Christmas Today? Yes, Please!

After Thanksgiving, nobody wants to go back to school. Trust me, not your teachers, professors, or you. Your mom or dad doesn't want to wake up at 6 am to drive you to school and I'm sure the bus driver would love to wake up naturally with no alarm at a decent time as well. Let's be real here: even the Sun hits the snooze in the winter. So why can't we? Well, unlike the sun the human population must continue to work till glorious winter break basically the best time of the entire year: no school, Christmas, and New Years. It's practically heaven. Don't get too carried away just yet though. I know it's hard. I'm feeling holiday withdrawal symptoms, too. The reality the holidays aren't here yet. Finals are coming up. You're taking your last tests of your grading period. Life is stressful. When life gets hard, it's easier to run away to la-la land and be a couch potato watching reruns of One Tree Hill.

Now that you're older, nobody's going to be pushing you to get your crap done. You have to do it yourself. You have to motivate yourself. At this crucial point in the year, know yourself and figure out what it takes to get your butt of the bed into a chair to do the math homework you've postponing since last week. Am I hypocrite? Yeah, a little bit. I mean, I'm typing this is in my bed aren't I? Plus, I've been TV-binging just as much as the next person. I procrastinate, but whatever needs to be done, I get done, somehow.

 Everyone's different, but for me writing lists helps. The pleasure of crossing something off your list makes you feel accomplished and a little bubble of happiness grows as you get more stuff done. Sometimes if you're not in the right head space and just feel done and don't want to do anything, write something down that you've recently done and cross it off. This will help jump-start the happy bubble.

Other than writing lists, I listen to music. Listen to something that pumps you up and play it loud. Dance it out in your room, bathroom, stuffed closet, hallway, with a teddy bear, naked or whatever. Dance it out until you feel loose and you're smiling. Sing as loud as you can. Don't worry about feeling embarassed. Close the windows if you do. If nobody sees you, it's just you and this is about you. This is you trying to figure out how to motivate yourself so who gives a damn about what anyone else thinks?

Those are just some of things I do, personally, but everyone has their own quirks. Maybe drinking milk makes you feel un-defeatable or doing squats or sleeping. Who knows, but you? Find out what works for you and do you!  Don't let the winter blues get you down when the holidays are coming around. Work hard for a little while, so at the end of the year you can smile. I'm making these cheesy rhymes, hopefully it's not a felony or a crime. I'll leave you with a quote, just remember, do what floats your boat :)

Like Clockwork

I guess I shouldn’t be trusted to keep promises, at least, not this summer. Well what was your promise, one might ask? To be typing this. Specifically, more than one. I’m such a terrible blogger because I can’t follow a routine. I only sporadically post and that’s just plain laziness on my part I think. So I’ve decided to try making the promise for the second time and keeping it this time. I think everyone deserves a second chance.

So recently, I’ve been exploring time travel.  I’ve always had a fascination with it. When I was little, I used to take great pride in saying, “I’m going to build a time machine.” I used to read mythology as a kid. For me, mythology was the closest fantasy ever got to being reality and that’s why I was attracted to it. Pathetically, with no clue of the actual science behind time travel, I used to daydream about my trips back to those ancient time periods imagining walking arm in arm with the pharaohs, being a warrior of Sparta, or sipping tea cozily in a grand palace. I was such a fool. What’s more embarrassing though, I think, is the fact that my attraction went on till the 5^th grade. It was the beginning of the year and we got an assignment in our homerooms to write about our dreams for our future, basically, what we wanted to do. I bet you can guess what I wrote. Later on, our thoughtful albeit naïve answers were posted on the hallway board so every 5^th grader, teacher, and all other perusing eyes could look at them whenever they wanted. While walking to lunch, down that same hallway, a boy from another class came over and started talking to me about my “dreams”. He mumbled something, “Quantum mechanics” and I just thought, “What the hell is he talking about?” Like I said, I was a fool.

Foolishness aside, I’ve seriously noticed today that through the years even though my attraction maybe has taken a backseat on a bus, it’s still there-simmering-and has cropped up more than once through the years. Remember Phineas and Ferb? I’m sure you do. My brother watched it religiously all the time so I got sucked into it too. I know, how childish of you. If you have younger siblings, it’s a fact of life. We’ve all come to accept it. Anyways, that time travel episode-one of my favorite ones. I’ve rewatched it quite a few times with my brother on YouTube. Then there’s the story of Rip Van Winkle. I’ve read that story countless times. More for the heartwarming reunion which gives you a fuzzy feeling, but still the question has evaded my mind, “What if I went to sleep and then woke up and everything as I knew it had disappeared?” It’s a scary thought, but also one that leads to adventure. Of course, there’s Back to the Future. It’s hilarious and light hearted, but you still root that everything turns out fine. And that car? I mean, if I could have one of those-stick shift- that would be the way to go. Which brings me to present day. I’m currently watching an anime called Steins Gate which explores time travel way more in depth. It’s not childish anymore. The consequences are brutal. The reality exciting and filled with constant uncertainty.

The basic theory from the show and from the research I’ve done seems to be that jumping into the future is more possible or less impossible than jumping into the past. However, Steins Gate, so far, at least explores the past and parallel worlds. Every time you make a time jump or a change in space-time continuum a new world line is created which diverges from your original world line. Think of the original as A and the post change or switch B. B stems from A. In theory, once the switch is made your memories are reformed to fit the world line that you are now in. It will eliminate inconsistent memories. The catch is, even though let’s say, hypothetically, you make one tiny change from A to B that might not be the only change present in B. I think because in the new world line of B it has be consistent for it flow parallel to other lines it needs to make more than change for that to happen. One little change can create a domino effect. There is no way to predict exactly what will change. Have you ever thought about if you could change the past what you would do? For me, there are some things I would like to change, but more than that I want to see the past. I want to learn from it so that I somehow can contribute to creating a better future in a little way or a big one. I don’t know. If there is some way to do that, I would take the chance. Would you?

June 26th #LoveWins

How many of you have been seeing this?

Why is the White House a rainbow? Well here's what happened. On June 26th, the Supreme Court gave marriage equality rights to the LGBT(Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) population because they realized it was one of the basic rights of the Constitution. June 26th has become now a monumental day. It's the success story of decades of work, of people fighting for their rights. Obama might be ending his presidential term next year, but he will always be remembered for this.

Check out his speech on the ruling:

I'm not naive enough to believe that this will be the end of all the hatred against LGBT people. As a country who rules to grant equal liberties, the people who do oppose this ruling can't be forced to change their mind. Some people might never agree and treat LGBT humans as equals. This could stem from their own personal beliefs like religion. The job of this ruling wasn't to change everybody's mind, but it was to give these people who have fought so diligently, for so long just to be considered equal in the eyes of the law. I hope people realize that by opening your mind to new possibilities doesn't necessarily mean abandoning your beliefs or your God. One does not have to cancel the other. The world we live in today has made change essential. In the end, human beings have their own minds and it's up to them whether they buy a ticket or not. 

Dream On

It's funny it took me this long to get to this topic. Dreams. A couple days ago, I watched the movie Inception. Fantastic film. Christopher Nolan, thank you. Just thank you. You're amazing. The movie incorporated things so natural to us, you didn't even think about it. One such thing was the "kick" or the feeling of falling that helps you wake up. In the movie, *spoiler alert* if you get killed in a dream (i.e. shot through the head), then you wake up. I don't know about you, but for me, personally, it's not just when I am dead in a dream that I wake up. I usually wake up right as it hits the climax. Just as the action starts picking up and becoming terrifyingly real. My eyes shoot open, I grasp my pillows to make sure I'm on the bed and not the floor. I try to recall what happened last that made me wake up, but it comes to me in fragments like a book with words blurred by the rain. Now I can't stop asking myself, why do we forget?  Yet, somehow dreams remain one of the most intimate creations of the human mind. So with any question, I asked Google.

Scientific American says," Due to a lack of a hormone-norepinephrine- which helps enhance memory in humans in the cerebral cortex, a brain region that plays a key role in memory, thought, language and consciousness." But that is not a just enough explanation, so they go on to say that humans forget their dreams because it is in the "less consciously directed thinking" side of the cerebral cortex where the memory becomes foggy. 

Amy E. Brucker founder of Dream Tribe has a different theory however. She believes we forget our dreams for a whole host of reasons. The ones that stood out to me were "disinterest in dreams" apparently if you don't try to pay attention during your dreams you can't recall them. Another is "dreams are weird". This one elaborates that because dreams are so unique compared to our day-to-day lives we really have no ways of explaining it. To check other reasons why we forget our dreams, click on the link.

Step by Step Guide to Dream Recall

Here are the basics on how to better remember your dreams in a short video.                           Sweet dreams, everyone!

What time is it?

I have a dream. I have a dream where I don't waste my summers. I'm that kid who always wakes up at 11, never has breakfast and just goes straight to brunch, laggies around the rest of the day like a bum watching Netflix and eating Rice Krispie treats while sometimes walking to pick up the remote. Meet da bum. On the other hand, in my head there is better me-even maybe a perfect me(yes, i know nobody's perfect Miley made that crystal clear)-who actually gives a damn.

 A person who goes to sleep at a decent hour and wakes up at a decent one. One who knows that working out will actually benefit even if it sucks. One that realizes that summer as long as it seems will be short once you get to the end and you've done absolutely nothing and have nothing to show for it. I'm not saying buy a typewriter and crank out a novel, I'm saying do something you haven't done. Most of us are so self-deprecating. We have no faith in ourselves. I don't if it's because we're too scared or too lazy. The line seems to pretty blurry these days.

You know if there's one thing I've learned this year, it's that the only thing that fucks things up is your head. I'm not the physically strongest, but my mental strength can give anyone a run for their money and I think that's what makes a difference in the end. It isn't about how far you can run, it's about how far are you willing to run. 

CHECK THIS GIF OUT!!!

Not all those who wander are lost

I'm at a crossroads. I just don't know which way to go anymore. Since I was little, its always been clear that education is what matters. Education will give you social respect, security, and happiness. Without education, where will you be? Where will you go? I've heard two things constantly throughout my life. Succeeding at school will lead to a good college which will lead to a better life. Cause and effect goals. The second thing I've heard is-education is not for everybody. Now what that means is, that some people aren't meant to succeed in what is considered the "core" subjects, but rather succeed in sports or the apparently out-of-reach, never-gonna-happen, arts. 

Its becoming clearer to me that these choices about my future-the rest of my life-make it or break it-yeah those thoughtless ones are starting to arrive and I'm dreading it because I don't know if I want to go to college. Then I ask myself, if I don't want to go why do I try so hard at school? I guess like everybody in high school I'm trying to keep my options open. I've always wondered about a gap year. Yes, that classic backpacking through Europe trip has crossed mind more than once. More times than  I would like to admit. I just feel like I wouldn't be good at anything. 

Honestly, I just want to travel and learn about this world. I want to eat new foods and sit in strangers houses. I want to talk to them and dress like them and see their lives. I want to be a good person. I want to help. I want to be remembered. I want to be proud of my life. I don't want regrets. I don't want to go completely off the deep end either. I want to be happy. I just don't think I can settle. When good things happen to me, I don't throw them away, but I just live them down like it doesn't matter. Because truly, who am I in this world? I'm nobody. 

And in the end, doesn't everybody want to be somebody?

Clear Eyes-Full Hearts-Can't Lose

Lately, I've been wondering what happened to Adele. One of my friends told me she got nodes and she couldn't sing anymore and I thought that sounded like bullshit so I searched her up on the ever reliable Wikipedia. Apparently, she's on a hiatus and her next album should be coming out soon. So ladies and gentlemen, get ready for some heartbreaking music. Also I started watching Friday Night Lights-the show. I haven't watched the movie or read the book yet, but I plan to if its as amazing as this show. 

First off, I've never understood football. To me, football has always been soccer and I have never understood the obsession of football with the USA. What's so great about watching a game getting stopped every couple of seconds or minutes where guys crash into each other? Why was there so much angst over it? Why were people going gaga over this game-recording game tapes, screaming with intense passion, and treating the Superbowl like an unscheduled holiday? I didn't understand and I never tried too, until now. 

If I was Buddha, then watching FNL was meditation, and the story was enlightenment. I've reached my football Nirvana folks. Yet, I still don't understand how the plays exactly work or what a fullback is supposed to do. Here's what I do know, football is more than a game, just like any sport. There's so much riding on it though. It surprised me how much people care about it, but more than that how much people can rely on it. The town of Dillon is defined by football. Without football, Dillon, Texas wouldn't be Dillon, Texas and Tim Riggins wouldn't be saying,"Texas forever." 

In the end, what it boils down to is heart. How much of yourself are you willing to bet? I've always sort of thought of Buddy Garrity as annoying, but over time I've realized that football and him are a married couple. He loves it just like Coach and the players and almost the entire town. If they lose a game, it's heartbreak. It kills them inside. Football is the one thing that is going for these small-town people. I know that no matter how impoverished you are, a game can be life-changing. The simple clarity you gleam while playing is indescribable. The happiness fills you like a balloon and you rise above everything else. From up there, it's a different world so why wouldn't you play?

Hometown Glory-Adele 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BW9Fzwuf43c

Friday Night Lights Emmy Awards Trailer(*semi-spoiler alert*)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AG37AylK1_s

Shake It Out

Immortality. Living forever sounds boring, but maybe living longer is what we're really after. How many of you have ever felt stressed out? Oh yeah. I know all of you just said yes. Stress is normal, but here's the pudding of it all-stress is good in small doses just like guacamole and the top 40 radio. If you're constantly ready for fight or flight then the stress, my friend, has divided and conquered into your mind. Most of the time stress is because you've piled so many things onto yourself and while trying to be Superman you end up forgetting or losing something or the other. 

For some people, once they realize they can't do it all they give up completely. They go from climbing Mt. Everest to drinking pina coladas in the Bahamas. They're living life "bindaas" or free. Not a single worry in he world. Who needs stress? I sure as hell don't, But by completely forgetting your path there really is nothing left to do. Let go of excess, but don't live life as a recess and remember sometimes "if you're going through hell" all you need to do is "keep going."

Let the Door be AJar

Did you miss last night? The glitter, the dazzle, the class, and the naked golden statues make up one of the most, if not the most, prestigious awards night for film. Watching the Oscars always remind me how unclassy I am. I've never even heard of these films, but then again there are some I root for whether or not I've watched it or not. American Sniper. The Grand Budapest Hotel. And The Theory of Everything. 

My favorite moment? Well, I think Eddie Redmayne is bloody brilliant so I was right glad he got what he deserved-a naked golden statue. More importantly, I learned that Stephen Hawking is living with ALS. I'd always assumed he'd just been paralyzed, but now I hope that bandwagoning challenge with buckets of cold ice water done early last fall helped in some way. If not to raise money directly at least to spread the message. That's one step forward and I'm sure the next steps are being taken down a new, better road. I just want you guys to know that if you did the challenge last year, just on a whim, or because you got nominated and didn't want to pay-you did make a contribution and I hope later on we can all make a bigger one. People know what ALS is now and how it can impact lives of those with it and those around them. This is true for any disease, grief, or sorrow. It hurts us, but we mustn't forget it hurts the people around us as well.

My friends and I were talking about the phrase,"Go kill yourself," and how flippantly people use it nowadays. I think it's an effrontery with the casual way it's being thrown around. You can't just tell people that. It's not right. Imagine if they did die. They did what you said. You might have not meant it, but you did say it and now, that comment is going stay in that person's mind and grow and grow and grow. It won't stop catalyzing until it spreads like a disease and one day they can't take it anymore, because of that one thought, "Go kill yourself" is all consuming and it resides as the mind's permanent guest. 3 little words can condemn your thoughts to a prison of self-loathing and acceptance of the impossible: your self-worth? worthless. dirt would cost more. 

Truth sets you free, but truth reached by lies is a lie in itself and it entraps you, luring you deeper. If anyone has ever made you feel worthless, if anyone has ever called you a bitch, or spread a rumour about you that humiliated you. Don't you dare shame yourself because others are shameless with their words. Remember, everyone can own a gun, but not everyone can pull the trigger, and not everyone is meant to. The user decides the fate, not the weapon. The minds of human beings are their greatest assets and their greatest enemies. They can open doorways or close in all around you. Don't be shy to ask for help and to tell your truth, not the ones people have made you believe and that your own mind is feeding you. If you ever need to talk, let me know. I'm only a message away :) 

Robin Williams is gone and I don't understand why he did what he did, but he was someone I admired and will always admire because of his tenacity of hope and color in such a practical world.I want you to hear and read his words because they're the universal truth,-uncovuluted and pure as a newborn-so scream them with your anger, with your passion"You're only given a little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it." Scream the truth!

"Merrily we fall out of line, out of line"

As honesty goes, I'm a pretty honest person and I can say truly, from bottom recesses of my heart that my last post sucked. Really bad. It makes no sense. Its incoherent and just jumbled stream of consciousness. I just needed an outlet and I blogged. Ironically, it’s probably as real as I'll ever be. Typing through the computer into the cloud is a solitary job. The trick is getting the people on the other side to connect with you through a screen miles and miles away. I didn't give my blog justice. So here's a 2.0 shot.

Recently, I've been listening to a lot of music, you know, trying to figure out what I like. So when people ask me the question," What do you listen to?" I don't have to answer back with a shrug of shoulders and a casual," Oh, everything." Which is absolutely not true. I don't listen to everything. If All About the Bass is playing on the radio, I will change the station before Meghan Trainor can utter the words Bass another time. I've realized I'm a coward. I'm a shy person. I'm outgoing around certain people, but as soon as I see a person taking control of a conversation. I'll submit and just be quiet. And now I've become this person who really doesn't have any individual interests. Music? Whatever my friends listen to. Movies, books-same exact damn thing. (New Year's Resolution-not to curse totally working out....) Ugh. All this stupid teen angst right? Ha. Sorry. That got a little too melodramatic 90210 for me. So music. People nowadays, especially kids my age, are always trying to be different. But by being different, they're fitting in. Does that make any sense?  

Well, let me put it in a better context. Take Fall out Boy for example. Before My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark I wonder how many people were devout followers of Fall Out Boy. I know I had never heard them before that song. But after that, there was this revolution of Fall Out Boy. And suddenly Fall Out Boy became everybody's favorite. Now their songs are constantly played on the radio. *cough* Centuries. There new found popularity is not something I'm cribbing about. I want to make that very clear. I love Fall Out Boy. I listen to their music on almost a daily basis now-old and new. My point is, that being unique has become the norm, Fall Out Boy and Panic! At the Disco walk side by side with Maroon 5 and Taylor Swift. They've cemented their place in the mainstream. Maybe not everyone has heard their music, but their names have been heard and spoken countless times. 

If you were a Fall Out Boy fan before they were "cool" just simmer down okay? We love the same band. There's no need to defend them to us. Yes, they're good. Some of us just hadn't discovered them yet. Fall Out Boy isn't the only one that's made this jump from the fringes to the crowd, Lana Del Rey is another great example. Her slow dream pop music was unlike anything playing on the radio, but how many times did you hear Summertime Sadness and Young and Beautiful a year or so ago? Yeah, I don't think I can tally that high either. The world may run out of Expo. 

Whether music is popular or inconspicuous, it’s personal. Just because something becomes popular, doesn't automatically make it bad and something you can never listen to again. Music is honest, so don't lie to yourself about your hates and loves. If you listen to screamo and Taylor Swift- go figure! Most importantly, don't let anyone let go of the things you love because they don't.

"You've got to find yourself alone in this world/ You've got to find yourself alone"-Oceans