amtrak to boston

i write this on my phone because my laptop is once again so broken. i need the robots to come in and repair it. but for now i have an hour left to boston as i sit with my two sleeping best friends. we all woke up too early.

i feel like i need to embrace writing again. i need my life to slow down. i need to be creative. that’s why i brought my travel scrapbook with me to boston so i can stitch together these moments and enjoy them too. i’ve been reading We by Yevgeny Zaymatin and writing more music and watching a lot of movies. albeit bad movies but they just make you appreciate the good ones more. my favorite movie i've seen in the year of our lord 2025 so far is Twelve Angry Men. i am the thirteenth angry man because i was really hoping it was not that good and it’s just pretentious people praising it, but it was really good unfortunately. it makes me want to go to the theatre and watch a play. maybe even write a play one day, but i need to write a movie first.

i am on a break from school, and i intended to start writing my short film but instead i’m going to boston. a lot of great films take place in boston, so maybe inspiration is nigh. i think my film will be about microscopes because i have 5 of them and i think they could be utilized. maybe it’s a drama about a boy who wants to live life at the microscopic level. maybe it’s a psychological thriller about an obsessed lover who must observe every millimeter of their girlfriend. maybe it’s a low budget sci-fi about a rapidly multiplying alien cell, so rapid that 5 microscopes are needed to look at it. i am not sure yet but i have ideas.

i went to the metropolitan museum of art in december and took lots of reference images, but this one sticks with me. i want to replicate this, maybe not in the microscope film, but another. or maybe all of the microscopes assume the positions around jesus and the mad scientist lays in the middle. i am not sure.

i took a lot of pictures in the met anyways, mostly of reflections and windows. there’s too many to dump here so take 3.

maybe the rest will be revealed later.

this post was to express my hope for the future and my creative endeavors. a lot is happening in my life now but also nothing at all? are things closing up or opening i don’t know. i will find out soon enough. maybe the answer is in boston written in the harbor with tea leaves. maybe the answer is from my pair of friends. maybe my answer is asleep at home. 

boston vlog coming soon? 2025 is the year of youtube. only 3 months until the blogaversary

dog eyes

 i am sick with norovirus but i miss my blog badly. happy 2025 my club. the blogaversary is coming up soon!

to keep you fulfilled i am going to post some analysis i did on the phrase "dog eyed" in homeric poetry.

i was reminded of this writing by song lyrics i wrote with my friend:

dog eyed runner where do you run

with chaos walking beside you 

These 3 scenes all use the same word: κῠνώπης, derived from κῠ́ων (dog) and ὤψ (eye/face). Literally, it means “dog-eyed” or “dog-faced.” It is always some sort of insult, usually directed at women. Clytemnestra is shameless in killing her husband. Helen is shameless in starting a ten-year war. So it is especially impactful when Achilles calls Agamemnon κῠνώπης. 

I wanted to observe the significance of κῠνώπης as it relates to dogs and women. This word seems reserved for the most despicable of women, as Agamemmnon describes Clytemnestra in Book 11. He says there is nothing more κύντερον (translated as “shameless”) than a woman who has this much passion in an act like this, murdering her husband. κύντερον also has origins from κῠ́ων and it literally means “dog-like.” Murray’s translation of the word in the Odyssey reminds us of Priam’s speech in Book 22 of the Iliad; dogs feast upon their masters without a shred of shame. Dogs are seen as shameless beings, living with no regrets of their desecration, only looking for gluttonous gratification without considering others. While Clytemnestra obviously did not consider Agamemnon’s feelings in his murder, how does Helen relate to this? 

κῠνώπης is reminiscent of the English phrase “puppy eyes,” used to describe big, soft, vulnerable eyes that could persuade anyone to do anything. I feel like a similar idea is applied to κῠνώπης , but with an emphasis on shameless and selfish seduction, only demonstrated by conniving women. 

Clytemnestra is generally known as Ancient Greece’s worst wife, as shown in Book 11 of the Odyssey. This speech is told by Agamemmnon, husband and victim to Clytemnestra. He describes her with utmost hatred, trying to convince Odysseus of her evilness, with imagery of how once she killed him she turned away (νοσφίσατ᾽, οὐδέ μοι ἔτλη). Clytemnestra even refused to shut his eyes, a custom of respect for the dead (Od 4.426). Agamemnon speaks with a bite in his tone, as seen in the alliteration of ‘τ’ in line 428 (ἥ τις δὴ τοιαῦτα μετὰ φρεσὶν ἔργα βάληται), discussing her premeditated action. He emphasizes Clytemnestra’s agency in her deed, her conscious choice to kill her. There is a repetition of ἔργα... ἔργον (Od 11.428–439), accentuating the gravity and deliberateness of her betrayal. He finishes his speech with a bold and generalizing statement: her actions put shame unto all women, even those of the future (Od 4.434-435). He employs the comparative of θῆλυς (female) in line 435, adding to the generality of the statement. 

The passage from Book 4 is very revealing of Helen’s character. Here, she is portrayed as self-aware, critically thinking, and having emotional depth. She opens with a rhetorical question to Menelaus (Od 4.138-139), highlighting her perceptiveness as an individual, not needing validation or a response. Her speech flows from one line to another with enjambment (Od 4.144-145), showcasing her spontaneous thought but also depth of feeling. She uses epithets for both her husband Menelaus (Μενέλαε διοτρεφές) and Odysseus (Ὀδυσσῆος μεγαλήτορος), portraying them as divine and heroic to Telemachus, while she is κυνώπιδος (line 145). Overall, her speech is riddled with guilt, as she feels to blame for the loss of Odysseus. Still, Helen displays that she is more than a pawn in a war or a wife. 

Finally, Achilles uses κῠνώπης to describe Agamemnon in a heated argument over Briseis, a war bride that Agamemnon took from Achilles. The use of κῠνώπης is most insulting here, as describing a man and his self-gratifying impulses. Achilles’ speech is full of rage and pride. His repetition of negative phrases like οὐ γὰρ πώποτ᾽ (Il 1.154) οὐδὲ μὲν… οὐδέ ποτ᾽ (Il 1.154-55)  οὔ τι μετατρέπῃ οὐδ᾽ (Il 1.160) suggest his absolute refusal and feelings of betrayal. He alludes to his past in Phthia with flourishing language (ἐριβώλακι), evoking pathos for his leaving of home just to be cheated by Agamemnon. Adding to the emotional intensity, Achilles uses direct address to Agamemnon (ὦ μέγ᾽ ἀναιδὲς), calling him shameless, and later κῠνώπης as well. κῠνώπης fits perfectly into Achilles’ upset, the ideal insult in this moment of wrath and Agamemnon’s sexually-charged prideful impulses.

blogalicious recap

 posting this to hold myself accountable

edit: i changed my mind. i got norovirus

fortune cookies and college

today in my packed lunch box my mom put a fortune cookie. 

i have a ritual when it comes to fortune cookies. i crack it in half with the pointy sides facing me. i eat the left half, with the fortune poking out of the other half. it is exciting as i eat the cookie because the fortune is right there, teasing me, and i can only read some of the lucky numbers. i eat the half quickly and then pull out the fortune and read it as i eat the remaining half.

i followed the steps as usual today. sometimes the fortune is phrased more as advice. this fortune read "Write a thank you note to someone today." i showed it to my best friend and wondered who i would write this note to.

about 3 hours later i got accepted into my dream school, vassar college. i was on a tennis court with my best friend, shaking, but i was at the deli when i got the email to check the portal. i waited for my pastrami sandwich and ran back to the court. i left behind my deli companions because they did not understand my state of panic.

after the tennis game and a lot of screaming me and my bestfriend went to the oculus at world trade center. we were meandering in the mall when we ran into 2 girls from our school. they told us that there was an art exhibit in the mall called the stranger project, where you can read and write anonymous letters put on display. i realized this is where my thank you note would be written.

i wrote my letter to my five friends, thanking them for this intersection of our lives. vassar's acceptance was such a surreal experience but mainly because i realized that the next 4 years of my life would be drastically different, and i began to prematurely mourn my current life. so i thanked my five core friends for the time we have had and the fleeting months we have left. i wrote about how sometimes we make each other go through hell but i will miss hell.

later i went out to dinner with my family to celebrate. my mom had me write 3 thank you texts to the people who helped me with my application. i just ended up thanking a lot of people today. and thank you vassar if you're seeing this (and didn't delete the file with this link even though I asked). 

so was the fortune cookie cosmic fate? i think a lot of cosmic things have been happening to me lately. i wrote about intuition last post a bit and the next day i got a fortune that said "Trust in your intuition; it is your compass." i am not sure what to make of this spiritual awakening (although i don't feel awake spiritually, i feel spiritually bombarded). i guess i will update on the behavior of my cosmos.

here's proof of my fortunes:

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i cant believe i had a packed lunch and a college acceptance in the same day.

8 ball

things have been different in my life lately. i don't want to get to mushy gushy on here but i have entered a relationship and so much has changed in my social life. i have gotten something i have always wanted but at what costs. i will not talk about it because this aint a gossip column. but it has kind of been overwhelming and new and my thoughts are discombobulated a lot. so today i will try to combobulate them via a photography dump :)

in the recent weeks i have played a lot of pool. i am so bad at pool but i love to play it because it is a very magical game to me. i feel like the balls call to you, and tell you which one to hit. sometimes the 7 ball just sticks out to you even if it seems impossible to score with. and then you aim for the 7 ball and nothing helpful happens but it still felt like the right thing to do. its a very intuitive game for me. i don't know if this is a shared phenomenon but i appreciate it. even though i never win i still feel in communication with the balls. i feel like we lose together. i know this makes no sense but i've been relying on my intuition a lot lately. and not to brag but i am almost always right. 

maybe i will write a poem or song or something about my new loves and losses. but i gotta lock in a little first. so maybe next week.

P.S. club i have made the executive decision to attach this site to my vassar application. i know this blog is a cool little secret but i want them to see it because i work so hard on it and i love my club

P.P.S. you can not guess who i am dating from these pics loooool