Final for Intaglio Printmaking!

Final Project for Relief Print Making

I am a composite of every person I have held dear, and I am also Myself

I've grown up watching my parents and imitating their actions, tastes, and opinions. This has carried over with other relationships in my life with my siblings and friends, and the people I've worked for. I suppose this is sycophantic, but I like think of it more in the terms of "the best form of flattery is imitation".
I pick up my taste in music from what the people I love listen to. My parents came of age in the eighties, and have exposed us to a lot of alternative new wave and punk bands; The Smiths, The Clash, The Cure, Blondie, Siouxie and the Banshees, Talking Heads, Devo, Madness, and The English Beat among others. I've heard almost everything from the genre, even if I may not immediately be able to name songs or the bands playing them. My friend Raven introduced me to Mountain Man, described as an indian folk rock trio, and The Lumineers, a folk band best-known for their song Hey Ho. My dear friend Yo opened up the world of Les Friction and Led Zeppelin (the former, indirectly) to me. He also brought Ben Howard to my attention, as you well know if you read this silly blog regularly.
I read most of the books my friends and family recommend, and I aspire to read every book on this list compiled by me, my mom, and my dad. I adore JD Salinger, my dad owns every book he's released to the public, and my dad also introduced me to Orson Scott Card through the Alvin Maker series. Three or four of my friends told me I had to read The Hunger Games; I held out pretty long, but Yo finally lent me (or rather, my dad) the first two of the trilogy. I got into the Harry Potter series because my great Aunt told my mom to give it another chance; originally she'd sort of banned it. That's one of the more indirect examples I've written so far, but it does illustrate my point pretty well.
Longboarding is something I decided to learn because of my siblings and Yo, who are all fantastic longboarders. I built my own board with another longboarder friend because I knew I'd be more likely to actually learn it if I had my very own board. (At the time, my siblings shared a few boards given us by the board-building friend.) I'm not very athletically inclined, though I do enjoy climbing trees, hiking, and playing games like tag. But I really would not have picked up boarding were it not for my family and friends.
One of the more abstract examples included in this essay-list; Sometimes, after spending at least half a day with a person, I'll find myself thinking in their voice and syntax. This happened with a southern guy I work for and it happened when I spent the day with my college-age friend a couple Springs ago.

I've grown up closely watching my parents and imitating them. Along the way I've also learned a lot of things and acquired likes and interests from my friends and the people I've admired. I haven't neglected my own innate tendencies or tastes in all of this; I am fairly discerning in what I copy from other people. I don't pick up everything my friends do or enjoy; I know very much who I am, changeable as that may be.

Bagger Vance

Reading The Legend of Bagger Vance is not what I expected it to be. I am filled with a vague but persistent yearning, much like the yearning of two or three years ago.
Who knew golf could be so intimately entwined with the divine and metaphysical? And it fits so perfectly, it doesn't come off as stilted or silly. The story is just bit cheesy in places, but not so much as to be off-putting.
I learned things from I never expected to learn in the context of golf, and somehow, the sports lingo peppered all through the book aren't difficult to read at all. I know nothing about golf, and I still know next to nothing, but I didn't have to skim through the game descriptions, they were so poetic and fluid.
I'm probably not going to become passionate about the game of golf, but it's taken on a new meaning and color in my mind, and The Legend of Bagger Vance is probably going to be one of those books I carry in my heart forever, the reading of which has defined a pivotal point in my life and growth. 

"The Perks Of Being A Wallflower"

Today I am Charlie.

A long time ago I read that people often absorb the personalities of main characters from books they're reading, and the effect can last for a while after they've finished the book.

I read the rest of The Perks of Being a Wallflower today. I've felt like the narrator and protagonist, Charlie, ever since I began reading this morning. He's a great character; really well-written. I identify with him a lot, I too am a wallflower and fairly observant.

I felt awkward much of the day, and rather depressed. It helped to go on a walk after I finished the book. I was getting pretty down when I read the first half of the book a couple weeks ago, so today I thought I'd try getting some exercise and a change of scenery after finishing.

I definitely take on the personalities and moods of characters I'm reading about, especially when written in the first person. Today I was Charlie. Everything worked out okay, though. I managed to converse with people my age and not totally freeze up or speak in gibberish. I felt like a part of a group for once, if only for a little while. That struck me as something rather alike to Charlie as well, and the group I was with vaguely reminded me of Charlie's friends Patrick and Sam.

Absorbing the personalities of books characters can be problematic occasionally, prompting moods that are less than ideal. Today I was acutely conscious of this phenomenon, so I got to observe it carefully and not get pulled too deeply into isolation, or the sadness permeating The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

Today I was Amoniel being Charlie; the world was both poignantly fresh and nothing new to look at, just a little bit like walking in someone else's shoes, only they fit your feet perfectly and aren't altogether a style unsuitable to you.

Upbeat Whining: At Least, That is What I Tell Myself

The thing is, I don't want to live in a dystopia, I don't want to raise a family in a dystopic society. I don't pretend to be an expert, but books of that genre don't end well. Boy meets girl, boy gets girl and everything is wonderful for a short time until they get torn apart through horrible and inhumane circumstances involving a crippling, crushing government.  What could be more important and more dangerous in such societies besides love and friendship and human relationship in general?

In a lot of ways, this society feels like it is dystopic, and getting worse. However, even as I do my best to navigate the bureaucratic hell of emerging into adulthood, there are also bright, beautiful people growing organic gardens in their front yards, and other people building tiny homes for themselves and others out of reclaimed materials. There are organizations working for the betterment of the human race and condition, and individuals crying out for the inclusion of environment and kindness in all of our dealings instead of pollution and greed.
I'm hopelessly apathetic, but also detrimentally idealistic. Even as I despair for the future, mine in particular and the world's in general, I can see seedlings of change growing from the ashes of everything past.
I've had an allegory for many years now, related in the following paragraph, that I used to tell my mom whenever she was despairing about the direction the world was headed in. I'm not entirely sure I believe in it as much as I once did -I've gained experience and some degree of cynicism, but the allegory has become woven into my being, enmeshed within my thought processes and viewpoint;
Even as society drags humanity deeper into depression and oppression, there are vast numbers of people waking up and figuring out better ways to live and grow and cooperate. Humanity is in the midst of the creation of a new world, and destruction of the old. There's a graph in my head for this concept, a sort of crossing of lines, the gentle slope of hope and change for the better, intersecting the jagged line of corruption and oppression, fighting for every pinnacle even as it slides deeper into oblivion.
It takes time for things to balance out, and I know I won't remain unaffected by everything, but I can still hold onto hope and choose to see the optimistic light amid the sometimes overwhelming darkness. At least, that's what I keep telling myself.

Fish fingers

"The fault in our stars" is every bit as beautiful as you might gather from the quotes and gifs and fangirling floating around the internet. 

I did my very best not to put it down all day, sadly, however, reading is not as uninterrupted as it once was in my life. 

I am so sad, but it's a selfish sort of sadness, a vain sort of ennui I suppose. Ah well, I managed to read the whole thing before bedtime, and now I have another empty night to sink into, full of dreams before entering another day that will lead to another week that will lead to another month like living fish slipping through my fingers. 

Ah well little one. 

Colored Deep In Mind

I feel like a horrible writer. Most of what echoes voicelessly in my mind and heart is perfectly articulated by so many other people. So what use would my own unique experience, not so unique at all, be to anyone who has encountered so many other perfect prayers and poets? I cannot even write of something or someone without relating it to my own heart, and I don't know what this has to do with the previous sentences, but it makes me feel acutely self-conscious. Maybe that self-consciousness is a part of my imperfect but somewhat truthful, though terribly fractured way of putting myself in others' shoes and peering at myself through their eyes. 

But these silly, silly cries of pain, oh Seymour, do not matter because I am dramatist. The child still asks, simplemindedly and innocently, "but why should it not matter? Why shouldn't there still be something under it all?" We are all wounded I suppose, but why would that make any individuals' wounds any less important, to them or others? A wound is not healed if it is ignored because it hurts to touch. It must be examined thoroughly, prayed over, medicated and bound. 

Can you see me perusing the book-shelves of my ribcage, pulling out one tome and selecting a passage before moving on to the next book and running my finger down its pages to find the words highlighted in my own rainbow blood? But then, would I even know if you did the same in your head? 

A Zen master once said a person can not exchange even so much as a fart with another person. This is something that still puzzles me; I understand, I think, the meaning and thought-process behind this, but in my experience, in my great dream, it does not seem true. I am a sponge to life and people and beauty and nature and animals. I am a sponge in my own experience, and so, all I am is not entirely of me, or rather, it is entirely of me in relation to my life and all that entails. Oh god, I share and am shared by everything, life running through me and you and the stones on the ground. 

I read "Seymour: An Introduction", and I marvel at the flow of words and the brightness of every person, of Seymour, and the illuminator that is the narrator, Buddy Glass. Neither of them exist anywhere but in the mind of JD Salinger, but, love, they are so real, it is like they created themselves. Children of the mind, as it were... How strange, how beautiful. 

Seymour living, breathing, dead; but also a mirror, reflecting you and me and my father. But you see my quandary; why should I write so clumsily when everywhere I turn I see my own heart reflected in the minds and works of other people? It's funny, seeing this makes me feel completely inadequate, but it also awakens that deep itch to write and draw and try my very best to splash my every color every where I can. Both writer's block, a brick wall right in front of the nose; and writer's wound to cause blood to pour through the fingertips onto the page, or keyboard. 

Writing and drawing and photographing often drives this itch to distraction, because I see this light, and I feel it on my skin and across my ribs, but it does not transfer well to any page, it seems. And still, even if it did, would it still be what I saw? I am an imperfect translator. But I suppose it wouldn't be so bad, everyone sees everything differently, coloring it with their own brush. I can not make them see what I see. And I suppose that would defeat the purpose of sharing it with them, which would be to watch it under the light of their experience. The very same reason we converse with other human beings instead of sitting on the ground and talking to ourselves and the vast emptiness of personal god. 

Cultivate a life of your own, little one, and lead me on

What is my voice like to you?
What does this place feel like to you? Is it the same as how it feels to me?

I am so sloppy lately, I don't care to edit or try to edit or try to write well. I don't care. But still I write and some sort of beauty emerges, disfigured and fractured as it is, its voice slack, its posture bent and twisted and stooped.
I wrote a poem Wednesday that was that and more, but a couple of days later, it seemed endearing and maybe just a little bit courageous. It had built a life of its own independent from the lackluster breath i'd blown into it.

I'm feeling like multimedia today, nothing new, but now I've decided to act on it and see what rainbow tapestry of broken strings and hazy figures I can weave with no direction dictated by me consciously. And then maybe I can take that crazy-blanket from the loom and drape it around my shoulders and it will afford me a little comfort and courage.

I'm on a bit of a sentimental bent today, and I still have a streak of disgust for such things. I don't know why. Maybe because I've been such a dramatist and romantic all my life, and I never regarded it as very constructive. It tends to be blinding, sentimentality. I'm terribly sentimental, though, and I don't necessarily want to squash it from my spongy self entirely, but I seek a balance with it and whatever else there is, you know, there's a great many ways to see life. 

I don't like indulging in sentimentality, I guess. Seems very self-serving and not much else. It can have it's place on my shoulder with everything else, but heaven forbid it should ever become my matrix again. 

I imagine I've been reading a bit too much JD Salinger in the past few days, but I fully intend to read a deal more before this week is up. 

All the same, damn his lofty-earthy ideals. I don't want to be integrated into society, I don't want to continue cleaning the kitchen every day, I don't want to see God in every horrible person on the street or over the internet, and I repeat, I don't want to clean the kitchen. I'd like to sit in the clouds, no needs at all, perfectly free to live in my own head or observe the lives of others. But whatever, that's entirely unrealistic, and probably would be boring to boot, I, who would be everyone but myself sometimes. 

Still, I'd rather live in a monastery than whatever it is I think I'm going to have to bring myself to do in the next couple of years, college or career or whatever. Not so much career, though as some sort of way to support myself in between stepping stones in life. 

Shall I try out a new personality now? 

Yes, there is spiritual beauty in the small things in life. Serving others, taking care of oneself, paying homage to small miracles in home, the workplace, and public spaces. 

You want to know of a book that sustained me and my sanity this summer? "How to cook your life: From the Zen Kitchen to Enlightenment". 

It spoke of simple service and the beauty in it, and I needed that so bad, especially while taking care of my mother and most of the cooking for a few weeks while she was on bed rest. 

Over time, gradually, I've learned that every act of kindness, every small work is a sort of prayer, a hope that things will get better, and a way to show how much I do care for my family and friends. That is no bad life, not remarkable, but how much do I really want remark-ability? I remember when I decided to cultivate talents and abilities unrecognized by the majority of this society, and half of that choosing was because I figured I wouldn't have anything or anyone else to compete against in my forum of choosing. I'm actually highly competitive, but I'm also highly understanding, and I know that there's always someone or something better if you think in that way, and therefore, can never ever win. So I chose a place in which I figured there was no winning or losing. No better nor worse, just a pathway, a few sages of my choosing, and my own strength and will. (Which isn't much, love.)  

I spoke of mixed-media before. It's something that's growing in attraction to me, and right now I would give almost anything to write in my own handwriting on this thing, or leave my finger prints and doodles in thick paint all over the margins. Maybe that's part of my sloppiness lately, not caring whether or not if the mark I leave is "perfect", but instead looking for the beauty in everything in its wholeness, not just spliced and framed and edited by the ruler in me that was put there and dictated by other people. I'm not really particularly interested in that lately. But to fit under the wings of others, you must pare yourself down to their colors and specifications, and I guess I don't feel like my own wings are strong enough to hold and shelter me on their own. Still, I seem to pare myself down only to my own specifications. 

Hey, did you know that a small part of yourself is revealed only after you've loved another and been loved in return? It is, in a way, fascinating, and of course, remarkable beautiful.  Can you just imagine all the things we miss, though? Can you imagine all of the things all around and within us that we miss from being so frightened and blind? I read a short story today, the last in "Nine Stories", and, honestly, my favorite. Can you believe that crazy book begins and ends with a death, though? Geeze. 

As it was, the short story contained a beautiful little scene that sort of goes with what I'm speaking of, missing things that go on without your presence or observation. Also a concept that came up when I was watching the sunrise last Tuesday. Mmmmm. 

"He suddenly thrust his whole head out of the 

porthole, kept it there a few seconds, then brought it in just long enough to report, 

"Someone just dumped a whole garbage can of orange peels out the window."....

Teddy took in most of his head. "They float very nicely," he said without turning 

around. "That's interesting." 

   "Teddy. For the last time. I'm going to count three, and then I'm-" 

   "I don't mean it's interesting that they float," Teddy said. "It's interesting that I know 

about them being there. If I hadn't seen them, then I wouldn't know they were there, 

and if I didn't know they were there, I wouldn't be able to say that they even exist. 

That's a very nice, perfect example of the way--" 

   "Teddy," Mrs. McArdle interrupted, without visibly stirring under her top sheet. "Go 

find Booper for me. Where is she? I don't want her lolling around in that sun again 

today, with that bum." 

   "She's adequately covered. I made her wear her dungarees," Teddy said. "Some of 

them are starting to sink now. In a few minutes, the only place they'll still be floating 

will be inside my mind. That's quite interesting, because if you look at it a certain way, 

that's where they started floating in the first place. If I'd never been standing here at all, or if somebody'd come along and sort of chopped my head off right while I was--" ....

 Teddy lingered for a moment at the door, reflectively experimenting with the door 

handle, turning it slowly left and right. "After I go out this door, I may only exist in the 

minds of all my acquaintances," he said. "I may be an orange peel." "

(From "Teddy" in "Nine Stories" by JD Salinger)

Anyway, the last bit doesn't doesn't relate to what I've been thinking of so much, but that doesn't matter and it's an interesting lead off. 

I'm crazy, sorry. I guess part of the crazy is what's lending such appeal to multi-media. Yeah. Just slapping whatever's in my head and heart all over whatever blank space presents itself at the time. I don't really care though, I explore myself just as thoroughly as anything around me. And I suppose part of that exploration is testing some of whatever's inside on the outside, seeing if any of it can hold its weight and color with so much all around it. 

I think, with this post, I'm trying to see how far I can wander off the beginning course of things without losing anyone everyone who reads it, including myself. I'm still curious as whether or not if I can lead myself back to where I began and sew everything up tight and neatly. 

What do you think? 

What did it all feel like?

Ah, but that is an ending of no substance at all. It floats away, and that can be pretty, but I think it would be better if the ending buried itself deep in the ground rather than drifting off to ether. After all, that is what I'm attempting to do right here, whether I realized it at first or not; I am attempting to ground myself-- tie myself all over to life like a hot air balloon roped and bolted, straining from the ground.

Book binding Projects as of late

And because I'm honestly a little ridiculously pleased with how I wrapped the last one, here are some photos to document it by;

Ben Howard: About Still Waters, what his music is to me

This is actually something I'd planned before that whole Kesang Marstrand

 post from a while ago. But now the two have inspired and collided and spun off from each other. Anyway, I rather enjoy documenting some of my music discoveries on here, lengthy or otherwise, and it creates an interesting sort of stream-of-consciousness commentary, which is something I feel like writing at the moment, but can't really figure out how to begin. 

Ben Howard - Oats in the Water
To begin with the first, found by my best friend, shared between and then adopted, a thing not my own enfolded into my being, by me.
Probably the one many of his fans heard first, for whatever reason, lately as a result of the song playing in a Walking Dead episode.
Absolutely beautiful, my love. Heart aching in a way, and the music has a lovely rhythm to it.
I love Ben's intonation and inflection, it sounds like he's singing it for the first time, with all of the thoughts and emotions fresh in his own mind. Reflective and darkly tranquil.

Ben Howard - Esmerelda
Lordy this video is lovely, black and white, the stormy skies, the waves crashing backwards, like time is rewinding underneath everything being said. It very much evokes a feeling of looking back to something long past and deeply missed.
All of Ben's music makes me just a little sad and rather meditative. It's fun to pray along to as well.
That all probably sounds pretty weird, and it's hard to explain, but that's as close as I'm getting at the present.

Ben Howard - Depth Over Distance
This is one of my very favorites, I first discovered a fantastic layered version on Tumblr, which was haunting and beautifully rainy. I adore both versions, though; this one's warmer, the other very still. Here's a link to the layered version, Layered Depth Over Distance

Ben Howard - Black Flies
Terribly lovely, and it seems like it was serendipitous the day I heard it, though I'm not sure. I think I wrote the October Fly poem the afternoon before I first heard Ben Howard, the first three of which were Oats in the Water, Esmerelda and Black Flies.
I remember walking in the dark, speaking about Ben's music, and having simultaneous thoughts, speaking at the same time, weaving bright threads of gold in the dark of the night, the winter not yet cold enough to draw our breath upon the air.

Ben Howard - Old Pine
He makes want so dearly to learn to really, truly play guitar.
All of his songs sound so different, and have such different subjects, but still they have a blue thread wound through, a life all their own shared throughout.

Ben Howard - To Be Alone
It sounds like he puts a lot into everything he writes and sings. Seriously, the emotion of it all, every one of his songs sounds like it's being made up as he sings it, every feeling felt in the deepest way. Reflective, Introspective... Do you suppose every artist, musician, public figure is a mirror whether they mean to be or not?
I act like I'm a mirror, though I'm not entirely sure I actually am. Or maybe I am too much a mirror.
Watching "Rise of the Guardians" last night, you wouldn't expect it to, I didn't expect it to, but it raised some rather deep questions within me. What is my core? I don't think I really know, and that's why I'm kinda lost. But I guess I also don't really want to look.

Ben Howard - Promise
"I think," he said, "that it's a good thing to get out of your usual, you know, surroundings. Because you did things out about yourself that you didn't know, or you forgot. And then you go back to your regular life and you're changed, you're a little bit different because you take those new things with you. Like a Hindu, except all in one life: you sort of get reincarnated depending on what happened and what you figure out. And any one place can make you go forward, or backward, or neither, but gradually you find all your pieces, your important pieces, and they stay with you, so that you're your whole self no matter where you go. Your Buddha self. That's my theory, anyway." 
-From "Criss Cross" by Lynne Rae Perkins 

Ben Howard - Keep Your Head Up
That looks like so much fun, can you imagine doing that? The grandeur of building and then using that magnificent slide? Can you imagine thinking of that and then actually sharing that dream with others and acting on it? :D It's absolutely beautiful, and yeah, it's a music video, so it's terribly idealistic and it's taken for granted that it was edited and a little contrived, but that's still cool, and from watching the behind the scenes video, it looks like it was a ton of fun. 


What does his music mean to you? How does it make you feel? What does it make you remember?

Criss Cross and Peering Intently: Talking To Myself And You

I.
Do you think I could tease you out of your corner, my dear?
Take your hand and coax you from the wall.
But maybe I don't even see that as it truly is,
    maybe it's not a corner, but a whole other world,
    different and not so different from mine.
Perhaps you like everything just as it is.

II.
I want to reach deep into the universe,
    --my arm plunged in up to my shoulder,
and pull the heart of it into sight.
I halfway suspect it would also be my heart,
    your heart,
their heart.

In theory, I am the adventurous type,
In theory I want to get out, to go far, far away.
And then maybe I will come back, and I will find what I am looking for
    Right here,
Where it has always been.

III.
I yelled down the stairs, deep and loud,
    and in the silence left alone afterward,
    a string on my guitar rang in reply,
    and I smiled and laughed and said hello
before flying away.

And so it is that I always find these things again, and they are different,
    I am different;
With a firefly
Blinking in my heart
    and guitar dust shining golden on my fingers,
in my soul. 

Cracks of Gold: right now

Where am I right now? I’m not writing about where I want to be, or where I’m headed, but where I am right now. So often I write about where I want to be, but instead of that helping me move forward, I just feel lost and helpless.

Right now, I am lost; right now I can see a tiny light, but I can’t seem to feel a pathway. I’m blindfolded; enough that everything is hazy and unsure, but not so I don’t know I am blindfolded. I am numb; finger and toe and heart-blind. I am deaf; hearing but snatches of sound and song. I am dumb; half-communicating with incomplete words and fluttering hand gestures. I am aware of so many perceived limitations, but I am also aware of what might be, beyond all of this veil and insulation.

All is but impression on me, and I have fractional confidence. I am an imperfect mirror, reflecting wobbly, watery images of others, and myself, but reflecting non-the-less.

I am in a chrysalis, but I can’t tell if I, butterfly, am emerging; or even if this, also, is nothing but a reflection of someone else.

I can sense patterns; but when you’re in the middle of a pattern, yourself, with other people, it is so hard to stick to that pattern sense, and to have confidence in it. It is so hard to sense that pattern truly, objectively, and not reason yourself out of what you do really understand. The pattern of my days lately seems to be the only pattern I can see without having to feel, without becoming lost in emotions and the avoidance thereof. Mornings are lost in melancholy and a certain sort of moping and ennui; afternoons are merely lost; evenings terrifying and stressful (seems like that’s mostly just when I try really hard to wrest back control, though.); and the night finally relaxes into pieces of the puzzle settling in and temporary comfort.

Today, this afternoon, is lost and wandering; raw, drained, and dry. I really don’t feel terrible though, because I finally shook off sentimentality for a time, albeit ennui is not entirely gone. Maybe I am sick in heart.

Still I manage to find puzzle pieces, and still I manage to stick them, if only temporarily, to their places in life.

Why all of this writing of where we’re going, or where we should be? Jonathon Livingston Seagull, how beautiful in its idealism and teaching, but I can hardly see myself there. Did Richard Bach ever reach the point his characters traveled? Did he even mean or strive to? Did he find any of what he was looking for, and did he learn to practice it?

I keep finding small pieces in small places; small answers in short books. We look for answers in other people and their works, but they don’t even seem to be where they say it is possible to go. Maybe all they mean to create is beautiful metaphor and nothing else. I have yet to actually meet anyone who truly loves or flies or heals with their bare hands. Only healing with herbs and heart, loving at all, and flying in mind and spirit. Isn’t any of that, imperfect as it seems to be, still miraculous?

Don’t we find something in the search, don’t we come to understanding as we share? I don’t believe in disregarding wisdom in a great person -or any person- because they’ve done something stupid or bad in their lives. Wisdom is wisdom, and we are all so complex and flawed, beautiful in our imperfection, beautiful in our strife and struggle. We can come to some sort of completion, some sort of wholeness, in sharing.

To finally answer my first question of where I am right now; Estoy pero aqui, curled up writing on my bed, wandering life and my own heart and mind. 

Learning often takes you by surprise

Since I began school this past week, after a long (though not entirely unproductive) Summer break, I've noticed something: this year, I am able to read whole chapters and sections of my school books at one time, during one sitting. This was unheard of for me last year. I read pages, or small sections of chapters. I didn't have the attention span or motivation to read more than two pages of most books, novels being the exception of course.
I imagine this is partially because I am not holding myself to a timescale, or a certain number of subjects to be completed in that time span. School is all day now,  sometimes even during the weekends. I record all I can, and don't worry about it when I can't. This is also what I did all Summer long, and I think this has established a new, healthier, fuller relationship with my personal education.
The point is, I did not actively try to teach myself better study skills of habits, they've sneaked up on me over Summer break. I have this mindset that learning is difficult, practice is tedious, and the study and subsequent mastery of subjects is nigh until impossible. But this is not the case, learning and the integration of skills and knowledge are a natural and almost unconscious process. 

Letters Blog: July 7, 2011. Thursday

Dear JK Rowling,

You have created a bit of a monster with a life of it's own.

Thank you for what you have started, I honestly think it will go on forever.

Yours,

Amoniel

March 8th, 2011. Tuesday

Day 19, a letter to Voldemort

Tom Riddle,
I had originally thought that this letter would be fairly easy to write,
but I have since developed an adversity to you again.
I won't say that I hate you, but you and your actions really
repulse me.
You're such a villain, and I guess that if you had been raised
different, in the arms of a loving family, you would have turned
out different. I am sorry that you missed that chance. Who knows?
Maybe you would have turned out to be a perfectly decent human
being, albeit a wizard who could speak parseltongue.
I really am sorry for you.
And then again, maybe you would have turned out exactly as you
did no matter the circumstances. Or else some other power-hungry
wizard would have risen to fill the role of Lord Voldemort.

Sincerely,
Amoniel

March 5th, 2011. Saturday

Day 15, a letter to Severus Snape

Dear Snape,
I'm sorry this letter is a day late, I'm afraid that yesterday was
rather busy.

The world seems to be changing really fast in so many ways.
I hope that it completely metamorphosizes into a much better,
hopefully perfect world.
That'd be nice.

We watched Signs with a couple of friends last night. I actually
liked it, though the aliens came back to haunt me when I was
trying to sleep.
I don't get nightmares from movies anymore, but I do have a
very vivid imagination and a certain amount of gullibility.
I got over it eventually. The need to pee overrode my fear.
Sometimes I really can't believe what I can make myself
believe. (Oxymoronic, I know.)

I'm sorry for how you were treated most of your life, Snape.
You really had a hard one.
An you want to know what? I still believed in you, even after
it looked like you had killed Dumbledore in cold blood.
I still believed that you could be good. You really weren't one
of my favorite characters at first, but you grew on me. I began
to sympathize with you, and, really, the good you did overrode
the (sometimes unintentional) bad.

You really aren't all that bad of a character, you may even
be lovable.

Love,
Amoniel

Perspective in Life

"When we look at a cup that is set down between two of us, we have the feeling that we are looking at the same cup, though actually, that is not so. You look at the cup with your vision, and from a certain angle. Moreover, you see it in the rays of light and shadows that come from you side of the room. This applies equally to me as well. In a very rough sense, we proceed to separate the reality of the situation by entertaining the idea that we both see the same cup. This is what I mean by the fabrication of ideas.
"In the same way, we assume that there exists a world which you and I experience in common with all other human beings, that this world existed prior to our births, and that it will continue to exist even after our deaths. But again, this is nothing more than an idea. Not only that, we wind up thinking that we live and die within this world of fabrication. This is an utterly inverted way of looking at one's life. My true Self lives in reality, and the world I experience is one I alone can experience, and not one anyone else can experience along with me. To express this as precisely as possible, as I am born, I simultaneously give birth to the world I experience; I live out my life along with that world, and at my death the world I experience also dies."

~How To Cook Your Life: From the Zen Kitchen to Enlightenment, Dōgen's classic Instructions for the Zen Cook with commentary by Kōshō Uchiyama Rōshi 

Wow, talk about personal responsibility. There's got to be something deeper to this as well, deeper than "your life is what you choose it to be, what you see it to be" that I understand at the moment. This is one I'll have to think over for a very long time. 

You've got to admit your life has a direct effect on other people's lives, whether they're your little sister, your great aunt, the lady at the check out counter in Wally mart, or the little girl who made the fashionable t-shirt you just purchased. And that's not even factoring in grandchildren or the people who will live in your house in the future, after you've moved out. 

But the world is how I see it? Entirely unique to me? That makes a lot of sense, even though that starts to feel a little lonely when I start to think about it a little too much. 

March 3rd, 2011. Thursday

Day 14, a letter to Remus Lupin

Dear Lupin,
I can't think of much to say to you, I'm afraid.
Though abstract things come to mind, such as chocolate, squid, and your face.
Grindylows have always seemed squid-like to me. And as for the chocolate and your face, those are pretty self-explanatory, the first thing you gave to Harry was a piece of chocolate after the dementor had been hanging around the train.

You're the coolest werwolf I've ever heard of. And it makes me sad that your life was cut short, no more do any of the marauders wander this Earth, alone or together. Coolest teen clique (group, whatever you want to call it) ever.
You just don't get people like that any more.

I've always wondered what it would have been like to be taught by you, you were probably the best Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher to come through Hogwarts after the position was cursed. Though Barty Crouch Jr. was pretty good, he did practice the dark arts after all. That was a very interesting little plot twist. Did you smile to yourself a little when you heard that one? It was kind of funny.

I can't wait to read Jo's new book concerning the Marauders, it sounds awesome! It'll be just as if you guys were all alive still. And I'm so very glad JK'll be picking up the magical world she introduced in Harry Potter again.

Anyways, thanks for reading. You'll be in my heart always, as you are one of my favorite characters.

Love,
Amoniel

And So It Goes With God: a quote from Life of Pi, a poem woven around it

(And so it
goes with
     God.)
   We tell
ourselves
stories so we
may make
sense of Life,
the universe,
everything,
     (42)
which by
no means
excludes
God. Maybe
neither story
makes true
sense of
Pi's experience,
simply because
by telling it,
he alters it,
omits things,
elaborates on
things, exemplifies
things. (The
story flows
through the
teller's
experience,
and is
translated by
the hearer's
mindset,
personality.)
The story
is never quite
just itself
by itself.
(And so it
goes with
     God)