Dec 20, 2012

The Casual Vacancy

I was afraid I'd be disappointed with J.K. Rowling's new book, The Casual Vacancy.  After all, the vacancy Harry Potter left in my reading soul was anything but casual.  I was afraid my beloved Jo would be a one-hit wonder, capable of only masterfully painting one great world, unable to inhabit the real one with the same thoughtful care and attention.

And I was disappointed, but not by Jo Rowling.  If anybody else had written The Casual Vacancy, I'm not sure the critics would be quite so lukewarm about it.  I was excited when I finally finished reading it, after delaying for months due to school.  After I stayed up til three in the morning, enthralled by the ending (much in the fashion I've read many of my favorite books, including Harry Potter), I happily cued up the episode of Mugglecast where they talked about the book.

None of them even finished it.  I was dismayed.  But I understood, since it wasn't as immediately spellbinding captivating as Harry Potter.  I decided to give them a few more minutes to redeem themselves.  Then one of the hosts said "I just don't think this story is one that needs to be told."

THE STORY DIDN'T NEED TO BE TOLD?  I couldn't disagree more. First of all, these people clearly don't know how to read a book that isn't dressed up in wizarding robes or vampire fangs.  Second, they don't realize that when they're reading about magic, they're reading about disguised real life.  If you want to criticize Rowling for The Casual Vacancy, you could criticize her for writing a book with virtually the same themes!   If you don't think The Casual Vacancy is a story that needs to be told, then you don't think Harry Potter is either. 

Both books are divided into an (almost overly simplistic) world of class warfare.  The Mollisons and the Malfoys, the Wheedons and the Weasleys (look, Jo even set up that alliteration for me).  They're about the struggles of adolescence (we all know that Ron was thinking the same things Andrew Price thinks about Gaia while he's looking at Hermione, we just don't read that part of the story).  They're about doing what is right even if it's not the most convenient or appealing option for yourself.  Only this time, there's no magic to save anyone.   The Casual Vacancy really is Harry Potter all grown up.

And the fans don't like it.  We're grown up too, and everyone was hoping that Jo's new book would be a swift return back into the fantasy of childhood.  Instead, she delivered a sobering dose of reality.  The characters and problems in The Casual Vacancy are so real it's painful to read in parts.  Not painful like "how sad is it that Harry's an orphan?" but "how sad is it that I'm implicit in this world of gross injustice?"  The second is the more important, real, and adult question. 

Literature is supposed to make you squeam, tear your heart out, pierce your soul, call you to action.  If The Casual Vacancy did none of this for you, then you're not reading it right.  You're looking for an escape, not a good novel.  Jo wanted to grow up her image, and she definitely succeeded.  She did so not through the vulgar language and sex scenes in her new novel, but through stripping the magic away and unveiling the harsh reality of the real world.  Grow up, Harry Potter fans.  Hogwarts may always be there to welcome you home, but in the meantime, figure out what really matters.











Nov 12, 2012

Advise

I'm tired of trying to predict what the world wants of me, what it will be like two years from now when I'm forced to join it.  How am I supposed to know?  Everybody has an opinion on how best to prepare for it.

There are doom and gloom advisers.  It's easy to want to trust them, with their diplomas declaring "I passed" neatly command hooked to the walls of their offices, supposed testaments to their successes.  All the textbooks that now gather dust on their office shelves because they no longer read them.  Maybe the diplomas really say "I failed."  Nobody starts out with ambitions to be an adviser anyway.  That means they failed first at something else. Maybe they failed at pursuing the goal you're asking them about; maybe they have a reason to tell you an English major will make you miserable because an English major made them miserable.  But you're not them and they can't know you from a collection of scores scribbled in pencil on an academic worksheet, a conglomeration of classes that adds up to practically nothing but a lot of money and time.  Or maybe they failed because the conditions really are terrible, they've been through things you're too young and idealistic to know about, and you should listen to them because they're right.

There's the other students.  The hakuna matatars, the it-will-all-work-out-so-let's-take-a-shot-ers.  They convince you for a moment that maybe you can't really plan for the unknowable future, and things will just fall into place if you keep trucking along.  Maybe you are a little too high strung. You'll have a diploma. It'll be okay.  Spend a semester in Buenos Aires or the Carribean. Live life. But what if these college hippies are just lifetime loafers waiting to become the homeless people on Franklin Street, begging for change and cigarettes.  When their looks and vodka runs out, what will they have?

There's the friends and family, brimming with over-confidence in you.  You are brilliant and driven and gorgeous and nothing can stop you.  They believe in your pixelated skype smile more than you do.  Every rejection letter is their loss, every bad test grade comes from a bad professor, you weren't tugging on any of the doors that slam shut.  They mistake giving up dreams for being lazy or insecure.  They live forty years behind you, not really understanding the ticking in your brain or the circumstances of your desperation.

So who is right?  Who should you believe? Amid all of it, you must figure out where your voice is, what your heart wants, what the world wants.  How do you put food on the table without sacrificing everything you love?  This might be the key question to the universe. It is not about where we came from or if there's a god.  It's how do I still get to read Dickens without becoming one of his starving characters?

I love too many things and not enough things.  I'm decent at a few things but not good enough at any of them.  I can't accept that I'm useless to the world, but I can't find a good use for myself.  Is the peak of my productivity checking out DVDs to undergrads?  Surely not.

I resist believing in fate or god or anything that would make these decisions for me.  I relish in free will and the power of humanity to shape itself.  But right now, I just want somebody to tell me what to do.  But I've only got me.






Sep 25, 2012

Creative Writing

They write such pretty words.

Pretty words about death.  Death and sex (especially if you call it "fucking" instead. Extra points for a caviler attitude) automatically makes something profound, infallible to criticism.  Higher than a complaint, too artsy to be bothered with earthly problems like confused readers and unnecessary comma splicing.

How sad to have reached perfection at 18, looking down from the height of the literary heap at your minions with their sad, double spaced stories about their innocent little lives.  Profundity isn't meant  to be subtle; it's supposed to be in your face.  Because life paints its allegories on billboards; it's meanings shout out at you from rooftops with bull horns.  There's no meticulous searching, no effort.  Just imitate. 

Chuck Palahniuk is plenty rich, but his success rate is less than half.  But less than half is more than zero, so just keep writing your disgusting narrative, and we'll keep patting you on the back because a string of pretty words saying dirty things is good writing.  You don't even need to understand it yourself; fumble through the explanation.  You only wrote it because it felt good; it feels the same as slitting your wrists in the bathroom in middle school, not to "control the pain" like the pamphlets say, but because blood and scars make you more overtly gothic.  Just crying is not symbolically resonant enough. You need vivid imagery, a cliche not to the world but to the internet's plethora of would-be writers with internet access and time to kill.

Write fan fiction about yourself because you are your biggest fan.  We'll keep patting you on the back because you've accomplished making us feel awkward enough not to criticize you.  You've peer pressured us into not being the bitch you want us to be, you dare us to be.

Maybe I could be you if I really wanted.  I could be a writer if I really wanted.  But I'm too queasy at the sight of blood; I don't have the authority of knowledge to write about fucking metaphors (a verb here, not an adjective).  So I'll bow out.  Here's the pen.  Write your story. 

I know it isn't really yours.


Sep 10, 2012

Mirror Rant

This article is wonderful.

I am so fascinated about the many shifts feminism takes.  There are so many varieties, and each kind tends to look down upon the others.  Some are essentialist; embracing what they believe are the fundamental differences between a man and a woman.  Embracing sexuality; pulling a Yankee Doodle on things that are supposed to be signs of our submission: high heels rising above the misogyny, lip sticked confidence, push up bras of defiance. 

Others eschew these things.  Separate is not equal. They are traps, making women entangled in a mess of man's desires; the things marketed to us are for their enjoyment and we've been trained to think we enjoy them to.  Heels so we can't run; lip stick to hide natural imperfections; push-up straight jackets molding us into what they want us to be.

How should we get our rights?  Are we trying to crack the glass ceiling or just Windexing it so it's so transparent you don't know it's there until you  bump into it?

I'm an educated, middle class female.  Like the article says, I'm supposed to know better.  I am not supposed to be trapped in my own reflection, feeling inadequate by some standards with origins as hazy and messy as my eyeliner at the end of the day, eyeliner I don't even know why I'm buying and applying. I give my money to Almay while simultaneously hating the way they advertise to me; I hate it because it works.

I'm not supposed to care about silly things like how my hair puffs in the humidity, subconsciously always smoothing it down in vain, while my other hand clutches a Jane Austen novel. Jane is writing so long ago not to be banal, to rise above the limited expectations.  And even though I don't need a rich suitor, in the back of mind, it's always there: time is ticking, you are running out, not to find a match is to be a failure.  Lizzie Bennett had her wit and her Darcy, and what do I have?

I have my feminist idols and their quotes to make me justify my insecurity.  My insecurity invalidates my ideology.  Is my ideology too ideal?   Virginia Woolf drowned herself; Sylvia Plath asphyxiated herself. Why am I looking to women who clearly don't know the answers? Liz Lemon is not particularly happy with her life.  Jane Austen died alone.

It's hard to tow the line between what is real and what is only scholarly.  I live so much in the books that I forget they don't always apply to real life.  They're just ideal ideologies, no one can hope to achieve.  I must know that because the phrase so captures my imagination, feels so accurate to describe the push and pull always in my mind.  The strengths of my brain fighting the failures of my body, each trying to reconcile the other.  It will never happen.

But I must believe that it will so I can keep looking forward.  Smashing the mirror means seven years bad luck, but a lifetime of looking to it for validation is no better.







Aug 30, 2012

So I Write

I'm supposed to be writing.  I'm always supposed to be reading or writing something.  Any moment spent not doing either of things, even if they are activities designed to keep me alive such as eating or sleeping, make me feel procrastinator's guilt.  It is ludicrous that I'm writing this right now, though the extremely low volume of posts lately makes me feel a different kind of guilt.

I feel like I've been spending both abnormally large and extremely small amounts of time on myself lately.  I am striving for improvement based upon a self-help plan of my own design, and I can feel it working.  I can feel progress in way I don't think I ever have.  Usually, I can mark my progress by my constant introspective musings; I can see where I've been, write down where I'm going.  But I haven't been lately.  I haven't been writing about myself.

Does that have a simple explanation?  Moving back to school and then school itself is time consuming.  I don't have time to sit around and ponder my own existence.  On the modern hierarchy of a college student's needs, food, friends, working, homework all come before long hours of self-reflection.  Perhaps it's growing busy, growing more mature, growing away from the self-centered world of an adolescent?

But also I am making such active strides toward change.  Shouldn't this provide more to write about than any previous times in my life?  Shouldn't it be a catalyst for creativity?  Am I taking out whatever part of me inspired me in the first place?  Are those parts worth losing in order to be more socially acceptable?  Is that what I'm doing here?  Making myself into a socially acceptable human being, something I never felt I was before.

In my memoir class, we constantly talk about the guilt the writers feel in using the lives of their families and friends, sometimes leaving them ravaged like a mountain after the coal miners have passed through.  But they never consider what they're doing to themselves.  Isn't probing your own mind just as risky?  Do I harm myself by living inside me all of the time?  Can I live somewhere else? No, not happily.

What is growing up?  What is maturity?  Who am I?

I am always a list of hypothetical, rhetorical questions I will never answer.  So I write.

Jul 8, 2012

Getting Over Myself

While my computer was off being fixed, I badly wanted to write.  But something about the unfamiliarity of my mom's laptop's keyboard felt wrong.  I just couldn't do it.  It was like exposing secrets to an untrustworthy acquaintance instead of a close friend.  I know this computer is impartial, all computers are. But I couldn't write anywhere else.

I tried paper.  But paper felt too serious.  The only time I've written on paper is in a black, silver-studded journal that I kept beside my bed to help with my insomnia.  Having prohibited myself from looking at a computer screen, yet still imprisoned by the thoughts rolling in my head, I turned to the journal to empty my mind so I could sleep.  But that felt wrong too.  The paper felt like middle school anxieties, remote and immature.  I wanted my computer.

And now I have it and now I can write.  The driving force behind the desire was a fight with my father, the exact details of which don't really matter.  The whole problem is that I can never fully explain my frustrations to him, or anybody else it seems.  They belong solely to me and this computer screen.

I used to be okay with that, mostly.  There's this whole part of me my family doesn't know, or care to know. They probably wouldn't like that part of me very much.  But often, I think it's the best part, the most precious part. I'm no longer sure if I think so because it really is or because it's been only mine so long that it just hasn't had the opportunity to be colored by the opinions of others.  Whenever I dare to expose a bit of me outside of what he is so familiar with, my dad reacts terribly.  (I just realized this sounds very much like I'm talking about my sexuality, which I am not.  That's a very telling analogy though.)  Usually such discussions end with him telling me "to get over myself," which is his answer to anything that he doesn't understand.

What he doesn't understand are the things I'm most passionate about.  He doesn't understand that reading isn't just a hobby, something I do when I can't sleep.  He doesn't understand how a book or even a single sentence can be so beautiful you want to cry.  He doesn't even really understand what I'm studying or what I want to be.  He doesn't know I write anything besides term papers, and he doesn't even know what they involve.  I am actually pretty curious as to what he thinks I study, and sort of sad that he would never make it through one of my school essays.  He'd find it boring, extraneous, unnecessary--the ways he finds any book that isn't about golf.

Sometimes he surprises me when he delves into some sort of philosophical concept, but he regards me skeptically still when I voice my opinion.  He seems sort of surprised I even have one. 

I love him more than anything, and I wish so much that he knew the part of me that lives on this blog, in my bookshelf, in my mind.  The one that's stored away in files on my computer.  But it makes me sadder that he doesn't want to know that person.  But that's not who he is. 

Something in my parents' composition resists passion for anything more important than their golf games. Artistic sensibilities, strong political motivations, just passion.  If I have those, I "need to get over myself." 

I fear that one day I'll end up loving a man that loves the part of me that they don't know.  They won't understand our relationship, they won't like him, they'll think he "needs to get over himself."  But I can't spend my life with someone who doesn't understand my passions, but I don't think it'd be any easier to spend my life with some one who pushes me away from my parents.

I'm destined for conflict and this is only the beginning. But I cannot choose between my relationship with them and my relationship with myself.  I don't need to get over myself because I care about this world, about art, about politics.  I remain the silent and obedient girl they want me to be in their presence, but I know what I believe whole-heartedly, and I need so much some one to share it with. 

It can't just be mine any longer.

Jun 19, 2012

Home Videos

This evening, my dad yelled up the steps, "Saaamantha, I wanna show you something!"  When I turned the corner, I found my toddler self filling up the big HD television screen. Since I was expecting our latest Netflix movie, Happy Feet Two, I was a little taken back by the sudden walk down memory lane.

With no explanation, Dad played the video.  This particular moment has become infamous; I was about a year old, and Mom and I are engaged in our first fight.  I'd been carrying around a pen, and she took it from me.  I was not happy about this.  Defiance etched into my tiny features (evident even through the baby fat), I went after the pen time and time again.  "Peeen!" I repeated, in a mixture of baby talk and a dreaded Carolina drawl.  Finally, I managed to get a hold on just the cap, leaving mom with the naked pen.  I looked at the cap like the world stopped for a moment, forgetting my anger, and urged Mom to fix it.  She did, and I resumed my quest.

The showdown lasted for quite some time, according to my parents.  It is ever so fitting that my first argument featured a pen. 

I found myself marveling over how that little creature, a vocabulary about twenty words long and about three hairs on her head, somehow grew into the me typing this right now.  I don't believe in anything divine, but watching that video really made me feel like some sort of miracle.

Even though me and the toddler appear to have very little in common, you can see the grown me brewing under the surface.

The only birthday presents my one year old brain was drawn to were books.  I tried opening one on my lap, but my undeveloped fine motor skills were no match for the intricate clasps.  Maybe different drives propel me to eagerly open my books now, but then again, maybe not.

It was clear my Grandma Meg was my favorite person.  Any time she appeared on the screen, I was right there with her.  My favorite video was of my first trip to the beach.  Ironically, the timestamp on the camcorder shows it occurred nineteen years ago today.  Mom and Dad were unpacking the car outside of the hotel, and Grandma had already scooped me up and was halfway down the beach.  Dad quickly found the camcorder, and you can hear Mom complaining about being robbed of her  daughter's first encounter with the ocean.

But in the living room, Mom's real time complaints sound half-hearted. We all pause a little at seeing Grandma's alive and healthy form on the screen, clutching me and waving to the camera with the ocean roaring behind us.  I don't remember her hair being that dark, but I remember that beautiful, genuine laugh.  Watching her hold me, I feel the softness of her skin and the warmth of her hug.  I don't know if I'm grateful for the video, or just sad.

Everything is so new and exciting to that baby. I pick up and examine with great intensity every weed in the backyard, the sand on the beach, a speck of dirt on the floor.  The ocean provides endless thrills, seeing it all for the very first time.  I miss the world being wondrous.  I miss the pure joy of an uninhibited existence.  I miss my grandma.

May 2, 2012

Choke

(First of all, this new blogger format is weird and seems unnecessary.  Why is the internet perpetually fixing things that aren't broken?)

Anyway, sometimes I feel like I overly intellectualize a lot of things, usually tv shows. But perhaps that's silly because if fiction isn't for analyzing, then what's it for?

This week's episode of Glee resounded with me, and that sentence still seems silly. But it's true.

I've always defended the seemingly insufferable character that is Rachel Berry.  In fact, throughout all the crazy storylines and autotuning and whatnot, Rachel's story is the one that keeps me watching.  People find her so annoying.

She is annoying.  But she's annoying because she's passionate.  She's ambitious and confident.  These are qualities that are still frowned upon, however subtly, in women.  When men work deliberately toward their dreams, they're being proactive.  When Rachel does it, she's being manipulative.  Her confidence is interpreted as arrogance. Of course she isn't perfect and takes it too far sometimes, but fans seem to use that as an excuse to hate her for her ambition.  She knows what she wants, and it intimidates people.

One of the few things Glee's gotten right is Rachel's character development.  Generally, they're terrible at developing characters.  Personalities and motivations fly all over the place with no rhyme or reason.  But Rachel's steadily improved throughout three seasons.  She's matured and softened, but also hasn't lost sight of who she is--"a star."

I've always liked Rachel.  I've always been ambitious, but sometimes I'm afraid to tell people so because I think they'll consider me delusional.  But I'm not delusional.  What's so delusional about aiming high and having the confidence to go after what you want?

Then on this week's episode, all of Rachel's hard work culminated one audition, and she choked.

As she cried and begged for another shot (which was amazing acting on Lea Michele's part, by the way), my heart broke for her.  Because I feel like I'm on that stage, choking, right now. 

Today, I officially got my first C in a class.  Later in the week, my second one is inevitable.  People always say Cs aren't the end of the world.  I agree, they aren't the end of the world.  But they're the end of a part of my world, and I'm not going to pretend that isn't a big deal and I'm not upset at it and myself.  And I'm not going to pretend that these terrible grades have very real consequences for my life, academically and personally.

Rachel Berry's whole life centers around her singing.  My whole life is centered around school.  When it all comes crashing down, there's really nothing to do but grin and bear it.  I recognize how false people's attempts at making her feel better after her choking sounded; it was one of Glee's few realistic moments.  There isn't any comfort.  There's nothing you can do.  You want so badly to go redo those few moments that messed everything up, but you just can't. 

But Rachel's fictional and fixing her problems is easy as typing a few paragraphs onto a screenplay. My life isn't as easy to figure out.  What am I going to do now that I've sabotaged myself?

I impulsively signed up for creative writing, dropping a fancy education class.  If I'm going to fail, I should at least write about it.  I need to do something where I feel in control of my own fate and where I feel like what I'm doing matters.  I need to love it. If I get a C doing something I love, then it would be worth it.  C's for things I don't care about, that are just check marks on a future planning worksheet..that's not worth it.

I'm scared of going to my academic advising appointment in the fall and telling them I've failed, waiting for them to say "I should look at other options."  I'm scared of facing my family members who are so sure in my genius.  I'm scared of facing the teachers at home who had so much faith in me.

I'm tired of feeling isolated in my despair; it's hard to let go of much of what you've planned on your whole life, but I have to.  Everybody thinks that's dramatic, but it's true. C's don't go to grad school.  At least I have Rachel Berry to sing a depressing ballad over and over through my computer's speakers.

"Is it over yet?  Can I open my eyes?  Is this as hard as it gets? Is this what it feels like to really cry?"

Apr 7, 2012

A New Nostalgia

I feel so retro this weekend.

Though my life has changed radically in the last year, this weekend has felt like it belongs to years past. Remembering is different now, though. There is less nostalgia. While I still remember it fondly, there's a distinct feeling of being glad it's over, living happily in the present and looking toward the future, without longing at all for the past. I'm grateful for its being and even more grateful for its passing.

I left my shiny new laptop's charger at home, leaving me to edit my short stories on my old faithful desktop computer, the computer that carried me through late middle school and high school. It contains my teenage years in folders of pictures and writing, a digital scrapbook of me. The computer's painfully slow speed gives me time to contemplate each file I open before proceeding to the next, thinking of where my head was at when that photo was taken or that piece written. Sometimes, I don't recognize the person I see at all. This does not scare me like it might have before.

My computer's files prompted me to scan through the inscriptions in my high school yearbooks. The people who wrote in them hardly exist to me anymore. The laughter behind the inside jokes has faded in a way the pink gel pen never will. I remember how I felt slightly queasy about a particular inscription, with it's overly sentimental message and promises, and feel even more queasy about how untrue its become. That's all I wanted when it was written, but now I wish it didn't have to be that way. I expected to feel this way five or six or ten years after graduating high school, not in a year. But now I can safely say with supreme confidence that high school is not the best years of your life.


Sitting on the couch, eating my favorite frozen pizza and watching sporting events with my parents reminds me of the evenings after school I spent in that very position. At one point, I pulled out my homework assignment from UNC and it felt so alien, like an artifact from the past carried home in a time machine. I looked at my bookbag with suspicion before stuffing the assignment back in.

Sitting here at this desk in my my messy room, waiting on Dad to finish grilling hamburgers on the deck, typing away on my desktop computer, it feels like I should get up tomorrow morning and drive to the community college, park the car, and step into the T-building lobby. I feel that same way each time I swing my car Bessie out into the road in the direction of town, just as I did each morning for several years. Though I have a shiny, new car, I still feel at home in Bessie's driver's seat; it's safe, I'm in control, it's comfortable. But I'm not overly sad about it like I suspected I would be. I want to drive the new car, with it's new car smell and updated interior. It is change, and I like it.

But the time I feel most like my past self is when I'm reading at night before bed, forgetting the time and the rest of the world until I turn over the novel's last page. Books, though always new ones, are the one constant thread throughout my twenty years, and they faithfully evoke the same comforting feeling time and time again. Whether I'm reading them in my bedroom at home by my halogen octopus lamp, or reading them perched high in my lofted dorm bed, I feel peacefully present. I know as long as I can access that feeling, I'll never be lost.

Though I must rejoin the actual present tomorrow night, I'm happy I've had this weekend of reminders to show me where I've come from, to remind me of where I have to go.

Mar 24, 2012

We Were Born to Overcome

This has been the worst week of my first year of college.

But it's okay. It's going to be okay.

I know this because the worst week of my first year of college could be so much worse. I got to experience Holi Moli. I'm not sure how religiously accurate it was, but it was fun. Thousands of UNC students, dressed in old white clothing on a huge white tarp, gather in Polk Place and throw vibrantly colored pigment at each other until everyone is just a blob of color. The pictures reveal the multicolored cloud of dust hovering about the cheering crowd. An uninformed viewer might think were extremely dedicated hippies, even tye dying our smoke.

The Holi festival, a Hindu celebration, is supposed to celebrate the coming of Spring. Rebirth. While I was tossing paint manically at my friends, this message seemed distant, just an excuse to defy the long-ingrained instinct not to make stains.

However, as I stood in the already-stained-purple shower, watching the water run off my skin in little rainbow rivers and leaving me squeaky clean and new, I understood. Spring blooms everywhere, pink and purple and green coloring the campus, even the dusty yellow pollen coating everything brightens up the place. Even after the spring showers have washed away all the evidence of spring's coming, the hope is left. The birds chirping in the rain, the sweet smell of May mornings, the sparkling morning dew.

I'll admit a few tears might've mixed into the mess of soap, water, and paint as I stood in the shower evaluating my life. But it's okay because next spring, as I stand in the middle of the colorful crowd at Holi Moli, this week won't matter anymore. The grades will have faded into the background; the sting of inconvenience of being temporary homeless and temporary extraneous will have dulled into a vague, old ache; the midterms will be long-forgotten. It just won't matter. I'll wash myself anew in the shower, and it'll be another new beginning.

"And we carry on
When our lives come undone
We carry on
Cause there's promise in the morning sun
We carry on
As the dark surrenders to the dawn
We were born to overcome
We carry on."

Mar 22, 2012

Doubt

"Oh, how I ricochet between certainties and doubts."

"I'm trying to be assertive; I'm making plans. Gonna rise to the occasion, yeah, meet all their demands, but all I do is just lay in bed and hide under the covers.
It's too hard to focus through all this doubt, keep making these to-do lists and nothing gets crossed out."

Oh, Sylvia and Conor always know what to say. I'm having trouble articulating my doubts to anyone; everything seems to think I'm being silly. They overestimate me. They don't try to think of my situation objectively. I can't meet all their demands. I just keep hitting snooze.

I get so frustrated when people think I'm overreacting when I doubt my future. Give it time, give it time. I don't have time! The future is now; the future is always right now. I don't want to screw myself over later by not knowing what I'm doing right now. I have to feel prepared; I have to be working towards a goal. I have to assess my own abilities honestly and truly. But I can't! There doesn't seem to be an objective enough person on earth.

The cloud of a false reputation surrounds me. I'm not as smart, responsible, capable, determined, or ambitious as anyone thinks I am. I suppose I should take it as a compliment that people perceive me as so much better than I am, but it is going to catch up with me. I'm always living in dread of those moments when the veneer cracks a little. Eventually, it's going to fall all apart and I'll be left without options. I wonder if I'm actually any of the things people attribute to me, or I've just been hearing them so long, I started to believe them myself.

As I have learned from my meager studies, a fracture between identity and essence is not good for mental health. I don't want to be Mrs. Dalloway, perched on the edge of instability all the time--inches away from being Septimus falling from the window at any given moment.

So I'm searching, searching for what I want. What I'm actually capable of. But I can't figure it out without any honest assessment. That leaves me obsessed with my falling grades, the image of the Cs tainting my papers and tests, mocking me with their averageness, their reek of failure. But they're objective and unyielding. They're the only reliable measure of my abilities. And they're telling me I'm not good enough.

I try to listen to what the grades are telling me. At a certain point, my mantra of just "work harder" fails me because I hit a stalemate of work and ability. Sometimes, my best is just not good enough. My dad always says it's okay if I'm doing my best. Is it? Their conception of my best is not what reality may be. What am I supposed to do if my best isn't really good enough?

The desire to do something, to earn a Doctorate's degree, is not enough to obtain it. Why am I the only one who thinks so? No, you cannot do anything you put your mind to. Everyone has limitations.

I just don't know where mine are, and testing them is slowly chipping away at me. Is it cowardly to back down into safety, or is it the smart thing to do?

I don't know; I don't know. I just hide under the covers. Academic advising is going to have a good time with me.

Feb 23, 2012

Lunch

I always feel guilty as I move through the Chick-fil-a line. I wonder if the workers at the eco-friendly and healthy restaurant beside the fast food establishment are sad as people stream by them, making the wrong choice, diving for processed chicken nuggets and trans-fat filled waffle fries, while a few students with dread locks and packs of organic cigarettes select from their varied colors of healthy, locally grown mush.

My guilt deepens as I think about the politics of Chick-fil-a; I think about how they donate to causes I consider abhorrent. They hate homosexuality; they ask potential employees if they're Christian in their interviews; they're closed on Sundays. But the dining hall line is long, and I only have time to breeze through the Chick-fil-a line, give my money to causes that repress, eat the food that slowly clogs my arteries, so I can get to classes on time that are supposed to teach me critical thinking so I don't make bad choices.

It's hard to find a seat. I think about how many more people could sit here if people sat together instead of alone, each facing a computer screen instead of a human face. But nobody talks without a friend to mutually introduce them, or a shared interest discovered through happenstance. You don't meet people while you eat your chicken; you can only eat with people you know. So I am forced to squash myself into an uncomfortable corner while a person and his computer sit at a table for four. Hypocritically, I turn my ipod up louder to drown out the crowd.

Feb 10, 2012

Together We Are Carolina

I felt so many emotions Wednesday night: anxiety, nausea, anticipation, pride, shock, anger, frustration, helplessness.

Many say it's dramatic that such emotions are channeled into a basketball game--a completely arbitrary competition on which nothing intrinsically valuable depends.

But a lot does depend on it. Many of the sad faces in the crowd at the end of the game were wearing shirts emblazoned with the basketball team's motto: "Together We Are Carolina." We hate Duke together; we win together; we lose together. Right now, a huge group of students just passed the library window, making quite the racket protesting tuition hikes. Together, we make a difference.

The UNC Duke rivalry is often set in stereotypical terms, but I think the underlying value systems of the universities are really at odds, giving the competition a personal, emotional edge. UNC, lovingly dubbed "public ivy," is about accessible, affordable, quality education. You can come from nothing and come to UNC: cost is never a deterrent. It's about inclusion, not exclusivity. People are easy-going. Carolina blue embodies a campus that values social change, progressive ideas (except when it comes to Gender Neutral Housing *grumble grumble*), and diversity.

Duke is an expensive, private school. It's for the privileged, people who like calling themselves the elite. As a result, they're whitewashed. The privileged portions of society don't have any interest in changing the status quo. Duke's in a different paradigm completely.

Then take these two clashing ideologies about education and privilege, stick them within eight miles of on another, then make them compete for some of the best and brightest minds and athletes and professors in the world, and you get one hell of a rivalry, all culminating in those basketball games.

So winning is not about comparing Austin Rivers and Tyler Zeller. Winning is not about free throw percentages or three point plays. It's about loving your school and believing in it so much that you want it to be the best at absolutely everything. It's about passion.

That five minutes of stunned silence permeating Chapel Hill at the end of the game? Even though it was one of the worst feelings in the world, I wouldn't trade it. I love being part of this place. All of that emotion makes me okay with shouting at the end of the fight song, every time we sing it:

GO TO HELL DUKE!

Feb 3, 2012

The Problem with Everything...

This article makes me so mad.

After watching a documentary containing the startling statistic that only 17% of television protagonists are women, I was happy to watch this week's Parks and Rec. That, coupled with 30 Rock, is a solid hour of female leading ladies (actually, the unfortunately unfunny show Whitney is at least about a woman, so good going NBC). I think Parks and Rec does more for the feminist cause than 30 Rock, even though Tina's always my favorite, because 30 Rock's constantly harping on Liz Lemon's affinity for food, bad fashion sense, and all the other things that are stereotypical of "working women" who give up their personal lives and femininity to be more masculine, more "feminist," is not what I think feminism should be about.

Leslie Knope is a put-together, passionate career woman. She loves her job, and she is well-respected and competent. That's why this article is so infuriating. The author clearly thinks that being a feminist means you can't be a person. Independent women are allowed to get help from their friends (and boyfriends!) occasionally. You're allowed to fall in love and you're allowed to make sacrifices for the person you love if you want to.

Isn't the most empowering option for Leslie to stay with her man AND run her own campaign? She is far from a damsel in distress. She is allowed to have character flaws, too. The example of her behavior in the bowling alley just exhibited one of Leslie's weaknesses--she fixates on details and wants people to like her. That just shows how Ben is good for her, what women should look for in a partner: someone who evens them out, who makes them better. What's anti-feminist about a healthy, balanced relationship? Pretending that Leslie has to be a perfect role model without any flaws is silly and destructive. Media images of women being perfect is what is wrong with our society; making the ideal working woman is just as bad as the ideal photo-shopped model. The unattainability of it is the problem. Leslie's supportive friends and good attitude help her deal with her flaws in positive and constructive ways. THAT is a good role model.

In case the writer of this article didn't notice, Leslie is currently maintaining her job in the Parks Department with her usual competence, running her City Council campaign, AND successfully dating Ben. Where is she getting the notion that the show is making Leslie choose between work and love? I thought the writers handled that plot beautifully.

Also, if you want something truly anti-feminist, check out the opening line of this wretched article:
"If you’re looking to get into the pants of a feminist, wonkish liberal, make sure to work Parks and Recreation into your sweet nothings."

To get into the pants of a feminist. Really? Really?

Clearly, this writer doesn't know what feminism is, or why Parks and Recreation is and continues to be an important presence on primetime tv. Yes, bitches get stuff done, but they shouldn't have to be bitches to do so. Enter Leslie Knope.


Jan 19, 2012

Unironically Enthusiastic

Well, this post is inevitable. I simply have to heap loads of praise on the man that's been taking up all my spare time lately--John Green. However, the beauty and accuracy of all the prestigious book reviews have taken the words from me. They have already captured what I love so much about John Green and his writing.

They've captured how he writes to teenage audiences (and us twenty year old college kids, what can I say?) instead of at them. He doesn't patronize his readers. He recognizes that youth doesn't mean shallow and apathetic toward philosophical musings and that young readers can relate to themes more important than love triangles. He writes books with references to literature, and a lot of his readers understand them. He writes books that speak to problems of any age through the highly malleable lens of teenhood; he often says he feels called to write for teenagers and can't imagine his work geared toward any other audience. However, I think his books are suitable for anybody with eyes in their head and thoughts in their brains. I will continue reading them long after my age no longer fits in the prescribed parameters on the title page.

But even greater than the excellent quality of the books is the community sprung up around them. Admittedly, "nerdfighteria" could exist without John's books, but I don't think it would be as awesome. John's books allow a singular thread tying together most members of the community; I'm sure there are nerdfighters who don't read the books, but I am also sure they are in the vast minority. The books give a vehicle for tours and the community publicity, which gives them more leverage to "decrease worldsuck." Anybody who has read the books knows how smart John is (and consequently, attribute similar qualities to his brother Hank), and that he is an adequate role model for nerds everywhere.

The best thing about being part of the community is the encouragement of unbridled passion. John defines nerd: "Because nerds like us are allowed to be unironically enthusiastic about stuff. We don't have to be like, 'Oh yeah that purse is okay' or like, 'Yeah, I like that band's early stuff.' Nerds are allowed to love stuff, like jump-up-and-down-in-the-chair-can't-control-yourself-love it. Hank, when people call people nerds, mostly what they are saying is, 'You like stuff', which is just not a good insult at all, like 'You are too enthusiastic about the miracle of human consciousness'."

I love that. I love being unironically enthusiastic. I love waiting in obnoxiously long lines for book releases, passionately discussing said books loudly in the dining hall (and on facebook and tumblr and blogger and with strangers in the bathroom and strangers on the sidewalk...), keeping quote books, hanging nerdy posters, wearing nerdy shirts, and just plain loving the things I love out loud and proud.

At the Tour de Nerdfighting event, there was plenty of unironic enthusiasm. People wear enthusiastic homemade shirts, enthusiastically sing Hank's songs, and just plain relish in all the things they love.

The world needs John and Hank Green. The idea that teenagers are supposed to be passive, brooding, and generally unattached from life is ridiculous. The vlogbrothers show teenagers that it is okay to be passionate and make nerdy into a positive moniker.

So, without shame or irony, I tell everyone to simply DFTBA.

Jan 6, 2012

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

I've been having trouble writing lately. I have about ten incomplete and unpublished drafts on here. The truth is when I'm at home, I become a lazy shell of a person who doesn't do anything but watch television and play video games and occasionally crack open a book. I really don't like this person. Which is why I can't stay here in this soul sucking little town.

That might seem like a harsh thing to call it. But I'm reading The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, and it's about people with active, introspective, dreaming minds living in a soul sucking little town. The meager, poor town is completely devoid of opportunity and wreaks of ignorance, racism, and hopelessness. I don't live in the World War 2 era South, but I live in the closet modern day approximation. I can relate to the restless souls roaming the unnamed little town's dusty avenues. They feel totally isolated, alone in their thoughts and pining over unachievable dreams.

But the thing that gives me hope is that I'm not a character in the novel--I do have a future and my dreams are attainable. I get to leave. At home, my mind becomes a wasteland of sitcoms and football stats. At school, it's full of poetry and philosophy and grand pictures of what the future has in store for me. If I stayed home, I would never survive. Like Biff, Mick, Singer, and Dr. Copeland in The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, I am not made for this containment; I am not content with what little this place has to offer me. It stifles me; it kills me.

There are upsides to small town America, and people tend to claim it is only my youth that drives me away; middle age will have me crawling back again with 2.5 kids, a mini-van, and a born again religion. But I know that isn't true. It's more than the slow pace, getting stuck behind tractors, driving hours for entertainment; it's the feel of the people and the despair in the air. There are no possibilities here. People work the same minimum wage jobs from the time they're born to the time they die. There is no room to think, to grow, to evolve. I valued that capacity when I was eight, and I am sure I will still value it when I'm eighty. I can't bear to spend any time more than Christmas vacations and summers here.

I love my parents and brother, and I cherish spending time with them. But outside of my family, I am completely lonely here. There is nothing, no one here for me. I exist in a different space now, and I can't fit in here anymore.

My heart is a lonely hunter, and there's nothing to be hunted in this desolate place.