South Beach, Miami 

(via cha0tically)

— Red Robin’s Strawberry Freckled Lemonade. Sweet nourishment for a nourishing conversation.

Today I had lunch with my former AP Gov/Economics teacher, Mrs. Barno. Talking to a Penn alum, teacher, graduate student, and political activist was exactly the kind of reflection I needed. 

Here are some things that would summarize our convo and inspire current college students:

1. No regrets.

College is the time to make mistakes and take risks. In other words, I would say YOLO, but I feel it needs to be more clearly defined. YOLO or “No regrets” does not mean to do crazy, absurd things that could possibly risk your life and your college career for good. Also, the fact that you can live without regrets should’t mean that you leave room for failure. One should always aim for success and commit themselves fully to it. Go into it thinking only about succeeding. If failure occurs, learn from it and move forward; no dwelling. And that’s where no regrets come in. 

2. Explore, explore, explore. Have adventures. Go into the city, meet people out of social groups, venture into controversial issues..

3. If you’re upset or affected by something, don’t avoid it. That gives you more reason to go after it and ameliorate it. 

4. It’s difficult to choose a major and even a direct path, but you don’t have to. Marry your interests/passions. Don’t give one or the many others up. If there is no career position or title for it, that’s cool. Give it your all and you will do great things, as long as the intentions are for the common good instead of self-interested. 

5. Don’t wait around for things to happen. Whether it’s voicing an opinion, fighting for an issue, solving problems between friends or colleagues, or entering relationships. Move on forward and make it happen. 

6. Education needs to be cherished! So many students in Miami and throughout the country are uninspired and disinterested. We have so many privileges and those little things that “we’ll never need” actually teach us how to think. How we analyze long and boring pieces can teach us how to analyze newspaper articles or people. And conversations are truly made all the more richer with this wealth of knowledge and with that relationships.

7. The more you learn, the more questions you have. If all of your questions have been answered, then you didn’t learn enough. 

8. If you feel like your ideas/beliefs are being compromised don’t settle, even with all of the social pressures that may try to coerce you otherwise. 

9. Racism is not over and it’s manifesting itself as racial micro aggression. The civil rights fight continues, and race isn’t the only issue. Economic diversity also needs to be addressed, as well as gender roles and sexuality. 

10. Finally, Penn students are known as rowdy not for being crazy, but for taking the bull (of societal & controversial issues) by the horns and wrestling it. And because we have so much swag. Red & blue all day. 

Cheers!

I went to see The Dictator last night with some really cool high school friends. We had so much fun and ended up at a Denny’s after until about 5 in the morning. Good times.

However, I want to talk about the film itself. I hope people realize how this is clearly a satirical film. The extremely racist, sexist, fascist, and ignorant comments and jokes are meant to highlight the stereotypes and ideas that are present in American society and other societies. Comedians are actually very instrumental in highlighting social issues, it’s just important that we don’t take them for face value. We have to think why they are saying what they are, the external and internal factors that contribute to these ideas, and what people will do after being exposed to them.

An important point the movie brings up is how the reality between a government ideology and its execution.  Aladeen asks, “What if America was a dictatorship?” He mentions that the “1 percent” would be able to rig elections, start phony wars, suppress dissent, receive tax cuts, and form bail-out plans. He compares us to Iran, China and asks what’s the difference? Although we have many freedoms, our democracy is not true to its name. 

Honestly, politics is frustrating, but if we let it frustrate us and avoid it altogether we’re going to let the people we don’t like remain in control and do with it things out of the common interest. If we don’t like something, we need to take charge and do something about it while maintaining our values throughout. After all, “We must be the change we wish to see in the world.” (Mohandas Ghandi) 

Additionally, the jokes in the movie push boundaries and they definitely have the punch in punchline, but they push it too far at some points. Even though it is a satirical film, it should not excuse the child abuse and rape jokes. 

The biggest danger is that this film “gives real brutes cover to laugh with him,” as Stephen witty put it. Don’t be a brute. 

Finally, we should think about our own actions and comments. Although they might not be blatantly “racist,”  racial micro aggressions are so very common nowadays. 

Here’s some context:

Microassaults: Conscious and intentional actions or slurs, such as using racial epithets, displaying swastikas or deliberately serving a white person before a person of color in a restaurant.

Microinsults: Verbal and nonverbal communications that subtly convey rudeness and insensitivity and demean a person’s racial heritage or identity. An example is an employee who asks a colleague of color how she got her job, implying she may have landed it through an affirmative action or quota system.

Microinvalidations: Communications that subtly exclude, negate or nullify the thoughts, feelings or experiential reality of a person of color. For instance, white people often ask Asian-Americans where they were born, conveying the message that they are perpetual foreigners in their own land.

Sue focuses on microinsults and microinvalidiations because of their less obvious nature, which puts people of color in a psychological bind, he asserts: While the person may feel insulted, she is not sure exactly why, and the perpetrator doesn’t acknowledge that anything has happened because he is not aware he has been offensive.

“The person of color is caught in a Catch-22: If she confronts the perpetrator, the perpetrator will deny it,” Sue says.

In turn, that leaves the person of color to question what actually happened. The result is confusion, anger and an overall sapping of energy, he says.

(http://www.apa.org/monitor/2009/02/microaggression.aspx)

Go see The Dictator and remain critical throughout. If I learned anything from my Comm 125 class this semester was that people who challenge the media they are exposed to learn more. 

“You shall not, for the sake of one individual, change the meaning of principle and integrity, nor endeavour to persuade yourself or me, that selfishness is prudence, and insensibility of danger security for happiness.”

              -Pride and Prejudice, Ch. 24. 

Reading Jane Austen all summer. 

Lucky Charms have been my dinner craving for the past few days. Sometimes you miss the little things.

I don’t know if it’s my heart or my sunburn.

The guy that always sells water bottles…always. - Miami Beach, 7th and Ocean - 

I don’t mind this being the cause of my sunburn 😌  - Miami Beach, 7th and Ocean