Jumping ship

For those of you who don't know, I haven't been updating this blog for months because I've been posting everything to my tumblr account for months now.

So this is my farewell post to you, blogger. Your lack of simple customization, embedding options, and posting limitations drove me away as Tumblr's more community-based way of presenting posts drew me in.

You can find now find me at blackpolosandsweaters.tumblr.com

Its been great, blogger.

The 4th of July

Dear Reader,

I spent my 4th of July grilling with my family at a park and as I smelled the scent of burning charcoal in the air while walking through the soft, moist soil, I began to ask what put me there on that soil? It was a question that had been burning in my head since the day my AP American History teacher elaborated on every detail of his research into the United States in the Revolutionary Era through more than a quarter of my junior year.

What made it possible for me to walk this land with my head held high, even as an immigrant member of the middle-class? Hell, what made it possible for me to even blog about this after I had returned home from the park?

The force of over 230 years of bravery, commitment, honor, and sacrifice from the combined efforts of everyday men and women fighting to protect our rights and our freedoms, have made a huge contribution to making not only this, the annual celebration of the day of independence for the United States, but also for making every waking moment spent on our soil a true blessing. As we gaze into the night sky to watch the fireworks aglow, whether if you’re watching from the banks of the Hudson River, or if you’re watching from the comforts of your home, please spare a thought for these individuals.

Yours,

NL

A Season of Recovery and Rediscovery

Dear Reader,

After a mini-monsoon season here in Long Island, it finally feels like summer now. It hasn’t felt like summer for the longest time in my life, since I had started this mad dash to work to my potential from the end of my sophomore year of high school.

From then on its been a hectic time for me. My family’s collective workaholicism (combined with my own) meant that I’d rarely get to sit and talk with them and I’ve basically turned myself into an insomniac through all the nights I’ve spent staying up late during both my junior and senior year. Through all of the completed deadlines, the tests taken, the nights studying, the auditions completed, the rehearsals attended, the shows played, the arguments made, the colleges visited, I’ve finally found time to relax and do more of what I want to do.

Which is exactly what makes this summer so much more special to me. The only problem is that I’ve spent so much time in my own gigs, tests, projects, and whatnot, the feeling of being at ease seems foreign to me. And I still cant seem to sleep until 3 AM. Its really starting to scare me. I really need to snap into a summer rhythm before college life in the city picks up the tempo again.

Reader, if there was ever any good piece of advice I could give to a student, it would be this:
Work as hard as you wish to, just don’t lose sight of how comfy a beach chair could be.

Yours,
NL

When You're Wandering Down 42nd St.

http://scher.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/the-parade/?th&emc=th

“The streets of the city are a non-stop parade of humanity. It’s a kind of grand, unchoreographed ballet of human locomotion. One of the great pleasures and measures of being urban is losing yourself in the crowd, with your feet and mind wandering, alone in your head but elbow to elbow with an inexhaustible supply of strangers…”

Blogging. Really.

Dear Reader,

As annoying as blog posts can be at times, we cannot deny the impact they have had on society today. Just take the unstable situation in Iran, for example. People all over the world have used blog sites, YouTube, and facebook to get a first-hand account of all that's going on in that country, even as Iran has tried to censor many of their citizens from expressing their views to the world.

It is quite an incredible thing to witness when the same kind of sites that post about cute kittens could potentially bring a government down to its knees through the use of a collection of verbs, nouns, and adjectives. Its a true testament to the power of people and the power of a pen.

The Iranians may be thousands of miles away from here, but over these past few weeks, we've witnessed their struggles as if they were our next-door neighbors. The world has witnessed and has felt outrage over the killing of a young woman in the streets by Iranian security forces.

One must wonder if we had been as connected to the world during World War II as we are now, would the United States and the Allied Forces have responded faster to the actions of the Nazis against the Jews? What if someone posted a video of the events of Krystallnacht for the entire world to see, hours after it took place?

I believe we're all witnesses to a special era in history where our connection to the world will improve our awareness of the crimes against our human rights and the societal crimes wrought, and through the awareness raised, many will join in solidarity and in support of the oppressed people of the world.

Yours,
NL