End of Humanitarian, Beginning of Procrastination

     Well this is quite a journey, this blog is. Can you tell... I still have no idea what I am doing? I've been brainstorming over its content, and while human rights is something I hold very close to my heart, it might be a bit too controversial {and according to my parents, there might be some snitches}. Snitches... riigght? As this marks the end of my failed attempt as a humanitarian, I return to normal life {dang it}.
     Summer school starts in a few weeks {and no, I know, I know, you were thinking I'm some juvenile delinquent, but no, actually, quite the opposite} because, in reality, my AP English paper is due in at least a week {which I started three days ago, and I still only have two sentences... Can you tell how excited I am?}. So my love affair with procrastination {and this blog} have not helped my academic life at all. Although, on the bright side, my love life is in full swing with two grandchildren hot in the oven... marching band camp started today and season eight of So You Think You Can Dance has begun {Oh yes, procrastination is a tempting mistress}.

A Short Haiku

The leaf that I hold
Has Droplets of rain water

That makes my hands cold

    ~Justine Josma

Memory From Hospital: Noah, October 11, 2008

This is something I wrote for school. The teacher made us do some creative writing {I got an A, like a boss}.

     There was a dead boy laying next to me. He was breathing, but he wasn't alive. Separated by a brightly colored wall and a curtain, all I heard was feet shuffling, monitors blaring, and his wails. During this particular moment of his existence, he was not living. His ghastly moans filled a hallway so accustomed to these sounds. The translucent lights mixed with his cries of help and blended into the customary mixture of pain and death. He sounded about eight years old, and yet as time passed by, his voice grew older. 

     The Children's Memorial Hospital was my home for about two months at this point in time. I had many roommates, although none of which had been assigned a particular room, just a section of the ICU. The average stay for many of my roommates was less than a week, when they would either be rolled down the hallway to an actual room or back to the emergency room. This time, though, was different...

      The boy was wired to multiple IV's and needles protruded from many angles of his body. For a small duration of time, everything stopped and all movement ceased. I turned my head, and the glare of the ceiling images of daisies and wild flowers filled the right side of my vision. 

     Time passed and the chaotic dance of the hospital resumed. The nurse came, right on time in our daily schedule, to walk me to the bathroom. With a weak but firm hand, I held her armed, and I dragged my medicine pole. As I walked past his section, through a part in his curtain, I saw him. He looked like a human robot with a yellow, slimy covering. His artificial skin was taut over his face, and his eyes were slightly askew. His arms rested on his blankets, and his hands gripped the sheets. Right then, I realized he was not a child. He looked no bigger than to be in second grade, but all concept of age escaped me. He seemed to be as old as humanity.

     I asked the nurse to walk me over to him. The closer I came, the more clearly I saw the definition of his scars. He was hideous. The veins and bones of his body could be seen through the artificial skin. He had no hair on any portion of his body. His nose were merely holes marked out in the area between the eyes and mouth. I called out to him softly to ask him what he was in for. In a gasps, he answered. He had just had re-constructive surgery on his entire body. He had been trapped in a fire and most of his body had third degree burns. I asked him how much it had hurt, but he did not answer. 

The Face Behind the Blog (Part 2: Everything Else)

     Now that I hope you have a clearer mental picture of me, I will briefly explain everything else about myself- more specifically though, my personality. After this, I will hardly ever talk too much about myself, considering that there might just be about a trillion other much more important and interesting things. As for my personality, I cannot really pick another word. Some people might describe themselves as outgoing, shy, crazy, or something like that, but in actuality, everyone is some or more of those things at one point or another. By choosing to describe myself as curly, I am saying that just like everyone else, I am a bunch of different things tangled together that eventually frizzes to constitute me.

     I realize there might be millions of people in the world that are very similar to myself. There might be another person in this world that is exactly like me, according to the Doppleganger Theory of quantum physics! Yet, every feeling, emotion, substance, object, etc. has an opposite. That is an undeniable fact of life that proves itself everyday. I am shy, yet outgoing, quiet and loud. I am rational while being extremely spontaneous. I love peace and quiet, and yet I crave chaos and disorder. Being one of these things makes me want the other, and yet that is what makes me a person, sane and human.
     I read a few lines from The Book Thief by Markus Zusak that explains perfectly what it feels like to exist as a human. It describes exactly what it is like to grow up as a Hispanic female teenager in this society, but as well as the merit and worth of every person despite their appearance and inward attributes.  
     "To most people, Hans Hubermann was barely visible. An un-special person... Somehow, though, and I'm sure you've met people like this, he was able to appear as merely part of the background, even if he was standing at the front of a line. He was always just there. Not noticeable. Not important or particularly valuable... The frustration of that appearance, as you can imagine, was its complete misleadence, let's say. There most definitely was value in him, and it did not go unnoticed..." (pg. 34).
     So with this I would like to end by saying that I am just like everyone else. Similar by flesh and blood, and the same by mind, spirit, and soul. Thank you for visiting my blog, and hopefully I entertained you enough to come back and read some more.