The Dark

...since I didn't post for a long while, this is a long post.

She rubs her eyes and looks at the walls again. At the moment, they’re looking a sickly, fluorescent sort of color—more lemon yellow than soft green—that makes the pit of her stomach feel even emptier. But it’s not just her stomach. As the hours slip by—midnight, one, two, three, four, five in the morning—she, in her entirety, becomes emptier and emptier, like her mind’s being removed, carved out, gutted out of her body. Turning back to the computer, she tries to conjure up emotion, ideas, thoughts. Something? 

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halp, html does not love me

I am quite convinced that html hates me, actually.

On one hand....I finished another picture with my tablet! YAYYYYYYYYY this picture has been bugging me for ages because i've always been
intending to do it...while not actually doing it. BUT the snow day decided to happen, and I got to put off homework even mooooooore than usual.

ON THE OTHER HANDDD
I can't figure out all this stupid html crap blah blah blah and i don't get how to make it the background scale itself according to the screen size/browser size.
Somebody help me please? ._.
I already tried googling, I don't understand ;_;

....yeah.

uhm. what? double rainbows? not really.

I'm currently supposed to be working on college apps. But I never seem to be able to think of anything relevant unless it's due in 5 minutes.

....and it's not due in 5 minutes. So.

I haven't written anything for a while. I just feel like I don't really have anything to say. Actually, I do have things to say. I'm just being super lazy. It's hibernation season. All this winter and snow makes me feel extra slow.

But after listening to the same song on repeat 42 (43 now...) times, I've decided I really should write something. Even if it's not for college apps. So I'm just going to write a random story, regardless of how terribly it turns out. It's half stream of consciousness, since I'm just going to write it as random ideas pop into my head. Okay?

Even if you're not okay with it, too bad. I really need to get writing. And I feel sort of snobby right now. Sorry.

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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.

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....

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.

Just Because

I'm tired. Sometimes I feel like I get so caught up in the "daily-routine-of-the-average-teenager" that I'm not really quite alive. So I think I'll just take some time to blog. Not blogging for homework, or blogging for class stuff. Just blogging, just talking. Just because.

Mentioning the whole every-day-routine deal in the previous paragraph made me think of something. To a certain extent, the "daily-routine" sort of freaks me out. It insights a sort of fear, and when I think about it for too long, I can actually feel my heart rate go up and my lungs start to hyperventilate. hm....I need a name for the thing I'm going to talk about next. So here goes:

The Daily-Routine-Factor. The Daily-Routine-Factor is the part of one's life that makes it like any other day. It might be good, it might be boring.

For me, it is terrifyingly boring. I think this is sort of at the heart of me not wanting to grow up. When I see adults, working from 9 to 5, with wayyyy less vacation time and wayyyy more stress, it makes me wonder. Is life this way for everyone? Is this the way life needs to be run? It seems like people spend the prime of their lives so they can spend the last few in satisfaction. But shouldn't there be another way to live, a way where not only the retirement years are enjoyable, but also the working years?

I guess the answer is yes, there is a way, but it's highly unlikely for anyone to be completely satisfied. So this really gets to an issue that's been on my mind since last year. Science or art?
Both things I enjoy, to some extent, both with their benefits and faults.

I can understand Science. In science, I think there's less of a risk, it's just about guaranteed you can find yourself an educated steady income in medicine. Research helps people. Science has a defined answer. You're right or your wrong. No uncertainty.

I can also, on the other hand, understand art. Art is risky, though. No certainty, 'cause it's based upon opinion, right? An artist puts him or herself onto a blank canvas, people look at the artist, splattered across the medium, and reach a decision. Art is subject to gaping, praising, disagreeing, burning, vandalizing, copying, inspiring, adoring, hoping, dreaming. But I'm drawn to art. Although pursuing art would probably make me worried about having to live on the streets and whatnot, over the years, I've found art to be increasingly amazing!!! Art's not just drawing, or painting, I think. It's writing, photographing, sculpting, doodling, sketching, folding origami, scribbling letters. It's creating, and creating is a powerful thing. You take an object, hold an idea in your mind, and try to inject the idea into the object to the best of your ability. You place a teeny weeny bit of your soul into each piece, and then the piece has a life of its own.

I think I really want a life that is open to constant change--always something new to look forward too, an adventure. But I also want to be able to fight for something that will help other people--cures to diseases, research on maintaining better health. Maybe somewhere the two overlap. I hope so.

No-Name.

This next post is what I wrote for the character-yearning assignment. To be honest, I didn't really want to post this. Something about it isn't right...but I can't figure out which part to fix. I've been tinkering here and there, and the wrong-ness just gets worse and worse.

So why did I post it?

I think I feel a certain responsibility to post everything I write for this course onto my writing blog.....Cause not everyone's checking this blog right?!? 0.0....anyways, it's like, I owe it to the blog to not let the flow of posts stutter and stop...so here it is.

No-Name

Janie’s mother wants her to scrap her college essay. She says it’s too dark, uncreative, and untruthful. It is not the Janie she knows, she is sure.

But who is Janie? She is certainly not the same person as Jane Doe, who goes to school and has friends (she hopes), and laughs, and jokes, and fools around. Jane Doe lives outside and doesn’t know how to frown. She has the depth of a paper plate and the contentedness of an ignorant child.

Janie spends her time at home. Sometimes she is laughing with her mother and smiling with a wordless happiness, other times not. Other times she is fighting and saying cruel things. But Janie’s mother sees no reason for Janie to be truly unhappy. She has had unbelievable luck in life. This consists of plenty to eat, a warm home, and a robust moral education. And Jane Doe, of whom Janie’s mother is also aware, has also had unbelievable luck, this time consisting of a busy social life, abundant resources, and robust academics. Between Janie and Jane Doe, Janie’s mother asserts, nothing is amiss.

But there is also She. Janie’s mother doesn’t know who this is.

She. As in, “She who knows not what her name is,” or “She who answers to Janie and Jane Doe, but feels strange in both names, when She takes the time to think about it.” So let us refer to She as No-Name, for the time being.

No-Name is always confused and never knows what to do. She has much too many dreams, and each dream is a much-too-big dream. No-Name sits up late at night, criss-cross-apple-sauced and straight-backed in her bed, thinking. Listening, to the ticking of her clock and her own breathing. She listens steadily as Time circles her, very close, but never near enough for her to catch in her clumsy hands, so the hours always slip-slide-slip and tick-tock-tick away. No-Name dreams even when she’s awake, and she can be ridiculously foolish. She cries and laughs at the same time. She is all feeling and intuition, so there are no order to her thoughts, yet she continues to think and think, until she slips into a deep, dreamless sleep—which annoys her because she likes dreaming, regardless of whether it’s nightmare or fairytale. Perhaps No-Name doesn’t dream in her sleep because she dreams too much when she’s awake. Because she is already a shadow, insubstantial and invisible, when she is awake.

So when No-Name is asleep, she is gone. Non-existent. She returns in the morning when her body wakes up. But she doesn’t stay for long. If people saw No-Name, they would laugh, which is why she never leaves her room. Her captivity is an inevitable phenomenon, she thinks. She is a blundering, illogical, emotional mess. While her mind is quick, her heart lacks defenses. Her heart is an egg with no shell. There’s just that thin, clear membrane surrounding the core—the yolk—and when you poke it, if you dare poke it, it will surely pop, and the yellow will flood out, into the whites, utterly vulnerable and lost.

When No-Name finds herself looking at the Name blanks on her assignments and school forms, she doesn’t know how to sign them. She doesn’t know how to sign the cards and letters that she writes. Janie? Jane Doe? She feels like not signing, or signing as someone else, though she doesn’t yet know who that “someone else” is.

No-Name is rewriting her college essay. She goes through the trouble of scrapping the first because Janie’s mother is right. Her essay is too dark, uncreative, untruthful. But No-Name does not want to write as the Janie her mother knows. She wants to write an essay about herself, truly. An essay that will place her securely on the paper. But how does one truthfully write about oneself? How can one form words when one is a chaotic splatter of ink on a Rorschach test? How does one grab one’s dreams and lay them bare on so fragile a medium?—A medium that can be water-logged, ripped, shredded, burned.

In the end, the name at the top of the paper will be Jane Doe, and the person written into the essay will be Janie. As she writes, No-Name suspects she will fail to leave the confines of her room yet again. Yet again, she sits safe and unhappy in the quiet.