taken from the SKEM blog

for my own records...in case anything happens to the SKEM blog.


Hey there SKEM,

long time no post. I hope this means that you've all had really amazing and busy summers :) Since it's Labor Day today, and I didn't know I had work off (doh!), I'll regale you all with my summer tales...

I'm not sure where to begin, so I guess I'll start with an update of today. This morning, Fernando packed his bags and flew home to LA. Finding a job in NYC was just not happening this summer. He applied and applied, and didn't hear back from anyone...not even a no. Just silence. Which is ironic and maddening, especially in a city that is so fucking loud all the god damn time. So, we both decided that it was no longer a positive experience for him to stay in a city that in and of itself grinds people down - can you imagine what it does to someone who is already demoralized? I told him to go home on Friday - regroup, remember that he's not a piece of shit, and surround himself with family. He left many things here, like: his grey suit and half of my closet full of shirts, a chewbacca doll, his diploma, a book on samurai swords, his beloved leather jacket, and two giant suitcases full of clothes, so I know he'll be back..we just don't know when.

In any case, summer in this city with Fernando has been great. Of course it simultaneously felt and didn't feel like summer to me. This having a job business is certainly still weird to me. What, we don't get summer break now? Even last summer felt like summer even though I was working at least 200x harder hahaha -- and this was because I was still on a college campus and in Boston, which of course was an amazing experience in all of its empty glory. This summer was still summer-y in the sense that I felt like there were more tourists around and less NYU drunkie freshmen running around in the East Village. I can't tell which is the lesser evil, honestly. It was also felt more summer-y because the hookah bar across the street was bumping all night long, every night. Thank god for my ear deafening $60 air conditioner bought second-hand off of the craigslist. It drowned out almost every noise coming from outside. Of course, it also meant I could not hear for the life of me whatever I happened to be watching on Netflix and now can't watch anything without subtitles, even if the volume is perfectly fine. But I digress.

This summer was lovely. And it was pretty low key. I didn't do anything crazy, and we didn't travel anywhere, except for our first romp in the south at the beginning of the summer - a trip that still makes me smile so huge even just thinking about it for a second (which, btw, Eleri, please please share those Chattanooga pics!! I don't have enough photos with you guys, and I would love to see those :) thaaaanks and I know I've asked you like a million times already this summer for them hehe). This summer was filled with a lot of after work walks home in the NYC humidity; lots of post-work beers and purple-lipped evenings with wine while watching King of the Hill; a few refreshing hours in movie theatres watching the many summer blockbuster hits; the several walks a day to the dog park next door imagining what the tall, loping greyhound is thinking as it walks by the stout french bulldog named "Funions" and poking fun at the incredibly ugly yet adorable brussels griffons hold their own against the army of malty-poos; an evening in Central Park staring up at the sky, surrounded by thousands of other New Yorkers listening to the NY Philharmonic; another evening in Central Park watching M83 do what hipsters do (apparently not much); a few all-nighters dancing to the likes of Madeon and Eric Prydz and like true New Yorkers complaining about all the "bridge-and-tunnel" folks fist-pump their nights away; lots of restaurant discoveries around Alphabet City and 2am meals at the yakitori place on St.Mark's as we dodge drunken hordes of stiletto wielding gaggles or pitbull owning vagrants...it was a lot of routine, and it was too short.

I went home once in August for my dad's 60th birthday celebrations and saw the ocean, which was soothing and nostalgia-inducing. Watching the surfers, the beautiful, tan women glide through the sand and the convertibles and crisp, dry heat (as opposed to the East Coast muggy humidity) made me wonder why anyone, including myself, left LA. I also went back to Wellesley and stayed at the college club, the one weekend there wasn't a wedding going on, and walked around the lake in high-humidity; ate at Lemon Thai as soon as we arrived; drove to Target and the Natick Mall; picked up late-night ice cream from Wellesley Town (can you guys believe there's now a J.P. Licks in Wellesley?!?! And it's open late!!); walked around the campus; talked a pre-frosh who had already decided on Cornell to reconsider Wellesley and when I realized it was too late, told her 8 year old sister to remember how beautiful the campus is and try to come back even if she doesn't want to be a Wellesley woman; visited the CWS just to see what was going on; wrote a note and left it on my Arabic professor's office door; sat in the Lulu and stared wistfully into Punch's Alley; and took moonlight walks around the empty campus. Such space, I've never appreciated until I learned to stare past people even if you're squished in a metro and are just barely kissing someone's chin.

Well...that's enough nostalgia I guess. I'm going to go stare at some dogs, get some groceries and try to enjoy this newfound solitude. Miss you guys...and do tell. What did you do this summer?

-SLee

Pitch Black

as always. But really, since when?

I don't remember always feeling this way about my life. I don't remember such periods of raw, desolate fury.

Today, we had another silent screaming match. Another rapidly pounding on the keyboard while tears well up because I can't raise my voice over a polite, public decibel. Because I am at work. Because I'm an adult. Because I should fucking know better.

How strange then, that after an hour of unspilled tears and barely checked rage, my voice has left me. It comes out scratched and uneasy as if scraped violently against a granite wall.

I need space - space to breathe; space to grow; space to sprawl; space to be adventurous; space to learn; space to fall. But I have no space because I don't know how to be productive anymore with so much space. In fact, I don't know how to be productive alone. I don't allow myself to be alone. I don't allow myself to have so much space. What was once placid solitude has become distorted as needless isolation. But I so need it. My sanity depends on it.

What little sanity is left, at least. Reality is constantly distorted, exaggerated, assumed, fabricated and then painted pitch black. Just so it matches everything else I see.

But things weren't always pitch black. I don't think things were always or even a little pitch black. Some dark moments here and there, but I thought I grew up. I thought that was just teenage angst clawing away at the rigid cage of self-doubt and pubescent shame. But it's back, with a vengeance.

And this time, furrows become deep, jagged creases. Stressful instants manifest in sunken cheeks and eyes like daggers. Work transforms into caved in shoulders and a crooked, lifeless, uncertain semblance of a smile. Sometimes I can't even recognize myself. Sometimes, I marvel. Most times, I turn away before I have to realize it's me.

And this exchange is all too common.

You say, "you are my light in this world."

I wish I had a better answer than "yes, and yet, all I see is pitch black."

A night in Brooklyn

6 months in Manhattan

Reflections on 2011

2011...you came and went so fast. some thoughts of mine. fragmented.

• a few nights free of guilt in sin city - more of a highlight, less of a harbinger.
• "welcome to my communa" - we will go back to your communa. 
• an acrobatic spectacle - too much alcohol to remember much but the fire. 
• fake eyelashes and glitter. for once, I enjoyed the glitz. 
• a trip to New Zealand. 
• a jump that was less enlightening than frightening. 
• the strongest urge to get away. An impetus I'll never forget. 
• an email exchange and a plane ticket bought - I never looked back. 
• rediscovering a city that I spent too little time in. 
• frat house headquarters on Dartmouth street, Hannaford's, afternoon walks in the park watching baseball games and wistful teenagers, our hands held in summer downpours, shivering in 8-hour stints in the library while the New England heat and humidity blazed outside, chats and beers on the porch, fights in Floyd, lighting up cigarette after cigarette after cigarette.. 
• thirty pounds lost - anger and stress took its place.
• a fourth of July to remember with fireworks lighting up the hot summer night over the Charles River. 
• meanwhile, a book was slowly written. meanwhile, a revolution unraveled in North Africa and the Middle East. 
• a visit to New York City. harmless. without intention. a job offered, and a scramble to understand Manhattan realty. 
• alphabet city. incessant horns and sirens. lights that never turn off. 
• BYOD Tuesdays. And a tradition is born.
• an apartment. my apartment. rent to be paid.
• two years forged. a future mists on the far horizon.
• re-enlistment, meaning painfully long nights. meaning hushed screaming matches. inhaling the embers on cigarette after cigarette after cigarette...

2011, you were surprisingly a year full of light. a harsh, jarring, neon, evanescent light.

2012, you are my year. please be my year. I won't let you come back to me in 2013 and only remember disjointed bits and pieces splintered by the unforgiving glare. flashes of light here and there to cast shameful beams on the fury taking refuge in the dark.

I want you to stay illuminated for me. glow warmth and happiness. not scathing humor. radiate genuine. joy. already there are lovely evenings in the soft, gauzy glow on 82nd and fifth.

and you. thank you for helping me hold it together. and by it, I mean all those pieces.

(this was supposed to be a fun exercise, and I'm sorry to see that my 2011 came out this way.)

The Arab Spring comes to Israel and a Third Intifada?

so much shit is about to go down. I wish I had more time to write more about this, but I leave you with these articles:

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/05/16/the_arab_spring_comes_to_israel

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/17/world/middleeast/17mideast.html?ref=world

name change

Dear anyone who reads me anymore,
I'm changing my blog name to stacysami.blogspot.com!

Back in the game

It's been a while since I've felt that I had anything interesting to write about, but I was just reminiscing about that van ride across the Sinai more than two years ago (and how dangerous it could have been in retrospect..) and thought I'd give an update about things going on in my life right now.

As you can tell from the pictures on the side of my screen, I have already graduated from Wellesley at this point and am in that strange limbo stage in between life stages. While I started this blog as a way to keep my friends and family updated on my travels during my junior year abroad, I think I will continue to write even just for myself.

After I officially received my degree this past January (and will finally receive my diploma at the end of this month), I moved back home to Los Angeles to spend some time with my family and to "figure out the next step". Quite honestly, this time was mostly spent sleeping, watching netflix and chatting on skype with F who was back in Boston for school. I also spent a majority of the time smoking and waiting for the grad school deadlines to pass, so that I would have that excuse to continue procrastinating on that damn personal essay. This time was so tedious. It was terrible, and I felt terrible because what a waste my Wellesley degree felt like when I felt like I had nothing to show for it. The worst part was, so much was going on in the Middle East (Arab Spring, anyone?), and I seemed to have little to no interest as to what was going on. The Jasmine Revolution and Ben Ali's departure blew up the frontpage of newspapers when I was in Utah for my cousin's wedding, and I didn't give it more than a glance. The wedding and the sweet lodgings were too much to handle for my lazy mind. Soon afterwards, the revolution in Egypt erupted.

My brother would occasionally ask me what was going on in Egypt, and I would just shrug and continue surfing through funny pictures on reddit. It was a pretty shitty feeling to have graduated from college as Middle Eastern Studies major and upon the most exciting time in the Middle East, I did everything but care. Finally, one day, I was flipping through the channels when I stopped on CNN and saw the image of Tahrir Square. And immediately, I thought, holy shit, I spent every night while I was in Cairo sitting on the curbs looking into that square. I guess then I realized that I should care because I cared enough to do just about anything to find myself there. When Mubarak finally stepped down 18 days later in early February, I kept up with the news and read the various pundits' analysis/opinions, but by a mid-February trip to Las Vegas, my mind was already back in its hammock while the part of my brain that was momentarily galvanized by the image of Tahrir Square was already gathering cobwebs.

For my mom's birthday in early March, my mom and I along with my aunt decided to pay a visit to their cousin down in New Zealand. It was to be a time to rest for my mom after a hectic and draining Valentine's day and to celebrate her birthday with one of her best friends (being her cousin). We spent a little over two weeks in New Zealand. Our base was the cousin's home in Auckland, and we spent much of the first week "exploring" the north island, meaning we got on a korean tour bus and visited tourist sites. It was, pretty boring and the furthest thing to the way I like to travel. Auckland is a beautiful city, but it is way too small and slow for me. The highlight of north island was when I went bungee jumping above Lake Taupo. Jumping into that aqua blue abyss was exhilarating but didn't offer me the clarity or revelation I'd hoped a suicide-like act would give me. Honestly, it scares me how fast I jumped off that platform, but I'll admit, it was fucking scary free-falling-there was no possible time for my brain to process a revelation let alone remind myself to breathe.

The next week we spent, once again touring, although it was more like a private tour, which was pretty awesome, in south island. Now, south island is, I realize, why most people even go to New Zealand. It's absolutely breathtaking. I think every scene could have been the backdrop to the Lord of the Rings movies. As a big fan myself, although not the biggest, I enjoyed myself immensely on this portion of the trip. Queenstown was unreal.

Aside from the travels, though, I was still pretty down in the dumps about the status of my life. Actually, I was not in a great mental state throughout the trip either. My parents kept telling me to use this time wisely by really figuring out what I wanted to do for the rest of my life-no easy feat. And my brother kept telling me that in no other time in my life would I have so much time to do nothing and not have to worry about money. My friends who were working all assured me that they wished they'd spent some time off after graduating (like me) instead of jumping into the job-world. But, I must not be very creative because every single day of that break felt wasted. I wrote to my SKEM crew from Wellesley:

"I wish that I woke up every morning with a fight to win and tasks to accomplish towards a greater goal-whatever it may be. I really need that again in my life."

All I needed was one good friend to tell me to stop feeling sorry for myself, to stop wallowing in my own self-pity and self-hate. I was using my own passivity, laziness, and inability to follow through on inspiring yet fleeting moments as excuses to why the world hated me. And I thank her for being so brutally honest. Because after that night of a good scolding-turned pep-talk, I woke up the next morning and submitted a cover letter and resume to work as a research assistant for a professor working on Islam and international politics.

Not even a week later, I was back in Boston and back in the game.

Next post: why this job is nourishing my soul while killing me slowly.

random post I didn't post last fall 2010

The summer has flown by again-fast as ever.

I'm back in Los Angeles spending my time between sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic that would put parking lots to shame while juggling a cigarette and a mug of scalding coffee, or straining to pay attention to my irrelevant anecdotally inclined professor ramble on about meeting porn stars with tropical fruit allergy rashes in Belize in a freezing classroom at Santa Monica College at 8 am, or nodding off while perched on a precarious stool in front of an ancient computer at mom's flower shop whittling away the hours until 6 pm only to sit in more traffic puffing away and occasionally shaking my fist at the cars next to me.

Despite this summer of marine biology classes and GRE prep classes and driving back and forth and across Los Angeles in ridiculous traffic during all hours of the day, there have been several noteworthy, truly "summer-y" moments interweaved through the routine tedium.

• 1 lb. ground Lamb
• 1 lb. ground Beef (20% fat)
• 1/4 cup chopped Onion
• 1 tsp chopped Thyme
• 1 tsp minced Garlic
• 1 tsp Sharmula (cumin, cardamum, ginger)
• t tsp Harira
• 1 tsp Salt
• 1 Tsp Olive Oil

שכונה שלי

I spent much of last summer on my bike.

There's nothing quite like a long bike ride through the cool breeze at twilight as the unbearable valley heat ebbs and the sky streaks a deep auburn across the horizon into a lush golden lavender that beckons a deep blue balmy night. I pop my head phones in and a soundtrack accompanies my solitary ride through the smooth back roads of the neighborhood.

Cars whiz by, wistful couples stroll hand in hand, intrepid joggers weave through the mostly sparse foot-traffic, kids with scooters wearing colorful, goofy helmets haphazardly dodge other pedestrians as their exasperated parents chase after them dragging their overtired miniature dogs, and fellow bike riders switch on their blinking night lights as the neon sun expires beneath the cool blanket of night.

Most times I stick to this road that parallels the busy, honking mess that is Ventura Boulevard because it offers a mobile serenity much needed after a long, sticky day stuck on the 405 or the 101. Sometimes I bike through and to the park where I spent so many of those summer afternoons spread across the grassy knolls listening to the chorus of ducks and geese, gliding through the nostalgic haze of summer time barbecue smoke only to reappear on the other side onward past a somnolent golf course where I spent weekends of my youth lugging around my cumbersome clubs.

I've been a valley girl, if you will, for more than a decade now, and it's still a facet of my identity that surprises me despite the vehement pride I unhesitatingly express for the valley to the chagrin and mocking incredulity of other, "real" Angelenos.

Having grown up in the heart of Hancock Park on the edge of Beverly Hills where I spent the formidable years of my childhood collecting leaves and roly polies with Tiffany in the backyard, my move to the valley some eleven years ago still seems just like yesterday. Much of highschool was spent at Blue Cafe, the drive-thru of In-N-Out and couches at friend's houses. I walked and ran with Polly every night for six of the past ten or so years, but I never ventured much further than my usual route, and if I did, it was only within a block radius of my house. It was only recently, during my short vacation bouts at home that I really started to explore my neighborhood.

Maybe it was my time spent abroad for a year, especially the time spent in Israel that has opened my eyes to the substantial presence of Israelis in my neighborhood, but whatever it was, I've noticed more than ever before, the Middle Eastern tang that permeates this stretch of Ventura between Winnetka and Hayvenhurst.

I'd always known there were many Persians in my neighborhood because most of my neighbors seemed to have these beautiful, exotic yet difficult to pronounce names. And I knew of the Jewish presence because of the Orthodox jews who would walk to the temple in front of my house every Saturday. However, I don't think I was aware of the extent of this Mid-Eastern presence in my neighborhood and on my daily life. Maybe all along it was subliminal messages that surrounded me for all those impressionable years of highschool that pushed me to learn Arabic as soon as I entered college and then find myself traveling through the Middle East. Mom, there's your explanation!

Having come back home after such an incredibly difficult and wonderful semester in Israel, nothing made me happier than having uncharacteristically taken the Ventura route one day on my bike to rediscover my neighborhood with the addition of Hebrew interspersed with Farsi along every block and at each corner Starbucks.

I spent a solid week biking up and down Ventura capturing the best and most typical scenes and images that represent what really is a taste of the Middle East in who knew?, the valley. Let me share with you these vignettes I so cherish into my neighborhood. And man, that's real LA when you can find a kosher sushi bar, and a random Korean girl can read the Arabic script on your Farsi signs and tell you she met your uncle, the one that drives a taxi, in Eilat last January.

Welcome to my hood-we even have our own Aroma!

Let's start this again

Woke up this morning feeling less than fabulous. Thus, I'm still frolicking in my pajamas listening to John Mayer, and I've never quite appreciated how nice barefoot and flannel feel in lieu of the usual scratchy slacks and hells (excuse me, I meant heels) on an early friday afternoon.

It's almost been a year since I've updated this blog, and it's quite sad because I come up with post ideas more often than I have the time for. I'll come to this page every so often ready to write, but then I reminisce about all those past posts that never were, and I get disheartened and then distracted by something on perezhilton.com (LaLoca did what?) or by mama checking in to ask if I'm eating (yes.), then if I've gained weight (maybe.). And of course, school started again for me this past year..real school, I mean including all the reading (huh?) and studying (what's that again? No lo ha(th)emos en Cadi, pichaa.).

Since my last post finishing up my roller coaster semester in Cadiz, I took off for two weeks traveling in Italy (with Karia and meeting Jeni in Rome) before spending two last nights in Cadiz eating diablillos and professing our love to the server at Cumbres Mayores, walking up and down the coast with Paco trying to beat the sunset back to downtown and drinking Cruzcampo with the Italians while burying our toes in the cold sand next to the waves.

Returned to Los Angeles, plumper and tanner, around the end of June and spent that summer...wow, I can't even remember what I did that summer that was remotely productive. But that summer was marked by long bike rides at dusk with Arya, lots of movie watching, (re)discovering my hood and trying out different Israeli and Middle-Eastern restaurants, afternoons laughing at ducks at the park while we sprawled across the warm grass, improv comedy shows at the Upright Citizens Brigade, random "Hollywood" nights, hiking on weekends, fires that lasted for days, and long car rides to nowhere because we had nothing to do and nowhere to go. And that was fine.

Nothing could have mentally prepared me for the culture shock I'd feel upon returning to Wellesley. What a rough start that was...this excerpt from an email sums it up nicely:
" Returning to Wellesley was difficult-readjusting to the intense Wellesley bubble, re-acquainting myself with old friends, reassimilating into the community...there was a lot of re-doing going on."

Despite the rough start, last semester at Wellesley could really vie for one of the best. (No, who am I kidding. Second semester sophomore year at Casa was the best.) SKEMjay and Skulls was established, I was going out to Boston at least three to four times a week, I had visitors come share my humble yet cozy abode with a most spectacular view of the lake especially at sunset, visited my St. James' crew down in NYC, drove to Vegas for a weekend of debauchery during Thanksgiving break with Neese and Sean to celebrate my 21st (also when Sean got swine flu LMFAO, sorry dude. Glad you were there!), reconnected with the K-posse from freshman year from insane asylum Freeman, and I met someone, as someone else put it, "just like you, but with eyebrows."

After a whirlwind winter break of numerous family dinners, weekend trips to the mountains so my mom could "see snow", bonfires at the beach and subsequent drinking reunions, lots of driving back and forth across the 101 and the 405 at three in the morning, day trips to Santa Ines and San Diego with long stops at the beach, adventures in the kitchen with some pretty incredible and tasty creations, dates to the museum, the zoo, the bowling alley, the blacklight mini golfing, more visits to downtown LA than ever before in my life, first tattoos and more family hiking and photography trips to Malibu, I scrounged up a place on Craigslist, and here I find myself, on a friday afternoon in mid-March, staring out the window on a rainy, dreary day, still in my pajamas, still listening to John Mayer, in Falls Church, Virginia.

More updating later. I have too many nostalgic thoughts swimming in my head.

ps. miss you lots SKEMjay.

Finish off strong, friends, and see you soon!!

الأندلس

Tomorrow I have my last final exam, and this truly marks the beginning of the end of my semester in Cadiz.

After my exam, there will be a mad scramble to start packing-packing for a week and a half exploring the culinary prowess that is Italy; and packing the rest of my life away because when I return, another American student will be living in my room. I'll be "upgraded" to spend the last few nights in Cadiz in my host mother's bedroom while she insists that the couch is far more comfortable for her.

It's incredibly muggy outside, so I don't mind spending a few more hours in my pajamas studying in bed. My last exam is for my class on the history of al-Andalus (a.k.a. Muslim Spain) - that "Gem of the World", that paradigm of Convivencia that is ironically invoked by both anti-war advocates and Osama bin Laden.

There is always one quote that blows my mind whenever I come across the topic of al-Andalus. I first heard it on my visit to Alhambra in Granada three years ago and then in a Wellesley Spanish class, and again with this class.

Legend has it that when the last Nasrid King of Granada, Boabdil, surrendered the last Muslim stronghold in Spain, he turned around on the path to exile to look with one last sigh lamenting his lost palace. His mother walking by said:

"Llora, llora como mujer lo que no supiste defender como hombre."
(You cry like a woman for that which you did not know how to defend as a man.")

Damn.

Culture Overload

Soccer victories , white pueblos of Andalucia , biking in Sierra de Grazalema , rooftop birthday barbeques , Moroccan Arabic class , bullfights , Feria de Jerez and all the flamenco dresses, mudejar architecture, flamenco shows, hanging our laundry like true gaditanas, and capoeira performances in leafy plazas.