The VMAs: MJ tribute, Kanye Debacle

I like many other people sat last night and watched the MTV VMA awards. Really, I didn’t want to, but my roommate was there, and well, I wanted to look sociable. I guess my sociability was well worth it in the end.
The VMAs started out on a solemn tone with Madonna giving homage to the Micheal Jackson. After, many of Jackson’s old videos were played and we were all momentarily transported to the 1980s where Thriller was the big hit and so were tight jeans and black pants with socks. Really, I thought it was decent because Jackson was in the beginnings of MTV. So it was proper for the tribute.
After, the first award nominees were called for Best Female Video. The nominees in the category were Beyonce for Single Ladies, Lady Gaga for Poker Face, Kelly Clarkson for I have no clue what, maybe somebody else, and Taylor Swift for You Belong With Me. My roommates were thinking that it would be Beyonce that would win. I begged to differ and thought that it would either be Lady Gaga or Taylor Swift. And yes- It was Taylor Swift.
Taylor Swift looks all innocent and graciously excited. I am annoyed that she keeps wearing her signature red lipstick and wish that she could do something a little different. So there goes the 19 year old girl on stage to accept her Moon Man award. She looks like a little kid and is saying that she is glad to have won the award because she is a country music singer.
Well, out of nowhere pops up good old Kanye West.
He grabs the microphone out of her hands. At first I thought he would say something like- “You are awesome Taylor Swift….”But HA! I am a simple minded person. He lets the little girl know exactly what he thinks. He tells her that he is happy for her and he will give her the mic back to speak, but he had to give his personal shout out to Beyonce and say that SHE should have won.
Pan to Beyonce-She looks just as shocked as we are all feeling in the room. She mouths….”Oh no he didn’t…..”
Pan back to the stage and Taylor is given back the mic and just stands there. She looks like a sad puppy. I couldn’t help but feel bad for her. She just stands there for a second not knowing what to do, and the audience tries to support her by giving her a standing ovation. She walks of looking dejected.
But things have a way of coming to a finish. In the end, Beyonce won for Best Video of the Year. She comes on stage, looking cool and collected and tells the audience that she remembers how it was to be 17 and get her first moon man with Destiny’s Child. So, she calls Taylor Swift back to let her have her moment that was robbed of her from Kanye. That was one touching moment. I hope for real they have some sort of duet. Who would have thought that Kanye, Taylor Swift, and Beyonce would be named together?
Now for Kanye. I think he is despicable. Sure his music is good and he has talent and blah blah blah. But with talent, there needs to come humility. He doesn’t have that. I just wondered, how as an artist, he can disrespect another artist in the profession. When you are an artist, you may not necessarily agree with others genres or like other genres, but you still respect it for the fact that it was another’s creativity.
What made me so angry with his actions was that he came on stage, took away the moment of a young woman to give out his own personal rant that nobody cared to hear. His fight was unfair. It was like a he truly did steal candy from a little kid. Just vicious.
Of course, Kanye “apologizes” on his blog. Really, I think he needs to save it for someone who cares to hear it and just keep his mouth shut at times.
But now this opens up a world of opportunities once again for Taylor. Everyone is on her side.

The power of a question.

In the book Fahrenheit 451, Clarisse McClellan is quite the oddball in society. She is highly unliked by her peers and teachers. The reason being is that she would rather ask why, rather than just follow blindly.
In our world, From the beginning of our school days, we are told by our teachers that "No question is a dumb question,"or so we are told.
But what happens to those people who do ask those difficult questions? Well, it depends on the society and the context. In a country where active questioning is suppressed, a mere why could bring about a severe punishment. In those countries, for survival purposes, It would be wise to keep your mouth shut. If you cant do that, the next best thing would be to cover your eyes and ears or have a memory that is becomes genetically selective.
In our country, we have the priviledge to question. But we also have to face the consequences of questioning. Maybe the consequences would not be as drastic as being tortured to death or being thrown in jail, but there are still consequences. Questioning is difficult especially when the other party doesnt want to here your question.
Why does the word why have such a power to invoke such a fury? Well, for starters, nobody really likes to leave their comfort zone. I for one like being comfortable. Even nature likes to be comfortable. For those of you who have taken organic chemistry, you know that molecules prefer to be in a state that has the lowest energy possible. So nature too is just naturally lazy. So when we ask an authority figure why they are doing something, or why something is the way it is, it throws that natural state of energy out of balance. Now, the other party is in a higher state of energy and probably not happy even though our question really wasnt meant to infuriate. After that, a few results can occur.
1.) Nothing happens. This is highly unlikely because something always happens.
2.) You disturbed the figure so much in your why's that it brings them to also question why.
3.) The disturbed figure became overly disturbed and in order not to feel that way again, will bring about personal changes and social changes so that they will avoid the ever threatening why as much as possible in future settings.
Setting two has the potential to bring about the ideas of democracy and checks and balances. Setting three has the potential to sway toward dictatorship, communism, and theocracies.

How exactly does this apply to the realms of academia? The world of academics in all settings should be the fairest of situations. It is a haven where you can question and challenge. It is an area that can help in personal growth. But when the right to question and challenge is taken away or suppressed, we no longer become active in our learning. We are only followers of what we are told and that again becomes counterintuitive. In the middle ages, the earth was the center and the sun revolved around the earth. That was common knowledge just as 2+2=4. To question that was only for the insane and heretical. Those who may have thought otherwise kep there mouth shut for fear of retribution. But it was only because of those who risked everything to ask why and how the sun really revolved around the earth do we now know different.

For me, I don't think my life is going to ever be as so drastic. I am a simple person with simple problems. I ask questions to learn and not to threaten. In my simple ideals, I prefer to ask the stupidest questions and risk the consequences of peer ridicule rather than suppress my questions and have the long term consequence of remaining ignorant and fearful. It is what we believe it is.

Misunderstood

sometimes one feels like they are puzzle even to oneself. Actually, I believe that we start out as a puzzle with a set amount of pieces, and those pieces of the puzzle are either put together or taken apart by those who surround us. Some people are great at helping to fit those pieces together, while other people will take those pieces and start dividing those pieces to even more pieces. Are you lost? Well, I am. I mean I wish there could be one person who was a great fitter. Like an old day shoe fitter. Somebody who will come and help to glue all the pieces and then maybe, for the missing pieces, help in creating new ones in the empty space.

Orange pants

I love being home...the feeling is great...especially because I have my favorite orange pants and green Punjabi MC tshirt that I caught at Diwali to wear around the house. See, my clothes have history and meaning to it: especially the orange pants. For my first year in high school, I had bought new clothes with my family at Target. I know- the ultimate cool place to be. I should get paid just to mention their name. But anyways, I bought a pair of black jeans which I still wear, an orange pant, an orange shirt and some other stuff that I cant remember. On the first day school, remember, I am in a new place, far away from my loves in PA, and I wanted to make a decent impression like any teen would want to do. Well, my mom makes me wear the orange pants which I really did not want to wear. SO- i was like- okay- I will wear a white tank top with it...But no- that created hell in the house. A tank was like a big no no. I was literally forced to wear, on My first day of school, orange pants, and my orange shirt. I felt like the biggest fool in town. I am just glad that it wasnt a pair of yellow pants and yellow shirt, because then I would have felt like a rotten banana. But yeah- I was sooo embarassed! But now- those orange pants have taken on their own rite of passage into being worn almost everyday when I am in the house.
My dad said at dinner to my mom- The reason I wear those orange pants over and over is because I want to get back at my mom and regret the fact that she ever wanted to buy those pair of pants. I just say that they have become quite comfy.

music

I never realized how much I missed listening to music until after I went to the wedding this weekend. Now, after my withdrawal, I have gone full swing listening to Indian music again: specifically Tamil music. Every time I start to listen to it again, I am always pleasantly surprised by how melodious it is/and how poetic it is.
Right now: I am having throwbacks to the days of Alaipayuthay. (Hindi- Saathiya)...those songs by AR can never go out of style.
Kadhal Sadagudu.

Woodahoo.

irritated

I hate the feeling of not being content. It is one of the itchiest feelings in the world besides your allergic reactions. It leaves a weird feeling to the heart. (Probably due to the elevated cortisol that your adrenal glands are giving off that increase your heart rate). But the feeling makes me always needing to do something or be somewhere I am not in the present moment, which in itself increases more of my cortisol because my internal philosophy is to live for the moments. For example I was telling someone yesterday: During the wedding this weekend I couldn’t wait to be done with it and go to clinicals, during clinicals I couldn’t wait for it to be done and to go back to my dorm, when I am at school, I cant wait to go home. When I am at home, I cant wait to go back to school. And the cycle is endless. See it bothers me because it makes me realize that I am not enjoying myself in the present. I am only enjoying myself in two dimensions of time: past and future. I want to be able to be a three dimensional figure and not just to you. Not a an illusion where you put on special glasses and see me as an optical illusion, but as a genuine person in all my actions. But to be quite honest, it is hard to be honest. It is hard to be honest when what we value in society is not what we teach, but the hypocrisy of our actions. For example, when I was taking an assessment online for a job (you know- the one where you have to rate your personality on a scale of 1-4 and also your skills) I was told by some friends to put “close to right” answer. Now, to me, personally, when I would see a “perfect” score, instincts would tell me not to trust it. Nobody is perfect. But to be valued upon what is seeming over what is real, boggles my mind.
I came to see that in the end of all this, I will continue to be this way. Maybe it is my personality trait. I know I am a hypocrite in all means, and I always admit to that. I guess I am bothered by the fact that oil has much more worth over the sustenenance of water.

Communism

I don’t know why, but I feel like writing about communism darn it- And I will. Whether it be rain, storm, or power outages. Nothing will stop me now. Once I start, don’t stop me, because I become a colliding star undergoing fusion.
So, now you are wondering, why exactly am I writing about communism? Maybe it is in the fourth of July and I am feeling really patriotic toward my country. Maybe it is the principles of idealism that I find so intriguing. Maybe, it is a mystery, and I may never know why, (or tell you why) unless you ask or I feel a dying need.
My grandfather was a communist. Yeah yeah. You caught my family red handed. But yes, as I was saying, my grandfather was a communist. He believed in the ideals of communism. The ideals of communism are actually that- ideals and very idealistic. They believe that everyone is created equal and that there should be no class of poor people. I go along with my grandfather on that. He, growing up in India, must have seen the vast difference between the rich and the poor. To add to that, he had to see the unfair treatment of the different castes by other castes. My mother told me that how when he was young, on the trains, he would talk and help out those who were in need. I hope to have inherited something of that value from my family of giving to those in need and having a sense of compassion.
My grandfather was also a very religious man. Being religious, he contradicted the principles of communism which believes that religion creates inequality in people. Religion is “an opiate of the masses” that supposedly contents those to accept their station in life.
One of the biggest communist countries of yesteryear was Russia which went against the trend of the spreading monarchial systems of power. In the system of a monarchy, “a serf might run to the town court for protection against his master. A vassal might run to the king's court for protection against his lord. A cleric might run to the ecclesiastical court for protection against the king.” (Law and Revolution). This system seems to represent an early prototype that we use in our system called checks and balances. But in a communist society, when the leader/(s) become tyrannical, who do the “emancipated” poor run to? Besides, the poor should be grateful- it could be a lot worse.
America, in stark contrast to communism is materialistic and individualistic. Why do people want to move here from other countries? Well, because it is in the dream. Each person has his or her own individualistic dream that they wish to fulfill in their lives. In other countries, there are many restrictions to this dream. A potential writer who wishes to write will have a voice that is suppressed by a figure who deems the voice contradictory. A dreamer who dreams to become a fashion designer may be seen as a dissident because their clothing doesn’t represent the masses or majority. So to make life fair, it is ordered to wear a dull grey shirt and pants so nobody will cry. A book is no longer a book, but it has to be something that everyone likes and that nobody will be offended by, so instead of expanding the mind, the thoughts are stifled.
My ideals are pure American ideals. I believe that we should not be scared of each other nor feel threatened by others. If you don’t like something, do your best to change it. Raise your voice because you have a voice. Raise your fist and say black power. Wave a rainbow colored flag and proudly proclaim you are gay.
But with a voice comes responsibility. A responsibility that should include the fact that just because you have a voice that represents the majority, whether within a macrogroup or microgroup, doesn’t mean you should try and suppress the voice of the minority. Just because your voice is in a majority, doesn’t make you right.
The saying, majority rules has been heard by many. But just because it does, does it mean it should? And when the poor listen to leaders of the communists tell them that majority rules, or when the you are not allowed to read a book or go to school or even wear makeup, because somebody is telling you that majority rules, I think it should be asked then…….
Who really are the majority? Are they just the minority?
I can’t answer that question because it is a conundrum and may brain will explode. And really, there needs to be a medical diagnosis in the book called Robin Hood syndrome.
Learn to think for yourself and read 1984 or Fahrenheit 451.