Thursday, January 20, 2011

"be brilliant."

is what my english professor told me when i became a staff member of the inkwell. well, she said that and "expose the bullshit." my first week at the newspaper has been an eventful one. i read the entire "ap stylebook of 2010," cried on the floor, and hid in the closet every time the editor called me to find out where the articles were. 


so, i am pleased to introduce you to the final product.


click here to read about one of armstrong's black history events 

click here to read about the economic forecast of the coastal empire region

my first byline/article ever. 


listen to this song because it leads to a dance party. every time. 

Saturday, January 15, 2011

english 1102.

greetings! college is back and i am finally reaping the rewards of all of my hard work from last semester. which includes being hired by the inkwell, armstrong's newspaper! the newspaper even has an official website so i can send you links of my articles, how swell, right?


it was my first day back and my english professor immediately asks us to write our definition of literature:



Beverly Cleary helped me grow up. C.S Lewis is why I have an imagination. Howard Roark (The Fountainhead) is the greatest misunderstood and badass character in all of literature. I painted my room yellow, got a haircut, and rode my bike for hours on end after reading about Edna Pontellier (The Awakening). I felt at home with Joan Foster (Lady Oracle) and after I read it I began journaling in hopes to look back one day and find my own versions of dance recital fiascos, Royal Porcupines, and fake deaths. Frankenstein warned me about just how terrifying revenge can be. Three Cups of Tea changed the course of how I process information. The Great Gatsby is the grand influence of my fashion sense (I swoon over the thought of the crisp linens, seersucker, dresses, and bowties.)  On The Road made me feel antsy and in search of adventure. I have stared at The Avoider (a painting at the High) for hours because as unhealthy as it is, my philosophy tends to lean towards hoping that problems go away if they’re ignored. I am a product of a childhood spent listening to Paul Simon and James Taylor, they are present in every memory I have. The Format (the greatest band to ever live) is how I survived high school and why I’m on the indie side of life. Their lyrics have weaseled their way into my everyday language. Literature is there when I brood, when I drive in my car, when I feel restless, when I am devastated beyond measure, when I am elated. Literature is drinking hot tea and reading blogs, and rejoicing with others as our favorite band plays on stage. Literature changes people. Literature changes me. Literature makes my heart ache.  Literature is home. 



Wednesday, January 5, 2011

breakfast club.

a few days ago, i was asked to write about a tradition that i have, but other than going to school, work, church, and the occasional frozen yogurt, my "traditions" resemble more of a to-do list and less of a story told after the holidays (i.e "my family and i always vacay at the beach house over the winter break"). but there is one "to-do" activity that i have become proud of as my life as a college kid progesses, and that is my weekly "pancake and chocolate milk breakfast." every saturday my college has a pancake bar (varieties of batter, syrup, fruit, and whatnot) and because of this, saturday brunch has become one of my favorite traditions, because that is when i enjoy the greatest breakfast ever and i get to spend a few hours reading my Bible and going through my devotional. 


i am applying to a few christian summer camps and all of the applications asked me to share my testimony, so rather than share an essay that i wrote for english class (which i usually do on this blog) i am sharing the essay that i wrote for my summer camp counselor applications. (and if anyone would like to be a reference, just let me know, lol.)



I’m not sure when I was saved, whether it was at VBS when I was seven or if it was February 3rd when I was 18. I used to be obsessed with the answer, I desperately needed to know when it was, but I’m not so worried anymore, because I am saved and that’s all that matters.
So anyway, I am saved. For the past 10 years I have loved God, I have reserved Sundays for God, and I have joined all of the Church centered activities at church and school. 
But there’s always that feeling, I guess. Like when I realized that I wasn’t going to be the cool kid in school, when the boy broke up with me the day before Prom, when I didn’t get the part I wanted in the play, I didn’t make the soccer team, I couldn’t afford the college I wanted to go to, not everyone showed up to my party, or when my best friend turned out to be not my best friend. All of that stuff got to me, made me believe that I wasn’t special. I thought that if I couldn’t keep the attention of a bunch of 16 year-olds, how was I ever going to captivate the Creator of the Universe?
So I developed a belief that I was mediocre. That God loved me because He promised that He would love everyone, so it was kind of like when people say, “I love them because God says to love everyone, but I don’t like them.” And that was how God viewed me, He loved me because He loves everyone, but He didn’t like me.
For my devotionals, I was convicted about how I would rather read books about the Bible instead of the Bible, so I decided that my quiet time would be a book of the Bible. Because of this, I have read through the New Testament several times, but I kind of ignored the Old Testament. I felt that the Old Testament was just that, old. I perceived it as irrelevant, a list of rules that we no longer had to follow because Jesus died on the cross. But when I started college, I felt led to read the Old Testament, to see what it was really all about. It angered me, truth be told. I found myself enraged at the Israelites, God’s chosen people. They were saved after years of enslavement, they walked through the Red Sea, they defeated all of their enemies, their bread and meat fell from the sky, and their water supply came from rocks; because they were God’s chosen people and God loved them. But they didn’t care. It was as if they watched the Red Sea part, walked right on through, and watched as the Egyptians drown in the sea, and then they praised God. But then the next day they forgot about all that God had done for them and has promised to do for them, and they went off to worship the bull they made out of gold.
I couldn’t stand it. All I have been waiting for was for God to part the Red Sea for me, and He did it for His chosen people and they acted like it was a common occurrence, like they deserved it.
That was when I realized that I was the Egyptian. God created me so that His chosen people could shine. The Red Sea would have never needed to be parted if the Israelites were not being chased by the Egyptians.
I was reading the book of Jeremiah one night and I came to verse 31:3,
“And I have loved you with an everlasting love.”
And that was that. God loved me with an everlasting love. It was as if the words were on fire, in 3-D, moving across the page. That verse was for me. It canceled out the way of thinking I have lived by for the past 10 years. God loves me with an everlasting love, not because He feels obligated.
After further reading, I realized that God was speaking to the Israelites when He said that. God was telling the Israelites that He loved them with an everlasting love. God thinks of me as an Israelite, as one of His chosen people, He parted the Red Sea for me.
The Creator of the Universe loves me with an everlasting love, and that’s what’s up.  




just a song that i really like.


Monday, December 13, 2010

dear washer and dryer,

the other day my challenge was to write about the relationship i had with my washer and dryer. 
i set it aside and eventually forgot all about it until laundry day, a.k.a the day in which i face adversity. 


so naturally, i wrote a letter to washing maching # 8 and dryer # 22.



            Allow me to be blunt. I love you. I adore you. Without you I cannot live comfortably. I would be stale; I would have an odor of decay about me, as if I was dying without you. I think about you all the time, wondering when I will be able to see you. Sometimes we’ll meet after my afternoon class, other times late at night when the rest of the complex leaves to engage in nights of debauchery, leaving us alone. But alas! You run so cold and hot! There are moments when I feel as if I am the only girl in the world. But then there are the days when I feel as if you do not even remember who I am. I walk in and see all of these people using you, talking to you, but yet you stay with them, those that do not respect you, they sit on you and leave you messy and in disarray. They don’t love you like I do, but I feel as if you won’t make room for me, so I leave. Have you no soul? Do you not understand the mind of a teenage girl? All of this switching back and forth has done a number on my heart.  I run a few more miles on the treadmill, fix my hair, finish the rest of my textbook assignment, wash dishes, bake muffins, and get an update on the political ticker. I do anything that would make me more appealing to you when I return. Because I always return. Rather than ignore me, you jeer at me. You disagree on everything that I say. I say hot, you say cold. I want brights and you want wool. You refuse to work, you yell at me incessantly, you burn and shriek and gnash your teeth.  I resort to kicking and screaming, hoping that you would open up to me. You make me wonder why I stay with you, why I couldn’t will myself to walk out the door and never see you again. But you are not a friend that I can delete on Facebook. I can’t leave you. You have what I need, what I’ve been longing to get back all day.  You finally stop, once we realize how silly we look. I walk out the door, knowing that time will heal all wounds and I will forget how difficult you are just in time to go through it all again. 

this is how doing the laundry makes me feel. 

Saturday, November 20, 2010

meet lola.


my challenge today was to spend twenty minutes drawing an object. well, that didn't really happen. but i did draw what i thought a robot would look like if she went to the gym. 


she would do cartwheels. 


and jumping jacks. 


and after she got the courage, she would face down the pull-up bar. 


i just really like this song

Monday, November 8, 2010

cage match.

my essay topic for english was to choose an argument that we feel passionate about and try to persuade everyone to agree with us. others picked topics such as whether Genesis is true, the legality of abortion, the double standard of rappers and the language they use in their music, but i lack the ability to be serious so i wrote about the dire need for cage matches. 



Rednecks Need to Find Something Else to Carry in Their Pick-up
It saddens me to see my fellow countrymen divided due to the never ending debate of gun control and whether the government should place restrictions on who is allowed to have a firearm and how and when are they to use it, or if the controlling of guns is unconstitutional for any sort of regulation would trample an American citizen’s right to possess a firearm. The argument consumes the dinner table conversation, church sermons, Facebook notes, text messages, grocery store check-out lines, and park benches. The controversial topic of gun control has torn the grand country of America apart, and even though regulations such as restricting guns and other firearms from felons, keeping an up-to-date registry of all of those who have purchased a gun and for what use, and the ordinance that all those who carry guns must carry a permit as well may be the easiest and most logical solution, when one looks past the surface, one would see that it would never work for it does not solve the real problem.
According to my research, the real reason behind the need to possess a gun is not to protect oneself or one’s family, but the possession brings the owner to his or hers most primal, barbaric instinct, the need for violence. Owning a gun gives the owner the security that they are capable of being violent. With this discovery in my cranium, I easily found the solution while watching the Tyra Show. The host, Tyra Banks, was interviewing teenage girls that recorded their fights and uploaded them to the website YouTube. The girls claimed that fighting made them feel good and that there was absolutely no other way to solve their disputes. Most times, the girls agreed that there wasn’t even a dispute to fight about, they were just bored. How quaint.  This approach towards violence brought many of my other observations to light, such as the fact that everyone loves a good fight club. In fact, students at Armstrong Atlantic State University made an attempt to begin a fight club of their own on Club Day, and even though the club was shut down by the administration before the eleventh student was able to sign up, the bestial desire for violence lived on. These two occurrences brought me to the conclusion that the solution to gun control is the abolishment of all guns and firearms, for the weapons will no longer be needed when cage matches are ruled as the law of the land.
The government of America was modeled closely after the Roman Empire. The Romans idea of a good time was a good old fashioned gladiator fight. And if the system to cut down on prisoners and captives of war (terrorists) was good enough for them, cage matches should prove quiet successful for the United States as well. Of course, there are those who believe that without firearms, the United States would have no way to ward off threats from other countries with weapons of mass destruction. To this, I say, no one has nuclear weapons because all of the countries signed an agreement to destroy them, which means there shouldn’t be any left because everyone kept their promise, right?
Cage matches will cut down on deaths caused by firearms and will clean up jails and prisons, for people will have a legal and nonfatal option to solve their problems. For when one truly thinks about why one argues with others, it is because one feels the need to crush their opponent by any means possible, each insult being a metaphorical slap in the face or kick in the knee.  Therefore, the emotional state of America would be astronomically happier, for the people would be able to release the animalistic urges that society has told them to suppress, and if one is being honest with oneself, one would agree to the fact that it is much easier to recover from a punch in the face than it is to recover from an insult.
The matches will allow men to feel like men, to become the people they used to pay to watch at a bar. They will no longer be forced to keep the act up, to pretend as if they are fighting for their girl’s honor, they will be allowed to return to what men truly are, animals in a cage.
The government would take on a role like disillusioned parents, desperate to be hip and young, who allow teenagers to drink in their home because they truly believe that as long as the alcohol is consumed in a controlled environment nothing could go wrong. They believe that trouble would not ensue and perhaps the teenagers will become bored with the alcohol and decide to never drink again. The cage matches would be a way to bring domestic violence out into the open. Rather than keeping the terrible secret, using tax dollars to create domestic violence shelters, and having the police called to the house by a concerned neighbor only to hear that the couple is in love and they just had a bad night; if cage matches were legal, the couple would pay the government to participate in domestic violence. Eventually the couple would both become bored with the fighting and stop completely or they will pay such an incredible amount of money to fight that they would become bankrupt and would no longer have the money to participate.
The rules of the cage match are that a fight can happen at any time, any place, as long as a cage is in the vicinity, the fight will be barehanded-no weapons of any kind will be allowed, the fight will last ‘till the death (or when one of the opponents tap out, whichever comes first), fights outside of a cage is illegal, and spectators are welcome. The score will not be recorded which means that each cage match one enters will be assumed one’s first. Waivers and other procedures used to cover one’s butt will not be required for solving one’s problems by dueling another is the law of the land, meaning that it is the only way.
The Cage Match ordinance is a multi-faceted regulation, for it will create jobs and will overall rid the country of its economic crisis. People will be needed to construct the cages, keep record of cage match appointments, referees for the matches, doctors and medical staff for the end results, and kickboxing classes for those who would like to go into the match prepared.
Overall, cage matches can cause what beauty pageant contestants desperately wish for, world peace. Besides, cage matches have to work, for everyone must work out their problems or stay in the cage until they do. 
not a music video, but a must see youtube video

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

top ten.

my challenge today was to list the ten things i would want to do every day. 
rather than going the "these are all of the things i wish i could do" route, i decided to make a realistic "to-do" list of sorts, with the hope that all of these things will actually happen on the same day. 




fly a kite on the beach


have chocolate milk and pancakes for breakfast


see a play that makes me laugh and i end up quoting it for the rest of the day thereby becoming obnoxious to everyone around me. 


listen to music


open my mailbox and have mail


pretend i have my own cooking show as i prepare dinner


write an essay in hopes that one day it will be published


have a good hair day


play a round of "spoons" late into the night


go on a bike ride 


it is impossible to not have a good day after you listen to this song
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