I AM ME

A MegaChapter

To all the people who have supported me..
This heartfelt rhapsody goes out to you
To send you my feelings of appreciation
Thank you...I really thank you
Wherever you may be,
I'm grateful for you

-Thank You! By Home Made Kazoku

Forward: Thank You

I don't really have a lot of readers, haha. But the readers I do have, in particular the ones who message me their appreciation, always make me feel happy and humbled. After seeing all the beautifully written stories in the (Auto)biography section that had been left unreviewed, I seriously doubted tales of my mundane life would generate any interest.

But I was wrong.

Would you guys believe I've even inspired people? That is one of the best things for me to learn, ever. I'm always the one being inspired. I don't stick out: Not at home, not amongst my friends, not at school. But I've made some people here want to write stories of their own and that is wonderful. You are all wonderful. Really, thank you.

As a bit of an "I'm sorry" present, I have thrown together this MegaChapter for you all. It will be far longer than the norm. I write most of the stuff I post here, and I was going to post all of these as their own separate chapters. But I think this works better. Maybe, MegaChapters will be a periodic thing? Would you like that? Let me know! Enjoy the chapter. The official "start date" is February the twenty-fifth.

Pet Peeves

NOT HAVING SOMETHING TO DRINK AS I EAT.

It just ticks me off. I know a lady who refuses to let her children drink something until after they've finished eating. She has a LOT of children. One day, they'll revolt. I'm sure of it.

WHEN I'M READING A BOOK, AND I'M REALLY INTO IT, AND SOMEONE TELLS ME TO "HURRY UP".

Just for that, I'll reread the whole chapter. This is also the last way I will let you borrow my book, darn you.

PEOPLE CALLING ME CRAZY OR WEIRD WHEN I DON'T AGREE WITH THEIR IDIOTIC WAYS.

My mother is the absolute worst offender.
Really, it is impossible to live on a star. It is.

You'd probably die of old age trying to reach your intended destination.

Really.

Also, I why yes, I actually DO hate chocolate. My preference.

I don't see the appeal of Minecraft or ASDF.

I despise Skyrim.

Why the heck should I pretty up for people who don't care about me? Why do you?

GUYS MAKING "LIGHTHEARTED" SEXIST JOKES.

It's not funny. It will never be funny. It's disgusting.

GIRLS MAKING/LAUGING AT SAID JOKES.

You give them reason to look down on us.
For shame.

WHINY TEACHERS.

Newsflash: Kids are cruel. They couldn't care less about your feelings, my feelings, or how they're disrupting the class. Send them out and write them up.

PUSHOVER TEACHERS.

I'm tired of them looking the other way while their students suffer. I thought school was supposed to be safe.

WHEN PEOPLE TALK DOWN TO ME.

You are neither subtle nor remotely clever. By the time you reach your punch line, I am ignoring you.

WHEN I'M TOLD AN OBVIOUS LIE.

I'm not stupid, but the liar sure is.

If you're going to lie to me, make it believable. Otherwise, I lose the ability to take you seriously.

WHEN PEOPLE WATCH ME AS I'M DRAWING OR WRITING AND MAKE ASININE COMMENTS OR ASK QUESTIONS.

Just stop.

What I draw or write about is my business unless I decide to share it with you. Delivering an unnecessary commentary means you've already seen it, and you don't need to look again.

HYPOCRACY.

I think this speaks for itself.

SEXISM.

Of any kind.

Though I am a firm believer sexism against females is more common, sexism in itself is an ugly thing. I don't understand why it is so prevalent in worldwide culture.

PEOPLE WHO THINK THEY'RE FUNNY.

Your fans are laughing at your attempt, in that it was so pathetically earnest.

Now shut up and do your work.

THAT'S WHAT (INSERT GENDER) SAID.

Don't even get me started. Let's leave it at the fact that it wasn't funny in the first place.

COMPETATIVE GAMERS.

As a proud girl gamer, nothing aggravates me more than gamers saying "UR NAWT A REAL GAMER B/C U DIDN'T PALY ON XTREME DIFFICULTY LOLOLOL".

What the heck.
If I really just want to uncover the story, I'll definitely play on easy. I'll woryy about side objectives and challenging gameplay AFTER I know whodunit. Ain't no shame in my game.

STUPID, STUPID NICKNAMES.

My "official" nickname is Si-Si, which I only grudgingly accept. Even then, only select people can call me that. But my parents must have been high when they let my sisters name me. My initials are STD. That's garnered many "colorful" nicknames over the years.

WHEN PEOPLE START SINGING CIARA SONGS WHEN THEY HEAR MY NAME.

This beat is most definitely not automatic, supersonic, hypnotic, or funky fresh.

BEING LABLED BY THE PEOPLE I ASSOCIATE WITH.

If one more person asks me if I'm "gothic" or "emo" I am going to set the school on fire. I love the color blue far too much to wear black all the time, anyways.

WHEN I'M WORKING, AND PEOPLE DISTRACT ME.

I don't have time to answer your questions. I'm working for me.

My Faith

When people ask me what my religion is, I reply with a sheepish, "confused."

And it's true.

I want so badly to believe that there's a bigger force at work, but I can't. Something within me just can't accept it. I want to answer the rhetoric. I want to ramble on to people about stars and how they're quite basically our very first ancestors.

I do not want to be confined to the house as a "homemaker".
I am nobody's helpmeet but my own.

There are too many things in the Christian religion that I simply cannot agree with. I resent getting the spiel about free will. If one more person tells me that doubting God will lead me down the wrong path, I don't know what I will do.

But I want to believe. I don't want there to be nothing when I die. But if what the Bible says is really true, then chances are the place I'll go after death is an unpleasant one. But you know what, I think I've come to accept that. I don't believe in living my life based on what my afterlife will be like. Life is too fickle and short for things such as that. I've been thinking of declaring myself an Agnostic or Realist. While there is no definite way to prove God exists—don't even begin the whole "look at the phenomena of Earth and life on Earth speech—but there's also no definite way to disprove it. The same goes for the other higher beings that exist in religion around the world. I even considered embracing Buddhism. I did a little research, and it fits well with my own personal morals. But I think that being nonreligious in itself is the best path for me.

Musing To Myself—Movies

I really love movies. They make me happy.

Even if I start watching a movie, and a few minutes in I think, "Wow, this is god awful," I will still finish watching it. I think there is something in the novelty of watching someone else's brainchild play out on my screen that makes it better for me.

Favorite Lyrics of Mine

You who I called brother, how could you have come to hate me so?

Is this what you wanted?

(I sent the swarm, I sent the horde)

Then let my heart be hardened

And never mind how high the cost may go

This will still be so

I will never let your people go

(The Plagues from The Prince of Egypt)

I've been working so hard, I'm punching my card

Eight hours, for what?

Oh, tell me what I got

I've got this feeling

That time's just holding me down

I'll hit the ceiling

Or else I'll tear up this town

(Footloose by Kenny Loggings)

Nobody taught me to hint,

Win a happy life of a dream

I'm not waiting for a fortuneteller

I feel that my wish will come true

I never thought ahead to that luck

Is it my treasure? Tell me what I really looked for

Fancy comes to my mind

It leads me to somewhere far a way

Distant place, distant time

(Fly in The Freedom)

If I looked all over the world

And there's every type of girl

But your empty eyes seems to pass me by

And leave me dancing with myself

So, let's sink another drink

'Cause it'll give me time to think

If I had the chance

I'd ask the world to dance

And I'd be dancing with myself

(Dancing With Myself by Billy Idol and Tony James)

Mother misses her baby
But I only wanted to be me
She changed address and haircuts
And boyfriends and light bulbs

It's easy
But it's only change
Only everything I know
Even the things
That seem still

Are still

Changing

(Still Reprise by Ben Folds)

Sunday morning rain is falling

I'll still some cover, share some skin

Clouds are shrouding us in moments unforgettable

You twist to fit the mold that I am in

But things just get so crazy living, life gets hard to do

And I would gladly hit the road, get up and go if I knew

That someday it would lead me back to you

That someday it would lead my back to you

That may be all I need

In darkness, she is all I see

Come and rest your bones with me

Driving slow on Sunday morning
And I never want to leave

(Sunday Morning by Maroon Five)

Memory—Phoebe and Scraggles

I love my grandmother to death, but the main reason I would want to visit her when I was younger was the cats she had living in the shed by her yard. I wanted one really bad. For strays, they were agreeable cats, and were eager to accept my overbearing affection.

"You just want to go to see them cats," My day scolded me when I begged him to go visit one day. My aunt had just called him and told them that the two cats had had kittens. They were now around ten weeks old, so I was excited. (I was also a little mad that it'd taken her so long to tell us.)

After our visit, my father and I rode home with a large box holding within it two calico kittens. One of them was fluffier than the other, and almost annoyingly curious. The other was slender and quiet, with piercing yellow eyes that met my own unwaveringly. I was in love. The fluffy cat was given to my sister—in my head I called them the two goofies—and and the slender cat was mine. I named my cat Phoebe, and she named hers Scraggles.

I took to torturing Scraggles, throwing her off of the porch, waving food in front of her face, making strange noises. Phoebe would always come to her rescue. I always felt bad after this, and so eventually I stopped. It was then that I feel like Phoebe truly accepted me into her heart. Before she was hesitant to come to close to me (She only grudgingly nuzzled my side when I burst into tears), but after that Phoebe and I were insuperable, provided I play nice with silly old Scraggles. Phoebe stayed with me for three happy years before disappearing all together. Scraggles stayed around longer. As I only just recently found out, my dad ran over her by accident with the car at night time. Knowing that my sister and I would be upset over her death, He quietly wrapped her body and buried her in an unmarked area in our back yard. It still makes me sad to think about those cats. They were animals, but far more human than most of the people I know.

Memory—Cleo, formerly known as Sweety

I was seven years old, and I wanted another pet.

It was my birthday! I wanted a rabbit.

"Noooooooooo," My father whined mournfully as my sister and I filed into the car, "why are you doing this to me?" He felt like he would be the one who ended up caring for my future pet, as he fed Scraggles, Phoebe, and a small army of strays that stayed in our back yard. He was wrong.

He reluctantly drove us to the pet shop downtown.

"Rabbits, please," I chimed obnoxiously as I entered the store. The owner shot me an amused look and pointed to a large cage in the middle of the small store and returned to the paperwork he was filling out.

"Nothing, please," My dad countered, making the shop owner grin secretively to himself. Even now, I don't know why the smile on his face seemed so knowing. I trudged over to the cage.

Immediately, the rabbits inside turned tail and faced the other direction. Undeterred, I opened the cage door and reached inside. The first rabbit I picked up was a white rabbit with golden brown spots. It trembled in my hands, and I could feel its accelerated heartbeat under my thumbs. Now, rabbits are severely acrophobic. I was unaware of this back then, and stayed unaware until after Cleo. The rabbit began to writhe determinedly in my hands, and so, spooked, I deposited the plump thing back into to the cage with the others.
"What about its brother?" My sister asked.

She was met with my half-hearted reply of "You 'on't know if thas' a boy or not," but it didn't take long for me to spot the rabbit she was talking about. The rabbit in question was currently sniffing the pads of my fingers curiously, nibbling at them with blunt little teeth. I hesitantly picked the rabbit up, careful to bend low, and when it simply began to nibble at the fabric of my birthday dress, I declared, "This one!"

The rabbit was purchased, and the shop owner confirmed his gender. He gave me another one of those knowing smiles and saw us out of the door.

I named him Sweety upon leaving the store, but quickly abandoned the name for the cooler sounding "Cleo". Cleo stayed with me for as long as Phoebe and Scraggles. When I was upset about the pain in my throat after getting my tonsils removed, he would stretch out beside me as I cried on my bed. He even started a large family with my sister's rabbit (She felt left out and begged my parents for a rabbit about a year after Cleo came to stay with us—they made the mistake of getting a female rabbit), and their children began building families. My father swiftly built pins to accommodate their growing size, and we were happy—my family, the cats (Who were, strangely enough, frightened by the rabbits) and the rabbits. Until one day, my father felt bad for keeping the rabbits cooped up. He opened the doors to the pens and released them. Thinking back on it now, it was a foolish idea. He brought us outside to catch the scattering animals to make us think their release had been accidental. He told me later own that he set them free. But I think that chase was the last goodbye.
Even after he had let them go, however, Cleo lingered. I even got to snuggle his now large body and sing softly to him. I didn't see him again the next day.

Why Yes it Is Intentional

Recently I got a message asking me why I had misspelled "shield" as "sheild" in my SN. Is it intentional, they asked? It kind of pissed of the grammar nazi within them.

It is.

Maybe I'll share the joke with you all one day.

These next few sections are actually from a project I did for English II.

Reflection

I'll be honest, when we first started this unit, I kind of felt like it was something our English teachers had whipped up for us because they were out of lessons.

However, the more we started doing these things, these challenging prompts in what seemed to be random bursts, the more I realized that it was really helping me as a writer. Writing is something that I am passionate about, but before one can really be descriptive in that deep, almost visceral ways that I prefer in all of the books I read, one must first experience things, for want of a better word. I have not experienced many things. I couldn't tell you what the name of the next street down the road from my house is called, or how to fold clothes, or when you know that you've overcooked something. I live a disgustingly sheltered life, and I wholly believe that that has affected me both negatively and positively as a young writer—though more negatively than positively. But that's beside the point.

With all the exercises that we've done these past few weeks, I've learned how to work around the obvious boundaries and still make something beautiful of my writing. I'm no fantasy girl. Aside from Anne Rice and perhaps Stephen King, fantasy is tied for my least favorite genre with romance. I prefer historical fiction. It's a saddening thing that fantasy and romance are probably the exact two genres that I can write with the most ease, because I know little about how to, well, live, and how I could explain these things to anyone else. With the snapshots, I've learned to really take apart the environment of the setting my characters are placed in. With the "showing, not telling" activities, I've solidified my understanding on how to relay the feelings of my characters to the readers.

On a trickier note, the memoir area of this unit has been a bit of a challenge on me. It's always been easier for me to write my feelings rather than say them, but to tell someone something about my life, no matter how trivial the information, is difficult. I think, "Have I been the only one to go through something like this?" or "Will they laugh at me? I'm not sharing this!" I've found ways to get the point of my life across with both limited and unlimited space, and that has benefited me as a person. I'm a private person. I always will be. But I think that I will have less of a problem telling others about my life and what I've been through.

There were times were I found this unit to be quite tedious. It's just me. I don't like doing the same thing too much; I get stir crazy and my mind wanders until it can't find where it's supposed to be anymore. But, in the long run, this has been a good thing for me. It will definitely give me something to consider and heed in the future.

In this portfolio, I've complied for you my best works of this unit. I hope that you will enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them.

-Sierra

1/8/2013

Memoir Tweet

Home is where the heart is, yeah? Where's my heart? I can't find mine anywhere.

Six-Word Memoir

This is a nerd's memoir.

Bazinga.

Showing, Not Telling

Prompt: The boy was weird.

She didn't like him.

His hair looked to be perpetually slick, twisted and hanging in his bright gray eyes like dark, dangerously swaying icicles. It contrasted unappealingly against his smooth with skin and made him look to be quite the ghoul. He had a tendency to whisper rude things at her, deep, probing things, reciting to her the secrets she had long ago refused to share with any living soul. Other times, he was a burst of piercing spontaneity, yelling obscenities and crude jokes at the top of his lungs, the usual gritty tenor of his voice obnoxious and croaking.

She didn't like him.

Holiday Rambling Autobiography

My break was a break but that was all. I was sick as a dog. Pneumonia! Haven't had that since I was, like, four. My sister's visiting from North Carolina, I'm a bit salty about having to share my bed with her because she always pulls the covers off of me in and out of sleep. Only wanted four things this year. Sherlock series one and two, a new keyboard(With weighted keys, please and thank you), and drumsticks. Keyboards are expensive so now I have to live with my very crappy one with skinny keys and no kind of sustaining capabilities until I save up enough green to get that pretty silver thing I had my eye on. Got a new bike, now I have to exercise. Joy of joys. The food was bad, what a disappointing. Too many presents this year than I rightly know what to do with. Got into Doctor Who, Steven Moffat eat your heart out. He writes Sherlock, maybe that's why I love the show so much.

One Minute Memory:

Felt really accomplished when I got published again this year. Officially. Not those stupid "school-wide" magazine things. I got published in a nation wide anthology. My poem was probably really stupid compared to the others. Elementary, even, my dear Watsons. But, I'm published. Woot.

I'm freaking published.

Snapshot:

The water seems to envelop everything they own.
Their belongings are probably drifting to the bottom of the lake, and the wood that was the foundation of their precious dock bobs rhythmically in its unsympathetic, dark grey depths. The scene on the shore seems so uncharacteristically cheerful; the bright chirruping of blissfully ignorant birds being drowned out by a woman's loud, bitter sobbing. She clings to the knee of her companion, seemingly boneless with grief, uncaring of the cold wetness of his skin. The man holders her arms gingerly, his features that of a person who's long gotten the message, the ancient glint in his eyes solemn and dim. It's easy to see that he needs her support just as, if not more than she needs his.

Thoughtshot:

"It's happened," Marci murmured quietly.

"What's happened?"

Winnie observed his wife curiously as she peered out of the wide windows of their light yellow mansion.

Their dock collapsed. Did they need help? They did, obviously. But there was no way that their pride was going to let them accept it, she thought sadly, failing to reply as her husband took a look out of the window at the couple in the lake. Pity bubbled up within her, and she had to look away. Her eyes smarted lightly, and she pressed the translucent skin of the heel of her palms lightly against them. They would need some money, probably. She could call a crew to come in and help them build a new one. They would be so proud of her, then. They'd think she'd do it to patronize them, but they probably never realized that the dock was as important to her as it was to them. They wouldn't—

"They won't want help," Winnie intoned softly, as if he was tuned to her thoughts. "They're a proud pair."

Marci knew. Her parents had always been stubborn.

Holiday Memoir

By Sierra

Aside from one very special day, my holiday break was largely uneventful. I was miserable with Pneumonia, a constantly complaining mother, and a goofy sister. I coughed almost every time I breathed in, I was constantly delirious with fever, and I just wanted to sleep throughout the whole thing. I was unable to do that however, so I just fidgeted uncomfortably as my mother shoved all manner of cough medicines and horse pills upon me. Whereas I loved chicken won ton before, I was told to eat so much of it that I shudder at the very thought of chicken broth and spinach. I was having a terrible vacation the first few days, and there's no doubt in my mind that I would have continued to have a terrible vacation if not for this very special day.

I woke up feeling better than usual, though my chest still tickled with the threat of an oncoming coughing fit. I trudged to the kitchen, intent to snag an early dose of some coughing medicine (Even though I secretly suspected that it was ineffective) and some water. My dad sleeps in the kitchen in his large La-Z-Boy chair, so I fell into it and rode the waves of the coughing fit. Afterwards, I took the medicine and crawled back into bed. Nothing new, though my mother would be pretty salty with me for taking the medicine without asking her first. As I lay down, my sister sleepily tugged the covers off of my body for the umpteenth time, but it didn't really bother me; my skin felt annoyingly hot and prickly. I fell into a fitful sleep.

When I woke, I was freezing. It was a stark contrast from my earlier hotness, and I was so frustrated at this that I was filled with a childish kind of anger that I'm ashamed to talk about, really. I jumped out of the bed, sought extra covers, and wrapped them around myself as I nearly dug a grove into the floor from my pacing. I was pacing back and forth in hopes of warming myself up. Another coughing fit wracked me. This made me angrier, so I marched back into my bed room and turned my television on. I changed the channel to "auxiliary" and searched in my dresser for a few moments. I had found the game I wanted to play. The Xbox360 was booted up and I fished for the wireless remote, rudely sitting on my bed. I let out a wild huff as I sat, hoping to awaken my sister. She groaned mutely at me and faced the wall. I kind of wanted to hit her.

I played my game until my anger subsided. Killing gruesome NPCs had never been more therapeutic. By the time I had finished, my sister was awake and giggling on the phone with her boyfriend, my mother awake and complaining at her television, my dad back in his chair and guffawing at some 1940s, black and white comedy as per usual. It was a typical morning in the Davis house. I felt at ease. After my minute observation of the house, I returned to my video game, now helping out some friend of my character's instead of killing things.

While I woke, I took in all these things, the silly quirkiness of my family. There hadn't been a time where they'd never made me angry. I'm sure I get mad at them daily. But as the background noise of their lazy living filled my ears, I was reminded that it could be much, much worse.

Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life

Always writing.

I can't help it. It's practically my only outlet. I've been trying to find other ones, but I suspect it's what I'll always return to in the end.

Astronomy.

I discovered the wonder of astronomy in eighth grade. I'd always been fascinated by it, but I didn't delve deeper until we started the unit. I regret taking so long. It's a wonderful thing, really, and if I weren't so abysmally awful at Math, I'd pursue a career in the field. My favorite thing about Astronomy is learning about stars. From the useless protein that makes up your hair and fingernails, to the iron in your blood and the salt in your tears, you are—quite literally—stardust. This made me wonder why people weren't worshipping the sun, and then I realized it's a giant insentient ball of gas and metal that will one day swallow up the whole planet.

Blue.

I love the color blue. There's an internet article that says there's a psychology to color. Blue means that you're a very calm and mellow person, and on the flip side it can make others think you're sad somehow, somewhere deep on the inside. I think that this fits, though I'm not sad… not crazily happy, either.

Crayola.

Crayola is an awesome brand. I always make sure to use crayola for coloring things. It's practically dry paint, and eco-friendly, too. Unless I absolutely have to use something else, Crayola will be the only thing bringing color to my big-headed drawings.

Decisions.

I'm not good at making decisions. I always wonder if I'll regret a decision, and then choose the one that I normally wouldn't. I usually regret it. There's a physics theory that states that every time you make a decision, an alternate universe is created. I wonder what the universe where I told my mother I didn't want to be in English I is like? Or the one where I chose Alfredo pasta over pizza that one Thursday?

Envious.

It's bad to be jealous of people, but I'm really jealous of people who can leave their front yard. Other kids can say, "Mom, I'm going out with so-and-so, I'll be back by, like, five," and leave the house. I go outside and dawdle in the yard. Once my foot touches the sidewalk in front of our house, I am officially out of bounds.

Final Fantasy.

Silly, silly, I know. It's one of my favorite things ever. I just love it. The series is important to me, no matter how corny the lines may be. I grew up loving it and I'll always be faithful to the ones that I first played.

Girl.

I am a girl. I am proud to be a girl. I hate that some guys think girls are somehow lesser beings to them. I enjoy proving them wrong.

Height

For a girl, I'm tall—I guess? I'm close to five-six. I used to lament over being the tallest kid in my class. Now, compared to some people, I'm fun sized.

Intelligent.
This is something about myself that I will never doubt, or let others doubt. I am smart. Sometimes, I feel like it's all I have going for me in life. It's the fount of my (admittedly small) ego. But even the dumbest person knows that just smarts alone won't get you far.

Kid.

I am a kid. I am proud to be a kid. In some ways, I don't want to grow up, because I know that once I get out there on my own, I won't know what to do with myself. I just seriously won't, and that sucks majorly.

Last+Minute.

The words last minute are very familiar with me. They giggle about me over tea and cake. They're watching me now as I type this. They're guffawing at the errant mistakes I made on my scratch paper the other day.

Jerks.

Living.

I love living. This is something that I will readily tell anyone, even though my living in itself is pretty limited. Death is right up there on numero uno on my worst fear list. You know, I am not a religious person. I began to question it early on and life and later desensitized myself to religious comfort and the evil things that some people do "in the name of God." I wouldn't say that I don't believe. I'm a firm believer that something does exist up there. I'm also a firm believer that if They're anything like the God in the Bible, they probably think me a charlatan.

Love.

Love, argh, that four-letter word that causes grief and happiness for so many people. I'm pretty sure I use this word liberally. I'm especially sure that I've probably made someone angry by doing this. But, you know what? There are a lot of things that truly I love.

S: Sierra.

I don't really like or hate my name. At least it's not painfully common. I remember telling myself that if I knew someone who named their kids the boring names like Amy and Bob and Paul, I'd personally hit them where it hurts. Hard.
I'm just glad my mother let my sisters name me and didn't name me Infinity, as she intended.

And… you've reached the end. How do you feel? Worse for wear?

Guys, I have so much more to share with you. This is just the half of it. I couldn't put all of it into one chapter! This in itself is fifteen pages long, counting this page!

I seriously doubt anybody would read that whole thing. If you did, props to you! I hope that you enjoyed. Look out for more chapters like this in the future. If you seriously wanted to learn more about me, this chapter was a beginner's primer.
All the best,

Sierra

3/12/2013