You are coming home
are you still alone,
are you not the same as you used to be?

As the sun grows high and you serve your time,
does each day just feel like another lie?
Now you know, is it just for show,
just a foolish game that you hide behind?
Don't forget the nights when it all felt right,
are you not the same as you used to be?
Used to be

In an endless night, could you feel the fright
of an age that was and could never be?
So we hold it close when we feel the most
like a love that we could not leave behind
Turn the wheel to each way we feel til I'm lost and I cannot find you there
Don't forget the nights when it all felt right,
are you not the same as you used to be?
Used to be

Coming home any day now

Being the expert on "Latin" and other world cultures you have claimed to be, I am shocked that you were not expecting this. Machismo is one of the oldest social concepts around. It's just the way it is. It isn't right but after hundreds and hundreds of years, it's still going to take TIME to reverse it.

You're only making it worse. You're making yourself the victim. You're allowing yourself to be more vulnerable to their attacks. The most hypocritical thing is that you don't notice these things in your own country. You talk about how you miss short skirts and heels, acting as if these things wouldn't lead to you being "hit on" back in the states.

You say you're tired of being degraded when you degrade yourself by acting like a slut at clubs, dressing like it, not caring, not being SMART about the way you carry yourself. You're naïve. Instead, you sing the same things in songs back home, "I want to fuck you" jokingly, nonchalantly and don't think that mainstream messages like that are degrading or hurtful or an attack on women. Here you are having those same words said to you which changes the situation. So it's okay when you sing songs about degrading other women?


piss. off. GET OUT OF MY COUNTRY.

it's crazy how much can change in a year.

I don't know how to cure this suffering that shouldn't even exist in the first place.

I feel like I have lost a part of myself in the past two days, with the death of two great men who had a profound impact on me.

To Howard Zinn, who taught me to perceive history as the work of the people, and not always men in suits.

To JD Salinger, for helping me survive my teen years, for understanding me indirectly, through your stories about the eccentric Glass family, for making me passionate about writing, enough to honor you by wanting to name my child Zooey, after the character in Franny and Zooey, for helping me portray this passion by wanting to analyze things, despite it being something I didn't understand, as I was too young, for a 9th grade paper, on 9 stories (I chose "A Perfect Day for Bananafish")

Thank you for inspiring me.

If Gabo is next, I won't leave my room.

May you rest in peace, and never forget how many people's lives you've changed.
I love you.

My return to Peru was to be one of the most important trips in my life, and now that I look back on it, it was. One of my dreams as a child was to climb to the top of Machu Picchu, and I actually did it. It never really hit me until a few days ago: I've accomplished SO many things for someone so young. I've seen so much of this world and hope to continue to do so.

In light of this, it breaks my heart to write that today, Chile elected it's first right wing leader in 52 years; since the disastrous, malicious, and terrible reign of Pinochet, who massacred over 3,000 people without a second thought. Apparently, in the streets of Santiago, "Chi-chi-chi-le-le-lé, Viva Chile y pinochet, éste triunfo es para usté" can be heard. How painful, how devastating, yet how real. All of this just a few days after a museum was dedicated to the atrocities committed during that time period, to mourn the death and disappearance of those never fully recognised, of those never found.

It is just like Neruda said, that when he condemns imperialism or something detrimental to his native land, it not only rings true of Chile, but of all of Latin America; that when one Latin American country hurts, they all do. This is why this news is insufferable to me, shocking, and sad.

These past few weeks have been nearly unendurable. I haven't felt so underwhelmed in so long. I find my aspirations changing, my fears that once sunk below my flesh rising to the top, seeping through my skin, able to be read on my face.

and yet, we must all go on.

I seem to have been swayed to leave UCLA and today's events only intensified these feelings.

Financially speaking, I have always somehow had many misfortunes within the UC system. Unfortunately, UCLA is no exception. Missteps occurred during the calculation of my loans and when one loan failed, another federal loan was "maxed out" to make up for it. However, this error was fixed and I was faced with an "over award" which I understood. When the rest of the fixed loan was given to me to cover housing and living expenses, I was told that the "over award" amount had been subtracted from this and accounted for. This was wrong.

Basically, I have to pay 1800 by next Friday or else I will be unable to enroll next quarter, and because of this outstanding balance, my financial aid will be unable to cover my expenses for the rest of the year, should I decide to pay it using my aid, which if is not done by next week, will accumulate 20 dollars per day in late fees.

Right now, I see no point in continuing my education within a system that cares about money more than its students, research more than the quality of education, and a brand name more than actual learning. I see no reason to have to attempt to make an appointment with an adviser for literally 5 days, to have to wait more than 3 days for an email response in which I titled URGENT as it referred to me dropping a class and how it would affect me, to have to take astronomy and calculus and chemistry when all I wanted to study was linguistics, maybe a few languages here and there and should time permit take things such as those mentioned with my "open units," for my own pleasure.


I am failing to understand why I am so unhappy here knowing that thousands of people would do anything to be in my position. I am struggling to remember who I was, to define who I am, and think about who I want to be, when I can't even answer the question, "Where are you from?"

And all this while, in the back of my head, I ask myself if I will ever stop searching, stop moving, stop thinking too much, just BEING, and find everything I have been looking for.

I had a bit of a nervous break down yesterday; oops. I wrote in my real life journal, well I started a new "Guernica" notebook as the other one was filled to the brim with memoirs of my time abroad. Anyway, it felt nice but I felt like I was abandoning you, blogspot.

So here I am to "write" an update. I am dropping one of my classes, and for the past 3 days, moving back to the UK has been constantly on my mind. I have spoken to my parents about it and they have agreed to support whatever decision I make. I'm petrified, feel alone for the very first time in my life,(I've a bit of a reputation as a misanthrope who happens to be fiercely independent and despite my exterior, actually abhor human interactions), and am not sure that even if I were to choose Edinburgh (again) it would be the "right" decision.

I am swirling in this abyss of paper work and research and I've constructed this post it mountain full of lists and lists of why to stay or why to go, amidst it, my errands for the week. I hate that I am so indecisive. It terrifies me to think that despite all of these moves and adventures I somehow end up on, that I won't find happiness. Yet again, I'm still working out the semantics of that word in the corners of my brain.

Anyway, this song has been my salvation all of tonight; sung by this woman who used to be my IDOL when I was younger. I seriously adored her. So, I give to you, "La Vida Es Un Carnaval" by the one and only Celia Cruz, que descanse en paz.





xx