A Follow-Up On The Last Post

I don't think I actually said what I had planned to say when I sat down to write that last post, so I'll kind of smooth out the wrinkles here. The point is that people are just so freaking obnoxious sometimes. It's not just life, it's our interactions, and how we react to one another. Sorry to go all psychiatrist on you, but we can just drive each other crazy because of our mere personalities, and even that fact makes me go crazy. Perspective is the key, though. I finished my math homework, and it wasn't even that hard. Once you get something off your plate, everything seems brighter.

People: A thoroughly scientific study

I was very annoyed by people today.

It doesn't happen very often. Usually, if we've been away for awhile, I can't wait to go back to school, and see how interesting everybody is, and how life has changed. But before winter break this year, I was just ready to leave, and not come back until the next year. Everything that everybody said seemed to strike a nerve in me, my science partner was completely off task (and she's one of my best friends), US History was increasing boring, and I still had to one more bloody week. Of course, by the time January came, I was sick of being home, and sick of not doing anything except watch my brother eat and play computer games, and couldn't wait for school to come back. Once I got back, spring break couldn't come soon enough,

There are just those days, though, when you are just sick of the dumb jokes that your friends make, and just want to read a book. Maybe I didn't want to play the card future game (who would I marry this time, David Tennant or Harry Potter?), or listen to the kids across from me in science class talk throughout the whole period, or go to dance again. Every weekend, I look forward to doing nothing, and when nothing gets boring, the days go by slowly, but in a fast way, if that makes sense. It's like walking steadily on a treadmill; even if you go moderately and in a slower pace, you're always moving. And I hate Mondays with a passsion.

Sometimes, there are those days when you want your friends with you all the time, so you don't feel left out and hurt. And then you feel like you just want to scream when you can't walk a single step without your friend shadowing every step about two inches away from you, and apparently can't get to class on her own. I mean, really.  And then there's the whole walking-through-the-halls thing, when apparently (a word I seem to be using a lot) the people you are with can't walk a few steps in front or behind, and either walk backwards to face you or form a wall (which can be done with just three people) that either squishes you between the other two or causes you to hit the wall or a high schooler who's wondering why there are middle schoolers in the building in the first place.

Humans are really weird. We annoy each other so much, and blame it all on our extraordinary minds. Those little misshapen globs of gray mush that live in your head can trick you into doing anything, or thinking anything. You can feel hurt, or angry, or just happy with the world, just based on what you tell yourself, and some minds are so much more complex than others. How interesting.

Now I have to do my stupid homework. (See what I mean?)

THIS IS ME.

Perfect

When I was in elementary school, I was one of the smart kids. I won't say that I wasn't, or pretend anything else otherwise, because I was, and it was a big part of my social life back then. I went to one of the two elementary schools in my town, and the kids there were either pretty bad students or my friends, who were also good students, the latter including about five or six kids in my whole grade. I was so shy back then that it was ridiculous, and it took me forever to even get up the courage to raise my hand in class a lot, or talk to the other kids. Once I did, though, I became locked in the role as the "smart one". And once I got to fifth grade, when the closed my old school and stuck us in a new school with kids I didn't know, it became who I was, whether I liked it or not. I was afraid to get something wrong, because then I wouldn't fit my role, and I would be out of character. It was like I was a character in a play, and the script had to be played out correctly. No improvising was allowed.

Not to brag or anything, but I am generally good at what I do. I get good grades, and I do well in music and dance. My worst subject is math, and that isn't even that bad. But I'm not perfect, or anywhere near it. I try to excel, but I can't get to every goal, and reach what other people have done, especially those I know.

I dance on pointe twice a week, but I've never danced until my feet bleed.

I've practiced for hours, and split my finger open, but I've never been on the point of collapse.

I've written for days and days straight during the summer, but have never been published in something other than an anthology or magazine. And I feel like my time is running out.

Does this mean I can't be good at these things, because I'm not as good as the best? I don't think so. Actually, I know it doesn't mean that. There is always someone better than me, and can't compete with the impossible. It's hard to remind myself that sometimes, though,

In my opinion, perfection is a false theory. It's like that advertisement that we always see, that tells us about something amazing, but the product never really lives up to the expectations. It's Utopia, the wonderful world at the end of the universe that everyone heard about but turned out to be the end of the world anyway. The skies weren't full of diamonds, and the truth isn't in the context of perfection, either. Perfection is the invisible line that we are always striving for, but we never get there. Because it doesn't exist.

In one of my favorite childhood books, Ramona's World, Ramona's classmate Susan is at her birthday party and not eating cake when she suddenly begins to cry. When everyone asks what is wrong, she sobs that her mother wants her to be perfect, and she can't. Whenever I read this, I think of all of those little girls who want to be like the princesses, perfect and wonderful. Yet it's impossible for them, and they are just disappointed. I can't believe I'm saying this, since I swore I would never quote her, but, as Miley Cyrus (or is it Hannah Montana?) says, "Nobody's perfect!" Well, a lot of other people have said that, too, but she's the one I think of when I hear it, which probably isn't a good thing.

All right, Miley. Nobody's perfect. You're right.

Faith: Our Strength and Weakness

          

 In Language Arts, our most recent assignment was to pick a word or phrase and write an essay defining that word further than the dictionary takes it. I chose faith, and rather than going with the happy stuff, decided to go slightly insane with the topic. I promise you, I am not really this morbid.

In the book The Fault In Our Stars, young cancer patient Hazel Lancaster writes a hopeful and admiring letter to her favorite author, Peter Van Houten, begging him to reveal any information that would complete his book, a masterpiece in which the narrator dies and the story ends midsentence. Van Houten replies, however, with the words, “I fear your faith has been misplaced-but then, faith usually is.”

Van Houten turns out to be an obnoxious alcoholic who will only reveal the fate of his protagonist’s pet hamster, but Hazel was still led astray by his words, taking them with her all the way to Holland to meet him, and then letting them crush her dreams. The picture of what she thought this man really was being torn to shreds, stomped out by the monster of reality.  Yet even that made her stronger inside.

We grow up thinking that faith and belief are the same thing. In a way, I suppose, they are; both of them can apply to a person, or a religion, or a person or deity inside of a religion. Faith doesn’t have to have evidence or anything that supports the thing itself actually existing. On the contrary, it is fed by the believer’s dedication. “Be faithful in small things, because it is in them that your strength lies,” says Mother Teresa. What she says is entirely true, to me. Faith would not be if it weren’t for strength, and vice versa. If a person were to go through life frightened of every small thing that came his or her way, no strength would ever come out of that person, whether physical or mental. Faith is not only a trait of human lives; it is also a requirement for us to succeed happily and safely.

There is no proof that a specific religion exists, so instead of telling about how wondrous faith is now, I will turn to the other side of the story. There is always another part, one that has been hiding in the depths of the shadows, waiting for you to find it and be alarmed and quite shocked at what you see. The dark side of the moon is a place of secrets and mystery, and so is the other side of faith. So is the other side of trust, and believing.

Hazel’s story ends sadly, I will let you know. No story of a cancer patient could end wonderfully unless the cancer is somehow magically cured, and, as Hazel points out at the beginning of her story, she hates cancer books, because it never really gets better.  Her mind does get stronger, however, and as she narrates on, we realize how her faith has helped her along the way, after it pushed her down. This is where I point out that faith may be our greatest asset, but it is also our greatest curse.

Humans can be the most unpredictable creatures on the planet. We build up friendship, and trust bridges, and form the most complex relationships. But, just like in matters of concrete, these seemingly strong things can be crushed, and break, as easily as balsa wood. We have the power to be the kindest beings there are, but also the cruelest and most prone to backstabbing.

The passengers on the Titanic had faith in their crew and captain, which turned out to be their fatal mistake. Lily and James Potter “put their faith in the wrong person,” as Albus Dumbledore put it, describing how Peter Pettigrew turned them over to Lord Voldemort. By trusting your secrets in somebody else’s mind, you are putting something your most precious things in danger, like a life.

The God Complex is one of the last episodes in the sixth season of the British science fiction show Doctor Who. It begins innocently enough; the signature phone box time machine lands in a strange hotel, with rooms that are locked to most, but seem to be designed for a certain person. What the characters soon find out is that it is the fears of that person that are pretty much bottled up and stored in a room, waiting for the victim to stumble inside. “It's not just fear. It's faith. Not just religious faith, faith in something…Find the thing that keeps you brave. I made you expose your faith. Show them what they needed,” the Doctor soon concludes. Faith and strength correlate with one another, but faith is what makes us most vulnerable, and exposes us without the true strength needed to face the world. As I said before, a person cannot live through life frightened of everything, but what if it is faith that makes us so easily fooled and manipulated? Trusting a person with everything, putting faith into him or her, can be a death wish. Instead of a correlating series of lines, this would appear as a complicated web, the lines twisting around in complicated patterns and eventually connecting in random places.

Still, faith doesn’t have to be so morbid. Having faith in a person can be as simple as boosting someone’s confidence, and showing them that you think that he or she can do what may seem to be the impossible.  Anyone going through a hard time could use encouragement, and having faith in a person is like filling a balloon with more helium. The more you add, the higher it soars.

With faith, this world is a place of unique ideas, concepts, trust, and complex inhabitants. As Helen Keller once said, faith is “the strength by which a shattered world shall emerge into light”.  Why not? It is a gift of tremendous strength that we can rebuild our relationships on, and become a planet of harmony again. However, just as with every other gift, we must use it sparingly. Sometimes a great gift can become a great enemy, no matter how glorious it seems.

When everything goes right (sort of)

I was walking with my friends to dance today, just like I always do. To get from my school to my studio, which is pretty much across town, you have to walk by the high school, which we also had to do so we could walk with our high school friends. Walking slightly behind them, and listening to them rant about boys and how awkward their lives are, I looked down for a minute, and couldn't believe what I saw. If you had asked me what kind of CD I would expect to find by the high school, I would probably say something like My Chemical Romance, or Guns and Roses. Not Mozart. Not in my school district, where kids I talk to in Spanish class don't know who Bach is. But there he was, peering up at me; just a CD lying in the street, unharmed in pretty much every way. Of course, I picked it up and put it in my pocket, ignoring the comments my friends made about it being "my type of litter", and how geeky it was (they said the same thing when I was all excited about getting new strings). And when I put it in my CD player at home, the music that flowed out of the little machine wasn't just any Mozart, it was my kind of Mozart; the pieces that I have aspired to play for years and years.

I would like to say that the rest of my day was as awesome as this little bit of luck that I found in the street, but I don't think that gods like me that much. I did have a great violin lesson, despite the fact that I was so tired I could collapse, and got my vibrato under such intense control that the pitch doesn't bend too much at all. It was more of the dance lesson before that that did me in, and how much my foot hurt. I literally just fell off a curb when we were in Washington over spring break, and even though it stopped hurting after a few days, going through a whole class of ballet on Monday really brought the injury back. After a pointe class on Tuesday (which I did not do on pointe), it got worse, and doing dance today was just kind of dumb. I guess I just pulled all of the muscles in my foot or something. On the other hand, though, all of the dances for our upcoming show, Jane and the Giant Peach, are coming along great.

And then we started learning about the Potato Famine in school. So I guess my life isn't that bad after all.

Happy April Fool's Day!

Happy first of April, everyone who might by a slight chance in the minority of chances read this blog! I celebrated by thinking about prank calling my dad, whose job is to respond to stranded marine mammals on the beach, and telling him I found a unicorn, but then realizing that he's actually out of town. My friend, however, very acutely staged a sprained ankle, and went around on crutches all day. Her story was that she was on Space Mountain in Disneyland and was jolted when the ride suddenly stopped. After being forced to ride the school elevator all day, letting people carry her books, and having the principal offer to sue Disneyland, she definitely got away with a good joke (when I told my friends later at dance, they got so mad, because they had been so nice to her all day. I guess that goes to show that people are inclined to be extra nice when another person is disabled. Interesting.)

There used to be the days when everyone played those really dumb pranks on April Fool's Day. You know, "oh, no, your shoes are untied-April fool's!" or "there's a big tarantula on your forehead!" This year I actually forgot that it was even April Fool's Day, and only remembered when my eccentric classmate came up to me before first period and informed me that she was going to pretend that she had forgotten all of her Spanish over spring break in Spanish class. The list went on; my science teacher told us that we had a pop quiz on an activity we had just finished and everyone had a small heart attack, a girl in the bathroom kept on telling me to go look in a stall (which I refused to do), and a girl in Geometry at the high school (which I heard about from my math geeky friends) told everyone that it was her birthday, and when they didn't believe her since it was April Fool's Day, she got really upset and finally they sang to her. I didn't actually do anything myself, except consider calling my neighbor friend and ask her why she wasn't at orchestra rehearsal. I guess that as you get older, the jokes get better, but they aren't as hysterical anymore.

On an entirely different note, I've been having a Tchaikovsky marathon tonight, which hasn't gotten me that far in the repertoire (I started during dinner), but is still really nice. Cappricio Italien is amazing.