Is there anything worth looking for? Worth loving for? Worth dying for? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eT3_iYr7xW0

"It's a long way for an answer" replays in my head a lot these days.

      As you may know, I am agnostic. I don't believe there is enough evidence to prove whether there is a god or not. Christians will argue this point, as other religions will, but truth is, there is not enough evidence. Personal encounters may have lead you to believe there is a god (which may actually be right) but there are not enough universal facts to completely ensure the truth of the existence of a god. Yes, there may be a surpassingly substantial amount of evidence for Christianity, but just as scientific laws, there must be 100% evidence and the conclusion must be indisputable. Similar to gravity. Every object on Earth that elevates through the air will fall back down at some point. Without doubt. But sadly, we do not have enough knowledge of a god to say that. Thus we continue in a foolish fight over an answer only time will reveal, not unkind words and sharp swords.
      Now that I have moved past the basics of where I stand and why, I'll move onto something that matters. (PLEASE LISTEN TO THE SONG IN THE LINK.) Despite the many song meanings I looked up, I have decided that this song is somewhat religiously/emotionally speaking. As I was listening to a playlist of mine on Pandora, this song came on. In the beginning, I found nothing spectacular. Upon hearing the chorus, I identified easily with the singers. My life in words would be exceedingly similar to the chorus of this song (minus the "I'm home" line).
      Throughout this week, I cannot tell you how many times I have turned this song on. Especially in my numerous nights of insomnia. My mind would not rest. Grades to family, family to friends, friends to sports, sports to grades. Then grades again. I was lying awake last night around 11:40 and developed a headache from doing too much math in my head. Not just random "let's fall asleep counting degrees of this function and determing the end behavior! FUN!" math, but semi-significant and relevant math. I was figuring out my grades based on my midterm grades then the total grade and what I will have to make in each class to acquire my desirable set of As and Bs: A in LatinII (easy), A in health/P.E. (super easy), A in Algebra II (challenging), B in Biology (challenging once more). After long calculations, I began to freak out because I did not know that at the beginning of a new quarter, you start from nothing. I thought that you kept your remaining average and  had to start with that. I worried that my first quarter grades would hurt my second quarter, lowering my GPA, my class rank and as well my chance of obtaining admittance to Yale. Stop laughing, I seriously want to attend Yale, whether you think it is possible or not. And if I am not accepted, at least I will have known that I tried.
       After this long fight with myself and stressing way too much, I went downstairs to ask my dad if students started from 0 in a new quarter or not. He was asleep on the couch. Great. I came back upstairs and dialed my brother's number. Thankfully, he picked up and slowly but surely helped me through my dilemma. He did not know the answer to my initial question but instead knew the answer to what I was searching for. I felt vulnerable as I confessed to him all that I had harbored so well. How I hate being a disappointment, a failure, how I hate being called stupid, how I may not be naturally scholarly, but capable and how I found that a positive, a blessing, but everyone looks upon me demoralizingly because I have to work hard, and few things come naturally. I felt even more pitiful to be divulging all the things that I had so tightly wound to an outsider, someone who could never understand. I felt merciless towards everything, enraged because I was a victim in a cruel game, as I waited in silence for my brother's response.
      Eventually he drew words out, elucidating each syllable, a gross change from my hasty, shaky, dialogue  that was split by sobs. Then and there, my brother expounded on how God's grace is what I need. How I need to stop for a second and plead for it, because I could not lose anything from doing so. I asked him what to say, and echoed the words. Terror struck through my body like a Grandfather clock hitting midnight. I cannot be one of the people who have persecuted me in times of need, who have judged me when they are equally as human. I cannot conform to the most ignorant, judgmental, liars. I continued to be stirred up with negative feelings, with unsettledness. I prayed for grace again and again. Because I need it more than anything right now. I need to be helped and relieved of the burdens a teenage girl should not carry. I need to have those brutal events and memories erased from my memory, I need a rescue boat, I need a Savior.
      Now I sit here in a confused state of being, unsure of where I want to be. I remember once having told someone so deeply much about my life and they responded saying this: "I see you knowing where you are, knowing where you've been, and knowing you're destination, but unsure if that is really where you want to be." I am a mirror image of that, so sure of what I've been and ready to go somewhere, but not sure if that is really where I desire to go.

Yesterday I was broken. Today I am searching for one to put me back together. I am moving in some direction. Which way, I am unsure. I am sickly and looking for a cure. "I need your grace to remind me to find my own" (Snow Patrol). I'm searching for grace, even though I may always remain a disgrace. I am searching for it an answer, but it's a long way. I'm searching, not for something to grasp as my ineptitude bears down on my shoulders. Instead I'm searching for something just to steady me as I stand up from my fall.

Being hit does something to a person, whether it hurts or not.

I choke back tears,
doing an exceptional job at concealing my fears.
I scrub a little harder,
increase the temperature of the water.
These scars don't always go away,
at least not today.
If you say I love you one more time, I swear,
lies are the last thing I want to hear.
But I'll heal,
forgetting these unpleasant ordeals.
Don't expect an apology, when you're the one who committed the felony.
I may be battered, but in the end it's you who is hurting yourself.

A candle that's lost its flame is still a candle http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OT10h5vqmZs

Through the thorns, I can see the sky. I forget the stings.

We'll fight what we have to, just because what's waiting for me is you.

Words just fall away sometimes, and all that's left are the feelings.

Cause the intricacy of nature confuses me and I'm aghast in it's beauty, it's splendor. I feel bliss in the breeze.

Every color has many shades. Every person has many sides and can't be defined by one.

Cause I'm moving forward and looking back, but keeping on track. 

Take my hand and my sweater, we'll keep moving through this cold weather.

The Summit. Of his cancer.

This Sunday, my parents and I attended the 11 o'clock service at the Summit church, which happens to be exactly in the middle of wanna-be-somewhere-but-instead-nowhere-ville. I fell into step with my parents as we entered the warehouse-resembling sanctuary. I placed my belongings on the chair my parents had assigned me to and stared into space, absently  allowing each lyric that the singer uttered to drift through one ear and out the other. Suddenly, I saw some kids traipsing in, on the heels of (who I assumed was their) mother. As the children settled in, one seat open between their mother and the two children, a second boy maneuvered between his brother and sister and the chairs of the row in front of him. Gracefully, he shifted into his spot and rolled back his shoulders and raised a hand to his face. Beneath his palm was a white air mask. Inches above it resided a pair of eyes, observing and grasping everything around his slender being, gaping at the austere sights around him. Those eyes were solemn and rigid, sour and calloused. They were just eyes, no eyebrows or eyelashes. Only eyelids and eyeballs. A dark purple, a passionate purple, a searching purple-colored pupil.
I glance away, not wanting this young boy to feel ashamed of what he cannot control. I feel ashamed as he probably felt my stare, as he probably receives many, for having cancer at such a young age. I flip open to Pride and Prejudice as the pastor's presentation begins (I normally would at least listen, despite my agnosticism, but he is talking too fast for me to process). I read about one page every six minutes. I can't help but peering out of the corners of my eyes to catch sight of this young boy in a blue shirt. Thoughts and questions are flying quickly through my head, like a ball in an intense tennis match. I wonder if the boy can play dodgeball, or eat a thickburger. I wonder if he can skid into home base when he hits a home run or if he can have a hot dog eating race. I had to put away my book for a moment to gather myself. I had to shake out the thoughts and questions of what he will be able to do, because I knew that none of those things probably mattered, just the fact that he was alive.
I whispered to my dad that the kid had cancer, that his life was in danger. I had to divulge to someone this secret that was slowly eating me away. The whole rest of the sermon, my concentration was fleeting. As the service dragged on and communion began, I was a spectator of the little boy's every move, silently desiring that my concern would be his cure. I sat in absolute reticence, all thoughts  filtering through my brain and then dissolving into dust. I continued to look in the boy's direction, but all I saw was a shiny scalp, and a line of white circling an ear. I choked back tears, on the brink of breaking down in a bible-beating building. I looked down at my crossed legs and tried to focus on a bruise on my leg. I tried to focus on anything that pushed the boy out of my mind's eye. The glistening head under the fluorescent lights blinded me, I couldn't even see his face because he was so small, so young, so innocent and undeserving. And there, that church, was the last place I'd want to be if I were so juvenile and already cursed with cancer. Finally crowds became swarming my direction, toward the direction of the doors. I stood up, shaky and basically having to turn on my cognitive functions,  forcing myself to think and return to where I was.
I followed my parents to the car and once again brought up the young boy in the blue shirt. An angry peace came in the middle of us. Silence had never enraged me more. I bit my tongue and clasped my hands to prevent myself from exhibiting my upset attitude. Unsettledness ran from my head to my toe as I had just witnessed my parent's indifference towards a boy who probably cannot even think about living to be 50 years old, at this point in his life. He cannot even  think of naturally balding as my father is, for chemotherapy has already taken his hair in exchange for a cancer-free life, something it may not even be able to return to him.  He doesn't have to worry about graying as my mother is, because there is no hair to gray. He won't receive mono, like my sister has, because he cannot even remove the air mask to share a drink or kiss someone. No, instead gifts that any seven-year-old would not even think twice about, have already been robbed from him. I looked down at my phone and pressed the home button: 12:34 read on my screen. It's my favorite two minutes of every 24 hours, but I normally don't see it but once every couple months. Whenever I see it, I always make a wish on it, because it is such a lucky number, and my favorite number. I glanced at the time again. It was stubborn and tantalizing, as I fought my selfish desires. Before I could consider my own wish anymore, I made one for the blue shirt boy. Too many things have already been taken from him, I knew. That wish wasn't mine to make anyhow, it was his.

baaaaaaa! wiy786cy6r2397xsjkjhskd

Seriously, the "Title:" bar mocks me! I can't come up with even semi-decent titles, shouldn't there be an option for no title!? Blogger should definitely update their technology to include that, for those of us who have much to say but are inept in creating titles!
Anyhow, I just really need to write. These past couple days  weeks have been exhausting, draining and only slightly rewarding. YAY - 94 on AlgII project and 93 on test, but boo for the 79 on Biology. I am extremely bad at time management. So I have some food for the thought. Mechanic efficiency in physics = work output / work input x 100. Now, if humans were 100% efficient (machines) would we only be able to complete what is told/expected/commanded of us or would we be efficient at everything including at being lazy? Like we are now...? I know that is such an absurd thing to say, much less think, but it has been eating up my brain the past few weeks, as I have been pondering about how bad I am at time management (which is ironic because I am bad at time management because I was ruminating over my ineptitude at time management...).
I am sure you are thoroughly confused and about to tell yourself you should've had a V8 (because if you had one, which of course contains mystical powers, you would have known this post was actually quite stupefying and futile). I really have nothing profound or recondite to say. Instead I am sitting here typing aimlessly about really nothing. Actually, I do have something to say. But it can't blend with the horrid awfulness of this post so I'll make a new one. Keep reading!!

Sorry I just wasted your time...

Maybe I've been going back too much lately, when time stood still and I had you http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EY2eYfXgLE

I must say it is a smidgen disappointing to check my stats and have none for this entire week, but not enough to restrain me from writing. I wrote this on the way to soccer practice the other day, as I sat in the back seat, watching shiny vehicles drive by and constantly trying to revert my attention back to my biology di-hybrid crosses (no luck), so I scribbled this down:

When I was young,
I praised the words he sung.
Thinking he knew it all,
was my greatest fall.
He knows nothing,
He should hop down from his high horse, he is no king,
I now hear myself thinking.
But now I know: his smarts are low,
for he does not know all he owns.
His hand stumbles through his hair, he groans,
never remembering that all his blessings are just loans.

One-sided tag.

Keep blaming,
my heart is where you're aiming.
I'll continue walking,
into the distance, my ears filled with your ceaseless mocking.
Your arrows stab then fall.
I've built a brick wall.
I won't tarry,
You're last arrow, you carry.
Go ahead, shoot. You'll only find a soul, nothing pecuniary.

There's nothing better than a sunburn... during the Winter.

I have strange genetics. They're rather nonsensical. WHO BECOMES SUNBURNED AFTER A FEW HOURS OF HARMLESS SUNLIGHT? I spend maybe 6 hours outside this weekend because of my soccer games. BUT, it is like 62 degrees out there and the sun warmed me about about as much as standing near a microwave would. So last night as I washed my face and began to apply my acne meds (Benzyl Peroxide, aka burning fire in an abyss is only about two inches tall... it really doesn't make sense), there was a stinging sensation that began the second the cold, seemingly harmless, pearly poison made contact with my face. Today was filled with comment "your face is really red." Can you at least be a little more creative? Like "hey, did you walk into a tree or something?" That would at least show some thought behind the observation of my blotchy, cherry complexion. But nope. Just dumb people reminding me that my face is as crimson-colored as a can of Coke.

Anyhow, I have more to write on this weekend and today. I just can really consolidate all those thoughts into one post. More is to come, but I needed to burn some steam on the fact that my face is redder than Rudolph's nose. And isn't the next stage to sunburn peeling? One ticket to Timbuktu, please.