Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Thursday, December 13, 2012
A Piece of Pi
Suppose I made a pie.
It's a delicious pie, my favorite kind: frozen chocolate, effectively homemade chocolate ice cream in a crust of crushed graham crackers held together with butter and sugar.
Of course, now I have some choices as to what to do with this pie. I could eat it all myself, or I could eat half and give half away, or I could cut it in thirds and share it among three people... and, of course, the more people who wind up eating some of it, the less there is for each.
Pie is like that. It's limited; the only way to give everyone more is to make another pie. What I've been noticing lately, though, is that while not everything in the world functions the same way pie does, there are people out there who are very invested in treating all things as if they were pie.
Oppression works like pie: if you give it away, you stop having it, and that's scary for some people.
But the thing is, love doesn't. Love works much more like the number pi.
Let's say I decide that the first three digits of pi are mine, and then you come up to me asking for a piece of the number that same size. I've already claimed 3.14, but 159 is available, and now we have 3.14159 and a greater degree of precision. And then someone else comes along and wants a piece of pi. Great, now we have 3.14159258 between us, and our calculations are getting better. That's how love is, that's how justice is: the more of it you are willing to share, the more of it can come back to you.
It's a delicious pie, my favorite kind: frozen chocolate, effectively homemade chocolate ice cream in a crust of crushed graham crackers held together with butter and sugar.
Of course, now I have some choices as to what to do with this pie. I could eat it all myself, or I could eat half and give half away, or I could cut it in thirds and share it among three people... and, of course, the more people who wind up eating some of it, the less there is for each.
Pie is like that. It's limited; the only way to give everyone more is to make another pie. What I've been noticing lately, though, is that while not everything in the world functions the same way pie does, there are people out there who are very invested in treating all things as if they were pie.
Oppression works like pie: if you give it away, you stop having it, and that's scary for some people.
But the thing is, love doesn't. Love works much more like the number pi.
Let's say I decide that the first three digits of pi are mine, and then you come up to me asking for a piece of the number that same size. I've already claimed 3.14, but 159 is available, and now we have 3.14159 and a greater degree of precision. And then someone else comes along and wants a piece of pi. Great, now we have 3.14159258 between us, and our calculations are getting better. That's how love is, that's how justice is: the more of it you are willing to share, the more of it can come back to you.
Saturday, December 1, 2012
Telling the Truth
Telling the truth means
my vision clouds,
my head spins,
my heart races,
and I think I'm about to faint.
Telling the truth means
putting myself in danger
when I have another choice.
Telling the truth means
giving up the privilege
that comes with being a liar.
Telling the truth means
another shaky step
towards becoming the person
I always wanted to be.
my vision clouds,
my head spins,
my heart races,
and I think I'm about to faint.
Telling the truth means
putting myself in danger
when I have another choice.
Telling the truth means
giving up the privilege
that comes with being a liar.
Telling the truth means
another shaky step
towards becoming the person
I always wanted to be.
Sunday, October 28, 2012
My Life in the Perfect Passive Participle
In Latin--almost never in English because our version is so much more complicated, but pretty much every other sentence in Latin--there is a certain construction known as the perfect passive participle. It can best be translated as "having been [verb]ed." Despite its unpopularity in English, I think in the perfect passive participle a lot. This is partly because I speak Latin, and partly because I have an automatic predisposition to like anything unpopular, but also partly because I think of it as an inspiring way to use words. It's a way to describe the past in a way that necessarily links it to some later event.
Having been bullied for many years, I resolved never to let anyone treat my friends that way.
It sounds weak in English, as the passive often does, but to me that only makes it a better way to convey the meaning of that sentence. Even on the obscure, "meta" level of the language I used, it demonstrates passing from weakness to strength.
It's simpler in Latin, where a perfect passive participle is only one word long. Though it won't be a perfectly literal translation, it is quite possible to translate it as an adjective without losing meaning. If you are reading this blog and have seen the title plastered all over it, or if you have seen the name under which I am writing this, you have seen this construction. Amata means "having been loved," or simply "beloved." Therefore, in the rather unusual conventions used by the first Latin textbook I ever owned:
iuliana amata iam amat.
There are two ways to translate that: either as "Now Iuliana Amata loves," or as "Having been loved, Iuliana now loves."
Having been bullied for many years, I resolved never to let anyone treat my friends that way.
It sounds weak in English, as the passive often does, but to me that only makes it a better way to convey the meaning of that sentence. Even on the obscure, "meta" level of the language I used, it demonstrates passing from weakness to strength.
It's simpler in Latin, where a perfect passive participle is only one word long. Though it won't be a perfectly literal translation, it is quite possible to translate it as an adjective without losing meaning. If you are reading this blog and have seen the title plastered all over it, or if you have seen the name under which I am writing this, you have seen this construction. Amata means "having been loved," or simply "beloved." Therefore, in the rather unusual conventions used by the first Latin textbook I ever owned:
iuliana amata iam amat.
There are two ways to translate that: either as "Now Iuliana Amata loves," or as "Having been loved, Iuliana now loves."
Monday, September 17, 2012
Maturity Redux
So, back a few months ago, I wrote a post about how I was worried I wasn't going to be mature enough for college. Turns out that not only am I mature enough, I'm far more mature than many of my classmates...
...Why, oh, why did I wake up this morning to discover someone had taped a giant cardboard penis to the common-room door?
...Why, oh, why did I wake up this morning to discover someone had taped a giant cardboard penis to the common-room door?
Saturday, August 25, 2012
A Letter to My Younger Self
I've been doing a lot of reading lately, about people who are different. I've found that there's a lot out there about being on the receiving end of different kinds of prejudice, and I am very grateful for those who do that kind of writing. It has inspired me to answer somehow. Today I reached some important revelations about what I was doing when I was younger and I was so fascinated by the stories of the people who were the targets of such behavior. In response, here I write an open letter to the little girl I was around first or second grade.
To the little girl who wants so badly to be different,
It isn't just your imagination. The prejudice you're sensing is real, and it has real causes in things that are just under the surface of who you are. Your mind really does work differently, and there's a proper name for it. It's called Asperger's Syndrome. In third grade, you will meet a boy who has it and doesn't like you, so you won't have much to do with him, but your class will be taught about what it is in ways that you'll hear but not understand until you look back and remember about him four years later. In fifth grade, there will be a boy who identifies you before anyone else does, and you'll feel a little sorry for him because he claims it as his own identity even though it's obviously a medical diagnosis.
And then, in sixth grade, you'll get the diagnosis for yourself and realize that you know exactly why he did.
You've been bullied all your life, little girl, and it will get better, but it will never go away completely. Your mommy will try to teach you how to deal with it and ignore it, but that isn't what you're looking for. This is:
Your concerns are real. Your worries are real and have good reasons for being there. You aren't just undergoing some twisted rite of passage--you're being attacked because your classmates can tell that you are different and want you to change. And your job, which will be hard but very much worth it, is to hold on to yourself.
You are going to be persecuted, just like you'll find out in fourth grade that Jesus promised--and the other half of that promise will be fulfilled too: the rewards will be great. Hold on to that promise. It'll help you survive a lot of trauma in fourth grade, and seventh grade, and tenth grade, and twelfth grade, and also in the spaces between the hardest fights. Pray, even when it's hard to find the words. Ask for help, but don't believe anyone who tells you that your senses are lying. The funny high-pitched noise that comes out of the TV is real too, and anyone who can't hear it just doesn't have hearing as sensitive as yours. You are different because you can see things, hear things, and do things that other people can't. You are different because you can't help these things.
There are other people out there who are different for other things they can't help, like where their families are from or what they look like or how they understand themselves. You're already fascinated by them--good. You're looking to their histories because you want to identify with them--to see your own life mirrored in what they have to face--and because you want to do something to make up for how other people have treated them. Keep listening to their stories and learning from their struggles, because you can learn a lot from them. You'll learn how to treat them with the respect everyone deserves, and you'll learn how to demand the same from the people who are hurting you when your turn comes to tell your own story. The most important thing you'll learn is that people who are supposed to be big and responsible and powerful can be wrong, and that they need to be challenged when they are.
I know you're looking at these stories because you're so desperate to see some kind of truth that will explain what you're seeing in the world. Keep looking. The truth is in there, even though some of these stories aren't about "your" people. Oppression is a real thing, and because you see it you have the responsibility to fight it. Because you are of a few of those groups, you have a story in there yourself. You don't know what you are yet, but when in due time you will find out what identities are in your blood and heart and mind. Value your own identity, and the ones that you can only watch and fight for. Don't forget that for every one you aren't a part of, you will one day know and love someone who is. Don't forget that, as Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." All kinds of bullying are wrong, and if you can you should stand up to the bullies.
There is no forbidden knowledge. Don't worry about what the teachers say--it's okay to sit down and study everything you want to learn about. Learn about science, and when two books disagree ask questions about why. Immerse yourself in history, and you will have lived over a hundred years' worth of questions and culture and growth by the time you are old enough to look out at the present day. No matter what anyone tells you, this is worth learning about. You have the ability to be more than you are expected to be, and that is how you get there.
People will hate you for who you are. People will threaten and insult you for daring to exist. Worse, people who mean you well will try to make you hide yourself and harm yourself because your safety is uncomfortable to people who will hate you no matter what. If you realize taking that advice is hurting you, draw the line. Your safety is important, and your body belongs to you. By the time you reach seventh grade--as you'll calculate in second grade because of books you're reading and liking, that's the first year of junior high school and the year your body will start changing to look more like an adult--you will need to know that how you look to other people is less important than simply being able to navigate life without being hurt. If performing the woman-act interferes with your ability to do everyday things like going to school, the first priority should be to be able to do your everyday things. Mommy will talk a lot about priorities. You will set your own, and it's okay if they don't always agree with hers. Existing is the first priority.
Don't let anyone tell you that being different is bad, or that you aren't different. You are not capable of everything that everyone else can do, because you are capable of things that other people can't even imagine. You will know what you can and can't do before you are old enough for people to believe you. Keep telling the truth as you understand it, no matter what. They will come around. And--as you will understand instinctively--it will pay off.
When your feelings tell you something that doesn't make sense in the world you're told you live in, stop and think about it. You are living in a world that isn't fully real, that has been made for you to have a childhood in. The books you find will give you doors to other worlds--some are real, some are not, and all are worth exploring. You'll learn a lot of things about people from them. But the world you are living in is missing some important information that will come back to hurt you later in life. There is a part of your heart that the people creating that world want to erase from existence. They want you to follow a straight line through life that won't necessarily work out for you, without ever looking at the fact that you are designed to be able to do something else. They've already taught you to be confused by it, even though you're already seeing it. You can--and you do--fall in love with girls, the same way that you have been told it is only possible for girls to love boys. You already have had one girl you loved that way, and although you will never see her again after the first week of second grade, there will be others. They will make you wonder--she has made you wonder--if you are a boy on the inside, but don't worry: it doesn't matter whom you love; you can be a girl anyway. There will be boys, too, but that side of yourself is already accepted and you will never have any shortage of help in growing that way. Some grown-ups, even Mommy and Daddy, have tried to force you to ignore the other side of yourself. They think it is healthy for you to believe that that kind of love does not even exist, because they have been lied to and told that it is wrong to love another girl that way. It is NOT wrong. It is part of who you have been all your life, and it is not any different from how Mommy and Daddy love each other. As you grow up and the false world slowly falls away, you will see that you are not the only person ever to ask these questions; far from it, there are many. We are a minority, and one that is often fought against, but we exist and always have. We make people uncomfortable, by existing as girls who can and do fall in love with other girls--just like we make people uncomfortable by existing as people with Asperger's who look at the world and see things that most people don't notice instead of things that most people do. It's the same thing, really: seeing things and people differently.
You are different, and you see the world differently. Never be ashamed of that. The greatest commandment in the Bible is to love God, love others, and love yourself; never let anyone take that away from you. Never lose your will to learn, either; you will become a better person if you pay attention to everything. When something doesn't feel right, stop and think about what's going on. Ask questions. If someone tries to shame you and shut you down for asking a question, ask more questions. Learn how to forgive and whom to forgive, and watch people until you understand why they do things. Ask more questions about that. And always tell the truth, even when you're shivering with fear--as I am writing this now. Honesty is worth any cost, any shame, any harm.
As Mommy will tell you many, many times,
Honor. Courage. Commitment.
Our core values, in the Navy. Learn what they really mean, and live them.
With love and great good wishes,
Iuliana Amata
Your future self
To the little girl who wants so badly to be different,
It isn't just your imagination. The prejudice you're sensing is real, and it has real causes in things that are just under the surface of who you are. Your mind really does work differently, and there's a proper name for it. It's called Asperger's Syndrome. In third grade, you will meet a boy who has it and doesn't like you, so you won't have much to do with him, but your class will be taught about what it is in ways that you'll hear but not understand until you look back and remember about him four years later. In fifth grade, there will be a boy who identifies you before anyone else does, and you'll feel a little sorry for him because he claims it as his own identity even though it's obviously a medical diagnosis.
And then, in sixth grade, you'll get the diagnosis for yourself and realize that you know exactly why he did.
You've been bullied all your life, little girl, and it will get better, but it will never go away completely. Your mommy will try to teach you how to deal with it and ignore it, but that isn't what you're looking for. This is:
Your concerns are real. Your worries are real and have good reasons for being there. You aren't just undergoing some twisted rite of passage--you're being attacked because your classmates can tell that you are different and want you to change. And your job, which will be hard but very much worth it, is to hold on to yourself.
You are going to be persecuted, just like you'll find out in fourth grade that Jesus promised--and the other half of that promise will be fulfilled too: the rewards will be great. Hold on to that promise. It'll help you survive a lot of trauma in fourth grade, and seventh grade, and tenth grade, and twelfth grade, and also in the spaces between the hardest fights. Pray, even when it's hard to find the words. Ask for help, but don't believe anyone who tells you that your senses are lying. The funny high-pitched noise that comes out of the TV is real too, and anyone who can't hear it just doesn't have hearing as sensitive as yours. You are different because you can see things, hear things, and do things that other people can't. You are different because you can't help these things.
There are other people out there who are different for other things they can't help, like where their families are from or what they look like or how they understand themselves. You're already fascinated by them--good. You're looking to their histories because you want to identify with them--to see your own life mirrored in what they have to face--and because you want to do something to make up for how other people have treated them. Keep listening to their stories and learning from their struggles, because you can learn a lot from them. You'll learn how to treat them with the respect everyone deserves, and you'll learn how to demand the same from the people who are hurting you when your turn comes to tell your own story. The most important thing you'll learn is that people who are supposed to be big and responsible and powerful can be wrong, and that they need to be challenged when they are.
I know you're looking at these stories because you're so desperate to see some kind of truth that will explain what you're seeing in the world. Keep looking. The truth is in there, even though some of these stories aren't about "your" people. Oppression is a real thing, and because you see it you have the responsibility to fight it. Because you are of a few of those groups, you have a story in there yourself. You don't know what you are yet, but when in due time you will find out what identities are in your blood and heart and mind. Value your own identity, and the ones that you can only watch and fight for. Don't forget that for every one you aren't a part of, you will one day know and love someone who is. Don't forget that, as Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." All kinds of bullying are wrong, and if you can you should stand up to the bullies.
There is no forbidden knowledge. Don't worry about what the teachers say--it's okay to sit down and study everything you want to learn about. Learn about science, and when two books disagree ask questions about why. Immerse yourself in history, and you will have lived over a hundred years' worth of questions and culture and growth by the time you are old enough to look out at the present day. No matter what anyone tells you, this is worth learning about. You have the ability to be more than you are expected to be, and that is how you get there.
People will hate you for who you are. People will threaten and insult you for daring to exist. Worse, people who mean you well will try to make you hide yourself and harm yourself because your safety is uncomfortable to people who will hate you no matter what. If you realize taking that advice is hurting you, draw the line. Your safety is important, and your body belongs to you. By the time you reach seventh grade--as you'll calculate in second grade because of books you're reading and liking, that's the first year of junior high school and the year your body will start changing to look more like an adult--you will need to know that how you look to other people is less important than simply being able to navigate life without being hurt. If performing the woman-act interferes with your ability to do everyday things like going to school, the first priority should be to be able to do your everyday things. Mommy will talk a lot about priorities. You will set your own, and it's okay if they don't always agree with hers. Existing is the first priority.
Don't let anyone tell you that being different is bad, or that you aren't different. You are not capable of everything that everyone else can do, because you are capable of things that other people can't even imagine. You will know what you can and can't do before you are old enough for people to believe you. Keep telling the truth as you understand it, no matter what. They will come around. And--as you will understand instinctively--it will pay off.
When your feelings tell you something that doesn't make sense in the world you're told you live in, stop and think about it. You are living in a world that isn't fully real, that has been made for you to have a childhood in. The books you find will give you doors to other worlds--some are real, some are not, and all are worth exploring. You'll learn a lot of things about people from them. But the world you are living in is missing some important information that will come back to hurt you later in life. There is a part of your heart that the people creating that world want to erase from existence. They want you to follow a straight line through life that won't necessarily work out for you, without ever looking at the fact that you are designed to be able to do something else. They've already taught you to be confused by it, even though you're already seeing it. You can--and you do--fall in love with girls, the same way that you have been told it is only possible for girls to love boys. You already have had one girl you loved that way, and although you will never see her again after the first week of second grade, there will be others. They will make you wonder--she has made you wonder--if you are a boy on the inside, but don't worry: it doesn't matter whom you love; you can be a girl anyway. There will be boys, too, but that side of yourself is already accepted and you will never have any shortage of help in growing that way. Some grown-ups, even Mommy and Daddy, have tried to force you to ignore the other side of yourself. They think it is healthy for you to believe that that kind of love does not even exist, because they have been lied to and told that it is wrong to love another girl that way. It is NOT wrong. It is part of who you have been all your life, and it is not any different from how Mommy and Daddy love each other. As you grow up and the false world slowly falls away, you will see that you are not the only person ever to ask these questions; far from it, there are many. We are a minority, and one that is often fought against, but we exist and always have. We make people uncomfortable, by existing as girls who can and do fall in love with other girls--just like we make people uncomfortable by existing as people with Asperger's who look at the world and see things that most people don't notice instead of things that most people do. It's the same thing, really: seeing things and people differently.
You are different, and you see the world differently. Never be ashamed of that. The greatest commandment in the Bible is to love God, love others, and love yourself; never let anyone take that away from you. Never lose your will to learn, either; you will become a better person if you pay attention to everything. When something doesn't feel right, stop and think about what's going on. Ask questions. If someone tries to shame you and shut you down for asking a question, ask more questions. Learn how to forgive and whom to forgive, and watch people until you understand why they do things. Ask more questions about that. And always tell the truth, even when you're shivering with fear--as I am writing this now. Honesty is worth any cost, any shame, any harm.
As Mommy will tell you many, many times,
Honor. Courage. Commitment.
Our core values, in the Navy. Learn what they really mean, and live them.
With love and great good wishes,
Iuliana Amata
Your future self
Thursday, August 23, 2012
Teaching Versus Learning
A few years ago, I wrote a story about the adventures a character of mine had when she was in second grade from the perspective of her teacher. In the middle of a lesson, my character asks the kind of question I always wished I was brave enough to ask in school--pointing out a gap in a lesson, specifically asking why they didn't ask the people who knew the recent historical figure they were studying about the "mysterious things" that had just been glossed over--and the teacher has a moment of resenting the question because she was hoping to avoid getting into the place where her lesson plan was pretty flimsy. The little girl wants to bring the conversation to a higher level, and the teacher is invested in keeping it down to simple things.
That's not necessarily what I would want in a teacher, but it's what I've usually gotten. And I've had some wonderful teachers who did go above and beyond what's on the test, but not many. There haven't been nearly as many as I wish there had been, and that comes out in my writing even when I don't think about it.
College, they promise, isn't like that.
I'm going to start college classes on Monday, and when I do I'll be looking for what was promised: real conversations, real questions, real learning. Finally, classes where I can be engaged. Asking questions, looking for answers deeper than just the obvious, I might be able to succeed.
Because it's when I'm bored that I fail.
That's not necessarily what I would want in a teacher, but it's what I've usually gotten. And I've had some wonderful teachers who did go above and beyond what's on the test, but not many. There haven't been nearly as many as I wish there had been, and that comes out in my writing even when I don't think about it.
College, they promise, isn't like that.
I'm going to start college classes on Monday, and when I do I'll be looking for what was promised: real conversations, real questions, real learning. Finally, classes where I can be engaged. Asking questions, looking for answers deeper than just the obvious, I might be able to succeed.
Because it's when I'm bored that I fail.
Sunday, August 19, 2012
Projecting My Voice
I've been in a succession of church choirs for a long time, since probably fourth grade. And there are certain things that you hear all the time, when you're in a children's choir--most commonly some variant on "I can't hear you!"
The technical term for singing or speaking to be heard by the people listening from the back pews is "projecting your voice," or just "projecting" for short. I've always been good at it. And so, my mom frequently reminded me, the admonishments to "sing louder" and "project more" never meant me.
I wanted to be heard. I love my voice, and it felt good to sing out loudly, but I was always chastised for it, because even though I was so often the only one with the will and the voice to be heard, I wasn't supposed to be so loud. It was worse because there were often microphones, so I would have to quiet my voice further so as not to overpower the amplification systems.
In choir, that kind of point is fair enough, since a choir is meant to be comprised of voices in harmony rather than one loud singer surrounded by a bunch of quiet voices. (That's called a rock band--a valid technique, but not the goal here.) If it had only been in choir, perhaps it wouldn't have left such a mark on my memory. Unfortunately, everywhere else I looked, the same tensions were in effect, repeated over and over again. Don't sing so loud. But I love the way it feels. Don't attract attention. Why not? It's more interesting. Don't sing here! But I sing everywhere else--I communicate better in song. You're supposed to be quiet and obedient. My voice is just loud like that. Children should be seen and not heard. I want to be heard more than seen.
I recognize now, it was all of a piece. I was supposed to grow up to be "normal," or at least easy to ignore. I wasn't supposed to be loud and opinionated, and especially not with unpopular opinions like "I like the body God gave me." (Side note: it's crazy, how much it's discouraged for girls to be happy with how God designs them. Apparently I'm supposed to hate all the little advantages I'm so grateful for, that make simply walking around and existing in my body easier, but why in the world would I?)
Last year, I acted in a play at a Shakespeare theater--one that didn't have microphones on the stage. And, finally, during rehearsal, the director told me, "Project louder! I want to be able to hear you from the back row."
At first I was shocked and almost offended, but then I realized what she was saying. I was allowed to use the full power of my voice--in fact, I needed to. Be loud. Be yourself. Be heard. Use your gifts, the way they were meant to.
I think everyone needs to hear that, in their own way:
Be who you are, and use what you have, and don't limit your talents because they're too big.
The technical term for singing or speaking to be heard by the people listening from the back pews is "projecting your voice," or just "projecting" for short. I've always been good at it. And so, my mom frequently reminded me, the admonishments to "sing louder" and "project more" never meant me.
I wanted to be heard. I love my voice, and it felt good to sing out loudly, but I was always chastised for it, because even though I was so often the only one with the will and the voice to be heard, I wasn't supposed to be so loud. It was worse because there were often microphones, so I would have to quiet my voice further so as not to overpower the amplification systems.
In choir, that kind of point is fair enough, since a choir is meant to be comprised of voices in harmony rather than one loud singer surrounded by a bunch of quiet voices. (That's called a rock band--a valid technique, but not the goal here.) If it had only been in choir, perhaps it wouldn't have left such a mark on my memory. Unfortunately, everywhere else I looked, the same tensions were in effect, repeated over and over again. Don't sing so loud. But I love the way it feels. Don't attract attention. Why not? It's more interesting. Don't sing here! But I sing everywhere else--I communicate better in song. You're supposed to be quiet and obedient. My voice is just loud like that. Children should be seen and not heard. I want to be heard more than seen.
I recognize now, it was all of a piece. I was supposed to grow up to be "normal," or at least easy to ignore. I wasn't supposed to be loud and opinionated, and especially not with unpopular opinions like "I like the body God gave me." (Side note: it's crazy, how much it's discouraged for girls to be happy with how God designs them. Apparently I'm supposed to hate all the little advantages I'm so grateful for, that make simply walking around and existing in my body easier, but why in the world would I?)
Last year, I acted in a play at a Shakespeare theater--one that didn't have microphones on the stage. And, finally, during rehearsal, the director told me, "Project louder! I want to be able to hear you from the back row."
At first I was shocked and almost offended, but then I realized what she was saying. I was allowed to use the full power of my voice--in fact, I needed to. Be loud. Be yourself. Be heard. Use your gifts, the way they were meant to.
I think everyone needs to hear that, in their own way:
Be who you are, and use what you have, and don't limit your talents because they're too big.
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
A Sketch
It's five in the morning, but I still can't get to sleep. There's a half-dreamed image in my mind, one that I'd draw if I had the skill, but since I'm still working on the basics and this is far beyond that, I'll draw it with words instead.
There are three women in the scene, against a curved wall of dirt marking an enormous pit in the ground. One is deep in shadow and difficult to make out, further down than the other two, her hand reaching up in desperation the clearest thing about her. In the center, a young woman with light brown curls is clinging to the end of a long tree root by one arm, and with the other cannot quite decide whether to reach down to the one in shadow or up to the third woman. That third is blonde and holding a fiery torch in one hand, providing most of the light in the scene, while her other arm is wrapped around the same root higher up. All three are frightened and the one in the middle is deeply conflicted. She wants to save the one down further and yet wants to join the one up higher in safety; it is all but impossible to do both.
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Things That Make Me Less Shy
Normally, I'm very nervous around people. I can't even talk to people in terms of ordering lunch if I don't know how to explain what I want. That said, there are a few things that make it easier...
I can always talk to someone who is walking a dog. Animals have always made me feel safer, and there's something that breaks down barriers about loving another creature.
People's T-shirts also tell me things about them. If I see someone go by with one of the four Hogwarts Houses' crests emblazoned on their chests, or a shirt that says "I <3 <3 Gallifrey," or a "BRONY" shirt like my brother's, or any other sign that they share my nerdly interests, I can compliment their shirt. It's a moment's worth of sharing something of meaning with another person.
Eximus
So it's the last night my family's going to be spending in Hawai'i. I'm not really sure how to feel; on one hand, I really love it here and I've missed living here, but on the other I really miss having a bed to myself that isn't on the floor, and on a foot we're going to have a(nother) funeral for my grandpa before we get home for which I'm going to sing.
Grief is a strange thing for me. It's always kind of dull and distant, because I've grown up in a military family and had to lose touch with everyone I knew every year for a long time. Between that, the fact that I'm largely lacking in most kinds of time sense, and my faith, I actually don't see the difference between temporary separations or permanent ones. Or maybe I just don't believe in permanent separations at all anymore. There's little sense in the back of my head that firmly believes, and cannot be convinced otherwise, that sooner or later I will come back to Hawai'i, and that someday I will see Grandma Jan and Grandpa Bob again and ask them the questions that I never knew to ask until after they died, and that someday I will get to meet my natural grandmother on my dad's side and see if I really do look that much like she did.
And, yet, I cry over war memorials, now that I begin to understand how much pain and horror they represent. I visited the USS Arizona today. She must have been beautiful, just like her sister ship the Missouri still is, and unlike the last time I visited both--when I was much younger--I understand now what kind of destruction took place at Pearl Harbor in World War II. The Arizona is still commissioned, I found out yesterday, even though she has been sunken and a tomb for her crew for seventy years. The flag over the memorial is attached to the remains of her mast. It flies at half-staff to honor the dead, the same as at Arlington and Punchbowl cemeteries.
After seeing so much this week, I feel like I should do something about it. Something to honor the sailors who died at Pearl Harbor, and the survivors like my great-granddaddy. Something to show respect for the Hawaiian culture that I know too little about and have so much interest in. For the former, I know what I can do. I can tell my family's stories, and sing in honor of those people.
For the latter, all I can do for the time being is shut up and listen. But maybe, if I listen hard enough, perhaps I could learn to speak Hawaiian properly.
Maybe if I listen hard enough, I could begin to deserve to learn.
Monday, August 6, 2012
A Brief Parody
(To the tune of "Look Down" from Les Miserables comes a splendid moment from our vacation)
My ears, my ears are suffering because
The wind outside goes THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP
My brother's camera's really neat
He likes to take good photographs
Out of the window of our Jeep
Highway speeds sure are really fast
My ears, my ears are suffering because
The wind outside goes THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Too Small
I've always had a fondness for small things, especially when people say that they are too small. My laptop (currently convalescing--get well soon, Jossie!) is a Netbook, allegedly too small and weak to do most of what's demanded of a computer in this day and age. Every year I go on a mission trip to build houses, and every year in pride of place in my toolbox is a six-ounce framing hammer that has gotten me some strange looks from those wielding huge hammers meant for the kind of work we're doing.
All my life, I've had the sense that I wasn't good enough. I hear rumors that that is a common thing for people who are different, especially those with disabilities. Our needs and wishes are treated as somehow less important--to be attended to only if it doesn't inconvenience anyone--with the attitude that we are only a little bit removed from the practices of ancient Sparta and Rome. "Be grateful that we let you breathe OUR air," is the attitude I've sensed too often, as if air and light and love were things you had to earn by conforming closely enough to everyone else's ideals of who you should be.
I was always different, starting in preschool. The playground games my first year of preschool were always the ones that you won by being the biggest, the strongest, the fastest, the one with the best stamina--and I was the smallest, weakest, slowest, and shortest-winded, without even factoring in my bent for the cerebral and the fact that I was the only girl, simply because I was half the age of any of my classmates.
In some ways, I still see myself that way--as that lone toddler just shy of three, surrounded by boys preparing to go off to kindergarten--and so in a way I empathize with small things. Wilbur at the start of Charlotte's Web, or the Netbook in a family of full-size laptops and big desktops, or a framing hammer when everyone else is carrying power tools: these are my favorites, the ones I identify with and root for.
And my little hammer and I, we showed them. We showed them carriage bolts.
Concerning My Favorite Author
It is half past five in the morning local time, and after being awoken by a phone call from someone who didn't know I was in a different time zone, I can't get back to sleep even though I really want to. So here I'll write down some of what I can't sleep for thinking and see how that turns out.
When I was in seventh grade or so, one of my friends introduced me to the work of an author named Tamora Pierce. (This was actually my second introduction to her work, but I had been in first grade and forgotten all about the first time.) I wound up reading everything this author had ever written, which was already a pretty big selection, and which has grown by two lovely big books since then.
See, these were the books I'd been wanting to read for a long time. I had spent my entire life being irritated by how few books there were about girls; if I wanted to read a good story with a strong main character and meaningful plot, I would have to just accept the fact that it was about a boy (or a tomcat or a male owl, in the animal stories I preferred for a while). Which meant, to my young mind, that it wasn't about me. Now here was an author who was writing the books she'd wanted to read when she was my age--the strong fantasy novel about a girl--and here I was with a taste for exactly that. As an added bonus, these books were pretty hefty, and as you get into the newer ones you find that the editors were giving her more and more pages in which to write.
It has been twenty-five years since Tamora Pierce published her first book, and her most recent book has only been out since November of last year.
That considered, the continuity is fairly impressive; she's pretty good about including callbacks to the events of previous books to give returning readers a sense of reality and some way to get oriented in the space the story exists in. Corus is always the capital of Tortall, and it always has a magnificent palace; after the events of Lioness Rampant it is always inhabited by the king and queen who were installed in that book. Characters assume roles and stay in them until something happens to cause them to leave. There is a consistent calendar and a consistent map, frequently referred to, and the reader may check the story against the map or elapsed time against the year numbers. Ages are consistent: it is very possible to establish a definite year of birth for nearly every character in the series and they age realistically. This probably sounds pretty basic--the mechanical underpinnings of world-building, the boring stuff--but I miss it very much when authors omit it (ever read a book like that? it's like swimming through mud sometimes), and this one does it very well.
Another aspect that I'm fond of is how clearly the message of each story, the "salient truth" as my Creative Writing teacher called it, comes through without obscuring the story itself. Why go off on a long Author Filibuster (thanks, TVtropes!) about how war is horrible when you can show a young knight wandering through the pillaged remains of the refugee camp she was assigned to protect and mourning every one of the dead she sees? Why make the narrator talk about philosophical questions when you have a twelve-year-old girl whose mentor/father figure/sole positive adult influence is a scholar and she has tough questions arising from her own life? Characters think because they are put in places that force them to think, and the author lets them have their own thoughts. Characters come to conclusions that the author obviously disagrees with sometimes, but all she does is advance her position through another character--and let later events sort them out. It's a tool of good writing, and one I admire.
Yes, this is the kind of thing I think about early in the morning when I can't sleep. I'm getting tired again now, and so is my phone. Sadly, my poor laptop has died, so I may have some issues until I get home.
Sunday, July 29, 2012
Please Direct Me To The Mahalo
This is a post about trash cans. Specifically, the kinds of trash cans you see at fast-food places, which always seem to have "THANK YOU" printed on them.
Right now, I'm in Hawai'i for a family vacation--my first time coming here for any span of time less than a year. When I was younger, on three different occasions, my family lived here more or less permanently. I freely admit to having loved everything about it except for fourth grade (long story involving an abusive teacher and two sets of bullying classmates).
One of the things I've always especially loved about Hawai'i is the language. You have to learn at least a little bit just to get around every day, at least enough to be able to pronounce the names of the streets and figure out whether you belong in the "kane" or "wahine" bathroom. Just basic survival matters like that. And it's a beautiful, deceptively simple language (at least until you're confronted by the fact that the state fish is known as the humuhumunukunukuapua'a, meaning "a fish with a nose like a pig").
Of course, in the Hawaiian language, the word for "thank you" is "mahalo." Which brings me back to the title of this post: has it occurred to no one else that someone from another country who speaks another language might come to America and assume based on the tradition of the polite fast-food trash cans that "thank you" means "trash can"? I would never have thought of it were it not for the fact that my dad has made a habit, every time we come to Hawai'i, of joking that "mahalo" must mean "trash can." After all, it's carved into the lid right there.
We attended our old church yesterday, and interestingly the pastor gave us a survey about military families that he wants to use to plan his next sermon series. Oddly, he had a number of possible relationships to the military with checkboxes at the bottom, to indicate one's perspective--but "child of a servicemember" wasn't an option. Perhaps I ought to make a blog post in answer to his survey.
As I finish this post, we are headed to Punchbowl Cemetery. I promised my aunt BabyBlue (of BabyBlueOnline) that I would lay flowers on her mother's grave, and while we're there we are also going to visit Auntie BJ and Uncle Earl's graves (no relation, that's just how Hawaiians talk about close friends of older generations).
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Exhausting Week
So this week I'm helping out with my church's Vacation Bible School! After shepherding sixteen to eighteen kids five-year-olds around every morning, I'm pretty worn out by the afternoon, but I have Responsibilities in the afternoons anyway. Sometimes they even get done...
The kids are adorable, though sometimes they get in fights and a few had trouble adjusting to what we were supposed to be doing for the first few days. VBS closing is tomorrow (it's gone so fast!), and thus we wrap up a fun week.
Maybe I should focus on the wisdom that I pick up from the little church rituals that I didn't quite understand when I was five myself. Like what "This Little Light of Mine" actually means, which I hadn't really thought about in years... until now.
Take this light around the world, I'm gonna let it shine
Take this light around the world, I'm gonna let it shine
Take this light around the world, I'm gonna let it shine
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine
Take it around the world? In some ways, even though I never thought of it that way before, that's what I've been doing in making online friends around the world. I get to have deep conversations with people I might never have met otherwise, and I learn something from them, and they learn something from me.
I feel lucky now.
The kids are adorable, though sometimes they get in fights and a few had trouble adjusting to what we were supposed to be doing for the first few days. VBS closing is tomorrow (it's gone so fast!), and thus we wrap up a fun week.
Maybe I should focus on the wisdom that I pick up from the little church rituals that I didn't quite understand when I was five myself. Like what "This Little Light of Mine" actually means, which I hadn't really thought about in years... until now.
Take this light around the world, I'm gonna let it shine
Take this light around the world, I'm gonna let it shine
Take this light around the world, I'm gonna let it shine
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine
Take it around the world? In some ways, even though I never thought of it that way before, that's what I've been doing in making online friends around the world. I get to have deep conversations with people I might never have met otherwise, and I learn something from them, and they learn something from me.
I feel lucky now.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Daleks
Last year, my family took a trip to England. While we were there, we were delighted to discover a museum-like-thing called the Doctor Who Experience. My dad, who has been a Doctor Who fan since college, had gleefully introduced my brother and myself to the show just the night before, and so of course we were all thrilled by the prospect. (My mom just tagged along with her nerdy family, which she seems to be very accustomed to doing because it happens so often.) Half of the "Doctor Who Experience" was a little museum displaying a wide variety of props, costumes, and even sets from the actual show (I GOT TO SEE THE ACTUAL INSIDE OF THE TENTH DOCTOR'S TARDIS, AND HIS ACTUAL SONIC SCREWDRIVER!!!) and other such things that (as demonstrated in the last set of parentheses) would make a diehard fan scream with delight, but the half salient to what I want to write about tonight was an actual Doctor Who experience, in which the Doctor whisks you away in the TARDIS and you wind up more or less living through an episode of the show. In one instance that starts out nervewracking but turns pretty funny by the end, you get kidnapped by the Daleks.
--Explanatory Note for Non-Whovians--
Daleks are possibly the most famous Doctor Who villain of all time. Certainly they are the most consistently recurring. They are a robotic race that started out as organic creatures, but were so destroyed by a series of disasters (wars, plagues, etc.) that they wound up building themselves protective shells--which look remarkably like inverted trash cans with attached toilet plungers and paint rollers and a few other modifications that are more difficult to identify, because Daleks were created back when the show had a ridiculously low budget to work around--and taking to outer space to wage more wars. They are known to bloviate in mechanical voices in ways that make it clear that they are highly xenophobic, which is not a trait well-suited to space travel in a universe filled with aliens, and thus the Doctor is their worst enemy. They would be terrifying if they weren't so darn funny.
Being kidnapped by the Daleks, whose plungers can shoot laser beams, is generally a pretty scary thing. I was rather unnerved by it, until the Daleks that had kidnapped the museum attendees got into an argument with another group of Daleks, which mostly consisted of the two groups shouting back and forth at each other, "YOU ARE IN-FER-I-OR!!" At that point, my brother turned to me and whispered that the etiquette teacher I'd had in sixth grade for all of one lesson must have been a Dalek.
Daleks are funny, because a) they're fictional and b) it's hard to take accusations of inferiority seriously when they're coming from an inverted trash can sporting a toilet plunger and a paint roller that c) has been demonstrably defeated at various times with nothing but a wooden floor, or a pastry, or nostalgia. But while Daleks don't exist in real life, Dalek attitudes do.
Dalek ideas expressed in real life--as they were, in exactly the same words, by my aforementioned etiquette teacher--are terrifying. I can't find the words to explain why, but somehow I don't think I need to explain completely. I think it would be enough to say that my best friend and I signed up for an etiquette class thinking that it would be a fun thing to do together, learning about the nuances of old-fashioned courtesy just in case we ever wanted to know that, and were blindsided when we arrived and the first activity on the agenda was to interrogate every person about what ways that student's manners were so terrible as to warrant being forced to take an etiquette class. I was shocked into forgetting why I'd come. Later in the class, as the teacher rambled on about how this class would cause us to have better manners, but we shouldn't make anyone else feel inferior for being less refined, my friend raised her hand and said politely, "But, ma'am, you're making us feel inferior."
It was more than a fair point. It was a way of pointing out, probably mostly from instinct given that we were only twelve and hadn't really had much reason to study the subject before, that elegant manners exist for the sole purpose of acknowledging that other people deserve respect.
But that teacher looked her right in the eye and said, "You are inferior."
That was one of the most shocking things I have ever heard said--because I think that was the heart of every shocking thing that anyone has ever said. "You are inferior" so easily becomes the famous Dalek attitude: "YOU ARE IN-FER-I-OR. YOU MUST BE EX-TER-MI-NA-TED." It's funny when it's a trash can threatening you with a plunger--but it isn't at all funny in real life.
"You are inferior" becomes "it's okay for me to be mean to you," and I spiral into depression at the age of fifteen. Because people told me, for my whole life, that I was inferior--and after such a long time with no letup, I started to believe it.
"You are inferior" becomes "it's okay for me to deny you the medication your mental and physical health depends on if you taking it inconveniences me," and I spend three months of my fourth grade year showing obvious signs of mental and physical illness--and the teacher punishes me for showing those symptoms by further restricting the treatment that would solve them.
"You are inferior" becomes "it's okay for me to declare to the world at large that I hate you and everyone like you, even if I don't have any idea who you are," and thus I and many others have to shoulder the burden of trying to ignore the hate, even though it's still shocking and jarring and painful, especially when it comes up in the middle of a conversation with about something else entirely--they just have so much hate that they have to mention it whenever they can find an excuse.
It hurts every single time, and it shows up so many places--especially that last variation, which hits me right in the face all the time. Because all these things are specifically hurtful, both in themselves and because they are ways of saying "you are inferior."
To everyone who has ever been told that--and I suspect that may well mean everyone ever, period--it's not true. Not even when it's coming from people you respect, people you love. You are NOT inferior.
I was thinking that I'd write this post about this problem with respect to theological criticism, since that was what prompted me to write it in the first place, but I suppose I'll write that one later.
--Explanatory Note for Non-Whovians--
Daleks are possibly the most famous Doctor Who villain of all time. Certainly they are the most consistently recurring. They are a robotic race that started out as organic creatures, but were so destroyed by a series of disasters (wars, plagues, etc.) that they wound up building themselves protective shells--which look remarkably like inverted trash cans with attached toilet plungers and paint rollers and a few other modifications that are more difficult to identify, because Daleks were created back when the show had a ridiculously low budget to work around--and taking to outer space to wage more wars. They are known to bloviate in mechanical voices in ways that make it clear that they are highly xenophobic, which is not a trait well-suited to space travel in a universe filled with aliens, and thus the Doctor is their worst enemy. They would be terrifying if they weren't so darn funny.
Being kidnapped by the Daleks, whose plungers can shoot laser beams, is generally a pretty scary thing. I was rather unnerved by it, until the Daleks that had kidnapped the museum attendees got into an argument with another group of Daleks, which mostly consisted of the two groups shouting back and forth at each other, "YOU ARE IN-FER-I-OR!!" At that point, my brother turned to me and whispered that the etiquette teacher I'd had in sixth grade for all of one lesson must have been a Dalek.
Daleks are funny, because a) they're fictional and b) it's hard to take accusations of inferiority seriously when they're coming from an inverted trash can sporting a toilet plunger and a paint roller that c) has been demonstrably defeated at various times with nothing but a wooden floor, or a pastry, or nostalgia. But while Daleks don't exist in real life, Dalek attitudes do.
Dalek ideas expressed in real life--as they were, in exactly the same words, by my aforementioned etiquette teacher--are terrifying. I can't find the words to explain why, but somehow I don't think I need to explain completely. I think it would be enough to say that my best friend and I signed up for an etiquette class thinking that it would be a fun thing to do together, learning about the nuances of old-fashioned courtesy just in case we ever wanted to know that, and were blindsided when we arrived and the first activity on the agenda was to interrogate every person about what ways that student's manners were so terrible as to warrant being forced to take an etiquette class. I was shocked into forgetting why I'd come. Later in the class, as the teacher rambled on about how this class would cause us to have better manners, but we shouldn't make anyone else feel inferior for being less refined, my friend raised her hand and said politely, "But, ma'am, you're making us feel inferior."
It was more than a fair point. It was a way of pointing out, probably mostly from instinct given that we were only twelve and hadn't really had much reason to study the subject before, that elegant manners exist for the sole purpose of acknowledging that other people deserve respect.
But that teacher looked her right in the eye and said, "You are inferior."
That was one of the most shocking things I have ever heard said--because I think that was the heart of every shocking thing that anyone has ever said. "You are inferior" so easily becomes the famous Dalek attitude: "YOU ARE IN-FER-I-OR. YOU MUST BE EX-TER-MI-NA-TED." It's funny when it's a trash can threatening you with a plunger--but it isn't at all funny in real life.
"You are inferior" becomes "it's okay for me to be mean to you," and I spiral into depression at the age of fifteen. Because people told me, for my whole life, that I was inferior--and after such a long time with no letup, I started to believe it.
"You are inferior" becomes "it's okay for me to deny you the medication your mental and physical health depends on if you taking it inconveniences me," and I spend three months of my fourth grade year showing obvious signs of mental and physical illness--and the teacher punishes me for showing those symptoms by further restricting the treatment that would solve them.
"You are inferior" becomes "it's okay for me to declare to the world at large that I hate you and everyone like you, even if I don't have any idea who you are," and thus I and many others have to shoulder the burden of trying to ignore the hate, even though it's still shocking and jarring and painful, especially when it comes up in the middle of a conversation with about something else entirely--they just have so much hate that they have to mention it whenever they can find an excuse.
It hurts every single time, and it shows up so many places--especially that last variation, which hits me right in the face all the time. Because all these things are specifically hurtful, both in themselves and because they are ways of saying "you are inferior."
To everyone who has ever been told that--and I suspect that may well mean everyone ever, period--it's not true. Not even when it's coming from people you respect, people you love. You are NOT inferior.
I was thinking that I'd write this post about this problem with respect to theological criticism, since that was what prompted me to write it in the first place, but I suppose I'll write that one later.
Friday, July 20, 2012
Mater Ursa & the Rubberglue Rule of Hate Speech
Some days, I just start reading and discover that there are bad people out there. Or I'm walking around and I hear people throwing around horrible words, the kind that hurt people and make me wish I dared to turn around and yell "EPHESIANS 4:29!!!" even though I know most people don't have that verse committed to memory. (For the record, though the phrasing depends on what translation you use, it says something to the effect of, "Do not let any harmful talk escape your lips, but only that which is useful for building others up." I only know it because I'm fond of the band Building 429, whose name is derived from that verse, but it's right up there alongside John 15:13 on my list of favorite verses.) Or people throw slurs right in my face, some of which have something to do with me but some of which don't have any connection at all.
Being attacked with insults that have no relation to who I am--or which are concerning a trait that this person clearly doesn't know that I have--bothers me, and when I think about it it's almost worse than insults that refer to some characteristic I actually have. It hurts even when it's someone else being attacked that way, which my parents and teachers don't seem to understand, so here I'm putting it into words so I can explain it better the next time I'm asked to try.
It's because it means that they have some prejudice that's so deeply ingrained that it's become a generic insult. "I hate fillintheblanks so much that I will call everyone I want to insult a fillintheblank." It doesn't matter who they're throwing the word at, when it reaches that level, because the person who actually gets hurt will be the one whom that specific slur denotes. One white boy in the middle of the classroom calling another some Asian-specific slur might be funny to both of them, but it's rare that the Vietnamese boy two rows back will be amused. He might laugh along if he's trying to feel included, but often--far too often for that kind of behavior to be even remotely excusable--he'll feel the sting anyway.
And that's what I call the Rubberglue Rule of Hate Speech. The name derives from a little rhyme my mother taught me when I was in second grade, to wit, "I'm rubber, you're glue/It bounces off of me and sticks to you." It was supposed to be a tool to defend myself from the many insults that I was on the receiving end of back then, some of which were very... weird, but now that I'm older, I see that it applies in darker ways to cruel, stereotype-based arguments.
It may bounce off of me, but the person it sticks to is the person that word means. That applies to all stereotypes. That's why I'm offended by calling people of normal intelligence "retarded," because it's implying that being like my friends who are genuinely slow is an insult. People with severe learning disabilities can be the nicest, sweetest, and too often the most terrifyingly abused people you will ever meet. That's why I'm offended by the use of racial slurs--I may be white, but what about the friends I've practically adopted as sisters who are half-Chinese? What about my friends from school and church who are black? What about my first-grade best friend who was Bolivian, or my friends from the two years I spent in a predominantly-Hispanic community in California? That's why I'm offended by the use of "gay" as a catchall term for "bad," because after discovering exactly how many of my friends are gay how could I not be?
Yes, I left my own identity out of that paragraph, because I react much differently to people attacking me. I've grown so used to being attacked, insulted, and hated on that it just makes me freeze up or cry, so I try to leave myself out of it. My friends, on the other hand?
Don't mess with my friends. Especially the younger ones, the ones I get all maternal about. Mama Bear does not take it well.
Oh, and John 15:13? It reads, in the King James version, "Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends."
It may bounce off of me, but the person it sticks to is the person that word means. That applies to all stereotypes. That's why I'm offended by calling people of normal intelligence "retarded," because it's implying that being like my friends who are genuinely slow is an insult. People with severe learning disabilities can be the nicest, sweetest, and too often the most terrifyingly abused people you will ever meet. That's why I'm offended by the use of racial slurs--I may be white, but what about the friends I've practically adopted as sisters who are half-Chinese? What about my friends from school and church who are black? What about my first-grade best friend who was Bolivian, or my friends from the two years I spent in a predominantly-Hispanic community in California? That's why I'm offended by the use of "gay" as a catchall term for "bad," because after discovering exactly how many of my friends are gay how could I not be?
Yes, I left my own identity out of that paragraph, because I react much differently to people attacking me. I've grown so used to being attacked, insulted, and hated on that it just makes me freeze up or cry, so I try to leave myself out of it. My friends, on the other hand?
Don't mess with my friends. Especially the younger ones, the ones I get all maternal about. Mama Bear does not take it well.
Oh, and John 15:13? It reads, in the King James version, "Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends."
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Incoherent Ramblings
Sorry I disappeared for a week without warning; I was off doing disaster recovery work! It was awesome, even though we hadn't exactly expected for a natural disaster to crop up right where we'd been planning to have a mission trip for the past year. I suddenly have a lot more appreciation for the luxuries of life, such as drinking water.
So, I'm not doing too well with following Aunt Mary's advice to write something every day... oh, well. I'll get it figured out. Hopefully things are going to get back to normal soon.
The problem with being me is that I really, really like to share my writing. This works when I'm writing, say, a cute little poem about how much my friends mean to me, but not necessarily quite so well when I want to write about the tough questions in my life. I created this blog as a place to wrestle with the hardest questions... but then I went and told people about it. Sigh. Maybe I should go find some less-exciting place to ask the questions I'm not allowed to ask, like "Who am I?" (The correct answer, in my case, is NOT "Jean Valjean," as awesome as he is. You want my friend Scott for that. Though I would have happily stolen his part, even though I'm a girl and have a very obviously feminine voice... and I couldn't have legally pulled off the shirt-ripping thing he did so well in a high-school play...)
Obviously, I'm rambling. I've been letting myself read again, you see, and my thoughts have gotten all disorganized. Focus, Iuliana.
I've been exploring my own secrets in my mind lately. I feel like I'm compelled to talk about them, because I prayed over Workcamp that I would become a more honest person. Because my secrets are part of me too. Because maybe if I tell the truth, maybe that will make life better for someone in the future, who isn't even born yet, who will need less help to get by in a less hostile world.
But of course I'm a coward, and that's part of who I am as much as anything else too. The truth doesn't come easily to me when I believe that it will put me in danger--and there are truths that will.
No, I didn't finish my homework. I didn't finish my college applications either, or my thank-you notes. I still didn't finish my homework. Actually, I don't understand my homework assignment at all; I was embarrassed to ask for help because then you'd see how little I had managed to accomplish. No, I can't do that--my mind just doesn't work that way.
Those were a few of the more benign ones from the past year, the ones that will only get me called a lazy brat who needs to stop acting like a hermit (and meanwhile I'm hiding in my bedroom because it's the only place I know where I can safely have my own thoughts). There are others that would lose me loved ones. There are others that could cost me my physical safety if they fell into the wrong hands, that have nearly cost others with similar secrets their lives, recently, in my city.
I hate lies, but I would be lying if I said that didn't scare me.
I guess I'm not going to be able to produce a coherent blog post in my current state of mind (i.e. so tired and hungry as to produce effects nearly identical to intoxication). I hope this is good enough.
So, I'm not doing too well with following Aunt Mary's advice to write something every day... oh, well. I'll get it figured out. Hopefully things are going to get back to normal soon.
The problem with being me is that I really, really like to share my writing. This works when I'm writing, say, a cute little poem about how much my friends mean to me, but not necessarily quite so well when I want to write about the tough questions in my life. I created this blog as a place to wrestle with the hardest questions... but then I went and told people about it. Sigh. Maybe I should go find some less-exciting place to ask the questions I'm not allowed to ask, like "Who am I?" (The correct answer, in my case, is NOT "Jean Valjean," as awesome as he is. You want my friend Scott for that. Though I would have happily stolen his part, even though I'm a girl and have a very obviously feminine voice... and I couldn't have legally pulled off the shirt-ripping thing he did so well in a high-school play...)
Obviously, I'm rambling. I've been letting myself read again, you see, and my thoughts have gotten all disorganized. Focus, Iuliana.
I've been exploring my own secrets in my mind lately. I feel like I'm compelled to talk about them, because I prayed over Workcamp that I would become a more honest person. Because my secrets are part of me too. Because maybe if I tell the truth, maybe that will make life better for someone in the future, who isn't even born yet, who will need less help to get by in a less hostile world.
But of course I'm a coward, and that's part of who I am as much as anything else too. The truth doesn't come easily to me when I believe that it will put me in danger--and there are truths that will.
No, I didn't finish my homework. I didn't finish my college applications either, or my thank-you notes. I still didn't finish my homework. Actually, I don't understand my homework assignment at all; I was embarrassed to ask for help because then you'd see how little I had managed to accomplish. No, I can't do that--my mind just doesn't work that way.
Those were a few of the more benign ones from the past year, the ones that will only get me called a lazy brat who needs to stop acting like a hermit (and meanwhile I'm hiding in my bedroom because it's the only place I know where I can safely have my own thoughts). There are others that would lose me loved ones. There are others that could cost me my physical safety if they fell into the wrong hands, that have nearly cost others with similar secrets their lives, recently, in my city.
I hate lies, but I would be lying if I said that didn't scare me.
I guess I'm not going to be able to produce a coherent blog post in my current state of mind (i.e. so tired and hungry as to produce effects nearly identical to intoxication). I hope this is good enough.
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Thursday, July 5, 2012
"Bring Him Home" and Related Music
It's a little odd for me to listen closely to all the music that's out there about "praying for your soldier to survive," because there's something that's missing. I love these songs--"Bring Him Home" from Les Miserables, "Letters from War" by Mark Schultz, and the first verse of "Pray for You" by Blessid Union of Souls are all beautiful and tender and moving and make me cry every time--but there's still something missing.
I know I'm in the story those songs are trying to tell, that it encompasses me and my brother and John and Carolyn and Amy and Ashley and Kelsey and Alexis and Jacob and Emma and Caroline and Andrew and Peter and thousands more like us, but we're never mentioned in the lyrics. Not even once. I don't know what it is, but, while we're eventually present at the end of the music video for "Letters from War," in the lyrics we're not acknowledged.
All the praying-for-your-soldier songs I've ever heard focus on the soldier's parents, never children like us who watch our own parents go off on long deployments that in some cases take them into war zones, or like my granddaddy, who at the age of ten on December 7, 1941 literally watched his own father walk into a war zone just outside their house. And I think they're missing something because of it. Not that the parents don't have a worthwhile story to tell, since they absolutely do, but that our story is not any less worthwhile. We have a different perspective, and one that really needs to be told. We are forced to grow up quickly, to get used to living in families that can go from being two-parent to single-parent in a day and back to two parents six months or a year later, and there are families out there where both parents have been deployed at once and the children had to just live with that. We have to get used to grieving very quietly for an entire life we had, everywhere that is familiar and nearly everyone we knew and often a few treasured possessions too, all at once, every year sometimes when we move, and it has to be quiet because even though we don't know if we'll ever see those people and places again, we can't get in the way of moving. And it's all hard on our parents and us at the same time.
On Memorial Day a few years ago, I began a poem about how my father missed my sixteenth birthday because the military wanted him somewhere else on that day. I never could finish that poem, but now I think there's something I have to write along similar but broader lines. And it boils down to this:
The children of those soldiers and sailors and pilots want to bring them all home safely, too.
I know I'm in the story those songs are trying to tell, that it encompasses me and my brother and John and Carolyn and Amy and Ashley and Kelsey and Alexis and Jacob and Emma and Caroline and Andrew and Peter and thousands more like us, but we're never mentioned in the lyrics. Not even once. I don't know what it is, but, while we're eventually present at the end of the music video for "Letters from War," in the lyrics we're not acknowledged.
All the praying-for-your-soldier songs I've ever heard focus on the soldier's parents, never children like us who watch our own parents go off on long deployments that in some cases take them into war zones, or like my granddaddy, who at the age of ten on December 7, 1941 literally watched his own father walk into a war zone just outside their house. And I think they're missing something because of it. Not that the parents don't have a worthwhile story to tell, since they absolutely do, but that our story is not any less worthwhile. We have a different perspective, and one that really needs to be told. We are forced to grow up quickly, to get used to living in families that can go from being two-parent to single-parent in a day and back to two parents six months or a year later, and there are families out there where both parents have been deployed at once and the children had to just live with that. We have to get used to grieving very quietly for an entire life we had, everywhere that is familiar and nearly everyone we knew and often a few treasured possessions too, all at once, every year sometimes when we move, and it has to be quiet because even though we don't know if we'll ever see those people and places again, we can't get in the way of moving. And it's all hard on our parents and us at the same time.
On Memorial Day a few years ago, I began a poem about how my father missed my sixteenth birthday because the military wanted him somewhere else on that day. I never could finish that poem, but now I think there's something I have to write along similar but broader lines. And it boils down to this:
The children of those soldiers and sailors and pilots want to bring them all home safely, too.
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Reputation
"Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost my reputation!"
I've always loved my church. It's one of the most purely, honestly fun places I know, somewhere I can feel safe and ask hard questions and do good works and sing excerpts from Broadway musicals and drop anime references. My church family is full of wonderful people whom I love being around.
The hard part is, my brother attends youth group functions with me now, and he's embarrassed by my reputation for being weird and loud and active in every discussion. This is a problem, because he believes my reputation reflects on his, and consequently often gets mad at me for being myself.
I don't believe that my reputation and his have anything to do with each other, and I resent that he's trying to change mine. Because what he doesn't seem to understand is that the reputation I have is the reputation I want, that I'm more comfortable not reining myself in the way he does, that it's better for me that people expect me to act the way I do naturally. He doesn't want any part of my reputation, but that's okay because I want nothing to do with his. He can have his image. I just want to be seen as myself, nothing else, and definitely not as an extension of my little brother's quest to fake a socially acceptable normalcy.
Home isn't a safe space for me anymore except when I'm locked in my room alone, because of my brother. School was always unpredictable--some classes would be safe, but some I always felt like I was constantly in danger. Church is the one place where I don't want to worry about my reputation, because I have to keep it under control everywhere else just to keep the bullying level down.
-Michael Cassio, Act II, Scene 3, lines 281-282 from The Tragedy of Othello, The Moor of Venice by William Shakespeare
I've always loved my church. It's one of the most purely, honestly fun places I know, somewhere I can feel safe and ask hard questions and do good works and sing excerpts from Broadway musicals and drop anime references. My church family is full of wonderful people whom I love being around.
The hard part is, my brother attends youth group functions with me now, and he's embarrassed by my reputation for being weird and loud and active in every discussion. This is a problem, because he believes my reputation reflects on his, and consequently often gets mad at me for being myself.
I don't believe that my reputation and his have anything to do with each other, and I resent that he's trying to change mine. Because what he doesn't seem to understand is that the reputation I have is the reputation I want, that I'm more comfortable not reining myself in the way he does, that it's better for me that people expect me to act the way I do naturally. He doesn't want any part of my reputation, but that's okay because I want nothing to do with his. He can have his image. I just want to be seen as myself, nothing else, and definitely not as an extension of my little brother's quest to fake a socially acceptable normalcy.
Home isn't a safe space for me anymore except when I'm locked in my room alone, because of my brother. School was always unpredictable--some classes would be safe, but some I always felt like I was constantly in danger. Church is the one place where I don't want to worry about my reputation, because I have to keep it under control everywhere else just to keep the bullying level down.
Monday, July 2, 2012
Maturity, Autism, and Normalcy
It seems that, though most people don't realize it, the word "maturity" is used as a catchall term for a lot of different qualities that (are said to) become more common among any given group as its members grow older. Some I have. Some I don't.
I've graduated from high school and now I'm looking to leave for college in the fall, but I'm not sure I'm "mature" enough to survive there. I don't even know if I was really "mature" enough for high school, for all I managed to graduate. Believe you me, it took a lot of help for me to get this far, and now a lot of the support I've had to get here is dissolving while I still need it. It's going to be a struggle, and all the more so because I'm slow and I still haven't recovered from a rather traumatic, well... the past six years, really, ever since I first started secondary school.
Compounding the problem was the fact that I was also too mature for high school. Like most teenagers, I spent a lot of high school trying to figure out the answer to the question, "Who am I?" Unfortunately, a lot of the answers I found led me to conclusions that my classmates couldn't even seem to comprehend. I have never gone a single year in my memory without being the target of at least one major bullying incident, and by the time I finished high school I realized that it was because I was so obviously different from everyone else.
I am autistic, and ever since I discovered as much I have been struggling with how much to own the label. It does make me different, in demonstrable ways. I would rather be proud of my strengths than ashamed by the challenges that come with them, but even owning the name "autistic" too much makes me a target to the ignorant and a problem for my friends. But it's my life, built in, not something I can just turn off because I'm bothering someone. It's not the only thing in my life, but I can't ever get away from it even if I don't talk about it. Is it more mature to speak up, like my uncle (technically first cousin once removed) does in being part of an autistic self-advocacy protest group, or to stay quiet and let it just be the background of my life like most of my friends wish I would?
Sometimes even I forget I'm autistic. I believe the things that people say, about how I can do everything that everyone else can, that I'm no different, that I'm capable of anything. I don't look different. I've been forcibly and unpleasantly taught to observe the basics of "acting normal" that don't come nearly so naturally to me as to others. So I push myself to keep up with everyone else, but then I discover every time that I can't always do that. I'm truly good at gathering and memorizing information, but really only on the topics that are meaningful and important to me, and so I'm characterized as "lazy" because it's hard for me to force myself to fill my head with things I don't care about when there's something just one tangent away that's on a topic I have a passion for. And that's part of what my form of autism is: Hans Asperger, the doctor for whom my Asperger's Syndrome is named, characterized the children he studied as "little professors" because each had a deep and thorough knowledge about their own subjects of interest to the exclusion of most else. And I'm not good at socializing with strangers when I don't have someone I'm comfortable with around to make it easier. That's the part that's hit me lately: when too much is happening at once, I go into sensory overload until I can get away to calm down.
No, I'm not normal. And I just have to live with it. That's a form of maturity, too:
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Amen.
I've graduated from high school and now I'm looking to leave for college in the fall, but I'm not sure I'm "mature" enough to survive there. I don't even know if I was really "mature" enough for high school, for all I managed to graduate. Believe you me, it took a lot of help for me to get this far, and now a lot of the support I've had to get here is dissolving while I still need it. It's going to be a struggle, and all the more so because I'm slow and I still haven't recovered from a rather traumatic, well... the past six years, really, ever since I first started secondary school.
Compounding the problem was the fact that I was also too mature for high school. Like most teenagers, I spent a lot of high school trying to figure out the answer to the question, "Who am I?" Unfortunately, a lot of the answers I found led me to conclusions that my classmates couldn't even seem to comprehend. I have never gone a single year in my memory without being the target of at least one major bullying incident, and by the time I finished high school I realized that it was because I was so obviously different from everyone else.
I am autistic, and ever since I discovered as much I have been struggling with how much to own the label. It does make me different, in demonstrable ways. I would rather be proud of my strengths than ashamed by the challenges that come with them, but even owning the name "autistic" too much makes me a target to the ignorant and a problem for my friends. But it's my life, built in, not something I can just turn off because I'm bothering someone. It's not the only thing in my life, but I can't ever get away from it even if I don't talk about it. Is it more mature to speak up, like my uncle (technically first cousin once removed) does in being part of an autistic self-advocacy protest group, or to stay quiet and let it just be the background of my life like most of my friends wish I would?
Sometimes even I forget I'm autistic. I believe the things that people say, about how I can do everything that everyone else can, that I'm no different, that I'm capable of anything. I don't look different. I've been forcibly and unpleasantly taught to observe the basics of "acting normal" that don't come nearly so naturally to me as to others. So I push myself to keep up with everyone else, but then I discover every time that I can't always do that. I'm truly good at gathering and memorizing information, but really only on the topics that are meaningful and important to me, and so I'm characterized as "lazy" because it's hard for me to force myself to fill my head with things I don't care about when there's something just one tangent away that's on a topic I have a passion for. And that's part of what my form of autism is: Hans Asperger, the doctor for whom my Asperger's Syndrome is named, characterized the children he studied as "little professors" because each had a deep and thorough knowledge about their own subjects of interest to the exclusion of most else. And I'm not good at socializing with strangers when I don't have someone I'm comfortable with around to make it easier. That's the part that's hit me lately: when too much is happening at once, I go into sensory overload until I can get away to calm down.
No, I'm not normal. And I just have to live with it. That's a form of maturity, too:
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Amen.
Sunday, July 1, 2012
Hello! Random Hurricane Dropping In Unannounced!
so, you mighta noticed, i haven't posted for the past few days. this is because, while i was writing a blog post friday night, this random thunderstorm with hurricane-force winds came up out of nowhere,knocking down trees and taking a massive chunk of the area where i live off the power grid. now i'm resorting to posting from my phone, because i know some of my friends will be worried about me and hopefully they'll check this blog, you know who you are. i'm fine, but i don't know how long it'll be until we get back online, and as you may have noticed from the bizarre formatting, my phone's interface and this blog's functions do not agree with each other very well and so i might not post much until i can use my laptop for the purpose again. in the meantime, my very prepared father has set up a generator we bought many moves ago in case something like this happened, and it's working well so at least we have a refrigerator and i can entertain myself with pokemon.
Thursday, June 28, 2012
The Problem with Taking Up Biking Again
So I had a really deep post planned, but then I went for a bike ride with my brother. I had the idea that I'd ride around the block a few times like I used to when I was little; he had the idea that we should ride to church. Unfortunately, he also had the idea that he should disassemble my bike's gearshift as part of the "maintenance" stuff, and then we couldn't figure out how to put it all the way back together again...
Long story short, the bike started changing gears at the worst possible times about a mile out, and I overworked myself getting back home. Still got a headache. Deep and thoughtful posts about meaningful stuff will have to be delayed.
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Meet Holly and Sharon
When I was thirteen, I got bored one day and created for myself two alter egos for the purpose of populating a roleplay site I had going. They're twin sisters, and their names are Holly and Sharon Meyers. Sharon is the louder and more active twin; she is well-liked at school, and has played soccer since the age of ten. Both twins are fairly smart, but around age fourteen Sharon stopped showing interest in books and reading in favor of more popular pursuits. Meanwhile, Holly is shy and studious, enjoying her academics but happiest at church, and she always has a Bible on hand, and usually at least one other book too. Their priorities are different enough by now that they often clash and irritate each other, but Holly--being the quieter twin--is usually the one who gives in.
The site I created them for has long since died out, but I recently went back and started thinking about writing a story with these characters. I know the basic lines of it already: Holly's relationship with her faith community is tested, while Sharon's faith is suddenly forced forward in her life. I know what to put Holly through, but I'm not sure what to do to Sharon. How does one properly torture a fictional athlete? Maybe I should give her some other all-consuming hobby... make her a theater kid instead, since I know theater... but she was always a soccer player.
Maybe Sharon is injured and forced off the field, or maybe she's just cut from the team. Would that be enough? I don't know athletes well enough to know. Would starting to have her own questions work? I know what it's like for an obsession to crumble, but it's hard to tell how anything will be received by the reader.
Categories and Stereotypes
I've been thinking lately about an article that was in The Washington Post a few months ago. To the best of my recollection, it was comprised largely of complaining about how difficult it is to find an adjective that fits all black women. And it made me think: why? I'm just a little white girl, so I might not have the credentials to say so, but it seems to me that all the Post is trying to do here is find a stereotype that works--and stereotypes don't work.
The problem with trying to attach a non-tautological* adjective to any group of people, but especially such a broadly defined group as "all females of a given race," is that pretty much any adjective you pick will describe some of those people, thus supporting your suggestion for every instance of a person who can say "oh, yeah, I know a black woman who is exactly like that," but there will also be many instances of "but I know a black woman who is NOTHING like that." In my experience, the latter group tends to get ignored, because people love their stereotypes and want to keep them.
But any stereotype isn't how it is. The Post can't find an adjective that fits all black women because some black women are loud and some are quiet; some sleep around, some are faithfully married, and some don't sleep with anyone; some are poor, some are rich, some are in between, and one is the First Lady of the United States. The stereotypes don't work for a reason that's fairly obvious to me: what a person looks like on the outside has very little to do with what kind of personality they have underneath.
I've read that people talk about how annoying loud black girls are, but I can assure you (because I had at least one of each in the same class--and it was a class I really wanted to pay attention in, too!) that loud white boys can be every bit as irritating. And loud white girls. And loud Asian boys. And loud Hispanic girls. In fact, if it's their race or gender that you're getting mad at, rather than the fact that the interesting lecture is being interrupted yet AGAIN by the individuals whose private conversations never seem to end even when there is obviously something else going on and everyone is raptly attentive, the problem may be with you.
But that's just my opinion.
*I don't see a problem with saying, for instance, "all black women are female," because that's part of the definition of "women." Or "all black women are of African descent," because that's what "black" means in this context. Those statements are just rephrasing the original term, and really don't need saying. Going beyond that, however, gets into stereotyping. People do treat stereotypes as tautological... but when you look at it, "all members of Insert Group Here who are fillintheblank are fillintheblank" is a statement restating itself; "all members of Insert Group Here are fillintheblank" almost never is.
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Prima Nocte
Here is where I begin, prima nocte--during the first night.
I have to admit, I've never blogged before. I'm a little girl, age eighteen, and I'm starting this blog as a place to explore all the things that I'm not allowed to talk about other places, like speaking foreign languages and falling in love with the unpopular crowd and all the other messy parts of figuring out who I am.
I called this blog "Estne Illa Amata?" with a question mark, because in a lot of ways that one little sentence encapsulates a lot of what I've been asking myself lately. Estne illa amata? It means, "Is she loved?"
The "she" in question changes sometimes. Sometimes I'm referring to myself, other times to a friend. Sometimes I'm asking what love is, and how to define my own feelings. Sometimes I look at big questions in the world, and I ask, "Does this show love to the people who need it?" And sometimes it's just me being rebellious enough that I insist on studying the language I love, classical Latin, rather than limiting myself to what I'm allowed to learn.
About Latin... sometimes, I might use this blog to practice my linguistic skills. In accordance with the conventions we used in my Latin 2 and 4 classes, and for the sake of readability, I'm going to be using English spacing and capitalization, but I just can't bring myself to render the consonantal I as a J. Hence my screen name, Iuliana Amata. I'm a little ambivalent about whether or not the vocalic V should be rendered as a U, but since I seem to have already started doing it I might as well keep going. This may change at some point.
I call myself Iuliana Amata, "Juliana is loved." Amata, is-loved, not Amanda, must-be-loved. I have enough experience on the Internet that I do not expect that everyone who reads this will like me or agree with me. I do, however, expect, and I will enforce, common courtesy. That means no wanton insults, little to no profane language, and considering before you say anything that there is a real human being on the other end of the connection.
Thank you for reading.
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