Rick Marcilla

Rick Marcilla was my linear algebra teacher at community college. He got fired at the end of that semester, because I think he just couldn't handle it. He wouldn't tell us when our final was. We would ask him and he would get sort of spastic, saying "nickles and dimes! nickels and dimes.... Thats all you people care about. You don't care about math." When we finally had our final, (the Saturday after the semester was officially over) the Dean of Natural sciences was pissed off, the testing center was pissed off, the administration was pissed off and Marcilla was in big trouble. They unlocked his office to find the test to give us, because they couldn't find him. He finally rushed in, looking frazzled and angry, and someone said "Good morning" and he went bananas. He said, "Well good fucking morning to you too!" Then he ran his hand through his hair and shook his head, and said " I hope you fuckers are happy." Then he sat down to moniter the test looking thouroghly disgusted. He was an interesting man. I used to be sort of attracted to him. :O)

Today I wanted to leave with all my heart. If I had a car I would have driven somewhere far away and stayed away all weekend. I'm sick and I'm tired. I woke up at the crack of dawn after only 3 hours of sleep, and then I ate breakfast with Alex and he told me about the anarchists in Washington DC. Today their goal was to shut down the city, but they didn't succeed. Last I heard, at least 500 people have been arrested.

Then I studied physics. Then I went and took the physics test. It was hard and I don't think I did very good. I came away with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that hasn't gone away all day. I feel disappointed in myself I guess. Then I did alot of other things and I've been running around like crazy, and it's very late and I'm still running around like I have a million things to do. I get so tired and scattered. Too much input! Too many voices, too many sounds, too much to look at, too much to touch, too much to experience. It's overwhelming sometimes.

It's wonderful falling in love, but it's fleeting. We love to think of love, we love to dream of it, and imagine that it is in the places where we look. We believe what we want to believe and whether its true or not doesn't matter. At least not to us.

In the study of microscopic systems--molecules, elementary particles--one encounters several beautiful examples of systems that are mathematically analogous to the mechanical example of 2 weakly coupled pendulums... what flows back and forth between the two degrees of freedom, in analogy to the energy transfer between two weakly coupled pendulums is not energy but probability. Then energy is "quantized" -- it cannot "subdivide" to flow. Either one moving part or the other has all the energy. What flows is the probability to have the excitation energy. Examples are the ammonia molecule, which is the "clockworks" of the ammonia clock, and the natural K mesons.

"Their evil is mighty
but it can’t stand up to our stories.
So they try to destroy the stories
let the stories be confused or forgotten.
They would like that
They would be happy
Because we would be defenseless then."

Found this on the computer screen that I'm using. Its from the book Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko.

Back to work now! Yesterday was the vernal equinox by the way.

This was written in black marker on the side of a building on the Drag.

"The lord is my shephard, I shall not want.
He makes me down to lie
through pastures green he leadeth me, the silent waters by
with bright knives he releaseth my soul
He maketh me to hang on hooks in high places
He converteth me to lamb cutlets
For lo, he hath great power and great hunger
when cometh the day we lowly ones
through quiet reflection and great dedication
master the art of karate
Lo, we shall rise up
and then we'll make the bugger's eyes water."

Blood is thicker than water
but love is thicker than blood.
Yar. : )

Past the dead grass
and the sidewalk
they walked together.
The dog limped and shivered,
and the man sniffled because
his nose was full of snot.
They went and stood in the field,
as it was getting dark
to see the sun set.
Two specs of life,
two lost souls
in a world made of dust.

The sun shimmered and shone
on the water and glowed
as the horizon rose above it.
The dog looked at the man,
And the man looked at the dog,
and sent a beam of greenish light
into her eyes
So that she would know.

As the sun dipped below the horizon,
The dog lifted a paw, and stepped forward.
And there came forth a wave of particles
that took her away.
The old man fell to his knees,
and grasped his hair
and looked up into a sky filled with a million lights.
His friend was gone forever.

"There is hope, but not for us."

What is it about Thursdays that makes me feel so melancholy? I want to jump out my window! I want to throw books at people. The co-op sold me a book for 60 dollars. It is not a text book. It's some stupid obscure book called "Mute immortals" about pre-Islamic bedouin poetry. It's wordy and arrogant but I have to buy it anyway. One particularly annoying sentence in the middle of the book goes like this: "A fuller understanding of the function of this phrase in terms of the semiotic interrelations of formulaic orality requires the extension of the classical discussion." ARRRRGARWERG! Damn you world for being so obstinant. I want to drop out of school. I want to go live in the woods with the forest people. I had a dream last night that Lia dropped out of school, and moved to Vermont. She built a small boat out of sticks and mud and leaves, and sold rides across a river. Doesn't that sound wonderful?

So tonight, I'm going to the Physics student association meeting, and then we're having scrabble club after that. Leonel invited me to go to the The Boys Celler, where they're having an amature male strip night. I think I might go! I've been feeling scandelously lately...

But I do have alot of work to do. I'll probably just stay here and do it. Oh well. :)

What lesser-known Simpsons character are you?

I woke up today and ate breakfast with my mom and dad. We all sat in our pajamas in the living room eating eggs and pancakes and drinking coffee, talking about our cats. We always talk about the cats. It seems like we talk more about them then anything else. After breakfast my mom drove me to Richardson and I got in the car with Nida and Aamir and Fasil and we drove to Austin. Aamir drove. Nida slept. So I sat in the back seat and finally finished reading Ishmael. I had to keep stopping and looking out the window and making little sounds of surprise and excitment. It was an interesting book. Nida slept on my leg and my leg fell asleep.

I think Ishmael is right, "We're not destroying the world because we're clumsy. We're destroying the world because we are, in a very literal and deliberate way, at war with it." This is true! The world is dying and we are the killers. There is nothing untrue about it. The book makes a very strong argument that this is WRONG and should be REVERSED. I don't know... perhaps so. Maybe there will be a complete ecological collapse, followed by the extinction of all life on earth including our own. And maybe this is bad. But on the other hand, as he put it, maybe the ground is rushing up too fast. All this time we thought we were flying we've been in free fall. We've seen amazing and beautiful things. We've experienced the exhileration of falling without knowing we're falling. And now, if we look down we see that the ground is approaching at a rate that increases at 9.8 meters per second per second. Maybe its too late to stop the fall. Maybe we don't want to! Is there a right and wrong? Is it wrong to destroy all life on earth for our brief and violently passionate flight?

I wear a little metal peace sign on my necklace, and it's my favorite one to wear. But where did it come from? Who worked to make it that way? How did my tennis shoes get to be on my feet, how did this food get to be on my plate, how do we can have watermelons in December? How is it that we have a surplus of food and yet people dying of starvation? How is it that since the 1960s the world population has gone from 3 billion to 6 billion and the extinction rate of all other species is about one thousand times what it would be without our influence? And when I tell people I don't want to have kids because I'd feel guilty, they look at me like I'm crazy.

Here is a question that all readers of Ishmael are familiar with: What is the mythology of our culture? We do have one. A resounding, repeating mythology that is so embedded within the culture, we don't even notice it. Go read the book, and see what you think of the idea that our Culture, the Culture of Americans, and most people in the world is heavily weighted with mythology.

Anyone who is passionate is in danger of being labeled a radical or extreamist. And once someone has been labeled as such, it is okay to ignore what they have to say. But why are they passionate? Maybe all passionate people aren't crazy. Maybe some of them actually have something to say.

You're not paranoid if they're actually out to get you.

WITH MAN GONE
WILL THERE
BE HOPE
FOR GORILLA?

.....................................


WITH GORILLA GONE,
WILL THERE
BE HOPE
FOR MAN?

Whenever I look at it nowadays, and feel the cold shadow of the planes, I think: 'This must be saved, this particular thing, this very tree.' If it were to go, all would go—this city, this mischievous and marvelous monument which not to look upon would be like death.

-E.B. White

New York <--- And this.... this reminded me of what I was talking about. I'm not talking about politics or the best way to run a country, or goverments. I'm talking about people, just like the ones we see here. In New York, and everywhere else. I think I would like to see this day become a day when we come together and unite to remember every tragedy, every evil, every sadness in the world. Not just the ones closest to us.

A uniteder world

Don't get me wrong....
I love America and the life I can live here. I cherish the freedom to do whatever I want. I cherish the rights I have to participate in things. This is a wonderful nation... I just feel like grief is being trumpeted to us. Grief is a personal thing, and I guess I'm not comfortable with it being so public, so blatent, and everywhere.... is it just me?

Its good to share sadness and support each other. But is it real? What is it we're feeling? I guess I just wish that people could care for each other equally. If an American dies is it more painful than when a Nigerian dies? Or a Mongolian? Or a German? Is it sad because they are from our country? Why do we get so sad about this! We don't cry when we hear of an earthquake in India that killed thousands. I guess that death and pain are not necessarily equal.

We have to unite and help each other... but I wish that unity was not restricted to political boarders. America stands for great things, and we have great things too. We have opportunities to create art, science, poetry, and never before seen wealth too. And freedom and an amazing amount of equality. We're trying to make things better... so is everyone. We were lucky. We were born with enough stuff around us to support us. What if you weren't born here? What does that mean? Does it matter? Is it wrong not to care about Cuba?

"Love is not the only thing... it's the only baggage you can bring, its all that you can't leave behind."

Today was windy and fall-like. I walked all the way from the Business school to Spiderhouse after my arabic class, and took the long way. I walked past the tower, past those 2 little grass things where people play frisbee and past the West mall. I looked for the Pagans, but they weren't tabling today. There were hundreds of people as usual. It makes me dizzy sometimes, I look at every face and try to decifer something in it. Then I look at all the faces, all the heads, all the walking legs, all the backpacks, all together and its weird. I heard a woman telling a man "It's the prediction of Chinese communism..... capitalism.... evil...." Those were the words I caught. She was standing by a table stacked with newspapers, and he was nodding his head, looking in the other direction. She looked passionate. You see lots of passionate people on the West Mall, and those are the ones you avoid. The old men in cowboy hats trying to pass out bibles. The people trying to sell you newspapers. The Knighthood of Buh attempting to register your tennis shoes with the UT PD because they think its funny. Yesterday I saw Jeffrey crouched on the cement ledge by the Pagan Student Association table - Alison with her long flowing red hair, Laura in a long skirt with a pen in her hand. They looked so peaceful! I love those crazy pagans, I do.

Every day from 12:50 to 1, someone plays the bells in the tower. I think there was an article about the man who plays the bells in the Daily Texan. Well, today he played a sad melody. I felt strange all day... I could barely feel my hands at one point while I was walking, and my arms felt weightless. I know this isn't normal exactly, but oh well. I finally got to Spiderhouse. Every time I go to Spiderhouse I get lost. I can't even give directions to the place. I just wonder up the road, through the grass and look for the purple house with the christmas lights. I found it, and I bought a soda and went and sat outside and opened my physics book and started doing physics. I was sitting at a red metal table, that had a wooden thing built over it and a light dangling from its center. Sun came through the cracks on the wooden thing, and played on the table. I could see the shadows of leaves, dancing and moving, and the shadow of the light fixture swaying back and forth. It drove me nuts! I tried to stop it from swaying but it wouldn't. I actually had to get up and move.

Tomorrow is September 11th. I don't know how I feel about it. I actually loathe all the nationalism and "I'm proud to be an American" stuff. That attitude is the root cause of much evil. It's selfish. I don't like saying things like "God bless America" because I think it's stupid. If you're going to say something about an all powerful spirit blessing a group of people, why pick Americans? All Americans aren't good. In fact, many Americans are bad! And there are many good people in the world who are not Americans. Down with the patriarchy, thats what I say. Down with the boarders and down with history. We're carrying too much baggage. It was an awful thing that happened one year ago. I get tingles and feel sad and weird inside about it sometimes, but what about the rest of the world? Every year thousands of people die of unnatural causes, some evil. It just seems unproportionate. It's commercialized. It's the right thing to wear "I Love NY" t-shirts. It's popular to be proud to be an American. It feels good to pat ourselves on the back, it feels good to have an enemy. We don't need all of the anger and wrath from the past, and all the self righteousness. Quit being afraid to die! We're all going to die someday.... might as well make the world a better place while we're at it.

A letter from my grandpa

I want to tell you a fish and bear story in case mother didn't when she talked to you. On our return to Prince Rupert, Wrangell, Alaska was our last stop. We got there early A.M. so we had the whole day to do something. We really hadn't seen much wildlife to that point. There was a tour office in the hotel where we stayed that advertised a trip to see salmon and bears at a cost of $165 a piece. Seemed kind of high but we decided to do it anyway as we will not be in Alaska again. There were six signed up including us. In a boat that traveled 34 miles an hour we were taken to a bay on the mainland (about 40 miles) where a pretty good sized creek empties. Upstream from that point there is an observation platform about 1/2 mile over a trail built and maintained by the park service. Where the observation platform is located the stream falls over a steap rocky area you could almost call a waterfall. Above that area it flows over wide, level terrain which makes a good area for salmon to spawn. At the rapids there are thousands of salmon trying to get upstream but because fo the steepness of the rapids not too many make it. Therefore they are congregated so thick you could walk across the creek on them, and they make easy pickings for the bears to feed on. Both brown and black bears come. One brown had 3 cubs and another had 2. There were a couple of black bears that had 2 cubs and some singles. The mama bear will pluck a salmon out of the water. If its a male she lets it go and gets another until she gets a female. If its for the cubs she will bite or crush its head to kill it, then rip it open and lay it on a flat rock for them to eat. For herself she doesn't bother to kill it. She puts one paw on the head and the other on the tail and rips the belly open and eats the eggs in it. Then she releases it and the poor salmon with its belly ripped open tries to swim away. So here are these bears living on caviar for goodness knows how many days. The guide told us that years ago the powers that be looked at the area and saw how few out of the total number actually made it through the rapids to spawn. They reasoned that with the wonderful spawning beds available if more could get to them, more salmon could be produced. So they blasted a tunned along side the rapids to facilitate this. Before the tunnel their estimate was 1,200,000 salmon were returning. After the tunnel had operated a while only 300,000 were returning. Without the tunnel only the strong made it to reproduce. With the tunnel the weak ones could also and the result was weak fish that had less chance of surviving to return. So the tunnel was plugged and the numbers are increasing. The trip was worth the cost. Hope you liked the fish story.

It is perhaps uninteresting that I just ate 2 bags of dorritos. But I do not care a mimsy borogrove for you! For it was gyre and gimble in the wabe.

to feel to touch to know,
To hold, to let go,
To run to, to run from, to wonder, to guess
at what is and what isn't,
to sing, to swim, to love, to hate,
to be to do.
Is it you?
I held the laces of your shoe,
today,
cut with scissors in the dark -----

Grr
________________________________

There were only a few people at the McDonalds off of I-280 in New Mexico - a middle aged woman, an 18 year old girl, a mom, dad and 3 kids, and the workers. The middle-aged woman sat in a corner booth alone. “I like this place,” she thought to herself after the last of her french fries were gone, and all that remained of her burger and ice cream was paper and plastic wrappings. Outside her window it was a cloudy day, that was building up slowly into possible rain. She hoped it would rain. It didn’t even bother her that Britany Spears was being played on the radio over head. She felt goofily happy in this place.

Her chin rested thoughtfully in the palm of her hand, and for a moment, to the 30 something mother of three who was watching her a few chairs away, she looked eternal. The kids were playing with their happy meal toys, chattering, babbling, wrapped up in the moment. The man who seemed to be their father, and the woman’s husband, was watching his wife watch the old woman across the aisle, and wondering why her eyes seemed sad now. He didn’t know much about his wife. Her hair was tossled and brown.

Her hair was mostly grey. At one point it might have been black and silky. She seemed to be thinking of a time and place far away from here.

In the opposite corner, a girl is sitting alone. She has a small diet coke, and an apple pie in a box, that she’s not sure she wants to eat. Her hair is short, the back is shaved, and it’s maroonish-black. She dyed it that way last week with Evelyn, another girl. To the old woman, the young woman is not beautiful or eternal, or even out of place. She is just there, her bra sticking out everywhere, plain and white, beneath a black limp tank top, and black plaid pants and army boots. Just above her left breast, a tattoo. A star inside of a circle.

Abruptly the girl stands up, and walks towards the bathroom, passing the 30 something Mom who notices her for the first time, and passing the old woman, who is watching her steps, her hips, her sway. The girl smiles weekly before pushing the door open to let it fall shut behind her. More people come in, the family leaves. The old woman’s meal has been done for a long time now, and she thinks she might go. She can’t sit at McDonalds forever holding onto a memory. Memories don’t stay, they move and change, and are felt differently each time. She has overstayed her welcome.

But the girl still hasn’t come out. It worries her, though she doesn’t know why. What could be happening in there?
She opens the door with her sholder, and steps into the bathroom. At first it seems as though no one is there. It is quiet and still. There are 2 stalls, one small window and 2 sinks - one of the stall doors is partly open, and the other is mostly closed but not latched. She steps forward and opens it the rest of the way. And there sat the girl.

“Someone’s in here already.” Her voice was flat, and calm. Myra (the older woman) stood there not knowing what to do. Before her sat this wonderful girl, who made her feel nervous and strange, in all her youngness on the toilet with her pants down, staring at her like she was crazy. “I… I was just wondering, um. I’m sorry.”

The old woman stood with her old crazy hair unsure of what to do, as it seemed to the young woman. Who was not crazy. Who was just sitting on a toilet at McDonalds, with her pants down for 25 minutes. After a silence she spoke:
“Are you ok?”

Looking at her, the girl says, “I’m fine, yes are you ok?”

The older woman laughs uncomfortably. “Um, yes! I’m fine, I guess I’ll let you finish now....” But she doesn't move. She watches as the girl pulls her pants up and walks to the sink. She watches the girl wash her hands. The girl ignores her, the water, her hands, the bathroom, this strange feeling. The old woman still standing there, shifts her weight from one foot to the other wanders what to say. They look at each other again in the mirror – the older woman's reflection, the younger woman’s reflection. They drop their eyes. The girl pulls her lipstick out of a pocket low on her leg, and applies it slowly, her hands shaking. Finally she speaks, “I was only in there a few minutes. Why did you come again?”

“You were in here 30 minutes."

“Oh.”

And with that she left.

I stole this from Lynette and I have no shame. It's Rumi.

I lay in the dust at your feet,
my heart entangled in the curls of Your hair.
I've had enough. Bring closer Your lips
and let Your lips kiss release my soul.



And this.

You are the Tasmanian Devil!

You are pretty wild and have a huge appetite! However, be careful not to let your prey outsmart you. Take the What Looney Tunes Character are You? Quiz by contessina_2000@yahoo.com!