Senior Trip...to ENLIGHTENMENT

So, for the first time in my 17 years, I get to designate my very own vacation. Yes, that is correct, my own vacation. At the finally of my brother's senior year, our extremely rich uncle (which is also the name of a student loan company) sent him to Italy for two weeks with a meager FOUR THOUSAND DOLLARS. I know I go to Alpharetta High school, and I'm far from impoverished, however I'm relatively sure my parents would look into arraigned marriages if it guaranteed them four thousand dollars. So, as it is only fair, at the conclusion of my senior year I will also have a "dowry", if you will, of four thousand dollars to go wherever my heart desires. But, I would characterize myself as one of those people who can not decide what they want to eat for dinner. So, how am I supposed to know where I could go, if I had the choice of anywhere? Well, as always, I'm looking through my 1001 page philosophy book for answers. And I'm also googeling trips under 4,000$.
If I want a catalyst of change in my life, which would be nice before college, I should establish something to make that happen. Therefore, ruling out any trip in the continental U.S. I've never actually left the US, so I want to actually take some time to get to know myself. Additionally, I want to find myself by finding nature. This is because A. naturalism and transcendentalism tell me this is true B. I am a hippie.
I'm just going to put this out there. The greatest tragic character of ALL TIME was not the lead character in a drama, short story, novel or novella. No, Chris McCandless was a real "character", and besides Holden, is the most compelling person I have ever encountered in written word. So there's this sense of innate humanness that compels me to run to Alaska, and test my strength there. To find myself among one of the greatest natural environments the Earth still has left. But, the other part of me yearns to make my own adventure, and not to emulate Chris's. And, REI adventures also turned up a new destination that seems extremely compelling: Kathmandu.
For a mere 2700$, plus airfare, I can spend 19 days trekking mount Everest with Sherpas, but the elevation is low enough that I probably won't die! In fact, I have to get my physician's approval before going on the trip, have to be over 18, and have to sign a document that says my family won't sue REI if I mysteriously die. But with an elevation of over 18000', I'm fairly unsure if I have it in me. But I think I'm still going to go for the gold here and sign up for the trip, because how many people can say they've climbed mount Everest?
All in all, I'm looking for a sense of adventure before going off to _____ (insert college name there, hopefully not Devry). I think the largest, tallest mountain on Earth can guarentee this for me. Also, I hope I return from the trip without frost bite or just...return from the trip. Anyways, I'm going to email my Uncle tonight and see if he'll allow for me to "touch the heavens".
Carson
P.s. - Really hoping if I go on this trip nothing bad happens. Chris McCandless is my idol, but I'm sort of shooting for a different fate.

More poetic creations!

I've been so incredibly stressed out lately. First of all, I apparently have to apply to 18 colleges to "diversify my college selections" and "to get the best offers on college deals". I feel like a trained dog jumping through a hoop of fire, but multiply that by 18. And I've been helping a few of my mom's clients with Chinese translations, which takes a minimum 6 hours for their documents, and its not exactly the easiest thing to do in the world. But I'm making a hefty 200$ at the end of this. So basically, 10 hours of work is equivalent to two shirts from abercrombie. I truly hate consumerism. Anyways, before I started ranting, I wrote a poem earlier on in the week to help me cope with some stress.
This poem deserves some explanation. First, I'm not especially romantic. I mean, I hate girls who sit around waiting for men to come and save them, like a Disney movie. Its not empowering, and trust me, its most likely never going to happen. And secondly, for some reason I have harbored this concept about romantic love as asserting women's subordination. Its all about wooing the woman, right? Like playing a serenade to her, or a rose, or whatever you want to imagine. But after you "impress" her, then she's star struck and will go with whatever you say. That's just the imagery that keeps in my mind. But, even though I'm not romantic, I've come to accept the fact that there really is love out there. Just, not Disney love. Anyways, hopefully you'll understand where I'm coming from.

What will it take to let you know just how much you mean to me
Time has no meaning when I'm with you
Regardless of who you are out on the outside
Your not what you seem with me
Time is a face on the water
Will you spend forever with me?

Take my hand
Don't let me be
Forever Lost without you
We could be..
All we ever dreamed
There's no where (left/else) to go...

Be with me
Now you bleed with me
and if you just, believe
We'll be all we ever dreamed, together


I never thought it would end this way
The meaningless end to two love struck renegades
By the sound of their barrels, to the beat of your heart,
I count them in bullets from start
I love you in so many ways
There's no running now love we end this today

They surround
We're pinned down
and we won't go easy
our actions speak louder than words

Here comes the end for us all
Holding my hand as we both fall
Riddled with bullets, you open your eyes
Bleeding together, our star-crossed demise, but you
I only see you....
and me

Please believe,
We decease
Go!

I didn't really intend for the ending to be so dramatic. But, as I was writing this, it just seemed to fit really well. Plus poetry and literature is always more dramatic than life. That's why we read it, atleast, for that escape from the ordinary. Anyways, that's just my two cents for the week.
-Carson

Oh, sonnets. How I love thee.

So I decided to write a few sonnets for this blog post. Please, hold your applause until the end. No they're actually all really bad. I just remembered we talked briefly this week on sonnets, so I figured, "Hey, why not?"
Love is the story of two young teens,
entwined in fate, whose passion is but sound
and fury to all those that read between
the lines but fail to find the common ground.
Love is the story of love's ghost, once strong
in pow'r and wit, which now, time's fool, grows old,
yet still glows in closing days, along
with need of care, and lives in tales once told.
Love is man's greatest gift and prickl'st bur;
An irony which takes the lives of some
yet leaves them teaching that when love occurs,
'tis best to love, despite what they've become.
Love is the anger, passion, fury, bliss.
And yet, most often love just simply is.

The secret paints everything in colors
that only we can see. Such colors that
we, only we, can marvel at. It wuthers,
in time, fades, till it flourishes right back.
In some alternate place your gone, dead. I
still shudder at the thought. So selfish, you
still are and were, with no reason to die
and yet the will to. Life's empty without you.
Yet God, or fate, or luck, or all, has brought
you to a second life, you lost the first,
and now, embark to find what you first thought
a curse, as just such gift. To live and thirst
for more. So live, and do, and love, and hope,
and leave those fears out on that brittle rope.

He laughs. He knows all that he's done
is to his master's very whim.
He laughs despite the taste of blood
and gentle lick of nearby flame.
In fact what better way to go
than with all he ever had
in flames, engulfing him as he
had once engulfed it in all his
bitter scorning and empty lies.
It is poetic, so he thinks.
But that is neither here no there.
What lies beyond the very scene
of this scorned man engulfed in the
flames of a world which he once loved
and so he scorched on the dark whim
of an interloping promiser,
is that which he, the man I've said,
has come to represent within
the world which he so lusts in ruins.
The man has come to be the real
messenger of a new order
of men who would see chaos reign
in placement of all they never had
and all they felt that they deserved,
and simply laugh as they and the
world which they so loved duly burn,
because even they, too late to change,
can see the irony in
the burning of just such possessions.
This man is not the end of such
a selfish kind. He is merely,
with fear I say, the beginning.

So that's all I have for this week.
P.s. - I'm still vividly angry about my summer reading grade because I actually took time to read all 4 books! Ughhhhhh. Not fair.

Candide and Office Space? Connection? Yes.

So earlier in class this week we were discussing how reading literature "like a professor" (a pretentious one at that) was nearly an infectious disease, and it will spread to all areas of entertainment for AP LIT students. Well, I would have to concur with Mrs. Clinch and co. on this one. As I was driving over to windward parkway to stuff food down my gullet, I made a stark realization about the connections between two of the greatest works of art from the past 500 years. Obviously, as you might have already guessed, these two works are Candide and Office Space. Although the connections might no seem altogether plausible, or even there at all, I can guarantee you that there are, indeed, innate similarities between the two. Two characters find solace in the realistic, pragmatic ideals of physical labor - which give them a sense of purpose at their story's conclusion. In Candide, as we all know, his escapism leads to Candide starting a garden, and to run from the optimism that he has embodied for the previous parts of the story. This is similar, again, to Office Space. Think about it - in the movie Peter is plagued by the bureaucratic, corporate "philosophies" of "having a case of the mondays" and the inspirational banners that line the office. Although Candide is supportive of the philosophies in his story, they lead to continual negative effects. This is also illustrated in Office Space - the company's philosophy completely destroys the individuals at Initech. Office Space also deals with the debate over deontology vs. utilitarianism, while opting for deontology by supporting the individual and not the whole, but thats a story for another time.
Additionally, the female roles in both stories are also similar in various ways. In Candide Cunegonde, Candide's love interest, is thought to have been killed along with her family in the first few chapters. In actuality, she was only raped while her family died, however she still believed this preserved her virtue, and actually strengthened it. Well, in Office Space Peter's love interest, who he has seeked for a very long time, actually has slept with his much hated boss - thus losing her virtue in his eyes. I mean, she does not proclaim this strengthened her virtue, but she blamed Peter for having judgement towards her. Neither of these female characters were able to accept any sort of accountability for their sexual lives (although Cunegonde was raped, she never accepted that she wasn't really a virgin - which is just silly).
The scene that truly inspired this list was one of the most striking elements of Candide. If you can recall, when Pangloss inquired why man is made to suffer, and what they all ought to do about it, the dervish responded by asking, without missing a beat, why Pangloss is concerned about the matters pertaining to "evil and good". The dervish then describes human beings as mice on a ship sent by a king to Egypt; their comfort does not matter to the king. This is quite possibliy the whole driving plot of Office Space that corporations are not driven by their need and passion to provide goods and services to the community. Corporations do not innately care for their employees. Employees of large corporations are merely the mice on the ship to Egypt - and the movie Office Space is the rebellion of a man who could no longer take it.

Drugs

I don’t think everything can be solved with drugs, or that 1 out of every 10 kids in the United States should be on aderol. I don’t think everyone should be on depression medication, and in my best medical opinion someone shouldn’t assign a manic-depressive-suicidal-multiple-personality-schizophrenic-sociopath diagnosis to someone who is mourning the death of their beloved cat. But, in the same sense, sometimes you need help in life. You can’t really name the reason, but sometimes you don’t want to get out of bed in the morning. You can’t really name the reason, but you want to wear the baggy shirt so no one will see your fat poking through. And for some reason, you find yourself crying yourself to sleep and hope you’ll never wake up again. So here’s where my dilemma comes in, I think. Sometimes, all I can think is that I’m pretty retarded to get bogged down in all of it, you know? And, I hope other people feel the same way. That maybe it’s okay that a crush doesn’t return the feelings, or the calls. Maybe it’s okay that your ex uses you like a toy, and also uses you for relationship advice with his current girlfriend. No one is dieing from cancer. No one is dieing from AIDS or HIV, and no puppies were harmed. Yet, I still feel like my stomach has been stomped flat and my heart has been shot with a rifle. It’s so fucking weird sometimes, going from happy and laughing to crying and feeling as if you’ve got no support system. It’s weird, because you know you can’t really tell anyone or else they’ll just think you’re either emo or blood is raging out of your vagina. So, here’s where my dilemma comes in, I think. I’m suppose to be taking these pills, to make everything better, to make me see through rose tinted glasses. And I took them for about 2 weeks. And you know what? They made it so I didn’t want to cry, I didn’t want to punch the crap out of a wall, or anything like that. They made me a normal girl, where I didn’t feel disappointed if the guy I wanted to return my call didn’t, or if my plans got dropped I didn’t mind. And you know what? I stopped taking them. Because, for some reason, I feel like beating the shit out of that life-sized care bear I have because some stupid fucking guy won’t talk to me. Or I feel like crying just because, what the hell, I don’t even know why. Maybe that makes me crazy, weird, abnormal, whatever. I just don’t think everything can be solved with drugs. Especially being human.

Waiting room

Perfection is a concept, not a reality. And, let’s assume that it could be a reality – it could, at best, last for only a single moment. Just one beautifully extended piece of time where nothing was set on fire, nothing was destroyed, that nothing was wrong. But, the truth is, no one really wants to face reality. Everyone wants their own perfect concept fastened into a reality. Everyone wants their life to be as exciting as an action movie, or as romantic as a Lifetime movie. The real truth is that no one wants the truth. Try telling your mom that you don’t want to diet, even if it’s for your career as a dancing superstar. Try telling your dance coach that your legs probably aren’t going to get any longer. Try telling yourself that you aren’t cut out what you’ve been built up for your whole life. Not everyone is going to be famous. Not everybody gets to have a fabulous life. Not everyone gets their ass kissed. Sometimes, just maybe, all of us have to be ass kissers as some point. The real truth is that everyone wants their life story to be surreal. Not for real. Curtains are going to be up in 10 minutes for my dance routine. With scouts from School of American Ballet, Julliard, and the New York School of Ballet I had one moment of perfection expected of me. Just 3 minutes to make you forget about genocides. Racial cleansing. War. For the past 48 hours I’ve been on a liquid diet to make sure I was as close to 100 pounds as possible. I’ve had exactly 247 calories within the past two days, just to make sure that I had no ounce of fat on me. To bend the truth as much as possible, they had to make sure I wasn’t fat. Let’s take a step backward, just so you now a little about me. Walking through the hallways of school, the pressure was on. For the past week, there were advertisements for my upcoming dance recital over the announcements. Everyone knew my name, and what it was associated with. This was probably the worst part. The school was relying on me for this dance routine to go perfectly, that I could somehow better the reputation of everyone with a single Battement tendu. I didn’t have the heart to tell them that no pirouette of mine could save us all. The real truth is that everyone wants their own prince charming. In some way. My pressure was mounting, and I swear I’m not a bad kid. But when you know that less than 12 hours away is your make it or break it moment, you start to get nervous. You start to realize the weight of the world on your shoulders. Walking down the hallways, I could see the stares out of my peripherals. I could hear the hushed whispers as I walked by. The real truth is that I was fucking scared, and nothing was getting better anytime soon. That was, until I was offered the Adderall. The real truth is that everything built up for you is one big fucking lie. Lunch, period 3. I was sitting at my table, just watching the conversations go one in front of me. My meal was two bottles of water, for extra hydration. Brittany and Michaela were both debating the caloric value of half a bag of Sun chips and a bottle of crystal light. I didn’t really give a shit. The real truth is that I fucking hated shallow people. I hated my life. I hated where I was going. I hated what I was destined to become. I never wanted this life of being under a microscope, a life full of satisfying everyone else’s desires. The real truth is that I want to be happy, I just wanted to be happy. The real truth is that life was becoming more and more violent by becoming more and more stale. The real truth is that I’m just so tired, worn out. I’m your own 16 year old teenage wasteland. I stood up, and gripped the chair so hard that my knuckles went white. Spots of color blew up in my vision, and I was shaking hard. I was stumbling from table to table, comparing the steps I was taking to the miles in the New York marathon. The shifting shapes of peoples faces to that of formless blobs was scaring me, I didn’t know what was happening. I felt someone grip my side harshly, and pull me over to where the bathrooms were. Repeat drills of instructors screaming, “ALLEGRO, AVANT” were humming in my ear. A collision of liner perceptions were going on, I knew I was being offered a full bottle of medicine. For the small, inexpensive price of 20 dollars I would be a dancing queen tonight. “BALLON HIGHER, YOU FAT, WORTHLESS FILLE!” Not to worry, there wouldn’t be adverse side effects – that never happened. “BRAS BAS, EMORY! BATTEMENT SUR LE COU-DE-PIED, PETIT FOLLOWED BY A BATTEMENT, GRANDE! WAIT UNTIL YOUR MOTHER HEARS OF YOUR AWKWARD LEGS TODAY, FILLE!” You know what, you can pay me back after the recital. Just remember, just take one. Hey, you don’t look too good. Emory? “Now Emory, how are you going to be famous when you can’t even effectively perform a Coupé jeté en tournant without making my gag reflex kick in?” I ran to the bathroom and splashed water on my face until both the voices stopped. And finally, no one was criticizing me. Finally, I looked in the mirror. Who I saw I didn’t know, I just saw a gaunt, green eyed girl who looked like a desperate, wild animal. My straight, coffee colored hair was barely brushed. My face looked flushed and dead at the same time. My makeup was gone now, and I felt slightly naked with just a touch of forlornness. This is what we call setting the stage. The real truth is that its only 5 minutes until curtains are up, and that one pill I took an hour ago isn’t doing a goddamn thing. So, in order to face reality, I think this whole bottle of pills should make me feel the best. All I need is a few pills to help me achieve stardom and perfection. Who cares if I die at 25, or if my liver gives out in a few weeks? So with a swig of diet coke, and a handful of pills, I prayed to whatever out there so I’d be happy. I prayed for perfection and redemption. And I prayed that my name would never be called out before this packed audience. I believe the term is waiting room Christian, where you somehow become the most religious person alive when you need a favor. “…and now onto the star of the show tonight, daughter of world famous French ballerina Angelique Iosif, and prodigy of Desiree Donatien, comes a ballerina innovative in both form and virtuoso. Despite both parents being world class dancers, the young dancer stands at a mere 5’4, and has procured a placement in the highly respected, premiere dancing studio of Ballet Chicago as a summer internship this upcoming season…” There was a lump forming in my throat and my vision was starting to blur again. There was a loud thumping noise in my ear. The things nerves will do to you. “Without further delay, MISS EMORY IOSIF!” The reality is that if curtain call is your make it or break it, then I would advise you to buy some insurance on your life’s future. The beginning of Divertimento in D, K. 136: III. Presto began at a hopeful, fast pace. I begin by a graceful arabesque, followed by one petite capriole to the left, then to the right, and then with a grande capriole center stage. Then, to excite the audience, I begin with a swift couru across the stage, then by following into an Entrechat six with an efface Épaulement, despite my teacher being a classical French dancer. As I begin my Fouetté rond de jambe en tournant I spot a Cheerio that is growing monster like legs at an alarming rate. The powerful instruments coming from the orchestra pit are starting to become canceled out by the torrent of harsh noise filling my ears. I Jeté en avant, grand towards the audience, and almost scream out in fear as the waves of people begin to bend with enormous, intimidating colors I cannot describe. And for the song’s finale, to show off my enormous skill, I go into an Pirouette à la seconde, grande as the walls of black nothingness begin to descend upon me. Then, the collision of the darkness hit me harder than I could have imagined. As I fell into the darkness, the pointe of my toe fell into a harsh, normal footing and my head felt as if it was being boiled alive. I couldn’t tell if I was tapping along to the rhythm of the music, or if my heart was beating so hard it had created its own musical interpretation. And before everything went black, a supernova of color streamed in my vision, and I knew that the creatures rushing towards me weren’t as they seemed. Because the real truth is that all reality is distorted, and no one wants to face the reality they have created.

Waiting room prologue

It was the summer of 2002 before my sophomore year in high school when I met him. You know the saying, “You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone?” It’s fucking true. Don’t find out the hard way. If I ever had to spawn a child, or speak to a group of graduating seniors, or anything stately like that, that would be what I’d tell them. Leave out that you can make any bra a halter bra with a pony tail holder, leave out that you can make any guy notice you with a confident strut, leave out that you should use white eyeliner to brighten up eyes after a night of crying or smoking pot. All of those things, well all those things are the same. And they don’t mean a goddamn thing in the end. Superficiality. Popularity. Reputation. No one will give a crap a year from now. But the people who will still answer the phone when you call, they mean more than you will ever know when you’re desperate. When you’re scared, lonely, and cold. Don’t let them go, because people who honestly care about your well being only come around once. Trust me. Don’t find out the hard way. He had that soft, platinum hair that you only see in advertisements. He had those piercing blue eyes that you can only picture when the sky looks perfect, when the ocean looks unending. He made you hurt inside he was so beautiful. He was one of those types you could never feel completely adequate around, because insecurities seem to outweigh any thing love can offer. “Want to know why I believe in God?” he gently cupped my chin in his hands. His eyes seemed piercing, blue. “Why?” I asked him with a smile playing at the corners of my mouth. “Because he made you just for me.” That bastard. That asshole. He just wanted to take advantage of me. Just wanted to use me. I wanted to believe that with all of my heart. But I couldn’t. The things he said, they were too genuine. Things that still make my heart break. Because before him, my life had been spent restlessly in the waiting room much like all of our lives at some point; wondering why time seems to drag on, wondering when it'll be our turn, wondering what's in store for us. And I think all of us at some point desire companionship; a person to sit...and wait with us. Someone to help us through everything life was going to throw at us. Someone to help us leave this purgatory. A reason to leave this dull, listless life. Someone to help us leave this waiting room.