Two Quotes

These aren't my favorite quotes, but these are the ones that have stuck with me for a long time. I suggest you look up where they belong. (I claim no copyright to the following quotes, they belong to their respective authors) 

"Listen to me," He said. "Let me tell you the truth about the world to which you so desperately want to return. It is a place of pain and suffering and grief. When you left it, cities were being blasted to pieces from planes flown by men with wives and children of their own. People are being dragged from their house and shot in the street. Your world is tearing itself apart, and the most amusing thing of all is that it was little better before the war started. War merely gives people an excuse to indulge themselves further, to murder with impunity. There were wars before it, and there will be wars after it, and in between people will still fight one another and hurt one another and maim one another and betray one another, because that is what they have always done.

And even if you do avoid warfare and violent death, little boy, what else do you think life has in store for you? It took your mother from you, drained her of health and beauty, and then cast her aside like the withered, rotten husk of a fruit. It will take others from you too, mark me. Those whom you care about-lovers, children-will fall by the wayside, and your love will not be enough to save them. Your health will fail you. You will become old and sick. Your limbs will ache, your eyesight will fade, and your skin will become lined and aged. There will be pains deep within that no doctor will be able to cure. Diseases will find a warm, moist place inside you and there they will breed, spreading through your system, corrupting it cell by cell until you pray for the doctors to let you die, to put you out of your misery, but they will not. Instead you will linger on, with no one to hold your hand or soothe your brow, as Death ones and beckons you into his darkness. The life you left behind is no life at all. Here , you can be king, and I will allow you to age with dignity and without pain, and when the time comes for you do die, I will send you gently to sleep and you will awake in the paradise of your choosing, for each man dreams his own heaven. All I ask in return is that you name the child in your house to me, that you may have company in this plan. Name him! Name him now before it's too late."

And 

"When adults say, "Teenagers think they are invincible" with that sly, stupid smile on their faces, they don't know how right they are. We need never be hopeless, because we can never be irreparably broken. We think that we are invincible because we are. We cannot be born, and we cannot die. Like all energy, we can only change shapes and sizes and manifestations. They forget that when they get old. They get scared of losing and failing. But that part of us greater than the sum of our parts cannot begin and cannot end, and so it cannot fail."

They are from two very different contexts and books, but I thought they paralleled pretty well. 

Writing a novel

Writing a novel is annoyingly hard, not because its hard to write, but its hard to write what you want to write.
Cliche, stupid things bore me. Most first drafts are made up of stupid, cliche things. Therefore, my first draft is filled with cliche, stupid things, and maybe that's why I'm bored with it.
(This is implying that I have a real first draft, that somewhere on my computer there is a 50,000 word sucky narrative. That's not the case. What is the case is that I have 50,000 words of scenes that I wanted to write and did even though in retrospect, they all suck. Plot-wise, 99% of it is useless, and rightly so.)
I still want to write a novel. I still want to write about those characters (albeit the very few) that have survived these tumultuous last few months and are actually complex and interesting. I still have those vivid ideas that pushed me to the keyboard in the first place, the ones brimming with possibility even now.
But I don't have a story. I realize this now as I sit down on Blogger and try to figure it out. Maybe I haven't done enough universe building, and that costs me. I hate outlines, but I suck at coming up with things as I go that are also funny and intelligent. (Another reason I can't do improv) I have to universe-build. I know I'm not going to have time to write in the next year or two though  (and probably weeks as soon as break is over) because of finals and school and ACT and doing-well-enough-to-go-to-a-good-college. I might have a legit excuse not to write fiction if I get in Honors Seminar in Non-Fiction Writing.
But I like fiction. I like making up a world that makes sense to me even in its wrongness and writing about things that are meaningful to me and the reader. I like making up and writing about characters that are complex but cool, crafting something out of the weird mess that is my life. I like making sense of my life through fiction. I'm just very bad at it.

Thoughts on the ACT

It's such a weird test.
Not because of the content or the prep or anything, but because how much time we put into it.
I'm realizing this more and more as I go through the Kaptest shpeal online that the test doesn't favor so much the naturally intelligent as those who willingly spend tons of time on the test. The test rewards those who spend hours prepping for it with exam books and practice tests and online courses and all that stuff, which is great for some people, but terrible for others.
Say you're from a low-income family in the city, and you're the oldest daughter with three siblings.How much time are you able to afford to studying for such a test when you have to do the laundry and make lunch and drop off your brother at school and do your homework (well)? And even if you do manage to squeeze a little time per week to study, you still would have to compete with upper-middle class kids taking a 500$ Exam Prep class that have few responsibilities except for Do Well In School and Become a Doctor/Lawyer/Professional Rich Person. That's a hell of a leap between points, and that's not mentioning the cost of the test itself ($35.50 without the Writing portion, $55.50 with the Writing Section) which to most people is pretty affordable, but probably isn't for lower-income families. And that's for one time. Many really ambitious kids retake the test once, twice, thrice, and I've heard of someone having done it a total of five times just to get the right score (and failed to do so). How many times could a family afford to do that for their child's education? And how many times will they be willing to do it?
Just some thoughts as I study for the test. Thankfully, I'm not in any of the situations above, but it still bothers me in a way; that somebody's ambition or their dreams could so easily be snuffed because of their family. As is the paradox of love and all that.
See ya.

A Youtube Education

It's easy to admit you're a book nerd.
Particularly at HCHS where reading books is encouraged through an annual reading marathon, (which I am bombing this year thanks to my mom not taking me to the public library and quitting too early on my books) I don't mind admitting that I read with far more appetite than many of my peers.
But admitting I love Youtube is another thing entirely. When people hear the word Youtube, they think of Gangam style and Rebecca Black and maybe a famous Youtuber or two. When I think of Youtube, I think of the vlogbrothers and danisnotonfire and Crashcourse and Booksandquills and Shane Dawson and so many other names and channels that nobody's heard of. And there are quite a few channels that I love that the general public would either think are a. really weird/creepy (Shane, I'm looking at you) b. boring or c. just plain uninteresting. Here's my argument:
I'm going to start where I started with when I first started on Youtube: The Vlogbrothers. This may sound a little presumptuous, but John and Hank Green have taught me quite alot about life and selflessness and being a good person than most of the people in my life (this doesn't include family, obviously). Even though I've never met them, I owe them much more than I owe my acquaintances or even a few of my worse teachers. I love them (not creepily, but I mean in general) not because they're funny (they are) but because they each have their own insight and opinions about the world that they share through videos, some of which that range from the Syrian Revolution and the metaphorical resonance of roadtrips to jokes about goat sex. And in a way, they're also responsible my getting me into other Youtubers because then I had to get a Youtube account to keep up with all these cool people they kept referencing, and then I got addicted to those Youtubers and then I found more on my own and etc etc.
Youtube is weird in that it's more than you often do more than just sit and watch content. It's a place that fosters communities that build pond filters in Bangladesh and write fanfiction about two flatmates in London and fangirl about a vlog-style adaption of Pride and Prejudice and all sorts of crazy things. In that sense, it's a weird place compared to most of the world.
And lately, it's a place for education instead of time-wasting. There are literally videos on Youtube that cover an entire course of AP Bio in the span of fifty videos that still are funny and clever despite their heavy content. There are videos about particle physics and why shades of pink are all actually the color red. There's a whole world out there on Youtube, and alot of people are missing out. Hell, there's even a yearly convention for Youtube video making. (One day I'll go, once I can actually get to California)
So maybe Youtube is an easy way to escape the monotony of day-to-day life and laugh away at the bloopers of 30 House Rock or Ouran High School Host Club. I'm not going to deny that, I use Youtube for that all the time too. And yet, it's also a way to engage more deeply into things that are actually important or whatever, to actually participate more in reality than you would have sitting on Facebook or tweeting about how boring your winter vacation is.
So I dunno, maybe I sound like a total lazy butt when I say that watching Youtube videos is a pastime of mine. But I don't regret it.

***If you're just getting started and looking for channels to look at, here are some great ones:
http://www.youtube.com/user/vlogbrothers (There's no debating the greatness of this channel. They introduced me to Youtube for bugger's sake)
http://www.youtube.com/user/danisnotonfire (Just one awesome, hilarious guy who is just yeah, great. Love him)
http://www.youtube.com/user/crashcourse (Really great educational videos about World History, AP Bio. They're covering Literature and Ecology right now, though I've heard that Chemistry is up for grabs in the next few months. Definitely worth the time investment if you're into learning)
http://www.youtube.com/user/booksandquills (If you love books, you'll love her. She reviews books and talks about books and is just generally amazing. I wish I had that much time to read)
http://www.youtube.com/user/lizziebennet (A modern vlog-style adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. Really. Check it out. Videos twice a week)
http://www.youtube.com/user/vsauce (If you're into interesting sciency videos, vsauce is for you. I also recommend Scishow)
http://www.youtube.com/user/xperpetualmotion (If you love graphic design, you'll love Karen)
http://www.youtube.com/user/charlieissocoollike (Charlieissocoollike is cool. There is no debate about this.)

Loneliness

I think I really realized why I write these posts. Why I'm drawn here even though most of my peers only write posts every couple of days.
I feel lonely.
I'm separated from the rest of the world, even though thats not true considering the laptop in my hands and my sister in the room next door. I shouldn't be alone. But I feel like it.
I feel like there's a whole world going on there, and tons of things I should be doing that I'm not, so I'm wasting my time sitting around her not making the most out of anything. That's not to say I'm not thankful for the comfortable upper-middle class life I have or for the lack of drama (for the most part) in my life, but its hours like these that I feel separate. Not good enough.
I'm bitching and whining, I know. But I'm always wasting something that I don't know how to use or don't feel like using.
I wish I could be insightful and talk about hopeful things and how the world is great, but alas, no.
Maybe one day I'll have made something of myself or have finished my novel or get accepted to a great school or god forbid, actually be able to talk to people who want to be friends with me without getting anxious and ruining it all. Maybe one day people will actually like the stuff I make instead of me just spewing out into an empty void, unheard.
Maybe one day. That's all I can hope for.
EDIT: Blablabla, typical self-obsessed crap. Gosh, I sure must like talking about myself.

Ambition

I'm obsessed with ambition.
I spend my days wondering how I can improve in one thing or another by devouring books and emulating them, watching things I judge to be worth my time, and hell, I even made a second Tumblr account so I could follow content-creators instead being stuck with a dashboard constantly flooded with random gifs that just bore you after awhile. I randomly decided yesterday, not even for New Year's or anything, to have "be able to run a mile in ten minutes without stopping" as a goal.
I scare myself sometimes. But what scares me more is that I'm going to screw up and not get what I want because I underestimated something or screwed up or something that I definitely 100% could have done and didn't do.
I'm not tensed up with anxiety like I used to be about the whole thing. But it does scare me, not failing persay, but the idea of not getting what I want when I want it.
In other news, I found these little gems: One is terrifying and one is inspiring.

How I spent New Year's

That's relatively simple.
Chatting all night with my best friend.
That really doesn't SOUND like a great Near Year's Eve plan, and we didn't plan on it, but that's what we did.
She was working on her 8-page comic submission to the Scholastic Contest that day, and I was working on my writing. She sent me a text, affectionate as usual, with the message Go on gm. I go on Gmail to find her agonizing over how she does the face. I spend the next hour and a half critiquing it and making her experiment with eye sizes before we actually had any real conversation. Then we started talking.
First, as will happen with most high schoolers, about college. We both have different types of worries. Hers: CalArts accepts only 53 students a year for character animation. She wants to be one of those people next year. She's working hard to make sure she is, but she's not sure if she'll be good enough on time.
Mine: I had shitty grades from freshman-sophomore year. Didn't care. Went to U of C Open House. Cares alot. Now: Working hard for good grades, but worries its not enough. Also, trying to write more and more (like thorugh this blog) but not producing tangible results (for example: I've only finished one short story this year)
So we shared our worries, drawing our conversation out from college stress to middle school memories (Spoiler: Most of them are bad) to our hometowns. Or rather, our homecountries.
My best friend is Indian. She moved to Illinois when she was in 3rd or 4th grade, but she remembers.
I'm Syrian, but I've never lived there for more than two months at a time during the summers of my childhood. This is because my parents got the hell out of there when they could, but they still loved their family back there. So all my mom's siblings (Three out of her four siblings) and their kids went to my grandmas' house every year to hang out for a couple of months.
She told me about how her cousins pranked her by dropping a rubber spider on her skin in the middle of the night, and I told her about Little Village, the private school turned summer school that I made friends in.
Here's the really interesting thing both of our stories would share in common:
We always belonged. Our families were our friends, our cousins like siblings. My mom told me how when she was younger, she used to hang out with her family over the weekend as her social life. Both my best friend and I, isolated from our family thanks to differing self-interests, had lost that kinship that is so sacred in the East. In America, it's not the same. Our extended family aren't our friends, they are people we meet up with every year. And in my family, not even that because of the distance. I haven't seen most of my cousins in real life in two years. That's what I spend New Year's Eve doing. Talking about the past with my best friend.
Happy New Year's everyone.
As for resolutions, I've always made my own resolutions before New Years's that I plan to continue enacting and getting started on the next year regardless. Main ideas: Run a mile in ten minutes, write everyday, only use Tumblr on the weekends, get good grades first semester of 2013, and do my sister well before she graduates.
Sayanoraz