cummings, Lao Tzu, & Hesse
In 1991, I rediscovered one of my great passions — reading. Through the influence of a teacher whom I still consider my greatest (whom I had both for Junior English, and a World Literature and Humanities elective as a Senior), I found the chance to sample literature which was far more personal and much more interesting than just the standard Scarlet Letter-oriented curricula most of my peers at other schools were plodding through. Sure, we had to endure that stuff, too, but the chance to read more of the hand-picked literature made the extra homework load worth it.
I received my first speeding ticket. I was going 57 in a 40 mph zone. Ironically, "Stop", by Jane's Addiction, was playing on the radio when I looked up to see the flashing lights in my rear view mirror.
I wrote my Junior theme paper on e.e.cummings. The work took on a life of its own and became an unnatural passion of sorts. By the time my paper was complete, I'd read every commonly available poem of cummings', not to mention quite a few of his essays, plays, and a full biography. I scoffed at my friends at other schools who got away with a five page paper on the Great Gatsby.
In my current office on the student council, I became chair of the prom committee. The irony of that duty in comparison to my anti-establishment sentiments of the time was palpable, but it was a duty I enjoyed, nonetheless, primarily because the other members of the committee were what were generally agreed upon to be the four most pursued women of our class. When the prom actually arrived, I took a girl friend of mine I'd known since sixth grade — there was none of the media-exemplified debauchery to be had, but I had a good time, nonetheless, and the nostalgia of the pairing was fun, at least.
I was diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), after several weeks of mononucleosis-like symptoms, and a general array of exhaustion and muscle soreness. At the time I thought it was something that would go away on its own.
I became best friends with a girl named Emily, whom I'd been casual friends with for about a year. We'd go out to plays and poetry readings, stay up all night watching A Clockwork Orange and The Wall, and occasionally drive to the airport runway to watch planes land, or climb grain elevators to get a great nighttime view of the town. Looking back, I get a chuckle out of the fact that most people I knew were sneaking out to go get drunk in a field, whereas I was sneaking out to discuss the ethics of euthanasia or to watch art films all night long. Emily also taught me a great deal about the various sides of the human psyche, being someone who kept all her activities strictly separated: for public dates and social events, she had her boyfriend Jason; for passion and excitement she had her "friend" Thomas; and for everything else, speaking what was on her mind and doing the things she really enjoyed doing, she had me. I did grieve occasionally that I couldn't have my rotation in the boyfriend spot, but when the opportunity to kiss her presented itself, I passed it up, since it would break the implicit rules we'd setup — in retrospect, I think I had the best cut of things anyway.
Over the summer, my aforementioned Junior English teacher suggested I check out Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha and the Tao Te Ching (Lao Tzu, of course). She gave me an extra copy of Siddhartha, which I still have somewhere, I think, and I've amassed no fewer than three translations of the Tao since then. These two works, along with others which were natural followups (Bhagavad Gita, Chuang Tzu, Dhammapada, the Upanishads), are, among anything I've read, the most influential on my ways of thinking.
At camp, on the anniversary of my milestone kiss the year before, I found a new girlfriend. We spent a total of two weeks that summer actually together, the rest of the relationship consisting of a few phone calls and several letters. She was about to start her sophomore year in college, though, an ego boost to a high school senior which can't be easily described. She was studying Psychology, which piqued my interest enough to result in my choice of the same major a year later.
I was one of four students who signed up for Physics II my senior year. It was without doubt a geeky class (involving such projects as measuring the trajectories of falling marbles and building a calculator from scratch), but with only four students a culture evolved: Michael, a stereotypical Goonies Data nuts and bolts scholar, complete with calculator wristwatch; Rich, a smart guy of the more computer-oriented persuasions; Soumya, a best friend of mine, who balanced a future Physics major in college with passions for music and poetry; and myself, more the humanitarian of the group, receiving many strange remarks from the teacher upon funding that I was interested in the social sciences. Since the teacher instructed a standard Physics course at the same time, our class was essentially self-directed, and often included such lesser known physics principles as how to get a date with Mary Gwynn, whether English or Italian sonnets have more artistic merit, and how long a person hiding under a table can hold his breath without passing out.
I received my first speeding ticket. I was going 57 in a 40 mph zone. Ironically, "Stop", by Jane's Addiction, was playing on the radio when I looked up to see the flashing lights in my rear view mirror.
I wrote my Junior theme paper on e.e.cummings. The work took on a life of its own and became an unnatural passion of sorts. By the time my paper was complete, I'd read every commonly available poem of cummings', not to mention quite a few of his essays, plays, and a full biography. I scoffed at my friends at other schools who got away with a five page paper on the Great Gatsby.
In my current office on the student council, I became chair of the prom committee. The irony of that duty in comparison to my anti-establishment sentiments of the time was palpable, but it was a duty I enjoyed, nonetheless, primarily because the other members of the committee were what were generally agreed upon to be the four most pursued women of our class. When the prom actually arrived, I took a girl friend of mine I'd known since sixth grade — there was none of the media-exemplified debauchery to be had, but I had a good time, nonetheless, and the nostalgia of the pairing was fun, at least.
I was diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), after several weeks of mononucleosis-like symptoms, and a general array of exhaustion and muscle soreness. At the time I thought it was something that would go away on its own.
I became best friends with a girl named Emily, whom I'd been casual friends with for about a year. We'd go out to plays and poetry readings, stay up all night watching A Clockwork Orange and The Wall, and occasionally drive to the airport runway to watch planes land, or climb grain elevators to get a great nighttime view of the town. Looking back, I get a chuckle out of the fact that most people I knew were sneaking out to go get drunk in a field, whereas I was sneaking out to discuss the ethics of euthanasia or to watch art films all night long. Emily also taught me a great deal about the various sides of the human psyche, being someone who kept all her activities strictly separated: for public dates and social events, she had her boyfriend Jason; for passion and excitement she had her "friend" Thomas; and for everything else, speaking what was on her mind and doing the things she really enjoyed doing, she had me. I did grieve occasionally that I couldn't have my rotation in the boyfriend spot, but when the opportunity to kiss her presented itself, I passed it up, since it would break the implicit rules we'd setup — in retrospect, I think I had the best cut of things anyway.
Over the summer, my aforementioned Junior English teacher suggested I check out Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha and the Tao Te Ching (Lao Tzu, of course). She gave me an extra copy of Siddhartha, which I still have somewhere, I think, and I've amassed no fewer than three translations of the Tao since then. These two works, along with others which were natural followups (Bhagavad Gita, Chuang Tzu, Dhammapada, the Upanishads), are, among anything I've read, the most influential on my ways of thinking.
At camp, on the anniversary of my milestone kiss the year before, I found a new girlfriend. We spent a total of two weeks that summer actually together, the rest of the relationship consisting of a few phone calls and several letters. She was about to start her sophomore year in college, though, an ego boost to a high school senior which can't be easily described. She was studying Psychology, which piqued my interest enough to result in my choice of the same major a year later.
I was one of four students who signed up for Physics II my senior year. It was without doubt a geeky class (involving such projects as measuring the trajectories of falling marbles and building a calculator from scratch), but with only four students a culture evolved: Michael, a stereotypical Goonies Data nuts and bolts scholar, complete with calculator wristwatch; Rich, a smart guy of the more computer-oriented persuasions; Soumya, a best friend of mine, who balanced a future Physics major in college with passions for music and poetry; and myself, more the humanitarian of the group, receiving many strange remarks from the teacher upon funding that I was interested in the social sciences. Since the teacher instructed a standard Physics course at the same time, our class was essentially self-directed, and often included such lesser known physics principles as how to get a date with Mary Gwynn, whether English or Italian sonnets have more artistic merit, and how long a person hiding under a table can hold his breath without passing out.