theRunestone's Xanga

blah

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 01:31:55 GMT

I'm making a post so I can keep my entries here until I know what to do with them.

hmmm

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 06:18:50 GMT

So, I think I just started an account on Wordpress.com. I was going to wait a while, but I decided to at least take a look-see at wordpress and I was impressed with the options and the flexibility! Thus I have a new blog at therunestone.wordpress.com. Go figure. Do I have any idea what I'm doing? No. Do I have any readers? No. Do I have anything to say? Maybe.

It's been a while...

Sun, 08 Jun 2008 21:12:36 GMT

According to this, I haven't blogged in over a year. I've tried to keep a blog here and there since high school, but for one reason or another it hasn't worked out. There are only one or two blogs at most that I read fairly regularly, one long-term and one a recent subscription. I guess part of my wariness about blogging is that I know myself. I know that, especially where the internet is concerned, I get addicted very easily, and while away the hours while much more important tasks remain to be done. And I do count socializing with real people a "much more important task."

But here's the rub: I have always wanted to be a writer. And everyone, from Harriet the Spy to Ray Bradbury, says that if you want to write, then you have to write. And I'm on summer break and actually have some free time, so why not?

So this blog is an experiment. I'm not even too sure how much I want to tell other people about this yet (though of course I will, I suppose, eventually). Who care what I think, anyway? I feel that, for now, this is more for me than for anyone else (didn't Freud say that all creative writers are inescapably egotistical? I feel like a lot of thinkers-slash-writers have said something along those lines), and if it works out, then I'll keep going. Maybe eventually even move up to a really decent blog site like Blogger.com or Wordpress.com. Maybe. One thing I should note in particular is that this summer I am preparing to serve a mission, and I'm hoping to leave in the fall. If things work out, then maybe I will be able to keep up some kind of mission blog, by e-mailing a weekly letter to my parents to post for everyone. That would be cool. But we'll see. For now, this is a new start.

I have no idea what I'm doing.

Riktig Kärlek

Fri, 30 Mar 2007 17:34:28 GMT

So for Swedish, in lieu of an essay, I had to write a poem (en dikt) in Swedish. I was just so dang proud of it I thought I'd share it here (just remember all copyrights belong to me). It's called "Riktig Kärlek," which means "Real Love."

Riktig Kärlek

Jag hade en pojke som sade mig så:
"Att sminka sig är inte viktig.
Du har hela skönhet som jag bryr mig på,
Du vet vår kärlek är riktig."
Jag görde hans böning misstroende det,
Och offrade upp till min man min skönhet.

"Jag tycker om sminka och hårsprej och doft,
Jag tycker att du är felaktig
Om jag inte sminkar mig varjedags oft,
Ska du inte tycka mig så snygg."
Jag tvätte mig på ansiktet och håret,
Och väntade omdömet; tog hela året

När han såg på mig med hans öga så klar,
Jag trodde att jag var så ful.
Hans leende sa mig att väcker jag var,
Och sedan vi hade oss kul.
Och därför vill jag inte sminka mig sånt,
Även om görande så gör mig ont.

Here's a translation. Someday I might actually make the translation into a poem. Someday.

Real Love

I had a boy who told me this:
"Makeup isn't important
You have all the beauty that I care about
You know our love is real"
I did what he asked, not believing him
And offered up to my man my beauty.

"I like makeup and hairspray and perfume,
I think you are mistaken.
If I don't wear makeup every day
You won't think I'm pretty."
I washed my face and hair
and waited the judgement, taking all year.

When he looked at me with his eyes so clear,
I thought I was so ugly.
His smile told me that pretty I was
And then we were happy.
And therefore I don't wear so much makeup
Even though it gives me pain.

Yeah. See, it doesn't sound as lame in Swedish, because it rhymes. Someday I'll make it better in English, I promise.

The Isolation of Communication

Fri, 30 Mar 2007 15:18:42 GMT

I have a three-page paper due sometime today, so I should be doing research and/or writing, but I'm doing this instead. Of course.

It's an argument paper, that has to be related to something physical-science-ish. The topic I submitted and was accepted for was the impact of communication technology on society. I'd like to argue, if I can find supporting evidence, that communication technology (e-mail, cell phones, blogs...) isolate people rather than bringing them together. Where would I find sources like that? Psychological studies? Expert opinions?

But think about it. I could be spending time with the people I care about. But instead I'm sitting here at a computer writing about it. I tell friends that I'm so busy, with school and work and other projects, that I can't even come over and say hello. Then instead of doing homework I watch movies or spend hours checking my e-mail. And what for? To "communicate." Wouldn't it be better to see a friend in person and communicate with them face-to-face? Isn't it healthier? At least I would get exercise from the short walk to the next building over. How many times have you seen two people in the same classroom sending text messages to each other, and then completely ignoring each other after the lecture?

I don't know. Sometimes this technology makes things very convenient, but at what cost? I think we have a tendency to get hung up on things that, in the long run, just don't matter.

And so I'm still sitting here writing about it. Go me.

Random thoughts for the day

Wed, 28 Mar 2007 05:37:14 GMT

I am now 20 years old. I feel old, and, at the same time, extremely young. And I still feel like myself. Surprise surprise. It's funny, in the past couple of years I've been liking myself better and better. I know that sounds a tad narcissistic, but hear me out. I like the person that I am. I feel like my first couple years of college have been a time of extreme personality growth, and I'm developing the self-confidence that I wish I had had back in high school.

I had a dream a few days ago that there was a black widow on my backpack, so I couldn't go to class. Freud, eat your heart out. Or maybe not. Maybe it just means I don't feel like going to class anymore, and I'm just fishing for excuses. And then there's a play on my time-old fear of spiders. Seriously, sometimes I wonder about dreams. I know there are books on dream analysis and symbols in dreams and such, and I think all of that is interesting, but really, what do dreams mean? I don't think they are always a reflection of the state of our subconscious or whatever. I read somewhere that our dreams are just reflections of random stuff from the day, our brains "taking out the trash," so to speak (which kind of defeats the purpose when we actually remember what they are). And sometimes I think they are more on the line of visions or premonitions; I believe that is truly possible. Just not always. Maybe my spider dream was a reflection of my recent anxiety because I have been missing more class than I normally do, just to get enough sleep. And I had been thinking about black widows earlier (and this is randomly long and involved), because I had been talking to my brother about the family reunion we had last May, and and how the cabins we rented hadn't even been spring-cleaned yet. His was all covered in mouse scat (which is what we think made us all sick, by the way). Well the cabin my parents rented, which I stayed in, had black widows everywhere, and it had really creeped me out. So I think some of that conversation and that memory carried over into my dream. But I'm no psychoanalyst. Dreams are weird.

I have had this song stuck in my head for the past couple of days, from Man of la Mancha (the musical version of Don Quixote), "Impossible Dream." It was on this Mormon Tabernacle Choir cd my family sent me for my birthday, "Best of Broadway and Hollywood," or something like that. For some reason, because I am a dork, it made me cry yesterday. And I've been singing it to myself ever since. Anyways, here are the words:

To dream the impossible dream

To fight the unbeatable foe

To bear with unbearable sorrow

To run where the brave dare not go

To right the unrightable wrong

To love pure and chaste from afar

To try when your arms are too weary

To reach the unreachable star

This is my quest, to follow that star

No matter how hopeless,

No matter how far

To fight for the right

Without question or pause

To be willing to march into hell

For a heavenly cause

And I know if I'll only be true

To this glorious quest

That my heart will lie peaceful and calm

When I'm laid to my rest

And the world would be better for this

That one man scorned and covered with scars

Still strove with his last ounce of courage

To reach the unreachable stars

I think it is important to have a little idealism in our lives. I know that the story of Don Quixote is about a man who reads too many romance novels about knights and chivalry and they go to his head, and so maybe it is satirizing this idealism in some ways. Maybe he was just crazy. But I think that one possible reading is that Quixote knew that the things he was doing were crazy, but he preferred to see the world for what it could be, and try to mold himself into a better man for it. What's so wrong with reaching for the stars? Even if you come up short, you'll still be higher than you were before.

Random bit of trivia: Though this song was originally part of the broadway show, Elvis Presley also sang it. I don't know when, and I don't know why, but I'm thinking I should try and find a recording sometime.

Giving Blogs a Try

Sat, 24 Mar 2007 03:11:38 GMT

Well, I'm still not so sure about this whole blog thing, but my friend Ben (topofthemountains.net) suggested that I should try it. After all, I like writing just as much as he does, even if I don't necessarily make the time to do it (slap on the wrist). But I have been thinking lately about the things that I make time to do, and really, I could do without some of my classic timewasters. I don't think that writing is a timewaster, not if you're writing something that accomplishes something, be that what it may. I generally prefer writing on paper, but for some sick reason I do enjoy the act of typing, and it would be nice to have other people read things that I write (though, who will read this? I think that's a valid question seeing as I've never really been a member of a blogging community, despite my halfhearted Xanga the summer before freshman year of college). I don't know. I guess I'll see what happens. As long as I don't forget to write in my actual journal.

I also think it is appropriate that tomorrow is my twentieth birthday, which means that in two hours I will no longer be a teenager. No offense to those who have already crossed this threshold, but it is bizarre to think about. I am excited to embark on yet adventures of adulthood (especially when I look at my pile of parcels in the corner from friends and amazon.com a.k.a. my family that I will get to open tomorrow), but also scared to leave childhood even farther (further?) behind. At the same time, I realize that at the strike of midnight nothing will change except one of the aspects that I use to define myself. Not even I will change that much; change happens over a long stretch of time. Turning twenty is just a mile marker on a trail that only gradually climbs a mountain (let's pretend at Point Reyes, since I like hiking there when I'm in California), the same trail I have been climbing for years. The trail looks the same in both directions in the immediate vicinity, but it reminds me that I am covering ground. Anyways, my point with all of this is that it puts me in a bit of a liminal place (to be a stuffy English major for a moment), between teenagerdom and the great beyond, which means (to be slightly anticlimatic) that it is an appropriate time to try something new. So that is why I am going to take Ben's advice.

After being all long and involved, for starters, here's a response I wrote yesterday to one of Ben's blog entries, which incidentally was longer than the entry itself (tee hee, sorry Ben). He was asking where the magic in literature had gone. Enjoy.

I think I know what you mean. I got tired of reading all of those coming-of-age novels in high school. It was like, “Okay, I’m a teenager, I know I have angst, do you think all of this depressing stuff is going to help me deal with it?”
Though I did like Catcher in the Rye. And Bless Me Ultima.
(I’m not sure where I’m going with this, by the way)
A cool thing about Bless Me Ultima, actually, is that it’s part of that quasi-genre, “magical fiction.” Which I like, because it’s real people, on earth, in normal time, but there are events that just can’t be explained away by reason. And I think life naturally has that element, but just isn’t given credit in much of today’s depressing fiction.
And another note about depressing fiction: many times, the people just aren’t likeable! Maybe some authors have lost the skill for creating real, sympathetic characters. So these people they create are real, but not real enough, and we as readers are faintly disgusted with them, and thus the overall story. Could that have something to do with it?
So fantasy. There are many things we could say about fantasy: that it’s symbolism for the human subconscious (in a mythological sense), that it’s a way to show that humans are humans no matter what planet you put them on, or that it’s escapist “trash” (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing). And, depending on which fantasy book you read, it could fit under one or more of these categories, or some that I haven’t mentioned. Much of it, like Lord of the Rings, appeals to an older, better, more idealic time. We are reminded of nobility and chivalry and spirituality, a time when a person’s words and actions really meant something, when deeds of valor were possible, when magic permeated every object and creature, and people were more “real” and “human” than our present materialistic “pastepudding norm” (to quote Ray Bradbury) world. Maybe that is why we find fantasy so appealing.