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All around you crowded
But the silence itself speaks
Your mindless thoughts betrayed you
What fills within underneath

Trapped between confusion,
Hiding behind the aisle
This loneliness surrounds
Suppressing you tried,
Denied.

For every line you read
And every word pronounced
Reflected back to these pages
Mind wandering through
In haze.

So you stared ahead to the glass
Where daylight ray slid in
Once tinge of orange lit trees
Now dark light is all you see.

While you sit within this nothingness
Succumb to your ambition
Realize that you’re restless
In mind, you sought for peace.

Sunday Afternoon in the Library

I'm begining to find myself on the fourth floor of the library more frequently.
It's a Sunday afternoon.

To my left is an opened course package for Human Rights.
My mission for the next five hours of my life:

to reread, analyze and formulate a thesis on the article

"Columbus and the War on Indigenous Peoples"

I've read it once. I planned on finishing this by Tuesday.
Was supposed to formulate a thesis on Friday. So I'm behind.
But really, I'm ahead of my game. It's due next Monday.
I'll get it done by Tuesday, for sure.

Alright, let me just say that for the past hour here, I managed to:

read one article, "Slave Trade & The New World"

Finished one large cup of French Vanilla

Messaged my boyfriend
And stare at the greens and balding trees outside.

And now I'm blogging.

Well, it's something right?
I'm ambitious but I'll get my arguments for my paper by the end of the day

I'm serious.

No, really.

I'm tired.

Because last night was awesome.

After nerding in the library for four hours,

We headed to the mall with the malay girls plus Mexican Steph, who is the birthday girl!
She's real cool. Will be teaching me to Salsa soontimes =)
After the mall and the one hour bus ride, we headed to my house.
Made lasagna and scalloped potato.
And waited til midnight to surprise Steph with a chocolate ice cream cake.
We played music, rocked out and danced after, all was fun. They left at around 2.

& now back to nerding.

Expressions & Emotions

Protest against tuition fee rally today.
It was fun. There is something magical about being in a group.
Voicing out for the same cause.
A feeling of "Empowerment".

I remember, shouting "DROP WHAT?" and everyone responding "DROP FEES!".
And it felt really nice.
There is unison.
Strength.
Freedom of expression is powerful.

Aleema and I headed to the National Gallery after.
We first stopped at Starbucks.

I have a new fave drink now.

Peppermint white chocolate mocha :)

We decided to cool off from the protest and look at Canadian art pieces.
Daphne Odjig and Miller Brittain currently have their works being showcased.
Some paintings spoke out to me.
It came to life, and truly expressed the emotional struggles of the artists.
Particularly Odjig's, who is of native descent.
She had works portraying aboriginal suffering, confusion, isolation & reintegration.
Coincidentally, Aleema and I just learned in Human Rights of the aboriginal inhumane displacement.
We felt that Odjig's artwork reflected on the ethnographic perspective of the natives.
Eye-opening, emotionally understood spoke to us, I suppose.

There's a certain beauty in art.
It is subjective.
Beauty is determined on how you relate to it.
Miller Brittain's work varied from the Great Depression era to the World War II.
His WWII pieces were a little scary.

I felt sophisticated going to the art gallery.
& I felt like a radical protesting today.
I felt I experience two opposite spectrums of expressions.
On the same day.

Justify, justice...& just plain confused

I'm sitting in the library again, with the intention to begin critically analyzing an article about Columbus.
But I don't feel like reading. It's plain depressing.
And Columbus is a douche who contributed to the annhilation of the indigenous population
I want to write.
Write to clear my mind.
I am a little teensy bit troubled.
But I'll be okay.
I always am okay.

A friend of mine walked out of law lecture today. She was missing half the lecture.
Then I found her. Sitting outside the hall, staring. I asked her what happened, and she told me she doesn't know anymore. Then she looked at me, and she cried.

Three years ago, her uncle was murdered. It seemed unreal to be sitting beside her, after hearing that. I constantly find myself engaging in a conversation with someone who's been victimized by violence and crime.

Yeah, the world sucks. It is filled with a lot of twisted and sick human being.

Today, my friend studies law. She made a vow to bring justice to her uncle. And as she sat in the lecture today, she doubted.
She doubted her ambition.
She doesn't think she can handle seeing those victimized by the crime.
& she explained how the complexity of law, the corruption and flaw....she just didn't think she could handle it.

I decided she couldn't be left alone. I have sunk to the bottom before, and it sucks when the walls cave in and you have noone beside you. So I skipped tutorial. I took my friend out for a walk, and we talked.
Talked about our future.
About corruption in every occupation.
About the inevitability of it
And we talked about change.

She had her heart set on prosecuting. Becoming a criminal prosecutor, sending all the bad guys to jail. And now she is just unsure. She fears being trapped into corruption. But she came to realization that, if nobody changes the system...who will?

I agree with her whole heartedly. But in the end, it is easier said than done.
My friend brought into my mind many questions.

To what extend can we change 'the system'?
WHY DO WE BOTHER?

To my last question, I'd say because we try to be altruistic. Because we want to defy selfishness. Because we want everyone to live in justice. But...the concept of justice lacks universality. It is complex. Ambiguous. Subjective. At the end of the day, I feel like people like myself...we try to change the system so it fits our definition of justice. Which will disadvantage someone else's definition, of course. So really, we're all selfish.

It's a circular argument.
I know.
Or I'm just not thinking properly.
Point is, we're all so different, why do we want universalize justice?

So my friend has something in common with me. We both are ambitious. We want to be lawyers. We both want to change the world.
But we just don't know how.

The Good Stuff

My fingers are higlighter stained.
With 4 different colours.
Pink. Green. Yellow. Blue.
I'm getting caught up with my readings.
& trying to read ahead. Knowing full well midterms are on the way.

I found my favourite library corner, it's on the fourth floor.
As I look out the window, I see the setting sun rays glowing on the empty branches of a tree.
It's a prophesy of winter...

I can actually see tonnes of trees, really.
I love trees.
I can ponder the aesthethic of a tree all day.
Maybe not now.

So I happen to be in a better mood today.
An A in my philo midterm, is the sole reason.
92.8%..yay!
Gosh I am such a nerd. I feel so stupid for being emo over a B.
But then again, it wasn't my first B, and I was annoyed with the ambiguous system....still am.
& there's the whole house thing.....I'm going home late tonight to see what happens. :)

My second cup of french vanilla has kicked in.
Break is over.

My rant

In my sink, empty dirty dishes laid.
My fridge is slowly emptying. We're out of meat, milk, bread, and there's 2 eggs left.
The garbage pile was surrounding my kitchen.
Pearl helped me take out the trash before we left for class.
I had a cup of coffee before I left.
My stomach growled during a lecture.

I figured it wasn't going to be a good day.

True enough.

Another B on my essay.
As the day progressed, I learned to accept the grade as it is.
My mistake, quit sounding like a high school student.
Suck it up.
Do better next time.

Right.
I can handle that.

Now I'm sitting at home. I'm all alone in my room. My housemates are home.
My kitchen is as it was this morning, minus the garbage.
There's nothing to eat.

So, this is my life in a nutshell.
I am expected to clean.
To cook. Get groceries...

While all at the same time, maintain my grade as I spent thousands of dollars (my money, through student loan. NOT my parents' I should add) just to enter this institution.

& every evening, I become mentally exhausted.
Insecured.
Alone.
Uncared for.

Life goes on.

Daylights saving

Sun is shining through my window pane.
It's only 12 noon.
I woke up half hour ago. Still in bed, under my comforter with my laptop on my lap.

Today should be a good day.
I am in a much lighter mood.
& it's not cloudy out.

Pearl crashed over last night.
She's working on her artwork as we speak. She made a card. With a submarine pop-up.
Knowing full well I am a Beatles Fan. :)
Oh, the yellow submarine.

We're making lunch together later.
Salmon, Pasta & Scalloped Potatoes.