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writer girl plus internet equals blog

  • my future, decided

    I’ve made my decision. Next year, I’ll be going to Jacobs University in Bremen, Germany. If you’re interested, the school website is here and there are some cool panoramas of Bremen here. And here is a video of free hugs made in Bremen.

    I’m mailing the forms and wiring the deposit tomorrow. And then I have a lot to do! I have to go to Radio Shack and see what voltage adapters and converters and such I need. I have to buy plane tickets. I have to talk to my bank and see if they can accomodate me living in Europe or if I need to change banks. I have to decide what I’m taking, what’s cheaper to buy there, and what I don’t need. I have to start frantically studying German. There are many preparations to be made. 

    I have some reservations. Bremen isn’t a very big city, and I’m a fan of big cities. The course selection isn’t as varied as I’d like it to be. But the people seem awesome, and living in Europe will be an amazing opportunity. Even the most mundane things, like buying toothpaste, will, at first, be an adventure because they’ll be so different. I’ve never even visited a country where I don’t speak the language at least well enough to get by except Morocco but that doesn’t count because I was with a guided tour. 

    I’m nervous, and, like I said, there are some things I’m not sure about, but I’ll never know unless I try, and when else will I get this chance? So I’m taking a chance, and I’m going with the option that isn’t certain, isn’t safe, isn’t something I know I love. I’m going with “adventurous” and “exciting.” Or maybe “reckless” and “stupid.” Or maybe all four. And I’m excited.

    Posted Mar 10 2009, 09:10 PM by jocelynp with no comments

  • escape

    As I face important choices, as I am overwhelmed by responsibility, as I realize that I am sorely lacking in good decision-making skills, there are many, many times that I want to just escape, in many ways. Of course, there’s the feeling that physically escaping the situations will make it better, the desire to just leave, but that’s unproductive. And then, the need to escape back in time a few years.

    I’m rereading all my Animorphs books (and getting a lot out of them, surprisingly; they are remarkably complex for endless-series-ghostwritten books written for ten year olds). I’m immersing myself in that world, in a fight against slug-like brain-controlling aliens that sounds ridiculous when voiced aloud by a near-adult (and only slightly less ridiculous when voiced aloud by a ten-year-old, I’ll grant you that). I’m ignoring all my more recent interests and responsibilities (blogging, for one, as you may have noticed, and I’m also not answering my email for the most part, so don’t be offended if your communication with me has ceased). 

    See, I’ve never been very good at coping with stress. It’s probably a good thing I don’t have a driver’s license because then I would take that first escape route, and while reading the Animorphs is relatively harmless, leaving the state or country to escape your problems can create new (major) ones. 

    I’m enjoying this journey to the past, though. Over the course of fifty-four books (plus four Megamorphs, four Chronicles, and the two Alternamorphs (which I like to pretend don’t exist)), you get to know these characters. This story goes from being a relatively light one to a kind of serious and intense war story. There are ambiguous moral choices. There is violence and death. There’s a lot to take in here, a lot more than is suggested by the format (the never-ending series that we all read at least one of when we were ten or so–my favorites were the Animorphs, Sweet Valley High, and the Babysitters’ Club, at different times). 

    So it’s pretty intense and absorbing if you’re reading anywhere from three to eight of these per day (I’ll run out soon, though). It’s enough to distract me pretty thoroughly from all the things I don’t want to deal with. Not only does it take me back to the Animorphs’ world, it takes me back to my own childhood as well. However, when the books run out, I’ll have to deal. 

    As stress-coping strategies go, however, I’d say this one is pretty awesome. 

    Plus, if you never read these books–do so immediately!

    Posted Feb 24 2009, 09:15 PM by jocelynp with 2 comment(s)

  • 25 Facts

    Amy asked for 25 facts. These are my 25 facts.



    1. When I love a chunk of music (be it a song or an album or all the songs of an artist or even just some random playlist), I listen to it repeatedly for days and days until I get sick of it and can't listen to it for a few weeks at all (right now, it's the Rent soundtrack).
    2. I have discovered that I am terrible at making decisions. I still don't know where I'm going to college. I have about three weeks to decide.
    3. I woke up in the middle of the night last week and realized that I actually really do love writing. I don't know if that means anything for my future or not, and, yeah, I'd known it before, but it just REALLY hit me more than before.
    4. When I found out about unschooling, I wished I had been unschooled. However, halfway through high school is not the time to shake up your education, even if my parents didn't think anything excepting traditional education was insane.
    5. I've spent the past two weeks obsessively rereading the Animorphs series. I loved these books years ago and they are now a welcome escape from my stress. Plus I can read like six of them in a day when I'm not too busy so I feel accomplished.
    6. I have, at various times, considered taking a year off before going to college. I wish I still felt like that was an option, but, for a lot of reasons, it's not.
    7. Now that I really see myself leaving this place in the near future, it's finally started to feel like home (after thirteen years), and I've finally started to love it. It's bittersweet.
    8. I have serious trouble following through on commitments. I'm working on it.
    9. Sometimes, my friends and family drive me crazy, because the vast majority of them don't understand why I didn't apply to any colleges closer to home than New York City (which is pretty far from North Carolina). They don't understand that I want to experience more of the world than our corner of it, and I don't know how to explain it to them, except that..."The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page." Saint Augustine. I think that applies to living in more than one part of the world, too.
    10. One of the things I fear most is feeling trapped, both in a literal sense (restrained) and a more figurative one (trapped by geographical boundaries or money or in a certain role in life or whatever).
    11. I have told five of my friends about RED. Three were very impressed and supportive. One was just excited because she's mentioned (not by name) in my essay. One was...not supportive.
    12. I don't know what happens to us after we die.
    13. I wonder what my life would be like if the internet had never been invented. Very, very different.
    14. I lack tact sometimes.
    15. I believe strongly in free expression. My school does not. Sometimes we have conflicts. Such as when I spam the censoring email filter. I have my own disciplinary file now, thanks to my fight against censorship. My favorite censored phrase to use: "Dick Cheney." True story.
    16. I used to write horribly embarassing fanfiction. No longer. And no one will ever find it. We all make mistakes, okay?
    17. There are moments in life when things are clear. These moments of clarity happen randomly and spontaneously, but never when I need them. Like right now.
    18. I worry about other people when I'm worried about myself because it distracts me. So it's still selfish. I'm working on it.
    19. I'm the only person my age that I know who writes regularly in cursive. Most of my assignments are written in cursive. Also in ink, I almost never use pencil. When we take the SAT, we're required to copy down a statement in cursive, and it takes everyone else ages because they're not used to it. 
    20. I love to draw, but I'm not actually any good at it.
    21. I don't have a driver's license, and I'm almost eighteen with no plans of getting one. Instead, I'm moving someplace with public transportation! I just can't decide which place.
    22. I'm almost eighteen and I've never had a boyfriend or kissed anyone. And lately, I find myself not caring. Which is good, I think.
    23. I'm not going to prom. I've been to one school dance and it was horribly dull. Also, full of people creating unnecessary drama. Not my thing. People think I'd go if someone asked me--but if someone asked me, that person obviously doesn't know me at all! 
    24. I don't like my name. In eighth grade, I changed it for a few months. I made people call me "October." After awhile, I changed back, because that didn't fit me, either, and it's easier when you don't have to convince people to call you something else.
    25. I'm a work in progress.
    Posted Feb 22 2009, 12:13 AM by jocelynp with 1 comment(s)

  • Paper Towns

    Thanks to Adele, I now know that my review of Paper Towns has been quoted on the Australian edition of the book! Wow. I've been quoted on books before, but a. nothing else this awesome and b. usually not as myself (they're reviews I wrote for other sites). Although sometimes I kind of wonder, what books are out there with my words that I don't know about? The publishers don't notify reviewers or anything. Check out Adele's post here with the quote from my review: http://persnicketysnark.blogspot.com/2009/02/paper-towns-john-green-and-great-ya.html. This is a pretty amazing book, if you haven't read it. Hint that it'll be awesome: there's a road trip involved. And who doesn't love a good road trip? It's the ultimate freedom. Being in the car with your friends, music blasting, the open road ahead of you.... Especially if it's a no-destination-in-mind kind of road trip. I want to take that trip so badly; however, I can't actually drive, so I'm recruiting friends who can. And live on the same side of the country as me. And then, who knows, maybe this summer we'll see the world's largest ball of twine and eat in greasy diners and stay in roach-infested motels and all the other road trip essentials! I can't wait.
    Posted Feb 20 2009, 05:03 PM by jocelynp with 1 comment(s)

  • Helium

    Helium (http://www.helium.com/) is a super cool website that will appeal to a lot of you--it pays you for your writing! Any of it! And, okay, the upfront payments are like $.50 at first (it's based on a scale of writing stars), but if you write ten articles, that's five dollars you didn't have before. Also, if you wouldn't mind too much, send me an email (pearcejm@gmail.com) and I'll send you an invite and then I earn a little if you do and then you can invite your friends and pass around the good karma! You can check out my page at http://www.helium.com/users/495254. I've written articles about choosing where to apply to college, participated in a debate about intelligence vs. wealth, reviewed some books, written a short story--there's a place for all different kinds of writing there.
    Posted Feb 15 2009, 08:31 PM by jocelynp with no comments

  • my thoughts on gaza and the israel/palestine conflict

    Hundreds of Palestinians have lost their lives in the past few days. Men, women, and children have died. Many of those who died were not fighters. They were schoolchildren. They were mothers. They were fathers. They were sisters and brothers and best friends. They were in love. They were loved. They had lives that were ended by this violence. Two young girls, two sisters, the oldest aged eleven, were killed. No matter what you believe about the politics of this conflict in the middle east, no one with a heart and soul can say that is right. Israel has always claimed to be on the right side of things. In the United States, we have always heard that Israel is on the right side of the conflict. Our country has supported Israel's claim on the Palestinian homeland. Our country has ignored the human rights of hundreds of thousands of people. Palestinian militants have committed inexcusable atrocities in the name of their home and their right not to be displaced by Israel. But Israeli forces have done unthinkably horrible things in the name of the homeland they claim based on history, a place already home to an entire population of people when the Jewish immigrants poured in. It's not about who has been right and wrong in history, though, because there are a thousand ways to decide that. It's about who is right and wrong today. It's about the country that has American support, the country that the Western media will show over and over again in a positive light. It's about Israel's decision to sacrifice the lives of innocent Palestinians because of what they want. And yet, our media will never see it that way. Our media will always glorify the Israeli cause. I am not condoning anything that the Palestinians has done that has cost innocent lives in their effort to reclaim their home; I am simply condemning Israeli actions today. Condemning is not a strong enough word, though. I have cried for the lives lost in Gaza these past few days, and for the lives that will be lost as Israel says it will not step down. And still, the headline on Fox News blames the Palestinians for retaliating, rather than addressing Israel's murder of civilians. Fox News chooses to focus on the handful of Israelis who have died. As regrettable as those deaths are, and believe me, they sadden me greatly, the American media chooses to vilify Palestine rather than focus on the hundreds of lives lost due to Israeli attacks. It has always been this way. It is time to forget the past. It is time to stop giving Israel a free pass because America believes that Israel has been wronged in the past, or because our media and mainstream society is prejudiced against Muslims. It is time to see people as people and not political entities. People are people everywhere, and in Gaza, innocent people are dying because of the Israeli government.
    Posted Dec 30 2008, 03:07 PM by jocelynp with no comments

  • Waffle House

    I’d never been to Waffle House. I’d heard that it was smoky and dirty and “totally sketch,” to use the words of one friend, especially after midnight. It was 12:30 AM, and my friend was driving me home from a birthday party, when I said, “Let’s go to Waffle House.” Naturally, this suggestion was met with, “Why?” I answered, “Because it’s an experience. Because I want to have experiences. And going to Waffle House in the middle of the night is an experience. I’ll give you ten dollars. And buy you a hash brown.” And he loves hash browns, and needed gas money, so we set off for Waffle House. When we walk in, it’s smoky and dirty and full of all kinds of people. The waitress who took our drink orders was all you can imagine: a middle aged woman with a smoke-tinged, southern accented voice, the kind of person you imagine might have a stereotypical waitress name, like “Flo,” and call you “honey,” and know your name if you come in often enough. The guy who brought our food is young, possibly a little stoned, and with ridiculous hair. He has to keep his head sideways to keep it out of his eyes, and when he asks about the check he says, “Do you want to get together, or separate, or…whoa. Get together. That sounded wrong.” I stare for a minute. Stoned? Or just stupid? I can’t get a good look at his eyes; the hair, remember? The people in the booth across from us are college-aged, a guy in a hoodie and a girl with a t-shirt with faded Hebrew writing across the front. Not too interesting, until someone who knew them comes in and says, “Wow, you guys have been here for like five hours.” Five hours on a Friday night at Waffle House…Interesting. Over two booths in the corner, there is a sign that says, “non-smoking section. Every Waffle House in America has a Non-Smoking Section,” however, that’s very nominal. Most people in Waffle House smoke, and you’re not too protected from it by sitting in those two booths. There is a “Did You Know…” trivia fact on the back of the receipt. It says that in the jukebox at every Waffle House, there are songs written just for Waffle House. One is about raisins in toast. I can’t come up with any change. Too bad. I’d have liked to hear those songs. We stay in Waffle House for two and a half hours. Many people in Waffle House past 2AM seem to be intoxicated and/or crazy, but you’d be surprised at how many seemingly normal people are spending time in Waffle House in the middle of the night. We talk about life. We talk about the future and our plans and ourselves. We tell silly stories and complain about how awkward it is when M and W, a couple, hang all over each other in public, and then can’t stand it anymore and go out to the car and we all pretend we don’t know what they’re doing in there. We talk about how all friendships are unbalanced equations; one person always cares more than the other. I’m always on the wrong side, the side that cares too much. I’m on the wrong side with our friendship, but it’s okay because we talk about it, and that makes it more okay somehow. We talk about everything. We watch people, from the group of women in fancy clothes to the gangster-types with bloodshot eyes. We wonder who puts Worcestershire sauce on what at Waffle House. We eat our hash brown and drink our cokes, and it’s an experience. That’s what I want out of life: experiences. I want to sit at Waffle House for two and a half hours in the middle of the night. I want to get lost driving to the dollar movie theater at 10pm on a Tuesday. I want to shut my eyes, spin, pick a direction, get in the car, and go. I want to see where I end up, who I see, and what happens. I want to watch life happen in weird places. I want to find a hole-in-the-wall Salvadoran restaurant in a strange city. That’s part of what I want from New York. I want to be in the city that never sleeps because the craziest things happen in the middle of the night. I want the experiences, and I hope that I can find someone to share them with. The friend in the Waffle House story is someone who is sometimes cooperative with my weird desires, but in a tolerant, indulgent way. I want somebody who wants to do these things as much as I do, not because I think anything specific will happen, but because I just want to see what might happen or what I might see or where I might end up. Is there anybody out there who’s this crazy? After mulling it over, I’ve decided that there’s one person who might be: a fellow writer. Don’t we always want to people watch and see what stories come out of it? Don’t we always want to see new places and meet new characters? And don’t we always want to come home and write it down, like I’m doing now? I can still feel the smoke in the back of my throat as I write this. I’m happy.
    Posted Dec 28 2008, 07:19 PM by jocelynp with 2 comment(s)

  • Exciting News

    Two bits of exciting news, one writing and one college. First, the writing--my piece about a trip to Morocco is currently first rated on Teen Ink website's travel and culture section (http://www.teenink.com/raw/Travel/) ! Read it at http://www.teenink.com/raw/Travel/article/59459/Bienvenue-Dans-Notre-Pays/. College news: I got accepted to Fordham University's Lincoln Center campus! With a full-tuition semifinalist scholarship! Nothing's for sure yet, but I'd be really surprised if I don't end up there, at Fordham, in Manhattan next year :-) New York Red girls, we must hang out!
    Posted Dec 18 2008, 03:47 PM by jocelynp with no comments

  • Fiction as Worthwhile Reading

     

    Few people would argue that reading, in general, is bad for your mind. However, I have encountered some people who seem to think that the value of reading is lessened by the type of reading you’re doing. Fiction is apparently less worthwhile reading than non-fiction, and even in the world of reading fiction, adult fiction is often considered far more worthy of our time.

    To which I say: ridiculous! I won’t go into why young adult fiction is great because there are plenty of others who have articulated that quite nicely. My point today is that we can learn a lot about the real world from fiction (no matter what the age of the intended audience is). This, of course, is not limited to the specifics that I want to point out; we can learn about anything in the real world from fiction. Fiction has often been a better teacher than all my years in school. It has given me ideas, knowledge, questions, and the means to find answers.

    Fiction can teach us to think. It can teach us new ideas, and it can teach us to question what we have been taught. Not that it is wrong, but to question, which is vital. To accept something blindly keeps our minds weak; to open our eyes and question makes us strong. This is a lesson I have learned from fiction.

    Fiction can teach us about how people interact, and how they think. People do all sorts of crazy things, and maybe we can’t walk up to them and ask them why, but, through reading stories about all kinds of people, we can try to figure it out ourselves. This sort of lesson is universal throughout fiction; we learn about people whether the book we are reading takes place at Hogwarts or in Sydney,  Australia. Even better, we learn about people whose backgrounds may differ from our own. We learn that we are all people, no matter where we come from.

    Fiction can teach us about far-off places we don’t get the chance to experience for ourselves. I’ve never been to Miami, Florida, for example. However, I’ve read several great books with Miami as an integral part of the story, so I’d like to think I know something about it. Last year, I went to New York City for the first time. I’d never been there, but it was still, in a way, familiar; I’ve read countless books set in New York. I recognized things I’d never seen!

    Fiction can teach us about history. Though I’ve taken several wonderful history courses, I’ve never had a class that went in-depth about the Holocaust and World War II (apparently, it’s never been important on the exam–don’t we love test-centered learning?). As awful as this part of history is, it is also important. It is important to understand what happened, to understand how awful it was, and to understand how it happened, so as to try to prevent history from repeating itself. Even though I never learned much about it at school, I know a lot about this period in history. Why? Because of the countless books I’ve read on it, most of them fiction (though, to be honest, some of it was non-fiction as well). Take any time period in history, and read some fiction set there; I guarantee you’ll learn loads.

    Fiction can teach us to express ourselves. We learn by example, and the example here is to be able to write our thoughts, to be articulate and use language to its fullest extent. We can express our ideas, and communicate with other people. From reading, no matter what book, we learn new tricks of language, new vocabulary, or, if it’s poorly written, what not to do.

    Fiction can teach us about possibilities. It teaches us to dream. Just because something has not happened to us does not mean it is out of reach. Fiction lets us touch these dreams, lets us hope they can become reality, and even lets them become like reality, if only for a few hours. I am sorry for anyone who does not read fiction because it is not “real;” I am sorry for anyone who has lost their imagination. 

    Posted Oct 28 2008, 07:17 PM by jocelynp with no comments

  • The Most Important Books To Me

     

    I have books that I immensely enjoyed, and am in continuing awe of the skill of their authors. I have books that fall into only one of those two categories (I appreciate how well done they are, or I loved reading them). I have books that I think everyone should read because everyone will love them. I have books that I appreciate because of what they have to say about society. And so on.

    This is why the question of “favorite” books is so difficult for me. I tend to mix it up, with books that I appreciate for different reasons. Today, I want to talk about another category: books that are personally, emotionally important to me for some reason or another. There are numerous books here, but today I want to talk about what I would say are, hands down, the most important books to me. And that would be the Harry Potter series.

    It might sound silly, but these books have been with me since I was a small child. Whenever my gaze happens to fall on the bit of my bookshelves that holds the seven volumes (plus Quidditch Through The Ages and Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them), I am enormously sad that there will be no more (The Tales of Beedle The Bard’s upcoming release does a bit to relieve that, though), but still happy in a nostalgic sort of way. To me, each book is not just linked to the wonderful stories inside, or to the characters that became friends (or dreadful enemies or incredible annoyances, depending on the character, the point is that they all became much more real to me than fictional characters)–these books are linked to parts of my life.

    The first three books remind me of the part of my life when I first stepped out of my shell a bit. I was very intensely shy as a child, and the time when I first made friends (rather than my mother making them for me) was around the same part of my life that I first discovered the Harry Potter series through my third grade teacher. And what did my friends and I do? We talked about Harry Potter and pretended we went to Hogwarts! This time in my life was my first step towards independence, towards being my own person, in lots of ways that I didn’t even begin to realize then. But now, when I look at those books, I am reminded of it, and of who I was then.

    And so on for books four through seven. These books mean a lot to me, as you can tell, to the point where, though I realize they’re far from perfect, and can even point out a few criticisms (one word: camping), I find it incredibly difficult to be objectively critical of the series. Except the epilogue, which was kind of awful.

    What is it for you? The author or book or series that you love so much, for some reason or another, that it is simply above and beyond feelings for any other book?

    Posted Oct 28 2008, 07:16 PM by jocelynp with no comments

  • The Value of the Internet

     

    If you know me, you know that I want to see the world. You know that I devote quite a bit of my time, energy, and money to getting to experience new places. I just wanted to share some thoughts & quotes about travel in general today.

    Idea #1:

    I see travel as the one of the most important ways of expanding human beings’ understanding of each other. Through travel we discover humility, love, friendship, passion and ourselves.

    -Kirsten Cargill

    I don’t actually know who this person is, but I love what she has to say (the quote came in one of my Why Go emails). I agree 100%. Understanding each other, and the world, is vitally important to humanity. There are things we simply cannot learn from books, things we must experience ourselves, in both a small, personal sense, and in a big picture sense.

    How can we ever expect to fix the big problems if we don’t understand each other on a personal level? How can we expect to fix international problems without an understanding of how these problems came to be? This sort of understanding includes culture and religion and history and politics–some things you can learn from books–and also a personal understanding of how people think, which is something that cannot fully be learned from a textbook.

    In support of that, I have another quote from Why Go:

    Travel is the key of the life time. I’ve never figured out anything without being there.

    –Jeffrey Sachs

    Yes! And thanks to these people for articulating my feelings so much better than I am able to. As much as I love to read about different parts of the world, to read about life, I know that it is really no substitute for the understanding that comes with experience.

    Idea #2:

    Is travel selfish? I’ve been accused of hypocrisy because I want to help people but I also want to travel. I don’t think that this is hypocritical. Certainly, there is a selfish way to travel. Staying in an all-inclusive resort in Jamaica, never leaving your poolside chair and trashy magazines, is selfish. But it is also not what I think of as genuine travel, because you could just as easily do it at home (except the weather wouldn’t be as nice for most of us). It is vacation. Which, I suppose, has its place, but it is not what I am talking about when I say "travel."

    Travel is about understanding the world. It’s about opening our eyes to what is really going on. It’s about experiences that make us better people, experiences that we’d never have at home. And with these experiences, with this understanding, we should get some feeling of social responsibility. We see things happening abroad that would never happen at home, and we should all make it part of our goals to help everyone have food, clean water, education, healthcare–the things that many of us take for granted.

    Of course, ignorant "help" can exacerbate a problem. To genuinely help, a thorough understanding of the situation is necessary. And this goes back to idea #1–this is not something you can learn from a textbook or television documentary.

    Idea #3:

    Is meeting an individual traveler the peace process in itself?

    –Susan Hack

    Peace is something else which must come from understanding and experience. Peace must also happen on an individual level as well as a larger-scale political level.

    Hate and prejudice come from ignorance. People hate whatever group (illegal Mexican immigrants, Muslims, whatever) because they fail to understand them as people. There is also ignorance of the situation–not understanding, for example, that radical Islamists do not represent the beliefs of the vast majority of Muslims–but I believe that a lot of it comes from a lack of experience and understanding of individuals.

    When we connect on an individual level with people different from ourselves, we are dispelling our prejudices, conscious or not, against other people. It is much easier to hate an ambiguous ethnic or religious group than it is to hate a person. Travel allows us to step outside of our comfort zones and connect with so many different people from different places, different faiths, and different cultures–connections we would not make at home. Of course, the internet makes more connections possible, but it still lacks the immediate realism of a face-to-face connection.

    The Final Idea:

    There is no substitute for actual experiences. Travel is a collection of experiences that lead to understanding that is impossible from the comfort of home. Travel is a series of connections that allow for even more unique understanding. Understanding is the key to solving our problems, on a personal level and on a global level. Thus, travel is a necessity.

    Posted Oct 28 2008, 07:15 PM by jocelynp with no comments

  • Thoughts on Travel

     

    If you know me, you know that I want to see the world. You know that I devote quite a bit of my time, energy, and money to getting to experience new places. I just wanted to share some thoughts & quotes about travel in general today.

    Idea #1:

    I see travel as the one of the most important ways of expanding human beings’ understanding of each other. Through travel we discover humility, love, friendship, passion and ourselves.

    -Kirsten Cargill

    I don’t actually know who this person is, but I love what she has to say (the quote came in one of my Why Go emails). I agree 100%. Understanding each other, and the world, is vitally important to humanity. There are things we simply cannot learn from books, things we must experience ourselves, in both a small, personal sense, and in a big picture sense.

    How can we ever expect to fix the big problems if we don’t understand each other on a personal level? How can we expect to fix international problems without an understanding of how these problems came to be? This sort of understanding includes culture and religion and history and politics–some things you can learn from books–and also a personal understanding of how people think, which is something that cannot fully be learned from a textbook.

    In support of that, I have another quote from Why Go:

    Travel is the key of the life time. I’ve never figured out anything without being there.

    –Jeffrey Sachs

    Yes! And thanks to these people for articulating my feelings so much better than I am able to. As much as I love to read about different parts of the world, to read about life, I know that it is really no substitute for the understanding that comes with experience.

    Idea #2:

    Is travel selfish? I’ve been accused of hypocrisy because I want to help people but I also want to travel. I don’t think that this is hypocritical. Certainly, there is a selfish way to travel. Staying in an all-inclusive resort in Jamaica, never leaving your poolside chair and trashy magazines, is selfish. But it is also not what I think of as genuine travel, because you could just as easily do it at home (except the weather wouldn’t be as nice for most of us). It is vacation. Which, I suppose, has its place, but it is not what I am talking about when I say "travel."

    Travel is about understanding the world. It’s about opening our eyes to what is really going on. It’s about experiences that make us better people, experiences that we’d never have at home. And with these experiences, with this understanding, we should get some feeling of social responsibility. We see things happening abroad that would never happen at home, and we should all make it part of our goals to help everyone have food, clean water, education, healthcare–the things that many of us take for granted.

    Of course, ignorant "help" can exacerbate a problem. To genuinely help, a thorough understanding of the situation is necessary. And this goes back to idea #1–this is not something you can learn from a textbook or television documentary.

    Idea #3:

    Is meeting an individual traveler the peace process in itself?

    –Susan Hack

    Peace is something else which must come from understanding and experience. Peace must also happen on an individual level as well as a larger-scale political level.

    Hate and prejudice come from ignorance. People hate whatever group (illegal Mexican immigrants, Muslims, whatever) because they fail to understand them as people. There is also ignorance of the situation–not understanding, for example, that radical Islamists do not represent the beliefs of the vast majority of Muslims–but I believe that a lot of it comes from a lack of experience and understanding of individuals.

    When we connect on an individual level with people different from ourselves, we are dispelling our prejudices, conscious or not, against other people. It is much easier to hate an ambiguous ethnic or religious group than it is to hate a person. Travel allows us to step outside of our comfort zones and connect with so many different people from different places, different faiths, and different cultures–connections we would not make at home. Of course, the internet makes more connections possible, but it still lacks the immediate realism of a face-to-face connection.

    The Final Idea:

    There is no substitute for actual experiences. Travel is a collection of experiences that lead to understanding that is impossible from the comfort of home. Travel is a series of connections that allow for even more unique understanding. Understanding is the key to solving our problems, on a personal level and on a global level. Thus, travel is a necessity.

    Posted Oct 28 2008, 07:14 PM by jocelynp with no comments

  • bienvenue dans notre pays

    I wrote about a trip I took last year to Morocco. It was one of my many ideas for college essays, but all the advice I read says not to write about your trip abroad because the topic is far too common. So I took part of that, changed it a bit, and submitted it to Teen Ink, where you can now read it on the ‘Teen Ink Raw’ section of the website. I hope they accept it for the magazine, but, either way, you can read it here,  and I’d appreciate feedback (constructive criticism allowed!) if you have any.
    Posted Oct 28 2008, 07:13 PM by jocelynp with 2 comment(s)

  • The Purpose of School

     

    I’ve been in the same public school system since my first day of Kindergarten, when I was dragged into the classroom kicking and screaming. I’m now a high school senior eagerly counting the days to graduation. (131 school days, not counting weekends and holidays.)

    I don’t think school has taught me much.

    That isn’t to say that I don’t know much; I know plenty. Of course, there’s loads more that I don’t know, but isn’t that true for everyone?

    However, with the exception of a very small handful of classes, what I have learned has not been in class.

    Perhaps some of it has been a result of class; I peruse my textbooks on my own. I don’t necessarily read the required parts at the required times, though. I read what interests me.

    I have learned through reading books on my own. Some are what you might call educational. Most are not. I successfully wrote an essay on last year’s AP World History exam (on which I received a 5) using information I’d gotten from fiction.

    I have learned through the internet. Just by reading blogs, doing google searches to answer whatever questions occur to me, you know, just general messing around on the internet, I have learned about topics from technology to unschooling.

    Which is what I’m about to discuss. I first discovered unschooling, I believe, from Lisa Chellman’s review of Brian Mandabach’s wonderful book …Or Not.

    From there, I did my own research into the topic, using books and the internet, and I only wish I’d discovered it earlier in my school career. It seems a bit pointless in my final stretch to wish I’d been unschooled, but I do.

    I am curious. I learn on my own. I only wish I could have that much control over my education! I believe in education. I just don’t believe in school. Though I’ve had two classes which are the exception to this rule, school is not about education. School is about test scores. School is about doing as you’re told. School is about not thinking outside the box. School is about conformity.

    No, not in all cases–if you’re a teacher reading this and disagreeing, maybe your classroom doesn’t follow these rules. This is a generalization.

    In any case, I would love to learn on my own. I would love to have the time to explore all the topics that interest me, rather than memorizing formulas for my chemistry class. Is chemistry important? Yes. But I already knew some of how it worked, just not the technicalities of it. And I figure that, if I had never taken the class, I’d still learn what I need to.

    When I have a need or a desire to learn something, I find answers to my questions (of which I have a lot). I think that most people (were they never brainwashed by typical schooling) would be the same.

    In general, I do not believe that school has served me well. I used to beg my mother to homeschool me almost daily. She always said I needed socialization. I firmly believe that there are other ways to get that besides going to school. School is not necessary for education or socialization. It’s more of a hindrance to the former. Natural curiosity would serve us well enough, if only our parents would believe that!

    Posted Oct 28 2008, 07:12 PM by jocelynp with no comments

  • Back From The Dead

     I know I've been neglecting this blog. I find the wordpress software to be a lot more user-friendly, so I've been blogging plenty on my two wordpress blogs, my personal blog and my book blog. Check them both out! But, for the moment, I'll repost some of those posts here. First up, food for a thought from Mark Twain:

    “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.” - Mark Twain

    Good advice, and a wakeup call. I’m a senior in high school, and I’ve got some big decisions to make. Making the “safe” decision or the most “reasonable” decision could be a way of not living life, and something I’ll regret in twenty years. I don’t want to have made the safe decision twenty years from now. I want to have made the crazy-passionate-life-loving decision. I want to have stories to tell, and I want to still be living a life I love. The daily grind is not for me. Everyone says that. You can say it, or you can live it, and I want to live the life I want to live. I don’t want to end up in a life that was there. I want to make great things happen.

     

    Posted Oct 28 2008, 07:08 PM by jocelynp with no comments
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