Thursday, May 20, 2010
Sexual Dimorphism
There is no sexual dimorphism in blue jays!
Some of the best discoveries happen while you were looking for something else. Particularly like looking for a friend's phone number and texting an awesome random stranger instead!
Nobody's posted a blog in a hundred years. I'm embarrassed about my prolific posting to the point I may start typing these and not saving them for posterity's sake. However, I went through and re-read all of my blogs for 2010, and I think that would be a shame.
I kind of really like that the railing on my back steps is a set of old rusty pipes.
I'm going to learn to design a flash game (hopefully hopefully). It's primary function is for Gov class, but I'd also really like to get into computer programming and don't seem to have any purpose for it.
WORDS! Messenger graffiti websites like pictures of walls make me happy and inspired.
Some of the best discoveries happen while you were looking for something else. Particularly like looking for a friend's phone number and texting an awesome random stranger instead!
Nobody's posted a blog in a hundred years. I'm embarrassed about my prolific posting to the point I may start typing these and not saving them for posterity's sake. However, I went through and re-read all of my blogs for 2010, and I think that would be a shame.
I kind of really like that the railing on my back steps is a set of old rusty pipes.
I'm going to learn to design a flash game (hopefully hopefully). It's primary function is for Gov class, but I'd also really like to get into computer programming and don't seem to have any purpose for it.
WORDS! Messenger graffiti websites like pictures of walls make me happy and inspired.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Waste of Space
Looking at my room, there are posters for awesome bands and movies, and a record player to capture all those sounds on vinyl. My feet rest under a keyboard, and my guitar and mandolin rest on nearby furniture. From the seat at my laptop, my awesome door mural is visibly devoted to quotes of all literary merit and cultural significance and art of my own design. There's my All-Delco HiQ Team plaque and NJHS chords to prove academic merit. There are dried flowers from the boys who loved me and a whole cork board full of memories. The picture from our AP Psych field trip sits three feet away from a picture taken with Matt.
Whatever life I had last June was completely destroyed by September. Since then, I can't seem to convince myself that I'm not a waste of space here. I'm very excited for college with the hopes that the larger pool of people will provide a group for me that actually fits. Still, I am the one who has hurt everyone I loved, so it's probably not the location. I've spent four or five weeks in contact with a National Guard recruiter. My personality doesn't matter so much in the Guard, and if I die, it will be nobly and unavoidably. I can enlist in July, serve my weekends, go to BTC next summer, take my personalized career training the summer after, and go to officer school the summer after that. Officer school acceptance looks good. When I took the practice ASVAB, I got a 96%, but only because I ran out of time on one simple arithmetic problem that was not making sense to me. The minimum enlistment is 8 years. During that time, I'd be paid, get health and life insurance, and they'd pay for nearly all of college, but no guarantee I wouldn't be [deployed] after two years. My dad says I should wait until two years into school to enlist, which is a reasonable consideration. The only real issues are I don't want to kill anyone, and I want to graduate from college. Jack has been considering the Army or Marines. I never ever thought that we could be a military family. Sometimes it feels like there is nothing else for us.
Whatever life I had last June was completely destroyed by September. Since then, I can't seem to convince myself that I'm not a waste of space here. I'm very excited for college with the hopes that the larger pool of people will provide a group for me that actually fits. Still, I am the one who has hurt everyone I loved, so it's probably not the location. I've spent four or five weeks in contact with a National Guard recruiter. My personality doesn't matter so much in the Guard, and if I die, it will be nobly and unavoidably. I can enlist in July, serve my weekends, go to BTC next summer, take my personalized career training the summer after, and go to officer school the summer after that. Officer school acceptance looks good. When I took the practice ASVAB, I got a 96%, but only because I ran out of time on one simple arithmetic problem that was not making sense to me. The minimum enlistment is 8 years. During that time, I'd be paid, get health and life insurance, and they'd pay for nearly all of college, but no guarantee I wouldn't be [deployed] after two years. My dad says I should wait until two years into school to enlist, which is a reasonable consideration. The only real issues are I don't want to kill anyone, and I want to graduate from college. Jack has been considering the Army or Marines. I never ever thought that we could be a military family. Sometimes it feels like there is nothing else for us.
Some Questions, Some Rhetorical
What's the name of those images that you can only see when the ridges come together right? Like, if you're looking at it straight on, it might be a different image, but if you tilt it, there is a different image painted on the slats that can only be seen when all the ridges line up...
Why the hell isn't the news covering the protests in Thailand, like, all the time?
Why do we only cover poetry in sophomore year, when everyone only BS's what Mr. K. wanted to hear?
Why did it take me fourteen years to be exposed to good music?
Why had I never heard the term "moonbat?!"
D'AW!
Why the hell isn't the news covering the protests in Thailand, like, all the time?
Why do we only cover poetry in sophomore year, when everyone only BS's what Mr. K. wanted to hear?
Why did it take me fourteen years to be exposed to good music?
Why had I never heard the term "moonbat?!"
D'AW!
Monday, May 17, 2010
Sunday, May 16, 2010
What am I doing with my life?
Do I make people happy?
Do I encourage laughter and singing?
Do I make a place better for my presence?
How am I making life less hard for people?
Do I appreciate everything I've been blessed with?
Do I strive to improve myself and the world around me?
Where am I wasting time?
Do I create new and unseen works of beauty?
Do my accomplishments benefit others?
Do I remember times I've spent alone, or time with friends?
Am I learned every day?
What are the things that I admire in other people?
Why haven't I adopted or learned those qualities?
What are little habits I can adopt to improve myself or my world?
If I believe I am capable of worthwhile productivity, why don't I produce?
Where am I being wasteful, and how can I cut back?
Are there things I am doing now that will limit my time on Earth?
Does my creation have meaningful content, or is it simply beautiful?
How can I learn from the people around me?
Am I asking the right questions?
What stories haven't I heard? Why haven't I asked?
What music makes me happy?
What do I want to do before I die?
What collection of things make me special?
Do I encourage laughter and singing?
Do I make a place better for my presence?
How am I making life less hard for people?
Do I appreciate everything I've been blessed with?
Do I strive to improve myself and the world around me?
Where am I wasting time?
Do I create new and unseen works of beauty?
Do my accomplishments benefit others?
Do I remember times I've spent alone, or time with friends?
Am I learned every day?
What are the things that I admire in other people?
Why haven't I adopted or learned those qualities?
What are little habits I can adopt to improve myself or my world?
If I believe I am capable of worthwhile productivity, why don't I produce?
Where am I being wasteful, and how can I cut back?
Are there things I am doing now that will limit my time on Earth?
Does my creation have meaningful content, or is it simply beautiful?
How can I learn from the people around me?
Am I asking the right questions?
What stories haven't I heard? Why haven't I asked?
What music makes me happy?
What do I want to do before I die?
What collection of things make me special?
Germs do not go quietly
'If you find yourself lost in the woods, fuck it, build a house. "Well, I was lost but now I live here! I have severely improved my predicament!"'
"Listerine hurts, man, when I put Listerine in my mouth, I'm fuckin' angry. Germs do not go quietly."
"My belt holds up my pants and my pants have belt loops that hold up the belt. What the fuck’s really goin on down there? Who is the real hero?"
"Listerine hurts, man, when I put Listerine in my mouth, I'm fuckin' angry. Germs do not go quietly."
"My belt holds up my pants and my pants have belt loops that hold up the belt. What the fuck’s really goin on down there? Who is the real hero?"
Vocal Disparity
It took me a long time to realize that the voice in my head doesn't sound anything like the voice that comes out of my mouth. I was first shocked watching a home video my brother and I took of an awful spy movie we made. I couldn't believe my voice actually sounded like that. It was most shocking when my mom told me I wasn't a good singer. I didn't believe her, but all of the voice recordings I took on her phone seemed to prove her right. It made me embarrassed for a long time. It didn't matter so much when I was in a group of people, especially the pit, because I can hit the right notes, providing I can keep up with the octave. Alone, however, I didn't even want to sing in the shower, but I would sing at night in my room. Now I have a better grasp of what my voice sounds like to auditory spectators. I'm also less embarrassed to sing. I try not to outdo myself in public because that's being self-confident where there is nothing to back it up and I'd look like a dick. But everyone I would want to be friends with wouldn't begrudge my singing. Although it's scary to share myself like that sometimes.
Thinking About Shirts
Whenever a shirt gets a stain or something, I'm less likely to wear it in public, even though the stain is just a testament to its duty. The whole purpose of a shirt is to protect you from "the elements," even when modern life has reduced those basics to preventing you from being splattered with chocolate milk or noodles or grapes. It would be a shame to be neglected because you were doing what you were supposed to.
Guy Montag
Nothing important is ever completely explicable.
-Madeline L'Engle
It makes me upset that Catch-22 is on the list of most-commonly challenged books, Slaughterhouse-Five as well. I can just barely wrap my head around objecting to the content, but there is so much of war and humanity and the end of innocence that these are the books that should be forced on children. "The Eternal City," chapter of gorgeous language and hideous imagery, struck me in its blunt appraisal of the sacredness of life. There isn't any. Aarfy kills a prostitute without regard. She's just another nameless person of millions dying in the war. What care is there for the sick and abused? Snowden dies freezing with only words for comfort where morphine would've been more appropriate. Even if there is objection to the story, the use of language is revolutionary in itself. The style and humor and flow of time are unique to the story and brilliant. I can't imagine denying any kid access to these books.
-Madeline L'Engle
It makes me upset that Catch-22 is on the list of most-commonly challenged books, Slaughterhouse-Five as well. I can just barely wrap my head around objecting to the content, but there is so much of war and humanity and the end of innocence that these are the books that should be forced on children. "The Eternal City," chapter of gorgeous language and hideous imagery, struck me in its blunt appraisal of the sacredness of life. There isn't any. Aarfy kills a prostitute without regard. She's just another nameless person of millions dying in the war. What care is there for the sick and abused? Snowden dies freezing with only words for comfort where morphine would've been more appropriate. Even if there is objection to the story, the use of language is revolutionary in itself. The style and humor and flow of time are unique to the story and brilliant. I can't imagine denying any kid access to these books.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)