The Green Light

So, I don't really have anything music wise to update on, but I know that I haven't just written to write (is that grammatically correct?) lately. I don't know, life's been stressful in a kind of not stressful way. If that makes any sense at all.

I have only one more quarter of junior year, if that counts for anything. I don't know, I think that this year wasn't nearly as stressful academically as I thought it was going to be. Or maybe it was, but I managed to take it in stride.

We finished reading The Great Gatsby in English. And I really liked it. F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda are actually buried in MD. Rockville to be exact. But here was my thought process with the book.

I liked the beginning. I felt that I could really relate to Nick Carraway the entire time, which it's kind of rare when I can really relate to a character. Usually I really hate them. I tend to really hate characters. And I mean, it's not because I necessarily can't see where the character is coming from or anything, it's usually because I find them extremely annoying. Chikako from Thousand Cranes for example (as anyone read that?). I really couldn't stand her, yet I decided to analyze her for my World Literature Paper. Weird. Whatever.

Back to what I was talking about. Nick Carraway. I think the reason I could relate to him so much is because of one of the first lines in the novel.

"Whenever you feel like criticizing any one," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had."

I don't know, and I hope that I don't sound like a snob, even though I probably will, but somehow I feel like I'm always trying to remind myself of that same fact. And not necessarily because I feel priviledged. Mainly because when I start freaking out about college and whether I'm going to get in, I forget that AP and IB classes aren't offered at every school and not every school is ranked in the top 100 schools in the country. And I guess I just forget that I go to a school with extremely competitive students. All of which I believe are smart (okay, maybe not all, but the ones that try) and I believe that I am also smart. And I tend to forget that a C in an IB class isn't really failing. I still love how my guidance counselor at school when looking at my transcript and noticing that I had one C that stood out, said, "Well, it's not like I could do it. So you're doing a good job." Confience. Hah.

But back to The Great Gatsby. I noticed that with Nick, although he tries to be a fair man, which I don't blame him for trying to be, it's not like he really tries to work for those who don't have the same chances as him, but he's not acting like Tom and putting down those he feels are inferior. Nick really just sits there. If you notice, although we have his narration, we never really hear Nick stand up for anyone. He just sort of sits. And you'd think that for a man raised on the principle that he must remember that not everyone is as well off as him, he'd be slightly more active. Yet, he doesn't seem to remark on Daisy, Tom, Jordan and all of the other posh East Egg inhabitants' demeanors until the end when he says,

"They were careless people, Tom and Daisy-- They smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money and their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made..."

I guess Nick can take pride in the fact that he isn't like Tom and Daisy. It is true that he does reach out to Gatsby and is able to call himself Gatsby's friend at the end. But there was so much about Gatsby that still makes me wonder if he was really Nick's friend in return. Or if he was just in it for Daisy. After all, Gatsby threw lavish parties in the hopes that Daisy would show up. All of the lies about Gatsby that Nick probably isn't sure of, and I do feel bad for possibly scorning their friendship, but it makes me wonder, how much was Gatsby invested. He himself didn't really have any friends. You could call Meyer Wolfsheim a friend, but even he doesn't show up for Gatsby's funeral. He says (another brilliant line from Fitzgerald),

"'Let us learn to show out friendship for a man when he is alive and not after he is dead,' he suggested. 'After that, my own rule is to let everything alone.'"

And that seems slightly characteristic of the people Gatsby surrounded himself with, except Nick. Daisy proved to be unreliable. However, I can't really blame her. Realistically speaking, Gatsby showed up in her life after five years, wanting her to immediately be in love with him again. Daisy had Pammy, Tom and her child and is married to Tom. Gatsby, who proves himself to be somewhat of a hopeless romantic and definitely trying to personify the american dream, especially after saying,

"'I wouldn't ask too much of her,' I ventured. 'You can't repeat the past.'

'Can't repeat the past?' he cried incredulously. 'Why of course you can!'"

And I do realize that this is a stretch and I'm probably getting carried away with myself as I often do. But, what I'm trying to say is that, Nick doesn't do anything. There is Gatsby always searching for that one way to gain back what he used to have, never being satisfied with what is already there, and there is Tom and Daisy, who in a different way, aren't satisfied with themselves either. It's all sort of twisted. Nick, although he says it of the Buchanans, is also careless.

And to get back to my original point, what Nick makes me see in myself is that acknowledging the fact that you may be better off than someone else, just isn't enough. Of course, there is often nothing you can do to fix it, and on that level I understand why Nick is stuck in a position where he cannot enable. But it still bothers me. And I try not to feel bad when I'm reminded that I'm acting like a snob over something I can't help, but I always do.

Another good quote is,

"Reversing judgements is a matter of infintie hope. I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundemental decencies are parcelled out unequally at birth."

I can't help but agree. I'm sure that someone else, on the other end of the spectrum as me would too. And this is where I start to feel bad, and may I say that I don't entend to sound so degrading or snobbish when I explain this, but I have an example. My cousin lives in what I like to call 'Hickville USA' or 'Podunk California' and it's true. Her MySpace will back me up. But her life and my life, although we come from the same family (which is by marriage, I should add), our lives couldn't be more different. It is true that my dad did join the Air Force right out of high school and then went to college after four years. For the most part (and with probably a majority of my mom's influence since she's from Berkeley), that is why I live in DC. My dad did always want more than what was going to be offered to him in Humbolt County, but if he hadn't I'm sure that I would not be here today, or someon equivilant of me would. Who knows. I won't get into that.

But my cousin, she lives on a ranch that my grandparents own. Her parents are split up, she hates her father's wife, she doesn't go to school regularly (never planned on going to college when she was in school), doesn't really live with her mom or her dad and doesn't have any friends her age. She's only a year older than me too. When she was 15 she had a 21 year old boyfriend and didn't have any girl friend who were her age. All of her 21 year old friends were boys anyways, too. Frankly, I never understood and still don't understand her life.

And through talking to  my grandmother and aunts (not her mom, but my dad's sister. Remember, my cousin is my dad's step brother's daughter) and uncles and my dad, I've come to the understanding that I happened to get the better half of that stick. Except, it's not to say that my cousin would necessarily want what I have. Each time she asks me what I up too, my response is always, "I'm really busy with school and crew". Who's to say that she would want that? What Psychology with nature vs. nurture, nurture says that she wouldn't. She's grown up with the ranch and rodeo and without a big city. And that's fine. If she's happy, that's all that matters. But I can't help in my belief that everyone deserves the same oppertunities. And maybe that's where Nick finds conflict. He said that reversing judgements is a matter of infinite hope. Is it my judgement that she would be better if she had what I had? Is that spolied or selfish? Or would it be more fair to just rest with the fact that she's happy and in her environment what she has sufficies.

And I keep thinking "If they have what I had" and it makes me feel like a huge snob. I don't take for granted the fact that my parents can pay for my college education and a financially demanding sport on top of that. I really don't. I'm extremely thankful. And although I don't go to private school (I almost did), my public school has the resources of a private school. I do live in one of the most expensive counties in the country.

I also realize that those things I also cannot help. And that's when decencies are parcelled out unequally. But like Nick, I want "the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever".

And frankly I hate when people whom I've just met from other places tell me about the kinds of classes I'm taking. I hate having to describe what the International Bacceloriate Programme is. It makes me uncomfortable because not only does my school have pretty much every AP class under the sun, it has an international equivilant of AP classes too. And it's not uncommon for someone to be full AP or full IB. I take both. And at my school honors classes are on level. I remember being embarrassed to be taking honors NSL instead of AP NSL like my friends (which I now understand was a good decision on my part).

I know that I will never fully understand why it is that I feel conflicted over what I have. I know I shouldn't. I'm probably the stereotype most people try and avoid, and I know that I tried to avoid for most of middle school (but what did I know then anyways).

What's unfortunate is that even after writting all of this, and the fact that I've taken a book to trying to help figure out who it is that I really am is very classic of me, I'm still feeling the same as I did when I started. This is probably my queue to stop writting about this now.

Maybe reason will come in time. Or it won't.

But I'll leave you with this, just like Fitzgerald did:

"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

Not Another Fan Girl,
Amanda