Brookline High School in China

10, 9, 8, ...

Tomorrow we take off. It's dayslike these where we act most natural and grateful. I was at the high school yesterday for the Chinese New Year celebration where they'd give us our send off. As I watched them perform amateur versions of the lion dance and chinese dances, I looked around and saw these Greek carvings above our heads that I never really took the time to see before. Turning round, I saw faces I'd seen but didn't know. And most of them were smiling and laughing at the antics of the ChineseAmericans tossing a fantacized lion head around to a drum beat. I felt SO good to be part of Brookline High School. Everything is celebrated here. It is so easy to forget the simple things of our school in the everyday repition of our schedules and homework. The fact is Brookline High offers more than an array of amazing classes; it offers an atmosphere that truly does create security. Sure, we do have things to work on, but I was proud to be standing there watching people at ease.

Right now I'm listening to an Usher song and the lyrics entirely match with my sentiments. (Pop music DOES have value despite claims that it is simply part of a lower echelon of culture.) The chorus goes: "It's the simple things in life we forget... why do you make something so easy so complicated, searching for what's right in front of your face." How often does this happen? The fact is perhaps I'm going to China to do something that I could do right here in Brookline. Perhaps, in the search for "life", for "who we are", we miss all those good things that tell us life's lessons. Maybe if I was just able to see the smiles and laughs and BHS more then I wouldn't have signed up to go to China. As seniors in high school, we all are searching to be enriched if only to make a more attractive offer to prospective colleges. In this quest to be enriched, we can do some pretty crazy things hoping that maybe a certain experience will transform us into a Da Vinci, a Renaissance man or woman.

Maybe the answer lies not really in any experience you've had, but in rather in yourself and your ability to live life. I remember in The Things They Carried the narrator says that the time when he truly was living was in Vietnam only inches from death at any given moment. Perhaps the most enriched person is not one who has felt the soil of every continent beneath his feet, but the one who can live life like death is around the corner, the one who can love life and take in the beauty of the world around him or her.

Other notes: Despite all my rantings about not taking life for granted I'm fuckin excited to be going to China and nervous. I can't speak chinese for my life so i'm hoping my proficiency in sign langauge will become much greater when I get back from China. Also, to the exorbant amount of people reading this blog thanks for not reading it. To end, I already miss Brookline. C'est la vie, non?
My rec bball team is nasty, and I'm pissed I can't be part of the team when the win the championship; I don't have anyone's email in Brookline so don't expect much contact unless you email me at celtics186@hotmail.com; and my goddamn college shit isn't going very well because it seems everyone is missing at least one crucial thing; peace

dAVID

posted by dAVID @ 1:38 PM