Leaping to a Thousand Fires

Recently, I've been struggling to keep up with things. There always seems to be something else that needs doing, more work I haven't finished yet. I have a list of 5 books that I need to read, two of them are library books, one is for class and another is my best friend's. In fact, the only book I own is the one I'm reading right now and really don't need to be putting first: The Diviners. But alas! I have practically no time to read! When I'm not at rehearsal (which is just sitting around being bored, really, but I need to be there) I have homework, and when I'm done with that I need to clean up the mess that continues to pile up, and after that I need to catch up on the sleep I'm missing.

The problem here, of course, is that what I'm doing is trying to stay on top of things. I'm putting out fires. I'm getting assignments done the night before they're due and I'm only managing to clear enough stuff out of my room so that I can see my floor. There's a constant queue of things ahead of me on my to-do list and I feel like I'm always forgetting yet another thing that should be on that list. Sometimes, I do forget. Within the past one and a half weeks, I've had my dad come to pick me up twice, only to drive straight back home because I forgot to tell him I wasn't going somewhere. It's those kinds of little things that just keep slipping through my grasp, and it's frustrating, because I feel bad (because it's affecting other people and/or it's not being done) and because I'm scared that one of these days, what I forget about will be something huge and devastatingly major. And especially this year, I can't afford for anything like that to happen.

Speaking of which, that's my other problem. In being consumed by the mundane, immediate things, I don't have any energy or time left for bigger things, like keeping track of scholarship deadlines and university application dates. This year I need to be thinking about my future, but how can I do that when all I'm able to do is face one week at a time? I can't build a bridge while putting out fires.

In a rare bout of screw-everything-I-need-time-to-not-do-anything recently, I watched Moulin Rouge! and LOVED it. It's fantastically done all around, but I must say this was my absolute favourite part:

The arrangement is perfect, the singing is awesome, the acting is heartbreaking, and the staging is spectacular. As the movie's climax, it's many people's favourite. It just blows my mind. And Jacek Koman's powerful, gravelly voice is wonderful and really perfect in this. It could never have been as good without his singing. Plus Ewan McGregor is a babe. But everyone already knew that.

I'm thinking of putting music at the end of my posts more often. It's fun. This one is a video because it's equally stunning visually as it is in terms of music.

Lullaby For An Anxious Child

It would seem that today is an anxious day. I get these every once in a while. They're days where everything seems doomed and I question everything: My situation, my achievements, my life goals, the way I look. Usually I manage to lie to myself enough to mask those doubts (Oh yeah, sure, going into theatre is a great plan! You can do it! Leaving this really long project to a week before it's due is fiiine. No, you're not overloading yourself with work, you have GREAT work ethic, you can do it all. Oh no, you can totally go to school with barely any makeup, your skin doesn't look that bad. It's just because you haven't found the right guy, they're all immature douchebags anyway...), but on days like this, it just seems like the world is going to come crashing down around me. Because, I might as well face it, I'm graduating, and when I graduate, the world pretty much is going to come crashing down. I'll be responsible for my own future, even though I don't even want to face it and it terrifies me. I'll have to fend for my own in life, and nobody's really going to be right there to care about me or for me. The people who will care will have enough of their own problems to deal with. I really do hope I can go to Vancouver with Tee next school year, but she's going to have her own issues to deal with when we're there.

And good God! It's October! There's so much that needs doing! I have a big project due on the 10th that's about exactly this, actually, except I have to pretend that I know how my future is going to fall into place. I have to work on my Halloween costume and there's only a month and a half before the opening night of the Secret in the Wings. Scholarship applications are due, and some Universities are already saying you need to apply! I need to get forms signed by my boss. I have to deal with obliterating a crush I have on a friend I barely see anymore.

And then there's Em, my best friend, with a shining future ahead of her! She knows exactly where she wants to go, and she will go there, because she's ridiculously good and dedicated to her schoolwork and because she can go there with a speed skating scholarship, or at least speed skate at the same time. She's taking a bajillion courses, is reading Mein Kampf for crying out loud, trains something like twice a day and somehow still has a functioning social life. And here I am, Lazy McSlothPants, who can barely talk to strangers, especially male ones, who has no idea how she's ever going to make it in the world. And somehow we're friends.

My other two best friends might not be as ridiculously hard-working as Em. But Tee knows that she wants to go into filmmaking, the side of it that actually pays and has some job stability, and she knows what school she wants to go to. She's really studious and gets stuff done. (I know you're reading this. It's true. As far as I know, you also don't have ridiculous crushes on boys who don't look at you twice.) And Kendra is going into psychology. And I know she'll make it, because she somehow always does.

Somehow I've already let myself slack off again. At the beginning of the year I was extremely gung-ho and determined not to let anything come in the way of doing the best I can. Somehow that focus has shifted again. But it's my last chance, and I need to get myself back on track. So you might see some more evidence of me trying to do that from now on.

Long-term, I'm seriously considering dropping out of grad council. I won't have time to help out with the events they're responsible for and my biggest incentive for staying is that it might look good on applications for University or for scholarships. But it's really not all that important and I need to focus on other things. I also need to think about going on a sort-of hiatus from tumblr for a while, or at least put some strict limitations on how much I use it. I'll miss it like crazy, but it's too much of a distraction and I'll still be using it a little. I've also thought about quitting Orchestra, but I just can't face that.

This week, I need to spend my free time doing any homework I have (prioritized by how soon it's due) and when I'm done that, work on my big project and/or apply to scholarships. When I'm satisfyingly done those things, I have to clean up my room, most specifically my clothes. And when I've done all those things, I can spend my time reading, blogging or doing something active. I can only spend 15 minutes at a time on tumblr, with a total of an hour a day. The exception to these restrictions is when there's a new episode of specific shows on (Castle, Downton Abbey, Once Upon A Time... That's it. I was going to say Doctor Who but that's over, waaaaahhhh).

Storytime: The Six Swans

Because of theatre, I've had a lot of occasion to think about or look up fairy tales recently. Specifically Grimm ones, which makes me happy for the sake of my heritage and childhood. Best part is, contrary to Disney-popular-belief-control, fairy tales are not all happiness and rainbows. In fact, their original versions are usually really gruesome. Why is this the best part, you ask? Because it's awesome. Culture is awesome. Folklore is awesome. Innocent people being almost put to death, then rescued and replaced with the evil culprit is awesome. And let's just admit it, a bit of blood and gore is super awesome. It's like a horror movie, minus the movie.

Because of this, I've decided that I would like to occasionally put up a post about fairy tales. There are a LOT of tales most people have never even heard of, and I think it would be really cool to retell some of those. Of course, they're really accessible anyway, you just have to Google them, but I figured it could be fun anyway. At least, or especially, for me. So! We begin with the story of the six swans, since I recently researched that one a bit for company.

There was a king who went hunting in the forest. He was really excited about hunting a boar, so he rode ahead of everybody and nobody could keep up. After a while of riding after this boar all alone, he got lost (it was a giant forest and he was alone, so this makes sense. They didn't have GPS back then). He happened to meet an old creepy woman, who of course was actually a witch. She promised to lead him out of the wood, but only if he married her daughter. Her daughter was beautiful but she gave the king the creeps. Cause, you know, she WAS a witch's daughter. And she was evil.

So the king brought his new queen to his castle, but he was scared that she'd somehow hurt his children (he'd already been married once). So he hid them in a castle in the woods somewhere, but it was really difficult to find it, so the king got a magical ball of yarn that showed him the way when he strung it out (again, no GPS). But after a while his wife got suspicious of the fact that the king was spending so much time in the woods (this is reasonable; if your husband spends most of his day, every day, wandering in the woods, you should probably be a little concerned). So she bribed his servants and they told her about the children and the ball of yarn. So she found out where the ball of yarn was, and she made little shirts with charms sewn into them. When the king went hunting one day, she followed the yarn to the children's castle. Thinking it was their father, the six sons raced down to meet her, but when they came up to her, she threw the shirts on them and turned them into swans. (Ok, transforming your stepchildren: not so reasonable.)

When the king came by the next day, only his single daughter remained. He didn't think it was his wife that had cursed his sons, and he didn't want to lose his daughter, too, so he wanted to take her back home with him. But she was scared of her stepmother and asked to stay one more night. Her dad agreed and she ran away in the night. Into the forest. Because when you're scared and alone in the dark, the forest is exactly the kind of place you want to be.

She walked all night and all day without stopping, trying to find her brothers. At the end of the day, she was super tired (duh) and hid in a robber's hut (again, the safest possible place to be). Right before sunset, six swans landed in the robber's hut, blew on each other and turned into boys. Of course it was her brothers, because how many groups of six swan-man hybrids could there be fluttering around this forest? Everybody was glad to see each other, but the boys told her that they could only be human for about 15 minutes each night. They also told her that if she wanted to break the curse, she wouldn't be allowed to speak for six years and she had to make each of them a shirt of starwort. (I will never understand how cursed characters always know the key to lifting their curse. Is there an instruction manual for being transformed by your evil stepmother? Lifting Powerful Curses for Dummies? So You've Been Turned Into A Bird, 1165 Edition?)

The daughter decided to break the curse, or die trying (there's no half-assing anything in Fairytale-land). She sat down by a tree and began making shirts (starwort is a very small flower. Don't ask me how you would go about making shirts out of it). The king of another country found her there, and brought her to his castle. He liked her, so they got married. But his mother didn't like her. After a year, when the young queen had her first child, the king's mother took the baby and put blood on the queen's mouth, then declared her to be a cannibal to the king. The queen couldn't say a word in her defense, but the king wouldn't believe his wife could do such a thing (awe, true love). The mother did this with all three children the queen had, and after the third son had been "eaten", the king had no choice but to have his wife burned (this is why we now have marriage counseling. Although, I guess even that won't help if you can't speak).

The day the queen was to burn happened to be the last day of her six years of silence, so she brought the shirts she'd made along to the stake. They were all done, except the last one, which had no left sleeve. Right before the fire was lit, her swan-brothers came flying by and she threw the shirts on them. The youngest brother still had one swan-wing for an arm, but we don't find out what happens to him. He just has a swan arm. Everybody hugged, and the queen went up to her husband and declared her innocence. The kids they'd had together were brought to them (from the evil mother's Dingy Storage Room Of Children, I guess) and they burned his mom at the stake instead of the queen.

And the King and Queen and her brothers lived happily till the end of their years. We're not sure about the youngest one, though. I imagine he wasn't quite as happy as everyone else.

On a related note, something exciting is happening! I might very possibly be playing the daughter from this story in our play. If not, I'll be playing the king's evil mother. So that's fun!
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What does a student of Literature look like?

Well, they wear knee socks, pleated skirts or ironed trousers, crisp, clean shirts and Tommy Hilfiger sweaters. If wanting to accessorize, they can only wear ties.

No, wait… that’s not right. That just calls to mind an extremely conservative boarding-school student whose father plays golf. That is not the kind of student that you’d want in your lit class. I mean, I’ve had 5 classes so far and half our time has been spent considering existentialism and human nature. That might frighten the tweed-jacketed sheep.

In all seriousness, that’s not even what the question is asking. And if you’re wondering, I was asked this question. We had to answer it on our first or second day of Lit, along with other questions. (What is literature? How/Why does literature appear? What is “good” literature? What value does literature have? If these pique your interest, have at it in the comments!) To answer this question, I tried to draw on my own strengths, interests and ~ideals and also on what it was that made me interested in taking literature and what I think will help me in my studies.

So what was my answer? Well, for one, it was kind of long. But at the same time, I listed my criteria and didn’t really elaborate or explain. So that’s what I shall do now.

A student of literature wants to read. This seems pretty self-explanatory, but it goes deeper than just that. Wanting to read includes learning about reading. This is not to say grade 12 students headed out into the world need to be taught how to read, Heaven forbid. What I mean is that lit students should want to be informed about all the books worth reading that they can get their hands and time (let’s face it, that’s the biggest hurdle) on. There are so many good books and stories and poems and movies out there! Really, if you’re interested in literature, you should want to consume and learn more about as many of these as possible. Learning about reading also means learning about how to read better, notice more things, draw connections, recognize symbolism and references. Every now and then, when reading the work of a really good writer, I go “holy crap, there’s so much here! Every sentence, every word, is infused with meaning!” Analyzing writing and noticing ideas is essential to studying literature, so obviously a lit student has to be interested and open to it.

In a classroom, a lit student has to be open to and curious about ideas and opinions. You'll never learn very much if you don't engage in discussion with others and are willing to consider their ideas, point of view, and perspective.

Also, everybody has those books or parts of literature that they're not interested in. But you know what? They're important, too. Because while you're not paying attention, there may be an important concept that is important later, like in other books or works. And who knows? Maybe you'll find something interesting in all that boring stuff, after all! Either way, disinterest is not worth slacking off over. If somebody considered it relevant enough to assign, it's probably at least a bit important.

You know what takes a lot of time? Like, A LOT? Reading. SO if you're in this, you have to put time and effort towards it. Don't skip over stuff, don't sparknote books. Well, not instead of reading. Researching books once you've read them, however, can be very helpful.

And the last point I put down was being respectful. That means being respectful towards other people and their opinions, the stories and works you're reading, and the materials you're using. (Most of the time the books you're using aren't yours. Don't break them. My inner bibliophile would cry and possibly punch you. So would your librarian.)

I do think there is other criteria, but this is mine. I'd like to mention that I do have passions beside books, so stay tuned for those things! In fact, I have my first theatre company meeting of the schoolyear tomorrow, so I'll probably be squealing about that. New year, new teacher, new cast, new plays... It should be interesting. There's a lot of variables, but we usually seem to figure things out.