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Never Ever Attempt to Write a Novel

I do not like to write - I like to have written. ~Gloria Steinem
Ah! Oh, internet people, my head is bursting with plots and scenes and characters and ideas! I have the perfect novel jumping about in my brain. There are only a few problems.

Itty-bitty problems.

1) The scenes, characters, and ideas do not always match up. If I were to write down every single bit of novel inside my head onto paper, I would have about forty-nine distinct novels. Out of the many, I must choose a select few to make up my book. I am an indecisive person. Choosing what scene to put in a novel is like being at Baskin Robins. There are some familiar and comforting scenes such as chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry. They will not make your novel great, but they are very enjoyable. There are the weird flavors such as bubblegum that will

never even be seen near the novel because they are absolutely disgusting. Then, there are the exotic flavors-- these are the flavors that are either absolutely heart stopping (metaphorically) or else absolutely heart stopping (literally). They are the risk flavors such as avocado and dandelion and can raise the novel, or raze the novel. When they are all in my head, I can never decide. I like vanilla-- it might need to be avocado-- Oh crap, they're all the same color today. I hope I don't accidentally pick bubblegum.

2) Sometimes I can see the scene perfectly in my head. I see all of the emotions and actions and dialog, I just can't choose the words to describe them. Words. I do not like words. Words themselves are fine, but combining them only causes problems. <- should a 'the' go in front of 'word?' Does this sound like I'm trying (and failing) to be funny? Perhaps I should make it funny. I should make it a joke. Uh, joke. joke. The words... no. I've got nothing. Maybe I should take a coffee break...

Now I must go, I've been procrastinating but it's time to actually write now. I will finish this blog tomorrow. Also, I am suuuppperrrr tired. I slept from 5:30-7:30 this morning. So.

How Harry Potter Taught Me Strength

I never know what to write my college essay about...

"Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light."
Albus Dumbledore
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban movie, screenplay by Steven Kloves.

People may see me walking around in my Gryffindor sweater. They may hear me talking about how I’m reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix for the ninth time. They may even hear me humming Hedwig’s Theme occasionally. I will be written-off immediately as a Harry Potter geek and, truly, I am. I love Harry Potter and it has been a large part of my life ever since I was seven and my mom and I took turns reading pages of SS (geek lingo for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone). I am now writing my college essay, the “Big One” about Harry Potter. To some, this may seem to be taking a Harry Potter obsession an inch too far. I assure you, it is, but I am doing this with perfectly good reason.

I have lived all seventeen years of my life in New Orleans, Louisiana. I have lived through all of the disasters my city attracts. The most horrific to date is Hurricane Katrina. People always have that one memory of it, it may be the memory of finding out their home was destroyed or saved, it may be the memory of watching everything unfold on CNN or reconnecting with loved ones. My 'big memory' is reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire on the shore of Lake Chicot in Arkansas, where we evacuated to. The movie was to come out in November, so packing for the regular “three-day” evacuation, I figured I would re-read it. That ragged little book, separating from its binding in chunks, turned out to be a life saver.

Little kids need to be able to have someone to look up to, particularly during disasters. They need to have somebody say “It’ll all be alright.” During Katrina, I did not have that person. I had two parents who feared for their jobs and their home. I had a grandpa who had the news about the catastrophe blaring in my ears 24/7 while he slept. Nobody believed anything would be alright. With fears that my family who hadn't evacuated were dead and that my home was gone, I read my book to fill the time. I found something in Harry Potter that I could not find in anyone else: strength. Harry’s life was definitely not “alright.” He had disaster upon disaster happen to him. Not a single person told him things would be alright, that Voldemort would die on his own or his dead loved ones would come back and help him, yet he still charged on, he still kept his hope and he kept strong.

I reread the series twice in the months following the storm and I am nothing but glad that I did, because though I love Harry and all he has done for me, I don’t need him anymore. I have my own strength to count on. In light of disasters, such as the oil spill ravaging the Gulf Coast right now, I find myself in a much happier disposition than those around me. I find myself with more hope, with more knowledge that things will turn out. It might not be the way we want, but in a way with which we can accept.

So I wrote my college essay about Harry Potter but in actuality, I owe it much more than I could ever repay.

school > funding > teachers > sports > students > learning

This is the hierarchy of school. With one year left of high school and five schools under my belt, I believe I have enough experience in this department to have a valid opinion. This week has been a fine, fine example of this. We shall start with exhibit one:

- A fellow student at my school has been given a D instead of a C in a class because the teacher felt "she didn't deserve the C" that she had earned. I do not know how this student acts in class, but if one earns and works for a grade, one deserves a grade.

- I got caught texting (I know, I'm hardcore *rolls eyes*) in class. Ever since, the teacher has a) given me lower grades on homework assignments which are only checked for completion and which I have all completed b)given me lower classwork grades although I have been paying more than enough attention in class and volunteer to answer almost every question and d)took off 4/5 points on two problems on a test because I got the correct answer, but in the wrong way. I guess being able to solve the problem without the plugging in the formula he wrote on the board means I'm dumb. This all may seem arguable but today in class, I kept answering questions and he kept telling me I was wrong... until he "heard me correctly" or else "saw my answer on the page correctly" and discovered I was right. Automatically told me I was wrong. I was right. My grade has dropped from a 3.7 to a 3.2 because I got caught texting (though when he caught me I was only checking the time but was honest enough to fess up to texting) once out of two years of having him as a teacher.

- My cousin, along with half of her class, a week from graduating, was suspected of plagiarism and given an F on a paper which could have kept her from graduating. After interrogation, the teacher concluded that she didn't plagiarize and she was able to graduate. Really, Miss-teacher-who-accused-half-the-class-of-plagiarizing, really?

- The last event that made me question this hierarchy was when I went to see my school guidance counselor about retaking a Latin class. I am currently taking Latin I online. This means that I am teaching myself Latin. Although I have an A in the class, I get Cs on the tests and I feel as though I am getting further and further behind. It is really, really difficult to teach yourself a language using only an itty-bitty textbook. I told my counselor that I have already taken all of my language requirements and over and I am just taking Latin for fun and I would really like to retake the class with an actual Latin teacher we are getting next year. He blinked and said no. He said that the school is already bending the rules for me as I am taking two college courses next year (which someone did this year, and btw, I'm not sure how one rule can be "too many"). Also note, many students in Spanish courses have retaken a year so they would be more prepared for the next level. I asked him "So if I fail Latin II next year, I'm just going to fail?" He nodded. Let us get the scenario straight, I am taking a class, for fun, because I wish to learn. I feel as though I am not learning enough, but this doesn't matter. The fact that I feel as though I am not learning does not matter to my high school guidance counselor.

So there you have it folks, the learning system of the day. What in the world is going on?

I eat life like chocolate chip cookies

I had to write an essay about what I hunger for in life. This essay, perhaps a strikingly unusual, childish essay, is the only answer I knew would be truthful. Maybe you can find truth in it as well.

Richard Wright once said that there is a "hunger for life that gnaws in us all." It is a quote that I find resonates with many of us. Everyone has that desire for something more that wrenches at our gut, pulling us forward until we are dizzy with confusion. What is that more that we all seem to be ensnared by? If you come a little closer, I'll whisper a secret to you, I'll whisper-- or at least type in a whisper-like fashion-- to you that one thing that has wrenched at my gut so often, it's grasp is imprinted there. An Adventure.

You see, I know exactly what I want and I want it so badly that tears form in my eyes as I think of it. I hunger for an adventure. It may seem silly or pure fantasy, but adventures may sneak upon you in many different ways, from a simple, unexpected friendship to something on such a grandiose scale as discovering a continent (granted the likelihood of discovering a continent in this age is nil). People are out having adventures as you read this: people are facing their fears, falling in love (which is always an adventure), just last year, a seventeen year old boy sailed around the world by himself.

I do not yet know what adventure I will take upon, nor do I know what adventure might find me but I do know why I want one, to discover who I am. The word adventure comes from the Latin advenire which means to arrive. I would like to believe that this arrival is the nature of adventure, to arrive at the discovery of oneself. Adventures, these new and strange experiences we find ourselves having, are more often than not risky, mentally and/or physically, and which risks we take, which risks we find worth taking or not, what we truly care about or not, what morals we will stick to or what morals we never really had, tell us more about ourselves than anything else possibly could. Perhaps, that more that we, or at least I, lust after, is not truly more perhaps we are only seeking to discover what we already have.

Soooo....

So. So. So. I sit here now, in bed, on a Saturday afternoon, at 3, without pants on because I was wearing sweatpants and I got too hot but I didn't feel like turning the heater off or changing into shorts, in the aftermath of a mental breakdown. Do you know what my schedule has been like for the past month? You do not want to know because I have been taking nine classes including a college course after school and teaching myself Latin. With ten million clubs to go to but didn't have time for, applications for various things left undone, and soccer practices before our first and last play-off game that I had to skip. I spent my time with Google, textbooks, and the Golden Girls on hand as I pet my cats and stuffed myself with TV Dinners and king cake.

So, here I am now. Everything is more or less the same with the exception of soccer which *thank god* ended last night, and one would think that I would have had many nights of crying and screaming and decisions made to just flunk all of my classes, you know, the usual when I get stressed. This time though, something even WEIRDED happened. I snapped. It wasn't a big thing, but all of the sudden I started singing Disney songs in the middle of class picking out mismatched outfits, talking to smiley faces I draw on my shower and doing things like not wearing pants and fussing at my parents when they offered to clean my room for me.

Now, I do not see an end to this until May or April and next year when I start college applications, I foresee it being worse, but as my insanity increase, I promise it will at least me entertaining and that it will not effect my ability to write-- which I will try to do here again soon. Good afternoon. I must go and feed my fish and memorize all of the presidents in order.

This is the title to my blog

No excuses.

I don't really have anything to say right now, probably because I have a headache. I'm visiting my sister right now, we are watching this TV show called Intervention. Its about drug addicts and then at the end of the show they have an intervention. As you can see, its very interesting.

I also have a very bad headache, I'm not sure why, maybe I'm going through sympathy withdrawal symptoms. Surely they must get bad headaches.

I really don't understand why people start drugs in the first place, I know "their life is tough", "peer pressure", yada, but REALLY? Here is my list of comparisons

Reasons to do Drugs:

1. It is summertime and when you exhale, fog does not come out of your mouth like is does when it is cold out. As you miss pretending to breathe like a dragon, you do drugs so that smoke can come out of your mouth even when it is warm.

2. You like small crafts, rolling things up in small pieces of paper, tying bows and creating bracelets for your upper arm... drugs allow you to do these things.

3. You have no imagination and this deeply depresses you, you do drugs so that you can have an imagination and the kindergarteners no longer point and laugh at you.

4. You find pleasure in doing nothing with your life

Reasons not to do Drugs

1. You can think clearly

2. You have ambition

3. You realize that there are better ways to release stress and improve life than doing drugs

4. You can think for yourself and you don't have to do what everybody else does to be "cool"

So there you go, and yes while I would enjoy being able to breathe like a dragon during the Summer, usually it is never a top priority and I can wait until weather. So there is my blog. Apologies for being absent for two months. Happy Holidays :)