It is Always the Little Things

I'm kind of a negative person at times and it makes me probably the most complain-y person you will ever meet. So to combat with this habit I've decided to write all the little joys of my life into my notebooks. This doesn't mean that I'm going to have an awesome thing happen to me everyday, just something that made the day a little better, especially in these rather stressful months with my family and with school. Now, I've decided that every few weeks I'm going to write a few, so here they go:

11 / 17

• Lockdown at the school due to a confused delivery man forgetting to sign in. Classes were paused for 20 minutes. We were stuck in the computer lab under the desks, on the carpet in the dark. Perfect place to drink my morning tea.

11 / 19

• At my great uncle's funeral (I didn't really know him). One of the speakers said, "Which would you rather have? Would you trade a great memory with this man for a little less pain when saying goodbye?" Think I should remember this in my later years. (I love you grandpa 9-20-11)

11 / 21

• Running around the school in a java-the-hut stage prop for the middle school play that my friends are working on.

11 / 25

• Received a pair of my moms old boots today and bought a new sweater and sunglasses. Went to a college town and dad bought me 3 new CDs (Mumford & Sons, Florence + the Machine and Feist)
• I'm sorry I just fit into the stereotype of being a teenage girl and liking to shop, but it does..

Anyways so if you are like me, or even if you are not, I advise you make this. It's fun and you can go through the passages in your notebook and smile over memories that might have been forgotten. It doesn't take long and it does improve your day a bit, forcing yourself to remember the good things as well as the bad things. 

To Those Who Never Thought to Ask,

I sincerely hope you don't think I'm some rude quiet odd girl with a distorted and slightly dark view of the world. Although at times I am odd and I am quiet and I do view the world for it's darkness, but also for it's brightness that seems much brighter if you acknowledge the dark. I'm sorry I seem this way, I'm really not like this, at least not really on the inside. So let me explain:

There once was a young girl by the name of Adeline, she was in fifth/sixth grade. She was a recent diabetic and liked to keep only a few close friends but truly enjoyed the company of others. She loved her friends. She looked forward to playing in the woods after school everyday and making up odd stories about the Indians that once inhabited the area. She was innocent and oblivious and far too trusting, let anyone who wanted to come in, come in. Now years went by and she still remembers, although they have probably have forgotten and categorized it in their memory as children's silliness, she remembers with great clarity the events that played. She remembers secret play-dates behind her back, crying, criticism of everything she enjoyed and took pride in, harsh words that made her guilty of her own pleasures and opinions, and the word weak being automatically associated with her.

So why wouldn't this girl be soft spoken and create barriers around herself? Why wouldn't she feel extremely anxious every time she stepped above the room and only gave mutters to those she didn't know? Why wouldn't she not tell others what she really thought and just agrees to every opinion they state, not showing her real personality? Why wouldn't she be so protective of her expression; her writing, her art, her voice? Why wouldn't she refuse to sing in front of public after 5 years? Why wouldn't she feel judged by everyone; her friends, her peers, her teachers, every time she moves or speaks?

So I may seem to quiet for you. I may not be able to publicly speak well in front of crowds although you continue to "encourage" me to get louder. How is telling me to do something really going to help if you don't understand why I am that way and just assume that I am soft-spoken in nature? I am friendly. If you initiate the conversation I can go on for hours about anything really. Once the conversation is over and done though, I'll spend weeks reviewing and rethinking my actions and words during that time together and in the end I'm always the same, stupid. So it is no wonder I'm so tense the next time we speak to each other. A select few get to see the relaxed me, without any anxiety or fear. I'm sorry I really won't trust anyone with this much power over me because really, can you deal with such a fragile responsibility? So I'm sorry I'm an introvert and I'd rather be an individual than have to rely on other people to keep me happy.

Adeline

p.s. K, E and D, you have no idea how much you've taught me due to your words, how I rely less on others than on myself and how much stronger minded I am. I still cry a lot, but it's not always sad and to tell you the truth I think it makes me stronger than any of you ever were or are now, because I know happiness and I know sadness and I know what strength and weakness really are.

My Life of Sharps Containers and Prick Marks on my Fingers

Long time no...type?

Anyways so sorry for the absence in the past month or so. I could go into that long list of excuses that every teenager seems to have on hand just in case (and most are true). So let's just say there were handcuffs made of stress that kept me from this blog. 

Okay so it's November now. And yes that means thanksgiving, fall becoming winter, NanoWrimo, christmas commercials (already?!) but it also means the month of Diabetes Awareness. 

Now, I've been a diabetic since I was 9, 7 years ago, which is a pretty long time ago. Diabetes(or at least Type 1) is a genetic disease that causes your pancreas to stop producing insulin, which regulates your bloodsugar among other things and keeps your body functioning. This is just the gist of diabetes, you can look up the actually definition on a later date. Although it is manageable by diet and insulin injections, this does not make it an easy disease to have. It doesn’t go away and it won’t, not until they find a cure. I might have this for the rest of my life and that’s frightening. There are a lot of frightening things about diabetes, because it will affect you in the future and I try to stay healthy but sometimes I just can’t do it.

There are no other diabetics in my community and although my parents try to understand why I don’t always do what I’m supposed to, they can’t, so they just yell thinking that will make me do something. It doesn’t. Not many people I know do understand it, not many people try to. Almost everyone I tell gives me way too much sympathy or just thinks it’s not that hard and that I should stop complaining. Usually my oldest friends are the ones who think it isn’t that hard because they see me injecting and testing all the time. That makes it hard. When you get really ignorant comments or when people are too lazy to go get you a napkin when your arm starts to really bleed and you don’t want to get it on your clothes. I could go on and on about the struggle we face, how we get self-conscious over all the bruises or we're scared that diabetes defines us too much. 

So for Diabetes Awareness Month, if you can’t donate money for a cure at least do one thing. Try to understand; try regulating your food for a day, try to truthfully talk to a friend with diabetes about what it’s like. That is all we are looking for, understanding.

Rules of the Locker Room

This isn't going to be a post advising you on writing in any ornate way, so I hope you don't expect that all the time. I'm not up to these standards! (I really have nothing to post so: Story Time!)

So, I don't know if it was normal for you to lock your things in your locker while you're at gym or practice, but it isn't all that common in my school's locker room. So apparently as of late, things are getting stolen (though I have heard no such news..I probably live under a rock in high school gossip world). This forced the gym teachers to give a little speech encouraging us to lock our lockers. I have to admit, I rarely lock my locker for gym or even cross country practice, I usually just shut it so it looks like an empty locker and leave my bag on the floor. Nothing has ever gotten stolen, but it is probably more to do with the fact that I don't leave my valuable belongings in the most obvious of hiding places. At the end of practice one day, my friend was picking up her scarf and found some field hockey girls Ipod underneath. This is stupid on multiple levels.
1) the girl didn't even know the owner of the scarf, she just set it down underneath it.
2) things get moved on the dressing benches, clothing especially, so that someone can sit or put a bag on. An Ipod could easily be found if the scarf is moved.
3) A scarf? Really?

This isn't really going to be me ranting about how stupid high schoolers can be, or really teenagers in general (it's kind of like our job). This is about the number one rule, after not leaving valuables in the open, for the locker rooms. Do not Leave Food Out in the Open. Athletes are probably the most hungry people after a hard practice and if you leave your food about it is going to get eaten.

This is exactly what we did after practice one day. No, we didn't leave food out and it got eaten, no we ate the other girls food. I promise were not a group of badass delinquent high school girls (also stealing candy from a locker room is the most ridiculous crime known to man). See the first time we struck (and I mean a few of us from the girls team) was when a cheerleader left some candy on the bench. We only left the banana laffy-taffy. That was a bit cruel. The next time it had been when the field hockey girls had left their left over cupcakes for their game on the floor in see-through Tupperware. Don't worry we didn't eat all 10 cupcakes, I think only 3 were actually taken. Really I think were just reinforcing what our teachers had told them, they really should have learned by now.

So, moral of the story, never leave food out that might tempt hungry, tired and sad or depressed athletes to feast upon.

Though, if you want to get rid of food, leaving it out is the perfect way to do away with it if you feel bad about trashing it. I do this all the time, does this make my actions more justified?

Probably not. Oh well, lets just hope you all don't think of me as a food stealing youngster who going to end up in jail, because trust me I'm really not that kind of gal, I'm just unbelievably hungry.

The Details

So a week or so ago, yea exactly a week ago, I had the pleasure of meeting one of my favorite authors. Markus Zusak. If you haven't heard of him or read one of his books I highly recommend you get your ass out of the chair and stroll off to the nearest Barnes and Noble, peruse the isles until you spy either I am the Messenger or (preferably) The Book Thief. Then proceed to walk towards the check-out lanes, maybe stopping to look if that new CD is out or trying to find the right moleskin notebook you've been wanting forever, and then leave. Please do not come back until you have read the book, been inspired and awe-stricken, then and only then can you continue to read my words of appraisal of this writer.

Okay so once you've read this novel, or maybe you already have and completely understand why I'm going all crazy over this bound group of papers with letters stamped on it, we can continue my story of last week.

So last Monday, a friend and I headed over to Philly(such a long drive...) to see Markus Zusak do a Q&A and sign some books we forcibly pushed into his face until he slid his pen across the title page and wrote a note to our liking. Now besides the fact that he told us hilarious stories about the beginnings to his writing career as well as personal anecdotes, he also handed us some advice on writing(including the advice my father had said below). I'm not going to really go into the advice, a lot of it was about his editing process and stuff like that. You see, the reason Markus Zusak inspires me, besides his absolutely spectacular style of writing, is that he is also such an optimistic and happy person, but he can write such dark things. The Book Thief (I said you had to read it!) is dark and sad, and no one thinks he's depressed or has issues, so why can't they do the same for me. I write darkly (though definitely not as beautifully or professionally as he does) and the only response I ever get is concerned looks, or people telling me they worry about me sometimes.

Let me tell you something, I do not write "emo" poetry, I don't describe everything as bleeding, but I like to write about the bittersweetness of life, the beauty in pain. This does not make me someone who harms themselves, this just makes me a person who likes to write about something that isn't all sunshine and roses. And I do write happy pieces, pieces about getting stronger and overcoming a problem, but life isn't always going to be happy, I've learned this enough and I'm only sixteen. So, just because I may write things that are darker, it is not because I am depressed(that was 2 years ago people!) or emo, I just want to make my stories as close to real life as possible.

Details make the story more believable.


that was what Markus Zusak said. The details of life are the pain and the happiness that we feel, and it makes our stories all the more real, even if their fiction.

Writing(and advice from my dad)

Fact about me for the day: I am a writer.

This isn't really useless information, it might actually be the single most important piece of information you could learn about me. Does it really matter that I'm a brunette or a red head or live in Asia or America or Europe? No I don't really think it does. Writing is everything about me, it's my happiness, my fears and you should get the point of this so I'm not going to go through every emotion I could possibly feel. Back to the point, writing is the boiled down me, the person that I am behind the layers of skin and long thick hair, that is why I am both very protective of it as well as proud. It is hard, although it may be surprising, but it is very hard trying to get my father to understand why it is so important. My dad is a former reporter and won't allow me to take any classes in journalism and I don't think he really even notices how much writing is integrated into my daily life. He thought I stopped writing poetry in 5th grade last year even though when I was a freshman in highschool, I had written a poem almost every day. As I am continuing to grow, writing is becoming a larger part of my life, something he really can't ignore for much longer and will eventually have to come to terms with the fact that his daughter wants to become a writer and will continue writing no matter what he says.

Despite this, my dad will produce the most valuable of advice when he deems necessary and it is in your best interest to listen because trust me it is important. If it be to never buy a house by river (which is basically where we live...) or that no matter where I am or how old I am I can always call him if I need help, he gives the best advice at the best of times or the oddest of times. Recently, and I'm not quite sure if he's recognizing me as someone serious about writing or not, he gave me advice on writing. Advice that will come useful this year as I continue to work on the novel I will write in November.

The minute you think your writing is perfect, is the minute you become a bad writer.

You can never have perfect writing, it is impossible to be perfect at anything in life. Humans were not made to be perfect, we were made to be imperfect (and there is a sort of beauty in this). Although you can not write anything that is perfect, you can write to the best you can do, but you will never be satisfied completely with your writing. This goes for basically everything in life by the way, especially the arts. Really the hardest thing about editing, is knowing when to stop.


The reason I told you all of this was to introduce the event that will be next month, the month of November, the month of NanoWrimo. I do hope you know what it is but if you don't, could you please type into google the latter and obtain the knowledge of this worldwide celebration of writing. Thank you.
So this is my first year attempting Nano and I'll admit I'm absolutely frightened. I don't have a clear plot, I have a beginning and end, but an absolutely blurred or blank middle and I have no idea if I'll figure it out on time. Like everyone else, I'm busy but this isn't really what's worrying me, I'm more worried that my creative juices will run out and I won't have enough time to run to the store and get more.

I need assurance, but I probably will be alright(so maybe it's my awful anxiety working against me again). Anyone else attempting Nano this year? Any tips?

Not Really an Introduction

So, I guess I should state a bunch of typical information about myself right now, like what my name is(it's Adeline by the way), gender and age. I've decided to not do this though, I'm going to tell you a bunch of absolutely useless information, the rest you'll just have to figure out along the way.

Useless information:
-I use post-it notes at least once a day
-I ride the bus to school
-I am not your second cousin twice removed (maybe. I don't actually know who my second cousin twice removed is, but in all probability you're not that person)
-I have a typewriter in my attic (manual, if you're wondering)
-I clearly have a slight obsession with parenthesis
-I'm making faces at the computer screen right now to pass the time.

Alright, that is a bunch of completely useless information(basically). Have fun deciphering it.
On another note, I haven't the slightest clue when this will be updated, but if I know myself, it will be a lot of different posts all at once and then no posts for a week. I'm gonna post again in like 5 minutes, because I have absolutely nothing better to do, and a whole lot of something to say. Be prepared (you are forewarned).