Saturday, March 29, 2008

Old man Time plays tricks with the mind

It's so strange, isn't it, when you see in yourself what you've seen sometimes in others? Me, I saw a grown-up today. You know, those people that have two lives: the ones that they live among their peers and the ones they live for their kids (or cousins, in my case). Of all things...! Once, when we were talking about college and careers my grandfather asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. Trying to evade the question with grace, I flippantly said, an adult. He answered that that was just silly; no grown-up was an adult!
And it's true, I guess. Just like it's true that you never actually get to that ideal age where you think, when you are younger, that you will be on top of your life, in control of everything. The first time I realized that was one day in the fourth grade, when I remembered a girl that I had looked up to as the sum of all scholastic wisdom. She had been in the fourth grade and I in the first.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Sigh

So today I got to walk the streets of "my" town again. With my two friends. What a day. Coming back here is the strangest thing... I really, strongly disliked living in this country for many reasons. It is... repressive, in some ways. Coming here though, I realize that there are things I miss. I miss walking down narrow streets of shabby buildings, backed by green, rolling hills and clouds. I miss the ability to go where I want, when I want. But what surprised me most of all about today was that walking down the streets with my two good friends was like a sort of mental and emotional sigh. I could relax. Things had not changed. I knew what was what and how to handle the things that came my way because, well, I'd been working on it for years. All of those little cultural tidbits that I worked so hard to master came back to me in an instant, like a ring that you've had forever and a day. Of course, that's not to say that my two friends had stood still in time. Oh no. Their relationship has changed slightly, towards eachother and slightly towards me. But not enough to throw us off kilter. It was nice- instead of fighting for my place in someone's conversations to find that they'd kept it open for me, at least over this little while.
So that is my sigh tonight. May your friends be true and loyal. May they last through your darkest trial. May you always have a place to come back to, if only for a while.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Health: No matter what the problem is, it can cause death

You know, elephants can remember. These past two weeks just go to prove that I am not an elephant. I have been trying to set up a gig for the chorus at this old folks' home/rehab center that I have a connection to through one of my other teachers (Lee, if any of you read the post on my other blog). This teacher gave me a name and a contact at the home, and the place's phone number. So I called the place, got on the phone with her, and we arranged a date. I told my Chorus teacher about it, and left it up to him to do forms, etc (I can't do that anyway). My Chorus teacher , being who he is and having a lot of work to do, did nothing. No forms filled out, no requests filed, nothing set in motion. So the week before he tells me I have to change the day, we won't be ready by the original one. (*sound of my teeth grinding*) But I didn't know the whole of it yet. I called the woman again... only to find out she wasn't at her desk. I called again, a day or so later- same answer. Somehow I managed to call six time when she was away from her desk. Go figure! So I finally figured out her schedule (mwahahaha, I'm smarter than they give me credit for!) and called her when she was at her desk. (In my head: Hurrah!! Success! Contact established!!!!) I talked with her. She was busy. She was preparing for a pageant. She could not find her agenda, her office was messy. Could I call back on Monday? (*grinding teeth again*) Sigh. Fine. *click*- as my heart sinks in desperation.
Monday roles around. I am positively swamped and forget to take 2 minutes to call the - ahem, woman. I don't remember until today, Tuesday- exactly 30 minutes AFTER she got off work.
Can you sense my frustration here? I mean for pity's sake!!
It doesn't help that my teacher wants very specific dates, and that I am making my school look bad with all this irresponsibility (I made myself sound better in the story, what can I say?).
well. a very frustrated and work-beloaded me bids you goodnight. (you haven't yet heard about the APUSH fiasco. That is for another time and another place. Namely with Annalisa's anti-APUSH campaign.)
and a happy Wednesday to you!

Friday, March 14, 2008

Old enough for my wants to hurt me?

I want what I cannot have. So what else is new?
I want... oh, a million things. Impossible things. Things like vacations and gumption and people I love to be close to me and not to be launched into responsibilities galore and to be on a sports team. Like I said, a million things. Ok, so I like hyperbole. Still.
I understand people like Jhonny Nolan out of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. He didn't have the stick-to-itiveness to see things through, so he failed at his aspirations. So help me God, I will not (and I mean that as a prayer, not as profanity). But it will hurt. Oh yes, growing up hurts. Learning that you cannot just do what you want when it feels wholesome, but that you have to do what is needed, whether it feels wholesome or not. gah.
Like a kicking, screaming two-year old, I am being born into the world of adulthood.
Heigh-ho world!

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Dona Nobis Pacem

These are the words to a new song we've been learning as an ensemble. Eight girls making beautiful harmony! That is where joy in music lies: in making melodious, harmonious sound blended with worthwhile words. Or without the words.
Spring has come to the neighborhood. The other day I went out and collected pictures of daffodils, cherry blossoms, pear blossoms, dandelions, violets, pansies, yellow bells, and whatever that flower is on the picture of this blog. :) I love spring. Things changing, the air smelling of secret, outside wonders. Change can be so invigorating. Change within rhythm. You see, it occurred to me earlier that people in general do not like change. I have one friend in particular that hates change. She even controls the same-ness in some small parts of her life, just because it pleases her, as a sort of... counteraction to change (like carrying around a lot of pencils sharpened to the same length...) Discovering this about her was like discovering a hidden treasure. You know, kind of like when you were a little kid and went hunting for easter eggs in the backyard and then aha! suddenly found one. Pondering it some more though, I think it's not so much that we dislike change- no, sometimes we wish the time for change would arrive already. It's more like we want change to happen in predictable patterns. We like changes like spring, or vacations, or differences in routine, but all of those "changes" have something in common: they are regular changes that we have experienced before. The seasons are a rhythm. School years are a rhythm. Vacations have a rhythm. Maybe if we experienced infancy, youth, and gradual age more than once, we would grow to enjoy their changes too. Who knows? Maybe that's why God made us go through life only once...
anyway. enough platitudes. time for sleep. I leave you with a question:
Do you want peace or change?

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Memo on a TP dispenser

I do not understand why highschoolers are forced to get up at such inhumane hours. No one, but NO ONE should be made to get up before the sun rises on a regular basis unless they volunteer for it. Then any side effects they suffer are their own fault.

And now for something, completely different.

How do people stand pain? I know of ever so many people in pain. Mental pain, physical pain, emotional pain. Some people are hated by their parents, do not have any truly caring friends, cannot sleep, do not have any facility for learning, and will be kicked out of their homes if they do not fulfill some sort of condition. And yet they somehow manage to hide their pain enough to come to school or to work, smile and be friendly. You can only deduce what is going on in their lives from stories they tell or things they maybe do not intend you to see. Only today I saw, written on a TP dispenser in the girls' bathroom the words (please pardon the language; it is not my own) "Alone in this ass bitching world". It made me stop and think. I wished I had had a sharpie to write back, "Are you sure?". It sounds like something you would write in the throes of some emotional pain. Maybe you wouldn't mean it entirely, you would know you were exaggerating, but.... Sometimes, when I'm sad I play Polyanna's game- you know, where she concentrates on her blessings instead of her troubles. I confess, it doesn't usually help much. When I see things like the words on the TP dispenser, though... I don't know. That makes me wonder how much I really know about pain, and how serious my sorrows really are. Sure, they are valuable in their way, in that they cause me to grow; but how much more to those around me suffer? What should be my attitude towards others and their pain? How do I avoid being hypocritical? Is it realistic for me to want to help? Today, I returned to prayer, but I do not want to leave these ponderings at a stand-still. There is more to be thought out and done...
over 'n out.

Monday, March 10, 2008

A rebel's rebellion

Yesterday I watched Becoming Jane. It set me thinking because Jane was an innovator. She was rebellious in her time period, and did those things which people in those days deplored (like living from her writing instead of from a husband's income) but for which we thank her and other women like her today. They confronted a society that would not let women be people by defying cultural norms and resolutely being people. Now though... Our society is still in the midst of revolutions. There is the revolution of trying to get the poor to be richer (or at least rich enough to be thoroughly nourished, clothed and housed, and to be fairly sure of staying that way), the revolution that is trying to get people to treat their planet with respect instead of recklessly using all it has to offer, the revolution trying to get culture to restrain itself somewhat from "morals รก la carte" , and several more. But I wonder, is breaking rules still an effective way to a successful revolution? I was thinking, concretely, of the revolution that (in my opinion) our youth needs. Our problem is that we are, by very nature, the revolutionaries. Young people have almost always been the ones with new visions, the ones that broke into established beliefs and practices. What has happened is that that tendency has been taken hostage by a myriad of different agressors. The merchants of cool have tapped into what they call "youth culture" and sold it. They find new trends burgeoning in youth communities, and they commercialize these trends until they are no longer cool- at which point the process starts all over again. Companies merge their product and its advertisements to youth culture by hosting parties, sponsoring athletes and musicians. Their message is simply: "Be cool", and that has become our culture's major objective. The next question is, well, what does it take to be "cool"? The answer, apparently, is being fashionable, not having long-term relationships, having lots of money, being "true to yourself", not being afraid of wasting your body 'cause hey, you'll be young forever, etc. The vision of growing old and all that accompanies it is completely lost in the love of youth.
I think that our revolutionary culture, so ingrained in all of us (including myself), needs a revolution.
So my question is this:
How can there be a revolution among people whose very essence is to be revolutionaries?
Breaking the rules won't work- what rules are there left to break? If we refuse to conform to our culture, what will be said of us but that we are old fashioned and "not cool"? We would not be breaking the current rules to make new ones, but returning to the old rules that have been in place since... well, since who knows when. Maybe this is what is needed. A band of revolutionaries that aren't revolutionary at all, but quietly conform to a different standard. I don't rightly know...