Olga's Poetry & Thoughts

As a young person, my attitude towards life, others, and myself in general is constantly in flux. And I'm learning, over and over again, the old-age adage "if you keep doing things the same way, things will stay the same" (or something along those lines). It's true: if you don't change your attitude, your behaviour remains the same, and you are stuck in a never-ending replay of a car crash that you can easily avoid, but choose not to. From various life experiences, these are the "Seven Deadly Attitudes," if you will, that might not necessarily keep you locked in purgatory, but which will make your life on Earth feel hellish. 7. Anger No one likes an angry person. Someone who is perpetually red-faced is not nice to be around, but he is mostly harming himself. Having an angry attitude towards life means, roughly: lashing out at others and using anger to disguise more vulnerable emotions, such as pain and sorrow. Basically, you puff up like a porcupine...

2016 is a big year for me and for most friends my age. 2016 means I'll transform from "Olga Taratuta, High School Graduate" to "Olga Taratuta, B.A." 2016 holds my future in its sweaty palms. The words "job," "money," "graduate school," and "scholarships" seem to have dominated my pool of vocabulary. 2016 is where I become a real adult, not the OSAP mooching fraud that I am now. But adulthood is a scam. It is a fable told by society to keep the economy in check. Adults are seduced by money. We become promiscuous, lurking the streets to make a buck.  My original goals for 2016 were to: A) Get into graduate school B) Get a job C) Get an apartment D) Save, save, save! Then I realized that all those goals are money-driven to some degree. They are but cookie cutter resolutions, such as "exercise more" or "lose 5 pounds." I will not make money by aiming to make money. I have realized this ...

"H uman beings are not like sheep, and even sheep are not indistinguishably alike" - Mill I got lost on the way to adulthood. It is easy to get lost in this world. To drown in a sea of facts and statistics. To get beaten over the head with estranged opinions. To get into quarrels over our views on religion, violence, sex, education, morality, this and that, each person trying to prove that he is right, each person trying to demean the other because of their insatiable need for always being right. Although it would take some god to determine whether humanity is making the right decisions or not, one can always decide what is best for himself.  But it's easy to get swayed. I've wanted to be a teacher ever since I was in elementary school. But in university I panicked. I was told that the job market for teaching sucks, that English majors will never amount to anything, and that I am not actually as special or smart as thought I was because everyone is a uniq...

From the time you know how to blink You are branded like a milking cow It's the reason you are here now But do you ever stop to think While you are dabbing blush on your brow And you are scraping your legs into shreds And you are perming your locks 'til they're dead Why you are doing this at all? Because when you're born you become a slave To the thing that's between your legs You're a sweet pie if it's concave And if it's hanging, then you're brave And if it's slanted then you're nothing You are ridiculed to your grave Here is a bold proposition that I offer to you What if you should want to be both? If you wish, I allow you to Snuggle with boys when you're blue And wear black heavy soled shoes You may chew grass and drink booze And bathe in pink salts if you choose Don't be swayed by the notion That you should be affixed to a box With your legs cramped to your chest You're not a boy or a girl or a fr...

I'm not usually intrigued by superhero action movies, but since I work at the cinema, I can't resist seeing some blockbuster action flicks from time to time, the newest one being Iron Man 3. Although the movies are based on comic books, I still like to do a literary overanalysis of the characters, their flaws, and the hidden messages that they're portraying about our society. Popular media defines society as it is in the moment. For example, back in the post-war days, literature was depressing and scrutinized the advance of the Industrial Revolution and lack of individualism (take into account Virginia Woolf or Sylvia Plath). Now, our society seems to hail the cynical hero- the one who makes snippy remarks, has low moral standards, and consumes himself with one-night stands- the jerk. The greatest example of the cynical jerk superhero is Iron Man. The newest Iron Man movie had a simple, predictable plot line (nerd wants revenge, things get blown up, pretty girl, nerd b...