Why Did I Join Agel?

I'll admit that at first it was because my mom did, and I thought it would be neat to do something with her. Then, when it was agreed I'd work under my dad's name until I became legal, than take it in name as well. But those are details.

My biggest dream right now, and for the past couple of years, has been, other than graduating already, to be financially free. Not financially independent, but free. Meaning, reach a point where I could 'retire' if I so wished and be set for life, not need to work for money. If I could reach this financial point, then I could do anything I wished without the money obstacle. Travel first-class anywhere at the drop of the hat. Focus on work that doesn't produce money but would give me satisfaction, things related to charity in all it's complexities. When I achieve financial freedom, I free myself from worrying on about how to get to the end of the month before I get to the end of the money. I get the leisure to take on projects who's main purpose is to bring ME joy and satisfaction.

Yes, this is real. Visa is affiliated with Agel.

Agel offers this dream to me in a silver platter. It's only demands are that I work hard for a several years, the work being talking to people about it. I turn eighteen at the end of March. If I believe in the company, in the products, in the compensation plan for maybe three years after that, it's sure-fire I'll get my dream. Hell, if I work it really hard the very first year, take advantage of the fact that I'll be in college to really explode the thing, and explode it as much as possible here in high school while I can, I just KNOW I will be able to pay for a summer program with Action Quest this last year that I'll be able to. For this year, I'll have to rely on my mother, but next? That'll be me, being free and independent.

I've mentioned Agel to classmates in school. The responses I've gotten -I'm not interested in money, Business is not for me, I haven't got time to look at your 35 minute presentation- just anger me at times. I don't understand why they don't see that, although money isn't what life is about (I DO agree), it's an integral part of life; just like we can't function without food, in todays work we can't function without money. But it seems that that concept isn't real to most high schoolers. And because of this lack of vision, they don't understand that what I'm offering can take money from being a problem that is unimportant, but critical, to something that is unimportant, but not critical.

This is QueenNaxen everybody. My wish for YOU is that you all become financially free.

Self-Development #1

If there's one thing I think I'll learn from Agel it's patience. Patience has always been a sort of nemesis for me; I don't understand why things take time to reach fruition.

In an attempt to work Agel without leaving my home, I've been talking to people that Skype me, made friends, and talked about Agel. I've done with with two individuals so far. They've seemed interested, then told me some thing that they couldn't agree with. Understand, these have been hour or week friendships. I've been disappointed.

So patience comes into the picture. If I think about it, if I press the issue, I scare off any possibility of consideration. I have to learn when to let sleeping dogs lie.

In any case, I think my issue is a bit more complex than that. I need to reach supervisor level (in other words I need to subscribe two people) by the end of the month to qualify for a training next weekend, and I'm down, I don't actually believe I can make it. If I don't change this line of thought that's the sure-fire result.

I could run rabbit-circles in my head about what to do, but I do suppose I already know. I have to stop thinking about something I feel is impossible and start asking the universe for something I want that I DO think is possible.

I get what I need. I get what I want. But it's easier for the universe to know what I need than what I want because my wants aren't necessary for my survival. So I've gotta ask. I gotta believe I'll get what I ask for. And I need to do it on a consistent basis.

Why do teacher's make up rules to asset their superiority?

Isn't it bizarre when students doing something they are perfectly free to do are scolded for it? The fault is evidently the teacher's in the case; yes, we all know the rules. Of course we do! Why would we break them? We certainly don't want to conflict with the teachers!

So why do teacher's do that? Is it some sort of personal insecurity, some mental phobia that leads them to look for trouble with the students? To abuse a student's rights, just because a teacher's word probably carries more weight? Or is it because the conflict with the student is about something small enough that the teacher can try to fight this mental issue, but not have the teacher brought to task over it?

This is just my reaction to a small scuffle in my school's computer lab today during lunch about music. I personally thought the teacher was in the wrong, even though I had no particular attachment to the student victim. The teacher tried to use the fact that the Stuco president (who took no sides) was present, cited no reliable rule book, and won, just because the students didn't want to deal with him.

Does he wonder people question his authority? After all, when authority is abused, rather than wielded with care, there becomes even less reason to obey. I personally believe this particular teacher's status among students is as bad as it is out of his own doing, his insecurity in just being a substitute teacher, rather than one of a regular class.

Until further ravings,
QueenNaxen

Began Working for Real

My, what a wonderful and busy day it was yesterday! I actually ended up working until eleven at night! But I have to admit I'm pleased; from three to eleven I was working on building my financial base, the one I will live off of in the future.

Yeah, I'm taking about Agel.

Truthfully, it wasn't my intention to work Agel today. Serious! I had homework to do (which I am now doing in the wee hours of the morning), I had had a biology test in school. But opportunity doesn't care! When I went to walk in the park, I ended up speaking to a few ladies; then five ladies ended up coming to my home to view the presentation. Of those five, one in particular looked really into it (her grandmother was also egging her on), another looked like she was thinking pretty hard on it, and the rest looked blank. Considering the usual ratio of 1:10 people being interested, 2 out of 5 seems awesome.

So, I took the one most eager to a meeting; that lasted till nine. Then I was so hyped, I ended up really speaking about and explaining Agel to a chat friend I have in Saudi Arabia. He is now also interested in getting involved with Agel.

Neat huh? Moreover, what I personally found funny was that earlier in school I was inviting people to a presentation in my home on Tuesday. I meant the Tuesday of the following week in my mind. The universe doesn't seem to care, cuz I ended up doing one THIS Tuesday.

Anyway, lot's of fun and financial freedom mixed together.

Later,

QueenNaxen

Drowning on the Shore

My mom often scolds me when I'm down about school, saying a typical venezuelan thing, "Has nadado tanto solo para morir en la orilla?" (have you swum for so long just to die right at the shore?). Truth be told, I feel like I'm drowning.

Remember how those days right before summer are? You have maybe two weeks left of school, and you're mind is on summer, but you can't afford it! Right before summer are the semestrals! So you wish you could send it all to hell and do summer already, but you actually have to be more focused than you normally do on your studies. Am I painting a familiar image here?

Anyway, later

QueenNaxen

New Museum Project

Couple things going on.

As usual I'm still working on my common application, on and off, doing the supplements and all.

I also went to Panama's Museum of Natural History. The place is a mess; me and a group of students are going to help renovate the place. There's a lot of potential to the project: there's some structural and esthetic things to do. I like dealing with space and esthetic, specially when I don't have to draw things out to explain myself, so this project really suits me. Also, just to get people flowing in, I'd like to try finding scientists interested in presenting their work coming in, and inviting the kind of people that donate to museums to visit and donate.

A good number of my team members think that's far fetched thinking, they don't really think that can happen, but I think with some effort it's a reasonable, achievable goal.

Also pretty cool is the fact that the teacher supervisor studied in Oberlin, one of the five colleges I'm applying to. I had quite the interesting chat with her while a bunch of us waited for our rides to pick us up. She was interested in Agel, Kiva, and seemed to think I am the kind of student that would fit in Oberlin, so it was pretty neat. I gave her an Agel magazine and an Umi. I'll be speaking with her soon.

Until later posts,

QueenNaxen

And the Verdict Is!

I'm meeting with my high school principal today, early, for the verdict. Fingers crossed and thinking positive!

I'll post the result later. Until then, wish me luck! *Smile*

QueenNaxen

EDIT: No luck on doing one big thing in school, sadly enough. But I was not outright forbidden to advertise or invite people to my place, which I suppose is a good thing.

This is perhaps the third or fourth attempt at business I've made in this school. I don't seem to see the school director unless it's related to that. I want out of high school! Soon, soon.... In any case, it just reflects the employer mentality schools are meant to grow in students.

In any case, Agel DOES discourage from doing the presentation at work, so really, this is just the universe leading me on the path of success by blocking ways before I develop bad habits in them.

So! New aim! Invite people over to my house and get my Agel magazines circulating!

Honorable Board of Directors....

Exciting day today. I'm doing my Agel business presentation on Thursday and I've yet to get permission to use the school room for it.

So today's affirmation is:

"The Board of Directors has approved my presentation and are in fact interested in it and will attend, along with all the students and teachers I've invited. Twenty people at least will be interested in getting involved at executive level and I will reach my goal of earning $4000 dollars a month, NOW."

Innat cool?

Everyone have a good day!

QueenNaxen

A Slow Sunday Afternoon

It's Sunday again, and I haven't even begun my workload for this weekend. I have fixed my room, washed my clothes, and taken care of my cats. I've also read a bunch of comics.

I got bored of comics however. And my music (my hard drive was wiped, so I've been limited to the 700 or so songs in my iPod for the past half year).

I ade a wonderful discovery! Colleges/Universities have radio stations and some are available on iTunes! Even cooler, the radio station of my mom's old college is there -Ithaca College Radio. It's one of the places I'm applying to so it's pretty cool. They're having a Beatles morning, so it's even cooler; my Beatles songs were among the defunct. "

I should do the common application, but I'm reluctant. But I should; the SAT sends scores to four colleges for free until the 16th. But I feel good, in a half daze, ya know? Don't really wanna focus on anything right now, don't wanna think deep thoughts.

Hmm, I think I'll go practice guitar. It's dreamy enough, and I'm trying to work on being consistent at something; seems it's one of the not-so-secret things for success

Later all,

QueenNaxen

P.S. Oh yeah, just cuz I feel nice, here's this comic by this chick called Jenny Breeden; the comic itself is called Devil's Panties (google this to find her online comic). All credits go to Jennie, I claim nothing below as my own work.

EDIT: *Laugh* Now that I think about it, one of my kitties looks like the one that's calm, but acts like Lola there.

New Perspective

It's funny how human beings can really NOT stay in any given emotional state for long -I'm really taking this from videos of Tony Robbins. They have to move on. My anxiety lasted only one evening/night, and then I moved on from it. It's not entirely gone, not by far, but I got tired about feeling anxious about what's coming and stored that emotion.

Now I'm mostly excited. Things look just as busy as they did yesterday, but I've changed my outlook on the work and thus changed my relationship with my work. I work well under pressure so what can be done? I put myself in tight spot, evidently. *Smi~le* It's more fun than it sounds.

See, I took all the small, particular things that have been holding me back (my fear of nobody coming to my Agel presentation, my fear over what my advisor might think about my Extended Essay) and set the situation so that it didn't matter whether I was afraid or not, I had to face it.

Sounds simple enough.

It was.

I just stopped thinking, and whenever the opportunity presented itself invited people to a presentation next thursday, afterschool. Note: I have not borrowed the room, nor prepared the material. Now, whether people come or not, that fear is irrelevant because the commitment has been made and now I simply must be prepared.

Anyway, did several things to make my life better today: got the missing math assignments, caught up on my extended essay, had a good time analyzing a poem by Robert Frost (The Road Not Taken), took a walk with my mom and got some eyes turning (and I noticed, which is a first), and well, of course, I got around to preparing my Agel presentation.

Anxiety about the coming month

I'm having a strong fit of anxiety. It really hit home today that I only really have a month left of actual 'school' -after that, it's purely review for the IB exams. I have to wrap up internal assessment, and there are so many things to wrap up this month.

I usually take things easy, no real rush. This frankly scares me. I don't usually get anxious, but this, topped with the fact that I can't seem to do a math graded assignment at all without the help of my notes, is frightening.

Yeah, it's like that. Kinda. If you take the bag to be what needs to be done.

Funny how now that I'll really have to make best of my time is when I'll need to really do exercise to combat anxiety, as well as focus on Agel in order to get the ball rolling there. It should actually work well. Just wake up and activate a bit earlier than usual, run a tighter morning schedule than I do.

Wish me luck, everyone!

QueenNaxen

P.S. Oh! I haven't explained what IB is yet! That'll be fun.

Break is Over!

Gah! My vacation has ended and I'm going to class today!

First thing today is a lovely Theory of Knowledge test, which I evidently haven't studies for. But to my favor, the school day today is short, so I get to go home early and get cracking on tomorrow's homework fast, at least.

Beyond Rangoon

I just saw the movie "Beyond Rangoon ," about some conflict/massacre in Burma that went undocumented except by a few pictures a reporter risked his life to take. I saw a man trying to cross from Burma into Thailand, being shot in the middle of the river while running with his baby in his arms, and as he sank into the the water he handed the baby to the people around. His wife tried to get to him. You could see the blood flowing around him in the water. And he sank, and the people that had been running towards Thailand with him pulled his wife away and took her and his baby to safety.

At times I forget why I want to go to college, why I want to save the world. It's easy to live comfortably as I do, be bored. It so... incredibly easy. But it can't....

Watching this film, I was reminded by a short story by Ursula LeGuin, "The ones who walked away from Omelas." I want to be one of those who walk away from Omelas because if one of us looses, then we all do. And in Omelas, everyone is happy except for this one child, this one child that lives in absolute misery. And I'm thinking this is just one city, right? But it's actually a metaphor of our world. This perfect city which relies on one child being in agony, torture, hunger, just... mindless....whatever. Some walk away. Some, leave this city in which this has to be.

In this metaphor, Omelas is all those developed countries that rely on less developed countries that can't seem to get ahead. Omelas is the people that live comfortably, and when they see some one in poverty they think "Oh! How sad! Poor man, poor child. Thank goodness it's not me, it's not my child. I'd hate to be there," and they go on with their lives.

Posing this argument to friends they may say, "Well, you can't feel for every single one, it's not your pain," but this only conformity. I've read National Geographic for kids; there are elementary students that have felt for every single one and done things, built wells, raised funds. Where I am now, where I enjoy music, where I appreciate beauty -it's not that these things are wrong, it's not that I should appreciate these things I have- but I'm in Omelas right now. I want to walk away.

Always yours,

QueenNaxen

On Agel and Coujino

Coujino is evidently my italian cousin.

But first things first. I've been involved in Agel a couple months already, but I haven't really DONE anything. I guess I'm lacking urgency; things usually sort of fall into my lap with little to no effort on my part, and Agel is challenging because in order for it to work, I'm going to have to shift that paradigm.

Anyway, my coujino is like 25? Give or take a year. He's applying to college for I forget what, and coincidentally, we are both interested in Columbia (although I admit I'm reconsidering applying, but that's another thing entirely). Anyway, I hadn't seen him as a potential work partner, really. But thing is, he IS in my organization, inactive, but there. And he KNOWS people; in Italy, in India....

He usually kinda annoys me; the things he holds valuable and important I find superficial. But it's kinda like the thing with my dad, who really got religious all of a sudden; I gotta accept him, he's family. If I do that, I can work with him; bring both of us wealth.

Now the question is, how do I approach coujino? It can't be all about business; it ain't reasonable and will at worse scare him off entirely. Hmm. Interesting. This means I really do have to get cracking on this work.

Funfun. Later all.

QueenNaxen

The Dispossessed

I recently increased my LeGuin collection. It was utter bliss to do so. I bought several books I've read but wanted for myself, and I bought a few that I haven't read and have been thoroughly enjoying. I'll be talking about one of those I hadn't read today.

It's called "The Dispossessed." Stated shortly, it's about a 100-something year-old anarchic settlement on a virgin world, Anarres, in a galaxy alien to ours. The story circles around a physicist (don't run away screaming now, it's still fiction) raised in this society in which 'money' and 'possession' don't exist. Mutual sharing, human solidarity play a major role here. Shevek, our physicist, spends a long time thinking he doesn't belong in this society, and that mental struggle also plays a major role in the story.

Cover of the copy I have.

But what really makes me fall in love all over again with this author is how she creates this experiment; had I not know the author of this book I still would've been able to identify her, even though the words she uses is different from the ones she uses in the Earthsea cycle. In any case, "The Dispossessed" is indeed a thought experiment, an exploration of how intelligent beings could interact if the concept of 'possession' were eliminated, the idea of 'profit.'

LeGuin is honest about it; the no-authority, absolute freedom ideal in Anarres is at risk at the time of the story as social authority develop, though not incredible risk, seeing as the very nature of citizens like Shevek uphold the ideals, and allow them to flourish after years in this anarchic system. There are characters that tend to collect things that rightfully belong to the community, characters that complain constantly about work, about cut rations during famine.... In any honest story those characters are there, and they are certainly no exempt from this story. However, the ideals the community has are sound: there is absolute freedom, and anybody testing or exerting that freedom becomes aware that absolute freedom also means that risk is involved: fights may occur, you may get hurt or shunned. But it's the freedom of the individual to do as he wishes, as long as he understand what is sure to follow, and really, even if he doesn't understand.

The image of 'coming with empty hands' is present all the time. Shevek thinks about bringing things home to his family, pictures and the like, but as he claims nothing, he takes nothing, is tied down by nothing. He lives his experiences, tells about them, but doesn't carry around the physical baggage; it's part of his upbringing. In the hands of LeGuin, the idea of 'coming with empty hands' is transformed in a way hard to put in words; it's not that he's not giving anything, the contrary he's offering it all, all that is within his ability. It moves the value from 'things' one can covet, to what unburdened hands have to offer, what empty hands have to offer.

I suppose I'm enchanted with this book because it gives expressions, a story, to the belief that anarchy is the best 'governmental' system human beings can follow. I've never been able to justify why I'm so certain that this is true. "The Dispossessed" puts in words why this is true, and does it realistically, containing all the usual spectrum of human beings, not only the goody-all-giving Mother Teresas. It's honest about what it says, leaving the ending open, full of possibilities for humanity, not condemning humanity to either follow Anarres or not. It just presents one way of living, but doesn't demand anybody to follow it or else yadayada hell and everything.