Words I Love

Does blogging about my homework make me a nerd? Possibly. But I got really excited about this English assignment today and thought it was worth sharing. We were supposed to write about how these words make arguments more effective... but I misread and started writing about why I love them. 

So, here's the window into my mind for the day:

1.      Petrichor

I love petrichor because the Doctor said it, and because it gives a name to the smell of something I love: rain.

2.      Amorous

Amorous is a cool word because it sound like “amour” with a tail at the end. It makes me think of a love fish swimming around the word it’s modifying.

3.      Façade

Something false, or the front of a building, sounds so much cooler when you say “façade.” It’s like you’re giving humanity to an object or a situation by giving it a ‘face’.

4.      Felicity

If I am lucky enough to have a daughter someday, I would want to call her Felicity. She would forever be someone whose company would be desired, for her very name would mean happiness – and I couldn’t exactly name her happiness, could I?

5.      Abhorrent

Guttural Germanic words don’t usually appeal to me, but abhorrent just sounds cool. It’s like harbor, but with a completely different meaning (unless you hate the sea).

6.      Verdant

Verdant is more than just green. It’s something living, moving, eye catching. It’s something that seems crystalized in time, subject to the past, the present, and the future.

7.      Glistening

Glistening sounds like it looks: light sparkling across of surface of something.

8.      Equivocate

Switching the meaning of words? Trying to be sneaking in an argument? You’re probably equivocating. Isn’t that better than saying you’re deceptive? I think so!

9.      Soliloquy

Sol-il-o-quee. What a wonderfully soft and squishy word! It feels good in my mouth… Whoops, am I talking to myself again?

10.  Vacillate

Vacillate sounds like equivocate, and it also means to go between two things. The difference is that vacillate sounds like you’re making vassals do things for you, which is cool - unless you know a vassal.

An Attempt at French Poetry

The foreign languages department is having an arts night next week that I'm really excited about. Since the semester started I've been looking for an opportunity - an excuse - to write something creative that I could share on stage. Poetry feels like a dirty, self indulgent pleasure sometimes. It feels like clumsily paintbrush in my writing hand; and yet, somehow, it comes out to be something not entirely terrible.

I wasn't planning to perform anything at this arts night. Anything I do would have to be in French, and I don't want to embarrass myself with my poor grammar and pronunciation. I'm growing as a speaker, both in French and English, but I tremble enough without the added pressure of rolling rrr's and silent letters. But after talking with some of the other French Club executives I decided I might give it a go.

So here's my attempt, titled: Je ne pense pas.
Note: Written first in French, then translated to English.

<<Je pense donc je suis, >> Dit le philosophe.  Mais si je ne pense pas ?  Suis-je rien ?  Je me sens la froideur de la nuit.  L’obscurité couvrit  Mon corps, mon esprit.  Je suis seul, et je ne pense pas.  Je regards la lune brille,  Guider les étoiles à travers le ciel,  Et me Guider à travers le monde.  Je suis mouton – je ne pense pas.  Je m’assieds au sommet des montagnes,  Regarder l’aube. Je m’entends des voix,  Douces et chaudes. Des amis ?  Oui, je pense qu’ils sont des amis véritables.

"I think, therefore I am," Says the philosopher. But what if I do not think? Am I nothing? I feel the night's chill. The darkness covers My body, my mind. I am alone, and I do not think. I look upon the shining moon, guiding the stars across the sky and guiding me across the world. I am a sheep - I do not think. I sit at the mountains' summit, Watching the sunrise. I hear voices, soft and warm. Friends? Yes, I think they are true friends.

Autumn Leaves

By this time of year, I would usually find myself sinking into a sort of seasonal depression. Beautiful as the golden leaves are – covering every yard and hiding in every man-made corner – they're still signs of the coming winter. The fading light at dusk would make my heart sink gradually into the current of cool time that flows relentlessly forward. It's a sort of paralysis of the soul that comes on slowly, weighed down by every fallen leaf.

This year feels... different. I'm not rolling down a steep slope, bracing myself against the snow that waits at the bottom. Instead I'm blazing a trail through new mountains. Some days, I loose my breath on mountaintops at the sight of the land below. Others, I tremble in the valleys. It's up and down and back and forth across this new world. Who I am seems to vacillate with each leaf I crunch beneath my feet. Hopefully, as autumn leaves, I will settle down somewhere along these mountains. I may even be in good company.

Vic, Jake, Gabii, and Mike playing Magic

Is this too deep for a blog post? Perhaps. But somehow I think it's just vague enough to publish. 

Playlist:

Ó Fridur, Sigur Rós

New World, tobyMac

Headphones, Jars of Clay

Jeune et con (acoustique), Damien Saez

The Lament of Captain Placeholder, Cranius

Learning is Painful

The other day I was walking out of my art history class with a friend, one of us describing a painful experience. The random professor walking in front of us interjected to say that "school shouldn't be painful" before moving on with his own business. It was such an irrelevant comment, but it got me thinking: isn't it though?

Over the last month, I've identified a theme surrounding everything from classes to relationships: learning is painful. We're told all our lives to pursue knowledge and wisdom and to learn about ourselves and the world. But so often, it just hurts. It's like the violent and continuous birth of the self in the searing light of a new world, or the burning electric fire of serially connecting synapses. Connection and disconnection, building and breaking, stacking and toppling; whether we want to admit it or not, every time we learn something we are changing the way we look at the world, and it isn't always pretty.

Not all learning is painful - you can't say you're sad at the news of a healthy child being born, or when you discover your significant other's cute and quirky secret habit. Likewise, what we learn in the classroom usually doesn't stir in us strong feelings. But when you're trying to figure out how to connect with people, or how to study or write multiple papers simultaneously, you learn a lot of what works and what doesn't from your failures.

I've only had one exam so far, but it taught me pretty quickly (and painfully) that studying is far more important than it was in high school. To be honest, I never really did study in high school. For the most part, for most of my classes, I just knew what I was doing. Now I have to work. Regardless of how easy or hard that work is, the critical moment was learning that I have to work at all. I have two papers, an exam, and a quiz this week: this weekend will most likely be another lesson in what's effective and what's not. Hopefully I don't come out of it with too many bruises.

Learning can even be physically painful. Yesterday I bought a deck of Magic the Gathering cards - in French. When I brought it to the library with my friends to play I quickly learned how taxing it can be to go back and forth between French and English for long periods of time. I learned a lot about French grammar just by repeating phrases over and over again, but I came out of the library with a massive migraine. It was worth, but it still hurt.

As for relationships... I don't think it's possible to have one without hurting someone. It's just part of the learning curve. Making new friends, keeping up with old ones, watching other's deal with their relationship issues and looking at mine - it's all part of learning to be a socially competent person. It sucks, but it's probably... most likely... for the better.

There's still a lot of learning to be done, and I'm sure it will hurt, but I have to believe it will be worth it. If I don't, then I would probably be tempted to pick up my bike and start riding to the west coast: because why not?

What do you think? Is learning painful?

Playlist:
I'm the One That's Cool, The Guild
Octobre, Francis Cabrel
Funny the Way It Is, Dave Matthew's Band
Come Sail Away, Styx
Petty Lie, Bryarly Bishop
The word water, Cloudkicker

What Stays the Same

When everything changes, comfort is found in what remains the same. When you lose sense of what you control, you go focus everything on controlling what you can. When you stare listlessly into the future, you conjure up good memories.

And Lord, have things changed.

It's hard. A lot harder than I thought it would be. And it's been nearly a month! Just when I think the roller coaster is slowing down, I find myself facing a new hurdle. I long for the simple slopes of Norton: the well anticipated challenges of la rentrée (return to school), the domestic conflicts, the lifeguard gossip, the same people with the same stories that I've known since preschool. 

And none of that is really gone, per se. My old teachers are introducing a new batch of seniors to the easiest year of their high school careers, the laundry is still being left in the dryer overnight (accidentally, of course), the lifeguards still roll their eyes from time to time, and my friends are still alive, their pasts unchanged. 

But these things won't stay the same forever. They won't even stay the same long enough for me to go back to them - and even if they did, they would be fundamentally different. They are - they feel - a world away.

So I'm here, searching for what's the same.

Playlist:

Human, The Killers

Cough Syrup, Young the Giant

Elle me dit, Mika

Somebody That I Used to Know, Gotye
Welcome to the Jungle, Guns N' Roses

Hello World

My name is Matthew Litchfield, and I’m here to….

To…

…

Well, I’m here anyways.

I guess I’m here to do what I do best: write. About what, and why and how often, I have no clue. There are so many questions to ask – about Life, the Universe, Everything… And then there are so many questions to answer: Who am I? What am I doing here? Where did I leave my sanity?

So I’m just going to write, and ignore the nagging feeling that my words are drifting into the void, or are otherwise adding to the ceaseless thunder of Noise in life.

This is my web log of life: the good, the bad, and the not so easily understood stuff that fills that gap. Will you join me on this journey of self exploration?