Eleven Eleven Tag

Here is my eleven eleven tag. Eleven facts about me and the answers to eleven questions.

1. I just bought a dress for under $5.00.

2. I am a mockingbird. I love to sing other people's songs and learn from the way they sing.

3. I have two birthmarks. One long oval on my leg that no one can figure out what is and one on my butt that hides and doesn't cause any comment or confusion.

4. I love clothes, fashion and all things related to style.

5. I have never been out of the United States and it kills me.

6. People tend to use the word "elegant" to describe me.

7. I once pulled a key out of an electric socket. It was a very shocking experience.

8. I can roll my r's, my tongue, my belly, and my eyes.

9.  I have a really hard time thinking of facts about myself.

10. I kinda sorta really wanna dye my hair black and pierce my nose in a very ungothic way.

1. How is living in an apartment vs. living in a dorm?
It is wonderful! There's so much more space and you feel less like a sardine in a can. I love all the windows. But my favorite part is having my own kitchen. Least favorite part is that it's on the fringes of campus and all uphill. Yay stairs! It's different, but it would be even more different if the apartment was off campus.


2. Icicles are falling all around the awning you are under but there is free cake across the street... what do you do?
You grab the top of a trash can, hold it over your head and race to the free goodness.

4.What is your dream career?
My dream career is to be a high school English teacher. It's why I'm here at an institution of higher learning. I have always been very career oriented and in my junior year of high school, I made an exhuastive list of every career that was even remotely interesting to me. This included everything from correctional officer, journalist, and psychologist. I pictured myself doing all of those things every day or years and years and years. And I decided the one that I could wake up in the morning for, the one I was most suited toward, the one that I could not get bored of, the one that I could really make a difference with, was teaching.

5. What grade did you get on your last essay?
I got an X. Which means I passed the pass or fail assignment. Boom.

6. Favorite kind of cake?
My favorite kind of cake is actually cake. Who needs to be picky about the details surrounding the estacy of your tastebuds? I do really like chocolate cake with thick chocolate frosting, though. So. So. Delicious.

7. Preferred bedtime?
I feel really awesome when I make it bed by midnight. Eleven, and I probably feel like I had something else to do, but I'm just too tired or done with the day to care.

8. Red or nude lipstick?
Here's the deal kids, red lipstick is hard for me to pull off and I swear to you, nude lipstick does not last. I have a red gloss that will stain and fade into a really nice, bright, complementary color that draws attention, but doesn't make you look like a clown. At least it lasts. A nude lip rubs off unevenly half the time. Worst thing ever- having the edges of your lips be pink and the middle be a flakey, wavering nude. Gross.

9. Heels, flats, or wedges?
This, of course depends on the occasion and the outfit. In order, my preference is flats, heels and then wedges. Flats someone look so sophisticated with everything. Heels make you feel sexy as hell. Wedges... wedges are like a cute, flirty, casual thing I'm just not that into.

10. If someone random told you their name, would you tell them yours?
Absolutely! If someone walked over to me in the airport, on the bus, on the street, in Walmart or any which where and said "Hi. I'm Steve." I would almost without exception reply, "Hello, Steve. I'm Anna."


11. Trip to Europe or Jamacia?
Europe. Always Europe. Jamacia would be heaps of fun though!

And I have no one to tag... awkward. But I thought I owed this to Meg of True Story.

People Say the Darnedest Things I

People say the darnedest things when they have to give speeches or presentations. I recognize not everyone has the grasp on the English language that I was taught/blessed with...but still. Some of this is so bad I have to stifle a snicker. Public speaking is hard. Everyone is inarticulate at times, myself definitely included. Yet in what I assure you is good humor, I would like to share some of the most amusing errors I have witnessed in my final weeks of group and research presentations.

"The author died of a very popular disease."

This one I almost laughed at loud. The plague was so popular at the time, everyone just had to get their hands on it!!

"In researching this topic, I found many findings."

Did you now? Can you say redundant??

"He then contacted malaria."

By phone or e-mail?

"X muchly affects Y in that..."

I muchly imagine so.

I have to say listening to this is both painful and hysterical. So at some point I decided I needed to start collecting these to share with the world. So when I look like I'm studiously taking notes, I'm actually noting your creative and incorrect use of the English language. Yeah. I'm just that kind of person.

I Don't Wanna

I really. Really. Really. Do not feel like reading my psychology assignment. Which is due today. Ugh.

Sometimes I find psychology to be really fascinating and I love it and it clicks in my head and it's all wonderful.

But sometimes these fourty page chapters are torture. This would be one of those times.

Weekend? When do you actually start again?

14 Days...

Until I leave for college!

Where has the time gone?

So Close, Yet So Far

Summer is so close.

The end of this school year is so close.

It will be the end of highschool for me.

There are a million things that will change, flex, grow, fade and maybe even shatter.

You know you're getting older when you start 'thinking' about things.

'Thinking' is hard on a lot of things. It tests and challanges what you think you know and believe and what you think you might want to know and believe and what you think you might someday know and believe.

Do forgive me if I fail to make sense, it happens with alarming regularity and I'm over it.

Three Letters

Today I got three letters in the mail.

One from each of the colleges I applied to.

It was like freaky synchronized mailing.

Three letters... weighted with either choices, chances and opportunity... or crushing defeat and rejection.

Nothing big, eh?

Letter one... here goes nothing...

Accepted! No way!? Seriously!? Yes!!

Letter two... it's smaller... oh no... is that bad?

What's this? Housing contract? Then I must be...

Accepted! Sweet!

Here goes three. By now, I'm feeling lucky.

Accepted! YES!!

All that stress and worrying for naught. Can't say I mind.

It's only the beginning and I have a lot of thinking and comparing to do, but I'm glad the waiting game is over.

Three out of three. Not bad odds, huh?

ACT Results

(Suffering from a bit of writers block. You may have taken my silence as such. It's easier to be quiet when you aren't sure what to say. Better to sit back and listen when your own voice is failing.)

It is with great relief that I announce that I got my ACT score back. I was shaking when I opened the letter. I was terrified I failed. I worried I got a 17. I didn't know what to think and I wished I wasn't panicking. I got a  24. Decent. I did well on the English and scored pathetically low in the Math. I'm applying quickly with this score and seeing where it gets me. (Nothing I am interested in for a major is math orientated. At all.)

I'll be back to blog later. Writers block, yes, but you have not heard the last of me. ;)

Thoughts on a Wednesday

Yes, I dare call them thoughts.

I almost fear opening my mouth right now, or at least letting my thoughts appear on this screen, because I am really not at all sure what I am going to say. I feel vaguely full of words and my fingers keep moving so I suppose I shouldn't try to squelch the muse and just let the dang thing happen.

Ah control. That tentative thing we all try to grasp. That security we all like to pretend we have.

(I say "we all" all the time. In case you had not noticed. I like to identify with humanity and yet I feel as though I am selling you all short in a way. Like I expect you to be as imperfect as I am. If it comes off that way, I apologize. It has not escaped my notice that many exemplary people exist and many of them to not have the vices I portray "us all" as having. I know I have them and, in my narrow scope, I like to think maybe those good and wonderful people once had them too, but they outgrew them. It's a very optimistic view and it gives me hope, so let it be. Just know that I am condemning no one but myself when I make overgeneralized statements about "us all.")

And that was a tangent! But it felt good. Today I just want words on paper (or blog as it were.) These short posts, as I mentioned before, seem so incomplete, so half hearted. I need some sustenance. So I will ramble and maybe something semi-readable will emerge and I will feel better and you will be like "Whoa..." (There are worse things than shocking people with your strangeness. Better than shocking them with your cruelty or your bad breath, for example.)

I may have failed to mention I am home schooled. It may or may not have been on purpose. We shall delve into my feelings on this subject at a later date, because while I feel like posting something long, that deserves it's own header instead of being lost in this free write of randomness which is basically me trying to get a grip and let the words loose. (Hey- we came back to control again! Why does this excite me?)

Returning to the sentence the home schooled thing was supposed to support, I am loving the Literature program for Senior year. Like, seriously. Where was this stuff all my life? You know, back when I was too young and (because I was/am not a child genius) stupid to read it? It was there, I assure you. (Dickens is a lot older than I am.) They are so deeply refreshing.

I won't lie (this time), I read a lot of what is best classified as crap. (Sorry, Mom.) It's light and the stories are trite, recycled and... mediocre. Not to say this stuff isn't popular, because it often is. But many times, it just isn't quite art. I realize that in order for the artist to get paid (a.k.a. pay the bills, not starve, keep the electricity to run his/her computer) he needs to sell a product. It's basic economics (yeah! I am learning something from that loathsome book!) But when the product becomes our main goal in art, sometimes the creativity and quality of that product is compromised. And so, we have lost the meaning of art. True artists often don't get paid and those who write to sell do get paid. 

Economics. You give the people what they want, they pay you, you make money and can support yourself. Yay! Good things! But should art be sacrificed for its sake? Perhaps it shows how the focus needs to shift. In a materialistic world, material (product) is the goal. We forget about the means and the people behind them. But... (Here comes the impossible, riduculous, idealist statement: run!) prehaps we can balance these two? Maybe one does not have to die at the feet of the other (wow, Anna, that was graphic). Maybe the two can co-exist and... maybe... they can even strengthen each other.

I do apologize for the scatterness of this post. This was more for me than for you. Though if you ever glean, like, loathe or laugh at anything in this blog... you're welcome.

Some Semblance of Success

Tomorrow morning, at a ridiculously early hour, my mind shall be timed, stretched and measured.

It's called the ACT.

Nervous? Yeah. My strengths do lean toward English, (though if you read my blog you should know that they don't lean very far) but I am horrible, awful and in all other terms hopeless at Mathematics.

I could honestly fail that portion of it... numbers do not make sense to me. Words are much kinder. Numbers are staunch, strict and they are always the same. Yet I can't remember for the life of me how they work. You can give me a problem and I can invent a very charming way to get an interesting answer for you... but it's just not the right one. Like, ever.

With words, on the other hand, we have this delightful gray area. The answer is completely dictated by the creativity of the individual. You give people a writing prompt and none of the essays will be the same. They will all be different. And yet, all of them could be right. It's truly wonderful, isn't it? (Don't be fooled into thinking that I am not worried about writing the timed essay. I am. Yet I don't think it will as massive a disaster as my Math score.)

Word to the wise- do not wait to do this for the first time until you are a Senior. I had my reasons, of course, (I was bound and determined not to go to college until my Junior year. That's another story for another time) but I regret it very much.

So as I count down these last terrible hours, I torture myself with 'maybe's' and 'what if's'. People tell me I will do just fine (I know really nice people), but of course, I am unsure.

Funny thing is, I will be an internal disaster tonight and tomorrow, but once it actually starts, I will probably shift into survival 'kick this thing's butt' mode.

Hopefully kicking butt translates into success. Or at least not total failure. That is some semblance of success, no?