Preparing for life

Last night I was up until 3 am. But I wasn't studying. I wasn't writing. I was talking to my roommates. I know it sounds like a waste of time considering it's almost finals and I have so many things to do, but as I sat there in the army green papasan chair in my living room lit by Christmas lights I thought to myself, "no this is what's most important." When you think about it, do you ever wonder what's the point? Like what's the point of writing an 18 page research paper that no one will ever read besides your teacher and maybe your parents if you force them to. Or what's the point of working so hard to have it all only culminate in a little number and some letters on your transcripts? Perhaps this is just my frustrated, stressed finals week brain talking but do you ever feel like sometimes  in college , life is just simply happening to you and you're not really doing any living at all?  How do we possibly make meaning out of the monotony of redundant assignments and essays and endlessly busy busy-work? It's difficult to feel like you're living life when really you're just working to prepare for life, you know? We ask ourselves what we're gonna do with our life, but it's not like life is simply something that's far off in the future. Life is happening right now, but what are we doing with it?

Allergies

I'm assuming pretty much everyone is suffering from spring allergies right now. Runny nose, itchy eyes, sore throat etc. My thing is asthma, I get symptoms of it every year at this time when it starts getting really windy.

Allergies are funny when you think about how you never expect them to show up again in your life, but they always do and you're like, "Damn, I should have expected that."

After many, many rough springs in Arizona, I think I should finally start getting allergy shots in the summertime.

Writing a book with no time!

Hey guys, I'm not sure if anyone else has this problem but I feel like I hardly have time to write. I saw this and thought it offered great advise and it was fun to watch. So enjoy!

The Final Semester

 I currently only have a few weeks left of college and it is finally hitting me. I have been fortunate enough to have a final semester with diverse classes that I was able to take which interested me greatly. I had the opportunity to take an English class (something I had wanted to do since Freshman year), I took criminology, did research, and took a challenging Biomechanics course. Although  I feel I immersed myself in too many outside activities due to fearing that I would regret not doing so, I am glad that I did.
  I am studying for my last and most difficult final tonight. Although it is typically a miserable experience to have anxiety over such a trying exam, I am going to embrace the last time I will be up all night in a library sipping coffee with index cards and textbooks sprawled out everywhere. I have also always enjoyed being in the library because it makes me feel as if I am not alone when it comes to feeling stressed and nervous during this time of year.
  I am sure my willingness to embrace such a brutal experience in college might seem odd, but I have spoken to other Seniors who are also beginning to appreciate the unique experience of putting everything you have into comprehending difficult information and preparing for something seemingly impossible.
  I am very thankful for being fortunate enough to receive an education at such an amazing institution with so many opportunities. I am one of the only Seniors in this class, but all I can say is towards the end of your college career you will appreciate every little moment in college, no matter how much you might despise it at the time.

What I Learned This Year

As my freshman year of college comes to a close, I can't help but wonder about the things that changed me or that I have come to realize through the course of the year.  I realized that I don't like writing as much as I like analyzing.  What I really enjoy is picking stories and books apart and talking about themes and structure and how they're employed and why they're employed.  Also, I realized exactly how hard writing is.  I realized that I really am an introvert at heart.  Throughout high school, I always questioned that part about me, cause I was never sure if it was a phase or who I really was.  Also, I was never sure what being an introvert meant exactly.  Here, I realized that I naturally prefer spending time alone, as if being alone is something that I need to function properly.  I realized that I don't like chemistry and that there are a lot more jobs out there than I had previously thought.  I realized that forcing any friendship is highly pointless and that, a lot of times, people drift apart because of a lack of proximity.  I realized that the world is really a lot bigger than I had previously thought, and a lot less structured.  I realized that there are ways of doing exactly what you want and not being completely ready to do them is okay too.  College is great because, not only am I discovering a lot of things about myself and other people, but I'm also learning to accept the things the way they are.  For me, control has always been a hard thing to give up, but I think I'm starting to try.

Traveling soon

We're one week from being free from the chains
Of brain bondage, forced financial frugality
And stymied progress.

Traveling far but not too far,
Far enough but too far enough
Deep in the heart of Texas,
While my heart remains in Arizona.

Traveling soon, bags packed
Efficiently as they always are,
A spartan of the open road travels,
And a TSA-tried-and-true warrior.

Traveling soon, but the emotional baggage
Well, it's a bit heavy. It'll cost extra for this
Stay. It is worth it tho,
Anything and everything is worth
Finding that one person you want to travel the world with.

But for now I travel alone,
For now there is a year that separates
Two from being one.
One year truly still separatesus
From breaking brain bondage, forced financial frugality
And stymied progress.

Anything and everything is worth it.
For what is a traveler without his companion?

Future Story Idea

So for the past few weeks, I've been bouncing back in forth in my head this idea I have for a story. I've always wanted to write something that dealt with historical fiction, and my idea comes from my fascination with the Civil War. I think because so much was at stake for our country at that point, that any kind of advantage for the Confederacy could have changed our nation in so many ways.

My story idea comes from this thought of what if the Confederacy was given some sort of advantage over the Union. Here, I would have Robert E. Lee meet some kind of stranger from Europe with a proposal to govern half of America if the Confederates won the Civil War. In return, the stranger would offer to supply Robert E. Lee with the fastest rifle of that time, something no one has ever seen or heard of. The name of his weapon would the Assault Rifle. A fully automatic rifle that could hold a 32 round clip as opposed to the one shot then reload musket of the time.

Would this advantage conquer the disadvantages the South faced with the lack of factories and smaller population? Would this faster weapon propel the Confederacy to victory? In no way am in favor for the Confederacy winning the Civil War, but I do find it interesting to think what would happen if a weapon or tactic from today was used back in the 1860's, how much of a difference would there be?

So let me know what you guys think, worth exploring or should it be one of those ideas best left in the old noggin?

Friendship Overseas

For the past couple of months, I've been chatting and getting to know someone overseas; someone from Scotland. Aside from the obvious friendship growth, I think it can be useful in writing to know someone from another culture that is actually in their culture. And it can get pretty amusing too since we hit cultural blocks almost daily. For example she could use a slang word and I'd have no idea what it means (such as "buckled" or "skint") and I can say something to her, a word or phrase and it'll make no sense to her (such as "subtle as a gun").

With small things like that, I feel like talking to various types of people can help with character building and dialogue. It allows for more room to develop more interesting characters and strike into fresh territory. Because, where you live now, you know all the cultural norms, ideas, and the stereotypes. By talking with someone else that happens to be elsewhere, you are happening upon new cultural norms, ideas, and stereotypes.

Patience in Entertainment

A few days ago I re-watched some films I haven't seen in a while:  There Will be Blood, The Thin Red Line, and Lost in Translation.

Each of those films can definitely be argued as being slow paced.  Most of what I really enjoy seems to be slow and demanding.  Even with books.  In many of my favorite short stories, nothing seems to happen, and in many of my favorite novels, it takes hundreds of pages for something to happen.  I recommended "The Sun Also Rises" to a friend not too long ago and she told me she'll never read anything I recommend again and it was a complete waste of her time.

I think about some movies that I've watched and have been rated high recently:  The Wolf of Wall Street, Catching Fire, any comic book film (Avengers, etc), The Hobbit...

I found myself bored with all of those movies.  I can't get into much of the "blockbuster" entertainment anymore.  Maybe I've become patient and want something much deeper in what I choose to watch or read.  Then again, that sounds pretentious and ignorant of what some people turn to entertainment for.  I believe the point I'm trying to reach is that I'm finding it hard to really engage myself in what's pushed out as entertainment in recent years.  Everything now is so quick and flashy, and companies seem to intent on grabbing our attention as quickly as possible, knowing that most people will move onto something else right away.

I can't help to feel happy when I see someone sitting down at a cafe reading a book, rather than browsing on a laptop, staring at a phone, or tapping at a tablet.  It's rare to see that patience.  I always want to speak to them because I trust that anyone with the patience to truly get into a great story or essay would be a person of great conversation (though admittedly, I often do not make the move to speak to strangers).  When something takes time and work to reach its entertainment, it provides us the time to really think and understand what's going on in both that (fictitious) world, and ours.

Catastrophes: What People Want

In one of my classes today, we watched a film about a flood in Thailand that splits a family of five apart. It was emotional and thrilling. However, what makes me wonder is why we watched this film today. The class is a seminar about popular culture. The reason we watched this film is because we are discussing the wide interest of disasters and catastrophes that people seem so glued onto in social media.

It's interesting how the news is just filled with news about a ferry sinking outside South Korea or that a Malaysian airplane has vanished. The news stays on this news about death and bad things that happen to people. The news of the Malaysian airplane stayed on the news until the ferry sinking happened. It seems in the trend that one disaster cannot be stopped in the media until another disaster happens.

It's sad that what makes the big news really is only these major events that are horrid and terrible. Murder, disaster, and Justin Bieber getting arrested. Where is there any good news in this world? Are we really a world that is hungry for news on things that are negative? Do we like to hear bad things?

It's important that we know about bad events (although a pop star getting arrested should not have gotten as much news over a political leader talking), but isn't it okay that we hear any good? Why is the bad always highlighted over the good?

Adorable. That is all I have to say.

I would just like us all to slow down for a minute, and have our hearts melt just a little bit. Finals are approaching (rather quickly, I must say) and it's days like these where we need a gentle reminder that we can still have the ability to think and feel like a human being. See you all on Wednesday. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ah92BkHT3Ko

Something to think about

Despite my religious beliefs and despite my nagging mother, I made this decision for myself. This is something I was comfortable with and to many people it’s not a big deal. For the average person I would think that they would be able to differentiate between what is my body and what is their body. And if I want to permanently mark mine that is my own business. You would think that people could be more understand and accepting of others. That people would be willing to push themselves to truly try and understand other people, even if you don’t necessarily agree. But that’s not what its about. It’s not about whether you agree or disagree with the other person’s opinion. It’s accepting it as their opinion and choosing to have a different one. That doesn’t mean you have to openly state, “I disagree” but instead sharing your own views, simply, quietly, and without belittling the other person for not having the same idea as you. People cannot grow if they do not feel safe, and by putting someone down every time you believe something different you are inhibiting their growth and taking away their voice.

Character Exploration #11

I passed through the city with little trouble, trading phoenix feathers for moon dust, though for what they could want with nightmare fuel, I didn’t know. Not then, anyway. A small bird child lay curled in one of their arms.

The Soulflame whose two faces were bound back to back rocked the squirming, whimpering child, the bitty bird with tears streaked down its cheeks. Inconsolable. Her second face, he measured out the grains on a scale for each bag. This place was always the last stop, our way of amassing as many phoenix feathers as possible to travel back around the circuit, dispersing the goods until the moon dust flowed into our pockets again. Or in the case of the other nightmares, mouths.

Blyssung caught my stare. “Don’t even think about it, witch.”

I already had a fussy chick bound up in a nest back at my trailer, but since she mentioned it… “My family has asked before, what would you be willing to trade for-?”

“No!” His second face whirled around to tower over me, teeth bared and arms clenched, all too much bristle and puff for something so smooth-faced and pink-tinged. While they’ve got us all in quite a bind from this energy crisis, they’re not quite as fearsome as their so-called lesser beings as You. As me. We are the monsters, and yet we kneel. But I digress.

I smiled wide enough to bare my own fangs, the likes of which made to crunch and rend flesh, if I so had the notion. And the death wish. “Won’t you at least tell us your secret?” But with the babe in the trailer, I knew- oh, what I knew! To make these creatures sweat was just so-!

“Want a baby of your own?” Blyssung cooed from her softer face. The being turned, side-eying me from each face. She lifted the bird so I could see its curly black hair and dark brown eyes. While in my silence, the second on added, “You’re a nameless thing, aren’t you, witch? Can’t have one yourself?” My smile strained, fists clenched. I stepped forward, and they continued. “Are you infertile or broken?”

“Just hungry.” I leaned forward and snapped my teeth right in front of the child’s face. He squealed in terror and began crying in earnest. His pudgy hands began to smoulder. Blyssung smacked the boy’s shoulders with his open palm. “Ethon! Stop that!”

The smoking dissipated immediately. Ethon still cried between gasps and hiccups. Blyssung’s hand squeezed his arm in warning. It did nothing. His free arms passed along the sacks of moon dust. “We’re done here.” He said. Business as usual.

I hopped on my bicycle and speed away, not looking back. I squeezed the handlebars, let my clawed nails sink into the old cloth wrapped around the metal, sucked in breath, strained my legs by pedalling faster still. Anything to get away. Anything to resist turning around and doing something that would get me killed. Get You killed. I was defective, after all. Nameless.

I didn’t stop until we reached the foot of the mountains, miles from the city. There, it was silent. No smoke or mirrors, no fires or ash. The Soulflames remained behind in their precious encampment. I scanned the skies still, and then stepped off the bike. I pulled down the kickstand, passed by the knotted rope which connected it to my trailer, avoiding a large splotch of dried viscera lying off the roadside.

As I neared the trailer, the sound of faint gurgles grew intermixed with cackles of laughter. I opened the trailer door and saw You lying in the exact spot as before, sandwiched between a mass of quilted blankets on the bed. Your pudgy arms waved back and forth in the air as if to signal my attention. For one so new to this world again, You had grown an extraordinary amount in the past day. And luckily enough, moon dust worked well enough as a substitute for food, even if for the moment. 

“Hey You,” I said as I scooped You up. “Your friend is going to have a rough time there.” You didn’t understand, only buried your face in my shoulder, clutched my neck with your prickly arms, bitty clawed nails scratching my leather skin. I listened to your babbles and shrieks, leaned up against the open trailer door, letting the winter air nip at our flesh. But as fire and earth go, we did not mind it at all.

Learning Languages: Gaining a deeper understanding of my lack of patience

Learning a foreign language is probably one of the most frustrating aspects of education. I don't mean that it's not interesting or important or totally and completely cool, because it is. But I feel like there's a reason that people find it so hard to learn a foreign language. Sure, you could attribute it to mental development and the difficulties of absorbing language after a certain age. You could say that some languages are harder for certain people to learn than others. But at the end of the day, it all comes down to patience.

The problem is, there's this gap of so many years between when you first start to learn a language and when you can actually express yourself to the full capacity of your own intelligence in that language. The problem is not that people can't learn languages. The problem is that people aren't persistent enough for long enough to bridge that gap.

Thus, when my professor asks me to write 25 sentences in Russian about Anton Chekhov, I spend longer trying to figure out what I'm capable of saying than actually writing. And then I quit and eat peanut butter cookies, because I get impatient with being incapable of communicating what I know. So,  I stay monolingual. Yeah...

Medieval Stasis

I've always found it weird that most fantasy worlds seem to be permanently stuck in the Middle Ages. This situation is common enough that the website tvtropes even has a name for it: medieval stasis. This trope's prevalence in the fantasy genre is most likely the result of Tolkien's stories set in Middle Earth, where in the thousands of years after Sauron's initial defeat human society and technology remained largely stagnant. Since then this trope has seemed to dominate fantasy, making technological advancement coincide with magic the rare exception rather than the norm. Another part of medieval stasis seems to be the fact that very few fantasy settings make use of gunpowder/firearms in order to keep technology at a less advanced level, even though both actually existed (albeit in a primitive state) in the real medieval era.
 I've usually found the justification that magic use has stifled creative growth to be rather weak, as even today when we have luxuries that would be considered sorcery by earlier generations humanity is still pushing the limits of scientific thought and technological development. Also, only a few series like Piers Anthony's Xanth novels have magic utterly saturate the setting. The rest tend to have magic users be rare, keeping everyone else relatively isolated from it and presumably be forced to rely on technology.
 I think the presence of magic would actually increase the desire and speed of technological developments because of the arm's race for dominance it would create between those who can use magic and those who cannot. When there's the possibility of fighting a wizard who can blast lightning from his hand like it's nothing, you're going to want to be sure you have a cannon or rifle to take him down from as far away as possible. Better yet, the presence of magic could be used to aid technology as shown in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series where the resident wizards have created a magical computer and cameras are powered with miniature imps.
So yeah, there's my little rant on medieval stasis. When I write a more traditional fantasy story, I'm going to make sure to include lots of guns and other technological advancements that would fit with the time period I'm trying to evoke.

Changes

The mountains are still the same, cold, gray, forbidding.
Standing tall against the flat blue sky, sentries, they have seen so much.
Cardboard boxes in the entryway. Big and little.
She pushes her hair back from her sweaty face. It was a hot August day when she moved here, four years ago, hopeful, naive, freshman. Her father sits in the moving truck, ready for the long drive back to her "real" home, where she grew up. She does not know how to feel; once she would have been ecstatic to get away, now she remembers the bar the night before, with her friends. Drinking like the college kids they were no longer. She sighs, picks up a box to bring to the car, and looks up.
The mountains are still the same. The mountains never change.

Bethany Thompson

Name: Bethany Thompson 

Age: 7 
Gender: Female
Birthday: May 9 
Hair color:  Dark brown 
Eye color: Green 
Favorite color: Turquoise 
Favorite food: Peanut butter and jelly sandwich 
Least favorite food: Tuna  
Favorite subject: English 
Least favorite subject: Math 
Class: Second grade 
Hobbies: Writing, reading, Investigating, playing outdoors, questioning neighbors 
Weakness: Her mother 
Bio: Beth is a curious and adventurous girl. Unlike other girls her age, she does not like playing with dolls or playing dress up. She questions everything. Once she puts her detective cap and grabs her notepad and pencil she is transformed into a child detective. Beth wants answers, especially when it comes to her mother. She does not understand why her mother acts completely different at night after drinking a bottle of the dark red liquid. Beth craves her mother's attention and affection and will do anything to get it. Her life is a combination of school, detective work and caring for her mother. 

Awesome blog!

Hey check this out! It's a blog about how one writer deals with obstacles in life while writing novels! I read a couple of the posts and they're pretty helpful! I know I have stuff that pops up every time things calm down and I saw this kind of implies strategies to deal with these kinds of situations, so maybe if you want to take a look, it could help you too. Here's the link! http://thecourage2create.com/

Secret to Success

I randomly came across this video my Sophomore year and it made an enormous (almost comically so) impact on me. Eric Thomas talks about how we basically must completely dedicate and  obsess over our goals until we reach them. This might consist of not getting any sleep, not eating, and not socializing. When I first heard him speak, I completely agreed and was on board with him. I would stay up all night, skip out on social invitations, and consume more class notes than food. However, I found this to make me even less successful than I was before. I became exhausted, constantly hungry, and lonely. I am all for hard work, but I have learned that we are not machines, we are human beings who need to interact with others and to recharge our batteries. I highly recommend listening to this, but not taking it to the point that I did. It is important to enjoy life but maintain a balance in order to provide yourself with basic human needs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-cg0WDB8uI

Character Exploration #10

She didn’t remember the first few months. Her hands were so small and clunky. She could’ve sworn things were different, somehow, maybe before. Veera stripped her master’s bed of its sheets, gathered dirty clothes strewn around the room, and tucked away stray sandals to lie in pairs beside the mattress. Everything was a chore, stretching her short limbs taut while she struggled carrying heavy laundry baskets outside, where a large basin sat filled with water and sand.

While she scrubbed and rinsed the clothes one at a time before hanging them on a line just outside their home, her arms ached, and she stood on tip toes to clip the cotton into the wire, and she was so small. And besides, the clothes didn’t come out smelling or looking any better in the water than they did before, even if it’s what her master told her to do.

When laundry was done, she went out to collect plants from around the city, as instructed. Her feet burned from the hot desert dirt and bled, caught by stray thorns. Still, she uprooted tiny yellow flowers, pulled at weathered fruit from barrel cacti, and picked large oval-shaped leaves. Veera couldn’t name a single one, didn’t know if it’s any of what her master wanted, and somehow the whole task seemed… lonely. She kept looking over her shoulder, as if waiting for something to happen. Trees swayed in the breeze, bitty desert mice scurried across the underbrush, but still something was missing.

Veera couldn’t remember first opening her eyes, taking in the world. Blyssung, her master, said something later about how they found her out there in the desert, took her in, and how fortunate she was to be found in time. When she asked why they were out there, they explained someone got lost out there, and they’d been looking for her ever since. She scanned the horizon, at the flat land stretching for miles until, in every direction, large purple mountains loomed up in the distance.

Sometimes, she talked to the others. They looked a little like her, but sometimes had beaks for mouths, claws for hands and feet, and always feathers sprouting along their back. She too had soft down prickling beneath her shoulder blades, which itched and ached when first coming in, but by then, she had gotten used to it. These others, these ones who weren’t their masters, they did not take well to her. She was the youngest, a tiny fledgling, Blyssung sometimes cooed, and perhaps, she thought, that was why.

They griped and groaned about their chores, their masters, and sometimes about one another when they weren’t around. While some didn’t like others for past spats, everyone came to the consensus about one. The traitor. They never called her by name, or mentioned what they did, but Veera sometimes heard them curse under their breaths about her, about how she took the easy way out and disappeared.

And even if Veera didn’t know, didn’t remember anything, she thought sometimes, she must have hated her too.

Sleepless Nights

So, I'm sitting here, finishing up reading people's stories and trying to figure out what to write for this blog post. Then I remember what time of year this was: the time for sleepless nights.

With everyone having finals coming up, last projects or final papers to work on, even people who have jobs that they juggle along with all of the school work, we are the same in that our eyes, as much as they want to close, must remain open. Coffee or alternatives to it being guzzled down to bring our caffeine levels up.

Yesterday, my boyfriend had only gotten fifteen minutes worth of sleep (by accident) and had to skip a class to make up for not finishing something despite an all nighter working on it. What I'm wondering is at what point is going through these cycles worth it?

Sure, we'll all be working on our revisions soon and some of us will go on to test in subjects of science, words, or whatever it is people are striving to become after college, but what good is it when no matter what you do, no matter how much time you give away from your body to just barely finish a work?

The work is not done to its fullest potential. I've heard people say that they do better on things that they worked on the night before or that they weren't even trying and got a good grade. It seems as though the most talented parts we have to write or to work is done when we just don't have the energy to care anymore.

And should we really be in the puddle that is this field of carelessness? Where we can just spout out words and expect good things from them? If only it were easier, one would say. But instead, everything comes crashing at you and you just have to learn to deal with those sleepless nights once more.

(Sleepy time rant).

Take Back the Night Is the Right Protest

So, I'm one of those people that doesn't tend to like protests. I especially hate them when they're outside my window being all revolutionary while I'm trying to write papers and not fail out of college, but that's only an occasional thing. Usually, my reasoning behind not liking them is that I don't always feel like they accomplish anything. Like, a bunch of people could get together and yell at passers by about a problem had never seemed like the most intelligent or effective way to actually solve the problem.

Look at Brother Dean for example. He can yell at people all day long, day in and day about about how they're going to hell because they're midriff is showing and they thought about sex during a math test or something and everyone for the most part, still hates him and a lot of people kind of hate the religion he's standing for because of that. Which is silly because most Christians are nothing like Brother Dean and he probably wouldn't get his point across by any other method either because his message is horrible. I'm getting off subject.

Of course, as the universe usually likes to do, I was proven wrong about protest today when the Take Back the Night walkers passed by outside my window, because what they were doing was beautiful. Like, there was something incredible about a bunch of people chanting about not being silenced and consent and how awful rape culture is. That is how you protest. By taking the issue and making the protest into a sort of resolution. Rape silences, and these people said no to that silence, and it was magical.

I'm sure a lot of you have heard poems from "Def Poetry", and this is an older one but one I still really enjoy.  I also think it relates to us as writers, trying to figure out what is worth writing about and what we actually want to say.  Skip to 1:45 for the actual poem.

"I Wanna Hear a Poem" by Steve Coleman:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOum8NE5-Ns

“Don’t drink the Kool-Aid.”

New York City at midnight. A magical place, where everything and anything is possible. The city quiet other than the occasional taxi that speeds by. Wandering the streets we pass by buildings both full of people and empty for the night. The Brooklyn Bridge sparkles with an iridescent glow – people driving home after a night in the city, Grand Central Stations sits empty – a sharp contrast to the bustling activity that fills the large building during the day where noise travels up the arched ceiling, Times Square glows and flashes – daytime in the middle of the night. Music fills the night as a large crowd of people runs up an empty street, they follow a small band that sings and plays, “I feel good, I feel free, I feel fine just being me.” The crowd chants with them. A flash mob or a flash concert, no one knows and no one cares. They follow the band, which stomps down into the subway, the crowd barreling down the steps in their wake. The city is full of possibility, an island of wonder, energy and excitement. New York City at midnight is magical, beautiful, quiet, loud, always changing, it is nothing like I have ever seen. 

Moving to New York

The city that never sleeps! read the T-shirts strung on a steel wire in the store front, rustling in the wind. Taxis zoom by like an army of yellow ants. The city seems to hum--something about the neon lights, the relentless energy that captivates the mind.
They are all drunk, the group of them, stumbling down the nearly deserted streets, crashing into each other like atoms. Lets go to the Brooklyn Bridge, one says, and they all agree.
Homeless people hold out their hands and raise their voices in song like angels with hats nearby for the wayward dollar bill.
Hiking up, they are breathless. The wind bites and cuts to the bone, but the inner warmth keeps them from feeling it. They stop right in the middle, straddling Brooklyn and Manhattan. Wow, one of them says, I never thought it would be this beautiful. Another pulls out her phone and takes a selfie, which she won't remember in the morning.
They walk back, the streets are electrified, the people lie in the streets. They are giddy with excitement, their bodies already starting to sing in key with the tone of the city. They have arrived.

AN ABSOLUTE ANGEL

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151979024202499

I saw this video this weekend and it literally made me cry. So I watched it again and cried some more. And now I want to share it with all you in the hopes that it'll make you all cry too. It is perhaps the sweetest thing I have ever seen and really inspired me to try to be as purely selfless as this 3 year old. I've been in college longer than she's been alive and she already is doing such great things for the world.

Let's talk about lips

I am going to be that brave person to talk about this, because it's...well it's beautiful, in my own opinion. You all have been there. That electric feeling you get when you kiss someone, maybe a date, maybe your other half, or even your friend during a night of too many drinks. We all have experienced it at some point. That moment, during the intertwining of your lips, where your mind stops working, your instincts to keep your muscles moving takes over, and you begin to have a conversation with someone using only your lips. You move, they move, and you each react to the other's slightest touch, whether it be the gentle caress of a tongue, the slightest nervous twitch of the lower lip. Kissing someone holds so much beauty, more so than any other form of intimacy, in my own mind, because it gives you the ability to literally let go of each and every thought that plagues one's inner conscious. When you lock lips with the right person, especially someone you are dating, or have strong feelings for, anything and everything that gives you strength melts away, and the moment is embraced by nothing other than a passion that cannot even be explained.

So, there is my brief summary on why kissing is such an incredible action to share with another person.

A Not So Great Short Story Template

Last semester, as per the 109H English required course, I found myself in a class that focused exclusively on satire.  We read Brave New World and watched Dr. Strangelove or: How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb.  We wrote our own creative satire pieces.  In that class, we also found a variety of online sources that utilized satire to serve their purposes--one of which was McSweeney's Internet Tendencies.  I had never been a bit fan of satire before--having read works such as Gulliver's Travels and Voltaire at an age when I was too young to appreciate much beyond the literal--but that class really turned me around.  In any case, I was browsing McSweeney's when I was bored in one of my classes the other day, and came across this article that I thought some of you might appreciate:

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/short-story-template

It's funny cause I've definitely seen a lot of those tropes and elements used in quite a few of the short stories I've read before, and they certainly seem to make up the stereotypic short story.  Hope you give it a read!

Peanut butter sandwiches and pudding cups

Peanut butter sandwiches are a staple comfort food,
put together like they were in our childhood.
(Now with more palm oil and less peanut or soybean oil)
Peanut butter over whole grain bread, spread evenly thick,
honey or jam accompanying the brown base layer.
Squeezing or squishing the sandwich down, the jam or honey
oozes outward from the location at which it was placed,
distributing sugary accompaniment to the salty spread.
Even when you've got nothing left except a few dollars,
peanut butter sandwiches will keep you going,
as they are both thick and thin in layers as life itself.
I find myself eating a peanut butter sandwich every other day,
craving one on the weekends of take-out, dine-in food.

Pudding cups come in at a close second to peanut butter sandwiches for practicality
as they are cheap, chocolate flavored, and don't need to be chilled, unlike yogurt.
Although pudding is somewhat strange if you stop and think - what is it?
Some type of cultured milk product, sans milk, sans refrigeration necessary.
But as much calcium as a cup of milk, hmm... Pudding cups are strange indeed,
like life.

Sit down with a pudding cup and a peanut butter sandwich sometime and indulge
in a time before now, when things made less sense and experiences were new and
exciting. Sit down with a peanut butter sandwich and invest in remembering what
you had when you first ate a peanut butter sandwich, and what you have now, and
what you may not have tomorrow, but know that a peanut butter sandwich is just a
few dollars away no matter the state of wealth or well-being. Next time you eat
pudding, get Tapioca and think how weird Tapioca is, and how weird pudding is,
and how weird life because of pudding is, or how weird it is that adult choose ice
cream over pudding because they can, or how weird eating the cultured, filtered,
diluted, processed biproduct of an animal is, an animal that probably wonders
every day how weird life is inside the human-machine-world.

Most importantly, peanut butter sandwiches and pudding cups make great lunches.

The Sky-Sword Eyrie

Lars Skalgaard had heard all about the famous griffons of the Sky-Sword Eyrie. According to the stories his father told him whenever Lars had trouble sleeping, the magnificent beasts had already been living in these mountains for centuries before the arrival of humans into these lands. When the  clans had settled into the plains beside the mountainous Eyrie, they were at the mercy of the soaring overlords. For generations they had accepted that the occasional goat or disobedient child would be snatched up by the griffons and never be seen again. Lars' father would always look his son in the eye at this point of the story, giving a playful smirk at the sight of Lars' frightened expression.

Anyway, this state of affairs occurred until Sven Skalgaard had enough of living in fear of the griffons. Sven was the greatest warrior of the Trevast clans at this time and he fearlessly climbed up the Sky-Sword Eyrie to confront the griffons. Ignoring their swooping dives and terrifying roars, Sven made his way to the highest point of the mountain where the Gale King, the ruler of the griffons, lived. People may have thought of the griffons as mindless beasts, but Sven knew they had cunning and intelligence, it was just in a different way. Knowing this, Sven Skalgaard challenged the Gale King to a duel. The ruler of the griffons, a massive beast that was fifteen feet long and could swallow a rabbit whole, wordlessly accepted Sven's challenge and charged the brave warrior.

The battle was long and harrowing, neither side having a distinct advantage. The Gale King may have been huge and strong, but Sven was smarter and more agile, weaving around the griffon's lunges and swipes. Unfortunately, whenever he tried to grab hold of the Gale King flicked him off with his great wings. The two fought during the long darkness of night as it passed over them and did not stop until the rays of the sun began to rise from the east. At this point, both Sven and the Gale King were too tired to fight and simply began to look at each other. By this point the clansmen in the plains assumed that Sven had long passed, devoured by the griffons for his foolish affront. They were surprised that day when they saw the Gale King fly toward them, Sven riding on his back as one would a stallion.

Sven had not mastered or tamed the griffons, but he had impressed them with his skill and valor, earning their friendship in a way no other man could. The mountains, once so ominous and dangerous, were now safe to those with the courage to follow Sven into the home of the griffons. This was the birth of the Skalgaard clan, the griffon riders of the Sky-Sword Eyrie. As Lars looked from the castle walls to his mountainous home, watching the beasts soar and swoop majestically through the outcroppings, he wanted nothing more than to make Sven and his father proud when he was old enough to ride a griffon.

Holiday fun

It is a typical fall afternoon; the leaves scatter the ground covering the plain sidewalk with shades of orange and yellow. They form a miniature sunset on the ground. Tiny shoes stomp the ground scattering the leaves leaving behind giggles in the air. The weather is brisk and the few adults wandering the streets wear light coats or shawls to protect themselves from the chill. Meanwhile children scatter the streets. Their costumes offering little protection from the cold however their energy seems to be keeping them warm. A baby pumpkin can be found being pushed around in a stroller by an older mother slowly following a ghost who is dragging his pillowcase of sweets on the ground behind him. Kids are running from house to house screaming about the various candies they have received from Mr. Robinson compared to Mrs. O’Reilly.  A small voice can even be heard shouting about the house at the end of the road giving out fruit, “DON”T EVEN BOTHER!” the voice yells.  There are a few generic tiny superheroes and princesses to be found in this small neighborhood, their smiles spreading wider and wider across their faces as they go from door to door asking for treats. And as the moon gets higher in the sky the children slowly follow their parents home. A few parents tease that they must take all the chocolate the children received tonight in order to prevent some faux “Choco-pox” disease, at the sound of this the costumed boys and girls clutch their bags close to their bodies, all the while trying to convince their parents they received absolutely no chocolate tonight. The adults can be seen giggling themselves, while pretending to steal the bags of treats as the children once again scatter the fallen leaves attempting to run away.