The 9th grade Experience (2012-2013) (Written June of 2013)

Greetings, GLF community. I honestly am overwhelmed as usual but at the same time I am doing aboslutely nothing. I am on the couch in my better than average Santa Barbara home, bored staring at a computer screen, and just finished with a substantial bowl of ice cream while looking at a pile of books I haven't gotten to reading. And now, I really don't know how I will summarize what's happened in my life in the last year having not actually communicated to the group as a whole . So; getting to the point, which I don't know what it is, but whatever, I have been trying to find hope in this world full of crap. I have taken on a depressing stance of "Who gives a f*** about life because the only three themes that really have power in this world are greed, materialism, and a hierarchy of power and everything else just falls under it so why even bother because humans are living at the cost of the planet that supports us, the beauty in the planet, and our own dignity, so I'm just gonna sit in the corner, get average grades, and blast loud rap music through my headphones". This was accompanied my monitoring, social alienation, and most of all, depression. Each loss seemed to be a big loss and there really was no wins. So that's when I just started to not care what people thought of me. And more than the majority of the time that I opened my mouth it resulted in a political rant talking about how people eat factory farmed food, use corrupt oil, listen to crappy music, are subject to the social system, cogs in the education systeem, etc., etc.,. Ok, you get my point, and this was my attitude for a little more than half the year with the depression warming up in the beginning climaxing in the middle and eventually cooling down because at a point I realized that I can figure out bad things about everyone as I have with coaches on sports teams with teachers in the classroom, with kids and who they hang out with, and frankly anything with the possibility to be hated but I seriously just did not have the energy to hate anymore. But one thing that really struck me is that through all this my peers still managed to have respect for me even if they were avoiding me, which I will get back to later in the story. Silmultaneously, over the course of this time, I managed to write over 30 raps all pretty much filled with anger for one thing or another, most of them I threw away, also during this time reading historical books on Malcolm X, Mao Ze Dong, and the roots to Secret Societies, with a few positive things scattered including attending a music conference, creating a song(check it out here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qq-oyfvWPnc), doing weekly chinese classes, going skiing in mammoth with my dad, cousin, and family friends, and an amazing trip to Kenya which you can check out here:http://markginkenya.blogspot.com/, but still keeping that negative view more or less. The moment where the snowball started to slowly tip over the mountain, was during my midyear trip (my school goes on 3-5 depending on the grade 1-2 week school trips over the year in the wilderness), and we were backpacking in the backcountry of Santa Barbara. And there really wasn't any particular moment but I was able to find self awareness through interacting with nature by falling out of trees taking sulfur baths hanging out with mules that were carrying our food holding turtles, really whatever happened in the spur of the moment. Added to the pure nature which made me happy in itself were the authentic interactions between the other students and myself brought out by the intense exercise and lack of electronics at camp combined with swimming holes and campfires where Jim, the teacher who led the trip would read a book to us, and the students would recount memories from the day. That trip really turned it around for me with the things I said above but on a much deeper and more complex/detailed level that could only be described as depth. If we were to compare this to a graph in math, the x and y coordinates would be people speaking about something happening, but in order to understand the z coordinate, the depth, you have to experience that particular thing. Because of that trip I was able to become more peaceful. The next thing I would learn would come in the next seven weeks of academic school before we had our end of the year trip to the southwest for the eighth and ninth grade, while the sixth and seventh graders including my brother went  to Marin. During the course of these seven weeks I started to reintegrate myself with the class, by participating, and more importantly enjoying discussions in world history and english class, and being more tolerant in physics and math, while enjoying spanish as always. Also acutally talking to my classmates in life skills or ping pong and kind of morphing.  But World History was especially interesting to say the least the whole year. Now the class was not straight world history but rather an exploration of philosophies that have been used in the world from the eastern religions of hinduism buddhism taoism and confucianism, to modern india and china and legalism and maoism and the ideas of gandhi. During the spring though we studied the western religions of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, from their roots but also how they effect modern society and we discussed concepts such as zionism and jihadism and the roots to the conflicts involving 9/11. We also delved deeper into the spread of Christianity and how the invention of the printing press changed a lot of things. But cutting to the chase, at the end of the class we had to write a final explaining four pillars of belief that we have, and my concept was yin yang, or duality, or as I described it Universal Balance. In a yin yang there is a white half with a black dot and a black half with a white dot. The black half with the white dot was where I was for the first part of the year, where the universe was bleak with only a white dot to live for, but for the second part of the year, after I recognized and identified positive things in people and in my life I was able to compress the negative energy and use the positive of "light" energy to battle it, which is how the universal balance works. So over those seven weeks by using wisdom and compassion from others I was able to not just become a happier person at school, but in my life. I even surprisingly made some friends. One of them being this really wise guy named Kieran, who basically is in my 9th grade class but knows a lot about things such as human psychology, advanced filming, bike mechanics (although a lot of people know about this at my school because I got to a biking school and there are classes on it) intrapersonal intelligence, and over all a selfless wisdom in which is summarized in one thing that he told me in response to "How can I be happy". Expecting the typical "idk" answer I was left in a slight schock when he answered, "Now I don't have all the answers, but one thing to look at is this chart of maslows hierarchy of human needs" "As humans we need a certain amount of things to survive and the goal is to eventually get to self actualization and the process itself often times helps people to be happy". Or something along the lines of that. He continues with "Once you get to the top of the pyramid that's when you get your satisfaction from getting others to the top with you and rather than focus on those who aren't in terms of social relations, be happy for and with those who are and then you will gain happiness yourself". So this coming from a guy my age really inspired me to get my ish together, to say the least. After seven weeks of culmination with our classes the 9th grade was off on our end of the year trip. So we got into our van groups and head of for Canyon De Chellys, of the far eastern corner of Arizona. Before we left our principal said, leave your emotional baggage behind the Colorado river. So after a long drive of gas station stops, pointless conversations, and semi-trashy music, we arrived in Kingman AZ. We camped there that night and had to get up and keep driving the next morning, the campfire calmed us down a little bit, but we, an eclectic and energetic group of teenagers, really had no idea what we were in for. We arrived at a sign that said "Canyon De Chellys" and that is where we got out of the vans and the Navajo guides drove us into the reservation. While driving into the canyon I was asking our guide D.J. about Navajo words and he was also answering other questions about the canyon. Before we knew it we were under 600 foot beige and red walls with ravens flying right above us and cotton from the cottonwoods blowing everywhere in sight. The 9th grade spent to magical days listening to Navajo stories, taking hikes with petroglyphs and hearing about the history, and talking to navajo people in the area while also playing music and basketball with eachother. But the defining moment in the Canyon De Chellys portion of the trip was the Navajo Prayer one of our guides did for us. It was called "walk in beauty". He did it for us in English, and as soon as he started to speak Navajo the wind started gusting like crazy, and as soon as he stopped, the wind stopped, too. We (The students faculty and whoever else on the trip) then went on a silent, 45 min. "beauty walk". He said a different prayer for each of us mine was something about not fearing loneliness or setbacks because my shadow is my companion and he will tell the holy ones of my good deeds and that I am a very special person destined to change the world and I need to come out of my cocoon and spread my wings like a butterfly. A lot of us got epiphanies on this walk about our lives, the school year, purpose, etc., etc. After the Canyon De Chellys experience the 9th graders met up with the 8th graders at the Grand Canyon. This was the first of 8 camp fires on the trip with the 8th and 9th grade and with each of these fires 3 or 4 9th graders were "honored". "Honoring" is where one 9th grader picks the name of another 9th grader out of a hat and than is supposed to write a five minute letter with the goal of the letter to leave the person feeling honored after the letter is finished. Of course they were all different: deep, light, complex, simple, but the main goal is to capture the essence of the person being honored and let them have a positive mirror to inspire them with the letter. The letter I got left me in tears, because it gave me closure in the fact that a person was able to articulate the whole of me, even better than I could myself. After the first campfire the next morning 46 kids walked down into the grand canyon on the treacherous bright angel trail and back up. That was a warm up for the 6 days of biking that were to come from the grand canyon to sedona. There were many stories to be told, but besides the honoring, the most important stories were found on the rides where people were helping eachother and connecting in ways that are hard for an average person to believe. On the last night everyone was bauling or atleast the 9th graders and we did the go around and everyone shared their stories and I performed a rap while crying full of grattitude and understanding for the school. Then the 9th graders did the ceremony of the ashes where they take ashes from the ash can of all the previous fires and put them in the fire symbolizing graduating from the school and in the mornign the 8th graders put the ashes back in the can symbolizing becoming 9th graders. After that the 8th graders took the train while the 9th graders took the vans and camped at and swam in lake mead one night and slept under the stars, and then headed home. There is one last thing that we 9th graders did before graduating: Rites of Passage: Our formal graduation after our graduation on the trip. We each speak one person who means a lot to us to speak for us and they prepare a speech. I asked my Chinese teacher Daniel to speak for me and he explained my transformation in the three years since I've met him and he gave me a new Chinese name ( Referring to the Navajo experience,since I have gone through a metamorphosis from a caterpillar to spread my wings and become a butterfly. Walk in beauty.) So that is pretty much my update, it is now 11:00 pm here and I have a College Ocean Swimming class tomorrow so I should probably get to sleep but I will conclude with this quote; "When you forgive, you in no way change the past-but you sure do change the future". And on to the next chapter. I will welcome it with open arms,

With Grattitude,

Mark

Killing "The Man" to Save "The Woman"

To the reading woman:

If a man has ever said or done anything disrespectful to you that either you passively disregarded, or bear as a inexorable burden, I want to apologize for the past, present, and future generations of men with no morals or self respect. Personally, I believe that women are one of the greatest gifts that Life has ever given me or any other man/boy. When I was living with my mom and sister for two years in an small home in Alabama, I learned how important women are to the everyday lives of a young man. They teach him humility, respect, and courtesy. You learn quickly that they are the true treasures of life that we, as men, need to appreaciate better. Women, who not only keep this society we live in from falling apart by raising us up full of morals and ethics that help shape who and what we are, also have a kind of limitless, nonjudgemental, enduring love that seems uncharted and passionate everytime a man dives into its deep waters. But, the men who jump on their high horse and believe they can "control" women like pawns and treat them like complete children toys are apart of the majority of people corrupted by the archetypal theme "The Man."

The Man believes that he can have any women he wants and can do whatever he wants to him if he does the right things. He's repeated the same plan over and over again, "Walk up to her, make her feel good about being around me and ask her on a date tonight. Then, when on the date, I do all the listening; I have her believe I really care about what she's talking about. Remember, do alot of listening, but when you do talk, it's all about romance; tell her she looks beautiful; talk about her personality, you know, make her fall for me. When it's time to go, I tell her something she will remember like, 'I've been on like, a few dates this year, and you have taken my breath away tonight; it's unexplainable. Everything about you is just so right to me. You're beautiful, funny, intelligent, and just plain irresistable. I'm trying my hardest not to just kiss you on those beautiful, perfect lips.' After that, my work is done. She's all over me! I go inside, get the "job" done and drop out while she's sleeping, and never call her back again. Then, on to the next one!!!" After the woman realizes that the guy won't return her calls and text messages, it's too late. He's probably off on another "date" and she's sitting at home emotionally attached to this guy she met two days ago who doesn't truly care for her, so she fills her emotional void with another guy tomorrow, then two, then four, then sixteen, then thirty. All because The Man wanted a quick fix, that same girl at Starbucks is pregnant with a child with twenty-nine possible fathers. Cold world right?

The morals of men have been thrown away. What happened to holding the door open? What happened to yes ma'am/no ma'am? What happened to letting them have your seat if there weren't any left?What happened to sincere listening? What happened to,"I'll never leave you."? What happened to saying, "I love you" and with every fiber of your being, meaning it? What happened? It doesn't have to be this way; treat every woman with the most extreme levels of respect and regard for themselves and their beliefs and opinions. Show them that they truly matter to you, because I'm almost positive they do to someone else; you won't find a kindness like the one a heartfelt woman holds anywhere else in the universe.

For my LLP, I plan to present this idea to my "students" and hope that one of them choose to create a campaign for Women's rights. This is a problem that has bothered me for a long time now and I'm tired of it, so it's time to take action. That's another man's pride and joy you're playing with; would you want someone doing that with your daughter? I need our generations of misogynistic "playas" to wake up; this project will expose the truth of the importance of Women in the world to men and will slowly but surely kill off The Man inside. It's time to stop trying better your "swag" and start to work on having some kind of Class.

I'm done ranting. Next Post:

"Every man must do two things alone: he must do his own believing and his own dying."
- Martin Luther

Fair-Minded Dreams

"I'm not on the outside looking in; I'm not on the inside looking out; I'm in the dead f****** center looking around." - Kendrick Lamar - Ab-Soul's Outro.

That one lyric represents what I'm trying to accomplish in my life right now. I can't speak for anyone else's community, but in the community of Powder Springs, Ga, there are sides to take in everything. From being the Jock who is deeply respected by all your peers to the Ivy League bound scholar who is destined for greater things and runs almost every school club and school related gathering, those are really the only two roles that give you a respected reputation. If you aren't with either side, you are considered either a Pothead, a "Scrub," an Outsider, or a Follower; a "Scrub" is someone who comes to school, doesn't speak to anyone except maybe the teachers, makes average grades, and doesn't play any sports. I really don't know how I did it, but for some reason, I took every role there was. I was the arrogant, cocky AP student who could play a little basketball, read voraciously, and was VERY rebellious and followed the wrong crowd usually. This was my Freshman and Sophmore year when I was still trying to find myself; where you could have told me anything and I would've believed it. My Sophmore summer completely changed my whole perspective on my life, the world, and my future.

In a nutshell, at the Global Leadership Forum were the internatioanl leaders of the future who were hell-bent on ending the world's most persistent problems. I originally came there to look around and not really partake in activities because I expected it to be just like home, you pick a side and you stay there or you're a "Scrub". But from the first car ride to the Castle to the bus ride to the mountainous Colorado to a Wolf reservation, I realized quickly that this isn't like home. This is a place where you find yourself; a place where you find your passion; a place to determine what you really want in life; a place free from castigation and discrimination. So, I allowed GLF to take's it course on me. On one occasion, we were all in the mountains at a wolf reservation respectively named Mission: WOLF. Our mission was to gather firewood for the reservation and pack them up on a truck. We honestly had to pick up these huge tree stumps and carry them across holes, slippery mud traps, and over other logs. For some reason, when we were out there, a few people started fighting about who knows. Now myself, I was just going to kick back and just take the logs to the truck with no problem. But, as soon as I see the arguement, I just take on this role of some sort of leader who motivates us to get this job done while constantly yelling the phrase, "Teamwork Make the Dream Work." We must have gotten the wolf reservation enough firewood for most of the winter. It was so scary, the hidden potenital that was taken out of me at GLF. I learned more about myself there than I did from living in an two story house where Dad is never home and Mom's quick temper can seem even abusive  at times. I learned that I have to power to become an amazing motivational leader who can persuade even the most arrogant to do greater things. One of the biggest lessons I learned which turned out to be the greatest irony, there doesn't have to be sides in life. Someone can choose to be friends with one side of the social world and still hang out with the other.  Also, in politics, I do not prefer either side of the partisan government. I believe that both have very good intentions, but the way that they carry out their plans may come with negative repercussions. It still baffles me today how people can fight and fight without even taking the other person in concern at times. One of the biggest lesson I learned from GLF about the world, I believe that there is a middle ground in every conflict; if you don't find it that middle ground, then you stopped looking for it.

Wow man; Kendrick Lamar really spoke to me in that lyric. I had heard that line before, but sitting in the airport in Atlanta, Georgia, just reminiscing on the last two weeks while that line runs through my head, I finally see a glimpse of who and what I want to potray to others about myself and my thoughts. Until I hear otherwise, from what I learned this summer at GLF, to coming home and seeing my world with new impartial eyes, I believe that my role in society is to view this world from an unbiased standpoint and reflect it in a way that others can see it for what it really is while motivating the unwilling and educating the ignorant. Or, maybe life has another mission in mind. Only time will tell right?

I'll try to leave you with a quote that give a insight to what my next post will be, if it doesn't work out every time, then expect a surprise. Til Then,

Torran G.

A woman is not an object. She is not something; she is someone. You treat a woman with respect. She is not your toy. She doesnt owe you anything just cause you are a man. When she come to you for comfort, you listen to her; you dont make a move on her. Grow up and start treating women how they deserve to be treated.
                                                    - Unknown

Rama's LLP: Anti-Plastic Campaign at Delia School of Canada, Hong Kong

This summer, global educator Maggie Chumbley (dot com) talked to a group of bright eyed teenagers about plastic pollution. I was one of them, and my bright eyes held a little bit of cynicism. Maggie told us how she was cutting disposable plastic entirely out of her life, and choosing to use substitutes in every situation possible. She spoke about standing up and even telling disinterested peers about the issue, and ways to combat it. As I sat there listening to her, I admired her strength and courage in going against the norm of having plastic be a part of everyday life, but at the same time, I thought, "come on, just because a small group of people do something, the problem won't go away. And she hasn't met my peers, they'd never care. This is simply.. unrealistic." In an effort to express that to her, but in a polite manner, I said "Maggie, that sounds really difficult." Maybe it didn't capture exactly what I was trying to convey- but it spoke to what I was really thinking, deep down inside. All Maggie dignified my response with was, "I know, it doesn't." BAM!

Here's what I realised: I'd been living my life choosing what was easy and convenient over what was right. What I learned that day was, I didn't have to keep doing so. When I came back home to my peers who I was sure would be disinterested, I was full of optimism and determination. I realised that two weeks of life without plastic had made me passionate about the issue, and eager to start spreading the message on. I started talking to my group of friends about plastic every day- some were interested to hear, but most just found it annoying. But the one or two successes fueled my ambition, and I came up with an idea; Maggie had told us about an anti-plastic campaign run by students at a school where she used to teach; why couldn't I start one at mine? After weeks of negotiating with school administration, counselling with Maggie and a teacher at school (more on her later!), getting my friends to pledge support, and writing and rewriting proposals, I had a working plan!

Today is about a month or so into that initial plan. What the revised version looks like is almost irreconcilable with the original. We wanted to hold a presentation for the entire high school; we've been allowed to hold one for the grade 11's and 12's. We wanted there to be dialogue and discussion during the presentation; we're going to have to have it entirely scripted. We started out with about 28 people; now we're down to 18. But that's all okay. A smaller audience allows us to make our presentation intimate, personal, and moving; giving high school kids the license to interrupt a presentation has the potential to end in chaos (as many of my teachers know very well); the people left in the campaign group are all dedicated and prepared to invest themselves into this endeavour. We've learned to take everything positive we can get out of our environment, and make it work.

So, here's what our plan looks like. We've decided to focus on plastic bottles- it's a common trend at my school to buy one from 7-11 in the morning, throw it out when school ends, and buy another the next day! So we're going to talk about the alternatives- bringing reusable water bottles from home, or taking plastic bottles home to reuse.We're to hold a 30 minute presentation for three different groups on December 14th- just over a month away! But we're ready! We have speakers willing to share their personal connection to the issue, and why they think it is important to take action, to encourage the rest of the student body. We're collecting plastic bottles from around the school every single day (people have actually been generating a lot of buzz just through this!) to create a visual display of just how many bottles we go through in only a month; it's been but a week, and we already have four large garbage bags full of them! (augh!) Finally, we're working on a video of ambassadors for the cause, showing that it isn't 'uncool' to care; it's human! We've decided that if we can get just one person to start bringing reusable water bottles or reuse their plastic bottles, our campaign will have been a success! Our biggest asset is our teacher adviser, a Ms. Tabitha Mark who is just a gold mine of energy (SHE DOES NOT RUN OUT), creative ideas, and support. She's given us her room for meetings, storing the bottles we collect, and discussions. She's always around to give us pointers, help us find structure, and relay "teacher-tips". As for me, personally, I've been happily proven wrong about the peers who I thought would "never care about something like this".

This is the story of how a doubt grew into an idea which grew into a movement. I'm excited to see if I can get a happy ending out of it.