A Reflection on Saturday's Decathlon Scrimmage

Quote of the Day: “Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact.”

― George Eliot

          A few days ago we had our first decathlon scrimmage. It consisted of seven tests crowded into six hours. After the second test I started to have trouble focusing. One of the worst parts about decathlon is the tests are designed to be so difficult that even the ones pertaining to subjects such as art and literature require deductive reasoning. Decathlon tests take the idea of educated guessing to a new level.
          After about the third test I started to get drowsy and hungry and I started pausing between questions to think about how much I disliked the sweater of the girl sitting in front of me and what would happen if, hypothetically, I dropped out of choir second semester and took an art class instead.
          Around the fifth test I started thinking about how, since it was a scrimmage, these tests really didn't count for anything and maybe it wouldn't be all that terrible to just give up and allow Vanessa to get the higher score for once. Then my mind started to drift away to explore new thoughts and ideas and I started thinking about how I could avoid the last few tests. I briefly contemplated pretending to faint but that seemed a bit excessive. Besides, I'd never actually tried fainting before. Then I thought about pretending to take a phone call during the break and claiming some relation had died but I figured that since that didn't physically prevent me from taking the test, I'd probably have to finish it. I would also have to create a back story to deal with any questions regarding my loss from my decathlon coach who is a very shrewd and threatening person. One day after school my sister called me during a decathlon meeting to tell me that she needed me to drive her home. When I asked my decathlon coach if I could leave he told me no, I could not and if she really needed a ride he would drive her. He also has a history of calling both me and my parents whenever I'm absent from a meeting (which, by the way, has been happening quite frequently ever since they added three hour weekend review sessions).If my mother was to suddenly die, he would probably reason that an extra hour or so taking a decathlon test wouldn't make much of a difference.
          Anyways, by the seventh test I felt thoroughly disgusting, lethargic, and ill. I was tired of hearing Vanessa complain between tests about how stupid she was for forgetting whether Ernst Ludwig Kirchner or Wassily Kandinsky was associated with the Die Brucke movement and I was thoroughly irritated by  the two students in front of me who were laughing and poking each other with their pencils. I was exasperated by the phrase "In the Decathlon Resource Guide..." and questions that asked which of the following did NOT pertain to this movement or that time period. My sweater felt constraining and uncomfortable and I wanted to go eat the leftover sushi in my fridge before my dad did. By the time I finished the seventh test my vision was a bit blurry and I hated decathlon. I spent the rest of my day lying supine on my couch, eating cashews and listening to Barbra Streisand. I think instead of going to the next few meetings I'm going to sleep instead.

Painting of the Day:

Madame Henraux by Edouard Vuillard

What's So Great About Great Literature

“All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you: the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was. If you can get so that you can give that to people, then you are a writer.” 
― Ernest Hemingway

 In Buddhism, there are four stages of enlightenment culminating in the attainment of Nirvana. I think understanding great literature comes in stages as well. The first time I read The Scarlet Letter I was in eighth grade. I finished it in about a day or so and after I was finished I didn't think much about it. I didn't dislike the novel but it really didn't affect me in any way. However, when I read it again as part of our school's 11th grade curriculum, I found myself extremely moved by the relationship of Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale. When I heard my classmates describe the book as uninteresting, unsurprising, and overdramatic I was very confused. 

I think that when a great writer tells a story they are giving you a piece of truth. But such truth can only be attained when one has reached a stage where they are able to understand the authors and the characters in the story. It's hard to be moved by a book when you only think of it as a plotline; a series of two-dimensional characters whose experiences are as far removed from your own as the kings that reigned a thousand years ago or the elephants in Africa. 

When I was younger it was very difficult for me to be moved by anything I'd read. I read Don Quixote, Moby Dick, and The Great Gatsby indifferently. I felt a sense of accomplishment at having finished such highly regarded works but nothing more. Now however, I realize that that sense of accomplishment was unjustified. All that I gained from such superficial reading was a slightly more sophisticated vocabulary and an antiquated writing style. 

 I can't quite say when I really began to read great literature; when characters such as Jane Eyre, Rodion Raskolnikov, and Lily Bart began to inspire weeks of reflection and emotions I had previously only experienced due to events that had actually happened to me personally. I'm not quite sure when my perspective on literature changed but I think when it did, I became, in a way, more enlightened. I don't want to pretend I'm a deep, spiritual person who is in some way superior to those who read books such as The Scarlet Letter and Crime and Punishment and are as unaffected and unmoved as when they pulled the book from the shelf. But I do feel that because of the way literature has affected me, I see the world in a way that makes me a happier and more complete human being. I don't believe that I've reached the highest stage of understanding when it comes to literature, but I believe that I'm better off today than I was in eighth grade. What's so beautiful about literature, and I think this applies to art and music as well, is that when you really understand it, when you achieve that state of enlightenment, you become a more complete human being because you are able to experience emotions and thoughts and ways of understanding, both new and old, that once belonged to other people and now belong to you as well. Classic novels are about more than having an impressive literary resume; they should change you in some way. We often hear about the importance of character growth in a story but what really makes great literature great is its ability to promote growth in the reader as well. 

Painting of the Day:

Four Trees by Egon Schiele

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec: An Interesting Edwardian Artist

A few weeks ago my father and I visited the Norton Simon museum of art in Pasadena and I discovered an artist called Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, a painter from the Edwardian Era who was known for being short, an alcoholic, and for liking brothels and the Moulin Rouge. Now I'm not going to waste a whole bunch of time giving you his whole life story since I'd basically just be paraphrasing The Metropolitan Museum of Art's website. Besides, biographies are generally pretty boring because they always include details such as the artists' date of birth, what random people they studied under, and useless descriptions of the appearances of paintings that we can plainly see. So here are just some pictures and facts I found interesting.

Fun fact: Henri was 5'1." As was customary with aristocratic families, there was a great deal of inbreeding and it's likely that's part of the reason why Henri was so short.

Fun Fact: He enjoyed brothels and occasionally he even lived in them.

Fun Fact: One of his favorite models was a prostitute called Rosa La Rouge. Some people believe that she was the woman who gave him syphilis, which, coupled with alcoholism, eventually led to his death.

Fun Fact: He was part of Paris' bohemian movement during the late 19th century.

Fun Fact: He liked painting lesbians and the Moulin Rouge.

I like Henri because he uses vivid colors in a way that reminds me of Henri Matisse, because he employs thick brushstrokes in a manner similar to Vincent van Gogh, because his posters remind me of pop art and Andy Warhol, because his dancers remind me of Edgar Degas, and because he portrayed a part of Edwardian society that many other artists of his era were either unwilling or unable to.

An Introduction

So I've decided to make a blog. I've started numerous blogs in the past, all of which I deleted shortly afterwards because they either got too dramatic or because I was just too busy and I got bored. But despite problems such as these which, in all honesty, are likely are occur again, I'm making another blog.
I think one of my biggest problems in the past was that I kept trying to make blogs with themes. I figured the only way to have a good blog was to give it some unifying point like politics or my own personal life. Now, however, I've decided to screw the whole idea of cohesion and unity and sense altogether. I don't care at all whether anyone reads this or not. I'm going to write simply because I'm bored and if that means I'm going to have a few posts where there's nothing but random facts about myself or pictures I drew at five in the morning well then that's what's going to have to happen.

So now that I've finished writing my very blunt introduction I'm going to start with a list of things I do and don't like just because it's my blog and I can do things like that.

I do like snails. No one ever says snails are their favorite animals and I can't understand why. They're such nice streamlined creatures with their delicate spiral shells and rubbery heads. They're dainty and they remind me of outdoor tea parties and ferns.

I don't like red roses. I think they're cliche. Red has never been one of my favorite colors and frankly, roses remind me of stuffy formal dinners.

I do like balloons. I especially like the big rainbow balloon bouquets they have at parks and zoos. I'd much rather have a bouquet of balloons then a bouquet of roses. There's nothing so demonstrative as a bouquet of balloons.

I don't like cheese pizza. Since this is my blog I'm allowed to dislike things most other people like and talk about it as much as I want to. I don't like cheese pizza because it makes my skin feel likes it's leaking and I always feel rather sick after eating it. However, I do like pizzas with lots of vegetables on top. I especially like lots of mushroom and tomatoes. Mushrooms are definitely something that should be added to my like list. I'll eat practically anything if it has mushrooms on it.