Merry Christmas!
25 December 2010
14 December 2010
2 down, 4 to go
I apologize for the gap in posts - exams are this week.
Ain't as bad as we all talk it up to be.
I'll have more soon! Promise!
10 December 2010
09 December 2010
Letter to you
-Charles Richards
Hi, blog.
I forgot your birthday.
I started my blog on November 27th, 2009, and since then, I have done nothing but grow. It's funny to see when I was being a silly teenager, head over heels one day and melodramatic the next. Oh wait, that sounds familiar...
One of the items on my makeshift bucket list - created during my Buried Life obsession - was to keep my blog for a year. Thank you so much to everyone who reads this, whether you have glanced at it once or followed it the entire time. Thank you to those who comment, and thank you to those who don't but reveal themselves - the surprise that someone still keeps up with my ramblings never fails to make my day. Thank you for dealing with my crazy emotional ups and downs and my endless rants about boys, sports, life, whatever.
Anyway, one thing I've learned is that my Tuesday Tellings (for those of you who don't know, that was my weekly secret-revealing) were a mistake. Once I started keeping my personal secrets, I felt more like I had a story. And isn't that what I always wanted?
Speaking of stories, I have made the decision to tell a new person my story. This person has become increasingly more important to me, and I value their opinions and care about them probably more than they realize. I hope they are ready to hear what I have to say.
I forgot your birthday.
I started my blog on November 27th, 2009, and since then, I have done nothing but grow. It's funny to see when I was being a silly teenager, head over heels one day and melodramatic the next. Oh wait, that sounds familiar...
One of the items on my makeshift bucket list - created during my Buried Life obsession - was to keep my blog for a year. Thank you so much to everyone who reads this, whether you have glanced at it once or followed it the entire time. Thank you to those who comment, and thank you to those who don't but reveal themselves - the surprise that someone still keeps up with my ramblings never fails to make my day. Thank you for dealing with my crazy emotional ups and downs and my endless rants about boys, sports, life, whatever.
Anyway, one thing I've learned is that my Tuesday Tellings (for those of you who don't know, that was my weekly secret-revealing) were a mistake. Once I started keeping my personal secrets, I felt more like I had a story. And isn't that what I always wanted?
Speaking of stories, I have made the decision to tell a new person my story. This person has become increasingly more important to me, and I value their opinions and care about them probably more than they realize. I hope they are ready to hear what I have to say.
After all, you were ready, weren't you?
06 December 2010
Stuck, frozen, stopped
So basically this is just me ranting about how I'm sick of stereotypes and cattiness and whatnot.
For a second, she
Hesitates -
Am I beautiful enough?
No, and I'm not smart either.
See that girl,
She walks the
Walk and talks
The talk,
Her skinny legs move without a flaw
And her eyes shine even
First thing in the morning.
No one's
pretty
skinny
smart
good
enough these days
Where we break down everyone else
Just to claw our way up.
We starve
We slave
We run until our legs
Give out
Just to be good enough.
Once, we felt talented,
Now, we feel taunted
Haunted by simple words
That chip
Away
At our core.
She may not be quite as beautiful
Or quite as smart
Or quite as capable,
But she is strong
And she knows what is possible.
04 December 2010
Dickinson titles, take 2
I did this for an english assignment and had to analyze it. I really liked it for some reason, so I'm putting it on here. Tell me what you think.
Wild Nights, Wild Nights!
God is a distant, stately Lover –
I cannot live without You.
I’m Nobody! Who are You?
This is my Letter to the world –
Because I could not Stop for Death –
He preached upon “breadth” till it argued Him narrow.
This World is not Conclusion –
There’s a certain Slant of Light.
I dwell in possibility
Because I Could Not stop for death –
My Life had stood – a Loaded Gun –
I never lost as much but twice
Wild nights, wild nights.
This is my letter to the World
I began with “Wild Nights, Wild Nights!” and left it all capitalized to illustrate a title, an opener that would set the scene and leave a reader interested to find out more, like what made the night “wild,” and who is involved? The next line answers ‘the who’ and ‘the why’ – the narrator has a love affair with God, and he is her caretaker. Her life depends on him and his guidance – without Him she is nobody; she has no physical identity to call her own. However, she questions his reliability to save her from her confusion over who she really is. “Nobody” and “You” are capitalized to show names, and to emphasize that the only character with a real name in the poem is God, and that the woman has nothing to call herself. She then says “this is my Letter,” a transition into her retelling of what happened during this wild night.
The narrator could not stop death from approaching. She was losing her physical self because she had already lost all sense of her identity, her mental being. “Stop” and “Death” are both capitalized because they are both out of her control and have more power over her. In the next line, He and Him are the only words capitalized, illustrating her dependence on her lover, and also following the way the Bible describes God. He argues, fights for her freedom from her daily struggles, proving that he is loyal to her and cares for her well-being.
“This World is not Conclusion” – her life does not end here, and the dash placed at the end of the line indicates that there is more to be said. Although she has given in to her death, she will go to heaven and be united with God again. The material world has concluded, but only opens up an entirely new spiritual world. This world is her certain slant in the light of the darkness of the wild night.
“I Could Not stop for death” is said a second time, this time with the emphasis on “could not.” Here the narrator officially admits her surrender, letting the reader know that this is what has happened and that she is no longer resisting. At this point, her life is a loaded gun, ready to release the bullet and fly into her new life on a different side. She “never lost as much but twice,” then “wild nights” is said twice. This stanza contains two repeated lines and words (stop for death and wild nights), both of them said twice. The narrator has two selves, the physical and the mental, and passes from the material world into the second world, which is the spiritual. Even though she has “lost” her life in the body, she moves on to where she will be happier. “Wild nights, wild nights” was an intimate, personal decision for her lover.
And finally, the poem ends in a single line, repeating the last line of the first stanza – “This is my letter to the World”, and this time the emphasis is on letter, not world. We have read her first letter, her explanation, and now we turn the attention to her World, her destination from one of confusion to one of happiness. Similar to Whitman’s poems, the line ends without a period, showing that this is not the end of her story.
Wild Nights, Wild Nights!
God is a distant, stately Lover –
I cannot live without You.
I’m Nobody! Who are You?
This is my Letter to the world –
Because I could not Stop for Death –
He preached upon “breadth” till it argued Him narrow.
This World is not Conclusion –
There’s a certain Slant of Light.
I dwell in possibility
Because I Could Not stop for death –
My Life had stood – a Loaded Gun –
I never lost as much but twice
Wild nights, wild nights.
This is my letter to the World
I began with “Wild Nights, Wild Nights!” and left it all capitalized to illustrate a title, an opener that would set the scene and leave a reader interested to find out more, like what made the night “wild,” and who is involved? The next line answers ‘the who’ and ‘the why’ – the narrator has a love affair with God, and he is her caretaker. Her life depends on him and his guidance – without Him she is nobody; she has no physical identity to call her own. However, she questions his reliability to save her from her confusion over who she really is. “Nobody” and “You” are capitalized to show names, and to emphasize that the only character with a real name in the poem is God, and that the woman has nothing to call herself. She then says “this is my Letter,” a transition into her retelling of what happened during this wild night.
The narrator could not stop death from approaching. She was losing her physical self because she had already lost all sense of her identity, her mental being. “Stop” and “Death” are both capitalized because they are both out of her control and have more power over her. In the next line, He and Him are the only words capitalized, illustrating her dependence on her lover, and also following the way the Bible describes God. He argues, fights for her freedom from her daily struggles, proving that he is loyal to her and cares for her well-being.
“This World is not Conclusion” – her life does not end here, and the dash placed at the end of the line indicates that there is more to be said. Although she has given in to her death, she will go to heaven and be united with God again. The material world has concluded, but only opens up an entirely new spiritual world. This world is her certain slant in the light of the darkness of the wild night.
“I Could Not stop for death” is said a second time, this time with the emphasis on “could not.” Here the narrator officially admits her surrender, letting the reader know that this is what has happened and that she is no longer resisting. At this point, her life is a loaded gun, ready to release the bullet and fly into her new life on a different side. She “never lost as much but twice,” then “wild nights” is said twice. This stanza contains two repeated lines and words (stop for death and wild nights), both of them said twice. The narrator has two selves, the physical and the mental, and passes from the material world into the second world, which is the spiritual. Even though she has “lost” her life in the body, she moves on to where she will be happier. “Wild nights, wild nights” was an intimate, personal decision for her lover.
And finally, the poem ends in a single line, repeating the last line of the first stanza – “This is my letter to the World”, and this time the emphasis is on letter, not world. We have read her first letter, her explanation, and now we turn the attention to her World, her destination from one of confusion to one of happiness. Similar to Whitman’s poems, the line ends without a period, showing that this is not the end of her story.
Dickinson titles
They shut me up in Prose—
I dwell in Possibility—
Because I could not Stop for Death—
My Life had Stood—a Loaded Gun—
I heard a fly buzz—when I died.
There’s a certain slant of Light
The Brain is wider than the sky—
This World is not a Conclusion
Much Madness is divinest sense—
This is my letter to the World—
Tell all the Truth but tell it Slant
I dwell in Possibility—
Because I could not Stop for Death—
My Life had Stood—a Loaded Gun—
I heard a fly buzz—when I died.
There’s a certain slant of Light
The Brain is wider than the sky—
This World is not a Conclusion
Much Madness is divinest sense—
This is my letter to the World—
Tell all the Truth but tell it Slant
19 November 2010
15 November 2010
Light
Ain't it funny how one thing can make your day better?
Things will pass. Things will go on. You will see happiness again, and your hard work will pay off.
Thank you for your help, you have no idea what it means to me.
Things will pass. Things will go on. You will see happiness again, and your hard work will pay off.
Thank you for your help, you have no idea what it means to me.
"It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
Thank you.
14 November 2010
11 November 2010
Empty
It's kind of strange that I wrote this before yesterday. But I wrote it, and I feel as though I should share it.
It's funny how we age. We grow older and lines scar our eyes where we once smiled, and as those lines increase, the lines on our brains deepen with things we have learned.
Your arms grow tired of embraces, and your legs grow tired of walking, of searching.
The spaces between your fingers have widened from holding so many others, and your fingers need rest.
It's funny how we learn. How we seemed so young, so innocent, so vulnerable just yesterday, a million chances we have yet to take and thousands of facts we have yet to discover.
With each day, we age, we learn, we survive. The earth has years of stories beneath its ever-changing surface, carved by mountains and rivers, tales that are waiting to be told.
But just because we age does not mean we are old, and just because we learn does not mean we are wise. We are never those qualities in our own eyes, but rather the eyes of others. You are not wise until you are told so, and we are not old until we compare with someone younger.
Age is not about a number, it's about the time you have had to learn. Wisdom is not about the standards of intelligence, it is about the experiences you have had, what you get out of them, and what you choose to do with them.
Intelligence should not be categorized by numbers, but rather your potential to teach.
It's funny how we age. We grow older and lines scar our eyes where we once smiled, and as those lines increase, the lines on our brains deepen with things we have learned.
Your arms grow tired of embraces, and your legs grow tired of walking, of searching.
The spaces between your fingers have widened from holding so many others, and your fingers need rest.
It's funny how we learn. How we seemed so young, so innocent, so vulnerable just yesterday, a million chances we have yet to take and thousands of facts we have yet to discover.
With each day, we age, we learn, we survive. The earth has years of stories beneath its ever-changing surface, carved by mountains and rivers, tales that are waiting to be told.
But just because we age does not mean we are old, and just because we learn does not mean we are wise. We are never those qualities in our own eyes, but rather the eyes of others. You are not wise until you are told so, and we are not old until we compare with someone younger.
Age is not about a number, it's about the time you have had to learn. Wisdom is not about the standards of intelligence, it is about the experiences you have had, what you get out of them, and what you choose to do with them.
Intelligence should not be categorized by numbers, but rather your potential to teach.
10 November 2010
End
Death is a profound thing. It makes you feel and it makes you numb at the same time. You drive down the road and see the moon, only to realize he will never see the moon again. He will never see his son's game-winning goal or his daughter's tear soaked face as she drapes her body across his. Your heart aches and your mind races but you have no words to say, but nothing comes to your lips except an empty "I'm sorry."
It does not matter how many times you have visited their house or conversations you have had with them, your heart will always be bruised by their absence, an aching to bring them back for the sake of their family.
What were once laughs turn into choked gasps, struggles for air as your heart and mind collide in forming sounds.
Death is a profound thing.
John Hindle, know that although you have not directly impacted my life, your loss has affected hundreds if not thousands around you. Your family has provided some light in my life and know that we will always be thinking of you.
It does not matter how many times you have visited their house or conversations you have had with them, your heart will always be bruised by their absence, an aching to bring them back for the sake of their family.
What were once laughs turn into choked gasps, struggles for air as your heart and mind collide in forming sounds.
Death is a profound thing.
John Hindle, know that although you have not directly impacted my life, your loss has affected hundreds if not thousands around you. Your family has provided some light in my life and know that we will always be thinking of you.
09 November 2010
Stumble
"Because of you, in gardens of blossoming flowers I ache from the perfumes of spring.
I have forgotten your face, I no longer remember your hands; how did your lips feel on mine?
Because of you, I love the white statues drowsing in the parks, the white statues that have neither voice nor sight.
I have forgotten your voice, your happy voice; I have forgotten your eyes.
Like a flower to its perfume, I am bound to my vague memory of you. I live with pain that is like a wound; if you touch me, you will do irreparable harm.
Your caresses enfold me, like climbing vines on melancholy walls.
I have forgotten your love, yet I seem to glimpse you in every window.
Because of you, the heady perfumes of summer pain me; because of you, I again seek out the signs that precipitate desires; shooting stars, falling objects."
-Pablo Neruda
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