ideas (thoughtful and less so)

Erin (of Miss Erin) and I have started a daily photo blog. Over the course of 2009, we will each take one picture every day, documenting one tiny slice of our lives. Why? Because it’s an experience. Follow us through 2009 at chromatic aberration.

We spend eighteen years as “children.” When do we really become “grown up?” My best friend recently turned eighteen. I’m eighteen in a few months. It doesn’t make you a grown up.

We seem to think of growing up as working towards real life. We’re kids, we think, we have all the time in the world. We have our whole lives ahead of us. So we put off things we’d love, because we think we have years for it, whatever it is.

Maybe this way of thinking makes us waste the first eighteen or so years of our lives. Maybe it doesn’t. Depends on what you think of as “wasting.”

I feel like the first 17-and-change years of my life have been working towards independence. I’ve been working towards taking charge of my life. But…am I ever going to be in sole charge of my life?

I think not. Now, it’s my parents. Someday, it’ll be a job, maybe a family, but there will always be something standing in my way of being in control of my life. I can fight it. I can try to change it. But can I change it? I don’t think so. But can I accept it? I don’t think so. I want to be in charge of my life. I want to be in charge of where I am, who I am, who I spend time with, what I do with my life. But I don’t know if I am, or ever will be.

What is independence? Do we ever have it? Does it mean loneliness? Do we even want it?

I’ve posted again on my YA For Obama blog. I hope you’ll check it out! This time, I wrote about Michelle Obama’s famous statement ("For the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country") and patriotism. Read my thoughts here.

I think that voting is very important. Too many people complain, yet far too few of them use the ballot box to do so. They’d rather just whine and then sit at home on election day. In that vein, I have written a blog post at YA For Obama. Check it out here.

There are some things that I’m never sure where to post, random thoughts that appear both here and on my book blog. I know more people read Teen Book Review than this blog (with its changing name and layout…help?) (130 Google Reader subscribers as opposed to 4–I just checked), and these are opinions that I’d love to have others’ thoughts on, but I’m still not sure what belongs here and what doesn’t. Of course, I could make TBR strictly business and just post book reviews & the like, but I, personally, prefer book blogs with a bit of a personal stuff, too, you know, so it’s an actual person behind the blog and not a book reviewing robot. So I guess the question is–where would you rather see things like my thoughts on standardized testing, fiction, the internet, education, and travel? Where can I share my political opinions? News or thoughts about my writing?

Please comment if you have any helpful advice.

I wrote about a trip I took last year to Morocco. It was one of my many ideas for college essays, but all the advice I read says not to write about your trip abroad because the topic is far too common. So I took part of that, changed it a bit, and submitted it to Teen Ink, where you can now read it on the ‘Teen Ink Raw’ section of the website. I hope they accept it for the magazine, but, either way, you can read it here,  and I’d appreciate feedback (constructive criticism allowed!) if you have any.

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.” – Mark Twain

Good advice, and a wakeup call. I’m a senior in high school, and I’ve got some big decisions to make. Making the “safe” decision or the most “reasonable” decision could be a way of not living life, and something I’ll regret in twenty years. I don’t want to have made the safe decision twenty years from now. I want to have made the crazy-passionate-life-loving decision. I want to have stories to tell, and I want to still be living a life I love. The daily grind is not for me. Everyone says that. You can say it, or you can live it, and I want to live the life I want to live. I don’t want to end up in a life that was there. I want to make great things happen.

Yes, it has been a very long time since I posted here. Yes, I do suck. Thanks for noticing.

I have a new job as a cashier at Kmart. The Kmart where I live is mostly deserted and creepy. Also full of buzzing fluorescent lights and annoying pre-recorded announcements that repeat often. I’m surprised it’s still in business, honestly, and I heard unofficially that we’ve only got another few months. I don’t care, honestly, it’s not like I was planning to make a career out of this. But I have some interesting observations, and even more questions, gathered on my nights working at Kmart.

• Sometimes people buy very odd things. It’s possible that they are on scavenger hunts, or that they just have very odd and urgent needs. Such as people who come in ten minutes before closing to buy a plastic toy that talks/new underwear/propane/a high school musical barbie. These are examples just from tonight, all from unlikely-looking shoppers. My favorite example comes from last week. A couple bought 88 polo shirts in different colors and sizes, all sizes, and offered no explanation. Paid four hundred dollars cash.
• Why do people make me ring everything up and then decide they don’t want half of it?
• Why does anyone need $100 worth of canned cat food–every week?
• Lots of people are really mean to their kids. Of course, lots of kids scream uncontrollably.
• Why do people bring items to the checkout and then shove them behind the candy?
• Some people are truly insane. Such as the woman who was wearing lots of tinfoil and told me all about how people were shooting her with lasers through their flashlights that they shone at her tent as she slept. Apparently these secret lasers feel like forks sticking through her.
• These crazy people like to hang out at Kmart and tell me all about their very interesting and imaginary lives.
• Why do people need plastic bags for their pack of gum/diet coke/candy bar?
• Why will some people wait half an hour to purchase an unmarked four dollar coffee cup?
• Why do people insist on blaming me for everything that goes wrong in their shopping experience? I do not control the prices/the crowding/the temerature.
• Why do people expect the cashier to know where every obscure object in the store is?
• IT IS NOT MY FAULT THAT YOUR LIFE SUCKS. DON’T TAKE IT OUT ON ME. I AM GETTING PAID SEVEN DOLLARS AN HOUR AND IT’S NOT ENOUGH TO PUT UP WITH YOUR CRAP.

The end.

This comes from Jordyn. I have other updates, but more on that later. For now, just this. One hundred things that make me happy. In no particular order.

1. My new laptop.
2. The Spanish language.
3. Discovering new music.
4. Diet Pepsi.
5. Big cities.
6. Windows.
7. Gorgeous views.
8. Van Gogh’s painting “Starry Night.”
9. Tall buildings.
10. My best friend’s car.
11. Travelling.
12. Dreaming of travelling, or making plans to travel, especially with my best friend.
13. Beating my never-ending writer’s block.
14. Books.
15. Notebooks.
16. Drawing.
17. Taking *good* pictures.
18. Hanging out with my friends.
19. The internet.
20. BreathSavers.
21. That delicious chocolate cake my grandmother makes.
22. Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
23. Nirvana. The band, not the enlightened state, though I’m sure that’s nice,too.
24. My dogs.
25. My cats.
26. Andrew the chicken.
27. Typing.
28. Papermate ball point pens.
29. Sleeping late.
30. Staying up long enough to see the sun rise.
31. Happy memories of perfect moments.
32. Long walks without a purpose or destination.
33. Summer.
34. Spring.
35. Fall.
36. Singing.
37. Dancing.
38. Laughing.
39. Across the Universe.
40. Lord of the Rings marathons.
41. My friends, old and new, and finding even newer ones.
42. The song “Seasons of Love” from Rent.
43. Moments of peace, clarity, and certainty.
44. Looking back at what I’ve written and not hating it.
45. My 4.0.
46. Daydreaming.
47. Fresh air.
48. Sunshine.
49. Transportation.
50. Being able to successfully navigate.
51. Road trips with my friends. Not with my family.
52. The song “Carry On My Wayward Son” by Kansas.
53. Feeling accepted.
54. Maps.
55. Ice skating.
56. New books by my favorite authors.
57. Sleeping.
58. Staying up all night.
59. Bowling.
60. Soccer.
61. Listening to loud music while riding in a car with the windows down.
62. Downtown Asheville.
63. Understanding music in Spanish.
64. Surprising people in a good way.
65. Being surprised in a good way.
66. Making people happy.
67. Having friends I can trust.
68. Yearbooks.
69. Riding in cars. Not driving.
70. My cell phone.
71. Supernatural. The TV show.
72. Making fun of ridiculous movies, often on the Disney Channel.
73. Feeling independent.
74. Being independent.
75. Planning my future.
76. Long, late-night phone calls.
77. Forgetting about people who leave and don’t say goodbye, if only for a moment.
78. Gilmore Girls.
79. Saved!
80. Bags.
81. Remembering to be environmentally friendly.
82. National Geographic.
83. Good-smelling lotion.
84. Jewelery.
85. Crazy/Beautiful.
86. Having someone else believe in me.
87. Feeling like I have choices.
88. Living my life to the fullest.
89. Five-card draw poker.
90. Ben & Jerry’s ice cream.
91. Thrift stores.
92. Donation jars.
93. 3 Musketeers bars.
94. Pringles.
95. Blogging.
96. Red. The book, not the color.
97. Colors.
98. Black and white.
99. Shades of grey.
100. Life.
101. Jordyn!

Yep, 101, but I couldn’t leave off that last one