Should I stay or should I go?

Most of you probably have a Facebook, and if not you are soooo 2003. However, if you DO own a facebook then you may be aware of an "application" called Friend Cicle. What this facebook application does is illustrate the various networks and friends you have, and how diverse your friend base is. And if you take a look at mine, you will see that I have a vast array of friends from all over Georgia. From transitioning from public to private, from middle to high school, my contacts are all over the place. Which leads me to my point: isn't it strange how those who you used to be extraordinarily close to come and go so fast?
It's so strange to me how relationships are nearly recyclable. I mean, for your extremely close friends this doesn't typically apply, but I've certaintly had my fair share of friends go astray. This wasn't supposed to be a long, engaging rant on my past, or anything like that. I just find it strange. Perhaps it's just me?
-Carson

2346 Lilio

2346 Lilio is a pivotol asteroid belt discovered by french astronomer K. Reinmun, who subsquently discovered the apollo asteroids. However, I can guarentee anyone reading this blog entry has never heard of 2346 Lilio, nor probably would they care. However, as I have more frequent mental breakdowns due to the college process, I find myself being able to relate to Lilio. Just, here me out. Okay, so my GPA isn't stellar (pun intended) and I only have one extracurricular. I'm also a white kid who does not have an abusive, alcoholic father. I do not speak a foreign language fluently, nor do I have any direction for my life. All I know is that I enjoy being outside, and that I am extremely lost. And, to further exasorbate myself, on paper I am exactly the same as millions of other kids out there. There is no diversity. I am not a special little snowflake. I will probably blend in with everyone else. And yet, there is so much more. Even though they can't see that, truly, who I am, I am still an individual. I have read work from every author wikipedia characterizes as an influence in the transgressional literature movement.In tenth grade I wrote a term paper on the Lorković-Vokić coup, and it came 4th place in a term paper writing contest. Awards were given to first, second, and third place. I've been a strict vegetarian for 3 years, and have campaigned against slaughterhouses. I have every single album by the beatles, and have a signed album by the steve miller band. I would have been a member of the youth socialist organization of America for three years in a row, but I forgot to send in my dues the second year. I have been through turmoil, and I have had my own share of personal tragedy. And yet, I am the same as 2346 Lilio.
Although I think I may be great, I am not significant enough to be put into a text book. I'm not going to be the next harvard magna cum laude, and I probably won't be the next president (I don't meet age requirements). And I feel as if the message behind college is lost within the admission process. If you want to go to college to learn, and not party, you're in the minority. The key reasoning behind most student's choice to go to a university is their reputation - whether it be academic or socially inviting. So I'll just continue playing the politics of college, and hope that soon I'll be discovered and noted.
I hope that one day I shall not be judged on the basis of my accomplishments on a paper, but for the complexity of my character. I hope that other people in my situation can break from the constricting requirements of many institutions, and that I can still impact the world somehow.
P.s. - On an entirely different note, I find it extremely ironic that Fahrenheit 451 was banned in North Dakota for over 20 years. It's an entire novel about the future government banning (and burning) books because they could inspire critical thought. It's been banned because, in "Fahrenheit", one of the books that eventually gets burned is the Bible. But, I mean, the point of the book is to NOT BURN BOOKS AND THEREFORE THE BIBLE. Just sayin', it's common sense people. C'mon.
- Carson

Disenchantment

Sometimes there are defining moments in your life where you stand at a crossroads. The fork in the road is definitive of where you could be going, however neither path is nescessarily right or wrong. However, the road leading to the fork in the road is the past, the history, and cannot be changed. The crossroads, thus, become concrete, and you have to weigh your options for as they are right now, not on the basis of what you wish had happened.
Okay, so what I just typed means nothing without context. But, I find myself at a crossroads this very moment. Recently, I've been having "issues" with a friend of mine, one who has remained extremely close to me for a number of years. So, now, to let out frustration I'm going to address you personally.
Within the past few months, you have complained to me about how I don't try. I don't put effort into the relationship. How, essentially, its all my fault for our dwindeling relationship. But,you can't see it how I do try. I'm the one who always goes along with your friends. I'm the one who always goes along with your interests, even though you know I don't really care all that much. I'm the one who sits stagnant, writing college essays typically, while you go along with your plans.
I've never been under this much stress before in my life. Not to rant, but the work load for 18 college applications is extremely overwhelming. So I am not, particularly, in the best position to worry about our relationships. But, the times where I'm not at work are few and far between, so it meant alot to me that this time you would come visit MY friends. Come see MY interests, as oppossed to your own. That, maybe, you would see I do try, and that you could branch apart from your own social bubble, and come see my own. However, you didn't. You blew me off, even though it meant the world to me. And you chose your new friends over your old, just like you think I do time and time again. However, I've never chosen anyone over you, I've chosen working hard and pain over pleasure. However, you continually choose over me, even though you are not plaguaed by strenous work. You have chosen a crossroads in your life, whether you recognize that or not. You have chosen a path that does not require, perhaps, a moment of social silence, nor have you chosen a path to stress your work ethic. I, however, am choosing a different path. I am choosing a path that involves today being strenous so that tomorrow I can be happy. I believe you to be selfish in some circumstances, and jaded in others. So, just realize, you're on your own path with your own definitive friends. And I am on my own.
-Carson
P.s. - I'm thinking its going to be Noah's Ark version 2.0 soon. In order to save gas today, I believe I am just going to swim home. Might be more effective.

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.