Rebel

... what if all we did was sit, sip on little purple straws from coffee bean and tea leaf, and watch life as it happens? on a balcony, through a bistro window perhaps? thinking with no agenda, care-free, aloof, unmotivated, distant, an imperfect, immobile entity. now that would be the epitome of understated rebellion.

p.s.

elma, you win. i've given in... i'm on gtalk as i type this -_-. shame, shame. haha
but i still do like my oovoo ^_^

Sorry Jenny

but I beg to differ.
GTalk is the place to be.

Everyone use GTalk from Google.
Soon Google will take over your life as it has mine. :)

(GoogleScholar, Gmail, GTalk, Picasa, Calendar, GoogleWorld, SketchUp...)

Talk to me: elmajoy@gmail.com

OOVOO

... shameless advertising for the day.

everyone should ditch AIM and get OOVOO. it's seriously so much better. go to the website and take the tour.


www.oovoo.com

sorry, not available for MACs just yet =/.

anyway, if you claim to be my friend you'll IM me through oovoo w/ a mysterious sn soon enough.^_^

Something Profound.

Have you ever thought about the most complicated conflicts around you?

Well, sit back for a moment. Don't you see the solution yet? I know you do. Simple, isn't it? Then, what's so hard about solving world hunger, ending holy wars and wars of all sorts?

Hubris.

If you could give up everything you had to make all the bad things go away, would you do it? I mean everything. No, death is not an option; that means you just get the easy way out. You have to live with nothing. Absolutely nothing.

So would you do it?

It's easy to say yes; words are fickle, fragile, insincere.

Think about it.

END WORLD HUNGER! (and get a perfect SAT vocabulary score)

"what if just knowing what a word meant could help feed hungry people around the world? well at FreeRice, it does... the totals have grown exponentially."

                         - the Washington Post

sounds confusing? well, it isn't. 

The FreeRice campaign aims to end world hunger one word at a time. By playing the vocabulary game on the website, you will be able to directly help in solving world hunger and, subsequently, world poverty. For each word you get right, FreeRice donates 10 grains of rice through the United Nations. So far in the last month or so of the website's existence, about 2,098,280,280 grains of rice have been donated.

there's absolutely no catches - except maybe the fact that you will be able to help feed an entire family with just few clicks of your button.

 

Celebration

Happy 18th Vladimir!

One of my favorite people in this world.
I know he is capable of greatness
because as he fights for whats right even if the world is against him.
Rainy days, photography, &music make him happy.
He listens &is a great friend.
He makes me happy.

Together we will reach the highest highs &rise up from our lowest lows.
Thank you for being you Vladimir.

With Love,
Elma

CROSSING BORDERS

( i know i'm about a week late but since school has been screwing me over, i'll say it's justifiable)

last saturday was one of the most exciting and scary event of 2007. after complaining about being "stuck in san diego" ever since college started, i'm glad to say i am now perfectly content with where i am for the moment.

so today consisted of driving all the way to the end of our border, missing the big yellow "LAST USA EXIT" (which i'm sure only us three would miss. ever.), and ending up lost in tijuana, mexico. we were lost for about two hours, heading deep into the heart of TJ and still managing to take infinite pictures.

while waiting at the border (after finally finding it), we discussed globalization and poverty and being grateful for the life we have because, the fact is, we're so much more luckier than most. we talked about how different life is in these two places, no matter how close they are to each other and how invisible borders define cultures and people.

so my first time in TJ didn't end with me passing out drunk in some dim club surrounded by people i don't even know but rather ended with me gaining a newfound appreciation of my life.

Magnitudes

It's happened again...

Today was a day full of concidences. Perhaps it wasn't just a "it happened again" thing, maybe it was just another day; the other days I simply failed to notice. Let's begin with what I think is really the conclusion to these series of events. Finding out that something you have created and once thought was organic really isn't anymore to me most of the time is the end of the world. I know, full of myself, even pathetic to an extent. But today, the simplicity and the magnitude of today has changed things. It has solidified the notion that we are all connected. Like it or not, good or bad, tangible or not, inevitable or not, etc. etc.

For the longest time there was an oddity and a sense of uniqueness to my AIM sn. A Roaming Badger. Not typically common. But why now? Why did I meet someone else who has something similar to mine? A Floating Cow. It yells out magnitude loud and clear. What is this person's connection to me? I often see this person in the most routine places... bus stop, food places, or just about. Then again, what is anyone's connection to me? Why is it that the less we long for a connection the greater the magnitude of a random encounter is? Is this how the meaning of existence arises?

Borders

Donde esta America?

Where to begin? Perhaps the fact that three of the most directional challenged people have proven all expectations of themselves; who misses the sign LAST USA EXIT in bold, yellow writing? Indefinitely, we do. We know who “we” is. Let’s not elaborate.


Driving through the foreign streets of Mexico, ascending into time traveling, and people watching I vaguely begin to realize what makes borders in the first place. It’s not simple geography that defines limits; it’s all that’s in our heads that defines limitations. How is a city less than ten minutes away but also be a world away? What makes a border? Why do they exist?
Has humanity lost all compassion? Maybe we just haven’t been honest with ourselves. Hypocrisy is real, more real than our existence. Right beside me is a world that should have been unfathomable to imagine, but my beginnings have prevented that. For that much I am grateful. But why stop there? Isn’t there something more I can do? For now, I’ll say no there isn’t. Questions can only be answered by more questions at this point. Though, from what I know this world we live in is nothing more but simplicity in the most complex form.
Let’s talk about where things are for a moment. Where does America end and Mexico begin, and vice versa. Same with other countries. We have become so inter-reliant that distinction doesn’t really matter. Or at least for me it’s become obsolete.
Sometimes accidental coincidences matter more in one’s recipe of life than planned, expected happenings. That is what I have learned from yesterday. Sitting in the back of a Prius accelerating at 80 miles per hour, half lost half justified.



To be continued... I think.

(time) travelers

hello hello.

it is i, elma joy
here to blog all about the happenings of my life in sd.

silence is not golden

for the past weeks i have lost my voice. mute, silent, listening.
i tend to lose my voice like that every once &a while but this time was the worst.
this is because of all the fires going on.
i couldnt say - anything.
i couldnt really answer my phone, call people to ask them how they were &i couldnt tell people that i was okay.
turns out my family in chula vista was getting ready to evacuate.
&all this time i couldnt do anything - sitting pretty, breathing bad air in la jolla.

tough

but the fires are over (thank God)
&as much as id like to put it all behind,
i think we should all reflect of the effect of the fires on all of us in sd, the oc, &everywhere else that was affected by the fires.
most of all,
its time to be resilient.

photography
art reflects life


the "matte film" polaroid series
essence caught on film

photoblog.
"from mexican food to mexico"

saturday, november 3, 2007

reunited once again. eljemir!
after a seemingly long break of maybe two weeks,
the stuckinsd-ers reunited in chula vista to drown midterm/homework sorrows
in good food, good company, and some present shopping.
first, we ate mexican food at vlad's favorite place.
thanks to vlad &jenny i looked like a heffer
because they shared a carne asada fries
while it looked like i had one to myself. >_<

the u.s. border AKA the thin line between chula juana &tijuana
heading off south (way south) to the las americas outlets
our plans were thrown out the window.
not heeding freeway signs but our poor directional intuition
we successfully &acidentally crossed the border into tj!
after much screaming, failed phone calls, &hyperventilation
with minimal pedestrian anger &honking.
i managed to drive my prius sucessfully through the city
&back to the freeway to our sorely missed "u-s-of-a"

patience is the essence of crossing the border
over the course of our hour &a half wait Eljemir talked.
we talked politics, school, life stories, music, romance, fiction...
&we took pictures of a world that was so close in proximity to our own
but so different.

its amazing how national borders are
made by man.
we are separate and definately not equal.
is equality even possible?

coming back
to the story.
we crossed back into the u.s. only after meeting a mean border patrol man.
"mercado" - we have a score to settle with you.
jenny got back with a ucsd id card &vlad with his drivers license.
but mercado was mean about them being born in PI &not here.
anywho. we were just glad to be back
&the first thing we wanted to do was
go north to celebrate! :]

the night is young &so are we
when we pulled up to Jia's house we all called to use the bathroom.
we literally would of pissed our pants from excitement
but thankfully (for my car) we made it to a restroom.
(haha)
after waiting for Jenny to get over Jia's bathroom scale
that says that you weigh zero pounds
we headed to pick up Ace.

first stop, hillcrest to visit the "secret store" aka buffalo exchange &flashbacks.
after debating over the moustache selection Jia decides to resist. (joke)
but Jenny did end up with some pretty awesomely loud tights. :]

then off to downtown for cheesefries, lime-ade, &ice cream.
note: hanson played at the house of blues -hanson still exists.
can you say "mmbop!"?

its been a long day.
back in chula vista.
dropped by otay ranch towne center to check out the ORHS homecoming dance
which was held in the food court somehow.
&barnes &noble to peek at the new postsecret.
then eventually we all ended up in our respective
"home sweet homes"

THANKFULLY STUCK IN SD,
elma joy

First of Two Things...

Emotion. Indefinitely makes the world go round. A form of expression or an elaborate form of humanity's ultimate manipulation? Sometimes I regret, I feel useless for being so unaffected by my environment. I don't, I never cry, I can't. Then sometimes I stop to think about it, is some part of it just a way for us to get what we want in life? I mean it makes sense, we cry we get compassion. We laugh we get admiration. Does having a lack of emotion make me inhuman? Not because I don't feel, but the part where every dimension of my existence is supposed to contain a hint of destructive selfishness that will ultimately lead to my so-called fulfillment.


"Borders" will be posted tomorrow =)

munich

going through with my side project... starting an independent blog from this one.

jjsvergara.blogspot.com


-that is all.

november

november will be a good month. i'm trying this new thing called optimism.

-vladimir

Break.

I miss Eljemir.
Where are you guys now?

Anyway, it's only a matter of time till this school kills me. It's 3AM and I'm taking a break. I'm blogging because most everyone is sleeping and even if anyone was awake... what would I say? All this work is making me crazy. "Hi, I can't relate right now. I'm undergoing this notion of possible failure that I care much about and I find it to be inevitable."

"Partie de Campagne", The French Do It Best.

So, just a quickie before I head off to Film Discussion...

While everyone else was off heading to free-for-all Halloween parties at State and everywhere else at 6:30, I was blissfully abandoned in a half-empty colossal lecture hall left to the mercy of a French-speaking film professor. I sat there, anxious to get out, not wanting to be there for once. I twiddled my thumbs as I watched interesting characters... some unappreciative, some dressed in drag, and the few truly passionate. What came next was a pleasant surprise. A little film called "Partie de Campagne". Fourty minutes of beauty-defying collaborations of sound and picture, silence and chaos. In the end it taught me that "seeing is believing" is nothing but all sorts of false. Much like in classical films and in real life... as ridiculous as it may sound... hearing is believing. I think for the most part this is true. I think people have become reliant on sound, or music to be exact, to communicate all the undefinable things in life. Movies just like music share the same mission; to help us understand. Whether we intended to invent both music and film or just by accident we got lucky and discovered it... I think we need to set aside all things sometimes and not look for an answer for once.

If you ever get the chance, watch this film. It'll change the way you see things.