May 13, 2004
Sympathy for the Kwame
I think I am Kwame from The Apprentice.
To be honest, I only watched the last two episodes, but I feel like I got the jist of his personality, at least for this explanation. When it comes to my management of our literary magazine, as editor, I have the same problem that cost him his job with Donald Trump: I do not get passionate enough about problems. Maybe it has something to do with how passionate I was about the last issue that I am just worn out, but when Halley came up to me about worries with the cover, I could hardly breakout any frenzy at all.
As far as Kwame's Harvard Business School degree, obviously I do not have that. And I never will; I am not extremely intelligent but I do have my brainy moments. For this argument, occasional spots of brilliance will suffice.
But what about Amarosa? There probably is not one, but every once in a while it feels that way.
In more exciting news, I am using my shoe expertise (obsession) to help Alison pick out shoes for her dress for her boyfriend's prom-esque event. He goes to a Christian school that does not have dances, so it is actually a banquet, but it is the same kind of intention involved. When Alison told her brother about it, he asked her if her boyfriend was in Footloose.
But the way I see it, no dancing just means taller heels and generally cuter shoes because walking and dancing do not have to be considered. Since I consider shoes to be the best part of any dance ensemble (or most ensembles, unless I have to wander around the ravine as I did today in Biology), I get really pissed off when girls take off their shoes as soon as they get to the dance. If you cannot handle the heels, do not buy them. What a waste, even moreso on the occasion that the shoes are cute.
I have barely started doing my research on the construction of the Berlin Wall for European history and already I could build my own minor fortification against capitalism and western thought. In a New Age moment, I considered that maybe my interest in Berlin after World War II is more than a fascination with more subtle and ideological conflict and moreso something cosmic, since the Berlin Wall's construction occured right around my birthday. I just hope that the fates have not decided that I too will be building walls and lowering barbed wire to keep out ideas foreign to my own.
Today in my Political Radicalism class we started learning about the characteristics of generational poverty. The most interesting factoid to me, since I did not let it occur to me before, is that there is little incentive for poor people to save up. One of the characteristics of generational poverty, according to our speaker, is this idea of communal ownership within the family and valuing relationships over everything else. If money is saved up and a family member needs money, the savings are gone. She also said that the mentality of the generational poor is little more than survival, which affords no time to focusing on the future.
Because it is always there and seemingly everywhere I think too many of us have accepted poverty as something constant and normal. In accepting that, we forget that we can aid the suffering and struggles of people; we also forget that just because there has always been poverty does not mean there always has to be. Or at least I would like to hope not. I want a renewed search for the unknown.
But nonetheless, I am still a lousy manager. Kwame, my man, let's never do lunch.
Love,
Mandy