the rose of kiev

I have ridden the bus almost every weekday for the past four years. I first moved out the fall of 2006 into a house 7 blocks from High Street. I would get up early, pack my bookbag for the average 15-hour absence, and plod downhill on Arcadia, past the football field and the high school, and the park area at the corner where the homeless people and drug users would sit on slatted benches and catcall at me. My cheerful rebuffs, and the nearby busy street, were always defense enough. Rain, snow, and high humidity I would cross the street when the sign flashed into a little white man. Sometimes I'd jaywalk, bag thumping from my sprint, if the bus came rolling up too soon. I've always lived on the east side of High Street, and the northbound bus for my morning commute has, obviously, always been on the west side. There've been days I've watched my bus pass by less than 20 feet away just because I was on the wrong side of the street. Infuriating. In 2006, I would drop six qu...

I skipped my science class today in order to edit an English paper I needed to work on. Well...I didn't really want to go science this morning, so I just used that as an excuse. Shame on me. But I've been on this computer for the past two hours and have finally accomplished something I could turn in at my eleven'o'clock English class. I'm just sitting here in the computer lab typing out my paper and have almost forgotten I'm wearing my namesake for this site. Just to explain a little what it looks like, it's an 8-point star with another 8 points visible behind or beneath the visible petals, and it looks a little like a poinsetta (you know, those red Christmas plants). For those who don't know, pagan stars have FIVE points (trust me, that's relevant later). Still with me? Now you know enough to understand this conversation some random computer lab helper guy intiated all of a sudden. "Can I see your necklace?" Okay, cool, so I lift it up for...

So the day started out in quite an interesting fashion, to say the least. Last night, we were up in Mt. Vernon at my dad's girlfriend's place, carving pumpkins all night. SO COOL. I actually got along with CeAnne's kids really well, what with all the flying pumpkin guts and baked pumpkin seeds my sister spilled. I wish I was more technologically savvy; I have some kick-butt pictures on my phone of all our pumpkins we slaved over. My dad and I, the most meticulous of the lot, spend two hours plus on our pumpkins. Okay, I had a pirate skull and the teeny-tiny teeth took up the second hour, so sue me - it was totally worth it. We get back late to our house because the drive is an easy hour, and then I find to my delight, after an hour of fiddling, how to copy my cd's onto my newly-room-acquainted desktop computer. Sum total of everything, I was up way too late, and still wanted to get up early and find out what classes I was going to need to register for the next day. But ...

so I was in science class this morning and we're learning about, but really more laughing at, the 'modern ideas' that the medieval age came up with. and we, as sophisticated college students, scoffed at them and chuckled to ourselves and shook our intelligent little heads. the professor covered all sorts of things, from the Elixer of Life to the study of Alchemy that these ancient Greeks fervently believed could be found. he asked what age we would want to stay at - a lot of people said 23. he said 50, that way he could wear white shoes and drive a golf cart in Florida after retiring for the rest of forever. (that's a direct quote, too, white shoes and all) one of our professor's favorite things to do is ask the class who read this morning's paper and the news on it. even in the middle of writing on the board, the chalk will sometimes squeak to a stop and he'll turn around to tell us something interesting that happened lately. So right in the middle of writi...

I now have infamous grace in my family. so two days ago, while it was raining in the morning, my mother dropped me off at school. Scrambling, I shoved my worn work shoes onto my feet and scooped up my bag; seeing how my mother had to tutor a kid in 15 minutes, I really had to get going. Opening up my polka-dot umbrella and slinging my bag onto my shoulder, I closed the van door... Now let's pause, leaving our heroine in mid-stride. How long have I worn these shoes? a year. Do they have any traction after thousands of hours running around Wendy's? no, not really. Do they have any traction on a wet curb? I could defy the laws of friction in that envirionment . ...so our heroine's first step is miscalculated, and only her traction-less toe makes the curb instead of her entire foot. and down she goes. I didn't stand a chance. My hair and arms seemed puzzled by it all and tried to stay up in the air a split second longer, but my lower body knew I was done for. I stood up, gr...