Are you asking for a challenge?

I was talking to my friend about what I am thinking about giving up for lent. I know I am not a true Catholic at heart, but I know that I like to participate in certain types of events. I told her I was thinking about giving up more than just my routine of fast food, candy, soda, and chips.

"I'm thinking about giving up media devices," I told her. We went to Johnny's Burgers which is a few minutes from our school to devour some much needed burgers that I have been deprived of for a few weeks already. I slipped the last morsel of food into my mouth and didn't even bother savoring it as I pushed the white plate of chili cheese fries in front of me.

"Media?" she said.

"Yeah, like all the media type of things. Internet, Tumblr, Facebook, television, maybe movies. I am thinking of going full on Amish," I told her.

I kept thinking about it and the more that I began thinking about it the more that it actually got me thinking. Can I actually get away with going 40 plus days without any type of media?

I think there can be a way to secularize myself from anything that is considered media. I just don't know how it would go. I know that I would want to dedicate my time to reading more and writing out a ton more things. I think maybe carrying around my camera and whatnot.

I actually never gave it much thought to the whole phone business. Would I be carrying it around with me or would I have to leave it because it is also considered to be technology?

I just think that I focus too much on internet and media, as I can see as I am typing it up in humor writing class instead of actually paying attention.

This whole dependency is what is making me want to decide it more and more to think that this might actually be a good idea. I just need to find the ground rules and identifying the thin line.

Is it weird for me to think that this might actually be a fun idea? Can I actually pull this off?

I think so...

I am sitting down here at the Starbucks a few minutes down from my school. Normally, I would be home, spending time on the internet in my pajamas and loud noises that comes from my mother and my brother.

That, as you can see is not the case.

But coming to Starbucks had its perps. My friend spotted me a grande caramel frappuccino. I think that's how you spell frappuccino. I know there has to be 2 c's to make the che sound.

I am basically wasting time while my friend is busy applying to Loma Linda, our sister school. I keep constantly asking her what if she doesn't get accepted to the nursing program. What then?

"I haven't really thought about it," she said.

Now, it's not to assume that I don't believe in her getting accepted. I have the belief that if you really have tried your hardest to apply and determination to get in, the chances are more in your favor than those that don't.

It's just I am a person that has that strain of making sure I always have a back up plan with everything.

If I am not accepted to grad school, I'm off to do internships in LA with my sister for experience.

Nobody is hiring? Take a few years working to reapply to grad school.

Still denied? Try to get back into the editing business until I have enough experience to get to New York publishing companies.

Nobody wants me? Teaching credentials and hello high school kids, my name is Ms. Kathy and I will be your English teacher for the school year.

Everything in its own way will have to fill out for our true happiness. Just make sure you have the back up plan to make that possible.

I had the strangest and most determined interaction yesterday that I thought I would like to share.

Yesterday, as the day was finally drawing to a close in my work force (at least for me anyways), a student came by and dropped off an application for any position available here in my work (which names and places I will mention...stalkers are everywhere).

When he handed it in to me, I simply did what I always do: punched it with the letter heard that says I received their application and slipped it into my director's inbox for the next time she is going through applications.

"So now what?" he asked.

"We will let you know in about a week or two if we have any openings for you," I responded calmly.

"Is there someone I can talk to right now?"

"Our director is normally the one that handles the applications, and she will let you know in 1 to 2 weeks whether or not we are interested in hiring you."

"So, she isn't in?" he deduced.

"She is," I said, "But I believe she is busy at the moment."

"Okay then, can I schedule a moment to speak with her?" he asked.

I was surprised at his determination and decided to open my director's schedule, even though I felt this was in a sense a waste of time. After filing out the information I decided to see if my director could see the student just for a quick second. She agreed and walked out of her office to see a tall almost 6'6" white male towering over her 5'3" (I am just assuming she is taller than me. For all I know she could be as small as me) figure.

She let him down easily, but that also didn't discourage him. He was willingly determined to get a job, which was something, as I mentioned before, I had to admire.

"The only job we have is working as a reader and scribe, which is on call basis only."

"Okay, I'll take it."

I grabbed his file and added him to the growing list of students looking to work here and filled him in the time preferences.

If anyone wants a job, you have to be determined. Made me give an insight into how I should be approaching my status as an office assistant, and in the future.

Determined, no matter what.

I know I sometimes get ahead of myself in deciding what fate has in store for me. I know that I dream big, as Juno rebutted to her step mom. But I can't help it. I have dreams for a reason.

And as I am looking at graduate schools, I am feeling that entire process into dreaming big flourishing into fruition. My mom tells me that I don't have a job to fully support me. It's not like I am planning to stay in this job. I will get one better hopefully.

But until then, I shall remain in my dreams. Because, as I recall the words of Cinderella, "They can't stop me from dreaming."

Just saying

Sometimes, I have the most random thoughts. There are times when I write them out in my journal, and once you write them in pen (ink is cleaner to an extent), you realize you wrote some pretty weird stuff.

Some have to do with what I was going through in that particular time of day, or just how that day was in general. Other times, I write fiction or creative non fiction which focuses on events that I try to recollect in my life with little help from outside sources.

I think that is one of the reasons that I write now. I feel as though by writing every event as well as I can recollect it, it helps my brain go back to that time and remind myself what I did, or what I dreamed, or how I felt. Normally, when I don't make any sense throughout the story, I know it is my way of rambling on paper. And that, although not clear to anyone, makes me conscious to know that I have something to say, but I just didn't have the proper words to say it.

Sometimes when I read my old journal entries, I get bored. Like in one of my travel journals of when I went to Mexico, I got so bored that I didn't even finish reading it, when I know that there is something that is useful. But I was bored, therefore I wrote boring entries.

Other times, I write with a fierce standpoint about a certain topic. But to write like that has been a while. I remember the last entry like that was one of an immigration reform that was going on this past year. That, I can safely say is the latest topic.

The majority of my writings are to keep myself from stopping. I don't want to stop reading or writing because it is what I love to do. I love pointing out certain emotions and going back to relate to them. I love reading how Mr. Darcy falls in love with Ms. Elizabeth and tells her straight out. I love writing about my dream that I had the previous night, and not on a computer monitor, but to myself. I am a strong advocate for writing in journals, because I feel that is when you have no one to impress but yourself. It is you with your own personal examination of how you feel that certain day, week, month or even that tiny second.

It's realistic to yourself. Why lie to yourself? It's not like you're trying to impress you. You already know that you are awesome.

A fictitious piece deserves a better title than this...

I am recently working on my story and am noticing that I am just putting together ideas. And although I have the concept of the idea intact, I still don't know how to begin this story.

From the authors that I have read countless times, they always start it at the middle of their life in time to begin the conflict, and others do it at the end and chronicle their past up until that point from which they are writing it.

I feel like doing it one way and then feel myself trying to do it another. I want to begin at the end when I haven't even started at the beginning.

I have to constantly remind myself, these pages that I am going to send out are only 25 pages. If I want to start at the beginning, I have to be able to point out the conflict as well as the beginning. But no climax would feel too much like a tease that didn't want to start the foreplay in the first place.

Still, I believe that starting from the beginning of her journey (or maybe somewhere in between) can prove it to be a better read. That way, the reader is already beginning to suspect that something is going on. A book that reminds me of this was Summer Sisters by Judy Blume, and how she began from the middle of the book and began from the very beginning. If anything, that should bring about an interest as well as a way to tell my story.

It's just these types of thoughts that stop me from going further. Where to begin?

I should begin where I feel the best way to begin.

The end of paper...

Yesterday night as everyone was getting ready for bed my niece asked me if I still write in my journals. I told her yes and made a mental note to hide them (my family comes from a long line of meddling in affairs that aren't their own; it's their way of looking out as they like to call it). She told me happily that she too still writes, just not on an actual paper journal, like this purple one imprinted with stars an a moon and an inspirational quote. She writes on her electronic device.

I know I am preaching to the choir when I talk about writing on electronic devices, but I also like to point out that I still write in my actual journals, like I mentioned before.

But here are the differences in writing in my journal vs writing on the computer.

My journal is influenced by certain feelings that relate on a more personal level, and I am not one to release certain things online like so many others. Many people will say, "that's because you aren't showing your true self; you are ashamed of who you are," to which I say no. If you wish to recount every tiny little thing that has ever happened to you and put it online for the whole world to see, that is and forever will be your business.

I feel that everyone needs that barrier of protection; to hide away some part of you is half the fun for the rest of society. They don't truly know everything there is about you to claim whether you are this person. But only when they get to know you on a more personal level, the relationship can change to where you have either common interests or your surprised by them.

What I post here are more for fun, and to practice writing. My other blog on tumblr is more or less the same thing, only for pictures.

But it is something when I write on paper and when I write about myself that I truly feel those layers deteriorate. Just like I said, it's a more personal level with yourself because you aren't going to show what you have written, it's your own handwriting, and if you make a mistake, it's not as simple as clicking the delete button anymore. It's a permanent mark, just like every decision you have made up until the end of it all.

That's why I was saddened to hear the fact that my niece is writing on her iPod touch. Sure there is still that sense of privacy, but it is no longer something that is delicate or your mistakes to be shown. It is simply monotone in characteristic. There is no more hand writing.

And that is what truly makes me sad. But again, I am preaching to the choir, but I still hope you that read this take this post into consideration, and think about how much you depend on your technology to help you out with your feelings.