Camping with JD - Part 6

The water in the Youghagany River is FREEZING! I swear, if it wasn't a river, it would be an ice block. Now, the reason I know the state of the water in the Youghagany River is because... That right you guessed it! I went camping in the Ohiopyle campground this past weekend. On this trip, I faced the enemy that three years ago tore pretty much halve of my face off,

Poetry with JD - The Trees

The forest lies in rest
Silence wafting like fog
Hiding trees and concealing logs

It sweeps over me
A sends me to reprieve
Where something happened you'll never believe

The trees whispered to me
Told of all the thing they've learned
Of time, of life, of the feeling of being burned

I just lay there, quietly
Hearing every word they spoke
Till I filled with wisdom from willow and oak

The lessons I was taught
Were teachings we had lost
Like trees lose leaves with frost

But I'll never forget them
As long as I shall live
Sharing all I have to give

There is not way to say it
In our mortal speech
But in the voice of a smooth barked beech

But what I know now
Is to always try to grow
And forget to do so

Plants your roots deep
But climb towards the sky
Up to the sun on high

Branch out far and wide
Spread your shade for others to rest
Make limbs strong for birds to nest

I give this now to you
The one who reads my words
So that you might be assured.

Poetry with JD - The Woods

In the early morning
I traverse the grove
And hear the songbirds of those I love

They each have a voice
The deep voice of brother and friend
The chide of the sister whom I'll always amend

The growl of a father
Angry and terrible, a fiery rage
not soften a dulled by time and age

The jeer of a foe
The call of battle and cry of war
Though I know not what I fight them for

a plethora of sound
And all these voices I hear in the Glade
Amidst the trees and the shade

Then the cover breaks
And I see a sunlight clearing
As my vision cleans, so does
My hearing

A voice sang out
Like a soft crescendo of light and life
Nothing like the voices of strife

So I sit down here
And listen to the song bird
And slowly it is the only to be heard

Next time I visit
You can come too
Maybe you'll find the song bird that's you

Poetry with JD - The Dark Despair

the dark despair holds me

a strangling hand clasped

tight around my throat

it squeezes all the life

from the once cheery soul

that i used to be

but how is it

that i could survive

that great and terrible pain?

with no way to ease

no method of healing

and no hope of a brighter dawn.

Poetry with JD - Plague

You plague me
The disease inside
The words of friends
No longer a guide

The infection spreads
The extremities go cold
And my mind dulls
Not as sharp, nor as bold

I feel sickened by you
By the thoughts I have
The ones you seen to fester
Terrors I could never brave

The corruption is deep
It has burned into my soul
Eating away at me
Taking is horrid toll

I'm to far gone to save
There is no cure for this
I have begun the grave
And await Death's kiss

Poetry with JD - Crumbles

The whole world falls
As everything crumbles
Leaving it to dust
Nothing but dust
That is what my future holds
The End of all things
The dying of the Light
The reign of the Darkness
The pillars that held me aloft
That held me in the air
Have burned down to nothing
And I plummeted into the Dark
Nothing hindering or stopping
The decay of my life
The rotting of happiness
As the crumbling of the Light

Poetry

So, I recently went through something that has inspired me to write a lot of poems. A lot. So I'm just gonna put them up here, okay? Okay.

New Mexico

Hey everybody! I am currently in New Mexico while I'm writing this. And Im that you're not wondering what it is I'm doing so far away from my grotto. Well, I'm going to Philmont Scout Ranch, which is about 200 miles away from Albequerque. When I say this, I tell you that I'm not going to be writing anything until the 3rd of July. See ya guys!

Time (the creation)

     The entire concept of time, is just that, a concept. It's nothing more than a colabaration of human thoughts and ideas to form the structure of time that is generally excepted by most all of society. The only real reason we have time is because humans, or more specifically, the human mind, looks for patterns and repittions to understand things. A good guess at why we originally developed time was to explain the turning of the seasons, the patterns of day and night, moon and sun. And while the subject is currently resting on the bossom of time, lets talk about the Mayans.
     Now before you start screaming that "the end is neigh" and that the world is going to end, please realize that they didn't at any point predict the end of the world. All the Mayans did really was study the stars and study time. They obsereved the cycles of the moon and the stars, and made calendars. Lots and lots of calendars. The Mayan long calendar, which ends on December 21st, 2012, doesn't signify some catastrophe that is the end of all humanity. What it does mean, is that a cycle is restarting. If every year, at the end of my calendar, I started saying that the world is going to end, then you would just think that I was completely insane, and propably should be committed to an insane asylum.

      So, unless you think that the end of the yearly calendar is the end of the world, then go nuts. Maybe you'll just die off and rid the world of your stupidity. That's what the end of the world will be. To parphrase T.S. Eliot, this is the way the world ends, not with a prophecized date, but with the stupid rabble that thinks it will.

Time (the beginning)

I feel like I've been beating around the bush a little bit with this subject. I love things that are related to time. Time travel, time machines, wristwatches, wall clocks, sundial, and of course Tom Baker (if you don't know what/who that is, look it up). But I approach the topic of time with much precaution. I've been wanting to write one for as long as I've been writing these, but never known where or how to start. If I were to do several different posts on time, which aspect should I choose first amongst a plethora of concepts. So I thought I'd waste your time, say that I'm going to start talking about time, say nothing at all that really amounts to anything, and then hope I don't lose my pen and paper.

Camping with JD - part 5

Can I just say that the hiking technique called Caterpillar is The Makers gift to humanity? The way it works is the person at the front of your group stops, and then next person in line continues for, let's say 10 paces. Upon reaching the distance of ten paces, that person stops, and so on and so forth. When te last person in line reaches the second person to stop, the one who stopped first starts up again. If the whole process is done properly, then your group should be ascending the mountain like a kindred soul ascends I to heaven. Meaning that you'll eventually hit an impenetrable layer of cloud that will result in your plummet into hell. Sorry, but you should have bought a parachute.

Realty Check

Today, I was heading back to school. He's I know that my school is now out for the summer, but I had to turn in books and stuff. On the way there, I saw three people (women) walking with baby carriages. Now normally, this wouldn't be news worthy, except for the fact that each baby carriage was the same exact type. Three women walking down the sidewalk, each pushing an identical three seaters baby carriages (all filled with babies)! What on earth is wrong with my life?

Academic Achievement

It bothers me that "C" is average. It's considered "normal" to be 25% wrong! Now, I'm not going to get started on the fact that there is a huge problem with grades and testing in the first place, but I digress; the C average. RAGE! Seething, blazing hot rage! The biggest problem with setting the standard at 75% right is that it's teaching kids to both not expect to do well and to not try to improve. By saying that you're doing fine in a class when you're missing a fourth of the questions is like saying you're doing fine when your arm just got chopped off! But I want to say that setting the standard at 90-100% is also destructive. It means that if a student (around 10 or so) gets 1 question wrong on a five question quiz, they would emotionally tear themselves asunder for it. And image how bad it would be in High School, when parents are stressing good grades, the work has transformed from a rivulet to rapids, and the other components of high school life are dragged into the equation. I do believe that a C should still be a passing grade the same way that a D is a failing (that being the intermediate grade that is merely a transition to either a C or an F). So reader, tell me what you think: is the standard to high? Or is it to low?

Ham

Histrionics
1. Behavior or speech for effect, as insincere or exaggerated expression of an emotion. 2. Dramatic representation; theatricals; acting.
"celeb magazines are nothing but histrionic junk and pointless gossip"
No, this post is not about the meat that is a cut of pork and is often served with cow mold (cheese) and yeast grass (bread). What I'm talking about is the type of actor as seen here:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shatner
A ham actor is someone who overreacts to everything, While they're acting at least. Ham actors are often found amongst amateur and understudies (if you don't know what that is, then look it up), due mainly to the fact that they get very little stage time. And I know that everybody knows someone who is a ham actor, so the next time you see yours, acl them for me. Thanks!

Final Exams

So, the last couple weeks of my life have been spent preparing for two things:
1) Philmont (but I'll get into that later) and
2) Finals.
Now, I'm not daunted by the finals, but I'm slightly bothered by the concept. The whole thing is that our entire class, everything that we learn, isn't designed for real world application. Oh no, it's all for passing a final exam. The problem with that is we're only learning what we'll need for the finals, and nothing else. I am deeply bothered by that fact. Also, since my teachers generally know what is going to be on the test, the tell us what we need to study, not just everything that we learned in the class. That just makes a lot of class time feel like a waste of time. But I haven't taken my finals at this point in time, so I speak with pretty much no experience on the subject, so if you have taken finals, tell me what they're like, and If you haven't, tell me what you think they're going to be like.

Rain

So high schools take tornado warnings pretty seriously. So seriously that they don't even let people leave the school. I have spent the last hour sitting in a wet hall way because the sky have decided to take a really long sob fest. Just my luck.