Listen;

I know this is going to sound very, very, very stupid but being in college has sort of felt like going to Summer camp. Now, I’ve never been to any sort of academic summer camps, only fencing ones, but this is sort of what it must be like to combine academic, fencing, and lake-side/log cabin camps (with the exception that we don’t have a lake, but we do have crafts available). I’m a little dumb. 

Also, I have so much reading to do for my African American History class and it’s ridiculous. My head may explode. So yeah. Maybe I shouldn’t have stayed out until 11:30 dancing. Maybe. But maybe not because I’m also here to live and not just learn. Right? Right. 

prestoginkyo replied to your photo: Yes. I did in fact make this my computer…

KYAAAA TSUGOI DESU NE PUZZO TAN I mean. GWIYEOWO… Seoul… Sista… Szechuan.

Yeobo, I take it back. You are the most Korean/Japanese/KAWAII DESU~. I’m just a Filipino girl living in a Korean world. But don’t worry, I’m armed with sign language *Christmas*. 

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free?  Not me?
Surely not me?  The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!

- Langston Hughes

My roommate left the dorm for the rest of the weekend and won’t be back until tomorrow night. So it’s sort of like having my own dorm room for a while. Cool. 

So it’s currently raining a bit. The hurricane crap won’t really hit until later on tonight. I’m not really sure what we are all supposed to do tomorrow, seeing as we are pretty much locked away in our dorms because of the weather. All orientation activities were canceled, and can we go get food? How will I eat? OH MY GOD THAT MEANS I CAN SLEEP IN. This is exciting. 

In a little while, I’m going to brave the storms rain to check out a meeting for DSAGA (Diverse Sexual and Gender Alliance). I’m excited! 

I mean, no. Excited like this: 

That’s better. 

Moving in soon. College is calling. The rain is falling and sky overcast. No breakfast in my stomach, car packed around me, backpack jabbing into my right calf, Charles Street.

In the car for two minutes. Get five bug bites. Awesome.

The girls on the Hopkins’ fencing team are the most attractive ever. It’s ridiculous. 

Let me insist upon
the ways in which
my heart skips beat
and flutters its wings;
Aflame.
For with every glance,
my chest leaps.
And I smile.
Each moment in your arms
emanates sheepish heat.
And I smile.
When I count the minutes,
and turn the left down your street,
I think of adventure.
And I smile.
The euphoric reality of my hand
in your hand,
my prints imprinting your prints,
my skin becoming kin with your skin,
sends currents up my soul.
And I smile.
And for every dollar given to me,
I make sure to invest in return.
And for every moment spent,
I reflect
and toss and turn.
And with every single inch,
and for every honest word,
and for every breath breathed easily,
and for her,
I smile.
And we smile. 

Your time ran out.
Your sand had sunk to the bottom
of a double glass where I sat
at the center.
It was over. You were done,
but gave such false sense of
Restoration - of need to mend -
to make amends of a Nothing.
Don’t say regret. Your end came
before the close and to kill it
was your call.
But you didn’t.
And we both suffered;
I in love,
you in oppression.
My repression was a creation
of your neglect.
This wreck, an empty shell, 
sucked dry for giving its all.
Don’t you dare blame me
for your departure, our demise,
our fall.
It’s dark in here.
The light died.
But I Tried
to make fire from ash.

No wonder I am left with dust.