Unbelievable!

I just filled my near-empty tank for less than $25. Gas prices are
nearing that which we paid in high school.

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Cynthia Wang's iPhone
cynthiawang@nyu.edu

The heart and soul of the Scoobies

As most of you know, I'm a huge fan of Buffy. I wrote Buffy into I think 4 or 5 papers this semester. Anyway, I've been doing something I haven't done in about 4 years - I'm watching all of Buffy again, but I'm doing it in reverse, starting with Season 7. It's amazing that even after so many years, Buffy still speaks to me, and, if possible, I feel even more profoundly about the characters and their situations today than I did back in college.

I just finished Into the Woods, the episode where Riley leaves, and Xander just has some beautiful lines at the end of it. This is from show transcript.

XANDER: (angrily) If you don't wanna hear what I have to say, I'll shut up right now.
BUFFY: Good, 'cause I don't.

XANDER: I lied. See, what I think, you got burned with Angel, then Riley shows up.
BUFFY: I know the story, Xander.
XANDER: But you miss the point. You shut down, Buffy. And you've been treating Riley like the rebound guy. When he's the one that comes along once in a lifetime. (Buffy looks dismayed) He's never held back with you. He's risked everything. And you're about to let him fly because you don't like ultimatums? If he's not the guy, if what he needs from you just isn't there, (shakes head) let him go. Break his heart, and make it a clean break. But if you really think you can love this guy ... I'm talking scary, messy, no-emotions-barred need ... if you're ready for that ... then think about what you're about to lose.

Then, the second to last scene (after Riley flies away) - Xander and Anya...

XANDER: I've gotta say something...'Cause ... I don't think I've made it clear. I'm in love with you. Powerfully, painfully in love. The things you do ... the way you think ... the way you move ... I get excited every time I'm about to see you. You make me feel like I've never felt before in my life. Like a man. (Pause. He shrugs uneasily) I just thought you might wanna know.


And the scene after Dawn realizes that she's not a Potential in Season 7...

DAWN
What's up?

XANDER
Aw, I'm just thinking about the girls. It's a harsh gig, being a potential. Just being picked out of a crowd, danger, destiny, plus if you act now, death.

DAWN
They can handle it.

XANDER
Yeah. They're special, no doubt. The amazing thing is, not one of them will ever know, not even Buffy.

DAWN
Know what?

XANDER
How much harder it is for the rest of us.

DAWN
No way. They've got—

XANDER
Seven years, Dawn. Working with the slayer. Seeing my friends get more and more powerful. A witch. A demon. Hell, I could fit Oz in my shaving kit, but come a full moon, he had a wolfy mojo not to be messed with. Powerful. All of them. And I'm the guy who fixes the windows.

DAWN
Well, you had that sexy army training for a while, and—and the windows really did need fixing.

XANDER
I saw what you did last night.

DAWN
Yeah, I— I guess I kinda lost my head when I thought I was the slayer.

XANDER
You thought you were all special. Miss Sunnydale 2003. And the minute you found out you weren't, you handed the crown to Amanda without a moment's pause. You gave her your power.

DAWN
The power wasn't mine.

XANDER
They'll never know how tough it is, Dawnie, to be the one who isn't chosen. To live so near to the spotlight and never step in it. But I know. I see more than anybody realizes because nobody's watching me. I saw you last night. I see you working here today. You're not special. You're extraordinary.

At least NU shoveled the snow for us...

It's so nasty here today that weather.com doesn't even have a proper name for it. They're calling it "wintry mix", which sounds less like weather and more like a snack food. Like Chex Mix.

My boots are leaking. I need new boots. I haven't gotten a pair of new boots since I bought those two freshman year at NU. And from the looks of it, I'll need a pretty hefty pair here. Northwestern would shovel the snow for us. They don't do that here, so much of the time you're slushing through half-melted snow which turns into Lake New York at each intersection.

It is beautiful though.

Response to last post

I received a comment from someone named "Tammy" on my last blog, and would like to respond, and appreciate her (I'm assuming Tammy is a her) for righteously kicking my seemingly discompassionate and arrogant arse.

Here's her response:

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I was looking through blogs about street musicians and came upon yours.

After reading it, I developed the same reactions as you claimed to have experienced after hearing the man ply his trade. Yes, ply his trade, because I have run into street musicians like him before, and instead of rushing by I have actually conversed with them. None of them would have been there if they did not have to. The winter wind gives them chronic joint troubles that eventually develop into arthritis, the passersby can spit and curse at them, and yet they keep up. That is not because the petty humiliations inflicted upon them by people like you, who rush by with annoyance and contempt writ clear across your face, are too sophisticated for lowly, untalented beings like them to appreciate. No. It's because they need the money. Between impoverishment and begging, and doing something so that their dignity is a little better off, this is the choice they made.

And for all the time it took you to write an entry that offers up the misery of these people as amusement to your friends and acquaintances, I suggest you give this person $5 and ask him to take a rest indoors. That way, you would get rid of an offense to your ears while unintentionally bestow a token of kindness on a cold night.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I'd have to say first, thank you for writing a very scathing response to my blog, which caused a very humbling emotion within me - I'm not going to defend what I said, because I wrote it at the spur of the moment, and probably should not have been published at all. I guess I just assume no one actually reads anything I post - hence, the illusion of privacy online, which is sorely misplaced. I will, however, try to explain my thoughts on this, and hopefully give whoever actually DOES read my blog faith that I'm not a horrible person at the core.

I admit, I do feel uncomfortable around those who are drastically less fortunate than I, and being in New York City after spending most of my life in nice white picket fence suburbs and college campuses, I probably don't have the street smarts to interact comfortably and easily with them. This does not mean I lack compassion for them, however, nor do I feel contempt for them, as Tammy suggests, though I can see how my blog may have been read in that way.

A little bit in my defense, I think Tammy makes a couple huge unfair and incorrect assumptions about me in her response. I did not, physically or otherwise, inflict any humiliations upon him or anyone else I have encountered - that's just wrong. I simply walked past. I can see, though, that Tammy may see ignoring them, then blogging about it, as inflicting humiliation. I'll expand more on my thoughts on that in my next paragraph. I give money regularly to street musicians in subways and around the city, knowing that even if I can't necessarily afford to do it TOO often, they need it more. I, too, have conversed with many a street musician. There was one that was always at the street corner where I lived, and giving him a couple dollars walking home became routine. My blog post was supposed to be my private inner thoughts I felt I could freely share, just on how I was feeling at that particular moment. I realize, though, that my blog is not a private journal, and I should screen what gets published. I see what Tammy is saying, however, in that even thinking these thoughts, or feeling these feelings of elitism is a social problem - that people like me think this way about those less fortunate than us. I get it.

I think, really, there are two different issues at play here. One is my snobbery for music, which I admit, is elite, and probably drilled into me from a very early age. I can't help what I feel, and my blog was how I felt - merely about the music itself. I suppose I treated the blog the same way I would critique and share my thoughts about a bad play or film I saw, or a bad concert I went to, separate from the socio-economic implications of the situation. The other is questioning my compassion for those less fortunate than I, and the means by which they subsist. I blogged about the first issue. Tammy attacked me for the second. Perhaps my mistake here is not making a clear separation between the two. Perhaps Tammy does not think they are mutually exclusive, and perhaps my mistake was feeling that they could be. For that, I apologize.

I feel my inadequacies to enter into conversation with those who have lives drastically different than mine most acutely at work - I tutor at an inner city high school. I remember the first day I went to class, and left completely disheartened that these kids will ever care about bettering their lives through education. I went home and wrestled with the question of whether I wanted to continue working there. I could find a financial aid job anywhere else, and one that does not put me in positions of potential physical harm or sexual harassment (both have happened), or just plain constant discomfort. I decided to stick with it - on one hand, in an admittingly self-serving way to learn from this experience and develop myself personally; but on the other, to hopefully gain an understanding of those who have lives completely different than mine so I can enter into a dialogue with them. Ultimately, I stay because it would break my heart to walk away.

I don't want these kids to end up like the man in the subway station. Undoubtedly, and very unfortunately, several of them will. What I feel for them is never contempt, but heartbreak. And I'm very sorry that my blog post may have misrepresented that.

Ode to Bananas

Bananas and I have an interesting relationship. I don't really like them. It might be more accurate to say that I really don't like them. But I eat them a LOT. Especially when I worked for COPE. It was so easy to grab a banana, hop in a car, and sit in meetings for hours and hours. That banana packed a lot of punch and gave me enough energy to last almost the entire day. The perfect snack food until you put it in your bag and put a very heavy book on top of it.

The combination of eating bananas in a car led to some very interesting, albeit somewhat disgusting, experiments. For instance, if you take a banana fiber and leave it on your dashboard for, oh, a few weeks, its appearance doesn't change much, but it becomes as crispy as really thin bacon left too long in a skillet.

And, if you leave a banana peel in your car (on the dash - that's where I usually kept my bananas), well, after a day, it turns black. Completely black. And you get a little high off the fumes as you drive back home in the hot hot southern California sun. They weren't kidding about smoking banana peels...

Bananas are great though. They're full of potassium and other wonderful vitamins that're supposed to do a body good. Like milk. My mom likes to make banana milkshakes too. That should be a secret ingredient for strong, healthy bodies. Anyway. I wonder if you can overdose on too much banana goodness. Cris and I were on our way to Idaho a couple years back, and my mom, being the banana enthusiast she is, packed 4 bananas for me. 4 really big bananas. And Dana and Kim were on the plane with us! But alas, no one would take these 4 bananas off my hands, and I certainly wasn't about to let food go to waste! Especially when it represented my mommy's love for me...and my friends (who refused to take them). So I ate all four of them in about an hour. I swore I wouldn't ever eat bananas again.

But I still eat them from time to time. Even though I don't like them.

Don't mean to be mean but...

..there's this Chinese guy who plays er-hu at the 42nd St station who is just AWFUL. And I think in the spirit of the holidays, he plays Jingle Bells. Very badly. And only the chorus. Dude. 5 notes. He swoops on the 4th note of the chorus ("mi"), undoubtedly to make it sound more "ethnic" (vomit - Jingle Bells isn't SUPPOSED to be ethnic), and plays the "fa" an ENTIRE HALF STEP SHARP. Actually, it's worse. It's not QUITE that half step. Dude. And the WORST part about it is how long this horribleness stays in my head. I deliberately try to walk away far enough so I don't hear him anymore.

He's been there every time I've been to that station.

Cringe cringe cringe...

I don't know why this creates such a strong reaction in me...so much so that I feel like mild violence or silent screaming into a pillow whenever I hear it.

Songs from a Window interview/performance

I was fiddling with my old iPod today, and found an hour-long podcast interview/performance I did about a year ago for a radio show called Songs from a Window.

Here's how you can get it:

1. Download iTunes
2. Install iTunes
3. Open iTunes
4. Go to "ADVANCED" on top menu
5. Go to "SUBSRCIBE TO PODCAST"
6. Type in this address: www.songsfromawindow.com/lamecast.xml
7. Click on the "Get" button next to "Cynthia Wang"
8. Enjoy!