How to Make the Best of Where You Are...

 I feel quite qualified to be talking about this, because I'd basically say that I'm in one of my least favorite places on the entire planet. You may think I'm over exaggerating, and I may be slightly over exaggerating, I'll admit, but it's still pretty bad.
Now, I'm feeling like a bit of a jerk describing my new 'home', but honestly, it frustrates me to no end. I lived in a city about an hour away, and our schools weren't necessarily rivals (this school was in no way good enough to compare to our teams), but they weren't the biggest fans of each other. Last year, my school and entire community was shut down, and most people were moved over here.
This, of course, calls for a lot of tension. The people from the old city are blamed for overpopulation. The people of the old city complain about how annoying it is here and how much better it was there. We form cliques, avoid contact whenever possible with others, and in general don't really like each other. People here want us to just drop the fact that our old city ever existed and get used to it here. I lived in that previous city the longest I've ever lived anywhere, and there is no way I'm just going to pretend it never existed. It was the one place, after moving around my entire life, I was finally able to really call my 'home.' It didn't matter that I made mistake after mistake, that when life started to pick itself up it would throw itself on the ground again, it didn't even matter if for the first quarter of 7th grade I didn't really have any friends. It was home. And no matter what happened, I knew that I could rely on the fact that I'd still be in the same place with my close friends the next day, or week. Whatever the situation, I had people I could rely on.
Moving away changed all of that for me. Suddenly all of the people I had slowly befriended over the years to become very close with my last year were gone. They spread out and left me with a couple not-quite-so-close friends. These not-quite-so-close friends are very nice and I love them all as the awesome human beings they are, but I can't quite trust them like I could trust everybody before. It isn't the same.
Also, there seems to be a lot more stress here. People, though they knew their community would probably double or so, seemed to 'forget' how many people were really moving in. The grocery store is always running out of things and is rarely fully stocked anyways, the shopping center is overly crowded, and don't get me started on the movie theater. It's packed everywhere you go. Housing is packed, the lodge to wait for housing is packed, the school is overly packed... It's pretty horrific.
Still, life goes on. I know that I can't make time move backwards, and I have to accept the fact that this is my new residency, even if I'm not quite yet willing to call it home. I can still talk with the friends that I have and be thankful for everything we do have here that we didn't have in my old school. For example, the band here is large enough for us to play at football games in a Pep Band. In fact, we're going to be marching for our Home-coming game next Friday.
There are more people here that you can befriend, once you come to terms with the fact that you're here. And once you start to meet new people, you can find that they're really not that much different from you. I've found that out about a couple of people here, definitely. You can try to turn around the fact that you're in a terrible new place and try to start anew.
I was known as the pessimistic, miserable soul who was smart, had a bit of a bad attitude, and was very closed off. Now, I've been able to break out of my shell more and can be a bit more cheerful in the way I act. It can be hard, seeing as there are my not-so-close-friends that are kind of confused with the change, but the opportunity to change I've been waiting for for the past 4 years is here. And I can grab hold of it.
I have old friends here that I can share memories with. Most of the time, when I move, I'm simply sharing stories of what happened to me. People see them as just that: stories. It rarely affects their life and it's just amusing anecdotes about this new kid's old lifestyle. Nothing very important. Now, I have friends who were there and experienced it with me. They understand what my thought process was and it excites both of us to be able to discuss these things.
I'm trying to find all of the positive points in my new city so that, even if I can never truly consider it my home (I'll always have my Lion Heart), I can at least accept residency and make the best of it. And who knows? With my awesome friends that I can joke around with and Pep and Jazz Band to help me stay excited with my music, I feel like you can find a form of Paradise on Earth, even if it is in the place you'd least like to be. If you simply search for it, it'll be there, somewhere. And that's exactly what I'm doing. Searching for Paradise.

Until next time,
Beth (not really)

Up and running again!

I took such a long break from Searching for Paradise because, frankly, there was no time to search for it. In fact, my life is in such a non-paradise stage right now, that I'm quite flabberghasted that I dare write on this blog at all right now!
I, however, have come up with a new concept for my journey to Paradise on earth. There is a series of steps one must take to even remotely start their journey. These steps are necessary, and finding paradise without them is definitely going to be a rare or impossible case to accomplish.
So, I came up with a little list of what needs to happen for my journey to Paradise to finally commence:

1.) One must accept that there simply is no Paradise on earth. Everywhere on earth, something is flawed. There is no possible way to find Paradise on earth without accepting this. Nowhere will be perfect enough for society to view it as 'Paradise'.
2.) Become pure. This is potentially the step that will take the longest. You must shut down all the thoughts ads and comercials have given you. If you keep want, want, wanting like society would love you to, then you'll never reach a moment of complete peace in life.
3.) Keep an open mind. If your mind is completely closed, then you'll never learn anything worth much. What you learn in school will get you places, but it can only get you so far.

This part of the year, there is more I wish for. I'm now in high school, and feel a bit more mature, though that probably isn't true.
I looked back on all the posts I wrote on this blog. One moment it was deep, and the next it was as shallow as the mindless robots who consider themselves 'popular'. I definitely have told myself that I must keep myself as deep as I have been on some of my posts.

I have a similar list of wishes that I used to have. I wish for equality among people, and for calmness and peace throughout the land. I hope that America can recover from the horrors that it's had to deal with (I am not pointing out politicians, rather all of the events that have rocked our boat ever since our creation as a nation). I wish that the world would stop being so judgmental, so that we could be who we really are. A level of my mindless-robot hating self was chiseled off. It doesn't help that one of my best friends is what I'd consider a mindless-robot (though she does have many crazy qualities).
In a certain respect, I wish that the world would stop considering 'crazy' the new normal. Refraining from conformity has never been so hard.
Also, I wish that I could act as a child sometimes and not be rebuked for it. Sometimes it's good to let the child running around my mind loose. To be fair, in those cases I'd probably break something. I'm not very good at self control when the child in me is let loose.
I wish that freedom could be free. It is far from it, and just hearing about how many deaths happen in the world every day because of terrorists is just far too frustrating. I wish so much that I know that Santa will not be able to bring this holiday season.

There is so much wrong in the world that I don't know if I'll be able to settle for a couple comic volumes, a fire, hot cocoa, and a Slytherin scarf this Christmas. I need some justice to be done to show me that the world I fear I live in is not what I imagine it to be. There's too much injustice in the world already.

The moral of this post: Society is cruel.

Let's go find Paradise!
Beth (not really)

Today's Topic: How?

I definitely don't know 'how' to find Paradise. Might as well experiment with everything, right? Nah, I'm testing out what the stereotypical person finds joy in and will see how life turns out from that. If it sucks, I try a happier type person. If it's awesome, heck, I just found Paradise! :P

Sorry for the short post. I went to a party two days ago and now I'm sick. >n> But at least I didn't have to deal with school today. >w> Yay sickness!!!

Beth

I gotta journal...

So I might not post as often. I might edit up some of the entries and post them here, but posting here will take a lot of my time. It's not as easy posting to this blog as someone might think. Naturally, my life is super boring, so I need to wait for some really crazy event or something worth telling.
Don't worry, it won't be as often, but I'll still post. I've still go Paradise to find, after all. ;3

Beth

Wednesday off?

Why in the WORLD would we have a Wednesday off? We have school on Thursday and Friday and Tuesday and Monday, but no Wednesday. Eh, I'm not complaining, no matter how stupid it is. A day off is a day off, right? That's what I say.

In other news, I made it to honor band. YES!!! That's exactly what I wanted. You see, I get to miss two days of school while simply playing the saxaphone for a couple hours. We get lunch there, t-shirts, and on the second day we get free dinner at the bowling alley. Then, we play two concerts and after the second day watch the other schools leave. Who said being in the band had no benefits?
What else is new? Not much. We had a really easy test in science, and I've got to leave soon for saxaphone lessons. D'awww. Oh yeah, and I've made a HUGE edit to my novel that is really just a behind-the-scenes thing, so pretty much no one will notice it. But you can read about that when I post about it on the 'Escape' blog. :D

Beth

This Week's (Belated) Topic: Why?

This post is more of a reason why I started this blog, so if you want to ignore it feel free. I'm explaining reasons like 'why did you start this blog?' 'why bother chasing after Paradise?' 'Why HELP people?'

So why DID I start this blog? I just wanted to see whether I could make an impact and help people. Seeing the view count, that's not going very well yet. ;) Whatever, the view count doesn't tell me anything. As long as I help SOMEONE, with boredom at LEAST, I'm happy.

Why Help people? People are needing more and more help nowadays. They need a little pick-me-up. If I can help them find their little 'dream' world, I figure that'd make them a bit happier. The newspapers really don't help those people, by the way. All this 'dying here' 'fighting there' 'oh look, someone else died!' kind of attitude is really dragging down people now.

Why chase after Paradise? As I said, people need a little pick-me-up. Besides, who would want to chase after Hades or the biggest torture the world has ever seen? I personally think it'd be a bit more effective and useful to find Paradise. Just sayin'.

Yeah, that was a short post. I couldn't post this weekend because I was finishing up a project due today in L.A. class. I presented it today *shudder*. It was a career research paper, btw. While I really, REALLY want to be a 'creative writer' I chose Hematologist. Why? Just to get under people's skin. Not many people would choose a doctor who studies blood. Hey, even I can't help but laugh at the looks on people's faces when I explain my 'career topic' to them.

I think I did decent though...
Beth

Dodgeball!!

As you can probably guess, we played dodgeball during P.E. I was feeling really pumped since I had been reading 'Soul Surfer' by Bethany Hamilton, who got her arm bitten off in a shark attack while surfing. Yet, she continues to surf and her faith in Christ has just gotten stronger through the attack. But, for those of you who really don't give a crap about faith, that's not what this is about. That's my OTHER blog. Go look at my profile if you really want to know. The title makes it obvious.
Anyways, Bethany Hamilton grew up with two older brothers, and would always go all out. I figured it was MY time to shine in P.E. class. I'm always the person hiding behind the mat, trying to save myself the embarassment of getting 'out'. Today? Heck no! I think I got out about five times. As long as I get the other team to be dragged down with me, I'm happy.
You see, it was boys v. girls. The boys in our class, or most of them anyways, are AMAZING when it comes to accuracy and speed. The girls? Not as good. So I decided I'd try to make up for that. So my aim isn't the greatest in the world. I haven't actually thrown anything in sport, besides little P.E. games, since two years ago in soft ball (my schedule was too busy last year to play, and I don't think I'll have the time this year either).
To get back on topic, I ended up hitting, I think, three or four of the major throwers, and two of them more than once. One of them I think I ended up hitting several times, but he pretended that it hit his shirt or pretended that nothing had happened. Ahh, that's life for you.
There was backlash, however. I ended up straining a muscle on the high back of my right leg, and it's really sore. Also, we played 'Matball' afterwards (think of kickball, but with four bases. You have to go around each base twice and that's a point. You can only get out by getting hit with the ball), and I totally embarassed myself. I ended up catching the ball at one point, but when I threw it the ball went COMPLETELY off target. That happened twice. Oops. But it was still amazingly fun, despite the several messups my team made. It's not about winning or losing to me, it's about just being out there, participating and doing my best.
You could call me athletic I guess. My parents and older brother never cease to try and explain that to me. Also, a lot of girls at my school comment on how skinny I am. Actually, that's counter-productive since that includes the fact that I have practically no muscle. Pfft! Oh well. Playing sports is fun to me, but I am still trying to convince myself that it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks of me. I'd be happy to play the sport, but I don't want to go so far to look stupid. That's something I'm trying to fix.

Can This Help With Paradise??
Beth