I spent all of the time we had in class writing out a rant about theatre, and then I realized that it wasn't interesting at all to anyone who isn't me.
So I deleted it.
Instead, I have been racking my brain trying to come up with a good conclusion to the semester before we dive headfirst into finals and suffering. I also got nothing. I could write about writing a blog, but that's boring and unoriginal, so I'll stop now.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that, at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter. Whoever is reading this is probably just looking for somewhere to comment to get a grade, and then they will move on with their lives. If I write the most awe-inspiring post ever, I would at most get two minutes of your time in thoughts, maybe even a praise in person. But then people move on to the fast-paced lives that everyone leads today, with our rapid consumption of media and overwhelming amounts of information at once. For example, right now, I'm writing this post while listening to music. Before working on this I was finishing another assignment, and as soon as this is posted I will move on to something else I must get done.
No, this is not a criticism of the amount of work we have, because I also spent two hours in my bed going from scrolling through my phone -- again consuming information at an alarming rate -- and then staring at the ceiling to give myself a break from the day. Because while older generations tend to blame social media for the small attention-span of the younger generations, I think it just so happens that our lives are more filled now than they used to be. Everyday I call my mom and give her the bullet points of my day, and even though I leave most of my day untold, it still manages to amaze her. Just today I: went to Edison Middle School for my Gender Studies project and did an interview; rode on a cop car on the way back (long story); went to the first rehearsal for the thespian show; listened to my favorite musician again in a long time; and I had so many conversations with such different and interesting people that I can't even begin to put them all on paper (I know this isn't paper, but go with it). But if you ask me at 6:30 PM how my day was I'm just going to say "good," because I'm so tired that I need a moment to finish absorbing everything that happened.
And that is what I'm saying happens whether we want it to or not. We absorb information so quickly that sometimes we don't even notice it, and other times we don't allow it to sit with us for very long, and that's fine. It's not that we should attempt to stop and observe everything, you can if you want to, but that's very hard. What I'm saying is that we can take this fact and use it in our advantage, and remind ourselves that what we do doesn't matter. You tripped in front of the random hot stranger in the street? They probably didn't see it. You laughed a little weirdly and feel like everyone is staring at you? Even if they did notice, someone else is going to change the subject completely in 30 seconds. You wrote a very mediocre blog post while pretending that you had a point the entire time and you've reached the end of not only this post but of the blog in general and now you have no clue how to finish it off? Let's face it, most people who started reading this post didn't last until now, and the ones who did are just as tired as you and probably feel your struggles too. So at the end of the day, the nihilism behind "nothing matters" can be quite a freeing ideology, when handled well.
Thursday, November 29, 2018
Wednesday, November 7, 2018
Story Time
For this week, I want to relax and just tell you guys some stories about me. So sit down, grab a cup of cocoa (get it?), and allow me to just talk about myself for a while.
When I was about three years old, my mother and I lived in my grandmother's house after my parents split up while my mother was job-hunting. The architecture of my grandma's house was an interesting one. Downstairs there was the kitchen, the living room, and a bathroom, and upstairs there was a bedroom and a bathroom. However, in order to get upstairs, you had to physically leave the house, and take the staircase that was built off of the front wall, through the outside of the house. So one side of the stairs was the wall, and the other side was wide open for a free fall into the trees. This is all background information for you to get an idea of why I, as a 3-year-old toddler, was not allowed on the stairs alone.
So one day, my mom was in the kitchen, and I came in asking for my pacifier. "In a minute," she said, because she was busy. A while later I asked again, and got the same response. Then again. Now keep in mind that this story was told to me by my mother, so it's from her point of view. After a while, she noticed that I had stopped asking, so she went looking for me. I wasn't in the kitchen, I wasn't in the living room, I wasn't in the bathroom. She walked outside, and I wasn't out in the garden either. She looked up and saw, with her own two eyes of a single mother, her baby, about 20 feet from the ground, crawling backwards down the stairs (so my butt was pointed towards the bottom of the staircase leading the rest of my body), with the pacifier in my mouth. I was not injured.
Another time, I was about the same age, we were living in the same house, my hair was getting long. Now, let me tell you that before I was able to voice my opinion on it, I had a very Dora-like hairstyle. This meant bangs down to my eyebrows and shoulder length hair in an almost bowl-cut fashion. My mom hadn't had time to take me to get my hair cut, so my bangs were starting to fall into my eyes. One day she says, more to herself than to me, "When I take you to get a haircut, I'll trim just a little bit on the front, and just a little bit on the back." As time went on, I became more bothered by my hair on my face. One day, my mom walks into our shared room and sees me, sitting on the floor, holding a pair of scissors, with hair all around me. When I saw her I said, "Look Mommy! I cut just a little bit on the front (I gestured towards my nonexistent bangs) and just a little bit on the back (I gesture towards the random cuts I did on the back of my head without looking)." I was also not injured, but my mother had to wait two months for my hair to grow enough in order to take me to the salon to fix it.
My last anecdote happened a little bit before the other two. I was two years old, when my parents were still together, and they were trying to teach me to swim; more specifically, to hold my breath long enough for them to immerse me into the water completely. They had talked to some friends who had kids who gave them this advice: you tell the child you're going to lower them on the count of three, count to three, and do it. After a few times they'll understand they're supposed to hold their breath. Listening to that advice now, to me it sounds like bullshit, but my parents had to try it, they had nothing better. Oh boy, and tried they did indeed! Two hours in the pool everyday for three days, and all they managed to do was make me choke on the water and cry. They even tried demonstrating what I was supposed to do by holding their breaths, but I just didn't want to. One day, my father tells my mom that he has an idea. So before they tried the whole ritual again he turns to me and says, "If you plunge into the water, I'll buy you a lollipop," and without missing a beat, I sucked in my breath and threw my head into the water. I, yet again, was not injured nor did I choke or cry.
Now, even though I kinda wanted to tie this all into a message along the lines of "if you want something, go get it," I won't do that. These are just some funny anecdotes about how I was like as a smol bean, and how I hope some of that spirit has remained with me today. I also hope this brought a smile to your faces, and feel free to share your own funny personal anecdotes in the comments and we can all laugh at how silly babies are!
When I was about three years old, my mother and I lived in my grandmother's house after my parents split up while my mother was job-hunting. The architecture of my grandma's house was an interesting one. Downstairs there was the kitchen, the living room, and a bathroom, and upstairs there was a bedroom and a bathroom. However, in order to get upstairs, you had to physically leave the house, and take the staircase that was built off of the front wall, through the outside of the house. So one side of the stairs was the wall, and the other side was wide open for a free fall into the trees. This is all background information for you to get an idea of why I, as a 3-year-old toddler, was not allowed on the stairs alone.
So one day, my mom was in the kitchen, and I came in asking for my pacifier. "In a minute," she said, because she was busy. A while later I asked again, and got the same response. Then again. Now keep in mind that this story was told to me by my mother, so it's from her point of view. After a while, she noticed that I had stopped asking, so she went looking for me. I wasn't in the kitchen, I wasn't in the living room, I wasn't in the bathroom. She walked outside, and I wasn't out in the garden either. She looked up and saw, with her own two eyes of a single mother, her baby, about 20 feet from the ground, crawling backwards down the stairs (so my butt was pointed towards the bottom of the staircase leading the rest of my body), with the pacifier in my mouth. I was not injured.
Another time, I was about the same age, we were living in the same house, my hair was getting long. Now, let me tell you that before I was able to voice my opinion on it, I had a very Dora-like hairstyle. This meant bangs down to my eyebrows and shoulder length hair in an almost bowl-cut fashion. My mom hadn't had time to take me to get my hair cut, so my bangs were starting to fall into my eyes. One day she says, more to herself than to me, "When I take you to get a haircut, I'll trim just a little bit on the front, and just a little bit on the back." As time went on, I became more bothered by my hair on my face. One day, my mom walks into our shared room and sees me, sitting on the floor, holding a pair of scissors, with hair all around me. When I saw her I said, "Look Mommy! I cut just a little bit on the front (I gestured towards my nonexistent bangs) and just a little bit on the back (I gesture towards the random cuts I did on the back of my head without looking)." I was also not injured, but my mother had to wait two months for my hair to grow enough in order to take me to the salon to fix it.
My last anecdote happened a little bit before the other two. I was two years old, when my parents were still together, and they were trying to teach me to swim; more specifically, to hold my breath long enough for them to immerse me into the water completely. They had talked to some friends who had kids who gave them this advice: you tell the child you're going to lower them on the count of three, count to three, and do it. After a few times they'll understand they're supposed to hold their breath. Listening to that advice now, to me it sounds like bullshit, but my parents had to try it, they had nothing better. Oh boy, and tried they did indeed! Two hours in the pool everyday for three days, and all they managed to do was make me choke on the water and cry. They even tried demonstrating what I was supposed to do by holding their breaths, but I just didn't want to. One day, my father tells my mom that he has an idea. So before they tried the whole ritual again he turns to me and says, "If you plunge into the water, I'll buy you a lollipop," and without missing a beat, I sucked in my breath and threw my head into the water. I, yet again, was not injured nor did I choke or cry.
Now, even though I kinda wanted to tie this all into a message along the lines of "if you want something, go get it," I won't do that. These are just some funny anecdotes about how I was like as a smol bean, and how I hope some of that spirit has remained with me today. I also hope this brought a smile to your faces, and feel free to share your own funny personal anecdotes in the comments and we can all laugh at how silly babies are!
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