blogging

Two Years

My father died exactly two years ago. I can’t express how much I miss him. Really, I can’t. He was just the most amazing human being, and the most amazing father. He treated my brother and me as human beings, not as children, never as children. He respected us, and found so much to love and be proud of in us, which in turn made us happy, because we respected and loved him so very much.

His presence was so strong, even if he was silent. He always had the radio on, sometimes to good music and sometimes to bad, annoying music or loud and obnoxious talk shows. He never listened when it was on – he was always reading the paper or writing when the radio was on. But he didn’t like the house being silent. I think the most touching moments I’d ever seen my parents in was when a song they both loved came on, and they would start dancing together, bopping around and kissing and embarrassing my brother and I. I realize now, of course, that that was wonderful, so beautiful, so miraculous for two people to have been married for so long and to still have been so much in love.

My largest and most horrifying fear is that I’ll forget my father one day. Forget how it felt to walk hand in hand with him when I was little, forget how it was to be mad at him, forget how it was when he sang me his lullaby, forget how it was to watch him doing exercises and then sitting down to watch the news, forget how he read my papers for school and helped me improve them, forget the smell of his cigarettes and coffee in the morning and the cake or cookie he ate as his breakfast. I haven’t forgotten yet, no, but what if I will one day?

Happy-Happy-Joy-Joy

I’m not a great patriot, not when it comes to Israel, nor when it comes to the US. However, it’s an incredible feeling, knowing that when I go to college I’ll be able to actually support my government and take an acitve interest in its doings, instead of cringing whenever I hear the President’s voice- as I’ve been doing for the past eight years.

Eight is definitely enough. The United States do need change. And I am thrilled that Barack Obama is now in a position to help achieve such change. He is such an inspiring man, full of charisma and, despite his being a politician, what seems to be a genuine belief that he can make things better. Who knows? Maybe in eight years, instead of invading another country, the United States will have public health care! Maybe even gay-marriage rights. Perhaps even tax-cuts going to the right places and not to humongous corporations and people who really don’t need their money.

Let me just vent some emotion for a moment: THANK *INSERT-WHATEVER-YOU-BELIEVE-IN-HERE* THAT PALIN WON’T BE ANYWHERE NEAR THE WHITE HOUSE.

Although I will forever maintain that the US has never and will never see a president as good as Jed Bartlet, I think Obama might be really really close behind. If you don’t know who I’m talking about, LOOK IT UP. *stupidgiggle*

Reverent Reverie

Sometimes sleep is the best medicine. No matter what happens, it’s something the body will do naturally, something that can’t be fought or resisted. Sleep tells us things as well – when we don’t sleep well, it’s because we’re worried about something, or something is bothering us without our realizing it. When bad dreams awake us, shaking and sweating, in the middle of the night, more often than not some unknown or unheeded fear is coming to light or finding a way out so as not to worry us anymore.

And when we’re tired – ah! Such a feeling. It can be awful, being tired to the bone. But viewed the right way, it can be wonderful. If you let yourself surrender to it – not even by sleeping, but just by accepting it – you may feel a languor and a calmness steal over your body in a way that is completely unique. When we’re sick, or not feeling well, our body warns us of it by making us weaker, more tired, more in need of sleep. Again, in these situations being tired can feel wonderful, a deep knowledge that crawling into bed now will help, it will rest your body and mind and make you stronger to fight the germs in you.

Truly, sleep is the best medicine.

My LA Haven

This is the way it’s always been:

Once I enter the large wood-framed glass doors, whether they’re in the mall or next to Ralph’s, my world shifts subtly, becoming a place of beauty and opportunity and most of all, calm. My cares drift away, and I let myself go, knowing I’m in a safe place. I wander the carpeted walkways, the halls, sometimes going up and down escalators. I gaze appreciatively at this corner or that, checking also if any of the chairs in the nooks are taken and if I might have a chance of collapsing into one later.

As a child, my steps, guided by a parent’s or relative’s hand, led me to the section with the big “JR.s” sign above it. All the shelves were at reachable child level, there were dolls and games in a corner and there was the same hand that had led me before, pointing out titles and pictures, helping me pick and choose.

Later, as I grew older, I would venture into that section alone, looking for the taller shelves. I would find my heart’s desires there – whether they were embodied by girls who rode horses and lived in the country or by boys and their dogs or detectives or super heroes. When my hands were too full to carry any more, I would plop myself down on the floor and lean against the shelves or recline in one of the comfy chairs by the windows and wait until my mother and brother were ready to go and pay.

Today, I feel the echoes of these times with me whenever I stride confidently through the vast halls and floors of Barnes&Noble. I focus my energies on the Fantasy-and-Sci-Fi section and the Young-Adult section – for it often holds fantasy novels as well and some adorable easy reading material besides. Whenever I am in the US, most specifically my beloved LA, I beg to be left alone in the shop for a couple hours so I can make my purchases and buy myself a strong coffee and read, cracking the spines of the new books with joy.

Genes…

My mother writes for a living. She does all sorts of writing, but her main employers are a workbook company. The past few days, we’ve both been spending our days writing in our separate rooms – she, her workbooks, and I, my college application essays. It seems that while I might have inherited at least some of her incredible writing skills, I have also inherited a number of other qualities.

For one, when I’m stuck while working or studying, I’m well and truly stuck. No amount of effort or thought will help and I will only get more and more frustrated as I cannot think what to write or how to study. My mother tells me she gets this way as well.

Second, and rather recently, I have become an extreme coffee junkie. My mother cannot start the morning without two cups of coffee in her system. While I haven’t reached such an extreme quite yet, I can feel this trait growing in me, slowly and steadily. I already drink at least three cups of coffee a day, and sometimes more.

Third, and this is one I consider as a true bug, I seem to be more inspired late at night. This doesn’t mean that the products of writing at one and two in the morning are particularly good, but those are the times when I manage to write most easily, letting the thoughts flow out of me. This means most of my days are spent in a haze of tiredness due to lack of sleep.

Genes – a blessing and a curse!

The Meaning of Life

42.
Har har.
The meaning of life is to find the meaning of life, so when you’ve found the meaning of life, you don’t have a meaning to your life anymore.
Har har.

The truth, as far as I’m concerned anyway, is that there is no meaning to life other than what we make of it. Life is something we’re in all the time, we cannot step outside of it and look at it objectively, finding in it some grand pattern that is the meaning of it.
The meaning of life is your first kiss, your first love, the way your mother looked at you in second grade when you were on stage, the way your brother helped push you on the swing, the way you feel in your best friend’s arms, your favorite coffee brand, your habits. The meaning of life is how you cried when your grandfather died, how you withstood the pain of your arm breaking, the way you toiled to get a good grade, a good job. The meaning of life is your dog barking when you come home, the trivial anger at someone shoving in front of you in line, the way you rant about the things that you’re passionate about and the way you save money every month to be able to pay rent. The meaning of life is LIVING it. What else could it be?

Painfully Wonderful

There is something especially wonderful about the pleasures one can find in states of great pain. Pain is not a thing that most of us appreciate, nor should we. It’s something our body does to let us know something is wrong – we’re stepping on glass, the music is too loud, we’re straining our muscles too much.

However, migraines are a pain which no one really understands. Scientists and doctors haven’t quite figured out why people get them or how to cure them. As a sufferer of such pains, I will describe them briefly, as they are similar to many other pains that we can have: Constant pain, seeming to go on forever, causing panic and calm alternately. It is a pain which heightens the senses, causing every glimmer of light to be blinding and ever stir of the breeze to be deafening. It is a pain that makes you aware of the blood beating a steady, constant path in your body.

And it is a pain that can make you appreciate things more than you thought possible. When in a state of great pain, every single relief is a blessing, a thing to rejoice over. The slightest chill in your arms make you smile as the heat of the pain eases for a moment. The feeling of calm that washes over you as you fall asleep makes you sigh with gratitude. The distraction a book offers makes you feel languid and serene as you concentrate on something outside of your pain. These things are what make bearable the knowledge that you live with a shadow of immense pain ready to pour over you at any given moment.

Short Answer

I cannot truthfully say that I understand why the stage calls to me. Shy and timid for most of my girlhood, I nevertheless jumped at the opportunity to join a drama class of young girls and boys such as myself. I played my little heart out in costumes and masks, had fun inventing crazy and strange situations to place our heroic characters in, and had a merry time all around.

The first time I got to read lines though, was something I will always remember. It felt a little naughty, a little wrong, like reading a letter over someone’s shoulder. I knew, of course, that the playwright had put the words down on paper specifically so others would get to read and enact them, but still, I felt like I was prying.

It didn’t matter though. I loved it even though, or perhaps because, it felt a little wrong. I loved trying on someone else’s face, a face that wasn’t even partly mine, not like the characters I’d invented on my own. Trying to find reason and depth in the character’s words and actions – it thrilled me.

This was going to be my short answer for the common application. Since I wrote this, I have written two others that are shorter and that my mother thinks I should use. I decided to see what the verdict on this one was though, just out of curiosity. Hopefully, this sounds collegiate and well written, despite being short.

Power of the Will

Isn’t willpower a strange thing? Sometimes just getting out of bed feels literally impossible. No matter how many times you tell yourself that on the count of ten you’ll get up, you still end up lying there for another minute, or two, or sixty. Then again, sometimes doing something like a physical workout takes no willpower at all and you just go and do it and deal with it and get it over with.

If only we knew how to turn our willpower on and off to suit our needs. If only we could keep our wills strong when we’re trying to outlast someone in an argument and stand up for ourselves. If only we could give up our stupid stuborn wills when we know we’re wrong about something.

Oh wait. We can. Willpowers ARE under our control in the end. Dang, there go all my excuses for doing/not doing things.

Little Dramas

It’s so strange how, as the time goes by, I learn more and more about my co-workers and their dramatic little lives. I feel rather privleged that I’m considered trustworthy enough to become privy to their lives. Then again, I also know that they know as well as I do that we’re not really friends, and we’ll never really be friends. We’re just people who are stuck together for a few hours a day and we better try to make conversation and get along or we’ll turn those hours into hell. But now, onto some of the dramas!

A. lives with her husband and her twenty month-old daughter in a small apartment with her mother-in-law. She is the mother-in-law from hell, the real classic kind, and A’s life is a misery. She’s trying to raise money to be able to move out of their already, and she seems to be blossoming in her job, having something of her own for the first time in years.

I. was religious. She met a boy, fell in love, and slept with him. She had iregularities with her period after that, and fainted from loss of blood. She was hospitalized and through this her mother learned somehow that I. lost her virginty. I. was then shunned completely, and at twenty, she already lives alone and completely supports herself out of necessity.

Last but not least, we have S. who is in love with a man who probably won’t be able to ever give her what she wants, which is commitment. At her birthday party a few days ago, her friends surprised her by bringing him, after they hadn’t seen each other for months. They slept together, and then she realized he’s the same as he always was, cannot commit and doesn’t realize that he’s with someone who’s willing to give her all. And so, mere days after her hope was egnited, it was cruely extinguished again.