Illogical Paradox

Dear 2008,

Damn, I don’t even know what to say.

You’ve sure put me through a lot!

In your 366 measly days (leap year!), I have
-found and fell in love with the kindest, sweetest, loveliest person to ever cross my path
-spent six weeks doing a research project in Jerusalem
-taken a week-long Caribbean cruise
-went to my first prom
-got my first B
-won first place in a photography contest
-got my first job, writing for a newspaper
-sacrificed marching band, my favorite thing in the world, for the sake of my future
-met many amazing new people but lost touch with almost as many of the friends I had before
-almost broke down from the stress
-learned how to made tough decisions, let go of what I love, be alone, and handle success
-finally realized why my life’s been so full of pain, and let it all go
-oh yeah, and got accepted to Northwestern, the school of my dreams!

Anyway, enough of the cliche stuff. Sitting here now, I can’t be happier to say goodbye to you. What a trial. You brought possibly the most pain I’ve ever experienced and I don’t want to hold onto that.

Last winter I was still untrusting and suspicious, and it’s amazing I let love into my life at all. But somehow, it happened, even to someone who was as cynical as me. The spring that followed was still tough but magical, too. It was a time of learning, you could say.

The summer was a challenge. I found myself separated by an ocean from everything and everyone I knew. I discovered that, no matter what I do, writing is always what I come back to. I decided then that regardless of what my parents say, I’ll be majoring in journalism, and no matter what it took, I would do it at the best school of journalism in the country - Medill at Northwestern.

Coming home this fall, I felt completely alone. I’d go for hours without talking to anyone, days without speaking to my old friends. Some of these people I still don’t talk to, and that’s fine. We’ve all moved on.

November and December were the hardest of all. I’d made myself so busy that by the end, I was just barely getting up in the morning and dragging myself to school. I turned pale and got sick for weeks at a time. I kept dropping pounds even though I wasn’t even going to the gym. Even after I got into Northwestern, I felt a growing despair and hopelessness, and that’s when I realized that I was letting myself slip back into old habits. And I’m better than that.

Now I’ve had almost two weeks of rest and I’ve used the time well. I finally feel healthy.

But the most important thing? That was the realization I had just a few days ago.
I realized that many of the things that hurt me most come from the years before this one. It’s high school stuff. And for some reason, this hurts me so much even now that I can’t really forgive the ones responsible. I’ve realized that if I’ve let years go by and still can’t forgive, maybe I’m not meant to. Maybe I’m meant to move on from all that instead of letting it stay.

So that’s what I’m doing. This is 2009, the year I’ll graduate high school, go to Northwestern, and leave all of it behind. All the bad memories, the horrible things people said and did because they were so careless. I’ll finally be able to live my life without being haunted by all that.

Truth is, I can’t fight it all. I can’t help that people are cynical to a fault, careless with their actions because they think it’s “just high school” and none of it matters. Yes, it does. It matters when you hurt someone. It matters when you make someone believe that they’re so flawed that nobody will ever love them. It matters when you toss an old friend aside because you’ve found someone better. It matters that you are a bull in a china shop, and the beautiful cups and teapots and vases you are breaking are the dreams, the soul of another person. IT MATTERS.

I’m too idealistic for this. In the world I hope to create for myself, discussions are meaningful, friends share their souls with each other, and lifelong dreams are pursued passionately and finally achieved.

And you know what? Don’t you DARE tell me it’s impossible. Don’t you fucking dare. I don’t want to hear your cynicism. I want to be optimistic. I want to be passionate. I want to be alive.

If you don’t want that for yourself…shut up and let ME achieve it for ME.

So, with that, a word about resolutions. I’ve always made lists of resolutions and worked hard to keep them.

But this year, there will be only one resolution:

“Fix it.”

In 2009, I’m not going to back down anymore. I will be heard. I will continue my relationship with the person I love even when we go to college because I’m not afraid to work hard for it. I will keep writing, and hopefully will finish the novel I’m working on, because I’m not afraid of sharing what I believe. I will make new friends and keep them close to me, because hopefully, this time I won’t have to be afraid of them hurting me. I will keep dreaming, always.

Always.

Love,
Miriam

P.S. It’s not me, it’s you. =)

The days flow softly from one to another
Like water drifting, calm, around a stone–
That’s the way we live; there is none other.

I’ve found myself a fragrant, tender flower
with petals tapered teardrops, white as bone.
Maybe I will never seek another.

At first, when this could only bother
me, my blossom told me, with a gentle tone,
“That’s the way we live. There is none other.”

The meadow me seem full enough to smother
all thoughts of keeping what I’ve found, alone,
but all is well. Why would I want another?

And though an errant cloud could always cover
us, I know that it will pass us on its own.
That’s the way we live; there is none other.

I’ve found myself a rare and special power,
And I won’t mind if, by some fate unknown,
I never do decide to find another–
That’s the way we live. There is none other.

Yeah, you need to protect your site from bad people. I get it.

But think about it this way. There are bajillions of websites on the internet, so chances are, you need ME a lot more than I need YOU. And if you make registering to your site ridiculously difficult by using a captcha that is illegible or just plain DOESN’T WORK, guess what! I won’t sign up for your site!

I usually give it about five tries, which is five times more than the average person would give. But after five times of being shown flh438gf, typing in flh438gf, and being told that the correct answer ISN’T flh438gf, I get very annoyed.

The worst offender for this used to be Rapidshare, who (for their free service) wouldn’t let you download something without decoding a captcha that consisted of a a bunch of numbers/letters with ridiculously distorted pictures of animals on them, and you were supposed to only type the ones that had cats. All the animals looked more like squiggles than animals. The captcha looked like this:

Rapidshare's cat captcha

As you can see, that would be a problem.

Luckily, they got rid of it a few months after they started using it, probably because it got hacked. I’m assuming it wasn’t because people hated it. After all, who cares if the users are unhappy? We have enough anyway!

So, in the true spirit of the Internet, here’s some free publicity for the websites that can’t make themselves USABLE!

• BlogHub
• Blog Toplist
• Blogarama
• SubmitBlogNow

(This list will grow, trust me.)

AP English Literature will kill me.

This course is pretty much a slap in the face to anybody who loves reading and writing. Rather than encouraging creativity and originality for the interpretation of literature, whichever smart-asses designed this course and test decided that it’s a good idea to advocate that there is only ONE possible meaning for any poem or prose passage.

The guy who is responsible for our behemoth of a textbook, Laurence Perrine, has some very strict views on poetry. We read an essay of his called The Nature of Proof in the Interpretation of Poetry, which (as you can probably tell by the title) basically advocates an almost-mathematical approach to figuring out a poem’s meaning and proving to others that you are correct and they are stupid if they found a different meaning.

For instance, in that essay, Perrine takes an untitled poem by Emily Dickinson:

Where ships of purple gently toss
On seas of daffodil,
Fantastic sailors mingle,
And then—the wharf is still.

What do you think the poem is talking about?

With all the crap you hear on the radio these days–what is it she wants to have, “groupies” or “boobies”??–it can be hard to imagine that there’s new music out there that’s smart, melodic, and the whole heartstring-tugging shebang. But there is. Listen to this:

This is “The Luckiest”, by the piano artist Ben Folds. I’ve been checking out his music a lot lately, and I’ve liked a lot of what I’ve heard. But this song takes the cake. It was released in 2001, so it’s not that new.

I got this song on my computer yesterday or so, and in those 24 hours (a lot of which I’ve spent at school), I’ve somehow managed to listen to the song 28 times. I’m on the 29th right now.

What a beautiful song. The instrumentation, a quiet and subtle mix of piano, strings, and Folds’s own voice is moving. Those three sounds are all there is. No guitars, no percussion, no fake synth-sounds, no backup singers. And yet, I can listen to this 29 times in a row without experiencing anything close to boredom.

The lyrics are like poetry…

What if I’d been born fifty years before you
In a house on a street where you lived?
Maybe I’d be outside as you passed on your bike
Would I know?

That I am
I am
I am
The luckiest

But it’s the details that I’m still noticing and falling in love with. All the piano chords and arpeggios, which are often soothingly predictable, but sometimes unusual and unexpected. The way Folds’s voice cracks as he begins the refrain for the last time.

Every once in a while I find a song like this that reassures me that, even as the people around me begin accepting more and more bullshitty things as “music” and give up poetic lyrics for pornographic descriptions of people having sex in a dance club, music like “The Luckiest” will continue to exist, thrive, and maybe even change the world.

And where was I before the day
That I first saw your lovely face?
Now I see it everyday
And I know.

You know, I’m just SO glad that the Jewish world’s ideological opponents are so peaceful, tolerant, and LEGAL when expressing their opinions. That really makes it a lot easier to come to a consensus about Israel’s place in the world, and that of its Arab neighbors.

And also, I think that when fighting for your beliefs, you should give your group a peaceful and persuasive title such as “Terrorist Crew” and call yourself something inspiring such as “Muslim Defacer”. Furthermore, you should strive to make your statement in the most obnoxious, immature, illegal, and generally NASTY way. That really gets results.

Loading image

Click anywhere to cancel

The night air flapping in the breeze,
The stars a quilt upon the sky
The jazz that flips and flows with ease
Your words, like careless sparrows, fly

You toss them lightly, one by one:
A glowing light, a shining sun
A ladybug, a butterfly
A symphony, a lullaby.

But I’m attentive and alert,
And much more kind than you deserve
Your glance alone is worth the hurt;
I’m here to listen and to serve.

Your music takes my breath away
And brings me close to you at last
But now night flees to welcome day;
My love is fading, fading fast.

The music sings on broken strings;
A trumpet’s voice cries to the skies
The final note is struck and rings,
And wavers gently as it dies.

[This is from quite a while ago]

Did I steal away your light?
Encroach upon your galaxy?
The universe has room for two
But not when they are you and me
So suddenly, it’s you I see,
But you are lightyears far away
Those words you said, I could not hear
And I’m not sure I want you near.

Your anger needs its own domain;
A fifth dimensions for your tears
A sixth for love that no one needs
A seventh for your misplaced fears
And twenty more for all that’s left
Torn up and hurt, but still immense
Your soul, still searching for a cure,
An elixir to make you pure.

I’m much too feeble to protest
I’ll stay here, rooted into place,
Your wish forever my command,
My knowledge burning holes in space.
I’ll stay away, away from you,
For you are space and I am time;
This three-dimensioned galaxy
Does not have room for you and me.