Bullet

Fear crawled at my throat as I paced the hospital floors. White tiles that were too clean to be in this building. A building where sadness surrounds the place making people fiddle in their seats and jump when the emergency doors open.  Nurses and doctors were running around, yelling orders at people who needed help. Blood and rubble covered some of the patients making them look like a three-year-old splashed paint on them. Parents sitting in the uncomfortable chairs staring at the wall with worried looks on their faces. I couldn’t even pause to clean up, blood covered my hands and face, dirt covered me entirely. Running through the school’s hallowed halls to the busy hospital to get help had been tiring. I don’t even think I could catch my breath yet. My hands ran through my greased up hair. Pieces of ceiling tile and cardboard fell helplessly to the floor. Screams fill my head as I remembered what had taken place. Gunshots, screams, diving under the library table. Copper, the smell filled my nostrils and my throat closed up and filled with bile. Her blood. I started pressing my hands against my ears. Make the noise stop. Please make it stop.

Do you love me?

The hard chairs scattered as I tripped and fell in front of the trash bin. My stomach now empty.  Seventeen years in that school and nothing like this has ever happened before. A senior. We were about to graduate in a few months. We were both making the leap to attend Stanford. A fresh new start in a new world. She didn’t need to be hurt. I didn’t want to carry her here to the hospital only to have her stolen away by the medical people. I don’t know where she is. Where is she!?

I don’t know. I’ve never been in love before.

Nobody knew the guys who walked into the school. They were older though. Twenty or twenty-five. I don’t know. It was probably completely random. She was chosen at random to be shot. Who the hell does that? I swallowed. And again. I didn’t want to repeat the routine of emptying the contents of my stomach. My hand came up to touch my chest to relieve the pain residing there when something cold came into contact with my hand. Round and silver. Engraved with the number fourteen. She had given the necklace to me on our anniversary. Our number. The pendent was cold. Too cold.

Well, I love you.

There were shoes standing beside me that I didn’t notice before. Who was it? I looked up and saw a white coat. Oh a doctor. Her doctor! My eyes blurred as I saw his mouth talking. My ears were ringing. Squinting I tried to read his lips. I’m sorry. Face burning with fire as I felt tears course down my cheeks. An acid that I had no control over spilling from their sockets. Something was placed in my hand, round, cold, probably as cold as her. No, she would always be warm. She was a good-hearted person, a giver. A necklace with fourteen diamonds in a circle, a never-ending life, a life to be forever lived out in happiness. A promise to always love her forever. 

So I wrote this on whim on day and finally today I've decided that I would publish this on my blog. Those who read this, if you would ever be so kind to leave something for me whether on Facebook or my Twitter about what you thought. Critique it. This is the only way I know how to get feedback on something I wrote and how to use it to make me a better writer overall. 

Thanks :) 

Oi London

Friday morning our little group loaded onto a coach and we headed to London. Now I've always wanted to live in London since I was younger. The city seemed like the perfect thing for me. Well I don't so much think that anymore. Don't get me wrong I loved the city and my shins are stronger for it but it's a bit too big for my taste. I'd honestly live in Edinburgh, Scotland instead of London. I fell in love with Scotland and the sights surrounding it.

We arrived in London after a 3 hour drive. I slept and listened to my Ipod. It was great. We ended up having to walk a block to get to our hostel and so we arrived we started the process of checking into the hostel. Some of our rooms weren't ready to move into and of course mine and Natasha's wasn't ready. Go figure. We placed our bags in Mark's room so we didn't have to carry them around everywhere.

For London they gave us 50 pounds and an oyster card. An oyster card is a card that we can use in London for the tube instead of buying a ticket every time. It was wonderful to not have to worry about that one thing. After the hostel, Emert decided to take us to Westminster by way of using the tube. At first I was nervous but eventually the tube came naturally to me. Once we arrived in Westminster the first thing we saw was the London Eye and we first heard Big Ben chime for 11 o'clock. It was wonderful.

We split up after this and a few of us decided to take a boat tour that traveled up and down the Thames River. We saw almost every major landmark in London on that trip. We disembarked at Greenwich which we went our separate ways. Natasha, Nikki, and I went to a Mexican restaurant where I had my first margarita. I thought the restaurant wouldn't be authentic, but everything was, even my drink. Very strong.

After the wonderful meal we decided to jump on the tube and head north to Kings Cross Station. Home of platform 9 and 3/4. Maneuvering the tube was a bit difficult at first but we figured in out in time. When we arrived at King's Cross...it was a mess. It seems everywhere in London there was construction. Apparently they were remodeling the whole entire tube and train station in King's Cross. So of course we had a difficult time of location 9 and 3/4. We asked a gentleman and he told us that they moved it outside the main entrance of the train station. As you can see from my pictures that it wasn't worth the trip to the station seeing as how it's fake. The brick and everything. It was disappointing but at least I can say that I've been to King's Cross.

We decided to head back to where our hostel was located and before we decided to grab dinner we took a walk through Kensington Gardens. The place was beautiful. One of our main goals was to find the Princess Diana fountain. And let me tell you it was hard! Eventually we found it and there were many people surrounding it. The fountain was beautiful and had only been open for a handful of years. After this we met a man who was celebrating her birthday which happened to be that day. We talked to him for a while and got a picture with him which I found slightly funny.

We headed back to the hostel and tried to find a small restaurant or cafe where we could get something to eat. We found the nice little cafe/deli where the owner was so nice. We ate there and the food was delicious. Afterwards we went back to the hostel and passed out.

On Saturday we woke up early and headed out to the London Eye where we all had tickets. Being in the Ferris wheel was really scary, with the whole being up so high thing, but eventually I got over that and took pictures. After the eye we were allowed to split apart again and The three Musks (Nikki, me and Natasha) headed to Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament, and the Tate Britain, which was a museum. After this we tried finding a tube but the two we went to were closed for maintenance. Which sucked. We finally found one that was open and headed towards Buckingham Palace.

At Buckingham Palace the gates were closed and we missed the time when the Changing of the Guards took place, so really there was nothing to see there besides the Palace. After Buckingham we decided to head back to the hostel and we stopped to get food at that Deli and headed back to the hostel to eat and wait for one of Natasha's friends to come over. When she left we decided to head to bed.

Role Model

I’ve never really been involved in my community especially when I moved to college in Muncie, Indiana. At first I was all for getting to know new people and joining new groups at school but I guess I was just lazy and never took the initiative. About four months ago I started watching The Vampire Diaries on the CW Network and I was instantly hooked. Not just because of the plot but also because of the wonderful and believable acting it provided.

Now I was already following Ian Somerhalder on Twitter but never really paid attention to what he discussed with his fans. After following The Vampire Diaries for a week on television I decided to pay attention. This man isn’t just a movie actor. He’s going to change the world someday. With his foundation, Ian Somerhalder Foundation, he makes a difference in this country.

The IS Foundation is, “a group of people who view the environment as an interconnected organism of which we are not separate but a part of.” They have many different areas of focus that include but are not limited to Habitat, Environment, and Animals. Recently IS Foundation is starting a campaign called, “Let’s Get Dirty” where, as stated on TVGuide.com that Ian Somerhalder along with his Foundation and more than 2,000 schools will rally others to clean their local communities.

“If you were to pick up all the trash in one day by mobilizing hundreds of thousands of people to clean everything up, then we’re basically going to do in one day what the government would do in three years and spend millions of dollars of tax payers’ money doing,” he states to TVGuide.com in a recent article on their website.

Along with him giving interviews his tweets are getting out there in the world. He tweets about his filming on The Vampire Diaries but he also tweets about all the happenings in the world and how this is affected our everyday lives. He’s very dedicated to his fans and that’s why I consider him a person that very well might change how people live in this world.

He’s one of the reasons I want to become involved in my community and how at this moment I’m trying to do my best in keeping my environment clean and helping out at animal shelters. Thank you Ian for being a great influence.

A Dream Come True

I decided to keep this blog open when I traveled to London. I wanted my family to stay connected to me even though I was many miles and an ocean away from them. I don't regret going to England. I only regret that I couldn't have been able to stay there longer.

Out of all those days there's one I remember clearly. From some of my past blog you can tell I'm obsessed with Harry Potter and I'll forever be obsessed. As you know London was where the film was made and there was other cities involved too. The last Harry Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II was to be premiered while I was in Worcester. After so much planning me and three other people were able to skip class on that Thursday and to to London to see the premiere of Harry Potter. The red carpet actually. I was freaking thrilled.

To this day my heart pounds harder and faster when I think about all the stars that I grew up watching walk around in front of me. That they're actually 'real'. I just want to scream in happiness right now but I can imagine that not going well during my professional writing class. To this day I haven't posted the pictures on Facebook because honestly I just want to keep them to myself.

On thing that I wanted to happen when I was there is that I wanted to see Alan Rickman. One of my favorite actors, I wanted him to show up that day, just so I could see him. I was already mad at Tom Felton because he always shows up early and I showed up 10 minutes after it started and he had already gone through. I was just there in time to take one picture of him. I wasn't able to get into the fenced area because I couldn't very well camp out for five days before. I had class to attend but I would have if I could have.

Anyway I remember hitting Sid so hard because I saw Alan Rickman show up. I was super excited. Too excited. Ah!!! I could scream now but I can't. I was so happy I was able to see the stars of Harry Potter one time before their last hurrah! It was the experience of a lifetime and I was so happy to be there for it. Since I'm writing about this I'm going to post a couple pictures of the premiere on this blog.

Why Books?

When I was a little girl I wouldn't go near a book with words to save my life. I remember my mom trying to get me to read in school but for the life of me I would not do it. Reading was stupid, reading was boring and there was no point in reading a book that didn't have any pictures. The day I started reading books I was forever hooked. Hooked in a world where fantasies are brought to life and my dream lover is with me. The very first book I remember reading for pleasure and not for school is Harry Potter. JK Rowling started the love I have for books.

It's honestly why I'm obsessed with Harry Potter and why I plan eventually to get a tattoo revolving around the wizarding world. I grew up with it and it will forever remain in my life.

My grandmother had asked my mom if I wanted a Kindle or a Nook one year for Christmas. The first words out of my mother's mouth was No. I don't want a Kindle. One of my future dreams has been wanting a library in my future home where it'll be covered, wall to wall in books. Kinda like Beauty and the Beast, the library Beast gifts to Bell.

When I go look for books to buy whether at the book store or a hand-me down garage sale I'm very particular in what I buy. I love the paperback and hardback, mostly paperback. When I'm in an actual bookstore it's almost like a kid in a toy store. They want everything. Well I want everything. Feeling the pages full of words that somebody took probably a year to write. For their fans or even to survive the world.

I want to become an author. I feel more connected with the author knowing that the finished project in my hand is something they spend hours upon hours on. I have the finished product that they had pictured in their head. When you're writing a novel, for me anyway, I don't picture the final project being a website or without a binding. I picture holding the three hundred page novel in my hand where I've spent probably hours trying to pick out the novel cover, making sure my picture looks right on the back. It's just not the same when you read it on a Kindle or a Nook.

Another benefit that I love about actually purchasing the book is the look on your bookshelf. If you follow an author's books and you keep them in order on your shelf it just looks cool. I mean I have graphic novels and those would not work on a Kindle.

Another example to why having the real thing is awesome. I don't know what a Kindle or Nook does so I can't say I do. But one thing that I love about having the book there with me is that you can exchange them. My best friend and I swap books all the time. He wanted to read a book I owned and I wanted a book of his. If you wanted to do this on Kindle would you just have to exchange Kindle's?

I don't know if this explains why I would rather have the real book or not, this might just be rambling in my head but I know deep down in my heart I would want to have the binding in my hands, the smell of a new book just bought. I didn't grow up with an electronic book in my hand and neither will my kids. History has always been found in book and my imagination will forever be fueled by the feel of the pages and the smell of a new book just printed.

"If you prick us, do we not bleed?"

Wednesday came to me with mucho things to do. If I was a normal student I would have slept in till eleven but alas I had to be up at nine to meet people at 9:30 am. A group of us walked to Worcester Forgate Street (the train station near us) to buy tickets to go to London on July 7th. Missy me is officially going to the Red Carpet premiere of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II. I'm super excited about this. I'm keeping my hopes up and hopefully they won't be shot down so suddenly.

At noon on Wednesday we boarded the coach that would take us to Stratford-upon-Avon. The birthplace of Shakespeare. I love Shakespeare and most of his plays. My favorite, of course, is Romeo and Juliet. Although when they showed examples of the movie they used the modern version of Romeo and Juliet with Leonardo in it which annoyed me. I don't like that version. Stratford is very tiny, city wise. I'll bet anything Stratford is smaller than Ball State's campus. Even one of Sid's friends, Tom, agreed with that statement.

Our first stop on this trip was the birthplace of Shakespeare himself. A museum of sorts. We saw some of the homelife stuff that came from the house and maybe from his daughter's house. We also walked through a remodeled version of his home, his real location of the home is at another museum called 'the Dig'. The reason for this is because the real house collapsed many years ago and archeologists continue to dig for history of his early life.

When we exited the house there were 3 actresses in old time dresses acting out scenes from Shakespeare's plays. They were amazing. I couldn't imagine memorizing all those plays and performing them in the heavy dresses in the hot weather. After this we headed towards the Church which held Shakespeare's remains and the remains of his family and other important people. We walked through town and even some of the parks, which were beautiful. Walking along the river was also an experience.

We made it to the church and just like normal churches it had stained glass window and pews that would be used to have an actually mass. I definitely took pictures of everything and they had posters that displayed and described Shakespeare's birth, wedding, death, funeral and so on. They were an interesting read. Shakespeare was buried next to his daughter and his wife , I can remember.

Walking through the city we saw many sites. We stopped at the 'Dirty Duck', which is a pub where celebrities were often seen after hours. In one room there were a bunch of pictures that had some of the pictures and autographs of some celebrities that stopped in for a drink. After the pub we needed to go to the restaurant where we would get dinner. Fish and Chip. :)) Yum. We stopped along the way at a milkshake place called 'Moo Moos' They probably had a million different Milkshakes. Definitely too many to memorize and name here.

We ate fish and chips and then we had about an hour to kill before the play we were seeing that night. So a few of us walked to the theatre and sat by the river. As soon as we sat down a swan started making it's way towards us. It was freaking scary. Luckily it stayed in the water like we hoped and just decided to sit there. The next time we looked up we noticed about 50 swans heading in our direction. Scary. But they ended up swimming by a ways but there were still a few that hung around.

We watched the Merchant of Venice that night in the theatre. Patrick Stewart (the guy from Star Trek) played Shylock in the play, so it was pretty exciting to see that and a celebrity in front of me. Thank goodness I knew who he was. It was rather funny seeing him meow and snort. Bahaha. The play was a modern form of the play. It was okay but not my favorite. After the play we headed back to Worcester and we passed out. I was exhausted.

I would walk 500 miles...

I am finally back home from Scotland and let me tell you, it's been a rough ride. Starting with last Tuesday when we decided to book this trip and all it cost us was a ton of stress and money but either way we were going to Scotland which made me happy. Our train left from Worcester and 10:24 AM and we were heading to Birmingham to catch our next train. Taking the train was an experience for me and I loved every minute of it. We had an hour wait in Birmingham until our next train left and decided to get something to eat. After lunch we boarded our next train which would take us to Edinburgh. This freaking train ride was 4 hours long but I slept for some of it. Not comfortably but still slept which was good.

Finally after a creaked neck and my feet asleep we arrived in Edinburgh where we left the train station and were officially lost. We happened to be smack dab in the middle of the city and we just decided to walk to find someplace that would have tourist information that would be somewhat helpful. We didn't know how to find our hostel and we had till 6 o'clock to check in, which put us on a time limit. After many searches and some blonde moments we found the information center which gave us directions and we took off towards the hostel.

The city in itself is absolutely beautiful. I love all the structures and the city life during the day. It just makes everything more fun and exciting. We were walked for about 25 minutes and where we thought the hostel would be...it wasn't. So again we walked into a Baskin Robins and asked for directions. Apparently we turned left instead of right (don't ask me how we didn't know) so we turned around and headed the proper way. We made it to the hostel and walked into reception.

Problem number one: (or I guess two if you count us getting lost) apparently our reservations were booked for July and not June. So of course we didn't have a room. The guy at the counter did have one opening that night that had three beds and he thankfully said he could put a mattress on the floor for us to sleep on if we wanted it. Of course we took it. He was very friendly, as was everybody in that city. We moved into our room and took a breath. One down. The only problem we had now was we didn't have a place to stay Saturday night. Our plan was to stop at all the hostels we passed as we walked through town to see if there were any opening and of course there wasn't. We were homeless for Saturday.

Later that night we walked down the main strip and went shopping and ate dinner at this wonderful burger place and decided to call it a night because we were exhausted. We decided to wake up early and check our then get on the computer to check if there were any cancellations. Of course there weren't. There was a woman, her name is Dee, she worked at the hostel and was talking to us. She saw that we were looking for a room and she said she would try and help. She called the hotel that she worked at, bar tending, and she called to see if there were any rooms. This wonderful woman who is our savior found us all beds in the hotel. We officially love her.

We dropped our bags off at the hotel and they told us that four boys had just dropped their reservations right when Dee called and he gave us their last beds. It was awesome. We couldn't check into the hotel until 2 PM so we decided to do more shopping. Heading back to the hotel we decided to do one of the tours at 3 PM that would take 3 hours but everything was very informative. After we checked in we decided to take a bus that would take us to the meeting place of this tour. After waiting at a bus stop for like 20 minutes, little me saw a sign that said that the bus stop was closed. Really? So we continued to walk down to the next stop and catch that bus. We arrived at the spot where the tour was to take place 25 minutes last. Poor us missed it. It was the last tour of the day.

We decided to do our own little tour. Yay! We saw a tower called the Tron Kirk. Awesome name, isn't it?? Well I thought so anyway. We traveled up and down the Royal Road where almost everything is in Scotland worth seeing. We watched a 3D half hour film of the mysterious Loch Ness Monster, called Nessie. I believe in her. After that we headed up the road and came to the Edinburgh castle. It was absolutely beautiful and too wonderful for these crappy adjectives. We walked around the massive thing looking at the history behind it, and I do have pictures so everything works out. The only thing I couldn't take a picture of was the jewels (the crown and scepters) and the Scotland War Memorial Building. Lovely.

We headed back to our hotel where Dee was working and we decided to have a drink and dinner. I had a chicken salad that was the best salad I've had in my life. Yum! After dinner we kept drinking and just having a good time in the bar. Dee was working the bar, Colin was managing, and Michael was a funny Scotsman. These people were amazing. After a while these two elderly ladies came in all dresses up and fancy looking. Apparently they just finished visiting and shaking hands with Prince Charles! I thought it was so cool. They had pictures they showed us and everything.

When it was close to midnight us girls decided to finish our drinks and head to bed. We had gotten pictures with everybody and I tried many new drinks. I had and Illusion which was blue and so good. Then Colin suggested a drink that you had to have a pitcher of, so Nikki, Natasha, and I shared. It was milk, baileys, kahlua, and a vanilla drink. It tasted like chocolate/coffee milk. It was soooooo good. Before we went to bed Colin wanted to give us a goodbye shot which was on the house and him and Michael decided to drink with us. I had my first shot that was lit on fire. It was absolutely brilliant. After this we decided to call it a night and headed off to bed.

Now we were in a room with 9 beds and we had 4 of them. We fell asleep and woke up with all the beds full. They were guys :)) They were very nice and were very helpful. And to top it off very cute which was a bonus. :))

So when we left we shopped some more and headed to our train. We're finally back in Worcester and as much as I love Scotland and could live there one day, I'm happy to be back in my flat.

TTYL!