Paradox

I want to write, but I have nothing to say. Nothing important anyway.

I'm very frustrated with my life at the moment. Few people would understand, and those that do are far away from me.
I feel very alone.
Positivity is hard when one is feeling secluded.
Which is why I'm so confused when others I meet tell me that I'm so positive. I don't feel positive. When I look in the mirror I don't see a positive woman looking back at me (eeew are those bags under my eyes?! *laughs*). But somehow, without my understanding, I'm a positive person. So often I hear: "Wow, Rem, you're so positive." or "You can tell by your smile, only positive people smile like that." No, one will believe the truth that I tell them. The feelings that hang inside my chest are brushed aside because they see that I am "so positive" nothing negative could possibly be in me.

It's strange how other people can put labels onto you that you don't feel to be true and suddenly it becomes the truth to everyone but you. I'm sure this phenomenon has a name. I remember learning about something similar in Speech Class. But for the life of me I can't remember.

The Little Things (just a random Rem thought)

You know the things you really don't pay attention to? The little things. They can cause or fix BIG problems. Through out my life I've noticed this on a small scale, but being married has made this truth so much more tangible to me.
Little things will make me angry. Little things will make him quiet and upset. Little things will mess up something nice. Little things will make me laugh. Little things will make him blush and smile. Little things will turn a bad day into a good day.
And it's never the same little thing.

I guess that's what keeps life interesting.

So, I've been thinking about language a lot recently. Mostly because of the problems I'm having continuing my studies on my own.
And it makes me wonder how it came to be. It's just a sequence of sounds, a bunch of squiggly lines on a page, that we use to convey some of our most important ideas and treasured feelings. It's amazing how something so small can be something so essential.
Conversely, language can be a barrier. People can get so stuck on the words being said that they completely miss the feelings beneath them.
It boggles my mind that such a grand invention can work against us so thoroughly sometimes.

It's the little things that make up our world, our life, our hearts.

Past, Present, and Future Episode.2

Past:
Since I'm coming up on my One Year Marriage Anniversary I thought I'd put the video we took the day after our marriage. (I can't really say 'wedding' because we didn't have an actual wedding party)

Hindsight: part 1 of 3 from Angharad on Vimeo.

Present:
As of right now I'm struggling to find a good way to study Japanese on my own. A lot of my resources are with my parents in England. I think I'm going to go buy an 'instant immersion' language program and stick it on my computer. Or beg my mother to send me the 'transparalanguage' disks I left behind.
I'm also frustrated with my German. Most of the programs I have are too simple for me and I know everything. However, when I go to watch German TV online or read German books there are so many words and expressions that I am unfamiliar with that I only understand maybe 58-65% of what is going on. I really miss being a part of a class and having a 'master' to ask questions.

I've also found an interesting break in culture that I believe may be universal to an extent. There is a culture for the old and a culture for the young. They exist in an uneasy balance with each other and both hope to influence the other.
The culture of being older tends to revolve around respect and dignity. Though the details of what shows respect and dignity may be different from culture to culture I believe that the foundation is the same.
The culture of being young tends to revolve around freedom, desire, and being casual. They want to do what they want when they want and do away with things like 'sir' and 'ma'am' and have a casual kind of atmosphere between themselves and the older generation. Again the details of this are different from culture to culture, but I believe the foundation is the same.
I find the younger culture a little more difficult to understand personally because I was raised the oldest child of four with older grandparents. At a young age I was molded to regard respect and dignity higher than my own desires. However, I can still relate to the younger generation's focus on freedom. I want to be who I am: Forget dignity and Respect I'm going to go toilet paper that guy's trees!
It's interesting to see the tension between the older and younger generations and their culture and how, though the means have changed, it has remained the same for as long as I can look back.

Recently though in America, I've noticed that the line between the older and younger cultures is getting blurred. I find 40 year old men who act like their 18, or an older woman dressed like one half her age. It's kinda sad to me, to lose that distinction. Differences have, to me, always made the world a more interesting place.

Future:
I'm going to have a house some day! I'm so looking forward to it! I'm going to make a lot of the furniture myself out of interesting things I find.
Like this: Bookshelf! Screen! Table!

Charleston

The sky in Charleston is a pale blue, that fades to a white as it touches the horizon. I've never seen a sky so tired of shining, so accepting of the clouds that roll in from the sea. Grass grows in sandy soil that gets in between your toes, reminding you of how close you are to the end of the land. The city of Charleston is low and spread out like a spider's web, with traffic that makes it possilbe to read a book while driving home.
Sometimes I like it here. Other times I can't wait to get away. And still other times I wish never to come back.

Jesse and I went camping last weekend and have been in Charleston for a week now. It's been a good week I think. I miss him when he goes to work, I'm not used to it. (^_^)"

I'm sorry I haven't blogged in a while. I got caught up in my own issues so deep I forgot there was a surface for a moment. Our dog died, I had some problems with my woman parts that scared me, and I'm having a weird kind of identity crisis/war with myself.

America is a culture of struggle. Americans want to fight, they discover theirselves while overcomming. I think maybe this could be true for all of humanity. My husband said once that: "Great stories are only great because of the trails. No one wants to read about relaxing days on a beach for 300 pages. There must be an obstacle, a threat, a problem that seems impossible, an enemy to make it amazing; to make the character grow. People are like that too. We become our best when under oppression of some kind." So my struggle may not be merely a struggle of finding myself within a culture I can barely remember, or one I don't agree with, it may be the struggle of mankind. To find myself, to grow into something better than I am now, to fight and become mentally strong, emotionally strong, morally strong.
I like being 'the foreigner' though. You can get away with things that people of that culture can't and often times my blunders are seen as 'cute' rather than 'stupid'. *laughs*
Culture is the soil, we are the plants. Will you let the soil make you a weed or a tree? I think I will be a vine, and spread myself across many soils. (^_^)

I hope that didn't sound too weird.

Tomorrow I'll post another Past Present and Future blog. (I hope the computer lets me. *crosses fingers*)