if i'm adding to the noise, turn off this blog...

is the ridiculous amount of blogs out there for people to use in finding themselves?
or an attempt to put a mark on the world somehow?

is the ridiculous amount of people putting info about themselves on facebook a true act of boredom or a desperate attempt for someone to find them interesting?

in this day and age, how is it that we can know someone so well without ever seeing them? you could speak two words to someone a day and know quite a bit about them or read what they put out to their numerous facebook friends.
a lot of people consider letters to be more personable. while this may be true, what is it that makes it so different? i suppose letters take time. they take time to write. time to send. then you have to *gasp* THINK about a response! and you have a while to mull over it!
at anyrate, instant gratification of knowing people without knowing them is quite... well, that's where society is going. (says the person whose best friend is in san fran and she only talks to her on facebook with the occasional post card...)
having an actual conversation with someone is a rare ocurrance, whether it's fb messaging or otherwise.

nowadays people talk at people, not to people. words roll off of our heads and out of our ears because we get to pick and choose what is 'said' to us when we are on the internet.
i realize that this is partially true with books aswell, yet there it's quite a bit different. an actual attention span is required. (great scot, not the A word!) i may have a short attention span, yet when it involves a person that i know, i focus. (...on that person and several other things while mainly focusing on said person)

so why do we post our lives for all to see?
a lot of people desperatly want to be found... interesting.
they want people to know about them.
they want people to admire them.
they want people to feel sorry for them.
they want people to become acquainted with them.
what are they missing?
well, as my communications notes reveal, the source send the message out, the receiver receives the message, receiver gives feedback, feedback goes to source. on the internet the source sends out the message... but no one has to receive it.
the message can be received... but no one has to give feedback.
great system, huh?
while there is no feedback, the source continues to send messages at people...

why?

i think i may have been one of those people... not sure. then again, haven't we all been like that at times?
why do we think so little of ourselves that we are transmitting messages at everyone receieved by no one that mean little because while people may learn of us in the process we learn nothing of them, and a relationship is two ways! if your friend knows everything about you and you know nothing of them, who has a friend and who does not? do either of you?

don't we do this?
yeah. we do.
is this being selfish, narcissistic, or just desperate?
are we afriad that real conversations will fail?
or are we not capable of them?
or do we find ourselves sitting alone with no one to be with save yourself?

we're all guilty of it.

i just post on facebook what i'm thinking at the moment, some quote i like, etc.
hypocitircal?
possibly.
yet all things should be in moderation.
including moderation.
and props to anyone who knows what this blog's title references...

i can't end this post on a cliche.
so i will end it on an amazing word...

JELLO.

why i do this ridiculous blog...

or rather 'why i post here when i remember it's existance'
was reading a post that turned into an essay (livin' the good life) and came across this line: "I completely talked the bad thoughts out of my head..."
hard to fathom for me, talking out bad thoughts and therefore talking myself into feeling some other way is just... well, it works.
a lot of times i need to vent and i haven't many people to vent to, so i just vent to myself.
and post it here.

my INFP side (I'm bsth INFP and INTJ. this means confusion but i can now see how they work side by side in me... i'm still a bit more INFP...) supposedly makes me downplay what i do and never give myself credit for anything.
this is insanely true.
so keep that in mind while i say:
wait...
random distraction
i make it sound like i'm talking to someone when only three people have seen this blog. ha! why not...
anyhow:
so keep that in mind while i say:
i do not really think much about what i post. maybe some posts i'll like, such as the one about anne of green gables. there may be another one, who knows. yet actually liking things i have made, photos i have taken, things i have written... hey, it's a process.

set aside

-added on sunday to post-
you know, the Orphaned Anything's is one of my favorite books. the main charachter, Ayden, is set aside. he truely is. i'm not quite like that anymore, quite frankly it's odd not to be so... yet when you are set aside from the world and society, left to be a spectator, you become quite thouroughly disillusioned with it.
once you find yourself not set aside... the mindset seems to persist because after so long that's who you are.

did this friday... didn't post it. not happy with it. i'll trample my perfectionism and post it. a lot of good rambles have been forgotten because if they don't sound right the first time i forget about them...

so.

i'm sitting here in my dorm alone, as usual. i may be too busy to breathe during the day, yet in the evening my room mate is off doing stuff with my/her friends, i'm never there for planning, so i'm left here. when i'm around for planning, i'm not included and i never include myself unless asked.

so.

here i sit.

jsut thought you would like to know.

i find it odd that several people find themselves like this and assume that nobody likes them, they did somethign wrong, etc. my facebook feed is filled with frustrated people who are alone, or perhaps complaining that they will have to part with their dearly beloved cell phone for a time.

why?

is being alone for a time really and idea that far from our culture?

reminds me of a ray bradbury story where in the future people are in constant communication with one another, listening to radio shows, listening to music, talking to several people, and all at one time and even during work! then one man is being held in custody because he had finally had enough of the constant hum and buzz and people wanting to know where he was without really caring, he smashed his communication devices and was taken for mad. yet what they gave him was what he wanted- a quiet room. silence. the culture in the story did not value silence or being by one's self, and indeed looked DOWN on it with contempt. or perhaps just... misunderstanding.

you know, everyone talking about being by yourself negatively begins to frustrate me. not because i don't agree with them, they can believe as they like, yet because it's rubbing off on me.

the perception that if you're not out doing things with your friends and if you're used to being alone is making me think that there's something wrong with being by yourself.

that being said, i do accept the fact that no matter where i am or who i'm with i manage to find myself on the edge... even with others i'm by myself. sometimes this is okay. (yet it can be akward at times... may as well be on my own instead of alone in the sight of others. wonder why that is...)

i apologize, by the way, to anyone who reads this. it's not profound. just my current frustration.

phrase/song running through my head today...
"revolution's not easy with a civil war on the inside..."

ramblings from a mellow day with not as mellow music

this is from july of 2008... before this blog i think... i was in st. louis with my cousins

so my two cousins and i went to the zoo. lovely weather, warm with a cool rain that somehow evaded the stereotypical humidity. and wouldn't you know, my cousin out in a deathklok cd. (i am not quite sure if i mis-spelled that word correctly...) so i was sitting there thinking, with a low-grumble of a voice singing about killing mermaids and how it didn't leave fingerprints and mermaids killing and whatever, with the music being nice, however if put to piano would be fit to play at a funeral. i was a bit amused, although why killing mermaids is appealing music i beyond me... i looked out the window, and after a song about who knows what (i could decipher it, but awaken what? huh? you're the father of demons and ? why do i care?) there was one. something about returning to the water, live in the water, die in the water. 'die' was a popular world. and for some odd reason one question came to mind: why do they live?
it really startled me a bit, because well, i don't know the answer. is that something you can know? anyhow, why do they live if they sing about killing mermaids and death? what? how is that living? i wonder if i use the word 'live' as in doing more that eating and breathing. it makes you wonder what their lives are like if the only songs they can come up with are about dying in water and killing mermaids. and then i wondered if 'what do you live for' and 'why do you live' could be interchangeable questions... yes and no, or so i think. i mean, you could take 'why do you live' literaly in two senses. one: you're breathing, and two: well, you're breathing, you're not simply taking in oxygen, you're taking in life. 'what do you live for' would be what you live for doing... or having... some people live for things, and live to get more. and friendships to them may be considered posessions, either that or the 'friendship' is based on... well, nothing. i can't get my thoughts out too increadibly straight. osme live for... well, i'm not sure. i live to see what happens. i suppose life has a certain amount of suspense that keeps you haging on, anticpating every chapter because you're the charachter in the book and you don't know what happens. and yet to do this you have to have trust in God, or you're writing it yourself. let's face it, no matter how good of an author you may be, you cannot write your own story.

yeah, this is rambling.

i wonder what make life so... what's the word... enamoring? hmm, i don't know. perhaps 'intoxicating' seems to fit. take it in doses or you're infatuated beyond hope. haha, 'dreams are so intoxicating, when you're doing this alone...'

i'm probably making sense quivalent to zero, yet i'm getting better at putting my thought out

huh... i recall also seeing these large houses in st. louis today. wonder why they live and what for...

i leave for home tomorrow it was a nice vacation in st. louis, pity it did not last longer. but i suppose vacations would not be as appreciated if you were always on one...

ever wonder what makes a house a home?
my house isn't a home.
at least my room is. i may be able to hear everything going on outside and inside, yet i'm not in it. and i do kinda grow agitated when the problems go into my home.
then again, home for me is everywhere i am myself.


i had a good ramble at the end of that day.
what do i live for?
or is my life being spent finding that out while unknowingly living for that purpose?

Livin' the good life?

another old post i never published... wonder why...
this is from around april of 2010

“BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!”
The worst sound in the world: an alarm clock. I groaned and hit the snooze button on my alarm and began weighing the reasons I had to get up. For ten minutes my mind drowsily attempted to decide between murdering my alarm clock and rolling out of bed. Eventually, the debate in my head came to the conclusion that I am alive. As someone who is alive and breathing, I had better go join the human race. Like it or not. While making my bed I thought of a quote from a musician, something along the lines of, “Everyday you wake up, you change the world.” If that was true, I should have stayed asleep. The world would thank me later.

Partially awake, I go to the kitchen for the highlight of what would inevitably be a bad day; breakfast. I hate such days. Days where you feel ‘blah’ and end up feeling like you did nothing meaningful. As I am in the quiet kitchen, I look around at the mess. The dirty dishes and counter covered in crumbs did not belong to me; yet by some magical reason, they were mine to clean. Oh jubilation. After I cleaned my bowl, the one I, me, myself, had eaten out of, and put it in the dishwasher, I prepared for school. When I headed out the door, my dad woke up and told me to have a good day. I told him to have a good day, and left. Ha, me, have a good day. What, with me feeling like this? No way. After getting in my truck, I flipped through the songs on my Ipod and settled on a new tune by Switchfoot.

“I’ve made a mess of me, I want to get back the rest of me, I’ve made a mess of me and I want to spend the rest of my life alive…”
Hmm. Switchfoot does it again. Perhaps now is a good time to talk with God… After all, He’s my best friend. Isn’t that how it should be?
“Lord, just teach me how to have a good day. I don’t care if good things actually happen to me; I need to know how to have a good day without them.” As the clock in my truck read 8 a.m., I was getting rather ticked at myself for being so late. Maybe by some miracle of nature I could get a spot in the senior parking lot. Laughing slightly, I added “Hey God, could you save me a parking spot?” I passed the first row of cars, stopped, backed up, and saw a spot very close to the front. “Why am I surprised?” For the first time that day I smiled. Silly reason to smile, yet smile i did.

Rushing to band class, I attempt faking my way though the hour. Hopefully the two freshmen in my flute section won’t guess my feeling. It seems that no matter what I feel like, happy, sad, blah, joyful, whatever, the girls in my section ask what’s wrong. I love them and they look up to me as a sister, but quite frankly they wouldn’t get it. I didn’t even get it!

“Lindsay? Are you alright?” Darn. I’ve been caught.
“Yeah, I’m fine, just tired.” True for the most part.
“Okay then. Well, have a good day!” There it is again! What does that mean anyway? How can it be a good day? Really, if a good day comes to you, it comes to you, right? I mean, once a day is bad there’s no redeeming it… Right?

Trying not to show what I was really thinking, I glanced at the floor where my Spanish book was. Spanish. Book. Book. Spanish. Quiz. No, not quiz… TEST! My wonderful memory triumphs yet again. My planner contains everything I need to remember; however the planner serves more as an instrument of procrastination. Bored in class and don’t want to complete those last two friction problems? Well, what is there to write in my planner… Breathe at 12:30… No wait, don’t have time then… I think you get the picture. At any rate, it only serves to solidify things in my mind. Etching them into my brain enough to where I remember them when I need to… Well, that just doesn’t happen.

Feeling like a failure, I studied while thinking such wonderful thoughts as “Why bother, I was stupid enough to forget about it, I deserve to fail. Fail. I fail. I am a fail-boat. Stupid brain. Worthless self. Bah.” Amazing how your thought can turn sour so quickly. Wasn’t it just a few minutes ago I was laughing at my answered prayer of a parking spot? Feeling disgruntled, I just studied to the best of my ‘stupid’ ability. Second hour finally came, and I drug myself through the endless Spanish questions; completely confident in my ability to fail. By ‘fail’ I mean low B. Or any B. Or, if I dare venture into that territory, a C. That would kill me. At least I kept a hold on myself; nothing on my paper read ‘I fail at life.’

Seminar found me rather mellow on the outside. Normally mellow is a good thing to me; it means I’m content with life and am thinking about deeper things. However, today I only have the appearance or mellowness; the silence covering up the storm, no doubt. Feeling rather helpless, I decide to check my grades and let those hard-earned A’s cheer me. They didn’t. Instead, my sense of failure returned at the sight of my grade in physics; an 89%. The last test seemed to go well; perhaps there is a chance…

My anticipation was rewarded with disappointment, as usual. An 82% in red ink glared up at me from the paper. An eight. And a two. Not a nine, but an eight. Needless to say, on a day such as that, this set me over the brink. For years I had been attempting to gain control of my feeling of failure and worthlessness; the one that years of name calling and oxymoronic expectations had earned me. Occasionally, this comes to the surface. The rest of the hour is spent bottling my anger; apparently the way to release this is to scribble furiously in my planner.

In last hour I’m just getting by. Somehow the bouts of anger, helplessness, whatever you want to call it, tend to make me pretty weak. My friends think I’m strong, and for them I am. For me… I try. I guess it’s easier to be strong when it’s for something more than your self. Last hour goes by slowly; I pass the time by drawing random smiley faces on my friends’ papers. I often do that, but most of the time it is in a desperate effort to convince myself to be happy; whatever that means. As the bell rings after last hour, I make my way to my truck while flipping through my Ipod again. What song now…

“She's alone tonight, with the bitter cup and, she's undone tonight, she's all used up,
she's been staring down the demons, who've been screaming she's just another so and so, another so and so… you are golden, you are golden, child you are golden, don't let go, don't let go tonight”
Hmm. Switchfoot does it again. I laugh a little as I remember what that song had really done for me; it made me realize “This isn’t how the story has to, that’s not the way it goes, it’s your book now.” After all, isn’t that cheesy cliché true? Life really is 5% what happens to you, and 95% how you react to it. I suppose I really need to take control. Struggling with how to really take control, I continue scrolling through the songs and come across a song by Jack Johnson, the one that always reminds me of warm summer nights at camp, the kind of nights you just smile and skip around joyfully when remembering. Finally feeling a bit better, I drive off to that mess in my kitchen.

When at home, I find my stash of bubbles and send a few off in the breeze. The weather makes everything feel like spring; when everything is new. I go inside with a half smile and turn on the stereo; washing dishes isn’t as bad when you’re dancing. Jack Johnson’s acoustic melodies felt wonderful. When music feels, it is best to use it to your advantage. The happy songs clearly fit the clean rainy day; the feel of the songs and weather gradually rubbed off on me.

Before I could firmly establish my good mood, my mom arrived. Time to do stuff wrong and get yelled at for it; on purpose, of course. Because of all people, I enjoy doing things wrong and being stupid. Naturally. At any rate, I found myself needing to clear my mind. Through the infinite wonders of Facebook chat, I was able to save my attempt at a good day. My friend Mary was online; rambling off to friends you mind certainly clarifies your thinking. Apparently, holding in negative thought will only make it continue; the best way to cope is to throw it all out where you can see it. Feeling better, I turn on my music once again and begin to feel good about life; I open my window and let the fresh air permeate my mind.

11p.m. finds me attempting to fall asleep; due to my absurd schedule it is the earliest I had gone to bed for weeks. My old mattress comforts my tired body as I think through the day; The day began ‘blah’ and ended well; A good day, more or less. Suddenly becoming more awake, I realize that my prayer was answered; I was taught how to have a good day. I took control, decided that I did not want a bad day, found some small thing that made me smile, and completely talked the bad thoughts out of my head. It seems like every time a bad day comes my way, I end up in that very process. How is it that I forget how to change my bad day? Perhaps the real challenge isn’t to know how to change my day into a ‘good day,’ it’s remembering that I hold the ability to change it.

day-dream believer...

i read Anne of Green Gables today.
it was a beautiful rainy day, i began the book two days ago and after choir i decided to nab a mocha from the campus coffee shop and sit on a bench near a sidewalk that would *hopefully* not be traveled on too much. the concrete bench was situated so i could lean against a tree... irresistable. i sat there for an hour and a half until i had finished reading. (albeit the sidewalk did not prove silent... a large group of furutre sports' team recruits passed by. they loved my red converse at anyrate. another distraction was one of my friends going by on roller blades. that startled me, but not as much as i startled him. ha!)
The book was a fantastic read because it really made me relive a lot of things from when i was smaller... both Anne and i daydream. perhaps the difference lies in that i would sit and dream in silence... swing during recess by myself from grade 1-8 under that tree. gaze out at the jr. high's track field and dream of there being a horse barn there. i lived at school, you see. i left school and no one noticed the smart kid in the corner everyone made fun of being gone. i would then come back as a cool kid, anything; a motercross rider, a famous guitar player, a hockey player, an olympic speedskater, an olympic equestrian events competitor... anything. i came back to school and everyone wanted to be my friend. they thought i was so important, and then in one climactic moment i would reveal that it was i! lindsay! the one they had shunned and mocked, the one they had taunted, exlcuded, and called stupid! i would forgive them all and make them see that their ways were not right, thye would desperatly wish to be my friend yet i kew they would not change. and after all, i had my big brother the motercross-competing/speed-skating/horse-riding/hockey playing older brother and his friends that would all look after me and be my friends and extended family. no parents. just my brother and his friends. i would sleep on a couch in the upstairs where the three third grade classes were, like a loft room, and go ride the black horse stabled in the track field.


or at least that's how the dream went.
all of that came back to me as i was reading.
i daydreamed a great deal in addition to that, perhaps not the 'romance' Anne dreamed of, yet it was quite an adventure nontheless. i would write mysel finto my favorite books and enver have a life as my own, yet always would return to school and the other students would want to be my friends until they found out it was me.
in reality, i lived in these fantasies yet was acutely aware of what was around me, what false rumor there was about me that day, who was nice to me for a fleeting moment during the day.
...except when i read straight through recess and lunch. this happened often. i had no idea the class was gone.


at first when i read Anne of Green Gables I did not think the girl was much like me at all. then as the book progressed i say them quite blatant on the page, yet as i said, i dreamed in silence. before this post, all of that was in my head. for the past 14 years. Anne let everyone in on her plans until one day she learned to dream silently...


perhaps since Anne learned to dream silently, i now need to learn to dream out loud.




that being said, this book (and watching Little Bear with my room mate... WIN) made me more determined that if i do ever have kids they will be sent outside to explore and play instead of computer. have building blocks instead of video games. Anne of Green Gables instead of books based on TV series. but mostly: sent outside.


i don't know what i would do if God took the outdoors away from me...
wait, this has been done. the feeling of outdoors can persist.

WARNING- if you read this and you're not me, you don't have to read this.

well.
to say it has been a while since i last posted (although no one reads these...) is quite the understatement. i was once in awe that i would be in college in two years and now i'm planning classes for my second semester on campus.
i got a random notion to read my old blog posts, and came across come that i had not posted yet...

just another day, from my point of view...
you know, sitting in a high school, in a desk, in college chem class, while taking a test, is not the best time to allow your mind to wander.

or, moreof, to accidentaly misplace the thoughts that are really important involving enthalpy and heat of effusion, and replacing them with whatever is on your mind, as far from chemistry as your brain can take you.

so today, while forgetting about how to put the rate of effusion into a problem about melting ice and water, i realized that why i wanted an older brother was because i wanted someone to look up to.

i guess i never really had anyone to look up to...

now i'm just...

i don't know.


however, a few days ago i realized what i really want to do with my life.

one thing that i am SURE that i want to be.

and i'll be happy with that until God leads me further.

i need to stop worrying so much, i'm in God's hands, and he knows what my real desire is. as long as i know what it is, on the way to finding out what i will be i can still be what i really want to be.

i want to be a positive influence.

don't know how. it will come along somehow...

the morning is a good time of day. the world is waking up, you can see the sun pulling the clouds from it's eye, and it's you and the morning. like someone you know. odd how i'm a morning AND night person. i really am somewhat of a paradox.

then you pull into some school in the middle of the country, and everyone is inside not really aware of the wonderful morning air outside, theyr'e all too busy texting or talking about... things i would really rather not hear. you meantion good morning to people, and they really don't get what you mean.

however, today, jazz band was great.

except for that song i still don't know. i can read bass cleff now, just not at that tempo... or any tempo really...

you know, tests really are the ultimate in emotion rollercoasters. if tested for bipolar disorrder during a test, the entire nation may be put on medication. first you're worried, then you're optomistic, then you realize 'hey, even though i aced that lab i didn't remember these problems existed and never studied this!" then you're sifting through the problems you know, you struggle through some others, and find yourself scirbbling aimlessy a few things like 'i fail at life' and erasing them. then after working with it for a while, you remember how to do the problem, okay not remember, more like work it in some weird way and get a good answer that's on the multiple choice option C) and then taking that method and applying it to other problems, gettign a good answer, and slowly remembering that as the correct method and then following through with the non-multiple choice questions. then you're angry at yourself for talking so long, and yet relieved that you finally understand.

...
the positive influece.
i may have changed, over the years, yet that's one thing that has remained true.
i was old enough to work at camp last summer. one counselor confided in me that i was what all counselors shoudl aspire to be. i was the spirit of the camp embodied. this counselor had been my counselor 7 years earlier when i first came to that camp; he has made a lot of mistakes in life. he owns up to them. i respect him greatly, even if he hasn't 'shaped up' yet.
and later that week... i helped with a camp for kids and parents. one parent, as i was loading up my truck, stopped me and told me how thankful he was that i was being a positive influence. he told me NEVER to underestimate the power i had as a positive force in kids' lives.
wow.
my self-esteem issues do rear their nasty head from time to time, yet it's moments like this i cling to.

that being said, and what else i was going to say being helplessly forgotten in my exploded filing cabinet of a mind (think very shaken snowglobe... visualized it? yes. that's my mind.) i think i need to blog more. not because others will read it (if anyone is, bonus points to you. i don't expect anyone to.) but because in reading past entries i realize things i had forgotten... perhaps this could be a good idea.