Autobiography...Sort Of...

            A mediocre, gruesome horror movie based upon a video game once included a very wise phrase nonetheless of its poor cinema work that has embarked into my heart like a carving into a tree: “Mother is God in the eyes of a child”. With the loving smile she shines upon me each blessing of a day, or the loud, anointing scolding reigning from her voice for my wrong doings, my mother is a few of the things in life which I shall never take for granted and for her I strive to live and see my goals being accomplished with her alongside. Whether it is giving me tips to relieving the stress of friendly relationships or having to understand such a conflicted, odd child like I, “mommy” has always been there at my side, right or wrong. For I wish her the riches and blessings she deserves, she is, besides myself,  one of the building factors to the desire for a higher education, success, and nirvana.

            Throughout my schooling experience prior to high school, I assume I have maintained a reputation of ignorance and obnoxiousness (some say I smile too much) through my grade school years and also my junior high years. Although I do look understandably ridiculous sometimes in the way I act, I would like to believe that there is something in my noggin that clicks from time to time. As a child, I was analyzed to be a part of the gifted program at Gardner Street Elementary School and I was able to be accepted into John Burroughs Middle School under its S.A.S branch (School for Advanced Studies). I do not feel as if these names were given to us students as a way to shun others and taunt for a higher status, but I am grateful anyways for being recognized to be a part of the knowledgeable.

            I would like to consider myself an enthusiast for the study in the English and Literature. Although English is not my strongest suit, I believe the class revolves around knowledge and sensibility to what I actually want to learn in life. In my opinion, the only thing that schools have been missing all these years is the strategic method in which paves students’ roads down education through a creative, individual approach to really find oneself. The desire and will to pursue knowledge is an incredible thing and is amazing because its outcomes can be tremendously unreal, but the only way we can pursue these goals is if we what we’re looking for. As a student, I have always wanted to learn to dip into the world of words. The power of words is remarkable because it branches out to multiple characteristics of studies and life; Literature can branch into History to Science to Psychology to Law, etc. With this in mind, I feel as if Literature is something I am willing to do than I am enforced to. Being well rounded is a perfectly satisfactory way to become, overall, developed as a student, but what good are those skills if we weren’t taught to direct them into something we find interesting?

            As a student being a part of the SAS program at John Burroughs Middle School and the gifted program as a child in grade school, becoming a freshman in Fairfax had been an extremely insufficient transition into the steps of adolescence. High school has truly affected the way I think about everything: from life, to family, to the future, back to the past, etc. One of the most significant events in my freshman year and my life is coming to the realization of trying to stop a moving a train. I realized how rapidly fast time has gone: it felt as if just years ago I had been learning my ABCs, but now I was years away from being a young adult, entering the blistering cold world. This thought of independence and seriousness pressed weights down onto my mind; what happens then? With all these lingering thoughts hovering around my noggin, and all the stressed that came along with those thoughts, I was not entirely happy with the school environment. My classes were average and lower than the usual classes I had become used to. Thinking these classes were too easy, I became bored and irritated in why I had not been in other classes, but my mind began to unravel. Stepping into my 6^th period class, I am welcomed by a tall, husky Caucasian man with long black hair who just shouted the vibrancy of “Hi, I used to love Heavy Metal!” This man, dressed casually with green shorts and a black T-shirt, had not exactly shown a reputable representation of himself to be a teacher. As time flew by in his classroom, I realized something important in such a cliché situation: “Never judge a book by its cover”. I had mistakenly judged a man for his aesthetics rather than his mind. Mr. Jacovo had made an impact on my life because his unusual thinking and out-of-the-box mindset. He encouraged not only well-structured writing, but a body of work that represented a sense of power and knowledge brought together into one paper. From analyzing contemporary movies to breaking down the corruption in a subliminal text, Mr. Jacovo had been of the most influential teachers I have had since. His humor and dedication of actual teaching became one of the reasons why English, and school itself, has become not a necessity, but a desire for me. 

What a Beautiful Mess This Is #2

Hopefully you have read my story on "The Girl" and understand how deeply appreciative I am to her life and her affect on me.

I am sorry if the writing I provided for the story had been poor, but you must understand that I had been so eagerly passionate to write about it. It did not matter, at the time, if the grammar or punctuation had been correct because the story needed to be told and the chain of thought could not be interfered with or my story of that beautiful girl would have never been made.

While she might think our conversation was meaningless in the sense of recorded history, she is truly wrong because she did not know that the guy she had been writing to was one who would think her story and life would be such a mark in history and his life.

Was my closing a bit too extreme; saying I loved her? Well, no, it wasn't in my opinion. My love does not express the same love you and I know nowadays---of physical activities and date nights---but a love that is connected through only emotion and care for one another. Soon enough, it will hit me that this girl, out of the ordinary, will be the reason for loving more than I would ever have done so.

Love to you "The Girl"

Don

What a Beautiful Mess This Is.

Here I will speak in first person due to the fact that this will be more of a post that revolves around the thoughts that wrap around my head as I go along my writing.

I recently got off this random chat site that connected people all around the world to speak to each other. Tirelessly writing my essays, I visited the sight out of curiosity and boredom.

Random people go by; different faces each time, yet one struck me in particular. A beautiful, mixed looking young woman randomly appeared into my screen.

In the moment of stupidity and teenage-audacity, I wrote to her a simple "You have one of the nicest smiles I have ever seen".

 Note this is not of malice or sexual tension, but to highlight one's day by stating the fact of her aesthetic beauty.

She then replies "Thanks hahaha", a break in awkward tension of non-acquaintances becoming a friendship in a matter of an hour or so.

I then assumed that was the ice-breaker; the moment in which breaks the awkward state that even though we didn't know each other, we knew each other.

She then opens up to my aesthetic compliment to her smile, and says "that's what my doctor tells me all the time...I think he likes me or something...he sees me 2 times a week".

How odd...Am I possibly talking to a mentally-ill patient who must attend therapy, or a girl who has doctor-patient relationship issues? "Unbelievable", I thought. What is truly behind the story of this girl and 2 days a week of visitations to the doctor?

I then ask, "Why do you have to go to the doctor so often?"

She replies, "Because I have cancer."

A loud, ecstatic heart in my chest begins to simmer down---my mind, too, is of shock and awe to such news. Am I truly speaking to a cancer patient, or another girl willing to make a joke out of such a blasphemy to human aliveness? My laughter suddenly turned to stiffness of blatant sadness. We then get into depth with talking about her medical impairment. It was a cancer of somewhere in her chest that grew rapidly, like an infection which overruled the Immune System in a matter of time.

My heart began to feel so empty, almost as if I felt the pain she felt, not of the cancer, but of emotion. Trying to fit myself in her shoes, I try to recooperate the conversation with all my capabilities to making it brighter and full of humor. She shows evident that her skin is so pale of the disease and we laugh it off, calling her a lightskin, or in literary terms, someone, preferably African American, whose blood is mixed with races to create a lighter complexion. It's amazing how a girl like this can smile through the the blissful reality that one day, she will be not be with us. Writing this makes me feel more and more isolated; like a duckling losing his pack and family to follow, having no sense of direction or conscious. I, too, was lost during our conversation because while we spoke about her cancer, I thought of my cancer; any illness or flaw that caused me to feel pain and number my days. So while she spoke of her issues, images of pain and tears willow throughout my mind. This girl has done a beating my heart in one, simple online conversation.

She then gets into the topic of reality; understanding that one day, she will no longer be with us, that her days as a human were numbered. This teetered in my mind: how can she suppress so much pain, anger, sadness, and all the other emotions gathered from the information that she has a major disease. "Chemo is no option for me...I will die". God do those words hurt. Here I am, a random on the internet, being so affectionately remorseful and mourning to a person I had just met minutes before. Was my purpose of being on the internet and this EXACT time and EXACT website made by a higher being? God? Allah? All these questions didn't matter to me because here I was: a healthy teenage kid talking to a girl who has years to live. I didn't want to upset her anymore, or remind her that cancer is impatiently waiting for her to surrender her life, so I just tried to positively affect her...even just for the glimpse of sunlight in her dark tunnel in her mind.

I try to forget that part of her for now and ask her information like "Where are you from?" or "do you have any other social networks I can contact you by?" It was obvious that I became so intrigued by this girl. It wasn't of sex or humor, but for the passion of human connection. I can tell she did not want to shed such information...was I coming unto her too strong? She made me feel as if I was just another guy trying to impress her or charismatic-ally sway her into my cyber arms.

"I'm from Canada" she anxiously replies.

Canada...here I am, in California, and I am so dearly affected by her life. Thousands of miles away and it feels as if she were sitting right in front of me, feeling the vibrancy of emotion and mixed feelings. I then confront her, "I want to be your pen pal". She surprisingly smiles. Hoping to get an okay on the deal, she denies my request. Am I boring her or am I simply repulsive? We then talk more about cancer and she elaborates on why she does not give me any info to contact her by...

It was the concept of being too attached. She believed that one day, when she assumed she was gone, she did not want me, or anyone, to feel an enlarged weight put upon our backs of emotion. She did not want to have Instagram or Twitter because it would affect her close friends and family---including me. Did I just become a figure of friendship to a girl who might pass away in a matter of years? Is this an accomplishment, an ordeal, an honor? Or shall I keep this in my recognition only to be another conversation waiting to be forgotten?

One significant part of this conversation was my passion to tell her she was gonna be okay. Maybe in another life, or another realm of reality, there is hope and the act of miracles happen frequently. Unfortunately, we live in a society that confesses to realism. I tell her to "Keep Smiling" and to "Think Positively", but I can't help but feel useless and irrelevant. I then tell her "Miracles happen" and involve realistic theories that people have and will survive to cancer. My words seem worthless...Her mind is set that she will one day simply die.

A haunting ideal is that this beautiful girl has so many capabilities and opportunities in life. She even told me she was supposed to be in Law school for college. Dreams truly exist and are created, so why couldn't she believe that her existence was of necessity and value? Cancer is a dreadful antagonist who feeds on the selfishness of greed and eating of someone's being. "When you kill someone, you do not only take away his life, but the possibilities and opportunities he could have done" said by Harry Morgan of the television series "Dexter". Cancer is a serial killer on the loose who, too, murders the future and possibilities of others.

Towards the ending of conversation, before she purposely ended our conversation, she begins to tell me things such as "Love Life", "Take Pictures", or "Fall in Love". This segment is what I would like to call the eulogy. It was almost as if I had taken a large responsibility in honoring her words before she dies, like a favor or wish she had for me before she could not tell me no more. She then hits me with the emotional stabbing, "When you get married I want you to remember me". Can a girl this far and unacquainted with me become almost of a guardian angel to me? You normally would take that phrase and just agree without ever thinking about it again, but as I read that exact statement, I foreshadowed a future at my wedding, thinking of that very exact moment she had told me to remember her by. In decades, will I remember this porcelain skinned girl who dramatically came into my life with the dark realisms of death and the values of priorities in our lives?

She ends our conversation by intently not trying to hurt me. No matter what I say from "Please don't skip me" or "Stay with me lol", she did not seem to change her mind. She was fixated on the thought that she became such a big part of my mind and heart at that moment, and did not want to bear anymore distress onto me once her passing had gone. It was a moment of understanding, that she did not want me to develop a relationship between her when the ending will truly hurt me---her death.

"I am not an emotional person...and I'm almost crying...because you are so nice."

My heart shattered. I see this girl write this and seconds later, tears break. Not tears of dying or tears for sadness, but tears that I made this one girl feel special for one of the lasting times. I am not saying i was the reason for her smile, but I wish and I hope I was. While the tear dripped down her face, she wiped it and smiled. Her smile reminds me that even through all the bloodshed, the violence, and everything else wrong with the world, there is a glimmer of hope that makes us smile and become content and happy. That same smile will one day reigh upon my remembrance and shed tears across my eyes because that is the smile of happiness. Happiness of content, no regrets, and enlightenment.

"I'm gonna think of you for the rest of my life....XOXOXOXOXO"
*Stranger has disconnected*

Oh the pain I felt---a minute of sorrow that felt as if it had been an eternity of loneliness. I pleaded and asked for her to stay, but she didn't want me to get hurt. The pain she had foretold in her head if we had gotten closer would have been devastating to me, and even this was such an impact on my life. I had to write this, in the midst of all my assignments and tired self, because this will be a day and moment I will never forget. Was it love, was it the beginning of a friendship, was it fate that set us together to speak? It was all of it. I loved this girl emotionally, I was happy with our conversation as friends, and I have been so grateful and appreciative to have spoken to her. To you, she will be a possible fictionary character or someone who will be of non-effect to your life, but to me, she was a godsend. She brought all the factors of human emotion in a matter of minutes into my life: depression, sadness, ecstasy, laughter, and so on. This girl will forever be in my heart; its that simple. I will love and respect each woman, whether a niece, daughter, wife, teacher, etc and view them as "The Girl" because she will what I value as a person today.

One day, I hope I get an email or some sort of notification that she still sees me. I left my account username to her and hope that one day, she will let me know how she is doing. The purpose in general is to value life and live life to the fullest. So many people die so young due to diseases and accidents, and until you meet someone like "The Girl" such as I did, you will understand the heartache and emotion caused with just one person. I am trully grateful that I am able to write this, otherwise, she will just be a figment of my imagination.

This is where I wish I could have done much more than I actually did. I wish I had used some sort of charm to enchant her with to be able to persuade her of me getting to know her better or staying in contact with her. She did not want pity and did not want to cause heartache in the end---but I did. I wanted to feel the deep emotion of crying over her because here was crying over me and her own life. I wish so many things had gone right, but I also have yet to think whether what I did was right (maybe that is why she had not kept leading me on). One day, I will have the chance to meet that beautiful girl, whether it'd be my dreams, heaven, purgatory, or any other realm you can think of.

*actual fragment of our conversation..."im gunna thing of you everyday for the rest of my life"

This is where I wish I could have done much more than I actually did. I wish I had used some sort of charm to enchant her with to be able to persuade her of me getting to know her better or staying in contact with her. She did not want pity and did not want to cause heartache in the end---but I did. I wanted to feel the deep emotion of crying over her because here was crying over me and her own life. I wish so many things had gone right, but I also have yet to think whether what I did was right (maybe that is why she had not kept leading me on). One day, I will have the chance to meet that beautiful girl, whether it'd be my dreams, heaven, purgatory, or any other realm you can think of.

I love you and my prayers will always go to you, "The Girl".

Don

The Adequacy of Randomness and Informal Expression

I hope that my readers are able to read my blog and disregard the fact that maybe not all my posts will be in MLA format, nor will it be a completed essay, or how a teacher would want an essay to be made (5 Paragraph default, indentations, etc). I feel as if this blog shall express simply what comes to mind, and as a thinker, I have a lot to think blog about, so having to write a complete essay for each subject can be tedious and overwhelming, so you will be getting tidbits here and there with the greatness of a full shed of essays.

Love to my readers :)
Don

Walt Grace...Me?

Walt Grace's Submarine Test, January 1967

John Mayer

"It's Not the End"

          A famous musician, Bono, once said "Music can change the world because it can change people" As a person, I do not succumb to many obstacles, I don't think I can do very much academically, or in other words, reach expectations of others, but one necessity I need in life is music. No, I am not Beethoven, but I feel as if music is a component of my individuality; almost like a cog in the cycle of an entire machine. I shall not lose air in my lungs or lose my ability to walk, but I will lose my ability to think---to elaborate and innovate. Music in so many ways can break down each factor of your emotions into words; words you could never be able to say or to express. From Rap to Rock, each genre has its meaning and purpose of being created. Even the most criticized songs contain lyricism and meaning too powerful for some to understand. The song above is one of my favorite songs due to its meaning, its simplicity, and its creation of not a song, but the creation of possibilities. Possibilities, as in we are able to do anything.

       This song is truly incredible because it separates human perspectives and ideology. In any classroom, in any office, in any building, there are the pessimists and the optimists. The perspective in which a person's mind sets to can be such a powerful benefactor to affecting the atmosphere around themselves. A vibrant, smiling man brings positive energy to his colleagues, his peers, his friends, while the relentlessly irritant man constantly pulls others into his abyss of intermittent sadness. The story in which I perceived myself in this song might differ from yours because that's the beauty of this song. Long story short, Walt Grace is a character who artist John Mayer created who simply wants to reinvent himself as a person: Walt Grace is on the search for adventure, relevance, and new experiences. He then locks himself away from family and friends in his basement to create a submarine out of ordinary household items. Alongside, his friends and family disparage and belittle his ideas, "his wife told his kids he was crazy...his friends said he'd fail if he'd try.". While they neglect his thoughts and hopes, he ignores their opinions and continued, through the difficulties, to make his invention. He then set sail alone for an adventure that he did not expect to teach him new ways of life, such as turning into tides. He is ecstatic at the sight of the sky in a flare, like a new beginning of hope and nirvana. His wife later then gets an unexpected call which states her husband has died in Tokyo. 

       His death sparks a domino effect of the people who knew and/or cared for him to speak about him after his death. These fictional people in the lyrics are the same people who critique the song and the ideals of a lost man such as Walt. The pessimistic side would state his ignorance, asking questions like "Why would he go to the sea so unprepared?" and assume he was "ignorant" or "stupid". While these things can be true to some, it is the fact that the world is diverse in thinking. We as humans do not understand one another because we aren't one another---we do not have the same experiences life throws at us. Walt's actions admittedly weren't the smartest decisions, but it was his own way of reinvention, a way of finding creative ways to spark a light into the candle of happiness once again. A question to ask negative viewers is "Was it stupid because he went into the sea, or was it because he died?". If Walt Grace had lived through his adventure, he would be accommodated as a world class sailor or someone inspirational---only for his victory. If Colombus hadn't found the Americas and just died after he set sail, he would have just been another failure, another death story to talk about. Walt Grace, dead or alive, was a tale of a man who had ventured through the aspirations of his own imagination, excelling in the eyes of his own opinion rather than others. He reached nirvana, enlightenment, and happiness with the ease of following one's goals and intuitions. We as a modern society forgot how it is to venture away from the television screen; how to truly find ourselves and how to make a mark on the society. 

          Walt Grace's acts might have been ridiculously random and odd, but it was his way of breaking away from the tedious, repetitive life we live in. The bystanders did not help either, making him look like some sort of circus freak for his actions. We as humans cannot belittle others because we are different; each one of us has a glimpse of hope to accomplish an ecstatic moment in our lives. Until you realize how joyful and inspiring Walt Grace's story is, you will not be able to have the privilege to live---to be alive. We live life only once, so we become characters of our own imagination to exceed in life and make opportunities and successes we have never imagined possible. This is not an invitation to make a submarine out of a fanblade and die in the ocean, but it is the encouragement to reevaluate your life and prioritize carefully, because one day it might be too late to give life your fullest. Walt Grace, in some aspects, can be proven similar to how I feel as a person as well. Though I am still young, I feel as if my life and future can be determined by all my actions and that I should value each moment I have. Life is a train that cannot be stopped, just like a clock that won't stop ticking. As irrational as it sounds, we as individuals must direct ourselves into not what others want us to do, but what we want to do. The submarine built by Walt is like the life you can shape through the will and desire to strive for knowledge, innovation, and development. 

Welcome

Hello to anyone who finds time in their maniacal schedule to join my literary corner of the world!

My name is Don Dela Cruz and I currently am a high school student in Los Angeles.

Just for precautionary measures, this blog might not strike to be at all interesting, but a place where one can fit their individual feet into my shoes.