The Scariest "F" Word

FINALS

 

 Here are a few final exam related gifs and pictures because I feel like procrastinating on my studying for a half hour or so.  ;D  Enjoy!

 

 

 

1.  When you just REALLY don't want to study...

 

 

 

 

2.  Praying for a good curve from your professors...

 

 

 

 

3.  Don't forget all of that valuable last minute cramming...

 

 

 

 

4.  This is what we were all thinking about one of my professors who changed the final from non-cumulative to cumulative on the last day of class...

 

 

 

 

5.  When you've been studying for hours and just really need a hug...

 

 

 

 

 

6.  Neglecting physical appearance because, let's be honest...who has time for that on finals week?

 

 

 

 

7.  Fearing the consequences of failing a final...

 

8.  Remembering the correct answer to a question the minute you leave the classroom after the final...

 

 

 

9.  When you've simply had enough...

 



 

 

 

 

10.  When you look at the clock and suddenly realize it's 2:30 in the morning and you have an 8 am final...

 

 

 

11.  When people try to mooch off of your studying snacks and you're like, "MINE!"

 

 

 

12.  When you get to a question that you have no idea how to answer...

 

 

 

13.  Trying to be modest about acing a final by saying, "It was just luck,"...



14.  Passing out from FRE (Finals Related Exhaustion)...

15.  Not wanting to get out of bed for an early final...

16.  Just when you thought it was all over...your grades are posted.  Ouch...

17.  Celebratory dancing when the last final is completed...

 

 

 

 

18.  Once finals are done, you don't care if the world's ending, you just want to sit around and do nothing...

 

 

19.  When you're upset because you got a 98% and you know that the only reason you lost that 2% was a simple spelling error and people can't understand why you're upset...

20.  I'll leave you with this awesome rewritten Lord of the Rings quote (sorry if it's a little hard to read)... 

 



 

 













Help From A Fellow Author

          Recently I have been having some problems with my writing.  Somehow I found a blog by an author and speaker named Jody Hedlund.  She's written dozens of posts to assist beginning writers.  I've only read a few of them, but all were well written and really helpful.  I want to eventually read them all. 

          The one thing that I utilized from her blog right away was her Character Worksheet.  Unlike a lot of people, I find my main character to be the hardest to create.  I can make all kinds of individual and unique minor characters, but for some reason my main character never gets much attention.  I suppose it's because I usually (not always, but a lot of the time) give my main character a backstory where they've already gone through something really hard (usually losing a loved one) that has tested them.  They've already overcome a huge obstacle and it's made them into the person that they are.  Now they are ready to help the minor characters face even more obstacles and to teach them what they learned from their past experiences.  So you see, most of my main characters are the teachers.  They've already had their big change and now they are ready to help others overcome their fatal flaws.  It makes it really hard when I'm trying to create a main character with depth when they are not going to change much in the course of the story. 

          I've tried a few different kinds of character worksheets before, but I always get distracted by insignificant details, and I still concentrate more on my minor characters.  I really liked Jody Hedlund's worksheet for several reasons.  For one, it wasn't fifty pages long like many character worksheets are.  Not that that's a bad thing.  However I tend to get to involved in tiny details.  Secondly, I liked how she tells you to list synonyms when you list the character's physical descriptions.  Also, she asks questions meant to make you think about how this character is different from all the others.  What makes this person unique?  What are the little things that they do that make them recognizable? 

          I decided to try this excersize with my main heroine and see how it went.  It was incredible how much it helped.  Now Anne (my main character) was not just a stagnant character.  She had come alive.  I came up with a more intricate personality for her.  Now I knew not only what she did, but why did the things that she did.  It has really helped my story.

          I'll probably write more posts about Jody Hedlund's blog as I read more of it.  It truly is amazing and I can't wait to apply even more of her advice to my own writing.  I highly recomend that all amateur/want-to-be authors check it out.  If you go to the "For Writers" part of her website, that's where you can search for her advice by subject.  She has everything from developing characters, to pre-writing, to getting published, to editing, to time management, to drawing the readers in.  She also recomends books that give even more writing tips to beginning authors.  The blog is titled "Jody Hedlund: Author and Speaker" (this is the link to the home page).  She's also on Pinterest.

         

Canadian Poetry and College

          I have just recently moved into a dorm at Western Washington University in Bellingham, WA.  Classes start tomorrow and I'm getting excited...and nervous.  Oh not scared in the way most students are at this time.  I'm not too worried about the workload or the studying (that much anyway).  I am very anxious about how my time at college will affect my character and my future chance/choices.  I want to stay true to myself, and yet be able to explore all that I can be.  I want to improve myself, but sometimes change for the sake of change becomes negative change. 

          Also, I want to make a difference.  I know that is a completely cliche thing to say, but it's true.  I don't care right now about a really wide sphere of influence and fame like many do.  Eventually I want to be an High School or college English teacher and that will include a great deal of influence.  But for now I simply want to make people's lives better for knowing me.  Not just feel-good/happy/makes me smile better.  If I make someone hate me for the rest of their life, and yet plant a seed in their mind that eventually leads them to making better decisions or turns them to God (even if they don't realize it) I'll be happy with that.  I don't plan on making enemies.  I know a lot of people think I hate everyone because I'm not the always-smiling and constantly-chipper and likes-everyone type.  My mother has scolded me for years about not being more social.  That has already changed quite a bit in my first few days as a college student (it's easier to make friends and meet people when no one knows anyone, everyone needs new friends, and no one has any prior expectations about you).  Yet I am not about to give into post-modernistic ideas that everything is okay and there are no moral absolutes.  In short I want to spread God's love and message to those around me.  It doesn't have to be through words necessarily.  Leading by example is often the best method.  And I will need God's help to keep strong and choose the right course. 

          This poem comes from a book of poetry that I picked up in Victoria, Canada of all places.  The author is Donald A. Fraser and his poetry is amazing!  I've read the whole book (Pebbles and Shells) a dozen times and my favorite poems hundreds!  The book itself is old, and was published in 1909 (I LOVE old books!!!!!).  There is one poem in particular that I think describes my hopes perfectly.

The Builder    

"gloomy heath"

An angel came and carried me away

To where a lonely wilderness held sway

For leagues around.  Its dreary face was strewed

With stunted scrub and rocky fragments rude;

No human habitation soothed my eye;

So sight save gloomy heath and leaden sky.

The angel set me in the midst, and said:

"Build."  And in great amaze I turned my head,

And gazed about.  "Build what?"  I cried, but lo!

The angel vanished ere I saw him go.

In grief I threw myself upon the ground,

And lay sometime, as one doth in a swound;

But ever was my sleep with visions filled

Of that stern angel who aye bade me "Build."

"Build, build,"

I rose.  a wild-fowl cleft the barren sky;

"Build, build," too, seemed the burden of his cry;

And echoed, "Build," a cricket in the grass.

"What shall I build, and how?"  I cried.  "Alas!

What can he build who no supplies commands?

How can he build who has no tools save hands?"

I sat me down upon a grassy mound,

And as my sullen glances stole around,

I saw a tiny ant, with fervid will,

At ceaseless work upon her patient hill;

"Can I not do the same,"

A grain of sand, a little piece of straw,

A withered leaf --of such materials raw

She built her home.  "Why then," aloud cried I,

"Can I not do the same, and, striving, try

To rear myself a hut, a dwelling, found

Of such crude things as here are strewn around?"

"O God," I cried, "help me myself to help!

O Thou, who carest for the lion's whelp,

Aid me, Thy child, with all my might, to do

this solemn task which Thou hast set me to."

In eager haste I doffed my coat, and seized

Rough blocks of stone, and these up-piled, and squeezed

Into the crevices thick plaster-mud

That edged a near-by springlet's precious flood.

A doorway and a window-space I left

"Rough blocks of stone, and these up-piled"

In the coarse walls:  and then, with hands grown deft,

I sloped the growing walls, till o'er my head

They well-nigh met;  when, last of all, I spread

A large flat stone that taxed my utmost strength;

And thus my humble cot was built at length.

A couch I made upon the earthen floor

Of the parched grass that spread the moorland o'er.

When this was done the day had gone to rest

Beyond the distant portals of the west.

With my mind and body tired, I stood before

My feeble work, and slowly gazed it o'er.

As well as I knew how my time I'd spent;

Within me rose a feeling of content;

And so, though rude the work and bleak the scene,

Peace filled my heart where once despair had been.

"my Lord and Master stood within."

Then knelt I on the sward, and thanks to God

I gave; but as I raised me from the sod,

I heard again the angel's ringing voice,

But now more soft and kind.  He cried "Rejoice,

O Man!  and see how God hath blessed thy pain."

I turned, and there before my vision plain

Now rose a temple where my hut had been;

And lo, my Lord and Master stood within.

          Please excuse the old fashioned spelling, grammar, and pacing.  I copied it exactly from the book.

          I hope to use what God has, and will, give me and do the best I can with it.  Maybe, with His blessing, it will become something beautiful and wonderful that will be an asset and not a blight to the world.

         

New Orleans Poetry



Hurricane Katrina




          I went on two mission trips to New Orleans with my high school over the last few years.  We worked for a whole week helping to rebuild houses that were destroyed in hurricane Katrina.  There is still so much damage that hasn't been repaired and so many people who still haven't been able to go home even after six years.  The media has moved on and so Americans forget that people are still suffering.  Many of the locals were so stunned that volunteers were still coming to help them, especially a bunch of teenagers.  They couldn't understand that not only were we there when most students were having a relaxing spring break, but that we were there because we wanted to. 



New Orleans Museum

          Some of my favorite memories include going to the Katina Museum.  We went there my first year on our last day before we left on the plane.  It was beyond anything the best museum I'd ever been to.  Everyone who goes to New Orleans should have to stop and visit.  It was an incredibly moving experience.  Every single one of us, even the high school boys and the dads were crying.  Another thing I loved was a preacher who had our whole group spontaneously singing Amazing Grace for all of Cafe du Monde.  It was freezing cold my first time.  Every day was around 30 degrees F with about a 27 degree wind chill.  We had only one heater and we put it in what would be the bathroom of the house we were working on.  During breaks we'd huddle in there, all 15 of us in this tiny little room trying to keep warm.  I spent a lot of my time under the house digging holes so I was at least out of the wind.  But I went numb after the first few minutes.  The parents took us to get hot chocolate or coffee twice a day.  Once we even drove around in the big van during lunch just so we could have the heater on.  There was a Goodwill that we stopped by several times just to get more layers to keep warm.  The second year, a lot of people were sick, including our leader Mrs. McCrady.  We all worked together to get things done and take care of each other.  It was like a huge family.  

Cafe Du Monde

          I love Mrs. McCrady.  She's an English teacher at the high school and she's super funny.  You can definitely tell that she had a lot of older brothers growing up.  She's sarcastic and hilarious and strict, but in a no-nonsense amusing way.  

          My first year there I wrote a poem one night while sitting on my air mattress.  They put it on the website where they put updates everyday for the parents.  I got so much wonderful feedback for it that I entered it in an annual big Library writing contest.  I won second place in the poetry division.  The only sad part was that to enter it in the contest, I had to limit it to 20 lines.  I kept both versions because I liked the original version best.  This is the long version:

Building Ships

Down in New Orleans

Down by the levy

The hammers are knocking

The wheelbarrows are rolling

The bricks are piling

The cement is pouring

The paint is drying

The drills are buzzing

Walls go up

As the waters

Go down.

In the sun

In the rain

In the heat

In the sleet

We’re building

Drilling

Stacking

Sawing

Screwing

Nailing

Painting

Lifting

Digging

Measuring

Carrying…

Building

But what exactly?

A house appears

Slowly

As if emerging from a mist

Walls, foundation, roof, windows, door.

But that’s not

What we’re building.

For we build ships

Big and small

Grand and poor

All lasting longer

Than any structure would.

In the ships we build

People sail

They leave the island

Where they’ve been trapped

For so long

They sail home,

With songs of joy,

In the ships we build.

But the best ships of all

No one will ever see

No one will ever sail

For we’re building friendships

We build houses

With our hammers and nails

And in between  the blows

When the tools are silent

We build our friendships.

We build structures

With boards and bricks

However,

It’s everything but

The act of building

That truly builds

The ships.

          This is what I wrote at the bottom to explain my thoughts:

I was thinking of how the physical work we do isn’t what’s important.  It’s what we do while we build and in between the work that truly builds things that will last longer than houses.  Whether it is a relationship with the homeowner,  your classmates, yourself, or God, the invisible things that you build are infinitely stronger.  If the world suddenly vanished, we’d still exist.  Our physical bodies would be gone.  We’d have no houses, no food, no water.  But we’d still have unbreakable chains holding us to each other and to God.  Wood and brick are just a symbol of the greater things that we are building that will last forever.

- Darlee Hart-

           A few weeks later I wrote this while thinking of the people's great strength and the ruined houses with nothing left but a pair of front steps that I'd seen.

Stairs to Nowhere

(written shortly after my New Orleans trip)

Life is a stairway.

At birth you start

With only your foundations.

Throughout the years

You work your way up

Higher and higher

As your life grows.

Down in New Orleans

Just last week

I saw some stairs

Made of gray concrete.

They led up

To a lot of nowhere.

The house that had once stood

Was completely gone.

Only the front stairs

Were left to show

Where someone’s world

Used to be.

For those people

Their life’s stair

Had collapsed

Before their feet.

They couldn’t go on.

They couldn’t go back.

The fear was crushing.

The anger was bitter.

The grief was sharp.

I cried for them.

My heart ached

Empathizing

Feeling their pain.

I wasn’t sure

I’d survive the blow

If I stood

In their shoes.

Then I saw something

That astounded me.

I saw the multitudes

Crippled by tragedy

Rise back to their feet.

The stairs before them

Were still crumbled

Beyond recognition.

They reached down

Back to their foundations

Past everything

That had been built

Upon it.

From it

They drew strength.

Their eyes lit

With new courage

And faith

Made only stronger

 By the grief.

Slowly

Oh so slowly

They sorted through

The debris

Of once had been

Their lives.

Stone by stone

They rebuilt the stair

Before them

And continued up

On their journey. 

The steps they built

Were at first

Feeble and shaky.

They tottered

Nearly falling.

Suddenly others

Hundreds and hundreds

Of caring souls

Reached out

Helping hands

To aid the injured.

They supported them

And assisted

In the rebuilding

I watched with

Deep admiration.

Before I knew it

My hands had joined

The rebuilders.

But we’d never

 Have succeeded

Without the firm

And unshakable

Foundation

They had built upon

In the Lord.

God bless.

Build your

Foundation

On his word.

Climb your

Life’s stairs.

And one day

They’ll end

At his doorstep

Right where

We all started.

God bless you

As you climb.

          The people of New Orleans had an inner strength that they had to fall back and rely on when everything else was taking away

.  Many of them really had to rely on their faith in God.  It was all they had left.  God's love was the only thing that had been with them their whole lives and would never be taken from them.  It was the foundation that they had built everything on and that they once again had to reach down to.  One can't help but be amazed by the strength of the people and their gratefulness and cheerfulness in the face of tragedy.  It makes you think...would I be as strong as them in their position?  Would I be able to smile like that and crack jokes in my southern drawl like my world hadn't been altered forever?  Would you?