Memorable Passage

"My name is Hazel. Augustus Waters was the great star-crossed love of of my life. Ours was an epic love story, and I won't be able to get more than a sentence into it without disappearing into a puddle of tears. Gus knew. Gus knows. I will not tell you our love story, because like all real love stories, it will die with us. As it should. I'd hoped that he'd be eulogizing me, because there is no one I'd rather have. I can't talk about our love story, so I will talk about math. I am not a mathematician, but I know this. There is an infinite between 0 and 1. There's .1 and .12 and .112 and an infinite collection of others. Of course there is a bigger infinite set of numbers between 0 and 2, or between 0 and a million. Some infinities are bigger than other infinities. A writer we used to like taught us that. There are days, many days of them, when I resent the size of my unbounded set. I want more numbers than I'm likely to get, and God, I want more numbers for Augustus Waters than he got. But, Gus, my love, I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity. I wouldn't trade it for the world. You have me a forever within the numbered days, and I'm grateful"




This passage, from the book "The Fault in Our Stars", was one of my favorite parts of the book. I love the idea of a "little infinity". I hadn't ever really thought about it like that before. I also like the idea of appreciating the time your given instead of dwelling on how little of time it was.

Famous First Line Info

      My famous first line was "Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person.".  This was from the book "Back When We Were Grownups" by Anne Tyler.  It was published in 2001. The story follows a woman named Rebecca who was a 53 year old widow, mother and grandmother.  She takes a journey through the book to become the girl she once knew, not who she had become.

Some of My Favorite Quotes

"And please remember that you were beautiful before he told you that you were." -Unknown

"I only write when i am falling in love, or falling apart." -Unknown

"Remember that you were art long before he came to admire you, and you'll continue to be art even when he's gone.  A masterpiece is still a masterpiece when the lights are off and the room is empty" - Charlotte Geier

"If a writer falls in love with you, you can never die." -Mik Everett

"Stay away from people who make you feel like you are hard to love." - Unknown

Newspaper- Inspired Piece

Faith

The definition of faith, according to the dictionary app on my phone, is confidence of trust in a person or thing. A belief that is not based on poof.  Belief in anything, as a code of ethics, standards of merit, etc.  Faith can mean a lot of different things, but I think that for a lot of people it is associated with religion.  Religion is something I envy.  Something I've always so desperatley wished I could be a part of. Something I've always wanted to understand.  Even from a young age I had questions, which were always dismissed with irrelevant answers.  And I pretended to understand and believe for years.  Mostly for the fact that I was taught if I didn't accept this idea I was going to be sent to Hell for all of eternity.. I'm not sure what to do about religion.  Because I think some of the ideas are positive.  But I feel like there is a lot more of tearing people down than there is building people up.  I hate the idea of controlling others.  I don't understand the idea of people having an opinion and wanting everyone to see things the way they see them.  I think one of the most beautiful things about people is that we all have these different opinions and views.  This kind of turned into a rant about my problems with religion, which it wasn't supposed to be.  Faith is just an interesting thing to me.  Knowing something may not exist, that it may let you down, but still putting everything you have into it.

Readers As Writers: Book-Inspired Piece

Happy Endings

I have mixed feelings about happy endings. On one hand, I am, or at least I try to be, a very realistic person. When the fairy tale ending happens at the end of teenage romance novel part of me wants to roll my eyes because I know that kind of ending would never truly happen. Or if it did the two teenagers who have fallen in love at their beach houses over the summer will eventually go back home and forget about each other. But the other part of me knows that I would be disappointed if the mysterious boy didn’t have a good side or the girl really was a boring, straight A student not looking for an adventure. I always think about how the story progresses after it ends. The cynical side of me always has to think about how the romance may not last, or the girl with cancer will eventually die, or about any other number of problems that could occur with the characters. I want to be told a realistic story. But when I’m given one I’m pissed. To know the author intentionally killed the little sister, or make the girl the boy was in love with die, infuriates me. Why would someone choose for that to happen. I get angry both when books are realistic and when they’re unrealistic. I guess I just can’t win.

Famous First Line

Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person.  She didn't know if it happened gradually or overnight.  If it was the product of the music she listened to or the people she surrounded herself with.  But as she sat there thinking through all of her choices and empty bottles she remembered the younger, naive, girl she used to look at in the mirror.  She craved the innocence she once knew.  The innocence she shattered attempting to somehow prove she was ready for the world.  The innocence she should have lost when she was ready, not when she was drunk with a stranger who didn't know her name.  She wasn't happy, although if you met her you wouldn't be able to tell.  She wanted to change.  She wanted to love herself.  She wanted a new story.

Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered it was okay to start over.

Thoughts on the Art Institute

When the Art Institute came to talk to the class the thing that caught my attention the most was that to get your degree you don't have to take "Gen Ed"classes.  I really like the idea that you can go straight into what you want to study without having to take classes you will never need.  I also liked how they have a summer program for you to try out the programs to see if it fits what you want. However,  I did have some questions about what the pros and cons to getting a degree at the Art Institute are compared to getting a degree at a four year school such as Missouri State University.  In one year I will (hopefully) be living in Murfreesboro, Tennessee and attending Middle Tennessee State University where I hope to major in Music Business.  In five years I hope to be graduated, or getting ready to graduate, with a bachelors degree and I will hopefully have an exciting job lined up for me at that point. In 10 years I hope I will still be playing music.  I don't really care if that means sitting on my couch singing songs to myself or if it means playing for a crowd.  I just want my love of music to remain.  I don't really know what I want out of my future exactly, so I can't say where I hope to be in 50 years other than the fact that I just want to be happy and successful.  

Dream Threads Story

A miniature whale jumped out of the fish tank.  I looked around for a worker, but I couldn't see any of the blindingly bright, yellow shirts the aquarium employees wore.  In fact, no one was even in the same section of the aquarium as I was when I turned to scan the room. I started walking to the door that would take me to the next section of the aquarium when I heard something hit the ground once more.  I turned around and saw another large fish from the tank lying a few feet from the miniature whale.  Only seconds after that three more fish came spilling from the tank.  "Hello??"  I yelled through the other door hoping an employee would come to my rescue.  As more fish began flopping to the tile flooring, I bolted through the door to the next room unsure of what to do.  No one was in this section of the aquarium either, and I began to get a little scared as fish started to escape the tops of this section now too.  The fish were bigger in this room, and even more were jumping to the tile of the room. When I entered the next room, I immediately heard a loud thud against glass when I entered.  When I turned to see where the noise had come from I gasped.  Behind the glass was one of the largest fish I had ever seen.  It was almost the size of a whale.  The fish was throwing its body against the glass and I immediately ran to the next room. However when I entered the next room I could hear growling and pounding against the walls as the creature neared closer and closer.



I'm sorry I'm so terrible at writing fiction stories. I have no explanation for how completely awful this is.

Maya Angelou: Questions and Answers

3. Angelou says she doesn't even like to talk about her bad dreams because talking about them "gives them too much power."  Do you think talking about bad dreams or bad news or other bad things (or feeding into the "drama" at school or in life) gives those bad things more power?  When have you know this to happen?

Yes I definitely agree that talking about these things, or even thinking about them in some cases, gives them way too much power.  Especially with drama.  A lot of people will say things like "I hate drama", but they continue to let it consume their lives.  I think just staying away from it, and from people who let them surround their lives, is the key to getting away from it.  By talking about it you are giving it more reason to exist.  If you push it away, and refuse to give even the thought of it the time of day it can't affect you.

5. After going through a major trauma at age seven, Angelou didn't talk for almost five years.  Could you live this way? Do you talk too much or too little? What could you learn if you listened more and spoke less?  How could you grow as a person by speaking more?

I don't think I could live that way.  I'm way too talkative, however I can't say for sure how I would act if I had faced the same obstacles she did.  If you sat back and listened to what people had to say more than talking, a thing I have trouble with, I think you would gain so much more knowledge about people, their lives, and just the world in general.  At the same time, I feel it is important to speak up and voice your opinions.  Without sharing your thoughts and letting others know how you feel about certain issues you will have trouble making an impact on things you wish to change.

7.Angelou says she often has "total recall" of the events in her life.  Are you a person who remembers everything or someone who remembers almost nothing? Which is better to be? Which periods or times in your life are clearest?  Fuzziest?  Do you have beter recall of the times you consider happy or the ones you consider sad or embarrassing or uncomfortable or humorous?

I would say I remember at least 75% of my life.  I think it is much better to remember everything because I feel you will gain more knowledge from the people and experiences you can remember.  Even small details you pick up from conversations you've had may end up being something you can connect to something you go through later in life.  However, if you don't remember everything I think there are benefits to that as well.  I think it would be nice to not remember a negative comment about a place or a person I heard in a conversation and be able to talk make my own judgement.  I think the clearest part of my life would probably be ages 14-18, just because they have been the most recent.  However, I do have a pretty good recollection of elementary and middle school as well.  The parts I don't remember too well are just the average days that have no importance.  When I'm on those days I kind of feel like I'm just on autopilot, not really paying attention to whats around me.  I remember the happy and sad days equally because I feel like those serve the most purpose.

If I Were In Charge of the World

If I were in charge of the world
I'd cancel pants
Rush hour traffic
Ferris wheels and also
6 a.m. alarms

If I were in charge of the world
There'd be 12 hours of sleep
Summer year round and
Millions of free red Mike and Ike's

If I were in charge of the world
You wouldn't have racism.
You wouldn't have sexism.
You wouldn't have homophobia.
Or "You're going to hell if..."
You wouldn't even have religion

If I were in charge of the world
A large bowl of baked mac and cheese would be a vegetable.
All DMV employees would be happy.
And a person who sometimes forgot to put on makeup
And sometimes forgot to brush my hair
Would still be allowed to be
In charge of the world