My Bucket List

My Bucket List….

1.       Graduate from High School

2.       Figure out what I want to do with my life

3.       Learn how to do a perfect cartwheel

4.       Stay friends with at least one person from high school

5.       Be a bridesmaid in a high school friend’s wedding

6.       Travel around the world

7.       Discover my mother’s heritage

8.       Take a road trip cross country

9.       Learn to play an instrument

10.   “Bitch Slap” someone

11.   Make friends with a random person

12.   Kiss the guy of my dreams

13.   Be sung to

14.   Fall in love

15.   Lay on a blanket and look at the stars

16.   Teach at one of my old schools

17.   Meet someone famous

18.   Go to the superbowl

19.   Talk to my grandmother one last time

20.   Be in a movie/ tv show

21.   Create and participate in a random dancing day

22.   Go on a road trip with friends before college

23.   Crash a wedding

24.   Save someone’s life

25.   Adopt somebody

26.   Change someone’s life

27.   Take a walk on the beach with someone I love

28.   Be named someone’s Godmother

29.   Punch someone

30.   Go up to someone and start a conversation.

31.   Make friends with someone outside of my best friends and I’s “six degrees of separation.”

32.   Visit every country at least once.

33.   Learn to cook some type of foreign cuisine.

34.   Get over my fear of heights (not gonna happen but I can hope.)

35.    Have somebody rush the stage for me at senior night at cabaret.

36.   Run a race

37.   Go white water rafting

38.   Retrace my entire family history

39.   Go back in time and stop myself from meeting my ex-boyfriends.

40.   Go back in time and stop myself from quitting dance.

41.   Learn Russian

42.   Go to Carnival in Rio

43.   Be kissed in the rain

44.   Stop holding back.

45.   Break a world record for something

46.   Go to a shooting range

47.   Have a high school sweetheart

48.   Since I have been through a lot of shit… I want to be able to help someone that is going through what I went through cause if there had been somebody for me.. It would have meant the world.

49.   I want to adopt and save at least seven dogs from the pound or humane society before I die.

50.   See all Seven Wonders of the World.

51.   Be a good parent.

52.   Do something selfless

53.   Go on an adventure

54.   Get over my stage fright

55.   Sing a solo in front of a large crowd

56.   Buy a zoo

57.   Not fight with my sister for a month

58.   Beat the system

59.   Do one of those dancing down the aisle fake wedding things.

60.   Learn how to shoot

61.   Get something published.

62.   Pet a penguin

63.   Swim with dolphins

64.   Finish this bucket list

65.   Be a voice in a Disney movie

66.   Learn archery

67.   Get scuba certified

68.   Go scuba diving

69.   Climb a mountain

70.   Fly in a hot air balloon

71.   Watch a sunrise

72.   Watch a sunset

73.   See the northern lights

74.   Write a letter to my closest friends to let them know what they mean to me

75.   Get a complete makeover

76.   Go on a blind date

77.   Learn to ballroom dance

78.   Win the lottery

79.   Build my dream home

80.   Actually get a kite to fly

81.   Experience an out of body experience

82.   Throw a costume party

83.   Redecorate my room

84.   Own property where I can see the ocean

85.   Surf a wave in Hawaii

86.   Live in Ireland for at least a month

87.   Go camping

88.   Find peace

89.   Go sailing

90.   Go tubing down a river

91.   Go alligator hunting

92.   Learn to ski/snowboard

93.   Learn to figure skate

94.   Learn to Yodel

95.   Go zip lining

96.   Ride an elephant

97.   Experience weightlessness

98.    Go to the Olympics one more time

99.   Go to a drive- in movie
100. Randomly give somebody a hug.
101. Climb up a building
102. Slow dance

What Now?

What Now?

Wow. It’s almost over….I know I should probably be ecstatic about the fact that I am graduating soon, but I can’t help but be sad about that fact. If you had asked me how I would be feeling about graduation a few months ago, I would have probably told you that I would be jumping for joy because I couldn’t wait to get out of here. Hell if anyone would have told me that my feelings would change… yeah I would have thought you were crazy. Well I really didn’t know what to write for this year. I was originally thinking about writing about how I couldn’t wait to get out of this hell hole or I was gonna write about the three stooges that sit next to me. But than I remembered that eventually I have to write my senior chorus will. Every year, Mrs. Johns, has the seniors write wills as there finals. It’s a putatively emotional time. The senior wills will either bore the underclassman to death or mesmerize them.  So that’s what I am going to do, cause the chorus will is mostly addressed to chorus people. So this is my everybody else senior will which will include only my non-chorus friends.

To Shelby:

I honestly thought you were weird when I first met you. Like seriously what girl has a girl that she has known for maybe two hours, sleep over at her house. But after I got to know you, I realized you were one of the nicest and most positive people I have ever met. We may not of talked for the first couple of years but junior year, changed everything. We have dealt with each others drama and managed to still like each other. Seriously you have saved my life on more than one occasion and I thank you for that. So I leave you my friendship, cause honestly you and I are already too much alike and you have like everything. Unless you want Narnia? Even though you are going off to Alabama, you can bet I will be that friend that crashes on the floor in your dorm. We already discussed that. Anyway because of you, I have to put up with Alex and his strangeness… (Neumann you know he is strange!). And everything else I was gonna tell you… yeah I forgot it so I will tell you later if I remember. Yes I had a POPTART moment! Also I leave you my "no bullshit” policy. You know what I am talking about, the whole world doesn’t need to know, cause like everything else but us it’s abstruse stuff. Seriously you are probably one of my closest best friends and frankly we can’t get rid of each other… we know too much.

To Shelby 2:

Yes the other Shelby, seriously I need to find best friends with different names. Do you have any idea how confusing this is?! Technically I knew the other Shelby before you, so that’s why you are Shelby two. I met you junior year and we have had an on/off friendship since than and we still affront each other on occasion. Not gonna lie you had a very intimidating quality about you, when I first met you. You still are a little… but not as much. I will admit I was a little captious and skeptical to become friends with you, but I am glad I did. Anyway I leave you my patience. You shoot first and ask questions later, so please think before you act. You can still kick my ass, so I’m just gonna shut up.

So yeah I have like two friends that are not in chorus.. that’s not that bad. But the thing is I would trade anything to have these two in my life forever. They have honestly been with me through every up and down and are even more cognizant about what’s going on than my own family sometimes. We always have fun and mostly behave in a decorous manner. Yeah we have our fights but we always end up back together as friends after one of us becomes extremely contrite and we forgive each other. I don’t know if this will have the efficacy that my chorus one will, but I tried.  But than again I hate to be the cynosure of any class, So this one will probably be better. So I am honestly going to pick the most stereotypical song for this grade. This song is so overplayed and makes me want to shoot myself sometime but it works. The song is….. Graduation by Vitamin C. Shoot me now. Not literally dude! HAHA I’M DONE!!!!  YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah.... You Are Definitely Five Cents Short of a Poptart

Yeah… We Are Definitely Five Cents Short of a Poptart

Soooo even though senior year is completely awesome, Eleventh grade is still my favorite. Yeah everybody says junior year is the hardest and yes in a way it is hard, but compared to sophomore year, it was smooth sailing for me. Needless to say my sophomore year, I was hapless. That was the year that me and my current best friend, really became best friends. And no I’m not talking about Alex Cobb. Shelby and I had met freshman year through a mutual friend and we were kinda friends than, I guess. Honestly I thought she was a little weird. We didn’t talk sophomore year so we kind of forgot about each other until another mutual friends birthday party, where we realized we had so much in common. On the first day of school, I was terrified. I had no idea what was going to happen this year. Luckily I knew my first period teacher, so first period was fine. As I was walking to physics, that’s when the fear kicked in. But once I walked in the door and saw Shelby, the fear just kind of went away for a little bit. That was the beginning of the most epic physics class ever, even though that would be disputed by every other physics class in the school at the time. Dr. R was an epic teacher. He was a giant (not kidding he was like 6’8”) and seemed to be omnipresent all over the school. The man could seriously move. Looking at me, you wouldn’t believe that I can be gregarious and the most sarcastic sassy person. But when Shelby and I are together in a class, it’s always fun.  Soo just for this post, I’m going to be saying (and explaining) a lot of inside jokes. Honestly, these comments and jokes made my last “non-slack” science class actually bearable. And with as much shit we gave Dr. R, he would just give it right back to us and we could never manage to discomfit him. 

So my title… yeah there is a story behind it. Every day at the beginning of Physics, Shelby and I would go on “field trips.” We would just come in and say “Dr. R field trip!” and he would just nod or on occasion have us get him something. Yeah “field trips” was our term for going and raiding the vending machine and every now and then we would requite him with his favorite candy. That whole thing started after we importuned him constantly to go. Ok so back to the poptart story… One day we were about to go on one of our trips after a test and Shelby could only find 95 cents of the dollar she  needed for her brown sugar poptart. So after asking me, she asks Dr. R if he had five cents and he asked what it for was for. Her response was of course “A POPTART!” What came out of Dr. R’s mouth is even to this day a joke we still use today.  “Shelby you are seriously five cents short of a poptart!” Yes it does sound like an insult but it was said in a sarcastic manner. So now when we can’t remember something or we do something completely stupid we tell each other that we are definitely five cents short of a poptart.

Soooo “the loop.” That was Dr. R’s analogy I guess to us actually getting the material or not getting the material. If you got what we were doing you were in “the loop.” And if you didn’t get it you were out of the happy little loop. So you know how physics is like crazy hard? Well at least to me it is sometimes. ANYWAY…. Shelby and I spent a majority of the class out of “the loop” until we figured it out. In fact we were sometimes so confused that we just started saying that we had a vacation house outside of it…. on Mars. It was pretty awesome. And Dr. R just played along. Like seriously, he was the coolest teacher I had ever had.  We bonded over our love of Chicago food, and he let us write on all the walls the last week. Little did we know it was because he was leaving to move back to Chicago and the room was being repainted. All of his former students had literally became espoused to him and I feel bad for the younger generations that didn’t get to experience having this awesome guy as a science teacher. His teaching style was impeccable and I have yet to find a science teacher with a love of science tantamount to Dr. R. No science teacher could ever fix the irreparable hole in the heart his students had for him.   He was a total nerd but at least he was a cool nerd.

BTW: My song choice was chosen because of the video that Dr. R let us watch repeatedly when studying  about friction. You can guess what was being shown. The song got stuck in my head.

Junior Year Song: Another One Bites the Dust by Queen

Shit Happens

Shit Happens

Tenth Grade… well it was definitely a year of firsts. From first kisses to first major drama issues.  It was most definitely a crazy year, and a year that I would love to abrogate and re-do. But even with all the craziness, I did learn a lot about myself so I can’t winnow every memory from my memory. It’s crazy what you can learn about yourself when you are like fifteen or sixteen. Anyway it’s just easier to start at the beginning.
So the summer before tenth grade was probably at the time one of the happiest times in my life. I basically lived at my friend’s house and we hung out almost every week.  It was chillax and all hakuna matata. The no worries philosophy was an ambient feeling to the summer.  Bieber fever had just taken over and in the beginning he was alright but he sounded way too much like a girl, so that fascination ended fast.  Anyway we were so excited for school because we were no longer freshman and we had the typical sophomore mindset. That summer my friend had been dating this dude from Lassiter and as default I was pretty much forced to become friends with him. Lucky me! No back than he was alright but today I can see him for the skeezy rat that he truly is. Right before school started he broke up with her. No it wasn’t because she was a bitch, it was because of me. Now before you jump to conclusions about me, I need to say I didn’t do any of this purposely. See back than I was really naïve, I had never had a boyfriend, I had never flirted, hell I had never been kissed. See the kid had issues.. serious ones. He would call me and cry. I considered him a friend so I put up with it and helped when I could. I never acted any different with him than I did with anybody else. Well when they broke up, he called me and told me that he liked me more and he broke up with her for me. I was really shocked. Anyway I turned him down. Things went back to normal and he and my friend eventually became friends. Everything was perfect until homecoming. Every year, my school has a drive-in, and it’s usually a lot of fun. Well in an effort to get them back together, I invited him. Everything was cool till she showed up…. with another guy. Needless to say he was pissed and walked off and punched something metal. I ran after him to make sure he didn’t assault a car. I calmed him down and we walked back. A little later on he asked my friend if he could borrow me for a second. I was clueless but she wasn’t. He had texted her asking if he should kiss me or not. She said yes, and right now this part of the story really pisses me off because of something that will be revealed in the 11^th grade chapter. Anyway we walked off, and he pulled me in for a hug as soon as we were alone. It was normal so I didn’t think much of it. Anyway he pulled back and all of a sudden, his lips were on mine. I was literally in shock and just stood there. He pulled away and we walked back. I felt so guilty. So guilty in fact that the next day I told her what had happened. See most of my friends would listen and be reasonable. No not her. She flipped and started spreading rumors. Nobody really believed her though because a majority of our grade had known me for years and never would believe I would be the type to do all the things she said about me. Also they didn’t believe her cause she was deprecated on a normal basis for being a giant drama queen, and even had the rumor that her and a guy had sex in the culinary closet, oh and don’t forget about the pictures that circulated not one but three schools. I had managed to get those rumors put to rest and had stopped her harassment for a little while and this is what she does to me. Did she know how inexorable people are and how onerous it was to get that shit stopped? Yeah it was bullshit. Truth is her attempt to ruin my reputation was flaccid and sophomoric. And even after two years, our hatred for each other is just now becoming more of moribund dislike towards each other. But now I kinda have to thank her. I thank her because the situation she put me through has taught me that I can handle stressful situations. I’m stronger than I was before and I don’t put up with bullshit anymore. So by some miraculous chance she reads this. I have something to say. “I’m sorry for what happened back then you were like my sister and it should have never happened, but thank you for indirectly teaching me to stand up for myself and burnishing me into the mature person I am today.” So yeah tenth grade was definitely eventful and the most dramatic year of high school. But it also taught me the rudiments of handling problems under pressure. Luckily it was smooth sailing after. Thank God!

Song: (Even though I hate it now) Fifteen by Taylor Swift

From a Senior to a Freshman...

From a Senior to a Freshman

                Oh freshman year… as great as senior year is, I actually miss you. Life was simpler and a happier place. Not really but it wasn’t horrible. We were once again the babies in the school and let me tell you I was terrified of the first day. But after a while the school wasn’t as much of the scary place I thought it was. It was just the place where I would have to serve out the last of my jail sentence… oops I mean finish my time in the Cobb County School System.  Yeah my feelings still oscillate when it comes to school.
Freshman year, not gonna lie, is probably the worst of the four years of high school.  You are the baby of the new family and you will be treated as such. That’s why a lot of upcoming freshman show askance towards high school. But for all the upcoming freshman out there, I have some advice. It helps for the most part at my school but warning… results may vary.  The advice I give you is based off of personal experiences so I’m really not making this shit up as I go like a charlatan. Because even though I may not know you or you may not know me, I’m a very benign person when I want to be, I have no reason to decimate your lives.

1.       Ok so number one most important piece of advice is… DON’T START DRAMA!! Seriously that is one thing you don’t want to do because it will follow you for the next four years. Now this lesson was not actually from my life lesson but I was friends with the drama starters and I had to deal with their shit for a while. I was a part of it and I’m still penitent for it. In fact my best friends from freshman year are no longer friends because of drama. So really don’t screw up your high school life and have it in shambles that early because than it will be a long four years for you my friend.

2.       Don’t slack off!! You have plenty of time to do that when you are a senior! This is from personal experience.  I slacked off back then because I was obtuse to think that it didn’t matter and now I am fighting tooth and nail to get my GPA up. Seriously don’t do it.

3.       Find you niche. It’s not always that easy and I was lucky I found mine in chorus and music. Nobody wants to be the loner of the grade. If you can’t find or think of one… well this is the year that you can step out of your comfort zone. So go find someone that is by themselves or start up a convo with the person sitting next to you. If they rebuff you or forgo talking to you. Don’t worry you have more classes with more people.  But if you decide to join something, don’t worry about everybody else’s opinions. Cause tell you the truth as long as you are happy, other people don’t matter.  I joined chorus and it was my escape from high school for a while.. without actually leaving.  And if you don’t find your niche freshman year, don’t worry you still have four years.

4.       NOT ALL TEACHERS HATE YOU!! Yes there are the teachers that won’t particularly like you freshman year, cause to be honest there are the teachers that just don’t like freshman. For example my homeroom teacher. The woman seemed to hate us freshman year and when we came back for sophomore year, we thought she went crazy over the summer. It was actually pretty funny. And now she gets all sentimental saying how much she will miss us and how much we have changed over the years.  SO anyway even though they seem to hate you, they really don’t.

5.       The Seniors, Juniors, and Sophomores don’t really hate you… it’s the cycle of high school life. Well scratch that the sophomore year is when you turn into a little dipshits so yeah, sophomores might actually have a dislike for you.  But don’t worry besides them nobody really hates you, we all went through the torture.  Just don’t act like an idiot and you will be fine.

I honestly don’t know if any of this advice will help you, if I had had it back then, maybe my high school experience would be different.   I know you are probably thinking that I went so off topic. But I didn’t because freshman year is the year that we get the most advice and find out where we will fit, into the puzzle that high school is. So honestly I am just repeating some of the advice I received back in the day so ha.  High school is a jungle, if you aren’t prepared you will get lost.

Song:  Damned If I Do Ya (Damned If I Don’t) by All Time Low
P.S. The Umbrella was in the chorus room, r.i.p. the old chorus room! We lost it before sophomore year!
   

 

Life's All Fun and Games Until You are Surrounded by a Mob of Screaming Kindergarteners

Life’s All Fun and Games Until You are Surrounded by a Mob of Screaming Kindergarteners

So if you think about it, fifth graders are the seniors of Elementary school. Like that is just a mind blowing thought…  and isn’t a moot point. But instead of going to college, we were moving on to the sixth level of educational hell.  Over fifth grade, middle school had a motif of being hell. Anyway, fifth grade was actually one of my favorite grades. It seems like just yesterday we went on the Warm Springs/ Callaway Gardens field trip and had our most intense field day ever. But since I am so close to actually graduating, I am reminded of my fifth grade graduation more than anything. That was probably one of the best days of my elementary life. Instead of doing a formal graduation, we had a plenary award ceremony and then we would do a last walk through the school. After the walk through we were allowed to leave at like eleven. That was awesome to a fifth grader but inane to everybody else.

The day started off like normal but instead of just putting on clothes and just leaving, we had to dress up. I had a purple floral dress and white shoes and my sister had done my hair. I thought that was so cool cause we were both graduating that day. Anyway I went to school and hung out in my mom’s classroom like I usually did. Except this time I argued with her for thirty minutes about what was going to happen during the final walk. She was thinking of having her class create huge signs saying how much they love me and good luck to the fifth grade class. I was fine with the later, but the first part…. Ummmm no! Well let’s just say I walked away thinking I won that argument. Anyway I sat through the boring ceremony and then the video came on. See every year the fifth grade class had a slideshow made about them with pictures of all of them through the years. That was a real tear- jerker presentation. My mom and dad were the only ones there for me so in no way did I feel derelict. My older sister couldn’t come because she was at the final Walton graduation practice. While I was secretly scared of the future, she was jumping for joy cause she hated Walton. Like no words can describe her hatred for that school. For awhile she was a little testy when asked where she went.

So the final walk… I couldn’t decide whether I was happy or sad. I had grown up in that school, and almost every teacher knew me. I had to stop every few doorways to take a picture with my former teachers and even as I look back at them, I cry cause these are the people that shaped my life so much. These were the people who constantly surveillance us and had the perspicacity to notice when something was wrong. And it was over… I was leaving the security of Elementary school and going into what felt like another dimension as a neophyte sixth graders.  So while I was deep in thought, next thing I know I’m nearing the end and there is my mom’s class. And let me tell you, Kindergarteners are see-through. You can always tell they are up to something. Right as I reach them, they pull out a huge banner and a few posters that say “good luck” and “we love you Katie!” As if that wasn’t bad enough they are chanting my name. It was embarrassing but I felt special, cause no one else had it happen to them.  I’m in a way glad I lost that argument now. The saddest part that day had to be saying goodbye to my friends that were going to a different school. For years we had been accused of complicity in each other’s antics. And truth is we all were partners in crime, and our rule was over.

So a few weeks ago, I visited Dodgen to see my “second mother.” I only call her that because our families are so close and my mom and her are best friends. Anyway as I’m walking down the halls to go to her office, and I’m suddenly surrounded by seventh graders. It was kinda creepy not gonna lie. But instead of it just being a group of random seventh graders, it was my mom’s class from when I was in fifth grade. The babies were grown up. Not only was I in shock that they are grown up but also the fact that they still remember me. That was one of my favorite moments this year. And to tell you a secret, I’m still like that little girl in fifth grade. I’m still scared of the future. 

Fifth Grade Song: Photograph by Nickelback

Your Fourth Grade Majesty

Your Fourth Grade Majesty

                2004…. I know I say this in every post but these things are really making me feel old. I’m serious; I was sitting in my fourth grade classroom at this very moment eight years ago. Anyway, even though I feel like I’m a thousand years old, I can actually remember that year. Mrs. Smith was probably the coolest teacher ever. Not only had the women been a teacher for twenty something years but she had also taught in foreign countries and knew like twelve languages. And the best part of all; she is still one of the two elementary teachers that still remember me.  I learned so much in her class, but I also had a feeling that she had higher expectations of me than anybody else.  The only reason I believe this is because once again I was a legacy. But instead of my perfect older sister, who was a junior in high school at that point, it was both of my cousins. Josh the genius and Daniel the….. well its Daniel there is nothing really to say there because he really doesn’t have acuity in school subjects.  She loved both of them and knew what they had gone through… which I will not say because it’s esoteric and not really my place.  She had supported them in any way she could as they got older but unfortunately they were the cases that couldn’t be helped…. Both dropped out of high school. And no my cousins aren’t complete dumbasses… my aunt just didn’t care. See I found all this info out when I was in fourth grade. My cousin Josh, was the typical genius… all AP, Honors classes… you get the point. Anyway he apparently started getting bored in school because he wasn’t challenged enough and he fell into the wrong depraved crowd and eventually dropped out. His little brother… which was also a legacy had to live up to Josh’s academic standards, and just couldn’t do it. He was enervated compared to his brother and dropped out mid-freshman year. Needless to say, I was smarter than him back then.  So, living up to Mrs. Smith’s expectations of me was really hard… because of Josh.  And now that I look back on it, I’m kinda glad that she pushed me and my class. I mean what other fourth grade class would learn German?

                Sooo anyway the thing, I remember the most about fourth grade was the soiree. It was this huge hallow holiday party reserved for fourth graders, that everybody looked forward to.  Well at least the girls did. The guys weren’t as enthusiastic about it because they had to do etiquette training. They had to escort girls to the table, pull out their chairs, garner any food that the girls at the table required, etc... But for the girls, it was the one day we could dress up and not worry about school for the day. Anyway I remember my dress perfectly. It was this sumptuous gold, little girl version ball gown thing. I loved it. Anyway since my older sister worked at Libby-Liu at the time she had done my hair and put a mini tiara in it…. Believe it or not, I wasn’t the most overweening and overdressed person there. Anyway school started as usual but with one big difference. The kid that I had punched in first grade chose that day to get back at me…. No he didn’t hit me. He made a fiat that I was a princess and that since I apparently looked like a princess that every five seconds, he would bow going “your highness.”  Ok I will admit the first few times I had a small penchant feeling towards them and it was funny but after the fifth time it got annoying. Everybody was starting to get annoyed and then after the six hundredth time, Mrs. Smith told him to stop and if didn’t he gets fined. Yeah in fourth grade we had check books, and teachers would add or subtract money. Needless to say, he didn’t stop and I actually yelled at him. That was fun, because I still win.

Fourth grade song: Just the Girl by The Click Five 

From a Jumping Bean to a Zombie

From a Jumping Bean to a Zombie

               

                “I’m ADD.”  Over the years I have realized that, the ADD excuse is way too overused. Yes there are people who are diagnosed by a Doctor, and then there are the lazy asses that self-diagnose themselves with it so they can use it as excuse to stratagem people because they feel the need to be random and ludicrous or just for being too lazy to do their work.  Back in 2003, I was one of the few kids that had actually been diagnosed with it. I was actually diagnosed with it at the end of second grade and I started taking the medication for it. At the beginning of third grade, we realized that my dossage was too high. The way they realized this is because I stopped eating cause I was never hungry and I stopped talking. It was like I had social skill atrophy and all my friends thoughts about me went into disarray. I wasn't the girl with the jocular personality anymore. After my dossage was ajusted just right, things got a little better. Though even to this day, I still feel incarcerated in my own body. 
Back than we had CRCT in every grade besides Kindergarten and First Grade. It was a stupid imcumbent test that before I went on Adderall, I was only at grade level. I know I keep going back to this stuff but without I probably wouldn't have done well. I started reading more cause I could actually sit down and focus on a book. And I started getting made fun of because I liked to read back than.... the pusillanimous girls that did it..... used to be my best friends. They would say the most mordant things to me and my dance studio became my bastion for me to get away from that shit.That is actually where I met one of the best friends I had for the remainder of Elementary school. Her name was Nina and she was in my second and third grade class and we talked occasionally. She didn't pick on me thankfully. For the rest of the year, Nina and I had a concord that we would look out for each other and after that everything stopped. I stopped getting picked on and Nina got a smart friend. And I was really smart.... I read at an 8th grade level, and loved reading my sisters books for her classes. Without Nina, I really do know what I would have done....
SOOOOO for my song choice for this year I am choosing "I'm just a kid" by Simple Plan. Not only was the song still popular back than but third grade really was a nightmare. Yeah I was a little nerdy alone kids for awhile sue me. Now picture choice, since I hid most of my third grade pictures cause I had short hair and braces, I don't have a picture of actual me. So I chose a picture that shows what I would be like back than. Now I need to rant for a second.... to the girls that picked on me back than.... congrats on your appearances now cause the bookworm isn't such a bookworm anymore. And bleaching your hair so much kills brain cells so good luck in college, I wish you well. Sorry readers, I just had to get that out of my system cause that has been held back for years.
So I am at work and I must go cause I happen to work with one of my old guy bullies and he is annoying me trying to get on my good side.... not gonna happen buddy! Bye peoples!!

What Just Happened.....?

What Just Happened

                So Second Grade was interesting to say the least. I had for the first time in my Elementary School career, my first teacher that had not only taught my older sister but also both of my cousins that lived around here. Yeah try living up to her expectations of me. Anyway one memory really sticks out when I think back to those days and it was also the day that I was scared that I had lost one of my parents.

You see…. Both of my parents worked for the airlines. My mom worked for American Airlines and my dad worked for United Airlines.  The day started out as any other. It was a sunny day and the complete opposite of murky.  I was cavorting around the house in my new dress. My dad was flying up to Washington D.C. cause that is where he is based out of and my mom was getting ready to be a substitute at Murdock.  Anyway I kissed my dad goodbye and my mom and I headed to Murdock after dropping my sister off at Walton. Yes my sister went to Walton…. really long story for another post.  My mom was subbing in I believe in the library and I just hung out in the room till I had to go out to my classroom that happened to be in a trailer. The day was typical we started with the pledge and we did our morning math, than it hit. One of the teachers came rushing into the trailer and turned on our TV. Just as the screen turned on, we saw the plane hit the first tower. It was unreal and we thought it was a joke like in the old King Kong movie when the planes on strings go crashing into the buildings. But it wasn’t. Minutes later the second plane hit the second tower and I think everybody was in shock.  We all just stared at the TV, not wanting to develop a credence about what just happened. After they had announced what airlines the planes had been from, I broke down with no will to dissemble my feelings.  Cause I had no idea if my dad was alive or dead. That was one of the most horrifying times in my life, and since my teacher knew my mom was in the building she just let me go.  My mom was in the library with her phone in hand and looking at the news with the footage of all four plane crashes.  Interesting story is that I was the reason my mom didn’t go to work the flight that day.

My mom was supposed to be flying from New York to Boston than to Washington D.C. but I threw a temper tantrum a couple days before and so she called in sick. Later she had found out that the gate her plane had departed from was right next to the gate where the terrorist hijacked plane had departed from and the crew she was supposed to work with saw the Pentagon get blown up. I wouldn’t say that I possibly saved my mom because I didn’t but if I had lost her…. I would be so lost. We just sat in the library, waiting to see if my dad was alive, you couldn’t fathom what that was like for me and there is no way that I could articulate the feeling into words. Anyway about half an hour later my dad finally called. He told us that he had his phone off and the airports were on lockdown.  I had never seen my mother cry till that day and today it’s very unwonted to see such sadness from her.

This memory is still the only one that when I think about everything, I still become distraught and have to cry. But my parents were lucky. A couple of years ago my sister told me about the girl that her dad was working on one of the top floors of the North Tower that day. Unfortunately the girl lost her dad, I’m not trying to decry her lose but it makes me feel lucky. . That day was the one day that will haunt me for the rest of my life, and sometimes I wish I could forget it. But that is impossible cause it always seems to exhume itself, so it is a feckless thought to forget it.

I'm Already There by Lonestar is the only song that I would pick to represent that time. Cause after 9/11, my sister and I were always afraid to let our parents go on trips. My mom took early retirement before the end of second grade and my dad still works for United. But I know that if anything happened to him, he would still be with me. And my picture choice, yes it is not actually me but this is what I saw on the tv that day that not only changed my life but the life of so many others.

Things Fall Apart Connection Number Three

Things Fall Apart Chapter 16-20 Connection

                So in chapter seventeen we see that the conflict between Okonkwo and Nwoye has once again hit a peak. This time Okonkwo had been informed that Nwoye was hanging out with the christian missionaries by one of his cousins. When Nwoye returns to his fathers compound, Okonkwo demands to know where he has been while he is currently choking his son’s neck. After Nwoye leaves to go to school in Umuofia and Okonkwo is left wondering where he went wrong and how is son can be so weak. Yeah that’s pretty much what I got from this section. So my connection to the real world is the relationship between child and parent.  Yeah generic but you know what it’s like to go completely against your parents… A majority will still love you but there are still crazies that will pretty much disown you. For instance my older sisters friend Rob. Rob is our personal mechanic and we have known him for like seven years.  Anyway when Rob was fifteen, his parents decided to get a divorce. Since technically the divorce didn’t go into mediation until right after he had turned sixteen, Rob got to choose which parent would have primary custody over him. In the end, Rob chose his dad over his mom. So this is where the connection really comes into play… His mom was like Okonkwo and his father was like Nwoyes new relationship with the church. When Rob chose his dad over his mom, well his mom completely disowned him and said everything short of I only have one son now.  Rob was heartbroken when he couldn’t even call her his mom anymore just like Nwoye couldn’t call his father’s compound Home anymore. But in the end their choices may have been for the better.

No Touchy!

No Touchy!

            First grade is probably one of the few years that I can barely remember anything about. I can still tell you who my teacher was and my favorite movies, but if you ask me who was in my class that year I can only name like five people. My lacking memory of first grade is to me completely normal cause it wasn’t really an important grade. Anyway I’m deviating from my topic. So when I started first grade, Murdock was under some improvements. The stupid pejorative uniforms had been thrown out and the giant mural in the library was being painted. I remember the artist who was painting it kept getting suppliant or harassed by my class to paint in the SpongeBob characters and a few manatees, you can guess which ones he put in...... Curse you SpongeBob! 
            So I was clearly in the Manatee’s class…. Yeah. I remember my teacher perfectly, even though there is little chance for me to forget her cause she has lived in my neighborhood for the last decade or so. Can I say awkward? Cause seeing her at the pool every summer along with a former Pope chemistry teacher is extremely creepy. Which in a way I guess it is the same for them cause they live so far out of district, they would never expect to see one of their students. Well surprise! Anyway, I’m going to call my teacher Mrs. M and she was this pudgy little woman that was sweet but just a little scatterbrained. Nobody could made a animadversion comment about her even though she was a little crazy, she was still a good and avid teacher . Which being crazy isn’t bad, at least she wasn't a myopic teacher, and you would have to be a little to teach certain Elementary grades. And she was pretty chill and put up with a lot of crap from us. For instance, I punched a boy in first grade…. Yeah, really hard to believe. The boys teacher was flipping out and accosting me but Mrs.M got down to my level and asked me why I did it and I can’t remember my exact response, all I know is that I got away with it. The summer before I had mastered shoe tying, and my best friends at the time had a brilliant idea right before Halloween. We were going to tie all of our shoelaces together! Well it didn’t end up well but Mrs. M put up with it. Looking back on it today i can vouch that she had the patience of a saint.
             Back in first grade my favorite movie was the Emperor's New Groove and I would quote it all the time... and before you think i was just an annoying kid.... my whole class did it. As you can see I still remember part of the movie because of my title. Yeah I was considered normal in my class haha. As for TV shows, I was kinda obsessed with the Powerpuff Girls. And when I say obsessed, I mean  I had the bookbag, key chains, dolls, hell even the bedspread. The keychains were like my little talismans. Yup and my favorite one was the blue one a.k.a. Bubbles. So yeah entertainment wise I was pretty much a normal kid. Socially I was a different story. See my sister is seven years older than me and since I'm the baby of the family, I kinda had to mature a little faster. By first grade I had already watched R rated movies and had watched several episodes of the Real World which is a very maelstrom show. Yeah I was the "badass" seven year old *rolls eyes*.  Yeah I was a little histrionic back than, I blame the Real World.  
        So as I'm thinking of a song that would represent my life at that time... I honestly can't think of anything. But I do know what my favorite song was that year cause I found my little clip it music player! So back in first grade my favorite song was Bye Bye Bye by N*SYNC. You have to admit it even though its considered old now.... Its still a really good song.