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I study languages.

Sunday, May 30, 2010

Stories.

My little sister Emma writes stories in her first grade class. Here are three I can't stop thinking about.

(Title: The Magic Apple)
Once there was a apple tree. All the apples were ripe. Exept one...one was still a flower blossom. When all the other apples fell down the late bloomer was ripe by then...but it didn't fall down like the others, it took 5 years, then it fell down. Somebody found it and put it in their pocket. That person was sad.

(Untitled)
It's the night before Easter. I can hardly wait. But when I went to bed that night I woke by a crash. In what a crazy sight I looked then I saw the Easter Bunny! I know I saw him. He was standing in the living room hiding baskets, I took out my camra made it zoom. I went down stairs and told him my name. Then he shrunk and he shrunk but his face looked the same.

(Untitled)
Once there was a black cat...but this cat could talk. One day a girl named Lily came along and found the cat. She gave it a name...his name was Blacky. She took him home. Her mother said she could not keep him, but her father let her. She was so so happy. She played with him every second of the day. But one day Lily and her family went on a vacation but cats were not aloud. So they had to leave him. He was so hungry that he died.

---------------

In "The Magic Apple," the eponymous apple's magic is not the fairy blessing typical of traditional children's tales; rather, the apple forces its finder to mourn for the late bloomer that took so painfully long to fall. Metaphorically, this imagery calls to mind Cormac McCarthy's The Road. After a presumed nuclear holocaust, a father and son wander the deserted, melted roads, scavenging food and shelter to keep themselves alive. As the story opens, the man and the boy, along with a handful of other humans who roam the country as lonely pilgrims or inhuman cannibal gangs, have survived the destruction that knocked down all the other apples. The boy is a "late bloomer" but matures fast; his situation is such that "when all the other apples fell down the late bloomer was ripe by then." He is one of the last children left, and his aging father is saddened by the fact that once old age claims him, the boy will be left alone. Initially, the boy and the man do not "fall down like the others," but after a few years fighting for his child's survival, the man passes away and the boy is picked up by a rare roving family not unlike his own. They pick him up and put him in their pocket with mixed emotions, knowing they too will soon die and leave the otherwise defenseless children to fend for themselves.

The imagery at the end of the second story would be chilling enough as prose, but the rabbit's supernatural behavior is intensified by presenting the action in a rhyming couplet.

And in the third story, the fact that the cat is able to talk does not save him.

Thursday, May 27, 2010

An Ode to Lost.


Lost! O matchless Lost!
Six sweet years is thy dear cost.
Now I've seen the series through
And I eulogize for you.

Lost! Thy intellect!
Leaving Oceanic wrecked
Drove tens of thousands into sects
To worship thy great architects.

Lost! O drama fine!
Thy complexities entwine
Through metaphysics, space, and time
To yield climactic scenes sublime.

Lost! O didact fierce!
Hearts you softened, scared, and pierced!
Millions mad to miss a minute
Knew there was a method in it.

Lost! Where didst thou go?
With no more episodes to show,
Extinguished animals in man
Will never wake to feed again.

Lost! Ardently mourned!
Thy viewers islands now, forlorn.
Melodic chords ring in their ears
as closing eyes spill wistful tears.

Cherished Lost! Belov'd! Adored!
Abstracted and metaphor'd!
Before you take your early leave
Know you allowed us to believe.

Know every faithful here confessed--
Though morphine kiss'd, forever bless'd.

:-)

Thursday, May 20, 2010

News.

See those? They're iron-on badges! They're MY iron-on badges, and I scanned them in so you could enjoy them as much as I do. I successfully passed all my tests, completing eighteen weeks of figure skating coursework in just six weeks' time, and now I can enroll in Adult 4, the last Adult level before freestyle classes begin. :-) Now I just have to figure out what to iron them on. My neck comes to mind. Or a commemorative blanket, so later in life I can be all, OMG LOOK PPL WHEN I WAS 19 I HAD A ONE-FIFTH-OF-LIFE CRISIS AND THE UNITED STATES FIGURE SKATING ASSOCIATION AWARDED ME IRON-ON BADGES.

I saw a romantic film last night and it made me think. In order to enjoy a film like that, a girl has to put herself in the heroine's place. She needs to imagine how she'd feel if an attractive British man chased her across the Atlantic Ocean, how she'd respond when he tells her he's truly, madly, deeply in love with her, and how to gracefully accept his impromptu but long-awaited proposal, complete with a diamond the size of her big toe and six dozen imported roses. Last night I realized I can't do it anymore. I watch أفلام عاطفية with distance. When I was young I used to imagine myself the stunning heroine, perfect skin, tanned stomach, long blonde hair, and all, pursued at any length by her handsome, sweet soulmate. As I got older I became more realistic, dreaming of maybe a nice dinner with a boy who liked me or a snuggly night watching movies. And as I got to college I dreamed of a man who'd maybe show up on time or remember to take me out at all.
Last night I remembered that I can't engage in romantic films.

Monday, May 17, 2010

The moon.



I love this song so much that this afternoon I arranged it for piano. It's contemplative, lyrical, and just so resonatingly true that since rediscovering it I listen all the time. I've spent every summer since my mid-teens away from my family and friends, and I'm leaving in just two weeks to do it again. I've left my home to live in the Philippines, Europe, the Middle East, and now the East Coast (as an all-Western girl, it's almost as foreign!). My experiences get progressively more adult; this year, I'll turn twenty(!) and hold an apartment in Boston and a job as a research scientist.

It's nice to get away, but I don't want to live on the moon.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Injury.

Picture this:

A skater, the ice to herself, glides shakily into view, balancing on her right foot with her left leg extended behind her. Her arms are out away from her sides in an attempt at grace, and she actually feels pretty good, until BAM! Her right skate finds a rut. With her hands too far out and legs too far back to break her fall, she crashes directly onto her face. She gets up right away, without feeling almost any pain, but the world is spinny and she is rattled beyond belief. Another skater glides out and asks her if she's okay, and she replies that she's fine (strange after a fall that bad, she thinks) and finishes her remaining half hour of ice time. In the car on the way home, she happens to catch a glimpse of her reflection in the rearview mirror and almost slams on the brakes. Her entire chin is covered with a gooey mass of dried and fresh blood. No wonder the other girl looked at her so strangely. She cleans her face as best she can at home and tells her grossed-out family she'll be fine, but after consulting a physician friend at her brother's tennis tournament, she reluctantly drives over to the local InstaCare and receives eight tiny stitches.

So here I am, mild concussion, local bruising, eight stitches and all. :-) What a way to fill a day.

In other news, I experienced the strangest physical phenomenon I've ever felt today. After my bad fall (which at the time didn't seem so bad), my body went into some kind of mild shock. My blood pressure soared, everything felt electrified, and I didn't feel capable of doing anything on the ice except go straight, and even then, during the simplest of all ice skating maneuvers, I felt shaky. It was like my body forcibly forgot all the little, technical things I'd been doing for the last hour. I couldn't make myself jump or make a quick backwards turn. I honestly couldn't force my body to put itself into another precarious position. My mind, of course, was incredibly frustrated, and I spent the next half hour trying to make my body power through. My body, though, must have known how badly it was hurt and wouldn't allow me to take any more risks. I couldn't do it. It was honestly as if there was a physical barrier between me and the capacity to jump. Eventually I forced the envelope and made myself jump backwards a few more times, but my moves came off with such a weird, forced degree of caution that it almost wasn't worth it. Today I've learned to listen to my body--because if I don't, I've learned that it can decide to override my consciousness and take control. WEIRD.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Yay!

Today at the rink I landed my Mohawks (but have to remember to extend my non-skating right leg so I look graceful and go straight) and learned my first little jump! It's a waltz jump, and this is how it goes. Left leg straight, right leg bent, knees together. Start forward on left outside edge, jump up and over with knees together (try it on a curve, changing direction midair), and come out on one foot, right outside edge, non-skating leg kicked and extended. :-) I haven't landed it yet, but I'm working on it! And my backward crossovers (which I totally have now) are developing well; I just have to work on not picking up my foot as I cross over. My crossovers need to be more graceful, deeper, and smoother. Next week is my last week of skating class (six weeks goes so fast!) and I am SO sad. I really don't think I've ever done anything I've liked this much. So I'm not going to let my newly developing skills go to waste in Boston. There's a rink near where I'll be living, and you can plan on seeing me there at least once a week.

Sunday, May 9, 2010

Still.

I haven't been a very good blogger these days.
Blogging, though, requires external stimulation, and since I have spent 85% of the past two and a half weeks in my house on my couch-bed, on my mom's bed, or on the actual couch in varying states of consciousness (the remaining 15% has been spent skating, running errands, or picking up kids), I feel justified in the fact that there has been nothing of importance to write about, except for the fact that I haven't been sleeping well at night, which is absolutely anomalous for me. I think it's because I spend most of the day asleep or nearly asleep, so when it's time for bed, I'm just not tired anymore.
Anyway. Enjoy this circuit diagram to remind you of other days, when I was also bored, but with math & physics rather than the merits of the various comfortable surfaces in my home.

Thursday, May 6, 2010

Alive.

Hi, world!
This is where I live!
Stephen Colbert, close to home. This is seriously hilarious. :-)


The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Nailed 'Em - Drive-Through Rapping
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