Hope Ain't Cute

One of my pet peeves is when someone calls a hopeful person “cute”. Like—excuse you, no. I’m not being cute, I’m not giving you empty words to cheer you up, I’m giving you a different perspective on things. 

It hurts to know that hopefulness and optimism are now considered traits of children. 
You know what? It is hope that thrums through the hearts of revolutionaries throughout the Middle East. When you ask people how they are living through it, how they continue to fight, they are hopeful. They tell you that they are struggling now, but their hope to taste the sweetness of freedom outlasts all the bombs, all the blood, all the tears. 

Hope is like determined drops of water weathering away at the stone cold dam, relentlessly going at it until it can trickle sweetly through the other side. To burst from its restraints and pour down, free to become a thundering current once more. So don’t you dare tell me that hope is “cute”. 

Hope is a powerful warrior in itself.

Fiction in the Schooling System

The world of literature has an expanse of different writing styles, genres, forms, and structures. However, one genre that is looked down upon and often undervalued is fiction, when it is the one genre that requires a deep sense of imagination and creativity. Many schools are moving away from teaching literature, resorting instead to textbooks and learning about form and grammar, perhaps including a few excerpts here and there. However, even with passages from occasional fictional works, students are not given much leeway to discuss their feelings about the book, what with a teacher looming over them, scolding them for incorrect interpretations.  People are becoming so drilled with facts, rules, and regulations, it would not be a surprise if people lost the ability to be creative.

In today's modern education system, the main concern is with facts. Analyses or interpretation involves opinion; so, according to the president of College Board, David Coleman, as you grow up, people do not care about how you feel or what you think. There is truth to what he says. If you are in the workforce, you do your task. If you are asked to create an inventory report, you create an inventory report. If you are asked to diagnose a patient, you do just that. There is no leeway for your opinion or your feelings. What Coleman does not regard, however, is the lessons fiction teaches you. Is that not the way we learn? Trial and error, the advice of others? So maybe the story is a fictional work. Why should that matter? The author behind that work is a real person, one who has a thought or idea to share with the world. The purpose of the story is to illustrate the idea in terms of something people can understand. This is something the College Board does not seem to take into consideration. With the new Common Core State Standards, where public schools put more emphasis on non-fiction readings in English classes, a great number of good, classical works will be taken out of the education system, which is a major concern. 

Think back to your high school English courses. Remember To Kill A Mockingbird? The Great Gatsby? Wuthering Heights or even The Catcher in the Rye? These stories, all fiction, taught us lessons. Lessons about life, about loss, about living and growing and maturing. Those books taught us to pick up a different perspective on life. From the stories that brought out the racism and stereotypes of our own society to the ones that fleshed out the barriers placed between the rich and poor, these stories provoke thought that runs deeper than the tale they are trying to tell. Through these stories, we learn more than just the analyses of syntax and diction used in the story, we learn about our society's faults and faults within ourselves. We live vicariously through other characters and analyze what could have happened if they had reacted differently, or if certain events had not happened. We learn to expand our own critical thinking abilities by reading and coming up with our own conclusions. 

This brings up another problem with the high school education system. Most teachers have a viewpoint on a story, or a large population of English scholars have a certain interpretation of a novel, and the teacher expects the student to share. Take the book Heart of Darkness for an example. The novel is shorter than most books we have read, but it is easily thrice as packed with information than the other books are. Every word, every sentence in that book has an underlying meaning, which, although hard as it was to read, was somewhat mind-opening to take in. However, when I walk into class with my own insights and thoughts, I am immediately shot down for having an incorrect opinion, or one that strays away from what the teacher had in mind. Though my opinion was backed up by evidence from the text, it apparently was not "what they are looking for". By putting down their opinions, the instructor is snuffing out the enthusiasm they may have, the ideas they gathered and started to kindle into a fire of proudly on their own. This will hinder their desire to think critically, pushing the students away from even trying to think beyond what the teacher requires. 

They say it takes a village to raise a child. Well, it takes a library to raise an adult. A thinker, a ponderer, one with ideas that could shape our future generations. It is true that not all of us are philosophers and great thinkers, but what could be so hard in trying? Many of us are out there, with a thought or an idea, but we do not know how to express this idea. The importance of reading fiction extends beyond the realm of feelings and story, it helps people understand each other, and more importantly, it helps people understand themselves. Educating students about literature, about English, should not be a step-by-step guide on what to expect and what a certain part of the text implies based on cliché, or the elements of literature, basic diction, syntax, implications. It should be about giving students a lasting impression, allowing them to think for themselves, to use what they learned and apply it to their lives in their own way. Why should the education system only educate for the sake of exams? Should school not teach life lessons as well, to raise students who are not only intellectual but creative thinkers as well? Surely a society cannot thrive if we continue to raise robots. 

Birthday

Today was my birthday...or rather yesterday depending on the time...it's 12:34 right now as I'm writing this. I feel so blessed for having such a loving family and friends who made this day so special. When I woke up this morning I didn't feel any different than I did yesterday. Granted, I have been feeling more mature as my seventeen year progressed. The only thing that did change when I got up was that I could officially say, "I'm eighteen." 18. Such an interesting number. For some reason eighteen sounds so much more mature than seventeen. I liked being seventeen; it was not quite child, not quite adult. I could get away with things for not being old enough, but had responsibilities not given to people younger than me. Now it's all over.

Don't get me wrong here, I'm happy I'm officially an adult now age-wise, but it's an odd thought.

My Opinion On Opinions

I was looking through my old blog Thoughts on Life: A Teen's Perspective (which, if you haven't heard, was an absolute failure), and I realized something oddly peculiar (oddly odd, ha!). All my posts were unopinionated. For a personal blog, I think it's only right to have it be one's own opinions, not just what's going on. I mean if you're doing a business-related blog and need to relay honest news, I would probably go with writing a non-biased post, but for personal blogs? It's annoying to go back and read my old posts;  I would talk about something being for a long time, and then say, "On the other hand, this thing could also be good because of this and this." I would contradict myself and everything I believe.

I've recently came to terms with the idea that writing and expressing yourself on a blog cannot be to try and please everyone. So what if someone doesn't agree with what you're saying! I think a few years ago I didn't want people to know what my take was on a certain topic. I didn't want to say how I felt about something in fear that someone would disagree with me. I'm happy to say now I've come to a conclusion; it's better to say your opinion and express your feelings, rather than to try and make everyone happy and make a post that equally defends both arguments. Isn't a blog a place for your own pool of thoughts?

I think that unopinionated posts are just a sad attempt at trying to make everyone happy. Blogging isn't about what people think, it's about what you think; your feelings. If someone doesn't like what you write, they can help themselves to the exit button.

The Worlds Between Covers

Imagine yourself walking into a bookstore. You enter through those doors and immediately the warm smell of wood and newly printed books greet you. You stroll in and walk to your favorite section and run your finger along the spines of the neatly aligned books, each one whispering read me, each one pulling you with invisible fingers, gently caressing your mind with the wonders they contain. You then pass by a book that you've already read and it looks at you with friendly eyes as it catches your attention. Though you have already read it, you are fond of its contents. You open the book and are immediately reeled back into the world it contains. As you sift through your favorite parts you can't help but sigh in contentment at what you've experienced. You gently place the book back on the shelf and continue your stroll, but the book still lingers in the back of your mind.

This, my friends, is how books feel to me. This is my experience at a bookstore. Since I love to read a lot, and I buy more books than I can read at a given time, my room was crowded with them. A little too crowded for my own comfort, if I may add; so I bought a bookshelf to put in a corner of my bedroom. A place where I can experience the magic of my books anytime I want to. Just passing by it, I can hear the whispering of the hundred tales I own and it truly is magical.

Here's the stockpile before putting it on the shelf 

(well, the ones that were in my way anyway, the rest were in the storage area):

End result!

*Just in case any of you were wondering, yes that is Sigmund Freud sitting on the fourth shelf and on top of one of the piles of books. He's staring at the psychology books that I own, and in the top picture he's sitting on top of them. Just a little fyi. :-)

**The whitish wood you see is my temporary headboard, hence its lack of not matching with my shelf. Just saying.

Writer's Touch

A lot of people tell me that I have a "Writer's Touch", but what does that really mean?

There seems to be a very fine line between writing something and speaking it. Illustrating something and simply describing it or simply talking about it. I've recently thought over the differences and decided to blog about it; here's what I came up with.


Detail
Having a writer's touch means that you show enough detail to allow someone to visualize your scenario more clearly. So, if you have a sentence like, "Sally's dog explored the park." You'd write it, "Sally's dog padded along the park trail." So now, you know exactly what the dog was doing, and you know that he's walking gently and curiously along a trail. He's not all over the place in your mind now, so this narrows the reader's vision to what you want to illustrate.

Strong Words V. Weaker Words
This one's simply, can you take a basic word and substitute it for a more complex word that gives what you're trying to say more meaning?
It's like replacing the word "crowded" for the word "bustling" if you're talking about say, New York City. I mean think about it, the words give you different vibes. Crowded seems more like stuffy and uncomfortable, whereas bustling gives you the idea that it's a city that's busy at work, doing things, everyone's out and about. So yeah, it's crowded, but is it that to the point of uncomfortableness? Probably not. So the word "bustling" gives the impression that the city's full of people, but it gives sort of the business-like impression of walking the street, rather than the "crowded waiting room" scene. Am I making sense?
This brings me to another point:

Are swear words okay?

I've recently been...er...shamed, for using the so-called "d-word" in one of my posts. Let me assure you there is a reason for every word I choose to write. Had I thought another word was more suitable, I would have changed it. Everyone I know has the impression that I don't swear, and it's true. I never have conversations where I'm spitting out swear words. Writing is different though. Writing is about getting the right impression across, and the words a writer chooses aren't always ones that they use conversationally, andd they're not always representative to the author's voice. I wouldn't use the word "damn" conversationally when talking to people, but when I write, I use it in context to give off an angry, frustrated vibe. Had the word not been chosen, it would be taken as a light statement. Now, I'm not saying that swearing is right, but I'm also against the idea that it's wrong in some cases. Note that in some contexts, how it it bad if I'm not addressing a person? I was addressing a bad habit, so in all essence, bad habits be damned! Okay?

Showing, Not Telling
Similar to adding detail, having a writer's touch means that you have the ability to choose words and formword phrases based on what kind of a vibe you want in the sentence. For an example, if you're talking about a situation that's happened, you want to let on that it was boring without actually saying it was. You have to make what happened sound really boring, and people would catch on. But I'm not saying make your writing boring but use words that give off a boring vibe...
I'm not making sense here.
Okay take a look at this: "I was bored and tired, so I slept." This sentence is totally fine, but I literally told you why I slept. Imagine if I wrote it like this: "After a long day of studying, I sat on my bed and looked around the shabby place I call my room.  I sighed. God I need to clean this place up. I thought to myself. Nothing to do, nowhere to go. I'll probably clean it later, I'm not feeling up to it. I took one last look at my room and yawned. I lay back in my bed and drifted off."
Now people can make inferences about why you fell asleep, making your writing more interesting that before. Obviously it's all about context. You wouldn't write all that if someone asked you why you're sleeping during the day, but say you're writing a story. Wouldn't you rather have all that detail to put the reader in the scene and have them immersed in your writing? That's the touch you need.


Shorter Sentences Vs. Longer Ones
This best represents the idea:

"This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety. Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences. And I use sentences of medium length. And sometimes, when I am certain the reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the drums, the crash of the cymbals–sounds that say listen to this, it is important."


Moral of the story? Variety of sentence length gives music to the writing.

Writer's Voice
This is something that can't really be elaborated on or taught. It's your personal voice when you write. A voice that people would recognize as yours without knowing you wrote it.


To sum it all up, writing isn't only about the grammar and expressive punctuation that you write, but how you write it and how advanced your diction (word choice) is. I'm still working on mine, don't get me wrong, I'm not an expert, but giving your work a writer's touch gives it a flare that can keep readers, well, reading. As a final example, there's a difference between saying "She was hungry so she ate an apple" versus "Hunger gnawed at her stomach and clawed at her insides. She grabbed an apple from the basket sitting on the nearby nearby table and took a bite from the juicy inside, the sweet juice dribbling from her chin as she savored every bite."

What would you rather read?

Thing is though, some people call this fluff, specifically when it's used in a college paper. Trust me, my professors hate it when I write like this, as they want the paper straight to the point. Problem is, what's the fun in that?

So I do it anyway, but I tone it down a bit.

Well, anyway, if you have any other ones, comment below and I'll add them. :)

Booktrack Review

I consider myself to be a pretty avid reader. My imagination practically makes the words disappear from the page and I'm so absorbed by the reading that I don't realize I'm reading anymore; it's like I'm watching a movie, except I could do it for hours without getting scolded at by peers and family members. Anyways, so I was looking at Apps and things when I got my iPhone a few days ago and I found something called Booktrack. It's a special soundtrack designed for selected books and it plays music and sound effects that pertain to what's happening on the page. You can adjust your reading speed and even change the settings of how loud you want the music or the sound effects. You can see a demonstration below:


So, naturally, when I saw this, I was crazy excited. I bought the book Power of Six since it's the second book after I Am Number Four and I wanted to read it anyway, and how cool would it be to have epic music playing in the background of the scene with the respective sound effects?

After reading for two hours, I decided to give it a 4/5 rating. After wasting a few chapters adjusting my speeding level, it went pretty smoothly for a little bit, but sometimes I'd get ahead of the music and sometimes it would beat me. Then I discovered a little arrow that slides down the page and helps you track what line the music is playing in accordance to. I knew I was going a good pace with the music when, as I was reading, the arrow appeared to look like it was hopping as I skimmed the lines, rather than steadily descending down the page. Still though, for some scenes I'd speed up considerably because it was so action packed and I'd get excited and read faster, and the music wouldn't catch up to me, but it somehow works out in the end.

Booktrack has a lot of options for getting the music where you want it and it's only a matter of working through those steps. I read for two hours, so probably the first 45 minutes of reading was me working out the basics and adjusting my speed. After that though, it was probably one of the best reading experiences I've ever had. I heard a lot of people calling it a cross between a book and a movie, and it really is just that. You're reading while your imagination runs wild with music that makes it not unlike a movie. It's a very unique reading experience that I look forward to doing again and again.

20 Things that Irritate Me

Everyone has pet peeves. Some people hate the sound of a pen clicking simultaneously while others hate watching people eat, or someone sucking their straw at the last drops of drink left, and so on. There are so many, but here's a list of my top 20:

1. People who touch my computer screen or cell phone and leave their fingerprints all over it and I spend fifteen minutes trying to rub them all off. 
2. People with double-standards. If you don't like someone doing something or acting in a certain way, don't do it yourself!
3. Fragments. When honoring people for making such good posts. That's a fragment. in my head I'm like "... ... ...!!! You're not done yet! What about honoring them? What about people? What is life? Aflkajsdflkjalksdjflkajdslkfj."
4. When people use unnecessary quotation marks. Like this sign I once saw: "Do Not" Smoke! Or a famous one: Fresh Brown "Eggs". If they're "eggs", what are they? Quotations nowadays are used for sarcasm, for things that are not as they seem, or of course quoting something. They are in no way used for emphasis or as an attention getter. 
5. People who chew and making chomping noises. No not that crisp, "I just ate some Doritos" sound, but that "I'm eating a cheese sandwich," kind of way. 
6. Pplz d@T r!te lyyyke dis nd staff!!! I spend more time deciphering your crap than you do making your so-called abbreviations. Learn to type words, please. Thanks. 
7. Writing a long message to someone (usually through texting) and they just reply, "K." Really now? Really? 
8. People who read over my shoulder when I'm on my computer or phone.
9. When people pronounce my name wrong. [For any future reference of my name (Hana)? It's pronounced henna or jenna with an "h" if that makes more sense]. 
10. People who write you're as your. [Your: possession belonging to someone (your notebook). You're: you are.] Please pay attention in your grammar classes! It will save me some grief.
11. When the toilet roll is backwards. 
12. People who borrow stuff and don't give it back. Excuse me but I didn't let you have it. 
13. Finding hair in the sink, especially if it's not mine. WASH IT OFF.
14. Sites that start talking randomly and you can't make it stop because it's not a video on the page or anything like that, and you probably have like eight tabs open and you can't figure out which one's talking.
15. People who tickle me, or pinch my sides to try to tickle me. Seriously it's not funny. 
16. Chairs with uneven legs that wobble. How do you expect me to sit like that?
17.  People who leave toothpaste in the sink. 
18. When people put me on speaker and I didn't know. Tell me first! What if I don't want everyone in the room to hear what I'm saying?
19. People who open books so wide they make a crease line on the spine of the book. 
20. People who say "That's what she said,"after everything. Keep your mind out of the gutter and keep me out of there too, okay?

True Love

I found this really cute quote by Bob Marley. It pretty much summarizes the true sweetness and tenderness of love.  

"Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world around. You tell them things that you’ve never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you say and actually want to hear more. You share hopes for the future, dreams that will never come true, goals that were never achieved and the many disappointments life has thrown at you. When something wonderful happens, you can’t wait to tell them about it, knowing they will share in your excitement. They are not embarrassed to cry with you when you are hurting or laugh with you when you make a fool of yourself. Never do they hurt your feelings or make you feel like you are not good enough, but rather they build you up and show you the things about yourself that make you special and even beautiful. There is never any pressure, jealousy or competition but only a quiet calmness when they are around. You can be yourself and not worry about what they will think of you because they love you for who you are. In their presence, there’s no need for continuous conversation, but you find you’re quite content in just having them nearby. Things that never interested you before become fascinating because you know they are important to this person who is so special to you. You think of this person on every occasion and in everything you do. Simple things bring them to mind like a pale blue sky, gentle wind or even a storm cloud on the horizon. You open your heart knowing that there’s a chance it may be broken one day and in opening your heart, you experience a love and joy that you never dreamed possible. You find that being vulnerable is the only way to allow your heart to feel true pleasure that’s so real it scares you. You find strength in knowing you have a true friend and possibly a soul mate who will remain loyal to the end. Life seems completely different, exciting and worthwhile. Your only hope and security is in knowing that they are a part of your life.” 
-Bob Marley

Advanced Placement Classes

I sat there with my Advanced Placement (AP) Chemistry book open on my desk. Then all of a sudden, I thought to myself, Why did I take this course anyway? Why did I even bother taking AP's?  So I decided to blog about the good and the bad about taking these ridiculous classes.

 Good    

College Credit- Yay! I get to start getting credits out of the way. How convenient.
Money Saver- This one's a pretty big deal: Spending 87 bucks to take a test versus $1500 to take a class. Lovin' it.
Looks Good: Colleges are gonna look at how awesome I was for taking such hardcore classes.
For the Challenge: Personally, I don't think I'd ever want to take an AP course just "for the challenge", but since some people think it's legit, I'll add it to the list. Hey, whatever floats your boat.

 Bad    

Loss of time-Now I have no time to enjoy life. Awesome.
Unnecessary stress-To top off all my homework, extracurriculars, volunteering, I need to study for a mega-test by studying a book from cover to cover and taking alternate forms of a mock test to ensure a passing grade on my Advanced Placement exam in May. Fantabulous. And really, why stress yourself out if you're going to have that stress anyway when you get to college?
Lack of Sleep-My heart goes out to those people who are drowned in their own work piles. Fear not, for you are not alone! AP courses literally keep me up into the late hours of the night. I'm lucky if I can get six hours in.
Did I mention stress? Yeah I think I did. Well you know what? It deserves to be on here twice!
Crazy Teachers- Hmm...maybe I have to rethink this one. It's not the actual teacher who is genuinely crazy, but you see, AP makes teachers crazy because they start this mass cramming thing and it really gets on my nerves, especially when a teacher assigns two chapters on Friday to study over the weekend and gives a test the following Monday. What's up with that?
College Prep My Butt-They say they prepare us for college, but quite frankly there's no preparation because a college class is totally different. So what's the point in taking AP if the environment is really like a regular class?
Stress. (Yes, a third time will suffice.)


So I think I've come to a conclusion that although AP Classes are a real pain in the butt, I think I can maul through personal bumps in the road to get to the destination. In other words, I'll take these classes, yeah maybe bang my head against the wall a few times, but in the end, at least I'll get my college credit.

Fellow person-who-has-taken-or-are-taking-AP-classes-and-feel-my-undying-pain, what's your viewpoint on the situation? Are AP classes worth it? Any other things you'd like to add to the list?