Insults and Stones

“The first human who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization.” ~Sigmund Freud
I really wish this could be a false statement, but nonetheless it is completely true.

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A little personal back story of mine:
Last night I performed at Unplugged, the school event for acoustic performances. A ton of people showed up, probably over 100 which is actually a lot for me to perform in front of. The largest audience I've ever performed solo in front of before was probably 1300-1400 students and teachers at a school assembly last year. The show didn't start until 7pm and I was the 12th out of 14 to perform, but by 5:30 pm my nerves had set in hard. I was shaking uncontrollably and I felt like vomiting. I hadn't had nerves that bad for a performance since I was 10 years old. It probably didn't help that I had to stay at the school all day because I wouldn't have been able to go back to the school for the show otherwise, nor did it help that I hadn't eaten since breakfast. So I had to sit patiently with my shaking nerves for nearly three hours just waiting until that moment I showed my heart on my sleeve.

Every performance was fantastic, and even any major mistakes anyone made were covered by everything that went well and sounded amazing in the song. There were amazing guitar players, spectacular singers, a deep poet, and catchy ensembles. After every performance I asked myself, "How am I going to be able to follow that?" Everyone's skill only made my nerves worse. Some of my friends were talking behind us, so Bear and I kept throwing them dirty looks and telling them to shut up for courtesies' sake. They're teenagers, but they should know by now it's not polite to babel on with their own conversation when someone is granting you to listen to their artistry.

After washing my hands (an obsessive compulsive thing I need to do before playing the piano) and sitting on my hands for a while to warm them up, it was my turn to perform. I shakily introduced the song I was about to play (Fantasie-Impromptu by Chopin), checked the sound of the piano, and began.

It was all a rush of adrenaline. My fingers were flying across the keys faster than I could see or even control. I could hear the murmur of the crowd and see faces in the the corner of my eye, but it meant nothing anymore. I left them all behind in a trail of colors soaring from the strings of piano, gracefully hammering out months of sweat and tears on a shadowed piano. No matter how many mistakes I made, and there were quite a few, I never let myself backtrack. I kept thinking, "A great pianist corrects their mistakes and creates perfection. A great performer does let their performance falter at any cost. They power through it and keep going." That was when I promised myself to be a great performer and not a great pianist. And when the quiet end came and mellowed out my heartbeat, I stood up and gratefully accepted the applause as pianists are trained: with a bow. My friends won't let me forget it: I got the only standing ovation of the night, and how glorious it was to see my hard work had paid off so that the general public appreciated my interpretation of classical music. The sound guy sitting near the end of the piano had a front row view of my hands and was astonished. After my performance he even said if he could hear beautiful music that every night, he would have wonderful dreams for the rest of his life.That was a beautiful moment.
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You're probably wondering by now what that whole story had to do with insults and stones, and I thank you for your patience to read this far. I'm getting to my point.

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One stone thrown:
During the school day on Monday, something rather unpleasant happened to me. I had just bent down to tie my shoe and my "friend", Nick, kicks my butt. That's sexual assault, isn't it? I couldn't be sure at the time, and I'm still not sure. It was the middle of break from 3rd period, and there were more than 30 people standing right there in front of the student store, and I had just gotten kicked in the butt by a so called friend. I was furious, embarrassed, and I had no idea what to do, so I just stormed off back to the classroom to spend the last 4 minutes of break alone.

I hate violence so I don't punch people or inflict any physical way of hurting people on purpose. Even if I slap someone jokingly, I never do it hard enough to hurt. That limited my options of how I could retaliate, and obviously I didn't retaliate at all. That kick required no form of civilized communication from the kicker, the kickee, or the witnesses. I was completely alone and everyone else had taken the obvious excuse of oblivion or denial, so I reverted back to my primal instincts: fight or flight. All this thought process in a split second, and all he does is laugh because he thinks it's funny. I can tell you for sure that this bruise does not in any way whatsoever feel funny.
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One insult thrown:
Nick went to the Unplugged event as well. He had come back to school early for a band meeting, so he hung out with me for a while. However, as soon as our other friends arrived, he ditched me to go get coffee and took those friends with him leaving me sitting alone at a table with my nerves growing ever stronger. That certainly made me quite angry at him so I avoided him for the rest of the night.

Just tonight I was informed by one of my friends sitting next to him that he made a comment during one of the performances. He told me that I didn't want to know what Nick said, but I made him tell me anyways. "You know what's great about Unplugged? Everyone here is hot except for Tamie* and Bear*." He insulted my best friend and me literally behind our backs. It makes me furious that he insulted Bear because she is a beautiful girl, both inside and out. I already knew I'm not most guys' definition of "hot" because I'm not short and skinny, but it sinks so much deeper because of that. He didn't have to rub that fact in, and yet he did.
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I'm very glad my friend told me about what Nick said because now I can finally have this problem dealt with. For months Nick has been bugging me and insulting in little ways like dumbing down my intelligence or not listening to what I say, and he won't stop no matter how many times I've asked him to. He doesn't know when he goes too far, but now he will.

Stones require cowardice; they keep the conflict away from the stone thrower but still inflict the pain. Insults require communication between two or more individuals, a key to the survival of society and civilization, and burn deep into the minds of the ones insulted. If an insult if mean enough, it can stick in someone's mind for years, causing torment and poor self image and anything more the insulter wishes to inflict for as long as they remember.

One stone, one insult. Each thrown my way on the same day. Each inflicting it's own baneful pain. Yet, without them, civilization would not exist.

B-sharp, never B-flat, always B-natural
:C) ♫ŤΔΜΪΞ

*Names have been changed to protect privacy

Thanksgiving

"Thanksgiving, after all, is a word of action." ~W. J. Cameron
As today is a day devoted to giving thanks, I would like to thank all of my closest friends, especially Bear, who have stuck by me and been there when I have needed them most. I would like to thank my family for just being my family and giving me a great home where I have nearly everything I need to be successful and thrive to my fullest potential. I would also like to thank everyone who works hard so that we may feast with friends and family on this day. And to anyone taking the time to read this extremely short post, thank you as well.

I'm going to go play more board games with my family now. Enjoy your delightful meals on this day of giving thanks. Happy Thanksgiving!!

B-sharp, never B-flat, always B-natural
:C) ♫ŤΔΜΪΞ

Friendship

Saint Thomas Aquinas - "There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship."
Before this year, I did not believe how prized true friendship really is.

Over the summer, I hung out with my closest friends at a local mall. Three people came with us who I had never met before: one soon-to-be freshman and two soon-to-be seniors. They were extremely chill and bright people that were so fun to be around, but one of the seniors befriended me right away. The first words out of her mouth to me were "I love you." Before this day, I had only heard about her through other friends of mine, so this was completely foreign to me. How can a girl I've just met already know she's going to be great friends with me? That day turned out to be the greatest one I had had in a long time. This girl who I had only just met that day walked around with me, gossiped with me, acted completely insane with me, and help me freak out my boyfriend. (When went into Macy's, she dragged us up to the baby section. She and I were discussing on about how cute all the baby clothing was and how much we wanted children ourselves while my boyfriend at the time was standing there completely confused.) I will never forget that day I met her.

Now that we're well into the school year, I've been able to get know this girl, and what a great person she is. She's so musically gifted with her voice and such a gorgeous beast. We can talk about anything and the words just flow from each others mouths endlessly. It's the greatest thing having a friendship just click like that instantly. Never before had that happened to me. Sure, I have a couple of other great friends I could call "best friends," but sometimes when we talk there are awkward silences or the conversation just feels uncomfortable. With this girl, whom I shall henceforth refer to as Bear, none of that has ever occurred. Not only can we talk, but her happiness and joyous mood always lifts up me when I'm down. It's great just being able to talk with someone for two minutes and have your mood lifted tenfold, you know?

From here on out, Bear is and will always be the person closer to me than my very own sister, the second half to my burnt out brain, the bread to my butter, the Shawn to my Gus, the twin to my twin, the Phineas to my Ferb, the best to my friend. Together, we are cooler than absolute zero. She's already helped me through some real tough times, and I can only hope I will have the opportunity to repay her in the future in some way or another.

I love you, Bear!! ♥ Your prediction on the first day we met was completely correct. Thank you for everything.

B-sharp, never B-flat, always B-natural
:C) ♫ŤΔΜΪΞ

Groups

"After all is said and done, more is said than done." ~Aesop
This is particularly true when working is groups of people, no matter what the situation is.

In world history, we just finished presenting a group project on government. Lucky me got stuck with the chatterbox of the class in my group, the math genius, and two other guys. I had perfect, but maybe not very creative, plan for the project that would have gotten us passed, but more was being said by the chatterbox and those two other guys than I could talk over to get my point across. The math genius ended up creating the PowerPoint while the rest of us wrote lame one to two minute speeches, which was less than required I do believe. I feel like my attempt at leading the group to success was fully thwarted by people who had no idea what to do but talk. Don't get me wrong, they're nice people, but groups like this are the hardest situation for success in school.

Another example of this can be seen in my band. It's not actually "my band" because it wasn't me who brought the members together, but I'm lucky enough to be a part of it. We've only had one meeting so far which consisted of A LOT of talking about what we wanted to play, compose, etc... It doesn't help when the drummer who has no clue what they're doing goes off on different topics or starts drumming on everything in site. So there I was, trying to focus and talk about actual band issues while telling the drummer to quiet down to no avail. Eventually, we decided the song we're gonna learn for the next band meeting, and it's decided that I'm supposed to record my lil composition ditty and send it to the lyricist. It's been over two weeks since that first meeting and all it's been is talk. My dad says he'll find the microphone so I can record what I need but I doubt that's going to happen. It's doesn't help me that the song is still in the works and we (meaning the band as a whole and not myself) already want to put lyrics to it. I mean, it's only my second composition and I really doubt it'll turn out any good. It takes hours of my constant fiddling of just a few measures at a time to make it sound the way it does in my head. (I won't even contemplate how long it will take to write parts for the different instruments.) Don't get me wrong, I love all the people in the band, but working in groups is probably what deters so many solo artists from joining a concrete group.

In order for a group of people to be successful, they all need to have the right mindset. This mindset is usually the common goal of success. If one person in the group feels like slacking off or has other things on their mind like, I don't know, boys for instance, then the whole group is screwed. I know this from personal experience. And when this one person, or possibly several people, refuse to complete a portion or any of the necessary work, I feel like I'm always the one who has to pick up the pieces and overwork because the others don't care what grade they get. I'm just sick of working in groups in general until finally there are others who have the same mindset and thoughts as me. Maybe I have too high of expectations from high school kids, but eventually they'll have to learn it's easier to cooperate and get paid than always having to suck it up to the boss-man and squeal "I can't collaborate with these people, but next time I promise to work through it anyways." That's what gets people fired.

Groups are essential to our way of life, as we interact with people through work meetings, family meetings, political meetings, neighborhood meetings, and any other meetings of people like parties and other social gatherings. Sooner or later, people will learn to understand that working together for a common good is easier than rebelling against the norm. I hope to goodness that it's sooner rather than later or our future generations are doomed to learn bad habits of interaction.

B-sharp, never B-flat, always B-natural
:C) ♫ŤΔΜΪΞ

Hello. Is it me you're looking for?

"The best substitute for experience is being sixteen." ~Raymond Duncan
I've yet to have much experience, but there's only 123 days to go until I'm sixteen. Teenage hood hasn't been particularly kind to me, so I can only hope it gets better from here.

Introduction to myself: My internet alias and future pen name (if I become a writer) is Tamesis Morelle aka Tamie. I can't post my real name on here because my parents are so overprotective. No doubt about it, I'm just a regular, nerdy teen who thinks their parents are the most embarrassing and annoying in the world. Unlike most, I actually enjoyed school... to a point. Learning about mitosis and transpiration along with Greek democracy and reading the Epic of Gilgamesh actually intrigues me. I guess I've just always been a curious kid and I always will be.

That's besides the point for the time being. Anyway, this is just a blog about my thoughts on life and issues and events that affect it. I want to share my curiosity with whoever comes across this blog, so ready for some learning and active brainwaves.

B-sharp, never B-flat, always B-natural
:C) ♫ŤΔΜΪΞ