Their good festival last weekend at the expense of a ripped off customer
As I had expected to get the re-fund credit issued back to my account, I was utterly happy to find it there today. The next thing I knew was, though, that the amount of credit was $32.54 less than the price I paid initially for this electronic dictionary/translator. I paid $184.68 for it with tax and the shipping fee included. Now they might have deducted 15% out of the price I paid plus some extra that I don't know.
As soon as I got the package, I reached them to let them know that I would return the product because of the very limited quality of it. They did not return the credit although they said they did. I disputed over it. Now they did it without communicating to do so but I need the description of the amount that is gone.
The address of where they are located might mean something; avenue J in Bklyn. You know what this infers if you are ever around in the neighborhood. Yeah, I bet they had a good one over the last weekend on my money.
A crashed date and a poetry reading
at three pm
Reading on
R.Yamagata!?
same theme
crying out loud for a help
I have been slacking off too much too long. Last night I fell asleep without even turning the light off, as I was reading a book that was unnecessary to any of my school work.
I am a huge procrastinater and the more I get snowed under and up to my neck for things to get done, the more I feel like doing somehting totally unrelated.
Practically I have to wrte two new papers and two re-write. The thing is that reading is not really completed.
grrrrrrrl unproductive!
Hail Fasbinder!
"The ideal love is unmotivated; with no reason nor purpose."
Now I cried a bit over the words above of Fasbinder, the German film director. This reminded me of how wonderful he always could be! Although I know how impossible it is, or all the more, he is always magical figure to show what was not manifested before.
A cup of coffee
Persepolis 2
The trouble that I had when I read Persepolis 1 was that I was uncertain if I knew enough about Iranian politics and the history, especially in the era of turmoil. Since it was promoted as a female (and then as a kid's) point of view and voice to conpemsapte the underrepresentation of Arabic world under the apres 9-11, some people recognized the French graphic memoir came out a couple of years ago here in the US. The work was originally done in French and published France that went even a couple more years back.
Although it does compensate the unfair presumption and stereotype about women in Islam and Arab, the work would rather be called as a voice of the previlaged woman in Iran. I don't dismiss this work but it should have an extra caution; this work does not necessarily describe or illustrate average citizens of the society. This is an undeniable description of what a woman of the previledged class captured but that does not represent the real predicament people faced, especiallly women.
Although those points I made above sour, I enjoy her works. I hurriedly placed a hold on Persepolis 2 when I discovered that it was alreay accessinble in the library of my neighborhood. I would rather call this better than Part 1 because it handles more universal topics of woman that readers can relate to.
Relapse?
I bought a pack of coffee today, which I had stayed away for a long time; there was a time that I was heavily addicted to coffee and ended up developing a persistent and unknown pain in my right breast. The remedy that I got and stuck to was to cut down coffee that surmounted to a kettle a day. I still do have coffee but I try not to have it more than a cup or two a day and I have been painfree. The knack is that I don't have any coffee in my place; same trick as I stopped smoking. I once a while relapspe for both habits that I was supposed to have kicked a long time ago. Don't panick unless you binge or chainsmoke. But make sure that you don't bring any of the bad habit into your own room; it gets to be a problem when you enjoy it without any company or an interruption. You call it addiction when it happens. Take it seriously.
So, the coffee today was some temptation that I couldn't really resisit. It never occurred to me until today but the idea was if I could allow myself to have it in my place and limit it to consume a cup a day. Besides, I go buy $1~2 coffee outside. Given that I am trying to make my room the coziest place for me, it is worth trying.
the May Lady (98, Iran)
by Rakhshan Bani-Etemad. This is a movie about a female documentary film maker in Iran in late nineties. Even in first ten minutes, I stopped for I had a problem of keeping to watch. Given this is about opression for women in the society, I should interprete that the movie is serving to the theme when the protagonist find her teenage son as another domineering male presence in her life. Since they live as a single mother and the only son for a while, the protagonist bewilders to encounter her son's indirenct but imposing opposition for her seeking for another man's love in her lfe. The issue of feminism hits h er and she finds herself torn beteen two different values, a traditional devoting mother who sacrifices herself for her children and family and a woman who fulfills her sexuality. However, the immediate reason that I could not bear to keep on watching was a scene where the angry son treats her mom like a servant; the mom accidentally splashes some water (liquid) on his favorite shirt. The angry son insists that it is the only shirt he want to go school with when the mom suggests there're a bunch more to change into. After all, his sullen attitude automaticly cues mom to wipe it.
This scene puzzled me for its lacking criticism; it is even followed the mom's internal monologue as "recently he acts like my man." They remains the dark age of feminism because of this unawareness of role playing of gender. It is unthinkable to let a man treat his mother this way, but how people are actually unaware of it! If a man can respect women comes down to how he perceives his mother. In the same token, how many women give in the role of slave mother, or rather willing to participate it! That is the point of how the culture passes on to the next generation and reinformed. Peole never get over the troubled convention of slave mom until women are lucid about it and begin to say firm no.
downtown
I wound up in Target in Atlantic Ave; I did not know where I was headed for when I left my place in the afternoon. It was the weather that kept me walking until I hit a newly opened mall in the downtown area. I never like any mall but I stepped in just to want to see what it would be like. There was no way not to welcome any positive phenomenon in Bklyn.
I did not mean to buy more than very essential material such as toilet tissues and pastas. In that sense, I managed not to sidetrack, which was good. However, I spent way longer than I meant to there. Besides, I was completely exhausted when I got home with all the purchased items such as a bundle of twelve toilet rolls. The worst part of the stoy was that I was already planning when I would go back there.
Passover
my contribution to passover
the time that I am dying to scold Koreans
I have got to admit that I have a plenty of occasions of getting fed up with them. It is not that I am tired of their mimicking mentality, which is often brought up as an issue, but the quality of the imitation. Imagine how I was thrown off to have bitten a cream buscuit (a pastry covered by some cooky crust with filling of custard) that I got from a Korean pastry shop that apparently borrowed every items and ideas from thier Japanese competitor in NYC. My heart sank to&n bsp;discover the texture that has far apart from the original cream buscuit one Japanese pastry shop originated. O.K, if you mimick the original, be more faithful.
One more thing
Soviet Kitsch
Regina Spektor is a Russian Jew in NYC, who emmigrated from USSR in 89 when she was nine. The very trouble that I run into by this CD of hers"Soviet Kitsch" is that the content of it is different from what it advertises; look at this jacket. I finally bought this after some contemplation on what the cover signifies; her music is far from what this cover infers, such as the provocative and misunderstanding between East and West and some fruitful outcome of the crash of two. It was rather a boring female solo like all of those north American contemporary singers. If only she has got any better way of representing herself as ant identity she names as a Jew, a Russian in the NY or an American female, because it's got such a quality in sounds including her dramatic voice. When it forms a song, though, it suffers for its dullness.
Dworkin? Died?
Gosford Park
Have seen Gosford Park; I hardly remember the time when it was supposed to be released. I am curious how this heavily Marxist theory toned movie was introduced and promoted. It was such a good one, with all the dazzling sets and details, oh let's not forget the cast as well, and I have literally enjoyed a movie for the first time in a while. However, the question never went away;
1) Could audiences really follow and enjoy the movie with the very articulate message against Class system?
2) How was it appreciated, if they accepted it as Evert said he raised his and co-worker's thums up?
Customer Service Sucks!
Anybody has an opinion about internet providers? This time I almost switched the one that I had held on to to something that charges a half price of it a month for a absurd matter. The silly problem was that the cc that I signed in with had been expired for a while (in Jan this year) but they did not notify or anything until two days ago when they shut the service down out of the blue (at least to me).
I rushed to the phone and attemped to give them another card number that I am currently using but they refused to take it saying they could not unless they verified the last four digits of the former card number that I could no longer remember. C'mon! It had been four months already and I discarded it a long time ago!
I finally setteled the problem after I had sproken to somebody who was less unreasonable and more flexible from another department. All in all, though, I was appalled to discover how stubborn and unreasonable their customer service was! The only bandit of the fight that I won was the discount price for the rest of the service that I will get from them. Therefore, it was worth fighting for. But I still can't complain enough about M*# and their rediculous cunstomer service from South Asia. I have nothing personal against those people located somewhere a half hemisphere away from but still trying hard to assist us but those who came up with the idea that the sort of customer service might work. Because it is not! Think about the absurdity these big corporates have resorted to to cut down their expenses and wages for workers! Fuck those corporate bastards! And think about all the time wasted on the silliest matter on earth! I am still with the same provider!
the gentrification in a neighborhood in Bklyn
the nastiest time of a week
hooking up on campus
In general, I am the least interested in hooking up with people that I run into in the school environment perhaps because it is the area that I would rather keep separate from the rest of my personal life.
Therefore it felt so weird to have these phone calls from the people I expected to hear from the least two nights in a row; one was my professor and the other was a student that I did not even know. Calls from the instructor were so frantic that I almost jumped to the thought that I had a blund such as I 'quoted' w/o quotation marks in my paper (!?) that I had submitted on Wed. I called him back when I got really tired of assuming the sort of improbable things. What I just discovered was that he kept calling me that franticly because he was 'concerned' for me from an impression he saw in me on Wed class. I have never met any instructor who bothers to make a series of calls based upo n his/her personal impressions and makes an excuse of 'being concerned'. There's a bunch of people who do that, especially guys but no professors. They have so much to lose on this sort of risky behavior on campus, even by a rumor.
The other one was a library worker who talked to me briefly. I was alarmed when I discovered that he thought himself to be entitled to call up a student's number that he is previledged to access due to his work at the library.
OK, I can go somewhere and make a report on this sort of matter if
a) I want to
b) I have a plenty of time on my hands
c) I trust people in the 'complaint department'
but none of the above is available in my current situation. So I close the case.
What is the problem?
only alienation is universal
the lowest point
The Ritual
I wouldn't dare to ask anybody whether he/she ever saw this video Monday's Girls, partly because it is not a feature/theater movie but a nonfiction that was originated in BBC's TV program. This is a film that describes a virginity accessment ritual that a girl goes through in a tribal community in Nigeria. To get officially validated as a virgin is equal to get ready to mate and to marry in their society. What they practically do is to have girls bare their breast to the whole community after a certain period of special preparation with a number of obligations such as what to eat and how to spend the period being the least activeso that they would gain weight. They are a sort of confined in a house during the whole time in the preparation where older women attend them to carry out the preparation without any interruption or any excuse of not performing the duty. The girls in the period have their legs tightly held by a set of the equipment of steel coils to seriously limit their physical move.
The camera follows two girls from different backgrounds to make a comparison and the case study from the differences; one is a local girl who is taking the ceremony very seriously and looking forward to participating it. The other is a girl whose father is a powerful figure in the tribe; she is temporarily back to the place from where she currently lives to attend school to study music. Since she is getting the higher educaiton, privilaged to be exposed to other cultures in the big city, she scorns the ritual and the culture of her tribe back in the community to be primitive and disaproves of the women's condition. She argues and causes constant conflicts with the locals everytime anything she does not want to give in is forced. She has to come back here, though, just because she does not want to let her father lose his face in the community. She did not necessarily want to jeopardize her reputation as a woman in the community, either: if she avoids the public ritual of the virgin acessment, it would be possible that people rumor that she was not a virgin, therefore she ran away from it. Imagine the pressure she had to face.
On the day of the ritual, the first girl 'passes' the ritual and gets approved to be a legitimately marriagable woman whereas the latter one fails for she couldn't bring herself to parade in the ritual that she did not have any faith in.
"I had to gulp some beer to get over certain fear and embarrasement before I marched in front of the public baring my breast. My father encouraged me and let me drink before the ceremony. After a bit, I did not know what I was at anymore," the first girl says.
She and all other gils who marched as baring their breats had the offcial validation from one of men who criticized and evaluated the girls shape that was supposed to be the proofs of their virginity and maturity to mate.
"Now you are fine," one the virgin examiners, who is dressed in a suit that has got a very loud pattern just as pajamas says to thier breasts offcially bared to their faces.
Wow, it sounds so scientific that I really believe these guys in pajamas and their grounds to judge the girls. I would never think these guys stupid rules are just another excuse of public humiliation of women. Nor would I say like it is shockingly same as the strip club environment. If only these official virgins get paid for their being so humiliated for the ritual that is too unworthy, really.
What happens to the other who did not pass. She just gets away after she failed the ceremony because of the stigma she has brought to the family. But I really thought that I would rather not pass that sort of test, either. However, I figure the predicament of the girl and how lethal it can be in the environment and have to sigh.
It is a COMMON problem of "the Third world" feminism; I know how easy it is to criticize the way the whole institutions of the third world function and cannot help admitting how similar the sex industry operates. Shame on them when they brazenly call it the rite passage and pressure young women to strip and call them finally 'right.' However, the toughest thing is where the second one, or anybody like her who is torn between two different values, is situated. She knows how the community works and pressures and is fully aware of what is wrong in respect of women's treatment and the role assigned to them in the community. But then, it is very difficult to refuse and leave it behind when you're a part of the institution. Especially for a woman such as her, all the previladges she has enjoyed in her life consists of the status she has in the community that she scorns.
In a scene where the first girl is put to go through the preparatory period in the house of confinement, married women of the community sit around her to lecture what the girl should expect from a married life.
"There are good men who treat you nice and gentle. But there are men who treat you brutally and beat you up in the marriage. All you can do is to pray."
What?
Oh, my. But haven't they forgotten that they have their legs to run away if the marriage turned out the latter instead of praying? The trick of making theim so inactive that they become big might have to do with this point: the doctrine is how to keep women inactive and immobile so that they would be paralysed mentally, and of course, physically.
Jane Eyre and father love
Aside from the tight schedule for the school matter, I have been at this reading on Jane Eyre and Father Love. I had not read the work from the persepective to consider the relationship of Jane and Rochester as a daughtrer/father one, which naturally examines the author's idea about what a father figure and paternal love could be, which was reprived of as a child and a young woman in the authore's own life. The father seemed to be an interesting, if not a safe, figure, though; a clergy with a lousy temper who fired occasionally when he was moping or angry. How about that? Can't be more troubling to deal with for the eldest daughter, who wanted to fill in her mother's role that died on the family earlier and all the kids who were to be the rally legend later on grew up to cling together. This became a major cause of their missing out on social development that worked negative and positive to each of them; for a borother, he grew up tp be an ultimate trouble maker of the family. For those writers, though, this gave a tremendous opportuni ty to develop thier talent and focus on thier creative works.
If only
A (working) girl's day off is mostly dedicated to school work. I just came home around nine. Have one more paper to get done. Since I was running around from nine this morning, wish I had nothing to conquer and just go to bed now. Have to go in school around twelve tomorrow and have to have my paper proofread. On top of it, I am going to take an exam tomorrow! So long, folks!
ah, you mean me?
cold sweat
low morale
GiGi
the collegedropout
african't
pang of detachment
GMT EST
tonight
A call from my former co-worker kept me on the phone for almost two hours tonight. It was quite unusual us to find each other not at work on Friday night. There should be a couple of reasons of it. It was not so long ago that she got mugged and taken all the cash she had when at a session. This brutality is one of the possibility when might run into when we are at work and she did run into it. I was away from work tonight because I wanted to focus on some school work that I need to comlete to some extent tonight, which is not likely any more.
I was relieved to hear that she was leaving the work with a full gear for she had been going through worst times recently and I believe her shifting her focus into day time as a hair dresser on the make. She is breaking up her abusive husband and it takes a lot of work to get away from it and build up her new life all over again.
I have been through the shittiedt time, which I am not certain that I would be able to leave as she will as she moves on, that is heavily related to my school work and life change. I am feeling too low any way until I make up my mind; or other factor will make my mind up after all. It is just that I need to examine what is making me feel this shitty and what it really means to be in it and how I can straighten myself up in a real sense. My work has very little to do with it.
Life is a political process, no matter what the job.
( ~ A~) /
coming down
have seen
Anna by Nikita Mikhailkov; the documentary film that follows the director's own daughter for thirteen years from six to nineteen years of her growth along with the social change Soviet Union went through and its collaps of 91. Beginning of 1980, six years-old Anna became focus of the director's examination of the effect of totalitarian propaganda had on children in the society with this method; he keeps asking same questions to her and studies the change, such as "What do you fear most?" "What do you want?" What do love?" "What do you like to be?"
It occurred to me that I might be able to do it to myself every year. How about my birthday this year?
The movie was a bit too didactic and predictable with certain apparent anti communism perspective. Of course it is easy to say anything like that looking back when it was gone.
"In an overwhelming manner, the maturity of Anna suddenly becomes harmonious with the collapse of communism and the rebirth of a liberal Russia" from the description.
However, I did not fail to spot what kind of a car Mikhalkov was driving; Mercedez, at the time of 91, when regular people were starving on the street. After all , this was a man who was way more previledged as a film maker who spent long time outside of the country and the daughter could take off to Switzerland for her education right away in the social collapse. I have kept fiding this director somehow unconvincing and these might attribute to it.
,,,( ^v^) //
ah
vanity? what for?
I sent an evil mail to G hopign this would put an end.
This man G and I were once living together when he was still married; I let him live in my apartment when he fled his marriage until he found another woman to go after. This is a long time ago. I was never in love with man but meant to be helpful until I discovered that this way of kindness'd never help him; he was a kind who would stay as he really did unless anything hurted him. That was how I kicked him out of my place and found myself disturbed for the damage caused by this situation. The reason I still have to brood on this ancient history is because this man has been quite a burden in my life. Today I just wrote to him requesting to remove himself from my life. He now is divorced happily and living with a young woman. Yes, he is very well taken care of on top of I do not need his freindship. The reason he is still pestoring me is, according what he discribes is he is "concerned for my well being". This is the exact rethoric men resort to when they really want to get some benefit from women, or when THEY need to be taken care of. In other words, they always use the speech pattern of offering something when they really want to take. My answer to this favor is "What do you want to take more from me? You took enough already. " I am figuring he might want to regain his honor that had been proven none to me in the past. Well, two things can be said.
a) Well, too late.
b) what do you need to restore it for? Like you did not do anything to me.
However, there is no limit of guy's vainity and greed. His enthusiasm might be directed to this sort of area; good facade. He can't take it if he might be conceived as a bad guy when he really proved himself to be it. All in all, it is pointless.