I just want to lay in my bed.
Original Photography
26 JulTop Ten from 56 Stories…
Back from a week of Speech Nationals, a month of Costa Rica and then a week at home where I was busy catching up with the life I missed and making money! I’ll *hopefully* blog about Costa Rica soon but onto the real reason for this post…
I’ve had a lot of friends offer to read some of my short stories for me. Once I mention that I have 56, all in a row, on my blog…their enthusiasm somewhat lessons. I don’t blame them, reading 56 stories that may be good or may be complete junk is hard. So I thought I’d make it easier by creating a “top ten” list. These are the stories that I, personally, like the most. I think they’re worth reading and critiquing and I’m fairly certain that you’ll enjoy at least half of them…
1) Lessons – A coming to age story
2) Breathe – What it means to be alive
3) Alien – the only “cute,” love story I had
4) Well Water – An introduction to witches…perhaps the quickest, easiest story I’ve ever written.
5) The Morgue – one of the oddest and yet most meaningful pieces of the bunch. It probably makes no sense to anyone else but I *think* it’s still pretty well written…
6) Circles – playing with the idea of time being a circle rather than a straight-line.
7) Practice - another story that was really easy to write. Unfortunately, I doubt it has any great meaning…
Inevitable - playing with the idea about what happens when you simply lose that instinctive, youthful love of life.
9) Heat – one of the oddest stories…I don’t think anyone’s understood the meaning yet.
10) War – playing with different ways of looking at war.
09 JunThe Best Advice I Can Offer…
When life seems tiring, overwhelming, exhausting, horrible, awful or any such negative emotion…take a shower. Life always seems a lot less bleak after you get a little water on your face.
06 JunSummer Book List
It is officially summer for me. I finished my last class (and assignments) last Friday and celebrated with a week full of crazy hanging out, lake house activites and partying over my brother’s graduation.
Then I thought, I need a summer reading list. I had a great class this year that “forced” me to read a lot of good classic books and while I’ll be gone for, at least, five weeks this summer…there’s still plenty of time to read some books.
So here’s the start to some of the books that I want to read over the summer: (an “x” means that I’ve read them in the past)
1) Of Mice and Men (x)
2) Bossy Pants - Tina Fey (read the description of this book on the link…made me laugh out loud)
3) Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
4) Still Alice
5) A Beautiful Mind
6) The Kite Runner (on the list while I was making the draft…now finished – absolutely fantastic, mind-blowing read)
7) The Color Purple
So what great books am I missing out on? This is a pathetically short list, people! I need to get cultured!
Yay or nay on the new background?
06 JunCountdowns…
You know that feeling when something’s going to happen and it seems so far in the future and all of a sudden, you remember that it’s actually in about an hour. I usually get this feeling with parties or dinner but now I’m getting it with my summer plans.
On Friday or Saturday, I will drive up to MA to visit relatives. On Tuesday, my National Speech competitions begin. (For which, I really need to practice and rewrite my speeches) Then, next Saturday I will fly out to go to Costa Rica. I’ll be there for an entire month. With a family who only speaks Spanish.
It’s going to be weird, but in a good way. I love being busy and I love stretching my comfort zone…but it just seems so soon!
Not to mention that it makes my summer extremely busy. The day after I come back, I start babysitting. I’ll babysit for two weeks and then I’ll take drivers ed for two weeks. Then babysit for another week and round it off by starting my NOVA classes on August 22. Wow, crazy…
But exciting. It’ll make this week kinda amazing too. 
27 MayThis is your life/ Are you who you want to be?
“What are you going to do when you grow up?…I mean, when you grow up more?”
That small clarified sentence, spoken by my best friend’s younger sister, completely freaked me out.
The question, “What do you want to do when you grow up?” is common enough, especially now that I’m a junior in high school, but that always implied that I still have time to really “become a person.” Right now is just the experimental stage. The added caviet that I was already grown up blew my mind.
People always say that I’m mature for my age, but they also tend to assume that I’m younger than I actually am.
I live my life with the assumption that I’m still a kid. Despite what adults say when they compliment me on my maturity or intelligence, I know they still view me as a child.
Having someone, especially my best friend’s sibling, think of me as already reaching adulthood redefines how I view myself.
I remember when I was that young and I looked at older girls and considered them as a bases for what I would be. When an older girl was sweet and charming to everyone around her, I would think, “I want to be just like her!”
I was a silent watcher, observing and forming opinions on people I would never actually talk to. The idea that that “older girl” is now me is horrifying because I know that if anyone looks up to me, they’ll be sorely disappointed.
In the words of my best friend, on the phone today, “I’m growing up. I can’t help it.”
It’s pretty terrifying.
In the words of Switchfoot, “This is your life – are you who you want to be?”
There are no second chances, no “ready, set, go” announcements. What I have right now is the life that I will continue to live till I die. For better or worse, I am growing up. Now I’ve just got to make the most out of it.
