Books

Growing up, I was very shy. One of my favorite escapes was through books.

In elementary school I was always reading. I would even get in trouble with my parents because I would have my nose in a book while I was crossing the street!

Currently I regret not being able to read what I like or as much as I want to. Reading would be much more convenient if I had a mobile reader such as a Kindle. 

Call me a sentimentalist, but even though an electronic reader would be more convenient, I do not like mobile readers.

Books are wonderful, awesome things. Awesome in the sense that they are awe inspiring, capable of reducing people to tears, sparking deep intellectual arguments, and calling attention to the injustices of our society. Books are incredible tools of knowledge and communication. This is why it is such a shame that book stores all over are closing.

Books can be therapeutic, and part of that is the comfort of curling up on a chair with an epic book and losing your problems in the story. Reading a book is more than just absorbing the information. Reading a book is physically calming and relaxing. 

As the world continues to expand technology, electronic readers worry me. I want books to thrive, but I am afraid this won't be possible. 

The decline in popularity of physical books might make these amazing treasure troves, even greater.

Fabulous Website

This summer at one of my summer camps someone mentioned a website called Freerice.com.

What is Freerice.com?

Freerice.com is a website owned by the United Nations World Food Programme. The site both prepares students for the SAT, and donates rice to third world countries where hunger is a severe problem. For each correct answer a participant answers 10 grains of rice are donated.

This is a great website I hope more people will start using it!

A passion?

In order to write about your passions, you have to know your passions. In order to know your passions, you have to know yourself very well.
Like many 15 year old girls I have absolutely no idea who I am. Thus, I know very little about my passions. It's true that I can be very excited about a hobby perhaps, or quite emotionally involved in a certain tv show or fandom, but how am I to know if that excitement will last through my life and be a true passion? It's simple. I don't.
There are few people I know that are my age that truly know their passions. There a few people my age who don't know have found their passions, but have nonetheless. At the same time, there are people years older than me who are still looking for their passion, and still there are people years into their careers who find their passion to simply be an infatuation and are left unmotivated. I wish (more than anything! <- I've had the Into the Woods soundtrack hopelessly stuck in my head) I will be able to find my true passion before that happens to me, but whatever happens happens.
For a few years I was convinced that I wanted to be a child psychologist who worked with art therapy. This conclusion seemed natural because I love working with children, I love art, and I am so curious about what makes people act the way they do. It was only once I understood that despite my deep interest in the topic I wasn't passionate about what I'd being doing, and I would end up hating my job. So now I am left with the understanding that I must be passionate about whatever job I end up pursuing, but no identified passion (that would reasonably translate to a serious job).

I do think that I might be passionate about volunteering and theatre, but time will tell.