Just Be Yourself

That's what they always tell us nowadays. Be yourself and you'll be fine! Follow your heart!

Sounds great and lovely, right?

But for crying out loud, what does that even mean? To "be yourself"? Maybe it's just me, but it seems to just be a feel good "do what makes you happy" saying.
I mean, you really can't be anyone else except you. And what inherent value does "being yourself" really have?

I mean you're going to be you. You can try to be someone else but in the end you'll still be you just with some surface appearance of them.

And "follow your heart"?
The heart is deceitful above all things. If you don't believe that, just think how many times your friends have "fallen in love" with their boyfriends or girlfriends, only to break up a couple weeks later and date somebody else. Their excuse for this, honestly, extremely shallow behavior, is that they're following their hearts.

Good job, Hearts.

There are a ton of other similar phrases. "Do what feels right" for example.

I think all those sorts of advice are confusing and unhelpful at best. Maybe even harmful and deceptive.

Maybe next time you advise your friend to be herself, think twice. Maybe instead you should advise her to try to be the person she wants to be. Have her think of how the nicest and most awesome girl she can make up would act.

Maybe don't advise your friends to follow their hearts and do what feels right and makes them happy.
Some times doing the best thing is horrendously hard and you feel freakin horrible afterwards. But you'll look back some day and realize it was worth it.
So tell them to do what they think is right.

That's what I think. Maybe I explained what I think very badly. Ask me to clarify! Maybe you disagree. Tell me why! Maybe you'd like to add to what I said, mention some similar phrases. Let me know! Comment below :)

Or, if you're on twitter, tweet #justbeyourself and I'll check it out. (My twitter username is @stormmariewhite... creative, I know)
Or post on my new facebook page.. 
Or email me.. storm.marie.white@gmail.com
Or google+ me.. just search "Storm White" and I should come up.

Yes, I'm pretty much everywhere. Have fun stalking me, guys. ;P

And here's a lovely song by Mree that partially inspired this post :)

X-cuses to the Nth

“There are no bad pictures; that's just how your face looks sometimes.”
― Abraham Lincoln

Now that I've insulted you all, if you complain about the previous unfulfilled promise about that spontaneous fiction thing, I can claim that you're really just bitter because I insulted you to your face. No wait, I mean, I insulted your face.

Boardwalk Amblers Anonymous, improving people's self-image every day!

Yes, so I actually did start writing that thing, but then I realized that I had to take the ACT soon and that I should probably be studying, not writing a story for the internet to read. So I studied. Some. Yah... but I took the ACT this morning, so now if I don't post it soon, I give you full permission to yell at me.

You won't make me regret saying that, will you? Nawwww, you guys are too nice for dat :)

So today, since I'm done with the ACT (For now) I have been messing around with HDR photography. Which is pretty stinking cool by the way. I'm not incredible at it yet, but it's fun.See photo above for one of my attempts with it.

Ello, it just occurred to me that it wasn't actually me who insulted you, it was Abraham Lincoln. Bahaha.

I have no idea what else I was planning to say, so goodbye.

Things

     Hi.

Because I'm a cool and random person, I'm going to start a spontaneous fiction serial in the near future.
Because I'm a cool and random person, I'm ending this post here. Dang, that was exciting.
     Bye!

Ello Poppet

    The title has nothing to do with the post. Just thinking of that awesome scene in Pirates of the Caribbean where what's-his-name not the one with the fake eye, but the other on with the long disgusting hair, finds Elizabeth and says "Ello poppet"       Fun stuff. Anyways, thought I should post a link to my deviantArt, The username is a little odd, it's from years ago. Has to be three years at least. That's a long time for someone my age.

     Linky-link

Ladeedadeedaaaa.

     I'm at home today which is amazing and unusual. I should be doing more important things than what I'm doing (which is posting on this blog, if you didn't know) (Oh, that's obvious. Perhaps I should mention that I'm also balancing a yellow mouse vase on my head as well. No, really.)
     I should be cooking dinner, which is supposed to be a healthy mexican pizza. Which has no cheese and a billion ingredients. Looks too complicated and I really want to make veggie lasagna but nooo, we MUST make the pizza!
     I also should be finishing the flag for the robotics competition, which I have sewn together but it currently just red and black stripes and nothing else.
     I should be studying and doing homework. BLAHHHHH. Life requires too much work sometimes. Bother.

     However, before I get to those things, I must brag about my geeky accomplishments of late. (I say "of late" instead of "lately" because "Of late" sounds classier. "Classy" being an alternative to "Epic-er" or "Awesome-r")
     I have watched the entirety of the 5th season of Doctor Who, which I thought was very good and a tad shorter than I expected. I have also read The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. Which, if I owned the book instead of borrowing it from the library, I would Share an Enjoy it. HAHA. AHAHAHA. THAT WAS REALLY FUNNY. Not really but okay. There's some saying about laughing at yourself, and it's probably a pretty nice saying too.

     Okay, bye.

Oh yah. Exterminate, annihilate, pretty much the same thing, right?

Reviewing, Please Wait

 

     Ello. I haven't done book reviews on here before but I do work at a library. So it seems reasonable and suitable and uncharacteristically in character. I like saying things like that just so I can use the word "Oxymoron" which I like to say very much. Though come to think of it, it kind of sounds like an oxygen breathing stupid person. Or stupid oxygen? Because all stupid people breathe oxygen, and smart people do too.
Upon further investigation I discovered that "oxymoron" literally means "sharp-dull" and is derived from Greek. A similar Greek derived term, "sophomore" literally means "wise-fool". I'm not sure how to take that. Is that offensive? Complementary? Someone tell me how I should feel because I'm going to be overrun in confusion presently.

Well that sure stayed on topic.

Okay so I recently read the book Drowned Cities by Paolo Bacigalupi. Companion to Ship Breaker by the same unpronounceable author.

I'm a failure to summarize books. So I'll leave it to the professionals and I'll give you the summary off the book itself.

"In a dark future America where violence, terror and grief touch everyone, young refugees Mahlia and Mouse have managed to leave behind the war-torn lands by escaping into the jungle outskirts. But when they discover a wounded half-man, a bioengineered war beast named Tool, who is being hunted by a vengeful band of soldiers, their fragile existence quickly collapses. One is taken prisoner by merciless soldier boys, and the other is faced with an impossible decision: Risk everything to save a friend, or flee to a place where freedom might finally be possible."

I thought this was a pretty darn good book. For older teens. The violence was pretty intense at times and the cussing was pretty heavy too. I didn't feel like it was really gratuitous though. It made sense in context, but surely it could have been toned down a bit. Especially since Ship Breaker was so much milder, it was unexpected.

Drowned Cities is definitely not a light read. The story was depressing and pretty much stayed that way. However, I was impressed with how it surprised me with the plot twists a couple of times. Partially because I misread the summary before I read it the book, haha. Other things surprised me too though.

This book raises a lot of moral questions. With bio-engineered creatures that have some human DNA, sometimes seem entirely human, and with humans who are callous and act more like animals than humans after years of war, you have to wonder what defines being "human". Where is the line between humanity and animal? Interesting.

Some of the characters were surprisingly deep and the world, I thought was very detailed and well built. I found it very believable and I really was sucked into the story.

However, I personally preferred Bacigalupi's first YA book, Ship Breaker. It was still dark and realistic without making me feel like all humanity is doomed and it had less profanity. So yes, read that book. It was amazing.

Duh duh duh. Look, I actually stayed kind of focused for like four paragraphs in a row. I think that's a record for me.

Goodbye :)

This Is No Banana

    

Oh, what a to do to die today at a minute or two to two,

A thing distinctly hard to say and harder still to do,

We'll beat a tattoo at twenty to two,

With a ra-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-too,

And the dragon will come when he hears the drum,

At a minute or two to two today,

At a minute or two to two.

That's always been my favorite tongue twister. I love how in so few lines it builds such great suspense, I love the rhythm and the way it just feel so awesome to say, and it has a dragon which makes anything better, obviously.

Now I'm picturing an ice cream cone with a dragon on top. So maybe they make everything better -except- ice cream. Yahhh. There always has to be an exception. I think that's in the constitution somewhere. Or maybe Einstein's rules of physics, or the laws of thermodynamics. It's somewhere in something important. 

Like this blog. It's on this blog. That's an extremely prestigious place.

So I was skipping around town today looking for a yellow umbrella, I heard that we're supposed to get freezing rain within the next couple days and thought it'd be totally sweet if I could go out in the freezing rain with my umbrella, and the rain would freeze on the umbrella and I'd have an ice-brella! However, I could not find a yellow umbrella of the appropriate strength.

Then someone asked me if the mum eating toes were cute and I completely forgot what I was thinking. Oh well. So now I must leave you.

Goodbye. Oh, and by the way. Lollipops.

.

Today someone was telling me about how caffeine has a calming affect on ADHD people. 

Too much caffeine puts me to sleep. Hah. Hahaha. Ha. Squirrel.

Darker, darker. Darker?

     They're always talking about it, aren't they? How our society is descending into darkness. How it's just getting worse, how we live in horrible times. Poor us, living in these times. Haha. Haha. Ha. Ha.
     I guess yah, we do live in hard times, but I feel like everyone has. It's just a messed up world and maybe we just need to get over that and deal with it. Sure, let's try to make the world a better place, that's great, but we're really just doing damage control, the world is never going to be good, no matter how much you and I work to make it good.
     I remember learning something in chemistry about how disorder only increases, never decreases as a whole. I feel like the bad in the world is like that.
     However, before you write me off as some depressed pessimist. I do believe there is still good in this world (hallelujah!).
     I just wish people would stop complaining about the bad stuff so much and take time to appreciate the good while we still have it. Everyone has their own problems but not everyone has, say.. the amazing mom you have, or adorable puppy, the beautiful wildflowers that grow in your yard, or that crazy musical talent you're blessed with.
     Deal with the bad things that happen, you don't need to ignore them, but don't let them take over your life. Please. For my sake and your own.
     Admit it, we all hate whiny facebook statuses. ;P
 
     On another note. ARTISTIC UPDATE, OH MY GOODNESS. I recently submitted a couple pieces to the governor's art exhibition or whatever they call that. I don't expect to win or anything, I just picked out a couple pieces I'd already done and submitted them very last minute. Next year I WILL remember to actually make something for that show. Maybe.
     I've been working on the robotics website a lot, it's coming along well, check it out here.
     I've also been doing a lot of photography. The photo at the top is one of mine. Black food coloring dropped into a glass of water. Fun stuff. I also did a photo for the theme "natural beauty". It's a picture of a friend of mine with her hair sculpted (by me) into a tree shape. That was fun and required a ton of hairspray. :P I'd post it on here but I'm not sure if she would feel comfortable with a portrait of her being available to the public on here, haha. Or well, you'll just have to use your imagination ;P
     I think I mentioned trying out for my school's forum show, unfortunately we didn't make it in. We had some guitar malfunctions, so I don't think it was our fault we didn't get in ;P I'm thinking of buying some recording equipment and recording it, not sure yet, that stuff is pricy and I'm clueless soooo... yah. But if I do, I'll upload the recording to youtube or something so you can hear it.
     The viking jewelry craft I did at the library went really well, had nine people show up and they all did very well and seemed satisfied with their creations before when they left, so that was good :)

     I originally didn't include this in this post, but am adding it for a couple reasons. A: it's one of my favorite songs. B: it kind of goes with the post. C: I really like adding songs to posts. ;P
     This song makes me think of the sense of entitlement we all tend to have. "They said we'd live forvever" seems like a cry of "You promised!" to me. And maybe we don't all expect to (literally on earth) live forever. But we feel entitled to things. A lot of things. When really we deserve a big fat nada. Worse than that, we deserve punishment for being sick sinful creatures.
     We've sure got off easy, huh? Just a little simple faith and we really do get to live forever. And here we are complaining about the hard times we live in. Hmph. Shoot that sense of entitlement in the heart and let it die.  Give up everything and serve other people, serve them because it's what God wants and He sure deserves whatever He wants out of you.

Be glad when your sun comes up tomorrow and make the most of what you're given. Because building those airplanes isn't going to save you.