29 May 2009

Never ready

I meant to write this later, after things really had changed and I was past high school forever, but with the mood I'm in tonight, I think it's better now.

This year has felt like one big long goodbye and at the same time one big long binge of terrified anticipation. I don't know if there's as jarring a jolt into the world as graduation from high school, but I hope this is the worst of them, because it's like thinking you can drive a car knowing only the theory of the matter - do I really have any idea what's out there waiting? Do I really have any idea what I'm doing? How do I know that the moment I change gears I won't skid out into highway traffic and get hopelessly pummeled?

I've commented to several people that if I could go back and be in high school for a few more years, I might. It's good that I can't. If I got to pick when I entered this stage of life, I'd probably be too big of a coward to ever graduate. The clock doesn't care about your plans; it keeps going.

I think it's different for me because I'm not just transitioning smoothly from high school to university. I'm not going from one institution to another. I'm going to be out in the WORLD, guys, and that's really the scariest part. Either I'm not ready for the world or the world isn't ready for me, or both, or neither.

To return to the car analogy, though, idiots learn to drive and manage to keep themselves intact. Surely I can do a little better than that. Also, the real brains behind this operation isn't letting me get at the wheel anyway because I'd only make a mess of it. That leaves me in the back seat pretending I'm in control and being distracted by passing birds.

And that puts it nicely in perspective.

(Incidentally - "God is my copilot"? Theological rubbish. You're lucky God lets you on the plane.)

28 May 2009

Paper + ink = magic

Does anyone else find it minorly incredible that running your eyes over a piece of paper with black markings on it can be such an enjoyable pastime? I do.

On that note, have read/reading lately:

Victory of Eagles, Temeraire #5 (Naomi Novik) (✭✭✭✭/5)

Starclimber (Kenneth Oppel) [unfinished]

Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus (Orson Scott Card) [unfinished]

The Case Against Barack Obama: the Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media's Favorite Candidate (David Freddoso) [unfinished]

Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy (Crawford Kilian) [unfinished]

To Say Nothing of the Dog (Connie Willis)(✭✭✭✭✭/5)

Also, I'm about to be reading Assassin's Apprentice (#1 of the Farseer Trilogy, Robin Hobb) and A Game of Thrones (#1 of A Song of Ice and Fire, George R. R. Martin). Does anyone else think that Mr. Martin purposely gave himself two R initials so he could be like J. R. R. Tolkien? I dunno, seems suspicious...

Recently watched movies: Twilight (but you know that - ✭); Batman Begins and The Dark Knight (✭✭✭✭ and ✭✭✭✭✭); as much of Earthsea as I could stomach, and that one doesn't even get half a star; The Lady and the Highwayman (with Hugh Grant. Hilarious in a very lame kind of way; I bet Mr Grant is so proud); School of Rock, far more entertaining than I anticipated (it only gets a ✭✭✭ because the slight plot holes kinda bugged me) ... and that's it. I also tried to watch Braveheart but the DVD spazzed.

Ooh, and music: Viva La Vida by Coldplay (and the mix with Love Story by Jon Schmidt was pretty cool), Burn Out Bright by Switchfoot, Live Out Loud by Steven Curtis Chapman, and Dawn from Pride and Prejudice. Also Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis.

26 May 2009

Twilight - The Movie

I've seen it twice now. The second time, I enjoyed saying, "LOOK! The PLOT!" every time they slotted in a gratuitous vampire-violence scene, and "...there it goes again" every time we were back to *STARE* OMG Edward never leave me! I trust you with my life and I'm irrevocably in love with you even though we've had three conversations (and half of those were made up of pseudo-meaningful pauses and stares) and you want to kill me!

Essentially, the same principle applies to movie as to book: It could have been half as long (or less) without missing an iota of plot, and sparing us the forced romance.

Outside the non-existent romantic chemistry, the intense blues and greens and clammy-looking whites of the movie started to grate on me, and by the end of two viewings I wanted to smack the scriptwriters (Stephanie Meyer helped. Wanted to smack her too.) Every interaction was jerky, there was no smooth conversation, and the painfully obvious high schoolers were even more one-dimensional than they are in the book. Maybe I hang out with a superior crowd, but I don't know any high schoolers who are that pathetically transparent.

(However, Jacob was kinda cute. Movie-Jacob makes movie-Edward look exactly like the creepy stalker he is.)

And WHAT was up with the scene where Bella MISLAID HER PANTS? I did NOT need to see that! Also, take note, male readers, Bella Swan is the only girl in the world who appreciates being called 'spider monkey'. Do not try this at home. Also, do not insist on taking off your girlfriend's jacket, putting on her hat and fixing her hair, and doing up her seatbelt.

Lastly, a recommendation:

25 May 2009

A Chronicling of My Journeys With Nail Polish

It began thusly. I had very short nails. The reasons for this were threefold: I played the piano; I used this as an excuse for keeping my nails short and used keeping my nails short as an excuse to bite them; and I figured I had ugly nails anyway, so what was the point? (Normally my self-esteem is decent. This must have been a lapse.) Oh, and also, I hate painting my right hand with my left hand because I am NOT ambidextrous. So that's four, actually.

As it happened, this is my last year of piano lessons, and at the beginning of the year my nails and I had a heart-to-heart (about thirty seconds long) and I decided I was sick of them being ugly and I might as well try something different. So the biting ceased. I've heard it's an addiction, but I have superlative willpower, so there you go. After a period of time and some sessions with one of those nail files that flips out of multitools, my piano teacher said, "Oh, you're letting your nails grow," and I took that as encouragement.

Added to my arsenal was clear nail polish, which is convenient mostly because it's hard to tell if you mess up while using it, and I happily used that about once a week.

The latest development in this saga happened this Saturday while shopping. The friend I was shopping with was standing in line with her purchase and happened to exclaim at a pretty color of nail polish by the cash register. There were two bottles of this color, as it happened, for $3.80 each, and I had a brief mental conversation that went like this, Gollum/Smeagol fashion:

Gollum: Hey, that IS pretty.
Smeagol: But you never paint your nails.
Gollum: I do too! It's just clear, so you can't see it.
Smeagol: Like I said. You don't paint your nails.
Gollum [rebellious]: Oh yeah? Well, NOW I do.

So I bought it. It's a sort of metallic silvery-green shade (though others in my family steadfastly maintain it is blue) and currently adorns all of the twenty nails I possess. Oh, but there's a story about that too.

See, I look at my hands a lot. It comes from using my laptop a lot and playing the piano a lot. Hence, I notice my nails frequently, and my left hand was bothering me this morning because there were a few spots where I had been less than meticulously neat. After finishing chemistry, I decided it was time to redo this hand, which ended up being a FAR larger project than it should have been. This is how events proceeded:

1) The nail polish remover comes out, and cotton balls.
2) I discover that this is not your ordinary submissive nail polish and declines to remove itself meekly.
3) A few wayward sparkles clinging to my fingertips, I decide good enough and go to redo it.
4) I discover that in my zeal, two or three fingers of my right hand accidentally got acquainted with the nail polish remover.
5) Left hand redone.
6) Clear nail polish added overtop of green stuff (because darnit, once I have it on properly, it's STAYING)
7) Except now we must paint right hand with left hand, which, if you'll recall, I do not enjoy. The same friend was kind enough to do that hand for me on Saturday evening.
8) This is accomplished without mishap (mostly).
9) I dance around my bedroom flapping my hands. I don't know if this actually makes it dry faster.
10) I am fervently glad I did not time how long this all took.

Casualties: Many cotton balls, a Q-tip or three, and a piece of scrap paper.

Oh, and this is all while owning exactly two colors of nail polish not counting the clear one. I think it might be dangerous to own more. Then there would be a loooong preliminary process of CHOOSING a color.

This might just scare me off ever wearing makeup.

18 May 2009

Link added

And wow, is my list ever getting long. Newest is Dragons! Lip gloss! Death!, which is Naomi Novik's LiveJournal, and if you don't know who Naomi Novik is, well, YOU SHOULD. She writes the Temeraire series, historical fiction/fantasy set in the Napoleonic Era. With dragons!

I never talk much about my blog links, actually. Let's see...Small Dead Animals belongs to the almighty Kate MacMillan, who is funny AND conservative, and more handy than a newspaper.

Boundless Line is the blog for boundless.com, a webzine for young single Christians, and there's a variety of bloggers over there who talk about the issues facing our generation and how we should respond. There are some great thought-provoking discussions in the comments, too.

Captain Capitalism is a rabid economist/capitalist/I assume a conservative, and when I say rabid I mean rabid. But he is entertaining, and that's why I read him. We do disagree on some things. Like whether or not kids are a good thing and whether or not liberal arts degrees should exist in universities.

Kyleigh's Blog is the stomping grounds of the lovely Nightingale off A-U, also with thought-provoking posts from a young Christian.

DRAMA QUEENY Rhythm...oh boy. We're related.

send in the clowns, again, related, except this time 'tis my grandma. She writes about many things, not least Alberta wildlife and current news.

through a glass darkly is by Valera/arinelspeth teh ph33rsome engineer of d00m. She also writes mean sci-fi and I don't think she'll mind if I add that there are fifteen chapters of such sci-fi here. And there had better be more :D

Charlotte's Thoughts, whee, related again. Her recent topics include voting, smoking, Mother's Day, poetry...many things.

Western Canada Quizzing is the blog for the WCD district quizzers, where there are photos and recently a promo video and news updates.

Bassoon Freak - how many relatives are we at now? Four? Tales from a music major. She must know some very funny people (or have a lot of inside jokes) because I can't manage a quote at the end of every post at all.

Quizzing Central - Tales of a Quizzer for study tips and amusing anecdotes. We all love quizzers.

Imperfect Cogitare is, again, the stomping grounds of an A-Uer, Fencing Maiden. She writes about writing and posts writing along with thoughtful observations about life in general, all presented vividly and with a refreshingly unique perspective. Really, what's not to like :P

megs musings, poetry from Inwe Calaelen. Except she needs to post more. *hinthint*

And you already heard about Dragons! Lip gloss! Death!

Those are my blog habits. Check them out.

11 May 2009

I will try to fix you

From a Coldplay song.

Friday night our youth group went to a 'youth rally' at another church in the city, and while the turnout was less than expected and I was mildly disappointed with the speaker, he did say a few things that proved thought-provoking.

Just a side note: The reason I was disappointed is because I find that people who speak to youth tend to just address the same topics over and over. Growing up in the church and in a youth group as I have, I've heard so many people talk about youth in pain and youth who contemplate suicide and cut and do drugs and etc that I'm tired of it. I'm not saying these issues aren't problems, but I've become frustrated with the way messages to youth more resemble pep talks to think positive and step out of the rut than anything really spiritually significant.

This particular message was chiefly a pep talk, but the thing that stuck out to me about it was when he said that God wants to takes your broken pieces and put them back together, and make your life mean something, essentially. The reason this intrigued me is because it fit with an idea I've had for a while: as humans, we come up with stories, we write books, we tell about things that have meaning and climax and symbolism, and I think that one of the possible underlying reasons we do this is because we want our lives to have meaning. We wish our lives meant something the same way the lives of the people we write about mean something. We want the assurance that our lives, day after day, are not just a progression of humdrum existence that will never mean anything or change anything. So in a sense, creating stories and alternate worlds is like creating the reality we want for ourselves.

So when he talked about God wanting to put the pieces together, it made me think of the plot of a story. Aimless circumstances stuck together, and characters growing, to make a coherent whole. I think God wants to give our lives a plot, so we're always looking toward the climax.

I'm curious for thoughts on this one, so please do comment :D

06 May 2009

Facebook, how we love thee.

STATUS: Ben Matychuk hates all this rain.
Kyle Sinclair at 4:42pm May 6: Whats wrong with you? I've been praying for rain!! It puts the fires out!! Glad to know YOU care...
Ben Matychuk at 4:43pm May 6: i mean it's awesome....go rain!
Kyle Sinclair at 4:44pm May 6: yeahh...sure...your true thoughts came out...
Ben Matychuk at 4:45pm May 6: which are, "Rain is awesome."
Kyle Sinclair at 4:46pm May 6: haha then why do you have your status as..."Ben Matychuk haets all this rain"?
Ben Matychuk at 4:47pm May 6: it doesn't
Ben Matychuk at 4:48pm May 6: my first one was just a mistake
Kyle Sinclair at 4:48pm May 6: okayy...sure...then change it!!!
Ben Matychuk at 4:49pm May 6: i did, see?
STATUS: Ben Matychuk loves rain
Josh Stauffer at 4:49pm May 6: That's very good. Did you know rain puts out forest fires?
Kyle Sinclair at 4:49pm May 6: Much better. :)
Ben Matychuk at 4:49pm May 6: yes, that's why i love it
Amy Matychuk at 4:53pm May 6: this entertains me highly. Yay peer pressure.
Ben Matychuk at 4:55pm May 6: why is the love of rain so entertaining? there's no pressure, just a boy and his rain.
Kyle Sinclair at 4:55pm May 6: well Amy...I think that is the first time i've ever heard that...
Ben Matychuk at 4:59pm May 6: yes, i apologize, for i've kept my love of water that falls from the sky within the interior until now :D
Kyle Sinclair at 5:00pm May 6: are you bipolar??!!! 15 min ago you said you hate rain.
Ben Matychuk at 5:03pm May 6: no i'm not! first of all it was 19 mins ago and 2nd of all, it can be easy to make that typo. the "H" is only 3 keys away from "L," the "A" is only....8 keys away from "O," the "T" is only 2 keys away from the "V," and they both end with "E"
Kyle Sinclair at 5:05pm May 6: but that changes of you getting all of them in that order are very slim. Bipolar....
Ben Matychuk at 5:06pm May 6: slim, yes but not.................invisible
Kyle Sinclair at 5:07pm May 6: i still don't believe you.
Ben Matychuk at 5:08pm May 6: fine, but my hate of rain will never leave me
Ben Matychuk at 5:09pm May 6: look! i just did it again!

04 May 2009

Bittersweet and strange

It'll be a victory if I manage to write this without crying.

This is how I envisioned it. This is what I felt was supposed to happen.

I was a pretty average rookie. I won a ribbon once, at the very first meet, and after that things went downhill. My second year, grade 8, I spent mostly in Division C. Yeah, I got awards, and yeah, our team made the finals because it was so easy, but I wasn't brilliant. I was scared as heck to get off my seat. Grade 9, the best coach in the world put me into Division A. Everyone jumped fast. People went to Great West, Internationals, all the time. I memorized the entire text of Romans and James that year, and I still only got one question in an entire quiz, if that. Grade 10 was much the same. I got a little better - up to two questions a quiz - but still my goal of making Great West, the top 25 in Alberta, was far away. Grade 11, I packed Galatians/Ephesians/Philippians/Colossians into my head, and I finally made the top 25. I never got a question right at Great West, but I was finally there.

This year, Grade 12, my last year, I made Great West again, and I fought tooth and nail to make the ultimate goal. Internationals. I know Luke backwards and forwards. I spent hours studying, improving my jumping, pushing myself to the very boundaries of my abilities.

You know how it was supposed to end, in my head?

I was supposed to go to Internationals.

I was supposed to have this success story for all the rookies. You know what? I was there too. I was there, struggling with fear of making a mistake, looking at all the top quizzers and wondering why it was so easy for them. I was THERE. And look where I am now.

I'm not going.

Part of me, a big part, is so disappointed that it didn't end the perfect way it was supposed to. Part of me knew all along that life isn't like that - it doesn't end in a perfect climax, and it doesn't always mean a clear-cut success story. I'm trying to learn that success is not ribbons or medals, success is not Internationals. I'm trying to remember that my friends love me just the same no matter what place I come in.

It's been two days, and already I'm achingly sad that it's over. That it was my last shot to make the goal I wanted, and I didn't. Every word of Luke has become something precious to me. I want to be back on those seats, feeling the satisfaction of getting a question right, crying, laughing, being right in the thick of it and feeling the competition excite me and terrify me all at once. But it's over, and I'll never be there again.

Well, that no crying thing isn't working out so well.

I have a feeling this will mean tears for a long time. I'm not sure how long it'll be before I stop aching to be a quizzer again, and knowing that it's over.

"I will not say do not weep, for not all tears are an evil." - Gandalf the White

Was it worth it? Heck yeah. No regrets. I've loved being a quizzer and the moments of euphoria have made the studying and the tears worth it a million times over. So I pounded Luke into my head, so I dreamed big for a year, so I wanted Internationals so bad I could taste it, and I ached to be there every time I saw a picture, every time I heard a story. I'm not sorry I dreamed big. Someone told me, once, when I was disappointed with my performance, that the reason I cry is because I feel things so keenly. I wouldn't want to stop feeling that, because it means that success is so much more meaningful.

I'm trying not to care so much about my idea of success. Not when I have friends and family who love me like this:



And whether or not we were always the top team - and we weren't - Southgate 1 will always hold an incredible place in my heart.


Ben, Josh, Carissa, Sarah, Amy, Everett.


Because you guys made every tear worth it.

God gave me six years of knowing incredible people, and that part isn't over.

And the general vicinity is littered with kleenex.