Eleven.

Sometimes I come to hate people because they can’t see where I am. I’ve gone empty. Completely empty and all they see is the visual form: my arms and legs, my face, my height and posture, the sounds that come from my throat. But I’m fucking empty.

The person I was just one year ago no longer exists; drifts spinning slowly into the ether somewhere way back there. I’m a xerox of my former self. I can’t abstract my own dying any longer. I am a stranger to others and to myself and I refuse to pretend that I am familiar or that I have history attached to my heels. I am glass, clear empty glass.

I see the world spinning behind and through me. I see casualness and mundane effects of gesture made by constant populations. I look familiar but I am a complete stranger being mistaken for my former selves.

I am a stranger and I am moving. I am moving on two legs soon to be on all fours. I am no longer animal vegetable or mineral. I am no longer made of circuits or disks. I am no longer coded and deciphered. I am all emptiness and futility. I am an empty stranger, a carbon copy of my form.

I can no longer find what I’m looking for outside of myself. It doesn’t exist out there. Maybe it’s only in here, inside my head. But my head is glass and my eyes have stopped being cameras, the tape has run out and nobody’s words can touch me. No gesture can touch me. I’ve been dropped into all this from another world and I can’t speak your language any longer.

See the signs I try to make with my hands and fingers. See the vague movements of my lips among the sheets. I’m a blank spot in a hectic civilization. I’m a dark smudge in the air that dissipates without notice. I feel like a window, maybe a broken window. I am a glass human. I am a glass human disappearing in the rain.

I am standing among all of you waving my invisible arms and hands. I am shouting my invisible words. I am getting so weary. I am growing so tired. I am waving to you from here. I am crawling around looking for the aperture of complete and final emptiness. I am vibrating in isolation among you. I am screaming but it comes out like pieces of clear ice. I am signaling that the volume of all this is too high. I am waving. I am waving my hands. I am disappearing. I am disappearing but not fast enough.

-David Wojnarowicz

Ten.

Haven’t updated this in a while.
Here are some prints from my Photo 1 class. The scanner made them really dark, and I’m terrible at dusting negatives.

Some of them I printed a little too dark, I need to work on my overall printing and also composition. And I didn’t realize there was a hair on the scanner until just now, ugh.

I had an assignment to take 72 pictures of one tree, so I chose this really nice one in Central Park.

Ugh the scan of this came out terrible.

Nine.

The weather was all sorts of beautiful this past weekend. Warmer than it has been in ages, all the snow from the snowstorm last Monday melted away really quickly and we were all able to hang out outside, play frisbee and soccer and get a glimpse of spring. But now it’s back to being colder.

I head home tomorrow night for Spring Break and I’m so excited. I can’t wait to see my friends, family and dogs. I managed to pass my CSW midterm with a C but only because my professor took pity on most of us and curved all the grades. My Comp Sci midterm I probably failed. I’m so apathetic about school lately.

Had my first critique in Photo class. It went well. My professor said that a lot of my stuff reminded her of Minor White because of how object and detail oriented I am. Said that I use shadows really well. I got some pretty good feedback/critique from everyone.

Also, I can now successfully juggle three hackey sacks.

Eight.

I spend a lot of my time tossing and turning. That’s in the sleeping sense, and in other senses. It’s four AM and I can’t sleep. I hate when it gets to be like this. I’m going home for Spring Break soon. That’s going to be nice, I hope.

Tuesday night I had to attend a plenary lecture for my SMW Anatomy of a Thought class. At first I thought maybe the lecture would be nice. It was titled Truth and Fiction in Modern Science – How Dishonesty Damages Our Health and Environment”, so I thought surely something would resonate with me. But I was wrong. Dead wrong, in fact.

Here are the 5 main things I learned from this lecture:
1. the opposite of antibiotics… probiotics.
2. powerpoints are bad and usually have atrocious typography.
3. most people do NOT cut up babies on their kitchen cutting boards.
4. bacteria will MATE with salmonella inside of your body.
and last but absolutely not least
5. everyone loves turtles.

Seven.

Honestly I think having class before 10:30 in the morning should be outlawed. I can’t concentrate, especially when it’s all philosophical discussion and such at 8:30 in the morning. It just doesn’t work. I can’t discuss ANYTHING at 8:30 in the morning, not even what I want for breakfast.

Also: I should refrain from eating double chocolate chip muffins from the Hub at 10:00 in the morning. No matter how delicious they are, they kill me an hour later.

Six.

It scares me how fast time moves. How quickly my time here is coming to an end. How old I’m getting. How everything has changed since this time last year. How I can’t control any of it.

I think leaving here is going to be harder than I originally thought, it already hurts.

Five.

When we get to the end of this, you’re going to need to remind me whose turn it is to leave.

Four.

From VDAY.org

* According to a report in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine, 28 % of US female veterans reported sexual assault during their careers, with consistent rates found across eras (Women’s eNews, 3/30/03).
* In the US Central Command region, which includes Iraq and Afghanistan, the number of US servicewomen’s reported sexual assaults rose from 24 in 2002 and 94 in 2003 to 123 in 2004. In the US military overall, the number of assaults reported by US servicewomen in 2004 increased to 1,275–25% higher than 2003’s total, and 41% more than in 2002. (reported in the Washington Post, May 7, 2005)
* Nearly 20% of women in New Hampshire say they have been raped. (NH Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence, University of New Hampshire, and state authorities, 2007)
* In a survey in South Africa, 25% of the young men admitted to having had sex with a woman without her consent, before he was 18 years of age (Human Rights Watch).
* In the late nineties in South Africa, 40% of reported rapes and attempted rapes targeted girls younger than 17 years of age. (Human Rights Watch)
* In a survey of women in Seattle’s Puget Sound area, 11 percent said they had been raped by their partners. (Group Health Center for Health Studies, Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center and the University of Washington. Reported in Seattle Times, May 16, 2006)
* In Seoul, Korea, 22% of adult women said they had been the victims of rape and attempted rape (UNIFEM, www.stopvaw.org).
* In Colorado, 24% (1 in 4) of women and 6% (1 in 17) of men have experienced a completed or attempted sexual assault. This equates to over 11,000 women and men each year experiencing a sexual assault in Colorado. In 1997, there were 1,794 rapes reported to Colorado law enforcement. If compared to the 1998 Statewide Survey, these reports constitute only 16% of sexual assaults. (Sexual Assault in Colorado: Results of a 1998 Statewide Survey. 1998. Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment and Colorado Coalition Against Sexual Assault)
* One in six American women has been the victim of an attempted or completed rape, and 10% of sexual assault victims are men. (2004 National Crime Victimization Survey)
* In a 1995 study by the U.S. Centers for Disease control of 5,000 students at over 100 colleges, 20% of female college students or one in five answered “yes” to the question “In your lifetime have you been forced to submit to sexual intercourse against your will?” (Douglas, K. A. et al. (1997). Results from the 1995 national college health risk behavior survey. Journal of American College Health, 46, 55-66.)
* A 1993 study in Alexandria, Egypt, found that 47% of female homicides were ‘honor’ killings of the victim after she had been raped. (El Youssef New Presses, Cairo)

Fact #31: At least 60 million girls who would otherwise be expected to be alive are “missing” from various populations, mostly in Asia, as a result of sex-selective abortions, infanticide or neglect. (UN Study On The Status of Women, Year 2000)

Fact #32: Globally, at least one in three women and girls is beaten or sexually abused in her lifetime. (UN Commission on the Status of Women, 2/28/00)

Fact #33: A recent survey by the Kenyan Women Rights Awareness Program revealed that 70% of those interviewed said they knew neighbors who beat their wives. Nearly 60% said women were to blame for the beatings. Just 51% said the men should be punished. (The New York Times, 10/31/97)

Fact #34: 4 million women and girls are trafficked annually. (United Nations)

Fact #35: An estimated one million children, mostly girls, enter the sex trade each year (UNICEF)

Fact #36: A 2005 World Health Organization study reported that nearly one third of Ethiopian women had been physically forced by a partner to have sex against their will within the 12 months prior to the study. (WHO Multi-country Study on Women’s Health and Domestic Violence Against Women, 2005)

Fact #37: In a study of 475 people in prostitution from five countries (South Africa, Thailand, Turkey, USA, and Zambia):
62% reported having been raped in prostitution.
73% reported having experienced physical assault in prostitution.
92% stated that they wanted to escape prostitution immediately.
(Melissa Farley, Isin Baral, Merab Kiremire, Ufuk Sezgin, “Prostitution in Five Countries: Violence and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder” (1998) Feminism & Psychology 8 (4): 405-426)

Fact #38: The most common act of violence against women is being slapped—an experience reported by 9% of women in Japan and 52% in provincial Peru. Rates of sexual abuse also varies greatly around the world—with partner rape being reported by 6% of women from Serbia and Montenegro, 46% of women from provincial Bangladesh, and 59% of women in Ethiopia. (WHO Multi-country Study on Women’s Health and Domestic Violence Against Women, 2005)

Fact #39: So-called “honour killings” take the lives of thousands of young women every year, mainly in North Africa, Western Asia and parts of South Asia. (UNFPA)

Fact #40: The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan reported that 2002 saw a 25% increase in “honor killings” of women, with 461 women murdered by family members in 2002, in 2 provinces (Sindh and Punjab) alone. (Pakistan Human Rights Commission, 2002)

Fact #41: More than 90 million African women and girls are victims of female circumcision or other forms of genital mutilation. (Heise: 1994)

Fact #42: In eastern and souther Africa, 17 to 22% of girls aged 15 to 19 are HIV-positive, compared to 3 to 7% of boys of similar age. This pattern—seen in many other regions of the world—is evidence that girls are being infected with HIV by a much older cohort of men. (UNICEF/UNAIDS 2007)

Fact #43: : A 2005 study reported that 7% of partnered Canadian women experienced violence at the hands of a spouse between 1999 and 2004. Of these battered women, nearly one-quarter (23%) reported being beaten, choked, or threatened with a knife or gun. (Family Violence in Canada: A Statistical Profile, 2005)

Fact #44: In Zimbabwe, domestic violence accounts for more than 60% of murder cases that go through the high court in Harare. (ZWRCN)

Fact #45: a study in Zaria, Nigeria found that 16 percent of hospital patients treated for sexually transmitted infections were younger than 5. (UNFPA)

Three.

It’s too bad I can’t get a degree in Procrastination, that’s the only thing I’m really good at.

Two.

This morning I woke up around 12pm and went into White Plains (the city right by my school) instead of actually going into Manhattan because I figured I’d save money that way. I went with my roommate, and we walked around as I shot a roll of film for my photography class. Then we went out to eat at David Kings which is the Chinese restaurant we always order takeout from. It felt really nice to actually sit down in a restaurant and get off campus to eat. Weeks of the same sandwiches, pizza, soups, etc, just really doesn’t work for me. I like variety. I can’t afford to buy groceries anymore so it always feels nice when I randomly look at my bank account and see that my parents have surprised me with an extra $20 in my account.

I realized that the main source for all of my stress isn’t school itself or other people, it’s me. I’m the factor in all of the stress. I put all of my work off until the last minute because I’m lazy and apathetic. My loneliness is because I don’t attempt to talk to random people, I choose to sit in my room and talk to people hundreds of miles away instead of sitting outside talking to people two feet away.

I need to quit doing that.

I did buy JPod by Douglas Coupland and a book on baby animals, though.