Family.

I had to finish reading Never Let Me Go over break for English so after several days of bumming around, I picked up the book today, resolved to finish it all in one sitting. Of course, after a single digit number of pages, I was soon fast asleep within the warmth of my covers, the morning's ridiculous track workout having drained me of the energy required to keep my eyes open. Upon waking up with the outburst of several expletives, I decided to finish the rest of my reading downstairs in the living room, where I was more likely to stay awake.

Innocently minding my own business, I made my jolly way down the stairs, happy to have set my mind on something so productive after being a useless bum for the past few days. I made a beeline for my favorite corner of the couch and was just about to settle into a comfortable reading position when my dad walked out of the kitchen and exclaimed, "Well, if it isn't Brooke in the living room! Haven't seen you on this level of the house except to eat or play piano!" I looked up with a taken aback, "What?" then pretended to commence with my reading. Inside my head, though, I felt slightly confused. What did he mean?

And then I felt bad because I realized that I've been spending most of my time cooped up in my own room, and that I probably talk to people on gchat ten times more often than I talk to my own family. That's pretty sad. But then again I think I'm painting a bad picture here, I love my parents and my brother and I have a very good family life - much better than that of most people's, so I've come to realize over the years - but I guess I haven't been appreciative of that. Hmm, I should probably thank them sometime before I go off to college. But we all know that only happens in sappy movies and TV shows.

Time To Wait.

I have this funny feeling in my stomach but I'm not sure if it's from the adhesive substance of the envelopes I've been licking all afternoon or from the dread of being rejected from all the colleges these envelopes were mailed to.

Ajlsdkjfks.

I wish I could find all the right words to say, the perfect combination of the letters of the alphabet that would dissolve all your sadness in one sentence's embrace.

Runner's High.

So today I spent several hours freezing my ass off at the track, waddling around like a penguin with my arms held stiffly at my sides, refusing to take my hands out of the over sized sleeves of my varsity jacket. But in the end, when it was finally time for the 800, my race went by surprisingly fast and when it was all over I sat down, put on my sweats, and replaced those dreadfully toe-squishing track spikes with my worn out, comfortable uggs. It was a good feeling.

On the car ride home, I couldn't stop coughing after running around in the cold for so long, yet I sang with Leona Lewis at the top of my lungs. And as I drove past the rows of houses, amazed at each one's sparkling Christmas lights, I felt warm, and relieved, and content. And when I got back home my mom made me hot apple cider with cinnamon and I sat there sipping my steaming mug while listening to a piano cover of Just The Way You Are. So Amy, to answer your question - "Why do you run? Why would you do winter track?!" - I guess it's for moments like these.

Sacrifice.

So tonight at dinner it was just my mother and I. Not unlike many of our dinner conversations, we got on the topic of college - except instead of finishing my plate with the usual feeling of a sinking heart and the fear of failure, I sat there in a sort of awed confusion.

My mom is mad smart. Whenever I don't understand calc, she'll take a quick glance at my homework and say, "Oh...hmm give me your textbook, I think I remember this," and within a few minutes, perfectly understands the entire chapter. It blows my mind. Whenever my computer crashes, mother comes to the rescue with her troubleshooting skills. And when I borrow astronomy magazines and books from the library, she'll finish reading them before I do and then start asking me questions about them that I have no answers to. And on top of being a genius, she's an amazing artist. All the paintings that we have hung up around the house are hers. But she hasn't painted in a while.

She wanted to be an architect. Came to America, got into college, received her Masters degree. "But you really shouldn't worry about where you go to college," she said as I stared at my rice. "Cause in the end it doesn't really matter. I mean I didn't go to that great of a college but it makes no difference now - I chose not to go to work, and just stay at home. I'm happy with my life." And then I felt really bad. I mean I know my mom loves our family and would do anything for us - from making me breakfast in the morning to solving crazy math problems with my brother to helping my dad publish books. Yet I can't help but wonder if she ever regrets giving up her own interests, her own dreams, to support her family. I hope am a good enough daughter to make her sacrifices worth it.

College.

How can anyone really get to know a person through a list of awards and a few measly essays? Even interviews are no good - first impressions are often wrong. There is too much luck involved in this application process.

I dislike things that are out of my control.

Rant.

I didn't make regions so in a momentary outbreak of spite I wrote this:

I can’t wait for the day
When I can turn around and say
Did you forget about me?
Well I’m back and here to stay.

Celebrities will know my name
And the President will claim
That he knew I had it in me
Before I came to fame.

‘Cause I can guarantee
I’ll be all that’s on TV
And everywhere you go –
They’ll be talking about me.

I’ll come knocking at your door
To even out the score
Did you forget about me?
Well you can’t anymore.

Okay, my rant is done now. It's alllll good.

Locker Room Conversations.

Girl: So, do you know for sure yet?
Other Girl: No...my mom's like freaking out though, crying and crap.
Girl: Wow, why are moms soo dramatic...was she like born 36? She was our age once too...
Other Girl: I don't know, but she had me when she was a teen, so she should know all about it.

Oh, the things you overhear sometimes...

So...college.

It's like I'm walking down an empty hallway lined with locked doors on each side, and I'm desperately knocking on every one, hoping someone will open it before I reach a dead end.

Stop Sign.

So Shirley and I stayed after today for calc and, not surprisingly, got into a pretty serious conversation amidst trying to fix our completely warped wire model of a hyperboloid of one sheet. After our lopsided project was complete, we left the classroom, conversation still going on, when she asked, "Do you ever get the feeling that life just never stops?" And I replied, "I know exactly what you mean."

We walked outside into the drizzling parking lot. My mind was filled with a million thoughts, with hopes and worries, with dreams and doubts, with memories from the past, with instants from the day, with wishes for the future. It was a jumble of reality, of the high school, the concrete, the raindrops, the track, the cars - a collage of everything around me cramped into the space beneath my skull. Cold and wet, I opened the car door and rushed into the cozy warmth of the vehicle. For a few seconds, the world was quiet, I was alone, and life stopped.

Then I turned on the engine and the loud buzzing vibrated throughout the car, the windshield wipers started moving at top speed, I pressed on the gas pedal and life began again. Driving home was like any other day - the same streets, the same stop lights, the same turns. A part of me didn't want to go home, I just wanted to keep going, just wanted to get lost so I could find myself again. But then I saw a stop sign, paused and thought for a second, and then I turned left, the way I always do.

Past.

So I finally realized that letting go is a much more efficient way to forget about the past than trying to lock up memories. Took me long enough.

A Reflection Upon Perfection.

My life is like anyone else's - a day to day routine, sprinkled with some mishaps and mistakes and driven by some faraway dream, but all in all, relatively content. I'm mediocre at most things I do: I get good grades but am no genius, play piano and violin decently but am really a crappy stage performer, and participate in three seasons of varsity sports but in all likelihood will only ever play club sports in college. I like who I am and I'm proud of whatever accomplishments I've achieved thus far, but there has never been a moment in my life when I felt like I had truly succeeded in something, reached a lifelong goal, justified my existence. Albeit I'm only 17 years old, but as college rounds the corner and the Rest of My Life approaches, I suddenly feel as if I might fear...success.

This morning at piano lessons I was playing a Sonata that I honestly don't like at all. Being that I find the piece rather boring, I obviously don't practice it much, and consequently always play it badly at piano lessons. It's become sort of like a weekly thing. At every lesson, I'll play every other piece fine and then once I get to this piece my brain shuts down, I'm not into it, I make mistakes left and right, my piano teacher yells at me. But this morning for some reason I played this piece really well. It's eight pages long, but it wasn't until around page four that I realized this was the best I've ever played the piece before. It was the longest I had ever gotten through the piece without Mrs. Goldsmith stopping me and making me replay something I messed up. But once I realized this - I began messing up.

I hate perfection. It's so flawless, so pure, so like a beautiful slate of crystalline glass that could be shattered at any moment. I want to succeed, I want to be perfect, but at same time I'm afraid that perfection is too much to live with. It's hard making your way to the top, but once you're the best, it's even harder staying the best. Is it worth the price?

I feel like I'm just making excuses for myself, pretending to be reluctant to reach success when in reality I'm just afraid I won't get there.

Not All Who Wander Are Lost.

Being the nerds that we are, Jess, Melissa, Alex, and I were talking about colleges in Spanish Lit today. We were supposed to be answering questions on Rosario Castellanos' poem "Autorretrato," but we all already did them at home (again, we're nerds) so we spent all of Spanish class chatting in English.

Anyways, I was talking to Alex about how he already knew exactly what college he was EDing, why he loved that college so much, and what he planned on studying there. I told him that I admired how he had his goals set out for him and knew what he needed to do to achieve them. I, on the other hand, fear that I will never reach my dreams -- mainly because I don't know what those dreams are yet. I feel like it's so much easier to be successful when you already know what you want. So what do the rest of us do? Close our eyes, make a wish, and hope a shooting star happens to be passing by?

Shirley gave me a bookmark today. It made me feel warm and fuzzy inside because she didn't buy it for any other reason than, "It reminded me of you." Funny how the smallest gestures mean the most. Anyways, the bookmark had a Henry David Thoreau quote on it, written in bold, capitalized, orange font: "GO CONFIDENTLY IN THE DIRECTION OF YOUR DREAMS!" It seems so simple. Here, browse around in the Dreams aisle. Pick a Future off the shelf and make your purchase at the Wish register. Quite a painless procedure -- the prices are pretty good too!

...I can't help it. The world is too big, and I'm only so little. How do you expect me to know what I want?


To be honest, I kind of want it all.

Anticipation.

I've been remiss in posting for quite a while -- not that it matters since no one reads this -- but the sudden explosion of bloggers which trusty Facebook has informed me of has inspired me to write something. (Actually, the real reason why I'm here right now is because I have absolutely no idea what my Spanish homework is asking me so naturally I figured that a little procrastination would be the responsible thing to do.)

My first reason sounded better though.

I hate the mornings when my alarm clock rings and before I've even opened my eyes, a list of reasons why not to get up has already started running through my head: Physics test first period, hard cross country practice today (and only 30% chance of precipitation, goddamnit), violin lessons at night...my toes feel warm beneath the toasty covers and head is fully immersed within my soft pillow. I think I'll just... -- then the alarm clock shrieks again.

But then there are those days when I go to sleep happy and wake up happier. Today is October 24th and I'm excited. Monday is the last hard practice of the season. Wednesday is our end-of-the-season cross country pasta party. Thursday and Friday are half days, aka hang out and have fun days. Then it's the weekend. Saturday is GMCs -- last meet of the season, last meet of my life! Then the next week is three consecutive half days then two days off with no practice after school! And by then we'll already be a week into November, which is the best month ever because it's full of random days off and everyone's happy because the holidays are coming up and the smell of cinnamon and turkey and candied apples and gravy are so tantalizingly close that you almost think you can already sniff it in the autumn air.

Now I know that today is going to suck -- I have yet to finish the aforementioned Spanish homework, after which I must tackle calc and physics and hopefully another college essay, but the anticipation of impending fun motivates me to be happy even in the midst of taking derivatives and finding integrals.

There's always Life to look forward to.

If Life Was Simple.

It would probably be boring. I guess that makes it all okay.

Roxbury.

So yesterday we had a cross country invitational at Roxbury. This place probably has the flattest course of all time, the weather was absolutely perfect, and I was in a fantastic mood because I was fully expecting to PR. As luck would have it, about half a mile into the race, the muscles around my shin began to feel really tight and weird. By the end of the first mile, I couldn't focus on anything but the pain in my shins and my strides were probably all of about two feet long. I was barely jogging. Pissed, humiliated, disappointed, the only thing I could think of doing was continue running until I see my coach, then drop out. But as I kept on running, and my shins kept on killing me, I couldn't find my effing coach so I finally just told a random official I was dropping out and stepped out of the race. And there it was: for the very first time ever since I began cross country in 8th grade, I dropped out of a race. I hated that official for a second; he looked so pitying.

I was pissed and stuff but I sure wasn't expecting that when my teammates came over to ask what was wrong I'd start bawling my eyes out like crazy...but now I come to the point of this entry. Sometimes, people can be so nice. Like a freshman who I've never even spoken to before ran off and came back carrying a bag of ice for me...and another girl went to get the coach, who I thought would yell the shit out of me and instead told me, "Don't sweat it, Brooke." And another girl kept reassuring me that it was better to drop out of a race than to make the injury worse, and another girl told me she'd yell at Mr. Talbot if he got mad at me.

So I don't know, I was an idiot and went to play Frisbee later in the day and now my shins and are just dying. Lesson learned: stop overworking your body.

More important lesson learned: you should always be nice to people because you may not realize it but you could really make someone's day so much better.

Hi.

I have this little notebook that I write random things in whenever stuff pops into my head. Every now and then, I'll flip through it and read over the little snippets of anger, of happiness, of sadness, of appreciation that I've recorded throughout the years. It's funny because I'll see something about a time when I was furious but I won't even remember what it was that I was mad about. Anyways, as I was browsing through said notebook today I saw something I wrote years ago: "I think we change ourselves because we're afraid to be changed by the world."

I don't understand. Why are people so stupid? Myself included.

Simple Stories.

So I met this guy today named Neil. He goes to NJIT and apparently has gone both skydiving and rock climbing in the past two weeks alone. Now I can't say my life is quite as exciting, but I've realized that some simple stories that pervade my daily life are all that I need. Need for what, I'm not sure - to be happy? to learn? to become a better person? Regardless, I'll share them with you.

Story 1: Today while I was on the bus weaving through the streets of Jersey City, I was staring out my window as I always do when I noticed this guy walking down the street. He was dressed in ripped jeans and a wife-beater, stringy sort of brown hair, bandanna, I suppose you know the type. Anyways, as he strutted (this is really the most accurate word for it) down the street he suddenly stopped in front of a phone booth. He then stuck his hand inside and started rummaging around every nook and cranny, searching for loose change...interesting. A bit cheap, I think. Anyways, a couple of minutes later I got off the bus and was walking towards the light-rail station. There was a woman walking really quickly a few feet in front of me and as she swung her purse over her shoulder, a really nice jeweled bracelet fell onto the sidewalk. A second later, another woman who had been walking past her at the moment picked up the bracelet and yelled out, "Miss! You dropped your bracelet!" and returned it to the first lady, who thanked her graciously. Seeing the first guy stick his hand around in the phone booth kind of made me sad, but I think the bracelet incident put my faith back into humanity.

Story 2: In the Skyscraper exhibit, there's this place where you can build cities out of foam blocks. Someone who had been there earlier had left a little skyscraper that he or she made. As a little girl and her father walked by, the little girl ran up to the skyscraper and knocked it down, spilling the blocks everywhere. The father got really angry, and I mean like red-face, lightening-in-eyes, spitting-lips angry and yelled, "Clean that up!" The girl took one look at him...and ran away. It was the oddest thing. There are a bunch of stands and glass cases and signs throughout the exhibit, and the girl just ran off and started hiding behind them and ziz-zagging through them...like kids don't normally run away from their parents like that. But it got even stranger when the father ran after her and then...caught her. I wasn't watching the whole thing carefully and I couldn't see their full bodies because a sign was in the way but from where I was and what I saw, I honestly think the dad grabbed her by the hair when he caught her. And that just really scared me. I know I sound like such a creeper but I honestly followed that dad around for the next five minutes just to make sure he wasn't some weird abusive person...nothing happened though. Not sure what to make of this story...

Story 3: So the guy I mentioned earlier, Neil, was a really chill guy and I talked to him for about an hour straight cause it was at the end of the day and not many people were in the Communication exhibit, which is where we were both assigned. Anyways, we talked about the Newport Mall, which led to the Menlo Park Mall, which led to East Brunswick, which led to his ex-girlfriend, who lives in Edison. And he told me about how they dated from since they were 15 until they were 20. And that after they broke up he didn't know how to "talk to girls" anymore because "she was all he ever knew." It made me sad...it was an enlightening conversation though.

Story 4: I went running with Jay. Here's a general gist of how it went:

Me: *makes fun of Jay about something, probably his face*

Jay: I bet you stay up late every night just thinking up comebacks to use for the perfect opportunities.

Me: Or maybe my comebacks are just so good that you would think I'd need a lot of time to come up with them!

Jay: Like that!!!

Me: STOP MAKING ME LAUGH I CAN'T RUN LIKE THIS.

So overall, uneventful but quite pleasant day.

The Five People You Meet In Heaven.

I'm sorry for the hateful post from last night; anger from me comes only on rare occasions, I promise. Anyways, to make up for it (even though no one reads this anyways, so I guess I'm only making it up to myself), today's post will be a happy one.

So! It's really amazing how different every individual in this world is. It's even more amazing when you take the time to learn about each of them while learning more about yourself in the process.

One: There's this custodian named Jedel who walks past our table full of blue polo-ed volunteers at Liberty Science Center every day during lunch. We'd always laugh and snicker whenever he passed by because two of the girls jokingly called him a creep for randomly walking up to them one day and asking them their names. Turns out he's simply a very outgoing guy - very outgoing. Today, while walking by our lunch table again, he decided to stop. And started singing. Right there, with a table of ten volunteers as his shell-shocked audience. Dude...his voice was amazing. As in, American Idol finalist-worthy, record label album-worthy, next big radio hit-worthy. Who knew? (Everyone has a secret talent.)

Two: Theodore Alexander! So today I was working in I-Explore, an exhibit for 2-5 year olds. While picking up wheels from the floor, a little boy with huge round eyes and cute girly eyelashes and curly light brown hair came over. "Do you wanna build a car?" I asked. And thus began an hour's worth of playing with Theodore Alexander. We built cars and raced them, made a "cow park" (I have no clue what this is, he made it up) out of blocks, and made pretend food in plastic bowls. When it was time for me to leave, he dragged me over to a stone wall where there were paintbrushes and water for kids to "paint" with water. "I drew this for you," he said, and pointed at a picture of a lopsided heart on the wall. (Children are nicer than adults.)

Three: While in the Hudson Home exhibit, a 30 something year old lady asked me questions about Liberty Science Center and I gave her suggestions on what exhibits her children might like the most, based on their ages, and went on to have a whole conversation with her about volunteering. It wasn't until she thanked me and left that I realized...she was in a wheelchair. (There is nothing different about being different.)

Four: While waiting at the light-rail station for the train to Hoboken, a mother asked me how to buy tickets and which train she should take to go to Exchange Place. After helping out the family, I realized that the little boy was holding a Liberty Science Center gift bag and thus began a conversation with them about how they enjoyed their day, what their favorite exhibits were, etc. Then I asked where they were from...turns out they came all the way from the UK. Incidentally, I spent two weeks in the UK this summer and subsequently spent the rest of our time talking about my trip as we waited for the train to come. (It's a small world.)

Five: The man who sat next to me on the bus today reminded me a lot of my dad. He was asian, dressed like a professor, and carried a leather messenger bag. As soon as he sat down, he pulled a very important-looking hardcover book from his bag and began to read. Ever curious, I sneaked a peek at the page he was on and saw three, maybe four lines of actual text. The rest of the page was filled entirely with long, cluttered equations. The only symbol I could recognize was sigma. (Diligence is admirable.)

None of these people changed my life in any tangible manner, but each inspired me in his or her own way - unknowingly. Now think about it - if I alone could be affected by five people in a single day, surely I can affect at least one person in this world every day. One person a day for another 80 years is a lot of people...

Let's change the world.

And If Love Never Lasts Forever...

Go away, but come back. Stop talking to me, I need you. I feel crazy and lost and I don't know who else to blame it on but you. If my bleeding chunk of a heart had the capacity to hate, maybe you'd still have a place in it. Boy was I an idiot for thinking I could do this alone.

...What's Forever For?

People Watching.

Yo, "people watching" actually sounds mad creepy, but apparently it's a very legitimate euphemism for "stalking" - it even has its own Wikipedia page, so there you go. Anyways, I haven't written here in months...the reason for that is I've been pretty happy with my life, and when you're happy, you don't think so much about things; you kind of just float around in your little bubble and avoid anything that might pop it. Well of course, soapy water can't last in a spherical shape for very long, so in the absence of its protection I've occupied myself by volunteering practically every day at Liberty Science Center.

You'd think that by volunteering there I'd learn a shitload of nerdy stuff and turn into some know-it-all science geek, but I honestly think I've learned a lot more about people than I have about Mars, fusion energy, the Hudson estuary, alligator snapping turtles, AIDS, and skyscrapers. For one thing, I befriended three employees who are all single women in their low twenties who already have kids...makes you wonder what the hell they did in the past few years and what the hell they'll be doing in the next couple of years. I hope they all end up mad rich with successful jobs and lovely children, but I was always a sucker for happy endings.

Another thing I've noticed is how parents interact with their children. You know what I hate? When I see parents letting their 5 year old kids run around in a huge building while they sit there with their Blackberrys. Texting. Like seriously...hang out with your kids, not just for their safety but for their freaking happiness too. But you know what I love? When I'm at the Rocket Blaster station where little kids make their own foam rockets and I hear parents telling their kids, "Say thank you!" when I help them. On the opposite side of the spectrum, one time this mother got so pissed at this other man because she claimed her daughter was on line to play with the model crane before the man's son. Ten minutes later, the mom was still ranting about it while her own 7 year old daughter said, "Mommy, stop making a big deal out of it! It's okay!" That just amused me.

One last thing. It's kind of sad. So I was working in the Skyscraper exhibit today and in the middle of the exhibit there's this beam from the World Trade Center to commemorate September 11th. The beam is bent completely in a U shape to show how hot it must have been for it to have ended up that way. Anyways, I was walking past it when I overheard this little girl ask, "Mommy, what's 9/11 again? I forgot." It was such an innocent question, but it was just so weird, you know? I mean it's not like we were very old either when it happened, but it was still so odd to hear it talked about as if it were some distant historical event...like Pearl Harbor or something. But then...it gets weirder. Literally like 5 minutes later I'm walking past the beam again and this time I see a father and his son. The son asks, "Is this what happened when the plane hit it?" And the father replied, "Yes, that's what the plane did. I was in the building when it happened." I was just like.....I didn't even know what to think. It was such a contrast from what I had just seen 5 minutes ago.

So I think I learn so much more from people than I do from textbooks. I like people...they're cool. Oh, except for Stanley.

Larger Than Life.

How unimaginably infinite this universe is has always frightened me. There's just something so contradictory about how nothingness can possibly occupy not only space - but so much space - that encroaches upon my sanity. And then there's the question of how the hell something infinite could be expanding. But even if these paradoxes could be answered, there still remains the question: where is the Universe?

I read an interview in this astronomy magazine with Lisa Randall, Professor of Physics at Harvard University (don't you wish that could be you in the future?). When asked what she felt the significance of cosmology and particle physics was, she responded, "I believe it's important to know there is something larger than ourselves and something more permanent than what I ate for dinner today. It's exciting that there are facts about the world out there that we can discover."

For some reason, when I read that, something inside me did a little epiphany dance. It's amazing how this world is just the place where you live, until you look at it again and realize it's a miracle that you're lucky to be a part of. It's amazing how the world we see around us was born, pretty much coincidentally, by interactions between elementary particles. It's amazing that while we as humans expend so much planning, so much effort, so much thought into our lives, the Universe - so completely random in its creation - is going to outlast us all.

It makes you wish you knew the answers, doesn't it?

Brick Wall.

So after piano lessons this morning, I was feeling pretty useless. There's no point in explaining; all you need to know is that I barely practiced all week (not unlike all other weeks) and consequently had a fruitless lesson that my parents had to pay a lot of money for. I was tired and discouraged, so in the middle of Debussy's Arabesque...my mind wandered off and stumbled upon this question: is failure the result of giving up, or do we give up after failure?

Here is a quote from Randy Pausch's Last Lecture: "The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out; the brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don't want it badly enough. They're there to stop the other people."

But what happens when you put in effort, and more effort, and more effort, and then like a telescoping series - excuse the calc reference - the result is...nil? Well I'll tell you what happens. First, you get disappointed, but soon this disappointment transforms into a resentful determination that motivates you to try even harder than the first time. But this time, when you're met with failure again, it feels twice as bad. Now you go through all the motions and you pretend you don't care, but deep down you still do. But alas - failure again. So you wonder, "If I'm just going to fail again, why bother trying anymore?" And it all goes downhill from there.

I feel like a shell. Remember when every detail of the world amazed us and we couldn't stop asking "why?" (Erik Erikson's Stage 3)? Well I don't know what happened but somewhere along the line I lost sight of what I actually wanted. Now I'm just your average zombie, striving for perfect grades, not sleeping, and worst of all - not caring.

I can't want something badly enough if I don't know what I want. Does this mean I'll never get past the brick wall?

Day One.

There is an old myth about a thoughtful farmer who possessed the singular wisdom to accept life as it comes - a level of enlightenment that I happen to struggle with daily. According to the story, the farmer's only horse ran away one day. All his neighbors clucked with pity, "Oh, that's terrible!" But the farmer answered, "Maybe." The next day, the horse came back leading ten wild horses - the farmer was rich! The neighbors looked on in awe and said, "You are one lucky man." The farmer merely replied, "Maybe." That afternoon, his son broke his leg while trying to train one of the new wild horses. The neighbors cried, "How terrible!" But the farmer said, "Maybe." The next day, men from the army came to draft the farmer's son for the war. Upon seeing his broken leg, however, they left without taking him. The neighbors were ecstatic: "What good luck!" The farmer said, "Maybe."

I wish I could be as worry-free as the farmer. He knew that whatever happened was done with, and that there was no use fretting over it. I, on the other hand, will beat myself up over a stupid mistake I made first period on a calc test and rant about it for the remainder of the day. I'll let one bad hole in golf affect the rest of the my round, instead of putting it behind me. I treat every minor setback as a tragic failure and bemoan my utter lack of success instead of simply dealing with what's already done with and perhaps gleaning a lesson out of it. There's this quote that was something along the lines of, "He who looks backwards will only trip." I do that a lot - tripping.

Although, to be honest, I don't know what's more important - the present or the future. Will I get more out of life by being constantly worried, yet well prepared for the future, or by throwing all my plans out the window and dancing around with blissful spontaneity? I suppose it depends on what kind of happiness I value more - short-term or long-term. Or which has more negative repercussions if unachieved.

But look, I'm doing it again: I'm too busy thinking about life and worrying about how today will snowball into tomorrow that I don't even know what I'm talking about anymore.

Let's wait for wild horses one day at a time.

Day One.

Let's Play Pretend.

So today is the beginning of another one of those crazy weeks where the teachers decide to collaborate their assignments so that a billion tests and a billion and one worksheets are due within a span of 48 hours. Oh, throw in golf and an orchestra concert too. And SATs! But as I sat here thinking about all this crap I had to do (Chapter 33 APUSH notes being the most urgent task at hand right now) I realized that all throughout this hectic junior year, I have never thought to myself, "I hate my life."

I remember when I was little, I used to pretend I was all sorts of things. There was the classic fairytale all girls lived in, of course - being a princess. At 9:00 every night (remember when we had bedtimes?), my parents thought I had gone to sleep. What I really did was sit on my bed wide awake, making sure my imaginary tiara didn't fall off my head while the darkness around me transformed itself into a beautiful, magical castle. But there were other things I pretended to be, too - I lugged my mom's old computer keyboard into my room and clacked away on it for hours. What an efficient secretary I was! I'd even switch between jobs - one moment I was the secretary making appointments, the next I was a veterinarian tending to a stuffed animal white seal (bought it from Sea World) that the secretary had just checked in. I also remember having an obsession with Native American culture - I'd scavenge the backyard for the sharpest rocks and tie them to rubbed and smoothed sticks. (I realized just now that I never made a bow for these arrows, yet they were far too short to be spears, so I'm actually not sure what I was thinking whilst I made them...) I also saved orange peels, which I'd wrap up in dried corn leaves as if I was some kind of a herbal healer. Something less random was pretending to be a teacher; I wrote really creative notes to the parents of students who misbehaved in class. I must have thought I was super cool...

It all sounds childish, but I distinctly remember writing in my diary years ago about all the people I pretended to be. I asked myself why I enjoyed playing pretend - did I dislike reality? Was I unhappy with who I was? In all likelihood, I concluded, I was just bored. But it still makes me wonder - why don't we ever play pretend anymore? Life now is probably tougher than it was then...wouldn't now be the better time to make believe, to get away from the hellish demands of school and self expectations?

I dearly hope I have not lost the ability to dream.

Mediocrity.

After months of heater-wasting, jacket-wearing frostiness, today's heartening rays of sunlight and encouraging chirps of birds were a pleasant introduction to Spring. The feeling of my hair flipping over my shoulders as a soft breeze teasingly snatched it and the calming warmth that the sun so patiently poured across my skin aroused the athlete within me that had been sleeping quite comfortably since winter track ended. I looked at all the greenness around me and remembered that golf season begins next week.

Not gonna lie, freshman year of golf was amazing. It's a nice feeling to be good at something. Praise is delicious - wouldn't you agree? But I got cocky, and paid for it, because sophomore year was probably the worst golf I've played since...well since I last sucked that badly. One of my friends overheard my coach tell another teacher that I was his "ticket to states." Guess what? I let him down. 

I don't want that to happen this year. I want to be the best. I need to be the best...because if there's one thing I hate, it's mediocrity. I do a lot of things - I play piano and violin, I run cross country and track, I write - but I am so freaking average at it all. Maybe I'm a perfectionist, or maybe I'm just insecure - either way, I need to know that there's something I'm good at. In the words of Relient K, I need to be "a little more than useless."

So call me greedy, but I want the gold, and will settle for no less. Here's to golf season '10.