"Still Waiting" is a really good song by Sum 41. Just throwing that out there.
So I'm just hanging out for now, waiting for my life to start. If I let myself think about it too much, I might get bored. You know what happens when I'm bored. Ergo, I'm setting some arbitrary little goals to work towards and keep my mind off of the absolute nothingness of my life at the moment. The first, I think, will be an A in Calc. I'll actually have to work at that, but it will give me something to do, eh? The second has two parts: finding when class ranks are calculated and working my ass off until then so I can be valedictorian. I had this whole fantastic zen attitude towards it for a while, which was a nice break from the reality of my personality. I want that speech, and I don't mind fighting for it. Within the next month, I'll write a five-minute speech so I can do the Rotary Club contest again. A month from now, I'm getting a free trip to Virginia for a few days for the scholarship competition I'm in for Washington and Lee. Two months from now, I'll get some of the damn letters that are putting my life on hold.
Two months.
Thank you, God, for getting me this far.
I think, though, that I might have to muscle through the rest on my own.
Moritura te saluto.
L
1.31.2010
1.17.2010
Press "4" for hypocricy.
I was just on facebook and I came across another group that was against pressing "1" for English when calling an automated server or something. I've seen this whole movement before, the one where people complain about how the US is supposedly going to make Spanish the national language in 50 years and how English-speaking people are getting crowded out of the country and how it's just not right that Americans should have to press a button to hear a computer talk to them in their native language.
I thought about this.
I thought about it some more.
I came up with a question.
Why the hell do you give a shit?
Let's think about this for a moment. We speak English, yes. That's been established by the fact that I'm not writing in Swahili. Some people in America don't speak English. As inconvenient as that seems to me, they obviously prefer living with their own native language to putting forth the effort, time, and often a considerable sum of money, to learn the generally accepted vernacular of the country, which they have no legal obligation to do. Until the Senate conducts its meetings in Spanish, I really don't see how this affects us, besides the fact that we now have to strain the minds of the semi-literate who didn't receive the world-class education promised them by the land of the free and can't differentiate between the large English words on signs and the smaller Spanish/French words below them.
My main point is this: you just dialed a 10-digit phone number. You obviously have no physical inability to press telephone buttons. So SHUT UP and press 1. Assuming the problem isn't that you have a great dislike of the "1" key on your cellphone and the act of pressing it, this is probably a symbolic issue. Being asked to take that extra step is the first sign that the foreigners are coming to take over your country. It may be a small symbol, but the root of it will jeopardize your lifestyle as a traditional American citizen. Now, I am thrilled (seriously) that my fellow Americans are taking the time to examine their personal and political philosophies. We always need more thinkers, and everyone should take the time to reason out the causes and effects of today's American and global views. Do you feel threatened by being asked to press "1" for English? You have every right to. Personally, I don't. I feel more threatened by the concepts of capital punishment, apathy towards global poverty, ever-increasing levels of corruption in global and local leadership, bigotry, sexism, racism, prejudice in any form, intolerance, violence in inner-city schools, teen pregnancy, alcoholism, drug addiction, lack of treatment for mental illnesses, the fact that we have a supply of drugs to treat "insufficient (or not enough) eyelashes" but not malaria, technology to turn a B-cup into a D but not to keep explosives off of planes, rape, domestic violence, and global pollution. I would be a hypocrite to say that I am socially active against all of these evils and to call you to do the same. I am, however, aware that these threaten my personal philosophy, these stand in opposition to what I believe in and defy my way of life, that the hugely insufficient list that I just typed out contains problems that are urgent and need solutions now.
These threaten the American way of life.
These make a mockery of every good thing the United States government has done for the world and emphasize all that we've failed to do.
Please, do me a favor. The next time you're annoyed by an impersonal and inanimate voice asking you to press "1" for English, rack your brain to come up with some better things to be annoyed about. If you can't think of anything then, by all means, grab a picket sign and start writing letters. Call your local representatives, too. Let's hope they have live, English-speaking secretaries to take your calls.
I thought about this.
I thought about it some more.
I came up with a question.
Why the hell do you give a shit?
Let's think about this for a moment. We speak English, yes. That's been established by the fact that I'm not writing in Swahili. Some people in America don't speak English. As inconvenient as that seems to me, they obviously prefer living with their own native language to putting forth the effort, time, and often a considerable sum of money, to learn the generally accepted vernacular of the country, which they have no legal obligation to do. Until the Senate conducts its meetings in Spanish, I really don't see how this affects us, besides the fact that we now have to strain the minds of the semi-literate who didn't receive the world-class education promised them by the land of the free and can't differentiate between the large English words on signs and the smaller Spanish/French words below them.
My main point is this: you just dialed a 10-digit phone number. You obviously have no physical inability to press telephone buttons. So SHUT UP and press 1. Assuming the problem isn't that you have a great dislike of the "1" key on your cellphone and the act of pressing it, this is probably a symbolic issue. Being asked to take that extra step is the first sign that the foreigners are coming to take over your country. It may be a small symbol, but the root of it will jeopardize your lifestyle as a traditional American citizen. Now, I am thrilled (seriously) that my fellow Americans are taking the time to examine their personal and political philosophies. We always need more thinkers, and everyone should take the time to reason out the causes and effects of today's American and global views. Do you feel threatened by being asked to press "1" for English? You have every right to. Personally, I don't. I feel more threatened by the concepts of capital punishment, apathy towards global poverty, ever-increasing levels of corruption in global and local leadership, bigotry, sexism, racism, prejudice in any form, intolerance, violence in inner-city schools, teen pregnancy, alcoholism, drug addiction, lack of treatment for mental illnesses, the fact that we have a supply of drugs to treat "insufficient (or not enough) eyelashes" but not malaria, technology to turn a B-cup into a D but not to keep explosives off of planes, rape, domestic violence, and global pollution. I would be a hypocrite to say that I am socially active against all of these evils and to call you to do the same. I am, however, aware that these threaten my personal philosophy, these stand in opposition to what I believe in and defy my way of life, that the hugely insufficient list that I just typed out contains problems that are urgent and need solutions now.
These threaten the American way of life.
These make a mockery of every good thing the United States government has done for the world and emphasize all that we've failed to do.
Please, do me a favor. The next time you're annoyed by an impersonal and inanimate voice asking you to press "1" for English, rack your brain to come up with some better things to be annoyed about. If you can't think of anything then, by all means, grab a picket sign and start writing letters. Call your local representatives, too. Let's hope they have live, English-speaking secretaries to take your calls.
1.15.2010
Setting myself up.
I just realized how badly I want to be valedictorian and how badly I want to get into an Ivy League school and I have the worst feeling that I'm going to be disappointed.
I'm scared and I'm anxious and I'm impatient and I don't want to wait but I have to, even it it's not worth the wait.
I can see it now, someone else gong up the aisle on June 11th to give a speech and someone else getting dropped off in front of Dartmouth or Tufts. I haven't been on the sidelines in so long that I'm terrified of going back. I've been there, and if I'm going back again than I would rather know now than get my hopes up (like I do for everything) and getting let down (like what happens to me a lot.).
Remember what I felt like when I got that perfect score? I cried, I was so happy. Something beyond my craziest goals happened and I made it happen just my being me and it was one of the coolest things I've ever felt. I want that again.
My hopes are up, and not just for class rank and acceptance letters. Everyone has gotten my hopes up, including myself. I don't want to keep ending these stories, these pages in my life with "and then nothing happened."
I think everything's going to crash.
L
I'm scared and I'm anxious and I'm impatient and I don't want to wait but I have to, even it it's not worth the wait.
I can see it now, someone else gong up the aisle on June 11th to give a speech and someone else getting dropped off in front of Dartmouth or Tufts. I haven't been on the sidelines in so long that I'm terrified of going back. I've been there, and if I'm going back again than I would rather know now than get my hopes up (like I do for everything) and getting let down (like what happens to me a lot.).
Remember what I felt like when I got that perfect score? I cried, I was so happy. Something beyond my craziest goals happened and I made it happen just my being me and it was one of the coolest things I've ever felt. I want that again.
My hopes are up, and not just for class rank and acceptance letters. Everyone has gotten my hopes up, including myself. I don't want to keep ending these stories, these pages in my life with "and then nothing happened."
I think everything's going to crash.
L
1.14.2010
And I can't see so good.
Is it June yet?
Lately I've just been so exhausted with things that it's crazy. Dance is great, but even that has its setbacks, literally, since I haven't been able to get though a single intense class all year without stopping.
Am I physically tired? Yes.
Is that the problem? Maybe a little bit.
But I can deal with that. It's school that's my issue.
I'm done with high school. In all honesty, I feel like I've taken all I can from it and now I'm just working my ass off for the sake of working my ass off. Even that isn't doing anything for me. Except for a few classes, I'm really not benefiting from it and I'm reallyreally ready to move on but I. can't. yet. Sometimes I honestly wonder how I thought there was anything here for me. I do everything, while doing it better than anyone else, and I've learned some great lessons at Brady but I don't know how much more it has to teach me.
Would you care for an example? Two days ago in AP English, which is definitely one of the hardest classes in the school, I took an open-book test on something we had just learned that period. I didn't use my book. I got the only 100% in the class. Double win right there. Then, today, she entered the scores into our averages and took them out if they brought our overall grade down. My test didn't raise my average; my average stayed the same. Triple win.Or how about in my AP BC Calc class, the hardest one in the school, where I don't do my homework and don't know what's going on about one third of the time but keep up a solid B. Or honors Physics where I don't pay attention, study ten minutes before tests, and get A's. But wait, there's the Latin class that I didn't have time for, that I take after school once a week, where I translate the original Aeneid and have to recognize obscure literary devices in another language. I think that class is my highest grade right now.
Add running Literary Magazine. Add controlling the entire visual aspect of our class's yearbook Add five days in the studio.
I was looking for a challenge by loading myself up like this. What I'm getting is a whole lot of time wrapped up in non-challenge. It's not even that my classes aren't hard--they are. For some reason, hard classes just don't test me and push me the way I need to be tested and pushed. The only things that are being tested are my time-management skills, which are completely pitiful, but instead of fixing that I just muscle through with brainpower and everything's fine... Better than fine. Academically, there's just less and less for me at this school, and socially, let's face it, there was never anything for me at Brady. At risk of sounding like a pretentious faux-sophisticated brat, I'm going through a serious case of ennui, and I don't like it. Boredom is not my thing.
Is it June yet?
I want to go to college.
L
Lately I've just been so exhausted with things that it's crazy. Dance is great, but even that has its setbacks, literally, since I haven't been able to get though a single intense class all year without stopping.
Am I physically tired? Yes.
Is that the problem? Maybe a little bit.
But I can deal with that. It's school that's my issue.
I'm done with high school. In all honesty, I feel like I've taken all I can from it and now I'm just working my ass off for the sake of working my ass off. Even that isn't doing anything for me. Except for a few classes, I'm really not benefiting from it and I'm reallyreally ready to move on but I. can't. yet. Sometimes I honestly wonder how I thought there was anything here for me. I do everything, while doing it better than anyone else, and I've learned some great lessons at Brady but I don't know how much more it has to teach me.
Would you care for an example? Two days ago in AP English, which is definitely one of the hardest classes in the school, I took an open-book test on something we had just learned that period. I didn't use my book. I got the only 100% in the class. Double win right there. Then, today, she entered the scores into our averages and took them out if they brought our overall grade down. My test didn't raise my average; my average stayed the same. Triple win.Or how about in my AP BC Calc class, the hardest one in the school, where I don't do my homework and don't know what's going on about one third of the time but keep up a solid B. Or honors Physics where I don't pay attention, study ten minutes before tests, and get A's. But wait, there's the Latin class that I didn't have time for, that I take after school once a week, where I translate the original Aeneid and have to recognize obscure literary devices in another language. I think that class is my highest grade right now.
Add running Literary Magazine. Add controlling the entire visual aspect of our class's yearbook Add five days in the studio.
I was looking for a challenge by loading myself up like this. What I'm getting is a whole lot of time wrapped up in non-challenge. It's not even that my classes aren't hard--they are. For some reason, hard classes just don't test me and push me the way I need to be tested and pushed. The only things that are being tested are my time-management skills, which are completely pitiful, but instead of fixing that I just muscle through with brainpower and everything's fine... Better than fine. Academically, there's just less and less for me at this school, and socially, let's face it, there was never anything for me at Brady. At risk of sounding like a pretentious faux-sophisticated brat, I'm going through a serious case of ennui, and I don't like it. Boredom is not my thing.
Is it June yet?
I want to go to college.
L
1.11.2010
But that's 105%!
This will be a quick post, since I want to get some Latin churned out before I go to bed, and I need to look sane tomorrow because I have an alumni (alumna, actually) interview for Brown after school.
Crossed legs and broken fingers.
Wait. Strike that. Reverse it.
(I love quoting Gene Wilder when I have the chance.)
Erm. I got some 98 cent orange nail polish from Hot Topic the other day.
Also, I played chess for the first time in at least a year and won twice. Good games, Anne. (I'm on a roll here, so if anyone wants an online game then that can happen.)
I'm avoiding my math homework. I always avoid my math homework. It's a lifestyle, really.
If you haven't already seen, I have two more blogs that I've been toying with. SVerum should be dormant for a little while, and for now I'm messing around with SAenum. {Link in the sidebar under Cetera [Nerdfighters FTW (If you don't get that reference tell me so we can fix that)]}
I'm planning the comeback for the NLC. Members, you'll hear from me soon.
L
Crossed legs and broken fingers.
Wait. Strike that. Reverse it.
(I love quoting Gene Wilder when I have the chance.)
Erm. I got some 98 cent orange nail polish from Hot Topic the other day.
Also, I played chess for the first time in at least a year and won twice. Good games, Anne. (I'm on a roll here, so if anyone wants an online game then that can happen.)
I'm avoiding my math homework. I always avoid my math homework. It's a lifestyle, really.
If you haven't already seen, I have two more blogs that I've been toying with. SVerum should be dormant for a little while, and for now I'm messing around with SAenum. {Link in the sidebar under Cetera [Nerdfighters FTW (If you don't get that reference tell me so we can fix that)]}
I'm planning the comeback for the NLC. Members, you'll hear from me soon.
L
1.01.2010
New Year's Revolution.
Here's the deal.
I'm done living my life on anyone's terms but my own.
I am seventeen years old. It feels bizarre to say that because I have no idea what it feels like to be seventeen; I haven't felt my age in years, but I'm ok with that. It just means that I see more.
I'm going to be eighteen this year.
I am done living my life on everyone else's terms.
There are some things that I need to recognize as solid truths and start living by.
First off, I will control what I do and how I feel. I will never again be stuck in a situation that I hate and not have the means to get out. I believed that everyone has to just shut up and deal with things at some point so that someone else can have a good time. I don't think I believe that anymore. I am sick of wasting my time being miserable when I'm expected to have a good time, and I am sick of being unhappy myself so that I don't ruin anyone else's happiness. I enjoy helping out my friends, but not helping me out in return is no longer acceptable. I will dictate what I enjoy doing, not the people around me, and hating where I am or who I'm with will no longer be something I just "deal with". If I am legitimately unhappy, that is not ok. I deserve the right to do something about it, and I deserve the right to be assertive to get myself the hell out. Think what you want about me. Think that I'm an antisocial asshole. I don't care, and I am done caring.
I don't like being around idiots. I don't like being around people who are close-minded and inconsiderate and either don't know or don't care how repulsive they are. People can't help it if they're legitimately stupid; they annoy me, but I recognize that it's not their fault. When people choose to be idiots, I hate that more. I will not be forced to be around them. I hate their wasted potential and the fact that many people could be so much more than what they are. To those I know: I expect better of you. You expected better of yourself. You disappoint me.
Do not hold me back. My schools have held me back. Teachers have held me back. My family and friends have held me back. Stop. I'm done. I will go as far as I want to go and find my potential and push myself because that's what I do, and you will stand back and watch, and I may leave you behind. You should be proud of me. If you don't hold me back, my loyalty is stronger than you know. I still appreciate my friends who know me and know how my mind works because I never have to dumb myself down for you. As for everyone else, I am done distorting what I've done so you have a better idea of who I am; the two are connected, but my personality doesn't steriotypically match up with my achievements. I am done catering to steriotypes.
I have always based my actions on others' terms. I have always gotten to know people on their own terms. I have always talked to and connected with others on their own terms, and I finally realised that only a minority has noticed that and in turn worked on my terms. I hate selfisness so much that I tolerate it in others rather than myself, but I could eliminate it entirely if I forced my world to meet me in the middle.
That's why I want to go to these colleges. I know precisely the kind of people I want to surround myself with, and I know where they will be. Some of their locations are listed to the right in the sidebar of this blog. I'm honestly not going to stop looking for my perfect environment until I find it. I feel like I've been waiting for this for years and now, finally, it's happening.
So, 2010, these are my new year's resolutions. I know I'll break some of them, because, for some reason, I will always believe that what I see in others--their potential for happiness, their faults, their greatness--should be taken care of before I take care of myself. I know I can survive whatever may happen to me, but I don't know about them, so they will come first. I am done, though, accepting their ignorace and their inattentiveness, and I'll be damned if I just watch while they do stupid things and ignore everying I care about in them. So, if I come across as a little harsh, I may point you back to this post.
Also, I don't think I'm going to read this over fully because it seems really melodramatic and you know how I feel about THAT. (Ergo, ignore sucky grammar).
"Nothing has changed, but now I fight with the words."
Here's to you, 2010. I think we'll get along quite well.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
L
I'm done living my life on anyone's terms but my own.
I am seventeen years old. It feels bizarre to say that because I have no idea what it feels like to be seventeen; I haven't felt my age in years, but I'm ok with that. It just means that I see more.
I'm going to be eighteen this year.
I am done living my life on everyone else's terms.
There are some things that I need to recognize as solid truths and start living by.
First off, I will control what I do and how I feel. I will never again be stuck in a situation that I hate and not have the means to get out. I believed that everyone has to just shut up and deal with things at some point so that someone else can have a good time. I don't think I believe that anymore. I am sick of wasting my time being miserable when I'm expected to have a good time, and I am sick of being unhappy myself so that I don't ruin anyone else's happiness. I enjoy helping out my friends, but not helping me out in return is no longer acceptable. I will dictate what I enjoy doing, not the people around me, and hating where I am or who I'm with will no longer be something I just "deal with". If I am legitimately unhappy, that is not ok. I deserve the right to do something about it, and I deserve the right to be assertive to get myself the hell out. Think what you want about me. Think that I'm an antisocial asshole. I don't care, and I am done caring.
I don't like being around idiots. I don't like being around people who are close-minded and inconsiderate and either don't know or don't care how repulsive they are. People can't help it if they're legitimately stupid; they annoy me, but I recognize that it's not their fault. When people choose to be idiots, I hate that more. I will not be forced to be around them. I hate their wasted potential and the fact that many people could be so much more than what they are. To those I know: I expect better of you. You expected better of yourself. You disappoint me.
Do not hold me back. My schools have held me back. Teachers have held me back. My family and friends have held me back. Stop. I'm done. I will go as far as I want to go and find my potential and push myself because that's what I do, and you will stand back and watch, and I may leave you behind. You should be proud of me. If you don't hold me back, my loyalty is stronger than you know. I still appreciate my friends who know me and know how my mind works because I never have to dumb myself down for you. As for everyone else, I am done distorting what I've done so you have a better idea of who I am; the two are connected, but my personality doesn't steriotypically match up with my achievements. I am done catering to steriotypes.
I have always based my actions on others' terms. I have always gotten to know people on their own terms. I have always talked to and connected with others on their own terms, and I finally realised that only a minority has noticed that and in turn worked on my terms. I hate selfisness so much that I tolerate it in others rather than myself, but I could eliminate it entirely if I forced my world to meet me in the middle.
That's why I want to go to these colleges. I know precisely the kind of people I want to surround myself with, and I know where they will be. Some of their locations are listed to the right in the sidebar of this blog. I'm honestly not going to stop looking for my perfect environment until I find it. I feel like I've been waiting for this for years and now, finally, it's happening.
So, 2010, these are my new year's resolutions. I know I'll break some of them, because, for some reason, I will always believe that what I see in others--their potential for happiness, their faults, their greatness--should be taken care of before I take care of myself. I know I can survive whatever may happen to me, but I don't know about them, so they will come first. I am done, though, accepting their ignorace and their inattentiveness, and I'll be damned if I just watch while they do stupid things and ignore everying I care about in them. So, if I come across as a little harsh, I may point you back to this post.
Also, I don't think I'm going to read this over fully because it seems really melodramatic and you know how I feel about THAT. (Ergo, ignore sucky grammar).
"Nothing has changed, but now I fight with the words."
Here's to you, 2010. I think we'll get along quite well.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
L
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