amanda

amandabrucebernal@gmail.com — Mon, 25 May 2009 02:58:41 GMT

http://seeforyourselfff.blogspot.com/

amandabrucebernal@gmail.com — Sun, 24 May 2009 04:32:14 GMT

http://seeforyourselfff.blogspot.com

i've decided to start a photo blog for the summer to keep myself inspired by & accountable to photography. hope you folks will read.

xo.

amandabrucebernal@gmail.com — Sun, 17 May 2009 05:41:24 GMT

i find the most beautiful things online when i should be sleeping.

also:

"for those who believe in god, most of the big questions are answered. but for those of us who can’t readily accept the god formula, the big answers don’t remain stone-written. we adjust to new conditions and discoveries. we are pliable. love need not be a command or faith a dictum. i am my own god. we are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. we are here to drink beer. we are here to kill war. we are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that death will tremble to take us."

- c bukowski

amandabrucebernal@gmail.com — Sat, 02 May 2009 19:47:13 GMT

in a feeble attempt to procrastinate as much as possible, i'm writing again.

i woke up at 630am this morning feeling the way i do when i drink heavily the night before. surprisingly awake, but knowing that i will crash in a serious was in six to eight hours. i got ready and went to panera for the best breakfast sandwich evereverever. ate that and sipped on iced coffee until 11ish, while simultaneously trying to write more of my paper.

for the class said paper is due in, queer transnationalism, we had to come up with a question that we would then answer for our final paper. i found this youtube video a while back and got pretty riled up about it, so i'm writing about it through a transnational/cultural lens using theories of queer performance, disidentification, and strategy/tactic. if you watch the video for anymore than ten seconds you'll understand why i am 100% out of my mind for choosing to do this. but now i'm sufficiently far enough into my paper to not be able to try to find a new topic.

oh yeah, i'm going there.

i'm thrilled to be able to take more medicine in four hours, and during my jaunt at target i picked up neilmed sinus rinse. it seems to me a relative of the neti pot, which is made by the same company, just in a container that doesn't make me feel like i'm gardening my face. seriously - google image search 'netipot' and 'watering can' and throw those up side by side. i just can't take it seriously. but thanks to zak for the recommendation! it would be awesome if anyone knew how many times a day i could do this whole process? i just did it and i feel more congested than i did before, which i don't really understand, but maybe my sinuses just need more irrigation? let a girl know.

in remembrance of better times, i went to the cape with the individual in the below photo. he let me drive his very expensive car all the way there AND let me listen to my favorite disney music. he's quite the charmer.

last but not least, i'm twittering a lot now? it's ridiculous, i know, but helps me track my life when i don't have the time/patience/coherency to write a lot in here. so, um, let's be friends on there if you're so inclined.

http://twitter.com/likewednesday

xox.

ramble ramble ramble

amandabrucebernal@gmail.com — Sat, 02 May 2009 04:11:20 GMT

i am obsessed with par-freezing orange juice and then consuming it like a slurpee. can't really understand how or why this happened.

sick, though it was allergies, turns out to be actual illness. this always happens to me at the end of the semester, even though everyone keeps asking me if i have swine flu - which might be the most ridiculous thing ever.

must work on my paper that's due tuesday, even though i could barely scrape an outline/opening paragraph together today. email my gorgeous professor warning her that i might need a possible extension, but i feel like a bad graduate student pulling that kind of stunt, so i'm trying to keep it together.

tomorrow, the goal is to get out of bed before noon and drag myself to bruggers bagels to get at least half my paper done. today i felt 100% ill until around 5pm, which didn't help the productivity levels of the day, but such is life.

i packed up my desk-items today to get ready for the drive back home. the help i initially thought was coming bailed, so now i have to pack up/drive alone. this means i'm going to have to do it little by little over the next week without killing myself. this is proving more difficult than i originally thought, since i can barely make it up two flights of stairs without being out of breath. i'm pretty sure it's because of said illness, and the gallon or so (my estimate, of course) of liquid floating around in my sinus cavity, but it sure isn't going to make anything easier.

i made an appointment for a haircut, manicure and pedicure next wednesday at this really swank day spa downtown. i got the whole package for a bargain thanks to groupon, which i will sorely miss over the summer.

i feel like this was almost pointless to write?

i'm not really sure if i can even string a sentence together. sorry folks.

thought mashup

amandabrucebernal@gmail.com — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 00:32:03 GMT

i'm 100% avoiding doing work by making this post, but it's been a while and i figured i need to update my life a little.

school is done in two weeks, thank god. i'm burnt out, tired, and cranky. also the temperatures are inching up week by week and i'm not at my best when the temperature in my room is higher than the temperature outside. andy was a genius and bought me a window fan that helps more than i really believed, even though i was being intensely frustrating and whiny because of the heat yesterday.

my car is in the shop again, this time because the ac stopped cooling, and i'm afraid it's ultimately going to cost an arm and a leg. i trust my mechanic, who put uv liquid in my pipes to see where the leak is coming from. does anyone have any experience with this?

so, next tuesday is my last day of school for the semester and i am endlessly thankful. i have to complete journals that i've been avoiding, come up with a question for my next final queer transnationalism paper, write said paper, write another paper, and finally pack.

next weekend my dad is coming up to boston with my half-sister and her partner. she asked to meet me, and even though i've never met any of my half-siblings (granted, i didn't find out about them until i was 14 and it was a rough patch for me). my dad seemed really excited about the possibility of us meeting, and i'm kind of interested in meeting another person who was raised by my dad who is of the queer persuasion. i'm pretty sure that's why she wants to meet me too.

i have to be all packed up and moved out by next saturday, though, and ready for the drive home. sunday is mother's day and i'm not sure how many of those my grandmother has left.

all in all, i'm feeling a little overwhelmed. i know i can do it all, i just have to take it a step at a time. and i'm going to start at 9pm.

amandabrucebernal@gmail.com — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 03:12:00 GMT

i'm tired, even though i sleep more than i really should. i feel like the waves of things i have to do continue to crash and i can't catch my breath. this semester ends sooner than i can believe, but there is so much still left to do.

leaving boston is the only way i can break up the monotony of school/sleep/teach/work/work/school, so i'm doing it the next two weekends to be able to clear my head.

i cannot wait for the summer. i want to tear my dresses and flip flops out of storage and lay in my backyard and run around and read and be careless with my time. i want to see my family, see my friends, see people who care about me regularly. i want to feel the sun on my skin and see my freckles come out of hiding.

this year has been hard, harder than i expected. but i'm doing okay, i'm keeping up, i'm engaged and engaging. my goal is to get another 4.0, be able to bring it home and tell my grandparents and have them look at me in the way that i know they are proud and are going to show off to their friends.

tomorrow morning i teach, which is one of my favorite parts of the week. i sit in front of a classroom and feel like i'm broadening people's minds in a way that is approachable and real, connecting with them and watching light bulbs go off in their heads. it's a beautiful thing.

one month left. got to keep it together.

amandabrucebernal@gmail.com — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 02:24:15 GMT

i would love a vacation. maybe a cruise.

amandabrucebernal@gmail.com — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 21:04:54 GMT

i'm being such a grump right now, sitting crossed-legged in sweatpants trying to keep up with my alternating congestion/runny nose.

a. just left after ten really amazing days. basically, friday can't come soon enough.

boston just declared a snow emergency, which translates into me moving my car into a parking garage in a few hours so it doesn't get twelve plus inches of snow piled on it in the middle of the night.

i really need to start writing this paper on santeria for my queer transnationalism class, but i really can't even fathom starting. i want to lie in bed and watch tv and zone for as long as possible - too bad that's not even close to an option.

i'm keeping my fingers crossed that school will be closed tomorrow (public schools are, but i know that means nothing really) and i'll be able to stay in bed all day and try to keep this illness from spreading to my throat, cause if you know me at all, you know that's bad news.

shmeh.

my current lifestyle

amandabrucebernal@gmail.com — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 03:28:44 GMT

cerulean, perfect in design

amandabrucebernal@gmail.com — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 20:39:45 GMT

i'm sitting in my room staring at my stripped bed because everything is downstairs in the washer getting clean and fresh for my impending visitor.

i am pretty thrilled that we are making the distance work. we've worked out this thiry-day period so that we can be together as often as possible. he's driving way more than anyone should to get to me, which makes me bubble over with happiness. in two weeks he'll be meeting me in my hometown and will be introduced to my parents and will bond with sister in real life and sit in my beloved couch.

the next week, however, will be spent touring boston and meeting up with old/new/old friends and doing our respective work at shared tables in my favorite coffee shops around the city.

this semester is a good one, even though i constantly feel drowned in work. i have a million post it lists around me, encouraging me to get things done, but i've been avoiding doing anything besides cleaning and, ironically, list-making.

i've been feeling pretty useless lately, which i blame on the hormones in my body being especially potent this time around and causing me to procrastinate as much as possible. most mornings have run late with panic attacks and clothes-throwing to try to find something i feel like i can step outside my room in. i don't know what the solution to this problem is, though i know my body issues get worse when i'm in boston. i don't know if it's the mirrors in my room or what, but it's bad.

besides that, i found out today that my favorite talk radio show is being cancelled and replaced with a top 40 'hits' station. i feel more upset about it than i probably should, but i'm going to miss being able to just put on a podcast and listen to voices. i'll say it, it's depressing.

on a happier note, teaching is going surprisingly well. i've been teaching the classes this week because they revolve around trans/intersex issues and my professor knows it's my field of interest. it has felt good to sit in front of a class of students and pass on my information and feel like they're getting it, little by little. i might have said this before, but it's surprisingly rewarding.

okay, time to pretend i don't have a ton of work to do.

amandabrucebernal@gmail.com — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 06:34:40 GMT

my skin is so dry. like all the time. or was, i should say. for years i've had issue keeping my skin moisturized, i've tried almost every brand of lotion out there, i am basically could replicate an entire cvs aisle in my room. that being said, i have found the most amazing cure for what ails me: oil. i know it sounds weird & possibly gross but this nonsense does. the. trick. i impulsively purchased a bottle of lavender oil from trader joe's last week because it was four bucks and smelled delicious and that, i suppose, is enough to win me over. but, i've been mixing it with my lotion every morning and it does insane wonders for my skin. i feel like i've stumbled on something big, but i have a feeling i'm just a late-comer to the party. moral of the story: my skin rocks now.

i've also had this super-fascination with & craving for citrus. mainly, pummelos. i think they are an acquired taste, for sure, but the process of unpeeling and dissecting one is intensely satisfying for me. i've been buying one every few days (to supplement the one or two fuji apples i seem to be ingesting on a daily basis) and feel pretty good about that experience.

okay, so enough about items i buy at trader joe's.

i have barely come up for air from my schoolwork since the semester started again. i'm really enjoying my classes this semester, and as much as that sounds like a line i would feed my parents - it's totally true. teaching twice a week is also surprisingly great for me. i like re-reading material that is the foundation that everything i'm learning about in graduate school is based on, i like grading more than i thought i would, i like networking, i like feeling useful and like i'm helping my students learn and grow and really understand the material. i feel like such a sap, but it is what it is.

i've also been working ahead a lot because in a week i'm very happily packing a suitcase and booking it to ann arbor, and i would very much like to do as little work as possible while i'm there. my tender-hearted person-of-choice is flying me out to the great state of michigan to be able to spend the fourteenth together, which basically makes me the happiest girl in the world. between the two of us, i'm sure, there will be at least some studying done, but i'm thrilled to be able to relax for a few days and recharge and get out of boston.

i literally cannot wait.

amandabrucebernal@gmail.com — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 02:36:21 GMT

right now i'm sitting in the middle of my room listening to my sister & my mom yell in the living room and i can't decide whether to get up and slam the door or go out and tell them to stop fucking talking to each other because neither of them are listening to what the other one is saying so the conversation is essentially pointless.

right now, at this moment, i am ecstatic to be leaving this place to go somewhere where there is no yelling, no tension, no dead-end conversations. there will be whispers and laughter and smiling and that is really what i need right now.

only when it comes to this, when my family explodes at each other, do i realize how much i do not really belong here. how, at my core, i feel very different than them. how exhausted i am from taking care of them all.

i hate talking about this, i hate pretending like i'm mother teresa, because that isn't even close to the truth. i just wish they would stop yelling because it feels like someone is squeezing my heart and its hard for me to breathe.

i need to get out of here.

amandabrucebernal@gmail.com — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 09:42:41 GMT

i can't sleep.

my body has been adjusting itself to this nocturnal schedule that i have been having a hard time shaking without the help of sleep aid in pill form.

i've made three or four lists in the past half hour, after staring outside watching the sky get lighter and listening to my cat breathe.

since three-thirty, when i tried to fall asleep for the first time, i've been thinking a lot about the word home.

in forty-eight hours i'm leaving my parents house, which is no longer really my home, packing my belongings in my little white car and starting the drive to a new kind of home that is slowly coming into focus.

more and more recently i've had this insane urge to settle, to nest, to have a beautiful space that inspires me - a place i can really feel at home. i've been scouring books, magazines, apartmenttherapy, etc. looking for inspiration, for colors, for ideas, for furniture.

considering how my life is panning out in the next few years, i don't know how realistic the wish for a somewhat permanent residence that i can put time and love into is, but currently there is a folder on my desktop titled 'how to make a house a home' waiting for that day.

[ i can hear my dad upstairs starting to wake up. i haven't seen him in a while because i've been falling asleep just as his day is starting, making an intersection of our two time-worlds difficult to achieve.

tonight my mom is staying at my grandmas house. i cannot remember the last time she didn't sleep here. i'm trying not to freak. ]

amandabrucebernal@gmail.com — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 01:20:00 GMT

i don't know what you smoke
or what countries you've been to
if you speak any other languages
other than your own
i'd like to meet you
i don't know if you drive
if you love the ground beneath you
i don't know if you write letters
or panic on the phone still
i'd like to call you all the same
if you want to, i am game

i don't know if you can swim
or if the sea has any draw for you
if you're better in the morning
or when the sun goes down
i'd like to talk to you
i don't know if you can dance
if the thought ever occurred to you
if you eat what you've been given
or push it round your plate
i'd like to cook for you
all the same
i would want to
i am game

if you walk my way
and i could keep my head
we could creep away
in the dark or maybe not
we could shoot it down anyway.

i don't know if you read novels
or the magazines
if you love the hand that feeds you
i assume that your heart's been bruised
i'd like to know you
you don't know if i can draw at all
or what records i am into
if i sleep like a spoon
or rarely at all
or maybe you would do?
or maybe you would do?

if you walk my way
i will keep my head
we will feel our way
through the dark
though i don't know you
i think that I would do
i don't fall easy at all
at all
at all

amandabrucebernal@gmail.com — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 20:31:38 GMT

when i get up at two pm and eat my first meal at four pm sometimes i feel guilty for not seeing more of the sun, but then i realize how beautiful my nights have been and am more than happy to give up a little vitamin d to maintain this feeling i have.

one liners

amandabrucebernal@gmail.com — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 22:24:24 GMT

- i have been going to bed when the sun comes up and waking up when most of the day is over, making my own life timetable that my parents don't understand

- on monday i will find out what my living situation for the next four months is going to be and i feel like i'm giving myself ulcers worrying about it

- i hope i can save four thousand dollars by living in my preferred house situation

- sometimes i feel like i'm too intense/have too many feelings for my own good

- i hate it when i feel overwhelmed by money

- yesterday i found out that my grandmother has breast cancer and i don't really know how to talk about it

- when i look at my mom sometimes i can see her pull back the curtain, just for a second, and show me the pain she won't show anyone else

- even with all of the above issues, and some more i only feel comfortable pressing onto pages with ink, i feel like my life has hope and purpose and connectivity

amandabrucebernal@gmail.com — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 01:31:30 GMT

i would like to lay on the floor and feel my bones pressed down into the ground.

i would also like to listen to music that i can feel in my core.

amandabrucebernal@gmail.com — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 21:10:52 GMT

(life is really hard sometimes, but i'm really good at pretending to be okay.)

today

amandabrucebernal@gmail.com — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 21:57:31 GMT

amandabrucebernal@gmail.com — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 03:39:13 GMT

what made me happy today was not having to take tylenol with codine to get through the day. also, being able to be upright and shopping was pretty phenom.

i got necessities at ulta (waterproof mascara, eyeshadow, my favorite nailpolish), choke at barnes & noble(s!), miscellaneous items at target (underwear, leopard print bra, thank you notes), and two sweaters and a flannel at old navy. shopping is so lovely sometimes.

today i also bought my ticket for four days and three nights in minneapolis, which is scary/exciting.

and now i'm watching planet earth and freaking out about every single amazing thing that i cannot believe is real about nature. much less how it was captured on film.

tomorrow i decided that i'm going to take the day for myself and get my nails done and (hopefully) get a haircut. i need it in a bad way. i have that silly mullet flip thing that i get when i ignore the back of my head for a month. bad/ugly times.

too much to handle

amandabrucebernal@gmail.com — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 22:37:23 GMT

amandabrucebernal@gmail.com — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 07:21:09 GMT

i hope one day i will find someone who will know me and love me enough to record their voice pattern on a ring and give it to me.

i think that would be nice.

[ http://sakurakoshimizu.blogspot.com/ ]

amandabrucebernal@gmail.com — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 23:52:49 GMT

i'm oh-so ill.

i've barely left the house in an upsetting number of days and am basically begging my body to heal itself at this point.

today i sucked it up and went to the emergency care place and when the doctor saw my tonsils, even after my disclaimer, all he could say was "oh, babygirl". not a good thing.

so now i'm i'm on a zpack, tylenol with codine, and some other pill that i'm not totally sure what i'm taking it for, but i'm desperate for pills at this point.

though, on the upside, i've probably lost like five pounds in the past week from my limited food intake.

i'm having an internal debate about whether to pack a bag and go to minnesota for a few days over new years. the plane ticket is $300, which is the same amount i have to pay for my car insurance in a month, but i really want to go and see/meet people. i'm so careful with my money that it's painful for me to spend that much money, on anything, but i feel like i might deserve it. guh. decisions, decisions.

i'm trying to motivate myself to go out with my sister and get something to eat, because i feel pathetic sitting on the couch for this many days consecutively.

i love keri smith.

& jason sho green.

the end.

what made me happy - day five

amandabrucebernal@gmail.com — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 21:01:47 GMT

A Very Tristmas Christmas - Jason Mraz & Tristan Prettyman

and for those who want to know why this makes me happy without having to listen, my two favorite parts/the ones that make my heart break:

they say wishing for you
is like wishing for snow in california
but you know that i can prove them all wrong
cause my love is true
i simply adore ya

&

can’t say that i’ve been good all year
but I've been making resolutions to get you here
and if it means being better than whatever, no sweat
well i bet my halls that i deck for the cause
and santa claus, he knows what my intentions are
even dismissing mistle toe
so I get to know ya, first of all
singing oh my god
you’re the reason that i decorate my yard

in other news i woke up this morning with a throat infection, which is a pretty great way to kick off the holiday. i got up managed to get upstairs to start antibiotics, which my family has stocked in a 500 count. basically, i get the very same kind of sick 98% of the time and we would be homeless if i had to go to the doctor every time it happened. so, we do the hispanic thing and when my dad goes to miami we buy meds in bulk.

last night was the holiday party for my mom's store, and it was at the restaurant i used to work out (which is also across the street from her store). i went, even though things were still awkward with mom, and basically used it as an excuse to drink my favorite riesling and drunk text. my dad was sitting next to me and knew i was getting bombed, which i think he was both confused and entertained by. when we left the party i told him i needed coffee and he drove me to two different dunkin' donuts (the first was unfortunately closed) so that i could feed my addiction.

now i'm debating whether to try to push through the sleepy feeling i'm getting because of my cocktail of antibiotics + muscle relaxers, or to give in and nap. tough.

[ps: thank you to all the lovely people who made yesterday easier via comment/text (you know who you are, lady). it meant a lot. xox.]