The Final Post

So this is it.

The end of this blogging journey
Photo courtesy of myself

I am extremely doubtful that I will ever write another blog post after this one, an awareness that's accompanied with a sense of both relief and sorrow. We are nearing the end of this school year, my blog's expiration date.

Where was I when I started my blogging journey? I was admittedly very confused, unsure how I could possibly manage everything that was bound to be thrown at me. I've grown slightly, although I don't feel like much has changed.

I've learned a lot from blogging, as stupid and vaguely cliché as that sounds. Being given an outlet is an amazing feeling. I was able to release stress by writing ridiculous theories about the universe, I was able to distract myself from other things I was worried about, and I was able invest a piece of my mind in one of the first school assignments that has ever truly been fun.

I honestly don't think much has changed since the fall, when I began contributing to this blog. Other than creating some sort of digital journal for my future self, nothing extremely life-changing has come out of this assignment. However, I still feel like it was worth it. I learned from this experience.

Mostly, I learned that it's impossible to escape some things, like the extensive workload you're bound to be given and the bad things you're going to feel. You can manage, though. As people, we forget how tough we are. It's not like the video games, because in reality you only get one life and most people still live an average of 78 years. There are moments when things feel really bad and that's okay. I know that's okay.

I'm not going to tell you that you can do anything or some bullshit like that because I'm not a motivational speaker. It's just that, this year, I've found out that hard things are possible. Maybe I'm bound to fail the AP test this upcoming Friday and, yeah, I've bombed lots of assignments this year. But all these terribly stressful difficulties are things that I've accomplished. I survived my first year in high school! Look at me go.

So where am I today? Still confused, that's for sure. I still have no clue what I'm doing and maybe I never will know, but I've decided that nobody really does. It's okay to feel lost because we are living in a world full of people who feel the exact same way. We're all stumbling around blindly, searching for places where we feel okay. I think people are like puzzles – yes, in the way that we're all looking for ways to put each other together, but in a different way, too. I think we hand out puzzle-pieces of ourselves like flyers on the sidewalk corner. Me? I've given a piece of myself to my friends, to my family. To dance, art, writing, photography, reading, music, movies…things I love. Things I can't lose.

Now, the human mind is a complicated thing. I'm never going to know all the secrets of the universe, but I know this: everyone's trying to find something to root themselves in. Perhaps a religion, a band, someone to love. People want to feel safe. And everyone needs somewhere where they can be whoever they want to be, free of fear or discomfort. Maybe a group of friends, a church, a social media site.

Or maybe a blog.

A/N: Thank you to anyone who has actually been reading my blog (my friends, mostly). People who have left compliments – especially the few that stopped me in the hall to tell me they loved my writing when I didn't even realize they knew about it. This was a cool journey. Thanks for sharing it with me.
Also, I'm allowed to be sappy and superficial and fake-deep because this was an entire school-year of my life and I feel bizarrely attached to it. Thank you. This is the end.

The Curse Of The Tuesday

A/N: The amount that I wanted to swear in this post was sort of unbelievable. But I refrained myself, so don't worry.

I think everyone should know that Tuesdays are the absolute worst day of the week.

There are ignorant, social-norm-conforming people who would argue that Mondays are much worse, but these people are very incorrect. You see, Tuesdays suck. At least on Monday it's the first day of the week, so you can have a little bit of the mindset, "Woo hoo! A fresh new week!" On Tuesday, you're stuck in the terrible in-between that's much too far from the weekend and not early enough to be inspiring.

At the beginning of this school year, someone cursed my Tuesdays. This sounds ridiculous (frankly it is ridiculous) but it happened. I can't reveal too much information in fear of exposing this person, so I'm not going to tell the story. But know this: it was not a good day. It was humiliating and awful and ended with mutual hatred toward this person. The conflict lasted a week, and by the end my Tuesdays had been officially cursed.

Everything about Tuesdays is bad now. Let me give you an example:

Yesterday (a Tuesday), I went to open my lunch box for food, right? And my yogurt had exploded everywhere, leaving a pool of strawberry gunk at the bottom of my lunch box. Now, normally I would start laughing hideously and probably make a gigantic joke about it. This is not what happened. I guess I wasn't really having a good day or something so when I unzipped my lunch box, I burst into tears.

I sat there crying for a solid ten minutes as my friends watched me, most likely stifling laughter. Aside from a small yogurt-soaked ziplock of popcorn I'd managed to fish out from the top of my bag, the rest of my lunch was ruined. It wasn't a big deal but I cried about it, for some reason. I have no shame in admitting it, either.

Anyway, it has been an ongoing joke between me and my friends: The Curse Of The Tuesday.

The Space Shuttle Challenger before it exploded,
killing 7 crew members (on a Tuesday)
Image Credit Here

I did some research, and I'm not entirely sure that this is a curse on me specifically. I decided that all Tuesdays are just bad. Possibly for everyone, these are simply awful days.

The September 11 attacks, for example, occurred on a Tuesday. There were nearly 3,000 casualties. Or, in 1986, the space shuttle Challenger broke apart a minute after takeoff, and this happened on a Tuesday. The stock market crash of 1929 was given the name "Black Tuesday." Elvis Presley died on a Tuesday, which most likely sucked for all the people who liked Elvis Presley. The Columbine shootings in Colorado also occurred on a Tuesday, where two high schoolers killed thirteen people.

I think The Curse Of The Tuesday is a universal thing. Nobody likes Tuesdays. And if you're one of the few people who wake up full of joy on the second day of the week then good for you, you little optimist. But I hope this knowledge has somewhat informed you.

Next time Tuesday roles around, consider this. And, hopefully, Tuesdays aren't as awful for you as they are for the rest of us.

Time Doesn't Exist

I feel like this should be common knowledge, so if this blows your mind a little bit then sorry about that.

Time is a concept that humans invented to organize themselves. Every day, our planet is moving. The Earth is spinning while simultaneously rotating magically around the sun. Now, I did some research on this, and there is no specific person who ever invented time. I suppose, long long ago, someone with a hairy face and clothes made out of animal skin pointed at a stick and said, "George, once this stick's shadow touches this rock, I want you to come over to my cave." Eventually everyone just subconsciously created "time" as a way to understand the universe's cycle of events.

There's a bunch of movies about people who can "stop time," which is super ridiculous when you think about it. If someone were to pause time, as if it's a physical thing, nothing would happen. The Earth would still move and the wind would still blow and everyone would carry on as if nothing is different. Nothing would be different.

If people stopped measuring time, however, we'd have a huge issue. Clocks would disappear from walls and watches and phones. Everyone would do everything with leisure. No deadlines, no stress, no organization. The Earth would spin and spin and spin and no one would care. People would probably celebrate Christmas on different days, if it even existed. There would be no way to log significant events in your life. Everything would just blend together.

There's also this haunting feeling that "time" did exist. Like, maybe up until 2012 (the end of the world) there was a giant clock in outer space somewhere that was counting something down. Maybe on the 21st of December, we all got stuck in time. Maybe it's still technically December of 2012 and we've all just continued along our lives ignorantly.

I think it's important that people understand this abstraction: time does not exist. Clocks exist, yes, but clocks are a human invention. The world is moving, but time is not.

Another unnecessary picture I've added simply because it's required
Image Credit

How Long Have You Actually Been Alive?

Please Note: Whether or not you believe in God, I'm going to pretend that there is a figure in charge of us up there (I'm not sure where "up there" is, but just go with it). In this post I will be referring to this figure as "The Person In Charge."

Technically, I am fifteen years old. Technically, I have been on Earth since August of 2000 and technically, my existence has gone on for a long while. I've experienced many things in my years and I remember a fair portion of those objectives. But the things I remember…what if they're just memories?

There's a theory that you've only existed for a few seconds. Possibly less.

Assume that The Person In Charge just put you here three minutes ago. You've been on the planet for precisely three minutes and haven't existed any longer than that. When The Person In Charge brought you here, you were given memories. 

You were given vague commemorations of your childhood, the years you spent growing up, and that one time you tripped walking up the stairs at school. Some things are emphasized more than others. There are parts of your life that you don't recall at all. The Person In Charge made it this way.

You were given memories of a life you actually haven't lived. You were given memories so explicit and beautiful that they feel real. Everything feels practical enough that you begin to live your life as if it started a long time ago; you begin to live your life as if you weren't just created.

This would mean that you haven't actually experienced anything before this moment. All the things you think you've done are simply memories you were given. Congratulations, you just took your first breath.

The View From Our Hotel In Seattle

My dad told me about this theory in Seattle, Washington. We were visiting colleges for my brother and staying at some random hotel near the University of WA. My dad wanted to see the movie The Martian (which was a really good movie, by the way) and the only showtimes were later at night. My family and I were sitting down in the restaurant aspect of our hotel, sipping ice water from those black straws that hotels have, while we waited.

I don't exactly remember how, but we started talking about all these crazy theories. This was one of them. After my dad explained it, I felt extremely uncomfortable throughout the remainder of the night.

We discussed other possibilities about the existence of humanity, which I will be posting about later during the evolution of my blog. If you're looking to read about any more of my theories, click here.

This is one that made my head spin. Sure, you may think you've been reading this blogpost for a few minutes, but maybe you haven't. It's possible that you were put on Earth a millisecond ago. So, that being said, welcome to the planet.