bucket list.

• give blood 2-23-11
• ride a unicycle
• paint a dog/cat's toenails
• learn another language
• sing karaoke
• ride in an airplane
• visit another country
• spend a day at the smithsonian
• volunteer at a soup kitchen
• write a letter to the editor
• visit the holocaust museum in washington dc
• make an origami crane
• have a star wars marathon
• have a harry potter marathon
• buy lunch for a hobo
• adopt a child
• write an interesting christmas letter
• attend an abortion protest/pro-life rally
• go to time's square on new year's eve
• watch a broadway play
• witness an eclipse
• get a poem/photo published
• participate in a flash mob
• read the harry potter books back-to-back
• see taylor swift in concert.

this is not a love story

this is a story of boy meets girl. the boy, tom hansen, of margate, new jersey, grew up believing that he'd never truly be happy until the day he met the one. this belief stemmed from early exposure to sad british pop music and a total misreading of the movie 'the graduate'. the girl, summer finn, of shinnecock, michigan, did not share this belief. since the disintegration of her parent's marriage she'd only love two things. the first was her long dark hair. the second was how easily she could cut it off and not feel a thing. tom meets summer on january 8th. he knows almost immediately she is who he has been searching for. this is a story of boy meets girl, but you should know upfront, this is not a love story.

-500 days of summer

when i think of love, i think of cheesy, redundant chick flicks with identical story lines. boy meets girl, boy/girl falls in "love," boy/girl meets an obstacle, boy/girl overcomes the obstacle, boy and girl get together, boy and girl live happily ever after, the end.

personally, i'm kind of sick of happy endings. i'm sick of wasting 2 hours of my life watching people meet, fall in love, and live happily ever after.

i want a realistic story of boy meets girl.

what would you do if you weren't afraid?

i have the worst aichmophobia. having a pin pointed at me or a knife within my sight makes me cringe and want to get as far away from it as possible. they scare me the most when someone is handling them. seeing something sitting around with no chance of being handled doesn't bother me at all. i'm totally fine when the object is in my own hands, but if a person were to attempt to hand it to me, i'd quickly back away. you'd have to set it down and step away from it before i'll touch it.

my aichmophobia started out as a more common trypanophobia, which is a specific form of aichmophobia. trypanophobia is a fear of medical procedures involving injections or hypodermic needles. aichmophobia is a fear of pins, needles, or any other sharp/pointy objects. even pictures of hypodermic needles make me cringe and have to look away for a moment to compose myself. i cry at the doctor's office when i have to get a shot. they always tell me it won't hurt; but i'm not afraid of the pain. i'm afraid of the needle. i'm not really sure why.

this week, i did something that i've always wanted to do. i signed up with my high school to give blood. i've always wanted to give blood for some reason, but i've never been old enough. this month, i'm going to overcome my aichmophobia and give blood at our high school's blood drive.

there’s only so many times you can allow someone to let you down before you can’t handle the disappointment anymore.

when things change, people change, and it doesn’t mean you forget the past, it simply means you try to move on and treasure the memories. letting go doesn’t mean giving up, it means accepting things that weren’t meant to be.

there’s a point in life when you get tired of chasing everyone, trying to fix everything, but its not giving up. you’ve got to do what’s right for you even if it hurts. i’ve come to realize that in the end, everyone turns out to be the exact person they swore they’d never become. and i’ve learned that even the one person that wasn’t supposed to let us down probably will.

a home away from home

on saturday, i went to solo/ensemble contest with a bus full of band and choir students from my high school. we've spent the last few months preparing solos and ensembles for this contest. the bus was filled with anxious air. i personally was involved in three performances that day; a show choir ensemble, a mixed woodwind trio, and a vocal solo.

when we finally got to the contest site, lakeville south high school, i was amazed at how big it was. i mean, i'd expected it to be bigger than our high school, but this place was huuuge!

after i performed the show choir ensemble and the woodwind trio, i had about 3 hours of free time before my solo. i spent most of this time walking around the school and listening to other performances. i loved just walking through the hallways and hearing music from every corner. a violinist going through their solo, a group of saxophones warming up, a soloist singing scales.

i found that, in the most unfamiliar of places, i felt very at home. in the blanket of music that surrounded me was one of the most comfortable, welcoming, and beautiful places i've ever been.