Inauguration

I did not get to watch the inauguration of Barack Obama today because I was in the bathroom with a four year old who dragged me out of the gym twice today for no other real reason than that she didn't want to watch the inauguration anymore.

The little parts of it that I did see were relatively unimportant to the event as a whole. However, I think today was a very important day in the history of our country. We broke racial barriers and made great bounds and leaps for people of all races, not just African-Americans. It will be a day that the country will remember for all time.

A Bad Secret...

A bad secret, when locked away deep inside one's soul, can eat away at you until you crack. 

When I was younger, my best friend confided in me a "deep dark secret," at least as deep and dark as a secret can get when you're a kid, and swore me to secrecy. While, admittedly, in hindsight, the secret wasn't so deep and dark or so horrible to keep, it ate away at me. However, I was a noble friend so I wasn't about to "let the cat out of the bag" and give away her secret, so I didn't tell anyone.

I kept her secret for a long time, even until we weren't best friends anymore, and I still keep it today. In truth, the guilt doesn't eat at me anymore, considering it is a secret that is stale with age and no longer relevant, plus the fact that now, at sixteen, the secret doesn't seem so horrible anymore. For a while, especially the first couple of weeks and months after she told me, I felt racked with guilt about not "telling on her." In fact, whenever my mother asked me what was going on in my life, I feared it was because she knew about the secret that I was keeping and, consequently, I started avoiding these mother-daughter chats. I became paranoid about it to a certain extent. While it may have been an overreaction at the time, guilt can do that to a person without a doubt.

New Year's Resolution

The year 2009 means a fresh start, which means new resolutions to follow through on. This year, I've decided to actually make a resolution, unlike past years where I've just passed it up, knowing that the odds of my following through on it are slim to none. For the year of 2009 I am determined to finish the things I've started.

While this is a general resolution, this resolution mainly applies to my writing. For over a month now I have started numerous stories, probably upwards of ten, but have not gotten past page ten on hardly any of them. It's frustrating to have all of these ideas bouncing around in my head without being able to put them down on paper somewhere. For this reason, I want to finish what I start before moving onto another story, because I know that if I leave one task, I'll never go back to it. This is why I want to follow through on this resolution.

Saying I'm going to do something and actually doing it are two completely different things; this I know. Therefore, this year, I have a very simple plan of action for accomplishing my goal. I will simply just not let myself move onto something new. In essence, I will force myself to follow through, rather than just accepting that giving up once in a while is okay. For me, it will just not be okay. If I start to cook something, I will not leave the kitchen until I'm finished; I won't just put it in the fridge and tell myself I'll finish it tomorrow. If I start to write something, I will not start writing another story until I have at least stuck it out for a while and decided that I do not like it and that is why I'm quitting, rather than just because I want to move onto something else. If I start a project, I will continue working on it in regular intervals, rather than just give up for a few weeks and come back to it at the last minute.

New year's resolutions can be considered silly and a bad idea, and I have thought this in the past. However, I know that I will follow through on this one, one way or another, no matter how hard it is, thus making it a good idea to have promised it to myself in the first place. So, here is to 2009 with new beginnings and a clean slate. Here's to promises that will not go left undone.

Winter Poem

Hoar Frost

Branches were dipped in frosting this morn

and the sun cast a fairyland spell;

Each fragile twig looked feathered and white

and beckoned a heart to  swell.

A winter treasure - a sight to behold -

while silence augmented the scene;

I wanted to talk through an open gate

to find the artist, supreme

No gate could I see, the artist unseen,

awe captured my soul;

The canvas would change, as nature intended,

but I'd witnessed her morning's goal.

-- by Joan Adams Burchell

Good Authors

"What I like in a good author is not what he says, but what he whispers." - Logan Pearsall Smith

I agree with what Logan Pearsall Smith is saying, but only to a degree. I took this quote as that he loves all of the underlying themes and hidden meanings behind a text more than he loves the actual blatant spoken story line. All of those hidden secrets lying beneath the surface of the text are intriguing and wonderful to ponder, but at some point it gets more annoying than interesting. At this point, I prefer just the plain text to the obscure themes and symbols found in a novel. However, before this point, I love feeling the gratification of deciphering the "codes" beneath the words in a story.

A good author is able to convey those things that are "between the lines" while still having them be mysterious. It is essential.

Memorable Fairy Tale

"And because these daft and dewey-eyed dopes keep building up impossible hopes impossible things are happening everyday." - The Fairy God Mother

For as long as I can remember the sweet but captivating story of Cinderella, whether it be in the form of the old Greek folklore, the cartoon Disney adaptation or the live stage adaptations, has always captured me more so than any other story. I've always rooted for the underdog in every aspect of life and Cinderella is the true underdog. She is the "plain country bumpkin" with a broken past who finds herself caught up in a whirlwind romance with a prince who doesn't know her true identity.

I don't think that as a young girl I've ever been more on the edge of my seat than I was when the Prince slipped the glass slipper onto Cinderella's dainty foot. And I don't think I've ever fallen more in love with a Broadway song than I did with "Impossible" from the stage version of Cinderella or "Ten Minutes Ago" from Rodger's and Hammerstein's live action made-for-TV movie version.

The story has stuck through me for all of my life, making me remind myself that no matter how low down the underdog is, everyone can get a happy ending- all you need is some faith and a dash of magic and with a quick bippity-boppity-boo anything can happen. In truth, there is no magic and there are no fairy god mothers to tell you to spin around so they can fix you a beautiful dress out of thin air, but that doesn't make the story any less "real." It is a metaphor or sorts, telling little girls everywhere that every girl can find her prince, no matter how worthless she might think she is.

Thousands of years ago when this story was first told, I'm sure no one would have imagined how important the message it held would be in society in the future. However, it is that important. Every girl has a chance to shine and she should never forget that.

Not to mention, aside from all of the "after school special" morals in the story, it's a rather entertaining tale. I have to admit, that more than fifteen years after the first time I saw this movie, I still love popping in the DVD on a snow day and letting it take me back to the days when I was five or six years old, telling my daddy that I could be anyone I wanted to be when I was in my own little corner in my own little chair, or telling my mom not to worry about mice in the basement because with just a touch of magic they could be beautiful horses. It is the one story that I have carried with me through my whole life, without any of the details fuzzing themselves around the edges even the slightest bit.

Valuing Education

Do you think young people today value their education as much as Sara Smolinksky does? Why or why not?

I don't think people today value their education as much as Sara does in The Bread Givers. This is probably because an education these days is a given for everyone, at least everyone around here. School becomes more of a chore than a privilege and therefore we wind up hating it rather than valuing it. We resent our teachers for giving so much work because we haven't lived the alternative- a job. To us, time where there is no school is a time for just relaxing rather than working a job, or at least not working at a job filled with physical labor for 12 hours a day in a sweat shop. Education is a wide-spread thing, rather than a rare privilege and thus it has become less and less valuable as it becomes more and more common.

As this follows, a high school education has become nearly worthless in society, while it was once something that people rarely obtained. Even just graduating from college isn't revered as genius in society, not unless you get your masters degree along with your diploma. It is not just to the young people that education has become less valuable, but lower forms of education have become less valuable to society as a whole.