www.whyville.net Jun 22, 2008 Weekly Issue



Glitsygrl
Whyville Columnist

Emmy's Logo Here: Let's Not Finish

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Things lose my interest very quickly.

Once I start listening to a song on my iPod, I usually don't finish it. I listen to about half then go to the next song. Why? Because I don't have a very long attention span. This makes several things harder for me, like sitting through a performance, finishing a movie . . . and writing a whole article. That's why it's taken me so long for me to get to where I am in my novel; I always get bored with it. A whole article seems fairly simple to write compared to a novel, but for me, it's still hard to finish either.

It's amazing I get a whole column in as it is.

Needless to say, I have dozens and dozens of unfinished column pieces that will never get published because I can't seem to find an ending, I'm stuck at a certain part, or the topic doesn't interest me anymore.

They aren't bad. At least, I hope not. They just haven't been finished. I wanted to share them with somebody even though they are incomplete, and I thought, "What a better way than a whole article with beginnings of articles?"

I know. A whole load of genius right there.

So here they are . . . some beginnings of columns that may never get finished. If you want, take a vote in the BBS on which one I should finish. Maybe I'll buckle down and get to it.

Here we go . . .

Emmy's Logo Here: Can't Live With Them, Yet We Think We Can Live Without Them

Parents.

What can I say?

The nurturers, caregivers, role models and some of the most important people in our lives, if not the most important. Parents play a huge role in our lives. How they bring us up and what they teach us truly does mold our futures.

Yet we treat them so poorly sometimes.

Do you remember when you were younger, and you absolutely adored your parents? They were your heroes, as long as they were near, you were happy. As we grow older we move outside the protective circle of our parents. We meet new people, try new things. Our parents seem kind of outdated and in the way. Independence. We all want it, and our parents get in the way of that. It doesn't mean we don?t love them, we just don?t need them the way we used to.

I'm not going to try to hide the fact that my parents and I have never had a stellar relationship.

They've always been to narrow-minded and I've always been to outgoing and smart-mouthed. Even before the 'parent hating' stage came, (Usually associated with being a teenager, folks) my parents and fought a lot. Fighting with parents is like fighting with friends; you always feel guilty afterwards, except unlike fighting with friends, you usually get grounded for awhile.

Not

Fun.

Why does this happen? How do we go from complete adoration and obedience one day to rebellion and harsh words the next?

I distinctly remember realizing how far my parents and I had grown apart, and how much we both changed when I was playing one of my The Used albums upstairs in my room and my father asked if someone was dying up there.

I don't know where to go from there. I just got . . . stuck. Here's another one.

Emmy's Logo Here: Keep it on the Road

"Are we there yet, Dad?"

"Ah! No! We just missed it! Oh well, better turn around and go home."

Road trips.

What more can I say? I'm sure we all appreciate airplanes, but you can't beat a good old fashioned road trip - for all the funny things that happen, all the adventures you have, and the beautiful scenery flashing pat your window.

When I was younger, going on road trips was a bore. I would be sitting in a cramped back seat with nothing to do for hours at a time, but now I look at it as an opportunity to chill out and just think without anyone nagging me to do this, do that.

We've all seen those funny movies about family road trips; usually there are fires, wild animals, biker bars and some major pain involved. Our road trips seem so bland compared to the movies, but when propped up next to the big screen, what really is?

Soccer has kept me on the road for most of the weekend, driving back and forth to games, to hotels . . . I wouldn't mind if I never stepped foot in a car again, but alas, what can you do? Today I'm going to share with you some of my road trip horror stories and tips to make your road trip more bearable, including some interviews with your fellow Whyvillians about some of their most fun - and worst - moments on the open road.

Emmy's Logo Here: Try This

June 21st.

Summer Solstice

The beginning of a whole new season: Summer.

When we think of summer, we imagine the quaint story-book interpretation: Lemonade stands, swimming, barbecues, nice weather. For some of us, that weather has started long ago. For others, we're just getting rain, a lot of it. Summer means shorts. Summer means sunglasses. Summer means no school, no teachers, and no killer textbooks. Summer time is livin' easy. Summertime is livin' free.

For those of us not stuck traveling with our family, summer time also means being bored. Don't get me wrong, I can live with the lounging-around-don't-get-out-of-your-PJ's-till-four o'clock deal, but after about two weeks, I'll get bored.

Being bored is not fun. After some time, my mind will go into a trance-like state. I'll sit down on the couch and flip through TV channels, not really paying attention to anything on, but my thumb will keep pressing the up arrow. One time, I went through all the channels and started again before I realized there was nothing on I wanted to watch. I'll be like a zombie. I'll pour myself cereal just to have something to do. I'll eat because I'm bored, not because I'm hungry. And then what will I do? Curl up back on the couch or in the computer chair with my food. Yuck. There goes my soccer body.

By the end of summer, I'm sure my fingers will be the only slim part of my body, because they, I assure, will get the most work out from my keyboard.

This is not good. Being bored is not good. I woke up this morning, determined to think of a list of new things I could try to occupy myself. And I have decided to share that list with you all today.

I did not finish this article because I did not finish the list.

Emmy's Logo Here: Pulling Up the Weeds

I hate weeding. I always thought washing dishes came first on my list of dreaded things to do, but after this afternoon, I'd say weeding is definitely number Uno. I wouldn't have done it in the first place, but my Mommy made me.

The thing I hate about weeding is not just the dirt under my fingernails, it's the bugs. Agh. They're horrible. They have millions and millions of other places to be, yet they choose to land on you. How lucky.

But who am I to stand up to my parents? They are the adults, they are the rulers of the household, for most of us, what our parents say is law. No matter how we yell and protest and argue, they always win in the end. There are always things that we have to do that we don't necessarily want to (Weeding is one of them, for me) but face it: You against your mother and father; who's going down? Who's gonna get grounded? You.

I wonder if parents abuse their power too much. Sure, they've lived longer than us and know more and have seen more things, but why does that always make us, the children, wrong? Because we're younger? I think we know a lot more than our parents give us credit for.

I trashed that article, because I couldn't think of a better intro paragraph besides that one, even though it didn't really fit the rest of the article.

I'm full of excuses, aren't I? Maybe someday . . . someday, I'll finish these. Or maybe I won't. I'll just start from scratch. It seems easier that way, starting with a blank page, being able to create whatever you ant out of it, instead of continuing off of something else. Slowly but surely, I'm getting better at finishing things.

Yet, nothing changes that fast. As of the moment, I can't figure out to finish this article. Ah, well.

Glitsygrl.

 

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