just an update

I'm currently in the process of packing up all of my stuff (and family stuff--wherein lies the challenge) so that two of my sisters and my mom and I can hop in our Westfalia van and road trip across the border for a couple months. And I also got one of my wisdom teeth removed yesterday which means I have chipmunk cheeks and can't eat much food that is worth eating (cold liquids are lame).So busy life is busy and does not spare much thought to blogging.

As it goes, I'm not sure how much I'll be blogging from the road but if you two want to, you know, do that, I would read it. And hey, maybe I'll be blogging all the time. Who knows?

Hope you guys are excellent. Don't forget to be awesome.

philosophy and The Hunger Games

I have this presentation I'm giving tonight about films and philosophy and I chose to talk about The Hunger Games (because I'm obsessed, obviously) and here is a snippet from my speech-y thing because no one has posted anything since March 22nd and that's SAD.

What’s philosophical to me about The Hunger Games is how it draws parallels to our own lives today, from what we see as entertainment to how our capitalist culture is inherently exploitive and how that goes by unnoticed by most of its inhabitants. 

But thinking about this so much, I started to wonder if I was reading way too much into things. I could probably take any half decent movie and find some scraps of philosophy to explore. And what’s the point of having philosophical undertones if no one is noticing? Is anyone, apart from me, noticing? 

The Hunger Games film made 152.5 million dollars in the opening weekend and has since grossed 466 million worldwide. But how many viewers are leaving the theater and asking difficult questions like how their lives similar to the Capitol citizens, how North Americans currently exploit others for their comfort and luxury? And how, to a certain degree, we accept violence in our lives as inevitable  or worse, overlook it altogether? Has this film impacted anyone or do most people just see it as a story of a faraway world, a story that has nothing to do with us?  

Films can be a great jumping off point for discussion and a catalyst for thinking about important topics but I don’t think a movie can do it all. And going further with that, discussion doesn’t necessarily make change occur. So while a movie can inspire us and give insight, in my mind, it’s in no way a substitute for thoughtful discussion that leads to positive action. 

So get out there, kids. Talk about important and difficult things. Make stuff happen.

On Muggle Quidditch and How People Don't Suck That Much.

So yesterday I played Muggle Quidditch.

I also got hit in the neck with a Frisbee (hurts way more than it sounds), which should indicate my level of athleticness. But it was really fun. I met Nerdfighters who actually go to my school in the flesh and we talked about TFiOS and wanting to date Augustus Waters and weird Harry Potter slash fiction porn. It was kind of like the internet, which was nice.

The way I think has become so messed up since around middle school--when I split from my large-if-shitty group of "friends", found the one real person I'm closest to as a friend (On Tumblr, I've tagged a lot of stuff "Teresa is the Holmes to my Watson"--this is way accurate on a lot of levels. There is no reason why elementary school should have instilled in me a distrust and distance from people seen in war veterans, but it kind of did...), and turned to the interwebs to fill in the gaps in social activity--that internet people = good and 97% of "real people" = approach with caution, if ever. It's not black and white, though, and a larger handful than I originally estimated seem to not inherently hate me and it's worth having conversations with them because human contact is enjoyable. Even just discussing things in random groups for class doesn't necessarily have to be moderately anxiety-inducing, because hopefully people don't know me well enough to have an opinion about me, let alone a negative opinion, right? And I'm figuring this out second half of junior year, for crissakes. So, too little too late, maybe. But, I don't know, I'm on my way to caring less about petty shit and being less cynical.* Which is good, yeah?

* Remember, children: Conan O'Brien wants you to not be cynical. (This is what I think of when I think of cynicism for some reason...)

just a little existential rambling going down, carry on.

My life  ...

I don't even know how to finish that sentence actually. I kind of just want to convey myself gripping my face, eyes squeezed shut, as I sway back and forth in front of my computer. But in a good way.

Mostly.

Depending on what day of the week it is, I alternate between viewing the future as a land of opportunity and a deliverer of DREADED CHANGE. In short, I have no idea what I'm going to do with my time on this earth, how I'm going to organize my life or even where I'll be living five months from now.

I mean, I'm turning 18, guys. Eight-freaking-teen. In two months. I have two months left of blissful childhood before I enter the harsh adult world. Or something. I don't really know what I'm saying but I've heard things.


The thing is, I have a general image of what I'd like to do and it's pretty simple. I want to drink chai tea lattes and philosophize and grow my own food and write things that change lives and play my ukulele on grafittied steps and have fun with my friends and fall in love with more fictional characters from the great books I haven't read yet*.

One of the issues with this picture is the whole, how am I going to produce income, and am I going to be dependent on my parents, and for how long (to a lesser extent, where am I going to do this and with whom). These are the quandaries that plague me. I assume that a fair share of contemporary grown ups have gone through this very thing that I am going through but it does little to comfort me.

I suppose I'll keep you posted on how this existentially fraught period of my life goes**. It's nice to think that it is going. Though on uneventful leap days like today, it doesn't feel like it, my life is far from static.

*also save our species from completely destroying our habitat.
**hey, maybe it never ends! Wouldn't that be great?

assumptions

There's a certain awkwardness to the moment when you text your friend asking if they've seen your changed relationship status on facebook and they're like, No! That's so exciting. What's he like?
And you're kind of like, um actually i have a girlfriend now.


And I know that our society basically spoon feeds heterosexuality starting from the first Disney movies we watch and also that I haven't technically come out as gay or bi or whatever but I can't help wishing there was a moment of doubt before the assumption that I'm dating a guy.

I never sat down with my parents and told them I was straight and that it wasn't a choice, just the way I am. My facebook profile doesn't specify my gender, let alone that I'm "interested in" men, strictly.* And I know it's not the most important aspect of who I am but I can't help wishing that people would not make assumptions of this--or any--variety about me.


*I like to share as little with facebook as I see necessary, meaning no birthday, no gender, no "interested in."**
**but apparently my romantic relationship can go on there *shrugs*

What if I'm secretly an ostrich, what then?

I'm being courted, in a sense. In the really Victorian-era sense, with all the interacting parties putting on their best faces and acting polite towards one another to prevent even the slightest suspicion that they are in any way unsuitable.

By colleges, not people. (Well, yes, people, deans and directors and whomever else puts their name at the bottom of a piece of paper, all claiming personal interest. Some I've committed to memory for no explicable reason--Todd Rhinehart, Karen Schrum, Marc Harding, Jessica Eads--my own little group of suitors.)

It's weird, this whole process: kind of exciting and ego-boosting and wanderlust-inspiring and overwhelming and just a fuckton of mail to sort through. At the end of emails and letters, they all say to keep in touch or something like that, like we're buddies already. I'm pretty sure it's someone's (possibly not the person whose name is in the closing) job to insert my name into the opening paragraph about how exceptional I am and how much potential I show and how the educational institution would love to have me and then click send. Or they've got computers doing that, I don't know.

I play my part too, not exactly keeping in touch with all my new dean friends, but mailing in cards for brochures or logging in to the school's website, being engaged and studious. Being the lovely person full of potential that the letter was meant for. There are things I'm not telling them: that I'm not really well-rounded, that I haven't shaved my legs in over a month, that I have no sense of direction, that I entertain myself by lip-synching Disney songs, alone, apropos of nothing, at midnight, and most definitely that I'm terrified they'll all hate and reject me and I won't be good enough to get into any college at all. These don't seem like college-bound-person traits. There are things they're not telling me either, though: that the showers are mildewy and the English professors have distractingly unkept facial hair and things like that, I'm sure. We'll learn these things about each other eventually.

I should go to bed.