Here We Go Again...

On Thursday I finished my first application for graduate school. I applied to the University of Miami. I delayed doing this longer than I had intended, and, as a result of that, I think one of my letters of recommendation will arrive late. C'est la vie.

This will not be the only application I do for Fall 2010: I have yet to complete Tulsa's application, and I'm supposed to look into the University of Washington at Seattle. I doubt I can afford applying to any more schools at this point, but if any of you have any suggestions for someone who wants to study James Joyce, please let me know, and I will be happy to look into it.

For this reason, I decided that it would be beneficial to post my personal statement (which I've already sent to the University of Miami) just to see if anyone would give me some feedback. As this is my second go-round for applying, I'm tinged with desperation and willing to go farther than I did last year to get into a school. Somehow, through no fault of my own, school has become my life. So, without further ado, my personal statement:

“Et ignotas animum dimittit in artes.”

This quote from Ovid’s Metamorphoses precedes the beginning of Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. It refers to Dædalus, the father of invention, so to speak, and it translates to “And he applies his mind to obscure arts.” The quote is pregnant with meaning, for not only does it apply to the young Stephen Dedalus, but it also says much about Joyce himself: one need only take a look at the esoteric allusions in Ulysses to be convinced that Joyce applied his mind to many obscure arts. On top of that, those that study Joyce are applying their minds to the obscure art of figuring out what Joyce meant by his works. I want to be one of those who applies his mind to the study of Joyce.

Why would anyone want to study Joyce? He is admittedly complicated and frustrating—intentionally so, it seems. The simple answer to that is Joyce begs to be studied. Unlike many other authors, Joyce, especially in Ulysses and Finnegans Wake, breaks down the traditional form of the novel, inserting in his writing so many allusions that it sometimes can appear as madness. It is difficult to read some of Joyce’s work just for pleasure because the usual elements in fiction like plot and characters are subsumed by themes and motifs. Still, there is a story in Joyce’s epics—arguably, there are many stories in them. The possibility of discovering a different story, or an alternative view to a story already discussed, is exciting. I just the need the chance to study Joyce in an academic setting because I cannot possibly crack Joyce’s genius alone.

I am certainly capable of literary interpretation, as I have studied literature for most of my adult life. As an undergraduate, I attended the University of California at Irvine and majored in English. While I started as a decent student, I began to shine later in my college career in my upper division English courses. At the time, Shakespeare and Milton held my interest. I loved Shakespeare for his language play, role reversals, and juxtapositions of contrary elements; I loved Milton for writing the last epic poem in western literature. Thirsty for more, I attended Rutgers University (Newark Campus) to get a master’s degree in English. The experience there prepared me for the more probing questions required in graduate study, as well as opened my eyes to a wide range of literature to which I was never exposed. Practically everything from Chaucer to Toni Morrison was on the M.A. Exam. I received a High Pass on that exam, the highest grade available. Even so, I had somehow avoided reading and discussing A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. It was not until after I graduated from the program that I became interested in Joyce.

My love for Joyce came about through reading Anthony Burgess. Quite a few of Burgess’s novels refer in some way to Joyce, either directly (as in The Doctor is Sick) or indirectly. Burgess, like Joyce, toys with English in his work, and that language play is intriguing. In the summer of 2008, I read Burgess's book ReJoyce, a short exegesis of all Joyce's work, which I found incredibly fascinating. Thereafter, I picked up A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Dubliners and enjoyed them tremendously. There are moments in both Dubliners and A Portrait where I feel as if I know exactly what Joyce is doing—it is very rare for me to identify that well with many other authors. Really, that is what this comes down to: identification. In some ways I see myself as another Joyce. I love the language play, the allusions, the intensity, and the genius. As a writer myself, I discovered after reading both Burgess and Joyce that my writing bears some resemblance to theirs. I doubt I can write the next Ulysses or Finnegans Wake, but there was always within me a strong interest to make the mundane epic. I also hope, through studying Joyce at ________________, that I am able to incorporate my interest in Burgess with my research on Joyce. If I am unable to do that immediately, I hope that sometime in the future I can bring Burgess into academia because I believe he is worthy of being studied as well.

Another reason it would be beneficial for me to study Joyce in an academic setting is to learn more about the milieu in which Joyce was writing. I openly admit to having blinders on: I only see myself studying Joyce at this point. I hardly know others in the Irish Modernist Movement to effectively evaluate Joyce with his contemporaries. Were other Irish writers as ambivalent to Dublin and Ireland as Joyce was? I do not know, but I would love the opportunity to find out. As far as other Irish Modernists, I have only heard of Sean O’Casey in passing, and I would like to expand my knowledge in this area not only to enhance my understanding of Joyce himself, but also to see how these writers affected the world through their literature.

Ultimately I believe that the resources at ______________ will be invaluable for me to study Joyce. To be so near to James Joyce Quarterly/Joyce Literary Supplement will only prove to add to the experience: I need to see not only what has been said about Joyce during my research, but what is being said as well. The ideas that could arise from the exposure to this flux of interpretations would be stronger, more informed, and thus more beneficial to academia. Yet this would be even larger than academia, because to study Joyce is to study language and the way we communicate with each other. Language is certainly one of the most obscure arts to which anyone can apply his mind, and yet we all must use language, even if we are unaware of how we are using it. I would like to think that, by studying Joyce and his obscure works, I will be contributing to the study of language and writing in a larger sense as well, thereby helping—in some small way—all of us who use language.

Tacklin' Fuel.

When I was a child, playing with Lego cars and airplanes and helicopters I made, I ran into the problem of fueling the vehicle. My imagination did not want to stop the adventure I was having to gas up, but my logical brain would not allow me to unrealistically fly or drive indefinitely, ignoring the issue of gasoline altogether. How did I solve this dilemma? I invented "ghost gas." Ghost gas was the energy source that never ran out; when it was in your gas tank, it kept it full. This allowed my heroes to drive or fly limitlessly without ever having to stop for gas, and it somehow appeased my logical brain enough to not question what exactly would ghost gas comprise of that would allow it to be an eternal fuel.

I think, on some level, that this was the beginning of me as a writer. Solving that dilemma is much like writing any piece of fiction, for does not fiction blend the real with the imaginary in such a way that the reader must suspend disbelief? Even the most fantastical novels in the most imaginary worlds have rules that must be obeyed, because if they did not, the reader would have no reason to continue being lulled into the work because he cannot get over the impossible.

I also think that, if there are any chemical engineers or chemists reading this, you should get started on figuring out a way to make ghost gas real.

The Story Begins...

I finally started writing that story about the dream I had last month. I only wrote a few lines this morning, but it was a start. It seems likely that I will finish this one because the whole thing is mapped out for me; generally when I leave a story (or, ahem, a novel) unfinished it is because I do not know where to go next. It's either for that reason or I completely hate it. So far neither is the case.

Well, I could forget about it too, but that rarely happens.

I am also going to be reading three books at the same time: Madame Bovary, Ulysses, and Where the Red Fern Grows. I'm re-reading both Madame Bovary and Where the Red Fern Grows, and I'm nearly done (about 260 pages remaining) with Ulysses, but there will be least be some overlap between the books. I haven't read so many books at the same time since I was in school.

The reason I'm reading Where the Red Fern Grows is because I assigned it to the kid I'm tutoring and I need to follow along. I haven't read it since I was the kid's age (he's like 10 or 11). I had forgotten a lot of things about the novel, but I still remember how it ends, which is a downer. Oh well.

As far as Madame Bovary goes, I'm reading that because a friend wants to read it and cannot seem to get through it alone. Completely empathic to that issue (I often feel that if I'm bound to someone else, I can get things accomplished), I decided that I should read it again, even though I finished it just last year. The difference now is that I am going to be reading a different edition than the one I read. Instead of Eleanor Marx-Aveling's translation published by Barnes & Noble, I will be reading Geoffrey Wall's translation published by Penguin. Naturally, I will go back and forth between the two translations; I may just come out of this with more insight into the novel. Of course the best thing would to read it in the original French, but I would need to study that language first.

The whole point of all this is to try to keep myself busy so that I can get the ball rolling on other things. For instance, I need to apply again to Ph.D. programs, and I haven't started. If I let inertia take over, then maybe I can accomplish the things I don't seem to when I have all the time on the world on my hands.

Let's hope this works.

Worlds of Bodies

Yesterday I bid the Body Worlds exhibit at the San Diego Natural History Museum adieu by visiting the museum. I did not really want to go, but my mother had wanted to since the exhibit came to San Diego and I thought she should see it since it was its last day.

I came to a series of conclusions:

1. Beauty is only skin deep for me. Once you remove the skin of a person, I no longer find her attractive or beautiful.

2. It is extremely difficult to tell the difference between preserved dead bodies and plastic reproductions.

3. "Amygdala" would be a perfect name for a fictional character, especially an emotional one.

4. Science neglects (or so far hasn't empirically discovered) the soul. Thus, things like love are attributed to a special part of the brain (the amygdala), and therefore could be categorized and generalized. Creativity is also presumed to be caused by the brain (and not by muses... oh, those silly ancients!).

5. People can die in the middle of hitting a home run, scoring a goal in soccer, or doing yoga.

6. You have very little control over your body, much less control than you think.

7. Eyeballs without eyelids are frightening.

8. The human body, cut apart and suspended by strings, is monstrous.

What I couldn't quite decipher is the relationship of the soul to the body--but of course that would not be the place to do it. Still, I couldn't quite help but think that if the soul is somehow connected to the body, then were those people watching us as we watched them? Were we somehow torturing these deceased people, even though during life they willingly donated their bodies to science? It disturbed me a little, as if I were exhuming a grave.

I also found myself thinking along the lines of pre-Renaissance thinkers: the body is a sac in which is held bile and waste.

Nonetheless, it was hideously fascinating, and I learned quite a bit. But, like Doctor Faustus, I was left to wonder at what cost did I recieve this knowledge. Overall, the exhibit made me revisit questions (and definitions) of life and death and that element that makes us human and not merely a series of electrical impulses and chemical reactions responding to stimuli. I did not come up with any concrete answers for the important questions, however. At least my mother enjoyed the experience.

Speechwright.

I revisited the dream I had last week. I spent over two hours two days ago transcribing what I recorded onto a Word document. It took that long because I wanted to get it as close to verbatim as possible. I say "as close to verbatim" because I realized the impossibility of typing a pure transcription of what I spoke into the recorder. There was first the problem of the excess "ands" and "ums," and then the added difficulty of deciding where sentences ended (exacerbated by the superfluous ands). I did not complete sentences that I could have sworn I did. I trailed off, changed directions, and interrupted myself. I could not discern which punctuation mark to use for each pause. I also discovered that, when speaking into a mechanical device, I use the word "like" profusely. I sounded a lot like a valley girl stuck in the year 1985. I used the word like so much that it became an interjection--a major no-no in the world of grammar. This bothers me.

There is, however, an interesting point here. The spoken and written word are different things. Something spoken that needs to be converted into written form must undergo translation. Looking back, all the jobs that I had that required me to take dictation (which is about two jobs total) also required me to interpret what the speaker was thinking and make changes. I often spelled things incorrectly, especially when I was unfamiliar with the subject (for instance, I would often misspell names of people in divorce cases until I became familiar with the cases). I also inserted commas, semi-colons, and periods where I thought they were necessary, regardless of the directions of the speaker. I was translating and modifying when I transcribed the voice recording onto paper.

Likewise, something written that needs to be converted into something spoken also needs translation. All it takes is one monotone speech or presentation to realize that the written word is not the same as the spoken one. When we speak we add tone, pitch, and ungrammatical pauses wherever necessary. While there are punctuation marks that indicate tone, italics, question marks, and exclamation points are too simplistic to capture the wide range of sounds humans are capable of making. For instance, there is no punctuation mark to connote irony. It is only when we translate the written word into the spoken that we can get the precise sound that connotes irony. This is why great actors get a lot of credit: their translation of the script is convincing and moving, something that is more difficult than it appears at first.

I had to translate myself. This was easier than translating another, because I knew what I was thinking at the time and what I meant. Still, it was quite surprising to hear me utter a twenty line sentence strung together with ands and ripped to shreds with likes. The thing that was the most surprising was the realization that I do not even listen to myself say these things. I gloss over these gross grammatical and nearly incomprehensible errors. I am sure I forgive others for the same violations of the language in speech that I would reprimand them for unmercifully in their writing. It is quite amazing how we ever got a written language. It is almost as if we translate what we hear in speech to something more comprehensible, and from that comprehensible thought we developed writing.

I believe it was Nietzsche who preferred the oral to the written (though please let me know if I'm wrong), and it is generally assumed that spoken language preceded the written word. But, in order to have a written language that made sense, man would need to already have written language prefigured in some way. Take oral epics for example: Homer's Iliad, Odyssey, and the anonymous epic Beowulf. These are thought to have been oral traditions, but they are so polished and so coherent that it is hard to fathom how they ever could have been transmitted by mouth alone. These poems are far beyond my stuttering, muttering recording. But that's how I talk.

I am assuming, of course, that man's speech is constant; that in all ages people spoke with awkward pauses and ungrammatical constructions. I'm even assuming that everyone speaks as I speak, and that we collectively as humans ignore the inherent errors in speech and remember only the polished, written-like word. It very well could be that in the time Beowulf was being related, people spoke perfect epic and hesitated not. The words which they thought were without question the words that they spoke; that nothing was lost in the migration. (Thought is also an unclear subject, but one I will not get into now.) If this were so, then my entire theory is dashed, for that would mean that the spoken word is superior to the written and it would make sense that we would have a written language after the spoken; possibly the written word has deteriorated our once perfect handling of the spoken. Luckily, there is no way to definitively determine that because we are behind the cloud of the written word: when we do not have historical records (i.e. written documents) then we cannot make assumptions about the past.

Strange. Certainly something to think about.

I will be sure to post more on the progress of my experiment.

Only In Dreams.

I wonder if this has been done:

I recorded, via a digital voice recorder my sister gave me for my birthday, a dream I had this morning. I plan to make a short story out of the dream because it seemed like one of the most complete dreams I could remember.

I had a real Joycean moment when I woke up. In the foggy hazeglow of aftersleep, while the dream was still fresh, I had a conscious thought: "This would make a great story." Then, like Stephen Dedalus in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, I scrambled out of bed to immediately record the dream. Granted, for Stephen it was a few lines of a poem that he wrote down while for me it was a dream which I spoke into a voice recorder groggily, but it nonetheless bears a connection--albeit a loose one--to Joyce. That's all it takes to make me smile.

It's funny because I related the whole dream holding the voice recorder while it was off. I realized the error after I finished and turned it on and retold it, so the story, when I type it out, will be twice (or thrice?) removed from the dream. That should prove interesting. The biggest difficulty will be to capture the mood because so many of the details will be forgotten--even now the dream is fading although I took precautions to remember it. Much will need to be filled in.

I will not record the dream here because I want to save it for the story, so to speak. What I must do now is type up what I spoke into the recorder and rearrange it into a surrealistic story. Even if this has been done before, it would be a fun exercise to transfer a (twice removed) dream from the images of the mind to paper and make a short story of it. It probably will not sound like the other stuff I have written, and I certainly cannot say "I wrote it" in the same way I write other things. I mean, the thoughts are within me, but they are also not mine at the same time. The story will be more of me fashioning a extant plot, like a sculptor carves out of a rock a figure of a man, or, to use a better analogy, like Shakespeare made plays out stories from Plutarch. So that should be fun.

I may have to hold off on doing that until next week or so, but at least the dream is recorded. I cannot anticipate how this little experiment will turn out.

Jake's Peer

I tried to write a Shakespearean Sonnet today. I succeeded, but I do not know if it's any good. I wonder if I need to create my own form of the sonnet in order to be a "poet." I was originally just going to number it, but then I thought that would be too much like Shakespeare. Plus, I don't know if will I write any more of these. I remember trying to write a Shakespearean Sonnet a long time ago, but I don't know where it is and I have been too lazy to try and locate it. I actually read a few sonnets to remember the form, which was a terrible mistake as it only pronounced my own inferiority. Still I trudged forward and completed it. I post it now for your amusement:

Thoughts of Last Forever

In the back of my mind I am wrestling
With the thoughts of last forever and I—
Like a bird that has flown from home nestling
In some other sanctuary to die—
Find that I am losing this match against
An eternity appearing in dreams
As an awful wood in which I am fenced
As vultures peck me apart at the seams.
The contenders stand before each other:
One limited, faulty; one flawless, pure,
They interlock, brother against brother,
The battle a symptom and not the cure.
///Still, as the bell rings that sounds my defeat,
///I cannot accept the war is complete.

Small Joys

The radio in the Volvo had been "Off" for a couple of months now. My father had taken it in for repairs in June or July to his mechanic, and so when the mechanic disengaged the battery, we lost the radio. It said "Code" on it when we first turned the radio on afterward, but we had entered the wrong code three times and were banished into the land of "Off." So even when it was on it was off.

Once you are mired in Offland, the only remedy, according to the user's manual, is to leave the battery on for two hours until it resets. I kept this in mind for months but did not have the time to carry out the task. My mother had called the dealer to verify the code soon after, so we had the correct code for when we had the opportunity.

We had to drop off my brother last week after his little "vacation" due to his sprained ankle. We took two cars so he would have a car with which to get to work. My parents were in the Volvo. I remembered when we arrived at his apartment that if they had turned the radio on so it said "Off" we could have put in the code and got the radio to work (for the entire round trip takes about 2 and a half hours). We said next week. On Friday my father and I went to pick up my brother, and we thought of taking the Volvo, but my mother needed the car and so we took my father's car.

Finally, today, we were able to take the Volvo and we remembered to turn the radio on so we could reset it. We dropped off my brother while the engine was running. On the way back, with a half an hour left to go until the two hour mark, my mother reread the manual and double-checked the code to make absolutely sure what to do when the word "Code" should appear on the radio display. However, at the two hour mark, the radio did not reset. My mother had checked the manual again, and it somehow indicated that only the battery should be on (and not the engine). My father disagreed. We started to lose hope that we could get the radio working again. We would have to take it to the dealer. I was so sure at the start of the trip this would work, but this had completely baffled me.

For some reason I looked at the radio display from my position in the backseat. It said Code! I scream-stuttered to my mother that is said code, and instantly she put in the code and we waited...

The radio worked!

My mother gave me a high-five and we all laughed about how ridiculous this whole ordeal was. But it was really that small joy that made the entire trip worth it.

Do You Still Live In Angry Days?

"The Prophet (peace be upon him) said: When one of you becomes angry while standing, he should sit down. If the anger leaves him, well and good; otherwise he should lie down." [Abu Daud; Book 41, No. 4764]

"Insults are better taken lying down, claim scientists."

(This post courtesy of my brother.)

“If Others Have Their Will Ann Hath A Way.”

I have been thinking recently about effecting the will. Please understand “thinking” to mean snippets of moments when the issue comes up in my mind--small insights but no real conclusions. It began a couple of months ago when a friend had informed me that he had hired a personal trainer to help him and his wife lose weight. The issue was simple: he wanted to work out, but he could not do it himself. My first question was: why could he not do it himself?

Of course now, in the month of the Ramadan, effecting the will surrounds me. I make an intention to not eat, and all day I go without food. Food could be right in front of me and my stomach is rumbling, but I do not eat. I willfully deny myself, and, despite the urgings of the body, I effect my will.

So it is evident that man can accomplish his goals. Fasting is proof of this. Yet, what blocks my friend from working out himself? Why did he feel he needed to hire someone to motivate him when it is his own desire to lose weight? My immediate answer to this was that my friend desired the result of working out—that of losing weight—but did not desire the means to attain that end. That makes sense and is illogical at the same time. It makes sense because to work out is an arduous exertion, and one that one may be disinclined to perform, especially due to inertia. However, the only way to lose weight healthily is to work out and diet; so to desire weight loss (without illness) requires one to perform that arduous task. So it would be irrational to want to be skinny but not want to work to be skinny. It is, in effect, a contradiction to desire weight loss but hate working out.

What further complicates this scenario is that the desire to be skinny clearly outweighs the laziness. If it did not, then my friend would not spend his money to hire a personal trainer. If the desire to lose weight is stronger, and there is knowledge of how to lose weight, then why would there be a need for a personal trainer? This is what stumps me. Why could not the will to be thin assert itself, and my friend, with the goal of being skinny in mind, work out on his own?

There are probably a plethora of psychological theories and studies that could point to why humans contradict themselves. It could be something subconscious, like the rift between the superego and the id. But if it is subconscious, and I do not have access to my subconscious, then it does not help me to solve the problem. I would like to solve this problem because, in the end, this is a problem for all of us. I may use my friend as an example, but I too have contradictory desires. I want to be published, yet I do not write. And I know I can effect my will because I do so all the time. Even if the issue is psychological, I fail to grasp how reasoning it out would not help the situation. For if one can present a logical argument to me or my friend of how we can accomplish our goals, then it only stands to reason that we would follow through with that line of reasoning. If we do not, at least we understand what the logical thing to do is.

It may be as simple as just disregarding the contradictory will and effecting the real goal. Theoretically this would do, but in practice it is not that easy. The power of the human will is something I must save for another post, but it is far more powerful than I believe many imagine. Two clashing wills, vying to attain reality, is probably the most difficult thing to overcome. And maybe that’s why my friend hired a personal trainer: to leave the decision-making out of his hands and put it in the hands of another. By making it a duty to someone else (the personal trainer is, after all, trying to get paid), the issue of what my friend desires becomes a long term goal. The immediate goal is to attend the appointment with the trainer and pay him. It is a delaying tactic really, but an excuse to overcome his own inertia and assert his real goal.

Now if only there were a personal trainer for writing…

Out Of Steam.

I'm a little slow today. I spent the whole day steam-cleaning the house. A monstrous task with coiled black wires and heated water and caustic soap. Rivers of sweat ensued.

I'm not even done yet.

My brother sprained his ankle playing basketball today. My father took him to the doctor's to make sure he was all right. He was all right. Except for the sprained ankle.

I took breaks to eat and to tutor a 10 year-old. His father wants him to study for the SAT's. I oblige because his father pays me. The things we do for money.

C.B. made me do this with something like telekenesis which is sometimes known as inspiration.

I wrote a poem for C.B. yesterday. Here it is:

Ode to C.B.

You play tennis without the net
But I still love you for it.
Whitmanesque, freezing Frost’s critique,
Caring not a whit that you contradict.

Composed in your composition it seems,
But fire bursts forth from the words, hidden
In the few lines is not the slaking of thirst
From a full pail, but the napalm-hunger

Of a composition course. You bind them
To their release in early morning hours:
Yawning, hideous, misshapen buildings.
They must climb their own hills in the hall.

Most of them do not see it, do they?
The leaves of grass whisper their barbaric
Yawps unheard and unseen, and they do not
Care a whack about being on the road.

However you guide them to their final
Destination. You show them all their words
Until they see them; you show them all your
Worlds until.

They are free. You are reborn as a fee
Nix, ashes on palimpsest, composing,
In a few lines, a Miltonic epic
Wherein I can play tennis without a net.

New Blog!

Not that this one is going anywhere, but it hasn't been going anywhere for a long time now. So I started fresh. Not really fresh, but something new. Something a friend casually mentioned to me on Facebook and it suddenly became a possibility and then a reality in the space of a few days. It gives me something to do; it gives me a direction for my writing because my novel is daunting.

So please visit.

http://frownpower.blogspot.com/

I Should Probably Write Something.

Something.

Easter Eden.

I should really edit my blog posts.

It's April, Fool!

I haven't played an April Fools trick since that one time in 8th grade. I was lucky enough to not get in trouble. I imagine that one episode of The Simpsons will be on tonight. I am just typing now to do something. To report on my life. A life I have abandoned and imagine that others have abandoned as well.

Tyler Durden said in Fight Club that "our great depression is our lives." That, of course, was before the global war on terror (now known as the Overseas Contingency Operation--where's George Carlin where you need him?) and this recession (which might as well be The Great Depression). Even then, back in 1995, Tyler Durden was right. The fact that the world economy is tanking while we are in the midst of unending wars does not change the our attitude as Americans. Yes, it would be nice for me to get a job teaching dull-minded freshman the importance and beauty of the English language; yes, it would be wonderful if I got into one of the Ph.D. programs for which I applied or if I had gotten that Fulbright Scholarship. It would have been magical had I won that short story contest for "The Waiting Room" and now had a career as an author.

Those things did not happen.

Instead, I took a terrible job selling office supplies to businesses door to door. I quit within a week and I'm struggling to find another job more suitable for me. But my attitude reflects Tyler Durden's statement perfectly. My life is one great depression. I am not alone in this, for that I am sure. I know that the only way out of this is to change myself, to look ahead and keep plugging away without reflecting too much on the results. Still, I cannot help falling into a malaise over my situation, and, by extension, the zeitgeist. My life is certainly not where I wanted to be right now, and my dreams seem to be dashed at every turn. I really do not know what to do. Should I get an M.F.A.? Keep pursuing a Ph.D.? Get published despite not having steady income? I just have no idea what to do now.

I wish my only worry was finding an appropriate April Fools joke.

Another One Bites The Dust...

... or rather makes me bite the curb.

I just found out today I was rejected from UCSB. My hope of getting into any Ph.D. program is dwindling.

News.

I still have no job (since May 2008).

I did not receive a Fulbright Scholarship (January 31).

I was rejected from Virginia Tech (February 17).

Four more schools to go.

"I know things are getting tougher when you can't get the top off the bottom of the barrel. "

The Day The Banks Collapse.

So this calendar I got from my friend J.B. is eerily prescient. For this weekend, it discusses the attitude toward the banking system in American history:

"American presidents have long held misgivings about the country's banking system. In 1816, for example, Thomas Jefferson wrote to his old friend John Taylor, declaring: 'I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.' In 1836 Andrew Jackson disbanded the second federal bank, remarking, 'The bold effort the present bank made to control the Government... [suggests] the fate which awaits the American people should they be deluded into a perpetuation of this institution.' Later, speaking to the bankers, he was more blunt: 'You are a den of vipers and thieves. I intend to rout you out, and by the eternal God, I will rout you out,' which he did. Even auto entrepreneur Henry Ford is said to have cautioned, 'It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.'"

~ Jeffrey Kacirck, Forgotten English (2009 Calendar)

Unfortunately, while many feel antipathy towards the banking system, there is no hope of the executive branch ever routing out the "den of vipers and thieves." (This would make Andrew Jackson severly upset, I imagine.) Even eerier is the fact that the father of the American automobile industry is quoted here as well, as if tying in the failure of banks with the failure of the auto industry. Of course, despite the willies I felt at having read this, it could all just be a coincidence: today, according to the desk calendar, is the "Feast Day of St. Meingold" [My gold?]. St. Meingold was the patron saint of bankers.

Rabbit, Run!

John Updike dies at the age of 76.

While I certainly am not a huge fan of Updike's work, it certainly comes as a shock that he is gone, as death always seems a shock. Still, Updike was prolific in his work, and that must be appreciated to some degree.

In happier news (I do not mean to dwell on death, O Reader!), I had an interview yesterday with a temp agency and I pretty much nailed it. I did feel awkward, however, that I have a graduate degree and I was applying to become a legal secretary (and a temporary one at that, too!). But being temporary is fine as of now, because I'm banking on (and banking during these times is troublesome) the fact that I will get into at least one of the Ph.D. programs to which I have applied.

Please Leave The Light On...

My grandfather passed away on Monday, and we buried him yesterday. He was 88 years old. Rather than reiterate something I've already typed this morning, I shall post an e-mail to a friend that has most of the facts down.

I'm sorry that I haven't responded for so long, but I have a good reason. My paternal grandfather passed away on Monday, and I spent all day Sunday and early Monday in the hospital. Sunday morning he refused to get out of bed, and so my father had to get the paramedics to help him down the stairs. We took him to urgent care at the clinic he usually goes to for check-ups (my grandfather doesn't have insurance, and, at the time, we didn't think he had something that could not be cured, so we avoided going to the hospital), and the doctor there said he needed to go to the hospital. He was not breathing properly, and was not getting enough oxygen in his system. They put him on oxygen, and he seemed to be improving, so my father and I thought that we could arrange to have oxygen tanks delivered to the house and we could watch him ourselves. The doctor at the clinic understood our situation and arranged everything. But when we tried to get my grandpa in the car, we realized he was much worse than we had anticipated; so we drove him to the hospital ourselves.

It took a while to get a room (apparently if you don't have an ambulance deliver you to a hospital, then there are all kinds of delays), but we got one. The doctors were either unsure of what was wrong with him, or they did not tell us: they said that he had congestive heart failure, but they did not give a reason for his heart giving out. It could have been the lungs, or it could have been something else. They ran all kinds of x-rays and tests, but to no avail. They sedated him and kept him on oxygen. His blood pressure was normal (which was weird, because my grandfather had a history of high blood pressure), so still we thought that he could make it out of it. He had to be taken to the Critical Care Unit where he kind of woke up, but he did not respond to questions. He had just been talking that morning, but since the visit to urgent care, he stopped speaking. Later on, it appeared that he was stable, so we went home (by then my mother and my sister had come to the hospital). At 10:00 pm Sunday night, the hospital called us and said he was doing worse. My and father and I went over and stayed until 3:00 am Monday morning, when it looked like he would improve. We got some sleep, but at 7:00 am the hospital called again--this time the doctor he normally sees was there--and said he was doing much, much worse. He was on morphine and everything, and he could not breath by himself at all. My father and I went again, and soon after my younger sister and mother came, and they took him off the oxygen. He died within an hour and a half.

Since then, there has been a flurry of activity. My younger brother and older sister have come home. We had to make funeral arrangments. I waited with the dead body at the hospital until the mortuary came and picked him up. There have been so many telephone calls and friends coming to visit. We buried him yesterday, and I spent yesterday preparing and attending the funeral. I had to say a few words about my grandfather, who I've only really known for four years (about the time he came to live with us from Pakistan). Of course, there were fond memories of when I was a child and visiting him in Pakistan and he coming to visit us in California, and I tried to convey that, but the eulogy was awkward and broken. I spent the past four days in a weird state, trying to maintain focus and consciousness, exhausted. I will never forget watching him die and the way he looked after he had passed.

For a year and a half before I attended Rutgers, I used to walk with my grandfather in the mornings before I went to work because he had fallen down because of a drop in blood pressure and, while scared of that happening again, he needed exercise. He had always been fairly healthy for someone his age. He had a pace-maker and had suffered two heart attacks in the 1980s, but the only medication he was on was blood pressure medication. About this time last week he was only complaining about feeling tired and weak, and Thursday and Friday he had temporary moments of confusion (he thought Thursday was Friday). He told me that it was nothing serious. But on Saturday it was worse, although he could still get up and walk downstairs. Sunday he just refused, and Monday he was dead. That fast.

So there's shock and sorrow and fear. I would have written to you sooner, but I just couldn't relive the events and maintain enough focus. I couldn't really talk to some of my closest friends on Monday and Tuesday. Plus, I needed to write this down first before speaking. I need to go over it, edit it, and just let the words travel from the innermost recesses of my mind to the tips of my fingers, purifying themselves along the way, saying only the choicest words for the occasion. While I do have a journal, I was still too close to the events to make the entries coherent, and, sadly, I ran out of pages in my journal by Sunday night. I have not had time to buy a new journal, so I've been scrawling the entries on the inside back cover. I'm going today to get a new journal, somehow fitting because a new chapter has started today in more ways than one for me.

(Edited for content and minor errors.)

Muhammad Shahid Ali Kazmi
1920-2009

I'll give anything to bring you back to say good-bye.

Overwhelmed, Unemployed...

I'll probably be posting on this again since I have so much time to kill. I doubt anyone will find this small patch of internet--an infinitesimal spot in an infinite expanse--interesting, but for my own sanity I will post current goings-on and such and pretend there is an audience that cares.

First things first (and exciting news, that first of first things), is I have jury duty. In the past, jury duty was a dread, a bane, an evil which I would do anything to avoid. In fact, I have been summoned for jury duty three times in my short life, and I never once set foot in a courthouse in response. I always sent an excuse. They were always valid (the first time I was summoned to the San Diego courthouse, but I was attending the University of California, Irvine; the second and third times my job would not pay for me to attend jury duty), and I was always relieved that I was never questioned or coerced to attend. Now, I plan to not only respond to the summons, but I hope I get on a jury, just so I can earn some money and do something. Such terrible, terrible times we are in when one looks forward to his "civic duty."

In other news, I thought I was done applying to Ph.D. programs (I just finished the Virginia Tech application last week), but it turns out I will apply to two more schools: Pennsylvania State University and the University of Washington in Seattle. On top of that, I will probably apply to Virginia Tech again for their MFA program (it sounds like a good deal), and I need to finish UCI's law school application too.

That, so far, is all I would like to post for now, O Reader. Unless I get a job or I fall into an even deeper malaise, be sure to check back often for more updates. (I pray they will be more interesting than this one.)