If I could choose anything to do for the rest of my life, without a drop of hesitation in my being, I would choose to perform. There's something about opening myself up to a crowd of people that don't know me by showing my most vulnerable state that keeps me going and hoping for the next opportunity to be on stage. I live for the stress of rehearsals, the angst of last minute unpreparedness; the late nights that make me cry from lack of confidence, the voice lessons that help me grow, and the nights spent on stage in front of a full house with all eyes on me. I'm so lucky to be surrounded by people who support me in my musical choices and successes. It's because of these kind of people that I have my confidence and drive.

Anything and everything that has happened to me these past two years have helped shape me into a better person. Whether I'll be in Concert Choir next year or not, I can contently say that I am happy with where I am vocally right now, and that I can't wait to see what my future holds.

My dream as of now is to pursue music in college. One of these days I'll actually start uploading videos to YouTube (insert advertisement to come watch me at some given point in time when I actually have time HERE) and I'll be the next JB. I have an internal drive that will help me get anywhere I want in life.

Oh, and I can now say with full confidence that I can belt. My friend that has argued with me for the past year over this saw me at Mr. Wayzata and admitted to knowing that I can belt. HELL YES. My next hurtle is to show people that I can sing a flutey soprano without vibrato. Easy as pie.

List of singing goals from the past two years:
Get over my fear of singing in front of a crowd.
Make Madrigals
Make a WHS production
Make Concert Choir
Win a singing competition
Make Vive Voce
Go on American Idol (lolz, not gonna happen anymore.)
Prove I can sing like a man
Prove I can sing high
Prove I can belt
Prove I can sing soprano 1 without vibrato
Sing as a soprano in a choir (Thanks, Mrs. O'neill!)
Make a YouTube Channel
Be a lead in a musical (JASMINE ANYONE? Or I'd take anything that involves an attractive     lead male.)

Sanity, And Keeping It

I wrote this blog to keep my sanity, and I intend to keep writing on this blog to keep my sanity.

You know how I said (way) earlier that I didn't see why people said junior year was so great? I see it now. And now it's half way over and I'm starting to feeling a smidge nostalgic over my classes (AP Comp and American Literature) and my cult.

I've honestly gotten so lucky with my teachers this year. I was able to have to fantastic communication teachers, both so different, but care equally about their students. Mrs. Cardona with her extreme sass and amazing style who isn't afraid to put it all out there; Mr. Johnston, who openly cries in front of his students, and purposely makes his students say deep and depressing things that make us cry in the end. Two fantastic teachers. Two phenomenal classes. Both gone.

Angst.
Nostalgia.
Depression.

SOML (Story Of My Life).

Ashley
Cardona and why she is a writing god (1-10)
Arguments
Argument, everything being one (21)
Argument, Visual (24)
Argument, difference versus claim (22)
Argument, Arisotle's theory (21)
Argument, Toulman theory (23)
B
First (25, 26, 27)
Bitzer
Eulogy of man who died at the hands of angsty AP students (18-20)
Bitzer's exigence (18)
Blog
Blog that you were supposed to find first week of class, but didn't (11)
Blog project that is stressing you out (12-13)
Blog posts, and how to use voice in them (14)
Yeah, Write (11)
Let It Be (14)
Mimicking Cardona's sarcasm, except not as well (14)
Stalking blogs of people you don't really know (11)
House*Tweaking, and it's awesomeness (11)
Boys
Don't like boys in your class
Stop being confrontational to unconfrontational people
Or worse, confrontational people
Sarcasm is good with males

Color
Color pallates and effectiveness
Colors, and their meanings
Comic Sans
Don't use this font unless you want to die
Or unless you're five
Or unless you want to fail
Or unless your visually impaired and don't know the difference between fonts
Or unless you have no taste in life
Essays
Being graded on the Harvard Scale
No more automatic A's on papers
Putting voice into your writing
Essays, 50: An Anthology
Grading takes a long time
Accepting that a C is average
Short, sweet, and to the point
Audience, form, purpose
Essays, Visual
A Modest Proposal, the best essay you have read this entire semester
Failing
Over 10 quizzes
Finals
More quizzes
It's okay sometimes
GPA bomb-ing-ness-shmeh
Figurative Language
Metaphors
Similies
Imagery
Sensory
Irony, something that you can never decifer no matter how hard you've tried
Juxtaposition, also something that you will never fully understand
Friends in AP comp
Cult, which is my life
Ya win some, ya lose some.
Goals
Get Mrs. Cardona as a teacher (accomplished this in August YAY)
Get an A (lawlz, not gonna happen)
Have Cardona like me (Check? Eh?)
Ace a reading quiz
Become a better writer
Learn tools for college essays
Learn vocab that will help on SAT/ACT
Not die in the process of all these goals
Horatian satire
Ignominy
Orwell
Why he writes
Orwellian (nominalization, yo)
Archaic idioms, almost, if not just as bad, as Comic Sans
Orwell --> Didion --> Why I Write blog post --> Literacy Narrative --> Fail (see section above)
Purpose
Of taking this class
Of all writing pieces
Of life
Of falling for someone
^ And getting over someone
Of high school
Of 10th grade communications (no purpose).
PETA
Advertisements
Anti-meat-eating-ness-shmeh
Power of images
Rhetoric
Basically the purpose of this class
Rhetorical Analysis
Rhetorical Essay
Rhetorical Situation
Rhetoric (exigence)
Bitzer (see above)
Something that you (also) never understood, and still don't, which is bad, because that is what this class is about, and therefore you have failed. Awesome.
Stamina
To endure this class
To stand (insert name here) every day
To keep pushing through (see 'to endure this class')
Studying
Session at Lunds that didn't actually end up having much studying
But I had a delicious lunch
And tried sparkling water.
It's nasty.
Vocabulary
Cult working together
Failed final
Quizzes
Zuegma
A fricken awesome word

PAGE NUMBERS ARE STUPID.

You Wanna Be An Outlier?

So. Pretend Tyra is whispering the America's Next Top Model slogan, "You wanna be on TOP?" and then go back and reread my title. It made you smile, didn't it? Good.

Who's Jamaican and has an awesome Jamaican-man-fro?

<-- That guy. Oh, and he also wrote a book called Outliers.

Books are good.
Malcolm Gladwell wrote a book.
Therefore, Malcolm Gladwell's book is good.

Outliers is a nonfiction novel describing various factors that contribute to making specific individuals successful. Gladwell's organizes his theories very clearly by seperating each idea into seperate chapters. He uses a different anecdote in each chapter, which makes his writing a) much more interesting, since otherwise his words are all facts, b) so much easier to understand, and c) a quick read that has its many moments of suspense. Gladwell makes sure to back up each of his theories by citing experts throughout the novel who defend Gladwell.

Outliers, albeit written more formally and academic-ey, has its humour to it. Gladwell frequently has footnotes relating to his theories. And these footnotes are awesome. They can be snarky, polite, humourous, interesting, mind-boggling, etc. When reading each chapter, you will be hoping that there are footnotes. (There are a ton, so don't worry: you'll never be disappointed.)

Read this book.
It's good.
And everyone knows about it.
Don't be that one person who hasn't read it.
Read it with your cult group of friends.
Cults friends are fun.

Don't click to look inside. There's nothing there.

Yay for Futures

*Holy shat what is going on with this formatting? Shmeh.*

Hello, famous (insert age that you get discovered off of YouTube here) me!

Congratulations on your insane success! I told you that making a YouTube channel with your best friend singing pop songs was a good idea! We all know that it was a Demi Lovato song that got you discovered though, as good as Selena, Beyonce, Kitty Purry, or Gaga is. How is touring going? How are the letters from fans sounding? Have you finally learned to belt? (Or, have you finally learned to accept that you are NOT a belter?) How about the acting? Did Zubaida Ula in Laramie make you an even more successful actress? (It's okay, you can say no. We're not THAT good at acting.)

I hope you're not one of those obnoxious starlets who lives in a 45 million dollar house in Beverly Hills next to the Hollywood sign. That's a waste of money. You can move to Coronado and live in paradise instead. And while you're in LA, you can rent a cute little house in a private neighborhood. You're not special enough to need all that privacy.

Also, don't get a big head. You obviously don't have the best voice out there. So stop thinking that. I know you're thinking that. Have you stopped? You better have stopped. STOP IT. Good.

Also also, don't date someone famous and then marry them and then divorce them in 72 days. That's stupid. Maybe more stupid than having a 45 million dollar house.

Don't forget to work out a lot. You can't forget your morbid fear of being obese. Or your scarring childhood of being a depressingly tubby person.

Hope all is going well. Buy pretty (but not too expensive of) dresses to wear to the Grammys. And the Teen Choice Awards. Oh, and the VMAs and MCAs. OH, and the Tony's. Those are all fabulous events, and your yoga pant/legging pants that aren't really pants/$5 tshirts from Gap/long cardigans/leg warmers/boots/no make up style will not suffice for these events. I hope you've realized that buy now.

Last thing: have you been on Glee yet? If not, you should get on that. And when you meet Darren Chris, make sure to set him up with Carly. She'll appreciate that. Yep.

Lots of love, you.
Me. (You, but actually me.)

We're Off to See the Animals, the Animals in the Slaughterhouse!

    *Disclaimer: READ THIS*  So, I just want to start out by saying that my topic choice doesn't reflect my own life choices. Yes, I chose the topic of, "You should be a vegetarian or a vegan because eating meat is morally wrong." And yes, I am a vegetarian. But no, this is not why I am a vegetarian. Just wanted to throw that out there before people come mauling me screaming "MEAT IS YUMMY. YUMMY IN MY TUMMY. I DO NOT WANT TO SEE THIS PICTURES FROM SOMEONE WHO EATS LIKE A GOAT." (Yes, I actually have gotten the goat comment from someone before.)
     My topic choice argued for *insert drum roll here* promoting both vegetarianism and veganism because the eating meat is morally wrong. (I repeated this in case you didn't actually read my disclaimer. But I used all the special effects and even made it red, so why wouldn't you have read it?) Even though I cannot relate 150% to this topic, I chose to do it because 1) I can handle looking at pictures of dead animals, 2) Because I really do love being a vegetarian, and 3) It was easy to find evidence for.
     I realize that there are a few warrants that need to be addressed. My slideshow probably makes it seem that all animals are murdered mercilessly, and that they all are treated badly. This is probably not true, but the presentation wouldn't be as impacting if I showed pretty pictures of slaughterhouses. Another warrant that the show makes is that eating any and all meat is bad for you. (I get this defense from meat eaters all the time. I realize that it is partially true. Partially.)
     My audience for this work of art are my peers, who chomp and om-nom-nom on formally living animals every day at school during lunch. (Burger line, turkey with gravy, chicken poppers, hot dogs, etc.) I'm not saying that you should cut out meat cold turkey, (get my pun?) but maybe reconsider feasting on it every day at every meal.
     The pictures I chose all serve a specific reason, some more than others. When searching for images, I made the decision to look for animals that we most commonly eat (e.g., chicken, pig, cow). My idea for the picture sequence was to have a pattern of (excuse my bluntness,) "before" and "after" of these animals. For example, my first image is an extremely adorable baby chick. The next picture is of dead chickens hanging by their feet in a slaughterhouse with blood dripping down their feathers. I specifically chose this "after" picture of the chickens because of the blood. I wanted to create an impact with the audience, and I thought that this picture did justice.
     I followed this same process with my other animals, such as a pig. This before picture might be one of the cutest pictures ever. It really exemplifies the innocence and adorable-ness of a piglet, who has the doomed fate of being murdered and chopped to salami shreds. The picture following it is one of numerous pigs (once again) hanging by their feet, and their hands/feet are chopped off. Just like the chicken example, I thought that this pair of pig pictures showed a good example of how an innocent creature goes from living its life to ending up in a slaughterhouse.
     My last pair was of a cow. When searching for a "before" picture for this creature, I purposely looked for a picture of a cow with its child. I did this to show that animals, just like humans, love and care for their family, and they should not unjustly be taken away from that family to satisfy our taste buds.
     I sprinkled these pairs of animal pictures with cartoons and ads advocating for not eating meat. I put them between the animal pictures so that the audience would not get bored of the same pattern, thus taking away from the impact of the pictures. Of these pictures that I chose, my favorites are the PETA ad that said "Meat belongs in the morgue, not on your table," the image that says, "VEGAN: because my body isn't a graveyard," and the last image in the slideshow, which is another PETA ad that shows a dead human body in meat packaging. I feel that these three images will really resonate with the audience, because it puts the act of eating meat in a new perspective. When people talk about eating meat, no one ever thinks that their body becomes a graveyard; no one thinks about what it would be like to be eaten by another person. But these pictures bring up that topic, and I think it will leave the viewers thinking differently.
     These ads and cartoons that I put in the show all have the "spotlight" feature on them. I chose to do this because I think they deserve more attention on them than just regular wordless images. The viewer will need more time to read what the ads have to say, and the more time they have, the better the impact the pictures can have on them.
     When I think of my pictures, my pattern reminds me more of a wave than a climacting order or any other patter. I'm really repeating the same argument with different examples. I have three examples of animals who die at the hands of humans. My ads might all have different examples and texts, but they are all arguing for the same repeated cause of not eating meat.
     OK. Can we all acknowledge how phenomenal my song is?(!) It's so great. It makes my project 20397523985724398x better. Let me just show you the lyrics that are in this song:

Heifer whines could be human cries
Closer comes the screaming knife
This beautiful creature must die
This beautiful creature must die
A death for no reason
And death for no reason is MURDER

And the flesh you so fancifully fry
Is not succulent, tasty or kind
It's death for no reason
And death for no reason is MURDER

     Like, honestly? It fits my argument perfectly. The song is following the same claim that murdering and eating meat is morally wrong. Not that it's a very pretty song lyrically, but I love it. So much. 

     I ordered my pictures after I found this song. I put a few of the pictures in their place purposely in order to appear at a certain part of the song. Such as the "before" picture of the cow and its calf. That picture comes in at the line, "This beautiful creature must die." I placed it at that timing to reiterate even more the innocence and human-like qualities of the animals. Another example would be my last image of the human in meat packaging. This picture comes in at the word "MURDER." I think this is the most impacting picture that I have, and I also think the placement of is is fantastic, because it puts the idea of humans being murdered and eaten even more vividly into the viewer's mind. 

     The song uses vocals along with many instruments, such as guitar and drums. Personally, I feel like this song is really hectic. I think that the Smiths (the artists of the song,) purposely did this to show the hecticness that the animals feel as they are going through the slaughterhouse. Lord knows what's going through those creatures' minds when their appearing at their death.

     I honestly don't think I would change my song. It emulates my argument perfectly, and it's also catchy. Actually, it's extremely catchy, in a messed up way.

   

SOURCES:
http://environment.randolphblogs.net/files/2009/06/3463179131_76432a3324-chick.jpg
http://www.organicgreenandnatural.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/dead-chickens.jpg
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3kb9hz-cZm_Zdubq2GdacGbpOrqsH1lPWnL983vXczwLkiowz-yHjKG7kvBdXJkXmfrw6M6H2IHQpwthyphenhyphen_UtiFl10YEjNqEJ_UoMsd-whBESRBsTTGubCLqnxQUGwfxw4qJeXITWGaglw/s1600/Alicia+Mayer-+Morgue+CENSORED-+300.jpg
http://1funny.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/piglet.jpg
http://wwwdelivery.superstock.com/WI/223/1606/PreviewComp/SuperStock_1606-28218.jpg
https://secure.peta.org/images/content/pagebuilder/21617.jpg
http://www.ffaf.org/images/goveg1.jpg
http://www.acuteaday.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/loving-mother-cow-and-calf1.jpg
http://www.ifimages.com/photos/UlKuNLgKQ2TuejtgsujsCn4Cg0/author-773/Cattle-processing-slaughterhouse.jpg
http://veganrabbit.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/vegan-because-my-body-is-not-a-graveyard.jpg
http://www.happycow.net/humor_images/protein.gif
http://www3.pictures.gi.zimbio.com/Animal+Activists+Encourage+Vegetarianism+4DB6jQYspsal.jpg

Veggie Tales