More Uncertainties Then Certainties

I sit in a soft chair, eyes closed, time ticking away. My glasses lay on the desk upside down like I always place them. I open my eyes and look around. The soft green walls grab the black and white photos that I took and framed of different people, different places, different times. As I look around a little more a bookshelf over takes a whole wall from top to bottom filled with books and trinkets. The shelves separate the books I already read and the ones I intend to read at some point. On the corner of the farthest shelf sits a picture of me high a top of a mountain, my back to the camera. The pictures from when I studied abroad in Europe. I remember the day clearly, it took the better part of half the day to get to the top of the mountain and it took everyone in my group yelling at me for me to actually pull myself away from the mountain to take the journey back down. Dangling from a few shelves hang metals in the shape of Viking helmets all from the Warrior Dashes I participated in. It started my senior year of high school all four of us, my sisters and myself, running in the Warrior Dash and it stopped when Ash started her family. We all got too busy.  I look back to my desk and smile at the picture of me and my sisters from Sami's wedding day. She looks beautiful in her white dress and Ashley and Jess look stunning as well. I stand out a little though with my dress uniform. Sami asked me to wear it that day. She never did tell me exactly why, but I wore it all the same. Next to that pictures sits another picture this one from Jess’s wedding day. Like I told her, I would wear what ever she wanted me to that day and true to form all of us stand in matching dress with Jess standing out in her white dress. A small soft knock comes to my door as it creaks a little as it opens. “Hay babe its time to go.” I take one more look around, hop up from my chair and head off leaving the past locked in a room where it mixes with the present in hope to make me.

           

            If I close my eyes though I cannot tell you if the paper work on the desk belongs to a writer or a doctor. I cannot tell you if the window in the office over looks a city or a countryside field. I cannot tell you if the knock on the door came from a girl friend or a wife. I cannot tell you if a child cries from the room next door or just music. I can tell you though that in the closet sits an old uniform from some branch of the armed force, because at one time I saw it my duty as a citizen to serve. I can tell you that I still talk to my sisters and although we all grew older we do not grow apart. I can tell you I still love the outdoors just about as much as I love photography. I can also tell you I am happy.

            In the past two or so years I experienced so much change in myself that it changed my whole point of view of my future. If you asked me freshmen year this same question I would say “I would like to find a job as a youth pastor and of course I will get married to some gentleman.” Sophomore year, “I want to join the military I still want to eventually hold a job as a youth pastor and yes one day I will eventually marry some gentleman.” Junior year, “I want to join the military they will help me pay for medical school so I can eventually hold a job as a trauma surgeon. I will find a nice woman to settle down with.” This year I hold no for sure answer to any of those questions. What I do know right now? In the fall I will attend Simmons College in Boston, Massachusetts. I am lucky enough to live in a loving family now and forever. I am also lucky in that I found a girl that wants to date me but can also put up with me. We only think about a month in advance. I hold more questions about my future then I do answers. I know very few things and for right now I am ok with that. I think I finally understand that I do not need to provide all the answers right now. Like everything, the answers will all come in due time. Until then I will just close my eyes and think of the office with bookshelves lining one wall and lots of black and white photographs to remind me of where I came from.  

The Rise of Matilda

I am that person. I am the one whose favorite moments always appear as the most awkward ones. My favorite stories to tell always seem like the ones that at the time, felt incredibly embarrassing or devastating. Like all the rest, my favorite moment from AP English, at the time, felt like the worst moment of my life. Lets start though at the beginning. I rush to English….again. The mantra, Get there on time get there on time runs through my head over and over. Footstep after footstep matches the ticking down of the clock. The clock, though, wins like every single day. Ding ding it rings and I am still in the hallway. Great just great I’m late again. I rush through the door and hurry to an open seat. My backpack drops from my shoulder, floating like a ton of bricks towards the floor. I almost do not hear the sound. Blink, a tin water bottle hits the floor. As I look down horror fills my eyes. My completely full water bottle, which at one time sat closed in the side of my backpack, now spills its contents on the floor. Water flows out like Niagara Falls. That moment horrified me at the time. As I rushed trying to clean it up I feared for my life. I mean, I feared Ms. Serensky more then someone with a gun to my head. I stood a mere five foot four and although Ms. Serensky stands a few inches shorter, her use of words and incredible intelligence scared me more then anything ever before. Until that day my knees shook every single time I walked in that room. The discussion after class that day changed it all. Instead of some angry, scary response Ms. Serensky meet me with compassion and understanding. I never thought she would meet me with complete disdain, I just thought the upset of balance in Ms Serensky’s world would ultimately cause fire to rain down on mine. Like most other times though I saw my mind over exaggerating the truth of what came next. That day started me thinking of Ms Serensky as a human. That day I stopped looking at her like some scary person who held a Nerf gun behind her desk (used to shoot me if I said something stupid). Instead I now just see Ms. Serensky. Oh and I received my nickname that day, Matilda.

The Two Sides of Blake

You May know me as Blake
Or Blank deppending on who you talk to
Either name I'm sure you understand
I'm that man
The family man
You know and love
But hey I'm human
And I have my dark days
Especially when people ask me
To ring out sourcrout
I know it may seem simple
But its disgusting
Every time I work cashier
I count up the time till I leave here
Or rather there
The idiocracy of people
Never ceases to amaze me
One day though
One day I'll breakout of here
And I'll never
Ever need to ring up
Sourcrout again
Or hand a bomb of corn mush

To me Blake seems like an incredibly nice guy. He gives me nice compliments and crakes jokes. He even laughs at my not so funny jokes. I will never forget the day he told our Ap English class "I'm a family man". That's probably one of the few quotes i still remember,maybe even my favorite. What I never expect though, the disgruntal Blake. To me he always holds a smile on his face. I found myself proven wrong when he speaks in regeards to his work. Blake never seems excited or happy about his job. I can almost imagining him there lacking that smile with a disturbed, bored and frustrated look on his face. As people come through the line he gives the the normal pleasantries, but then proceeds to think about all the homework he must do. I think this poem reflects the first and second side of Blake. The first, the funny, calm and smiley Blake. The second, the frustrated, angry Blake who cannot stand Sourcrot or corn mush.

The Dark Side of What If

What if Tyler Clementi never felt the need to jump from the Gorge Washington Bridge? What if Jamey Rodemeyer never committed suicide? What if Brandon Tina had never been raped and then murdered?
What if holds the ability to transport someone to a whimsical world. What if I could fly? What if my hair grew blue? What if everyone posses two left feet? It also holds an incredible amount of reality (not reality television though). A pessimistic person like myself more often then not focuses on that side of What if….. Like what if I slip and that knife cuts me? What if the person behind me decides to jump me? What if that car pulls out in front of me? Now it may seem paranoid, but I think things like this quite often. To me these thoughts keep me aware and ready to react to situations that could occur. One what if that I can not get over, one I can never seem to put in the back of my mind, what if our society stays this way? By this way I mean homophobic. I know, I know “Dani again with the gay topic”. (YES, SUCK IT BUTTER CUP). Yes, again with the gay topic and I hope by the end of this you will understand why. I started this blog with a paragraph about the suicide or murder of three different people. They all hold a few things in common, society would consider all of them young adults, all of them lay six feet under, and all of them identified within the LGBT spectrum (for those not so well versed that is Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender). If you cannot handle talk of death or inhuman situation, stop reading this post now. I refuse to water down what happened to all three of these human beings. They all experienced intolerance, homophobia, and ultimately death. Tyler Clementi jumped off of the George Washington Bridge after his roommate made his love life viral. His roommate Ravi set up a webcam in order to spy on Tyler as he was kissing another man. Ravi also tweeted and Facebooked about his disdain towards his roommate’s sexuality. After this Tyler Clementi jumped from the George Washington Brige killing him self on September 22 2010. Jamey Rodereyer posted a video to the “It Get’s Better” web page, a resource for teenagers in the LGBT community struggling with suicide, encouraging other teenagers that it gets better. Jamey, though, could no longer withstand the taunting he experienced and committed suicide. Brandon Tina identified as transgender. After moving to a new town Brandon began to date a woman by the name of Tisdale. Brandon’s “friends” discovered that Brandon’s inner gender identity did not match his biological sex. Two “friends” of Brandon, Lotter and Nissen, then took it upon themselves “correct” Brandon. They took Brandon to an abandoned area where they brutally raped Brandon multiple times. After Brandon filed a police report, Lotter and Nissen hunted down Brandon and shot him in the head, killing Brandon instantly.

I know I am writing another post about something to do with the LGBT community maybe someone out theere wants me to just shut up about my sexuality already. I won’t shut upm until my sexuality does not prevent me from marriage, or states see it as a suitable reason for me to get fired from a job, or states no longer make laws that allow bullying due to my sexuality. I am one of the lucky ones at school. I never experience bullying for my sexual orientation. I feel no need to hide my sexual orientation from my friends in fear of torment. I am lucky. I worry though, not about me, but about the kid who does experience harassment, who experiences bullying. What if our society, my society, or your society stays just the same? That person, that child, that son/daughter, that sibling’s name will land on the long list of students who died do to their sexual orientation. What if homophobia ceases to exist? Sometimes when I’m bored or about to go to sleep I find myself thinking about this. When I close my eyes I see myself married to a wonderful woman. We hold hands as we walk down the street, no one looks at us disapprovingly, I do not worry about passing as a guy in hopes that she wont experience hatred. I open my eyes though and suicide among the LGBT community still resided as four times higher then those who identify as straight. What if though….? What if…………….?

Cool links
Awesome Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ibVlVzGI9y0#!
Cool Picture/ Poem
http://chotpot.tumblr.com/post/20436491880/people-are-butts-about-gender-sometimes-so-here
Worst Thing I Ever Read
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/one-towns-war-on-gay-teens-20120202
Austral receives Cool points
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TBd-UCwVAY
I like
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrJxqvalFxM&feature=related

The Food Conqueror

Food. Food. Food. When I first saw this topic, I almost self-imploded. My world revolves around food. Maybe this stems from instinct and my ancestor’s survival needs. The need for food at one time stood as the most important and hard to obtain need. Now, though, with supermarkets and drive-thru’s it seems much easer to obtain food. For me though food still stand as the most important thing. I will do practically anything for food. To me, the best type of food? Free food. I will exchange for food, I have mucked stales and helped with friend’s chores in exchange for food. If no money comes out of my pocket for the food to me the food dwells as free. I held a conversation the other day with a friend she said “I still want to go shopping….. drive me?” My response? “Feed me and I will drive you”. It does concern me some, how much my world revolves around food. My mom grows tired of when I come home and ask, “What’s for dinner?” Now do not get me wrong I do not use food to substitute emotions and sometimes I don’t even enjoy it. My older sister, Jess, enjoys teasing me over how quickly I “scarf down” food. Now I thought long and incredibly hard about why I feel such a need for food and two, why I scarf it down so quickly. After many hours of research and an immense amount of flow charts and listening to numerous lectures on the subject (ok so maybe really it only took twenty seconds of thought) I discovered why these two things exist in me. I as a human feel an intense need to concur food. Yes, yes concur food. I do not see a need to concur people or countries (that takes far too much time) I feel the need to concur food. Like a king looking over a bordering country I see food and feel a deep seeded desire for it to rest inside my belly. I though am in no shape or form glutinous with my food. So maybe I feel a need to concur food, maybe in another life I conquered countries. Or maybe in another life I proved for a whole tribe of people and still hold the instinctual need to find and concur food. Or maybe in another life I starved to death and now feel a need to compensate for that in my now life. Or maybe I am just a teenager with far too much time on my hands and spend it over thinking my desire for food. (Really though I think I ruled a country at some point in time or a tribe).

Authors note:
I would like all to know that my parents provide me with a substantial amount of food and I do not have to work for food in my home. Although if I did I am 19 so you could not do anything about it. I only barter with friends.

The Inner Me or The Outer Me? -Abstract

America, land of the free home of the brave. Also home to people who seem all to concerned with there outer appearance and seem not to care a bit about what lies within. I see it all to often in my own life. I watch as girls spend countless time in front of the merrier and guys spend mount of time in the gym. The situation a little strange for some one like me. For a long time the external me did not match the internal. My external self matched what people though of me. The inner me never liked dresses but the outer me wore them. Every one has an inner self and an outer self. Even if the outer self not at much conflict as say Oshima from Kafka on the Shore. I think Oshima describes this conflict perfectly when he states “‘My body is physically female, but my mind’s completely male’”(179). The juxtaposition of male and female symbolizes the disconnect between Oshima’s inner and outer self. I struggled for a long time as why Haruki Murakami would include something as controversial as a transgender man in his novel. I realized though the theme that Murakami brought through out his novel. He pins the inner self and outer self sending them into conflict, because life just like that. Murakami also include Kafka who hold multiple inner self’s. He describes this so eloquently when he states “‘I’m Kafka on the Shore You say. Your lover- and your son. The boy named Crow’”(Murakami 319). Kafka describes him self in this multiple person multiple age and even specie person. The inner self though of Kafka lead to so much more growth then the outer Kafka. I think Murakami does and excellent job at holding up a merrier to society and asking the question what really matters the inside or the outside?

Dani Boucher’s Top 10 Best Book Ideas

Dani Boucher’s Top 10 Best Book Ideas
10. How to Build a Bar
In order for me to write this book I must first learn how to build a car. After this amazing opportunity I am sure I will fall in love with the idea of writing a book about it. Although who knows if I can write an accurate book about building a car.

9. A Biography on Bronwen Durandt
While throwing around the idea of my top ten list during commons Bronwen Duradnt hit me with this extraordinary idea. Everyone must write a biography at some point, and lets all be honest an autobiography of my life? Boring. Bronwen Durandt though, well I don’t know much about her, so who better to write a biography about.

8. How to Wear Hats
If no one has not noticed by now, I wear hats a lot, a whole lot. I wear hats as if the apocalypses of hat wearing will rain down on us tomorrow. I would write on the appropriate way to wear a hat and the appropriate way to care for hats. (Very interesting)

7. Snow Boarding For the Snowboarding Impaired
As an avid snowboarded I must write a book on how to properly snowboard. I would touch mainly on how to properly maintain control of the snowboard while traveling at fast speeds down the mountain. My book would hit stores emerging as a world-renowned book and skiers, instead of snowboarders, would seem disrespectful.

6. How to Not Write a Book
After many attempts at writing a book I will develop into an expert on how not to write a book. Of course the irony of this makes me want to cry. If I write a book on how to not write a book, could I still call myself an expert on the subject?
5. Middle Child Syndrome
19 years of experience seems to me the perfect subject on which to write. Although never truly proved, I am a firm believe that middle child syndrome exists, and plagues our nation. I shall write the book that pulls the curtain back from this horrible hidden epidemic.

4. Stupid Society
Girls wear pink, boys wear blue, oh society how I hate you. Society sets up standards that I do not quite agree with. Whether the thinking that woman must always fall infer to men, or that only boys posses big strong muscles. My book would focus on the stereotypes in our society that restrict and hinder and how to start debunking them.

3.Growing Up Gay
I talk about it enough why not write a book about it. This book could go one of two directions. I would ether direct it at parents in order to help them understand there children who don’t fit into the heterosexual world and how to help them. I could also write it to those who just discovered they identify with the LGBT spectrum in order to encourage them with the knowledge that they’re not alone. That latter of the two would require interviews and other writers involved though it holds potential.

2. How to Raise the Dyslexic
I hear a lot, “We do not know what to do with you.” The phrase almost always comes in relation to my dyslexia and myself. I want to write a book that shows that dyslexia’s can do what ever we set our minds to. Although the concept seems simple, many students use dyslexia as an excuse, and parents allow it. Dyslexia’s not an excuse, and someone must say it.

1. Poems
I just really, really, really, like writing poems. I could put them together to make a book of poems. Not all would connect and most would clash against the one before and the one after, but I would create a book. A book of poems, or pieces of my soul, which ever word I choose to use that day for the writing I do.