Lhene

Kawai-Kawaii

Sun, 05 Oct 2008 20:46:03 GMT

I have discovered a new obsession: I really, really, really like things that are creepy and cute/beautiful. Well, I've liked them for a while, but I've only just realized the common theme. It may not be a huge surprise to most of you, but it's interesting for me.

I was at Mariposa, shopping for winter clothing (I friggin love Mariposa. They had a whole Lolita-esque line a few months back, and I was fangirling all over the place.), and I found this cardigan. Not just any cardigan. It was a adorable black-and-white striped cardigan with very long front coat-tails (kinda of like a ballet sweater). It's so amazing, and it looks like something straight out the Nightmare Before Christmas. I LOVE it! And it was only $20, too.

Anyways, my mom remarked that she didn't know why I liked such creepy things (She's much less flightly than me). And it struck me that a lot of the things I liked could be pretty creepy to the norms. There's my collection of Giant Microbes.
They're various tiny organisms blown up 10 000 000x and made plush and cute. I have Mono, Giardia, E.Coli, and a fat cell right now. Next I'll be getting an STD (probably Syphilus or the Clap).

Next there's my thing for Lolita. It's a Japanese subculture that combines Victorian and Rococo fashions, to make a sort of little girl look. I prefer Gothic Lolita, which can be quite creepy, especially when you go for the china doll sort of look.

Then my taste in movies. Among my favourites are Nightmare Before Christmas, Corpse Bride, pretty much anything directed by Tim Burton. They're extremely beautiful, but creepy at the same time.

Recently I bought a necklace from Moon Phase. It's a little yellow cat face with stitches down its face. Just what I like in my jewellry.

I'm getting darker and darker, and it may creep some people out, but I like it. I'm going to keep buying creepy-cute stuff. There's something very attractive about it. Maybe that's why the Japanese words for "cute" and "scary" are so alike. ("kah-why-ee" and "kah-why" are the pronunciations, respectively)

I think stuff like that is built into my nature. I act very childish and cute, but some my observances and comments can be, well, creepy. I like to think of myself as an anime character. Specifically one of those characters that's looks all young and cute and innocent, but then slits your throat when you're not looking *shifty eyes*
But that's me.

Sat, 20 Sep 2008 00:39:26 GMT

You know, I'm completely comfortable in myself. It's how others see me that I don't like.
I fit within my head. There's no room for anyone else to get in there.
My soul's too big for my body, but that happens with a lot of folk. Not that anyone else notices.
I'm sorry, but I can't be exactly who you think I am. You guys see bits and pieces of me, but never the entire picture.
It doesn't matter that much of me is misted, that even I can't tell exactly which bits of me are where. What matters is that I'm all here, every scarred, caring, unnatural piece.
But no one will ever know that, because I barely have room for me within this body, let alone a whole other person. I may be schizotypal but I'm not schizofrenic.
So, where does this leave my heart, the one piece of me that never seems to run out of room? I care for others far too much, far too easily. I suppose I'm just a big softie in some ways.
They'll never be able to fit me the way my heart can fit them. For how can they know me when all they know is a tiny piece of the bigger picture? One that stretches for centuries, beyond even my recollection.
Heck, sometimes I don't know myself! I don't know why I do this or that, how this piece of history affects that piece of future .
I just want....someone who understands, fully and without reservations. Someone lacking prejudice, who doesn't care what I am or are or will be. Someone who is a lost part of me.
You know how people talk about soul mates? That one specific person who is meant for you and only you. Well, people like that don't exist. There's only those people who have a bit of your soul, through some cosmic mishap. We all long for our souls to be whole. But, how do you get your soul back when another has it? By staying near that soul shard as much as possible. Thus, attraction and need blooms.
Yes, I know it's negative. But I still want my soul shard from whomever has it, be it man or woman, fish or fowl. That will be the person for me.
The only part of me that's empty is my heart. Strange, isn't it? That the one thing I have the most of, that we all crave -- love -- is the one that's become my addiction.
Somedat I'll find that person who owns my shred of soul. Until then I'll be here, whole in mind and body, unknown in spirit, endlessly trying to fill the void in my heart.

Responsibilities

Mon, 01 Sep 2008 20:19:38 GMT

Today I feel like a puppet.
I've been lolling about in my computer chair like a mannequin with it's strings cut.
Then, responsibility lashes new string to my limbs, rope and wire and soft, giving neccesity.
Maybe someday I'll be able to reattach my own strings, and go where I want to again.

I've been pulled this way and that all day by responsibilities. I've got the responsibility of school, for which I needed to pack my backback and prepare a list of foods for my lunches. School starts tomorrow, and while I'm excited for it, I'm regretting that I didn't do more during my summer. I really am like a broken puppet. Or maybe a scratched record. I can only repeat the same activities again and again and again, with no motivation to change, or do the things I should/want to be doing. But, maybe I need that constant tugging to get me to do anything productive. I certainly haven't been very good at it on my own.

Another responsibility is my anime club. I'm the leader of the one at my high school, and this is the first year I'll be managing it almost completely on my own. So, I've been frantically planning what I'm going to do this year, and thinking of new ideas to spice things up (our anime club suffers from a lack of new things).
Right now, I'm working on an opinion survey so I can get the general opinion of the club, and from there include more activities that they like.
I'm hoping to entice more members in, as well as some open-minded niners (it's like finding hot pink needles in a haystack - they stick out). I'll also have to work out how to keep them all there once they've joined; the pattern of our club the past few years is we get the new members, but they leave or get scared away by Christmas.

I've also had to unpack from my family's week-long trip camping. It was very fun (the camping, I mean), but the laundry and hassle that results sucks. I've been carting laundry up and down stairs all day, hanging it up to dry, taking it down to fold, sorting it, putting it away - ugh, it sucks. Neccessary, but it still sucks.
I've now got some time to myself, thank the powers that be. I'll probably use it to attempt, once again, to get more done on my novel. Now there's a hopeless cause. I'm horrendous at reliable writing. I can't just sit down and turn on the creativity, but I'm going to keep trying. How else will I get the bloody thing done by the end of highschool??

Well, I've taken up enough of your time. Until the next time I get the itch to post about my life, ciao!
- Lhene

Homosexuality and the World

Sun, 10 Aug 2008 22:57:58 GMT

I was looking at some of ladychimera's art today (on deviantART), and it started me thinking about the way homosexuality is treated in the world. Like it's a taboo thing. No one talks about it if they can avoid it.

Now, let me explain my situation a bit. I'm straight. 100% straight. But, thanks to some odd twist of fate, a lot of my friends are gay, bi, or lesbian. When I was first introduced to the group, they were very upfront with what they were and how they felt (good for them :)). It made me feel uneasy, at first anyways. Were they hitting on me? What would I do if they did? What if I hit on one of them, and I was the wrong gender for that person? I'm sure many people (straight or otherwise) have gone through this phase. After a few weeks, though, I stopped worrying. After a two months or so, I could accept them completely. A little while after, I could joke with them about it, could talk about it freely, without feeling like I was being rude or being self-concious. They became a part of my life. I think of them as part of my family now, and I love all of them without worrying about what it may imply to outsiders.

So, here I am, a rare cultural oddity. The numbers of those who can easily accept the homosexual community are steadily rising, and I'm glad that people are learning to drop their bias. But, I still get the occasional "Why do you hang out with them?" or "Are you gay, too?". I suppose it's to be expected. It is highschool, where everyone judges everyone else based on preconcieved notions. I'm doing my best to get the so-called "normal crowd" to understand, but it's an arduous(sp?) proccess.

Now to the point of all this. I've noticed (and I'm using some of relatives and classmates for this) that the more exposure you've had to an idea, the easier it is to talk about. Like I said before, the more I was exposed to my friends' ideas and feelings, the more comfortable I was with them.
If homosexuality wasn't such a taboo subject, wouldn't there be less prejudice? Few people talk about the details, so not many people know of them. It's like how sex used to be (and still sometimes is). Everyone talked all around it, but in the end, you didn't know anymore than you started with. Same thing with homosexuality. There are the rumours, and the media coverage, legalized gay marriage, and then there's this huge gaping hole where most people's knowledge just stops. It took me a four months just to figure out that not all gays are compatible. I'm ashamed of that, but it's what I thought. There's this common opinion that if you're gay, you're instantly compatible with all other gays. And it's not true at all.
Then there's the rumour that all lesbians are impossibly sexual and spend all their time having steamy sex. Not true!! That's only thought of because [most] guys are perverts and center their fantasies around girl-on-girl "action". If there is ANY truth to that, it's because teenagers are becoming so much more sexual. We treat it in such a casual way that it's just become a frivolous past time.
Also, many believe that bi's are not trustworthy in a relationship because you can never tell who they're looking at. If you can't trust the person your dating, why are you dating them?! If they truly like you, then you should be able to trust them not to go wandering off with some other guy or girl. Have you never looked at another person while in a relationship? It happens, but there's a difference between being tempted and following through on that temptation.

My brother is going into Grade 8, and he's a huge homophobe (which ashames me). But, he's never even met a homosexual person!! He has no idea what they're like, what they do, how they act, etc. except from what he's heard on the playground! He seems to have this fear of being hit on by one. Now obviously, a 13 year-old is not the most mature person alive. But he doesn't seem to get that, even if (heaven forbid) a gay guy liked him, it's not like he would drag him away and rape him! He doesn't seem to have any problem with being hit on by girls. Oh, wait. He doesn't like girls when they're "ugly" (another popular preconceived notion which doesn't exist). So, hang on. He's fine with "ugly" girls hitting on him, but when it's a guy, he has to flee in terror? Does that make any sense?
Many people don't seem to get that, even if there's a homosexual who likes them, that person is not going to ambush and may not even ever tell them how they feel. Imagine this. You like this person of the opposite gender, but you don't have the courage to tell them. Now, imagine that they do know (one of your friends told them or something), but they're not interested in you. You find out, you're sad, but eventually you both move on with your lives. Repeat the same scenario, but with people of the same gender. .... There's not much of a difference, is there? There's no sense in people being afraid of getting hit on. It makes even less sense when they're only afraid of being hit on by one group.

Okay, I'm getting off-topic now. My point is, if we simply talked more about homosexuality, it wouldn't be so taboo. Humans fear what they don't know - it's always been that way. Take away the shadows, and it all becomes fairly clear. As one last example, you know when you were a child? So many things seemed scary -the space under your bed, the dark that lurked in your closet and in the basement, that funny tapping sound from behind your window- but as you grew older, you found out that none of those things were as scary as you thought they were. The space under your bed held only boxes and dust, the dark hid only your toys and the occasional paint can, the tapping was just the tree outside your window pushed by the wind.

Hopefully, we can all grow up a little.

Shakespeare School 2008

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 18:38:55 GMT

So, I got back from Shakespeare School two days ago. I miss it already. Not to start out on a whiney note, but I made a lot of good friends there.

For those of you who don't know, Shakespeare School is a summer camp for drama kids essentially. It's really hard to get into, though. It's one of those elite camps where you have to send in a theatre resume and get reccomendations from teachers. As well as a letter on why you want to go to the camp. But, I did all that, and I got in, which made me very happy. There are applicants from all over Canada and the US, so I'm very lucky I got in.

Anyways, the camp is in Stratford, Ontario, home of the Stratford Festival. You spend one or two weeks there, depending on your age category. I was with the one-weekers, due to a fluke in the age requirement. You need to be the correct age by December of the year before, but I wasn't. Fortunately, I wasn't the only 16-year old there.

We worked on a shortened version of Henry V (I was the Constable of France and Chorus 1), and also did a lot of fun activities to learn more about Shakespeare's style and better ways to interpret it. We learned about most of his plays (many of which I've already seen, being a Shakespeare fanatic), but the way we did it was really fun. Like, one day we split up into our four groups and summerize a play in a rap. My group got ummm, I think it was Measure for Measure. Needless to say, I didn't actually rap in the presentation (I don't even listen to rap). Instead, I break danced. Yeah, you read that right. I can break dance. I learned it in my hip-hop class a year and a half ago.

Another day, we did other activities like that, and also did some original skits, including one about the affects of war, which made everyone cry.
There were five groups or so, and each one picked a theme for their presentation. My group did the loss of family that is often experienced in war. I was the child, and I watched my "parents" die from attacking soldiers while I hid under the bed. After it was safe, I came out and shook my parents, staring at their dead bodies while I clutched my "blankie" (a sweater). Then I ran out while the parents made a cross with the sticks that we were required to incorporate into our skit. After, I went to their funeral and laid my blankie in their grave, and cried. I waved goodbye and then left. Apparently, our skit was the saddest. I certainly thought so. I was tearing up as I did it.
So, now whenever anyone from camp hears the song that most of the groups used for background music (we weren't allowed to speak in our skits) we tear up. Like, there were people bawling after the presentations.

We also went to five plays at the Festival: Romeo and Juliet (which was decent for R&J), Love's Labour's Lost (absolutely hilarious), Hamlet (which was horrible, especially since I normally like Hamlet), Taming of the Shrew (very good, and it showcased the true personalities of the characters much more than is usually done. There was also an absolutely hilarious codpiece.), and the Music Man (extremely well done and very upbeat and cheerful. I loved Winthrop). I had a lot of fun getting dressed up each evening and taking pictures of everyone. Especially by the dumpster :P

The last day, we performed for the parents/friends/relatives. We did very well, and I got quite a few compliments on my singing in the mourning song for the dead after the battle of Agincourt. Especially from one pair who kept me for 10 minutes and then insisted on getting my autograph, for "when [I] was famous" >///<
After the show was the luncheon in the marquee, which was in the Festival Theatre (the biggest theatre in Stratford, and the first one with a thrust stage since the Globe Theatre burned down back in 1603 or something). There were lots of hugs and tears and jokes and promises to see each other soon, and then we parted, my fellow one-weekers and I.

When I got home, I had 32 emails waiting, and they kept piling up as my friends added me on Facebook or sent froup emails out about how much we missed each other and when we should get back together again.

So, I miss them, and waking up early, and dealing with the extremes of air-conditioning and non-air-contioning (the Festical Theatre was freezing *shivers*). I just miss the togetherness that comes with hanging out with a bunch of theatre kids like me. *sighs*
But I'll keep hearing from them, and hopefully I'll be seeing them at the next camp :)
So enough whining. I'm home, bored but content with the fact that I've made good friends and spent my time well. I can live with that.

May the wind guide your feet, and the moon lighten your path
-Lhene

Introducing Me!

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 02:52:50 GMT

Alright, so I'm not very good at the whole, "Hi, I'm so-and-so, and I like to do this, that, and, the other thing." It's not really my style. Instead, I'm just going to post a poem I wrote about myself last year. It's a sort of self-portrait with words.
Enjoy.

I am...

I am the song wind

The fall wind

The changing wind

I am the wise moon

The smile moon

The waxing moon

I am the dance stream

The laugh stream

The glacial stream

I am the wild fire

The dark fire

The seeing fire

I am the bloom tree

The life tree

The growing tree

I am the singing sparrow.

I am the dancing wave.

I am the laughing moonlight.

I am...

Me.

("I am..." was written by me, for the enjoyment of myself and others. Please do not take my work and claim it as your own. If you wish to use it in some way, please ask me first.)