can we cast our shadows alone in the dark?
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Tuesday, August 19, 2003 Archives... They are coming along, but still, they need work. There's a bug in the blogger system that I am told is being fixed as I write this. Have patience. it's all so stupid. overthought at 11:59:14 PM by a hole in the world coming together... Things are finally shaping up to be what they should at school. I am becoming "myself", or, what I was at NT. Rapidly, no less. I've just gotten to the point where I am about as comfortable as it is going to get for the first couple of months. Jeff is the man -- sarcastic, witty, hilarious. Plus he goes off campus (since I can't, yet) and buys lunch for people who provide him with proper bills. Niiiiice. I'm having trouble with names still. Not so much recognizing faces and who people are, but the actual names themselves. In my class alone, there's a Jeff, Jarrod, Jesse, and John. For the girls, there's a Kristin, a Christine, and a Caitlin... all these replaceable C's and K's... head spinning... I did my second poem today. I let Mrs. Lovett read it beforehand, and got one of the most thought-inducing responses that I've ever had the privilege to listen to. She basically lectured me for 15 or 20 minutes on whether or not I actually wanted to do the poem. Here it is, in all its glory: Totally like whatever, you know? By Taylor Mali www.taylormali.com In case you hadn't noticed, it has somehow become uncool to sound like you know what you're talking about? Or believe strongly in what you're saying? Invisible question marks and parenthetical (you know?)'s have been attaching themselves to the ends of our sentences? Even when those sentences aren't, like, questions? You know? Declarative sentences - so-called because they used to, like, DECLARE things to be true as opposed to other things which were, like, not - have been infected by a totally hip and tragically cool interrogative tone? You know? Like, don't think I'm uncool just because I've noticed this; this is just like the word on the street, you know? It's like what I've heard? I have nothing personally invested in my own opinions, okay? I'm just inviting you to join me in my uncertainty? What has happened to our conviction? Where are the limbs out on which we once walked? Have they been, like, chopped down with the rest of the rain forest? Or do we have, like, nothing to say? Has society become so, like, totally . . . I mean absolutely . . . You know? That we've just gotten to the point where it's just, like . . . whatever! And so actually our disarticulation . . . ness is just a clever sort of . . . thing to disguise the fact that we've become the most aggressively inarticulate generation to come along since . . . you know, a long, long time ago! I entreat you, I implore you, I exhort you, I challenge you: To speak with conviction. To say what you believe in a manner that bespeaks the determination with which you believe it. Because contrary to the wisdom of the bumper sticker, it is not enough these days to simply QUESTION AUTHORITY. You have to speak with it, too. Mrs. Lovett was afraid that I would alienate not only the people who might so happen to take offense to such a poem, but also myself. I let 2 of the intellectuals (Jeff and Christine) read it and they said it was great, and that it didn't (or shouldn't) offend people. So I read it. And, actually... People laughed. They really, truly (as in, like, not fake!) laughed. Very cool. I think I'm establishing myself as who I want to be, not what people are making me to be. I could put on a total mask and just blend in with Nathaniel and Tyler and Jesse and Heather and Michelle (the only Clique that I can identify as yet), but that's not me. And that's exactly what Mrs. Lovett was trying to protect me from doing. That's why I appreciate it so much. In other news... She told us that in October (the 4th for anyone counting at home), we are going to be having a 5-hour Acting Workshop in the gym. She's going to pick selected poems that we as a class have performed, put us on the big stage in the gym, and perform for the entire school. Eeeeesh. Guess whose poem(s) were chosen first? falling asleep... don't look behind the curtain... overthought at 9:39:01 PM by a hole in the world |
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