4 am

Staying up until 4 AM last night was interesting.  I certainly felt shame as my baffling European History outline glared at me from my computer screen and the text cursor blinked in sync with the tick of my clock.  However, I couldn’t help feeling deviously excited that I was up so late.  The open curtain offered no distractions because only solid black stared back from outside.  Everything was silent except for the sound of my breath and the tapping of my fingers against the keyboard.  It gave me an idea of how the prince in that Disney movie Sleeping Beauty felt like when he found the dormant castle.  Like a swan moving through dark glassy water.  Everything around him was dimmed, still, and lightly snoring.  He must have felt an odd sense of power, seeing people in their most vulnerable state.  Perhaps he felt special and privileged to live in a moment that most cannot experience.  It feels detached and otherworldly.  Or maybe I just had too much caffeine.

Imagine the Prince’s joy when he caught a glimpse of the moving, sparkling forms of the fairies.  Thank God!  He was not alone.  I’ve known for a long time that a car drives into my neighborhood around three or four in the morning. But when the roar of an engine drew my eye to twin beams of light swiveling around the cul-de-sac, my shoulders relaxed without me even knowing they were tense in the first place.  Evidence of other life and humans continuing their business relieved me.  Someone else was awake, also seeing the world in its unconscious state.  It was nice to know.  I hadn’t realized that I had been craving company until that moment.

When I climbed into bed at 4:30, I felt like a celebrity falling backwards into the arms of a crowd.  Joining the people I belonged.  The whisper of rain lulled me to sleep, and my dreams were damp, warm, and dark.

Right now, the effects of three hours of sleep haven’t seemed to catch up to me yet.  Obviously, I’m tired, but my brain is still buzzing from momentum.  Objects in motion tend to remain in motion, as Newton once said.

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This could pass as a creative piece I wrote out of my own volition and creativity…but I’m gonna ruin that impression.

Every Friday morning in English, we would write a two-page journal entry about any topic we chose.  Amid the pages and pages filled with scribbled complaints of schoolwork and boys, there are some snippets that astonished me in their half-assed, sleep-deprived expressiveness and wisdom.  Below is one of those journal entries that I edited and submitted in my Final Portfolio.

The idea of sculpting a stream of consciousness into a gleaming presentation is probably the most significant thing I’ve learned this entire year of English (kidding), and one that I’m excited to return to (hint hint)!

Thank you for reading!

-M.L.

 

 

A Potent Antagonist

I’m a little busy this weekend with preparing my final English portfolio and studying for finals, but I wanted to share a super quick segment of an English assignment analyzing Othello that I was pretty proud of.  Enjoy the footnotes below, too!

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Unlike many stories, Othello does not sugarcoat its antagonist.  Shakespeare provides no heartbreaking backstory, allows no pity to be formed, and does not portray Iago as the misunderstood “bad guy”.  When Iago says, “Hell and night/Must bring this monstrous birth to the world’s light,” Iago is acknowledging that his plans are evil, and yet he still intends to fulfill them anyway (Shakespeare 55).  Unlike many fictional villains, Iago has a clear perception of what is right and wrong, but he simply does not care.  As a result, Shakespeare makes Iago heartless and nearly impossible to relate to.  And yet, despite all of these inhuman traits, Iago falls victim to the same force that he harvests in his victims—jealousy.  Iago’s jealousy of Cassio and Othello ultimately leads to his downfall, making this super-villain as human as the rest of us.  The character of Iago gives the haunting suggestion that guiltless cruelty and human qualities can go hand in hand.

(A/N):

1. The assignment for this “developed paragraph” was simply “discuss Iago’s effectiveness as a character and presentation as a villain.”  I was at first baffled by the vagueness of this, but realized that an open prompt about Iago was the best sort of prompt.
2. I usually don’t spend too much time on developed paragraphs for school but this one took me most of the night and I resubmitted it multiple times
3. Fun fact: Not too long ago one of my favorite actresses, Natalie Dormer, said that she would enjoy playing the role of “female Iago.”  She clearly understands herself very well.
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WF_pwRwH4Ro

Thanks for reading!

Feel free to comment!

-M.L.

 

A Belated Revelation

The calendar I have on the side of my blog embarrasses me.  It is proof that for the entire month of May, I have only posted once.  The reason for my absence would be automatically apparent to any highschool student: May means AP Exams.  Two exams for me this year: Chem and European History.  I sort of feel like an infant on WordPress — everyone else seems to have surpassed highschool at least.  Nevertheless, I’m going to introduce my sure and uninterrupted presence on WordPress with a little reflection about AP European history, and hopefully you’ll still be able to relate.

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Speaking aloud has never been one of my strengths.  The cooperation of my lips and vocal cords have never produced a sound that I liked, a voice that I wanted to identify with.  Sometimes the words come too fast, bumping into one another like cars in a line of traffic, or the words don’t come at all, abandoning me and forcing me to stammer, awkwardly.

Aside from multiple choice tests and a grueling five-page essay each week, AP Euro students are expected to exhibit some public speaking skills through seminar in small groups and, sometimes, short solo presentations.  I awaited my turn to present with an apocalyptic sense of doom.  Not with panic, though: When my task arrived, I pressed my lips together and absorbed the news quietly.  I acknowledged my fate with pure acceptance.

This is because I have long accepted my struggle with speech as a flaw that was simply a part of me.  Everyone knows that each person possesses a weakness–public speech was mine.  There was nothing I could really do about it.

It was a one-minute summary of the French diplomat, Talleyrand.  Clear voice, accuracy, and eye contact with the two dozen kids staring at you.  I thought about those eyes, and about painful awkward silences, and half-hearted applause once the timer went to zero.  These images were strong in my mind as I filled, erased, and re-filled index cards with a desperate scrawl.  I recited my small speech countless times in front of the bathroom mirror, seeing my hesitance and self-doubt reflected before me.  I memorized the acrobatics of tongue and teeth late into the night.  Kept awake by what if I mess up?  “Hello, I am Charles Maurice de Talleyrand…”

At the podium the next morning, after controlling my trembling and taking in a deep breath, I remember saying that first sentence perfectly and nothing else.  The words flowed out so smoothly that I was shocked at myself when I finished exactly in 60 seconds and my teacher’s voice (“Good!”) carried from the back of the room.  My face was locked in a grin as I returned to seat where my congratulatory friends received me.

The ultimate proof of the hypothesis I formed in those glowing moments came when I successfully and wittily presented my midterm project of seven minutes (“Elizabeth the First was born on September 7th, 1533 to Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII…”), but I had already learned something that most people probably figured out in Kindergarten.  I could be good at public speaking.  I had to put in an unusually high amount of effort to do so, but it was possible.  The nonexistence of my natural ability was washed away by waves and waves of practiced words, each attempt sounding stronger than the last.

In AP European history, we learn about the struggle of the crushed against the crushers; the struggle of dominance between faiths and between countries.  But what I find to be the most profound struggle of all is the effort of individuals against their own weaknesses.  Charles Talleyrand ignored the jeers of “lame devil” and negotiates as a brilliant diplomat. Churchill became a moving speaker despite his lisp.  Angela Merkel earned a pHd in the one subject she struggled with in school*.  This class has shown me how history contains the success of effort over one’s own weakness; and I have made that same victory part of my history, as well.

Thank you for reading!

Comment if you like or relate!

–M.L.

*The subject being physics.  (All of the people I mentioned were a few people I researched specifically for seminar).