May 2013
4 posts
Amma.
I’m 26 years old and I still need my mom.
A few weeks ago, my mom came with me to my grad school open house. Most of the things they were talking about was foreign to me, but Amma navigated the waters with ease. When I first got insurance through work, Amma helped me find the right plan for me. Anytime I need to buy something BIG or small for my tiny studio, Amma knows where the best deals are....
Team Jennie: Accepting Applications
This week I am beginning a transition period at work. All the people that taught me from day one of this year of learning have moved on to bigger and better things. The original members of Team Jennie News Division have resigned all on-site responsibilities. Team Jennie, currently, is made up of me- just little old me.
I took my concerns and frustrations to self-elected President Soledad...
"It's your time to fly."
It’s official. My high school is closing its doors in June.
High school was not my high point. I was awkward, finding a happy medium between my immigrant roots and American lifestyle. I was fighting acne and just beginning to discover mousse and flatirons. But, it is where I came together.
I graduated on May 29, 2004, almost nine years ago. In those nine years so much has changed but, much has...
April 2013
3 posts
Suspicious?
My father has a beard.
My best friend wears a turban.
My brother-in-law was born in India, raised in the Middle East.
My sister is a few shades darker than me and we don’t look like we’re related, and we’re treated differently because of it.
This past week has made it clear that almost anyone close to me falls under “person of interest” in tragedies like the...
3 tags
Chaos, tragedy, and another piece to my puzzle.
“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’ To this day, especially in times of ‘disaster’ I remember my mother’s words and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers- so many caring people in this world.” Mr. Rogers
...
Hard times reveal true friends.
My freshman year of high school, I created a little group of girlfriends. One of my partners in crime is too close a carbon copy…except she’s white.
She was loud, obnoxious, witty; she always said all the things that everyone else was thinking but too afraid to say aloud. She was smart, quick, and focused. I still don’t remember how we became friends, but for the next four years something...
March 2013
4 posts
5 tags
Family.
Mariathasan Clan “Top 8” Christmas 1991
My sister and I are almost polar opposites. We love hard, fight harder. The only thing we definitely agree on is how extraordinary our extended family was during our childhood. In our most recent spat, she and I disagreed on how to deal with all the changes our BIG, fat Sri Lankan family has seen throughout the years. Her solution was Google...
3 tags
The Unpredictable Pope.
I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not the holiest of Catholics. Life and experience has given me enough common sense to see holes in the ages old foundation. This morning I worked extra hard and super fast to bring you the Pope’s Inaugural Mass at 3:30am. This time…something’s different.
The new Pope Francis is a simpleton. He gave up his limo to ride the bus with...
4 tags
Mentor me...please.
I come off as a headstrong person. I’ve been told that the first impression I make is of a girl that is focused and has it figured out. Those that know me well know how far from the truth that is.
I am focused and I am determined, but I have very little figured out. I surround myself with the best people- people that have accomplished what I hope to and those that keep me positive and pick...
February 2013
16 posts
3 tags
Comfort through tears.
I’m not a crier. I don’t cry often, I cry when sad things happen. I cry out of frustration. I cry when I can’t handle all the things that pile up and weigh you down.
Last week, I cried.
I felt like many components of my life were falling out of my control and there was nothing I could do about it. My trip to Orlando could not come at a better time. My best friend moved down there about a...
4 tags
Honestly...
Since I was a child, I was comfortable saying how I felt. Adults criticized how my mother allowed me to express myself. In truth, my mother had nothing to do with this flood of verbal propensity. To be honest, I don’t know where it came from…
I am filled with a plethora of insecurities, but giving my opinion has never been one of them. I have bumped into many people that don’t...
4 tags
What changed? Other than me...
Recently I attended a family party. Two of my former MIA cousins decided to attend as well. One I hadn’t spoken to in six years by her own admission and the other a few years on mine. We spent most of the day in a room together attending to one of our younger cousins on her day. We chatted and laughed and reminisced as if no break in time had passed.
After the party, us...
“When I was twenty, my mother told me she had been raped. Five years passed...”
– Inga Muscio, Cunt: A Declaration of Independence, pages 142-146. (via eibmorb)
3 tags
Africa's Mercy
There are so many events in the course of your life that alter who you are. Something happens or you meet someone or go somewhere that reaches down into the depths of your being and shifts everything around. And you are never the same. Going to Africa was it for me.
Since Oprah introduced me to Australian doctors, the Hamlins, who worked in Addis Ababa curing obstetric fistula patients, I begged...
“Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to...”
– Charles Dickens, Great Expectations (via larmoyante)
“I hope you get where you’re going, and be happy when you do it.”
– Jack Kerouac, On the Road (via larmoyante)
Unnecessary Toxicity
I let go of a friend recently.
We met early last year and hit it off fairly quickly. We were tight. Chats, texts, little meetings filled with laughter. I opened up to her because she got it; she got me. I hadn’t felt that comfortable with someone ruffling through my pages in a LONG time.
A short while after that, she fell off the face of the earth. I continued with the messages and often...
Winning.
I am writing this with less than four hours of sleep since waking up at 11pm on Wednesday night.
This week, I found out about massive shakeups at the job I love. Most of it was rumors of course. But the ball of nerves I got from first hearing the news has been permanently lodged in my stomach. Running each day and pounding the treadmill has done nothing to shake it off.
Instead of capitalizing...
January 2013
4 posts
“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung...”
– C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves (via larmoyante)
“The trick to this solution is that you’d have to be 100% honest. Meaning not...”
– Brief Interviews with Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace (via lostinthesounds)
Sexy lips.
Why is it that the things you are most insecure and uncomfortable with is what people find most attractive about you?
I was always a chubby kid. Big cheeks, big nose, big lips, big smile, big teeth. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always been told I was “cute”- the cheeks I bet. Suffering from insane acne, I never wanted to draw more attention to my face. Makeup was not my...
December 2012
4 posts
A success story.
My brother is one of the smartest people I know. The kid has this incredible ability to absorb information without much effort. Deciding what he wanted to do in life…that took a bit more effort than expected.
On the first day of the semester, he became a staff writer for the university newspaper. Hitting the front page almost every paper since, he was just announced as the news desk...
26.
I love birthdays…especially my own. Someone once told me that birthdays should be treated like New Years, where you evaluate yourself and set some goals for the next year. So, here goes…
This year I learned not to take myself to seriously. I was one of those kids that did not want to be a kid. I wanted to be a “grown up” so BADLY. Now, that I am, I realize it’s not...
My heart hurts.
Mondays always suck. But yesterday happened to be the worst day ever for me at a job I have loved for more than a year now.
It all started on Friday. I was officially finished with work at 9am on Friday, forty minutes before Sandy Hook elementary school became a household name. Tired from the week of overnights, I ignored the big yellow BREAKING NEWS updates on my phone and focused on getting...
November 2012
14 posts
If you can't handle it...
Don’t ask me to tell you the truth. Because I will and it may not be what you want to hear.
I have learned that people don’t like the truth, and they sure as hell don’t want to hear it from you. But, in knowing that, when someone does ask me for my honest opinion, I take a step back. I try to listen intently and allow you to vent everything out. I try my best to keep my opinions to myself....
Rare.
I had coffee with a professor recently.
He was an investigative producer who had switched hats to teach recently. He always came in with neatly pressed pants with creases in all the right places and collared button downs under a sweater or sweater vest. His salt and pepper hair was now more salty with little specks of pepper peeking through. His every sentence ended with a lingering Belgian...
Thankful.
I had the WHOLE week off. AND the internet was not working at my parents’ home. So, I had time to think…
Lately, I’ve been working really hard and very often to achieve the goals I have set for myself. Even though I am consciously aware of how blessed I am, there is something about Thanksgiving that brings those feelings to a whole new level. My family just started...
Life...with benefits.
Four years ago I changed my mind about what I wanted to do with my life.
My original plan was chiseled, calculated and perfect. The plan had all the right steps at all the right times. The only thing that was required of me was to work hard and I would achieve what most people thought was ideal. I would have a job that was secured anywhere I went, it was guaranteed to keep me financially...
Valuing Veterans
I spent the weekend with a veteran. I walked through the Veterans Day Parade. I had a drink with some vets. This marks the first year I value Veterans Day.
My parents come from a country where the military does not defend or protect. I grew up respecting people that ran towards the danger that I am too afraid to protect myself from. But, I admit that I never had the type of appreciation I have...
Done. And done.
I barely slept. I had to be back at work around the time I am usually sleeping. And the constant “ding!” of my texts asking for updates never let me reach delta sleep.
Throughout the day, I had several conversations with people about voting. Why do you vote? Who are you voting for? What’s the biggest issue? Who pisses you off the most?
Only one person asked me the same question...
Disgraced.
I saw the Broadway play “Disgraced” at Lincoln Center this weekend. I was so moved by it, I needed a day to mull it over.
The play revolves around a Muslim lawyer, who changes his name and hides his true identity to make it at a prominent law firm, while he denounces his Islamic roots and defends his views to his white, artist wife. He even went as far to change his social security...
All by myself.
I spent the weekend alone.
I dragged my tired body the ten blocks it takes to walk home from work, launched myself into bed and did not wake up until the next morning. This is the first weekend in about eight weeks where I do not have plans. There is no baby shower, bachelorette party, wedding, bridal shower, friends from out of town, work to catch up on, dinner party, charity event, potluck...
Perspective.
I’m sitting at home after a harrowing week. I am exhausted- body, mind, in every way possible. This week taught me a few things; some about who I am, more about where I’m from.
I was born in Jackson Heights Queens. I was raised in Buffalo, New York. By fact, I am a New Yorker; in all honesty, I’m a city girl. This city epitomizes SO MUCH about the depth of who I am in all the...
October 2012
5 posts
Getting there.
Anderson Cooper and Rob Marciano
Many times, when you’re the lowest on the totem pole and seeking advice, it gets turned around on you. What do YOU want to do? My logic is, how am I supposed to know what I want to do when I don’t know exactly what it is that you do?
My time spent here at CNN is filled with conversations like that. The truth is I don’t know what I want to do....
