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Friday, 05 February 2010

  • Things like this don't happen here.

    One of the most common phrases you will hear from the mouth of any teenager living here is,
    "Nothing exciting ever happens here!"
    Today, we all wanted to eat those words.
    Like most terrifying situations, the details revealed themselves slowly, mostly through poorly-hidden texting and sneaking on the internet.
    The first thing I heard was, "There was a shooting at ______ Middle School!" from the girl sitting next to me in my Computer Applications class.
    To say that a million thoughts were running through my head would be a gross understatement.
    One of the first thoughts to enter my head was, "I was there two years ago. That could have been me."
    After finishing a long list of assignments, I hurried to Google to find out what happened. The girls sitting on either side of my leaned in to see the details. A few words jumped off the page:
    9th-grade boy.
    15.
    shot in the back of the head.

    Our teacher saw what we were looking at and sternly told us to get off the internet.
    The moments that followed were the most confusing of them all.  We couldn't process what was going on, so we did what many people do in times of crisis: we joked and laughed and played games. I laughed more in that class than I had laughed in what felt like forever. Then suddenly, one of us in the middle of one of our laughing fits, would stop and suddenly recall things she had/said done earlier that day and people she knew going there and the laughter abruptly ceased.
    Somewhere during this emotional rollercoaster, the bell rang.
    The hallways were buzzing with whispered "Did you hear?"s.
    I sped to meet my friends in the band room.
    Everyone had a different story for how they found out and their reactions to the news, but there was a new common phrase amongst my classmates,
    "How could this happen here?!"
    We live in an upperclass, predominatly white suburban town in Alabama.
    Things like this don't happen here.
    Not only that, but it happened at the "better" of the two middle schools.
    No. Things like this don't happen here,
    but is the truth is
    they do
    and they did,
    which brings us all to another question:

    What now?

    shoot2

     

     

    .::edit::. February 6, 2010 7:33 P.M.

    When I first wrote this entry, we did not know a lot of details.
    We have since found out that it was a 14-year-old 9th grader.
    Unfortunately, he did not make it.
    I don't think it really hit me until today when I saw his family, his classmates, and his teammates break down and cry. It's absolutely heartbreaking and I will never understand.
    Rest in Peace

Tuesday, 02 February 2010

  • Blast Off!!!

    I live in a town very close to Huntsville, Alabama, home of the Space and Rocket Center.

    Almost everyone in my town works for NASA.
    Most people in this town are very well-off, so they have always believed that poor people are simpletons who blatantly refuse to do anything with their lives.
    Lately, there has been talk of Obama cutting the space program.
    Obviously, this has created quite the uproar in my town.
    Outburts in the classroom, status updates giving the president new names, and anything else you can imagine.
    I don't really think they're only scared of losing their jobs and falling below their standard of living.
    I think the people here are truly, truly afraid that they're going to become the people they have condemned for
    so
    l o n g .

Monday, 01 February 2010

  • I caught my turn-around sabre toss today.
    To some, that means nothing.
    To me, it means so many things :)
  • If you Google the words, "comfort zone quotes," a list of websites will come up with just that.
    Every single one of those quotes either warns of the dangers of being held prisoner of this zone and/or urges the reader to take a chance and leap.
    But what if you're living outside of your comfort zone?
    Where it seems like most people's beliefs and values are completely different from your own?
    Is it really so bad to just want to be back among people who don't think what you believe is completely crazy?
    I hope not because, if so, I am a bad, bad person.



Friday, 29 January 2010

Wednesday, 27 January 2010

  • The more time I spend with people I like, the more begin I dislike them.
    The more time I spend with people I dislike, the more they start to grow on me.

    I don't mind.

Friday, 22 January 2010

  • Who cares about Haiti?

    There are more important matters at hand.

    I realize that this is a big deal to some, but seeing as how I didn't really watch the Tonight Show with either of the hosts, maybe my opinion doesn't matter. Sure, it was a good story and all, but I don't think the whole NBC v. Conan thing should have taken precedence over things like a 7.0 earthquake rendering a country helpless. Of course, as one kid in my class said after finding out after a plane crashed in our town, "I mean, really? Who cares? Awful things happen everyday." Great philosophy.
    The way I see it, things will never be okay until Jimmy Fallon is off the air.
    He reminds me of a chihuahua on crack.

    I'm trying to care about this TV thing, but I simply cannot. "/

    .::edit::.

    Why Conan O'Brien Should Write for Cracked

    Just thought this was interesting.

     

Thursday, 21 January 2010

  • No Good Deed

    Today, I was nicer to people than I've been in a very long time.
    My usual aversion to eye contact with any other human being was replaced with a genuine, toothy grin.
    I didn't even sarcastically mock people, which is very uncharacteristic of me.
    And how does Mother Nature decide to repay me?
    By punching me in the face...with a rifle.
    Maybe I should explain.

    Long story short, I'm in Winter Guard.
    It's basically Color Guard except 300x as intense.
    Today, we had one of our many practices slight torture sessions.
    We ran, we did push-ups, crunches, the whole she-bang.
    Finally, it came time for equipment. We did our flag warm-up and then it was time for this kid:

     

    Yeup. It's basically a hunk of wood that someone throws willy-nilly all over the place.
    We did multiple excercises with our rifle. Then, we came to the final part of our rifle warm-up: a single parallel.
    Whatever. I had been doing this move since the summer before my sophomore year. No biggie.
    The butt of the rifle rested on my shoulder, I let go, it twirled in the air, and
    WHAM!
    My eye throbbed. The first thought that came to my head was, "Aw, I'm gonna have a black eye."
    This worry quickly vanished when I heard the words, "Um, Mrs. _______, she's bleeding."
    WHAT THE--?!
    I sprinted for the bathroom with tears and blood spilling down my face.
    Of course, having seen too many movies in my lifetime, the main thought running through my head was, "I'm going to go BLIND! NOOOOO!"
    When I got into the restroom, I pulled my gloved hand away.
    Red.
    I looked in the mirror. There was a huge gash beneath my eye. All of this time, I though movies were exaggerating with their bloody effects, but--let me tell you--they're not. I'll spare you the gory details, but I swear, it looked fake. Luckily, I reached my mom via telefono and got to the nearest clinic to get some kind of medical superglue on the cut. It stings, but I'm fine. Besides, Mumsy got me ice cream.
    021
    Get me some Ben and Jerry's or I will break your face.

    Unfortunately, all of this led to me having to miss my school's college fair. In all honesty, I was more upset by the fact that I shed a few tears. Silly, I know, but I am not a fan of crying in front of others. In addition to all of that, my new gloves and one of my favorite shirts are now bloodied (which is why I'm wearing a ridiculous Santa Smiley shirt). However, I must say that the most pathetic part of this whole ordeal is that fact that the entire time it was happening, all I could think was,
    "Oh, I am so gonna blog about this."

Monday, 18 January 2010

  • The Content of Your Character

    Every year since I could remember, my family has taken me to this breakfast on MLK Day.
    My sentiments towards the program have changed over the years. When I was younger, all I really cared about was the food. The tasty, tasty food. Namely, the biscuits and jelly. Later on, I was more concerned about who would be sitting at our table. At first, it was my friends who I was excited to see. In more recent years, I was practically giddy to see what hilarious and sarcastic remarks my cousin had to say about some of the performers and whatnot. Of course, the speakers were always very good, but I couldn't in all honesty tell you that's why I wanted to go.

    Why did I want to go this year, you ask?
    I'd like to tell you that my intentions were honorable, but that would be a bold-faced lie.
    My main reason for wanting to go this year was because I found out who our speaker was:

    That's right. The dad from Sister, Sister was going to be speaking here!
    Who cared about what he had to say? He was a celebrity! A celebrity!
    Bragging rights, anyone?

    However, as we arrived at the program and the actual service commenced, I realized something:
    He's just a guy. A regular, everyday guy. His being a celebrity didn't make him any less human.
    When he started his speech, though. Things changed. I realized that he was a phenomenal speaker with a phenomenal message. Without realizing it, he embodied the message he was trying to get the youth of today to realize. A lot of the people who are considered celebrities today lack a very, very important thing: character.
    If I recall correctly, a very inspirational man once said: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."
    Can we really say today that the people we look up to have mounds of character?
    More people I know are concerned with having everyone love them whether it be through fame or...no, it's pretty much just fame, instead of being concerned with what they can do for people.
    Of course, this is not just them. It's me. Obviously, since I only cared about the man's name and the celebrity attached to it, not what he had to say, I had fallen into the beckoning "Me! Me! Me!" trap.
    Not only people of my color but also people of my gender fought so long and so hard to ensure that I could do anything I wanted in life. I have a feeling that becoming famous via YouTube wasn't one of their main hopes for me in the future. Maybe we're too scared or maybe we just don't realize how much influence we have on the world today. As Leo Tolstoy stated, "Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself."
    The change starts with us. Right now.
    Not tomorrow, not in a week, not in a year.
    Right.
    Now.



  • What is your favorite major news channel; CNN, MSNBC, or Fox News? Why?


    Does Comedy Central count?


    I want to marry this man and have beautiful mixed babies.

    Seriously, though.
    I don't watch the news like I used to because it was just starting to piss me off.
    During the election last year, I tried to watch as many different stations as possible in an attempt to see all sides of the stories, but then I felt like Fox was getting kind out of hand with its accusations.
    Now, in addition to that lovely man up there , I tend to get news from online sources
       

    I just answered this Featured Question; you can answer it too!

BroadwayBound93

  • Visit BroadwayBound93's Xanga Site
    • Name: Michaela
    • Country: United States
    • State: Alabama
    • Birthday: 2/26/1993
    • Gender: Female
    • Member Since: 1/5/2005
    • True

About Me

  • Hey. I'm Michaela. I'm 16. I make weird faces, but I think yours is fantastic. *I'm working on changing my username. It seemed like a great idea in my 11-year-old mind.*

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