Home Is What You Make It?

It's been told countless times by countless people (one of which being that linguistically challenged farmer from Joe Dirt) that "Home Is Where You Make It".

For me, I can agree with this sentiment entirely.

Home is lighting every candle and incense stick in a five mile radius

I currently live at home with two parents who care deeply about me and hope the best for me. However, that house isn't what home is to me.

Home is the place where I don't have to perform for anyone. Home is the place where the family I've created out of my dearest friends and closest found loved ones will be. Home is neither here nor there but somewhere in-between, where time holds little meaning compared to the good times being spent. Home is where 2:00 AM Taco Bell and scratch made Chicken Paprikash are both the most delicious meals in the world. Home is watching as many Studio Ghibli movies as one can in a row and quoting the lines word for word. Home is blurring the line between playing cards and diving fortune out of them. Home is walking out into the brisk midnight darkness to stare up at the infinite cosmos and wonder in amazement at the universe that I and my family I've found and come to love are a part of.

Home isn't just where you make it - home is also what you make it.

How to be Educated

I spent the first twenty or so years of my life in a small town called Chatham in the worst state of America: New Jersey. Chatham was an exceptionally wealthy town that I believe had one of the better public school systems in the state - and in that same vein, New Jersey seems to have the best school systems in the entire country.

"The Best" in the state

So for me, school was meant to be an immense and important part of my life.


Unfortunately, I didn't like it very much. The majority of the students in my school were, in my personal experience, appreciated less as individual minds with varying skills and areas of expertise and more as numbers to fit a statistic. If we weren't "academically inclined", as in excelled working in academia apart from other areas (ie: theatrics, arts, literature and creative writing, hands on skillsets, etc.) we were pushed along anyway. I often think of the stereotypical teacher/writer relationship in "Feel-Good" movies where the misunderstood and outcasted student who's ridiculed by his or her peers discovers a teacher who appreciates and recognizes their incredible talent in an alternative field and helps them discover their own success and achievement. I often see myself as one of those misunderstood students, only I never had a teacher to help me find my own unique value and talent I had to offer.

Most of my peers would agree that our school sucked. Most of our teachers had no personality, were incredibly biased and opinionated, or was just following their syllabus and semester schedule with the intensity of a religious zealot. What I learned most from school was that I probably wouldn't learn what I wanted to learn from -that- school. Instead, I learned how to teach myself the things I truly was interested in and how to handle the overload of work I was getting from the undesired classes I had to take (with my fair share of disappointing grades).

Now, as an adult in college, I find I fit in far better than I used to. Going to a college (community or otherwise) is an opportunity where you as an individual are sought after. Professors and fellow students want to see what kind of differing ideas you bring to the discussion. The differences in where we all excel, wether academically, creatively, or skillset-wise are what makes for an even richer and fuller classroom experience.

I look forward to seeing what the rest of our class this semester will teach me.

An Interview

Language is an ever evolving creature and the internet has done wonders to assist in helping others learn of the new ways it changes and evolves. Websites like Urban Dictionary are constantly updating with dozens of new words and variations of slang and cultural jargon. However, one word that I've stumbled across in my many adventurous interweb explorations was from The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. The word that had captured my eye and ignited my mind was "Sonder".

Courtesy of [ http://www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/ ]

Quite often in life we have a tendency to fumble, bumble, and stumble around completely focussed on our own footing and willfully oblivious to any and everything else going on around us. By this I mean, we have a habit of only paying attention to what's going on in our lives and ignoring or not even considering that the people around us also have lives just as fascinating and complicated as our own!

It's in the same vein as the definition of 'sonder' that I found an opportunity to get to know one of my fellow classmates a bit better.

Her name is Samara Jones, and she's a lovely human being.

Samara had lived most of her life in New Jersey (like myself) but has been living in Pennsylvania for about two years presently. She's a single mother with a 13 year old son that is the world to her. She expressed in the deepest and most heartfelt way during our conversation just how much she loves being a Mother and how dear her son is to her. When she isn't being one of the best Mom's in Pennsylvania, Samara is always working hard both at work and at school. She's currently studying nursing and explained how through her life she's desired to help people. One of her greatest dreams is to, in some small way, shape, or form, help discover a cure for cancer. After losing so many loved ones to the disease, she wants to do all she can to help others from having to go through the same pain.

Samara had told me she thinks family is an important aspect in life that's lost some of it's luster in the present day. She gets along quite well with her parents now - but that wasn't quite the case growing up. Her Father was a Pastor at a Pentecostal Christian Church and, as such, had an immensely strict and confined upbringing. She described how back during her childhood she grew up in the Church, never going on many outings or venturing far outside of the pews and doors. However, despite the strict lifestyle, Samara learned that she loved to sing by being part of the church choir. To this very day she still writes songs in her spare time.

Music is also a big part of her other siblings lives as her younger brother is an aspiring hip-hop rap artist whom she, her older sister, and their parents support wholeheartedly.

Despite being single presently, Samara's a hopeless romantic who knows many great times are still ahead of her. And until then, she'll keep working hard both at work and parenting, studying hard to make a difference in the world, and occasionally watching the best Horror Movies (of which we can both agree is the greatest genre of movie).

Who Actually Blogs Anymore?

More often than not I find the term 'blogging' to be akin to someone jabbing their fingers into the spots just under your rib-cage or the sound of someone with really wet lips slobbering talking directly into your ear ...

Can you hear it?

So naturally when you find yourself at 22 years old at a Community College attempting to complete a degree in a Trade Major that you really despise and would much rather be pursuing your passions and dreams of writing and art, but have been convinced that this is how to make money and survive in life as a grownup; you tend to compromise way more than anything.

That being said, I guess for the price of a passing grade in my English101 class, I'm now a Blogger.

Stay tuned. Maybe there will be art and deep fulfilling commentary on my growth and development as a person.

I'm full of shit it's totally just going to be homework and memes.

- K.