You are viewing [info]draion's journal

Dorian
11 August 2020 @ 08:36 am
All recent entries are posted below this one.

Image and video hosting by TinyPic
Friends-only Banner: courtesy of the very talented [info]goldfish_memory / [info]raven_ink
Journal Layout: courtesy of the HTML-savvy [info]ravenclawbest
Profile Layout: courtesy of the creative designer [info]madapostle, with art by [info]speakcryptic, and textures by [info]dearest

My LiveJournal will [mostly] be friends-only. Most of the harmless entries, such as Writer's Blocks, memes, and the like that I don't mind people seeing, will be displayed publicly. This is being done mostly on a whim, but also because I realized that so many of my personal matters don't need to be told to the world if they're not asking for it. If you do request me, though, here are some facts about myself:

My name is Dorian.
Image and video hosting by TinyPic
Born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic and currently living in Unheardoftown, Pennsylvania.
20 years old and still feeling 16-18.
I have an INTJ personality, apparently.
I love books to death, and need to find time to read my ever-expanding to-read list.
I'm gay.
I tend to leave comments as big as entries, and leave substantial ones on others' journals when I find time.
I'm constantly busy, with two jobs and school, and am never blank-minded. I have too many things going on in life, and I think that's why I'm addicted to this site. It's my outlet.

To put it simply, I just write about my life here. It's up to you whether or not you'd like to get to know me better. I encourage it, because I'm great with new people.

Please don't hesitate to add me as a friend! I always check journals out and comment. My comments tend to be very long, since I'm very attentive with what people have to say, and their lives' happenings.</stalker> Perhaps you could add to the collection interesting people I've gotten to know fairly well here.
 
 
Dorian
12 February 2012 @ 10:59 am

What song is stuck in your head?

View 740 Answers





<3
 
 
Dorian
14 November 2011 @ 06:32 pm
My brother totaled my car this morning. It was 5:55 A.M. and I woke up to my mom freaking out over the phone, I heard "arbol" and "acidente," and thought my dad was in an accident... then saw that my dad was inside the house, getting ready. I rushed out with him.

Thankfully it was in my neighborhood, a minute-or-so drive from my house. He hit a tree; he was apparently accelerating (for whatever reason), and the steering wheel... locked? That's what he says. I don't know how the hell that happened, but yeah... my car is no more. It was FUCKED. UP. The front tire was shot (there goes the $300 I spent on the tires), so we had to physically push the car off the road and put it to the side. It's back on the driveway now, since my dad changed the tire and was able to drive it back.

My brother's thankfully fine. He went to the hospital with my mom, and I broke down after I called them to check up on how they were. Family and hospital... don't mix them, or I will lose the control I try my hardest to uphold. But before that, I talked to Jacob and talked about it, how this weekend was more than likely not gonna happen, started crying over the phone (which I NEVER do, much less cry to anyone who's not family).

Everything's fine now. My brother's more than okay, and my grandfather is going to let me borrow his car, so I'm going to see Jacob after all. Oh, and I drove the highway twice this week: it's been so easy so far. My parents are apparently going to buy me a new car; my mom will put it on her credit card, and I'll just have to pay her, I'm sure. I'm more than okay with it. It sucks how much I invested in that car, though, and how I became broke because of it... then this happens. But that's not important at the moment.

My parents weren't mad at all, naturally, since their son could have been gone. I felt nothing for hours because everything was coming at once. I could have lost my brother and my best friend. That's the thought that ran through my mind when I started asking how he was over the phone, thus losing it. He was pretty shook up when I ran to him this morning, and when I hugged him, he started crying a little bit. I've always been extremely close with all my siblings... I would sacrifice myself for them without question, and I'm admittedly not a completely selfless person. I love them so much. Same with my parents, no matter how we get along.

I always use this icon for negative entries.
 
 
Dorian
13 November 2011 @ 09:08 am

Do you prefer fiction or non-fiction? Explain why.

View 629 Answers



Overall, non-fiction. I love memoirs, sociological books (mainly those that look into advertising, branding, marketing, consumer culture), and any book that informs and opens up a new perspective after reading it. It's actually kind of a seasonal thing, I've realized... in the summer, I enjoy non-fiction more. I like to learn on my own time, and with topics that interest me and are related to what I'd like to do in the future. When school goes on, however, I read a lot more fiction. Perhaps it's a form of escapism, discovering and focusing on some fictional character's life and point of view instead of having to worry about how busy I am. It's why reading Harry Potter in the summer just isn't the same for me as reading it in the winter.
 
 
Current Music: Shakira - Ojos Así | Powered by Last.fm
 
 
Dorian
23 October 2011 @ 10:28 pm
I don't hide myself for a single person, no matter who you are.

Let that shit be known.
 
 
Dorian
22 October 2011 @ 10:25 pm

What was/is your favorite class?

View 681 Answers



This is a difficult question. It's a multi-tie (that sounds funny) between a few classes: French II in 10th grade, 20th Century American History in 10th grade, Modern World History in 11th, Speech Communication in my first semester of college, or World Geography in my fall 2010 semester.

French II had my favorite teacher, Mrs. Verwey. I actually just saw her today at Target, and I remember sitting with her for an hour outside of school, just talking. And several other occasions. I wrote her a card filled on BOTH sides on the last day of my senior year, explaining how much I appreciated her, loved her, etc. She was probably my first female teacher crush, lmao.

20th Century American History was perfect. Mr. Frounfelker makes me smile so much, he was the most adorable thing. And his laugh, I'm laughing just thinking about it. He was extremely down-to-earth and so fun to talk to. I bit him in the shoulder one morning, for whatever reason possesed the hell out of me at that time, and he kind of laughed about it. I mean, I actually BIT HIM IN THE SHOULDER. I THINK IT WAS A DARE OR SOMETHING, IDEFK OR REMEMBER.

Modern World History was one of my favorites too. Mrs. Hubler was so pretty, but got pregnant... all of the teachers who've gotten pregnant are the ones that everyone hates but I love/get along with best, I've just realized. But yeah, learning about medieval history, going on a field trip to a medieval times center (where we got really good free food, were able to hang out with friends, saw real swords and medieval antiques, and saw a bunch of hot guys fighting, YES), the Enlightenment, the Renaissance, etc... it was all so nice. I enjoyed it a lot. Then we started to talk about Europeans coming in and taking everyone's land, as usual. Boring and annoying.

Speech Communication! John Tindell is one of the best professors in the world, hands-down. Extremely friendly guy, wonderful Film Society advisor, and makes the class the most enjoyable and enlightening thing you'll have in your semester, period. Not to mention that my class was legitimately perfect, from being with [info]frostbittenx and [info]chibi_cheetah to slaying the hell out of the presentations and being an attention-gathering student in the class, I loved it. Oh, and my first HUGE college crush was there. Sigh, that went down flat... but J.P. is so charming. *reminisces dreamily*

World Geography, a night class (which I love). Professor Wendt is the most male-model-looking professor I've ever had, and one of the most intelligent too. He's the leanest, skinniest man I've seen with these nice blue eyes, high cheekbones, and scholarly look which counteracted his dark humor (which I also loved). He was born in California, lived in India for four years (I always enjoyed the hell out of his stories), The Netherlands for two, and moved to hinky-dink Stroudsburg to be with his wife. His entire life is just as intriguing as his class. I was the most participative and the most awake in that class, and he and I really connected very well in a student-teacher way. Of course, I was fixated with him, LOL, but it was controlled. I see him at Target every once in a while, and we're good acquaintances. I remember how I saw him before I left on my last day of the Spring 2010 semester (which I thought would be my last at NCC), and he stopped me and talked to me about how much he enjoyed my input, how it was a real pleasure knowing me, etc. Basically, I melted and smiled the entire car ride home. EEK. Oh, I've been talking about him and how we got along this entire paragraph... the class was engaging and I LOVE learning about the world. And you know once we got to the Latin American section (which he was actually was the least familiar with), me and the other few Hispanics in that room SLAYED.

I'm at work, I've been working all weekend and am a day ahead in my mental schedule. I thought yesterday was Saturday, and I'm in my Sunday chill mood... yet I've to work 9:30 to 3 at Target tomorrow (they've been cutting my hours like it's no one's business since September) and 3:30 - 9 here at Hampton. The past two days, it's been 11:30 - 4 and 4:15 - 11. I JUST WANNA RELAX A LITTLE BIT.

Ramble, ramble, ramble.
 
 
Dorian
14 October 2011 @ 07:44 am
I'll be independent one day.
 
 
Dorian
31 July 2011 @ 08:26 pm
*curses Russians that aren't [info]soldier_of_zaft*  
I just want to make a little entry saying that I'll get to all your wonderful comments from my previous entry when I have more time. I'm actually at work right now (lololololol what ethic, I know), but with LiveJournal being down like crazy lately and my very busy work schedule, I'll try to find the time to give back the elaborate comments that you guys left. You guys are the reason I'm addicted to this site, really.

A little preview of how busy I've been these past two days:

Target yesterday = 11 A.M. - 5 P.M.
Hampton yesterday = 5:30 P.M. - 10 P.M.

Then I woke up at 3 A.M. today (been up since) and went to Target at 8 A.M. - 4:30 P.M., and Hampton 5 P.M. until 10 P.M. tonight (where I obviously am now). I put my body through too much, especially with how much I've been working out again, but I secretly love it because it means I'm working hard.

Tomorrow, I should be seeing Jacob, though. Uber excited about that. <3

I will reply to you amazing people soon.
 
 
Dorian
Another update that isn't necessarily about my life! And a public one too. It's one of those pensive entries where your thoughts on the subject would be even more valued than usual (which is already a lot on its own).

I was "zoning through" toys at Target ("zoning" meaning that all the products needed to be aligned, and the aisles had to be made presentable), and I just stopped and rambled to some co-workers about how gender stratification starts without us even realizing it.

I was going through the girls' toys, and of course I saw the baby dolls. The girls are made to be maternal, that's how society trains them to be: as domesticated as possible. But I saw three toys that almost... for lack of a better word, appalled me. A toy broom, a toy grocery cart, and a toy laundry basket. It's ridiculous how girls are made to be subservient from the very beginning, while boys have their testosterone levels amped up before they even realize that they have it via destructive toys like guns, G.I. Joes, and the like.

Even when I was a child, I was never super huge on toys. My toy rewards were the latest versions of the Power Rangers Megazords, but the ABSOLUTE MOST IMPORTANT TOY TO ME... is my Woody doll. In fact, let me get a picture.

Image and video hosting by TinyPic

I used to carry him around, bathe him, "feed" him, and call myself his father. I had a paternal instinct, which was kind of against the attitude that boys' toys were meant to induce into me. I guess I was always a "softie," as they say. But what would entail me being necessarily "soft?" Clearly, the social construct of gender gives us expectations of how boys and girls should be before we even get to know them, which acts as the catalyst for sexism and misogyny.

What were you guys like? Well, most of you are girls. Were you like society wanted you to be? Were you a tomboy, or the boy who liked to play with dolls and didn't care for what the other boys played with?

Oh, and one thing that's come about these gender-allocated days in my mind has been my frustration with Hollywood superheroes. I've pretty much realized that Wonder Woman is the best superhero of them all, and you will deal. Even if you don't think so, she's very respected, revered, notable, etc. SO WHY THE FUCK DOESN'T SHE HAVE A MOVIE!? I heard that one was in the works, but this is terribly overdue. We've had a million Batmans, Supermans, we're getting a SECOND Spider-Man (barf @ Andrew Garfield), an Iron Man (don't care for it), a Green Lantern (I know that the black one is the third one in the lineage, but ugh, please...), fucking Thor (do not want), etc. I heard that Ant-Man was getting a movie. WHO THE FUCK IS THAT!?

...YET WONDER WOMAN HASN'T GOTTEN A MOVIE YET!? Okay.

Also, on the topic of gender, I'm completely entranced by this guy, who underwent a female-to-male transition:







If he walked into a room and I didn't have Jacob... wow. I'd seriously melt.

I have no more to say. This entry had more structure in my head, but since I don't really write these out before I type them, it totally left me.
Tags:
 
 
Dorian
26 May 2011 @ 10:50 am
 To counter the constant negativity about my personal life in my journal, I figured it's time to post about something that's been on my mind for some time now.  This may turn into a really long post, a moderate one, or one where I've left out many things that were on my mind (as is the case with most of my entries), but I feel the need to document it somewhere.  I don't have statistics, and I don't have textbooks to have legitimate support for what I want to discuss, but I do have observation, intuition, and I'm surrounded by it.  I want to talk about the condition of over-industrialization.  

I haven't lived in Dominican Republic for as long as I would have liked to (if it were up to me, I'd have moved here in my teen years), but living in America and having a separate culture to compare it to has shown me one very evident notion: money comes first here.  It is all about money.  It's about bureaucracy.  It's about socioeconomic class.  It's about what you want and disregarding what you have, and also disregarding what you're capable of having.  It's about being able to do anything you want with the thought in mind that there is nothing that can stop you from getting there, and in that mindset you ignore the harsh realities of taxes, of credit, of interest, of loans, and all those financial burdens that each one of us are basically forced to have.  Perhaps in a place like Iceland, Sweden, Denmark, or those really happy countries, all your finances really do function idealistically, but while I live here in America, money is the burden and the weakness.  I fucking HATE money, in case you guys didn't know.  I think anyone who gloats about the amount of money they have is really not going about living a personally fulfilled life, covering the complex depths of this world like they should.  They just think that money will take them everywhere that any human being needs to be, and some people can make that a reality.  If they worked very hard for it, then by all means, they should reap the benefits they've made for themselves.  But when money becomes the object and not the tool, I think something's very wrong.
 
There are three words that I have a lot of resentment toward, and they're very common.  You hear them all the time, so you have to get used to them.  They are "price," "pay," and "discount."  Each one of them carries such a weight of self-interest and I really can't fucking stand it.  I will sound like the most rampant hippie and typical college-age know-it-all archetype saying this, but money is the root of all evil.  Almost everything terrible has to do with money.  I rarely hear of a man-brought tragedy that entails the death of innocent people that didn't have some sort of monetary aspect to it.  Slavery, war (although there are many reasons related to them, needless to say), drug cartels, political corruption, and I'm sure there's a much longer list.  I'm just tired of seeing socioeconomic conflict everywhere and people not giving a shit about each other.  
 
Maybe this is just the ranting of a boy who's had it with retail and with the topic of money really ruining his home life, but at this point, I need some sort of release.  I feel good writing this.  I'm sure I'm ignorant in some points and probably don't even know what I'm talking about in others, but I can't be the only person who feels this way.  Customers will fight through their teeth to get a lowered price on anything, no matter how much inconvenience it causes any party involved (say, a cashier, a retailer, etc.).  And producers are certainly no less self-involved.  Way back when it was the age of cavemen and cavewomen, I don't exactly think that getting a $12.49 battery pack for $3.59 because it was misplaced where the $3.59 batteries belonged was such an issue for them.  You'd think that past the point of survival, an intelligent species would finally learn how to use its resources and really create an almost ideal society (which is NOT a hard concept to come up with, but instead impossible because of humanity's innate corruption and greed due to this rapid increase of industrialization), but look at the world now.  There are still genocides, there is still hunger even with the abundant resources on this planet (which go to waste more times per day than I'd even like to measure), still racism, still prejudice, still bullying, still utter and complete misunderstanding for those that we share the planet with (like species or otherwise), and it's beyond me how people as a whole are so incredibly... STUPID.  
 
The industrialized society benefits those that are hard-working and intelligent, or just plain lucky.  If you know how to function around it and work through the system, then you should be fine so long as all works well (with your level of optimal economic choices and the government in which you live, as well as other factors considered).  But even in the system itself, people are just too entranced by their fantasies and disregard what they can and cannot have.  Why am I getting a million people calling me about the new iPad when I'm sure that a good amount of those people are probably struggling or behind on their mortgages, or bitching about how they have to take care of the kids that they've chosen to create?  I once, against my own control, gave a very disdainful look to a woman who told me she was buying an iTouch for her 8-year-old's birthday.  I immediately felt sorry for the girl, being given something so advanced so early, which will probably cause her to join the group of ignorant people who haven't spent enough time reading and examining the world before going off and taking the modern manifestations of its progress.  They become entrenched with the latest bullshit, and don't really question anything.  
 
I am not a member of the Peace Corps.  I am not helping with Sudan.  I am not heavy into recycling.  I do not pray.  I rarely donate.  I am not a saint or a monk.  I know this.  I know that I am an ant to this society just as anyone else may be, but even with that in mind, I try to be as considerate as possible to the people I encounter.  Whether I see you every single day or will only see you once in my life, I will respect you and be nice to you.  It's unfortunate to say I'd be naive and frankly, stupid, to expect 100% reciprocation.  There are some people I really aspire to be like in this world, and I consider myself really lucky because the people I've met offline and on have really made me feel like there are others who want a progressive turnover in their lifetime.  There are a lot of parts of this world that I really love, and make me really value the earth I live in.  The global public's attitude, though, really has me with some very mixed feelings.
 
Of course, this entry is oozing with hypocrisy too.  I'm typing this from a Dell Inspiron 1545, I have a Droid 1 (at which people scoff at, because I didn't get the latest phone at the time of my upgrade... see what I mean?), I'm in the comfort of my own room on a nice day before heading off to work at Target in a few hours, and I'm looking for a couple of thousand dollars to borrow for school.  If I were really 100% true to what I'm saying here, I'd sit out on the streets and avoid money completely.  I'd be homeless.  I'd beg for nothing and be incredibly nice to everyone I'd encounter, even if they'd be creeped by that random boy who appears homeless.  I'd walk everywhere and stopped driving.  But who would listen to me?  Certainly less than those of you who have read this far.  Industrialization really forces new essentials on you.  I am careful not to call them "necessities," because even the most basic business class will show you the clear distinction between "needs" and "wants."  We need food, shelter, and clothing.  There are other needs too, such as love, affection, and sex.  Business classes leave those out because they're relative, but health classes don't.  I digress, though.  
 
I'm not going to disregard many human accomplishments by saying that I'm completely disappointed in the world and that I don't want to be human.  There's been a lot of progress made as a society, but it seems like modern-day people just don't acknowledge everything that they really should to make this world a better place to live in for themselves and for everyone else involved.  It's all about getting there first, about getting the most and being in control.  In the end, we're all going to end up six feet under and it'd be best to live a life of harmony, especially with the unpredictability of death.  It obviously wouldn't matter how I'd feel if I were to die today, because I'd be dead, but if I were to hover over myself, I'd probably be pretty satisfied.  I know that I'm not malicious and genuinely care to even the slightest degree about most of the people I come across.  There's still so much I want to do in life and I'd really love to look at what I've done and feel completely fulfilled (and that would not be measured with money... EVER).  I'll just keep striving, though, to keep being a good person and actually have an impact in some life or lives.
 
I think I'm finishing here.  My train of thought was interrupted by some phone calls and favors asked of me, but I guess this is all pretty clear.  I may be incredibly naive when it comes to the complexities of this world, especially when I hope that people could all just get along and stop thinking about themselves, but it doesn't bother me to be ignorant in that sense.  If realism is coming to terms with the evils of this world, then I'll be willfully ignorant.  
 
This is just an elaborate layout of what I think every single day.
Tags:
 
 
Current Music: Duffy - Endlessly | Powered by Last.fm