BOO!!!! ( As in Scary)

I have three major fears in my life; all of which I think are extremely forgivable. I'm going to start with the one fear that is slowly leaving me and reducing the number of spaz attacks that I experience when I go to the doctor. Every time I have to get a needle, I cry like a baby. Actually, I cry more than a baby would when I am forced to have small doses of viruses injected in to my immune system via pointy metal. Don't get me wrong, I am not against vaccines ( although the movie I Am Legend scared the living crap out of me). I am against the indescribable anxiety that takes over my body ten minutes before I get a shot and twenty minutes after I get a shot. I am not kidding when I say that I cry before I get a shot, when I am receiving the shot, and about twenty minutes after I get a shot. When it ( I love being able to use the word it again) comes to needles, I have no control over the complete breakdown that occurs while I am sitting on the table. I'm almost positive that the three-year olds ( yes I still go to a pediatrician) in the waiting room hear me and laugh. I have recently discovered that a huge part of this shot spaz attack stems from my mom making fun of me for being afraid. She basically provokes the situation and and makes me cry for a longer amount of time. 

My second fear is flying. Although I have been on flights in the past, the thought of boarding an airplane literally makes me want to vomit ( gag).  The first time I flew on a plane, I was completely fine. This fear exists because of a dream that I had prior to the second time I was supposed to fly again. When I was in middle school, I went on a cruise with my family. A week before we were scheduled to fly to Florida, I had this horrible nightmare where the plane crashed and every passenger died. This was the worst dream that I ever had. I distinctly remember waking up in a panic. The dream was so terrifying that I was crying in my sleep. Needless to say, planes have scared the living crap out of me since that one morning. I have to admit that this fear has proven to be semi-embarrassing. I am almost certain that my friends wanted to flush me down the plane toilet on the way home form senior trip when the plane hit turbulence and I convinced myself that we were all going to plunge to our inherent doom.

The third and final fear that I have is the fear of not living up to my full potential. I am terrified of failure. A complete spaz attack encompasses me every time I do poorly on a test or score below "above average" on assignments. School stresses me out beyond belief;  and I feel as if I inch closer and closer to failure with each wrong multiple choice answer or merely "average " essay that I write. I feel as if my ultimate fear of not living up to my full potential will eventually disappear after I land my dream job. 

Almost Hyperventilating,

Samantha

Huh?

I just finished reading the last essay in the homework for tomorrow; and I can honestly say that I was completely unaware that people are able to make a science out of analyzing the effects that social networking has on society. Seriously? When I think of social networking, face book and myspace automatically come to mind. I, and I'm sure an ample amount of my friends, see facebook as something to do when you are bored, not something to do when you want to actually make new friends. I mean there were strange Internet obsessions before "social networking" made its way to the Internet. I think that all of the time, energy and money used to study and research Internet social networking could be used elsewhere. 

Going To See If I Have Any New Friend Requests On Facebook,

Samantha

I Would Call This a Haiku If I Knew How to Write One.... Find the Hidden Message!

Oh

Crap

Every time I

Attempt to access the wireless Internet

Network at 

College I can

Only use my 

Useful cousins ID

Number because I 

Totally forgot that all first

Year students are assigned a 

College number and are 

Oppressively told to 

Learn it. 

Luckily,

Every time I call my

Grateful cousin she

Enthusiastically hands over her Id and allows me to access the Internet.

I want to be part of Colbert Nation......

I'll admit it, I have freak crushes on Stephen Colbert and John Stewart. I LOVE THEM. I love them not because they are funny, their shows are one-of-a-kind ( even though they are similar to each other), and because their shows seem like the only outlet where politics can be serious and hysterical at the same time. As crazy as it sounds, I feel as if I can from an unbiased opinion on certain events just from watching those shows. They take the "politics" out of politics and present the facts to the people in an extremely relateable manner. I LOOOVE THEM.

One of my ongoing goals is to become a member of the Colbert Nation and wear a wrist strong bracelet. How do I get one? I also want to read Colbert's book, but I don't know what exactly it is about. Ill most likely wind up buying it just because the cover looks good. John Stewart has a house on LBI and I am determined to meet him on the beach somewhere ... someday.... love love love them!

Trying not to sound creepy,

Samantha

Wishing I Didn't Have to Sleep.......

I feel as if one of the drawbacks of going to OCC is that I am still building my resume. Yes, everyone is still building their resumes, but I still have to build my "getting accepted to a four year school" resume. I find this one of the most frustrating things that I have ever gone through. My original "high school resume" was in fact pretty bad ass (not to toot my own horn). I participated in sports, was a part of National Honor Society, and had a 4.0 GPA. Yes, applying to college the first time made me feel like a horrible lazy student, but a lest I was participating in something. When I apply to college next year ,the sound of that is already stressing me out, I'm pretty much doomed. If I felt like I didn't have enough on my high school resume before, I almost vomit thinking about how I'm going to feel next year! I want to get into a competitive four year school, but I am completely lacking in the extra curricular activities. Prior to stating school this year, my goal was to join the school newspaper and engulf myself in a great community service project. I still want to do all of these things, but I'm quickly discovering that there is just not enough time in the day. 

Besides going to school five days a week, I work five days a week as well. I already missed the news paper meeting because I had to work, and I am afraid that if i do join, I will not be able to put all of my efforts into the paper as I would like to. The same thing applies with community service. I wanted to join the Water Watch program, but after two phone calls, I was unable to make any of the meetings :(. UGH !!! Sometimes I feel like if I was at a four year school, things like this would not stress me out and I would be getting a jump start on my "getting a job" resume. One of my best friends Amanda for example is attending Penn State and her "getting a job resume" is off to a great start. Not only is she majoring in Biology at one of the greatest schools ever, she is an active member of the Harry Potter club, and assists special needs children in therapeutic horse back riding sessions every week. WOW.  I want to begin building my "getting a job" resume but applying to college again is making the process extremely stressful. 

Don't get me wrong, I am still going to e-mail the newspaper staff and try to attend the Water Watch program on Monday. I just hope that If I am able to join these programs, I will be available to attend all of the meetings. I also want to look into getting involved in a  local community service program or paper if I cant devote myself to the ones at school.  Any advice? 

Hoping to become fluent in a dead language and find a cure for cancer in the next two years while maintaining a 4.0 and working full time,

Samantha

I Need Glasses Because The Line is Blurry

After reading the first line of The Amish Charter by John A. Hostetler, one line clearly jumped of the page. Holster states in his essay, "We turn now to the moral principles of the contemporary Amish community. By moral we mean that which is considered right and wrong, and the principles for which life is worth living." His statement sparked a train of thought. Is the moral line between what is right and what is wrong clearly drawn in modern society? With the vast amounts of different beliefs, ideas, and opinions in the world, the line between what is right and what is wrong could change. I mean, who really knows, who can really determine, the difference between what is right and what is wrong. Some societies find it offensive when women walk out of the house without being covered from head to toe while some nudist colonies, however, demand the shedding of all clothes( eww just a thought.. I have read that people take vacations or trips to nudist colonies, just to visit. I would find a vacation like that to be  unsanitary due to the overwhelming amount of "bare bottom" that could have possibly been resting in the places that I would possibly be sitting in.) In most cultures, the act of killing another human being is considered morally wrong, but in some war-torn nations, children are born with machine guns in their hands. 

Hostetler's statement makes me wonder about the Amish community. Do they live their lives in a simplistic manner, without the use of electricity, higher schooling, etc, in order to maintain a moral value system? Are they preventing the blurring of the line between right and wrong by not allowing the usage of modern outside technology? Is the modern world that I live in corrupting my moral beliefs? Am I just crazy for assuming all of this? If any of my assumptions are correct, I have gained a whole new respect or the Amish.

Wishing I knew How to Churn My Own Butter,

Samantha

O No!!!

I had a complete spaz attack on my way home from school today. I had my first Biology test and I did not do as well as I was expecting of myself. Yes, this is a result of me being a lazy piece. Why do I always do this to myeslf? Seriously If I would have put in the extra hour of studying that was most likely necessary to get an A, all of this stress would have been avoided and I would not be bracing myself for the next apolocipse. At this point, I thought I would be able to break my lazy sudying habits! ugh!!! I'm trying to look at this situation with a positive mentality. Does the fact that I am completely unbale to explain the breakdown of polysaccarides mean that I am a horrbile failure of a student? Hopefully not. Well , off to do homework.
Wishing I Could Re Arrange My DNA,
Samantha

Faker Faker

When I get sick, people compare me to Goob from the Meet The Robinsons. No, not the older creepy Goob, the pale, stuffy, and abnormally sleepy kid. When I get sick, I am sick for an indefinite length of time. During my junior year of high school, I was sick with the flu for about a month. Needless to say, I was completely in need of a day off. To be completely honest, the last legitimate sick day that I took was during that time period during my junior year when I contracted the never ending bird flu of a cold that I had. Naturally, I still took off after my sickness ended and the plague passed.

At times, I am really good at being a lazy piece. By the time my senior year ended, I had made a career out of taking days off of school. I centered my mentality around the simple fact that the school allowed every student to miss eighteen days of school without penalties. Seriously, why would I not use as many "sick days" as I was allotted? In the years prior to my senior year, and prior to my catching senioriuts, I mainly took off school in order to complete the massive amount of homework that I did not finish the night before. Sometimes I would honestly not have enough time in the day to finish my homework; other times I would just be a lazy piece. My mom only allowed this to occur on rare occasions.

Once senior year rolled around, my senioritus kicked into full gear and I perfected the art of being a lazy piece somewhere around mid November. I took as many days off school as I possibly could. Sometimes I stayed home ( or went in late) for no reason at all. Sometimes i would honestly have to finish homework from the night before. I had a perfect system; but all good things must come to an end.

Every two weeks, my AP English teacher, hands down the best high school teacher that I ever had, would give up vocab tests made from dictionary.com. We were required to memorize the spelling of the word and the sentence where the word was used. No word bank. This was a pass or fail kind of thing. I wake up early on one of those days realizing that I did not study the night before. My excuse? Lazy Piece. I convinced my mom to let me to go school late and strolled in with about five minutes left remaining in my English period. DUH. My Englisher teacher winds up giving me the test that I did not prepare for. This was one of the most embarrassing moments of my life. After class ended, my paper was still blank so I had no choice but to tell my teacher the truth. Luckily, I was allowed to make up the test the next day, with minor points taken off.

Needless to say, I made sure I studied for the vocab tests from that day on.

Still Experiencing a Nervous Breakdown Remembering That Day

Samantha

P.S I am not a lazy piece anymore

Sloppy Series

I'm officially on my reading kick again, but this time I did not stick with my plan and begin reading Rant. My latest reading conquest is a book entitled Fourth Comings, buy Megan McCafferty, and is part of a series that begins with the novel Sloppy Firsts. I decided to finally read this series of books because all of my peers read these novels in middle school. By my senior year of high school, I still felt extremely out of the loop and was sick of hearing all of the inside references made about situations in the novels. I quickly decided that I was going to read this series no matter how long the reading took me. 

Before I began reading the series, I was skeptical as to if I was going to enjoy books that my peers loved in middle school. Shortly after I began reading the first book, I was thankful for waiting to read these novels because the middle school version of myself wold have not been able to fully understand the humor and  that was planted in the pages. I felt as if I had hit the "reading jackpot" when I began reading the second novel at the end of my senior year because life paralleled the fictional series. The main character in the series was graduating high school at the same time that I was preparing to graduate high school as well. 

I am  enjoying the latest novel in the series. My only complaint is that the book takes place over the time span of a week, rather that a year. 

So here is my advice to the world. Do not read the Sloppy First series until you are at least a junior in high school!

Thanking My Lazy Middle School Self,

Samantha

OUCH

Contrary to what I first believed, I have not yet found any major problem with OCC. Yes; I am coping with extreme lack of friend withdrawal, but my teaches are excellent, my classes are interesting, and I am still able to work throughout the school year. 

If I had to change one thing about OCC, I would undeniably rid the school of the horrible sound that blasts from the clock tower every morning. Yes, I am talking about the morning bells. I have classes five days a week. Out of the five, four days begin with classes at 8:00 am. As I literally roll out of my car and drag myself to class in a zombie like manner, I am greeted by this noise that can only be described as pure evil. The bells, or should I say shrieking sounds, that pour into the sky in the morning literally make my ears want to vomit. Seriously, why are bells playing in the morning? No one is going to wake up after hearing the evil sound waves hit the sky. If the school wants to play music in the morning, at least make the sound sound like something other than screaming children. Thank you!

Hoping That My Ear Drums Don't Crack,

Samantha

Rat Race

This presidential election is obviously one of the most important presidential elections that the United States has ever experienced. I have been anticipating a close race for months, but a recent Gallup Poll completely changed my mind. The poll was taken this past week and projected that  Obama had 47 % of the vote while McCain had 45 % of the vote. I was not alarmed by the statistics, until I saw that the margin of error was + or - 2% . This is not a close presidential race. This race is dead even. 

To be quite honest, both the severity of this election combined with the uncertainty of a clear leader completely scares me to death. I am not going to directly state my political views, but I am going to say that if change is not brought to the White House, America is going to be put on a fast track to undeniable destruction, the economy to going to dwindle down to nothing, and I might consider moving to Canada. If we want to improve America's likability, the same man has to stop being elected into the White House. Our country is starving for diversity and change, and when I say diversity I do not take the gender or race of a vice presidential candidate into consideration. 

During the month of November, I will looking at the citizens of the United States with a critical eye. I have extremely high expectations for the youth of America to step up, do their part, and vote. I know I am. 

Hoping That the United States Does Not Get Re -Colonized By the British,

Samantha

The Difference Between College and High School

I just had a revelation. Over the past few weeks, I have been observing college life and trying to compare the atmosphere to that of a high school atmosphere. I attempted to answer one question. What is the main difference between high school and college? I found the answer. Not only do students have more freedom in college, are responsible for a larger work load, etc ( the obvious differences). When a teacher is absent in high school, a substitute is called into the classroom to watch the class. When a teacher is absent in college, class is canceled. 

Revelationally Yours,

Samantha

Trying to Love Chuck

I experience cycles where I am an avid reader. My reading kick always begins when I discover a new author or series that immediately grabs my attention and contains qualities that are out of the ordinary. The books I read have to contain a certain "It factor" that holds my attention for a sustainable amount of time, or a least long enough for me to carry the book to the register. I have a weird freak obsession with books at times. I have a serious problem reading books that I do not own; thus the act of borrowing from a library causes me to gag. I always finish the books that I start, even if they bore me to death.

My most recent reading conquest has been books written by Chuck Palahniuk, author of famous works such as Fight Club and Choke. I decided to start reading his works because I witnessed a large percentage of my peers reading Rant. After careful observation of the front cover ( yes I do judge books by their covers), serious questioning of the readers, and an intense critical reading of the back cover, I decided that Palahniuk was just the type of author that I was looking for. Despite my approval of Rant, I began the "Palahniuk Series" with a book entitled Haunted. I had extremely high hopes for this collection of short stories and poems, until I started to read. Although the unusual stories both entertained and grossed me out, I was unable to really gain interest in the novel until I was about half way through. I eventually enjoyed reading Haunted, but the book needs time to marinate before readers can enjoy.

My next Palahniuk conquest was a book entitled Lullaby. I was instantly drawn to this novel because the plot centered around a journalist. I was interested to see how the author was going to incorporate the "journalist aspect" into his twisted story line. Unlike Haunted, Lullaby was a faster read. Although I was instantly entertained by the content; I did not expect the book to contain a large supernatural element. I approved of the book, but the supernatural story line caught me by surprise.

Rant is currently sitting on my bookshelf waiting to be read. Although this was the catalyst for my goal to read all of Palahniuk's works, I am somewhat apprehensive to read this particular work. I hope Rant lives up to my expectations. Please don't disappoint me Chuck!

Supernaturally Yours,

Samantha

I'm Overwhelmed

Yes, ill be the fist person to admit that I am a bit overwhelmed. The slightest mishaps or wrong answers tend to raise my stress level, especially when school or homework is involved.

I never used to be like this. I can vividly remember putting my awesome study habits to practice during my freshmen year of high school. I was always on time, homework was finished early, and I even had free time to enjoy the occasional sitcom on television. Yes, i still watch television now, but the experience is not as enjoyable compared to previous years. I recently sat back and tried to pinpoint the source of my sometimes sloppy and unorganized behavior and came up with a few stressful benefactors.
For starters, the experience of applying to college threw me over the edge. I realized that ever since the pressures of the application process sunk deep within my soul, dramatic but true, I have always felt the need to prove myself in school. I have always been a good student, but the college application daemon put me into overdrive. Also, school was increasing in difficulty at the time and I often became discouraged when I was unable to understand any type of course material. Senioritis, yes a real disease, also began to kick in around the same time frame and pushed homework further down on the priority list as well ( right beneath laundry and cleaning my room). A combination of feelings of discouragement and pure laziness made me stress even more about school, but not enough to where I was going to change my semi-lazy senior ways.
My work ethic exponentially increased as graduation came and went, but school still and will always stress me out to the point of pure insanity. Like today for example, as soon as I started having difficulties finding bacteria on a slide in biology lab, I was convinced that I was headed for undeniable destruction. When my statistics homework became confusing, I convinced myself, probably for an entire minute of two, that I was going to fail. Why am a such a spaz? I know that the apocalypse is not going to occur if I get a question wrong. Well, of to do homework.
Relaxingly yours,
Samantha

My First Day of School

During the last few weeks of April 2007, I wrote an article for my school newspaper entitled I Can't see it in the Stars. During that extremely stressful time of my senior year, I was torn between the decision of attending a popular four year institution or attending OCC. The article had an overall pessimistic tone and stressed my fears about missing out on the "traditional college experience". I eventually decided to attend OCC because i graduated in the top twenty percent of my class and therefore was able attend school for free. After attending the school for almost a full two weeks, I can honestly say that (GHASP!) I am pleasantly surprised by my classes, teachers, and overall atmosphere of the school. Yes, I miss my friends terribly and often find myself glued to my phone texting them whenever I can; but if absence makes the heart grow fonder, I have an extremely large amount of people to be fond of come thanksgiving break. 

I will never forget my first day of college, or lack thereof. School started on a Wednesday and I thought I was scheduled to have biology lab in the afternoon. Being the preoccupied person that I often am, I failed to double and triple check my schedule before driving to school and entering the science building. I was extremely surprised to find a sign on the door upon walking to the classroom. The sign informed me that all biology labs were canceled and began the week of September eighth. "That's logical", I thought to myself, and then proceed to exit to my car and drive home.

The next day, I finally figured out how to check my ocean cruiser e mail. What I found horrified me and sent shivers down my spine. Among the piles of alerts and syllabus from my English teacher :), I found an e mail from my biology teacher at the bottom of my inbox. The letter began with, " Since you did not attend class yesterday" and ended with a syllabus for the semester. I was shocked. After about twenty minutes of hyperventilation I realized that I am scheduled to attend biology lab on Mondays and lecture on Wednesdays. I quickly e mailed my teacher and attended lab the following week. 

My hardest class this semester is going to be biology because an immense amount of material is covered in one chapter. Despite the overflow of information, i am still planning on getting an A for the semester, I hope. In order to achieve my goal, I am planning on dedicating a large block of time to studying all of the course material. Instead of cramming the night before, my goal is to gradually study the material over the course of a few days. I even purchased the extra "student biology study guide" in order to make sure that I was absorbing all of the information. I am going to be extremely busy this semester. 

Fun With Writing

After I saw the movie 13 Going on 30, I knew that one day I wanted to write for a magazine. I can distinctly remember watching the scene where Jennifer Garner, now Jennifer Garner Affleck?,wakes up and realizes that she achieved her goal of becoming the editor of Poise magazine. I watched this scene with feelings of envy and often asked myself ; Why can't that be me? My dream started to become a reality last year, when I was named editor-in-chief of the Rampage, Southern Regional High School's newspaper.

  Writing and editing for the Rampage provided me with a deep sense of fulfillment and entertainment throughout the entire school year. Each issue contained both interesting and wonderful content as well as an immense amount of effort put forth by the students of the journalism class. Whenever memories of writing for the Rampage pop into my head, one distinct piece of work clearly towers above the rest. 

During the first few weeks of the holiday season, I was assigned to write my first Letter from the Editor. I had been dreaming of this assignment for weeks, but was instantly struck with fear and terror when I began to experience a slight case of writer's block. I had a massive amount of opinions and an endless amount of thoughts, but was unable to translate anything into words. The experience was similar to that of being locked in a cage. I felt as if I was about to disappoint the entire newspaper staff. One glorious day changed my entire attitude. I walked into class, sat down at a computer, and began to type. The flood gates opened and I began to produce a letter that stressed the importance of accepting all holiday traditions  in school compared to not accepting any holiday traditions at all.

I enjoyed this assignment because the letter was the first major article that I produced in the Rampage. I  also enjoyed the aftermath of the letter because my idea and opinion was able to spark conversation among my peers. I also loved the power of being able to italicize a select amount of words in order to empathise certain points.