Growing Up

It's come time for the quite expected and quite hackneyed post about growing up. Such a cliche topic for every young adult my age requires a bit of patience from the audience who has been through it, and a little empathy from the audience who is currently going through it. I thought to myself some time before I graduated that this post would come far sooner than it actually has. One month and two days after graduation it finally feels like time to make it internet official. I the heavy hearted, insomniac, and naive junior who started this blog is now a clear headed, slightly broken hearted, maturer college freshman who will hopefully display more discipline in keeping up my writing. It feels good to have graduated and to move on, from school that is. One of the things that feels the best actually is this innate amount of respect that is immediately added to your self worth by other people just because you have graduated from high school. It truly feels like I have just been welcomed into a secret society of the world; sure, I'm still going through a bit of a hazing stage and not fully accepted, but getting in is half the battle right? Part of me likes to wonder what secret rules, come with this secret society. Just the other day I sent a text to a friend that started out "haha, ..." I might as well have dropped the phone and shuddered. How junior high! Surely I was more mature and could hold better conversation than that that constituted me in all seriousness using "haha" to get through the conversation. (And to those who have long been a member of this secret society there is a distant difference between "lol" and "haha" and there is a distinct difference to someone my age using either with someone your age than with someone our own age). Along with making me shudder, this whole event made me come out of auto-pilot for a minute and realize how detached I was being. Halfway through a car ride home from anywhere, the grocery store, L.A., Uganda, there will be a moment when I realize I've been on auto-pilot and I suddenly tune back into my life and think "wow, that went by faster than I thought it would." It's like I went through some type of time warp in these moments, and these past couple of days I've realized that my whole life feels like a car ride halfway home and now I'm lucid for the rest of the drive. So, I finally have to grab hold of the steering wheel and pay attention. I can't say in truth that I am thoroughly thrilled about this. I do fear the monotony that life can bring and my love for routines- together a deadly combination. This all makes me think back to another post on this blog. After I got back from volunteering in Belize I had felt as though I peaked and was hesitant to go back down the mountain. I'm not sure what I've done this whole year. Its a bigger mountain than I previously imagined, that I know for sure. College admissions and rejections, getting out of this bubble town, and thinking an bit more outside myself has knocked me off my high horse and back on to the ground. I think it was a bit arrogant of me to even think I had peaked in any part of my life. The "high school was the best part of my life" mantra is not one for me. There is much to learn, much of the world to explore, and many, many more people to talk to. In a compact thought, I know I am finite in an infinite world, and I feel comfort in knowing that. With nearly a month of summer left I am beginning to hear the clock tic-tock in the back of my head. It's starting to drive me a little crazy. I'm finding it hard to decide whether the future is near, or the future is now.

This Blog

I haven't had a lot to write and post on this blog because lately I have been internalizing and attempting to redirect the energy elsewhere. In the past few weeks, things have dangerously resembled the events of last year. The largest difference this year is the way I've reacted this time around, and thank god I'm not a slow learner. As many things come to a close this year the term senioritis has become more clear to me. Senior year is not the the year everything ends, if it was there would be a lot of people working furiously to finish- it would be crunch time. Senior year is a year of waiting for what you've been looking forward to and actually want to do, to begin. That's why a lot of  people just sort of don't do much senior year academically wise, time spent with friends and family seems much more valuable. Doing things that go against the norm and the expected seems much more exciting. And, I lost my train of thought.

Every time I sit down to write down some thoughts for this blog it always ends up as half an idea. My head feels scattered an unfocused because I don't care about high school anymore. After my last AP test this friday I'll be worry free with only movies, a few finals, and a project here and there to occupy my school day.

Up until today I haven't really been looking forward to graduation. I mean, I haven't not been looking forward to it, but it just didn't seem all that important. Up until now, when I just watched a scene of seniors graduating on a TV show did I suddenly become really, really excited. I feel like graduating is going to be the opposite of death. Everything is will be a fresh start. Right now, i'm slowly coming back to life. My mind is clearing up and the things that I thought mattered, really don't and I don't think I've ever felt a better feeling.

The only thing I find to be scary at the moment, is how willing I feel to cut all ties with this town. In the past couple of months its brought me a lot of grief and I'm ready to be over the grief, anger, and overall bad feelings.

I'm excited to leave high school and all the things I find immensely annoying and all the people that are immensely ignorant. I'm excited to be an engineer. I'm excited, and it feels great.

Coins

In extremes simplification, the world works like this: what you put in, you get out. To me anyway. But sometimes we get impatient and it feels like we aren't getting out all that we've put in. Then we are at a crossroad. Do you continue to put in and have that blind faith, or do we change something, start all over again.  It's kind of like those machines at casinos or chuck-e-cheese were you put your money in the slot of the machine and they roll down on to the the moving table, and you sit there and keep putting in your coin hoping that that coin will be the coin that pushes the mountain of coins over the edge. But it's not that coin. That coin slides down, rolls a little, does a little bounce, and then it wobbles a little and falls right on top of another coin rendering it useless. So you sigh, watch the moving table go back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, all the while you hold a coin in your hand, turning it over until your palm starts to get a little sweaty. So, finally you hold the coin at the slot, focus on the moving table, and then you push in the coin and watch it slide down and fall. 

Eventually, you'll get what you put in the world, in one way or another, I'm sure of it. Sometimes, I just wish you would know when to stop putting in your coins. 

Our Little Needles

Today in my TA class for a freshman honors English class we continued watching the movie "I am" a sort of documentary on the ongoing research to prove just how connected, and we are in fact connected, to everything in the world, human or not. 

The movie got to a scene where a leading scientist was showing us how our emotions affect some yogurt in a cup. They almost lost me. And had it been any other day, they would have lost me. But they put some sensor things into the yogurt, turned on the little machine and they asked the director if he was married to which he answered "next question... Not anymore.. Jeez" and lord behold the little needle on the little machine twitched. 

I'm not sure how much I believe I'm connected to some yogurt in a cup but I get the idea, and on a more practical level-it makes sense. 

This past weekend, I lost a classmate to a car accident. She sat next to me in my government class and was the literally the best seat partner you could ask for. I wasn't close to her like a lot of my classmates were, but I still feel the loss. 

In this situation, in today especially, I feel like the yogurt, and when someone cries, sniffles, has an expression of grief on their face.. My little needle twitches, and then I balance back at rest and then another person crosses me and I twitch again, and so on and so on. The pain could not go unfelt, and it seems like when it is all too much for one person we beckon another to us to help share the heavy load. And to this we do unyielding. To help seems like a reflex. 

But now I've just been through my first two periods of the day and I'm not the only yogurt cup anymore. My classmates left and right have their little needle twitching over and over again. 

And now I lay in bed, thinking on the day. Thinking of our little needles twitching at each sniffle, until suddenly our needles are drops of water and we are all an ocean. An ocean so irrefutably one and a million things at the same time. And in silence we are calm, in laughter we are a gentle roar, and in everything else we are a storm. 

Reaching the Peak.

I think in sixth grade I read this book called "Peak". It was the typical book to capture a sixth graders attention. The main character had an odd name, Peak, his parents were divorced, he climbed buildings and marked them with his on logo, and never really got into any real trouble.

 But he did vandalize buildings right? Right. So something had to be done. Instead of him going to Juve or anything like that his mom and the police sent him to live with his Dad who was, of course, climbing Mount Everest. So naturally Peak climbed it with his dad and a Tibetan kid his age. He would be the youngest person ever to reach the top. So long story short, without spoiling the entire book, he reached the top. But then what? Well he climbed back down the mountain because you can't breathe at the top of Mount Everest for very long. 

I feel like I've peaked. Earlier this year, I went to Belize to complete my Gold Award for Girl Scouts. I volunteered at an orphanage. I developed an after school soccer program. I helped the orphanage begin fish farming. I learned so, so much. It was an amazing project. I know this, but I don't feel this. 

 I ask myself, where am I now? At my high school droning through my classes. But I want to aspire to rise and do great things! But I feel as though I have no aspiration left. I'm not jaded, I'm not busy, I'm just not anything- and that's the problem. 

I'll admit I've had a difficult time climbing back down, more than I did climbing up I would say. I'm trying to be patient, and to wait, but what and I  waiting for?  There's only the bottom of the mountain so that I can start climbing up again, but I'm not entirely sure that's how life is supposed to be..Climbing up and down mountains- how could someone be stretched so far? Because I feel like I left a piece of me in Belize at the top of the mountain. 

I'm at a standstill right now, I'm not climbing all the way down. I think I may go around the mountain instead. 

The People Vs. The Referee

 

Never have I felt the phrase "sticks and stones may break your bones but words could never hurt me" to be so untrue until tournament weekends like this. It seems like competition brings out worst in parents, and somehow, it's all my fault. 

Being a referee is something I quite enjoy, seeing the game from another perspective has always appealed to me. It isn't until these tournament weekends come along that it all just really gets to me. It's easy to yell at the ref as a parent, player, or coach, but it's a lot harder to be the ref and take it. Most of the time I can brush it off pretty easily, but there was something about today that let it all in. Maybe it was the sun burning through my sunscreen or the abnormal sarcastic comments from the coaches, or parents going out of their way to tell me that I'm a terrible referee and I make terrible calls, or maybe it was one coach passing on to another to be weary of the "shitty refs".

I feel like giving my shirt, badge, and whistle to the coaches and parents and telling them "here, you do it". I also feel like giving out my resume to get a little respect on the field and to assure them that a 17 year old girl, yes girl, does in fact know what she is doing, and did pass her referee test with a 93% and has indeed been reffing for six years and she is infact the head referee who has officiated up to the national level. The yelling, the badgering, and the condescension gets tiresome. 

Another point of frustrations comes from the weakness and the easiness to harass seen by spectating that comes with being a girl referee, as well as the lack of seriousness taken when I address parents and coaches. A boy referee of less skill and experience than I will get more respect 8 times out of ten for the mere fact that they are male. 

The worst part of the gig is the impact parents make when they specifically go out of their way to find you after a game and vent to you all of the ways "you suck" to accomplish what? The game is over, nothing can be changed, this is youth league, AND YOU WON. Take the win, and enjoy it. Don't roast the ref. I hope these parents think about what they are teaching their children. And I hope these parents realize that no one is perfect, even referees. 

It's a hard night when all is said and done and you can still hear the parents voices in your head. It's supposed to be about the game, not the referee. 

Chronicles of the Train

As I boarded the train this afternoon, a vehicle new to my travel, a wave of calmness washed over me as I settled into my seat for the next several hours. Perhaps because of my previous hours logged of travel I thought, or perhaps because of my traveling companion this time. 

The train was fairly empty and the giddiness set in, after all, we're on a train for the first time! The first few minutes were spent looking out the window as the world passed us by. It looked different, new somehow though it was the same places we passed that we've always seen. The first few hours were spent in comfortable silence- I finally got to reading Looking for Alaska (a book I'm enjoying tremendously and finding a hard time putting down to write this) and was traveling quite comfortably, and incredibly relaxed when the train chronicles began. 

We stopped at Santa Barbara and a flood of college students came in with laptops, college hoodies, and odd sparkly veils that look like they could be for a Halloween costume or a school project. Among the college students was a man (that looked to be homeless, but I am not to say as he did pay with a debit card for his ticket) carrying an out-of-tune guitar and a booming voice. We moved out of the station stop and perhaps half an hour in, my focus began to be pulled from my book as I noticed life bursting around me. 

A few rows in front of my a girl struggled through her algebra 1 problems and relentlessly asked the boy across the way from her questions about her math. The girl to the right of me fiddled with her sparkly veil and straightened out the stands that stretched to be no less than seven feet. The scruffy man with the guitar several rows behind me finally had it with the quiet and began talking, to whom? I think to anyone who would make conversation. 

As the train ride progressed the boy moved from his seat to the seat right next to the girl struggling with her math, who I had a sneaking suspicion wasn't actually struggling all that much *see mean girls for the proper way to go about this*. I began to tune out the girl to my right who had not stopped fiddling with her costume/project. And the loudest occurrence to be noted was the man who had now begun playing his out of tune guitar and singing easy rhymes like "I'm on a train, and I want to buy some cocaine" escalating to his version of Tina Turner's "Rolling" to the point of the train stewardess asking the man to politely quiet down for the rest of the people on the train to which he responded "but I don't like the quiet!" And finally got to talking about what I thought was the inevitable- government conspiracies.  

As I sat on the train in that moment, my traveling companion laughing endlessly beside me, it finally clicked what traveling was all about- the people. And oh how I enjoy seeing these people live so differently than myself.