I am with you in Rockland

One of my favorite poems is Howl by Allen Ginsburg. I like this poem so much that I keep it in this nook under my dashboard in my car. I was introduced to Allen Ginsburg’s poetry by my friend Michael, the one that I have blogged about before. He recently has been keeping a copy of Howl in is car. The book I have is a collection of poems including Howl. My favorite line from Howl is: “I'm with you in Rockland where we are great writers on the same dreadful typewriter.” It just has always been a line that pops out at me every time I read it. I think it is because that great writers are a slave to the work they do, the same goes for great painters, musicians, or athletes. They love what they do but at the same time they dread it. This line could go for anything, it could go for we are the great football players playing with the same dreadful football. I know that sounds corny, but that the conclusion I have come to after analyzing this song. Another line that I really like is: “ I'm with you in Rockland where we hug and kiss the United States under our bed sheets the United States that coughs all night and won't let us sleep.”

Book Club

As nerdy as these sounds, I have always wanted to start a book club. I was talking to my friends about it and I think that a biweekly book meeting would be really fun. I think two weeks is usually enough time for people to have time to read a book. However, when I feel like I am forced to read a book I am really unmotivated to read it. I blame this on high school required reading. In my junior year, I was forced to read about the delightful puritans in The Scarlet Letter. Without a doubt when someone ask me what is the worst book you ever read, that one come to mind first. It is not that I do not like classics, I like Charles Dickinson. I just was completely bored with it; I hated the way the writing structure was dragging and everything about it. Because I was forced to read that book (because if I didn’t I would of failed the test) I am so unmotivated to read anything assigned. I might try the book club anyway though.

Note from Ashli’s roommate on the subject.*
The Scarlet Letter is the most dry and dull piece of fiction ever written next only in comparison to that damned and insufferable Tale of Two Cities.
Curse and burn these books. Now everyone go read some Kurt Vonnegut and Jack Kerouac and enlighten yourself beyond the standardized structure of your conformist high school education.

I am Still Just a Big Kid

My roommate was just telling me a story about how she thought that her boyfriend my have proposed to her the other night. She said that he had been looking at diamond rings in magazines and she come in the room and he act kind of weird. So, I started thinking about what I would do if my boyfriend would pop out a ring. I really do not know if I say yes or no, because I really love my boyfriend, but I feel that I am too you to get married. I really just not ready to be tied down yet and I do not plan for having kids for another ten years. That is if I decide to have kids at all, because I want to venture the world once I am out of college. I really do not want to be Mrs. June Cleaver and have dinner on the table at six, and greet my husband when he comes home from work. It’s just to me, when I am in my twenties, I think that is still too young to start settling down. It’s different for everyone, because some people do want to have, kids and get married you. I respect that completely, I’m just not ready for that because right now I am just a big kid myself.

South Park

Yes. Yesterday, I was trapped watching South Park. I mean, we all have those moments. In this episode, it was about how the entire United States was out of internet and everyone was freaking out. My favorite line out of the entire show was, “We don’t have the internet to find out why we don’t have the internet.” I mean as much as the show exaggerates situations, I think that if America was out of internet then people would really freak out. I would, because I use the internet as communication, to find news, listen to music, watch Lost, everything. I think that everyone would be angry without it because most people really do use the internet for everything. In the episode, everyone was driving to a valley in California because there was a bar of internet there. Where the internet was, there was a Red Cross camp set up. Everyone could only have about forty seconds of internet. I do not think that a red cross would be set up, if in reality no one had internet. It is just hard to think of how to live with out internet, and that is really sad. I think we can all remember that not even seven or eight years ago, the internet was not used nearly as much as it is now. I guess that shows how we are in a digital revolution, or whatever.

Good Thing Youre Drug Free When Youre Pregnant

It really irritates me when people are so open about be clean after being a junkie. For example, my friend Jacey and I were looking at one our friend’s ex-girlfriends on myspace. She had a default picture of herself and on her hand it said, “Drug Free since 04/16/08. Wow, good for that girl she has been drug free for three days. Also, this girl is pregnant. I am not trying to bash this girl; this is not what this blog is about at all. This is about how people are proud they do drugs. By that girl broadcasting that she has been clean for only three days, she wants people to know that she has obviously been addicted to drugs. It is ridiculous when people think they are cool for doing drugs, I have had friends who have completely screwed up there lives from drugs. I still see some of my friends suffer from it. I have seen someone die because of it, seen people and is still seeing people ruled by a drug. I think that drugs can create an outlet for creativity and other doors; however people have got to learn how to do it in moderation. To close this, I just want to say if you do drugs do not tell the entire world that is something personal.

Why Women Should Rule the World

When I was reading This is Why we Lost to the White Man on AtlanticMonthly.com I saw an advertisement for a book called Why Women Should Rule the World. I was way more excited about that book than anything else I have been for a while. So, I googled a summary for it. The book is by Dee Dee Myers and the main argument in it “Women tend to be better communicators, better listeners, better at forming consensus." I am not as much as a feminist as my friends make me out to be, however I am just fed up with the shit I get from men. I worked at Radioshack for a year, nine out of ten times when a man had a technical question they would ask a male worker rather than me. Not to vain, but I knew more than most of the men I worked with there. Also, once at Radioshack I was the top sales associate in the district for two months for selling cell phones, and all the guys behind my back would say, “It is because she has boobs.” I mean we were all friends and everything, but they were still bias towards me because I was female. Over the summer I read a book call The Average American Male, and it is a memoir written by a man. The book made me dislike men even more because some guys out there are so selfish and giant heart breakers. Now I am going to BookStar to get Why Women Should Rule the World.

This is Why We Lost to the White Man

I would have never expected this article to be about Bill Cosby. Wendy might have told us that in class, but I was late into class when she was talking about. The only way I knew to read this article was because the girl next to me had written on a sheet of paper, blog This is how We Lost to the White Man. So I hope we have to write about it, and even if we do not me really enjoyed the article. I must say that this is the most interesting article, or the one I have enjoyed most the entire semester so far. The article was written very well and grabbed my attention. For example, like describing the audience really grabbed my attention, and also he used the word euphoria. That word is one of my favorite words; and I think that the definition is beautiful and that the word has a clear sound. Anyway, also another striking sentence is that: “Cosby hired the Harvard psychiatrist Alvin Poussaint to make sure that the show never trafficked in stereotypes and that it depicted blacks in a dignified light.” I would have never thought that Bill Cosby would have worked that hard on the show not to have stereotypes on his “gig.” I really admire him for that, this article made me feel dumb because when I think of Bill Cosby I think of The Cosby Show and Kids say the Darnest Things. I never thought of him clenching his fist and saying, “Where are you men?”