writer girl plus internet equals blog

March 2008 - Posts

• Disappointment

  This year, I applied for a summer program called North Carolina Governor's School, to study Spanish for six weeks this summer. It sounded awesome, and everyone that I knew who had been loved it. I really, really wanted to get in.

   

  Today, I got the news: I didn't make the cut. 

   

  And that really, really sucks. I am so disappointed. I don't know what I'm going to do with my summer. My mom says I have to do something besides stay home. But nothing that costs a lot of money. Which, really, that cuts out a lot. Sure, when one door closes, another opens--but there are a hell of a lot more doors for people with money. Which, is not me. Life's not really fair, is it? 

  Posted Mar 19 2008, 04:58 PM by jocelynp with no comments

• My Life: So Close, Yet So Far Away

   I have always felt like high school is just the foundation for my life, not my life itself. High school is the place where the scope of my options is decided. Like: will I get into a good college? What will I study (I'm pretty much decided on international relations, double majoring in a specific cultural study, either latin american or middle eastern)? Where will I live? Etcetera. But my real life? That starts later. It starts in roughly a year and three months, actually. When I graduate high school. 

   

  I'm not saying college is where my life starts, because I don't know if that'll be much realer than high school. It kind of depends on where I go. If I go to UNC (kind of a nightmare, but it is less expensive than my top choices, by far), it will not be real life because at least half of at least the top ten percent of my high school class will go there and I will know people and I will still be in small-ish-town-North-Carolina (albeit a different town). If I go to NYU, then that could be my real life, depending on what I do with the opportunity and experience.

   

  But I'm not talking about college. I'm talking about my gap year. Yay gap year! Hopefully, assuming all of my plans fall into place. Plans are that my friend C and I will buy the cheapest plane tickets to Europe we can find by September 2009, and go! We are saving our money, we are doing research (well, I am doing more research and he is saving more money, but whatever), we are making packing lists and lists of places to look for accomodations and lists of places we want to see and lists of websites to look for cheap tickets. Lists galore! We are hoping that the exchange rate gets better. We are hoping that we travel well together as the only travelling we have done together that is further than the next town over has been on school trips which don't really count. We are planning to see the world, but not just to see it: to hear it, smell it, feel it, taste it, experience it. 

   

  And that, that is where my life begins. My life begins in an airport, no more than eighteen months from now. The countdown began about a year ago when the first vague whisperings of this idea began to call to me, and it's just getting closer and closer. Yet still, it is so very unreal and far away. 

  Posted Mar 17 2008, 01:26 AM by jocelynp with 1 comment(s)

• Numbers

   Society would like to define us all by numbers. Usually, those numbers are on a scale. Or maybe a measuring tape. 

   

  *** society.

   

  How many times can I say it? A number on a scale only defines you if you let it. How many people have I said this to? So, so many. A close friend of mine (who is quite skinny) always complains about how fat she is. 1) She is not fat and 2) Even if she were fat by society's standards, who decides these standards, and who thinks they have the right to fucking judge people because of a number?

   

  Why don't people get it? You define yourself. If you let numbers define you, that's who you are. If you don't let it, you're so much more. How many times do I have to say it to be heard? Why does it feel, so often, like I'm the only one saying it? My family doesn't agree, my friends don't agree, society in general doesn't agree. Brainwashing, anyone?

   

  Don't be brainwashed. Get a fucking clue. It's far too easy to define people by numbers, but it's a fucking lie, that's not who people are, and why don't people get that? 

  Posted Mar 10 2008, 10:58 PM by jocelynp with 3 comment(s)

• Ice Skating

  I really love to ice skate, and I'm not terrible at it, either. I'd be better if there were a rink in my town, but there isn't. Today, though, I skated because I was in Knoxville, which has a rink.

   

  It got me thinking. Ice skating is one of the very few things I've perservered at. Most of the things people tend to think are my big accomplishments-getting published, getting good grades, getting high test scores--are not such a big deal. I mean, they are still really awesome and important, but these are accomplishments in areas that come naturally to me. I've always been good with words and my schoolwork has always come easily.

   

  Ice skating well is, however, quite possibly the achievement I am proudest of, despite its seeming insignificance. Why? Because it was so, so hard and embarrassing at first. I am far from being a natural athlete. The first time I went ice skating since being pushed around the rink a few times as a small child was in late 2006. I went with my friends and fell over twenty times in an hour and a half session without letting go of the wall! I was, to say the least, terrible.

   

  But there was something about it I loved and, despite the embarassment, I've been going back whenever I get the chance since then, and, wow, have I improved. I can skate fast. I can skate steadily,  I can turn and avoid falling (if I fall at all, it's a bad session for me, as usually now I don't) and actually turn my head or look straight ahead and I don't flail my arms and I can keep my head up and back straight. In short, I can actually ice skate, which is nothing short of a miracle for me as I'm the least natural athlete ever.

   

  Why? There's certainly no talent involved. It's sweat and hard work and passion for something that is so incredibly out of character for me, but one of my criteria for choosing a college is that there must be an ice rink within a reasonable distance! Ice skating is my biggest achievement because not one bit of it has ever come easily or naturally.  

  Posted Mar 09 2008, 10:09 PM by jocelynp with 1 comment(s)

• Various Newsy-ness

  News item numero uno: I am definitely going to Toronto (probably in June) to check out the University of Toronto! Yay! I was going to go by myself or possibly with my best friend, but then my dad decided to renew his passport and make it a business trip (he has a client in Toronto. (my dad is a statistician with his own business)). So, my dad and I are going to Toronto. Should be fun!

  I am also hoping to get in a trip to Washington, DC, at the very least, before college applications are due, because I want to check out a couple of schools there. I don't think I'll be going anywhere exotically fun in the near future, though.

   

  News item numero dos: Yo soy la bestia! Soy la mejor alumna en Espanol IV en mi escuela (la maestra dijo). Translation: I am the best! I am the best Spanish IV student in my school (the teacher said).

  This makes me very happy! Spanish is my favorite subject, and I am actually hoping to get into the governor's school program this summer, which means I would live at college dorms in a city a couple hours away from home and study Spanish for six weeks. Acceptance letters aren't mailed until the last week of March, sadly, but my fingers are crossed.

   

  News item numero tres (and the most important in terms of Red): I interviewed Amy G. on my book blog! Thanks, Amy, for having such interesting answers. For those of you who are interested, it's at  http://teenbookreview.wordpress.com/2008/03/04/interview-amy-goldwasser/.

   

  I will be back with a more interesting blog post later. 

  Posted Mar 04 2008, 07:17 PM by jocelynp with 2 comment(s)

• Politics: Practical or Idealist?

  I am definitely a Democrat. I won't be able to vote, but, if I could, I'd vote Democrat. I'm very liberal, to the point, in fact, where I'm more liberal than the nominees, but they're closer to what I believe than John McCain.

   

  But which candidate to support? Clinton or Obama? Me, I am a staunch supporter of Hillary Clinton. Of both the Clintons, really, and some people are upset by the notion of Bill being back in the White House. I'm not. First of all, it's in a different capacity. Second of all, he did great things for this country the first time (and his personal life was none of our business).

   

  Obama and Clinton are similar, politically, on the big issues. What we are deciding between is being practical or being idealists. Sure, I might be an idealist in some ways, but I'm also very practical when it comes to politics. Hillary Clinton is a capable, experienced politician. Barack Obama has big dreams, but I don't think he is capable of making those dreams a reality. Therefore, I choose to go with practicality rather than optimist idealism.

   

  For the Democrats out there--who have you decided to support, and why? Honestly, I'm quite curious.

  Posted Mar 03 2008, 12:36 PM by jocelynp with no comments

• No matter what you believe...

  "No matter what you believe, somebody believes you are going to hell."

   

  It's true, isn't it? We certainly don't agree on religion (we being the human race), by any means. We are Protestants and Jews and Muslims and Zoroastrians and Wiccans and Atheists and Buddhists and Catholics and Mormons and Daoists and so many other things. Everyone believes their belief is the right belief. Everyone believes that all of the other millions and billions of people are wrong (and often this wrong-ness means going to hell). We can't all be right, but we can't all be wrong, either, with such a range of beliefs.

   

  Just something I've been thinking about.

  Posted Mar 03 2008, 12:30 PM by jocelynp with no comments

• Everybody Has An Opinion

  I'm in the spring semester of my junior year of high school, which means I'm looking at colleges. I haven't got long to decide which ones I'm applying to. I'm leaning towards Fordham or NYU, but I want to make some more college visits, too.

  This should be my decision. Sure, there are people I ask for advice from, and, yeah, my parents are going to have an opinion whether I ask for it or not. But, really, this is my choice about where to spend four years (or thereabouts; factor in things like study abroad, and maybe less) of my life, so it should be my choice.

  Everyone, though, has an opinion.  Everyone from the people who think I should go to community college because it's cheaper (I'm first in my class. I'm not going to go to community college. There's nothing wrong with that if it's what you want, but it is not what I want) to those who think I should be applying to Harvard (despite the fact that I don't want to go to Harvard and probably couldn't get in, anyway, because they have like a nine percent acceptance rate).

  My grandmother keeps suggesting odd, random places she thinks I should go, for no apparent reason, and is very persistent about them no matter how many times I tell her I do not want to go to Vermont or Arizona! My grandfather regularly extolls the virtues of Boston (because he's from there). My aunt and uncle, for no apparent reason (they are not from there and have never lived there) tell me Chicago is the place to be. Other people have more specific ideas about exactly what school I should go to. A family friend heard about Stanford's improved financial aid and thinks that's where I belong. My mother says I should go anywhere that offers me a scholarship (no thanks. I'm not going to engineering school, for one). 

  I'll stop the list there, but, suffice to say, everyone has an opinion. No matter what my opinion is, they think theirs is best. I am not letting anyone else run my life for me, and the people who know me well--my family--should have figured that out by now. Alas, no.
  

  Posted Mar 03 2008, 12:19 AM by jocelynp with no comments

• Me as a writer

  Obviously, I do write. I wrote my Red essay. I write school assignments. I write in a journal. I write two blogs (one for bookish things, and this one for whatever).

  But I don't feel like a writer anymore. I don't feel like I'm capable of writing anything complete and worth reading, which discourages me so much that the only things I can write are, like I said, school assignments and blogs. I don't know how to get out of this rut other than to write, and, yeah, I'm capable of getting words out, but I just feel rather uninspired and unable to write anything but crap. I've been told, "write through it," but it just depresses me. So, while I do write, I don't know if I'm a writer anymore.   

  Posted Mar 01 2008, 08:54 PM by jocelynp with 1 comment(s)

• Red & Readergirlz: Exciting News!

  Red is a Readergirlz suggested read this month, right along with some really fantastic books (including Siobhan Vivian’s A Little Friendly Advice and Garret Freymann-Weyr’s Stay With Me, both of which I absolutely adore). Readergirlz is a great program, so I’m truly honored that I and the other Red girls get to be a part of it! Thanks, Readergirlz!

  I hope all of you will check out the Readergirlz program!  

  Posted Mar 01 2008, 08:52 PM by jocelynp with no comments