QC Awards- Poetry

In January of this year, I stumbled upon the Kathmandu Word Warriors' QC Poetry Slam Awards. I had never attempted to write or perform Spoken Word Poetry before. However, I regularly watched Sarah Kay, Phil Kaye, and other established Spoken Word Poets on YouTube. When Sarah Kay came to Kathmandu in December, I raced to purchase tickets with a couple of close friends. What I'm trying to say is that Spoken Word Poetry is new to me, but not. Thus, when I sent in a poem called 'If' to the QC Awards, I was not expecting anything. I'd actually sent the poem because my English teacher had exhorted me to. However, I got called to their 2-day-workshop. It was a super helpful weekend, in which I realized how much I enjoy poetry. By sharing poems I wrote on the spot-I also had a second epiphany- I didn't suck. People seemed to like to listen to what I wrote. Then, when I was notified of the auditions for the QC awards, I decided to give it a go. I was extremely nervous and forgot half of my poem. Somehow, though, I made it to the next round. A bunch of my closest girlfriends came to support me. I was extremely nervous- but I somehow made it to the semi-finals, the top-ten. There would be 5 winners, and listening to my peers I had no expectations. To me, it wasn't even about the points anymore. When I had first gotten up on stage during the auditions, I had been terrified. I was shaking and I couldn't speak properly. However, somehow, on the Feb 7th performances, I felt confident on stage.  Like I belonged. Like what I was saying wasn't just sounds or words I'd written up in my bedroom. It felt like something that mattered. People were listening- not in the vague way that most people listen (multitasking- half listening, half trying to come up with a reply) but ACTUALLY LISTENING. There were five winners and I ended up being one of them. That didn't really matter to me though. What mattered was the the fact that I had spoken up about things that actually mattered to me- things from my journal, things I'd been ashamed to share before. I had opened up and people had listened. I had made friends along the way too- friends who were just as interested in literature and writing as I am. After the first weekend of the workshop, I decided that no matter what happens, I'm going to start writing poetry regularly- for myself. Anyway, it was a great month and here's one of my performances if you happen to be interested in watching. It's about feminism- very appropriate for International Women's Day.

Anything But A Rollarcoaster

Adamant, I
Refuse roller-coasters.
Yellow-bellied, scared stiff of 
Anything to do with the air yet I
Adore adventure:

Roaring rivers and the Himalayas
Accompanied by 
Jittery nerves and jangly friends- riches 
Oblivious to even the 
Utmost 
Royale patrons,
Instead lie here with me-
And without a roller-coaster in sight.

The Dribble Home (wards)

Dribble.

Up with the sun,

Down with the stars,

The middle lasts all day.

Dribble.

A mellow sunset,

A changing constant,

Stuck between calloused fingers.

Dribble.

A sliver of slience,

Into the cookie jar

Another (not-so) free-throw.

Dribble.

Through a hundred hands,

A thousand times,

Full of sweat, dirt, and grime.

Dribble.

A sea of heads,

Branches of hair,

Peeking out.

Dribble, swish.

Shots made,

Point scored,

Friendship created.

Dribble.

The home-court advantage.

Dribble, always, dribble.

Because the dribble is home.

Somewhere In Between

I’m from adventures on sandy shores,

that I sleepily carried home,

I’m from hair-flying, lung-bursting

car-rides screaming along to Taylor Swift.

I’m from Simon and Garfunkel

And my mother’s “mac-n-cheese, with everything you’ll ever need”

I’m from group hugs and

“LOL-lots of love”

I’m from stacks of books

And discussions with my father

I’m from the star-gazing,

the stray-puppy-lovin’ hood

I’m from meandering ghettos

And the turquoise ocean

From floating boats,

In the sinking sea.

I’m from ring-pops and tongue tattoos,

Dancing the hula while singing the blues

I’m from thumb-wars and tic-tacs,

Ironic winks and masquerade masks.

I’m from midnight basketball with my brother

Where strategic dribbles fade into lots of giggles.

I’m from ‘How I Met Your Mother’ and

Everything Harry Potter.

I am just as much from ‘Namaste’ as I am from ‘Aloha’

My head’s in the mountains

And my heart’s in the ocean,

But I guess I’m from somewhere in between.

Regret

Regret started by changing my favorite color from periwinkle pink to blasphemy blue,

To impress a gaggle of boys with perpetually runny noses in the fourth grade
Trying to convince THEM that girls didn’t have cooties by lying to myself
But wh ispering lies leads to shouting the truth
And regret sounds like
I do like blue, I do like blue, I do like blue,
But I just don’t like you.

After the awkward, sweaty middle school dance in the 7^th grade,
Regret continued
When a boy whose last name was Spain
Was asked by friends to rate me
and he gave me an 8 out of 10
on a spectrum he made up
a B+ that was somehow determined my worth
Cool, but not cool enough
Regret looked liked marks on my lips
Stamps of teeth that zipped my mouth shut
before I told him what I’d rate him
Holding in verbal diarrhea, that would surely get me a C-

In the 10^th grade, my friends and I were divided in two groups
By boys who were convinced there were two types of girls
Girls like me
And girls like her
Girls who could analyze Shakespeare like it was second nature
But couldn’t walk a meter in two inch heels
And girls who could
Girls with perfect eyebrows and all the right curves in all the right places
Girls who were just friends
And girls who were always someone’s girlfriend
Regret was living in the prison they created
Instead of setting the whole thing on fire
Because they couldn’t understand that we were sisters
And you can’t just tear a family apart.

Regret was the silence

That followed an argument with my brother, 10 years young,
I, a puddle of tears
And he, brimming but unyielding, “Boys don’t cry.”
But regret was not the hug I gave him,
a hard squeeze that attempted to tell him what I couldn’t.

Boys may not cry, but humans do.  
And somewhere between kindergarten and the first football game, we’ve forgotten boys are human too.

And when my friend teased me the other day
“ohhh, she wants the D”
Regret was not my answer
“Yeah, I want the D.
the Destruction of the Patriarchy.”

Would you want to live forever?

Throughout our history, humans have always feared death. Immortality was the goal. Humans souls have constantly searched for a way to be alive-forever. Humans are social creatures, ostracization is not what they look forward to. After you're dead, you're physically-and eventually mentally, left out of the lives of the living. Back from the days of the Qin Dynasty, emperor Shi-huangdi, searched far and wide for the elixir that would permanently extend his time on earth. However, such immortality has never been a possibility-until now. Cloning and created consciousness (which may or not be adapted by the human kind) have begun to develop. Making duplicates or just having our consciousness live while our physical bodies decay is an attempt to live forever. Is this the right thing to do? Are we meant to unnaturally expand our lives? 

Is living forever really the answer to all of our problems? 

Mortality is almost a gift. Mortality is what makes human life so beautiful, so fragile. It's constantly all or nothing. You're either alive, or dead. There is not yet an in between-but at the rate technology is going, there soon may be. Currently, nothing, nobody is going to last forever. All we honestly have is right now. RIGHT NOW. This. Right here. This is the only thing guaranteed; and it is fleeting. That’s a scary, dark, beautiful thought. All we have is now. The gods cringe at the thought of mortality, as do we. However, if we were immortal, we’d spend lifetimes waiting for a better tomorrow. As we only have a limited amount of time, we make sure not to spend ALL of it hoping for better timing. Everything serves a purpose, as does death. 

You're born. You live. You die.
Some thing may happen after that, but there's currently no empirical evidence regarding this.

The only thing we're absolutely certain about is...
You're born. You live. You die.

Where would the complexities of cloning fit into this? Where would an immortal conscious but deteriorating body go in this currently logical order? What about the natural? Are humans manipulating too much, too fast? The current development in technology seems to make our lives easier than ever. Is this necessary? Is this useful? There are so many ethical, social, scientific things to think about regarding this. Have we let our technology develop to the point it is no longer controllable?

If scientists were to create a device from which you could achieve what your forefathers desperately attempted to capture-immortality- would you?

Would you really want to live forever?

Passionate & Pissed

Today, I was flipping through a magazine with a cousin of mine. He's your typical teenager, independent and stubborn. We turned to a page with a lingerie advertisement. There was a skinny, tan woman eating a large piece of chocolate. Chocolate was also all over her body. She was only wearing, non-surprisingly-lingerie.

Seeing this woman, covered in chocolate, probably to show men how 'delicious' she was in her new panties, disgusted me. How was this woman in an AD for other woman, dressed in a way to please men? More than that, why was she aberrantly skinny? Did anybody know what kind of message she was showing the readers-most teenagers like myself?

Anyway, I made a comment about how women are objectified on a daily basis. He sneered. He said, 'She looks hot.' I replied, 'that's probably not what she looks like in real life.' He said, 'if she wants to model for lingerie and she gets a lot of money for it, let it be. Let her do what she wants with her life.'

I had nothing to say. I got up, made a silly excuse, and left.

I was suddenly angry, and I couldn't pinpoint why.

Was I wrong?
Lately, I've been noticing a couple of things about our patriarchal society. Things that I've come to immensely dislike. Last night, at dinner, I was going on about how women get paid less then men just because of women. Someone was saying that how in today's world men are the one's that are being disregarded. I disagreed. I mean, is anybody aware of the fact there are more men alive in this planet because in many countries, once the parents find out that the zygote is a female they abort her? Or how about the fact that women are treated like objects, especially in the sex trade everyday? Or why is it that I can't walk down the street alone without some creep whistling or cat-calling? The other day, I was arguing about this, when somebody said I must be PMSing. I asked why they thought that. They said, 'Well, you're being such a feminist.' I laughed.

Why is being a feminist such a bad thing?

Doesn't anybody see that the photo-shopped models make everybody, especially girls feel like they're never physically good enough? Society has raised us to believe that looks are what matter anyway.

Is it so wrong that I want to fight for women, since even today they're thought less of by society? Yes, there are a growing number of feminist, but is anything really happening? Are boys reducing the cat-calling? Can a women walk out the door at night, confident that she won't get raped? And if she does, will society accuse the men and not her dress? No.

That's why feminists are needed. That's why there aren't enough.

Am I crazy for being so passionate about this?

Through My Mind's Fingers

My stomach is not stuffed with food,
but with an emptiness that can not be filled.

It is not the acid that's burning my insides,
it is thought that yesterday will never come again
and neither will tomorrow.

I may never be truly happy.

There are scars that will last a lifetime,
mainly because I never want to let them go.

Nostalgia builds up in my mind,
and I have to remind myself that
today is here and yesterday hurt.

Capture moments, not things they say.
But things don't wake you up at 2 am
to tease and taunt you.
Memories do.

I try to forget what I want to remember,
trying to exist today when life has already slipped,
right through my fingers.

They say the best thing about life
is that it goes on.

They say the worst thing about life
is that it goes on.

But it is never said that today doesn't to exist
in a world that is consumed by yesterday,
in fear of tomorrow.

Brave faces, brace the cold.
The rest of us, fake a sun.

My stomach is burning,
but not because a fire.
It's burning with things I don't know how to say aloud.

I Don't Like IT. Neither Should You.

I don't like it.

I don't like it when words won't form automatically, eloquently into my mouth.
I don't like it when my feelings strangle one another, and frustration is the result.
I don't like it when people are ungrateful and mean, taking everything for granted.
I don't like it when quick words, and quicker eyebrows lead into a life time of anger.
I don't like how everybody thinks they are better than everybody else, but nobody takes the time to figure each other out.

I don't like IT.

I don't like not knowing what to say and how, in fear of being judged.
I've made a habit out of hiding, and concealing attributes to create a better perception of myself.
But that perception isn't really me right?
I am hiding behind an invisible wall, scared but angry.

Sticks and stones are controlled, but thoughts harm all.

I don't like it.

I don't like not knowing what I am going to do, or where I'm going to go.
I don't like that there is never a guaranteed happy ending.
I don't like not remembering what I should.
I don't like forgetting, but I do.

I don't like IT.

I don't like what humans have become.
I don't like nosy, absurd people who see things in the darkest of colors.
I don't like loving people but not liking them.
I don't like how I can't phrase that in a better way because I've lost touch.

I don't like it.

I don't like what is happening to this world or me.
I hate the fact the land is overflowing with humans but no where in sight is there humanity.

I don't like IT.

I don't like starting the conversation first, every single time.
I don't like waiting, and wanting for nothing.
I don't like looking up, seeing and then thinking twice before believing.
I don't like pulling down myself, so you can get yourself some dignity.
But I do it anyway.

There may be no humanity, but I'm still human.

I'm still vulnerable, flawed, and scared in a world that refuses to be everything except for perfect.

I don't like it.

I don't like how fairy tales refuse to exist in a world that needs them to stay afloat.
I don't like how nothing happens, till I do something about it.
I don't like how it requires my effort, but none of yours.

I don't like IT.

I don't like what the world has become, and what the people are becoming.
I don't like the fact that not being human has become the new black.

I don't like it.
But there's nothing you and I can do. 

*Insert Emoticon Here

Social networking sites have become immensely popular over the last decade, especially among teenagers. The social life of teenagers is now fully dependent upon Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Blogspot. There isn't a  person in high school who doesn't have an account on any one of these websites. Communication has turned into status updates and tweets. Phone calls are only used for special occasions. The internet is taking over, and nobody can stop it.

Years ago, staying up till midnight was a big thing. If you were up at midnight, people would be slightly impressed. However, if you sign in on Facebook when the clock strikes 1, the online population keeps rising. Social networking sites have helped us in so many ways. It's easier to communicate. It takes the same amount of time to chat with people we see everyday and people that live a thousand miles away.

This should be a good thing right? Instead of walking over to our new neighbor's house for a welcome, we can just add them on Facebook after a block party. Sure, for the shy, non-talkative teenager the internet is full of promises. It promises popularity and a social life, which were earlier reserved for basketball players and jockeys.

Facebook and Twitter promise popularity to the kids that are too scared to open up. It took the clumsy, scared kids and told them, "with a good sense of humor and way too many selfies, you too can take over the world!" Thus, began the unstoppable cycle of high school trendsetters online.

These social networking sites can be a positive thing. They encourage the unappreciated and tell the nonconformists that they are not alone. The internet has become a huge, huge high school in which the student body president happens to be a new celebrity every month. For some this is great! It allows them to gain friends with similar thoughts and ideas. They don't have to mope around and sob for being different. They are allowed to be themselves. They now have the power to take over the world.

For the rest? Not so much. With popularity moving online, likes and comments now matter. How many friends you have on Facebook tells people how much power you have in the hallways. Not many use the message option as they want the whole world to know everything. There is a lack of privacy and promises that can't be kept.

Social networking sites have increased the amount of gossip that now spreads faster than wild fire. It has discouraged and disapproved of many people. It has made being a high school student more work than ever. If you're gorgeous, like to take pictures, and know all of the online lingo..
Then GuD 4 u BB, u'll hav T0nz of FrenZ

But what if you're smart, like to read books, and don't want to tell anybody anything? Then Facebook would be like being suck in a sad cave. How invisible you seem to everybody, doubles and triples. You feel low and friendless. The loneliness may be most acute when your so called 'friends' post selfies at the same time, same place. You realize you haven't been invited. Then you stop to think? Would you even go?  You click the like button without looking at any more pictures and comment a smiley face. Without this being done, there would be a cat fight awaiting you at school tomorrow.

Social networking sites promise to help you keep in contact with people that don't live too close to you. This is a great promise, but all that glitters isn't gold. Facebook and Twitter just rub in how fine life can go on without you. All those friends you had BFF'd in middle school and really want to keep in touch with? You shall see their selfies, music likes, and statuses. You see them calling somebody else their BFFL. The rub in the fact that not having you in their life doesn't change much. You don't feel too important after that, let me tell you. Your 'friends' aren't really friends because they wouldn't stay up all night to wish you a Happy Birthday. They have become such different people and these new folks replace your memories with the old. When your friends don't talk to you but occasionally like a post, you then know the friendship is officially over.

Instead of closing the gaps between people, social networking sites increase it. Never will you feel so alone. Never will the loss of humanity within humans seem so large. Life has become more complicated and complex than we could have ever predicted. Humans have loss the ability to communicate without emoticons.

The internet has taken over, and that is the sad fact.

Combat At Heights

On Saturday, 20^th of April, an inevitable event took place 23,000 feet above the base of the world’s tallest mountain. Mt. Everest became the highest fighting rink for a few hours. A brawl took place between Sherpa tour guides and well-known climbers who were climbing the renowned mountain. With the story currently being two-sided, the truth is yet to emerged.
            The three tourists were professional climbers from the United Kingdom, Italy, and Switzerland.  They claim the fight began when they told the Sherpas that they would like to continue climbing on their own. The Sherpas reacted quickly, through man handling. The brawl, with the tourists defending themselves, lasted nearly an hour. According to a statement posted on the website of Italian climber, Simone Moro, the Sherpa guides threatened them, be gone or be killed.
            As tourism has always been an important factor in the Nepali economy, events like these are detrimental to Nepal’s tourist-friendly and hospitable image. Such forms of conflicts will not only dampen the adventurous spirit of tourists but also discourage them from visiting Nepal.
            This event, widely covered by national and international media, has shown us that mutual respect and communication is imperative in the hospitality business. 

What a Woman Wants

Catcalls, humiliating words, and rape, how much can we take? Women are violated in every possible way, every possible day. This isn’t a trend that has recently started. Discrimination of women is something that has taken place since the beginning of time. Instead of respecting the gender that gave birth to them, men tend to take advantage of, abuse, and violate women.  It’s not only the men though, women have begun to undermine and contravene their own kind. Brainwashed by society, women have begun to think less of the gender in which they belong.  
 Discrimination is a word often used. It’s usually used for the minority, the misfits. However, discrimination is the correct term for women even though they happen to be equal or more in population than men. No matter how many women there are, if there’s a man, the man is thought to be automatically better. This is shown from the gender determined obstacles that women have to face from the day they are born. The problem begins there because if the zygote is known to be a female it is usually aborted. Many girls don’t get the chance to be discriminated later in life, as they are never given a life to live. The gender preference of the society is blatantly evident. When an elder in the family gives their blessing to a newly married couple, they will almost always say that they’re hoping they produce a male child. Even before the zygote is formed, many people are praying that their child is a male.

In the work place, generally a man is preferred over a woman. For the same work done, men get paid more than women do. Discrimination and bias is evident everywhere. Hypothetically, there is a pair of journalists. They both write about politics on the daily paper. The woman is evidently more experienced and skilled, while the man makes silly grammatical mistakes. It’s obvious that of the two, the woman is a better journalist. If this is the case, why is the man still getting the higher pay? Shouldn’t the amount of money a person makes depend on the quality of their work, instead of the gender they belong to?

What happens when the child is born as a female? Well, they’re discriminated even further. In many places in Asia, when there are more than one children of more than one gender, the male is always favored.  They are provided with the best form of education and their nutrition needs are met, no matter what the cost. However, if the child is a female, the education they may receive may not be of the best quality, as their food. If the need of the family is grave, then the girl is sold. Another example is when a girl marries a boy; the girl takes his last name. Why not the other way around? Why doesn’t the boy change is last name? A girl changing her maiden name after marriage is so common, we don’t give it a second thought. However, it is a form of discrimination.

Human trafficking is one of the biggest forms of discrimination. Have you ever heard about trafficking boys? This may take place, but it is not common. However, the trafficking of girls? That’s one of the most common places for a poverty-struck young woman to end up. When a girl is sold, she usually doesn’t know that she will end up becoming a prostitute. She usually has big dreams, dreams that will help her family abundantly. She wants to go to the big city to live a noble, respected life. She, in the changing of events, ends up in a prostitution house. There, she’s is treated not like the graceful woman she wants to be. No, she’s treated like an object. That girl becomes an object men can buy, use, and then throw. It is in such houses that an abundance of torn self-esteems, broken dreams, and the lack of humanity are seen. The girl with the big dreams ends up in a place where only nightmares flourish. That is the most disgusting irony.

Most of us are aware of the trafficking of women, yet we do nothing to create a change. We turn our heads, not seeing the nightmarish-reality that takes place right in front of us. We preach, yet we do not practice. That is the reason that trafficking still exists, the reason that these girls must go through torturous daily activities. This girls literally live a life that’s always somewhere between life and death.

Today, most countries believe in human rights. They believe that every person should be treated equally. They believe that everybody should have the same rights.  These rights include the right to life, the right to free speech, and the right to information. If these rights were practiced in respect to every human being, we’d live in a partially positive world. However, these rights are usually practiced in respect to males. Women aren’t even considered human, as they’re not given their human rights. Some females don’t have the right to live as they are aborted, as soon as they come into existence. Most females aren’t allowed to say what they think or feel, most are just scared. Females also are not given enough education to know what their right are, thus they lack the right to information. Without these basic human rights, women are no longer even considered human.  The quality of the education that a woman receives is usually not the best. Since they lack quality education, they are taken advantage of. The lack of education along with the lack of respect on the part of men, are the main reasons that violence against women exists. Women are teased, raped, and abused (emotionally and physically) on a daily basis.

 Society, even though it consists of women, is against them. A woman is told to be perfect. She must have a portioned acne-free face, shiny pearly whites, and a personality as bright as the sun. If she is missing any of this, she’s considered imperfect. She’s considered a flaw in the society, a horrible misfit. That decreases the esteem of women and increases those of men. This leads to men thinking they are better than women, and this kind of thinking results in horrible actions being taken towards women.  

  As a member of the female gender, I will not tolerate the explicit discrimination and injustice practiced against women in our society. I would like to take a stand for the women that cannot stand for themselves. I would love to make sure these women become independent, outspoken, and worthy individuals in which our gender can take pride. This is why I would love to intern or volunteer in the Alliance Against Trafficking in Women and Children in Nepal (AATWIN Nepal). This organization gives us, the people, a say and allows us to take a stand for what we believe in. As a feminist, I would love to do all I can to make this country and world a safer, more women-friendly place.  With my passion for the subject and my driven attitude, I would love to take part in this organization. This is because it’s time for a change to come. It’s time women are treated equally and respectfully. 

Real Dreams Are Dead Dreams

When we are young, we are told to dream. We are told we can do whatever we want when we grow up. The thought itself made us want to grow up very, very quickly. We couldn't wait for the freedom to follow dreams we didn't really have. We'd spend hours dreaming and fantasizing about being a grown up. We'd have our own dog and we'd always have McDonald's Happy Meal for dinner. How could life get any better? We couldn't wait for time to speed ahead! Fast forward 10 years, we'd give anything to go back.

When I was 5, I wanted to be an artist. A painter, a sculpture, a drawer. I used to draw and color the whole day through. My art work wasn't the best of quality, but they did have a whole chunk of my 5 year old heart covering them. Oh, and how I loved it. How I loved creating dogs and humans that looked more like mice and dolls. How i loved painting fish and creating a farm that hadn't existed before I decided to take the initiative.

Then I grew up a bit, and I realized at 10 that artwork wasn't going to pay my bills. I couldn't paint away my bills. Being an artist wasn't a possibility. I could always paint and create for fun, but first I needed a job. When I grew up, I needed a real job. That was when the never ending war, the one that continues to this day, began. Should I be a lawyer or journalist?

Honestly, I'd like to be both. I'd feel satisfied and content in both fields. I'd feel passionate about making a difference. I'd be able to sleep soundly. However, I wouldn't be ecstatic going to work everyday. I wouldn't look forward to mondays, and I might even count down to retirement once in a while.

What do I still really want to be? An artist.

Even though with the lack of art skills I currently have, I am in no way more happier than when I'm creating something. That's why I like the prospect of journalism, it's the second best. I could still create something, I could string together words and tell the truth. I could make a difference and make things known. The words I used would become sentences and then paragraph, and in the very end, a story.

The sad thing is, I still can't paint away my bills and loans. Financially, I'd fail as an artist. But as a journo or a lawyer? I may still succeed.

And don't you know, success is important?

Souls Aren't Soldiers

I don't believe in nations. I think the reason behind all the wars and negativity taking place between countries today, is because of existence of countries.

We sing the national anthem everyday.
We're told to take pride in our country.
We're told that the only way to become glorious is to give all we can for our countries.
We're told to fight for our country.
We take pride in our soldiers, we're told to become soldiers.

As The Killers said, 'I've got a soul, but I'm not a soldier.'
We're not, though.
Most of us, are only souls. We can't withstand being soldiers.

Society says we're not allowed to like other countries. Being proud of a country we aren't born in to is a crime. Countries are supposed to bring people together, instead they tear people apart. They tell us our countries give us freedom, but freedom isn't free.

However, I know the idea and existence of a nation is essential for an organized world. Without nations, we'd be a muddle of orgranisms without passports or citizenships tied to our names. We'd be lacking identities and organization.

I may not believe in nations, but I do believe in democracy. I believe in equality. I believe everybody should have the equal amounts of rights, no matter where they're born into. I believe that if we're required to have nations, we also require nationalism. We require unity. We need something or someone to bring us together.

We need art, culture, beauty, and traditions.
We've got enough success. We don't need new scientists, we need lovers of people and music.
Bring out the dreamers and the singers, the painters and the writers. Bring out the thinkers and philosophers, the kids that get along with everybody.


We need to believe in nations. We need to believe in the WORLD as a whole, not just a nation. We need to be more than competitors for success. We need to help and hand.

If we just take the time and understand other countries and cultures we wouldn't be this way. We would be a more tolerant, more peaceful world. The sad thing is, every time something or somebody is different from us, we toss our snotty noses in the air and judge. Humans are powerful creatures, with powerful minds. The think is, we need to learn how to use our power for the good.

After all, with great power comes great responsibility. We've got the power, we just need to learn to be responsible. 

Twisted Seasons, Twisting Life

The green pushed out of the brown, into life. The brown, twisted, dark, and grey is appreciative. It finally has some color, it's something new. It is no longer a colorless, almost dead wood. No, it has become spring itself, personified of course.

Spring heated itself to summer. The green melted into a dry brown, only to be given its color back through rain. Sweat trickled down the trees, on to the ground. Sleepy eyes flickered, sleepier backs stretched. Smiles and water and sweat mixed and intertwined and melted. Flowers popped up, and down, with the monsoon.

Rain splashed, rain poured, rain was personified into cats and dogs. Rain came into the ears, the eyes, the house. It carried with it the happiness and joy of summer. It brought the tears and cries and pain, home. It cleaned and washed and scrubbed, more than any Spring Cleaning ever could.

Dry, crackled leaves stooped crying for water. They called and called the rain that would never come. Dry throats, drier tongues. Dirty shoes, dustier suns. Dry cold, and thick jackets, all found their way home. Red cheeks, cracked lips. Every super market has run out of lip balms. The sold are busy, palming the way into life.

Cold sky, wet clouds, and twisted brown becomes dead again. The harsh sun, cold as ever. Evolution is taking place. Numb nose, red ears, clatter along with the teeth. Dead flowers, a funeral for all. Dead trees and the dead grass, begging for a burial that isn't frozen. The bears sleep, and the hares moan. Who does not want this on going blizzard to end?

The green pushes out of the brown, into life. Twisting and turning, interrupting the sullen. Twisting and turning, joy seeps in. Twisting and turning, slowly and steadily, the seasons twist out your life. It's spring again. 

Be Rebel With A Cause

James Dean.
Audrey Hepburn.
Brigitte Bardot.
Elizabeth Taylor.

These names hold the identities of people we have never personally known, and will never get the chance to know. These names are the names of people who are considered to be legend-wait for it-dary. These people are who teenager then and now strive to be. These names are always linked with a face or attribute. These names will never truly be forgotten.

Who wouldn't want to be as cool and intimidating as James Dean?
Who could refuse a face like Audrey Hepburn and a body like Brigitte Bardot's?
Who wouldn't want to have the historical eyes of Elizabeth Taylor? The eyes the world will forever remember.

Cuba Gooding Jr.
Helen Hunt.
Geraldine Page.
Art Carney.

These are names of people who aren't remember. The usual teenager can not link these names with a face or a movie. These names are forgettable. It doesn't mean that they weren't good at acting. It does not mean that they didn't make a difference. It doesn't mean that they were not good people. It does not mean that they didn't matter.

Yet, these four individuals and many, many more have died and will never be remembered.

Don't we all want to be remembered? Don't we all want to leave a mark in this world before we leave? Don't we want to matter enough so that our names are remembered, our faces idolized, and our features admired, even after we die?

So, what does it take to be remembered? Why do we want to be remembered in the first place? Why can't be just live our life and be content with being forgotten. Sooner or later, everything will be gone. Human kind will vanish and leave no trace of ever existing. If it will be all gone, then why are we so intent on being recollected of after death? Why do we write, create, and work so hard if it will all amount to nothing? Why shouldn't we just spend our lives eating fast food and watching reality TV, because what does it matter anyway?

Why should we work so hard if we might end up being a Helen Hunt or Geraldine Page? Not coddled nor remembered. 

Humans like risks. It's a risk. Life is a risk.
It's a risk to give the world your best. You may not get anything in return, or you might get everything.
It's a risk to make friends. They could really hate you, but they could love you too.
It's a risk to love and be loved. It's a risk to be a parent, a risk to be a child. It's a risk to be a girl working. It's a risk to be a boy working. It's a risk to send that email or text message that could change your whole life. It's a risk to pick up a book or watch a movie. It's a risk to travel or drink coffee. It's a risk to live.

Through living, you could either lose it all or gain everything.
It's a risk worth taking.

Geraldine Page may not be remembered by most, but she should be. Why? Because she took the risk. She followed her dreams, and even if it never lead anywhere or became anything...the risk she took was a  big one, a courageous one.

So take the risk to live. Take the scary risk to live your life the way you want it. It could be a total waste, but it could be worth it all.

You might be as cool as James Dean after all. Go ahead be a rebel, but stick to a cause. 

Things You've Never Thought

            As a teenager and a person, I know how much one can think. I can only imagine the number of thoughts that cross our mind in a second. We think so much, so frequently, we can’t keep track of everything we’ve ever thought. Even if you write down everything you think you are thinking, you miss a lot. However this fact of the universe is peculiar as who we are is directly proportional to the thoughts we’ve thought and the happenings we’ve experience.  The bizarre thing is that we can never know exactly what we are thinking during every single moment of the day. Thus, we can never exactly know who we are. There is only one reason that every single person is different from another; no two people can ever think the exact same things.

            There are a lot of different types of thoughts that our minds form. We contemplate just about everything in between the existence of god to whether our neighbor thinks we’re a noisy household. Thoughts are very judgmental things. With thoughts, one tends to critic oneself and all of one’s surroundings. This means we judge and examine everything from our pimply faces to Miley Cyrus’s new haircut. We give our opinions on things we shouldn’t have an opinion on in the first place. Through the currently famous book “The Secret”, many of us have found that to get what you want out of life, you must control your thoughts. This is easy to say but hard to do. Initially it seems like a good idea. However, every yin must have its yang.
            There are many things we think unconsciously. These thoughts make us who we are. If we were to control and shape our every thought, would we ever be able to be our selves? Our minds think such weird, complex thoughts. If we changed those thoughts into thoughts of the happy, driven person we want to be, will be ever be ourselves? Is controlling our thoughts like performing plastic surgery to our brains?

            There are many things that you’ve never thought of, that I have. There are many things I’ve never thought of, that you have. You and your mother will never have ever thought the exact same things. However, the thoughts of you and your brother may have more common thoughts. Your thoughts and your dog’s thoughts will be less common than you and your brother’s. You and your friends will most likely a majority of your thoughts in common. However, the thoughts of two organisms can never be the same.  By never, I mean never as in never, ever. I’m not Justin Bieber; sometimes the saying ‘Never Say Never’ is utterly false.

            Have you realized that a book is just a long, complicated thought of the author? The things you’ve got to memorize for your next history test are just the thoughts of somebody who lived not so long ago. The idea of beauty and the things that are considered ‘facts’ are just thoughts. Everything the human kind thinks or has thought it knows, is just the compilation of all the thoughts that a human has ever thought to pursue. Therefore, education is just a long thought process. If a person acted upon every thought a brain has ever thought, human kind would have so much more knowledge.
            The thing is that thoughts create everything and anything we’ve every known. However, in today’s world, instead of thinking one is simply told to memorize another’s thoughts. That is a horrible, horrible form of education. We should have the right to think and question everything and anything around us. Our freedom of thought is almost non-existent at one point. In school, they say they’ll teach us everything we’ll ever need to know. That’s a lie. Sure, teachers teach us of the French people’s fight to freedom, they teach us why the sky is blue, how a rainbow is formed, and why stars twinkle. However, they never teach us the single most important lesson that we need in life: how to think. That however, isn’t exactly an entirely true statement. They teach us to think in a certain way. They teach us that you have to add in order to multiply. They teach us how to think and then problem solve. However, they never encourage us to question what we supposedly learn or memorize. They never tell us why a certain type of person is ‘beautiful’ while another is ‘ugly’. They don’t tell us how a person’s beauty level is decided. They don’t teach us to disagree with something that is already stated true. They encourage questions, but discourage the search for answers. For example, if I ask why ‘red’ is called ‘red’ and not ‘blue’, ‘orange’, or ‘filiw’, I will not get an answer. If is ask what color the sky is the answer will be blue, but that’s a lie. The sky can be many different colors during many different time frames. However, we teach our children to accept answers that are unacceptable. Why?

            If thoughts are the reason we are who we are, and questions are thoughts, and if we are not taught to form either creative or correct questions, does that mean we’ve become people we aren’t supposed to be? Does that mean that we’ve already been tricked into doing plastic surgery in our minds? It’s a known ‘fact’ that the mind is the one place in which we have complete freedom. Is that a lie, because our minds are already so much influenced by other minds that they can never truly be free? These are questions I cannot answer. These are questions I may never be able to answer. These are questions I was taught not to answer.

            Times are changing though. In classrooms today, it’s more about thinking and less about mugging up. My parents were told to write and write and write the same words of a language in order to be fluent in it. Today, I am told to understand the roots of words in order to learn a language. It’s more about understanding everything around and about you, instead of memorizing the thoughts of people that are probably currently dead. Therefore, I can rightly state that human kind is indeed advancing.

            Sometimes I wish I were born later in time. I would have more opportunities to become myself. There would be a more correct, moral form of education. I would be able to think my own thoughts more fluently than I currently am. All in all, it’s hard to think thoughts that you really think. It’s hard to become yourself when everybody else is telling you not to. However, you must. You must because as Oscar Wilde once said, “Be yourself; everybody else is already taken”. Therefore, you must work your hardest to be yourself. As easy as that sounds, it never is. 

The Writer's Inspiration Bureau

I love to write, but only when writing loves me. It's the contradiction most of the world lives with: you love something and it doesn't love you back, what do you do? Do you keep loving it or do you pretend you don't love it because it doesn't love you. That's when you have to choose, between the heart and the brain. However, when it comes to writing not loving me, I don't love it. 

When words flow smoothly from my head, onto my fingertips, and straight to the keyboard, finally on to the page, it's wonderful. It's fantastic when what I'm thinking unravels and untwists itself to create legible, understandable words. However, how about when my thoughts don't unravel themselves? What about when my thoughts are frivolous? What about when my thoughts aren't about anything important, but just about monotonous activities that I take part in everyday? 

What happens when I, the writer, stops thinking about now, the moment, but waits and waits for a better, more interesting tomorrow? 

What happens when my thoughts aren't thought-provoking anymore? What does that mean? Does it mean that I'm done with words? However, that's not possible, as I've loved words too much and too fast to get unattached. As Galileo said he couldn't be afraid of the night as he's loved the stars much too fondly, I can't be afraid of a little writer's block that's been building itself for months because I love words too much. Right? Or wrong? 

Why can't I unravel my thoughts? 

Like the story where the author, Elsie Brown, wrote in one of her stories of a writer who just couldn't get ideas and gets help from the ghosts of the Writer's Inspiration Bureau; I desperately need to borrow a idea ghost for a day or two. 

Every writer needs his muse, and mine must be nature.  During the summertime, the world becomes alive. The trees are green, the air is sticky with the sun's sweat, and the atmosphere is smiling down upon all of us. Just by smelling flowers in the air and tasting the lemonade the neighborhood kids sell, I want to write, observe, and write again. Then the autumn comes, with it's beautiful, sad leaves always falling. Writing's fine until then, a little difficult but nothing I can't handle. Then comes the dreadful winter, always so cold and dark. When that horrible, depressing weather comes in, I can't lift up a pen! My mind goes blank, and I spend all of my time wishing for the sun to come out. The comes spring, as it is now, and ideas begin to blossom but not bloom. Just little sentences, without the commas form through my keyboard. Just as the weather gets warmer and mother nature comes back to life, so do I. 

Thus, reader, I wrote this dramatic little blog post to get you to understand why I haven't wrote in a while. I just couldn't, it wasn't summer yet. However, now the weather is getting sunnier and brighter and so am I. Thanks for the patience, hopefully by April I won't long to be a character in Elsie Brown's novel. 

It all comes down to one fact: I love words, and words love me. This love, much the other loves, are seasonal. I must wait a little longer until my words and thoughts love me back yet.