Middle School

She got out of the champagne Chevrolet Venture and took in the familiar surroundings. It was her first day back at her old school after her family had decided to move back to Tallahassee. Catie walked up the side walk past the front office heading for the seventh grade hallway. The move had more or less been just for the summer. With the housing and job markets being what they were in fall of 2004 the Sirianni family thought it best to go back to the town that still had these essentials waiting. It  had been three months since Catie has seen the people she called her best friends. The third week of the new school year was upon them and while her friends knew she was coming back, Catie wanted to keep the element of surprise for when exactly she would arrive. Walking past the sixth grade building she surveyed the faces of students who were just gaining control of their bearings.

Paper One - Ideas

Sixth Grade:
I could probably pin the fault of fueling unrealistic adolescent expectations about friends on one person. I have never met her and she has no idea that I even exist. For my eleventh birthday I received the first of what is now a five book series by Anne Brashares. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants follows the lives of four sixteen year old girls who have been friends their whole lives and are being separated for the first time one summer. These girls find a "magic" pair of jeans at a thrift store just before the parting of ways and say that it is through this magic they stay together. Even though I had only known my friends for a year, due to a move the summer before I connected this fictional story with my own life. Seven months later my parents told my sister and I that we would be moving again, but this time we weren't moving across town, but across the state. Immediately I created a parallel between the lives of the 4 fictional characters that were 5 years old and my own life.

Eleventh Grade
At my high school your junior year meant the rite of passage when you and your friends were allowed to leave campus for lunch. When this fateful day came around my friends and I took advantage. I don't even remember where we went for lunch that day or if we had fun or not but it didn't matter we could leave campus was all that counted. My class was on the other side of the school from the junior parking lot, a good five minute walk, 4 if I was booking it. My friends, Brianne, Coral and Nicole all had their classes right next to the lot.

Adult child disconnect

"How was you day?" The classic family dinner conversation starter. The question that my parents asked my sister and I almost ever night of my entire lives.

"Good," "Fine," "Okay." The answers that we gave almost every night of our entire lives.

When these short answers didn't satisfy my parents they moved onto: "Did anything exciting happen today?"

Did anything exciting happen today? I would think to myself. It was the middle of the week and I'm eleven what could possibly happen that was any different from yesterday? I woke up, I went to school for eight hours, came home did my homework and now I'm having dinner. I did the exact same thing that I did yesterday, and the day before that and the day before that. What could they possibly expect to be different?

First Crush

I should have stayed home that day. I could blame my parent's for not educating me with Ferris's tactic earlier in life, but then I guess looking back I could understand why they hadn't. It was a normal September afternoon in Florida. The sun was out, my hair was plastered onto my forehead and I just knew if I took my backpack off there would be a marking where it had been against my grey shirt. I had just finished math in the seventh grade hallway and had walked to the elective building down at the end of the row. In my school, the class more commonly known as "home ec." was referred to as "Teen Challenges." Looking back, the more literal name that was used, was in fact, probably the more appropriate. Learning how to cook and sew while trying to look cute for our peers was nothing less than a challenge for a group of awkward preteens, who yet to have fully grown into their bodies. Whether any of us could be classified.

Indian Education Model

Second Grade:
My class consisted of future inmates, or maybe they were just seven year old boys with normal seven year old boy attitudes. Either way, as a seven year old girl I wasn't a fan of any of them. My friends and I usually spent the day chasing the boys back and forth across the playground. One of the boys in particularly was the ring leader of the underage gang. I'll call him Tyler. On day on the playground Tyler thought it would be fun to harass my sister (who at this time was in Kindergarten)  by chasing her around the playground. This didn't sit well with me. I caught up with him, giving him a hard shove into the dirt right in front of his friends and the teacher's table. He didn't retaliate and the teacher's didn't even seem to have noticed the incident.

First Grade:
I was just learning how to write full sentences. I could sing the alphabet song, but it still sounded like only twenty-two letters. LMNO was of course a letter in itself. My teacher had given us a handout to take home and have signed by our parent or guardian. I brought mine home told my mom that I needed her to sign the paper in my yellow folder and left it at that. The next day in class when Mrs. G asked who got there papers signed I realized that I didn't actually know what my Mother's signature looked like. I didn't raise my hand and stood on the fence during playground time that day.

Parental Pedestal

This year I partook in sorority recruitment.  In preparation we were to take a survey about our values. One of the questions asked about whether family traditions/expectations factor into the decisions we make. My answer was immediately no. Now don't get me wrong. I have a great life. My biological parents are still married, I have a sister, who while two years younger than me is my best friend and I have a dog that I love like my own child. I guess there was a point when my parents were taken off the pedestal of innocence, but it isn't a specific instance that I can remember. I have always marched to the beat of my own drum and know that my parents are has human as anyone. I've never really had a conflict about coming to terms with that fact.

Fictional Characters POV

Veronica Mars:  My Dear Wallace, Over the past few days it has become more and more concerning to realize that the people I work for are, in fact, the ones that are supposed to be working on the United State's most wanted list. First, we have the over competitive roommate who is also an intern, which might I add is code for copy/coffee girl. She actually wanted to know the exact ratio of number of cases I've solved to the number I get in.

Harry Potter: You know, you'd think that five teenage boys living in a room together for 9 months out of the year might become something of bio hazard waste center, but its all really civilized. I mean we all have busy schedules sure, but we're not kids. We're responsible adults that know how to clean up after ourselves. Okay, so Ron and I have slightly more laundry than Shemus, Neville, and Dean, because of quidditch practices, but honestly the number of clothes that we throw out after Voldemort face offs really even things out.

Orki v. My So-Called Life

Honestly I wouldn't have read the Orki story and thought about a child removing a father from the pedestal. There was the one incident that happened with the radio but I feel like there was more going on in the story than a disobedient child. The episode of My So-Called Life was much more focused on the idea of child questioning parental authority.

First Post:)

First post of the semester! Yay!