Sunday, January 31, 2010

yesterday...

So here I am, at 2:22 a.m.
I didn’t go to the Black Cat’s dance party, but I had a hell of a lot of fun tonight. The universe conspires in one favor, and I like that it does so...and good experiences are the result of one’s own output of good and positive energies that one radiates to everyone else.

I met someone cool today, and on the way back we rode in the back of a pickup truck; cold and in the snow, but pretty awesome!

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Giù

Estoy sintiendo los "blues" de la temporada... Sin falla siempre me llega en esta época, y si no es porque el dani me recordó que le había dicho que en esta época siempre me pasaba esto, no me acordaba...

Will get help, but all I can think about is the song from Magnolia...'Save Me'. Nothing out of the ordinary, and it's not like I'm inb depressionb or anything, just that maybe a helping hand will be appreciated.

Wedding

I dreamed that I was getting married to one of my cousins; but what really surprised me about the whole thing is that I was happy in the dream. The idea of marriage has never been one to stimulate any such meanings/feelings for me. {Which doesn't apply to others as I did get incredibly happy when a close friends made that decision}.

Anyway, the dream was very vivid. It was very much like in the movies: unexpected and with a great photography director. I am not someone who gives light thought to things like these...which drives me crazy.

Suffice to say, that the way things are going right now, marriage is not something that I'm even thinking about. I got compromise-phobia again...

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Colonial Bullshit...never ends

Actual letter that I sent today to the registra's office at my university:


To whom it may concern in the Registrar Office:

The purpose of this letter is to ask the proper officials to give attention to a matter that is present on the Testudo webpage (One of the Student Services Webpages of the University), in the registrar section, where I am asked to apply for graduation. The form asks me to put my name as I would like it to appear on the diploma. I found myself with a chance to finally put my whole name and surnames without any hyphen and with the proper punctuation. But when I tried that, the system would not let me insert the proper acute accent on the second o, of one of my surnames. Although this might be dismissed as a simple matter, I find it troubling that my graduation diploma cannot reflect my proper name; a matter that certainly affects my self-esteem and makes me think of the position of minorities in this university. Many times, I have chosen to not put the accent as to avoid confusion as I have received messages where my last name is written in different iterations of the following example: David Col=%7n Cabrera. Furthermore, I find this whole matter incongruent with the more 'diverse' environment the university is trying to promote nowadays.

My request is simple, in that I wish that my diploma displays my full name as it was given to me in Spanish: David Colón Cabrera (where Colón Cabrera are my two surnames). While Americans in the US only have one last name, this is not the case in other parts of the world. As a Puerto Rican, born in a territory of the United States, and a full American citizen by birth, I wish nothing more than that my diploma reflects the birth registration laws of the territory of Puerto Rico, as with any other state. In Puerto Rico both the last names of the father and the mother are reflected in the offspring without any hyphen. In addition, I ask that the second O in Colón, has the proper acute accent. As some might know, without the accent the word has a different connotation in English than what it has in Spanish, which is why I think it important for it to reflect my birth given name. I do not wish to cause any inconvenience, as I know that many do not know or are not trained in putting diacritical marks. Here is a link from Lafayette College that provides the proper computer shortcuts for diacritical marks: http://ww2.lafayette.edu/~langlab/accents.htm.

Thank you very much for your time,

David Colón-Cabrera