From the Outside

   

This morning I woke up to the sounds of birds chirping, the sun streaming through my window. Naturally my first thought was, "Oh No, I'm late for school!" And then something occurred to me that brought a smile to my face; it's summertime!  The 2011-12 school year has finally come to end.
     I have to admit, I'm not exactly proud of this year's accomplishments. I find it hard to believe that anyone would be proud of  narrowly escaping the last grading quarter with a "B" average! Thankfully we have this summer to collect our thoughts and find a new approach. I use "we" because I'm positive that I'm not the only one who would do this year differently.
    Summer is a time for big plans, and for great adventures. However none of these things will happen if people stay cooped up in their homes all day! That is why Oz and Neverland would like to promote a new campaign, From the Outside!

                    Go outside for an hour a day, that's all I ask! The mission is to flip things around so that the outside is in. What I mean is that we need to take the old phrase "from the out side looking in," and change the meaning so that we are on the outside, glancing in (looking might be creepy), but instead of jealousy, we feel sorry for those on the inside because they aren't experiencing the outside!
      It doesn't matter what you do as long as you step out, let the adventure find you. Whatever you do, don't forget to pass it on! Share your experience, because it is likely that someone else needs to experience the great outdoors just as bad as you did!              
                                                                                                                 

The Art Gallery

A blank canvas is really all one needs. In life, in work, in everything. The blank canvas is what we need in order to see the potential that we possess. We are born a blank canvas with the world ahead of us. For all anyone knows we could be the next Gandhi or the next Hitler. The beauty of it is that that decision is completely up to us. We can be whoever we want, and the size of the footprint we leave behind in this world can be as big or as small as we want it.
Life is made of a blank canvas and passion. A passion for everything we do. It has to feel right. Every action has to have the soul behind it every step of the way. So with that passion we can fill that blank canvas with the most beautiful works in the world. When those works come together, we see the single greatest display that has ever graced the face of the planet. There are plenty of people who will never fill their canvas to their potential, but why not try?
Or is life more abstract? Is there anything wrong with life just happening to us? There are others who just live life like a carnival jumping on one ride at a time with no intricate pattern. There is never a general one size fits all approach to life. That is figured out by the individual. What we know is that the individuals come together to make this unfathomable world we live in. That art gallery is the most complex collection there is. Philosophers have thought, and will continue to think on it until the end of time.
Think about it! How complicated is the world around us. We compare that to the highly organized galaxy outside this world, and we realize what we have around us here. Knowing that, consider what humanity adds to the beauty of the world and as an individual, the effect one has on the surrounding environment.

Remember...

Was there ever a time in the world without computers? I personally, have never owned one, nor do I own the memory of not seeing a monitor on the desk in the corner of our living room.
The first computer I remember was this gaudy white thing that took up three times more space than the current family computer. I remember putting the cd-rom games in; Reader Rabbit, Easy Bake, and Barbie's got a horse. It was also the same computer that distracted my dad just long enough to allow a three year old me to push my then one year old brother's baby walker down the stairs with him in it!
Later, when the out-dated computer was finally retired, it was moved to the basement play room. There, my brother and I would spend hours playing games such as, office, writer, etc.. The loud, clunky, space consuming computer is now residing in a landfill just outside of town.
The plan is to get myself a computer for my own use, but I will never forget the sound of the dial-up tone!

Parents are Ameteurs

    

 Fun fact, one of the most defining moments in a person's life is the day they discover their parents aren't perfect. For certain people, this happened at the ripe old age of, five. For others, the delusion lasts longer, much longer. Once this discovery is made, however it does not take long for us children to begin heedlessly pointing out these errors in our parental units.
     This goes on for sometime, until the "adults" can't handle it anymore! They have spent their child(ren)'s entire lives babying them along, suffering through the excruciating pain of sitting through our elementary school orchestra concerts, where the whole violin section never failed to sound as if someone were filing their nails on a chalkboard. After all of this, they are not going to stand around while an emotionally abusive teenager sit on some high pedestal, lecturing in disgust. Why should they have to, would you? No.
     So they do what comes naturally, take revenge. And eye for an eye, an insult for an insult. They start to point out every single little thing we do wrong, now their even. But, they want to make sure we get the message, so they take it one step further, they start looking for things we do wrong instead of just noticing them. This in turn, is the source of World War 5,893.  What gives us the right to pick on them, we're only teenagers? What do we know? We are amateurs!
     Hold it, amateurs, what a term? This is where our grandparents spring into laughter. What do our parents know about being parents? Did we arrive with some sort of manual explaining how to raise us? Of course not, parents have no idea what they are doing? That does not mean we need to point it out! Because, as we've, heard we don't know what we are doing either. So really no one should be picking out anyone else's flaws. The one thing parents do have on us teenagers, though, is that they have survived the teenage experience. They know a thing or two about life in our shoes. They probably have some advice to offer, if we take it. We just have to sort out, what's advice, and what's a frustrated insult. The next step is to communicate, ask for advice, tell your parents things they say that are insulting. When the airways are clear, World War 5, 893 becomes a happy healthy household.