I'm tired of dealing with problems like these, so I decided to write about them.
One thing I learned from the November drama is that some people have zero boundaries. There's that bunch that doesn't know when to stop. Invading the neighboring country without realizing, and suddenly they're at war with someone they didn't mean to bother. Some people definitely meant to bother the other country, though. Of course a larger nation would be comfortable invading another country a tenth of their size.
That was more than 2 1/2 years ago now, and a lot has changed since then. I've met new people, and I've stopped talking to others. In the nearly 1000 days since those events, the situation I'm in has changed drastically. Despite this, the people seem to stay the same.
It's an interesting pattern I've observed. Everyone around here is connected in some way, and if you group people together you start to notice the similarities. As an "outsider" (probably not the best word for this situation but you get what I mean), someone who never stayed around the same people for too long, I've been able to group various people together over time. One group I've come up with is "unpopular, but everyone knows them", and I've been very on the fence with this group. Some days, they're completely fine, but other days it's a nightmare to be around them. There's one person in particular that I've put in this group, that I've had an issue with this past week.
Back to the "zero boundaries" part. This individual (and his friends, to some extent) don't know when they've crossed the line. I'll be completely real, I should have seen it coming. For someone who, on the first day he met me, called me a bomber and made terrorist jokes, my expectations should have been set incredibly low.
They weren't, though. I prefer to give people a chance. It's been a little over a year and a half since I met him, and it turns out I was entirely wrong. Here's the thing, I try to have a lot of patience and tolerance with people. Unfortunately, people like to mess with me a lot. Since, like I said, I have a lot of patience, I really don't push it. And up until recently, I didn't care very much. Once that threshold had been met, I decided to write an entry about it. It went unanswered.
Regardless, I was mostly unbothered until earlier this week. On Wednesday, I think the line was crossed by a LOT.
I really don't care about this kind of thing, but I think accusing me of having saved child pornography is pushing it. I really don't think there's room to argue with that.
I know you're going to read this, so I won't drop your name here. You know who you are.
I've seen this kind of thing before. I'll admit, I'm guilty of the "it's just a joke!" trope. Sure, the statement is a joke, but the intentions are genuine. At some point, realize that you're in the wrong, and you're simply a terrible person.
I'll see you on Monday, though I really don't want to deal with you any longer. If things need to be escalated past this point, don't worry. I'm totally fine with escalating them.
It's been a little while but I think this is important enough to write about right now. It's currently 12:21 AM, and I need to sleep, but I'd rather get this out of the way before I put it off for the next three weeks.
The other day I read something from one of my friends. He was describing how his passions didn't align with his career goals. While I was reading it, I realized I could learn something from him.
Back in 2016, when I was 8 years old, I began a journey that would lead me down a path of bumps and detours. Of course, I'm talking about the tech industry, which I planned on following. Eight years ago, I began laying out the plan for the next roughly 15 years of my life. Looking back at it now, that was kind of a crazy decision to make back then, especially at that age. Regardless, I continued down that journey until the end of last year.
Towards the end of 2023, as we all entered our sophomore year, I started a C++ course. This would be the first course I had taken taught by this particular teacher. I'll admit, he's a great teacher, but we definitely had our differences. Once I got settled into the class, I began to realize how I truly felt about this career path. The things I had worked on for the previous 7 1/2 years, and I started to lose interest in them.
Programming, technology, and everything related is all something I still enjoy to this day. But as of right now, I don't think a career is viable for me. (quick side note, there's also lots of issues with the industry which also turned me away from it, but that's a conversation for another day)
Right now, and throughout all of 2024 so far, I've felt incredibly lost with where I want to be. I've jumped between potential career paths, I've explored a handful of industries, and I've spent hours thinking about what I want to do with myself down the road. After all that, I still haven't been able to decide on anything. I've talked to plenty of people about this issue, and it seems I'm not the only person facing this problem. Despite this, I still don't really know what to do.
But let's disregard all of the decisions I've made. Recently, I came to the realization that it truly doesn't matter yet. I, along with plenty of my friends, are in this boat of decisions, and the waves continue pushing us further from the land of opportunities. But I've realized that it's okay. It'll all be okay.
Here's what I will say. The biggest waste of your time is being reasonable. That's not to say you should completely throw it out of the window. But like, you should have fun with what you want to do. If you're passionate about art, why does it matter if it's not a stable career path? Who cares if computer science majors are being outdone by AI? It really doesn't matter! Have fun with your life! If you think music is where you want to be, then go for it. If it doesn't work, at least you gave a shot. You explored a potential opportunity, and you were able to learn about what you enjoy. And if it does work out, even better. Not only did you learn more about yourself, but you were able to find what works for you. I think that's something a lot people of struggle with. They haven't been able to find themselves yet.
The best advice I can give to someone in my situation is to always try new things. At the very least, we still have 2 years of high school left to decide what we want to do. However, that's still not the end of the road. You have plenty of years to decide where you belong. I hope you find yourself soon.
I apologize in advance to anyone reading this who may have an issue with it. This regards the issues within the Gaza Strip. If you happen to be offended by this (I truly have no words if you are), or if you don't have the time to read all this, please click off now.
I am by no means qualified to talk about this, but I truly don't care. Some of the things I'll write might be conflicting with each other. That's a result of my limited knowledge of this topic. I'm also trying to sound as unbiased as possible, though that can be a bit challenging since I'm a human, and we naturally have biases towards certain things. Regardless, I've decided to put my entire heart into this piece. I hope you read to the end.
Today is May 10th, 2024. The Palestinian genocide has been going on for the past 7 months and 3 days. Over 35,000 Palestinians, innocent or not, have been killed since October 7th, 2023. There is no doubt in my mind, or anyone else's, that this is a genocide. This isn't the first massacre of the people of Palestine, but it's the largest mass genocide of people since the Holocaust during World War II, over 80 years ago. Following the end of WWII, in 1948 the British mandated the creation of the state of Israel, to provide Jewish citizens a state of their own after millions of Jews died as a result of the war.
In case you're interested, here's a rough estimation of how many massacres have been committed against Palestinians since even before Israel as a state existed: two in 1937, one in 1938, two in 1939, six in 1947, two in 1948, one in 1953, one in 1956, one in 1957, one in 1982, one in 1990, one in 1994, and seven since the year 2000. That totals to 26. That's truly unheard of.
The issue here isn't with the existence of the state of Israel. Rather, I can't support a situation where millions of indigenous people already living in a region have their land stolen and occupied by another group of people.
Initially, the split between Israel and Palestine was roughly 50% on each side. As time passed, however, the Israeli percentage continued to grow and the Palestinian percentage began to shrink. As the larger, more powerful nation, with other nations like the United States supporting them, Israel had the freedom to do, basically, whatever it wanted on Palestine territory. This isn't anything new, power-hungry governments want more power, obviously. As of 2024, the only real territory that Palestine controls is the Gaza Strip. The West Bank continues to be occupied, and even though Gaza is also occupied by Israel, the Palestinian government still holds some power there, albeit very little.
As a region with a coastline, Gaza has been an important territory for the two states. Despite occupying well under 10% of the total territory in the region, it continues to be significant. At 141 square miles, it is now incredibly dense, containing roughly 15,000 people per square mile. For reference, my home state of New Jersey has only 1,200 people per square mile, however that is still the highest out of all 50 states. It is INCREDIBLY dense. Its density continues to rise, however, as more citizens are forced to evacuate further south. Currently, the majority of the Gazan population is situated in Rafah. With roughly 1.6 million citizens (VERY rough estimation, I couldn't find exact numbers), Rafah has a population density of over 25,000 people per square mile. That is RIDICULOUSLY dense. With 1.6 million people and very limited resources, there's no doubt that Palestinians have been suffering from Israeli occupation for not just seven months, but close to 80 years.
We've reached a point where it can't be ignored anymore. With 35,000 deaths, likely over 100,000 injuries, and millions with inhumane living conditions and a very limited supply of resources, it's clear that something needs to be done.
Despite this, everyone seems to be turning a blind eye. The United States, the most powerful nation on Earth, is more concerned about TikTok sending our data to China rather than millions of people in danger.
Let me put this another way. We care more about censoring people's freedom of speech and expression than MILLIONS of people overseas whose living situation we are nearly entirely responsible for. We care more about a silly dancing app than the tens of thousands of innocent lives that have been taken. Does that not sound absolutely absurd? Because it does for me.
I've been called biased. Sure, I might be biased. After all, my people are closely related to the Palestinians. But even putting that all aside, had I been born an individual unaffiliated with the Middle East, by now I would have realized that, BY FAR, Israel and America are awful countries run by terrible people. We're living a capitalist dream right now, but a nightmare for equality and actual real-world issues. Sure, we're the richest nation on the planet, but is that worth the millions of lives we've taken? Not even just in Palestine, but across the world since 1776. Year after year, the United States government kills more and more people. Back in the 1800s, we committed a mass genocide of the Native Americans, all for "manifest destiny". Was it worth it, killing over 50 million indigenous people of America? Just so we could have more territory westward? It wasn't. We've already reached the peak of our nation, and the peak of any nation that has existed in the past 1000 years. Despite this, the greedy capitalists, entrepreneurs, government officials, and everyone else keep asking for more.
Today is May 10th, 2024. Within the past 7 months and 3 days, 35,000 indigenous Palestinians in Gaza have been brutally murdered. From children as young as a few months to the elderly reaching their 80s, and everyone in between. Entire families have been kidnapped and tortured. These people can't do anything. If they try to fight back, they die sooner. Fighting back only means they will suffer more. The problems will continue regardless, so all they can do is accept their fate. As someone on the outside, someone who, despite my age, still holds some power, I am and have been tired of the actions of the nation in which I grew up. A nation which I believed to be the greatest nation of them all, somewhere where all people have the freedom to do what they want. Now that I've learned more about the political climate surrounding us, I realize that our nation may just be the worst one of them all. Scratch that, our nation has the worst government out of any developed nation.
I'm tired of people being ignorant. I'm tired of people caring more about a coffee from Starbucks or a burger from McDonald's than millions of innocent civilians trapped in a tiny area. Can you even trust where they source their meat from? I didn't think so. These coffees, these burgers, they all fund thousands of deaths.
I've said it once, I've said it twice, I've now said it dozens, if not hundreds of times. I will keep saying it until it comes true. If it doesn't happen until the day I die, I'll continue saying it until the day I die.
From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.
This weekend is like a few of the past year. One with a cube competition, which happens occasionally. Unfortunately, I've fallen into the same hole that I was in 3 weeks ago, during my last competition. Today is Friday. I got sick on Wednesday (what a wonderful way to start off the month). 3 weeks ago, I missed a competition with a bunch of my friends because I was too sick to leave my house. I remained sick for roughly 2 weeks, and just as it started to go away, I got sick again. This time, however, it's not as bad, and I should be able to make it. The problem with saying this is that, I said this last time, too. What happened last time shouldn't happen again, but it's out of my control.
Sickness and poor health aren't something I'm unfamiliar with. I've gotten sick dozens, maybe hundreds of times over the years. I've narrowed it down to a weak immune system, but until I can confirm that it's really just "I don't know, I guess I'm just unlucky".
It seems like I get lucky only with things that don't matter. Things that are ridiculously improbable to happen, one in a millions (maybe not that rare but you get the point). It's almost like, with things that don't matter, I'm rolling a six-sided die, and when they do matter, I'm given a 100-sided die. Two actually, and I have to roll snake eyes. 1 in 10000, incredibly difficult to land.
I'll see you in Summit tomorrow. Hopefully I make it.