What I expect for next year is pretty much all of the above but not on such a specific level.  I know there will be some of what I can’t learn from because that is how other people learn but I can handle a little of that.  I just don’t want the entire class every day in 9th grade to consist of me walking in, sitting down, and trying to concentrate on writing by myself.  That just wouldn’t work for me.  I would end up having a less open mind then from when I started and I do not want to go backwards in my education.

 In this “project” my goal was to explore different types of writing.  I changed my plans so I could do it more thoroughly and be able to at least say I learned something.  The three books that this is on are: The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama, Twilight by Stephanie Meyer, and The diary of Anne Frank by (obviously) Anne Frank.  I didn’t actually read the entire Audacity book, actually I didn’t get a fourth of the way through it.  In my opinion it was boring and wasting my time and I didn’t feel like I could gain something from it.  Twilight had a much different effect.  It became my favorite book very quickly and pulled me in so there was no way I could stop reading it.  Anne Frank I also read the whole thing and it also interested me a lot having had a grandma in Germany during WW2.  I’m not going to describe the contents of these books to you because this essay wasn’t meant for you to learn something it was meant for me to show you that I learned something.

            The first book I (partially) read was the Audacity of Hope.  This book in short bored me out of my mind.  From what I could actually pay attention to it was a book basically about Barack Obama as a senator and his political views on society.   I think the reason it bored me so much is frankly, I really don’t give a crap what Barack Obama’s ideas on politics are.  I really don’t like politics that much in general and maybe I was just being bitter about that but I thoroughly don’t think I could dislike a book more then that one.  This book I think was more for him to find interesting then anyone else.  I know this because during an ELT project I was writing mostly about my own views and realized that the only person who REALLY found them interesting enough to read a book about them would be myself.  So maybe that is why I hated the book so much, because it reminded me that I had tried to write that way and it blew up in my face.  It was a scary reminder of the fact that I can’t write for my life or at least not that way.

            The second book I read, or more like devoured, was Twilight.  This paragraph is pretty much completely biased because of the fact that I am seriously in love with this book.  Oh well.  This book amazed me in two ways.  One was obviously the amazing content and everything that happens in it, and also how much it distracted me from my real life.  Honestly, during the time I was reading this if I wasn’t actually reading it which was mostly 4 to 5 hours at a time I was thinking about getting to read it.  And getting to find out what happens next.  I am truly amazed at how an author can keep you (for lack of a better word) hooked at the same time as developing the characters so well you feel like you know everything about and what will happen to them.  This book was so elaborately written that it seemed as if it could be totally real.  Or maybe if you didn’t believe that it could be you still wished with all your heart that it was.  It was like you knew what they would do in every situation but the situations were so complicated and unexpected you were never bored.  This book really inspired me to in my own writing to do the same thing with characters and situations or at least to try it and see what I can come up with.

            The last book I chose for this project was the Diaries of Anne Frank.  This book kind of scared me in the sense that the “author” never meant anyone to read it.  It even said somewhere in the book she thought it would be really embarrassing as well as uninteresting if someone else were to read it.  I think the reason why so many people read this book was because it was so brutally honest.  You knew that nothing in it was exaggerated because why would you lie to yourself?  It also kind of spooked me because I felt guilty reading a fellow teenagers thoughts that were never meant to be seen.  I also was intrigued by it because of the fact that she is so like me and other teenagers but in an entirely different situation.  All I can really say is how amazing the honesty in this book was.

            In this essay again I say it is not meant for you to learn something (whoever you may be) but meant for me to show you that I did learn something.  I think what I learned here was as follows:  Anyone can write a book and find some way for it to be published (proven by The Audacity of Hope), but what matters is the influence it has on other people.  If the book totally occupied your mind and made you think about other realities or its characters or even just the ideas presented within it, that is what makes a good book (like Twilight).  And also that the more honest or at least if you make it seem like it is or could be true the more people want to read it (like in Anne Frank).  Some more conclusions I have drawn from these books: The Audacity of Hope- I will never ever write a book on my political views no matter how much money I am offered or how much I want to be president for the soul reason that I don’t want some 8^th grade kid trashing it after they tried to read it.  Twilight- Some people are just better at writing then others naturally, I know this because I could never come up with something as imaginative and amazing as this book.  Anne Frank-  If I ever wanted to leave someone a lot of money I should give them the rights to a diary of myself locked in an attic house for 2 and a half years with Nazi’s trying to kill me and my family.  Maybe this entire essay is entirely biased, and maybe it is really controversial, and maybe I included too many of my own opinions in it, but I still think it gets the point across of what I’ve learned.

497 pages

5 hardest words on a random page:

endearment

pivotal

grudgingly

unrelentingly

chivalry

            This book was amazing.  It is my new favorite book but this review isn’t supposed to just praise it so if I do please forgive me.  It had this odd reality scheme that was both confusing and endearing.  It made you want to keep reading but there were certain parts that most books have that this one lacked.  Like in a lot of books it describes when the main character eats and does normal everyday activities like that.  In this book it seemed like if it had things like that it would only slow things down. The book is already lengthy and if it did have these things I think a lot would be taken away from it.  I haven’t been able to figure out what makes some books slow and now I think maybe that is part of it.  I really don’t care when the character eats or goes to the bathroom.  I’d rather hear about her infatuation with someone who wants to drink her blood.  So in a way the books “flaw” only makes it more unique and fun to read.

            I read this book in 2 days flat.  I don’t know how anyone could just read it a chapter at a time.  At certain parts I literally had adrenaline pumping through my veins.  The sheer suspense is enough to make you want to scream.  It is NEVER slow, boring, or routine.  You are always longing to have it when you are away.  I’m serious you have separation anxiety from just a pile of paper!  I have come to the uncertain conclusion that this is because of the characters.  They aren’t developed in the sense that you know all about their past but more like you know what they would do in future situations.  This does not make it predictable like you may think because the situations are so odd there is no way you could imagine them yourself.  The characters are portrayed more like you know them.  Not personally but kind of like how we try and find out about ourselves but more like we know them better then we do ourselves.  You know how they feel about other characters and how they deal with things.  On a physical level, the characters aren’t very drawn out.  You do get an idea of what they may look like but it gives you room to elaborate yourself.  You have the option of making them look like what you want them to.

            As much as I like this book it frustrates me.  It’s like I want to know what happens next but it makes me uneasy if I read it too fast because then it will be over.  It’s pretty amusing but still unnerving.  I honestly don’t know how the author could have dreamed up such an elaborate plot for her first book.  Seriously her imagination is amazing to me.  I didn’t know that one person could dream up such complicated themes.  I really think this book is extremely appealing to so many readers because of its theme of vampires.  I don’t care if I’m stereotyping when I say this because I truly do believe it.  EVERY girl loves vampires.  Young or old, smart or stupid, tall or short, EVERY girl has a thing for vampires.  So yes using that theme to attract readers is sort of “cheating” but it doesn’t take away from how well this book is written.  Just to even imagine a clan of vampires living in a small rainy town is exciting.  It is a very feminine book in that sense.  I’ve caught myself daydreaming about what happened in this book.  Embarrassing as it is it’s true.  I think the theme is the biggest reason why people are drawn to this book.

            Another aspect of this book was that it was actually pretty challenging.  I am a good reader but in this I found I had to go back to read sentences over again and I think I even looked up a word or two.  I’m not saying it’s a bad thing but it annoyed me because it just slowed me down.  I didn’t like having to pay so much attention but then if I didn’t I felt like I was missing something.  I usually read things that are way to easy for me just so I don’t have to concentrate on it too much.  But this one was kind of bittersweet. In the sense that I had to pay attention to get the whole story, but if I didn’t get the whole story I was mad at myself so I went back and read stuff over again.  To put it simply this book was perfect in it’s frustration.

    Yeah *girly laughing* superhit.  Sit.  What was it?  Just forget it. Okay.  Dude.  

      It tricks you it doesn't really work. *typing sounds* * silence other then the typing* Has anybody seen borat?  It's so stupid.  Its funny though. Yeah but its stupid.  Dude.  Mr. Wilkoff? How do I get it to manage? 

No it's not.  Pickles.  Are you still obsessed with rock music?  Suck 44, Blink-one eighty poo, Fartell?  That one's the best.  *abnoxious laughing*  Uh oh sorry an error has been found.  An error has been found again.  *girly voice* No! don't do this to me!  What are you doing.  Were thinking of band names to make fun of.  How bout instead of 3days grace its pee on grace. (Now they attempt to make up a stupid name for My Chemical Romance but fail because they are the most amazing band in the world).  You guys are boring.  Thats what she said.  Make machine gun noises.  How about we just blow up nick's computer beacuse his music sucks.  How about we just blow up Nick? Ok.  

Wisconsin got beat by UNB (more boring basketball yammering).  Were gonna blow up nick?  Yeah.  Can I help?  Yeah.

*more typing* *this is sad we have nothing to talk about and there is like 30 kids in here*  Layne you have a footprint on the back of yoour shirt.  Greta, Greta, Your asian friend is attracted to me.  Sick.  *everyone is laughing abnoxiously but they are talking to quietly so i don't know what were saying*  

I'm kind of irratated right now *in a very girly voice*

Dude get your hand away.  

Eww I keep shedding!  

I'm not that pale anymore, I'm getting tanner.

What is the other one? What starts with a p and ends with an orn? Popcorn! (talking with mr. wilkoff about the what starts with f and ends with uck, Firetruck!)

ANybody else want starbucks right now? YEAH!  

Its the best game ever.  Yeah.  What?  Yeah.  Except for once when I (drowned out by)

My sister hates that station.  93.3 IS my station I love it.  Yeah its good.  Taking back sunday only has one CD?  Yeah. Oh.  Oh my gosh!  Single file just signed with the same people who signed My Chem and Greenday.  I hate Greenday.  I just don't like American Idiot .  I like Kerplunck and stuff.  Yeah.

I get to see my neice soon!!! And get tan!  

Okay I'm done now this is really hard to follow but some of it is at least mildly amusing and because I am too utterly exhausted and frustrated and unhappy to write anything else I am going to post it okay?  I don't need you permission.

This is a paper written from a student photography major at DU. He was 20 years old when he wrote this. This paper was meant to accompany a project for his photography class to take a picture of something meaningful.

Sheila Porter. She started it all. I am writing this paper along with my project for this class. But I would like you to know that it was not me that put all the work in. Sheila Porter was who I took the picture of. She was the one who did something meaningful. She did it all. All this paper is meant to do is make it known to at least one other person in the world what she did.

She said that over her summer vacation she planned to go to Washington D.C. She had found some kind of public park jsut south of the white house and gotten the right permits to station herself there for the entire summer. She spent money she had saved since she was 6 years old on a costom made steel cage meant to look like a jail cell. She planned to have it shipped to that park and set up with her inside of it. She planned on staying in there for 60 days. Her mom was going with her to take her food and blankets and whatever she needed. She would only leave the cell to use the restroom in the nearby port-o-potty for visitors.

My first question was obviusly what would possibly provoke someone to do something like this. I went searching around her blog until I found the post that started it all.

The post included this word for word:

I recently watched an Oprah show about child molestors. They had some guy from the child exploitation foundation or something like that. They were talking about how only 1/3 child molesters don't register. If they get caught and have not been registered it is only a misdemeanor. The other 2/3 usually don't get very long in jail. They said this one guy in Virginia molested to 6 year olds and only spent 60 DAYS IN JAIL! And after that they sent him to a rehab center for another month and he had to register and he was free to go. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!?! He freaking raped two kids! Anyone who does something that horrible should be in prison for life.  No second chances.  No excuses.  60 days??? Thats not even a full summer vacation!  Sure we'd have to build a lot more prisons but I'm sure people would rather spend their tax dollars on that.  Especially when we've got so much of it going to stupid ear tags like lumber mills.  I bet most americans would even agree to pay MORE tax dollars if it means protecting the future generations.  I don't know how the government can look over things like this.  Child abuse and molestation is no longer a crime, it is an epidemic.  

This post shocked me.  So what if it was written by a high school freshman it was still amazing to me.  How could this be happening to our country?  Why wasn't anybody doing anything about it until now?  And why did the person who stood up and noticed was only just starting high school?!  What is wrong with this country.  The post went further to say that she beleived in the phrase from the Declaration of Independance that "those who have the ability to take action have the responsibility to take action".  It amazed me that since someone who had very little ability but realized that no one else would, took it upon herself to take action.  She was holding the most amazing protest I had ever heard of.  I hadn't actually heard of many protests but hers infatuated me.  She was representing the man who had been cut slack when she beleived no one who did something like that should get none.  She was stationing herself in the town where most of the government affairs are taken care of.  So, I figured I at least owed it to her to be at her protest.  I took the money I had been saving up and flew to Washington D.C. I was there the day they set up her cage with her inside it.  They used an extremely strong metal so no weirdo's could bother her at night.  All that was in there was a blanket and a pillow on the ground.  I met her and told her this story.  She seemed like a totally normal teenager like I remembered being.  She liked bands and thought dirty things were funny because she was in high school and from then on your mind is permanently in the gutter.  I took a picture and wished her the best.  Then I left.    

I kept track of her day to day journal from her blog that her mom had been working on.  She would write it down and her mom would copy it online.  One day there was no blog-journal.  I figured her mom had just gotten behind.  I watched the news that night.  On July 17th , 2007 about 2:30 in the morning, a strange man approached the makeshift jail cell and shot Sheila Porter once in the head.  She died almost instantly.  They knew all that because there was a video camera nearby for the visitors.  After that congress passed a law that every registered child molester and any future ones would spend life in jail.  It took an innocent child's life to finally spurr the protection of the chldren of america.  So that is my paper.  I just wanted to tell her story.

5 hardest words on a page: porous, cowardice, tourniquet, emerged, surrendered

Pages in book: 196

Review:

I think this books main idea was that everyone and everything is connected. You don’t understand it as much in the beginning but in the end it becomes extremely clear that everything in the book leads up to that idea.  It illustrates that somehow you are connected to even the people you don’t meet.  An example in the book is:  When Eddie was in the war he thought he saw a shadow in a fire, like a child, he went in.  Because of this his liutenant shot him in the knee so he wouldn’t be killed.  He did not get to the shadow so the little girl Tala died.  She waited for him in heaven to be his 5th person.  That is just one idea the book brings about how closely knit we are.

 This book didn’t really delve into too much about any of the characters besides Eddie so I will try to make as much sense of the other important ones as I can because I can’t really go into much more detail about Eddie as the author did.  Marguerite, Eddie’s wife.  She lived her life loving her husband.  She didn’t have too much of a career and molded her life around being with Eddie.  They met at around 16 and like most old marriages were kind of forced together in a way.  Up until the end she never really had a life other than around her husband.

The old woman at the diner (Emile’s wife), Ruby.  She was another example of the typical wife in those times before the fiminism movement.  She supported and loved her husband until the day he died and left an amusement park with her name on it.  (Another example of them all being connected).  She was a waitress at a diner most of her life.  She was the person who explained to Eddie his father’s life and death.  She was portrayed as a very calm and patient person.

Something that amazing in this book is how calm and mellow everyone in heaven is shown as.  Being not very religous anyways this book opened doors to my mind and left me with the most annoyingly nagging question. What does happen after we die?  This question has haunted me since I finished the book and frankly I’m tired of it!  But it also made me realize how much fun it would be to write something like this.  To totally make up what you think will happen after we die and beleive in it with all your heart.  This book also makes me think that people who read it also have this nagging question and are forced to create their own beleif of what happens after we die or believe in the idea of the book itself.  Granted I’m not saying it makes you plan out your death but it does make you think.

And another thing! What are the people who don’t have their lives planned out supposed to do?!  I don’t know what college I want to go to or what I want to do.  In the hight school registration thing they said decisions we make now could affect the rest of our lives.  Gee thanks no pressure there.  We are 13! we shouldn’t have to think about that stuff yet! Were still kids who need our parents to get spiders out of the bathtubs for us!  We should be having fun not being pressured to work toward our “goals” 24/7!  Almost my entire day revolves around school.  What time I go to bed, homework, breakfast, everything.

So that was my questions as were getting closer to leaving this …uhh….great? school.  That was sarcasm I don’t actually think this school is great even though its not that bad.

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Here’s a question for any working adult out there who’s not in the feild of architecture, mathematics, or sciences. In your job, have you ever had a really meaningful reason to know how to find the volume of a hexagonal prism? Seriously, if you ask almost any adult they will agree that half of the stuff they learned in high school didn’t help them outside of school. Like geometry. I don’t want to go into anything science or medicine or development related so why should I have to learn something that I won’t use. Why should I sacrifice my time to learn something when in the long run I won’t need to know it outside of getting into college. It is a total and complete waste of time. Why should we all have to learn things if we don’t think they will benefit us in our chosen careers. I personally don’t want to be a doctor or a surgeon or anything in the medical career because 1. I don’t like blood or anything gory, 2. I don’t have any interest in what we look like on the inside, 3. I’m not interested in all the science and math you have to take to work the extra four years of medical school. So if I don’t want to take a career path that requires math or science, why should I have to take them past the average knowledge (algebra, biology). Maybe some other person wants to be a surgeon, so why should they learn about the american revolution or what Antidisestablishmentarianism means? My question is really: Why should we waste our time learning things we don’t want to learn. Don’t get me wrong I am extremely grateful that we get such good education. But it’s like if the government charges our taxes to give it to us it shouldn’t be a waste of time. They could at least try and do it individually. So here’s my plan for curriculum.

We should have teachers that teach a lot instead of one subject really well.  We still need the one subject teachers just not as many.  At the beginning of the year instead of registrations we should go to counselor/ class directors and they can deal with placing us based on personally wanted careers.  example:

If one kid wants to be a surgeon they will need a lot of math and science, thats where the one subject teachers come in.  If another kid doesn’t know what they want to do there will be classes to explore things that might interest students.  These classes have llittle projects in different subjects every week.  This way They can take these classes and throughout the year get to know what they are interested in.  Other classes include the norms.  L.A., Social Studies, Science, Math, Art, Gym, etc.

I think this idea could be expanded on and stuff but it would eliminate the stupidity of taking classes that won’t help us.

say a word over and over and over and over,  here I’ll give one to you,  say over like this: overoveroveroveroveroveroveroveroveroveroveroverover,  okay didn’t it sound weird,  with every word if you say it long enough in a row it just sounds too odd to make sense,  a word only makes sense if it’s in a sentence,

also if you look at something that has words on it you automatically know what it says,  you can’t look at a sign and think that was a sign that had a bunch of letters on it, your brain automatically puts it together so you know what it said,  I would be pretty freaked out if I couldn’t recognize a word at first glance but it just seemed weird to me how well we really can read,

another thing,,,(notice those are comma’s not periods) do you like your name, I like mine a lot but do you like yours, my cousin hates her name and says she is going to change it as soon as possible but I personally cannot see anyone calling her anything else, she just looks like she would have her regular name, like my parents almost named me lauren, I don’t look like a lauren, or sound like a lauren, or talk, or act, or anything like a lauren, I don’t know many people that don’t look like their names which proves that when parents baby’s are born they must get some name giving super power or something becuase they usually always do a pretty good job, except an example pf someone who doesn’t look like their name is my older brother taylor, his real name isn’t taylor, that’s his middle name, his real name is johnathon, you’ve probably never met taylor but if you can imagine some other taylor that you know having the name johnathon I wouldn’t think it would be right, the reason he was named johnathon was really my other brother’s fault, he was like 5 and his best friend in preschool’s name was johnathon so he suggested it to their mom and she said okay but apparently as soon as they saw him he looked like a taylor so that’s what EVERYONE calls him, just thought names were pretty cool because everyone ends up with the right one,

well my run on sentence is almost over and I just need to count the words in it,  well that takes too long so here’s my post!

-I want to learn eveything about my dream car (a 1961 ferrari 250 gt california as seen in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off).  I’m going to find the model I want and track it until I save up the 2.5 million dollars in order to buy it.  I’m going to get one with headlight covers (only 35 of the 55 made have them).

- I want to learn every inch of what a pirate ship looks like.  Where everything is and what it all is called.

At walgreens-

5 jingle bell bracelets for 1 dollar each.

2 packages of snowmen beverage napkins-2 for $3.00

At the mall

POTC outfit size-ages 4-6(little brother)$7.00(40% off)
At old navy

Teeny mini jean skirt!size-3-6 months(my neice!!!) $14.50

Jean jacket size 7 kids(best freinds little sister)-$4.00(on clearance)

Pajama plaid lounge pants-dark blue and dark green size 7 (deborah-neice’s moom)$10.00

2 fuzzy blankets-black with white snowflakes(dad and brother)$10.00

Total cost-$53.50

Normally I wouldn’t care how much all of this cost but I paid for all of it so it matters.  Now I have a total of 7 dollars left to pay for my bestest friends christmas present so if you would like to make a donation to Greta is a loser who forgot her best friend please comment!

p.s.if you don’t get my metaphor read the post called “original”

Okay here it is really:

(You see a family opening christmas presents around the tree in the morning with snow outside, with nice snow patrol christmas music playing in the backround)
“YAYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!”(cries the 12 year old girl as she opens her long awaited ipod and hugs her parents. She screams and puts it on immediatly. There are already a few old school songs…put on by her parents, including blink-182’s I wont be home for christmas and it starts playing in the backround. The girl has to go to the bathroom from all teh excitement and excuses herself. The music still plays as you close up on the bathroom door and start bouncing the camera out of boredom. You hear a flush. Then out of the blue…)”AAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!”(A shrill scream and a splash and the music stops. the camera goes into the bathroom and closes up on the ipod, dead, in the toilet. The music starts again at the part where he says “its christmas time again” she cries. Then you see the title of the movie on the screen and it starts.)

        Just because an idea or thought isn’t original doesn’t mean it is bad.  Most of us have no idea if it is unoriginal.  Some ideas haven’t been thought up as far as california or farther if you know what I mean. But in reality it is original to us because we’ve never heard of it before.  I personally hate it when someone takes someone else’s idea and claims if as their own.  Kind of a thought plagerism if you will, but I’m sure at some point everyone has done it(again not to make you feel bad just another point to be made).  This post isn’t supposed to make you think you don’t have any good ideas or thoughts it is supposed to make you think about how new our world really is(or is not).

I wish people would stop considering or saying what if.  Of course they are still going to be there but why can’t you just promise something is going to happen or if you are unsure keep your trap shut!  It just gives out false hope!

Here is a meager example that doesn’t matter at all but is a good identifier (is that a word) of what I am trying to say:

 your mom says “if we go to the movies we can get dinner there”

well that if right there in this small completely insignificant subject could cause a whole chaotic mess such as:

you get all dressed up and excited to go see this movie and realize you are going with your parents…by yourself….eww…so you call up a friend to come along.  Since you know they are coming you wash your hair but spill hair spray all over your knew shoes! yuck! so your friend meanwhile has been inviting every tom dick and jane to the movie without you knowing.  she volunteers you to give everyone a ride home since you already said you could probably take her.  Then dear old mommy decides she would rather take a bubble bath than take you to the movies.  So upon hearing this you call up your friend who is already at the movie with everyone else so she has her phone off! so then you get a call at 10:30 which wakes up your brother.  She is yelling at where you are everyone there needs a ride home and are freezing their butts off!so out of desperation you wake up your mom and tell her you guys have to go pick everyone up.  After taking them all home you get grounded for the whole thing all because of that little if!

 Do you understand now what this stupid little if can do?

GOOD! this did not happen to me but the evil if has hurt me in other ways and i am so done with it! So, like i said before either promise something is going to happen or keep your trap shut!!!!!!!!!

Okay everyone has gotten that one cute forward that says cliche’s like
Friends: Ring the doorbell.

Best Friends: Walk in and yell ”I’m home!”

Now those are mostly true but how many “real” friends do we really have?

I’m not talking about the ones that you hang out with non-stop at school.  Or leave you I love you coments  online. Or the ones that you call about what he/she said on the bus.Not the ones that know “you”.But if they don’t know your past or what you’ve been through they don’t know the real you because your past is a part of you and shapes your personality.  Sure they are amazingly fun to hang out with and make inside jokes and you love them like family but it is not the same as the bond you have with your “real friend/s” I’m talking about the friend you call when you have to put your dog to sleep.  Or when your parents get in a huge horribly family crushing fight.  Or the ones you just want to know they are listening to every word you utter even if it is just complaints and blabber that has no significance.  You know who I am talking about and if you don’t i am incredibly sorry for you.  But for those who are thinking of that someone/s right now as you read this be grateful.  Maybe it is your cousin, your sister, your 1st best friend, your pen pal, your almost relative since 1st grade, whatever I just hope you have one because I know I have at least 1 if not more and they make my world go round.  If I did not have my “real” friend I would be this horrible, socially crippled, corrupt, hypocrytical, (for lack of a better word)thing, that just floats around screaming screw the world because I have no one to dump my problems all over.  How many middle schoolers can say they have one?  This amazes me that so many of us do because we have only been on this insanely unexplainable world for 12/13 short years.  I guess everyone is like someone in this world maybe not completely but pretty darn close.  But maybe it’s the uniquness we so desperatly crave in each person.  Maybe not.  I don’t know.  But incase everything they have taught me in my 8 years of school is all wrong I do know at least one thing:

I would jump in front of a bullet for my “real” friend.  I am NOT just saying that.  If it were my life vs. theirs I would give up mine in an instant, no not even an instant, a micro-instant.  I would do that because I love them so dearly and hold them so close to me.

I hope you have this kind of friend and if you don’t you still have plenty of time to find that one person, after all, we are only in middle school.

You say your starving because luch is 15 minutes later than usual, but you have no idea what that feels like.

You are unhappy all day because your cable is out, but what you don’t realize is that is absolutley nothing to be unhappy about.

You only have 20 bucks to spend at the mall, but some people only have 20 bucks to survive for a year.

You complain when you have to help out around the house when your family is sick, when children in other places have been working in sweat shops since they were 6.

So think twice about what you have to say or what you complain about because people have it much worse and we should be grateful.

Don’t you think people who hang out in their driveways or front yards are weird?  Why wouldn’t you rather sit in your backyard with the grass and pretty trees rather than the smelly cars?  Is it just stupidity or are they all stalkers who like to watch as people drive by?  Just something to ponder.

 

It was September 27th, 2006.  I was going at a football game with my best friends in the whole world Scott(my boyfriend since 3 days ago, my best friend since 9 years ago) and Katina my other best friend from 9 years ago.  We had been watching for awhile out by the field and got bored so we decided to walk to the high school nextdoor to get something to eat.  We had gotten halfway there when mom called to let me know she was coming for all of us in 30 minutes.  So we quickened our pace and sat at one of the tables with our food.  As we were finishing and throwing stuff away I had this weird voice in my head that said something was wrong.  Odd things like that happen to me a lot but I never think much of them.  Like if I wake up one morning and know something bad is going to happen.  Usually I am wrong but sometimes not.  I brushed it off and we started walking back.  We were talking and laughing and singing along to American Idiot  on the boom box some of the high schoolers were crowded around.  We reached the bus loop when I heard a screech like no other.  A noise worse than nails on a chalk board that was so disturbingly high I went blind for a moment.  I turned just in time to see my mom’s car before it exploded into a hazing fire 3 feet away from me.  The noise from the explosion penetrated my skull into my mind and body and is still with me to this day.  I fell.  Someone screamed.  Sirens.  Everything was gray while I lay there on the cold concrete next to the fire.  I couldn’t feel anything.  Not the blood dripping down my temple, the brush of Katina’s chesnut hair on my foot,  my mother’s bony figure hurting my knees, or the intense scorching heat of the fire so near to me.  I was cold.  Someone in a white shirt lifted me up into an ambulance.  Katina was there too.  The people kept saying things to me but i couldn’t hear them.  I was cold and confused.  It was like i wasn’t even there.  I was trapped inside anothers body watching everything around me in slow motion and no color.  We got to the hospital.  My dad was in the waiting room crying.  I had never seen him cry before.  But i didn’t notice at the time.  Then it was like I was put back into my own body again.  My head hurt, every bone in my body ached, all the scratches I had were bleeding and I was beginning to become squeemish.  Then Katina walked over without a scratch.  Without saying anything she took me to the hospital shower in a cold room and turned on the water.  It rushed over my eyes and face and trickled down my fully clothed body.  Then I remembered.  My mother was dead.  That was what the doctor’s in the ambulance said.  They told me her car had exploded because of some kind of fauldty tube or something.  And the last time I touched her was when her body lay across my knees.  I screamed.  But there was no noise.  I was screaming and shouting and crying inside my head to get out of the shower.  Don’t let your knees wash off.  That’s all you have left of her.  Nothing else.  I kept telling myself to get out but I couldn’t.  It was like my brain was no longer functioning to do anything i wanted it to.  When we got out of the shower my words came back.  But I couldn’t talk because of the tears.  I screamed and wailed and banged my feet against the floor.  I ran into the waiting room sopping wet and collapsed on the tile.  Scott came and sat with me, put his arms around me.  He was crying too.  But I didn’t notice.  All that was going through my head was my knees.  Why had I let them be washed off.  Why weren’t they still covered in my mom’s smell, blood, touch.  Why didn’t I have my dirty knees.  I blacked out.  Woke up next to my brother the next day.  Now there is nothing left of my mother.  Nothing at all except a couple of bones in a big wood box 6 feet under.  I still could have had her if i hadn’t washed my knees.  There was nothing more in the world I ever wanted more than my dirty knees back.  Nothing.  And there never would be.  Now at 85 and 1/2 I still want those knees back.  Not the wrinkly saggy clean things that hold my calf and thigh together.  I still want back my dirty knees.

Think about it.  Who do you think our Presidents are/were? Will they ever be those people again?

the person who wasnt always there but when they were they completed the family
the one who took the longest at the dinner because they ate so slow

the one who got you the presents that were thought about instead of just a gift card

the one who seemed so sweet to everyone that was sweet to them and who made funny faces behind the backs of those who werent

what if they disappeared?

now you dont know if they are laying in a ditch crying out for help

or in a cemetary pushing up daisies

or shmoozing up some hottie in mexico never to be seen again

you dont know what to think

you dont know anything

and that makes you empty

and that makes you wonder if you should care more and think more about it

so you force yourself to think about it every moment of the day and be miserable

and hide it from everyone so they wont know

and put yourself through what really isnt your fault

and finally…

you get a call

that says they are ok

but also says they made up a lame excuse for being gone

an excuse so unlikely not even their family beleives it

and now you will never trust that one you love so much again

and it is all their fault

but you still beat yourself up inside because you didnt see it earlier

what if that happened to you?