I generally suck at bowling. I once got a 34, to give you an idea of how awful I am. Tonight, I bowled two games. The first, I got a 59, which is pretty decent for me. The second? 101! Without gutter guards! My all time high score! Three digits! Two strikes in the game!
Just wanted to share the excitement.
Many of my friends are going to governor’s school this summer. I applied and really wanted it, but didn’t make the cut. Now, all my friends can talk about is how excited they are and how much fun they’re going to have. But guess what I’m doing this summer? Nothing exciting. I’ll hope to be productive, certainly, by working more (and thus earning more money) and applying for scholarships and figuring out my college application plans, but productive and exciting are very different things. It’s more than a little disappointing.
My summer is going to be stressful. I have to apply for scholarships, and narrow down my list of colleges to apply to, and figure out what I need to do for the actual applications. I am a little worried about all of this. Okay, a lot worried. First of all, though, is figuring out what to do, and I feel like I’m just floundering without a clue. I wish I had someone who’d gone through all of this around to help!
It’s common advice to focus on the present, live in the moment. It’s also common advice to think wisely about your future, especially for seventeen-year-olds who will soon be applying to college. It’s contradictory advice.
But, really, is it? Don’t we need a balance? We need to appreciate the present, and to make the most of it, but not at the expense of the future. We have to consider today and ten years from now with every decision we make. Sure, it’d be easier to decide that your life philosophy is to live for the now, or to live for the future, but you’ll never really be happy if you choose an absolute, I don’t think.
And that’s true with a lot of things in life. Absolutes are rarely the answer. Nothing’s black and white. Nothing’s that easy. Sure, life would be a lot less difficult if there were no shades of grey, no need for balance–but it would also be a hell of a lot less interesting, less terrible, less wonderful. You can’t have the highs without the lows, and I guess I, like everyone else, need to remember that more.
I think it’s been, what, four seasons that the ABC Family series Wildfire has been running. I’ve been watching from the beginning, despite all the soapiness and cheese. A lot of what happens is more than a little ridiculous. But, you know what, it’s entertaining. And I love it anyway!
Well, tonight was the last episode. The series finale. And it sucked. Cheesy-happy ending, for one thing, but for another, it just was not a good episode. It kind of felt like an art project by insane small children rather than an actual TV show written and produced by supposed professionals. It was so ridiculous, I thought that the last half of the episode was a dream she’d wake up from…But it wasn’t. Despite the people weirdly appearing out of the woods where there was no room for them to have been hiding. Ditto the tent. It was just weird. And disappointing.
There’s one episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer where the principal overhears Giles calling Buffy the slayer, and he changes it to saying, “You’re all slaves to the television.” Guess what? I am a slave to the television!
Read my defense of my television addiction here.
I’ve decided to start this blog off by stealing a meme from Jordyn. Enjoy.
What were you doing ten years ago?
I was seven. So that means I was going to school (and not liking it even then), reading (and loving it even then), and spending lots of time wandering aimlessly around the woods making up stories with my imagination that was probably way better back then before my mind became so preoccupied with the real world.
What are five things you need to do today?
- My Spanish homework
- My math homework
- Finish reading Queste
- Clean up my room
- Answer more of the emails I’m behind on
Wow, I have a glamorous life, don’t I?
What are some snacks you enjoy?
Cheese. Cherries. Fresh (not canned) pineapple. Pizza. Swirly or shell-shaped pasta.
What would you do if you were a billionaire?
I’d donate a lot to charity, no matter how goody-goody and untrue that might sound, well, it is true. I’d pay for my college tuition. I’d travel a lot. I’d put some into savings. I’d probably buy a ridiculous number of books and CDs and DVDs. And a new laptop. I’d be able to live wherever I wanted. I could afford the ridiculous exchange rate between here and Europe!
What are three bad habits?
Unlike Jordyn, I’m going to interpret this as three of my bad habits.
- Procrastination.
- Untidiness.
- Procrastination.
Name five places you have lived.
- Medina, Ohio.
- Kernersville, North Carolina.
- A Residence Inn.
- Asheville, North Carolina
- My grandparents’ house (or at least, sometimes it seems like I practically live there!).
What are five jobs you’ve had?
- Babysitter.
- Basketball concession worker and admissions seller.
- Hallmark.
- Dog Daycare.
- Website designer.
I wished I had lived in the days of real journeys, when it was still possible to see the full splendor of a spectacle that had not yet been blighted, polluted and spoiled. When was the best time to see India? At what time would the study of Brazilian savages have afforded the purest satisfaction, and revealed them in their least adulterated state? I have only two possibilities: either I can be like some traveler of the olden days, who was faced with a stupendous spectacle, almost all of which eluded him, or worse still, filled him with scorn and disgust; or I can be a modern traveler, chasing after vestiges of a vanished reality. I lose on both counts, and more seriously than may at first appear, for, while I complain of being able to glimpse no more than the shadow of the past, I may be insensitive to reality as it is taking shape at this very moment, since I have not reached the stage of development at which I would be capable of perceiving it. A few hundred years hence, in this same place, another traveler, as despairing as myself, will mourn the disappearance of what I might have seen, but failed to see. I am subject to a double infirmity: all that I perceive offends me, and I constantly reproach myself for not seeing as much as I should.
- Claude Levi-Strauss, “Tristes Tropiques” (1955)
from why go
