Heather the 12-year-old poet (no. 3)

I really rather like this poem. It made me happy just to read it.

FREE VERSE POEM: Moods of the Days

When it drizzles,
ever so slightly,
like a mist of freshness,
cool to the touch,
that always feels wonderful,
especially on summer days.
When the sun shines,
even through the clouds,
yet still it rains,
a thrilling sight.
Those are the times,
I feel a glowing contentment,
spread throughout me,
as I skip through the streets.
All my worries float away,
on the magical blanket,
that only mist can form.

When it pours,
and it's muddy and cold,
the earthworms wriggling,
glistening and pink.
When the twigs,
so tiny,
are pressed until they snap,
by the relentless rain,
coming down furiously.
Those are the days,
I feel gloomy,
tired and without stamina,
ready to collapse,
short-tempered.

When it snows,
all fluffy whiteness,
like soft feathers,
resting gently on the ground.
And the sparkling specks,
follow careening paths,
twirling and flipping,
as they try to reach the ground.
That's the season,
when I am always wide-awake,
alert and watchful,
the light reflecting from the snow,
dazzling in my eyes.

When the wind chills,
a knife slashing across the skin,
stripping the leaves from the branches,
whisking away the garbage cans.
That's the time,
when I shiver,
and wish I could go to sleep,
but the wind does not permit it.

My favorite kind of day,
is when it's the beginning of spring,
where everything is green,
when newborn animals,
come out to begin their life in the world.
The sun shines,
a gentle, warm glow,
not stifling,
not humid in the least.
The wind blows,
a gentle, soft breeze,
that blows my hair back,
and lets the leaves fly,
swirling up their small tornadoes.
The air is fresh,
with a smell saying, "NEW!"
neither cold nor hot,
but warm and cool.
This kind of day,
the best of them all,
is the time when I am happiest,
light as a feather,
as if nothing in the world,
no matter how heavy,
could ever weigh down my high spirits.
I can't help but be cheerful,
in my mysterious way,
and when I am frustrated,
all that is needed,
is a look at the lively world outside.

Putting aside for the moment the abundance of unnecessary commas everywhere, I didn't know I was capable of being this descriptive. Whoo, I actually shivered imagining all that.

Heather the 12-year-old poet (no. 2)

Okay, a forewarning before I share this poem: I was NOT abused as a child, and the poem has nothing to do with child abuse. Don't get too freaked out.

SCAR POEM: My Childhood

Punched in the face,
shoved into the wall,
glared at,
'till the shivers run down my spine,
tickling faintly,
but in a horrid way.
Shouted at,
ignored continuously,
and when something is wanted,
shoved off to fetch it.
Forced to sit still,
to be taught new things,
and how to do them,
so I can be useful.
All tensed up,
I hold my breath,
not daring to cry out,
not letting a sound escape.
For if I should get up,
as if to leave,
then would come the footsteps,
and a quick, smarting strike.
Such is my life,
the only one I know at the time,
where terror rules the day,
and nightmares rule the night.
And yet there are the good things,
that exist in spite of this.
Five years old,
I escape to school,
where the kids are my age,
and all are shy like me.
I meet new friends,
lifelong ones,
who I can trust implicitly,
who'll never let me down,
who help bring out my personality,
which has been trapped inside me,
never daring to show its face.
Gradually,
my newfound confidence strengthens,
and I venture out to higher things,
letting myself get rid of my stress,
burying myself in schoolwork.
And then one day,
my problem disappears,
quite suddenly,
forever, it seems.
But still it hurts,
to remember the days,
back as a little child,
when terror lived inside my house.

Umm... actually, I think I'll decline to comment on this one. I remember what I wrote it about, but I like it more for the writing itself than for what it refers to. It's a scar poem, after all.

Heather the 12-year-old poet (no. 1)

While going through my high school stuff, I came across a rare gem -- my K-8 English portfolio. The single most intriguing piece in the entire folder was a poetry project from 7th grade, appropriately entitled "Heather Chan's Stupendous Poetry Project from the: [insert hand-drawn image of shining lightbulb] Imagination". I think I must have been having a wacky day that day.

Now, I've never enjoyed poetry all that much, nor do I consider myself to have any talent at it. I was thus amazed to find that I sort of enjoyed reading some of my poems rather than simply cringing and throwing them out at once. More fascinating than my childish grasp of the literary element was simply being able to hear how I thought as a 12-year-old.

I thought I'd post a couple of the poems just to have them around after I stick this project in my "to be saved" crate, and also just in case anyone else finds them as amusing as I do. Here comes the first poem in the packet...

PERSONAL POEM: "Me"-Self

My name is Heather, meaning "earth child," my teacher says.
I can't think why that could possibly be!
I think of myself as more of a person in flight than on earth.
Not stabilized, like the flower "heather," I love to try new things,
often enjoying them, but sometimes not.
Though I hate it, kids seem to look up to me, hearing my name.
Especially Tom Swart, who keeps insisting,
that what "Heather" really means is "the smartest."

I couldn't really imagine having another name.
"Heather Chan" is so well suited to me!
In fact, the two words are inseparable, since always, it seems,
and they will always be in times to come.
That's the name by which everyone knows me,
and in fact, I don't often answer to "Heather!"
It needs the "Chan" for the special ring,
to which I always answer.

Inside me, there lives a monkey, wild as the wind.
Very clever in most situations, but panicky in some.
I can be SO dense at the stupidest times,
it's a wonder that kids still have respect for me.
One of my friends once joked to everyone,
"The thing that Heather Chan lacks is common sense!"
I can honestly see why anyone might think so.
I really can overlook the obvious at times!

There are thousands of elastic bands within my heart.
With my friends and family, or new people that I meet,
when someone is sad or lonely, the elastic stretches out to them,
and I try my hardest to make them happy and forget their problems.
But when someone betrays my trust, their elastic band can snap in an instant!
It will take a long time to replace theirs with another one.
Once it has happened once, I can't be sure when it will happen again,
and so, I am much more cautious when stretching out if they need it.

On my forehead, there is a word printed in bold, black letters: Contradiction.
This is because I am a MASS of contradictions as far as my personality goes.
I will be unbelievably thoughtful and farseeing one moment,
and the next, I'll be off in another world, oblivious to my surroundings.
I will surprise my friends from time to time by going out of my way to make them happy,
but then I will become angry and mean one way or another.
Sometimes I'll help people openly when they need it but don't ask,
but other times, I will help them without their ever knowing it.

I love the sound of outside, the leaves rustling, the animals playing.
I love to hear the calls of the birds as they fly overhead in the trees.
I like to lay down on the grass, all stretched out,
and listen to the world on sunny, breezy days.
What I hate to hear is thunder, as the crack of lightning illuminates the sky.
I hate it because I know that with each flash and boom, lightning strikes somewhere,
and somewhere in the world, destruction is taking place,
whether it's in the middle of a forest, or right near someone's home.

My favorite time of day is in the afternoon, after school.
I am free from the pressures of school and learning.
Free to play, and to enjoy myself, I run about in the outside.
I could call up a friend, and go hang out, swim, or maybe go for a bike ride.
There are also trees to climb, piles of leaves to jump in,
and in winter, there's always the snow to wallow in.
The afternoon is always fun for me and my friends,
when it's a nice day outside, perfect for playing.

If they could speak, my hands would say how they wanted a break.
A break from playing instruments, from writing, from typing this poem,
and from just holding things, and playing with them.
My hands never do seem to rest, busy as they are all day long.
I wonder if they could take a break for a day,
and maybe have my feet do things instead.
My hands are very special, and they help me to do many things.
I think they really do deserve a break!

I remember walking through the woods by my neighborhood,
a couple of years ago, with some of my friends.
We pushed our way through the brush, laughing the whole time,
until we burst into a clearing, and saw a little creek running by.
It was only perhaps 3 feet wide, and so we decided to leap across.
After we had done so, we glanced around us, and saw something very odd.
There was a log cabin on the bank, half of its ceiling collapsed,
and a chair lay on the ground by it, marred by many dents and scratches.

Something my brother says each and every time to me,
whenever I have done something extremely well,
always makes me feel good inside, and hopeful,
that I can be even better the next time.
This phrase that he uses to express his approval,
is sometimes echoed by my family and friends,
and he uses the same exact words every time:
"Heather, you never cease to amaze me, you know that?"

And there it is. My immediate thoughts after/while reading this:

1. Hmm. I wonder if the punctuation is actually supposed to go outside of the quotation marks.

2. I should see if Tom Swart is on Facebook.

3. Wow, even back then I was "Heather Chan". What am I going to do when I get married?

4. There's a monkey living inside me?!

5. I still lack common sense.

6. I had more fun after school as a kid.

7. The log cabin anecdote is kind of random. Maybe we were supposed to mention an adventure or something.

8. My brother is awesome.

[EDIT: Ooh, sorry about the spillover from the longer lines. Too lazy to figure out how to make it not do that.]

Paying a visit to my past self

Today's agenda includes going through all of my old things and throwing out anything that I don't particularly desire to keep or otherwise preserve. The point of this exercise is to help my mom cut down on clutter and prevent the onslaught of packrattedness.

The problem with going through all of my old things is that I always, ALWAYS find myself getting entirely too absorbed in everything I've ever thought and done. There's so much to be found in letters I've gotten, pictures I've been in, essays I've written, events I've attended...

As a high school student, I was extremely dedicated. I was articulate, thorough, detail-oriented, exacting, precise. I had a never-ending drive to succeed, and I had self confidence to the max. There was never a question in my mind of whether I was capable of achieving the highest quality possible -- only of whether I had enough time and patience to do it. I poured inexhaustible enthusiasm into the subjects that I loved (math, science, foreign language). I thrived on complexity and eagerly embraced learning as a source of life and meaning.

I had so much motivation and momentum...

And then I went to college. Gone were the days of required attendance. Of close student-teacher relationships. Of hanging out with classmates during lunch hour. Everyone had things to do, places to go, worries to take care of. I grew more and more detached from school with each passing day.

Not to convey a poor image of my school, but from the very beginning I had a hard time feeling intellectually stimulated both by classmates and by professors. People just didn't seem to get anything, I thought. But I reasoned that I was probably just experiencing the shock of taking mainstream courses again after having spent my high school years in honors and advanced placement classes. I decided that things would eventually look up.

But it all started going downhill when I discovered that I could skip class from time to time and still do just fine on the tests and homework. As an ardent supporter of efficiency, I did just that. I soon became identified by some of my professors as one of the class non-goers. Some even asked my classmates to encourage me to attend, and I started to feel somewhat self-conscious whenever I did show up to class. Eventually I stopped going at all unless I felt I really needed the day's lecture to understand the material. Class became a chore that I tolerated, rather than an opportunity to share the love and pursuit of knowledge with classmates and teachers. I never did have the chance to see if the intellectual atmosphere of my classes would ever shape up.

Once people think they've gotten you figured out, they help you impose that identity upon yourself. And I was a certified class-skipper. There were some classes that I did not attend more than 10 times throughout the entire semester, and while my grades did not suffer for it, I was seen as indifferent, unmotivated, and lazy. Uninterested. And I began to step into that role and identify with it, even telling people that "Yes, that is how I am."

"Perhaps it's impossible to wear an identity without becoming what you pretend to be." (Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game, page 163, Valentine speaking.) Indifferent, unmotivated, and lazy. Uninterested. By the end of junior year, that's what I had become. What's more, I had not been intellectually challenged for a long time, and I had thus become complacent and unimaginative.

In high school, I was a "100% is not enough!!" kind of person. I didn't want to simply score high, I wanted to dominate the material. I wanted to know how it applied and how it was useful. Partial mastery and achievement was as if nothing to me.

Somewhere along the way, I became content to fall just somewhere in the range of successful. An A was an A to me, whether 100% or only 92.5%, and to heck with whether I could apply the material or not. Too often I became inclined to say "I guess this is the best I can do" and move on.

Looking back on my old self, I wonder: Can I go back to the enthusiastic, motivated, incredibly self-confident and self-achieving individual that I once was? What is it that I had then that I have now lost, and can it be regained?

How to deal with an INTJ (namely, me)

(Edited excerpt taken from http://fuzzy.snakeden.org/intj/)

1. Be willing to back up your statements with facts - or at least some pretty sound reasoning.

2. Don't expect them to respect you or your viewpoints just because you say so. INTJ respect must be earned.

3. Be willing to concede when you are wrong. The average INTJ respects the truth over being "right". Withdraw your erroneous comment and admit your mistake and they will see you as a very reasonable person. Stick to erroneous comments and they will think you are an irrational idiot and treat everything you say as being questionable.

4. Try not to be repetitive. It annoys them.

5. Do not feed them a line of bull.

6. Expect debate. INTJs like to tear ideas apart and prove their worthiness. They will even argue a point they don't actually support for the sake of argument.

7. Do not mistake the strength of your conviction with the strength of your argument. It will take more than fervor to sway them.

8. Do not be surprised at sarcasm.

9. Remember that INTJs believe in workable solutions. They are extremely open-minded to possibilities, but they will quickly discard any idea that is unfeasible. INTJ open-mindedness means that they are willing to have a go at an idea by trying to pull it apart. This horrifies people who expect oohs and ahhs and reverence. The ultimate INTJ insult to an idea is to ignore it, because that means it's not even interesting enough to deconstruct.

This also means that they will not just accept any viewpoint that is presented to them. The bottom line is "Does it work?" - end discussion.

10. Do not expect INTJs to actually care about how you view them. They already know that they are arrogant with a morbid sense of humor. Telling them the obvious accomplishes nothing.

I am an INTJ personality

The Scientist (or Mastermind)

(Edited excerpt taken from http://www.personalitypage.com/INTJ.html)

INTJs value intelligence, knowledge, and competence, and have high standards in these regards, which they continuously strive to fulfill. To a somewhat lesser extent, they have similar expectations of others.

INTJs focus their energy on observing the world, and generating ideas and possibilities. Their minds constantly gather information and make associations about it. They are tremendously insightful and are very quick to understand new ideas. However, their primary interest is not understanding a concept, but rather applying that concept in a useful way.

INTJs' tremendous value and need for systems and organization, combined with their natural insightfulness, makes them excellent scientists. The internal form of an INTJ's thoughts and concepts is highly individualized, and is not readily translatable into a form that others will understand. However, the INTJ is driven to translate their ideas into a plan or system that is readily explainable, rather than to do a direct translation of their thoughts. Their extreme respect of knowledge and intelligence will motivate them to explain themselves to another person who they feel is deserving of the effort.

INTJs are natural leaders, although they usually choose to remain in the background until they see a real need to take over the lead. When they are in leadership roles, they are quite effective, because they are able to objectively see the reality of a situation, and are adaptable enough to change things which aren't working well. They are the supreme strategists - always scanning available ideas and concepts and weighing them against their current strategy, to plan for every conceivable contingency.

INTJs spend a lot of time inside their own minds, and may have little interest in other people's thoughts or feelings.

The INTJ's interest in dealing with the world is to make decisions, express judgments, and put everything that they encounter into an understandable and rational system. Consequently, they are quick to express judgments. They are often convinced that they are right about things.

INTJs are ambitious, self-confident, deliberate, long-range thinkers. They dislike messiness and inefficiency, and anything that is muddled or unclear. They value clarity and efficiency, and will put enormous amounts of energy and time into consolidating their insights into structured patterns.

Other people may have a difficult time understanding an INTJ. They may see them as aloof and reserved. Indeed, the INTJ is not overly demonstrative of their affections, and is likely to not give as much praise or positive support as others may need or desire. That doesn't mean that they don't truly have affection or regard for others, they simply do not typically feel the need to express it. Others may falsely perceive the INTJ as being rigid and set in their ways. Nothing could be further from the truth, because the INTJ is committed to always finding the objective best strategy to implement my ideas. The INTJ is usually quite open to hearing an alternative way of doing something.

When under a great deal of stress, the INTJ may become obsessed with mindless repetitive activities. They may also tend to become absorbed with minutia and details that they would not normally consider important to their overall goal.

INTJs need to remember to express themselves sufficiently, so as to avoid difficulties with people misunderstandings. In the absence of properly developing their communication abilities, they may become abrupt and short with people, and isolationists.

INTJs have a tremendous amount of ability to accomplish great things. They have great insight into the Big Picture, and are driven to synthesize their concepts into solid plans of action. INTJs are most always highly competent people, and will not have a problem meeting their career or education goals. They have the capability to make great strides in these arenas. On a personal level, the INTJ who practices tolerances and puts effort into effectively communicating their insights to others has everything in their power to live a rich and rewarding life.

Post-graduation stupor

Home is wonderful. I'm sitting on my couch with my laptop and enjoying all the delicious smells that are coming from the kitchen right now... it's back to homemade dinners! Spending seven weeks at camp really helps one appreciate the comfort and luxury of one's own house. Er, one's parents' house?

Still, it makes me wonder how much or little I actually need to be happy. I probably could have gone on living like I had been at camp for a while longer. Life is simpler when you have less stuff to keep track of, fewer ways of being contacted, and only so many options of things you could be doing at any given moment.

Though... home really is quite wonderful.

Technically, I should have been attending graduation this morning (and playing a violin solo there too), but I slept in instead. No, don't worry, it was entirely intentional -- I'm on the other side of the country! Given a choice between attending graduation for two days and spending the next few weeks at home, I chose the latter. Can you blame me? I just hope they mail my diploma to the right place.

It's kind of weird to be done with undergraduate school. At this point, I can go off and do whatever I want. Granted, I've chosen to stay at the same school for my master's degree, but now everything is just on a whatever-I-feel-like basis. Strange, strange indeed.

Not much is going to change since I'm staying in school, but I still want something to feel different. Something to signify that I've moved on to a new stage of life. Something more than smaller classes, relaxed coursework, living wherever I want, and being able to check things out of the library for over 3 months. I want to feel more independent. More... grown-up, somehow. Being an adult definitely doesn't equate to feeling like one. I still think of myself as a kid in many ways.

For the coming year, I want to try some new things. I want to pick up some new hobbies, meet new people, go to new places, develop new routines. I want to know what's going on around me. I want to act, dress, and speak more like an adult. I want to feel more put together and be confident in who I am.

I've spent too much of my recent life feeling apologetic for the way I am. It's time to change.