Hello, all! Yes, I'm actually writing something! Super excitd about that, considering I haven't delivered a post to you all since November of last year.... But I'm beyond happy to be writing for you all today! For the past three months I've been busy working on the musical at my school, Fame. I've always really liked musical theater, and a few years ago I finally put my finger on why. I've been highly involved in music for pretty much all of my life, and I really enjoy singing and good music. But quality writing and storytelling has also been a really big part of my life, I would say an even bigger part of my life. And so a musical is telling a story, but combined specifically with the power of music, which is just perfect. I was cast as Iris Kelly, the best dancer at the school, classically trained in ballet, and really insecure about herself. Getting to be her was a priviledge, and the entire experience was life-changing, a highlight of senior year. Fame is truly one of the most spectacular pieces of art I've ever had the priviledge of being a part of. Two hours (or more) of rehearsing pretty much every day for months doesn't leave a lot of room to even really think about writing a post, so that's why it's been so long. However, I learned so much from being a part of this experience and this story that I really want to write it somewhere and share it with you all. But there's so much to say and no way to cleanly organize all the different things I've learned into a singular post. Instead, I'm currently writing (besides the Disney Princess series that I have not forgotten about) a series of posts on the blog's INSTAGRAM called #FameFriday. Every Friday I write a quick little piece of something I learned about writing or about the analysis of my character (and sometimes her boyfriend). If you don't already follow the blog on Instagram, follow @itsanadventur so you can keep up on that series. And, if you want to see Basic Academy's full production of Fame, you can watch that here.
The real point of this post is a anout another musical, one that was also kind of life-changing for me. Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton was released in 2015. The first time I heard about it, I believe, was when Rick Riordan went to go see it and wrote a blog post about it. (He went the same night as Preisdent Obama; it was wild.) What I knew about it from that was that it was a hip hop musical about the Founding Fathers. Alright, cool. Then besides a Vine by the amazing Thomas Sanders and seeing the Tony nominations, that was the only exposure I really got to Hamilton. Then once the Tonys had come and gone, I wanted to see all of the performances, so I went to the website and watched them all. When I saw Hamilton's performance, I was absolutely SHOCKED.
Like, honestly. I knew what it was, but it was something I couldn't quite believe until I saw it. I had been hearing and seeing all this hype about it and I thought I was ready, but I had no idea what it would be like. They were wearing Revolutionary War uniforms and they were rapping. It was one of the craziest things I had seen in my life. And the first time, I didn't quite like it.
But it was like I couldn't stop watching it. It was so strange, I had to see it again. And I liked it more every time I saw it. And my interest and love for Hamilton escalated a lot more than I thought it would.
No, really. I was not expecting it to get so out of hand. I'm kind of sorry.
Before I talk about one of the main things I love about Hamilton, I would like to send a special shoutout to the guy who wrote it. He continuously inspires me to be a better writer. The work Lin did was so intelligent alone, but the personality he brings to his work makes it even better; he's awe-inspiring. Have you guys seen his performance of "Alexander Hamilton" at the White House? Years before the show came out when Lin originally had the idea of putting anything like this togethr, he got asked to perform at the White House Poetry Jam. He had this one song done, so he decides to bring it. He's telling them all about how he feels such a strong hip hop vibe about Alexander. Look at them all. Look at them all react. Look at them all laughing at him. I was watching that video for the first time after Hamilton was huge, everyone's favorite, award-winning, successful beyond words. And I'm watching this video from years and years before any of this has happened. I'm watching them all laugh at this man's idea. And I'm so in awe of the fact that he knew people thought his beautiful piece of art was ridiculous, and that he continued to make it because that's what you do when you have art to make. You make it no matter what anyone thinks. Lin, you inspire me.
Pretty much everyone knows that Newsies is my favorite musical, and that's still true. It's such an upbeat and inspiring story, perfectly written and designed as well. And what else I love about Newsies is how close I've gotten to the characters; they feel like my best friends. The thing with Hamilton, however, is the more I studied that musical, the more I realized I felt like Alexander. I didn't feel close to him, I felt like he was me.
And I think that's the great thing about it as well. Before the musical, Alexander Hamilton was the first secretary of the treasury to me. Nothing I could really connect with at all, or even think to. The show turned him into a tangible person, someone we would know. For me, he turned into someone I was. If I had known the real Alexander Hamilton, this show proved that I might find I could relate to him a lot more than I would've originally thought. Putting their personalities into a language we could all understand made them so much more real to me. Real, and relatable.
The more I studied Alexander's character, the more he seemed like me. We just had so much in common. He's brutally honest and obsessed with the way people see him. He's constantly focusing on his legacy and the mark he's going to leave on the world. He can make enemies in a short amount of time, almost as quickly as he can make friends. Maybe even worse than all of that, he is prideful beyond belief, and thinks relatively highly of himself, even if he does have a way of tearing himself apart. It all just seemed too true to me. When I took all of that and combined it with the fact that he was known for his way with words, I turned into Alexander.
When I was three years old, I asked my mom if I could learn how to read. I was so young my mom didn't really think anything of it, but she wasn't going to say no to that kind of thing, so she gave me some computer game about reading and told me it would teach me how to read, not actually believing it would. One more thing Alexander and I have in common-- if we want something to get done, it's going to happen. I'm pretty sure I could read by the time I entered preschool.
That's probably the biggest thing. We both read everything we could; we just wanted to take it all in. Then we started creating the words ourselves. We just want to do more, produce more, write more. We never stop. The words are everything to us.
That is why I call myself Alexander.
Every line in the show resonates with me so much, it's like every time they talk about Alexander they're talking about me. I guess if I wanted to waste the rest of my life on this blog post, I could tear every song apart line by line and word by word and thus expose my entire life to you, but I'm not going to do that. Instead I'll share with you one quote that will give you a pretty good idea and that I sometimes say to myself when life gets real or crazy: "See, I never thought I'd live past twenty." Seems I would never be able to relate to that quote one bit, but that one hits me almost the hardest of all. For Alexander, that is very literal; the fact that he is actually going to survive past youth is amazing to him. But I was thinking about this song one day and was blown away by the realization that I couldn't quite believe that I would live past youth either. See, the next three years of my life are perfectly planned out. I'm in Henderson, Nevada for the next few months to finish my senior year of high school. Then I move to Cedar City to attend Southern Utah University, where I'll be in the Jumpstart program to do all of my general education in one year, in the stage and screen class. Then after that summer, I don't know where I'll be; I'll be serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints for a year and a half. The next three years of my life are perfect. But after that, after I'm twenty years old, the lines start to get a little blurry. That's when I'm start my creative writing major at SUU, but what else? I'll try to start my writing career, but how and when will that happen? Who will I even still know then? What else will I be doing? For me right now, it's genuinely difficult to imagine living past twenty.
That's just one example. But when they talk about Alexander, they talk about me. Even tragic lines like "I walk alone to the store" hold a place in my life, some that are too personal to share.
So once again, thank you, Lin. Thank you for writing this real-life character that I associate myself with. Never have I connected myself with a character from a musical this much. Thank you for introducing me to Alexander, because it was like being introduced to myself. Thank you for making the beginning of our beautiful nation a tangible thing for me and for so many other people, for making it all seem real and not like a story. Thank you for being an inspiring writer. Thank you for teaching me about our heroes.
And while we're talking about the heroes, thank you for building this hipster nation, that always wants to do things its own way, that overcomes hard times and fights for what is right and believes in freedom and equality. Thank you for building America. Thank you, James. Thank you, Thomas. Thank you, Alexander. Thank you, George. Thank you, all of you.
And thanks to all the friends out there for the continuous support you give me as a person and especially as a writer. Someday I am going to be publishing bigger things than a meaningless blog post, and I'm going to need all the love you guys give me, because better art includes better haters. Thank you for making me feel like an important writer; the support legitimately blows me away. You're amazing and I don't deserve you.
But I do love you.
--Lizzo
Thursday, March 2, 2017
Monday, November 7, 2016
Oliver Twist
Hey there faves! I actually finished a piece of literature! I am done reading Charles Dickens's Christmas Stories. Not that I read all of them. I read A Christmas Carol, because it's the first one, not to mention the one everyone knows about, so you've got to read it. I can say that it definitely deserved all the hype it got. It was so well-written, and the details are so interesting since the story has been interpreted so many times throughout the years. It was great, but considering it's a never-ending series and I can't finish a book for my life anymore, I had to stop. The story was closed and I didn't have the patience for any more, despite its excellence. It does sadden me because I would like to have a knowledge of the less well-known works, but I didn't want it bad enough to continue through four more books that would be impossible to finish.
However, I have moved on to more work by Dickens! I am about to read Oliver Twist. I feel like all I really knew about Oliver Twist is that he's this starving orphan. Apparently, there's something about him getting caught up with criminals too! I'm walking into this story relatively blind, but it sounds decent to me.
And honestly, I guess it's kind of dumb that I'm saying I don't have the patience to read four more books that are usually less than one hundred pages and now I'm starting a book that's over five hundred pages. But, hey! I'm hyped.
Just a quick check-in, y'all. I love you!
--Lizzo
However, I have moved on to more work by Dickens! I am about to read Oliver Twist. I feel like all I really knew about Oliver Twist is that he's this starving orphan. Apparently, there's something about him getting caught up with criminals too! I'm walking into this story relatively blind, but it sounds decent to me.
And honestly, I guess it's kind of dumb that I'm saying I don't have the patience to read four more books that are usually less than one hundred pages and now I'm starting a book that's over five hundred pages. But, hey! I'm hyped.
Just a quick check-in, y'all. I love you!
--Lizzo
Friday, October 28, 2016
Disney Princess Series: Aurora
Hello all! Okay, so I just posted my FIRST YOUTUBE VIDEO on the channel tonight. And for real guys, thank you for all the kind comments, because that's a real insecure spot for me. I've never viewed myself as much of a speaker, so all the hype you guys have been giving me about that is so insanely appreciated.
Quick update on me: I got accepted into three colleges! SUU, USU, and UVU. However, the one I am choosing to attend is SUU! A year from now I will be living in Cedar City! (Where it is WAY TOO COLD.)
Alright, today I write for you about another one of our dear Disney princesses. She's absolutely stunning in every way and is one of the princesses more commonly known for getting hate. Princess Aurora, my friends, does not deserve the hate.
We meet Aurora on her sixteenth birthday. She's just the cutest thing; she sings and dances and talks to the animals and loves life. Loving life is the surest way to enhance beauty.
You can just tell by the way she talks to her fairies and her animals that she is a kind person. And I really just can't stress enough how great kindness is. She's graceful and has the voice of an angel. She's absolutely beautiful.
I think this is where Aurora gets the majority of her hate. There have been periods of time long ago where that was the only acceptable kind of woman to be. So people fought so hard for the other type of woman, the kind that don't naturally carry themselves with elegance. And that's good. It's okay to be beautiful in a different way. But I feel like it got so out of hand. We got so carried away trying to include the other type of girl, that the classic vision of beauty started being not forgotten, but shamed. People like Princess Aurora are now viewed as, for lack of a better word, wrong. She's too normal, she is the original idea of beauty. Does that mean she has something against those that are not?
No, I really don't think so. As I said before, Aurora is unquestionably kind. And kind people don't just hate on someone because they're different.
And here's the other place she gets all her hate from. She's singing about how much she wants to meet her true love.
Please forgive me. I am about to get extremely angry.
All I hear about when people talk about female protagonists is whether or not they need a man. Especially with Disney, and especially with their princesses. My gosh, why is this all based on whether she needs a man or not? We never said anything about needing a man. I don't remember anyone saying that. What is wrong with her wanting a man in her life? If she wants that, does that make her weak? I really don't think so. Love is a really desirable thing, guys. It's beautiful. I don't see what's wrong with her wanting that.
If you argue that she sounds helpless when singing about finding her love, I can agree with that. But I also think it's justified. The only people she has ever really known in her life are her three fairies. Of course she's helpless. She wants love and she doesn't know how to find it. So at this point she's just calling out to the universe, in the hopes that someone will hear her. That's all she knows how to do, and so that's enough.
Then she and Prince Phillip meet. This is terrifying for many reasons. One being that finally facing your dream is usually terrifying. The second being that Aurora has never met anyone that isn't the fairies. The third being that Phillip totally snuck up on her while she was alone in the woods and that's really scary.
They talk for awhile and get to know each other, then Phillip asks her name. She realizes the fairies told her not to talk to strangers. This part is really admirable because it proves Aurora's intelligence and loyalty. She is obedient to her family, but she also really likes Phillip. So instead of having to choose one over the other, she invites him to come visit her later that night.
It really was a good plan, but sadly Aurora didn't know the full truth about herself at the time; she didn't even know her real name. She gets home and endlessly thanks her family for the wonderful birthday surprise, then tells them about Phillip and how he is going to come visit later. At this point they have to tell her that she's a princess who is betrothed to another man. The only thing to do is take Aurora to her true home, the palace.
And forgive me, but I think it's beautiful how her heart breaks so terribly. Being able to weep over a tragedy proves that you are human and alive and even vulnerable and so capable of experiencing things. It's so great.
So she goes home to the palace. The fairies should have known not to leave her alone even for a second! They knew it was her sixteenth birthday! They knew Maleficent cast that spell to kill her! And so yeah, Aurora fell asleep for what would be a hundred years, as if she were dead.
Please don't tell me you're going to hate on her for needing a man now. This time she actually does. She could only wake up from a kiss from her true love. It's not like she was even conscious to save herself. She was under an evil spell. It is okay to need people. Now that I've stated that wanting a man is okay, I do want to say that it's also okay to need other people. We're here to help each other out. And I think it's especially true that men and women need each other, because each gender has strengths and weaknesses (Yes, I believe in gender roles) so they can work together. It's a beautiful thing. There is nothing wrong with that.
So Phillip saves her, she's reunited with her family, and the boy she fell in love with in the forest just so happened to be the prince she was destined to marry! I can always go for a happy ending.
What's wrong with a sappy story? I know most people aren't as down for those as I am, but a little happiness in this beautiful world of ours is definitely needed.
Remember, guys, I love you, but God loves you so much more.
--Lizzo
Quick update on me: I got accepted into three colleges! SUU, USU, and UVU. However, the one I am choosing to attend is SUU! A year from now I will be living in Cedar City! (Where it is WAY TOO COLD.)
Alright, today I write for you about another one of our dear Disney princesses. She's absolutely stunning in every way and is one of the princesses more commonly known for getting hate. Princess Aurora, my friends, does not deserve the hate.
We meet Aurora on her sixteenth birthday. She's just the cutest thing; she sings and dances and talks to the animals and loves life. Loving life is the surest way to enhance beauty.
You can just tell by the way she talks to her fairies and her animals that she is a kind person. And I really just can't stress enough how great kindness is. She's graceful and has the voice of an angel. She's absolutely beautiful.
I think this is where Aurora gets the majority of her hate. There have been periods of time long ago where that was the only acceptable kind of woman to be. So people fought so hard for the other type of woman, the kind that don't naturally carry themselves with elegance. And that's good. It's okay to be beautiful in a different way. But I feel like it got so out of hand. We got so carried away trying to include the other type of girl, that the classic vision of beauty started being not forgotten, but shamed. People like Princess Aurora are now viewed as, for lack of a better word, wrong. She's too normal, she is the original idea of beauty. Does that mean she has something against those that are not?
No, I really don't think so. As I said before, Aurora is unquestionably kind. And kind people don't just hate on someone because they're different.
And here's the other place she gets all her hate from. She's singing about how much she wants to meet her true love.
Please forgive me. I am about to get extremely angry.
All I hear about when people talk about female protagonists is whether or not they need a man. Especially with Disney, and especially with their princesses. My gosh, why is this all based on whether she needs a man or not? We never said anything about needing a man. I don't remember anyone saying that. What is wrong with her wanting a man in her life? If she wants that, does that make her weak? I really don't think so. Love is a really desirable thing, guys. It's beautiful. I don't see what's wrong with her wanting that.
If you argue that she sounds helpless when singing about finding her love, I can agree with that. But I also think it's justified. The only people she has ever really known in her life are her three fairies. Of course she's helpless. She wants love and she doesn't know how to find it. So at this point she's just calling out to the universe, in the hopes that someone will hear her. That's all she knows how to do, and so that's enough.
Then she and Prince Phillip meet. This is terrifying for many reasons. One being that finally facing your dream is usually terrifying. The second being that Aurora has never met anyone that isn't the fairies. The third being that Phillip totally snuck up on her while she was alone in the woods and that's really scary.
They talk for awhile and get to know each other, then Phillip asks her name. She realizes the fairies told her not to talk to strangers. This part is really admirable because it proves Aurora's intelligence and loyalty. She is obedient to her family, but she also really likes Phillip. So instead of having to choose one over the other, she invites him to come visit her later that night.
It really was a good plan, but sadly Aurora didn't know the full truth about herself at the time; she didn't even know her real name. She gets home and endlessly thanks her family for the wonderful birthday surprise, then tells them about Phillip and how he is going to come visit later. At this point they have to tell her that she's a princess who is betrothed to another man. The only thing to do is take Aurora to her true home, the palace.
And forgive me, but I think it's beautiful how her heart breaks so terribly. Being able to weep over a tragedy proves that you are human and alive and even vulnerable and so capable of experiencing things. It's so great.
So she goes home to the palace. The fairies should have known not to leave her alone even for a second! They knew it was her sixteenth birthday! They knew Maleficent cast that spell to kill her! And so yeah, Aurora fell asleep for what would be a hundred years, as if she were dead.
Please don't tell me you're going to hate on her for needing a man now. This time she actually does. She could only wake up from a kiss from her true love. It's not like she was even conscious to save herself. She was under an evil spell. It is okay to need people. Now that I've stated that wanting a man is okay, I do want to say that it's also okay to need other people. We're here to help each other out. And I think it's especially true that men and women need each other, because each gender has strengths and weaknesses (Yes, I believe in gender roles) so they can work together. It's a beautiful thing. There is nothing wrong with that.
So Phillip saves her, she's reunited with her family, and the boy she fell in love with in the forest just so happened to be the prince she was destined to marry! I can always go for a happy ending.
What's wrong with a sappy story? I know most people aren't as down for those as I am, but a little happiness in this beautiful world of ours is definitely needed.
Remember, guys, I love you, but God loves you so much more.
--Lizzo
Friday, July 15, 2016
Disney Princess Series: Cinderella
Can you even call it a series when it's been a million years since the last post? Yeah, I guess. Because I decided so.
But honestly, it is definitely time for another Disney Princess post. Firstly because summer is killing me and I oftentimes find myself lacking a lot of purpose. Nothing like writing to fix that. Not to mention Disney has all of the happiness and magic I'm pretty sure I need right now. *insert agonized emoji*
But before we get into that, shoutout to all of y'all because you're so dang nice and supportive of my writing that I am trying so hard for. You are perfection.
Well anyway, this Disney Princess post is about the girl that is responsible for saving Walt's company, so shoutout to her for keeping magic alive. (But for those that refer to her as the leader of the Disney Princesses, I'm not totally okay with that because Snow White's my original girl, and... she was Disney Animation's original girl too. That's all.) She's an insanely famous fairy tale, and I don't know, something about her is just absolutely beautiful. My sister's and my mom's favorite. Here's for my girl Cinderella!!!
*readers applaud madly*
I honestly think that Cinderella is so appealing to everyone that loves her for the same reasons that she is off-putting to those that don't: she is so sweet and beautiful while still being relatable and realistic. Which might sound kind of crazy. But hear me out.
This girl starts out with a picture-perfect life. She's got a family and they live in this beautiful house with a bunch of animals and they're rich and everything is perfect. She's not anything apparently special, but she has all of those things that make her happy and she doesn't really have anything to complain about.
Here's where things get real. Her life is perfect, and she thinks so too. And then her mom dies. Oh, sad.
Her father remarries because he believes that a girl deserves a full family. That's so great! (And super true. Everyone deserves a complete family.) She not only gets a mom, but she gets two sisters and cat that is literally named after the devil. But everything is still great! Of course everyone will miss their real mom. But Cinderella is not one to complain. Just one reason she is so loved.
And then her father dies. See, guys? Bad things happen to people that you would never expect them to happen to. Picture-perfect lives are not perfect. That's all. That's just really important to me, because you can't always judge what's going on with a person based on what you see.
Okay, whatever, death. That happens to everyone. Of course people die in a perfect person's perfect life, because it's just part of everyone's life.
But beyond that. Then her stepmother and her stepsisters show their true selves and start being unkind. They order her around and are super rude and they make her do everything without thanks. They make her feel worthless. It's not okay.
Would anyone from the outside even know? Of course they would pity Cinderella for the death of both of her parents. But after that, wouldn't they just assume that life with her stepmom and stepsisters would just go on the same? No, Cinderella was really being mistreated. Don't ask me why I'm bringing this up, I guess it's just important to me to not judge a person's strength when you're not even certain that you can judge their situation.
But besides all of that, passing judgement on her situation or whatever. How does Cinderella even react to that? Wouldn't the average person fight back, be angry and bitter? Or at least be miserable and sad for themselves. Why would you not be sad for yourself? The people that loved her died, and the people she thought loved her didn't actually care about her at all. That's dreadful.
Cinderella did the right thing in my eyes. She was honest with herself about her situation, but in a positive way. She knew that the people she lived with were mean. She knew they were doing her wrong. She admitted it. (If you don't believe me, remember the time when the clock tower rang in the morning and she said, "Even he orders me around.") But she also said shortly after that they wouldn't be able to stop her from dreaming. Cinderella was going to be herself no matter how worthless everyone made her feel. She was going to be happy with her life, because being sad about bad things is no fun. So instead she chose to be happy about all her sweet animal friends that she takes care of. (Honestly, of all the Disney animal pals, the mice in Cinderella are probably my favorite.) And about all the things she hoped for the future. (Hope is okay, guys. It really is. It gets people through a lot, and hanging on to joy that isn't yet present but someday can be is totally fine, because joy is still joy whether or not the cause of it is yet existent.)
That's the way she reacted personally. But what about the way she reacted to her family? She did not get angry or bitter like most people would want to. She decided to be kind. Killing with kindness really is effective. It can change the way people treat you; making a choice to be the better person can also turn someone else into a better person by example, which is why it's always important to be the best version of yourself that you can, even if someone else is making you want to be unkind, angry, or sad. In Cinderella's case, it didn't change them. They were still rude and condescending. But in that case, being angry about it would only make Cinderella unhappy in the end. It would only change her, and not for the better. So she did the thing that kept her happy.
Not to mention, anyone who takes in a bunch of mice and makes the clothes and talks to them and is super nice to them is perfect. Not to mention all the birds and all them. That's all.
Cool. So while all of that is happening, Cinderella's sisters get invited to the royal ball so the prince can find a wife. Here's where I think things start to get misinterpreted with Cinderella. She wasn't desperate to have a guy save her or whatever. She was literally stuck in the house doing chores with only her beautiful animal friends to keep her company. Naturally she would get lonely and want to get out! The girl wanted to go to a party. And at the prince's castle? Gosh dang it, this was going to be the party of the century. Cinderella was going to be there.
Her family, as they naturally would, made fun of her for thinking that anyone like her could go to the ball. But Cinderella pointed out that every eligible maiden in the kingdom was invited, and she was pretty sure that included her. So her stepmom said she could go if she got a bunch of chores done. Like, a lot of chores done. And if she could find something nice enough to wear.
Cinderella is so hyped at this point. Cinderella goes up to her room right away because her mother has an old dress that will be perfect for the ball. (Guys. She just wants to have a good night out and wear her mother's dress and be beautiful and have fun. What about that isn't so dang sweet?) Cinderella wants to make a few adjustments that will make it a little more in style, but she isn't sure how she'll have the time to do that with her family already getting on her with all the chores they have for her to do before the big evening comes. Cinderella being the beautiful girl she is, she gets right to work. She isn't one to give up easily any day, and especially not on a day as important to her as this one.
People hate on Cinderella for doing nothing and waiting for a man to rescue her from her troubles? Oh heck no! Cinderella took action! Cinderella wanted something, so she worked hard to make sure she got it! She wasn't going to wait for someone to make things better for her! She knew the only way she was going to get her dream night was if she went and got it herself.
However, even if she didn't ask for it, she did have some help. Cinderella is kind to everyone, so naturally she has a lot of friends, her friends being the mice and birds. They know that Cinderella's family will never give her a break; they are not looking for opportunities for her to go to the ball. So since their friend is so sweet and beautiful and kind, they want to be that great for her too, and help her get her dress ready for the big party. They fix it up and add some things that her sisters threw out. So when Cinderella comes back from her chores, feeling disappointed that her dress won't be ready in time, she is happily surprised by her amazing friends that fixed the dress and made it absolutely beautiful. Someone as kind as Cinderella is nothing but grateful for everything her friends have done for her.
It's time to go to the ball, so Cinderella gets herself all pretty super quick and gets downstairs. She's done all the chores and found a beautiful dress. Obviously, her family was immensely unhappy that Cinderella had done all the things required to go to the ball. They didn't want anyone like her getting in their way. Not to mention she looked stunning. They were jealous, and they especially didn't want the prince noticing her. So when they noticed the things they had thrown out as a part of her outfit, they tore apart her dress. Her stepmother didn't intervene until Cinderella's dress, previously owned by her mother, was completely ruined. "Oh no, what a tragedy, I guess you can't go to the ball anymore." And they leave without her.
Even perfect people need to have moments of sorrow. That is absolutely okay. Cinderella never drowned herself in sorrow, so having one little moment of sadness was completely appropriate. She went outside and cried pretty hard. She had done everything they asked and gotten ready in time and still she wasn't enough for them. They couldn't even give her one night in the prince's castle.
But whether you believe it or not, there's always someone looking out for you, even if it's not apparent. Cinderella's fairy godmother came to her and helped her out. She gave her a carriage, coachman, footman, horses, and a beautiful new dress complete with glass slippers. Cinderella was ready to go to the ball! She again thanked her friend for all the help she had been given.
The only condition was that everything would go back to normal at midnight. But hey, no problem, right?
Cinderella goes out to the party all by herself. Takes some courage for a girl who hasn't been out of the house for a few years. But she gets there and everything is beautiful, she's ready to have a great time. She wasn't expecting to meet the prince. But she caught the prince's eye. When a person is kind and sweet and beautiful, it shows. So he went and sought her out.
Here is where things get most controversial with Cinderella. People hate on her for falling in love in one night.
Am I going to deny that? No way.
But how can you even know if you fell in love with someone in one night? How reckless and stupid! She's never even met anyone else; she can't know if she's actually in love.
Well, why not? Why can't she know if she's in love? Doesn't true love feel the same no matter when it happens?
Here's how I think it's possible for Cinderella and our dear friend Prince Charming to fall in love in one night. The prince sees her and he can tell that she's different from everybody else, in a very good way. He approaches her and talks with her. All night. He didn't really pay attention to anyone else.
Think about it, guys. The party lasted for hours and hours. You can't show that in real time in a film. So they shortened it to a few minutes. We don't actually see all the time that Charming and Cinderella spent getting to know each other and talking. But it did happen, all night, in fact. And I think that's very possible.
Guys, what's even wrong with that? In the end, what's actually wrong with that?
So they spent the night talking and dancing. It was clear to everyone that they were very fond of each other.
So they're talking, and suddenly it's midnight. And Cinderella's got to go, right away. The prince is devastated; he wants her to stay, he wants to know her name, he wants to be able to see her again. But Cinderella has no time for any of those things to be an option. So she runs away. They try to stop her; Prince Charming has finally found a girl he likes, and they can't just lose her without even knowing who she is. Cinderella doesn't have time for any of it. Not even to grab her slipper that falls off as she's running down the staircase. She runs, and no one can catch her. She starts home and eventually everything turns into what it was before the fairy godmother transformed it. But Cinderella still has a glass slipper to remember her perfect night by. And everyone at the palace also has a glass slipper to find the girl it belongs to.
The Grand Duke gets around to everyone in the kingdom and asks all of the girls to try on the shoe. It fits no one.
While this is happening, word gets out to everyone else. Including Cinderella's stepsisters. They're talking about it around the house, and they say that whoever fits the slipper will marry the prince. Cinderella is so excited! That's her! She's the one that the prince fell in love with, and she will now be reunited with her true love and marry him. If that's not enough, that makes her a princess. Oh my gosh, so cool. And doesn't someone as nice as her that has gone through so many hard times deserve a happy ending?
Sadly, Cinderella's stepmother figures her out. She catches her humming the tune that was played at the ball, and suddenly recognizes the girl that the prince spent the entire night dancing with. That means that Cinderella will marry the prince. And why does Cinderella deserve it? She wants one of her daughters to be a princess. That would be even better than having a rich husband. So she locks Cinderella in her room so there's no way she can try on the slipper and be determined as the prince's love.
Cinderella is devastated. But has devastation ever stopped our girl Cinderella? No!
Here's the thing. Nobody just goes and approaches a prince, even if they are said prince's true love. You just don't do that. Not to mention her family would've never let her out of the house, no matter how hard she tried. The prince wasn't saving a Cinderella who decided she was helpless. It was a team effort between both of them.
Cinderella did what she could, asking her mouse friends to get the key and unlock her door so she could meet the Grand Duke downstairs and try on the slipper. It was a close one. But right before he left, in absolute defeat, Cinderella ran down the stairs, tried on the slipper, and was brought to the prince to be married to her true love. After all her sorrows and all her hard work, she got what she really wanted.
And that's probably the best part about the story. Bad things happen to great people. But great people can get out of those bad times if they work hard, don't give up, and stay positive. In fact, they can get everything that they ever wanted and more.
Doesn't that mean there's hope for all of us, my dear friends?
I hope you all enjoyed this. I hope someday to be able to write a story as beautiful as that one.
Love ya, mean it!
--Lizzo
But honestly, it is definitely time for another Disney Princess post. Firstly because summer is killing me and I oftentimes find myself lacking a lot of purpose. Nothing like writing to fix that. Not to mention Disney has all of the happiness and magic I'm pretty sure I need right now. *insert agonized emoji*
But before we get into that, shoutout to all of y'all because you're so dang nice and supportive of my writing that I am trying so hard for. You are perfection.
Well anyway, this Disney Princess post is about the girl that is responsible for saving Walt's company, so shoutout to her for keeping magic alive. (But for those that refer to her as the leader of the Disney Princesses, I'm not totally okay with that because Snow White's my original girl, and... she was Disney Animation's original girl too. That's all.) She's an insanely famous fairy tale, and I don't know, something about her is just absolutely beautiful. My sister's and my mom's favorite. Here's for my girl Cinderella!!!
*readers applaud madly*
I honestly think that Cinderella is so appealing to everyone that loves her for the same reasons that she is off-putting to those that don't: she is so sweet and beautiful while still being relatable and realistic. Which might sound kind of crazy. But hear me out.
This girl starts out with a picture-perfect life. She's got a family and they live in this beautiful house with a bunch of animals and they're rich and everything is perfect. She's not anything apparently special, but she has all of those things that make her happy and she doesn't really have anything to complain about.
Here's where things get real. Her life is perfect, and she thinks so too. And then her mom dies. Oh, sad.
Her father remarries because he believes that a girl deserves a full family. That's so great! (And super true. Everyone deserves a complete family.) She not only gets a mom, but she gets two sisters and cat that is literally named after the devil. But everything is still great! Of course everyone will miss their real mom. But Cinderella is not one to complain. Just one reason she is so loved.
And then her father dies. See, guys? Bad things happen to people that you would never expect them to happen to. Picture-perfect lives are not perfect. That's all. That's just really important to me, because you can't always judge what's going on with a person based on what you see.
Okay, whatever, death. That happens to everyone. Of course people die in a perfect person's perfect life, because it's just part of everyone's life.
But beyond that. Then her stepmother and her stepsisters show their true selves and start being unkind. They order her around and are super rude and they make her do everything without thanks. They make her feel worthless. It's not okay.
Would anyone from the outside even know? Of course they would pity Cinderella for the death of both of her parents. But after that, wouldn't they just assume that life with her stepmom and stepsisters would just go on the same? No, Cinderella was really being mistreated. Don't ask me why I'm bringing this up, I guess it's just important to me to not judge a person's strength when you're not even certain that you can judge their situation.
But besides all of that, passing judgement on her situation or whatever. How does Cinderella even react to that? Wouldn't the average person fight back, be angry and bitter? Or at least be miserable and sad for themselves. Why would you not be sad for yourself? The people that loved her died, and the people she thought loved her didn't actually care about her at all. That's dreadful.
Cinderella did the right thing in my eyes. She was honest with herself about her situation, but in a positive way. She knew that the people she lived with were mean. She knew they were doing her wrong. She admitted it. (If you don't believe me, remember the time when the clock tower rang in the morning and she said, "Even he orders me around.") But she also said shortly after that they wouldn't be able to stop her from dreaming. Cinderella was going to be herself no matter how worthless everyone made her feel. She was going to be happy with her life, because being sad about bad things is no fun. So instead she chose to be happy about all her sweet animal friends that she takes care of. (Honestly, of all the Disney animal pals, the mice in Cinderella are probably my favorite.) And about all the things she hoped for the future. (Hope is okay, guys. It really is. It gets people through a lot, and hanging on to joy that isn't yet present but someday can be is totally fine, because joy is still joy whether or not the cause of it is yet existent.)
That's the way she reacted personally. But what about the way she reacted to her family? She did not get angry or bitter like most people would want to. She decided to be kind. Killing with kindness really is effective. It can change the way people treat you; making a choice to be the better person can also turn someone else into a better person by example, which is why it's always important to be the best version of yourself that you can, even if someone else is making you want to be unkind, angry, or sad. In Cinderella's case, it didn't change them. They were still rude and condescending. But in that case, being angry about it would only make Cinderella unhappy in the end. It would only change her, and not for the better. So she did the thing that kept her happy.
Not to mention, anyone who takes in a bunch of mice and makes the clothes and talks to them and is super nice to them is perfect. Not to mention all the birds and all them. That's all.
Cool. So while all of that is happening, Cinderella's sisters get invited to the royal ball so the prince can find a wife. Here's where I think things start to get misinterpreted with Cinderella. She wasn't desperate to have a guy save her or whatever. She was literally stuck in the house doing chores with only her beautiful animal friends to keep her company. Naturally she would get lonely and want to get out! The girl wanted to go to a party. And at the prince's castle? Gosh dang it, this was going to be the party of the century. Cinderella was going to be there.
Her family, as they naturally would, made fun of her for thinking that anyone like her could go to the ball. But Cinderella pointed out that every eligible maiden in the kingdom was invited, and she was pretty sure that included her. So her stepmom said she could go if she got a bunch of chores done. Like, a lot of chores done. And if she could find something nice enough to wear.
Cinderella is so hyped at this point. Cinderella goes up to her room right away because her mother has an old dress that will be perfect for the ball. (Guys. She just wants to have a good night out and wear her mother's dress and be beautiful and have fun. What about that isn't so dang sweet?) Cinderella wants to make a few adjustments that will make it a little more in style, but she isn't sure how she'll have the time to do that with her family already getting on her with all the chores they have for her to do before the big evening comes. Cinderella being the beautiful girl she is, she gets right to work. She isn't one to give up easily any day, and especially not on a day as important to her as this one.
People hate on Cinderella for doing nothing and waiting for a man to rescue her from her troubles? Oh heck no! Cinderella took action! Cinderella wanted something, so she worked hard to make sure she got it! She wasn't going to wait for someone to make things better for her! She knew the only way she was going to get her dream night was if she went and got it herself.
However, even if she didn't ask for it, she did have some help. Cinderella is kind to everyone, so naturally she has a lot of friends, her friends being the mice and birds. They know that Cinderella's family will never give her a break; they are not looking for opportunities for her to go to the ball. So since their friend is so sweet and beautiful and kind, they want to be that great for her too, and help her get her dress ready for the big party. They fix it up and add some things that her sisters threw out. So when Cinderella comes back from her chores, feeling disappointed that her dress won't be ready in time, she is happily surprised by her amazing friends that fixed the dress and made it absolutely beautiful. Someone as kind as Cinderella is nothing but grateful for everything her friends have done for her.
It's time to go to the ball, so Cinderella gets herself all pretty super quick and gets downstairs. She's done all the chores and found a beautiful dress. Obviously, her family was immensely unhappy that Cinderella had done all the things required to go to the ball. They didn't want anyone like her getting in their way. Not to mention she looked stunning. They were jealous, and they especially didn't want the prince noticing her. So when they noticed the things they had thrown out as a part of her outfit, they tore apart her dress. Her stepmother didn't intervene until Cinderella's dress, previously owned by her mother, was completely ruined. "Oh no, what a tragedy, I guess you can't go to the ball anymore." And they leave without her.
Even perfect people need to have moments of sorrow. That is absolutely okay. Cinderella never drowned herself in sorrow, so having one little moment of sadness was completely appropriate. She went outside and cried pretty hard. She had done everything they asked and gotten ready in time and still she wasn't enough for them. They couldn't even give her one night in the prince's castle.
But whether you believe it or not, there's always someone looking out for you, even if it's not apparent. Cinderella's fairy godmother came to her and helped her out. She gave her a carriage, coachman, footman, horses, and a beautiful new dress complete with glass slippers. Cinderella was ready to go to the ball! She again thanked her friend for all the help she had been given.
The only condition was that everything would go back to normal at midnight. But hey, no problem, right?
Cinderella goes out to the party all by herself. Takes some courage for a girl who hasn't been out of the house for a few years. But she gets there and everything is beautiful, she's ready to have a great time. She wasn't expecting to meet the prince. But she caught the prince's eye. When a person is kind and sweet and beautiful, it shows. So he went and sought her out.
Here is where things get most controversial with Cinderella. People hate on her for falling in love in one night.
Am I going to deny that? No way.
But how can you even know if you fell in love with someone in one night? How reckless and stupid! She's never even met anyone else; she can't know if she's actually in love.
Well, why not? Why can't she know if she's in love? Doesn't true love feel the same no matter when it happens?
Here's how I think it's possible for Cinderella and our dear friend Prince Charming to fall in love in one night. The prince sees her and he can tell that she's different from everybody else, in a very good way. He approaches her and talks with her. All night. He didn't really pay attention to anyone else.
Think about it, guys. The party lasted for hours and hours. You can't show that in real time in a film. So they shortened it to a few minutes. We don't actually see all the time that Charming and Cinderella spent getting to know each other and talking. But it did happen, all night, in fact. And I think that's very possible.
Guys, what's even wrong with that? In the end, what's actually wrong with that?
So they spent the night talking and dancing. It was clear to everyone that they were very fond of each other.
So they're talking, and suddenly it's midnight. And Cinderella's got to go, right away. The prince is devastated; he wants her to stay, he wants to know her name, he wants to be able to see her again. But Cinderella has no time for any of those things to be an option. So she runs away. They try to stop her; Prince Charming has finally found a girl he likes, and they can't just lose her without even knowing who she is. Cinderella doesn't have time for any of it. Not even to grab her slipper that falls off as she's running down the staircase. She runs, and no one can catch her. She starts home and eventually everything turns into what it was before the fairy godmother transformed it. But Cinderella still has a glass slipper to remember her perfect night by. And everyone at the palace also has a glass slipper to find the girl it belongs to.
The Grand Duke gets around to everyone in the kingdom and asks all of the girls to try on the shoe. It fits no one.
While this is happening, word gets out to everyone else. Including Cinderella's stepsisters. They're talking about it around the house, and they say that whoever fits the slipper will marry the prince. Cinderella is so excited! That's her! She's the one that the prince fell in love with, and she will now be reunited with her true love and marry him. If that's not enough, that makes her a princess. Oh my gosh, so cool. And doesn't someone as nice as her that has gone through so many hard times deserve a happy ending?
Sadly, Cinderella's stepmother figures her out. She catches her humming the tune that was played at the ball, and suddenly recognizes the girl that the prince spent the entire night dancing with. That means that Cinderella will marry the prince. And why does Cinderella deserve it? She wants one of her daughters to be a princess. That would be even better than having a rich husband. So she locks Cinderella in her room so there's no way she can try on the slipper and be determined as the prince's love.
Cinderella is devastated. But has devastation ever stopped our girl Cinderella? No!
Here's the thing. Nobody just goes and approaches a prince, even if they are said prince's true love. You just don't do that. Not to mention her family would've never let her out of the house, no matter how hard she tried. The prince wasn't saving a Cinderella who decided she was helpless. It was a team effort between both of them.
Cinderella did what she could, asking her mouse friends to get the key and unlock her door so she could meet the Grand Duke downstairs and try on the slipper. It was a close one. But right before he left, in absolute defeat, Cinderella ran down the stairs, tried on the slipper, and was brought to the prince to be married to her true love. After all her sorrows and all her hard work, she got what she really wanted.
And that's probably the best part about the story. Bad things happen to great people. But great people can get out of those bad times if they work hard, don't give up, and stay positive. In fact, they can get everything that they ever wanted and more.
Doesn't that mean there's hope for all of us, my dear friends?
I hope you all enjoyed this. I hope someday to be able to write a story as beautiful as that one.
Love ya, mean it!
--Lizzo
Tuesday, June 21, 2016
Christmas Books
Hey y'all. Something amazing has happened. I finally finished my book.
I started reading The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in October. It was really interesting to read the original stories about Sherlock because he is so popular in our culture today. As far as I can tell, the modern adaptions of Sherlock are still very true to his character. I will say that walking in to Sherlock Holmes I did not know that each book was just a collection of stories. I don't have a particular enjoyment for mysteries, as this book has helped me realize. But with effort, these stories were really interesting to me. It was super exciting for me when I started to figure one out before the solution was revealed, because I am usually not one to do that. I could have read another book in this series if I had wanted to, but since I barely had tolerance to finish this book, I doubted I would have the patience to finish another. So this is where my adventures with Sherlock Holmes end for now. The stories were actually really beautiful, though. If you'd like to read my full review of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes you can do it here.
Now a lot of you probably read the title of this post and thought, "Wow. Really? Liz, you're reading more Christmas books?" Is there anything worse to read? Not because Christmas is bad, because Christmas is beautiful. But despite the beauty of such a holiday, it's hard to find literature as cheesy and low quality as Christmas books. And yet I'm reading more? Well, yeah, I guess so. But don't be so quick to judge. I am currently going through a small classic literature phase, I guess. Ever heard of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens? Yeah, little do most people know (including me until awhile ago) that is the first book in a series of other Christmas stories by that man. That is what I will be reading next! Everyone knows A Christmas Carol, and that as far as stories go is pretty beautiful. I can only imagine Dickens's other books on the subject can be the same. I'll let you all know how this goes!
Love ya, mean it!
--Lizzo
I started reading The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in October. It was really interesting to read the original stories about Sherlock because he is so popular in our culture today. As far as I can tell, the modern adaptions of Sherlock are still very true to his character. I will say that walking in to Sherlock Holmes I did not know that each book was just a collection of stories. I don't have a particular enjoyment for mysteries, as this book has helped me realize. But with effort, these stories were really interesting to me. It was super exciting for me when I started to figure one out before the solution was revealed, because I am usually not one to do that. I could have read another book in this series if I had wanted to, but since I barely had tolerance to finish this book, I doubted I would have the patience to finish another. So this is where my adventures with Sherlock Holmes end for now. The stories were actually really beautiful, though. If you'd like to read my full review of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes you can do it here.
Now a lot of you probably read the title of this post and thought, "Wow. Really? Liz, you're reading more Christmas books?" Is there anything worse to read? Not because Christmas is bad, because Christmas is beautiful. But despite the beauty of such a holiday, it's hard to find literature as cheesy and low quality as Christmas books. And yet I'm reading more? Well, yeah, I guess so. But don't be so quick to judge. I am currently going through a small classic literature phase, I guess. Ever heard of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens? Yeah, little do most people know (including me until awhile ago) that is the first book in a series of other Christmas stories by that man. That is what I will be reading next! Everyone knows A Christmas Carol, and that as far as stories go is pretty beautiful. I can only imagine Dickens's other books on the subject can be the same. I'll let you all know how this goes!
Love ya, mean it!
--Lizzo
Tuesday, June 7, 2016
National Squad Day!
This is all going to sound really dumb. Heck, it probably is.
In the reality of the thing I don't think I actually want to publish any of this. I don't like being sad. That is in general not a fun thing. But I don't know, I think it had to be done.
So, I've thought about, like, a million different ways to write this. And I feel pretty good right now, plus I think I've finally decided what to say. So I better write this fast.
So, I have a squad, right? Everyone needs a squad; they're the best friends I've ever had. It consists of me, Kyle, Carter, Gwen, and Shanny. You guys know of Kyle and Carter from the Kyle and da Boys Day post, but you need to know Gwen and Shanny! Because they're pretty Shantastic. (Sadly don't have a cute pun for Gwen's name.)
Gwen is my true love and she loves music. She's also my cool aunt. She likes henna and pink is her favorite color. One time I got hit by a car and she sang "Part of Your World" for me because that's what I wanted from her for my birthday.
Shanny has gained a recent enjoyment of performing, which makes me pretty happy. If she's not in the choir room she's probably helping with one of the other million and five clubs that she's in. She loves yellow sunshine.
So I have to publish this post early because I'm going to be at girls camp for the rest of the week. But the ninth of June is National Squad Day, and my squad deserves some love! So here's an early post for some of my favorite humans.
Alright, so this is the trickier part. I wanted to thank my people for being awesome, and so I was gonna do that. But I realized if I did that, a lot of the things I wrote wouldn't make sense. I'm not going to go into the entirety of the dark details of the past few months, because that is pointless and some of those things you guys don't need to know and to be honest what's done is done. I keep trying to explain things that don't need explaining. I keep trying to apologize for things that everyone just wants me to forget about. Sometimes I want to forget too. But I don't need to say sorry for things that everyone is already aware of. I've been forgiven and everyone loves me still so it's okay, and I'm an insane amount of grateful for that. But the point is instead of going to either of those extremes, I'm going to be honest with you guys, but I'm going to tell it in a more positive light, because usually when I want to talk about how dark it was I'm just getting down on myself and feeling super low again, so it's no problem.
Awhile ago I did write a post about the outcome of my mental downfall and I still will not deny my social anxiety. It was a crazy amount of real, and I've been showing symptoms of that since long before I learned about it, because the thing about mental disorders is most of them aren't that severe; people just think it's that way because the word "disorder" sounds scary and throws us off even when the condition is not that bad. It's not the first time my mental health has gotten worse, it's just the first time it's gotten this bad. Sometimes I wonder how it got so bad and then I realize that I'm a teenager which will cause the chemicals in my body to become off balance at times, which would make me have a period of time where my anxiety attacks are a lot worse and where I in general feel a lot suckier. So what happened was not actually bad, it was pretty normal for a mental abnormalcy to get worse considering everything. But that's beside the point. When I wrote that post for you guys a few months ago I didn't tell you all how everything started, and I think for the sake of this post I probably should start at the beginning.
And you see, the thing is it's hard to tell how it happened because it all seems to blend together. One day you feel low, then the next thing you know you're doing things you never would've believed you'd fall to. So what I'm saying is the timeline for some of these occurrences might be kind of difficult. Oh well, I'll do my best.
I remember the day it happened, I remember what we were doing and the reason I noticed something was wrong, and I remember how worried everyone was because I was really off. You guys don't need to know the details of that night, but I remember that it was the day things started being weird. But it wasn't a big deal, because I figured bad days happen to everybody, because they do. So I figured the next day would be better. It was better; it's not like good days stopped existing. But the week after that was really weird because I had two breakdowns during school that week and everyone was asking what was wrong and I couldn't tell them because it is not socially acceptable to cry just because you don't feel good; what do you even say to that? I remember Gwen and Shanny hugging me and being really worried; I remember Carter messaging me later that day to make sure I was okay. Yeah, I was okay.
But I treated those days the same. Bad days happen to everyone, so it was fine. But after a few weeks of feeling consistently awful I was starting to wonder when it would stop, feeling terrible about everything in the world and nothing at all, and hating myself for all the conflict I had about myself in my mind. And one day that I really broke. My gosh, that day sucked.
Sure, those days weren't awesome. But my squad was super supportive of me and how much I didn't have my life figured out. I remember one day when I finally confessed to Carter what was happening in my head and later that night he and Shanny took me to Barnes & Noble and Yogurtland. When did I get so blessed?
Okay, that was all fine. People feel low. People get lonely. No big deal. And then the anxiety attacks started happening. And they usually weren't that bad; many were just internal, and when they were worse I was usually by myself. And then one day at school I broke really bad. If I had ever been that scared in my life, it had at least been awhile since I've been that terrified. I remember how it started and how it escalated and how it felt and what I had to do after and it's still scary just to think about. I thought that was a one-time thing. Well, at least I never had one that bad again. But anxiety attacks became more public and more frequent. That was really bad for me, because every time I cried I would get really tired, so instead of doing homework or anything productive at all I would just lie down and sleep all day. To be honest, it really wasn't working all the times that I made myself say that I was okay even when I wasn't.
But even though that was a hard adjustment and it took a really long time to learn how to control them, even that was okay. Because my people were there. Sometimes I can't believe how supportive these people are to me. I am so lucky to have friends that have been with me through all my inconsistency. That was all fine. Things really started to suck when I shut down entirely.
I remember what happened. I felt insecure about something. No big deal; everyone feels insecure. But I guess I just kept letting things about myself get to me, and eventually I was almost entirely convinced that I was now a burden to my friends and they didn't want me anymore. You know you've reached a low point when you apologize to your friends for talking to them. How did I go from being so effortlessly happy to that?
The worst part is it happened so slowly that it almost became normal and I can barely define how it happened. First everything was fine, and then I started being cautious around them, then I just sat there silently, and then there was even a day where I avoided them. That is the lowest day I've had in my life. I legitimately just started isolating myself from my best friends. It makes me want to die just thinking about it.
It started affecting my whole life. I wanted to be asleep all the time. I started eating a lot. And slowly I started listening to music all the time. I have always noticed that people with mental instability are often also people that drown themselves in music. It started becoming unhealthy and I didn't even realize it was a problem. Hopefully that explains my recent obsessions with Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, Newsies, and Bonnie and Clyde. Haha, Carter once asked me how I could stand just listening to music on our bus ride to San Francisco without getting bored. Haha, well, that's how. I listened to feel something other than what I was feeling, or sometimes I was feeling too much so I listened to the music to numb everything. I can't even count how many times in a row I've listened to "A Million Miles Away", "Proud of Your Boy", "If Only", and "Letter from the Refuge".
When I got lonely I would scroll endlessly on Facebook, because somewhere my mind was grasping at the idea that those illusions of people would make me happy. They didn't. Luckily now I have certain times a day I'll even let myself look at social media. It works a lot better for me.
But guys, that's the terrible thing. Is I was lonely every single day. But I was convinced that my friends didn't care about me anymore, and so I just... didn't? Shanny would try to talk to me and I made a much lesser attempt to talk back; Carter would ask me if I was okay and I would shrug; Gwen would be talking to me and half of what she said would go over my head; Kyle would see that I was off and try to make me feel better and I would be generally unresponsive. Sometimes I even tried to reach out to them because in the reality of the thing I missed them so much. But it was like I had forgotten how to reach out to my friends. Because sometimes I tried, but I was so terrified that they didn't want me that my attempts were useless. My anxiety got so bad that every day my body would go numb, my shoulders were so tense that they became extremely painful. Everything sucked back when I let my life get out of control and was convinced that my best friends didn't love me anymore.
My mom is the hero of this story. She talked to me about how unhealthy my life had gotten and that I needed to do something. I really wanted my friends back. I knew that they loved me a lot. I knew that. I remember the day I decided I was going to stop worrying about all the things that made me feel insecure. It was the day of our choir's spring concert. I was going to go there and make a real effort to make things as normal and joyous as they used to be, to really be a friend to my friends, to be happy, which is the reason they loved me before I went crazy. And then I got real scared.
Because I was pretty sure with the way I had been the past few months that I had ruined every relationship I have. What if everyone thought I was weird, acting like everything was fine when I had been a jerk to them for so long? I was pretty sure I had lost all my friends, which was my greatest fear, and it was my own fault. That was terrifying, but I was going to try to be myself anyway.
It worked, really well. I made it my main goal every day after that to try to include myself in my squad's lives. At first it was really hard. I was told to be myself, but the only thing I was certain of about myself at that point was that I wanted my friends back. But I told myself to just keep trying; and eventually I would feel like myself again, and eventually my body would stop going numb. Within a few days, I realized how defined I had become as a person again. I was actually an individual, instead of just something that was alive. The next week, my body wasn't numb anymore. I had rebuilt my relationships with my best friends. That makes me so happy to think about. Miracles happen.
But the point is, these people never left. Even when I did. Which is what makes you all the realest friends I've ever had, because you didn't give up on me when I went crazy. (Even though Shanny says she doesn't think I'm crazy.) I still have severely anxious moments, but I let these people help me now. (Which probably sucks for you guys, but I'd rather not shut you out again, haha.) I still want to say sorry for everything all the time. Sometimes I still do, but I'm getting better. Sometimes I still get embarrassed with having to bother you all with my idiocy. Sometimes I still worry that you guys think I'm weak. (Even though Carter tries to tell me I'm not.) But I can live with all of that as long as I still have you guys.
(Sorry, I'm dramatic and I have feelings.)
And sometimes I want to forget because the whole thing feels so ugly. But then when I think about it I don't want to forget because then I would have to forget how many great days I had with you guys!
I don't want to forget all the days you guys tried so hard for me, and I don't want to forget you guys at all. You're all so beautiful and I love you so much.
Okay, ew. Now that I've written this and I can like burn it or something because now I'm a happy person and I have friends and everyone loves me. Yay!
Kyle McGowan. Bro. Everyone needs a chill friend, and I'm fairly certain I have the best chill friend in the world. Thank you for teaching me that the chill comes from within. Haha, and for always being down with the adventures me and Car plan. I don't even know how you became my best friend; like, one day you were just a kid in the marching band and the next day I find myself willing to talk to you about almost anything. Not to mention it's awesome to have a friend to talk about marching band with that actually knows what I'm talking about, haha. Thanks for talking to me even when I'm being crazy irrational. I swear you're always looking out for me and my needs and I'm so grateful for that. You are so selfless, which makes you one of the best friends in the world. (And a great section leader. You're awesome.) Other people always come first for you. And that's why people trust you so much and love being around you. I am so very grateful for all the effort you put into making me feel included in life and make sure I am a part of everything, and not letting me leave myself out, because sometimes I do that just because I don't know what to do. I'm so lucky that we've both been in chamber choir since freshman year, because otherwise I don't know if I would've gotten to know you as well, and that would really suck, because you're amazing. I'm so glad I have you; you're like family to me. (Haha but I guess you technically are family right?) I love you!
Gwen Rogers! You're the best cool aunt ever. I've always admired your confident personality and your love of life. It's so great to know that I have someone that knows what I need while I'm at school because sometimes I get nervous and I think no one can help but you always know what's going on. You are one of the most understanding people I know. The effort that you put into life is so admirable, you work so hard on everything and it's beautiful. I love how we can have any conversation, where we're super serious and honest, or where we're being weird and can't stop laughing, or anywhere in between. I swear, we have too much fun. You've always been willing to teach me anything you can and help me with whatever problems I may be facing. Thanks for all the help you give me in every aspect of my life. And for always giving me CURLY HAIR!!! You work so hard in everything for other people too, and I hope you know that your efforts don't go unnoticed. You always know what I need help with; sometimes I don't even realize I needed help until you start helping me. I am so lucky I have you because you are constantly present in my life; I can go to you whenever and it's not a problem, you're always down to talk to me or be with me.. You always put up with my craziness, keep me grounded, and push me to be better. You always know what I need to hear. Thank you for letting me do me all the time. I love you!
SHAN. What even is cute? Oh yeah, us. I almost forgot. You became my best friend so fast, because I barely knew you at all before this year and now all I do is cling to you. God placed you in my life because He knew I was going to need you now; you are so talented at people; you're so good at being a friend. (Haha, it must be hard being better than everybody else!) I remember one day that was pretty bad and you talked about things with me that should've made me uncomfortable but they didn't and I felt so loved I could hardly believe it. I've said a lot of things to you that are hard for me to say; you make me and everyone so comfortable. I'm able to talk to you in the middle of really low moments without feeling crazy and that is more of a blessing than you know. I loved having you in almost half of my classes this year, and all the problems we're able to talk to each other about, and all the fun stories we tell each other. FaceTiming you every day on the chamber trip was my fave. And thanks for letting me test all of my music on you before I show it to the rest of the world, and for just letting me send you random songs. And singing with you this year was so great, I've watched you grow a lot this year and you have no idea how proud I am of you. Thanks for helping me during crises, being cute, everything we laugh about, and for making me feel like I've ever done something for someone else. I love you!
Okay, Carter, confession time. Once a long time ago (because remembering things for you and I is my job) you and I were discussing mental illness and you said you thought it was possible to control, which I think is very true, but I'm not certain it's possible to just make it disappear. So when my mental stability started going way downhill, I was legit SO SCARED that you were going to think I wasn't trying hard enough to pull my life together. Maybe you do think that, I don't know. But thanks anyway for talking to me when I'm flipping out and for all the times you told me not to give up and that I could do it when I was crying to you about how I thought I had finally figured my life out. (Haha, you didn't know I was crying because I was messaging you, but oh well.) Thank you for always asking me "why", whether it's why I'm scared or why I'm sorry, because sometimes I need to talk about it and sometimes I don't even know why I'm sorry. And yeah, thanks for telling me all the time that I don't need to be sorry and that everything's okay. Haha, I know you think I'm crazy because you've told me, but you also told me that we wouldn't be friends if I wasn't and you love me that way. Thanks for watching movies with me and for listening to music with me even though you probably hate it. I miss talking to you every day, but that doesn't matter because you're still the best donut advocate. I love you!
And to all of you, thanks for not giving up on me. And for even being with me when I stop thinking, and trying to ground me again whenever I get lost in whatever anxiety/sorrow/anger I get lost in and reminding me that everything is fine. Haha, I put you guys through a lot, and I'm so glad I have friends that are willing to stick with me because of who I am. I wish I could help you all half as much as you have helped me. I feel like we only have one year of high school and I'm half expected to just accept the fact that I'm going to get new friends and I have to forget my old ones. And I don't know, I'm not really cool with that, because I love you guys.
And for the rest of you readers that aren't my squad, and to my squad too, sorry, because some of this post probably sounded a little gloomy, just because I guess it is, not to mention I wrote part of this on low days which makes everything sound worse. I really don't think on low days; that's why my friends are the best friends in the world. But everything's okay, because I'm a fighter just like all of you. Just don't let the bad things in life take over everything, because contrary to a popular belief, life is pretty great. And if there is a point in your life where bad things take over, don't despair. As Leo's mom (Heroes of Olympus) said, "Nothing is unfixable." *insert High School Musical jump*
Haha, I love you all.
--Lizzo
In the reality of the thing I don't think I actually want to publish any of this. I don't like being sad. That is in general not a fun thing. But I don't know, I think it had to be done.
So, I've thought about, like, a million different ways to write this. And I feel pretty good right now, plus I think I've finally decided what to say. So I better write this fast.
So, I have a squad, right? Everyone needs a squad; they're the best friends I've ever had. It consists of me, Kyle, Carter, Gwen, and Shanny. You guys know of Kyle and Carter from the Kyle and da Boys Day post, but you need to know Gwen and Shanny! Because they're pretty Shantastic. (Sadly don't have a cute pun for Gwen's name.)
Gwen is my true love and she loves music. She's also my cool aunt. She likes henna and pink is her favorite color. One time I got hit by a car and she sang "Part of Your World" for me because that's what I wanted from her for my birthday.
So I have to publish this post early because I'm going to be at girls camp for the rest of the week. But the ninth of June is National Squad Day, and my squad deserves some love! So here's an early post for some of my favorite humans.
Alright, so this is the trickier part. I wanted to thank my people for being awesome, and so I was gonna do that. But I realized if I did that, a lot of the things I wrote wouldn't make sense. I'm not going to go into the entirety of the dark details of the past few months, because that is pointless and some of those things you guys don't need to know and to be honest what's done is done. I keep trying to explain things that don't need explaining. I keep trying to apologize for things that everyone just wants me to forget about. Sometimes I want to forget too. But I don't need to say sorry for things that everyone is already aware of. I've been forgiven and everyone loves me still so it's okay, and I'm an insane amount of grateful for that. But the point is instead of going to either of those extremes, I'm going to be honest with you guys, but I'm going to tell it in a more positive light, because usually when I want to talk about how dark it was I'm just getting down on myself and feeling super low again, so it's no problem.
Awhile ago I did write a post about the outcome of my mental downfall and I still will not deny my social anxiety. It was a crazy amount of real, and I've been showing symptoms of that since long before I learned about it, because the thing about mental disorders is most of them aren't that severe; people just think it's that way because the word "disorder" sounds scary and throws us off even when the condition is not that bad. It's not the first time my mental health has gotten worse, it's just the first time it's gotten this bad. Sometimes I wonder how it got so bad and then I realize that I'm a teenager which will cause the chemicals in my body to become off balance at times, which would make me have a period of time where my anxiety attacks are a lot worse and where I in general feel a lot suckier. So what happened was not actually bad, it was pretty normal for a mental abnormalcy to get worse considering everything. But that's beside the point. When I wrote that post for you guys a few months ago I didn't tell you all how everything started, and I think for the sake of this post I probably should start at the beginning.
And you see, the thing is it's hard to tell how it happened because it all seems to blend together. One day you feel low, then the next thing you know you're doing things you never would've believed you'd fall to. So what I'm saying is the timeline for some of these occurrences might be kind of difficult. Oh well, I'll do my best.
I remember the day it happened, I remember what we were doing and the reason I noticed something was wrong, and I remember how worried everyone was because I was really off. You guys don't need to know the details of that night, but I remember that it was the day things started being weird. But it wasn't a big deal, because I figured bad days happen to everybody, because they do. So I figured the next day would be better. It was better; it's not like good days stopped existing. But the week after that was really weird because I had two breakdowns during school that week and everyone was asking what was wrong and I couldn't tell them because it is not socially acceptable to cry just because you don't feel good; what do you even say to that? I remember Gwen and Shanny hugging me and being really worried; I remember Carter messaging me later that day to make sure I was okay. Yeah, I was okay.
But I treated those days the same. Bad days happen to everyone, so it was fine. But after a few weeks of feeling consistently awful I was starting to wonder when it would stop, feeling terrible about everything in the world and nothing at all, and hating myself for all the conflict I had about myself in my mind. And one day that I really broke. My gosh, that day sucked.
Sure, those days weren't awesome. But my squad was super supportive of me and how much I didn't have my life figured out. I remember one day when I finally confessed to Carter what was happening in my head and later that night he and Shanny took me to Barnes & Noble and Yogurtland. When did I get so blessed?
Okay, that was all fine. People feel low. People get lonely. No big deal. And then the anxiety attacks started happening. And they usually weren't that bad; many were just internal, and when they were worse I was usually by myself. And then one day at school I broke really bad. If I had ever been that scared in my life, it had at least been awhile since I've been that terrified. I remember how it started and how it escalated and how it felt and what I had to do after and it's still scary just to think about. I thought that was a one-time thing. Well, at least I never had one that bad again. But anxiety attacks became more public and more frequent. That was really bad for me, because every time I cried I would get really tired, so instead of doing homework or anything productive at all I would just lie down and sleep all day. To be honest, it really wasn't working all the times that I made myself say that I was okay even when I wasn't.
But even though that was a hard adjustment and it took a really long time to learn how to control them, even that was okay. Because my people were there. Sometimes I can't believe how supportive these people are to me. I am so lucky to have friends that have been with me through all my inconsistency. That was all fine. Things really started to suck when I shut down entirely.
I remember what happened. I felt insecure about something. No big deal; everyone feels insecure. But I guess I just kept letting things about myself get to me, and eventually I was almost entirely convinced that I was now a burden to my friends and they didn't want me anymore. You know you've reached a low point when you apologize to your friends for talking to them. How did I go from being so effortlessly happy to that?
The worst part is it happened so slowly that it almost became normal and I can barely define how it happened. First everything was fine, and then I started being cautious around them, then I just sat there silently, and then there was even a day where I avoided them. That is the lowest day I've had in my life. I legitimately just started isolating myself from my best friends. It makes me want to die just thinking about it.
It started affecting my whole life. I wanted to be asleep all the time. I started eating a lot. And slowly I started listening to music all the time. I have always noticed that people with mental instability are often also people that drown themselves in music. It started becoming unhealthy and I didn't even realize it was a problem. Hopefully that explains my recent obsessions with Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, Newsies, and Bonnie and Clyde. Haha, Carter once asked me how I could stand just listening to music on our bus ride to San Francisco without getting bored. Haha, well, that's how. I listened to feel something other than what I was feeling, or sometimes I was feeling too much so I listened to the music to numb everything. I can't even count how many times in a row I've listened to "A Million Miles Away", "Proud of Your Boy", "If Only", and "Letter from the Refuge".
When I got lonely I would scroll endlessly on Facebook, because somewhere my mind was grasping at the idea that those illusions of people would make me happy. They didn't. Luckily now I have certain times a day I'll even let myself look at social media. It works a lot better for me.
But guys, that's the terrible thing. Is I was lonely every single day. But I was convinced that my friends didn't care about me anymore, and so I just... didn't? Shanny would try to talk to me and I made a much lesser attempt to talk back; Carter would ask me if I was okay and I would shrug; Gwen would be talking to me and half of what she said would go over my head; Kyle would see that I was off and try to make me feel better and I would be generally unresponsive. Sometimes I even tried to reach out to them because in the reality of the thing I missed them so much. But it was like I had forgotten how to reach out to my friends. Because sometimes I tried, but I was so terrified that they didn't want me that my attempts were useless. My anxiety got so bad that every day my body would go numb, my shoulders were so tense that they became extremely painful. Everything sucked back when I let my life get out of control and was convinced that my best friends didn't love me anymore.
My mom is the hero of this story. She talked to me about how unhealthy my life had gotten and that I needed to do something. I really wanted my friends back. I knew that they loved me a lot. I knew that. I remember the day I decided I was going to stop worrying about all the things that made me feel insecure. It was the day of our choir's spring concert. I was going to go there and make a real effort to make things as normal and joyous as they used to be, to really be a friend to my friends, to be happy, which is the reason they loved me before I went crazy. And then I got real scared.
Because I was pretty sure with the way I had been the past few months that I had ruined every relationship I have. What if everyone thought I was weird, acting like everything was fine when I had been a jerk to them for so long? I was pretty sure I had lost all my friends, which was my greatest fear, and it was my own fault. That was terrifying, but I was going to try to be myself anyway.
It worked, really well. I made it my main goal every day after that to try to include myself in my squad's lives. At first it was really hard. I was told to be myself, but the only thing I was certain of about myself at that point was that I wanted my friends back. But I told myself to just keep trying; and eventually I would feel like myself again, and eventually my body would stop going numb. Within a few days, I realized how defined I had become as a person again. I was actually an individual, instead of just something that was alive. The next week, my body wasn't numb anymore. I had rebuilt my relationships with my best friends. That makes me so happy to think about. Miracles happen.
But the point is, these people never left. Even when I did. Which is what makes you all the realest friends I've ever had, because you didn't give up on me when I went crazy. (Even though Shanny says she doesn't think I'm crazy.) I still have severely anxious moments, but I let these people help me now. (Which probably sucks for you guys, but I'd rather not shut you out again, haha.) I still want to say sorry for everything all the time. Sometimes I still do, but I'm getting better. Sometimes I still get embarrassed with having to bother you all with my idiocy. Sometimes I still worry that you guys think I'm weak. (Even though Carter tries to tell me I'm not.) But I can live with all of that as long as I still have you guys.
(Sorry, I'm dramatic and I have feelings.)
And sometimes I want to forget because the whole thing feels so ugly. But then when I think about it I don't want to forget because then I would have to forget how many great days I had with you guys!
I don't want to forget all the days you guys tried so hard for me, and I don't want to forget you guys at all. You're all so beautiful and I love you so much.
Okay, ew. Now that I've written this and I can like burn it or something because now I'm a happy person and I have friends and everyone loves me. Yay!
Kyle McGowan. Bro. Everyone needs a chill friend, and I'm fairly certain I have the best chill friend in the world. Thank you for teaching me that the chill comes from within. Haha, and for always being down with the adventures me and Car plan. I don't even know how you became my best friend; like, one day you were just a kid in the marching band and the next day I find myself willing to talk to you about almost anything. Not to mention it's awesome to have a friend to talk about marching band with that actually knows what I'm talking about, haha. Thanks for talking to me even when I'm being crazy irrational. I swear you're always looking out for me and my needs and I'm so grateful for that. You are so selfless, which makes you one of the best friends in the world. (And a great section leader. You're awesome.) Other people always come first for you. And that's why people trust you so much and love being around you. I am so very grateful for all the effort you put into making me feel included in life and make sure I am a part of everything, and not letting me leave myself out, because sometimes I do that just because I don't know what to do. I'm so lucky that we've both been in chamber choir since freshman year, because otherwise I don't know if I would've gotten to know you as well, and that would really suck, because you're amazing. I'm so glad I have you; you're like family to me. (Haha but I guess you technically are family right?) I love you!
Gwen Rogers! You're the best cool aunt ever. I've always admired your confident personality and your love of life. It's so great to know that I have someone that knows what I need while I'm at school because sometimes I get nervous and I think no one can help but you always know what's going on. You are one of the most understanding people I know. The effort that you put into life is so admirable, you work so hard on everything and it's beautiful. I love how we can have any conversation, where we're super serious and honest, or where we're being weird and can't stop laughing, or anywhere in between. I swear, we have too much fun. You've always been willing to teach me anything you can and help me with whatever problems I may be facing. Thanks for all the help you give me in every aspect of my life. And for always giving me CURLY HAIR!!! You work so hard in everything for other people too, and I hope you know that your efforts don't go unnoticed. You always know what I need help with; sometimes I don't even realize I needed help until you start helping me. I am so lucky I have you because you are constantly present in my life; I can go to you whenever and it's not a problem, you're always down to talk to me or be with me.. You always put up with my craziness, keep me grounded, and push me to be better. You always know what I need to hear. Thank you for letting me do me all the time. I love you!
SHAN. What even is cute? Oh yeah, us. I almost forgot. You became my best friend so fast, because I barely knew you at all before this year and now all I do is cling to you. God placed you in my life because He knew I was going to need you now; you are so talented at people; you're so good at being a friend. (Haha, it must be hard being better than everybody else!) I remember one day that was pretty bad and you talked about things with me that should've made me uncomfortable but they didn't and I felt so loved I could hardly believe it. I've said a lot of things to you that are hard for me to say; you make me and everyone so comfortable. I'm able to talk to you in the middle of really low moments without feeling crazy and that is more of a blessing than you know. I loved having you in almost half of my classes this year, and all the problems we're able to talk to each other about, and all the fun stories we tell each other. FaceTiming you every day on the chamber trip was my fave. And thanks for letting me test all of my music on you before I show it to the rest of the world, and for just letting me send you random songs. And singing with you this year was so great, I've watched you grow a lot this year and you have no idea how proud I am of you. Thanks for helping me during crises, being cute, everything we laugh about, and for making me feel like I've ever done something for someone else. I love you!
Okay, Carter, confession time. Once a long time ago (because remembering things for you and I is my job) you and I were discussing mental illness and you said you thought it was possible to control, which I think is very true, but I'm not certain it's possible to just make it disappear. So when my mental stability started going way downhill, I was legit SO SCARED that you were going to think I wasn't trying hard enough to pull my life together. Maybe you do think that, I don't know. But thanks anyway for talking to me when I'm flipping out and for all the times you told me not to give up and that I could do it when I was crying to you about how I thought I had finally figured my life out. (Haha, you didn't know I was crying because I was messaging you, but oh well.) Thank you for always asking me "why", whether it's why I'm scared or why I'm sorry, because sometimes I need to talk about it and sometimes I don't even know why I'm sorry. And yeah, thanks for telling me all the time that I don't need to be sorry and that everything's okay. Haha, I know you think I'm crazy because you've told me, but you also told me that we wouldn't be friends if I wasn't and you love me that way. Thanks for watching movies with me and for listening to music with me even though you probably hate it. I miss talking to you every day, but that doesn't matter because you're still the best donut advocate. I love you!
And to all of you, thanks for not giving up on me. And for even being with me when I stop thinking, and trying to ground me again whenever I get lost in whatever anxiety/sorrow/anger I get lost in and reminding me that everything is fine. Haha, I put you guys through a lot, and I'm so glad I have friends that are willing to stick with me because of who I am. I wish I could help you all half as much as you have helped me. I feel like we only have one year of high school and I'm half expected to just accept the fact that I'm going to get new friends and I have to forget my old ones. And I don't know, I'm not really cool with that, because I love you guys.
And for the rest of you readers that aren't my squad, and to my squad too, sorry, because some of this post probably sounded a little gloomy, just because I guess it is, not to mention I wrote part of this on low days which makes everything sound worse. I really don't think on low days; that's why my friends are the best friends in the world. But everything's okay, because I'm a fighter just like all of you. Just don't let the bad things in life take over everything, because contrary to a popular belief, life is pretty great. And if there is a point in your life where bad things take over, don't despair. As Leo's mom (Heroes of Olympus) said, "Nothing is unfixable." *insert High School Musical jump*
Haha, I love you all.
--Lizzo
Wednesday, June 1, 2016
The School Year in Books
Warning before you read my past book reviews: Guys, we were all twelve once. We all were. Please forgive me.
Hello, my friends! This is a very important day for me. It is a very important day for a lot of you. This day is the LAST DAY OF MY JUNIOR YEAR OF HIGH SCHOOL. Dang, it was hard. But we DID IT.
Hello, my friends! This is a very important day for me. It is a very important day for a lot of you. This day is the LAST DAY OF MY JUNIOR YEAR OF HIGH SCHOOL. Dang, it was hard. But we DID IT.
Alright, so since it has been awhile since I have written something literary on here, and since I didn't read terrible books this school year, we are going on a literary adventure of all the things I read for my English class!!!
The Crucible by Arthur Miller. The well-known play about the Salem Witch Trials, based on McCarthyism during the Cold War. This play is actually running a Broadway revival right now and is nominated for a few Tony awards, including Best Revival of a Play. I had heard things about The Crucible, which is one of the reasons it's great to have an older sibling go through school before you, and the things I heard intrigued me. The fact that everyone in a town can go crazy over things they have no actual proof about, and that they can accuse everyone, and if you don't agree with what they say you die, and almost no one actually was a witch but if not everyone agreed then most of the town would be dead? Can we talk about how this play was based on actual events? I don't know, that's just insane to me. But upon reading it, it's even better. The motives of the people in this text are insane... as well as the people themselves. I wrote an essay for the class that I almost shared with all of you, about Arthur Miller's idea of the common hero, how you don't have to be extraordinary to do great things, how John Proctor was a hero and just an average man at the same time. His desire to do good is absolutely incredible. I kept the book so I can read it again.
Alright, so now I am going to tell you about something that is rarely seen in the public English classroom: overachieving. I made an attempt that I really shouldn't have. I was going to finish reading The Forgotten Locket by Lisa Mangum before I started a new book for the quarter reading project. Stupid mistake. I did not use that book for the reading project like I should have. But anyway, it was still a good book and a good trilogy, one that was so complex I would probably have to reread it to fully understand it since I can't remember a good portion of the details as is, but one that I don't have enough interest in to reread. If you want to read my full review of The Forgotten Locket, you can find it here. So since I wasn't doing that book for the first quarter project, I needed to read the next book on my list very fast. Luckily, that was easy. It was a very short book and all I had to do was read nonstop: Christmas at Harrington's by Melody Carlson. It was a lot like a Hallmark movie in that it was a soft storyline that wasn't great or exciting but wasn't terrible or boring. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, but I wouldn't un-recommend it to anyone. You can read my full review of that book here.
During second quarter, my class read Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Which is considered a must-read universally. At first I didn't quite understand the hype, but about halfway through, the hype made sense. While the rate my class had to read it at was wayyyy too fast, it was an insanely well-written book. However, this does not mean we all need to go into the insane Austen literary cycle where we all cry about why we're single. (The lesser reason that Austenland by Shannon Hale wasn't worth it.)
For the personal quarter reading project, I continued reading the next thing on my list. I started an attempt at the Sherlock Holmes series. Which was a great idea, but being a junior in high school, who has the time to do that? So instead I chose a book I had already read. (Something a little more common for a high school student to do.) The point of this project was to find a common motif in the book that we chose and in Pride and Prejudice. I had already wondered how I was going to do that with The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, so maybe not finishing the book was a good thing. Instead I just thought of a book I could use that had the same motifs as Pride and Prejudice. I decided on Princess Academy by Shannon Hale. That's a really cute and high-quality story. It was a good book, and both books had motifs of marriage and social status, so it made a good book to analyze for a good grade. You can read the full review of Princess Academy here.
For the third quarter, the class read The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare. While a good number of hipsters hate on Shakespeare because he's too cool, friendly reminder that he's one of the most witty writers of all time. Don't hate on Romeo and Juliet just because it's popular. It's quality.
With that quarter, I had to read a book off of a list that my teacher had made, books that were also movies, then watch the movie and write about the book and the adaption side by side. I chose Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom. (That book was seriously overhyped. I didn't hate it; I wouldn't un-recommend it, but it's only kind of worth it. Maybe it was too much character for me, if that makes sense. I loved Morrie, but it was written with the intention that I would love him more than I did, and perhaps that's why I was bothered by it, because I didn't like him enough.) This was good for me because I'd read it before plus it was a super short read, so I would just reread the book, watch the movie, and write my paper on the two. I started rereading it, but the movie was near impossible to get ahold of. The only way we could find to get the movie was buying it for about fifty dollars, so obviously I chose a new book. I went with Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, because I had read that book before and seen that movie before. (The one starring Winona Ryder. So I reread a chapter or two of the book (Ten out of ten as far as slacking goes) and watched the movie again. I wrote a paper on the way Beth's character differs between the book and the movie, which has bothered me since the first time I saw it. I hated it less this time, though. Maybe it just takes more time to understand. You can find the full review of that book here.
Yay! I made it to last quarter, by some miracle. We read The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. A book I'd always heard about, but I wasn't sure it would be that interesting. But it was intriguing enough just because I didn't know anything about it. A rich guy in the 1920's? Okay, sure. Why not? Yeah, it's a little bit bigger than a rich guy in the 1920's. The fact that no one knows who he is, and all the chaos that happens to them all once they do know. It was a really good book. I enjoyed it very much. But the whole thing is so screwed up, I don't think I'll read it again. Everyone and everything in that book is an insane amount of distorted. For my final exam I have to write an essay on that book. I'm talking about the color symbols (which are truly amazing) and how they represent the women that Nick and Gatsby admire and how they are viewed by each. Since I'm writing this post the day before I publish it, I have still yet to write the rough draft of that essay. Procrastination at its finest. However, I have a bomb thesis and some pretty good notes.
The plan really was to do a project on The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes this quarter, but again, who has time to read? So I did another book I had read, one that would just be easy to do a project on. So I chose I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You by Ally Carter. This was a really good book, and the series as a whole is even better. Everyone thinks I'm crazy when I say this, and even I thought I was crazy when I thought it for the first time, but the Gallagher Girls series is the best-written series since J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter. The way everything fits together is so impressive. Well done, Carter. You can find the full review of that book here.
Yeah, it was a good year, it was good literature. But that class was so dang hard, I'm glad I have time to read and write for myself now. As difficult as it was though, I actually learned a lot from it about writing and literature. (Don't tell my friends, they will make fun of me forever.) And I can only figure that it's helping me with all of the English classes I'm going to be taking in college. (Because I'm probably going to be taking A LOT of English classes in college.)
See you later, guys. I love you!
--Lizzo
Alright, so now I am going to tell you about something that is rarely seen in the public English classroom: overachieving. I made an attempt that I really shouldn't have. I was going to finish reading The Forgotten Locket by Lisa Mangum before I started a new book for the quarter reading project. Stupid mistake. I did not use that book for the reading project like I should have. But anyway, it was still a good book and a good trilogy, one that was so complex I would probably have to reread it to fully understand it since I can't remember a good portion of the details as is, but one that I don't have enough interest in to reread. If you want to read my full review of The Forgotten Locket, you can find it here. So since I wasn't doing that book for the first quarter project, I needed to read the next book on my list very fast. Luckily, that was easy. It was a very short book and all I had to do was read nonstop: Christmas at Harrington's by Melody Carlson. It was a lot like a Hallmark movie in that it was a soft storyline that wasn't great or exciting but wasn't terrible or boring. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, but I wouldn't un-recommend it to anyone. You can read my full review of that book here.
During second quarter, my class read Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Which is considered a must-read universally. At first I didn't quite understand the hype, but about halfway through, the hype made sense. While the rate my class had to read it at was wayyyy too fast, it was an insanely well-written book. However, this does not mean we all need to go into the insane Austen literary cycle where we all cry about why we're single. (The lesser reason that Austenland by Shannon Hale wasn't worth it.)
For the personal quarter reading project, I continued reading the next thing on my list. I started an attempt at the Sherlock Holmes series. Which was a great idea, but being a junior in high school, who has the time to do that? So instead I chose a book I had already read. (Something a little more common for a high school student to do.) The point of this project was to find a common motif in the book that we chose and in Pride and Prejudice. I had already wondered how I was going to do that with The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, so maybe not finishing the book was a good thing. Instead I just thought of a book I could use that had the same motifs as Pride and Prejudice. I decided on Princess Academy by Shannon Hale. That's a really cute and high-quality story. It was a good book, and both books had motifs of marriage and social status, so it made a good book to analyze for a good grade. You can read the full review of Princess Academy here.
For the third quarter, the class read The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare. While a good number of hipsters hate on Shakespeare because he's too cool, friendly reminder that he's one of the most witty writers of all time. Don't hate on Romeo and Juliet just because it's popular. It's quality.
With that quarter, I had to read a book off of a list that my teacher had made, books that were also movies, then watch the movie and write about the book and the adaption side by side. I chose Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom. (That book was seriously overhyped. I didn't hate it; I wouldn't un-recommend it, but it's only kind of worth it. Maybe it was too much character for me, if that makes sense. I loved Morrie, but it was written with the intention that I would love him more than I did, and perhaps that's why I was bothered by it, because I didn't like him enough.) This was good for me because I'd read it before plus it was a super short read, so I would just reread the book, watch the movie, and write my paper on the two. I started rereading it, but the movie was near impossible to get ahold of. The only way we could find to get the movie was buying it for about fifty dollars, so obviously I chose a new book. I went with Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, because I had read that book before and seen that movie before. (The one starring Winona Ryder. So I reread a chapter or two of the book (Ten out of ten as far as slacking goes) and watched the movie again. I wrote a paper on the way Beth's character differs between the book and the movie, which has bothered me since the first time I saw it. I hated it less this time, though. Maybe it just takes more time to understand. You can find the full review of that book here.
Yay! I made it to last quarter, by some miracle. We read The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. A book I'd always heard about, but I wasn't sure it would be that interesting. But it was intriguing enough just because I didn't know anything about it. A rich guy in the 1920's? Okay, sure. Why not? Yeah, it's a little bit bigger than a rich guy in the 1920's. The fact that no one knows who he is, and all the chaos that happens to them all once they do know. It was a really good book. I enjoyed it very much. But the whole thing is so screwed up, I don't think I'll read it again. Everyone and everything in that book is an insane amount of distorted. For my final exam I have to write an essay on that book. I'm talking about the color symbols (which are truly amazing) and how they represent the women that Nick and Gatsby admire and how they are viewed by each. Since I'm writing this post the day before I publish it, I have still yet to write the rough draft of that essay. Procrastination at its finest. However, I have a bomb thesis and some pretty good notes.
The plan really was to do a project on The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes this quarter, but again, who has time to read? So I did another book I had read, one that would just be easy to do a project on. So I chose I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You by Ally Carter. This was a really good book, and the series as a whole is even better. Everyone thinks I'm crazy when I say this, and even I thought I was crazy when I thought it for the first time, but the Gallagher Girls series is the best-written series since J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter. The way everything fits together is so impressive. Well done, Carter. You can find the full review of that book here.
Yeah, it was a good year, it was good literature. But that class was so dang hard, I'm glad I have time to read and write for myself now. As difficult as it was though, I actually learned a lot from it about writing and literature. (Don't tell my friends, they will make fun of me forever.) And I can only figure that it's helping me with all of the English classes I'm going to be taking in college. (Because I'm probably going to be taking A LOT of English classes in college.)
See you later, guys. I love you!
--Lizzo
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