I'm embarrassed of 2006. What a year it was supposed to be! Graduation, Cinthia, Zavy... so many golden opportunities I didn't take advantage of because I was so obsessed with my self pity and depression. What was so bad that made me hate life so much?

I guess I could ask that about my life now, really. What's so great and fantastic in my life that makes me happy every moment of every day? I'm not in school. I'm working a 30 hour a week job that pays just barely above minimum wage. I'm obsessed with World of Warcraft and my Shaman, Drogada. I just broke Corey's heart because I don't think we can work it out anymore. Mom and Dad are divorcing. Dad won't/can't stop drinking. I'm a raging pot head. But you know something? When I look over that list, I can't help but smile. Who cares? I could be so much worse off than I am now.

There are so many things in this world to be grateful for! The little things! An Eric Clapton song on the radio, a freshly packed bowl, an orc Shaman in Tier 9/9.5 gear, a phone call from my sweetheart who is 1,303 miles away, cold pizza for dinner, the fact that it hasn't snowed yet.... What is there to not love? I would in all honesty say that I'm worse off now than I was a few years ago, and I'm so much happier.

Who knows what's happened to me, but I'm positive that it's saved my life. :)

I'm lost and angry and sad and want to rampage from here to Australia. Will someone please save me?

Corey is gone.

So I obviously want to be.

I talked to my Mom about temporarily dropping out of school. She said, "You know you'll never go back." I thought I was more important than a piece of paper proclaiming my diligence for the past 6 years. I guess I was wrong.

-------------------

Dear God,

I'm so scared. For three years I've headed down the same road, and I assumed at the end would lead to great happiness. What happens when the end of the road isn't what you want anymore? And what about the path you've wandered down for a year and half and it abruptly ends? Do I sit on my suitcase and cry? Do I turn around and find another path? What if I like this path? Can I sit at the end and maybe if I stare at it long enough, it will expand? Do I pray?

Yes, I pray. I pray for you to take this pain, fear, doubt, anger.... away. I can't get away from any of it. Please God, I need such tremendous amounts of help, and you're really the only one who can sufficiently provide it.

Please help Corey too, as he is as lost as I am. I wish I had the answers. I wish he'd love me back. I wish I could absorb his pain and make it my own so that he could continue with life.... Someone told me today that that's what love is.

And I do. I love him so much. I honor him, adore him, love him, look up to him.

So hear my plea, Lord. Stitch this gushing wound closed. There are only so many hours in a day that I can cry before I totally break, and I feel that's all I do anymore is cry. Thinking about crying makes me cry.

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I cannot accept;
And the wisdom to know the difference.

...Please help me, God. If you're there....

A princess cut. Yes, absolutely. With white gold of course, as yellow gold is too conventional. Perhaps 3/4 of a carat if I'm lucky or maybe even a whole one!

It would be in October (again, or so I hope), with a costume party instead of a reception. Halloween has always been my favorite holiday. I would want a small get together for everyone in my party and my mother for a burn before the ceremony, and tell them how grateful I am to have them in my life. I'm not sure who it'll be yet though. Alison will be one. Tara will as well. Cinthia if she could make it. I can't really think of anyone else. I'd like them to wear a deep green. Or red?

But I will wear white. Something slimming and elegant and that will make me look glowing. Minimal make-up. I think I look better without it anyway.

Above and beyond that, I don't care. I don't care if we have dinner or a honeymoon or religion or gifts or flowers or how my hair looks or how he looks. None of it, do I give two shits about. All I care about is what the event means. The acknowledgment that there is another half to your orange and embracing it.

....Now can someone explain what the bloody fuck has come over me? When did I decide that I want to get married as soon as possible? I wish this were something I could talk to Corey about. I would like to know that we're on the same page. But I don't want to scare him.

I'm beginning to wonder if the only reason I'm in a rush is because I want to do this before he changes his mind and decide he doesn't love me.

This is the time of night that I have come to dread the most when I am at work. The laundry is done. I've vaccuumed (only once tonight so far), and the floor could use mopping, though guests haven't finished arriving yet. Coffee is made. Windows are washed, and the counters as well. I've finished my Adolescence homework and now.... I wait. I wait for Robert Kittel and Steven Mothersbaugh to arrive, bitch about the roads, sign the registration, take their keys.... then they leave, leaving me just as alone as I was before they arrived.

Oh how badly I want to smoke a bowl. Or have a beer. Or have entertainment.

Have you ever gone on the internet, and while you have the entire world wide web at your fingertips, just waiting for your command.... you realize that there is nothing that you want to see. You've exhausted the internet. It's a depressing realization.

What I'd really like to do is play WoW. A shocker of a sentence, I know. Having two relationships 'destroyed' by the game, and yet I play? I've modified that theory. The fact that they both played WoW was a coincidence. I have determined that it's not the game, but rather the player. Bottom line? Corey and Ben were assholes, and they really didn't deserve my time. Play your game, but you can kiss my ass goodbye before you sign in.

I need to pick up food for the cat. I also need to go to the NMC library and sign up to be a Spanish tutor so I can make some extra ka-ching. I need to clean out my car. I need to pay my DTE bill (which was absolutely astronomical this month). I need to cash my two paychecks, too. I need to read for Educational Psychology. Fuck commitment.

I do like answering room calls, though. People calling down, asking for information. It makes me feel useful and appreciated, which is what I lacked at my previous job.

Vegas was fun. Gambled a bit. Got drunk. Bought a new bowl. Bought some new clothes.... only thing I didn't do was get my Industrial.

Robert came. Left. Bitched about the roads. It's all typical. It's all systematic. Ah well. I like it here.

Here's a quick bitch about my ex-fiance.

He's a dick.

And that's pretty much the end of the story.

I hope when he kisses Lisa, he chokes on her huge buck-teeth.

I hope he's miserable for the rest of his days.

I hope his marriage fails, and his children die, and his house catches fire. Then I hope he loses his job.

But most of all, I hope he never hurts another girl the way he hurt me.

Oh... and by the way? He sucked dick in High School, and lots of it.

Secret's out, butt dumpling.

There is really only one thing that bothers me being in a relationship.

I love everything about Corey. There is nothing that I can find wrong with him. He is a wonderful man and provider, and I am proud to be at his side.

But I want to go away again. I want to go to school in Argentina again. Or maybe spend a semester in Spain. Or hell... maybe even spend a year attending university in New Zealand or Denmark. This world is huge, and there's so much I haven't gotten to explore yet.

I can't believe I'm saying this... but my only regret is trying to settle too fast. I succeeded in doing that, and it's not like I can just uproot my life and move it halfway across the globe like I did when I was 16. A life at 16 is not nearly as multi-faceted as it is when you're in your 20s. I have school, work (not quite at the moment...), a cat, a house, student loans, my boyfriend....

So it's really not his fault at all. I did this to myself. I'm 16 days shy of 21, and I am settled.

On the upside, today is our one year anniversary. And I've never been happier in my life.

This lesson plan has been designed to meet several criteria required by the State of Michigan in an Eighth Grade Language Arts curriculum. This is a creative writing project, which will evaluate the student’s ability to express themselves through written language with a variety of creative means.

In this plan, students will…
W.GN.08.01 write a cohesive narrative piece such as poetry, historical fiction, science fiction, or realistic fiction that includes appropriate conventions to genre employing literary and plot devices (e.g., narrator credibility, rising and falling actions and/or conflict, imagery and transitional language).
W.PR.08.02 apply a variety of pre-writing strategies for both narrative (e.g., graphic organizers designed to depict rising and falling actions, roles of minor characters, credibility of narrator) and informational writing (e.g., compare/contrast, cause/effect, or sequential text patterns).
W.PR.08.04 revise drafts for coherence and consistency in word choice, structure, and style; and read their own work from another reader’s perspective.
W.PR.08.05 proofread and edit writing using grade-level checklists and other appropriate resources both individually and in groups.
W.GR.08.01 in the context of writing, correctly use style conventions (e.g., Modern Language Association Handbook) and a variety of grammatical structures in compositions including infinitives, gerunds, participial phrases, and dashes or ellipses.
W.SP.08.01 in the context of writing use correct spelling conventions.
R.NT.08.02 analyze the structure, elements, style, and purpose of narrative genre including historical fiction, science fiction, and realistic fiction.
R.CS.08.01 evaluate the appropriateness of shared, individual and expert standards based on purpose, context, and audience in order to assess their own writing and the writing of others.

This is a week long assignment, running Monday to Friday, with a final draft due on the following Monday at the beginning of class. Each lesson time is approximately 55 minutes, however it can be expanded if desired.

Monday: Have students read “A Sound of Thunder” by Ray Bradbury as a weekend reading assignment. Begin the class by defining Science Fiction and explaining when and where it first surfaced. Open up discussion to the entire class and ask for responses to the weekend’s reading assignment. Did they like it? What did you like or dislike about the story? Is there any particular passage or event that you feel is noteworthy and would like to talk about? Ask if they need any help with vocabulary. After sharing input, ask what characteristics are distinct from the genres of Historical Fiction or Realistic Fiction. Use a Venn Diagram or other visual tool to organize ideas on the blackboard. Make sure to get insight from everyone in the class. Even the quiet ones have great ideas!

Introduce the creative writing assignment. Pass out the rubric to students and review it in class. It is at the discretion of the teacher whether or not to use former students work, however the author of this plan believes it is best to let the student start from scratch and create an original work instead of using someone else’s work as a guide. Also explain that you wish to have a follow-up paragraph written in response to their own story. Have them address difficult areas, what they believe their strong points are, or have them ask some questions to the reader.

If there is time remaining, it should be used brainstorming the story grammar they will be using in their Science Fiction narrative.

Tuesday: Open the class by asking students what strategies they use while writing a successful text. Explain that these answers will vary because we are all different. Just because Student G likes organizing information graphically doesn’t mean that Student L does. Pass out a variety of Information Organizer sheets, such as Venn Diagrams, tables, the five Ws, and cause/effect sheets. If the student has their own unique way to represent information, have them use it. Explain the importance of planning a story before you begin to write. Be sure to ask for input. Answer any questions

Wednesday: Have students read Isaac Asimov’s “The Fun They Had”, paired with another age appropriate Science Fiction text (I used a Science Fiction story I wrote) as homework. Open up the class to discussion and ask for feedback regarding the two stories. Today would be a great day to address the use of symbolism in Science Fiction. Explain the importance and prevalence of symbolism within the genre of Science Fiction. Later, ask the students to identify different symbols and define what role they could possibly play in the whole scheme of the story. Symbols don’t have to be only in the Science Fiction texts, but can also be drawn from previously read texts for class. Make sure they have sufficient support to make their claim.

Thursday: Two printed copies of the Rough Draft are due at the beginning of class. One goes to the teacher, while the other goes stays in the student review circle. Explain that today will be devoted to peer review and in class drafting/editing of their story. Each student should have a different colored writing utensil. Address any expectations you have for a constructive peer review.

Have the students organize into groups of no more than four. Have the students take turns reading and editing the rough draft. By the end of the class, each student must write a short paragraph to the author about their essay. This paragraph should address what is ‘good’, what needs improvement, and any additional feedback they feel is needed. Emphasize tactfulness and constructive criticism! Have students focus on “I” statements like “I was confused by this part…” as opposed to “You didn’t write this part clearly”.

Friday: If any student is having a hard time with their story, invite them to have a private chat with you. Poll the students. If the majority would like to use today’s class time to work on their story, then give them the time. Any students who feel they do not need time may circulate the room and help their fellow students, read silently, or use the time as a ‘study period’. If the students pass on the opportunity to work on their project in class, then an alternative lesson can be prepared by the teacher.


RUBRIC:

Idea Development
0 pts Nothing turned in, or nothing attempted
1 pt Ideas are hard to distinguish, or hard to seperate. Too many words or too few ideas.
2 pts Ideas are present, but not well developed. Supported by some detail but not sufficient.
3 pts Ideas are well developed and supported by sufficient detail.
4 pts Ideas are well developed and supported by exemplary details.
Organization
0 pts Nothing turned in, or nothing attempted
1 pt Form is obvious, but not entirely correct. Ideas are scattered throughout with no real coherence.
2 pts Form is obvious but not entirely correct. Most ideas are grouped together but there are some that stray.
3 pts Correct form is used. Ideas grouped together with only a few minor mistakes.
4 pts Correct form is used. Form enhances the writing. Ideas are grouped together for greated meaning.
Conventions
0 pts Nothing turned in, or nothing attempted
1 pt 8 or more mistakes per page.
2 pts 5-7 mistakes per page.
3 pts 4 mistakes per page.
4 pts 0-3 mistakes per page.
Word Choice
0 pts Nothing turned in, or nothing attempted
1 pt Strong words or descriptions are used sparingly. They are used incorrectly, or are not clear to the audience or the purpose.
2 pts Occasionally strong words and/or descriptions are used but they are not clear to the audience or the purpose of the work.
3 pts Strong words and descriptions used. Some words are above average and used appropriately throughout the work.
4 pts Strong words and descriptions throughout. Words are above average, and used appropriately throughout the work.
Sentence Fluency
0 pts Nothing turned in, or nothing attempted
1 pt Sentences do not vary, or relate from one to another. There are few transitions.
2 pts Few sentences vary in length. Few transitions between sentences, paragraps and ideas.
3 pts Sentences vary somewhat in length. Some transitions between sentences, paragraphs, and ideas.
4 pts Sentences vary in length. Transitions link sentences, paragraphs, and ideas. Sentences enhance the structure of the work.
Presentation
0 pts Nothing turned in, or nothing attempted
1 pt Font, spacing, text, and graphics are not appropriate for the text.
2 pts Font, spacing, text, or graphics are not completely appropriate for the text.
3 pts Correct font, spacing, text, and graphics are included as requestion but not completely appropriate at all times
4 pts Correct font, spacing, text, and graphics are included as requested and enhance the work.