I saw on a bookshelf in my English class a book that had a mildly intriguing title and had 'Paul Coelho' scrawled across the cover in huge font. Seeing as I liked The Alchemist, I gave it a shot. That book was The Witch of Portobello, and a couple days after finishing it I kind of look back and want to say "what the hell did I just read." But in a good way.
"Simply believe--don't doubt anything. You're alive... Believe in that. Let go of the idea that the path will lead you to your goal. The truth is that with each step we take, we arrive."
--Paulo Coelho, The Witch of Portobello
Also, my French teacher nominated me for this award at my school called the 'Celebration of Excellence', for which I'd like to thank her, and along with the medal and picture she gave me a book: How Reading Changed My Life, by Anna Quindlen. It was a short read, but everything Mrs. Quindlen had to say on the topic of books I found myself agreeing with--it's a nice supplement for anyone who loves a good book as much as I do (and who doesn't?)
"We read in bed because reading is halfway between life and dreaming, our own consciousness in someone else's mind."
"The only dead are those who grow sere and shriveled within, unable to step outside their own lives into those of others. Ignorance is death. A closed mind is a catafalque."
--Anna Quindlen, How Reading Changed My Life
So now I'm finishing up Walden and I'm going to quote-bomb every social networking thing I can get my hands on once I do, because Thoreau has so many wonderful things to say about everything! Lastly, here is my attempt at putting another one of my poems ('Beginnings') to music:
"We are the movers and shakers
of the world forever it seems."
-Arthur O'Shaugnessy
Only a few more hills to make it over 'til I can see my summer there lingering on the horizon. ACT, whatever tests and assignments are thrown at me for the remainder of this year, sprinklings of school-related gatherings, and finals. And then, LETHARGY AND BLISS. O happy will be my days when I get through this. Feeling a bit better but then I managed to jinx myself last time so I'll leave it at that.
Anyway this site will be open on a table somewhere for some passersby to look at next Wednesday as we present our accomplishments for part of the IB Programme Core--I figured an online portfolio would suffice for most of the creative requirements. Haha, it's like bearing a little bit of my online soul to them.
I really feel I've got to do something around here to make this place more interesting. But then, it is my own personal thing. Is it my duty to interest people as often as possible? Nah--and I'm glad for that, cus if that was what I was supposed to be doing than man am I doing it wrong.
Well anyways, seeya--I hope I can get into picture-taking again soon, trees in the spring are especially wonderful:-)
I'm actually posting this from school but I'm supposed to be working on a math assessment but hey they gave us laptops so this is what happens. I've been a really lousy updater, I know. This is week 5 of my being sick, and I'm getting pretty impatient. I swear when I wake up that lovely morning however many tomorrows from now to find myself back to normalcy... well, the world will know it. I'll throw a freaking party.
Anyway here's me trying to cover Landslide by Fleetwood Mac. Thank you to those few who still swing by here even though there's rarely anything to see.
It's been a long time! I've been sick for a while, finally going away though, and today I finally took that dreaded SAT so I have nothing but GOODNESS to look forward to. For once I can really say that.
Anyway I'm gonna leave you here with an attempt I made at putting my poem "Blue Bird" to music; bear with me, I was basically just making stuff up on the guitar as I went along and I have no clue how to record things.
Hey, hey, 2012, mind slowing down a bit? Still have last year on the brain, and my workload has gotten a little bit ahead of me. Still probably not much compared to the burden of the "real world", but hey, you can't be a student forever, whether that be a good or bad thing.
It was quite a weekend, quite a music-filled weekend, just like I like 'em. Looking forward to more. You know, once I fly over that damned hill that is standardized testing, it'll all be a pretty good time. Spring, summer, fall, then we do it all again. Lovely.
I'm in a really sappy mood so I'm going to leave you with some quotes from a couple of books we've been taking up for certain classes.
"'But for what end was the world created, then?' said Candide. 'To make people mad,' replied Martin."
--Voltaire, Candide
"Accept the past as past, without denying it or discarding it."
--Mitch Albom, Tuesdays With Morrie
"Don't cling to things, because everything is impermanent."
--Mitch Albom, Tuesdays With Morrie
"...borne back ceaselessly into the past."
I still have some leftover feeling of expectancy, as if the New Year only half happened. But I guess that goes for every day; as soon as morning passes, the day begins to fade. As soon as night comes, I want to run around and do everything but it seems like the whole world is asleep.
Anyway after Paint Shop Pro crashed and froze about 20 times in the course of the day I needed it to make the Lit Mag cover, I finally came up with this.
It's been a 5-day "weekend" for me (today being the last day) because of shortened exam week, MLK Jr. Day, and God knows what we had school off for today but nobody's complaining. I actually had a bit of a life too, haha, minus the fact that I didn't come out of my house all of today. Saturday somebody threw a post-exams party that involved some baking brownies and sitting on countertops, playing Twister, and watching movies and all that good stuff. Sunday me and a couple of friends staked out a grocery store and sat in some bean bag chairs in the toy aisle looking suspicious. So we may have had a few light sabre fights as well. We ended up watching The Matrix that night which I was pretty stoked for since I happened to be in that small percentage of America that hadn't seen it. My friend fell asleep right before the epic action sequence at the end, and woke up right after it asking "what did I miss".
So the past few days have consisted of ZERO productivity and lots of aimless wandering, just like I like 'em. Here's a picture I drew earlier today (like I said, I didn't exactly leave my house, so I had to do SOMETHINGish.)
This year has been the birth of the deepest lethargy within me, and yet this desire to get things done regardless. It's a lot like staring at the walls, but not getting to enjoy staring at the walls because you're thinking about what you should really be doing. And the whole point of avoiding work is to seek pleasure, right? But if all you can do is think of work during that pleasure seeking then well welcome to my life.
But a new year never marks productivity. It does for 2 days and then you realize, wait, why do I care again? At least I do. But I still get things done. Miraculously. Which makes me wonder how much I could get done if I stared at the walls less before said cramming-time, I mean, it's kind of frightening to think about. You don't even want to know how many hours of playing time I have logged in on my Pokemon Emerald game. Productivity=not my forte.
Aside from all the SAT books that now inhabit my desk I've started to read Unaccustomed Earth, a collection of stories by Jhumpa Lahiri. I figured I really liked The Namesake so it'd be cool to read some of her other stuff, too.
Driving around today, trying to get more direction-oriented, I wound up in a couple of my old neighborhoods and started taking literal walks down multiple Memory Lanes. I swung on my elementary school's monkey bars and dropped by an old friend's house. She wasn't there, but I got there entirely by remembering the back roads I used to take with my bike. I didn't even know the street names; I never needed them. My name was still written in the cement by my house.
Trying to learn how to play Tears in Heaven. I really should be sleeping right now.
My parents are messing with the TV downstairs and I keep hearing various 80s songs blasting through the walls. Haha, merry Christmas.
We ordered my new school bag yesterday, this one here:
I know it's a little childish but I couldn't help myself... hummingbirds and flowers AND it's purple? Score.
On top of that I really wish I had an Eric Whitacre CD. Listen to Lux Aurumque, Sleep, Go, Lovely Rose... well, anything you can find. It's beautiful stuff. I mean you can tell the guy must be in love with his own chords but who can blame him? A few other things I could probably listen to for the rest of eternity... Old Love--Eric Clapton & The Rain Song--Led Zeppelin.
I can't help thinking there's only a week left of vacation. Most people would probably think "holy crap there's a whole WEEK of lethargy and no responsibility stretched out in front of me" but all I can do is dread the thought of going back.
Oh well. Romanian Christmas party coming up. Here's to another night of running around with munchkins half my age and breaking other peoples' lamps.
And it was also the last day of school before vacation. Not bad.
I swear if anyone asks me anything more about college I'm going to hurl. I can list about 5000+ things I wouldn't like to do but not ONE that I'd be happy doing. Humans weren't designed to do one thing and one thing only for the rest of their lives. Evolution made them crafty. Childhood allowed them curiosity. Adolescence allowed them passion and opportunity. And then maturity seems wanting to stunt them and limit them all over again. I understand I need to be beneficial to society and not live in a box and all that but there must be some way of doing it that doesn't involve succumbing to this... eternal nothingness I fear. I mean plenty of people love what they do. And so many people I know are already sure and are already making leaps and bounds in the right direction and I'm sitting here, sitting perfectly still, looking around as the world passes by, waiting for some sort of epiphany. I haven't been alive long enough to figure this out yet.
I don't know. But I don't know anything.
Oh, my web host was hacked a little while ago so I couldn't update anything cus my posts would mysteriously disappear and a few nights ago everything just went down altogether, but it's all good now as far as I know. So I started fresh.
P.S--Happy holidays!