[Annotated.]
January 18, 2012 - May 6, 2012.
Here lies [Annotated.], an amusing Lang assignment that will no longer hear the tapping of keystrokes. May it rest in peace and bury all the sentiments with it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Seeing as this will probably be my last post, here are the blog ideas that never had the time to mature. Don't count them out yet though - I may cultivate one of them if AP Lit (woot!) demands it.
[Life:
A Comedy]
Back in Spring Break (when I
could easily blot out the existence of school), I paid an old visit to The
Office. I had left the show sophomore year when I had heard that Steve
Carell was leaving, consequently taking all the quirky charm of The
Office with him. It seemed like I wasn't the only one to think so.
Over time, barely anyone mentioned The Office anymore, and the
only trickle I'd hear of it was how the show was then nervously shuffling
through characters to try to fill in Steve's niche and hold on to its
evaporating viewership ratings. Overall, an episode didn't really sound very
promising. But, stuck in the doldrums of a vacation, I said what all bored
teenagers inevitably say with too much time in their hands: "Meh - why
not."
Loading Hulu up, I sat in front of
my computer, yawning as I waited to watch 30 minutes of my life burn
humorlessly and meaninglessly in front of me.
-
You know, a lot of people are
afraid to think that they're life might be a comedy. They're afraid that to be
a comedy means that they're the butt of the joke, that all the work that
defines their life is nothing but the focus of humiliation.
-
They're afraid to be laughed at.
-
To me, that's the wrong way of
thinking about it. Sure, a comedy is filled with jokes. And yes, it's filled
with dunderhead moves and the unlucky characters that make them. But that's not
all there is to a comedy. A comedy is about
-
A comedy is, simply, a happy
ending.
-
I want to be able to laugh at my
own missteps
-
No, I'll be laughing with everybody
because I'll be laughing at myself too.
-
Mistakes, gaffes, and blunders -
try as we might to avoid these embarrassing bumps - they're really just
another brick that paves the road of our life. If we didn't have these
imperfections to trip up on and fall flat on our faces, then what would we have
to share with others?
-
Are we simply strolling on this
road, with nothing to look forward to but the end? Or are we actually making a
journey on it, inadvertently pausing where we stumble to meet
somebody new and seek that finish line together?
[Biology:
A Study of Life]
No, I
don't want to play myself the victim here. I know that I lost pride, and nobody
deserves sympathy for that. However I do want to acknowledge something else
that I lost: the optimism of learning. While I understand that competition is
inevitable to accomplish progress, I shouldn't have let it defile what was my
passion for almost all of my childhood.
-
In the meantime, I've turned to
writing. There's no competition up there in my brain, so I can read my thoughts
between the couch cushions on hot afternoons and not fret about if I'm
absorbing the right stuff and enough of it. For now, I guess, I am mining
myself, turning over thoughts to discover something enlightening about myself.
There's no fanfare in here like there is out there for discoveries.
-
I still love to learn about animals
and plants and the world and whatnot; when it comes down to it, I can't say
that I hate science in the same way I can't say I hate my parents.
-
I may not be science's favorite,
but it was mine.
[Sampaguita]
we were all dressed in white. we
ran around the hallways of the church, like fallen sampaguitas blown softly
across the floor by a summer breeze. we were left alone to wear our laughter
and the oldness of the church.
-
and i remember the sun. no - a
tree, its giant trunk gnarled and wrung like a heavy rope. there are stars
peeking among the leaves. it's thick branches paint the sky green. i don't see
the sun. just a harsh white sky that's too bright and the soft black comfort of
that canopy. and the church.
-
the walls were made of a gray
bricks brushed with wet moss - they felt like the inside of a cave, coarse and
moist, a deep oldness ringing from them as soon as you lay your hand on them.
-
we'd look back and see our parents
laughing good naturedly under the tree as they fan themselves. they do not look
back at us but we feel their hands on our shoulders. we feel safe.
-
i don't remember much. just the
whiteness of her dress, the deep cracks of the church, and my mother's heart
against my ear, beating in song with the ringing church bells up somewhere...
[Linked]
Abuelito tossed him a scrap of
recognition before turning back to me. "Mi vida, your older brother does
not understand value. That is why I am giving this to you."
-
And the onyx shone black and proud
in the middle like a frozen pool of ink deep with unspoken words.
-
i glanced furtively around before
grinning at my brother. he looked at me with lifeless eyes. "here." i
drew his hand and pressed one of abuelito's cufflinks in it. "it's your
birthday too, and i haven't given you a present yet." he let out a smile.
-
years later, when my brother was on
trial, ...my family did not want to see him... outraged, i threw the cufflink
far out the balcony, hoping that it would tear through the grayness of the
city's horizon.
-
at the start of his trial, i saw he
still wore his.
"Alejandro," I asked him,
"Why do you still wear the old man's cufflink? He's not even here to; no
one is. Why don't you get rid of it?"
He laughed a dead man's laugh
before looking straight back at me. There was fire in his eyes. "Because
it was not his when you gave it to me. it was yours."
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