daines'n around

Another Sundial article graces the print and online edition today. I felt bad about this article when i was writing it very rushed. I'm grateful for the editors and soem of the changes they made to help the story make a little more sense.

I'm in the middle of interviewing a few people, working my office job, planning my second job, and supposedly reading my homework for tonight's class.

This is how I spend my days now.

Proofreading has become more of a chore than a privilege. For some odd reason, my desire to craft a news story and make it marking and unforgettable has suddenly become overwhelmed by deadlines and editors. I'm enjoying the care-free attitude of the editors, but I feel bad when (with what short amount of time I have at times) my articles leave me disappointed. I can only imagine what the readers and editors don't tell me.

Another photo online this week. I was able to sit in on the interview with this man, Mark Stevens and get a better sense of whom he was and his mission as a new counselor. He seemed a little more comfortable than some of my other subjects who weren't entirely too sure why I was sticking my camera in their faces.

I got an interesting bit of third-hand information of an opinion about me. Another unnamed photography student said that I was becoming known as the 'artsy' photojournalist. I didn't quite understand why they shared it with me. I don't see it as a negative or a positive comment. If I'm known as a photographer rather than a guy with funny hair, I'm happy.

Time to change hair color again... the blue has faded to a silvery-grey with a bit of purple on the crown of my head. It's interesting. I saw some pictures of me from earlier this year with longer-ish dark hair and saw just how different I look with dark hair. So I'll let the color decision remain a surprise.

A collaborative article on current ideas of how much, or little, 9/11 has affected the lives of students at Cal State Northridge. This was quite a bit of cramming to get all the interviews done in time. I'm getting better at the phone interview, good thing I can type fast enough to quote people.

All of this talking has gotten me into a little trouble. People are starting to get the idea that I'm very social. That's dangerous, and a half.

The specifics in your voice
point me to a particular day
The words flee your mouth;
nervously they run away

You speak in exacts,
In meters, not blocks or minutes.
I find my way with signs
You wonder if its just this?

I'm alone in the breeze
with a muted red light
illuminating my paces
and I must dance to stay lit.

A glimpse of a smile
A tirade of guilt
Hopes of a future
Turned now to a wilt.

My Provost Photo made it on the front of the paper today. This was an environmental portrait that only captured one tenth of what the article needed. Sadly, the reporter and I were not able to get together with teachers effected by the status of of hiring at CSUN. or newly hired professors. It is a nice enough photo, but doesn't really follow the intents and purposes of the story itself. CSUN lacks professors and motivation for new professors to come, so a photo of the provost isn't really reflective of that.

The third week of school comes to an end this evening. I'm already behind in some areas, but mostly reading. I find it difficult to discipline myself to the point of getting all 5 of my books read in the two or three days between class meetings. Better planning could help, but then so could adequate sleep.

Friday there will be a dance in Northridge, and I'm thinking i'll actually venture out of my hole of a bedroom and catch a little bit of live music.

I need to dance more. Not the need like a burning desire that makes me stay up late at night dancing around in underwear and socks in my basement to 80s new wave music. But need like having a good time with friends, making new friends, and acting as ridiculously as possible to shake off my many years of social introverted ways.

I made it to the dance that I hadn't intended on going to, and had a better time of things than I thought I would. This was the first church-sponsored dance that I had been to in almost two years; and by some of my questions you would have thought it was my first church dance ever.

It took a bit of cajoling to get me onto the dance floor. I had collapsed out of sheer exhaustion in my bed after work on Friday evening. The past week's activities, classes, work and lack of sleep have left me in a slight haze of insomnia. Nothing seemed very real as sometimes it felt as though I was watching myself perform some of the activities I did normally. It was as if autopilot was taking over and it took almost no mental activity to complete my tasks.

I finally got one of my stories for the newspaper done; I think that looming responsibility and desire just to finish it was a great weight off of my back. I know the editors were depending on me to provide them with a story worth printing so I took a day or two longer than I should have just to ensure that I had interviews worth quoting from and thought processes that made sense to the readers. It should be in Monday's issue of the Sundial.

The highlights of Friday night were the kitties. My ride to the dance invited me in to see their place and promptly plopped two 5-week old cats on my lap to hold me hostage. Those little fur balls were so warm and it felt nice to be providing security to someone, or something in this case. I did sympathize with the most rambunctious of the group who was named q-tip. How well behaved can one be when your name is q-tip?

It is a slow day thus far in the photo lab, and I'm almost tempted to lay on the filthy couch and nap a little bit. Until I get too tired to hunch over a keyboard I'll catch up on some email.

I'm in aural heaven, quite literally. I picked up a few new CDs this weekend, but when did i have time? Ah the beauties of mail order. For the first time in a while my music selections have not needed to grow on me, but i've liked them almost from the moment I put them in my cd player.

Minus The Bear Menos el Oso
You Say Party! We Say Die! Hit The floor
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!

All three bands are very different, and I'll see two of the three this year in concert. (You Say Party!... is only on tour in canada as of now.) I'd upload mp3s to share a track or two, but each of them has audio available on their websites.

and thanks to the glory of the internet, Stars of Track and Field were able to release their new EP online and poor college students could download their dabbling endeavor in melodic ballads. Sort of a Snow Patrol meets Pearl Jam of 1998. It is growing on me.

She has a soft presence
Of pink shoes
Her hand glides over
Folded white paper
Her pens gives it
A Muted Brown Hue

Slices of Ideas with
Staggered Short Strokes
Fill The Blank Space
Of Muted Brown Moments

A World, our world
occurs around us.
A World, her world
disjointed slices,
Develops and fills A
Delightfully Dreary Space

She focuses, sketches,
draws and reflects.
She notes the space
Filled

As the page is turned
A world of slices is gone
And her world begins anew.

My Assembly Bill Article took me a bit by surprise when I read the headline on the front page of the paper. I found the headline a bit confusing and misleading from the rest of the article. Sadly, the headline lies completely under control of the editorial staff, bless their hearts.

In my Buddhism class, we've begun to talk about the perception of the impermanence of all things. I love talking about Buddhism and examining their logic and thought processes. It affords me a unique reflective property to my own beliefs and hopes.

In December I will have be alive for 9,132 days. If I live to be one hundred I will have been alive from roughly 36,500 days. I began this finite earth life like everyone else who has passed on before me and like those who will pass on after me. This is life. Life is living, dying, and seeking. This questioning and reasoning guides the general human struggle for identity and meaning to existence. The religious experience for so many never gets passes their inability to comprehend the suffering of others, or the giving of oneself out of love. The suffering teaches us, if nothing else, that humbly or not we are alive.

The simple comment offered by the professor today brought a lot of reflection for me:
"We seldom reside in the moment, but rather in the past and future."

The mind is like a soft cloudy day,
it rains at unexpected moments
and shades us
from responsibility's rays.

I can complain about interviewing people. I can gripe about not being able to connect and contact them when I'm available and ready to take notes. I can grit my teeth and wring my hands in anticipation of my failed questions. I can slump in my chair when I scribble pages of notes that flow thoughtlessly out onto the paper in a flurry of imagined inspiration, and then crumple it up in anguish when I read over my words. I can complain that understanding is limited to only those who have experienced similar. I can curse.

But I won't.

Even on hectic days like today, working one job for 9 hours, then off to the second job for almost four hours, and i still find time to interview a director of public relations, a congressman's press secretary, make plans for two newspaper photo shoots this weekend, two campus school representatives, and make a few phone calls between jobs.

My culmination of stress from the week seems to wash away in a Thursday evening of attempted relaxation. It feels nice to be able to meet a deadline, even if i haven't turned in a story yet. Having the information on hand to complete my story is relief enough from the weight on my shoulders.

The sunset was so beautiful today, driving towards Northridge. The sky was a perfect brilliant blue, traced by wind-separated clouds covering the blinding red sun, and creating a line between the sky and the colors of the sunset. I searched around for my camera, but had left it in the trunk. I studied the sun as I sped along the freeway. I had to remember that sunset, because there was something different about it. I had to remember it.

After months of anticipation, and the last few agonizing days of detailed events in the degradation of his health, my uncle died last night.

It was so difficult to hear the nightly reports from my father. My concern for his family grew ever since we heard his misdiagnosed pneumonia was actually lung cancer.

He dipped below 100lbs. this weekend, a far cry from the 260 he was just three months earlier.

The funeral is Monday, but with work and school combined, the astronomical fee for a short notice cross-country flight, and our cats I'm apparently wrapped up too much in myself to be able to make it to the funeral.

i often struggle to express
the desires of a heart
and the will of a soul

i often struggle to understand
the intentions of words
or the implications of deeds

i often struggle against hope
for meaning and reason
or even a hint of one

i often tap my foot to the beat
in an outward minimal effort
to show i'm in tune

i often leave quickly
hurried gestures
thinking i should have lingered

i often wonder
if understanding is love
or if love is even understandable

i often think aloud
but only as loud as my keyboard
my thoughts fill up my room.