Eyes of the Cosmic Whale
“…leaving the heavens naked, glistening blue-black, like the belly of some cosmic whale…”Archive for Letting go
My IGCSE’s in a nutshell
Now the IGCSE examinations are finally over, I feel relieved and relaxed and a lot freer than before. The whole moving thing dawns on me more too, and makes it all the more hard. The intention of this post is to record what the IGCSE experience has been like. (For IGCSE resources, click here)
The IGCSE’s began on Oct 15, with the Spanish first language exam. The exam went ok, though I left with big doubts that made me truly uneasy, like having called someone a cretin in a letter and having given an introduction and a conclusion to my summary. It was a very boring exam, too.
Tuesday was the Spanish literature exam. I had prepared pretty well for it, but the questions can be hard sometimes, so I was panicking a bit. I suddenly felt I no longer had clear what had happened in Doña Barbara. As I was going in, though, I reminded myself something that Mr Andrews told us during his History revision sessions: don’t go in scared to the exam, take it as an intellectual challenge. You have no idea how much that worked. I instantly felt relieved of a lot of pressure, and knowing that I knew the books quite well helped too. When I went in, it was hard to choose what asterisk question to do, because I thought all the essay ones were easy. I chose an asterisk one for Doña Barbara, one on dramatic irony in El Sí de las Niñas and one on Impía, a poem I had done a project on. I was amazed and happy with myself that I could do well the question on Los Heraldos Negros, since Vallejo and his suicidal tendencies can be my weakness. It went well. Read the rest of this entry »
Tough world and uncertainty scares.
I’ve been thinking about the future so much, and yet it’s still blurry and confusing. And somehow, yesterday I worked out what bothers me so much. I’m scared. Allow me to explain, though.
Let’s go step by step. The calling I’m following right now is that of international relations. That’s because I’d like to work in the UN and defend human rights. But now let’s be realistic. Even assuming I manage to choose the right university, settle in easily and get a diploma, how many chances do I have of actually doing that? The answer is: not many. And what else comes to mind when one thinks of international relations? Politics. And politics are a complicated, complicated thing.
It’s politics when people in Puno stone the mayor to death. It’s politics when Sarkozy leaves a meeting with Putin drunk, only to give a conference in that state. It’s politics when schoolchildren have to question the legitimacy of Woodrow Wilson’s actions, or Truman, or Stalin. And even if I probably won’t get to be president or whatever, but still, politics are a complicated, complicated thing. And very often I wonder if I have the personality (and the stomach) to deal with being a politician. And very often I wonder if it’s not the right thing for me. Politics are interesting, but to be the politics…it scares me.
And when people ask me what I like doing, it’s writing. Of course, there’s a million things I enjoy doing, but I suppose writing is high on the top 10 list. And yet writing is also scary. Writing for your food? To pay for your rent, your bills, your clothes? It sounds risky. And, it’s a very corrupt media. Once I saw a movie, an Agatha Christie sort of thing. It was a mistery set in a small town in the UK, and it was about a writing festival. Between the publishers, editors, ghostwriters and writers, they all ended up killing each other. But then there, I’d like someone to name one uncorrupted media. Journalism is complicated too.
And it doesn’t help not to know where I’ll be living. Because the whole “where I’ll study” complicates things more. You would think having the whole world ahead of you is an advantage, but it only makes things a lot harder. There are two main scenarios, though. Will I be able to go somewhere else, somewhere far away, where I’ll be alone and exposed to so much of the world’s hardship and without anyone I love with me? Will I be able to cope with all of it? Or, on the other hand, will I choose someplace relatively mediocre because I’m unable to leave the safety of home’s nest? Where will we be? Oh, where, where, where?
But I tell myself, I also have two years to overcome what needs to be overcome and to work out and organize my jumbled up thoughts. I have two years still for God to tell me where He wants me to be.
Because truth be told, right now I’m uncertain about so much, I need His answer.
It’s good to have this whole thing, in a way, out of me.
“If I get it all down on paper, it’s no longer inside of me, threatening the life it belongs to”. Three cheers to Anna Nalick’s musical wisdom!
And now, with a lighter mood, the joy of the calm , awesome music Grey’s Anatomy’s soundrack is made of and the duties of writing and correcting for the Journalism Interhouse, all lying next to me, I sign off.
Start the week with a smile! It always makes a change, always C:
