Hello, mighty voting warriors! Thanks to your help, my video has landed a spot in the top 10! A humongoid thank you to all of you!

Let’s get down to business. Things are serious now. It’s up to the voters how much of a scholarship I’ll receive: 1st prize is 5 big ones. 2nd prize is 1 grand. 3rd and downward receive $250 each. You may vote once every 24 hours from now through August 25, so vote early and vote often. Let’s make every day count! Please, if you are so inclined, pass this on to anyone you know who might be interested in helping a college student fund her education.

Here's the video, for your voting convenience: http://tuition-tales.com/video-contest-entry-profile.asp?vid=F3AC93DCFEB24B59B538CAD71098D690

If you'd like daily reminders to vote, and I do mean daily, please join my Facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=105850106241

Please help me out! I would be ashamed to get beat out by a fourth grader... and after just one day he already has 20 more votes than me. This is blasphemy! He's not in college! For the sake of rationale and justice, if nothing else - vote for me! =D

I recently made a video for SallieMae's scholarship contest, which asked entrants to create a 30 second video showing how they are saving money for college. The videos could be serious or silly as long as they're creative. If I win, I'll receive $5000 towards my college education! Even if I come in second or am a runner up, I'll still receive $1000 or $250. Please take 30 seconds to watch my video and vote for it between now and August 1! You can vote once a day, every day until then and I would encourage you to do so, since many entrants have had their videos up longer than I have and so have more votes than I do. The leading video right now has 860 votes. By comparison, I have 174. I have to catch up, and keep up - and I can't do it without you!

You can watch my video at: http://tuition-tales.com/video-contest-ent...538CAD71098D690

If you'd like to be reminded to vote daily, please join my Facebook group (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=105850106241) and I'll send you reminder messages! If not, that's okay, but please vote at least once!

Thanks everyone!
~ Amandasaurus Rex

HEY HEY HEY! Long time no post! I'm here to let y'alls know that I've got a new story excerpt posted on the new blog! I'm really stoked about it, so please leave comments because they make me feel loved - or at least, not ignored. Then pull a Taking Back Sunday and Tell All Your Friends. kthxbye!

Identify these acronyms:
1. NATO
2. NASA
3. ATM
4. NYSE
5. EPA
6. IRS
7. DEA
8. AFL-CIO
9. UNHCR
10. CDC
11. ATF
12. ACLU
13. DNC
14. HUD
15. EEOC
16. NAACP
17. GAO
18. NTSB
19. FEMA
20. OSHA
21. NOW
22. NRA
23. OPEC
24. RAM
25. WTO
Answers:
1. North Atlantic Treaty Organization
2. National Aeronautics and Space Administration
3. automated-teller machine
4. New York Stock Exchange
5. Environmental Protection Agency
6. Internal Revenue Service
7. Drug Enforcement Administration
8. American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations
9. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
10. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
11. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms
12. American Civil Liberties Union
13. Democratic National Committee
14. Department of Housing and Urban Development
15. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
16. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
17. General Accounting Office
18. National Transportation Safety Board
19. Federal Emergency Management Agency
20. Occupational Safety and Health Administration
21. National Organization for Women
22. National Rifle Association
23. Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries
24. random access memory
25. World Trade Organization

Identify these personalities in arts and entertainment:
1. Toni Morrison
2. Selena
3. Frank Sinatra
4. Frank Capra
5. Herman Melville
6. Pierre-Auguste Renoir
7. Maya Angelou
8. Jodie Foster
9. Nat King Cole
10. Lauryn Hill
11. Leonard Bernstein
12. Sylvia Plath
13. J.D. Salinger
14. Garry Trudeau
15. Roberto Benigni
16. Spike Lee
17. Rita Moreno
18. Georgia O’Keeffe
19. Patsy Cline
20. Alfred Hitchcock
21. Billie Holiday
22. Salvador Dali
23. Octavio Paz
24. Theodore Geisel
25. Pearl Buck
Answers:
1. Pulitzer-Prize winning author; “Song of Solomon,” “Beloved.”
2. Female Tejano singer slain by member of her entourage.
3. Actor, singer (primarily ’40s, ’50s, ’60s.; won Academy Award for part in “From Here to Eternity.”
Died 1998.
4. Filmmaker; “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” “It’s A Wonderful Life.”
5. Author; “Moby Dick.”
6. French Impressionist artist.
7. Poet, author; “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.”
8. Actress, director; “Silence of the Lambs,” “Little Man Tate.”
9. Deceased bandleader and singer; “Mona Lisa,” “When I Fall in Love.”
10. Rap, R&B singer (Grammy winner at 1999 Grammys).
11. Composer; “On the Town,” “West Side Story.”
12. Author; “The Bell Jar”, committed suicide 1963.
13. Reclusive author of “Catcher in the Rye.”
14. Cartoonist; “Doonesbury.”
15. Italian actor, filmmaker; won Academy Awards for “Life Is Beautiful.”
16. African-American filmmaker; “Do the Right Thing.”
17. Singer, actress; “West Side Story,” “Carnal Knowledge.”
18. One of the founders of Modernism; known for paintings of flowers, western terrain.
19. Country singer; “Sweet Dreams,” died in plane crash in 1963.
20. Filmmaker; “The Birds,” “North By Northwest,” “The Man Who Knew Too Much.”
21. Jazz vocalist; autobiography “Lady Sings the Blues.”
22. Leader of Surrealist movement; “Persistence of Memory,” one of best-known works.
23. Mexican author who won the Nobel literature prize in 1990.
24. Otherwise known as Dr. Seuss; author of “Cat in the Hat.”
25. Author; “The Good Earth,” won Pulitzer and Nobel prizes.

Identify these political figures (officeholders,
activists, national leaders):
1. Henry Shelton
2. Bruce Babbitt
3. David Satcher
4. Madeleine Albright
5. Maxine Waters
6. Dennis Hastert
7. Henry Hyde
8. Elizabeth Dole
9. Togo West
10. George W. Bush
11. Kweisi Mfume
12. William Rehnquist
13. Dianne Feinstein
14. Louis Freeh
15. Jesse Helms
16. Robert Rubin
17. Trent Lott
18. Bill Bradley
19. Martin Luther King Jr.
20. Ben Nighthorse Campbell
Answers:
1. Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff.
2. Secretary of the Interior.
3. U.S. Surgeon General.
4. Secretary of state.
5. Democratic congresswoman from California.
6. Illinois congressman, speaker of the House (Republican).
7. Illinois congressman, chairman of Judiciary Committee (Republican).
8. Former head of Red Cross, candidate for GOP presidential nomination in 2000 before dropping out of race.
9. Secretary of Veterans Affairs.
10. Texas governor, running for GOP presidential nomination in 2000.
11. President of the NAACP.
12. Chief justice of the United States, presided over President Clinton’s impeachment trial.
13. Senator from California.
14. FBI director.
15. Republican senator from North Carolina.
16. Secretary of the Treasury.
17. Senate majority leader (Republican).
18. Former Democratic senator, running for Democratic presidential nomination in 2000.
19. Minister, 1960s civil-rights activist, slain in 1968.
20. Republican senator from Colorado, American Indian activist.

Identify these international figures:
1. Tony Blair
2. Slobodan Milosevic
3. Saddam Hussein
4. Boris Yeltsin
5. Gerry Adams
6. Nelson Mandela
7. Benjamin Netanyahu
8. Osama bin Laden
9. King Abdullah
10. Jiang Zemin
11. Mikhail Gorbachev
12. Jacques Chirac
13. Yasser Arafat
14. Kofi Annan
15. Elie Wiesel
Answers:
1. British prime minister.
2. President of Yugoslavia.
3. President of Iraq.
4. Former president of Russia; resigned New Year’s Eve 1999.
5. Sinn Fein leader.
6. Former president of South Africa.
7. Israeli prime minister.
8. Suspected terrorist, wanted in U.S. embassy bombings in Africa.
9. King of Jordan.
10. President of China.
11. Former Soviet president.
12. Prime minister of France.
13. Palestinian leader.
14. U.N. secretary-general.
15. Nobel Peace Prize winner, Holocaust survivor.

Identify these figures in the sciences, math and
health:
1. Sigmund Freud
2. J. Robert Oppenheimer
3. Albert Einstein
4. Max K.E.L. Planck
5. Marie Curie
6. Thomas Edison
7. Louis Pasteur
8. George Washington Carver
9. Jonas Salk
10. Edmund Halley
11. Alexander Graham Bell
12. Albert Claude
13. Galileo Galilei
14. Jerome Lejeune
15. Charles Darwin
Answers:
1. Austrian psychiatrist, founder of psychoanalysis
2. physicist, director of Los Alamos during development of the atomic bomb
3. theoretical physicist, known for formulation of relativity theory
4. physicist, originated and developed quantum theory
5. physical chemist known for work on radium and its compounds
6. inventor, held more than 1,000 patents, including one for the incandescent electric lamp
7. chemist, originated process of pasteurization
8. botanist, chemist and educator
9. developed the first successful polio vaccine
10. astronomer, predicted periodic reappearance of comet
11. inventor, first to patent the telephone
12. a founder of modern cell biology
13. astronomer, physicist, a founder of the experimental method
14. discovered the cause of Down syndrome
15. established theory of organic evolution

Identify the following sports figures:
1. Jackie Robinson
2. Steffi Graf
3. Arnold Palmer
4. Michael Jordan
5. Joe DiMaggio
6. Tiger Woods
7. Muhammad Ali
8. Jeff Gordon
9. Arthur Ashe
10. Katarina Witt
11. Mark McGwire
12. Jesse Owens
13. Willie Shoemaker
14. Pele
15. Florence Griffith Joyner
Answers:
1. Black player who broke baseball’s color barrier with Brooklyn Dodgers, 1947; MVP, 1949.
2. Female German tennis player, won Grand Slam in 1988.
3. Golf player, golf's first $1 million winner.
4. Former basketball player for UNC Tar Heels, Chicago Bulls.
5. N.Y. Yankees outfielder, died 1999 (side note, married to Marilyn Monroe).
6. African-American golfer, only golfer to win three consecutive Amateur titles.
7. Three-time heavyweight boxing champion.
8. NASCAR driver, Winston Cup champion.
9. Tennis player, won Wimbledon, U.S. singles (died of AIDS).
10. German figure skater (won Gold medal 1984, 1988).
11. St. Louis Cardinals player who had 70 home runs in 1998 season.
12. Track and field star, won four Olympic Gold medals in 1936.
13. Jockey rode four Kentucky Derby and five Belmont Stakes winners.
14. Brazilian soccer star, scored 1,281 goals in 22-year career.
15. Sprinter won three Gold medals at 1988 Olympics, died 1998.

Historic dates:
1. What is the significance of June 6, 1944?
2. What happened on July 4, 1776?
3. What is the significance of April 14, 1865?
4. What happened Dec. 7, 1941?
5. What is the significance of Nov. 22, 1963?
6. What happened on Aug. 9, 1974?
7. What is the significance of Jan. 28, 1986?
8. What happened April 19, 1995?
9. What is the significance of Aug.6 and Aug. 9, 1945?
10. What happened Feb. 20, 1962?
Answers:
1. Allied invasion, D-Day, in Normandy, France, during World War II.
2. Declaration of Independence was approved.
3. President Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth in Ford’s Theater.
4. Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
5. President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas.
6. President Nixon resigned.
7. The space shuttle Challenger exploded after liftoff, killing 6 crew members and teacher Christa
McAuliffe.
8. The Oklahoma City bombing. 168 killed.
9. Aug. 6 — Atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima; Aug. 9 — bomb is dropped on Nagasaki.
10. Lt. Col. John H. Glenn Jr. became the first American in orbit when he circled Earth three times in
the Mercury capsule, Friendship 7.

General Knowledge and Current Affairs
1. In newspaper style, when are months abbreviated?
2. Who wrote: “Tender is the Night,”
“Moby Dick,”
“The Scarlett Letter,”
“Main Street,”
“Sister Carrie,” and
“The Last of the Mohicans” ?
3. What is Associated Press style for the Labour/Labor Party in Britain? Who is its leader?
4. Who is the prime minister of Canada?
5. Who is the U.S. secretary of state?
6. Who is the chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court?
7. Who succeeds the presidency if both the president and vice president should die in office?
8. How many members are in the Senate?
The House of Representatives?
9. Is the lessee the one who pays the rent or the one who receives it?
10. Which is longer, a meter or a yard?
11. What amendment to the Constitution is designed to guarantee a fair trial?
12. Name as many of the seven dwarves as you can.
13. What is the significance of June 6, 1944.
14. The battle of Gettysburg was fought in 1777, 1812, 1848, 1863, 1898?
15. If a story contains no names, it can/cannot be libelous?
16. How many items are in a baker’s dozen?
17. What does the term Third World mean?
18. Name the three branches of the U.S. government.
19. Who was Ernie Pyle?
20. From where are the Pulitzer Prizes administered/distributed?
21. What are blue laws?
22. What is a sacred cow in newspaper parlance?
23. Describe what the prime rate is.
24. What is libel?
25. What is gerrymandering?
26. Which is more serious, a misdemeanor or a felony?
27. J. Paul Getty made his money in what business?
28. List the capital cities of _______________, New York; , Oregon; _____________, North Carolina; _____________, Texas; ___________, Missouri?
29. What event triggered the May 1992 riots in Los Angeles?
30. Name at least three scandals that have plagued President Clinton’s administration.
31. Who was Anne Frank?
32. Name three prominent people who have died of AIDS.
What do AIDS and HIV stand for?
How is it spread?
33. Name the person who wrote “Cannery Row,” “The Grapes of Wrath” and “Of Mice and Men.”
34. Name the site of the infamous crackdown on dissenters in China.
35. Who is Eric Rudolph?
36. These cities are the capitals of what countries?
Amman
Buenos Aires
Vienna
Ottawa
Lisbon
Tehran
37. What is the Enola Gay?
38. What was Reconstruction?
39. Who is the founder of Microsoft?
40. What is glasnost?
Answers:
1. Months are abbreviated only when used with the date or the date and year.
2. “Tender is the Night,” — F. Scott Fitzgerald.
“Moby Dick,” — Herman Melville.
“The Scarlett Letter,” — Nathaniel Hawthorne.
“Main Street,” — Sinclair Lewis.
“Sister Carrie,” — Theodore Dreiser.
“The Last of the Mohicans” — James Fenimore Cooper.
3. Labor Party; Tony Blair.
4. Jean Chretien.
5. Madeleine Albright.
6. Chief Justice William Renquist.
7. The speaker of the house; Dennis Hastert, R-Illinois.
8. Senate — 100 members; House of Representatives — 435 members.
9. The lessee is the one who pays the rent.
10. meter.
11. The Sixth Amendment is designed to guarantee a fair trial.
12. Doc, Dopey, Grumpy, Sneezy, Happy, Sleepy, Bashful.
13. June 6, 1944, is D-Day.
14. The battle of Gettysburg was fought in 1863.
15. If a story contains no names, it can be libelous.
16. There are 13 items in a baker’s dozen.
17. Underdeveloped or emergent nation.
18. Executive, judicial and legislative.
19. Pulitzer-winning Scripps Howard World War II correspondent who died in the Pacific.
20. Pulitzer Prizes are administered/distributed from Columbia University, New York.
21. Blue laws are laws prohibiting business on Sunday.
22. A sacred cow in newspaper parlance is a subject regarded as above criticism or attack.
23. The prime rate is the minimum rate that banks charge their better customers.
24. Libel is any false or malicious written or printed statement.
25. Gerrymandering is redistricting of voting districts to the advantage of one party.
26. A felony is more serious.
27. J. Paul Getty made his money in oil.
28. Albany, N.Y.; Salem, Ore.; Raleigh, N.C.; Austin, Texas; Jefferson City, Mo.
29. The acquittal of police officers accused of beating Rodney King in Los Angeles (the incident was caught on videotape).
30. Whitewater, Filegate, Travelgate, Paula Jones, Monica Lewinsky and other sexual accusations.
31. Jewish girl whose family went into hiding during the years of the Holocaust. Her diary “The Diary of Anne Frank” told of her life in hiding. Her family was
found and she later died in a concentration camp.
32. Arthur Ashe, Rock Hudson, Ryan White, Perry Ellis, Brad Davis, Anthony Perkins.
AIDS — acquired immune deficiency syndrome;
HIV — human immunodeficiency virus.
AIDS is spread through unprotected sex, intravenous drug use, being born to an infected mother, blood transfusions.
33. John Steinbeck.
34. Tiananmen Square.
35. Suspect in the bombing of an abortion clinic in Birmingham, Ala., and one in Atlanta (Still at large).
36. Amman, Jordan.
Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Vienna, Austria.
Ottawa, Canada.
Lisbon, Portugal.
Tehran, Iran.
37. The American B-29 bomber that dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan.
38. The imposition of political and economic controls on the South by the victorious North after the Civil
War.
39. Bill Gates.
40. It is Russian for openness in government, a policy instituted under Soviet leader Mikhail
Gorbachev.

Who'​s your favor​ite redhe​ad?​
Fred Weasley

Of all your frien​ds,​ who would​ you want to be stuck​ in a well with?​
why a well? uhhh lets see. probably ryan, john or andrew because they're tall and i could climb up them to get out. ^_^

Rock conce​rt or symph​ony?​
rock concert. no question.

Favor​ite Soda?​
i dislike soda. but lately i've been drinking mountain dew.

If you could​ only use one form of trans​porta​tion:​
teleporter. no! no! i'd grow wings and fly places. and get subs installed. in my... uh... shoulderblades, so i could rock out while i flew places. and heated seats to keep me warm at those high altitudes.

Most recen​t movie​ you have watch​ed in theat​res?
tropic thunder (and it sucked)

Name an actor​/​actre​ss/​singe​r you have had the hots for
William Beckett

What did you have for dinne​r last night​?
uhhhh. i think i had some fro yo before my 3 hour nap, then i had coffee and a muffin. ugh. how disgustingly un-nutritious.

Do you buy your own groce​ries?​
when i'm at school.

Have you ever eaten​ snow?​
yep. we used to mix it with juicy juice to make "snow cones," and maple syrup was really good with it too.

Have you ever tried​ gluin​g your finge​rs toget​her?
no but i've done it by accident

What time do you go to bed?
uhhhh well i aim for midnight, but that generally fails. a lot. 2 is more accurate.

What CD is curre​ntly in your CD playe​r?​
!viva la cobra!

What movie​ do you know every​ line to?
the wizard of oz

What is your favor​ite salad​ dress​ing?​
poppy seed

What do you want for Chris​tmas this year?​
for my dad to cover my car insurance again. =P

What famil​y membe​r/​frien​d lives​ the farth​est from you? Where​?
anna lives in germany

Do you like hugs?​
hugs are my favorite!

Where will you be 2 hours from now?
babysitting

Does anyone love you?
nope. no one.

What are you doing tomorrow?
9 hours of class, baby!

Who was the last person you said I love you to?
probably Sares

What is the scariest thing that has happened to you lately?
having to take exit 37A to get home.... scariest off-ramp in life.

Do you fall for people easily?
merh. unfortunately.

What does your last text message read and who is it from?
Chris telling me I can get paper for paper stars at the kam man

Would you kiss the last person you kissed again?
hmm. maybe.

Are you too forgiving?
oh yeah.

You're stuck on an elevator with the person you've fallen the hardest for. What happens?
probably go ADD and press all the buttons so the lights make fun pictures lol.

Do you think best friends can be replaced?
someone else can become a best friend, but they can't become the best friend you had before. if that makes sense.

Are you going anywhere next summer?
'twould be nice but idk if i could afford it after AZ and Cali last summer. =/

Is the last person you kissed mad at you?
no.

Do you announce when you have to pee?
haha yes, in the most awkward manner possible.

Do you believe exes can be friends?
Yes.

What are you looking forward to in the next three months?
Cobra Starship show, The Academy Is... show, seeing Gill and Cara next month

Would you ever donate blood?
I pass out every time my doctor sticks a needle in me, so no.

Do you hate it when people smoke around you?
you know, i used to make a huge deal about it, coughing way harder than I actually needed to and stuff. but now, depending on the kind of smoke, i actually sort of like the smell.... o_O Not that i would DO it or anything.

What did you do last night?
slept, drank coffee, went to Catacombs, pretended to work, and slept some more.

If someo​ne liked​ you right​ now, would​ you want them to tell you?
please. it would save so much drama and stress. lol

Have you ever falle​n compl​etely​ in love?​
how will i know?

Do you belie​ve in yours​elf?​
usually. i'm pretty sure i exist today. other times i think i might be a figment of isaac marion's imagination.

Have you ever broke​n a heart​ befor​e?​
mmmperhaps.

Do you belie​ve in long dista​nce relat​ionsh​ips?​
yeah but apparently i suck at them.



Okay, Mandii. You had your fun. Go write that frickin essay on how to be a good teacher.

1:43 AM
short fiction I drafted senior year of high school, finally complete.

I woke up from a dream about you last night. I could feel a smile on the lips where you had just been, and was dismayed to realize that it hadn’t been you at all, and merely my imagination – taking advantage of my gullible mind, once again. Everything was as it would have been in life (except that the couch we were sitting on was located in the middle of a frozen pond…). Is it sad that I know you so well that even my dreams of you seem true to life?

It was just… your hand felt so solid, so concrete, so existent in mine. Your breath was gentle and warm on my cheek. Our conversation mirrored exchanges we’ve shared before. You know the kind. When I say, “Isn’t this fun?” and you shrug and say, “I miss video games,” but I can tell you’re really enjoying yourself in spite of whatever you say.

I was saddened, and really rather offended, that you chose to dissolve at precisely the moment I trusted you most. You would never do such a thing in life, now, would you? But I suppose you couldn’t help it, being a figment of my imagination and all. I suppose I couldn’t blame you, having created you in my mind, right?

I was awake for a long time after that.

I got a drink of water. Then I ate something that tasted surprisingly good for 1:43 in the morning. I checked on the cats. Even they slumbered on, mindless of my restless state. It was as though the earth, and time, and everything within had come to a halt beneath the isolating, muffling, time-stopping blanket of snow I could feel weighing on the skylight. The only evidence otherwise was the engines purring inside the cats.

It was like being the only one alive in all the world. Eerie. Lonesome. I wanted to fall back asleep, to come find you again, but toss and turn as I might, 1:43 AM did not take pity on me.

I wondered, would it be so catastrophic if I told you everything? Would that destroy the friendship I already cherish? Would I have to be content with this mirage of you… indefinitely?

Infinitely?

Dreams don’t really come true.

“There you are! I was waiting for you.”

“Waiting? For me? I’m flattered. Sorry for holding you up.”

“Don’t be sorry.”

“All right.” Pause. “Hey, let’s go adventuring! Look, we can cross the tundra! Let’s pretend we’re pirates, and global warming reversed, so the whole world froze over, and we have to fix it!”

You’re looking at me like I’m crazy. You have no idea. “Sure, okay.”

Commence trekking. You’re not saying much. That’s all right. My ears might be too cold to hear, anyway. Those icy gusts slice right through my snow gear more effectively than our plastic swords ever could.

“Hey. Is that a sofa?” I guess I can still hear all right. Good to know.

“What? In the middle of the tundra?”

“Looks like it.”

“In the middle of the tundra?”

“Let’s go see.”

“Looks like it belongs at the dump.” Obviously that doesn’t bother me much since I sink into it anyway. “Being a pirate is tiring. Let’s take a break.”

You collapse beside me. “Okay.”

“Isn’t this fun?”

You shrug. “I could be playing video games.”

Glare.

You laugh and admit to it. Your smile, your eyes reassure me that you aren’t just telling me what I want to hear.

We’ve lost our mittens. Suddenly our hands find each other. The warmth of your fingers enveloping mine sends chills up my spine. You’re looking at me, truly seeing me, and I realize: this is it. You’re going to kiss me. It took you long enough.

I feel a spark on my lip (and to think we haven’t actually kissed yet). My heart skips a beat or several.

All at once I realize I’m clutching your hand at all, but rather that hideous plushie you won me at the fair last summer. I taste blood: I’ve just split my lip smiling.

I sigh and stumble out of bed. I’m sure you don’t think of me this often. I check the little clock in the corner of my laptop screen. It’s 1:43 AM. Something about that seems eerie to me, but I can’t put my finger on it.

Instant Messenger. Yes. A brilliant invention. Conversation is the best form of distraction.

You’re the only one online.

“Trouble sleeping?” you ask.

“You could say that.”

“Weird dreams?” you ask.

“You could say that.”

“I mean, really – pirates?”

I stare at the blinking cursor, wondering if I’ve lost it. The snow drifts press in on the little bubble of the house, insulating my little corner of heaven on earth. It’s 1:44 AM.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
New poetry - Fall 2008
“Bridges”

I’ve been jumping off bridges without you,
and it’s just not the same.
I had a dream that you weren’t there. I went
out to find you in the rain.

The trail you left wound up, up and
nowhere. There I saw you, framed
like the pixels and particles you
arrange so lovingly; framed
in the lilies and the leaves and the toadstools,
framed

in a pool of water deep as the sky
and green with tree trunks mid-cartwheel.
There is something better on the underbelly of this
reflection, and I am going to find it.

Raindrops leave their perfectcircle deathnotes,
scars spinning across the perfectmirrorpool.
It can’t be summer all year round.
Soft, sunshine, don’t you make a sound.
I put my face to the dappled mirror, wanting
to see the inverted city’s wooden skyline
But I drown trying to get there.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
New Poetry - Fall 2008
Diptych in syllabics - two stanzas, each 8 lines or more, with the number of syllables in each line repeated in the second stanza. Pt. I had to be a tangible object (I chose a letter). Pt. II had to be a response to the object.

"Postcard"

Hello. I am here
to let you know that someone is thinking of you.
He hopes you’re well.
Phase one of boot camp has been hell
but he says he’ll make it through.
Hello. I am here
Because someone carved out time to write just a few
words on a page
in the midst of a loaded day
because he’s thinking of you.

Thank God you got here.
I’ve been waiting all summer long to read his scrawl,
this month the third
Since I last heard from him. His words
I draw about me, a shawl.
Last time he was here,
we sprinted on the sky. When we got tired, we sprawled
in the tall grass.
Unstop my pen. I can’t write past,
“Wish you were here. Yours always.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
New Poetry - Fall 2008
Poetry assignment I did with the sixth grade boy I babysit. I got mad because the restrictions of the framework they gave him made it hard not to end each line at the end of a sentence, but amazingly this isn't crap.

"I Am Bored."

I am bored and thinking inside the box right now.
I wonder what’s for dessert….
I hear Cobra Starship playing inside my head and
I want to have a dance party.
I am bored and thinking inside the box right now.

I pretend that I can fly. Sometimes,
I feel the clouds between my toes and
I touch the moon with my face.
I worry that I won’t be able to come back down, and then
I cry for all the people I left behind down there; but
I am bored and thinking inside the box right now.

I understand the parameters. I just don’t like them.
I say a poet should be free to touch the moon with her face!
I dream of creation beyond the walls of this box.
I try to break free, try to put an end to this over-end-stopping.
I hope the frozen yogurt is vanilla tonight.
I am bored and thinking inside the box right now.

So LJ, I've decided we should just be friends. I might not tell you everything about me, but I can still write for you.

The Assignment:
Choose a poem. Take the last word of each line and use those words at the ends of the lines in an original poem.

Where the Sidewalk Ends
Shel Silverstein

There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.


Draft#1:
“Home is Where the Freeway Ends.”

There is a place where the freeway ends
and the Pacific ocean begins,
where the waves are capped with white,
the sand sparkles bright
with gold, and burdens take flight,
borne away by the wind.

There is a place where the ocean ends and the black
pavement begins. The road once had its bends
through the places where palms and pine trees grow,
and we drove slow.
One place remains for us to go.
We drive east to where the freeway ends.

The road once had its bends and we drove slow.
One place remains for us to go.
Although it’s no adventure, well we know
that home is where the freeway ends.


Draft #2
“To Peaceward”

There is a place where the freeway ends
and the Pacific ocean begins,
where the surf froths and crashes white,
the sand sparkles bright
with gold, and anchored earthworms take flight,
origami birds borne away by the wind.

There is a place where the ocean ends and the black
pavement begins. The road once had its bends
through the places where palms and pine trees grow,
and we drove slow.
But now, with one place still to go,
we speed east to where the freeway ends.

The road once had its bends and we drove slow,
the world setting at our backs. Peaceward we go.
We are carved in the sandstone hearts of those we know.
Home is where the freeway ends.


The rewrite is due tomorrow night. Any opinions? What are the strengths and weaknesses of each draft? What should I work on? My prof said to be "more ambitious" after he saw the first draft. Did I do it?

Last night I went to the Apple store to pick up my compy after 3 days in the Apple ER. It was wonderful to be reunited. =) The lappy has a new face now (but it's just as pretty as ever). Oh, and because it got resurrected after three days at the Apple store, the compy's new name is Jesus, pronounced the Spanish way. That is all.

Actually, I lied. That is not all. Three days without LJ at my fingertips left me with a few other things to say.

In my class about tutoring (the point of which is to prepare students to work at the writing center), my professor asked us to compare the way we write to something in nature. So I wrote:

"When I am given a new writing assignment, I tend to look at it like a dandelion gone to fuzz, and I am the wind, or perhaps the curious child, that scatters the seeds in a thousand different directions. All of these seeds have potential to land, take root, and grow. My ideas, too, can go in a hundred directions when I first start to write. I, like the wind, must choose one, carry it to its destination, and watch as the flower unfolds. The result is not a weed, but something with a raw and honest beauty to it; something wild, yet cultivated with intentional and intimate thought." So if you ever wondered how I do it.... Now you know: Drugs. ^_^

And now, drumroll please...... I have more randomtastic, tripped out, fuzzalicious dreams to share with all y'alls!

The other night I dreamed that The Academy Is... came to my school for some reason. I don't think they played a show; they were just there. I ran into Billvy. Sarah Mac and Trisha were with me. The four of us walked around campus, talking and goofing off. I told Billvy that I wanted to be in TAITV for saying the dedication to Adam T. Siska (which Sarah and I had talked about right before I went to sleep). Then Billvy wanted to take silly pictures of each other, so we did.

Then the scene changed and we were in a mall. I don't know why my dreams about TAI are always set in malls. Maybe the guys like to shop? Anyway. Billvy decided to go find the other guys and told us to keep an eye out for his cell phone, which he'd apparently lost. Later, Sarah, Trish and I spotted the phone in the lost and found. Trish knew it was his because she remembered him using it in the podcast. So we took it to give back to him. I was excited for the chance to snag his number and to sneak mine into his contacts, especially since the dream implied that we had kissed at some point. Sadly I did not get to experience that part of the dream; I just sort of vaguely remembered it happening. But for some reason, I didn't get his number right away, and when I asked Trish for the phone the next day, she said she had already given it back. =(

There is a fire alarm going off in another building, and its sound causes me severe distress. I've always hated alarms, but now I have all the more reason to. Why? Because the computer I busted on account of the last fire alarm is going to cost me 700 frickin dollars to repair.

So this evening, I was innocently working on an article for the school newspaper, the Tartan, in my room. It was about how the lounges in my dorm got turned into five-person rooms.

All of a sudden the fire alarm starts going off! And I was pissed, because I really hate getting interrupted when I'm working. Not wanting to break the flow of my writing, I decided I would take my work to Jess and Sarah's apartment until the hubbub died down. So I shut the computer and headed for Bromley, which is right next door to my building.

But apparently when I shut the computer, the plug from the power cord was inside of it. So the next time I opened the computer, the whole left side of the screen was just.... blackness and random stripes of color, with this ominous black spidery shape in the bottom corner. I freaked out and rebooted it, which only made the problem worse: now I could see nothing but my dock in the one functional stripe of screen.

I wanted to save my documents on a flash drive so I could finish the article and make the deadline, which was midnight. But I couldn't see enough of Finder to locate it, let alone drag and drop it to an external storage device. There was nothing for it. Sarah and I got in the car and booked it to the Apple store at the North Shore Mall.

I wrapped the compy in my rain coat so the rain wouldn't get it wet (sacrificing my own dryness for the baby...) and ran into the mall. Poor Sarah could hardly keep up. I was panicked, I couldn't help myself. I strode into the Apple Store and the guys in the back were immediately like, "Oh no. Is it alive?" Which was actually rather funny. The whole interaction with them was really funny, but I think I was mostly laughing out of panic. Because it turns out this whole mess is going to cost me anywhere from $380-$1200 to fix.

More panic ensues as I try to think of ways to scrape more money out of my babysitting job and writing for the Tartan. Just when I thought I was going to make it through the semester with no financial stress, this had to hit me. I'm just praying that it's a best case scenario. $400, I can afford. It'll suck, but I can do it. Sorry, Gill and Nathan, this means I will not be coming to Pennsylvania with you guys this semester. Suckfest, I know. What can I do?

Why must I break everything??? This is why we can't have nice things. I don't want to have to call my dad and tell him I broke something else. It's not that he'll be mad. He's always really chill about me messing stuff up. I just feel like the biggest loser, like he'll be so disappointed in me when he hears about it. At least all the data is safe, and I got my articles saved onto a jump drive, and I rescued all the material related to The Broken Sword. It's just the screen. If I really can't afford to fix it, I'll rent an external monitor from somewhere and use it as a desktop until I have the money. It's just that... leaving it there was like leaving my firstborn child with strangers. I'm thinking it might be healthy for me to be rid of it for a while if I'm looking at it like a human baby.... o_O

The best part of the whole scenario was the Apple store guy telling me and Sarah to go buy a couple drinks and relax about the whole thing. To which Sarah responded, laughing, "she's nineteen." And the guy goes, "underage drinking is cool. Especially on campus." We just laughed harder and said, "not on our campus....." I did get a steamer at the little cafe under Chase hall, though. They were out of menthe. I sort of had a moment of helpless confusion because what else am I supposed to order at Claymore besides my beloved mint chocolate steamer? I got a chocolate hazelnut one instead. It was mediocre. Or maybe that was just my life.