New York to Chile

Just another update. I'm leaving for Chile tomorrow, to visit family. I haven't been in seven years, so it should be memorable, and I'm going to try and enjoy every second. And take photographs to post on this blog, of course. I'm predicting a good bit of culture shock, and a bit of actual shock because it's going to be cold. I'm applying for college, so that's fun (not) and exciting (admittedly). It just scares me, mostly. I've also been reading a lot, and writing songs maybe kind of. I watched The Virgin Suicides for the first time. I'm such a freaking teenage girl. Anyway, here are some mid-summer snapshots.

Washington Square Arch.

Favorite place in the United States.

Re-reading my favorite book.

Skater boi sighting at the marina.

Suburban vibez.

Besties and stuff.

Current mood:

early summer colors

A little early summer photo diary of pictures I've taken with my phone and edited accordingly.

I saw The Cripple of Inishmaan at the Cort Theatre and I'm really passionate about how spectacular Daniel Radcliffe was. Lovely little theatre, too.

Le Pain Quotidien, my favorite food chain EVER.

Fun ocean time with my brother at Cedar Beach.

Possibly the best rice pudding to enter my mouth in my lowly seventeen years. See also: unironic Maraschino cherry.

Being social.

A suburban tiki torch. (Should "tiki torch" be capitalized? Is there a patent holder clutching his heart somewhere, screaming, over the genericization of his trademark?)

PRETTY MUCH THE BEST TYPE OF PEN TO EVER EXIST. My friend bought me one in Flushing a year ago and I used the angelic writing utensil dry. I found another one in an art supply store this weekend. *cries*

Current mood:



Love,
Ana

journals

I thought I'd share some pages from my journal today. They don't make a lot of sense, but I think journals that do make a lot of sense are like the end products of paint-by-numbers sets; very pleasing on a shelf, but lacking in scope/passion/ART. I try to write at strange hours, when my mind can forget to care about conventions and judgements and the like. So yeah. Normally I would end this paragraph with some kind of apology but I'm trying not to do that so much.

P.S. I'm going to start ending my posts with a song or two that I'm currently f~e~e~l~i~n~g.

So, current mood:

blog loving

Just a quick post to let y'all know that I am now officially on Bloglovin' so yay!

Follow my blog with Bloglovin 

- Ana <3

early success

Something that I think about way too often is how little I've accomplished. I know, I know, I'm fricking 16 years old. Believe me, I make myself aware of that every single day. I am a typical teenage girl times about two thousand percent, in most ways. But there are some outstanding kids out there. I mean, like, spectacularly outstanding. And accomplished. Malala Yousafzai, Tavi Gevinson of Rookie,  LORDE, a slew of award-winning young actors and actresses. They are making literal headlines and advancing VERY IMPORTANT CAUSES. (See: TIME magazine's list of the 16 most influential teens of 2013.)And I'm sitting here next to a couple granola bar wrappers. I know my frustration sounds silly. Those are exceptions. But there is something about desperately wanting to be exceptional like that that produces a very real feeling of anxiety in me, because all I can think of is how easy becoming something and staying something (something being, like, a cultural presence) will be for them. How they will have the world's university admissions committees kneeling at their feet it that's the path they choose to take. Relatively speaking.

Here's Tavi Gevinson on the cover of Bullett, looking like a bad-ass Gwyneth Paltrow circa 1995.

But then again relativity is everything. Sure, I'm a smidgen of dust on the windshield of the world compared to Lorde, but I guess I'm not too terribly off if you put me in a (figurative) pool with every high schooler out there.

And of course, I'm not discounting the fact that all of these remarkable prodigies that I'm thinking about worked extremely hard/did impossibly brave things/basically did God's work on Earth to get where they are. Work that I haven't done (sigh). And obviously I admire them so so so much. I would flip shit if I met Malala or Tavi or Lorde. But the thing is, it's not just them. There are hundreds of potential Harvard applicants out there waiting in the wings with their volunteer trips to Zimbabwe and their own incorporated software companies. And yeah, I know, anything is possible. But what scares me is that I don't think that kind of precocious success is possible for me. Wow, I sound impossibly vain. It's just a national tragedy that I'm not the most amazing person in the world. Sorry about that guys.

So yeah, this is kind of a ridiculous thing to be apprehensive about. I guess I've read enough Malcolm Gladwell to know that. 

But it's there, ya know? And isn't that kind of what teenagerdom is? Being told that the things you're worried about won't really matter in the long run? Question marks???? 

Well, this is thoroughly long/unappealing first post. I need to go listen to some fifties doo-wop to cheer myself up. Something more cheerful next time, I promise, with a maraschino cherry on top. This has been a public service announcement.

- Ana

introductions

Introductions are always uncomfortable. Only the most effervescent souls can get their true personalities across during first meetings. All the rest of us can do is try. Well, here goes. I'm Ana. Hopefully you haven't met me irl. If you have, then, well, hi. If you haven't, I'm just a 16-year-old girl trying to find a place in this world. (See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDw2Q3uiWq8 ) Feminist, fangirl, Faustian.This is going to be a place for my thoughts, I guess? Expect posts ridden with teenage angst/song lyrics/links to articles by winsome geniuses who can express my own thoughts better than I can. I'm just getting started, but see you soon? Comments are welcome! (I just used one of the three exclamation points I'm allowing myself during the entirety of my writing career. FEEL THE ENTHUSIASM.)