Who are you?

That’s the question 14-year-old Sophie Amundsen was confronted with at the beginning of the book that is her namesake: Jostein Gaarder’s Sophie’s World.

Who are you?

That’s the question I was confronted with as I began to read Sophie’s World, the book of my choice to tackle for an English extra credit assignment. I could’ve picked any of twenty or so titles. Sophie’s World was the last book on the list; what I thought was an afterthought slapped onto the end of a list of literary classics. It was in very good company, namely several picks from the likes of Twain, Hemingway, Vonnegut, and a host of Shakespeare plays (which, I should note, were the first items I crossed off my prospective picks).

But I was being fair; I was Googling every book on the list. I’m an equal-opportunity reader! I was pretty sure I’d narrowed my choices to Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey, and Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five. Exasperated from typing Every. Single. Title. into Google, I punched in Sophie’s World just for the heck of it. And from that moment, I was intriuged.Sophie’s World immediately earned a finalist spot on my list of choices.

So I placed holds on my Final Four at the local library. Since I was going to be writing several assignments on the book I chose, I was going to make darn sure I would enjoy it. So I read the first few pages of each. I sampled a bit of Vonnegut, then Huxley and Kesey. I savedSophie’s Worldto try last.

Although all four captivated me (and I plan to read the others at some point in the near future), there was a clear winner: Sophie’s World.

I have always been a sucker for underdogs.

So Sophie’s World it was. I officially began my reading that night in earnest. Being someone with an amateur interest in psychology, I’d figured a foray into philosophy would make for a good read. Turns out I was right. (As usual.)

I found Gaarder’s novel supremely interesting. It’s one of, if not THE, most thought-provoking books I’ve feasted my eyes on. It’s unique in that it blends interspersing lessons in philosophy with the plot. And even that is a philosophy lesson in and of itself.

Sophie’s World is 518 pages long. That might be about 418 pages too long, according to some people. Not so: Gaarder takes readers on a complete history of the science of philosophy, from the Garden of Eden to Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, right through the Renaissance to Descartes and Co., and past the Enlightenment to Kant, Marx, Darwin and Freud all the way up to modern times.

So I’ve embarked on my own little journey. Destination: the Meaning of Life. Seriously, Sophie’s World has opened my eyes to ideas and concepts I didn’t even know existed. It’s a book I know I will come back to, time after time. With a book bold enough to ask you the big questions, like Who are you?, Where does the world come from?, Does fate exist?, Does history have a purpose?, Is the human soul immortal?, Are belief and knowledge compatible?, and Can we prove that our world exists?, how could I not? (Those are all topics I hope to return to in this blog at some point in time.)

But the best part of reading a book like Sophie’s World? Thanks to Jostein Gaarder, I can now bust out big, important-sounding words like existentialism, empiricism, causality, syllogism, syncretism, transcendentalism, neoplatonism and rationalism. I can also throw in names like “Democritus”, “Hellenism”, “Baroque”, “Kierkegaard” and ”Bjerkely”. They’re great conversation starters, you know?

Just sayin’.

I figured that, seeing as it has now been approximately six months since I officially started keeping a journal, now would be an appropriate time to document my (pathetic) attempts at doing so. Besides the fact that I am only about a fifth of the way through my precious Moleskine, the infrequent entries are a testimonial to my lack of motivation (and, perhaps, also reflect on my laziness). I got into the habit of trying to write a page whenever I had a free moment at school. The products of this decision were twofold: one, that there exists very few entries written on weekends, and two, that my journal is now sporting Scotch tape on the edges as a result of exposure to my ruthlessly damaging backpack.

All joking aside, I have found keeping a journal to be somewhat awkward. I started it as a means of getting forcing myself to write more, but it may actually be having the opposite effect. I find that I often become ashamed of myself for not writing in it on a regular basis, and so end up avoiding it so as not to have to face the blank pages. In any case, when I do sit down with it, I invariably struggle with what to write about. “C’mon,” I say to myself, “you’re supposed to be a writer! So why can’t you fill up one page?” I urge myself to write down all of my innermost thoughts and feelings in my little red notebook: after all, isn’t that what a journal is supposed to be for? Inexplicably (or not), this seems to add even more pressure. Much soul-searching has revealed that I do not seem to have any deep, dark secrets that scream, “Write about me!” and beg for my writerly attentions.

I also faced decisions on what kind of writing style to use in my journal. Do I start every entry with “Dear Diary”? Do I write as I would on my beloved blog? Do I “talk” to my journal as if it were my best friend – or my mother? Woe is me.

In the end, I’ve opted for a conversational writing style. In attempts to avoid the seemingly insurmountable writer’s block, I decided to try and write down only the things I know I don’t want to forget; those memories that bring a smile to my disturbingly pale (is it summertime yet?) face. For example, tonight I chose to write down the jokester antics of my dear Dad. And as for tomorrow’s entry? To be honest, I have not the slightest clue what will fill the next blank page.

I am Roman Catholic, and as such, I’m preparing to go through the process of Confirmation: more or less, the coming-of-age ceremony of Catholicism.

 Since I’m taking a relatively big step in my faith, I figured it’d be appropriate to take on an extra challenge for Lent this year. Lent is meant to commemorate Jesus’ 40-day desert trek, so we give up things that are important to us in recognization of Jesus’ sacrifice for us.

Normally, instead of giving anything up, per se, I will vow to do something instead. In the past, I’ve done things like striving to give three compliments every day.

But this year, I decided to up the ante. I am giving up Facebook.

This may not sound like such a big deal, but to me it is. Being shy, I consider Facebook my link to the social world. As such, I tend to utilize as it as a way to hide behind my computer, thus escaping the discomfort of a face-to-face chat with a near stranger.

(As an aside, I also tend to treat Facebook as a procrastination device.)

So by giving up Facebook, I’ve got three main goals in mind:

1. Be more cognizant of the religious significance of my sacrifice. In the past, I’ve primarily viewed the 40 days of Lent as an inconvenience; an extra something I had to worry about. No more (I hope). I want to actually think about why I’m doing this.
2. Stop procrastinating so much. Lately, my time management skills have been rapidly deteriorating, as I am directed to my Facebook home page every time I open the Internet. (Not the wisest choice on my part.) This is definitely something I need to overcome, and the sooner, the better. For the next forty days, my computer will not allow me to load www.facebook.com. And when Easter Sunday rolls around, no more Facebook homepage.
3. Step outside my comfort zone. Without Facebook, I will be without my number-one preferred mode of social contact. And since my cell phone is depressingly devoid of contacts, the inevitability of face-to-face meetings arises. I’m hoping this will encourage me to talk to people more, and overcome my deeply rooted tradition of social unease.

I know, I know: this is all well and fine now, but it’s only a matter of days before the novelty wears off. (I’m hoping I can make it a week, but all bets are off.) And when it does, I’m not quite sure what I’ll do. I’m going extremist – not only can I not access Facebook on my laptop, but I’ve been careful to erase all traces of the instigator from my existence (i.e. no listing in my Favorites Bar, deletion of Facebook application from my beloved iPad).

So I guess for the next 38 days, I’ll just have to hang tough. And who knows, maybe along the way I’ll have some sort of epiphany about society’s dependence on technology and go all Amish.

February 14th: Valentine’s Day, perhaps the most successful Hallmark holiday of them all – a chance to shower your significant other with affection. Flowers, candy, cards with cheesy messages – it’s the stuff of legend.

I thought I would take this opportunity to publicly declare that I am without the aforementioned significant other, just for the benefit of all – and a few in particular, ahem, Dad – as I write this post.

Am I saddened by my single-ness on this day of declarations of love? No, not particularly. I do think having a “better half” would boost my self-esteem, especially knowing that a guy cared enough about me to ask me out, seeing as I would never have the guts to do such a thing myself.  It certainly comes in handy to have someone to be with at school dances, too.

But honestly, I really don’t see the point of a lot of these petty high school relationships. Don’t get me wrong, I know several people who have found their soul mates, so to speak, as high school sweethearts. But I do tend to question the authenticity of the phenomenon known as the high school relationship.

I mean, hardly any of these relationships are forged by actual love – there are, of course, exceptions to every rule – but some of the so-called relationships are merely to spite others or cause drama. Just look at the length of some of these – I’ve heard of a “couple” who got together during previews for a movie and were separated by the time the credits rolled!

It’s just that I was always under the assumption that age, and with it, maturity, was one of the key components to falling in love – real, true, genuine love.  And maybe I’m wrong – it should be noted that I have absolutely no experience in that area – and I very well could be.  I guess the Cupid’s arrow of the high school relationship hasn’t gotten me yet.

This week, something happened that changed my life, changed the way I think about things. It’s safe to say that the same could be said about 600 other people.

On Wednesday, a classmate of mine took her own life.

I never knew her, and I regret that. I will forever regret that. Those that did know M. described her as beautiful. Intelligent. Friendly. And based on everything I’ve heard about M., I’d have to agree with every one of those sentiments.

We all wonder what happened. What went so horribly wrong that she felt the need to take such a drastic action. She seemed to have everything going for her: she was beyond pretty, in honors classes, she had plenty of good friends and a boyfriend who loved her, and always had a smile on her face.

Some say she was bullied. Some say she wasn’t. Some say her parents were getting a divorce. Some say she was faking the smile. Some say she was just fed up with life.

Truth be told, it doesn’t really matter why. What does matter is what has come out of it.

From the moment our principal made the announcement over the PA system on a seemingly normal Wednesday morning, things just weren’t the same. My first-period World Studies teacher was at a loss for words: how could he start class as usual after something like that? In the hallway, shoulders drooped, the normal shouts and whoops suddenly disappeared, faces were blotchy and tissues were clutched. A grief support group materialized in the media center, teachers cried in class. Smiles and laughter at lunch seemed halfhearted and inappropriate to me. Murmurs spread: “Did you know her?” and “Why’d she do it?” morphed into “Are you okay?” and “How you doing?”

After school, Facebook statuses not containing the words “R.I.P.” were at a premium, and groups and pages bearing her name rapidly accumulated thousands of “Likes”. Text messages circulated – “Wear white tomorrow. It’s for her.” Tribute videos cropped up on the Internet.

Walking to my locker the next morning, tears welled up in my eyes. I tried not to let them show. Mutual looks of understanding were exchanged as I made eye contact with friends and acquaintances. I was amazed to see that I was one of an endless sea of white. It was breathtaking; in every class, all were clad in white except one or two. It was awe-inspiring to see the entire school coming together.

What I still can’t get over is the permanence of it all. M. will never set foot on this earth again; it’s not if she will ever recover. I’ll never have the chance to know her, and no one will ever truly know what went so horribly wrong that Wednesday. We all have to wonder, was there something we could have said or done? Could we have changed M.’s outcome? But we can’t rewind time now.

It’s made me, and all of us, realize what we need to do. We have to tell our family and our friends how we feel more often. Life is fleeting, much more so than any of us freshmen ever realized. There’s nothing more I can say, except that this has affected my classmates and I more than I ever could’ve known.

If there’s one thing that makes me feel better about this, it’s that we won’t make this mistake again. Maybe as a result of M.’s death, other’s lives will be spared. That’s really all we can hope for.

And I think M. sees it too. I think she forgives us. As I left school on Friday to close out what will probably be the worst few days of my academic career, far more so than any exam week, I was comforted by the sight of tiny white snowflakes falling from the matching white sky. A few flakes came to rest on my head, and I didn’t bother to brush them off as I normally do. I pulled my coat a little closer, allowing the warmth of M.’s forgiveness to enter my body. That snow has continued through the night, and as I write these words I gaze out the window at the sight of those flakes floating down, giving the grass a thin blanket of white, dusting the bare branches of the bushes.

I never want this snow to melt. I want this reminder of her life to linger forever. But I have to remember this: it’s always snowing somewhere.

I just got off the phone with my Grandma B, she of many previous posts on this blog. I’d set up a special little surprise for her tonight, and she was calling to report the news of it.

You see, a few weeks ago, she and I were discussing my upcoming Confirmation over the phone. I casually asked who her Confirmation sponsor was, and she said that it was an older cousin of hers, N. After a pensive pause, my grandma wistfully remarked that she hadn’t talked to N in decades, and she wondered aloud whether her cousin was still alive.

Her inquiry sparked something in me. After gleaning what information Grandma knew of N, I took to my laptop to try to track down the elusive N. With the help of a second cousin of my own and WhitePages.com, I finally found a listing that seemed to fit the bill. I called the number, and, disappointed, had to leave a message. My mission seemed to be dead-ended.

But later that afternoon, the phone rang. Caller ID (one of the best inventions since sliced bread; up there with WhitePages.com) revealed it to be N herself! I was overjoyed to speak to this woman at last, the long-lost piece of my grandmother’s past. Once I convinced her I was not a stalker and informed her of the existence of my grandpa, and therefore my mom and her brothers and myself, she and I arranged for her to have a phone chat with my grandma.

Today, in secret, I made a call to N and sealed the deal. I couldn’t resist a mischievious call to Grandma informing her that she’d receive a mystery call tonight: one that she wouldn’t be expecting.

And just a half hour ago, I was aroused from my book with a call of, “Telephone!” It brought me such indescribable joy to hear my grandma so animated. I haven’t heard her sound so happy for years. And another first: during the entire phone call in which she recounted their hourlong conversation, Grandma didn’t complain about ANYTHING. Not once did a single negative word escape her mouth. Her voice, livelier than ever (ironically, she’s currently recovering from laryngitis), was incredibly chipper, and her conversation was peppered with heartfelt thank-yous (which, of course, felt out of place, since I’d only spent about a half hour on my quest for N, but were still appreciated).

As soon as I said good night to Grandma, I was suddenly filled with this joy I’ve never experienced before. I can’t describe it, except to say that I was immensely happy. I went out to the living room and recounted this to my mom, grinning stupidly the entire time. Mom rewards my good deed with a warm smile and the knowledge that everyone involved is happier for it: N, Grandma and all the people she will encounter…the list goes on.

Even though Grandma couldn’t stop talking about how much good I’d done her, I think I was the true beneficiary of this entire exchange. I reunited two long-lost people, and, more importantly, taught myself a life lesson: the value of joy. And thanks to today’s events (my surprisingly easy quarterly exams at school today didn’t hurt either), I’ll be radiating joy for a long time to come.

Well, I think this is going to be another “deep” post, not that I haven’t written enough of those lately…

Being that I am a freshman in high school now, things have really started to hit hard. I’m going to be driving six months from now, and in a few short years it will be time for me to start applying to colleges and thinking about what I really want to do the rest of my life.

And this goes back to my The Good Old Days post. I realized, thanks to everyone who posted a comment on that post, that these days I’m living now will soon be “the good old days”. Don’t get me wrong, I am looking forward to driving – and having a (ahem, Mom and Dad) car – but I’m starting to dread college.

I can’t imagine living life away from home; home is the only life I’ve ever known. I’ll have to pack up everything I own and move, for the only time I can remember, to someplace completely unfamiliar and strange. I can only come back to the comfort of my own home for visits – and I never get to live there again. I’ll never live with my mom and dad and my little brother again. I’ll have to venture out into the big, bad, scary world and find my own place to live and people to live with.

And I’m not ready for that. I’m not ready to not wake up to a hug and kiss from Mommy. I’m not ready to abandon card games with my dad at night before bed, or petty fights over video games with my brother. I’m just not ready

Gandhi once said, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”

I plan on taking his advice to heart. In reference to my last post, Making a Difference, I’ve been thinking a lot about doing just that – making a difference.

I’ve done a lot of thinking about that in the past week or so. I’ve come to the conclusion that my ultimate goal in life is to make a positive impact on just one person’s life – and as many others as possible. When it comes time for me to leave this earth, it’s very important to me that I be satisfied with the life I’ve lived and everything I accomplished. I know I won’t be able to rest for the final time until I can honestly say that I left the world just a little bit better than it was when I came into it. And I also know how I’m going to go about it.

In the words of Poor Richard himself (aka Ben Franklin), “Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.”

I hope to one day have accomplished both. I have always dreamed of penning the elusive Great American Novel, and seeing my name on top of the New York Times’ bestsellers list is one of my motivations.

I realize that what I’ve just written may seem conceited of me. But I truly don’t care for fame or money. I’d like to think I wouldn’t be greedy about it.

All I really want is to make a positive impact on someone’s life. And I know that writing is the way for me to do it. I hope that by sifting through all of my thoughts and feelings, and writing them all down, I can identify with other people. And maybe, just maybe, my words on a page can change their lives.

This post will be very similar to the one I did a month back, Mortality, but I just can’t get the subject off my mind.

A few weeks ago, I checked my Facebook as normal, only to find a link to a YouTube video posted by T, a fellow writer and classmate of mine. Last year, T and I were both on a competitive writing team, and we attended practices and competitions together. Now, I don’t see her much – we’re not in any classes together – but I always considered her a good friend, so I clicked on her video out of curiosity.

Her video turned out to be the most emotionally affecting one I have ever watched. Hers was part of the “My Secrets” video craze, in which people from all around the world post videos of themselves holding up notecards, on which they have written their secrets, both trivial and important.

T, who was always extremely kind to me, reaching out to me when I didn’t really have any friends on the writing team, revealed some things about herself that I never would’ve guessed, and that made my respect for her so much deeper.

You see, T used to be depressed. Last year, she started cutting. Around the time we began spending time together for the team, she was seriously considering ending her own life. She even had a plan.

This really hit home for me. Even though the two of us aren’t terribly close, I can’t even imagine losing T. She is an incredible human being and I admire her and what she’s gone through. What really hurts me is that I could’ve done something about it. I could’ve helped T if I would’ve known about what she was enduring. I could’ve stopped her. Thankfully, someone or something else did, and so I am able to forgive myself for it. But if she had gone through with it, I would never be able to live it down. I was so close to losing her, and yet I stood by, unaware. And, unlike so many other times when people exaggerate, it really was a matter of life or death.

Lately, I’ve been doing a ton of writing. This blog kept me busy enough already, but I’ve started three new writing projects in the last few months: a writer’s notebook I am required to keep for English class, a novel project, and a personal journal.

I’m really excited about those last two. I’ve met a new friend who shares my love of writing, and together we decided to write a story. We’ve made up characters whose experiences are similar to our own, and we alternate posts as them on our new blog, www.nicoleandmaya.wordpress.com. I really like the way things are going with that project, and I can’t wait to see where it takes us! Writing a novel is something I’ve always dreamed of doing, but I could never think of a good enough plot to do it in. I like that the pressure isn’t all on me in this project; I only have to write half of the story. And plus, making it up as I go has proven to be very fun!

In addition, I’ve finally committed to starting – and more importantly, continuing – to write in a journal. I wrote about wanting to do this in a previous entry (http://writerkid.wordpress.com/2011/08/23/dear-diary/), but it never came to fruition until now. With a little prodding from my mom, I came to the conclusion that if I’m truly serious about writing for a career, I need to start doing this kind of thing to make it happen. Although it’s a little hard at the beginning (the thought of all the blank pages ahead of me + not knowing what to write = journal-phobic writerkid), I know I need to stick with it. I’m sure that in time, I will come to love writing in it.