Janewithawhy

This loop is magical.

Mon, 20 May 2013 20:10:12 -0700

This loop is magical.

schultzinit: I’ve been lazy. Or I’ve been traveling too...

Mon, 20 May 2013 19:25:42 -0700

Women collect tea leaves as part of the annual Darjeeling tea harvest

The lifeguard hut in Goa's Baga Beach

Men work to repair the treacherous mountain roads in Darjeeling

A young boy laughs as his older sister keeps him in the waves washing up

A man prays as the afternoon mass takes place in the St. Basilica church

In an Ayurvedic pharmacy, doctors package herbs for distribution

In Darjeeling, flags cover the taxi stands where one departs for trekking

In Fort Kochi at Narva Traders, the main rice sold in Kerala is not the traditional Kerala red rice, but white grain imported from other states

A man showes me a pretty remedial tool, but perhaps the best kitchen invention ever. It cuts, sliced, shaves, etc.

A woman browses the latest Tommy Hilfiger fashions online on her iPad next to the beach in Fort Kochi

schultzinit:

I’ve been lazy. Or I’ve been traveling too much…

For the past two weeks I have kind of been hopping around. I went to from Darjeeling, back to Mumbai, and then on to Goa, and I now find myself even further south in the state of Kerala, and the shipping town of Fort Kochi. Admittedly, in Mumbai and Goa, the idea was more to kick back and just take the whole thing in. For Goa, it’s hard not to- the beach, although during the off season, is absolutely pristine. Pretty much you show up, and there are countless huts right on the beach, and all of them have pretty much the same business model and sell the same stuff- fresh seafood meals and drinks. Some have pool tables, others have better cabanas in the sand, but all in all, they are the same. Seemingly during the high season which I’m told is November through March, so many tourists, especially from Russia, come to escape the cold and party it up. I’ve been told that the beach is filled completely to the brim with people overflowing from the huts. That wasn’t the case, rather it was pretty much all local Indian tourism when I was there. I put my camera down to enjoy, partly because of my phobia with sand, but more to selfishly chill out. There were a few places open, and I managed to have a few nice meals and throw back a few beers on the beach with my friend Kishore from Mumbai. Par for the course…

Previous to that, my last days in Darjeeling were spent strolling the streets- nothing too wild. The picture captions tell the rest.

Up next is the Kerala backwaters before heading off to Spain, or Dubai- gotta check on that…

So, my supervisor from the Clinton Foundation is currently in the middle of a 6 month globe-trotting stint and his pictures from around the world are really remarkable. I encourage you all to go look at his photoblog because it seriously inspires me to 1.) look at my own world with a different perspective and 2.) make plans to travel very soon.

Photo

Mon, 20 May 2013 16:50:12 -0700

decepticonsensual: fierceawakening: lordmeowrail: pepperedfar...

Mon, 20 May 2013 16:46:01 -0700

decepticonsensual:

fierceawakening:

lordmeowrail:

pepperedfarts:

livinglifeinseconds:

22 Year Old’s Short Film Gets Hollywood’s Attention

Lechowski’s film, titled R’ha, is a fully computer animated six-minute short that you won’t believe was made by just one student.

ONE .

This was animated by ONE student.

ONE STUDENT.

ONE.

1

UNO

YI GE XUE SHEN

gKL;GMAS;DLHMKASDHM

holy….

Not only is this jaw-dropping animation, it’s damn good storytelling. I felt more invested in six minutes than I do in some two-hour films.

Holy fuck.

She asked me why I was laughing hysterically, and I said I had an epiphany. So she asked me what was...

Sat, 18 May 2013 07:58:12 -0700

She asked me why I was laughing hysterically, and I said I had an epiphany. So she asked me what was so funny about my epiphany, and I said nothing.

Absolutely nothing was funny about my epiphany. It was horrendously & absurdly sad, and it was a little melodramatic but I felt this realization in my bones and I knew it could be nothing but true. And because it was so sad and because it was so melodramatic, because it was so theatrical to have this thought and feel it completely, because of that—it was hilarious, to me.

—

Love will continue to slip away from you.

Her Hands At Her Sides

Thu, 16 May 2013 18:59:00 -0700

You wake up and you are tired. You turn on the kettle and you wash yourself; you make your breakfast and you are old, there, standing by the stove, one hand upon your hip—you are aged by your own implemented schedule. You dress yourself in your pleated, lightly pressed, dark pants and collared shirt and you never understood the metaphor likening the neck tie to that of the proverbial noose, but you think that maybe you’re starting to.

You know that you are still so young, but somehow you feel as though life and all of the goals you had once set for yourself not so long ago are quietly slipping away from you. It frightens you when it shouldn’t frighten you. It paralyzes you when it shouldn’t paralyze you.

—

On weekends you are bipolar. You don’t understand who to be, half of the time. You are stuck between two worlds; though, haven’t you always been, in some matter of simile and metaphor? Young and free or mature and experience? Which one do you want to be? You’re never sure, so your life is a flip-flop—weekend after weekend of shoddy continuity: a bad television show given too many seasons. The kind that the fans only hope the network will cancel, just to put them out of their misery.

You have fans. Some less loyal than others.

You are grateful for them, but you don’t know how to interact with them because you are still 18 years old sometimes.

When you go out at night you tend to wonder if you should be yourself or if you should take up acting like you always wanted to. Sometimes you act, but only halfway. It gets you into dark corners of your mind with skin you’re not familiar with wrapped up in your palms and hair that isn’t the length you thought it’d be cascading messily over your front.

There are nights where you are just you, without the charade, and you think that someday you might actually keep the act up.

After all, you did it once. Why not again?

—

You are strange and you are beautiful, though nobody has ever taken the time to say it to you. Somedays you fold in on yourself and somedays you are ten feet tall. And on either day you are still strange and you are still beautiful, though nobody has ever taken the time to say it to you. No, no they have not.

When you laugh you close your eyes and cover your stomach and throw your head back because when you were younger you thought that you had seen a boy do a double take when you laughed, so now you laugh that way because you think it might be attractive. Nobody, yet, has told you that it is. You start to wonder if you should stop doing it, but it’s how you laugh, now. Someday, the right person will do a double take. Until then, you’ll wonder what you’re laughing at.

You are strange.

But you are also beautiful, there, when you are free and laughing and it hurts the muscles in your face to be so overjoyed. You are beautiful in the subway car, reading, flipping through pages to find where you left off because you dare not crease the corners nor keep a mark. You are beautiful even when you are drunk, in the daylight, with those glasses on and your arms folded, where you’re not thinking and you have no filter and you’re on your third bloody mary—you are beautiful because you are free and you are young. And you are beautiful standing there, barefoot, one hand on your hip, yawning as you make eggs in the kitchen, because you are mature and you are experienced.

You are beautiful whether you walk out the door with your shoulders hunched or you head held high. When you change your contacts to glasses and sit against the window and listen to sad music. When you dress yourself in the morning. When your nimble fingers button your collared shirts.

You are strange and you are beautiful.

—

You’re also fairly bad at trying to convince yourself of such a statement.

—

Someday, somebody will think about me in this likeness—perhaps not exactly, but in some weird, faux-prose, grandiose fashion such as this.

Until then, who is going to love you, if you cannot love yourself?

Tag. You're it. The rules are to state 5 random facts about yourself. Then go to ten favorite blogs and tell them they are it.

Wed, 15 May 2013 18:52:21 -0700

If I answer with ten random facts, can I not go to other blogs? Haha.

I legitimately think that I am going to be famous some day. Just don’t ask me what for.
I like my coffee black, which isn’t really a random fact, because most people know that about me—the random fact is when I tell you why I started drinking my coffee black; my rowing coach hated adding anything to his coffee and once he made fun of me for how much sugar and milk I added. I decided to try my coffee black and found that I fucking loved the complex flavors you got from just the beans. Thank you, Mike Homes!
My favorite song is Clair De Lune, my favorite book is 1984, my favorite movie is Dear Frankie, and my favorite thing to eat is steak.
I still sleep with a stuffed animal.
I haven’t had sex since I was in high school. I really hated putting this up here, but it actually feels better to say it out loud because then I don’t feel diseased. Look, I’m not good at girls, okay? A part of me thinks I’m a serial monogamist like Ted Mosby, but I know that’s not it. No matter how awkward I used to be, I’m still incredibly awkward and really self-deprecating. It’s mostly the self-deprecation that prevents the sex thing from happening. I hate so many parts of my physical body that I get really uncomfortable just thinking about getting naked with somebody. I’d rather it happen drunkenly, with the lights turned off.
I write a lot of stuff that I don’t post or publish anywhere. But no way would I ever consider myself a writer or an author.
I am legitimately unaware of what it feels like for somebody not related to you by blood to love you for every part of you.
I FUCKING HATE SOCKS. If I could barefoot all day everyday without worrying about what the fuck I step in, I WOULD BE BAREFOOT ALL DAY EVERYDAY.
I used to play WoW a lot. I was a troll enhancement shaman, mostly because they said you couldn’t be a good troll enhancement shaman. I mean, my friend Diana was a warlock so it’s pretty hard to beat that, but I’d be a solid second in terms of DPS.
Sometimes I like songs by Taylor Swift and Drake.

sermna: She’s my candy girl.

Wed, 15 May 2013 17:31:12 -0700

sermna:

She’s my candy girl.

bemusedlybespectacled: if you ever think mythology is boring or serious business or whatever...

Tue, 14 May 2013 04:42:09 -0700

bemusedlybespectacled:

if you ever think mythology is boring or serious business or whatever shit

just remember that cerberus, the hell-hound and guard dog of the underworld, comes from the root indo-european word ḱerberos, which evolved into the greek word kerberos, which got changed to cerberus when it went from greek to latin

ḱerberos means “spotted”

that’s right

hades, lord of the dead, literally fucking named his pet dog spot

The best thing you’ll learn all day!

It’s 9:30. I have Cleaned my room Scrubbed its hard wood floor Dusted Made my bed Did my...

Sun, 12 May 2013 18:32:52 -0700

It’s 9:30. I have

Cleaned my room
Scrubbed its hard wood floor
Dusted
Made my bed
Did my laundry
Cooked dinner
Ate dinner
Made & packed lunch for tomorrow
Separated my lunch from my breakfast for tomorrow
Put water in the pot for tea tomorrow
Set my alarm
Took out my contacts

I guess this is what being an adult is going to be like for a while.

ski-nnylatte: girlannachronism: Dolce & Gabbana spring...

Sun, 12 May 2013 17:55:30 -0700

ski-nnylatte:

girlannachronism:

Dolce & Gabbana spring 2012 rtw backstage

They are all so stunning

About me.

Sun, 12 May 2013 17:51:12 -0700

About me.

Trek

Sat, 11 May 2013 23:17:00 -0700

I like to think of all the ways that my life could have ended up, all of the other universes that might be out there because the decisions made by me or anyone else hadn’t gone exactly as the ones in this universe went. I like to think that inspiration and dreams are the only connections we have to these other universes, and everything we have imagined actually exists in a universe that can only be gotten to with a wormhole.

—

What if I had leaned over and kissed you in the car that one time? What if I hadn’t laughed when you said you liked me? What if I curled your hair around my finger instead of dropping my hand awkwardly at that red light, when your breath got caught in your throat and you shuddered?

In this universe, I didn’t grab your hand in that theatre and when you asked me to hang out the time after that, I didn’t text you back. So we drifted apart and I don’t talk to you anymore, but I know that you were dating some girl and you looked happy until you absolutely did not look like you were happy, and you went back to school, and you travelled, and now I don’t really know what you do. But I guess you’re better than before.

But sometimes I wonder what college I would have gone to had I let you push me into the water at Laguna Beach. Or what awkward fight might have ended us completely had I gone to hang out with you instead of my friends that time we ran into each other.

—

What if I was as inattentive and aloof then as I am today? Would you still have felt the way you did? What if you said my name that time and that time and that time instead of a name that didn’t even sound like mine? What if I wasn’t 15 or 16 and what if I went to OSCHA when I wanted to? What if I wasn’t a fool so many times after?

I don’t often think about what could have been or what might have fixed “us”, anymore. Though, admittedly, I used to a lot, especially when I went away the first time. The second time, though, the thought hardly passed through my synapses (though years had passed since then).

Ironically, perhaps, I would be better suited now, than back then. Back when I was still so green and young and not totally blinded by the not-yet-haves of hurts and metaphorical skinned knees that would require the bandages that would lead me to this person today.

In another universe, perhaps, we ended in different ways.

—

What if you didn’t just flit through my life like a passing wind? What if you’d stayed for a while? Maybe then I’d know today, the answer to whether or not you could be a certain way.

(we could have had so much fun)

—

What if I’d let you into my bed sooner? Gotten drunker quicker? What if I didn’t text you that night and agree to what you so obviously wanted to happen?

What if we didn’t leave? What if, instead, we had stayed and been people who could have travelled paths that weren’t so far apart, whose conversations were stifled by an hourly change of timezones? What then?

Would it still have been worthless, meaningless, nothing to remember?

In another universe, did we fight or follow or were you not even that way? In another universe, did I change my plans?

There is a universe where we did not happen, though. In that universe, the me, there, sleeps one night and travels that wormhole only to see what had happened so quickly and unfulfilling between us.

If you asked me which one I’d rather take, this one or that one, I couldn’t say.

(the grass is greener where you water it)

—

What if I leaned over and kissed you drunkenly, the way you intended for me? What if I didn’t care at that point, didn’t hesitate when you took your shirt off, didn’t try to be anything than just a stupid drunk girl graduating from undergrad?

Would it have made any difference at all?

Or would I have fled just as I did before?

—

What if you said yes, to Star Trek? What if it didn’t take 2 years for us to watch that movie together? What if I wasn’t so awkward and insecure and the thought of sitting in a dark theatre with me for 2 hours without speaking didn’t repulse you the way it did, back then?

Sometimes I wonder what would have happened had you not told anybody the way I thought you would have (though, now that I know you, I know now that thought was incredulous).

I wonder whether or not I would still have an oar gathering dust in my mother’s garage had you said yes. Perhaps, in some other universe, you say yes for the sake of saying yes, and nothing comes out of it save for watching Star Trek that time.

I wonder in which universe you say no and I don’t go through the entire damaging bout of self-esteem correctional thoughts throughout that summer. Where you say no and it doesn’t feel like you say no just because it’s me asking or because of the way I asked it. Sometimes I wonder if that me ends up transferring the way I had intended, or staying in Computer Science the way I had imagined, or gone on to do less self-loathing things throughout the years.

Because in this universe you said no, and I took it badly, then, the way it played out. Partly because we were both so young, but mostly because I was young and dumb.

But sometimes I wonder what would have happened had you said no and I didn’t feel that first twinge of self-doubt that would have only been amplified by the rampant, destructive liaison of bodies that was so prevalent and, at the same time, so hush hush, just two years later.

I wonder what city I would have been in post-graduation had you said yes, 4 years ago, when I was still awkward and you were not yet the person you happen to be. Sometimes, even, I wonder what girls I could have or would have slept with had I not taken that moment to fixate on you and the doubtful-maybe that had been so manipulatively placed in my head.

I wonder, if I had not had a crush on the first, would my life of four years been completely different in the end? If the two did not request my presence at the library that time, if they hadn’t demonstrated such a peculiar interest in me because of my reputation (or orientation), would it have saved either of us? All of us?

I will never know.

—

Instead, in this universe, we made an inside joke, we have our laughs. In this universe, I ended up here and you ended up where you will end up, and she has ended up with her, and we are spread thin across the country because we made our decisions when the time came to make them.

I have learned to let go now, but I still wonder what would have happened if our No’s turned to Yes’s and our Yes’s turned to No’s and the things we always intended to say to each other were said and the things we never meant to do to each other were not done. I wonder in what city I may have ended up had the one not fooled around so much (or even a little more). Had the other not lingered for her. Had we acted differently and didn’t get involved.

If I had acted differently and didn’t get involved.

—

I can’t say that I’m entirely glad to have gone through it because it was incredibly difficult to do it, but I can say that I, personally, didn’t end up in such a bad spot. All those Yes’s that were Yes’s and those No’s that were No’s lead me here.

And here isn’t necessarily where I want to be right now, in life, but not many people can say that they are where they want to be.

Who knows, who knows.

—

Does anybody want to see Star Trek next week?

cisbender: when an artist wants to show you their art or a writer wants you to read what they’ve...

Sat, 11 May 2013 23:07:00 -0700

cisbender:

when an artist wants to show you their art

or a writer wants you to read what they’ve written

it’s quite often an expression of trust

because a poem or a story or a painting are often things that come from the heart

little pieces of the artists themselves

and if they’re willing to share it with you

you should appreciate it

Every original prose I write on this blog, when it is posted, is both an anecdote of some aspect of my life and a piece of me that I am allowing myself to share with others.

Perhaps that’s why it’s always hurt even more when something from here was used against me.

anotherfashionbook: THIS FUCKING 3 PIECE. I saw pictures of...

Sat, 11 May 2013 22:24:44 -0700

anotherfashionbook:

THIS FUCKING 3 PIECE. I saw pictures of this 3-piece like, during the summer, and this has been my inspiration for the way I dress myself. UGH THIS COSTUME DESIGN, MAN.

science blue, engineering red, and command yellow

Sat, 11 May 2013 21:35:13 -0700

science blue, engineering red, and command yellow

I am going to be a better person

Sat, 11 May 2013 20:43:53 -0700

Warning Signs

Sat, 11 May 2013 20:13:02 -0700

You’re the kind of girl I could see myself getting involved with, but I won’t go there. No, I definitely can’t go there—not with you. But I want to. And it gets easier and easier to say that this might be something that could be right.

But I won’t go there.

I can’t.

—

You’re the kind of girl that people should write warnings about. You know, they say the fast girls are the bad girls. They say that the kinds of girls you should take home are the ones you would take home to mom. There’s a bunch of old, shitty, outdated adages about slut-shaming and virgin-praising. They’re a load of shit anyway.

But people really should have been writing warnings about you. The kind of girl that is right and so alike and when I think about it, maybe it wouldn’t be as bad as any of your or my own past endeavors but the thing they should have wrote warnings about perhaps isn’t about you, the girl, but you, the situation.

—

You’re the kind of girl who wouldn’t mind if I was sometimes inattentive and spaced out. You wouldn’t mind if I went off to Europe for 4 days to take pictures without you and to be by myself. You’re the kind of girl I could date and not see for a week and you wouldn’t flip your shit about it, but I feel like you’re also the kind of girl who will spend as many lazy Sundays as I ask of you with me, in bed, reading, or sleeping in, or listening to music with.

You’re the kind of girl who will disappear or look at other women or buy some other, prettier girl a drink, but I wouldn’t care. You won’t remember everything about me, but you’ll remember what counts—maybe not my favorite song or favorite book, but what kind of songs I listen to when I’m having a shit day or what kind of book(s) I’ll be reading when I’m feeling really good about life.

—

But I can’t get involved in this, with you. I can’t get involved with you because it’s not an inevitable end that I am worried about—it’s the gruesomely awkward beginning.

I shouldn’t do this. I can’t do this. I won’t do this.

I won’t do this.

—

I’m gonna kill the only good part about myself for you.

notsobear: makee papi proud

Sat, 11 May 2013 09:05:03 -0700

notsobear:

makee papi proud

Now you’re too interesting.

Sat, 11 May 2013 09:02:23 -0700

Now you’re too interesting.