It's been a while. I haven't even looked at this blog in ages. I've started so many posts and had so many ideas but it just never happened. I always found a reason to not post. In any case, I have decided that an update of sorts is due...
Today my best friend and I made up. And while I won't get into all the gory details (there was A LOT happening), I will say that a lot of the issues we had stemmed from miscommunication and just being close-minded or egocentric, on both sides. The making-up process was sobering and enlightening and just an all-around good conversation consisting of some frustration (but not infuriation) and laughing and a lot of "It's not about you."
So I feel like we're moving past that. And I don't want to rekindle it with this post. But I do feel that the uncomfortable situation and subsequent events have granted me an opportunity to talk about something that's applicable to everyone.
As much as I love to claim that I feel and not think, I know the statement isn't entirely true. There are times when I will sit down and consider my life, especially after an outburst of emotion. There are also times when she, who prides herself on her remarkable logical mind (which I simultaneously and consistently envy and fail to comprehend), simply can't ignore her feelings.
The fact is, we all feel and think. And the problem isn't that these two approaches/mindsets/processes exist simultaneously in society (and sometimes within the same person), but that we don't know how to reconcile them. Especially when it involves people of differing beliefs and customs. We all too often blame unfortunate outcomes on another's actions and attack their reasoning without looking at ourselves and realizing the damage that we have done and the role we have played.
It comes back to something I discussed in my 8th grade class, with our Facing History and Ourselves teacher: civil discourse. A huge topic right now is Ferguson... and it's complicated. I have my own opinions about the recent Grand Jury decision to not indict Darren Wilson. A lot of people do. But the backlash on all sides, for there are more than just two, is just not conducive to any type of change.
Shoutout our wonderful World Lit teacher who started a conversation with us. On top of that, she's given us so many pieces of wisdom ("It's not about you" and "It's complicated" among them). What truly resonated with me was a fact: our generation is the most well-read.
It seems simple. Of course. Because "we're connected." But think about that. We've seen the role of social media in organizing and fueling protests... and we've blamed Millennials for being too attached to their phones. And the fact is that they go together.
But I strongly believe (feel and think) that our generation has the capacity to be remembered as the one that caused great change, due in great part to the incredible advances in technology we've seen. But I believe that it is equally easy for our generation to become self-involved and let the ephemeral nature of Twitter and other social media platforms preclude the possibility of permanent change.
An amendment hasn't been made to the U.S. Constitution since 1992... it's our time. I think we have a lot of progress to make and a lot of people willing to try to make a difference.
It starts with a conversation... let's make some noise. But be willing to listen. And then act.
Tuesday, December 2, 2014
Tuesday, September 2, 2014
A short (but maybe not-so-sweet) one
So, it's been a while. I've actually been drafting a couple posts recently, but just haven't found the time to be able to finish them. School started today. And senioritis is definitely a thing. Never thought it would happen to me, but it has. One of my teachers started teaching in class and I wanted to groan out loud. But it's not that I don't want to be there, I just think of all the other things I could be doing. Anyway, that's the not point.
Today, while putting the dishes away, I was struck by a thought. Someone I nominated for the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge finally completed his challenge, and I was reminded of it. As if it had been years since I had seen a video, even though it had only been a week or so. The speed at which social media, and people, get over things is remarkably fast... and I think that's kind of bad.
But also, we're running into a problem. Or actually just coming more face-to-face with one after having danced with it for probably ever since we've existed. And it comes down to one thing: money. Compared to other diseases, ALS kills very few people. And the question is, how do we decided where to focus our research efforts, our money.
But first, as with many models, we must simplify the problem. So imagine we have the money just sitting there to be taken, there's no need for campaigning for a specific cause or anything, it's just there, waiting to be put to good use.
With this simplification you could look at the challenge in a purely economic fashion, dividing the funds proportionally to the number of deaths the disease causes per year. This is a seemingly fair distribution of capital. But there are some number problems. One being that as treatments that extend life and prevent death due to heart disease are found and people begin living longer and dying less, do you begin to cut back on the amount of funding just as researchers on on the brink of actually getting somewhere? It gets messy.
So there's the number reason. But there's also a personal one. Like the major kind of super huge big deal idea of how it is impossible to say one life is more important than another, which is essentially what you are doing when you split up funds in any way. You deciding whether someone lives to see another day in a purely cold, numerical way. In a way it comes back to the classic train (or is it a trolley) car example: kill the one to save the five, or let the five die? It's not a perfect connection (there's less of the worry about what role specifically you play because we're focusing on a decision that would not be dealt with so immediately, and the decision wouldn't be up to just one person) but it gives the idea, it asks a question: where do we draw the line?
As someone who hopes to enter the biomedical field someday, these are the questions I ask myself. Will I be able to find a way to feel comfortable with drawing some lines? Will some be forced one me?
Well, I should probably get back to my books and stop asking so many questions. Thanks for the 500 views!
SIDENOTE:
Keeping the spotlight on ALS for a bit, I encourage everyone to watch Anthony Carbajal's inspiring (and also funny) story. He brings up another interesting point on why ALS isn't being studied by pharmaceutical companies, along with a lot of other cool stuff.
Today, while putting the dishes away, I was struck by a thought. Someone I nominated for the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge finally completed his challenge, and I was reminded of it. As if it had been years since I had seen a video, even though it had only been a week or so. The speed at which social media, and people, get over things is remarkably fast... and I think that's kind of bad.
But also, we're running into a problem. Or actually just coming more face-to-face with one after having danced with it for probably ever since we've existed. And it comes down to one thing: money. Compared to other diseases, ALS kills very few people. And the question is, how do we decided where to focus our research efforts, our money.
But first, as with many models, we must simplify the problem. So imagine we have the money just sitting there to be taken, there's no need for campaigning for a specific cause or anything, it's just there, waiting to be put to good use.
With this simplification you could look at the challenge in a purely economic fashion, dividing the funds proportionally to the number of deaths the disease causes per year. This is a seemingly fair distribution of capital. But there are some number problems. One being that as treatments that extend life and prevent death due to heart disease are found and people begin living longer and dying less, do you begin to cut back on the amount of funding just as researchers on on the brink of actually getting somewhere? It gets messy.
So there's the number reason. But there's also a personal one. Like the major kind of super huge big deal idea of how it is impossible to say one life is more important than another, which is essentially what you are doing when you split up funds in any way. You deciding whether someone lives to see another day in a purely cold, numerical way. In a way it comes back to the classic train (or is it a trolley) car example: kill the one to save the five, or let the five die? It's not a perfect connection (there's less of the worry about what role specifically you play because we're focusing on a decision that would not be dealt with so immediately, and the decision wouldn't be up to just one person) but it gives the idea, it asks a question: where do we draw the line?
As someone who hopes to enter the biomedical field someday, these are the questions I ask myself. Will I be able to find a way to feel comfortable with drawing some lines? Will some be forced one me?
Well, I should probably get back to my books and stop asking so many questions. Thanks for the 500 views!
SIDENOTE:
Keeping the spotlight on ALS for a bit, I encourage everyone to watch Anthony Carbajal's inspiring (and also funny) story. He brings up another interesting point on why ALS isn't being studied by pharmaceutical companies, along with a lot of other cool stuff.
Also, I guess I lied. This wasn't short... or sweet. Whoops!
Friday, August 15, 2014
It's the middle of August...
School is going to start in less than three weeks. I have summer homework to do (except I don't actually know if any of my classes are solidified so I haven't started yet...), scholarships to apply for, a job to go to. A lot of things. And I'm kind of doing them. I've been good the past week, actually doing my laundry, buckling down on those scholarship applications, planning out my common app essay (gulp).
But the thing is, I've also kind of not been doing them.
Take right now for example. Right now I'm listening to "Linger" by The Cranberries, imagining who the song was written for and if anyone ever got unwrapped from someone's finger. And who's finger was it? Were their nails jagged and painted black, or perfectly manicured ovals? I think they were black. And isn't it interesting how "they" has become an acceptable gender-neutral pronoun for an unidentified individual (as opposed to always using "he")? Go feminists. Woah, Florence and the Machine was just playing... now it's Talking Heads... they're going by so quickly, like a never-ending tide of just music washing all over me.
You think this is bad? You should see me on the train. I may appear to be tuning out the world, checking emails and making sure my makeup isn't smudged on the way to work, tapping my feet and yawning on the way home. But I'm not.
If you think about, traveling (going to and getting from) places takes up a huge amount of time. Sometimes more than the actual time anyone actually does anything. I used to want to be able to skip transportation, it being such an expensive and time-consuming expenditure... but now I realize that my life, or anyone's for that matter, wouldn't be the same without it.
Because I'll tell you what I am on the train or bus, in the car or on my own two feet: I'm a witness.
I'm watching the people read/tweet/laugh. I'm imagining their lives, aware of how one of them is bound to have lost a mother/son/friend and wondering just how that might have hurt/shocked/left them. I also look like a tourist on the train. No matter how hard I try to pretend to be utterly indifferent to the passing scenery, there's nothing I can do to stop my gaping at the way the sunrise hits that window on the Trump Tower, and how the Sears Tower will always be the Sears Tower and nothing else because that's just what it is... and how it actually isn't because what something's called isn't what it is. And how what I just said has been said before, and is a quote... and I can't remember the author or find the specific quote right now and how that's bothering me and you'll have to trust me on it.
Snow Patrol's "Chasing Cars" is on, I'm thinking about how my mom just got mad at me because I forgot to wake her up when she asked me to (25 minutes ago). She and my dad were planning on seeing "Calvary," which sounds like a very good movie and is something I would like to see sometime. Too bad it's only playing at the Landmark Century right now and there is no train that goes there, only a bus because I don't like buses. Train people are different than bus people. I'm definitely a train person. I hope my parents do go. I feel bad.
Now a Red Hot Chili Peppers song is playing, which oddly made me think about how "Hotel California" was playing at work on Thursday and Friday, and how Mike was telling everyone about how the song is about purgatory, listing out the lyrics and trying to convince all of us. And how today he tried translating "sharing is caring" into Spanish, and asked for my help (to which all I could respond was "compartir es..." because there really is no direct translation of that type of "care" into Spanish.
So yeah.
That's what's going on my head right now. There's a commercial on Spotify, I guess I better get back to finishing Naviance (only three more questions!). You know, the things that I have to do. Despite the fact that there's always music in my head no matter that the music hasn't come back.
But the thing is, I've also kind of not been doing them.
Take right now for example. Right now I'm listening to "Linger" by The Cranberries, imagining who the song was written for and if anyone ever got unwrapped from someone's finger. And who's finger was it? Were their nails jagged and painted black, or perfectly manicured ovals? I think they were black. And isn't it interesting how "they" has become an acceptable gender-neutral pronoun for an unidentified individual (as opposed to always using "he")? Go feminists. Woah, Florence and the Machine was just playing... now it's Talking Heads... they're going by so quickly, like a never-ending tide of just music washing all over me.
You think this is bad? You should see me on the train. I may appear to be tuning out the world, checking emails and making sure my makeup isn't smudged on the way to work, tapping my feet and yawning on the way home. But I'm not.
If you think about, traveling (going to and getting from) places takes up a huge amount of time. Sometimes more than the actual time anyone actually does anything. I used to want to be able to skip transportation, it being such an expensive and time-consuming expenditure... but now I realize that my life, or anyone's for that matter, wouldn't be the same without it.
Because I'll tell you what I am on the train or bus, in the car or on my own two feet: I'm a witness.
I'm watching the people read/tweet/laugh. I'm imagining their lives, aware of how one of them is bound to have lost a mother/son/friend and wondering just how that might have hurt/shocked/left them. I also look like a tourist on the train. No matter how hard I try to pretend to be utterly indifferent to the passing scenery, there's nothing I can do to stop my gaping at the way the sunrise hits that window on the Trump Tower, and how the Sears Tower will always be the Sears Tower and nothing else because that's just what it is... and how it actually isn't because what something's called isn't what it is. And how what I just said has been said before, and is a quote... and I can't remember the author or find the specific quote right now and how that's bothering me and you'll have to trust me on it.
Snow Patrol's "Chasing Cars" is on, I'm thinking about how my mom just got mad at me because I forgot to wake her up when she asked me to (25 minutes ago). She and my dad were planning on seeing "Calvary," which sounds like a very good movie and is something I would like to see sometime. Too bad it's only playing at the Landmark Century right now and there is no train that goes there, only a bus because I don't like buses. Train people are different than bus people. I'm definitely a train person. I hope my parents do go. I feel bad.
Now a Red Hot Chili Peppers song is playing, which oddly made me think about how "Hotel California" was playing at work on Thursday and Friday, and how Mike was telling everyone about how the song is about purgatory, listing out the lyrics and trying to convince all of us. And how today he tried translating "sharing is caring" into Spanish, and asked for my help (to which all I could respond was "compartir es..." because there really is no direct translation of that type of "care" into Spanish.
So yeah.
That's what's going on my head right now. There's a commercial on Spotify, I guess I better get back to finishing Naviance (only three more questions!). You know, the things that I have to do. Despite the fact that there's always music in my head no matter that the music hasn't come back.
Monday, July 28, 2014
This is the latest I've stayed up in a while
Which sounds kind of pathetic for a 17 year old, but whatever, It's true. And to avoid the things that are actually making me stay up this late, I am going to write about things that are completely unrelated because that's what I do. It's not actually a terrible way of dealing with it if there's no active way you can go about solving it. When a situation is out of your control, avoidance is sometimes the best way to learn to let go... but that's getting a bit too much into what I'm trying to not talk about. So I'm going to think about all the things I did today and find something.
I had a long list of things to do today. And I intended to do all of them and then some. But I didn't get around to it and part of it's my fault, but part of it's I needed a break. I started working a real job this week. Not a school-based time suck like robotics or a start-up created by a student that requires little-to-no commitment. A job, an escape. A place I can go and be expected to do good things and get paid $10/hour and fill my head with thoughts about customers and wiping down tables. It's nothing glamorous, but it's exactly what I needed. My morning commutes are time to wake up and put on last-minute make up, my 8-hour shift is a blur of coffee orders and salsas and 3 minute food breaks, and my commute home is a glorious 45 minute train ride during which I realize that nothing feels quite so good as earning your own money and being able to have a place where you can go and just forget about the "real problems" of the long term like college and robots and just focus on the present. So, I've started working. And it's been pretty great.
But work leaves me feeling kind of drained and I usually go straight home to just pass out for 3 hours and stay up doing essentially nothing for a few hours until I take a shower and repeat. Today was the first day of my weekend. I woke up on my couch at 8am and made a list of all the things I intended to do. I had done maybe 1.5 of them by noon, when I just stopped. But I did read about the importance of reading obituaries, genes and Schizophrenia, what products Americans are buying less of today (gum and soda are on the list), and how if the solar flare of 2012 had occurred a week earlier our lives could've been profoundly changed. I drowned myself in knowledge, and I found joy in reading again. In reading to read and to be informed and to feel powerful. I took a shelfie with my bookshelf in a contest to win a gift card for a used book store and put on make up for it. At some point later in the day I touched my eye and now have a mascara beauty mark under my right eye and now feel like a wannabe Marilyn Monroe even though the mark isn't in the right spot at all.
I thought about handwriting.
I'm one of those people that prefers a book to a Kindle, a pencil to a stylus, and a notebook to a laptop. I'm a techy, don't get me wrong, but I think there's something profound about the smell of the binding of an old book and the charm that comes with knowing pages 101-104 are ripped out and being aware of the exact way to hold it so they don't fly out. But that's an argument for another day. What I specifically thought about today was handwriting. I make to do lists almost every morning to plan and prioritize and just be able to visualize the moving pieces of my life. And I think my handwriting's pretty decent. Maybe not on a whiteboard in the middle of build season, but if I put even the slightest bit of effort, it's legible. And that's kind of profound. There are the people who are capable of looking at the world and translating it onto a piece of paper with shapes and lines, artists who sketch and shade and are capable of capturing a scene and a moment and sharing it with the world. Writers are the same way, we just use words.
There was a time when handwriting was considered a crucial skill for students. When kids would spend hours working in ensuring their I's were dotted correctly and their L's were never accidentally crossed. There was an art of being able to communicate ideas and feelings with those around you. When letter-writing was one of the only ways to stay in touch with people. On a trip to Mascota, Jalisco earlier this summer, I took the time to write 4 letters to people back in the States. I beat them back here, the postal system in Mexico may be worse than the one in Chicago, but it didn't matter. Storytelling is a lost art nowadays. Children get read bedtime stories from iPads and dream about Mickey Mouse and the latest Disney characters. I'm not about trying to go back to the way things were, I just don't think we should abandon our pens just yet. Being able to physically get something down on paper is still necessary, but only if it's legible. We may need to revert to these "old-fashioned" ways if another solar flare occurs, just saying.
That was my entirely random, incoherent regurgitation of a days worth of the thoughts that go through my head, but only the ones I could remember. For now, I think I should actually go to bed.
I had a long list of things to do today. And I intended to do all of them and then some. But I didn't get around to it and part of it's my fault, but part of it's I needed a break. I started working a real job this week. Not a school-based time suck like robotics or a start-up created by a student that requires little-to-no commitment. A job, an escape. A place I can go and be expected to do good things and get paid $10/hour and fill my head with thoughts about customers and wiping down tables. It's nothing glamorous, but it's exactly what I needed. My morning commutes are time to wake up and put on last-minute make up, my 8-hour shift is a blur of coffee orders and salsas and 3 minute food breaks, and my commute home is a glorious 45 minute train ride during which I realize that nothing feels quite so good as earning your own money and being able to have a place where you can go and just forget about the "real problems" of the long term like college and robots and just focus on the present. So, I've started working. And it's been pretty great.
But work leaves me feeling kind of drained and I usually go straight home to just pass out for 3 hours and stay up doing essentially nothing for a few hours until I take a shower and repeat. Today was the first day of my weekend. I woke up on my couch at 8am and made a list of all the things I intended to do. I had done maybe 1.5 of them by noon, when I just stopped. But I did read about the importance of reading obituaries, genes and Schizophrenia, what products Americans are buying less of today (gum and soda are on the list), and how if the solar flare of 2012 had occurred a week earlier our lives could've been profoundly changed. I drowned myself in knowledge, and I found joy in reading again. In reading to read and to be informed and to feel powerful. I took a shelfie with my bookshelf in a contest to win a gift card for a used book store and put on make up for it. At some point later in the day I touched my eye and now have a mascara beauty mark under my right eye and now feel like a wannabe Marilyn Monroe even though the mark isn't in the right spot at all.
I thought about handwriting.
I'm one of those people that prefers a book to a Kindle, a pencil to a stylus, and a notebook to a laptop. I'm a techy, don't get me wrong, but I think there's something profound about the smell of the binding of an old book and the charm that comes with knowing pages 101-104 are ripped out and being aware of the exact way to hold it so they don't fly out. But that's an argument for another day. What I specifically thought about today was handwriting. I make to do lists almost every morning to plan and prioritize and just be able to visualize the moving pieces of my life. And I think my handwriting's pretty decent. Maybe not on a whiteboard in the middle of build season, but if I put even the slightest bit of effort, it's legible. And that's kind of profound. There are the people who are capable of looking at the world and translating it onto a piece of paper with shapes and lines, artists who sketch and shade and are capable of capturing a scene and a moment and sharing it with the world. Writers are the same way, we just use words.
There was a time when handwriting was considered a crucial skill for students. When kids would spend hours working in ensuring their I's were dotted correctly and their L's were never accidentally crossed. There was an art of being able to communicate ideas and feelings with those around you. When letter-writing was one of the only ways to stay in touch with people. On a trip to Mascota, Jalisco earlier this summer, I took the time to write 4 letters to people back in the States. I beat them back here, the postal system in Mexico may be worse than the one in Chicago, but it didn't matter. Storytelling is a lost art nowadays. Children get read bedtime stories from iPads and dream about Mickey Mouse and the latest Disney characters. I'm not about trying to go back to the way things were, I just don't think we should abandon our pens just yet. Being able to physically get something down on paper is still necessary, but only if it's legible. We may need to revert to these "old-fashioned" ways if another solar flare occurs, just saying.
That was my entirely random, incoherent regurgitation of a days worth of the thoughts that go through my head, but only the ones I could remember. For now, I think I should actually go to bed.
Sunday, July 13, 2014
#FixingChicago
So, I've spent a lot of time this week after returning from Mexico catching up on what I missed out on. I was up-to-date on the World Cup, but I had been oblivious to everything else that happened for the two weeks I was gone.
The first shock when I came back was the horrible 4th of July weekend Chicago had, during which 82 people were shot and 16 of those victims had died. The Twitterverse responded rather quickly, using the hashtag "FixingChicago" as a way of generating awareness and share ideas on how to change the city. The issues range from violence to education and are all tangled up together in a web of politics, racism, and money.
Now, I've led a pretty good life on the North Side of the city, but I don't think that bars me from believing that something needs to change and having an opinion about maybe how we should go about doing that. It disgusts me how a city I love, at city in which I have spent most of my life, can be so broken. I'm not a first-hand witness to a lot of what goes on, but I'd love to try. I mean, at this point I think we're pretty desperate. 16 dead is 16 not alive and is 16 too many for the 21st century.
So there's a lot going on in Chicago all at once. But before we say "I spot a problem, let's do this and hope it'll go away," as we have done in the past, maybe we should look at how all these problems are related and find the most efficient way to go about solving everything. Yes, everything. I'm out to save the world, I think you should join me for the ride.
Now, hold on. Let's just make a nifty list of what these shifting problems, we'll call them variables so it's like math, are: gun violence, access to education, and public transportation are the biggies, at least that I see.
Now, let's dissect them, starting from the bottom:
Public transportation is a biggie because without it, a lot of people can't get around to school or work or wherever they need to go to be able to support themselves and prepare for their futures. It's a big deal. And when Ventra was launched, it was a hassle but ended up being pretty good to CPS kids, it's 75 cents a ride, with 15-cent transfers. Not terrible. But this summer, despite many kids being involved in school-related activities such as sports or summer classes, or having internships or jobs that'll have a great impact on their post-high school lives, the CTA bumped prices back up to full fare for students. But even when it is at a reduced price, the CTA doesn't go everywhere. There are areas of the city that are in desperate need of a bus service, but I haven't heard anything about that. So public transportation's a biggie that isn't being handled very well at the moment.
Education is a biggie for what I hope are obvious reasons, but let's look at how it's impacted by public transportation and how it impacts gun violence to really get a sense of what's going on. So, like mentioned earlier, CTA dropped the ball on fares for students this summer, and a lot of kids rely on public transit to get to school. Like, a lot a lot. So there's that. And also, it's been pretty much proven that when kids are in school (good, safe schools, specifically), they have less time to do other things like getting involved with the wrong people and the wrong things. But with all the recent school closings and budget cuts, students have been forced to travel farther (amplifying the dependence upon public transportation and the issues with it not being accessible by all students), which also means more time on trains and buses and less time studying. Education is powerful, we've learned it from Malala Yousafzai. It amazes me that people still don't understand this. If anything Chicago, a 131-year-old city, should know by now. So education's also a biggie.
Violence is a biggie because it's what's caused outsiders to call us "Chi-raq," what's made residents afraid, and what, most strikingly, has killed way too many mothers, sons, fathers and daughters. Now, it's also a biggie because it's what sparked the whole #FixingChicago movement a few short days ago. It riles people up, it provides hard data, and it needs to stop. And the thing is, I believe it can. With the new awareness this tragedy has generated, maybe it's time that people will start looking for a new, multi-faceted approach to truly fixing Chicago. The bandaid approach of patching up little issues here and there just isn't cutting it anymore. And in my opinion, starting from the bottom, with public transportation and education, it's possible to change the culture around here. So, I say, let's get kids to school in a fast, safe way, and then let's actually teach them some things with teachers who are well-qualified and want to be there, and then let's let them work out their own problems and make their own decisions. I feel like the numbers will drop.
So, that's my quirky kind-of-solution-but-more-like-an-explanation of what I think needs to happen and is currently going on in my city. These are my biggies, but there are many more issues, like medical care and food deserts, homelessness and minimum wage. So, forgive me, if I left out one of your biggies and you're upset. Maybe it's a good thing you're upset because maybe it'll inspire you to come up with your own kind-of-solution-but-more-like-an-explanation and share it with the world.
The first shock when I came back was the horrible 4th of July weekend Chicago had, during which 82 people were shot and 16 of those victims had died. The Twitterverse responded rather quickly, using the hashtag "FixingChicago" as a way of generating awareness and share ideas on how to change the city. The issues range from violence to education and are all tangled up together in a web of politics, racism, and money.
Now, I've led a pretty good life on the North Side of the city, but I don't think that bars me from believing that something needs to change and having an opinion about maybe how we should go about doing that. It disgusts me how a city I love, at city in which I have spent most of my life, can be so broken. I'm not a first-hand witness to a lot of what goes on, but I'd love to try. I mean, at this point I think we're pretty desperate. 16 dead is 16 not alive and is 16 too many for the 21st century.
So there's a lot going on in Chicago all at once. But before we say "I spot a problem, let's do this and hope it'll go away," as we have done in the past, maybe we should look at how all these problems are related and find the most efficient way to go about solving everything. Yes, everything. I'm out to save the world, I think you should join me for the ride.
Now, hold on. Let's just make a nifty list of what these shifting problems, we'll call them variables so it's like math, are: gun violence, access to education, and public transportation are the biggies, at least that I see.
Now, let's dissect them, starting from the bottom:
Public transportation is a biggie because without it, a lot of people can't get around to school or work or wherever they need to go to be able to support themselves and prepare for their futures. It's a big deal. And when Ventra was launched, it was a hassle but ended up being pretty good to CPS kids, it's 75 cents a ride, with 15-cent transfers. Not terrible. But this summer, despite many kids being involved in school-related activities such as sports or summer classes, or having internships or jobs that'll have a great impact on their post-high school lives, the CTA bumped prices back up to full fare for students. But even when it is at a reduced price, the CTA doesn't go everywhere. There are areas of the city that are in desperate need of a bus service, but I haven't heard anything about that. So public transportation's a biggie that isn't being handled very well at the moment.
Education is a biggie for what I hope are obvious reasons, but let's look at how it's impacted by public transportation and how it impacts gun violence to really get a sense of what's going on. So, like mentioned earlier, CTA dropped the ball on fares for students this summer, and a lot of kids rely on public transit to get to school. Like, a lot a lot. So there's that. And also, it's been pretty much proven that when kids are in school (good, safe schools, specifically), they have less time to do other things like getting involved with the wrong people and the wrong things. But with all the recent school closings and budget cuts, students have been forced to travel farther (amplifying the dependence upon public transportation and the issues with it not being accessible by all students), which also means more time on trains and buses and less time studying. Education is powerful, we've learned it from Malala Yousafzai. It amazes me that people still don't understand this. If anything Chicago, a 131-year-old city, should know by now. So education's also a biggie.
Violence is a biggie because it's what's caused outsiders to call us "Chi-raq," what's made residents afraid, and what, most strikingly, has killed way too many mothers, sons, fathers and daughters. Now, it's also a biggie because it's what sparked the whole #FixingChicago movement a few short days ago. It riles people up, it provides hard data, and it needs to stop. And the thing is, I believe it can. With the new awareness this tragedy has generated, maybe it's time that people will start looking for a new, multi-faceted approach to truly fixing Chicago. The bandaid approach of patching up little issues here and there just isn't cutting it anymore. And in my opinion, starting from the bottom, with public transportation and education, it's possible to change the culture around here. So, I say, let's get kids to school in a fast, safe way, and then let's actually teach them some things with teachers who are well-qualified and want to be there, and then let's let them work out their own problems and make their own decisions. I feel like the numbers will drop.
So, that's my quirky kind-of-solution-but-more-like-an-explanation of what I think needs to happen and is currently going on in my city. These are my biggies, but there are many more issues, like medical care and food deserts, homelessness and minimum wage. So, forgive me, if I left out one of your biggies and you're upset. Maybe it's a good thing you're upset because maybe it'll inspire you to come up with your own kind-of-solution-but-more-like-an-explanation and share it with the world.
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
Dichos, ponderings & a few vultures (for good measure)
Today has been a wild day. I've gone through a whirlwind of thoughts and emotions, and I haven't actually physically done much at all. I guess I'll start from the beginning...
I woke up kind of late because my grandma had company over and I couldn't sleep. We talked for a bit and after they left at 11pm, I kept my grandma company while she cleaned the kitchen. It was almost midnight by the time we finally got to crawl into bed.
But I slept amazingly, the first time I didn't have any dreams in a long time. And aside from the occasional kick in the face from Liam, I wasn't disturbed. So I woke up at 9am. It would have been later but my grandma was making pancakes and I didn't want to miss them... and that's just me waking up.
After breakfast I wrote for a bit, watched some inspiring videos to put me in a good mood (the kind that I don't have time to watch in Chicago that give me all the feels), and also had my sister take the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test. She was something along the lines of an ENTJ, which described her pretty accurately.
And I decided to look more at my Type just to know more about myself. I'm an INFP and I identify pretty strongly with most of the traits that are typical of one. Now I've always known that people like me, sensitive and creative, like to go into careers such as writers or social workers, but I've kind of avoided the thought.
Because I want to be an engineer. I mean, I joined robotics sophomore year and decided that I wanted to build things that make people's lives better. People would ask me what I wanted to study, what I wanted to be, and I could answer confidently "an engineer of some type, I don't know exactly what kind just yet." And I was happy. And people were happy.
And taking bio this past year, I started leaning more towards biomedical or biomechanical engineering. Thinking, "This is it: the best of both worlds. Bio and engineering, creating and people..." If only I could convince myself to stop right at that.
The problem with having a lot of time alone is that you think. And you start to doubt. And the thing is, I've had a lot of that lately. I've gone through these phases before, where I doubt all that I have come to know about my future self. Ask my best friend. She's heard every "epiphany" I've had this past school year regarding what I want to do. From epigenetics to pharmaceuticals, neurology to even writing, I'm no stranger to this type of freak out.
But rarely were they much of a problem. Like I said, I'd settle down and after maybe half a day I'd always come back to some type of engineering, happy to return to normalcy. But sometimes it would blow up. Physics was all kinds of stressful and when I got particularly caught up in it, doubt on my ability to become a decent engineer would resurface.
This past February I had a huge meltdown. The kind of meltdown that you remember for your entire life because it changes who you are. Physics wasn't working. I knew the concepts and felt I had a good grasp on them, it just took me a long time and sometimes approaches to problems and applications of concepts that were intuitive to others weren't so obvious to me. So I started dropping the engineering act or facade or whatever I had, and really looked into what I wanted.
I started thinking about why I wanted to be an engineer. And I got to the point where I realized, with help from friends, that what I really wanted to do was help people. And engineering was an easy answer just because it combined two things I loved: technology and people. But I understood that I wouldn't be helping people if I wasn't a good engineer. They say you don't need to be good at physics or even like it to become an engineer, but you do need to at least be able to tolerate it and accept that you'll be using it.
And so I walked away that day thinking bio was probably my best bet. I didn't want to leave science and all the innovation that surrounds it, but engineering wasn't exactly meeting enough of my personal need to help people. And while I knew I had the potential to go into something more "fit" for my type, I didn't want to. As my friend said, "There needs to be more people going into science for the right reasons." And I think I have the right reasons. I mean, I want to solve problems and help people. I don't know how or what, Alzheimer's is always in the back of my mind, but I felt better about that.
But I couldn't keep my mind from wandering back to engineering. It was the inevitable ending I just kept coming back to.
Last night when my grandmother's friends came over, one of them told us a dicho, a saying, that her husband told their kids. Translated, it's "Never go to sleep without having accomplished something that day, and never get out of bed without a plan for what to do next."
That's the style of living over here. Living day-to-day, sometimes on a ranch, or maybe in a small shop, but it's... simpler. And while it may seem hard to relate that to the hustle-and-bustle life that I know back in the States, the idea's the same. Do stuff, and have a plan to do more stuff. But the truth is, I still find myself getting lost in this struggle of what my "stuff" is.
And reading those MBTI career paths, I came upon one INFP who was an engineer and decided to become a lawyer because their previous occupation didn't satisfy their need to help people as much as they thought it would. And I took it as a sign, that I need to start another mental breakdown, and try finding what I really wanted to do in life. So I had it. A long thought. And I just sat there after my pancakes, thinking. Until 2:20pm. I took a shower some time in that time, but I still don't know.
At 2:20pm I went on an adventure with my grandma's friend and my family. We spent time by the lake and ate cucumbers with lime and salt and chile pepper. There were vultures circling, a lot of them. After the lake we went back into town for a coffee and cake. It was a good escape, but I'm still kind of lost.
Trying to describe this feeling is hard. I mean, I identified as being an aspiring engineer for so long, it's just hard to let go of it. And maybe that's the problem I have. Letting go of that image of myself that I anchored my life around is... hard. Trying to find out what I want to and should do for the rest of my life is... hard. Life is... hard.
And maybe I just need to suck it up. Maybe I can never have the "best of both worlds." But one thing is for sure: I'm either too immature or naive or too something to stop trying to find it. I know more mental breakdowns are in my future, but I just need to kind of roll with life for now and let it play out. There are worse things in life than not knowing what to do in college. The vultures can keep circling.
I woke up kind of late because my grandma had company over and I couldn't sleep. We talked for a bit and after they left at 11pm, I kept my grandma company while she cleaned the kitchen. It was almost midnight by the time we finally got to crawl into bed.
But I slept amazingly, the first time I didn't have any dreams in a long time. And aside from the occasional kick in the face from Liam, I wasn't disturbed. So I woke up at 9am. It would have been later but my grandma was making pancakes and I didn't want to miss them... and that's just me waking up.
After breakfast I wrote for a bit, watched some inspiring videos to put me in a good mood (the kind that I don't have time to watch in Chicago that give me all the feels), and also had my sister take the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test. She was something along the lines of an ENTJ, which described her pretty accurately.
And I decided to look more at my Type just to know more about myself. I'm an INFP and I identify pretty strongly with most of the traits that are typical of one. Now I've always known that people like me, sensitive and creative, like to go into careers such as writers or social workers, but I've kind of avoided the thought.
Because I want to be an engineer. I mean, I joined robotics sophomore year and decided that I wanted to build things that make people's lives better. People would ask me what I wanted to study, what I wanted to be, and I could answer confidently "an engineer of some type, I don't know exactly what kind just yet." And I was happy. And people were happy.
And taking bio this past year, I started leaning more towards biomedical or biomechanical engineering. Thinking, "This is it: the best of both worlds. Bio and engineering, creating and people..." If only I could convince myself to stop right at that.
The problem with having a lot of time alone is that you think. And you start to doubt. And the thing is, I've had a lot of that lately. I've gone through these phases before, where I doubt all that I have come to know about my future self. Ask my best friend. She's heard every "epiphany" I've had this past school year regarding what I want to do. From epigenetics to pharmaceuticals, neurology to even writing, I'm no stranger to this type of freak out.
But rarely were they much of a problem. Like I said, I'd settle down and after maybe half a day I'd always come back to some type of engineering, happy to return to normalcy. But sometimes it would blow up. Physics was all kinds of stressful and when I got particularly caught up in it, doubt on my ability to become a decent engineer would resurface.
This past February I had a huge meltdown. The kind of meltdown that you remember for your entire life because it changes who you are. Physics wasn't working. I knew the concepts and felt I had a good grasp on them, it just took me a long time and sometimes approaches to problems and applications of concepts that were intuitive to others weren't so obvious to me. So I started dropping the engineering act or facade or whatever I had, and really looked into what I wanted.
I started thinking about why I wanted to be an engineer. And I got to the point where I realized, with help from friends, that what I really wanted to do was help people. And engineering was an easy answer just because it combined two things I loved: technology and people. But I understood that I wouldn't be helping people if I wasn't a good engineer. They say you don't need to be good at physics or even like it to become an engineer, but you do need to at least be able to tolerate it and accept that you'll be using it.
And so I walked away that day thinking bio was probably my best bet. I didn't want to leave science and all the innovation that surrounds it, but engineering wasn't exactly meeting enough of my personal need to help people. And while I knew I had the potential to go into something more "fit" for my type, I didn't want to. As my friend said, "There needs to be more people going into science for the right reasons." And I think I have the right reasons. I mean, I want to solve problems and help people. I don't know how or what, Alzheimer's is always in the back of my mind, but I felt better about that.
But I couldn't keep my mind from wandering back to engineering. It was the inevitable ending I just kept coming back to.
Last night when my grandmother's friends came over, one of them told us a dicho, a saying, that her husband told their kids. Translated, it's "Never go to sleep without having accomplished something that day, and never get out of bed without a plan for what to do next."
That's the style of living over here. Living day-to-day, sometimes on a ranch, or maybe in a small shop, but it's... simpler. And while it may seem hard to relate that to the hustle-and-bustle life that I know back in the States, the idea's the same. Do stuff, and have a plan to do more stuff. But the truth is, I still find myself getting lost in this struggle of what my "stuff" is.
And reading those MBTI career paths, I came upon one INFP who was an engineer and decided to become a lawyer because their previous occupation didn't satisfy their need to help people as much as they thought it would. And I took it as a sign, that I need to start another mental breakdown, and try finding what I really wanted to do in life. So I had it. A long thought. And I just sat there after my pancakes, thinking. Until 2:20pm. I took a shower some time in that time, but I still don't know.
At 2:20pm I went on an adventure with my grandma's friend and my family. We spent time by the lake and ate cucumbers with lime and salt and chile pepper. There were vultures circling, a lot of them. After the lake we went back into town for a coffee and cake. It was a good escape, but I'm still kind of lost.
Trying to describe this feeling is hard. I mean, I identified as being an aspiring engineer for so long, it's just hard to let go of it. And maybe that's the problem I have. Letting go of that image of myself that I anchored my life around is... hard. Trying to find out what I want to and should do for the rest of my life is... hard. Life is... hard.
And maybe I just need to suck it up. Maybe I can never have the "best of both worlds." But one thing is for sure: I'm either too immature or naive or too something to stop trying to find it. I know more mental breakdowns are in my future, but I just need to kind of roll with life for now and let it play out. There are worse things in life than not knowing what to do in college. The vultures can keep circling.
Saturday, June 28, 2014
Mascota is timeless
I don't know what it is about this place. I'm here with my grandma, sister, nephew and uncle after three years of not visiting, and somehow the place is remarkable unchanged. There are newer cars on the road, some restaurants have closed, replaced by a trade shop or even another restaurant, it seems to be raining a bit more, but the people still smile and laugh like nothing is different.
And in a weird way, nothing is. In other parts of Mexico, people are very affectionate, with PDA being expected, especially from young couples. This mainly speaks to the urban cities of the country: Puerto Vallarta and Mexico City, specifically. But Mascota, a "big" town of 8,000 residents, is still stuck in past. The planned construction of a movie theater was halted because older folks didn't want kids going there to make out. The half-built concrete skeleton still stands, without any current plans or demolition or construction.
I guess that adds to the feeling of the incomplete-ness of the town. The Preciosa Sangre, a 19th Century church that was never completed, stands about 4 blocks away from the Centro. It's clearly unfinished, but still beautiful, filled with bright fuschia buganvilias. It has come to serve as a local attraction, despite its crumbling walls and unintentionally exposed bricks. It serves as a symbol of how these people live: outdated and maybe a little broken, but still functional and beautiful.
Mascota, surprisingly, is a central hub to 5 satellite towns, the start of a chain of pueblitos with quirky names including Yerbabuena (Spearmint) and Navidad (Christmas). These towns are even smaller than Mascota, and much more desolate. Some would blame this perpetually-nostalgic phenomenon on the fact that, decades ago, many men would seek work in big cities, leaving their wives and children as the sole occupants of the towns. But I think it's more than that.
Despite being on the main route between two major cities (Puerto Vallarta and Guadalajara), Mascota is relatively isolated, located in the middle of a valley and surrounded by mountains. You see a sky full of stars on clear nights, unlike any city I've been to in the States or elsewhere in Mexico, and all movies on TV are at least 5 years old. I can't tell if the isolation of the Mascotenses is a product of the town's size and overall antiquated character, or if these "factors" are products of the people themselves.
There is some unspoken conversation between the people and the land here that sometimes makes me wonder if I can never truly belong. But when I take a look out the window at the gorgeous landscape while simultaneously receiving smiles from the kids across the street, I know that there's no way to separate them, and no use trying. I guess I'll just sit back and enjoy the reruns and Coke made with real cane sugar while they last.
And in a weird way, nothing is. In other parts of Mexico, people are very affectionate, with PDA being expected, especially from young couples. This mainly speaks to the urban cities of the country: Puerto Vallarta and Mexico City, specifically. But Mascota, a "big" town of 8,000 residents, is still stuck in past. The planned construction of a movie theater was halted because older folks didn't want kids going there to make out. The half-built concrete skeleton still stands, without any current plans or demolition or construction.
I guess that adds to the feeling of the incomplete-ness of the town. The Preciosa Sangre, a 19th Century church that was never completed, stands about 4 blocks away from the Centro. It's clearly unfinished, but still beautiful, filled with bright fuschia buganvilias. It has come to serve as a local attraction, despite its crumbling walls and unintentionally exposed bricks. It serves as a symbol of how these people live: outdated and maybe a little broken, but still functional and beautiful.
Mascota, surprisingly, is a central hub to 5 satellite towns, the start of a chain of pueblitos with quirky names including Yerbabuena (Spearmint) and Navidad (Christmas). These towns are even smaller than Mascota, and much more desolate. Some would blame this perpetually-nostalgic phenomenon on the fact that, decades ago, many men would seek work in big cities, leaving their wives and children as the sole occupants of the towns. But I think it's more than that.
Despite being on the main route between two major cities (Puerto Vallarta and Guadalajara), Mascota is relatively isolated, located in the middle of a valley and surrounded by mountains. You see a sky full of stars on clear nights, unlike any city I've been to in the States or elsewhere in Mexico, and all movies on TV are at least 5 years old. I can't tell if the isolation of the Mascotenses is a product of the town's size and overall antiquated character, or if these "factors" are products of the people themselves.
There is some unspoken conversation between the people and the land here that sometimes makes me wonder if I can never truly belong. But when I take a look out the window at the gorgeous landscape while simultaneously receiving smiles from the kids across the street, I know that there's no way to separate them, and no use trying. I guess I'll just sit back and enjoy the reruns and Coke made with real cane sugar while they last.
Wednesday, June 25, 2014
I still love Puerto Vallarta
A few months ago, my parents visited after not having been in years. While they had a good time, they were disappointed with all the development that had been made since they had last visited, it just wasn’t the same PV they had known.
After arriving yesterday, however, I do not feel the same way.
I wasn’t expecting much just because I didn’t want to get my hopes up only to have them crushed when I found a completely different Vallarta. I, too, grew up with an image of the city all of my own. After all, we had been flying in to PV since my first trip to Mexico. It was one of the cities I knew best.
But I was utterly delighted by what I saw yesterday.
We stayed at a hotel in a newer part Vallarta, one that’s made of shopping malls and highways and resorts. It’s about a 20 minute drive from there to the Centro, the oldest part of the city, the downtown part. After debating whether to stay close or go down there for dinner, we finally settled on going to the old Centro.
I’ll admit, it’s different. There’s more traffic and it’s getting kind of smoggy, the beaches are a little dirty and there are a lot of people who only cater to tourists. But old Vallarta’s still in there.
Despite all the traffic, people still roll down their windows and ask other drivers for directions, and they can always expect an honest response. The Plaza, although flanked by a Starbucks and a bank on either side, is still as beautiful as ever, and the church still stands proudly behind it. The streets are still cobblestoned in the old Centro. And the Malecon is still as beautiful as ever, filled with artists and young couples and just happy people. It's the little things that I can hold onto that make losing some of the bigger parts just a little bit easier.
Although Puerto Vallarta isn't the same as it used to be, it's certainly still my México lindo y querido.
Monday, June 16, 2014
Art in its various forms
Today in the car I was thinking about all the things I wanted to do this summer and how I wanted to document it. The best way I know how is to write about it, it's just my natural tendency, the way I document everything, the way my mind works best. And then I thought about how I would also love to take photos, because as much as you would like to believe you can describe something, you always leave your own mark, your own impression of it... and then I started just thinking about art in general.
Writing is a type of art that not many people give much credit. Art is essentially communication, and writing is one of the most well-recognized and appreciated forms of communication, and therefore art, even in what is considered its blandest states, such as essays or research papers. But writing is unique in that it is something appreciated over time. You can never look at a written work and see all of it at one time, it must be appreciated piece by piece, and the way you interpret it has some kind of correlation to how you feel that day, what you are wearing, and if you have eaten lunch already. Writing is unique in this way, it can be reread completely differently under different circumstances as when you had first encountered it.
Visual art, 2D and 3D, is a different type of art all together. For the most part, you see a photo or painting or sketch in its entirety and have an immediate reaction to it, only looking closer after gaining some overall perspective on the subject at hand, abstract cubism or still life. But there's still that image in your mind of that first glimpse, and when you step back from taking that closer look, you see how it fits in to that broader image, like a piece of a puzzle, the complete composition. It differs from writing because you can physically see it all at one time, there's no page-flipping to get through, no words to search for. And while the experience you have is also related to how you feel that day, what you are wearing, and if you have eaten lunch already, you can more easily take a step back and remember that initial gut sensation telling you how you felt.
Performed arts, live comedy and musicals, also have their own bubble. In some ways they resemble written work, because you can't view an entire play at one time, it's separated into acts and acts into scenes, and scenes into moments that all together, in the right order, create an impact and have their own place in the meaning of the whole piece. And no matter how hard the actors and actresses, speakers of word and comics try, they can never put on the same performance twice. Out of the three outlined "categories" of art, performance is the one most indelibly tied to the present. Not only the space changes, but the sound, the effect, and no matter how hard you try and remember a specific moment of a particular act of a certain play, after it's over, you can never relive it or experience it the same way, even if you watch it again the same week, even the same day. There's no way to replicate it, no photocopies or reprinted editions to refer to. Performance is the most transient form of art for sure, but also one of the most impactful.
There are more anomalies, film being that odd bridge between live and static art, poetry, which can also depend on the placement of words on a page and not only the words themselves, and every other form of communication: phone calls, letters, music (a beast all its own that captured my heart from so early on I couldn't possibly include it in this post without spending five hours I don't have sitting on my couch, hands glued to my laptop). But no matter the type of art, the harder you try, the more you feel.
Writing is a type of art that not many people give much credit. Art is essentially communication, and writing is one of the most well-recognized and appreciated forms of communication, and therefore art, even in what is considered its blandest states, such as essays or research papers. But writing is unique in that it is something appreciated over time. You can never look at a written work and see all of it at one time, it must be appreciated piece by piece, and the way you interpret it has some kind of correlation to how you feel that day, what you are wearing, and if you have eaten lunch already. Writing is unique in this way, it can be reread completely differently under different circumstances as when you had first encountered it.
Visual art, 2D and 3D, is a different type of art all together. For the most part, you see a photo or painting or sketch in its entirety and have an immediate reaction to it, only looking closer after gaining some overall perspective on the subject at hand, abstract cubism or still life. But there's still that image in your mind of that first glimpse, and when you step back from taking that closer look, you see how it fits in to that broader image, like a piece of a puzzle, the complete composition. It differs from writing because you can physically see it all at one time, there's no page-flipping to get through, no words to search for. And while the experience you have is also related to how you feel that day, what you are wearing, and if you have eaten lunch already, you can more easily take a step back and remember that initial gut sensation telling you how you felt.
Performed arts, live comedy and musicals, also have their own bubble. In some ways they resemble written work, because you can't view an entire play at one time, it's separated into acts and acts into scenes, and scenes into moments that all together, in the right order, create an impact and have their own place in the meaning of the whole piece. And no matter how hard the actors and actresses, speakers of word and comics try, they can never put on the same performance twice. Out of the three outlined "categories" of art, performance is the one most indelibly tied to the present. Not only the space changes, but the sound, the effect, and no matter how hard you try and remember a specific moment of a particular act of a certain play, after it's over, you can never relive it or experience it the same way, even if you watch it again the same week, even the same day. There's no way to replicate it, no photocopies or reprinted editions to refer to. Performance is the most transient form of art for sure, but also one of the most impactful.
There are more anomalies, film being that odd bridge between live and static art, poetry, which can also depend on the placement of words on a page and not only the words themselves, and every other form of communication: phone calls, letters, music (a beast all its own that captured my heart from so early on I couldn't possibly include it in this post without spending five hours I don't have sitting on my couch, hands glued to my laptop). But no matter the type of art, the harder you try, the more you feel.
Sunday, June 15, 2014
Summer (Bucket?) List
Alright, this one's gonna be a long one.
Summer just started, the weekend is about to be over and I'm already kind of ready for school to start again. Even though I had an amazing time at Summer Bash last night and there are lots of things I really want to do this summer, I feel like school is part of me. I'm going to miss seeing my friends, the little schedules we had nonverbally agreed upon, the teachers and their smiles and their kindness. Instead of looking forward to summer, I find myself looking forward to senior year and college.
So to keep myself in the present, and save my summer, I'm creating a kind of list of things that I want to accomplish or at least strive for between now and school starts. It's kind of a weird list, some things are events I want to go to, others are tasks that have to be completed daily (you know, the everyday grind for DFW folks out there), or things I'm looking forward to, but they're all me. Hope you enjoy!
THE LIST:
Summer just started, the weekend is about to be over and I'm already kind of ready for school to start again. Even though I had an amazing time at Summer Bash last night and there are lots of things I really want to do this summer, I feel like school is part of me. I'm going to miss seeing my friends, the little schedules we had nonverbally agreed upon, the teachers and their smiles and their kindness. Instead of looking forward to summer, I find myself looking forward to senior year and college.
So to keep myself in the present, and save my summer, I'm creating a kind of list of things that I want to accomplish or at least strive for between now and school starts. It's kind of a weird list, some things are events I want to go to, others are tasks that have to be completed daily (you know, the everyday grind for DFW folks out there), or things I'm looking forward to, but they're all me. Hope you enjoy!
THE LIST:
- go to outdoor music concerts (Wicker Park fest, maybe?)
- maintain my summer garden (and post photos to Twitter to document the progression)
- enjoy my two weeks in Mexico (and blog about them!)
- eat healthier (keep up with myfitnesspal.com to get a general idea of calories and sugar)
- swim club (6am every weekday when I'm in town, get in shape for swim season-potentially)
- get stronger (go to the club for strength training, the Ceja special?)
- work on my novel ("Things I've Been Told" drafts currently in Simplenote)
- make a music video to an oldish song (I don't know why, but I feel the need to)
- keep composting (may be we'll be able to use it by the end of the summer)
- visit at least one school (probably UMich, but maybe Johns Hopkins and Penn)
- go to the middle of nowhere and forget everything (nothing more to add here)
- read (start by finishing I Am Malala and The Things They Carried and Death in Slow Motion)
- bike to the Botanic Gardens (and along the lake and just a lot of places... the CTA is expensive)
- work (robotics needs funding and yearbook needs designing)
- sleeping (going for those 10 hours a night in hopes of getting taller... maybe?)
- write about all of it (as in... actually use this blog because May was a disgrace after April)
So, that's me and my summer in a bulleted list!
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
I can smell summer
It's in the air here at school.
It's the smell of excitement and sweat,
of fruits finally in season and deodorant over-applied.
It gets closer with every tick of the clock,
with finals almost done and field days awaited.
It's been such a long year,
summer is inches away.
It's the smell of excitement and sweat,
of fruits finally in season and deodorant over-applied.
It gets closer with every tick of the clock,
with finals almost done and field days awaited.
It's been such a long year,
summer is inches away.
Sunday, May 11, 2014
Coffee and a hardware store (all dolled up with nowhere to go)
Of the over ten-point list, the top three are studying for my physics AP (it's tomorrow), reading a book I'm supposed to have two thirds of done (which I just today downloaded... without a tablet to actually read it on), and studying for my micro AP (it's thursday). But instead, I'm thinking about how it's Mother's Day and how my dad and I went to see The Grand Budapest Hotel last night and it was the first time I'd seen him laugh, truly laugh out loud, in a really long time.
It's Mother's Day. And this morning, my sister, mom and I were going to take my nephew to church. But we were so late that we decided to get a coffee and go to get flowers instead. We felt kind of bad but as mothers (I consider myself my nephew's second mom), we decided it was okay. So we each got iced mochas, and a hot chocolate for Liam, and set off to The Home Depot, all in our Sunday bests. It was a good time.
Recently, with APs and all, I've had not a lot of homework and a lot of time to "study," which really means a lot of time to myself to just think. And I've been trying to figure some stuff out. I think it's working.
Somehow somewhere sometime I must have once decided that life is all about letting go. I can't remember it happening, if it was an immediate conscious choice or a slow realization. But no matter how or where or when it happened, I've, rather abruptly in my house very recently, been realizing how wrong I am.
The more I think about it, the more wrong I feel it is.
A lot of life is, undoubtedly, about letting go. Letting go of people and places and things. But it's also about clinging on, to memories of old and new faces and homes and stuff. After all, how could anyone survive this world if it were only about losing what matters? Because if that's how life works, everyone would be running on empty.
I think everyone has to run on empty at least once in their life.
It's the people that stop looking for ways out, who stop reaching for what matters, that end up losing faith, who end up not being able to deal with the world.
Some of the best people are so wonderful because somehow somewhere sometime they lost everything. Because they've learned to grab on even tighter to the people and places and stuff that matter.
So the next time I have to let something go, I'll keep my eyes open for the next thing to grab onto.
It's Mother's Day. And this morning, my sister, mom and I were going to take my nephew to church. But we were so late that we decided to get a coffee and go to get flowers instead. We felt kind of bad but as mothers (I consider myself my nephew's second mom), we decided it was okay. So we each got iced mochas, and a hot chocolate for Liam, and set off to The Home Depot, all in our Sunday bests. It was a good time.
Recently, with APs and all, I've had not a lot of homework and a lot of time to "study," which really means a lot of time to myself to just think. And I've been trying to figure some stuff out. I think it's working.
Somehow somewhere sometime I must have once decided that life is all about letting go. I can't remember it happening, if it was an immediate conscious choice or a slow realization. But no matter how or where or when it happened, I've, rather abruptly in my house very recently, been realizing how wrong I am.
The more I think about it, the more wrong I feel it is.
A lot of life is, undoubtedly, about letting go. Letting go of people and places and things. But it's also about clinging on, to memories of old and new faces and homes and stuff. After all, how could anyone survive this world if it were only about losing what matters? Because if that's how life works, everyone would be running on empty.
I think everyone has to run on empty at least once in their life.
It's the people that stop looking for ways out, who stop reaching for what matters, that end up losing faith, who end up not being able to deal with the world.
Some of the best people are so wonderful because somehow somewhere sometime they lost everything. Because they've learned to grab on even tighter to the people and places and stuff that matter.
So the next time I have to let something go, I'll keep my eyes open for the next thing to grab onto.
Monday, April 21, 2014
Avoiding physics with a commencement speech and growing pains
So, I'm avoiding doing physics because it's bothering me and I don't feel like thinking about it, so I returned to a piece we were assigned to do in AP Lang before break started. It was to write a commencement speech to the 2014 graduates of our elementary school, based off of the one David Foster Wallace's delivered at Kenyon College in 2005.
I am not David Foster Wallace, but I found myself working on the speech during AP Micro this morning, and then again just now. After some tweaking, and learning our teacher isn't collecting it, I decided to just try and keep fleshing it out. It's still super raw and scattered (I also have no right to give a commencement speech to these children, being only 3 years older than the graduates themselves, and still experiencing growing pains of my own), but I decided to just go for it.
Good luck.
My apologies for the terrible formatting.
I am not David Foster Wallace, but I found myself working on the speech during AP Micro this morning, and then again just now. After some tweaking, and learning our teacher isn't collecting it, I decided to just try and keep fleshing it out. It's still super raw and scattered (I also have no right to give a commencement speech to these children, being only 3 years older than the graduates themselves, and still experiencing growing pains of my own), but I decided to just go for it.
Hi graduates!
Congratulations on finally getting out of this place. You’re done with walking down the hallways in two lines, using “Silent Coyote” and borrowing hall passes to go to the bathroom. You’re done with field trips and midday snacks, coloring books and nap times. It is time for you to grow up. To become the person you were always meant to be, time to find yourself, right?
Actually, not.
Sorry, folks, but if you think you’re done experiencing your growing pains, know that you’re not even close to being done with them yet. That odd quasi-adult, quasi-kid feeling is going to continue. There are times when you’ll get frustrated with it, and want to be an adult, which is probably the only side you see right now, but there will also be times when you wish you were a kid again. And you’re going to question everything you know to be true and it won’t at all feel like finding yourself, it’ll feel like losing yourself but that’s okay. They’re just growing pains.
This speech isn’t meant to demoralize you, but it also isn’t meant to comfort you. Life is gonna get harder, there’s no other way to put it. You’ve been sheltered from a lot of the crap in the world, and you’re going to have a bit of a rude awakening the first time you have an “adult” experience. And the same is gonna happen in four years when you go off to college. It doesn’t get easier, you just start worrying about different things.
You will need to get used to being mature and what that means for yourself. There will be no one to give you a gold star when you put all your crayons away, you’ll have to find motivation to do things within yourself. You won’t always get rewarded for doing things correctly, or punished for doing things incorrectly, but you’ll have more options. In time you’ll find that, as many opportunities as there will be for you to screw up, there will be just as many, if not more, to prove yourself.
You’re done worrying about coloring inside the lines and bringing in a box of tissues every school year, but semester final exams will become more common, failure will become more of a possibility. And your teachers in elementary school have done their bests to prepare you, but they can only do so much. In the end, it’s up to you.
So, again, congratulations on making it out of Bell alive and well, but be prepared for those rude awakenings. Remember that how you react to them is a reflection of who you are. I hope you are not discouraged, but inspired. Everyone experiences their own growing pains.
Good luck.
My apologies for the terrible formatting.
Wednesday, April 16, 2014
I just watched "Monsters University"
And must say I was a little disappointed... or maybe even really disappointed.
It's a prequel to one of my favorite Disney movies, "Monsters Inc", which came out in 2001. It gives the backstory of how Mike and Sully became unlikely friends in college and how Randall became their nemesis. There was a lot of comedic references to college life, with the producers obviously trying to reconnect with viewers of the original movie, 12 years older after the release of the film.
But despite all the humor, I felt the movie's message was entirely skewed.
[Spoiler Alert: I'm going to talk about details of the movie here, and reveal the ending... so beware]
To give a brief summary, Mike and Sully show up to scaring class and it becomes clear that Mike, although not intrinsically scary, truly wants to be a scarer, and is committed to studying, while Sully, son of a famous scarer, feels as though he can ride off the merit and his scary disposition.
After being kicked out of the program after failing their semester finals for not being scary and not trying hard enough, respectively, Mike and Sully grudgingly join Oozma Kappa, a fraternity made up of misfits, in order to enter the Scare Games, a competition that, should they win, would allow them to rejoin the program. So they begin to work together and figure out how to outsmart the Roar Omega Roar team.
After an incredible show of spirit, OK makes it to the final round, and has to duke it out with ROR in the simulator. In the final matchup, Mike goes in last, needing a record-breaking scream to win. He goes in and tries his best, and the child's scream puts OK in first place and the underdogs win the Scare Games.
And all is well, until Mike finds out that Sully rigged the simulation so that Mike's scare registered as scarier than it actually was. Sully turned himself in, then there was a lot of action and some people (real people, not monsters) involved and drama. By the end, it turned out that both of them were kicked out of school, and get involved with Monsters Incorporated, where Sully later becomes a top scarer and Mike his coach.
So, really, putting it all into perspective, it sends two sort of skewed messages: that you don't have to go to college (which, while it is true, is becoming increasingly less so as time goes on and jobs become more specialized), and that if you commit to something entirely and work for it, like Mike did, it may not work out, because you just weren't cut out for it (which is demoralizing, to me).
All in all, just not what I think Disney movies should portray.
It's a prequel to one of my favorite Disney movies, "Monsters Inc", which came out in 2001. It gives the backstory of how Mike and Sully became unlikely friends in college and how Randall became their nemesis. There was a lot of comedic references to college life, with the producers obviously trying to reconnect with viewers of the original movie, 12 years older after the release of the film.
But despite all the humor, I felt the movie's message was entirely skewed.
[Spoiler Alert: I'm going to talk about details of the movie here, and reveal the ending... so beware]
To give a brief summary, Mike and Sully show up to scaring class and it becomes clear that Mike, although not intrinsically scary, truly wants to be a scarer, and is committed to studying, while Sully, son of a famous scarer, feels as though he can ride off the merit and his scary disposition.
After being kicked out of the program after failing their semester finals for not being scary and not trying hard enough, respectively, Mike and Sully grudgingly join Oozma Kappa, a fraternity made up of misfits, in order to enter the Scare Games, a competition that, should they win, would allow them to rejoin the program. So they begin to work together and figure out how to outsmart the Roar Omega Roar team.
After an incredible show of spirit, OK makes it to the final round, and has to duke it out with ROR in the simulator. In the final matchup, Mike goes in last, needing a record-breaking scream to win. He goes in and tries his best, and the child's scream puts OK in first place and the underdogs win the Scare Games.
And all is well, until Mike finds out that Sully rigged the simulation so that Mike's scare registered as scarier than it actually was. Sully turned himself in, then there was a lot of action and some people (real people, not monsters) involved and drama. By the end, it turned out that both of them were kicked out of school, and get involved with Monsters Incorporated, where Sully later becomes a top scarer and Mike his coach.
So, really, putting it all into perspective, it sends two sort of skewed messages: that you don't have to go to college (which, while it is true, is becoming increasingly less so as time goes on and jobs become more specialized), and that if you commit to something entirely and work for it, like Mike did, it may not work out, because you just weren't cut out for it (which is demoralizing, to me).
All in all, just not what I think Disney movies should portray.
Sunday, April 13, 2014
Knowing when to stop
I'm starting to think that most people in this world can be placed under two general categories: people who rely on crutches as a part of everyday life in order to function (dailies), and people who binge in order to escape some kind of trigger (bingies).
I, like most people in my family, fall into the latter category.
The truth is, I'm not afraid of doing stupid things. I'm afraid of not knowing when to stop them.
If you think about it, there seems to be some differences in how functional the two types are in society. If you rely on something every day just to function, it becomes a problem if you can't get a hold of it; but if you use something as a kind of comfort, it becomes a problem if you're using it in excess (which, let's face it, in most cases, you probably are).
But the problem is, knowing when to stop comes into play with more than just vices.
Knowing when to stop is important when it comes to almost everything in life. People live off the mantra that "everything in moderation" is okay, but you never hear that going overboard every once in a while is a good thing.
Sometimes I wonder where this flaw came from. Is it some innate quality of our current culture caused by its never-ending obsession with the new and better. And if so, why are there still dailies? And does it matter where the flaw came from if I can't find a way to change it?
Can bingies become dailies? Should we even want to try?
I, like most people in my family, fall into the latter category.
The truth is, I'm not afraid of doing stupid things. I'm afraid of not knowing when to stop them.
If you think about it, there seems to be some differences in how functional the two types are in society. If you rely on something every day just to function, it becomes a problem if you can't get a hold of it; but if you use something as a kind of comfort, it becomes a problem if you're using it in excess (which, let's face it, in most cases, you probably are).
But the problem is, knowing when to stop comes into play with more than just vices.
Knowing when to stop is important when it comes to almost everything in life. People live off the mantra that "everything in moderation" is okay, but you never hear that going overboard every once in a while is a good thing.
Sometimes I wonder where this flaw came from. Is it some innate quality of our current culture caused by its never-ending obsession with the new and better. And if so, why are there still dailies? And does it matter where the flaw came from if I can't find a way to change it?
Can bingies become dailies? Should we even want to try?
Friday, April 11, 2014
And I think this is the moment
when I realized I can't stop.
[warning... this is all really incoherent, but I wrote it spur-of-the-moment, so forgive me.]
As much as this year has killed me, and as much as I've hated the fact that there have been not one, not two, but at least five hell weeks my junior year, I really love school.
It's not just the people. And I know that may sound bad, but the point of this isn't to go on about how people make a school. The point is that learning is amazing, and I honestly don't know what I'd do with my life if I didn't have to sit through six hours of lectures and hand cramps and the overwhelming tide of information.
But I also realized something incredibly unfair in it all. I attend one of the selective enrollment schools of the infamous Chicago Public School system. I just took a survey called "My Voice, My School" that I can only assume works to allow students to give feedback on the system that seems to keep beating us down.
But I actually can't complain, because I have the luxury of not being able to truthfully to check "strongly disagree" when presented with a statement on the safety of my community. But things have to change. It isn't fair that I got into the school I did. Not saying I didn't work for it, I really did. But I was prepared, groomed, by the same school system, a gifted program, because I took a test and got in.
And I feel guilty. I feel like I am taking the place of someone else. Because there aren't enough good schools. It's just a fact. Because, I'm sorry, but not everyone can just make the best of their own education. I'm not saying it's all about the best teachers or the newest textbooks or fanciest technology; all I'm saying is, with no budget and a bunch of crappy teachers, there isn't much students can make. Because there's nothing.
The survey really opened my eyes to how lucky I am. But I shouldn't have to feel lucky or guilty. Because there shouldn't be these limited opportunities for a decent education. The fact of the matter is there aren't enough good schools. Really. There just aren't. Every school should "strive to develop students’ critical and analytical thinking skills, and promote diverse academic inquiry by bringing together students from a wide range of backgrounds and experiences," not just the 10 selective enrollment ones.
And maybe I sound like just another selective enrollment student who's hating on the system that granted her a great, amazing opportunity for better learning, maybe I sound ungrateful. But I don't care. Because it's my voice, my school.
As much as this year has killed me, and as much as I've hated the fact that there have been not one, not two, but at least five hell weeks my junior year, I really love school.
It's not just the people. And I know that may sound bad, but the point of this isn't to go on about how people make a school. The point is that learning is amazing, and I honestly don't know what I'd do with my life if I didn't have to sit through six hours of lectures and hand cramps and the overwhelming tide of information.
But I also realized something incredibly unfair in it all. I attend one of the selective enrollment schools of the infamous Chicago Public School system. I just took a survey called "My Voice, My School" that I can only assume works to allow students to give feedback on the system that seems to keep beating us down.
But I actually can't complain, because I have the luxury of not being able to truthfully to check "strongly disagree" when presented with a statement on the safety of my community. But things have to change. It isn't fair that I got into the school I did. Not saying I didn't work for it, I really did. But I was prepared, groomed, by the same school system, a gifted program, because I took a test and got in.
And I feel guilty. I feel like I am taking the place of someone else. Because there aren't enough good schools. It's just a fact. Because, I'm sorry, but not everyone can just make the best of their own education. I'm not saying it's all about the best teachers or the newest textbooks or fanciest technology; all I'm saying is, with no budget and a bunch of crappy teachers, there isn't much students can make. Because there's nothing.
The survey really opened my eyes to how lucky I am. But I shouldn't have to feel lucky or guilty. Because there shouldn't be these limited opportunities for a decent education. The fact of the matter is there aren't enough good schools. Really. There just aren't. Every school should "strive to develop students’ critical and analytical thinking skills, and promote diverse academic inquiry by bringing together students from a wide range of backgrounds and experiences," not just the 10 selective enrollment ones.
And maybe I sound like just another selective enrollment student who's hating on the system that granted her a great, amazing opportunity for better learning, maybe I sound ungrateful. But I don't care. Because it's my voice, my school.
Sunday, April 6, 2014
This is just the beginning
Hi my name is Maura and writing is my therapy. When I get everything wrong in my head, getting it down on paper and seeing how wrong it is helps me get it unwrong. When I'm stuck in a rut and my brain keeps going in circles I can't stop, I write it out so I can see it and feel it and find a way out of it. My writing is really more just a translation of my thoughts as I feel them, less of an act of creation and more an act of response.
And I'm really bad at keeping up with things... like blogs and photo collections and stuff like that, stuff that requires little bits of time everyday. I binge-write usually. Anyway, my writing is scattered about different blogs, notebooks and applications. One day I'll compile it all... for now I'll just keep writing.
So... hi and welcome to my brain.
And I'm really bad at keeping up with things... like blogs and photo collections and stuff like that, stuff that requires little bits of time everyday. I binge-write usually. Anyway, my writing is scattered about different blogs, notebooks and applications. One day I'll compile it all... for now I'll just keep writing.
So... hi and welcome to my brain.
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