Hello, Estella.
"You stock and stone!" exclaimed Mrs. Havisham. "You cold, cold heart!"
"What?" said Estella, preserving her attitude of indifference as she leaned against the great chimney-piece and only moved her eyes. "Do you reproach me for being cruel? You?"
"Are you not?" was the fierce retort.
"You should know," said Estella, "that I am what you have made me. Take all the praise, all the blame; take all the success, all the failure; in short, take me."
__________________________________________________________________________________
Nurture versus Nurture: one of the greatest topics of debate ever. Discussed in literary circles, among parents, teachers, students, psychologists- everywhere. It seems to plague people. Am I a product of my surroundings, or am I simply who I always would have been?
Four and a half years ago, I was a regular 6th grader with regular beliefs at a regular public school and had regular friends. I was just making my way through life- hated school, longed for the weekend, lived for summer. Online games were recreation, fruit snacks were conversation. I liked monkeys and puppies and American Idol, and I liked to read on occasion. I was weird, "hyper," frequently got on sugar highs, and liked all that stuff jiz cuz. I had my kinks, but didn't we all? They were merely the same ones in different parts of the chain.
Four years ago, I was a "not-so-normal" 7th grader with "not-so-normal" beliefs at a rich bratty private school where I didn't fit in. Just a girl who'd been "abandoned" by her friends and was thankful only for God, sometimes, and my one bestfriend I clung to desperately. I was petrified that I'd become a private school kid if I stayed at Bear Creek for too long and fought assimilation with every ounce of my being. I hated my parents for making us switch schools, thought no one could understand me, and hid behind false pretense so no one could dare try.
Three years ago, I didn't care if I was normal or not, I just was who I was. I was a firecracker. I was rebellious and defiant and proud of the power I had to make myself whatever the hell I wanted to be. I was extreme, I was emotional, I was married to my iPod and dynamic enough to be the music I listened to. I was death, I was life, I was obsessive, apathetic; recessive, outgoing; trapped by the past and relentlessly coaxed on by the future.
Two years ago, I was a strong-willed Freshman with a dangerous appetite for growth. I learned hard, fell hard, grew hard in all areas. I was driven and prayerful and disturbed and bold. I lived in my my head and in my own music. Rather than a firecracker, I was more like an electron, flying around some central point at dangerous, radical speeds, too dizzy to see much of the time.
This blog is a product of everything I became last year. Rational. Outspoken. Convinced. Nerdy. Committed. Happy. I evaluate everything I see, I'm obsessed with all kinds of learning (excepting just a few...). I'm a perfectionist, picky about grades, I like to know I've succeeded. My supply of books has more than doubled in the past 12 months. I have kept myself busy. School came to consume my life, and as a Junior, I now bite off just a little more than I can chew, just to see if I can pull it off.
Sound like a Bear Creeker to you? I never used to be any of this.
I've nearly lost the ability to make smalltalk. I don't believe in sugar highs. "Just because" is a circle, and I have learned what a circle is. Bad speling & gramer is anoying, and failing to capitolize i's means youre ethos just like DIED.
Music is education.
Church is education.
Friends are education.
The radio is education.
All conversation is education.
Recreation is education.
Love is education.
I don't consciously think of it that way most of the time, but that's the lens on everything I do, say, hear and touch. Pretty much the only place I get out of my bubble is church. And let's face it, though 6th grade gave me an invaluable (now fading) understanding of the way the "outside" works, I fail to step back into my old role when I step back into the old society.
What do I do with that? I love my life, but it's always threatened by the enticing repulsive arrogance of elitism. I don't believe it needs to be that way. It never is until I step into a place where I am abnormal, once again. It's when I leave my own little crowd of nerds and education freaks that are- relatively speaking- all just like me. At Bear Creek, I am not abnormal in matters of intelligence, commitment, motivation, or interest. I don't speak differently, I don't think differently, I don't use big words. But outside of those 4 or 5 hallways, it's as if all of those things are invariably strange and misinterpreted.
My brother, Jaco, and I spent the evening at the Smiths' yesterday. They are good family friends of ours, and are also Afrikaners. Their children are Emma (7) and Gerhard (going on 5), and the four of us get along very well. We were watching this horrible kids' movie: towards the end, there's a scene in which this 11-year-old kid decides to become a spy, essentially following the good guys and saving the day. Here Emma lost it, saying, "That boy is so dumb!" When I asked her why, she sighed, as if stating the obvious: "Only grownups can be whatever they want."
I'm rather inclined to believe she's right.
By no means do I suddenly deny free will. We aren't robots. We have choices to make, and those choices we use to make ourselves (or our children) more or less what we want- though our desires are debatably a product of our original environment. But rather than being a molded product of our surroundings, we are limited by them. Bubbles, bubbles, bubbles! We all live one and must abandon the first if we'd like to adopt another. But unless we're willing to risk desertion, we'll always be the bubble we were first blown into.
__________________________________________________________________________________
Miss Havisham sat listening, but still made no answer.
"So," said Estella, "I must be taken as I have been made. The success is not mine, the failure is not mine, but the two together have made me."
"What?" said Estella, preserving her attitude of indifference as she leaned against the great chimney-piece and only moved her eyes. "Do you reproach me for being cruel? You?"
"Are you not?" was the fierce retort.
"You should know," said Estella, "that I am what you have made me. Take all the praise, all the blame; take all the success, all the failure; in short, take me."
__________________________________________________________________________________
Nurture versus Nurture: one of the greatest topics of debate ever. Discussed in literary circles, among parents, teachers, students, psychologists- everywhere. It seems to plague people. Am I a product of my surroundings, or am I simply who I always would have been?
Four and a half years ago, I was a regular 6th grader with regular beliefs at a regular public school and had regular friends. I was just making my way through life- hated school, longed for the weekend, lived for summer. Online games were recreation, fruit snacks were conversation. I liked monkeys and puppies and American Idol, and I liked to read on occasion. I was weird, "hyper," frequently got on sugar highs, and liked all that stuff jiz cuz. I had my kinks, but didn't we all? They were merely the same ones in different parts of the chain.
Four years ago, I was a "not-so-normal" 7th grader with "not-so-normal" beliefs at a rich bratty private school where I didn't fit in. Just a girl who'd been "abandoned" by her friends and was thankful only for God, sometimes, and my one bestfriend I clung to desperately. I was petrified that I'd become a private school kid if I stayed at Bear Creek for too long and fought assimilation with every ounce of my being. I hated my parents for making us switch schools, thought no one could understand me, and hid behind false pretense so no one could dare try.
Three years ago, I didn't care if I was normal or not, I just was who I was. I was a firecracker. I was rebellious and defiant and proud of the power I had to make myself whatever the hell I wanted to be. I was extreme, I was emotional, I was married to my iPod and dynamic enough to be the music I listened to. I was death, I was life, I was obsessive, apathetic; recessive, outgoing; trapped by the past and relentlessly coaxed on by the future.
Two years ago, I was a strong-willed Freshman with a dangerous appetite for growth. I learned hard, fell hard, grew hard in all areas. I was driven and prayerful and disturbed and bold. I lived in my my head and in my own music. Rather than a firecracker, I was more like an electron, flying around some central point at dangerous, radical speeds, too dizzy to see much of the time.
This blog is a product of everything I became last year. Rational. Outspoken. Convinced. Nerdy. Committed. Happy. I evaluate everything I see, I'm obsessed with all kinds of learning (excepting just a few...). I'm a perfectionist, picky about grades, I like to know I've succeeded. My supply of books has more than doubled in the past 12 months. I have kept myself busy. School came to consume my life, and as a Junior, I now bite off just a little more than I can chew, just to see if I can pull it off.
Sound like a Bear Creeker to you? I never used to be any of this.
I've nearly lost the ability to make smalltalk. I don't believe in sugar highs. "Just because" is a circle, and I have learned what a circle is. Bad speling & gramer is anoying, and failing to capitolize i's means youre ethos just like DIED.
Music is education.
Church is education.
Friends are education.
The radio is education.
All conversation is education.
Recreation is education.
Love is education.
I don't consciously think of it that way most of the time, but that's the lens on everything I do, say, hear and touch. Pretty much the only place I get out of my bubble is church. And let's face it, though 6th grade gave me an invaluable (now fading) understanding of the way the "outside" works, I fail to step back into my old role when I step back into the old society.
What do I do with that? I love my life, but it's always threatened by the enticing repulsive arrogance of elitism. I don't believe it needs to be that way. It never is until I step into a place where I am abnormal, once again. It's when I leave my own little crowd of nerds and education freaks that are- relatively speaking- all just like me. At Bear Creek, I am not abnormal in matters of intelligence, commitment, motivation, or interest. I don't speak differently, I don't think differently, I don't use big words. But outside of those 4 or 5 hallways, it's as if all of those things are invariably strange and misinterpreted.
My brother, Jaco, and I spent the evening at the Smiths' yesterday. They are good family friends of ours, and are also Afrikaners. Their children are Emma (7) and Gerhard (going on 5), and the four of us get along very well. We were watching this horrible kids' movie: towards the end, there's a scene in which this 11-year-old kid decides to become a spy, essentially following the good guys and saving the day. Here Emma lost it, saying, "That boy is so dumb!" When I asked her why, she sighed, as if stating the obvious: "Only grownups can be whatever they want."
I'm rather inclined to believe she's right.
By no means do I suddenly deny free will. We aren't robots. We have choices to make, and those choices we use to make ourselves (or our children) more or less what we want- though our desires are debatably a product of our original environment. But rather than being a molded product of our surroundings, we are limited by them. Bubbles, bubbles, bubbles! We all live one and must abandon the first if we'd like to adopt another. But unless we're willing to risk desertion, we'll always be the bubble we were first blown into.
__________________________________________________________________________________
Miss Havisham sat listening, but still made no answer.
"So," said Estella, "I must be taken as I have been made. The success is not mine, the failure is not mine, but the two together have made me."
I am not surprised at all that with the luxurious education that you are getting that you find a lack of english composition skills, punctuation, and spelling errors to be irritating. However, I, on the contrary, find mispelled words charming at times. Specifically when in love letters. It is harder for some to write than others... you know that. So, with that said, I find a certain beauty and poetry in imperfect writing. More so in letters and songs... but I have ways been one who doesn't follow the letter of the law well. I'm more of a "spirit of the law" sort of creature which definitely annoys some people. :~) This comment is not to discount your freedom and perogative to have your annoyances. I guess we all have them. I am much more annoyed with bad body odor and bad breathe because it directly offends me than I am with badd spelleeng and punctuatio'n.
ReplyDelete:) The context in which bad spelling and grammar and punctuation are bad is the one I was addressing: argument. When someone's trying to make a point or have any regular conversation, posting comments on YouTube or the like, I'm immediately less likely to listen to people who have ABSOLUTELY no command of proper English and display no desire to try.
ReplyDeleteThere are instances in which it can be acceptable, namely when it's intentional or when the purpose of the writing is a reflection of the writer's character and not a misrepresentation of the topic at hand. I am also much more a "spirit of the law" sort of creature, and I find it annoys people too.
Badd spelleeng IS like body odor, it's like bad breath, it's like wearing beat-up Converse when performing classical music.
I think I particularly like the idea of wearing beat up converse while playing classical music. It's like poetry. It's like an ironic situation. I used to wear jeans under my dresses when my mom would put me in them for church... ofcourse she made me take the jeans off before we left the house. I lift my glass to all of the spirit of the law creatures of this earth. I think we make it more beautiful.
ReplyDeleteHow about sweats and an old T-shirt to a business meeting? Bed-head hair at your wedding? PJs to a meeting with the President? It's not a law, but it's a mentality, and these things are a pretty obvious reflect that mentality. There are exceptions, but chances are you don't care all that much if you show up on your wedding day in a bathrobe and slippers.
ReplyDeleteWell, when I was in high-school actually, I was involved in all sports and in band too. One of the things that we used to do at our school was have black-light colorguard and musical shows where the band would play music and the flag girls would dance around in glowing clothes. Back then, I was strongly convinced that I was actually going to have a black-light wedding show, and that the groomsmen would be in white glowing spedos, top hats and bowties, and the bridesmaids would be in glowing white bikinis dancing with flags. Well, now that I am older, I don't have any girlfriends that would agree to that, I've never worn a bikini and now the thought of spedos makes me want to vomit, but, it's funny how my high-school mind was so random. I don't really wish for marriage at this point of my life, however, if I did get married I think now it would be in a beautiful traditional gown with white tuxes and black ties, and barefoot on the California beach. Simple, scenic, and perhaps hawaiian chicken and coconut rice for the reception. Not too "out there".
ReplyDeleteBTW- I thought your last comment was hillarious... it seriously made me laugh out loud.
ReplyDelete