Choices, decisions, and rap.

Last night, someone told me a story about The Báb.

In school, as all the other children ran out to the playgrounds to play, a young Siyyid 'Alí Muhammad (The Báb) would walk past the playground, alone, until he found a nice tree to sit under. Instead of playing, he would spend his time under that tree... praying.

Baha'u'llah advices us to live in a state of prayer.

Now, I don't think that's to say to go live up in the mountains and live your life as a monk, because I believe that change in the world, change for the better, is a unified process. And that can't happen on a mountain top isolated from society. But, I do admire monks and their detachment to worldly things.

For me, it means... what the heck am I doing on facebook waisting my time reading other people's self absorbed statuses and pictures of frivolous things that don't really have any sort of positive influence on my life when I could be doing something better???

I'm weak. I don't have the power to stay off facebook. Self-control is lacking there. So, I decided to deactivate it. So... it's gone.

I'm going to try to be like The Báb. While the rest of the world goes to their playground, I'm going to find my tree and make my time meaningful, especially while I'm here in Ecuador. But that's not to say that if you have a facebook, you're waisting your time. A kid playing on a playground is innocent, part of life at that age. And I'm not at all trying to elevate myself or say that what I'm doing is goodly or oooo look at me, I have the lady balls to delete my facebook. No. For some people, facebook isn't as distracting as it is to me. So, power to you! You keep on liking and wall-posting and friend adding.

Personally, I hope I find a mango tree.

***
Macklemore - Wings


Brother Ali - Us

Felíz Día del Amor y Amistdad!

Happy day of love and friendship! I love that they call it that here. So tight. I mean, if we all celebrated it like that (of love and friendship) there's more of a chance that I wouldn't have been valentineless all these years! Har har, I'm a lonely hag! Just kidding.

So, I have an amazing Mom who would make my Valentines Day special every year. She'd write love notes for us to wake up to the next day on the bathroom mirrors in red lipstick. Usually with some kiss marks as well. Looking back at it, that must've been a bit strange kissing a mirror. I mean it would be like kissing yourself............ weird.

But she'd also leave boxes of chocolates and valentines cards for us at the breakfast table. How sweet is that?

Then of course, my dad would come home from work with flowers and goodies for my mom (which we'd usually end up eating anyway) and our parents would be all mushy and gross and we'd go "EWWWWWW" and giggle and make faces of disgust. I mean COME ON, I think it should be a crime for parents to show PDA*, even on Valentines Day. Jus sayin.

Sigh. I do miss my family.
<3

*Edited. Used to be PDF. Thanks Jess :P

J CREW

J Crew
How I love you
What I would do
To have you
As my shoe
And forever be my boo

YEAH! Clouds, boots, mountains, horse. YEAH!

Yeojin Bae

Omg.
http://www.yeojinbae.com/latest-collection

What's my name

One of the greatest things about being surrounded by Spanish-speakers is that they actually pronounce my name correctly.

Every time I hear my name, my heart spreads its little myocyte wings and flutters with joy.

I mean, in choir last year, I was known for my name (wow, someone known for their name? never) and its pronunciation difficulty. I'd walk into rehearsal and rounds of mAryam/maryAm/mAryAm/marrrrrrrrrrrrrrryam would commence as they tried to pronounce it properly, haunting my dreams and relinquishing my hopes of a normal life. Just kidding, it wasn't that dramatic. But it's really chill having a pronounceable name.

Hypochondriac quote of the week:

"Oh man, my asthma is really bad right now" - Me

"Do you even have asthma?" - Valerie

"Technically... no." - Me

Inspiration of the week:

Person of the week: my brother.

Worms

I was peacefully pealing potato skin from my potatoes tonight when I found a worm, warmly snuggled in a crevasse of my future papa frita.

I thought they liked apples.
Excuse me while I go vomit.


And, I like these songs. (sorry Mom about the language. Just skip the first one, or fine the clean version)

MIA

So I've kinda been MIA recently. Which, honestly, I'm kinda happy about.

I've been trying to spend less and less time on the computer. It's so amazing. Apparently there's this entire world outside of my 13" macbook. Go figure.

So, here's what's been going on.

1. This week has been futbol crazy week. The school's been having tournaments between the grades. I played on the first day... the profesoras vs. the mamas. I was a mama. I really suck at futbol. But I'm actually getting good at the foot trick stuff thanks to my pro friend Mauro!

2. I've been avoiding my market man because I haven't gone to buy things from him in almost three weeks. I'm pretty sure he hates me (us) now. One time I actually backtracked to avoid walking by his store. There goes my free pieces of bread. Sigh.

3. Spoiler alert for Bayan... stop reading and skip to #4. So I've been passing around an "te extrañamos" card in cuarto de basica. Everyday I walk in and Martín and Dylan ask me where Bayan is and when he's coming back. EVERY DAY. So I decided to put together a little "we miss you and we love you" card for the amazing Bayan. Dylan wrote the following: "Ben para que replecarse a Maryam" which through the spelling errors and the different language and all means "come so that you can replace Maryam." I swear, they love me.

4. Valerie's parents sent her a huge load of children's books. In English. And Kendy, my 4 year old neighbor, LOOOOOOOOVES them all. He also insists we read them in English. My Mom would absolutely love this boy.

5. I come home June 5th.

6. I see Bosch in my future.