a moment's folly,

Here's another blog post about a personal exploration of a subject I'll never fully comprehend.

(Oh here’s another song about a gender I’ll never understand WOOO-OOO WOOO-OOO if this is a rom-com, kill the director)

I’ve got my own analogy for love. It’s like a photon, a light particle(trust Cheryl to always have a Physics-related analogy lurking somewhere in her right brain), a localised bundle of energy. It’s not matter; you can’t actually hold it in your hand and let it slip through the gaps between your fingers. You can’t see it; you can’t claim to see light, you can only see its effects on matter. The way it illuminates a room and every object lying around. Our lives, our daily routines are centered around the presence of light. Sunlight is the main source of energy for not just plants, but the whole polluted and overpopulated Earth. And it’s something we can’t even see. The best things in life aren’t seen, but felt with the heart. Can you say, cliches that are annoyingly true. Just as you stagger backwards and shield your eyes when the lights are suddenly switched on in a dark room, love throws us off balance when we least expect it. Just as photons of a sufficiently high frequency can release electrons from a metal when their energies are absorbed, love of sufficient depth can(but doesn’t necessarily) liberate the negatives-pain, hurt, resentment, bitterness-that we bind so closely to our heart and stubbornly refuse to let go. You know how they say seeing is believing? Well, tell them to go curl up in a hole and study some Einstein. Ignorant dimwits.

But that’s just an analogy that simplifies love down to a mere paragraph on a computer screen, not a definition for a subject, a thing(a non-thing?) that is inherently incomprehensible and indefinable. I’ve come across so many blogs, so many thoughts on paper, so many frustrated poets attempting to define love. And have failed by reducing love, in all its vastness and diversity, down to two figures: <3. An angle bracket and a number. Love is less than 3? 3 what? 3 diamond rings? 3 ponies? 3 boyfriends that got past first base? The only definition of love that fits like a fingerless glove(because my pinkies are too little to be snugly encased by normal gloves) is God. And God, He’s the most indefinable out of all things indefinable.

I’ve come across musings and ramblings about love, some that make sense(to me at least) and some shallower than a puddle on flat concrete, but nothing I’ve completely agreed with. So I’m joining the party. I’m going to ramble and muse and reflect and draft and cancel out and draft and cancel out even more. I’ll explore, I’ll observe, I’ll infer, I’ll draw from personal experiences. And I’ll litter this place with my findings, weaved into sentences, paragraphs, anecdotes, prose and I’m not going to attempt poetry for now. I’m one person. I’ll probably be highly inaccurate, I’ll probably come back here 5 years from now and sneer at 17-year-old self’s naivety and cringe at shallow thinking and immature writing style; I tend to do that. But whatever, I never expected it to be accurate. After all, once I’m through with my little journey I’ll go ask God myself. So here you go, just in case you think I suddenly decided to go all sappy and head-in-the-cotton-candy-clouds on you. My head’s still intact, I’m just making friends with a different side of it.

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Saccharine-sweet sentences that sicken my soul

So I’ve been working on an allegory for the past 2 hours and I must say, I hate the way I sound when I try to be sentimental. I hate over-sentimentality. I hate that my descriptions are so shallow and I can’t find the right blend of words to convey emotion while remaining clever and witty. I actually disgust myself. I’ve also discovered that writing in third-person sucks. Why write it if I can’t even get involved? What a waste of precious swotvac hours that could’ve been spent ingraining differential calculus into my brain (or not). This is why I can’t do English Comms; imagine the bite marks I’d leave on my descriptive essay pieces. I can no longer write like a normal person.

I admire people who can write anecdotes and allegories and analogies (ooh alliteration!) without sounding like they’ve just spent a week watching The Notebook and A Walk To Remember on replay. But I’m going to stick to writing from my heart/brain/gall bladder for now. Till I find the time to trawl the library shelves for pages that reek of 100-year-old wisdom and add to my arsenal of vocabulary and bury myself in the works of W.B. Yeats, Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, Alfred Tennyson or some other fancy-sounding poet, you’ll just have to put up with my facetious remarks in between deep, reflective thoughts and me not taking my writing too seriously. I’ll have to put up with me anyway.

Dear Mark Twain, we are going to be best friends after the 11th of November and you are going to give me some of your insight and wit.

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Trying to Poe

Hey diddle diddle,

The physicists fiddle,

The Bleep jumped over the moon.

The little dog laughed to see such fun

And died the following June.

- Paul Dehn

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“ Perhaps it is roughly
Saying what God alone could perfectly show -
How selfhood begins with walking away,
And love is proved in the letting go.

—

“Walking Away”, C. Day Lewis

(Why is it that when you find something vaguely intelligent to say, your blog won’t load? Law of the turtle: expression of intelligence is at times stifled by the idiocy of Telstra broadband and retarded-snail internet speed. Telstra the turtle. Hey look, new mascot!)

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Cheryl's life will only exist within the boundaries of her bedroom/wherever she decides to study.

Hi Cheryl,

You recently changed your Facebook password. As a security precaution, this notification has been sent to all email addresses associated with your account.

If you did not change your password, your account may have been the victim of a phishing scam. Please learn more about this and how to regain access to your account at http://www.facebook.com/help.php?page=797

Thanks,
The Facebook Team

YAY THIS MEANS I WILL DEFINITELY PASS MY EXAMS BECAUSE MY PASSWORD IS IN THE HANDS OF THE WAFFLES.

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“ You’re an idiom!

— Stuart Green (or, Stuey the “of course I can do quadratics” guitarist of the Final Reveal)

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Hehehe. Did someone say muck-up day?

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Expired chocolate. Un-serious final assembly that involved a teacher faking a pretty realistic fall on stage. A badge that says “Cheryl’s free to fly!!” with a pixellated eagle. A paper bag with my name on it. Derros that spray-paint the generic “eff you” on school walls in the dead of the night. Yawn. That’s NMHS for you.

Honest, random thoughts start here. Welcome to the Wacky World of the Cheryl Brain.

I truly hate this time of the year; the end, the final, the curtain call. Especially this year. Everyone’s high on emotions, mice scrambling to savour the very last morsels of a year they took for granted, a year they all swallowed without chewing until they realise that it’s nearly gone. The year we dreaded, the year we hated, the year we feared, the year we abhorred with all our overtired hearts, it ran past like Michael Johnson on speed and then we realise how much we’ll miss the way it always had us in a chokehold(maybe not). Prancing around the supermarket in my ill-fitting, messy school uniform and beat-up man shoes I’ve worn throughout my NMHS life, I came to a halt when I spotted a whole row of sparkly, tinsel-y, red and green and gold and silver stuff that screamed MERRY CHRISTMAS WE SWEAR SANTA ISN’T A PEDOPHILE! Since when?? Where did last Christmas and the torturous plane ride back to my island in the sun go? Where did Cheryl of last Christmas go? I swear, I am so unfit I can’t even keep up with Time without losing my breath every 10 minutes and feeling the consequences of physical dormancy bite into my muscles.

I hate how people say they wish they’d gotten to know this person and this person better and if they could live through Year 12 again they’d be great friends to everyone. Is there any point in saying that? We’re always going to take something for granted, we’ll always think that we have all the time in the world until we find out that our depth perceptions are warped and that 10 months really felt like 5 hours. Yeah um, I’m one of those people. Sentimental to the point where I stare at myself in the mirror and projectile vomit.

I hate that I’m joining the crowd and mourning about my non-loss. Shut up Cheryl.

“Never underestimate the seeds you have sown in this school.”

Thank you, Seth.

I guess most things, edible or not, have an expiry date and we just…enjoy them while we can. And not try to down them once they’re dead and gone. That expired Toblerone bar made me feel funny, never good to live in the past is it.

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“ Security is mostly a superstition. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.

— Helen Keller

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Oh we’re such beautiful people, even our own noses fascinate us. I’m going to make everyone pull that face, take a photo and make a collage to celebrate the end of year 12. And then blackmail everyone in it 10 years later when they’re all filthy stinkin’ rich lawyers/doctors/accountants/actors/actresses/marine biologists/pharmacists/horticulturalists/deadbeats that won the lottery/one-hit wonders.

Dear Year 12,

5 more days. 5 more days and the relationship is over. 25 more days till I can claim my life back from the front office ladies I abhor so much. We need your card before we give you your life back. Well guess what, I won’t be needing my student ID anymore and I certainly will not have to wait in line for 5 minutes when I’m the only one in line. Hah, goodbye. Anyway, even though you have stolen my precious shut-eye moments, taught me what disappointment really means, permanently tattooed eyebags beneath half-shut eyes, thinning eyelashes and fatigued gaze, introduced me to this strange elixir(that only works for 3 hours) known as V, increased my dependence on caffeine, induced an aversion to technology and its wirey digital friends, turned me into a textbook-eater and reinforced my obsession with good quality stationery, I still will kind of miss you. I’ll miss the friends, the laughter until our tummies hurt and we couldn’t breathe, the private jokes, the singing in class and annoying the teacher, the eating while we highlight our notes, the scribbling and doodling on a classmate’s book, the that’s what she said jokes in Physics and Chemistry, the Mr LeCornu’s epic demonstration of a flagella on a sperm, the drawing vampire hickeys on the sleeping person in class, the yodelling when we’re supposed to be doing our pracs, the lame pick-up lines, the really really bad till they were funny jokes, the lying on the oval avoiding homework, the long deep talks on the bus and during frees, the taking photos with inanimate objects around school, the walking through town barefoot on formal night, the planning to take down the hard-hearted campus head, the boring aimless SRC lunchtime meetings, the prayeries that ended up with us moshing to Parlez Vous Francais, the intense prayeries that united us, the study sessions, the awkward moments with the incredibly awkward CPSW, the Mr Carter going red in the face when he accidentally drew boobs when he was meant to draw atoms, Mr Godden never handing back our essays, Mr Fahim and his UNGA, the waiting at the deserted bus stop after tests, the telling people who were complaining after tests to shut up, the dancing to the Wombats at the bus stop and the many other interesting, endearing moments that made this year a laugh and a half. Make that a laugh and 5 halves that strangle my tummy like a snake strangling a donkey, a la The Swiss Family Robinson. I loved that book.

Thank you, for giving me a reason to open up and find some amazing people I wouldn’t usually hang out with.Thank you, for new friends and old that make me smile on the hardest days and believed in me even when I couldn’t believe in myself. Thank you, for teaching me that procrastination never pays off. Thank you, for showing me that coffee has the ability to put me to sleep. Thank you, for teaching me that sometimes, grades aren’t everything and passion gets you through the year and that I would have hated English Comms, even if I did do alot better than I’m doing now in English Studies. Thank you, for concrete evidence that further reinforces my decision to never, EVER become a high-school teacher. Above all, thank you for showing me that God is faithful, even in sucky circumstances and in the face of scary things like the UMAT and getting a C on a test.

I would like to point out, however, that I never want anything to do with you again. You’re like the Sec 2 Adventure Camp we went on; feral, disgusting, complete lack of a proper sewage system, flies in my food, mud fights, bonding with team members, great memories but best left in the past. Emphasis on the complete lack of a proper sewage system; remember those days when the water pipe burst, the toilets couldn’t flush for 2 days and everyone had to be sent home because no one could get rid of the poo in the loo? Yeah. You get the point.

Love, Cheryl, your over-caffeinated, sleep-deprived, Physics-textbook-dating, life-deficient, over-eating, soon-to-be-free owl of a student. Mwa mwa.

P.S. I have a record player. Oh snap. I have a record player and all I can do now is pretend to be a DJ and spin my 50-cent The Sound of Music record. Yodel-zip-yodel-zip-yodel-zipppp.

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