September 27, 2014

I like to make sure not all of my blogs are prompts so this one I'll make into a free write. I've noticed on the days I have work I have a harder time with remembering to do my blogs. I usually end up doing a few things when I get home then just completely crashing. Hopefully I'll find a better system for posting these before long. I have noticed an improvement with the ease I write though. I used to spend a lot longer staring at the screen, while willing for a decent thought to find itself onto the page. Anymore I just let my fingers do the typing while my brain thinks.

I actually have to be up by four in the morning to get ready for work, so I will need to make this a pretty fast blog. One of the girls from work even said she'd bring me some food from McDonalds to help wake me up tomorrow. I thought that was really sweet of her to offer considering she has a pretty far drive to get to work in the first place. In fact, I think all of the people I work with are incredibly nice. That's probably one of the reasons I debate whether or not I want to find a new job.

This one is just minimum wage, so I know I need to find a job that pays better. I get bored with standing in the same place and asking people the same questions each day, but yet I don't really have the desire to quit. I've grown attached to quite a few of my customers. A lot of them are really sweet and actually remember little details about my life that I tell them. It doesn't seem like a big deal, but I don't expect people to remember things like me talking about foods I want to try or my college plans. I just assume they are being polite, so it always surprises me the little things people are able to remember. Well it's already tomorrow, so I really need to catch some sleep.

September 26, 2014

Prompt: Write about a weird day in your workplace.

There was a day we had gotten a lot of snow and I had to go in for work. I'm a cashier at a fairly small grocery store, but we close for nothing. We were open on Thanksgiving and Christmas even. I always work Sundays and they're fairly busy because everyone goes shopping after church. This day, church had actually been called off because of the amount of snow we had received. So we never really had much of a rush like we'd usually have.

Most of us cashiers just hung out up front. We'd been a little short staffed because one girl had gotten sick and one of the guys couldn't show up because of all of the snow and ice. Even with us having half of the normal amount of checkers, we had too much free time. We had a rubber band war when there weren't any customers. Later in the day we'd decided it was cold and we were all getting pretty hungry.

The manager who usually works the night shift is the youngest one and she's really laid back. Her and another one of the higher up girls had gone back to our deli and used to oven to fix a frozen pizza. All of us checkers begged them to fix us a pizza too. They agreed to as long as we bought it. I'm sure we weren't supposed to be doing that at all, but it wasn't busy at all. The few people that would come in wouldn't buy much, so we decided to make the most of what could have been a boring day. Between the rubber band wars, dancing, pizza, and all the other crazy things that went on that day, I'd have to say that was one of the strangest days of "work" I've ever had.

September 25, 2014

Prompt : Write about a time where you hid from someone, or a time you disguised who you really were.

My story will describe some background information for it to make sense. I had received a text from an unknown number and decided to respond. The other person seemed confused that I wasn't the person they were trying to get ahold of. I told them it was fine and it hadn't bothered me. The guy wanted to continue talking so we just asked really pointless questions. Things that wouldn't put me in any sort of danger. I didn't give out my address or last name. My best friend and I had texted this guy for a few months. We had found out he only lived about 30 minutes away and was our age. We assumed that we would never ever meet this guy. What would the odds be of ever running into him? He had wanted us to all hang out, but my best friend and myself were both cautious and felt that wasn't a smart idea. Who knew if this guy was some weirdo?

So we hadn't been talking to this guy very much lately. He had gotten clingy so we pretty much just sort worded him. We were both too nice to just completely stop talking to him. But we had gone out to a city that was closer to where this guy had lived, not thinking anything of it.  Be barely talked to the guy so he wasn't on our minds. Turns out, my best friend had mentioned we were out of town and he had happened to be in the city too. So my best friend and I immediately backtrack and try to find a way out of the situation without sounding rude. This guy had planned on meeting us and neither of us had the desire to meet him. So we told him we were at a mall. It was a fairly large location so we thought even if he didn't happen to be there, it would be easy to "miss him". We found out the guy had been across the street from us the whole time. We'd just barely missed him!

September 24, 2014

Prompt: Write a letter to someone you feel you need to spend more time with.

Dear "Best Friend",

We have grown apart over the years. It became more obvious this last year. I had responsibilities I had to take care of and you just didn't understand. I was growing up, while you were able to keep your carefree lifestyle. I know the fact I didn't have free time annoyed you. And for that, I'm sorry. I did try to make plans, but you'd always end up canceling last minute.

Since we've graduated, the distance has not just figuratively grown, but literally as well. I get maybe five texts every three or so days from you. Anytime we plan to have a phone call to catch up on the past few weeks, you never respond. I have to admit, the silence is hard to handle.

We used to be a package deal. We'd always be together and knew every little detail about each other's lives. When you came to visit a little over a month ago, it felt different. Our conversations didn't flow and seem so light hearted. The laughter came a little forced. When did we get this way?

I miss my old best friend. I know you have a lot going on, but for old times sake, can you put in a little more effort? I hope to hear back from you soon.

-Me

September 23, 2014

Prompt: Write a mini-story (100-250 words) that starts with "They had nothing to say to each other"

They had nothing to say to each other. He had found out she was cheating on him with someone else. The kind of figure that every guy has to look out for. The cliche line "tall, dark and handsome" described his competition so well. His rival was everything he wasn't. Not only was he strong, but rich as well. No wonder she was leaving him for this fellow.

Usually in a situation like this, he was able to bring out her soft side. Make her crumble into a mess. Their love was one that had never been questioned or held the slightest sign of doubt. They were meant to be and shared a bond that couldn't be described. Everyone said they were the dream pairing that went hand in hand.

It seems this was no longer true. She had been torn between the two. Unable to make a decision. This soured him. How could he be replaced by someone who could be so bitter at times? Sure, the other guy could be sweet and enjoyable on occasion. But he was better for her. She needed him, didn't she?

His time had expired...

Poor milk, the chocolate chip cookie of his dreams had left him for coffee.

September 22, 2014

I didn't get around to writing this before I fell asleep last night since my brain decided to shut down extremely early. So this is yesterday's blog.

It's funny, yesterday I watched a movie with my best friend and it was completely different from when I had watched it from a week before. The first time I watched the film, I enjoyed it and only found a few flaws. I'd watched it with my mother and she liked it a lot. Yesterday, the movie wasn't the same. My best friend pointed out how creepy the lead male actor was and that pretty much ruined the entire movie.

Well, I don't know if ruined is the right word to use there. We ended up turning a sad romance into more of a comedy. So the message of the film was a bit lost, but it was still enjoyable to watch. I'm not sure why a movie can be taken so differently depending on who you watch it with. Maybe it's because my mom is the type to just sit and watch the movie. She doesn't have commentary or really dig deeper into it. My best friend is like myself when it comes to watching a film. We have to talk through almost the entire movie and question character reactions and events. I'm not sure if that's how most normal people watch movies. I think the majority of people just sit and watch the film in silence. But we aren't exactly normal.

Even after the movie was over, he had to ask me questions about the characters. I read the book so he knew I would understand it much better than him. Movies can't compete with the books. They're a lot more vague and it's easy to get lost in what's going on. I'm sure there are a few exceptions where the film is done better than the book. I just have yet to find that case.

September 21, 2014

I think I'll just use my blog as a free write today. I've had a headache all day so it would probably be easier for me to write about whatever is on my mind rather than to try and think of clever things to say. Plus, my past few blogs have been about prompts. I like to mix things up. I'm currently trying to finish my "This I believe" essay. I hit a major writer's block and haven't been able to progress much in it at all. I've even considered deleting the whole thing and starting over with a new topic. I really shouldn't, but I'm such a perfectionist. It's not turning out quite as well as I had pictured it in my mind. Maybe once I finish up this post, my mind might have cleared up a little.

Work actually went pretty great today. I have to be there by six on Sundays so I try to get some sleep the night before. Last night I ended up working on my classes until midnight. Definitely not planned, but needed. My manager actually offered to buy me a donut when I was joking about him buying me one. I turned down the offer of course. I'm too polite to say yes. Then not even 15 minutes later, I told a customer that their donuts sounded pretty great. He also tried getting me to eat one of the delicious little baked goods. I also turned him down. Even though I never take food from customers, I still think it's extremely sweet of them to offer it to almost a complete stranger. I'm not sure if it has to do with the fact a lot of people stop buy the store on Sundays are either headed to or from church, but I hardly ever have rude customers during my Sunday shifts. Granted, I do get some, but it's not nearly as often. Of course, it could be because a lot of people are off work on Sundays. They're probably in better moods for that reason.

Well, I'm going to go back to that essay. Hopefully this will get the ideas flowing!

Prompt: 5 things you would do to entertain yourself if you did not see a soul for seven days.

If I didn't see a soul for seven days, that would mean I didn't have work. My job requires a lot of dealing with people so I'd kind of enjoy a break from that. I know I would probably start off with a giant collection of books. I always get interrupted while I'm reading so I'd enjoy the peace and quiet that came along with not seeing anyone for a week. Not to mention, books are like their own little worlds. Reading would probably make the week go by more smoothly. It wouldn't be nearly as lonely.

I don't know if this counts as seeing a soul or not, but I would call my best friends. I can talk on the phone for hours if it's with someone I'm really close to. It wouldn't be the same as actually seeing my friends, but it would be nice to actually be able to communicate with someone.

I would eventually grow bored and turn on the television. I don't know if I would have it on a comedy or if I would put on some of my favorite movies. The only problem with this is I like watching movies with other people. So I'm sure that form of entertainment wouldn't last long.

Music would definitely be another one of my first choices. Dancing and singing along would be a great way to pass a few hours of the day. Or if it's the right artist, I could sit and listen on repeat for a long length of time.

I absolutely love to draw, but I haven't really spent several hours working on a drawing for a few months now. I would find a project that would take me a long time to complete and start on it. I'm able to focus on my drawing best when it's quiet and no one is watching me draw. I don't work well with distractions.

I know I always like the idea of alone time, but I wouldn't want an entire week by myself. That would  get boring pretty fast.

Prompt: a stack of papers a few inches away from the shredder.


Deep within the confines of the Dunder Mifflin Paper Company, in the darkest office in the darkest floor of the darkest building sat a short stack of paper. Having made this small office space its home several years previous, it spent its days sitting alone and forgotten. The stack considered itself to be important, the things within were, as it believed, crucial to the survival of the company. Yet there it stayed. Year after year with no sign of hope.

Finally, the company switched ownership and the newly instated management was able to increase the equity of the company resulting in the reopening of the branch in which the paper stack was located.

When the lights came back on the small stack of paper believed it was finally its time to shine.  Slowly but surely the office filled itself with workers, busying themselves with the work required to keep the company afloat. The stack knew that this would finally be it's time to shine. It knew that someone would notice it and allow its contents to enlighten the collective minds of the entire company. The stack found itself elated when a human had thrown a glance its direction. An air of importance washed over the stack. Finally it could be recognized as valuable.

The man grabbed the stack and heaved it up onto the main desk. The shredder next to the paper looked lonely. It had been forgotten like the stack. The two sat together in that office for quite some time. The man from earlier, busted through the doors and picked up the stack of papers, placing them in the shredder. The bond those two inanimate objects had formed during that time died when the on button was pressed.

Prompt: Start writing a story with "The hallway was silent..."

The hallway was silent expect for my labored breathing echoing through the desolate tunnels. I came to a halt when I reached the stairs. I frantically checked each of my sides to make sure I hadn't been followed. So far, the coast had been clear, but that didn't mean I was out of the danger zone. Far from it actually. I had only gotten through the safest part of the building. After the dreaded stairs, things would only pick up from there.

I decided to proceed with caution. I knew just running up the stairs would only weaken me for the more difficult part of my journey. Not to mention, if I detected the danger before it saw me I could quickly backtrack. I stopped for a second to steady not only my breathing, but also my shaky hands. "This could be the day..." I kept telling myself. I tried to block it out, that certainly wasn't going to increase my morale. I hesitantly lifted my foot and set it on the first step. I could make this, I thought. With each step, I felt a little more confidence filling up inside of me. Until I was barely over halfway up the flight of stairs.

I heard what sounded like two men's voices talking below me. I couldn't let them find me now! I had gone to far to get caught now! I quietly jogged the remainder of the stairs, not even considering what might lie ahead. My feet finally found the end to the stairs and I glanced back over my shoulder. I couldn't hear the male voices, but for all I knew they were following me up the stairs. I wasn't sure if they had caught a glimpse of me.

That meant I needed to run, and that's just what I did. I bolted down the first hallway to the left. I needed to reach the last door in this never-ending hallway. One more door, I can do this! As my unsteady hand grasped the doorknob to turn it, I gave a pitiful laugh. It was locked.

Looks like I'm tardy to class yet again.

Todays the big day, I'm finally another year older! I sure don't feel that different. This has been the busiest week I've had in a long time. I'm hoping now that my birthday is over, things will calm down a bit. It's been a challenge finding time to get all of my classwork done while I'm barely ever home. Actually, now that I think about it, I'm going to be busy the rest of this week too. Tomorrow I'm spending time with my best friend. He's going to try teaching me how to play guitar or drums. I've never had any musical talents, but I'd love to give it a shot.

The television is one while I type this and it got me to wondering why so many Americans spend their time in front of the television. We always complain about how there isn't enough time in the day to get everything done. But then we waste countless hours watching things like reality programs. We really don't benefit from watching them, there's nothing educational to those shows even. We take pleasure in watching other people's lives and get so engrossed on them that we take time out of our own lives to keep up with theirs. I'm not the type to enjoy hardly any of those shows. However, I do get pretty wrapped up in some movies. One of the newer Spiderman movies is on right now. That's what I enjoy watching. My favorite kind of movies are the ones that make you think after you watch them. That's how most movies should be. I guess that's why I've never been a huge fan of comedies or a lot of romances. The majority of movies are purely made for entertainment purposes. People like movies that will make them laugh, have an attractive lead actor/actress, or have many explosions. I got really off topic there on the subject of movies, but my brain just works that way I guess!

September 16, 2014

So tomorrow is my birthday. It doesn't even feel possible. I could have sworn I had one just a few months ago. I think everyone else is more excited about it than I am. Even all of the people I work with get grins on their faces hearing that my birthday is approaching. That leaves me feeling seriously paranoid. I work as a cashier at a fairly small grocery store. Only one of my fellow cashiers is a guy and even he is in on this. Actually, he told me he was plotting with my manager of ways they could embarrass me. We have an intercom system at work and I have a feeling that's going to be the method of torture. They'll announce my birthday over the intercom so all of my customers will be sure to either give me a hard time or wish me a happy birthday. I know it's actually really sweet they all care so much, but it literally takes nothing to embarrass me. I'll be the color of a red delicious apple, I'm sure.

Honestly, I don't think I really get the importance of birthdays. We get older every day, not just the day we were born on. Then there's the tradition of birthday cake. Where did that come from exactly? Why don't we eat things like pie or cookies? I'm sure if I googled it I would find some sort of explanation on why we eat cake, but maybe I'll do that another time. It just doesn't make sense to me. We can eat cake every day, why is it the first food item that comes to mind when we think of birthdays? Maybe it's because we can personalize a cake with a name and candles to mark how old the celebrated person is. I'm not sure. Okay, I'm going to end my pointless rant about cake. I'll let you guys know if I feel significantly older tomorrow! Who knows, I may need a cane as a gift!

Getting to Know Your Audience

From what I've read, most of the class is actually from Missouri. This leads me to thinking most of the class grew up in the environment of a small town. Where everyone knows everybody and there isn't much to do. It's nice that most of us have that little factor in common. However, I was extremely surprised so much of the class is from around the same area. I had expected much more diversity.

Almost the entire class has siblings of their own. I think only one or two students replied that they were an only child. Quite a few of my peers had many siblings. A lot of responses were also directed towards friends or family. I feel like the class has very close bonds with their relatives and friends so writing could be directed toward a family.

The class is pretty well divided right in half when it comes to whether they'd rather spend their free time indoors or outside. The people who picked outdoors liked doing a lot of physical activities like hiking and swimming. Many of the students that selected indoors said they just didn't like the extreme  weather outside or that they liked to be inside to do things like work or read. So I feel like my writing could either be for the book nerd type, or a more adventurous story for the athletic students.

Much of the class is composed of go getters. A lot of the responses of what drives us involved people having past failures, but wanting to better themselves. I think this shows that as a class we will be very good at learning. When a peer goes to help us with our paper, we will gladly take the advice and learn from it. Rather than not take the criticism as how it was meant. I feel like this is extremely important in an english class. I've been in classes where no one really tried helping improve anyone's writing so it was a lot of sitting around and trying to come up with ways to pass the time, rather than help one another. A lot of my fellow classmates also offered responses with a decent amount of thought, showing that they are interested in participating in class.

September 13, 2014

I consider myself a queen of procrastinating so once I read a writing prompt about procrastinating, I was thrilled. The prompt asks what things I like to do when I procrastinate.

Sometimes I'll head to the living room and turn on the television for background noise. Slowly, my background noise becomes the center of attention. My ears will catch something interesting that is said so I'll wind up watching the screen and listening. I obviously don't get any work when this happens. Well besides the four minute commercial breaks.

Music is another one of those background distractions. I'll spend a few minutes looking through my songs for something decent to listen to. But then I find a song I really want to listen to, so then I'm not focused on my work. Instead I'm purely listening to the lyrics and my mind is miles away from whatever it is that I need to get done.

If I get a new book or decide to reread on of my old ones, I'm in for it. I can spend hours at a time reading and not realize its been more than 10 minutes since I first started reading. I just get so caught up in the book that I can't seem to put it down. I would consider it a bit of an addiction.

Snacking is a less healthy way I like to procrastinate. I'll get bored of whatever I'm supposed to be doing so I think "Hmm, I'm kind of hungry." and I'll find myself in the kitchen looking for a food to snack on. Usually something with sugar or chocolate is what I'm after. I'd say eating is the most common way I procrastinate. Sometimes I'll do something artistic like draw, but that's more rare. There's what seems like a never-ending list of ways I get myself out of doing work, but those are probably the most frequent ways I choose to procrastinate.

September 13, 2014

Instead of just doing a free write, I decided to look at a list of writing prompts for ideas. One that stuck out to me was asking about an experience with bad food. A one memory in particular immediately stood out.

My best friend had taken several different culinary classes. She had wanted to be a chef for a few years and loved to cook for people. I'm a huge fan of food, so she's always cooked for me. I knew whatever she would fix would taste amazing. We had woken up early and wanted waffles. Now, my best friend did have pancake mix we could have easily used, but no. She was determined to fix something from scratch for me. She had found a recipe online for waffles that she swore by. Now, she hadn't written this recipe down, so she had to try to find it by using google. My best friend clicked a link and said "I think this is it..". I hadn't asked to see the reviews because I trusted her opinion.

So, my best friend went to work mixing all of the ingredients together. I can't lie, I was extremely excited to try this new recipe. From how she talked about it, it was perfection. As she set my waffle in front of me, I eagerly grabbed my fork and dug in. My mouth was filled with an odd taste, I thought maybe my taste buds just weren't woken up yet so I continued to chew. Chewing only made the awful taste stronger. I didn't want to be a food critic and tell my friend the waffle tasted horrid, so I just smothered it in peanut butter and drowned it in maple syrup. That only managed to slightly disguise the bitter taste. I thought maybe I was just being picky, my best friend was eating hers. We took turns using the syrup and peanut butter.

After what seemed like an hour later, we'd gotten to the last bites of our waffles. We both hesitantly admitted the waffles tasted funny. Both my best friend and I laughed, we'd both forced ourselves to eat the waffles even though we hadn't liked them, trying to be polite. Needless to say, we agreed to be honest about food after that.

September 11, 2014

It feels like it has been way too long since I've tried to free write anything, but I think it will be good for me to give it a shot to help increase my fluency. I'm attempting to keep my eyes on the words that appear on my screen, rather than to glance at the clock that can't seem to keep from changing. It's been a busy past week, so I'd love for the time to slow down a bit. A breather would be much appreciated. I'm normally in bed by this time since I have work so early tomorrow, but lately I've been a bit of a night owl. It's definitely not intentional, I just have so many things I need to do throughout the course of the day. I had planned to use today as a catch up day on all of my classes, that didn't work as planned. My lovely internet was down until around 11. It causes some slight difficulties when all of your current classes are online.

I'm really hoping that overtime writing will come to me much easier. I've always been envious of people who don't even have to think about what they're writing. It must be wonderful to have an imagination like that. I'm too logical of a person to not at least ponder for a while about what my fingers happen to be typing up. I'd like to be able to have the creative to come up with my own short story. Just something written purely for entertainment purposes. I've never had the desire to make a career out of writing. I enjoy doing it as more of a hobby. Especially when I have a lot of things on my mind. Writing really does serve as a good outlet. The more I type, I discover that I may actually enjoy having a blog. I plan for my thoughts to be a little less all over the place while I write hopefully. I actually did some writing this morning a little while after I had woken up. I considered putting it on here, but I'm not quite that bold yet. Maybe with time, I'll feel a little more confident in posting the things I've written. Well, it's been fun, but my eyes are telling me I need to get some sleep for tomorrow. Goodnight.