Yesterday, I went back to my middle school to watch a close family friend graduate from eighth grade. Other than a cursory tour that I'd given my cousin a couple of years back, it was my first time stepping into my middle school since I myself had graduated seven years ago. The whole experience gave me so much to think about that I had to write a blog about it.
I arrived about ten minutes late and to my chagrin, I missed the processional. I came in through the back of the gym where the graduation was taking place, and I saw that the bleachers, which are small to begin with, were almost empty. There were chairs set up on the gym floor and almost all the attendees as well as the band were in the chairs. It was the smallest graduation I'd been to in a while. I'd forgotten just how small my middle school was. As I came in by the bleachers, some of the sixth and seventh graders looked at me (naturally), and I suddenly felt very awkward. Thank God, my friend's dad showed up around the same time as me, and I found him and a seat almost immediately after that.
I arrived just in time for the student speeches. A couple of students spoke about all the good memories they had of elementary and middle school (since everyone in the middle school went to the same elementary school). As expected, they sounded very fond of their time there. As I recounted my own memories of middle school, I felt awkward again. The students spoke of a strong community, of having good friends for life, while I remembered feeling excluded almost all the time and wondering if I would ever have any friends. What made it worse was knowing that my poor friend hadn't fared much better than me. Not much had changed in seven years.
It certainly wasn't all bad, though. I loved elementary school, so it made me happy when the students talked about memories from there. I happened to sit behind a couple of teachers from elementary school who still remembered me and were eager to hear about how my life had been going. It was really nice to see them. Also, one of the student speakers talked about the various achievements of my middle school's sports and academic teams over the past year, and it was funny to listen to because again, nothing had really changed in seven years. The basketball teams were still terrible. Cross country, volleyball and wrestling were decent, and an eighth grader had to miss graduation because he was competing at the National Spelling Bee. Same academics and athletics.
They presented a couple of awards, and then they called up all 48 students to get their diplomas. I was so proud of my friend. Many of the girls impressed me by wearing fashionable short dresses and extremely high heels that I can't even wear now at age 20, but my friend wore a silver-grey floor length dress with gold jewelry and her hair up in a bun. She looked so unique and elegant and classy. When I took pictures with her, she looked a lot better than I did.
After the graduation ceremony, we went to a nearby hotel for the after party. When I'd graduated, I hadn't even gone to my after party, so it was all new to me. As it happened, my friend's family and I ended up next to the new principal and the new superintendent, both of whom were very nice. After dinner, we watched a special movie that some students or the PTA had made, showing memories and the students answering various questions about their experiences. One of the questions they asked, naturally, was what the kids wanted to do with their future. Everyone had pretty high goals, which was good, but my friend made me proud again when she said she wanted to do something that made her happy and helped people.
After the movie, the dancing began. At first it was awkward to even watch the middle schoolers dance, let alone get on the dance floor. But as time went on and they played songs that the adults and I liked (namely the Cuban Shuffle), I got onto the floor to dance, though I generally kept my distance from the graduates as it was their night. Around this time I met a former classmate whose sister had graduated that night. I believe we were the only twenty-somethings who stayed for the dancing, so I was happy that neither of us would have to be alone. We got kiddie cocktails at the bar (she doesn't drink much and I'm not 21 yet) and had fun together.
The graduates danced in a very tight circle which didn't even take up the entire dance floor. My friend alternated between dancing in the circle and coming out to dance with her mom or me and my classmate. At one point, she was with me and she was looking at the circle but she wasn't sure if she could enter in. On the outside of the circle, I saw another girl in a beige dress and shorter heels who had won three big awards during the ceremony and had given the first student speech. I recognized her immediately. The girl looked back, and when she saw my friend hesitating, she took my friend's hand and pulled her into the circle to dance with the others. You don't forget people like that. The girl was quite the big shot, and she could have easily blended in with the popular group, yet she was still nice to people who weren't as popular as her. There was a girl like that in my graduating class who always at least tried to make me feel included. Her name was Katherine, but everyone called her K.K. I haven't forgotten her to this day, and I don't think I ever will.
I drove my friend home that night, and after I got home I couldn't stop thinking about it. It was quite the bag of mixed feelings. Memories flooded my head throughout the ceremony and even the dance, and it was interesting how that same themes of awkwardness and loneliness that had defined my middle school experience came back to see me again, as if they were old friends. I'm certainly not nostalgic for middle school at all, but I'm not angry about my experience either; I think it gave me a lot of compassion and made me stronger, and I can see that in my friend too. Also, I made friends in high school and college, so that awkwardness phase was definitely past for me. Coming back, it just felt like looking through a scrapbook and thinking through all the memories, good and not so good. My biggest hope now is that my friend has a wonderful high school experience so that if she ever comes back for a graduation ceremony, she'll feel the same way as I do.
Thursday, May 28, 2015
Wednesday, February 25, 2015
Lessons from cartoons and video games #2/?: Digimon
My brother and I watched a lot of cartoons and played a lot of video games as children...and that hasn't changed as we've grown up. We still watch cartoons and play video games, and every so often, I find something within a cartoon or video game which I think is insightful and should be written down somewhere. Thus, this series. This is the second post, and it's all about Digimon!
UPDATE: You can now read a slightly edited version of this on the Harvard Ichthus!!!! This is the link to that: http://harvardichthus.org/2015/04/christ-and-cartoons-how-a-digimon-imitated-jesus/. What you're reading below is the original version.
***
Over winter break last year, my brother and I found the second season of Digimon on Netflix, and we decided to watch that season all the way through. Note: for those who haven't seen the second season of Digimon, this blogpost will have spoilers. So if you want to watch it without spoilers, go watch it on Netflix and then come back here. It was fun to relive those Saturday mornings when we would wake up early to watch shows like Digimon as kids, and it was fun to see how we reacted as adults to some of the stuff we watched thirteen (!!!) years ago.
One thing that didn't change much was of the six main characters, my favorite character was Ken. I couldn't really explain why when I was a kid, but as an adult I figured it out. In the first part of the season, Ken was the Digimon Emperor, an evil genius who took over the Digital World (the place where all the Digimon live) and ruled it with an iron fist. He was a very cruel Emperor, making the Digimon work for him as slaves, making them evil by taking over their minds with Dark Rings, and punishing those who didn't obey. For most of the first part of the season, the five other main characters were trying to stop Ken, and everyone knew he was a jerk...except his Digimon partner, Wormmon. (People who have never watched Digimon must be finding this very weird to read! I hope you all get this.)
Wormmon had been assigned to Ken as a Digimon partner before he became the Emperor, and he remembered that before Ken became the Emperor, he was a very kind boy. However, a series of events including his brother's death and being infected with a "dark spore" made Ken very spiteful and evil. Ken even treated Wormmon like a slave, and at one point, he rejected Wormmon as his Digimon partner and tried to create a new Digimon partner for himself, one that was bigger and stronger than Wormmon. This new partner was a monster, and he eventually went mad and started destroying everything. When Wormmon realized that Ken's new partner was going to destroy everything, he finally told Ken everything he thought about him, but despite Ken's treatment of him and all the other Digimon, Wormmon told Ken that he still remembered the kind boy that Ken used to be, and that he hoped that Ken would become that person again. He then gave all of his life energy to defeat the monster, saving Ken and the other main characters. That event made Ken realize the error of his ways, and he stopped being the Digimon Emperor after that. Eventually, he joined up with the other main characters to save the Digital World. It took time for the other main characters, but eventually they were able to see Ken like Wormmon saw him: as a kind and noble person, and a hero.
I just retold a major subplot of a kids' TV show from fifteen years ago, but there are themes in that subplot that are for people of all ages in real life now. Figuratively speaking, we have all met a Digimon Emperor. Perhaps that person doesn't go around killing people and controlling their minds, but the person does have fundamental flaws that end up hurting them and the people around them. And if I'm speaking that way, about people who have missed the mark and hurt other people and have flaws and scars that they can't handle very well, then I can say with certainty that we have all been the Digimon Emperor at some point.
But I can also say, daring to hope, that there's a Ken in all of us too, someone who is kind to other people, ingenuous and has something good to share with the world. Not everyone sees it, and it may be buried beneath all the flaws. But it is there, in all of us. And we need someone, kind of like Wormmon in this plot, to see that person and never stop believing that the good kid is there somewhere. We need someone who can deal with all of our flaws and help us find the inner kindness. We need someone to take on our burdens so that we can be helped. And if we can find that person--that exceedingly rare person--they will usually succeed in bringing the good out of us, not because we were good enough to find the good, but because we know how much it cost them and we want to repay them.
People like those are hard--nay, nearly impossible to find. There's no greater sacrifice for a person than to give his or her time, energy, and even his or her own life to see a friend gain life. I dare say that there's nothing that messes with your head or your heart more than realizing that someone believed in you so much that they were willing to give your life to see you find your dreams. That's why Christianity still continues to grow today, though people's actions throughout history have sullied its name--because in Christianity, Jesus is that person. If you find a person who believes in you so much that they can bet their life on it, it might take a while, but eventually, you start believing in yourself and wanting to do better for yourself, and you don't want to go back to the way you were, because if someone gave their life for you, then your life must be worth it.
UPDATE: You can now read a slightly edited version of this on the Harvard Ichthus!!!! This is the link to that: http://harvardichthus.org/2015/04/christ-and-cartoons-how-a-digimon-imitated-jesus/. What you're reading below is the original version.
***
Over winter break last year, my brother and I found the second season of Digimon on Netflix, and we decided to watch that season all the way through. Note: for those who haven't seen the second season of Digimon, this blogpost will have spoilers. So if you want to watch it without spoilers, go watch it on Netflix and then come back here. It was fun to relive those Saturday mornings when we would wake up early to watch shows like Digimon as kids, and it was fun to see how we reacted as adults to some of the stuff we watched thirteen (!!!) years ago.
One thing that didn't change much was of the six main characters, my favorite character was Ken. I couldn't really explain why when I was a kid, but as an adult I figured it out. In the first part of the season, Ken was the Digimon Emperor, an evil genius who took over the Digital World (the place where all the Digimon live) and ruled it with an iron fist. He was a very cruel Emperor, making the Digimon work for him as slaves, making them evil by taking over their minds with Dark Rings, and punishing those who didn't obey. For most of the first part of the season, the five other main characters were trying to stop Ken, and everyone knew he was a jerk...except his Digimon partner, Wormmon. (People who have never watched Digimon must be finding this very weird to read! I hope you all get this.)
Wormmon had been assigned to Ken as a Digimon partner before he became the Emperor, and he remembered that before Ken became the Emperor, he was a very kind boy. However, a series of events including his brother's death and being infected with a "dark spore" made Ken very spiteful and evil. Ken even treated Wormmon like a slave, and at one point, he rejected Wormmon as his Digimon partner and tried to create a new Digimon partner for himself, one that was bigger and stronger than Wormmon. This new partner was a monster, and he eventually went mad and started destroying everything. When Wormmon realized that Ken's new partner was going to destroy everything, he finally told Ken everything he thought about him, but despite Ken's treatment of him and all the other Digimon, Wormmon told Ken that he still remembered the kind boy that Ken used to be, and that he hoped that Ken would become that person again. He then gave all of his life energy to defeat the monster, saving Ken and the other main characters. That event made Ken realize the error of his ways, and he stopped being the Digimon Emperor after that. Eventually, he joined up with the other main characters to save the Digital World. It took time for the other main characters, but eventually they were able to see Ken like Wormmon saw him: as a kind and noble person, and a hero.
I just retold a major subplot of a kids' TV show from fifteen years ago, but there are themes in that subplot that are for people of all ages in real life now. Figuratively speaking, we have all met a Digimon Emperor. Perhaps that person doesn't go around killing people and controlling their minds, but the person does have fundamental flaws that end up hurting them and the people around them. And if I'm speaking that way, about people who have missed the mark and hurt other people and have flaws and scars that they can't handle very well, then I can say with certainty that we have all been the Digimon Emperor at some point.
But I can also say, daring to hope, that there's a Ken in all of us too, someone who is kind to other people, ingenuous and has something good to share with the world. Not everyone sees it, and it may be buried beneath all the flaws. But it is there, in all of us. And we need someone, kind of like Wormmon in this plot, to see that person and never stop believing that the good kid is there somewhere. We need someone who can deal with all of our flaws and help us find the inner kindness. We need someone to take on our burdens so that we can be helped. And if we can find that person--that exceedingly rare person--they will usually succeed in bringing the good out of us, not because we were good enough to find the good, but because we know how much it cost them and we want to repay them.
People like those are hard--nay, nearly impossible to find. There's no greater sacrifice for a person than to give his or her time, energy, and even his or her own life to see a friend gain life. I dare say that there's nothing that messes with your head or your heart more than realizing that someone believed in you so much that they were willing to give your life to see you find your dreams. That's why Christianity still continues to grow today, though people's actions throughout history have sullied its name--because in Christianity, Jesus is that person. If you find a person who believes in you so much that they can bet their life on it, it might take a while, but eventually, you start believing in yourself and wanting to do better for yourself, and you don't want to go back to the way you were, because if someone gave their life for you, then your life must be worth it.
Lessons from cartoons and video games #1/?: Sonic the Hedgehog (2006)
As I mentioned in a previous post, when my brother and I were young kids, we watched a lot of cartoons and we played a lot of video games. To be honest, this hasn't changed. We have more work now, but when my brother and I are free, we usually spend time watching cartoons and/or superhero movies and playing video games. Lame? Maybe. But it's pretty fun. And occasionally in those video games and cartoons I find bits of insight that I think is worth sharing. So I'm making these insights into an unofficial series, creatively called "lessons from cartoons and video games". I don't know how regularly these posts will appear, but I can pretty much assure you that there will be more than one.
This is the first of two that I have for now. Yes, I wrote it a long time ago...but I still think it's good enough to post again. I wrote it in 2011 about a game that every Sonic the Hedgehog fan will remember in infamy: Sonic the Hedgehog (2006). There was a litany of things that were wrong about that game, from the gameplay to some of the plot elements and much more, but in general we get more insight from our mistakes then we do from our prouder moments, and for Sega, it's no different...
***
Before reading this, you must know...I am a geek. According to a facebook quiz, I am seven different types of geek. So you should not be surprised by what I refer to here.
I was watching some of the cutscenes from a recent Sonic the Hedgehog game which someone had compiled into a movie, and the end really made me think. To explain the situation, the main villain of the game and the final boss is a fire-type thing named Solaris who ends up devastating everyone in the game. Solaris was originally kept as a little flame in a castle belonging to the duke of Soleanna (where the whole game takes place). At the end of the game, Sonic (our main hero) and the duke's daughter Elise go back in time to find this flame so they can blow out Solaris and save the future.
They find the flame and Elise is supposed to blow it out. Elise realizes, however, that if she blows out the flame, she and Sonic will never have met. She almost refuses to blow out the flame because she doesn't want to lose her friendship with Sonic.
Watching this happen, it's pretty hard not to scold Elise for nearly choosing Sonic over the world. And yet sometimes, we do the same thing. We forsake the mission, the life that God has planned out for us, because of something that we love that we don't want to give up. We think that thing is big, but in relation to the plan God has to (basically) save the world, it really is not.
Sometimes we may think that what we have to give up is so big and too hard to give up. However, considering that God is in control, we should know that when we give up that habit, we are helping with the great commission, the plan to get as many souls saved as possible before the end of the world.
This is the first of two that I have for now. Yes, I wrote it a long time ago...but I still think it's good enough to post again. I wrote it in 2011 about a game that every Sonic the Hedgehog fan will remember in infamy: Sonic the Hedgehog (2006). There was a litany of things that were wrong about that game, from the gameplay to some of the plot elements and much more, but in general we get more insight from our mistakes then we do from our prouder moments, and for Sega, it's no different...
***
Before reading this, you must know...I am a geek. According to a facebook quiz, I am seven different types of geek. So you should not be surprised by what I refer to here.
I was watching some of the cutscenes from a recent Sonic the Hedgehog game which someone had compiled into a movie, and the end really made me think. To explain the situation, the main villain of the game and the final boss is a fire-type thing named Solaris who ends up devastating everyone in the game. Solaris was originally kept as a little flame in a castle belonging to the duke of Soleanna (where the whole game takes place). At the end of the game, Sonic (our main hero) and the duke's daughter Elise go back in time to find this flame so they can blow out Solaris and save the future.
They find the flame and Elise is supposed to blow it out. Elise realizes, however, that if she blows out the flame, she and Sonic will never have met. She almost refuses to blow out the flame because she doesn't want to lose her friendship with Sonic.
Watching this happen, it's pretty hard not to scold Elise for nearly choosing Sonic over the world. And yet sometimes, we do the same thing. We forsake the mission, the life that God has planned out for us, because of something that we love that we don't want to give up. We think that thing is big, but in relation to the plan God has to (basically) save the world, it really is not.
Sometimes we may think that what we have to give up is so big and too hard to give up. However, considering that God is in control, we should know that when we give up that habit, we are helping with the great commission, the plan to get as many souls saved as possible before the end of the world.
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
It's been a while...
And a lot of things have happened during my time here--a lot of things to learn from. I've changed...and yet at the same time I haven't. Some things about me have definitely changed; I've matured a bit, definitely. I've had some rough experiences and come out to tell the tale to people. But at the same time, I feel like the same old person I was when I was 15 and a half. It's very weird to think that I was a sophomore in high school five years ago. When I was a sophomore, it was easy to note the differences between 11-year-old me and 16-year-old me. I grew a couple of inches, I gained a figure, and I gained confidence and (some) maturity. But now, as I'm nearing the age of 21, I feel essentially the same as a person as I was when I was 16, but with less confidence (ha!). And I've been berating myself for a while now about that. Isn't college where I'm supposed to change, find new ideals and become a much more sophisticated person? Isn't it where I'm supposed to find my identity in some type of "-ist" and let the liberal in me come alive from the conservative prison I was raised in? Isn't that what's supposed to happen to me? A lot of people have had that experience in college, and for a long time I wondered why I didn't fit into that category. People would share their experiences of this and that and others would applaud them and I would wonder if I was wrong for not having any of those experiences to share. I wondered if I was wrong, or even deficient in something (yikes) because none of the new contemporary labels really fit me.
And then it hit me, slowly and then all at once (pop culture hehe): if I am a unique person, created by God with my own personality and experiences and other things, then why am I trying to let the world define me?
I realized that the world in all of its forms can try and put me in a couple of boxes, but none of them will completely fit me. I'm a sum of several parts. I have my own DNA, my own personality, and my own destiny. Some people really identified with the things we've heard and seen in college, and they made several changes, and that's awesome. I'm happy for them. But just because I haven't changed that much or made myself fit in the mold this new society has for me, doesn't mean I'm any less than any of them.
So here I am! I have a lot of new experiences and ideas to share. But to be honest, I'm basically the same as when I was 16. And I'm pretty okay with that.
And then it hit me, slowly and then all at once (pop culture hehe): if I am a unique person, created by God with my own personality and experiences and other things, then why am I trying to let the world define me?
I realized that the world in all of its forms can try and put me in a couple of boxes, but none of them will completely fit me. I'm a sum of several parts. I have my own DNA, my own personality, and my own destiny. Some people really identified with the things we've heard and seen in college, and they made several changes, and that's awesome. I'm happy for them. But just because I haven't changed that much or made myself fit in the mold this new society has for me, doesn't mean I'm any less than any of them.
So here I am! I have a lot of new experiences and ideas to share. But to be honest, I'm basically the same as when I was 16. And I'm pretty okay with that.
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