"In Light of" Ponderings

In light of World Kindness Day just passing and Thanksgiving coming up, I wanted to take a moment to write about why it's important to be kind, and talk about what I'm thankful for.

In high school there is a lot of pressure. In life there is a lot of pressure. In some way, big or small, we all suffer from anxiety. We are all imperfect and make mistakes. We all have flaws, some that we can control, and some that we can't. We all have obstacles to overcome. We all have challenges that we have to face. We all sometimes have to deal with loss or disappointment. The point is, life is HARD. Especially as a teenager when the whole pressure of what our future will be like and all the decisions that come with figuring that out, are weighing down on us. That is why it is important to be kind to each other.

We live in such a fragile, broken, messed up world, so the least we can do is keep kindness abundant in it. Everyone is capable of being kind, and it can have a much bigger impact than you might think or expect. Even just a smile can make someone's day. A compliment can reaffirm someone's self worth and make them feel confident. A helping hand can inspire someone to help someone else.

I remember in elementary school in my fourth grade class we had this jar that people could put compliments in, and the teacher would read them every Friday, and pass them out to their rightful owners. I always got ones that said "I love that Brenna always brings a smile to school every day" (in fact I still have that one and just came across it today) and ones that said "Brenna always lets everyone play." Those were the two most common ones I got. Still to this day, people tell me that I smile a lot, and I can't help it. I am usually happy at school because I love talking to my friends in all my classes, and I love participating in class discussions (in case you haven't noticed by now, I do love to talk when I'm comfortable and know what I'm going to say). Literally talk-show host Kelly Clarkson is my alter ego.

Anyway, I never knew until my fourth grade class made it known to me, that my smile made that much of a difference, but apparently it was a bight spot in a lot of my classmates' days. Now that I've had orthodontic work done to me teeth, my smile must be blinding (just kidding). But this proves that the smallest of things can really impact people and make them feel special, loved, or important. I challenge everyone reading this to try to be a little bit kinder. Don't ignore the person that drops something in the hallway on Monday, pick it up for them. Don't post a mean, sarcastic comment on your social media, instead tag your friend and tell them how thankful you are for them. There are a myriad of small, easy ways to be kind, so no more excuses! Be kind.

Putting World Kindness Day aside for a moment (but not kindness itself), Thanksgiving is coming up. I love Thanksgiving for the food, but I also love Thanksgiving because I love telling people how much they mean to me and how thankful I am for them! Last year I made two Thanksgiving cards for two of my past teachers and it was so much fun to do! This year I don't know if I will make cards or have a project but, I'm thankful for these blogs honestly! I love that they give us a creative outlet in AP English! They are so much fun to write in your authentic voice using your own creativity! I also love that we all get to connect through the comments and hear each other's different perspectives. I am really thankful that overall so far, this year has been much better than last year, because unlike Daisy, Tom, and Braddock Washington think, it doesn't matter how much money or how many diamonds you have. I don't care about that for myself either. I'm rich because I go to an amazing school where I get a great education, I have amazing friends and family, I have a house, I have a dog, and I have all the necessities of life. Now that is something to be truly thankful for! Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

Be kind. Be thankful. It's the right state of mind. - Brenna (cheesy I know, but I like cheese - and mediocre rhymes)

"If I were a superhero, I would want my superpowers to be cloning and teleportation so that I could be everywhere at the same time and help everyone." - Brenna (I literally said this to my mom as I was sitting on the couch writing this blog post, because it's true - I LOVE helping people!) You can ask my mom, I say that all the time, and I truly mean it! I try to help as many people as I can because it's FUN TO BE KIND!!

My Ponderings and I Peeking Out of Our Pocket

"After a moment the proprietor emerged from the interior of his establishment and gazed hollow-eyed at the car" (Fitzgerald 130), is the quote that led to the subject of this post. From this quote alone, it is evident that F. Scott Fitzgerald (who I will refer to as Fitz from now on) has a way with words. His vocabulary is impeccable, and his diction and syntaxes are unparalleled! During my first read through of that quote (yes I have read it several times since then), I literally squealed (for lack of a better word) with delight at the diction, because being a total word nerd, that kind of thing excites me.

Speaking of word nerds, I must take this opportunity to plug my favorite tv show in the whole entire world - Signed Sealed Delivered. It aired as a series of tv episodes and then two hour movie installments on Hallmark Movies and Mysteries, and has now moved to Hallmark Drama. I became more of a word nerd through watching the show because one of the main characters, Oliver O'Toole, is a major word nerd! He is constantly quoting old-fashioned laureates such as Marcus Aurelius and Shakespeare. Half of my vocabulary such as words like; effervescence, abhor, ablutions, incommunicado (which is so much fun to say), provenance (not providence), and unparalleled (which I used at the beginning of this post and use a lot) all come from his dialogue in the show. I have even adopted some of his phrases into my everyday speech such as; "self-terminating", "red letter day", and "brazenly manipulative." So if you want to be touched, inspired, and even healed in the deepest way, you should definitely get ahold of the show on Amazon, DVD, or on Hallmark's streaming service - Hallmark Movies Now. Not only is it wholesome, captivating, funny, and unique entertainment, but the vocabulary and history it teaches you just might be the difference you need to bump up your next in-class essay grade.

Marcus Aurelius

Here is the general synopsis according to Hallmark Channel:

A group of postal detectives work to solve the mysteries behind undeliverable letters and packages from the past, delivering them when they are needed most.

Here is the synopsis of the pilot movie according to Hallmark Channel:

Tech-savvy Shane joins traditional mail enthusiast Oliver and his small team in the Dead Letters Office, a group of postal detectives whose determination to deliver the seemingly undeliverable takes them out of the post office into an unpredictable world where letters and packages from the past save lives, solve crimes, reunite old loves and change futures by arriving late but always miraculously on time. This motley crew investigates a lost love letter from a sick woman, growing deeply invested in her love story in so doing. When the search leads the team to a falsely imprisoned man, they realize that both love and a man's life are at stake. Taking their investigation outside the boundaries of the postal system, the Dead Letters Office works to clear the name of the wrongfully accused man and reunite him with the love of his life.

Each dead letter story is different, but the stories of the four main characters develop further with each installment.

Here is the Amazon link to the series of episodes that came directly after the pilot, which is unfortunately, currently unavailable on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Signed-Sealed-Delivered-Complete-Hallmark/dp/B00S4YGWAQ/ref=sr_1_19?crid=P33UXB74MYO8&keywords=signed+sealed&qid=1573868081&sprefix=signed+selaed%2Caps%2C213&sr=8-19

If you ever watched Ugly Betty with Eric Mabius, he stars as Oliver O'Toole - the word nerd himself! And if you ever watched Touched By an Angel, the same executive producer of that - Martha Williamson - created Signed Sealed Delivered, which she also executive produces as well as writes. I'd like to point out though, that I myself have not watched Ugly Betty nor Touched By an Angel, but I still love Signed Sealed Delivered!

Eric Mabius as Daniel Meade in Ugly Betty

Eric Mabius as Oliver O'Toole in SSD

Long plug aside, after reading that Great Gatsby quote, I was immediately taken back to my eighth grade days, when in honors English we were required to read Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist. Hating history and therefore classic novels, I thought I would hate the book, but I loved it! Dickens had me entranced, and broke the "classics" mold for me. My stereotypical idea of a classic novel completely changed after reading Oliver Twist. I was in awe of his language, and thoroughly amazed at how the novel came full circle and every character was connected! If there is anything you should know about me, it's that the littlest of things can make me happy. One of the things I love, is when things come full circle, because as a writer myself, I am far from a master at the skill of making my stories come full circle in an intriguing and surprising way. Dickens basically blew my mind! He's another writer that is on my long list of geniuses.

Brenna's List of Geniuses (as Mentioned in Previous Blog Posts)

 

1. Shakespeare 

2. Toni Morrison 

3. F. Scott Fitzgerald 

4. Charles Dickens 

5. Taylor Swift (Cuz duh - and that was implied when I mentioned her song lyric - plus I had to throw another woman on the list - cuz girl power!)  

 

Reminding me of Dickens due to his impeccable use of the English language, I decided to look into Dickens' background to see if there were any commonalities between him and Fitz that may have caused them to write in similar styles. I'm sorry to say that my research turned up very little of anything worth mentioning, besides very general and most likely coincidental facts. Both Dickens and Fitz didn't have great marriages, wrote a lot based on personal experiences, did a little acting, and lived in Europe for a time, but other than that they were from completely different times and backgrounds. Dickens was very academic and career oriented, taking several menial jobs to make ends meet before he made it as a writer. Then, when he did make it, he was obsessed with doing professional readings and reading tours. He only missed a deadline once in his career, making him pretty much the complete opposite of the wild, partying, and crazy Fitzgerald. What I did find interesting though is that when I googled "Do F. Scott Fitzgerald and Charles Dickens have anything in common?", I found a bunch of articles and essays comparing and contrasting Dickens' Great Expectations with The Great Gatsby. Not only do the titles share a common word, but apparently the novels in their entirety share much more in common, such as characterizations, themes, etc. I didn't want to read too in depth due to my suspicions that I will one day be forced to read Great Expectations - or I will choose to read it, and I didn't want to spoil for it myself. But whether Dickens and Fitz writing extremely similar novels was the case or not, they will always have in common the title of "genius" in my mind. They both wrote amazing novels, that at certain points I couldn't even put down... but didn't even expect to like!

Finding Gatsby's Pocket of Society

Before I started reading The Great Gatsby, I thought that "gatsby" referred to an era or a feeling. I thought a "gatsby" was this fancy party or gala, or even an era of parties. I didn't know that in the book, Gatsby is actually a person and a character. But I wasn't far off, because the book still does include lots of parties; and that is how the 1920s era - when the book takes place - is partially defined. Parties, drinking, women, and wealth all define either the book, the 1920s, or both. So I got to wondering how or why I would've thought that "Gatsby" refers to an era or a feeling, and then I realized it's because "Gatsby" is Fitzgerald's and The Great Gatsby's legacy. The book is so well-known, that the word "gatsby" has been adapted into mainstream society and accepted a new definition - one that makes it widely used and alluded to in everyday speech.

Every time I hear the word "gatsby", I immediately think of the most recent use of the word (in present day society's context for it) that I am familiar with; and that is Taylor Swift's song "This is Why We Can't Have Nice Things", in which there is a lyric that goes "Feeling so gatsby for that whole year." In that context Taylor refers to "gatsby" as a feeling. So up until I actually read The Great Gatsby, I had only heard "gatsby" used in such contexts like Taylor's song lyric. Society today does in fact use "gatsby" to describe a feeling, or as an adjective to describe someone or something that is lavish or extravagant. In fact the Urban Dictionary (which sort of happens to be the dictionary of modern day speech) displays the following when you look up the definition of "Gatsby", and actually credits the book and Fitzgerald with being the origin of the concept.

I think this definition of "gatsby" really does describe Gatsby himself perfectly. After all, "there was something gorgeous about him..."(Fitzgerald 2). Fitzgerald even used the word extravagant in adverb form to describe Gatsby once, saying he was, "extravagantly ambitious" (Fitzgerald 100). Clearly Gatsby truly is extravagant and cool, so not only is he the epitome of this definition, but he created this definition!

This also got me thinking about how you know you're a successful author when society takes a concept, character, or word from your book, and alludes to it for decades/centuries and generations to come in everyday speech. Two other popular examples are Scrooge, courtesy of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, and Romeo, courtesy of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.

In just about every Christmas movie that is made today, one character calls the grouchy character that lacks Christmas spirit a "Scrooge" - and we all know what that means. You also always hear girls and women calling the super handsome guy they like, a "Romeo". "He's my Romeo" or "he's such a Romeo", are not uncommon phrases to hear uttered out of a smitten woman's mouth in 2019.

All that being said, I think it is safe to say that Fitzgerald, Dickens, and Shakespeare were all obviously geniuses in their own right, whose legacies are still living on today. They are somehow so good, that they are dead and still contributing to society!

Fitzgerald 

Dickens 

Shakespeare