Yin & Yang

One of my favorite current T.V. shows is called Vampire Diaries. It's about, somewhat obviously, vampires though along with that come supernatural people and things such as witches and ware wolves and people called travelers. All of these people have different strengths and weaknesses with both positively and negatively affect these creatures. For instance vampires are extremely fast and strong but they cannot stand vervain. If they come into contact with it, it burns them. Another thing they are extremely sensitive to is the sun, therefor unless they have something to protect them they cannot be in the sun. This brings me to the concept of balance, you need balance in life and in this show I have learned much about why without balance things wouldn't be good. Sure the idea of vampires and witches and all of those things is a very "out there" example but it agrees with my point. Without balance things don’t work out and this is a perfect example of that.

Stress

Before high school stress was never really a huge portion of my life. Sure there were stressful moments but it never caught up to me it would just come and go. Being in high school now it has really picked up. Due to all the increase in homework and in difficulty, the uplift in intensity not necessarily in school but extracurriculars, in particular sports, everything has really just gone up. Obviously everyone has there moments of really stressful times but I think the best way to go about it is to try to limit it. Allow yourself to do things in order to limit the amount of stress you are put under. For me one of the major stressful moments this year for me was right before volleyball tryouts for club volleyball. I really wanted to make a certain team and had to work very hard to do so, so up until that time I was extremely stressed out. Couldn't sleep, couldn't focus, all of the symptoms of stress hit me, hard. All I could do was focus on the tryout itself, so in order to manage it I put more work into achieving my goal and that allowed me to stress less because when it came down to it, I was more prepared. Maybe you can't relate with a sport but maybe a test. Have you ever gone into a test and thought to yourself, "Wow, I really am not prepared at all and so not think I am going to do well."? Or on the other hand gone into a test thinking, "I am so ready to rock this test!"? You were probably more stressed about not being ready, that's how it was for me. For me, the biggest reason for stress is being unprepared, therefore in order to be less stressed I try to stay on top of my work and always be prepared.

Pieces

Day by day my mind stays on you,

I can't seem to pull away.

Everything that comes and goes,

it brings me back to you.

All I can think about is what was,

and now what I wish still could be,

but it cant, because it's over.

It's all slipped from my reach.

The further you got away,

the more you ripped me apart.

With nothing to fill the spaces,

I'm left in pieces.

Yet no one can fix what you've done,

nothing can put me back together.

Only you could glue me back,

back to the way things were.

Yet you won't because you can't seem to see,

all the darkness around me now.

Because of you I’ve fallen for good,

and without you,

being put back together,

 is out of the question.

Change

The way things change so rapidly is scary to me, one second things are one way and the next they're another. It's as if a switch has been flipped changing everything around and creating new obstacles to jump over. as if it wasn't hard enough as it is. I feel as though things change the minute we begin to adapt to the way they are. I haven't been able to keep my mind off how different everything is this year in comparison to the last. It's crazy to think about how much has changed in a year and even some things quicker than that.

A Letter to my Parents

To my Mom and my Dad,

Thank you for always having back no matter how out of line I am you never stop loving me and I don't know what I would do without you in my life. I don't always say it but I love you both so much and definitely don't give you enough credit for all you do for me. I'd be lost without you two and would not be the person I am today. I have you to thank for allowing me to grow up and I could not be more thankful for you. Thank you for being the best parents!

Love, 

your daughter 

Throwin' It Back to 2003

I grew up at the beach and I can't imagine what it would have been like not to. When I was a little girl I went to the beach every day of the week and played in the sand with all of my friends. I was about 3 my dad took me out in the water for the first time, not just by the shore but into the powerful waves. I remember the first time he took me out I made him put me onto his shoulders and I refused to let the ice cold ocean touch my feet and if it did I'd scream. I was so scared of the water that I didn't even want it to touch me. My dad is a very tall guy, around 6'7" so he could take me out pretty far out into the water before my feet would tap the water but one day the tide was high and the waves were bigger than usual. I went out with my dad on his shoulders like always and we were just hanging out when all of a sudden a huge set came. I was about 6 years old so I got really scared because I had never been in the water when such a big wave came. As a kid I swam on a swim team and was quite a strong swimmer for a 6 year old and my dad knew this so when the wave came my dad knew he couldn't make it under safely with my on his back but, he also knew I was a good enough swimmer to make it under safely on my own. So when it came he told me to get off his shoulders and swim as fast as I could towards the wave. The wave scared me so much I didn't waste a second I swam to the wave as fast as I could, every time I lifted my head to take a breath I could see the wave building, higher and higher. I kept swimming into it, I looked up to take a breath and the wave faced me with fury I didn't stop to think I knew I had to go under it. I took one last big breath and closed my eyes and swam straight into it, my heart pounding so fast and so loud I could almost hear it as i dove under. It felt as though the wave passed over me in slow motion as I swam forward to fight the power behind the wave. I could hear it crash after it went over me and I swam up for air. Ever since that wave my parents can hardly drag me out of the water no matter what the surf looks like.

Essay Excerpt

...The Islamic Revolution was a very dark time and much of what I have gone through cannot even remotely come close to how bad things were then. The things that the people were put through during that period were horrific and scary and I could not even imagine having to go through that. I cannot imagine living through a war let alone being scared to leave the house because there was a possibility you could get thrown into prison for doing next to nothing....

Comic

Understanding Comics

After reading Understanding Comics I have a new view as to what a comic is. I never really thought about comics could tell a serious story but after reading Persepolis that changed that view drastically. I thought that comics were just funny mini stories that were based off fictional characters but I find it really interesting that you can use comics to tell a full story and even have seriousness to it, this gives me a greater respect for comics as well.

Single Stories

Single stories only give one piece of information, in other words you only hear one side of the story. It is basically a stereotype, everyone has heard stereotypes that are absolutely ridiculous but these single stories are stereotypes that we take seriously. What really must be questioned is why anyone decides to believe the one and only story they hear. As well as why we think that the only thing that could be true is the one story we know. I don’t understand why people decide that making these stereotypes is an okay thing to do. I think that unless you know what you are talking about you have no place to say anything at all. These single stories aren’t even right yet that is how we base our opinions and to me that just doesn’t make sense.