True Love Will Find You In The End

Spent the first day of winter break cleaning out my room and unpacking (all while periodically having my mom come upstairs and remind me that I was crazy for bringing home my WHOLE dorm room), but there's something about unpacking that is so fulfilling...maybe it’s the instant gratification one receives after seeing the once clutter put away into its designated areas. While cleaning my closet I found old, unused covers that I had bought two years ago, so I gave my bed a makeover - it went from being adorned with silky limegreen and skyblue sheets to curduroy pinkpurpleandlaceybrown sheets. The change is easy on the eyes and I am thankful for the less dusty environment. After that I cleaned my purse - that sounds like such an insignificant thing to write about, but for me it really isn’t - this purse held everything from a pedometer to SD beach sand in it. wow. But now it's only full of the essentials, even though I've always wanted to be one of those mary-poppins-perfected-the-half-smile-I’ve-got-the-whole-world-in-my-purse types.

Other than cleaning I also went on a fantastic run today! Running in home air always beats any other air, even though we’re in a valley and we get all of LA’s pollution and all of SF’s nastiness. (I still <3 you SF & LA). I saw one of my elementary school friends walking into his house as I was running, but at the time I felt that I was too into my run to say hello, I regret it now - I hate sidestepping conversations . I’ll go ring his doorbell tomorrow and say hello.

For the past couple of hours I’ve been sitting in my room with a tahitian vanilla candle lit, reading Movie Love in the 50’s, and taking periodic uke breaks. I’m taking on the biggest feat I’ve ever attempted in the uke arena of my life, but I cannot divulge that information just yet...I’m planning on making a lot of music this break, as well as contributing a lot to Songmeanings.net. There’s a list building up on my desktop of all the songs I want to add my input on, so can’t wait to get started on that.

OH and I think I have finally solved the problem for my stop motion film writer’s block. A song must be chosen first, and the film shall be based off of the song. Any suggestions?

I will leave you with this new find that combines three favorite (stopmotion. ukulele. robots.) to make one brilliant video:

La Vie En Rose.

I'm finally on winter break! Three weeks to do anything I'd like without the guilt of not studying! Big plans (some of which I will inform you of later)...but my biggest plan as of now is to get some zzz's, so I will leave you with my latest YouTube find, Pomplamoose:

cutest single ladies cover I've ever heard:


la vie en rose cover - her voice is so zooey deschanel, no? and the instrument implementation is perfect!


Expect an influx of posts in the next few days. goodnight!
V

My Uke Inspirations

So I picked up the ukulele in the spring and it opened up a lot of new unexpected windows...one of them being YOUTUBE STARS. There's a whole ukulele playing society on youtube and I love them soo much. For this post, I'd like to preview the amazing uke playing women in my life:

One of the first uke covers I ever heard. loving The Smiths:


zee avi! amaaazing, she has an old school feel.


shanifawni - she is my absolute favorite ukulele player on the internet.


she makes my days brighter. and I am constantly amazed by her multi-instrument playing ability.



daniellesmagic. this girl knows how to write music.


looove this cover. I was a huge Lloyd fan in middle school, haha.


uke bucket. frank sinatra : )


ukustanzie - I am currently trying to learn this song...so good. chord changes are a bit tough though.


katbadar - I absolutely adore her and her powerful voice.




ukeJill - starmaaan. oh david bowie covers, how I adore them.



Also, to be noted: Zooey Deschanel and Thao from Thao with the Get Down Stay Downs...I couldn't find videos but they both are ukulele playing advocates.

Coming soon...awesome ukulele playing guys on youtube? perhaps.

But I Can Tell You This For Nothing, Affairs Don't Win.

Inspiration is found in the strangest little pockets. So far this year, the most inspiration I’ve gotten has been through my fiction writing class. I am absolutely infatuated (it might be love) with this class. It’s such a move away from the science paradigm I have to put on for the rest of the day. Today we were talking about our final papers - which is a ten page short story of our choice - super broad - and I believe it is because of this broadness that no one has really started theirs yet. This followed with our professor discussing inspiration; inspiration has to be facilitated, she said. We can’t sit around at a bar and hope that inspiration will just hit us (we can hang out at bars for other reasons though, I suppose). We must go home and sit at our desk and type away and THEN we can justifiably hope for inspiration to pay us a visit.

On a side note, my fiction professor is the cutest thing of my life. She is SO passionate about writing. One day we were talking about our favorite authors in class and she started talking about how one feels when they read something really amazing: she likes to copy down pages of what she’s reading just to get an idea of what it would feel like to write those words.

So back to inspiration, this whole facilitated inspiration concept can be applied to things other than just schoolwork...it works for religion, too. I’ve been wanting to get straight again, but I’m not doing much to get there other than just thinking about it. I gotta create a window for Allah to come in.

Another source of inspiration was the latest smart pretty and awkward post: http://smartprettyandawkward.com/2009/11/04/two-rules-of-success-in-life-1-dont-tell-people-everything-you-know-anonymous/

Everything about this post is relevant to my life. Firstly, I agree with the quote...I’m way too much of an open book and that usually proves to be a huge problem. Next, there’s a certain someone in who I’ve been hanging out with a bit too much this whole quarter and I’m not sure if it’s good for me. Like it’s fun but at the same time I’ve been feeling less creative since my conversations are, in a sense, limited to this person. If my mind isn’t being expanded, my creativity is staying where it’s at. He used to inspire me, but now I know too much about his lifestyle and I can even call out every single guitar riff he plays...it’s time for a break from that for sure. being selfless isn’t always the best thing to do...I need to take care of myself first and my number one priority is to NOT compromise who I am for anyone else. I feel like that’s what I’ve been doing...changing my plans and going out of my way for this one person. I used to think I wasn’t that great of a person, but NOW I def am not and in retrospect I wasn’t too bad before.

The less awkward part is really powerful as well, I don’t want to break anyone’s heart because I know how much that sucks. But it seems like everyone these days wants more excitement in their life and EVERY aspect of it HAS to feel like a reality TV show. I find myself doing the same thing...but every action that has sprouted from that want has been regretted...life isn’t a TV show and people’s feelings aren’t a joke. So even though it would add so much more (temporary) excitement to my life to lead this guy on, it will not only hurt him, but it will hurt me in the end.

SO tying all of this together, I’ve decided that this is all part of the growing up process. And growing up doesn’t mean becoming a completely different person and leaving everything you did before behind. I think it’s about taking little parts of what worked for you in the past and moving forward with those while adding to them. So in a sense moving back while moving forward.

But Wait The Babies Haven't Been Born

^ Who doesn't want to feel loved and accepted?? I think it is for this reason that we rush into relationships that we don't really need to be in. But as the acceptance feeling rises, the independent feeling drops...this is an individual choice everyone makes, I don't think I'm willing to give up my independence, no matter how good it feels to be loved.

"All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on." -Havelock Ellis

Today I reinforced the idea that your dignity should always come before anything else. Even if someone tells you that they like your honesty when you speak - it really does not mean that you should let them know EVERY thought that is going through your head. Refine. REFINE. (ugh why do I have to make these mistakes on people whose opinion I actually care about?!) I texted AND called person B too many times today for silly reasons and now I feel way too vulnerable. and unmysterious. For me, mystery is SO key - and yeah, yeah it's part of "the game" but I quite enjoy the game, and I don't suppose I'll stop playing it until I'm in graduate school.

Trying to be in super-school-mode. Seriously, it’s nice being busy. It’s nice working on myself. It’s nice reading blogs. It’s nice reading just to read. It’s nice making biology flash cards. It’s nice taking 19 units. It’s nice being selfish. I have my whole life (after marriage) to care about someone else, but right now is NOT that time.

Feelings change drastically and often. I think when it comes to relationship decisions (at this point in my life) the best thing to do is to NOT listen to my feelings and rather to listen to practicality. This letting go doesn’t mean that things are going to get boring - au contraire! I think it means that things will change, but most likely for the better - for the less generic route - the kind of change that will make me uncomfortable only to make me stronger. I'd like to find out if I can handle it. I want to “explode my comfort zone” (-Invisible Monsters, Chuck Palahniuk), I want to force myself to grow again.


addition to the list:
7. get second ear piercing. wear studs all the time.

Wake Up Sid!

Just got home from watching Wake Up Sid and LOVED it. Sorry, I couldn’t find a trailer w/ subtitles :



But basically it left me with this feeling of wanting more ambition. Actually, no, it’s not that I lack ambition, I think it was just dormant for a while - and this movie awoke it! The surface story was about this girl, Aisha, coming to Bombay on her own and eventually falling in love. The subterranean story - which appealed to me more - was about her moving to be more independent and transforming her dreams into goals and then her goals into reality. I loved how driven she was when it came to getting (and fixing up) her own place, getting the job of editor’s assistant (and then continuously writing articles and placing them on her boss’ desk until he decided to publish her), putting her dignity over everything else (even though the guy she liked was LIVING with her).

I realized that for the past three weeks that I’ve been at school, I have been taking the easy way out of EVERYTHING: I’ve walked into the library a grand total of three times and successfully learned on maybe one out of those three visits. Every time that I think it’s time to get serious and work on school stuff, I call up a friend and hang out until there’s no more time left in my day. I haven’t called work or signed up for clinic OR gone to office hours.

Of course, it all comes down to me wanting to spend my time with a certain someone...and by no means do I regret any of it. However, it’s time to WAKE UP (Sid!) Vanessa. It’s not all bad though, positives have been: pretty frequent gyming (even though I signed up for the chancellor’s run and race for the cure so I need to pick up the mileage), pretty decent eating habits, learned two new songs and a picking technique on the ukulele, got positive feedback on my first Fiction writing assignment, won a raffle at the Body Shop's "Pamper Party," and only skipped one class. This all sounds like an extension of Summertime though...time to get serious. However, I think by calling my plan to act “getting serious” is doing it an injustice, because it has connotations with sadness and despair. Being busy is actually really fun and fulfilling...not just the end product, even the line from Point A to Point B. I’ve heard it takes ten days to get into the habit of something, so I will try to make these next ten days a step towards the greater goal (acting like a driven college student...get that swagger back) and hopefully I can drop some of the bad habits I’ve picked up (aka Summer-esque dealings).

In addition to what I was talking about earlier, the final message that WAKE UP SID left its audience was to take a break from the busy lifestyle that one leads and let those around you (“those that make the city more lovely for you”) know that you appreciate them. As cliche as that sounds (is), I can’t wait to get so busy to the point where I will be excited to let people around me know that I appreciate them!

short list before I forget:
1. start volunteering in clinic
2. actually go to office hours once you’ve caught up in classes
3. decorate wall with birds on cable
4. Qur’an it up more...daily.
5. don’t actively see people on the weekdays - create discrepancy between days and ends.
6. sample built to spill’s new album.

Fiction Is Always Much More Charming Than Truth

Had an interesting conversation with a friend today - although, it pretty much followed suit with most of our conversations - the topic was what we would do in our life if we had no limitations or obligations to anything or anyone. Ideas were thrown out, but it was too chilly to put a lot of thought into, and naturally it's hard to think on your feet when you're concentrating on sensible positions to stay warm in. Nonetheless, when I got home I had a chance to mull it over in my head some more. What I came up with is as follows:

First off, I would NOT be a human bio major...I prefer anthropology or art or maybe even political science. The classes these majors have to take sound SO much more interesting and mind-expanding. I want to study the cultural patterns of thought, action, and expression and I would love to experience using autobiography, dream, confession, fantasy, or other means to invent myself in a new way. I mean yeah, cool, science...but that’s a whole different train of thought and I associate it with unsocial and awkward (and financially sound). Sure there are a lot of doctors and dentists I can think of who are super charming, but in the long run when it comes to one’s paradigm and manner of speaking, I’d rather have that of an Anthro/Art major.

I would spend LOTS of my time on the couches at Barnes & Noble with tea in hand and my own reserved seat, and a huge, inexhaustible stack of books in front of me. That is luxury in my eyes.

I would travel from country to country and spend my afternoons holding classes for the general public aimed at bettering the image of women and empowering womankind and informing them of their rights (and thus sprouting more of a sense of selfworth). I would have a separate, more personal, class with the young girls and try to help them find inspiration in things that are not boyscelebritiesmediaimageboysboyboys. I would sit them down and tell their tween and teen selves that a having a boyfriend does not equal self-worth and that a lot of time is wasted on this thing called “love” whereas it does not/should not exist or be of their concern at this age. My less busy afternoons would be spent running a few miles on each country’s soil, stopping to converse with anyone I run into and fancy a chat with. This way, my blood would be exceedingly rich and diverse--having breathed in the oxygen of the world, as would my intellect.

I would be a YouTube celebrity due to my ukulele skills (which would match those of Adrian Guerrero), my song writing skills (currently non-existent), and my stop-motion animation skills (also non-existent).

For a few weeks, I would move to Italy, take on a false persona (under the name Franchesca), curl my hair everyday and wear nothing but sundresses. Important to note: I would have been born with the ability to not getting too attached to any one thing (especially anything that has to do with the opposite sex - be it attention or sweet words). I would proceed to have countless Italian lovers with whom I would frolic--for lack of a better verb--around all of Europe with. Maybe blog about it.

I would be gifted with the spunk of Suheir Hammad, the creativity and eloquence of Sarah Kay, the conviction of Sofia Baig, and the wit of Jon Stewart. And with this I would spend two nights a week at open mics and play my uke or sing or perform spoken word poetry. I would constantly be writing lyrics or poetry in my mind. I would be part of the open mic community in my town and when any of us ran into one another outside of the venue, we would exchange head nods that said much more than words could, but only because we knew that if we opened up our mouths we’d lose our train of thought and never complete the last line to the piece we were working on in our respective heads. and that would be that.

two last ideas I'm not sure how to elaborate on:
As I grew older, I would never become jaded. My zeal for life and everything on this planet would remain intact and in full speed.

I would be able to speak Arabic perfectly as well as French and Spanish and I would have the ability to memorize things easily in these languages.

He Sings The Songs That Remind Him of the Better Times

I'm a huge ukulele enthusiast and as a result I have become a part of the ukulele community on YouTube...there's more than a few gems in this community and I will periodically shower you with their prowess.
Julia Nunes makes me exceptionally happy.
This is my current fav on YouTube:

"The mile has all the elements of drama."

Ran a 12.10 two-mile today. It’s been about two years since I’ve been able to do that...what a feeling. You can imagine how it feels to finally accomplish the goal you’ve been working up to all Summer. Thank goodness, because I only have five more days of summer (controlling myself from adding a 500 days of summer comment here...heh). Anyways, walking out of the gym I felt really good about myself, I could tell because I always unconsciously add a slight bounce to my step so my ponytail will swish back and forth in a certain manner when I am feeling at my prime.

By the time I sat down in my car, the post-run mindset kicked in and I began to place metaphors from my time on the track nicely into my time on the...Earth(?) Btw, if you've never experienced a runner's high, I recommend you lace up your joggers right now and get to running. Why take the advice of a stranger? Even Nike thinks it's a good idea (har har):


Anyways, back to the original thought; my high school cross country coach used to always tell me that I wasn’t pushing as hard as I could during races and my 5k time was usually about a minute over what it was today on the treadmill...which proves his point (gahh for never running intensely on treadmills till after highschoool and consequently not realizing my potential!) but honestly during those races I really gave it my all...or so I thought.

Which makes me think that perhaps right now in life I could be doing WAYY more. I mean I don’t even feel like I’m giving my all, but imagine if I did? or at least tried? My potential would shoot up like the amount of times they play Taylor Swift on the radio post-VMAs. Mediocrity sucks. but for so long I’ve been living the Le Tigre lifestyle ("mediocrity rules")...yabadaba doo man. GOAL time:

1. make full use of the running club I am now the head of...def have a photo running day like zooey dechanel’s from Yes Man.
2. go to AS Concert General Body Meetings and give my input on what bands I want to see and help make it happen
3. sit at the front of all my classes AND talk to professors during their office hours.
4. Find a research job.
5. be more THERE while I shadow Dr. Eshom.
6. get work done at the library...and THEN some.
7. pilates err(other)day
8. find one place to write to-do lists as opposed to writing them on any and every available scrap of paper.

Okay, looks like a good place to stop.

x

“The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are.”

So it took me forever to figure out how to start out my first post...and I still am not really sure, but either way it is definitely time. I'm going into my second year of college and I had no idea that it was possible for one to grow so much in a year...but the again I guess that's how all first years are.

Even though there was a lot of growing and trying of new things (i.e. friends, lifestyles, classes, mindsets) it all came very quickly and I got wound up in it. I sort of let go of a lot of things that made me who I was; the things I enjoyed and it made me very restless. However, now that Summer's rolled around, I've been able to wind down and reflect. The first conclusion that I came to for this disquiet was the lack of writing in my life...from fifth grade I always had something that I wrote my thoughts on - usually just streams-of-conciousness on scraps of papers in my backpack, that would never be found again- nonetheless it helped me organize my thoughts. So I decided to start this blog as a venue to rekindle the connection with the Vanessa that spent hours on the computer sitting in awe and soaking in everything she could from the Def Poetry Jam Poets, the Vanessa that would wake up at 6 a.m. to go to Pilates because she nothing else compared to the feeling of control it gave her, the Vanessa that would go out and run five miles when she felt happy/confused/angry/anything, the Vanessa that chose spending time in a bookstore over anything else.

As Anais Nin very eloquently put, "Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death." So what I'm getting at is, I like the music enthusiast, free-love supporting, struggling to get closer to my religion that college has brought out in me, but at the same time, it would be a shame to let go of my past loves for no good reason.

I admire eloquence over anything else and what better way to attain this quality than by writing? So join me and perhaps we can find new loves together.

Oh and the "Woman in the Mirror" thing? Based off of my boy MJ's song : ) time for a change.