Club Rules

I went to a club the other day by myself. Yup, I'm a big girl now. It was for a friend's birthday and none of my other friends could go. So I sucked it up and still went to the club. I had a lot of time to myself since my friend was hanging out with his other closer friends most of the night.

I had a nice little spot to lean on a railing overlooking the dance floor. I saw so many unacceptable things that I had to blog about it.

This is the look I was giving you all...

One: Don't dance off beat.

I saw a girl dancing with her friends and she was going hardcore. She was dancing up a storm so hard. That's fine. Enthusiasm is appreciated a club. However, she was dancing off beat. Every time she would point her finger in the air, laying down those lyrics, it was off beat. Yeah, don't do that. Focus, man.

Two: Don't be sleezy.

I saw a girl dancing with her other female friend. Girlfriends dance with each other. I used to prefer dancing with a guy, but I've accepted being with my friends, for pure safety purposes. This girl went too far. She bit her lip, bit her finger, shook her hand in the indication that something was hot, and pointed to her friend saying "Man, you're hot". Is that necessary? This title was supposed to be "Don't be a man", but I don't think even guys look at girls anymore and do that "Aye aye, caliente" thing. Grow up, or go make out with your friend in the bathroom.

Three: Dress appropriately.

Girls are getting way smarter when it comes to dressing for a club. Those who are purely there as eye candy can be seen in tight, short clothing with cleavage. Those who actually plan on dancing during the night think more sensibly. Shorts are now okay with a cute top. I saw a girl up on stage dancing with other girls. She was dancing, holding on to the wall, with her face turned the opposite way towards the dance floor. Her booty shaking caused her tight dress to lift up inch by inch every time. She even went lower, which didn't help and let the whole world see her underwear. Kinda preventable. We all know she liked it though.


These are my observations for ONE night at a club. Come on, girls, let's step it up a little.

Life Involves Loved Ones

It’s crazy how people can become so self-absorbed. I’m not even blaming other people. I am guilty of being selfish and so ignorant to the world that I can’t help but beat myself up once I finally leave my bubble.

I recently decided to enter a slum for a few days. It was supposed to be a week, but I checked out early. I thought what I was doing was okay. I convinced myself it was perfectly normal to stop helping and caring for so many people and to just acknowledge that I was in an unhappy state.

 It takes a lot of energy to pretend you’re happy. It’s pretty draining to smile and lie to people and say that you’re okay, or assure them that you’re just tired. I’m actually one of those people who don’t let things get to me, but when my mind finally wants to deal with it, I’ll be on the bus or in the middle of a Sunday morning service and just start crying.

Yeah, I could just deal with things when they happen, but I’m so stubborn. I feel selfish for sitting down to deal with my own problems while I could be helping other people. So this week, I changed my mind. This week I felt such an overwhelming pressure of negativity that I let it take a hold of me for a bit. I honestly don’t feel bad about it all. I needed it. I needed to stop being busy, stop ignoring and pushing all the sad feelings to the back of my mind and to just let it take me.

So I sat there, I lay there, day after day, feeling so “meh”. Slowly, things started to crack my shell. What’s that? I totally forgot my godmother had surgery to remove her tumour. She’s going in for radiation now? Hold on, what do you mean my friend randomly deactivated his Facebook and Twitter account? Where is he? Wait, what? My friend hasn’t been showing up to work for weeks and people are worried? Where have I been? What have I been doing? “Meh”.

Time to shove everything back under the rug and check back into reality. I'll figure myself out later.

Shhh!

The worship team at our church had a meeting about silent worship. How do we create a balance of entering into worship ourselves and helping others enter into it as well? When do we start? How do we know when to end? What if I'm not done soaking in the Holy Spirit, but everyone else is getting antsy for the next song? Is worship specifically about instruments and lyrics?

How do we be silent in worship? How do we open up ourselves to listen to what God has to say? I play the piano and sometimes a lot of the songs we play just need simple chords. Just one chord per bar. I thought that was for beginners. Pfft, I can play melodies and little scales. No, no, just one chord per bar. Do you know how hard that is? It's like telling a kid to stay still in a candy store. This is my silence time, but it has taken me awhile to take advantage of it.

My life outside outside of church is just the same. I'm always on the go, always busy. There is no down time with me. Except now...sort of. Most times, rest comes my way when I get sick. The question is, if my life is so busy and full of activities, what makes me so sure I'll hear God when He's calling? Life does not have call waiting. Your landline has to be completely free for Him to call in. Isn't that worth it when you think of it that way? God is way better than that cute boy you waited to call you to go out with him.

Whether or not you want to hear what He has to say is a different blog post altogether.

To calm your busy spirit/soul, spend 15 minutes a day in silence. It will obviously slow you down and keep you more balanced, but also make it easier for God to access your heart. Of course saying this is like a zillion times easier than doing it.

It's our (worship team) job to help people. We musically prophesy. We open up and warm people's hearts for the Holy Spirit to come and mold. No pressure haha.

The Sun'll Come Out...Tomorrow

We have to be living for something
I get out of bed for a reason
I need to know there's more to come
I don't wanna stop believing



Believing that I'll get what's mine
What I've been working for
This all just has to pay off
But I'll probably just want more





What's wrong with that, anyway
It's okay for me to dream high
But it takes so long to reach the top
I start to wonder why




Why can't I get it now
Is it even worth the climb
Should I look for something else
Or do I keep waiting in this line

Meh, I know the day will come
Where it will be worth it all
All this work will give me strength
To break down through this wall





I'll get to where I wanna be
And I'll stand proud and tall
The very first thing that I'll do
Is thank God for not letting me fall

KONY 2012: Hate It or Love it?

So Jason Russell wants to expose (Joseph) Kony and the Lord's resistance Army for what it really is. There's no problem with that. Citizens in North America deserve to know what's going on in Africa. I would like to be informed of children being forced to become soldiers. I do care that young girls are being forced in prostitution.

I could have read an article about this or heard it on the radio. Facebook told me instead. Facebook invited me to KONY 2012; the same Facebook that wants me to play Bejeweled online and poke Andrew back. The invite just told me to support KONY. Another invite told me to spread the word about how bad Kony is. So I'm thinking, who's Kony and how can he be both bad and good? Ugh, so Facebook made me work and Google this KONY phenomenon. Alright, so he's a bad guy doing bad things.

I think it was a good idea to make a video. However, videos make money. According to YouTube, over 78 million people are more informed about KONY, but Russell and his company, Invisible Children, also just got paid millions of dollars. So that money will go to help the children in Africa, right? But yet Russell has already been shamed of only giving about 30% of the money raised directly to Africa.

Back to awareness. Who is profiting? Sure, we're completely exposing KONY. Only time will tell what that will do. Russell will get a little time in the spotlight too. Celebrities are retweeting and mentioning his cause. With that kind of recognition and getting donations and only giving about 30% percent to Africa, no wonder that video looks so good.

I'm not sure what to think of this yet. I'm all for knowing about what's going on in the rest of the world, but to who's gain? We're gaining more knowledge so that's good, but I wonder if this is all going to be worth it. is Kony actually going to be arrested and tried? It'd be nice if this many followers would guarantee a trial, but it'd be a huge piss off to display this guy's name everywhere while he remains untouched. There must be many facts out there for people to attack Russell.

Maybe the human race is at its peak of cynicism. Maybe we can't take anything for granted anymore. I guess that's a good thing or I'd be out of a future job.

Haters in the Heat?

No way. Is there actually friction in the beautiful Dominican? Read for yourself...

I recently took a trip to the Dominican Republic. I thought it would be impossible to find a news story surrounded by so many thin people with clear skin and smiling faces. I soon discovered turmoil under the shining sun. While I was getting a henna tattoo done on the beach, the artist, Manuel, asked me where I was from and what I was studying. I told him I was a journalism student, and he teased that I should be out there talking to people, figuring out how the Dominican really is. He explained while continuing to draw with his steady hands that it’s extremely hard to make a living. Every member of the family has to work to support each other. Everything is expensive: clothes, food and shelter.

I asked Manuel if I could ask him some questions and record our conversation for a bit. That’s when his young golden skin turned a shade of red and he introduced me to Beni, a spa coordinator. Beni is from Haiti and only has his residence papers. Although it was clear he was in his early 30s, he appeared more worn and tired. He has no passport so he can only get jobs with the lowest paid salaries. He works only by commission and makes an average of $180 a month. Making $300 at the end of the month is a huge deal to him because it doesn’t happen very often.

He started to describe the discrimination he senses from Dominicans. He feels out of place even when hanging out with his Dominican friends. He revealed that the sugar cane fields are filled with Haitian workers, cutting, peeling and slicing all day. They work for the Dominicans. Dominicans are “chiefs”. Nevertheless, he’s happier here than in Haiti. Back home, there are no job opportunities and he just sits home and does nothing. At least he can make a little bit of money here to send to his mother back home. Somehow in between our conversation, I let it slip that I spoke French, and that’s the language the rest of our talk continued in.

I commented on how all the employees looked friendly enough towards one another. He agreed that dispersed, everyone seems agreeable and happy, but problems start to brew when they’re all together. Like many people, Beni sees this job as a stepping stone before he moves on to bigger and better things. He wants to get a lot of money, but he believes the discrimination will still be there. He started to get more emotional and passionate while he thought aloud that he will still be an ugly black man, as opposed to “Moreno”, which is what they call the lighter skinned Dominicans, like Manuel. Beni describes Morenos as “big men with big cars”.

I thanked Beni for his story and was on my way to write when Manuel called me back. He confided that he hated the word “Moreno”. He doesn’t like being called that and takes offense to it. What about what Beni was saying about discrimination? Manuel says that it’s not true. He claims there is no discrimination whatsoever. I asked if he was a Dominican and he said yes. He saw the skepticism on my face of why I wouldn’t take his word for it that discrimination didn’t exist in his country. He decided to take me to someone more unbiased.

We walked across the beach to a middle-aged man sketching a landscape on a black canvas. Antonio paints stunning drawings on the beach. He is Haitian and has lived in the Dominican for 24 years. He is newly married to his second wife and has a sister living in Montreal. Antonio used his extremely articulate vocabulary to describe the “dominico-haitian situation” of discrimination as cause and effect. Without taking his eyes off the canvas, he continued to explain that in reality, it doesn’t really exist. He thinks their social condition has made them provoke repercussion in themselves. Some Haitians use the excuse that it’s because they’re black, but Dominicans are black, I’m black, he’s black. We’re not in that situation. There is degeneration socially, economically and politically in Haiti, which puts them all in the same social condition. The poverty, bad education and lower class surroundings create a shock against the Haitian people and bring them down.

Antonio came to the Dominican because of the degradation in his home country. He doesn’t like to fight or argue and tries to steer away from any type of negativity. He finds it very difficult to live here. He uses the metaphor of a sneaky rat. A rat will bite you and take from you in your sleep, but when you wake up, he will blow sweet nothings into your ear. When you’re alert and awake, he’ll distract you from realizing you’ve been bitten. You won’t even feel it.

Some Haitians cope in the Dominican by learning the Spanish language so well to pass themselves off as Dominican. No matter how advanced their Spanish is, they will always be revealed as Haitian. Antonio says, “No matter where I go, I’ll be called out as a Haitian”.

Bengla, Antonio’s assistant, is in his 20s and has a very contagious smile. He added in that discrimination exists everywhere. He separates the two countries into civilized Haitians, uncivilized Haitians, civilized Dominicans, and uncivilized Dominicans. He dismisses some Haitians as just acting funny and weird, but admits that others act more civilized than Dominicans. Antonio affirms that sometimes Dominicans just don’t know what to believe about Haitians. People have many assumptions and judge Haitians by saying things that give them a bad name. Dominicans don’t know what to believe. It’s to the point that they can’t discern truth from false. Antonio can think of very few Dominicans who don’t discriminate and get along with Haitian people.

He is optimistic though. Discrimination exists in Haiti because of its underdevelopment. The citizens are affected from all angles. To fix that problem, he challenges individuals, not Haiti as a country, to better themselves.

I Cried a Little This Morning

I remember going to bed for the past couple weeks at 2:00 or 3:00 am and waking up around 11:00 or 12:00 in the afternoon. And even though I woke up did not mean I had any reason whatsoever to get out of bed (except to pee and get food to bring back to bed).

This morning I had to wake up at 6:15 to leave my house at 6:45 to get to class at 8:00am. What would be a good time to go to bed the night before? 10:00pm? 11:00pm? Yeah, I was still up at 1:30am. Ugh, back to school. I'm in between classes now wondering how I'm going to survive 8:00am to 10:00pm Mondays. My last resort is coffee. This morning, chamomile tea kept me until about 11:30am. My agenda is already filling up. It's time to turn the brain back on. The thing that keeps me from being cranky is knowing I have Thursdays and Fridays off. Who am I kidding? I still have to get through Tuesday and Wednesday first.