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Life is like a train. I bought tickets and set off for journeys I have chosen for myself.

The train keeps running toward, carries me from places to places, leave behind things that I have unconsciously forgot. Those are things that hurt, things that content. I was a passenger sitting by the window, looking out at a picture of the outside world that does not stop changing. Relationship revolves around at the same speed. People come. People change. People leave. I come across my own reflection on the window grass. A feeling of nostalgia grows inside me slowly but strongly. I suddenly realize the absence of somebody in my life, somebody important. I can now see the hole that person has left. The longing for the past makes me anxious, sad and tremble.

I hurriedly get off the train, looking back to find the little girl I used to be just to realize another thing. She has gone forever.

                                                                                                                California summer 2011

“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us”

These last final two days of Thanksgiving break, I stayed up really late. Drinking a bottle of Cappuccino with vanilla flavor produced by Starbuck, my favorite coffee company; I hope o stay up the whole night. Scarcely did I make the decision when a question occurred to my mind “What am I going to do in the darkness of the night when everybody has fallen into their own dreams on familiar comfy beds?” I did not know the answer.

I did not have any intention to write my journal or do any school work. I had just finished watching “The Notebook” on my laptop, which I had put on must-be-done list for this break. No more movies I liked to watch at this moment. “What is about checking facebook, emails and surfing the internet?”. The mail box that was full of unread emails has been cleared completely by dinner time. I was glad to see my mails to be replied and exchange tender words with those that I held dear to. But not this time. The least thing I wanted to do was to stare at the laptop screen without my glasses on, which I had forgot in The Old Town Mission as I was busy serving drinks and greeting to those poor people who was about to leave after their Thanksgiving lunch.  Therefore, I closed my laptop. The final source of light in the house followed my hand pushing the screen down and disappeared.

Complete darkness surrounded. I stayed still on the couch, looking into the well-decorated room which now appeared as an empty huge black hole. My thought reached Angel, my first friend when I came to Verde Valley School. I remembered the time when we were much closer; I often asked “what were you doing in your room?”. “I was doing nothing”, said he and he meant it. Was he doing the same way I was this moment, just sitting on the couch with my mind not focusing on any specific emotions, events or individuals?. Was I experiencing the same feeling as he was? Maybe yes. Maybe no.

Despite the fact that I did not do anything physically, my mind still stayed conscious. My eyes were opened. My ears perceived every single little sound. I listened to the sound of the clock which struck once time every 15 minutes. I felt time passing and darkness growing thicker as it got later. I felt tranquility of my mind and my body although darkness often brings loneliness and sorrow. Darkness was sometimes unusually sweet like that, like the taste of dark chocolate. The intensity of silence caused me to imagine being able to hear Tori’s steady breath in her room, which was on the other side of the house.  I felt my own existence in the world.

What will tomorrow bring to me? What will it be to my family and friends, my teachers and strangers who are not now but will be part of my life in the future. Those are things that are not in my power to control. “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us”, Gandalf in Lord of the ring says. When time comes I will know when it is best to enjoy and when it is good to struggle. “Will I be strong enough to go through thick and thin?”. This time I know the answer. It is Yes.

Now it was the time given to me to sneak into bed.

The invitation

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing. 

It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain!I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul; if you can be faithlessand therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see beauty even when it's not pretty, every day,and if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes!”

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

by
Oriah Mountain Dreamer
copyright © 1999 by Oriah Mountain Dreamer.

Hope

" After all the tears dry on my face, a tiny sign of hope twinkles again"
- Ly - 

"A smile

Lopsided

Hardly there

But there.

Behind us, kids were scampering, and a melee of screaming kite runners was chasing the loose kite drifting high above the trees. I blinked and the smile was gone. But it had been there. I had seen it.

“Do you want me to run that kite for you?”

His Adam’s apple rose and fell as he swallowed. The wind lifted his hair. I thought I saw him nod.

“For you, a thousand time over,” I heard myself say.

Then I turned and ran.

It was only a smile, nothing more. It didn’t make everything all right. It didn’t make anything all right. Only a smile. A tiny thin. A leaf in the woods, shaking in the wake of a startled bird’s flight.

But I’ll take it. With open arms. Because when spring comes, it melts the snow one flake at a time, and maybe I just witnessed the first flake melting.

I ran. A grown man running with a swarm of screaming children. But I didn’t care. I ran with the wind blowing in my face, and a smile as wide as the Valley of Panjsher on my lips.

I ran."

- the kite runner- 

Wish you bad luck today

MaryJoy Sun ' 11

Once my friend asked me: " Do you know why the earth turns?" I shook my head. She laughed: " it turns so that I would not get stuck in a bad-luckspot forever."

Actually, she was right. Nobody wants to have anything to do with bad luck. That's probably the reason why we only wish each other good luck. Have you ever heard anybody wish another person bad luck?

Despite the fact that we try so hard to avoid bad luck, it is still inevitable. Here are some examples of bad luck that I have already experienced.

To become a human being, in the first place, is definitely bad luck. Our ancestors created this thing called society and made up repressing tools called laws. Sadly, we were born to be oppressed and restricted, loaded up with responsibilities, too. However, I used to debate whether it is better to be a human or to be a bug. Being a little bug means to be hated by majority of females, especially beautiful teenage girls. Compared to being screamed at and getting squashed all the time, I would rather just be a human, follow a few rules and lead a relatively secure life. Humans are the only animals that have the concept of future. Although thinking about tomorrow and planning ahead might make us panic or overwhelmed, I still regard this thinking ahead ability as a gift. I would rather worry about whether the world will end in 2012 or getting tangled in TOK class, than having to search for food, starving and running for life all the time. Therefore, in a sense it's better to be a human being. I feel my existence more valuable and significant. Well, maybe it's not such bad luck after all.

There are certain things we can do nothing about; one of them is a wall falling on you. May 12th, 2008 is a day I will never forget. When that huge 8.0 earthquake hit my hometown, I experienced the frailty of human lives. I was lucky enough to survive and later on volunteered in the hospital where my parents were both working. No wards or surgery rooms were available, because the buildings might collapse any second during the aftershocks. People died in the tent outside under the burning sun every single day. Our whole town did not have water, electricity or cell phone signals for 3 days. As time went by, the town started to stink, that was because countless dead people could not be identified or buried right away. I carried patients on the stretchers, occasionally gasped under my breathing mask, looked at the gray dusty sky and helplessly waited for the next wave of aftershocks. Nevertheless, it was also during those dark moments that I felt the power of united wills. The survived restaurants had people cook in half-collapsed kitchens and deliver food to the hospital every day. People from all over China and around the world came to support us. There was even a French medical team helping out. All of a sudden I felt so close to other individuals and so close to the vivid energy of life. I learnt to be calm and brave during difficult situations. I also learnt to be loving and helpful for others, because we are all humans, we have the same color of blood, and we are never alone. I always believed this bad luck brought me strong will power and faith in life.

Last but not least, the IB we are all facing or going to face is another example of bad luck. I hope everybody agrees with me. Juniors, don't giggle yet, this is just the first month. Wait till you reach the point when you hold a piece of cake in one hand, and a coke in the other, trying to load yourself up with sugar and caffeine at 3am, and then realizing there is going to be a biology test and history book review due tomorrow. Then you know what I'm talking about. Anyways, I personally think this is still a valuable experience, because we are challenged both physically and academically by the competitive sports and IB program. We acquire so much knowledge and learn how to arrange time wisely. We gain confidence while we become more mature. We are going to be the master of our lives at age 16 or 17 rather than 35. It is good to be prepared and ahead of our contemporaries. You will feel it after you go to college.

The inevitable bad luck in our lives is not there to fail us. It is there to make us better, because the things that don't beat us make us stronger, just like my cycling coach said.

Some people are born smart, just like some are born beautiful, but nobody is perfect. That's why we all get bad luck, so we can make mistakes, and learn from them. Bad luck is a actually a treasure of life.

So, please do me a huge favor now. Put your right hand up in the air, point to the person next to you, smile, and say: " wish you bad luck today".

They appear.They disappear

by Lauren Kessler

They appear. They disappear.

I have always envied women their friendships. It’s not that I don’t have friends. I do. But I don’t have a friend I’ve known since first grade , someone I could call at 4 a.m. who would hop on the next plane to come hold my hand through disasters great and small. I don’t have a friend I’ve known for so many years that I can’t remember life without her. I don’t have a friend who knows all my secrets.

I know of such friendships. We all do. They are the stuff of fiction and melodrama: the YaYa sisterhood, Judy Blume’s “summer sisters,” Bette Midler and Barbara Hershey on the beach. But these are not real women, women, like me, who have moved eight times and lived in six different states since graduating high school and with each move have shed more people from the past; women who have had to trade friends for kids because there wasn’t time to be good and true to both; women who have mostly kept their own counsel.

But it’s hard to be jealous of fictional pals.

Then I read a story in a magazine about five women who have been meeting for dinner once a month for twenty-seven years, and I was, for a moment, truly envious. These were real women. I cannot imagine the stability of a group friendship like that, the sense of history — the marriages, divorces, births and deaths, toddlers and teenagers that must have come and gone — the ease, the comfort, the fullness of time. I will never have that.

Be present

Senior Speech
Ali Maricich
December 4, 2009

The air was cool. The lake silent and the noise from my big knee brace was a faint click, as my dear friend Rosie and I started on our way down to the beach to spend the night. Rosie and I often find ourselves in the position of memory making. It is not that we try but we have one of those relationships that effortlessly puts those experiences in front of us. As we rolled out our sleeping bags, we found ourselves talking about the choices we make everyday and how those choices make an impact on us. The conversation wound back and forth between IB schools, friends, boys, food and family but ultimately we ended where we started, the choice we have to create moments for ourselves.

I realize that my relationship with Rosie is not exactly the same as my relationship with VVS. Sometimes I have to try to make things happen here. And other times opportunities are created effortlessly and living in the present purely is.

I have had the great privilege to spend two years at Verde Valley School. I have created friends and moments that cannot be replaced. I am spending time and space with Sarah Jane, with whom I went to preschool school. We used to run around naked in her house and play dress up, now we laugh and paint together. Jazz and I have been friends since fourth grade and still she makes me laugh harder then anyone. Though Charlie is a close second. Meme I will always remember the first time we talked in my room leaving nothing unsaid. Sam Kim, every time I walk pass you, you never fail to acknowledge me and make me giggle. Jordyn, I know that wherever life takes you, you will flourish and shine. Paula, I have shared more than music with you but often I can’t help but think of Modest Mouse.

“Sight is just a window from the room we're bound to. If you find a way out, Oh would you just let me know how.” – Modest Mouse

Lannie, my gluten-free sister. Power to the rice bread. Bryce, “I tell you, those voices soared higher and farther than anybody in a gray place dares to dream. It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made those walls dissolve away, and for the briefest of moments, every last man in Shawshank felt free.” Sam, my love, I am going to miss you so much. Keep living the revolution! Hanson, you always make me smile and I will never tire of your singing to me along with you and Tom’s entertainment. Katja, you are an amazing girl and I know that life will bring all that you wish of it. Ashley, we have many more early meditations ahead of us! Karel, your mannerisms will always stay with me. Zach Shed, Wanna come home? Katie, you’re so mild, but I have to say I thoroughly enjoy it and hope that you will stay in my life a long time to come. Julia, I love you so much and no matter how our views differ, the fact that we can sit and listen to each other and come out the other side with complete communication means more than I can explain. You are so dam logical yet so spirited. Hannah you silly girl. I would make some crazy noises and perhaps a little jig but those actions are beyond how much you mean to me. Rosie you motivated me in the first place. To those who I have not mentioned I would fail if I did not acknowledge your presence in my life for which you have retained.

I believe that being a teacher, no matter what form or degree, be it history or dance, is one of the most rewarding and powerful vocations. I am deeply grateful and honored to have had the privileged to make the most amazing of moments with my teachers: The moment of learning. They have given me the gift of loving to learn and this has leaked out from the classroom to my view of the world. Just remember one is always the teacher and always the students and it is worthwhile to observe those moments in your life.

What I wish people to leave with today is knowledge that anything is possible. That life is today. Not when one becomes a senior nor when one finally gets to college, but now. Every moment is an opportunity to make one’s life the way one wants it. Create, live, love, laugh and be Present.