this blog

Well, this post might not go through because my last five posts haven't gone through either, so if you can read this, you're witnessing a miracle. How do I learn best? I learn the best when I have a little control over the way I learn, especially in Language Arts. Somehow I write better when I don't have to follow a prompt, and somehow I write much worse when I do. But that's the only thing. Comprehension I never really understood. We can read the books, and we can understand the books, so I don't see why we have to spend so much time memorizing ways to understand the book, like predictions and conclusions. I love reading, though, and I wouldn't mind doing book reports…as long as it's not ALL comprehension. Writing I can do, or I wouldn't have gotten this far…and you wouldn't be reading this post, would you? I'll do most kinds of writing well, but some types I have a hard time grasping. For instance, I can write fantasy but not science fiction. I guess you have to be interested in what you're writing about or it's useless to even try. What's the point of writing something that bores you? I never understood that. It's why I hate writing prompts.

Next year I don't expect much from my teacher.  I expect to learn, I guess, and I expect to get better at writing. I do expect a lot of work after hearing all the stories about high school, but feel free not to live up to that one. I'll do he work, of course, but still… I don't really know what to expect in high school, so I'm just not going to say anything that might put pressure on a teacher, because when I put a teacher under pressure it's just sort of akward. I'd rather say I expect less of the teacher and then show up and meet the teacher for real and then make all my expectations and predictions and everything else you're expecting to read here. So don't expect much from this.

One day, while I was eating Cinnamon Life Cereal in the dorm at Stanford with Emily and Vivian and watching the news, a report came on about starvation in South Africa. So we decided to go over there and help. I thought we should sneak a semi full of food onto a huge steamboat and sail to South Africa to feed everyone. But Emily wanted to waterski all the way over there. What happens when you get tired of waterskiing? It's really far. And who's gonna drive the boat? And then Vivian wanted to walk. By the time we get over there all of South Africa would be DEAD. How are we supposed to save everyone if they're already dead? And how are we supposed to carry all the food if we're just walking? We'd probably eat it all on the way, too. The only thing as stupid as that idea is Emily's waterskiing idea. So eventually, after we fought angrily over it for five hours, we decided just to take a hot air balloon. Don't ask why. No one knows. But just for the record, it was my idea. It always was.

We walked to Melvin's Hot Air Balloon Hut. When we asked for a balloon, the man (I'm pretty sure he was Melvin himself) told us we had a sixty five percent chance of living through it.
"Oh! Okay," Vivian said, being the super-smart person she beleives she is. "so we have a 25% chance of not dying!"
"No, you retard, it's a 45% chance!" Emily screamed. Then she went on about how she was the smart one and we both got really annoyed.
"Um…it's 35%." I said. Gosh. How did they even get into Stanford? I mean, we're all 19 years old and they don't even know what 100-65 is.

Emily wanted the Courage the Cowardly Dog balloon. A lot. So we got it. Courage is an awesome dog. Who puts it on a hot air balloon, though? It was still really cool. And Emily was really happy. Then they made me carry all the stupid food into the stupid balloon. It was really heavy, and they never even helped. They said they were "supervising," but they could have at least carried ONE of the 20 fifty pound boxes of canned food. But no. Apparently supervising is easier.

Then Vivian(who still beleives she is a super smart person) noticed a huge hole in the balloon. I could even see it through the three feet tall stack of cans I was carrying(no thanks to them). "Oh, it'll still work," I said. Doesn't the hot air do something to the other thing in the balloon that makes it go up? Yeah, I think it does…right?

When we finally got into the sky Vivian started singing(if you care, it was "I beleive I can fly"). I was trying to figure out how the stupid heat thingy worked when the balloon went down. Oh joy. Vivian started screaming at Emily, who had forgotten to fix the hole in the top of the balloon. 
 

How often do you think about your past? Your childhood? Riding that little slide in the playground that used to look so big to you just isn’t as fun anymore. At all. People lose their childish innocence much easier now. The world is too serious. When was the last time you did something just to see what would happen? When was the last time you sat down and watched Spongebob Squarepants? When was the last time you did something crazy just to do something crazy? Maybe maturing isn’t always a good thing. Unless, of course, you want to end up like one of those weird people who go to country clubs and play tennis and talk all formal. But no one wants to end up like those weirdos, right? Well, maybe you do, but that’s your problem, not mine.

What you’re supposed to do is be random. Go with any idea that pops into your head, no matter how stupid you think it is(unless it’ll get you killed or in the hospital or arrested). You could turn it into the best thing that ever happened to you. You could be turning a pencil sharpener and singing a song to get ideas for writing, or you could just sway back and forth and sing when you’re bored. Or you could talk about your obsession with a backpack to a random person, or skip down the hallway just to skip down the hallway. Just don’t fall down during a basketball game. And don’t tackle that girl dribbling up the court. You’re not playing football. You’re not learning how to walk. You’re playing basketball.

Josie glanced at her watch. 12:20 AM. She jumped to her feet with a start, dimly acknowledging the fact that the rabbits had left. Turning, she ran home, having completely forgotten her mother was drunk evough anyway to not notice how late she was. She burst into the apartment building and rushed up the stairs. Quietly she opened the door. Abigail was still lying on the couch, fast asleep. Josie walked over to her, tucked a blanket around her, and picked up the beer bottles around the couch. She counted twelve. With disgust, she threw them into the recycling bin, then washed her hands and got a glass of water. A last look at Abigail, sleeping, and Josie went to bed.

The next morning Josie woke to find Abigail still asleep. She made herself a small breakfast, scrambled eggs and a bagel, and sat down on the leather chair across from the sofa where Abigail was still sleeping. Josie checked her watch. It was only eight o' clock. Abigail wouldn't wake up for another hour or so. Still, she sat there, in her chair, and ate her breakfast, not taking her eyes off of her sleeping mother. When the bagel was gone and the eggs were finished, she got up and washed the plate before getting a heating pad and water to sit down on the table next to the couch. Abigail would need it when she woke up. Josie took another twenty from her mom's wallet and left the apartment.

She went to the grocery store and bought a newspaper. Nothing interesting in the front page. She opened it and immersed herself in the article on bald eagles, completely forgetting that she was still walking. It was only when she almost got run over by a bus("Watch where you're going!" the driver yelled out the window) that she came back to her senses. She sat down on a bench and kept reading. A bird landed on her shoulder.

You see, Josie loves birds, and for some reason they like her just as much. She looked up at this particular bird, a robin, and cheeped at it. She didn't notice the strange looks people were giving her. The bird cheeped back, and hopped onto her arm, then her lap. She stroked it for a moment, then returned to her article. The bird pecked her hand, so she petted it while she read. She finished the article, mostly because the bird attacked the newspaper and ripped off the last paragraph. She laughed, then stood up slowly, and the bird flew to the top of her head. Luckily, there were no cats running around. She didn't like cats. She trotted home, whistling a song while the bird sang along.

When she got back to teh apartment building, the bird flew away and she rushed inside. Abigail was laying on the couch, a heating pad on her head and drinking the water.
"Hi, Abigail," she said.
"THERE'S NO NEED TO SHOUT. I'M RIGHT HERE." Abigail yelled. Josie choked back a laugh and gave her mom the news. Abigail grabbed it, wincing at the noise the crackling of the paper made, and started reading without another word. Josie went to her room, holding back another laugh as Abigail yelled after her to please not stomp so loud.

The delete button isn’t working. So I have three extra blank lines at the bottom of the page…

For the record, technology isn’t revolutionizing anything. People say their lives are changing for the better and making everything easier. All it does is make things easier, and that’s when it’s actually working. Otherwise, you become a big fat lazy couch potato. You stare at a screen for hours at a time, whether it’s the computer or the tv. The only workout you get is when you’re typing, getting up to get food or go to the bathroom, or changing the channel. And if it doesn’t work, you’ve become so used to technology that you can’t think of anything fun to do. You think reading is boring now, and you hate going outside. You’re too lazy to get up and go to the gym. That’s what technology’s doing to the world. It’s not making our lives better; it’s making us lazier. Instead of going outside to see if it’s hot or cold, we wait around until the news comes on with the weather. Instead of going for a run outside, we get on the treadmill for 2 minutes and then get bored. And instead of going out to have fun, we stay at home and watch tv.

Despite what people say, you can’t ignore this. Technology is slowly making us lazier and lazier. Sure, it might make things easier, but all that does is give us less of a reason to THINK. You don’t have to remember anything anymore, except where you saved all that stuff you wanted to remember. And it can make word travel faster than some people might want. Like Britney Spears shaving her head. She might not have wanted the whole world to know that right away. But they did. The only good thing that comes out of this part of technology is that people know when something bad happens, like 9/11. So even though technology can be useful, it shouldn’t become your life. Because that’s when people start to fall apart. And sadly, that’s what’s happening to the world today.

If I told you this was the story of an ordinary girl living an ordinary life, you’d call me a liar. In fact, this girl is not ordinary at all. She isn’t the girl next door because no one lives next door to her. On either side. In fact, she lives with her mother in the only occupied apartment in the building. No landlord means no rent. Right? Well, anyway, this girl’s name is Josie. She was named Josie because her mother Abigail thought of it while watching Josie and the Pussycats on TV one day.Josie never met her father. Abigail never talked about him, either. She didn’t even know if he was still alive. Every time she brought him up Abigail would either pretend she didn’t hear her or start talking about something completely different, like the weather. Eventually Josie gave up. She had no brothers or sisters, and no pets. Not even a fish.

To make up for this she spent almost all her time in Central Park, watching squirrels or rabbits rush around, and even calling out to some of the birds in the tree. Every once in a while, she’d get an answer. When she was ten, there was one bird, a sparrow, who always answered. She brought it bread every day and named it Mr. Cheeps. Sometimes he would sit on her finger, and if she was lucky that day he’d sit on her shoulder or her lap. But when fall came he left, as all birds do, to fly south for the winter. In spring she returned to the park, eagerly awaiting the return of Mr. Cheeps, a warm loaf of bread clutched in her hands. But he didn’t come. She saw his family, but no Mr. Cheeps. One of the sparrows looked at her sadly. She left the loaf of bread by the tree and ran home, crying. Josie never saw Mr. Cheeps again.

Now Josie was turning eighteen. She came home that day, her eighteenth birthday, to find Abigail lying on the couch, clearly drunk. She stared, and saw the many wine bottles nearby, most of them empty. Abigail reached for another bottle and started to open it. Josie rolled her eyes and went to her room, throwing her backpack on her bed. She grabbed Abigail’s wallet and searched through it, taking a twenty dollar bill with her as she left.

She went to the chocolate store and bought herself a large box of assorted chocolates and chocolate covered gummy bears. She sat down on a nearby bench, opened the chocolates, whispered the Happy Birthday song under her breath, and popped the chocolate into her mouth. She chewed it thoughtfully, wondering when she should go home. Abigail wouldn’t notice she was gone until tomorrow morning, and Josie didn’t want to bother her. So instead she grabbed her chocolates and went to Central Park again to eat her birthday dinner there.

She sat against a tree, slowly eating the chocolates, watching the rabbits run around. They’d gotten used to her over the past ten years, and even came up to sniff her chocolates. She didn’t give them any, though, and she whispered an apology every time one ran up to her. Her fingers were getting sticky, but she really didn’t care. When she finished the chocolates, she picked up the bag of gummy bears. Looking them over, she decided she would save them. It was going to be a long night, and she wanted something good in it. She absentmindedly petted a small rabbit that had decided to lay down next to her, thinking. College was starting next year. She didn’t have enough money and no chance at a scholarship because she didn’t have good grades and she didn’t play sports. But it would be okay. It always was. She wasn’t planning on going to college until next year anyway, to make sure Abigail would be okay without her. But she knew everything would be okay. It had to be.

If you care, someone died today.
If you care, someone is in pain.
If you care, everything you stand for
Is being torn apart
Somewhere else.

If you even stand for anything.

If you care, a baby was just born.
And if you care, there’s a sick baby
close by.

If you care, there’s a frightened child
Crying for their mother.

Somewhere the hospital is full
And somewhere else the hospital is nonexistant.
Somewhere people live in paradise
And somewhere people don’t eve know what paradise is.

I mean, if you care.

Have you ever noticed how drawn back some people are? Sure, they’ll go crazy when no one can see them, but they get really quiet when someone besides their friends are watching. They’re almost always look uncomfortable. They look like they hate themselves. Or they might just look really, really shy. It takes something really big like a new friend, or simple like someone talking to them, but sometimes something happens that makes them open up, if only for a minute.

Have you ever noticed how you can be thinking of one thing and then realize you’re thinking about something completely different? You could be thinking of basketball. Then you could think of basketball tryouts. Then you could realize your legs are sore from all the running and jumping and wall sits and more running and more jumping and more wall sits and then more running. Then you could start thinking about abuse, because your legs are abused. Then you could end up thinking about the abused: animals, poverty, victims of family abuse. Then you could feel sad. Then you could realize you were just thinking about basketball a minute ago…

Have you ever noticed how much some people judge others? If you get good grades, you’re a nerd. If you wear designer clothes, you’re a prep. If you wear a lot of black, you’re emo or goth. None of that’s true. Stereotyping doesn’t work because no one fits into just one stereotype. You might see someone that could fit in any category at the same time, and they could change your mind in a second. Or not. But that’s your problem, not theirs. How a person looks on the outside has almost nothing to do with what they’re like on the inside. That kid you thought was a troublemaker might be an honor student. The girl who sits next to you in choir might hate singing. You never know.

Have you ever noticed that there are a lot of things people don’t notice? I bet you haven’t even noticed that none of these paragraphs have anything to do with each other. Maybe you have, though, I don’t know. Maybe you haven’t noticed that this post is almost over. Well, you should. Because it is.

It was as if someone had shoved a stopper down her throat. She couldn’t breathe; the water surrounding her was pressing against her skin, crushing her, suffocating her.
Help.
The word drifted slowly into her mind, as if the ability to think was being carried away by the water closing in around her.
Please.
She had no idea why she was asking her for help, not when no one could hear her. As soon as the words formed in her mind, they slipped from her conciousness, drifting into the sea.
She couldn’t move.
Couldn’t think.
Couldn’t breathe.
Something hard closed in around her.
Death, she decided. It wrapped gently around her middle and pulled her upward, through the water. Fear flooded her for an instant, but then it was gone. It had to come sometime. Why not now?
But then the thing released her, pushing her forward. The tension around her released. Frozen salt air met her face. She breathed deeply, then felt herself falling into the water again. With a start, she pumped her legs. Then her arms. Anything to keep her head above the water. She gasped, drawing in the salty taste of the sea air with every breath. Opening her eyes, she saw a rowboat in the distance. Her thoughts from the sea leapt into her mind once more.
“Help!” she called. The rowboat kept moving. “Please!”
She heard shouts from the rowboat. All the while treading water, her exhausted body was ready to give out. The boat was slowly turning. She summoned her breath once more.
“Help!”
Couldn’t the boat move any faster? Any moment now she would fall back beneath the waves. It was coming toward her now, slowly. But it was coming. She couldn’t scream any more. It took all her strength to keep her head above the water. She gasped for air, her breath coming in sharp rasps. Strong arms gripped her shoulders, heaving her out of the sea. She felt the hard wood of a boat underneather her, heard voices around her. They meant nothing. A blanket was placed over her…or maybe it was a coat. She couldn’t be sure. Not of anything anymore. With a sigh, the girl closed her eyes in a dead faint.

“Merry Christmas,” Siri whispered, and pulled the bright red Santa hat onto her head. She swatted at the little white puffball at the tip of it and knocked on the door to Hallie’s apartment. She could hear music and laughter on the other side of the door.

The door opened, and Hallie was standing there, laughing. “Merry Christmas!” four different voices behind her shouted in unison. Siri held up a large shopping bag that contained a present for everyone and a chocolate cake. “Merry Christmas!” she said.
“Nice hat!” Hallie said, grinning. Siri laughed and entered the apartment.

The apartment had been decorated so lavishly that it looked as if she’d just walked into the North Pole. Red and green tinsel was hung on the walls. Paper chains and snowflakes plastered everywhere the tinsel hadn’t covered, and wreaths were hung at every window. The counter was covered with food, and Siri put the cake on the side where all the desserts were resting. She placed the presents under the tree, which looked like it belonged in Times Square. There were strands of white tinsel and popcorn strings and candy canes draped over the branches. Red and white glass balls hung from almost every other branch, and mini stockings were hung along the bottom, each one holding a candy bar. There were santas and crosses and mangers hung at random places on the tree, along with a few ornaments that had special meaning to Hallie or her friends. Siri touched a plastic baseball cap and smiled. She’d bought that ornament for Hallie when they were seven years old.

Aly turned up the stereo and started singing along to “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” while everyone else joined in. When the song ended,Kelly jumped up and said,”Everyone’s here now, Hallie! Let’s eat!” Hallie laughed and nodded. Without saying another word, Kelly rushed to the counter and grabbed a cocktail weiner. Vicky and Ellie followed, grabbing apples. Siri must have given them a look, because Vicky said, “We’re being healthy!”
“Yeah!” Ellie agreed. “We’re going to beat everyone in the fitness test this year!”
“And the mile run, and the sit ups, and the–”
“Okay, okay!” Siri yelled. “We get it!”
“And you’re gonna fail!” Vicky teased.
Siri glared at them, and everyone started laughing.