December 1, 2008

As far as awkward days go, today is up there.

Archery is first on the list. I mean, when you're shooting arrows at a target in gym class, you kind of pretend to be Robin Hood and you kind of imagine the target to be... people and things you dislike (isn't this a proven way to relieve stress and take out your anger?). "Oh! I got his nipple!" Now that I think about it, that's a pretty awkward thing to say.

Then in seminar I got to deliver the line "no food, no razors" to several classes. Peer support was delivering boxes for students to collect toiletries for needy families... but "no food and no razors. Food goes to the food drive, and razors are just a bad idea."

I won't talk about how I was told to "shut up for once," but just imagine it being awkward.

And at lunch... I was asked by a male whether I go to a gynecologist. Out of nowhere. Not that there is a place that the question should come from... but I just told him that our conversation ended right there.

In AP Gov, we got to discuss our morals by being asked questions like "If you dented someone's car in the middle of the night, what would you do?" Some of our morals are crumbling. But what can you do?

Finally, I attempted to hop the fence back to school after track about fifteen times and couldn't. I have friends that make me laugh, and when I laugh, I lose all control of my muscles.

I like how I omitted the most awkward and embarrassing and innappropriate parts of my day.

But I'm the one who gets to pick what to write... so HA.

Sometimes, I wonder about our society.

I found some interesting things to share today.

First of all, I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving and they didn't go to sleep feeling too sick.

And second, I hope no one killed anyone trying to rush to get into a store to buy STUFF. I'm kind of ashamed for us this time of year, especially today. To be trampled to death by shoppers at six in the morning is... I don't even have a word for it. And what must the world around us think when they hear of stories such as these? That we're terribly materialistic? But really, to kill someone in a rush to buy shit you don't need is embarrassing. (The story of the Wal-mart worker's death is here.)

On a more happy-holiday-spirit note, a zoo in Illinois is selling ornaments made from reindeer... droppings, I guess (I'll just use the word the article used). They're actually kind of pretty if you don't think about where they comes from.

And one more interesting thing. This isn't funny, or at least it wasn't in 1942. Now it just seems so pathetic you kind of have to laugh. The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade was cancelled that year and the balloons were melted back to rubber to help out with the war. For the 650 pounds of rubber, the Red Cross War Fund of Greater New York got a check for $12. There's a list of "10 Things That Have Deflated the Macy's Parade" here on mental_floss.

Okay, whatever. That's all. Have a nice Thanksgiving weekend and don't kill anyone. Please. Please. Please. And get over going out to shop and spending hundreds (thousands, maybe?). JUST GET OVER IT.

October 20, 2008

It's been nearly a month since I've last updated this page. And it's been kind of slow here in general... I'm terribly sorry. College applications are taking over my life. Hazel's, too. I just tell myself it'll all be over soon. And then I think about all the things I have to look forward to.

Friday, I'm going to the Killers concert at the Hammerstein. Then, in less than a month, I have to remind you that I'm seeing Conor Oberst. November 8th and 9th. Thanksiving towards the end of that month. I'll try to plow through December (I'm getting my early admission decision then...), but we have two weeks off for Christmas and New Year's. Woohoo!

Oh, and my birthday is November 6.

But until I send my application for early decision, I can't let it all take over me. I will have that done this week.

healthy for the heart.

People have been saying that dark chocolate is good for the heart (the actual organ, not the metaphorical one, though, I think it's good for both). Now, there's scientific proof: Chocolate Helps Heart Stay Healthy. Just an excuse to eat more of it. I personally recommend Lindt dark chocolate (70% is the way to go). You can find that stuff almost anywhere, and it is so amazingly good. So much better than the milk chocolate... for lack of a better word... shit. =)

September 21, 2008

This morning, I was wondering about the social connections of teenagers today. Every day, adolescents spend hours on their computers, and amid doing other things (like homework, watching videos on YouTube, googling Hugh Laurie, listening to music on iTunes, and... wow I can think of hundreds of more things), they chat with their friends. Is instant messaging (and the Internet in general) hurting the social skills of today's youth? And what about cell phones? They aren't really used for talking anymore, but text messaging. Has the information generation become anti-social?

I think not. Fifty years ago, kids were pushed out of the house and told not to return until dinner time. Now? If I don't call home to say that I'll be home twenty minutes late from school, I get yelled at. Of course I think this is a little ridiculous being as I stay after every single day. So I either have to give my exact location every step I take, or just stay home. For my parents, me staying home is easier; they know the farthest I'll go is from the computer to the bathroom, maybe make my way to the fridge and curl up in front of the tv. But if I'm going to my friends house, who knows where else I might go?

So if going out is no longer totally supported by parents, how else can I spend time with my friends? iChat. And if I'm not at the computer, I can update my friends with my news and whereabouts quickly with a text. Maybe ask ten people at once if they're free Friday night. And no awkward conversations when all you want to say is "I have work tomorrow at 4." Maybe the conversations are awkard because with this technology, we no longer have the skills to make conversation interesting. I believe this, too, is untrue. I can always find something to talk about with my friends.

I just believe that times have changed, and my generation has just had to adapt to it. We haven't grown farther apart, but are attempting to come closer together.

September 15, 2008

My last year in public school started just two weeks ago. I'm not sure if it's passing me by quickly, or drudging on slowly. There isn't time enough for me to stop and think about it. There isn't time enough for me to enjoy the last year I will have with my friends. Right now, the one night that sticks out in my mind is the one we played Pictionary and it took the teams ten minutes (not an exaggeration, it definitely wasn't shorter) to get the word 'meet.'

I hope I'll have many more ten minute times I'll remember without needing pictures to recall before it's all over.

seniors oh nine.

Is it enough to say that the finite-ness of time has finally hit me?

(Hazel's on the left, I'm on the right.)

some cute-ism.

I woke up yesterday morning to the sound of Chef Oskar (above, duh) tiptoeing around me. The cutest-almost-three-year-old was probably sent down to wake me up. I opened my eyes and he was walking back and forth in front of me, unsure of what to do. I smiled, and the first words out of his mouth where:

"Where is the ball?"

After he found it, I got up and went to my backpack. My clothes weren't actually in the bag, but strewn across the floor. Oskar quite plainly told me that someone had to clean up.

[note: my cutest-almost-three-year-old-nephew is actually tri-lingual. Polish with his dad (my brother), German with his mom, and English with his babysitter. All the talking he does to me is in Polish. The things he says in Polish are much cuter than the English translation.]

if you can read, read the instructions.

My friend, Julianne, poured the little packet of mix into her cup and added water.

"Wow."

She pours half the glass into the sink, and adds more water.

"Does anyone want some of this?"

I say that I'll take some. She fills my glass up halfway, and I add water.

"Holy crap. That's still sweet."

Message on the wrapper: "Makes 2 quarts! ...  Add 2 quarts (8 cups) of cold water, stir to dissolve."

i love my job.

I drove up to my workplace (a bowling alley. yay.) at 1030 in the morning, and saw no cars in the parking lot. I tried each door all around the building. All closed. I got slightly hopeful. Maybe for whatever reason that I didn't care for, the place was closed today, and I wouldn't have to deal with some of the very... annoying people that pass through there. I called the place from my cell phone, looking slightly dumb standing in an empty parking lot, and byt the sixth ring, was pretty sure the place was closed for the day. I excitedly started rushing back to the car. And then I hear, "Thank you for calling Commack Vet Lanes, Dina speaking, how may I help you?" "It's me. Marta." "Oh, hi, Marta!" Her voice was a little to excited consdering this was work we were talking about. "I have a party at 11, but all the doors are closed." "Hold on, I'll be right there once I finish in the back. I'll meet you at the front."

Turns out that I didn't even know that the place opens at 11. I love my job and care for it very much. Obviously.

the typical summer day i missed in poland.

Having woken up a little past 10, I'm pretty sure I'm back to my good old eastern time. I was actually planning on not changing out of my pajamas for the whole day, but I was pulled out to go birthday gift shopping. I love not shopping! Trudging pointlessly from store to store gets me into a mood that could be mistaken for PMS. But I've been trying to keep myself under control. I think I did a pretty good job today. And shopping was successful, at least for the gift gettee. Oh, and I got to utilize my driving skills for the first time in six weeks. Felt good.

paying for cultural differences.

Some things in life should be free. Really, some things are not to be paid for. Like the right to be able to pee in a bathroom and try on a pair of shoes. But no. In Poland, many times, people are forced to pay for these simple things. Converting the price to dollars, to use the bathroom prices have varied from 75 cents to a dollar. It may not seem like much, but when you really have to pee, every penny counts.

And you know those one-use socks that lie around every corner of a shoe store in the US? Some shoe stores in Poland offer one sock for 75 cents. So you try on a shoe for 75 cents and ask for another sock to try on the other shoe. "That will be another 1.50 zloty, or you can just use that sock on your other foot."

You even have to pay for those stupid plastic grocery bags at some stores. The price for one plastic bag is 50 cents, which is 50 cents more than you'd pay anywhere else. It's a good idea, it may force some people to reuse their bags. Or, you won't ever go back there ever again. As is the case with my family, who drives the extra mile to go to a store with free grocery bags because by the time we realize we forgot the bags at home, no one feels like going back to get them. Nice try, but this is totally impractical.

the wait.

I was in the car with my mom today, and I started talking about something that came up a few days ago. All I could say was "I can't believe it." She stared at the road in front of her, and I thought I'd try expanding. "I," I started," I... can't believe it." Really, there wasn't anything else I could say. I really couldn't believe it.

I'm going to see Conor Oberst (of Bright Eyes, though this is going to be a solo tour) November 8th and 9th. I found out he was playing in New York City the day the dates were posted, and the tickets went on sale the next day. I'm there in 4 months.

His are the songs I love for the lyrics that tell the most beautiful stories. I don't know how I am going to cope with the four month wait. I made a mixtape for the car recently, and after I bought tickets to the shows, whenever one of his songs played, I didn't know what to do with myself. I was actually going to meet the mind behind the melodies. I am still in shock. And I'll probably stay in shock until... I don't know. I don't see myself believing it even at the show.

Really, that's all I wanted to say. My disbelief. It all just happened so fast. One night I learned of the shows and the next day tickets went on sale. And I got them. And now, we wait.

June 22, 2008

There are times I want to dance and scream my favorite songs on the top of my lungs, feel the beat reverberating in my entire body. I'd make an idiot out of myself in those moments. But they only come in times when I don't have anyone to dance with. Sometimes I feel like going out and asking someone to dance with m

Then there are people who when you start to make a fool of yourself, others staring with narrowed eyes, whisper, "You look like an idiot."

You look like an idiot.

Isn't that it? The point. Isn't that the point? That I don't care. I am rarely carefree, and the moment comes along, and you tell me I look like an idiot? In this precise moment, I don't care. I simply don't. Yet, I give in. "Okay, I'll stop."

Okay, I'll stop.

The person I'm looking for is someone who let's me be that person that doesn't care what others think. It's just for a brief moment that I open myself up and I wish I could be that person more. I don't open up, period. I don't like to talk about my feelings. I don't like to talk about my thoughts. Not the ones that really matter in life, anyways. Everything I do say (and post) in public is crazily vague or something less important than something that makes me cry. Crying is too much of a weakness to me. Naked. I feel naked.

Naked.

All I can hope for is to find someone who will hold me when I can't hold it in any longer. And I'm grateful for the friends who let me crack open for a brief moment.

Dance with me. In bright lights where everyone can see. And let's scream on the top of our lungs.

not really much of an introduction.

The problem with people is they can't see that everyone is having a hard time. We don't listen, we don't care, we don't bother. Why? Because our problems are obviously worse than anyone else's. And I'm not being sarcastic. As cliche as this may sound, it's all relative. For someone who was spoon-fed their life, the slight dent in the silverware might be a problem. While others don't even have a spoon to dent. So what's that dent to them? But we can't judge others' problems.

I read a postsecret recently: "Be kind - for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."

As annoyed as you might be at someone complaining about their grain of sand of a situation, they might not have known worse. Are they to ignore what is wrong? No, the essence of human life is feeling. Feeling things like love, hate, anger, happiness, worry, fear, sadness, and a whole range in between. We have this range of emotion not so we can escape the monotony of a constant happiness. What is it to be happy when you have known nothing else?

There are people with bigger and smaller problems. But to that one person, their one problem is bigger than anything anyone could ever imagine. And you don't know what they're going through. You only know you. So it's best we get to know someone, be kind to them, and help them out, no matter the state of their spoon.

On a sidenote, today, the 26th of May, I purchased nail polish the closest I could ever get to my favorite color (TEAL!). Since the website's color swatch is does not do the color justice, all I can say is that it looks like this. And metallic. Wonderful, isn't it? No one makes teal colored nail polish. Turned Up Turquoise is the closest they get.