A Brief Nod To The Crazies

I love my friends. Honestly, we're the silliest strange people ever.
Yesterday, after going through a long Friday at school, it felt quite tiring to be alive. However, I got the familiar "JORDANNN!!! SOMEONE'S CALLING YOU!!" sound of Heathy screaming from my cell phone and immediately picked up a call from Kita [who, as often is the case, was bored]. So, we decided to call random people and get together with whoever we could. But, right as I got to his house to pick him up, my phone died. So, we scrambled back over to my house, jumped on my bed like little kids, and started calling people from my charging cell phone [making fun of each other the entire time, haha]. When it was found that we had NO ONE to hang out with, we jumped back in the car and went to see Ka-chan in downtown Bellevue. Instead of going to the familiar haunts, we traipsed arm in arm around a quaint little Medina park, discussing life and the world sans reserve. Finally, hunger overtook us and we journeyed to the Round Table [for pizza, after many mis-turns on my part]. Sitting and sharing a Pepsi, we chomped on veggie pizza and discussed school and teenager-y things. Onward from there, we traveled to the Interlake football field at twilight to spin in random circles and sit in the soccer net. And talk, of course. Then, after boredom [and the looming feeling that we would be arrested...] got to us, we went to Crossroads Park and walked circles through the darkening sky.
I guess I haven't hung out with my oldest friends in a while, but it's great to be around Kita - who continues to be the quirky mellow semi-serious semi-insane guy I've always known. And with Ka-chan, life takes on a new level of 'what the hell are we doing?' It's just nice to know that we can all get together for a few hours as the most amazing people in the world.
No joke.

Happy Life

The people you love are not always those that best care for you. And the people who care about you often are never appreciated.
I feel selfish putting myself in that second category sometimes. I think it is a truth that occurs with everyone, in many different situations. I can definitely see where it affects my own life, but where I affect others is completely subjective. And how could we really ever tell if we're best caring for someone? Or what love is? Those are all too big of questions.
School is moving fabulously, started this week and already I can sort of feel out the rest of the year. I have a glimpse at some nice things, but there is always that feeling of searching for the light at the end of the tunnel. For now, it seems pretty far away. However, going to College Corps and working on different items in general has put me in the mode of anticipation.
However, I don't feel that's readily important. I've always managed my life in a manner most becoming [or at least I hope...] and thus school is the background noise to what I want to call "real life." I have hung out with people for as many days as possible, and have started taking classes again [yoga, and a new belly dancing thing that I think I will continue] while also thinking on life in general. I've started reading Pablo Neruda again, after hearing a depressing announcement about my last math teacher. Anyway.
I can't understand why I feel so strange. It's one of those selfish things, I'm sure of it - thinking that people are getting things that I am not. I don't know what I'm jealous of... nor do I have a clear understanding of what those things are. I just feel strangely hollow, like I want for someone or something to fill this space for me.
Maybe I should put up advertisements.

Stuck in Transit

As the teacher's strike barrels into the end of its second week, people are starting to frustrate me to no end.
After hearing all the different opinions from either side, I went to the open meeting at Samammish to listen to people speak their grievances and the board to explain themselves [which they didn't do much of, frankly]. We were crammed into the theater and then into the cafeteria with a tiny screen because there was so many people. We watched from inside and outside, and our captains started writing a speech to go up for number 62 [which they cut off at 56, which sucked]. The worst part to me was that people who didn't seem to understand everything about the strike got to speak their piece. Obviously we are all affected, but parents don't know the inner workings of the classroom. And, equally, students probably don't have the qualifications to know about what a fair pay raise is. People were saying their part, which I commend, but a lot of it was very selfish and towards themselves. Our speech may have been the same, but we are the ones most affected. Parents with their kids in daycare and problems with free and reduced lunch I understand their plight, but there were people that were far removed from the situation - like a nurse that was speaking about how she would love to have three months vacation and a parent speaking of her student's band camp being cancelled. I believe that these are not issues of importance necessary to be brought up when they are minor things to lose. That nurse was aligning her position to that of a teacher, and they are just not the same. And band camp for one year is probably not as affecting as having teachers move on in the curriculum based off of a robot web decision. Particularly cagey were the board members, who were doing the classic talk-around-the-issue political style. They were asked very direct questions of what would happen to teachers who didn't obey curriculum web and if there was money to give by rechecking the books - they answered everything but these questions.
However, I guess from the email that we received, we actually did get a little leeway. There are now going to be round-the-clock discussions, a new mediator, and no injunction to force teachers back to school. But we're still not rid of the word 'occassionally' or at the right price range. I don't believe much in the pay being as important, but at least focus on your students' livelihoods by allowing teachers the freedom to think outside the box.

Is That Why We Do It?

As a writer, I am constantly filling up pages and pages and files and files and scraps and scraps of notes, poems, memories, paragraphs and stories. I guess I don't think about it too much at the time, because I always feel that there is something propelling me forward into the next sentence or the next line [and when I don't - a.k.a. writer's block - then I try to drudge myself out and push on into another creative form] but I just wonder, why?
Why do we always feel this need to keep filling the pages? What really is the motivation to take notes about the guy with the crumpled hat sitting next to us with a huge gash on his left arm, laughing happily as he gets off at the next bus stop? I may never know.
But, I guess, my theory so far is that it's our way of interpreting the world. Numerous times I have told myself that without writing I would probably explode, or implode, or something catastrophic like that. Even when everything seems quite ludicrous, I take up pen and paper and develop some sort of scenario far better than myself. In the end, my only purpose is to write.
When I was younger - working diligently on a novel or trying to learn my craft without the fear of rejection - I was much more eager to show the world. I guess that kind of changed when I discovered a. that what I was writing wasn't very good, b. that there are a lot of things I wouldn't share with anyone, and c. that sometimes it's just fine to leave the words on the page. I've recently picked up my favorite writing mentor's (Monica Wood) new sequel to The Pocket Muse and it has really helped me out of a few jams. Just thinking that I am pretty young and all these experiences are part of my life as a writer: they don't have to be public property yet.
I was just thinking about it today, for no reason, but I guess the reason I write is to timidly set down my inhibitions. In a lot of ways, it helped me grow up and grow out, and I guess that the only gift I can give back is to keep putting words down.
I was actually wondering if I could finish every story fragment I had ever written and, well, I realized it was quite impossible.
So, I guess my goal this year [and hopefully every year] is... to actually finish something. Anything. Anything at all that seems to feel right then, right now. It's time to stop worrying about the future.

E.R. Exclusive

Agh, what a way to spend the extra day I have off from school because of the teacher's strike. In the hospital, with severe shortness of breath and dying from waiting in a cold room for 6 different doctors to come and aid me.
Last night was horrible, we thought it was going to just be a little allergy attack like the night before (I was unable to do Ramadan for the last two days because of this) but then it started acting like the flu. I threw up multiple times, couldn't breathe, and was coughing so bad that we eventually decided to get professional help. Days like this just make me wonder why I'm alive.
They tried to give me pills and things, but I don't trust that. I took the mister thing and the chest X-ray and they prescribed an inhaler [which I accept] and some steroids [which I will not]. After a few hours, it helped out, but it was 6:30am when we got back and everyone was dead tired. Da called in that he was going to stay home today and I conked out until 2pm. Obviously, and sadly, couldn't go to the rally for the teacher's strike.
*sigh* Well, I guess all's well that ends well. At least I'm not dead nor did the X-ray point to anything horrible like fluid in the lungs or something. But they gave us some information on hyper-reactive lung [bronchospasm?] syndrome and I read something about emotional stress also being one of the causes - maybe this is where the hyperventilation thing came from.
Who knows? All I know is that I'm going to try and eat something and hopefully keep it down.