The Minor Groove

A Day At the Circus

2009-11-12T20:45:00.000-08:00

I always joke that I miss school because, for most of my life, all I've known was school. After all, I started school at about two years, nine months old. I went to one of those Pre-School, Nursery School, and Kindergarten type places. They were supposed to teach me how to read and write and stuff in order to get me ready to go to an actual Kindergarten in an actual school (a Catholic School...the place I went to was private but not in a Catholic School).

Of course, I spent most of my time there driving the teachers crazy. Not because I was a bad kid or anything like that. I was far too afraid of my mother to be bad in school even then. I never wanted the teachers to tell her that I was acting out or not behaving well in school...even if it wasn't actual school. Nope, I drove the teachers crazy in my own little way. See, my mom made sure I knew how to read and write and count BEFORE I started Nursery School. While all the other kids were working on their letters and on how to write their names, I already knew how to read.

I was never sure how the teachers dealt with me having in their class, to tell the truth. I remember having to do the same work as everyone else but I also remember being bored a lot of the time. Up until like high school, I was bored a lot of the time in school but that's a whole other story.

Anyway...one of my earliest memories is from my Pre-School Days. I might have been maybe three or four but, for some strange reason, I remember this quite clearly. I guess because I thought I had a very important job to do and, because my mom had taken the day off from work (and my mom NEVER took days off from her job), I had to do my very best at my very important job.

See, every year, the Pre-School part of the school I went to put on a circus in the little playground attached to the school. We had a strong man (a boy in a muscle suit who picked up foam barbells and weights), clowns in colorful costumes, a tightrope walker (a girl who walked across a jump rope on the ground), acrobats who climbed on the jungle gym, a girl dressed as an elephant, and a lion tamer who had a whip, a hula hoop, and three "wild animals---" two lions and a tiger ---to train among other various and sundry circus acts.

I was the lion tamer the year I was in Pre-School. I thought myself very important because the lion tamer was a speaking part. Usually, there was no speaking involved in the little circus we had. There was just a lot of pretending and play acting while the teachers did all the speaking as ringmasters. The lion tamer, though, had to give orders to the animals so they could be...er...tamed. I remember I had to give commands like "stand," "sit," "speak," and, my favorite for some strange reason, "show your teeth!" I also had to make the lions and tiger jump through the hula hoop as part of the act but that part wasn't as fun for me since I was just holding the hoop.

I remember the Pre-School had a case of costumes and they gave us costumes to wear. I had a black, little frilly outfit with sequins on it and a top had with a sequined brim. I remember my Pre-School teacher, as well as my mom and the moms of some of my friends, laughing because my costume was entirely too big for me because I was a teeny, tiny little girl. They had to pin the costume up in several places so it wouldn't fall off but there was no helping the hat I had to wear. It just kept slipping down my forehead to rest on the bridge of my nose. I remember picking it up off my nose a few times but it just wouldn't stay where it was supposed to. Talk about a costume malfunction!

I still did my "very important" job and kept going, despite the fact half the time I couldn't see what was going on. I actually have pictures of myself in my "lion tamer" get-up but I have no idea where my mom put them. She won't let me make copies of my kiddie pictures to use in my scrapbooks for some reason.

It was just after I graduated kindergarten (only to repeat kindergarten in a Catholic School...the school tested me and was more than willing to put me in first grade but my mom insisted I repeat kindergarten...something about my social development...all I know was that I got to go to school with this kid who'd been my best friend in Pre-School) that I started dancing ballet. Maybe I got bitten by the whole wearing a costume bug when I was a little lion tamer in Pre-School. I don't really know...though I do still like to wear costumes and they're almost always too big on me. I guess some things never change.

Feeling Peevish...

2009-11-09T22:16:00.000-08:00

I'm not known for my temper. I rarely get angry or, at least, angry enough to show it. I'm one of those people who internalizes their anger until it makes them sick. I don't like getting mad or being mad at people. It makes me feel incredibly guilty when I get mad at someone. So much so, that I actually have to apologize to the person, even if I've done nothing wrong to them.

I'm one of those people who chronically apologizes to other people. I may not have done anything wrong but I still apologize, figuring that a good apology will fix anything. Apparently it doesn't and it only annoys people when I apologize for seemingly no reason at all. I've tried explaining that I can't help myself but that doesn't seem to work either.

Anywho...despite the fact I don't really get angry, I do have pet peeves. I guess everyone does, really. Here are some of my biggest pet peeves, in no particular order. Let's just say that they all annoy me equally.

(1.) Lazy People- I CANNOT abide lazy people. I just absolutely cannot! If I'm going to work my rear end off to get something done, you'd better pull your weight and work your rear end off too.

(2.) People Who Shirk Their Responsibilities- This probably ties into the lazy people thing. I strongly dislike when people have responsibilities but feel the incredible need just to dump them on someone else or just not do something because they don't feel it's worth the time or the effort. It's especially annoying when it's adults shirking their responsibilities and they wind up getting shouldered by everyone else because they've thrown a hissy fit and don't want to do something. C'mon, seriously, act your age! Not your shoe size!

(3.) People Who Make Snap Judgements About Others- I've had this one happen to me quiet a bit so that's probably why it's one of my pet peeves. I don't like when people look at someone and decided that the person they're looking at is one stereotype or another. Everyone is an individual and not everyone fits into neat little categories. People are multifaceted; not one dimensional. Get to know a person before you decided if you like them or not. Just don't base it on how they look or act or appear. Like the saying goes "Looks can be deceiving."

(4.) When Things Aren't Neat- My sister always jokes that I have a very extreme case of OCD. Things have to be neat and ordered in order for me to be happy. I'm the type of person who has books in alphabetical, series, or numerical in the case of my manga order. I don't like clutter in corners of rooms or piles of clothing left on chairs or shoes left lying in the middle of the room (in my own defense, when it comes to the shoes, I invariably trip over them when they're left in the middle of the room). Problem is, I share a room with my sister who doesn't really abide by keeping things neat. Nope...she loves her messes and that drives me crazy!

(5.) Rudeness- I live in New York City and we're not exactly known for being the politest of people on the planet. I mean, being rude is sort of one of the traits of my fair city. Still, I make it a point to say "please" and "thank you" and "excuse me." I know other people don't do it but I try to be polite towards others. After all, people here in New York can be impolite and crass but then they go all ghetto on you if you don't act politely towards them. I don't exactly understand why that happens but it does. I guess some people demand respect without giving any respect back.

(6.) Being Shouted Out- This may be a strictly "me" thing or strictly a dancer thing. I'm not entirely sure. Anyway, whenever I dance with the group I dance with, people tend to "shout out" dancers (basically, they call out their names loud enough so the entire theater can hear it) while they're dancing. My mom always warns the people that come to watch me dance not to shout me out because it embarasses me to no bitter end. I mean, cool clap for me when I finish dancing--- especially my solo. Fishsticks! DO NOT shout me out while I'm doing my solo! ---but don't shout my name out so the whole theater can hear that I'm on stage. The only exception to this is at the end of the show. I don't know how she does it, really I don't, but my sister always manages to shout "SPANKY! I KNOW HER!" (My nickname being "Spanky") just as the studio owner is about to start talking again after giving me my perfect attendence award. It's the end of the night and I guess I'm just too darn tired by then to care.

(7.) Wigs and Hairpieces- This is another dancer one I suppose. I've been forced into wigs twice (short, red bob style wigs) and hairpieces (basically fake ponytails) more times than I'd like to count. The wigs, well, they cause this very...unsightly...problem. See, I have a waist length ponytail and, when you put it up in a bun, it makes for a really HUGE bun. When you put a wig on top of that, no matter how hard you try to make the bun flat, it still looks like I have a horrid growth coming out of the top of my head. Then there are hairpieces. They just make me wonder about the logic the people I dance with use. I already have a long ponytail so why in the world do I have to go out and BUY a fake long ponytail!

(8.) Being Sticky- This is probably one of my strangest pet peeves. I hate being sticky but not glue sticky. Fishsticks only knows, when I scrapbook I usually wind up with glue all over my finger tips, no matter how neat I try to be. It's more the kind of sticky that comes from touching things like syrup and honey (the two biggest offenders when it comes to this pet peeve). I can't tell you why being sticky urks me so much because I don't really know. It just sort of does for some strange reason. This is probably one of the biggest pet peeves that gets me laughed at when I'm at home.

(9.) Crowds- Not exactly sure if this counts as a pet peeve or just something I don't like. I have very little love for being in crowded places, malls, trains, tourist attractions. If there's a crowd involved, there a very good chance I'm someplace in it trying not to freak myself out. Crowds are the only things I can definitively say trigger my panic attacks. More than once, I've asked to leave stores because there are just too many people in the store and it was making me freak out. Usually my mother's good about it but sometimes she's not and I get told to "suck it up." Easier said than done!

(10.) Wearing Shoes in the House- Not so much for other people but for myself. The first thing I do when I get into the house is remove my shoes (and then put them away LOL). I feel like I trip over my own feet less when I'm not wearing shoess. It doesn't really make any sense but that's what I feel. Mind you, I still manage to trip over my own feet in my socks...and go sliding across floors...when I'm in my socks. Maybe it's just a mind over matter thing.

When in Time...

2009-11-04T18:09:00.000-08:00

I've probably written this before but I play this game called "Fiesta." It's one of those MMORPGs (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games) like "World of Warcraft" except "Fiesta" is free. I mean they have a cash shop but you don't necessarily need to use the cash shop to play...unless you're into enhancing your items (which I'm not because I always break my items while enhancing them) or fighting PvP (player vs player) which I don't do.

My main character in the game is a, now, level 87 Tank Build, Sword Fighter (her official title is "Battle Warrior" in the game) named Maitreya. Why'd I pick a Fighter Class character instead of the more female acceptable Cleric class character? (Though, I do have a Cleric...she's level 30 and named JadeBlueAfterGlo.)

The answer to that question is very simple. I'm ABSOLUTELY fascinated by swords and sword fighting. I think swords are very elegant weapons and sword fighting is more a dance than an actual battle. You need some skill to use a sword instead of using a gun. To steal a quote from Obi-Wan Kenobi (from Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope when talking about lightsabers as opposed to blasters) swords seem, to me anyway, "...an elegant weapon for a more civilized age."

That said, if I could live in any age, past or future, I'd love to live during the Italian Renaissance. All things considered equal, life wasn't perfect during that age. People still died young of diseases we can easily cure now. The rich still ruled over the poor. Most, if not all, governments were monarchies as opposed to democracies. Women had absolutely no rights to speak of and basically lived to either be used for political marriages or to have babies.

Still, it was a time when the arts and sciences flourished. People stole cadavers--- alright, not exactly the most honorable thing to do but it was in the name of science ---in order to study the inner workings of the human body. Everything we knew about science changed during that age, as the inner body was explored for the first time. Art became more realistic thanks to science and encompassed not only the traditional forms of art but invention as well.

Look at someone like Leonardo (insert Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles joke here) DaVinici who was not only an artist but a scientist, and inventor as well. Whether or not he hid messages in his works aside, the man was brilliant. Then again, he was as brilliant as any and every one of his peers during that time period.

I wouldn't mind being a Renaissance Man (Renaissance Woman? Renaissance Person?) during the Italian Renaissance. I mean, I would get to wear one of those a-fishsticking-mazing dresses like they do at Renaissance fairs and I'd get to play with cadavers and paint and do all sorts of amazing things because that's what a Renaissance person did. Since women weren't exactly allowed to be Reniassance people--- They were expected to be pretty, patronize the arts, and have babies ---I'd have to do it in secret but that's alright.

Why?

Because I'd also want to be a knight during this time period and women weren't knights either. Knights, after all, got to carry swords and joust and, generally, just have a grand old time. They weren't expected to sit and be there just for show like a woman was during this time period. They could be brave and fight for what they believed in. Not to keen on the armor but, hey, I'd need somehing to hide the fact I'm a female and armor really can't be any worse than the corsets the women wore during the Italian Reniassance. Take it from someone who's actually worn a corset (as part of two different ballet costumes)...those suckers HURT! I actually got bruises from wearing them in my ballet costumes thanks to the ribs in them.

I think the Italian Reniassiance, at it's peak, was a time of art and beauty and wonder where knights were still brave and people sill cared about what was written or what kind of music was being created. I'd love to wear my fancy dress during the day but go around as a brave, sword weilding knight (NOT in the outfit my "Fiesta" character wears...honestly, the male fighters get better armor LOL) robbing from the rich and giving to the poor or something equally awesome.

Before It's Too Late

2009-10-18T17:33:00.000-07:00

I never saw the movie The Bucket List but I have a general idea about what the movie was about. It's about these two guys who are dying (of cancer I think) and they both have these lists of things they want to accomplish before they die. I guess that movie, or maybe the idea behind the movie or something, prompted people to start thinking about what they'd want to do before they died. I guess, maybe, I have a list like that too...just never wrote it down since I'm hoping I won't have to deal with the whole "kicking the bucket" thing for a long while so I can check off a good chunk of my list before that time comes.

Anyway, here are ten of the many things that are on my bucket list right now:

(1.) Get a job: I don't like not working, even though I know it's not my fault I can't get a job (it's the state's fault). I want to get a job because, well, working seems like fun. I know everyone says it's not but I think it could be...especially if it's in the field I want to work in. I mean, work isn't work when you think it's fun, right? Work only becomes work when you don't like doing it or so I've heard. I think that I'd actually enjoy working if it's in the field I want to work in. I mean, I was the crazy person in school who thought lab days were the best days of the week. Getting to play in a lab would be a joy!

(2.) Make Some Kind of Contribution: This sounds silly but I feel like I was put here to do something. I don't know why I think this. I just do. I know I'm supposed to do something while I'm here. It doesn't even have a to be a big thing. I'm not looking to make some earth shattering discovery or change the world in some drastic way. I mean, that would be nice but that's not necessarily what I'm here to do and I know that. I just know that I'm supposed to make some kind of contribution through the job I get. Maybe be part of a team that helps discover an antibody that helps in the treatment of some disorder or a faulty protein--- ergo a faulty gene ---that causes a certain disorder. I don't even have to be the lead person on the team...I just have to be part of the team. I know I'm here to do something like that...to make the world a better place, even if it's in the smallest way possible.

(3.) Have a Family of My Own: Yes, the scientist wants to get married and have kids. I like kids and I'm one of those people who won't do anything with another person until I'm married. But, yea, someday I'd like a family of my own. Not because I'm female and it's the thing all females are supposed to do. More like I think I'd just like to have more of a family than I do now.

(4.) Get Something I've Written Published: This is probably the most far fetched of all the ideas I have considering I don't really like showing people things I write and I don't think I'm all tat great of a write to begin with. I know I'm no JK Rowling or JRR Tolkien. I know I'm not Robin Cook or Timothy Zahn or Michael Crichton. I'm not even as good as Neil Gaimen or any other really famous author. I write these strange little stories that are usually science fiction or fantasy or that just seem to crawl out of the depths of my brain when I get really bored. I only write for fun and because it was what I did to pass the time between classes in college. Some people can draw really well, I figure that I draw pictures with words. Maybe they're not the greatest pictures but they're still pictures from my head. Someday I'd love to be able to share those pictures with the rest of the world but I'm not sure that'll ever feasibly happen, all things considered.

(5.) Go to Italy: My mom's side of the family is from Italy and I was, basically, raised by my mom and grandmother (my dad worked nights so he wasn't around during the night when I was home from school) so Iconsider myself more Italian than anything else. I know how to speak, read, and write the language, thanks to taking Italian for three years in high school. Arguably, my reading and writing are alot stronger than my speaking but that's not here nor there at the moment. I'd love to go to Italy for the culture and the sights and to test my grasp of the language. Not so much the food because I'm almost sure the Italian food I was raised on isn't the same as the actual stuff they eat in Italy. Well, the pastries may be an exception. My grandmother has this thing about finiding "authentic" Italian bakeries.

(6.) Go to Ireland: My dad's side of the family is from Ireland (Wexford I think) and I'd love to go there. Apperantly, there's a town that still bears my family's last name which is kinda neat. There's also a pub too but my sister wants to go there. She's all about going to Ireland and doing a pub crawl. I'm not much for drinking but I'd love to actually go into an Irish pub just to check the place off and take some pictures LOL! Ireland has lots of interesting mythology--- I love their faerie stories ---and lots of the stories feature places that actually exist. Maybe I could actually see a real faerie while I'm there! That and I could really use some of the magic of the Blarney Stone since I so don't have the gift of the gab. You want that...you should talk to my sister. She's more the Irish one than I am.

(7.) Go to Japan: Ok, show of hands, who didn't think something related to Japan was going to come up on this list? I'm an Otaku (a "fangirl" but I'm not like a crazy fangirl...I saw a few of them, though....went to New York Anime Fest a few weeks ago) and where else would an Otaku want to go but the home of anime and manga. Ok...it's not just the anime and manga (and the prospect of an entire area of a city where people cosplay--- costume play --- 24/7) that makes me want to go to land of the rising sun. There's so much interesting culture there. I mean, it was the land of the samurai! That's totally wicked cool!

(8.) Visit all of the Baseball Stadiums in the American and National League: I'm not even that big of a baseball fan but I still want to hit every American and National League ballpark here in the United States and the one stadium in Canada (Toronto). Catch is, I don't want to do it by flying from city to city. Nope...I want to do it road trip style. Like pack a rented RV and drive across country and up into Canada to get to every baseball stadium. The trip would be planned, of course, with a course for how and when we'd hit each stadium but I think it would be more fun to drive than to fly. It would probably be cheaper too. I also would love to follow the NY Mets schedule but they don't play all the American League teams each season. They only play one division and, of course, the Yankees but the Yankees don't count on this trip. I've already been to that sinkhole in the Bronx more than once. Well, the old Yankee Stadium anyway. I GUESS I'd have to go to their new stadium...even though Yankee fans are HORRID!

(9.) Get Rid of the Panic Attacks: Ok, this one is more of a short term goal but it's on the list anyway. I just want to be able to spend a single month straight without having one or two days without feeling the incredible need to jump out of my own skin. It's really annoying wondering when those days are going to show up and where it's going to happen. I don't mind if it happens at home since I'm home and it's not so embarassing. It's worse when it happens out in public. I know it's not true but I feel like everyone knows I'm freaking out.

(10.) Figure out the Meaning of Life: Other than the number 42 of course!

The Top Six Unforgettables

2009-10-14T20:38:00.000-07:00

Alright...I'm twenty-six years old. In the span of things, I haven't lived a very long time. Considering the way I've been raised, I don't even think I'm qualified to make this kind of list. I don't have enough life experiences to say, for certain, that something in my life is going to become an unforgettable moment. What's unforgettable today, may pale in comparison to something that happens tomorrow after all. I have yet to have one of those big, life altering events really.

Anyway, and in no particular order, here are the top six (since I can't get to ten) unforgettable moments in my life (so far anyway):

(1) Graduating from College: Isn't that supposed to be a big deal, the whole graduating from college thing? I mean, that's what everyone said when I was graduating from college. Actually, I was kinda glad I was graduating. By the time I was a senior in college, I was so thoroughly annoyed with my classmates (there were eight of us in the science department at the college I went to...seven girls and one boy) that I would have given my left arm to get out of there. Everyone was all about the med school thing and they looked down on the fact I was doing the grad school thing.

(2.) Getting my Masters: This one isn't so much about ACTUALLY getting the piece of paper that said I got my Masters Degree. Nope...this is more about what happened for me to get my Masters Degree. See, in the school I went to, all graduate students had to pass this exam called the MCD (I still, to this day, have no idea what those initials stand for). The MCD was, basically, pure torture for anyone taking it. The school gave you 20-30 scientific journal articles--- My year lucked out. We only got 21. The year before us got 30. ---and you, basically, had to know them inside out, upside down, back to front. You had to be familiar with every procedure used in the article and why that procedure was used and what kinds of results it yielded. I studied from the end of March to June, when we took the exam, for this test. Passing for all Masters students was 65. When I finally got my grade from my advisor, I found out I'd scored something like an 85 and that I'd done better than almost all the PhD students! That sort of trumped me getting my Masters. Not only did I pass that exam--- which was six hours spread over two sessions on one day. It was so bad a few people had to get up and puke during the test ---but I totally OWNED that test!

(3.) Making the Twenty Year Mark at the Dance Studio: I've been dancing ballet for twenty-two years but making twenty years at the studio is a big deal. Most people kind of give up at around the seven or eight year mark. You make it to ten years of you're lucky. Me? I stuck around for twenty (well, twenty-two now) despite the fact the people at the studio drove me crazy for most of those twenty years. The year I got my twentieth year award, my mom had t-shirts made that said "Ashley's Twentieth Year" and everyone I knew wore them. One girl who was in my Daisy troop had a shirt too. She insisted that she get one even though my mom had only adult sizes because she knew me. The studio owner had to comment on what my mom had done before she gave me my award because a good part of the audience was wearing these white t-shirts my mom had made for the occasion. It was slightly embarrassing but it was still funny.

(4.) My Sort-of Bestie Moving Away: I have a grand total of one friend. We use to dance together and, when she quit the studio, we were Girl Scout leaders. We only saw each other on Fridays at Girl Scouts but we talked a lot online and stuff. She was sort of the big sister I didn't know I had...or ever wanted. Then she got married and moved to Florida. We don't talk as much now anymore and she doesn't come up to New York to visit all that often. We still text and e-mail from time to time but that's about it.

(5.) Discovering that the Grad School I went to Messed me Over: I graduated Grad School, thinking that it would be cake for me to get a job. Even though the economy isn't all that great research science isn't exactly a field everyone wants into. You have to have specialized training and degrees and all that good stuff. Still, I wasn't getting any jobs. When I finally got an interview, the very nice man told me that I was an excellent candidate for any job but, because I didn't have my New York State Clinical Lab Tech License, no one was going to be able to hire me. The state wouldn't allow it. When I tried to get help from my graduate school, they basically told me to go climb a tree and they weren't going to help me at all. I had to figure out how to get this license myself...which I finally did and now I'm studying for my exam (which I hope to take after Christmas because taking it before might be nuts).

(6.) The "Panic Attack" Adventure: Something I'm still on actually. Learning that I inherited a panic disorder from my dad wasn't something I expected. I never even knew panic attacks were genetic until I started getting them and my doctor put two and two together. I've been on this adventure with these panic attacks (and the medication that comes with them) for almost two years. I don't get attacks as often as I use to but my doctor says he won't take me off my medication--- my archnemesis because it messes with my balance and makes me fall more than I normally do ---until I get a job...which hinges on the license...which hinges on the exam. Ok, I can see why he still wants me on my meds!

Learning Valuable Lessons

2009-10-12T18:40:00.000-07:00

I can't say I've met everyone on the planet because that would be a lie. I can't say I've met even half the people on the planet because that would be a lie too. I've met maybe a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the people in the world...maybe even less than that. I've only met a small portion of the people in the world and I think I've gained something from each and every one of them.

Then again, I think you can gain something, learn something from every person you've ever met. No matter how small, how insignificant, or how terrible the lesson is, you've learned something from that person. You may have felt as if you lost something in dealing with a person but you've actually gained something. You may not know it at the time because you're feeling down or hurt, because it's entirely too painful to see beyond the moment you're in. You wind up with eyes blinded by pain but, when the fog clears, you realize that you've gained more than you've lost. You've gained knowledge and knowledge is something no one can take away from you, making it one of the most important things you can gain from dealing with other people.

I've learned things--- I won't say a lot of things because my dealings with people has been very limited ---from others and lost things because of others but I've gained knowledge from both kinds of experiences. That's just the way of things in the universe I suppose.

Anyway, outside my family, I think the one person I've gained the most from is my ballet/jazz/modern/solo class dance instructor. I'll keep him nameless but I've definetly learned a lot from him and not just about dancing (though I've learned a great deal about dancing from him. He's the only instructor I've ever had who drives me utterly crazy but makes me want to go back to his classes week after week to prove that I can do the coreography he threw at me) but about life, the universe, and everything. He's not the type of dance teacher who just teaches dance. Between bouts of impossibly long coreography, there are life lessons to be learned in his class.

Since he teaches my solo class, sometimes we don't even dance at all. Sometimes we just sit and talk. He gives some of the best advice about just about everything. The best part about his advice is that it's never sugar coated. He's brutally honest about everything and, sometimes, that's what you need. You need someone's brutally honest opinion or advice about a subject to put things in perspective.

I think I've gained more than just dance knowledge in class with this instructor. I've learned about myself--- and how to push past the limits I have ---and about how to deal with other people. I've learned that I have to be more self-confidant and self-assured because I can't be shy all the time. I've learned that it's not always about being in the spotlight but about how good you are with the skills you have. I've gained the knowledge that dance isn't just doing steps to music...it's telling a story without ever saying a word. I've learned how to put more of myself in my dancing instead of just doing steps because that's what I'm supposed to do.

Most of all, I've learned that dancers aren't always stupid. Dancers can be smart too....most of them anyway (but that's a whole OTHER story).

To the Past Me

2009-10-07T21:17:00.000-07:00

(The picture...that's me at 16 in ballet. We were doing Beethoven's Symph No. 9- "Ode to Joy")

Dear Ashley (circa 1999),

It seems like something out of one of those Star Wars novels you're currently obsessed with reading, to get a letter from your future self but you're getting one. Think of it as a weird version of a Jedi Holocron, except this one is from the future and not the past and it probably won't melt after all the information's been given. By the way, in ten years, you're going to be a bigger science fiction fan than you are now. Sorry about that!

So, you're sixteen years old, a Sophomore at St. John's Prep. Life seems good even though Danny is still around making a pest of himself and you're working your tail off in all the honor classes at SJP. I mean, you're not the most popular kid but you have your friends from your classes and Tae Kwan Do. Things are going pretty well, much to your surprise.

I'm sorry but this is going to be one of the few times in your life you're truly going to get to be happy. I'm not saying the ten years between then and now are going to be utterly miserable--- there are always going to be bright spots ---but they're not going to be easy and they're not always going to be fun. You're going to learn that your world isn't really your world anymore and there's very little you're going to be able to do to stop it.

Your life will no longer be your own starting in the fall, when our dear sister starts high school. It'll start out as you only "helping" her with her work but, by the time you start Marymount Manhattan College and she's still a Junior at SJP, you won't be "helping" anymore. You'll actually be doing her homework. She'll be more concerned with her social life and someone is going to have to pick up the slack. That someone is going to be you and your own social life will suffer for it. I'm not saying Marymount is the place where you're going to find your true love--- even now, you don't believe in true love and are wondering about that topic ---but the only socializing you're going to have time for is at the dance studio and at Girl Scouts. The rest of the time you're going to be spending trying to balance your own work and our sister's work.

You're not going to like it after a while, especially when you get to Graduate School, and you're going to voice your opinion about not liking it but they're not going to listen. They're never going to listen to you because you're not our sister. You're going to think they all think you're weird and you're crazy but they're wrong. You know they're wrong and there are, maybe, a handful of people in the world that know they're wrong. That's where you're going to find your strength...in yourself, even if you think you're weak and on the verge of falling apart, and in the few people in the world who aren't under our sister's spell.

Keep taking solace in your dancing because, despite the fact the people at the studio make you crazy, that's going to become one of the best places for you. The friendship you finally manage to forge with that ever so difficult ballet, jazz, modern (yes, you start taking modern...deal with it), and solo instructor is going to be invaluable to you. He's going to be the reason you stay at the studio and one of the few people there you're going to be able to trust. By the way, you won't be a back/middle line dancer forever. Give it a few years--- and A LOT of busting of the rear end, literally sometimes ---and you'll get to dance in the front line even though you're not a teacher.

You're going to rediscover you love to write soon too and that's going to become another place for you to find strength. Everything you feel about yourself and our family is going to go into your stories and it'll help you figure things out. Sometimes you're just going to find it easier to write things down and look at the world through the eyes of the characters you've created. Though you're going to adamently deny it, you're going to put a lot of yourself in what you write. Maybe not the initial stuff because it's going to be pretty rough--- don't knock yourself around too hard about it, you haven't written in years because you've been afraid to ---but a lot of the later stuff is going to have you in it. Just go with it...I promise it'll help more than the therapist you're going to have to see.

Just keep telling yourself that you're stronger than you actually are and that you're weird too. Not weird in a bad way but weird in a "I'm just being myself" sort of way. It may not make you popular or anything like that but you'll be true to yourself. The faster you learn that, the better, because you're going to be faced with people who are going to make you question yourself. They're going to make you wonder if what you're doing is the right thing. Follow your brain and be logical about what you're doing and you won't be steered wrong.

It'll take time and effort to get things straight but that's one thing you've always been good at. This is just going to be the ultimate test for you...I hope anyway,
Ashley (circa 2009)

I'm the Green Fairy

2009-10-06T12:25:00.001-07:00

Ok, technically, I'm NOT the Green Fairy. The "Green Fairy" is, actually, the American translation of the phrase "La Fee Verte." The phrase was used to describe the very potent, and recently un-banned, 19th century French alcoholic beverage absinthe. If you've seen the movie Moulin Rouge, just after Christain meets Satine, he drinks absinthe with his Bohemian friends and they see visions of a little green fairy dancing and singing. The green fairy, in 19th century bohemian Paris, was supposed to be symbol of freeing one's mind from the normal and opening it to a world of artistic freedom.

Mostly, that was a result of the fact absinthe is a very potent drink and might have had the ability to cause a "high" of sorts in people. It was what the poets and artists and inventors of 19th century Paris believed, though. They felt that by drinking this beverage, their minds underwent a transformative opening and they were able to see more clearly and that their work was better for it. I guess they were just early hippies!

Though I'm no 19th century Bohemian hippie, I am very fond of the color green. Not one particular shade of green, mind you. It's all shades of green! If I had my choice, all of my clothing would be green. Since I don't have that choice--- apparently, wearing all green is strange and something you shouldn't do ---I have to settle for having more than my fair share of green shirts, sweaters, and sneakers (love my green Converse All Stars).

I've always liked the color green, ever since I was little. I think I associated green with spring--- because the trees and the grass would turn green again ---and I liked spring. Spring meant the weather was going to get warm again and I like the warm weather. The winter always meant, to me anyway, the cold and the cold always meant I was, invariably, going to get sidelined by some massive middle ear infections. In order to try to avoid this, I usually wound up bundled up by my mother or grandmother until I looked like I was about to go explore the polar ice caps.

Not exactly a lot of fun when you're a kid.

When the world started to get green again, I knew I wouldn't have to wear my winter coat, hat, scarf, gloves, and three sweaters. I could wear a jacket and not have to wear a hat unless it was of the baseball variety.

I know green has a lot of negative connotations to it--- "green with envy," the "green eyed monster" of jealousy and that most slimy, nasty things have an unfair reputation of being green (I've seen some nasty things that aren't green....sheep blood agar culture plates for one...they smell like wet dog food and they're bright red) ---but I think liking the color green says that I appreciate the renewal of things after a long winter's sleep. I think it also says that I'm open to new ideas and new thoughts, just without being the actual "Green Fairy." I hope it doesn't make people think that I'm constantly jealous or that I'm slimy. I don't think I am.

OH! The color neon green...in the world of professional wrestling (yes, I'm a wrestling fan...yes, I know it's fake but it's mindless fun that you sometimes need) means you're a D-Generate...which is a good thing. Being a D-Generate means you're a fan of the long time WWE/WWF clique D-Generation X. When I use to go see wrestling live, back in the day, I almost always went in as much neon green as I could find because I was (still am actually) a HUGE fan of D-Generation X!

Green, to me, also means baseball. Not just any baseball but New York Mets baseball. Why? Because my "lucky" (and I use that term ever so loosely) baseball cap is green. It's also covered in pins but that's a different story. I got it one Irish night a long time ago and haven't stopped wearing it to baseball games since. I guess that would mean green, to me, means a dedicated (but sometimes thick headed and not all that bright because, really, the way the Mets have played these past three seasons...it's not pretty) baseball fan because I wear my green hat to every game I go to.

While I don't have wings or transformative powers, I still like the color green. It's too bad it's being replaced by oranges, browns, and reds here. It's almost time to get those darn winter hats out again.

The Mortal Instruments

2009-10-04T19:36:00.000-07:00

I've heard people--- including college professors ---say that you can't learn anything from science fiction or fantasy novels. For some reason normal fiction can teach you things but science fiction and fantasy can't. Now, I was no English major but I always thought science fiction (given its name) and fantasy were both sub-genre of fictions. I could be wrong, of course, but that's just my take on it.

Personally, I'm a big fan of science fiction and fantasy novels and I'm also a big proponent of escapism. That is, when the "reality" we live in becomes too harsh or too hard to handle, I like to dive into another "reality" for a little vacation time. Not literally dive into another "reality" because that's currently impossible. The whole idea of multiple realities (a/k/a the road not taken realities) is still being debated by the big brains in physics. I didn't enjoy physics so I'll leave the whole idea of actual alternate realities to them.

The alternate "realities" I'm taking about are the kind you create with your imagination. The kind that you create in your head when you get into a really good book (or write a story). Those are the kinds of "realities" I like to visit when this "reality" becomes too much for me. I'm not saying that the other "reality" I'm visiting has to be all rainbows and sunshine and happiness. Far from it, actually. Those involved in filmmaking say that we respond better to worlds that are gritty, dirty, and as harsh as the ones we live in. Anything that seems too shiny and clean is rejected by our mind as false because world's like that don't exist. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with reading books that are full of rainbows and sunshine and happy people. I've probably read a few of them myself. It's just that I don't always have to take vacations to world that are like that. Sometimes I like to go to worlds that are like the one I live in...but just a little different.

Such is the case in Cassandra Clare's City of Glass, the third book in her "The Mortal Instruments" trilogy (Following City of Bones, and City of Ashes). A good chunk of the trilogy takes place in an alternate version of New York where vampires, werewolves, warlocks, and creatures of a less savory nature roam the streets alongside normal humans (or "mundanes" as they're called in the book). These creatures are kept in check by men and woman called "Shadowhunters." These individuals come from ancient blood lines and imbued with angelic powers that enable them to use "runes," drawn on their person using a marking instrument called a stele and that fade into scars, to see, hunt, and kill these creatures. This whole world, all of these creatures and all of the fighting, goes on under the noses of the "mundanes" who lack the power to see "Shadowhunters" and the creatures they fight.

In City of Bones, we're introduced to Clarissa (Clary) Fray, daughter of a painter named Jocelyn Fray. Clary is a seemingly normal teenager, being raised by her mother and a father figure named Luke Garroway. Her biological father, as told by her mother, died when she was a baby. Clary appears to be a mundane...going to school, hanging out with her best friend Simon Lewis (who has the obligatory crush on her), and just acting the part of a normal teenager.

That is until Simon takes Clary to a club and she encounters Shadowhunters Jace Wayland and the Lightwood siblings, Alec and Isabelle. She witnesses them killing a demon and that one act causes her entire world to change.

Clary learns that she is of Shadowhunter blood but untrained and unaware of her heritage because of her mother. Her mother, actually Jocelyn Fairchild, was the wife of Valentine Morgenstern, a Shadowhunter who wanted to "purify" the Shadowhunter race and is the main antagonist of the series. In order to protect Clary from her father, she fled the Shadowhunter world, hiding out and even blocking her daughter's memories so she would appear to be a mundane instead of a child from Shadowhunter blood.

By the time City of Glass rolls around, Clary's mother is in a magical coma. Clary, herself, is in love with Jace...who may be her brother (and Jace is in love with her but neither can act on their feelings because of their relationship as siblings) and has to face the fact that Luke was also a Shadowhunter but has fallen from grace because he's a werewolf. Her best friend, Simon, has died and risen as a vampire who can walk in daylight, thanks to the fact Jace allowed him to drink from him. To top off all of that--- and the fact she's Valentine's daughter ---Clary learns she has the ability to create new runes, ones that had never been seen or used in Shadowhunter history.

The main theme in City of Glass is acceptance...of who you are, who you were, and who you are going to become. Alec, along with his family, must learn to accept the fact that he is a homosexual and is in love with Magnus Bane, the flamboyant master warlock of New York who is much older than Alec. Clary has to learn to accept that she is Valentine's daughter and that her abilities mark her as something other than an ordinary Shadowhunter. Even Clary's mother has to accept her feelings for Luke (who must be accepted back into Shadowhunter culture).

Then there's Jace...Jace not only has to accept the fact he's not Clary's brother but the fact he's not even Valentine's biological son. He's a boy Valentine raised because Valentine's own son (Johnathan Christopher...which is what Jace thought his birth name was) was a monster. Jace, in the end, comes away with a new identity...a claim to the last name of Wayland but no first name and no real family. He chooses to keep the name "Jace" since that's the name he gave himself.

Acceptance, in this story, is combined with the theme of love. No longer siblings, Jace and Clary can accept their new identities and fall in love. Jocelyn, after much cajoling, can love Luke and, in the most poigniant case of love being tied with acceptance, Alec and Magnus Bane are free to love each other despite the fact Alec's parents are initially startled by their relationship.

Anyone who says that you can't learn anything from fantasy fiction should pick up a fantasy novel. Maybe, then, they can learn a thing or two!

My Sorta Bestie

2009-10-02T21:05:00.000-07:00

I don't have a best friend and, yes, I know that sounds weird but I really don't. I mean I had one when I was a kid but then we grew apart when we both went to different high schools. I didn't have a bestie in high school...I was too busy studying, I guess and college, well, I was persona non grata come my senior year because I was "immature." (I happened to discover anime and manga in my senior year and I guess that was detrimental to being consider mature.)

Anyway, I don't have a best friend (or very many friends at all) because I'm not exactly the most trusting of people. I'm always looking for that dagger in between my shoulder blades. I mean, if you're going to be my friend, at least have the guts to stab me in the front and not in the back! I guess that's my way of saying "Just be honest with me. Don't go behind my back and talk about me. If you have something to say, say it to my face, even if it hurts my feelings." I, actually, don't mind if my feelings are hurt by a person being honest. I value honesty above everything else so , even if it's going to hurt, be honest with me. I'd welcome that instead of finding a dagger in my back because you were too chicken to talk to me face to face.

I have a grand total of one close friend and it's taken me like, forever, to actual admit she's even my friend. I use to just call her my "ally" because friends hurt you, allies just turn on you and I always expect people to turn on me. My history of friends has pretty much taught me that. Anyone I've ever considered a friend has turned their backs on me in one way or another. It's hard for me to think of anyone as a friend because of that.

Anyway, my one close friend...she's older than I am (I won't say by how much because if she reads this she might not be pleased) but I tend to get along slightly better with people who are older than I am. I guess I expect adults to act their part...which isn't always true but that's a whole OTHER story. She doesn't even live in this state anymore and I only communicate with her via text message, facebook message, and e-mail. I could call her, I suppose, but I don't really do phone calls. I called her for her birthday, got her voice mail and scared the FISHSTICKS out of her because I actually called.

So how did I meet this friend?

Actually we didn't meet. She was sort of sent to keep an eye on me.

See, when I was about fourteen years old (the 1997-1998 dance year) when I was FINALLY allowed to dance with the teacher's tap class (the Cathettes) at my dance studio. I wasn't a teacher--- I'm still not on staff there but that's actually a good thing. ---but they didn't really have a place for me. I had too many years of dance for me to be in any other tap class. The lady who owns the studio sort of grugingly put me in the teacher's class just to keep me at the studio.

Thing was, I was this little fourteen year old kid with big glasses, long hair, and a very tiny frame (which was the studio's nice way of saying I wasn't as...developed...as the other girls). Everyone else in the class was pretty much either an adult or an older teenager. I felt extremely out of place so I did what I alway do when I feel out of place, I crawled into my own head and got very quiet. I didn't talk to anyone for a good part of the year, mostly listening to my CD player when not dancing.

That was, until the owner of the studio sent this other dancer to talk to me. I have no idea what the studio owner thought I was plotting--- I wasn't even plotting to tell the truth. --- but she sent this other dancer to talk to me. I know it wasn't done to make me comfortable in the class or anything like that. The lady who owns the studio isn't that nice or thoughtful.

Either way, this other dancer and I wound up becoming friends because we had a lot in common. It went from her almost spying on me, to her actually coming to talk to me before class started.

Even though she quit dancing and moved out of state, we're still friends I suppose. We're not as good friends as we use to be but we're still friends.

That doesn't mean I'm not waiting for a dagger. I just hope she's friend enough to stab me in the front and not the back!

All About Me

2009-10-01T19:57:00.000-07:00

I just got my computer back after experiencing what the computer guy called "The Blue Screen of Death." I'm thinking that's probably a bad thing, considering the whole "of death" part. Anything with that in the title CANNOT be a good thing!

I couldn't get my blog to load on my laptop for whatever reason. Actually, I couldn't get my laptop to do a lot of things which was annoying really. I mean, you'd think I could at least play "Fiesta" but I couldn't even do that! I'd get major lag spikes, especially when I played as my n00b mage (MonaLisaOverride). As they say in the alternate world that is Fiesta "Lag Kills" and since I need an inhuman amount of experience points to level my fighter, I wasn't chancing the lag thing because when you die you lose experience points and I SO can't afford that right now!

I'm back now though LOL! Just in case you've forgotten...here's a little bit about me...interview style for pokes and giggles!

1.)What is your real name? Why did you choose the screen name you have? Technically, my real name is "Ashley Nicole" but I usually just go by "Ashley" since that's a lot easier. People try to pronounce my whole first name as one word but it's not. It's two words! My screen name is "DNA301," for two reasons. First I'm a science obsessed dork who's favorite molecule happens to be DNA...you can thank the movie Jurassic Park for my love for DNA. Actually, it was that movie that drove me to becoming a biology major (I REALLY wanted to clone dinosaurs but, alas, thus far that is impossible) and now a Clinical Lab Tech...once I take and pass the exam. The other reason? My initials backwards just happen to be "D.N.A." The "301" part...that's my birdate...March 1st (or 3/01).

2.)In a 100 words or less tells us about yourself, what you do, about your family that sort of stuff. I'm really your average twenty-six year old. I live with my parents, grandmother, and little sister. OH! And Murphy, my sister's beagle who is a pest on four legs. I have a Master's Degree in Biological Science but I'm currently unemployed. See, the state requires all individuals who want to go into research to have a licence and I didn't know that. Now, I'm studying for my Clinical Lab Tech License exam (the ASCP) so I can get a job. I want to go into biological research. I'd love it to be genetics but, at this point, I'll take any kind of research. In the mean time, when I'm not studying, I'm taking dance lessons (this is my 23rd year at the studio...taking ballet, tap, jazz, and modern) or doing volunteer work in my local Girl Scout Troop (I'm the Daisy leader). I love to read, write, color, listen to music, and study the science of science fiction.

3.)What type of scrapbooking do you do? What gives you your inspiration? I do both regular and digital scrapbooking. It all depends on if my printer has colored ink, what kind of scrapping I do. My inspiration is about as all over the place as my layouts. If I'm working on my Book of Me, it's stuff I've looked up that inspires me or if it's my book of movie tickets, then it's the movies I've seen. Sometimes I just find a neat anime style picture and digi scrap those and it's the pictures that inspire me.

4.)What are your other favourite things to do (other than blog or scrap)? I LOVE to read. I mean, seriously, I love to read. I read mostly sci-fi, med-fi, and fantasy fiction...manga (Japanese style comic books but I'm doing them a major injustice by calling them comic books because they're a far cry from American comics). I love to write too! I write fanfiction (mostly for The Matrix Trilogy) and some orginal fiction. I'm working on a few of those pieces because I'd love to be a published author someday. Dancing is also one of my favorite things to do. I've been taking lessons at the same studio for 23 years. I take ballet, tap, jazz, and modern but ballet is, by and large, my favorite. My pointe shoes and I are great friends!

5.)What do you like to do to relax? Relax? What's that? I don't know how to relax! Seriously! I believe that stress is holding my together most days of the week. If I'm not freaking out about something, then there's something wrong with me. I guess, you could say I read or write when I want to relax but the stress is always there haunting the back of my mind.

6.)What is your favourite kind of music? I have this very strange fondness for movie scores. Not soundtracks because the music has words on those but instrumental movie scores. I'm extremely partial to any score done by John Williams but Hans Zimmer is running a close second lately. If I'm not listening to movie scores, I'm listening to J-Pop or J-Rock (Japanese Pop or Japanese Rock). I kinda picked up on that "bad habit" when I majorly got into the whole watching anime/reading manga thing. I may not understand any of what's said but the songs are pretty cool!

7.)Do you have a favourite tv show? Um....how do you define TV shows? If you're talking about non-anime shows, then it's House M.D., Bones, and Fringe but not always in that order. Currently, I'm ABSOLUTELY obessessed with Fringe for some reason. I think it's because feel like I could so work in Dr. Bishop's lab and he wouldn't care I don't have my license because he flippin' insane! In the world of anime, my current favorite TV show is Bleach...mostly because that's the only anime on! No really, though, Bleach is an awesome show! Lots of great sword fights along with an awesome story line and characters you just can't help but think are cool!

8.)Do you collect anything? Let's see...Build-A-Bear stuff animals, manga, books in general, anything realted to Alice in Wonderland, anything realted to ballet/ballernias, things related to Harry Potter/Twilight/Lord of the Rings, random bits of knowledge to be stored away for later use...do scrapping supplies count?

9.)What makes you YOU, what makes you different than everyone else on this website? How many ballet dancing, Girl Scout Leading, Master's in Biology holding, anime watching, manga reading, scrapbookers do you know? I'm different because I'm sort of an odd duck. I'm not what everyone expects a twenty-six year old to be, much to major annoyance of my family. I guess you could just say I'm a bit "odd" and be done with it.

10.)If you were sent to a desert island, and you could take 3 things, what would they be? (it could be anything!!) Three things? Um...a Girl Scout Wilderness Survival Guide, my cell phone (maybe there'll be reception to get me off the island) and my laptop to chronicle events and to sent out help messages.

Breaking Records

2009-09-09T18:39:00.000-07:00

The Guiness Book of World Records has all manner of freaky records, including ones for things like the longest fingernails or the most snails on person can put on their face. I have no idea why anyone would want to break a record involving putting snails on one's face but, hey, if that's your claim to fame and you REALLY like snails, then by all means go for it. I like snails and all but I don't really want to put bunches of them on my face. Snails are more interesting crawling about on the ground, waving their little snaily eye stalks and leaving ooze trails as they go along.

I've actually been in the Guiness Book of World Records. Not for holding a record by myself but with a group that broke a world record. Back in 1995, my family and I took part in this even held by Macy's Department Store called "Tap-o-Mania." In 1995, the theme was Betty Boop since it was her 65th anniversary.

Tap-o-Mania was this odd little event, which they sadly don't hold anymore because it was a lot of fun. You had to get sign-up forms and wait on this inhumanly long lines. Once you got to the store, they took your sign-up sheets and you were issued a t-shirt with the logo for that year's Tap-o-Mania theme and a hat. Then you were hearded outside the store to a place along 42nd street where your "tap captain" taught you a simple routine. Once you learned the routine, you were free to go about your business until noon.

That year, we happened to run into my best friend from school, her mom, her cousin, and her cousin's mom. It was really funny because we all ran into each other in this giant sea of people. We spent most of our time hanging out with them (having breakfast and stuff since you had to line up for Tap-o-Mania at about 6AM) even though they weren't in our tap group. It made for a very funny story when we went back to school a few weeks after Tap-o-Mania.

At noon, everyone was to assemble in lines in front of Macy's and do the dance we'd all learned. It wasn't exactly the hardest tap dance ever but it was fun and kinda silly. I mean, even my dad did it and he's not exactly the smallest of people. In 1995, we actually broke the world record for something like the largest tap dance done by a group, which was neat.

And I didn't even have to put snails on my face!

Finding Balance

2009-09-07T21:55:00.000-07:00

I like the idea of balance, of things being in harmony with each other. It's a comforting though that all things can co-exist with each other just by finding a balance. It's a lot harder done than said, of course, but that's the way of a lot of things. Saying them is easy but doing them, putting things into practice, that's the hard part.

Is it actually possible to find a balance in things?

Maybe but it takes a lot of work, a lot of effort and a lot of sacrifice. I mean, trying to put the world in harmony with nature is a lot harder done than said. Taking care of the giant footprint we've left on the natural world is harder to do than it is to say. Going green isn't easy and it means giving up a great deal in order to do so.

Symbolically speaking, balance is usually represented by the yin-yang (the symbol that is being stood on by the anime character in the picture). The yin-yang is a Chinese symbol that is used to represent how opposing (or disjunct) forces are interdependent on each other and give rise to each other in the natural world. It's an interesting symbol really since is almost implies that balance is impossible to achieve. That is, the dark portion of the symbol (the Yin) leads to the white portion (the Yang) which gives rise to the dark portion again. Instead of a balance being acheived, a cycle is created.

I always found the yin-yang symbol interesting because of how it appears. One teardrop shape does flow into the other, showing the cycle but each teardrop has one small spot of color from the other teardrop in it. That is, the Yin has a small spot of Yang and and Yang has a small spot of Yin. That shows the idea that there is no darkness without a spot of light and no light without a spot of darkness, if you go by the traditional black and white color scheme. That idea, in and of itself, is true. The sun, for example, creates light but it also causes shadows and what are shadows but areas of darkness. Darkness that can't exist without the light of the sun.

In a way, nighttime is the same. Nighttime is supposed to be a time of darkness yet light exists in the form of stars. There cannot be true darkness because there will always be light, even in the smallest of amounts, around.

The same could be said for the nature of humans. We are not creatures of darkness and creatures of light. Instead we are a balance of both. Those who are dark--- those who committ terrible crimes ---are evil, true, but they did not always start that way. They still had that small speck of light in them someplace. Perhaps that small bit of light got overwhelmed by the darkness. The yin-yang does allow for imbalance and those imbalances can lead to instability and illness.

The yin-yang is an interesting symbol and it is not by chance that it is used as the symbol for one of my favorite anime characters. From the anime Naruto, the character Neji Hyuuga is represeted by the yin-yang. Whenever he uses his signature moves, a yin-yang appears under his feet. He is a character, in Part One of the anime anyway, that is torn between his fate and what he wants to be. He is the strongest member of his clan but, because he was born to the "side branch" instead of the "main branch," he is not heir to the clan's name or title. Instead the name and title is to go to his cousin, Hinata. Hinata is deemed weak and incompetent that her father strips her of the title of heir and gives it to her younger sister, Hanabi. Neji, however, takes out his fustrations on Hinata during a tournament style fight between the two of them and nearly kills her. He appears to be a dark character (a yin character) for most of Part One of the series.

It isn't until the viewers learn about his past that we begin to understand why he's such a dark character and, by the end of Part One, he's found the small part of the yang in himself...with a little help from the series's title character, Naruto. He manages to find a balance and, with this balance, is able to reconcile with his clan and cousin.

Maybe we shouldn't be trying for a balance with nature. Instead, maybe we should take a page out of Eastern philosophy and understand that everything is cyclical in nature. That might make things easier.

Falling into Autumn

2009-09-04T15:00:00.001-07:00

"It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone." (A. Bartlett Giamatti)

The above is about baseball and is one of the many ways I've learned to see the season of fall. It is a season of endings, of chill rains, and impending cold weather. It is a season where things stop being green and lively and turn a burnished shades of gold, rich reds, bright oranges, and deep browns. Nature gets ready to take her long sleep and we get out our sweaters and long jeans in order to face the cold.

As a baseball fan--- or maybe just as a fan of the New York Mets ---fall is a very bittersweet season. It's when we watch our team end their season because they just weren't good enough to make the "Fall Classic" (the Playoffs and the World Series) this year. Actually, this year, the ending of the baseball season is a blessing and a relief to all of us Mets fans. We love our team but they've been plagued by injuries and poor playing that it's almost worth NOT watching them play. The off season will give them time to regroup and give all of us time to silently hope that next season will be better. I'm the pessimistic sort of fan who says it won't but you never know. Like the old adage goes "there's always next year." Ok, Mets fans have been saying that for the past three years but, as our team motto reads "Ya Gotta Believe!"

There are things about fall I do like. I mean fall starts my two favorite things in the universe...dance lessons and Girl Scouts! Every year I say I'm going to stop dancing--- I always have a list of perfectly good reasons why I shouldn't go back to the studio ---but come this time of year, I'm looking for bodysuits and getting out my dance shoes to go back for another year. I don't know why I do it to myself since I don't like drama and all that goes along with dancing at the studio. I just like to dance and maybe that's why I go back. I just like to dance. Some people like to go to the gym and spend hours doing whatever it is you do when you go to the gym. Me? I spend hours a week at the dance studio doing the dancing thing.

Then there's Girl Scouts. My mom and sister could probably do without the whole Girl Scout thing, since my mom runs the troop and my sister is a pretty unwilling leader (unless she's being praised by the parents of the girls in her troop. Then she's all about the Girl Scouting movement!) but I really like doing it. It's my perfect excuse to be immature once a week. No one questions why I'm running around claiming to be a ninja panda (since I'm a dancer, I set aside about fifteen minutes a meeting where we just dance. We use to do line dances and the like but now we have dances I've choreographed especially for the troop. The most popular ones last year were dances done to "Kung-Fu Fighting" and "Mickey" a/k/a The Cheerleader Song) or holding a "Teddy and Me" tea party.

Plus I really like working with the kids. I'm from the inner city, I make no bones about that, and a majority of the children in our troop are from the same area. We're one of the largest inner city troops left and the only female-centered organization in our area. We've created a safe place for our girls. One where even the youngest--- my troop ---can come and not have to worry about what's going on outside their homes. We teach them that, despite where we all come from, we can make something of ourselves. One of the parents last year remarked that she was glad I'd stuck with Girl Scouting for so long because the girls see someone from their neighborhood, someone who grew up in the same area they did, with a Master's Degree and they know they're not stuck in "da 'hood." They can overcome their stereotypes.

I'm just glad to be even a small part of that.

I like my fall holidays--- especially Halloween ---as well. We go all out for Halloween in my house, with decorations and trips to the pumpkin farm and everything. We don't go Trick or Treating, obviously, but I do dress up every year for our Girl Scout Halloween Carnival. I tell everyone it's because I'm expected to, being the leader of the little kids and all, but, secretly, I still like dressing up for Halloween. I don't think I'm ever actually going to outgrow that one and, besides, I'm pretty much immune to the idea of wearing costumes. I've worn some pretty bad ones dancing so it's a novelty when I get to pick my own costume to wear.

The only thing about fall I really don't like is the fact it starts to get cold. I don't enjoy the cold weather AT ALL. I dread the winter and wish I could migrate south with the birds in order to avoid it. Since I can't I start piling on the sweaters, thermals, and jackets in order to combat it! So far, by my score, the cold is totally kicking my rear end.

One other thing I like about fall...new episodes of House M.D, Bones, and Fringe! Finally something worth watching on TV...er...on the computer. Mostly on the computer for Bones and Fringe since they're on Thursdays and I'm at the dance studio on Thursday.

School Daze

2009-09-04T10:55:00.000-07:00

I miss school like crazy. No, I really mean that and not in a sarcastic way. I actually, physically, miss going to school! I've gotten into the habit of telling people, when they complain about how much they can't wait to get out of school, that they're going to miss it once they hit the "Real World." The "Real World" isn't such a great place and life outside the academic world isn't so easy.

Trust me, I'm learning the hard way...as I continue on my quest to get my NY State Clinical Lab Tech License. No license=no job and no job=no money so I spend lots of time at home bemoaning something I can't really help because it's all in the state's hands about this license thing and when they give me permission to take the state exam for the license.

Anyway...I miss school so this time of year is terrible for me. School was easy for me--- I know it sounds stupid to say but I was actually GOOD at school ---when it came to the learning part. I didn't mind homework (except for math....BLEH!), and I didn't mind going to class. Sure I suffered from chronic bordeom in grade school but I got to read a lot so it wasn't so terrible. See, I went to a strict Catholic Grade School. When we were done our work, we were told to pull out a book and read. I was usually done before everyone else so I spent a Godly portion of my time reading books.

By the way (this is one of those things that drives me batty), real Catholic school girls don't dress like the ones that are show in all different anime. Far from it! We had to have our skirts, at least, three inches past our knees and if we wore knee socks, at least one was down around our ankles by the end of the day. Most of us, actually, gave up the whole knee sock bit when we got into third grade anyway. It was just a whole lot easier to wear tights since they didn't tend to slip down your leg and pool around your ankle.

Though I was good at the whole academic part of school, I wasn't very good at the OTHER stuff. By that, I mean I wasn't very good at dealing with the other kids. See, I was (and still am) a total dork and kids are very quick to label other kids. I was the quiet one with the long hair and glasses who read way too much. Ergo, I was a dork and I couldn't hang out with the popular kids. Not that it bothered me any. I didn't much like the popular kids because they were all too "the same" for me. It annoyed my father and my grandmother who wanted me to hang out with said popular kids because that would give them an "in" to talk to their parents.

Some of my favorite school memories, actually, are from high school. Not that I was popular there either. More like I was put into classes with lots of other "dorks" and we all tried to get along...while we secretly competed to see who was the smartest out of all of us. I had this English Teacher, whose name I won't even make an attempt to spell because it was THAT long, in 10th and 11th grade. You'd think having the same teacher twice would be a bad thing but it really wasn't. We were all actually happy to have her in 11th grade because she'd be the one preparing us to take the six hour English Regents.

Why did I like her class? Well, she actually took the time to get to know us. By the end of 10th grade, she knew who like what TV show and silly things like that. Like she knew I was a huge fan of The X-Files and even let me get away with writing an essay that compared Mary Shelly's Frankenstein to this episode of The X-Files called "The Post-Modern Prometheus" (5X06). It actually made essay writing fun instead of the chore it had been all through 9th grade.

She was also the first teacher to let me get away with writing over the given limit of pages. I openly admit to being terrible at that. Give me a limit of five pages and I'll probably write you ten. I don't always double the limit but I come darn close most of the time. I always feel like I have a lot more to say and that page limits are restrictive. Most teachers I'd had up until 10th grade use to tell me I had a problem with editing. I'd just include everything, not bothering to edit out the unimportant stuff just to fill up a page limit. My 10th grade English teacher let me write as much as I wanted so long as I had the quotes (she's also responsible for my obession with collecting quotes about things just in case I need them) and sources to back them up.

The same sort of things happened in 11th grade as well...which made preparing for the six hour state Regent exam not quite as terrible as you'd think it actually would be. Taking the test was terrible...four essays spread out over two days, three hours a day but getting ready for it wasn't bad.

One of the other things I enjoyed about this one particular English class was how this teacher got even with the boys in class whenever we were reading plays. If the boys didn't want to volunteer to read, which was common since they had to maintain their whole "cool" aura, she'd just pick them to play parts. Not only play parts but play FEMALE parts! It would be hysterical watching a girl play Macduff and some really uncomfortable looking boy reading the part of Lady MacDuff! Me? I rarely volunteered to read unless I got to be something cool like a witch or a ghost or something. Otherwise I hung back and let everyone else do the acting.

I really do miss school...can't wait to go back, actually and get my PhD!

Now For Something Totally Random

2009-08-26T19:31:00.000-07:00

I'm not good at jokes...can't tell them and I don't always understand them and I don't have any funny pictures. Actually, after taking AP (Advanced Placement) American and European History in high school, I can't even look at another one of those political cartoons.

That said, I'm going to share with you two videos that I found on youtube (so I don't own them) that I think are funny. Why? Because they combine some of my favorite things...singing, dancing, cosplay (costume playing), and anime (well in one case video games).

First, a video called "Final Dance Fantasy"...It's the video game "Final Fantasy VII" meets song and dance in an attempt to lift the gloomy atmosphere in the game.

Final Dance Fantasy <~~~Click me! I couldn't figure out how to actually get the videos in here...sorry!

Second, a video based on the anime/manga Deathnote. The premise is the two main characters, Light and L, having a dance off to try and see if Light is actually Kira. Again, I guess I find this funny because it's anime/manga meeting music, dance, and cosplaying!

Deathnote Dance Off <~~~Click me!

Not sure if anyone else finds these funny but they made me laugh. Though, admittedly, I have a very...odd...sense of humor.

A Good Old Dog

2009-08-24T21:20:00.001-07:00

A good old dog...that's how I'd describe him. He was my oldest friend, the creature that had been around since I was a little girl. He was a fixture in my family, someone not to be forgotten when we talked about our family. He wasn't the most perfect creature on the planet--- he was mean, spiteful, prone to being very unfriendly, and rather grouchy in his old age ---but he was still my puppy no matter how old he got.

His name was Toby, though he went by many other names including "Lamb" (because he looked like a lamb when he had no hair like in the picture) and "Goat" because he would smell like a goat if he got dirty. He was a four pound apricot French Poodle with metal plates in both of his front legs, results of him being trampled by my uncle's Irish Setter when Toby was just a puppy.

I got Toby when I was in kindergarten. I really wanted a puppy and when my parents finally caved he was the puppy I picked out. I named him "Toby" after the dog in the Disney movie The Great Mouse Detective. I realize now that the name was kinda ironic since the Toby in that movie was a big bloodhound and my Toby was a little, bitty French Poodle. Of course, he didn't think he was a little, bitty French Poodle. Of course not! Toby thought he was a Great Dane or some other huge dog. The way he barked, you'd think there was a dog twice his size in the house. Of course, when you looked at him, you had to laugh. Here was little, bitty dog trying to scare people off. He wasn't exactly the most frightening of creatures given his stature.

He was, though, a dog of many strange habits. He never liked dog toys or playing fetch. He liked lying on the couch with my dad--- behind my dad's knees if my dad was lying down ---and watching TV. He didn't like traditional dog beds. When he was a puppy, he'd sleep on the bed with my parents. When he got older, he slept on a pillow next to my dad's side of the bed. Toby might have been my dog in name but he was my dad's best friend. Where my dad was, Toby was no more than two inches behind him. They were each other's constant companions.

Toby wasn't the type of dog you played with. He played with you when you first came home...got bored and went back to whatever it was he happened to be doing at the time. He had more of a human's personality than a dog's. He was just a strange little creature.

It was about four years ago that we had to say "good-bye" to Toby. He got very ill and the vet wanted to put him to sleep. My parents said they'd rather him die at home, surrounded by all the people who loved him. On November 5th, 2006, very early in the morning (as a matter of fact, when my dad wasn't home. It was almost as if he waited for my dad not to be around.), Toby died. It was the first time I'd ever seen my father cry and that broke my heart almost as much as my dog dying did. My dad's this big, tough guy and he was crying over the body of a tiny French Poodle who'd been his shadow most of my life.

A few months later we got Murphy. I almost feel like Murphy was a replacement for Toby and, for that, I'm not pleased. Toby can never be replaced. He was my first dog and everyone remembers their first dog. If there's a doggy heaven, I hope Toby's there all healthy and happy and eating all the hot dogs (he loved his hot dogs) he wants.

Toby, you're missed and you can never be replaced.

Because You See I'm Dancing

2009-08-23T17:34:00.000-07:00

Yes, that's actually me and, no, this story is not about the costume I'm wearing. Well, not in the normal way anyway. I'm use to wearing embarassing costumes and that one (from the studio's 2006 50th Anniversary show) wasn't exactly the most embarassing of tap costumes. I've had much, much, much more embarassing tap, jazz, and, even, ballet costumes. This one was just...I don't know...silly I guess. I mean I could have really done without the feathers--- I HATE feathers. They make me feel like a chicken and they fall off the costumes and get all over the stage where no one bothers to sweep them up so the other classes wind up sliding on them. ---and the fake telephone. We used the phones for a piece we did from the play "Crazy for You" called "I Can't Be Bothered Now" and we had to sing and dance with the phones. I'm not much for singing or acting but that's a whole other story.

Since this dance was done for the studio's 50th Anniversary (in 2006), the lady who runs the studio decided we needed to go all out for the dance. I mean we had Vegas showgirl headdresses and everything. It was a fishsticking freakshow if I'd ever seen one.

For me, 2006, was NOT a good year at the studio. I'd just started Grad School and I was always a little late (maybe like 5 or 10 minutes late) for a tap class that never started on time because my classes were in the late afternoon/early evening. I mean, I was literally going to class with my bodysuit on under my clothes and changing in the backseat of my dad's van so I'd be dressed at the studio. Well, my tap instructor took offense to that and threw me out of the tap class. That wouldn't have been so totally embarassing if she'd done the polite thing and taken me aside to tell me what she was doing.

Nope...instead she decided to tell me she was throwing me out on a Saturday morning in January (after my mom had paid an arm and a leg for all of my costumes) in front of all the baby ballet parents. That was doubly embarassing because most of these parents knew me as their daughter's Daisy Girl Scout Leader. They know I dance and they know about the embarassing costumes and stuff but it was really not fun to get called out like that in front of people whose kids I work with!

Either way, after much hemming and hawing (and someone quitting or getting hurt, I forget which...might have been both), they let me back in the tap class. They needed a body or something like that to fill in a space.

Anyway, for the big glitz and glamour opening of the show, they had some of us in these big Vegas headdresses, with feathered capes, standing on these little tiny boxes. I was...er...fortunate enough to be one such soul. I had this HUGE black headddress with horns and tassles and bits of bling in the center and a huge black, feather-lined cape that sort of looked like bat wings to me. I use to stand around during rehersals and get cracked on by my fellow dancers because I looked like a villian from any really corney anime.

The night of our big show came and I was feeling a bit like an idiot because I felt like I looked like an idiot. I mean, horns, capes, three inch heels...not exactly my normal style even for dancing. We don't dress like that for ballet, even when we're doing the whole classical ballet thing. My ballet instructor usually heads more towards the understated than the glitzy.

The music cues up....the lights on the stage come up...the curtain opens and the dance begins. All I had to do was walk...that's it! I had to walk to a little black and gold box and step up onto it to do some posing with my bat-wing cape! I stepped up onto the box and, basically, fell off the stupid box. See, I had gotten new tap shoes a few weeks before the show. I'd utterly ruined my old ones and, as much as I hated doing it, I had to get new tap heels. Buying new dance shoes is sort of like buying new regular shoes. You have to break them in before you wear them. Usually, if I need new shoes, I buy them a few months before the show so I have a chance to break them in.

I didn't get a chance this time so I had these nearly new tap heels I had to dance in.

Anyway, I stepped up onto my box...lost my balance because of the stupid shoes...wobbled a bit and had to step off the box...all the while trying to make it look like nothing was amiss. Apperantly, I epically failed at that because everyone saw me and asked why I'd nearly fallen on stage and it was pretty darn clear on the DVD of the show that year that I had a bit of an accident on stage.

At least I didn't fall! I just...wobbled...a bit!

Welcome to My World

2009-08-21T18:17:00.000-07:00

It's summer and I'm bored....like really bored...like reading 400 page novels in one day bored. I wish I had a job but, alas, I don't. I'm STILL waiting for the state to send me my paperwork so I can file to take the Clinical Lab Tech License exam. Once I take, and pass, that stupid exam, I'll be able to get a job. I really can't wait to get a job. Being home all the time is slowly driving me insane.

Instead of telling you my normal day to day schedual during the summer, since I'm not doing anything. I'll give you a day in the life of me on a typical Tuesday during the "school year" since that's far more interesting than my life now.

9AM- Wake up the first time...go back to bed because no one else is around

10:30AM- Wake up the second time...realize that it's 10:30 AM....possibly stay awake unless there's laundry being done. Then I go back to sleep because I can't stand the washing machine.

11AM- Wake up the third time....usually stay up...eat breakfast and take my morning meds (Nexium and Klonopin) that are supposed to keep me panic free for the rest of the day.

12:30PM- Get called an idiot by my grandmother for knowing all the answers on Who Wants to be a Millionaire but not ever going on the show.

1PM to 4PM- Do random things...play on the computer, scrap, read...not eat lunch because lunch is always optional.

4:30PM- Realize it's Tuesday and I'd better start getting my stuff together for dancing

5:00PM- Eat Dinner

5:30PM- Get changed into my "Spandex Ninja" (an unfortunate nickname I've gotten because my dance gear is mostly black spandex) gear and pack my Tuesday dance bag with water and manga because class never starts on time

6:15PM- Leave for dancing but stop at the drug store first so I can buy candy because I'm going to need it to survive dance class and because I'm the candy supplier for my fellow dancers and the instructors

6:30PM- Arrive at the dance studio for tap class

6:45PM- Still waiting for tap class to start...reading manga and texting

6:50PM- Still waiting...starting to wish I was someplace else because class was supposed to start at 6:30PM

7:00PM- STILL waiting for tap class to start...wondering why I even bother getting to class on time or why I'm dancing at all because I'm sitting and reading for a half hour and I could do that at home.

7:15PM- Tap class FINALLY starts...spend most of the class zoning out because the class has become entirely too easy. All the n00bs in the class have required us to go back to the beginning and relearn everything they should have learned before coming into the instructor's class (but I'm not an instructor...they just have no place to put me)

8:00PM- Start looking at the door, wondering when the jazz instructor's going to show up and save us from tap class.

8:15PM- Still no jazz instructor...tap class continues and I start making up stories in my head

8:20PM- Break is called and my bag of candy is attacked by the n00bs...I continue reading and texting

8:30PM- Jazz starts...FINALLY we start doing interesting things!

9:00PM- Gotten yelled at by the jazz instructor at least once for falling over my own feet

9:15PM- Glad I'm at dance class because we're doing something impossibly difficult to learn and it's a real brain teaser

9:30PM- Dance class ends....get driven home

10PM- Return to place in front of computer to play Fiesta or write or do whatever else I feel like doing in front of the computer

12AM- Take my nighttime meds (Klonopin) that are supposed to keep me from freaking out during the night

3:00-3:30AM- Good Night World! Time for bed!

That would be a normal, exciting Tuesday for me during the "school year"...I'm hoping to change the load of downtime I have into working time once I get my license.

Captcha-ed!

2009-08-21T17:34:00.000-07:00

Ok....I live in the Lewis Carroll's world of making up words. Ever read the poem "The Jabberwocky"? Great poem but almost impossible to read aloud because of all the odd little words that he created in the poem. Now I don't really have to create words. It seems like computer age has taken over that job for a bit.

You know those captcha thingies? Those jumbled up words that make sure your human and not some malevolent artificial intelligence who's creating the Matrix through Blogger or Ticketmaster or wherever...they're great at making up little words. Actually, they kind of remind me of this section that was on this test we had to take in order to get into Catholic High Schools. The test had this section where they gave you fake words and definitions and you had to memorize them. Then, like twenty minutes (and a test section or two later) you had to be able to, basically, puke up the answers to questions about the fake words and their definitions.

Anywho! Here's some fun with captcha! The act of being dead- deding

Being confused and bamboozled at the same time- bombled

The garbled form of "Dude, your turn"- duern

A vat for hold huge thing- hudivat

And now you've been Captcha-ed!

My Mouse and Me

2009-08-19T22:07:00.000-07:00

Alright, I was one of those kids who had A LOT of toys when she was little. I mean, most of those toys I had to share with my sister. Instead of our parents buying us double of everything, we got one thing and were told to share. You can imagine that worked about half the time. The other half of the time my sister would get to play with whatever the toy was while I played with something else, waiting for her to get bored so I could play with whatever she was playing with. A good big sister always let's her little sister get what she wants, no matter if that makes her unhappy or not.

Though I had toys, the only time I really pitched a fit was when my sister got her hands on my books. I've always had a fondness for reading and was taught that books deserved our respect. You didn't tear appart books or draw in storybooks because that would be "hurting the book." It sounds crazy--- and I'm sure it kinda is ---but that's what my mom taught me. I don't even crack the spines on my books now. Not because it hurts the book but because it makes the pages fall out and I hate that.

There was one toy, though, that my sister was not allowed to touch and is still not allowed to touch. This one toy is mine and mine alone. He's been sitting on my bed since I was very young--- maybe four years old ---and I have all intention of keeping him either on my bed or in my room when I get married. See, this toy means more to me than anything else in the world.

The toy itself is nothing more than a small Baby Mickey plushie. Kinda like the Baby Mickey in the picture except he's sitting up and not crawling. He's not much but he's mine and he's very special to me.

Baby Mickey--- yes that's his name ---was given to me by my grandfather just before he got very sick and died (I think he died in 1987). It was the last thing I remember my grandfather ever giving to me. There might have been other things but I don't remember them as well as I do this one particular stuffed animal. I don't even remember where we got Baby Mickey from. I just remember my grandfather giving him to me.

See, my grandfather--- my mom's father, Nicholas...hence my middle name being Nicole ---and I were very close. I was his first grandchild and he took it upon himself to spoil the fishsticks out of me. He use to buy me whatever I wanted whenever we went to the toy store (or even the toy aisle of a local drug store). He use to take me to and from pre-school every day because my mom was at work. My mom tells me stories about how he use to give me candy when I wasn't allowed to have candy and me sitting with him during the 1986 World Series and him making me cheer on the New York Mets even though I really had no idea what was going on. My mom told me once that she wished my grandfather was still around because he'd be very proud of me. She says I'm a lot like my grandfather and that we have the same kind of smile. It's the smile she only gets to see when I dance on stage, by the way. My mom even says that she believes my grandfather is my own personal guardian angel since I was so important to him.

He got sick, though, and he died when I was a little girl. I don't remember much of that--- maybe just not believing my mom when she told me my grandfather had gone to see God ---but I do remember him giving me my Baby Mickey plushie. Kinda strange, no?

Baby Mickey and I have been through everything together and he means the world to me. For me, he's all I have left of my grandfather...even though my grandfather wasn't a plush mouse in blue pajamas.

Is there a Doctor in the House?

2009-08-18T21:00:00.001-07:00

I think everyone has one of those lists. You know, a list of people they'd love to sit down and eat lunch with. Maybe more than one list since they might have a list of living people and a list of dead people. It's fun to imagine what having lunch with some dead person you admire would be like. I'm guilty of having both kinds of lists (I'll probably scrap them now that I'm thinking of it) though I do not have a list of the greatest baseball team with living and dead players. I know some baseball fans have those. I haven't gone that far yet and I'm not that sort of extreme baseball fan. Besides, dead players--- no matter how great they were ---can't help you win a World Series now. Bring some of them back to life and put them on the New York Mets and then we'll talk. Fishsticks only knows, my poor Mets need all the help they can get!

Anyway, my list of living (and my list of dead ones too) people consists of authors, scientists, composers, and people who kind of blur the lines between the groups. I mean, a lot of the writers I read are or were scientist and a lot of scientists could be considered authors in their own right. I mean they write journal articles that get published. Let me tell you, though, most scientific journal articles are so painfully boring that they make you want to either cry or strangle the author. I understand that the point of a scientific journal article is to get information across but there HAS to be a way to do it so that the reader doesn't fall asleep halfway through reading it or gets lost in the super technical jargon that they want to throw the article at a wall (immunology and neurology journals are infamous for articles that are painfully confusing).

One person I'd love to meet and have lunch with--- and is among the living ---is Dr. Robin Cook (the guy in the picture). Dr. Cook is a trained ophthalmologist who is currently on leave from the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary. He's also my all time, very favorite ever medical fiction author. His books--- well, for me his newest books but I imagine the effect was the same when his older books came out too. ----are always at the forefront of science but don't always extol the virtues of whatever scientific advancement.

Instead his books act as a warning about the risks and benefits of whatever scientific advancement he happens to be writing about. That's one of the reasons I like his books. He shows that science is all powerful and the be all, end all of everything. Instead he writes about how scientific advancements can be wonderful but can also be dangerous. In his most recent book, Intervention, he uses Dr. Jack Stapleton and Dr. Laurie Montgomery-Stapleton (arguably his best characters EVER or just maybe my favorite characters of his) to show both the risks and benefits of alternative medicine. Many people seek alternatives to normal medical solutions because the cost of insurance is so high and because alternative medicine practitioners are, often, more personable than normal doctors.

For me, I know lots of people who use alternative medical remedies. I don't exactly hold to the whole alternative medical treatments because the herbal remedies that are used aren't controlled by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) so the dosages aren't always the same and the drugs can be cut with any number of substances, some that could be harmful. As much as I don't like the medication I take, I'll trust the FDA over some herbal remedy.

So, why would I love to meet Robin Cook?

Well, the reasons are many! Here are a few of them:

(1.) I've been reading his books since I was in grade school. I would love to have to opportunity to tell him just how much I admire him as a writer and how his books have helped me in more ways than I can count. No joke, I've used the science I've read about in his books to help me pass exams, write papers, and, generally, do well in my college and grad school science classes. Sometimes I'd go into a class and the professor would start talking about something and I'd be like "Oh man! I read about that in (fill in the Robin Cook novel)!"

(2.) Thank him for finally writing just about Dr. Jack Stapleton and Dr. Laurie Montgomery-Stapleton (a/k/a Dr. Jack and Dr. Laurie). Before settling on those two characters, Dr. Cook would write about new characters in each of his books. It was hard to make a mental and emotional connection with the characters since they kept changing. When he started just writing about Dr. Jack and Dr. Laurie, we all became invested in the lives and backstories of these two characters. Now reading about them is like visiting old friends who just happen to exist only in books. I'd love the opportunity to thank him for giving me two friends who happen to live in my head and make his medical adventures that much more interesting.

(3.) Since he's always on the forefront of medical technology, I'd love to just sit with him and find out how he manages to stay on top of all that science. I mean, he writes about two medical examiners who get involved in all manner of things in many branches of science. Dr. Cook, though, is an ophthalmologist. He's only written one book (Blindsight) about that particular branch of science. I really want to know how much research he has to do in order to write just one of his novels. Does he do all the research on his own or does he ask around, finding experts in each field he plans on writing about? I mean, some of his books are pretty exhaustive when it comes to the science of things like Vector, his book on genetic testing. He went into great detail about the BRAC-1/BRAC-2 genes and what a positive BRAC-1/BRAC-2 finding meant. I'd be curious to see if he contacted genetic experts or did the research about the genes himself.

(4.) Ask him how long it takes him to write a novel. See, when I first started reading his novels, new novels were few and far between. I'd have to wait maybe two or three years for a new novel to come out. Now it seems like he's releasing a new novel every summer. I'm not complaining because I love reading his books but I'd love to know why the change. How come he's putting out books so much faster now? Is it because science is advancing so quickly now or is it because he's on leave from work or is it for some other reason?

(5.) Just to tell him that he's my favorite author and probably the best medical fiction writer I've ever read. That's just the fangirl in me I suppose.

Whenever Dr. Cook has a new book coming out I always check to see if he's doing a book signing anywhere. Alas, I have yet to find one. If I ever do and I ever get a chance to meet him, I'd probably just thank him for writing such amazing books (books I've spent, basically, my entire life reading) and then get a picture with him....because that would be a moment I'd want to remember forever.

Stop the Press: Interview to Add

2009-08-17T19:54:00.000-07:00

Alrighty, you want to interview me? Are you sure about this? I mean I'm not exactly news worthy so I'm a little confused as to why you'd want to interview me. I guess I shouldn't ask too many questions--- since that's your job as the interviewer ---but I can't help but be curious as to why you want to know things about me.

I guess I should stop stalling and get this interview over with. I promise I'll try to keep my answers short and to the point. I know I have a tendency to ramble along when I'm writing. I do that a lot, though, ramble when I write. I guess I feel like I have a lot to say and, since I'm very bad at saying things, I write them. Then I start wandering around and going off on tangents and things like that.

I can't promise I won't go on tangents during this little interview but I'll do my best. My mind likes to wander around from topic to topic. Maybe that's why I don't sleep at night. My mind is always busy dwelling on something that probably has little to do with anything else.

Anywho....on with the interview!

1. What are your other favourite things to do (other than blog or scrap)?- I love to read and when I say I love to read I really do mean I LOVE to read. I will read anything that isn't tied down if I'm really at a loss for things to read. I'm one of those people who'll sit down and digest a 400 page novel in a day just because the book was THAT darn good. My favorite books always tend towards the science fiction, medical fiction, and fantasy. Of course, I also read manga but that's a whole other obsession. I love to read manga and watch anime. Well, most anime anyway. I stick more towards the shonen (technically speaking "boy" but it's generally accepted that girls are going to read shonen manga) because of the action mixed in with the story. If I'm not read something, I'm writing something. You've probably already guessed that I love to write stories...short stories, long stories, and fanfiction. I like making up characters to fit them in the little universes I've created. Let's see...what else do I like to do? OH! I love to color, like color with markers (I don't like crayons. You don't get even coloration with crayons.) while laying on the floor in my room. It's a silly, little kid thing to do, I suppose, but it's something I like to do. I love playing Role Playing Games on both my Playstation 2 and the computer. If I'm using my PS2 it's usually a game from the Final Fantasy or Kingdom Hearts series. Those are really the only two Playstation 2 Role Playing Game franchises I like because they have both strong stories and great animation. If I'm on my computer, I play a Role Playing Game called Fiesta. At the moment, I have four characters....Maitreya (level 86 Battle Warrior), Litsetaure (level 40 Hawk Archer), JadeBlueAfterGlo (level 29 High Cleric), and MonaLisaOverride (Level 15 Apprentice Mage). I like watching movies on my portable DVD player, again mostly science fiction (where I pick out the science in the sci-fi much to everyone's annoyance) and fantasy movies with lots of anime films thrown in for color and flavor, and listening to my iPOD, usually movie scores.

My other great love in the hobby world is dancing. I LOVE to dance ballet. I'm heading into my twenty-third season with the studio I dance for. Ballet is my favorite form of dance but I also dance two kinds of tap, jazz, and modern. I also like going to see the ballet as much as I love dancing ballet. I firmly believe that everything is beautiful at the ballet.

2. Where or who do you gain inspiration from?- I'm inspired by lots of things...TV shows I watch, games I play, movies I've seen, random thoughts in my head...just about anything and everything. If I'm writing fanfiction, it's a combination of the ideas in my head and whatever the source storyline is coming from. If I'm writing regular original fiction, then it's just the ideas in my head and the characters I make up. Sometimes I think the characters that make up the story instead of the other way around. They're the ones that are in charge of the story and I'm just there to write it down for them. If I'm scrapping then it depends on what I'm working on. At least that's what I think happens anyway. I'm not entirely sure what really inspires me.

3. What do you like to do to relax?- Relax? That's a totally foreign concept to me. I don't really do much relaxing. I kind of rely on tension and stress to keep me together. That might explain why I have panic attacks LOL! I guess I read or write to relax. Maybe anyway...

4. What is your favourite kind of music?- I've been told I have the worst taste in music EVER! I like instrumental music but not classical music. It's mostly movie scores that I listen to. John Williams is my favorite composer ever. I think he writes the most dynamic music, lots of big, brassy melodies in his scores. I also have gotten into listening to J-Pop and J-Rock (Japanese Pop and Japanese Rock) because off all the anime I watch. I don't just listen to Japanese music though. I also like Italian and Irish music as well.

5. Do you have a scrap or creativity space - can you show us a picture? (This could also be a pic of a place you like to spend time in or at)- I kind of have no proper scrap space. I just use the dining room table. Not exactly the most creative of spaces but it near my computer so I can plug my iPOD in and listen to music where I scrap. I tend to write a lot at my computer too because, well, I have most of my notebooks hidden near the computer or as a file on my computer and because I can listen to my iPOD.

6. What's your favourite food?- Does chocolate count as a food? I really like chocolate! Actually, I really like sweets in general. Chocolate and gummi things, especially gummi brains, are my favorite.

7. Are you afraid of anything?- Failure...that's a biggie for me. I'm afraid I'm going to wind up a failure in life. I want to be able to help people, even in a small way, and I'm in constant fear of failing. As strange as this sounds, I'm also terribly afraid of public speaking. I've spent most of my life dancing and I'm terrified of speaking in public...how silly is that!

8. Do you have a favourite tv show?- Ok....my favorite TV shows are split into two categories...those that are animated and those that aren't. My favorite non-anime shows are: House M.D., Bones, Fringe, and The X-Files. Yes, they're all science or science-fiction related TV shows. When it comes to the world of anime, my favorite shows are (at the moment), Bleach, Naruto, and Claymore. Claymore, though, I have DVDs of. It's never made it's way onto any of the normal anime channels because of the violent content.

9. Do you collect anything?- Let's see...I collect ballet/ballernia related things and anime/manga related things. I also collect Build-A-Bear stuffed animals...I have about 40 or 50 of them by now.

10. If you were sent to a desert island, and you could take 3 things, what would they be? (it could be anything!!)- Let's see...I'd bring along a Girl Scout camping guide (so I'd be able to survive in my surroundings), my laptop to record my misadventure, and my cell phone (maybe I can call a rescue ship).

Not-So-Great Expectations

2009-08-11T18:16:00.000-07:00

I hated the book Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. I had to read it my Freshman year in high school and it made me want to throw my school issued reader (which weighed about thirty pounds or so) at the teacher every time I stepped into the classroom. I was never much for reading classic authors like Dickens. His writing style never appealed to me. That and the novel was just so darn borning! I didn't really care about what happened to the characters because I couldn't get past how boring the story was.

But that's a story for another day!

I don't really like expectations in general, despite the fact they've been a part of my life for as long as I can actually remember. I've had expectations heaped upon me by my parents--- mostly my mother though my father had his hand in it too ---and, later, by myself. I think I've done more damage than good to myself trying to live up to all the things that were and still are expected of me.

I lived a life of academic fear when I was in school. I was NOT NOT NOT allowed to make any mistakes on any of my exams. My mother demanded perfection from me. I was expected to get hundreds on all my exams and "A"s in all my classes. Any less was completely, totally, and utterly unacceptable. I worked my rear end off, studying and spending any time I had on school work because I was expected to be perfect. The only breaks I had were when I went to dance class and that was only because I was allowed to go. If my grades started to slip, as so often was threatened, my mother would have had no qualms pulling me out of dance classes. Academy perfection was not just expected it was required...but only for me. My sister never had to face that monster. It was just me who was expected to be perfect academically.

Of course that caused a conflict with what was expected of me by my father and grandmother. They wanted me to be popular. They both really liked the popular kids's parents and wanted me to be part of the "in-crowd." Except, you see, the in-crowd wasn't perfect academically. I was so afraid of my mother and her yelling at me that I wound up hanging with the rest of the academic dorks (a/k/a the smart kids) because they were the only people who would have a social loser like me. I've never been able to live up to that expectation--- to be popular and well liked by everyone around me ---because I'm not very good at dealing with other people. I don't understand them or they don't understand me or something like that.

My mother expected me to be not only the perfect daughter but the perfect sister. Where has this gotten me? Let's see, I feel I'm an absolute failure as a daughter because I can't get a job, despite having a Master's Degree (which I busted my rear end getting because I expected myself to be able to get one). I'm not pretty, popular, fashionable, or what is generally thought to be normal. Instead, I'm this average looking dork who wears glasses, jeans and t-shirts, loves anime and manga and dances ballet for fun. That's a far cry from being the perfect daughter I was expected to be.

That's why it makes sense that I live in my younger sister's shadow. She's more the perfect daughter type. She's fashionable, popular, cutting edge pretty, employed, and has acceptable hobbies. Where my sister is concerned, I tried to be the perfect big sister by setting a good example and being all helpful with her. That just got me turned into her personal slave and whipping post. Every time I do something she doesn't like, she runs to get my mom and I wind up getting screamed on for not being the perfect big sister. The best part is, my sister gets rewarded for her acting like a whiny little baby.

Case in point: I wouldn't look for jobs for her (as is expected of me...I must always be avaiable to find my sister employment even if I'm looking for work myself) and she whined to my mother. Now she's getting a brand new laptop so she doesn't have to deal with the "computer tyrant" (that would be me).

I've been expected to do and be so many things that I've, at times, made myself physically ill. See, I wind up stressing myself out as I try to do the amazing balancing act of being the perfect daughter, sister, Girl Scout Leader, and a bunch of other things that I kick my immune system out of whack. I wind up actually making myself sick over all the expectations I have or, at least, feel like I have. When I was younger, I'd get sick but still drag my sick rear end to school every day because the perfect student doesn't miss a day of classes. She might fall behind and then not get perfect scores on all her exams.

I wish I could live a live that was free of expectations but I know I can't. I'm stuck trying to be what everyone expects me to be that I have to hide who I actually am. I can't freely talk about my hobbies at home because they're not "normal." I get punished for wanting to the movies because my choice in movies is not what's expected to be "normal" for someone like me (I like action, science-fiction, fantasy, and anime movies...apperantly, I'm supposed to like romantic comedies). I live my life trying to be what everyone expects me to be...I often wonder if I'll ever be expected just to be me.

Let Us Eat Salad

2009-08-10T18:34:00.000-07:00

You Are a Ceasar Salad

You are very popular and easy to love. You strike a cord with people.
You are friendly and careful not to offend anyone. You try hard to get along.

And while you may avoid controversy, you are still very sincere. People love that about you.
You are dependable and steady. With you, what you see is what you get.

What Kind of Salad Are You?

First a few thoughts on salads:
(1.) I LOVE salad!
(2.) I HATE salad dressing! I always have to have my salads plain!
(3.) The more veggies and fruit you put in my salad the happier I am. I'm partial to carrots, celery, red or green cabbage, apples, grapes, madarin orange, and beans being in salads. Not the same salad, of course.
(4.) Croutons are alright but I like nuts and crispy noodles in my salad better!
(5.) Salad, apperantly, has to have chicken in it in order to be considered a meal. Otherwise it's a side dish. At least, that's what my mom says.

Now...on to the quiz results!

I'm by no means popular, never was and probably never will be. I don't really strike any chords with people because people and I tend not to get along. They find me odd in a Luna Lovegood sort of way. Despite that, I really do try to get along with other people. I don't like making waves so I do my best to get along with everyone...even the people who think I'm strange.

I am one of those "what you see is what you get" kind of people. I don't hide behind a mask because I'm not very good at doing things like that. I'm one of those honest people. I have no choice but to be honest since I'm physically unable to lie.

That said...maybe these results are partly accurate!

Words on my Sister

2009-08-10T17:58:00.000-07:00

"If you don't understand how a woman could both love her sister dearly and want to wring her neck at the same time, then you were probably an only child." (Linda Sunshine)

My sister, Meghan, and I are two totally different people. She's 23 years old and I'm 26 but she's often mistaken for the older of the two of us. She hates that, by the way...swears up and down that I do it on purpose but I don't! Not that she'd believe me...she never believes me. Meghan always has to be right and woe be it to anyone who tells her otherwise.

To say that my sister is entitled would be an understatement. She gets whatever she wants, whenever she wants. She has a closet full of clothes, some with the tags still on them, yet she goes out and gets new clothes and shoes almost every weekened. She stays out to all hours with her friends and never has to call home. Me? If I'm out, even if I'm on a date, and I'm not home by midnight, the phone calls from home start. Meghan never learned the meaning of the words "no" and "wait until next time" but I'm very familiar with these words and have embraced them as part of my world. I'm use to being told "no," especially when I want to do something and my sister wants to do something. Nearly one hundred percent of the time, my sister will get to do what she wants over what I want to do because what she wants to do is usually more "normal."

That's how my relationship with my sister works. She's the normal one and I'm not. She's the perfect daughter who's popular, fashionable, and just an all around wonderful (or so she likes to present herself) person. The fact I found her the job she has and did all her homework in college (and the end of her time in high school) is ignored. It's part of my "sisterly duty," another set of words I've had to embrace as part of my life.

See, most of my memories of Meghan involve me being a "good sister" and taking verbal or physical abuse from my sibling. I remember when my mom was pregnant with my sister and her sitting me down several times and telling me that a "good sister" takes care of their little sister and lets them do whatever they want because they're younger and they don't know better.

Fast forward a few years and you'd find my sister beating me up and me not fighting back (laying down the foundation of the fact my sister will still verbally insult me....her current favorite is to call me "medically crazy" because I'm on medication for my panic attacks and seeing a therapist...and I won't argue with her). A "good sister" doesn't lay their hands on their younger sibling, even when they're hurting you or so my mom drilled into my head. I remember once, when I was in pre-school, my sister beat me up so badly that she gave me two black eyes and I couldn't go to school because of it. It would have been hard to explain to my teachers why I had two black eyes. No one would have believed me that my sister, who was maybe two or three at the time, gave me the black eyes.

My life, as a big sister, has been about being a "good sister" no matter what the results are towards me. My life has been about doing what my sister tells me to do because a "good sister" does what her younger sister asks. I mean, I've been locked in my bedroom when my sister's had her friends over so I don't "embarass" her. I've done her homework for her, forgoing having a life outside the house myself because she needed to pass her college classes but found partying more important than working. I've taken her flak (and she's usually egged on by my mother who was responsible for creating this dynamic between my sister and I) for nearly all of my life.

Funny thing is...I don't hate my sister. I know that sounds insane but I actually don't. I see it as this...my sister is the princess and I'm just the person working behind the scenes. She's the one my family wants out there to be seen because she's the perfect child and I'm just a walking brain with glasses. No one wants to see that. I belong in the shadows...that's where you'll find me.

Of Wolves, Motorcycles, and Dark Wizards

2009-08-05T18:56:00.000-07:00

I'm going to go out on a limb right now and blame my college education for this nasty habit I have. See, Marymount Manhattan (the college I attended) had a lot of film related classes. It was sort of inevitable that, no matter what your major was, you were going to wind up taking a film class or two. Me, personally, I took two film related classes (Intro to Film and Video and Film History) and one pseudo-film class (Storytelling: Then and Now). They were easy classes--- except for the Storytelling class. That professor was horrid and he made our lives horrid. ---so I liked the nice easy "A" added to my average. It was a great way to pad my GPA and the classes never took that much time because there was no homework for them. Sure you had to write a paper or two but it was never like the weekly assignments and lab reports I had in my science classes.

Sure the classes were a cakewalk but that didn't mean I didn't pay attention during them. Nope! Instead, I managed to pick up a very nasty and annoying habit from them. One that's made me one of the people you don't want to go see a movie with and one I have to remember to control if I'm at a movie with anyone other than my mother.

See, these classes taught us to take apart movies and figure out the where, why, and whats of things. The things on screen were rarely what they actually seemed to be. Everything had an underlying meaning and it was up to us, as good students of film, to figure out what the director was actually trying to tell us. Couple this with my equally annoying habit to research everything and you have a very dangerous combination.

Now, I've seen the film Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince twice so, at least, I know where this rather insane idea came from. Though it wasn't so much the movie that started me on the idea as the book. Sadly the movie never names this character so the point of me using the movie as my jumping off point is moot. The only reason I knew the character's name was because I'd read the book.

I'm getting ahead of myself here, though.

Now, Norse mythology mentions a mighty wolf named "Fenrir." Supposedy, again according to Norse myth, Fenrir is changed to a rock called Gioll a mile down into the earth with a sword shoved in his jaw so he can't bite. On the day of Ragnarok (also known as Gotterdammerung or the end of the cosmos), the earth is supposed to quake and Fenrir's bonds are supposed to break. The mighty wolf will kill the god Odin, who will be avenged by his son Vidar. Either way, the battle between the Norse gods, giants, elves, and dwarves will result in the end of the world as we know it.

Typical end of the world myth...every culture has one. That's not the point, though. The point is that there's a wolf named "Fenrir" involved in the story.

I'm not big on Norse mythology (I much prefer Greek and Roman mythology myself) but I do know about Fenrir and Ragnarok. Why?

Enter the Death Eater (one who supports Lord Voldemort also known as He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named)--- OH! and werewolf ---Fenrir Grayback. Grayback first shows up in the novel Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and is described as a very despicable character. He enjoys attacking children and infecting them so they become werewolves like him. It was Grayback who infected a young Remus Lupin causing him to become a werewolves. Greyback is a low level Death Eater (he doesn't have a Dark Mark on his arm) and only follows Voldemort so he can have access to children to bite.

Fenrir Grayback (who in the movie appears to be one of the Death Eaters who attacks the Weasley House with Bellatrix Lestrange in the movie Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince but that's never explicitally stated) may be a singullarly evil wizard who likes to attack children but he's not the only "Fenrir" in literature. In the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series, there is mention of a "fenrir" in the world of werewolves. Any challenger to the leader, or Ulfric (taken from the Norse word "ulfr" meaning "wolf") of a pack of werewolves is known as a "fenrir." This titling could be seen as link between the fact the Fenrir of Norse Mythology is to challenge Odin, the leader of the Norse pantheon of gods. In the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series, the Ulfric of a wolf pack is the most dominant member of the pack--- as Odin is the most dominant member of the Norse pantheon ---and the fenrir is a challenger, in the same way the mythological Fenrir is to challenge Odin. Of course, a battle between an Ulfric and fenrir does not lead to the end of the world. If the Ulfric is defeated, the position of Ulfric goes to the victorious fenrir. This could be seen as the end of the world created by one leader and the recreation of the world within the pack by another.

"Fenrir" is not just used as a word to describe werewolves. In the film Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, Fenrir is the name of Cloud Strife's (the main male protagonist) motorcycle. Cloud Strife, depicted astride his version of Fenrir, bears a wolf shapped sigil on his clothing in the film. Combined with the wolf-related name of his motorcycle, these two small characteristics show that Cloud is a "lone wolf" type character. Within the realm of the CGI animated film, Cloud is running away from his past, afraid he won't be able to defend those he holds dear. In order to do this, he becomes a "lone wolf" who fights on his own. By the end of the film, however, he is no longer a "lone wolf" though that doesn't change the name of the motorcycle he rides (as seen in the video game Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII).

See...I love movies but I love taking them apart and finding out how they link to bigger things as well. Makes for a very annoying movie experience but it's fun to see how deep the story goes.

Need a Good Laugh?

2009-08-04T19:40:00.001-07:00

I have a very strange sense of humor and I'm completely open about that fact. The things that make me laugh are usually things that other people don't find funny. I'm the type of person that gets told a joke, then looks at the other person and goes "I don't understand why that's funny." That annoys my sister to no bitter end. She thinks I do it on purpose in order to make myself seem smarter than I actually am.

The problem is, I don't really find humor in dirty jokes (99.99% of the time I don't even understand why dirty jokes are funny) nor do I find humor in those "potty humor" jokes. I don't really understand sarcasam, to tell the truth, so I don't find that funny. Usually I take sarcastic as actually being mean. The same goes for ironic. Irony kind of goes over my head as well. Those brands of humor usually leave me scratching my head, wondering why I'm the only person in the room NOT laughing. When it comes to comedians, I don't really find them funny, usually because I don't understand their jokes and jokes aren't funny when you have to explain them. At least, that's what my sister says.

So what do I find funny?

It's kind of a sad fact but I find shows like House M.D., and Bones HYSTERICALLY funny. I will sit and watch House M.D. and laugh when Gregory House is mean to someone or when he makes a joke that no one but someone with scientific knowledge understands. Don't even get me started on when they do lab tests that I've either read about, learned about, or have actually done? That makes me absolutely giddy! I get all excited and giggly because I know what they're talking about and I know how to do what they're doing. Yes, that probably makes me a loser but that kind of stuff makes me laugh.

As for Bones, like House M.D., I get hysterical at the scientific antics of Zach Addy and Jack Hodgins (in the early seasons) and Hodgins alone (in the later seasons). I think their lab experiments are wildly funny because they're things I would love to do myself. I mean, in one episode (I think it was the episode "The Titan on the Tracks") Zach and Hodgins create a man made of spam and false bones and then they set it on fire to see how long it would take to burn! Ok, it doesn't sound funny but, trust me, it's hysterical in the episode. Then there's the Special Agent Seely Booth. He's sort of the only non-"Squint" character on the show. His fustrations over just how straight laced and analytical Dr. Temperance "Bones" Brennan makes me laugh all the time. Everyone says I find that funny because my mind works in the same way as Dr. Brennan's. Her character's lack of popular culture knowledge is funny to me because I lack the same knowledge. I can talk you to death about genetics, anatomy, microbiology, and certain books but I have no idea who celebrities are or who's married to whom.

I'm the type of person who finds humor in the books I read. I'll be sitting and reading some random science fiction or fantasy novel and bust out laughing because of something a character said or did. Thing is, when I go back and read what I thought was funny to another person, the other person, typically, isn't amused. I don't usually understand why the other person isn't laughing. I just assume that my sense of humor took the hard left while everyone I know, their senses of humor took the hard right.

I find anime funny, which is unusual I guess. It's not all anime but some of it. I'm particularly fond of this show called Bleach. I always watch it by myself (because I'm the only person in my family who likes anime) and I'll find myself laughing at the show's silly jokes. There are just certain things about the show that I find amusing; from the overly serious character of Toshiro Hitsugaya (who is a small boy with white hair and an extremely serious personality) to the battle eager character of Kenpachi Zaraki. When I went to see the first Bleach movie (Bleach: Memories of Nobody), I spent most of the movie laughing at the in-jokes only fans of the show would understand. My mom wasn't pleased with me finding humor in that. She's been trying to break me of my "anime habit" since I started watching anime and reading manga (if you want to laugh, read the manga One Piece. It's about a group of pirates and their misadventures. Their captain, Monkey D. Luffy, is the guy in the picture at the top of this post).

I guess if you need a good laugh, maybe you shouldn't come to me. What I find funny doesn't translate into what the rest of the world finds funny.

By Year's End

2009-08-04T19:00:00.000-07:00

365 days....12 months...that's all that a year really is. It's just 365 days broken up into 12 months. Yet a year can feel so different. It can feel like it's gone by in an instant or it can feel as if it's dragging on forever. Time is a human creation, insofar as we can tell, but it's so very important to all of us. There's so much we say we're going accomplish in the 12 months that make up a year. We make promises to ourselves and to others. We tell them we're going to do this or we're going to do that. Sometimes we come through on our word and sometimes we don't.

Alright, in my experience, most of the time people don't but that's just me. I tended to be really jaded about people and their ability to keep promises. I always try to live up to mine but that's not a feeling that's shared, it seems. Lots of people make promises but have no intention of keeping them.

Anyway...the year's more than half over and I have two goals that I hope to accomplish by the end of the year. Oddly enough, I have no power or control over either of these goals but I guess my wishing to accomplish them is my way of exerting control over the situation. I really don't enjoy when situations are out of my control. It's not that I'm a control freak...it's just that I'm more comfortable when I know the whats and whys of things. It makes the fact our world tends towards entropy--- Yes, that's right! Our universe actually tends towards entropy or, as it's commonly called, chaos. ---a bit more bareable I guess.

That said...written...whatever...here are my two goals, hopefully to be accomplished by the end of the year:
(1.) I want to have a job--- I'm very, very, very tired of not being employed. I feel like I'm the only person in the universe who actually WANTS to go to work every day. I've been having so much trouble getting a job because of the fact I don't have my Clinical Lab Tech License. I'm hoping to get that all figured out so I can take the darn exam (and pass said exam). If I have a License, I can get a real research job. Anything beats sitting at home all day not working and having to deal with my sister who claim's I'm lazy because I'm not working. I've tried explaining to her that it's the state's fault and not mine but it's like talking to a brick wall. Nothing gets through! She has to be right all the time so she's branded me as lazy. I'd like to prove that I'm not lazy by getting a job. I mean I know I'm not being lazy--- I'm stuck in some serious state red tape at the moment ---but I want to prove to everyone else I'm not being lazy. That and I really can't take being home much longer. I'm starting to feel really useless and that's not a good thing at all.
(2.) I want OFF my all my meds--- I take medication to control my panic attacks that have this wonderful side effects of making me sick to my stomach if I don't take them with food and they also make me fall down (more often than I normally do) because they mess with my balance. Since the panic attacks I have decided to give me acid reflux, I have to take Nexium. That stupid purple pill gives me wonderful headaches. By the end of the year, I hope to be completely panic attack free--- I know I'll never be completely cured of them since I have an inherited for of panic attacks but I want them under control so I don't randomly panic in crowded stores. ---and off all the meds I'm on. I'm tired of the side effects, especially the jokes by my sister when I trip over my own feet. She likes to point out that I've been dancing all my life but I can't walk a straight line. There's that and the fact I'm just tired of having to remember to take my meds. I want to go back to how I was before this mess started!

Those are my two goals...I just hope I can accomplish them!

An Ode to Dreams

2009-07-28T18:57:00.000-07:00

"To sleep, perchance to dream..." (Hamlet, Act III, William Shakespeare)

What are dreams? Scientifically speaking, dreams are a series of images, emotions, sensations and ideas that occur involuntarily during REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep. Scientists can't really agree on one solid definition of dreams since the inner workings of the brain are pretty much still a mystery to modern scientists.

There are as many theories as to why we dream as there are common themes in dreams. Freud believed that dreams were our subconscious wishes that needed to be interpreted. This theory, thankfully (I don't much like Freud, myself...personal opinion), was replaced in 1976 J. Allan Hobson and Robert McCarly and their theory. Hobson and McCarly's activation synthesis theory stated that the sensory experiences created by the cortex are a way to interpret chaotic signaling coming from the pons. They proposed that REM sleep caused ascending cholinergic PGO (ponto-geniculo-occipital) waves and that these waves stimulated higher mid and forebrain cortical structures that produced the rapid eye movement. The forebrain activates and produces a dream as a result of this.

Of course, that is just one theory as to why we dream. There have been many theories and I figure there will always be theories until we get a proven answer. After all, a theory is just a theory until it has facts behind it. That and several experiments that can be repeated over and over, yeilding the same results. That's why there are so many theories in science and so few actual facts. It's getting the proof that's the tough part.

Anyway...

Getting away from the science of dreams, invariably leads to the psychology of dreams. Like the science of dreams, the psychology of dreams is a place of many, many theories. It seems like every major psychologist had some theory as to what dreams meant or were supposed to imply. I'm not even entirely sure I believe half of what these psychologists have to say since dreams could just be nothing. They could just be the result of random neuronal firing which create random images in the mind.

Some interpretations are less psychological and more symbolic. Dream dictionaries tend to go down that route. They use traditional symbology (yes, like Dan Brown's Robert Langdon in The DaVinci Code with his symbols) in order to interpret dreams. This is same sort of symbology used by academics when studying novels and films. That MIGHT be why I give it more credit than the psychological theories of dreams...I kind of like academics better than psychologists.

For me, studying my dreams is nigh impossible. Why? The answer is very simple and sort of strange. If I dream, I simply don't remember what I've dreamt about. I wake up in the morning wondering why I didn't dream. Obviously I have to have REM sleep stage, otherwise I wouldn't be sleeping. That leads me to one of two conclusions. Either I don't dream at all--- which is entirely abnormal ---or I just don't remember what I dream about. I'll go with the latter, since that's slightly more normal than not dreaming at all. Maybe I just dream about things that aren't worth remembering or something like that.

Either that or I just wait too long to go to sleep. I don't sleep well--- I've read that sleep is a learned skill, picked up during infancy. Apperantly, I never picked up that skill because my mom tells everyone I never slept as a baby either ---so I wait until I'm literally dead on my feet tired to go to sleep. If I don't do that, I wind up lying in bed staring at the ceiling until I get tired enough to sleep. Maybe I just fall into such a deep sleep when I do sleep that I don't remember what I'm dreaming.

That's just my theory though!

Rock Gotta Have Faith

2009-07-27T21:38:00.000-07:00

"I have lived with a fragile faith built upon the ether of vague memories of an experience I can neither prove nor explain..." (Fox Mulder from "The X-Files: The Truth and the Light" CD)

Faith, according to the Wiktionary, is a very old word. It has been in common usage since the 12th century and its roots are in the Latin verb "fidere." "Fidere" can be defined as "to trust; to confide in." This older definition is one aspect of the more modern definition of the word "faith." Faith is much more than being able to trust someone or to be able to confide in someone. The word "faith" is one of those words that has an expansive definition yet is bandied about like it only has one or two simple meanings. The meaning of the word "faith" goes beyond one or two simple definitions.

The word "faith" seems to have definitions that fall into three categories:
(1.) Those relating to a system of religious beliefs
(2.) Those that relate to feelings towards another person.
(3.) Those relating to an obligation towards another person.
Though these definitions seem rather simple, they each have a deeper meaning. At least, in my mind they do anyway.

The idea of religious faith has been part of my life since I was a little girl. I was raised in an extremely religious Roman Catholic family. My mother taught in the Catholic School System for thirty some odd years before they closed her school and she was forced to work in public school. I, myself, have both assisted and taught in various religious education programs. I also am a product of Catholic Grade and High Schools. To say that religious faith has been a small part of my life is a bit of an understatement. Many of my early memories involve going to the Catholic School where my mom taught and hanging out with the nuns and priests.

Though I believe in God and in the tenets of my religion, I find that many believe I'm actually at odds with my own faith. See, the Catholic Church has a problem with those of us who want to work in genetics. They feel we want to "play God" by changing what God has created. I have no such aspirations. I don't want to "play God" by any means. The problem is the church doesn't see that. They think anyone who wants to work in genetics wants to create life in their own image. I've been told that my soul is, basically, heading for those wonderful fiery pits we learned about in Grade School because of my career choice by several pastors of my church.

I have faith in science but I also have faith in religion as well. After all, someone had to aid Watson and Crick (other than Rosalind Franklin) in discovering the nature of DNA. Maybe it was divine intervention that allowed them to unravel the genetic code. Wouldn't it follow, then, that we have been given the right to change genes? To fix the ills of the world through gene therapy? I was taught in Grade School that God has a special place in his heart for children. Why, then, would he create a child--- onsetably in His own image and likeness, as we were taught in Grade School religion ---who is only going to be on this earth a short time, destined to die a painful, debilitating death? Why put a child on this planet who is going to cause more pain than joy for his or her family? I believe that God has given scientists the ability to understand genetics in order to be able to help these children. He wouldn't want them to suffer and He's given science the power to prevent that suffering.

I don't understand why the church doesn't see that fact. They only see the evils of genetics...never the benefits. Yes, I have my faith in God and in my religion, it's my understanding, I feel, that isn't complete or is lacking in some way. Maybe it's because I also have faith in science. I would say religion and science are incompatible but they're not. One needs the other and vice versa.

It was Einstein that said "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." They need each other, religion and science, just like the human body needs sturdy legs and a good set of eyes to walk properly. I don't understand why that isn't recognized by the church but that's a story for another day.

Then there's the idea of faith relating to another person. This is, actually, the type of faith I have the most trouble with. My faith in the human race has been damaged by time and experience. Most people have proven, to me anyway, to be untrustworthy. They break their faith to others entirely too easily. When it comes down to it, it always seems as if everyone is out for themselves only. I've been stabbed in the back by too many people and have had my secrets laid bare by people I had faith because they were my friends. Now I'm guarded when it comes to the faith I have in other people.

I don't want to be subjected to empty and broken promises and trusts because I had faith in the wrong person. That sort of pain is something I don't want to feel ever again. My faith in the human race is what, I guess, you could call "fides fragilis" (literally "fragile faith"). I don't trust people easily because my faith in individuals has been broken too many times but I know I have to trust others. I only give them a certain amount of my faith in order to prevent myself from getting hurt again. There have only been a handful of people who have managed to earn my faith fully because I have very little faith in others. Too many empty promises and knives in the back have seen to that.

Finally, there is the idea of owing faith to someone. I like this idea as it conjures up images of knights and chivalry and the Arthurian Legend (something I really do enjoy). I try not to break my word--- my faith ---when given to another person. I make sure to do my best to live up to all the promises I've made because I don't want to be seen as a faithless person. I want people to trust me (even if I'm wary of them) because I want to show them that it's easy to trust others without ever getting something in return. Has this worked out for me? Not so much! I've kept promises to people only to have them call me on said promises in a negative way...which has helped to create my "fragile faith" towards the rest of the human race.

Faith is more than just a simple word. It's something that has to be lived out and acted upon and brough to life. Like so many of the grand words--- "love," "hope," "mercy," "kindness" ---it is so much more than words on paper or on a screen. It's a living, breathing creature that embodies more than just religion and more than just actions towards other members of the human race. It's something that has to be experienced. It's something that has to be felt. It's intangiable yet compeltely touchable at the same time. It is what it is. Faith is something you have to have faith in, in order to sense its existence.

Songs of the Summertime

2009-07-20T19:30:00.000-07:00

Alright, I'm not exactly the paragon of musical knowledge. I don't listen to the radio since I'm usually found walking around with my iPOD on. I'm not exactly up on what's popular to listen to and who the big bands everyone is listening to are. Put it this way, apparently Paramore was a big deal group BEFORE they showed up on the soundtrack for Twilight singing "Decode." I didn't know that and, when I brought it up, my sister (who knows about the big deal music groups BEFORE they're the big deal music groups) had a good laugh. She says I live in a cultural vacuum when it comes to music because I'm always the last to figure out who the big deal bands are and things like that.

See, for me, I tend to sick close to the kinds of music I know and like well. I'm a big fan of movie scores (sometimes more so than the movies themselves) and of instrumental music in general. I blame ballet for that one. I mean, after twenty-two years of ballet music (counting the one year we did a rock ballet to the soundtrack from Madonna's version of "Evita"), I pretty much can tolerate instrumental music pretty well.

There's very little outside of instrumental music I actually like. It's mostly J-Pop and J-Rock (thanks to all the anime I watch) and Irish and Italian music. Other than that, there's very little I listen to.

Anyway...

Every summer there's always one big song they play on the radio over and over again. At least, that's how I remember things when I use to listen to the radio. There'd always be this one song that was played AT LEAST four times an hour (or so it seemed) because it was so popular. I guess the one song that's getting the most time being played from my iPOD (seeing as it's my favorite song of the moment) is the song "“Lullaby” by Hypnogaja. The song is from this very strange CD. It's from the soundtrack to The Looking Glass Wars series. The thing is, The Looking Glass Wars are a series of books. Their author, Frank Beddor, decided to create what he called an "aural novel" to go along with his series of books. It's supposed to help you understand the story in his books better but that's not actually why I like the CD or am currently attached to the song "Lullaby."

This "aural novel" is always one of the first CDs (albeit in a digital format since it's on my iPOD) I reach for when I start writing fanfiction, specifically fanfiction related to The Matrix trilogy. I was stuck on an opening chapter for the latest fanfiction I'm working on (The Fianna Fight) so I wound up playing that CD quite a bit. It wasn't until I attached the song "Lullaby" to the chapter (every fanfiction chapter is headed by part of a song) that things started to come together. It became a lot easier to write once the chapter had a musical backbone.

The song also kind of fits the mood I've been in recently. I'm having trouble with the state as I'm trying to get my Clinical Lab Tech License. I have a Master's Degree in Biology and I can't get a job because I'm un-licensed. I'd be licensed but both my college and Grad School forgot to tell me about it. Now I'm trying to get licensed on my own without any help from either school.

The lyrics of the song go:

Once upon a time
Or so the story's told
Everyone lives happily
As the end unfolds

Forever sweet
And never ending

All I want is to know why
Life is not a lullaby

Reality tells
A different kind of tale
Everybody tries to win
But everyone fails

It's never sweet
And never ending

It's all a lie, tell me why
It's all a lie, the lullaby

It's all a lie, it's all a lie
Tell me why, tell me why

That's how I feel right now....I keep trying to win this license but I keep failing because the schools I went to won't help me out. I'd love to know why life isn't like a fairy tale or a lullaby.

The Longest Walk

2009-07-20T17:15:00.000-07:00

I turned eighteen on March 1st, 2001...so that was about eight years ago. I can only think of one thing that happened when I was eighteen years old and it's not exactly the most pleasant of memories. It's not about me finishing high school or going to prom or anything like that. As a matter of fact, I was glad to be done high school.

I was excited that I was going to go to college and get to study biology because that's what I wanted to study and not what my strict Catholic school told me I had to study. That's my college in the picture, by the way...Marymount Manhattan College (also known as MMC and yes it's as small as it looks).

It was on a Tuesday, my first full week of college that this memory takes place. Now, you have to understand, I live in Queens (a borough of New York) and I'd never left Queens alone. I went to grade school and high school in Queens, going to and from school by car. Going to Marymount, going to Manhattan on my own was a big deal for me. I was, finally, being allowed some responsibilities to see myself to and from school alone. Of course, I had to call when I got to school and when I was leaving but, still, my dad wasn't driving me and picking me up. I was scared but it was that excited sort of scared to be able to do this on my own.

Anyway, my dad was driving me to the tram (if you've ever seen Spider-Man, it's the red thing he and the Green Goblin fight near at the end of the movie) so I could ride over to walk the ten or so blocks to school. We were listening to a local radio station on the way and they reported that there'd been an accident in one of the Twin Towers. The radio people were saying that it might have been an accident, someone stupid messing around with a plane and that it was a minor accident. My dad and I didn't think anything of it so he let me get on the tram to go to school. From the tram, I could see the smoldering hole in the building but, like everyone else on the tram, we thought it was just a horrible accident. It was a troublesome thought on an all too nice early fall morning but we're New Yorkers and we all pushed the thought from our communal minds, too busy with thoughts of work and school.

I got to school without incident, heading for my first class. It was this silly Freshman class called Critical Thinking I. I wasn't then and am still not now, sure what the actual purpose of the class was. We didn't learn anything, didn't write papers, didn't do readings. Nope, we just sat for an hour and a half and listened to this blustery professor talk about himself.

Then it happened.

They called a girl out of my class and she came back in tears. We weren't sure why and the girl was too broken up to say anything. It was after they called the professor out of the room that we knew something was wrong. He was gone a good fifteen minutes before he came back, asking anyone from the state of New York to call their home and try to get in touch with their families. I went, being from New York, but I was unable to get in touch with my home in Queens. The school had lost all phone signals. I was starting to get scared but I wasn't prepared for what I was told when I got back into the classroom.

The Twin Towers had been hit by two airplanes in an act of terrorism. The school was closing and the professor told us to leave because we were all going to die if we stayed in the building. Yes, that's right, a professor told a room full of panicked freshman (most of whom were away from home for the first time) that they were going to die and there was nothing they could do about it.

I bolted from the school, terrified beyond anything. I couldn't get a cab, couldn't get a bus, couldn't even get on the tram to get back to Queens. I had but one choice and one choice alone. I had to walk the 59th Street (also known as the Queens Borough) Bridge. It was the longest walk I've ever had to take and not because the bridge was all that long. No, it was long because people kept saying that bridges were going to be hit next and we had to get off the bridge or we were all going to die. I was near in tears when I got to the Queens side of the bridge. I found a spare bit of concrete and called my house, praying that someone would pick up.

My grandmother picked up on the other end but her news wasn't good. It seemed my mother had gone into the city looking for me and I had missed her completely in my hurry to get off the bridge. My mother had forgotten her cell phone at her job (she was working in a Catholic Grade School at the time) so my grandmother had no way of getting in touch with her.

I had no choice but to go back across the bridge and go into the city to see if I could locate my mother. Before I left, scared that I might be killed on my way back across the bridge, I left my mother a cell phone message. It was something along the lines of "This is Ashley, mommy. I'm really scared and I want to come home. They're saying we're all going to die so if I do, I love you." I don't really remember the exact words but it was something to that effect.

I had to fight my way back across the bridge to get back to 59th Street (where the bridge lets off) and to my mother. I found her in tears standing at Tram Plaza (the place where you get the tram) because she couldn't find me and couldn't get my cell. I was crying too because I'd thought I was never going to find her. She asked me why I came back, once she found out I'd been on the Queens side of the bridge all along, and I answered, "I didn't want to die alone and I didn't want you to die alone either."

She and I walked back across the bridge and back to Queens. She had to go back to her job to make sure her class got home and I went with my dad to pick up my sister from the high school she was attending (and that I had graduated from). That night, I remember banning anyone from turning the televisions on. I didn't want to see anything, hear anything, know anything for a while. Even though I was on the Upper East Side (quite a distance from Ground Zero) I'd been scared for my life. I'd been told, that I was going to die and that was quite enough for me.

My graduating class, we'd be forever known as the 9/11 class because we all lived through that day. We were all freshmen, our first time away from home in some way, shape, or form (even if home was just across a bridge) who were all irrevocably changed by something that happened across the island of Manhattan from us. We all carry stories from that day. We all remember what class we were in and how scared we were and how lost we all felt. We all remember what we were wearing (I never wore that pair of pants of shirt ever again. They're in the back of my closet, packed away because I don't even like looking at them).

I don't like remembering being eighteen because of that day. One day spoiled an entire year for me and changed my world forever.

Invisible Eyes

2009-07-13T20:27:00.000-07:00

(Those are my pointe shoes from two years ago...well, an old pair just before I retired them because, as you can see, they were beat up and not usable anymore...yes, this has to do with the post)

If I could turn invisible (Oh! Like the Invisible Woman in The Fantastic Four) and follow someone around for the day, I wouldn't pick one person. It would be hard to pick one person considering what I'd love to be invisible and follow. Instead, I'd pick one entity and follow it. Don't worry, this time it's something in the real world and not something out of one of the imaginary worlds my mind tends to go to.

I would love to follow, unseen and invisible, the American Ballet Theater (ABT)....My favorite ballet company. The company's made up of so many people that I don't think I'd want to follow one dancer (male or female) around. I'd want to see everything so I'd probably just follow the whole company around for the day. It would also have to be a rehearsal day, not a day they're performing a ballet.

Why?

See, at most the ABT does two performances a day and the main dancers change between performances. The ones who do the matinee aren't the same as the ones who do the evening show so where's the fun in that! Then there are leads who just dance on different days as everyone else.

I'd love to sit invisibly in a dance studio and watch the kinds of rehearsals these "real ballerinas" have to go through. I've been in my own fair share of rehearsals at my studio and I'd love to see if actual dancers do the same sorts of things at their rehearsals that I do at mine.

I mean, do real dancers have to do barre (these horizontal wooden polls that are fastened against the walls of the studio that we use to do exercises. I regard the exercises we do at the barre as a form of torture and not because I'm not good at them. Nope, I just find them boring and tedious and, well, annoying because I hate being told when and how to stretch.)?

Do real dancers have to go "across the floor" (a term we use for, well, literally going across the floor of the studio doing turns or other basic exercises. Sometimes we do sets of steps--- called combinations ---across the floor. I don't mind going across the floor as long as I don't have go first! I like going more towards the end)?

Do they get to eat candy behind their ballet instructor's back? (Ok, I'm my studio's supplier of candy and it's by request of my ballet instructor. He actually will tell me what candy to bring sometimes because it's what he wants)

What are real ballet instructors like? I mean, I love my ballet instructor (He's awesome and but grumpy sometimes) but he's not what I imagine a real ballet instructor to be. He wears jeans or sweats to class and teaches in his sneakers or socks (if he's really feeling it).

How long are real ballet rehearsals and do they rehearse with props and sets and stuff?

How do they deal with teaching so many different dances to different people?

So many questions and so few answers! I'd love to know the answers so I'd love to sit, invisible in a far corner (so I don't get kicked. I got kicked in the head by a ballet dancer wearing pointe shoes once--- I think I was in 7th grade and still in the Junior Ballet Workshop ---and I got a terrific headache and concussion from it.), and just watch and soak everything in. I'd love to see if their world of dance is any difference from the world of dance I've spent twenty-two years in.

It's So Hard to Say Good-Bye to Yesterday

2009-07-13T16:27:00.000-07:00

One of my grandmother's friends--- she's nearly 90, herself ---says that people should never say "good-bye" when they part. It's too sad and too final. When people part, they should say "See you soon" because that's not as final as saying "good-bye." I figure, at her age, she probably knows better than I do.

Good-byes are final, no matter what anyone tells you. No matter how they try to sugar coat it, telling you that things aren't going to change, "good-bye" always means "good-bye forever." There's no turning back once you say good-bye to someone or something. Things are going to change but that's the way of the universe. It changes and we have to change with it. If we don't we're going to get left behind or swept along with the tide. It's A LOT easier to go along with the change than try to resist it. Getting dragged along with a change is a painful thing...I should know since I've resisted changes more times than I can count.

Saying "good-bye" is hard for me to talk about because it brings up a bevy of not very happy memories. I've had to say "good-bye" to a lot of things--- including the person I once counted as my best friend. We hardly ever speak anymore since she left the state. ---and many of them have been bitter "good-byes." I don't mean bittersweet and touching good-byes like on TV. Nope...these were the bitter and painful kinds of good-byes. The kinds you don't want to say but know you have to because it's better for you in the long run.

I learned this lesson the hard way, that good-byes are permanent and that sometimes saying "good-bye" is better for you than sticking something out.

The story goes like this...

I was three years out of high school, doing the college thing, but it was the summer and I was up late (and by late I mean about 3AM my time). I was getting ready to turn off my computer for the night when I got an IM from one of the guys I was friends with in high school. Now, see, I was sort of forced into dissolving all of my high school friendships after I graduated. We all sort of out grew each other. Maybe it was more I out grew them. I was just interested in different things and they were all dating each other so I sort of drifted away when I went to college. I still counted them as friends and we spoke via IM from time to time but that was about it.

Anyway...this guy had married one of my other friends from high school. He'd enlisted in the military and had a quick wedding and what have you. That didn't matter, though, because he IMed me to ask if I was to---How can I put this politely? ---be his mistress. I was thoroughly disgusted and I told him "NO!" and signed off, thinking nothing of the conversation. I went to bed, went about the next day (just another random summer day I probably spent with my nose in a book), and went on the computer that night. Just my normal summer schedule...

Little did I know what awaited me when I got onto the computer! It wasn't right away that it happened. I went about my normal computer business at the time (which probably constituted writing fanfiction...something that hasn't changed LOL) until I got this IM from one of the girls I went to high school with. She happened to be the girl the guy (who messaged me the night before) was married to as well and, to put it mildly, she was angry with me for trying to seduce her husband. I tried to explain to her that it was the other way around but I would have had an easier time trying explain things to a wall because she wasn't getting it. She called me every name under the sun and signed off.

That's when all my other friends from high school stopped talking to me. Apperantly, rumor had gotten around about what I "tried" to do. It might a lie but I never got a chance to defend myself again. No one would give me the chance to defend myself because they all believed the lie they were told. Yes, it hurt my feelings but I learned an important lesson from all of this.

I had to say "good-bye" to my past friends because they weren't real friends. If they were to believe a lie like that (and they all knew that I wasn't like that at all, after four years of high school with me), they weren't really my friends. I was just part of their circle of friends, someone to call on when they needed help with homework or something. It was a painful way to part, to be sure, since fights and arguements, even online ones, are painful things, but I learned that bitter partings are part of life. Sometimes people just drift away quiety, stopping speaking and just losing touch, while others have to have big, dramatic affairs in order to end something.

I haven't talked to anyone I went to high school with since. I didn't even go to my five year reunion because of what happened (and because I thought I wasn't cool enough yet. If I was going into an uncomfortable situation, I wanted to go into it cool LOL!). It was better for me to say "good-bye" anyway than sticking around in a situation where I wasn't even a member of a group of friends. I was just this outlying person they all knew and talked to every once and a while. I wouldn't have to worry about them and I could concentrate on making "real friends" in college...though that also blew up in my face for other reasons.

Life is a series of saying "good-byes" to people, places, and things. It's how you deal with these "good-byes" that shows you how and who you really are.

Everything's Beautiful at the Ballet

2009-07-09T22:13:00.000-07:00

No it's true...everything is beautiful at the ballet. I don't know what it is about ballet but it manages to make everything beautiful. I'm not just saying that because I, myself, dance ballet. I don't even compare to the ballernias I'm talking about. Me? I'm just a local girl who dances at her local dance studio for fun. I get on stage once a year, do my little dances, and that's it. Maybe there's beauty in that too but I fail to see it considering I'm the one who's on stage at the time.

Anyway...the song (from the play A Chorus Line) is right. Everything is beautiful at the ballet. Even tragedy and death are beautiful things when they're danced in a ballet. I can't tell you how or why. They just are.

I should probably explain myself here. Last year, for my birthday, I asked my mother for tickets to see a "real ballet." I'd seen local productions of ballets but I wanted to go to Lincoln Center (home of the Metropolitan Opera House) and see a "real ballet" in a "real theater." Plus, my other motive was that I wanted to see a ballet where I wasn't the one on stage dancing (and getting screamed at by my irate instructor from the wings. Nothing against him--- he's THE BEST instructor at the dance studio I go to ---but, by God, if we're not perfect, we hear it...even if we're on stage at the time).

So last year, we went to go see the American Ballet Theater's version of "The Sleeping Beauty." My mom and I had such a wonderful time (my mom danced ballet for about ten years) that we decided to get tickets for the American Ballet Theater (ABT) every year. Every year, we'd see them dance one more ballet, with one catch....we would never see Swan Lake. I don't like Swan Lake (a/k/a the dance of the ducks) and the ballet gods have been kind to me and kept me from dancing Swan Lake. Personally, I'd love to know how dense THAT prince was if he couldn't tell the difference between a darn white swan (Odette) and a black swan (Odile)!

That brings us to this year...

This year, assiduously avoiding Swan Lake, we decided to go see Romeo and Juliet. We wound up going to see a Wednesday matinee of the ballet but it was completely on purpose. My mom wanted to go at night, as we did the year before, but I inisisted on going in the afternoon. When she asked me why, I told her that I wanted to see Gillian Murphy dance the part of Juliet. See, Gillian Murphy (she's in the picture with David Hallberg who played Romeo when I went to the ballet) wears Gaynor Minden pointe shoes. Gaynor Minden pointe shoes are these expensive, hand fitted, hand made pointe shoes that aren't made out of paste, paper, and balsa wood like the traditional pointe shoe. Nope, Gaynor Minden pointe shoes are made out of a special elastomeric compound that doesn't easily break or weaken when worn.

How do I know this?

Well, I've been wearing Gaynor Minden Pointe shoes (or my GM Shoes as I call them) since I was about twelve years old (Mind you, I started dancing en pointe when I was nine years old). My ballet teacher at the time, sent my mom and I to the Gaynor Minden Showroom in Manhattan because I was breaking traditionally made pointe shoes every other week. I mean, it was like every two weeks my mom would have to take me to get new pointe shoes. It just became more intelligent to let me wear expensive pointe shoes I couldn't break (though I wear them out until I can no longer use them) instead of buying new pointe shoes every two weeks. My Gaynor Mindens, especially my lovely suede tipped ones, last me about a year and a half.

Anyway, very few non-professional dancers bother wearing Gaynor Mindens because they're pricey. I'm one of the few who do and it's out of pure necessity that I do it...but it does make me feel special in a silly way.

Anyway...I told my mom we had to see Gillian Murphy dance as Juliet because she wears the same pointe shoes I do and she was only doing matinees.

The ballet itself...there are very few words I can use to properly describe just how ABSOLUTELY AMAZING it was. I sat through three acts almost without blinking because I didn't want to miss anything.

The costumes were amazing, better than anything I'd ever worn. There were women in heavy Reniassance style gowns who danced with grace and poise. Then there were the women, like Juliet and her friends, who danced in simple ballet dresses. They were the ones who danced en pointe and their costumes were just amazing. I mean, they weren't gaudy or flashy or anything like that. They wore just simple dresses and the effect was beautiful. OH! And there wasn't one darn tutu in the entire ballet! I loathe and detest tutus and was glad to see a ballet actually go on without anyone wearing one. Another thing that amazed me...the girls got to dance with their hair down. That just made the effect of their costumes that much more dramatic (and made me want to tell my dance teachers that real ballernias don't have to wear their hair in a bun ALL THE DARN TIME).

The men--- Now, I'm NOT use to male ballet dancers. My ballet dancer wears sweats or jeans and never dances with us on stage. ---were just like "HOLY FISHSTICKS!" They were, no joke, leaping about ten feet in the air whenever they did jumps and they lifted the women like they weighed next to nothing. They even had sword fights. Those were just amazing too. I mean, the sounds of the fake swords against each other were all in time. There wasn't one sound out of sequence and that fascinated me to no end. Plus I really do love a good sword fight!

The sets....oh my fishsticks! They were great too...from the famous balcony scene (and yes there was a balcony) to the streets of Verona to the Capulet Crypt (complete with HUGE, creepy angels) were great. You lost yourself in the set and the dancers doing their thing in and around the sets. They didn't even have to be dancing, just walking around and acting and it was amazing.

Though I have to say the balcony scene--- I know the script from Romeo and Juliet but Murphy and Hallberg managed to convey every emotion from the play without saying a darn word. Every step they did together told the story. Even the smallest gestures of the hands and head were part of the story ---was probably my favorite scene in the ballet, the death scene at the end was beautiful in its own way. Yes it was tragic, as death is, but there was a certain beauty to it to. You could almost feel Romeo's dispair at finding the sleeping (but he doesn't know that) Juliet in the crypt and, by the same token, you could feel Juliet's dispair when she finds Romeo's taken his life. Her desperation to end her own life was felt just as easily as she picked up the fallen Paris' dagger and ended her life. Her last motion, reaching out to Romeo as he lay lifeless on the floor of the crypt was a jaw dropping end to the ballet.

My mom's already promised me tickets for next year (we won't know what we're going to see until the ABT releases their spring schedule. They only come into New York at the end of June/beginning of July) and that we'd continue this new tradition of watching the beauty of the ballet together. I'm just glad we went after my performance this year. Last year we went before my performance and I almost didn't want to go on stage to dance in my own studio's show because I knew I sucked. I'd seen professional ballernias and took my own measure, finding myself wanting.

Ballet is amazing...whether you're watching it or dancing it. It's just two different kinds of amazing. When you're watching professionals, though, that version of amazing is amped up by one billion.

99 Things

2009-07-09T12:11:00.000-07:00

Well, my buddy Kat (and then Tali) both directed me to this blog and this really interesting list of things. I looked like a lot of fun to try to I figured I'd jump in and see how many of the 99 Things on the list I've done. Girl Scouts Honor I'll try to keep my own commentary to miniumum! I can't promise anything but I can try!

Anyway, without further gilding the lily and no more ado, I present to you the list of 99 things and the ones I've done. I put the ones I've done in blue. Why blue? Because I'm a Daisy Girl Scout Leader and we wear blue! Actually, it's because blue seems to be the popular color for highlighing the things you've done so I'm just going to go along with the blue thing too!

1. Started your own blog (It would seem that way!)

2. Slept under the stars

3. Played in a band (High School Band Geek here! I was first chair drummer in my high school's symphony band!)

4. Visited Hawaii

5. Watched a meteor shower

6. Given more than you can afford to charity

7. Been to Disneyland/world/Disneyland Paris (Just the one in Fla. when I was a kid)

8. Climbed a mountain

9. Held a praying mantis

10. Sang a solo

11. Bungee jumped

12. Visited Paris

13. Watched a lightning storm at sea

14. Taught yourself an art from scratch (Does scrapbooking count?)

15. Adopted a child

16. Had food poisoning (Once when I was a kid from bad McDonald Chicken Nuggets)

17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty

18. Grown your own vegetables (My dad and I had quite the garden back when we had one)

19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France

20. Slept on an overnight train

21. Had a pillow fight (Who hasn't?)

22. Hitch hiked

23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill

24. Made a Snow Angel (Of course! Well, when I was allowed out to play in the snow.)

25. Held a lamb (At a petting zoo when I was in preschool)

26. Gone skinny dipping

27. Run a Marathon

28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice

29. Seen a total eclipse

30. Watched a sunrise or sunset (Done plenty of sunsets...have yet to make it until sunrise)

31. Stood in the rim of the Grand Canyon

32. Been on a cruise

33. Seen Niagara Falls in person

34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors

35. Seen an erupting volcano in person.

36. Taught yourself a new language (Um...does Italian in school count?)

37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied

38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person

39. Gone rock climbing

40. Seen Michelangelo’s David

41. Sung karaoke (At Girl Scouts...I OWN The Barenaked Ladies "One Week")

42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erup

t43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant

44. Visited Africa

45. Walked on a beach by moonlight

46. Been transported in an ambulance

47. Had your portrait painted

48. Gone deep sea fishing

49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person

50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris

51. Gone scuba diving or snorkelling

52. Kissed in the rain

53. Played in the mud (I love mud! I use to make mud when I was a kid to play with!)

54. Gone to a drive-in theatre (Twice but then they closed it)

55. Been in a movie

56. Visited the Great Wall of China

57. Started a business

58. Taken a martial arts class (Three years of Tae Kwan Do...YEAH BABY!)

59. Visited Russia

60. Served at a soup kitchen

61. Sold Cookies for charity (Do Girl Scout Cookies Count?)

62. Gone whale watching

63. Been given flowers for no reason

64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma

65. Gone sky diving

66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp

67. Bounced a check

68. Flown in a helicopter

69. Saved a favourite childhood toy (Several actually)

70. Visited Buckinham Palace

71. Eaten Caviar

72. Pieced a quilt or blanket

73. Stood in Times Square (I live in New York...I've stood in Times Square and regretted it many of the times...too many people and most of them rude)

74. Toured the Everglades

75. Been fired from a job

76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London

77. Broken a bone (Stress fractured my ankle in jazz...landed a jump wrong and wound up in a soft cast for three months)

78. Been on a speeding motorcycle

79. Been to the top of the Empier State Building

80. Published a book

81. Visited the Vatican

82. Bought a brand new car

83. Walked in Jerusalem

84. Had your picture in the newspaper (When I was in grade school)

85. Read the entire Bible (Did I mention that it was a Catholic Grade school...)

86. Visited the White House (Apperantly I did when I was very, very little)

87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating

88. Had chickenpox (Of course...then I gave them to my sister because sharing is caring!)

89. Saved someone’s life

90. Sat on a jury

91. Met someone famous (Let's see....Funkmaster Flex, Robert DeNiro, Billy Crystal, Clinton Kelly)

92. Joined a book club

93. Lost a loved one (More than once)

94. Had a baby

95. Seen the Alamo in person

96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake

97. Been involved in a law suit

98. Owned a cell phone (I think I may be on my third or fourth cell phone...it's not my fault they die!)

99. Been stung by a bee (and it hurt like the dickens!)

Everything Happens for a Reason

2009-07-08T20:37:00.001-07:00

The angel over there (who is actually an angel from the manga Angel Sanctuary but that's besides the point) is both part of my post and something I may need to rely on to get through this post without offending anyone. I'm about to go play in some dangerous, shark infested waters.

Anyone want to go swimming with me?

There's an old adage that goes "Everything Happens For A Reason." The mere existence of this phrase annoys me for many reasons, one being the fact that things seem to happen but half the time the reasons behind them aren't clear. I mean look at some of the horrible things that have occurred in our world. What were the reasons for those happening? Did we learn lessons? Maybe. Were mistakes repeated? Of course! That would imply that we never learned our lessons and that things don't happen for a reason. They just happen because they happen and we're not supposed to take anything from them. They're just seemingly random events that happen in a universe that tends towards entropy (chaos) anyway.

That's getting away from my point or maybe that's part of one of the points I'm trying to make. I'm not sure yet...we'll have to see.

The phrase "Everything happens for a reason"--- everyone got their shark repellant because here we go ---reminds me of the two arguements about God's place in the world I learned in college. Now, I went to an EXTREMELY liberal liberal arts college. Basically, outside of my science classes (where life was, thankfully, fact based and neatly organized into little boxes), we could say, do, and write whatever we wanted because we were just "expressing ourselves." What can I say? I was one of eight science majors in my year in a darn school full of dance, theater, and art majors! Being creative and going against the norm was normal for us.

Anyway...in one of my liberal arts classes (the kind we all had to take to graduate...highly annoying really) we talked about the two theories used to resolve God's place in the world. The were also used in the pre-science based eras, as ways to understand how God created the world but I'm not going to really go there now. Needless to say, I'm a scientist at heart and, despite me being Roman Catholic in faith, I'm going to just stick with the Big Bang theory here. Everything I write about that follows will be what started the Big Bang theory since physics has yet to find the so-called "God Particle" that started the universe spinning. For the actual creation of the universe, post the Big Bang, I'm sticking to science.

The Clockmaker Theory- God as the Watchmaker

I'm not sure why but I've always thought this theory was really interesting. Maybe because I think watchmaking is interesting. After all, watches have all those really teeny parts and putting them together must not be easy when done by hand. We're talking analog watches here, by the way...not digital ones.

Anyway, in short, the "Clockmaker Theory" goes something like this...God created the universe/ got the Bang Going and then he stepped back. He let the world spin on its own and doesn't take an active role in what's happening. He's like the man who makes a clock. He creates the clock, sets it spinning, and then steps back. He doesn't interfere with the workings of the clock, even when things go wrong with it.

What does this have to do with the idea that "Everything happens for a reason?" Well, if one ascribes to the "Clockmaker Theory" there is no grand plan for any of us so nothing can happen for a reason. Things happen because things happen. There's no great cosmic chain of events that leads to anything. Things just happen because they happen, no two ways about it. It is only by our actions that we make things happen, and there may be no reason for our actions. It may be that we just like to do things a certain way and that's it. There's no reason for it and for the results that come from it. No higher power at work here...just plain old hard, human work.

Biblical Theory- God is in the World

This theory is pretty much everything I've ever learned in Catholic school put together. It was also not the most popular theory in my liberal arts college. They felt any religion was stifling and annoying. You mentioned religion, even in a religion based class, and, fishsticks, were you ever in trouble.

This theory is simple...God created the world and remains in the world. He guides our actions and makes sure we follow the path we're supposed to be on. In this theory, and just like the adage "Everything happens for a reason," everything does happen for a reason. It's just not a reason we have control over. A higher power, whomever you believe in, guides our actions and gives reason to what we're doing. Whatever happens to us, happens because a higher power deemed it to happen. Usually, it happens to teach a lesson, to help us learn something we otherwise would have never known. The near perfect definition of "Everything Happens for a Reason!"

Me? Personally...I'd love to believe that everything happens for a reason but there are just too many random events in the world and in everyone's lives that I just can't seem to find the reason, the lesson, I'm supposed to take away. For now, I'll be like the clockmaker....content to sit back and watch things unfold before me. Maybe I'll find the reason at the heart of things.

Well, She Sneaks Around the World...

2009-07-06T20:30:00.000-07:00

"Well she sneaks around the world from Kiev to Carolina,
She's a sticky-fingered filcher from Berlin down to Belize,
She'll take you for a ride on a slow boat to China, Tell me where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?" (From "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego" by Rockapella)

Always did love that television show...and computer game. I actually got to try out for "Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego?" and was an alternate. That was cool but the fact I got to hang out at the TV studio, since they filmed at a local studio, and try out the big end game for "Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego?" several times was much, much cooler. I got to meet the crew who did the TV show and always went home with lots of cool stuff. I think, that year, I spent almost all my free time with my "ACME" agent baseball cap on. It annoyed the fishsticks out of my mom but I thought it was the coolest thing since slice bread. After all, it was one of my favorite television shows back in the day.

Alright...enough of the blast from the past!

The top ten places I'd love to travel to someday (in no particular order) are:

(1.) Italy- I'm half Italian-half Irish and I'd love to go to Italy not only to see famous places in the country but to test out my Italian. I took three years of Italian in high school and I'd love to see if I could talk to the natives in Italy. I'd love to go to Venice and ride the canals (then buy something made of glass, lace, and a mask because that's what you buy in Venice), Florence to go to the Uffizi (a famous art museum), and Rome, of course, because what's a visit to Italy without going to Rome.

(2.) Ireland- If I'm going to give into my Italian side and go to Italy, I might as well go to Ireland for the other half of my heritage. I know something about the Irish side of my family but not a lot. I just think Ireland would be an interesting country to visit. Like Italy, there's so much history in Ireland. Not only history but stories about the sidhe (shee...the people of the fairy hills) and larger than life characters that might or might not have been real. I heard Ireland's a pretty country anyway...lots of green fields...and sheep.

(3.) Germany- I actually wouldn't go to Germany during the summer. I'd probably go during October for Oktoberfest, of course. Thing is, I don't drink...like at all, ever! I'd just love to go and see the spectacle that is Oktoberfest! Maybe by some of those leiderhosen while I'm there too just for pokes and giggles and a really AWESOME Halloween costume!

(4.) France- Now, I'd go to France just to check out the places that were mentioned in Dan Brown's "The DaVinci Code." If I was going in late July, I'd be someplace along the Champs Élysées watching the end of Le Tour de Lance...I mean Le Tour de France. Lance Armstrong doesn't even have to be riding in the race for me to be there. I'd just love to be there to watch the end of such an amazing cycling race. If an American was winning it, well that would just make things sweeter. Got to love watching an American dominate the French Cycling world!

(5.) Japan- Do I really have to explain this one? I'm an otaku and where else would I want to go?! I'd go to the home of anime and manga, of course! In all seriousness, though, I'd probably go for the massive amount of culture in Japan (I mean you have samurai culture, the shogunates, emperors, and geisha all in one place...at different times in history of course) first and then for the anime, manga, and Harajuku area. I mean, in the Harajuku area, people cosplay (costume play) all the time. That's just wicked awesome! I only get to see cosplayers during the New York Anime Fest and I'm not even allowed to cosplay. My mom said she'd disown me if she ever caught me cosplaying.

(6.) Australia- Don't know why but I've always wanted to go to Australia. Maybe it's because I have this impression of kangroos just hopping around everywhere being all kangaroo-like. I know that's not true but I've still always wanted to go to the "Land Down Under." It just seems like a cool place to visit.

(7.) New Zealand- Two words: MIDDLE EARTH! The Lord of the Rings Trilogy was filmed in New Zealand and you can go on a tour to all the places they used in the movie. I'm a big fan of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings Trilogy (and The Hobbit too I suppose but The Hobbit is really more of a children's story) so it would be beyond wicked awesome to see where they filmed the movies. Plus, New Zealand looks like a very pretty country...if what they show in the movies is true.

(8.) Salem, Mass.- Alright, I've been to Salem but it was during the summer. Salem isn't exactly the place you want to be in the summer. Nope, you want to go to Salem around Halloween! That's exactly when I'd love to go! It would be beyond cool do to a graveyard tour on Halloween, don't you think?

(9.) Disney, Fla.- The last time I was in Disney, I was just a kid. I'd love to go back there. I'm not much for rides but I think I might make an exception for Disney. I mean, it's Disney, for crying out loud. Then there's the added bonus of watching my sister run in horror from every costumed character. She's terrified of anything in a full body costume so Disney would be a House of Horrors for her.

(10.) A World of My Own Creation- I don't know if this counts since I go there often but I'd love to visit one of the worlds I've created in my head.

Tales of Summer Past

2009-07-06T17:51:00.001-07:00

I was the kid who hated going back to school in September, when I was in grade school. Not because I hated school--- I actually loved school and miss going to school. ---but because I hated the inevitable essay that would crop up during our first week in school, no matter what grade we we in. That first essay was always the worst essay (or paragraph when I was in the younger grades or, before that, picture when I was really little) for me to have to write and then present in front of the class.

Why?

The answer is very, very simple. That first essay was always the "What I Did Over My Summer Vacation" essay. I HATED writing that essay almost as much as I hated having to present it in front of the class. Mostly because I never did anything over my summer vacation. My family wasn't the type to go on vacation during the summer so while the kids in my classes had stories about going to Disney or where ever they went (this one boy use to go to fishsticking IRELAND every year!), I got to talk about how I swam in the pool in my backyard and read books.

Not exactly the most exciting of summer vacation stories for a kid. I usually just hoped that I wouldn't have to present my essay in front of the class because I knew how boring my summers were compared to everyone else's. I wasn't as exciting as everyone else. Besides, I hated going in front of the room to speak anyway. I didn't like everyone staring at me; it made me nervous (I know, that doesn't make any sense since I dance).

Anyway...I don't have any of those fancy vacation summer memories that I can look back on with fondness. We didn't go on vacation so I can't do that! Don't have any beach memories because we never really go to the beach. My sister's far too pale for the beach and she burns easily (put it this way, she gets bad sunburns in April and October while sitting at the baseball game) so we don't go.

As a result, my story's probably going to be kind of bland.

My favorite summer memory took place during the summer before I started eighth grade. We didn't go anywhere special nor did we do anything really particularly awesome. Nope...that summer was spent like every summer before it. My sister and I would swim in the pool our parents would put up for us in the backyard for most of the day. We'd get out, shower (because the pool had chlorine in it), and then just hang around either outside with the senior citizens who gathered across the street to have tea and coffee outside (my sister and I would get ice cream from the ice cream man who passed by the house) or we'd sit in the house and play video games. I'd invariably stay up wayyyyyyy too late...like 1AM or something like that.

So what made that summer special to me?

I spent that ENTIRE summer reading, which is normal for me. I go through between thirty to forty books a summer (even now) because there's nothing really to do but read. That summer, though, I spent it reading the collected works of Dr. Robin Cook. This was way before Robin Cook was just writing about Dr. Jack Stapleton and Dr. Laurie Montgomery (a/k/a Dr. Jack and Dr. Laurie as they've become known). He was still writing about different doctors doing different things in different hospitals. I'm not sure why Dr. Robin Cook's novels hold this spell over me but they do. Even before he was writing about my two favorite New York Medical Examiners (if you read any of his books about Dr. Jack and Dr. Laurie, you'd know why they're so cool), his books have held me in thrawl.

At any rate, my mom must have bought me nearly all of his books that summer because all I remember doing was sitting in the backyard, after swimming most of the day, reading book after book. The best part, though, was that my mom got into reading Dr. Cook's novels too. Whenever I was finished a book, she'd start it. Then we'd talk about the books and our favorite characters and what our opinions were about the book.

Though my mom still reads Dr. Cook's novels (as do I) we don't talk about them like we use to. Regardless of the fact she's about two to three novels behind me, we don't talk like we use to. She's too busy with my sister and listening to the amazing stories about her social life than to sit with me and talk about the fictional lives of the characters we're both big fans of. She, now, says I spend too much time in fictional worlds and that I need to go out more. She'd even said, to my face, that teaching me to read is the biggest mistake she's ever made...and she teaches English!

I guess that's why that summer was important to me...it was one of the few times my mom and I were on the same playing field, able to talk about books and science together. Now, life is all about the world outside books. I understand that, I really do, but sometimes I miss being able to talk about books. The world of books, for me anyway, is easier to understand than the world outside the written page.

Proud to Be An American

2009-07-01T08:28:00.000-07:00

There's a song we sing at the start of every one of our Girl Scout Meetings. We don't exactly teach it to the kids...it's more like we rely on them to pick it up as we go along. You know, like the new girls pick up the song and hand motions that go with it from their older "Sister Scouts" and, of course, the leaders. Well, most of us anyway. There are a few of us who don't sing because they think it's beyond them.

Anyway, after we say the Pledge of Allegiance, the Girl Scout Promise, and the Girl Scout Law (and not without making sure all the little ones know it's the right hand that goes over your heart and that it's also the right hand that holds up three fingers for the three parts of our promise...to serve God and our Country, to help people at all times, and to live by the Girl Scout Law), we sing our song. Well it's one of many songs we have but this one we sing every week at every opening and at every special occasion we have.

That song is Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the U.S.A." We started singing it just after 9/11 (also my first year as a Girl Scout Leader so it was one of the first things I taught my Daisies...most of whom are now Juniors I think) and we haven't stopped since. It's our way, I suppose, of honoring the men and women who protect our country and our right to be free.

Anyway, it's the lyrics of the song (and the conviction with which 90 plus kids, some too young to understand what they're really singing about, sing it because the song, in my head anyway, is always sung by the kids at Girl Scouts) that remind me of why I'm proud to be an American:

...I’d thank my lucky stars,
to be livin here today.
‘Cause the flag still stands for freedom,
and they can’t take that away.

And I’m proud to be an American,
where at least I know I’m free.
And I wont forget the men who died,
who gave that right to me.

And I gladly stand up,
next to you and defend her still today.
‘Cause there ain’t no doubt I love this land,
God bless the USA.

I'm proud to live in a place where everything can be taken away from us, and almost was on that fateful day in September 2001, but as long as we have our freedom, embodied by not only our flag but every patriotic man, woman, and child in this great nation, they can't take anything from us. We have what we paid blood for back during the American Revolution....we have our unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We have our freedom and nothing can touch that so long as we defend it with everything we have.

We're a nation of heroes, every one of us. Some of us are real heroes, going out and fighting for our nation. Those brave men and women are the ones who are protecting our freedom, keeping us safe and free. Still, we're all heroes in our own way. Every time we defend our nation against those who would speak out against her, we're heroes. Every time we get up at the start of a baseball game to sing "The Star Spangled Banner" and during the 7th Inning Stretch to sing "God Bless America," we're heroes.

Why? Because we're using the freedom that has been given to us. Just the fact we can speak out against our leaders, the fact we can express our opinions is another reason why I love my country. We have that right to say what we want without recourse. There's no one who's going to take us away in the middle of the night just because we've decided to speak our minds. Again, we have our freedoms.

For me, one of the proudest moments as an American citizen was just after 9/11. I'd just come home from Girl Scouts with my mom and we put the baseball game on. The New York Mets were the first team to have a sporting event in New York following 9/11. Say what you will about them but that takes a lot of guts.

Anyway, the Mets were playing their, then, rival Atlanta Braves and, of course, they were losing. Then Mike Piazza, the greatest hitting catcher ever to live (and that's no joke...you can look his stats up and they show it), came to the plate. He blasted a home run that not only gave the Mets the lead but woke the city up. It made us, not just Mets fans but all New Yorkers, realize that thins were going to be alright. We may have been bruised and battered, our city might have been hurting, but we weren't destroyed. We can never be destroyed. We're a strong city in a strong nation.

After the fact, Terry Cashman (famous baseball song writer) penned the song "A Tattered Flag in the Breeze (Michael's Song)" and there's a part that goes:

It had to be the saddest of times
And worse for many I know.
It certainly was the maddest of crimes.
Why do they hate us so?

There was marching and singing,
that Friday at Shea
and Berlin's words were ringing out clear.
New York showed the world, its colors that day,
But where do we go from here?

Then the ball went sailing high into the night
and hearts began to rise as we all watched the flight.
And something soared inside of me
and the pain began to ease,
When I looked up and saw the stars that night,
on a tattered flag in the breeze.

I'm proud to say I live in a country where our flag can be tattered and torn but our spirits can't. We're going to come alive again and we're going to show the world that our great nation is more than just a building, more than just it's people.

America is an idea, a spirit, a freedom. We started out as a grand experiment in democracy (that's what my AP American History teacher called us) but now were something more. We're a nation of heroes, great and small. Some of us wear uniforms and some of us don't but all of us value our freedom and our rights. We are strong! We are free!

I'm proud to be an American and on July 4th, I'll wear red, white, and blue (I will NOT, however, wear the American flag on my person. That's disrespectful to the colors.) and I'll listen to my patriotic music and remember that good men and women died to give me that right. By being proud to be an American, I'm honoring their sacrafice. I'm proud of what they did and am glad to call them heroes.

It's time to honor those heroes.

If I Could Turn Back Time

2009-06-29T12:04:00.000-07:00

This is kind of an ironic thing for me to be blogging about since I had a very long conversation with my therapist about this very topic like two weeks ago. It was in a negative context though since my therapist is convinced there's something very wrong with me and how my personality is put together. He claims that my adult personality isn't quite as well put together as my "little kid" personality which is why I act the way I do. Whenever I need to make a decision, I fall back to my "little kid" self to do the thinking because she's more fleshed out than my "adult self."

Personally, I told him that my "adult self" is fleshed out but only used whe the situations called for it. See, this conversation started because we were talking about Girl Scouts and how I enjoy doing being the Daisy Girl Scout Leader because I get carde blanche to, basically, act like a fool and no one says anything to me. One of the other leaders (whom I don't get along with because she NEVER has anything nice to say about anyone) calls me the Troop's resident Mary Poppins (like the Disney Character) because I'm this crazy cheerful person who has her kids singing and dancing and, in general, having a grand old time in between actually doing work.

I take the stance, at Girl Scouts anyway, that it's a lot easier to work with little kids when you're not some big, scarey adult-type figure. My troop consisted, this year, of girls between the ages of three and seven. I'm not into making them cry or freaking them out. Nope...it's easier for me to run my troop if I show them that I can be just as silly as they are. Sure I keep control and everything but if we all have fun and get along and are able to do silly things together, without them thinking "I have to be good otherwise Miss Ashley's going to be mad," alls the better!

Anyway, I guess if I could turn back the hands of time, I think I'd like to go back to someplace around the ages of seven or eight. I have no special memories of that time in my life. I mean, I was pretty much the same then as I am now. I was the dork who got good grades, read strange books, and went to dance lessons. Pretty much the same stuff I do now...just on a smaller scale.

I just think that things were easier for me when I was younger. I didn't have to worry as much about, well, everything. I wasn't having panic attacks back then and my biggest concern--- aside from making sure I got straight A's ---was when my best friend was going to be allowed to come to my house to play (my mom never let me go over my friend's houses. They always had to come here so she could supervises what was did and ate.). My family wasn't in as much turmoil as we are in now and everyone just seemed a whole lot nicer way back when I was a kid.

Maybe I'm just idealizing my childhood because my situation now isn't all that great. I don't really know. Besides, maybe it's for the best you can't go back and be a kid again. The experience we all had as kids made us who we are today. If we were to go back and change things--- not have those experience ---maybe the world as we know it would change too. Remember, the road not taken often leads to alternate pathways and sometimes those alternate pathways aren't pretty! Sometimes they are, though, but I guess it's up to the decisions we make and when and how we make them.

One Last Look Back

2009-06-29T09:53:00.000-07:00

There are so many ways I can describe the building---Shea Stadium ---in this picture. This blue building was, for more than ten years, my summer home, my field of dreams, the place I cheered, the place I laughed, the place I felt proud of being a New Yorker, the place I felt ashamed of being a New Yorker...and so many other things.

There's only one way to describe this place now...gone....forever. The building may be gone but not my memories of it.

This picture was taken on September 28th, 2008...just after the final game at Shea Stadium. I'd like to think the grey sky above it is there not because it was raining but because even the heavens were saddened by what was happening that day. If you were a New York Met fan--- and, trust me, we're use to disappointment ---this was, quite possibly, the saddest day in the history of our storied franchise.

But it wasn't supposed to be that way. No....it was supposed to be a happy, joyous, victorious day for all of us. Our stadium was supposed to stand for a few games more but, alas, it didn't.

You see, the Mets were in a tight race for the playoffs. If we would have won that game, against the Florida Marlins (a/k/a Those Darn Fishes) we would have gone to the playoffs. Many of us who had Sunday pack tickets, we had tickets already in hand for those playoff games. The tickets had no dates on them but we still had them, ready and waiting to be used. All we wanted was for our stadium to go out with a bang...with us going to the playoffs and, then, the World Series. Maybe we'd win the World Series and our home, our wonderful, ugly blue stadium would go out with the biggest bang of all. A bang that rivaled all the pomp and circumstance of the closing of the crosstown rival Yankee Stadium.

As it was the year before (against the SAME DARN TEAM), it wasn't meant to be. We had Oliver Perez (better known to Mets fans as "Ollie") on the mound. Ollie's a temperamental left hander, and we all knew that fact well. There were games when he was lights out perfect and amazing. Then there were games that just made you want to bury your head in the sand and just pray it would all be over quickly. Every single person in the stands wanted the "Good Ollie" to pitch that game. We wanted him to be lights out. We wanted victory, vindication for what had happened to us last season when the Marlins ripped apart our (then) ace Tom Glavine (a/k/a He-Who-Should-Not-Be-Named...we have a lot of players with that moniker in the Mets history...Oliver Perez has recently joined the ranks).

It wasn't meant to be.

The "Bad Ollie" showed up and we lost the game in embarrassing fashion. We got to watch, horrified as the Marlins celebrated on our field, in our home. See, that's something about Mets fans you have to understand. The stadium, to us, isn't just the place where our team plays. OH NO! The stadium is our home and the team is our extended family. No one comes into our house and pushes us around but, alas, we were pushed around and pushed hard.

It wasn't even like the Marlins were going to the playoffs. Nope...the darn, much hated Philadelphia Phillies were going to the playoffs in our stead.

As the sky darkened, we sat in our seats horrified, stupified by what had just transpired. It should have been a joyous day for us as we waited for the stadium's closing ceremonies to take place but it wasn't. The sky opened up--- it began to cry as many Mets fans were crying ---as Howie Rose (one of our announcers) talked about the fabled history of our team and what Shea Stadium meant to each and every one of us. They brought out players from the past...not just the distand past where I didn't remember them but players from my past--- Robin Ventura, Todd Ziele, Al Leiter, and, of course, the greatest living catcher of all time, Mike Piazza ---as well. We watched as they all touched home plate for the final time.

In a moment that had nearly everyone in the stadium crying...Tom "The Franchise" Sever threw the final pitch at Shea Stadium to Mike Piazza. The two then walked up the outfield and closed the doors as the stadium lights faded dark.

Our home was gone. It was closed now to be replaced by Citi Field.

That picture was my last look back at Shea Stadium. I'd spent the year taking pictures at every game I went to (to scrapbook....which I have to still do) so I had my camera with me. We were walking out of the stadium, to get to my dad's car and go home to wallow in our sadness (but we're Mets fans....we're use to the wallowing. Many of us are wallowing today but for different reasons.). I don't know what compelled me to look back one last time and take this picture. Something in my head told me that I should just turn around and snap this one final photograph of the building I called my home away from home.

This is my final memory of Shea Stadium...a darkened sky, fans streaming out with tears in their eyes and dead dreams in their hearts but hopefully still that "we'll get'em next year." We'd get them in Citi Field, in our new home. I've been to Citi Field and it's not Shea Stadium...it's not my home.

No...my home is gone now. Only to be remembered in the hearts and minds and pictures of those who sat in her colorful seats.

Magic Meets Cyberpunk

2009-06-27T23:39:00.001-07:00

Cyberpunk--- an offshoot of the science-fiction genre ---is not the type of genre that would seem mixable with the fantasy genre. That is, cyberpunk and fantasy operate, so to speak, with their own rules in the realm of fiction. These rules are steadfast and make the two genres almost incompatible.

The cyberpunk standard is usually taken from the works of the author William Gibson (who is credited with, among other things, inventing the word "Internet" and creating the idea of a consensual hallucination known as "the Matrix). The world of cyberpunk is, more often than not, a bleak version of reality. Cities are usually squashed into one large "Mega City," as is the case of the "Sprawl" in Gibson's Sprawl Trilogy (the "Sprawl" extending from what is now New York all the way down to what is now Atlanta, Georgia).

The hero of the story is not the conventional hero. He's the anti-her0, the type of person who may not even posses a single heroic quality about him or her. He or she may be involved in illicit activities, like hacking computers, but not for detrimental reasons. Instead, the heroic character does these illicit activities in order to stop large corporations from taking over the world. He or she may have some selfish reasons behind acting in this way--- there is in no way, shape, or form a noble reason for his or her actions ---but the actions of the hero character are done to save the world.

Computers are key in cyberpunk novels, even when computer hacking isn't mentioned within the body of the novel. Occasionally, there is the medling of man and machine (humans with cybernetic parts) within the framework of the cyberpunk novel. Mode of dress is uniformally black, usually leather and pleather, and often accented with mirrored sunglasses. The hiding of the eyes--- the windows to the soul ---could be seen as a metaphor for the fact that the characters in these novels are stripped of their actual personalities. They are who they make themselves out to be, rarely using their birth names in order to protect themselves from the authorities who are chasing them.

Conventional fantasy stories do not follow the same "rules" as the cyberpunk novel. Fantasy stories, probably more well known than the cyberpunk novel, usual involve magic and mystery, clear cut heroes and villains and damsels in distress. Places are easily demarked, as in the boundaries between the human and the magical communities in the Harry Potter series, otherwise the story takes place in some mystical land that set off from the "normal" world we live in. These stories usually end with the mystery being neatly resolved and the prince (in whatever form he may be in) and princess (in whatever form she may be in) ride off into the sunset to live "happily ever after."

Cyberpunk and fantasy stories, by virtue of their "rules," should not be able to mix but I guess the cauldron of story has deemed otherwise. It, in its almighty story creating power, has created a set of books that mix tropes from both the cyberpunk and the fantasy genres together in an almost seamless fashion.

The novel WebMage by Kelly McCullough (apparently the first in a series of novels) manages to mix the rules of cyberpunk writing with Greek Mythological characters. The title, itself, is a clear play on the words "webpage" and "mage." The idea of a webpage belonging to the realm of computers and cyberpunk novels while the idea of mages is firmly rooted in the world of the fantasy novel. Putting the two words together, to create the word "webmage," shows that the novel is going to be a melding of the world of the computers with the world of magic or of the fantastic.

The story itself is about a young man leading a double life. In his life in the "Real World" he is Ravi, a college student just trying to get by in typical college student fashion by passing his classes and making sure to take his exams. In truth, though, he is Ravirn, child of the Fates (of Greek Mythology) and his blue laptop is actually his shapeshifting familiar goblin named Melchior. The story opens with Ravirn, in full court finery, and Melchior sacking his Great Aunt Atropos's room in order to find a spell. Not just any ordinary spell, of course. Since this novel is meant to take place in the 21st century, magic has gotten an upgrade. It is a spell in the form of a computer program. A program that is to take away the free will of every human being on the planet. Being a programmer, Ravirn is asked by his Great Aunt to figure out why her program is not working . As a hacker, though, Ravirn enjoys the fact he has free will so he begins to actively oppose his Great Aunt.

It is his opposition that causes a majority of the movement in the story's plot. Since he is defying one of the Fates, Ravirn must act in the way of an almost outlaw. He is hunted by not only his own family but, later, by the Furies who are out for his blood. With Melchior by his side (acting as an almost sarcastic conscience, partner in crime, and handy laptop), and the scant few allies he manages to pick up along the way (a webtroll named Ahllan, the goddess Eris, a love interest named Cerice and her webgoblin, purple, flirty Shara), Ravirn must stop his Great Aunt from destroying free will while trying his best to stay alive long enough to do so.

The story, on a whole, is interesting in that it actually IS an almost seamless mixing of cyberpunk and classical Greek Mythology. McCullough manages to create a universe where magic and machines work together in harmony (or discord depending on the situation). The classical Greek elements fit neatly into the cyberpunk world, as Eris--- the goddess of Discord ---is also a hacker extrodinare and many of Ravirn's cousins use modern day weaponry to try and stop their counsin from active defying his Great Aunt. It's interesting in that the author made this strange mix work as the pair--- cyberpunk and Greek Mythology (acting in the role of fantasy) ---seem to have little to nothing in common.

The only downside to the story...it's only a little over three hundred pages. That's far too short! Thankfully there are, all together, four books in the series with Webmage being the first. Very different from the last book I read, I found that Webmage held my interest more strongly, possibly because I enjoy science fiction and cyberpunk more than I do historical fiction. That's just me, though....I'm one of those sci-fi people.

More Than Meets The Eye

2009-06-26T19:44:00.000-07:00

I guess this ties in with my last post about my dad...in a backwards sort of way. See, my dad, he doesn't really like to do things like go to baseball games or see movies or just go out with my mom, sister, and I (in any combination). I mean he takes us places but he usually stays in the car. I think the only time he takes us anywhere and leaves the car is when we go to the mall. Then he just stands outside all the stores...but I don't blame him (and sometimes I'm sitting on the floor next to him outside the store). Going into every clothing and shoe store in the mall with my sister is a test of one's patience!

Anyway...I can probably count on one hand the number of times, in recent memory anyway, my dad's taken me to the movies. When I mean to the movies, I mean just me and him and not with my mom and sister. Let's see, we've seen War of the Worlds, Transformers, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, and, now, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen together.

Actually, how we wound up going to see Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is a kind of strange story. See, I wanted to see the movie and, after making him watch the trailers, he did too. Now, I knew the movie was opening after Father's Day so I decided that I was going to get him tickets to see the movie...except I couldn't get him tickets because I didn't know what day to get them for. Anyway, while my sister bought him a chair (Not what you're thinking...like a folding kitchen chair...nothing fancy), I bought him a Bumblebee (one of the Autobots and my personal favorite...I wanted to get him Optimus Prime since he's the Autobot leader but I couldn't find him) Keychain and a promise for tickets.

On Thursday afternoon, the two of us went to go see the movie together and I paid and everything. I think my dad liked the movie...except he said it was too long and too loud. The sound thing, well that was the theater's fault. They had the movie playing in one of the few theaters equipped with like the uber surround sound speakers so when stuff blew up, the chairs were shaking from the sound.

What did I think of the movie?

Alright, to understand even why I'd go see a movie like the first Transformers movie, there's something you have to know about me. I was a very...strange...little girl. I REALLY liked cartoons (ok...I still do but now it's anime) and Transformers (the cartoon) ranked among my favorites. I always wanted a car that could not only drive itself but change into a robot. Out of all the Autobots, Bumblebee (back when he was a bright yellow V.W. Beetle and, yes, that was part of the reason I liked him) was my favorite. Well my first favorite. My second favorite was Optimus Prime because I thought he had a slick paint job.

Naturally, when they made the cartoon into a movie, I had to go see it. I couldn't convince my mom to see it with my but my dad wanted to go so he and I saw it. I was really surprised, when we saw the first Transformers movie, because my dad remembered the names of all the major Autobots (the good robots) and Decepticons (the bad robots). He also remembered that, when I was a little girl, Bumblebee was my favorite Autobot. He spent most of first Transformers movie--- and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen ---quizzing me on car types. I know nothing about car brands so my answers were limited to "red car," "green car," "truck," "yellow car-that-should-be-a-Beetle-but-isn't." Things like that.

Anyway...I'm digressing...What's my take on Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen?

Clocking in at just under two and a half hours, I'm not going to say the movie was too long. I don't mind long movies, since I count the extended edition of Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (which clocks in at over four hours) as one of my favorite movies. Could Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen been made shorter? Personally, I think if it was shorter, it would have hurt the overall plot of the story. Since it's usually the comical bits that cut out, characters like the Autobots Skids and Mudflap would have seemed one-dimensional (a problem suffered by the female Autobot Arcee). More on Skids and Mudflap later...I have to throw in my two cents on them just like everyone else.

Many have said that the language in this edition in the Transformers franchise was far too coarse and the action too violent for the young audience the movie was targeted towards. Yes, the language was much coarser in this edition, mostly thanks to the characters of Skids and Mudflap as well as Sam (the main human protagonist), but what does it take for a parent to tell a child not to repeat things they've heard on television or in the movies. I don't have kids, myself, but I've read plenty about how we, as a society, let television raise our children. Maybe parents should take kids aside after seeing a movie like Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and explain to them that the words some of the characters used were bad words and shouldn't be repeated. Maybe explaining things like that would make life easier for teachers and child care workers alike.

As for the violence factor, the movie was inherently going to be violent. After all, at it's core, the Transformers franchise is about two warring factions of robots, the benevolent Autobots (led by Optimus Prime) and the malevolent Decepticons (led by Megatron). Both factions happen to wind up on earth and humans happen to get involved in the battles. Sure the battles shown in the movies are on a grander scale--- One has to consider the fact that the TV show was on network television, focused towards young children, and subject to much censorship as a result ---but that has to do with both the way the film is rated and advances in film making technology. Movies like those in the Transformers franchise belong to a group of films where it seems the makers of said films are trying to one-up each other when it comes to special effects and how they're used.

Anyway, I'm not so sure the Transformers franchise is focused on young children. I think the franchise, itself, is focused more on entertaining those who were fans of the show as young children. Those of us who grew up watching the show and wanting an Autobot (or a Decepticon...I'm not judging) to call their own. I think we're all pretty much old enough to handle a loud, action filled movie. For those who do take young children to see it, again, is it that hard to explain that the movie's fictional and that violence isn't always the answer? After all, the Autobots act in protection of the human race and are the good guys. There's a lesson to be learned in that. Protection is a good thing, something to be lauded. The Decepticons (their name based on the word "Deception") are villains because they destroy. Their inherently violent nature makes them a negative, something a young child can learn from if properly explained. Violence for violence's sake is wrong and is not something that should be copied. Protecting things that are important to you, even by nonviolent means, is something that should be emulated.

That's just my take on that...I don't know if that's true but that's my opinion.

Now on to another opinion, one that seems to be popping up all over the darn Internet when it comes to Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. I do not think this film is racist in any way, shape, or form.

Many have cited the characters of Skids and Mudflap (told you we'd get back to them) as portraying negative African-American Sterotypes. The oft-brawling pair of twins use coarse "street language," (alla Jazz in the first Transformers film) admit they can't read, and Skids sports a gold "tooth." Yes, their language is coarse (they tend to curse quite frequently) but most of the time their coarse language is used in fights where they are always the clear underdogs. The twin Autobots are small in stature when compared to the other Autobots (Optimus Prime's large stature non withstanding). Their fights in the film are limited to brawls with each other--- where their language could be taken as just them being mean to each other in the manner of most siblings who don't always get along ---and with Decepticons who are much larger than they are. In that case, their coarse language could be taken as a form of bravado. It is their way of making themselves seem larger when, in actuality, they are facing a much larger, stronger foe.

Now, their inability to read...that's taken completely out of context by nearly everyone who's reviewed this movie. Skids and Mudflap claim they cannot read, that is true but it's what they can't read that's taken out of context. It's clearly stated in both the movie and its novelization that the pair of Autobots cannot read "The Language of the Primes." It is also clearly explained that "The Language of the Primes" is an ancient language and Skids and Mudflap are younger Autobots. It makes sense that they wouldn't be able to read a language that is both older than they are and has no historical roots for them (as a result of the destruction of Cybertron, the home planet of the Transformer race). Maybe the best Real World equivalent would be Latin. Latin is a dead language so we're not expected to be able to read or speak it. Perhaps "The Language of the Primes" is equivalent to Latin in the world of the Transformers. Their lack of knowledge--- including their inability to read it ---would be normal and not something that marked them as racially inappropriate characters.

To address Skids and his gold "tooth"...yes, that could mark him as racial character but, then, there's the idea of mise-en-scene. Mise-en-scene is sort of hard to describe since it has no set definition. It's a general term that is used to describe everything before the camera and how it's arranged, including sets, props, actors (and the positioning of the actors called "blocking"), costumes, and lightening. Perhaps the fact the character was designed with a gold "tooth" in order to add something to the character. Maybe to mark him as a different Autobot than his twin Mudflap other than the fact the pair are two different colored individuals.

Again that's just my opinion...

I happened to have enjoyed Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen...I thought it was a fun movie with flashy special effects and an interesting storyline. Personally, I can't wait to go with my dad to see the next installment in the series! AUTOBOTS! ROLL OUT!

The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane

2009-06-23T18:28:00.001-07:00

I tend not to wander too far outside my "comfort zone" when it comes to what I read. I go into the bookstore and the first thing I do is hunt down the science fiction section (also where most of the fantasy books are kept). In almost every bookstore I've ever gone to, the science fiction books are near where the manga is kept so that kills two birds with one stone. Sometimes I wander over to the fiction section if I need to check to see if one of my favorite medical fiction (or med-fi) authors have anything new out. Unless I'm really strapped for something to read--- which happens more often than it should. I go through books at a sadly alarming rate ---I don't venture too far away from the authors or titles I know.

The last time I was at the bookstore, though, they had a very large add for this book called The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane. Apparently the author, Katherine Howe, was some sort of new author and Barnes & Nobles was making a big deal about the release of her first book. I probably wouldn't have picked the book up at all if it hadn't been for the big description that was on the poster above the pile of books. The description--- about a Grad Student named Connie who is given the unenviable task of cleaning out her long-dead grandmother's home in Marblehead, Massachusetts during which all manner of super-natural hijinks ensue ---reminded me of a book called Acceptable Risks by Robin Cook. Considering the fact that Robin Cook is probably my all time favorite med-fi author, I decided to pick this book up just to check out what it's about.

As I said, the book is about a Graduate Student named Connie. Just as she's about to begin working on her dissertation, her mother Grace tells her that her grandmother's house, which hasn't been lived in for twenty odd years is about to be forclosed due to back taxes. Grace, who is a hippie sort of character who reads and repairs auras for profit, asks her daughter to clear out the house for her. Though she would rather be working on finding a topic for her dissertation, Connie packs up herself and her pet dog, Arlo, and heads for her grandmother's (Sophia) home in Marblehead, Massachusetts.

Once there, she discovers an old Bible that contains a key. The barrel of the key is hollowed and contains an ancient bit of paper that only reads "Deliverance Dane." With this name in hand, Connie begins a quest to discover just who this mysterious woman was and why her name was found in an old family Bible. During this quest, Connie begins having strange visions of the Salem Witch Trials along with headaches. In these visions, she discovers that Deliverance Dane was a "cunning" or "wise" woman who used physicks (or herbal medicines) in order to heal sick humans and animals. Her Phsyick, the book containing all of her remedies, becomes the object of Connie's quest as she finds it could be an excellent primary source for her dissertation.

Find the Physick proves to be difficult, nigh on impossible even with the help of a man named Sam who, of course becomes Connie's love interest in the book, made even more so by the fact the book seems to have disappeared by the time Deliverance Dane's great-grandaughter, Prudence, comes into poesssion of it. She wants nothing to do with it and the problems it has caused her family so she sells it off.

It is not just Connie, though, that appears to have a vested interest in finding this so-called magic book. Her advisor, Chilton, appears to have a vested interest in Connie finding the book but for reasons that are far different, and, of course, far more nefarious than the ones Connie has.

Was this book as good as Robin Cook's Acceptable Risks? Nope but I'm partial to books by Robin Cook.

Was The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane a bad book? Nope....but it wasn't exactly novel of the century either. Like any book, this book has it's flaws. The first half of the book is rather interesting as we watch Connie try to discover just who Deliverance Dane was and what her family's connection to this mysterious woman is. The second half, well, that's when things get a little strange. Suddenly, Connie--- who's been nothing but an ordinary Graduate Student ---begins to develop the ability to use magic and she's not the only one! It's completely unexpected and almost uncalled for halfway through the book!

The Salem Witch Trials were, and still are to tell the truth, an interesting part of American History and The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane shows the reader the trials from a different point of view. The point of view of a woman who wasn't bewitched but trying to help those who thought they were. Personally, though, I'm just going to stick to my "trials caused by mold from rye bread" but that's just me!

Fathers and Daughters

2009-06-22T11:36:00.000-07:00

"...On behalf of every man
Looking out for every girl
You are the god and the weight of her world
So fathers be good to your daughters
Daughters will love like you do..." (from "Daughters" by John Mayer)

My dad worked nights when I was a kid so I rarely ever got to see him (except on his one day off a week and on Sundays). My mom and grandmother mostly raised my sister and I since they were the ones home during the day. The only time I got to see my dad was when I got up in the mornings since he was the one responsible for making sure I got to school on time. My sister went to the same school my mom worked in so they'd walk together. Me? I went to a school I hated (put it this way, I was completely miserable from Grades Five through Eight...I went to a Catholic Grade School so it was all grades in one building) but my mom wouldn't pull me out of it so my dad took me to school every day in his white truck.

I'd see him again when he picked me up from school but after that he'd drop me off at home (or at my mom's school) and go to work. By the time he got home from work, I'd be in bed since he'd come home after 11 PM, which was my bedtime when I was in grade school. Was I actually asleep? Probably not....but I was in bed.

When I was a kid my dad had a lot of emotional baggage from his own childhood that he was dealing with so he wasn't exactly the affectionate type. He and my mom would fight like cats and dogs and, sometimes, he'd walk out and not come back until the middle of the next day. He'd yell at my sister and I for reasons we didn't really understand (until we got older and my mom explained them to us) and he twice came close to breaking my arm because he was angry. He wasn't abusive or anything like that. It was just that he some anger management issues that he had to work through. Things got better when he started going to therapy and now things are a whole lot better.

Anyway...I have a few memories of my dad from when I was a kid that are actually good memories. Actually two of them have become kind of a running joke for me. I always say there are two things my dad taught me when I was a kid and both of them are, basically, useless skills. He taught me my times tables and how to keep score at a baseball game.

I'm just going to get this out there and say that I suck at math. I never failed math--- Oh no! I was too afraid of my mother to ever dare fail anything ---but it wasn't my best subject. I had trouble and still have trouble wrapping my head around numbers. Words I'm fine with (just not word problems in math...by Fishsticks are those things ever a mind trip for me!) but numbers I'm not. They just confuse me to no bitter end.

Anyway, in my grade school, we all had to have every times table memorized in Third Grade. I remember spending a lot of time crying because my mom would just get fustrated and scream at me when I got them wrong as we studied them night after night. It wasn't all of them I'd get stuck on. It was just the Six, Seven, and Eight times tables that I couldn't do in my head. Those were always the hardes for me. I remember my mom once locking me in the spare room in my great aunt's house while we were over for a visit and telling me she wasn't letting me out until I had those stupid times tables memorized.

My dad, who is frighteningly good with numbers, took it upon himself to teach me my times tables instead of letting my mother do it. Every morning I'd get in his white truck and we'd start with "6 times 1 is.....6 times 2 is..." and so on. If I messed up, which usually happened someplace around "6 times 7 is..." he'd have me start back at "6 times 6 is..." and count six on my fingers so I'd get to the next answer. Once I mastered the Six times table, we moved on to the Seven times table and then the Eight times table. At the end of a month I was able to recite the Six, Seven, and Eight times tables pretty well. I had to do some of it on my fingers (like "Ok...6 times 6 is 36...add 6 to that and that's 42 so 6 times 7 is 42) but I knew it and it worked better than my mom screaming and threatening me.

Now, of course, I have a calculator to do math so knowing my times tables by heart is pretty much a moot point but, hey, at least I know them, right?

The other half of the "usless things my dad taught me" is how to keep score at a baseball game. Keeping score is REALLY hard to explain so I'll let mlb.com explain it for me. Put it this way, it's a way to keep track of them game using an alpha-numeric system to track players, plays, and, in general, what goes on during the course of a game.

Back when my dad use to come to baseball games with my mom, sister, and I (he gets bored so he doesn't come anymore) I use to watch the people around us take score at good old Shea Stadium. Eventually, I started pestering my dad, who use to take score sometimes, to teach me how to take score. I'm not the biggest baseball fan so I guess I figured that learning how to take score would keep me interested in the game a little more. Plus I REALLY like learning new and strange things. Keeping score is kind of an old fashioned, guy thing to do...though now a lot of women do it too at games.

Anyway, I think the Mets were playing the Arizona Diamondbacks this one random weekday game in the summer. We were at the game and my dad bought me my first score card. He sat next to me and showed me how to score the plays and what all the numbers meant (like 1 is the pitcher, 2 is the catcher, 3 is first base....and so on) and how a strike out swinging was a "K" but a strike out standing was a backwards "K" and how a walk was a "BB" (base on balls). The way I learned to take score, I don't use lines to show where the ball goes after it's hit. That just clutters up the square. Instead, we trace little diamonds inside the boxes to show where the runners go.

Since then, I've bought scorepads (I'm on my fourth or fifth one I think) and I HAVE to bring it (along with two pencils) with me. I sit at Mets games (with my camera in my lap along with my score pad) at fancy Citi Field and take score. It's funny because I'll wind up, by the middle of the season, being able to tell different trends in hitting or how many times we've seen a certain pitcher win or lose.

But yeah...my dad's taught me two skills that are utterly useless in the real world but have proven to be of some use to me. Especially the taking score thing....that's the only thing that makes going to the baseball game bareable for me. Plus I'm waiting for that one day a Mets pitcher throws a no-hitter and I'm there to score it!

Never Had a Friend Like Me

2009-06-19T10:41:00.001-07:00

Anyone ever see the Disney movie Aladdin? You know, the one about the boy (er....Aladdin) who is tricked into going into the Cave of Wonders by the nefarious Jafar in order to retrieve a magic lamp since only a "diamond in the rough" can go in and get said lamp. In typical Disney fashion, Aladdin (and his monkey sidekick Abu) find the lamp, befriend the magical (and bright blue) Genie of the Lamp, and use his powers so that, in the end, Aladdin falls in love with the Princess (Jasmine) and they all live happily ever after!

Ever wonder what it would be like if you had your very own Genie who gave you three wishes? After seeing Aladdin and, getting to play Princess Jasmine in acrobatics on year (long, strange story there), I know I did. So if I were ever to find a magic lamp, this is what I would wish for:

BUT FIRST! I'm going to put the Genie's limitations on what I can wish for since that just seems to make things a little fairer.

According to the movie Aladdin, the Genie can't:
(1.) allow you to wish for more wishes...you only get the three!
(2) kill anyone for you
(3.) make people fall in love
(4.) bring people back from the dead

With that...er...said...here's what I would wish for:

(1.) I'd wish for an end for all the stress my family is currently under. If all the major stressors go away, I think things would be that much better for us. The house we live in would no longer feel like a prison and I don't think I'd dread my time home as much. This wish has a two-fold purpose, actually. By removing all the major stressors that are plaguing my family, that would get rid of my panic attacks. The attacks started when my family was put under an immense amount of pressure due to being sued by both sides of our family (my mom's side AND my dad's side for two different reasons) plus problems with the people (my uncle and his family) we share our home with (which has led to a third law suit). If these major problems went away, I think my panic attacks would go away and I could go back to being as, arguably, normal as I was before the attacks started.

(2.) I'd wish for a job. Not just any job but the PERFECT job. The job I've always dreamed of having. I'd work in a lab someplace and be happy and make money and get to do all kinds of fun stuff while working. It would be absolutely WICKED AWESOME! No, seriously, it would be! Alright, maybe I'm the only slightly crazy person who thinks lab work is fun but that's just me, I suppose. I think strange things like that are fun...always have and, hopefully, always will.

(3.) I think my final wish would probably be just like the one in Aladdin. I'd wish the Genie freedom! I mean, it probably has to suck big time to spend all your free time granting wishes for everyone and doing whatever you're told to do, no matter how much you don't want to do it. I think it would be time for the Genie to get to be happy and do whatever he wanted for a change, don't you think?

Now...anyone know where I can find a magic lamp so I can do this?

It's the End of the World as We Know It...

2009-06-19T00:30:00.000-07:00

...And I feel fine! Just had to finish the song lyric there. Always wanted to learn all the words to that song but it's quite difficult to learn. That's saying something...I was able to master the Barenaked Ladies song "One Week" in a matter of days.

Anyway...that's not the point of this story. Though it could pertain since "One Week" was my personal favorite song all through high school. Ironically, that song mentioned anime in it but I wasn't into anime then. I laughed it off as nothing but "silly cartoons." Yeah, how fast my opinions changed when I got to college but that's a whole other story. Needless to say I just really liked that song because it mentioned The X-Files. I even used it for a project in my Junior Year English class. It amused my teacher who knew I was a fan of The X-Files.

My high school years were different from most people's I suppose. See, I went to a Private Catholic High School that was a Prep School. We wore uniforms and had to take religion classes and go to school-wide church services. It was the kind of school where, in health class, the doors had to be locked when we had the discussions about birth control since the Catholic Church doesn't believe in the use of birth control (in the form of pills or other things like that). Our idea of birth control, as taught in our religion classes, was to wait until we were married and then, as the Bible says, "Be fruitful and multiply." Yes, I'm waiting until I'm married but not because of school. It's more a choice I made and stuck with it...much to the amusement of others my age.

Most teenage girls, even in the Prep School I went to, were major drama queens. I mean, there were cat fights in the lunchroom between girls over the boys they liked. These weren't girls I knew, by the way, and I was never involved in any of the cat fights. In the school I went to, we went by a "track" system. There were four tracks and each student was placed in one of the tracks in order for them to be able to pass through each year. Me? I was in the High Honor Classes. More or less, we were the smartest of the smart in the school. We were the people the school relied on to make themselves look good because we were the ones who got into the "good" colleges and got all the scholarships.

The school I went to protected us High Honor students by sheltering us from our peers. Sure we had homeroom with them and, maybe religion, gym, and foreign language, but we never had other classes with them. The school I went to was split into two wings North and South, each wing having three floors (Basement, Floor 1 and Floor 2). The High Honor students were always kept on the opposite side of the building as the rest of our peers. Say the rest of our peers were on the South side, Floor 1, we'd be on the North side, Floor 2 for that period. When I graduated high school, I knew less than one-third of my own graduating class.

It was kind of comical actually. Us High Honor kids only knew each other and only competed with each other. We were always trying to see who was the best and the brightest and, of course and most importantly, the smartest.

Personally, I wasn't a high school drama queen. I was one of those quiet teens who went about her business with her High Honor friends and that was about it. I didn't date so I didn't have boy drama. My group of friends, back then, were close knit so there was no drama there either. We sat on the "loser" side of the lunchroom and ate together usually talking about karate (since most of my friends were in the Karate Club with me) and the World Wrestling Federation.

Like any teenage girl, though, I guess I had my fair share of "end of the world" moments. They just weren't what anyone would think were normal "end of the world" moments. Nearly all my "end of the world" moments revolved around the clash between my school life and my dance classes. I made the choice to try and balance both school and dance classes at the same time in high school (and then in college and Grad School) and sometimes the balancing act didn't always work out.

Case in Point:

When I was in high school, we had to take a test called the S.A.T. in order to get into college. It's one of those really annoying standardized tests that the state gave. You could take it as many times as you wanted and, when I took it, there were only two parts...a math part (that I hated) and a reading part (that I kicked major rear end in). You were allowed to combine your best math and best reading scores together so you could send your highest possible scores to whatever colleges you applied to. My school recommended that you take the test AT LEAST three times so you had a good choice of scores to combine.

That was all well and good for me since I knew I'd need more than one chance to get a really good math score (sue me, I'm the only science person who dislikes math and numbers). The problem was, the test was only given on SATURDAY MORNINGS!

For me, that was the end of my perfect little world because, back then, I had ballet classes on Saturday mornings. In order for me to be able to take this test, I'd have to miss ballet classes (they were excused absences but still) and that was totally unacceptable to me. Even though it was early on in the year, I knew I'd be missing choreography that just MIGHT show up in our show dance at the end of the year. I hated falling behind like that especially since I was still scrambling up the steep slope that was my ballet class.

Back then, back when there was some dignity in my dance studio's "Ballet Workshop" (now, forget it...the Ballet Workshop has lost all of it's pride and dignity and dancing ability), you had to bust rear end in order to earn a coveted position in the front line of the dance. If you weren't good enough you were stuck in the middle or, worse, the back line. If you were really bad, you got less stage time than the other girls. I'd made middle line and I was determine to hold my place there and continue fighting for a coveted position in the front line.

Having to take this exam on a Saturday morning was putting all of that in jeopardy. I use to whine for weeks before the exam about how much I DIDN'T want to take the exam because I couldn't go to ballet and ballet was important to me. Yes, I was well aware of the fact I wasn't going to college for dance but, still, it was important to me to be at every lesson.

After my three times were up--- each time my reading score getting better and my math score staying the same ---I REFUSED to sit for the exam again. I just couldn't do it...and I just couldn't miss anymore ballet classes. I'd earned a coveted position as a front line dancer for one part of the dance and I wasn't about to risk that for a test.

So yeah....not exactly the most major end of the world event but it was for me. OH! Even now, I refuse to miss ballet lessons LOL!

Imaginatorium

2009-06-16T14:43:00.000-07:00

I REFUSE to give up my imagination. I know adults do that--- they give up the world of fantasy for the world of reality ---but, guess what, I'm not going to! I like my imagination. It's my best friend, my entertainment, the source of everything I am, and I can take it with me every place I go.

What more do I want from something that's colorless, odorless, weightless, and portable?

When I was a little girl, I was not one of those kids prone to day dreaming in school. I was too afraid of my mother NOT to pay attention in class since, if I didn't pay attention, I might miss something important and not do well on an exam. Fishsticks help me if I didn't come home with a perfect score on every one of my tests. My mom was the type of person when I was a kid who demanded to know why I got a 98% on exam instead of a 100%. She always accused me of not paying attention and making, what she called, "stupid mistakes' on tests. Mind you, I was paying attention both in school and when we studied at home, but still, my mom said I made "stupid mistakes."

However, when it came to writing assignments and especially after my mom kinda stopped controlling what I was writing about (she got sick of helping me with my homework around second or third grade because it was too much work for her to help me with my homework and help my sister with), I let my imagination run wild. The world inside my head is not exactly a normal place, not then and not now. My own "inner world" is a veritable playground and has been since I was a little girl. I never had an imaginary friend (I didn't have time...my mom was too busy trying to get me to make friends with real kids) but I had people who lived in my head. Not in a crazy schizophrenic sort of way but more in a playful, friendly sort of way. Maybe they were half-formed people--- ideas of people that were to become some of the people who live in my head now ---but they were there and they kept me company. I just never talked about them to my parents.

When I started writing for fun--- instead of just for school assiginments ---that was when my mom and dad realized there was something more to the stories I use to write for school. I never wrote the conventional stories for my in-class assiginments. I was the weird kid who use to read the weird books and write about faeries and monsters and giant adventures that went on for pages and pages. I guess, maybe, I was just writing about the kind of life I wished I had.

I mean, I lived (and still live) in New York City so there was very little chance for me to meet faeries or discover that there were monsters living in the woods near my home or anything of the sort. My adventures were limited to what my mother allowed me to and that was very little. I always did what I was told because that was what I was supposed to do. There was no Wonderland, no Other-Side-of-the-Looking-Glass, no Somewhere-Over-the-Rainbow, no Galaxy-Far-Far-Away for me. Nope...I was taught from a young age the difference between fantasy and reality. We lived in the Real World where there were no grand adventures and no magic. Those were the things I read about in my books ergo, they were things of fantasy. To pretend they were real, outside of imaginary games played with the few friends I had or my little sister, was just foolish. I learned very quickly the difference between the fantastic and the real.

When I was a kid, I use to fill notebooks up with halfwritten scribblings of what I thought were stories about things that could never happen in this world simply because they weren't supposed to. One thing I remember realizing--- and a very important lesson it turned out to be for me ---was not to show what I wrote to my parents or to anyone in my family. Most of the time, they would just make fun of me and my little "stories." I learned to hide my notebooks and, later, use file names on my computer that had nothing to do with what the file was actually about so my family couldn't find the things I wrote about. I think, back then when I was a kid writing these crazy stories and sometimes handing them in at school, that my mother was afraid my teachers were going to make me see guidance because of my "over active" imagination. It was easier to write about what everyone else was writing about because that was what was acceptable. Problem was, I wasn't thinking like everyone else. I was thinking like me about worlds I wanted to think about. Places that made me happy, even though they only existed in my head. People who were like I thought people should be because I created them that way.

For a long time, after getting made fun of enough by my family, I stopped writing all together. I'd make up stories and leave them in my head. I remember laying in bed and staring at the blurry ceiling (since I wouldn't have my glasses on) making up characters and adventures for them to have. That was what put me to sleep at night better than anything else. I'd go to sleep thinking about some place that I'd created in my own mind, never forgetting that, in the morning, I had to make sure not to talk about whatever world I'd created the night before. It wasn't alright to be imaginative in my house, especially once I got into sixth grade. From then on, it became totally unacceptable for me to use my imagination. I was a grown up and had to put away all my childish playthings. That included my imagination.

I guess I was a thick headed kid because, though I had to put my toys away for good, I kept my imagination. I just kept it hidden from my mother so she couldn't make me give it up. It wasn't until college that I finally plucked up the nerve to start writing my stories down again (in the form of very herky-jerky Lord of the Rings based fanfiction), though I didn't start posting them until I was in the middle of college. By the way, if I hand write things (which I still do when no one's paying attention to me), I still have to hide my notebooks from the rest of my family so they don't find them and read them aloud for everyone to hear.

Yes, they know I write and they know I'd, someday, love to be a published author but it doesn't mean they accept the idea. My mother would prefer me to write something "more acceptable" for females...romance novels instead fantasy and science fiction. They still think it's strange that I use my imagination. I see the world for what it could be instead of what is and if that's not normal, then I never want to be normal...after all it was Albert Einstein who said "“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”

Who am I to argue with Einstein?

Making the Grade

2009-06-12T21:13:00.000-07:00

"Baseball is a lot like life. The line drives are caught, the squibbles go for base hits. It's an unfair game." (Rod Kanehl)

Yes...I picked that quote for a reason. Rod Kanehl was a lifelong New York Met and, for better or worse (lately it's been worse), I'm a lifer when comes to being a New York Mets fan. We're a hardy bunch...us Mets fans. To the point where we cheer on our boys in orange and blue despite the fact they've lost out on going to the post-season twice....on the last day of the darn season!

That's not the point though. I think baseball is a lot like life in that baseball is an unfair game. The things that are a sure thing never really are and the unexpected always happens. I mean, I've seen big name hitters and pitchers fail to do what they're paid to do but some random guy from the minor leagues hit massive home runs or throw 95 miles per hour. It's a game of surprises and of the unexpected. It a game of inches. It's a game where you sit at the edge of your seat and just pray your team hangs on long enough for the win (though, again, that may be an exclusive Mets fan thing). Nothing is ever a sure thing but still certain things are expected of each and every player.

Life's like that in a way. There's the unexpected and the surprises. Things happen because they happen, it's all a matter of where you are and when you are. A matter of inches could be the differences between life and death in some cases. There are just days where you just pray that hanging on by your fingers and toes will be good enough to see you through the day. You have expectations but nothing is ever a sure thing because, like in baseball, life loves to throw curve balls at you. You just have to hope you're good enough to hit them and not strike out looking.

I may be twenty-six years old but I feel like in those twenty-six years, I've learned some pretty important life lessons. Then again, they just could seem like important life lessons now in my little world. In the grander scale of things, they're probably just petty and silly. There's probably more out there for me to learn and these lessons I think I've learned will change completely. Who knows?!

Anyway...I'd have to say the five most important life lessons I've learned in my twenty-six years on this ball of rock and water we call home are:

(1.) Everyone tells you it's alright to be an individual--- to "be yourself" as many people say ---but it's not really alright. No one REALLY likes an individual. Nature may abhor normality, creating mutants to change the norm but the rest of society, they're the ones that abhor the individual. When someone tells you to "be yourself" what they're really saying is "it's alright to be yourself so long as yourself is just like everyone else around you." When you do things or say things or act in a way that isn't entirely what someone thinks is normal for your age or gender or whatever, they look down on you. You have to be what's expected otherwise you're not accepted by those around you. They label you things like "Weird" or "strange" or "different." They think you're trying to be difficult or that you're being different just to make some kind of statement. They fail to understand that not everyone is able to think like everyone else. Some people actually have individual thoughts and ideas and wish to follow them. They want to march to the beat of their own drummer instead of being locked into a mold by society. In a name-branded, stamped-out-of-the-same-mold society, being yourself is a bad thing...even though we're all told as kids that it's alright to be ourselves.

(2.) People go away, no matter what. No matter what anyone tells you, friends are not meant to stay. They all, eventually, go away. It's just how the universe works. People grow apart and friendships that were formed no longer work. Maybe someone says something and a fight starts and that ends that friendship. Maybe it's not always that violent. Sometimes it's just a quiet growing apart where you just stop speaking to each other until you hit the point where you're no longer talking to the other person and they're no longer talking to you. It always hurts on some level when friends leave but it's one of those things that's a universal inevitability. People aren't meant to stay friends, I think, because there's always something that breaks up that friendship. It may be something petty but it's still something. All you can do is enjoy the friendship while it lasts and nurse the injuries, physical and mental, that result from the friendship breaking it up. That and learn what you can from the time you spent having that person as a friend. Everyone we come in contact with teaches us some kind of lesson. It's up to us to understand that lesson and use it when next we encounter someone who might be a friend.

(3.) Being honest is not always the best thing. That's another lesson they teach you when you're a kid, that you're supposed to always tell the truth. I think they forget to leave out the part that talks about lying because people don't really like hearing the truth. People hear what they want to hear instead of what they actually should hear. It's like telling someone they look good in an outfit that they, obviously, don't look good in. We tell them the lie to make them feel good about themselves instead of the truth because that might hurt their feelings. What I'm not saying is that I think we all need to be rude with one another because I'm the first person to admit that I feel guilty when I'm rude to people. No, it's more like I feel that we just need to be more honest with ourselves and with the others around us. We've become a society where telling little white lies is acceptable because it protects people's egos. Sure it might burst the little bubble they have around themselves but, at least, they'd know the truth. Someplace along the lines, truth got all mixed up with lies and it became alright to tell people what they wanted to hear. I remember getting in trouble when I was kid even if I hinted at lying--- my mom use to tell me that if I lied my nose would grow like Pinocchio and that no one would like me then ---so since when did it become alright to lie to protect people's egos. Aren't white lies the same thing as regular old lies?

(4.) The world operates around a "me first" attitude and fishsticks help anyone who tries to tell them otherwise. Everyone operates in their own little world and I understand that. I fully comprehend that each and every one of us is probably a little self-centered in their own right or has their moments when it's all about them. I can appreciate and understand that. I mean I have my moments like that. I'm talking about the people who refuse to see the world beyond their own nose. Everything they do is about them, for them, and for the glory of them. We all exist in order to serve them in their own "me first" world. If we decided we don't want to, the wrath of ten million angry devils is brough down around our ears. We are obligated to do what they want because they feel like they deserve it. They're special in some way the rest of us aren't and, as a result of that, we're beholden to them. We exist for the sole purpose of doing everything they do and say. Their lot in life is to rule and, those they feel that are under them, their lot in life is to be ruled. It's our very own underground class system, just without the fancy names that use to exist way back when. Me? I've lived nearly all my life as one of those to be ruled because I'm not good at opening my mouth and fighting back. When I do fight back, I'm usually told to stop being difficult or guilted into doing what the other party (usually my sister or some other family member) wants me to do.

(5.) You never leave high school...life is just a grown-up version of it. When you look around, really, life is high school on a grander scale. There are the popular people that everyone likes and wants to be around and the weird people no one wants anything to do with. The jocks who go to them gym constantly and like to show off just how "buff" they are and the nerds who spent all their time in front of the computer or with their nose in a book. There are people you shy away from because they're not in your social circle, just like in high school, and then there are people you're drawn to because they seem like they belong to your social circle. Even in some places of work, where you sit at lunch dictates how "cool" or "popular" you are...just like high school. The world is full of heart break, heart ache, and tests (though the grading is extremely different and sometimes you don't even know you're being tested in the first place) like high school. High school prepares you for the real world...they just leave off the part that says the real world is just like high school. I think if they left that part on there, we'd all still be looking for our lockers.

There you have it....the five major lessons life has taught me in my twenty-six years on earth!

Event Horizion Redux

2009-06-12T11:04:00.000-07:00

Alright...time for another really random story...and by story I mean an actual story. This is another installment from an actual story I wrote. One that has absolutely nothing to do with any of my fanfictions (though I use fanfiction to practice different writing styles and to see what I can and cannot write. Case in point, I royally suck at writing romance!) that I'm currently playing with.

Nope this is another piece from my college creative writing class mess. Except, see, I wrote this way after college. I think I was sitting outside of one of my graduate school classrooms when I started working on this part of the story. It doesn't follow immediately after the part of the story I've already posted. Instead it's more of a flashback to when the two main characters first...um...meet.

Um....yeah....enjoy! LOL!

Event Horizion: Arie Meets Huey

The young smuggler figured that she’d found a good place to hide herself. It didn’t seem right or fair that the C.S.E. was hunting her at the moment. It wasn’t like she’d blown up the spaceport annex or the government building that happened to be near it. All she’d done was what she’d been paid to do. She’d dropped off the chemical accelerant that some very angry anti-establishment group had used to do just that.

In Arionne’s mind, that didn’t make her party to the so-called terrorist act. She was just the smuggler that had brought the goods in. It wasn’t like she shared ideals with the group or helped them build the bomb they’d used for their little fireworks show. All she’d done was her job. What happened after that, in her mind anyway, was far from her fault.

The C.S.E, however, saw it differently and had impounded the Intron, the name of her ship according to the manifest it was currently broadcasting. Now they were busy running around hunting the ship’s captain, a woman named “Micah” with big plans to arrest her for terrorist activities.

“Micah” and “Intron” were, of course, false identities Serkan had concocted to hide the fact that one of his smugglers--- Arionne ---was riding around in her ship, the Seraphim. Arie wasn’t pleased with the fact she was going to have to tell Serkan that she was going to be needing a new false identity if she ever managed to get back to their base. Not really if she got to their base. It was more like when she got back to their base but that was neither here nor there at the moment. It just stood that he wasn’t going to be pleased with his little rookie monster when she got home because he’d have to come up with new false papers for her.

Still, the building she’d ducked into was silent and, seemingly, empty. The lights were low and cast pale shadows on the rest of the room she found herself in. The room, itself, was a vast, cavernous space. Its center was empty but there were strange pods jutting out of the walls, spiraling upwards beyond Arie’s quicksilver eyes.

Half curious and half bored, Arie crept to the closest pod. On the wall behind it was a bevy of silently flashing medical monitors. Her eyes followed the leads and tubes down into the figure that rested in the pod. Nude and very obviously male, was a sleeping figure. He was still as death, eyes not even moving behind his lids as he dreamed nor was it twitching and moving as most did when they slept. According to the monitors behind him, though, he was living even if he looked dead.

The young smuggler leaned downward and caught sight of a series of letters embossed on the side of the pod. Raised and in bright, shiny silver the letters were as Arionne brushed her long fingers against them.

“HUE-AC,” Arie breathed, half in shock though she tried not to show it. “I’m in a HUE-AC factory?”

Arie had heard of but had never seen one of the part-human, part-Artificial Intelligence units before. They were supposed to be extremely useful, according to the stories that she’d heard. All she’d heard were stories though since HUE-ACs were too flashy for her line of work. A simple Artificial Intelligence unit was all some smugglers chose to use. She wasn’t one of them but everyone had their own tastes she supposed.

It was the murmur of voices and the sound of a struggle that broke Arie’s blissful reverie. Almost immediately, every nerve in her body went on end, every sense she had became attuned to the world around her. It was almost as if her body was working overtime just to feed her more and more information so she could make the decision on what to do next.

She knew she was in trouble if the murmuring voices found her standing where she was. They’d turn her over to the C.S.E. and that wound be that. Unless by some miracle Serkan’s crew could fish her out, she’d be stuck rotting in some blasted and blighted prison like her mother before her. Arie had already said, to herself and to others, that she’d die by her own hand first before allowing something like that to happen to her.

With little choice to spare because the room offered her only a few places to take cover, Arie wedged herself between the floor and the pod closest to her. Dust tickled her nose but Arie knew she couldn’t, wouldn’t, and shouldn’t sneeze. That wouldn’t have been the brightest thing for her to do, after all.

Instead, the young smuggler tried to distract herself by watching what was going on in the room before her. Two sets of heavy black boots, not unlike the ones she was wearing at the moment, tromped in dragging a slumped body between the two of them. For a moment Arie fancied the body’s skin--- what skin she could see anyway ---orange but that couldn’t have been right. It was only for a moment, anyway, as the body was dumped into one of the pods jutting out of the walls with a sickening splashing sound. For another very long, very tense set of moments, the boots continued to murmur as they worked on something but, soon enough, they left, taking their conversations with them.

Sneezing like a fiend, Arie slipped out from under the pod she’d chosen as her hiding place. The room was empty; the lights low again. She knew she had to escape and find a way to free her ship so she could get off world but she was young and not all together bright. She still allowed things like curiosity to get the best of her.

Arie had to see if the body that had been dragged into the room was actually orange. In all her travels--- limited, true, but more than someone her age should have had ---she’d never seen nor heard of an orange skin species. She figured that it might be smart to check out if such a species existed…just in case she should ever come up against them in a fight or worse.

Gauging distance and guessing just a little, Arie found the pod in question. He had to be the only orange colored man in the room because, as most knew, HUE-ACs were always human males with pale skin, dark hair, and gray eyes. No one sure if all HUE-ACs were clones or there just happened to be a race of pale skinned, dark haired men that were used when it came to HUE-ACs. The specifics, like most industrial secrets, were kept under tight wraps lest some other company hire someone to come in and steal them.

The figure, who was indeed orange and indeed male, was not quietly resting in his pod like the others around him. No, he thrashed about and his eyes moved behind their orange lids. This one, unlike all the others around him, was still able to dream, able to do things the other HUE-ACs around him couldn’t.

The orange skin combined with the blue hair gave Arie no clue as to his planet of origin. The man in the pod was humanoid at best but that was all Arie could figure out from just looking at him. What species, what race he belonged to Arie couldn’t even begin to guess.

She really knew she should have left the orange man in his little pod but Arie found that she couldn’t help herself. She didn’t have an AI Unit of her own--- never thought she needed one and found them entirely too flashy for her liking ---and figured, while she was here, she might as well get herself a HUE-AC. With their more human appearances, they fit in better than shiny AI Units.

Plus, though she didn’t want to admit it, there was something about the orange man that was begging her to help him. He couldn’t speak but there was something about the grimace on his face and the fast flicking of his eyes behind his eyelids that was screaming the fact he wanted to be free. Just on that fact alone, Arie wanted to let him out of his pod.

Though her freeing the orange man could have been seen as an act of kindness, it wasn’t really. There was very little pure kindness in Arie’s act. There was a great deal of curiosity thrown in along with the want for something interesting to do. She’d been running and hiding for so long that she’d gotten bored. Freeing this orange man, possibly causing chaos by doing so was one way to cure that boredom.

Easier said than done though since Arie wasn’t sure just how to get the orange skinned fellow out of his pod. The leads tethering him to his watery bed were a mystery to the smuggler. She didn’t know how to get him out no matter how much she really wanted to.

“Oh…blast it all,” Arie mumbled, reaching into one of her many pockets and palming out a round, lumpy textured object that was slate gray in color. “Have to always make things harder for myself.”

The object Arie was holding was a variation on the flash grenade. A special little toy one of Serkan’s men had cooked up for her to use. A normal flash grenade only threw out a burst of bright light, blinding anyone in the immediate area. Serkan’s variation threw out a short lasting burst that interrupted any and every electrically powered object within a ten foot radius.

Arie wasn’t keen on using the object mostly because it would disrupt any electrical equipment she happened to have on her person for a short while. That included her communication devices and the key she used to enter her ship. The light part, Arie knew she didn’t have to worry about. It wouldn’t bother her eyes because of their quicksilver color. While all others were blinded, she, with her strangely colored eyes, would be able to see. Arie wasn’t sure from where she’d inherited her quicksilver eyes but, whoever had them, she was thankful she’d inherited them. It made things in her line of work much easier sometimes.

Aiming the flash grenade, Arie rolled it under the pod that held the orange skinned man. It counted down from three--- the lights blinking in a complex sequence three times ---before it went off with a muted explosion and a bright flash of visually searing light.

The banks of monitors on the entire level turned themselves off and Arie hustled herself to work. She was well aware of how precious her time was. It was only a matter of time before someone came to see what was going on. They’d want to know why all the power had gone off in the room. Her hands moved swiftly but her motions were clumsy because she was both rushed and hadn’t a real clue as to what she was doing.

As the two guards, or whatever they actually were, slipped into the room, Arie and the orange man slipped out behind them. She was half dragging, half carrying the dripping, lifeless body down the hallway with her. Though he was heavy--- quite a bit heavier than he looked actually ---Arie was just glad he wasn’t fighting her. If he’d started struggling against her, she was almost sure she would have left him just sitting nude in the hallway.

The guards must have noticed something wasn’t quite right in the room with the pods because they started back up the hallway with alarms blaring behind them. Much to Arie’s surprise and utter confusion, the sound of the klaxons wailing along the long, blank hallway did not rouse her orange captive. He remained as limp as a boned fish, long orange legs dragging behind him and leaving water marks on the floor even as Arie ducked into a small room she’d found opened to her.

The room was small, uncomfortably so as it was full of paper mash boxes and had one tiny window set high above everything else. Though the fact she was closed in made Arie rather uncomfortable, it was the one small window that made the young smuggler smile. If she remembered correctly, the window opened into an empty back alley.

Arie guessed the room was just used for storage or something to that effect. Not that she particularly cared about that fact. What was important to her was getting out of that window and finding her freedom as fast as she possibly could. Being trapped was a physical pain to her body, almost a blow but without the fists, feet, or weapons.

Staring at the orange man, she’d slumped against the door, Arie mumbled, “Can’t go walking around with all your orange parts hanging out. That would really draw some unnecessary attention to the both of us, buddy.”

The first box, knocked over more than neatly opened, produced a pile of old clothes. Arie assumed that they belonged to the other HUE-ACs in the previous lives. The more boxes she ripped opened or knocked over, the more clothes she found. Looking at the orange man--- still slumped against the door looking quite dead save for the barely perceptible rise and fall of his skinny chest ---Arie grabbed a long, patchwork fabric duster and a warped pair of foot forming boots. Nearly tripping, she found an old miner’s hood that covered an individual’s full fact. The clothing didn’t match by a long shot but Arie was banking on the fact she was in a busy spaceport. No one was going to ask many questions.

Cursing in more languages than a young woman her age needed to know, Arie shoved the rubbery, boneless limbs of the orange man into the clothing. When she was done and the hood was pulled over his head, only his orange hands stuck out. She shrugged her shoulders at that fact. Nothing was perfect and she didn’t have time to find gloves and shove his hands in them. It was just a little splash of orange. Maybe no one would see it. If anyone did, they could always believe he was wearing orange gloves or something to that effect.

“Now for the grand escape,” Arie mumbled putting her hands on her hips and staring up and the small, unbarred, unlocked window that seemed too good to be true.

Using what she had--- the large amount of crates and boxes in the room ---Arie built herself a makeshift ladder. Without much of a care, and a whole lot of uncomfortable looking squeezing and squashing, Arie managed to get the orange skinned man out of the window. He landed on the sparse grass covered ground with a painful sounding “thunk.” The blow, though, didn’t seem to faze him any as he didn’t stir or make a sound.

She shrugged and pitched herself out the window, landing in a crouch just shy of the orange man’s head. Her silver eyes darted around the small space, watching for anything that might be heading in their direction. The alleyway was empty and, without any cover, Arie felt unconformable in the openness she found herself in. She felt as if she’d become one giant target that was being held back by the dead weight that was the orange skinned man.

Though asked many times, Arie could never properly say how she’d gotten to her impounded ship and off the random, nameless planet she’d found herself on. The “hows” and the “whys” got lost in a whirl of firefights and running and ducking. That and dragging the limp, lifeless orange man behind her. She was still determined to bring him along even if he was hampering her on so many levels.

Halfway through her silent trip through Neg Space, the orange skinned man awoke rather violently. They scuffled a bit but the rest was history.

A World Without

2009-06-11T18:50:00.000-07:00

I always joke that I don't technically own anything other than my pointe shoes. I don't have a job so I have no income. No income means I don't really pay for anything. Technically speaking, everything I own belongs to someone else...namely my parents since they're the ones who pay for most of the stuff I have (including my pointe shoes).

Maybe I guess I could say that everything I own are gifts from my parents until I get a job and am able to pay for things myself. Make no mistake, though, if I were to ever make a substantial sum of money, the first thing I'd probably do is buy something for each of my parents just to recompensate for everything they've done for me throughout my life...even if sometimes they annoy the fishsticks out of me. I think they deserve something for putting up with me and, not just my strange hobbies and personality, my often too lofty ambitions.

Anyway...I'm wandering away from the point I'm trying to make. I do that a lot...sorry.

If I lost everything I owned in the world, I'd probably first panic. Ok, that's not a fair response because my initial response to anything lately is panic. Hence the whole me having panic attacks thing. Strange things set me off and I just go into a panic.

Panic aside, I think it would depend on what I lost how I responded. Possession can always be replaced. I mean things are things. Sure they make you happy when you get them but they're just...well...things. They're inanimate objects that can always be repurchased or remade or rediscovered. Sure they may have some sentimental value inherent in them but those feelings aren't what are destroyed. It's just the objects that engender those feelings that are what's destroyed.

Though objects can be destroyed, the memories we have off the good times involving said objects can't be and sometimes memories are all you have off the good time. The world around you may change and rearrange and become something you barely recognize but the memories of the good times stay with you. Those memories are what's important...sometimes more important than the objects that are involved in said memories.

If it were people I'd lost, members of my family (even if I don't like them all the time...they're still my family), I don't know what to do. I'd probably be stuck in a permanent state of panic. I'd be lost without them, especially since I know whoever wasn't lost would wind up relying on me to do things. I'd have to be an adult--- technically I am an adult ---for people who are more adults than I am, with the exception of my sister who is younger than I am. I don't think I'd, mentally or physically, be able to do that. Not without losing a great deal of my sanity.

The world's not a stable place. Things change. People change. Situations change. Things are lost and sometimes are never found again. People go away and never come back. Sometimes we just have to learn to deal with things...no matter how much they hurt.

Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats

2009-06-10T19:42:00.000-07:00

You Are Like a Cat

You are independent and a bit stubborn. You are content to do your own thing.
You are curious about the world but still an individual. You prefer to be a solo explorer.

You enjoy your alone time, but you also like some quiet company from time to time.
You crave companionship, even if it means just spending time in the same room together.

What Pet Are You Like?

I'm a dog person but I like cats too. Oh! Especially kittens! They're all cute and cuddly and fuzzy and meowy!

Anyway...This isn't the first time I've been compared to a cat. Most people say I remind them of a feline and it's not just because I have a tendency to fall but land on my feet...most of the time. Alright, maybe that has something to do with it but that's not the whole thing. I'm not catty, either, so that has nothing to do with why I remind people of a cat.

I totally am one of those people who's happiest when she's allowed to her own thing...on her own...with little to no company. Not that I mind company but, when I'm busy doing things, I'd rather have my space. I use to be the worst person to be around when I was preparing to study for an exam. I liked to have my space to work on my index cards and fishsticks help anyone who bothered me.

I guess since I want to be a scientist, you could say that I'm a sort of explorer. It's just the world in minature that I want to explore. Then again, as history's shown, the minature world has a great impact on the world at large. I'm exploring a world that's just as important as the large world around us...it's just a lot smaller and, sometimes, a little more virulent, that's all.

I'll say that this quiz was pretty darn accurate when it came to results. I mean, I guess I'm a cat...minus the ears and tail. As a very strange aside, cats play a big role in many anime and in many manga. There are a great many famous characters with cat ears...though I'm not talking about Inuyasha here. He's a dog...ergo, he has dog ears and not cat ears. Go to any anime convention, though, and I lay you even odds you'll find someone selling cat ears and tails and/or dressed up like some kinda kitten. It's just an anime thing, I suppose!

Being a Master

2009-06-08T10:52:00.000-07:00

We're, as a rule, not supposed to brag about things we've done. My mom taught both my sister and I to be very humble about our accomplishments and just to smile and thank people when they say nice things about us. My sister doesn't exactly follow this rule anymore--- she thinks she's the greatest thing since whole wheat slice bread (my sister's a vegan) ---but I still do. I always think there's someone better or smarter out there.

Anyway, I guess if push came to shove, academically speaking, I've done some pretty insane things that would be considered big deals. I graduated fifth overall in my high school out of a class of about four hundred or so students (and, yes, I was very disappointed I didn't finish first). I graduated college with honors along with my Bachelor of Science degree.

I passed my GRE (the test you need to take in order to get into Graduate School) the first time I took it. Not only did I pass it but I got a perfect score on the essay writing portion of the exam (called a "Perfect 6" by the test people since a six is the highest score you can get on that part of the exam). The funny thing about that was I walked into the test cold. I looked at a few past exams, true, but I didn't do any major studying. I figured that since you can take the GRE more than once I'd just take it the first time cold to see what it was like. I never exected to score so well that I'd never have to re-take the exam.

Those are all alright accomplishments I suppose. I mean anyone can do any of those things really. They're not such a big deal when put in comparison to some of the other things people have done. It's not like I'm saving lives or doing anything great like that. It's just silly school related stuff.

There is one school related thing I'm proud of. It didn't get much attention at home because of my sister but it was still a big deal for me. See, in order for me to get my Master's Degree I had to take this exam called the MCD (I never did learn what those initials stood for actually). The MCD, basically, went like this. The school gave you between twenty and twenty-five (There were twenty-one the year I took the exam) scientific journal articles. You had read each and every one of the articles and, basically, know EVERYTHING about the article. If it was experiment based, you had to know the procedures that were done in each experiment and what the results were. If the articles were just fact based, you had to know every single fact from the article.

Some of the articles, I got luck on. They were about things I'd studied about in class. For example, there were three articles (included one I'd read in class at some point...points for me I guess) on a protien known as "p53." This protien regulates the cell cycle and is a tumor suppressant. When the protien is not present, thanks to a malfunction in the the gene that transcribes p53, the checks in the cell cycle are turned off and tumors can result. Where there are tumors, there's cancer. In most forms of cancer, actually, the malfunctioning p53 protien is involved.

Anyway....there were some articles I got lucky on and were about things I knew about. Other articles, however, were straight out of left field and required me to do my own research. The test was in June (between my dance studio's dress rehersal and show that year) but I started studying for it in late March. No joke, if I didn't have dancing, I was studying for between eight to ten hours a day. I rarely left the house and, if I was forced to leave the house, I either took my study materials with me (which was kept in a blue binder that weighed about twenty pounds more than me) or I whined because I was wasting valuable study time.

Put it this way, I was the most MISERABLE human being on the face of the earth from March until the day I sat for my MCD exam. On that day, I was so scared that I'm actually surprised I didn't have a panic attack in the middle of the exam (though several people I knew did throw up before the exam started). Oddly enough, I started getting panic attacks AFTER I finished school and I was no longer stressed by school work. Weird, no?

We had to wait half a year to get the results of the exam since each exam had to be checked by not only the professor who wrote the question but by another professor. When I finally got my results, no joke, I nearly died. The passing grade for a Master's student was a 65 on the exam so that was all I was aiming for. All I wanted to do was pass the exam and that was it. Anything else was a bonus.

What I didn't expect was that I'd managed to score better than most of the PhD students who sat for the exam. I was expecting either a 65 or lower as my grade (despite the months of studying I'd done in preperation for the exam)...but that's not what I got. Oh no...I out scored most PhD students (mind you, I took the test as a Master's Student) by getting an 87 on my MCD. It was the highest grade anyone in the Master's group managed to get!

That probably ranks right up with last year after my dance show when some random guy--- not a clue who he was ---came up to me and wanted to know if I was a professional dancer the studio brought in to make the show look better. I thanked him for the compliment (which caught me completely off guard because I was dancing on a nearly broken ankle last year....I got into terrible accident during tap class a month before the show so I had to dance with a soft brace on just to be able to walk around) and told him that I wasn't even a member of a the studio's staff. I was just a normal student in the place.

If I Can't Swim After Forty Days

2009-06-04T23:35:00.000-07:00

I live in New York City so there aren't very many natural disasters we have to worry about on a daily basis. I mean, we get the occassional flood but nothing huge and not in really anywhere near where I live. We get blizzards but, again, we don't get the kind of snow that shuts the city down...mostly because our Sanitation department rocks! No tornados or hurricanes here either...not that I remember anyway. We've gotten tremors but no huge earthquakes.

I'm not saying New York City is the safest place in the whole entire world to live either. I mean, all you need to look at is what happened on 9/11 to let you know that my city isn't safe. That unnatural disaster was something we weren't prepared for and it's something I pray nightly that will never happen again to any city, anywhere.

Still, that event, and the terrible threats and events that followed have made all of us New Yorkers think about what would happen if another disaster befell our city. What would we take with us if we were forced to leave our homes for whatever reason? (Natural or unnatural disaster)

(1.) Just after 9/11 my mom had me make a CD with all our vital family information on it. Things like our social security numbers, copies of our birth certificates, all manner of identification. That would probably be one of the first things I'd grab to take with me. It's important to have identification in a time of crisis, especially medical information (since my mom has Systemic Lupus and my grandmother, well, she's eighty years old) just in case someone got hurt. At least, that's how it's supposed to work in theory. Oh and, yes, there are multiple copies of this CD in the house just in case one gets damaged or otherwise destroyed.

(2.) Murphy--- Murphy is my sister's beagle. He's a two year old terror on four paws but he's absolutely adorable. He has this big, chocolate brown eyes and makes the saddest, smooshiest faces ever. You just can't help but cuddle him when you see him. Though he can be mean and nasty, I'd make sure to take him (on his leash and with his favorite "nomming" pillow) with us. I guess I'm one of those crazy people who believe that animals are just four legged, furry members of our family. I would feel really bad leaving Murphy behind if something were to happen. He's just as much a member of the family as any of us...except he has four legs and a tail. He'd probably "Barooooooooooo" (Murphy doesn't know how to howl....he bays) the whole time but, hey, that's how beagles are.

(3.) Cell Phones--- Everyone in my family has a cell phone (Yes, that includes my eighty year old grandmother) so I figure it would be prudent to grab mine since I'm usually the one that leaves her cell phone behind...since I'm always with someone else who has THEIR cell phone with them. Again, just in case we got seperated, there's always a chance we could fine each other using our respective cell phones. I mean, if we had cell phone reception during said crisis situation.

(4.) A blank notebook--- just to chronicle the events that were taking place. I'm one of those people who sort of sees the story in everything and wants to make sure that story gets told in some way, shape, or form. Oddly enough, the story's usually fictional but that's neither here nor thre at the moment. I'd make sure I'd have a blank notebook and a pen with me just to write down what's happening not just to my family and I but to everyone around us. Maybe, someday, the story could be formally written down and used in a history book someplace or just prove that there were people here and that we existed. Something like that, you know?

(5.) Baby Mickey and Googie--- Ok, there are two stories behind these two. When I was a little girl, I was EXTREMELY close to my grandfather (my mom's father). He use to take me to nursery school because my mom worked during the day and, generally, just spoiled the fishsticks out of me since I was his only grandchild at the time. He died when I very young--- maybe like four or five years old ---but I remember that the last thing he ever gave me was this little stuffed Baby Mickey Mouse plushie. The plushies has sat at the head of my bed ever since. I'd have to take Baby Mickey with me since he's all I have to remember my grandfather by. Now, Googie, he's a different story. Googie is a medium (though he seemed much larger when I first got him) sized white platypus. I HAVE TO have Googie in bed with me every night otherwise I can't sleep. He's slept next to me every night since I was in second grade. I don't cuddle him like I use to but he still stays in my bed, underneath my blankets with me. I think it's a security thing now (don't even ask what I'll do when/if I get married LOL! I haven't thought about that one!) but Googie would have to come too.

If the Shoe Fits...

2009-06-01T22:38:00.000-07:00

I'm almost sure my friend Sarah can make regular old card stock and other scrapbooking supplies stand on their head, or tap dance, or do back flips or something. All I know is that she TOTALLY rocks when it comes to being all crafty and making things.

Case in point, check out these shoes she made. Don't those look like actual Converse All Star Sneakers? Pretty darn wicked neat, no?

Those little Converse All Stars got me thinking about the Converse All Star Sneakers I own. Yes, I know they aren't exactly the most fashionable shoes for a girl (my sister says that they make your feet look like boats) but I do love my Converse All Star Sneakers. They're comfortable and I'll openly admit to liking them because they're slightly nerdy looking and I'm a proud nerd!

Fishsticks, I was a nerd before it was cool to be one! When I was in grade school, I had a backpack (green, of course, since green's my favorite color) that had my initials. Back then, I was still using A.N.D. as my initials. This was before I decided it was much cooler to reverse them and use D.N.A. as the way to represent myself. Anyway, I wound up spending the entire year in school (mind you, I went to one of those strict Catholic schools with uniforms and nuns and mandatory religion classes) being called "Ashley Nerd Dork" because everyone was convinced that was what "A.N.D." stood for.

I hadn't embraced my nerdy side then (I think I was in sixth grade and still very much under my parents' influence to try my best and fit in with the "popular" kids) so that nickname upset me a great deal. Now, though, I can see why they'd think I was both a nerd and a dork. I was that strange kid who sat where she was told to (we weren't allowed to pick where we sat in my school for the most part) and finished her work before everyone else. I was the one reading the books with lots of pages while everyone else read Fear Street (Remember them? The teenage books by R.L. Stein) books. I did well in school and really didn't try all that hard to fit in with the popular kids. After all, they were the ones calling me "Ashley Nerd Dork."

Anyway, now I've embraced the fact I'm a card carrying nerd who likes science, science fiction, anime, and all that other good stuff. I also own several pairs of Converse All Star Sneakers.

Though my all time favorites are my low top green pair (put it this way, I need to buy a new pair because I wore my old ones out to the point where they have holes in them), I own a WICKED COOL pair in....what probably could be considered day-glow green. As a matter of fact, they're the same color as the sneakers in the picture on this post. I ABSOLUTELY love wearing them! They're just so bright and happy and I'm convinced they glow...like, ya know, radioactive Spidey-Man glow! My mom isn't exactly fond of them--- it's a wonder she even agreed to buy them for me ---but that doesn't stop me from wearing them. I think they're wicked awesome!

I also have a pair of black converse with flames on them but I, currently, can't wear them. See, they usually have orange laces in them since the flames on them are red, orange, and yellow, but they don't have laces at the moment. The orange laces are in my blue Nike sneakers. Why? Well, the colors of the New York Mets are orange and blue so I wear my orange laced, blue Nike sneakers whenever I go to baseball games. Besides, black is more a winter color anyway.

But yeah...I do so love my Converse All Star Sneakers!

In the Summer Time

2009-05-27T20:53:00.000-07:00

I'm not a cold weather person...never have been. I'm the type of person who gets cold and then stays cold. For some reason, I can't physically get warm again once I get cold. That usually gets blamed on my weight...or lack of weight, whatever the case might be.

I cannot tell you how excited I am that it's almost summer time in the Big Apple!

No more heavy jackets! No more thermals! No more freezing when you go outside (or to baseball games...urgh...cold weather at Citi Field...just as bad as cold weather at Shea Stadium)!

It's time for capris (or, if you're me "hobbit pants" because the Hobbits in Lord of the Rings wear short pants) and t-shirts. It's time for low top Converse All Star sneakers! It's time for, what we call, Chinese Shoes!

I guess it's time for sandals too but I don't wear sandals. I think it's a ballerina thing, the not wearing sandals. See, lots of ballerinas who dance in pointe shoes have really terrible looking feet. Dancing en pointe can give you blisters, corns, hammer toes, and all sorts of other foot-related nastiness if you're not careful. Actually, even if you are careful it can happen to you so most of us are pretty sensitive about showing our feet in public. Me? I've never had any major problems with my feet or toes thanks to my pointe shoes but I still don't like showing my toes in public. I just chalk it up to being a dancer thing.

Summer means a lot of things to me and, oddly enough, vacation is not one of them. My family's never done a big summer vacation. We take a lot of day trips instead for some reason. I think the last time we went on a sleep away summer vacation it was for a long weekend to Boston and Salem, Massachusetts but that was like four years ago. We haven't gone on a vacation like that since.

Anyway...

Summer means baseball to me. See, my mom, sister, and I have what are called "Sunday Packs" for Citi Field. That means we have tickets to every Sunday game at the stadium when the Mets are home. Those aren't the only games we go to though. Oh no...we spend a large amount of time sitting at the baseball game (it use to be at Shea Stadium but the Mets moved into Citi Field this year so now we go to Citi Field) watching the Mets play. I don't mind going when they win but, fiststicks, when they lose I get annoyed. It's like "Why in the world did you waste my time and money by losing?"

I know they have to lose every once and a while but can't they do it on days I'm not there? At least if I'm watching the game on TV and they're losing, I can change the channel. If they're losing while I'm at the stadium, I'm stuck in my seat. I use to go a-wandering around Shea Stadium but Citi Field is new and I'm afraid I'm going to get lost so I can't even go wandering around. It's probably better I don't anyway. Why? Because when I use to prowl around Shea Stadium, I'd wind up spending money on things...usually pins for my "lucky" green hat but every once and a while I'd come back with a giant teddy bear or monkey. Drove my mom nuts, that did.

Summer also means big, blockbuster movies. Technically speaking, the summer movie season starts in May (when it's not even summer) but I spend a good part of my summer in the cool, darkened confines of my local movie theater (which changes names once every couple of months) watching whatever big blockbuster movie's come out. Let's see...so far I've seen X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and Star Trek. I still have to see Angels & Demons. After that it's Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Dragonball Evolution, and, OF COURSE, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I'm sure there are other movies in between that I'll wind up wanting to see but those are the big three this summer.

For me, it goes like this, I'm allowed to pick three big movies I want to see during the summer and that's it. It doesn't matter who I see the movies with but if I see more than three I want to see, I'm subject to having my movie picking privillages for the fall movie season (and we all know what comes out this fall....New Moon!) taken away from me by my sister. I already know I'm going to be in trouble this summer. See, I don't know if it's going to be a world wide release but I know that the movie Ponyo on a Cliff by the Sea (the newest Hayao Miyazaki anime) is being translated into English and I do love Miyazaki's anime. If they do a release here, I'm going to have to go see it! I've never seen any of Miyazaki's films on the big screen. Actually, they're limited to being viewed on the tiny screen of my portable DVD player since no one will watch them with me.

Summer has come to mean reading for me. Actually most seasons mean reading to me because I read like a fiend but summers have always been special for me. When I was in school (grade school, high school, college, and grad school) I'd spend my summer tucked among piles of books. There have been some summers where I've read the entire collected works of authors because...um...yeah I'm a dork like that. This summer has me very excited, though. My very favorite medical-fiction author, Dr. Robin Cook, has a new book coming out. Not only is it a new book (his second in so many years...we use to have to wait three or more years for new books to come out and it would be terrible, especially when I was little, to wait because his books are absolutely amazing) but it's a new book about my favorite characters of his.

See, Dr. Cook use to write about different characters in different medical institutions but then he put together two of his characters, Dr. Jack Stapleton (first seen in the novel Contagion) and Dr. Laurie Montgomery (first seen in the novel Blindsight) and, HOLY FISHSTICKS, did he ever strike a gold mine! Dr. Jack and Dr. Laurie (as they've become known around my house since both my mom and I read Dr. Cook's novels), both medical examiners, are two of his most dynamic and interesting characters. I've been reading about the pair of them for so long, they literally live in my head along side other med-fi characters. A new book about the pair of them, called Intervention, is coming out this summer and I'm already excited about it!

But yeah, I devote a lot of my summer to reading. Always have actually. I take mental vacations, I guess you could say, to all kind of places. Sometimes they're as near as the medical examiner's office here in New York or as far away as feudal Japan. Just all depends on what I'm reading that day.

Going to let you in on a little secret....sometimes I take my mental vacations while at baseball games...just without books!

To Boldly Go...

2009-05-25T22:55:00.001-07:00

First things first, I'm going to go on record and say that I'm now and will always be a Star Wars fan. I know both Trilogies---- the Original 1977 to 1983 Trilogy and the New 199-2005 Trilogy ---like the back of my hand. I can probably recite the scripts from the Extended Editions of the Original Trilogy which, in my humble opinion, is the better of the two Trilogies since it had a much stronger storylines and scripts that didn't make me want to throw my popcorn at the screen.

SERIOUSLY! What was George Lucas thinking? I mean those supposedly romantic scenes between Anakin Skywalker and Padme Amadala were painful to watch. He should have stuck with the action and stayed as far away from the romance as possible. I mean, if you can't write it, just don't! I can't write romance and I don't and I'm no where near as professional as Mr. Lucas and his team of script writing people.

Don't even get me started on Jar-Jar Binks! I can probably write a whole rant about him and how much I hated him! I was one of the many fans who wished Anakin's turn to the Dark Side came at the expense of Jar-Jar Binks! He just flips and lops that darn Gungan's head off but, alas, alas, that wasn't to be.

I'm not saying the new Trilogy is all bad. It's just a lot weaker than the Original Trilogy. I mean, sure, it was neat to see other Jedi in action (and who knew Yoda could fight like that! Yoda's the man...er...green creature...er...muppet....er....CGI creation!) and finally get some answers about those darn Clone Wars. Still, was it necessary for the creation of the CGI Clone Wars movie or series on the Cartoon Network? (By the way, CGI animation used in both the Clone Wars movie and series pales in comparison to the one used by Square Enix in their CGI filmsFinal Fantasy VII: Advent Children or Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. Now that's beautiful CGI animation and another story for later.)

Getting away from the New Trilogy, I can name you character histories from the EU (Extended Universe) novels. I've read almost every Extended Universe novel with the exception of the X-Wing series and that's only because I can't darn find any of them. Other than that, I can give you the histories of most of the Jedi introduced in the Extended Universe, tell you who they're married to, who their children are married to, and what they're doing.

Yes, I am a Star Wars dork. I even own a few t-shirts to prove it....my personal favorite is bright red and has Chewbacca on it. On the bottom it says "I'd Just as Soon Kiss a Wookie."

Anyway...all of that was said just to prove that I am not, not, NOT a Trekkie. I'm actually quite afraid of Trekkies and of Star Trek, itself. It's far more complicated than Star Wars with so many different incarnations, characters, captains, races, and alien cultures. From what I understand, it's whole point is to "boldly go where no man has gone before." I'm not entirely sure what that means but it sounds like it doesn't really have a set mission. At least, Star Wars had a set, understandable mission.

Plus earth is involved and there are no Jedi. What kind of "exotic galaxy" involves earth and lacks Jedi? Not on that's "Far, Far, Away" that's for sure!

Thing is, Trekkie I am not but I did go see the new Star Trek movie. You know, the one done by J.J. Abrams and his cast of production characters,Orci and Kurtzman. The same team that was responsible for the panic attack inducing disaster that was the film Cloverfield and my only new favorite TV shows from the 2008-2009 season, Fringe (Yes, I'm STILL reeling from that show's season finale! OH MY FISHSTICKS! That's all I have to say about that. Well, that and poor, poor, poor Walter! I felt so terribly sorry for him at the end of that episode).

Now I walked into the movie while I was in the middle of reading the book version of the movie (if there is a book made about a movie, I will find it and I will read it...then I will compare the book to the movie. Nasty habit I have or so I've been told by my sister.) so I wasn't entirely sure of anything other than the fact it was a movie about these people and they go up into space and some stuff happens and there's a guy with pointed ears who likes logic and who knocks heads with a logic defying space cowboy who seemed to fancy himself like Han Solo (but not as cool since NO ONE is as cool as Han Solo when it comes to the rogue space captain department).

I still know next to nothing about Star Trek, though I'm itching to find some novels that take place with the same cast of characters and figure things out. For me, your average Star Wars obsessed twenty-six year old, this movie was nothing more than an interesting jaunt into space and a peek into JJ Abrams' mind. The logic defying space cowboy, who turned out to be Captain James T. Kirk, became a poor man's version of Han Solo, right down to his "going respectable" and becoming a respected captain at the end. The logical guy with the pointed ears, Spock (or Spork as one of my sister's friends called him), was a human version of C-3PO with all his stiff logic. Though I did like Spock because of his logic. He wound up being my favorite character in the film.

This film uses rifts in the space-time continuum, which seem to be something JJ Abrams enjoys playing with. Both episodes that comprise the season finale of Fringe, "The Road Not Taken," and "There's More Than One of Everything," talk a great deal about the idea of multiverse and how our decisions in the universe we live in direct our path here but we, in another universe, may make another decision that leads us down the road we didn't take. In the Fringe cannon, Walter Bishop and William Bell (played by Leonard Nimoy which led me to exclaiming during Star Trek, "Hey! It's William Bell! What's he doing here?" Apperantly, he was playing Spock from another universe), go so far as to find a way to enter into this parallel universe and William Bell makes his office in the parallel version of New York.

This Star Trek move works along the same premise which distinguishes it, as far as I've read, from the other Star Trek cannons. The Kirk, Spock (the young one), McCoy/"Bones" (but NOT "Bones" like the TV show), Scotty, Checkov, Sulu, and Uhura are all alternate universe versions of themselves. They are from "a road not taken" version of Star Trek that JJ Abrams and his crew decided to write about. In the world of fanfiction, this would be called an AU/Alternate Universe piece of writing. Old Spock ("Spock Prime" as he's called in the credits) and the film's villian, Nero, use a wormhole in space, created by a star going supernova and then shrinking in on itself in order to create a black hole in space (which is as far as the good science goes in this movie). Black holes consume everything around them--- light, matter, and, theoretically, time. In this case, it consumed Nero and Spock Prime from the Original Star Trek cannon and spat them back out in JJ Abrams' AU version of the Star Trek universe.

Taking Fringe into account, and the fact JJ Abrams uses the idea of taking something out of the alternate universe and introducing it into another univese, one can assume Abrams believes this sort of travel is not only plausable but possible. That and it seems safe to believe he also believes in the idea of the multiverse. That is, the idea of many universes existing parallel to each other and are all minorally different from one another.

So, did this movie turn me into a Trekkie? Nope...I walked out wanting to go home and watch Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi. Sure, it made me curious to learn more about Star Trek but I don't see myself becoming a Trekkie and abadoning my Star Wars roots. Those roots are in too deep...been there since I was a little girl dancing to the "Ewok Song" in my living room. Besides, I kept expecting someone to say either "May the Force be with you." or "To infinity....AND BEYOND!" (No, I have no idea how Buzz Lightyear got involved in this story).

Star Trek was an interesting jaunt through a corner of the universe I had yet to explore. Now, if I could just figure out how to get Kirk and Han Solo in the same place, I'd be a happy camper! If JJ Abrams can play in the alternate universe...one fanfiction writer can do the same for her own amusemenet!

OH! By the way...the fanfic I posted here as Sprite's Lament is posted up on fanfiction.net as Elf Marked Child. It's seperated into three chapters and, as I usually do with my Matrix fanfictions, each chapter is paired with (and titled by the same) song...
Chapter 1- "Daughters" by John Mayer
Chapter 2- "Angel" by Sinead O'Connor
Chapter 3 (to be posted soon)- "Flood" by Jars of Clay

I Can't Stand The...

2009-05-23T15:12:00.000-07:00

You Are Rain

You are dark and dramatic. You tend to be a bit over the top.
You have strong emotions and they can change quickly. You are tempestuous.

You are wild and unpredictable. You tend to overwhelm and surprise people.
While you are aggressive, you are also a homebody. You don't really care for physical activities.

Are You Rain or Snow?

Alright...I'd just like to point out that I REALLY can't stand the rain. I don't like anything about it. I don't like being cold or wet...especially wet. See, I have really long hair and when it gets cold and wet, it stays cold and wet. I've sat through enough rainy New York Mets games to know that I don't like having cold, wet hair. It's not comfortable, to say the least.

As for these results, I don't think I really agree with them. I don't think I'm very dark, nor am I very dramatic. As a matter of fact, I don't even really like dramatic things. I go out of my way to avoid drama just because, well, I don't like being part of it. It's too much work and, usually, someone gets hurt and that's the last thing I want to do...hurt another person. Yeah, people tend to say I'm probably too nice for my own good but I can't help it. I don't like being mean to people. It makes me feel guilty.

My emotions aren't strong nor are they prone to changing quickly. I try not to get overemotional about anything because that will sometimes lead to panic and I don't want that. I try to keep myself in check, emotionally, for as long as humanly possible and I don't readily show emotions. At least that's what people say. The only time my mom says I ever really smile is when I'm on stage dancing. Then again, she also says I'm not myself when I'm up there dancing either. I'm not exactly sure who I am them, if I'm not myself.

I'm definitely not wild and I'm very predictable. I like routine...makes me comfortable for some reason. Things have to be just so otherwise I'm not comfortable in situations (really I'm not as crazy as I sound!). The only thing surprising about me is the fact I dance. Otherwise, I'm not very surprising either.

The only thing about this that's accurate is the fact I'm a homebody. I don't like to stray far from my own 'hood and only because I'm comfortable here.

Nature vs Nurture

2009-05-19T10:19:00.000-07:00

This probably has nothing to do with anything but lately one of my friends has decided I'm part Vulcan (starting my own education in Star Trek without, hopefully, compromising my Star Wars roots) because I tend to look at all situations froma logical point of view. I figure that if I get overemotional one of two things is going to happen. Either I'm going to freak myself out and wind up driving myself into a panic attack which is something I try to avoid doing at all costs because, well, panic attacks just plain suck.

If that doesn't happen, then I'll just lose my cool and not be able to make the "proper" decision. One of those things about me...I don't like being wrong. I will admit to being wrong but I don't really like being wrong. I guess you could say I'm a chronic perfectionist. If things don't go perfectly, I tend to get very...uncomfortable...and, thus, I don't like making "wrong" decisions.

Now, one could take this sort of behavior as part of my nature--- since according to the ever so popular "birth order theory" ----the eldest child is supposed to be the perfectionist, among other things. This behavior can also be taken as something that was nurtured in me. See, my mom expected me to be perfect when I was a kid and I didn't want to disappoint. I did everything in my power to be perfect and it's kind of stuck with me since.

In my world, or in the world of one my classes (I think it might have been Bioethics...very interesting class) I took in college, we talked a great deal about the idea of "nature vs nurture." Now, by nature I don't mean "nature" in the conventional sense of the word. I'm not talking about trees and animals and grass and streams and things like that. The nature I'm talking about is more of an individual's genetic, inborn nature. The sort of idea that "you were supposed to be this way because your genes say you're supposed to be this way." The idea that everything, just like hair and eye color, is predicated by your genetic make up. You have no control over what you do and how you act because it's all related to you are a slave to your genes.

Then you have the other camp...the nurture camp. This one is pretty straightforward. You are who and what you are because of both the environment around you and how you were raised. The circumstances that made you who and what you are have been predicated by how you were raised and the surroundings in which you were raised. Those factors have, well, nurtured you to create the person you are now.

Science has been trying to reconcile the whole "nature vs nurture" thing for a very long time. After all, we do know that our genes play a role in many things about our person but we're still not sure just how strong a role that is. It's very hard to say a person acts a certain way because of their genes and not because they were nurtured to be that way by family or circumstances.

Birth order theory is a prime example of the arguement of "nature vs nurture." How much of it is actually part of our inborn genetic make up--- and if any of it is, how do those specific genes know to turn on when you're born? There's no trigger we know of that says "hey, you're the oldest so this set of genes will be activated while this other set will be silenced." ---and how much of it is part of the way you were raised by your family and the circumstances you were born into?

I'm the oldest of two siblings...and, yes, I do act like the oldest sibling. As I wrote before, I am a perfectionist and I would rather be right than wrong. I feel like I'm not only responsible for myself but for everyone else around me. I don't like to see things half done and will go out of my own way to make sure things get done (I'm a terror at Girl Scouts...I have to plan every little detail of every event in the hopes that it MIGHT just go off without a hitch in it). I'm painfully organized--- even my books have to be in some kind of order ---and I stay out of trouble as much as possible.

One website states some common feelings first borns have:
"Everyone depends on me."
"I can't get away with anything."
"I don't get to be a kid."
"Why do I have to do it? Nobody else does anything around here."
"How come I'm responsible for what my little brother or sister did?"

I'd be lying if I didn't admit to feeling this way from time to time...especialy the one about having to do all the work because no one else is doing anything. That one is quite common in my family. While my mom and sister take their afternoon naps on Fridays, I'm the one running about trying to get things together for Girl Scouts later on.

Then there's my sister. My sister is exactly two years, nine months younger than I am but it could be a lifetime of difference really. If you were to look up "youngest child" in the dictionary, you'd probably find her picture there. She loves nothing more than being the center of attention, no matter what the cost of that attention, be it negative or positive. My sister is the social animal, loving nothing more than to be around others. Her favorite haunts are bars for the most part, currently. She is what you'd expect a younger sibling to be.

The strange thing is, it's hard to say whether or not we act this way because of our genes or because of how we were raised. My mom always expected quite a lot from me, and that included making sure I was responsible for not only myself but for my sister. That's how we got started with the whole me "helping" her do her homework thing (and that turned out REALLY well for all of us). When I was a kid, I was always afraid that my parents liked my sister better than they liked me because my sister is sort of the ideal child. She's smart, fashionable, social, and the whole nine yards. Me? I'm a walking brain with glasses, no fashion sense (I live in t-shirts and jeans, basically) who keeps to herself because the idea of talking to others frightens her. Maybe that's why I go out of my way to conform to what my parents want me to do.

It's all just a question of nature vs nurture. The sad thing is, no matter what, I don't think I'd ever want to be the youngest child. It looks, to me anyway, like too much work to be that social all the time. I'd rather just deal with being the oldest child...no matter how unpleasant that is sometimes.

Don't Believe Everything You See on TV

2009-05-17T20:28:00.000-07:00

Storytime! Everyone get out your little mats and sit down in your floor spots! Don't push or shove or you'll have to sit inside when everyone goes outside to the playground! Make sure your hands are in your lap and you're not touching anyone!

Ok...actually I don't have THAT kind of story. Maybe I should post another bit of a story eventually but that's neither here nor there at the moment. I do, however, have a story that concerns the above pictured invention called the "Buttoneer" or should I say the above pictured useless piece of junk called the "Buttoneer."

Alright...I should probably start at the beginning...

In 2007, it was my 20th year at the dance studio. My mom and my solo instructor went all out for me that year. I mean I had the coolest dance (I danced to an instrumental version of the song "Aranjuez mon amour" by J. Rodrigo) for my solo. See, the piece is really, really slow and dancing pointe slow is very, very difficult. It requires a degree of control over your own body that I don't always have. I tend to always want to move faster because I think it looks cooler but this dance was very slow and drawn out. It was like a difficultly level times one hundred because I had to hold my balance for long periods of time. I mean, it wasn't impossible for me to do but, if I was having an "off" day, there was no way in fishsticks I was going to be able to do the dance correctly.

Not only was the dance awesome but the costume was equally awesome. I had what's called a "professional" ballernia costume, which cost my mom over $400 for both the costume, itself, and the accessories that went with it (Oh I had the most AWESOME crown that year). If you ever look at like a real ballernia in a tutu, they wear those six foot around tutus that sick out in all directions. That's the kind of tutu I had that year. I had this giant white tutu, over which I wore a slip dress that covered the top of the tutu with a white covering that had pink sparkley flowers and a white corset with the same pink, sparkley flowers that covered the top of the dress. Alright, the corset sucked big time because it hurt to wear but it looked really awesome on stage (sadly it didn't photograph well...white costume on a white background and all).

When I got the costume, I was handed a bag of teeny, tiny clear white buttons. I had not a clue what to do with the buttons. I mean, the corset had a zipper and the tutu had hook and eye closures on it in the back. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason for the bag of buttons. Turned out the buttons were for the dress. We (meaning my mom, grandmother, and I) had to sew the ten buttons in ten places along the tutu and then button the skirty bit that went over it down so it wouldn't slide all over the place while I was dancing.

In order to avoid sewing these buttons on, because they were veeerrrrrrrry, veeeeeerrrrrrrrry teeny tiny, my mom bought the "Buttoneer." We figured that we could just use this supposedly easy to use invention to get the buttons onto the tutu. After looking for nearly two months, we found the stupid thing in a local drug store. All excited that we'd found it, we bought the thing.

That's where the trouble began.

No matter what we did...no matter how hard we tried, we just couldn't get machine to make buttons stay....on ANYTHING. I must have read and reread the directions about fifty times and still we had no luck. We'd load the button with the little bit of plastic that was supposed to go through the button holes and like inject it into the fabric (we did most of our testing on an old t-shirt and not my tutu LOL) and it would hold for a grand total of two second before coming off in our hands. Eventually we declared the Buttoneer a piece of junk and decided to use velcro squares instead. No muss...no fuss...no weird machines...just good ol' velcro!

You know, the velcro worked wonders! It didn't even move when I was dancing and no one was the wiser about it!

So be careful about those "wonder inventions" you see on TV....they might not turn out to be as great or useful as they're supposed to be!

Improving...or not

2009-05-15T10:14:00.000-07:00

According to the Wiktionary, the word "improve" can be defined as "to make something better; to become better." Not exactly the most helpful of definitions but then you have to consider the fact "improve" isn't exactly the biggest of words. It's just seven letters.

The thing is, those seven letters can imply so much more than their size allows them. For a word that's so relatively small, it probably shouldn't have that much power over the human race. See, we're all out to improve something. Maybe it's how we look or how we act. Maybe we want to improve our skills when it comes to a hobby or how we act around other people. Maybe it's just that we, ourselves, want to be better people so we try to improve that.

Mostly it seems it's the shallow things people want to improve. They're out to improve the way they look so they're more desirable by the opposite gender. Women go out of their way to accomplish that. I mean, we doll ourselves up in make-up, wear clothes that probably shouldn't even be worn in public, and, in some extreme cases, make changes to the bone and soft tissue structures of our body just to attract the attention of the opposite gender. I assume guys do the same thing but I wouldn't really know...me being female and all.

I guess you could say that I try to look at the bigger picture. Sure improving myself would be nice and all--- I could REALLY do without the panic attacks and, especially, the low self esteem issues that have plagued me...oh...nearly all of my life. ---but I like to look at the bigger picture. I mean the world around us could use so much help it isn't funny. For me, my aim has always been to make some kind of contribution that will improve the world even in the smallest way possible.

That's why I got into science. I figured that science was the one field where I could do something like that. I want to change the lives of people, even if they don't know it's something I did that changed their lives. My focus has always been on genetics (which is at odds with me being Catholic but that's another story. I'll save the "Church vs Science" argument AFTER I see Angels & Demons) but I guess you could say I'm less than conventional about it. Right now, in science, the big diseases being given the bulk of research money are neurodegenerative disorders and cancers, specifically breast cancer.

That's all well and good. I mean, neurodegenerative disorders are horrific diseases, not just for the person with the disease but for their families and friends who have to watch their slow decline. Cancer, too, is an ugly, horrible illness. It's something one never forgets, watching a loved one's slow decline as he or she succumbs to an illness that almost can't be stopped. I watched it happen to my great aunt about four years ago and it's something that still haunts me.

My focus, though, has always been on children. See, science often forgets children in the grand scheme of things. Many child-related genetic disorders are what are termed "orphan diseases" because they cannot get the funding to research them. Maybe there aren't enough children who have the disorder to make the research profitable (and the pharmaceutical companies...they're all about the profit) or, maybe, they don't yet know what exactly causes a certain genetic disorder so they don't know what to do to go about treating it.

That's understandable, of course, but it's still very sad. I hate imagining the families of these children--- who may not understand what's wrong with them because they're so young ---suffering and watching their child's slow decline and death. Just the idea makes me sad. I know adult diseases are important to study since, as a whole, our society is living longer and we have to deal with more diseases that have been termed "diseases of the old" but I feel like, maybe, equal focus should be on "diseases of the young." Has science lost its heart when it comes to the future of our world, caring only for profit and prestige and not for the common good?

Now that I've gotten way off point...

I'm suppose to be writing about something I think I've improved on or in. Yeah, see, there's a problem with that. I don't really think I've improved or at anything at all. Then again, I also don't think I'm very good at anything to begin with so it's hard to improve when there's nothing to improve on. There's always going to be someone better, faster, stronger, smarter than I am...no matter what.

Besides, I was taught when I was little not to brag about things. Saying I'm good at something is bragging and that's not something I was ever allowed to do. Even now I'm uncomfortable saying that I'm good at anything, if there was anything in the world I was good at to begin with. Kind of hard to improve when one can't figure out what one is good at, huh?

I guess that's just how the world works or something. I don't know. The world is a mysterious place.

Those Small Creatures Called Children

2009-05-13T10:07:00.000-07:00

I'd just like to start off, before anything else, by saying that I don't have kids of my own. I've...um...never been in the situation where having children in an option, if you understand what I mean. I made a choice when I was younger not to get into those kinds of situations since I was focused more on my education than anything else. Things like getting married, having children, and stuff like that was going to have to wait until I was finished my education.

A lot of people have said my choice is silly and that I'm missing out on a lot of things by waiting but it's still my choice and I intend on sticking to it for as long as I can. Hopefully until I'm married, anyway. At least, that's what I hope to do and so far, so good. LOL!

Anyway...I may not have children of my own but I am someone's child. I come from a family that is steeped in many ridiculous traditions when it comes to raising children. A lot of these traditions, I'm learning now, are pretty darn damaginging, especially to the older child. I'm not just saying that because I am the oldest of two but because I've seen the same rules leveled onto my mother by my grandmother and she's the oldest of two as well.

What rules am I talking about?

Well, they sort of go like this:
(1.) The oldest sibling is at the mercy of his or her younger sibling. He or she is to do all of the homework, cover for, and, basically, pick up the slack for their younger sibling. This is done without asking any questions or bringing up of one's own opinion on the matter.
(2.) The oldest sibling is also at the mercy of his or her parents, especially his or her mother. It is his or her responsibility to take all of the mental abuse the mother wants to dish out when she feels the need to vent. This is done without complaint or asking of questions.
(3.) Any expression of opinions on these matters will get you guilted into feeling as if you've done something wrong. Guild is an all important tactic when dealing with the older sibling.
(4.) The oldest sibling will be pushed to his or her limits, physically, mentally, and academically. He or she is expected to be perfect in every way while the younger sibling is allowed to slack off as much as he or she wants. This is seen as acceptable because they are younger and, therefore, do not know any better.
(5.) The oldest sibling is responsible for everything that goes wrong in any situation. It may or may not really be their fault but they'll be the one getting the brunt of the screaming at when push comes to shove just because they're older.

Sounds like a wonderful bunch of rules, no? The sad thing is, these rules are almost a tradition in my family. My grandmother used them on my mother and my mother used them on me. If I have children, I suppose, I'm to use the same rules on them. I don't understand why these rules even exist as they're unfair and biased towards one child over another. By the way, if you call your parent on playing favorites, according to the rules, FISHSTICKS, you will never hear the end of it. They will deny playing favorites until pigs fly, the cows come home, and all those other barnyard analogies. Of course they don't have a favorite, they just expect more from you because you're older and your younger sibling looks up to you.

I'm twenty-six and I'm sitll living under these rules. I still get in trouble when I question them and if I ever decide that I'm going to have my own small rebellion against them. I've learned that guilt is the most powerful tool in my family. I have no ability to use guilt to get what I want, when I want it. That's more my sister's bag. She's great at guilting people into doing what she wants them to do. Usually I'm the one the guilt is aimed at because everyone knows that I'm the most susceptiable to it. If someone makes me feel badly about something, I'm going to do it just so they're no longer angry with me.

I've already decided that, when I have kids someday, that all these rules are going to go flying out the window. I'm going to get some power hitter to take his bat and knock the rules so far that they do that cartoon thing where they just sort of twinkle in the sky because they've been hit so far.

Do I have any idea what my philosophy is going to be when I have kids? Not really because I don't have kids and I don't know what it's like to have children. I know, from working with my little Girl Scouts, all kids are different. Some require stronger rules than others. Some need you to spend more time with them than others. Some thrive on their own while others need you to help them. Some are demanding and some are bullies. Some are sensitive and some aren't.

I guess, maybe I have a sort of rough outline of what my philosophy might be...maybe. Anyway, here goes:
(1.) The whole older sibling doing the younger sibling's homework...that's gone. Everyone does their own work. Siblings can help each other, sure, but never do each other's homework. That's just not fair because one is going to take advantage of the other at some point and that's never a good thing.
(2.) Guilt will never be used as a tool to get what you want.
(3.) Hard work will always be rewarded. Slacking off will not.
(4.) Weird hobbies and interests (to a certain extent...there's just some stuff out there that's wrong) are to be appreciated and enjoyed. I'm never going to frown on something a child of mine likes unless it's illegal or perverse.
(5.) Siblings will always be treated like true equals...no ifs, ans, or buts.

So yeah...I don't have kids but I have an idea on how I'd like to raise them. Of course, I don't know if that'll be how things really are but it's just an idea and like all ideas and philosophies, they change. Except Plato's Philosphy....that never changes but that's a whole other story.