Magnolia Daughter

It's been a year?

2009-03-16T17:55:00.006-06:00

I was looking on my friend's blog and noticed that it says a year ago, talking about my last post, under the link to my blog. All I have to say is that year went by really quickly.

As an update on what I am doing now; I finally landed myself a job. It was questionable with the lack of experience I had in the labor force and the economy making turn for the worse. I am working for an online company called FastHealth. I go to church with the CEO, but had never really talked to him until I interviewed for a job. At the end of the interview he offered me a job in the production department, which basically builds the website for our customers. I will be forever grateful to him for giving me a job at a time when I thought I would never get that first job, it was a huge self-esteem booster.

Last March I moved back home and lived with my parents in Magnolia until I got a job. I have to say, my parents are awesome, but of course I knew that before. They own 150 plus goats, and guess who was the one to help out, at times. Your's truly. I've done everything possible on a goat farm from worming the goats to loading up goats in dad's truck to take to the goat auction, which will need to be a post by itself so I will tell about it later.

Disclaimer:The rest of this post is about goats, so if there are any sqeemish, or have no interest in goats runaway while you can.

So my parents have a pet nanny goat that they have had to bottle feed since she was born. Her name is Chocolate, because she is light brown all over and looks chocolaty. She was the runt of her, not to sure the the eqivelant of litter is in the goat herd so I will say litter, litter and thinks she is the queen of the herd. She just had a baby billy goat, which is named Fancy Pants, cause he look like a little fancy pants goat. That does bring up a somewhat amusing part of my parents goat world is the name they have given some of these goats. Some of the names are: Chocolate Chip, of course Chocolate that I've already mentioned, Cookies and Cream, Rocky Road, (Yes those are all ice cream names, mom and dad must have been wanting some icecream when those goats were born) Abigail, Lucy (name after Lucille Ball because Lucy the goat is really loud when she hollers), No Dot, One Dot, and Two Dot (the dot twins are triplets, their names explains how many brown dot they have on thier backs). Those are all nanny goats except for, I think, Two Dot.
The billy goats that rule the herd and are the daddy's of all the babies are: Buck, Johnny Cash, and George. George is a new Bore goat that has been introduced to the lucky girls. He has been part of the heard for a while is is the daddy of most of the goats. He is a full blooded Keiko goat and the best looking billy goat I have ever seen. He is Chocolate's father. Johnny Cash was named after none other then Johnny Cash himself. Johnny is a bore goat and since it takes a lot of talking him into reproducing has been demoted to just one of the herd, once again. Instead of There's Johnny, its Bye Johnny. Sorrry, I just had to write. So since most of this post has been about goats I am going to move on.

I write about goats because that is seriously what I did this past year, was help with goats and not to mention, job search. I have a lot more to say about goats, but that will be a later post also, and possibly I will put up pictures. YAY.

The New Look

2008-02-24T16:38:00.001-06:00

I became bored of the last blogger template I had so here is the new look. It's a farmhouse scene, isn't it cool! As least I think so. I wanted something that went along with something Magnolia and there are a lot of farms there so I found this fitting.

A little bit about me....

2008-02-24T15:50:00.002-06:00

I've been tagged by Caroline...

10 years ago...

...I was 13. I was in the 7th grade at Catherine Academy in Catherine, Alabama. I was playing basketball for Coach Holiday. This year I made my first two points out of six in my whole basketball career. Coach Holiday was the coach that everyone respected and loved. He always had something hilarious to say. Coach Holiday, like many coaches, taught a couple of classes.One of his classes he taught was Environmental Science, of which I was in. The most environmental thing we did in that class was the first day we talked about trees and later that year we planted trees on school grounds. The trees later were accidentally, I think, sprayed with pesticides and were killed. That's too funny. Anyway, the rest of the time in the class he had us out at the football field cleaning or some days having a free period as we called it. During this free time I started taking apart the old baseballs that weren't of use anymore to see what was inside. He knew that I liked doing this so he would gather up all of the old balls and bring them to me to take apart. The inside of it has a lot of yarn underneath the hard outer leather part then lots of rolled up yarn, and on a lucky day there would be a rubber ball in the center to play with. Also this year, there was discussions on whether Catherine would open up for another year. It did and stayed open two more years when it closed it doors. This was very influential in my life.

Didn't think you would get that much info did ya.

5 things on my to-do-list today.

1. finish blogging
2. eat supper later
3. go to sleep later tonight
4. enjoy my Sunday afternoon/evening
5. not worry about what I want to do with my life

If I were suddenly a billionaire.

I would buy land in Magnolia and build a large house with nice things. There would be no need for a job so I would quit looking for one. Give Mom and Dad some and tell them they can't spend it all on goats. Maybe some, but not all. Save the rest for future happenings.

3 of my bad habits.

1. biting my nails (nervous habit)
2. yelling at traffic while driving, especially the poor slow souls on the road.
3. Procrastination with a capital P.

Places I've lived.

1. Magnolia, Alabama
2. Tuscaloosa, Alabama
3. Birmingham, Alabama

5 jobs I've had.

1. Land surveyor assistant/carrier of things and holding the pole plum (my dad was the land surveyor)
2. Dishwasher for the Martin residence
3. clothes washer for the Martin residence
4. Biology Lab. Technician (bug picker)
5. yeah totally counted 2 and 3 for fill ins. Looking for one to add to the Biology Lab. tech. one. So ya hear of something let me know.

5 Things people don't know about me.

1. I love sitting outside on my parents porch in one of their rocking chairs and just staring at the beautiful countryside that lay in front of me. I do my best thinking when I am staring at nature.
2. Related to the last one, I love the clouds. Always have.
3. I wanted to be a meteorologist when I first was thinking about what to study in college.
4. I wanted to be a storm chaser my senior year in high school
5. Once fell out of a tree on the Quad at the University

I'm tagging anyone who would like to participate and hasn't already.

Where to now Miss Daisy?

2008-01-08T12:53:00.000-06:00

Alright so I didn't post very much when I'm in school, but maybe I will post more since I'm not in school anymore. Man that feels great to say. I'm sure everyone that reads this blog knows, but in case I graduated last month. It isn't official since I don't have the diploma yet but hopefully the diploma is in the mail and coming to it's rightful owner. So the question I have been asked and one I am asking myself comes up. What are you going to do now?
The answer I give and the answer I tell myself is get a job. Then the next question that come after I tell people get a job is Are you going to teach? The answer is: If I have to I will, but I am just looking for a job to pay the bills. So that is what is going on in my life right now. I'm looking for a job.
After my last exam it hadn't sunk in that I was walking out of my last exam ever, but now it has sunk in and now I'm thinking about the possible changes that could happen in my life. I had a coach/teacher in high school that once said, "Every three or four years your life changes." I have tested that theory have come to believe it myself. Now, questions come to my mind is: Where will I be? What will I be doing? Who are going to be the people that I associate with everyday at a job that hopefully will be able to support my needs. I want to stay in Tuscaloosa, but then again the adventurous part of me wants to find out what my life would be like somewhere else. I don't know. I quess we'll see where I get a job, that's going to be the deciding factor.
I'm very grateful for the education I received while going to the University of Alabama. My mind has surely been enriched with knowlege I wouldn't have had if I hadn't attended there. I'm grateful to the teachers I had. Some were not my favorite people in the world, but I knew they knew things I didn't know and I wanted to learn them. Some of my teachers were ones I will never forget: one that knew the potential of his students and pushed hard to help them become better writers, one that would talk about things he didn't know anything about and critiqued it with misconceptions, but he was funny and he gave me good grades (which always helps), one that made me laugh a lot (sometimes at things I wasn't sure I should laugh about) and helped me tremendously my last semester, a creative writing grad student who is a very good writer and taught very helpfull techniques that help improve my writing (very sweet person), and a teacher that had a great love for Shakespeare and showed it in his classes (very sweet too and never called me by my right name, but I didn't have the heart to correct him).

Onward ho! or as Robert Frost said, “In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life. It goes on.”

Summer Happenings

2007-08-01T10:08:00.000-06:00

Even though I still have a little less than a month until summer is over I'm entitling this summer happening because the rest of the summer will most likely be uneventful. I realize this will most likely be the last summer I have so I have taken it easy and relaxin'. A usual day consist of get up, go to work at the lab for a couple of hours and then come home and find something to pacify the time until I go to bed again. Yes I do realize most people that will be reading this haven't been able to do this and probably lead busy lives and don't want to hear this but I have the attitude I won't be able to do this later in life after I graduate. I will say "Hi My name is Beverly Martin and I am a lazy bum."
Anyway having said that the big events this summer have been going out to visit my grandparents and relatives in Idaho. My parents and I began our trip in their red Impala at 5:30 in the morning headed north on Highway 43 (later different highways and interstates) toward Magnolia IL and Magnolia MN. The first day we talked about where all the oil in the world comes from. Mind you this is 5:30 in the morning. Somewhere in the conversation a mountain ended up falling on all of the dinosaurs heading north out of Wyoming and killing them, making the big strip of oil they have in Wyoming. Somewhere after that conversation I took a nap and when I woke up we were in Selmer, TN. I was still laughing about the oil conversation when we happened upon what looked like a local of the Selmer area's business. No joking, the restaurant is called Smack Ya'self BBQ. It was all over, I laughed all the way to Jackson, TN and at times still laugh hysterically .
The second day, Saturday, we arrived in Magnolia, IL around 6:00pm. It's a little bigger than Magnolia, AL (which probably every little town is bigger than Magnolia, AL). It seemed to carry on the theme of the Midwest in that corn is everywhere. If looked upon in a helicopter there would be corn, corn, corn, and even more corn, little town of Magnolia surrounded by corn, corn, then more corn. There was, no kidding, corn. In this little town or village as the guy told Dad the only business in a pub. Across from the pub is the volunteer fire dept., of which Dad had walked over in front of the pub to take a picture of and not noticing the, bless his little heart, wasted guy sitting in a car. He commented to dad that there wasn't very much to take a picture of and Dad, being really excited to have a local to talk to and tell him the history of Magnolia, IL proceeded to talk to him. Mom and I had stayed in the car parked by the vol. fire dept. see dad talking to the guy and the we hear the guy shout MAGNOLIA, ALABAMA. Apparently Dad had told him where he is from. Dad and this guy talk a little bit more and then the guy's drinking buddy comes out of the pub. The guy tells his friend where this guy taking a picture is from and that Dad wants to take a picture of them (cause dad did ask if he could) and the friend opens the door of the pub and yells, "Hey this guys want to take a picture of us." and gets two women to come out. Dad sees these women that are dressed in their lets just say afternoon drinking not much there outfits and instantly smiles. He smiles while taking the picture and then smiles some more when walking to the car and getting in. While Dad was talking to the guys mom and I notice a smaller size SUV come up with what looked like blue lights flashing stop a policewomen gets out, says by to her passenger, whom just looked like she was dropping of at the vol. fire dept. which looked like a wedding reception is taking place. The friend of the guy waves and says hi to the local women authority whom proceeds to not pay any attention to this greeting gets back in her small size SUV and drive of quickly. (I realize now that some of my rambling may not make sense and hard to follow if so just ask in the comment section and I will translate.)
The third day wasn't as eventful as the first two. We arrive in Magnolia, MN and took some pictures there and realized we need gas, but Magnolia being the same as Magnolia AL has no commercial business at all. We proceed to a nearby neighboring town which is at least 17 miles up the road in hopes mom and I won't have to push the car to a gas station while dad steers. Thankful for everything that is right with the world we were able to find a gas station and fill up without mom and I having to push while dad steers. Later that night we were able to make it to Cody, WY. The plans for the evening were to eat and go to the famous Cody, WY Rodeo, but not for me. While going through the wonderful and beautiful mountains of WY my body decides it doesn't like the back and forth motion of going up the passes in the mountains so it decides to yell at me and give me crap about it. Hence...motion sickness. Every time I tried to sit up and enjoy the wonderful and beautiful mountains of WY my body would scream, "Do you want to see your lunch, if not, lay back down." Which sucked. Needless to say I stayed the night in the hotel room trying to convince myself that I needed to eat the soup mom had gotten me at the restaurant. Around nine I was able thankfully to convince myself.
The next day we arrived at grandma and grandpa's house and had a very enjoyable and relaxing time for the next week. The trip back consisted of me taking a lot of naps because there was nothing else to do and all of us wishing we were back at home and not driving across the country.

I've been tagged. (must be the new thing nowadays)

2007-06-29T16:15:00.000-06:00

4 jobs I've had in the past:

Land Surveyor's assistant (for my dad. Was only for 2 jobs he had but hey I count it)
Birmingham Zoo (only a two week job two summers ago. couldn't get along with management)
Lab technician (my current job but in December it will be in the past.)
Babysitter (no comment)

Movies I could always watch:

Hoosiers (reminds me a lot of the last year I payed high school basketball, we only had six players the whole season and no we didn't win the state title.)
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (only musical I have come across that I can handle)
Xmen movies (I loved to see what kind of powers the writers could come up with)
Robin Hood (my favorite Disney cartoon)

4 places I've lived:

Magnolia, AL (grew up there)
Tuscaloosa, AL (go to school there)
Birmingham, AL (lived there for two weeks while working at the zoo)
In my wildest dreams

4 shows I love:

Kyle XY (my summer SciFi, I call it my Lost because I get pretty lost in it if ya know what I mean)
Dirty Jobs (doesn't have too many new episodes but I like to see the types of jobs and Mike Rowe is pretty hilarious)
Real Estate Pros (house flippers from South Carolina. Interesting to see how fast they can flip one of those boogers)
Reba (didn't think I would like it at first but Reba McIntyre is hilarious)

4 Foods I love:

Papa Johns Pizza (nothing like it in the whole world)
Boiled peanuts (yes, yes I know but they are sooo good)
Lemon Icebox Pie (can't eat a whole lot because of the sweetness but really good stuff)
Fresh vegetables (they have to come right out of the garden, soo goood)

4 Websites I frequent:

Gmail
Facebook
Blogs of friends and family
MyBama during school

4 Place I'd rather be:

In bed
On vacation going out west
singing and doing the jig
flying with Superman

I'm Tagging:
Anyone that wants to do it. It's kinda fun.

Nostalgia

2007-06-03T06:38:00.000-06:00

I had just finished answering one of the unknown IDs when I set my pencil down on the desk and look over my test to make sure I had answered all of the IDs. I left the words I had never seen before blank, hoping I would come up with something at least intellectual to write for the answer. Just maybe if I give an answer that makes some sense he will give me some credit. Johnny Sassamon. I must have been in one of my daydreams when my professor was going over what this Johnny Sassamon person was.
All of the IDs have been identified and I walk up to my professor and give him my lengthwise folded test.
"Thank you." he says in his deep voice.
I walk back to my desk and pick up my light green bag with my pencils and ACT card in it and head out the door. I walk down the old blue hall and turn right to head toward the exit. Relief feels my body as I realized that I don't have to worry about class on Monday. I have to take some books I had checked out from Gorgas library for this class and then I can head home and officially be out for the summer.

***

The phone rings in my ear as I patiently wait for my mom to answer her cell phone.
"Hello" she answers.
"Hey mom." I say lovingly.
Mom and Dad had planned on going to girls camp because mom has to speak. Our church had been building a camp up in northern Alabama and I hadn't been there before. I didn't feel like the usual sitting at home, watching television while my dog scratches his fleas so I had asked them the night before if I could tag along. Mom had told me they were spending the night in Birmingham and then on Saturday going to a goat festival in Talladega. I worried about my dog getting out of my backyard so I told them to go ahead without me.
"Are ya'll coming to Tuscaloosa?" I said in the phone. I had changed my mind and wanted to go. I hear my mom tell my dad I had changed my mind and ask him when they would plan on getting to Tuscaloosa.
"Dad says we will be there around 2 or 2:30." she said.

***

I get out of the red Dodge Impala and stand by the car to wait for mom and Dad to get out. I look around at the newly built pavillion and see a mixture of girls and women chattering away. I stretch my legs to get the stiffness out from the 2 and a half hour drive. Not much grass is on the ground around the cabins seeing as they are still in the process of building the camp and because of the drought Alabama is presently going through. I sit on the hood of the car as Dad says, "Let's go up there and see if we know anybody." Mom looks over and sees women that she has meet during her calling as Montgomery Relief Society Stake Presidet. She walks over and begins her hellos and how are yous in between hugs.
I hear "How are you Bev?" I look over to see a familiar women in her thirties with blonde frizzy hair that shows it has not been able to receive the attention that it has prior to the last couple of days. She is tall and skinny and looks dressed as though she has been up to date on the latest teen fashion. She is wearing a t-shirt and shorts that go to her knees. Somehow, if gone back a couple of generations I am related to her husband. Her mother-in-law is my grandmother's cousin. Her in-laws went to the same church as me when I was growing up. Her mother-in-law was a grandmother figure for me because my father's mother had passed away when I was in the second grade.
I answered with a smile and, "Good. How are you?" She answers with good and walks off to tend to her duties as a leader.
I look over and see a counselor of the YW presidency that always was at camp with me.
"How are you?" she says reaching out to give me a hug.
Her black African America hair is curly and has a tint of grey around her hair line. She looks like she has been camping for the several days in which she has.
"Good, How are you Sister Stovall?" I reply, happy to see her.
"You should have been here this week. We have had a beautiful week. Every night has been so cool and wonderful."
I laugh a little at the thought of having to "rough it" during my couple years of going through the same camp as the girls here now. I always had butterflies in my stomach during the drive up to where our camp leaders had decided we should camp for the next couple of days. I don't know why because during the next couple of days I always enjoyed the friendship and the bonds that formed between me and the girls in my group level. Every time we left I felt a longing to still be with the girls I had recently been able to call my friends and not wanting to leave. I always had mixed feelings on leaving because I also wanted to get back home to "civilization." Memories of staying up late with leaders and other girls in my group rush through my head. One year our camp director had invited us JCs, older girls, to play cards with her and other adult leaders. Being someone that is very competitive, I decided to sit back to watch and not ruin the good reputation I had with them. I sat there and watched as the leaders bring up memories from years before of friendship between them. They laugh as they tell stories of playing pranks on each other to relieve the stress of having to deal with fifty or sixty wining girls. My cousin went for several years as a leader and it was fun watching her mingle with the women she had grown to love in friendship.
I walk over to where my mother is mingling and notice another leader who had been with me at camp. I always loved coming to camp and listening to her strong British accent. Now, since she has been living in the south for several years, she has a touch of southern dialect. She and another sister who also was from England served as the craft ladies for a couple of years. They always had interesting crafts for us campers to do during our free time.
She and other leaders begin telling about their week and having to share with another group of campers. The ropes course that has been built and available to the girls during the week has been brought up and Sister Stovall offers to give us a tour of the camp, seeing as mom and I haven't seen it yet. The four of us, Mom, Dad, Sister Stovall, and I begin to walk on a rocky road up a hill. We get added information about the weeks events from Sister Stovall and how she loved the ropes course and zip line. I look up when reaching the top and see tall telephone poles supporting series of tires set up for walking on. Opposite the tires are pieces of wood that have been attached to bright yellow ropes also designed for walking. They both look obvious to have faith to not fall while walking on them. I look to my left to find the zip line. It's a long cable running from a supported platform extending off from the ropes course. The cable goes on for several feet and then ends at another wooden platform. Sister Stovall begins to tell of her experience of excitement as she gains momentum and then comes to an abrupt stop while her body still swung and then also coming to a stop. I would love to do it now, but back then during my girls camp I would not have even thought about trying. I think to myself as we begin to make our way down the hill to continue our tour of Camp Hulaco.

***

The girls have gathered for dinner and I sit there looking to see if I know any of them. I don't recognize the younger girls but do see older ones that were first levels during my years of camp. I begin to feel very old because two of the girls, of whom are daughters of the blonde women seen before, used to be little babies while I was growing up. I remember their mother carrying them around on her hip during church in Magnolia and during the camp where she was YW President. I look over and see the daughter of my British leader. She looks just like her older sister. I begin to think how old I am and excitement because I remember I graduate from college in December of this year.

Spring 2007 and Interim

2007-05-31T20:08:00.000-06:00

I really must say I fell like I should just delete my blog seeing as I don't post that much. Hopefully though, since summer is starting officially for me tomorrow after my exam maybe I will post more regularly. Spring semester ended three weeks ago and I started interim after that. I had to take one class that is only offered during interim. Spring semester ended with the regular As and Bs report card. I began to get worried toward the middle of the semester about a class and wondered if I would have a passing grade. It's amazing what attendance does to a struggling grade. The semester was pretty productive though. I wrote some short stories that I would like to make into a longer story. I had a creative writing instructor that really stressed the whole publishing aspect of writing and so I made the goal of at least starting the process of getting published before I graduate. By the way, I am expected to graduate in December so Hooray!!! This summer I plan to write until I come up with something I feel comfortable with sending to a publisher. I've written a lot of short stories in my creative writing classes and want to revise this summer and send those off and hopefully one will get published and I will start getting my name out there. One of my CW classes was a class on poetry. We ended up just writing a lot of our poetry and workshopping (critiquing) some of our own and so I discovered my poetry side. I wrote a couple that were good, but I don't think I will be pursuing writing poetry. I think I will stick with prose. In another CW class I ended up writing what I think is the worst story I have ever written in my whole entire life. I had a good idea but it got out of control and so I trashed it.
My interim class has been really interesting. We talked (or took notes while our teacher lectured rather) about some books and then we watched an adaptation of it. We read The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, The Last of the Mohicans, The Scarlet Letter, and we finished up with The Great Gatsby. I really love The Great Gatsby. Ever since I read it in high school I have absolutely been in love. When we were done talking about it in high school I went to the local Movie Gallery, which was about 30 minutes up the road, and got the movie with Robert Redford, Mia Farrow, and Sam Waterston. It is a really good movie. We ended up watching it in class yesterday and today. I fell in love again, especially with young Robert Redford. Really he was hot. A little old for me though.

A pretty good day I would say

2007-03-18T22:00:00.000-06:00

On the other note, I went with my mom today to a Ward Council for Capitol Ward in Montgomery and talked to a man that was a high councilmen for Magnolia at one time. He asked me how school was going and I told him hopefully December(which I hope happens even though I know the University is going to come up with another pull out of their butt class that I need and can't graduate then.) and he was telling me, being a lawyer, that I needed to think about law school. He said and I quote because this man is a very interesting man. He looks at me with the very serious face and then says, "This is what I want you to do. You need to take the LSAT." I cracks me up because I felt like a youth who was being interviewed by the bishop and getting advice on problem I had. I guess you had to be there and know him. This guy answers the phone by saying his name in place of "hello". He used to call for dad all the time seeing as my dad was branch president and talk to him about high council/branch president stuff. Dad would get so tickled. Anyway, So he tells me that and I am actually a little tiny bit interested because a saw a job for a paralegal and it looked pretty good and looked like hit paid well. Oh, then he comes up to me before the first meeting was about to start and whispers in my ear, "law school". Mom looked at me and said I guess he was supposed to be the still small voice whispering to you. Knowing him I sure. Other people I saw was a girls camp leader that was over my level one year. It was really good to see her it had been a while. I also saw a girl I felt sorry for at girls camp (lots of girls camp memories came back to me) because nobody talked to her. Later I found out why. I feel bad for her but she is annoying as crap. I also saw a friend that had moved from Tuscaloosa to Montgomery last August. She is still awesome as ever.

Spring Break 2007 (with no money).

2007-03-18T20:36:00.000-06:00

I would like to say that I had all this money and was able to go on a road trip to who knows where, but seeing as I am a senior in college and my job is lets just say really really flexible there was no more money beside for bills. However I did have the opportunity and glad I did to spend time with my parents. This week consisted of me sleeping in, hooray, while mom and dad went to the pasture to build a barn for their goats. I know, I know, your thinking why didn't you help your mom and dad. One reason, I suck at helping, I tried, I stood there and watched dad crawl around on the rafter while mom nervously watched, while standing on the scaffolding in case he needed her help. Every once in a while I would stand on a 2x4 while dad cut it with his saw and hold the ladder while dad climbed up, but other than that I don't think I was much of a helper. So the second day they went I stayed in bed. Mostly I have read a book I got for Christmas. It is kind of interesting, but kind of boring at the same time. I rode around in the Explorer with mom when she took a couple who don't have a car to Thomasville so they could get some groceries. It was good to spend a little time with mom. Oh, and speaking of goats I went with mom and dad to another goat auction. Dad was selling some goats and ended up getting a little more money than they bought them for. It was fun to see the goats surprising look as the door opened to let them into the gated area to get bidded? on. Yesterday I had the most awesome experience though. My oldest nephew which is the oldest grandchild was baptized. I got so emotional, the spirit was so so strong. I told mom later I can't imagine what I am going to be like at my children's baptism if I'm that emotional at my nephew's baptism. He followed his aunt's example and had to do it twice because something didn't go under, maybe a toe or something else. I felt so old. That was basically my Spring Break and most likely my last.

Me Freakin' out....naw

2007-01-31T20:57:00.000-06:00

This semester started with freaking out, escalated freaking out, and then calming a little. So I begin this semester with the usual go to school for the first day, find out what is expected of me, and then continue on with no changes. Well, I registered for a class that was going to discuss the legend of King Arthur and whether he was real or not. Thanks to my high school English teacher I'm absolutely obsessed with King Arthur and the whole wife having an affair thing. Well I squeaked in the class by being the last on to sign up and then getting all excited about the class. Big huge flags should have went off in my head when he class was EN 477. No significance with the number but it is a higher level 400 level class. So, I go to class on the first day, not to mention it was at 8:00 bright and early for a college student especially that hasn't taken an 8:00 since freshmen year, and I walk in to hear classmates talk about how hard of a teacher that our teacher is. Seeing as they were talking about a she and the teacher's name in my schedule had somewhat of a man sounding name I paid no attention. So, the teacher comes in, being all female and all, and she starts going over the syllabus. The first huge red flag that went off in my head was when she said that our only long research paper needed to be good enough to be published. HOLY CRAP!! That second red flag was not being exactly sure what things were due and when. That is a good thing to know with it being a class and all. So I went home after my classes were over, freaked out more, and cried. After thinking about it for a little while I convinced myself everything was going to be okay I decided everything was good. Well, Martin Luthur King Day came and went and the morning of my second class came. I never came to class. I skipped both classes that day and stayed in bed. Usually when I do that I really don't want to face what is coming in the day ahead of me. My mom made her usual call and asked how my day went and I said pretty good considering I stayed home. Then she said If your worried about the class drop it. Believe me that crossed my mind the minute I left that class so I went to the computer lab to see if any classes were open. I didn't want to do anything drastic so I didn't. The next day, I went back to the computer lab, dropped that class like a ton of bricks, and signed up for a poetry class. I had never dropped a class before and knew I would be behind and when I worry about things the world is about to end so I worried until I finally was able to go to the poetry class and realized the teacher is cool and everything is good.

Christmas Break So Far

2006-12-27T13:30:00.000-06:00

After I went through the stressful week of exams I decided I needed to stay in Tuscaloosa during the week before Christmas to work. I was so proud of myself because I went on Monday and worked for a while. Tuesday came and I never made it into work. Wednesday came and I went over to my brother's house that lives in Tuscaloosa to babysit his two little boys while my sister-in-law went to help with his two older girls Christmas parties at school. I could have went to work afterward but I didn't make it. During that time I didn't make it I was cleaning my house seeing how some of the cleaning gets neglected during the semester, so I actually did accomplish something. On Thursday I went Christmas shopping for my mom, dad, and my brother from Atlanta. I got Mom and Dad a dry erase board with dry erase markers, an eraser, and board cleaner, there will be an explanation later. I got my brother a two month subscription to Netflix. He really likes Netflix so I got it for him thinking maybe that will be enough time for him to have it while saving up so he can get it for himself. I hope it works. Anyway I did that and came home and packed up the car. Then Buddy and I loaded up and traveled to Magnolia. On Friday my Dad had his last day of work and only worked half a day and came home to a house full of his children and grandchildren. We had a get together for him to let him know that we appreciated him working so long in order to support us, as for me he is still supporting me but hopefully not for to long. On Sunday my Dad, brother, and I went to church, which was good, and came home. Mom had a virus but she feels better now. Then we went over to my aunt's house to have a late lunch. She had all of her family there except her daughter from Utah and her mother, which my family calls Grandma Harrison even though she isn't our grandmother, so it was good to see them. On Christmas I got up around 7 or 7:30 and mom and I waited for Dad to go feed his goats and for my brother to wake up. around 8 we started opening gifts. I got a digital camera, the book Le Morte Darthur by Sir Thomas Malory, some tools, a book of all of the publishers in the U.S called Writer's Market, and a book with all the works by Truman Capote. I am excited about all of them. After gifts Dad, Mom, my bother, and I went to my other aunt's house to have our traditional Christmas breakfast. My aunt thinks we have been doing it for 50 years. It is a tradition I enjoy alot. I get to see my cousins and eat eggs, bacon, sausage, grits, and biscuits with hot chocolate. Very good!!!! I hope everyone had an excellent Christmas and have a Happy New Year.

Journal of Hope Townsend: A Story of Friendship

2006-12-27T13:18:00.000-06:00

The week of exams I finally finished my creative project, the one about Selma and the Selma-to-Montgomery march in 1965. Here is an excerpt. There is a possibility of typos and errors.

Sunday January 3, 1965

Dear Journal,
I want to tell you about my best friend Latosha. I love her so much. She is my bestest bestest friend in the whole word. That is a lot of lovin’. We play together everyday. Her mother works for us and Latosha comes with her. Latosha likes purple just like me. Whenever we play I Spy she always picks something purple and I always guess right. She has black hair and brown eyes. She is really pretty. She doesn’t have the same color skin that I have, but that doesn’t change how I feel about her. Some people yell at her and call her names. That is very mean. They also yell at her family and call them names. Someone called her dad a “coon” the other day. I thought a “coon” was something that daddy calls raccoons sometimes. It makes me very upset when people are mean to her and her family. It makes her upset too. Everytime something happens she cries and I feel so bad for her. Why do people do that? Her and her family are the same kind of people everyone else is but just a different color skin. Latosha and her mom came over today even though they don't come on Sundays because they go to church just like us. She brought me a birthday present. She wrote a letter to me telling me how much she is glad I am her friend and that we are BFF-Best Friends Forever. She told me that a man came to Selma today, I think he is a doctor, she said his name is Dr. King. I wonder if one of his grandfathers was a king. She said that he is going to help people get the right to vote. I don’t see why people need help because Daddy and Momma went to the courthouse and filled out thing saying they could vote. She said she went to watch him talk to a bunch of people about having the right to vote. Well I’m getting kind of tired. TTFN-Ta Ta For Now. Hope

The final draft is a little over 20 pages. If you want to know more maybe one day I can get it published. I plan to polish is up and enter it into a contest at the university before April.

A hard lesson to learn

2006-12-01T20:43:00.000-06:00

Here I am a senior in college and have never run into what happened to me last night and this morning. I am an admitted avid procrastinator. To make a long story short and stay away from venting about one of my professors I had two papers due today, which if I remember correctly luckily has never happened in my years of college. One was a group research paper, which is the stupidest thing I have very heard of, seeing as I hate group work and I suck at writing papers since I procrastinate. Needless to say I waited until yesterday and last night to work on them both. I only had to write a minimum of 4 pages on each paper, which you would think would be easy but there was, for lack of a better word, a lot of BSing in the group paper. The other paper was a regular interpretation of a work, which can be hard depending on the work. I finished the interpretation paper last night around 8 and started on the other one. I got two pages on that one and then quit around 10:30 and went to bed. I slept until I got up at six beside the two time I woke up but I don't think I got to much sleep last night because I was stressing. I can overstress about things and that is what happened today. I got up finished my part on the group paper and went to the school computer lab to print my interpretation paper. Lesson learned - as I told mom I only have one more year left.

A humbling experience

2006-10-26T17:38:00.000-06:00

The main reason I started a blog was to put my work out there, since I will be a writer, for people to see. Some of the work I create during my college career will only be put on my blog for free but afterward money will have to be paid for my work
In my Creative Writing class, we are having to write about an historical event for our final project. In my thinking of an historical event I am thinking of something huge like 9/11 or the wars we America has been involved in, something huge. Well, come to find out it really doesn't have to be huge but something that happened in the past, such as something family related or something little in the news. Also I found out something huge was still okay. So anyway, my mother brought up a good point and makes since is to write about what you know. Since Magnolia, Alabama is about an hour southwest of Selma, Alabama and I know Selma I chose to write a piece on the Civil Rights Movement is Selma. What I am doing is writing a fictional account of the events surrounding the the Selma to Montgomery march such as the killing of Jimmie Lee Jackson in Marion and "Bloody Sunday" My main characters are an 8 year old white girl that has a black friend. It is in the form of a journal kind of like Ann Frank with the Holocaust. Yes the whole friend thing sound like "Selma Lord Selma" but my story is going to take more twists and turns than "Selma Lord Selma", so I'm not completely plagiarising. Growing up I always thought the Selma to Montgomery march was something that happened in Selma and didn't affect me in any way so I didn't think that much about it besides what I had heard from my peers, family members, and history books. Well yesterday I found differently.
I convinced my mother that she needed to go with me and help research so yesterday I drove down after classes and met mom at the Selma co-op and off we went. At first I thought we could go to the chamber of commerce and find some info and then go to the Civil Rights Museum. Well, we went to the Civil Rights Museum first and found more info than I thought we would. I was very excited. When I first started writing this piece I ran into the problem of not knowing what an 8 year old would understand. In fact, I came out that my character understood more than what she should. Well, that problem what solved yesterday. At the museum mom and I started talking to the director and come to find out she was 11 years old when all of it happened. I'm thinking great. She had the most humbling story I have ever heard. To respect her and to get you to go to the Voting Rights Museum I'm not going to tell it on my blog but ask me in person and I will tell ya. While she was telling it I felt the spirit of what happened, she conveyed her feelings very strongly. She wasn't all yelling and shouting, but she was calm and I could feel what happened to her through her words. The whole time she was telling the story she looked out of the window and didn't even pop a smile when she told something on a liter note. Every once in a while she would look up at us, but mostly she looked out the window.
If you haven't been to Selma I highly recommend it. There is soooooo much history, not just Civil Rights. Driving through Selma you can look at the buildings and know that what they witnessed. On Dallas Avenue there is a block of churches that definitely weren't built in the 20th or 21rst century. They are so so so beautiful. Definitely recommend the Civil Rights Museum if you are interested. There are so many antebellum houses and old old beautiful houses. You can tell they weren't just thrown up in a couple of months like houses nowadays. Also, if you like cemeteries (maybe weird but I like them) the Live Oak Cemetery is awesome. It has old Spanish moss hanging from huge oak trees. There is other things I haven't mentioned. Anyway you just have to go. Hope this didn't sound like a tourism brochure.

Classes and so on

2006-10-12T17:55:00.000-06:00

Wow, it has been over a month since I have blogged. I thought it was only a couple of weeks. Since I haven't blogged in over a month and I am procrastinating my homework I feel inspired to do so. Classes are going ok. I have gone through the stressful and crazy time of midterms and paper number ones for my 4 English classes, which weren't to bad for me(knock on wood). As far as I know i did better than expected on my Am Lit midterm, less than expected on my Brit Lit test number 2 (material was really interesting but his tests suck in a disguised sort of way), don't know about my Linguistics class, and don't take midterms in Creative Writing class.
As a usual ritual on this blog I am going talk about my classes since that is my life at this point in time so her it is:

American Lit-340 is interesting Dr. Beidler is the funniest 62 year old man. It is like a friend of mine said. She said in a paraphrased sort of way he ticks people off but he is funny. I had tears coming out of my eyes because of laughter the first day of class, but he is a little to liberal for me. He has ticked me off by making fun of Marengo County, Alabama, which is where I grew up. What he said was funny the first time, because for some reason I did see some truth in it, but when he does it over and over. That's not funny. Marengo does have many good aspects to it. That's the county my hometown is in dude. Not to mention there are two people I know of who have affiliations with Marengo County that I know who are in the class with me. One of them has told me she isn’t happy with him either. Anyway besides my ranting, Am. Lit. is interesting, Dr. Biedler has brought some literary aspects to the works we are studying that are interesting and I haven’t thought about. Hey I’ve seemed to have convinced him I can write a paper, I am so cunning.

British Lit-205 is falling between my fingers. I really enjoy the material we have gone over like I said before, but I haven’t grasped how to take his tests. My highest grade in there is my paper. Hmm. We talked about Morte Darthur by Sir Thomas Malory (who is a historian back in old days of whenever he was alive). In Morte Darthur, Malory writes a story, whether fiction or non-fiction is up for debate, about King Arthur and the whole fiasco with Lancelot and Guinevere. I am very interested in that subject thanks to my high school English teacher. That whole thing fascinates me, I might write a book about it later in life.

Linguistics Approach to English Grammer-321, I really like. Besides its insanely long title I am learning a whole lot. I have the worst grammar in the entire universe, if you don’t believe me ask my mom and professors and read my blog, and I really think this class will help me with my grammar. Keep your fingers crossed. The title of the textbook is How English Works and that is exactly what we have been studying. Pretty cool. ( I am such an English major) Some of the things we have talked about seems like the English language people of the world are pulling out of their rear-end to justify why certain words are used, but hey it is fun to do their rear-end pulling out of processes of sentence making. Dr. Sawalis is so funny too.

Creative Writing, Uses of History-308 is awesome. I can’t say enough about my creative writing class. I love it. I really like reading my classmates work and talking about it, or in my case listening to people. There are some really talented writers in my class and needles to say I am one of themJ. Our instructor knows what he is talking about and has very good advice for writing. I have decided to write a fictional account of the Civil Rights Movement in Selma. I am writing it form of a journal from the point of view of a 8 year old white girl, who is friends with a black girl. I don’t plan on offending anyone, but in some subjects that is impossible.

And for my life outside of school it has been good. I have seen my whole entire family two time this month, which is a rare occurance. I can't express how thankful for them I am and I love it when I get to spend time with them. A downside is that Buddy has had fleas, and I don't mean just momma, daddy, and two or three kids, I mean mamma, daddy, all forty thousand kids, grandpa, grandma, all their friends, and the flea from the local five and dime store and all his ancestry and descendants. So needless to say I hate fleas and think they need to become extinct and if you have any suggestions beside frontline and flea collars and flea baths and flea spray feel free to comment and let me know. Untell my fingers meet keyboard keys again, later friends.

My experience with "The Birds"

2006-09-02T08:30:00.001-06:00

Everybody remembers the movie by Alfred Hitchcock called The Birds. Well, I had a personal experience yesterday morning. Buddy and I were in my room minding our own bussiness when we hear a bird chirping. I had the back door open so Buddy could go in and out as he pleased. I fiquired we were hearing the bird from ouside so I didn't go investigate. The chirping stopped and then starts up again so Buddy decided to go investigate. I see him causiously walk into the kitchen, refer to fiquer 1.1 for explaination (i have been in school too long), and into the back room. Meanwhile I'm soaking up the ability to be on the Internet seeing as my computer didn't start up for two days. I see Buddy out of the corner of my eye come into the living room. I don't think anything about it until I here him jumping around like he is playing with something. First I think, Buddy doesn't have any toys in the living room to be playing with, then I think, Oh crap Buddy has caught the bird and is playing with a dead bird in my living room. So I relunctantly and anxiously walk into the living room. I see the bird on top of the bookcase and Buddy raring up on his hind legs trying to get him. Of course he can't because he is a small dog and the bookcase almost reaches the ceiling. The bird (I am sure) is freaking out at this point because he has two things that thinks will hurt him, not knowing Buddy and I are the biggest wimps in all of Tuscaloosa. I'm thinking the whole time maybe the bird will fly out by himself and I won't have to do anything. Well, the bird flys into the back room and onto the headboard of a bed that is back there. I put my brothers clothes that he left here when he went to Atlanta on this bed. At this time I'm thinking please don't crap because I will have to be the one to clean it up. So I go back in the kitchen and shut the door between the kitchen and the back room, leaving Buddy there and hoping he will get the bird out. Well, he is sitting in front of the exit to get outside. Of course the bird isn't going to leave with him sitting there so I call him into the kitchen and I go into the back room and shut the door behind me. Obviously Buddy is not going to solve the problem as I'd hoped. I walk over by the head board and the bird and I are looking eye to eye with each other. Both with fear in our eyes. I see one of my brothers shirts and I grab it and begin to use it as a little coaxing method to get the bird to go in the direction of the door. This is where Alfred Hitchcock comes in. The bird decides he does not like this and I see it flying toward my face. So I throw down the shirt, try to protect my head by bending it down and bending my knees, and scream. I look up to find the bird back on the headboard looking at me once again. So realizing I have failed once again and wondering what the heck am I going to do to get this bird out of my house and hoping it will happen soon because I need to leave to go to class. So I go into the kitchen and Buddy goes back into the back room. I look back in to back room and the bird has flown in a board that had previously been nailed up there, which is right by the door. At this time there is hope. Now Buddy and I are both staring at the bird wondering what the bird is going to do next, like in the living room. Well, the bird flys at me once again. This time I have my hand on the door knob and quickly shut the door, trying to prevent another Hitchcock moment. It works, so I open the door again wondering where it has gone. I look around and cautiously look in the laundry room and he is nowhere to be found. I guess after he flew at me he flew back outside. It was a frightening experience, but funny afterwards.

What have I been doing this summer? Not much

2006-08-06T16:30:00.000-06:00

This summer has been a summer of trying to get through my last two Spanish classes along with some other things. The first class I had was SP 201 which is the first part of Intermediate Spanish. It was a pretty good class. Our teacher, Francia Martinez was so bubbly and made it a fun class to go to. She kept us so busy that it seemed like the two hour class period went by very fast everyday. There was three people in that class that I had already knew. Lacosta, the girl from Magnolia where I grew up, was there. It was pretty cool to be in there with her to I could get to know her a little bit better because we had only had SP 101 together. I would like to say that I came out of that class with an A-, my first A in college Spanish.
I am about to enter my last week of SP 202, the second part of the class. I only had one bad test, the first one. All of the class didn't do very well on it either. My grades are looking pretty darn good if I have to say so.
Also this summer I adopted a dog. His name is Buddy and he just what his name implies. He is the best buddy anyone could ask for. He is so sweet. I have tried to pick at him and get him riled up so he would fight with me but I can't get him mad. He just looks at me and goes after my hand a little bit so I'll stop. He follows me around the house and keeps me company wherever I go. I am starting to get really attached to him. Also I have found out what being a dog owner is all about. When he first came to my house there were a couple of bathroom accidents but we got that squared away and he now is used to the house and me so that is good. I'm not that good with the actual walking of the dog seeing as I don't get much exercise by myself, but maybe that will improve. By the way if you are looking for a dog and you live in Alabama or somewhere around adopt from Rebecca Harshman from Montevallo, Alabama. She is on Petfinder as Becky and her adoption place is called Save A Stray, or something to that effect. She gets dogs that people have left on the side of the road and gives them a home. She is is very knowledgeable about dogs and she loves to meet new people. I would highly recommend her.

One semester down

2006-06-02T09:19:00.000-06:00

Exam week was the first week in May. It had its ups and downs. My Modern Drama exam was not bad at all. Dr. Voss was his jolly ol' self and cracked me up a couple time before he gave out he exam.
My Spanish exam was not as bad as I thought it was going to be. My SP 101 exam was so awful that I expected this one to be the same, but Dr. Maxwell had prepared us really well. It would have been awful if she hadn't prepared us. It was bittersweet walking out of that exam because I knew I wouldn't be able to have her as a teacher anymore, but I also knew I wouldn't have to be in a Spanish class for at least three weeks.
My last exams of the week were awful. I showed up at my EN 300 exam without my book, not knowing that part of the exam was open book. I was the only one who didn't have my book. It was quite embarassing. It all worked out because the girl sitting in front of me had been in a lot of my classes this year so it wasn't that bad when she lent me her's because I knew her better that anyone else. My Shakespeare class was ten times worse. Granted it was on the last day of exam week and by this time I just want to get the exam over and leave campus. Well, Dr. Burke's exams aren't let's just get this over with. He likes his students to learn things while they are taking his final exams. So while we are writing five page essays we are supposed to be learning something. Heck, I suck at writing papers in four weeks much less within two hours. Dr. Burke is a very nice man but his exams suck.
Besides all of the heck I went through during exam week I passed all my classes. I had B pluses in Modern Drama and Spanish and Cs in EN 300 and Shakespeare.

School, as usual

2006-04-05T19:29:00.000-06:00

Overall this semester has been pretty good. Granted I have been a little lazy. My classes are going alright, but there are some perks.
My Shakespeare class is pretty challenging. I have began to appreciate Shakespeare more though. Before I did not really like him because I saw him as a person who was overexagerated and I like going for the underdogs. Now, I actually see him is a different light. He is someone who knew what he was doing. Heck, people 4 centuries later know who he is. I just hope that when I write books people in my time period know who I am.
A class that I have enjoyed this semester is my Modern Drama class. We have read some really good plays. There is only one play that I really wish he would not have asked us to read. I came really close to throughing the play aside and just winging it on the quiz, but unfortunately I trudged through it.
But as for my English studies class I haven't quite fiqured out why this class is required. Yes, it does have some very good information about literature and how to write papers, but shouldn't this class be required on a freshman level. It is a 300 level class and by the time students are able to take this class they are sophmores.
In my spanish class we just took a test. I think I did pretty good on it but I haven't seen my grade yet. I have come to a conclusion that I want to translate every word from English to Spanish, but it can't happen that way. Spanish has certain phrases and words that are used at specific times. There have been time when I have thought it is easier that english but it would have been easier if I had heard the language all my life.
Friday I can register for my classes I want to take in the summer and fall. I want to take some spanish courses I have to take in order to get them out of the way. The fall classes I want to take look pretty interesting, but it is a factor of getting into them.
A friend of mine told me that I am always looking forward to the breaks that we get. She is right. We have Friday off because of Honors Day. Thank goodness for those that need to be honored, they gave us a day off.

Back to the grind

2006-01-19T09:00:00.000-06:00

Before I started the semester I went to the eye doctor to get contacts for the first time. I went through a week of getting used to them, but now I am pretty much got the hang of things. Contacts are 500 times better than glasses.
Whenever people would ask me if I was ready for school to start back after the holidays I would tell them, "It's coming whether I am ready or not." It sound kind of negative but that was the way I felt. The first day of school started last Wednesday. Last week was pretty good. It was the usual go to class, listen to the professor tell you what he expected out of you and what the class description is. Most of my classes let out early, so that was nice. This week has been good also, not to many assignments. I think overall it should be a good semester. Most of my classes are English classes which I am interested in so it has been interesting. My other class on the other hand is a different story. My Spanish 102 class is not what I expected it to be. I expected the usual crapy class where the teacher thinks we should know how to speak spanish even though we have not grown up in a hispanic country, but it's not. This class is a lot more laid back then my 101 class. The teacher is pretty cool, so far. She wants us to give presentations on the material so that we can have more of a handle on the material. The presentation doesn't have to be that long as long as you have covered the material that has been assigned. Last Friday in class we still had about five minutes after the people that were prepared to present, so she taught us some steps on doing the salsa. I looked back at a girl that was in my 101 class and said, "We aren't used to this, not used to having fun. It was interesting. Needless to say, I don't think this will be a hard semester of Spanish. The other classes I am taking are: Shakespeare, Modern Drama, and a Intro to English Studies class(basically how to be an English major).
Last Saturday I went to a goat auction with my mom and dad. It takes place every 2nd and 4th Saturday of every month. It was pretty fun. There was some little baby pigmy goats that were for sell, they were so cute. Mom and I just loved them. We tried to talk Dad into getting them but he didn't. I was interesting to watch dad during the auction. You could see the gears turning in his head, listening to the bidding price and trying to decide whether or not to bid. It was fun listening to the auctioneer. I picked up some goat auctioning dialect. The auctioneer would say Dolly and This one needs a friend whenver some of the goats would come out of the gate. He would say dolly whenever there was a nanny that came out that her tits were draging the ground, in honor of Dolly Parton. This one needs a friend means that the goat is sick. Dad ended up not getting any goats because they were going for expensive prices.

Christmas and New Year's

2006-01-04T21:00:00.000-06:00

Christmas came and went, then New Year's came. I spent Christmas with my mom, dad, and my brother. I was nice to be able to spend time with my parents becuase I don't see them that often. I reall enojoyed it. After we woke up and opened gifts on Christmas Day we went to my aunt's house to eat breakfast, which is a tradition in my extended family. I didn't know this until this year, but my aunts has had breakfast at her house on Christmas morning for 40 years. They were talking about it this year and said that it started when the guys would go out bird hunting they would cook the meat and serve it for breakfast on Christmas. Then over the years it went from bird meat to patty sausage and now my aunt cooks Conecuh sausage, which is phenomenally good.It was interesting to find out that bit of information. After we ate breakfast there we went to church, hung out for the rest of the day, and then went to bed.
All of my other siblings are married and have thier own little families so they have Christmas at there house, but they go to my parents the Saturday after Christmas so we can spend time together. It was really good to be able to spend time with all of my family because I don't see them that often. For New Year's Eve we shot fireworks that night. Most of my neices and nephews didn't like the loud fireworks so they went upstaris and looked out the window at them. All of them , but my neice that is six years old, her sister, and a little three year old that sat in my lap wile watching them. She was so cute. Every time a firework went off she would have a big smile on her face and never jumped once of tensed up. Toward the end they were getting kind of loud so I asked her if she wanted to go inside and she did so I took her to her mother.

Later This Week

2005-12-24T12:30:00.001-06:00

For 20 years that house that I grew up in did not have showers, or so we thought. The showerhead has always been there but we always had to take baths. My dad found out that he had to just do this one little thing to finish it up and we would have had showers. This week my dad has been installing showers for their Christmas present. The reason he has had to install showers even thought we already had them is several things have happened. Needless to say we have showers in the downstairs bathroom, and the upstairs has showers installed, but the upstairs is leaking. If we want to bath we have to do it downstairs.
Thursday I went around the area and looked at Christmas lights. I wasn’t very impressed. Many people didn’t have any up. I went to Linden, Alabama where I went to High school for two years and looked at the light up there. There were only a couple houses I really liked. I drove by one of my teacher’s old houses and the people that live there now had lights that were pretty cool. I brought back memories of a Christmas party we had there. It was a lot of fun. One of my classmates had been in a car wreck not to long before and she had to be rushed to Tuscaloosa because she broke her neck. I remember hearing that she was very close to breaking her spinal cord. Anyway, she came to the party. It was good to see her and see she was ok. Afterwards I went to Thomaston that is about 15 minutes north of Magnolia and looked at their lights. Three houses that were close by each other were covered with lights. It was great. I didn’t get to look at them very close because I was on the main road and had to go. I was neat. I came back home and picked mom up and we went to Arlington which is up the road a little bit and they had a couple. Then, we went to Shiloh to look at this man’s house that is famous for Christmas lights. Every year he puts something new up. He had several things in his yard that anyone can drive up in there and look. It is really neat. It looks like he really enjoys doing it for people because it looks like he really puts a lot of work into it.
Yesterday was pretty uneventful and today we are just hanging around the house.

Earlier This Week

2005-12-24T12:30:00.000-06:00

This Monday and Tuesday I was up in Birmingham visiting with my sister. Monday night I went along with her little girl and her husband to the Birmingham Zoo, where Christmas lights were everywhere. I was very pretty. Kennedy, my little niece, was practically running through the zoo because she was so excited. We went and bought hot chocolate to drink and walked to the carousel. The hot chocolate was not that good. Kennedy got to ride on the carousel and afterwards we went into the Children’s Zoo. Kennedy petted some of the animals there and then we left. It was really fun. The lights were beautiful and it was fun to watch Kennedy. On Tuesday I babysat for my sister and then Wednesday I came home.

End of The Semester

2005-12-24T00:30:00.000-06:00

Christmas break finally came. I didn't think it was ever going to get here. My exams went ok. My sociology exam was very nerve racking. It was online and on a server that wasn't able to handle a lot of people at one time. My sociology teacher taught two classes of at least 150 students in it. There were at least 300 people trying to take the test at one time. It took me an hour to get the exam open. We were supposed to have two and a half hours to take it, but I know some people including me didn't have that much time. I emailed my professor and told him about it along with many other people I am sure and he wrote back and said he would take that into account while grading the test. I came out with a B- in the class. I had and A+, 2 B- and a B. I didn't think they were going to be that good because I slacked off a lot during the last part of the semester.
During exam week I had a cold and didn't study very much because I was laid on the couch while drugged up because of an earache that I had in both ears, but not at the same time thankfully. Our cousin has been staying with us while his wife sells their house in Nebraska and he was handling buying a house down here. He told me that whenever he has a cold he takes a vitamin c and e, two Tylenol, and an Alka-Seltzer cold and sinus and it is gone in two days. I didn't try it but I wanted to. If I had the money to but the medicine I would have. Wednesday night of that week I went to take my Spanish exam while still being sick, and on the way home I was involved in a car accident of some sorts. I was turning right onto a major street and the car that was turning the same way decided that she could go too. We were headed for the same lane when she came up behind me and I hit her. There isn't much damage to my car, just a crack in the driver side bumper. I wish she knew how to drive because that could have easily been avoided. It was very aggravating. Dad told me we could put superglue on it and it would be fine. Thanks to her I am going to have a super glued car, not telling what it is going to look like. Not a very good exam week. I was glad when it was over.

An All Around Good Ol' Day

2005-11-05T18:00:00.000-06:00

Today was a pretty good day. Instead of school I had other things to do. I went to the birthday party of my friends little girl. It was fun to watch her open all of her presents. My friend was over there amoungst all the little children helping her little girl open her presents. She was so cute. Which I will most likely do the same thing with my kids.
After that I went to a bridal shower of another one of my friends. I felt right at home becuase her famiy is just like mine in the aspect that they talk like they came from the south and it was a good ol' get together for the women of her family and friends. The thing that cracked me up was that they turned the Alabama football game on during the shower. There was people watching the game (including me, I am a big fan of Alabama football) in between seeing what presents she got. This was all happening at a shower with all women and no guys there. There is nothing wrong with that, but I thought it was great. Her dad wasn't there but I have met him and he reminds me so much of my dad an uncle. He is this good ol' guy from the south, just like my dad an uncle. The family that I met today of her aunts and cousins reminded me so much of Magnolia and how showers down there pan out. It was cool. I felt right at home and a little homesick.

School, School School, That is all I ever do.

2005-11-02T16:00:00.000-06:00

I only had one class today. It was Spanish. Our teacher fussed at us today because we had not been reading over what she had assigned us to read for the next day. You could tell by the way we were answering the exercises today. Which honestly I didn't actually pay that much attention the reading. I simmed over it. It was about how to do present progressive and it looked easy so I scimmed over it.
Yesterday, I found out what I made on my English paper. I made a C-. Which I did write it the day before and turn in a rough draft. Needless to say, on my next paper there will be close communication with my teacher. As soon as I find out what I want my subject to be.
Registration for Spring Semester started this week. A class that my creative writing teacher is teaching is already full. I was going to have to take his class in order to resume my creative writing minor if I wanted it. Now that it is full, I don't know what I want to do. That sounds like I was going to do the creative writing minor because of my teacher. He was some of the reason that I want a creative writing minor, but I also want to write books for a living and taking creative writing won't hurt. He class is so good, he knows what he is doing and he is laidback, like me. I might still do the creative writing minor. I depends on things. Registration is so nerve raking.

I need to stop writing every week and write everyday

2005-10-31T18:00:00.000-06:00

Well, I am still waiting on what my grade if for my paper, which it usually takes a week for the teachers to grade papers. I hope I did good. If I didn't that would suck.
Everyone in my spanish class is getting tired of it. We have to do group work in the class and my partner for a particular exercise wouldn't do anything. We had to tell what we did with our friends and when and that kind of stuff in spanish. He just sat there. I told him what I do and then he kept on just sitting there and not participating. We have to tell what we found out to the teacher I had to come up with something. I asked him what he does and he said he doesn't have time to do anything. He just goes to work and school. So I told the teacher Stephen no tiene vida. (Stephen has no life.) A round of laughter arose from the other students. It was a little agravating that he was just sitting there because he had done that before in another exercise we had.
Anyway, last Friday I had to go to a reading that my creative writing teacher had. If we go to the readings on campus he will allow us to have one abscence for every reading we go to. I don't care about the abscences, I was just going to see what he had written. He read his thesis to us. It was a non-fiction thesis about Darwin. I have ADD so therefore I drifted into other thoughts while he was reading it. The part that I heard was pretty good though. Usually they have two people read at each reading and the teacher (I think) that was after mine had an interesting story he had written. It was about a woman that was making a wax mask of Abraham Lincoln for a man and he went into detail about each part of the face. He told about making the nose, mouth, eyes etc. He told a story of Lincoln to go along with the face part. Like I say I have ADD so I didn't pick up on some things, but at the end the guy put on the mask of Lincoln and shot himself. Kind of interesting.
That night I went to a trunk or treat at my church. It was fun. All the little kids that came were so cute. This one guy that had brought his kids dressed up with a vote for pedro shirt and a big owe afro. It was funny. I left with two big pockets full of candy.
An interesting thing happened this weekend. My friend called me from her cell phone in her car. While I was talking to her I heard this crashing noise and then I heard her say that she would have to call me back because she just got hit. It freaked me out and I worried. but she called back later to tell me that everythig was alright. I haven't really talked to her to find out the details. I thought that it was interesting because the same thing happened to my sister while she was in college. She was talking to her friend on the cell phone and her friend told her that she would have to go because she was rearended. It's weird that it happened to me and my sister. Wow

Buddism and going to school things

2005-10-25T03:00:00.000-06:00

I went home this weekend just for the heck of it and because my sister and her little girl went down so I also went to see them. Not much happened down there as usual. Sunday night a friend of my brother and I went to listen to my creative writing proffesor talk about buddism. He is a buddist and had a Q&A type thing at a Universalist Church. It was interesting. I learned a lot about buddhism. There was one thing that was talked about that I was kind of wondering about.
Yesterday I went to school as normal. I came home afterwards and started working on a paper I had due today. I hope I get a good grade. I think I did good with that paper.
Today I went to school (this may seem repitious but this is my life at the moment). After my class this morning I went to sign up for advising. I have to be advised at 8:30 in the morining, which on wednesdays usually I sleep in. I shouldn't complain getting advised is a good thing sometimes. I looked up my adviser on the UA website and he is a African American writer. I have never met him before. I think this will be interesting get to know him. Which speaking of advising I have to make up a tentative sceduale to take with me.
After doing that I ate breakfast at the Ferguson Center and went to work for 2 hours. I may complain about my job but it is a good job. I only work 2 hours a day. Then I came home.

A week later

2005-10-21T20:45:00.000-06:00

Man, it has been a whole week since my last blog. That's not good. Well I had my oral interview in Spanish today. It was interesting. We were partnered up with someone in my teacher's other class that she teaches. We knew that we were going to partner up with someone at the beginning of the week, but we did not know the person that we had to partner up with becuase they weren' t in our class. It turned out that I partnered up with this really sweet girl. I wasn't sure what to say at the last of our conversation so she helped me out a little bit. We had to talk about our likes and dislikes which thankfully I was familiar with the word that I liked and disliked. Which now that I think about it we didn't talk about what we didn't like. Well anyway, before we walk out the other girl asked our teacher if we did a good job. She laughed and said that she was going to give out the grades for it on Monday. Hopefully that laugh was that she was just sitting there taking notes and hadn't decided how she was going to grade it. I thought we did a good job see as how it is a introductory level class and we had never had to talk just spanish ever before.
The other day I went to the Tuscaloosa Public Library and got me a library card. I have lived in Tuscaloosa for two years and haven't gone to the library until this week. I had planned on going for two years but never made it. I checked out two books on tape. One was humorous clips that were on NPR and the other was the book that Elizabeth Smart's parents had made about when Elizabeth was kidnapped. I listen to them at work to make the time go by faster because let's face it bug picking is not that exciting.

A kind of normal day

2005-10-14T17:00:00.000-06:00

Today was the regular old go to class day. I went to Spanish this morning and then went to work afterwords.Next Friday in Spanish we have to do an oral interview with our teacher. That aught to be really interesting seeing as I am awful at Spanish. So I have to work on studying that and also I have to be wraping up my Enlish paper that is due the week after next. I haven't even written my rough draft yet. Not a good thing. But I am going to work on this weekend hopfully and get very close to finishing and proofreading.
Work was very interesting today. Sometimes in a Sample there is too many bugs in it so I have to split the sample. The way to split a sample is to put the sample in this plastic thing. It is hard to describe, but anyway, you have to spin it back and forth a little bit so the sample will split. At the top of this big cylinder plastic thing is two holes that the now two 1/2 half sample comes out of when they are split. Well I got a little to happy with spining this thing so water and some of the sample, not all, came out. For at least 20 to 25 minutes I was soaking up the water with crappy towels that the lab has. Most of the sample was still in the splitter so it wasn't a complete loss thankfully.

Glad that was taken care of

2005-10-12T23:00:00.000-06:00

I found out today that besides the fact that my job paid me too much money is that I get to keep the extra money. I not to sure but I don't even think the money is going to be taken out of my next paycheck. The professor that I worked for fixed the problem though so that is good. It may not seem like it by reading my blog, but I don't want to take more money than I am supposed to be paid.
Next week in my Spanish class we have to do an oral interview with our teacher. That aught to be interesting seeing as it is getting a little harder to understand it.
For an assignment in creative writing we have to look through books, signs, or anything that basically has words and construct a twenty line poem. I have done this before in my Intro to English class and it was really fun. My poem turned out to have an interesting interpretation. I am looking foward to this.
Speaking of jobs I have been thinking about getting a job in the English department mainly if possible to get to know the professors better and see if I can get hints of tips on publishing stuff. Basically get to know people in high places. Because writing books doesn't have a steady income and that's what I want to do with my major. That and my brother has a job in the film department where his major is and he know some pretty good people that could help him out.

Work Worries

2005-10-10T20:50:00.000-06:00

Today I found out what was going to happen because I was paid too much. They are going to take the money out of my next paycheck, which is fine with me. I would rather that happen then have to pay them back, but it makes no difference really. Timecards are supposed to be in on the Friday’s before the payday at noon. This is retarded because you have to estimate how many hours you will work for that Friday. If you end up not coming in on that Friday you have to subtract the hours from you next paycheck or make them up, which I no fun. My timecard didn’t make it to the payroll office last Friday so I had to run around campus trying to get my timecard turned in. This could all have been prevented if someone would have told me that I needed to turn it in. From now on I will be taking it to the payroll office that Thursday before it has to be turned in.
Well, that's enough venting about my job, but that the main excitement that happened today. Today was just a regular wake up at 7:00 and go to my classes until 12 and the go to work day.

It's Been A While

2005-10-06T15:42:00.000-06:00

So lately I obviously haven’t been posting anything on my blog. This is because I have been busy with school and things and haven’t had much time to write. I had my first Spanish test in my 101 class last week and made a 90 on it. I was pretty excited because I was really worried about it.
I went home this weekend to watch General Conference with my parents and sister and her family. I mostly slept through most of it, but it is going to come out in the Ensign so I will be able to read it (thank goodness for the Ensigns).
Something cool happened in Spanish class this week. One of the girls in my class is also from Magnolia, which was cool and weird at the same time. Magnolia is a very small community. It has a post office two country stores and an intersection with a major highway. One of my sister friends told her that he had gone through Magnolia. He was excited to see it but when he got there he blinked and he missed it. That is an exaggeration but, needless to say it isn’t very big. But anyway, it was really cool to find out she came from the same place I did.
Also something cool that happened this week is I finally change my major officially. On the University of Alabama records I am officially known as English major. Now I just have to come with a minor. I am thinking either creative writing of geology or maybe a slight chance of journalism. I have to do some more thinking on that.
Oh yeah and today I found out that my job paid me more money that I should have gotten. So it took the pay stub to the main man and told him about it.

Literature and algae

2005-09-20T14:16:00.000-06:00

Picture 070
Originally uploaded by Baggis.

Today I had my regular literature class this morning. Our teacher is going to assign our first paper next thursday so I have to come up with a topic that I want to write about. Then I went and ate breakfast at the Ferguson Center. They have a really good breakfast. I usually get eggs, bacon, and hash browns. It is really good. Then I went into work at the biology lab.
Work was very interesting today. After two years of picking bugs out of pond samples, I came to the conclusion that picking bugs has officially become nasty. Before it has always been interesting to me becuase I like science, but don't have the dedication to major in it. I picked bugs for a guy that was taking samples out of somewhere in Florida, but now I am picking bugs for two girls that take samples out of somewhere in Alaska. The Florida samples were interesting because they had cool looking crayfish and clams we had to pick out. The Florida samples weren't very colorful, they were just blah. Now that I pick out of Alaska samples there is colorful and interesting things. The samples have algae and slime in them so they have some blue and green in them, thier not just full of dirt and things. The algae can be nasty because I have to ring it out sometimes to get the water out so I can put them in a drying oven to dry. They Alaska sample with alae in them are also interesting because I have never had to pick out of algae before and it is a new thing.

Weirdness of weather

2005-09-16T22:00:00.000-06:00

Today was one of those day's where I just wanted to stay in the bed. I told myself this morning as I do when I don't want to get up to go to class. "Bev you just have two classes today and one of them is your Creative Writing class that you like to go to." So needless to say I got up. Spanish class went by suprisingly fast and Creative Writing was its usual laid back fun class. After my classes I went to work. I work on campus so I walk to there. On the way there it was really erie because there was a huge black cloud in the sky. It was erie because after the last time there was a huge black cloud devastation happened to New Orleans. That cloud was kind of intimidating. I went into work and worked for three hours and after that I came home. Walking back to my car was a better walk because the cloud had passed and blue sky was beginning to come through the clouds.

I am not an idiot after all

2005-09-14T16:30:00.000-06:00

It turns out that I am not an idiot after all. There was an actual assignment called ESCRITURA. Luckily nobody else found it either, except one girl, so it is due tomarrow. They should make it easier to find things when they set up a class with online/computer work.

Wo, Wo, Wo, I can not believe I did that.

2005-09-13T23:00:00.000-06:00

In my spanish class part or our grade is composition. I consist of things called cyberjournals and things that we look up on the internet. Knowing this now I will tell my story. This afternoon I had a lot of spanish homework that i needed to do before tomarrow. For part of this homework I had to look up two spanish restaurants and write down what I would like to order if I was actually ordering something from these places. I was supposed to print it out in order to take it to class tomarrow. I did that. I look at my syllabus to see what else I had to do and saw some activities that were supposed to be done on the internet. Then the next thing that is on my syllabus, due tomarrow, is in big letters ESCRITURA. So I'm thinking I need to go back on the Internet and find this ESCRITURA that I am supposed to do and write something in spanish, but I did not know what I was supposed to write. I am sitting there for at least two hours or more trying to find this ESCRITURA that I am supposed to do. I at least read my syllabus 6 or 7 times trying to figure this out. Finnally at five o'clock today I figure out that the ESCRITURA is the restaurant thing that I did. ESCRITURA means compostition type thing (actually it means writing in Spanish) I felt so much like an idiot because I was looking for somethings that I had already done for TWO HOURS!!!!!!!!

EN-200 Creative Writing Assignment #1

2005-09-12T17:00:00.001-06:00

Blackberry bush
Originally uploaded by qwghlm.

Some people and blackberry bushes are similar because once you get past their thorns you can experience their tasty goodness. On the outside some people seem like they are a mean person that wants to hurt people and do not want them to know who they really are. Once you get past their thorny outsides you find their blackberry goodness.

This weekend

2005-09-12T17:00:00.000-06:00

This weekend was a good weekend. I went home Friday night spent the night in Magnolia because my cousins baby shower was the next day. Saturday we went to the shower. It was cool to see everything that my cousin got. She got a good deal of stuff that she needs to have for her first baby. It was good to see her because we don't get to see each other very often because she is down there and I am in Tuscaloosa. While I was there I got to see a good friend of hers that went to high school with us. She had her little boy with her. He was so cute. I also got to see another girl that was in my older brothers class and her little four year old girl. It is amazing how much she looks like her mother. I was able to visit with my aunts and other cousins that I don't get to see that often. Sunday I went to church and came home and did nothing for the rest of the day except sleep and watch tv.

What's up with that?

2005-09-09T09:50:00.000-06:00

I wake up at 7:00, which I have decided to do that even if i don't have an 8:00 class, and go to my SOC 101 class. I'm not fussing mind you. On little website calender that my teacher has made it says we will be in class from 8:00-8:50am. We were there for a total of tweenty minutes, then he let the class go. Now I have more time to do his quizes that are due tonight, but I kind of makes me worry, what kind of class this is. Do I work hard in that class, that has a lot of busy work outside of class like my other classes, or worry about my other classes and just do enough to get by?

John Marcher is gay!!!

2005-09-08T14:30:00.000-06:00

So obviously I joined blogger today. It is a pretty cool idea. So, I have made a decision for what I want my major to be. I have definately decided to go into English. It took me two years to decide but I have finally done it. What finnaly confirmed it is my literature class today. We were reading "Beasts of the Jungle" by Henry James. In the book to male character has a secret that he keeps with a woman he had met. The secret is about him. Today, my teacher was trying to get us to guess what the secret was. The whole time I was reading this story I was thinking that this male character was gay. I was right!!! Well there isn't really a right answer in english, but I was thinking what the teacher was thinking. That may not seem that exciting, but it is when you have been trying to decide what you want to major in for two years.