I had arrived at camp super-excited to see what it would be like, but the minute the kids walked into the cabin doors I had a stream of complaints.

The bus ride had been too long. The seats weren’t comfortable. Why hadn’t they played a movie?

These types of complaints persisted throughout the week even though I attempted to stay positive.

The classes were boring, it was too hot, there wasn’t any cell phones allowed

At the end of that week I was more frustrated than I thought I could be. Apparently the kids had hated being here.

However, when it was time to leave the kids became upset. They told me they’d miss me and that they didn’t want to go home. They talked about all the camp songs they’d learned and how much they loved it here.

The whole situation seemed pretty ridiculous to me. The entire week they had complained about everything and now that they could finally leave, they complained that they couldn’t stay.

Looking back, I can chuckle a bit at it but it doesn’t change the fact that this is the way many Americans respond to their lives.

It reminded me of the beginning of The Phantom Tollbooth which describes Milo as being a boy who wants to out of class when he’s in class but as soon as he’s out of class, he’s bored and wishes he could be back in class. I adore that book actually. I love the puns and humor and especially how situations, just like the one described, no matter how ridiculous really do exist in young people’s lives today.

We all tend to complain about things we don’t like in our life but now, we’re being raised to be completely discontent with anything even slightly annoying.

Complaining and demanding the absolute best is now a way of life. As Americans we are blessed with more opportunities than any country but few people here appreciate that fact.  My sister is a missionary in Uganda where most people don’t even have shoes. Here, we complain that we can’t buy that expensive pair of converse or those completely useless pair of yellow high heels.

We are a country with students that rank somewhere about 44th in math but hey, at least we’re 1st in football, right?

This isn’t really a post that can solve the fact that Americans complain, it’s merely a way for me to rant that we do.

One of the biggest steps to recovery is getting over denial. Or rather, recognizing that you do, indeed, complain more than you should. To be perfectly honest, I don’t think I know a single person who complains just the right amount. We all complain to much. But we need to recognize that complaining really doesn’t help any situation. It doesn’t improve the weather, it can’t make that annoying neighbor turn down the music and it is frustrating and negative to those around you.

I’m not going to go into “negative” or “positive” energy or anything like that but it’s quite true that if you walk downstairs to find someone in a bad mood, your mood will probably darken as well.

We all impact multiple people several times a day, whether we realize it or not. So let’s impact them positively.

I’m rewriting (for only the tenth time) a book that I started years ago but never comes out the way I want it. I’m trying a new concept with this one though. Every chapter is told from a different person’s perspective. I’m not sure if it’ll work or turn out like a really bad trainwreck but it’ll be fun to see which.

I promise soon to stop posting random updates about what I’m trying to do and some results. Maybe a poem or two…who knows? Or maybe some slightly deep thoughts about a book I read. hmm. that might be interesting.

I won’t be here next week though, so it’ll have to wait.

Well, where to begin since last I updated here?

School has been killing me, nothing new there. Let me run it down for you…

Math – Algebra 2 – not actually too bad more of a I’m-homeschooled-and-we-can’t-keep-up-to-date problem

Science – Honors Chemistry – 6 more weeks. That’s all I can say. Though I’m getting an A in that class (I think) so it could be worse

Literature – American Literature – yes, heck to the yes. I love you literature.

Writing – Omnibus 3 – um. not bad but I’m ready for it to be over. the school year’s been tiring enough

History – European History – I have discovered that I love history. Shocking I know. Anyway I finished that early so I can relax now.

French 2 – fun but it’s still school and I would like it to end

skip skip boring classes and onto

Speech – going to Nationals in Persuasive and Duo cuse I’m a dork like that. heck to the yes.

annnd,

I will skip the rest of school cuse I realize how boring that must be for you.

Onto other stuff…

I have really not been indulging myself creatively this year. Which is sad and a little frustrating but I’m starting again.

I did plan and write a book this school year so that’s something right? If you’re interested in reading it you can email me.

Basically it’s:

+

meets

is it perhaps sad that I related a book into a movie? hmm.

I’m also working on making my short story The Reaper into a book. yesss. I actually just started ideas for that today but I think it’ll be cool. If I can find the time.

So I really have a month and two weeks of school. Then summer which will be:

Speech Nationals

4-H State Congress

A week of nothingness

4-H camp

and still unplanned trip to Ireland (and maybe England)

possibly a week in Maine?

Then it’s August and I have a few weeks of nothing before NOVA classes start up.

Ah, I could get used to this.

That’s my life in a nutshell at the moment.

Enjoy.

Fairly straight-forward concept. You write a poem, but you make the words come out into a shape. Hopefully you all can figure this one out. Because my blog can be somewhat lame at times. You’ll have to ignore the “~” stuck in to make the poem go where it’s suppose to for the shape to work. Sorry!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~“This is my blood which was shed for many.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~His blood poured out for us

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~A sacrifice made for us

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~A truth He gave to us

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~His blood.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Spilled

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Out

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~On

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The splintering cross

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~An impossible sacrifice laid out for us.

Yeah. Well, what can I say? I don’t really like shape poems. I got assigned to do this.

Anyways, till later.

This week coming up looks to be busy. Besides the usual homework and the catching up on homework I missed at the tournament, I also have to finish up a novel by Wednesday. I started writing the book at the tail end of November and it’s 96 pages so far…prefer it to be longer but I really need to finish it up.

I hope to start blogging a little more regularly but my life is, of course, insanely busy. Next year I really need to simplify but knowing me…it probably won’t happen.

I wrote this at about 3 am…just bare that in mind, and yes, I should have been doing school at the time:

I caught Time today.

I put him in a bag for later because I was too busy to deal with Him now.

He’s a chatty fellow. Doesn’t mind giving his opinion even when I don’t ask for it.

I’ll admit it’s rare that I get the better of Him. Several times He’s been known to catch me off guard but I was lucky enough to get Him now.

The best way to catch Time, is to ignore Him until he comes creeping out from boredom.

Sometimes He watches me over my shoulder as I hack away at the keys on my laptop. Occasionally He’ll point out a typo but mostly He just stares. The stare that makes the clock’s hands twitch and squirm with embarrassment and run around the clock trying to get away. And then Time flies.

And He flies fast.

That’s why even when you catch Him; He always gets away from you later.

I left with Time today.

I’ll admit that sometimes I take to traveling with Time. He’s a good companion. You’re never bored when you’re with the right sort of Time.

That’s why the best way to get the right sort of Time is to pick your clocks carefully.

I stopped Time today.

I’ll admit it wasn’t an easy thing to do. He’s a persuasive fellow and He doesn’t like to be slowed down in the slightest. But once I stopped Him, it was like he never existed.

But he didn’t stop for long.

That’s why I have such trouble finding Time.

Anyhoo, here’s some photos, one if of a facet taken a while ago, the other was taken this morning (dead bee on fresh snow, intriguing, lol)

and yes, you do have permission to laugh. I don’t not claim to be a good photographer.

(this one looks better larger) Title: Frostbite

Anyway guys, I hope your December’s are going great.

We had our first snowfall yesterday. Very pretty I must say.

I’m off to work on stories.

I can’t help but think
Of the end being near
But I know in my heart
I will always be here

I can’t change my fate
And I can’t control time
To be punished’s not just
I haven’t a crime

I wish for the end
I wish to be done
But this battle’s not over
It’s only begun

My problem? My partner doesn’t shut up. The whole idea of a paramedic having a partner is for us both to be a team, to think in one mind, and the rest of the routine. But the problem with this chick, Miss she calls herelf, she belongs back in Woodstock. She’s irritatingly positive and is determined that she makes the perfect talking companion. Oh, and she has the worst habit of chewing gum.

But when I came home from work today, I tried not to bother worrying about that.

I was trying again.

Trying to kill myself I mean.

Jumping off a cliff hadn’t worked, and neither had shooting myself in the head, but there are other ways too. Tonight, it was time to try electricity. Maybe it would be poetic justice, after all. Frankenstein made his monster by harnessing electricity; maybe I could destroy a monster in the same way.

The plan was simple really, I hooked up some wires from my power outlines into the tub, and then filled up the tub with water. When I flipped the switch for the lights, I’d actually send electricity through the wires and into the water.

When I flipped the switch and got into the water, the first thought was that it was actually working. Searing pain filled my body, similar to the sensation of being on fire, I thought. I writhed and sunk below the water, opening my mouth to breathe and instead getting a mouthful of firey pain into my lungs.

Of course, it would have to be then that Missy, my irritating partner, decides to drop by my apartment with a plateful of brownies.

Discovering her fully clothed partner writhing in the bathtub she calls it in, sending an ambulance zooming to come save the ambulance driver. Ionic, yes I know.

I have to give her credit, she at least figured out to turn off the light switch before she yanked me out of the water.

When she stopped getting water out of my lungs, I could hear the sirens outside my apartment.

And that’s when I knew for sure.

I’m still not dead.

The Reaper lives to kill another day.

When I was a month old, my mom past away then two weeks later, my dad died. That’s when Death and I first met. That’s when it really all started. Before that, I was a cute, innocent, chubby-cheeked baby named Milo, after Death and I met was the beginning of the end for me, now I call myself “The Reaper”.

I was five when it happened again. It didn’t really seem significant at that time. Well, to my five year old brain it was, but not to anyone else. My foster parent had gotten me a frog the day before my fifth birthday as a present. The minute I saw that frog, I knew I loved it. In the survival of the fittest society of foster care, there was no one I really trusted or loved, but this frog represented something more, something I could love. I made a home for it, named it, feed it and stayed up late so I could watch its little throat bulge in and out whenever it breathed. When I woke up the next morning, it was dead. My little heart-broken sobs that rent the air surprised both of my foster parents, but they decided that the frog’s death was most likely due to some disease from the pet store, and told me to stop crying. I did. But I didn’t forget what had happened.

Death didn’t stop there though. When I was twelve I fell in love with a girl who loved across the street from me. A week later she died.

When I was fifteen I had a best friend, a guy who hated foster care as much as me and would sneak out and meet me late at night. Two months later, he died in a shooting incident.

It may already make sense to you, but it took me a while to figure out. What’s the secret to The Reaper’s curse? Whenever I love someone unconditionally they die.

Yeah, call me paranoid. Call me crazy. I really don’t care; I’m used to it by now. All I know is every time I’m willing to die for someone, they end up dying instead.

I’m still not sure why it happens. Maybe Death got cheated once too often, maybe Hell’s just too empty for Satan’s liking. Maybe I was supposed to die as a kid and this is the punishment for me not being dead, or  maybe it’s just one long stream of impossible coincides that happened to occur. But if you can, you explain to me why every living thing I love ends up dying.

Death and me are almost on talking terms now. I’ve gotten so use to seeing people die. Don’t think I try to love people though, I learned long ago to avoid that, but loving seems to be like breathing.  As long as you’re alive, you can’t help but do it.

A long time ago, I thought I could solve the problem if I just died myself. After all, if I was dead, how could I love someone? But that doesn’t seem to work out for me. I don’t seem to die.  I shot myself point blank in the head after my best friend died, and somehow managed to miss any major arteries as well as my brain. The doctor called it a miracle, but then he doesn’t know that I’m The Reaper. I jumped off a cliff, and only sprained my ankle. Killing isn’t an issue for me, but dying is. So I try to make up for what I do by saving people’s live.

Yup, that’s me, the paramedic. I didn’t dare go to medical school. What if I ended up sitting next to some pretty girl in class, fell in love with her and deprived the world of the next greatest brain surgeon? No, instead I decided to be one of the glorified taxi-drivers who speed around the city and load people into ambulances. I avoid talking to people; I try not to look at them. The less I care, the less likely I will be to kill them. Reclusive, withdrawn and misunderstood, those are the words that people use to describe me. But that’s alright, because I’ve learned to live with what I can’t change and this is my story. Take or leave it. Just don’t make me love you.