Tragedies October 31, 2009
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Ah, such is my life I suppose. I will be leaving this space for a week or two. I have no inspiration to write anything whatsoever. In fact, I’m behind in school so I will be focusing all my writing efforts on that.
After going through what I have gone through, I believe I have lost faith and hope in just about everything. I have quit my mentoring program that I love, permanently. I hope that they understand my reasoning. I’m rather conflicted about it but I believe that I made the right decision, for me.
I don’t even know what else to write. I hope that things don’t get worse, and after what happened last Tuesday, I don’t see how they could get worse, unless the tragedies that have been my friend’s actions become the actions of my family. And I’m afraid of that happening, because of the simple fact that well, my sister lives with my dad and I know how that is. I’m not even speaking to most of my friends, I can’t bear to look at them, I look like shit and it is easy for me to just break down completely. I’m doing my best to act away, giving Academy Award performances so that the people who don’t know don’t suspect anything.
I will have a lot more to write in the coming weeks, just give me time to recuperate, again. I can’t believe I’m writing that, again, going through this more than once is heartbreaking. That is what happened. I’m heartbroken, in the worst possible way.
MG
Quote of the Day October 28, 2009
Posted by iamashadow in life, opinion, personal, quote, quote of the day, quotes, thoughts.Tags: personal, quote, quote of the day, thoughts
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“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” – Maya Angelou
Quote of the Day October 27, 2009
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“It is easier to kill the light within yourself than to fight the darkness all around you.” Night Watch.
This is very true. And more and more, I’m feeling like letting go of the light within me and say to hell with everything. It is easier, isn’t it? It would be far easier. As I mentioned before, some friends of mine have taken easier side to life, and by that I mean, death. They chose to end themselves to escape everything. I believe it to be both a courageous and cowardly thing to do. After all, you have to have courage to take such drastic steps but you also have to be a coward for not being able to continue with life as it is. Our lives aren’t changing, so I see the appeal, I definitely do…
I don’t know… October 27, 2009
Posted by iamashadow in Uncategorized.1 comment so far
I have seen the greatest minds of my generation dissolve to hopelessness and despair. And there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it. Everything seems to be falling apart.
Don’t come to me. I don’t know how to make our lives better. I’m in the same goddamn shitty boat. As I found recently, I’m working in Burger King as soon as I graduate. My plans have changed. I’m not special. I don’t know how to make this better.
I know the heartbreak of being undocumented. I don’t need to get reminders of this fact. Don’t they think that I don’t know the heartbreak. God knows I do.
Here I am, standing at the edge of oblivion now, “Death smiles at us all. All a man can do is smile back.”
Immigration Fraud October 27, 2009
Posted by iamashadow in Immigration, citizenship, civil rights, dehumanization, human rights, illegal immigrants, illegal immigration, immigrants, justice, law, life, minorities, opinion, people, personal, politics, thoughts, undocumented student, undocumented students.Tags: Immigration, illegal immigration, crime, immigrants, life, undocumented students, thoughts, news, people, law, fraud
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And so, immigration scams continue to happen.
A self-proclaimed immigration expert who advised his clients to falsely claim to be gay to win asylum in the U.S. was sentenced this morning to 18 months in prison by a federal judge in Seattle.
Apparently, his line of thinking was…
In one instance, involving an individual identified in the indictment as A.K., Mahoney is alleged to have advised him to say on immigration applications that he was gay and that the militia in his country had attempted to rape his wife because of his sexual orientation, according to the indictment. Helena Mahoney allegedly helped the man obtain “documents about the gay community to assist A.K. in preparing for his asylum interview,” the indictment alleges.
Another immigrant, identified as G.V., reportedly submitted documents to the immigration officials claiming that he was afraid he would be maimed if he returned to his homeland “when in truth … G.V. was not afraid of such maiming,” according to the indictment.
If you claim you’re gay, you get asylum. If it was only that easy, then a lot more people would do it, pretend they were gay or Jewish for that matter. But it is all a scam. I’m glad that the man was caught and is now facing jail time. But I believe that this sort of thing will continue to happen for a long time at other places because the immigrant community is a weak one and some of us just fall for the lies of others. We shouldn’t fall for said lies, but we are desperate. See, people do try to get legalized, and they get scammed for it, so it isn’t as if we want to be undocumented, because no one does.
Driving While Speaking Spanish October 26, 2009
Posted by iamashadow in Immigration, citizenship, civil rights, dehumanization, discrimination, human rights, illegal immigrants, illegal immigration, immigrants, life, opinion, people, personal, politics, thoughts, undocumented student, undocumented students.Tags: illegal immigration, immigrants, Immigration, law, life, news, people, police, racial profiling, Spanish, thoughts
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Apparently, it is a crime. Well, not really but for some idiotic police officers, they decided that it was a crime. Sigh. Note to self, if I ever drive, don’t speak Spanish. That will only give them suspicion of me being an undocumented immigrant, specially around these parts. It wouldn’t matter that I’m an English major and university student, sigh.
Dallas police wrongly ticketed at least 39 drivers for not speaking English over the last three years, Police Chief David Kunkle announced Friday while promising to investigate all officers involved in the cases for dereliction of duty.
The fun thing is that this mess happened in Dallas of all places.
Suicide Thoughts October 26, 2009
Posted by iamashadow in life, personal, suicide, thoughts.Tags: life, myself, personal, suicide, thoughts
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“As anyone who has been close to someone that has committed suicide knows, there is no other pain like that felt after the incident.” Peter Greene.
People without hope. Ana did it. She committed suicide. Despite writing about what has happened, I never really wrote about it. It feels awful. It is a pain beyond all comprehension. There is an emptiness that I still feel to this day. It is a heartbreaking thing to go through, to be a survivor to someone. Why am I speaking about it now? The thoughts just come to me. Not my own suicidal urges, I have none, but of memories of Ana.
I don’t think I spoke about her that much to my friends. Like most other undocumented people I meet randomly, I kept her friendship a secret. She wanted it that way too, she was extremely paranoid, more so than I. We spoke online most of the time but I did get to meet her. She and I have a picture together.
What happened at the end of her days was that her boyfriend broke up with her. He dumped her for someone better in his eyes, a citizen. This is something we all fear, that is a pain that is very great. She already had a biology degree which she couldn’t use because of what she was, she worked in the fast food industry. She was frustrated. And her parents well, they didn’t make things easy on her. I won’t go into details about them but well, there is a point in which living with parents becomes unbearable and she was well beyond that point. We spoke a lot, online and so I knew much about this. I got a call about a week before she committed suicide, telling me what was going on. She was at her end, she didn’t know of another way out. She was without hope. I tried my best to help her, but I obviously failed in that regard.
So, she slits her wrists, and leaves me with the task of explaining everything to her parents. I do so, they hate me, which is fine, I’m a fine scapegoat, let them use me. I don’t really care about them.
And why am I writing this? Another friend of mine attempted suicide. This happened a few days ago and I have yet to really speak about it with anyone. None of my friends know. This was someone else that I was speaking to. Drug overdose. Her sister called me, telling me what was going on. She has been under observation but something else happened, she is now in a comma. Her parents are pulling her off life support. They can’t possibly hope to continue the treatment and therefore, well, they are letting go. So in essence, I have another friend who committed suicide. That’s 2 in less than 2 months. At least this time around, I’m not being blamed.
So, that’s why my thoughts dwell on suicide. I have spoken to 15 people on their suicidal moments. That’s more than all of my friends combined.
I have strength that until recently, I didn’t know I really had. But you must have strength, in order to weather all of what I weather. 2 suicides. Friends who are still talking about committing suicide. Friends who have broken up with their respective partners. A friend of mine has her mom who attempted suicide and is likely to die. My roommate is withdrawing. My sister is failing out of school. My father is being a shitty father. I have financial problems. I have problems with my grades. I have friends who are terrified of graduation and are coming to me for guidance, the irony is not lost on me. I’m behind in class work. I have my mom changed her plans for leaving, making me scramble for other plans. A friend of mine crashed, got hurt and wrecked her car. I have friends talking to me about their undocumented status and telling me that everything I’ve done is worthless and should quit school with him. And I’m probably forgetting stuff.
So…yeah, how am I still sane? What keeps me going? Seriously. Because that’s a lot of stuff for one person to have on his plate. I’m strong, I’m stable, and yet, well, I wonder when my strength will fail me. To think I used to be such a mess before and now well, I’m able to do all of that I do and still keep myself in one piece, it is pretty amazing. But I wonder, when my strength leaves me, what will my friends see. It won’t be pretty. Once I lose it, I don’t think I’m coming back from that one like I did back last April. I’m holding on, but for how long, I don’t know. I need a break but that’s not happening. Things can only get worse.
I’m depressed because of what happened. Matters are worse. I’m still blogging. Can’t take a break from school now. Have to continue. Rage, rage, against the dying of the light, in this case, my own light…
Battlestar Galactica: The Plan October 26, 2009
Posted by iamashadow in TV, entertainment, movie, movie trailers, opinion, thoughts, trailers, videos, youtube.Tags: entertainment, movie, movies, thoughts, trailers, video
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Mark your calendars people, on October 27, this Tuesday, is a very important day. Battlestar Galactica: The Plan comes to DVD, Blu-Ray and digital download form. I’m very excited and kind of sad, because this is the last piece of new content that is coming to the series. From what I learned from reviews is that you should only watch it if you have seen the entire series, if not, go and watch the series. Seriously people, it is one the best series for television. It isn’t the best, because well, I have found that I like just a tiny bit better, but I will write about that particular series later on. Anyway, here is a trailer, enjoy.
*SPOILERS* If you haven’t seen the series, DON’T watch this. It reveals all the cylons, minus one. So, DON’T watch.
On Blogs October 26, 2009
Posted by iamashadow in blog, blogging, life, opinion, people, personal, thoughts, writer, writing.Tags: blog, blogging, life, myself, personal, thoughts, writing
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So, starting very soon, I’ll be doing 2 blogs at once. I’ll continue to use this one as my main blogging outlet, but will also use another service to see if I can get more hits in that service. A friend of mine uses this other service so I’ll use it to see how it is. It will be a mirror version of this blog, so that means that all the content will be the same. That blog is not up and running at the moment and it soon will be.
As the readers have probably noticed, my last post was about immigration. But I want to talk about that. I think I want to run another blog. Not necessarily a mirror blog like my little experiment from above but another blog entirely. I would like this blog to continue with its immigration focus but move everything else to another blog. All the stuff about movies, video games, music, books, and myself in a non-immigration form.
Of course, the problem with running 2 blogs is just that, it is running 2 blogs. I have at times not being able to keep up with this blog so I don’t know what makes me think that I can run another one. But the fact of the matter is, I want to keep my immigration stuff and myself separate. I myself came to the realization that well, I’m not my immigration status, that while it is a huge aspect of my self, it doesn’t define me. Don’t criticize, sometimes I’m a little slow to realize important things, one of my friends knows about that better than anyone.
There is one other aspect that is also being affected by this and that would be dating. While I’m not dating anyone at the moment, that situation might arise. In the past, my immigration status would have dominated my thinking but now, well, as friends with certain people, it isn’t. I have no incentive to say it because I feel that it is not just all that I’m about. I’m a writer, a video gamer, a procrastinator, a normal person. And that’s what I talk, and thankfully I can speak about games this time around since the other person is herself a gamer. Part of me feels dishonest because I’m not saying what I am, which is a huge part of my life, but at the same time, it is refreshing to hang out with someone who doesn’t know that aspect about me, and therefore, I can show my most normal side. And while the dating question has yet to be resolved, well, my answer to question of whether I’ll tell her what I am or not hasn’t been either. Hell, perhaps it won’t be an issue if nothing happens, but we’ll see. If there is anything that I’ve learned in the last year or so, anything is possible. It is a wonderful thing however, to have mastered myself enough to the point where I can get by without having to think about my immigration status. That wouldn’t have been possible even a couple of months ago. I’m quite happy at the change in myself.
I will still do this blog because immigration matters, obviously, but it isn’t just what I’m about, not completely anyway. I’m about multiple things, and well, I can either continue this blog with the multitude of things as I have up this point or have 2 separate blogs. One could be said to represent the person I am, complex, with lots of things going on, undocumented and all, which is the current status of this blog, of having everything on one site. Or I can be of the idea that a lot of us have, that we lead double lives, therefore, 2 blogs, for both personas. I don’t know what I’ll be doing.
So, I ask my readers, a very serious question. Should I continue my work as it is right now, with everything under one banner. Or should I divide myself and have 2 different blogs? Is anyone bothered by the movie, video game, book, content that is shown in this blog that is supposed to be about immigration? So, well, what do you think? I really hope someone answers.
I’m not going to take any action right now, but I’ll continue to run the mirror blog I wrote about that beginning. I won’t give out a link for that one, I want to see how it is to start over from nothing, again.
Neo-Nazi Protest October 26, 2009
Posted by iamashadow in Immigration, civil rights, dehumanization, discrimination, human rights, illegal immigrants, illegal immigration, immigrants, life, opinion, people, personal, politics, racial discrimination, racial profiling, racism, thoughts, undocumented student, undocumented students.Tags: Immigration, racial profiling, illegal immigration, immigrants, life, undocumented students, thoughts, dehumanization, news, people, deportation
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Well, I’m glad that the anti-immigrants have the neo-Nazis on their side. Hopefully it will discredit their movement a little bit more. From Riverside, California.
“I think Riverside was waiting for something like this. I’d like to see it cleaned up,” says Hall. “And I see on so many street corners groups of Hispanics, most of whom you can assume came here illegally. In times when we’ve been hit so hard with the recession and job losses, we’re standing up for American workers.”
Of course, the reality of the situation isn’t lost on others. As the article that I found about this interviewed someone who makes the right assumption, these neo-Nazis are using undocumented people as an excuse to give out a greater message of hate. We (undocumented) are only the beginning.
“The immigration issue allows racist white nationalist a plank to reach out into the mainstream,” says Levin. “And you can attract everyone from people of good will, who would never hurt a fly, all the way to Nazis. So there is a bridge from groups like the NSM to other folks, and then into the mainstream.”
The funny thing is, that’s how it started in Nazi Germany. Not everyone was anti-semitic, but it became easier and easier to allow atrocities, like Kristallnacht, to happen because of the levels of dehumanization that was allowed in the country. Decent people didn’t turn into monsters, they just allowed it to happen. And once the dehumanization is complete, well, nothing really matters in regards to the ‘other’. Anyway, I for one, am glad that the neo-Nazis can stand with the anti-immigrants and show the people where the anti-immigrants are really coming from.
And as someone who is taking a class about the Holocaust, I love this quote. It sickens me.
National Socialist Movement’s Jeff Hall doesn’t buy it. “But I tell you we’d be more than happy to fix the economy, you know? Hitler did. And [Germany] became a superpower. Could it be done again? Of course.”
Up October 25, 2009
Posted by iamashadow in entertainment, films, funny, life, movie, movie trailers, music, opinion, personal, thoughts, trailers, videos, youtube.Tags: entertainment, films, life, movie, movies, thoughts, trailers, video
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I saw the movie over the summer and then saw it again with my friend Rebecca a couple of weeks ago. Wait, the first time I also saw it with another friend named Rebecca. Weird. Anyway, I enjoyed it more the second time around if only because I knew what was coming and could look more closely at the details. And I had a lot more time to process what was happening. And something I really enjoyed from the movie was the soundtrack. Here is a sample of it.
But I guess I enjoyed the movie because it had some very adult themes. It deals with death, loneliness, not letting go, and much more. In fact, when I saw it the second time, someone behind me said out loud, is this supposed to be a children’s movie? And it is, but it is also a movie for adults to enjoy, which was great. Anyway, it has lovely humor, as it is always the case with Pixar films. I love the 2 references to Star Wars in the movie, at least the ones that I saw. And you just have to appreciate the guts that Pixar has in making the movie’s protagonist a 78-year-old man. Is it better than The Incredibles? I don’t know, I love both the same I say, haha.
Anyway, here is a trailer, I hope everyone has seen it and if not, get it on Blu-Ray. High definition is the best.
And a longer trailer.
The Road Trailer October 25, 2009
Posted by iamashadow in entertainment, fiction, films, life, movie, movie trailers, opinion, personal, thoughts, trailers, videos, youtube.Tags: entertainment, movie, thoughts, trailers, video
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I still don’t know how the studio behind this movie is going to market it. I mean, you can’t go with the tagline, the movie based on the most depressing and bleakest book in the last 25 years. That would probably doom the film to earning nothing. I wondered what they changed from the novel as well. I would like to see it, if only because I know I’ll be disappointed. I really hope not, but we’ll see what happens this Thanksgiving when the movie comes out.
Here is the trailer.
God of War Collection October 24, 2009
Posted by iamashadow in PS2, PS3, Playstation, Playstation 3, Sony, games, personal, thoughts, video games.Tags: PS3, Sony, thoughts, video games
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Oh, this piece of news made me so happy! So, Sony will be re-releasing the games God of War 1 and God of War 2 for the PS3 before God of War 3 comes out. Because of the fact that I no longer have a PS2, I can no longer play those games. But the best thing about this news is the fact that other games can receving the same treatment. And I am of course thinking of 2 games, Ico and Shadow of the Colossus. I would for those two games to be re-released with updated resolution and fixing of the slow-down that those games had. But for now, I’m happy that Sony is re-releasing the God of War games! Makes me happy.
Here is a trailer.
The Lovely Bones movie October 24, 2009
Posted by iamashadow in entertainment, fiction, films, movie, movie trailers, opinion, thoughts, trailers, videos, youtube.Tags: entertainment, films, movie, movies, trailers
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I want to see this. And would also like to read the book. It comes out in December and it is Peter Jackson and he is good. The Lovely Bones movie trailer, directed by Peter Jackson.
Quote of the Day October 24, 2009
Posted by iamashadow in life, personal, quote, quote of the day, quotes, thoughts.Tags: life, myself, quote, quote of the day, thoughts
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The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that is wrong with the world.
Paul Farmer
