More Misadventures Please May 18, 2011

I’ve discovered somewhere along my 19 (almost 19.5) years of life that a lot of adventures aren’t much fun while you’re having them. (I don’t recall if I mentioned this, but to those who’ve heard the story–Dover airport. That’s all I have to say. Dover airport.)

However, I came to a realization recently. I love going on adventures with people, but more often than not, I don’t end up going on adventures at all. I suppose I have little motivation in this department, or really lazy friends. So I have to try and make my own adventures. More often than not, I think that those adventures are going to involve me, myself and I. So the big important thing for me to do is to learn to find and make my own adventures. I recently signed up on the geocaching website, which I think could bring about a new hobby, and I’m working on a super-top-secret project to make a wedding present for my friend. It involves very little venturing outside my dining room, but I don’t think that it really rules it out as an adventure.

I’ve gone on those adventures where you pick a direction and just go–walk, bike, drive. They’re fun, but I don’t always feel like doing that. As much as I like going and getting utterly lost, losing myself in my surroundings, sometimes I don’t want to get lost. I want to be. And it’s extraordinarily hard to just be nowadays. Everyone’s trying awfully hard not to be, in their haste to go and to do.

So sometimes I stare at cloud shapes or stars. Sometimes I watch lightning and listen to rain. Sometimes I pray, asking and giving thanks and hoping for tomorrow. Sometimes I lay in bed in the late morning, before all the dreams have dissolved into the air and let myself fade away a little, just living silently for a few moments before the world comes rushing in. I listen to music that strikes a chord within me. (Pun intended.) I read. And I write. I think that people really are when they write because to write something real and true (even fiction is real and true, it’s just a slanted view) you have to be existing there and living and being. You can’t write if you yourself are not alive.

My very best friend and I played hide-and-seek in a Hobby Lobby today. It’s this sort of absolutely silly, very childish behaviour that makes me feel alive. Despite the fact that a number of my parents’ friends seem to think that I am unable to behave maturely in public settings, I can. However, when it’s me, my best friend, and absolutely no good reason that I should have to put on a false sense of dignity, I see no reason not to be silly. That’s not to say I can’t behave in public; I can and do a good amount of the time. Sometimes I do feel serious or calm or non-silly, but today wasn’t one of those days. Today I felt like being ridiculous. And I was.

I have a theory that we’re all children in adults’ bodies, but most of us are too convinced by our false dignity to admit it. I don’t feel particularly like being dignified my entire life. Since when have the dignified had any fun? As much fun as your superior expression is, I prefer my open-mouthed laugh and toothy grin. I prefer blowing bubbles and dancing in the rain and speaking in a fake British accent for no reason. I prefer singing as I walk down the street and doing bizarre things just to see the facial expressions they elicit. I generally enjoy life.

But back to adventuring. Sometimes it requires silence and tiptoeing, others silliness and a sense of giddy recklessness, others still an open mind and a willingness to have no idea where you are going. And I fully intend to start having more adventures, alone or not. Sometimes, when the plot begins to slow down, you have to take it in both hands and drag it along with you as you write the story yourself. (This is not always necessarily a metaphor, ha ha.)

That said, I’m going on a picnic with my best friend this Friday. Tomorrow I might go geocaching. Maybe I’ll work on that well-neglected novel of mine. Or work on my friend’s wedding gift. Who knows? Not me.

It’s all part of the adventure.

On Glorified Begging April 12, 2011

Hello everyone,

I know, I know. Long time no see. I’ve been uber-busy with classes and clubs and the Catholic Center on campus, at which I spend literally all of my free time. I’m helping out with a couple projects there, plus I have a theatre project in which I have to direct a play. Talk about responsibility.

The main reason I decided to write today was for one big fat reason: money. I’m going to be a college sophmore next fall and I’m trying to figure out how I’m paying for all of this. No offence to say, the dean of my school, or anyone like that, but college is too darn expensive. I’m paying about $17,000 a year, and that’s in-state. I can understand paying for room and board and paying for individual classes, but where is all my money going??? Even if each student paid $100 per class they took, the school would have a good deal of money on their hands. One student would pay about $1,000 a year, and depending on the number of students at a school, that seems like a lot of money to me.

School shouldn’t be a business, at least in my opinion. I’m here to learn, not to line pockets or climb a corporate ladder. Not that I’m endorsing the government running my school or anything, I just think that $17,000 a year is pretty absurd. What am I really paying for here?  As school prices go up and up, I wonder where I’m going to get the cash needed to pay for all this. It is with this question that I am brought to my title: glorified begging.

I’m going to beg. Scholarships, loans, grants, it’s all glorified begging, really. I dress up nicely or write a clever essay or have an obscure talent and for that someone pats me on my pretty little head and forks over a couple hundred dollars so I can go try and get an education. There has to be a better way. I’m attempting to get a job as a camp counsellor this summer, so that cash influx should help somewhat, but the point is, I don’t see myself earning $17,000 overnight, or even in a few summers. I’m a college student. I’m poor and expect to perpetually be that way for a large portion of my life. Let’s face it people: teachers get paid squat. I’m going to spend an obscene amount of money getting my degree and then spend a good section of my life paying it off on a minuscule salary.

(Summary of last few paragraphs: college is expensive. it sucks. rant rant rant rant rant.)

In other news, I went to sort books for a drive for orphanages in India. They were sorted into many categories, but there were a large number of books that didn’t fall into a category that they could ship over, give to soldiers, use in a school library. These were about 80% trashy romance novels, but also had many treasures. One of my friends found an old medical dictionary that we presented to our mutual friend, a pre-nursing major.  One of the English majors found a gorgeous copy of Moby Dick and I picked up a smorgasbord of interesting-looking reads, from books on the BBC book list to a copy of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, missing its front cover. My mother is probably going to kill me…more weight is coming home with me than the weight that I left with…and yet I can’t say I regret much. There’s something about a book, especially one you’ve discovered or rescued, that is special.

I could never resist the smell of books, the feel of their pages, running my fingers down a row of spines stacked neatly on a shelf. Books have the enchanting air of a treasure chest or a box of secrets. Inside them, the words of those dead and gone, the thoughts of those still living, all the worlds and ideas that people have dreamed of and recorded, are printed and bound. And by opening them up and reading their words, we are let in on the secrets. They are whispered into our ears and stored in our hearts for years to come. Stories can be told a thousand times and never grow old, because they always have something to offer you.

I have much to do and little time; not to mention my eyes are drooping and I think I could benefit from a cat nap before I try to focus on my next project.

Between my unfinished novel, my need for money, and my love of books, I should just get myself a publisher…anyone know somebody interested?

Sunny

Et in Arcadia Ego March 8, 2011

So I recently saw my school’s version of “Arcadia” by Tom Stoppard. The play is a mass of language and math, chaos theory and the poetry of Lord Byron. It’s all a mass of references and intelligent conversations and I feel that though I enjoyed the play, I didn’t understand very much of it at all. I mean, chaos theory and the changing styles from classicism to romanticism aren’t exactly light entertainment or the sort of thing one expects when attending a college production. And yet, from what I gleaned from the details, the story that unfolded, (the extreme amount of Google-ing I did when I returned from the play), I think I managed to receive some of what the  playwright was trying to say.

Normally I would tell you all about what I think the play meant, but there are two reasons that I won’t this time.

1) I don’t think I have a complete enough understanding of the play to try and convey what I think some of the messages and themes are.

2) I want you to see this play.

There are remarks upon sex, literature, math, art, science, history, and people. Stoppard is probably sitting somewhere, chuckling over our attempts to guess what he’s trying to say, but the important part is that all of us in the audience are trying to comprehend it.

Et in Arcadia Ego is Latin for “Even in Arcadia, I am.” The “I am” has been generally assumed to be spoken by the personification of death, and Arcadia to be a sort of classical, simple, perfect place. Stoppard’s play was originally to be titled “Et in Arcadia Ego” but for some reason or another, it was not. I looked to find the theme of death in Eden in the play, but I don’t think I’ve let it all stew for long enough. If nothing else, I’d like to see the play again. It was a good play, and I still don’t know what it means. Maybe I’ll read the screenplay.

Merry Christmas and Paper Towns December 26, 2010

I had to put Merry Christmas in the title in recognition of the Holy Day. (That’s actually where the word holiday comes from, or so I heard.)

So after the opening of presents and the general hubub, I did what little sunnylunatics do when they have time off–I read a book. And this book happened to be the novel ‘Paper Towns’ by John Green, whose amusing video-blog which he shares with his brother Hank, happens to be a favorite Youtube channel of mine.

Paper Towns is a book about a guy named Quentin who is in love with a girl named Margo Roth Spiegelman, and how he goes looking for her after she dissappears/runs away. Except that’s not what the book is about.

I can’t say a lot without giving away the whole theme of the novel, and if you want to get it, I really want you to read it. But the idea of it is about people. And about every person being a person. And how we don’t really see people in people, we see little reflections of ourselves and use those reflections to try and understand them. But it’s even more than that. It’s about youth and freedom and changing and geekiness and Black Santas and all sorts of fabulous, amusing things.

Paper Towns got me thinking about, well, me. And about how I see people and the world itself. I can’t be anyone else, so I can only see things how I see them and hope that others can see them that way too. And hope that I can see things the way they do. And see people the way they are. But I don’t and you don’t and nobody does really. And I think we want to.

I learned in Psychology, about this thing called the Fundamental Attributional Error. When things go wrong in our lives, (and this is especially common in Western Culture, and it increases after childhood) we are likely to attribute the wrongs/mistakes/percieved wrongs and mistakes of others to their personalities. And when such things go wrong for us, it is the situation, not the person, that we attribute the issue to. And that’s another part of the problem. We don’t see people as us, we see people as them. When you are inside your own head, you understand that you might, say, cut someone off because you’re in a rush to get somewhere. But if someone cuts you off, they’re a terrible driver and have nastier words shouted after them besides. We fail to realize that other people’s situations effect them as much as ours effect us. I think that this FAE (Fundamental Attributional Error) is one of our main issues in seeing people as people. We don’t seem to take into account that when they are away from us, they could be having awful hardships that we don’t know about. (For an excellent book demonstrating this, I suggest Don’t You Dare Read This, Mrs. Dunphrey by Margaret Peterson Haddix (who in my opinion, is a great author all-around.) )

So on this Holy Day, (or in the case of the many of you that will read this on Boxing Day (The Second Day of Christmas)) it might be nice to think about people. The people that Christ came to save. They aren’t ideas, or one-dimensional figures. You only see one side of them. And in remembering that, I think that we help make mankind a kinder species. Understanding is a step towards peace, and it’s appropriate, for on this day we declare Peace On Earth and Goodwill Toward Men.

Merry Christmas and God Bless

Sunny

Project For Awesome December 22, 2010

I don’t know if any of you out there are Youtubers, but if you are, then you are likely aware of the Project for Awesome.

(If you’re not, here’s a quick summary. Brothers John and Hank Green (nerdfighters and leaders of nerdfighteria, a group of nerdfighters (geeks who follow them on Youtube)) do a youtube event every year to decrease what they refer to as world-suck. This is the badness of the world. They encourage all their followers (nerdfighters) to pick a charity and make a video explaining it. Then everyone sends the videos in and they try to take over youtube for a good cause.)

Well I didn’t see many P4A videos, but out of the few I saw, these two particularly caught my eye.

The first charity, Love146, is an organization trying to halt child sex slavery. I have posted the link for it below:

http://love146.org/

The other charity is the Uncultured Project and it sponsored students in an orphanage in Bangladesh. Link for the P4A video posted below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_864369&v=Yzi2BNkyq7s&feature=iv

Both of these charities I thought were doing something great and I wanted to share them with anyone and everyone who might be following or stopping in on my blog. I try to do something good with this blog, so that even if I’m not on here as often as I’d like, I’m still giving you something worthwhile when I am here. So thank you for reading and please go take a look at those two great charities. It’s nearly Christmas and maybe the season can move you into giving time or money or publicity from your own blogs or websites to help with the great work these organizations are doing.

If I don’t see you until 2011, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Sunny

*Massive Explosion of Excitement* November 30, 2010

I DID IT.

The goal of NaNoWriMo is to write a 50,000-word (or more) novel in a month. I’m currently at 50,215 which means I WON. (If you hit 50,000 words, you are a winner.)

My story isn’t done. Not even close. But the point is that I started out as a panicked college student, wondering where I would find the time and ideas and inspiration and drive. This was all about 29 days ago. And here I am now, a successful Wrimo, a novel well on the way.

‘We Are the Champions’ by Queen has been playing on my youtube for about…oh…half an hour now? It feels like victory. My facebook status has no spaces and is in all caps except for the bit that says ” *screams of joy* ”

This, readers of my blog, is victory. (I would say that this is Sparta…but I am riding a writer’s high that tells me that Sparta isn’t nearly as cool as what I’ve accomplished.) (Give my ego a day or so, I swear I’ll be back to normal soon.)

The current title of the novel is ‘Fayte.’  Keep an eye out for it on shelves….if ever….in about two years. Because I still have to keep writing and then there’s editing and revising and finding a publisher and blah blah blah. But if I finish it fully, I’ll be sure to tell you all.

Well, it’s 1 AM and the adrenaline rush is finally wearing off, so I’ll talk to you all later.

Best wishes!

(EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!!!!!!!!!!!! I’M SO EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Sunny

ZOMG BABIES!!!!! November 1, 2010

Hi.

For those of you who don’t understand zomg…it’s like omg….just with a z….(oh and also, when I say zomg or omg, I mean oh-my-gosh. Always gosh. Just in case there are a few jerks out there waiting for me to trip up and do something you can hold against me…well…sorry. Not this time.)

I realize I just made a post, but this one was made separate for a reason. It’s about……BABIES!!!!!

(Ummm, sunny, the title says ‘zomg babies’. We kinda figured.)

Oh….okay then. You guys aren’t the slow group.

I’m making this post all entirely based on something one of my suitemates said.

J was chilling and channel-surfing and I walked into the room to see what she was doing. My other suitemate, K, also stuck her head in, just as a movie popped up. Zooey Deschanel (from 100 Days of Summer, and some other stuff) (Sister of Emily Deschanel, who plays Dr. Brennan on the popular crime show ‘Bones’.) was in a bathroom and on the sink was a pregnancy with a pink tip and two lines, indicating that it was positive. The character she was playing was pregnant. K, immediately said in a sort of ‘she’s in trouble’ voice,

“Oh <explecitive>.”

We didn’t even know what movie it was. We didn’t know what was going on. But she saw a positive pregnancy test and her immediate reaction was that it was a negative thing.

(Ummm, sunny? To a college student, having a baby IS a negative thing.)

And THAT is exactly what I’m talking about. A baby is not a negative thing.

(But you’re in college! You have plans and your whole life ahead of you!)

Yup. And to you, a baby isn’t a person. It’s an inconvenience in your life. And I’m getting really sick of that outlook. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen my suitemate react this way. When I learned about the new abortifacient birth control, ‘Ella’, I warned them that it was an abortifacient (it causes abortions.) Her reaction? A shrug.

“As long as I don’t have a kid.”

One of the other girls agreed.

…

SERIOUSLY???

(And this is not directly aimed at her. This is a general opinion of a LOT of girls.)

What you want is SO important that you’ll kill someone to make sure you get it. You are the only concern of your life. Another person is not a person, it’s an inconvenience. Is anyone else just sick of this? Of seeing people assume that they are the one and only important thing in the world?

Newsflash:

IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU!

(What is is about then?)

God. Or if you don’t believe in God, still God. If you refuse to believe that, then go with something like making the world a better place. Or being the best possible person you can be. Or making a difference in the lives of others.

No matter what you want to tell yourself to make it okay to think it’s all about you, forget it. The world is constantly screaming,

“Me! Me! Me! Me! Me! Me!”

And it’s deafening. We can’t hear anyone else over the constant self-serving nature of our society. Keep up with the Joneses, buy more things, make yourself happy, your life isn’t good enough, you need this, you need that, it’s all about you–just STOP.

This isn’t just about babies. It’s about the homeless and the people who really need help in this world. It’s about the kid who gets bullied every day. It’s about a teenager who cuts himself. It’s about the college student addicted to meth. It’s about the poor in foreign countries who get by on less than a dollar a day. It’s about the people battling cancer. It’s about the elderly person in a home who never gets visited because they’re a ‘burden’ to their family. It’s about a military veteran who has nowhere to go so he begs on the street. It’s about the people all around you every day that you don’t see over the screaming void that pulls anything and everything you want from the world towards yourself in your own desperate attempts to please every whim that tickles your fancy. Think about it. In your classes, at work, the other PTA parents, whoever. Do you know them? Do you care?

What about your community? Does it have a shelter? A soup kitchen? A coat drive? Do you know? Do you care?

We are so in love with ourselves, that we forget to be in love with our peers, our communities, our world. We are a nation, a world, or people. Not of you. Of billions of people who also have their own hopes and fears and dreams. Who struggle and triumph and fail and go home (or don’t) every night trying to make the best of things. What are we doing to see that? To care?

After all that, people generally get aggressive.

“What are YOU doing to change it, if you’re so high-and-mighty?”

“What makes you think you can preach to me about what I should be doing?”

“Why are you judging me?”

This isn’t about me. It’s not about you. It’s about everyone. And it’s about trying to do something. Which is where the next problem comes in.

“I can’t possibly make a difference. There’s so much need, I wouldn’t even be making a dent.”

And that’s when I totally change what I’m saying. Yeah, it’s about a community, a world. But it’s also about one person.

“We can do no great things, only small things with great love.”  ~Mother Teresa

Don’t go out trying to make the whole world different. Only try to make a difference to someone’s world. Because just like every vote builds up to elect a president, a prime minister, a council member, a senator, a congressman, every little thing we do to help builds up to make a difference to the world. So…actually…technically…yeah. Go out trying to change the world. But look at each little thing you do to make that difference as its own special act of love.

“If you can’t feed a hundred people, then feed just one.”  ~Mother Teresa

(Well what are YOU doing?)

I’m participating in a clothing drive at my school that’s running all year. I plan on protesting outside an abortion clinic. I’d like to volunteer at a local school, if I can find a way to get there. When I go home on winter break, I’d like to do some work at the animal shelter. My best friend and I did it together freshman year of high school, before I moved, and I think she’d like to do it again this break. We always had fun.

So go find something to do. If you need an excuse, try for the holiday season. If you believe that 2012 nonsense, use that. Teach your kids the importance of helping others. Use it as a team building activity. Just DO it.

And remember, everyone. Babies are people. And just like anyone  else in this world, they deserve love. They deserve respect. They have a right to live.

Sunny

How far that little candle throws his beams!
So shines a good deed in a naughty world.
~William Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice

Psych Experiments, Sleep, My Roommate, and the Importance of November

Hello all!

I know, it’s been a while. Nothing exciting has really happened recently.

(My feis trip was fun, but there’s not much you can say about watching an irish dance competition. It was cool, there were a LOT of curly wigs and shiny dresses, and the musicians were either fiddlers or played the accordion. Also, I saw swans.)

My first order of business is to relay yet another (mis)adventure of mine that occurred this past Thursday.

I had a Psych experiment that was a mock-jury. So fifteen minutes before it occurred, my phone gave me a reminder alarm. Confidently, I walked all the way across campus. As I arrived, I was maybe two minutes late, but glad that I had gotten there. I opened up the door to the building and wandered about. I didn’t remember the room number, but the building was really small so I assumed that I could use common sense to find it. Wrong. After trying every door, I realized that I had probably made some sort of mistake. So I called my roommate, whom looked up on my computer where I was supposed to be. It was a building I was pretty certain I had never heard of. I attempted to call the building, but all I got was the answering machine of the department head. Unhelpful? Why yes. It was. Extremely.

Using my handy-dandy…campus map! I located the building. Only having a vague sort of idea where it was, I wandered towards it, knowing by this point that I would be late. I had to show up anyhow. It was run by grad students, who are people too. If nothing else, maybe I could start late. I wandered, trying to work out where I was going on the way. The clock tower bell rang. Half an hour late. I pressed on. It was hot. The humidity level was outrageously high. I was sweating all over my t-shirt and the blue jeans I had put on that morning, when the weather had been bearable. I arrived at the correct building, after consulting a random student whom I came upon. After walking back and forth a bit, I determined what floor the room was on. So I took the elevator and strode into the room, saying something along the lines of,

“Man, you guys have no idea what I just went through to get here. I went to the wrong building, and then got lost and…ugh.”

One of the grad students went into the hall and talked to me. I couldn’t participate, but since I did show up, I wouldn’t be marked off for it, like I would have if I had just given up. (Look kids! Perseverance!) So yay for me.

On sleep, I’ve been staying up later and later. And today I got to bed around 3 AM and then woke up this afternoon around 4. After staying up for a Harry Potter lock-in where we watched all 6 movies and I slept so badly, I might as well have not slept at all, and then the cruddy sleep I’ve been getting all week, I suppose my body was catching up. And I intend to head off by about midnight tonight. So woots and giggles for me.

(I realize that this is choppy, but there are a few things I’d like to say and they’re not really related.)

Now! On to my roommate! I know that we’re very different people, but I think we’ve finally hit our little space. We’re finally cool with each other, it seems. No, we’re not best buddies or anything. We don’t do things together. But I think I’m a pretty decent roommate. And apart from when she gets drunk and I feel uncomfortable about it, she doesn’t bother me either. So yet another yay! I’m learning to get along with someone who’s very different from me. Ain’t college grand?

And lastly, I want to talk about the big huge explosive fantastic thing I’m doing starting midnight tonight. It’s called NaNoWriMo. That stands for National Novel Writing Month.

Starting November 1 at 12:00 AM, the contest/worldwide movement starts. People all over band together and work on writing a novel by midnight on November 31st. A novel with 50,000 words. This is my first year doing NaNo, but I have friends doing it and this will be GREAT for me. I’ve already written about 48,600 words for my novel, but this month I set that aside and can use the outline that I’ve been developing to try to write out that novel. The words I’ve written already don’t count. In NaNo, the whole point is not to write a high-quality work. It’s to write A LOT. It’s to get everything out and write faster than your inner editor (mine’s dreadfully notorious) can tell you that your writing sucks. So in about an hour and forty-five minutes, I’m going to bed. But tomorrow….NaNo begins. If I want to keep up, that’s about 1600 words a day. So….wish me luck, everyone! It’s also a contest, but I’m doing this for me. Not for anyone else. 

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

Howard Thurman

 

Onwards and upwards, everyone!!!

Love,

Sunny

What Can I Do, What Can You Do, What Can Any of Us Do? September 22, 2010

Okay everybody. Now and again I talk about something serious/important to everyone, not just to me and my own little world. And this is one of those times.

So for school I had to read this book called No-Impact Man. It’s all about this guy, his wife, and his daughter, all living in New York City, who try to live without impacting the environment. At first I was a little hesitant about the whole thing. You see, Colin (the writer and No-Impact-Man) does something that other people just don’t do. He took making a difference and took it to the extreme. And a lot of people hated him for it.

Why?

Because Colin gave us a little touch of ‘loser’s guilt.’ I do not mean, of course, that you are actual losers, (well…not MOST of you.) but rather it’s that touch of envy/anger/offense that we get when we see someone doing something great that we’re sure we could never do. He made the difference, not us. He got the publicity, not us. He dared to change himself while we sat complacently watching South Park or Disney Channel, or (for those of you who have even LESS of a life than me) the Weather Channel. (Who watches the Weather Channel? And I mean for the weather. Not for Storm Stories and all that.)  He went all the way to the extreme, where only the delusional and the ridiculously idealistic go. And most of us, though good people, aren’t either of those things. And the thing is, we want to be.

We all go through life believing in something or looking for something to believe in. We want so desperately to be driven and to have a goal and a purpose. We want to fall mad-crazy in love with something, and to be excited about it. We all want to change the world, in our own small way, and say ‘Hey World, I was here and I made a difference.’ And we all want to believe it. We all want to believe that we can do it; we can make a difference, we can believe, we can dream big and make it happen. But there’s one huge thing holding us back: ourselves.

I’ve always personally hated the phrase, “The only thing in your way is you.” I always could (and still can) say a thousand things in the way. But I think is there’s something more to it than that. There was this movie called ‘Akeela and the Bee’ that I saw once and it had a quote in it that I still remember. (The gist of it, not the whole thing.)

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us most. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and famous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in all of us. And when we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” –Maryanne Williamson (used in a speech by Nelson Mandela)

We are a people filled with fear. We are afraid to throw out our chests in pride of who we are and what we are doing for fear that someone with an arrow will shoot us down in our hour of triumph. We are afraid to succeed because we are afraid to fail. We are afraid to make others feel bad. We are afraid that if we rock the boat, we will be thrown out and taught to swim. We are afraid we don’t need the boat.

You don’t need the boat. I don’t need the boat. And we can both swim. So what are we waiting for?

I don’t necessarily mean the environment. Ghandi said, (in a much-overused quote) “Be the change you want to see in the world.” But here’s a quote I think is better for us.

“Be the change you want to see in yourself.”

(What??? That makes no SENSE!!!)

You can try to change, you can do the outside change, but on the inside, you can still want to go back to before. To when you were complacent. So don’t change your ACTIONS. Change YOURSELF.

To change the world we must first change ourselves. It doesn’t have to be a large event, visible to everyone. It can be a decision to think more about others. It can be to volunteer at a charity, go to church more. You can resolve to give away things you don’t need, or teach someone a skill. Be a friend. Be a good parent. Embrace your inner child. Don’t restrict yourself. Turn your face to the sun and smile because you are a unique and beautiful person and you have been given so much power, so much potential, so much ability to love and hope and dream for a better tomorrow, a better today, a better you and me, a better everyone.

So what are you going to do about it?

Sunny

Below I posted a few links of people (or organizations) trying to change either themselves or the world, even if it is a little at a time.

http://noimpactman.typepad.com/ No Impact Man

http://therosarytrail.com/ Margo and her journey with the Rosary

http://www.soldiersangels.org/ Adopt A Soldier

http://www.all.org/ Right to life from birth to natural death

http://www.childadvocates.org/ Help for abused children

http://www.worldvision.org/home.nsf/pages/home.htm?open&lpos=top_img_logo#/home/main/help-change-a-childs-life-today-1-1119  Help for impoverished children

http://freerice.com/ play games and get rice that really goes to families in need, instead of points

http://www.doe.org/about/?aboutID=11 Breaking the cycles of poverty, addiction, criminal lifestyle

http://www.aspca.org/

I bet a lot of you are wondering what I’m going to do to help. What I’m going to do to make a difference. I don’t know yet. But I like to think that by sharing with all of you, I’m getting it started.

A Whole Lot of Bad News and the Benefits of Auditory Hallucinations September 21, 2010

Okay, first thing’s first:

Yesterday was not a good day, all in all. It was actually a pretty bad day. To start off, it was a Monday, which usually starts out poorly, but after Math I usually take a 2-3 hour nap before Psychology so I am a functioning human being for that day. I was slow in getting up so I had Dunkin Donuts for breakfast (Oh Sunny, how you suffered.)(Stop being fresh, the breakfast was good. it just gave me a stomachache later.) Math was…I could say dull, but that would be a bit of an understatement. Then I took my beloved nap, (which was cut an hour short for reasons coming up…) and had lunch. Lunch was actually a high point of my day. I didn’t feel like eating much so I had a mediocre bowl of cereal and some watermelon, as well as a glass of iced sweet tea with just the right amount (for anyone else, too much) lemon. I played this game that they were having in the dining hall to promote being informed about sustainability. I won a bag, coming in second place. (No this isn’t the bad part. Wait for it, impatient!) Psych was more about the brain and what parts of it did what, but Psychology is always a class I enjoy. (Okay NOW the bad day part starts. Happy? You are? You’re happy that I had a bad day? Dude, go away. Scram. You’re a jerk.)

So I then participated in a Psychological experiment. (Grad students need subjects and you have to participate in some experiments to get class credit.) In short, I sat in a dark room and clicked on a computer. I’m not supposed to talk about it…but it was a long boring hour that left me with a nice headache. I went back to the dorm, intending to do homework, but my head was aching and I had a strange iced tea craving. So I did some reading and listened to music.  At about 5:05 I realized that the Study Abroad meeting I was planning on attending had started five minutes before. So I hopped on my bike and headed over to the meeting. I was late.

It wasn’t all that bad, everyone was hyping up and promoting how great it was to study abroad. Around the end of the meeting, (which was a tad confusing, I confess) I was hit with a bombshell no one had thought to mention at the promotional booth or the meeting. (I later found out it was on the flyer, not in a prominent place.) Freshman can’t study abroad. Yeah. I did serious thinking about the trip, thought about asking friends from other colleges to come (it’s a multiple-college program) and had pretty much decided I was going only to have the dreams crushed. Thanks so much people. And to whoever it is that keeps telling Freshman to go to the Study Abroad meetings…I also feel free to give you an accusing glare. Please enjoy the burn of said glare. *Burn*

Okay after the SA (Study Abroad) letdown, I called/texted a couple people because I was feeling down and looking for someone to eat dinner with me. My friend CJ made my evening my calling me back after she had finished ‘killing a giant polar bear.’ Gamers. You have to love them. So we had dinner and discussed music, video games, and conspiracies about what was going to take over the world. By the end of it, I had convinced myself to go to the library and study. This is something I had not previously done; I usually studied in my room, but it was distracting and I didn’t get much done. So I collected all the Art History homework and stuff for the next day and headed to the library. To give myself incentive, I was trying to figure out a reward system to get me to go to the library more often. This time, I was going to check my mail. And I worked out a reward for when I was done studying–check out a DVD. So I sat down with all the Art History homework and really put the pedal to the metal. I took all the online quizzes, I skimmed the chapters, I wrote all the vocabulary. (I had an 24-hour window in which the first section Exam was posted online and I really needed ot get this done.) During a study break, I checked my email and was presented with this little gem. (I’ve copied it from my email except for names.)

“Thank you for auditioning for women’s a cappella at SUNNY’S COLLEGE.  Unfortunately, at this time we are unable to offer you a spot in the group.  We had a large number of girls audition, and limited spaces.  We would like to thank you for your time, and hope to see you at auditions in the future.  If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us. 

Sincerely,
XXXXXXXXXXX, XXXXXXXXXXXX, XXXXXXXXXXX”

So that was a pretty big letdown. I mean, I wasn’t pinning my hopes and dreams on it or anything, but other than the whole can’t-read-music thing, they seemed to like me and said I had a really pretty voice. The email was a big bummer and I went on with my studying, after getting a cup of tea and some chips from the coffeeshop in the library. (Yeah. We have a coffeeshop in the library.)

Once I was finished with that AND the math homework due then, I gave myself a big pat on tht back and was considering taking the exam. So I opened up the class page and clicked on the exam link. I had all the material fresh in my mind. I could at least see how many questions it had and what the time allotted for everything was. So I opened it…and about had a heart attack. The exam wasn’t available. It had expired at 8PM that night. I couldn’t take it. I was 2 1/2 hours too late. So I checked the email the professor had sent out.

Unlike what I was 100% sure he’d said in class about the 24-hour time window in which we could take the 1hr 15 minute test, the email proclaimed that the test was available from 8AM to 8 PM. I was so in trouble. And as I was in panic-mode, one of those things that happens all the time in movies happened to me.

I heard (in my head, not out loud) I heard what may have been the most useful advice my mom ever gave me (other than ‘pray’). “What matters isn’t whether or not you make mistakes. What matters is how you handle it.”

How was I going to handle this? I was going to look up some information. TO THE SYLLABUS!!!!

I read through the syllabus. No exam re-takes except in very extreme circumstances. And I was betting that not reading the reminder email through because I had gotten the information in class was NOT an extreme circumstance. It was a blindingly obvious mistake, but there was nothing ‘extreme’ about it. And then I got to the real kicker.

“Nota bene: All Exams and Quizzes must be taken in order to receive a passing grade for this class. Makeup exams and quizzes will generally not be allowed.”

However nicely it was worded this all meant one thing to me: YOU MISSED THE EXAM AND HAVE AUTOMATICALLY FAILED THE CLASS.

Which was about when I started freaking out. (Internally. I was sitting in the library, so no jumping about in panic or punching walls in much anger at my own stupid mistake.)  And then came the next auditory hallucination.

“Professors are people too.”  Don’t remeber who told me that one, but I went with it. I was going to appeal my case to the professor. In a polite email (which I spell and grammar checked as well as read it over and edited it several times) I explained my mistake, asked whether this meant I had failed/dropped, explained I didn’t expect him to make exceptions for me, but asked if I could be allowed to remain in class and attempt to pass anyway with a low grade, rather than dropping because I would rather pass with a D than drop because of my own mistake. I asked for a second chance. And as my finger hovered over the ‘send’ key, came the final piece of advice, again something my mom had told me again and again.

“The worst they can say is no.”

So I sent it.

I cleaned up my workspace, put away all my books, and went over to get the DVD I promised myself. I went to the comedy section. After a crappy day, I needed something if not to laugh at then to watch amusing things. When you’re upset , a weepy movie is only going to depress you. So I picked out Sister Act, a movie I knew and liked, checked it out, and went back to my dorm. I was pretty sure one of my friends from high school would still be up so I sent him a text message.

“Screwed up big-time (school-wise) and I need someone to talk to. If you’re up, text me back, if not, call in the morning. And I’m not in the hospital or pregnant, so don’t freak out.”

“How was the library?” J asked.

“Bad. I found out I missed an exam I was supposed to take today.” I headed towards my room, then paused. “Oh yeah, and I didn’t make the a cappella group.”

After setting all my stuff down, I went down the hall to talk to some of my friends. One was still up and I explained the situation. She sympathised and agreed to watch Sister Act with me. I brought a blanket to wrap myself in, the last of my mom’s chocolate chip cookie bars, a bottle of water, and the DVD. Settling into the chair, I watched and munched on my cookie, then had a cherry tootsie pop. It didn’t exactly cheer me up, but it got my mind off how my parents were going to possibly murder me in cold blood. And my own guilt.

Afterwards, I went back to my room, finished the homework I needed to do for the next day, and went to bed.

After class the next morning, heart in my throat, I checked my email. There was one from my art history professor. Oh dear. I closed my eyes and opened it. After waiting a bit, I peeked.

In short, he said that it was the first exam and he understood mistakes. He had opened the exam for me.

Quoting Ralphie from ‘A Christmas Story’: “I slowly began to realize that I was not about to be destroyed.”

So I grabbed my notes and my book (kiddies, an online test is an open-book test unless you are told otherwise. As my teacher said sarcastically to the class, “Yes, I am going to check in on all of you to make sure that no one uses their notes.” It’s kind of like plausible deniability, but more obvious. The teacher knows we’re going to to use our notes and as long as he doesn’t reference the honor code and is actually serious about not using notes, it’s a free pass to an open-book exam.) and I took the exam. Most of the information was fresh in my mind from the studying the evening prior and I checked the book or my notes for things I wasn’t sure about. And so, yours truly got to stay in class and not be killed by her caring and affectionate parents.

So there you go. Lesson learned: read emails, plan ahead, and listen to the voices in your head. It works for me!

Sunny

PS: Haven’t had much time to work on the novel with all the drama and work, but soon my pretties…soon…