Today I realized that I'll be voting in the next election. It scares me to know that I'll be making a life changing decision soon. Most teenagers my age look at elections as a joke, as if having a bad President won't make a difference.. But I've realized that it's something the whole world should take part in. Let's say we choose a President that raises up the gas prices by $3 and sets regulations on everything we do. Or one who uses all taxpayers money and we see no good use to it.
My generation is already going to have a rough time because of all the debt we've collected and as we grow older, Social Security will soon become a problem as well.
Being in my AP Government class has taught me so much!
I now take voting seriously and I can't wait to vote on November 2012 (:
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
New Year, New Beginnings
HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!! I can't believe 2012 is here already; it's just so amazing how time flies by! I've spent the past couple of months finalizing and submitting college applications and it never really occurred to me until now that my high school career is coming to an end. This year, I will be experiencing a new life: College Life.
I'm both excited and nervous at the same time after all, I've never lived anywhere else besides home. With that in mind, I only applied to Florida schools: University of Florida (UF), Florida International University (FIU), University of Central Florida (UCF), and University of South Florida (USF). So far, I've been accepted to UCF, USF, and FIU. I'll be spending the next final months of high school applying for scholarships and enjoying the rest of my senior year.
As for New Year resolutions, I don't plan on making any for now. I figured that since there are going to be a lot of changes this year, I should just see how things go first and then make resolutions later. Although 2012 will be a year of new beginnings, I'm really looking forward to the new experiences life will have to offer. :)
I'm both excited and nervous at the same time after all, I've never lived anywhere else besides home. With that in mind, I only applied to Florida schools: University of Florida (UF), Florida International University (FIU), University of Central Florida (UCF), and University of South Florida (USF). So far, I've been accepted to UCF, USF, and FIU. I'll be spending the next final months of high school applying for scholarships and enjoying the rest of my senior year.
As for New Year resolutions, I don't plan on making any for now. I figured that since there are going to be a lot of changes this year, I should just see how things go first and then make resolutions later. Although 2012 will be a year of new beginnings, I'm really looking forward to the new experiences life will have to offer. :)
Monday, January 2, 2012
Mr. Anchorman/My Father
Might be the inspiration for a short film. Wrote this myself for class. Enjoy!
I think of my father very often.
When I decided, at some point during my senior year of high school at No. 35 in Tomsk, during one of those moments when you find yourself concentrating on anything but the task at hand, that I wanted to become a damn bookstore owner, there was a pretty unassailable belief that it was going to be a pretty lonely, pretty lacking-of-a-need-to-talk-to-people job. Pretty pretty pretty.
Well, what isn’t pretty at all - it’s actually quite ugly - is that all of that ended up being true.
People always assume, “that’s not going to be me.” It’s a pretty notion.
Well guess what: take that pretty notion and stick it pretty deep down the toilet, so far in that taking it back out would require a team of highly skilled, hazmat-suit-wearing plumbers (if those even exist). Because pretty soon in life, you’ll realize that that notion is the ugliest lie you could tell yourself.
I’m a bookstore owner here in Vladivostok, a city with a good amount of fanfare. Come 2012, we’re hosting the 24th summit of some economic association that in reality, the locals could care less about. On Wikipedia, there’s a pretty lengthy list of famous people that this city played host to, from Igor to Swati to Svoy to plain Vladimir.
Then there’s me, running an antique bookstore on the corner of streets so abandoned and unkempt, it’s a wonder no cars fall straight through the ground.
I love my job. I have a passion for the written word; for organizing, cataloguing, advertising, discussing it. I often spend hours in the inventory room, reading anything from Tolstoy to his contemporaries.
So where do you think you’d find me on a foggy Thursday afternoon, way before I finally opened the bookstore? The shooting range, of course; a few blocks down from the bookstore nowadays, if you can believe that.
I’m talking like you know me. Saying “pretty” this and “pretty” that, “of course” this and “of course” that. What a fool I am indeed. I’m repeating the same error that landed me in this god forsaken room. Being too open.
My father was in the army. I’m guessing he fought in some war during some important time frame against some important enemy, but I could care less about what he fought in. The greatest enemy he ever had to face was me, just a few months prior to that Thursday when I told him off.
Maybe it was machismo, maybe he was out of his mind; I don’t give. The point is he left my mother to fend for herself. She was a loving, simple woman that - god bless her soul - actually couldn’t fend for herself. She was scared of most everything. From something as stereotypical as spiders to something as unbelievable as making fish soup. Her parents coddled her, too much. The only fingers she lifted, she used to write the homework assignments she did every blue moon. Everything else was taken care of, even falsifying the school transcripts so her aunts and cousins wouldn’t think lowly of her.
So when my father got ahold of her - or rather, prompted her to fall in love with him during a drunken stupor at a bar - he couldn’t put up with her incompetence, and he couldn’t live with himself for having been drunk at the most inopportune moment.
I have no sympathy for him. But not because he left my good for nothing mother. But because he left me. I can’t blame him for not being able to put up with a woman who hadn’t worked a day in her life, but I sure can blame him for making like the wind when he found out she was pregnant. That army boy respect and reverence for all things moral and worth standing for flew out the window when those news came.
Again!
Again I treat you like you know me.
Whatever, yeah, I’ve got daddy issues. So when a handsome man in a blue blazer, a lean, tall body, jet black hair pulled back tight, shades darker than black, khaki pants, a Rolex and an anchorman position on the local news station … well, I was swept off my feet.
I didn’t know whether I wanted Mr. Anchorman to be my father, my boyfriend, my husband or my son.
But of course, he swept me off my feet, and I told him all I’ve told you and more in less than 2 weeks of knowing him. If he had any doubt as to what kind of person I was, he didn't have to wait too long to figure it out, that’s for sure.
If only that would’ve been reciprocal. Those 2 weeks that we spent painting the town red were beautiful, but mostly because between all my babbling, I didn’t let Mr. Anchorman get a single word in. I just saw his beautiful pearly white and shining blue eyes be the audience for my less than alluring stories of daddy issues, missed calls, failed dreams and bad diarrhea.
But the day I stopped talking was the day I realized I was up the creek without a paddle. And the canoe was sinking.
Mr. Anchorman didn’t know the first thing about his career - news, media literacy, investigative reporting, etc. I could’ve made a better television reporter than him, and I’d never laid eyes on a video camera. The day Mr. Anchorman was told he would have to do investigative reporting - one of those “budget-crunch-is-forcing-us-to-move-everyone-around moments” at big corporations - Mr. Anchorman quit.
“What do you mean you quit?!”, screamed I, loud enough for the sound of the words to reach the center of the Earth.
Freeze it there. Let’s have an homage to Mr. Anchorman. Suppose the shot is framed at just my face screaming. That’s a, extreme closeup, right? It’s definitely extreme anger. Now back up just one push of the button. Look here, it’s me and Mr. Anchorman, with a blurry background. His incompetent face versus mine.
One more step. Medium shot, no? Wedding dress versus the nicest suit money or a pretty face can buy.
Further out. Look at all those people looking on so attentively, the preacher in the background wearing an annoyed face.
We don’t need to zoom out anymore; no, sir.
Now I find comfort in the words of Tolstoy, here in this decrepit set of four walls that might as well cave in and take me with them anyday. At least you don’t have to work at a damn bookstore for that to happen.
I think of my father very often.
When I decided, at some point during my senior year of high school at No. 35 in Tomsk, during one of those moments when you find yourself concentrating on anything but the task at hand, that I wanted to become a damn bookstore owner, there was a pretty unassailable belief that it was going to be a pretty lonely, pretty lacking-of-a-need-to-talk-to-people job. Pretty pretty pretty.
Well, what isn’t pretty at all - it’s actually quite ugly - is that all of that ended up being true.
People always assume, “that’s not going to be me.” It’s a pretty notion.
Well guess what: take that pretty notion and stick it pretty deep down the toilet, so far in that taking it back out would require a team of highly skilled, hazmat-suit-wearing plumbers (if those even exist). Because pretty soon in life, you’ll realize that that notion is the ugliest lie you could tell yourself.
I’m a bookstore owner here in Vladivostok, a city with a good amount of fanfare. Come 2012, we’re hosting the 24th summit of some economic association that in reality, the locals could care less about. On Wikipedia, there’s a pretty lengthy list of famous people that this city played host to, from Igor to Swati to Svoy to plain Vladimir.
Then there’s me, running an antique bookstore on the corner of streets so abandoned and unkempt, it’s a wonder no cars fall straight through the ground.
I love my job. I have a passion for the written word; for organizing, cataloguing, advertising, discussing it. I often spend hours in the inventory room, reading anything from Tolstoy to his contemporaries.
So where do you think you’d find me on a foggy Thursday afternoon, way before I finally opened the bookstore? The shooting range, of course; a few blocks down from the bookstore nowadays, if you can believe that.
I’m talking like you know me. Saying “pretty” this and “pretty” that, “of course” this and “of course” that. What a fool I am indeed. I’m repeating the same error that landed me in this god forsaken room. Being too open.
My father was in the army. I’m guessing he fought in some war during some important time frame against some important enemy, but I could care less about what he fought in. The greatest enemy he ever had to face was me, just a few months prior to that Thursday when I told him off.
Maybe it was machismo, maybe he was out of his mind; I don’t give. The point is he left my mother to fend for herself. She was a loving, simple woman that - god bless her soul - actually couldn’t fend for herself. She was scared of most everything. From something as stereotypical as spiders to something as unbelievable as making fish soup. Her parents coddled her, too much. The only fingers she lifted, she used to write the homework assignments she did every blue moon. Everything else was taken care of, even falsifying the school transcripts so her aunts and cousins wouldn’t think lowly of her.
So when my father got ahold of her - or rather, prompted her to fall in love with him during a drunken stupor at a bar - he couldn’t put up with her incompetence, and he couldn’t live with himself for having been drunk at the most inopportune moment.
I have no sympathy for him. But not because he left my good for nothing mother. But because he left me. I can’t blame him for not being able to put up with a woman who hadn’t worked a day in her life, but I sure can blame him for making like the wind when he found out she was pregnant. That army boy respect and reverence for all things moral and worth standing for flew out the window when those news came.
Again!
Again I treat you like you know me.
Whatever, yeah, I’ve got daddy issues. So when a handsome man in a blue blazer, a lean, tall body, jet black hair pulled back tight, shades darker than black, khaki pants, a Rolex and an anchorman position on the local news station … well, I was swept off my feet.
I didn’t know whether I wanted Mr. Anchorman to be my father, my boyfriend, my husband or my son.
But of course, he swept me off my feet, and I told him all I’ve told you and more in less than 2 weeks of knowing him. If he had any doubt as to what kind of person I was, he didn't have to wait too long to figure it out, that’s for sure.
If only that would’ve been reciprocal. Those 2 weeks that we spent painting the town red were beautiful, but mostly because between all my babbling, I didn’t let Mr. Anchorman get a single word in. I just saw his beautiful pearly white and shining blue eyes be the audience for my less than alluring stories of daddy issues, missed calls, failed dreams and bad diarrhea.
But the day I stopped talking was the day I realized I was up the creek without a paddle. And the canoe was sinking.
Mr. Anchorman didn’t know the first thing about his career - news, media literacy, investigative reporting, etc. I could’ve made a better television reporter than him, and I’d never laid eyes on a video camera. The day Mr. Anchorman was told he would have to do investigative reporting - one of those “budget-crunch-is-forcing-us-to-move-everyone-around moments” at big corporations - Mr. Anchorman quit.
“What do you mean you quit?!”, screamed I, loud enough for the sound of the words to reach the center of the Earth.
Freeze it there. Let’s have an homage to Mr. Anchorman. Suppose the shot is framed at just my face screaming. That’s a, extreme closeup, right? It’s definitely extreme anger. Now back up just one push of the button. Look here, it’s me and Mr. Anchorman, with a blurry background. His incompetent face versus mine.
One more step. Medium shot, no? Wedding dress versus the nicest suit money or a pretty face can buy.
Further out. Look at all those people looking on so attentively, the preacher in the background wearing an annoyed face.
We don’t need to zoom out anymore; no, sir.
Now I find comfort in the words of Tolstoy, here in this decrepit set of four walls that might as well cave in and take me with them anyday. At least you don’t have to work at a damn bookstore for that to happen.
 |
I think of my father very often.
Young Adult Novels for Young Adults
As a reading enthusiast, I am always willing to read a book, even if the chances I will actually enjoy it are 50/50. Often when I'm searching the shelves of the library I disregard the cliche "don't judge a book by it's cover." I am always judging a book by it's cover. I figure, if I like the outside of the book, I might just like what's on the inside. This is obviously not how some people approach book choosing, but it works for me.
I'm a huge fan of any kind of fiction, I have found. My favorite authors are F. Scott Fitzgerald, J.D. Salinger, and Oscar Wilde, to name a few. As much as I love the classic novels, a new kind of fiction has recently captured my attention; young adult fiction. The books I've read within this genre include the Mortal Instruments series, beyond entertaining and perfect for the fantasy loving book worm, The Hunger Games series, three novels that will have you on cliffs by the end of each and eager to read more, and my favorite of the bunch, The Carrie Diaries novels, featuring young Carrie Bradshaw from the infamous Sex and The City books, show, and films and her beginnings.
Of course, my book selection may not be the best for all people. Being a reviewer I understand that. But these books, being young adult novels, have so much in common with teenagers that you honestly have to read them to realize it. Even though we may not be fighting demons, or fighting for our lives in a nation-wide death match, we do have romance issues, dealing with our first loves, and we do have those annoying family fights, and essentially, the experiences that will teach us exactly what we need to know when we're on our own.
Ultimately, Carrie Bradshaw may not be the best heroine for all teenagers, but her and her friends, a.k.a. the characters in the novel, tell a fantastically entertaining story that all teenagers today can take tips from, just like other young adult books. No wonder the library has recently created a whole section for teenagers, the books are obviously special enough to relate to our own lives. So, i'm encouraging you to check out the latest novels out in the young adults sections of your library or book store, i promise you won't be disappointed. And go ahead and judge the book's cover!
Sunday, January 1, 2012
Happy New Year!
Ahh... the refreshing feeling of a brand new year.
A new year brings along a fresh start, a new beginning, and a chance to renew yourself.
A very popular tradition for many people during the new year is to create "New Year Resolutions"; a list of things people want to change about their lives, or make happen in the coming year.
I usually do not make New Year Resolutions, however, this year, I did.
I thought about it, and decided that resolutions would just act as goals and help maintain standards for performance; meaning that they are goals to keep me doing my best.
Here are a couple of my 2012 New Year Resolutions:
1. Get straight "A's" all through ninth grade.
2. Practice my violin a little longer everyday.
3. Go to sleep earlier on weekdays.
4. Stay focused while doing homework/schoolwork
So those were a few of my resolutions... and YES!, I intend to stick to them!
Comment about whether or not you and your family create New Year Resolutions, and what they are.
A new year brings along a fresh start, a new beginning, and a chance to renew yourself.
A very popular tradition for many people during the new year is to create "New Year Resolutions"; a list of things people want to change about their lives, or make happen in the coming year.
I usually do not make New Year Resolutions, however, this year, I did.
I thought about it, and decided that resolutions would just act as goals and help maintain standards for performance; meaning that they are goals to keep me doing my best.
Here are a couple of my 2012 New Year Resolutions:
1. Get straight "A's" all through ninth grade.
2. Practice my violin a little longer everyday.
3. Go to sleep earlier on weekdays.
4. Stay focused while doing homework/schoolwork
So those were a few of my resolutions... and YES!, I intend to stick to them!
Comment about whether or not you and your family create New Year Resolutions, and what they are.
Monday, December 19, 2011
The Death of Kim Jong Il
On December 18, news of North Korea's dictator, Kim Jong Il's death flooding news channels all over the globe.
North Korea is a country shrouded in much mystery, and its leader much the same.
Kim Jong Il was 69 when he died and reportedly passed away from a heart attack on a train in Pyongyang.
He was often referred to as 'Dear Leader' and controlled his country for 19 years.
It is said that his son, Kim Jong Un, will succeed him and become the next dictator of North Korea.
Not much is known about his son, but many say that he is approximately 28 years old.
North Korea is a country shrouded in much mystery, and its leader much the same.
Kim Jong Il was 69 when he died and reportedly passed away from a heart attack on a train in Pyongyang.
He was often referred to as 'Dear Leader' and controlled his country for 19 years.
It is said that his son, Kim Jong Un, will succeed him and become the next dictator of North Korea.
Not much is known about his son, but many say that he is approximately 28 years old.
Does the Government have the right?
A couple weeks ago, I was reading an article about the government taking a young boy away from his mother because he was overweight at only 14 years old. The government took the child from his home and placed him with a foster parent.
This makes me question their judgement. Did they ever think that the boy was happy with his weight? Was it right from them to take him away from his only family?
According to the article, the boy ate when he got home from school when his mother was away at work. She didn't allow him to eat certain things so he waited until she wasn't home. Yet, the government accused her of abusing her child with food.
Honestly, they can't blame her for his own decisions. I can understand suggesting that he goes on a drastic diet but to bring him to another family was taken overboard!
The government is starting to get involved in everything going on that doesn't necessarily need their help... What else will the government do??
This makes me question their judgement. Did they ever think that the boy was happy with his weight? Was it right from them to take him away from his only family?
According to the article, the boy ate when he got home from school when his mother was away at work. She didn't allow him to eat certain things so he waited until she wasn't home. Yet, the government accused her of abusing her child with food.
Honestly, they can't blame her for his own decisions. I can understand suggesting that he goes on a drastic diet but to bring him to another family was taken overboard!
The government is starting to get involved in everything going on that doesn't necessarily need their help... What else will the government do??
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