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So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.


The Profile


Zanzibar
Age. 39
Gender. Female
Ethnicity. that of my father and his father before him
Location Altadena, CA
School. Other
» More info.
The World









The Link To Zanzibar's Past
This is my page in the beloved art community that my sister got me into:

Samarinda

Extra points for people who know what Samarinda is.
The Phases of the Moon Module
CURRENT MOON
Croc Hunter/Combat Wombat
My hero(s)
Only My Favorite Baseball Player EVER


Aw, Larry Walker, how I loved thee.
The Schedule
M: Science and Exploration
T: Cook a nice dinner
W: PARKOUR!
Th: Parties, movies, dinners
F: Picnics, the Louvre
S: Read books, go for walks, PARKOUR
Su: Philosophy, Religion
The Reading List
This list starts Summer 2006
A Crocodile on the Sandbank
Looking Backwards
Wild Swans
Exodus
1984
Tales of the Alhambra (in progress)
Dark Lord of Derkholm
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
The Lost Years of Merlin
Harry Potter a l'ecole des sorciers (in progress)
Atlas Shrugged (in progress)
Uglies
Pretties
Specials
A Long Way Gone (story of a boy soldier in Sierra Leone- met the author! w00t!)
The Eye of the World: Book One of the Wheel of Time
From Magma to Tephra (in progress)
Lady Chatterley's Lover
Harry Potter 7
The No. 1 Lady's Detective Agency
Introduction to Planetary Volcanism
A Child Called "It"
Pompeii
Is Multi-Culturalism Bad for Women?
Americans in Southeast Asia: Roots of Commitment (in progress)
What's So Great About Christianity?
Aeolian Geomorphology
Aeolian Dust and Dust Deposits
The City of Ember
The People of Sparks
Cube Route
When I was in Cuba, I was a German Shepard
Bound
The Golden Compass
Clan of the Cave Bear
The 9/11 Commission Report (2nd time through, graphic novel format this time, ip)
The Incredible Shrinking Man
Twilight
Eclipse
New Moon
Breaking Dawn
Armageddon's Children
The Elves of Cintra
The Gypsy Morph
Animorphs #23: The Pretender
Animorphs #25: The Extreme
Animorphs #26: The Attack
Crucial Conversations
A Journey to the Center of the Earth
A Great and Terrible Beauty
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Dandelion Wine
To Sir, With Love
London Calling
Watership Down
The Invisible
Alice in Wonderland
Through the Looking Glass
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
The Host
The Hunger Games
Catching Fire
Shadows and Strongholds
The Jungle Book
Beatrice and Virgil
Infidel
Neuromancer
The Help
Flip
Zion Andrews
The Unit
Princess
Quantum Brain
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
No One Ever Told Us We Were Defeated
Delirium
Memento Nora
Robopocalypse
The Name of the Wind
The Terror
Sister
Tao Te Ching
What Paul Meant
Lao Tzu and Taoism
Libyan Sands
Sand and Sandstones
Lost Christianites: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew
The Science of God
Calculating God
Great Contemporaries, by Winston Churchill
City of Bones
Around the World in 80 Days, by Jules Verne
Divergent
Stranger in a Strange Land
The Old Man and the Sea
Flowers for Algernon
Au Bonheur des Ogres
The Martian
The Road to Serfdom
De La Terre � la Lune (ip)
In the Light of What We Know
Devil in the White City
2312
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August
Red Mars
How to Be a Good Wife
A Mote in God's Eye
A Gentleman in Russia
The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism
Seneca: Letters from a Stoic
The Juanes Module


Juanes just needed his own mod. Who can disagree.
Immigration
Friday. 5.18.12 7:19 pm
I stand in a line with all of humanity. Not just the kind of humanity that you see at the DMV, no, a whole new definition of humanity including Africans, Asians, Europeans and Americans in all state of dress and all stations of life. A large African guard lets us in one by one after peering into our personal effects. We file upstairs, where a hard-faced woman sorts us to the right and to the left. She is yelling at a middle-aged Korean. A gauche! A gauche! she shouts (to the left, to the left). The woman is trying to explain something in English but the french woman keeps shouting over her. A gauche, a gauche, no no no, we are busy here, busy busy busy, in English. The Korean woman persists. Finally her words penetrate the frenchwoman's shouting. "Ah," says the french woman, her face changing completely, "In that case, to the right. I see what you mean now."

I go to the right. There is a long line. There are large African women wearing turbans and sitting in chairs, fanning themselves. Old people, fat people, everyone who can't stay standing long enough to wait out the line. A frenchwoman yells at them: "If you never get in the line, you will never be seen!"

This new frenchwoman is at once brash and affable, brash when speaking to us, affable when speaking to her many co-workers who drift in at five-to-ten minute intervals despite the fact that it is past 1:30 in the afternoon. Our names are called. A waiting room. I'm in some kind of special group but I don't know why. One by one our names are called again, each one butchered so much that its owner can hardly recognize it as his. Each person disappears behind the same blue door that slams with a crash. Friendly cartoon posters warn us about Hepatitis and female genital mutilation in a variety of languages. Don't go to work if you are sick. Wash your hands. Every so often our old friend from the desk comes in with new clueless Japanese people to deposit in the waiting room.

My name is called. I disappear behind the blue door. The man pushes me against a wall. My height is measured. A piece of paper appears before my eyes with tiny writing on it. I read the sentence in french. Do you have insurance? he says. Yes, I say. God, I love it when they say yes, he says. I stand on a scale, still holding all of my paperwork. My weight is taken. Stand in these footprints. Read these tiny letters from afar. Read them again. Go through this door and take off your shirt.

Do what?

Take off your shirt. And your bra.

The door closes. I am alone in a small room with doors on either side. I hesitate, and then I take off my shirt and my bra. The sign on the wall says to lock the door behind me. I lock it a moment before someone tries to open it. I hear him laughing about how none of the ladies ever wants to take off her shirt. I sit alone, my shirt draped over me. For the first time in years, I am actually frightened. I try to focus on the absurdity of the situation before I hyperventilate.

The other door opens. Several squat nurses are there with an X-ray machine. I am instructed to face a low wall panel. She pushes me into it, first guiding and then smashing. I am instructed to stay still. "Waiting room!" she yells, and I stumble back into my two-doored room, confused. I put my clothes back on. Is this the waiting room? Or does she mean the larger waiting room? I venture back out the original door. There is a young Japanese man there. "Do I go in here?" he asks in body language.

"I have no idea," I say in French and English.

We exchange a look that needs no translation.

My name is called again shortly and I go into a doctor's office. She tells me that my lungs look fine and asks to see my vaccination record. I give it to her and she wonders what in God's name I did in 2005. Semester at Sea, I explain. I try to explain the program. She is intelligent and kind. She asks me how I like living in France. I shrug, not expecting the question. It's great, I manage to say, and then I am dismissed. I flicker a smile at an Iranian man as we watch a confused Korean girl. Are you allowed to smile at Iranian men? My name is called again and a lady in a dirty white lab coat gives me a piece of paper. I go into an adjoining room and a woman pulls out some paperwork that I did six months ago. "Stamps." This is her greeting. I pull out 369 euros worth of official stamps. She puts x's through all of them and sticks them to my paperwork. She hands me the Holy Grail... my residency card, for which I have been waiting for more than 8 months. "What stamps?" asks my Iranian friend. I explain to him in French. He looks confused. The woman calls his name. Good luck, I say. He smiles.

I walk out of the building into the sunshine. I present my card to the office secretary, victorious.

My goodness, she says, we had better get started on the renewal process for next year.
5 Comments.


AND YOUR BRA
» middaymoon on 2012-05-19 12:41:57

I thought you got back from France already....?
» Nuttz on 2012-05-19 01:33:38

^
Yeah, residency??
» Unicornasaurus on 2012-05-20 08:47:28

Yeah, I saw Melancholia on the big screen... the camerawork made me nauseous though, so I couldn't really devote all my attention to it. X| I remember disliking how the movie portrayed everybody as an awful person...
» randomjunk on 2012-06-03 09:14:45

burn your bra. grow you armpit hair.
» dont-see on 2012-06-04 04:19:47

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