Expect a lot to come from me. College has been nothing but late-night revelations, so there will be plenty more to be published here.

See you all soon!

Drinking: Large Coffee

Sitting in one of my usual spots, I ended up right next to a pair of white men. One had two laptops open, one had papers scattered about him. They were talking about boring business-type things, as far as I knew, until I overheard “affirmative action.” I soon realized they were talking about diversity within the workplace. It was horribly ironic that the they were the highest in the social hierarchy, white and male, and they were talking about what “diversity” really is, and debunking each other’s beliefs about diversity/discrimination. As if they were the experts on it.

Well, then again, white males (white people in general) have done this for generations, so perhaps if anyone should know how to discriminate someone, a white male would sure as hell know how. But let me stop being a total hypocrite and continue with my caffeine-fueled theory of the day.

See, we wouldn’t be debating about what “diverse” is if it didn’t bother us to begin with. Having a designated “quota” for all businesses/companies only reinforces the idea that there are “different” kinds of people working together. With this “different” in mind, employers may thus treat employees differently, according to what “different” they may be.

Especially with affirmative action, which puts forth African-Americans to have slightly more benefits than everyone else, in order to compensate for the faults of the white man. White men will accept, but grudgingly. Also, when will the compensation be over? How many years does it take to heal the unjust treatment of a segment of mankind. Truth is, there is no number of years. Time heals all wounds, but labeling it as compensation… you just can’t compensate. So why compensate at all? Why can’t we all just be equal?

But let’s look at it like this: forcefully integrating the human race with practices like affirmative action, quotas, may allow people of different races to congregate, to undo the harm already done. But it isn’t perfect. In fact, it never will be. It needs to start with the generation being born NOW. Right this minute. We can’t create a “them” and a “they.” We need to create an “us” and a “we” of all races. Skin color shouldn’t mean anything more than a pigment. Culture clashes should be enriching. There are no distinct parts. We’re all just a collaboration of different human beings. Once businesses/companies/organizations, what have you, take no consideration of skin color and base all of their employment on sheer merit and work ethic, we’d already see the color palette emerge in the work place. The truth is, in order to start healing the wounds of discrimination, we have to pretend those discriminating differences doesn’t exist.

Because if children never learn it, they’ll never teach it.

Familiar, but not too much.

Drinking: Milky Way

So I’ve come here enough times to be considered somewhat regular. I open up my Chemistry book to the latest lesson I’ve been failing, and I work for as long as humanly possible without having to go onto Facebook, or AIM, or (now) Twitter. It’s tough, being so electronically addicted, but maybe I’m not that out of the loop after all.

I walked toward this cozy shop with my usual bag, with an umbrella that I swiftly put away once I realized the rain was not nearly as bad as I thought it was. A thirty-something year-old man gave me an odd look, pausing his game of catch with his child, disrupting the rhythm of movement in the park for just a moment. Was I really worth that hard a look?

It pisses me off sometimes, when people who have just moved into the neighborhood are surprised to see me walking through a park that’s rightfully been my territory for about fifteen years. Yes, I notice that you’ve never been here before, considering I know this neighborhood’s nooks and crannies better than you know your own body. Call me cocky, but I don’t see how I’m unconventional to expect some amount of respect for having “seniority” in this place. Yes, my high-school-freshman appearance is misleading, but give me a break. If my walk tells you that I think I own this place, you’re on the money, because I do. I’ve grown up with less than half the privileges your children will grow up with, and I have probably more wisdom than you’ve ever had in your lifetime. I know I haven’t had the hardest life, but I’ve seen a hell of a lot more hardship in my lifetime, from friends, family, and from my own emotional baggage, than most of these dickwads ever will in their short, sweet spans of life.

Here’s a toast to the people who made this place what it was, and who will forever be trampled by the heavy feet of ignorance, materialism, and good, ol’ fashioned greed.

Coincidence?

Drinking: Large Coffee
(I was broke today. Leave me be.)

This is a theory I’ve been developing for a while, especially with the inception of my first major thesis on emo people. (Which I wrote when I was bored one day at the age of fourteen? Fifteen? Something like that.) My hypothesis? Essentially, that “emo” is normal, a phase redefined, and that a common location for congregations of emo people is the Internet. It was a pretty straightforward observation, in retrospect, so maybe it wasn’t much a thesis at all, and just a bored observation of life in the eyes of a young urban teenager.

However, I have come to understand something even deeper than this. While “emo” is still, indeed, a phase of life that a large percentage of teenagers go through (and an even larger percent is likely with the Recession officially declared and in full swing), my theory on the source is slightly different than several years ago. My idea? Social networking sites are psychosocial “juice.” Amplifiers to personality, if you will; and they create volatile climates of social development. Think of it as a battle of the bands, but all of the bands performing all at once.

Let’s understand the place of the modern-day adolescent. Both parents work, most likely, to support themselves in an economy that’s less stable than your average NINETY year-old. The student probably goes to public school, surrounded by students trying to either blend in or stand out. And there they are, a soul lost in a sea of lost souls. So they turn to the biggest source of free information: the Internet. But let’s be realistic. Who has the literacy of a full-grown adult that can hardly understand the tendrils of reality himself, let alone his own concept of self-image? It’s not so much that they seek the answers to their confusion, but some kind of solace, some safe haven where they can be “themselves,” with not much chance for consequence.

Thus, the Internet provides a seemingly consequence-free environment for social experimentation, the perfect setup for testing the limits of society. Teens are so engrossed with this idea of freedom of creativity, that they often forget that people are watching, and that there are very harsh consequences. So the climate of such websites is frightening to adults, and the simple solution has been to turn a blind-eye and block the sites in schools. Possibly the worst mistake any adult should make for a child.

The fast-paced, volatile, violent climate of the Internet has not only made the waters of the adolescent rapids more dangerous for teenaged development, it has accelerated it, forcing a downward spiral in decency, intimacy, and ethics.

Want to read my research paper on it? You can read it here.

Here’s to a man who deserved the world, and more, because he was such an important patch of ours. Rest in peace.

You might know where I am.

Drinking: Milky Way [chocolate, espresso, milk]

Now I can properly introduce myself. I’m Therese, a coffee-drinker, tea-sipper, and otherwise people-watcher. Most importantly, I’m your writer for the next.. oh, I don’t know, eternity? Or something infinitely smaller than that. And I’m here to talk about life as it unfolds before me, past the rim of the cup that my eyes barely peek over. Call me an observer, if you will. Or a procrastinator. Either or is just as fitting.

What brings me to a coffee shop today? Physics. No, not laws of matter, but the subject. I have a midterm tomorrow and I like isolating myself here to make myself focus. It sort of works. Mainly because I like surrounding myself with strangers, making me uncomfortable enough to do what I have to do and leave, no procrastination necessary. Although, I must say that this has distracted me enough to not study for a few minutes of my time.

The magic of a coffee shop is always the culmination of people I’d never talk to, but they all seem to be there on purpose, like some crafty author had some sinister purpose behind their construction and eventual journey to this shop. I like to pretend that I’m that crafty author. Maybe to give myself some kind of self-worth or something like that. It feels good to have that kind of fictional power, to wield a pen, or a keyboard, and etch onto paper, or screen, the lives of people that might exist, somewhere.

Another phenomenon I don’t understand all that well: I’ve lived here for roughly fourteen years, yet every day is filled with strangers I’ve never seen, flashes of colors alien to my eyes, stores that open and close like wings of a butterflies. Everything changes, constantly, yet nothing has changed at all. This place is the urban equivalent of a small town. I’ve met nearly all of the teenagers that reside in this city, all of the people just finishing college here, everyone around my generation, I know a good number of them, or at least I’ve seen them all at least once in my life. But alas, the tragedy of being a stranger in my own neighborhood. That is the story of my life.

Meanwhile, my least favorite songs play on in the background, an espresso machine screams, pages flutter, keys click on laptops, laughter coalesces into the foreground, overpowering the garbage on the radio, and a cell phone is abruptly interrupted as it unleashes a symphony of digital cacophony.

I smile, amused, and open my Physics book.

And so I begin.