ABC Story

This is a story I had to write as part of an assignment for my English II Honors class. I think you’ll get the idea of the assignment as you read it.

An applause filled the cluttered New York skyline as the Today Show hosts made their way to the gigantic crowd outside the Rockefeller Studio’s. Beauty, as they so possessed, threw itself at the crowd. Canvassing the area with their watery blue eyes, they began to search for a victim of their famous five seconds of fame when a sound was heard off in the distance. Diminishing as it was, everyone froze in terror. Embedded on screens all across the nation was a sense of tragedy. Fear raced down the nerves of every American, big or small. Groups of emergency vehicles began flooding the streets of the square toward the sound. Half the population stood in silence. Involuntarily people began to break down when reality hit; for their loved ones lives lay at stake. Jumping through obstacles high and tall, with adrenaline rushing threw every last mortals body, they began to evacuate. Kindling off in the distance, across the Hudson River were two giants. Limb over limb people continued to poor from the tunnels, bridges, and streets. Mortified people at homes TV’s began to take a closer look. Numbness filled the brain, then the body. Oppressed by the actions of the metal birds, people gazed, awestruck, at their televisions. People threw themselves out of the sky and down to the streets to escape the fiery inferno at their own expense quickly meeting death at half the fall, and well gone by the moment of gory impact. Quirk as the event may be, it unfolded right before their eyes. Round and round events seemed to turn that day as yet another bright metal bird found its way into the heart of the sky giants twin. Seizure spread across the land as images of burning victims waving white flags and humans hurling to the ground flash across televisions. The terror stricken area of Manhattan had been cleared. Uttering words of goodbye from the top of the sky giant, one man prepared for death which he know looked directly in the eye. Vexed as the sky giants feel to their knees, Americans wept in grief and despair. Woken to a day of depression, loved ones everywhere rose to the news as the sun climbed over the California Rocky Mountain horizon. X-rays of this country have never quite been the same. Yielding a sense of bitterness and despair. Zest will forever lack from the zoo that was the World Trade Center and now stands as Ground Zero.

Fame v. Central Academy

This past weekend I saw Fame, the remake. After hearing the reviews citing the new movie as a “conservative” remake and nothing more then an “average”, “underdone” remale of the popular 1980’s pop culture film it got me wondering what the orgininal Fame was like. I shall explore those waters later. However I must say, from what I saw without seeing the original Fame, I would call this movie average.

But none-the-less this isn’t why I’m writting. I’m writting for a very different reason. A reason of which will be unpopular among my peers. However anyone who truely has their heart set on the prize will see things the same way. I’d like to take ten or so minutes to write about my comparison of the students in Fame and the students in  Central Academy’s theatre academy.

When a student from any art’s magnet school around the country goes to watch this movie, I can promise that most of these young viewers will see themselves in the movie. They will attempt to see one of the hardworking characters chasing their dream in the film as themselves. However for most of those students this will not be true. The students in the movie are far from who they are. Let’s compare.

Let’s start with Fame. The students in Fame are driven to successed, grow, and learn. They do not give themselves an ounce of satisfaction. Because what is there to be satisfied about when there is always someone better. They don’t have to be at your school, in your town, in your country. But there is always someone better. Sure, there goal is to be the best. All of us have that goal in what we do. But they know they’re not. They’re not going to be cocky because they’re the lead in there school show. They’re not going to even achnowledge that they’re a lead. Because what is a lead to a supporting roll when you’re too bussy concentrating on the fact that you are the “star” and not working on getting better. If you don’t try to be better, you’ll end up in that supporting roll later. I guarentee it. The attention to detail is incredible. The attention to even the slightest mistake. Things most people who aren’t seriouse wouldn’t even notice. These students also have the drive to go far, to look at the world in a different way, and to see things as they are. They take every show and truely give it there all, while at the same time realizing they still have loads to learn and room to grow. For there is no room for anything else but theatre, dance, or music in Fame. Why? Because they’re serious. They know that the level of focus, concentration, and the need to do that is required to make it just in among the national High School competition.

I haven’t even begun to scrape the surface on the students of the movie and their dedication. What people need to realize is that Fame is based off real life situations. Julliard High School in New York and Douglas Anderson School of the Arts in Jacksonville, FL are two huge examples. But it’s time to move on to the Central Academy students.

Unfocused, uncaring, and rarely seen. That could describe about half of ever cast of every show that I’ve seen done at Central Academy. Students tend to focus more on other student orginzations that our school shouldn’t even have because all arts high school’s of prestige don’t have these programs. But then what is the reason they came? To learn and persue a career in theatre. Sure, most of us won’t get into the indusry. Period. But if you try hard enough, that one  or two people that could get into the industry could be you. however it’s not just the unfocused that bring our program down, it’s also the uncaring. It’s possible to be at a rehersal and not be present. If your not part of that half, don’t exclude yourself just yet and think your one of the Fame students. For I guarentee that the student playing the lead roll of the play or musical doesn’t have nearly the experiance or knowledge the Broadway ready Juiliard or Douglas Anderson student has. Hard to believe a student could go from High School straight into a theatre company or dance company? Believe it. Is it going to be the cocky lead? No. It will be the no-body supporting roll who actually see’s room for improvement, recognizes it, and works for it. I guess my main point is that none of us are as good as we place ourselves. You should never give yourself the satisfaction of being anywhere near good. Because there is always a huge line of people better then you.

Duue to time I need to wrap up. But needless to say, I have tons more to rant about. I guess what I’m saying is that the levels and attitudes at our school are nowhere near where they should be to become what we’re supposedly “focused” on becoming.

A Glace At My Daybook

Every day in my English class we are required to write an entry into our daybooks, a journal of which we write to based on a prompt or whatever may be on our mind at the moment. I find the daybook to be an enjoyable start to class and have actually been quite satisfied with my entries. And thus below I wish to share some entries from my daybook. Enjoy!

October 7th, 2009

You are nothing to me but a smear on the morning paper. Your presence nothing, your feelings empty, your existence anything but. There comes a time when one looses hope, gives up, and does there best to move on. For how hard do you expect me to try to get your attention? Could a simple “hi” not suffice? And thus I sit here in the cafeteria of this empty institution glancing at you from the corner of my eye wishing you could be mine but now angry at how you shun your eye to me. I guess it’s time to make you part of my nonexistent past; for now I must bid all thoughts of you good bye and shut Emily up for she wants my desert and she proclaims it loudly screaming, “Would you like your desert!”

September 30th, 2009

It was a quiet spring afternoon in the French Quarter. The sun shinning bring against the cobblestone streets aged and shaped. Lined on the street were rich, vibrant, green plants acting as decoration for the artwork that was the marvelous architecture of the French Quarter. Seated in front of a French Cafe were a couple. All around them the atmosphere relaxed and pleasant. As the weightier left in his royal blue velvet top and white trousers the man pulled himself into the girl. Her eyes blue as the oceans water, her outfit hugging every last curve of her perfectly sculpted body. She looked into his eyes, and him to hers. His lips began to move, music now come from with-in his heart, “I love you Sara. I love you more then my hearts greatest desire and thus I tell you this…” His pale hand moved over hers and he continued saying. “…To be able to have you as mine I have dropped the project.” A tear began to run down Sara’s face. Inside the speck of pure water lie the feeling of true love, the feeling of importance, yet at the same time guilty. For she did not want to be the reason he gave up fame, glory, and honor. “Do not make me your reason for being. For I am but a girl, found in abundance all over the world. But this opportunity not nearly in abundance.” “Girls are found everywhere, and opportunities came again, but this feeling we share only comes once.” It was from that moment on that Sara knew she had the one.

September 22nd, 2009

Ignorance is bliss. Blindness is absolute happiness. For when we as humans shun an eye to an area of ignorance, ignorance turns to stupidity. Allow to me to back track… Each of us as individuals contain certain knowledge others don’t. Our knowledge unique and special; something other’s don’t understand. This special knowledge can defy popular belief, contradict the mainstream of society, and challenge educational philosophy at it’s highest. However it is this exact knowledge that allows for us to contribute. Now back to the basic idea. Our knowledge is based off our idea’s, background, and pursuits which are unique for everyone. There for ignorance of others to an unknown field or idea is often misunderstood and shun. Then the voluntary idea of shunning a blind eye to the unknown appears. The idea of not understanding and refusing to understand. This is when ignorance turns to stupidity. And with stupidity comes the refusal to learn and thus ignorance has no excuse. How much of the worlds ignorance is really stupidity? Just something to think about.

September 21st, 2009

Sitting at lunch today the never ending, seemingly unexplainable inner debate on culture arose. As the southern country girl spoke on her misunderstanding of our Northern ideals and qualities the debate because a but clearer. Our eye’s only open as wide as we wish. Essentially “reality” is nonexistent and the normal view but a myth. For when you look at the larger picture your perception on life, reality, and the norm is based off your environment. It’s a battle for location and upbringing. And when you zoom out just a tad farther you find that the endless ingredience onto how we perceive reality makes everyone’s “reality” unique. There for reality is like religion, we don’t know which is correct, the right path. All we know is the fact that we see what our eyes allow us to see. Zoom out as far as we WANT to zoom out. However what would happen if we all zoomed out enough to see every culture, every reality, and truly grasped and understood it? Could peace rise from understanding? Just something to think about.

September 9th, 2009

As I try and focus on a topic to write about my mind will not allow me to flee the topic of which it’s currently set. So I shall vaguely write to please; but will leave out detail. Yesterday was absolute bliss. Among all the bad encountered in life, an overwhelming amount of good came our of an ordinary day. However as time progressed day turned to night, and night to day. And with this new day came obstacles not worth the time. This negativity overwhelmed the positive of the previous day and started me thinking. Thinking if what I see is the reality of things, or have I been so caught up in the years passed and the quality people around me to the point where I have become blind to reality. Either way life continues. Just something to think about.

What if you spoke?

Your seated in the cafeteria of your school. People flood the room around you. People of all shapes, sizes, and styles all unique in their own right. Conversation is down at your table. Something that rarely happens. What is now available to you? The opportunity to take in your surroundings and indulge in your environment. As your eye’s swiftly sweep across the cafeteria, someone catches your eye. Perhaps it’s nothing more than a friend, maybe a teacher. Or better yet… some attractive. Your mind races, you stare without trying to give away your thoughts, you’ve drifted off.

The next day, you begin to see this person. They begin to exist in your mind. Suddenly you see what you didn’t see before. Now when the ocean of people flood the hallway on your way to class, you can spot this one person among the crowd. They stand out to you. For days, weeks, if not months this carries on. But what if? What if you worked up enough courage to talk to this person? In your mind, you would make a fool of yourself. For what if they didn’t like you back? What if they didn’t like people of your kind? What if they didn’t even know you existed? Right?

But what if you did work up the courage to just say “Hi”? Do we really know where conversation leads after hi? After that simple word, conversation is sparked, knowledge is gained, what you saw in the person is then brought to life. From the outside we can’t tell what the person likes or who the person likes. We don’t know if the person likes redheads, blondes, blue eyes, green eyes, gay, straight, bi. But through conversation all is made clear. The very thing that prevented you from approaching that person and saying hi suddenly lifts itself off your shoulders. Fear. Fear of rejection and disappointment. It suddenly becomes clear to you that the person is but a human just as you. And thus sparks discovery. Discovery of the other person as the person they are on the inside.

And of course, in worst case scenario. They don’t like you back. But think about it… What does “Hi” really give away? Do they know if you like them over just one word? So what if we worked up just enough courage to say “Hi”? Maybe I should take my own advice. Try it out. Like a test drive. Then maybe I too wouldn’t live a life single. It’s all in communication. The key to life and living.

First Day of School

Okay, so I’m currently sitting in my room on the second day of school trying to beat the clock and write this blog entry. We’ll see how well it does because I guarantee I won’t have any time this evening to write this post.

To start off, I need to address something from the summer. It’s that little pesky thing called exercise. I know that I said I was going to work out, and I did it two times more then I thought I would. But as predicted by many, I did not exercise and have gained weight. Still not fat, but not skinny anymore either. But rest assured I will work on it!

Alright, so now back to school. Yesterday was amazing. Seeing everyone in the same building at the same time. No scratch that… In the same 10 mile radius was fantastic. I miss all my friends and to see them again made my day. My new classes are exactly what I asked for. Effective, efficient, yet still fun and enjoyable. I would comment on every class, however that would seem listish and right now I don’t have the time for lists.

The funny has seemed to have gone away. Minus a few jokes here and there. Lunch was somewhat awkward. A ton of people at one table, but no real life to the party. In all due time I expect us to be back in order!

The freshman… Oh how I’m glad not to be a freshman any longer. Although I believe these freshman have a strong and exciting year ahead of them. With changes to the staff, and changes to how school is run in general. I believe they will experience freshman year the same, if not better then I did last year. (Even though I’m a sophomore this year, I won’t lie, freshman year was pretty awesome.)

Well that’s all I can think of as the clock keeps ticking and my time becomes less and less. I’m off to have a great day at school and enjoy the day ahead of me.

Sophomore Year Schedule

The long wait is finally over. My schedule has arrived and just in time! So I think it’s time to share. Below is my schedule for first and second semesters.

Course Title	Teacher	Semester
Latin I NCVPS	Unknown	1
Civics & Economics Honors	Niessner, Charles J	1
Directing (9-12)	Weise, Jeffery	1
Honors English II	Lashley, Victoria S	1
Sociology	Sutton, Jessica L	2
Honors Biology I	Henage, Lee G	2
Theatre Arts II	Robinson, Robert L	2
Geometry	Ruland, Marissa	2

Spiders! Oh My!

Okay, so it’s nearly midnight. I’m tired as can be, the alarm is set for me to wake up early to go to the beach, and I’m currently sitting here paranoid. What am I paranoid about? Well I was just down in my kitchen loosing my apatite while having a near death encounter with a brown recluse spider in my kitchen.

At the time of the incident I was happy, dancing around, and wondering why my dog has such gas problems. However as I neared the narrow passageway between my sink and my kitchen island I noticed a huge black dot on the floor of which moved closer to the sink. Curiosity killed the cat, and freaked out both the spider and myself as I grabbed my cell phone and used it as light. I turned on the screen, identified the object as a spider and jumped back.

My task from that point on was to rid the house of the spider. If I didn’t, well then I’d be even more paranoid then I am now that it will come up to my room. And I don’t really feel like screaming tonight. My exercise took out all my energy. So I grabbed a box from the near by trash area and tried getting the spider into the box. After many failed attemps at getting the spider into the box and instead scaring the spider away… I guess I finally pissed him off enough to where he attacked the box and went inside. Scared as I’ll get out I dragged the box to the door and threw it outside. It landed and tumbled over the patio before coming to a complete stop. And before you knew it, Mr. Spider was out and free in the wild again.

At the current moment I am talking to my friend Justin of whom is informing me that the spider was a brown recluse spider. A very poisonous breed of spider. He is also giving me other details of which I’m hoping are just to scare me even more and are all a lie.

None-the-less I’m off to find one of my cats, if not both of them, to sleep with me tonight and protect me from the unknown.

Workout Started, Two Months Late

It was just over two months ago that I sat at the lunch table at my small town High School and the words “I” and “workout” came out of my mouth in the same sentence. Laughter filled the air.

Well it’s two months after summer has began, and I’ve finally started working out. It was yesterday that I began. Working out feels good as progress is to be obtained over time and the rewards far greater then to continue gaining weight and eventually look like one of those fat men that just live for TV and football. However work is to be put into looking good. And a steady workout schedule too.

So from here on out it’s a matter of seeing if I stick to it and monitoring progress. Here is my height and weight as of today. Hopefully as time progresses we’ll see the weight area of this chart degrease.

Date	Weight	Height
08-08-09	167	5’ 9”
08-15-09	?	?

 

I’ll try and post progress weekly here on my blog among all the other insightful things found here. So for now I leave with the number below.

Chris Anthony + Redheads

If you are one of my friends, what is one thing you know about me? My love for BMWs? My passion for film? My bond between my old bulldog and I? Possibly my love for cities! Well you may know all that stuff… But you really don’t even have to be my friend to know that I love redheads!

I can’t explain my obsession with the red hair color. (Which is actually referred to as "Ginger" or "Auburn" hair.) It’s just something about me. Redhair isn’t but a hair color for me, but rather a highly desirable physical feature of which I am attracted to. No doubt in my mind recent articles relating attraction to biology and atmosphere are correct. I can’t control what I like. If I could… Who knows what possible things we would find attractive or how we could adjust our views of people.

Redhair for me is like finding a mans perfect supermodel girlfriend.

Her blonde hair, skinny body, and properly proportioned features attract the man. For me a redhead walking down the street with a shaggy messed up hair style and good taste in clothing does the same trick.

For example today I was in downtown Knoxville with family simply browsing the old city to reacquaint myself with the historic gem.

However upon leaving a small mom-and-pop coffee shop (unimpressive might I add) I happened to stumble upon an average height guy walking out of an office building. He was wearing clothing more suitable for work, a white oxford shirt and black dress pants. His skin tastefully tanned. Not baked. But not flushed of life. And then their was his hair. His red hair was perfect for the shaggy cut he wore. It was from the face and hair alone… I was sold.

It’s just how I am. What I see. Attraction. A biological and environmental mix of what one finds good looking. For me? Red hair does the trick.

OMG! Hair!

What one of the, well at least in my opinion, most important parts of my appearance! That’s right. It’s hair. And I’m just over one week away from the hair appointment that will define how my hair will look when school starts.

First, why so early for the hair appointment? I mean, school does start in a month. And

you know, your right. But I’m not a fan of the freshly cut hair look. It always looks too neat and too composed. The natural look of the shaggy hair style after it’s had time to grow into the style the artist created is the look I enjoy!

Second, what to expect? Well, in a month I want my hair to have the same style as the guy in the picture to the right of this paragraph. The style has more a more European root and is classy while at the same time showing a wild and crazy side.

The color is something that I’ve been fighting in my own mind for about a day or two now. I love the color in the picture, however I’m not sure if that’s the path I want to go down. My options would be to go back to my natural hair color, keep the red, or dye it the color in the picture.

So what’s next? Well to finish debating color in my head and hope for the best. My hair is going to be quite the challenge this go around considering the amount of damage it has from straightening and an incident I wish not to discuss.