Er, well, I have a photo and it's in black and white, I just can't get it to upload!

But...


I fight for what I want, from what I do with my life or for what I'm involved in, to just making sure I can stand up for myself. To get where I am today, I had to fight to do it and I'm not disappointed in the results.

I'm a native English and sarcasm speaker, I know a little Spanish from high school (very basic), and I'm currently taking Arabic as my choice of languages on the University level.

I can read, understand and kind of read very basic Arabic. I recognize letters in words, but I have no idea how to say it or what it means without a lot of practice. 

A great big thank you to those who are vegetarians and vegans! It means a lot to me that you're willing to talk about it-- it's good knowing I'm not the only one.

I didn't give up meat because of the taste, but for ecological reasons [water is a major resource that is being used up by feeding cattle and processing the meat-- I'd rather have water to shower with than have it spent on raising cattle], along now for the health benefits-- I've been having less trouble with my stomach and digestive system since I went vegetarian.

For those who say it's a fad-- that's a pretty long lasting fad if it's been around for thousands of years. I think there's another term for it...

Protein-- I'm not sure what I've been eating that's keeping my protein up, but I haven't felt any adverse effects of not having certain vitamins. But I do plan on buying what supplements I need the next time I go to the store, with the winter months coming up and everything.

Recently, I've studied two different viewpoints on population growth and if it's possible if humans are exceeding the Earth's carrying capacity.

One, from the world economists' standpoint, said that it'll be nearly impossible for overpopulation to happen, and the figures that exist are greatly exaggerated.

But the environmental studies point of view says it's possible, and can happen within the next hundred years, and it's happened before [where the carrying capacity of a certain location was met].

Currently, the world's population sits at over 7 billion people and constantly growing. This number, which was a billion less ten years ago, has been rapidly expanding since the 1950's, when the population was 2.5 billion.

Most of the world's population sits in China, with India's population threatening to overtake the amount. Africa has the third largest population, with the US trailing behind.

What else makes these countries different, besides where their population is? There's a couple of huge factors that make a difference.

A huge factor of population growth is the replacement rate-- the more developed countries, such as the US, Britain, France, etc are seeing a decline in population growth-- the number is falling, not raising.

Many reasons are causing this-- from the education of women, which leads to higher achievement in the workforce, to health education [abortion, early testing, etc] are all causing women to not have as many children they were having in the past-- the rule of thumb is to have a replacement child for both the man and the woman, and that's it.

While that's just replacing two people, it still causes the population to grow, but not as much.

These two people can replace two people in the workforce, but not the other six that retire at the same time. Then, there's the issue the US is facing today-- there's more retired people [withdrawing social security] than there is people in the workforce, because of the population boom felt in the US following the end of WWII.

On the other hand, when the survival of a child is questionable, women tend to have more children, knowing that out of six, only two will survive to adulthood and become functioning members of society.

But this changes as everything is improved across the board-- health, hygiene, medicine, education, along with how more modernized a country becomes.

And now for a very interesting fact-- after the communist take over of China, famine and disease overtook the country. But once the one-child policy was put into place, the country was able to stabilize itself and function. The thought is that during that time period, before the one-child population was put into place, China had reached its carrying capacity and the reactions acted accordingly.

But with technology, the carrying capacity of a given area can be expanded, making it last longer than it normally would have, but this most likely leads to horrible environmental damage.

But the true carrying capacity is when humans are consuming too much of the earth's resources before they can be replaced, which leads to consumerism and the like.

I watched "Get Him to the Greek" last weekend, after I bought the DVD for $5. I planned on watching a movie tonight, but I wound up having to clean up my room and work on a few things.

It was either going to be "Contagion," "Easy A," or the third X-Men movie.

thenumberone : As someone who is studying to become an international journalist in America, you're right about Americans not knowing much about foreign nation's politics. Not many Americans care about what's happening outside of their own bubble, and they're usually the ones who get worked up over foreign issues.

But as a voting American, I'm Democratic. I want my own rights and control over my own body, along with the chance to gain a higher education for my future. I really don't agree with what foreign steps the Democratic party have taken for awhile, but that hasn't swayed my opinion much.

I have over 2,000 songs on my iPod Touch. Haven't listened to half of them, but they're there for when I do want to (and my iPod acts as a backup for my music, even though once it's on the iPod, it's not coming off].

On my iPhone, I've got about 200 because the music I do want, I don't actually have yet. That, and my iPhone has half of the storage space of my iPod.

Hey guys,

I was wondering-- is anyone here a vegetarian or a vegan?

How long have you been a vegetarian or a vegan?
Why did you decide to do so?
If you're vegetarian, are you thinking about going vegan?
How has your body reacted and how have you felt since changing your diet?
What are your favorite meatless [and dairy-less] dishes?

--

Personally, I haven't had meat in roughly a month. It would have been longer, but I broke down and ate meat a few times the first two weeks or so because of stress [when you're stressed, your body wants meat]. Otherwise, I've been pretty good about not eating meat and sticking to vegetables and fruits for my meals.

I decided in the spring that once I got back to school in the fall, I would go vegetarian when I'm living off my own money and off of campus food and not living in my parents' house. For the most part, it's been economically beneficial-- what I have been eating has been cheaper than buying what foods have meat in them, and my meals have just been all around better.

As of right now, I don't plan on going vegan, but that can change after I've been a vegetarian for a longer time.

As for how my body's reacted-- I feel overall better about what I've been eating and how much. There's [even more] salads in my meals, along with rice. My stomach has stopped hurting a lot, which I find really nice. While I have gotten kind-of sick in the past month, I think that was more allergy than anything else. My weather is in the middle of changing seasons, so everyone's at the mercy of the weather.

So... Anyone else give up meat and dairy for any particular reason?

I'm in my second year of college and three years out of high school (well, three in the spring-- wow...)

What rcarter2 said about the people you went to high school with IS very true-- you stop caring about them after awhile. It seems pretty hard at first, but then it just happens. There will be some people you care about and talk to still, but you'll forget majority of the people you knew.

Of course, there are the ones who can't let go of high school. I have one friend who moved 2,000 miles away to be with her husband and she's come back and hung out with the people she didn't like in high school three times since she moved out of the state.

But right now, you're in a very flexible stage in your life. You're finding new friends, still having contact with old people, but people get caught up in their own lives and drift apart.

Usually, when I put numbers in my usernames, they have a reason.

My birth year is one of them.
The year I graduated from high school is another.
The year I graduate from college is another and the more current number.
My google docs account ends with 413 because it was my room number last year and it was an awesome number.

If there's a huge string of numbers (I don't use it for usernames often), it was the night I first saw my favorite band live, so it's etched into my memory, even though I couldn't tell you the other two dates I saw them in concert.

My showers tend to last 15-20 minutes on a normal day. My parents can't stand it and say I'm wasting water, but I don't stand there and think or anything. I'm usually washing my hair or whatever (biggest thing).

If I wake up late and have to be at work or in class, I can take a five minute shower, but I'm not clean at all.

If I don't shower regularly, my hair gets greasy and gross around my roots and my face itches-- that's why I shower before work or class. Even if I shower the night before and don't have time to sweat or anything, I still rinse off and get the drool off my face and clean my eyes.

My parents' first dog went through his terrible twos and chewed on shoes, papers, books, remotes-- anything he could get a hold of. But he grew out of that as he got older. But the breed is known for digging to hide things/get comfortable, so all of our furniture has where he's tried to fluff out the cushions and everything.

When our lab was a puppy, he put holes in all of our clothes when we played with him. He had toys and everything, but he needed another dog to play with. (Once we got our Spaniel, who was just as big as him, he stopped chewing on us).

We can't leave stuffed animals laying around where our Spaniel can get to them. He likes to chew them up and pull out the stuffing, so our lab can't have his "Babies" (stuffed animals) or anything, and my German Shepard stuffed dog can't lay in my bed when I'm at home.

Then our Yorkie will pull the stuffing out of the couches and chairs if they're not covered up. Not too sure about the Yorkie puppy my parents just got.

On a very personal level, I would go insane.

I have problems with background noise. I can't stand listening to people talk or other sounds associated with a lot of people crowded in one area-- It just can't do it. I put myself into my own little world by plugging myself into music and listening to music when I'm walking around campus or when I'm sitting in a very busy place.

Without music, I doubt I would be able to handle being around other people, or walking to class or to work (my second job's commute is 15 minutes cross campus by foot).

When I'm not using music to drown out music, music is my inspiration. I write to music-- my ideas come from not just my own head, but the moods and the stories within the songs helps me move in the right direction. Every [creative] story I write, there's some kind of genre or artist I pair the work with.

Without music, I doubt myself and a lot of other authors would have the ability to write without music to help in the magical ways it does.

I charge my phone when it looks like it's running lower than I'm comfortable with. My phone's got a surprisingly good battery life, so I don't worry about it much.

While saying that, there have been times where my battery is dying during a road trip and my friend's phones were priority (we were using theirs for GPS), or I'm at work and have to make a lot of phone calls and it's got just a little green left before blinking at me.

But because of my amazing packing skills and habit of throwing random things into random bags, I usually have a spare phone cord in my bag, so as long as I have an outlet, I can charge my phone.

My dream job is to be an international journalist and an author.

I'm starting my second year of college to get my degree in journalism and I've wrote a couple 50,000 word plus novels throughout the past five years.

I've tried to get a publisher, but I need to work on my manuscripts more. 

Jared wound up not driving Aurora home that afternoon after she reminded him that she had a drama club meeting after school. Jared offered to hang around to take her home, but Aurora said her cousin was going to pick her up and take her to go to the big family dinner, which meant something was going on in the Lombardi family that required a family dinner.
A huge family dinner which would take most of the evening. While Jared himself had never attended the Lombardi family dinners, Aurora always had something to say about them.
In McAlister, there were many Italian families. Not Italian diluted with American blood, but pure Italian blood, to the point where the kids Aurora’s age and Aurora herself were born in Italy, but moved while they were still young.
Trying to keep the younger generations close to their heritage, the Lombardi’s made sure all of the kids spoke Italian, had an understanding of Italian culture and ways of life. Depending on what exactly was going on with her family, Aurora either did or did not like what was going on with her family.
Sitting in his room and waiting for his mom and Evan to get home from Evan’s chemotherapy appointment and his dad to get home from work, Jared wondered what he could do with the house to himself. If Aurora was over, they would be in the basement, working on his detective story.
Or they would be talking, or playing video games. That was what they did, along with working on the personal projects for both Jared and Aurora. It was either his writing or her acting that they worked n if they had to, but their time together was spent having fun instead of doing other things.
Finally, everyone got home. His mom put together a quick dinner for Jared, his dad and her, since Evan was too weak and feeling sick after his chemo to join dinner.
It was a quiet dinner; a quiet evening. Jared didn’t even get a text from Aurora that night.
It was Friday, another day that Jared didn’t have to pick up Aurora from her house to take her to school. Instead, Jared would sit in his first period class and work in his notebook, but he didn’t have his notebook. So, he waited for Aurora in the hall her locker was in.
Leaning against the lockers and watching the minute hand tick by slowly, waiting for Aurora to get out of whatever meeting she was in. Five till the bell, she appeared in the hall, pulling Jared away from her locker and toward their first period classes.
“Sorry, not enough time. I’ll get it back to you before lunch. There’s a few things I still want to read,” Aurora said, Jared sighing and frowning. “I’m sorry—I really am. Last night was hectic with the family dinner and what happened afterwards…”
“What happened?” Jared asked, concerned. Usually, Aurora would spend a good two or three hours over dinner alone, then the adults would continue to talk among themselves for the rest of the evening.
In short, it wasn’t good if Aurora had to stick around for the after dinner discussions. If she had to stay around for the discussions, something big was happening.
“Something I would like to talk about at lunch. I gotta go,” without another word, Aurora disappeared from Jared’s side before he slipped in with the bell ringing.
Sighing and walking to his class, Jared wasn’t sure what to think about Aurora’s actions towards him. Usually, she would hang out as long as she could before having to go to class, and so would he. It was always something they both competed for—who could walk in right at the bell and get away with it.
In short, it was very unlike Aurora behavior.
Sitting down in class, Jared didn’t know what to do. He didn’t have a backup notebook to write in—he didn’t expect to have to resort to this as he pulled out a big five subject notebook he used for classes.
Flipping to the empty section in the back of his notebook, Jared started writing. Everything that he would have put down last night to now was going down, and his hand wasn’t stopping it.
Jared also started writing the beginning to his mystery story. But what he started with felt weird, like it didn’t belong. He didn’t even know what the mystery was.
Stopping to watch his teacher, Jared acted like he was listening. They liked when Jared looked up, all bright eyed and bushy tailed, even though he wasn’t actually paying attention. If he made just enough eye contact, they wouldn’t call on him for any reason.
Making sure he made sufficient eye contact with his teacher, Jared looked back at his notebook. Something just wasn’t right, and he couldn’t put his finger on it. It wasn’t that he didn’t have the notebook he wanted to write in—that didn’t matter, even though the fact that it was unfinished bugged him.
Scribbling down some notes for class, the bell rang, ending the first period of many—he had a whole day to go through still, before he could hopefully get his notebook back from Aurora.
And the day went by slowly.
Sitting in his car with the music on, Jared acted like he was asleep. Sometime, Aurora would show up, and they would drive to the nearest park and eat in the back of his Jeep and talk. It beat sitting in the school cafeteria and having to spend money on fast food. No matter what, Aurora would show up. It would be unlike her to.
But now, lunch was half way over. Jared’s stomach rumbled, but he wasn’t going to eat lunch without Aurora, but if she wasn’t going to show up…
Opening his glove box and pulling out his phone, Jared wondered if Aurora would have sent him a text message about lunch. He wasn’t holding his breath, but it would be worth checking.
Grunting when he scrolled through his messages, there was one from Aurora, telling him that she wouldn’t be able to make it to lunch. She had other things going on that she couldn’t miss.
Sighing, Jared turned his car on and pulled out of his parking spot. He’ll just go to a park a few blocks over from the school and eat his lunch. Make it back in time to go to class. Try and not be mad that Aurora was suddenly standing him up.
Turning down a street, Jared pulled into a parking lot and turned his car off. Getting out and grabbing his lunch from the backseat, Jared opened the hatch and sat down in the back. Opening his bag going through his food, Jared pulled his phone out and responded to Aurora’s message.
‘What’s going on?’ he asked her, wondering if it would be better for him to talk to her in person than through text. But anymore, he couldn’t get Aurora to talk to him in person.
Lost in his thoughts, staring at the cement, Jared didn’t look up when a car passed him, turned around and pulled into the parking lot he was sitting in.
Whoever it was probably there for the park—a mother with her young child to play or a man and his dog for a game of fetch. It wouldn’t have been the first time that someone had stopped in the park, gave Jared and Aurora a strange look and go on with their day.
“Care if I join you?” a voice asked, Jared lifting his head to look at who was talking to him. “I come in peace, I swear,” Roxanne said, throwing her hands up in the air. “You looked… lonely from the road.”
“Sure,” Jared said, scooting over so he was leaning against the side of his Jeep. Roxanne hopped up and sat at the other end. He didn’t know what to say—not to someone like Roxanne, who he had nothing in common with.
“So… I’m sorry about your notebook. I know it was uncool and everything…” she said after a moment of silence. “I… I just really wanted to know what you wrote in it. You always have something to say, and you write it down. I have no idea how that even works for someone—I guess I wasn’t gifted with the power of words.”
Sitting in silence, Jared thought about what he could say, with his words. His words were precious to him, and some of the reason why he didn’t allow many to look into the actual form his words took in privacy. There was no way he would be able to be able to explain this to Roxanne, even if he tried.
“You read enough to know what I can do and will do with my words then, haven’t you?” Jared asked, pushing himself further against the car, closing his eyes. He could hear the music his words made to him on paper as he opened and looked at Roxanne.
“Yes… It was what I got to read. It wasn’t what I set out to read, but it was,” she said, turning to face him. “Why don’t you talk to me? We’ve known each other for years, but you don’t… Seem interested in me.”
“You’re out of my league,” Jared said simply. He was tall and skinny, with messy black hair that hid his face. He was plain—something that Jared found to be his advantage after spending so long wondering why girls weren’t interested in him.
While he was plain and just there, Roxanne was the complete obvious. While he wasn’t going to admit it, she was pretty—beyond pretty, where words like beautiful and gorgeous weren’t capable of describing her outer appearances. Her golden hair hung in a thick mass down her back, always teased into the perfect shape she wanted. Her skin tone, also golden and even, shone even in the darkest days of winter. Her eyes were bright and shining, always making eye contact, laughing moments before she did. Her smile—her best feature, was infectious, but not right then as she spoke to Jared.
“How am I out of your league?” she asked, taken aback as her mouth became tiny. So tiny it nearly disappeared. He confused her. She didn’t understand why Jared didn’t think he had any chance with a girl like Roxanne—the cheerleader, the homecoming court favorite. The girl that dated only guys of her caliber, which were not the same people Jared associated himself with.
“You just are,” Jared said, a huge rant forming in his head. But he wasn’t going to give in and tell her exactly what he thought. He was going to make her beg for it. He was going to be aloof and distant. Not to tease her of course, but to keep her disinterested.
He had no interest in Roxanne. Not when he was too busy with other things. Like the yearbook and his writing. Making sure Evan felt like a normal kid, and not some depressed cancer patient. A guy who had a busy social calendar and no time for a girlfriend.
Who was he kidding? He was nearing desperate himself—this was the first time in over a year a girl besides Aurora seemed interested in him. He could, hypothetically, throw himself at Roxanne and be a lovesick puppy, but that wasn’t Jared.
“How, though? Is it because we don’t hang out with the same people? Our mom’s know each other? I don’t understand,” she said, looking lost as Jared pulled out his phone and checked the time.
“Time to get back,” he said, standing up and waiting for Roxanne to move, feeling a tiny bit smug with himself.

My favorite band of all time has been Anberlin. I've seen them in concert three times, one of which I was three people away from the stage. One of the most intimate concerts I've been too, ever.

I also love All Time Low, Mayday Parade, Green Day and the Maine.

I assume one of the first songs I heard either came from Bon Jovi or Garth Brooks.

"Wanted Dead or Alive," most likely.

A couple of stitches in elementary school. I flipped over my bike's handlebars going down my street. I walked home covered in blood and crying.

In middle school, I either sprained or had a hairline fracture in both my left wrist and elbow. Both hurt to this day-- especially when it rains or snows.


In high school, I lifted my younger brother up and tugged a muscle in my back. I don't think it healed right-- too much exertion and the same spot hurts. I got into a car accident the day after Christmas a year ago last December. A Jeep t-boned my best friend's dad's truck on the passenger side-- not even five feet from me.

After getting tossed around (we were turned 90 degrees), airbag deployed in my face and whip lash, it made my back worse. If I stand up for too long or move around too much, my whole back and right hip hurt a lot. It doesn't help that when I work, I stand for 7-8 hours and move boxes and clothes around. I'm not that old, but I go home feeling like I'm triple my age (or how I imagine someone in constant pain might feel like.)

My eyes are hazel.

The redder my hair is, the greener they look. I actually enjoy my eyes, even though I wish they were green.