This is Love.

This has been long overdue. My posts have paralyzed in wait for a soliloquy, a metaphor, a simile, about you. Past posts have been close, "Spread the Love" was in preparation for you, "Crushed" was scared of you, "We're Just Friends" was for you, and "Lightbulb" was in spite, yet inspired still, by you.

But this post is you. This is Love.

You, Love, have always been there, disguised in a slough
Of faces, ballads, flowers, and sunsets.
But it's always been you.

I have never been ready,
Never quite understood,
How to greet you, or treat you, or if I should
Because if I didn't know how
What made me think that I could
Dabble in Love, which appears like magic
When I'm no magician
And the tricks up my sleeve
Are unknown to me.

But Love, what you've taught me
Is that the show will go on
Love will continue its trickery
With me to tag along

So I'll reach in my hat
Fishing for a bunny
Even though you can't assure me
I won't pull out a rat.

With its pink wiggly tail
and its squeak squeak squeak
which sounds a lot like weak weak weak
Love, you taught me that a rat is not a fail
But that I should hold it by the tail and bow anyway
And as I look at my feet
I see how far I've walked
But my soul and my shoes are not worn yet
I still have places to go and people to meet

So I look back up at the audience before me
Who just witnessed my rat of a bunny
And as they clap politely
I know there are other fish in the sea
Other shows to be had
There is more to this trickery

Love will turn up again
As it always had
And I know that is true
Because when I look at you
I know I have found it once more.

This is love.

~Kat

"Nothing is more practical than finding God, falling in Love in a quite absolute, final way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what your read, whom you know, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything."
~Fr. Pedro Arrupe

Save Me.

For those of you who aren't already aware of the "Save Our Neighborhood" situation with the lights, what's going on is that the school wants to add lights, and a new PA system and possibly a parking structure in order to have night games and practices. The neighborhood doesn't want that because of the noise and the loss in property values.

In most recent news, lights are not going to be at the Homecoming game this year, so it will have to be during the day. Many Pointers are up in arms and blaming it on the "Save Our Neighborhood" group.

This is how I respond.

Dear Save Our Neighborhood Assholes,

How dare you take away our precious night games? It’s our senior year, we are teenagers and we want to have some fun while the fun still lasts. I can’t believe you all took away our one existing night, the Homecoming game. We have horrible school spirit as it is, and now nobody’s going to come out for the day game. The lights were going to save everything, and now we can’t have it for even one night.

Let’s walk out. Let’s all meander around the neighborhood, show them just how reckless and noisy teenagers can be. Let’s give them something real to complain about. We’ll show them how to rally together and make something happen.

We only have four years of high school, and because of you people, we can’t make the most of it. Because all you hoity-toity home owners made the stupid decision to buy a house next a high school, what did you think was going to happen? This isn’t the 1970’s anymore. It’s not like the student population hasn’t grown at all, or that most of the kids don’t have to drive to school. It’s not like you have to deal with trying to find a parking space. It’s not like you’re missing out on having an enjoyable Friday night.

You all are just being myopic. Just concerned with yourselves, and your property value, and your quiet neighborhood. You just want to be able to go for walks with your little shih-tzus without all of our crappy old cars that we pay for and maintain ourselves lining your streets. Plus, it’s all the same people that are parking out front of your house all day 5 days a week anyway. Who cares if they are still there for another 3 hours or so after dark? And you can’t blame us for who comes to use the field on the weekends, that’s out of our control. By law they have to loan the field out, and the money that comes in from those renters will help pay for needs the school has and better our experiences. That’s right, I’m not just a stupid teenager, I went to the meetings.

You just can’t understand our struggle. Can’t understand what it’s like to be a high school student without night games. We’ve sacrificed for the neighborhood since the beginning, agreeing to have only one night game a year. We’ve really done you a favor. All we’re asking is for it to be returned.

Just let us have the lights. We are only in high school for four years, and it’s supposed to be the best years of our lives. And then we’re going to be gone and going off to college and it’s all going to be over. We’re going to be getting a job that we have to work really hard at to become successful and live the dream. We’re going to get married, and have a dog, and move into a nice quiet neighborhood in a nice house that we paid for and earned. We’re going to enjoy the rest of our lives with our kids and our grandkids, going on nice walks to unwind after a stressful day at work. And we’re going to be smart, and not move next to a high school with rowdy kids crowding our space, ya know?

And we are going to look back at our high school years and remember how much they sucked because we didn’t have school spirit, or a night game for our last Homecoming, or lights for our field, and we are going to remember that it’s all your faults because you just thought of yourselves, and your perfect little houses, and quiet neighborhood.

Insincerely,
The class of 2014

~Kat

P.S. I've done my research on satire.

Pop Ups

Every time I click on a link a big box gets in my way. It tells me "You won!" or "Download me!" A new tab will come up, and redirect me to a page I didn't ask to see. I have to sift through all the traps just to get here. My own blog is booby trapped.

And just like my laptop, I can't seem to get anything done without something popping up in my path. It tells me lies, that it will give me just what I need, just five more minutes, you can finish that later. Then five minutes turn to ten and the pop up has morphed into a whole new direction and before I know it, I'm caught up in a new program. The homework doesn't get done, the bed is unmade, the books are left lonely on the shelf. And then finally when the weight of tomorrow is too much for me to handle today, I peak out over the dirty clothes and pile of prayers left unsaid, searching for some kind of firewall or virus protection to keep my world from decaying into an abyss of pop-ups and opportunities missed.

Blink. Refresh. This is water.

Once upon a time there was a fish. His name was Larry. Larry lived on a desk, his neighbor was a mason jar of sketch pencils. He had a balanced three-flake-a-day diet. Sometimes he would splurge and eat a dust mote. Larry couldn't believe his life, he wasn't just any other fish in the sea. He got to live on a desk.

One day the hands came, like they do on a daily basis, and they scooped Larry up and put him in a bag. Larry was a very lucky fish, he had helpful hands to clean his bowl. But Larry never saw the bowl, or the sketch pencils and mason jar again. When the hands came back, he was taken to a new place, with new neighbors. He no longer lived in a bowl, but in a tank with a bright white light and a big black box that whirred and snarled and shot out bubbles at Larry. He had new neighbors, a clock radio that flashed blue symbols that he was sure could only mean something evil and he was scared. These were new waters.

New waters, but this is still water. The same water Larry's been swimming in his whole little fishy life. His gills still work. The hands still provide him with a balanced three-flake-a-day diet.

Larry's problem is that he can't trust himself. He doesn't see that this is water. He's been swimming the whole time, his gills have always worked, and they will continue to work even in the tank. There is nothing to be afraid of. Just keep swimmin'.

My computer's problem is that it doesn't have a proper virus protector, and the pop-ups are redirecting the direction the rainbow wheel has been spinning so diligently over.

My problem is that I can't easily face my problems. That is without turning myself into a fish or a computer. But I can choose my own reality. I'm not being bagged up and taken tank to tank by the hands. I'm not infected by a computer hacker outside of my control. I can stop all the pop-ups in my life, just as soon as I can hit the red X.

Discipline is just choosing between what you want now and what you want most...

Blink. Refresh. This is water.

~Kat

Head v. Heart

"Think of a time when your emotions (your heart) conflicted with what you know (your head)."

I immediately thought uh, boys. Then I quickly thought that was dumb, for obvious cliched reasons. Then I thought, well, college and majors. That's the big one for me right now. But as of right now, there is still no resolution between my math/science brain and my creative writing/music brain that experts say aren't supposed to live inside the same head. Or else. I'm quickly learning just how difficult that "or else" can be.

So in an effort to answer the prompt with a resolution and not just circuitous "I don't know, but maybe..." Here is how I have handled this conflict before, in a high stress environment, when a decision had to be made in the moment:

Before I was Kat Shaw. Before the blog, the self-confidence, self-identity, and forward thinking, I had to learn who "Kat Shaw" was. This was one of those learning experiences.

Poetry Club Symposium, sophomore year.

The spotlight was too bright. The room was too full. The pool of peers, and ultimate judges, was too deep and dark. The fire and brimstone performance before me, preaching about struggle and hurt I was too young and sophomoric to understand, left the stage smoldering. A clammy Katherine Shaw stepped up to share her little poem about "nice guys."

Two stanzas in I got burned. The words were clinging to my tongue, the electrical synapses in my brain were static. The next line wouldn't come for the life of me.

Head: nothing.
Heart: run.

So after playing the part of the deer in headlights for a few moments, that's just what I did. I ran backstage and frantically asked my fellow poets what the next line was to my poem. Of course, they didn't know. It was my poem.

Heart: You're done for. Prepare to be the Point Loma, not so poetic, pariah. I hope you have a bag for your head.

Head finally decided to join the conversation after being fashionably late.

Head: Go back out there. Take a deep breath. Ask the audience to start over. They got out of class for this, they won't say no.

With Heart kicking and screaming inside my chest, I stepped back out onto the stage. It was considerably cooler after being stagnant so long.

Miraculously, the world did not end.

But my poem did :)

~Kat

P.S. If you're having any internal conflicts like this, and your internal organs are conversational like mine are, I really found this prompt beneficial to look back on how I handled things in the past to help how I will handle them now. I still don't know whether to follow my heart or my head with something as big as my future career and the college to get me there, but I can assure you, you all will be the first to know when I do.

If I Should Have a Son

If I should have a son, by the time he's one year old, he would know that Dada could be just as comforting as Mama. By the time he's three, he would know that "please" and "thank you" are the magic beans that grow success and that if he ever falls from that bean stalk, it is okay to cry because nothing can grow without a little bit of watering. Before he enters Kindergarten, he will know that girls play differently than boys, and that they need to be protected just like Daddy does for Mommy. He might make a mistake every once in a while, but when he does, he will have the tell-tale face of guilt because his Mommy taught him right from wrong. And he will learn that an "I'm sorry" will shake that guilt away like an Etch-a-Sketch.

If I should have a son, by the time he starts high school, he will have learned that you can't go anywhere without a door opened for you, which you should always remember to be grateful for. He will also learn that sometimes you have to be the one to make the first push, but in either case, he will know that the right thing to do is to hold the door open for whomever may follow him.

If I should have a son, and if he should fall in love, I would tell him that girls are like buried treasure. Pirates will try to steal their worth, but he will know that the pirate life is not for me. Those doubloons will stay buried until she maps out the key to her heart for the man she will marry. He will know that that man won't always be him. But I'll tell him, when it's time, he will know from the protective nature to guard that "X marks the spot" with his life. He will know that to love is to sacrifice, and that if it was easy, everyone would have it.

If I should have a son, God help me, because growing up in a house of girls doesn't exactly lend me the qualifications to discover the mystery of the Y-chromosome, and my name isn't Nancy Drew.

But even if I should have a son, I would make sure that he would know that cussing is the crutch of the conversationally crippled, and that in this family, it's never been able to roll of the tongue gracefully anyway. He would know that if he needs to get in a fight to impress his friends, they aren't really his friends; they are just looking for you to get hurt. And he would NEVER spend his entire ceramic's class talking with his friend about boobs. Especially when you have to talk around the girl sitting between you in class.

Because if that girl was your mother, I can tell you right now, she didn't appreciate it.

If I should have a son, he would at the very least, know that.

~Kat

"Miss Kat! Tell me a story!"

I hear this often from the four year old boy and two year old girl whom I babysit for. It was pretty scary the first time they asked me. Talk about being put on the spot. And they read Dr. Seuss, talk about high expectations. Try to think for a few minutes? Nope, ain't no four year old got time for that. You have thirty seconds. Go.

By now I've gotten to the point where I can roll with the punches, especially once I figured out that if there are dinosaurs or sharks in the story it's immediately a hit.

Everyone loves a story. Stories have been around for as long as there were people to dictate them. Stories will be around for as long as there are people to listen. There will always be a demand for writers. Yet, I'm still hesitant to declare myself an English major. I'm still leading myself down the road of being in school for a million years after high school graduation majoring in Health Science.

I've always had an interest in medicine, inspired by my mom, a nurse. I've always been pretty good at math and science in school, even enjoyed it most of the time.

But something that I enjoy all the time: English class. It has always been my favorite, every year since Kindergarten. I look forward to that class like a child would look forward to their birthday. I dabble into writing exercises and new techniques like college students might dabble into promiscuity. I re-read my old work like someone might dream of the "glory days" and gaze nostalgically upon their pee-wee soccer trophies.

You could say I love it.

I just finished the first week of my Senior year, and yes it has met my high expectations. It's challenging, but it's easy enough to digest so that I don't have to wait a half hour before I go swimming and have fun. I have some very interesting classes, with great attention-getting teachers.

The top two things I learned this week:

One, stories have a lot more to them than what meets the eye and they have a lot more to say than what seeps between your ears. They are important, important enough to require all citizens of the United States to study them for their first twelve years of schooling, if not more.

Two, if what you love is not "worth your time," then what is? "The only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do... Don't settle."-Steve Jobs

And both of these things came from my English class.

I would hope after 12 years of English class I would know how to read a sign, if only I was courageous enough to follow it.
~Kat

To Student Entering Ms.Beltran's Class

Number one: You have just won the lottery. You were "randomly" chosen to be sitting in that seat, in this class, with these people, and that teacher, for which you have seriously lucked out. You'll realize how lucky you are soon enough, for there are many lessons you will learn in this class that you will carry with you the rest of your life. I say with no exaggeration that you will be changed, in some way, by the end of the year. Don't fight it, embrace it. You being in this class is not as "random" as it may seem, you probably need this class more than you know.

Number two: This is not an English class. Read it on your schedule: AP English LANGUAGE. Notice "language" in all caps. This is a class where you learn how to communicate effectively in the world. Whether that be at a job/college interview, a debate, a Facebook status, or effectively dumping a boyfriend/girlfriend (Hint: Don't text them). Everything you learn in this class is useful, so pay attention. Ms. Beltran is not the kind of teacher who is going to feed you bullshit to up her test grades, she is a smart woman and well aware of what a glorious waste of time that would be for both of you.

Number three: Ms. Beltran is a person outside of being your teacher. This may be difficult to realize, but she too has feelings, favorites, and hunger pangs in 4th period just like everybody else. She might not want to be there some days, just like you. But she doesn't get to check out, so you better not. She has two beautiful children she could be spending her day with (I'm sure you will see many pictures of them), but she's here in a stuffy room with a bunchy of smelly teenagers. For some reason she likes us and keeps coming back. She is also human, and makes mistakes, but she has the decency and respect for you that she will admit when a mistake is made. So try to look at things from her perspective sometimes, and not just with her but with all your teachers. You're life will be a lot more pleasant, trust me.

She is also very smart and has a lot to offer you. She was a student as well, and very successful. We all want to make it in life, get the good SAT scores, get into the college of our dreams, have the job of our dreams. Ms. Beltran has made it. She will help you make it, too if you let her. Ms. Beltran makes things happen.

And lastly some useful tips:

If she suggests you should do something (i.e. read an article, check out a blog, research a speech) that means do it. It could very easily be what tomorrow's entire class discussion is centered around. Don't be left in the dark twiddling your thumbs, and don't try to pretend that you did it either. She will know. She always knows.

Take her advice. You will regret not taking it later, and she won't hesitate to tell you "I told you so."

One thing she'll tell you to do is read a lot. You won't want to. Do it. If you want to learn how to communicate effectively, what better way than to witness how the pros do it. Plus you'll have something impressive to say in conversations. I definitely received and "I told you so" for this one. Don't get caught with your tail between your legs.

And I cannot stress this last thing more:
She will invest in you what you invest in her class. Probably more. Invest a lot, you get a lot out of it, and will love this class. Invest little, you will gain little, watch everyone around you getting more than you, and then this will just be another period you have to lug your 20 lb. backpack to.

Like anything, the choice is yours. Just make the right one.

Good luck, and enjoy
~Kat

Ask me a question! :)

This modern world is so sad, so many innocent people are falling into it, and don't even know.

This post was brought on by something that came up on my Newsfeed, one of my "Facebook friends" (really I don't even know her that well) posted that she was "bored" and then a link to ask.fm. I've been seeing this site coming up a lot, so I followed the link to see what it was all about. And what I saw made me sad for this girl I barely know.

She was getting pounded by very personal questions about her relationships, and prom night, and was answering these anonymous questions with all openness, and then having to aggressively defend herself and her choices to this person she can't even see or know. I could feel her frustration and hurt as this person hidden behind a screen was slashing her psyche.

It's terrible in itself that someone would attack her like this in such a despicable way, but what really made me sad was that she just kept answering the questions. And even posting again on Facebook for more people to see her page, see her life and her struggles, and interrogate her about it. She's doing this to herself because she just doesn't know better and she's bored.

I remember a site like this a few years ago, formspring.com, which was pretty much the same thing, and I remember that site being just as destructive. This is the kind of thing this modern world creates, we're losing it here. We are losing sight of what's real, this internet world isn't "real" to us anymore. The words we type don't mean anything to anyone because they aren't "real." We look for a sense of security behind an anonymous comment box, but really nothing is secure there. But we become addicted to the affirmation from all the likes and shares and views we get that we can't shut down an account once it becomes too much because we are already in too deep. We don't see that this "luxury" is really just a trap.

We lose sight of what real love is, what marriage is, what dating is, and what the purpose is of love at all. We are shown in TV shows the glamour of summer love and flings and hook-ups and high school relationships and sex and all that, but its all just movie magic, guys. Real love is willing to sacrifice anything, even yourself, for someone else. It's giving everything.

That's why they say "you know when you know" because if you think about it, this self-sacrificial love is completely counter-cultural. We don't sacrifice, we accommodate. So many people date in high school, including myself, with the mindset that this person is good enough, they fit into my life easily, it's fun, and now I have a plus-one wherever I go. But at least in my last relationship, and I bet I'm not the only one, I wasn't willing to sacrifice for my boyfriend. I was still seeing my other guy friends, letting myself be swooned by their charm. I wouldn't sacrifice those friends, those feelings, for him. I didn't love him. So I was just wasting both of our time, because at the heart of it, I was bored with my life and he kept things interesting. I lost sight of what love was.

Really, I think the heart of our problems is losing sight of what's real, and what is not and just made up by culture. Look at the top issues right now: abortion (what is life?), same-sex attraction (what is love?), right to bear arms (what is freedom?).

And now I'll end with that last one: freedom. Why are we all so lost? Why do we fall into these traps? Because we lose sight of what the truth is. In this world, what's true for me can be different than what's true for you. That leaves truth to be relative to the person, in other words, there is no absolute truth anymore. It's easier to think this way because our world is so diverse, and it diverts conflicts, but it also makes it so that if you know what the truth is, you aren't allowed to share that, because that would be "forcing your beliefs" on someone. You can't say anything, even if you know that if they just knew the truth, that would save them a lot of trouble.

Can't say to that girl that ask.fm is a trap you're letting yourself fall into.

Can't say to a friend in a bad relationship that you don't really love each other, this is a waste of time, neither of you are willing to sacrifice, and you are worth better.

Can't say to a friend who has an accidental pregnancy that abortion is murder. Life does begin at conception, not only do our hearts know it, but science does too. And nobody has the right to choose to kill someone. No matter how inconvenient that may be. You would regret that decision the rest of your life, and really it won't fix anything.

I can easily be persecuted and ridiculed for that last one. So much that I wouldn't catch myself saying that in public out of fear.

So now let me ask some questions: Do any of us really have freedom of speech? Freedom of religion? Freedom to live? Freedom to delete a self-destructive account? Freedom to know the truth?

I have hope that someday we can honestly answer in full confidence yes to all those questions. Because people tell me a lot that I have my head screwed on straight, I'm kind, I have my life together, even in the struggles I stay strong. People that I watch struggle themselves, people I care a lot about, tell me this. It's hard for me to watch them trudge through like I used to before I "figured it out."

If only I felt like I had the freedom to tell them the truth of how I live my life now and how I figured things out, I would have hope that they could figure it out soon too. But until then, I'll just have to drop hints and wait.

Patiently hopeful
~Kat

Lightbulb!

I'm sure anyone who's been following this blog for some time, or who knows me outside of a computer screen, can attest to the fact that I'm pretty much an open book. I have no problem sharing things about myself with other people, I always thought of that as one of my better qualities. I'm open and I'm trusting.

Something else that you all may have noticed about me lately (and many times in the past) is that I have been falling for my friends. That is, letting myself fall in love with some of my guy friends. And it has always led to awkwardness, disappointment, and then a distance between us that can never be crossed again. It's not a very fun ride.

What had never occurred to me before, and was revealed to me in a chastity talk of all things, was that my problem and my "better quality" goes hand in hand. This chastity talk was not my first, and probably won't be my last. But it was the first that ever talked more about emotional chastity than it did physical chastity and modesty.

Emotional chastity is an amazing thing, it's a shame it isn't spoken of more often. Leave it to me to unearth the unspoken. But I really think a good understanding of this can help a lot of girls and guys like it's cleared things up for me.

So "chastity" isn't just not having sex. Chastity is loving in a way appropriate to the relationship; that includes physical and emotional.

The emotional part of chastity is best explained as "guarding your heart." Making sure that what you share of yourself and your emotions is appropriate to the relationship, whether that be an acquaintance, a friendship, a dating relationship, an engagement, or a marriage.

This is what I've been doing wrong, how I've been "unchaste." I was going ahead and sharing the deepest parts of my heart with my guy friends. I was trusting them with a lot. Looking to them for affirmation, guidance, safety. Of course my feelings would get out of hand. And so next the big question was: Why was I telling him this? What was my real motive, what was I looking for? And why wasn't I just going to one of my girl friends?

Most of the time I was looking for affirmation, an ego boost, someone to blast away my insecurities. Or I would be looking for a "body guard" type person, to make me feel safe when I was scared. Or the worst would be looking to see how I should change myself to be better suited and made worthy their affections.

THIS IS RIDICULOUS! They are but 17 year old boys! They aren't perfect, or incredibly wise, or incredibly trustworthy. They mess up, a lot. What ever made me think I could give them ALL of my heart, just so they could mess that up too? Let me down when they aren't the perfect gentleman? Disappoint me when their best advice to me is "oh, that sucks"?

It sounds really ridiculous once you lay it all out for what it is, doesn't it? But I can guarantee I am not the only one that's experienced this. We have all at one point in our lives let ourselves give a little too much.

This isn't to say I won't trust boys ever again. That they are silly irresponsible little creatures with nothing to offer, and aren't worth my time. It's just that they aren't worth spending all my time worrying about them.

They don't need to know everything about me, don't we want to leave a little mystery? We don't need them to affirm us. I'm sure our girlfriends, or our moms, can do just as good a job. We don't need their silly "oh, that sucks" advice. If you need advice from them, it better be on which team to bet on for the World Series or what sandwich I should make for lunch.

Guys, I love you, but I am not having y'all listen to my emotional dramas anymore. No more heartbreak. No more friendships broken by awkwardness and too much information. No more need to write posts or songs about you. Because Taylor Swift knows you could do that the rest of your life if your not careful.

I hope this could help anyone who's been through the same stuff as me, and could get you out of the ridiculous cycle of boy troubles so that you can start living a little more freely.

Much love and new found freedom,
Kat

New Baby

Baby Martin that is! AKA a Little Martin LX1, AKA a travel sized guitar, AKA the same guitar Ed Sheeran has. EEK! It looks beautiful, sounds beautiful, and even smells beautiful. Nothing like the smell of new guitar. I put it down for the first time since I came home with it to write this post. And the best part of all of this was that I had to earn it.

I've been lucky enough to have a pretty comfortable life, with pretty much everything given to me. But the problem with having everything handed to you, it can get to your head. You begin to expect it, not appreciate it, and then next thing you know you're a brat.

I don't know about you... but when I grow up, I don't want to be a brat. I know brats, and I don't like them very much, they're bratty. They have everything under the sun, but nobody seemed to hand them character. Nope, character cannot be handed to you. You have to work for it. So I did, and I babysat, a lot.

3 months later, I was on the road to Guitar Center, chasing after my rainbow, and I came home (skipping and jumping) with the pot of gold. I earned this one, every penny of it. She's all mine, she's my baby.

With glowing excitement
~Kat

P.S. This day never would have come without a big push. YB, you are oozing with the kind of character I wish I could have some day. Everything you have, you've earned 100% through your hard work, dediaction, and brains. I am continually inspired by you, and forever grateful. I send a million thanks your way, and I hope your summer is going swell. I miss yer face xoxo

"We're just friends"

So I have finally written and finished a song, after many tries I have finally done it. Now, this being my first song, it's no piece of musical geniusness at all. Nor is the recording quality on my Dell top notch. But like all big things, I wanted it to be documented, and wanted to share it with all of you.

This song I started writing before I left for my trip and finished when I got home. I wrote it about falling for your friends, which is always complicated. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's experienced the "Oh no" moment as you realize you really are crushing hard on a good friend, and the dread that follows because these things never seem to turn out well.

This is how it usually goes, at least for me:

Step 1: You realize this has been accumulating for months. "oh no" moment
Step 2: Once you realize it, the crush gets exponentially worse. Awkwardness ensues whenever you see this person now.
Step 3: You get really close to telling them a numerous amount of times, you back out every time.

Now Step 4 can go three different ways, all of which have happened to me before:
a) You start dating. Either you had 20 seconds of courage, or the other person caught on and you were lucky enough that it worked out
b) Something happens, you are forced to "fall out" of love with them. Pout around for awhile. Move on.
c) You've been waiting a long time for this person to catch on. They are about as observant as a 5 year old watching cartoons. Before you know it, it's two years later, and wow, I don't like them anymore. When did that happen?

So this was written about the plight of falling in love with a friend, and all the confusion that comes with it. I was in a Stage 3 crush at the time this was written. I don't really know what to call it, for now I'm going with "Friend-Zoned."

You can view it here. That's all :)
~Kat
P.S. A good friend told me that what we want is not always what is good for us, and she was right. Thanks, doll.

Teetering

I'm in a funny age right now. I'm within the grasps of adulthood and teetering between doing child-like things, and watching children do tings.

Teeter

Between looking up to those who can teach me and looking down to teach the youngsters

Totter

Between having to go to school and choosing to go to school

Teeter

Between playing with Play-do and using Play-do as a distraction

Totter

From resisting a nap to wishing I could take one

Teeter

I'm in a funny place right now. I'm in the center of a see-saw. But now time is providing the gravitational pull to one side, and I can't resist from sliding into responsibility, independence, taxes, car insurance, college, and jury duty.

But I'm not sure if I'm ready. Right now, I don't want to go. I want to sit and play with Play-do. Make green and blue dinosaurs with candy eyes. Play outside with the hose and slip and slide on my lawn. Slide down the grassy hill on a flattened cardboard box. Scooter all the way to the monkey bars, hop on, and make it to the other side, skipping every other bar like a pro. Sleep under a pillow and blanket fort, making hand puppets with a flash-light.

It's funny how you forget little things like this, but it only takes a few minutes with a four-year-old to bring it all back again. Center me again on the teeter-totter, and pull me back to the fun-side of things.

Yes, in three months I will officially be an adult, but that doesn't mean I can't still run with the Wild Things and escape off to Neverland every once in a while.

Glad to be back
~Kat

Where was Kat??

Well, Kat was in Europe for two weeks. I got home last night, and am currently fighting the urge to sleep because my brain is telling me it's midnight. I went to 3 countires: Hungary, Austria, and Italy; and 5 cities: Budapest, Hungary; Vienna, Austria; Florence, Italy; Siena, Italy; and Rome, Italy. Experiencing Europe and all its different cultures, languages, and fizzy waters will be something I remember for the rest of my life.

So I'll try to break my trip down into digestable chunks for all you curious people.

The first 4 days we spent in Budapest, Hungary where my grandfather was born and immigrated from when he was eighteen fleeing from the Nazis. The city was more beautiful than I expected. It's split in half by the Danube river, with many beautiful old bridges connecting the hilly Buda side with the metropolis of Pest. First couple days we spent in Pest, where we visited the first recreational park ever in the whole world, the lavish Turkish baths, Hero Square with its huge statues of gladiators, the Synagogue where my grandfather used to attend and my great-grandfather was the cantor, the Jewish ghetto were they lived, and finally the Opera house. The Opera house was spectacular, all the boxes in the auditorium were leafed with gold, the ceiling was muraled with Greek gods and naked babies, and the chandelier was spectacular. My great-grandfather was the tenor here as well, and director of the Opera House for 40 years. While we were touring the lavish rooms, there were lots of busts and words about the other directors who didn't serve nearly as long, but none on my great-grandfather. We thinks it's because he's Jewish, and Hungary is still very anit-Semitic. The people there, according to our native friend Adri, often try to forget about the horrors done there and the Jews who were killed. Seeing the ghettos and visiting the cemetery in the courtyard of the synagogue definitely made it real for me. Below are pictures of the interior of the Opera House, the courtyard cemetery of the Synagogue, Heroes Square, and the Turkish Baths, respectively.



The last few days we toured Buda, which is all hilly and at the top is Castle Hill. It's called that because it is literally full of Medieval castles and beautiful views of the city. But the most beautiful thing on Castle Hill was the Matthias Church with its grand spires and colorful tiles that patterned the roof. Also, the little cobble-stoned streets and painted buildings were very reminiscent of downtown Disney. We also toured the Hospital in the Rock, which was made from underground caves and used during World War II. Below are pictures of the palace on Castle Hill in the background and the Chain Bridge in foreground, a street in Castle Hill, the Matthias Church, and a room in the Hospital in the Rock.


Next we went to Vienna, which is a beautiful city, but a few bad experiences made me not like it as much. First on the train ride there, when we got to our stop, my sister got off but my parents and I didn't get off in time (it goes quick) and the doors closed and Sarah was left on the platform and we went on to the next stop on the other side of Vienna. So we had to take the metro (subway) to the other train station, search for Sarah (no such luck), then went to the hotel where she was sitting waiting. She'd gotten herself a cab, checked us all in, and gotten herself a drink. Good thing she knew what she was doing, at least. Also, my mom left her camera with the pictures from our trip and a few other memory cards of graduations, etc. on the train. That was a bummer. Also on our way home my sister left her iPhone in a restroom in the airport in Vienna and as we were boarding the plane my sister and father were turned away because there passports didn't match up with the boarding pass, so they had to go re-print them last minute, which was stressful. Shaws just do not belong in that city. So anyway, we spent two days there. The first day we went to Vienna's Opera House and saw the first 70 minutes of the opera Tristan and Isodale. The orchestra was beautiful, but I thought the rest was boring and we were in standing room so we weren't going to see the whole five hours. The next day we took a bus tour that rode us all around and told us about the history. We saw a really beautiful building designed by an architect who was the first ecologist, and designed his buildings in such a way to resemble nature, so it had all soft corners and none of it was leveled and instead it rolled with the natural Earth. I think that was the coolest thing I saw in Vienna. We also went on the world's first ferris wheel which provided another great view, and went to St. Stephen's Cathedral. Another cool thing about Vienna I didn't know before we got there is that it is basically the music capital of the world. Mozart and Beethoven were from there, and they had a lovely rose garden and park with their statues in it. Below are the ferris wheel, the cool building with trees and plants on the roof by the ecologist, St. Stephen's Cathedral, and the rose garden and statue in Vienna.



Next we took a train to Florence where we stayed in a cozy little apartment for a week. The building was built in the 12th century, which is pretty crazy that it didn't crumble beneath our feet. Our apartment was two blocks from the river and the Ponte Vecchio which is a beautiful bridge with apartments and shops built into it. Our first full day in Florence we spent in Siena, which was just a short bus ride away. There we walked around a bit and went into their Duomo Church (Duomo means Dome). We also just so happened to be there during this huge festival in prepartion for these horse races which are a big deal there, like the Super Bowl. There were huge groups of men marching around with the colors and flags of their districts, singing and chanting loudly and parading around through the tiny streets. The next few days we spent in Florence, visited the Duomo church there which was even more spectacular than the one in Siena. But most of the time we spent in museums full of famous art by people I've heard of, but didn't know much about. I was really kicking myself in the butt for not taking Art History last year. The most spectacular one though I knew all about already, and that was Michaelangelo's "David", which was huge and perfect and way better in person. We also saw the Museo Galileo which was filled with his old machines, telescopes, and instruments. In a glass case was also Galileo's thumb and two fingers. Bizarre but very cool. We also toured a few palaces and ate lots of pasta and gelato. Below are pictures of the Ponte Vecchio, a view of Florence with the Duomo, and Michaelangelo's "Pieta", which I will talk about more.


Then on Wednesday we took a day trip to Rome via train. Trying to do all of Rome in a day was a huge task, but we pretty much saw everything we wanted to see thanks to Sarah who figured out the metro system, so we got to all the sites very quickly. First we went to the Vatican, walked around St. Peter's Square where in the center was an obalisk from 37 A.D. Everything there was so old, I couldn't really fathom it. We then walked around the Vatican Museum which was full of old Byzantine art and some carvings from the Middle Ages. The museum then led into the Sistine Chapel, which is definitely indescribable. The only part I recognized was the God touching man, which was amazing to see in person, but that was only a tiny part of the whole mural. We then snuck out the side door, blending in with a tour group, and were led right into St.Peter's Basilica, which was huge. It was made of colorful marble, pinks, greens, blacks. Inside the church was Michealangelo's "Pieta", which is a very famous marble statue of Mary holding Jesus after he died. The alter was ornate, and just below the alter was where St.Peter, the apostle, the first pope, was buried. On the left of that was the site where he was crucified (fun fact, he was crucified upside down because he didn't want to be like Jesus, out of respect). Also, on the right side of the church, was the much beloved Pope John XXIII who led Vatican Council II and made lots of reforms in the church, in a glass casket, completely in tact. Not decomposed at all, no preservatives, completely organic. He's being canonized currently, one of the red flags that someone should be a saint is that their body is incorrupted. Pretty cool to see with my own eyes. We then went below the church into the crypts were most of the other popes, including St.Peter, are buried. Below are pictures of St.Peter's Square with the Obalisk, the interior of St. Peter's Basilica, Pope John XXIII in his glass casket, and St.Peter's tomb below the altar.


We then left the Vatican and went to the Trevi fountain, which was just as grand as the Lizzie McGuire Movie depicted. It was in the middle the city, seemed to pop out of no where, and it takes up the whole side of a building. So of course, I made a wish, and threw a coin in over my shoulder. Just like in the movies. Then we went to the Colosseum, which was awe inspiring, again I couldn't believe I was really there and it was really that old and gladiators used to roam those halls. We also walked around some other Roman ruins, and saw this huge memorial to some guy whose name I can't remember. It was a whole building with statues and the tomb of the Unknown soldier. Looked like the friggin' White House. It was a long day, lots of walking, but worth it. Below is the fountain, and the memorial.

We then spent one last day lounging in Florence before we went home. We went to the top of this mountain (by bus, we weren't about to walk that thing) which had a beautiful view of the city. Then we went back to the apartment, arose at 3 a.m. and embarked on our 24 hour trip home. We had a few layovers, overall not too bad. But the last flight was terrible, lots of turbulance, crying babies, and I was dealing with terrible nausea. Barely made it off the plane, plopped into bed at home and stayed up for another 3 hours, exhausted, waiting for sleep to free me from the terrible, soon to be discovered, food poisoning. I didn't even get to enjoy being home until I woke up this morning, stomach pain free, thank God.

It was an overall wonderful trip. But I definitely missed my homies, and not to mention my home. I'm glad to be back.
Much love to you all
~Kat

Hiatus

Yes, sadly, I am going on a 2 week hiatus, and I am leaving my computer behind. But the best part of this little vacation... I will be back! I will probably have plenty of inspiration too, and you will hear all about what the heck I've been up to, maybe even see a few pictures. I am bringing a notebook so I can write still, but I will miss you all dearly.

But for now, I thought I'd give you all "A Little Something Sweet" to savor while I'm away. This is a poem that I wrote just over a year ago, and it was written in the shape of a cupcake, so you'll just have to imagine that. Here it is: A Little Something Sweet.

A bit of cotton candy
A trifle of chocolate
Is worth keeping handy
For when my heart is beat.

Because a little something sweet
Is sometimes all you need
To make a rainy day puddle wonderful
And put your heart at bay

A spoonful of sugar really does help the medicine go down
When you're sick of life
And there's no one around
And the best perscription is to take up a knife...

And cut a bit of cake.

Because remember, life is all about what you make
And the last time I checked
Lemonade was a bit sweeter than lemons to take.

Love you all!
~Kat

Little Freaks

This was me at age nine, and this was how I showed excitement. I would open my jaw as far as it would go, form a double chin, and stand on my tip-toes, arms stick straight by my side. I don't know why I did it, I always have, and sometimes when I am really excited I still feel a strong urge to do it. It took all my might to not make this face at Sarah Kay.

I was a little freak as a child. I used to make this face, I used to crawl around my elementary school on all fours barking because I wanted to be a dog. At recess I would usually prefer to talk with the teachers supervising than the kids my age. I used to pick apart snails with sticks and do "surgery" on them. I was determined I knew what I was doing and would assign body parts to the different little snail bits; "Here's the heart, the bladder, the intestine, etc." I used to walk around Extended Day Care with a dinosaur walk, T-Rexin' my arms, bobbing my head, and snapping my jaw.

The list goes on, unfortunately. But yea, I was totally a little freak. Somewhere along the way, these things became a part of my past and my present did not contain such silly mischief. But honestly, I kind of miss it. I was free to be whatever I wanted, whether that be Snail-Surgeon General, a dog, or a dinosaur.

I know I'm not the only one that was a freaky child, I know someone else that used to walk around with dinosaur arms, too. And I bet you that person still has urges to revert back to their dinosaur days. And really, nothing that we do can ever get rid of our freaky selves. When I started high school, I was ready to start fresh because nobody knew me. I was "free" to do whatever I wanted, be whoever I wanted. The real me, that freaky little girl in the picture, was trapped inside the V-necks and Pointer gear. She was stashed away into my closet with the rest of the skeletons.

But here she is again. I combed through boxes of pictures to find her. I want people to know her, to know me. I'm having fun again, real fun. Fun that's free. Free to be a freak.

This girl never left me. She was always with me every day. She's a part of who I am. And the reason why I'm okay with her now, is because to those of you reading this, who know me pretty well, this probably isn't a surprise. It's not a surprise because I was never truly able to let the freak go. And I never freaking will. And guess what? I will still have friends tomorrow. So whoever said that nobody will like you if you're a freak was wrong. The strongest example of this: Danny Herrera, everyone still loves him.

If your "friends" do care, they aren't true friends. People that mind don't matter, and people that matter don't mind.

So give live free you little freak.

Freckled, Faulty, and Freaky Free
~Kat

Baby Steps

Everyone has to start somewhere, and most of the time the place where we start is rock bottom. No writer begins their first piece in media res and does it correctly, mine was atrocious. No pianist does Chopin for their first recital, mine was "Up on the Housetop", it was two measures long and I messed up more than a few times. No person begins their journey with love as eloquently as Romeo. Most of us begin the journey not even knowing how to recognize love. I know I still can't most of the time.

So if we don't blame the newborn baby for not being able to hold its own head up, why do we get so down on ourselves when we can't do other things right away?

I had another piano recital tonight. I've been playing piano for eleven years, having recitals at least twice a year, so this would be about my twenty-second recital. The first one was "Up on the Housetop" and this one was Chopin's Prelude No.4 in E minor. I've crossed a lot of ground since then. But it's not the applause after I finish a song that is the most memorable for me about recitals, although it definitely is good to know the audience enjoyed it as much as I did. It's the beginning pianists that inspire me the most. They don't yet have their "footing" with the piano, awkwardly trudging along. They have to pause frequently and go back, take a deep breath, and jump back into it. Let me tell you, that is the hardest thing to do. But all these kids, these tiny tikes with pint-sized piano hands and big shining eyes, can brush it off and finish what they started. When they do finish, they get a roaring applause and the biggest grin stretches across their faces. This was me not too long ago, as well. We made it through.

This is something we all can learn from. We all are going to have to mosey on through and stop and start again. Your first essay is not going to have smooth transitions and perfect grammar, your first kiss will not be glamorous. My first kiss, the guy missed my mouth and kissed my nose. But he went for it again and made it. It was gloriously awkward. The first shot at love could very easily be shot down. But through it all, after every missed-kiss, we trudge on. We get back up, we finish what we started. It's a part of life.

But the great thing about failing (yes, you just read that correctly) is that there's always a chance to prove yourself again. And if you're lucky enough to mess up a lot in the beginning, the rest is smooth sailing, because there isn't anything left for you to screw up. Heck, we are all screw ups.

Screwing up is another one of those things we pretend never happens, like poop. But like poop, everyone screws up. Stephen King has a box full of every rejection letter he ever received. He'd been writing and sending stuff in since he was in high school. He didn't get published until he was already married, and his first book was a best seller. He's one of those people that screwed up so much at the start, there was nothing left. And it shows, most of his books are best sellers. He never misses anymore.

So hold your head up, you babies! (Pun intended). Let's screw up together, and then talk about our screw ups. At the very least we can make someone else laugh, at its best we can make someone feel like they're not alone.

Much love and missed-kisses
~Kat

P.S. I love the village idiot ;)

Love.

Nothing is coincidence. Today was beautiful, and none of it was random. Fate dropped us right where we needed to be. We may not always realize it, but there are some moments when the veil is lifted, the crud is scraped from our eyes, and we see the world and the people around us with all the beauty they entail, and nothing less. These are the moments where we can feel infinite, we try to savor the taste of it in our mouth, and soak up as much of it as we can before it crumbles away.

Today was perfect. Today was raw, real, and cleansing. Today was eye opening. Today is a day we will hopefully not forget because today, magic happened.

Right now, I can't know what this day will inspire, who this day will inspire. But I know it did inspire. I can't know where we will go from here, who will be set free, and who will change their ways. But I know some ankles and wrists were unshackled today. Shackles that might have otherwise been left to rust. It didn't take brute strength, pliers, or saws. It took the undressing of old wounds, the sharing of battle scars, getting naked and being vulnerable.

Everyone has a story to be shared. Everyone has a lecture to be learned. Bad and good things will happen in our lives, and they don't happen just for shits and giggles.

If someone had backed out of sharing their story today, today wouldn't have had the impact it did. I know I will never forget what I learned, I will continue to be inspired by the people that were "randomly" dropped into my life. And I will forever be at a loss of how to thank these people. I know this post was all very vague and all over the place, but that's because I'm still letting it marinade. Hopefully after a few days I will be able to properly put my thoughts down and do it justice, but until then, you get the word squirts. Today was not about me or my writing anyway. It was nothing I could have ever produced from my mere fingertips. And I can't express how humbling and wonderful that is.
Love,
Kat

Poop and Periods

If that PP that I spilled up in the title box makes you uncomfortable, well then too bad, I'm not cleaning it up. Not until we talk about it. Personally, I have no problem talking about the movements of my body. Maybe it comes from having a nurse as a mother, but it just doesn't gross me out or embarrass me. The thing is, the entire human population poops every day. Half of the entire human population has periods every month. Why does society tell us that we should be embarrassed or grossed out by something that happens to everybody? It's not like we are the only people clenching our butts and plugging our flow. Happens to the best of us. One Direction, the President, even someone as fabulous as Audrey Hepburn poops. It's kinda funny if you think about it. Imagine another daily activity that we have to do, like eating, and being embarrassed about it. Trying to hide that we are chewing a peanut butter and jelly. Maybe we would even refuse to eat anywhere else besides our house. How weird and pointless would that be?!

I understand that although I'm all about challenging social norms, I'm not about to talk about my cycle and bowel movements with my boss or the Queen of England. But I do think we should be able to talk about it with our peers, or at least acknowledge that it happens. I'm tired of having to clench my butt if I have to fart during class, and then pretending like it wasn't me if I failed to suppress it. I'm especially tired of having to discover new covert ways to cover up the obvious fact that I'm going to the bathroom to change my tampon. We all know that when I take my whole backpack to the bathroom that's what I'm doing. It's especially inconvenient when I don't have a tampon, and need to sneak around and ask people under my breath.

So I'm going to try to be open about my bodily functions and not be embarrassed any longer. Yes, I did just fart. No, I was not "sick" on Monday, I wanted to let my uterine lining shed in peace. It was a great 28 days I had with it, so what if I cry a little and need a day off? The next time I'm at school and need to leave class to change my tampon, I am not going to bring my entire backpack, because ain't nobody got time for that. I am going to take out my tampon, slip it behind my ear, and go.

C'mon ladies, own it. We can start a movement.

~Kat

P.S. Guys should get comfortable with this stuff too. They will have to live with us the rest of their life, might as well begin to understand it now. And ladies, ultimate way to test if your guy friend is true: talk about your period. If they can float with the conversation and be cool, they're a keeper. Alex, you pass.

This is Personal.

That is my first attempt at a personal statement. It's a statement, and it says "this is personal." Get it? I have to confess I was pretty proud of myself for coming up with this witty pun. But a witty pun would not suffice in the mind of a college reader, so here is my second attempt:

Tell us about a personal quality, talent, accomplishment, contribution, or experience that is important to you. What about this quality or accomplishment makes you proud and how does it relate to the person you are?

People tell me I am a kind person. But really I am just a time-traveler, teleporter, and body-swapper. I have perspective, and this has become my most vital quality because without it, I couldn’t do any of the things that are most important to my life. I wasn’t born with this ability, so like most things; it started with a big bang. More like a crash. Of the stock market, that is. When the Great Recession began, my dad’s local business magazine (who’s biggest advertisers were bankers and real estate agents) quickly started to plummet. This was not unusual, lots of people were hurting, but as a twelve year old I didn’t have a perspective wider than that of my personal bubble. When I would ask my mom for things we normally could’ve afforded, and she would tell me no over and over again, I couldn’t understand why. Exasperated she finally said, “Look at it from my perspective. We just had to buy another house because we couldn’t afford our old one. We’ve been trying to sell our old one for almost a year, paying two mortgages. Your dad has no income, I’m working overtime. There is no extra money. No.” This began the shift from knowing nothing about the “grown-up stuff” to needing to know all about it in order to understand. I finally started seeing different perspectives other than my own.

Everyone has a story, and this realization started to infiltrate my daily activities. This began the body-swapping days. If my teacher was yelling at us, I would try to put myself in her shoes. She has kids of her own, doesn’t make very much money, she could have had a bad morning; I’ll be extra nice to her today. She would do that for me. By getting into the habit of thinking like this, how I treated everyone started to change for the better. This came in handy later when junior year my fellow members of poetry club at school got in a misunderstanding with our advisor and began giving him the cold shoulder and not showing up. Because of my ability to see perspective, I saw the problem for what it was (a misunderstanding) and was able to start to mediate the conflict. This “body-swapping” as I call it led to the kindness that people see in me and the belief that because everyone has a story, there is something to be learned from everyone.

The time-traveling started when I was six and was put into piano lessons, but I didn’t see it as that until I applied a new perspective to playing piano, and found a new passion for it. When I started playing my first classical piece, Chopin’s Prelude in E minor, I hated it. It was dreary, depressing, and boring. But when I saw it from a new perspective given in a TED talk, the piece came to life in a new way. The speaker, Benjamin Zander, prompted the audience to think of someone you loved very much but no longer was with, and you would hear everything Chopin had to say. It transformed the Prelude from boring to relevant, and although it was still dreary, I could share and connect with the exact emotions Chopin was feeling as he was writing it. It still astounds me to think about how I can experience the same perspective of a French man, who doesn’t speak the same language, or live in the same century as me. That is as about close to time travel as anyone can get, with reading and writing at a close second.


I stopped writing it here because I felt it was getting off topic and I didn't like it anymore. It was sounding too much like a TED talk. But this was my first go around, so it can only get better from here. Hopefully I can figure it out soon!
~Kat

Precious Little Princess.

This is making the most out of your work. What a fine example to us all.

So Much to Say

I got the word squirts. They just keep coming, and I can't type fast enough to make them form coherent sentences. I don't even really know what I want to say. I guess I'm just excited.

People always seem to be in disbelief when I say I'm terrible at talking. I'm just not good with words, and putting them together orally. They assume that because I can write, then I should be able to speak too. This is a common misconception. Because writing is completely different. People don't speak like they write, although sometimes my writing does come off as conversational. But with writing you can go back and fix and delete. You have time to think of the most eloquent diction and syntax to best convey the point of your sentence. For example, I just rewrote that last sentence 3 times before I deemed it fit. Writing is like choreography, it's beautiful, and it's all planned out down to the beat. Onetwothree onetwothree onetwothree. It's very different than free-style improvisational dance, and requires a different set of skills. Same with forming sentences.

Writing is my way of being able to make a connection. Even when I speak in sentences to someone, I write it out in my head first, edit the things I want to say, and then say it. Unfortunately, most of the time the sentence arrives a beat too late and is no longer relevant. But hey, it was a good sentence. Katherine can speak words.

But even still there are some things I can not explain in words typed up on my screen. Not even on this "New Post" screen, where all my best writing seems to come to life. That's when I turn to music. It's why when I initially pulled up this screen to write about my day and why it was so wonderful, eye-opening, free, I came at a loss for words. I can't really explain sufficiently what happened today at the San Diego Zoo as I was walking through jungles with one of my best friends, just being able to talk about whatever comes to mind and with out limits in the midst of such a beautiful place. It fails to express how I even came to be such good friends with this person who seems just way to cool to ever want to hang out with me, but there we were anyway. It's realizing that ya know, his shit does stink just as bad as mine. And why realizing that was such a relief to me. I can't explain in words why that happened. Or how I felt tonight at this bonfire with a group of some of the best people I have ever met and love so much, and as we all circled around and all took turns to send off our Senior to college. I can't explain the love, the closure, the pride I felt as we all shared things we love about him, my ex-boyfriend. It reminded me why we went out in the first place, how he truly was one of my best friends, and what a shame it is that we've fallen out of touch, because I do still consider him a dear friend. I do still love the guy. I can't explain all those things sufficiently with words. And how all those things can be experienced all at the same time.

Music eliminates the middle man (words) and brings you straight into the emotion. And its not just a representation like words can be. For example I can tell you how good this piece of cake tastes, but you wouldn't actually be tasting it. Music makes you actually experience things first hand. You feel it. And everyone can feel it. There is no language barrier in music. There isn't a time barrier too. It never ceases to amaze me how I can play Clair de Lune (my favorite song) today on my piano at home and hear and feel and experience the same thing that Debussy experienced and felt in France just over a century ago.

It kind of blows my mind. It's like time travel.

So today was just a great day. I have so much love in my heart right now, and I wish I could share it with everybody because I know not everyone is feeling as great as I am right now. So in an attempt to share a little slice of heaven with you all, here is as close as I can take you right now. Just take a deep breath, open this video, and just listen. Stop everything else you're doing and listen. And you will be transported back to a French village in 1890 where there is dancing, victorious love, and the opportune life. Where they can't seem to believe their happiness. And song mingles with the moonlight: Clair de Lune.

Enjoy
~Kat

P.S. Happy birthday Ms. Beltran. I owe a great deal of my happiness to you. And I wish all of it upon you, hope it was a good one <3

Story Time!

Everyone has their inner creep. The Facebook stalker who knows exactly what you did last weekend but asks you anyway. The nosy neighbor watching you trim the tree.

My inner creep consists of all of the above, but I discovered last year I also have an inner Stephen King. We had an assignment to write a short story last year in my English class. They had to have an element of magical realism. And I definitely surprised myself with my cynicism. It remains as one of my favorite pieces of writing I have ever done just because of how surprising it was even to myself as I was writing it.

So here it is: the Bluest Eye.

My alarm rings. I get up and shrug into my slippers. Saunter across the room to my mirror. My face has blue beady eyes looking back at me. I shut my eyes so I don’t have to see them. I hate my eyes. They match the color of the room, and the sheets, and the floor, and my pajamas. I’m drowning in a sea of blue. Yet I know I will never change the wall color, or the sheets, or the floor, or my pajamas, because my wife picked them out. It's her favorite color.

I shave my face with my two-bladed razor, without looking so as to free myself from the blue because I can’t stand to see one more bit of it. My face stings more than usual as I pat on my aftershave, and although I already dried my face, it still feels wet. A warm wet. I quickly turn from the mirror—I don’t need those beady blue eyes judging me—and I look down at my hands. They are red now, I smile at the beautiful color. I don’t know how to describe it, other than that it wasn't blue. I rub the color onto my wall and paint myself a red mural. I touch my face again and more of the red appears on my hands, to my delight. I rub that onto my sheets, so that I can fall asleep that night with red on my mind. Maybe I will dream of something other than blue. As I am doing this my wife walks in.

“Oh John, what are you doing this morning?” she says, charmed I’m sure.
“Do you see this new color? It is beautiful, yes?”
“Yes, of course. You like red, do you?”
“Yes, maybe we can make the whole room red. Wouldn’t that be nice, dear?”
“Oh, yes, that would be nice. Here’s your breakfast.”

My wife sets down a tray with a plate of eggs, bacon, and orange juice. She loves to treat me with breakfast in bed, so I give her a smile to show her I’m pleased. This in turn makes her happy, and a happy wife makes a happy life. She smiles back at me with her pretty straight teeth and leaves me to relax and eat in quiet. She likes to give me this time alone in the morning to think. Although I miss her while she’s gone, I know she’ll be back to pick out what I will wear today. It is another thing she enjoys to do, so I let her. She also calls up my pals for me so that we can play poker.



My alarm rings. I get up and shrug into my slippers. Saunter across my room to the mirror. Shave without looking, and pat on my aftershave. It stings and a warm red liquid appears on my hands. I like the color of it, for it is not blue. As I decorate the room with this red liquid that comes from my face my wife steps in. She has short cropped hair and pale skin with green eyes. That’s why I love her so much, I have never seen a color green like that other than on her eyes. They aren’t like my eyes, which I hate, for they are blue like everything else.
“Oh John, what are you doing this morning?” she says, charmed I’m sure.
I suggest for her to further decorate the room with the red. She politely agrees with me but I know we will be sticking with the blue. She’s a stubborn woman. She then gives me my breakfast on a tray and leaves me to my quiet thinking time. Finally, she comes back when I’m done and leads me out to the foyer where all my pals are sitting around the poker table. I play and banter with them until my wife calls me to dinner, by that time I have won myself two dollars. Not my best day. I give the winnings to my wife who is very appreciative. I eat my dinner, say goodnight, and go to bed.



My alarm rings. I get up and shrug into my slippers. Saunter across my room to the mirror. Shave with my eyes closed. Decorate my room with a beautiful red liquid that emerges from my face. I like the color red, for it is not blue. My wife brings me my breakfast on a tray. Says she likes my decorating, and politely leaves me to my quiet time. When my beautiful wife returns in her floral t-shirt and blue pants—the same blue as my eyes, the room, the sheets, my pajamas—she leads me out of my bedroom to the poker table. I deal the cards out around the table and as I’m scanning my hand, a quite lucky one, one of my companions looks up from his cards.

“You, sir, are cheating.” He is looking at me. I don’t know how to respond, I have never heard this man speak before.
“I am not cheating, how can I be cheating? The game hasn’t yet begun.”
“But you’ve played this game before. I have finally cracked your code. I’ve been silently observing you day by day and have come to the conclusion that you have played this game over and over again and have thus memorized the deck, so as to give yourself a perfect hand. Cheater!” He yells the epitaph at me. I call my wife in.
“John, it is not yet time for dinner, is everything all right?”
“Yes, I just wish to spend some alone time with my friend here, will you let the others out?”
“Oh, of course,” she replies. The other men leave promptly and I am alone with my accuser.
“How has this arisen, my good friend? I know not of what you speak of.”
“Let us go into your bedroom.” He leads me into the blue room. The red is now cleaned off of the walls and my sheets and blanket have been replaced back to a clean blue. “Now, tell me about your day yesterday.”
At this question, I suddenly realized I couldn’t remember what I had done yesterday. All that came to mind was what I’d done today. So that’s what I told him.
“Well I did what I usually do, I get up, I shave, I eat breakfast, and I come out to play poker.”
“But more specifically, my friend. What did you do?”
“Well something unique did happen yesterday. I decided I would shave with my eyes closed and then this red liquid emerged on my hands when I would touch my face, so I decorated my room with this new color, to give it a change of scenery. But of course my wife has cleaned up again and now my room was back to its normal blue again this morning.”
“Amazing. Truly remarkable. John, do you know what date it is today?”
“June tenth I believe.”
“Interesting. No John, today is July tenth, I overheard your wife chatting on the telephone the other day. She mentioned the date, which was different from what I had believed it to be. I too thought it was June tenth. So I began to investigate.” He paused. “Tell me, what happened on June tenth of this year?”
“Well, I woke up, I shaved with my eyes closed, and decorated my room with this beautiful red color, and then played poker.”
“John, I have something very stunning to tell you, you may want to sit.” I sat on my clean blue bed. “John, it appears you have been doing the same thing every day for the past month. But that’s not it, you have been living the same day. And you have been stuck in this day, June tenth, for what looks like a month now. I believe we all have. Somehow, our world has stopped turning, and we have been cursed to live the same day over and over again.”

As he says this to me, I realize how right he is. Now that I think of it, the only memory I have is of waking up, shaving without looking, and decorating my room with red. We have been cursed. Only a witch could have set a curse like this. And a very strong one at that.

“A witch,” I said, “A witch has done this.” My friend nods in agreement. “I assume you know who this witch is?” Again, he nods.

“It is your wife. She is the keeper of time, and has kept us stuck in the same day.”

Again, my friend is very right. Maybe I should have felt a bit saddened to hear that someone I loved as much as I love my wife is a witch, but I’m not. All I feel is a need for revenge, revenge for having my future taken from me.

“What shall we do?” I asked. My friend has a sly grin on his face.

“We reverse the curse. And the only way to do that is to eliminate the creator.”

“The witch,” I replied, “I know exactly how to do it.”



Birds sing. I wake up with my friend sleeping next to me. We are lying on a bed of damp grass, cars whooshing by us in the street. I bump my friend, he wakes.
“Look, what do you see?” I say.
“I see that we slept on the side of a very busy road last night. What do you see?”
I see a newspaper rack, freshly replenished just this morning on the sidewalk by where we slept. I stand and saunter over and pick up a copy. The date says July eleventh.
“I see something other than blue,” I reply. “We are free my friend! We succeeded! It is July eleventh!”
I continue to read the paper, for I have not seen a newspaper in I can’t remember when, probably before June tenth. The headline says TWO MENTAL PATIENTS ESCAPE FACILITY AND KILL NURSE. There is a picture below it of the nurse, she has beautiful green eyes, like my wife. Under that is one of the suspects, a haphazard looking man wearing a blue shirt with blood stains on it and blue beady eyes. It’s amazing we make it through the day with crazy people like that on the loose.

Crushed

definition: a crush that doesn't work out, has no hope, makes you feel crushed.

I was inspired by this video, of an Irish lad who wrote a beautiful song for his crush, and performed it in front of the world on Britain's Got Talent. All the girls in the audience fell in love at that moment. But when he did sing it to his girl, she shut him down. Crushed.

My first crush was Matthew Morton in kindergarten. He was blonde-haired, blue-eyed, and four feet of five year old beauty. Everyone had a crush on him.

My first celebrity crush was Chad Michael Murray. He's blonde-haired, blue-eyed, and six feet of 31 year old beauty. Everyone still has a crush on him.

I have a crush right now, and I will keep on having crushes the rest of my life. But this is the first time that I have ever been "crushed." I think being crushed is actually worse than being broken up with. For me, when I've established that I have a crush on someone, I'm already pretty emotionally invested. So being crushed is like being broken up with, but before you could even experience how good it could have been, before they even knew, and it leaves me wondering "what if." It lingers like a cough in the middle of flu season. Whenever I see him it just reminds me of the initial love-sickness, but not seeing him would be worse. There's a lot more that goes into this story. A lot more of unfortunate parallelisms to past wounds; pouring salt in an old one I thought was already patched up, while creating another one just as deep as the first.

So this is Crushed:

He's the man who can't be moved
Out of my heart
No matter how hard you pull its strings
Every picture I see of him with her is another yank
It reminds me just how closely tied I am again

I look forward to every jam sesh like Christmas
And I've now realized it's not just because of the music
Not the strings of our guitars that are plucked into Good Vibrations
That tickle our souls
Make our hearts beat in excited palpitations
Tapping out a Morse Code that can only be understood
In the heat of a song
But if you could decode the message of my heart
It'd profess its 4 Chambers of Secret afflictions
For you

You'd know that when we sing
I imagine you're singing about me
Just like I sing about you
As I find myself actually Falling Slowly
Possibly, regrettably, terribly
In love with you

Possibly because every time I get a text I secretly hope
Regrettably because I told myself that was the last thing
And terribly, because I'm not the only girl I know who feels this way too

I know I'm going to step down
From the top block to number two
Because the last thing I want to do
Is pour salt in an old wound
That was just patched up
Over competing feelings for another boy
A crush, just like you

Only this time, I'll do nothing.

And just like an ant at a picnic
Hungry for more
I'll let myself be crushed.

~Kat

The Test of a True Talent

How do you test if someone is super strong? Make them rip the phone book.
How do you test if someone is a great singer? Make them sing the phone book.
How do you test if someone is a great dancer? Make them dance on a phone book.
So... how do you test if someone is a great poet... I think you can figure it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=py3aRXMPJ74

If you want to read some of Miss McFarland's brilliance, here's her poetry blog: http://maddielacypoetry.blogspot.com/
I highly recommend it!

That is all for today. Kiss your mum!
Ta-ta
~Kat

AP Tests: A Survival Guide

I, like many other high school students, are looking out across the vast ocean which is AP tests. They never seem to end, and the other side is a long and arduous journey away. It may even involve some sea sickness. But I would be lying if I said I was shivering at the thought of jumping in. Maybe I'm just in denial that they're happening (a very real possibility), or maybe I've just finally found my wet suit to keep all the scariness of AP tests out, and all the real priorities and the warmth of their goodness in. Yet, I know that my situation is somewhat unique. I see plenty of my peers white-knuckling it through these bad boys, and forgetting that it's okay to relax your grip. Maybe even better. Ain't nobody got time for hand cramps.

So this is how I keep the AP-waters tepid and free from raging storms the night before an AP Test:

1. I make sure that I've tied up any loose ends (concepts, etc.) the week before, so that the night before, I'm not cramming and trying to learn anything new. By this point your picnic basket is full. There is no use in trying to squeeze in one more apple, it will only smoosh the sandwiches.

2. I review some stuff for my test, notes, review book, etc. AND THEN I STOP around 4:30 or 5.

3. Relax. There's nothing more you can do. Trust your teacher, and yourself that you've done everything you can. Now just go about a regular routine. Read a book, watch TV. Go to bed early, around 9ish. And make sure to have all your stuff together for the morning so I don't have to rush around. And eat a big breakfast, protein (eggs, sausage, bacon), piece of fruit, some carbs (toast, bagel), and juice. I like tea too, it's a good time for comfort food.

The key I think to not worrying about this stuff, is knowing that twenty years from now, I'm not going to be thinking "oh I should have studied for that AP Bio test more." It's just another small step along the way, and really it's not an ocean, just a puddle. You can look at it as something that will get your feet wet and cold, or it can be a chance to make a splash and do some stompin'.

You're smart. You're ready. You've prepped all year for this. Take a deep breath. Own it.

Happy Testing!
~Kat

P.S. Here's a little happy distraction. It's sure to make you smile, even now: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1seI7NFeSU

Harry Potter is My Lover

Harry Potter is my lover.
I'll take him in bed, in the living room, in the kitchen, at the airport, at school
Even in front of my parents
I know, I can be scandalous,
But it really isn't as it sounds,

I just like to read.

I eat him up
Just like a ruby red tomato,
Not everyone will enjoy taking a bite
You either love it or you hate it
But I find the contents to be quite delectable

But even if he's not quite your type
You can easily understand the appeal

Any man who will take me to exotic locations
Who can work magic to get us a table at a 5 star restaurant
Without a reservation
Any man who can turn his words into actions
Would cast a spell on any girl's heart.

Plus everyone falls in love with a dork at some point in their lives
The cute glasses
Unending intellectual thought
Colorful opinions spiced with advance vocabulary that could make the phone book sound interesting
Who knows, you might even marry one

So now I say again, Harry Potter is my lover
I can escape with him any time of the day, anywhere
He's the star Quidditch player
He's smart, has the cute glasses
Can work magic anywhere
I can teleport to be with him by his side always, just by flipping a page

Harry Potter is my lover
Jealous yet?

~not Kat

P.S. Explanation: Harry Potter is not Kat's lover, 10 points to Gryffindor if you know who is. But yes, I am jealous.

Ignorant, Cute Face, Golden.

Oh how grateful I am for once, for this "Golden Rule" that our society has etched into our brains. This is the story of how an ignorance of boating, being a cute young girl (and white, let's get real) was the golden ticket to getting out of a possible $1,800 fine:

It started with a "date": two acquaintances getting to know each other a little bit better because of an English assignment. Marin was the first person to ask me (it was before I had even heard the assignment!) and I was very much surprised and excited because she had always seemed like a really cool, down to earth person to me. But then we went on this date and it was totally lame.

NOT!

She really is just as cool and down to earth as I had perceived, if not more. We took a dingy from her dad's boat across the bay to Kellogg's beach and had a picnic. It was great! A beautiful day, a cooler full of snacks, sandwiches, the wonderfully polluted San Diego Bay at our toe-tips, what could go wrong?

Nothing really, except we could run out of gas and the motor could not start. But what are the odds of that? Well apparently the odds were not in our favor, because that is exactly what happened. But it was a sunny day, we'd had a great time, no worries, we'll just laugh about this. Thank God for our good humor to get us through.

A nice beach-walker decides to take pity on us, and he helps us. Turns out he knows all about dingy motors, what luck! He informs us we're low on fuel, does a couple little magic mechanic things, and the engine starts. He says we can make it back if we hurry. So we hurry, all the way across the channel, approaching the marina and the little baby poops out.

But again, just our luck, the harbor police station was right there. They came over and happily gave these two poor high school girls a ride home; I'm sure they were smirking and rolling their eyes all the way back to her boat. We were trying to laugh it off still, even while taking the "tow of shame."

They drop us off, and take down our info: name, address, date of birth, parent's names (getting a little worried), parent's phone numbers (now a little scared). While we were trying to keep our cool, be polite, and listening to all their very important input, they tell us all the violations of the tiny dingy, scratching them down on a little note pad. With each infraction they find, I could just hear the chorus of "ha-ha"s going on in the brains of these two white cops; one tall and bald, one shorter with a cliche cop-stache. That racks up about 1800 dollars worth of fines, they tell us.

Initiate face-palm. We are in deep. But we play it cool: Marin just moved into the boating-world a few weeks ago, we honestly didn't know the rules, yes, thank you officer so much, yes, I now realize the dangers of not having a fire extinguisher on a dingy just in case our engine catches fire in the middle of a huge body of water. Thank you so much for the tow, we are eternally grateful.

Turns out the cop has daughters, he lets us go lightly, no fines, you live and you learn, right? We readily agree, say our thank-yous and goodbyes, pry our lips off of their asses, and quickly gather our things and leave.

We really dodged one there. Had we been black or hispanic, it would not have been that easy. If we had been boys, white, black or hispanic, it still wouldn't have been that easy. If we were older and wiser, we would have had to pay the fines. But we weren't. We were cute, teen-aged, white girls who are in high school, live in Point Loma, and can therefore get off with a warning.

They think their system rocked our boat, but really, we rocked their system. Two tennagers. Two little girls. Go Harbor Police.
What a date.
~Kat