Crazed Color Obsession

Colors are overrated. You've seen one sunset and you've seen them all, especially when viewed from the same angle from the same balcony in the same place almost every time. But humans are obsessed with colors, attaching them to everything from "Blue Mondays" to "Orange Wednesdays", and now, due to color overuse, we've run out.

There are more colors in existence than the non-enlightened mind can imagine, but most of them don’t have names yet. The average person can’t even name the 120 Crayola colors, yet alone the 4x10⁹ colors available on the average monitor. As such, as soon as we get beyond "Pale Peach" and "Midnight blue", we have to resort to "A little bit lighter than 'Fuzzy-Wuzzy Brown'"and the whole thing becomes ridiculous. The only other option is to use Hexadecimal, but, somehow, telling your sweetheart "their eyes are of the deepest #DEA681" isn't quite the same.

To solve this, we assigned colors "themes." For example, black came to signify death, green, nature, and yellow, vomit.

Red, being a hot color, is used for things that make us passionately hot under the collar, such as love, anger or a third-degree sunburn. It reminds us both of danger and of romance, and easily encompasses both love and anger as varying expressions of passion.

It may interest you to know that red stands for far more than just kisses and slaps. It is the color of power, war, warnings, fire, sin, guilt, sex, dwarves, communism, and of course, the wiggly line under spelling mistakes in Microsoft Word. For the latter reason, if nothing else, the color red has made the world a much better place; I dread to think where the blogosphere would be without it.

...No, You Really Don't Want Nirvana

Buddha believed in ultimate happiness. He believed that to find Nirvana you must free yourself from desire. This, of course, is complete bull. To quote the great philosopher Will Young, losing desire means you "lose the highs to be spared the lows." As such, all that can truly be experienced is an ultimate state of "meh." Besides, based on his depictions, Buddha was a fat, jolly man and a thin, serious one, making him a schizophrenic and about as trustworthy as Fox News.

We ourselves are proof that ultimate happiness is impossible. Our smiles last for only a moment, normally a reaction to something good, such as a funny joke or even a brilliant Bridget blog. However, this state of "good" lasts only a small amount of time. If it didn’t, each subsequent thing would have to be better than the last in order for us to feel as good about it, until the world became one happy, bouncy ball of bunnies and page three models, at which point there would be nothing to strive for. Everything would be good. And we would all be bored out of our freakin' minds. With nothing to make us feel bad we would have no reason to feel good at all. And as a loud noise eventually fades into the background, so too our good feelings would become dull and invisible. Plus, everyone smiling all the time would be just plain disturbing.

Finally, it is impossible to define the "ultimate" anything; one man’s trash is another man’s Holy Grail (Sorry for the poor analogy, what can I say I've been watching Monty Python!) Ultimate happiness means different things to everyone; one person becoming happy would mean another could not. At the very most only 50% of the world could be happy at any one time, at which point we'd have to take it in turns and be happy every other week. And this would be far from anyone's idea of ultimate happiness... unless, of course, they were a little bit Buddha.

An Indispensable Influence

It seems as though my writing classes have kept me increasingly busy these days. My latest assignment required me to write an informal "Teacher of the Year" nomination within our high school.

Teachers are indispensable. Without them, America, us, our children -- we have no future. It is teachers that get up every morning and spend every day training our minds and inspiring our hearts. There is one in particular that has gone far beyond the requirements of her job description to teach me what I need to know.

I’ve known Katie Montgomery for around three and a half years now. I’ve also taken pretty much every course she offers: English, Debate, Forensics, ACT Prep, Theatre Production, and Technical Theatre, plus various plays she directs at our high school. I was even part of a group that she and her brother took on a trip to London this past summer. And at some point throughout all of this, I’ve ceased to call her "Ms. Montgomery" and now address her as "Monty."

You see, Monty isn’t your average high school instructor. She doesn’t stand at the front of the room with a solemn expression and proceed to give a monotone lecture that falls upon deaf ears. Though a strict follower of the rules, she has a fresh sense of humor, intelligence, enthusiasm, and a style that reaches out to students in a way that is both engaging and understandable. You can bet that when she speaks, not only will you benefit from the content of her message, but you'll also want to hear it.

As a senior, I am shocked by how fast high school has flown by (wasn’t Freshman orientation just yesterday?) and have been reflecting on what I've learned. I could go on and on about the history of the theatre, and I could explain underlying themes of English literature, and I could teach you the art of formal argument, and I certainly could reveal a Grammar Nazi side to my readers. With all of this information, academic tests are a breeze. What sets Monty apart from the rest, however, is that she doesn’t stop there. High school is, or at least should be, about preparing us for the real world when we have to face it on our own. When the safety net is cut down and the realities of life come into play, who is going to prepare us for that test? I am immeasurably grateful that someone was there to also teach me about that. I’m grateful that my confidence in my speaking ability has soared, that I know how to operate power tools and even a sewing machine, that amongst chaos I can problem-solve, that I can bite my tongue when I want to run my mouth, that I know how to include essentials in my travel bag instead of technological goodies should there be airport delays. I am grateful.

Monty has been there for us through kidney stones, nasty rumors, family deaths, and any other imaginable teenage crisis. Even when knucklehead students vandalize her driveway with ketchup male genitalia because they think it’s funny or cuss her out and attempt to punch her because their grammar was corrected, her level of sacrifice is astounding. Monday through Friday she gives her all from 7:40 in the morning to 2:40 in the afternoon, offers coaching after school, spends her Saturdays taking Debate and Forensics squads to tournaments, and directs the Fall and Spring plays, which require late-night practices and extensive set-building. I know for a fact there were some nights when she didn’t head home until after 11:00 p.m. – a 15-hour day. I have to say that this really means a lot. This woman is a real human being with her own fiancé, friends, and life outside of school, and that makes the things she’s done for us mean even more.

Ms. Montgomery – Monty – has been an extremely influential figure throughout high school. As I look ahead to the future, going it alone in college seems a bit intimidating. Yet I feel more prepared than I ever have for the challenges that lie ahead of me, and I have her to thank for that. Upon my next graduation, when it’s time for me to start a career of my own, I’ll be thinking about Monty and how she has affected the lives of so many people like me. The thing is, I’m going to be a teacher. And if I’m half the educator she is, I’ll be damn proud of myself.

Reflections On An Old Photo

Recently in one of my writing classes everyone wrote a photo reflective mini-essay on their childhood. Mine was nothing special, but it certainly made me think.

I am staring down at the photograph of a vibrant young first grade girl, complete with a nifty new dress and curled blonde bangs. The child in the photograph is me. It seems like elementary school picture day was just yesterday, and I was standing in my mother's bathroom complaining about her uncanny ability to burn the side of my head with the curling iron. That morning I finished watching "The Lion King" put in my VCR the night before, and skipped off to school with a very "Hakuna Matata" outlook on life. After all, I was only seven and a half, and my biggest dilemma involved me beating the boys at recess basketball later that afternoon. And messing up those stupid bangs.

I'm really not one for clichés, and I realize I'm going to sound like a grandma when I say this, but the past eleven years have gone by in the blink of an eye. Where have I been? How did time manage to sneak up on me at 10:38 a.m. in my high school library with its very unpleasant reminder that the world goes on with every passing minute, regardless of whether or not you want to freeze yourself in a particular period of your life or savor that sweet moment just a little longer? I feel the presence of time's friend, nostalgia, and have a strange desire to go back to that old playground and engage in another game of elementary school streetball with "the guys." This thought begins to unfold a bit in my mind. What if I actually could do that right now? I remember their hesitancy of letting a girl on the team before I had proven myself... and then this image of me lecturing first grade boys on gender roles and the limitations society places on females arises in my mind, which causes reality to sink in and me to realize that so much has changed since then - people, situations, me - that this simply isn't possible.

I take another glance at that photo, this time taking notice of my bright appearance - of how wide my smile was and how my eyes seemed to have all of the joy and optimism in the world bundled up inside of them. The computer monitor goes to a blank screensaver, and the change that has taken place throughout my life is evident in the reflection staring back at me. My eyes are now heavy from lack of sleep, and little is done for the upkeep of my image. Somewhere along the line I seemed to have sold out, trading fun and my "no worries" policy for adult responsibilities and privileges. I work two jobs to cover expenses such as cell phone bills and car payments. Catch me on a weekday evening and more likely than not I'm cooking dinner rather than playing outside. My Saturdays no longer consist of girly sleepovers with bedtime at 10 p.m., but of unsupervised nights out wherever and for however long and with whomever I choose. I operate in my daily life ever mindful of the consequences of my every action.

And I think I've put my finger on why being a kid is so great. When we're young, although it may seem as though we are confined by our parents' rules and regulations, there will never be a time in our lives when we are more free. We are allowed to believe that any dream is attainable and chase it to our heart's desire. The sky is the limit? Then I'm reaching for the stars. The grand illusion of adulthood turns out to be something that attempts to set limitations for what we can or can't do, and too often do we let it.

Now, it may seem as though this paper has taken a sort of somber or regretful tone to it, but know that is not my intention. I lead a wonderful life with people I love dearly in it, one that I am grateful for with every single breath I take. In fact, one of my favorite exercises is sharing countless laughs with a few close buddies. I'm happy. I'm healthy. I have some amazing things ahead of me. But now, after listening to Randy Pausch's story (read about it here) and reflecting back on my own I've resolved to try to reclaim that youthful zest I seemed to have lost every day when I stumble out of bed at roughly 5:00 in the morning. And, who knows? I might even decide to pick up a curling iron.