Beauty

Today my friend said something to me. She said "Everyone makes mistakes. But they are still perfect. If that makes sense."

To me, it does make sense. It makes sense in a weird, convoluted way, that I can't describe. It's complicated, an enigma. But I think it's the basic truth in everyone, and the sooner people realize that, the sooner the world will be a better place.

The thing about me is that I want to be beautiful. Not necessarily in the attractive, physical way, but I want there to be something beautiful about me. Everyone, it seems, is beautiful sometimes, even the girl who no one likes. For instance, there's this girl I know, who I'm not exactly friends with, but I try to not shun her outright and I speak to her sometimes. She's not the most attractive girl in the world, and she's not the lightest, but she loves singing. And when she starts to sing, you can tell that she loves it. It's written all over her face and seeps into your consciousness. She might not sing especially well (in my view of course), but she can sing. And she is beautiful when she sings. If she walked around singing all the time, she would have had so many boyfriends by now she wouldn't be able to keep track.

I love singing too, but I don't think I'm beautiful when I sing. I don't know, it's hard to explain, but I want there to be some aspect of beauty in my life. Maybe my writing's beautiful, and that makes people look at me in a new light, or maybe when I laugh (such a cliche, but I can't help it) my whole face changes or something.

My writing isn't particularly beautiful, and my laugh is somewhat harsh, but I know there's one time when I look beautiful. I just need to find it.

If everyone could find out when they look beautiful, then they could think back to that moment whenever they're feeling ugly or down or depressed, and be lifted up.

Beauty is everywhere. We just need to find it.

It's in that twisted, gnarled tree over by the pond that's frozen over in the winter. The trunk is black and scarred, but that's just a testament to how long it's lived, and how many adversities it's faced.

It's in that kid who never talks when they smile, when people get to see a slice of what they might be like if anyone ever bothered to find out.

It's in the summer breeze, cooling you after you've run for a long time. You might be sweaty, and you might be panting, but that breeze makes you feel refreshed. Because of the beauty in it.

The problem with people, especially busy, driven ones, is that we're all too caught up in our social life. Not just talking with friends, because friends are important, but our relationships with other people, and other things. Things such as computers, and televisions. You might not realize it at first, but these things practically control our lives (or at least most teenagers). Think about it. When was the last time you went outside and watched the sunset? When was the last time you ran around in a field, or just took a walk somewhere? I'm not suggesting we do these things in winter, because winter is a horrible season and it's way too cold outside to go walk around or run in a field. But...

When was the last time you had an adventure?

Have you ever noticed?

Have you ever noticed how when you look at individual things in a person, they're not that special, but when put together they are unique? For instance, say you like musicals. Well, a lot of people like musicals. Not that interesting. They also knit. Again, a lot of people knit. They're a teenager, along with 28 million in the U.S.. Maybe they also like to listen to hard rock. *Yawn*. They write essays about zombies. Hmm, that's sort of interesting, but it's not like no one's ever had that idea before. They want to be a psychiatrist. So do tons of others. BUt if you put them together, and get a teenager who listens to musicals and hard rock, knits, writes zombie essays, and wants to be a psychiatrist, now THAT is an individual. I'm thinking of putting something like that in my application to Brown University.

Did you know that Brown is the 15th best college in the U.S.A., and one of the hardest to get into? Only 14% of applicants make it. Those are not good odds. Especially if you had two Cs in your first semester of high school, like I did. Just thinking about that gives me a sick feeling in my stomach. It's only my freshman year of high school, and I'm already thinking about my college application essays.

Do you re-use the same essay for every school you apply to, or do you have to write a different one for each?

I don't expect to get a 4.0 GPA, mainly because I like having friends. But I'm really going to try for a 3.8, at least. Right now I have an A- in Math and Latin, which is pretty good, a B+ in Writing, and a B in Science, which I'm going to try to bring up because if you want to be a psychiatrist (like I do), then you have to have a really good background in math and science. I'm going to try to take more advanced math classes next year... if I can.

But enough about that. Now for something that's been kind of bugging me.

One of my friends at school I've known for a LONG time. Since kindergarten, if you want to be specific. She was in the same kindergarten class as me. She remembers things... a little differently than I do.

For example, she remembers this one time that I was sick and I threw up in the classroom. I don't remember this, but I'm not calling her a liar. In fact, this could have easily happened. But does she really need to bring it up ALL THE TIME? Does she really need to tell EVERYONE? What about that guy I know in my Writing class who annoys me constantly? Did she have to tell him? Now he's going to bring it up in Writing tomorrow, and I'll be sentenced to disgusted looks. Which I hate.

Now don't get me wrong, this person is really nice. She's so nice that she doesn't think about how this story telling is going to affect me, because I don't think that something like this has ever happened to her before. But it has happened to me.

I'm just warning you, if you have a potentially embarrassing story about someone (even if it happened 8/9 years ago) think about how it'll affect that person before you go spreading it around.

BTW, this isn't JUST going to be a complaining blog. Sure, there'll be some of that here, but you can just skip over those parts if you so choose. I'm not looking for sympathy, I just want to tell someone about all of this. Otherwise I might go (even more) insane.

Way to be Immature

A couple days ago I was on facebook, and I noticed that a bunch of my friends had made a "friend quiz" to see how much your friends actually know about you. I took a couple of them and scored pretty well :) and then I decided to make one of my own. I put a bunch of easy questions on it and some harder ones. One was how old I am, and the choices were 13, 14, and 15. I just had my fifteenth birthday, so I thought this would be an easy one.

Then I checked my email to see who had taken it. It turned out that one of my good friends had taken it and scored only 50 or 60 percent. A little hurt, but brushing it off as a joke, I looked at what she had answered. I don't remember the other ones she got wrong, but on the age question she had said I was 13. I couldn't tell if she was joking or not (it's so hard to on the internet) so I talked to her about it the next day. As it turns out, when she took it she had had one of her friends over, and her friend had pressured her into answering all of the questions wrong. Guess who that friend was? If you guessed Bri, you get the million dollar prize. Really, Bri? How low do you have to go before you're pressuring one of your supposed "friends" into answering questions wrong on a FRIEND QUIZ? Have you hit rock bottom yet? I sure hope so, because I'm not sure how much lower you can get. Remember when we were in D.A.R.E. and they told us over and over that a friend who pressures you to do things you don't really want to do isn't actually a friend? Chew on that for a while, why don't you.

Then today, my "friend" (no names mentioned, but I'm sure you'll be able to tell who you are) was being a complete brat. I'd use stronger language, but it goes against my better nature (even though it's been hiding for the last couple years). I always do my makeup in school because 1. I don't have time to do it at home and 2. My mom would flip out if she knew I was using makeup. She's a weirdo like that. My "friend" usually joins me when and borrows my makeup. Except of course, when she's busy with her other friends who she likes more than me. That might not be true, but it's how it seems to me. Evidence: Whenever she's with these friends, she completely ignores me, even if she's looking right at me. Whenever I try to talk to her when she's with one of these friends, she brushes me off, or makes a snarky, sarcastic comment. It gets pretty annoying after a while. In fact, sometimes I don't know why I'm still friends with her. But anyways. Today, we were going to lunch, and someone had told us that there were chicken nuggets today. Since the chicken nuggets are the most popular of the things served in the cafeteria, and we have C lunch (the last lunch), they are almost always gone by the time we get there. So we started speedwalking, and since she was wearing a miniskirt and couldn't move her legs very far apart, I was walking faster than her, and in front of her. Somehow or other, she tripped and hit her knee. She made it through lunch, but after that it really started acting up and swelling. After lunch she asked me to walk to the nurse with her, and I walked most of the way there, but then I heard the bell ring and told her that I had to get to class. I admit, my reasons were selfish for this, because I could have walked the rest of the way there and still made it to my class, but I'm not going to tell you what my reasons were.

I left her walking to the nurse's office and went upstairs to grab my stuff before going to chorus. She reappeared in the middle of it (we have the same chorus class) with an ace bandage around her knee. I felt bad for her, and tried to convey this across the room without talking. I think she might have taken them as sarcastic, which totally was NOT the intention. Then after class, I went to talk to her to ask how her leg was feeling. As I was walking towards her, this boy we both talk to said "Nice going, Moira." I had no idea what he was talking about so I said "What?" He replied "You know what you did." Then walked away. Apparently my friend blames me for falling on her face and hurting her knee. I have no idea how she's come to this conclusion, because I was walking in front of her and felt someone stepping on the back of my shoe right before she fell. I don't know if this was her, but if it was, how the hell can she blame me for this? I was trying to be a good caring friend to make up for not walking with her to the nurse's office. But apparently she's giving me the silent treatment. That's actually okay by me, because I can give it right back to her. She's been a real bitch to me sometimes, and she probably deserves to know what it feels like.

Self Discovery

Italy

When I went to Italy in seventh grade, I thought I was going to have adventure and excitement, like you’re supposed to have in europe (and in Italy especially). This didn’t happen.

Don’t get me wrong. I loved Italy, and would go back there at the drop of a hat. It was beautiful and crazy and amazing and breathtaking... My family went to see the island of Murano, where they make all of those gorgeous glass sculptures. I got some really nice necklaces for my friends (one was this stunning clear glass heart, hollow, that had swirls of gold running through it) (my friend promptly broke it). I have to admit, though, I was a little disappointed. My parents never let me out of their sight, which was pretty annoying. I mean, how can you have adventure when your overprotective parents are breathing down your neck 24/7? There wasn’t even a chance for excitement. We did some really wonderful things, but they weren’t exactly exciting. For example, we must have seen 5 museums. Museums are nice and all, and some of the art is great, but they aren’t really my thing, and you have to admit, they are the some of the least exciting places on earth. I kept hoping that I’d be able to sneak off on my own through an unmarked door or something and have to save someone like in the movies (yeah right).

Let me tell you something. If you take kids (especially teenagers) to an exotic foreign place, they don’t want to spend family time with you every day, all day. They want to go off on their own, meet new people, form new relationships, build new bridges. They want to find someone who understands them, who they can have meaningful conversations with. How can they do all that when you’re dragging them to museums and tourist traps and to islands that you can’t immediately get off/take shelter in a safe dry place when a storm starts up? And then, when they do actually manage to escape your (good intentioned) chokehold, you are on the verge of calling the cops. Hello, 13 year olds know how to take care of themselves. I mean, most of them actually stay at home alone, without having their uncle look after them. *Gasp* How do they manage to keep from killing themselves or getting into a stranger’s car on the flimsy offer of candy or a new bike? How about a cellphone?

I read this book once, where the main character is a little bigger than most people, and her mother is always trying to force her to go on diets and stop eating as much. She has a horrible self image and is always putting herself down. Then her mom sends her off to Italy to stay with a family friend for the summer (I forget why). In Italy, she’s allowed to do whatever she wants, and slowly she gets stronger by walking everywhere and learns to love herself.

I wish something like this would happen to me. I have a few issues with my face and body (too plain and too skinny, respectively), and I just want to believe that if I got to go to a foreign country and give myself a social makeover (away from the prying eyes of my family) then I might learn to be happy with myself, too.