Use Your Illusion

Use Your Illusion is an album by Guns and Roses. The album is great and the cover is pretty awesome but I think I would like to talk about the title of the album. Use Your Illusion. (What I’m about to say has nothing to do with the interpretation of this particular album, just the title) (no offense, Guns and Roses is a fabulous band, I am a vet big fan)
When I first saw this title, they first thing that came to my mind was “use your imagination!”. We have been told this by teachers, adults, caretakers all throughout our childhood. When we were stuck on a writing assignment or bored with nothing to do. Always use our “imagination” to solve our own problems. Ahhhh, but the twist. What is the illusion. What’s the difference between imagination and illusion?

Imagination- the faculty or action of forming new ideas, or images or concepts of external objects not present to the senses.

Illusion- a thing that is or is likely to be wrongly perceived or interpreted by the senses.

Imagination is not present to our sense while illusion is merely perceived by our senses. Could our imagination simply be an illusion? Or our illusion be imagination?

Surely, when we use imagination as children, we think of dragons and princess in far away lands. But this is all an illusion. Children pretend. Adults pretend.

 

Below is the album cover for Use Your Illusion

Yellow: the color of Creative Writing

Yellow is the color of new ideas. Out of all the colors in the rainbow, it is the lightest, but also the brightest. Yellow goes along with thinking creatively, so that is why it is the perfect theme color for creative writing.
When I see yellow, I see sunshine. Yellow sunshine on my fingertips. I can feel the warmth of yellow, unlike red. The warmth of red is humid and darkening, an answer marked wrong on a test, soaked in red pen. A cheery yellow can help you breath a little easier. Yellow highlighter helps you find important ideas. The yellow pages help you find important people. Everything about yellow is expanding and helpful.
But why is yellow seen so seldom? Wouldn’t we want such a cheerful color around every street bend? Our beautiful sun, our lifeline, radiates the color yellow. Joggers wear fluorescent yellow to protect themselves from the villainous night.
Bananas are naturally yellow! If that isn’t the coolest thing you’ve ever heard, you haven’t heard enough!
Sunflowers and rubber ducks are yellow! Have you ever heard of one thing that is bad, coated in the color of yellow?

Ah yes, let’s not forget. The humble bumbly bumble bee. It does no harm! Only floating from leaf to leaf.

Tuesdays

Tuesdays are the very worst day of the week. Some may argue Mondays are bad, but oh no! Tuesday are definitely the most horrible day of the week.
Tuesdays are deceiving. You are not yet at the middle of the week and you just got over Monday. It is the horrible in between, the realization that you are no where near done with this week.
It is too cliche to hate Mondays. Wednesday is the famous “hump day”, a somewhat clear mark that you are halfway done. Thursdays can sometimes be a little rough, but always follow up the best day or the work week. Friday. Fridays make everything OK. No one could possibly hate the weekend, so that just leaves Tuesday. Tuesday is the evil child of the week that no one likes and probably doesn’t get anything at Christmas.
Oh, but could it be? Aren’t we the ones who make Tuesdays so horrible? Maybe if we were a little nicer to Tuesdays, they would return the favor. Maybe if we viewed each week day equally, it would not make one better or worse than another. No one would have to deal with the horrible Mondays, abominable Tuesdays, standard Wednesdays, adequate Thursdays, and glorious Fridays. Ah, but doesn’t the not so good days make the other ones even better! Doesn’t a million frowns make one smile seem like the best in the world!?
So it continues.
Today, my friends, is Tuesday.

Alas, the home stretch

I am trying my best to avoid thinking and or talking about the end of the year. The less I think of it, the faster it will come. I figured, as a small, immature new come senior, that I would not develop the horrible disease also known as senioritis. I held strong most of first semester. Passed with all As. The news of being accepted into college, passing my music auctions, winning multiple scholarships really threw me off. I knew my future was set and if I just barely hung on, I would make it through, undetected.
Alas, here we are. The home stretch. The final weeks. Within time, I will never have to see these boring hallways again, academically at least. The people I have been forced with for 12 years will all be going separate ways, an unlikely occurrence if I happen to run into them in the future. Sure, I’ve shared memories. But there is only so much fun you can have at school.
I guess I feel like most rules don’t apply to me and I will admit that I have broken about every single one of them. Hey, I haven’t been caught so far so I guess Im pretty good at it.

Flash Fiction

Flash fiction is something new to my eyes. I think the idea is splendid. It reminds me of poetry but in story form. You do not have a lot of room to write, so choose your words carefully. The taunting idea is somewhat comforting. Knowing that I do not need to “fill space” with “fluff” is a relief. Long essays and research papers are a thing of the past for now! I enjoyed the poetry unit and I am sure I will enjoy this one too.

Each prompt consisted of a few common phrases. “A damaged object”, “a stitch in time saves nine”, “around the coffeepot”. These prompts could be taken in various directions depending on the mood of the author. You take something without a lot of thought, and turn it into 500 words of complete scene. “Around the coffee pot” gave me no indication of a bad break up, but what a twist! A complete story and the author carefully weaves in the prompt idea.

However, “a damaged object” made a little more sense. I expected a book to be damaged. The story was simply a conversation between two people, not much information was given. In the third prompt, you learned a lot about the character while she observed the reaction to a break up. These two short stories do have one think in common. Description. The description made me feel as of I was witnessing it firsthand! I could smell the rundown bookstore and I could hear the storm growing closer.

Flash fiction is a lot like poetry. The last line is usually the most important. It ties everything together. The concluding line, or sentence, gives the story sense.

Cliche collaboration

We come across
Cliches
Everyday of our lives

Movies
The hallways
In our brains
In our thoughts
In our writing

“Absence makes the heart grow fonder”
Said the boy to the apple
But absence
Just make the heart forget
And soon within time
He had forgotten the taste of the apple

“Good things come to those who wait”
And the boy sat
Waiting
Waiting
But waiting gets you nowhere
Except loss of time

“Think outside the box”
The boy thought
And thought and though and thought
But the box just happened
To be another restraint
To his thoughts

“All in fair in love and war”
Too many emotions
And too little sanity
For the boy to think clearly
And he ended up heartbroken and dead

 

 

 

Adding to this post about cliches, I thought I might as well add some cartoons that went along with the theme.

 

Seven Billion Trees

Seven Billion Trees

Sometimes I think to myself
People
And trees
Are a lot alike

Trees start out
As just a little sapling
And grow
Grow grow grow
They come in all shapes and sizes
And are very sturdy
But not all the time

A trees leaves
Don’t make it beautiful

Bare trees have been stripped down
Down to the roots
Behind its eyes
We see what they really are
And isn’t that the most beautiful

Then there are trees that are leafed all year round
But isn’t that just the smile that covers the frown

Trees fascinate me
Are people as strong as trees?
Can people survive bare?
We cover up who we really are
With our leaves?

Don’t your branches long to touch the sky?

This probably won’t make any sense

  

Life is messy. Nothing ever goes as planned and sometimes that’s how the best of memories are created. Straying away from the road. Diverting yourself from the norm, from what is deemed as normal. I find myself too many times, trying to look at the other side. Choosing one opinion is out of the question for me because each side is usually good. There wouldn’t be arguments unless both sides thought they were right. Sure, I have opinions that are set on stone, no other way. But I find it easy to argue both sides of an argument. What kind of person does that make me? Am I indecisive? I would like to think no, I am self-realizing.Taking a step back from the situation, putting myself into their shoes. Now this is not always a good thing. Sometimes I wish I had many strong opinions rather than a few wishy-washy ideas. But I also can’t help but argue, maybe we argue too much. Maybe we are hung up on things that are unimportant in the grand scheme. We should focus on friends, family, living out short life to the fullest potential. (I’m not usually this deep, I guess I’m just in the mood). I know my family wins in the upmost importance. These are the people who shaped you from day one. They never left you, even when you woke them up late at night and threw up all over them. They still came back to comfort and clean you up. Working at a day care has really enlightened me to see that my family is not like many others. I was blessed with two caring parents and a wonderful little sister who looks up to me. I know my parents want the best for me and they will help me in every step of the way. At my day care,I see all sorts of broken stories. Divorced parents when the child can’t even understand what that word means. How can such innocence make a parents annoyed or awful towards their kid, who did nothing but be the one thing the parent can take anger out on. Luck has surely fallen my way when it came to families. My mother is one not to be taken lightly. I learn new things about her everyday. Often on late nights, you will find her, my sister, and I all coloring Mandalas (really cool therapy designs). She is one who believes in fung shui. She reads me horoscopes and fills my head with slim-chanced fantasies. My father was one who loved to laugh. He made the worst jokes, just as every dad does. But he taught me one of the most important lessons in life. Laughing is the best thing you could do to make any day a little bit better. Most older siblings hate their little sister. My sister is 2 years younger than me and she is my best friend. She looks up to me in every way. Every thing I do, she wants to do too. When I was younger, I didn’t understand this. I thought it was annoying and that she was simply a copy cat. Now, I can’t see a better way for her to tell me she loves me. I am her role model and I am thankful for that every day. I have someone to look after and I know she can always come to me for anything.

 

I believe in many things but I do not believe in religion. I believe in myself. I believe in slim-chances. I believe there are such things as signs. I believe in music. I believe in David Bowie, Freddie Mercury. I believe in people whom I have never met but I know for a fact they changed my life through the power of music so why can’t I do that same. Why can’t I teach people what music can do to a persons life. A life without music isn’t a life lived. Music connects people and I don’t see a reason why I can’t spend the rest of my life connecting with others through a passion that was embedded in me at an sponge-like age. I believe I can do the same for young people.

(Here is a link to David Bowies “Changes”

http://www.vevo.com/watch/david-bowie/changes-live/USJT20900001 )

 

Religion is something that has been introduced to me all my life. My father was one of the most religious people I have ever met. My best friends when I was younger always took my to church. I went to a Christian preschool. Yet, somehow, I find it all kinda of funny. I think of myself as a well-rounded individual (I apologize, I am not trying to brag). I volunteer at nursing homes, I donate to the food bank, I work with children every day or my life. But being non-religious is always paired with being a bad person. At least that’s usually the response I get when I tell people. Or at least they want to change me.That is why I usually don’t tell people. But hey, if we are all spilling the beans, I might as well too.

 

At a young age I was asked “who are you”. We all were, everyone who goes through the public education system. English teachers love to use this prompt. I cant remember everything I said when I was younger. I can’t remember what I thought that question meant. What kind of person I thought I was. I am not saying I am a wise person but I have grown a little with age. I know my beliefs have changed and that the person I was 4 years ago, is someone completely different than who I am today. The person I will be in 4 years is completely different than the person I am now. With time we change, and change is good for everyone. As David Bowie ones said “time may change me, but I can’t trace time”.

 

Marching band has been a big impact on my life since I started high school. This activity was something that taught me not only about music, disincline, and time management, but how to be a leader. Over the years I experienced the highs and lows of becoming a strong leader in such a demanding activity. I took this experience with me to my mentorship and cadet teaching classrooms. I took it with me to my job at the day care. And I know I can take it with me for the rest of my life. And I discovered something about myself during this time. I am a compulsive cleaner.

 

I also discovered I have sort of a mom-like personality. I pick up after others, always prepared with extra supplies, and have a sweet spot for everyone of my students/section.

High school students have been trained to advertise themselves. We argue why we deserve the scholarship money or why we deserve to get into that college.I’m not trying to tell you my biggest hopes and dreams or my finest accomplishment. Most of my life has not even happened yet (hopefully). This essay helped me more than any of those other scholarship applications. This essay is who I really am. Life is impossible to clean and I, am a compulsive cleaner.

 

 

 

A picture of me and my sister during Twin Day

 

“Your body is my canvas”

Naked Vegas. It’s a small tv show but I think it is a huge topic. The tv show is about a group of canvas artists who paint of naked models. Most people would like to not talk about this. Most people probably think it’s wrong to use girls bodies as something to stare at. I believe this is not the case. I think its a statement. “Your body is a temple”. This society has evolved into a mindset that he naked body can only mean one thing….. Which I will not say because I am school appropriate. I think you can do whatever the heck you want with your body! Man, if you wanna get tattoos all up in your face, do it. You might look pretty silly but who cares if that’s what makes you happy. If you want to be turned into a work of art, do it. Interpretation of art is not limited. Society has proved that. If you do not consider this art, you do not understand that art has no limitations. Naked Vegas is a great show for making a statement. These group of artists are doing exactly what futurist music composers did at the turn of the twentieth century. They composed music that was unheard of. They broke all the rule. They uses machines and patterns that stressed the ear. And the product, the music you listen to today. It is completely different and it has evolved into something that has benefited many people.

Throwback Friday

A little throwback to when I joined the dark side, conducted for the London Symphony, visited the Taj Mahal, rocked out with Freddie Mercury, and became the Pope.