Divining the Bones

Well, earlier in my history class this week, we were studying Chinese history, and we were talking about oracle bones, and the role they played in the culture. What would happen, is the priests would take bones, usually the shoulder blade of a turtle, and inscribe upon it the question they wished answered by heaven. Then they'd shove the bone in a fire and read the answer by the cracks inflicted upon the bone by the heat.

So I thought, if I can play at reading palms for fun, surely I can play at reading oracle bones. So here, is my interpretation of the concerns and answers to those concerns of the royals in ancient China.

The question: Will the other-tribe-of-people-who's-name-must-not-be-mentioned attack us this summer?

Answer: Not if you do a peace dance in the middle of the river during winter solstice. 

Question: What should I get my daughter for her birthday? 

Answer: A pony. 

Question: Who should my son marry? 

Answer: Not that ugly hag of your friend's cousin.

Question: Should I attack during summer or wait until fall?

Answer: Didn't I already tell you to do the peace dance?

There you are. Divination.

Into the Wild- Thoughts on Nature, Man, and Whatever Else Comes Out of My Fingers

There is, I believe, a most intimate relationship between nature and humans. There is something about nature that inspires us, that calms us. It has an unmistakable effect on our bodies and souls. Nature, oddly enough, is a great revealer of the humanity of a person. In nature, we find ourselves as we can in no other setting.

I recently finished reading Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer. For everyone who hasn't read it, it details the journey of a young man named Chris McCandless. The journey, as you might expect, ends with him dying of starvation in the wilderness (or maybe you didn't expect it. now you know.). He abandoned his family, friends, and civilization to live on his own, surviving by the land. And he did so, until he got trapped by a flooded river and got sick and starved to death.

Chris was driven into the wild by many things: his rocky relationship with his parents, his stubborn independent streak, and his love of nature. Like the title of a book he idolized, he indeed felt the "call of the wild".

Many people have judged Chris' character because of this journey. Some admire him for his courage and ability to follow his dream and actually survive in the wild for over 100 days. Some despise him, to the point of pure vitriolic hatred. They call him selfish, say that his journey was comprised of using people, letting them help him and care about him, then running off and leaving them in the dust. They also say he had no respect for the land, and he died because of that, and he deserved it.

While I personally do not believe that he deserved death (to quote one of my favorite books: "Will you butcher them for stupidity? Stupidity is unfortunate, but it hardly deserves that kind of punishment.") I don't exactly condone what he did either. I can neither praise him nor condemn his actions. How can one condemn a man for following a dream, something he feels like he has to do to make his life worth living? But then again, how can you praise it when it caused so much grief and left permanent marks on the lives of those who loved you?

His own mother said, "Many people have told me that they admire Chris for what he was trying to do. If he'd lived, I would agree with them. But he didn't, and there's no way to bring him back. You can't fix it. Most things you can fix, but not that."

The words of one of my classmates also sends a message: "We're sitting here, decades later, analyzing,  judging this guy, deciding if the decisions he made were right or wrong. He's dead. We're judging a dead guy."

We all have our own journeys, our own wild to go to and confront. And this book, I think, illustrates well the danger of confronting life, and the need we all have to live our dreams and see life on our own terms.

Chris' wild literally was the wilderness... but what is your own? Would you survive your own encounter with your personal wild? Does death mean that you weren't victorious?

Think about it.

The "Look" Challenge

This is a little game I discovered while I was blog-stalking the other day. While technically, I didn't get tagged in it, it still looked like fun, so I decided to try it out.

The game is, to take the current manuscript you are working on, find the first instance of the word "look" and use the surrounding paragraphs as a book excerpt on your blog.

So, I went and looked at my manuscript, and discovered that "look" is actually the fourth word in my manuscript. (Technically, "looked" but it's still the same word.) This is very clearly the first chapter in the story Amber and I are writing.

Enjoy.

~

Director Mendez calmly looked at the irate young woman standing before him.

            “This is idiocy!” she exploded. “I’m the perfect candidate for this program, and you know it!” She flung the unsigned application on the desk before him. “Why did you reject me?”

“Because you’re too young,” Director Mendez said. “You don’t have the experience we need, and-“

“Because every time you look at me, you see Mamá,” the girl finished bitterly.

“Andrea,” he said, his tone stern. “That’s below you.”

“It may be below me, Padre, but it’s the truth.” Andrea said.

Director Mendez sighed.

“Papá,” Andrea pleaded. “Yo no soy mi madre. Soy mi.”

“Lo sé, hija,” he said, taking his daughter’s hand. “I know.”

She moved the application towards him. “Then sign it.”

Director Mendez hesitated. “Hija…”

“Papá,” Andrea touched his cheek. “This is my country. These are my people. Trust me.” She smiled at her father. “It’s in my blood.”

Director Mendez picked up a pen and signed the paper. “Te amo, Andrea,” he said. “Make me proud.”

School- After the First Day

Well, if you read my last post, you know that these past two days have been busy and stressful as everyone on campus is trying to get ready for school and get everything to work out and stuff.

And I have to say, we're all doing a fantastic job of it.

College is so much more different than high school.

I mean, duh, we already knew that. But I never actually realized just how much different from high school college was.

I took AP classes in high school, actually taking three of them in my senior year. I thought that was busy and stressful and hard work?

Yeah. I spent my entire day today either doing homework or in class. Or eating, because that's pretty important.

And that's from one day of class. It's such a high maintenance level of work to be prepared for my actual classes.

And I love it so much. From two days of classes.

I don't even have the words to describe how happy I am to be back in school again, and how happy I am that college is different from high school, and how happy I am to be here, at BYU-Hawaii. I have awesome teachers, and I am looking forward to working with my classmates.

I'm a nerd, and I love school. I love learning new things, and I love applying it to what I already know.

Like those little moments when I can explain the genetic modifications I use in my story because of my AP Biology class.

When I'm world-building, and I have to come up with governments and countries... AP Government and We the People.

The fact that I'm writing at the level I am. Lots of practice writing not only stories, but also all those analytical essays for AP Literature and AP Lang. As much as I hated those essays, I learned not only what was important in stories and literature, but also ways to put it in.

And just pretty much everything else. I am so super excited. I feel like a sponge, and I just want to drink all this in.

And on a completely unrelated note, today I discovered one of my little brother's Lego ninjas has Bieber Fever. Because college can't be all work.

Enjoy your day.

The First Day of College- Before School Starts

You are reading the post of a very stressed, very irritated, and very unprepared girl about to start her freshman year of college.

I don't know if I even need to say more words, but I shall. Because I like words.

I'm not so very unprepared, but it seems like everything is falling apart.

I can't connect to the sites online I need to connect to because the server for those particular sites happen to be down. I can connect to every.single.other.site. just not the one that I need to.

My schedule is very full, and running across campus to get to my classes on time is going to be fun.

I'm pretty sure also that this is the only place I can be surrounded by food and will likely starve to death because a) I will never have time to eat and b) when I do have time to eat, I will be in a not-eating state of working, and so will not want to eat.

So, if I don't get run over by cars and people today, I will starve to death. Either way, I'm going to die.

And don't get me started on procrastination. Class starts in an hour and look what I'm doing.

So..... I'm going to be off now. Hopefully something will start working or something and yeah.

College.

The Hobo Adventures: The Three Hoboteers

One fine fall morning, three friends found themselves on the internet.

Their names were Flo, Moe, and Zoe.

While on Facebook, Moe posted on Flo's wall.

"Flo. Have you heard the news? Hobo Joe's gone missing. No one's seen him for three days."

"What?" Flo replied, flabbergasted at the news. "Hobo Joe's gone missing? Where else am I supposed to get my chicken to go?"

"I don't know, but we have to find him," Moe said.

"Well, that's just a great idea, Moe," Flo said. "It would work great if I wasn't on the other side of the world, separated from you by an entire OCEAN."

"This is Hobo Joe we're talking about here!" Zoe butted into their conversation. "You're going to leave him missing, possibly dead, just because you can't swim across the Pacific Ocean?"

"Nor can I exactly hitchhike all the way across the country," Flo said.

"Guys, you forget where we are," Moe said. "We're on the Internet. You can do anything here."

"We could maybe even find Hobo Joe, if we work together," Flo said.

"Yes!" Zoe said. "We can become... the HOBOS OF THE INTERNET!"

"Ummm..." Moe said. "We'll keep working on a group name."

"Goodbye, Hobo Flo! I shall see you soon as well, Hobo Moe," Zoe said.

"We're not hobos," Flo said.

"Yet," Zoe said. "But we shall be."