I'm tired and frustrated by American politics...

I'm seriously considering moving to Vancouver, Canada as schooling isn't expensive and I firmly support universal/socialized health care. I might apply...

So I can believe all that I want that I am an intelligent person capable of solving calculus problems, but I didn't know, until today, what the square root of one was. I feel a little stupid.

I got the problem right (as I put 'plus/minus square root of one') but have been brought down a rung on the intelligence scale. Eh.

Once again: I am tired. I think I shall sleep.

I'm in the process of multiple scholarships and college applications...and they need to be done before November; partly because that is when they are due and also because I will be venturing off into Novel-Land and will not be returning until December.

I am also thinking hard about my travel companions, who, as of right now, are nameless and have no physical manifestations. Other than one is a woman and one, a man. That much I know.

Hmm...maybe I should plot some...

I am tired. Government teacher...basically scolded the class today for not being like college students nor being prepared before-hand for his lectures. I understand where he is coming from...but he said it in such a mocking manner.

And that textbook...Almighty Mother of Frappucinoes...

I should probably be continuing the progress that I have made of my scholarship/college apps...but I think I will have a bath and read A Handmaid's Tale or The Awakening. I'm in that kind of mood.

I think I will post later about power...because I am still turning it around in my head; that is, my idea of power. We'll see.

This was going to be a personal statement for college applications...but I got off on a tangent.


I have been told, inadvertently of course because no one is that rude, that I read too much, and when that occurred the lyrics from Beauty and the Beast instantaneously popped into my mind. Yes, I spend most of my time (with my nose stuck in a book) researching matrilineal mythology and the conversion from Paganism to Christianity, but I acknowledge and accept my passions, no matter how odd they might seem to teachers, bosses, or friends.

All of the time spent reading, the thirty days every November when I attempt to write 50,000 words, is simply seconds towards accomplishing my goal of completing my novel, my brainchild, my unique stamp upon humanity. I'm another believer; I feel strongly that if I work hard enough, I will influence the world in some manner, large or small. The book I wish to write encompasses ideas that are unorthodox; if one person were to read it, ingest it like I would, and ponder the great gaps in our human psyche (which I wish to illuminate somewhat), then I have done my job, completed my mission.

Every novel that I read (The Awakening, Kafka on the Shore, Frankenstein) poses questions and influences my view upon the world, regardless of that author's intentions or the standard of interpretation for that novel. My unique take on Edna drowning or on Victor's god-like aspirations may or may not be the same as other readers but I close those worn-through books as a different girl, a changed person, than when I first thumbed through the pages.

I feel that author almost channeling their ideas through my subconscious and I sense the power that thoughts such as that can have over one person, who, in turn, will spread their love. My English teacher proclaimed Margaret Atwood's A Handmaid's Tale as one of the best books ever written, and I read it. I devoured it. The plot was so striking and the female protagonist so close to my heart by the end that I could not exactly remember who I was before reading that book.

I suppose that many people experience this sort of personal evolution in different ways, or take these life-altering happenings from different sources, but I know so many people like myself. In fact, I know more kids my age who don't feel this way about reading, specifically because they have not found that book that shatters their entire existence. (That may be, in part, because we have so vague an understanding of our being at this time.) I do my best to interest students slightly younger than myself in literature that they are forced to read for a grade, that book that they don't comprehend and would rather burn than read, and I acknowledge how difficult it is to force-feed yourself novels. But it is the approach that is needed to read dry books like The Hobbit (a great book, no doubt, but the style is simply too much to take in for a 21^st century adolescent): every sentence of J.R.R. Tolkein's books are lovingly crafted and formulated for maximum effect. I told a sophomore trying to read it that “It was written purposely for Tolkein's son who was fighting in a war. The never-ending passages produced an escape from the horrors of battle. Think about that while you read.” I don't know if that boy ever finished or if he could even fathom what a young man serving in the ultimate way could be feeling, but he left looking puzzled, in the least.

I can only do so much with explanation. I feel like I can do more by creating, crafting, cutting, compiling, and even cultivating a novel that might be that one book that completely alters one person's life. That's all I could ever want, all I could ever hope for. I don't know about other authors, but that's how I feel.

I hope that you take time to appreciate the novels that shaped you: for my dad it was Where the Red Fern Grows and for my mother (and myself) it was The Red Tent. Of course we are created out of more types of clay than simply the literature we indulge in, but that is a defining element in our personalities and beliefs, and I have been shaped more by books than by people, regardless of how many amazing people I have in my life. (The difference lies in their ability to challenge my perception of myself and of reality.)

If books, novels, are not what does it for you, then find what does and accept it, embrace it.