They're Not Old Enough!

Earlier this year, when I was beginning to take Civics & Economics at school, our teacher showed us an episode of a television program titled The West Wing. The show itself was well-written; even if I didn't know it was penned by Aaron Sorkin, I'd recognize his ultra-fast dialogue anywhere, but it was good dialogue.

The problem was that it was the sixth episode or so, and I had no idea what the hell was going on. Later I mentioned this to my maternal grandmother on the phone and she said something about the "themes" being something I'd "come to appreciate more as I gained age and, therefore, maturity." OK, Grandma, I love you, but this is a common mistake. Trust me, plenty of teenagers don't realize the finer side of art, nor do plenty of younger children and a frightening number of adults. But some adults (not all) consistently belittle us. For example, I was unscathed by R-rated movies by age thirteen. I learned most swearwords early on. And I can fully well understand most forms of art without having to wait.

They seem to think us younger than we are. I first saw a PG-13 movie, as I recall, at age eight. It was Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, which I remember being pretty cool. Sure, I had forgotten most of it by the time I decided to watch it again at age eleven. But eleven-year-olds are not toddlers. They can understand things perfectly well. One thing I think turns many kids off of the love of reading would be English assignments that suck the life out of the written word, i.e. "What do you think the author meant?" I think the author meant what they said, or if not, then it either wasn't clear enough writing or it will strike us later without it being shoved in our faces. Stephen King compared these things to the golden goose. Once killed and butchered, it won't produce any more golden eggs. Or appeal to youth. We can figure stuff out if properly motivated and if given a fair chance.

Anyhow, I'm much more mature than most people my age. Sillier, sure, but that is actually part of my maturity. I know that it's good to laugh and have fun instead of being dull and doing the bare minimum in life. In addition, I'm beyond stupid things like perversion and bigotry. In some senses I am much more intelligent than most of these herd-sheep. Moreover, I understand people to a further extent than many, despite my mother's frantic claims of my social inadequacy. Generally, I can read faces and know the safest thing to say. And being eloquent doesn't hurt. I can back up most of my arguments and find the weaknesses in those of others. That's why I need to join Debate in the fall, if I can. In the meantime, Ethics sounds interesting, but I need to find out how to get into that.

So basically, youth does not equal stupidity or immaturity, or, of course, lack of ability to appreciate the finer things in life.

Poem: The Resting Field

Great gray-brown hulks arrive,
Trunks dragging, to the Resting Field.
It has been a long time,
A tedious journey, but youth cannot disturb the cages.
Only elders know the place.
The Resting Field is a sort of Heaven, a place of respite.


---

{Poem's end} - It seemed longer on the page, both in terms of space and concerning its message (it's about an elephant graveyard, if that was not clear). Maybe I ought to expand? Another interesting thing is that I wrote the entire thing (as of yet) during English class - not as an assignment, but upon completing one which was assigned. Maybe I shall post that as well? We'll see, eh?

Rest well, and good-bye for now,

- Lewis

Reading Assignment

So on Monday, I found out that my English class is doing this thing. Yes, a thing. We have to choose a book outside of school (or from our media center) that is over 150 pages long and read it in four or five weeks. There's probably some kind of report involved at the end, but I haven't actually heard about that. I thought about reading Cornelia Funke's newest novel Reckless, but it was 300-some-odd pages, and I thought I might challenge myself/show off a bit more. I thought about doing something by Peter Straub. War and Peace seemed a bit too long to read in that space of time. I eventually settled on a 588-pager by Neil Gaiman, known as American Gods. I've read a couple of his books (Stardust and Coraline), his story "Orange", and I own both of the aforementioned books as well as Year's Best SF 14, which contains "Orange". I also possess a collection known as Smoke and Mirrors. He's a great writer and storyteller, and this one is proving amazing so far. I can say this: There is more cursing (like a Stephen King novel), and it is quite dark. It involved one of the most explicit and directly stated sex scenes I have read, which ended up with the man being trapped inside the woman. There is a character who calls himself Mr. Wednesday. This should be a breeze and a delight to read, although I put down Dracula to read it (I had already put down The Stand to read Dracula for Halloween). I sometimes read a bit more slowly during times of schooling, but this should not be affected, seeing as it is, strictly speaking, for school. In class we are also reading Elie Wiesel's Night. I rather suspect this project might be due to the fact that (wipes tear) a lot of people don't read these days. A friend of mine showed me a minimally short book and opened it, showing me how big the print was. I suppose he thought he would somehow benefit from going easy on himself like that. He is a nice bloke, but not a reader. I'm just glad that I am.

Irrelevant notes: I am not doing NaNoWriMo this year. ~ My job is over for this year, but I can pretty much assure you I'll be returning. ~ Did I mention that I am most likely a descendant of Percy Bysshe Shelley? ~ I'm SO FREAKING EXCITED about Deathly Hallows!!! ~ Irrelevant notes...good idea! I should make this a regular thing.