All Hallows Eve

I don't really celebrate Halloween, but I figured it would be the nice thing to do to tell all you avid loyal readers to have a happy one.

Get lots of candy, and dress up the way you want. Have a good, safe time, and make sure you're not out on the streets while the loonies are lurking in the shadows.

Happy Halloween, everyone.

Why I Hate Sea Mullosks

Stupid English class. We read "The Chambered Nautilus" today, by Oliver Wendell Holmes. Yes, I understand the meaning (shed your shell and release the past! let go of the old! build your new shell for the future!). But that definitely doesn't mean I have to like it.

Honestly. It's about a sea mullosk. Who has the time to write about a sea mullosk?

So, so irritating. If you're going to spend time writing, write about something interesting. Not a stupid chambered nautilus.

I even feel stupid for writing about writing about a sea mullosk. ARGH.

How am I supposed to "shed my shell" like a sea mullosk? Shedding their shell is just what they do. They don't have to worry about school or grades or teachers or parents or college or stupid extra-curriculars. All they have to do is survive and grow a new shell every once in awhile.

If you want me to be like a sea mullosk, let me shed. If I tried to put the past behind me now, I'd be forever trapped right here. It can't happen unless I want to totally destroy my future.

WHY CAN'T I BE AS SIMPLE AS A CHAMBERED NAUTILUS?

It's October.

I would like to point out to my readers that it is indeed October. Despite popular belief that the month does not exist, I have come to the conclusion that it does, considering that we've been in it for 21 days and I have yet to find evidence to the contrary.

Though there has been speculation that September was going to jump right into November this year and blow off October completely, I believe I am correct in saying that October has indeed happened and does not intend to be "blown off" until November first.

Studies are also showing that Halloween is definitely going to be celebrated this year, despite its rapidly decreasing popularity in the polls. It has also been proven that many people are running out of ideas for Halloween costumes and have abandoned the holiday completely because the entire thing is so irritating to them. Hey, we can't all enjoy it, or then my school would have to let us dress up that day. Can't have any school spirit, you know. It's wrong.

Oh, and "They" would like me to report [who are "they" anyway?] that though it has been rumored that January will be flying directly to April in the upcoming year, "They" will be making no assumptions on the issue until there is more proof of such a jump. Oh, and yes, August will be occurring after July, not after May.

They apologize for any confusion such a statement will create, seeing as the entire globe may or may not have been recently preparing for these strange changes in the calendar. We know you were looking forward to skipping October, but... yeah. Not happening.

Don't worry. If you fill your plate just enough during these transition months, you'll be so stressed out that you won't even notice they're happening, and it will take you 21 days to realize that the month changed. If you're a student, this shouldn't be too hard. Just sign up for every single AP class and join every club your school has to offer. You didn't need sleep, did you?

Have a happy October, everyone.

Complimentation vs. Irritation

It's beyond frustrating. I'm sitting in Honors English [we classmates just call it Honors] and my ears are absolutely red. Not just red, but hotter than hell and nearing the point of spontaneous combustion.

I hate when it happens--it just kills me every time. I do something right, and the whole class reacts exactly as I fear that they would.

They go over the top. They literally "freak out." It's all "ooh why isn't she in AP 12 right now?" and "dang, girl" and such.

SO irritating.

You may think you're paying me this huge compliment, but in all actuality, you're bugging the crap out of me. Yes, I'm good in school. Always have been. And yes, I'm a darn good writer. But seeing as I spend a great majority of my time practicing such a skill, I should be pretty darn good.

Just because I do something well doesn't mean I'm some sort of genius or that I hide out in my bedroom all afternoon reading dictionaries. I pay attention, that's all, and I'm not an idiot.

Thanks, but no thanks. I'll take praise when I've really and truly earned it.

She Knows

She sits in her bedroom and looks out the window, idly passing the time. She knows of the responsibilities that wait for her, whispering her name up the stairs, down the hall, through her door. She knows, and yet she moves not.

She rests in the rolling chair on the grey carpet and watches the wind blow the tasseled edges of the pool cover around and around and around. Though mildly sorrowing to see the pool covered in that dark green tarp, it is not too terrible. She knows it means that winter is coming, and she welcomes the change, the passing of days, months, years. She knows, and yet she moves not.

She rests her head in her hand and turns toward the bookshelf beside her desk, eyes rapidly skimming over the titles of all she's read and not read. Each plot stands out to her for maybe even just one reason, and she can recall them all. Her eyes automatically jump to her bedside table, glancing at the pile of borrowed novels she knows she must tackle before their owners get too anxious. She knows, and yet she moves not.

She lifts her free hand, trembling slightly as she goes, to lightly touch the frames of the closest pictures. The photographs of her friends, her family, her team members and classmates meet her gaze, and she knows of their stories, their lives, their hopes and dreams. She knows, and yet she moves not.

She turns toward the door, noticing for the first time in weeks the date on the calendar. October, already. She stares at the red square, the number boldly dashed in printed ink across the box. Another day she has attended school, attended activities, attended to everything she must attend to. Another day she has done what she must and only some of what she wishes. She knows she has more to do today. She knows, and yet she moves not.

Time passes. The sun sets. The air grows colder in the darkness, and the clock ticks on and on. She knows that she is running out of opportunity to finish what she needs to finish, to complete the daily tasks she finds so odious, and yet so satisfying. She knows.

And she moves.

When she moves, it is not a graceful movement. She stumbles, perhaps, or maybe even falls. But she marches on. As she walks, her posture grows taller and taller, determination brewing beneath the surface of her casual facade. And she marches on. Her confidence builds, becoming nearly tangible as she descends the staircase to finish what she's started so far today.

She marches on.

The drummer is off-beat, but she can keep her own rhythm. The harmony is off-key, but at least the melody is not alone. The music itself is awkward, and strange, but she prefers it to the silence.

It is everything, and nothing, here and now simultaneously. She is all and nothing, human in every sense of the word. She knows what she wants. She knows what she needs. She knows exactly what she will do and how she'll accomplish it. She knows what adversaries lie in her future. She knows how to defeat them.

She knows, and she marches on.

"Students Place Less Value on Health"

Well, duh.

I was looking around the Internet and found this site: http://nz.news.yahoo.com/071008/9/1yyd.html. It's a news article about how kids these days don't put enough value on eating right, sleeping enough, or getting exercise.

Okay, adults, here's my question: Where exactly do you propose we find the time to be healthy?

We get up long before the crack of dawn to go to your schools to meet your standards. Then we attend your classes on your time schedule to meet those same darn standards. And then we go to all of our extra-curriculars after school so we can get into your colleges.

When would you like me to eat fruit and vegetables and such, things that require a) refrigeration and b) at least a few minutes of preparation [gotta wash them, minimally]? When would you like me to sleep more? When do you propose I get my exercise in?

Oh, that's right. I'm free from midnight to 4 am each day. Maybe I can squeeze some tae bo in or something.

I don't get the chance to eat healthy--bagels, Pop-Tarts, and cans of sugary drinks are all I know. I eat a cup of applesauce each day, but clearly it's not enough. I don't get enough sleep each night, stressed by the upcoming schoolwork, projects, assignments, quizzes, tests, and college-prep material all you adults are going to throw at me. I only get 45 minutes of exercise each week, and that's because I scheduled it into my time and have refused to surrender it to any other extra-curricular activity.

You're right, I don't value health. Will my health get me into college? Will it get me a job and a career? No, probably not. My weight and body fat percentage will not be the deciding factors on a college application. My hours of sleep per night will not earn me a job.

You complain about us all being fat--how about a few hours each week to let us lose the weight? No, you'd rather give us meaningless assignments and tedious work. It doesn't change your life at all, does it?

Complain when you've given us a chance to prove ourselves. Until then, you have no right.

Delete.

I leave for school in 20 minutes, so this will be fast [no idea why I'm up 20 minutes too early, but hey, that's how I roll].

I was going through my email inbox and I got this sudden urge to just delete. It felt so good, I can barely describe the elation. I finally got rid of every single email from those no-man's-land colleges that I'll never attend, the chain letters I'll never read, and the sad emails I should have deleted right after reading.

I'm finally putting certain things in the past. Old topics, old discussions--they're out. Time to bring in the new.

Of course, nobody ever emails me anymore [duh, we have school], so there probably won't be any new email... but that's okay. An empty inbox I don't mind.

Have a good day everyone. :]

Magnolias

For you two. Because, as you know, your story inspired me to write one just like it. Your effect upon me created a world I can never enter and a dream I cannot wake up from. You made me question reality, and for that I will be forever thankful. My world would not be the same without the answers.

I speak for Thena--and all the others--when I say I'm glad you got on board the train. Safe travels.

And to the rest of you who couldn't make sense of that jargon, don't worry. I have something to say to you, too, and it's in regular English:

Know where to seek your shelter. Find your hiding place, safe from the world and all its trouble. Whether it be in a journal, or a quiet corner, or even in the tranquility of your dreams, discover the one place where you truly feel invulnerable. Invincible. Undeniable.

It will be in that place that you will learn not only who you are, but what you were born to do, who you will help and who you will hurt, what you will know and what will fail you. Your own sanity cannot be made through the work of others; it's your duty to preserve it.

Don't forget the world. Just let it run by you for awhile so you can figure yourself out. You may not be the person you thought you were, and your future, though not entirely predestined, may not be what you wanted. Do the best you can with what you've been given.

Who am I to lay down these rules, you ask? Well, for one, I'm a human being. Two, I'm a human being with a functioning consciousness. And three, I'm a conscious human being who has traveled the road of the lost and lonely and found a shortcut back to life. [I'd also like to add that four, I'm an incredibly bossy adolescent who likes to tell people what to do.]

I'm not done with the shortcut, either. I'm still walking. Still seeking, still searching, still finding reality.

For you, then, my guides. I learned from you the importance of shelter, and I hope my telling of your story does it justice. In the meantime, I present the song to which I listened while writing the beginning of my most peculiar novel yet.


"Magnolia"--The Hush Sound
Your heartbeat is pulsing at night in your chest
It's gold and it's glowing with all the life you have left
I received your words from hospitals where you felt alone
Your words like smoke, they made me sick but they kept me warm...

Your eyes are like sea glass, so weathered and worn
From all they've seen of adolescence torn
The lovers who have tainted you, they pulled you into the night
They touched your skin with velvet gloves and made you feel alive

Run where you'll be safe
Through the garden gates
To the shelter of magnolias
There's not much time
The blush in the sky begins to fade

You are weathered and worn
Your petals soft and torn
The fading color
You have bent your shoulders
To hold the weight of the world
You will surely shatter.

We Have All Been Blind

It never ceases to amaze me how the people of the world do exactly what is unexpected of them. Yes, I can predict their actions if I watch them enough, but every now and then they do something exceedingly stupid and my jaw drops.

You aren't aware of the cheaters until you catch them in the other bed. You don't know the liars until you fall into their trap. You don't recognize the thieves until they've stolen all your money.

And you never see the traitors until their guns are aimed at your head.

Infidelity, deception, robbery, and treason. You think you're prepared for when it comes to call. Sorry, you're wrong. I'm wrong. We're all wrong.

You've disappointed me, world. Thanks for showing me the secret side of human nature, the side I never wished to see.

You don't need to live in the shadows to forget the sight of light, do you? No. Not in the least bit.

¿Cierto o Falso?

So a very interesting thought crossed my mind today, and I just have to talk about it. It strikes me as a concept that I wouldn't have thought of unless someone else had mentioned it--so I'm glad he did.

A mentor of mine said, in his own words, that when I was in his class, I did not use fact to back up my arguments.

He's exactly right. I didn't, and even though I've gotten better, I still lack in that area. It's not inexplicable, though. Inexcusable, maybe, but not inexplicable.

For one, I had never learned how to back up arguments. Logic and reason failed me, because I'd never actually understood how to use them. I can still remember the first day that this mentor taught us that "if x is y, and y is z, then x is z"--law of transitivity. I thought it was amazing. I was stunned by the clarity that such a simple statement made.

It made sense.

From that point on, I began to learn. I started to figure out how to use support to make my ideas clearer. It began to click, and I became analytical.

But it wasn't just because I was ignorant. No, there was much more than stupidity holding me back. Like the idea that emotion made more sense to me than fact.

It's true. As ridiculous as it sounds, to me, emotional appeal seemed more logical than straight fact. Don't be so surprised. I live in a world of emotion. Having the slight advantages that I do when it comes to perception [been there, discussed that], I know how to manipulate the feelings of others. I can fight simply by using emotions.

It doesn't work in logic, though. Intense feeling and logic cannot reasonably combine without decreasing the validity of an argument. I didn't know that. I figured that they were one and the same, equivalent in value and effect. Wrong.

But I've learned. I'm much more logical now. I've dealt with emotion and learned how to suppress its influence on me. It's all good.

Yet I said that I still lack in fact. It's true. I could be a lot more emotionally detached and reasonable in my arguments. And I'm not, for a very distinct [and logical!] reason.

The concept of "fact" has come to evade me entirely. Why else would I call my blog "still finding reality"? The experiences I've been through, the situations I've been in, have taught me to expect the impossible, rely on the improbable, and question anything that is considered "fact."

It's hard to back up an argument with fact when I can't even begin to describe what "fact" entails. Sure, there are obvious conclusions, often brought forth by science. The sky is blue because the atmosphere refracts blue wavelengths of light. The ocean is blue because it reflects the blue sky. The fish in the ocean are not always blue because they do not always reject ["give off"] blue wavelengths.

These, among many other things, are straight fact. They're observations of the world, turned into theories by intellectuals [mostly, anyway] and then transformed into laws and concepts when applicable.

But outside of the cut-and-dry stuff, apart from the obvious, I don't know what's fact or fiction. Hell, I even doubt some of that obvious stuff. Does everyone see the same color when we classify the sky as "blue"? If there are clouds, does the sky cease to be blue? If a tree falls in an unoccupied forest, does it make a sound?

It's so mind-boggling. Everything about the universe that I have accepted as true is now being tested, and all too often disproved. Even my own mind makes me wonder sometimes. My capabilities, as well as those of other people, astound me sometimes.

What's fact? Can I learn it? Can I use it? I try to do both. I try. I can't be rid of emotion entirely, nor can I know every "fact" there is to know. But I'm making a conscious effort to try harder.

Ah, logic. Good ol' eighth grade.

The Bestest Friends

What's a best friend? The person who you sit next to in every class? The one who brings you a cookie every day?

If those are the requirements, Thena and I fail miserably. We only share one class [we do sit next to each other, though] and I don't think either one of us has the spare time to bake a batch of cookies. When paired with my other best friends, too, we all fail.

So a best friend doesn't meet materialistic requirements. A best friend is something else entirely.

A best friend is the one that knows every single one of your faults, gets irritated by your idiosyncrasies, and loves you anyway. The one whose text message excites you more than anyone else's. The person who doesn't have to ask you if you're feeling okay, because they already know the answer.

A best friend does lie, and will use you, but because you've done the same to them before, it's automatic forgiveness--and you both learn not to lie or use them that way again. A best friend knows everything that makes you mad and sometimes likes to frustrate you, just for fun--but it's never done with malice. A best friend knows when to stay and when to walk away, when it's the right time and the wrong time to talk--and you both understand that these times of separation are necessary.

A best friend is the one who jumps on your side even when you're completely and totally wrong. The one who talks behind your back and only says good things. The person who covers up your secrets and your lies, your hidden fears and envy.

A best friend will envy you at times, and you will envy them. They'll feel irrational anger toward you, and you toward them. But you forgive each other. A best friend will, at least once, shun you or avoid you, but you'll welcome them back with open arms, because you shunned them once, too.

A best friend is the one who remembers your awkward phases, and teaches you to laugh at them. The one who can recall all of your mistakes and help you learn from them. The person who shields you from embarrassment, because they know it hurts you deeply.

Best friends don't have to make each other cookies or buy elaborate gifts--they're satisfied with anything, because it's from their best friend. They don't have to tell each other everything, because it all gets figured out anyway--words aren't always necessary. And best friends don't have to be perfect for each other, because it's the imperfections that are endearing.

A best friend will always protect you from harm and from the evils of the world, even if it means putting themselves in the line of fire. A best friend will tell you straight up when you look like crap, but they'll also tell you when you look your best. A best friend forgets the superficial things and focuses on character--the parts of you that really make up who you are.

And you love them. No matter how much you hurt each other, you always love them. Not because they're perfect. Not because you have to. No, you love them because you want to. You want their company. You want them around. You want to see them grow up, and become the person you've always hoped they would be.

So you live, and you love--and together, the pair of you are undeniably invincible.

Creepy & Weird

Though that title is the most overused phrase amongst my group of friends [long story... Ah, Honors English 10!], there's no other way to describe how strange it is when my horoscope matches my day.

I don't really "believe" in all the horoscope nonsense. Anybody can predict how your day will go if they say it vaguely enough. But when the predictions go into specifics, and those specifics turn out to be entirely accurate, it's creepy. And weird.

Take today, for instance. I didn't read my horoscope until just now, and the things it discusses are amazingly close to way I've felt all day.

Read and pay close attention. I will explain as I go along:

Aries Forecast--October 2, 2007

If you need to boost your energy into high gear, just fake it until you make it. <--I definitely had no energy this morning, so I drank 3 cups of coffee to get myself hyped up. Weird.

You're in a good place to take care of old feelings that may be piling up inside. See if you can find someone to talk things over with -- or just write it all down somewhere private, which ought to work just fine. I've been thinking about "old feelings" all day, if that's not creepy enough. And I literally just thought about journaling.

Take a deep breath and spit it out -- whatever it may be. Someone needs to hear what's really going on inside you, so start talking or blogging until you've said your piece. You'll feel way better! Lol. Blogging. Irony.

You haven't thought about this particular love-gone-bad situation in a while, but today it's weighing heavily on you. Don't let baggage from the past affect your emotional growth. Write a letter, then burn it. Guess who I was thinking about less than an hour ago? That's right. Ex-boyfriend. I wouldn't call it "love," but it certainly went bad [for me, anyway]. I still carry the hurt from that relationship... and today I was thinking about ways to finally get over the whole thing. Writing a letter and burning it was definitely one of my options. Creepy.

The rest is just a reiteration of the same stuff. I read it all and sort of stopped breathing. Everything mentioned here--even the specifics from the second half I didn't post-- has been awkwardly accurate. It freaks me out a little.

I don't believe in fortune-telling, nor do I subscribe to belief in fate, entirely. But this is weird. Too weird. I would be more skeptical if I had read this before school and then thought of everything, but I read it after and I thought about all that stuff all day.

Creepy. And weird.

Michiganders, Unite!

You know what's really irritating? Living in Michigan, that's what. Of all the places to be...

So this morning, for three whopping hours, our entire state government shut down. All because the lawmakers couldn't come to a conclusion for the budget. That's irritating.

Aren't they supposed to be good at compromising?

Don't even get me started on the weather here. It's like one giant mood swing. Ridiculous.

Michiganders, let's get together... and move somewhere else.