sometimes the haters have a point

Taking criticism and/or being critical of oneself are things with which a lot of people struggle. It’s difficult for many people to listen to someone telling them what they’ve done wrong, or what they need to fix. There are also many who are too hard on themselves and think they never do anything right. Personally, I like getting notes, and I like hearing what I’ve done wrong in a performance and what I could do to make something better. I enjoy criticism and I try to be in a constant state of active self-improvement.

It’s really important to realize that criticism isn’t usually that critical, or rather, it usually isn’t meant to be negative or harsh. Even so, it can be hard to see it as anything but. It’s good to look at criticism as something positive. Think of it like this: if someone puts a big box in front of you, don’t see it as something they’re doing to block your way. On the contrary, see it as something that you can climb upon to lift yourself to a higher spot. This is a super hard thing to do, but it’s way better than stopping on the path altogether.

Even I, who like hearing suggestions about what I could do better, don’t necessarily take well to criticism IRL. For example, I recently dyed my hair. It’s no longer pink, but now sort of a silver color with purple.

Here is (sort of) a picture of what it looks like. The purple is much darker near the ends, which is the part I'm not super keen on.

It’s not exactly as I would have liked it to look, but I don’t dislike it and I really loved it when I first got it done. Despite the fact that this is how I feel about it and it’s my hair, someone saying “Yeah, I liked it better pink too,” is not what I want to hear. Criticism is fine, good even, but not when there isn’t anything anyone can do about it. If someone finishes a show, you tell them it was amazing even if it wasn’t. If you’re a director watching a rehearsal, that's a different story. There is time to make changes and you’re the person in a place to make those changes. However, I would definitely recommend against telling someone what’s wrong or what you dislike about something that is unchangeable (even if it is just for the time being). No one wants to hear “you should have done this.” Instead, how about “maybe next time try…”? That way, the criticism isn’t quite so harsh, even if you have exactly the same intent.

If you’re criticized and don’t agree with what someone is saying, don’t take it. It’s your life, and even if you yourself know you could have done better, remember that there’s almost always a next time. Be yourself, and continue to try to be the best version of that person. Improvement has its downsides, but it’s definitely better to go up than down. Looking back at something you’ve done in the past and thinking about how much better you could do it now, or just cringing at how awful it was, is a sucky feeling. Whether it’s a piece of writing, a performance, or even something you said to someone or how you reacted to a certain situation, feeling this way about anything is generally a lame experience. However, it’s all the better for you to make that comparison and see how far you’ve come.

Know when you need to improve, but don’t be too hard on yourself. Remember how cool you are, and if you don’t know that, find some better friends.

TTFN:) - Sam

what happens when you don't talk for a day

As I've probably said a million times on here before, I’m generally considered a loud person. As I explained to my friend Cris, it’s not exactly that I’m loud (although I am), it’s more that I’m just constantly spewing a stream of noise. If I’m not talking, I’m trying to talk, and if I’m not doing that I’m singing. This year, I decided that I would participate in GLSEN’s Day of Silence. For those who don’t know, Day of Silence is a day on which students all over the nation are invited to take a vow of silence to shed light on the silence faced by LGBT+ youth due to harassment and oppression.

I honestly thought it would be one of the hardest things I would ever do. Truthfully, I couldn’t think of anything that would classify as being more difficult than that. This was in part because I didn’t think very hard about difficult past experiences, but also because I am ‘a talker.’ I emailed all of my teachers beforehand, and I also had two little cards explaining my silence, one in both English and one in Spanish.

the card

I got off to a strong start. I didn’t talk to my mom in the morning, but we both know a little bit of American Sign Language so that wasn’t a problem. I just showed the card to everyone I talked to that day and they understood. I only got positive responses, which was a huge surprise. I have extremely accepting friends who would never say anything truthfully homophobic, transphobic, or generally offensive, so I wasn’t surprised in that regard. However, many people in my high school’s Gay-Straight Alliance who had previously participated in Day of Silence said that they couldn’t make it through the whole day because of the comments to which they felt the need to respond. Therefore, I was ecstatic at the responses I received, which were all along the lines of either curiosity, expressing that they were proud of me for participating, or just flat-out supportive.

I only had a few slip-ups, which was also a bit of a surprise to me. I talked a little bit during science, as we had a substitute teacher and I was working with others. Other than that, and when I exclaimed “ew!” at someone saying their chips tasted like something which I honestly can’t remember at the moment, I made it all the way through the school day and the bus-ride home without a peep.

My awesome lip tattoo and super comfy GSA shirt.

All along I had been planning to only do it during school, therefore I completely broke the vow when I walked in the door of my house. The way I see it, the point is to raise awareness (as well as of course experiencing the silence yourself). When you’re home alone with no one else to “hear” that silence, what’s the real reason to stay silent? Reede was also having her birthday party that day and I didn’t really want to not talk the whole time.

All in all, Day of Silence was definitely a success for me. I heard from some friends that also participated that they did get some annoying comments, but the response I got was 100% positive. For anyone considering participating in the future, I would definitely recommend it, as it was a super awesome experience and it's a really great way to raise awareness for the silence that LGBTQIA+ kids are forced into on a daily basis.

Ttfn,

Names are a box

(Btw, if you haven’t picked up on the names are a box thing, watch my TEDx Talk (I’ll link it whenever I perform it and get the video, so this "explanation" isn't actually helpful. Sorry (not really).).

two things that keep a lot of people sane: friends and music

What I’ve come to realize in the past year is that you don’t need one best friend. If you have one, that’s fantastic. If you don’t, that’s also fantastic. All you need are people that understand you and love you for being the weird person you are. Expecting to have one single best friend at all times is an unrealistic expectation to which to hold yourself, and it does you no good. Do what you do to make you happy, but don’t go searching or picking people to be your BFFL because you feel like that’s the only way to go about life.

As I see it, there is very rarely going to be one person that fulfills all of your friendship needs (don’t get out your pitchforks quite yet, there are exceptions). Similarly, it’s rare that you’ll find one song that you can listen to in any mood.

Backing up a tad: absolutely everyone in my friend family is writing blog posts about us. We call ourselves “Squad,” which seems super annoying and I like to think that we’re being ironic, but honestly it’s more of a title than anything else. We’re a ragtag volunteer army in need of a shower. (Just kidding, none of those descriptors are accurate.) We’re a pretty weird cake-mix group of private school chicks, a Californian, guys who fight other people for leisure, and this other kid whose hair is made of gold.

We're not the Breakfast Club but here's a picture anyway. (photo credit)

Everyone else did cute little lists of “what everyone is” (i.e. book characters, music notes, etc.), and as the official squad Educator on Real Music and Other Important Things Such As Weird Sports Interview Videos, I thought it would be fitting to give everyone a song (or four). So, without further adieu, here is Squad + other friendlies as songs (a.k.a. The Playlist Based on People I Like, As Referred to by Their Secret Names That Aren’t Really Secret, As Well As One Sentence First Impressions Because That Adds Interest):

Goldilocks - Who is this kid that everyone is talking about?

      Dancing Through Life - Norbert Leo Butz (Wicked)

      Electric Feel - Brooke Adee (cover)

      Ghost (1 Mic, 1 Take) - Halsey

      Jenny from the Block (Track Masters Remix featuring Styles & Jadakiss) - Jennifer Lopez, Jadakiss & Styles P

Bub - That guy is cool-looking.

      Alphabet Boy - Melanie Martinez

      Ribs - LORDE

      Swim Good - Frank Ocean

      El Perdón - Nicky Jam & Enrique Iglesias

Papaya (a.k.a. The Taller Jew) - She’s the only person that can call me Sam.

      Shiksa Goddess -  Norbert Leo Butz (The Last Five Years) (How ironic.)

      Roll With the Punches - Lenka

      Hermit the Frog - Marina and the Diamonds

      A Higher Place - Adam Levine

La Playa (a.k.a. The Shorter Jew) - Someone told her I was shy?

      Seventeen - Marina and the Diamonds

      It Can’t Be True - 13 Original Broadway Cast

      The Scientist - Holly Henry (cover)

      Secrets - Mary Lamberts

The Oracle - All I remember is doing little children ballet together.

      Milk and Cookies - Melanie Martinez

      Dead Girl Walking (Reprise) - Heathers (Cast)

      Solitaire - Marina and the Diamonds

      Almost - Bowling For Soup

Spanish Professor - This guy is a mute (but actually just doesn’t speak English).

      Cheap Sunglasses - RAC

      Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song) - Billy Joel

      See Through - Pentatonix

      Ride (layered) - twenty one pilots

Mozart - He plays four billion and a half instruments whoa.

      Everything Else - Jennifer Damiano (Next To Normal)

     Boulevard of Broken Dreams - Green Day

      All That’s Known - Jonathan Groff (Spring Awakening)

      Don’t Wait - Mapei

Oblivious - Whence did this older human come?

      Your Song - Ellie Goulding (cover)

      Can’t Pin Me Down - Marina and the Diamonds

      Headphones - Matt Nathanson (feat. LOLO)

      A Miracle Would Happen - Norbert Leo Butz (The Last Five Years)

The Mind - I’M A FAN.

      Soap - Melanie Martinez

      Obsessions - Marina and the Diamonds

      It Won’t Be Long Now - Karen Olivo (In The Heights)

      Blue - Troye Sivan (feat. Alex Hope)

Rayos - Preschool, good times.

      No Me Diga - In The Heights (Cast)

      Coming Up Roses - Kiera Knightley

      La la Land - Demi Lovato

      Uncharted - Sara Bareilles

Kitten - Baby swimming lessons.

      White Teeth Teens - Lorde

      Future Fantasy - Beckii Cruel

      Who Needs You - The Orwells

      WILD - Troye Sivan

The Guys

      Expressing Yourself - Billy Elliot

The Girls

      Candy Store - Heathers (Cast)

These are super random and seemingly sort of unrelated to these people, but they just fit somehow. I hope you all enjoy your songs, and I hope everyone else enjoys as well!

Ciao xx
Names are a box

people don't spend time in junkyards and there's a reason for that

This post is a detour, but a much needed and very important detour.

Humans spend a lot of time in the bathroom. It just seems to be a fact of life.

Spending time in spaces that look like this:

(picture from here)

…is not necessarily super fun. If your bathroom looks like the junkyard pictured above, or a different junkyard, or if you find things that look like this:

(picture from here)

lying around, or even if it just feels a little cluttered, here’s what you should do:

HOW TO CLEAN YOUR BATHROOM IF IT LOOKS LIKE A JUNKYARD

1. Start with the things you see right when you walk into the room. Don’t focus on drawers quite yet. (Just to be clear, I’m not telling you how to clean a toilet or a bathtub, more like a countertop.)

2. Clear the counter. For this step, I put all of the stuff that was on my counter in a big tub like this one:

, and put the tub on the floor and out of the way. 

3. Physically clean the counter. If you’re anything like me, your counter isn't just cluttered. There are hard-water deposits all over the place, especially around the sink, globs of things that you'd put on your face or in your hair if they weren't on your counter, etc.

To rid your bathroom of these, use a cleaner suitable for whatever type of counter you have (I have granite (?), so I used 409 Stone & Steel cleaner.)

the drama.

Sticky stuff will usually come off with a few good wipes of a paper towel, but luckily I didn’t encounter much of that this time around.

For hard-water deposits, I first used 409 and a paper towel, then 409 and a scrubby-bristly-brush thing, and then Lemi-Shine (For those who don’t know, Lemi-Shine is stuff that goes in the dishwasher along with… dishwashing stuff and it gets the hard-water deposits off of glassware.) This mostly worked, but it was hard to scrub in the tight areas around the faucet. I was more concerned about the clutter, but if you’re wanting to get really nitty-gritty, try using an old toothbrush to scrub the harder to reach spots.

4. Now that your countertop is spotless and sparkling comes the hard part. It’s time to sort through all of the junk. I sorted everything into piles of what they’re used for (i.e. hair, nails, teeth, face, etc.), just to make it easier to look at than one big heaping pile of hairspray, toothpaste, and lotion.

5. Then I threw away the stuff that was gross and  the stuff that I never used. At this point, you really do have to be willing to throw things away. Truly consider what you actually use on a daily basis. You don’t have to throw away everything! That said, be reasonable about it and don’t keep the never-opened bottle of expensive lotion that you bought three years ago.

6. Here, it’s a really good idea to have some sort of organizer. I got one for Christmas, but you can find them online here. I distinguished between things I use on a daily basis and things that I use every so often (or even never, but I saw no reason to throw away perfectly good chapstick). I tucked away the things I only use every so often in drawers, and filled the organizer with stuff I actually use.

7.  By now it’s really up to you as to how you’re going to organize everything. From previous experience, I would not recommend clumping, say, all of your hair stuff together, rather putting your bobby-pins separate from your hair ties. I’ve found that the less clear you make each item’s designated “spot,” the easier it will be for the whole thing to fall back into chaos. Again, though, it’s really up to you and what you know will work.

8.  Leave as few things as possible out in the open. A lineup of three bottles (detangler, dry shampoo, and a different hair thing that apparently has ten different uses), a big bottle of mouthwash, my toothbrush, a huge jar of coconut oil, and hand soap are the only things not in some kind of storage trinket. The fewer things without a specific spot, the less room for error (and the further in the future your next clean-out will need to be).

so nice

9.  Keep everything as nice as possible for as long as possible. Good luck!

Alright,

Sam

here's what I like: books

Books. I like books. I like them a lot. Books are words that turn into images without one stroke of a pen to make the picture, because it’s all in your head. It’s a bit like Alice. I take it back; it’s exactly like Alice.

If you were confused, this Alice.
(image from here.)

Because of life, I haven’t had much time to read books lately, but somehow they always manage to keep in my life and keep me sane (or make me go insane). As of late, the books in my life have been few, but without further adieu, I present them to you, all in a queue (which is a fancy word for line, ooh):

The Cultural Landscape: An Introduction to Human Geography - James M. Rubenstein

This, as you may have guessed (you smarty) is my geography textbook. Somehow or other, it takes me about twelve years to get through one page of this book. Don’t get me wrong, it’s interesting as hell, if you think hell is interesting, or interesting as something else, like rainbows (besa el arcoíris??) if you don’t. Point being, the information is interesting, but the way it’s written can be… sometimes not.

Find it here if you want it, which you probably don’t.

Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut

I read this book for English. I can’t decide if I liked it or not. That is to say that I enjoyed the story (I think), but it’s always hard to tell with books read for school. A book read for any reason other than your own desire to do so is one that I believe will not be best enjoyed. Even a book recommended by your fellow book-loving friends (bless their hearts) will not be quite as climactic as one you’ve selected yourself. That’s just the way it is. I am, however, a big geek* for books set in World War II, which it partially is, and books so dripping with wit and weirdness that you find yourself cleaning the table with a dishrag every time you pick it up. Which it is.

Find it here if you want, which you might.

45 Arias - Handel

This is the new voice book that I just bought today. As is evident, it’s Handel, which is classical, which is opera. Opera is a word that either scares people and makes them run away and hide or fall on the floor of Costco and laugh until they pee themselves, so we’ll stay away from it for now. Classical is so fun. If you’re into singing, I would, in all honesty, highly recommend it. It sounds like it wouldn’t be, but just take my word for it and know that it is.

Find the book here.

Holt McDougal Online - Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Otherwise known as my.hrw.com. HRW, and who knows what that stands for, will be the death of not only me, but also my entire math class, and most likely the teacher’s seven or so other periods. There is no way to describe this abomination except to say that it makes me not like math. I LIKE MATh. Shoot me. Except actually please do not shoot me, or anyone for that matter. I would strongly advise against it. Anyway, HRW, whatever the heck it means, is horrible, and even just typing about it makes me want to forcefully tear out sections of my hair. And I like my hair very much.

You don’t want to find this book.

The Boston Girl - Anita Diamant

This novel is what I am (not really) reading in my free time. I say "(not really)" because I hardly have any free time at the moment, what with auditions foR PETER PAN WHIch I haven’t discussed on this blog but what’s to say right now anyway, and with other things such as an essay which I should possibly be working on right this very moment instead of going over the five-hundred word suggested guideline in this blog post, etc. Anyway, I like this book a lot so far and would recommend it to people who like books such as this.

Find it here.

The Odyssey - Homer

Although I did read The Odyssey for school, I actually did mostly not dislike it. I’ve taken to calling Penelope “Penny,” which is super cute and lovely and if you’re having a child soon, which you’re most likely not because as far as I know, most of the people reading this are either teenage girls or my English teacher, who is a grown man, but if you are, you should name your child Penelope and call her Penny. Unless it’s a boy, or some other gender, in which case, name him/her/WHY IS THERE NO GENDER NON-SPECIFIC SINGULAR PRONOUN IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE IT RUINS MY LIFE ALONG WITH HRW.COM whatever you would prefer. On second thought, name your child whatever you would prefer anyway. Unless it’s Derfla, which is Alfred backwards and comes up when you look up “most horrible name ever” on Google, in which case I beg you not to do that.

(If you really want The Odyssey, you can most likely find it anywhere.)

Other books I strongly recommend are Life After Life, I’ll Give You The Sun, Eloise in Munich (that’s a thing, right?) NO IT’S MOSCOW SORRY, Eloise in any other place at any time such as Christmastime or Paris, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, Howl's Moving Castle, anything by Sophie Kinsella, and the Harry Potter Series. That should give you some variety.

I want to be Eloise. (image from here.)

Your obedient servant,

Not quite Alice, but close enough.

__________________________________________

*I’ve determined through extensive research and intense questioning that geek is a term used to describe a person who likes weird things, a dork is a person who does weird things, and a nerd is simply someone who’s smart. But really I think you should use them however you’d like. It is, after all, your book.

discussing why teaching yourself is a fine idea, the universal language, and words that don't exist

I taught myself to play “I Am Not a Robot” by Marina and the Diamonds on the piano a few days ago. Now, this could be a post about how sad my life is, how tragic that I spend my days teaching myself to play powerfully empathetic tunes on what looks like a large xylophone as shown in movies before colour television.

(See what I mean? I'll settle for "not really.")

Or.

Or, it could be a post about how teaching yourself is a fantastic way to “waste time” by doing something actually productive. It is immensely satisfying to be able to play a song that you know, and even more so if no one else showed you how to do it. I cannot describe to you the enjoyment of having the chords sound dare-I-say correct. When you start the song on a D and it comes out exactly as it does when you listen to the version Ms. Diamandis herself released in 2010 as her third track of her first album “The Family Jewels," it's just gratifying if I do say so.

The satisfaction that notes are universal. A C chord played at Carnegie Hall is the same one a lowly thirty-one-year-old plunks out as he tries to find the meaning of life, or at least a way to get out of his mom’s basement. The excitement that comes from the fact that there is the slightest possibility that I could harmonize with someone on the other side of the world, if the accident will. That a note in “See I’m Smiling” could be the same as one in “Seven Nation Army” as one in “Für Elise.” Now, who knows if any of those have the same notes at all, but just the possibility and the probability. What I’m saying is that it would hardly be unlikely.

Music notes are among the few things that are truly universal. Music breaks language barriers, economic barriers, political barriers, physical barriers. Caen las murallas, amiright? Music notes convey emotion because of where a dot was printed on a page and what sign comes before a measure. And that's insane.

Some disagree, arguing that lyrics convey the meaning of a song. I ask them, then, why do we have notes? For fun? Does so-and-so from that one opera sing in a minor key just because they’re picking and choosing? No. S/He/Xi does not. It’s done that way to convey certain emotions. The fact that the human ear, and maybe other ears, for that matter, can hear emotion without the language that we created is only fitting. It’s also somewhat of a miracle.

So that was a fun stream of consciousness.

As a spacer, let's add in this picture from the floor of the Marina and the Diamonds concert, because relevance etc.

In other news, on the yesterday-of-yesterday I had a “what-the-heck-even-is-irregardless” moment. Which, in fact, what is irregardless?

For those of you confused, I’m referring to the literal word “irregardless,” which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Let me break it down for you. Regardless means “without regard” which means “without paying attention to the present situation” or “despite the prevailing circumstances.” "Regardless" is already a negative word. The prefix “ir-“ is also negative, as in irregular, irreplaceable, irrefutable, etc., making “irregardless” a double negative word (or shall we say “word”).

People apparently got confused, probably because of the “irre-“ trend going on, and started saying “irregardless” where they should have been saying “regardless.” Now “irregardless" and “regardless" are used interchangeably by people who aren’t peevish about those sorts of things, and also probably never had a grammar geek for a mother. It's probably hereditary. Anyway, "irregardless" is apparently now in the dictionary, but at least it’s categorized as “informal” or “non-standard,” which is the least they could do.

Then again, so is “ain’t" as it turns out, so being in the dictionary barely means anything at all.

If you’d like to read the article that I turned to for answers during this time of crisis, click here. If not, that makes sense, as many people most likely don’t really care about that sort of thing. I say it's all in heredity. Cheers.

time takes time, and so does everything else

I recently began an essay with the definition of the word “immigrant.”

I’m going to begin this blog post with a definition, albeit not the same one.

Time. Time is primarily defined by the dictionary on my school-issued Mac as "the indefinite continued progress of existence and events in the past, present, and future regarded as a whole.”

When someone says, “I need more time,” they do not literally mean that they need more of the indefinite continued progress of existence. What they usually are referring to is the dictionary-app’s third definition of time, which is "time as allotted, available, or used.”

We need more time is (sadly) something that is said far too often in rehearsal for the musical at my high school. We cannot, however, have more of the continued progress of existence, and we also cannot have more time set aside to rehearse. When I questioned as to why this was, I was greeted with an answer that had something to do with the fact that we couldn’t rehearse during the summer. To me, the answer seemed simple: push the play back a few weeks in order to give us more time to rehearse. For reasons having to do with holidays and people who make decisions for schools, this plan wasn’t put into action.

Some people are planners. (e.g. the people who make decisions for schools). They set specific times (second definition: a point of time as measured in hours and minutes past midnight or noon) for everything they do, even counting to the second as to not throw their day into chaos.

My cousin has a professor who begins walking to the podium at the front of the class exactly twenty seconds before 10:15 am (when the class is scheduled to begin). If students aren’t in their seats by the time she reaches the podium, they are to leave. Her TAs are like guards, making sure no student comes into the class who wasn’t present at the given minute (or, in this case, second).

My aunt reached the JFK airport at some amount of time that is represented in minutes by a number greater than 60. For those of you so uneducated as to not be familiar with the specific rules of the John F. (which, as it turns out, stands for Fitzgerald) Kennedy International Airport, one must arrive at exactly one hour before the time of their flight departure (or boarding time, or something like that). (I’m joking of course; I do not expect you to know the policies of that particular airport, nor would I be offended if you happened to.) Anyway, by the time my aunt got through the horrendous security line, it was, you guessed it folks, 59 minutes before whatever that particular time was before which she needed to arrive 60 minutes. Because of this strict time rule, my aunt was not allowed through security, and something happened along the lines of she-missed-her-flight-and-had-to-go-to-the-trouble-of-booking-a-new-one-oh-bother. Or something like that.

Time is also important in my life. Although I am not a super-planner (I rarely plan even a week in advance), I participate in many activities which take up time. For instance, I have rehearsal every day after school (which ends at 2:25, 1:45 on Mondays) until 6:00 pm, possibly before. On top of that, I started taking dance classes, which are about a 30 minute drive away, as well as a new theatre class, also 30 minutes away, each of which are from one to two hours long. On top of those, I also have the general high school homework load of endless biology reading and math assignments, with the occasional essay or memorized speech.

What I sometimes look like after a day filled with filled time.

I very much enjoy doing all of these things. There was a time (ha) not too long ago that I did activities that I did not particularly enjoy. They were fine; however, they were not my PASSION/I didn’t have any passion in doing them. Passion is, as they say, a whole nother (dear FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT nother is not a word) corn grove (well, actually, I’m fairly certain that I made that one up, and that no one, or at least almost no one, has said that ever in the history of the world.)(Wait a second. Does corn not even grow in groves?! That's trees, gah. Cornfield.) Point being, I used time for things I didn’t like. Now I use time for things that I do like. Everything is much more fun. Shocker!

Even though I enjoy all of the things that I use time to pursue, sometimes I feel a bit… stressed out. I cannot, for whatever reason, get more time; I can only use less time to do things that I like in order to dedicate more time to things that need to be done, such as homework, that I don’t necessarily like, but I also don’t necessarily dislike. This is a constant dilemma. At this point in time (wow, I’m good), I’ve decided to just stick with the stuff, because I’d rather be doing lots of things that I like and also have to do some things that I don’t like than be doing some things that I like and also have to do some things that I don’t like and then have some time where I’m not doing anything at all.

If that makes any sense.

So, just to summarize...

1. Time is important.

2. Don’t use time to do things you don’t like.

3. Do use time to do things you do like.

4. Eat ice cream when you want it, even if it’s late and the ice cream has caffeine in it because it’s coffee ice cream.

5. Carpe diem ^^^ (or night, depending on what time 'tis)

6. Wait, what?

7. Never mind; I was just testing you.

8. Oh, okay.

9. Get to JFK International Airport more that 1 hour prior to whatever the time is to which you need to be 1 hour prior.

 10. Stress isn’t always bad, it’s just a side effect of using time to do many things that you like. 

11. In conclusion, do whatever you want, as long as you have time (and it doesn’t negatively affect anyone else), because there is only so much time anyway, so why spend the time in which you could be doing things you enjoy to do things you don’t enjoy that you don’t have to do.

Today has been a day of wordy explanations. I could talk about time for all time. Maybe I'll do a Part II sometime.

Anyway.

Ciao.