Louis C.K. Thinks He's Smart

I have been trying to find an inconspicuous way to show people how my brain works. To tell them about my general thought process without extending them an invitation that reads, “Please, sit back, relax, and enjoy the wild ride we’ll take through the mind of a 17-year-old.” But at this point, I can no longer hope for discretion, so please, stay for a brief demo.

The oversized shirt is from freshman year. It’s a faded royal blue and has a big picture of a small motor protein on the front. I am sitting on my bed thinking about a few lines from one of Louis C.K’s standups, “As humans, we waste our words. It’s sad. We use words like ‘awesome’ and ‘wonderful’ like they’re candy. […] You use the word ‘amazing’ to describe a sandwich at Wendy’s. What’s going to happen on your wedding day, or when your first child is born? How will you describe it? You already wasted ‘amazing’ on a sandwich.”

When I process what he says, my first impulse is to start an extensive research project about sandwiches. They shouldn’t be as easy to dismiss as that, and I will prove it. A sandwich can be amazing, because in the end, can’t most things? A rock could have heard secrets, absorbed classified information, and witnessed disasters and miracles. And that potential for a story would make the rock amazing.

And, I find it as laughable as it is upsetting that as humanity advances, we start calling our once most prized inventions basic. Combining two slices of bread with meat and spices in between to create a sandwich, John Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich, left us a great legacy. The sandwich is now a subculture in the western world and has also become a verb, expanding our language. But not being able to call a sandwich amazing makes me wonder if there will come a day when we’ll be condemned if we call our VE-DIC (video-enhanced differential interference contrast) light microscopy – which helped us discover kinesin, a motor protein – ‘amazing’ as well.

This little guy (the motor protein) carries cellular cargo that is about 240 times its weight across a little microtubule in every cell in our body. If we think about it in circus terms, a tightrope walker would be carrying two average sized elephants on her back. And to compete with the motor protein, the tightrope walker would also have to be working in complete darkness, have no consciousness and no senses, just little magnets on the soles of her feet to guide her on the rope.

So, every time I make myself a sandwich and then eat it, I think to myself, there are a hundred trillion miniscule circuses in my body working together to help me enjoy my sandwich. To be able to make this sandwich, thousands of people came together. Farmers, marketers, packagers, cashiers, health inspectors, this teenager. The history geek in me nods appreciatively to the science enthusiast while the budding etymologist smiles at my choice of words. My taste buds rejoice in different flavors as my brain supplies a fitting adjective. This sandwich is amazing. 

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Another college essay, I hope you liked it.

~Belle

Reunion

As you probably noticed, I haven't been too active lately. 

Cue blogger's reasons about busy schedules, and lots of things to do, too little time etc. etc.

Cue formal apology to readers and promise to update them.

Cue post.

//

We all know how this usually goes, and I am a little tired to come up with a new and unique way to do it, so we'll follow the script. I wasn't able to update as much as I would have liked to because being a senior this year overwhelmed me a little. I was busy with college applications, keeping up with five AP classes, financial aid forms, citizenship things, comforting friends, making new ones, creating about a ton of new blogs here and there, reading books, writing poetry, complaining about things in my life while trying to organize it and give it some semblance of order.

I hate that phrase by the way, the "semblance of order," but since we are following script, I used it.

I am currently enjoying my spring break, ready to get back to updating regularly and finishing my drafts and spilling my thoughts onto the virtual world. We'll see how that goes.

In the meantime, here are the five blogs I am managing on the side. There are a few more but that's for maybe later.

Here is where I am posting my poetry.

Here is where I am posting my photography.

Those are blogs with my own original content. I manage three more that are compilations of things I like.

Here is the one with art and architecture I like. 

Here is the one with interior design and fashion I like.

And here is the one I recently started where I'll have things to make me a better person, in body, mind, soul, and heart. We'll also see how that goes.

//

Lots of clicks,
~Belle

pH Scale

Clorox has a pH level of 13, and if I want to go far in life, they tell me I have to be Clorox. I have to be sodium hypochlorite because nothing else works. I have to be strong, unforgiving, and indiscriminate. React quickly and destroy whatever is in my way. Be known for my instability. Make people’s breathing harder. They tell me, that in order to move forward, I can’t let myself be diluted. I have to keep that active ingredient safe but volatile.

So I am angry. I am stubborn and unreasonable. I forget negotiations and truces. I do not show emotion. I do not look vulnerable. My friends can leave. My family can be scared. It does not matter. I will not cry and I will not care. I turn a simple game of Taboo into the awaited apocalypse and kick the new guy out, because if he was born to reduce my winning streak to an unbeaten one, he should reconsider the purpose of his existence. This isn’t just a game, and anyone who thinks that way doesn’t deserve to play with me.

I was born to mimic gaseous weapons from old wars. Be corrosive. Create burns. They tell me. And I listen.

I listen until I realize that the amount of bleach I apply does not correlate with how clean something is. After some time, I start breaking down the fibers of even the most resistant fabrics. I destroy, as I was taught, until they stick warning labels on me. My persistence causes permanent damage, and even time can’t to heal the wounds. People try to avoid me because I am everywhere and excessive exposure to me only means wearing masks and getting rid of every trace I have left on their skin.

My ambition overcomes me and my aim for absolute perfection no longer attracts people. I give my middle school graduation valedictorian speech to a room of people who are tired of my vitriol. I force humor and quirkiness into my paragraphs and act as if I know the secret of life. Some boy calls me a demon; another says diabolical, and I get mad because I had to look up what that word meant, and I didn’t think I lived up to it.

Snuggle has pH level of 5, and I finally understand, it isn’t being sodium hypochlorite that’s challenging. Clorox does not prevail over all other detergents. Bleach can’t replace the fabric softeners. Sometimes I have to be a quaternary ammonium compound (maybe dipalmitoylethyl hydroxyethylmonium methosulfate, which I can’t pronounce well, but I know the meaning of). Sometimes I have to work with acrylate polymers, calcium chlorides, and even water because I do need my process aids and a little bit of dilution. Sometimes I have to be the softening agent – give people comfort. Prevent static cling rather than produce it. Increase resistance to stains; not try to erase history.

I had to be lonely for an entire year before I realized people hugged you tighter when your jackets were soft. I trust my friends. I delegate responsibilities. I can now work in a group without assuming all the work. I am getting used to constructive criticism, and learning that I can set standards only for myself. I have become the friend who listens to stress-induced rants at two in the morning and gives sound advice and motivation. And sometimes, I feel like a mother, but I think I am getting ahead of myself there.

I may have been created to neutralize negative charges; I need to be mindful. Because people will come along and revel in the serendipity of finding me, the misplaced fabric softener, in the bleach aisle.

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I am coming back and updating you guys more often after this week, don't give up on me. In the meanwhile, this is the essay I wrote for my University of Chicago application. Hope you enjoyed it!

Lots of fractals,

~Belle