7/30/13

Disasters

So this Sunday I saw a movie that made me think.  It was called Fruitvale Station, starring Michael B. Jordan, Melonie Diaz, and Octavia Spencer, and it was one of the most beautifully sad movies I have ever seen. By the end, I was hysterical; shaking as silent tears and snot somehow got all over me the one day I didn't have a tissue in my bag. Everyone should see it. 

It deals with the subject of the video of four black men being arrested in a train station on New Year's Eve of 2009. One of the men was shot that night, and his name was Oscar Grant. This movie is a portrait of his family, his future, his hopes, and his life. His acting was some of the best I've ever seen, and the score alone could have made me inconsolable. It was swelling and beautiful and tragic. 

Because of all of this, disasters and tragedies have been somewhat on my mind. I doesn't help that within the past two months alone there have been two building collapses, two train collisions, one train explosion, two plain crashes, and two bus crashes, not to even mention all of the violence in the Middle East right now. Why is all of this happening? It it really such a terrible coincidence? Maybe tragedies are drawn together; maybe once one occurs its just one after another, like dominoes. This chain reaction worries me. 

Yay, paranoia? Anyway, I promise posts will be more often, and I'll talk to you all later. 

7/26/13

Journaling

Hello everyone, I know it's been a while since I've been here but it's been busy. Let me catch you up on a few things that I've been doing: 

First of all, the Fourth of July happened. It was the first time I'd seen a lot of my friends since school ended and it was so nice to see them. When I consider someone my close friend, it means I truly adore them; I can't imagine myself being myself without the support and humor of my little group. My town fundraises all year for the Fourth of July picnic and fireworks hosted at a local university campus, so every year my family and a couple hundred more gather with blankets, fold up chairs, and coolers full of soda to watch the fireworks. 

The shows have been getting longer lately, an this time it was about forty minutes long, but I thought it was absolutely wonderful. The show was gorgeous. I've been trying to describe to people the beauty of fireworks, but I've never quite managed it. Some of them rocket so high into the sky, and then explode in bright color and disappear, but glitter back down to the ground. Others jut look like fairy dust. Even more crackle right over the tree line, making loud popping noises. My favorite ones fly so high onto the sky, and explode so wide, it makes it look like the whole sky is covered with diamond stars. They make me feel filled with wonder and as if the world is brimming with adventure and mystery and magic. Like there's no limits to what humans can make, and it's unbelievably beautiful. 

Second, I've been starting to read more often. I'm halfway through Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen but have abandoned it temporarily to read my summer reading assignments. I'm currently a third of the way through Sons and Lovers by D. H. Laurence. It's pretty interesting, but it took me longer than usual to get used to all of the phonetically  written accents. 

Mostly I've just been lounging around the house all day, drowning in my current obsessions. Specifically, American Ninja Warrior and Hell's Kitchen. Dear lord I could watch nothing else but those two shows (plus Project Runway, America's Next Top Model, Sex and the City, and Medium) for the rest of my life and still die happy. 

Gordon Ramsey is my spirit guide, I'm pretty sure. 

Lately, though, I've been thinking about journals and journaling. Over the course of my life, I've whole-heartedly committed myself to an endless number of journals, diaries, and notebooks, only to abandon them. I honestly think this blog is the longest I've ever managed to chronicle anything, and you can see how well I've managed to keep that up. I'm pretty proud of it, really. But it really hit me that I didn't have anything to remember my thoughts by when the royal baby was born. (Ugh I know, another royal baby topic, I'm sorry, but I actually care and was glued to the tv all Monday. It helps that the baby was born on my sister's birthday, though) It's a given that every moment of this kid's life is going to be documented, photographed, interviewed, printed, and filed away for posterity, but what about me? 

I'm just an average human being, not a noble drop of blood in my veins, so what's going to remember me? So I've decided to really start a journal. I have a beautiful bound journal from Ghana that I've been waiting to use. The first five pages are filled with young me's attempts at writing a book. It's horrendous, to say the least. The next three pages are just doodles. So it's mostly blank. I figure, why not now? I'm almost positive that whatever I would have written in my journal when I was seven would have made anyone bored to tears, but sixteen year old me should have some pretty interesting thoughts. I'm basically a fully formed person; biologically, I ain't growing anymore, I can tell you that. I practically function as an adult in society, minus the whole higher education and a job thing. I want to remember how I felt growing up into the person that high school will shape me into, and see how I change. Hopefully my writing will improve too. 

Anyway, it's nice to be back!! I'll see you guys soon.