Erwaman's Personal Journal - May 2007

Batter up is AP U.S. History exam this Friday. How does one even begin to study for this? It's almost like trying to memorize 50 pages of a dictionary. Apart from a few questions which might be analytical and require a working knowledge of some period, most questions are either you-know-it or you-don't. The only application questions are the essays, and I keep fearing a writer's block. What if I'm not feeling particularly eloquent that morning and can only produce some choppy, frantically thrown-together ideas? Well folks, it's time to start preparing. See you after the test (and after the coffeehouse)!

Oh, and the other tests that remain are AP Chemistry, SAT II Chemistry, and SAT II US History.

Which brings me to my next point. The past weekend, April 28-29, the German Open 2007 took place. Several European and world records were set. I looked through the results, and 13-year-old (perhaps 14 now?) Mátyás Kuti tied my 2x2x2 world record on the mark - 3.55 seconds exactly! So now we're co-world record holders :-). Ain't that nice? I'm not upset about it; I think it's great that someone has tied me. Wouldn't it be awesome if we could all win at life? Kuti, in addition to this new co-world record, also holds five other world records, along with three runner-ups and four third-in-the-world records. Pretty incredible for someone who only started competing in September 2006.

Amidst my sleep deprivation, my mind tends to drift. Losing consciousness is normal. I was pondering expressions, sayings, and idioms, and wondering why it's so bad in writing to use such phrases. For example, whenever I use them, Mr. T. always marks "cliché." I understand some are hackneyed and thus have become lame. But I feel some predeveloped phrases are very witty and complete and perfect for use in certain situations. Just as each word has a dictionary definition, can't phrases become defined too and part of our rhetoric? Language is a means of communication, and the huge expanse of words in the English language give us power to articulate ourselves precisely and effectively, so shouldn't developed phrases from combinations of words be accepted as improving our ability to communicate?

I know Mr. T. probably just wants me to come up with my own expressions and comparisons. I guess I'm not being creative enough and just taking the easy way out (another expression). Sometimes I get so frustrated by the demands of writing. Sure, I could communicate exactly with precise mathematical logic. But such text is so lifeless and inhuman - I don't know how else to put it. You need a balance of creativity with precision. Oh boy, it's like yin and yang, right and left brain, here we go again. (Haha, that rhymed.) I could go off on tangents ad infinitum if I wanted :-).

Expression. As living organisms, we can think and reason. We can feel and emote. Yes, we can imitate machines and be mechanical and hardcore repetitive and monotonous, but then we also have the ability to sense things. You know how sometimes a feeling is just within you and you gesture wildly with your body but in the end it can't be described - it has to be experienced? We sense things - we have gut instincts - we have this little voice in our head. And some things we register, it's not like memorizing a fact, it's like a wave flowing through you: pure, smooth, uninterrupted, cyclical, harmonious, rolling hills of spirit and soul and life.

Anyways, so arts like writing can be so frustrating I guess because artists are trying to master their abilities of expression. You want the words to reflect your intangible and fluid thoughts and you want to be precise and concise (not so wordy like this), yet you don't want it to be a hunk of immobile rock. Not so mechanical, more flowing. This entry is just digressing now. I'm tired, I should sleep, and I'm also clearly unmastered in my expression. In my skull somewhere, there's this fish bowl of random stuff - randonmess always reminds me of my desk :-) (wait a second, let me take a picture)

- and all the crap and useful stuff blends together to form these absurd ideas of mine and now it's getting kind of clogged like my toilet and now it's time to call it a night. 'Night.