Just a little blurb (:

Hey guys! I haven't really written anything new. My last blog I posted on here had also been posted to Facebook, and I don't really consider it a new read for anyone, which means I've gone a long time without blogging! So I just decided to fill everyone in on what has been going on lately with me (:


I recently announced to my family, my friends, and to my Facebook friends that my poem, Never Gone, is being published in Chicken Soup for the Soul: Tough Times for Teens. It's a synopsis of the last day I had with my grandma in the hospital as life slowly slipped away from her. It's my first published piece, so it's very exciting for me! The thing with Chicken Soup is that they get about 100 submissions daily for their books, and it can take 3 years for them to read all of the submissions and choose the best 101 for publication. I really thought my chances were slim, and although I was hoping, I was also telling myself that if my poem wasn't chosen, I couldn't be disappointed. However, God had different plans, and he brought me through the entire thing with green lights. The books go on sale Feb. 7th (this upcoming Tuesday) in all book stores and on Amazon and can currently be pre-ordered. Just type "tough times for teens" in their search bar and it should come up with the book! I'm not sure if it will hit libraries right away, but I would check up with them after the on-sale date if you just wanna check it out temporarily. My poem is on page 276 (:

I was also stricken with a cold last week, and I haven't been that miserable in awhile! I couldn't smell ANYTHING, which was just horrible, because my sense of smell is the strongest of my five senses. It also caused a sore throat since I was breathing through my mouth at night. I missed three days of school (which killed me), and it lasted for five days. I just found out from my friend, tall hair, tonight that the cold I had is a new kind of cold, and it's really contagious, even if it's showing signs of clearing up! It's been hitting a lot of people lately, so I stayed home for those three days because I didn't want to make my classmates sick! I love them too much to do that (: Unfortunately, I passed it onto tall hair, because he's just too fixated on coming over to my house every weekend, no matter what risks are involved. The good thing is that he obtained some medicine that knocked the cold right out of the ballpark, so he wasn't as bad as I was. There are a few people who I wished I could have passed it onto, but oh well. I guess we can't always get what we want, right? :P

My left arm is currently sore. I'm in a stagecraft class, which is basically all the glamor of theatre behind the scenes (lighting, painting, building). We spent Monday building the platform for the upcoming production, Harvey, and the whole idea is to put two sets into one via a rotating floor. One side will be a sanitarium, and the other will be a library. When my class walked into theatre, we had a bunch of cut wood pieces. By the time we walked out, we had built almost the entire moving platform. There were a lot of "puzzle pieces" to push together and drill, And then we had to walk the main piece of the platform onto the pivot piece that one of the stage workers had built into the floor. It took my nine classmates plus the teacher and both carpenters to walk it down, lower it, and place it perfectly onto the pivot piece. After that, we had to take the other two pieces and do the same thing, only they went on both sides of the main piece. After we did that, the carpenters drilled them to the main piece. Before we knew it, we had a rotating platform. However, the real challenge didn't come until Wednesday. That was the day we had to start painting and putting walls up. There were only three people selected to paint that day, and the other seven of us had to help carry walls, hold them up, push them against their respectful matching sides, and use the best muscle strength we could offer. The walls were really tall and extremely heavy, even with another person helping with the lift. Lucky me (yes, I am being sarcastic) got one wall that was horribly warped, and another wall that matched its respectful matching side at the bottom, but trailed away from it at the top like a fork in the road. So with the first one, we really had to balance it well while it was being drilled, and the second one took three people and some nice sets of muscles (mine included) to push it against the other near the top. My teacher stressed that we had to match everything up correctly, or else the walls would not meet like they should when it would come time for the entire set to rotate on show nights. It was a little stressful, but our class handled it well. My hands hurt when I was done, but a good kind of hurt, and even though my sore arm is noticeable to me, it's one of those satisfying feelings. There's a difference between being sore because you did something completely stupid and idiotic that you shouldn't have done, and being sore because you put a lot of hard work and effort into something that is going to be extremely satisfying when it's all said and done. I couldn't help but stand back and admire what we had built by the time class ended. It probably wouldn't look like much to someone who randomly walked into the theatre and saw it, but to a person who built it, it's like looking at a grand castle. I can't wait to see how the actors interact with everything!

I'm also really enjoying all of my English classes that I'm taking up at college. We haven't been doing much in my English 2 class besides reading and discussing what we've read. I think that we've done a total of four stories, and we had one in-class writing assignment on Tuesday. I had walked into my normal classroom and noticed that my teacher had moved us over to the technology building. I checked the time and had five minutes until class started. Luckily, the building wasn't far, and I walked into a computer lab. Since I had missed the last class, I asked what we were doing, and one of my classmates told me that we were writing an essay on one of three topics given. Now, this guy had written down two out of the three in class, but had been too lazy to write the third one out. His writing looked like chicken scratch. So he typed up the directions and printed them out for me. Upon reading, I realized that his laziness had not stricken him by the time the third topic was being discussed, but it had actually stricken him while writing down the second topic, because there wasn't enough info for me to go on. So I chose the first one, which was actually better for me because I had read the reading for it that morning, and it was fresh in my mind. What should have been an hour and a half of class time was only half an hour for me, and once I printed the essay out and turned it in, I left and grabbed some lunch. I was supposed to read a reading for today as well, but I didn't, and lucky for me, the teacher popped in a movie that followed the storyline of what I should have read last night. So it was a freebee!

My speech class has been pretty easy as well. We've just been taking notes, and I had my first speech to present yesterday (which was very informal). We had to create our own "currency" explaining who we were (interests, hobbies, etc.). I went all snazzy and printed out a dollar bill for my format, but covered everything up with pictures and words. I thought it looked pretty nice. I think that I started out strong near the beginning of my presentation, but near the end I realized I was talking faster and speeding up, and as I sat down, I realized that I had missed out on the chance to give them more detail as to why I liked writing, and honeysuckle, and my favorite quote, etc. Definitely need to work on that!! Haha.

My American Lit class, although confusing and vague at times, has been pretty good. I think that the earlier material we had been reading was so "not in my department of expertise", that I had shown little to no interest in the matter, and it was difficult for me to comprehend exactly what my teacher wanted from me. We had started with Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself", but the poem was so lengthy that my brain instantly shut down. I still haven't read it. Then we had to read "Under the Lion's Paw", and I realized as I dove into the story that the characters were a bunch of country hicks. So of course, being me, I was like, "Yes!! I love talking in a country accent!" So what did I do? I read the story out loud, to myself, in my basement, alone, in different country accents. I don't think it helped too much since I was tripping over some of the country slang, but I was really able to focus on the ending. The middle of the story is kind of fuzzy in my memory, and I guess the ending was the part that intrigued me the most. But I won't elaborate, because it wasn't a very interesting read. Haha. We started on Emily Dickinson yesterday, and when I saw the first day that we would be reading her poetry, I thought, Oh great. Way to pick the most difficult poet to interpret. But guys, something miraculous happened. As I read the assigned poems, although some of them were difficult for me to interpret, my mind was able to decipher most of their meanings. I soon found myself wanting to read more of her poetry, and I wasn't so scared to discuss her in class anymore. I think one of my favorites (that I can relate to right now) is this poem:

Some keep the Sabbath going to church;

I keep it staying at home,

With a bobolink for a chorister

And an orchard for a dome.

Some keep the Sabbath in surplice; 

I just wear my wings;

And instead of tolling the bell for church, 

Our little sexton sings.

God preaches,—a noted clergyman,—

And the sermon is never long; 

So instead of getting to heaven at last,

I'm going all along! 

If you guys can remember from my earlier blog post, I talked about how I'm not much of a fan of religion anymore. So after I read this poem, it really spoke to me because I could relate to it. I definitely want to write a response paper to it (we have to write four this semester) because I feel like I can really elaborate on it.

I'm sure you're hoping that I'll end this thing soon. So I'll wrap it up by talking about my last class, creative writing. This week I've had to turn in five haikus, two limericks, a response paper to Anne Lamott's Bird By Bird, and a free verse poem. A lot of writing, isn't it? But of course, I guess I should expect it since it is a writing course. This is my first time learning the names of the different poem styles. I'm familiar with all of them, but I didn't know they all had formal names to identify them by. Shame on me. Anyway, it was my first time working with haikus. When I say first time, I don't mean it's my first time writing them. It's my first time putting thought into them. However, it was my first time ever writing limericks, so that was interesting to think about (content wise). The reading response is a different story. I've only read a little bit of Bird By Bird and I already dislike it. The author is basically giving tips on writing, but I feel that she's going about it in a very pessimistic way. I can agree with her on some aspects of writing, but she tells her readers that the first few months before something of yours is published is "the worst life has to offer". I completely disagree with that statement. I can think of a lot worse things that could happen to me than getting mean reviews on my writing. I figure everyone has opinions, and there will always be someone who doesn't like you. She also makes it sound like it's impossible to get published, and that even if you do get published a few times, it probably won't be enough to pay the bills. She just has this very sour outlook on it all. She also said that the first draft of something that you write looks like a child wrote it, which I disagree with. When I write a first draft, it often looks like a second or third draft that needs very little editing. It was also said that writers need to establish a certain time to sit down and write every day, which I also disagree with. You can't force creativity to come to you. It has to strike you. If you sit down and try to force it like that, I guess the first draft is going to look like a child wrote it, because it's forced to be written!! Many writers who want to be known, or published, or famous, don't think about what writing actually is. In fact, I think that there are very few writers who sit down and write for the sake of just wanting to write, and having the ability to do it well. My friend Jes is one of those writers that can sit down at a computer and type away, and then post it for the first time and have it look like a finalized paper. That is pure talent! I think writers have to be able to feel, and think, and perceive things differently than others do in order to write something brilliant, touching, and that others can relate to. Writing is personal, yes, but at the same time, it has to be adjustable so that others can relate and want to read more. My teacher says that doing so is very tough and takes practice. She also told us that every once in awhile, writers will be able to sit down and write a piece that needs no revision or fixes, and that it's rare. But to me, it happens often. Not so much that I never feel a need to read through and revise, but I guess it comes more to me than it does to normal writers. It's just who I am, and who Jes is, as well as any other writers out there who possess such talent.

Speaking of writing, we spent Tuesday and today critiquing poetry. And a lot of them needed critiquing. Some of them did not. But I was thinking about it tonight and thought how sometimes even the best poems can have mistakes in them. It just takes time to find them. I wrote a poem a few nights ago about silence (which I will be submitting for another publication opportunity), and then two nights ago, I pulled it up again and read through it. The more I read it, the more mistakes and fluidity errors I found. So I went through it and fixed what I needed to fix. I had to do that today with my classmates, and it was difficult for me to fish out the problems that needed fixing. But the more I read the pieces and listened to others' opinions, the easier it was for me to critique. I think that this class has a lot to offer me and to teach me, and I'm definitely in it to strengthen my writing as a whole. I want to be able to analyze, revise, think, write, and have that pull of interest. It's definitely a long and sometimes tiring learning experience, but it's what stimulates my brain and makes me feel better. Writing is my passion, my therapy, my voice, and it's who I am.

On that note, I think I'll end this long blog. Remember, you can comment below if you wish. I'm extremely happy to know that I have readers who like what I write, and I hope to continue being a positive role model for people who need a lift or a friend. I want to be able to offer different ways of thinking and different perspectives, but it takes readers to do that.

By the way, if you still read, I commend you. People like me need readers like you in order to achieve that self-fulfillment. Without you, my words are empty. Love you all (: