My name is Amanda, I'm 17, an Irish-American, Protestant, and a rather strict Conservative. As soon as I go to college, I plan on joining the College Republicans (not to sound redundant), and try to help make a change in whatever community in which I end up (most probably New York, so I'll have my work cut-out for me). Sooner or later I'll post my work-in-progress, an outline of ideas on Conservative Feminism. Yes, it exists, and eventually you'll find out why.

My favourite authors include (with their respective books that I've read): Frank McCourt ("Angela's Ashes" and "'Tis"), George Eliot ("Silas Marner", "Mill on the Floss", "Middlemarch", and my favourite "Daniel Deronda"), Emily Brontë ("Wuthering Heights"-- her only work outside of poetry), William Shakespeare (too much to name, but my favouritebeing "Macbeth"), Charles Dickens ("Great Expectations", "Oliver Twist", and the "Pickwick Papers"), J.K. Rowling (take a guess), Lemony Snickett (take a guess), Annie Dillard ("Pilgrim at Tinker Creek"), Jonathan Swift ("A Modest Proposal" and "Gulliver's Travels"... he was Irish), and whoever it was that wrote my Celtic Mythology book. Many others are included, but I'm too lazy to type all of the names.

I hope to become a filmmaker through college, so my favourite movies list is too long to mention. It includes "The Passion of the Christ", "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", "In America", "Far and Away", "Signs", "The Sixth Sense", "The Village" (I have yet to see "Unbreakable"), "Edward Scissorhands" (and anything/everything else made by Tim Burton), and various foreign low-budget movies that I doubt you've ever heard of, so I'll spare you the misery of reading about them.

And the only television shows I watch and still enjoy: Will and Grace, Monk, Joan of Arcadia, and Scrubs. And Spongebob Squarepants and Fairly Oddparents, but I'm still having trouble admitting to those.

I play the cello, tinwhistle, and guitar, the latter two I taught to myself. I also happen to be the fourth best French speaker in my state at my level of French, five years, and have taught myself both Chinese and a little Gaelic (I've been burying myself in history and language books of Ireland). My favourite subjects include English, French, Government, Orchestra, and Drama (please, note the abscence of science and math).

And since everyone else includes quotes (and I love to conform), here are a few of my favourites:

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing has happened." -Sir Winston Churchill

"You've got to do your own growing, no matter how tall your grandfather was." -Irish Proverb (I'm 6'1", my grandfather still has me beaten by about 4 inches)

"This above all: to thine own self be true..." -Shakespeare, Hamlet

"Never hold discussions with the monkey when the organ grinder is in the room." -Sir Winston Churchill

"Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggy' until you can find a rock." -Will Rogers

"Whatever you are, be a good one." -Abraham Lincoln

"They say the sun never sets on the British Empire... well, baby, it's setting." -Frank McCourt

"Whoever betrayed the cause, or gave up the fight, or suffered loss of spirit, it was seldon the People. We are the People." -the IRA.

"Everyone, Republican or otherwise, has their own particular part to play. No part is too great or too small, no one is too old or too young to do something." -Bobby Sands