Beginning

Procrastination is something that I've been trying to come to terms with over the past few years. As I said in my last post, I believe that starting later rather than earlier can be personally helpful for me, but procrastination is a different issue for me. In all honesty, I don't know what makes me put off starting projects. It's a completely irrational force; the same one that keeps you from getting out of bed in the morning even when you know that you have to. Your brain denies that the procrastination will carry negative consequences and keeps on doing what it's doing until eventually, the gravity of the situation outweighs the laziness.
When I was putting off writing this blog post a few minutes ago, I wasn't doing it because this was a particularly demanding or unpleasant assignment, it was because it was something that had to get done, and for some reason, those things always get placed on the back-burner in my brain. Even if I'd rather be writing this than watching SNL, my subconscious puts watching SNL on the top of the to-do list because it's not mandatory. Right now, I'm procrastinating by looking at a homework assignment that is due on Friday, simply because it isn't as urgent. Like I said, it's completely illogical.
Usually, when I'm procrastinating, I go through the list of websites that I like, and I start working when I'm done (or at least, that's what I tell myself). A lot of times, I'll be scrolling on Facebook thinking, "Yeah, I'm gonna start in a minute," when I get sidetracked again. About fifteen minutes later, the smart part of my brain says, "Who are you kidding? Microsoft Word/ Windows Movie Maker/ Blogger/ etc. isn't even open." And once I do open it, the dumb part of my brain says, "You've earned another break." The same pattern goes on for almost the entire project.
I have not yet found a way to effectively break this cycle. The only way for me to work continuously on a project is if I'm incredibly interested in what is happening, which varies in likelihood depending on what kind of project it is. I also think that procrastination varies from person to person, because some people are more determined than others to get the job done. I wish I were one of those people.

Fear

No matter what I am doing, fear is a significant component. It makes me put projects on pause indefinitely or stop them before they even start. It's unavoidable, and no matter how much I try to convince myself to push on through, the fear that I'm not capable of making something good is too crippling to overcome.
This is why I find it easier to write papers the night before. When I start a paper a few days ahead, then I have all the time in the world to make it perfect. As a perfectionist, I know that nothing that I write will meet my standards. I'll keep working on it and working on it, and eventually, I'll give up. If I finish at 11 pm the night before, I know that I can no longer do anything to make it better, while if I spend days working, I feel like there is always more to do. For some reason, there's more closure. Plus, getting a bad grade hurts a lot less if you weren't that attached to the project. I don't think this works with the arts, though. Making something bad is embarrassing. It's personal. You can't say that you didn't do well because you didn't like the assignment or you didn't try hard. There's no safety net. If you make something bad, it's your fault. Everybody will judge you, not just the teacher. In the arts, I find it so much better to be able to tweak and edit as much as you can, because even if it isn't perfect, you can try to make it close. I don't know if this is logical at all.
Right now, I am supposed to be editing my movie, and I haven't made any progress. When I try to understand why, there are so many reasons, and I think they all relate to each other. First, I'm afraid that we don't have enough usable footage. It could be shaky or blurry or overall weird. I'm worried that we don't have the shots that we need to make the movie make sense. Second, I'm afraid that this means that I didn't direct enough. I was kind of hands-off at times, and I don't want this to mean that the movie suffers. Third, I don't want to ruin it. Right now, I don't know what the finished product will be, but it's good in my mind. Once I see everything and work with it, I'm afraid that I'll make the finished product worse. Fourth, I'm afraid of everybody seeing it and judging me. This is pretty self-explanatory.
It's not that I don't think I'm creative, and it's not that I don't think I can write or direct or act, etc. It's that I don't have enough evidence that tells me that I have any genuine talent. No matter what, the quality of my work is a coincidence in my eyes. It's been three years in STAC and I still don't believe that I really belong here. The biggest fear, and this exists not only in art but in life, is that I'm only riding on my sister's coattails. I don't think there is anything that can make this fear go away,

Independent Project

Right now, I'm working on a horror film with Tristen. I think it's going really well. We're about halfway done with shooting and we're going to be shooting again tomorrow, so hopefully we can be completely done by next week. I have really high expectations for this because I've been working on it for so long, so I'm hoping that the finished product meets these expectations. When I make movies independently, I want it to be obvious that I made it, and I want that to be a good thing. I want the audience to really feel scared. So far, I think it'll work out.
I'm really happy with my cast. Even though they're all underclassmen and Kayla is new to acting, they all take direction really well. Everybody is willing to work and we have fun while we work, but we still manage to be efficient and get everything we need.
Last time we filmed, I was a little off. When people asked me what I wanted I wasn't completely sure because I hadn't worked with the script in a while and my notes were a little vague. However, I think that in the second part of the movie my vision is a lot stronger. A lot of important things happen, which can make or break the film depending on how well it's shot. I'm really hopeful that this film will be the first of many great films from me.

The Mystery of Mystics Reflection

While I really loved how the film came out, I feel like I could've been more involved. I helped with coming up with the plot, a little bit of filming, and I had a role. However, I wish I could've had a bigger say in everything. It felt like the whole group was kind of separated, with Jess and Emily making the decisions and everybody else was just along for the ride. It was less of a group project and more of a Jess and Emily project. I think that maybe if we had spent more time filming and a little less time organizing, we would have realized that there was a major plot hole and we would've been able to fix it. I'm not complaining; I love my group and nobody willingly caused problems, but I don't think we were very efficient.

Career Anxiety

I think I have found out what my problem is when it comes to choosing a career. When I was young, I always loved the fact that I could be anything I wanted to be. Now, that is exactly my problem. There are too many options. It makes me want to consider having children in different countries just so that they have fewer opportunities than I have.
I know that there are some things that I could never do. I can't be a neural surgeon, or an astrophysicist, or anything along those lines. However, there are no careers that I can actually rule out, because I simply haven't found my passion. When I was talking to my sister yesterday, I told her that I'd like to be a director because you can make your own plan. It's not like a boring office job where you come in every day for a set amount of time, but it's not like being an artist, where you can decide whether you do it or not. People expect things of you and give you praise when you do them right.
I had a job over the summer. I lasted a week. One of the things I hated about this job was that there were so many things you had to do but you never knew what they were or how to do them properly. I suppose this might have been because I was new and hadn't learned all of the ropes yet, but I could never get used to that kind of anxiety. If I were the director, I would know what to do and tell people what they had to do because I would be in charge. Even if I had no idea what I was doing, I could learn on the job without terrible consequences.
I may be romanticizing this idea, but it's one of the only careers that I've given serious thought. The only problem is that I have very little experience actually directing.
A lot of the people I've spoken to say that you don't need to know exactly what you're going to do with your life, especially in high school. The problem is, I'm the kind of person that likes to know what to expect. I can't shake the feeling that I'll screw up if I don't have some kind of plan, if I don't have some kind of stability. I'm not opposed to going with the flow; in fact, I enjoy it. But I can't survive without having something concrete to look forward to.

A Painting by Bonnard

I chose this painting because it looked very one-dimensional at first, but I got a very different impression of it after looking at it for several minutes. I remembered Michael Kimmelman saying something like this in Chapter One of The Accidental Masterpiece. 
It looked like Marthe was only present from the waist down, but then I saw that she was actually bending over and that her head was simply much darker than the rest of her body. I think this creates a pretty cool effect. The thing that jumped out at me the most was the dog lying on the ground. It was a dark, solid, rust-colored shape which was a stark contrast to the rest of the predominantly pastel piece. I was also pleasantly surprised when I noticed the bathtub in the bottom left corner. I thought that it was typical for Bonnard to incorporate his beloved bathtub into the piece even though it wasn't technically being used directly.
I love how Bonnard uses all of these colors which would normally overpower the senses but uses them in such a way that makes the painting scattered and cohesive at the same time. The different shapes throughout the piece constantly pull my focus from place to place and keeps me captivated.

A Moment in the Life of Pierre Bonnard

Independent Work Day #1

Luke told me that in order to make my work less experimental, I should set more limits for myself. This includes writing out titles, summaries, and lengths for each story before I write them. I understand that this will help me know when to stop writing, but it is very hard for me because I am used to wandering from my original ideas. I feel like all of the concepts that I came up with are better to work with long-form, so I either have to adjust the ideas or adjust the project. Even though it is only the first day, I feel like I would rather be in one of the movie groups. That would be more fun for me than torturing myself for a story.

Independent Project

I want to write a collection of semi-autobiographical short stories. I plan on working on it for the rest of the year. I don't know yet how long each story will be, but I guess I'll find out when I get started. One of my biggest challenges is that I haven't written creative fiction in a long time, let alone anything about my life. I have never been one for diaries. I also tend to have problems with remaining passionate about projects, which is why I prefer to work short-form, so that my passion only has to extend for a small amount of time.

The Accidental Masterpiece

On the first day of school, we were assigned the introduction of The Accidental Masterpiece: the Art of Life and Vice Versa by Michael Kimmelman to read by Friday. I automatically groaned in my head. It's not that I thought it would be bad, as most of the other reading assignments I've been given in STAC have managed to grasp my interest. I was still in that summer funk that having no work to do gives me. Naturally, I put off the reading until two periods before STAC on Friday. I decided early on to underline the things that I found intriguing or compelling, but quickly realized that this was impossible, as almost everything on those six-or-so pages was both intriguing and compelling. I found myself underlining entire paragraphs and even occasionally annotating (yes, annotating!). It was so well written that it was impossible to find a single dull sentence.
By reading, I learned of a great artist who became so captivated with a woman that she was the focus of all of his pieces. I also learned of a dentist whose infatuation with light bulbs led him to leave patients during procedures, just to give tours of his little museum. What I took from these stories is something that I think of every time I look around the STAC room: you can't choose your obsession. Nor can you choose when or how it takes hold of you. People can choose to paint or act or write, but no matter how much you try, you cannot make yourself love it. It simply happens or it doesn't. People might want to be obsessed with art, but nobody in their right mind would choose a fixation on light bulbs. That's why I think that careers in the arts are so noble. An accountant might like math, but it will never dominate his thoughts and feelings the way that writing does for authors. People in the arts don't settle for anything less than what captivates them, while others may wuss out and take the road that they are told they should take. Artists make their own decisions based on their inherent love for art.

Quarter 4 Sophomore Year #1

I started writing a play yesterday. I still don't know if that's going to be my project or not, but I've had this idea bouncing around in my head for a while, and I figured that I might as well start it. I'm about six pages in and it's already starting to transform and drift off from the original idea. I'm having problems keeping the personalities and mannerisms for both characters consistent. Despite these flaws, I'm still dedicated.
If this play doesn't work out for a final project, I was thinking that I might like to make a children's book. I would write it and illustrate it myself, possibly with help from somebody who knows what they're doing in terms of art, depending on how it all plays out. I was thinking that this would give me the experience to improve on my art skills, which are sadly lacking, and combine them with writing, which I haven't done in a while, at least not in long form.
Whether I go with the play or the book, either sounds good to me.

Tutoring

I have to go tutor in an hour, and I'm absolutely dreading it. The kid I tutor lives fifteen minutes away, I tutor him for an hour, and his mom can talk for a solid ten minutes straight, so the whole thing is really a two-hour ordeal. It isn't that he's a bad kid; he really isn't. He has a horrible work ethic, he has very low respect for me, and he thinks that school is a joke, but other than that, he's great. I think that part of it is that he has Asperger's, so he only ever wants to be playing games. He is even writing a paper on why children should be allowed to use their phones at school; not for education, but for game-playing. I keep telling him that that is a very hard thing to prove, but he thinks that it'll be funny. He's never seen Harry Potter or Pokemon because his extremely Catholic mother thinks they're bad, but he wants to include a GIF of Umbridge at the end of his paper, as if that were possible. Once, he decided to steal my phone because he thought I was texting, when I was really looking up the answer to something. He wouldn't give it back until I left. The only good thing about this job is I get $40 a week and sometimes he gives me temporary tattoos.

Recitation

Yesterday, my sister asked me what Les Miserables was about. And I gave her a full, detailed, oral synopsis. I do this a lot, actually. After seeing a movie, I like to see if I can recount the entire plot by memory. I did it after Noah, after Cloud Atlas (that was hard), even after Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt 2. I understand that it's probably incredibly annoying, especially when the person starts walking around and I follow them.
I don't know if it's a good thing to be able to explain a movie to a person within ten minutes. Why not just send someone to the theater for you and have them tell you what happened? Because plot isn't the only thing that matters in a movie. People put a lot of hard work into the music, the dialogue, the visual aspects, etc. That's why I found it incredibly hard to tell her exactly what happens in Les Miserables. First of all, there are three overlapping storylines at any given time. Secondly, it is a musical. They don't speak that much, they sing, so I found myself reciting song lyrics multiple times. Also, there is a tremendous amount of backstory and hidden motives that I couldn't really explain to the proper extent. That is why people make movies two hours long; it's impossible to wrap up a worthwhile story into a ten-minute, one-sided conversation. I can only imagine that after being told the plot of a movie, people think something like,"Well, that was a waste of time." But, I can never imagine going to a movie without feeling something important by the end.

Babies

Obviously, yesterday was Easter. I went over my nana's house, as my family does every year, because all three of my aunts and my cousin live there with my nana. Every year around the holidays is when my aunts will typically let loose some story about me as a child, and last Christmas, I heard one from my aunt Teresa. Apparently, when I was a toddler, I didn't like anybody to touch my head, and for a good reason. I had gorgeous, curly, blond hair. Whenever it got wet or if anybody tried to play with it, I would yell, "DON'T. TOUCH. MY. HEAD." Naturally, this was pretty adorable. It's also kind of ironic that, now, not a day goes by that I don't braid somebody's hair.
The thing is, I don't remember any of this. I mean, I doubt that anybody can recall their infancy in great detail. After my aunt Teresa brought this up at Easter, she said that she had been talking about it with somebody that remembered me from that era. It was her ex-husband's cousin or something like that, and I don't remember ever meeting her. I think that's kind of unfair. As babies, or even as children, our parents show us off to everybody and tell embarrassing stories about us, and then, as teenagers or adults, when we meet those people again, all they know about us is that one embarrassing thing. And we don't remember, but we are expected to for some reason.
I realized recently that I'm turning into one of those people. I have three first cousins once removed, all five and under. There is Adela (5), Isla (3), and Jack (2 months). Adela and Isla live in Virginia and I only see them once or twice a year, and I already get the feeling that they don't remember me. I'm the one that taught Adela how to make dinosaur noises and played with them every day for a week when they stayed at my cabin, but I know they'll never remember any of that. It's a trap. You play with the cute baby but the adults are the only ones that remember, and when the baby grows up all of the adults talk about it. Nobody wins. I suggest that nobody plays with babies.

My Body

Everybody has insecurities. I'm probably more confident than a lot of people, and I honestly don't think about what I look like often. I believe that no matter what clothes a person wears or what they put on their face or hair, their appearance has no bearing on their personality. I'm sure that if you asked people who don't know me, they wouldn't be able to tell you who I am by what I look like.

But, like I said, everybody has insecurities, and I recently read something in an old magazine about how letting your fears out in the open can help you forget them (like that balloon thing on Zoey 101). It said that sometimes your problems aren’t even problems, so I’m going to act like my own sassy BFF and make some pros for these cons.

My Head

                                 Cons                                                          Pros

My skin isn't the best.	Fair skin is considered beautiful in many places.
I have a few pimples and blackheads.	Nothing some Proactiv can’t fix.
I don't like how my nostrils are fully visible from the front.	Button noses are freaking adorable.
I have a scar in the corner of my left eye.	Scars are unique.
My hair breaks a lot and I have tons of split ends.	Once you donate it, problem solved.
My front teeth turn inward.	Not even bad enough for braces.

My Torso

                              Cons                                                             Pros

I’m overweight.	Not obese. So what? Your stretch marks look like the Finger Lakes.
My nails are inhumanly long and creepy.	Cut them or get a manicure.
My shoulders are kind of broad (it’s a German thing.)	Show some pride for your heritage. At least you don’t have backne.
My breasts could be bigger.	They’ll grow.
I have a ton of birthmarks in weird places.	One of them is shaped just like the Big Dipper.

My Lower Body

Cons                                                             Pros

I have big hips (another German thing).	All the better for child-bearing.
My knees are weird.	So are everybody else’s. Knees are universally weird.
My feet are big.	It’s not like you can bind them.
My second toe curves outward.	They kind of look like they’re swaying.

I recommend that people do this. When you forget your flaws, it’s easier to remember that someday, you’ll meet somebody that likes them. Hopefully, not all of them, because that would be concerning, but enough to make you appreciate your body and make it a better representation of yourself.

Spirit Animal

I've been thinking a lot about spirit animals lately. People usually say that my spirit animal is a bunny rabbit, due to my flexible nose and sweet appearance, and I don't disagree. I like rabbits, and I think that I am similar to one in some ways, but I don't think that it describes every aspect of my personality. I'm not all nice and cuddly; in fact, people who know me well might not even think of those words at first. I can be incredibly sarcastic and sometimes even unintentionally mean. I would never run away from a fight like a rabbit would, although I might not put myself on the front lines. I take pride in my intelligence, even though I'm not the smartest, which is probably a flaw. I like a good romantic comedy, but at any given moment I'm even more likely to watch a horror film. I'm a classic middle child, always trying to stand out, but never in public. I'm an INFJ and a 9w1, which I'm still trying to come to terms with.
The point of this post is, I don't know of a single animal that can completely capture every aspect of any person. Humans and animals are different; there aren't straight lines that can be drawn between them.

Supernatural

Lately, I've been really into the show, Supernatural. Right now, I'm up to the eleventh episode of season three, which means that I've seen 54 episodes, which are around 40 minutes each. That means that I've spent 2160 minutes, or 36 hours, watching Supernatural over the past week. It has been so bad that while I was at my cabin I would wake up at nine or so and immediately start watching Supernatural, then, if it was ten at night and I was still awake with nothing to do, I would watch another episode. It's become almost like an obsession, but the dependence isn't quite as deep as other shows I've watched. When I was binge-watching shows like Doctor Who or How I Met Your Mother (both of which began in 2005, like Supernatural), I would actually spend twelve hours a day watching the television and I physically would not want to get up to do anything else. With Supernatural, I can take a break whenever I want, and I suppose that's healthier. I don't think it has anything to do with the show's quality, and there is plenty of suspense, but I find that I'm able to delay myself in going back to the show. If I continue at the same rate, I might be able to finish all nine seasons by the end of the school year.

From the Au to the Cu

Last Saturday morning, I dyed my hair red. This was done on a whim, but I've been thinking about dying my hair for a long time. In the seventh grade, I dyed my hair brown, which was a huge mistake. It didn't fit me at all, so I removed the dye, and after that, I swore that I'd stick with my natural hair.
On Friday morning, my mom asked me to go with her to buy a new canopy for our cabin in Pennsylvania. She also asked my sister, and we all went on the 45 minute drive to the nearest Target. On the way, my sister asked my mom if they could pick up some hair dye at Target. Both my mom and my sister dye their hair, so I started thinking, "Why don't I?" I liked the color of my hair, but it was starting to get old. I knew that I would want to go back to blonde, but it wouldn't hurt if I dyed it once and removed it after a few weeks. So, I bought two boxes of dye, and the next morning, I used it. I was really worried, because it looked really red while it was wet. I even got my entire family to sing Part of Your World from The Little Mermaid.
I actually kind of like it, though. When it dried, it got kind of coppery. It isn't radically different from my old hair; in fact, the ends of my hair still look kind of blonde. My family have all said that they like it, and I think that it suits me well. I still know that I will end up removing the dye, but for now, I'm going to enjoy being a ginger.

Friendship

Like I said briefly in my last post, I went to see Noah with a friend. Without mentioning any names, I'd like to discuss my relationship with this friend and with others.
I've known this girl since I was three. Her aunt used to babysit me and my siblings, so I used to hang out with her and her siblings a lot, since both of my parents worked on weekends. We used to watch movies like Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D, or eat chicken nugget dinosaurs and macaroni. I didn't know why at the time, and I doubt I even noticed, but I stopped seeing her when her aunt stopped babysitting me and she went to a different school. However, in second grade, she transferred, and we were in the same class.
We were best friends until sixth grade. I slept over her house practically every other weekend, and we watched movies like Jeepers Creepers and The Haunting in Connecticut while eating pizza. But, in December of sixth grade, she had to move again, this time to another school district. For about a year, we maintained this friendship, and I slept over even more often. I even went to Ocean City for a week with her family.
In the eighth grade, we stopped, and I don't know why. It always seemed like every time we asked the other to hang out, the other one was busy. I tried inviting her to birthday parties, but since I joined STAC, it was kind of awkward to have just one person who didn't know what was going on. I didn't even bother to invite her to my fifteenth birthday, but I asked her to hang out the next weekend. Going to see Noah was the first time I saw her since then.
I have felt extremely guilty for a long time for a number of reasons. This isn't the only friendship that I've let go to waste, and I don't know if that is a flaw in my character or if it really is natural to grow apart from some people. I feel like once I joined STAC, I met these great new people and neglected my old friends. To be fair, some of them weren't that great, and dropping them was more or less intentional, but there were some people who didn't deserve it. I love the friends I've made in STAC, but I'm terrified that when they graduate I won't have anybody. I won't have friends to go to prom or graduation with. Even when I take midterms or finals, I have to scrounge around to find people to hang out with, and even they are casual acquaintances at best. Lately, I've been hearing about all of these Sweet 16's, and I haven't been invited to any. This isn't the classic nerd exclusion, either, because I know that there are people that like me, but it might be my fault that I don't put enough effort into friendships. That's why they either slip away or fail to form, and why the most stable friendships I have were formed by my sister.

Noah

I saw the movie, Noah, last Saturday with a friend. I was looking forward to seeing it because it was supposedly an epic retelling of the biblical tale, and also because it had Emma Watson. I thought that it was great, although there were a few plot holes.
 The movie focused on a man named Noah(obviously), his wife, Naameh, their three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and their adoptive daughter, Ila. After being siblings for ten or so years, Shem and Ila fall in love, but Ila is barren from being stabbed as a child and doesn't want Shem to settle for her if they can't have kids. However, after Noah's grandfather, Methuselah, blesses her, she is healed and gets pregnant. Noah is very upset with this because he thinks that mankind has to end, so if the child is a girl, he will kill her to prevent her from repopulating the earth, and if it is a boy, it will become the last man. Ila ends up giving birth to twin girls, but Noah decides not to kill them because he loves them too much, and decides that his family will repopulate the world after all. By the end of the movie, I was thinking to myself, "Did everybody just agree that Ham and Japheth are going to have sex with their nieces?" It was one thing for Shem and Ila to be together, because they weren't actually related, but if Ham and Japheth have children with their children, then their children will have to have children with their cousins, if that makes any sense. I know that people say that everybody on Earth is related, but I still find that degree of incest unsettling.
Another flaw I found, which was not so much a flaw as a possible intentional directorial decision, was that all of the characters were dressed in these postmodernistic, bohemian, earth-toned, clothes. When I think of biblical times, I always think of both men and women wearing, for lack of a better word, dresses, with their heads covered. In the end scene, Naameh is wearing pants, Ham wore something that looked like a hoodie during the majority of the movie, and they all seemed to wear rubber-soled boots. These clothes seemed like they would be worn by a fashion-backward hipster, or perhaps a homeless person, not a family who lived thousands of years ago.
Despite these flaws, I did think that Noah was a great film. Both the graphics and the symbolic metaphors were beautiful, and overall, it made me want to go to church.

A Piece of Advice

Don't interrupt people unless you have something important to say. Even if the conversation seems utterly frivolous. You can take inspiration from even the dumbest conversations and you never know what somebody will say if you give them the chance. Besides, nobody likes an interrupting dick.