A Few Colors

Today was like a million drops of dark chocolate syrup and splotches of blood under a summer day’s sun. It was like finger-shaking cross-stitching and yogurt, landing in between frames and cups of mango bits plus rainbow sprinkles.

by Adam

The library was closed during lunch time and so I engulfed the raindrops of sunshine under the roof and peered through the glass, scanning the shelves and pillars of books – pages were left open, then later they blinked at me like a pair of butterfly wings. Clouds dunked in Microsoft blue and paper white littered the sky as raucous chatter pushed on and on to exceed one of many limits. My heart – a cavern – hungered for answers, scrambled toward the door and almost left my mind behind with nothing to give. Daydreams hung around notoriously, and I rowed onward.

I drank the light of last night’s lamp like my last gulp of iced tea. My languid kicks brought me to a room stirring with finality, a place where I could breathe in and out with pruney fingers. Buh-reathe.

Thank you.

This World

For five tiring days in a week, I am surrounded by people who are my age or younger or older. To my right when I’m in sitting position is a noisy, new student who thinks he’s so bad. To my left is a comedian, making the class laugh and cough. We’re either forty or forty-one in St. Aloysius. There are foreigners: white skin, different language that tempts you to make fun of them and thick accent that makes you stare stupidly and say: “What?”

Starting high school is scary and I want to hide and bathe in Oreo-covered butterflies. But, of course, I cannot. There are limited things you can do in the real world. An inspiration who is namely Owl City (OWL CITY IS ADAM YOUNG) has sung: “Reality is a lovely place but I wouldn’t want to live there.”

Reality is crazy and true and happy and sad and is a silly rollercoaster, sometimes slow and sometimes fast, makes you hurl. I, as an introvert who spends some of her time (or most of her time) being quiet and daydreaming, would rather be alone. I may look like this young, naïve, big girl because that’s what my outside appearance tells you but I feel like Adam Randal Young: shy, quiet, introverted in so many levels and lonely. I have realized that I am starting to relate to Mr. Owl City’s songs more than the known enchantress a.k.a. Taylor Swift’s songs. Is that a good or bad thing?

I’ve been a Swifty longer than I’ve been a Hoot Owl. But I’ve learned that it doesn’t matter if you’ve been there from the beginning, it matters if you’ll be there until the end. But I would never want their music to stop playing. They say: All good things come to an end. Aye?

I love fantasy. The world I imagine inside my head looks prettier than dump sites and seemingly endless bombings.

Life is quite surreal.

It’s a mystery and I don’t know a lot of things but I do know that this is life.

Owl City makes me happy. All Things Bright and Beautiful is too out of this world to be able to be described in words. His songs have meanings behind their lyrics. I highly recommend listening to Owl City. Happy drugs.

I’m simply papier-mâché, delicately pulled into this world along with water, glue and newspapers.

Being mainstream means fitting in and going with the flow (or, being more specific with my words, crowd). I chose to sit and watch and dream. It isn’t easy because sooner or later you’ll get pulled out of your reverie and get forced to read thick textbooks you despise with all your being. You sit in a closed room with twenty plus kids you have to get to know. You make your ears listen to the sentences that are coming from the teacher’s always moving mouth because you don’t want to fail quizzes and tests because your parents pay for your education. You raise your hand repeatedly to answer questions about technology and the Philippine archipelago so that you won’t have to see writings on your future report card saying you have low grades and you need improvement.

We talk tongue twisters and malnutrition but do we ever get to perfectly keep them in our tightly screwed minds? We tend to forget the things said in a discussion after the discussion. We only get to remember bits by tiny bits of integers and the talking dog when we’re 40 year olds. They’ll remain bits. Just bits. Unless we attend high school again when we’re starting to grow gray hair.

I’ll let myself learn but sitting and staring and making yourself look like you understand everything in this world is starting to get more boring and more boring. I bet after a hundred years, school hours = 0 hours. Just 20 minutes. Let’s hope for planet Earth’s future.

#EqualityForAll

school-survival.net

If you love school, don't read this. People who are with me, unite!

I don't hate school. I just dislike it sometimes.

14 Good Reasons why School Sucks & Things I Hate About School:

1. School sucks because if you don't like it, most people automatically think there's something serious wrong with you.
2. School ruins learning. In school, learning is all about memorizing things, answering questions, and writing loads of crap on topics you don't care about.
3. Because you're forced to go there, and if you want to try some other alternative, you need to get parental permission first. School is essentially pointless forced labour without pay.
4. It sucks because people expect you to treat school as the most important thing in your life. Nevermind what you'd rather be doing.
5. School sucks because once you're done, you'll probably forget 90% of what you "learned" there and burn all your books anyway. All you'll be left with is a diploma stating that you survived 12 years of hell. And very few people (besides your parents) will even want to look at it.
6. Because talking to your friends is a crime at school.
7. It sucks because even if you're bored out of your mind, you'll still get all the blame for not participating in class.
8. School suppresses independent thought - if you disagree with the teacher, you're in trouble. If you dare to think of a new way to do something, it's automatically wrong.
9. School sucks because if you do what they say and do all your work, you don't get time off - they'll just expect even more from you in future. And someone who cheats on their work and tests can just as easily do better than you.
10. School sucks because life is short, and you'll never get that time back.
11. School makes everyone around you panic over the smallest little things that none of them (or anyone else) will care about a few years down the line.
12. Even when you go home, school invades your life by giving you homework as well.
13. It sucks because even though school has all these problems, if you mention any of them, you'll be the one they blame, no matter how right you may actually be.
14. School sucks because every now and then it does something useful for someone, and then everyone goes all "Look! That's proof that school is good for you!"... It's like getting free ice cream in hell - it just doesn't quite make up for all the other stuff.

Normal with a capital "N"

Well, today was Normal with a capital "N".

As usual, school was exhausting. It drizzled a little bit today but the sun shone.
Our devotion for today is about being content with what you have and counting your blessings. It is not about what you have, but what you do. Some people befriend other people just because they are rich or whatever. I do not like those kind of humans. I appreciate the ones who befriend others who are kind and selfless. And another thing I realized was that most people are extremely, highly, dangerously annoying. Not just my one and only little brother, but also the people I face everyday. They say things they do not even understand. They tease people about things that are too personal or not even true. They say things that hurt people. And there is also another thing I realized. It is that some people do not have common sense at all. It is not like I would not befriend someone with no common sense in his or her mind, it is just that it is hard for some people to communicate with them when they quote something but do not really get anything. They do things without any common sense at all. If only I could gift them with common sense, but, of course, I cannot.
Common sense is not something you can buy, but you can find it. Where? Deep in your head. It is just there. And you cannot buy friends, too. But if you give them money and order them to be your friend, they are just fake.

So, besides all those realizations, everything else is average.
I learned new stuff like I do everyday. Classmates were present, some absent. We continued having our National Achievement Test Review and it was OK, I think. I daydreamed.... well, not really, but I thought deeply. And I hung out with my best friends and we did silly, awkward things that most best friends do.

That's all.

Love,
Amber


P.S. I already know how to change the time! Well, I know how to change the time here in my blog. Hehe.