The things I carry as a Sister are heavy (mostly), but not tangible (mostly). They are not noticeable unless one was to witness us sisters in action, together. Our connection.
The things even an outsider can hold, that are between us, show vague insight into our relationship. Some things that I carry with my built-in best-friend are:
All the clothes we swap, but sometimes permanently trade due to her self-proclaimed bubble-butt, or even the ones we are territorial about. They weigh at least 311 pounds altogether. Maybe more. Definitely more. Then if you add the 40 pounds of shoes (some of which were once altered by her duck feet), I'm not sure if our backhoe could even effectively carry the squirming load.
The many bracelets we made for and with each other over the years. Each of these stir a distant moment in time that feels so close to yesterday.
Then there are our exchanged gifts. The guitar pick earrings. The Hello Kitty necklace. The cowboy-esque belt. The love notes. The identical ear piercings.
I also carry things that I share figuratively between my sister and me. These things are more specifically our likes and dislikes. We share so many things in common, and always have. My sister and I carry a very intriguing blend of interests, and often joke that if we were to be combined - we would be one unstoppably amazing girl. She loves math and science. I love language and art. An example of our alike differences? Both of us enjoy music, but she likes Soft Rock (Delilah sap) and I like Classic Rock. These combined weigh tra-billions of sound waves. That's more than four for sure.
The deepest things I carry as a Sister relate to my portion of our balance. Our personalities compliment each other completely. Hers is subtle, soft, smart, selectively open and collectively cautious. Mine is spontaneously expressive and loud and must weigh at least 60 tons of pressure just on its own. She teaches me to be practical and rational while I help her care less about the criticizing public-eye. I am the back and she is the bone. With these roles we carry the responsibility of stabilizing each other and growing, protecting, supporting. I look up to her so much, but as an individual I have to also remember to look level at times. I have to remember that I am my own person and I have to try to be realistic about life and how uncertain it is and how nothing can really last forever. This weighs on my mind occasionally, only 1.05milograms of space max, but carrying my own weight (that which seems to have been affected by the dreaded Freshman 15) without anything else is 118 pounds; although some sluggish mornings it feels like infinitely more. As a Sister, I double as inanimate objects. I am a chair (5.5 pounds), a tissue (1 gram), a pillow (4 ounces), a rock (7 pounds). I am a personal advisor and councilor, as well as a patient myself. She is my favorite sister, but not purely by default.
As sisters, our memories cannot be priced. They cannot be weighed either. Never. The vivid splotches of recollection: random teal diner benches and plum tiles; the night we sorted fan mail, more commonly known as college mail, in the kitchen; the crisp days we picked blackberries to make ice cream with; shooting our be-be gun at cds and pinging tin cans; making bird houses; painting wooden reindeer statues – completed with a touch of nail polish for a nose; playing ‘Spaceship’ or ‘Rent’ or hiding in the cabinet in our room with beanie babies; going under the table-saw on top of the sheetrock to draw ‘Clean Me’ in the dust; playing on the rope-swing a few days before Easter, my nails each a different vibrant color; going to see the two twin quads that were freshly painted blue and silver to hide damage; climbing Buster’s Tree with unattainable aspirations of reaching the quivering, tipping top; going to the dump in the old band van to get rid of our old pink dresser; dancing in the rain and finding refuge under the table with the built-in umbrella; making a snow tunnel and finding that our cat also enjoyed it; making forts out of chairs, bed sheets, and hair clips in the middle of the room, taking up the entire room; camping the day before one of our Freshman years of high school; breaking icicles off of the ledge of the Shop with snowballs; the list is seventeen years long. The lengthy memories: our latest cruise, our first concert, our days spent at the shore just this summer. The mere thoughts we both had and knew the other had: our car-ride there, at diner that night, in her room when that happened. Even silences scream these ideas- her eyes inform me of exactly what she needs to tell me: scolding "Not now Rachel!", praising and proud, asking "What is going on?", pleading with worried slate-colored glass shifting the question "Can we leave?". I also tend to accumulate jokes with her. There are googolplexes upon googolplexes and cumulatively these jokes weigh only 3 ounces. Not all are light, some helped us trudge through some dense times, but all are incomparably valuable. I have learned to be a comedian, as well as many other things, thanks to and with my sister.
The things I carry as a Sister are outwardly useless to the eyes of others. The ones who don't understand our constant reference to each other as 'Poopy' or the way I embarrass her at the mall by holding her hand or butt-tapping her to confuse strangers, but mostly, to make her turn purple. However, to me, these things we carry between us and because of one another are the most important pieces of my life. We hold one each other's secrets close and we hold each other's heart closer. As a sister, I carry her and she carries me, taking turns, because life is so much better on two-player mode.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Friday, May 1, 2009
A MODEST PROPOSAL: FOR LIMITING THE INCONVIENANCES OF TEXTING AND INSTEAD DEVELOPING A MUCH BETTER MODE OF COMMUNICATION
It is a horrific sight these days in classrooms: students not paying attention to their teachers but instead to their laps, where rests their cell phones. Every single moment of the school-day is now being used as what archaic times called ‘free time’. However, this state of perpetual ‘free time’ has rendered our youth permanently stuck in their our realities.
I think that it is within the same interest of the general population to say that this is sad and even disgusting. It is lowering our newer generations' attention spans and causing even more of a problem with both the education of these students and also that of the students around them. Therefore, if someone could create a decent solution, I do not see any adversaries to its apparent and copious possible benefits.
We should utilize the technology that we have at our disposal today rather than continue to dispose of it. I have an idea that will not only take advantage of our newest technologies, but that will also help us focus more on the kind of technology that will significantly aid our society. Instead of focusing on making the newest greatest phones that can even do your laundry; we can then be able to focus on governmental aims and societal betterment.
That is why I propose a newer mode of communication that, once all understand the improvements of it compared to current situations, will make all cell phones completely obsolete. It has been deemed the Italk, however, there is no actual talking required. It is a seamless way of getting one’s message across, literally, that only involves a slight injection that can be done at anytime in the buyer’s life with zero mal-effects. This doctor’s visit would involve a procedure that is simply a needle injection that inserts a chip the size of a piece of dust that can be placed anywhere on the body (and can be just as easily removed).
Some may be frightened of the safety of this procedure or even not see the benefits. There is absolutely nothing risky about the Italk’s installment. And the benefits? Endless.
The implementation of the Italk in society would destroy the lack of attention students currently possess in classrooms and also eliminate the inhibiting texting does to other students’ focus as well. There will be no more of those God-awful clicking and tapping sounds that texting produces. There will be no more patients in intensive care with arthritis in their exhausted thumbs and wrists. There will be no problems with forgetting someone’s number- every chip can be reached by the person’s name, but the person being called can choose whether or not they wish to receive that ‘call’. Additionally, RepeercWare can be purchased by parents, for a minimal fee. It is an additional feature that serves to limit who the child’s Italk can contact or even what hours they are permitted to actually use their Italk.
The way the Italk works is, after one receives the necessary implant (which is compatible with phones as well, in case the conversion process with the general public takes longer than desired) you simply think of who you’d like to contact, and think of the message you’d like to send. Then, as long as you are within this galaxy, your message will be instantly sent in your own voice. It’s like a traveling voicemail. It is always on, but in order to activate the sending message feature you must open a menu in your mind. No worries, it is fairly simple, so even members of the older generations can participate without the clumsiness of texting that they now face. Also, there are many other features on the Italk, including internal alarm clocks, voice recorders, and memo pads, bringing a whole new meaning to taking a ‘mental note’.
It will be fast. It will be more convenient. It will be durable in all weather (with no worries of dropping it or getting it wet, as one must be conscious of with cell phones). It will never fail. The Italk additionally serves as an important safety device. One can make instant calls to the police without their captors knowing, and there will be no way to disable the emergency function.
Some may oppose this new proposal because of their concerns with it being a more secretive way to not pay attention in class or an easier way to cheat during tests. Their opposition is without reason. The Italk will also be issuing a special switch that can be placed in all classrooms. This switch will deactivate all functions with exception to the emergency feature which, as mentioned before, cannot be tampered with. This specialized switch also comes in a sort of ‘net’ form. Schools can purchase this device that can be activated exactly where they want it to be, even choosing to allow accesses in bathrooms or only in a three foot circle in the middle of the auditorium. This will be controlled by a computer generated map that is run by a cd in which the user may drag the ‘net’ across (a blueprint of the school) the areas which they wish to be disconnected.
Sure, there will no longer be social competitions over whose cell phone can do more or is shinier, but it will leave modern society a lot healthier. The Italk has no SARS or any other adverse effects and, the best part, it forces the population to actually think again!
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