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.