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My old eight grade blog

June 3rd, 2008 by arielal09

            A week from tomorrow we are graduating from eight grade middle school to high school. It seems like not so long ago we entered eight grades. I would say “It seems like yesterday” but I don’t want to make it sound even more cliché. I know probably everybody is going to mention the graduation in their blog but this not one more post about how fast time passes and what an amazing year it was. Right now I am not even sure what this blog on the moving up ceremony is going to turn out to be. But I know what I don’t want, and that is another typical post on life as an eight grader. If you are an eight grader or have been you already know this therefore there is no need to go over it again. I am going to mention this blog though. We started writing toward the end of eight grades when Mrs. Rumford came up with this unordinary idea. Right from the start I knew that my blog was going to be a task to write. I didn’t know what to write about and surprisingly so I even wrote a blog about that. But through unimportant, not interesting blogs I learned to write important and moving ones, at least to me. It is true when I say that writing a blog each week has helped me develop as a student and become a better writer. Some posting may not show this, but I wish that whoever reads this believes that some of them show somewhat some growth. At the beginning it was so difficult to get writing because I had no idea how to. I believed you had to be “inspired” to do so. But today I know that you don’t have to. Being in a mood for writing does help when creating words, sentences, paragraphs, and blogs, but it doesn’t need to be there for you write. You can just start by saying whatever you are feeling and that feeling can expand, just as I have done in this same blog. Now it seems just natural to write a blog each week. But this is the last week. In about a week we will be graduating, moving on. The blog will no longer be obligatory. Of course it will always be there if you ever feel like writing. It is no longer a necessity, something you just have to do. So by that being said that feeling on writing nonsense will be gone because you no longer have to do it. So this is my last post for now and before I left the blogging World I just wanted to say that thanks to this blogging experience I know there is a bigger World out there, were you can express your thoughts through writing. I know that if I ever feel like expressing myself out there in the internet world I know I have my old eight grade blog to do so. But for know I will probably leave this. And I want whoever is out there to know, that at least for the time being, this is my last post.

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Just let it rain

May 29th, 2008 by arielal09

The rain is pouring outside. I swear the sky is having a sudden case of depression since it won’t stop raining. The rain falls and falls like waterfalls. I feel like is never going to stop. Sure some rainy days are nice but I am kind of getting tired of it. It has rained for a week non-stop. It rains and rains and it won’t stop. Actually today it stopped raining for ten minutes in which the sky and the ground covered up in fog. From inside the classroom you couldn’t see anything expect fog. I do not know which is best; the fog or the rain. I think the fog is. It gives you a sense that some of these days it will stop raining. The sun will probably come out in this occasion and it will make everything seem better than it seems today or that it seemed a week ago. It feels like Costa Rica is drowning. From Monday I believe on it hasn’t stopped pouring buckets of water. I wake up in the morning it is raining, in the afternoon it is raining, and at night when I go to sleep it is raining. No matter what time it is it rains. I can wake up in the middle of the night to be sure to find myself drowned by rain. I do not know if it will ever stop. That is not right, I know it will. This is such a ridiculous and depressing blog I am writing. I do not know how you, however you are, is reading this and not falling asleep or feeling like crying. And I know the sun will come out and I will stop thinking such stupid thoughts. It can’t rain forever I know. Right know I feel pathetic writing such thoughtless blog but I have to post a blog. If I keep trying to write new blogs it will just lead to more depressing thoughts. I am just having a bad day, and for now I am going to settle with this topic. Just let it rain.

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A little something for marifish

May 22nd, 2008 by arielal09

             To please my fans (also known as marifish) I will write a post on what aspects changed in my life due to gymnastics. Gymnastics changed the way I look and think about things. It changed who I am as a person. I don’t know who I would be today if it wasn’t for gymnastics but I know I would not be the same person. It is not a doubt about me but it is the knowing that without gymnastics I would not be the same. Even though gymnastics wasn’t the overall greatest experience it has greatly influenced my life. And even if not all the influences are positive I know in the end a learned a valuable lesson from all of them.             

 When I was in gymnastics I was always very responsible with my homework and schoolwork. Right after I got from school I would eat hastily before devouring my homework in time to leave for the gym. I always tried to do this as fast as possible because if I didn’t it meant I would have to start working on my homework when I got back from the gym, which was like nine o’clock. Not doing my homework was out of question. After an exhausting, mentally and physically, workout the last thing I wanted to do was homework. Now I take my time. I get home from school, sit down, sometimes get a newspaper out, prepare myself a snack and eat calmly. If I have an activity or appointment in the afternoon I would probably get my homework done before them or after them without any sort of rush. This has made me live in a slower pace. It is weird, when I was in gymnastics I could always use more time (to do homework, to rest, to eat) but know that I am not it feels like time stretches forever before me. It is not that I do not enjoy having something as precious as time but it was strange having time on my hands after rushing for all those years. Apart from the physical aspects of my life changing so has my attitude toward things. The competitiveness I had in gymnastics has vanished. The drive to do something has to. And working so hard for something that is not going to pay off has to. If I am ever going to dedicate so much effort and time to something I will always ask myself is it worth it? Because if it isn’t I am not planning to waste the rest of my life doing things that don’t feel worthwhile. This includes the way I see competitive sports. I rather have fun that worry about all the sacrifices, injuries, and crying that are not going to pay off. When I look at gymnasts now I can only feel their pain to what they most have gone through, but I no longer see the joy of the sport. 

 Gymnastics has changed many aspects of my life. Thanks to marifish I now know just how many. It is my attitude, my drive, and my way of life that has changed. Now I feel like I have the usual way of life, not the rushing one I had in gymnastics. I feel more than normal in everything I do. But when it comes to thinking about gymnastics I know I have completely changed from the person I was then.  I know that without going through gymnastics I would never be the same.

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“Chalked Up” by Jennifer Sey

May 18th, 2008 by arielal09

              As I mentioned in my last post I was a gymnast. Having said that I just finished reading Jennifer Sey’s “Chalked Up”. Along with that I have read other people’s articles, blogs, and other forms of writing, many of them with negative opinions about the book and about her. Most of the people who write these comments are gymnasts, and it surprises me how few of them seem to relate to Sey. Instead of relating they do the opposite in a way. They deny any of the things Jennifer writes about happened at one of the gyms she trained: Parkettes. Saying it is the author’s perception of view as a form of criticism in my opinion it is ridiculous. Of course it is her perception of view, it her memoir. Of course this is not the absolute truth about what was happening at Parkettes or in her whole life in general, but when do we really know the absolute truth? The only real truth we have is our own, and Sey’s truth it is what is written in the book, whether whoever reads it agrees or disagrees.              

    Along with finishing the book I read on a website “Sey memoir not all it’s chalked up to be” by Lisa Lazar, one of the gymnasts that trained with Sey in Parkettes and is mentioned in the book. I tried commenting on it but somehow failed. Apparently I needed to be longed in somewhere to comment on it. Therefore I chose to comment on my own page. Lazar says as her argument that the book is from Sey’s point of view. Of course it is, as I mentioned before. Jennifer Sey’s book is about what she remembers. It is from her point of view only. Lisa Lazar also mentions how Jennifer failed to put many positive experiences about Parkettes. I say that if she chose to only put her “negative” experience then that’s up to her. Lazar also mentions that it is true (as Sey mentions many times in the book) that they were yelled at and weighted every day. She defends this by saying it was much worse at other gyms. I don’t understand how you can be okay with yelling; screaming coaches who and even threaten to keep you out of competitions because of your weight. I also don’t understand how it can be okay if it is much worse in other gyms. She says all sports do weight and scream at athletes. Maybe all sports do that, yes, but is it okay to do it at the level that gymnastics does? Lazar also mentions how “is a shame that Jen did not take the time to research and reveal any of this in her book” about how the Strausses have made positive changes at Parkettes over the last 20 years. The last 20 years of Parkettes are not relevant to Sey’s gymnastics experience and therefore it is unimportant to include them in the book. The whole book is Jennifer’s perception of truth, since it is obviously her memoir. If it doesn’t match Liza Lazar it doesn’t mean Sey lied. It is what Sey remembers not Lazar.                

Having given my opinion of Liza Lazar’s article I can say I do not see how any ex-gymnast cannot relate to “Chalked Up”. It is true it includes many negative experiences, but how many of us gymnasts didn’t have those? The book may not be the “absolute truth” but it includes an insight on what gymnastics can really be like. I cannot say my experience was nowhere near as traumatic as Sey’s was but I still manage to relate to many of her stories. This book to me shows many truths other ex-gymnasts aren’t ready to confront such as weight problems, injuries, and intimidating coaches. The stories Sey’s writes show how they still haunt her, and for that I applaud her bravery in writing such an honest book about herself. I believe it a great book for any person who went to an even slightly similar experience. In the end, whether you agree with the book, don’t understand it, disagree, or just don’t care, it is there to show another side of gymnastics.

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Gymnastics

May 12th, 2008 by arielal09

I entered gymnastics when I was five and left when I was twelve. I entered being a happy kid who had fun in gym and left being an unhappy preteen who loathed gym. Gymnastics was my older sister’s idea, and since I was a five year old who had no clue in life, I wanted to do what my sister did. It started as a fun hobby in a bad equipped gym. I loved it at first, and I wasn’t bad at it. From the bad equipped gymnasium my sister decided to switch gyms and being the little sister that I was I followed suite. The gym we transferred to changed everything. It was there that I learned countless new skills, competed against other girls, laughed, smiled, and succeeded. All of this in the beginning, because it was also there that at the end of my gymnastic days I failed, I cried more than I should, I fell, I was dismissed, and I failed. Gymnastics changed the way I view things, the way I feel, and who I am. It transformed my life. It revolved around gymnastics, spinning and spinning until it eventually crashed. I can sit down and cry about how it destroyed many aspects of my life but I can also appreciate the numerous lessons I learned, that I doubt many twelve year old have.    In gym our coaches treated us however they pleased. In my shinning days they praised me, they liked me, they hugged me, and they encouraged me. But in my dark days, when I was no longer a little shinning star, they dismissed me, screamed, yelled, shouted, and intimidated me. By the time I was eleven I was so sick of gymnastics but somehow unable to quit. I had tried quitting once when I believe I was ten but wasn’t able to. When I was twelve any little comments or happening could have easily driven me out of the gym and in the end it did. One day, one of the coaches I disliked the most made fun of me for some reason or other. By the end of practice I had had it. Any little incident would have driven me out of the gym and what he said did. I left gym unhappy but determined. As soon as I got in my dad’s car I told him the news, I was done with gymnastics. I knew I was going to feel useless without it, but I couldn’t take it anymore. I cried all the way home.       Leaving gymnastics was very tough on me. For the first time in years I didn’t have anything to do after school. I quickly adjusted to a slower life pace though. I joined other unimportant activities which filled my afternoons. But no matter what other sport I join I could never feel the passion, determination, and longing I had in gymnastics. I can’t see a sport as a source of competition, of challenge, instead a way of filling an empty afternoon, something to keep me from being bored. What gymnastics has taught me is that overtraining and dedicating your entire life to something can only lead to worse things than to better. This is why, unconsciously, I decide not to take on any sport competitively. While other kids shout and fight over who won in a PE class, I stay back not really caring much. I don’t want to be part of the same vicious cycle that gymnastics lead me to. I don’t want to go over the experience again. So for that reason I do not want to stay too attached to anything. That and for the fact that I can’t seem to feel any passion for any of the other sports I have tried. Expect for drawing, which is mine and for me only, I can’t feel passion for anything else. I no longer feel the passion for gymnastics but I can’t create it in any other sport. I wish I could but what gymnastics has taught me is that once you get too attached to something, your life revolves around it and once you’re in you can’t get out. So now I rather watch than me swallowed by coaches, pressure, and of course the sport itself. 

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“I am so bored”

April 28th, 2008 by arielal09

            I bet at least once a day you think to yourself, “I am bored.” Well at least I know I am and the people I live around me are. Boredom, in fact just seems part of human nature. Most of us are easily bored. At least, when we do not have way too many problems, which is unfortunate to say since a lot of people do. But still, those people whom tragedies rule their way of living still have experienced boredom. Being bored is just part of our feelings and emotions. I know there is not (well I least I do not believe so) a smiley face in the class chart that reads as an emotion “bored” just like there is one for “happy” and “sad.” But even if boredom hasn’t been granted the honor of a smiley face it is still an emotion most of as (as if not to say all) have experienced. Sometimes is just like a topic that bores us. Like lets say I am in a class which I really do not like (I am not going to mention any to my teachers’ benefit), instead of facing boredom and paying attention for a change I find a distraction, something to keep my mind active. By the first ten minutes of class I will probably be doodling in my notebook. I love art so in this way it is a convenient distraction. Some other people who do not feel this way about art will probably sneak a book under their desk, day dream (that is also one of my favorites), put an earphone under their shirt all the way to their ear and then cover it with hair to listen to music, send text messages with their phones under their desks (which by the way we are not allowed to bring cell phones to school, but really who listens?), between many, many other distractions. And all that effort; the sneaked cell phone or ipod, the drawn on notebook under the desk, the face of seriousness when the brain is in outer space, to keep us from being bored. To me it is just so, well boring to be bored. So I try to find a distraction to keep myself from going crazy. Let’s put a different scenario. For example, I am at home a Sunday afternoon not doing anything really, but I have to be doing something, even if it just lying on my bed thinking and day dreaming. I cannot face the fact that I have nothing significant to do and would rather do something insignificant than being bored. I’ll watch some mindless TV, search the Internet while not looking for something, go to the supermarket with my day, and basically ANYTHING rather than being bored. When I think about it is like I am afraid of being bored, so instead of facing the challenge (being bored) I will do something, anything else to push myself out of it, to not have anything to do with it. So I guess it is just natural for humans to be bored. Someone once told me that animals do not get bored, and even if I do not have the papers to prove it, it sounds believable. I mean how else could the dog in your house sit on the floor and look around, maybe pass hours without moving? The dog is obviously not sleeping or having an entertainment of any sort, then why is it not bored? Maybe it is fact just part of human nature to be bored. It is one of those emotions (if it is in fact an emotion) that only we experience, just as many others. So next time you think “I am so bored”, at least you will know you are not alone.

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Inspiration is lazy (as well as random)

April 21st, 2008 by arielal09

            Inspiration is so random. One day your Word document fills with the snap of your fingers and the next you have absolutely nothing to say. It is like the post I wrote a while ago “A blank Word document and nothing to say”, that was one of those uninspired days. But today it is different, in a way it is better, I am for the first time since we started blogging inspired. Not by anything in particular, my life is not spectacular but I very weirdly feel as if I could write forever and ever. In a way I am scared to. I am mean, what if the inspiration runs away? What if I give all my ideas in one single week and then that is it? Like as if G-d said, no more inspiration for you, you’ve had enough? I mean I of course know it doesn’t work that way, but it surely feels like it. There is what I think is a popular saying that I have heard many times that says “Inspiration is lazy.” I do believe that is true, just when it feels like it, it works, it clicks, and it creates wonders. But those lazy days are just a pain. You cannot feel it inside you. You feel (well at least I do) washed out, unoriginal, and most importantly uninspired. And what makes it so unbearable is that there is nothing really you can do about it. Even when you try to wake up that inspiration inside you, by reading other blogs or doing something creative, the harsh truth is that if it is not in you, you can’t bring it in. I am sure a lot of more professional and serious people are able to ring the alarm clock on their inspiration and get it rolling. But even if they do have magical powers you know, you just know, it is not the same as if you were inspired. I am not specifically speaking about writing, although I am partly. I am speaking about life. Everything in it, it depends on how you see it. For me it is art. There seem times when you get a sort of “writers block”. You can’t draw. I mean, you can draw (of course you can you just grab a pencil and clean sheet of paper, it is that simple) but you can’t draw right. Your brain isn’t flying with ideas, your drawings look sloppy and weak and you just can’t feel it. It is like an emotion only it is not an emotion. Does that make sense? You cannot draw or write or whatever you are doing unless you are truly inspired. And only a really big person (I do not mean size wise of course) can do so without being inspired. Unfortunately, I am not that big of a person (in fact I am really small, size wise) and cannot seem to do it. Last week for example, writing my blog was hell. In the end I did not “make a difference” (remember “A blank Word document and nothing to say?”) and just wrote what to me is nonsense. Since nobody responded I assume the world thought the same, and frankly I do not judge or resent them, I applaud them for not giving me any comments on such a bad written blog. Not in the sense of paragraph placement, word choice, etcetera, but in the sense of its insignificance to the world. I tried everything that week to inspire myself, but the task was not completed. As for “Inspiration is lazy”, all I have to say is that is also very random.

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Courage vs. Evil

April 21st, 2008 by arielal09

            Tomorrow we have a guest speaker at our school. The speaker is going to be a girl from Dallas who is planning to talk to us about the holocaust (us being the seventh and eight graders). Apparently she did a bat-mitzvah project about courageous non Jewish people who saved and helped Jews. Today in class, a teacher was explaining to my class that we were going to miss class the next day due to the lecture. Several students didn’t understand what the speaker will be talking about. I explained to them what I wrote above, which is what my mom told me days prior. As it turned out, they weren’t really supportive of the whole thing, and seemed confused. One said it made no sense for the speaker to be a girl our age who will be talking about the holocaust; I mean she was no survivor or anything. The teacher smartly told him to make his own judgment after the lecture.             

 When I got home today I asked my mom the same thing as the student. It did seem kind of weird we would have a guest speaker talking about the holocaust when she did not live through it, or is a professional in the field. My mom said she thought students would question that and explained that when you stand up and praise people who did something brave it is a way to stop evil, or at least take it off course. At first this did not make sense to me. I mean yeah we kind of all know that right? Even if we do not put it in those same exact words. Then why do we need a guest speaker to tell us so? Is it that we are so ignorant of the fact, or that we in fact do not do anything courageous on daily life? Then it came down to me like a wave. It wasn’t that we did not understand the dangerous and life risking situations that these people were in (which I believe we probably didn’t) but it was the fact that this girl was brave enough (I’ll explain the brave later) to praise and acknowledge these people who risked so much. It was that she went out of her daily life to research people most of us might never have heard of, and congratulate them in a way for making something kind and unreasonably brave and making something else in life a little less evil. I mean not an act of stopping evil, but an act of giving these courageous people an acknowledgement for making something kind in this world full of horror. When I say brave I am both referring to the people who saved Jews (of course that was brave of them) and I also give some praise to the girl, for whom she gave the honor.             

 What this girl did as a bat-mitzvah project I think is something very important that not many people do. I of course, do not know this girl and had never heard of her before this. She may give the most boring talk in the world, and I would probably be too busy with the so many possible distractions to pay attention. Obviously, half the middle school will be thrilled to be missing two periods, and they as well as I will be busy with the many possible distractions. I probably could not help but feel sorry for the girl (no matter how much she loves to speak in public) who will be standing in front of half the middle school and thinking they are paying attention, when indeed they may be looking at the person next to them while they pass little notes. This is what I consider brave of her. I may be completely wrong (not probable) but I know that there will be at least one person in the audience (probably a teacher or maybe my mom who is coming) who will be listing to her and understand how courageous and significant these people during World War II who saved Jews actually are. They were a form of stopping a little evil or at least making a stand against it.  

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Infinity

April 16th, 2008 by arielal09

           

colf14.jpeg

After last week’s post I decided I needed to find some inspiration and since I clearly couldn’t do so in my mind, I made up my mind to look in another person’s mind. This of course doesn’t mean doing some sort of mind reading or anything a la Harry Potter style. This to me means looking at another artist’s painting or work to see if I could connect myself to that. After googling countless words, phrases, and artist’s names I could not find anything that truly pleased me. That is when I remember something Mrs. Rumford told be last week. She had showed me some abstract pictures and told be I could describe and analyze them, only doing it with art. Since I didn’t find any art I looked for photography and found the picture above. I feel like I just assumed my blog had to be about art, but now that I reconsider it “Inside the Bubble” doesn’t suggest art at all, so instead I am using photography to express myself through this blog.            

  I looked at several abstract pictures on the web, but this one made me think. It is weird when looking at that picture I can come up with many explanations to it. I believe when people first see this picture they think, “The beach, duh.” Well I did too but when looking at it more closely I realize that depending how you analyze it, it could just be about everything. When I look at it, it kind reminds me of the globe’s surface, rough, with mountains, plateaus, and oceans. The unclear surface also reminds me of a rocky mountain, road, or dirt itself. The round marks at the side remind me of the moons surface, full of holes, just like a Swiss cheese. The marks make me think back to sand. Those marks were not left there on their own. A dog could have step there, as well as a baby, an old man, a bird, a dead fish, a mother. Anybody could have been there when the photographer took the picture. It could mean anything to anybody, depending on who is seeing it and what they are getting out of it. The possibilities are endless.             

Looking at this picture makes me think of many varying topics. What I wrote is just what I thought the moment I wrote this. Ten years from now I can look at that picture and find many varying possibilities. I do not know if this post is either inspiring or interesting, but I am okay if it is neither. I chose this picture because I could analyze it endlessly, which in effect makes you think about the possible idea of infinity.

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A blank Word document, and nothing to say

April 9th, 2008 by arielal09

I am struggling to find a topic to talk about. I mean what do I care about? I obviously care about a lot of things; my family, school, my friends… the world? I mentioned in my last two entries that I love art. I do. Then how come I have nothing more to say about it? I mean, to me it is obvious I care enough about that aspect in my life to write more about it, but somehow it just seems irrelevant. How am I going to move people and inspire them while talking about… art? It just seems vague to me. Like not big enough, not important enough, not actual enough… just not enough. I want people to believe in my blogs, I want to believe in my blogs, but it just seems like I cannot make it happen. How am I going to let people know, what I Ariela care about? If all I write about is art it seems like I am stuck in my room all day drawing none stop. Which just in case you do not know, it more like the opposite. How can I inspire people to believe in my drawing when I haven’t gotten a clean sheet of paper and a pencil and just drawn in…almost a month? Maybe I am not such an outcast in the not knowing what to write about department. Maybe I am like most of the teens these days, unconcerned about everything that is going on in the World. More into their ipods, cell phones, computers, and all the other electrical gadgets the modern world provides us with. But I do not want to be like that, I know I am not like that. I mean electrical gadgets are not my thing, and anyone who knows me well enough knows that is true. Then why can’t I sit down and pour my heart out into this blank Word document and say everything I have to say about… everything? I am not sure, and I think I would never be sure why, maybe that is just the way things go. Some days your brain is flying with ideas and other days it seems as blank as this word document was before I opened it. And it is not like I did not have any options to write about. I mean a friend and my mom supplied me with ideas. None of which were bad, but I just cannot seem to inspire myself to write about something I truly care about, believe in. Maybe today was not the day to write my blog. Maybe I should have done the wrong thing and leave it for the last minute. But yet my mind can’t escape the idea that I have nothing to write about. An interesting question could get me going on the topic. Or maybe something that happened to me today, but nothing seems right. I have wonderful topics for long blogs, but none of which I am inspired by. I have been supplied with ideas to write about fun facts about art, teenage usage of alcohol in Costa Rica, road traffic in Costa Rica, and other topics which are not worth mentioning. But when I tried to write about any of those topics my mind seemed to be swiped by a broom and left blank. So for anyone out there reading this blog take on my ideas and get some profit out of them, since I clearly failed miserably to do so.

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