Sorry.

Just a random thing I felt like writing....I've been really preoccupied by the concept of growing up lately....It seems like the more I think about it, the faster time goes. So I try not to think about it, but that's like trying not to think about something when someone commands you not to. It just doesn't work.

Sorry. She was sorry. Sorry that when she looked in the mirror, she saw someone older than she expected. In her mind's eye, she saw her five-year-old self, puzzled and hurt by the neglect she was showing to the setting world of her childhood.

But it was inevitable. The days--they just slipped, she couldn't help it, they just got away from her, leaked out of her tightly cupped hands. She wanted to find the source, use one hand to stopper time, wherever it began, and use her other hand to reach out to the girl of her past, the girl being left behind, the girl being locked away--alone in a world of magic, vibrant colors, and childish secrets meant to be whispered into attentive ears, not brokenly mumbled into empty air. But she was too far gone, the time was too late.

There once was a time she was sure who she was, when some magic, and dreams, and her faith was enough. There once was a day she hoped she'd become a hero like in the cartoons she'd so devotedly watched, when she thought she'd rise up and unfold her wings. But she grew and changed, the world changed, time was moving, moving along, pushing and nudging her towards new dreams, more realistic and cold hopes, more logical and precise wishes. It nudged so far into cold and rationality that that the dreams, hopes, and wishes soon became "goals"--stony pellets and shells that encased her soft, glittering, childish heart. Goals closed her eyes with exhaustion when years ago she'd spent her nights intently staring at the ceiling sprinkled with glow-in-the-dark stars from Toys-R-Us. Back then, the ceiling had been the whole galaxy and beyond.

Sorry. She was so sorry. Sorry to her reflection, sorry for hating that awkward girl in the mirror. Sorry to the past, sorry for locking it away. And sorry to herself, because she was stuck, in between. Between the child who had to be forgotten in order to survive the new obstacles time brought, and the adult she feared becoming--the adult who embodied dullness, faithlessness, and utter cynicism.

You don't know me.

Something just occurred to me, and I wanted to get it down.

Do most people feel as if their parents know them? While I've been doing college application essays, and other people have been doing the same, I feel like that issue has been coming up a lot....

At first, I wrote an essay that I thought would turn out well...I sat down and said, I"M WRITING MY COLLEGE ESSAY....STARTING NOW. My mom read it and hated it. She was like, it doesn't sound like you.

I must admit, I ended up agreeing with her, but at first I got super pissed about it and it ended up being a two-week long argument. She said my essay was too negative, dark, and unappealing. I responded by saying, "Well clearly you don't know me then. But I know myself, and I know I'm in this essay, and if you don't like me this way, that's too bad." But she won the argument, and I edited the essay over, and over, and over again to make it "positive" until I realized I'd edited myself out completely, and I was trying to write in the voice of a stranger. The idea I'd had, the idea I'd been enthusiastic about for months, the idea I'd anticipated writing eagerly, became ugly, and later I couldn't stand it.

So I scrapped it, eventually. And I was super upset, so I was writing about how I was upset about that....and then that became my new college essay.....@_@ super circular and ironic. And after that, I wrote two more essays, and as of yet the three essays all feel like me, I think. I hope.

My mom likes these better. But still, there are times when she points at a line and says, THIS ISN"T YOU, and I say HOW WOULD YOU KNOW. This whole back and forth process has been stressing me out. It made me wonder if I was abnormal or unreasonable, if I was the only one having these huge arguments.

But then I heard a lot of people talking about the same things, and it made me think that the college essay really is a sort of pressure cooker. People get pushed by everyone else on all sides--do this, do that, take that out, I don't like this, you should be that. So it's critical to truthful, good writing to be honest to yourself. Follow intuition. If it feels wrong for you, it's because it is wrong for you. It doesn't matter if you don't know exactly, explicitly, precisely who you are. Somehow, if there's something that clicks, even if you don't know what, you should follow through with it. An essay about yourself should be something that you can smile about, not something that you hate. It should be something easy to write, not something that you worry about or something that makes you feel insecure.

People don't, people can't, know all about you. People can't know all about me. The writer needs to take control, because they're the only ones who can easily, naturally, beautifully lay themselves out on the paper.

Heffalumps and Woozles.

I was having a conversation with David Cannon about Halloween, which turned into a conversation about Pooh Bear.

And then i got a link to a video that forever changed my perspective on pooh bear. And Heffalumps and Woozles, for that matter.



...I don't remember Winnie the Pooh being this scary. I wonder if I never noticed because at the time I was five. I watched a Sailor Moon episode and realized all of the bad guys are complete creepers, too.

How do children not notice such creepy things? Maybe my mind has just been corrupted.

I also worry and wonder who made this video.

Nevertheless, I think I can forgive the Pooh Bear team for this mind-freak, Pooh Bear's still awesome because I still have a million Pooh Bears attached to my back pack.

Video Games...in My Sleep? AHJDSJLASASJDKL

I don't really like blogging about how life's been going and all that crap, I feel like blogs should be more for like...thoughts? or particular topics that's the central focus of the whollllllle blog, but what do I know? Also, i'm a hypocrite. And if you tell me you're not, you're a hypocrite too....(ummm that sounds circular...but I hope that made sense).

Anyways, I realized how sadly college has already been eating my life from a dream I had last night!

Warning: I have weird dreams.

I've been really interested in the concept of lucid dreaming lately. This link basically lays out the gist of what lucid dreaming is, and how people practice it! I really want to be able to dream lucidly....it kinda makes me feel like...I'd be playing a video game, except I'd be IN THE VIDEOGAME.....IN MY SLEEP. People can do whatever they imagine in lucid dreams, the sky's the limit!...literally. If you want to fly, you can fly, instantly. Because you're aware that you're dreaming, and you can control everything you want, however much you want.

...Maybe it's unrealistic that I'm hoping to use lucid dreaming to do the impossible.

Too bad.

So...I've been practicing strategies to lucid dream. Basically, this consists of me spending random moments of the day feeling stupid while I look at a wall and try to change it's color with the force of my mind. It's like using a totem in Inception, just less cool. If the wall changes color, OMG YOU'RE ACTUALLY DREAMING AND NOW YOU KNOW. If the wall doesn't change color, you should stop. You're awake, and looking at the wall with so much focus makes you look like a dork.

~So if this becomes a habit, it increases the chance that you'll look at a wall while you're asleep/dreaming and that you'll try to change it's color while you're asleep. Which is what I did last night!!! and the wall REALLY changed color from yellow to green and purple and I freaked out in my sleep, because I realized I was dreaminggggg.

Apparently people unpracticed in lucid dreaming are super stupid when they're dreaming. In my dream, my mom, who has been yelling at me about college apps for what feels like forever (why so azn, mom?), was STILL YELLING at me about them. SO then, my brilliant dream-self reasoned that since my mom was still freaking about college apps, and not being nice or letting me do whatever (aka play video games, watch TV, fly, walk on the walls, etc), I was actually AWAKE. Yes, I convinced myself that somehow, even though the wall just changed color, my mother's anger proved that I'd been imagining the color change, and that I was actually awake. So I literally forgot that I was dreaming. T_T

My dreams SUCK.

They're either completely lame and boring, or I'm always being chased by zombies and trying to kill them with a black baseball bat I got in second grade that I keep in my closet. And then the zombies come attack me and overwhelm me, and I die, because my mom's too busy cooking the rice or calculating taxes or rearranging the furniture to help me.

...why does this happen?!?! I must say I really, really hope dreams are NOT a reflection of a person's life at all....

Assigned Blog Post #6: You should keep on blogging :)

I've really gotten to love this blogging thing....at first, it was hard to start writing, but the internet really does make it easier for people to express themselves, although, they actually SHOULD be expressing themselves all the more in real life :)

Sometimes, I write, and I just know I'm not getting anywhere. I forget what I'm even writing about, and the post bugs me because I just know there wasn't any heart or real care in it. It becomes internet junk, it's just there to take up space and waste words. Other times, I get frustrated because I write so much slower than I think, and I might post two, three, FOUR posts a day....so I'm really jealous of the super consistent writers I've seen while blog surfing. And so many people seem to have only good blog posts. Each post is so carefully measured out and pristine, they capture something special, each post becomes precious, so I really enjoy reading every single one of their posts.

In particular, I've really liked this blog, it's practically my favorite. I think I especially liked it because not only is the writing unique, but I also think I see a new side of the author I didn't expect!! My favorite part of the blogs is when I read a blog and I'm surprised to see who the author is, and they become all the more awesome and interesting to get to know :).
The blog I linked has a lot of interesting details, a lot of the writing assignments, as well as pictures and opinions posted for fun. Super cool.

So yeah! I'm glad that these blogs were assigned, and I really (unrealistically) wish everyone kept blogging after this class was over. It's amazing to see all these snippets of people you thought you knew--to find that they're actually so much more.

I wish I played videogames.....

....Just saying.

I REALLY WANT TO PLAY TWILIGHT PRINCESS WTF

I noticed over the last few days I'm an incredible dork. I was listening....to the sound track of Twilight Princess because I want that to be the first video game I play!!! And I liked the music a lot.....I think it's because it just gets me in a positive mood, and makes me feel like I'm in the video game, almost.....dorky, I know. But a lot of the time, I love video games, or cartoons, or books, and stories because it gets me out of my life and into a whole new world. Because that's the point of a lot of fantasy, right? It's a good reliever of stress, and gives people a time to just imagine, and be in an ideal world, where they can have ridiculous powers, or be able to believe in magic, or do things they wouldn't be able to achieve in real life...and when I draw, or write random things, it's kind of the same thing...because I make up a whole 'nother place in my head, right?

So I think videogame graphics, or cartoons, etc can be really counted as a true form of art.... For a long time, I kind of looked down on art as an idea. It didn't really compare, I thought, with being something like a doctor. While doctors saved people's lives, artists just made pretty pictures. But that's so incorrect...art is what happens when people express their thoughts, and good artists can bring people into their own worlds, and make people believe in what they believe in, love what they love, and see things how they see things. Doctors save lives in the physical sense, but art saves lives in the mental sense, I think.

But there are times when playing games, or watching a cartoon, or looking at fantastical landscapes and whatnot kind of make me sad. It makes me slightly crestfallen when I look at those sorts of things, and then realize that while in the imaginary world people are off taming dragons, and fighting monsters, or whatever, I need to turn back to my desk and finish my AP Stats, Quiz 5.1.

Oh homework. You thrill me -.-

Or I listen to....like, the Sailor Moon theme song, and I get a flood of memories of wanting to be Sailor Moon when I was little. And then I check the time, and it's 3 in the morning. It makes me wonder if people have the time in their lives to live in two separate ways, two separate places--one life in the mind, far, far away, another life right where gravity holds them down, right side up, stuck to solid ground that seems to get...too real sometimes.

And being a child is so much more awesome, when it comes to these things. Children have the wonderful ability, I think, to completely immerse themselves in different worlds. It's so easy to believe things :3. But maybe length of childhood, or the ability for one to control one's childhood doesn't have to be the same for everyone. With practice, consideration, deliberation, and care, it's a skill that can be cultivated over time. Growing up doesn't mean you need to forget how to believe in ridiculous things, even if it's just for a little while.

Flashing Back

Flashbacks are weird things. Weird, but cool. And yes, the combination is possible. They sorta-kinda get me thinking about the flashbacks that occur for people in real life....whereas flashbacks in writing are usually for stylistic and informative reasons, how and why do people get flashbacks in their daily lives? Sometimes, I can semi-tell if someone is flashbacking....or at least zoned out and thinking super hard about something. I probs do the same thing. My eyes go all out of focus and when I was little my mom would interrupt to tell me to shut my mouth while I'm thinking. I want to know what triggers such long chains of thought, and why I get grumpy when I have to bring my mind back to focus. Once I start thinking it gets annoying to switch off of that chain of thought, and my mind feels all weird and disoriented...maybe that's just me.....T_T

ANYWAYS those sorts of chains of thought seem to be really linked to flashbacks, I think, or a sense of nostalgia, of retracing something from before. Like when I reread a book (Harry Potter! Ender's Game!) or something....which is possibly why people get more out of rereading books...I think.

I'm going to quit writing. I was thinking about this for a while, and now i've COMPLETELY lost track of what I'm talking about. this is a problem.

Swimmer Flashback:

He reeled back from the sight of the mansion’s emptiness and staggered back down across the driveway and lay himself down on the great expanse of rough, cold concrete. While he lay still, his eyes flickered in every direction as hidden memories flooded his mind.

He stood away, backed from the mansion, as the movers hauled out his tagged furniture. Hard lines gripped his face as he looked around and saw the red price tags everywhere, on everything, everything he no longer owned. He had gotten a phone call that morning from the bank, and when they told him they had taken over his property, he’d slopped his claret of Russian icewine onto his crisp designer shirt. He sighed. Well, there was no time for it now. It was already afternoon, and the movers refused to let him back into the house. He busied himself with drinking as much of his best wine as he could without inebriating himself to the point of passing out. He began to feel woozy, and he barely registered that Lucinda’s shoulder was what was holding him up, and that somewhere in the background one of his daughters was sniffling loudly.

After all the furniture was moved out, the bank representative came over and held his hand out for the keys to the mansion.

Neddy just stared back at him with bleary eyes.

“I can’t give you the keys,” he slurred, “where’s my family supposed to go? You’ve taken my business and my furniture; I can’t give you the house.”

“Sorry, but your business isn’t worth a dime. You’ve got to pay it all back somehow.” The representative gently loosened the keys from his hand, bowed politely to his wife, and walked away.

Neddy turned back to his wife and children. His youngest was still sniveling and wiping her nose.

“Where do we go now?” he asked them. He was lost, reduced to a child, no longer the laughing, confident man in the crisp dress shirt, holding his champagne steadily, firmly.

That night was spent at the Westerhazys’. The next night, at the Halloran’s. Then, the Grahams’, the Bunkers’, the Crosscups’, the Sachs’, Biswangers’, Gilmartins’, and the Clydes—each in rotation, throughout the neighborhood. Eventually, Lucinda had approached him, when they were staying at the Levys’.

“Neddy, dear, I don’t think we can keep this up. We need to find somewhere to stay for a while. You need to work.”

They didn’t, he’d insisted. Their neighbors loved them. They’d be able to stay as long as they needed, and once he got his business back, he’d repay them. Besides, he couldn’t work, he refused to work. Once he started such work, he’d no longer been the right set, and then, they wouldn’t be able to get any help from the neighbors at all.

The officers had found his wife the next morning, mangled body on the side of the highway, twisted from the force of falling such a long way from the bridge above. He was deemed unsuitable for taking care of his daughters, and they’d been moved to a foster home. Somewhere. Far away. He didn’t know exactly where.

Suddenly, Neddy opened his eyes. He’d been dozing on the cement, but it was getting late, and his body was losing valuable heat. Getting up from his cramped position, he shuffled stiffly off. Perhaps the Welchers would house him tonight.

Where are the heroes?

I just felt like writing today....I was supposed to be doing that flashback assignment, but I always have problems answering the prompt -.-
I guess I have trouble focusing stuff to a predetermined purpose. Some writing just happens instinctively, without direction.
Not sure if I liked how it ended up, but I stuck with it....and now I can't believe I'm posting this.
Ugh.

"In the name of love and justice, we shall punish you!"

Slam. Bam. Alakazam.

With a flood of colors, the magical girl-wonder waved her unicorn scepter and turned the ugly, disproportionate monster to shadow-dust. The screen blacked out quickly, and small white credits began inching up, up, up, in time with the soft music.

She kept watching, eyes staring emptily at the white parade, ear buds gently buzzing against the walls of her ears. She always watched until the credits were done. Even though girl-wonder was no longer in action, beating up the bad guys, and zapping them to another dimension, she still liked the final image that played throughout the closing song, the image of the heroine standing still (for once), peacefully alone on a hill and looking up at a sparkling sky with a bright, fuzzy full moon.

As the music faded out and the screen darkened, she let out a small, singular "Hah!" and popped out the ear buds. Once again, the show had proven to be ridiculous, childish and cheesy, and yet she couldn't stop herself from watching another episode--or another whole season of it, for that matter. She couldn't wean herself off her addiction.

With her ear buds removed, she was once again out, out in reality. She could hear the muffled sounds of her mother, yelling at her dad over the phone, through the walls of her room. Arguing, again. Maybe she needed to watch the next episode while things cooled down. Too late. She'd shut down the computer.

What made her watch these things? These juvenile, unsophisticated, melodramatic TV shows? While others watched TV dramas, or reality TV, what was it that made her turn back to her favorite TV program from when she was five? Had she really not grown during the decade since then? It was getting difficult to watch--the ridiculous plot was painful to listen to, and she kept it an embarrassing secret.

She rubbed her eyes. Perhaps it was the memories. She remembered, years back, sitting in the living room, eyes glued to the TV screen in utter absorption, cheering on girl-wonder through a mouthful of potato chips and sweet Capri Sun. Well then. She had grown up, because watching it now wasn't the same. Now, she watched the exaggerated scenes and listened to unrealistic voice-overs not because she really believed, but because it helped her remember. There was a drawing, entrapping sense of nostalgia. By letting herself be temporarily convinced by the impossibilities, even if just for a second, she became a child again.

But then....it was never complete. She really, truly wasn't five anymore, in any sense. Somewhere in the back of her mind, it was clear that her life would never be as magical or adventurous as what she saw. The Real World ran on a ticking, ticking clock, and dreamers weren't welcome. With her nostalgia came an addictive jealousy. She wished she lived in a world where heroes and villains existed, where it was easy to tell good apart from evil, where goodness always won. She, too, wanted to have magic, and wanted to be surrounded by people with "good dreams,"--by people who had stars implanted in their hearts. She wanted there to be a sovereign force, complete trust in everyone, a pegasus, and a ridiculously perfect moon kingdom ruled by love and justice!

So amateur. So unrealistic. Once the show was over, and the credits rolled, and the music faded out, she was left with just a computer screen, knowing that her heroes only existed in her head, and that really, she had trouble trusting even the people closest to her.

When she was five, she had thought adults were stupid. They were narrow-minded because they lacked faith in magic while somehow, she was sure, magic existed, even if they couldn't see it. She felt it made her open-minded to keep believing, to keep looking. She searched for the secret magic, the hiding mythical creatures, and the dream-life for years. But slowly, the hopes dried up as she grew, as she came closer to being an "adult." Adult. What an ugly, faithless, skeptic word. Being a child, with endless, unstoppable faith and imagination was so much more wonderful and beautiful. As a child, she didn't need to wonder, "Where are the heroes? Where have they gone?" Instead, at five-years-old, she'd known, she'd just known, that the heroes were hiding from forbidden, human eyes, maybe concealed just around the corner, or standing behind her, out of sight. Or, she had thought, perhaps there was a hero inside her, too, waiting to come out once it was time for her to save the world and the galaxy beyond.

Sighing, she leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes in an uncomfortable attempt to fall asleep. The heroes and villains of her five-year-old reality had packed their bags and left long ago. But maybe, just maybe, somewhere they still fought, lived, and hid...somewhere, deep in her dreams.

Walls

Walls

She likes it the moment she sees it at the Home Depot store. Because it glows vibrant—the perfect mixture of perfect yellow and perfect blue. Or so her nine-year-old self believes. It’s been painted onto a small card, labeled: Pastel Sage. She doesn’t know at the time that sage is a plant. She only knows that a sage is a wise person, and on the car ride home, she wonders why wisdom is green. At home, her mother holds up the card against the wall, giving a nod of assent, and the next week, the frigid white walls of her room thaw to a piquant freshness, albeit one with lingering paint fumes.

The next year, age ten, she sits in a chair in the middle of her room and stares, frustrated, at Pastel Sage, wishing it were Cream, or Soft Orange, some other hue that would conform more to the color of her furnishings. She doesn’t like that the walls are so like her. At school, she too sticks out, unusual and mismatching—different hopes, different ideas, different jokes, different understanding. The only student who wouldn’t be fed into the local middle school when graduation day came. She gets up and hides the walls with posters and drawings, and as she does, she clumsily drives thumbtacks into both the walls and her heart, because she finds playing pretend difficult at school. Other girls want to become princesses, singers, movie stars. Secretly she likes solving word problems for math and aspires to become a scientist.

Some years pass. Over this period of time, she realizes that Pastel Sage is actually four different colors:

Black, with soft green flecks. She sees this color for the first time the night before sixth grade. It’s past midnight and she still can’t sleep. She notices that the light from the lamps outside pokes through holes in the blinds, projecting small, green stars onto the ceiling. She’ll see this color every night from now on. It gives her hope for the future and the courage to dream on.

Cool green. She sees this color the next morning. It’s 6 AM, and her half-asleep stupor dissolves as the bluish tint makes everything almost unreal. Later, she also sees it on rainy days or on cold afternoons, and she likes it for the sense of creativity it gives her. Her room becomes a personal, magical cave, and when she’s down, she turns to it to get a hold of herself again.

Fluorescent, artificial green. She learns to avoid this color. She sees it after late nights awake, typing desperately at the computer. The walls look bright but shallow, washed out, like herself at her most difficult, stressful times, and the “eggshell” finish makes the whole place dull and unreflective. She drags herself through the day afterwards.

Warm green. Once she’s picked herself back up, this is her zesty color of strength, of grabbing the Now. She’s usually the most efficient, most concentrated when it’s like that. Like her walls, she becomes bold, enthusiastic. She sees more and more of it as she grows up, and she learns that it’ll always return, even after the most fluorescent of days.

Twelfth grade. She walks into her room one day and begins filling in the holes the thumbtacks left in her walls. She paints over the scratches, dark fingerprints, and dents. Finally, she begins sticking on a few of her favorite drawings and pictures from her life with poster gum. But one wall she leaves wide and blank. More time needs to pass before she can fill it. Because she sees that the walls she has been living with for years are a canvas—a background on which she expresses herself, her overarching thoughts and emotions. As she stands back to look at her work, warm green floods the room.

Nostalgia

I don't consider myself a writer. On a normal basis, the idea of writing kinda makes me cringe. I journal because I want to keep memories, not necessarily because I feel like writing. Which is why I always push back, back journal entries, saying, I'll do it tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, until I realize I've forgotten what I was first going to write about, or I turn to my last journal entry and freak about the fact that it's from a month ago. Or when we get an essay from school, I just get a sinking feeling, thinking about how I'm going to spend the next several days sitting in front of my computer and getting my skin bleached by the light coming off the screen.

Other times, like the flash backs we discussed in class (but not really), something happens, and I have to write. I'm afraid of forgetting stuff, losing ideas, or not recording something important for future reference, and if I'm unfortunate enough, I'll have to get up in the middle of the night to scribble something on a random scrap sheet or an index card before I forget it...although I probably won't be able to read it the next morning. And when I actually get myself to journal or write letters, I can't seem to stop. I might as well finish and get out a lot of thoughts once I start, right?

So those are the times when I feel compelled to write--kind of forced by my conscience. And my other reason is tied to fear of forgetfulness I guess, but it's a different way of looking at it...I like looking back at old journal entries. They're like a call from the past, and then there's a wave of nostalgia, kin of (I sound like I'm 100 years old....). A lot of the time that makes me upset, but I feel like nostalgia's also important and necessary, despite people always saying, "Move FORWARD!!!!!! INTO THE FUTURE!!!! LIVE IN THE NOW AND SEIZE THE DAY!!!" Once I'm through with the upset part of nostalgia, I'm actually a bit more cheerful and a dab more secure than I started off. Nostalgia's like a check against the future. It's exactly as it sounds--sad, but soft and round, comforting and warm. When I move too far forward, all at once, that I get lost, I look back and see how I got where I am. I retrace my steps--laugh at mistakes, cry at losses, listen to old music, draw with crayons, look at pictures, and youtube a TV show I used to love--all to run into Nostalgia's arms. i rest a little in the past, because it's easier to relive things than to forge ahead, always pushing the boundaries of time. I think that it's important, especially now that I'm applying to college, that I keep the sense of Nostalgia alive, because it's so easy to try and put up a pretense, a perfect-student-image that's set and cropped to match what we think colleges want. And there's all that rush--people get ready for the next stage in their lives, and it kinda makes them forget what they're also in the process of leaving behind.

Assigned Blog Post #5: Child

Prompt: Copy the style of Jamaica Kinkaid’s “Girl” and title your piece similarly (e.g. Boy, Kid, Gal, etc.) What kind of directions can you give? What are the do’s and don’t's of being a “girl” (kid, boy, man, boss, etc.)? If you’d like, write this in the voice of your Carrillon Point character. Due by next Monday, October 11th.

Child

Brush your teeth in the morning after you wake up; brush your teeth in the night before you go to bed; brush them up-and-down, left-to-right, criss-cross; don’t slurp your soup so loudly; say “please” when you want something and “thank you” when you get it; don’t doodle on all you’re your things—keep them clean; tread lightly when you walk, because your stomping disturbs the neighbors and the home below us; wash your hands for a minute before you eat; did you really push little Emily during recess?; put your feet on the ground when you sit, not resting on another chair, like a lazy bum sleeping out on the streets; wipe your mouth on a napkin after you’re done eating; don’t push Emily again; smile and try to pay attention when your teacher is talking to you—don’t be drawing on your papers; don’t tip your chair back like that, or someday you’ll fall and split your head open; but Emily pushed me first, for no good reason; don’t talk back; don’t cry; don’t snivel; don’t protest in that manner; do as you’re told—I know better; this is how to get up after you’ve fallen; this is how to rub in iodine solution to clean scrapes; this is how to put a bandage on your shameful knees so that it won’t peel off when you’re out running like a hooligan again; this is how to sit down and study; this is how to keep track of time while you test, so you finish and don’t fail and get rejected from college, like the ne’er-do-well you would be by now if it weren’t for me; this is how you erase those ridiculous drawings in the back of your book in case your teacher sees; this is how you keep your things smart and neat—plain and professional, because your doodles make you look uneducated and bored; this is how you make a reputation for yourself; this is how you do well in school; this is how you keep your 4.0; this is how you network; this is how you laugh when things get awkward; this is how you laugh when you’re happy; this is how you laugh when you really want to cry; this is how to look educated; this is how to look professional; this is how to feel professional; this is how to hide how you feel when you think you’ve been betrayed; this is how to get over it; this is how to work your internship at the laboratory so that they don’t see the lazy, doodling idiot you are inside; be sure you don’t draw on any of your important papers—and if you do be sure to start everything over; quit wasting your time on drawing these useless things—you’re not very good, honestly; quit applying for art scholarships—you’re not studying art; don’t start studying art, because it’s too late and you’re too far behind the real art students; this is how to apply to merit scholarships; this is how to write appealing essays; this is how to present yourself; this is how to present your goals; this is how to rewrite them if they don’t look quite right; this is how to deal with it if you still don’t like what your goals are; this is how to apply to college so you’ll get in for sure; this is how you apply to medical school; this is how you apply to law school if you change your mind, though medical school is better; this is how to work a regular life to pay for medical school; this is how to call out sick if you can’t work it; this is how to study your heart out once you get into medical school; but what if I don’t get into medical school?; so after all this time and work, are you really still bent on becoming one of those emotional, doodling bums sitting on the streets?