To My Pre-Pubescent Self

Dear 11-year-old me,

                I am going to have to be blunt with you in this because, despite what I know you think, you are not the coolest person on earth.  Let’s start with attire: sorry, but wearing two different colored Crocs in order to perfectly correlate with your double-layered polos will never be cute. Shocking, I know. Also, try to avoid the “rebel” stage you will soon enter, mostly due to the fact that your definition of rebel focuses on wearing a different DELiA*s graphic tee everyday with your lime green Nike dunks. I realize you adore those shoes, but I also know the main reason you like them remains the fact the Chandler Pisczak complimented you on them. Speaking of Chandler, just because he decided to dress as Mario character for Halloween the same year you did does not mean he is in love with you. I am just preventing your future heartbreak here. The truth hurts. Also, the fact that Rory Gilbert gave you grape flavored Bubble Tape for your birthday does not mean he is the perfect boy who knows your favorite gum flavor, it means he forgot your birthday. I know all this seems pretty crazy, but I promise these are the things you will look back on and regret.  Honestly, I could go on for hours criticizing your current lifestyle, but I will spare you and move onto advice time. First off, involve yourself in the world. Pay attention to the events and people surrounding you.  Not things like how Nick Jonas’ hair looked on a particular day, things that truly excite you and will one day benefit you. Also, try to start veering back to Katherine or some variation of it. Although Roo will make for a clever Twitter name, you will eventually find yourself in the middle of an existential crisis as you try to decide what your name will be when you go to college in five months. But mostly, keep reading. Even if you just have time for a few pages each day, read them. You will thank me and J.K. Rowling one day. Oh, by the way, I hate to say it but your Hogwarts letter will not come during your 12th year on this planet, but you never give up hope. The owl just went on a seven year detour, I am positive. And finally, good luck. You will turn out alright in the end.

                        Best Wishes,

                                    18-year-old you

P.S. Do not get a MySpace.

Tick Tock

                As the clock’s thin hand glides over the 12, I realize that is the last simple rotation I will ever experience. Such a modest thing, a clock, but when you only have 60 more ticks left in your life, everything becomes so much more important. I never thought I would find myself counting down the seconds of my last minute, yet here I am. With each tick of the second hand, the realization sinks deeper and deeper: I am earnestly about to die. Gone. Forever. Perhaps I deserve this, no, I do deserve this, but, at the same time, it all feels so terribly inhumane. I guess I never attempted to empathize with anyone who has stood in my current position because no one like me should ever stand here, no one who always demonstrated impeccable citizenship should ever receive a death sentence. But I slipped. The hand glosses over the three: forty-five more ticks. With only three-fourths of a minute remaining in your life, you may think one would begin to really consider what happens after death, but, for me, I chose to ponder my funeral. What colors everything would be, what pictures my family would use etc. Would anyone even come besides her? At least I can join the small club of individuals who knew the date of their own funeral weeks before death. 30 more movements. Now, I begin to search for some small joys, those little things you overlook daily but make your life worth living. The list proves short and, soon enough, only 15 more. Despite my efforts, the only thought in my mind proves the consideration of her last seconds. The ones I ended. I have the clock to remind me of the impending destruction, but she had nothing to forewarn her. So, as the second hand reaches nears the top, I think only of her. The hand strikes 12 and, for a short moment, the hand and I are one, both beginning our falls down to 6. But mine comes faster as the floor beneath me disappears, and I sink into my death.

Life's a Puzzle

*Ding* I glance down at the piece of high-tech machinery I had always used for trivial, childish things before. But now I have seen the light. Now I know the real reason I was blessed with an extravagant phone. I discovered the truth and have realized my destiny: I am a Ruzzle prodigy. With each swift move, I intricately form labyrinthine words that aid me in not only annihilating my opponent but also in continuing my quest for future fame. As each round passes, I search for the power-ups and complex words that will increase my score in the game and in life. My body enters a hyperactive state and every conveniently placed Double Word or Triple Letter causes my heart to instinctively skip a beat. When the countdown starts, I transform into a jaguar, expeditiously barreling around the board, earning numerous awards for my polysyllabic and rare words. The game loves me almost as much as I love the game. Although, I should not use "game" because it is not just a silly game, it is a lifestyle. My whole life rides on my every victory: my parents' happiness, my college education, my future. Everything. I need to be the next Ruzzle Champion. So I win. I practice hourly, contesting, and destroying, every comrade I possibly can. But champions have to work harder than that, so I do finger stretches, repeat extensive drills to increase thumb/eye coordination, memorize dictionary pages, anything that will help me become the best Ruzzle player this world has ever seen and ever will see. I already feel close and have received the title "The Michael Jordan of Ruzzle" more than once, but I reject comments such as this. Why? Because I never had a moment of weakness like many of the players whose stories America soaks up. I never got cut from my school's Ruzzle team, encouraging me to work even harder to become the best champion this world has ever seen. No. I did that from the start. I founded and am captain off the Ruzzle team. I am a new breed of athlete, ready to take on the world. But, since I know exerts from these blogs will one day appear as the feature story on multiple magazines, I will share my coveted, soon-to-be-reached goal: I want to achieve the perfect game. One day, soon, after finishing a round I will see a glorious statement along the lines of "You found 271 out of 271 possible words." Some say it is impossible, I say "impossible" is too long of a word to play on a Ruzzle board and is thus not in my vocabulary. I know this may come as a shock to many of you who have not had the privileges of attempting to dethrone me, but I promise you that I only tell the truth. Start to mentally prepare yourselves for the inevitable influx of reporters at our school doors and the strangers meandering around town, wanting a glimpse at sport’s next best thing. And, finally, to answer the question on all of your minds, yes, you can have my autograph.

Loggin' My Bloggin'

            Well, we made it halfway. As the first semester comes to a close, I would like to thank Ms. Serensky for providing me with my only slightly bearable homework, the weekly blogs. Each entry aides me in articulating my thoughts in a humorous way, and I always look forward to reading my classmate’s fantastic entries. I hope I provided them with some enjoyment as well and that my efforts to impress succeeded. I remain particularly proud of one of my entries, “Pondering Purposes,” and believe it stands as my most well-written post. My successful integration of a humorous anecdote and analysis of the importance of instilled meaning made the post both enjoyable and thoughtful. Moreover, I utilized relevant quotes from “The Balloon” and literary terminology without it sounding like term-dropping. I believe the entry flows well and holds interesting thoughts, and I hope it proves an entertaining read. Another entry I enjoyed writing and trust readers would appreciate, “Materialistic Monkeys,” contains a variety of tales form my work experiences. I find this blog post particularly interesting as it contains multiple humorous anecdotes. By emphasizing one story in particular, I illustrated the initial judgments of materialism we all often express. However, I also wanted to portray that we all contain this greediness and share it with many of the characters in The Great Gatsby. In addition to the entertaining tales, I hope my blunt assertions increase the appeal of this entry. Although I thoroughly enjoy composing blog posts, my favorite blog-related activity remains reading comments on my writings and remarking on others’ works. I received many amusing comments throughout this semester but my favorite came from Victoria Sevich. After a week of speculation regarding Gabe’s mysterious absence, I decided to blog about the relation between the rumors we started about his location and the fallacies about Gatsby.  Victoria commented on this post stating that she knew all along that Gabe just went to Florida, and only made a single, feeble attempt to clarify it. I found her statement extremely humorous and began to imagine her as the Nick to Gabe’s Gatsby, the only one who Gatsby trusts with the truths in his life. I look forward to reading more comments like this in the second semester! Furthermore, I cannot wait to attempt to entertain and be entertained as our classes’ blogging skills continually improve.

Materialistic Monkeys

            I enjoy working at Math Monkey, or “The Monkey” as the cool kids say, for a variety of reasons, but the main perk lies in the plethora of relatively humorous stories I now have in my repertoire. For instance, just yesterday, when I asked what president is on the nickel, a child replied “Oak Obama?” (pronounced oh-bam-a).Somehow this sparked a light in another kid who then shouted “MITT ROMNEY.” So close. Or I can always fall back on the kid who peed his pants the last four weeks in a row, despite his mom’s forced bathroom trips before class. A little bit sad, but I always find humor in these situations. Though I generally find these stories solely amusing, one of the students I tutor allowed me to greater understand The Great Gatsby and empathize with its characters (except Jordan Baker, I still hate her). Allow me to set the scene: I assist a sixth-grader who has a great personality and appears very intelligent, but really reveals the woes of a modern preteen. This Tuesday, she entered, no, strutted into the tutoring room wearing a thick coat of glitter pink eye shadow and mascara, and I let a subtle look of confusion slip due to the fact that I struggle to wear basic make-up on a daily basis as a senior in high school. I then noted her iPhone 4s, emphasis on the s, she does not mess around with any old iPhone 4, that she had contained in a giant silicon bunny case, tail and everything (for a visual). I could not retain my curiosity and inquired about when she first received a cell-phone, and she promptly informed me she acquired it in fourth grade. At this point, I started to feel a little old as I relayed the classic “When I was your age” routine. With the thought of Daisy in the back of my mind, I immediately became critical of the girl’s apparent materialism, despite enjoying her character and intellect. However, I soon realized I would have, and still do, act the same, just in different ways. This forced me to note the similarities between myself and all of Fitzgerald’s characters. I think we all contain at least of touch of materialism and sense of entitlement, but, when observing our own flaws, we often criticize without recognizing the commonalities. Some may argue that the booming economy and celebratory attitude of the 20s instilled much of the character’s greediness, but did our society not create the Hummer Stretch Limo? We all always want more, and neither I, nor my tutee, nor Daisy, nor any of the characters in The Great Gatsby, act any different.

Combating the Common Cold

            I would like to take this opportunity to formally apologize to everyone who had the misfortune of sharing a class with me during these past few weeks. The constant sniffling, coughing and nose blowing surely annoyed you as it does me. I interrupt my every attempt to speak with an extreme cough or, at the very least, a minor sniffle. To give you an idea of the scale of my struggle, I attempted to count my sniffles during a ten minute period and had to give up when I reached 146. It is a little difficult to make an impressive, analytical argument that people will take serious when your sentences sound like this: "I *sniff* think that *sniff* the green light *series of coughs* acts as a *sniff* symbol of hope *cough* can I get a tissue?" Just a bit annoying. To the extent of my knowledge, I never experienced a true cold prior to Thanksgiving, but I have definitely complained about others’ sicknesses. Sorry, but we all can admit blowing your nose is not cute. My experiences with this terrible entity have forced me to realize I must try to act like more of a Nick Carraway when I inevitably become the healthy one forced to listen to the nasal wars of others. Although I originally scuffed at his idea of "reserving judgments" to a point, my vexing virus has taught me that I truly do not know the extent of everyone else's issues, and I cannot judge until, excuse the trite, I have walked a mile in their shoes (2). I absolutely abhor having a cold and hope I never have to experience it again, but I definitely learned a lot from it. On top of the gained empathy for those battling illnesses, I feel my sickness allows me to relate to those who have to excuse themselves to cough or sneeze as well. As Fitzgerald notes, the division between the sick and the well proves the most fundamental separation and one of the few that appears exempt from all other factors. It does not matter if I have not spoken to someone in years or talk to them daily, I will still have a great conversation with them as we approach the tissue box at the same time or reach for the Purell in unison or even provide medicine for each other (shout out to Jessica Walker for the Tylenol). So, to my fellow sicklings, I finally feel for you. And to those fortunate to have an immune system comparable to Fort Knox, I know the coughing annoys you, but I guarantee you will experience the same one day so do not hate on the sniffles.

The Great... Gabe?

            No one can escape rumors, but extended absences leave one particularly vulnerable to the power of fallacies. We all spread them and hear them about ourselves, yet they consistently vary in interpretation. You have your Gatsby’s, for instance, who live for the mystery and love staying elusive. They enjoy the extensive stories swirling around their name and only reveal truths when absolutely necessary. Although you sometimes have the temptation to hit them in the jugular, you continue to facilitate the stories and secretly find pleasure in the drama. Whenever you feel tired of these Gatsby’s, search for the Gabe’s in your life. He misses a few days of school for a family vacation and suddenly our class determines he needed to fly to Mexico in order to inspect his sector of the drug cartel. But in reality, he did not even visit Mexico. He went to Florida. Bland ol’ Florida. Nevertheless, upon his return, he exhibited nonchalance and did not act the least bit restrained when clarifying the truth. Score. Our class experienced all the fun of drama and mystery without the frustration of a character such as Gatsby. Not everyone lucks out like first period, and the complexity of rumors never ceases to amaze me. Any mystery or source of speculation causes rumors and gossip, so, really, Gatsby’s reserved nature and Gabe’s vacation to “Florida” do not have too many differences. I guess the only question that remains is when will you start throwing the massive ragers, Gabe?