Happy Fourth of July!

Hello everyone, and Happy Independence Day! I hope everyone is having a wonderful Summer so far. I've been taking a much-needed break from my blog lately, as you may have noticed. I would tell you I've been busy, but that's not true since all I've really been doing is watching Psych and reading Artemis Fowl. I really just needed a bit of a vacation from my blog. But I'm back now, so hopefully I'll get back to my regular blogging schedule! I wish you all a happy Fourth of July, and enjoy your weekend!

Random Writing

Hi everyone! I'm sorry I missed last Friday's post. My final English project was due that weekend, and I had to spend a lot of time working on it. But I'm back now!

And I have nothing planned. Again.

Well, I was taking a look around my blog the other day, and I realized it could probably use some cleaning up. I haven't been updating my Writing and Sketchbook pages as often as I should be, but I'm definitely putting that on my list for the summer.

Let's see, are there any interesting stories I can tell you? ...Nope, sorry. Other than finals this week, I've been working with the role-play writing club in my school so that we can finish up our story for this year, I've been watching an unhealthy amount of Warehouse 13 and Doctor Who, and I've been writing a lot.

I suppose, then, I could share some of my writing with you. It has been a while, after all. Not all of these are my best work, but they're some things I've been working on recently. Enjoy!

Silent Stories - A poem (?) that takes place in a library. Poetry isn't my forte, but I feel like this one turned out pretty well.
Solitary - This is one of longer things I've written lately. It's a dystopia where people have been forced to live alone to stop the spread of contagious diseases.
Your Imaginary Friend - A short story written from the perspective of a child's imaginary friend. I still have to go through this and edit it a bit, but it's one of the most recent things I've written and I thought I'd share it.

Well, this post turned out to more random than anything else, but hey, I did post! Anyway, I'll be back next Friday! Until then!

Singers with Amazing Voices

As you've probably noticed from reading my blog, I really like listening to music. The other day, I was thinking and I was trying to figure out who my favorite vocalists are, and so I compiled a list. Not all of them are sing lead, but all of them have amazing voices, and their music is really worth checking out!

(On an extremely coincidental note, I'm watching The Five on TV and they're doing a segment on their favorite singers. Weird, right?)

Jen Ledger
Band(s): Skillet
Notable Songs: "Salvation," "Fire and Fury," "Hero," and "Yours to Hold [Live]"
While Jen isn't the lead vocalist for Skillet (John Cooper is), she has contributed her beautiful voice to many Skillet's songs. She normally plays the drums, but since she joined the band in 2008, she has sung on more than ten different songs. She is an incredible drummer as well, which is especially noticeable at Skillet's live shows.
She's also British. 

 


Stephen Christian
Band(s): Anberlin, Anchor & Braille
Notable Songs: "Alexithymia," "Self-Starter," "City Electric," and "Readyfuels"
Stephen has been the lead vocalist for Anberlin since it was founded in 2002, and for his acoustic side project Anchor & Braille since 2004. He has an incredible and elegant voice, and it's just really... mesmerizing. He's also written a book, The Orphaned Anything's, and started a non-profit
organization, Faceless International.

Five Awesome Websites for Writers

I probably could've come up with more than five, but I didn't want to bore you too much.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post called, "Writing Stuff is Hard." And it is. However, as some of you may be aware, I run a fiction writing club in my school called the Writer's Nook, which meets online every other Friday. As the leader, I have compiled a list of websites that have helped me with my writing, and I thought I'd share some with you today.








1. Writer's Digest
This website has a lot of amazing stuff. Weekly writing prompts, a free e-mail newsletter, contests, and tons of articles about all things writing. If you have questions about publishing or finding an agent, Writer's Digest has a lot of helpful tips and how-to's for that. There are also plenty of things about writer's block, writing dialogue, almost anything you can imagine. The website covers a lot of genres, from romance to sci-fi. I really recommend you at least check it out, but the e-mail newsletter is totally worth subscribing to as well.

2. Helping Writers Become Authors
This website is somewhat similar to Writer's Digest in that it provides a lot of articles for help in different areas of writing.  However, it is a little different, so I encourage you to check this one out as well.

New Camera

Hello readers! I'm sorry to announce that I don't have much time to write this week, since I've had two English essays due, and one of them is giving me a rather hard time. But I still have a post for you this week, though it's more pictures than writing.

I turned sixteen on Monday (May 5), and my parents bought me a new DSLR camera for my birthday. It's a Canon T3i, and so far, I'm enjoying it. I've also taken a lot of pictures with it, which you can see after the jump. Enjoy!

What to Expect at a College Fair

College fairs are scary. You walk into a big auditorium or gym or other multi-purpose room that's crowded with tables and people. You're telling me I actually have to talk to these college people? I can't just take their papers and run? What's this information card they're telling me to fill out? Did I just sell myself to Lehigh University?




Actually, college fairs aren't that bad. I was just at one this week, and it was a new experience, but it wasn't too scary. If you're planning on visiting one of these things sometime in the future though, here's my post on what to expect at a college fair.

For starters, you can expect to be asked a lot of questions. The three main ones are:

"Do you have any questions?"
If the person at the booth really has no idea what they're doing, they'll ask you this question first. I don't know why, so please don't ask me. But unless you came up with a list of specific things you want to know about each and every school you talk to, you'll probably end up answering this question with "no." The way I see it is this: You probably don't know anything about this school yet, so you have no knowledge to base your questions on. Plus, as my dad pointed out to me later, it's a bad idea to ask a closed-end question.

"Are you a junior or a senior?"
I understand wanting to know what year of high school a potential student is in, but does it always have to be junior or senior year? As some of you may already know, I'm a sophomore. So when people at college fairs ask me if I'm a junior or senior, I just feel the tiniest bit neglected. I don't mind  that people are asking me what year I'm in, but does it have to be junior or senior year?

"What are you thinking of studying?" / "What do you think you want to major in?"
This question actually isn't so bad as it is repetitive. Every person you talk to is going to ask you this question, so you should be prepared with an answer. If you haven't decided for sure what you want to study, that's okay. Even so, it's nice to at least have an idea of what you might want to do.

Click the jump for more!

Spring Cleaning -- Jewelry Organization Tips

Yep, it's that time of year again, the time when you realize you have so much stuff without a home and you need to do something about it. Actually, going off on a tangent here, but why do people call it "Spring Cleaning?" I mean, I get that Spring makes you want things to be all nice and new and clean, but why just limit it to spring?

Enough rhetorical questions - let's get down to business. 

Jewelry is one of the toughest things to organize in my opinion, because it comes in so many shapes and sizes. I always have trouble figuring out ways to store it, but I have found some solutions that might work for you! Or, at the very least, maybe they'll give you some ideas. And I'll just make a quick recommendation here - If you look for "jewelry organization" or "jewelry storage" on Pinterest, there are tons of ideas and DIYs that you can do.

Anyway, click the jump to see what I've done to keep my jewelry organized, along with some other ideas I found along the way.