imagine a world where xanga never died

Day 01 - A picture of yourself with fifteen facts.
Day 02 - A picture of you and the person you have been close with the longest.
Day 03 - A picture of the cast from your favorite show.
Day 04 - A picture of a habit you wish you didn’t have……….
Day 05 - A picture of your favourite memory.
Day 06 - A picture of a person you’d love to trade places with for a day.
Day 07 - A picture of your most treasured item.
Day 08 – A picture that makes you laugh.
Day 09 – A picture of the person who has gotten you through the most.
Day 10 – A picture of the person you do the most messed up things with.
Day 11 – A picture of something you hate.
Day 12 – A picture of something you love.
Day 13 – A picture of your favorite band or artist.
Day 14 – A picture of someone you could never imagine your life without.
Day 15 – A picture of something you want to do before you die.
Day 16 – A picture of someone who inspires you.
Day 17 – A picture of something that has made a huge impact on your life recently.
Day 18 – A picture of your biggest insecurity.
Day 19 – A picture of you when you were little.
Day 20 – A picture of somewhere you’d love to travel.
Day 21 – A picture of something you wish you could forget.
Day 22 – A picture of something you wish you were better at.
Day 23 – A picture of your favorite book.
Day 24 – A picture of something you wish you could change.
Day 25 – A picture of your day.
Day 26 – A picture of something that means a lot to you.
Day 27 – A picture of yourself and a family member.
Day 28 – A picture of something you’re afraid of.
Day 29 – A picture that can always make you smile.
Day 30 – A picture of someone you miss.

Things Coming Near my Eyes

I HATE having things come near my eyes. It terrifies me! I don't know, it's just one of those strange phobias that everyone has. Some people are afraid of spiders or ghosts. I'm afraid of anything approaching my eyes. Fingers, contacts, bugs - whatever. I hate it. My fear is so extreme that I even avoid 3D movies. I saw Gravity with my boyfriend a few weeks ago and nearly walked out. All the space debris flying out of the screen really made me uncomfortable, and I think I spent nearly the full 91 minutes with my eyes closed. Except maybe when Clooney was on screen...C:

Unfortunately, I do have several health problems when it comes to my eyes because I was born almost two months pre-mature, so I go to the eye doctor a lot. As you can imagine, this is a struggle. The worst part is when the nurse comes in to take my eye pressure. I go to the ophthalmologist about every three months, and it is torture!

I don't know why I have this strange fear, but I do. I hate things coming near my eyes. It scares me, and I just don't like it.

Day 01 - A picture of yourself with fifteen facts.
Day 02 - A picture of you and the person you have been close with the longest.
Day 03 - A picture of the cast from your favorite show.
Day 04 - A picture of a habit you wish you didn’t have……….
Day 05 - A picture of your favourite memory.
Day 06 - A picture of a person you’d love to trade places with for a day.
Day 07 - A picture of your most treasured item.
Day 08 – A picture that makes you laugh.
Day 09 – A picture of the person who has gotten you through the most.
Day 10 – A picture of the person you do the most messed up things with.
Day 11 – A picture of something you hate.
Day 12 – A picture of something you love.
Day 13 – A picture of your favorite band or artist.
Day 14 – A picture of someone you could never imagine your life without.
Day 15 – A picture of something you want to do before you die.
Day 16 – A picture of someone who inspires you.
Day 17 – A picture of something that has made a huge impact on your life recently.
Day 18 – A picture of your biggest insecurity.
Day 19 – A picture of you when you were little.
Day 20 – A picture of somewhere you’d love to travel.
Day 21 – A picture of something you wish you could forget.
Day 22 – A picture of something you wish you were better at.
Day 23 – A picture of your favorite book.
Day 24 – A picture of something you wish you could change.
Day 25 – A picture of your day.
Day 26 – A picture of something that means a lot to you.
Day 27 – A picture of yourself and a family member.
Day 28 – A picture of something you’re afraid of.
Day 29 – A picture that can always make you smile.
Day 30 – A picture of someone you miss.

I know, I know - I haven't done one of these picture challenge posts in forever! I have so many things going on in my life, from school to my two jobs to my internship to my oversized family. I do love this challenge, and after seventeen months I'm almost done.

Logan

Meet my nephew, Logan Jake. He's the third child, and only boy, of my sister Julia and her husband Conner. Julia and Conner have three girls, but Logan is it as far as boys go. He is two and half, and he's probably my favorite nephew. I know you're not supposed to pick favorites among your family, but let's get real, everyone has a favorite niece, nephew, or cousin.

Being the youngest girl, I've always been the family baby-sitter. I've raised so many kids that aren't mine, I don't know if I'll really even need my own children.  Just kidding.

Last summer, I stayed with Julia so I could be closer to work. Logan was really the only thing that kept me sane in that house. He's smart, hilarious, and absolutely adorable. I am sure Logan was the only reason I made an A+ in my Advanced Portrait Photography course.

A few selections from my portfolio:

How can you not love that?

I've been hired to write a new screenplay. It's a teen drama-comedy set in suburban Dallas. I'm having trouble deciding on character names, so please help me out! Who knows, maybe next summer you will see your favorite name illustrated on the silver screen.

Go here to vote!

Liv’s Time

My name is Olivia Elyse Moore. Liv Moore. My name is live more, which is funny, because the only thing certain about my life is that it’s going to be over before I’m forty. I was born with a genetic condition called Huntington’s chorea. In somewhere around fifteen years, my nerves will start to deteriorate. I’ll become irritable, anxious, depressed, and eventually psychotic. I won’t be able to take care of myself. My muscles will weaken, so much so that I’ll no longer have the ability to swallow or wipe my own ass. Then, somewhere in my mid-thirties, hungry, in a diaper – I’ll die.

I’ve got some time before then. I’ve got some time to be normal. I’ll finish high school like everyone else. You know – before the symptoms become… problematic. I’m sure I’ll go to college. I have to. I know it’s expensive, and student debt is a bitch. But hey, at least I won’t be paying it off all that long. I’ll get a job. Probably in accounting somewhere. I’m good with numbers. But no office romances for me. I mean, who wants some crazy, extremity flailing, dying wife? And I can’t really have children. I mean, it’s like a 50% chance that a child will inherit the disease, and the average family has 2.5 children. That means one of my kids is dead, and the other 1½ get to watch him go.

I know this is a writing assignment, and I know you probably don’t care about any of this. I guess I’m just saying all this, because I need it to be in black and white. I know I’m going to die before I have grandchildren. I know I’m going to die before I can enjoy any form of retirement. And I know I’m probably going to die before you. I know I don’t have a lot of time. I’m okay with it.

My death is going to be gruesome. It’s going to be nasty, and hard to look at. Nobody’s going to talk about it for a really long time, because they’re gonna want to remember how I was before the disease took me. I was fun. I was cool. I was smart. – And I want to think that I was important.

I’m sure this stupid piece of paper really doesn’t mean anything. In twenty years, when I’m dead, the essays I wrote when I was a kid aren’t going to matter all that much. Nobody’s going to remember the tests I took, or the books I read, or the kind of cell phone I had.  Maybe I rambled on a bit. Oh well. I just needed to get it out. I guess I really wrote this, because in twenty years, when I’m dead – I want people to know that I was a real person with air in my lungs and blood in my veins. I guess I wrote this because, more than anything, I just want to be immortal.

I know I already sent a message, but if you haven't seen it - here is where to find me:

Follow me @CopyrightAmanda on twitter

Gingeravenger1.worpress.com

Look me up. I need followers!

I need your guy's help again!

I've been hired to write another screenplay! Obviously, I've already written a few drafts - but the five princeple characters still don't have names! I realize Xanga may be coming to a close in the next few days so... Please send your votes to twitter @CopyrightAmanda If you want, you can add #namecharacter followed by your choice. This is the easiest way for me to keep track of votes. It's an ensamble cast, so there are a lot of characters. You don't have to vote on them all. Just choose the best name. I hardly ever use my twitter account, so this could be a good way to get going.

Character One, 16, Female - Amzie, Blakely, Cambria, Ella, Raleigh, Savannah

Character Two, 33, Female - Clara, Erica, Erin, Kimberly, Kristin, Lauren

Character Three, 50, Female - Alice, Josephine, Kathy, Lisa, Remy, Tammy

Character Four, 28, Female - Audrey, Emily, Libby, Lily, Sarah, Scarlett

Character Five, 17, Male - Ambrose, Gage, Lucas, Micah, Sebastian, Silas

 

Cast your votes! @CopyrightAmanda #namecharacter

All that I've found through these ups and downs
Is that I'd have it no other way.
Life in the raw is both fragile and strong.
It's both lovely and ugly the same.
Who can attest to when they're at their best
Their worst is still crouching close behind.
It's coming to peace with the darkness in me
That allows the true light inside to shine.
So, let it go. We are still far from home
Though you try and you try to escape...
To live and to love will always be dangerous
But it's better than being alone.

Continue reading more from me at http://gingeravenger1.wordpress.com/

In 2011, 100 notable writers voted on the 100 greatest novels of all time. I was curious to see how many I had read, and let me say... I'm a little surprised of how many I've never even heard of...

Finished Reading

Started but didn't finish

Never read

The List

1) Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin

2) 1984 by George Orwell

3) Hamlet by William Shakespeare

4) Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

5) The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

6) One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

7) Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

8) The Odyssey by Homer

9) Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

10) Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

11) Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

12) The Old Man and the Sea by Earnest Hemingway

13) The Brother Karamazov by Fryodor Dostoyevsky

14) The Stranger by Albert Camus

15) King Lear by William Shakespeare

16) Don Quioxote by Miguel de Cerventes Saavaedra

17) The Hans Christian Anderson Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Anderson

18) Oedipus Rex by Sophocles

19) The Iliad by Homer

20) The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Caucer

21) Moby-Dick by Herman Melville

22) The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri

23) Madame Boavary by gustave Flaubert

24) War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

25) Othello by William Shakespeare

26) Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Wolf

27) The Trial by Franz Kafka

28) Ulysses by James Joyce

29) Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren

30) Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift

31) The Collected Tales by Edgar Allan Poe

32) The Arabian Nights by Anonymous

33) Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

34) Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

35) Blindness #1 by Jose Saramago

36) The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

37) Invisible Man by Ralph Eillison

38) Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie

39) The Epic of Gilgamesh by Anonymous

40) Beloved by Toni Morrison

41) The Death of Ivan Ilych by Leo Tolstoy

42) The Complete Stories by Franz Kafka

43) Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life by George Eliot

44) A Doll's House by Henrik Insem

45) Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis

46) The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

47) Pere Goriot by Honore de Balzac

48) To the Lighthouse by Virginia Wolf

49) Medea by Euripides

50) Selected Stories by Anton Chekhov

51) Hunger by Knut Hamsun

52) The Aeneid by Virgil

53) Faust: First Part by Joahann Wolfgang van Goethe

54) Leaves of Grass by Walt Witman

55) The Decameron by Giovanni Boccoccio

56) Dead Souls by Nikilai Gogol

57) Swann's Way (In Search of Lost Time, #1) by Marcel Proust

58) The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann

59) Ficciones by Jorge Lius Borgas

60) The Red and the Black by Stendhal

61) Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family by Thomas Mann

62) Metamorphoses by Ovid

63) Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourenar

64) The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne

65) Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence

66) Mahabharata by Annoynmous

67) The Complete Essays by Michel de Montaigne

68) Ramayana by William Buck

69) The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing

70) Demons by Fydor Dostoyevsky

71) The Tin Drums by Gunter Grass

72) Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih

73) Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner

74) Njal's Saga by Anonymous

75) Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert

76)  Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable: A Trilogy by Samuel Beckett

77) The Castle by Franz Kafka

78)  مثنوی معنوی by Rumi

79) Gargantua an Pantagruel by Francois Rabelais

80) Independent People by Halldor Laxness

81) Journey to the End of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

82) The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu

83) أولاد حارتنا by نجيب محفوظ

84) The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil

85) Jacques the fatalist by Denis Diderot

86) Nostromo by Joseph Conrad

87) Romancero Gitano by Fredrico Garcia Lorca

88) The Book of Job by Anonmyous

89) The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa

90) Diary of a Madman and Other Stories by Lu Xun

91) Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo

92) Berlin Alexanderplatz Alfred Doblin

93) Poems of Paul Celan by Paul Celan

94) The Sound of the Mountain by Yasunari Kawabatoa

95) History by Elsa Morante

96) Zeno's Conscience by Italo Svevo

97) The Recognition of Sakuntala by Kalidasa

98) Grande Sertao: Veredas by Joao Guimaraes Rosa

99) The Poems of Leopardi by Giacomo Leopardi

100) The Orchard: The Bostan of Saadi of Shiraz by Saadi

 

How many have you read?