Immersion, Spring Break and The Hunger Games (GACK!)

Well, seeing as I haven't posted in a while or gotten to write much about the AWESOME things I've been able to do lately, this post may be quite random and long...

First of all, Immersion ended like a week and a half ago. It was REALLY awesome. We got to take a Meyers-Briggs Personality test (INTJ all the way, man) and a Strengths Quest (mine were Input, Strategic, Intellection, Learner, and Achiever); learn some ballroom dancing; go rock-climbing at Red River Gorge; create a (hypothetical) foundation with a group of peers; call MVS alumni to ask for donations, as part of a studying philanthropy (I didn't get any... the most personal message I got from someone was a guy who said, "Don't worry, it'll get better..." whatever that's supposed to mean...); and make a self-portrait through whatever medium fit us best (art, music, writing, movie-making, dancing) to share who we are with our classmates. I especially enjoyed the last activity, not only because I learned SO MUCH about my peers, but also because I learned more about myself - how I communicate best, what I REALLY think expresses me (for example, I chose art instead of writing), and how other people react to me.

In fact, despite all the things we did during Immersion, I feel the most valuable thing I got from it was being more social with my peers. Not having tests or homework to worry about left me much less stressed (and my friends can probably testify to this) and much more social because of it. I think I became better at "going with the flow," and doing something because it might make things better for my parents or for my friends, rather than having to put myself first because I was just so tired and stressed all the time. I think I made some new friends and strengthened the existing relationships I already had.

To the right is a picture of my self portrait. Outlining the face and the pink spiral are two poems that I had written previously and edited to fit the picture. All of the images in the left portion of the paper symbolize something about me.

For the past week and a half, I've been on Spring Break! Usually, I'm not very happy about going on Spring Break because I don't get to see my friends much, and whenever the weather starts getting nice, I always feel like I should be outside all the time, but don't feel well enough or just don't feel like doing anything outside... I can definitely see myself living someplace where it's cold or always rainy at some point in the future. This year, however, I think I've gotten a whole lot better at managing my time and always staying on track during breaks. I guess maybe that's because I always have something to do these days...

My Spring Break has consisted of some awesome dreams (I got to time travel...GACK!), chatting and inside-joke-creation with my best friends, editing my NaNoWriMo novel (and I'm just getting to the hard part of that), working on the last unit of my online Environmental Science class, feeding my rabbit with a spoon (I made him a yummy apple-banana-hay smoothie, and it even smelled good to me), eating almond cheese (yes, cheese made out of ALMONDS that I'm totally obsessed with), and transplanting, weeding, and watering at a nearby organic farm to get in all my community service hours. Well that, and plus the usual like sleeping, eating, breathing, playing piano, and reading. Oh and drinking tea.

Of course.

And then there was The Hunger Games.


GACK.

I saw it on Friday, March 23 at 5:20, and BOY WAS IT THE BEST THING EVER. Of course I still like the book better though. Books are always better. I've heard people say that they thought it was rushed, or that they changed too many things, but I think that all of the changes worked well and were even beneficial for the movie medium. The third person approach worked really well in the movie, and seeing the Gamemakers room was AWESOME, but I still think that first person worked the best for the book. I like the first person approach of the book because, since it's about such a gruesome event during which some kids kind of disconnect their emotion, it allows for the reader to see Katniss's compassion and rationality.

Anyway, you should go see it immediately. Well, first you should read the book. THEN go see it. IT'S PHENOMENAL.

Well, now I need to go take a shower so I'm not rushing out the door later to get to lacrosse practice (yay!). Now that the basic updating of events is done, I'd like to post more stuff about my thoughts (those can get in the way of life sometimes, but they're pretty awesome, and I like to share so that I don't forget them). Oh but here's one before I forget (I'm really only saying this now because I absolutely never want to forget in case inventing ever becomes a viable career for me... which is not likely):

While transplanting yesterday, I was thinking, "Gosh, this sure wastes a lot of time, just having to put all these tomatoes in bigger pots so they can grow better. If you only planted them once to get them started before going to the fields, it would save SO much time." So what if you had a tray with pots that started out small, and then expanded as the plant grew? It could have something to do with time since the seed was planted, or pressure from the roots, and then all you would need to do was add more soil instead of completely transplanting! It would save time, and money in the long run, because you would only have to buy half as money trays/pots. And with all of the high-tech stuff going on these days, I'm sure it would be possible...

(So yeah, clearly I'm proud of that idea. I like ideas :D.)

Puzzles, Oldness, and Glass Boxes: The State of Me

This wasn't originally a blog post but... well, it fits in pretty well.

In the past year, I’ve spent an awful lot of time in confusion. This confusion sometimes translates into ambiguity, restlessness, insufficient confidence, spacey-ness, disillusionment, misrepresentation…whatever applies to the situation at hand. It’s as if someone has taken that almost solved – but definitely imperfect – puzzle of who I am inside and scrambled it all up inside so that the pieces – which are still has beautiful as they had just become – are misplaced. It’s all still there – the passion, the intelligence, the talent for writing and acting and music and art, the knowledge, the understanding, the desire to learn and to collect, the memories, the enthusiasm, the forward-thinking… but it’s all in the wrong place, so that I don’t know anymore how it all fits together for me to do anything productive with.  

                And then it’s like this scrambled puzzle has been pushed into this body that doesn’t know what to do with itself. This body is growing and changing, and this body doesn’t know what it needs but knows how it wants to get it. (Does that make sense? No, it doesn’t, and that’s entirely the problem. It’s unexplainable.) And this body is in invisible pain. This body has aches and sores inside and out, that have not been inflicted by anyone or anything, but seemingly just by the world itself, or by the act of existing.

                This body is young, but it feels old. There is a crick in the lower back, like two boards in a fence have been nailed too tightly together at an odd angle. There is hurt behind the eyes, like a dirty, torn piece of lace encases the eyeballs. Nothing hurt this body, but this body is hurt all the same. This body hasn’t been through any spectacular battle or any marvelous physical feat, but this body is hurt inside, and doesn’t know how to show it.

                My mind feels old too, old and scrambled like eggs for breakfast, with the motivation and the intent and the action and reflection all knotted up. It’s pulled at, constantly, by both my internal desires and my fingers which pull at the strands of hair on either side of my head. I pull at these strands, twisting and twirling them, always doing something, always know they will be there. And then I can’t get anything else done.

                I’m tired of being like this – tired of being in pain, tired of being confused and unsure and unproductive. I’m tired, too, of the insatiable appetite that my mind listens to because it’s confused about how to appease this need for nutrients or rest or just protein, whatever it is the doctors say I need. But mostly I’m tired of being in pain. It’s eating away at me. When I’m not in pain, I’m afraid to take advantage of that and do anything, because I’m afraid it will bring the pain back. When I’m in pain, I can’t do anything. And when I’m in just a little bit of pain, I feel defeated. I’m trying to make it stop, but it always returns. And when it does, I’m not myself anymore. I’m not even that puzzle of beautiful pieces all scrambled up. I’m just a glass box that hides a lot inside, concealed behind its fogged and misted walls.

Reflections on Camp Joy

Today my whole grade went to Camp Joy, where we spent the day doing team-building exercises as well as personal strength-building ones. We did a trust walk where we were all blind-folded and we had to find our way across a field into a building, we had to work together to get everyone up and over what must have been a ten foot high wall, and we each got to take a "quantum leap" off of a very high ladder, with all of our peers helping to hold the ladder up with ropes and keeping it steady. We've been to Camp Joy three times in the past three years, and I think this was the best time yet, for everyone was really involved. Everyone wanted to solve the problems we were given, and everyone wanted to succeed. And the people who led us through the exercises asked us after each one what the activity could resemble in real life - so the challenges never ended. Here are some reflections from the day, which stem from some of the other activities we've done over freshman immersion (which is formally called Inward Bound, Outward Bound...you'll definitely hear more later).

Competition

Competition gets people external recognition and the admiration of others, which is natural, considering the lengths they must go to in order to be “the best.” We must admire them – it is, at the least, the cultural norm. However, many of these people find themselves aimless and unable to act without the pressure of competition, while others – who may not outperform others in a competition – are internally motivated. These people constantly carry motivation around in their hearts, and try as they might, it is impossible for them to dispel it.

Personal Achievements and Goals

I saw someone today climb a ladder in about seven minutes which it took almost everyone else in the room about one or two minutes to climb. She hesitated almost every step, babbling on and on every time she stopped about how she couldn’t go any farther. Yet, when her peers encouraged her to climb higher – to take just one more step – she eventually did. And slowly, steadily, step by step, she made her way to the top of the ladder.

While others climbed the ladder in seconds, slithering their way up like monkeys – a feat which was surely admirable and deserving of praise – I found her struggle even more endearing. We were able to see every difficult step clearly in front of us – every doubt, every fear, every misgiving and every inkling of bravery, blazoned clear in front of us. This process, and this accomplishment, was even more impressive to me than those who confidently raced their way up. She took her time, and there were so many times when she could have jumped off, but she waited, thought, and listened to the encouragement of her peers – and she truly stepped out of her comfort zone.

Cooperation

Many times today, I found myself in a leadership position. This happened because I wanted to get things done and I had ideas about how to do so. Apparently these must have been at least moderately good ideas, for people agreed with them. I like this feeling – leading and standing out in the group. But there are times when, for the sake of the group as a whole, you’ve got to back down and let someone else have control, otherwise there’s too much chaos. But this is no way means that you should tune out and consider your part over. I believe that the mark of a good leader is someone who knows when to listen and hang back, but pays attention the whole time so that they can step in when they’re really needed.

Bard Young Writers Workshop Application

*This is the piece I wrote for my application to Bard's Young Writers Workshop. (Note: I took parts of this from a previous blog post.*

And thank you Cora.

The assignment: In order to help us know more about your background and interests, we would like you to tell a personal story (i.e., non-fictional) of a time when words, whether written or spoken, sung or performed, have been meaningful for you. 

Didn’t Come Off

I could have used a regular pen, which would have been much quicker. But using this pen, I have to focus on every word, every letter, every line that I scratch into the paper.

The poem gradually makes its way across the tea-soaked, crinkly paper. The marks left are only footprints – footprints of meaning – for the words of the poem. The poem is only painting a feeling, an idea. The poem, like the window it speaks of, can only frame the emotions and the lessons of the Holocaust.

“Look through a window, and then open it.” That was the lesson I created for the Holocaust project we did in eighth grade. The words of the lesson were born from a poem – and the poem was born from a glance at a rain-soaked window – which I had written some months before. The poem was about looking through a window for the – sometimes difficult – truth, then trying to actually open the window and do something to change a bad situation. Upon receiving the project rubric from my teacher, as its neatly boxed-in possibilities jumped off the page at me, I remembered the poem, and so was able to subdue the overwhelming possibilities that ricocheted around inside my brain. One picture remained in my imagination – that of a window, adorned with quotes about the Holocaust and the four sub-lessons as assigned by my teacher represented on each of four window panes.

It was perfect. Little had I known, but the poem was indirectly about the Holocaust.

And little did I know, but that picture that I thought would remain only inside of my head – like so many other pictures – would come to life. My English teacher provided me with a real window to display the project on from her farm – an old one with its paint chipping away – and it was more than I could have asked for. It already told a story. The various components of the project – the hand-written poem, the window with pictures and quotes pasted on it, and two picture frames, one for each side of the window, each depicting a different side of the Holocaust atrocities – would come together, I knew, to create a story laden with meaning.

Usually I become impatient – preoccupied, even – about the final result of a project like this. But the process of making this one was, I believe, a large part of the project’s worth to me.

I bend down close to the paper, the shadow of my head blocking the lamplight which shyly permeates the room. I feel its rough spots under the splayed fingertips of my left hand. Every time my pen runs out of ink, I must lift my hand and let it fly silently above the landscape of the paper like a little bird, to take a bath of deep black ink. I put myself completely into this poem by etching its life into these pieces of paper.

And by doing so, I bring the poem to life.

The words swirl around and around in my head, like the water around a drain, as I take the long seconds to scratch each individual letter into the paper. And in this swirling vortex, a memory from earlier in the day, when I was just beginning to write out the poem, surfaces.

We were working on our projects in English class. I sat at a desk in the corner, and my friend had been sitting nearby, making handprints on her project board with red ink to look like blood. I didn’t notice her absence until she walked back into the room from washing her hands, made eye contact with me, and said quietly,

“It didn’t come off.”

The ink, that is.

I looked at her, and she looked at me, and for a moment her face looked stricken, stricken with the discovery that it just wouldn't come off. But somehow, I think she may have expected that – a pain like that, even just the representation of a pain so severe, could never wash away. Now here it was, right in front of her, looking like blood.

Never for one moment did I think she was simply complaining or making an observational comment. Between the time when the words left her lips and when they were transmitted to my brain, there was never a time when I didn't know what she really meant.

I started to turn away, and then I looked back again and narrowed my eyes just a little bit, to face her and to face the fact, to let it sink in. I turned quickly back to my own work, and it may have seemed like I didn't pay attention to what she said, didn't notice, but it hit me like a freight train. I felt winded. My hand was a dead weight, my eyes empty holes.

Looking back on it, I wonder if I should have said something in response. Did she think I didn’t care? With two words and ten letters left, I can feel worry begin to disturb my peace. Worry? With eight letters left, I realize how ridiculous it is for me to feel guilty about not responding to something that profound. I wouldn’t have known what to say. With six letters left, I remind myself that those were powerful words, words which both hurt and healed my day. They were words which needed respect, and that respect came that moment in silence. With four letters left, I feel the searing pain of what those words implied – that the pain, the hunger, the suffering, the grief, never go away. With two letters left, I am glad I decided to hand-write my poem so that I can treat it with the respect its subject deserves.

And with zero letters left, I begin to cry.

For once, I have no more words.

Ideas, Science, Pain, Ideas, Words, Who's Really Right?, Ideas, and Time

Yeah, so clearly I have a lot of ideas. And just saying, those things aren't in any particular order.

Too many sometimes, it feels like. Although I know that's really a gift, to have so many ideas. It's better than having a disease, or having sorrow, or having depression..or NOT having love, or a home, or food, or...sleep. But when you're in a place where people are constantly trying to show what's better or best about themselves - through their words, their clothes, shoes, faces, lunches, comebacks - there isn't enough time or space to record them all. I began thinking about this - well, really consciously thinking about this - while I was writing my NaNo novel (which I finished by the way, pas the 50,000 word count...did I mention that?): what if there was a way for each person to constantly record ideas so that they were never lost? A sort of net that catches them before they leave, and a Pandora's box to keep them stored until they could be released? (And this time, hopefully, most of the things would be positive.)

I try to write things down. Lately I've come to making sloppy recordings on my iPhone voice memos of spontaneous said-in-the-shower slam poetry, or of conversations between character slivers (usually with accents, after I've just finished watching a movie set in Britain), or even songs (like, suckish ones that are either completely pointless unless I explain it or really absolutely meaningless). But the poems are NEVER as good as they were in the shower, when the words were newly born. And sometimes your hand just can't MOVE fast enough to write them down.

Over the last week, as my shoulder pain has been unbearable and overtaking and frustrating, I've been watching the Harry Potter movies before I go to sleep. Since I know the layout of every scene and the motive of every character at this point, so the events of the story are no longer of central concern, I've come to notice a great deal more of symbolism in the story. Not that I could go back and recite to you everything now - but just little images, little gems, stick out, and I get it.

Now, if I could always have a small, portable version of Dumbledore's Pensieve (a device that stores and recount memories) with me, everything would be just right. If I could have some little box that resides beside my brain, picking up the ideas and the words and the pictures, so that they can be preserved there like frozen bananas until I need them...things would be just right. Unfortunately, the thought of having some sort of recording device constantly with us is a little too reminiscent of Orwell's Big Brother, and it's hard to say whether that would or would not be taken advantage of beyond the realm of private, personal endeavors.

Sometimes the world gets so stuck on politics, money, eating right, exercising enough, having enough stuff but not too much, getting good grades, having nice clothes, blah de blah de blah...that it forgets the importance, the value, of pure ideas. Ideas are the stuff of dreams coming true. Ideas are the seeds, and the roots, and the leaves - because they never stop, not really. You can start with one, and then that one sprouts more, and then you have an entire idea TREE, and it's super-duper strong.

I watched a documentary last night with my parents about the 2006 TED conference, where a bunch of people from all over the world got together to share their ideas, their achievements, their songs and their poetry. And out of those ideas were born projects that really help people.

Too often, I think, ideas are squandered for the convenience of time or physical barriers, or because someone just doesn't care enough or value anything enough to stop and look for a moment. Just a moment.

We also watched a short program done by Stephen Hawking on Discovery Channel about time travel. One of the things he said was that wormholes - little holes in the 4th dimension of time - were way too small to travel through, meaning they would have to be enlarged and then would be destroyed by their own radiation. Now here's an idea: what if WE could become smaller?

I know it sounds unrealistic, but plenty of other things do too. In fact, in the TED video, a man demonstrated a screen on which images could be controlled by multiple fingers and hands at once. You could hear overwhelming oooh's and aah's from the audience, but this was a presentation which didn't impress me compared to the others... Why? Because I've used an iPod and have an iPhone, so I do that everyday. What was a new idea then - what seemed so amazing and unthinkable - is just normal now.

That's not even getting into TVs or telephones or microwaves.

So yeah, I'm really interested in science. But I'm also really interested in words. And I'm interested in being something big, something remembered. But most of all, I'm interested in ideas - and ideas are involved in all of those things.

I just don't know which one to choose. I wish I was an inventor, like Violet Baudelaire, and I could come up with clever contraptions for getting things my way. But I can only do that with words and thoughts. I'm not so good with manipulating material things, unfortunately.

Yesterday, I experienced some rather brutal slandering of a piece of writing. I saw the credibility of the slanderer's statements - and I also tried not to dwell on it, seeing as this person was particularly well-known for her brutality. But I could also defend them - I could also say, as an artist, that what I did was perfectly fine, perfectly right, because that's how I meant it to be, in the interest of art.

Yes, one of the ideas which I definitely plan to implement - if only I had the time - is to create real pieces of art with my writing, 3D art so that people understand it's not supposed to be a story for entertainment. It's supposed to be for the appreciation you experience by seeing good art. (Not to say my writing is "good art" - I won't be nearly that precocious - but that's the intent. Everyone needs intentions.) So then I wonder - who's really right? Regarding art, I meant. There have been plenty of famous artists whose work people hated while they were alive. And I don't intend to be like that (once again, precociousness not intended). I'm just saying - in art, there's no right or wrong. I think, when it comes down to it, there's nothing more right than the piece of art itself - and therefore the artist can claim some correctness themselves. Yeah, an adverb can be taken out and a pronoun can be changed to make the piece better - but it wasn't wrong. I don't need to get myself down about it thinking that I'm wrong because someone didn't like it. She was only a kid. She wasn't necessarily totally right.

So here's an idea: a Pandora's Pensieve box to keep and record ideas, so that they aren't lost to a void of lost time and restlessness.

Oh..and first post of 2012!