i'm committed . .

. . to not being committed.

first real commitment: actually blog.

second real commitment: don't be committed.

i realized how boring i've gotten being here in the states. so, i'm committed to:
1) not being boring
2) trying new things, and
3) not being overly committed

i mean, i work way too much be a square in this district of squares.

this might mean, jumping into the ocean at 42 degrees in late november:


or, driving through a few states to get some good fast food:


or, going to random furniture stores:


or almost get pawned off by your friends . . or remembering only certain parts of the night . . or loosing ATM cards by not pressing the "return card" button . . or having really great ideas that don't sound that great in the morning . . or making up stories, only to realize NO story could cover THAT up. no, not even stories with dragons. OR . . coming to the conclusion that maybe my friends are lying because i definitely did NOT do that.

oh, i want to be in my early twenties . . forever.

Promoting LGBT Dating Violence

Are you f-ing serious??

Thank you South Carolina.

No wonder you were the first state to secede from the union.

UC's Fees Increase 9.3%

So when my older brother and sister went to college, my parents paid for their tuition without applying for financial aid.

Granted they could only apply to/attend local schools (UCSD and SDSU) and were required to live at home . . that was a big chunk of change. When my brother started going to college, my parents had to resort to paying Malisa's tuition in multiple payments rather than just putting down the $4,000 (or so) in one payment.

When I went to college, seeing that I was the rebellious and said: f-you-i'm-applying-to-5-UCs-and-hauling-my-ass-500-miles-away-to-Berkeley . . all these payments were on me. Also, by my senior year in high school . . my parents were both unemployed due to some layoffs and I knew even if I stayed in San Diego . . I wouldn't even want to ask for the same sweet deal as my siblings anyway.

So BOO HOO. I left college with $20K in loans. Ironically, this is MORE than what my private school educated friends in DC left school with. Which brings to mind, if I left a public school with that much debt, how much debt would future UC alums be leaving with?

Cuts to Abstinence Only Education!

So while our favorite almost first daughter parades around America promoting teenage sexual abstinence, the Obama administration is finally having some sense and cutting the budget of the stupid abstinence only education.

The only budget cuts to any education program.

YAY!

So going back to Bristol, I wonder how her child is going to feel to grow up knowing that her mom went on a national campaign to talk about how he/she was a big mistake.

It makes me sad to think that instead of shaming young mothers (aka: herself), scaring young women in general, and sentencing her child to growing up unwanted . . she could have used her experience to empower young mothers.

Reminds me of other conservative folks I know.

Community Service, Service, and Activism

from an email.

I think often times . . activists try to stay away from "service" or "community service" because we emphasize the fact that we work in and WITH the community.

I admit, I do this also. No, what I do is NOT community service. It's activism. Community service is what I did to rack up hours and put on my college application . . not what I did in college or what I do now. What I did in college and what I do now . . I do with a purpose. Community service also has a purpose, just not rooted in the same social justice purpose that I've developed over the years...

However, I think shifting our perspective might help. While most forms of service is not considered activism (ie: a bunch of bougie kids going into a low income community and picking up trash and painting some of the buildings), it can be argued that most forms of activism is a form of service (ie: organizing a low income community to pick up trash and paint their OWN buildings).

Only an incredibly (dare I say) arrogant "activist" will go and say, NO, I'm an ACTIVIST . . I don't do SERVICE. We are community organizers not community SERVICE people.

Now, if we look at it this way . . not all organizing is service either right? While I know a lot of folks may say they organize the community, what are the outcomes?

The outcomes are the service.

You can organize a community . . but if there are no actions or results, what is the service?

While most forms of service could be done by a bunch of bougie white people who don't come from the community, the reason why we consider it activism is because we come FROM the community and we work WITH the community to make these things happen.

On the other hand, we can definitely have activism without service as well. If we just sat around and talked about stupid admissions policies, talked about SI being inaccessible to students in the central valley, talked about how high school students should apply to scholarships, or just talked to middle school students about taking the right courses in high school . . then that's just activism without service.

Therefore, it's important for "activists" to not just sit around and think critically about issues . . or talk the talk about social justice . . we gotta make sure we walk the walk and actually act on some of these issues and figure out some solutions.

Where Did I REALLY Come From?

Yet another reason why my parents should have thought about resettling in Australia instead of the United States.

Now this is what I call being a multi-ethnic nation-state!

The Goonies

On Friday after the May day rally, Doua convinced me to go up to Rosslyn to meet up with her, Minh, Helly, and Yimeen for a movie in the park.

Apparently, every Friday during the summer time, Rosslyn screens movies in this really cute park.

Anyway, the movie that they were playing was The Goonies. Doua was shocked that Minh and I both have never seen it . . I suppose a testament to our age.

While I have never seen it, I did tell Doua, "umm . . but I've heard a lot of punk rock songs about it . . "

Which is true.

After watching the movie, so many song make so much more sense to me now.