Two Hour Delay

NOT! We should have one. In fact, 218 closings/delays have been reported, according to WHIO. My dad and the other parents in our carpool group are still debating about whether to implement our own two hour delay. And all I can do is sit here and wait. And now leave!

The Fire, Books, Chairs...and Soup

Above is pretty much what my day has consisted of.

Okay, a lot more than that, but those are just the first things that come to mind. Snow, too. How could that be forgotten?

So here's what I'm thinking about right now:

1.) The fact that I'm writing a blog. (Okay, that was extremely unnecessary, but it's true. And it's kinda cool too really. Okay stop.)

2.) Snow is such a wonderful thing. I've also got to give a shout-out to Weather, and Clouds, and Temperature...Roads too, because if it weren't for these things I wouldn't have a snow day. And if it weren't for a snow day I wouldn't be doing this now.

3.) Well actually I might. Because now school would be over... Man, I enjoy snow days more when it's still during normal school time. More fun that way...anyway.

4.) I absolutely love our wood-burning stove. I can look up from my computer screen and see a blazing hot, dancing fire across the room from me, which just happens to be keeping me warm. And I'm in no danger of getting burned. I'll admit, I do even enjoy getting wood for it and making the fire. It gives me a satisfied feeling, to know that I'm doing all those things to keep myself and my family well.

5.) I made soup for my mom today. She's sick, and wanted something soothing. It consisted of broth, some vegetables, and a few noodles - wasn't particularly flavorful, but achieved its purpose. It felt good making something for her, so she could feel better.

6.) Why do people need to use profanity? It's so...dull. Yes, maybe it makes whatever you're trying to say seem more...intense, but we should be using intelligent words to do that, not bad ones! Besides, who's to say that those words are really bad...how is that determined? Society. Meanings, sort of...but "crap" isn't necessarily considered to be a bad word. At least by most of the people I know.

The snow is blowing peacefully off the tree branches outside. I can hear the shovel scraping on the cement outside as my dad clears off the driveway. The fire crackles every now and then, and the keyboard clicks away as my fingers work busily. The solid plastic under my fingers feels comforting somehow - personal. This computer is my own little world, no one else's. This chair is my own world, this room, this house. Those trees outside. Others may experience it, but not the same way I do. Mine is my own world.

And with that, I think I'll do some writing. Make some progress...not that I haven't already. But snow days are days to make progress for progress's sake, not for necessity's.

Snow Day!

YES. We finally have a snow day, the first official one of the year. And it's been snowing all day - I'd say at least two inches have already built up.

It's wonderful having these days. Even though you're not with your friends, not doing what you planned, pretty much stuck in your house, it's like you're all experiencing it together. It's a mutual feeling.

I've been quite lazy today. Well, when I first got up I was pretty industrious. Made the fire, got wood, fed my rabbit some "Critical Care" bunny mix thing that smells heavenly...pretty good start. Then, while drinking some tea and an episode later eating an apple for breakfast, I watched three or four episodes of the show "Friends" with my parents. But, might I add, while enjoying that and relaxing, I was practicing some mandarin characters. And then I got on the computer...and chatted with some friends. But while I was doing that I did some spelling bee practice. (How do they expect me to know how to spell Japanese and German and Hawaiian words? I mean really! Are we ever going to use them? No! Not unless we move to those places, which I am not planning on doing! It's a national spelling bee...meaning it's for this country. Urgh, unfairness... Oh, by the way I'm not going to the national. I won the class bee, which means I go to the school one...with twelve people. Whatever, I already have enough spelling bees under my belt to put on my resume.)

Just goes to show my productive nature. And how nice it is to write things down...see, now I feel as if I've done a lot today! Woohoo! Go me! I think I'd really like to make some cake.... (GOSH, what is with this cake obsession??)

But hey, this is what snow days are for, aren't they?

More later. Something...thoughtful. (Right now I'm just dying to get UP, and move around.)

Friday and the Truth

It's Friday. And I am soo glad. Well, what a surprise. I'm so tired, and my body aches all over, yet it's only been a four day week. Well, I'll get back in the swing of things before too long.

Okay, now that we're done with that whole whoop-de-doo, to the real juicy stuff. When I got home from school today, I read some of George Orwell's 1984. It's a very...disturbing book, I suppose you could say. Thought-provoking. Mind-bending.

I'll try to explain this without giving away too much of the plot: A man is trying to explain to the main character Winston that the Party (which is essentially the controlling totalitarian government) can manipulate the truth. He shows Winston four fingers and asks him how many he's holding up. When Winston replies "four", the man turns a dial that gives Winston some kind of super-painful seizure. Not unless he answers "five" will the man stop inflicting punishment. According to him, Winston is a "slow learner", because he holds firm to the belief that four is four. So he explains to him why he must be taught that four is four.

He explains that the Party will not accept martyrs. They will force people to confess (wholeheartedly believing in that confession), then bend people's will and make them become one of the Party, and then kill them. He says that the Nazis were more successful than past totalitarian controls because they stole their victim's dignity before killing them, but that eventually their "degradation was forgotten." He blames this for the fact that the confessions they were forced to make were "obviously extorted and untrue." Then he says, "All the confessions that are uttered here are true. We make them true."

This phrase struck me as particularly horrifying - "We make them true." I tried to read on, to understand the whole concept more, hoping that I would come to some conclusion within myself that would settle my thoughts as I kept reading, but after a couple pages I could take it no longer. I stopped, got out my writing notebook, and began to write. Truth, primarily, was the topic. Here's a rough transcript:

"What is truth? Why is 2+2 four? Because it can be proven. Then how do you prove that 2 is 2, or 1 one? Only the very origin of the facts can determine what is true; and it's only the truth because someone says it to be. Then who is the someone we should listen to? Great philosophers? World leaders? Political leaders? God? If the latter, then why must we argue over religion, because everyone's God could be different. And if the truth of the nature of God comes from God, and yours is different from mine, then we believe different truths because they are both true since our someone tells us they are. IS THERE A TRUTH? Then are there lies? Why do I refer to "truth" as singular and "lies" as plural? Does that mean there is only one truth? If there is no truth, then how is there crime? How can we convict someone of an act involving lies when no one can deny the fact that they don't know the truth? Because we've come to accept a truth, that of the law, that tells us what is right and wrong, but only according to our standards, what we believe, our truth. However, we feel the law is unethical in some places; but is it not because their God, their someone, told them the truth to be that and that was all they had to cling on to? But sometimes the unethical nature is due to misinterpretation or ignorance. So how do we determine when this is the case? Because the law, the truth, someone tells us it is. And how do we even know what "misinterpretation" and "ignorance" are, when at this point we can't depend on simply what we were taught or what it says in the dictionary? In another language a word can have a totally different meaning. Yet both are true.

Truth. Someone. WHAT IS IT? And we're back to the beginning."

So the basic just of it: The truth is the truth because we have learned that it is the truth, and that is most likely because someone told us to, just as 2+2=4 and not 5 because we learned that in school. But if someone were to come up to you, hold up 4 fingers, and tell you that was 5, you would think them insane. And they may think you insane. So everybody's truth could be different. Meaning there can be no truth. Which makes me wonder how the world has not turned to complete chaos...and how do we know it hasn't?

I was so bothered by all of these things that I had to talk them through with my mother (who, by the way, is a wonderful talker-througher-with of things. She nodded, and listened, and added to my thoughts, telling me present-day examples of some of the things I mentioned, such as the religion issue. Religion was, upon taking my pencil to paper this night, not something I intended at all to focus on, but what became a huge question. I don't think about religion much - I'm not at a point in life where I really need it. But religion is affecting the whole world a lot right now, and it seems to be playing into quite a few conflicts. While talking with my mom, I came to a comforting conclusion: religion, spiritual practice, following a spiritual path...it's all about believing. I mentioned that if people were so devoted to someone that embodied their religion, and they said to do something that seems totally outlandish to us, they would, because it would be the truth to them. (I'm starting to feel that there isn't really a truth - that it's sort of an empty term.) As she talked about some of her beliefs, I realized that at the heart of religion is having the faith to completely give yourself up and just BELIEVE something without having any actual proof. This is totally different from something being the truth. The terms - belief and truth - are just as related as a bumble bee and my toothbrush: entirely incomparable and not correlated. This calmed me, and I was able to write the word "BELIEVE" at the end of my long written paragraph on the notebook page, and move on with my evening. These thoughts still haunted me, especially since we watched a movie involving someone's identity being stolen (which certainly puts the whole truth at stake), but I was able to give myself up and just believe that I would be fine, and need not worry about these things. Still, could too much simply "believing" be harmful? And the question remains: what is the truth?

I don't think I'll ever find the answers to these questions. However, I'll try to find the most I can. I'll strive to understand, at least, some level of all this complexity.

English Essay and Exhausted

This MUST be short. I am too tired to go to sleep tonight - I hate that feeling, because I feel like I should be asleep, like I am inside, actually... Anyway.

Some things I realized about myself today...concretely (meaning I knew them before but have officially decided that they are a part of me and unavoidable at the moment but hopefully fixable):

1.) (After getting frustrated writing an introduction for an English essay.) I don't like living to other's constraints.

2.) I must must MUST sleep, or I will be muddled-muddled (much more muddled than muddled), exhausted, cranky, and easily frustrated. (Okay, this one I realized a LONG time ago, but I have to keep reminding myself. As I should be now.)

There was something else I thought about in English class today too...wrote it down in my assignment book...definitely deserved a thoughtful post. And not a tired one. Therefore I won't discuss it now.

Good night. Please get some rest.

Resolutions and the Last Day of Winter Break

Yes. It's the last day of winter break 2010 (mostly), my eighth grade and last day year of middle school. It's been one of the best breaks ever - I've managed to get a lot done, relax, and enjoy myself, while celebrating the holidays and spending lots of time with my family and friends. This morning my father woke me up at nine, making me quite disgruntled because I immediately realized that I had a doctor appointment at 10:00...and in no way did I want to jump right out of bed and start getting ready. Luckily, we did the appointment via Skype, so I didn't have to leave the house. I finished it about 45 minutes ago, and it went very well.

This hasn't been so interesting so far. I just wanted to mention my activities so far on this last day of winter break, as winter break seems rather monumental in the year and my personal perception of the year (for my birthday occurs during it), and this particular one seemed special as it is my last in middle school. (Tear, tear...seriously, it's sad that I'm almost done with middle school, although I'm thoroughly excited for high school...I'm excited for everything! Which can get frustrating sometimes, because I can't decide which thing I'm excited about that I want to do...overall, though, it's a very positive outlook, and I'm grateful for it. I'm a very glass half full person, in figurative and literal terms, because I alway like to have food or drink left in a bowl or cup... I can't help but experience a momentary melancholy when my dinnerware is empty.)

As for the other subject of this post : New Year's Resolutions. It's the third day of 2011, and our resolutions should still be at the new, exciting point in their development, going great. I, being a thoughtful, caring, and correcting person would of course have made one, if not many, new year's resolutions, correct?

Wrong. I confess that at no time during December 31st, 2010, or January 1st, 2011 did the thought of a resolution even cross my mind. I admit it, my guilt having passed in my confidence of the following conclusion.

The New Year - its celebration and some seemingly classic traditions that go along with it - has never held particular significance to me or my family. We usually stay home, enjoy a nice dinner together, and talk about what we've done in the previous year and what we'd like to do or are looking forward to in the year to come, along with staying up past midnight simply because it seems right. The symbolism of celebrating the New Year is what I hold important - starting anew, beginning the next cycle. However, chronologically, it still comes after the day before, when it was the previous year. If you started an activity - like cleaning your room, for instance - on Dec. 31st, it would still be left to be completed the next day, Jan. 1st. Yes, calendar-wise, it's the next year. Date-wise, everything's different because you have to become accustomed to writing "2011" instead of "2010". But it's not like there's suddenly a complete reorientation that happens at 12 midnight Dec. 31st. Things are still the same. People choose this time to change, to make resolutions, decisions, to kiss, to start something new...because the changing of the chronological year gives us an easy structure to do these things. However, it would be better to do them when they are needed. It would be better to get a job when one loses their old one. It would be better to go on a diet as soon as one realizes that they are not a satisfactory weight. It would be better to improve some aspect of yourself when you see fit. Better then, than at the marking of the New Year.

So in terms of resolutions, here's what I've realized: when I resolve to do something, I resolve to do it because I need or want to do it. Not because the calendar tells me to. (This is not to say that I don't go to piano lessons or play practice when it is scheduled - that, I let the calendar decide.) In fact, every day, I resolve to get things done - to practice piano, to brush my rabbit, to read, to write, to eat good food... If there is something new that I discover, I might resolve to start that or look into it more. Every day, I resolve, in the simplest and most complex terms, to be, thoroughly, ME. Being me entails doing all sorts of things that being you may not entail, because you and me are different people. For me, however, being me includes making resolutions when I need to, and deciding within myself something...yet I don't necessarily write them down. I don't stand up and declare to the world, "My resolution is...". I might go to my mom (as she is the most accessible person around when I wake up in the morning) and say, "I'm going to eat very healthily today," or, "I really need to get some exercise today". But that's it.

I simply resolve.

I have goals for the next year - but those goals are set at all times of the year. I set goals every day - that's how I get through my day. "When I finish this page, even though I just want to drop the book on my bed and go to sleep, I'm going to get myself out of bed and go to the bathroom because otherwise I know I won't be able to sleep." "After I finish drinking this cup of tea (you're probably noticing by now that I very much like to drink tea), I'm going outside to feed my rabbit." And as I finish one task, I am already formulating in my mind what I'll do next.

Here are some things I'd like to do: write a book, continue getting good grades, play squash and lacrosse, go to China, go to CTD at Northwestern University, spend time with my friends and keep building relationships, help people (the most likely possibility is, namely, some girls in Nepal that are in danger of human trafficking, and are at a school run by some Buddhist nuns that I have met, and know through one of my mother's friends)...among others. In short, I want to make a difference in the world. (I wish there were some other way to say that, for that term, as are so many others, is used so much that it's true meaning seems less important. I suppose I want to affect the world and the people in it in a positive manner...yes, that sounds about right.) But I'll always want to make a difference. I'll always want to make myself known. There are certain rungs on this ladder of success that can be climbed in the following year, so those can be my goals for the year. But my resolution has, and always will remain to be, to make a difference in some way.

When I notice that there's something I need to improve about myself, I go about doing it. I study a certain way or take more notes or notes in a certain way, I read books that I want to read more, I spend more time with my rabbit, I write regularly, I am kind to my parents and friends, especially if I know I've recently done something insensitive...but I do all of these things naturally, without even thinking about it. So instead of putting it in the material perspective (or so it seems to me, for I mean no offense to the many that don't share this belief) of the label, a "Resolution", I will keep doing things the way I do them.

If I were required to make a New Year's Resolution, here's what it would be:

Be MySeLf

For, as I have mentioned, myself is so many wonderful things, and includes my natural tendency to change what I need to change, I am quite satisfied with me.

Happy Monday, January 3rd, 2011, world. If we're to say "Happy" on other days determined by some long-ago decision-makers as holidays, which many times don't live up to be as happy as our expectations tell us they should be, then why not wish people "happy" on every day?

Some Thinking and a Cup of Tea

I wrote this last night and sent it in an email to my friend and my parents so I could share my thoughts. She - my friend, who is much like me in some ways - commented that it would make "an AMAZING blog post", and asked me the URL for this blog. (Which, I'm sorry to say, I had forgotten about...my apologies. I'll make it up to you... Do you like chocolate??)

As I contemplated whether or not to add a minimal or a thoroughly enjoyable amount of honey to my tea, I began to think about the meaning of life (although that term is so generic and often used that I'd rather refer to what I was thinking about as my purpose).

It's nighttime, I'll be going to sleep soon, and I don't actually need to drink of cup of tea. It's not necessary to my existence or my welfare. (Yes, if it's tea with antioxidants that would be helpful, or if it helps with my digestive system, which even if it doesn't in fact, it does in feel.) But I want it. I dreadfully want to drink a cup of tea...so why shouldn't I? There's nothing harmful about it - except for the ingestion of a few more calories and substance into my stomach, neither of which are things I feel need to be foregone by avoiding a cup of pleasant tea. However, there are many people in places close and far away who don't even have an acceptable amount of food in a day, so why should I indulge myself. I have the opportunity, that's why. Instead of living on the edge, holding myself back from small luxuries, why don't I take advantage of the fact that I can have them? This is the thought I carry on my shoulders as I walk away from the kitchen holding my newly brewed cup of steaming strawberry pomegranate tea. With a moderate amount of honey.

So therefore, I'm enjoying myself. The question is: should I enjoy myself and take advantage of the pleasures made possible to me by my situation in life, or make do with the least I can, abstaining from little seemingly meaningless things while just trying to help others and do all I can with my life?

When I enjoy small pleasures, I am more likely to be successful and reach out to others, socially and charitably, as I will be excessively happy due to these treats (among other things), and have the ability to easily focus my attention on matters that may be not quite as likable or naturally done. The fact remains that it doesn't seem fair that I can enjoy these things, and have the choice whether or not to, while too many others cannot.

Just a little cup of ideas to think about. Hopefully this one does aid you and pleasure you. Hopefully you glance up at it with gleaming eyes as you read your other emails, wishing you didn't have to wait to take a sip of the thoughtful richness. It's food for thought, as some may say; but in this case I would call it: Tea for Thought.

Thank you for reading. Good night, sleep tight, and I hope you have pleasant, memorable dreams.