I Don't Have Wings... I Can Still Fly

  "I feel like I can fly."
                      -Speak pg 186
  How does it feel like... you know, to fly? Is it a good feeling or can words even describe that feeling? A lot of people say that when their dreams have finally been accomplished or when something really good happens but to be honest, I've never felt that way. I might've felt that way when I saw Justin Bieber at the Today Show but I don't know... I wasn't really flying. Not that I mean that literally. Does that make me a nonbeliever? I guess it's only because my young age hasn't seen, much less experienced enough. I don't think this has to do with time though. It only has to do with what has happened in my life so far.
  But thirteen years. It seems like a short time when you measure it in years but each significant moment stretches my life even further. Tears add an extra five years to my life and every smile adds a decade more to it. Though I would rather smile and laugh my butt off, I open my arms wide and welcome sadness and a waterfall of tears too. Tears help me grow up. It's as if pain has helped me understand more that anything can happen to anyone and that just because you're a good person doesn't mean all the things in the world are going to come your way. There's work that comes before success and there's that same amount of work the can also lead to failure. Life is just about learning, no matter how old you are.
   I didn't even realize I was growing until the ground seemed further apart from me as each year passed by. When I looked down all I saw was concrete. Sure it held me tight but I've never liked the concrete sidewalks because they're really rough. That's when I thought of Melinda Sordino.
  In Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, Melinda Sordino was a girl who was only too young when she ended up calling the cops that summer night during the party because she had been raped. Upon entering high school, everyone she knew hated her... even people that didn't know her. It wasn't her fault. She didn't talk after that. It took her a whole school year for her to finally open up and realize that she wasn't alone. Her increase in confidence really began when she saw the note she wrote on her bathroom stall filled with comments. She had no voice but she began to recover it when she took the decision to write that name, Andy Evans, which started a whole conversation that led her to think, "I feel like I can fly." She had grown since that party where she was raped because she realized that what had happened to her was an event which proved to her that the younger and more innocent you are, life has a larger impact on you. If she didn't have people like Mr. Freeman, her art teacher, in her life, she wouldn't have been able to make it through and recover from that traumatizing moment that silenced her for a long time. She grew and got rid of her fear and shame. She went from having innocence to being a more experienced person.
   Melinda was never a bad person. What happened to her could happen to anybody. The lesson here is that being a good person doesn't guarantee you everything nice in life. What Melinda did was suffer and in the end she realized that the right thing to do was to tell someone she was raped because holding in those tears only made it worse.
  There are so many things I've come to learn as I've gotten older yet none of them have impacted my life as much as Melinda's experience. I want to fly. Melinda didn't have wings but she was able to fly. She knew what she had to do and after succeeding at something that was worth working hard for, she flew. She didn't fly away though, she used those wings to just escape her past. Her reason for flying was because she had matured faster than others due to what she had been through. Spreading wings is just a matter of feeling like you've actually accomplished something huge. It doesn't have to be bad it could be the best thing in your life that causes you to fly. What do I do when I have wings? You can fly wherever you want but having wings doesn't mean you're free. The wind in part controls the direction you fly in if you're weak enough to let it. Once you become accustomed to them you can choose where to go as long as you know where you're going and are able to control those wings yourself. I might not be able to see or feel them but when I need them, wings will be there to reach out and help me when I find it hard to escape or succeed on my own.

Life's Tough... But You Gotta Fit In

  The end of the year (and of my time here at 51) is coming to an end. Well... that was short. Despite the short length of time that I've spent at 51, the things I learned and what I went through here make my middle school experience feel like it lasted an eternity. But of course the routine is similar each year, with the exception of different teachers; I meet my teachers and for the rest of the year I sit down in their classes and listen intently to whatever lesson has been planned for the day. In each marking period that flies by they evaluate me on my academic performance in their class, without ever truly knowing me as the girl in the hectic city of New York that seems to be controlled by the adults.
  I'm thinking about when I was younger and I was anxious to be an adult in hopes of one day being able to be a part of the "real world" where I could do whatever I wanted and people actually heard my voice. I had thought that size measured your power in this world. Once you enter middle school, the rules sort of change. You don't just run up to a teacher because someone told you you're ugly or that your outfit clashes. You have to learn to take those comments and get over it. You go from being friends with everyone to being labeled without warning. It's a complicated thing... being a teenager. You deal with the stress of growing up and taking that step from being a child to becoming an adult.
  In Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, Melinda Sordino is a girl who has just entered Merryweather High and doesn't have the best attitude in the world about high school. As soon as she enters Merryweather High she realizes that her life won't be the same; all of her friends, or ex friends, hate her. Ever since that summer party, she has stayed away from people she knew and chooses to suffer alone. Melinda can't seem to face her fear and tell someone her secret. She wants to tell someone but something in her always stops her.
"I watch myself in the mirror across the room. Ugh. My hair is completely hidden under the comforter. I look for shapes in my face... I can't stop biting my lips. It looks like my mouth belongs to someone else, someone I don't even know. I get out of bed and take down the mirror. I put it in the back of my closet, facing the wall."
Reading this I realized that Melinda would have to overcome uncertainty and learn to accept herself as she is. Not only that but she'll have to overcome her fear of whatever happened that night, which I'm sure I'll find out as I continue reading. The mirror Melinda put away represents her face and who she sees when she looks in the mirror. Her decision to put the mirror away, facing the wall represents that she doesn't know who she really is yet and she doesn't recognize the girl in the mirror. It can also mean that she doesn't like who she sees when she takes a look at the mirror so by hiding herself from her would make accepting herself less of an issue. She lacks the confidence and certainty at the beginning of the book to know who she really is so she uses her eyes to judge who she is and who others are; she's afraid of not only her past but looking deeper within a person. Her lack of communication with her parents also makes overcoming her fears worse.
  I think I picked a great time to read this book since I'll be graduating from middle school and moving on to high school. I shudder at the thought that I'll be entering a much more complicated population of teenagers... not to mention the essays and piles of homework that might stretch out for miles. Overcoming fear not only means to stop running away from what you fear, I think it also means to accept yourself and to know yourself well enough to be able to choose how you'll overcome your fear wisely. If you accept yourself for who you are, that extra boost of confidence will undoubtedly work towards finally standing up against your fear, no matter how big or small that fear is. Labels can be placed on you by others but those labels mean nothing unless you start to believe in them and you begin to place labels on others. You aren't just the person you see in the mirror whenever you look into the reflection. The person in the reflection might not even be you but it might be who you want to believe you are. When you look into a mirror the first thing you say shouldn't be "OMG I'm so fat!!" It should be "Hey, it's me." Notice the bigger picture before you notice the flaws in the picture. You can only "fit in" if you know who you are without having anyone tell you who they think you should be.

Don't Be Too Quick to Judge Others *Spoiler Alert*

  So I'm very sorry that I'm writing this blog post in late I was writing my blog post on Thursday and I was checking my spelling when I spelled significance wrong. I clicked delete and my entire post was deleted! It took me an hour and a half to write it and it was already 11:30 so I decided not to write it again (I'm very sorry... I was just so depressed knowing my work  had gone down the drain).

  Over the years I've kept hearing my teachers and others around me say "Don't judge a book by its cover." I've tried many times to do that, yet there are many circumstances where I judge people from what I hear or see them do. If he did this to her or she slapped her for whatever reason, it's all the same. We don't try to find the reason why whatever happened, happened; we shouldn't be too quick to judge others.
  In Midnight, the 7th book in the Vampire Diaries series by L.J Smith, Damon was turned to a human and now he's trying to go back to the Dark Dimensions. Meanwhile, Stefan is still recovering from being imprisoned in the Dark Dimensions by Shinichi and Misao, two Kitsune siblings. For the first few days of being a human... again, Damon sat in his room the whole time. One day Elena decides to bring Damon his food but she finds herself being threatened with a knife at her throat. As soon as Damon realizes who it is, he lets go but there are marks from the knife. After a conversation between them, Elena finds that she can't put to words how she's feeling, even though she knows that she loves Stefan. Yet, there's something about the way Damon is that sparks something in her...
  "'Darling, what are you doing--?' Elena cried, then stopped, wide-eyed, two scalded fingers flying to her lips. Standing in the doorway, not two yards away from them, was petite Bonnie McCullough... Elena knew exactly what she was thinking. The whole house had devoted itself to making Damon comfortable-- while Damon stole what rightfully belonged to Stefan: Elena. Plus he'd lied about not being a vampire anymore. And Elena wasn't even fighting him off. She was calling him 'darling'!"
Yes, Bonnie had entered. She heard Elena call him "darling" and she saw the blood on her throat. She didn't bother to ask why because minutes later, she had run downstairs, still shocked, to tell the others. She had drawn conclusions about the relationship between Damon and Elena that raised awareness in Matt and Meredith. It wasn't until Stefan came downstairs that everything was cleared up and Matt, Meredith and Bonnie apologized and felt bad for having jumped to such conclusions about Damon.
   Damon is still searching for the star ball, his passage to the Dark Dimensions. After finding it, he's faced with a hunter-slayer. He gingerly walks up the stairs to escape with the star ball. Certain that he knows who this hunter-slayer is, he reaches the top of the stairs. Just as he suspected.
"'So Damon, what's it going to be?' asked Meredith."
Meredith, Elena's friend turns out to come from a family of hunters. There had always been something about Meredith that made this fact not as surprising as it could've been. Aside from being a hunter, Meredith was a Black Belt Shihan, and a Taekwondo Saseung and had been studying both since she was 3 years old. Everyone had known how brave Meredith was but not that she knew this much about combat. Just because she was a friend of Elena's didn't mean that Elena knew everything about her. But there are more secrets to come... I haven't uncovered them yet but I will. According to the blurb: "And Meredith... of all people, Meredith turns out to have more secrets than all of us combined. How could I not have guessed so much about her?" Judging that you're a person's closest friend doesn't mean you know everything about your friend, but it doesn't mean that you can't trust them either.
  Right now, Elena, her friends and everyone in Mystic Falls has to stay cautious because of the evil that has arrived there. Jumping straight to conclusions could end up instigating fights between them, drifting them away from their mission: to destroy the Kitsune siblings and evil in Mystic Falls. Bonnie learned that she shouldn't have instantly ran to tell the others about what she saw happen between Damon and Elena. Damon learned not to underestimate the knowledge Meredith had. I don't know if I'm in danger or anything but I'm constantly learning not to judge others too quickly. It's a matter of asking why to know the reason behind some one's actions, yet if the task is so simple... why do we fail to understand? Because we never ask. If we do ask, it's too late. Being too quick to judge others is a problem in places like school where the myriad of students drift to their posses and heavily judge others for the most insignificant things like appearance. Like always, time is a factor that has a huge affect on life. Judging someone or something at the spur of the moment can cause you to see things that aren't really there. I think that L.J Smith is trying to get at something here, you use your eyes and ears to judge others but it's your mind that makes the final decision about what to think. In the end, it's not your eyes or ears that judge, but your mind. Don't be too quick to judge others or you'll regret not having asked why before running off. 

Ideas for My Writing

  I'm starting a list of ideas for things I could write about. I guess you can use them to inspire you but they're mostly so I can have some ideas ready if we have another independent writing project.

• I look through the window on the, surprisingly quiet, G train on my way home. What do I see? I see buildings, of course, but I today I look beyond and I can imagine hundreds of people coming out of school, work, and shopping malls. I think, well the first thing I saw was the buildings but I failed to see the biggest thing of all, the skyline.
• I walked home on the usual route I take. I look ahead at the streets left for me to cross and I suddenly sense an ineasy vibe flow through my body. I decide to walk the other way, thinking that today's path looks too easy to cross.
• The car moves along with easiness, like a person that takes the easy choices in life. The hard roof of the car protects the uneasy driver from the physical dangers but not the emotional ones.
• Though the mirror was small, the person looking at it could easily see the almost neverending problems behind that fragile body

"If we don't stop what we're doing... it could be irreversible in four or five years." - Michael Jackson

  As I look outside the window I see my neighbor's tree is blooming. I stare at the tree as if it were an exotic species. I sigh at that thought, knowing that one day that might happen. The tree could become endangered and people would crowd around it in hopes to get a picture of such a beautifully rare tree. It stands out in the rows of backyards full of nothing but bare trees. As I walk over to my room, overwhelmed by the beauty of the tree, that silent, but powerful, voice in my head reminds me of that quote by Michael Jackson in his movie This Is It.
  "If we don't stop doing what we're doing with global warming and the Earth and how we're treating each other ... it could be irreversible in four years or five years or something like that."
                                                                                                  -Michael Jackson
  We all pretty much know the King of Pop. Not only was he one of the greatest musicians in history, he was one the greatest human beings on the planet. Through his movie he was trying to warn people that this could be the final call; you either change your ways or you live with the consequences and so will the generations to come. He really knew that our ignorance could no longer be tolerated by the planet. He knew that time was now as vital as it was threatening to saving the planet of our ignorance. Global warming is not a new concept to us. We've been warned before that our actions are speeding us up to that point where species like polar bears will only be found in museums. Ever since I saw the movie, that's been the one quote that stands out and inspires me to make a change but it also threatens me. The second part of that quote is what threatens me; the fact that we're running out of time. What will become of the generations that follow?
  In the book Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins, Katniss is living in the futuristic version of earth left in ruins by the generations that lived there. She's on a mission to destroy the Capitol, the leaders of their world. She is first moved to District 13 and realizes that they've survived because they are resourceful with what they have. "They're so frugal with things here, waste is practically a criminal activity." Katniss is talking about how resourceful they are with things like school supplies because they don't have much of that anymore. When it comes to eating, what you're given is based on your height, weight and other factors that affect nutrition. "You leave with enough calories to take you to the next meal, no more, no less." If District 13 weren't so strict about saving food, the people living there would be dying of starvation. I think Suzanne Collins is doing her best to warn us about controlling our actions and how many things we're wasting every day. Through Panem, the name of the world Katniss lives in, Suzanne Collins is showing us what she thinks earth is going to be like if we don't stop to consider making a change that will benefit us all.
  Every day companies are wasting their money on products that are killing the world to create the next top selling car or phone that, when the planet is irreversibly damaged, will be of no use to us and certainly not them. But I feel that worse than destroying our earth, is the idea that people have in their minds that the smallest act, such as throwing cans on the floor, couldn't possibly have an affect on the lives of every species living on the planet. If this is what you think then you must be blind or you're pretending not to see. It all makes the difference. When you look at the bigger picture, you're not the only one throwing your cans on the floor at that very moment; millions of other people must be doing the same thing. Katniss is a symbol of strength and determination in her world but Panem, for me is a symbol of the damage that will come if humans keep using up the resources on the planet like it belonged to them. Sometimes if we do make a change, it doesn't feel like enough because government leaders and politicians are always in charge. That's what the Capitol seems to represent; the power-hungry leaders that want to control people and would do whatever it takes to get that. We have to stop waiting for someone else to somehow miraculously change the world in 10 minutes because that's not how it works, either. If we wait for someone else, when is anyone ever going to stand up? This is not a problem that can be solved in 10 minutes. The damage we've been causing, and still cause, has taken years to make a significant change in the world but to heal it will take twice as much time. If we really care about life, we must do our best to make a change and actually care about the lives of other wonderful species on this planet. Get up, or are you waiting for me to do so?

Well, Shakespeare made me feel smart through water

  Romeo and Juliet was a pretty intense movie that was full of ideas and intentional choices that I couldn't pick up all at once. Luckily, I was saved by the slide show Ms. Robbins posted. As I was taking a closer look at some of the scenes in Romeo and Juliet, one thing stood out to me that I shared in class when we discussed the movie: water is really important throughout the movie.
  Usually when I think of water, I think of it as calm but that's the thing; water has two sides. Meeting Juliet by looking through the fishtank made water seem calm, peaceful, and just really exotic in way. The fish weren't left out in the director's intentional choice color. They, too, were both blue and yellow (the Montague and Capulet colors). I remember saying that when people look at water, they see their reflection and for Romeo to see Juliet instead if himself highlights the fact that Romeo and Juliet are meant to be because together they become one.
  But then in the scene where Mercutio is killed, a hurricane is in the midst of the action, giving water a more violent personality. What made the movie better, visually, was that it was shot during a real hurricane. Though I don't doubt the work of the graphic designers, a real hurricane makes the movie un-cheesy if that's a word.
    "The dramatic storm scene on the beach in which Mercutio dies was shot during a real hurricane."
                                                                                                          -Director's Notes
  Interestingly we meet Juliet when her face is under water. Though her hair is flowing freely, she looks dead. Her hair is just flowing calmly and when she meets Romeo, she meets him through a fish tank. I kind of thought that the freedom of her hair in the water ironically points that her relationship between her and Romeo isn't all carefree and calm because they're equally bonded by a rivalry bigger than they can handle together. This scene is also related to the scene where Romeo has his face under water to wash away the effects of the drug. Like mentioned in the slide show, the scenes give us yet more evidence that they are closely bonded, even if it's in death as well as these scenes foreshadow.
  Another important role that water played in Romeo and Juliet was during the balcony scene. I don't remember clearly the whole scene but I do remember that once Juliet goes into the pool with Romeo, everything just seems all right because that's how the water is reflecting it. This is kind of off topic but the water in the pool seems sky blue and Juliet is wearing a white dress as if to represent an angel in heaven. Thinking of it, that kind of has two meanings. One, well Romeo and Juliet are so in love that it's like heaven and two, they're both in the pool and they're happy; when they both die they, in Christianity, go to heaven and don't have to worry about their past life on earth.
  Well, I believe every situation has two sides, just like water is both good and bad symbolically in Romeo and Juliet. Just because something or someone is presented as good to you doesn't mean that it's not ever going to be bad. The message I'm getting from Shakespeare is to enjoy the things presented to your life but to be cautious about them as well because there are always to sides to the situation.
  Overall, I think Baz Luhrmann did a good job of including water whenever it was necessary and to kind of do it in a subtle way was even better because if it just stood out the movie would've been terrible. Oh, and one last comment about the water, I'm just realizing that since it was heavily religious, water in Christianity also refers to holy water which cleanses someone... interesting.

They're Back!

  February 11th 2011. The best day to be alive. That was the day Never Say Never came out in theaters. Sorry, I just needed everyone to know that but that day before entering the movie theater, I entered the Barnes & Noble next to it. Though I first rushed to the magazine section first (no explanation needed) I looked through the young adult fiction section and came across the series I would die without having: The Vampire Diaries by L.J Smith.
  Curiously what seems interesting to me is that the book I'm reading is Stefan's Diaries Vol. 2: Bloodlust and it basically talks about the dark past behind the beginning of the deadly rivalry between Stefan and Damon Salvatore. I've already read the entire series so now I'm finding more about their past and not the present.
  Timing couldn't have been better. Since we're currently on our Shakespeare/Romeo and Juliet film study, I thought I could answer a few questions from class by reading this book. Love is a theme that heavily impacts the lives of Stefan, Damon, and Elena and it's what this series is mostly about. When I say it's about love I don't just mean the platonic love kind of thing but also the opposite of it; hate. Hate like the rivalry between Stefan and Damon.
  Now, it's sad how Stefan and Damon suddenly went from being the best of brothers to the worst enemies ever. And what caused this strong hate was none other than Katherine, the girl whom both brothers fell in love with deeply. I don't want to give the book away so I won't discuss Katherine further. But what I'm trying to say is, is it okay to hate someone for emotional reasons or does hate have to be caused by logical events?
  It's a bit hard to explain this but if a person killed a loved one then I guess that would be a good reason to hate but just because a girl you love loves someone else, is that a good reason to hate the person? In life, must we always think logically and not follow our heart for guidance? Is Damon's hate for Stefan really reasonable? Katherine just messed with their heads so shouldn't she be the one they turn their backs to?
  Hate and love are more similar than they are different. Love and hate go hand in hand and one emotion leads to the other and vice versa. The only real difference between love and hate is that they are complete opposites of each other. Other than that, love and hate are both strong yet complicated emotions that can be connected through one simple step. That step doesn't have to be literal. It could be Katherine when she came between the brother relationship between Stefan and Damon.
  Katherine.
  Stefan.
  Damon.
  From the great brothers they were to the beginning of the eternal battle between the brothers. Hate as a result of loving.

Inspirational Posts

  To start off, I'd like to say that there are so many amazing blog posts and the three people I pick posts from aren't the only amazing ones. So far, I've picked two posts; I have to look through everyone else's to decide which one to pick. So the following people are immensely

1st Mentor: ANNIE!!! (Obviously)

  Like many other fellow classmates of mine, I find posts by Annie truly deep, inspirational, and packed with emotion. What made me pick Annie is that all of her posts are well-written because she always has a firm understanding of what she's reading/writing. All of posts are phenomenal and her wide range of vocabulary just adds on to that. I love the fact that her posts are long, but they're not boring; on the contrary, each post is a piece of life in itself. I hope to one day write blog posts as amazing as her. Annie, you inspire me. Nothing else to say. Here's the link to deep writing... even her URL is amazing!

2nd Mentor: SAM!!! (Yay!!)

  Sam is a wonderful writer. I might not read her blog  posts weekly but whenever I read one, it's always great. I know, I'm an evil person for not reading Sam's posts weekly. Honestly, I'll make that a goal for this year. :) I stumbled upon her most recent blog post last week and I really fell in love with it (sorry, it still doesn't replace Justin Bieber.) Her post Follow the Line of Grapes was about a poem she write in response to a painting. I loved this post so much because it was really well-written and creative and had a lot of craft. What I found most creative was the 7th stanza:
                                                                   He heard from him

and he heard from him

and he heard from her

ans she heard from him

and he heard from her

and she heard from her

It's longer than that but I put an excerpt so you can get a sense of how it looks. I've just decided that this poem is on my Top 5 Poems. In the end, Sam: I wish I could write poems as creative as yours. :)

3rd Mentor: BEN!!! (Yeah... he's cool)

  I'm aware that we were only supposed to find one blog post but that's an almost impossible task when you go to Ben's blog posts. Each one is as unique as the previous one. What I love about Ben's posts is that almost all of them have some sort of picture to go along with them and that his paragraphs are always well-organized along with the interesting title he comes up with every time. If you're looking for a mentor for formatting, I think Ben would be a great mentor. Ben, keep up the fabulous work!! :)

  So those are the three blog posts/blog members I found captivating/inspirational/great in general. Of course there are so many other great posts and I wish I could put them all here but I would run out of space to write them all. Great job to Annie, Sam, and Ben for making this blog post possible; without you guys I would lose credit in ELA for missing a blog post. :) 

 

Tar Beach - Faith Ringgold

I stop
to think,
to wonder,
to dream,
to ponder.

In a myriad of stars,
one of them stands out;
the brightest of them all...
my grandma.
I know it's her
because her smile...
that smile
that always illuminated my days
reflects in the way that star glistens...
oh, and how it glistens!

I pause
to look,
to see,
to hear,
to believe

I'm a world of colors,
a world of emotions
where each part
makes up a whole...
this whole in which
I'm nothing...
without a piece.

I live
with my memories,
with my heart,
with my thoughts,
with my art

By: Me!!! (Jacky Cruz)

Listen to the Violin Master (Yeah... she knows how to live)

Music Is Time by Jill Bialosky

Music is time, said the violin master.

You can’t miss the stop or you’ll miss the train.

One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four,

one, two, three, four.

 

She clapped her hands together

as the boy moved the bow across the strings.

One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, the violin master shouted,

one, two, three, four,

 

louder and more shrill so that her voice

traveled through the house like a metronome,

guiding him, commanding him to translate the beat,

to trust his own internal rhythm.

 

Good boy, she said.

See how hard you have to be on yourself?

How will your violin know who you are

unless you make it speak?

 

 

     Music is my life. I don't how else I can express that to everyone that knows who I am. Perhaps if played a piece like Badinerie on the flute you might really understand my passion for the art of sound. I've loved music all my life but it wasn't until I first picked up a flute in 5th grade that I understand the meaning of playing music from the heart. The structure and sound of a flute is just so beautiful that I can't really put it into words. Time is everything in music... that's something I was told since the beginning and it really is. You can play the piece wrong from beginning to end and it wouldn't be a problem if the timing was right throughout. You could play a piece perfectly but it would be awful if the timing was wrong. I really don't understand why that is but I guess it's a matter of time before I get a firm understanding of that idea/rule in music. I remember how hard my teachers were on me if I didn't have the timing right. One day... one day I'll write a blog post in response to the question I once made on why timing is more important than getting the notes right.

   

     I noticed that this poem doesn't talk about a topic in general, it grasps a fragment of the boy's life; his violin lesson. I think grasping that moment made the poem more powerful than talking about how music is time in general because it made the complexity of the phrase, music is time, a bit similar... if that makes sense. As I'm sitting down and thinking about the title of the poem, I'm starting to create my thought on what that means. Music is time... it's true. It's true because the beat is just one, solid tone that needs rhythm to be added in order to create that art which I so dearly love: music. 

      A line I really found powerful was, How will your violin know who you are unless you make it speak? I found this line powerful because you would think that for someone/something to know you, you have to speak to it and introduce yourself but in music, the instrument knows who you are through the music you play and your level of knowledge on the instrument. I think that Jill is trying to say that music isn't just a sound, but a voice and that art, in all forms, isn't just art; art tells a story and portrays expressions through creativity, imagination, and feeling.  

The last line on the thirds stanza (to trust his own internal rhythm) means to play music that comes from you. As a musician, that means to trust that you're a good musician and that if you play something wrong, keep going but keep the tempo so the piece isn't thrown off balance. As a person, I think that line means that you should trust your instincts because they sometimes know more than you do. Your instincts help you make decisions and decisions are the structures of life because one choice leads to another and so on... your life is practically full of endless possibility.

 

      Since this poem is about music, it would make sense if I first draw an inference based on music. Now that I've thought about the title for some time now, I think that the poet is trying to say that to be able to learn something, in this case music, you must have a solid understanding on the basics; you can't play music well if you don't how to maintain a stable tempo (the timing of the piece). I think that she's implying what every good musician says/knows: timing is everything in music. To say that music is time is to say that time is the base of all music. When the poet writes commanding him to translate the beat I think of time being music itself... in disguise. The beat goes on but what makes it a beat and not music is that it's one simple tone that keeps the music from continuing fluently.

      But thinking of this on a deeper level the violin is a wise person guiding someone younger (the boy) into life, which in this case is the music piece that the boy is playing on the violin which can be thought of as the young person's heart and brain. Like I mentioned before, decisions are what move someone on with their life but their instincts are what lead them there. So when the violin master continuously repeating music is time, the wise person is teaching the younger one that decisions create life. I think that the last stanza was placed in the right spot. See how hard you have to be on yourself? how will your violin know who you are unless you make it speak? ; See how much you have left to learn about life? How are your heart and mind going to know the person you're going to be in life if you don't let them guide you?

    

      Music is my life... music is life... life is a music piece; it has to start as well as it ends. The beginning marks a first impression on a music piece as well as a person. The end has to leave an impact on the musician and the audience as well as the world in general. I follow my instincts... most of the time so I guess in life a task for me would be to keep the tempo and not go to fast or too slow because it would ruin the entire music piece (this was meant to be thought of metaphorically). The piece I play everyday has some low notes and some high notes, too. Each breath I take is one more note in the myriad of notes that I played and that I'm going to play as the piece advances. I want to make an impact on the world and on as many people as I can, whether the impact was small or big or great or not-so-great (which I hope isn't the case for anyone). My goal in life is to play music for a long time and that when the piece I was selected to play comes to an end, it would end on a good note... remembering those words of wisdom that the violin master spoke.   

How the Past Leads the Future

  It's a new year!! I haven't really made a resolution; I mean I always want to learn from the mistake and the praises I receive in order to help shape who I am and who I will be in the future. It's always the past that helps a person make his/her way to the future and its past (the present). Which brings me to what I want to talk/write about today.
  I'm reading The Vampire Diaries: Stefan's Diaries Vol. 1: Origins by L.J Smith. Since I just started the book today I haven't read much of it but I've read the series already. I've known how Stefan and Elena get through the various obstacles that try to tear their love apart in each and every one of the books. But I was most eager to open this book and begin reading because well the title is pretty self-explanatory; it's about the origins and how Stefan met Katherine, the girl he fell deeply in love with before discovering she was a vampire. This is the book that explains how it all started. It "reveals what really happened between Stefan, Damon (his brother), and Katherine - and how the Vampire Diaries love triangle began," quoting the blurb.
  How it all really began is what I'll find out as I flip each page of the book and let the Salvatore brothers' history sink into my mind. The past, I find, is as valuable or sometimes even more than the present itself. 
  One thing I've always wondered is if Damon is an antagonist or not? There are so many times throughout the series in which he has made it seem like the antagonist because of how he makes Stefan and Elena suffer but then there are times when I just say no, he's not bad because he wouldn't have saved Stefan and Elena's lives on multiple occasions if he truly was an antagonist. My hopes are that with this book, i get to know Damon as the person he was before the eternal brotherhood rivalry broke out between Stefan and him. I hope to get an insight on the fragment of humanity he had within himself before he decided to trap it and let ice freeze it inside of him.
  Considering that this took place in 1864 (it's not based on a true story) I'm keeping in mind that the 1860s are not much like today and that setting has a huge role in how Stefan and Damon have changed
over time... before meeting Elena and breaking out the rivalry that was lying restless inside each of them once more.
  This is the start of it all. The first time Stefan saw Katherine. The first time he knew that he couldn't go a day without seeing her. The day Stefan found out Katherine was a vampire. The day Katherine didn't want to choose between Stefan or Damon so she chose both of them. The day that made Stefan's and Damon's lives last for an eternity. And the rapid growth of a rivalry that was stronger than the love Stefan and Damon had felt for Katherine.