A Letter to John Green upon finishing his new novel, The Fault in Our Stars

I am going to begin this fan letter with two beginnings, as illogical as that may seem.

1) This will probably get lost in what I'm sure is a sea of fan letters due to TFiOS coming out, but I am going to send it anyway since I just finished it and its 3am and the sleep deprivation and emotion is causing me to have zero reservations (and quite possibly poor editing/grammar).

2) I have never cried so much at a book or movie or song or, to my recent memory, an actual life event.

There are a few reasons your novel had such an impact on me. The biggest one is the fact I have a huge fear of death that causes me to go into mild panic attacks whenever I think too hard about it. Like Augustus, I am terrified of oblivion and want to leave a mark. Looking for Alaska really helped me cope with the idea of losing someone. This book helped me cope with the idea of facing of death. These characters, with the flaws that all humans have, were strong and made me so grateful for my health and my family and my friends and everything. Hazel and Augustus and Isaac made me value and appreciate my infinite infinity more, rather than me freaking out about the oblivion of it all. Not to say your book cured me, because it didn’t, but it really helped my perspective (Side note: I LOVE Augustus’ ideas about romanticizing the dead. I agree completely).

Another reason for my emotional response is due to my boyfriend. He is a firefighter who has suffered great loss and has either a great or a reckless perspective on death, depending on how you look at it. He’s like a more intense version of Hazel and I’m a less charming version of Augustus. We’ve been dating for about a year and half. There have been many moments where my thoughts are stars that unfortunately form into constellations and I think about the danger his job entails. When would I get the call? Who would call me? Where would I have to go? What should I say or do? How much would it break me? I’ve always stopped myself from thinking about it when I feel my eyes burning, but Hazel brought all of my repressed imaginings out. From her beautiful eulogy that mirrors how I feel to the process she had to go through after his death, all of my fears and feelings got brought out. After a long break from TFiOS to sob my fears, I felt like going through that with Hazel was therapeutic. Like Augustus, there’s an 80% chance my boyfriend will retire completely alive. But there is still the 20% I tried to pretend didn’t exist. Your characters helped me confront that.

The last reason I will list, though absolutely not the least, is your absolutely brilliant writing and insights. All of your books are full of perfectly blended humor and poignancy. I will be going along reading the plot and, woven effortlessly, will be a sentence or two insight that absolutely blows my mind. Even if you don’t claim yourself as a poet, your love of poetry definitely translates into your writing. Everything you write has such poetic brevity to it, and I feel like TFiOS is the most poetic of all your works. As an aspiring author fresh out of college, I felt inspired and inadequate while reading your writing. Essentially, if you ever say you are a bad or mediocre writer again, I will become a giant squid of anger. =)

Thank you so much for, not only this book, but for all your books, and for all the work you do for Nerdfighteria. I’ve been a Nerdfighter since 2008 and am very proud to be so.

A Call for a Dictionary on Love

Such pressure has been put on the word "love" from society that people are terrified to use it. Sometimes this pressure and uncertainty of another's feelings leads to the destruction of relationships, friendships, and family ties. There needs to be more synonyms for the word "love." Sure, there are a lot of expressions to show the different kinds of love. "I want you." "I miss you." "If something happened to you, I would be very upset." "I want to spend forever with you." The list goes on and on. People use the word "love" to express all of those crazy emotions love can bring when you may not necessarily feel all of them. Why aren't there synonyms for the different kinds and stages of love?

I believe the expression to encompass all those dedicated emotions, the kind of love that means "I am eternally faithful to you and want to spend my life with you" should be "in love." Say "I'm in love with you" when you want to be with someone forever. However, those pile of emotions are strong and scary to gather and contain within our fragile bodies. That kind of love takes years, often not ever, to come across.

This is where the synonyms come into play. The basic term "love" should be used in the most general sense possible. Saying "I love you" to someone should mean "I care about you. I want to help you with your life. I hope we are around each other for awhile. If you were no longer a part of my life, it would be hard." It can be used with any intimate person in your life, such as family, best friends, friends with benefits, boyfriends, girlfriends, etc.

Then there are all the stages in between.

"I want to sleep with you" should be something silly and cheesy, like "tango."
"I need you here for [insert reason here]" should be something to do with "longing."
"I want a distraction from this pain" should be a less emergency version of "help."
"I need advice/I want to give you advice" should have something to do with "expertise."

The most confusing form of love is the kind between dating couples. It all starts with the lust (or "tango"). But each couple is different, and the progression of their love could include vastly different feelings. This is the kind of love that most calls for synonyms. There is the ever present "tango." Then "longing." Often "help/expertise." And, if it continues, the imagination takes over. Couples decide they want to stay together for a while. It doesn't mean forever. It doesn't mean I want to have your babies. It means, "I like this. I like you. I don't want to see you out of my life for any reason. Plus our tango is awesome." Where is the word for that? How can you express that form of love without pushing your significant other away?

The overrating of the word love causes (seldom) epic romances and (often) complete catastrophes. People that could have gone the distance don't because of a "wrong" use of love. Or they say "love" but each person in the relationship could have a different definition, causing friction in the future. But not ever using an expression of love, missing the opportunities to express to your significant other how you feel about them at whatever level you are at, also causes problems. The invention of love synonyms would only benefit every type of love and person there is out there. Think of how much the success rates of couples would go up if only there were clear cut definitions to the most mysterious and consuming feeling in the history of the world.

Nice Guys Finish Eventually

It has been a while since I posted. Class has been eating up my time, along with work. I haven't even been able to write on my own private stuff or read books that are not for class. But I am taking this time to make a point to those "nice guys" everywhere.

I have a problem with keeping and maintaining guy friends. Usually the only guy friends I can have are in relationships already. This puts a lovely boundary between us that makes it clear, up front, we are just friends, and that's as far as we will ever need to go.

I do tend to get a few guy friends who are single. They are great guys and I love talking to them. Then suddenly they start acting strange around me, or they put up cryptic Facebook statuses about wanting to go further with their girl friends.* I usually confront them about it, and then they admit to having a "crush" on me. The problem is I am past the romantic ideas and consider them simply a friend. I try to tell them, if they can handle it, we can still be friends. This never works out, and they usually fade into oblivion. Consequently I go through my fair share of guy friends.

This is a problem the "nice guy" complains about. How he can never get a girlfriend. How girls are always going after the "bad guy" when the "nice guy" is standing right there, holding her hand through the drama. What the "nice guy" doesn't realize is he brings it upon himself.

When girls first meet a guy, the reflex is to size him up and picture him and her together. The longer they are acquainted with the guy, the more or less the visions occur. The amount of daydreaming depends completely on the guy.

There is a fine, fine line between "friend" and "romance." Most nice guys are timid about getting into the romance. They start off too nice for too long. Girls will flirt a little with a guy, and if he responds in a more platonic than romantic way, the visions will abate slightly. The longer a guy acts platonic around a girl, the more she will consider him a boy friend as opposed to a boyfriend.** Once a guy moves into the "friend zone," it can be counted, in most cases, as a lost cause. You are now the friend and you will probably stay the friend.

This has been my problem with my guy friends who have faded from my life. They acted too nice and they were filed under the friend category in my mind. Now, there were small signs with these guy friends that they would potentially want to take the friendship further. But once the dude gets into the "friend zone," a girl tends to bury the little hints of romance in her unconscious, only to be examined once the friendship is exposed as a ruse for bigger relationship dreams.

There are two ways for the "nice guy" to push past the stereotype and become the boyfriend. At the very beginning, the meeting of boy and girl, the "nice guy" needs to be slightly more aggressive. This is also a fine line, since you don't want to make it seem like you just want to get into her pants. A good way to show interest is by light flirting, including small touches. A brief hand on the arm, leg, or back. Moving a strand of hair out of her face. Even leaning against her slightly when standing or pressing your leg to hers while sitting. It can't be overt and your speech should still be how you normally would talk. However if she insinuates a further interest with speech, you should insinuate one back.

A counter arguement to the aggressive first meeting scenario that a "nice guy" uses is that, at first, he isn't entirely sure he's that interested. This is completely understandable as the girl feels the same way upon the first meeting. However it is better to show some early interest even if you aren't sure. If you want the relationship, keep it up. If you want to just be her friend, then back off on the flirting and move yourself into the friend zone (something all nice guys are naturally good at, so no reason to wonder how you can get there). If you find out you can't stand her, phase out the contact.

The second way is for those who did not follow Way Number One and are stuck in the "friend zone." Way Number Two is more unfortunate a situation for a guy to be found in, for it is tedious and he must have great patience. There is a one-way street out of the "friend zone," and let me tell you, it is a bitch of a road since girls are essentially selfish, spotlight hungry beings. A guy basically has to be the best guy friend that ever was, and cannot put pressure on her for "more." He has to be impartial to her relationships, give great advice, hold her when she and the "bad guy" go through tough times, listen, care, and support. You have to ride through for x amount of time, and the friend veil will soon begin to lift and she will start to see the boyfriend as opposed to the boy friend. While this way is trying, it can dually be the best option, for it builds a strong foundation for a great romantic relationship.

I hope this unscientific rant made sense to everyone, and if you know a guy who is sick of being the "nice guy" stereotype stuck in the "friend zone," please feel free to send him the link to this post. It might make all the difference, for men and women alike.


*Note the space between "girl" and "friend" translates to a friend who happens to be of the female gender. If "girl" and "friend" are pushed together (i.e.: girlfriend), this translates to a girl you are exclusively dating.

**Perfect example of the above.

What if...

I was changing out my computer monitors when I found a blog idea I wrote at work. I thought I would go ahead and post it, even though it's not exactly a complete thought.

There is a memory I have from 4th grade that is very distinct. It was an overcast day and we were watching an educational movie in the subject of science, I believe. The lights were kept off after the movie and the whole classroom looked blue.

My teacher sat in a director's chair in the front corner of the classroom, opposite of her angled desk. We were asking questions about the movie. Well, I was listening to other people's questions. Even though I had my own wonderings, burning my conscious, I kept quiet. Shyness has crippled me from being vocal all my life.

Anyway, the kids got into a whole slew of "What if..." questions. At first my teacher tried answering them, but she soon became exasperated.

"You could sit here and ask 'What if?' all day until you are blue in the face. You will never run out of those questions. Focus on real, answerable questions you have!" she finally said, her voice fast because of irritation.

That has bothered me ever since I first heard it. I've always had a huge imagination, and I believe "what if" defines that perfectly. I only get story ideas by seeing something small and then thinking, "What if...?" From there my imagination takes off with fictitious people, places and situations.

Not only with fiction, "what if" also has lead to some of the greatest discoveries of all time. I understand that my teacher was tired of answering questions that had little to do with the subject matter, but telling kids not to ask "what if" is like telling them not to think.

I believe everyone, young and old, should think "what if." Great things could happen.

Attack of the Pizza Dough

There are many excellent reasons why I do not cook. And one is not because I'm a feminist who is trying to break the gender roles. Mostly the reason why I spend as little time as possible in a kitchen is because food hates me.

Now, I know you can argue that food hates everybody. While it does give us energy, the good-for-the-soul food makes us pack on the pounds. But really, food hates me so much that it actively seeks to destroy me.

Last night I was helping my mom make dinner. I am attempting to learn the basics so I am not relying on dining hall hours and Taco Bell for nourishment when I get an apartment this fall. We weren't even making anything difficult...just paninis and instant noodles. My mom was busy prepping the sandwiches for our handy dandy panini maker. She told me to start on the noodles. The instructions were beyond simple, so I thought I could handle it.

Step one: bring water, milk, and butter (optional) to a boil.

Right. Easy. I bring water to a boil all the time for Ramen Noodles.

I do everything perfectly and am trying to break up the butter while the water is heating up. I forget the reason why, but I turn around for, literally, two seconds. When I face the stove once more, the water-milk-butter concoction is rising rapidly to the top of the pan, frothing and bubbling in resentment for not giving it enough attention.

Panic sets in and I can't for the life of me think of what I can do to stop the mess from spilling over. I ferociously twist the burner to medium heat, but even in my distress I know it won't be enough.

"Mom! Help!" I scream.

Now here is the thing about my mom. Her mind is full of 50,000 thoughts, all running through at the same time. So sometimes when you talk to her, she doesn't respond until you are halfway through a thrilling tale about a customer from work, saying, "Sorry, what?"

At the time of the over boiling, my mother's mind was not permitting her to be conscious of the world around her. Futilely, I yelled, "Help! Help! Help!" I could not tear my eyes away from the water now at the brink of escape, still I knew help wouldn't come. This is when, for some reason, my subconscious tapped into my two semesters of college Spanish. "Ayuda! Ayuda! Ayuda!"*

The ridiculous part, more so than my last resort as a girl born and raised in Missouri to start shouting in Spanish as a distress signal, is that my mother immediately responded to a foreign language she could barely count to ten in. Sure, English she can completely ignore, but once the Spanish rolls out she is all ears. Still in my panic, I conserved this nugget of information for later attention-getting use.

My mother ran over and moved the volcano mixture from the burner, scolding me for not doing that before, then asked, "What the hell were you shouting at me?"

I quickly explained what my mind decided to perform, she made jokes at my expense, and we continued on with dinner. Of course with my luck, this was not the last incident of the night.

The noodles turned out okay and I started helping my mom with the sandwiches. She had just bought avocados and tried to cut into one for a spread on the panini, but they were too ripe. I remembered we had a package of store bought guacamole in the meat drawer of our refrigerator and went to get it. It took some digging around due to how packed our fridge is, but I finally extricated it and handed it over.

I started to shove the drawer shut and I think the motion is what set it off. There was an earsplitting bang and I felt a blast of wind. Shrapnel hit my neck and face. I could feel it embedding into my hair. I stood in shock, my hands curled oddly in the air close to my face. I analyzed the fridge and saw the culprit of the bomb. It was a pizza dough can that had been standing upright and sealed on a shelf. Now it was pointed at me, like a cannon after a firing, with dough spilling out of the exploded top.

The shock still controlled me and I stood there, shaking slightly as I stared at the fridge. I could feel my mom whirling around me. Eventually she asked why I was standing there. Excited tears stung my eyes as I said, "Thedoughcanexplodedatme!" My mom was in her own thoughts again and didn't register what I said (that and I was talking really fast and in a high soprano).

I ran to the mirror in the living room to evaluate the damage. My neck was stinging all over and I saw angry red blotches covering the skin there. Small bits of dough were tangled in my hair and dotting my face.

"Oh, the pizza dough exploded?" my mom called casually from the kitchen.

With insane laughter I ran back in, shouting about how the pizza dough was a bomb that tried to kill me. I yanked my high collar shirt out of the way to give her a better view of the red marks and yelled about how much my neck was stinging.

My mother made more jokes at my expense, and my brother told me to shut up since he was online playing Call of Duty.

I took this night as a resolution of why I do not cook. The food is ready to attack me if I come anywhere near it.

*For all you Spanish speaking peoples, I know that's technically wrong. But I only had two semesters of Spanish, and it was a year ago. That was the first version of "help" that came out. Yes, "Socorro!" would have been more appropriate, but what my subconscious wants my subconscious does.

The Hunger Games and New Books

Song of the Post: United States Of Eurasia/Collateral Damage by Muse

Book of the Post: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Just like the movie Julie and Julia, my official readers are my mother and her friend. That's fine though, since this is more of an exercise in voice than a popularity contest. Plus my mom shrieks with indignation whenever I say I might delete the account.

I'll start this post with my new feature at the top of this: song and book postings. I love reading. I love music. I think the two go hand in hand, especially when you find a song that fits a book perfectly. Which is why my iPod is full of book playlists. The same goes for writing and music.

I feel like this Muse song matches the tone of The Hunger Games perfectly. I'm sure if I were to investigate it further (which I guarantee I will), most Muse songs would fit this novel beautifully.

I've had The Hunger Games for awhile (stolen from my 14 year old brother...don't tell). Having heard the insane internet hype around this book, I have avoided reading it since I knew it would take up a lot of my time, and mind. Proven correct, I spent my entire day reading it.

Words currently can't describe my love of this book, there is too much obsession. This is how it is for me when I read new books. I can't focus on anything else until I finish the book, which was trying when I was reading Gone with the Wind during a very hard semester at college. This is especially true for when I first read Harry Potter, Twilight, The Time Traveler's Wife, The Lovely Bones, This Lullaby, The Things They Carried, Gone with the Wind, and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (my favorite book for those curious). And with the exception of Gone with the Wind, I read all of these books before they were hyped up. Some still aren't, as is the case with The Things They Carried and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

This is primarily why I have a horrible habit of loving books and re-reading them a thousand times before moving onto a new one. I know a new book will take up 85% of my life until I finish it. Even once I finish the blasted thing, simply thinking about it takes up 43% of my life. I will often cancel social plans to read/obsess. Yes, I chose fictional people over real people. More on that in another post.

The other reason for me not starting new books is my impossibility to put a book down halfway through and never finish it. Just like I hate stopping/walking out of movies without finishing them. No matter how bad the book is, I simply have to finish it or it gnaws at me.

I wonder if I am the only one with this problem. I won't have an answer for a while, since I know my mom basically sticks with Stephen King and Stephenie Meyer (a hilarious conundrum for those who know about the Stephen vs Stephenie battle) and her friend doesn't like reading novels. But if anyone ever reads this besides them two, please let me know if you have this problem, and then recommend some books that don't deserve to be put down, along with their probable obsession level (a scale of one to ten would do fine).

There's a first time for everything

Yeah. So. I'm blogging. *scratches head*

I really don't know what I'm doing here. This was a very spur of the moment decision to search "blog" on Givoogle (more on that later, I think.). The whole idea was presented to me at an annual Christmas party. The conversation went something like this:

My cousin: "What are you planning on majoring in?"

Me: "English in Writing."

My cousin: "That's cool, but...well I hate to say this, but there are not many jobs out there for English majors."

Me (sighing internally): "I get that, but there's not much else I enjoy enough to study that extensively."

My cousin: "You know what you should do?"

Me: "What's that?"

My cousin: "Start a blog."

Me (laughing): "I don't have anything to say that anyone would care about reading. Plus, I thought blogs were a little 2002. Like Xanga."

My cousin: "No, blogs are really popular. It can't hurt to try."

And that brings me to now, sitting at my computer with stacks of CD's to add to my iTunes and tons of stories in my head to write.

Hmm.

I should probably explain more about myself, I suppose.

I am nineteen, turning twenty in May. I live in Missouri. I have a full ride scholarship to a local community college, but this fall I am transferring to University of Missouri - Columbia. And my dream career is to be a novelist, my backup career is non-existent.

Go ahead, laugh at my impracticality. I'll wait.

...

Okay, you good? All out of your system? Awesome, moving right along.

I don't know what I am going to write about or how consistent the posts will be. But I think it might be good practice. Like stretching before working out, I could write blogs to encourage me to write more on my own fictional stories. Perhaps even post excerpts and get feedback from any readers I might maybe get.

I'll promise up front that I won't write about boring teenage/early twenties drama. For example: "Like O-M-G! Billy TOTALLY smiled at me today!" or "Like O-M-G! Edward Cullen is so perfect and Taylor Lautner is so sexy!"

Even though I am a Twilight fan. Once again, laugh. I shall wait.

...

This time I'm cutting off your laughter. If you are still reading this nonsensical post, that is.

Allow me to explain the title of this blog, called "The Labyrinth." It took a while to even think of an idea, since I have no idea where I'm going with this. "The Labyrinth" is a reference to a favorite book of mine by author/vlogger John Green titled Looking for Alaska. Here is the specific quote I was considering:

"You spend your whole life stuck in the labyrinth, thinking about how you'll escape it one day, and how awesome it will be, and imagining the future keeps you going, but you never do it. You just use the future to escape the present."

That's a small part of the book. The idea of life being "a labyrinth of suffering" runs throughout the entire novel. I feel like that is what my posts will generally be concerning...me finding a way through the labyrinth.

I'll wrap this up with what I mentioned at the beginning of the post: Givoogle. This is the same as Google, only it was created by Emerson Spartz and his fiancé Gaby Montero. Every time you search something on this site, advertisers pay these two lovely people money. The more people who search and see their ads, the more the advertisers pay the creators. Emerson and Gaby are donating 100% of the money they get from advertisements to help find a cure for cancer. To quote them: "If just 0.01% of people currently using Google switch to Givoogle, we can raise millions of dollars to fight cancer!" This search engine is set as my homepage and I talk about it as much as I can to get people to use it. So go use it, now, because I said so =)

Until next time, folks!