Je Dois Faire, 21.11.13

-learn Arabic via Johns Hopkins! But first...
-take SAT
-get a new typewriter
-get a Raspberry Pi (Hanukkah... Maman, I love youuu...)
-not fall asleep while emailing my "second-best friend" for ONCE
-make the Asians cut it out with their talk of "taking out the trash" -_-
-write a bit this weekend
-run before 5k on Thanksgiving
-watch Slumdog Millionaire, Wadjda, etc.
-watch Gidget for no intellectual or cultural benefit at all whatsoever
-finish City of Bones and What is the What
-fix soles of flatforms
-bring up my teetering grade in science
-sweep over BCA application for last time
-don't tease E ^_^
-learn Snow on guitar
-learn You Never Give Me Your Money on piano
-go to Girl Scouts meeting
-forget about G, even though V TALKED TO HIM ABOUT ME YESTERDAY AAAAAH YESSSSSSS!
-go to India already
-at the very least, get K to teach me the basics of Gujarati

Why is there an (s) after Muhammad's name?

   Many of my friends at school are either obsessed with Asians and their culture, or Asian themselves. And you know, I always fancied myself the, well, not the anti-Asian, necessarily, I mean, I'm not some disgusting elitist. I just wasn't all hardcore AAAAAH I WISH I WAS JAPANESE AND ATE DIM SUM EVERY DAY AND BOMBARDED MY EVERYDAY SPEECH WITH RACIAL SLURS! I liked Europe. And don't get me wrong, I still do.

   But I've fallen in love with Asia myself. But not Japan and S.K. like the rest of my friends have. I like India (as if that wasn't blatantly obvious enough... and K doesn't even think I'm a Hinduism aficionado! He thought I didn't know the significance of Shiv's name when I shivved him. Honestly), and the Middle East, and all those. Nepal. Buddhism. Hinduism. Islam.

   I'm in love with Asia now. In love with the most corrupt and poverty-stricken parts of it, of course. Ach, why do I always do this to myself? See, Indian males, you're making me German-sigh. Thanks. 

   But I'm definitely going to travel around Asia like Meredith in Without a Map did. The exact parts. And film something. Make the next Wadjda.

People left me some notes

My boyyyyyfriend left me a note in Korean! Ironically enough, the note on the yellow index card is suggesting that I get married... but not to him...

 


Words of wisdom from one Francesca Ferraro.

My room, part 1

Some pictures I took a few days ago when I was feeling particularly artistic. The scene was probably as follows--I had just finished a nice container of pineapple and papaya Greek yogurt (yogurt and I have a bit of a love-hate relationship. I like eating it before or after I run), No Quarter was playing, I was waiting for the Hongs to come over, and the sun was hitting the floorboards just right. And actually I was watching Gidget when the Hongs came over... sorry. Selective memory, you know.

Ach, academia

   Noooooo. I just got a 74 on a moderately easy—so I thought—science test, and I am SCARED for my straight As. I'm down to an even 90; that grade took me down FIVE WHOLE POINTS. What will BCA think?! Hopefully it had something to do with the fact that it was a Scantron test and I took it with a mechanical pencil, and I can wheedle with Mrs. S about it. She hasn't returned it yet, so I haven't a clue.
   All these applications and stress to be perfect for honors/BCA/AP classes/IB track (the International Baccalaureate track, ooh law law), etc. is slowly but surely getting to me. Plus I'm taking the SAT early in December, for Johns Hopkins. HAGIA SOPHIA! I feel worse for K and the rest of the Indians, though, seeing as they all either expect themselves to get in, or, worse yet, their parents expect them to get in. And I know for a fact that only E and(Jazzbody...) have an almost inevitable chance of getting in. Can a chance even be inevitable? Well, it can now. K is too much of a square to get in, sadly for him. Plus he has a C in MATH. That is not good for him. V honestly has a better chance than he does, but with his atrocious homework grades, I'd say it ain't looking too great for the Indians.

Experiment--are people more prone to read a schpiel of a post with 6 paragraphs in it, or 3 posts with only 2 paragraphs apiece?

   All RIGHT! I just updated the blog's look cause I'm such a techie--template, new Gita background (I just recently discovered that all the cool kids, aka the Indian ones, don't even bother to add the Bhagavad to the beginning; it's just Gita and so therefore I was a total gringa in Indian culture and now I'm connected), etc.
   I think I should talk about my life more, like what's going on in it, not just my disturbed thoughts on my love-hate read-lationship (HAHAHAHAHA see what I did there? I’m-a so fly) with Sylvia Plath or why I'm obsessed with Salinger. Such a literature snob I am. So I'll try to deviate.
   I actually really like math class, for some reason. I've stopped being that quiet kid in class with the cool flatforms and who gets 100s but never actually speaks during class. I raise my hand now. A lot. And not in the C way, in the participating way. And I always have the right answer. EEEEE! how happy am I! I actually like math! I'm starting to prove my worth to Mr. S! And have conversations with him about K! So I won't be completely lying on my BCA application.
   And so, BCA. A big thing in my life right now. It's a very very good, very very hardcore, very very prestigious public high school in my county that I'm applying to. Seeing as I'm neither any subsection of Asian or a perky blonde girl, I doubt I'll get in (never mind the fact that the school has no real language arts department; it's geared 100% toward the sciences. And if you think I'm a massive science whiz, I would laugh in your face. Likewise for maths), but it's still nice to dream. Even if it's not a very accessible one. In the words of the stupefying Edgar Allan Poe, "Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night." Hah, I'm a kiss-up, I just heard that one today in language arts. Quote response. I sit next to V and inhale the exhilarating aroma of his curry- and gym class-induced sweat. Ms. O wonders why I have a perpetual expression of discomfort in that class. Honey, if you sat next to this guy, you'd understand. More about V in next post.

Definite imbalance

>>Thank god for K. He is probably the best source of advice in general in my whole life right now. That doesn't make sense, does it? Well. Since when do I ever make sense, anyways?
>>I finished The Bell Jar.
>>I think one of the differences between Sylvia Plath and Salinger is that he read too much into things and overanalysed in a way that was actually good for him. She read too much into things in a bad sort of way. Since The Bell Jar's confirmed to be autobiographical, she was always so suicidal and self-destructive. And Salinger, as far as I can tell, was never so much like that. He claims that The Catcher isn't supposed to be based on him, although obviously it was. I'm learning so many great factoids about him in the new Salinger book! I am so creepy. As if G wasn't any indication.
>>So last night I was over at N's, having a mini-marathon of Sherlock because K was crazily fangirling over that way way way too feminine-looking guy who plays Sherlock with the cool name. N and K were watching. I, of course, was far too busy poring through the yearbook from four years ago when he was still in the same school as me, staring dreamily at the pictures of an 8th-grade G with an unfortunate haircut and a debatable unibrow.
>>Sigh...
>>An interesting and Buddhism-friendly article that my language arts teacher showed me from NYT. And yes, Franny and Zooey would approve. ^_^
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/opinion/sunday/living-with-less-a-lot-less.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&

I am a self-inflicted disease

You see, the more and more I read salinger and Plath and all those guys, the more I become like this. Sad. No. I don't know. Disheartened. I don't know. And the more I read about them, the more I create my own issues and become cynical and then like this. I ever thought about TFC before, at least, the Catcher in the Rye. Or probably it was the combination of K and Franny and Zooey. But my theory, of many, is that the more you surround yourself with stuff like this, depression and apathy and disgust at nothing and disgust at yourself and, above all, art--the more you do this to yourself and become depressed and apathetic and disgusted and abstractly artistic and using words like 'abstract' when discussing Slaughterhouse-Five with your own mother in your own living room on your own nasty couch that got broken by your own relative who was so gargantuan that he literally broke the springs inside of it when he came over for thanksgiving at least a few years ago and now it's just rotting in there, in your own room where you're being all supercilious--Gatsby word--and abstract. And it makes me sick. Of myself. And that, my friends who are watching me grow into a beautiful and apathetic young woman, is a Holdenism, and that's a sign that I should just stop reading Salinger and plotting revenge on the deceased Charlie Chaplin for stealing Oona from my beloved Jerry. What has become of me?! Read some books, they said. It will be fun, they said. Well, I read some books. How fun.
I'm reading the Bell Jar and I'm very curious. Of her. Plath, I mean. Sylvia Plath. And I'm wondering, maybe my theory is wrong. I mean, it was, what? The early fifties?* People weren't exactly out-of-their-minds accepting of all this odd, impure sadness back then, were they? I mean, wasn't that the American dream era? So I suppose Plath didn't have that many influences to turn to and to absorb. But yet she wrote this.
But do you know what? She totally copied Salinger. I'm sorry! My opinion! But I'm completely enraptured by the Bell Jar, just so you know. It's just kind of girly for me. I don't know. I kind of like a man's perspective better. Holy mother of god, what did I just say? Dismiss, ignore, forgive me, it's too late at night for me to be reasonable.
And now my mom thinks she raised a sexist. Ah well. Sorry, Maman.
Anyway, so, maybe tomorrow i'll talk about the perks of being a hermit. How you can't create madness. Ludicrous is my mind.
Also, I blew off peer tutoring. I hate it! I despise teaching math! I know that's selfish of me, but so I am.
I been dazed and confused for so long it's not true...

*SparkNotes tells me it takes place, mostly, around 1953. In case you were wondering.

Mein kampf, 10.11.13

Wouldn't it be funny if I named my mind or something? You know. I'm thinking, something along the lines of "versus."

>>The book lists are getting so stressful! Even though I know no one reads these anyways, you know the drill.
>>I was contemplating human nature with Krupal via smartphone and writing in my new, happy-pink, feels-like-snakeskin-or-something, scentless, *sniff* not-leather journal the other day.
>>Here's a little snippet from what I was writing, before I decided to rage quit, in spite of myself, because hell hath no fury like me and my hypocrisy, my hypocrisy and I.
Sometimes, you know, I really hate myself.
>>And every day, I never do. Which, I suppose, means I'm not selfish like all those people contemplating suicide, who are really ridiculous and just internally desperate for some positive attention. But I know I am. And by writing that, I know I'm not. Keyword: "right?"
>>I'm curious. I mean, my thoughts are terribly unclear. I wonder if anyone will be able to understand them like this. Maybe I should take up vlogging instead; my fingers can't go as fast as my mind. Ugh. Human efforts, for lack of a better word, suck.
And since when did this blog get to be so offensive? The only reason why I don't make it private is >>because... TFC... I'm a hypocrite again... See, it's my problem.
>>I don't have a problem. Precocious little--
>>Precocious idiot.
>>You love that word--
>>Shut up, Precocious Inner Voice Telling Me the Truth SHUT UP!!!!
>>Anyways, although I continue to battle myself inside of my corrupted-by-Salinger-and-now-runner-up-Plath(?), finally here is that bit from my journal I was telling you about. Never verbatim, never sensical (word?).

--I originally wrote the following in Spanish, so here's my somewhat botched-up translation of that--

You know, when I think about it, everything I document or even goddam DO, by and by, is really just some kind of corroboration for when I'm inevitably to be famous, or at least publicly recognized. James said he'd read my books.

I'm too annoyed to write the rest. My brain is a crummy one. TFC.

A checkup.

what i've read:
Everything is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer,
Night, Elie Wiesel,
Slaughterhouse-five, Kurt Vonnegut Jr.,
The Complete Out-of-Print Publications of J. D. Salinger, J. D. Salinger,
The Outsider, Camus,
Le Sorciére Qui Avait Peur (if that's grammatically correct, I'm saying the name from memory), Some Unremembered Canadian Writer,
The House on Mango St., Sandra Cisneros (never gets old),
The Wonderful O, James Thurber.

books i've started:
Huck Finn, Mark Twain,
Salinger, Shields and Salerno,
War and Peace, Tolstoy,
Hamlet, Shakespeare,
The Mortal Instruments City of Bones Blah Blah Unnecessary Colons, Cassandra Clare (through force. It's for a school book club thing. Ugh, how I despise fantasy),
The Penal Colony, Kafka,
Today I Will, Eileen and Jerry Spinelli.

Oh, and by the way, I'm kind of madly in love with one Greg Almeida. Leia, now you understand why Griffin has to get back into Boy Scouts!