Sara

[size=1]I'm sorry, but that is just sick.[/size]

[size=1]Yes, I got rid of those. The version you see was prior to any proofing, heh. I do mean to go..."deeper into it," like you said... I just had to pound something out last night. It sort of...died, towards the end. I ran out of energy..[/size]

[size=1][b]Mark Schultz[/b]; [i]Back in His Arms Again[/i]. This is really a special song to me. It means a lot for myself, and it means a lot when I think about other people going through a rough time. [b]Michael W. Smith[/b]; [i]Missing Person[/i]. I fell in love with this song--not the first time I heard it, but the first time I listened. I had to run the CD back and listen to it several times before I was convinced it was real. It so completely described the way I'd been feeling. [b]Elton John[/b]; [i]Crocodile Rock[/i]. Heh. This song always makes me smile. My mom is a huge Elton John fan, and I remember being in the car with her as a little kid, listening to her belt out this song as we drove around the city, hunting for rummage sales. It's just a fantastic happy memory. [b]Jimmy Buffet[/b]; [i]Volcano[/i]. This is another "good memory" song. When I was little, this was my favorite song in the entire world. Don't ask why, I couldn't tell you. [i]Georgia on my Mind[/i]. Yep, another memory song. I remember, several years ago at night, lying on the living room floor, listening to music with my dad. I'm sure we must have listened to a couple hours' worth of songs, but this is the one I remember from that night. [b]Weird Al[/b]; [i]The Night Santa Went Crazy[/i]. I'm perfectly serious, why are you laughing at me? The first time I heard this, I was at a friend's house with a bunch of other people. I'd never heard any Weird Al stuff before, and I just about died laughing. My friends dubbed it "Sara's song" and would play it all the time just to see me crack up. from [b]An American Tail[/b]; [i]Somewhere Out There[/i]. I love this song. I'm sure there are more, but this is a pretty diverse sampling. And a couple classical pieces I don't know the names to, offhand. It'll drive me nuts till I think of them..[/size]

[size=1]*cough*spoilertag*cough* Yeah. I actually ended up reading most of the one [i]after[/i] that. My uncle had it around last PXmas,and I read about half before he went back home, heh. I was quite frustrated.[/size]

[SIZE=1][b]I wrote this later last night. It's been proofed since then, so hopefully the more glaring errors you see have been taken care of in the final copy. I don't know how satisfied I am with it; lots of it seems rather awkward writing..and I think I overdid it a tad on the italics. :toothy: Oh well.[/b] The teenagers I know consider themselves rather elite. [I]We?re not like everyone else; we don?t conform to their standards[/I], is a common sentiment. At one point in time, this might have been enough to claim one?s uniqueness. Now, at least for me, it isn?t. Who wants to be like ?everyone else?? No one I know. Maybe mine is an isolated situation, but I doubt it. There are teens across the country with the vague idea that being ?normal? or ?popular? is something to be shunned. This refrain ends up with us ?enlightened? ones exhibiting the same sort of prejudice we abhor in others, but after all, ours is justified, is it not? After all, we don?t conform to anyone else?s standards. Only [I]popular[/I] people do that. Do we wear the latest trends? Of course not. Do we go tanning three times a week? Puh-lease. We mock Aéropostale, attempting to pronounce it in the most ridiculous ways possible, and refer to American Eagle?s AE as ?the mark of the Devil.? We abhor organized sports, refuse to participate in Pep Rallies, and scribble out letters in ?School Spirit,? leaving our flyers adorned with ?School Sp it.? Ditzes are automatically classified as [I]cheerleaders[/I], despite the fact many of us were cheerleaders in grade school. [I]Hush, don?t tell anyone. [/I] We loathe our school, gossiping among ourselves about teachers and students, and never admitting we?d rather be here than a public school. We ever had a choice; we had to come here. At least, that?s what we say. We call ourselves the Outcasts, and band together at lunch. There?s strength in numbers, and besides, we don?t want any other people sitting by us. We rank our clan as the lowest rung on the social ladder; there are others below us, the ones we have rejected, but we don?t talk about them. If you get kicked out of our group, boy?you [I]must[/I] be a loser. [I]We don?t conform, [/I] that?s our anthem. That?s what makes us better. [I]We are ourselves. [/I] But are we? Well, no. If I showed up tomorrow wearing an Abercrombie shirt, the school would have a collective heart attack, and my friends would rib me to death. I wore a Christian parody last year: Abreadcrumb and Fish [A bread crumb and fish, referencing one of Jesus? miracles], and I could hear the conversation died down as I walked through the halls. [I]Did you see Sara Martin? She?s wearing an Abercrombie shirt! I didn?t even know she owned one! [/I] It made me think. Why don?t I wear brand names? Part of it is my dad. He says he ?refuses to be a walking billboard,? and I generally agree with that sentiment. I?d also feel ridiculous walking down the hall wearing a shirt that didn?t?well, that didn?t fit me. I?ve gone shopping at Target and Kmart most of my life, and my general style has evolved from years of mixing and matching their clothes. Why bother spending extra money for clothes I don?t even like? I don?t. This is where the problem creeps in. We don?t wear ?popular? clothes because we don?t like them. Okay, that makes sense. But too often, it ends up switching around a little bit. We don?t like ?popular? clothes because other people like popular clothes. What? How does that work? We pride ourselves on being unique. [I]We have a sense of style, and everyone else?s clothes are just so far below our taste. [/I] That?s a flat-out lie. In general, we don?t mind the clothes themselves. It?s the people inside them that have suddenly made them taboo. [I] If I wear that, I?ll have the same outfit as [/I]*shudder* [I]Ashley Smith.[/I] We?re so wrapped up in not acting like the masses that we lose the one thing we pride ourselves in. If I like a shirt, I should wear it?not fret about how many others have the exact same item. If what I?ve been telling myself for five years is true, it doesn?t matter if anyone else has a component of my outfit: I am my own person, and I can where whatever the heck I want and still be me. That?s the premise we?ve been working with from Day One, but it?s become so corrupted that we don?t even realize it anymore. If our way of not conforming is simply to go against anything we see more than 15% of the student body doing, we?re not [I]being ourselves[/I]. All our energy has become focused on [I]not being everyone else. [/I] ?And if we?re not ourselves, who are we? [B]Anyway....that's it. Not that great, but I could polish it some time.. Let me know if you think it's worth the bother. :toothy:[/B] [/SIZE]

[size=1]Dude, those book are [i]awesome.[/i] I read Ender's Game about a year ago, and I couldn't believe it had taken me that long to find them. I've read [i]Ender's Shadow[/i] too, it was so nifty to see the whole thing from Bean's perspective. What a life story that poor kid has... I haven't read the others, mostly. Snippets here and there.[/size]

[size=1]Glad to see you back. ;)[/size]

[size=1]Char! Heh. I took mine....did fine.... got an A+ for semester in Advanced Placement US History, which I will be boasting about for [i]quite[/i] some time.[/size]

[size=1]Juu seems to be on the right track..[/size]

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by DeathKnight [/i] [B][color=crimson]Haha. I'd be God, duh. Then I could do whatever I wanted to.[/color] [/B][/QUOTE] [SIZE=1]And this would be different..how? :p I really don't know. I don't think I'd want to pick my own fate. I'd have no one to blame for it later. _ _,[/SIZE]

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by BabyGirl [/i] [B][color=deeppink]:eek: You look like Juila Roberts! ::hugs Cera tightly:: You're beautiful![/color] [/B][/QUOTE] [size=1]That's about it for me. ;) And Jenna: You are pretty-ful-er than her. ^_^[/size]

[size=1].....Wow. wrist vutter and James semi-agreed on something. That's scary enough in itself, never mind the content....[/size]

[size=1]Well, yeah. That was my point. Although I seem to remember that applying exclusively to Book 4, so I guess all bets are off. ;)[/size]

[size=1]Peh,my favorite song changes so often... I don't even know the name of the current one. Something my friends always play at parties, heh.[/size]

[size=1]...A main character is supposed to die? Mm.. Okay. The quote I heard was something along th elines of "someone who you will come to care about will die," or am I just completely thinking of something else?[/size]

[size=1]At the top of the page, click the search option. Where it gives an option for a username, put in yours. There will be an option saying "search all forums"or something like that. Click it and scroll down until you come to "Art and Design." Do a search. Several posts will come up. Take a look at them, and figure out which is the one you want. Did that help, or are you even more lost?[/size]

[size=1]I'm the oldest of four. I generally get along fine with everyone..[/size]

[size=1]Peh, keep 'em long. The lazy ones can always skim.[/size]

[size=1]I like it... Wish you'd lead up to TK's little revelation a bit, though. It seemed....very sudden [albeit brief.] My only complaint. ;)[/size]

[size=1]Hey, who doesn't like a good mystery? :toothy:[/size]

[SIZE=1]I see something infinitely more interesting than all of you. ....well, at least I see [i]something...[/i][/SIZE]

[size=1]...um... Could we have a Hobbes smiley? ^_^;[/size]

[size=1]Me? Eh, no. My taste changes too often for me to risk having anything that permanent done to me.[/size]

[size=1]I can only see mangled garbage... Try posting it again, like Nomad said, a websafe version.[/size]

[size=1]I think the flat ones look better, but perhaps that's just my opinion...[/size]