What I Believe

I believe that there is an ultimate goal to strive for on Earth that can only be reached through the people around you.

I believe in second chances.

I believe that people who are misunderstood are the ones who are most in need of understanding.

What is Success?

At 57, I see myself in the very middle of my life, reflecting on what I've done so far. I'm certainly not wealthy, but it does not matter to me; I am working in the field that I had always wanted to be a part of: Art. Not only that, but I am a fairly successful artist. I have plenty of clients to design for, a good name in the industry, and a loving family to support me. Even though I may not be famous, I can point to billboard or book covers and say, "I designed that!" It's a wonderful and strange feeling to see your art in so many places. Not only that, but I've been able to keep up with my own personal art. I have time after designing logos and illustrations for novels that I can work on pieces that express how I feel. Maybe they will get some recognition, or maybe they will never see the light of day, but either way, I am grateful to have time for my passions.

More important than my art, or my career, however, are the people I've had in my life. There are people's lives that I have made better, and people who have made my own life better, and that's the most I could ever wish for in life. I stand at the midpoint of my lifespan, knowing that I made a difference in the world, that I will be leaving it better than I found it, and that I still have many more years to make an even bigger difference.

Describe this

The floor is grainy and gritty beneath its back and arms. It works all day and is resting, sleeping, until it heaves itself up once again to do its thankless job. A stomach full of knowledge and a head full of paper, it slumps over itself, exhausted. There are books in there that haven't been opened since September, pens that have long since dried up, notebooks that had never seen the light of day. And yet, there they were, beneath the feet of the master, safely inside its chest. Every day it is slung over her shoulder, bumped against walls, tossed to the floor, opened and closed, kicked and stepped on all day long. But every day it does its job. Every day it does what it's supposed to do, even though it gets dusty and dented over the course of its day. It's overworked and abused, but at least it gets put to use every day.



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Out With the Old, In With the New

I am so excited for the inauguration today. Regardless of how this presidency unfolds, this has been, without a doubt, a historical election. A lot of my friends are going to DC today to see it happen in person, and I must say, I'm pretty jealous. As exciting an event as it is to see broadcast on television, I'm sure it would be even more exciting in person. In person, you can feel the energy around you, like the excitement of the crown in Time Square on New Year's Eve. Perhaps it is not very easy to see the action, but you get a genuine feeling of being a part of something important, and I wish I could have been a part of that today. I am, however, glad that the school is letting us all watch the broadcast together and is recognizing this as a world-changing event.


Obama is so cool.

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Secrets Secrets Are No Fun

They aren't. I once kept a "bad" secret that I didn't think was bad until I realized that someone else could have lost their job because of it. There was an extremely stressful three hour period of phone calls and correspondence where all I could do was lie. I was lying to save myself. of course, but once I realized this other person could get fired, I began lying for them too. There were more lies than I could keep track of, and it took a lot of thinking for me to have these lies go together. No conflicting events.

Finally the matter was resolved. The person was fine and so was I. Yet, I still couldn't shake that awful feeling of how much I had lied and that secret that I was keeping from everyone. It wasn't such a big deal at first, as a matter of fact, but one lie led to another and suddenly it was a matter of keeping a job or losing it, all because of a stupid mistake I had made. There's also a strange sort of shame that comes with being good at lying. So they believed me this one time, but does that mean I'll have to lie more in the future? It had become less about saving me and more about saving the other's feelings.

To this day I haven't told anyone.

Brought to you by the letter "A!"

I'm really enjoying how The Scarlet Letter is unfolding. Hester is a character with whom it is easy to sympathize because although what she did may be considered morally wrong, you can certainly tell how wicked a man Chillingworth is and what motivations she had for her actions. She reminds me of Mary Magdalene: Although she is certainly not the only person in her town who has sinned, she is rejected and chastised simply because her sins are visible to everyone around her. Pearl is an intelligent metaphor for the human condition; humans are not born evil, but gradually become so due to environmental and social pressures. It is also insinuated that no person is entirely good or evil, and employing a child character to convey this message was a smart choice; children in books are often either only precocious and charming or only mischievous and misbehaving. Using a child shows that anyone is capable of both good and evil. Chillingworth is reminiscent of Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights, because although the reader can see his revenge unfolding, we're still not sure what he has planned for Dimmesdale and Hester.

So far, I really love the book! I'm curious to see where it will go.


Ahahaha.

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Try harder this year.

I've resolved to be a better person all around this year, both in health and personality. I've decided that it would be beneficial to my health for me to give up soda and fast food, and instead drink water and eat food from home. I joined a gym last week, so that should help get be into better physical condition.

Something else has been bugging me this year, and that's been the fact that I haven't been very considerate toward others lately. Perhaps I have not been impolite right in front of people I dislike, but I have been doing a lot of talking behind people's backs. While I'm not necessarily very friendly to these people, I still feel like a hypocrite for not saying what is on my mind to the people I complain about. From now on, I'm going to try my hardest to be a better person toward people who maybe aren't even nice to me, or who annoy be, regardless of who they are or what they do, because I don't know their motivations for behaving in a way that bothers me or what goes on behind closed doors. Everyone could use a friend.

I am also going to try to get my grades back up. Especially this year, my grades have really plummeted in math and science, and I've let them drop because I have convinced myself that I am just inherently bad in those subjects. Whether or not this is true, I've decided to abolish that attitude for the rest of my high school career. I am going to try my best to succeed in classes that I'm not necessarily good in or fascinated by. I know plenty of people who don't really understand trigonometry or physics, but they get good marks in those classes, so what's stopping me?

I think I've set relatively simple goals for myself for 2009, and I'm going to try my hardest to not only stick to them this year, but for the rest of my life as well.


Yay, 2009!

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