Vira's Beginning

So, I said that I was going to post more of my story. Here it is. I'm not if I like it yet, but I'm still working on getting to where it will merge with the plot that I came up with in Moab. It's coming together slowly but surely. Let me know what you think.

“Virginia, darling?” Her mother was calling her from the kitchen, as she did every morning. “Virginia, come to breakfast. Your father made French toast.”

In her bedroom, Virginia sighed. French toast was their Monday breakfast, Tuesday breakfast was blueberry pancakes, Wednesday was apple cinnamon oatmeal and so on. There was not a single morning that was unpredictable in the Atley household. In fact, Virginia’s mother prided herself on how precise and structured their life was. The way they acted suggested that they were not the average, middle class family that they actually were but instead some privileged, rich, high society family with the obligations to create such a strict agenda. As it was, Virginia’s family did not have any obligations. They hardly had any friends and they were not involved in the community. Still, Virginia woke every morning knowing exactly what her day held in store.

Looking in the mirror, she frowned at her appearance. It was not that she was dressed by her mother, exactly, but that she was so used to her parents’ constant influence on her life that she felt odd wearing anything that her mother had not approved. Virginia looked her age, wore styles that were popular amongst her peers, but she always felt that it wasn’t really her (not that she would know what was really her if it was staring her in the face.) She looked completely average. She had plain, flat brown hair and wore very little make up to cover her plain features. There were plenty of girls at school who looked just like her.

Speaking of school, it was now nearly seven o’clock and if she didn’t get to her breakfast soon she would have to wait until lunch to eat. Virginia pushed her hair behind her ears and grabbed her book bag (a very common, yet stylish shoulder bag) before heading down the hall to the kitchen. Her parents, as well as her younger sister, Maia, were already sitting at the breakfast table. Virginia stopped at the end of the hall and observed them for a moment. They each seemed so wrapped up in their morning routine.

Mark Atley was a business man of some form. His own family was not really sure what exactly he did, other than that it allowed him to work regular hours and required a lot of paper work. He was about six feet tall and was of average build. His brown hair and blue eyes made him unlikely to be picked out in a crowd. Overall, Mark was an average man. This morning, like every morning before, Mark was eating his breakfast while pouring over the latest news via his iPhone. Virginia wanted to laugh at how modernly clichéd her father was. She could just imagine a newspaper in his hands instead of the small device that seemed to contain her father’s world. In her imagination he would turn to her and smile with perfectly straight, bleach white teeth. “Good morning dearest daughter,” Mark would say. “Did you sleep well?” In reality, Mark continued to stare at his iPhone.

At the other end of the table, Mira Atley was looking as pristine as any housewife would dream to. She was a pretty thing. Her blond hair and green eyes were unique to anyone Virginia had ever known. She was slim and just short enough that, with heels, she was just under five foot seven. When Mira was around friends or other company she was often the prettiest person around. When she was around her family she often looked as dull as Mark. Virginia thought that the routine of their lives must have become boring after 18 years, especially when Mira had once been a cheerleader and was apparently the life of every party. Virginia could not imagine her mother as anything but they orderly woman sitting at the table, slowly and delicately eating her toast. She almost laughed at the contrast between her mother and herself, but didn’t.

It was then that Virginia realized that Maia was staring at her. It was odd how the two sisters seemed to look as different as their mother and father. She had always thought that her dark hair and green eyes could never compete with Maia’s blond hair blue eyed look. If Maia had been looking to compete, that is. Virginia never understood her sister. Maia seemed to be completely content with living under the rules set by their parents. Virginia wondered if she came off that way herself. She dressed the way her parents approved of, as Maia did. She made friends with the girls her mother liked, as Maia always had.

Maybe it was that, unlike Virginia, Maia did seem to be the modern teenager. She listened to music, but nothing of the rock or pop variety. Maia preferred Mozart and Bach to Taylor Swift and Coldplay. She read a lot more than most 15 year olds did. She also didn’t have nearly as many friends as the other girls her age had and she seemed completely fine with that. Virginia often wanted to get into her head. There had to be something more to her sister than this robot girl she appeared to be. She wondered if Maia perhaps felt as trapped in her life as Virginia felt in her own. Maia smiled at her before looking back to her breakfast and reading what was no doubt another novel by Jane Austen or one of the Bronte sisters.

“Morning,” Virginia said as she set her bag down by her chair and sat down. In front of her was a plate of French toast smothered in maple syrup and powdered sugar. It looked good. She knew it would taste good. That was the one thing about her family’s routine, there was never anything really unexpected in her life.

“Now, Virginia, you really need to keep to your schedule. You are more late for breakfast every day. We’re all worried about you,” Mira looked honestly concerned.

Virginia wanted to laugh. She had never been on time for breakfast. The others all sat down to eat at promptly 7:30. They ate slowly as they went about their individual tasks. Virginia would show up about 15 minutes before Mark would drive them to school and her mother would tell her that she needed to get back to her schedule and that they were all worried about her. “I’m sorry, mom. I’ll get up earlier tomorrow.” Virginia would reply. Mira would nod before finishing her breakfast and moving on to clean the kitchen.

It seemed absurd. Her mother did not realize that Virginia’s morning schedule had been different from the rest of the family’s for four years now. She had been in middle school when she had decided that it would not do her any harm to sleep in later and spend only 15 minutes rather than 45 on her breakfast. It had been the one move of independence she had made in her 17 years of life. Well, whoever she was, at least she knew that she liked to sleep in late and preferred to eat without doing other things at the same time. Again, Virginia wondered if Maia was as confused about her identity as she was.

~~~~~~~~~

As Mark announced that it was about time to head off for the day, Mira pulled Virginia aside. This was something odd. This was not part of her meticulous mother’s routine. Virginia was not sure what to expect of the following conversation. It was a first for her and possibly even a first for the Atley household.

“Virginia, I wanted to talk to you away from Maia and your father. I really have been worried about you, darling. You seem to be a little out of control. Mrs. Kreely has even commented that you grade in Chemistry is slipping. This is not like you, dear…” Virginia would have spoken, but sensed that her mother had more to say. “I know that you were heartbroken when David broke up with you, but Virginia, you are so much stronger than that. You can pull out of this, I know you can. I’m here for you. That’s what mothers are for. You need to talk to me.”

David. She should have known.

Virginia’s first and only boyfriend at this point in her life had been a senior name David Pavlo. They had met in their Biology class the year before and were fast friends. When the homecoming dance had come around in October, no one was surprised that David had asked her to go with him. After the dance David had asked her out again and again and again. Soon they were inseparable. For a time Virginia had even considered herself in love with him.

David’s love for Virginia ended at the start of the final term. For a month he avoided her calls and blamed all of their cancelled dates on student groups or soccer practice. They still walked through the halls together. They still talked to each other constantly when they were together, but he had stopped seeking her out. They only were together when she went looking for him. That’s when Virginia had decided that she couldn’t be part of their relationship any longer. It was too difficult to keep what they had going when only one person was even trying. She was unhappy. It was the beginning of all of her unhappiness, really. David had made her realize that she was no longer happy with her life. Then she had broken up with him.

Virginia had not realized that the rumors that had been going around school about how David had broken up with her because he realized that he did not want to be more than just friends with her had gotten all the way to her mother’s ears. When Mira had asked Virginia why David was no longer around, Virginia had merely said that they were no longer together, that they had decided that their relationship was not what they had wanted. She had given her mother no clue as to who had broken up with whom.

She sighed but did not bother to correct Mira. Her mother could think whatever she wanted about David Pavlo. “Mom, I’m not upset about David. I swear. School has just been difficult lately because it is the end of the year and I am just so ready for it to be summer. I promise that I will try harder.”

Mira did not look convinced, but Mark was calling for Virginia from the garage. “Alright,” she sounded weary. “Just know that you can talk to me, Virginia. I love you and I want you to be happy.” Virginia smiled. “Now, hurry up, your father is waiting. Have a good day!” Virginia turned away, rolling her eyes. She had never understood how her mother was able to change moods so quickly. Virginia thought all of it was rather disingenuous.

“Gin, if we’re late I’m going to blame you.” Maia complained. Maia had never been late for school without having planned it in advance. Virginia’s new yearning for a little bit of disorder caused her to wish for a traffic accident or some other delay that would cause them to be late for class. Though, simply making Maia late for class didn’t seem like enough chaos for her.

“Maia, you are such a drama queen. You are still going to be the first one to class, I’m sure. You aren’t going to lose your gold star, so stop whining.” Maia glared back at her from the front seat. It was no secret in their family that Maia and Virginia did not get along well at all. It seemed to be the one crack in her mother’s perfect dream. It didn’t even seem to be much to Mira. Her daughters could barely stand to be in the same room, but they followed the routine and they knew how to create the image of a perfect family. That, after all, was what was important.

“Girls, can’t you just pretend that you like each other?” Mark said from the driver’s seat.

So, yeah... I don't know. This part is just supposed to show her family and how she lives a little bit. I've still got more of that to write before I start into the actual plot. We'll see what happens.

Why I Write

(A picture of me from 2006)
Have you ever written something and then months or years later come back to it and read it to find that, not only do you not remember it, but that it doesn't actually seem like it is something that you wrote? You read and you think 'Wow. These are some really good ideas. If only I could remember having them.'

Take, for instance, my first post on the Honors English board discussing the definition of a classic novel:

To me a classic has to be something that could be read over and over again. Something someone could still be surprised about even after they've read it five or six times. A classic has to be something that makes you think about what's going on, and possibly compare things that are going on in the book to those things that are going on in your life, or in the lives of those around you. I think The Count of Monte Cristo does this. So far it has made me wonder about a lot of things. I love it when a book gets me thinking about the time era it was written in, and I think that's part of the definition of a classic. I don't think Harry Potter could really fit into that though, mostly because it doesn't really make you think about what was going on in the world when it was written. Sure I think that people will still be reading the Harry Potter books years and years from now, but I don't think it will ever be considered a classic along with the Twilight series and Eragon. I think the definition of a classic would be a book that inspires someone to think about different issues, or things involving the book, and also one that is know worldwide and is passed through generations- that is my definition of a classic.

While looking at some stories people I know have posted on the internet I came across this quote:

"A classic is classic not because it conforms to certain structural rules, or fits certain definitions (of which its author had quite probably never heard). It is classic because of a certain eternal and irrepressible freshness." -Edith Wharton

I found that I really liked how Edith Wharton (though I don't know who that is) described the definition of a classic. You can't say a book is a classic because of this and that. A book is a classic because for some reason, whatever it may be, it remains timeless. People read it and enjoy it just as much no matter how many years it's been since it was written.

(A picture of me from 2008)

Even though the writing isn't really great, the thoughts and ideas behind this post are something that I really like. I also really like and agree with the quote that I used. However, I don't at all remember looking for or finding the quote. I don't remember what spurred me to write what I did. My second post from that class, discussing what makes a good book, is even better:

The best book I've ever read would definitely have to be the Talisman by Stephen King. The reason it was such a good book was because by the end of the book I felt as if I was right there with the main character. It took me a long time to read it, not because it's a really long book, it is, but because I started to read it when I was about ten. I read the first chapter or so, and then I didn't think about it for another year. I read the first chapter again, but I still wasn't interested in it. Then my mom downloaded the audiobook version of it the year I started seventh grade. I put it on my ipod and listened to the first chapter remembering how different I was when I started the book years before.

The reason this book was so great is because I really got into the story, the characters, the sounds, the smells, the sights. It was as if I was in the story, and that's why I loved it. There was a great deal of action, and it felt as if the story went on for decades. That's what a good book is to me. A great story that makes you feel almost like you're really there. Like the characters are your best friends, or your worst enemies, or the weirdest strangers you've ever seen. Sometimes you get so worried about what's going to happen that your not sure if you can finish it, but you have too. You can't put the book down.

It can't be a story that you read once and is really good, but then you go to read it again and its boring. For it to really be a genuinely great book you have to be able to read it time and time again without ever getting bored. You have to be able to feel the same things again and again when you read it, it has to feel as if you're going to a familiar place when you pick it up again. The story has to make you feel as if you are going home. That is what I think makes a good book.

I really loved reading this post again. Not only did I agree with what I said and still find it like I was reading it for the first time, but it reminded me of how much I loved reading The Talisman and, in fact, made me want to read the book again.

I guess that's just one reason why I love to write. I love that I can look back at the things I wrote, whether they are fiction or not, and just imagine how I was back then. I love that it gives me a fresh view on myself. I love that my thoughts and ideas are preserved in the things I write because even if I still know what my thoughts on certain things used to be, there is no way for my mind to preserve the words I would have used to express my thoughts. It's like, in everything I write I save myself, who I am at the moment that I am writing.

(A picture of me from February, 2010)
That is the purpose of this blog. It is me; the different versions of me that have evolved over the last three years. My ideas have changed and I have changed so much in that time. My purposes for writing have even changed somewhat. The one thing that has stayed the same, though, is that I do write. That will always be the case.

"There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein."

Walter Wellesley "Red" Smith

"Don't get it right, just get it written."

James Thurber

Revising Something Old

Almost 4 years ago I met a girl who would come to shape my early teens. She was the first really close friend I ever had. For about 2 and a half years she and I were always together. We were always doing things together. I spent every weekend I could over at her house. That girl's name is Morgan. She and I are not close now, but I attribute a lot of who I am now to her influence. She was my best friend during a critical time in my life.

Morgan and I were both very into books and writing. I still am. I am pretty sure that she still is as well. When we were in 8th grade we decided that we wanted to write something together. We were also very silly girls when we were together. We had these imaginary "boyfriends" that we referred to constantly in our daily conversations. These characters, Alex and Aaron, became the star players in a story that was the first real quality thing I wrote (I know parts of it were pretty horrible, Morgan, but you have to admit that our overall plot line (which would have created a trilogy, had we finished it) as well as our characters were pretty great.) I thought the story was pretty original. It wasn't the most original thing I have ever written, but it was pretty good.

Ever since Morgan and I stopped writing the story in 9th grade (we had somewhere between 50 and 70 pages) I have wanted to finish it. Eventually that want changed. I now want simply to use the main idea behind it. It needs new characters (our main characters were pretty much unrealistic) and I think some of the plot definitely needs to be reworked, but I like the idea that we started. Throughout the years, I have tried and tried to write a story similar to it and yet better. Thus far, I have not succeeded.

I feel that it is time to change that.

My family and I went to Moab last week over spring break. We were camping by Slick Rock trail and there was this rock just behind the tent that my sisters and I shared that was absolutely perfect for sitting and contemplating the universe. One evening I came back to camp after a day of 4 wheeling I sat on that rock. As I sat there this universe came to present itself to me. Along with it came a cast of characters and their cultures. It was not as if I was merely thinking them up. I sat on that rock and looked out toward the setting sun on the horizon and these things just came to me of their own accord. I had not been thinking about writing a novel at the time. It has always been a dream of mine, but I recently decided that I was going about it for the wrong reasons, I wanted to have finished the act. I no longer wanted to create a novel for the simple act of telling the story I had to tell. I had told myself that if I was ever going to write the novel in my head I would have to wait for it to present itself to me. I could not keep hunting for it as I had been.

So now I have it. I have the characters and I have the setting. I know parts of the story, but not all of it. As I continue to write the lives of my characters the rest of it will come to me as this part has so far. I have not ever written a story by this method. I believe that is why the only stories that I have ever finished in the past were short ones. I am going to finish this one.

One last thing before I go: This is my 100th blog post! I'm kinda disappointed that it took me 3 years to get to 100, but it is still awesome!

So, happy 1ooth blog!

Link to My Past

Social networking websites are taking over the world. Now days most people have an account on myspace or Twitter or Facebook. It's uncommon for a person to not be involved in some form of online socialization. I find it interesting and a lot of the time I wonder just what the point is of having all of these half interactions with people online, but today I can honestly say that I really am glad, truly glad, that I use Facebook.

The reason for this is that, today I started talking to someone who I have not seen in seven years. In all of that time I have always wondered what has happened to him. I have always been curious about whether or not we would ever see each other again and what we would say to each other if we ever did get the chance. If I lived in a time or a place where Facebook had not been invented or was not accessible I would have never gotten the chance to talk to him again and I would always be left with the curiosity of what had happened to him since we were both 10 years old.

Dalton is the son of an ex-girlfriend of my dad's. To me, though, he was more than that. I don't think I ever interacted with his mom much, but during the time that our parents were together I spent every single weekend hanging out with Dalton and his older brother, Brayden. We did all kinds of things: mini golfing, going to Lagoon, playing in my Grandma's basement, swimming, bowling, etc. Name something a bunch of kids may have done with their father during the weekend and I bet we did it. There were less computers back then. I'm not talking about in the world (although that is certainly true,) I'm talking about in my life. Those days were filled with games and activities. We spent a ton of money basically every weekend, but I think we could have just as easily entertained ourselves without it.

Anyway, when my dad and Dalton's mom split up I don't think I fully realized that I would most likely never see them again. I remember one weekend after the fact when Dalton called and asked if we were going to do anything that weekend. Until this week that was the last I had heard of him. Then I found him on Facebook.

I'm glad that I am getting the chance to talk with Dalton. I no longer have to live with the curiosity of what has happened to him in the past seven years. I am happy to talk to him and see not only how he has been but what has happened to him and what he has been up to. Seven years ago we knew each other as well as any 10 year old knew another 10 year old. We were good friends. Now we are complete strangers who merely share a past. Well, I'm glad to have that link to my past.

:D

The Beginning of Something Big

So, I sat down at my laptop about ten minutes ago, determined to write something. This is what I came up with:

Do you know what it feels like to be watched by everyone you know? Have you ever felt like you had to do something, like you had to be a certain kind of person because it was expected of you? A lot of people would just chalk that up to peer pressure, but I am talking about more than that. I am not asking if you have ever felt pressured into doing something wrong. I’m asking if you know what it feels like to not know who you are because all your life you’ve followed the expectations of others.

Yes?

No?

Well, I do. For the first fifteen years of my life I only did what I was supposed to. My friends were people who I thought my parents would approve of. I took classes that would lead me toward the career they wanted for me. I only liked guys who I believe my father would like. My clothes and my bedroom constantly mimicked the tastes of my mother.

Then, one day, I asked myself a question: Who am I? When I could not even come up with an answer, I decided that it was time to change. I would no longer be the result of my family’s expectations. That was the day everything changed.

My name is Virginia Marie Atley and this is my story.

I'm not sure how much I like it yet, but I'm thinking that it is a prologue to a story that I sort of started about a month ago and am now going to try to actually do something with. The whole reason I started this piece today is that I was thinking about nicknames for the name Virginia (ever the Harry Potter fanatic, I was contemplating whether or not I liked the name Virginia or Ginevra better for Ginny,) and I thought of one that I have never really heard before but instantly loved: Vira (pronounced veer-a.)

Then I began thinking of the rest of the name and for some reason I came up with Virginia (Vira) Marie Atley. I instantly knew that this is the name that I should have been using with that character that I created about a month ago. I like it. Vira Atley just has a very nice ring to me.

On top of all of that, I was looking through some folders on my laptop today and I realized that I really don't write at all anymore. There are tons of files no bigger than 50-5000 words on my computer that demonstrate how much I loved to write when I was younger. My new goal is to accumulate more of these partially written files, because, even if I'm not finishing what I am writing, I am thinking about it. I am using my imagination when I am writing and I am enjoying the stories, characters, places, etc. that I am creating. It makes me happy.

< rant >

Last year I totaled a car that was supposed to go to my little sister as soon as my car was complete (my step dad was working on a Celica for me.) I was driving it because I had a summer class and a job and I really needed to be transported to all of those places by myself.

It's been almost a year since the accident now and I feel like I haven't done anything. All of that stress has been weighing on me and I don't think anybody realizes how much I stress about it. They joke about it and I know that it is probably ridiculous for me to still be this upset about it all but I can't help it. This is how I feel.

I feel as if for the last year I have not moved forward at all. In fact, I feel as if I have been moving backward. Almost a year ago I had just gotten hired at Lagoon. I was working on getting my driver license. I was moving forward, growing up. It was good. All through Junior High I had had to rely on my mom to take me everywhere I needed to go and I was suddenly feeling the freedom that was coming. Last June, not only did I gain that freedom but I quickly managed to lose it.

Sometimes I feel as if I am not making any progress in my life. I have all of these things that I need to do: get a job, register the van, get insurance. I tried all last summer to get a job. I tried again in October. Now that's it is time to try again I am realizing that I have more or less stood still since June. I have not done anything important. I have not done anything to rectify the events of last summer. I have gone to school. I have come home. School is the only productive thing I have been doing.

I just hate the way this whole thing makes me feel. I don't know what it is about the last few weeks, but it's like I'm dealing with it all over again. I think about the accident more and more frequently. I dream about it. I think I've imagined every other possible scenario that would have gotten me and that car home safely that day. The words that I said, the phone call to my mom, plays over and over in my mind sometimes. When I'm in a car there are moments when I have to close my eyes because of the irrational fear that I feel.

I feel stressed and I feel guilty. I feel irresponsible. I feel like I just need to find a job so that I can get my van registered and finally be able to say that I have fixed the incredible mistake that I made last June.

I know I need to get over it. I know I need to move on with my life.

I just don't know if I can until I get this mess sorted out. I need to fix this.

I just need this to be over.

< / rant >

A New Journey, A New Me

I was just looking at my blog to see what it looks like with the school internet censuring it (I gotta say, it looks pretty plain) and I noticed that since January this blog now spans four years. In reality, it's only about two and a half years, but since I started in fall of 2007 and it is now 2010, my blog archive shows writing in four different years.

I found this pretty impressive.

I know my blog posts have become very sporadic and not very interesting but I am choosing to see that as a good thing. When I started this blog I wrote things that I wanted other people to hear but did not really have anyone to tell. Back then, I wasn't so good with actually having conversations to. Part of the reason for that is that I didn't really have that many people to talk to when I was in 9th grade. Back then I believed that my friends and family weren't really interested in anything that I had to say. Or that they wouldn't want to hear me say it.

So I've decided that I am taking the lack of activity on this blog and making it a positive thing. Maybe I don't write much anymore and maybe I haven't gotten many comments in the last year but maybe that's just a sign that I have taken control of my life and my relationships and moved them outside of this virtual world that exists inside of my laptop.

There's more to that than blogging. I used to be an active member on a lot of websites. Facebook and Myspace (as well as Fanfiction.net and various other websites and forums) took up all of my time back then. I had friends from all over the country that I would get online to talk to and I would talk to them for hours. I didn't have many close friends outside of that and I didn't really talk to my family. I accused people of not knowing who I am. In reality, however, I think I was absolutely clueless about who I was.

I definitely do not have that all figured out now. I think I have a lot better idea, though. That is what is important. I have decided who I want to be. I have made connections with really great people and I have found outlets in the real world to let out my frustrations and to share my happiness. I don't know what I want to do with my life yet but I know that I am who I want to be. Like anyone, there are things that I wish were different... Or... Not so much wish, but I know that I could and will change them and that I will be a better person for it. I'm not as lost as I was in 9th grade.

About two weeks ago, Kara and I were sitting in my driveway. She was dropping me off from this luau thing I went to with her and, as usual, we were talking. Kara and I talk about anything and everything. She knows what I think and sometimes we are brutally honest with each other... Not often, because there isn't much to be brutally honest about, but it's happened a time or two. That night we were talking about some big things. There was music from her cd player (I loved Merv, but I am so glad that we can listen to music in Hercules!) in the background and when Friends Forever by Vitamin C came on she explained to me that she had made the cd for her sisters when they were graduating high school and starting college.

We listened to the song in silence for a moment and then we began talking about how this song will apply to us next year. It's all about kids graduating high school and how they may not see or speak to each other again and while listening to it I had a sudden realization. After next year I probably won't see a lot of these people that I talk to at school again. We will maybe talk a little through Facebook or other such things right after school but after a little while we will just stop talking to each other.

In junior high I used to talk to my friends about how we probably wouldn't still be friends once we got out of school (I know, what kind of 7th grader says that? I lacked some social skills,) and lately I have been talking about how much I can't wait to get out of high school and start college. Not once in all of that did I ever really realize the full extent of never seeing/talking to those people again.

It hit me while listening to that song with Kara.

Another thing that song made me think about was how different being an 8th grader almost into the last year of junior high is to being an 11th grader almost into their last year of high school. In 8th grade everyone was not nearly as focused on getting out of junior high. Back then, a year still seemed to be a long time, each week of school was daunting and the days seemed to drag on and on. Now my friends and I are getting ready to go into our senior year of high school and it seems that is a huge topic on our minds. Kara and I talk about it a lot. I think about it all the time. A year doesn't seem as long as it did three years ago. Now I get to the end of the week and I wonder where all the time went; I get to the end of the day and I feel like I just woke up.

This difference between now and then is so insane to me. Everything is different. And in so many ways now is better. There are some things about then that I would really like back, though. It seemed that it was so easy to maintain relationships with my friends. We were all in the same place and we were all going in very similar directions. Now we are all getting to forks in the road and we are beginning to split up. It's becoming harder and harder to keep up those relationships with those of my friends who are no longer going in the same direction as me. Most of my friends are no longer going in the same direction as me. We're all going different places now because we all have different goals for our lives.

It just seems unreal to me that I will lose all of these people in my daily life when I graduate. I can't imagine how things would be without them. Yet, I know that, right this second, there are people out there who are on paths that will eventually merge with mine. They don't know me yet and I don't know them. Some of them will be mere acquaintances but there are also people out there right now who will be my the best friends I will ever have.

So, I'm being optimistic today.

I may not write in blog much anymore but it is a good thing because now I have people that I actually talk to about what is going on in my head (the only bad thing about not blogging much anymore is that I haven't really been writing about what I have been reading.)

In the next year and a half, it is inevitable that I will stop talking to some of my friends. We will reach the point in our journey where our paths are completely different. However, there are people out there in the world right this moment who, though we are on different paths at the moment, will become my greatest friends and who I will form the strongest relationships with.

I like who I am and I am content with the path I am on. I know that there will be many changes both to my identity and my journey in the next few years and the rest of my life. I accept that.

All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.

~Anatole France

So, I was using the ever amusing stumbleupon.com when I came across this video:

It starts off in the Himalayas and heads out of Earth's atmosphere and into space. If you have the time, I would really suggest watching it. It blew my mind. To look at the very farthest thing in space that we can see, that we know about, and view it as the same size as a picture of our planet, makes me think. Then try to picture the relative size of an atom or an electron from that.

We are all such a small part of the universe. There are so many bigger things out there; stars and galaxies, maybe there are even other universes. I don't think that any living person will ever know exactly how small of a factor we are in the grand scale of things.

It's all just so BIG!

(And yes, I did just remind myself of Bill Nye the Science Guy)

*Que theme song*

The Ghetto of Warsaw: A Whisper of the Past

For my US History class we have been studying WWII. We have to do a project every term that includes an essay, a visual, and a presentation. As usual, I willingly wrote the essay for my group and was pretty proud of my last paragraph. I figured that I would put it up here because I think it is the most meaningful piece I have written in a long time (at least on this blog.) So here it is. Let me know what you think.

The Ghetto of Warsaw: A Whisper of the Past

The Warsaw Ghetto, or Jüdischer Wohnbezirk (Jewish Quarters) according to the Nazis, was established on October 12, 1940, when a decree ordered 113,000 Poles to make room for the 400,000 Jews in an area of only 2.4% of Warsaw. Living conditions were incredibly poor and not many survived it. Jews had to resort to smuggling food. Councils and police forces of their own people were created to enforce Nazi regulations. In the end, when the Nazis tried to move all of the Jews out of the ghetto and into the Treblinka extermination camp, an uprising that would become the biggest single retaliation during the war began. The Warsaw Ghetto was a place where hundreds of thousands came to live and were forced into deah.

In October of 1940, thousands of Jews were brought into the Warsaw Ghetto. From that point on they were to have extremely limited contact with the outside world. Over 400,000 people had been crowded into an area that was only meant to house 160,000. As more and more time passed, the living conditions became worse and worse. On November 16, 1940 a wall, topped with glass and barbed wire, was built around the ghetto to keep them from leaving. Before then the death toll was already at 445. By August of 1941 almost 6,000 people had died.

Jews in the ghetto were given food rations that did not even fulfill 10% of what a normal person requires. This caused smuggling to start very early on. If the people living in the ghetto had not been able to get hold of outside food, they all would have died from starvation very early on. Often the smugglers were children between the ages of 5 and 6. They would smuggle the food through the walls, the gates, the sewers, houses on the borders of the ghetto, etc. The Nazis often caught and killed the smugglers but the smuggling never stopped. Even after one particular slaughter of 100 people near Warsaw, the smuggling never stopped. It was one of the most basic things that they could do in hopes of surviving.

For other issues within the ghetto, the Jews had their own councils and law enforcement. The Judenraete (Jewish Council) was first created by the Germans before their occupation of Warsaw in order to enforce German regulations. They were also in charge of handing over lists of names for deportation to extermination camps. Some were killed for refusing to do so and others committed suicide to keep from having to do it. These councils were very controversial because the people on them were forced to implement Nazi policies. It was believed by some, however, that compliance with the Germans would ensure that at least part of the population would survive. The councils were also in charge of selecting the Jewish Police.

The Jewish Police were established for four main purposes: to direct traffic in the streets, supervise garbage collection and the clearing of snow and dirt from the streets, supervise the sanitation of buildings, and prevent crime and run a court to take care of conflicts that arose inside of the ghetto. The Judenraete was given a list of guidelines from which they were supposed to recruit men for the police. However, these guidelines were not closely followed. Even though the police were supposed to be another department of the Judenraete, the councils believed that the Germans would use them in order to enforce their policies more directly.

There was a draw for Jewish men to be a part of the police, though. The Jewish Police was a protected organization. Being part of it not only was likely to keep them from forced labor, but it also made them less likely to be deported and gave them the possibility of earning food and money. In early 1942, however, the Nazis began deporting Jews from the ghetto to a extermination camp in Treblinka. When this happened many of the Jewish police had to decide whether to stay with the police or not. Many left to show their alliance to their families and the entire population as they were being deported. Still others remained with the Jewish police until the final days of the ghetto’s existence, continuing to implement Nazi demands.

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising began on January 18, 1943 in reaction to the increasing amount of Jews that the Nazis were deporting to Treblinka. They believed that they were merely being sent to labor camps and not to their deaths. During the first two months of the extermination process, about 300,000 residents of the ghetto were killed. When the Jews realized what was going on they decided to revolt. They did not have many weapons and many did not actually fight. However, they managed to stop the deportations for a time and only 5,000 instead of the planned 8,000 were taken at the time.

The fighting commenced again on April 19, 1943. The Germans planned to finish their plan for extermination within the next three days, but an ambush by the Jews set them back once again. The Jews continued to defend their territory for ten days. In fact, two boys climbed to the top of a building and raised both the Polish flag and a blue and white banner symbolic of the fighting Jews. The Germans were unable to remove the flags for four days. On the 29^th many of the Jewish leaders were dead and the rest of the fighters fled into hiding. It was not until May 8 that the Germans found the Jewish command post and killed many of the remaining fighters. Officially, the uprising ended on May 16, 1943. Gunshots were heard inside of the ghetto through that summer, however. The final fight occurred on June 5, 1943 and was between the Germans and a group of armed criminals affiliated with the Jewish resistance.

What was once the biggest Jüdischer Wohnbezirk (Jewish Quarter) in all of Europe is now nothing more than renovated buildings, a single piece of wall, and several memorials. To the uninformed eye it looks as regular as any other city in the world. Children play, people walk their dogs, cars drive through the streets. The pain, the suffering, the bloodshed, and the injustice that occurred not yet 80 years ago is now no more than a whisper in the city of Warsaw.

Routine

First of all, I would like to reprimand myself for not writing for most of January. It has been a crazy month. At least, it has been a crazy month in my head... Not nearly as much has been going on in the real world, though there have been some eventful moments.

I had a realization this week. I realized that I really don't like what I am doing with my life right now. I am so sick of the same boring routine that my life has become this year. Yes, there have been the events that have spiraled my life out of control for a few days, but seriously? I realized that I need something good. I need to be doing something that I like and that I want to be doing. I mean, I used to enjoy going to school everyday. I used to find interest in my classes and I used to at least have some homework that was not incredibly horrible and boring to me. Even outside of school I haven't really been doing anything that I enjoy.

I feel like I need a change. A change of scenery, a change of activity, a change of routine. I just need to change something. All through junior high I had MESA and Science Olympiad and Yearbook and Honors English. It also helped that I honestly enjoyed most of my classes. School had not yet become as redundant as it seems to be now. Even last year I had my writing for the paper and my friends. I actually liked most of my classes then as well. This year, though. This year I just feel like I am learning the same things that I've learned before. My only interesting class is AP Psychology. I'm not writing. I'm not having fun. I hang out with Kara and Julissa every now and then and that's good. I mean, I don't hate my life. I love my life. I love the people in it and I love the experiences I have had and will have in the future. I just really am not happy with anything I am doing with my life now. I feel like there is no point. I'm going to school to get the grades so that I can continue on to more schooling, but what will I do when there is no more school? How do I find what it is that I like and that I want to do? I'm at a complete loss.

I believe that there is something out there for everyone. Everyone can find something in the world to be passionate about. That is the point of life. How do I find that, though? I mean, what if there is something out there that I would like to do with my life more than teaching English or working at a newspaper or a publishing company? Even if there isn't, if that is the thing in the world that I would enjoy doing the most, how do I rediscover my passion for it? There was a time when I wrote all of the time. I wrote just because I wanted to. When I created a character I felt like I had done something. It didn't matter that no one else would ever read it. I didn't care that my plot was probably so dumb that it would never be interesting to anyone but myself. I cared enough about what I was doing that I could do it completely for myself.

I miss that.

There isn't anything in my daily life at the moment that I do just because I want to. I go to school now only because it's required. I have only written one article for the paper this year. I don't write fiction. I haven't gotten sincerely interesting in something I learned in school for a very long time.

I don't know. I guess I've gotten my point across. Now I just need to find a way to make myself happy with my routine again. I don't want to spend all of my time worrying about what I'm going to do with my life. I want to spend more of it enjoying what I'm doing.

Another Year of Change

As I read over the post I wrote on this blog one year ago and the one that I wrote two years ago there are so many thoughts going through my head. Another year is coming to an end. This blog is two and a half years worth of my thoughts. It may not be a complete selection or an accurate representation, but it is a lot more than I ever thought it would be. My posts are becoming farther and farther apart and more and more... Lame? But at least I am still writing. This is the longest project I have ever done.

More than that, however, is that while reading those two posts I can see how much I have changed. I can see how different I am now from the girl I was in 9th grade. I know I've said this all before, but tonight just seems like a good time to say it all again. I mean, at the end of 2007 my dad still lived in Utah. At the end of 2007 I was not at all sure just who I was. I have learned a lot about my own beliefs about the world and the Universe since 2007. At the end of 2008 I believed that I had changed into more of a base of the person I would be for the rest of my life. Now I know that wasn't true. I also believed at 2008 that I knew what I wanted to do with my life. I had decided that I wanted to go to SUU and major in English and while that is still true.. I am not as sure, now, that I want to become an English teacher. More and more I see myself going in a different direction.

So, at the end of 2009, as at the end of 2007 and 2008, I am a new person.

What happened this year that made that happen? Well, 2009 has been a year of great (and when I say great I mean more in amount than in quality) changes for me. Some were big and some were... Not so big. There were some changes that were profound and others that won't matter to me ten or even two years down the road. This year has also been a year of loss and the changes that came with that(My great grandma and one of my friends passed away, my best friend moved, my new best friend ignored me until we were no longer friends, I got in my first car accident.) I also believe (and some would probably say otherwise) that I learned a lot about responsibility this year.

If there is one thing that 2009 has been it is eventful. My littlest sisters turned thirteen this year; my oldest sister turned 19. I became FBLA Reporter and Editor-in-Chief of the school newspaper.

So anyway, my New Year's resolution this year writing a journal. On paper. Which means that I won't be writing on here as much... Though I will still write at least once a month. I have my reasons. Mostly, I don't want to have to be careful with my thoughts and I want to have an actual record of my life.

HAPPY NEW YEAR! MAKE 2010 A GREAT YEAR!!!

Sadness

Ok, so I don't know if very many people even read my blog or have noticed that I have not posted anything in over a month, but either way it's true. For the first time in two years I have gone over a month without posting anything to this website... :( Bad Madi!

It hasn't even been that busy, really. I mean, yes, a LOT has happened. But nothing really is going on... And that is a lot of the reason I haven't written anything. There just isn't a lot to write about... I started writing something the other night about Rachel... However, I just couldn't find the words that I would feel appropriate for this blog.

I promise, however, that I will write something good soon. I have had a lot of ideas lately. I just have to actually follow them through. I know, it's my biggest flaw. I never finish anything.

Is anyone else as happy as I am that it is December? Because I am freakishly happy about it. I LOVE the snow. I mean, I hate the cold and the wet, but I love looking outside my window and seeing the snowflakes falling to the ground. I love the crunch of the snow under my feet as I walk. I love the cold air when I open my window. I love how the snow glows at night.

I just added another idea to my list: Reason I love winter. Maybe I could write a poem about it... I haven't written poetry in a very, very long time... In fact, the last poem I wrote was one about playing the guitar or something for Mr. T's class in 9th grade. I just have a hard time writing poety... I don't know why, but I think that takes a different kind of mind than mine.

So, I will finish this off with a promise to write a better blog with an actual topic within the next week. Definitely within the next week. Believe it or not, I've been doing a lot of writing lately. I started writing a personal journal two nights ago and with two days of writing I filled the first 6 pages of my notebook. My point here is that I have a lot of thoughts going on in my head that could use some expansion and expression.

I'll get right on that.

A Year Without

For the last half hour I have been reading recent blogs written by my mom, my friends, an old teacher, etc. I find myself wondering when exactly it was that I stopped being a writer. When did I lose the inspiration? How did I turn from someone who used to come up with stories or blog ideas by the hundreds to someone who has to force herself to log in and write something more or less once a month?

All I can say is that I don't really know. Maybe life got busy. Maybe I simply changed.

But how could I have just changed? I have been a writer for as long as I can remember. I used to get into trouble because I would write things that I shouldn't have when I was angry. This first time I ever really remember being in trouble was because of something I had written after I had gotten in trouble. How is it that I have just changed into someone who doesn't write?

My first thought is that it all started with yearbook in 9th grade. That was the first time that I started writing things that were not fiction. I had to write about the boys on the basketball team and how we should never forget the year we had. Somewhere in that time frame I noticed that I had stopped writing fiction. The stacks of random notebooks filled with barely-started stories began to get smaller and smaller... Until they faded away. When I noticed this, however, I started writing again. This was just shortly after I had broken up with my fist boyfriend and my life was getting crazier and I was stressed. It was when Mrs. B told that my work as copy editor was done for the year and that I should finish up the year in her Creative Writing class.

I was appreciative of it because, as much as I loved yearbook, I was tired of skipping lunches and staying after school. I was also tired of trying to get the rest of the staff to actually do what needed to get done in a timely manner the right way.

Since I had taken the class the previous year there was no reason for me to do the same poems and the same multi-genre paper again. So Mrs. B gave me, along with two others, the choice to spend the class time writing a novel.

The inspiration was back.

I decided to write a collection of short stories about the twisted and interconnected lives of a boy and a girl starting from when they met as little kids to her death. It was something that I had started in the class the previous year. It was good. I had a plot. I had characters. I had a time line. And by the end of the year I had Chapter 2.

I stopped writing again. The inspiration just was not there. I knew what was supposed to happen in Chapter 3 of my book but I couldn't seem to decide on the format that it should happen in. So I walked away from it. I knew that by doing so a couple of things could happen. I could leave it alone for a while and then come back to it with new found determination or I could leave it and forget about it and come back to it a long time later and find that I still had no idea how to write Chapter 3.

It just so happened that the second scenario was the one that played out. I set it aside and I came back to it... Well, I haven't really gone back to it yet. But as I sit here thinking about Gryffin and Andy and wondering where the next chapter of there story should lead them I am drawing a blank.

That was not the last time I had inspiration though.

There is this program called NaNoWriMo that my older sister introduced me to years ago. It stands for Nation Novel Writing Month. It's a website where tons of people come together every year in November and start writing novels. Across the country people get involved. Some have writing parties and get togethers. Well, last year I tried to do that. I had a semi-new idea for a story that had been in my head for a long time and I started writing it.

The idea came from a role play/story that Morgan and I started writing together in 8th grade. We got pretty far into it before we came to a point where we just couldn't continue. Part of the reason was because we could not seriously write the romance our story had come to and part of it was because we were beginning to drift apart.

Anyway, the story was about these two guys who find this portal to another world. One is from New York and one is from a town in the other world called Uleanda (I know it's dumb, we just threw a bunch of letters together). They are professional assassins who live in New York but travel to Uleanda sometimes. The major conflict is that there are men in Uleanda who want to bring the weapons from New York and combine them with the ones they have in Uleanda to take over the universe. We even had a super evil bad guy and background stories for every character. We had sequels planned out and we knew just what was going happen. But life happened. We stopped writing and we stopped being best friends.

So when November and NaNoWriMo came along last year I figured I would try to use the same plot line for a novel of my own. I changed the characters and I changed the plot around a little. I even wrote and introduction which I showed to some of my friends. They were all very intrigued. The problem was that my inspiration was not coming in order. I would write a scene in the beginning of the book and then I would write one from the middle. It was still coming along... It just wasn't very organized.

Then... Well, let's just say that I had some problems come up. I stopped writing because I was no longer in the mood to write. I didn't think about what would happen to the story. I didn't think about what it meant for my writing. A switch just flipped in my brain and I guess I just stopped writing.

I didn't stop completely. I was on the school newspaper staff and was therefore graded on the writing I did for the monthly issues. It wasn't fiction though. I have always been able to write nonfiction easily. I love writing essays. I'm very good at writing essays. And I'm good at writing for the newspaper too... Not that I really do much of that anymore either... At least not frequently.

But that was the last time I wrote anything fictional. It's been almost a year and I haven't actually written anything for myself or for an audience outside of school since. I wrote on this blog... But I doubt anything I've written in the last year has been any good. In fact, I think a lot of it was just me talking about how I didn't have time to write or how I didn't know what to write about.

So as I was reading these blogs I realized that I miss really writing. I miss losing myself in worlds that no one else knows but me because I created them. I know that I never have finished anything fictional that I've written. I know that I'm not very good at it and that my plots are too closely related to books I have read and movies I have seen. But I miss writing that stuff all the same. I don't really even know why the blogs made me think about that. Maybe it's because I feel that my best writing is when I'm describing a character's thoughts or actions, however unoriginal they may be. Maybe I don't just miss writing fiction. Because I am definitely enjoying writing this blog. It has an actual topic that is not what I have been doing lately or why I haven't been writing. It is a decent length. It is probably better than a lot of the stuff that I have written in the past year.

I've always wanted to become an author. I don't have to be too famous. I just want to write a good piece of fiction that some people will read and like. I want to create a world that more than just my closest friends and I see. I want to feel like I've actually finished something. Carley wrote something on my blog once after I had posted that first short story that was once complete but is now part of an incomplete collection. She said that I should continue it. That I should finish writing the story of Andy and Gryffin because I didn't know how great a feeling it was to finish a story. She said this because she does know that feeling. She has completed a story before even though the only people that read it, to my knowledge, were her and the person she wrote it with.

Maybe the reason I don't write anymore is because I know longer write just because I have the inspiration, because I have a story, but because I want to finish something. I write because I want the accomplishment... And not the story. Or maybe it is because I search too hard for the inspiration. I have sat down more than a few times in the past year and tried to write something... Unsuccessfully.

I am making a goal for myself to start writing again. Maybe I'll try to do NaNoWriMo again this year. I can find a new plot and new characters... Or maybe I could try to finish Andy and Gryffin's story or the one that Morgan and I tried to write in 8th grade. Either way, by the end of this year I wouldn't mind to see the mostly empty notebooks with half started story ideas start stacking up again. In fact, I want the notebooks to start stacking up again. That's my goal. I want to go back to being the writer I am. I want my inspiration and my creativity back.

The Crucible and Other Events

This year I am taking AP English Language. So far it is a really good class. I am actually learning things, unlike last year. We do vocabulary and rhetorical device quizzes pretty much every class period. Sometimes it is hard, and I only have a B+, but I am really liking the class.

So, for about a week we have been reading a play called The Crucible. It is about the Salem witch trials, but was written much later. It is very interesting and is very thought provoking. I just finished reading the last act twenty minutes ago. That is one thing I love about English classes, sometimes they force you to read something that you would have missed out on if you hadn't been in the class.

In other news, our first newspaper came out a week ago. It was definitely a good product for the first issue of the year. I was very excited for it to come out... Though I doubt that many people actually appreciate the work we put into it as a staff. It's ok. I just have fun putting it together and seeing the final product.

Other than that...

I think that it is about time for me to change my theme again. I need something new... Also, I'm going to try to take a lot more pictures with my camera and get them up on this blog... Lately my stuff on here has been really boring.

I have a trip next week that I am going on for FBLA. I will take lots of pictures and then come back and write a GREAT post on it.

Hope life is good for all of you who read this!

LIFE

Madi Randquist: It's better to give up and move on than to continue to hope for something that is just hurting you... Right?

Madi Randquist: I am not dramatic. I am not emo. I do not act like I'm emo. I'm not depressed. I am just having a bad week. Alright?

Madi Randquist: So... Week 5 of Junior year coming up... Busy busy. Shades meeting and AP Psych test monday, FBLA tuesday, AP Language vocab test Wednesday, FBLA opening social Thursday, FBLA officer meeting Friday...

These are a few of my Facebook statuses over the last little while that kind of describe my life lately. Two of them describe my mood and the other describes the craziness of my it all. My mood is more related to people. Specifically one of my best friends. (And I know that this could be breaking a deal with my mom... She told me to get him completely out of my life for two weeks... But I can't get it out of my head, and maybe writing about it will help.) The thing is, he isn't really a very social person. Or at least... That's what he says... And so, even though he and I hung out at least once a week every week since school got out, every time I have tried to get him to do something since school has started nothing has happened. Once I got really close to doing something with him and in the middle of a phone call he made plans with someone else...

And all of this just really hurts. He went a week without talking to me, forgot we had plans, and then got upset with me when I couldn't help him with his physics lab because I had to be at something he told me he would go to with me. And I've tried talking to him about it. 'It doesn't matter.' He said 'You shouldn't care. I don't.' Well thanks. I'm very glad that something that has come to mean a lot to me over the past six months means absolutely nothing to you. I'm glad to know how much our friendship is worth.

The first Facebook status post is what I said when I decided that it was no longer worth the drama. He commented on it saying: "Lol. Emo." It is something that he has been saying a lot about me... Or was saying, I haven't actually talked to him in a while. And, as you can see by the middle Facebook status, I got tired of it. I was not happy and I was spending more time trying to get him to talk to me and do things with me than actually saying a word to him. So, I'm done with that drama. I am no longer trying to get him to do things with me or trying to talk to me. If he doesn't want to be my best friend anymore... So be it. I'm done fighting it. I'm done with letting it hurt me. I'm trying not to care...

A friend should not be a bad thing. Friends shouldn't cause you to be in a bad mood pretty much constantly and they shouldn't cause you to pull away from your family. Especially when they don't even care. So, for now, I'm not doing anything. I'm not texting him, I'm not looking at his Facebook, I'm not calling him. And if he were to text me or to try to get my attention, I'm not going to do anything about it... For now. That will change. I'm done talking to him everyday... Because he's done talking to me everyday. We haven't had a meaningful conversation since school started.

I'm determined to bring myself back to who I am: a happy person who loves to write and who loves to be with people.

Anyway, that's only part of my life as of late. I'm also incredibly involved in school. As you can probably tell from the last of my Facebook status updates at the top of this post. I'm involved in a lot of different clubs this year and I am taking hard classes. However, I think I can handle it. I know I said before that I thought I was in over my head, but by eliminating the major drama from my life I have simplified things a lot.

FBLA, Newspaper, Shades, Science Olympiad, Key Club. Five different time consuming things that I am involved in. Newspaper is the most important, because I get a grade for it and because I am co-Editor in Chief. FBLA is next because I am an officer who has not been in the club before and therefore there is a lot for me to learn and I need to spend as much time in doing so as possible. Next is Shades because I am also an editor for the magazine, though it doesn't take as much of my time or nearly as much effort. Science Olympiad come after that, because I hadn't even thought I was going to do Science Olympiad this year until last week. This came along because Abby and Linzie tried out for the team at Fairfield Junior High and if they make the team they have to have coaches. I offered to coach Disease Detectives for Abby. Then, as I was talking to Layton's Olympiad coach, I mentioned that I was coaching, and then that, since I was coaching, I might as well do Desease Detectives for Layton High. So there you go, I'm back to being a nerd. Key Club is last because it doesn't take hardly any time at all and I am only really doing it because Carley, Emily, Hillary, Kara, and Julissa are.

Other than that I have my classes 1) AP Calculus, which at times seems ridiculously hard and at others ridiculously easy. 2) Editors is pretty awesome. I love having the time just to work on the paper. 3) US History 2 Honors... I don't like the homework in this class... However, I love the class itself. There are so many awesome people in there. 4) Newspaper is pretty awesome. Our first issue is finally coming together.and I am excited to see how it comes together. 5) AP Psychology is pretty stressful, though I love it. We have a lot of reading to do, and if I could actually get myself to do the work then I would be set. 6) AP Language is awesome. It is such a great group of people combined with a really great teacher. And I LOVE it. 7) AVID is the only class that I don't really like this year and it is probably only because it could never compare to how awesome it was last year. 8) Calculus Lab is a great class because I never have homework in Caluculus. Kara and I work together and make sure that we are getting the right answers and getting our assignments done in class.

So anyway, that's my life right now. Lots of school. Lots of trying to get rid of drama. Lots of trying to force myself to feel like myself again. I'm pretty off lately, but I'll be better soon... I don't know why I am feeling so weird lately, but it's getting better.

Bolding Not-So-Random Things is Fun

Time is a crazy thing. It just keeps going faster and faster and there is not one thing that anyone on this planet could do to stop that. The moments that seem the most important, the most significant, are the ones that go by the fastest. I have noticed that a lot more lately. The more you want to hold on to a moment, the faster it passes. Is that just me? I do not think so.

In May I went to Ohio to see my oldest sister graduate from high school. The whole weekend I kept thinking about how crazy it was that Wendy was graduating. Wasn't it just yesterday that we were walking down the street from Dad's house to the bakery? Weren't we just with dad, playing games and watching movies in grandma's basement? It was very bizarre to me. My dad kept saying that we would blink and the weekend would be gone, we would blink and I would be the one graduating. We would blink and time would have flown by again.

Earlier this summer I invited Kara to come boating with my family and I. We were sitting up in the front of the boat, my favorite place to relax in the world, and we started talking about how crazy it is that we are now juniors. So many of our friends are graduating from high school this year. Isn't it crazy that we've known each other for four years? I think it is. I know Kara laughs at me when I start talking about things like this. As you can tell from reading my blog, time and change are my favorite things to rant about.

Time has flown by faster than ever in the last four months. A lot of things have changed... Part of that is my ability to create a decent blog post. All of them seem to be the same now... I can't believe that I'm running out of things to talk about. I always have something to talk about.

Maybe it isn't so much that I have run out of things to talk about... But that I just don't have a lot of things to blog about. Obviously, there are many things in my life that I can't or won't talk about on this blog... It would feel good to write these things out and possibly talk to someone about them... But I am not so sure that the consequences would be worth it. Believe it or not, my life is pretty crazy right now. There's a lot going on in my mind and Kara could tell you that when we are together I hardly ever run out of things to say.

One thing that I do not mind talking about is my mood as of late. If you have been around me then perhaps you have noticed that I am irritated a lot lately. I don't like it. In fact, I hate it and I am trying to get myself out of it. As I said though, there is a lot going on in my mind lately. Most of it isn't really happy... Though it isn't incredibly bad. I'm not overly angry at anyone or anything like that. I'm just... Annoyed.

And... I don't know. I could go into greater detail... But I don't think I will on here. There are a lot of contributing factors... School, family, friends. I think I'm in a little over my head this year... My classes are good and I love all but one of them, but I got involved in too many extra things. I've also got friends from different groups who I want desperately to hang out with... But when I bring them together... Let's just say that it isn't the party of the century. They don't fight or anything. They just get quiet and I get bored. They complain... Not to point any fingers.

I don't know. I'm working on it. My mood. My obnoxious and pointless blog posts. My over-active brain. All of it.

In the meantime life is still good. I still have friends. No matter how irritating they are at times.

:D

Everything is Bigger in Texas...

Or so I have heard. Today, about two minutes after I had woken up, I got a call from none other than mL. I have been trying to get her to call me for some time now and I was really glad to finally hear from her. She left Utah for the last time as a resident about two months ago and, while we have been emailing each other, I have not actually talked to her since the day before she left. That day was really weird to me. How do you say goodbye to someone who has been one of the best friends you have ever had? How do you let go of that? You do not, really. We said goodbye that day as we had many times. There was no crying... Though I was in tears the second I got into my sister's car. We hugged and I left... It lacked finality. Maybe that is a good thing, because, while that may have been the last time I would see her for a while, I will see her again. I am sure of it. Anyway, I talked to mL for about 2 hours today. It was really good to hear what she has been up to in Texas and I am glad that she is making friends.

In other news (ha ha), the first week of school went pretty well, if not insanely crazy. It was busy and it felt weird but it made me happy to have something to do everyday and it was great to hang out with my friends everyday. I like all but one of my classes and I think that this year is going to be a really good one.

I do not really have a whole lot to say today... I just felt like I should write something. Today has been a fairly slow day for me... I have not really done anything. Now my family is at the store and I am blasting a playlist of my favorite female singers and singing along really badly. I should be starting my reading for AP Psychology, but you know me. I will get to it later tonight, I think.

Other than that... Not much going on. I picked up my van from my grandparents house on Friday and now it is sitting in front of my house. I do not see it going anywhere for a while. That is perfectly fine with me, though. I have an issue with driving. Not that I can not drive. I am afraid of it until I am actually behind the wheel and going.

Oh! I need to get one of those things that connects to your iPod and can go into a tape player. Once I can drive my van, it would be really cool to be able to listen to my music while I am driving.

Anyway... This blog is pretty much random and very pointless. Whatever. Sometime soon I will update on the craziness that is my life. There is a lot to be told.

Anyone Know Where I Can Get an Off Switch for My Brain?

I have been thinking a lot lately. It is a result of summer coming to a close and school starting in a couple of days and me still trying to find ways to procrastinate on all of the work I have to get done before Monday. Thinking is hardly ever a completely good thing for me. Sometimes when I think I come up with interesting or fun things. However, lately my mind is stuck on a couple of topics that put me in a bad mood. It is a problem, and I know this, but I can not help it.

It is no surprise that this summer did not go the way I planned. What in life ever does? Maybe I should stop having expectations about how things are going to be so that I am no longer disappointed. Then again, if I stopped having expectations then the really good things would not seem really good because I did not expect anything of it anyway. . . Does that make sense? I do not know if it does.

Anyway, whenever anything related to my failed summer (which has not been absolutely horrible, I have done some fun things) is brought up I kind of shrink back from conversation. My mom has started noticing this, I guess, and has started asking me what is wrong. Talking about it does not make it better. At least, not anymore. Two months after my accident, I just want things to be good. I want the reminder of it to go away. I want people to trust my driving. I want to stop being afraid every single time I get into a car. It was not that bad. No one was hurt. However, one thing about me is that when something bad happens (crashing a car, a 4-wheeler, or anything like that) and I do not get right back out there and keep going I become afraid.

This has happened to me twice before with 4-wheelers. A couple years ago (2? I do not remember.) I was going up a hill on a 4-wheeler at Bear Lake with my cousin, Hailee. I must not have been going fast enough, or something. I think I tried to change gears while we were going up and all of the sudden we were falling back. My cousin and I went into instinct mode and we moved together to get the 4-wheeler back on all fours. However, after we got back to camp I did not go back on the 4-wheelers for the rest of the trip. I think that was the last trip we went on that year. I do not really remember what the next chance I got to ride a 4-wheeler was, but I remember I was scared.

My last accident on a 4-wheeler pretty much ruined it for me. Emily and I were going up a dune and she braked before we got to the top. She used the back brakes and so the bike flipped. Emily got out of the way, but the bike landed on me. I was perfectly fine, but I no longer have the courage to ride 4-wheelers. If I was given a chance to go out without anyone else on it and mess around for a while I could probably be fine again, but It has been a long time since then and I have not really gotten that chance.

I think the same thing has happened with the car accident. I have driven a car a total of two times in the last two months, both within the first couple weeks after the accident. Since then I have grown increasingly aware of every single thing that could go wrong while in a car, and within the last few weeks I have found myself actually physically cringing every single time I see anything that could go wrong. It does not matter who is driving. I know I am one hundred percent safe when I am in a car my mom or step dad are driving but now I find myself freaked out. I have found that the best way to avoid this is to just close my eyes and ignore everything around me. However, when Carley is driving me somewhere she often needs me to tell her directions. So I have to pay attention to where we are.

I am hoping that when I eventually have another car and can start driving again I will not be afraid. I know for the first little while it will not be fun at all, but, hopefully, I will only be driving to and from school for a little while. I do not really know. It is thoughts about this and about how much I need a job along with other things like how much I miss my dad and my sister that have got me in a bad mood lately. I am trying to get past it all, but it is hard when I do not really have a lot going on during the day. This is why I absolutely can not wait for school to start. This year is going to be so busy for me, that hopefully it will be a distraction from all of this other stuff. I have found that hanging out with friends also distracts me a lot.

In 7th and 8th grades my best friends were Manda and Darcie (and Morgan but I am not talking about her right now.) Lately, I have started talking to them and hanging out with them more (along with Ian.) It is awesome that I have more people to hang out with than my typical group of friends. I absolutely love my other friends, but a little bit of change is good sometimes.

Anyway, this blog was going to be about my sister, Wendy. I guess I got a little caught up in talking about other things. Whoops. Sorry, Wendy. I will write about you another time.