Final

In seventh grade I started up a blog. I kept it for a couple months before I forgot about it, another trivial piece of my online life that I did not really care about. I never posted anything particularly interesting anyways. However, when this year started I was unimaginably excited that we would be building new blogs and using them to our academic advantage. Maybe this time it would work, something would click, like those cheesy romance novels that everyone eats up. 

And for the beginning of the year, it was just like that. Before most people had twenty posts, I had fifty, and was feeling fairly celebratory about this fact. Like all new things, though, it did not stay quite so invigorating for long. I eventually grew tired of my blog and my posting slowed to a snail’s crawl. Instead of furiously typing away on my laptop every now and then, I began to simply sit and stare at the screen, lazily searching my brain for more bull to fill the gap where words were meant to be. The blog became just another assignment, like a child weaning from its exhausted mother.

Though, as I look back, I realize that my blog has had quite an impact on my life. When I started my freshman year of high school, I felt that I was an amazing writer, destined for success and fame and there was no way I could get any better because I was damn perfect. Having the blog helped change my perspective on that. I started to criticize my writing more for one thing, and it did not take long for reality to start screaming out the flaws in all of my pieces in bold, italicized letters. All of my posts became works in progress in my mind.

Of course, I do have a few favorite posts that I might rather leave just the way they are. My post titled “A Love of Music”, for example. This post marked an intense change in my writing style. I no longer wrote out exactly what I was thinking, copying and pasting the surroundings into my posts in dull ways. I do not know how the change happened, though I know that at the time I wrote it I had been severely tired and suffering from a stomach ache (I tend to write my best poetry when I am tired, so perhaps there is a connection?).

It was today that it finally clicked. I was sick from drinking coffee with an empty stomach, and in an exhausted haze I stumbled up to the piano and lifted the lid, staring down at the black and pale yellow. Before long I was mumbling to myself, squinting at the black and white blobs on old, wrinkled paper.

It has got something to it that even I have not fully comprehended. I guess I have just got to wait until the middle of the night, maybe toss in a fever, and then everything will make perfect sense.

And as the school year comes to a close, as all things do, I find an interest sparked once again in my blog. My problem now is not a lack of interest, it is a lack of knowing what to say. There is a wall in the way, some kind of syrup on my fingers that keeps me from typing like I know I can. It is the dreaded writer’s block. I do not know if it is because I am more awake and alert (which may or may not be a hindrances) or if it is because the year is almost over and my brain is starting to relapse into summer wonders.

The good thing about the end of the school year is that I’m tired more often. Whether I’m just burnt out after a long and vigorous year, or if I’m just not getting enough sleep in general, I wake up each day groaning and exhausted. As I said earlier, I tend to write best when I’m on the brink of passing out (especially when it comes to poetry). When I’m wide awake, there isn’t much I can do without it coming out sounding forced and weak.

At least I have something to be proud of. Unlike the ‘perfection’ that I used to scrawl out on binder paper during lunch, my works have definitely improved. My poetry, for example, is no longer the depressed ramblings of a preteen who thinks she knows all there is to know and then some. My poetry no longer focuses on deep, dark emotions and coldness and sadness and things like that.I have found that my poetry now reflects on my interesting topics,, which is something I have also found pride in. Early on in the year I posted one about a soldier, which, now that I look back at it, is terrible compared to some of my newer poems, like this one (yes, it is an older post, but the poem is actually from a time much more recent). I am not saying that my poetry is the best, though. I am constantly reading others’ poems and mentally attacking myself for not being ‘good enough’.

My vocabulary has also improved greatly. Instead of saying something like, “She had really tan skin, which showed that she spent a lot of time in the sun,” I would say something like “Her skin looked like light syrup, gleaming in the sunlight she spent so many tiring hours working in.” Or, if it was a poem, I would say something like, “The sun beats down on California kissed skin.” Though I often criticize my own works (“Oh, jeez, that conversation is completely dull” or “This poem is totally unoriginal”), I do acknowledge that, when I truly want to, I can use fairly interesting words.

The life of my blog has been full of ups and downs, like one of those roller coasters that goes in loops and makes half the passengers throw up.

Growing Up

For some reason, people seem to think that while a person grows, their taste in literature, music, or film has to 'mature'. Instead of reading shorter books with larger letters, people are expected to read thick books with thin pages and tiny words that are barely visible with a magnifying glass. Not that I'm saying those types of books are a bad thing; I often find myself getting lost in those books, like I myself was the protagonist.

It is, however, against all reason that I should be expected to simply give up childhood classics. I'm not talking about things like Peter Pan or Alice in Wonderland, though, which are classics indeed. I'm talking about my own personal favorites that more likely than not shaped me to be who I am today. Of course there's always Harry Potter, but everyone reads that. That's everyone's childhood sweetheart when it comes to books. 

Second grade was possibly my favorite year of school ever. Period. Done. I've never had a year like it. I grew closer to my friends, developed friendships, and had the most amazing teacher ever: Mrs. Wysocki. During the later part of the year, Mrs. Wysocki told my class that she would be reading us one of her favorites; evidently it was a book called There's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom by Louis Sachar. It tells the story of a distraught fifth grader (who is much older than the rest of his classmates) and a new school counselor named Carla who helps him break out of the negative attitude he has towards himself, as well his nasty habit of taking his frustration out on his classmates. 

Since I had only been seven at the time, the book actually opened my eyes to the world of bullying and the things that might be going on inside the heads of those who are, themselves, bullies. 

Another book that played an important role in my childhood is the book Loser by Jerry Spinelli. It tells about Donald Zinkoff's rise through elementary school. It's another one of those books that's short with thick pages and size eighteen font, but it also deals somewhat with the psychology behind the actions that his classmates commit. Zinkoff, however, does not let it get him down. In a school race, he fails his team and suffers greatly with harsh words and angry teammates. The pain and hurt doesn't last long when his father comes to the rescue:

"Even in bed that night Zinkoff can still feel the shake and shimmy of the old rattletrap [the family car], and coming through loud and clear is a message that was never said. He knows that he could lose a thousand races and his father will never give up on him. He knows that if he ever springs a leak or throws a gasket, his dad will be there with duct tape and chewing gum to patch him up, that no matter how much he rattles and knocks, he'll always be a honeybug to his dad, never a clunker," (page 108).

Explanation for the last bit: His dad is constantly getting new used cars since the last ones are always breaking down, and while his dad is always calling them his honeybugs, Zinkoff and his mother call them Clunkers. 

So, as you can see, these books clearly aren't meant to be read once and then stuffed aside for new, Harvard approved books. I've been rereading a lot of my own childhood classics lately. When was the last time you took a peek between the pages of an old favorite?

"Sweet Split"

A poem I just wrote that I'm rather fond of. Might be because it's the first one in a while that wasn't directly influenced by myself or someone I know. I think it's amazing how much my poetic style has changed in the last two years. :D So anyways. This one's about drugs, even though it totally didn't start out that way when I was forming it in my head. 


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The sun beats down on California kissed skin
As she trades more Benjamins for another trip
Another vacation
Another escape from the world.

Sexy and sweet this girl of the street
Dancing to an endless tune so fine
So mellow
So snap your fingers and fall to the floor.

She says that walls are too confining
That she'd rather die than go home
Go anywhere
Go to any place where she can't spread her wings.

Needles in the crook and pinching heaven
Is she calling your name or mine?
Or is she praying?
Or is she crying out that God is a liar?

Blog Traffic

What is this? Porn sites are referrencing my blog? Not just any porn sites, sites for bisexual men. As well as a Russian website that looks like a place for happy families. You can see the Russian place here. Can anyone else read any of that?

Anyways, I'm not just getting traffic from the US. I'm getting traffic from Russia (of course), Canada, Germany, Malaysia, Australia, the UK, India, Denmark, and the Netherlands. Why the Netherlands? I mean, I don't have a problem with that, it's just so random!

And why the porn sites?

Edit: Apparently in the last month I've also been refferenced to by this. Why?

Comments

Christy-This sounds like a really great book. I might even check it out from the library myself. I like how you focus on the chemistry between the characters and the strength of believing.


David-So I thought this was an okay review. Not the best, since you haven't actually finished it, but it's okay. Also, he's probably depressed because he's been kicked out of school so much and his brother is dead and apparently no one really listens to him. Just sayin'. XD


Stan-You don't have an up-to-date review. D: Whyyy!

Confessions-Final Review

In the novel Confessions of a Pagan Nun, great injustices take place. The main character, Gwynneve, is a peaceful, gentle woman who lived her days trying to feed those who have no food and give medicine to those with disease. But what she really loved was the freedom that came with words, writing, speech, and thought. The book is split between two stories—the past and the present, which is called “Interruption”. In her tales about the past she speaks of the druid she was in love with, Giannon, as well as her mother and her love for the freedom that is brought by words. The Interruptions are much darker, displaying gruesome events taking place at a church.

The Interruptions mostly involve Sister Aillenn, a nun with a lack of sanity, and an abbot who brings nothing but harm. They also tell of a dead infant whose grave is constantly being disturbed. At one point the tiny corpse disappears, creating drama between the sisters and the abbot. At first it is just a horror that haunts the nuns and the abbot, especially Sister Aillen for, at the time, unknown reasons.

As the story progresses, she tells of how Giannon was taken away from her by Christians who hated him for being a druid. At the same time that she is telling of this, in the Interruptions, she tells of Sister Aillenn's story. It turns out that when Aillenn was younger, she'd fallen in love with the abbot, and he with her. To keep from ruining each others' purity, a terrible iron device was put around her pelvis. He then left her with her wounds from the device to live in a church. Her parents sent her away when she became depressed, and she ended up going to a church to become a nun...where the abbot also lived.

The story slowly falls apart, with sadness in the main part and ruined psychology in the Interruptions. In the main story, Gwynneve is searching high and low to find Giannon. In the Interruptions she tells of how she has been chained up because she has been accused of doing demonic things and being a heathen. The stories meld together as she finds out that the silent monk who lived on the grounds was, in fact, Giannon himself. His tongue had been cut out.

Gwynneve was then executed, to the sadness of the village people. In the epilogue, Giannon himself writes of her death, using his words to speak of how the villagers went to the well that she'd been pushed into and throw in pieces of food and flowers, and they would ask Gwynneve for help with problems or just for forgiveness for something or another, only to be met with silence.

At one point, Gwynneve writes, “Use words to please, to instruct, to soothe. Then stop speaking.” This is the last thing she writes before Giannon begins his part, before she is taken and killed. Words are so important in this book, and though they are lost behind the horrors and losses in the middle of the novel, they come back with importance greater than anything else. Gwynneve has perished, Giannon silenced, but people still went to her to hear the words she would never say, and Giannon kept writing. Their words went on past their silence, giving them the freedom, even in death, that no one could take away from them.

It says a lot about the way we should live our lives. No matter what happens, your words will live on past you. A lot of people feel incredibly insignificant, as though what they say isn't truly heard, but what they don't realize is that just having those words to say in the first place is an amazing gift that no one else can give or take from them. Gwynneve starts out talking about how words are free and she wants so badly to learn how to read and write, in order to have more freedom...so many people out there would rather play video games or sports than learn how to read or write.

Maybe if people could fully grasp the concept that just being able to think their own thoughts in their mind and use words that no one can take from them is the greatest freedom they will ever get. In the US Constitution, it says that, as Americans, we have a freedom of speech. Yet so many people hold back, keeping their words in their heads instead of letting loose their opinions and thoughts. So many people remain quiet, while Gwynneve let out her words in any way that she could, so desperate to take her freedom as her own.

For the majority of the book she talks about how she can only write about what happens, instead of actually speaking them. But then, later on, she gets fed up with the abbot's ways and speaks her mind in cunning, clever ways that make him mad. Though her words get her killed, they are still her own and she wields them like a weapon. Though Giannon cannot speak, he still writes of what has happened.

Truly, the ones in the book who have died are the abbot and Sister Aillenn, who try so hard to kill their own words. They tear themselves away from their own freedom by not speaking, not writing, and barely thinking without inflicting harm upon themselves.

Those with words can be silenced, but it is better to be silent and free than to be loud and restricted, imprisoned, a slave to the ways of thinking that others hold.

Confessions- Review- The Return

Last time, I talked about how the book has a strong message about words and writing being like that of freedom. This time, I'll be talking about one character specifically. She is called Sister Aillenn, and I am not sure of the pronunciation. Throughout the book she appears in every other chapter, or in every 'Interruption'. She is described as being young and beautiful, though somewhat insane.

At one point, in this church filled with religious people, there is a dead infant that they have to bury. In each of the following Interruptions, it talks about how the grave of the baby has been messed with. The cross pulled out of the ground, the stones flung in random directions. Each time, Sister Aillenn increases her negativity to the main character, Gwynneve, to the point where she calls Gwynneve a demon and blames her for everything. At the same time, Gwynn is constantly seeing Sister Aillenn run around outside her tiny cell of a home naked, in the cold, with small wounds on her body.

Later on, the reader finds out about Aillenn's past. She had lived in a Pagan tribe, a tuath, but her father, the chieftan, had wanted her to be Christian. He treated her horribly, and murdered her beloved horse in front of her. She became ill with grief. Then, a group of monks came to the tuath and one of them fell in love with her. Of course, he wanted to stay pure, so instead of just not having sex with her, he had the blacksmith make an iron thing that they put around her private area. It gave her deep wounds. Then he left her. So she travels near and far to find him and finally, when she does find him, he commands her to stay away from him so that he can still be Godly.

So she went insane. After she tells Gwynn of this story, at a time when they'd been embracing each other, "She separated from me then and struck me hard across the face, and she said that I had seduced the story from her and was a demon myself."

Yes, I do believe that she's insane.