Rainy Days: An Reflection and After Thought

California has finally been receiving glorious amounts of rain and I'm loving it. Rainy days are my favorites. They're never too cold, and that fresh smell of the air when the rain finally stops is very nice. It is a good time to think and enjoy the momentary freshness of the world from the usual drudgery as life moves forward.

Reflecting the idea of rain fall to life, I've come up with this parallel. Say there is a hypothetical situation where one person is walking leisurely through the rain while the other is running. Also in this situation, the goal is to move forward.

When one walks through the rain slowly and with an umbrella, the walk is pleasant and calming. The slowness of the pace allows one to enjoy the smells, the sights, and their surroundings without getting very wet at all. Contrarily, when one runs through the rain as fast as one possibly can, he will most likely get very wet. The speed required for racing through the rain will probably cause one to loose one's umbrella, slip/fall a couple of times, and get very wet from exposing himself to larger amounts of rain contact.

Similarly to the course of life, if one was to take life slowly and "walk leisurely through the rain", he'd probably be able to greater enjoy the details of life. He would harbor a smaller scope of ambition and most likely, the life he'd lead would be relatively normal, and stable.

If one was to pursue and feed his innate sense of ambition, figuratively "running through the rain as fast as they can", his course of life would obviously be of a different nature. The fine details of life would be missed and the easy days traded in for days of reckless ambition of achieving. Yes, one would also suffer much more falls from his slippery footholds on the rain slicked cement and a greater battering of the rain on his shoulders.

I personally have not found which course of life it is that I am leading. I find a certain appeal in either of these extremed options; However, if I were to decide a way that I am running towards, in my own course of life, I would say my attraction would be greater to the "running through the rain" path. Of course, that would be because of my attraction to the idea of finding that one moment of pure self contentedness in having finally achieving my designated moment of greatness.

As a high schooler that is is rapidly approaching the most defining year of my high school career: Junior Year, I feel that I have to decide how it is that I want to run my life: To take it slow or to run and to push. I simply want to be able to self decide whether if this seemingly harbored ambition that I carry academically is really reflected in me or is really a self-created ruse I made to fool myself into joining the expanded picture of entering the best college possible that seems to be lived my most of my peers. I don't want my high school ambition to have been faked and never realize it. I desire to harbor a real sense of ambition, that my efforts are being honed to a goal that I do have the genuine faith in. If not, I'd rather discover the true life path I seek is to simply "walk in the rain". At least then I wouldn't waste efforts and live detailed oriented and happy.

Of course the two options I'm choosing from are extremes. If I was to truly find an ideal walk/run through the rain, it would be along the lines of the famed quote "don't forget to stop and smell the flowers". The "flowers" could be either of the two extremes that I have put as a minority. As long as either extreme is sharpened to point at a specific and acknowledged end, I believe both are good choices/ paths to go down.

I doubt this speel made a lot of sense; It is a rant after all. Hopefully it stimulated at least a little brain work. Anyways, Californians of the Bay Area, enjoy the rainy weather while it lasts. We're going to be headed to sunshine days again real soon.

Glorious Quotes from Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly

This is a collection of my absolute favorite quotes from Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly. All the quoted texts belong to her and I am just sharing them. This book was absolutely spectacular. I know this is a lot of quotes but this is only a tiny sample of the glory of this book. I say definitely go buy it/check it out at your local library and read it now. I'll follow with a review soon.

*Regarding the selection of college applicants
"It's Vijay Gupta. president of the Honor Society, the debate team, the Chess Club, and the Model United Nations. volunteer at a soup kitchen, a literacy center, and the ASPCA. Davidson Fellow Presidential Scholar candidate, winner of the Princeton University poetry prize, but, alas, not a cancer survivor.
Orla McBride is a cancer survivor, and she wrote about it for her college apps and got into Harvard early admission. Chemo and hair loss, and throwing up pieces of your stomach beat the usually extracurriculars hands down. Vijay only got wait-listed, so he still has to go to class."

*The conversation this is from is about learning mythology, traditions, and religions at school.
" What the hell for?"
"Because they want you to know. It's important to them that you know."
"That it's a myth."
"What's a myth?"
"All of it, Jimmy. Everything."
"Jimmy goes quiet for a bit; then he says, "So you get out of that fancy school and you got nothin'? Nothin' to hold on to? Nothin' to believe in?"

*Regarding dreams/wishes
"He didn't have to tell me what he was wishing for. I knew. I also knew it would never come true. Genius isn't a team sport."

*Regarding brand-name items and Italian
"She's got a big belt around her hips. It has a shiny buckle with PRADA on it, which is Italian for insecure."

*Demonstration of how she is a smart protagonist. She knows her stuff.
"Someone offers me a glass of wine, but I decline. Alcohol doesn't mix well with my pills. It brings on some nasty side effect."

*A good quote for the loss of a loved one. The gold is in the last line.
"Then he says, "Damn it, Andi, Truman's dead.""
"I'm aware of that."
"So let him go."
"Just like you've done right? New life. No strife."
""Truman died. Truman. Not you," he says."

*Regarding history
"Most of the mess that is called history comes about because kings and presidents cannot be satisfied with a nice chicken and a good loaf of bread. How much better it would be for all of us it they could."

*Regarding a passion or music
"I'm wishing he could see that music lives. Forever. That it's stronger than death. Stronger than time. And that its strength holds you together when nothing else can."

*This quote appealed to me with its simple tragedy.
"Where are the puppets?," my mother asked.
"We were giving a show, my father told her, about the revolution in America. We were set upon by the guard. They called the show seditious. They trampled the puppets, toppled the theater, and set fire to all."

*Perseverance in human nature
"He was a playwright once, my father, and the rest of us his players. his plays were tragic and sad, like the man himself but the theaters refused them, for they spoke of liberty and the end of kings. because he could not stage his plays in theaters, he staged them in the streets, and three times the censors arrested him. The third time, they banned him from performing every again. So he made puppets and had them say the words he could not."

*Regarding the King/powerful pol. figures
"And yet it is hard even now for me to hate him, for I believe he meant no harm. You would not beat your dog because he is not a cat. He was born a dog and cannot change it. The king was born a king and could not change that either."

*Regarding Revolution
"Yes, Theo, it is, he said. It's the beginning of the end."

*The beauty of devotion and the beauty of the words. This line is of Alexandrine declaring the only thing she can do of her devotion to Louis Charles, the locked away 8 year old son of Marie Antoinette and Louis the XVI. Maybe it is the fact that I am exhausted whenever I read this line so I'm more emotional, but I always tear up from the melancholy and sadness of this scene: Giving hope to a hopeless.
"There are no songs left for me to play to sing to you, Louis Charles, I said. No games to play. But I can give you this-the light.
I will rain down silver and gold for you. I will shatter the black night, break it open, and pour out a million stars. Turn away from the darkness, the madness, the pain.
Open your eyes. And not that I am here. That I remember and hope.
Open your eyes and look at the light."

*Regarding how a revolution happens
"Kings have little to do with revolutions. Revolutions are not in their best interests. It began with small things happening to Small people.....[They] go back to [their] [rooms] and never forgets. None of them does. They wait. For what, they do not know. But they can feel it coming....And it thrills them."

*Just a simple quote that I liked. Decipher your own feelings to it.
"I cried when he died. Like a dog who howls for the master who beat him."

*Another appealing quote
"How it grieves me to think that the world always wins."

*The best quote of them all. There is something existentialist about this quote, like something Camus would say. The statement of how we can differ in a world that is all the same.
""Oh dead man, you're dead wrong," I tell him. "The world goes on stupid and brutal, but I do not. Can't you see? I do not.""

Reflection of Honors Pre-Calc at the End of Semester One

To be brutally and frankly honest, I can say that this semester did not go well for me and I do admit that it was my own fault. I do own up to this and I accept the grade that I received at the end of this semester with no feelings of unfairity; I only regret that I didn't try harder. Math is definitely not my favorite subject and to reflect back on my crazy thinking of scheduling last year I must have been suicidal to think that I would make a drastic change and begin to like math this year. It is in my character to be overly confident in my abilities and I also harbor a deep blind faith in myself that I would be willing to make a change. This is a fatal character flaw for me. And truth be told, I could have received a better grade in this class but somewhere between 8th grade and honors algebra 2 I mentally lost all will to truly want to excel in math. Yet, I still harbored the attitude of : "Yes, of course next semester will be better for me. I will make changes." I think at this point I have come to realize this flaw but my attitude towards trying still hasn't changed I seem to refuse to let it. At this point I'm going to let this attitude of mine rule me for one more semester and see if I indeed do make this effort for change. My inner conscience is literally yelling: "nope, you are more than likely not going to change", however, I'm going to faith it one more time.

As you have asked for three things that went good for me this semester, the things I stated above is defiantly most of it. I'm not going to say it went good because I did well in a few beginning assignments and I turned in all my homework. I'm going to make this count and say that somehow it was this class that finally gave me that epiphany of my flaw in character. I'm disappointed that I didn't find this flaw earlier last year but perhaps I was still too immature to notice or I did know and wasn't mature enough to acknowledged it. This realization is very much an important good thing that happened this semester. I want to say for my second good thing would be my realization of the necessary of the creation of a good, dedicated work ethic. Yes, I slacked in this class if it was not obvious enough. I apologize. This class is the very basic demonstration that practice and time brings results.  The third good thing that came out of this class (I'm sorry, though I really have no reason to be) is I learned I really don't care for math. At least now I know in future schedule planning to lighten my ambitions at the math and science subjects. There is really a pretty large difference my English grade in comparison to my Math grade; This is probably due to be interest in it and the will I had in putting in effort. I'm a firm believer that if one really tried one can achieve and this is demonstrated in my grade differences. I willingly retain pounds of information of dead people in history yet refuse waste that brain space memorizing an equation. Shame on me I know, but now I've realized and acknowledged this and I am glad of it.

Next semester, I hope in my final realization of my character I will be able to improve in my focus and dedication to this subject. I also wish to open a larger door in my acceptance of mathematical logic ( I work so much better in an abstract world than a logical one). Lastly, I hope that his realization and will I currently have will stay with me and not fade away after I finish composing this reflection, that this attitude isn't created in my pleasure of composing this piece.

I believe at this point I have acknowledged all the points you have wished me to. You probably really just wanted me to write: Next semester I will try to do all my HW assignments more dedicatedly and consistently. Sorry, that didn't happen. You're ending up with this instead. At this point, this thing is pretty tedious and long so I don't know if you have even read to this point with the mass amounts of these you are collecting. I do apologize for my lack of effort and greatness of attitude toward math. I pray next semester I do end up demonstrating differently. It would truly be shameful if I didn't after this reflection. Thank you, Mr. Shack, for putting up with this.