Author: Caroline

Newfound Freedom

Newfound Freedom

by Caroline ♥ 1 Comment

I can be quite a high-strung person. In the fall, I dealt with the stress of adjusting to a brand new high school environment: I struggled to navigate both the new building and the new class structure, social groups, and schedules. Juggling daily soccer practices, weekly orchestra rehearsals an hour and a half away, my Scholastic Art & Writing Awards piece, and several summer program applications did not help.

With winter came some breathing room. Now that I knew what the heck high school even was, I could manage myself, my time, and my schedule a bit better.

However, something I realized in the first few days of our 6-week (!) break from school due to the coronavirus is that a constant desire for prestige underlies everything I pursue. In other words, I am not only the product, but the embodiment of a hyper-competitive world. I’ve ingrained into myself the belief that I have to be the best at everything to get into the best schools, and I have to get into the best schools to get the best job, and I have to get the best job to be the best person and have the best possible impact on the world. I’m not sure when this belief firmly materialized — it might’ve been second grade, which is the first recorded instance of me saying my life goal was to graduate from Harvard. In any case, it’s taken the coronavirus literally canceling my academic, extracurricular, and social life for me to understand the presence of this belief. In the constant striving for prestige that occupies my daily life, I never had the self-awareness to realize my fundamentally broken mindset.

To be honest, the free time awarded by the coronavirus has been a twisted sort of respite for me. It is such a relief to start practicing my flute and stop just 30 minutes and deem it good enough, successful, even. It is such a release to be able to practice just one orchestral excerpt the whole practice session and feel satisfied.

It is such a joy to simply be enough for once. I can watch K-pop videos for an hour without crying over the guilt of my “unproductivity.” I can read in the daytime with my cat at my side without my mind constantly drifting to the homework I need to finish, the competition I have this week, the writing contest I still need to enter. I can text people. I can write for fun. I can read again, for God’s sake. I can be human.

I can be Caroline-the-normal-teenage-girl. I don’t have to be prestige-seeking, I-have-to-be-better-than-the-rest, perfect Caroline, whose entire social identity and self-value rely on the unwavering fact that she is the best at everything. I don’t have to practice because of a concert or performance or competition. I can practice because I want to experience music, because I want to enjoy the magical sounds I can create with just my breath and a tube of metal, because I want to improve for myself and nobody else. I can write because I want to feel the joy of words pulsing through my veins, my fingers, my body. I can read because I enjoy it and, frankly, have time for it.

The freedom is overwhelming. I can do things because I want to. Of course, nobody was making me do orchestra, band, solo competitions, 3 clubs, speech and debate, and writing competitions before. I was the one who decided only 2 hours of flute practice counted for anything. I was the one who decided I had to do everything and be better at it than everyone else. But now I’m the one deciding that I can do anything and be as good at it as I want. I don’t have to be motivated by competition against others, by the prospect that someone else may be better than me; I can be motivated by competition with myself, by challenging myself to just be better than I was yesterday. The freedom, the release from the bonds I’d tied myself down with, is incredible. I can breathe again.

So, we can all agree coronavirus sucks. It’s canceled our lives, our livelihoods, and our life-affirming routines. But, at least for me, it’s also been a blessing in disguise. It’s provided me the alone time I needed in order to realize just how broken my belief systems were previously, and it’s given me the opportunity to fix them. For once, I’m motivated by happiness, not prestige.

You have time now. We all do. I hope you’re able to take a moment to just ask yourself, “How do I feel now? How do I feel normally? What’s the difference, if any, in emotion, stress, motivation, happiness, and fulfillment? Is there anything I want to change knowing this information?”

Or, like me, just have insomnia, realize at 3 a.m. that you’ve been chasing the wrong prize all your life, have a therapy session about this with a stuffed animal on your bed, and then vent all about it on your blog. However you go about it, discover yourself a little during this break. You might be astonished by what you find. (:

Beige-gray

Beige-gray

by Caroline ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

synesthesia (n.) – the neurological condition in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway (for example, hearing) leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway (such as vision)

Psychology Today

Synesthesia is pretty nifty, and it’s a phenomenon most of us will experience at some point. Maybe the squeal of a piccolo brings images of golden-yellow to your mind — a prime example of chromesthesia, the association of certain sounds with colors. Or maybe the number 1 and the letter A are lexical embodiments of the color red, which would be grapheme-color synesthesia — association of particular letters and numbers with colors. (Read more about synesthesia here.)

Now, synesthesia doesn’t have a clinical diagnosis, and in any case, I’m not particularly affected by it. From time to time, I’ll get into a mildly sarcastic argument with a dissenting friend about why D is definitely a green letter, but the preternatural artsy associations of synesthesia evade me most of the time.

Lately, though, something similar to synesthesia has been occupying my brain. Right now, everything feels beige-gray. A tangled and stormy texture, yet an aggressively neutral color. My life, my house, my existence — it all feels like the ambivalent walls of a chiropractor waiting room, like muddy river waters, like dream-crushing corporate cubicles of tax collector offices. It feels so boring, so uncertain, and so apathetic about what happens next, about why it’s here, about where it goes. It’s there, but not really. It’s trying to be all the colors at once but instead has reduced each vibrant, individualistic shade into a dejected pool of collectivist beige-gray.

It’s confined, it’s holding its breath, it’s sucking everything in but also having nobody to impress. It’s tired and it just wants to sleep for the rest of eternity, because what’s the point of being active? Everything is the same, is unnamed, is beige-gray.

For me, Covid-19 means being pent up in the house and not able to participate in the extracurriculars that have always kept me too busy to contemplate the color of my life. I’m not dashing between orchestra rehearsal and musical performances and art shows and competitions and homework in the car. The colors of a busy life scream by so fast you don’t have time to take them in, to the point where you sometimes forget what made them beautiful in the first place. Now, I have all the alone time in the world to just be me, to just sit inside my body, listen to my brain, and see, in its full vibrancy (or lack thereof), the shade that colors my worldview, my existence, my reality, right now.

It’s kind of not a fun color. I’d rather not be stuck in beige-gray forever. The lamp, the printer, the speaker on this desk — it’s all beige-gray. And no offense to our family’s outdated office supplies, but I’d rather not be like that. I’d rather feel like a color worth noticing, a color that makes people smile, or laugh, or at least react in some way. I’d rather not feel like my everything means nothing.

Beige-gray isn’t happy. But even if beige-gray doesn’t care about being happy, beige-gray shouldn’t be stealing the colors, the light and joy, out of all the other shades. In fact, beige-gray can make the other colors shine brighter than before. Beige-gray needs to exist — otherwise, there’d be nothing to break up an endless rainbow of colors, and our senses would be overwhelmed. The quiet, subdued, negative space created by beige-gray helps us appreciate the beauty of pure, pigmented presence, of busy-ness, of movement.

All of us are an endlessly complex palette of colors that not even Pantene could keep track of. The shades constantly run into each other; some clash, some blend, and some are complementary and make one other even brighter than before. Some moments of our lives feel memorable because they’re bright; other moments we want to forget because they’re dark. What I want you — and me — to remember is that every color matters. Every color means something, no matter how ugly or beautiful or dull or vibrant it is. And if you don’t like your color right now, then find a new color. Call you friends and let their voices add a touch of carnation pink. Watch a horror movie late at night for a shock of crimson red. Pet your cat as you read a well-loved novel and let the soothing navy blue seep in.

Beige-gray is not forever. Beige-gray is the perfect base for mixing new shades to build a cherished color that is unabashedly, uniquely you. Of course, some colors are inevitable, because some moods and moments and changes in our life are inevitable. However, it’s you who decides what to do with the palette life hands you. Your life is your empty canvas. Make it beautiful, whatever that means to you.

Painting from the Birmingham Museums Trust.
Meet Caroline!

Meet Caroline!

by Caroline ♥ 1 Comment

Who am I?

I’m an American high school student who loves creative writing, politics, music (particularly classical flute + K-pop), foreign languages & cultures, fashion, and visual arts (particularly drawing).

What is this blog about?

Consider the Caroline Times my coming-of-age blog, where I detail what’s going in my life and the world and how I feel about it. Expect to hear commentary on the following:

  • School + Education: my personal university dreams, as well as general thoughts on the American high school experience, different education systems around the world, and tips for academic success
  • Fashion: outfit pictures & inspiration, thoughts on fashion-related issues, finding your personal style, fashion challenges, etc.
  • Music: my flute shenanigans, opinions on pieces, thoughts/analyses of Korean & American pop music, etc.
  • Politics: explanations of current political events & my informed opinions on those events
  • Foreign Cultures + Languages: my language-learning journey (currently studying French, Chinese, Korean, & Spanish), plus information about cultures around the world (particularly China and Korea — let’s go Hallyu!)
  • Creative Writing: I’ll publish some of my work here and there, as well as resources and advice for fellow creative writers!
  • Random Stuff: things I discover during Wikipedia runs, stuff going on in my life, random drawings/sketches, etc.

Hi! My name is Caroline.

Hi! My name is Caroline.

by Caroline ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Or, alternately, 你好! 我叫高星岩.

Bonjour! Je m’appele Caroline.

안녕하세요! 제 이름은 캐롤라인입니다.

Hola! Me llamo Caroline.

Oi! Meu nome è Caroline.

Whatever your language is, there’s a 100% chance I want to be your friend. And even if you live a world away from the USA, even if we’ll never meet in person or exchange conversation personally, I hope that the Caroline Times will sprinkle a sparkle of joy into your day. I hope that, through the immeasurable power of words, I can lighten the burdens of both your life and mine. I hope that I can make you just a bit happier, because all of us deserve to be happy.

I hope that my words can provide for you and me alike an escape from the crushing existentialism, fear, and uncertainty that plagues us today. I hope that I wield my words to their full potential, that my words will provide you with a potent, even if temporary, cure to your woes. In other words, I want for you what I’ve failed to find myself: an escape from the pain. Writing is the place where I feel most safe, most at home, most peaceful, and I hope my words, photos, and art will become a similar such place for you.

Now you know my hopes for this blog. But what will I actually be doing with my infinite character count and creative freedom and customization abilities?

Well, during the day, I’m a high school student mildly obsessed with keeping pristine grades and getting into an Ivy League school. I’d be lying if I said the resume-strengthening ability of a blog read by thousands didn’t factor into my decision to start the Caroline Times. However, I’m trying to work on trading my fixation on the Ivies and educational prestige for a true understanding of who I want to be, what I want to do for the world, and how I’m going to do it. I know very well that my interests and passions should be led by what feels right to me, not by the cultural standard of a perfect Harvard applicant; now I just need to get myself to actually believe it. You’ll definitely be hearing more about my educational journey, my thoughts on the American education system, and my personal advice to all you students out there.

Outside of school, I do have several interests, all of which I plan to write about. Music is a huge one of them. I’ve been playing the flute for over four years, and it’s been one of the most fulfilling, defining activities of my life. From the (usually) wholesome camaraderie of band and orchestra culture to the astonishing variety of styles, sounds, and interpretations of beauty that exist within classical music, I could write for decades on classical music. But don’t worry — I’m not so high-brow that I listen exclusively to Poulenc and Mozart. K-pop has been dominating my playlists since 2018, and I apologize in advance to the K-pop-haters for all my future K-pop posts in which I will thoroughly challenge your confirmation biases.

Besides the unabashedly Asian combination of classical and K-pop, I will also be posting about fashion frequently. I love clothes — perhaps a little too much — and I’ll admit, I’m pretty proud of myself for developing a personal style that makes me feel both cute and empowered. I’ve always longed for a place where I could connect and share my favorite outfits with a community of people who also cared about fashion, and this blog is the perfect space for that. Cataloging my outfits in photos will hopefully not only inspire those of you searching for your personal style, but also help me further refine my dressing habits. Of course, numerous issues exist surrounding fashion — environmental impact of fast fashion, unequal gender and beauty standards, eating disorders in the modeling industry — and the Caroline Times will certainly explore these topics in depth and help contribute to a culture of more ethically, environmentally conscious consumers.

International politics, languages, and cultures are also a major passion of mine. Firstly, I’m a committed Duolingoer and love learning about languages and cultures, and the Caroline Times is the perfect place for me to share my love and knowledge while also keeping myself accountable for my learning. Secondly, I care a lot about what people in power are doing to our world, its economy, and its people, and I hope you do too. But, of course, you’re under no obligation to read my explanations, analyses, and opinions of the current political climate. I’ll certainly differentiate between my objective pieces and my op-ed pieces, but I think all of us would benefit greatly from bipartisan communication and understanding. Through my political writings, I seek to both further my own knowledge and world events and to help facilitate the bridge-building between communities across the political spectrum that I believe is more crucial than ever.

Last but not least, you might’ve guessed by now that creative writing is one of my favorite activities as well. That’s the largest single reason I started this blog: so I could hone my creative writing skills every day, writing about everything and anything I want and sharing it with the world. After all, the key to improving as a writer and developing a distinctive style is to simply write more. A blog specifically will provide me the platform I need to connect with other passionate writers, readers, and individuals with stories worth sharing. Ideally, the constant output of writing content from the Caroline Times will also help me overcome my main issue with creative writing: being scared to share it. I’m incredibly excited to share my writing pieces, spark new writing ideas and strategies, and find my writing community through this blog.

Now, to summarize the Caroline Manifesto, the Caroline Times will most likely feature fashion, creative writing, education, and political advocacy most heavily. Doubtlessly, a few rants, random tidbits, and personal goals, lists, and dreams will be sprinkled in there. My main goal for the Caroline Times is really just to put a smile on someone’s face. I plan to post at least twice a week, and I plan to have at least 1,000 regular readers by the time I graduate high school. Whether these plans come to fruition is something only time can tell. Until the clock releases its secret, I will be typing away, and I’m so excited for you to join me on this journey!