Personality <> Books

"A joke is a very serious thing." - my eighth cousin five times removed, Mr. Winston Churchill

First of all, look at this. For right now it's just through phones and special glasses...but just wait until it hits contact lenses.


Neither of my sisters is particularly eager to take book recommendations from me. The youngest claims she doesn't like the books I liked when I was her age (yet is perfectly willing to read and then loves them when people other than me say they were good), and the other...I don't actually know.


She refuses to read John Green books not because she doesn't like his writing, but because I watch him on YouTube. I do not understand why this is a problem. And just to be clear, I was halfway through An Abundance of Katherines in May of 8th grade (God, it's been awhile) when I realized that this John Green was that John Green. It (originally) had nothing to do with the fact that I like his videos.


But okay. Nerdy vlogger probably writes nerdy books (he does). Fair enough. But then, having started Maureen Johnson's The Last Little Blue Envelope last night, I tell my sister that she should read Thirteen Little Blue Envelopes, or really anything by her, because I've read and enjoyed all of them.


My sister says "You shouldn't have told me the author, because now I'm not going to read it." Maureen Johnson does not write nerdy books. Just because I follow her on Twitter and she's friends with John Green...Most American YA authors are friends with each other. Twitter isn't even a nerdy thing anymore, and it hasn't been for a long time. It's a social networking tool. I'd wager that most authors are on Twitter, even if Maureen has won a few awards for being one of the best personalities to follow.


Every author puts a little of themselves into their writing, but books are still separate from personality. You can really like a person and not like their writing, or you can really like their writing and agree that the writer is a jerk. And just because I like what an author does as themselves as well as what they do as a writer doesn't mean that their books are bad and I'm just horribly biased (I will be biased, but not that much).


But on the note of recommendations, if you're going to read one of Maureen's books, I'd suggest starting with The Bermudez Triangle. It's been labeled, not by me, as a book that absolutely everyone, regardless of gender or age, should read. It's about three girls who are about to start their senior year of high school, and I read it in a single afternoon-- which is saying a lot, since it's nearly 400 pages.

While It's Fun to Hate On Each Other...

“When did we see each other face-to-face? Not until you saw into my cracks and I saw into yours. Before that, we were just looking at ideas of each other, like looking at your window shade but never seeing inside. But once the vessel cracks, the light can get in. The light can get out.” - Paper Towns


Question: What exactly is the point of having a debt ceiling in the first place if Congress can raise it whenever they want?


My dad and I were sitting on the balcony of our beach house this morning discussing, as I put it "Life, the Universe, and Everything." Of course, this included the current political situation.


My dad said that if there was a Republican candidate that represented his views, he would have no problem voting for him or her--and I agree. We don't identify ourselves as Democrats because we value being Democrats. We identify ourselves as Democrats because the party's platform is better aligned with our values and views than the Republican one.


This led my dad into a bit of a rant against religious people, which I cut off because using the term "religious people" is a gross over-generalization that makes me uncomfortable. He amended his rant to regard "religiously conservative people who don't think."


His mom, for instance, is my go-to person for proof that religion itself is not at all bad. She's one of the nicest, most all-loving people I know, and she sticks to her values like you wouldn't believe (in the event of a zombie apocalypse she would refuse to kill the zombies on principle-- yes, I asked). 


She takes her spirituality very seriously, but that doesn't mean she accepts everything blindly. She knows exactly what she thinks and where she disagrees with the doctrines, and most importantly, she knows why she thinks it.


If everyone thought about their beliefs, why they believe them; about their values, and why those things are important to them, then we wouldn't have to deal with all of this...stuff. Democrats and Republicans would still fight, of course-- we have differing values, after all--but compromise would be easier to reach.


Debt is one thing. Deficits happen, and they add up. But an uncontrolled debt is quite another, and dealing with that in an effective way should be our primary value-- not whether or not we're giving in to the opposing party.

On the other hand, we could just build a death star. The original's PR department has some good arguments. Plus, their version of the American flag is cooler.

I Open At The Close, Part 2: The Fandom

"The fabric of existence weaves itself whole." - Charles Ives


Sometime during 7th grade (that would be 2007-2008), my dad had recently bought himself an iPod and discovered the wonder that is the podcast. He suggested I find some of my own to listen to regarding my interests, and suggested I look up Harry Potter. This lead me to Pottercast, which I ended up listening to for three years. Pottercast, in turn, lead me to The Leaky Cauldron and wizard rock. 


I had always known Harry Potter was popular, but realizing that there was an entire fandom of people who loved it just as much as I did was mind-blowing. The sheer shock of "there are people who write music about this and sing it at concerts" was enough to make me fall in love with the concept without regard to the actual quality of said music. (I guess it shows how much I've grown that I just skipped Sunday's concert without a second thought in favor of my sister's birthday party.)

Picture from last night's ConTour show

My first live concert was Tuesday, February 24, 2009 with The Blibbering Humdingers, Tonks and the Aurors, The Whomping Willows, and JFF. It was also my first (and second to last, as the store closed less than a week later) time at Camelot Treasures. I remember the evening ridiculously well. I mean, a song in which "Pottercast, Potter-Pottercast" is part of the chorus?


I wrote my first wrock song at my second live concert: February 28, 2009 at the same store, closing night. It wasn't so much of a concert as "circle of people holding instruments with a bunch of chocolate muffins in the middle," and most of the music was Ren-Faire type stuff rather than wizard rock. I believe I started teaching myself guitar the next day.


My most recent concert was last night, and it shows how much the community is changing that the majority of the music wasn't wizard rock. However, that's okay because it means all of us "wizard rock girls (who) are the prettiest girls in the whole wide world" got to enjoy the super-talented and attractive piano rocker Mike Lombardo (and yes, I took this picture solely to put on here just so I could use that caption).

While the episode of Pottercast featuring John and Hank Green aired on February 4th (yes, I just looked it up- God, even I'm not that obsessed), I didn't re-check out their videos and subscribe until June. While there are many, many Harry Potter fans who are not nerdfighters, the vast majority of nerdfighters are Harry Potter fans, so I include this as part of my Harry Potter experience-- especially since "Accio Deathly Hallows" is what kicked them into the YouTube mainstream in the first place.


That's what started my general online presence, although I only made a blog because I met rock4ever95 and thiefofwords in November and they had them and I thought they both seemed really cool and interesting. (Shut up, rock4ever95. Don't even start.)


I never really listened to any music at all before finding wrock, so it soon came to occupy pretty much my entire iTunes library other than a few podcasts. Yes, this is a bit sad. No, I don't regret it; I was happy. There was this whole community of people who were just like me. I, like many other budding nerdfighters, felt truly accepted for the first time by the majority rather than by only a few close friends (read: one close friend who had other friends I never really developed a relationship with despite liking them).


Part 3: The Effects coming tomorrow.


P.S. Aly, I met someone else at that show who recognized me from YouTube/here. What are the odds that there are TWO of you living close enough to randomly run into me at events? I am thoroughly shocked.

"It's All Cool, Man."

“You have a wonderful personality. Develop it. Be yourself. Don’t imagine that your perfection lies in accumulating or possessing external things. Your perfection is inside of you. If only you could realise that, you would not want to be rich. Ordinary riches can be stolen from a man. Real riches cannot. In the treasury-house of your soul there are infinitely precious things, that may not be taken from you.” - Oscar Wilde


For today's post I intended to quote a particular video and then talk about it. I then realized that I wanted to quote pretty much the entire video, so I shall just embed it for your convenience.





I love this video so much. It's basically saying "Some people are religious, and other people aren't, but who is and isn't doesn't matter because we're all trying to do the same thing: find or create meaning in our lives. The details of someone's beliefs don't matter so much as how their beliefs affect them."


I was having a discussion a few weeks ago with two of my friends, one of which is religious and the other of which is agnostic. The agnostic friend and I were trying to get the religious one to understand that people of other religions find as much truth in their beliefs as she does in hers. 


She insisted that her proof carried more weight than their proof because their beliefs were wrong and hers were right (and that we didn't get it because we just don't believe). We insisted that there's really no way of knowing (and that if we have to believe in order to see the proof as proof then it's not "proof" at all) so all types of belief are just as valid as all of the other ones. 
Notice that I say "types of belief" rather than "religions." There are plenty of theological details I don't find remotely plausible (which of course does not include Pastafarians, because I most definitely am held to the ground by one of His Great Noodly Tendrils rather than that ridiculous thing called gravity).


But there's the thing with absolute theological truth- there is a right and there is a wrong and it matters. With me, modes of belief are like Skittles. They're all the same thing: they just have different colors and flavors, and some flavors I like better than others, but that doesn't mean other people can't like the ones I don't.


Because I really don't think it matters whether there's a god or many gods or no gods at all. We're all here on the same planet trying to do the same stuff. And since I also believe that if there is a god he/she's not going to condemn me to an eternity of hellfire just for not being completely assured of his/her existence, I'm not worried about what may or may not come next. 
Figuring out life on Earth is plenty for me to handle.

Groups Are Memes

"I think a lot of people misinterpret the 'nerdfighters' philosophy as 'we are people who wear glasses and are socially awkward and love math and harry potter and english literature.'
It sort of started out that way, but since then I think the major ideology of the community has become something more to the tune of 'we are people who value rationality and sensibility as opposed to vapidity and hostility, and who promote knowledge and the furthering of information as tool to combat both personal and global issues.'
I think a lot of people get stuck in the 'peeps and things on heads and in your pants and giraffes' layer of the community and are either put off by the barrage of memetic in-jokes or simply adopt that as their entire view of the community, which I think sort of takes away from the more universal, inclusive values that the nerdfighter philosophy is fundamentally based on." - John Green

He says that as if it's only non-nerdfighters who think those things. There are plenty of nerdfighters who have the "we people who are socially awkward and love math and Harry Potter and English literature" thing, and get absorbed by the memetic in-jokes and apparent norms.

This is interesting because it shows that even if the creator/defacto leader of a group views the group in a certain way, that doesn't mean the group itself views it in the same way. Even if the "official" ideology of a group says one thing, that doesn't mean the group behaves according to it. Even if you intend for something to go one way-- be it a group, a relationship, or a novel-- once you start it, it gets a life of its own. It's not yours anymore. It belongs to the people to which you gave it (and John Green knows this-- he's written me an email about it.)

In other words, groups are memes. And they have memes within themselves. (MEMECEPTION!) Oh look-- a 3rd level of meme.

My Problem With Blogger

"The only way out of the labyrinth of suffering is to forgive." - John Green, Looking For Alaska


I'm sitting here online minding my own business and discussing faerie clones with my best friend (long story), and I get an email. An email from Tumblr. Apparently a poem I wrote had been reblogged by the famous tumblr Eff Yeah Nerdfighters.


So that's exciting and all, but whatever. It's not that big of a deal. I don't even follow FYNF anymore. But then the emails keep coming. Other people do follow them, which means loads of people are reading it. 75 likes and/or reblogs in an hour.


I don't say that to brag, and I don't say that to say "Hey, look how cool I am." No, I say that because it illustrates my problem with Blogger.


A Blogspot blog is like a private residence waaaaay out in the country. No one knows you're there unless you invite them to come visit sometime. There's no "Stumble Upon"-esque system designed to help you discover new ones, or to help anyone else discover you. Maybe you'll get to the point where people say "Oh yeah, I heard there's a house over there."


Now a Tumblr blog is like a bed in a giant homeless shelter. You're there, and so is everyone else. The beds are close enough together that you don't have to move in order to talk to someone. It's incredibly easy to find new people, because you're surrounded by them on all sides.


I can write things on here that I probably wouldn't put on Tumblr, because I have the security of the lack of publicity. Any given post usually gets less than 20 views. I can say controversial things because there is a significant lack of trolls/people-who-like-to-argue-but-aren't-good-at-it-who-I-don't-want-to-deal-with.


But I read several Blogger blogs that I enjoy a lot, and think deserve more viewership than they get, and there's really no way to make that happen short of excessive self-promotion on their parts and obnoxious hawking by the rest of us.


I shouldn't have to double-blog the posts I think would be well-appreciated (like Mr. Paranormal Romance) just so they get the exposure needed to see if I'm right. Except that's exactly what I just did with said post. I don't intend to do it often, but the fact that it's something with enough benefits to consider is just sad.


The idea blogging platform would have a nice balance: not so open to the world as Tumblr, but easy to find new, good things-- like the "Related videos" sidebar on YouTube.


You know I love you, Google, but I would like to call for a Blogger reform.

An Abundance of Quotes Part 16

"Are inprefections is which make we grate." - Craig Benzine

"Sometimes debugging things all day doesn't result in solving the problem even when attempting the most optimal paths which should lead to success." - my dad.

"I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong." - Bertrand Russel


"We are each of us angels with only one wing, and we can only fly by embracing one another." - Lucretious


"True strength is delicate." - Louise Berliawsky Nevelson. 


"Nobody got anywhere in the world by simply being content." - Louis L'Amour


“You never get to ‘beat’ life. Knowing that I get to decide for myself what success is, that’s one of the most important lessons I have ever learned; and I learned it by playing simulation games.” - Hank Green


“Hank, watching people write is boring, and in my case at least it doesn’t even involve that much typing, but writing does, at least for me, require quite a lot of concentration, and to concentrate you must be prepared to face the terrifying spectre of boredom without fear. In that respect, at least, both the reading and writing of books have become kind of countercultural activities in the social media era. Books don’t lend themselves to multitasking; they don’t automatically update. And as much as much as I love the Internet, I’m happiest when I’m writing.” - his brother


1. Craig is hilarious, yet his videos about creative productivity are actually filled with good points/advice. The most recent one is "The Most Limitless Video On YouTube" (which is about why it's important to set limits for yourself.)


2. Very true, and very disheartening.


3. I agree that dying is a extreme in many cases, but I would argue that there are probably some things worth dying for. However, I don't think I'll know what those are unless it were to actually come to that. Although since Bertrand Russel wouldn't die to uphold that sentiment...I guess I don't need to bother arguing it. Ha.


4. The quote I include more for the gorgeous imagery than the message, but that's true enough as well, I think.


5. This one I love. I'm not sure what it means quite yet, or if I even agree with it, but I love it nonetheless.


6, 7, and 8 just some things to think about.

Bubble Wrap Is Fun...Except When You're Trapped In It

I'm fairly sure rock4ever95 expected me to be somewhat offended by his most recent post, especially given that I'm mentioned in the first paragraph.

If that was the case, I broke expectations. Granted, I have one or two problems with certain specific things, but he makes a very good point nonetheless. 

So you should go read that post before coming back here, because I am going to talk about why I think it's important that you read it. I'm not even going to talk about said specific things. This is a positive post (what? A positive reaction to a post the guy with which you had that not-so-infamous Will Grayson debate? WHAT? Yes. I know. Haha.)

People, especially those in or near their teenage years, tend to have a need to fit in, to feel like they belong. They will often fulfill this need by joining groups: school clubs, fandoms, sports teams, Nerdfighteria, etc. These groups are comprised of people with similar interests coming together to share in those interests. This will ideally result in fun, friends, and fulfillment. None of which are bad things.

The thing with Nerdfighteria, as described in his post, is that it's like the corporate conglomerate of fandoms and school clubs. It's the school club for all of the people who are also already in clubs D, F, T, B, and A. This results in creating what he often refers to as the "John Green cult." While the term makes me slightly uncomfortable since I associate with said group, I can't exactly argue with it. Pizza John shirts, anyone? ;)

The vlogbrothers themselves wouldn't want it to be referred to like that, since to them it's about the community and not the self-glorification, but what they want isn't the point. It's how the people involved respond to them, and to each other. And that is the issue.

Some people fall into the, for want of a better word, "cult mentality" of the thing because they love the feeling of belonging. They devote themselves whole-heartedly to the phenomenon, sometimes to slightly-disturbing extremes. It's one thing to do this for a time. It is another to never come back out. This is unhealthy. Which is why it is important that posts like the one about which I am writing (and hopefully this one as well) are not only written, but also read and thought about.

Moderation, people. It's important. Be in the community and love/enjoy the community, but the purpose of finding a place in which to belong isn't to stay there and never leave for the rest of your life. It's to use it as a launch-pad for yourself as a person (as well as to enjoy it for what it is).To build yourself a base of operations, and to become a better/stronger person because of it. To live, to love, to learn, and to move on. (Not saying to abandon it entirely-- just to allow yourself to spread out a bit more.)

Don't be "a nerdfighter." Be "a person who happens to be a nerdfighter."

So I leave you with my favorite part of his post: "I am a firm believer in being a cultural omnivore. When you devote yourself entirely to one thing or one style or one genre you miss out on all this awesome stuff in different styles and genres."

I am definitely not as successful as I'd like to be in that goal, but it's something I'm working on (expect a post on that soon. I find it interesting). And regardless of whether or not I'm good at it, I think it's a good thing to keep in mind when making cultural choices. **raises shields against hypocrisy accusations**

An Important Milestone (not really)

“Religion is a response to revelation and different people respond to revelation differently. We cannot continue to assume that each religion represents only one set of ideas…It is not just one thing. With every revelation, some people respond by making the world better and some respond by making it worse… The revelation isn’t the problem. We are.” - John Green


I like that quote. I like that an awful lot. I don't know if I agree with it 100%, but...


Today is an important day in the history of this blog as declared by Me, because today made April 2011 the first month in which I have gotten over 1000 views, which is made more exciting by the fact that it's come very close in 3 other months (December, January, and March). Not that I expect any of you to care all that much, but I thought I'd mention it. Also, thank you, since you're the ones who are responsible for that probably-irrational boost to my sense of self-importance. :)


Today is also important in that I actually did some research on my district's congressional representative (in the House) and discovered that he's actually doing a good job representing me/my views, according to the database I found. Yay for effective representative democracy!

(Although now I'm not sure what to say in my email to him for my Civics assignment-- I was intending it to be a persuasive letter, since one of the requirements is for it to be "concerning my views on an issue." Suggestions?)


In other news...


http://imnick.tumblr.com/post/3176839190


John Barrowman singing a Jack/Doctor slash-fic Wicked parody, courtesy of a friend of mine. Enough said. Go listen to it. It's seriously very, very awesome.


EDIT: I hit "Publish" and then went over to YouTube to watch the latest WheezyWaiter video and what was his about? How celebrating arbitrary milestones like numbers is a waste of time (it's his 500th video). Wow.

An Abundance of Quotes Part 15

"You can love someone so much, but you can never love people as much as you can miss them." - some John Green book


"It's simple to love someone, but it's hard to know when you need to say it out loud." - Rebecca Stead, When You Reach Me


"There is nothing to fear but fears themselves, such as monsters, rejection, food poisoning, redundancy, monsters, and Oxford commas." - Craig Benzine


"If you want to spit out brilliance, try spitting things out." - rock4ever95


“WORTH IT and perfect are different things. No one’s perfect, yet in romance, everyone becomes WORTH IT. And that’s the trick.” - Maureen Johnson


"Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody." - Mark Twain (Yes it can *cough* Doctor Who *cough*)


"We are often told that we are what we eat. In our world since the printing press it might be more accurate to say we are what we read. How each of us digests what we read is a mystery. And what people read is sometimes as puzzling as what they really think." - Daniel J. Boorstin, 1989


"Let others be ashamed who have buried themselves in books that they can offer nothing for the common enjoyment." - Cicero, 62 B.C.


I know there's a fair amount of love-related quotes in there. It wasn't intentional. I just stock up on them for awhile in order to make an AoQ post.

I'll Take Your Word For It. Except Not Really.

“Caring about stuff binds us to the other people who care about that stuff and that creates the communities that make life worth living.” - John Green


In other words, fandom is awesome because you get to geek out over stuff with people. 


"Everything has been figured out, except how to live." - Jean-Paul Sartre


Now on that I would have to disagree. There's a fair amount of science-y stuff we don't know, and the phenomenon of love (of any and all kinds) is way too complicated and multi-faceted and such to have been really figured out as a whole, which brings me to today's topic: taking people's word for things.


When it comes to books or movies or tv shows or music, it's pretty safe to take people's word. If you and Person X like a lot of the same things, and Person X likes Thing A, chances are you'll like it too. Obvious and boring. Moving on.


What's less easy to trust people on is the future. Here's a quote from Hank Green that I've been thinking about rather a lot lately: "Do not trust anyone who is telling you the way the world is going to be for you."


Because there have been a lot of things that have happened this year that don't match up with any of the stereotypes, or assumptions, or stories, or predictions with which I have been presented.
Humanity as a whole is far too diverse (and complicated, and multi-faceted, to quote myself from above) for everything to be the same for everyone.


We can only tell others the way things were/are for us. We can only say "this is a possibility, and this how it played out." Which, don't get me wrong, is a useful thing to be told. It gives us something on which to base ourselves and our interactions, as well as helping us to keep realistic expectations. But people are people, and people are different.
The trick, I think, is to find the balance between treating everyone the same, and treating everyone as an entirely different type of life form. Neither extreme is a good idea, obviously, but where in the middle is it best to go?
You have to assume some things, but if you assume too many, things don't always turn out as well as they might have otherwise (and no, I don't have anything particular in mind when I say that, so you don't have to try and read in-between the lines).


But Hank isn't saying to never trust anyone who tells you anything about the world. He's saying that life is full of surprises: "I majored in biochemistry, and now I'm a professional Internet moron."


So like all good Ravenclaws, we need to "cum grano salis," which is rough Latin for "take it with a grain of salt." 
(And no, I don't actually know that much Latin. I just googled the phrase to make sure it meant what I thought it meant, and the Wikipedia article happened to have the Latin for it, so I thought I'd sound all sophisticated and such.)


Comment Question: What Hogwarts house are you? It occurs to me this is something Harry Potter fans should exchange, particularly about those of you I know IRL.

On Listening

“Emily Dickinson wrote that success is counted sweetest by those who ne’er succeed. And so too, youth is counted sweetest by those who are no longer young. Nostalgia is inevitably a yearning for a past that never existed.” - John Green


But if we think it existed, what then? (See An Abundance of Katherines)


Anyways. In relation to me, Script Frenzy is now going to be re-named Do Review Packets For AP Chemistry Frenzy. Instead of writing 4-ish pages of dialogue per day...I get to do 3-ish pages of that. Every day. Fun times.


So today I was thinking about listening, because I have been told that I'm a good listener, and I was wondering exactly what that meant, since it clearly means more than that my ears work well.


"Listening" is generally defined as using your ears to receive and interpret sound waves.
Well, by that definition, the following scenario counts as listening:


Person 1: "(is talking)"
Person 2: "Mhm. Yeah. No. Cool."
Person 1: "Are you even listening to me?"
Person 2: "Of course I am. And I even have a vague impression of what you're talking about."


I've protested that definition myself: "You're listening to me, but you aren't hearing me," meaning that my words are going in one ear and out the other.


And that's not "good listening" either.


So here's what I think good listening is, and it doesn't have to be through sound: Paying attention to what the person speaking is saying, and not only paying attention, but also remembering it. Which sort of ties back to the quote at the start of the post-- if you don't remember something, it didn't happen. So listen to people, or else their words will have been in vain. Not only does this mean you're being a good person, I think, but it also means a heck of a lot to the person speaking when you remember whatever it was when it comes up again in conversation. We humans like to feel that we and our experiences matter to others. We like to feel loved.


Then again, we also need to forgive people when they forget things...but that's another post entirely and kind of defeats the purpose of this one, so...


**steps off soapbox with grace and poise**


(What's a soapbox?)

An Abundance of Quotes Part 13

"It's almost as if our society values opinions more than it values knowledge." - Hank Green


"As I trail off, I hear them making one another laugh - not the words exactly, but the cadence, the rising and falling pitches of banter. I like just listening, just loafing on the grass. And I decide that if we get there on time but don’t find her, that’s what we’ll do: we’ll drive around the Catskills and find a place to sit around and hang out, loafing on the grass, talking, telling jokes. Maybe the sure knowledge that she is alive makes all of that possible again - even if I never see proof of it. I can almost imagine a happiness without her, the ability to let her go, to feel our roots are connected even if I never see that leaf of grass again." - Paper Towns


“The idea is that for ten minutes, we forget that we have feelings. And we forget about protecting ourselves or other people and we just say the truth. For ten minutes. And then we can go back to being lame.” - Will Grayson, Will Grayson


"I've seen the future and it's much like the present only longer." - Dan Quisenberry


"There are three musts that hold us back: I must do well. You must treat me well. And the world must be easy." - Albert Ellis


"The hardest problems are the ones that most need solving." - John Green, because you all know I definitely don't quote that man enough on here.


"Genius is the ability to renew one's emotions in daily experience." - Paul Cezanne

An Abundance of Quotes Part 12

"Sometimes dreams are wiser than waking." - Black Elk


“I try not to hate anything. Allowing hate in your life just means you’re carrying around excess baggage on behalf of something that’s not worth your effort.” - Kristina Horner, the person I would want to be if I wasn't myself


“I found myself wishing there were some way for those of us on one side of an ocean to tell people on the other side that we were thinking of them. A way that I could say that not only to the people of Japan, but also to Dorothy, who found that baby girl in 1961. But images can travel in a way that our thoughts cannot, and that night I felt sad and frustrated that technology can never quite bridge the oceans between us.” - John Green


“[Comics] do provide us, I think, with a great opportunity to analyze ourselves and what we’re becoming obsessed with, and what we’re becoming afraid of. Interestingly, those two things: often the same thing.” - Hank Green


"Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man." - Francis Bacon, 1625


"As a rule, people don't collect books; they let books collect themselves." - Arnold Bennett, 1926 That is so, so true.


There was also a great quote/discussion from an episode of Bones I was watching a couple days ago about how a writer's views/thoughts-at-the-time assimilate themselves into his/her writing subconsciously, but I didn't write it down at the time. I know it happens to me a heck of a lot, though.

In Which My Inner Fantasy Nerd Escapes

“We were in the business of mutual amusement, and we were reasonably prosperous.” - Paper Towns


I said I'd write a post about Bones, but then I realized there isn't really much to say about it other than that it has great characters. So then I was thinking about why I love it so much if the plots are predictable and traditional (there is a murder which is solved by the end of the episode. Pretty straightforward.) And I believe I have an answer.


I was originally thinking about this a month or so ago when watching the recording of an award ceremony for books published in 2010 with which a few of my friends were involved. Someone asked what they believed the most important element of a book was. The most common answer was "characters."


Which makes total sense, even though you expect it to be plot without really knowing why. 
It's like asking "Which matters more to you: the events in your life, or the people involved?"


Well, I don't plan on getting married simply for the sake of being married. I plan on getting married because I want to spend the rest of my life with said person. And I bet the vast majority (if not all) of you feel the same.
Would you trade your best friend for a different best friend? Of course not. You don't love him/her because he/she is your best friend. He/she is your best friend because you love him/her. (either that or because he/she is your only friend, but...)


So there it is for life. And in books, it's the same. It doesn't matter how flawed the plot is (to a degree, of course) if you're spending the time with some awesome characters-- and that's the main issue with my current manuscript. The plot is alright. The world is cool. But I despise both of the protagonists.


And that's why I love Bones. The characters-- not the plot. (And it's funny.)


Now, characters taking the front seat, if you have some fantastic world in which your story is set, I will pretty much fall in love with your book. I don't mean a world in which I'd want to live, necessarily. I definitely don't want to live in Matched's society, or the London Below of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, but those worlds are so complete-- so vivid-- so real--that they carry with them an entire atmosphere around with them. 


Think about it. None of the Super Bestsellers Of Sci-fi/Fantasy that I can think of made it big because of plot or characters.


Take Harry Potter. Great plot and characters, sure. But my six year-old self didn't become obsessed with it because of that. I wanted to go to Hogwarts.


Star Wars. Characters are alright. Plot is straight-forward. Why do people love it? Jedi are so freaking cool. They want to use the Force. They want to wear tunics and robes and be knights with spaceships.


Lord of the Rings certainly didn't gain popularity from being well-written or having engaging characters or a well-paced plot. Until the movies came out, it survived on the sheer comprehensiveness and novelty of Middle Earth. Elves. Dwarves. Hobbits. Wizards. Giant Demon Bad Guys in towers with legions of monsters to do their bidding.


Also Eragon, which is basically a combination of the last two: YOU GET TO RIDE A DRAGON AND DO MAGIC! Who cares if it's a rip-off? (critics and people bothered by rip-offs, of course, but you see my point.)


It doesn't matter whether or not the actual events of the stories are interesting. What matters is that the worlds are breeding grounds for daydreams.


And so you see what went on inside my head for most of middle school. I didn't spend every spare minute reading, you idiots. I spent them flying around on my dragon and killing orcs  Urgals because I was a totally freaking awesome elf warrior lady person thing.
(And you think your life was cool.)


So that is why world-building is important. And now you understand all of the people at Star Trek conventions a little bit better.


If your world is such that your readers will fantasize about living in it...you're set. Because they can ignore the annoying characters and become the hero themselves. Some people do this in a healthy balance with everything else, and some do not. But that's the way it is for everything.

An Abundance of Quotes Part 11

"It is almost impossible to write a novel any better than the best novel you’ve read in the three to six months before you began writing your own. Thus you must read excellent novels regularly.
Excellent novels set the standards for our own. But bad novels and bad prose are what teach us to write—by setting strong negative examples. You must read both, then—and read them analytically and discriminatingly." - Samuel R. Delany


““Nothing ever happens like you imagine it will,” she says.
“Yeah, that’s true,” I say. But then after I think about it for a second, I add, “But then again, if you don’t imagine, nothing ever happens at all.”” - Paper Towns


"Retard in aluminum foil-- What a lady's knight in shining armor becomes when she really gets to know him." - Urban Dictionary. That's alright. Knights are overrated, anyway. A madman with a box, however, most definitely is a madman with a box.


"He has Van Gogh's ear for music." - Billy Wilder


"Sometimes in our hyper-cynical world, we forget that it's okay to get enthusiastic about things." - John Green


"I haven't slept for ten days, because that would be too long." - Mitch Hedburg


I was clicking around online and found something that said Ron Weasley's birthday is on Tuesday (this is actually un-true. Ron's birthday was on a Tuesday, but I started this post several weeks ago)  so I mentioned it aloud. My 8 year-old neighbor who is visiting said "Who's Ron Weasley?" 


I am not used to that question.

"If you need to be reminded to like your romantic partner...you're doing it wrong" - John Green

I'm too exhausted from the debate tournament that took place all weekend to provide much interesting insight on that quote, unfortunately.
Yeah, it's Valentine's Day and I'm single, but since all I feel like doing is sleeping, I can't be bothered to care about that right now either. HA.

The tournament was utterly amazing, though, and Duke's campus is gorgeous and so, so cool. We spent most of our time in THE GREAT HALL. I didn't make finals in my event, but I didn't expect to due to the abstract and totally bizarre nature of my piece. I had a fun time doing it, but I'm ready to move on to a new, more sensical bit of literature. I'm thinking Looking for Alaska.


One of our Public Forum (partner debate) teams made it to semi-finals despite one member throwing up half an hour before it started (we're not sure why--we don't think it was nerves), and probably would have made it to finals too if not for a desperate-yet-effective move on their opponents' part regarding one of their sources. It was a valid source, but they didn't have a print-out with them, so they lost. The topic was whether or not Wikileaks is a threat to U.S. national security, and each team has to argue both pro and con over the course of the tournament.


Everyone keeps telling me that I should enter a debate event instead of speech, and I've told them that I was waiting for the right topic. I found my topic.


The Policy Debate (still trying to figure out what that is, but I know that it's also a two-person team thing) topic for the 2011-2012 school year involves space exploration. That's something I'm interested in. 


So there you have it.

Civil Unions vs. Gay Marriage

Thoughts on Life is divided into three sections: Poetry, Short Stories, and Non-Fiction.
In the third section (although it's not listed in the Table of Contents for some reason), there is a speech that I wrote last year for my English class. I would like to share it with you.


For more really good articles on the subject, check out here and here.

Civil Unions vs. Gay Marriage: Which is the Better Option?

     “Good morning, Hank. It’s Sunday, June 28, 2009, and I’m angry!” That is how Printz Award winning author of young adult literature and prominent video blogger John Green began his video entitled “Gay is Not an Insult." He then went on to explain that in order to insult someone, you must “paint them with character traits or identities that are bad," and therefore “gay” is not an insult because being gay is not a bad thing, and neither are the two other popular YouTube insults of "nerd" and "virgin" (“Gay”). However, some people disagree with this statement, saying that homosexuality is indeed bad, and that such people can't stay commited to a relationship. They believe the institution of marriage should be reserved for straight couples only, and therefore have created a "separate but equal" institution known as a civil union as a perfectly acceptable alternative for them to be joined in. This commonly held belief is incorrect, as civil unions are not equal to marriage, and gays deserve the right to marriage even if civil unions did give the same benefits.

     The point of whether or not homosexuality is a sin, when it comes to the issue of gay marriage versus civil unions, is completely moot. Even convicted felons are not denied the right of marriage, so the moral status of it has nothing to do with the legal matters of allowing it.

     Some people insist that gay couples can’t uphold the same standards of commitment and legitimacy to the marriage that straight couples can, and use that as an excuse to deny them their right to marriage. This mantra, in addition to being a falsehood, has no grounds in relevancy. These individuals do not take into account the statistically higher rates of illegitimacy present in certain racial populations: marriage is not denied to them either (Sullivan). In fact, lesbian couples have one of the highest commitment rates (Gannon) because of the naturally higher and stable levels of the hormone oxytocin in the brain. Oxytocin promotes emotional love and strengthens such bonds between people, while also creating the desire to “nest” and settle down. Men, on the other hand, have very low and tempermental levels of this hormone compared to women and therefore are more likely to break the commitment of marriage (Grundy). This fact, degrading to the cause for equality as it is, is tossed out the window when it is considered that due to their long, draining, and dedicated fight to gain the right of marriage, when the sun dawns on a new day in the history of gay rights, those couples will treat their new option with a respect and seriousness far greater than that given to it by their straight counterparts who take it for granted.

     Now let us explore exactly why civil unions are not an acceptable alternative to marriage. According to Yale Law School, there are 1138 federal protections granted to married couples, but not to spouses joined in a civil union. In addition, employers are not required to give benefits such as insurance to such people, whereas married spouses automatically receive them (Ayres). This shunts unmarried couples joined in a civil union into an unfair and disadvantaged situation. They can legally be kept out of hospital rooms while their spouse is on his or her deathbed, and suffer many other kinds of pain due to this lack of protection. Public officials, such as judges, have the right to refuse to officiate a civil union between people of the same gender, while they are required to marry heterosexual couples if asked (Ayres). This is a gross injustice, as now not only has equality been removed from the marital system, but so has security. There is no garuntee any given official will consent to facilitate, since his personal views may interfere with his decision. Should gay judges be allowed to deny marriage to straight couples because of their views? Furthermore, lesbian and gay couples can only choose to be in a civil union, or settle for nothing at all, while straight couples can choose either (Lambda). This restraint on options begs for discrimination by implying inferiority where none exists.

     Our country’s Declaration of Independence declares that “…all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, [and] that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” (U.S. Declaration of Ind.). Being martially joined with the person you love certainly falls under “the pursuit of happiness”, as well as liberty. By creating an alternative to anything for a minority (in this case, gays and lesbians), the government violates this constitutional promise of equality.

     Other than strictly legal matters, there are social effects from being in a civil union that are rather undesirable. “Without the word ‘marriage’, other people ‘have to wonder what kind of a relationship it is, or how to refer to it, or how much to respect it’…Those couples lose the respect and dignity they deserve for their commitment to be responsible for each other” (Lambda). Respect is a commodity in the world, and it is one many people fail to give to those who deserve it. Why should gays lose what little they do receive over a meaningless squabble of terminology and religious versus legal definitions?

     Some may say that marriage isn’t at all important, so why bother fighting for equality within it? The answer is simple, and Lambda Legal puts it very nicely: “if access to marriage weren’t a big deal, there would be no effort to restrict it in the first place” (Lambda). Regardless of whether or not homosexuality is “sinful,” people falling under that banner are humans just like the rest of us and deserve equal rights, as promised by our country, ironically known as a “land of equal opportunity”.

     All of you may be thinking something to the tune of "I'm straight: this doesn't affect me. Why should I bother to help?" The same thought once traveled the synapses of my brain. It was then that I realized that that was exactly the sort of thing going through the Germans' brains as they watched Jews march past them to their deaths. It was then that I took my stand. It is estimated that around 10% of the global population is at some level (conscious or unconscious) of homo- or bisexuality, and 1% have some sort of intersex condition (Green “Sex”). This means that the outcome of this battle could have a significant impact on as many as three people in this room right now. Even if you're not one of those potential three, how would you like it if you weren't allowed to religiously or legally be joined to the person you loved? This isn't a personal matter; it's a matter of principle. If we compromise our belief in equality in just one instance, what's to stop us from doing it again and again?

     In conclusion, gays deserve the same rights as straights based on the equality supposedly ensured by U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. All arguments against this are proven worthless by either other groups sharing similar traits yet receiving the same rights as everyone else or by the separation of church and state. Civil unions do not provide a suitable alternative for marriage, due to both legal inequalities and social disadvantages. One day, homosexuality and gay marriage will be taken in stride just like a person’s possession of dyed hair or tattoos—that is, it will be recognized as not the majority, but perfectly normal. Until this day comes, I will continue fight alongside John and Hank Green and the Harry Potter Alliance, as I have been actively doing for the past few months, in favor of marriage for all. After learning about these disgusting acts of discrimination, I hope you will too. In the words of John Green, "Ultimately, gay will never work as an insult because gay is not bad. So you want to call me a gay nerd virgin? That's fine."

Works Cited

Ayres, Ian. “Separate, Unequal: How Civil Unions Fall Short of Marriage”. 2005. 17 Nov. 2009

Gannon, Heather Ann. “Same-Sex Marriage Should Be Allowed.” 2008. 28 Nov. 2009 .

“GAY is NOT an INSULT” (video recording). 29 June 2009. Indianapolis, IN. John Green. 28 Nov. 2009 .

Grundy, Benjamin. “Episode 209—Mysterious Universe.” Mysterious Universe. 31 Oct. 2009. 8 Nov. 2009 .

Lambda Legal. “Civil Unions are not Enough”. 18 Nov. 2009 .

“Sex, Sports, and Caster Semenya” (video recording). 13 Sept. 2009. Indianapolis, IN. John Green. 19 Nov. 2009 .

Sullivan, Andrew. “Marriage or Bust: Civil Unions are not Enough.” 15 Oct. 2008. 18 Nov. 2009 .