When I was younger it was all about the candy. I wanted mountains and mountains of it so I could get more than my brother. It was ALL about having the most candy and the best kinds. When my brother and I would dump our candy out, though, we usually always had the same amount. We would both drop our jaws and our eyes would widen and we'd scream out, "WOW! Look how much I got!" and then we would commence with trading nasty peanut butter things for Reese's and Snicker's. That was just the best.

Now that I'm a little older than eight, it's about dressing up (yep, I still dress up--haven't missed a year). Last night I was a dead girl from the 50's. I wore a white sweater with a red and black skirt and put my hair in a ponytail and had huge hoop earrings. I put dark black eyeshadow around my eyes and put "blood" smears on my neck, my cheeks, and by my snakebites. Last year I was Laura Ingalls Wilder complete with a checkered brown dress and the black boots and bonnet. The year before that I was a goth girl in a Freddie Kreuger type shirt with dark purple lipstick and thick black eyeliner. And the year before that I was Wednesday Addams with a black dress, my hair in ponytails, and thick black eyeliner (although Wednesday never wore make-up haha). I would say this year was my favorite in the last few years that I've dressed up. I was going to be a little kid with fairy wings and a tutu and different colored socks and all that jazz, but this dead girl was SO much more fun to put together. I LOVE dressing up haha.

The last song that I sang was Lies by McFLY. It's got an interesting almost eighties sound to it and it's really something I get into every time it comes on my CD player.



In a group the last time I sang was... well my friend Brittany and I used to do songs on YouTube. I think our last song was either Star Girl by McFLY or Lollipop by Mika. Other than close friends, I don't like to belt out anything in front of people. I don't believe that my voice is that good and I'm a little worried I might be tone deaf, but I can match Maroon 5 songs pretty darn well and I'm not bad on Simple Plan songs. I never sang in chorus class when I took it so I kind of tried to teach myself pitch and range by working on Simple Plan songs when I was younger. I have yet to match a McFLY song, though, haha.

But now I am trying to write my own songs and I'm working on three of them. I always thought that when I wrote a song and did it that I would be changing the world somehow. I would be like John Lennon writing songs that the average person could take and listen to and be like, "Yeah, yeah, I'll do that." Like Working Class Hero and Imagine have had such an impact on people and they actually meant something. I always thought that, being so heavily influenced by bands like The Beatles and Creedence Clearwater Revival, that I would write revolutionary songs and be able to belt them out in ways that made people bob their heads, but still retain the information I was giving out. I look at my songs, though, and it seems as if I'm more influenced by Slipknot and System Of A Down. *sighs* I want to change the world through my songs, but I think it's going to take a lot of weeding through the Slipknot-esque to really get there, which doesn't bother me. I can have both!

Today we had a Veterans' Day Program, which the senior class organizes each year, and this year for the main speaker one of the National Guard members from my class spoke. His job was to basically introduce the things that would be happening the program and to introduce the guest speaker (this year it was the grandfather of one of our star basketball players and he was quite interesting).

The person in my class is named Ricardo Ramos and he's a bit of an oddball and I must say we seem to clash. He's a little too "friendly" for my tastes and I'm too not into that for his. But it seems to come down to that we're in the same class of 26 students and we're all still a family, clashing and overly friendly or not.

We sat through a speech by Bruce Gillam, the grandfather, and he told us about his time in Vietnam and why he fought and what he honestly thinks of the press (he also pinpointed the exact reason why I would NEVER EVER be an journalist in the military--which is lies and corruption). It was an interesting speech, much different from last year's given by the father of my best guy friend which covered the progress in Iraq and on the war against terror. This one really spoke about the importance of friends and family and of honoring the veterans and of taking care of them when they come home. He also spoke about the war protestors who throw things at the soldiers going or coming home. They pelt them with rotten fruit and vegetables and other items. That makes me so angry. I felt extreme bitterness towards anyone that would do that. The soldiers are fighting for THEIR freedom to do whatever they want--including pelt fruit and vegetables at the men and women serving their country. It sickens me to know that people would have the audacity to do that. They might as well shoot them.

After Mr. Gillam's speech we watched a short video about a soldier who was a POW for two years after rescuing one of his friends in combat. The mother heard nothing for that entire two years and at the end of those two years the song showed up on her doorstep and they embraced and there were a lot of tears and the son said that when he was released he got every single one of his mother's letters and read them and they made it all worthwhile.

After this the program was over and we all stood up and the girl next to me whispered, "Now I know why Ricky does it. I still worry about him, but I finally get it."

My brother is in the military, military police in fact, so I get why. It's about defending pride and freedom and all of the people that live in this country. It's about knowing that your friends and family are all safe and cushy at home in their beds and knowing that you did something to make that happen. It's about really valuing the American way in all aspects and I get that. I have for over two years. Living with a soldier really alters your views on things.

But when she said this it got me thinking a bit. There were two boys in my class that signed into the service last year and there was one from my brother's class (my brother) and two people from the year before him (one girl and one boy). In the class that will come after mine there is one girl joining the service. We have roughly 200 kids in our high school and there are only six people within the last four graduating years that have service men and women. Does that mean that the rest don't value their country, family, friends, or safety? Do they not care if our country remains the same America? No, I don't believe that. I would join the military but, honest to God, I am too afraid of spiders down south and in Iraq to join. I cannot handle spiders. I know many are not proud of their country and they don't like how things are handled and they choose not to fight for that and then there are many that have irrational fears such as mine.

I just wonder about those people that don't like their nation. Is that why they don't understand why someone would join the service? Do they not get why they would fight for their nation and its people? Can they not see the beauty in the American way? Is everything so blinded by national debt, corrupt lawmakers, and C average executive branch employees that people can't see the good in our country? Is that why that girl couldn't see what Ricky and Jake want to fight for? Did she not get that they were not fighting for corrupt lawmakers and national debt, but for friends, family, and the freedoms we as Americans take for granted? You may not support the war, many soldiers don't, but you support your friends and family--don't you? Wouldn't you fight for them to maintain their way of life? Or would you let that be attacked and just not care about what happens?

In the dresser that stands beside me there are three shoeboxes filled with things. An outsider could open those boxes and stare at the things in there and think it's junk. Old comic strips, a few sporks, some old Christmas and birthday cards, and a whole lot of letters from my dad while he was in jail and I was in foster care. It seems meaningless.

I go through the boxes and read through the letters and remember a time when my dad was acting as selfish as a four year old and I was beyond depressed. I remember a time when things seemed too hard. It's difficult to read through them, but I do every now and then. The Christmas and birthday cards (dating way back to '98) remind me that there are people in my life that love and care for me each and every year--even if they only show it on special occasions. The sporks almost seem meaningless to me. They're silly things. I was eating at KFC with my best guy friend's mother and I told her that I really loved sporks. On the way out the door, she leaned over and took every single spork out of the holder and gave them to me. I have every single spork she gave me that day.

Like I said, they seem silly and insignificant. A few eating utensils and some old letters that don't have any meaning in my life today, but I keep them around because of what they remind me of. They always seem to remind me that there's someone who cares like Kelli, who stole ALL those sporks for me, and my dad, who guilted me for a year and a half but always had an underlying care for me.

It's how life works. The seemingly meaningless things have the most value in some people's lives. It's weird how that works out, but I would never question it. I know some people who have no prized possessions. If their homes burned down tomorrow they would be sad their big screen TV and laptop computer were inside. If my house burned down tomorrow I would think about every single stuffed animal I've had since I was 8 months old, every single journal, every single old letter from my dad and my cousin, every single birthday present from my best friend, and every single spork from Kelli and I would cry. I would cry for my guitar and that Barbie doll I got in forth grade that's never been out of the box, because she's a collector's edition. I would sniffle over that drawing I did sophomore year and for the drawing my friend had given me to think about putting into my sleeve tattoo. And I would definitely gaze forlornly as my bedroom toasted and I thought over the thousands of dollars worth of CDs that I had sitting beside my bed and that Bible I got when I turned nine. It would hurt too bad for me to give those little things up. They don't look like they mean anything, but to me they mean the world.

Right now I picture myself tapping my pen against a blank sheet of paper for the millionth time this month. National Novel Writing Month is almost at an end and I have written a grand total of 53 (handwritten) pages. It's a lot of words, but nowhere near what I need so now I find myself at that point where I'm just leaning back and thinking it through. Should I read what I've got or keep going? Should I ignore the errors or revise? Should I quit or forge on to the end of the novel? Should I hide it away or try to publish it? Oh, the questions that get to me when I should be working on my writing.

As you can tell, writing is my favorite form of creative expression. I've always been a writer. When I was three I liked to pretend I was writing like my sixth grader friends and try to do cursive. It never worked, mainly because I had no idea the scribbles on their papers actually meant something. To me they were just scribbles. At age six, I wrote my first short story about a witch named Agnes who had a very disgruntled vampire neighbor. To get rid of him she baked a poisonous pie and he baked her one. It was silly and when I think about it now it makes me smile that my idea of bad was baking a pie. To be six years old again...

At sixteen, after numerous short stories and poems, I began my first novel called The Edge. It never made it past page 34, but I was proud of the idea and will one day retrieve the scribbles and turn it into something I'm proud of. I've also got a children's book called Shakespeare in the works (it's about a field mouse searching for a home) and a YA book called Time Of Dying about two teenage brothers involved in the murder of their friend. I am now working on a YA novel called Keepsake, which I'm considering changing to Drift, but who knows? It's about a sixteen year old whose mother dies and his father becomes an alcoholic. Feeling the entire world has turned against him, he runs away and ends up in Portland, Oregon. He meets three people who change his life for the better, even though it seems worse. It's an interesting idea.

At age twelve, though, I discovered that my writing didn't only have to deal with witches and vampires and fairies and runaway bunny rabbits (yeah, believe me there was one of them, too). I found out, through severe depression and my first suicide attempt, that writing allowed me to get the emotion out. I didn't have to bottle up my feelings about my dad and brother anymore--I could write it down in a ficticious way that others could relate to. While now I seem to deal more with deaths and religious hypocrisy it still allows me that outlet. No longer suffering from depression or thoughts of suicide, it does still influence my writing.

The most painful memories I have always find their way into what I put down on paper. The death of my mom, slashing my arm open, wrapping a plastic bag around my head, feeling my brother's hand encircle my throat as he slammed me against the wall, and the look of contempt from my dad when I told him I wanted out all finds it's way somehow into what I write. It may be subtle and it may have nothing to do with how I am or where I am now, but it's there. Writing gave me the outlet to make sure I didn't go back to how I was and I am thankful. It was very good that I discovered writing could be more than witches baking pies and rabbits being unhappy.

My car broke down this morning. I was about a half block from school. Thankfully I saw that my friend Jake was just headed out from his house and I called him on his cell to come help me out. I was even more thankful that he actually accepted to come help me out and look like a goober with me on the side of the road while we tinkered around. Then my friend Cassie pulled up to help us push the car to the side of the road so it wasn't in the way.

Yesterday in English we made a list of the things we were thankful for and I did not put friends. I thought of the three primary people that I hang out with and I curled my lip. I help them out all the time with homework, actual work, I answer the phone at ungodly hours just in case it's important (which it never is), and I run errands for them or run them around town. I get nothing in return. I was very not thankful for them. But today I look at Cassie and Jake who have helped me while my car was being uncooperative. They didn't have to help me. It was cold out and we were all three going to very late for our first period government class (something neither of us could really afford). But they did help.

Then I think about Jeff, who let me borrow his physics lab sheet. The entire class had done theirs wrong unbeknownst to me and Jeff had redone his during a free period. Out of the goodness of his heart he let me use his sheet so I didn't get a failing grade and I didn't have to figure out the pulleys by myself. I then let Sarah and Kendra borrow that sheet of paper and today both of them helped me out with a problem in the book I didn't get.

Then I think about each and every person in my class who has ever helped me out. Each person has either given me a paper I was missing, picked something up for me, drove me somewhere, held my books while I was getting something else, or helped me put on my jacket when I only had one free hand. I am thankful for them. I am thankful for all the other 25 members of my senior class (I know, small class). While making that list for English I never took into account that the people I don't generally count as friends, because I'm not around them as often as I am around my real "friends", are really who I am thankful for. I help them with assignments, give them ride, pick them up things, and answer their phone calls to tell them assignments or which day it's going to be and, in turn, they do the same for me. Our friendship is reciprocated. Every hug is given back, every tear shed is shared, and every single paper I've ever borrowed for a class is definitely in exchange for something else. I am thankful for Hunter, Tyler, Breanna, Austin G, Justine, Jordan, KayLa, Brittany, Brittney, Kalla, Kendra, Jake, Cassie, Shadoe, Austin W, Brandon, Juan, Nolan, Jeff, Abbie, Ricky, Nick, Josh, Chris, and Ryan.

On the giving side of things (as it is that time of year, eh?), my government teacher has assigned a "random act of kindness" project to the senior class. I have chosen to send three letters to three random people I have chosen from the phone book (I am thinking these three people will be my principal, the study hall teacher, and one of my friend's mothers). These letters will be of thanks for things and to build the person up. It's the holidays, right?

This also reminds me that I must still purchase a gift for Cassie and my friend's step-dad. I want to draw my brother's gift this year. I'm thinking him in his army digi get up out in the desert. While he's never been to Iraq he really wished he could have gone while he was still in the Guard. I got my dad a book, my friend's mom a set of candles, my friend a set of colored pencils (she's always taking mine without permission), necklaces for two other friends, and a bottle of lotion for another. I just may have to buy Jakey one as well now to pay him back for his services. Any tips on what to get a boy? He's your typical farm boy--not too much is fancy about him and he likes country, old rock, and metal music. He laughs about pretty much anything and is an amazing writer (something he doesn't tell a lot of people and he probably doesn't practice a lot). He's got talent, but I'm not sure if I were to get him a nice notebook if he would really use it. If you have any tips, let me know.