shout outs

Jun. 12th, 2003 06:36 pm
phamos: (Default)
ok, i just wanted to give big ups to my listening audience, at least those who wrote in and called:

MTB, abby, alissa, dale (who was listening in hayley and devon's office, i believe), christy, kormes, alex, mimi, michelle and my parents. that's actually a really big audience.

thanks also to kareem and andrea, who sent lovely notes wishing me good luck even though they couldn't listen.
phamos: (Default)
that's it, folks! i'm done with the radio for this week. given it was my first time, it went as well as could be expected. the onslaught of instant messages was a bit much, but really meant a lot to me. i also would like to thank kormes and mimi for calling. that was fun.

next week's playlist is SET dudes. no requests next week. i need a break.
phamos: (Default)
yaaaay! yashar is back!

yashar, some of you faithful readers may remember, is one of segev's fellow students at columbia. he's been stuck at home in iran (with some interludes stuck at the american embassy in istanbul) since july, because he couldn't get a new student visa. because, you know, he's a 22-year-old male from iran. but he has now been screened very, very carefully (or else simply put on hold by beurocracy and then glanced at) and is free to resume his studies. woot!

so laaaaaadies, there's a new fella in town! he's ridiculously smart, ludicrously handsome, reasonably adept with the english language, and comes with a genuine state department seal of approval! send all inquiries to "who wants to date a certified-non-terrorist," p.o. box 77, arlington, VA 20450.

*sigh* i understand why they needed to screen him. he superficially fits the profile to a tee. (well, except he's not a practicing muslim, and he's actually turkish, not arab.) but andy had to wait for 2 weeks to get his visa to leave england. and yashar had to wait 3 months to leave iran. and it just seems a little rough. but i understand. i just -- knowing yashar makes it ludicrous to think of him being a terrorist, so the whole thing is just...gnahhhh. actually, i think andy's a more likely terrorist. he's a labor activist, for god's sake! :) we need a new red scare to even everything out!
phamos: (Default)
last year at this time, segev had run home from classes to find me comforting my mother over the phone. she was crying, i was totally in shock. i was worrying about the people i work with, especially devon, who used to take a path train in from jersey that went directly under the trade center. MY train went directly under the trade center. those are the streets i walk on every day, covered in the dust of...people. i couldn't process it. what if christy had been at TKTS, what if jenn had stopped at barnes and noble -- there was no way of knowing where anyone was, what was happening. it all seemed so remote, yet so much closer than anything ever had before.

segev and i sat, staring at the television for what seemed like forever but was probably only 10 minutes. segev, at one point, got up and threw something and kicked the couch. i understood. i asked him if he wanted to walk down to the hospital and try to give blood. he nodded sort of dumbly. we got ourselves together to walk outside.

the streets...there was absolutely no traffic headed down amsterdam, but the uptown lanes were packed as far as the eye could see. people were wandering, confused, trying to clarify what was really happening, what could happen next. periodically a police car, fire engine, ambulance, would rance in the downtown direction, and everyone's eyes sort of fluttered downwards. we knew where they were going.

hundreds of people crowded the steps of st. john the divine, waiting to be told when they could give blood. we were almost all turned away. there were too many of us. they told us to come back at 2 and try again, but i knew they weren't going to need us. everyone wanted to give blood, to do the only thing they could think of to help. but there weren't going to be any more people coming out of there. there wasn't anyone left for us all to give life to, even if we wanted to, so, so badly.

segev went to the physics building and found his friend yashar, the only person left in there. the three of us went to eat lunch at the west end. i was so paralyzed. i ate like two bites of my burger. i felt nauseous. i couldn't talk. i couldn't think of anything to say. and i remembered specifically thinking, "i hope yashar doesn't think i'm not talking to him because he's a swarthy middle eastern male." i had never met yashar before, but i could tell he was just as confuused, scared, lost as the rest of us. looking back, i love the fact that in the aftermath of the attacks, in upper manhattan, an iranian muslim and an israeli jew (albeit both pretty non-observant) had lunch together, and leaned on each other, in the way that men do (not showing that they're leaning, but still getting support just from the fact of sharing the experience).

the reason i was thinking about this, besides the obvious, is that yashar went to iran for the last half of the summer to visit his family and isn't back yet, even though it's the second week of classes. i know it's probably nothing. yashar is, by all accounts, totally brilliant and a total slacker, so missing classes probably isn't really a huge deal to him. but i'm so worried. i'm worried because i KNOW, we have the evidence at my place of business, we know how they treat men from the middle east trying to get into the country on a student visa these days. yashar doesn't deserve the hassle. yashar is honestly one of the sweetest people i've ever met in my life. and if he's stuck in some sort of bureaucratic limbo because of the color of his skin, the shape of his nose, the coarseness of his hair, it will break my heart.

come back soon, yashar. on this day, in this year, i miss having you around.

essay no. 2

Sep. 9th, 2002 10:33 pm
phamos: (me)
my second essay for columbia's liberal arts masters degree/human rights program is supposed to be 1000 words on a recent event, article, or book that relates to the subject i plan to study (women's/international human rights). if you would like, please read and make comments here )

old

Aug. 26th, 2002 10:19 am
phamos: (Default)
today is move-in day at columbia and barnard. i saw as my bus went past barnard this morning. there were a million families milling arouns, and a giant yellow banner on the building that said "welcome barnard class of 2006!"

and i nearly swallowed my gum.

class of 2006? that means...that means everyone i was ever in high school with is WELL into their college careers, if not out of them entirely. these are the kids who were in MIDDLE school when i was in high school. i feel so very old.

Profile

phamos: (Default)
phamos

March 2009

S M T W T F S
1234567
891011121314
151617181920 21
22232425262728
293031    

Syndicate

RSS Atom

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jul. 11th, 2025 03:11 pm
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios