Politics and me

I don't figure that I'm going to go into a listing of all my political beliefs and theories here, but I just took a long Political survey (Political Survey) and wanted to share the results on my blog.

This is my sort of Political Compass type thing...on the actual Political Compass website, my left-right position is similar but the Y-axis is Authoritarian-Libertarian instead of Pragmatism-Idealism. So there's a bit of a difference there.

I'm in the Libertarian Left quadrant. Good ol' lefty liberal, that's me! I'm just too attached to all those bothersome notions of, y'know, peace and freedom and brotherhood and equality and so on....

Peace out!

Lovely last weekend!

Here I am hanging out at the St. Patrick's Day Parade in Savannah, GA. I was there with my boyfriend and his family, and we got to walk in the parade because his dad is somehow related to someone on the Parade Committee....yeah that's how it works.

You know how people like to say all these nice romantic things about taking long walks on the beach with the person they love, or staying out late to lie on their backs and gaze at the stars? But then they never actually DO those things?

Well, I've done them. I'd love to say that I wish I could make it a habit, but there's no way it could be a habit because we live six hours from the nearest beach and near a major metropolitan area, so the stars are kinda...eh. Not to mention the man I love and I live about 45 minutes away from each other.

But I have to say, it really is something to lie out on the beach and gaze at the stars, lying next to your beloved. You should really try it sometime. PLEASE. Make some room in your busy schedule, grab your spouse/loved one, and haul ass over to a beach (don't forget the towels/blanket!). Try to go for one that's not quite so commercial, maybe more residential...that way there's fewer people and lights. It's breathtakingly gorgeous, and amazingly surreal.

Concerning...Myself?

I know I only post every once in a while, and probably don't have any regular readers (yet...), but I figured that it's probably time to give a little preview/profile of myself...for those of you who are simply DYING to know. I think I'm going to adopt Tink's style for this post (Tink from the Pickled Beef blog)

...I'm still having a little trouble with the hyperlink thing. It wouldn't turn off when I wanted it to, so I had to make a new paragraph. Geez, blogs are hard! ;) But I meant that I would adopt the "numbered list" style just to give some extra information about myself to those wonderful people sitting stunned at their computers, overcome with curiosity. (You exist, right?)

Anyway...here goes....

1. My name is....wouldn't you like to know? ^_^ For the purposes of blogging, I might go by Faran or some other made-up name. It'll be clear that it's me, though. My real name is extremely common, and EVERYONE knows at least 3 people with the name (though they're mostly young...it only got really popular right in the year that I was born).
2. Right now, I live in GA, U.S.A. I might end up attending college out of that state, and believe me, when I make my choice (still have yet to receive acceptances from my major schools!! ARRGH! IT'S MARCH!!), I will let everyone know. Loudly.
3. Georgia has amazing weather at the moment. It's right at that time of year where the weather outside is just perfect. Unfortunately, it's not even spring yet, and spring lasts about two weeks. So the climate will become the usual Unbearable Summer That Lasts Until The End of September in about the second week of April. Which sucks.
4. I'm a senior in high school, in 3 difficult AP courses, an advanced acting class, and two pretty worthless classes. I'm a drama nerd, and a science nerd (nice combination, no?), and fairly proud to proclaim my status as a nerd.
5. I have different music tastes from most of my classmates--where they like indie, punk, pop, or rock, I have a distinct taste for Broadway musicals and the soundtracks of movies. Sure, I like some alternative rock occasionally, but fully half of my CD collection is Broadway. I'm also a fan of certain comedians (Eddie Izzard WINS), and have some musical comedy CDs in my collection as well.
6. I'm an absolutely WRETCHED procrastinator. Last night I was up until 3 am, having spent the whole day doing homework for my AP Environmental Science class, and two major projects for my AP European History class (which is the one I regret taking this year, because it's SO MUCH work!!). I could have gotten them done earlier...if I hadn't spent the first two days of the three-day weekend doing other stuff.
7. I have a wonderful circle of friends who are very supportive, and very strange. I don't really have a best friend, but if I did, it would be a guy I'll call MH. We practically have our own language and system of interactions, which most people regard very strangely when they witness it.
8. I have an absolutely wonderful boyfriend I'll refer to as JR. We have been dating for almost a year (our anniversary is April 6), and the story of how we met is like something from a movie. I won't get into it, but I'll just say that we met on a Caribbean cruise...and things have simply just worked out since then. We have a lot of differences (political, etc.), but we both have so much of a will to work things out between us that they have never caused much of a rift. We have similar senses of humor, and talk about a lot of nerdy stuff. It rocks ^_^
9. My family ancestry, although we've been American for generations and generations, is almost entirely of Scottish and English extraction. This might explain my peculiar affinity for bagpipe music and English literature. Or else I'm just weird.
10. I have a very strong personal connection to many works of fiction in specific genres, for a variety of reasons. A combination of personal experiences and study has led me to have a fierce loyalty to specific stories and understandings of the universe that are connected to particular writings of certain authors and my own developed theories of the universe. ....Not that that made much sense, but I guess it would suffice to include that I'm just a wee tad more special than most teens who seem like me, and that my fierce defense of certain books and ideas and experiences comes from deep personal connections.
11. Now I'm just fooling you. There are no more things for me to write, really.
12. Except this one.
13. And this one.
14. I'm just wasting your time now.

So...there you have it. Just a little bit about me, and not that much to go on, but it's more than you had before. And all credit goes to Tink of the Pickled Beef blog (found in my blogroll) for the numbered-list design. I did NOT come up with that myself!

Thanks for reading, if you did. Maybe I'll get back to actually thinking (*gasp* I do that?) in the next post I make.

Per aspera ad astra

I'm experimenting with a different font. For the sake of it. Better to change something small and be able to deal with it than lose control of a big change, right?

I've been ignoring my blog for a little too long, mostly thanks due to the swamp of schoolwork that has accompanied the...I believe it's 6? absences that I have accrued in going to different colleges in order to interview for large amounts of scholarship money. I enjoyed several of the trips (four different colleges extended invitations), but I wish there was less work to make up! *sigh* The curse of being a second semester senior...anything more than a minimal amount seems overwhelming. Can't wait to see how shocked I'll be once I get to college.

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Once in a while, we all come across something that really resounds with us, no matter how obscure or incomprehensible, simple or mundane. It might be a book, a work of art, a musical symphony, or a scholarly article. Maybe it's just the view from a mountainside or a glance passed in the street. Something calls to a higher consciousness and makes us want to expand past the walls of our minds (excuse me while I make the abstract a little oversimplified). I came across a reference in a scholarly article our AP Literature class had to read as part of our unit studying Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

The article is by Professer Severyn T. Bruyn, and is called "Art and Aesthetics in Action." I believe it can be found online at http://www2.bc.edu/~bruyn/Theoretical.html

I was particularly touched by a quote he uses from Gopi Krishna, founder of the Research Institute for Kundalini at Nishat in Kashmir. It reads:

"Suddenly, with a roar like that of a waterfall, I felt a stream of liquid gold entering my brain through the spinal cord. The illumination grew brighter and brighter, the roaring louder...I [became] a vast circle of consciousness in which the body was but a point, bathed in light and in a state of exaltation and happiness impossible to describe."

I have felt this. This resounds with me. Anyone?

It makes me want to follow the title I used--Through adversity, to the stars.

Looking Up

So, it's been a while since I've updated. I thought when I first got this blog that I would update every day, but life continues to get in the way.

Not that I mind! My life has several recurring perks that I am quite enjoying at the moment, so I am not really complaining. I have a great boyfriend (who gave me jewelry for Valentine's Day! What could be better than that?) and we're doing quite well. We're at just over 10 months now, and still going strong...it's the longest relationship I've been in yet, and I'm going to be very excited when we reach 1 year in April. This picture is of us, in May 2006. for my junior prom. It's a bad picture, but I don't have the latest photos of us from New Year's up on my computer yet and I'm being lazy.

I'm doing well in school, although it's not that interesting to me anymore. That may also be attributed to my situation as a Second Semester Senior, to whom high school is now something that I'm just working on until the college of my dreams accepts me and offers me mucho dinero to go there because I'm such a fabulous and amazing student. (No, really.) I'm not that arrogant. But I do desperately need a merit scholarship to go pretty much anywhere out of state, or to any private school (which 8 out of 10 places I've applied to are). Which is why I have to go to no less than THREE separate scholarship interview weekends this month. This weekend, next weekend, and three days in the middle of the week of the week after that. What college has a scholarship interview invitational on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday? It's ridiculous!! I both enjoy missing school and don't...considering there's work I'll have to make up. But hey, I won't be in school! So, things are looking up a bit.

I guess the only drawback to taking 3 APs is the homework. And that's not so bad, except for the part where I get less than 6 hours of sleep a night, and more regularly only about 4.5 to 5 hours. So that part's a little unfortunate, but I try to remedy it each weekend. I'm not necessarily sure if that's as healthy, but it's the best I can do. And I know it is only going to get worse this semester. Then I should have a full summer to laze about and do interesting things, before heading off to college. Hooray for upcoming life-changing experiences!

Down with the Sickness!

Okay, so I'm not intending to copy off the name of a song and album title from the metal band Disturbed (which I used to like, but isn't really my thing anymore), but I figured that those four words carry the best description of my feelings right now.

I am sick. Sick as a dog. Better yet, I've been to the doctor and we pretty much only know that it is NOT pneumonia (small comfort, eh?). I'm feverish off and on, feeling weak and aching all the time, and I have a runny nose. That's leaving out my principal complaint--the coughing. Not a light, delicate little ladylike cough. I mean, a deep, chest-congestion, holy-crap-I'm-hacking-my-lungs-out cough. I can't take a deep breath or try to laugh without sounding like my trachea and lungs are trying to force themselves out of my mouth. Did I mention that it's distinctly unpleasant? (Understatement of the century...)

So now I'm on amoxicillin...not that it'll help much, but whatever. Maybe, psychosomatically, my illness will go, "Oh no! An antibiotic! Not that! Eeeuuuuuuuurgh!" And shrivel up and die. Which is exactly what it needs to do. There is no reason I should feel this crappy during a month as busy as this one. I hate it when my body betrays me, right when I'm depending on it to be in its usual state.

I decided to take this small break from being ill to put down a few thoughts about our bodies and minds. Has anyone else ever felt that their body was too confining, too limiting, and that there's some essential energy within that just wants to break free and be immaterial? I feel like my body is grossly inadequate for everything my internal spirit wants to do, like fly. At the same time, many people say that the brain is the key for everything, and I recognize that, but is the brain nothing more than a manifestation of the mind in reality? I strongly believe that the mind is an immaterial thing, that happens to inhabit a body while on the material plane. Still, I can't help but wonder if we honestly need the brain to have a mind--and what ramifications this has for what happens after death? We're so limited to what we can perceive through our senses and our brains...there ought to be more.

To conclude, I like my mind. A lot. But I hate my body, because it never cooperates. Blargh! Please, pray with me that I'll get better...this is very painful and unpleasant, and I'm doing everything I can to make it go away (because I have better things to do with my time than be sick!). Don't feel like you have to pray, though...it's just an impassioned request. Anyway, I hope you, whoever you are, are well. I don't wish this illness on anyone.

So-Called Productivity

It might help to establish that I am writing this post while at school. I'm in a class where I spend time as a sort of teaching aide, helping out the teacher with the minimal work (the bitchwork) and the students as well--students who are in my own grade! I might add that I elected to take this class, and I am not getting paid for my time.

While I'm not complaining about a class which doesn't require any real homework or time spent out of class, I thought I might take a moment while in school to ponder about the state of our public school system. I try to keep politics out of this blog as much as possible, and I really don't know politically how I'm supposed to stand on this question, so don't accuse me of being one way or the other here.

I have seen the educational system both fail and succeed, from experience and from hearsay. My elementary school in West Virginia had wretched computers with outdated programs on which I excelled--I had completed the entirety of the 5th grade curriculum programs when I was barely halfway through 4th grade! When I moved to Georgia, I moved into a much more affluent area by comparison, and my elementary school showed it--much bigger, shinier, with new and fast computers. And I can't help but think, weren't these kids in my new elementary school getting a better quality of education than the ones in my old one? Not that computer quality necessarily dictates educational quality! I might say that the quality of the teachers in my old elementary school was far superior to that of the ones in the new. In my high school (which I will be SO glad to be leaving soon--just a few months!), there's an interesting mix of great equipment and crappy, ancient equipment, and fantastic teachers and really horrible teachers. However, I've visited the southern portion of my county, which is far less affluent, and the schools there are overcrowded, underfunded, and full of kids who are just falling through the cracks. Does anyone really deserve this? In our country, where having a job that makes adequate amounts of money basically requires education, is it fair to get students off to a bad start? I'm not even talking about college here--it's what comes before college that affects students more, in my opinion.

I have been hearing a lot recently about proposals for vouchers for the parents of children in poorly-performing schools to send them to private schools. While I can see where these people are coming from, I'm not sure I agree, because private schools have the ability to determine their own curricula and do not necessarily have to comply with what public schools have to teach. Sending a child to a private school on the taxpayer's check means the state supports what the child is learning, and if the child is learning something directly contradicting the curricula established by the state, i.e. creation science as opposed to evolution, that is considered the state's tacit approval of what is being taught, is it not? And what about the doctrination of students in the religion of the private school? I am a spiritual person--perhaps in some blog post I'll be able to expound my spiritual views and ideas about God and the universe--but I don't think the state should be supporting religious education. It makes me extremely uncomfortable because religious issues are for the religious organizations and the individuals...not the government. I love my spiritual beliefs, but I don't want anyone teaching them in a school run by the government and the taxpayers' money. They're between me and God. Does this view make me drastically different from anyone else?

Anyway, I have simply no idea how people should even begin to approach the inequality between schools in different areas. One side starts accusing the other of discrimination, and then there's yelling about "just throwing money at" the problem, and all the while I'm just wanting to remind people that there are young livelihoods at stake. Go work at a school and volunteer with the kids--and not in the rich, stuck-up neighborhoods. I mean, take a look at how the rest of the population lives. I've mentored kids in a school that was in a really bad neighborhood, and there was so much that they had been lacking. It was very saddening. If you are a smart person with the time, please consider devoting yourself to helping a student at a disadvantaged school. I've been lucky. But I know there are thousands of students who have not been.