Last Day of Semester

I’m really tired. I’m writing this really late and I should probably be in bed but some nights you just need to stay up late writing. The last day of school before exams then Christmas break is tomorrow and I’m really excited about that. I’ve been looking forward to this since Thanksgiving break ended.

Tomorrow I will give all my lovely friends their Christmas presents. In some classes I’ll have to pay attention to exam review, but in most of them I’ll hopefully be able to zone out and write or read or catch up on sleep. I remember last year I read a really sad book during exam review days, called 13 Reasons Why, and it ended with me awkwardly crying in the back corner of the room during class. Maybe I’ll just sleep.

In band we’re having our Christmas party and this will be very good. There will be food and when there is food parties are fun. And my band friends will be there, and it will just be a good time in general and yeah I’m going to bed, good night world.

Injustice Within the Church?

Recently I read about an organization called New Horizon Youth Ministries, and a school known as Escuela Caribe. Located in the Dominican Republic, this was a boarding reform school that was supposedly Christian. The horror stories I read about it compelled me to look further to make sure that it really had been shut down (yes, the whole ministry was bought in 2011 and the schools shut down).

Apparently, this school had been open since the 1970’s, and the alumni told stories of physical and emotional abuse that went on at the school. Parents in the States sent their kids here not fully knowing what the place was like, and the realities of “the program” that went on at the school were kept mostly secret for years, until some students began talking about it and a documentary called “Kidnapped for Christ” was made about the place. Students were sent to this school for all sorts of behavior problems, troubles with the law or authority, and homosexuality; and this school would try to break them into submissive behavior in the name of God.

The whole thing just sounded so sickening, that people would be abused in the name of Christianity. In fact, many of the past students interviewed said that their experiences at the school had led them to be distrustful of Christianity or the church.

The church is supposed to be loving and accepting, as Jesus was; and obviously this isn’t always happening. Why not?

Scotland

My brother is coming home from Scotland in one week, and I’m really looking forward to seeing him. He’s been spending the semester studying at St. Andrew’s University, so I haven’t seen him in person in four months and I miss him a lot. I didn’t expect to miss him so much. Growing up, we got along really well and were pretty close, but I didn’t really understand what an impact he made on my life until he wasn’t there all the time anymore. It wasn’t until he went off to college that I really understood what he meant to me. Guess it goes to show that you shouldn’t take anything for granted. Thankfully, he’s still around for me to not take for granted for a good long while.

Anyway, I’m really excited to hear all about Europe and see all the pictures. He’s posted some on facebook, but there’s something different about hearing about the stories behind the pictures firsthand. My mom’s probably going to get really emotional because she’s never been apart from her son for this long, but it’s understandable so we’ll all forgive her.

Now I’ve just got to get through this next week of exams!

Youth and Government

Today I went to the Youth and Government Pre-Conference, and I think I’m really going to like this year a lot better than my freshman year. My freshman year was fun, but I felt shy and awkward and young. This year, a ton of my friends are going, and I’ve already met a couple of new people from other schools that seem really nice and hopefully I will get to know them better in February at the conference.

Youth and Government is really interesting because you see such a diversity of people there that you don’t ever see at the private Christian school I go to. Not only racial diversity, because now we’ve got some of that at school. But also diversity in political beliefs and opinions, and diversity in sexualities. It’s all very interesting to talk to people that I otherwise probably wouldn’t ever meet. Like today, a girl presented her bill which is about having insurance companies cover abortions, and that caused a lot of debate as abortion is pretty controversial. I mostly just sat and watched and realized that I have very unique opinions. I can’t completely agree with abortions, but I don’t think abortion clinics should be shut down since they are the safe way to have an abortion and women will have abortions somehow whether they’re legal or not; it’s been happening that way for years. However she didn’t seem fazed by the criticism at all and she was confident, and I admired her for that and I look forward to debating more bills in the future.

Progressive-Agressive Dinner

Today was the progressive aggressive dinner with my youth group. An annual event around Christmastime, it combines a progressive house-to-house dinner with an aggressive citywide scavenger hunt, and this year’s was pretty memorable. I was on a team with my friends Laura, Christa, and Natalie; and Kayla was our driver. Kayla’s awesome and she’s only two years older than me. Well, what Kayla didn’t tell us was that her car was a two-door and basically the tiniest vehicle ever, with the possible exception of smarts and VW bugs.

Somehow we all squeezed in and began our night of food, fun, and ticking the youth pastor’s crazy scavenger hunt ideas off the list one by one as we finished them. These included a video of us playing leapfrog, which we poorly chose to do in the salad dressing aisle of Target, which got us “asked to leave” by the employees (oops!). We somehow moved on from that embarrassing fiasco and finished the evening with several points. Although we didn’t win, we got closer as friends and all in all it was an evening I won’t forget for a long time.

Bacon

I just spent a wonderful day with my friend Emily, who is a pretty awesome chica. She came over to my house and we made sandwiches out of warm chewy chocolate chip cookies and cold soft ice cream, which are the best kind of sandwiches in my opinion. Then we watched funny movies and of course laughed for a long time. She’s one of those people that always makes me laugh, and I think you need to always hold on to those people that make you laugh. Then came the 2 AM conversations about everything from God to boys to girls to school and what we wanted to do with our lives.

Then this morning we woke up and ate bacon and it was lovely and greasy and wonderfully tasty. Emily had never had bacon before so it was quite an experience for her. I feel very honored to be part of someone’s first ever bacon-eating moments in life.

Lately I've Been Happy

Lately, I’ve been happy. Like something, somewhere, deep down inside, is finally okay. Maybe while the joints of my body are falling out of place, the fragmented pieces of my soul are starting to fall into place, and hold together with the glue that the rest of me doesn’t seem to have.

Lately this fear I’ve been suppressing about what could possibly be wrong with me to cause these joint problems and pain has been hovering closer to the surface, threatening to break through the thin barrier that separates the back of my mind from my overanalyzed thoughts. And I keep on pushing it back, refusing to think about it.

But lately I’ve been learning how to get past it. Yes, it is kind of scary to have joints go where they don’t belong and you don’t know why. It is kind of scary to wake up not knowing what’s going to hurt that day, how far you’ll feel like walking that day. But it doesn’t change anything. Just something new to deal with, another challenge to conquer. Like depression, except this is physical. And maybe I’ll learn something. After all, I have plenty to be thankful for.

Trapped

            The little girl stared at her face in the mirror as she stood on her tiptoes in order to see herself. Her fingers were pressed against the glass as she traced her reflection: sky blue eyes, pale skin, button nose. She felt a deep-seated confusion at the fact that this face in the mirror belonged to her, that her soul was trapped in this body, a place where she didn’t belong. What if she had been born different? If someone else’s body were hers instead, would she be the same person? Would she be more comfortable, or feel more at home?

            She couldn’t remember the first time she’d noticed she was different. She was not like other girls, and it seemed she had always known this fact. This terrible, unbelievable fact- she would never be the same. She would never be like the others.

            She hurriedly turned away from the mirror in disgust, hoping it was all just a dream and she’d wake up soon, in her body. She could imagine it now-one day all the wishes and hopes and prayers would work, and she’d get out of bed and see herself in the mirror, and everything would be right.

            As she thought this, her mom walked in suddenly. “Why aren’t you dressed? We have to leave in five minutes or you’ll be late again!” she said impatiently as she handed her son his school uniform. After he had pulled on the khaki pants and button-up shirt, she ran a brush through his hair. “We need to get you a haircut soon. It’s getting too long. Now get your books; I’ll meet you in the car.”

            The girl slowly turned and looked once more into the mirror. She caught a glance of her eyes, wide and scared. When would her mom ever realize that she actually had a daughter? And would she ever accept that?

NCCSA

I just got back from NCCSA, which is basically the Christian version of an all-state band clinic. As usual, it was a mixture of experiences. I love spending the time with my band friends, I like the challenge of learning an entire concert in 2 days, I like the short break from school. And of course the concert itself is always fun.

There is an aspect of the culture there that I don’t fit in with at all. Not saying that it’s wrong, just that I’m not used to it and I don’t fit in. The other schools there are usually very conservative, a few to the point of legalism, and I don’t really understand legalism at all.

But mostly it was a lot of fun. Several new inside jokes and memories were made as usual, and the Friday night bowling trip was a blast. I enjoyed the music-it was challenging without being impossible, and I love the opportunity to play music that’s more on my level than what we get to do in concert band at school.

Now I am absolutely exhausted and have a lot of homework that probably won’t get done. Sorry not sorry.

If They Said That You Were Dying

Somebody asked me once what I would do if I knew I only had a short time to live. Would I change anything about how I’m spending my life? This stopped me in my tracks. Heck yeah I would. And then I realized, I don’t know how long I have left. At any moment my heart could stop, any of ours could. Or I could get into an accident tomorrow morning, or be diagnosed with a cancer I didn’t know I had. What would I do then?

I would drop out of school. if I’m not going to live to be an adult, what’s the point in preparing to be one? I would write constantly, everything in my head. I wouldn’t want anyone to forget me, and maybe my writing would help them remember. I would go to New York City, and California, and Europe, if time permitted. All the places I’ve always wanted to see. I would go to concerts and museums and parties, spend time with friends and family. I wouldn’t wait to do anything. I wouldn’t want to put anything off. I would want to fall in love, and see and experience everything there is in this world, before I left.

And I hope this is how I live my life. I don’t want to wait to live until I’m told I’m dying.

What's Really Important?

They tell us that grades are of utmost importance. I don’t disagree, I do think it’s important to try your hardest and do your best. But I also think it’s important to be a kid while you’re still young. Students are put under so much stress at such a young age; not only do they have school for six to eight hours a day but on top of that they have homework and studying and projects to do.

I promise you that in five years you won’t remember the grade you made on that math test, or your score on that English essay. But you will remember the friends you made, the nights you stayed up late talking and laughing and making memories together. Sometimes our most poignant moments are those that shouldn’t have happened, those that should’ve been spent studying or doing something “worthwhile”. I say, if it shapes you as a person, if it changes how you think or act or see the world, then it’s pretty important. Some of the most essential life lessons are not taught in schools. You don’t go to class to learn how to be a friend, or how to love in the hardest of times, or what to do when everything falls apart. These are the important things.

When I Write Best

I seem to do my best writing when I’m supposed to be doing something else. Ask me to sit down and write something worth reading in half an hour, and I will freeze, sit there and think for twenty minutes, then frantically scrawl down some halfhearted bull and hand it in. But tell me to do math homework or a science project, and suddenly story after story or poem after poem will spring into my head, uninvited but certainly welcome. I only wish a poem about loneliness was an acceptable answer for an exponential equation, or a tale of brave soldiers battling evil in an alternate universe appropriate instead of a poster about the periodic table.

I wish I could say, “I know I didn’t do your assignment, but look, I was doing this, and isn’t that so much better and more worthwhile than something I didn’t really want to do in the first place? This is something that I’m passionate about, and I think that shows, and we should spend time doing what we love.”

I think that if writers have to struggle through math problems and science projects (don’t get me wrong, I do love math and science) then they should have to struggle to write a poem or a story. It would only be fair.

What I Would Say to Her

You are perfectly beautiful in every way, just as you are. It’s okay to sit back after a meal and be full and satisfied. It’s okay to eat cookies or cake or fudge. It’s okay to express yourself and love that person you are, to be free and happy. It’s okay to skip your workouts and forget to renew your gym membership. It’s okay to lie in bed and watch Netflix or Disney movies and rest and be lazy sometimes.

You will take up more space than you used to. This may seem like a terrifying concept, but it will be all right in the end, because as you gain weight you will gain confidence and health and strength. You will get to know your body and learn to embrace instead of treating it as the enemy like you have for so long. You will learn to love yourself.

Twenty years from now, you will look back on these days. And you will hopefully have the life you dreamed of for so long, with that loving family or successful career or whatever it is that you wished for. And you will be glad that you decided to recover, you will decide it was worth it. You will have found the beauty in life, and the beauty in yourself, and I hope you’ll always have that. Remember this, when it’s hard. Remember what can one day be, if only you let it.

 

Perfect?

Society screams at us from all sides that we have to be perfect. They try to tell us that perfection is stick-thin legs and flat stomachs and hair that’s never out of place and skin that’s always clear.  They try to tell us that perfection is a million-dollar house and a sports car and fame.

But when models are photoshopped and Hollywood is an illusion, even the perfect ones can’t be perfect. They, too, are an illusion, fake happy lives lived for the cameras, and I wonder what happens when those cameras are gone. Do they transform into normal people, or have they fooled even the most private areas of their minds to believe that they can be the exception, that they can be perfect? We are all good actors and actresses. We have to be to survive in this world. We live through each day being who everyone else wants us to be. But some of us are better at it than others. And I wonder if these people, in their exceptional ability to create perfect illusions, have managed to trick themselves into thinking they are what they pretend to be. I wonder what they’re hiding from.

Dreams

It’s one of those nights. You know the ones. Well, maybe you don’t. Unless you’re a writer, or an artist, some sort of creator. One of those nights where you can’t sleep because an idea keeps bouncing around inside the walls of your mind, until you get out of bed and let it out. I don’t even have a specific idea right now, just words. I know I need to write, then I can sleep.

Have you ever had a dream for yourself, something that you built your entire life around? Every choice you made, every action you did, filtered through this dream. Maybe it’s your ambition of becoming a professional athlete, or going to art school. You spend your time going to sports practices or workouts or art classes or gallery shows. You sacrifice sleep and friendships and who knows what else, so that hopefully, one day, you can achieve your dream.

Well, what happens to you when that dream gets cruelly ripped from you with no warning? What happens when you, as an athlete, injure your leg, or as an artist, hurt your fingers? What happens when this dream is no longer a possibility and striving towards it can no longer be a reality? What happens when everything you based your life on is gone and you have nothing?

Well, I guess you have to start from scratch. New possibilities, new dreams, met with fear at first, because what if you lose these too? But you eventually learn that you can’t live your life in fear.

Only the bravest will survive this, and those who do become the strongest.

Trees

I’m sitting here on the balcony overlooking the parking lot, but I like to look beyond the painted asphalt and rows of cars and see the trees. There’s a beautiful view out here, if you just look. Right now, it’s breathtaking-the trees are vibrantly colored, with leaves of every hue of the rainbow. Sometimes during class I sneak a peek out the window, and I almost can’t tear my eyes away. I know soon winter will come, and the leaves will fall and the tree branches will be bare and ghostly, with only the scattered evergreens providing color. But for now, this is the view. I wish I had my camera so I could take a picture, but my words will have to do. Read this, then close your eyes, try to see it.

The sky is blue, the color you imagined the ocean when you were a child in kindergarten art class with twenty-four crayons at your disposal. The clouds are few, and scattered across the sky off in the distance. For the most part, it’s clear. The trees are, as I described them before, are gorgeous, all golden and red and green. The sunlight is streaming down through the branches, teasing shadows on the ground.

I don’t want to ever forget this.

Infinite

“And I swear, in that moment, we were infinite.”

This is quite possibly one of the most quoted lines from Stephen Chbosky’s Perks of Being a Wallflower. It has become cliché and overused, but does anyone really understand what it means?

When Charlie says this, he is riding with his friends at night. It’s dark outside. They’re listening to their favorite song. Charlie stands up in the back of the truck, and looks around him at the city lights. He is caught up in the moment; after a long time of being mentally unstable, he is finally okay and his future seems bright.

I think Stephen captured in words a feeling that most people don’t recognize and don’t know how to describe. It’s a very specific feeling-generally limited to nighttime drives with those you are most comfortable with and with no particular destination in mind. Music can awaken this feeling, as it connects people to a more introspective, emotional side of themselves. It’s the feeling that comes during these types of moments, when you truly feel alive. Your worries fade away. Your past is erased. Your future has so many bright possibilities. The present is rich and vibrant.

You feel endless. Your future is eternal, stretched out before you. You’re not in any hurry to get anywhere or do anything. You would be perfectly content staying within this moment forever, and you will remember this moment forever. This is what it means to feel infinite.

 

My Views on Writing

Now that I've made a post about other's views on writing, it's time I share my own.

Why do people write? What is it inside a person's head that compels them to put their thoughts on paper?  Some may wish to make money, but how easy is it really to make money writing? In order to be successful as a writer, one ought to be very good at it. At least, this is my opinion. Others may disagree, and the 21st century culture is full of bad writers making good money. I say this is a disgrace.
Why do I write? What drives me to put pen to paper and let the words flow from my heart?
I think writing is a bridge to sanity. It helps you sort out what's real versus what's only in your head. It helps you organize your thoughts so you can sort through them and try to make some sense out of them. Some people are very good at this. Some people can make the muddled-up tangled web of messy thoughts in their heads so clear that it provides understanding not only for them, but for others as well. Sometimes people can see their own problems explained through someone else's good writing.
And sometimes people want to forget about their problems, and so they write. They write themselves into another world, another dimension, until their pain isn't felt and they can experience happiness again. And those who don't write, read. They read themselves into someone else's life and someone else's experiences, until they can forget their own.
This is why, when you finish a good book and close the door on what was a wonderful world, it's like a death for some people as they wake up and find themselves once again in their own life. And this is why so many readers find themselves going back, reading again and again, and begging writers for more.
And this, I believe, is why writers write. Not only to satisfy their own cravings deep within themselves, but to ease the hungry longings of a thousand dedicated readers, begging for another journey into their favorite worlds.

Quote Compilation

These are a bunch of quotes about writing that I like.

"I write, because otherwise these thoughts would swim around in my head until I went insane."

“Write to write. Write because you need to write. Write to settle the rage within you. Write with an internal purpose. Write about something or someone that means so much to you, that you don’t care what others think.”

"Young writers should read books past bedtime and write things down in notebooks when they are supposed to be doing something else."

"The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say."

"You must stay drunk on writing so reality can not destroy you."

"Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart."

"The process of writing has something infinite about it."

"It is only when you open your veins and bleed onto the page a little that you establish contact with your reader."

"You write to communicate to the hearts and minds of others what's burning inside you."

"There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you."

Poem

A poem I wrote for a thing.
It has feelings.

"Perfect"

When I ask if she’s all right,

She always says, “Of course, I’m fine.”

Her lips spread in a smile

That will only remain for a while

Until she thinks I’ve looked away;

Then I’ll know her happiness isn’t here to stay.

 

Sometimes I wish she’d let her guard down

And let that smile turn into a frown.

Sometimes I wish she’d break down her walls,

Cry for some time, and then let herself fall

So she can get back up again,

And rebuild herself better than she’s ever been.

 

“You’re already beautiful,” I try to convince her,

But still she stares at herself in the mirror,

So caught up in her own reflection,

Completely trapped by the allure of perfection

That tells her she’ll never be good enough,

But doesn’t she know that she’s already loved?

 

When I ask if she’s all right,

She always says, “Of course, I’m fine”,

But her eyes speak the truth

Lies she’s believed ever since her youth,

That she just isn’t worth it,

But doesn’t she know that she’s already perfect?