Day 11- That's what sisters are for...

How long was your longest inter-personal relationship?  Was it friendship, family, romantic, or something else?

I'd say anyone's longest relationship of any sort is with their family. Some people may not be super close to their family members, but for me that is not the case. I am very close with my elder sister (who I've mentioned a few times). She has been my friend for approximately 18 years, since before the age of two I probably wasn't much of a conversationalist. We became closest though after she came home from college and we ended up having to share a room, and bed, for about two months. My grandma had moved in with us after spring break of my freshman year in high school, and since we hadn't yet sold our house (we decided later just to add-on to it), she got my room. Also at the time we had our Japanese exchange student (whom we love dearly!), and she was in my sister's room. So, we ended up sharing the guest bedroom and the queen sized bed in it.

My poor sister.

I am a VERY restless sleeper. I'm surprised she didn't end up with bruises from the amount of kicking she endured. We both survived, though. Amazingly. We are still close even though she's married and has a son now. I do my best to help her endure the job of being a mommy.... by showing up at her house, eating her food, and watching her movies. :) That's what sisters are for, right?

Day 10

What musical medium did you grow up with; vinyl records, CD’s, or MP3′s?

I'm a 90's baby, which means I grew up when people still used tapes, made the big switch to CDs, and saw the growth of MP3s. I have owned, and used, all three mediums. My favorite, by far, is MP3's. My iTunes music collection is expansive. If I had hard copies of all that music, I would suffocate under the weight of all the CDs. I am the proud owner of an iPhone, so I can cart my favorites with me easily. No heavy boombox on my shoulders!

Those of you who actually read my blog, feel free to share your answer to the above question also! Or any of my posts for that matter. :)

Day 9 (or: three minutes away from Day 10)

Detail the greatest prank you have ever pulled off successfully.

To be honest, I've never really been a prankster. I haven't tried a lot, and anything I did do was just something silly or just plain stupid. The only prank I think I can say was truly successful, is one that a lot of people do. If you have, or had, a kitchen sink with a spray hose, you've pulled this prank. Yes, the one where you tape the spray hose with clear tape so that whoever turns the sink faucet on gets soaked. The reason I feel this prank was so successful, was that it not only got the person it was aimed at (my mom), but my sister and I as well (the pranksters). Note: When you try to pull off this prank, don't forget the kitchen sink is rigged!!! Go to the bathroom to wash your hands.

Karma. Sometimes it'll get you before you even do what you had planned.

Day 8

Describe a moment in your life you laughed so hard you cried, had a drink come out your nose, or peed in your pants.

Oh gosh, I have had drinks come out of my nose so often from laughing, it's actually a fairly normal occurrence. That, and spitting my drink all over. I think the one story that still stands out to me as one of the funniest things I have ever witnessed, though, is my mothers attempt to mow the lawn.

My dad was out of town (or at work, I can't remember), so my mom thought it would be nice to surprise him when he got home by having the lawn all mowed. So she got out the little red push mower we had at the time, and after starting it with great difficulty, she put it in gear... ON THE FASTEST SETTING POSSIBLE. She was running behind the mower, barely holding on to the handle. My sister and I were laughing so hard we couldn't even get a breath to tell her the blade wasn't down, and she was not mowing the lawn at all. It got worse when she started going around a tree...and around... and around... Finally she realized that her mowing wasn't doing any good at all.

I can't remember if she finished the lawn or not, but to this day my sister and I still laugh about this incident, and it's still just as funny.

Day 7

Can a book really be judged by its cover?  Explain in as much detail as possible why or why not.

Absolutely not. I have attempted to read many a book that had an interesting cover, but they were so boring that I couldn't get into them. Some of my favorite books, i.e. anything by Jane Austen, have rather plain covers. A cover doesn't really show the true content of the book (like all the Twilight books, what do the covers ever have to do with anything in the story?). They try to make book covers exciting so that they catch your eye as you peruse the bookshelves at your favorite bookstore or library. Authors can't always rely on word of mouth or past success to get people to read their books. It is much more important, in my opinion, to read the little description instead of just staring at the cover. Even with the description, you're not always going to get what you thought you would. That's part of the appeal of reading things for yourself. :)

Day 6

Describe an odd or unusual writing habit or ritual you or someone you know has.

I love writing, I really do. I will often start writing stories that I think could be amazing, and after about ten pages I stop. I come back to it later and read what I've written, decide it's not original enough, tear it our of whatever notebook it happened to be in,  and throw it away. If I happened to have typed it, well... I guess we'll get to that. Until recently I had never typed my stories. I currently have one sitting in creative purgatory that I started writing after a particularly vivid dream that I thought was so awesome it needed to be built upon. It is currently only 3 pages long. I may return to it, I may leave it in purgatory forever, or it may get deleted. It's a fantasy story about a teenage girl who gets chosen by a powerful wizard outlaw to be trained as a member of an elite team of warriors. Yeah. I have those kinds of dreams.

Should I write that story? Feel free to share your opinions!

Day 5

Write about a time in your life when things weren’t the way you or others thought they should be.

There was a period spanning a few years of my life that was certainly not the best for me. I made some bad decisions, had some terrible relationships, and ignored God way too much. I don't like to get into details because it was a time of my life that I feel is better left to myself and God. I share it on occasion, but it's deeply personal, so I only share it with people I can be open with, and I have a very difficult time being open with people. 

Day 4 (Story time with Katie-- and pictures!)

Growing up, what career goals or dreams of accomplishments did you have?  Did any of them come to be, how many did you abandon or revise along the way?

I can't even tell you how many times I've changed my mind about what I've wanted to do in life. As a child I wanted to be many things: a scientist, a veterinarian, a famous singer, a teacher. You name it, I probably wanted to do it at some point. I got a but more realistic in high school: a singer, a fashion designer, a massage therapist, a music teacher. Heh, only two of those were reasonable choices. I did seriously look into Parsons School of Design in NYC for a while though, even had my ACT results sent there. By the end of my senior year though, it was time to make a decision. I had an important presentation to put together all about my goals and what I was going to study. "So," I thought to myself. "What do I want to do with my life?"

Me as a senior, thinking to my self.

"Well self," I said. "I think music sounds like an excellent choice." So, music it was. Half way through my senior year I decided that it was my dearest ambition to teach screaming children how to sing. Oh how wrong I was.

Blissfully unaware that I did NOT want to teach music.

So off I went to Alma College, home of the Scots. I loved Alma. I took it fairly easy my first semester, only 16 credit hours. I did well in music theory, despised aural skills, and discovered for the first time that I had a learning disability. I had an excuse for sucking at math (it's called dyscalculia, look it up). After one day of math class I called my dad crying because I had no idea what was going on. After several visits to counselors and appointments in the registrar's office and a visit to a psychologist, I got out of taking math. Yay! My problems didn't stop there, though. I discovered half way through the first semester that my learning disability also affected my music abilities.
For as long as I've been in music I'd always known I had troubles reading music, so I relied mostly on learning things by ear. However, being able to read music well is key in being able to teach music. I decided I would try to power through my problems, though, so second semester began... with 19 credit hours (a decision I promised myself I would never repeat again... until my second year of college anyway, when I took 20 credit hours). Nothing kills your social life and morale more than taking 19 credit hours consisting of music theory, two choirs, orchestra, German, aural skills, an English course, and voice lessons. Combine that with having a difficult time reading music, and you get someone who just wants to quit.
I resolved to not return to Alma unless I made it into the advanced choir that was reserved for mostly Juniors and Seniors. Well, I made it in, so when Sophomore year rolled around, I was faced with a new decision, what should I change my major to?
I had always enjoyed writing, and several people told me I was very good at it. My grades reflected this, so English became my new major. I packed my first semester full of as many classes as possible in order to catch up. Biology, Psychology, Literature Analysis, Early American Literature, Choir, Voice Lessons, and labs for both bio and psych. The best grade I got that semester was in Psychology. I was apparently terrible at analyzing literature, and I was so tired for my American Lit class, that half the time I fell asleep. All those classes on top of having joined a sorority (Gamma Phi Beta) made me so sick that I got tonsillitis three times in two months.

The only reason I survived my sophomore year.

My second semester began with the much wiser decision to take only 13 credit hours, which was an absolute breeze. I had a lot of fun second semester. I moved into my sorority house, had no early classes at all, and had the most amazing sorority momma EVER. And she was also my roommate.

My sexy momma and I.

Near the end of my second semester, I hit another bump in the road, I suddenly realized the only reason I had to return to Alma the following year was Gamma Phi. With a lot of tears and some hard goodbyes, I left Alma for good after a spring semester trip to Scotland with the choir.

I left Alma after this???

 I decide to attend community college for an associates in photography while also pursuing my old dream of becoming a massage therapist. After getting robbed at gun point while out taking photos and not being able to enter "true" Flint without having an anxiety attack, I decided not to return to college the following semester. I continued my schooling in massage therapy, finished top of my class, and got a job even before I graduated. And here I am now: Self employed massage therapist (after being liberated from that job) and a hobby photographer.

Yup.

Day 3

Name one thing in your life you hope you never have to see or encounter.

I have encountered the one thing in life I dreaded most, and I hope to never encounter it again. In October of last year I had a gun put to my head and was robbed of my camera equipment. Nothing puts life in perspective like looking down the barrel of a gun, but to be honest, even if the trigger had been pulled I would have died with no regrets. I have loved those around me, I have laughed, I have lived, and above all... I have loved God. I have no fear of death, but I have an immense fear of torture. So I suppose that is what I never want to encounter. I never want to encounter a person whose only goal is to cause me, or anyone else, pain. Part of the reason I have never watched a horror movie/slasher is because of how much torture terrifies me. It makes me want to puke.

Those boys that robbed me that day I'm sure had no intentions of that sort, they wanted something they could get money off of. They'll never know that after that day I had an anxiety attack almost every time I went to school because I hated Flint so much after that, or that I had to start taking sleeping pills, or that I had nightmares for months because of them. If anything more had happened, I would hate to think how I would be now. God brought me through that small incident though, so I'm sure he would have brought me through anything more.

Day 2

What is the most valuable item or largest sum of money you have ever found?

Honestly, I've never found anything too valuable. In Jr. High I found $20 sitting on a sink in the bathroom. In High School I found a Hollister hoodie and a pair of back heels, both of which I still wear to this day. Probably the most expensive of the three was the Hollister hoodie! That's a good $50 right there. When I was really little my sister and I found a silver baby spoon in our back yard while digging, so that is probably more valuable than all of the above.

What I wish I could say is that I've found something incredibly interesting, but probably the most interesting thing I have ever found was a kitten. I named him Charlie, after my favorite character from "Lost". He was pretty much the coolest cat in the world. He thought he was a dog. He played fetch, came when his name was called, and begged for food. A friend and I tried to take him for a walk once... it didn't turn out so well. He FREAKED out.

Charlie was around for a little while, but he went missing that winter. We searched the street and the ditch for him, but never found him. It is my hope that someone took him in permanently, but I guess we'll never know.

As promised... (Day 1)

So, last night I promised that I would be writing more. To do so, since I often lack inspiration, I'm going to use this web page to help me along for the next 50 days. :)So:

Day 1: Name one thing that has always fascinated you.
Travel. If you haven't figured it our already, I have a very intense wanderlust. I want to be able to experience as many cultures as possible and see just as many countries. And I'm not talking about just taking short vacations. I want to go for months at a time so that I can live with the locals and see how life truly is there.

I blame my mother for my desire to travel. I was home-schooled as a young girl, and one of our weekly projects was to read a book about a different country and do some of the things we learned about. We would make food having to do with the country, I would have art projects based on the stories, and all week long we would study that country. Pretty much the best social studies class ever.

One story that stands out most to me was the one on Japan. I can't remember the name of the book, but it was about a little girl who would predict the weather by flipping her sandal up into the air, and depending on how it landed, that was to be the weather for the next day. So, for a week I had to try to predict the weather with my sandal. I'm not sure if sandal flinging was an actual way that the Japanese used to predict weather, but I never saw anyone doing it while I was in Japan. Of course, there is radar now.


LATER:
 I found the book! It is here:  A Pair of Red Clogs. My memories of the story aren't exactly clear, since I happened to be around five years old, but it's a fond memory none the less. :)

Life

I have decided that I am an absolutely terrible blogger. Once upon a time I used to write a lot, but that was back when my life was much more interesting... or maybe I just had more things I wanted to say. My life, as of now, is pretty bland. I wake up in the morning, I work (sometimes), I play games on my computer, I read, I go back to bed. Somewhere during the day I eat too. As far as work goes, I did just pick up a second job, so I'll be getting busier. Yay! I promise I will try to write more, not that I have many readers, but those of you who DO happen to read whatever is on my mind, be prepared for more entertainment.... or not. :)