It's December! This very important and hectic month means a lot of things, to me and to the rest of the world (but in different ways). Here are some of them:
*A busy calender. This isn't so much my physical calendar as my mental calender. I have so many dates for things stuck in my head; rehearsals, gig type things, due dates, breaks, dance recital things, babysitting jobs...it's ridiculous. This is the month where I live in constant fear that I'm going to wake up one morning and realize that I forgot to do something incredibly important, or that I have something to do that I haven't studied or practiced for. Usually that's when I wake up. But not in December.
*When I find out my PSAT scores. I'll admit that I didn't really take the PSAT that seriously leading up to it, but I did do the practice booklet, and I think that I gave it a pretty good shot. I'm taking it next year anyway, and even that is just a practice for the SAT, but I'm still kind of terrified about what I'll hear. When I left that room after those three grueling hours in October, December seemed a long way away. Not it's staring me in the face. I'll get that call to the IB room any day now. Any day...
*When the heat comes on. I hate it when cars get too hot, because I hate stuffy places and not being able to breathe. I also hate it when our house's heater is on too much, or when the fire in the wood stove make the house so warm that we have to open the windows. Last weekend I spent the night at my friend's house after going to see The Day of the Doctor and we slept next to the fire in her living room. It was incredibly hot all night long. It's not that I don't like heat, though; I just don't like excessive heat.
*The play comes together, and there is much rejoicing (yaaayyy). That means that I get to spend not only every Saturday, but eventually every day at the performing arts center, rehearsing, doing what I love. You may think that being in a pit, just as the background music for the main attraction, night after night, isn't very exciting, but it really is.
*Band concerts. Actually, just concerts of any kind. Time to straighten your bow tie, put on your pointe shoes, and tighten your bow, because everything having to do with the performing arts explodes into action in December. Parents want to see their kids in their activities during the holidays, as a sort of halfway checking point to find out how they're doing; you know, like fine arts conferences. It's all very festive, though, and very fun. There's also usually a lot of food involved, which is why people suddenly get the stomach flu before the holidays, or complain that they gained ten pounds.
*Frost. It doesn't snow on the Oregon coast, it frosts. And hails. I don't even think that "frosts" is a verb, but it might as well be. I can't tell you how many times in the past eight years that I've woken up and thought that it had snowed, only to find out that it was really just a stupid thin layer of ice crystals, or, even worse, millions of little ice balls pelting to the ground. The church on the street over, which I can see from my bedroom window, has a whitish roof, and it's tricked me so many times. It's not fair.
*"Decem" means "ten" in Latin, which means that December used to be the Roman's tenth month. It also means that the Tenth Doctor is returning (as in Vale Decem). I for one was very impressed with the Doctor Who 50th anniversary, but now I'm sad again because there's no Ten in the future to look forward to.
*The days are also slowly creeping towards saying goodbye to Eleven. SADNESS.
I am intentionally NOT mentioning Christmas in this post (except for this part), because even though it's awesome, that's an awful lot of hype for a holiday 24 days away. Nobody starts celebrating Thanksgiving on the first of November, so why should they celebrate Christmas a month early? Part of the beauty of that holiday is the fact that it's only twenty-four short hours long, and you have to make the most of it. Having a month to "prepare" (actually subtly celebrate) is like cheating.
Have a good December. I'll be back.
Sunday, December 1, 2013
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Voices and Expressing Pain
In English class we're getting ready to read The Color Purple, which apparently has quite a bit of pain and suffering in it, so, to get us ready, our teacher had us write about painful experiences we had had and read them aloud to the class. When we finished with that, she gave us two prompts to write about in our journals: why is the voice in writing so important, and, if we finished with that, why do we write about pain? This is what I wrote:
A song cannot be sung without a voice, and words cannot be spoken. A world without voices would be silent and dismal, but the same power spreads to the second dimension, where words on paper are nothing without life in them.
With an obvious voice in a piece, the words can speak to the reader just as clearly as if the author was standing right there. The characters and events become alive, and one can lose him or herself inside of the story. An eighty-year-old can spell out the lines of a four-year-old girl, and a teenager can describe the thoughts of a middle aged parent. The sentences turn familiar and understandable, and everything becomes so incredibly real. An author can spell words in a way that invokes accent, and can distinguish between character styles just with a few mere changes in the way letters are formed and arranged. He or she who has the power to play so many different parts just with a pen is the real magician of this world.
For pain (which I honestly don't write/think about a lot):
If thoughts and feelings about pain weren't shared, every single human would be ready to burst, burning with the endless and torturous memories of their experiences. But we write and talk, and we realize that we are not alone in anguish.
I like to write.
A song cannot be sung without a voice, and words cannot be spoken. A world without voices would be silent and dismal, but the same power spreads to the second dimension, where words on paper are nothing without life in them.
With an obvious voice in a piece, the words can speak to the reader just as clearly as if the author was standing right there. The characters and events become alive, and one can lose him or herself inside of the story. An eighty-year-old can spell out the lines of a four-year-old girl, and a teenager can describe the thoughts of a middle aged parent. The sentences turn familiar and understandable, and everything becomes so incredibly real. An author can spell words in a way that invokes accent, and can distinguish between character styles just with a few mere changes in the way letters are formed and arranged. He or she who has the power to play so many different parts just with a pen is the real magician of this world.
For pain (which I honestly don't write/think about a lot):
If thoughts and feelings about pain weren't shared, every single human would be ready to burst, burning with the endless and torturous memories of their experiences. But we write and talk, and we realize that we are not alone in anguish.
I like to write.
Friday, October 11, 2013
Procrastination
Hmmm, let's see if she can go an entire month without posting anything! She used to post every day, didn't she?!
Monday, September 16, 2013
The Ballerina
In my dance studio, we have a girl who is the ballerina.
She waltzed in last year in the early spring, fresh from southern California. I was in pit orchestra at the time, and was missing a few classes because of shows, and I heard from my other dancer friends that we had acquired an amazing new dancer over the weekend. Nobody knew how old she was. Nobody even knew her last name. But she said that she had been dancing for thirteen years, and, based on her perfect turns and natural grace, it looked like she had been doing it for twenty.
In my several years of dancing, there have been some wonderful dancers who kind of led the way, trailing scores of hopeful ballerinas behind them. When I was seven and just starting, it felt like there were so many older girls, with their prim buns and tight leotards and shiny pointe shoes that just dazzled on the rosin-smeared marley. It's true that there are a lot less now than there used to be, but it just seemed so amazing when I was younger. It's not like we're hardcore Russian ballerinas or anything. I live an extremely artsy community, actually, and the standard uniform of a dancer was commonly replaced by ripped tights and loose shirts (as much as they could get away with without my teacher getting annoyed), and dreadlocks and messy braids instead of buns.
Dancers are some of the most interesting people in the world, next to orch dorks, in my opinion. There are so many different kinds, each with a different story to tell, but we all have one thing in common, and we can all tell those stories through dancing (or music). There are people who immerse themselves in song and just move along with a flow of energy, and there are those who carefully count beats and focus on technicalities, making every turn and fouetté perfect. (Actually, perfect is a funny word. They don't achieve it, necessarily, but to someone else it might appear perfect, while to the dancer him or herself it's far from it. Either way, they're mostly always striving towards that intangible concept of perfection). And then there are those of us who dance just for enjoyment, just to have fun while leaping through the air, to have that feeling of being in control (or out of control), and to be able to sweat buckets and still feel happy about it.
I used to love watching ballerinas. Whether it was onstage or in books, they always seemed so beautiful to me, and so amazingly ethereal. When I was finally going to get my first pair of pointe shoes at age eleven, I couldn't stop talking to my cousin about it. It was something I had literally dreamed about for years, and it was unthinkable that it was actually going to happen. Finally my cousin, who is six months younger than me, said, "Why do you even care so much? They're just shoes". With her being a competitive swimmer, I racked my brains for something to compare it to in her sport, but I couldn't think of anything. What a non-dance doesn't really grasp, I guess, is that these shoes are a rite of passage. Not every girl has a a ballerina dream, but a lot of young dancers do, and pointe shoes, being on TOE, are like a gateway to becoming one for real. Your work becomes a lot more demanding, and you're serious about what you do. And it's a wonderful feeling to actually be on your toes, spinning around the stage, the lights streaking and blurring in front of your eyes, hearing that beautiful clunking sound beneath you. I took a year of beginning pointe in fifth grade, a year before I actually got the shoes, and I couldn't wait every week to get to that class, just so I could stare at the shoes and the perfectly angled feet inside of them, wishing that they were mine. It really was a dream that came true, only a dream with blisters and tendonitis threats.
I wrote this last Thursday, after living through a torturous P.E. class with idiots who think that football makes them the strongest and coolest people in the world.
I laugh at those people who say that dance isn't hard at all, because in truth, we work almost harder than them at times. I'm sure that the snobby volleyball girls would stop laughing as soon as they started trying the stretches and bar work, their smirks replaced by grimaces. I'm sure that the supposedly strong football boys would think twice about snickering after an intense hour, sweat pouring and showing through their clothes. I'm positive that my mom couldn't get through an entire class of even the easiest work, and would stop telling me that dance isn't considered an aerobic activity that requires lots of work. It's not looking pretty that makes my muscles ache for days, or gets me blisters on my feet. I didn't suddenly become flexible just by putting my hair up and wearing satin shoes. I spend several hours almost every day at the studio, and I'm proud of what I do. So be quiet, hypocrites.
I know it's kind of narcissistic to agree with myself like this, but hear, hear! We work hard at what we do, and there's so much work behind the prettiness. Yes, it was my dream when I was small, and it still is my dream, but now I know the truth of it, and, if anything, that makes me enjoy it and appreciate it even more so.
Last year, before my pointe dance, I was standing backstage with a two other dancers my age. Wearing our tutus-the only tutu I've worn in dance in the past five years-and covered in sparkles and silver glitter (we were supposed to be stars), we watched as this ballerina girl, who is so good that she's now an assistant teacher, chassé and leap and piqué around the stage, looking just amazing with all those years of serious ballet training. She was like an alien dancer to us, who had always worked with contemporary styles rather than Russian form, and we were just enthralled. She made me realize that no matter how many other dreams I have or have had, dance has and will always be one of them.
She waltzed in last year in the early spring, fresh from southern California. I was in pit orchestra at the time, and was missing a few classes because of shows, and I heard from my other dancer friends that we had acquired an amazing new dancer over the weekend. Nobody knew how old she was. Nobody even knew her last name. But she said that she had been dancing for thirteen years, and, based on her perfect turns and natural grace, it looked like she had been doing it for twenty.
In my several years of dancing, there have been some wonderful dancers who kind of led the way, trailing scores of hopeful ballerinas behind them. When I was seven and just starting, it felt like there were so many older girls, with their prim buns and tight leotards and shiny pointe shoes that just dazzled on the rosin-smeared marley. It's true that there are a lot less now than there used to be, but it just seemed so amazing when I was younger. It's not like we're hardcore Russian ballerinas or anything. I live an extremely artsy community, actually, and the standard uniform of a dancer was commonly replaced by ripped tights and loose shirts (as much as they could get away with without my teacher getting annoyed), and dreadlocks and messy braids instead of buns.
Dancers are some of the most interesting people in the world, next to orch dorks, in my opinion. There are so many different kinds, each with a different story to tell, but we all have one thing in common, and we can all tell those stories through dancing (or music). There are people who immerse themselves in song and just move along with a flow of energy, and there are those who carefully count beats and focus on technicalities, making every turn and fouetté perfect. (Actually, perfect is a funny word. They don't achieve it, necessarily, but to someone else it might appear perfect, while to the dancer him or herself it's far from it. Either way, they're mostly always striving towards that intangible concept of perfection). And then there are those of us who dance just for enjoyment, just to have fun while leaping through the air, to have that feeling of being in control (or out of control), and to be able to sweat buckets and still feel happy about it.
I used to love watching ballerinas. Whether it was onstage or in books, they always seemed so beautiful to me, and so amazingly ethereal. When I was finally going to get my first pair of pointe shoes at age eleven, I couldn't stop talking to my cousin about it. It was something I had literally dreamed about for years, and it was unthinkable that it was actually going to happen. Finally my cousin, who is six months younger than me, said, "Why do you even care so much? They're just shoes". With her being a competitive swimmer, I racked my brains for something to compare it to in her sport, but I couldn't think of anything. What a non-dance doesn't really grasp, I guess, is that these shoes are a rite of passage. Not every girl has a a ballerina dream, but a lot of young dancers do, and pointe shoes, being on TOE, are like a gateway to becoming one for real. Your work becomes a lot more demanding, and you're serious about what you do. And it's a wonderful feeling to actually be on your toes, spinning around the stage, the lights streaking and blurring in front of your eyes, hearing that beautiful clunking sound beneath you. I took a year of beginning pointe in fifth grade, a year before I actually got the shoes, and I couldn't wait every week to get to that class, just so I could stare at the shoes and the perfectly angled feet inside of them, wishing that they were mine. It really was a dream that came true, only a dream with blisters and tendonitis threats.
I wrote this last Thursday, after living through a torturous P.E. class with idiots who think that football makes them the strongest and coolest people in the world.
I laugh at those people who say that dance isn't hard at all, because in truth, we work almost harder than them at times. I'm sure that the snobby volleyball girls would stop laughing as soon as they started trying the stretches and bar work, their smirks replaced by grimaces. I'm sure that the supposedly strong football boys would think twice about snickering after an intense hour, sweat pouring and showing through their clothes. I'm positive that my mom couldn't get through an entire class of even the easiest work, and would stop telling me that dance isn't considered an aerobic activity that requires lots of work. It's not looking pretty that makes my muscles ache for days, or gets me blisters on my feet. I didn't suddenly become flexible just by putting my hair up and wearing satin shoes. I spend several hours almost every day at the studio, and I'm proud of what I do. So be quiet, hypocrites.
I know it's kind of narcissistic to agree with myself like this, but hear, hear! We work hard at what we do, and there's so much work behind the prettiness. Yes, it was my dream when I was small, and it still is my dream, but now I know the truth of it, and, if anything, that makes me enjoy it and appreciate it even more so.
Last year, before my pointe dance, I was standing backstage with a two other dancers my age. Wearing our tutus-the only tutu I've worn in dance in the past five years-and covered in sparkles and silver glitter (we were supposed to be stars), we watched as this ballerina girl, who is so good that she's now an assistant teacher, chassé and leap and piqué around the stage, looking just amazing with all those years of serious ballet training. She was like an alien dancer to us, who had always worked with contemporary styles rather than Russian form, and we were just enthralled. She made me realize that no matter how many other dreams I have or have had, dance has and will always be one of them.
Sunday, September 8, 2013
Alice McKinley
I'm fourteen and a half years old, and I've been reading the Alice books, by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, since I was about ten. The first time I ever laid eyes on one was when I was backstage during a dance performance, back when I was young enough to hang around in the studio theater with the other younger levels, instead of being in the dressing rooms. My friend, who was in fifth grade at the time, had one of the prequels in her bag of blankets and snacks, and I picked it up to look at it. Since then, I've been nearly inseparable with them.
Alice McKinley is a young and honest girl who was first brought to life in 1985, and has only just had her famed series completed. The first book, The Agony of Alice, starts when Alice is in sixth grade in a new town, but Naylor soon began to write prequels for her younger readers, which span from her third to fifth grade years. Alice lives in Maryland with her father and brother, with her mother having died years ago from cancer, and in the first few books all she can think about is completing her family and finding a new wife for her father. In her own life, she has friends, enemies, and teachers, all who have their own stories throughout the series that matter almost as much as her own.
I'll admit that I did read the books of Alice's high school years when I was twelve or so, without waiting and growing up with her, but having that knowledge of her life helped me all through middle school, and now I can refer back to them when things in my freshman year sound familiar. Alice's life isn't perfect-far from it, really- but she has a keen sense of humor and goes through horrifying, embarrassing moments, just like everyone else, and still lives to tell the tale. As the books go on, you can hear her voice start to mature, and her likes and dislikes become more clear, while at the same time she's still trying to figure herself out, trying keeping her peers in line as much as possible. Twenty-eight books span for ten years, and finally the series is drawing to a close.
'Now I'll Tell You Everything" takes Alice and her readers to college, through marriage and troubles, and all the way to age sixty, in only about five hundred pages. I can't say that I'm a lifelong Alice reader, because really it hasn't even been five years, but if feels like I've lived a second life through her. The last book comes out in October, and I just can't wait to read it and find out what happens to her. As a fair warning, Alice does cover some mature topics, but not as much when she's younger and in middle school.
Are there any other Alice readers out there? If so, I'd love to hear from you and discuss the books. From reviews that I've read about the last book, it's mostly designed for those who just want to know what happens next rather than a curious reader, but I strongly encourage you to read the books anyway. My mom reads them as well, and has described them to be as "Judy Blume for this generation". They're perfect for growing up, or just for reading for entertainment, to live along with Alice as she deals with her life.
Alice McKinley is a young and honest girl who was first brought to life in 1985, and has only just had her famed series completed. The first book, The Agony of Alice, starts when Alice is in sixth grade in a new town, but Naylor soon began to write prequels for her younger readers, which span from her third to fifth grade years. Alice lives in Maryland with her father and brother, with her mother having died years ago from cancer, and in the first few books all she can think about is completing her family and finding a new wife for her father. In her own life, she has friends, enemies, and teachers, all who have their own stories throughout the series that matter almost as much as her own.
I'll admit that I did read the books of Alice's high school years when I was twelve or so, without waiting and growing up with her, but having that knowledge of her life helped me all through middle school, and now I can refer back to them when things in my freshman year sound familiar. Alice's life isn't perfect-far from it, really- but she has a keen sense of humor and goes through horrifying, embarrassing moments, just like everyone else, and still lives to tell the tale. As the books go on, you can hear her voice start to mature, and her likes and dislikes become more clear, while at the same time she's still trying to figure herself out, trying keeping her peers in line as much as possible. Twenty-eight books span for ten years, and finally the series is drawing to a close.
'Now I'll Tell You Everything" takes Alice and her readers to college, through marriage and troubles, and all the way to age sixty, in only about five hundred pages. I can't say that I'm a lifelong Alice reader, because really it hasn't even been five years, but if feels like I've lived a second life through her. The last book comes out in October, and I just can't wait to read it and find out what happens to her. As a fair warning, Alice does cover some mature topics, but not as much when she's younger and in middle school.
Are there any other Alice readers out there? If so, I'd love to hear from you and discuss the books. From reviews that I've read about the last book, it's mostly designed for those who just want to know what happens next rather than a curious reader, but I strongly encourage you to read the books anyway. My mom reads them as well, and has described them to be as "Judy Blume for this generation". They're perfect for growing up, or just for reading for entertainment, to live along with Alice as she deals with her life.
Wednesday, September 4, 2013
High School
It's so weird. It's like I'm walking through a dream, a dream that I've been writing for myself for the past few years, except everything is so much different than I thought it would be. I can't really be here, can I? To be so far away from elementary school, to be able to walk through the halls without feeling like the lowly middle schooler in the lowly band. I can eat lunch wherever I want, sit in the back of the bus, and take classes with teachers I didn't know before yesterday. After three years of almost the same thing, how can that be possible?
But it's still true. You can bring your backpack to your classes, I actually have to go to P.E. and wear gym clothes for the first time ever, and I sit in front of juniors in Spanish class. I can actually belong in concert band now, and in journalism, my first class of the day, we sit on beanbag chairs and couches instead of at normal desks. And speaking of desks, I've never even had the desk where the chair is attached to the side. We just sat at tables in middle school.
In a way, high school is kind of like a big event going on, every day. I'm used to being in a school where you can always see people you know just by coming out of a classroom, and the lockers are just feet away from the classes and the bathrooms. Here, it's normal to go a day without seeing a certain person. There are two buildings (one across the street), and you have to really plan everything out perfectly to get to class on time. It's all calm for about an hour, and then there's this mad rush where everyone spills out into the hallway and crosses the road or whatever for about five minutes, and then it's quiet again. I don't even have to carry around a normal binder anymore, and my back doesn't break from the weight of the books I'm stashing in my backpack. Kids I knew as eighth graders back when I was in sixth grade are once again in classes with me, and even some kids who were in the old building, the tall upperclassmen, when I was in fifth grade are there, too, reappearing this time as seniors. I'm once again with the friends who left at the end of seventh grade, and finally get to talk to them again.
It's just so crazy.
But it's still true. You can bring your backpack to your classes, I actually have to go to P.E. and wear gym clothes for the first time ever, and I sit in front of juniors in Spanish class. I can actually belong in concert band now, and in journalism, my first class of the day, we sit on beanbag chairs and couches instead of at normal desks. And speaking of desks, I've never even had the desk where the chair is attached to the side. We just sat at tables in middle school.
In a way, high school is kind of like a big event going on, every day. I'm used to being in a school where you can always see people you know just by coming out of a classroom, and the lockers are just feet away from the classes and the bathrooms. Here, it's normal to go a day without seeing a certain person. There are two buildings (one across the street), and you have to really plan everything out perfectly to get to class on time. It's all calm for about an hour, and then there's this mad rush where everyone spills out into the hallway and crosses the road or whatever for about five minutes, and then it's quiet again. I don't even have to carry around a normal binder anymore, and my back doesn't break from the weight of the books I'm stashing in my backpack. Kids I knew as eighth graders back when I was in sixth grade are once again in classes with me, and even some kids who were in the old building, the tall upperclassmen, when I was in fifth grade are there, too, reappearing this time as seniors. I'm once again with the friends who left at the end of seventh grade, and finally get to talk to them again.
It's just so crazy.
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Home
"You know, I remember moving, but I don't exactly remember feeling sad about it or anything," I said, staring out the car window. I was with my friend, who was like my sister when we were little, and her mom, driving to dance after school. Seven years had passed since I had first met her, only it felt like so much longer. "I wasn't really that emotional as a little kid."
My friend's mom laughed. "Are you kidding? You used to cry all the time. It was a good thing, but you always made sure to wash your hands because you were afraid of germs."
"That's not what I meant," I told her. "I wasn't even upset about leaving my home. I don't even think I cried then."
She shrugged and kept on driving. I pretty much forgot about the conversation after that.
in 2005, when I was six years old, my family moved from Massachusetts to Oregon. I must have been to Oregon before that, because the pictures proved it, and I remembered my aunt and uncle's house in Portland. To be honest, though, I don't really remember that much about life before Oregon. We go back every year to see family, and I definitely recognize things, and I have specific memories, but it wasn't enough to feel bad about leaving. It had just always been my home, and I was okay with that. I took it for granted, and never knew any abrupt change. For some reason, when a change did come, I just went along with it. My mom might know a different story, but to me, it was just a road trip, only with a big truck and a really tightly packed car.
My dad came upstairs to say goodnight to me one night when I was probably about six, and I asked him, "are we going to move?" It was too dark to see his face, but he replied, "yes, we probably will." And then he went back downstairs and I fell asleep like any normal night. I told this really obnoxious boy from my "walking school bus" that I was moving, and he didn't believe me at first. It's weird that I don't remember telling my closest friends that I was moving, but I can remember exactly where I was standing when I told that kid, whose name I don't even know anymore.
There were goodbye parties, of course. I remember that because there are pictures in our moving scrapbook, and I remember people saying goodbye to me and getting a book about Oregon. My kindergarten teacher (I was in first grade by then) gave me a teddy bear that I named Patches and carried with me for the entire move. We went to a restaurant called Bertucci's with my relatives to say goodbye, and I remember stopping near that restaurant again as we were leaving to use the bathroom. We sold our grill to these really nice people who asked me about moving. My mom's friend came over and gave my brother and me each small flat "desks" and some other things for the car. We stayed with my cousins in New York state, the last time I went to their house, and played with their basketballs in the basement. I slept in my older cousin's room with her, and she had these nature noises on a CD to help her sleep. I can remember all of those random details, apparently, but I can't remember for the life of me feeling bad about leaving during this.
It's not like I don't have a good memory, because it's actually pretty good. However, I don't organize my memories chronologically, it's more like eras. I don't know what my earliest memory is, but if you ask me about an event, I might recall it quite clearly. There are a lot of things that have stuck in my mind over time, but it's kind of like my life on the east coast was one happy blur. Nothing traumatic happened, and that included moving. Days just happened, one after another, and it went on for almost six years. When I was eight or so, I would tell my friends here that Massachusetts was really still my home, and that I missed it some times. It's true that I feel like I'm going to cry when the plane circles over Boston every year, but I also ache for the sight of the Portland skyscrapers. It was only a few years ago that I realized that I love Oregon. It's my home now, and I feel comfortable here. When I think about college, all I consider is the west coast, and I don't want to think about moving away.
My grandparents' house is my home away from home. For fourteen years, everything has been the same to me there, even the dolls in the toy chest and the random knicknacks in one of the guest room's dresser. I have real memories there, and some of them are only a few weeks old. But when I think of where I used to live, my old neighborhood, all I see is a street view from the height of a toddler, a coffee shop, a church, and the houses of our closest neighbors. It's not really a home to me anymore. And while that's sad, it's also comforting that I've found another place that really is home, that I don't want to leave yet.
My friend's mom laughed. "Are you kidding? You used to cry all the time. It was a good thing, but you always made sure to wash your hands because you were afraid of germs."
"That's not what I meant," I told her. "I wasn't even upset about leaving my home. I don't even think I cried then."
She shrugged and kept on driving. I pretty much forgot about the conversation after that.
in 2005, when I was six years old, my family moved from Massachusetts to Oregon. I must have been to Oregon before that, because the pictures proved it, and I remembered my aunt and uncle's house in Portland. To be honest, though, I don't really remember that much about life before Oregon. We go back every year to see family, and I definitely recognize things, and I have specific memories, but it wasn't enough to feel bad about leaving. It had just always been my home, and I was okay with that. I took it for granted, and never knew any abrupt change. For some reason, when a change did come, I just went along with it. My mom might know a different story, but to me, it was just a road trip, only with a big truck and a really tightly packed car.
My dad came upstairs to say goodnight to me one night when I was probably about six, and I asked him, "are we going to move?" It was too dark to see his face, but he replied, "yes, we probably will." And then he went back downstairs and I fell asleep like any normal night. I told this really obnoxious boy from my "walking school bus" that I was moving, and he didn't believe me at first. It's weird that I don't remember telling my closest friends that I was moving, but I can remember exactly where I was standing when I told that kid, whose name I don't even know anymore.
There were goodbye parties, of course. I remember that because there are pictures in our moving scrapbook, and I remember people saying goodbye to me and getting a book about Oregon. My kindergarten teacher (I was in first grade by then) gave me a teddy bear that I named Patches and carried with me for the entire move. We went to a restaurant called Bertucci's with my relatives to say goodbye, and I remember stopping near that restaurant again as we were leaving to use the bathroom. We sold our grill to these really nice people who asked me about moving. My mom's friend came over and gave my brother and me each small flat "desks" and some other things for the car. We stayed with my cousins in New York state, the last time I went to their house, and played with their basketballs in the basement. I slept in my older cousin's room with her, and she had these nature noises on a CD to help her sleep. I can remember all of those random details, apparently, but I can't remember for the life of me feeling bad about leaving during this.
It's not like I don't have a good memory, because it's actually pretty good. However, I don't organize my memories chronologically, it's more like eras. I don't know what my earliest memory is, but if you ask me about an event, I might recall it quite clearly. There are a lot of things that have stuck in my mind over time, but it's kind of like my life on the east coast was one happy blur. Nothing traumatic happened, and that included moving. Days just happened, one after another, and it went on for almost six years. When I was eight or so, I would tell my friends here that Massachusetts was really still my home, and that I missed it some times. It's true that I feel like I'm going to cry when the plane circles over Boston every year, but I also ache for the sight of the Portland skyscrapers. It was only a few years ago that I realized that I love Oregon. It's my home now, and I feel comfortable here. When I think about college, all I consider is the west coast, and I don't want to think about moving away.
My grandparents' house is my home away from home. For fourteen years, everything has been the same to me there, even the dolls in the toy chest and the random knicknacks in one of the guest room's dresser. I have real memories there, and some of them are only a few weeks old. But when I think of where I used to live, my old neighborhood, all I see is a street view from the height of a toddler, a coffee shop, a church, and the houses of our closest neighbors. It's not really a home to me anymore. And while that's sad, it's also comforting that I've found another place that really is home, that I don't want to leave yet.
Monday, August 26, 2013
Editing
Sorry for any mistakes in the post below. I didn't, um, well, read it over after writing it. If something seems out of place, it probably is. Then again, if you tell me that there's a mistake so I can fix it, I'll give you a free virtual Hermione viola cake! Or a Hogwarts cake. I do both.
Weekend Adventures and Thinking in Fours
This is the part of the blog where I write this long synopsis about what I did during my weekend and how I analyzed it, etc. etc. Actually, if I'm going to do myself justice, I would write about the last two or three weeks or however long it's been since I actually wrote something on here. I can't say that I was busy, because I was definitely not, but I will admit that I was uninspired most of the time. Still, life went on for me, and I kept living it, even though I didn't write it all down. Some day I'll regret that, probably, but I just went on with what I do without worrying about how I was going to phrase it, or what I'd pull out as highlights.
I came back from Rhode Island. The last few days were rainy and stormy at some times, but that didn't stop us from plunging in the dangerous ocean, dodging the out- of- control surfers, and then finally getting out before being sucked out into the waves. I bought a fedora and a shirt, went by Taylor Swift's house twice, hung out at a coffee shop with my parents and my mom's graduate school friend for two hours eating muffins and talking about turtles, and went on a 70-foot sailboat with my relatives in Newport, listening to jazz music.
I sat around for a week, unwinding from my trip and (shhh) watching television and practicing violin. I babysat once or twice, and studied for my health challenge test, which I passed (yay!). My brother went to camp, and I made a bread Dalek with my friend.
I started band! Well, actually, I only went for three days, because even though it was scheduled in May, only about twelve people showed up every day, and none of the older flute players came. We played pep band music and practiced marching commands, which are pretty funny to watch, but really simple. It's so different to be an actual member of the band, and not just a little middle schooler who played with them at times. I'm still a freshman, but at least I belong.
So, this weekend I went to Portland with my mom to pick up my younger brother from his rugged, wildlife nature camp, where the kids are required to bring a knife. We hung out with my cousins and aunt and uncle and I read comics in their hammock.
In a brief recap, I/we:
-Got instructions to Taco Del Mar from a pathological liar from Pennsylvania, who put us on the completely wrong path for about thirty seconds.
-Went blueberry picking in the middle of nowhere, and spent ten minutes looking at a dead mole.
-Went swimming in freezing water, really close to a waterfall, while carrying my sweatshirt on my head.
-Mused about life with my wise and lovely relatives.
-Watched my brother and cousin use their very sharp knives to create spears and atlatls (if you know what those are, kudos to you!)
-Went to hippie central in Portland.
-Ate a lot of chicken.
-Tried to think up a good reason for not writing on my blog more often.
School starts next week (nooooooooo), so I registered the day I took my stressful health test (which is ironic, because the textbook had a ton of ways to cope with stress, and none of them really worked). I'm taking journalism because of the lack of health class in my schedule, which I've been worried about for the past year, and Spanish 2, along with P.E. and Geometry. I was all set to take Biology from the aptly named Mrs. Life, when my friend's mom called while I was painstakingly trying to shop for clothes on the way to Portland, and explained to my mom why it would be a good idea for me to take Chemistry instead, from my sixth and seventh grade science teacher, who moved to the high school last year. This way I could take Chemistry this year, Physics next year, and then I.B. Biology for two years after, rather than taking Biology for 75% of my time in high school (I can still do math!). My schedule is kind of up in the air right now because of that.
It's kind of scary to think about. Elementary school was so long ago when I really look back on it, with this whole school being in the middle of it and high school. The first five years were the basics, and middle school was just a launching pad for high school, which is a launching pad for college, which is the springboard for life. I think I wrote a post on that a while ago, but the more I consider it, the more true it seems. I only have four years of school left. That's like from first grade to fifth grade, which is a million years, but it's also like fifth grade to now, which was a while ago but still feels like just a few months ago. To some adults, that would be no time at all, and when I think that I've lived a while, I realize that I really haven't at all. I'm not even fifteen years old yet. Just a decade plus four. Everything seems to be in fours now. I'm glad I wasn't born on Leap Day.
I came back from Rhode Island. The last few days were rainy and stormy at some times, but that didn't stop us from plunging in the dangerous ocean, dodging the out- of- control surfers, and then finally getting out before being sucked out into the waves. I bought a fedora and a shirt, went by Taylor Swift's house twice, hung out at a coffee shop with my parents and my mom's graduate school friend for two hours eating muffins and talking about turtles, and went on a 70-foot sailboat with my relatives in Newport, listening to jazz music.
I sat around for a week, unwinding from my trip and (shhh) watching television and practicing violin. I babysat once or twice, and studied for my health challenge test, which I passed (yay!). My brother went to camp, and I made a bread Dalek with my friend.
I started band! Well, actually, I only went for three days, because even though it was scheduled in May, only about twelve people showed up every day, and none of the older flute players came. We played pep band music and practiced marching commands, which are pretty funny to watch, but really simple. It's so different to be an actual member of the band, and not just a little middle schooler who played with them at times. I'm still a freshman, but at least I belong.
So, this weekend I went to Portland with my mom to pick up my younger brother from his rugged, wildlife nature camp, where the kids are required to bring a knife. We hung out with my cousins and aunt and uncle and I read comics in their hammock.
In a brief recap, I/we:
-Got instructions to Taco Del Mar from a pathological liar from Pennsylvania, who put us on the completely wrong path for about thirty seconds.
-Went blueberry picking in the middle of nowhere, and spent ten minutes looking at a dead mole.
-Went swimming in freezing water, really close to a waterfall, while carrying my sweatshirt on my head.
-Mused about life with my wise and lovely relatives.
-Watched my brother and cousin use their very sharp knives to create spears and atlatls (if you know what those are, kudos to you!)
-Went to hippie central in Portland.
-Ate a lot of chicken.
-Tried to think up a good reason for not writing on my blog more often.
School starts next week (nooooooooo), so I registered the day I took my stressful health test (which is ironic, because the textbook had a ton of ways to cope with stress, and none of them really worked). I'm taking journalism because of the lack of health class in my schedule, which I've been worried about for the past year, and Spanish 2, along with P.E. and Geometry. I was all set to take Biology from the aptly named Mrs. Life, when my friend's mom called while I was painstakingly trying to shop for clothes on the way to Portland, and explained to my mom why it would be a good idea for me to take Chemistry instead, from my sixth and seventh grade science teacher, who moved to the high school last year. This way I could take Chemistry this year, Physics next year, and then I.B. Biology for two years after, rather than taking Biology for 75% of my time in high school (I can still do math!). My schedule is kind of up in the air right now because of that.
It's kind of scary to think about. Elementary school was so long ago when I really look back on it, with this whole school being in the middle of it and high school. The first five years were the basics, and middle school was just a launching pad for high school, which is a launching pad for college, which is the springboard for life. I think I wrote a post on that a while ago, but the more I consider it, the more true it seems. I only have four years of school left. That's like from first grade to fifth grade, which is a million years, but it's also like fifth grade to now, which was a while ago but still feels like just a few months ago. To some adults, that would be no time at all, and when I think that I've lived a while, I realize that I really haven't at all. I'm not even fifteen years old yet. Just a decade plus four. Everything seems to be in fours now. I'm glad I wasn't born on Leap Day.
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
Why Do We Hurt?
(That isn't really the royal "we". It's the "we" that means every human that has ever walked this planet, or if that human didn't have any feet or for some reason couldn't walk, has ever existed on this planet. I understand that there is probably a really nice person somewhere in the world who either can't talk or hasn't hurt anyone ever, but I'm just generalizing here, because the majority of people on this planet probably have done something offensive in their lifetimes).
When the Internet was first created a long, long time ago (like, the 1950s), it was meant to be a new and amazing advancement in technology. Now, sixty years and billions of emails, tweets, and instant messages later, it's something that we take for granted, and, more often than not, abuse.
What is it in typing that makes it just so easy to hurt somebody, just by tapping out few letters and pressing send? What is the drive that pushes somebody to do this? Instead of having to face the person and spill out the insults, all that's needed is a device and some creativity, and BAM, you've ruined someone's day. Is it just a sport, to go around to different blogs and Facebook pages and see how much venom you can inject into someone's work, just for the sake of it? Trolls are interesting creatures, but no matter how much studying, it would be nearly impossible to find out everything about every single one.
Maybe I'm just generalizing again, but the act of hurting seems to have just a few different motives: you (the hurter) is personally hurting (low self-esteem, troubled past, whatever), it's just fun to see how much you can manipulate someone, or you actually really are offended by something that has been said, but can't express your opinions in an acceptable manner. There's absolutely no reason to go onto someone's blog and go off on an foul-mouthed rampage about how much you hate something that you see there, even if it's just a random post that really has nothing to do with you. There's absolutely no reason to hurl destructive comments at somebody's writing, ruining that person's confidence in that piece. Is it because you don't think that your writing is as good, so you feel the need to hurt everybody who has more developed writing than you? There's absolutely no reason to ridicule somebody because of his or her faith, and call the entire religion names just because you don't belong to it. There's absolutely no reason to mess with people, steal identities, and try to ruin friendships, because there is no gain for anyone in that, unless you count the satisfaction of watching people struggle.
Unfortunately, trolls will be out there no matter what. You can never really know if it's somebody sitting at a computer with no life except messing with the lives of others, a bully on Facebook or something with low self-esteem, or just someone with a really, really bad temper. It doesn't exactly work to guilt them, because it either bounces back to you or just can't quite pierce the remorse part of their hearts, but it does work to not be easily intimidated by them. Ignore them, or, if you have to, reply with facts, mild language, and a calm manner. We hurt because sometimes we're hurting, too, and a nudge in the right direction might be the key to helping someone get back on track.
Thursday, August 1, 2013
Happy Birthday to the Boy Who Lived!
Well, actually, it was yesterday.
I knew that I was getting bad at keeping up with this blog, especially now that I'm on the other side of the country, but how could I remember April Fools Day and just pass over the birthday of the century, of the Chosen One? Sacrilege, I tell you. I am very ashamed of myself.
People always talk about what Harry Potter character they like the best, and who they want to dress up as for Halloween or whatever, but not many people seem to really talk about the main character, for whom the series is named. When you really think about it, though, Harry James Potter really is a great person. He may not have the best grades or be the most tactful person at Hogwarts, but how many kids have the bravery to face a terrifying two-faced person at eleven years old, one of them being the murderer responsible for the death of his parents? To go on rescue missions all the time? To accept the responsibility that he is the one to kill the Dark Lord in the end? That's pretty incredible, really. And no matter what Cho Chang thinks, he's a pretty nice person, too. He looks out for his friends, cracks jokes when necessary, and is generally liked by the other students. Besides, he's only human.
According to the Harry Potter wiki, which is actually amazing, Harry was born in 1980, which means that the books took place in the 90's, and he's supposed to be 33 now. However, the "Nineteen Years Later" part of the last book took place in 2017, which means that right now his kids are still too young to go to Hogwarts, and he will be 37 by then. It's a fixed point in the future that we just lead up to, but at least we know what will happen next. I am very confused by it.
I actually did celebrate, though, even though I didn't write anything here. With the help of my grandma, I made a replica of the birthday that Hagrid gave Harry on his eleventh birthday-Happee Birthdae, Harry. I had to skip the sitting-on-it part, but other than that, it looked pretty much like it was supposed to. It helps that my cake decorating skills aren't that wonderful, I guess. Anyway, we sang to him, and then I remembered that it was also J.K. Rowling's, the god and creator of this magical world, birthday, so that was another reason to celebrate.
Happy birthday to the Boy Who Lived. May you live forever or something. Many happy returns (that's what they say in the Winnie the Pooh).
By the way, I now have over a thousand pageviews! Yay! Even though some of them may have been me trying to get to where I can make a new post, yay!
I knew that I was getting bad at keeping up with this blog, especially now that I'm on the other side of the country, but how could I remember April Fools Day and just pass over the birthday of the century, of the Chosen One? Sacrilege, I tell you. I am very ashamed of myself.
People always talk about what Harry Potter character they like the best, and who they want to dress up as for Halloween or whatever, but not many people seem to really talk about the main character, for whom the series is named. When you really think about it, though, Harry James Potter really is a great person. He may not have the best grades or be the most tactful person at Hogwarts, but how many kids have the bravery to face a terrifying two-faced person at eleven years old, one of them being the murderer responsible for the death of his parents? To go on rescue missions all the time? To accept the responsibility that he is the one to kill the Dark Lord in the end? That's pretty incredible, really. And no matter what Cho Chang thinks, he's a pretty nice person, too. He looks out for his friends, cracks jokes when necessary, and is generally liked by the other students. Besides, he's only human.
According to the Harry Potter wiki, which is actually amazing, Harry was born in 1980, which means that the books took place in the 90's, and he's supposed to be 33 now. However, the "Nineteen Years Later" part of the last book took place in 2017, which means that right now his kids are still too young to go to Hogwarts, and he will be 37 by then. It's a fixed point in the future that we just lead up to, but at least we know what will happen next. I am very confused by it.
I actually did celebrate, though, even though I didn't write anything here. With the help of my grandma, I made a replica of the birthday that Hagrid gave Harry on his eleventh birthday-Happee Birthdae, Harry. I had to skip the sitting-on-it part, but other than that, it looked pretty much like it was supposed to. It helps that my cake decorating skills aren't that wonderful, I guess. Anyway, we sang to him, and then I remembered that it was also J.K. Rowling's, the god and creator of this magical world, birthday, so that was another reason to celebrate.
Happy birthday to the Boy Who Lived. May you live forever or something. Many happy returns (that's what they say in the Winnie the Pooh).
By the way, I now have over a thousand pageviews! Yay! Even though some of them may have been me trying to get to where I can make a new post, yay!
Thursday, July 25, 2013
A Time Capsule of Time
A lot can happen in one year.
I feel like I used to know my family a lot more-the family on my dad's side, that is. Not that I was really old enough to remember it, but considering I lived only two hours away, I was there at my grandparents' house quite a bit. My dad and his two sisters brought their families to the house, conveniently close to the beach, and we would hunt for Easter eggs, ride the carousel, go swimming, play games, and, of course, watch the Sound of Music. They still do that all the time, with each other, but since my family moved away when I was six, I only get to see them there once a year. And every year, it's kind of a shock to see how everyone has stayed the same, but is different in so many ways.
When I was about ten, I made a profile of the cousins on my dad's side of the family. Believe it or not, we're pretty easy to classify into simple roles based on our interests. My eldest cousin, who's in his early twenties now, was always the "older" one, who loves politics and debating. His younger sister, one of my favorite people in the world, was/is everything-the soccer player, the babysitter, and, most recently, the Tufts student. Then there are the kids of my dad's younger sister, my senior-in-high-school cousin, who used to have tufts of yellow hair that later wound itself into tight curls, the logical actress. Her sister, who's about six months younger than me, always stood out as the louder and athletic one, with her main sport being swimming. My younger brother is the cute little one, who everyone still thinks is eight, even though he's actually eleven and a half. I've never been sure of where I fit in-the musical one? The writing one? The long-haired one, even though I haven't always had long hair? Anyway, the point is that we cousins have always been able to pick up from where we left off. Most of the time.
There are so many what ifs in a year's time, though. What if my oldest cousin has suddenly switched political sides? It's so unlikely, but I suppose it's possible. What my swimmer cousin has suddenly taken a twist and converted into an old-fashioned anglophile, ditching One Direction and hosting tea parties instead of lemonade stands? What if my grandparents added on a whole new porch to their house and conveniently forgot to tell us?
It's kind of like a time capsule, you see. You lock something away in a box, and no matter the temptations to unlock it again, you have to wait out the time you promised yourself to open it again, reawakening memories and reminding you of what you had forgotten. Only this time the box has another door that you can't open, that someone else has access to, and this person is changing around little things when you're watching, so you're surprised when the time comes to open it again.
I feel like I used to know my family a lot more-the family on my dad's side, that is. Not that I was really old enough to remember it, but considering I lived only two hours away, I was there at my grandparents' house quite a bit. My dad and his two sisters brought their families to the house, conveniently close to the beach, and we would hunt for Easter eggs, ride the carousel, go swimming, play games, and, of course, watch the Sound of Music. They still do that all the time, with each other, but since my family moved away when I was six, I only get to see them there once a year. And every year, it's kind of a shock to see how everyone has stayed the same, but is different in so many ways.
When I was about ten, I made a profile of the cousins on my dad's side of the family. Believe it or not, we're pretty easy to classify into simple roles based on our interests. My eldest cousin, who's in his early twenties now, was always the "older" one, who loves politics and debating. His younger sister, one of my favorite people in the world, was/is everything-the soccer player, the babysitter, and, most recently, the Tufts student. Then there are the kids of my dad's younger sister, my senior-in-high-school cousin, who used to have tufts of yellow hair that later wound itself into tight curls, the logical actress. Her sister, who's about six months younger than me, always stood out as the louder and athletic one, with her main sport being swimming. My younger brother is the cute little one, who everyone still thinks is eight, even though he's actually eleven and a half. I've never been sure of where I fit in-the musical one? The writing one? The long-haired one, even though I haven't always had long hair? Anyway, the point is that we cousins have always been able to pick up from where we left off. Most of the time.
There are so many what ifs in a year's time, though. What if my oldest cousin has suddenly switched political sides? It's so unlikely, but I suppose it's possible. What my swimmer cousin has suddenly taken a twist and converted into an old-fashioned anglophile, ditching One Direction and hosting tea parties instead of lemonade stands? What if my grandparents added on a whole new porch to their house and conveniently forgot to tell us?
It's kind of like a time capsule, you see. You lock something away in a box, and no matter the temptations to unlock it again, you have to wait out the time you promised yourself to open it again, reawakening memories and reminding you of what you had forgotten. Only this time the box has another door that you can't open, that someone else has access to, and this person is changing around little things when you're watching, so you're surprised when the time comes to open it again.
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Unfinished
Don't you hate it when you're writing something that seems really good and interesting at first, and then you lose focus and stop writing? Those characters are just sitting there, waiting for you to come back and finish the story, but they may just be hanging on forever, unfinished. I've left way too many characters like that over the years.
Maybe I'll go write a story about those characters that get left behind.
Maybe I'll go write a story about those characters that get left behind.
Thursday, July 18, 2013
Doctor WHO?
So! Our beloved Matt Smith (whose full name is Matthew Robert Smith, which gives him the most generic British person name this year) is actually going to leave Doctor Who, the show for which he has provided laughter, tears, and suspense (but mostly laughter) for the past three seasons. As the 10th Doctor went up into flames at the end of the fourth season, we met the strange but hilarious 11th Doctor, who crashed into the house of a little girl named Amelia Pond, whose life would forever be affected by him. Next, he ran into a girl with the name Clara Oswin Oswald, not only once, but several times, who would become one of the biggest mysteries yet. Now that his song is ending as well, Doctor Who fans from all over are holding their breath to see just how spectacular his regeneration will be. So the next question of the universe is, who will emerge from the flames this time?
For some reason, the world is freaking out about this question. It has to be a woman! She has to be black! She has to be in a wheelchair! Why don't we just bring in Johnny Depp while we're at it and make the show American after all! Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with all of that, but why now? There have been eleven Doctors in the past fifty years, and only now the media cares about so-called justice? Just to show what kind of candidates the world is thinking up, they include Jenna Coleman (I don't even think that's possible), Emma Watson, Michelle Dockery, and Susan Boyle, which just leads me to think that we care so much about equality that we will throw out some of the most famous and random names to entice the audiences. That led me to write this, about a month ago:
There was an article that I saw a little while ago about how it looked like Moffat wasn't going to cast a female or black Doctor, and how that was horrible and degrading, and how the BBC is being racist. I hate how we live in a society now where if you don't try at all to treat one race better-and end up being racist yourself-then you are considered a horrible person. Maybe a woman or a black person just wouldn't fit the role, but it's nothing against the gender or race itself. Personally, I think that the BBC, or just people in general, are trying way too hard to be fair that it's not an interesting theme anymore, and just caters to the wants of of fairness-seekers. Sure, the Doctor COULD be a female, but it doesn't mean that he has to. It's such an old show, and I feel like changing it now would just kind of ruin everything a little bit, not because of the gender (and I really don't care about race, mostly about gender), but because of the desperate plea of trying to satisfy people who are so obsessed with making things fair that they end up being totally unfair in the end.
There's a 50-50 chance of what gender a human will be. It's not the end of the world that this particular show happens to feature one of them.
For some reason, the world is freaking out about this question. It has to be a woman! She has to be black! She has to be in a wheelchair! Why don't we just bring in Johnny Depp while we're at it and make the show American after all! Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with all of that, but why now? There have been eleven Doctors in the past fifty years, and only now the media cares about so-called justice? Just to show what kind of candidates the world is thinking up, they include Jenna Coleman (I don't even think that's possible), Emma Watson, Michelle Dockery, and Susan Boyle, which just leads me to think that we care so much about equality that we will throw out some of the most famous and random names to entice the audiences. That led me to write this, about a month ago:
There was an article that I saw a little while ago about how it looked like Moffat wasn't going to cast a female or black Doctor, and how that was horrible and degrading, and how the BBC is being racist. I hate how we live in a society now where if you don't try at all to treat one race better-and end up being racist yourself-then you are considered a horrible person. Maybe a woman or a black person just wouldn't fit the role, but it's nothing against the gender or race itself. Personally, I think that the BBC, or just people in general, are trying way too hard to be fair that it's not an interesting theme anymore, and just caters to the wants of of fairness-seekers. Sure, the Doctor COULD be a female, but it doesn't mean that he has to. It's such an old show, and I feel like changing it now would just kind of ruin everything a little bit, not because of the gender (and I really don't care about race, mostly about gender), but because of the desperate plea of trying to satisfy people who are so obsessed with making things fair that they end up being totally unfair in the end.
There's a 50-50 chance of what gender a human will be. It's not the end of the world that this particular show happens to feature one of them.
Being Better
I'm in the process of trying to become a better person.
I've always thought that I was okay, that I could be annoying at times and not very nice to my family, but that I mostly was a nice person who wasn't in the the way too much. All of a sudden though, after reflecting on what I've done in the past few years, I've realized that I say things sometimes that are just plain weird, could be taken the wrong way, or could have me pinpointed as selfish or obnoxious. Maybe I am. I definitely have been at some times. All of a sudden, though, I don't want to hurt my friends, and have them be mad at me. It could be a desperate plea to get people to stay on my side, to not be left behind. I just don't want to be mean.
How do you become a better person? I've learned this summer, through health studying, that you need to be assertive if you want to get what you need/want, but not too aggressive about it. I took a quiz in the book and found that I'm about fifteen points below the minimum amount of points needed to be perfectly assertive, which means that I can be way too passive at times. I know that this is true, because, even though I'm speaking out in my head, I'm too quiet to actually say anything in real life. There's a fine line between being a too nice and being assertive enough that it's good for yourself, so I can't just tell people what they want to hear.
Another thing that my health book says is that the people who are the most attractive to society are the ones who have high self-esteem. This got me thinking. It makes sense; if someone values him or herself, then other people will hold that person and high regard and look up to him or her. However, if the person is conceited, or has a false opinion of him or herself, then other people won't be as interested in talking to that person and forging strong friendships. On Maslow's hierarchy of needs, the top level is self-actualization, which is a stage of enlightenment that about 1 to 2% of humans actually reach. It's the highest level of self-esteem, and a person there would be the wisest and ideal person to admire. But if nobody actually gets there, then what is the level of self-esteem that makes other people like us, and enjoy our company? If you're looking for friendship, then you definitely need to respect that person-but you also have to respect yourself. Basically, be at peace with life.
I'm a procrastinator. Most of the time, depending on what it is, I don't do things right away. I put them off and put them off, and then it's horrible when I'm scrambling to do them at the last minute. I understand the principle of doing something now and having fun later, I just can't always follow through, and then there's that nagging in the back of my mind the entire time that I'm putting it off. I borrow time from the future, even when I'm not sure of how the future will end up turning out (like investing in a shaky stock), and I can actually feel my opinion of myself degrading as I do it. For example, I obviously haven't written on this blog for about sixteen days straight, not counting yesterday. During those sixteen days, I made excuses to myself, tried to push away the nagging, and ended up with a giant responsibility, to myself, piling up. I mean, I don't even know who reads this blog or even follows how often I post, but the point is that I let myself down. If I can stop doing that, then I can concentrate on not letting other people down.
From now on, I will try to think about what I say before I say it. Maybe I just worry too much about what other people think of me, but I don't want to be that person who causes others to groan when I enter the room or group. I don't want to feel like I have to make up things about myself, or compare myself all the time, just so I can have approval, because, as I learned from my health book (apparently my source of information for the summer), that's a quality that somebody with low self-esteem/emotional problems possesses. I don't think I need to go volunteer at the animal shelter to become a better person that way, but I can consider the impact that I have on the world and the people that I value.
I've always thought that I was okay, that I could be annoying at times and not very nice to my family, but that I mostly was a nice person who wasn't in the the way too much. All of a sudden though, after reflecting on what I've done in the past few years, I've realized that I say things sometimes that are just plain weird, could be taken the wrong way, or could have me pinpointed as selfish or obnoxious. Maybe I am. I definitely have been at some times. All of a sudden, though, I don't want to hurt my friends, and have them be mad at me. It could be a desperate plea to get people to stay on my side, to not be left behind. I just don't want to be mean.
How do you become a better person? I've learned this summer, through health studying, that you need to be assertive if you want to get what you need/want, but not too aggressive about it. I took a quiz in the book and found that I'm about fifteen points below the minimum amount of points needed to be perfectly assertive, which means that I can be way too passive at times. I know that this is true, because, even though I'm speaking out in my head, I'm too quiet to actually say anything in real life. There's a fine line between being a too nice and being assertive enough that it's good for yourself, so I can't just tell people what they want to hear.
Another thing that my health book says is that the people who are the most attractive to society are the ones who have high self-esteem. This got me thinking. It makes sense; if someone values him or herself, then other people will hold that person and high regard and look up to him or her. However, if the person is conceited, or has a false opinion of him or herself, then other people won't be as interested in talking to that person and forging strong friendships. On Maslow's hierarchy of needs, the top level is self-actualization, which is a stage of enlightenment that about 1 to 2% of humans actually reach. It's the highest level of self-esteem, and a person there would be the wisest and ideal person to admire. But if nobody actually gets there, then what is the level of self-esteem that makes other people like us, and enjoy our company? If you're looking for friendship, then you definitely need to respect that person-but you also have to respect yourself. Basically, be at peace with life.
I'm a procrastinator. Most of the time, depending on what it is, I don't do things right away. I put them off and put them off, and then it's horrible when I'm scrambling to do them at the last minute. I understand the principle of doing something now and having fun later, I just can't always follow through, and then there's that nagging in the back of my mind the entire time that I'm putting it off. I borrow time from the future, even when I'm not sure of how the future will end up turning out (like investing in a shaky stock), and I can actually feel my opinion of myself degrading as I do it. For example, I obviously haven't written on this blog for about sixteen days straight, not counting yesterday. During those sixteen days, I made excuses to myself, tried to push away the nagging, and ended up with a giant responsibility, to myself, piling up. I mean, I don't even know who reads this blog or even follows how often I post, but the point is that I let myself down. If I can stop doing that, then I can concentrate on not letting other people down.
From now on, I will try to think about what I say before I say it. Maybe I just worry too much about what other people think of me, but I don't want to be that person who causes others to groan when I enter the room or group. I don't want to feel like I have to make up things about myself, or compare myself all the time, just so I can have approval, because, as I learned from my health book (apparently my source of information for the summer), that's a quality that somebody with low self-esteem/emotional problems possesses. I don't think I need to go volunteer at the animal shelter to become a better person that way, but I can consider the impact that I have on the world and the people that I value.
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
YOLO
I first came across the term "YOLO" sometime last year, probably in the same conversation with my cousins in which they explained "planking" and "owling" to me, and to be honest, my first thought was that it was such a dumb thing to say. You only live once? True, but what kind of person would say that? Someone just trying to be cool, someone about to do something dangerous and potentially fatal, or someone who is about to have an amazing life experience? I didn't even figure out that it was an acronym until months later; I thought it was just a saying, and yolo sounded good enough and easy to say. Now, however, it isn't just a witty thing you say when you're about to parachute out of an airplane. Twitter and Facebook and whatever are so littered with the term that it's lost its meaning, and seems to be just an excuse to do something dumb, like "no offense". But what these adrenaline seekers/adventure seekers, whoever they are, don't realize is that you also only die once.
You only live once. Okay, true, I guess, depending on your religion. I can see how that phrase could have come up-make the most out of life, don't let opportunities slide by, and have fun. And then there's the whole negative and cautionary side of that-don't waste your life with one dumb decision. So what is that twenty-something year old thinking when he jumps off a bridge just for the fun? Is he trying to prove that you only live once? Because I'm pretty positive that he won't be alive once he hits the ground.
This is the kind of thing that came up when I Googled "you only live once"
Look at that! Even babies understand YOLO! How horrific!
You only live once. Okay, true, I guess, depending on your religion. I can see how that phrase could have come up-make the most out of life, don't let opportunities slide by, and have fun. And then there's the whole negative and cautionary side of that-don't waste your life with one dumb decision. So what is that twenty-something year old thinking when he jumps off a bridge just for the fun? Is he trying to prove that you only live once? Because I'm pretty positive that he won't be alive once he hits the ground.
This is the kind of thing that came up when I Googled "you only live once"
Okay, nice. A good understanding of the cliche meaning, nothing too annoying. But this is what I got when I Googled just plain "YOLO"
Look at that! Even babies understand YOLO! How horrific!
"YOLO" isn't just a simple term anymore, it's an epidemic that probably claims more lives than it saves despite its subtle and sneaky warning. Hopefully, people will realize that if you really want to hold true to only living once, you won't swim straight into a riptide, jump out of a tree (or anything, really), or not wear your seat belt in the car. Hopefully, my faith in humanity can be restored.
I really couldn't resist...
Sunday, June 30, 2013
Actual Life Skills
All through middle school, my teachers taught us these stupid ways to take notes, and study for a test. We had to write papers using colored strips with main ideas and supporting details, take Cornell notes, take Cornell notes on how to take number notes, make outlines on sections of the book, highlight the important bits, etc. etc. For somebody who functions better just writing something out without really thinking about it (like I am right now), thse methods were evil, and deserved to go live in Tartarus, along with standardized tests and P.E. class. "Why do we have to use them all the time?" we would complain to the teachers. "They don't use them at the high school, so how will this help us down there?" They always stuck to the same story- they're good to know in case you need them in college, or to study for a test in high school, because it's up to you how you prepare and get good grades. With two teachers right out of college, it was easier to believe that, but none of us really cared that much. We just wanted to stop writing papers by making notecards with one main idea for each one, color-coded for the certain source.
It took me a week after eighth grade ended to realize how right they were.
This summer, I'm studying for the health exit exam at the high school, so that I can test of the class and therefore have room for another elective, like journalism. We got the book and a small study guide, and were told that the test was an AP test, and one of the hardest tests pre-junior year that we would ever take. I heard from somebody who I regard as a genius that it was the most diffult test he had ever taken, and from another that it was a piece of cake. "Come to registration ready to take the semester one exam, and then we'll see who passes and move on to semester two," our AGP coordinator told us. And then we left.
The first thing that came to my mind as I regarded my health book for the first time was to do an outline. I remembered that my sixth and seventh grade science teacher had encouraged us to do outlines all the time, and even showed us this giant book on biology that she had been outlining for years, just for the heck of it. I remembered my eighth grade science teacher leading us through how to create an outline for a study guide, and telling us how she had been asked by her college to duplicate her own study guides as examples. She told us that we only needed a few words to get a point across, and as long as we could understand it, it would be all right. I remembered hours of answering questions at the end of a section in US History and science class, and remembering them just because I had physically written them down. I remembered the nights before math exams, when I would find the sample tests at the back of the book and try to finish them all, as well as the practice problems in every section. I did these things without really thinking about it, and it wasn't the grueling work that came to mind, it was the lessons learned.
It's not like I've been to high school yet or anything, but just outlining a few of the chapters in this health book has brought me to the realization that you really do have to take your own initiative. They taught us these simple skills in elementary school and middle school do that they would be there, ready for us to use, when we needed a source or method in high school or college, and probably methods in high school that are ready for use in college. And college skills that prepare you for the rest of your life. Humans are lifelong learners, and we can't help but absorb things as we go along, and those things will help us for the rest of our personal existance, whether good or bad experiences come with them. I remember things that my violin teacher told me from when I was seven years old, and I still use them today when I'm working on a particularly troublesome spot. I can still recall the instructions I was given in dance class back when I was still in the beginning levels, and I apply those things to what I do every single time I dance nowadays.
Whenever I hear somebody say in a taunting voice, "that's what we learned in kindergarten", I can't help but realize that kindergarten, along with first and second grade, were really the most important years of our lives so far. Everything seems easy now, but back then it was a new challenge day after day, socially and emotionally, with so much to learn about the world. That age is when you learned the alphabet, which is used in language and reading, simple math skills, which you use without even think about it, the basics of sharing, which will get you through so much, and just how to interact with the rest of the world. In a way, those things are just like those stupid Cornell notes; we don't learn the alphabet or how add two and two anymore, but they're still there, spread out in the toolbox of skills for use any time.
And who teaches us these things? Teachers. Adults. Mentors. Parents. It's just the continuous passing of knowledge through generations and generations, and one of the reasons that humans are so spectacular. We just automatically teach one another things, and the ones who have that as an actual job are the ones who should be applauded the most.
The universe is weird when you look at it like this, but it's so amazing the same time.
It took me a week after eighth grade ended to realize how right they were.
This summer, I'm studying for the health exit exam at the high school, so that I can test of the class and therefore have room for another elective, like journalism. We got the book and a small study guide, and were told that the test was an AP test, and one of the hardest tests pre-junior year that we would ever take. I heard from somebody who I regard as a genius that it was the most diffult test he had ever taken, and from another that it was a piece of cake. "Come to registration ready to take the semester one exam, and then we'll see who passes and move on to semester two," our AGP coordinator told us. And then we left.
The first thing that came to my mind as I regarded my health book for the first time was to do an outline. I remembered that my sixth and seventh grade science teacher had encouraged us to do outlines all the time, and even showed us this giant book on biology that she had been outlining for years, just for the heck of it. I remembered my eighth grade science teacher leading us through how to create an outline for a study guide, and telling us how she had been asked by her college to duplicate her own study guides as examples. She told us that we only needed a few words to get a point across, and as long as we could understand it, it would be all right. I remembered hours of answering questions at the end of a section in US History and science class, and remembering them just because I had physically written them down. I remembered the nights before math exams, when I would find the sample tests at the back of the book and try to finish them all, as well as the practice problems in every section. I did these things without really thinking about it, and it wasn't the grueling work that came to mind, it was the lessons learned.
It's not like I've been to high school yet or anything, but just outlining a few of the chapters in this health book has brought me to the realization that you really do have to take your own initiative. They taught us these simple skills in elementary school and middle school do that they would be there, ready for us to use, when we needed a source or method in high school or college, and probably methods in high school that are ready for use in college. And college skills that prepare you for the rest of your life. Humans are lifelong learners, and we can't help but absorb things as we go along, and those things will help us for the rest of our personal existance, whether good or bad experiences come with them. I remember things that my violin teacher told me from when I was seven years old, and I still use them today when I'm working on a particularly troublesome spot. I can still recall the instructions I was given in dance class back when I was still in the beginning levels, and I apply those things to what I do every single time I dance nowadays.
Whenever I hear somebody say in a taunting voice, "that's what we learned in kindergarten", I can't help but realize that kindergarten, along with first and second grade, were really the most important years of our lives so far. Everything seems easy now, but back then it was a new challenge day after day, socially and emotionally, with so much to learn about the world. That age is when you learned the alphabet, which is used in language and reading, simple math skills, which you use without even think about it, the basics of sharing, which will get you through so much, and just how to interact with the rest of the world. In a way, those things are just like those stupid Cornell notes; we don't learn the alphabet or how add two and two anymore, but they're still there, spread out in the toolbox of skills for use any time.
And who teaches us these things? Teachers. Adults. Mentors. Parents. It's just the continuous passing of knowledge through generations and generations, and one of the reasons that humans are so spectacular. We just automatically teach one another things, and the ones who have that as an actual job are the ones who should be applauded the most.
The universe is weird when you look at it like this, but it's so amazing the same time.
Saturday, June 29, 2013
Nannerl Mozart- And Why We Should Care
At least once in his or her lifetime, almost every person living in the United States hears the word Mozart in some way, and almost every life in the United States has been affected by him in some way. Hardly anyone who hasn't studied music knows that Mozart wrote Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, yet we hear it everywhere, in nurseries, homes, and humming on the streets. His music pours out of radios, fills concert halls, and takes up the pages of music books. It's the story that everybody is in awe of; one of the most famous composers ever, the one who started out as a toddler and quickly worked his way to the very top, performing for Europe's very best when he was younger than my younger brother is right now. His father, Leopold Mozart, is less known, but still has entire concerts devoted to him all over the world. They are known as the classic musical family for these reasons. And just like always, everybody forgets Nannerl.
It's hard to forget somebody when you've never heard of her in your life, but Maria Anna Mozart, the "lost" sister of Wolfgang, was once just as, if not more, popular than her younger brother. Their father made sure that both of them were exposed to music in infancy, and she quickly picked up the piano and harpsichord as a young child, and proved to be brilliant. Leopold, bursting with joy, had her play in the finest European cities, showing off her extraordinary talent. Though it isn't exact how different Maria Anna (Nannerl for short) and Wolfgang were in age, it is known that Wolfgang would watch his sister play as a very small child, and soon became interested in the instrument himself. He quickly picked up the piano, and taught himself how to play his sister's pieces at a much younger age. His father, seeing how fast his son learned, rushed into teaching him more, even though he was only about five years old. Suddenly, Nannerl found herself as the accompianist rather than the soloist, and was even restricted from playing the violin most of the time. As the family went on the road, they were both complimented, but she was seen mostly as the sibling of the genius.
It can't be doubted, however, that Nannerl was quite the composer herself. She put her pen to the paper many times, but none of her work is alive today with her name on it specifically, only her brother's. Historians speculate that some of Wolfgang's compositions were indeed Nannerl's, but nothing can be proven, centuries later. Her legacy died down, and she stopped touring as a teenager, staying behind while her brother flew out into the world. Maria Anna Mozart died a blind widow, with her work lost.
The reason for her loss of the spotlight, however, wasn't because of the birth of her brother, or her lack of skills. The two were very good friends as children, and her talen increased as she grew older. It was the society, however, that barred her from every becoming as famous as her brother, and living up to her potential. In the French film Nannerl, la sœur de Mozart (Mozart's Sister in English), it shows Nannerl being repeatedly told not to play the violin because it wasn't proper. When she reminds her father of the work she had written, he scoffs and replies that it was garbage. No matter where they went, she was always considered the pianist, or sometimes singer, and nothing more. After reaching the marrying age, she wasn't allowed to go out into the world anymore to perform, and began her life as a wife and mother instead. This can't help but make you wonder that if the Mozarts' first born child had been a boy, he would have become one of the greatest composers of all time as well.
Nannerl is lucky that there are still people who remember her, and that books and films have been produced on her life. Though none of her work exists with her name on it, she gets the credit for inspiring her brother, and is remembered in a sympathetic sense. But how many more Nannerls were there in music history? Today, many violinists are women, but most of the pieces they play are by male composers only. People say that a woman is beind every successful man, but how many women were there really that we don't know about? How many other people could have been successful and famous, if only they had been born a different gender?
Nannerl's story doesn't just deserve sympathy; it should be a wake-up call, to look around and remember the great women musicians in the world. Even Elizabeth I was a known pianist in court, along with her other siblings, and Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, otherwise known as Madame de Pompadour in Versailles, was celebrated as a musician of her time. And one cannot forget the more modern Nadia Boulanger, and the also French Elisabeth-Claude Jacquet de la Guerre. Unfortunately, one does forget them, and instead focuses on the male composers of history. In school we did a project on composers and musicians pre-1970, and nobody chose a female pre-1900.
She was a Mozart, just like her brother, and just as talented as a child. The next time you hear Mozart pouring out of the radio, think of Maria Anna, and remember her contribution.
Kat, I saw your post about Mozart and was suddenly inspired. I didn't mean to copy or anything, but I guess it's Mozart day or something. :)
It's hard to forget somebody when you've never heard of her in your life, but Maria Anna Mozart, the "lost" sister of Wolfgang, was once just as, if not more, popular than her younger brother. Their father made sure that both of them were exposed to music in infancy, and she quickly picked up the piano and harpsichord as a young child, and proved to be brilliant. Leopold, bursting with joy, had her play in the finest European cities, showing off her extraordinary talent. Though it isn't exact how different Maria Anna (Nannerl for short) and Wolfgang were in age, it is known that Wolfgang would watch his sister play as a very small child, and soon became interested in the instrument himself. He quickly picked up the piano, and taught himself how to play his sister's pieces at a much younger age. His father, seeing how fast his son learned, rushed into teaching him more, even though he was only about five years old. Suddenly, Nannerl found herself as the accompianist rather than the soloist, and was even restricted from playing the violin most of the time. As the family went on the road, they were both complimented, but she was seen mostly as the sibling of the genius.
It can't be doubted, however, that Nannerl was quite the composer herself. She put her pen to the paper many times, but none of her work is alive today with her name on it specifically, only her brother's. Historians speculate that some of Wolfgang's compositions were indeed Nannerl's, but nothing can be proven, centuries later. Her legacy died down, and she stopped touring as a teenager, staying behind while her brother flew out into the world. Maria Anna Mozart died a blind widow, with her work lost.
The reason for her loss of the spotlight, however, wasn't because of the birth of her brother, or her lack of skills. The two were very good friends as children, and her talen increased as she grew older. It was the society, however, that barred her from every becoming as famous as her brother, and living up to her potential. In the French film Nannerl, la sœur de Mozart (Mozart's Sister in English), it shows Nannerl being repeatedly told not to play the violin because it wasn't proper. When she reminds her father of the work she had written, he scoffs and replies that it was garbage. No matter where they went, she was always considered the pianist, or sometimes singer, and nothing more. After reaching the marrying age, she wasn't allowed to go out into the world anymore to perform, and began her life as a wife and mother instead. This can't help but make you wonder that if the Mozarts' first born child had been a boy, he would have become one of the greatest composers of all time as well.
Nannerl is lucky that there are still people who remember her, and that books and films have been produced on her life. Though none of her work exists with her name on it, she gets the credit for inspiring her brother, and is remembered in a sympathetic sense. But how many more Nannerls were there in music history? Today, many violinists are women, but most of the pieces they play are by male composers only. People say that a woman is beind every successful man, but how many women were there really that we don't know about? How many other people could have been successful and famous, if only they had been born a different gender?
Nannerl's story doesn't just deserve sympathy; it should be a wake-up call, to look around and remember the great women musicians in the world. Even Elizabeth I was a known pianist in court, along with her other siblings, and Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, otherwise known as Madame de Pompadour in Versailles, was celebrated as a musician of her time. And one cannot forget the more modern Nadia Boulanger, and the also French Elisabeth-Claude Jacquet de la Guerre. Unfortunately, one does forget them, and instead focuses on the male composers of history. In school we did a project on composers and musicians pre-1970, and nobody chose a female pre-1900.
She was a Mozart, just like her brother, and just as talented as a child. The next time you hear Mozart pouring out of the radio, think of Maria Anna, and remember her contribution.
Kat, I saw your post about Mozart and was suddenly inspired. I didn't mean to copy or anything, but I guess it's Mozart day or something. :)
Thursday, June 27, 2013
(Somebody's) Top Five Antagonists
A story wouldn't be complete without an antagonist, to shake things up a little bit, and add the chair-gripping element of fear and surprise. This crucial character can be a mere friend who plots against the others in a subtle way, and actual crook with a criminal background, or the stereotypical evil-person, who has no heart and kills everything in his or her path. This list of villains isn't something you'd see on anybody else's blog, because nobody would think of all of these, but at least you can see where I'm coming from.
Gollum, Lord of the Rings- The mislead poor creature who wants to help his friends, or the malevolent monster with a corrupted mind, who wants the ring all for himself? Undoubtedly suffering from schizophrenia, Gollum/Smeagol is one of the most interesting villains of all time, being a crook, a murderer, and a helpful navigator all at the same time. Half the time he can't even remember who is, or used to be, only that there is something that he dearly needs, and it was stolen from him. Yet as Gollum begins his journey to retrieve his precious, something starts to show inside of him, whether it is remorse or sorrow or just plain guilt-or is it any of those at all? One minute you feel sorry for him, and the next you hate him, and wish that he would just fall into a fiery pit. No matter which it is, though, Gollum makes you think, through riddles and clues hidden in plain sight, and can reflect the minds of ourselves at times.
Cal Hockley, Titanic- No Titanic drama would be complete without a love angle of some sort (it's an angle, not a triangle. Try to draw one and you'll see what I mean), a scandal that was considered the end of the world in 1912, or a crime on board. James Cameron's 1997 Titanic has all of those (which is probably why it won so many awards from a modern audience), but the character that really makes all these pieces fit together is none other than the miser Cal Hockley, or as I call him, Count Rubenstein, which is a really long story. Obsessed with money, even though he already has an ample supply, Cal is engaged to the beautiful, young Rose DeWitt Bukater, who despises him despite what her mother says. It soon becomes apparent that though he buys her jewels beyond her dreams, he doesn't care for her either, or at least not as much as he cares for money, even though it is their marriage that will solve the Bukaters' problems. After several sneaky attempts to shake off the young and poverty-stricken Jack Dawson, Cal resorts to shooting at the couple, leading them (again) to their almost-deaths. After realizing that his diamond is gone, he goes off and steals a child to allow him onto a lifeboat. How many arrest counts would there be there? It's hard to find any mercy to show him, and you're almost happy when you find out that he killed himself a few years later. The curious thing about Cal, however, is that he's not evil just for the sake of being evil. He's evil because he's a jerk, and it's as simple as that.
Now would be a really good time to tell you that there are probably some major spoilers in this. If you haven't seen Titanic, then shame on you (just kidding. Maybe). But if you haven't seen the faces in the pictures, then don't read it. Or if you have, and don't want to know what happens next, then DON'T READ IT.
Hilly Holbrook, The Help- There's no way that you could
charge Hilly with anything in specifics, since she was living the life that probably thousands of young women did in the 1960's, but there's something that just can't stop you from hating her. So sure that her race is superior, far above that of her maids, she goes to great lengths to stop them from getting the correct treatment, and even greater lengths to make sure they get the worst treatment. Hilly is obsessed with herself and her reputation, and will stop at nothing to ensure that it is stabilized, even if it includes drafting her own bill to require a "black" bathroom for the maids in a white home. The horrible thing that you realize about this book/movie, however, is that Hilly did so many horrible things to the people in Jackson, but there were so many others like her, and those stories didn't have happy endings.
The Master, Doctor Who- I'll have to admit, the Master is one of my favorite villains, just because he's so completely psycho. After regenerating from the form of the old Professor Yana, locked away in a body, forgetting who he really was, the younger-looking new incarnation sprung up from the ashes, looking like a maniac. The next time you see him, he's the prime minister of England, and starts inviting aliens to Earth. After that, he pops up again about a year later, with a giant craving for food, which leads him to start muttering to himself, which leads to a schizophrenic psychopath breakdown (I seem to like schizophrenic characters). What I find interesting about the Master, though, is that in his second appearance in the new series, he's so much different, and you realize that he may not be as evil as you think he is, just really messed up and willing to kill everybody on planet Earth. He's been insane ever since he was a child, and you have to give him credit for that, especially when the most unlikely possibility turns out to be the new villain. Still, you can't forget what he did to the Doctor and so many others before (in short, torture), and you have no room in your mind for remorse for weirdos. Hitler was messed up, too.
Bellatrix Lestrange, Harry Potter- Speaking of pyschopaths.... :) There's a reason that I'm not writing about Voldemort, and it's that he's way too obvious. The most popular villain of all time, yada yada yada. It's true that Bellatrix is kind of overdone, too, but she really is just crazy, and that's what makes her so interesting. While she was so horrible to the rest of the world, Bellatrix is one of the only known female Death Eaters, next to Narcissa Malfoy, who would never even come close to her sister's rank. She considers herself Lord Voldemort's greatest worker, although Tom Riddle had never worked well with others, and doesn't have the ability to love. Many Harry Potter fans love Bellatrix Lestrange, thinking of her as the epic evil force with the cool hair, but what she has done cannot be undone. She remains to this day one of my favorite Death Eaters, but I really, really would not want to bump into her in a dark alley.
Ha, ha, this is who I should have done. But then there would be six antagonists, and five is a good round number.
Gollum, Lord of the Rings- The mislead poor creature who wants to help his friends, or the malevolent monster with a corrupted mind, who wants the ring all for himself? Undoubtedly suffering from schizophrenia, Gollum/Smeagol is one of the most interesting villains of all time, being a crook, a murderer, and a helpful navigator all at the same time. Half the time he can't even remember who is, or used to be, only that there is something that he dearly needs, and it was stolen from him. Yet as Gollum begins his journey to retrieve his precious, something starts to show inside of him, whether it is remorse or sorrow or just plain guilt-or is it any of those at all? One minute you feel sorry for him, and the next you hate him, and wish that he would just fall into a fiery pit. No matter which it is, though, Gollum makes you think, through riddles and clues hidden in plain sight, and can reflect the minds of ourselves at times. 
Cal Hockley, Titanic- No Titanic drama would be complete without a love angle of some sort (it's an angle, not a triangle. Try to draw one and you'll see what I mean), a scandal that was considered the end of the world in 1912, or a crime on board. James Cameron's 1997 Titanic has all of those (which is probably why it won so many awards from a modern audience), but the character that really makes all these pieces fit together is none other than the miser Cal Hockley, or as I call him, Count Rubenstein, which is a really long story. Obsessed with money, even though he already has an ample supply, Cal is engaged to the beautiful, young Rose DeWitt Bukater, who despises him despite what her mother says. It soon becomes apparent that though he buys her jewels beyond her dreams, he doesn't care for her either, or at least not as much as he cares for money, even though it is their marriage that will solve the Bukaters' problems. After several sneaky attempts to shake off the young and poverty-stricken Jack Dawson, Cal resorts to shooting at the couple, leading them (again) to their almost-deaths. After realizing that his diamond is gone, he goes off and steals a child to allow him onto a lifeboat. How many arrest counts would there be there? It's hard to find any mercy to show him, and you're almost happy when you find out that he killed himself a few years later. The curious thing about Cal, however, is that he's not evil just for the sake of being evil. He's evil because he's a jerk, and it's as simple as that. Now would be a really good time to tell you that there are probably some major spoilers in this. If you haven't seen Titanic, then shame on you (just kidding. Maybe). But if you haven't seen the faces in the pictures, then don't read it. Or if you have, and don't want to know what happens next, then DON'T READ IT.
Hilly Holbrook, The Help- There's no way that you could
charge Hilly with anything in specifics, since she was living the life that probably thousands of young women did in the 1960's, but there's something that just can't stop you from hating her. So sure that her race is superior, far above that of her maids, she goes to great lengths to stop them from getting the correct treatment, and even greater lengths to make sure they get the worst treatment. Hilly is obsessed with herself and her reputation, and will stop at nothing to ensure that it is stabilized, even if it includes drafting her own bill to require a "black" bathroom for the maids in a white home. The horrible thing that you realize about this book/movie, however, is that Hilly did so many horrible things to the people in Jackson, but there were so many others like her, and those stories didn't have happy endings.
The Master, Doctor Who- I'll have to admit, the Master is one of my favorite villains, just because he's so completely psycho. After regenerating from the form of the old Professor Yana, locked away in a body, forgetting who he really was, the younger-looking new incarnation sprung up from the ashes, looking like a maniac. The next time you see him, he's the prime minister of England, and starts inviting aliens to Earth. After that, he pops up again about a year later, with a giant craving for food, which leads him to start muttering to himself, which leads to a schizophrenic psychopath breakdown (I seem to like schizophrenic characters). What I find interesting about the Master, though, is that in his second appearance in the new series, he's so much different, and you realize that he may not be as evil as you think he is, just really messed up and willing to kill everybody on planet Earth. He's been insane ever since he was a child, and you have to give him credit for that, especially when the most unlikely possibility turns out to be the new villain. Still, you can't forget what he did to the Doctor and so many others before (in short, torture), and you have no room in your mind for remorse for weirdos. Hitler was messed up, too. 
Bellatrix Lestrange, Harry Potter- Speaking of pyschopaths.... :) There's a reason that I'm not writing about Voldemort, and it's that he's way too obvious. The most popular villain of all time, yada yada yada. It's true that Bellatrix is kind of overdone, too, but she really is just crazy, and that's what makes her so interesting. While she was so horrible to the rest of the world, Bellatrix is one of the only known female Death Eaters, next to Narcissa Malfoy, who would never even come close to her sister's rank. She considers herself Lord Voldemort's greatest worker, although Tom Riddle had never worked well with others, and doesn't have the ability to love. Many Harry Potter fans love Bellatrix Lestrange, thinking of her as the epic evil force with the cool hair, but what she has done cannot be undone. She remains to this day one of my favorite Death Eaters, but I really, really would not want to bump into her in a dark alley. 
Ha, ha, this is who I should have done. But then there would be six antagonists, and five is a good round number.
Saturday, June 22, 2013
The Sounds of Summer
Out of everywhere I've spent the summer, or at least any time of the year that's not winter and freezing, there have always been little characteristics that make it unique, that would let me know, if I were blind, where in the world I was just because of my memory. Whether I was a small child, a toddler, or a kid about my age now, these little things stuck with me forever, and whenever I hear them, in or out of context, it makes me revert back to this strange dimension of sentimental values.
The Train.
It's the startling background reminder that there is still a world around you as you sit in the green, lush downtown, people bustling everywhere, going about there business. The soft whisper that hangs in the warm urban air, framing the sun as it sinks below the horizon, leaving the world in a cooler atmosphere, a breeze just tickling your skin. The train is going home for the evening, delivering late workers home to their families, and another city day is coming to an end.
The Foghorn.
Living more than half my life on the Oregon coast, and the rest of it in Massachusetts, I've heard plenty of foghorns in my life, whether it was on family trips to Canadian islands, early crabbing expeditions, or searching for orcas at dusk. It's not just because of the name, but the sound of a foghorn reminds me of the stillness of everything. It's a quiet alarm, testing to see if you're still there, only heard when everything is perfectly quiet. The wind is barely a breath over the water, and a seal will occasionally peek its head up, studying you with its big, curious eyes. The whole ocean, grey and motionless, is blanketed with thick fog, that's only beginning to clear. But if you can hear the foghorn, you know that everything will be all right.
The Airplane.
Lying on the beach with my eyes closed, on a damp towel that was once dry, hours ago, I can always rely on hearing the roar of the airplane above me. In Rhode Island, you can count on seeing several airplanes streaking across the sky, large messages flapping out behind them. I used to look up at them, and wonder about the people in them, whether they were from Asia or Europe or just the Boston airport a few hours away. With the crashing of the waves on the beach, and the shouts of children splashing in the shallow water, a plane across the sky screams summer to me. And not just a summer. The Rhode Island summer of my past.
It's all very lovely.
The Train.
It's the startling background reminder that there is still a world around you as you sit in the green, lush downtown, people bustling everywhere, going about there business. The soft whisper that hangs in the warm urban air, framing the sun as it sinks below the horizon, leaving the world in a cooler atmosphere, a breeze just tickling your skin. The train is going home for the evening, delivering late workers home to their families, and another city day is coming to an end.
The Foghorn.
Living more than half my life on the Oregon coast, and the rest of it in Massachusetts, I've heard plenty of foghorns in my life, whether it was on family trips to Canadian islands, early crabbing expeditions, or searching for orcas at dusk. It's not just because of the name, but the sound of a foghorn reminds me of the stillness of everything. It's a quiet alarm, testing to see if you're still there, only heard when everything is perfectly quiet. The wind is barely a breath over the water, and a seal will occasionally peek its head up, studying you with its big, curious eyes. The whole ocean, grey and motionless, is blanketed with thick fog, that's only beginning to clear. But if you can hear the foghorn, you know that everything will be all right.
The Airplane.
Lying on the beach with my eyes closed, on a damp towel that was once dry, hours ago, I can always rely on hearing the roar of the airplane above me. In Rhode Island, you can count on seeing several airplanes streaking across the sky, large messages flapping out behind them. I used to look up at them, and wonder about the people in them, whether they were from Asia or Europe or just the Boston airport a few hours away. With the crashing of the waves on the beach, and the shouts of children splashing in the shallow water, a plane across the sky screams summer to me. And not just a summer. The Rhode Island summer of my past.
It's all very lovely.
Thursday, June 20, 2013
This doesn't even need (or deserve) a title...
I'm sorry that I haven't been blogging much.
I guess that when you don't do anything with your life, you kind of lose inspiration. Well, it's building in there somewhere. Just not yet. Maybe after my friend and I make fudge and I make her watch Downton Abbey tomorrow, there will be inspiration (but probably not). If not, I will entertain you with either pieces I wrote for fun or for school or some random list or book review.
Until then, I will post this. I hope you laugh.
I did.
I guess that when you don't do anything with your life, you kind of lose inspiration. Well, it's building in there somewhere. Just not yet. Maybe after my friend and I make fudge and I make her watch Downton Abbey tomorrow, there will be inspiration (but probably not). If not, I will entertain you with either pieces I wrote for fun or for school or some random list or book review.
Until then, I will post this. I hope you laugh.
I did.
Thursday, June 13, 2013
Swinging
I can very clearly remember the first time that I learned how to "pump" my legs on a swing set.
My parents had hung two blue swings underneath the porch of our house, which was high above the ground, so we could dangle from the ceiling, overlooking the hill. I still have one of the blue swings, which was plastic and had a thick yellow rope as a chain, and the other one I sold to my friend at a garage sale a few years ago. Whenever I go to her house, I look through the window and see it just hanging there, and am reminded of the hours I spent trying to swing high on that thing. I didn't get the concept of pumping, since I thought it was was so much easier to just swing without doing any work. My dad tried to convince me that it was better, but I ignored him and kept on getting pushed. Until the day I actually tried to do it...and then I soared.
The way I see it, swings are the closest that a normal human can get to flying. You don't need a plane or some heavy duty equipment or training; all you need is a rope and a place to hang it, and all of a sudden you're flying like a bird. From the moment you reach the pinnacle of your swoop, and can see for miles around, to when your feet brush the ground, scattering bark chips or dirt everywhere, to the opposite side of the arc, where you can just see over the bar and wonder if you're going to flip over the entire set, it's the most simple yet thrilling experience ever. And people have been doing it for hundreds of years. to feel the wind blowing in your face and the adrenaline pulsing through you. It's a perfect parabola, hitting zero somewhere in the middle and then completing the mirror image on the other side-living math while feeling like a bird.
For me, swings bring a new opportunity. Until my swing (one of the swings I used to have) broke off of the wimpy little tree in my backyard (I moved), I would spend hours out there, thinking and kind of talking to myself, writing and narrating stories in my head. It gave me something to do, and I would fly at the same time. Because I don't have a swing anymore, if you see me walking somewhere and talking to myself, that's why. That swing was my refuge.
It's my dream to someday move into a new house where I can have a giant forest of trees in the backyard, where I can hang all the swings I want. It hasn't happened yet. But it will.
My parents had hung two blue swings underneath the porch of our house, which was high above the ground, so we could dangle from the ceiling, overlooking the hill. I still have one of the blue swings, which was plastic and had a thick yellow rope as a chain, and the other one I sold to my friend at a garage sale a few years ago. Whenever I go to her house, I look through the window and see it just hanging there, and am reminded of the hours I spent trying to swing high on that thing. I didn't get the concept of pumping, since I thought it was was so much easier to just swing without doing any work. My dad tried to convince me that it was better, but I ignored him and kept on getting pushed. Until the day I actually tried to do it...and then I soared.
The way I see it, swings are the closest that a normal human can get to flying. You don't need a plane or some heavy duty equipment or training; all you need is a rope and a place to hang it, and all of a sudden you're flying like a bird. From the moment you reach the pinnacle of your swoop, and can see for miles around, to when your feet brush the ground, scattering bark chips or dirt everywhere, to the opposite side of the arc, where you can just see over the bar and wonder if you're going to flip over the entire set, it's the most simple yet thrilling experience ever. And people have been doing it for hundreds of years. to feel the wind blowing in your face and the adrenaline pulsing through you. It's a perfect parabola, hitting zero somewhere in the middle and then completing the mirror image on the other side-living math while feeling like a bird.
For me, swings bring a new opportunity. Until my swing (one of the swings I used to have) broke off of the wimpy little tree in my backyard (I moved), I would spend hours out there, thinking and kind of talking to myself, writing and narrating stories in my head. It gave me something to do, and I would fly at the same time. Because I don't have a swing anymore, if you see me walking somewhere and talking to myself, that's why. That swing was my refuge.
It's my dream to someday move into a new house where I can have a giant forest of trees in the backyard, where I can hang all the swings I want. It hasn't happened yet. But it will.
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Going to the Library
I really, really love libraries. Maybe it's just that I really, really love books, but it's also the quiet and calm atmosphere, the endless choices, and the sense that there are so many adventures you could go on, with only the flip of a page. Choose a door and go through it, and experience the world that lies beyond. Or take a few doors home with you and spend a little infinity inside of each of them.
I just got back from the library after my violin lesson, which is right across the street, and pretty much brought back a stack of books that won't really make me smarter or make me think, but books that will keep me entertained for the next few days. Because they teach you about life and are pretty funny, I got an Alice McKinley book, one from her senior year, and a few Babysitters Club books because now I'm older than the girls in those and I can look at them from a different perspective. The prize of this trip were the two John Green books, Looking For Alaska and Paper Towns. I loved The Fault In Our Stars so much, and I've heard great things about these mature but wonderful books, so this will be an interesting next couple of days.
The thing that I've noticed about rereading books over and over again is that you are never lonely. About 4/5 of the books that I mentioned above are ones that I've read before, and I either want to refresh my memory or take the trip back into that world and see what I gain from it this time. I think that's a great way to describe books. Each time you read one, you absorb the words and fall into a new reality, where you are the main character, and feel pain when he or she does, laugh along with the dialogue, and get so wrapped up that you're distrought when it's over. I read To Kill A Mockingbird this year, and plan to read it every year that I can for the rest of my life, to see what else I can learn from the text.
One great example would be Harry Potter. It may sound silly, but I will never feel lonely if I have a Harry Potter book with me. If I'm alone someplace, like at an orchestra rehearsal with a bunch of elderly adults talking about their grandchildren with each other, all I have to do is open up the book and suddenly I'm home. I've read those books hundreds of times, fallen into those worlds on so many occasions, that the words just become part of me after a while, and even though I know what's going to happen next, they're familiar, and that's comforting in a strange but happy little way.
Just being in a library makes me want to just sit there and read forever. It's so quiet, with only little rustlings and keyboard tapping, and the occasional beep of the scanner, that all time just goes away, and you're lost in a whole new dimension, with endless possibilities stretched out in front of you, aisles and aisles of new opportunities and information waiting to be soaked up. Every time I read a book, I learn something new, and feel like a better person. Every time I write, or try to write, a book, I feel like a better person. Words are the most powerful tools that we can have, and the library is full of them.
Every book ever written in the English language is just different combination of 26 letters.
I just got back from the library after my violin lesson, which is right across the street, and pretty much brought back a stack of books that won't really make me smarter or make me think, but books that will keep me entertained for the next few days. Because they teach you about life and are pretty funny, I got an Alice McKinley book, one from her senior year, and a few Babysitters Club books because now I'm older than the girls in those and I can look at them from a different perspective. The prize of this trip were the two John Green books, Looking For Alaska and Paper Towns. I loved The Fault In Our Stars so much, and I've heard great things about these mature but wonderful books, so this will be an interesting next couple of days.
The thing that I've noticed about rereading books over and over again is that you are never lonely. About 4/5 of the books that I mentioned above are ones that I've read before, and I either want to refresh my memory or take the trip back into that world and see what I gain from it this time. I think that's a great way to describe books. Each time you read one, you absorb the words and fall into a new reality, where you are the main character, and feel pain when he or she does, laugh along with the dialogue, and get so wrapped up that you're distrought when it's over. I read To Kill A Mockingbird this year, and plan to read it every year that I can for the rest of my life, to see what else I can learn from the text.
One great example would be Harry Potter. It may sound silly, but I will never feel lonely if I have a Harry Potter book with me. If I'm alone someplace, like at an orchestra rehearsal with a bunch of elderly adults talking about their grandchildren with each other, all I have to do is open up the book and suddenly I'm home. I've read those books hundreds of times, fallen into those worlds on so many occasions, that the words just become part of me after a while, and even though I know what's going to happen next, they're familiar, and that's comforting in a strange but happy little way.
Just being in a library makes me want to just sit there and read forever. It's so quiet, with only little rustlings and keyboard tapping, and the occasional beep of the scanner, that all time just goes away, and you're lost in a whole new dimension, with endless possibilities stretched out in front of you, aisles and aisles of new opportunities and information waiting to be soaked up. Every time I read a book, I learn something new, and feel like a better person. Every time I write, or try to write, a book, I feel like a better person. Words are the most powerful tools that we can have, and the library is full of them.
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
Gone in a Flash
And as if by some miracle, eighth grade was over.
It's not like I didn't see it coming. I saw it when I was a sixth grader, and watched the eighth graders saying good-bye to each other on the stage, when we gave them the traditional gifts to send them off. I saw it last year when my friends who were graduating left the school for the last time, and I felt like school would have no meaning anymore. It's not like it's high school graduation, and we still have a long way to go, as our principal noted at the promotion ceremony last night. But after spending the past few years in such a tight-knit school, with teachers who were best friends and the most distant classroom being just down the hall, it was hard to just leave.
It's kind of surreal to be treated just like the other kids you've watched for the past two years who graduated before you. I never knew what was running through their heads, and today I found that it was kind of nerve-wracking. I kept on having little anxiety attacks just because I was leaving, and had to go outside to calm down for a few minutes before we started the gifts ceremony. Once we did start, though, I realized what a great school I've gone to these past few years. We had the peer-nominated Apogee awards last night, and everyone in the school was nominated at least once, which is really great. I won for the best role model and something for being mathematically gifted (ironically enough), and so many kids were recognized for doing something, even the ones that most people wouldn't think would win anything. It was so weird to have the teachers saying good-bye to me, to have them giving us little notes and doughnuts just because we were leaving, and to sign yearbooks in middle school for the last time.
I'm happy that I'm moving on, but terrified at the same time. Just as I was getting used to being an eighth grader and at the top of the school, I was put back down at the bottom (even though now my grade has a name!). A lot of kids going into middle school worrying about getting lost and not knowign anyone, but after being in such a small school, I've never had to worry about that. High school will be the middle school I never had, only a lot more intense and important. At the promotion ceremony last night, I had the most fun that I'd ever had a middle school dance/social, and now I don't get to enjoy them again; instead, I've been plunged into an atmosphere of dirty dancing and claustrophobia that makes me want to never attend a high school dance, ever. But now I have so many doors opened for me, so many opportunities that I've never had before. I can enter music competitions, participate in TAG events, take challenging classes, and be treated more like an adult than ever before. As my teacher said today, "don't forget us up on the hill". (The middle school is on the hill above the high school). I think it would be impossible to forget, since it's right there, but now I can visit as an individual on my own time, without being restricted to lines and signed notes.
My friend wrote in my yearbook, "4 more years and we're free!". She can think that, but I'm going to enjoy every year as it comes. If it goes as fast as middle school, then I'll take my time. I don't want to miss anything.
And it's gonna be...fantastic.
It's not like I didn't see it coming. I saw it when I was a sixth grader, and watched the eighth graders saying good-bye to each other on the stage, when we gave them the traditional gifts to send them off. I saw it last year when my friends who were graduating left the school for the last time, and I felt like school would have no meaning anymore. It's not like it's high school graduation, and we still have a long way to go, as our principal noted at the promotion ceremony last night. But after spending the past few years in such a tight-knit school, with teachers who were best friends and the most distant classroom being just down the hall, it was hard to just leave.
It's kind of surreal to be treated just like the other kids you've watched for the past two years who graduated before you. I never knew what was running through their heads, and today I found that it was kind of nerve-wracking. I kept on having little anxiety attacks just because I was leaving, and had to go outside to calm down for a few minutes before we started the gifts ceremony. Once we did start, though, I realized what a great school I've gone to these past few years. We had the peer-nominated Apogee awards last night, and everyone in the school was nominated at least once, which is really great. I won for the best role model and something for being mathematically gifted (ironically enough), and so many kids were recognized for doing something, even the ones that most people wouldn't think would win anything. It was so weird to have the teachers saying good-bye to me, to have them giving us little notes and doughnuts just because we were leaving, and to sign yearbooks in middle school for the last time.
I'm happy that I'm moving on, but terrified at the same time. Just as I was getting used to being an eighth grader and at the top of the school, I was put back down at the bottom (even though now my grade has a name!). A lot of kids going into middle school worrying about getting lost and not knowign anyone, but after being in such a small school, I've never had to worry about that. High school will be the middle school I never had, only a lot more intense and important. At the promotion ceremony last night, I had the most fun that I'd ever had a middle school dance/social, and now I don't get to enjoy them again; instead, I've been plunged into an atmosphere of dirty dancing and claustrophobia that makes me want to never attend a high school dance, ever. But now I have so many doors opened for me, so many opportunities that I've never had before. I can enter music competitions, participate in TAG events, take challenging classes, and be treated more like an adult than ever before. As my teacher said today, "don't forget us up on the hill". (The middle school is on the hill above the high school). I think it would be impossible to forget, since it's right there, but now I can visit as an individual on my own time, without being restricted to lines and signed notes.
My friend wrote in my yearbook, "4 more years and we're free!". She can think that, but I'm going to enjoy every year as it comes. If it goes as fast as middle school, then I'll take my time. I don't want to miss anything.
And it's gonna be...fantastic.
Sunday, June 9, 2013
Waiting for Better Things
This is the last language arts essay that I wrote for middle school (I still have to write one for science about giant squid). I did copy some from my earlier post Waiting, but that's only the second paragraph. The assignment was the find a song that described the school year for me, and I picked a song by Dar Williams.
For my entire life, it feels like I’ve been waiting for something to
come, something that will make everything better and change the way that I look
at the world. I don’t know if it’s an opportunity or a natural event that will
just come with life, but it’s as if I’m holding my breath, and looking forward,
straining my neck to catch a glimpse at what’s yet to arrive. It’s this that
keeps me going, and won’t let me give up when times are hard. I always know
that there’s that one thing, whatever it is, left for me, and I can’t wait to
see what it is.
No matter how tough things were before, there are still things in store that will change my life forever. There will be storms, of course, and even hurricanes that threaten to rip apart any form of happiness, but there will also be blue skies and calm seas that stretch on endlessly for miles and miles. I might be leaving something behind, but I’m on to explore something new and brighter.
Not knowing what you're waiting for is such a
wonderful thing, though. You have no idea what lies in store for you, but it's
certain to be fantastic, since you're traveling along a path unknown to others,
with the routes that may come along only applying to and affecting you. Maybe
I'll graduate high school with honors. Maybe I'll learn how to speak Finnish.
Maybe I'll survive a giant earthquake (or not). I don't see how anyone could be
so sick and tired of life that it has no interest anymore. Sure, I feel tired
sometimes and just want to sleep for a week, but at least there's still the
hidden surprise and suspense of not knowing what happens next. Older people who
think that they have no time to do anything with their remaining time are
wrong-there's always time for something else. The more you do, the more you
discover...maybe you'll eventually find out what you've been waiting for your
entire life.
It took a lot of soul searching for me to find
this song, the one that wraps up my entire year with just a few chords and some
words jumbled together. I eventually chose “Better Things”, by Dar Williams,
and the theme resonates with eighth grade for me so much. Even through the
toughest times, there are still better things on their way. In a sense, the
process of finding the song also connected to my experience this year. I spent
so much time trying to figure out who I wanted to be that I didn’t have time to
fill in the gaps with what was really good for me inside. What I really needed to do was to concentrate
on the future instead of dwelling on the past.
Seventh
grade was much harder for me than eighth grade in so many ways. I was trying to
deal with my friends who were a year older than me and also with the woes and
troubles of my friends my own age. I wasn’t challenged enough in some ways, but other things were the most difficult things I had ever attempted to do, whether or not they had anything to do
with school. When I got to eighth grade, though, it was like a door had been
opened for me, to a huge new world with so many possibilities. All of a sudden
I was in better classes, and found more of a passion for music. Here's hoping all the days ahead won’t be as
bitter as the ones behind you/Be an optimist instead, and hope that happiness
will find you/Forget what happened yesterday, I know that better things are on
their way, the lyrics say. As long as you forget what horrible things have
happened in your past, goodness will eventually find you without any outside
help. Why would you give up on yourself with so much left in store?
There’s a saying on my math teacher’s wall
that I get to look at every day in math, that always gives me another reminding
jolt in my mind when I read it. Don’t cry
because it’s over, smile because it happened. I went through so many great
experiences this year, and had no idea what I was going to do with myself once
they were over. Every time, though, I thought of the quote, and it really did
make me smile. If something like that happen once, it can definitely happen
again, and next time it will be even better. I know you've got a lot of good things happening up ahead/The past is
gone, it’s all been said/So here’s to what the future brings/I hope tomorrow
you find better things.
It’s true that I’ve had my share of troubles in middle school,
but my eighth grade year has been mostly filled with fear and anticipation
about the year that will change how I look at school forever-my new life down
at the high school. Everything that I do now seems to impact what will happen
there, whether it’s passing a test or writing a simple essay. When I went to
graduation at the high school this year, however, the commencement speaker told
everyone in the room, no matter what age, to consider life to be starting
"tomorrow". Today you are just beginning, he said, and nothing that you have done
for the first bit of your life matters, but tomorrow everything will fall into
place. This bit of his speech really made me realize that it’s true about me,
and really goes along with the song as well: It’s really good to see you rocking out and having fun/Living like you’ve
just begun/Accept your life and what it brings/I hope tomorrow you find better
things.
Although
the entire song seems to fit in with my personality and view on life this year,
it is the beginning that really makes me feel that this piece and these lyrics
describe my eighth grade year so well. Emerging out of the bring introduction,
the beginning lyrics are what sum up the entire song, and send out the message
that I believe is crucial to life-don’t get up, because you have to so much to
live for. Here’s wishing you the bluest sky/And hoping something
better comes tomorrow/Hoping all the verses rhyme/and all the very best of
choruses too/Follow all the doubt and sadness/I know that better things are on
their way.
No matter how tough things were before, there are still things in store that will change my life forever. There will be storms, of course, and even hurricanes that threaten to rip apart any form of happiness, but there will also be blue skies and calm seas that stretch on endlessly for miles and miles. I might be leaving something behind, but I’m on to explore something new and brighter.
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
Everything Must End
Jane, the little girl who had to live with her nasty aunties and was forced to work long hours in the long, stretched yards of the English property, has flown away on her giant peach and will never return. Apparently they landed in New York and are still living there to do this day, telling their stories to all of the eager passerby. But they will never again appear on our stage, the same way, with the same story behind them. That's part of the past now. Never again.
When Seven Brides for Seven Brothers ended a few months ago, I was devastated. That was back before I had a blog, when I was still thirteen, back when I was still a second year pit orchestra member (okay, technically I still am one). But even though we had twice as many shows as this performance, and I had a much bigger role, I still felt relieved, even happy, that this one was over. With Seven for Seven, it was like my world was falling apart, and I didn't know what I was going to do with my life. When I look at it critically, though, I realize that that show made me feel so much better about myself, while this one was close to making me feel worse.
The people in pit orchestra was the reason I loved it so much, I think. It was also the music, obviously, and I grew considerablyin skill after each year in the pit. But it was mostly the nerds, the ones who accepted me, and made jokes and talked about Harry Potter, rather than wallowing in self pity, who made me feel welcome. They were all older than me, in high school and beyond, but were the nicest group of people I knew. There was the bassoonist, with her awesome shirts and sonic screwdriver key chain, who had been drum major as a senior the year before and was now going to community college. There was the trombonist, who I had known forever but never really talked to, or appreciated how funny she was. There was the piano player, a legendary musician in the area, who, at the age of fiteen, was the best young pianist I knew, and through witty jokes, we became friends. There was our conductor, my best friend's older brother, a genius who had no appreciated for Doctor Who but pretended he did, and his dad, the best math teacher in the school, who not only could play the trumpet but could also pull off a sweater vest. Through the pit, I became part of the music community, and that was a great thing.
Don't get me wrong, I love dance. I've done it for several years, and get better every year, but four hours or more a week can get very tiring, especially when we're staying until almost midnight every night two weeks before the show and then the two weeks during. It's true that a lot of my friends are in dance as well, but they were just a reminder of my real life, while pit orchestra was just a dream. All they did was compliment each other, and even though it didn't really bother me that much, I was always left out of that bit. A sixth grader told me that "my pimples were cute" (and her skin really isn't the nicest thing in the world, if I do say so myself). All there was was competition and pity parties, and I really got sick of it after a while. I don't need to be in a dressing room with a fourth grader who throws temper tantrums every night.
Every year, I don't know how I will do without dance for three months, and without the show. But come September, the show is just a lost memory, and by May, I don't remember it or really care that much at all. And maybe by that time I'll be ready to do dance again.
When Seven Brides for Seven Brothers ended a few months ago, I was devastated. That was back before I had a blog, when I was still thirteen, back when I was still a second year pit orchestra member (okay, technically I still am one). But even though we had twice as many shows as this performance, and I had a much bigger role, I still felt relieved, even happy, that this one was over. With Seven for Seven, it was like my world was falling apart, and I didn't know what I was going to do with my life. When I look at it critically, though, I realize that that show made me feel so much better about myself, while this one was close to making me feel worse.
The people in pit orchestra was the reason I loved it so much, I think. It was also the music, obviously, and I grew considerablyin skill after each year in the pit. But it was mostly the nerds, the ones who accepted me, and made jokes and talked about Harry Potter, rather than wallowing in self pity, who made me feel welcome. They were all older than me, in high school and beyond, but were the nicest group of people I knew. There was the bassoonist, with her awesome shirts and sonic screwdriver key chain, who had been drum major as a senior the year before and was now going to community college. There was the trombonist, who I had known forever but never really talked to, or appreciated how funny she was. There was the piano player, a legendary musician in the area, who, at the age of fiteen, was the best young pianist I knew, and through witty jokes, we became friends. There was our conductor, my best friend's older brother, a genius who had no appreciated for Doctor Who but pretended he did, and his dad, the best math teacher in the school, who not only could play the trumpet but could also pull off a sweater vest. Through the pit, I became part of the music community, and that was a great thing.
Don't get me wrong, I love dance. I've done it for several years, and get better every year, but four hours or more a week can get very tiring, especially when we're staying until almost midnight every night two weeks before the show and then the two weeks during. It's true that a lot of my friends are in dance as well, but they were just a reminder of my real life, while pit orchestra was just a dream. All they did was compliment each other, and even though it didn't really bother me that much, I was always left out of that bit. A sixth grader told me that "my pimples were cute" (and her skin really isn't the nicest thing in the world, if I do say so myself). All there was was competition and pity parties, and I really got sick of it after a while. I don't need to be in a dressing room with a fourth grader who throws temper tantrums every night.
Every year, I don't know how I will do without dance for three months, and without the show. But come September, the show is just a lost memory, and by May, I don't remember it or really care that much at all. And maybe by that time I'll be ready to do dance again.
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