We Love the Internet

What weighs approximately two ounces and is made up binary code? THE INTERNET. We can easily classify the Internet as one of the most beautiful technological advances up to this point in time. Before the Internet era, we would traverse the globe in search of new land. Now, we can use the internet to travel the world without once stepping outside. We can connect with people, watch our favorite shows, and play games. And then Google and Wikipedia are plain awesome.

Our love for Internet quickly becomes obsession. The Internet has been an idea for a long while, but wasn’t really used by the common people (people like you and me) until the 1990s. Since then, the number of humans accessing the Internet has grown to include over a third of total human population. In less than twenty years, we have become very dependent on the Internet. Going an hour with a computer or smartphone in our possession WITHOUT being able to access this network of networks is a bit mind blowing.

When you think about it, what is the first thing you check in the morning? If you are like me, it’s usually my phone. Yes, before I roll out of bed and flop to the kitchen for breakfast, I am checking Facebook and YouTube. It’s partially because I am slow to wake up, but it is also due to habit. I’ve grown so used to communicating with others and just going online to go online that it is merely a part of my day.

Perhaps we should step away from the Internet, just once in a while. One giant step back from our smartphones, laptops, and tablets. The future is going to keep using the Internet, or maybe a new network will be invented, and we will finally be able to talk to animals or visit another galaxy. But for now, as you are reading this, we can continue to use this invention, connecting, helping, and continuing to change the world every day. 

Why Write?

I shall begin this post in the most amateurish way possible: with a question. Why are you reading this? More specifically, why is this blog in existence? It’s because I love writing, right? Well, yes and no. I have been writing since I can remember, starting with stories about two long-lost twin fairies going by the names of Eliza and Elizabeth. Despite having been stationed in Italy at the time, the stories were indeed in English. That being beside the point, this blog is in existence due to a couple of factors: I wanted to challenge myself and inflamed spinal tissue.

Back in February, I woke up incredibly sore. The night before, I had gone to a very demanding ballet class. My first mistake: I did not bring water. For that reason I was sore. My second mistake: doing a bridge right when I awoke, sore and without warming up beforehand, my spine cracking louder than is normal. And then I had a big panic attack and long story short, the doctor banished me from attending ballet for nearly a month. There were bumps on my spine, and even walking was painful at times. Keep in mind that ballet is my outlet, and has been for the past twelve years. Taking that away was mind boggling.

This brings me to the whole “why write?” bit. Every writer, even non-writers, has a reason for putting words on paper, or in this case, on the internet. For some, it’s their chance to have a voice and be heard. For others, an escape. I fall into both of these categories, more or less. More prominently, I write because when my world was falling apart, starting this blog and beginning to work on my book again gave me new meaning. It’s kind of hard to explain. I was stuck in a rut and found my way out when I began pour all of my energy into writing. And then I entered the world of blogging, and reached out to write about all kinds of things.

But enough of my frou frou story. Why do you write?

YAY PROCRASTINATION

Most people have that one thing that sits in the corner of their desk. It lurks, whispering behind the ears and watching your every move. It requires your attention, and you know it. It is not frightening at all, but the fact that it just sits there without speaking while still having your full attention is annoying. Why can’t it just go away and let you catch up on the Super Amazing Project on YouTube? Sometimes it’s cool to observe. When you do get to it, you enjoy it. But all of five seconds of effort to get that one thing started and finished? Ew. This can be classified as…procrastination.

Such a lovely word we are taught never to give into. Procrastination is the enemy of success, although on a rare occasion it can create some awesome skills (as discussed here). VERY rare. I, like so many of the human race, have fallen prey to this terrible habit. However, I only procrastinate about half the time now. I used to be one of the “let’s wait until the night before and complete the project literally six hours before the school starts”. I thought this led to my brain having the most creative of ideas since I would have had more time for my brain to accumulate cool stuff and…don’t use that excuse. Ever.

The past year, I have had to step up my game. Being a Slytherin comes with an ambitious spirit. So of course, the list of things I want to accomplish is perhaps longer than what is humanly possible. And when I have to juggle college classes, high school, an internship, and my ever-teetering pile of projects, procrastination is not my friend. Because of all the stuff I do, I was pushed into setting this thing up called time management. So far, it has worked quite well.

And now to describe the thing, the ‘it’ I described in the beginning of this post. My 'it'. Right now, 'it' is one of my long term projects, a project where I am writing a story. Yes, the end result would ideally be a book, but at the moment it is going nowhere. I know what I want to write, but for some unfathomable reason, I keep pushing it off to the side. COME ON BRAIN. In writing this post, I hope to get back in gear. Set aside at least twenty minutes a day to write and brainstorm. That is my goal. Now to get that started… Don't let procrastination take the best of you.

On Art and Poetry

A lot of people will find themselves torn over poetry. Like zombies, they gang up on the helpless printed couplet, mouths hanging open, waiting for the victimized words to attempt escape. Then they take the words and begin to dissect them like worms. They get so caught up in trying to find the guts, ignoring the fact that they are really slicing open an innocent, gummy worm. And not the sugar-covered kind either. No, they mutilate the body, and take what’s left. Assembling a new worm in the fashion of Frankenstein’s monster, they cheer, proud of what they have manipulated into being.

This past weekend, I visited a local art museum. There was an exhibit of Alejandro Diaz’s art (I saw these sculptures and signs, http://www.dorfmanprojects.com/projects/diaz_southampton/index.html), and even Monet and Degas. I like looking at old art, new art, weird art, even near art. I like seeing creativity, beauty, and technique. Sometimes, it can be fun to recognize elements in a piece that give to a possibly deeper meaning. How does this connect to the gummy-worm dissecting, Frankenstein monster assembling zombies? Simple: humans like to take a pretty picture and make it something it is not. That and the zombie poetry genre I just found through Google.

Fisherman's Cottage at Varengeville, Claude Monet. Not about his new pet eel. I don't think.

A poem is essentially a painted picture, and like a painting, may or may not contain a story line. Going through high school, you get your fair share of poetry. Most kids are so sick of Shakespeare and Robert Frost by the end of their English classes that they take the poetry and toss it out the window. Why do they do this? Instead of enjoying poetry in school, they were made to find symbolism. Really, symbolism is not that bad. It usually aids in the whole 'make a picture with words' thing. But if you have to annotate a twelve line poem that is about a farm and hardship, then turn it into a five page essay about life, you’ve essentially murdered that poem. If symbolism is present, it should not be painful to notice it.

Poets just want to transport the reader elsewhere. Artists want to be creative and tap into people’s senses. All they want is for their audience to take a mental vacation from having to analyze everything. Or perhaps they are just expressing something we will never understand, but we find beauty in their work anyway. Until I took a literary studies class this past semester, I did not quite understand this. Read and enjoy a poem? You can do that? Poetry instantly became approachable. So next time you sit down to write, or head to an art museum, or do some light reading, enjoy it. 

From Obsession to Awesome

Some people reading this are very much aware of my status as the girl who likes Harry Potter. No, not Ginny, but a fangirl of the series. I have the merchandise to prove it and the many references that spew out of my mouth on a minute to minute basis are a flashing Vegas sign of I-love-Harry-Potter. Due to my beyond borderline obsession, one cannot tell me that this series is merely a story. Maybe that is what it began as, a story about a boy with a great destiny. But sometimes that is all it takes to bring about an ever-improving generation. This story bought about the Harry Potter Alliance.

The Harry Potter Alliance (HPA for short; Harry Potter has already been said a copious amount of times) is an organization that arose in 2005, with an awesome idea that grew into a reality. To quote from their mission statement, “The Harry Potter Alliance (HPA) is a 501c3 nonprofit that takes an outside-of-the-box approach to civic engagement by using parallels from the Harry Potter books to educate and mobilize young people across the world toward issues of literacy, equality, and human rights” (http://thehpalliance.org/what-we-do/). When I found out about this organization a couple of months ago, I was taken aback by the ingenuity of it. Using Harry Potter to fight the Dark Arts in the real world? Heck yes!

Come at me.

I’d been looking for some way I could decrease world suck, and here was something I could do (beside attempting vegetarianism, and being aware of that environmental impact and all. That’s a whole other story). What’s more, I could take my love for the Harry Potter fandom, all the enthusiasm I have for the series, and make it into something bigger. I began oh so evilly planning a way to bring this idea to my school, talking to friends about it. The idea was appealing even to the non-Harry Potter folk.

It really is incredible how what began as a story took on a life of its own. Reading made a comeback, and now we Muggles have taken it upon ourselves to really go out to make the world a better place. And in case you were wondering, Harry Potter has now been stated eleven times in this post. Keep making the world awesome!

Why SAT

If you live in the Northern hemisphere and venture out into the world on occasion, you will become aware of the return of warm weather. You might notice a few more drunk people walking around your house, college students escaping into the summer holidays. Weddings, proms, and evenings sitting on the porch come around for a few months and we relish every moment. And as everyone is preparing for the wonderful new season, an evil makes its way into existence: SATs.

In reality, they are not that bad at all, but no one looks forward to them. They are a dreaded locale in the lives of high school students across the states. When you think about it, SATs literally take up five hours from your day, once or twice in your lifetime. They allow for you to exhibit a mere few skills the best you can. This is all for college admissions, and you are screwed if you aren’t a test taker. Who could’ve possibly thought up such a thing?

Ew.

The whole point of an SAT score (or ACT) was telling a college where your strengths lie, and where you need work. However, some humans decided it’s cool to make it competitive and a near death situation. For this reason, I spent a couple of the weeks leading up to last Saturday’s SAT relearning math from three years ago. I take a Pre-Calculus class, and do very well. But for some reason, trying to shovel a bunch of geometry in my head was not working.

Finally, three days before test day (oh how terrifying), I stopped. What was I doing? Studying for a test there is no point in studying for? I came to the conclusion that the only thing I could do was my best, despite how much I loathed long, timed, bubble sheet tests. And low and behold, the test was not so bad. Sure, half of my brain was stir fry after, but it really wasn’t as horrifying and daunting as it seemed.

I am no fan of standardized testing (http://thenormalm.blogspot.com/2013/03/ah-standardized-testing.html), at least how it is viewed in modern light. We see it as an opportunity to see who is the best and most likely to succeed. Really, SATs or ACTs simply measure a couple of skills (comprehension of the English language, basic mathematics, test taking). Of course, these test scores are definitely not the deciding factor of one’s acceptance into college. Yet students everywhere are required to take this test in order to apply for most colleges. Why have they become more of an obstacle? Rather, why are these skills so important that if you haven’t had good schooling, they prevent you from the opportunity to have a better education? I do not mind taking the test; I do mind that the test files me away into a group of applicants.

The Learning of Failure

We’ve all been told that failure is imminent. We’ve been told many examples of fictional or historical characters whose successes were all due to constant failure. Dumbledore almost went the way of the Dark Arts until his ambition caused him to neglect his younger sister, allowing her to die. His past is chock-full of miseries and mistakes and failure. Robert Frost was very much depressed throughout his life and only got his big break when he moved himself and his family to London. And did you know his poetry was so awesome because of his depression and having outlived most of his children? Then again, most poets are like that.

This then brings me to an idea I ran into: never learning to fail. After reading an article on How to Write a Novel in 30 Days (http://www.catherynnemvalente.com/essays/how_to_write_a_novel_in_30_days/), the ingenuity of it struck me. Basically, human behavior consists of doing something until you stop succeeding. If you go through school procrastinating and succeeding, your brain literally never learns to fail. This can probably turn out badly (like Dumbledore sticking with Grindelwald if his sister had survived), but it does have its forthcomings.

As stated in the article, the author mentions how they consistently left college papers for the night before they were due. This is where the average, rational human proceeds to eye roll. Epically.

Unless this turned into an ability to, say, write novellas in merely a month’s time. This person never once failed on a paper, thus never learned that maybe they should not procrastinate on future papers. Take that, time management!

However, in the cases of Dumbledore and Mr. Frost, if they had never learned failure, the world of poetry would have missed out big time and Potterheads would never have come into existence. Had Frost never been thrown into the grip of depression, we would not know about the renowned paths in a yellow wood. If he still became a poet, he perhaps would not be so praised.

Failure really is a delicate thing. It always seems to know just when we need it, and when we don’t. I’d like to think of failure as a hurricane. It needs just the right conditions to have power and make an impact. Sometimes they happen and sometimes they don’t. The aftermath of a hurricane, or failure, is at times devastating. But when we pick up the pieces, we realize that despite tragedy, there is still a sun in the sky, and we have only been brought a step forward in our journey.