Update

Another day passes with an empty mailbox. Oh, how slowly come letters when we are expectant of them! The following are my college application statuses, in ascending order of how badly I want to attend the school.

Pitt- accepted, offered merit scholarship and Honors College
UNC- accepted
NYU- applied, no word yet
Columbia- applied, phone-interviewed, no word yet
Princeton- applied, interviewed, no word yet
Harvard- applied, interviewed, no word yet
William and Mary- applied, no word yet

As you can see, I am waiting on quite a few decisions this month. April 1st is the last day letters will be sent. It is also, coincidentally, the date of prom. Not the prom date, however, because that is the Czar. (The preceding sentences were a pun.) Anyhoosier, it shall be an eventful day to the utmost. Wish me luck, dear readers.

The Republican

The man, they said he was insane,
Threw himself into the Seine
Lamenting the horrors he could not undo
And the punishments that were undue.

All his life he'd been a whipping-post
For the cause of liberty
His head, it filled with cracking sounds--
The whip of oppression
The snapping of the corners of the flag
The cannons, whose power grew, and
The canons, now obsolete

He had married, merry, once--
A patriot named Egalitte
(And wasn't that fitting?)
But for the love of the tricolor's thick red stripe,
He lost his own.

Never again stood he idly by
All the fighting he internalized
Through the beatless hearts of slain tyrants
Egalitte he immortalized.

He was old, now,
Egalitte still so young
Awaited him in heaven--or hell--
The single picture he had of her
Green leaves tucked in her hair
Mocked his cowardly life
From yellow sunrise to yellow set.

"Allons, enfants de la patrie"
Her lusty voice filled his chest
The weight of the song
Extended the wait 'til the day he'd take
His life
His rest
His breath
His death
His end

The Seine swirled.
The wind whirled.
His heaves hurled over the bridge's edge.
His sobs stabbed the light of day.

Egalitte broke the river's surface first
Green leaves softened
His body followed heavily
One more Revolution's casualty.

Law of Life

The following is an essay I composed for my English class. The prompt was vague an oddly worded, something along the lines of "explain a law by which you live your life".

One of my favorite books is Nicolo Machiavelli’s The Prince. Although it was originally a manual for the art of statecraft, it contains a great many pieces of advice useful for everyday life. One quote from the book has stuck with me ever since the first time I read it. “A ruler cannot rely upon what he sees happen in peaceful times…because then everyone comes running, everyone is ready with promises, and everyone wants to die for him, when the prospect of death is far off.” In laymen’s terms, true friends are those who stick by us when we’re down and out, because it’s easy to be a friend to someone at the pinnacle of success. My life has been one big illustration of the truth in this statement.

In elementary school, I had a very best friend- let’s call her Lisa. Lisa and I spent all our time together, pretending we were grown-ups, dancing around my living room, swinging on the playground. One day, as they often do, the clouds came and obstructed the sun that was our friendship. I said some things that were very unpopular in class. Lisa and I had a little spat over something that doesn’t matter now, and just like that, our friendship was over. I realized then, for the first time, that not everyone who claims to be a friend will be there forever.

I had a very best friend in middle school as well. I knew Sarah and I would be friends forever, and I never doubted it for a moment. But then, once high school began, with its stress and its petty fights, we rapidly grew apart. She wasn’t prepared to stand by me when mean kids poked fun at my eccentricities or when our other friends fought. Boys and schoolwork came between us; she was jealous of my every action and she didn’t have time for my problems. Suddenly, my very best friend was gone, for the second time in my life.

I started blaming myself at that point. I was convinced that it was my responsibility to be the best friend a person could have and never to be whiny or brutally honest or do anything that could make a situation awkward. After all, I didn’t have a best friend any more. It did not cross my mind that the issues might have lain in the instable and superficial natures of my relationships.

I was still crying over my crumbling friendship with Sarah when I looked around and noticed people I’d never seen before. They had been standing by me all along, but I was so wrapped up in silly, immature friendships, that I hadn’t seen them. Suddenly, my life took a wrong turn again. I began to fight with my father constantly, I went through a painful breakup, and I lost my job. I was angry, resentful, and sad all of the time. Lisa or Sarah would have separated themselves from me. I was too much to deal with, too complicated, a buzzkill. Something amazing happened, however. The friends I’d had all along were still there. They handed me Kleenex, listened to my ranting, gave lots of hugs, commiserated, and forced me to do things that would take my mind off of my problems.  Now, those people are my very best friends.

Like Machiavelli said, everyone is willing to die for you when the prospect of death is far off. Little girls will make vows of everlasting friendship and say they’ll love you through thick and thin, but until they’ve been through the thin, their promises have to be taken at face value. A true friend is one that stays with you when you’re sad, angry, immature, or unattractive. The people that belong in your corner are those that have always been there, even when the going got tough.

Two Poems about Schoolchildren

I have been thinking a lot about school lately, in that nostalgic end-of-mandatory-education sort of way. As graduation approaches, my mind grows more and more poetic. Two poems have sprung from these thoughts. I hope you appreciate them, dear readers. Also, I haven't got titles for them, so any suggestions will be very helpful!

Poem #1

The prophetic ringing
Of a dingy old school-bell
Sends long brown braids swinging
As they file down the hall.

Amidst flurried pearls and loafers
And chinos topped with argyle
They coyly reject offers
From the boys who wink and smile.

They glide across the parquet floor
At the ball for debutantes-
Their fathers' lectures are such a bore
And their mothers are nonchalant.

But behind carefully lined lids
Of deep blue sparkling eyes
Something is ill and amiss-
It tells of a coming demise.

One day, cornflower preppies wilt
In the spotlight of the scene
And though their lives are wholly gilt
It's hard to live a dream.

Poem #2

The lengthy scratches of thirty pencils grating
Against white paper with blue lines
Evokes a memory of days spent waiting
For summer, long in coming-

And of students taking up arms in their minds
Against the clock, a foe unsurmountable.
The deaths of snarling dragons on tridents' gleaming tines
Swirl in the imagination as seconds fade away.

The smell of rubber eraser-shavings
Throws a mental switchboard's breaker
Back to times when a few hours of daylight lasting
Repaid a year of dull submission.

Now we have lost the wand'ring spirits
We had when we were children
When joy, a dime could buy it,
Was ever our only aim.