1986

The year: 1986.  The time: 6:00 AM.  All wrong.  How did I get here? Such a big city. Lost. Trapped. In New York City. In 1986.  No.  What happened? What went wrong? My newspaper--time machine--lacks any sort of flaw. What--oh, no. My newspaper. Where did I put it? Why do I not have it with me? No. This comic book... where did it come from? The Black Freighter. Looks interesting. But my newspaper. Oh, no. I must have dropped it in the vortex. Who knows where it ended up? Anywhere. Any time. Anyone could find it. Or maybe--maybe it landed here somewhere. Someone might have found it. Should not look out of place here.  A newspaper stand. Yes, I will sit here. And read this comic book.  And wait. The newspaper holds my key back to 1954. Back to my lab. I hope it does not fall into the wrong hands...

***

My hands shake with the strain of carrying my almost-fifteen-pound English binder into school from the senior lot.  My backpack must weigh thirty pounds today, too.  I wince as I notice the fiery pink glimmer of sunrise from the east side of the school.  Too early.  Why does Ms. Serensky insist on having us here at 6:00 in the morning for an extra study session? Unnecessary.  As I approach the school, I notice a newspaper lying haphazardly on the ground.  I pick it up and take a look.  Just as I open the front page, I hear a distinctive snort of laughter behind me. Ms. Serensky snuck up on me. 

“Aww, Vicki, look at you! Taking the newspaper into school! How uncharacteristically… nice of you!”

This unexpected social contact catches me off guard, so I flush and scurry off into the school and English classroom as quickly as my burdensome backpack and binder will allow.  I struggle to find my seat in the empty classroom, so I plop myself down on the end and cringe as my backpack cracks the cold tile floor as I drop it.  Oops.  Bored already without Ms. Serensky’s intimidating yet reassuring presence, I notice the newspaper still sitting on top of my binder.  Curiously, I open it.  As I notice the date—1986?—I gape, open-mouthed, at the vortex swirling around me, casting me out of my seat and up and up and—

***

The year: 1986.

Mucous, Margins, and Magic

Dearest student,
            First of all, I must commend you on your decision to take AP English.  As a rising high school junior, you have inevitably heard rumor after rumor about the class flying around the hallways like a tiny particle of contaminated mucous expelled from someone's nose after an explosive sneeze.  Like such a germ, these rumors are highly contagious and tend to multiply rapidly.  So, yes, I realize that you probably feel scared out of your mind, as you should.  You're in for a wild ride.  So, with that in mind, I would like to take this time to offer you a bit of advice to ensure your success in AP English 11 and 12.
         After approximately eighty minutes of staring blankly at my computer screen, compulsively downloading a multitude of country music that I will probably never listen to from a sketchy website, and lurking around on Facebook, I have alas come to the conclusion that I have failed to abide by first bit of advice to you: do NOT procrastinate.  Do not wait until Wednesday at 8:00 to start thinking about your blog due at midnight.  Do not wait to do your reading or memorize quotes until the period before English class.  Not only because of the stress that it will inevitably cause you, but also because it will keep you from performing to your true potential.  Trust me, you can do more than you realize.  Which brings me to my second piece of advice: you need to feel confident in yourself and in your abilities in order to succeed in AP English.  Yes, I understand and acknowledge that this may present some serious difficulties, especially throughout the first few quarters of your first year of English, when your self-esteem will likely reach an all-time low. Unfortunately, the only consolation I can offer will appear sometime during your senior year--something will click.  Ms. Serensky will hand back that one essay that you actually felt semi-happy with. And it will have a sticker on it.  Yes, a sticker.  Maybe even two or three. Soon, you will come to realize that little on this earth beats that rush of pride and satisfaction when you see that sticker that says "Good Work!" in bright, bold colors plastered strategically on the margins of your essay. (Speaking of margins, do not try to do anything clever with them to buy yourself more space in your essays.  Ms. Serensky WILL notice.) But, in order to get to that point, you need to work.  Hard.  Because it will not come easily.  Not at all.  Do not enter AP English thinking that somehow, some way, Ms. Serensky will just magically teach you how to write and you will understand and proceed to write flawless paper after flawless paper.  Because you will not.  I have found that Ms. Serensky's first priority somewhat ironically does not lie in teaching us to write, but rather in teaching us how to think.  Once we master that, the writing will come.  She knows that, and you need to realize it too.  So, embrace your ever-changing mind as it grows to think critically and analytically.  Learn to enjoy over-thinking everything (except your English assignments). Learn to deal with failure.  Let your failures shape you, not only into a better writer, but also into a better person.  Believe it or not, English class will change you.  For good.  (Almost) like magic.

Every Time a Bell Rings, a Gumdrop Dies

     Ooh, food. Vicki's mom is the best.  She always makes such good food.  It smells so good! Wait, my house key! Where--oh, right. On the conspicuous string of thick twine that I always keep around my neck.  Good.  If I manage to lose those keys again, Mom will have a fit.  Time to eat.  Wow, this pasta tastes wonderful.  A little too much oregano for my liking, though.  Could have used a bit more thyme seasoning in the sauce, and a touch more salt too.  I miss Alie.  We should have kidnapped her and made her come with us.  Making gumdrop trees at Vicki's house makes me so happy.  I love Christmastime.  Wait, why does Ana keep glaring at me? Oh, right. My legs. I should stop jiggling them, I think they make the table shake.  Yes, they do.  Oh, well.  Now, time to make my tree.  Vicki has such strange ideas.  I mean, gumdrop trees? How did she come up with that one?  Hmm... I wonder how exactly I should go about doing this.  I shall just follow Ana's lead.  Take a big styrofoam cone... Take a handful of gumdrops (and maybe eat one or two or seventeen)... Grab a handful of toothpicks... Alright, how hard can this really turn out? Stab a gumdrop with a toothpick, stick the toothpick on the cone.  One down.  Wow.  I quite enjoy stabbing these gumdrops.  Die, gumdrops, die! I wonder if I could somehow make this seemingly innocent tree into some sort of weapon.  Yes, I know I could.  I miss Al Pal.  Weapons.  Toothpicks and gumdrops... I know! Spikes! Perfect.  Oh, you have GOT to be kidding me.  No, Catherine, I most certainly do NOT want to watch your stupid Rudolph movie while we make our weap--trees.  No, Ana, under no circumstances will I ever watch "Free Willy."  WHY did Alie not come? She has an impeccable taste in movies.  Takes after me.  Fine, I guess I can settle for Rudolp--NO, VICKI! I WILL NOT WATCH "IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE!" If I hear something about bells ringing and an angel getting its wings ONE MORE TIME I will put this murderous masterpiece of mine to good use. These people that I call my "friends." I swear.  Unbelievable.  Oh, look! I finished my spiked club.  It looks nice.  I can not wait to show Alie. 

A Foolproof Guide to Making (And Keeping) Friends

      "How do you type a farting noise?"

      "Who else has NO idea what Farenheit degrees mean?"

      "Hey everyone, looking forward to getting to know you all! Just so that you all know, I think I'm a gay horse trapped in a young boy's body..."

      As I look at these posts in the class of 2017 Facebook group for the college that I have committed to, I cannot help but wonder, what exactly have I gotten myself into? Yes, ladies and gentlemen, these are all real and recent posts on the page. I have not yet decided if I find them humorous, pathetic, or just plain unsettling.  As the days fly by and graduation rapidly approaches, I come closer and closer to finally facing the bittersweet reality that my days in the safety of the bubble of Chagrin Falls will soon come to an end when I move to New York this fall.  Frightening, I know.  Inevitably, moving away will create endings to so many of the things that I have come to know and love, but, as always, with endings come new beginnings.  Which will undoubtedly prove more difficult for me to handle than the endings. As a generally quiet, introverted person, I tend to have a bit of trouble making friends.  To put this in perspective, I have had the same group of five friends since I moved here in first grade. Sure, I picked up a few acquaintances along the way, but for the most part the group remained constant. So, when I immerse myself in a diverse and completely new community in the fall, I have devised a foolproof plan for making (and keeping) friends. The first and only rule: act mysteriously.  Not in a weird "gay horse trapped in a young boy's body" kind of way, but more so in a way that prompts others to ask questions.  And, hopefully, intrigues them.  Maybe, if I pull it off well, I might even fascinate them with my wild (and completely true) stories about chasing lambs around milkshake stands.  And my naturally sketchy personality.  Hopefully, if all goes according to plan, my mysteriousness will attract the attention of many, and I will not have to put much effort forth into making friends.  And who knows? I might end up teaching my future roommate how to type farting noises.

Expand Your Horizons! (And Your Vocabulary)

Dear Anonymous,
      I have to admit that I felt surprised when I found your letter on my desk--I do not normally concern myself with the romantic drama of young women such as yourself, and thus it has taken me some time to come up with an appropriate response to your plea for help.  But, as class Valedictorian, I do feel that I can effectively offer you meaningful advice. After a bit of thought and critical analyzation of your situation, I would advise you to let your boyfriend go.  If he no longer feels satisfied with you, do not act so desperately as to keep holding on.  Let him go.  Move on with your life. You deserve better.  Read a book.  Write a poem.  Better yet, write a novel!  Let this experience mold you into a better person--use it to your advantage.  Immerse yourself in the world of literature, and who knows? Perhaps one day you too will become Valedictorian of your class.  Perhaps.  You need to work hard and dedicate yourself to something worthwhile (I suggest an in-depth study of the English language).  I cannot emphasize it enough--without hard work, you will amount to nothing.  Push yourself.  Envision yourself as valedictorian.  Make that your ultimate goal.  Before you know it, thoughts of how intelligent you will have become will replace any lingering sentiments that you may still feel toward this soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend, and soon you will forget him altogether! Envision yourself in a world filled with nothing but knowledge and the subsequent happiness that will inevitably ensue.  Expand your horizons!  (And your vocabulary!)  Read about Jay Gatsby's parties and dramatic Shakespearean love stories and depressed old ladies.  Educate yourself about HeLa cells and high school football in Texas and cold-blooded murder.  Analyze poems about plums and teachers romantically involved with their students.  Allow this experience to transform you into the person who you have subconsciously always wanted to become.

Ms. Serensky

P.S. Oh, and take a Zumba class.  You will undoubtedly thank me later.

The Light of the Past

        Unlike most people, I must admit that I do not particularly enjoy watching movies.  I blame this quirk mainly on my unnaturally short attention span--I find it extremely difficult to sit still and devote my full attention to a movie for two whole hours.  Generally, I begin to lose interest after about a half hour and proceed to become fully restless just as the plot begins to thicken.  So, when I somewhat reluctantly sat down to watch Everything Is Illuminated at the suggestion of Anna Witkin, I felt more than a little surprised when, after the first forty-five minutes, not once did I feel myself growing bored or irritable.  Ironically, this movie, based on the novel by Jonathan Safran Foer, did not even remotely reflect my interests at the time--it did not involve science fiction or dragons or fairies or pirates or anything else that interested fifth-grade Victoria.  Instead, the movie tells the story of a socially-awkward young man named Jonathan who travels to Ukraine in hopes of finding the woman who had saved his grandfather's life in the Holocaust.  His tour guides include a rebellious young adult, Alex, who finds pleasure in night clubs, American rap music, and Michael Jackson; Alex's grandfather, a cranky, short-tempered, and secretly sentimental old man who does not speak English; and his grandfather's dog, Sammy Davis Jr. Jr., who, according to Alex, "is mentally deranged."  Jonathan hires Alex as both his tour guide and translator, and Alex's less-than-adequate English skills offer lots of subtle and often crude humor throughout the movie.  Alex, who narrates the story, provides a humorous, honest, and blunt outlook on the adventures that the three of them have. I think the thing that fascinated me the most about this movie appeared in the form of these three characters--each one has a unique, clever, and forceful personality and each personality complements the other two in a humorous and profound way.  The cultural differences between Jonathan and Alex add yet another layer to this subtle humor--for example, the fact that Jonathan does not eat meat fascinates and shocks Alex and his grandfather, just as Alex's idolization of Michael Jackson and all things American takes Jonathan aback.  Upon the completion of their journey through Ukraine, Alex compiles a book that recounts all of the things that they did and that he learned to send to Jonathan in America.  Despite the erroneous translations and grammatical errors, he indulges quite a bit of profound wisdom through his writing and narration.  My favorite quote, perhaps of all time, comes from this movie, when Alex declares that "everything is illuminated in the light of the past."  Throughout the journey, the three of them realize how the past acts in mysterious yet meaningful ways to shape the present and future.

Defecation Diaries

"Hey Joe!" yelled Fred, from the stall across the hall,
"Check Twitter! Jon posted a picture of his poop, and it looks great and all--"
"HEY!" interjected Jon, from the stall next to Joe's,
"Follow the rules! No talking about the poop log while on the toilet! You know how this goes!"
"But dude!" gushed Joe, "That poop! It looks perfect--round, thick, practically flawless!
You must feel so proud! But... That smell... it makes me nauseous..."
And with a sudden clatter and shifting of a lock, Joe had flown the coop.
"What a wimp!" exclaimed an irritated Jon. "So much for our group poop!"
Nothing but a prolonged silence greeted his exasperated remark,
Until Fred, glowing with pride, bellowed, "MINE LOOKS LIKE A GREAT WHITE SHARK!"


      First of all, I genuinely hope everyone reading this feels as uncomfortable as I did writing it.  And yes, I have indeed based this off of a true story.  As a camp counselor, I spend a week of my summer alongside many young children and very much enjoy watching them interact with each other. Sadly, the rather disturbing interactions that I describe in the poem take place among the high school- and college-aged male counselors, not the children.  Of course, in creating this literary masterpiece, I intended to make the reader feel as uncomfortable as possible.  To do so, I indirectly characterized all of the characters--Joe, Fred, and Jon--as enthusiastic and devoted to their mission to have a "group poop" and maintain a "poop log" on Twitter. Their enthusiasm toward such an objectively undesirable activity evokes pathos, arousing feelings of discomfort and discontent in those comparatively normal individuals who choose to entertain themselves at camp by, say, hiking or swimming, instead of hosting group defecation sessions in the boy's bathroom. Additionally, the eulogistic and admiring tone that Joe uses when describing Jon's picture highlights his fascination with the camp tradition that they have initiated and indicates a potentially unhealthy obsession with his defecation diaries. 

But Seriously, Use the Deodorant

Dear Victoria,
        First of all, you need to relax.  Calm down.  No need to panic.  Yes, in your futile but nonetheless valiant quest to organize your locker (which, by the way, smells like a dead rat, so please, for the sake of your locker buddy, do something about that), you have indeed stumbled upon a letter from your eighteen-year and fifteen-day-old counterpart.  And I have some information that you may find interesting.  So you better go sit down--I recommend going to the library, because Anna and Catherine are in the cafeteria right now, and they will inevitably steal this from you if they catch as much as a glimpse of it.  So go.  Alright, where shall we begin? Ah, yes. Hygiene. Seriously, Victoria, you do not smell much better than your locker.  I know how much fun you have rebelling against Mom and refusing to wear that nasty blueberry-hibiscus-scented Teen Spirit deodorant (and you will develop an allergic reaction to it anyway, so prepare yourself) but now would be a perfect time to start getting in the habit of using it.  I recommend Dove. It smells good, and in eighth grade that one cute guy you will meet at 4-H camp may or may not tell you smell nice. Anyway.  If I recall correctly, Ms. Heartz is your homeroom teacher, and you have no friends in your class.  Now, if we were anyone else, I would undoubtedly advise you to stop acting like such a little recluse and go make friends.  Fortunately, though, I know that you do make it through your fifth-grade year utterly unscathed despite this lack of friends.  So, if you can tolerate the awkward fifteen minutes of homeroom before Mr. Dole's class, no need to worry about acting like the social butterfly that you aren't. On that topic, let's have a discussion about the friends that you do have.  Fortunately or unfortunately, however you would like to look at it, those are the friends you're stuck with for the rest of your time here at Chagrin.  So you better learn to deal with them.  Luckily for you, Anna will eventually stop calling you Schmacums, although, for reasons that I absolutely cannot fathom, you will succumb to the urge to make both your email and your clubpenguin username "schmacums13." And it will come back to bite you.  So please do not do it.  Also, Catherine will stop stealing your lunch box every day, but please, for the love of God, go get a new one.  There's mold growing on the inside pocket and you know it. Your attachment to trivial material objects disgusts me.  Sadly, though, you will not outgrow that by the time you have reached eighteen.  So learn to live with it.  And, since, by the age of eighteen, we have not yet learned how to make our writing concise, I have rambled and am thus running out of room. So, a few parting words of wisdom: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!

Sincerely,
Your better half

P.S. One more thing.  In eighth grade, on your way out of school, you will pass by the art room and see Ana Moran sitting in it, working on a project.  She will appear to be alone.  She isn't.  Mrs. Ford is standing at the sink, the one you can not see from the door.  So please resist the urge to barge in and start singing her a song.  Mrs. Ford will think you're a psychopathic loon.

P.P.S. I do not remember if you have read the Harry Potter books yet, but if you have not, I advise you to do so as soon as physically possible--partially because they will become your second-favorite series, and partially so you can understand the reference in the last line of my letter.

P.P.P.S.  Joke's on you! No one will ever compliment you on how you smell in eighth grade, especially not that one guy from camp.  He moves away anyway, and you will never hear from him again after your freshman year.  So do not get your hopes up.  But seriously, use the deodorant.

Time After Time

I admit it.  I have a problem.  A problem that undoubtedly stems from my inexplicable and somewhat frustrating tendency to get attached to inanimate objects.  A problem that manifested itself in the form of me sinking so low as to root through a garbage can in search of what I deem as the most precious, invaluable object to have ever graced my house.  Yes, I spent a good twenty minutes scrounging around in a mess of moldy food, dirty tissues, and coffee grounds in search of a clock.  Not just an ordinary clock, though.  Despite the fact that this clock has lived to see 23 years in our house (24 this April, actually) and the resultant scratches spattered across its face, this clock holds more value than gold.  It had dutifully rested on the mantle above our fireplace for as long as I can remember, not moving an inch until an unfortunate Christmas-related incident this year in which my inept and careless mother knocked it down while hanging up our stockings.  Upon inspection, the clock did not seem terribly damaged, so I carefully put it back in its proper place.  Later that evening, though, as I glanced habitually at my beloved clock, I noticed with horror that the clock still read 3:30 despite the fact that the sun had set two hours ago.  In a rush of panic, I grabbed the clock back off the mantle and examined it more closely.  The second hand.  It had fallen off.   The abrupt realization that the clock would never tick again like it had year after year, day after day, minute after minute, time after time prompted a flood of utter devastation to pulse through my veins. My mom, seeing the broken clock, indifferently jerked the clock from my desperate grasp and plopped it in the trash without a second thought.   As she left, I rushed over to the garbage and, in a fit of rage, retrieved my precious clock and stealthily snuck it up to my room, where it sits today between a broken radio and a dysfunctional lava lamp.

From the Water Pail to the Hay Bale

Every morning, I wake up to the metallic shrieking of System of a Down blasting out of my phone. My sister, whose room lies adjacent to mine, often complains when she, too, wakes up at 4:45 in the morning to the rather unpleasant sound of the heavy metal band singing (yelling, actually) nonsensical lyrics about undercover cops and Peter Piper. Unfortunately for her, I have yet to find any other motivating force to propel me from the confines of my cozy nest of warm blankets so early in the morning. Why, you may ask, do I wake up at this ungodly hour? To perform the rather extreme (and time-consuming) task of feeding and watering 53 pigeons and 3 ducks.  As I drag myself out of bed into the comparatively frigid air of my room, I wince at the thought of bracing myself against the harsh Ohio wind chill, which seems a billion times more unbearable before the sun makes its first hint of an appearance from behind the row of pine trees that encloses my yard. I make my way down two sets of stairs, shivering once again at the prospect of the extreme temperatures that await me beyond the sliding doors of my basement. As I approach the stationary tub in my basement, I grudgingly grab the first two water buckets and place them in the tub, filling them up one by one.  I have long since lost hope for the hose outside--the cold has rendered it frozen solid.  Naturally.  As I fill the seventh and final bucket full of water (that will surely freeze over within just a few hours of sitting outside) I tug on my barn hat, adorned with pieces of hay and probably pigeon poop, grab the two nearest full buckets, and, ignoring the little voice in my head that constantly reminds me of my insanity, begin the long and tedious trek to the pigeon loft.  In all of my eighteen years, I have experienced nothing more extreme than that walk.  That slow, somber, dreary, dark walk.  In the cold.  Carrying a full bucket of water in each hand.  Of course, my innate clumsiness magnifies by about 500 at five in the morning, and more often than not I spill more than half of the water out of each bucket onto myself before reaching my destination.  Then, upon reaching the barn, I turn back to make three more trips to lug the rest of the water buckets from the basement to the barn.  After about 15 minutes of walking back and forth through the snow, I allow myself to fall into a mindless routine.  Deliver each water bucket to its respective animal pen or loft. Stare into the water and ponder the meaning of life. Check Twitter to see if anyone has anything interesting to say at 5:30 in the morning (or, if by some miracle, the superintendent has called a snow day).  Attempt to start a conversation with my ducks.  Contemplate my sanity (or lack thereof).  Feed each animal.  Check to see if any baby pigeons hatched.  Consider walking back to the house.  Hear the howling wind outside and decide to perch myself on my favorite bale of hay in the duck pen for a while longer.  Remember the calculus homework that I forgot to do.  Panic.  Run inside.  Marvel at the extreme absurdity of my morning adventure.

The Lingering Impact of Erratic Syntax

         Back in October, when we first received our blogging assignment, I have to admit that I felt an unparalleled sense of excitement. Finally, I thought, a creative writing assignment! Little did I know, however, that blogging would change my perspective on life. Well, sort of.  My lack of common sense and affinity for awkward situations places me in a unique position in life--I almost daily find myself getting into strange, awkward, uncomfortable, or just plain weird situations that most people would tend to innately avoid.  Last week, for example, I took out two Amish teenagers and my sister while sledding.  The week before, I accidentally walked in on a pre-wedding ceremony while looking for a blood drive.  Instead of turning bright red and backing out of these situations as I would have previously done, I realized that the first thought that runs through my head is hey, I should blog about this! My new mind-set fascinates me, and, as I look back at all of my blog posts, I see my frame of mind and attitude slowly evolving and improving.  In my opinion, my most interesting and my favorite post is my first one, "Masked Melodies." I like this one because of the poetic liberties I took in writing it--I think the erratic syntax and the imagery combine to create a realistic scene, one that I hope readers could easily visualize.  The particular memories that I wrote about remain very vivid in my memory, and I think I reflected the intensity of those memories in a unique and equally as vivid way throughout the post.  I did, however, stubbornly sneak passive voice in where I felt that it sounded right, and for this reason (and its overwhelming length) I do not see it as my best post.  I believe that my best writing appears in "Like Clockwork." In this paragraph, I kept the length reasonable while incorporating somewhat relevant anecdotes and connecting them  back to English class.  As I re-read all of my posts, I noticed that the general flow of this one stood out to me--I saw very few awkward sentences and transitions, and I even caught myself fighting the urge to laugh at one of the anecdotes about my dad (who I currently see outside in his "bee suit" trying to chase a few runaway bees away from his pigeon loft).  Consequently, my favorite comment (courtesy of Kate Girouard) appears on this post.  She offers a brief version of her own entertaining Christmas-tree-decorating story as well as a profound comment about materialism: "Memories and past experiences shape who we become, while such a focus on popularity and wealth makes us greedy and withdrawn from true personal connections." I cannot agree with this statement more.  I have found that too much of a focus on money or other trivial things can divert our attention away from what truly matters in life--personal relationships.  And, of course, blogging.

Boats Against The Current

      Last week, my grandmother asked me what normal high schoolers do on Friday nights.  As a person of very little social intelligence (what I lack in knowledge, I make up in awkwardness), I soon realized that I had no response.  This worried me.  How could I, a senior in high school, not have any idea what people do on Friday nights? Desperate to prove my social stability to my grandmother, though, I pathetically replied with "football."  High school kids go to football games, right? I paused to consider my friends' typical Friday nights, which consist primarily of debate, band, or taking six-hour naps.  Then I paused to consider my last Friday night, which consisted of a six-hour long trip with a rather interesting group of kids to a very sketchy Wal-Mart near the Pennsylvania border with $1,300 (in cash) to spend for a community service project.  After our rather eventful trip, we ended up back in Middlefield, sitting on top of a nearly three-story-high silo, surrounded only by stars and buggies full of rebellious Amish teenagers somehow blasting classical music as their buggies inched past us on the dirt road.  As the stars grew brighter and the night grew later, the wind picked up and the temperature dropped drastically.  Instead of going inside, though, we continued to talk.  And, as the socially competent teenagers that we are, we naturally touched on the subject of great American literature, and of course I brought up The Great Gatsby. Surprisingly, as soon as I mentioned it, my friend's eyes lit up as she excitedly announced that her class had just finished the book on the same day that we had.  And, standing outside in the cold, we began an hour-long discussion and thorough analyzation of the book, particularly of the book's last sentence, which apparently had left its mark on us as we had both memorized it.  As we discussed Gatsby and his mysterious and entrancing state of being, we each reached our own realizations.  I came to terms with the fact that, no, I had no idea what a normal teenager would be doing that Friday night, but I felt fairly certain that it would not be sitting on top of a silo discussing The Great Gatsby at midnight in the middle of what we had not-so-affectionately dubbed Amish Land.  I felt just as certain that it would not come in the form of carrying a borderline-dangerous amount of cash to a Wal-Mart so far from home.  I realized that we acted as manifestations of these boats against the current, going against the flow, ignoring the flow, and overpowering the flow. Instead of floating back to the past, though, we push ourselves toward the future, forcing ourselves beyond those who let the flow carry them backward.  We bring nothing with us but memories of the past, an awareness of the present, and a vision for the future.

Like Clockwork

       Just as I sat down to write my poetry paper on Sunday night, my dad had the brilliant idea to begin to decorate our Christmas tree. For normal people, this would perhaps entail a box of ornaments, lights, a Christmas song or two playing softly in the background, and a few people gathered peacefully around the tree.  Unfortunately, though, as I sat in the corner trying to find some trace of meaning in the supposedly complex ideas of love and blindness and clocks, I realized that making any progress on the paper would not come easily.  As my dad entered the room, he promptly turned on his country Christmas music station up to full blast on his Pandora account and, ever so considerately, placed his laptop right next to me.  Ignoring my death glare, he proceeded to turn on the TV to some warped Hallmark Channel Christmas love story and then, for maybe the fiftieth time this week, complain about my poor choice in trees (he had delegated the task of picking out a tree to me this year, and apparently trees that are wider than they are tall do not live up to his standards. Who knew?), and then began wildly unpacking every ornament he could get his hands on. As he uncovered ornaments that belonged to me (this happened about every three minutes) he ordered me to come  over and put it on the tree.  I grudgingly complied with the first few, but after the tenth ornament and the tenth interruption to my paper I threatened to lock myself in my room.  Completely undaunted by what I considered a fairly menacing statement, he excitedly handed me another one of my ornaments.  I opened my mouth to object, but then shut it just as quickly when I saw the ornament--a miniature china doll adorned in a pale yellow floral dress with a lacy off-white apron.  As I stroked the soft tassels lining the hems of her dress, I closed my eyes and time flew backward, back to third grade, when I had just finished reading The Doll People and had subsequently entered my china doll phase.  I had asked for nothing but china dolls for Christmas and my birthday and little else ever crossed my mind.  As time went on, though, my obsession slowly faded into oblivion and, like clockwork, another phase began: my snowman phase.  And then the Eiffel Tower phase.  And, after that, the rock collecting phase.  And, as I sit right now looking at my Christmas tree, I noticed that I have at least one ornament to complement each stage of my life.  As I continued my paper, listening to my dad and sister loudly and obnoxiously making some kind of cookies in the kitchen, I realized that my dad has gone through some much more dramatic and entertaining phases, including pigeon racing, beekeeping, and flying remote control airplanes.  And, by phases, I mean obsessions. Inevitably, though, with time, each passing phase faded, leaving us only with memories, ornaments, and the rather conspicuous beehive in the backyard.

Trail of Tears

     It's that time of year again. The colorful reminders of fall gradually fade into the dark, depressing labyrinths of winter as the long, bright days of summer turn to the dreary and seemingly endless winter nights.  The days blur together, each one feeling more like the next.  As I searched for a cause of my looming depression, I recently came to the conclusion that it may be a direct result of the fact that I barely see the sun anymore. I spend all morning and afternoon in school, and then I work immediately after, often until seven or eight.  Upon my departure, of course, the sun has long since set, leaving me with just the meager light of the moon, stars, and my headlights to guide me home.  As the night drags on, the vague depression fades to fatigue as I often find myself staying up well past midnight to finish my homework and do other dull, routine tasks. Then, the next day, it starts all over again.  In the middle of today's monotonous routine, though, I found myself pausing to reflect and reminisce to the days of Gurney and sunshine and flowers and happiness and when nothing mattered except avoiding the lunch ladies and the only drama involved who got "benched" at recess.  At first thought, those days seemed so much brighter; we seemed so much more lighthearted and carefree.  As I focused to more closely recall my Gurney experience, though, I realized that there existed a certain darkness, much like the one I feel today, that marred my first- and second-grade years.  It existed as an impending doom that crept into my life, twisting and turning itself about in my head before nestling permanently in my young, innocent mind.  In my mind, it manifested into a looming dread that stalked me around Gurney's comparatively bright and happy hallways. Now what, you ask, could cause such distress in a first grader? For me, it appeared as that one single demanding and infinitely stressful task.  The line leader.  The one to whom the teachers delegated the massive responsibility of trekking around the school with twenty of your classmates trailing along behind you.  The one who teachers entrusted to lead the class from homeroom to art to gym and back again.  The one who teachers yelled at if he or she made any sort of mistake.  While many waited with bated breath for their teacher to read off their name as line leader for the day, I cowered down in my seat, close to tears, careful to avoid eye contact with the teacher. I could not handle the pressure.  What if I accidentally led the class to the music room when we needed to go to the computer lab? What if one of my classmates strayed from the line under my watch? The pressure scared me into a certain state of insanity that even now I do not feel entirely convinced that I have escaped.  Luckily, as the years went on and I grew older, my fear of the treacherous task has waned.  Still, though, I never fail to cower under pressure.  When my friends and peers constantly talk about how they work so productively under pressure, I realize some things never change: I still cringe at the mere memory of the pressure, and, until last year, I never again had to experience it to that same extent.  Upon entering in AP English, the pressure inevitably returned—not quite to the caliber of that of the line leader, but still enough to make me break into a cold sweat whenever I sit, paralyzed, in the middle of a class discussion or in-class writing.  I would like to say that this anxiety has decreased since the beginning of last year, and, to a certain extent, I think it has.  I also realize, however, that I have a lot of work to do before I will be able to successfully work through the stress and the pressure and perform to the best of my ability.

Crayons, Markers, and the Pursuit of Happiness

           As a young, fearless girl, some of my favorite hobbies included climbing flimsy pine trees and scaring my grandmother half to death, refusing to wear any kind of coat in the brutal blizzards of Pennsylvania winters and infuriating my grandmother half to death, and running around my yard naked (under her watch, of course) and embarrassing my grandmother half to death.  Needless to say, I had a knack for irritating my grandmother, and she had a knack for irritating me.  We had hardly anything in common.  I could only find one single point of commonality between the two of us—we both loved to draw.  Whenever I tired of torturing my poor grandma, I dragged her to our kitchen table and made her sit still while I searched for my battered box of broken crayons and markers and stealthily stole all of the paper from our printer.  I scattered the paper around on the table and generously offered her my black, white, and gray crayons and markers before starting on my own masterpiece.  My imagination never failed me, and soon I found my paper (and the tabletop underneath it) covered in ambiguous purple, pink, and blue scribbles.  Proudly, I showed my work of art to my grandma and basked in the glory of her praise.  I bounced giddily up and down as she got up to add it to my own personal display case—the refrigerator.  As she sat down again, though, I noticed her drawing: a simple yet stunning portrait of a little boy dragging a beat-up wagon behind him.  And, of course, she had done it all in black.  As she noticed my obvious captivation with the subtly intricate illustration, she smiled and instructed me to sit down.  I inwardly groaned, fully aware that she planned on gracing me with one of her incredulously monotonous and pointless stories.  I did, however, feel slightly remorseful about scaring, infuriating, and embarrassing her earlier that day, so I reluctantly gave into my restless conscience and sat down obediently to listen.  Now, I could take up pages upon pages writing about all of the unnecessary details and pointless anecdotes that she added in, but, for the sake of everyone reading this, I will summarize.  Once upon a time, there lived a poor little boy who loved to draw. Everyone loved his work—he had a genuine talent for art.  Despite this, however, he only ever drew his pictures in black crayon.  When someone asked him why he did this, he stubbornly replied that he only liked black.  And that was how the story ended.  Unlike most of my grandma’s stories, she brought this one up again and again after she told it to me for the first time.  She finds it very inspiring for reasons that I have yet to ascertain.  As I recently spent Thanksgiving with her and she told me the story for what seemed like the hundredth time this year, I began to think more deeply about it.  While it does seem utterly pointless, I found myself considering it in terms of the boy's happiness. According to my grandma, the boy felt complete and utter contentment with his life.  He only, however, allowed himself to experience one realm of happiness.  He had thoroughly explored the depths of the realm familiar to him--the black one--and thus remained unaware of the infinite number of other dimensions of happiness.  While some may consider this a good thing--never exposing yourself to risks, staying within the boundaries of your comfort zone--if you limit yourself to these strictly defined boundaries you may never reach your full potential in terms of happiness and contentment.  Only when you free your mind to openly embrace all dimensions, realms, and colors of happiness can you truly feel that you have reached true fulfillment.  Perhaps my grandma really did not have any particular reason for telling this story, but I like to think that she told it with the intention of encouraging me to explore each color of happiness instead of just settling for what I feel comfortable with.  And maybe, just maybe, instead of infuriating her or finding some way to embarrass her, I will take her advice.

Complaints and Restraints

   Usually, I consider myself a fairly tolerant person.  I put up with my friends' seemingly endless political banter, my mom's constant nagging about how I need to figure out what I want to do with my life, and my dog's strange obsession with licking any exposed parts of my body.  I put up with my sister's weekly tantrums about going to ballet and my dad's new-found fascination with remote-control airplanes.  I can not, however, put up with people when they complain about working hard.  Unfortunately, as a high school student, I encounter this every day and have only recently learned to hold my tongue when I hear this complaining instead of hostilely refuting the pathetic arguments. This past weekend, I finally agreed to let my parents drag me around half the country visiting colleges that, quite honestly, I had little to no interest in.  At one of the colleges, I visited my cousin and, much to her dismay, shadowed her for the day.  I followed her all around campus, bored out of my mind until she took me to her English class.  Now, seeing as this was indeed an honors English class at an actual college, I expected some intense seminar-type discussion or an equally as intense writing workshop.  Instead, the professor divided the class up into small groups for an hour-long peer editing session of a five-page paper on, ironically enough, In Cold Blood. As I looked over the papers in a state of disbelief, I heard the subtle yet distinct groans from the kids at my table as they complained about having to analyze the book and how long they spent working on their papers.  Without thinking, I began to laugh.  As much as I sometimes resent all of the work that I put into my own English class, after looking at those papers I resolved to never think that way again.  As high school juniors, we could analyze books and write papers at a higher level than this group of college freshmen.  This could not happen, of course, without the arguably insane amount of time and effort that we all put into our work--and, of course, a lack of complaining.  The more complaints people make, the less inclined they feel to work hard.  This network of complaints forms a sort of restraint not only on those who do the complaining but also on those who hear the constant whining.  They subconsciously convince themselves that they will not effectively manage their workload, thus mentally blocking themselves from unleashing their full potential.