prompt 48

Spring in Bangor Maine is the most beautiful time of year [it’s cold and wet and muddy].

The birds are returning from the south to start a new season in the pine and maple trees [chirping at 5 o’clock in the morning, waking you up after only four hours of sleep].

Mice and raccoons and other small animals are coming out of their winter hibernation, venturing into the New Year [getting into the garbage and spreading it all over the front lawn].

The sun is shining, giving life to the dead grass [it’s raining and your basement is flooding].

Flowers are sprouting, creating bright spots of color throughout the city [weeds take over the lawn and guardians, creating more work].

And the on come of spring marks the end of the school year [finals are coming].

theme week 10

Billions of people in the world, thousands of big, metropolitan cities with monuments and markets and museums. And I live in Bangor Maine. To me, Bangor used to be huge, miles of roads and buildings, houses and hundreds of people, I was never a ‘small town girl’, but then I went to Florida, and Boston, and London and suddenly I was one. Suddenly Bangor became this small, out of the way town shoved way up into the corner of the United States. Not even a fraction of the world’s population lives here and our shopping mall is about the size of a big city’s super Wal-Mart. The traffic that always seemed never ending when I was a kid, stretching on forever in a never ending stream of cars and trucks, now seemed like a deserted street compared to the freeways of Boston. But even though I enjoyed Florida, and absolutely loved London, even if I move away to another city, Bangor Maine will always be the place I come home to.

prompt 42

1.       I own about 25 to 35 t-shirts and only four pairs of pants.

2.       Instead of collecting purses, I collect wallets (I have over 20 that I switch out frequently) and messenger bags.

3.       I have 3 bookshelves in my room, two of which go almost to the ceiling, and I still don’t have enough room for all my books and manga.

4.       I love rain more than sunshine.

5.       I want to travel to several different countries but am afraid to go alone, due to my tendency to have panic attacks.

6.       I’m terrified of spiders and once had to call my aunt, who lives across town, to come kill one for me, because my parents were on a cruise and I was home alone.

7.       I have trouble giving up old belongings; my room and attic are full of old toys and books I can’t bring myself to get rid of.

8.       I used to hate reading because I’m dyslexic, but over the years I’ve grown to love it and have more books than I have room for.

9.       All my friends talk about leaving Maine as soon as they get the chance, but I would gladly live here for the rest of my life. (If I can’t move to London that is.)

10.   I desperately want to live in London for a year, if not forever.

11.   My taste in music is all over the place, from rock, to pop, to classic.

12.   I have no idea what I want to do for a living and don’t know if I ever will.

prompt 41

An old classic Gameboy, the original black and white kind with the batteries door missing, so we had to use a piece of cardboard taped to the back to keep the batteries in. I spent hours playing Super Mario Land, trying and failing to get past level 4.

***

New Gameboy, this time an Advance, with the buttons on either side of the screen rather than below it, and a batteries door that actually holds in the batteries. Color screen, better graphics, and better games. Pokémon Blue, which I found in a snow bank on my way home from school and found it still worked, Lord of the Rings, Mario Cart. It even plays the old Gameboy original games so I can play Super Mario Land on it, but I still play that game on the old, beaten Original.

***

Have a 3DS now; the graphics are amazing compared to the pixilated black and white of the Original. It connects to the internet and can play music as well as games. Nintendo even rereleased some old games from the ‘90s for it with updated graphics; Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time and Super Mario 64, but it can’t read old game cartridges and they haven’t remade Super Mario Land for it. I sold or lost the Original Gameboy long ago, and can no longer play Super Mario Land.

prompt 39, Conquering my science book

Studding for my biology test. Trying to read the necessary chapters of the text book. Reading about veins and capillaries, red blood cells and white blood cells. Things that may be interesting to others or even to me at a different time, but right now are just keeping me from playing with my new MacBook.

**

Check the clock; it’s only been 2 minutes, though it feels like hours. Still reading the same page, bored out of my mind. I’ve had to read the same paragraph several times because I’m not taking in any of the information. My eyes keep wandering to my MacBook, but I know if I start setting it up I won’t finish studding, and I can’t fail this test.

**

Another agenizing 2 minutes, finally on another page, though I’m not sure I remember anything I just read. The book is talking about viruses and infections now, vaguely interesting but not as interesting as my mac. I really want to set it up and try it out, but I still have 50 pages to read.

theme week 9

Woke up 2 hours before my alarm went off, 5 am, way too early. I tossed about for an hour, worrying about school and friends, stressing myself out over nothing.

**

Woke up again, this time when my alarm went off. Tired from too little sleep, and got ready for school. My old dog, Matilda, wouldn’t get up to go outside until I gave her a dog treat as a bribe. Wishing I could stay home and sleep longer, I left for my biology class, dreading the test I had that I was not ready to take.

**

Got home from class early, I think the test went ok but I’m not sure. Remembering the money my mom left on the table for me to buy food, I went to McDonalds for lunch. Then I got out my brand new MacBook and started setting it up. I got the display model because it was $300 cheaper than a new one, but I need to get it reset because it’s still on demo mode from Best Buy.

prompt 31

Scrolling through Best Buy's website. Which macbook should I get? The 13" screens are cheaper, but i'm used to a bigger screen and such a smaller one would drive me crazy. On the other hand if I get a 13" screen I can get one with retina display for cheaper than a regular display 15". But I don't need the retina display, and that isent enugh to make up for the smaller screen, plus the ones with retina display don't have a built in disk drive so I would have to buy an external one. Which one should I buy?

prompt 36

June 13^th 2007, the day I had my driving test. I was in junior year of high school, it was the week before finals, and I got to miss the first 30 minutes of art class to take my driver’s test. My parents drove me down Union St., I familiar street I drive on every day. I was very nervous, but when I got started the instructor was very nice and chatted away, making me feel more relaxed. The parallel parking was the worst, I got two chances, the first time I completely screwed up, the second time I did it perfectly. Then we set out down Union St. I remember driving around for about 20 minutes, turning down smaller streets, but always returning to Union. The familiar buildings helped reassure me, the McDonalds I had been going to since I was a kid, the Hannaford’s we did all our grocery shopping, the gas stations, all places I passed on a regular basis and were comfortable with.  Then the instructor told me to go back to the DMV. I drove back down Union St. one final time and pulled into the parking lot, waiting while he checked things off on his clipboard, wondering if I passed.

prompt 35

That night, after we get to my sister’s apartment. We set up beds in the computer room for the three of us, me on the futon, them on the floor side by side, and go to bed. The room is dead quiet, except for the fan spinning overhead. Dead silent.  I remember spending the night at both of their houses when we were little, talking about our favorite shows or boys until the sun came up.  

theme week 8

I had the car for a week, my first car, the one that has taken me to Boston, New Hampshire, and Portland more times than I can count. Driving home from grandmas, I stopped at an intersection. Another car right next to me, parked facing the wrong way on the wrong side of the street. He started backing up, not seeing me. I only had time to think ‘oh crap, he’s gonna hit me’ before his car scraped against the passenger side of mine. My first car now had a scar.

prompt 32

The last person I want to remember before I die is my mother. She is the most caring person I know and I want to remeber that before I die, once she is long gone. When my grandmother started to get dementia my mother started to do whatever she could to make it easier on her. My mom and her siblings would take turns watching their mother, making sure she had food, and taking her to doctor’s appointments. As my grandmother got worse my mom started looking for a live in caretaker for her, interviewing people and taking care of all of the paperwork. Even after my grandmother moved in with my aunt, who is a certified nurse, my mother and her brother put her old house up for sale and figured out all the finances. And even though my grandmother is forgetting who her grandkids are and sometimes forgets who my mother is, my mom still goes to my aunt’s house to cook dinner and take care of my grandmother when my aunt needs a break.

theme week 7

My mother is always willing to help others. She works full time, and a lot of weeks she works overtime, and still finds time to volunteer for various organizations. When I was little she volunteered to teach illiterate adults how to read, and when her student read ‘Green Eggs and Ham’ own her own for the first time they both cried, because she could now read her kids a bed time story. She volunteered at the Girl Scout office when I was in the troop and offered to sort all of my troop’s cookies at our house, then separate them into each girls order and drop them off. Even after a busy week at work she still volunteers for the hospital on weekends when she is not too busy. My mother will do anything for her family, no matter how much her sisters annoy her. When her mother started getting dementia my mom would spend nights at her house and drive her to daycare until she moved in with my aunt.

prompt 34 part 2

Minnow, my day care sitter from when I was little. I remember you watching us watch movies while you leaned against the half wall that divided the kitchen from the living room, bare foot and chewing on a toothpick, standing on one leg, while you rested your other foot on your knee. Driving us to Nicky’s to buy us ice-cream in your old station wagon with the very back row facing the wrong way, your small dog Sasha always riding shotgun; or to the movie rental place, that is now a flower shop, to get us more movies. I remember running up and down the hill in your back yard playing tag and the walks through the forest and trails at Bass Park, feeding an entire loaf of bread to the seagulls.

prompt 34

My grandmother Barbara. I remember going to your house with my sister and my cousins. Going into the carpeted, finished basement and digging out all the old toys you kept for us down there. Barbie dolls from the ‘70s or ‘80s, the ‘stilts’ we walked around on made of hard plastic yellow cups with blue cords we had to hold up to keep them on our feet. I remember you buying us cheap wicker baskets that you had us decorate for Easter and send us off parading down the street. You always had those vanilla sandwich cookies, that weren’t very sweet, because grandpa has diabetes, that you would give to me every time I came over. And when you started losing your memory to Alzheimer’s you told me the same story about you dad and his dogs, always named the same thing, and the big elaborate doghouse he built them in his back yard.

prompt 29

Whenever I go to a new place I never rely think about what it will be like before I get there. Sure I may think
'this place seems like it might be fun' or 'what should I do when I get there?' but other than that I don't rely have a set expectation of what it will be like. Whenever I go somewhere new I let myself explore and enjoy it the way it is, not compare it to what I thought it might be. When I went to Europe I was expecting to have fun and see some places that I had only read about, but I did not go in with the mindset that it was going to be a certain way and if it was not that way then I would be disapointed.

prompt 26

I havent been to my elementary school since I was a kid. Back then the one story building seemed huge. The two main hallways seemed to streach on forever and it took what felt like hours to walk from one end of the school to the other. The gym was gigantic, running around it was exausting, and the lunch tables were built into the walls that rolled up into them to clear the way for gym class. The kindergarden class room had a sand box table that I could hardly reach when I was a kid and the desks were too large.
Now, as I walk around the school it seems tiny. I can walk from one end of the building to the other in less then three minutes and the gym is a fraction of the size of the high school gym. The sand box table is so short it hardly comes past my knees, and I can even fit in the desk chairs anymore.