10 Line Poems

Stamina

Maybe we are walking targets.

It seems as though no matter how hard we try, life gets the best of us.

But we keep going

And I don’t know why.

Sometimes it would feel easier to give up

But what is victory without struggle?

How could we know pain without joy?

I guess that’s the thing about life

We keep on falling but we always get back up

Everything is temporary.

We Don’t Even Listen to the Same Music

I’ve always been shorter, smaller, and less important.

Sometimes I think I might be a part of the sky.

Or maybe a piece of driftwood.

Sailing endlessly, pointlessly.

I think that’s all I will ever be.

You’ve always been the moon.

You change the tides when you’re around.

You are the entire ocean at every depth.

Vast and unfathomable.

How lovely.

Artist Profile: Frida Kahlo

Frida Kahlo (de Rivera) was born on July 6th 1907 in the village of Coyoacan, which is a small village on the outskirts of Mexico City. Her father was a German immigrant named Guillermo Kahlo who migrated to Mexico when he was 19. He spent his life as a well-established photographer and was married twice. His first wife died during the birth of his second child and not long after, he married Frida’s mother. Her name was Matilde Calderon y Gonzalez. She spent her life raising Frida and her other siblings, along with her two step-daughters. Frida attended Mexico’s premiere school which was called Escuela Nacional Preparatoria and was well known for being in cliques. She wanted to study medicine but after a Bus accident that left her bed ridden for months, she turned to art instead. The bus accident also left her unable to carry a pregnancy to full-term, which resulted in three miscarriages.  During Frida’s lifetime, 5 major historical events that occurred were: The Mexican Revolution, World War One, World War Two, The Prohibition Movement, and the Holocaust. Frida also struggled with a troubled marriage to Diego Rivera. The couple is known for having numerous affairs, but when Frida died, Diego said that is was the saddest day of his life because he was apparently in love with her. Psychological/emotional distress was one of the most prevalent struggles in Frida’s life and she often took her feelings and put it into her artwork. She is most well-known for her paintings and self-portraits. She once said that she painted herself because she was the only thing that she knew the most about. Frida is also mostly associated with surrealism and magic realism. One thing that people might not know about her is that she died from an overdose on July 13th 1954 at the age of 47 and it is not unclear as to whether or not her overdose was on purpose because she wrote “I hope the exit is joyful-and I hope to never return,” before she died.

 Despite her many struggles, she became a celebrated artist in Mexico and is still influential to many artists today. Three of her most famous works are: Two Fridas, Self Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird, and Without Hope. However, my two personal favorites are Roots and Girl with Death Mask. Roots is a self-portrait of Frida lying sideways on the ground while vines grow all over and around her. Girl with Death Mask is a painting of a small girl who is holding a small flower. She is isolated and nothing is around her except mountains in the background. He girl is also wearing a mask that is white and has an expression of agony, while another mask sits on the ground but it has more of a demonic appearance that seems to be unsettling. Frida Kahlo has always been one of my favorite artists because her self-portraits often depict her without an emotion on her face, but she addresses her struggles in other parts of the picture.

Dan in Real Life Questions

Question #2

Three things that I think that parents of teenagers should know is that: We need our space, trust us, we know what is right and what is wrong, and let us breathe. I know that our teenage years are the weirdest and craziest times of our lives because we are in between being old enough to know what we want to do and too young to do what we want to do because they might be bad for us even if we think that it feels right.

Question #4

I think that Dan isn’t being a very good role model although he’s trying his best. Sometimes things happen to us that we can’t control and the more we try to act like they aren't happening, the more prevalent they become. In Dan’s case, he tells his kids to do as he says and not as he does but he falls in love with a woman in three days and he tells his daughter that she doesn't actually love the guy that she’s with. I could understand where Dan is coming from though because his daughter is much younger than him and has a lot to learn about life.

Question #11

Yes, I do think that illicit love is more appealing to us because it’s so much harder for the people involved to be together. I think that we crave chaos and it satisfies us to see others suffering (that came out wrong and I didn't mean it like that). I don’t really know how to explain it but I think that we enjoy seeing others struggle and hopefully triumph in the end.

Question #12

People who are well-traveled are more interesting to me because they've seen a lot more and experienced a lot more than we have. I think that in order to be more open as a person, we need to be outside of our comfort zone and traveling helps us break away from being narrow minded. 

Movie Quotes

-Girl, Interrupted

-Her -Fight Club -The Virgin Suicides -Lost in Translation 

Reel Life

It’s hard for me to pick just one favorite movie because I have watched so many movies. However, I think that Side Effects my favorite movie at the moment. The picture I included is one of the most well known lines from that movie. It’s about a wife who murders her husband and blames it on the side effects of her anti-depressants. It wasn’t a very predictable movie at all and that’s why I enjoyed it. I think that a lot of newer movies are starting to become more and more predictable so I hardly watch movies now. Just TV shows, which can be even more predictable sometimes. The movies that I don’t really care for are action movies. Actually, I loathe them. I don’t like movies that don’t have a deeper meaning to them. Just like books. Also, I don’t like sci-fi movies because they aren’t realistic and I don’t think anyone can relate to living on a spaceship in another dimension or something like that. I just don’t like movies that aren’t real because I’ve never been a very creative person when it comes to imagining fantasy things and I like movies about real life because they have a lot more meaning than others. I like being alone when I watch movies. I don’t like going to the movie theaters or watching a movie with a bunch of people around. I usually watch movies late at night or early in the morning (like around 2 am) in my room, by myself, on my laptop. When it comes to what I need for movie viewing, I don’t really need that much. I just need to be comfortable and I guess I need my laptop as well. I don’t eat while I watch movies because that’s absent minded eating and I feel like that’s unnecessary. However, I like to drink tea while I watch movies because that makes me even more comfortable. When I took the test, the results said that I am 0% emotionally stable and that I watch movies for the cathartic effect. I think that its true but I’m pretty sure that I’m at least 1% emotionally stable. If my life were made into a movie, it would be about a girl that moves to a different country and grows up confused about everything. Three main points that I would have are: learning to play my first instrument, moving countries, and at least twenty minutes of the movie would be of me blogging because that’s all I do. I think that I would play myself and the ending would have something to do with me finally figuring things out. 

Six Word Stories

There won't be a next time.

Staring at walls never fixed anything.

Bruised knees, heavy lungs, grazed skin.