21st Century Addiction

A/N: Poem I wrote early this morning, regarding a topic I'm studying in class...

I connect through pixels and IP addresses

No longer with prose and poetry.

A digital cry, a pixilated prayer

For a friendly smile, a warm touch

And a face to face connection this time,

Unmarred by red, green and blue; undeterred by liquid crystal or

low

quality

voice

distortions.

So wrapped up in the digital life,

            Meeting for coffee becomes phone calls, which becomes e-mails and then…

                        Nothing. Nothing at all.

Maybe it’s better that way, though, with those friends.

The digital warring with reality can teach us who is worth breaking free

From

the

hyp-no-sis

that

the

virtual

world

pulls

us

in

to...

ENOUGH.

No more.

It’s time to put it away…

                                                  And really smell the roses.

Hope you liked it. Thanks for listening.

An Artist’s Plea for the World to Understand

A/N: So, I figured that I'd post a poem that I wrote a while back, seeing as I'm not only writing down my thoughts in "prose", but in poetic form too...

Daylight shines and I open my eyes,

I've got an attitude to revise.

I rise from slumber's warm cocoon,

My metamorphosis is over all too soon,

Emerging from the ashes of my rage,

This is the dawning of a coming-of-age.

I’ve been asleep for far too long,

I can truly see what is going on.

My character arc reaching a peak,

Yearning for what my soul seeks.

We live our lives through our art,

We let our heads follow our hearts.

Not idealistic, but we have ideals

That we strive to make real.

But when we look at the world today,

We find ourselves alone amid the decay.

Real beauty in this artificial Eden

Is a rarity that is spread far too thin

And slowly dissolving to ash,

With more importance on cold, hard cash.

Certain people watch, intending to condemn,

But who, may I ask, is watching them?

We fight everyday for the right to be free,

To be able to bring back natural beauty

And to share it with the rest of the world,

But how can we, with our lives so unfurled?

Man does not live by bread and science alone,

He needs color and light to fully grow.

As necessary as it is to breathe in and out,

Our art is like a sip of water in a drought.

I hope you liked it. I just had a conversation with my best female friend over Skype, I'm making headway, slow and steady, with my writing "career", and I'm chilling with my more open-minded family this weekend. So far, no complaints, other than the reading that I have to do tomorrow...and the hope that I'm not going to get yelled at for whatever reason from HK's Skype call tomorrow morning. Anyways, back to writing for me - those poems and short stories may write themselves out in my head, but they won't on the computer.

Thanks for listening.

Back to School again...

Well, I've finally decided to make headway on this blog. I don't know if anyone out there is reading it or not, but whatever. This is for me. 


I'm hanging out at the Starbucks on Bloor Street West that is the weekly location for coffee with my friends - I say coffee, but not all of us purchase the expensive coffee they serve here. Why bother when you can get BETTER coffee at Tim Horton's? Thank God I'm seated with my back against the wall and facing the counter, because if the employees saw me typing this, I'm certain I'd get the stinkeye, at the very least :P But at any rate, I am here on a Sunday evening because working in my dorm or in Robarts library gets me absolutely nowhere - I tend to be on the Internet more often than not. Today, I've managed to get one of my essays 3/4 done and some difficult reading done, which is more than I've done this whole first week back to class.


I only have one class left over from last semester - Romantic Poetry and Prose. This is followed by 4 other new classes - Critical Methods, which focuses on Adorno and Benjamin's Frankfurt School in terms of pop culture today, Modern Drama to WWII, Drama 1660-1800 and South Asian Politics and Perspectives. That makes two English classes, two Drama-equivalent classes (technically, they're English classes, but I'm converting them to my Drama minor) and one elective class taken because I needed to fill up my breadth requirement. 


It's hard to believe that I'm halfway through my third year at U of T - I love it so much here, I don't want it to end. Soon, I'll be applying to grad schools and then it'll be time to fend for myself in the real world. I'm still trying to figure out how I'm going to convince my conservative parents that I should live in Toronto on my own rather than back with them in Hong Kong. Seriously, if I have to, I might have myself committed. I refuse to live in Hong Kong to work, and then be married off to some "accomplished Sindhi boy from a good Sindhi family". Pass. Seriously, I'd rather not. It's hard enough lying to my parents about my life here in Toronto, considering I told them EVERYTHING growing up - which wasn't a big deal because I hadn't done anything rebellious as a kid. I was the typical good Sindhi daughter. The only thing that my parents disapproved of was my love of all junk food and my career choice of writer, and I twisted it around by giving them false hope that after studying English, I'd move on to Advertising. Ha. 


Now, I'm a bicurious, budding author, poet and actress who does things on occasion that would have my mother ready to bring me back to Hong Kong by the next plane... and I wouldn't change me for the world. Except for the fact that I am, occasionally, insensitive to other people's requests, to the point that I will actually forget if you have specifically asked me to do something and unintentionally disregard it. That has, unfortunately, happened to me recently, and I am paying for it by the lack of friendship on the other person's part - they're quite irritated and upset with me, and I don't blame them. It wasn't my intention to upset them, and they are aware of that, but the fact of the matter is that their request was one that they had specifically asked of me, and I had agreed to. I shouldn't have forgotten. I have no excuse for it, and accept the fact that they are going to be angry with me for a while. However, because of it, my overactive imagination is going insane, bringing my fears to life - what if I'm never forgiven and lose this friendship, along with another's? How can I cope? I hate hurting my friends, why would I do this? I know I have to be patient, because sometimes people take time to forgive others and move on, but it's still hard...


At any rate, it's 8 pm on Sunday, and I have an essay due tomorrow morning, so I better get off this site and back to it.


Thanks for listening.