Then There Was One…
Living in my neighborhood, everyone has a pool. Sort of a silly notion considering I don’t think anyone uses their pool on a regular basis in the whole neighborhood so a community pool would be just as good, if not better. One of the few good things that comes from the pool is that every year, a duck couple comes and makes my pool their home. They leave at night, but during the day they come and wade in the water. The male and the female, always within touching distance. Always until today. Today, it was just the female, standing motionless on the divider of the pool and the Jacuzzi. It’s sad to think that someone could have killed her mate and for the rest of her life she’ll be alone.
Not too long ago, someone in my school was struck by a car and died. I never knew him. I never heard about him, and I don’t recall ever seeing him. I remember I saw a picture of him, after he died and wondered why so many people were posting a similar picture – The news hadn’t yet come to me. A lot of people were really sad, and not all of them even knew him. I wonder if sad is the right word. It’s probably fear. When something happens that takes someone’s life, everyone sort of realizes that they’re mortal. I guess mortality is kind of hard to deal with because it is kinda the thing that says, “You aren’t good enough.” And that’s pretty hard for people, especially famous people and kings and queens, because it’s so, typical. We spend our whole lives, thinking about death, but we can’t think of a way to stop it. We spend our whole lives knowing that one day, we won’t have the opportunity to do everything we ever wanted, but instead of going to make our lives count for the moment, we put it off.
This is a new theory of mine, and I haven’t been playing with it too much at all. But here it is: People live to dream, and dream to live, but in the end, it’s not living the dream.
We don’t try our dreams, not because we are scared of failure, but because we are scared that the dream will die, and if the dream dies, what are we living for. If we succeed, then it’s not a dream anymore, and then what is there to look forward to.
How big is the world?
I think that it’s important to realize that you aren’t competing against your friends, the people in your town, or even the people in your state. Even if you look at the earth, you still fail to see all of your competition because you can only see one side of the earth and we all know that there are two sides. So here’s my point. Accept not being the best because undoubtedly someone is better than you. Don’t strive for something that you can never truly have. Live life to the fullest that you are capable of living and be thankful for the days you have left. There’s no point in wasting your time waiting for the impossible.
Word Games
We were playing LQ and the score was something ridiculous like 21-4 at 4:34 in the first. My boy Calvin was goin’ off with three threes already and like a lay-up. Shea and I just came out and he looked at me and said, “Dude we could break 200.”
I looked back at him and said,”It’s not how we begin that matters, it’s how we end.”
We ended that game with only 96 points. It was the 3rd time where we easily could have broken 100 and choked in the end. Remember that life is made of parts, and one good piece doesn’t constitute a good product.
The Saddest Time of the Year
I remember when I was very young, and my family would always have a Christmas Eve party, and all my cousins would come and it ht me. I would tip toe down the stairs as quietly as I could, have on my feet, and half on the rail because the rail didn’t creak as loud as the actual stairs. I would go downstairs and see new boxes, but then get nervous and go back up stairs to would be so fun to see them and life was good. They brought me a present, and we played hide-n-seek. It was so great, family all around, delicious food, and tons of present under the tree with my name on them. It made me so happy, and everything was perfect. And knowing that Santa would come down my chimney and drink some milk and cookies in exchange for more presents made it all the better. In fact, I was so excited for Santa’s arrival that I would wake up at 5 AM and go downstairs just to see what he brougbed to try to sleep for a minute longer. At 7, I would finally drag my parents out of bed and my mom would put some cinnamon roles in the oven so we could have breakfast. We would open our presents, and I would play with them. Christmas was so perfect when I was little because I had a million things I wanted and I truly believed that having those things would make me happy. But now I realize that the only thing that can make me truly happy is being with the people I love and making memories. Corporate America has RUINED Christmas. I mean, really, they put Black Friday the day after THANKSGIVING. Good job America.
I beseech you, revolt like the French in 1787, and rise up against the corporate tyranny. CLAIM THE HOLIDAY SPIRIT BACK. We cannot allow ourselves to give up the our holidays that come once a year for a sale that comes around every weekend.
How I Feel
****http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGDBR2L5kzI Watch this interview of Allen Iverson to know how to read this article.***
Sometimes I go to school you know, and I did my homework the night but I just went through the motions because you know, it practice. It ain’t a game So, the night before, I got myself a basic understanding of the material so that my teacher could enrich my understanding the next day. Well, I go to class and you know what happened? He asked the class a question and no one knew the answer, and then you know what. He told us “It’s right there in your books.” And I’m like “Oh really, I didn’t know. But thanks for telling me. I mean I guess when I go to the library and I ask the librarian “Hey where is the Shakespearian section at” and the librarian would say in the library I’m gonna be grateful for the answer because I didn’t know that. But because that answer was so on point, I know exactly where to look. When I take the AP test and they ask me how the setting contributed to the conflict I should say, Well it was in the universe so it had an effect on something and had some real characteristics, I’m gonna get a 5, GUARENTEED. I mean I just answered the question so well it would be impossible not to.” And you know what pissed me off more, when after a minute, no one knew the answer still and my teacher said, “I can’t do it all for you.” And I say, my brother, you haven’t done none of it for us. Like damn, you give us some bull homework and tell us the answers are in the book. Man, you are my hero.
You know what else. It pisses me off when everyone tries to give me their two cents. Like have you ever thought about that. A penny is the dirtiest coin there is. Finding one that looks copper instead of black is impossible. So I go to school, and all my teachers like to give me their two cents about college. They say, “Oh well in college, your professor this and in college your professor that.” Well EXCUSEEEEE ME. How many colleges have you been to? How many professors have you talked to? Oh wait, you’re a high school teacher, all of them I guess. And teachers seem to forget that there is life outside of traditional schooling. Like honestly, if everyone went to college, what was the value of college? None. It may as well be “SecondaryHigh School.” There is culinary school, automotive school, welding school, nursing school, all these careers that don’t need a traditional college degree but when does a teacher ever talk about that?
Talking to myself
Sometimes we completely overvalue ourselves and our places in the bottom of society. I mean, I’m not a king, or world renowned in ANY area. Google doesn’t even know my last name. Yet despite this, I think that getting a B is the end of the world. But this isn’t just my problem, it’s my generations problem. We think that everything we do matters to someone. But honestly, it doesn’t. Try to be honest with yourself, and ask does anyone really CARE. Will anyone REALLY care if I get an F on this test? How much sleep is the teacher going to lose? Is your dog going to start avoiding you? How about your friends? The truth, is no one really cares about what you do, but they do care about how you make them feel. I have absolutely no idea what my first crush did to make me like her. I guess she was just a cute little blonde girl, but I remember how she made me feel. She gave me butterflies when we talked, a grin when I looked at her, and a reason to look forward to going to school. And that’s pretty much all I remember about her. That isn’t a bad thing, it’s human. And this “human” trait has been around for thousands of years. Oedipus for example saved Thebes from the Sphinx, yet due to events completely out of his control, his people ran him out of the city. How could they run their beloved king out of the town he single-handedly saved, for simply carrying out what the Fates had fated him to do? Simply because people don’t remember or care about what you’ve done, but they remember and care about how they feel. With Oedipus still in the city, the Thebans felt endangered and scared. So for the rest of Oedipus’ life, he was pushed from place to place because people around him felt fear which was far easier for them to remember than the deeds he had long ago accomplished. Even before Oedipus and Sophocles, there was the Bible. And in the Bible, there is Heaven and Hell. Everyone knows that God is in Heaven and Satan is in Hell, and everyone knows that God stands for everything good and righteous, and Satan stands for evil. But does anyone remember WHY Satan is where he is, or do they just remember him as an evil figure?
High School LEGOS
The Education System in a Nutshell
LEGOS are used by children all over to build their dreams, and inspire them to use bigger, better media. Likewise, school uses all sorts of “LEGOS” to try inspire us to do… well the same boring jobs that everyone else in society wants to do. I have never had a teacher who told me that I could do something fun in my life, like build treehouses, or become a food critic for fine cuisine around the world. Instead the idea of doctors, and chemists, and engineers have been placed in my head which is disgusting and makes the term “job” accurate. Instead of a “job” wouldn’t we all rather do something that is “fun”. Maybe if instead of putting on a fake smile while we go to the job we HATE, we could go to the lower paying ones and enjoy life and let our old position be filled by someone who would genuinely enjoy that line of work. But why do we find it necessary to do this “job” that we HATE so much? I think it’s because the teachers only have one set of LEGOS in their classroom and they give the same thing to all the students. But every student is unique and different. Some want LEGO Princess, and some want Starwars. Some want the big blocks, and some want those tiny ones I never found a need for. But maybe I’m being too critical, and maybe everyone should get the same blocks. That might not be so bad if the teachers just let us make what we wanted out of the limited supply of blocks we’re given, but instead, they give us vague instruction booklets, and have the AUDACITY to grade STUDENTS on their ability to follow the booklet. But that’s a great skill to teach kids isn’t it. To copy things as much as they can without really thinking about what they’re doing? Yes, I’ve taken page after page of biology notes not reading anything that I was writing. Sorry Mrs. Brown. But why is it that teachers think that their building blocks are one size fits all? TEACHERS, EDUCATION IS NOT A SNUGGIE!!! IT IS NOT ONE SIZE FITS ALL. I would like my education to be tailored to me. You know why? Because I don’t care at all about history really. I don’t think we should have it. But am I still going to take APUSH and dominate in it? Yes I am. But would I rather have an environmental engineering class instead? YES! But going back to the teachers, yes, they will say they understand that all students are different, and yes, they will say that they are doing their best to help everyone, but they really aren’t doing that at all. Never before have I seen a teacher hand out 30 different projects to students where they each got to choose a topic and go for it. My current English teacher, Mr. Montreal, might turn out to be a slight exception, but he is still forcing us to do blogs instead of any type of media. Perhaps I’m into tangible print Mr. Montreal.
Now I ask you, how are we as teenagers supposed to create something new and different, when our population is overdosed with the same generic building blocks? How are we as a society going to progress when we are addicted to copying what has already been done? I could copy the alphabet a million times but it would still only have 26 letters. On the contrary, I could draw one random shape a million times, and I would have just made the 27th letter to the alphabet.
What REALLY matters?
When your friend is dead because of one stupid mistake, will it really matter what their GPA was?
The Teenage Overdose 