, by using the slightly esoteric word lilliputian, which would be a nice one for scrabble. We have a board here, but I have not played yet. Of course, my positive critique is sarcastic. It is a terrible line. For one thing, it is whiny, and I have nothing to whine about. Yes, my room is small, but I like it that way actually. I grew up with a small room and I think I am more at home in a manageable sized space. Also, the word "sized" is kind of redundant next to the adjective lilliputian, which already denotes size. Neither did I mention that the small space is mine and mine alone. No roommates or people to have to be considerate towards (not that I am very considerate anyway, just ask David). Yes, I am aware that I am writing in fragmented...