"I'd like mornings better if they started later."

-Anon.

Everyday before I go to school, there's a certain process that I undergo before I deem myself fit to walk the halls of my high school amongst my friends. Of course, appearance is a major priority. I'm not going to bullshit you and say I don't care what people think of me because I sure as hell do. Occasionally I'll pull the whole no make up, lazy thing and walk into school looking like crap, but for the most part, I try to keep up with my looks. Make up, an extensive decision making process over what outfit I'm going to wear (although 98% of the time I end up pulling something out, last minute and just deciding it looks all right), and at least 10 minutes devoted to making my hair look at least half way decent.


-What goes on my face-

I also take at least 5 minutes thinking up of reasons why that particular day will happen to be a good day. I call it my "Moment of optimism". Somebody once told me that if you wake up in the morning and decide that you're going to have a good day, then you'll end up being more positive and your day just may end up turning out all right after all. As opposed to waking up in the morning thinking such things as.."fuck today", as I have many a morning, cursing the schools for making it start so early. I don't know how much basis there was behind this so called "fact", but I thought it sounded logical enough, so I thought I'd give it a try. Also, as those who know me well will tell you, I'm a bit of a pessimist, so I thought a positive start to my day could only do me some good. It's really pretty disappointing when I can only think up reasons why that particular day holds no appeal to me.

It's a sad life


Before finally making my way upstairs, I take a moment or two assessing what of my homework I have and haven't done. And then I try and figure out which classes I'm going to do each in. Most of the time, I end up going to bed doing a good 90% less of what I should have done. Slacking is in my genetics, there's really nothing I can do to alter the way nature made me. Sorry teachers/Mom/Dad/every friend I've given a belated gift to/taken forever to burn a CD for. Tsk tsk.

Then I either eat breakfast if I have time to, or grab something to eat at school. There are times where I have neither something to eat at home or school, so I go hungry and pray for lunch to come quickly, which it never seems to do, leaving only me and an angry stomach.

It seems that the things that make your day terrible are what happens in that time between waking up and classes.

Mornings are never my favorite part of the day and I feel like life would become significantly better once waking up at 5:45 becomes a problem that I don't have to deal with.

Dodging and burning are steps to take care of mistakes God made in establishing tonal relationships.

-Ansel Adams

I love photography. I love being able to take a picture, and in that photo capture just a small moment of a day. The best pictures, I believe, are those caught candid. I'm always the one snapping candid pictures at a party. You catch people off guard, and unaware. They're not posing. They've got no sculpted expression. Nothing to hide behind.












I'm walking down the streets of downtown Marion with my model for the day. We'd been planning this shoot for a long time. It was a great opportunity for the both of us, however it had been difficult to get a time set up. Our two main problems were that, either, our schedules conflicted, or it was the weather that was putting a dent in our plans.


Finally, one day, we were able to get together and shoot. Our previous failed sessions had made this one all the more sweet. We were both very excited and ready to have at it.

The beginning of a shoot is always just a little bit awkward. The model is unsure of what to do, and so are you. You really need to get the feel of what it is you're going for. You try different angles and poses, until finally you know exactly what it is you want, and you know exactly how it is you're going to get it.



That particular day I was going for a mellow, sort of city look. A faded look, with an underlying tough, grunge feel. That's exactly what I got, and it made me proud. I uploaded the pictures, and the response I got made me feel amazing. I still open that album up on my computer and take my time to look through each picture. They make me smile.







To know that each picture was taken by me. To know that people think pictures I take are good makes me feel awesome. There's nothing better than to feel proud of your work, and then also have other people tell you that you should be proud. Nothing can compare.



I love working with people much more than I like working with inanimate objects. Don't get me wrong, I love taking pictures of both, and I did a lot with nature before upgrading cameras, but now that I've had opportunities to work with people, I prefer it. A person can give you all sorts of emotions. You work with them, shape them, mold them into what you want. They also provide a challenge. It's much harder to get a good picture of a person than it is with a flower. Flowers are always there. Set your camera on macro settings and point it at a geranium, and under decent lighting conditions (which you'll probably find yourself with, considering most flowers are outside), you've got a good shot. A person, however, must be hitting the right pose. Must have the right expression on their faces. They then must hold that.







In the already overly cliche world of photography you have to have a certain flair to your pictures. I feel that the only way you can get that across is through personality, through people.

Don't get me wrong, as I said before, I still enjoy working with inanimate objects. My favorite kinds of still life pictures are the ones of something you wouldn't necessarily think of as an interesting thing to capture, but through manipulation of angle or position to get a good light or shine, it makes for a beautiful picture.





Now these pictures, I'm especially proud of. Not because they're particularly good, but because I shot it using a handheld, point and shoot, film camera that was about 10 years old, and then developed the film all on my own, and then enlarged the film all on my own.

I try to take my camera with me everywhere. If I could I'd carry it around school with me. Three problems,
1) It's too big and bulky.
2) I'd run the risk of having it stolen. Not a risk I'm willing to take.
3) I don't think too many people would be happy with me snapping pictures in the middle of class.
When I go to a friend's house, I bring my camera. When a friend comes over, I like to take a few pictures.
I'm always the one at the restaurant, with my camera out taking pictures of the food and the dishes and the cups and the forks and spoons, and just anything, really, attracting a lot of insults and stares from my friends. I don't really mind, though. I still do it.




Well, when it comes down to it. I own a Canon. That doesn't make me a photagrapher, just a Canon owner. I like to take pictures, but I'm strictly amateur. Maybe one day I'll have a website. Maybe we can get a little crazy and say that maybe one day I'll have a studio. Although, when I think about it, I don't want a studio. I don't want to be at all confined when it comes to where I go or what I take with my camera.

I'm a picture taker. Who happens to like picture taking quite a lot.

And finally Winter, with its bitin', whinin' wind, and all the land will be mantled with snow.

-Roy Bean


Nothing can beat a snow day. You get up, exhausted and exasperated, ready to drag yourself through another boring, repetitive day of school, life, and all that goes along with it. You mentally brace yourself for the physical pain you feel from sleeplessness, and, without fail, there it is. It hits you hard, leaving you crippled, and making your bed look ridiculously appealing. Even more so, knowing that it's forbidden. You shiver at the cold.

Wait. Cold...snow.

A memory suddenly breaks through the groggy daze you find yourself in. That memory is of you, listening to the news about a snow storm. Cautiously, you dare yourself to check the cancellations page on the KCRG website. You prepare yourself for the tragic let down you may find, yet, you can't help but hope. You scroll down, and there it is. Black and white. The letters that make up your school's name.


Classes Cancelled.

A rush of euphoria hits and even though you were down right exhausted moments before, you jump, throw your fist up in the air, and let out a "WOOT WOOOOOOOOT!"
You hop under your covers, shiver with delight, and let sleep take you.


You wake up to sunlight streaming through your window, the sound of your siblings playing the Wii in the room next door, and the smell of pancakes wafting in. A lazy smile spreads across your face. You stretch, taking all the time in the world. Because that's essentially what you've got. All the time in the world. You check the time, evaluating whether or not to get up. The hands of your clock are making their way to the 11 mark, so you decide that now would be a good time to start the glorious day you've got in store. You take your time getting out of bed, relishing in the delight you feel. The delight of having absolutely nothing to do that day. Of just being able to relax, watch the box set of the season of your favorite show that you bought. The delight of doing whatever you want, however long you want, without feeling the tug of all the obligations you've got for the next day at school.

So that's what you do. Be as lazy as you possibly can be, in the comfort and warmth of your home, safe and away from the icy fury that is outside.

Those are the essentials of a snow day.

"Sometimes customers forget that cashiers are people, too."

-The plight of retail workers everywhere



A woman comes down my aisle at Target. She's normal looking. Short brown hair in a soccer mom haircut, jeans, and a sweatshirt. No one would notice anything out of the ordinary while looking at her. So, of course, I greet her like I would any guest.
"Hi! How are you doing today?"
Instead of responding with a polite, "Fine, thanks. And how are you?" She ignores me. She hears me, I know that, because her eyes flicker over in my direction, and yet she doesn't even feel that it's necessary to acknowledge my existence. So I proceed to check out her food, like I would any other guest (I forgot to mention earlier, Target has no customers. We call them all guests), even though I'd prefer throw her groceries at her stupidass face.
When I'm done, I decide to give her the benefit of the doubt and try offering her a chance to redeem herself. I say to her as warmly as I can while handing her her receipt, "You have a great day, ma'am!"
This time, however, she doesn't even bother with a glance. She takes her receipt without even looking at me, and leaves. No "Thanks! You too!" no, goodbye, no NOTHING. Because, I'm just a cashier, and therefore, not worth it.


Now, you may be thinking to yourself, Maybe she was deaf. Nope. Throughout her transaction I asked her a various number of questions such as, would you like your milk in a sack. She responded appropriately to each, ruling out the whole deaf/mentally retarded suggestion. Besides, as I said before, she was completely normal looking.


And this is really no surprise to me. I've had customers who give me death glares for no reason other than to glare. I've had customers yell at me. I've had customers insult me. I've had customers make fun of me. I've even had a customer who asked me on a date. I tell you, eight dollars an hour is not enough to deal with the shit they throw at us.

Another example of a really tragic tale of a customer and an employee (or, in Target jargon, a guest and a team member), the girl who worked in front of me did what she usually does and asked the guest how they were doing that day. They replied as one normally would, and then asked, "How are you? I betcha you're tired, huh?"
To which she replied, "Ohhh yeah. I'm exhausted. I've been at work all day, and I don't usually cashier, normally I'm out on the floor. I hate cashiering."

So what does this person do?

They go out of their way to report her to the manager. For "complaining". This customer, whoever they were, deserves a good ol' kick in the face.

This manager was forced to report it as it was considered a "guest complaint". My heart goes out to this girl, it truly does.

So if you're ever on the other side of the check out aisle, please, extend a little sympathy. Chances are, we're under paid, overworked, and just tired. Customers who start conversations with me, truly make things just a little better. It gives us a break from the monotony and that annoying, headache inducing, beep of items being scanned. Even a simple, genuine thank you makes things a tad better.

"You know my name (look up the number)."

Oh, how I love those words. Not because of the meaning behind them (well, the literal meaning at least), but because of the strings, the beats, the music that go behind those words. For 5 minutes and 43 seconds I regularly listen to those words accompanied by a variety of instruments.

Genius -that's precisely what it is. Pure unadulterated genius. How can somebody take eight little words, and accompany them so they turn into something gorgeous? I'll tell you how. They've got the skills. The insane, mad skills. You've got to be a little out of your mind or *cough*high*cough* (but, hey, in the sixties, that's what they did) to be able to create value in the form of sound waves. Using nothing more than eight little words ) Incredible. I've had years to recover from the beauty and the mind blowing factor of this song, and yet, still today I find myself moved. Teary eyed, even.

Now, you may think that I'm exaggerating. No, I'm not. Not. One. Bit.

Now, however, you may find yourself thinking that I'm stubborn. Well, in that case, you may actually be right. Hmm...

However, besides the lovely emotions that that song brings out in me, there are also the darker ones. Back in the day, seventh and eighth grade, to be precise. I had fallen in love with a group of musicians. Two had been dead, and two still alive. Great musicians that my uncle had introduced to me the summer after my 6th grade year. He was obsessed with their music and some of that obsession, luckily, had rubbed off on me.

So, of course, I was eager to share it; however, everybody else, it seemed, was so very eager to laugh at me. "That's old people music!" Most would shout at me. "You weirdo!"

The Beatles! The most popular, mega awesome band that anybody ever did see! I was being laughed at for liking the Beatles! Now, ironically enough, they've made a comeback. And they're a fad. And everybody all of a sudden absolutely loves the Beatles.

What a bunch of bandwagon hopper on-ers.

"Christmas, children, is not a date. It is a state of mind."

-Mary Ellen Chase

We're in the middle of the hectic holiday season, trying desperately to figure out what to get our dearest, most presh beloved(s). We've got jingle bell songs on the radio, red and green in store windows (or as the French would say, les coulours verts et rouges sont dans les vitrines), candy canes on our sweaters, and Christmas on our minds.

Leading up to all of this were certain signs, things that nobody would take into consideration, but may

help somebody discern when they should break out the egg nog and the santa hats.

Ten Signs That Let You Know The Holidays Have Arrived

1) When you're pouring salt on your tomatoes, the sound of the salt inside the shaker reminds you of bells.

2) You can't pick up a red/green shirt without deciding that its color alone makes it look too Christmas-y.

3) You tell yourself you need to save money in order to be able to afford all the gifts you'd like.

4) You decide against buying something at that particular moment because you tell yourself that you can buy it later with the Christmas money you'll get.

5) You make a list of affordable gifts to get your friends. (The best gifts are those that are cheap, yet make it seem like you've actually spent well over what you'd actually ever spend.)

6) You make a list of friends for whom to get gifts for. (Subconciously you pray that the list will be long, but once you end at 3 or 4, you tell yourself that you're lucky and you get to save your money, but secretly you wish you had more close friends. Sucks.)

7) You yell at yourself for humming Christmas songs, telling yourself that pretty soon, they'll be all you'll hear.

8) You start making a wish list.

9) Black Friday has come and gone.

10) You flip your calendar to the next month. That next month just so happens to be December. (Although if it really does take you off guard that December follows November, then, well, I don't know what to tell you.)

Words you find can accurately describe/are synonymous with Christmas:

1) Shopping.

2) Presents

3) Santa

4) Sleigh Bells

5) Winter Wonderland

6) Frosty

7) Hannakuh

I could keep going, but I'll leave it at

that (slash I just couldn't really think of any more good ones).

Hmmm....this blog is getting to be pretty list-y. I think I might just continue on with that theme and create another list.

Our favorite classic holiday songs:

1) Santa Baby

2) It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

3) All I Want For Christmas Is You

4) Feliz N

evidad

5) I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus

6) It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

7) Oh, Christmas Tree

8) Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree

9) Silver Bells

10) Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

I think I have over-Christmased myself. I mean, Christ, I don't even celebrate it.

But to those of you who do,

Feliz Nevidad

Joyeux Noël

Nollaig Shona (Irish? I thought they spoke English....)

Sretan Božić (Croatian)

聖誕快樂

Selamat Hari Natal (Indonesian)

Срећан Божић (Serbian)

Mutlu Noeller (Turkish)

Frohe Weihnachten (German)

З Калядамі (Belarusian. Never heard of that one...)

Hyvää joulua (Finnish)

Anyways, I think you get it.

While you are destroying your mind watching the worthless, brain-rotting drivel on TV, we on the Internet are exchanging.....

"While you are destroying your mind watching the worthless, brain-rotting drivel on TV, we on the Internet are exchanging, freely and openly, the most uninhibited, intimate and, yes, shocking details about our config.sys settings."
-Dave Barry



There are certain rules about the Internet that everyone abides to. Unwritten rules. Rules that can make you or, ultimately break you, because, let's face it. You're not going to be considered cool if you constantly talk about what happened on Myspace or Twitter or Facebook. No, just...don't.

I'm going to take a minute here to talk about the various kinds of guidelines one must follow while using certain social networking sites.

A) Myspace
1) Don't ask somebody about their bulletin post in person. Reply via message.
2) About me's. Give your opinion in a comment, don't approach the person in school or wherever else you two might meet and go, "I really like the way you compare yourself to a butterfly escaping from its cocoon in your About Me." That's just awkward as hell. Please don't make things awkard as hell.
3) Don't ask somebody if they photoshopped their profile picture. Rude.

B) Facebook
1) What is said on facebook chat stays on facebook chat. I myself have been a violater of this rule, and I don't reccomend it.
2) It's just really confusing when you try to explain what picture somebody should use as their profile picture. "You know the one, from my one album, that I posted like...1-7 weeks after that one party, at....God, who was it? OH YEAH! That one guy we met at that one grocery store's house. The one where you're wearing that one shirt, that has those letters on it. The color...it's like, in my 3rd favorite warm colors list. But anyways..and you're with that one guy. Yeah...that one. You look really good in that."
3) Don't talk about your facebook creeping habits to people.

C) Blogs
1) When talking about a blog make sure not to bee too specific, keep it general.
Appropriate: I like your blog, it's hilarious!
Not appropriate: Your blog about the new health care bill really made me laugh, especially when you compared Barack Obama to Barack Osama. That just cracked me up.

C) Other General Internet Rules
1) DO NOT use chat speak when talking. Don't say LAWL, don't say ell-oh-ell. Don't say oh-em-gee. Don't say BRB. Really.


Just follow these simple instructions and you're sure to extend your life by a couple of days. YOUR SOCIAL LIFE THAT IS.

Just remember fellow friends, bloggers, and blog readers. Rules are meant to be broken.