History 2020

In history 2020, I am learning about the jazz era, or better yet the 1920s. I love this period in time because its a time when women were being more adventurous and when the world was at peace and having a good time. The beginning of the 1920s was mainly recovering from the wreckage of World War I. We were in serious debt from loaning the allies money but somehow managed to get by until 1929. Women were wearing shorter shirts, shorter sleeves and shorter hairstyles. Before this decade, women who dressed like this would be considered whores. But now it was socially acceptable and the common fashion for women. Women also were able to vote with the passing of the 19th amendment in 1920. It was a time of social wealth, great parties, and fancy cars being made. Jazz even developed as a result of the 1920s. Jazz was not just a man blowing on a saxophone; he had a rhythm and a sexual undertone to the music. Not everything, however, was so pleasant. Several industries took major downfalls. The cotton industry started declining because clothes were shorter and therefore needed less cotton. The coal mining and railroad industries took a downturn because people were driving themselves in cars and the trains therefore weren't running alot and therefore didnt need coal as much. Then in 1929, the economy took a deep downturn which turned into the Great Depression.

Longing

Oh the longing,
that seems to be all I do.
Waiting and waiting,
and nothing comes through.

How can I do this,
this task I hate so much.
Yet it is all I know,
it is the only thing I can touch.

Longing is all I know,
it is all I will ever be.
If only there were a way to change,
I wish I could see.

Open my eyes
and be no more.
This is my fate
this is my final score.

I don't know what this is. I guess it was just something to fill a blog spot, to be honest.

Halloween Then and Now

Halloween was my second favorite holiday of the year. Not only did you get to dress up as something you weren't, you also got candy for it! I loved it. Some of the costumes I remember wearing were a power ranger, a clown, a cheerleader, and a harry potter character. When I lived in the townhouse complex, we would go around the different sections of the neighborhood and knock on the doors with the porch lights on. I was scared of alot of things as a kid. We used to go to this homemade haunted garage thing, and boy did it scare the living crap outta me! There was a person being operated on, fake blood everywhere, people screaming and it was just horrible. All the scary costumes scared me too, especially if I didn't know that it was going to scare me. I'm still scared to go in haunted houses these days, even though I know they are fake. This year, I am invited to my best friend Stephanie's halloween party. I'm super excited about her party even though I know I will know about zero people there, excluding her and one other person. I thought long and hard about what I wanted to dress up as. I finally decided that I was going to dress up as a 50's pin up doll! I went this weekend to get the costume together and it looks amazing. I bought a black and cream with red strips plaid dress from walmart for the 50's look. I then bought thigh high panty hose with the lace at the top for the "sexy" part of the costume. (however, you can only see the lacey part if i pull my dress up, which is not going to happen. lol) I already have black heels to wear and now I just have to figure out how to do my hair in a fifties style. I'm super duper excited for this costume and party.

My new job!

My new job is sooooo great! Thank God something good finally came through for me! I am now working at Marco's Pizza, a pizza shop that also makes subs and salads. I had orientation on friday and and it seemed like it was going to be good there. Well today, I started training for my job. I got trained on phones and taking orders, making pizzas, preping food, and making dough. The cool thing about Marco's is that they make their dough, sauce and and the cheese is fresh everyday. While we practiced making pizzas, we got to sample them as well. It was so delicious! Homemade pizza with a homemade crust and sauce has never tasted better. I can't believe I got this wonderful job. Despite the job, I also love the people I work with. They are all quirky and open and so much fun to be around. They don't make you feel bad for asking questions, and neither do the managers and owners. They make you feels welcome and befriended it almost unparalleled. I love this job and I think it is going to be a new page in my life. Tomorrow is family and friends night and I'm super nervous because I have a feeling I will be put on phones and taking orders all night. Its probably one of the most difficult jobs because you are dealing directly with the customers. I hope I do well.

Sonnet

I fell in love with you the moment you walked through my door the first day of freshman year.
I loved you when you waved and smiled while we walked home from the bus.
I loved you when you dated one of my best friends for about two days.
I loved you even when you ignored me in the hallways to keep your reputation.
I loved you when you hollered to me from your mother's bathroom window while I rode by on my bike.
I loved you when you bummed rides off of me instead of riding the bus.
I loved you when you defended me on the bus when a creepy guy kept staring at me.
I loved you when you always called me your best friend, even though you never hung out with me.
I loved you when you did not even knew I existed the last three years of high school.
I loved you when I left for college and knew I would not see you.
I loved you when the girl you fell in love with broke your heart and tried to hurt you.
I loved you when I moved back from college and went to a different one.
I loved you even when you threw parties behind your mother's back and destroyed things.

I love you when you say hello to me on campus.
I love you when you talk to me on facebook.
I love you at this very moment.
I love you now.
I love you forever.

Now I just need you to love me.

My tattoo

Last Wednesday, I got my first tattoo. I had been wanting to get one for months now but I knew I didn't have the money or the slighest clue about what I wanted to get. Finally, I decided on a celtic pentaflower, or a celtic rose. It symbolizes a very powerful love, a love that transcends all including death. I chose it because I wanted something celtic because I have always felt some odd connection to Ireland. Well Wednesday, I mucked up the courage to go get my tattoo. I was so nervous because I did not know if it was going to hurt alot. Many people I had asked had mixed reviews, some said it hurt alot, while others said it was not bad at all. I was so happy that the person doing my tattoo was one of my former softball coaches. He assured me it would not hurt bad. Well, he was wrong. It did hurt alot, but only while the tattoo was being done. Afterwards it did not hurt, it just felt like a slight burn. I was given instructions on how to keep my tattoo clean and how to help it heal correctly. I followed all the directions and it started to scab over like it was supposed to. I kept lotion on it for about a week. This morning I realized that the scab had finally came off the whole tattoo and it looks awesome!!!! It was done in white ink so that it was not as noticeable as other ink colors. It's like my own personal tattoo, just for me. You can barely see it unless I show it too you. Anyways, I was just wanting to tell how much I loved my tattoo now that its almost completely healed!!! :D

Meet Joe Blog

Meet Joe Blog is a piece about the advantages/rise of blogs and the disadvantages of them. Lev Grossman, the author, describes how blogs have transformed from a nerdy fad to a mainstream alternative to news and other media outlets. Blogs used to be not even noticed by many americans at all and only techinal savvy and nerds blogged. Blogs today are more common than back in the 1990s and are a source for people to give their biased opinion of things that have not even hit the main media yet. Grossman explains how blogs keep stories alive while mainstream media keeps it dead for a few days. He used the example of a man who had made a speech about a man's segregational leanings and blogs forced the story into the mainstream and then he had to apologize. He also explains how blogs are so effective, because they are free. Anyone can go online and blog about anything they want, and no one can stop them. It gives a voice "to the little guy". He gives some disadvantages to blogs as well. He states that blogs carry gossip around and don't let it die. He used the alleged affair between John Kerry and a woman as his example. He then goes on to explain how blogs could become a powerful source of elections and campaigns, since it is a major form of communication these days.

My hometown

My hometown is Waldorf, MD. I loved living there. I lived in a townhouse neighborhood that was a pretty good neighborhood until about the time we started moving away. I had a lot of friends, including my best guy friend Rodney. He was amazingly awesome and made me laugh. We had a small playground towards the back section of the neighborhood that all the kids used to play at. The actual city was probably about the size of prattville, but just a bit bigger and a bit more scrunched together. There was a huge mall that alot of people went to on the weekends. I also vaguely remember a mom and pop store that sold seasonal items. For instance, they sold pumpkins around halloween and christmas trees around christmas. I loved going to that store and roaming through the pumpkins and trees. I also remember that it snowed almost every christmas in Maryland. I love the snow so much! I hate that there is no snow here in prattville except every once in a blue moon. I left behind alot of friends from waldorf. I did move again about 30 minutes away from waldorf to mechanicsville, MD. We moved out to the country where we had a beautiful 2 story house on an acre. It was so peaceful out there. There was a good 500 ft between each house and the whole neighborhood consisted of 27 houses. I loved Maryland and I still dream about it all the time (literally dream at night). I want to go back someday but I won't be going back for a while because of college and financials.

Serious Injury

This is an experiance that I remember about a boy who got seriously injured. I used to live in a townhouse neighborhood, and right by my house there was a medium size clearing next to our row of townhouses. My sister and I asked the boys down the street if they wanted to play a sport with us (I can't really remember what it was). Well, we all went to the clearing by my house and started to play. Next to the clearing, there is a small patch of woods with a huge log down right next to the clearing. I don't remember exactly how it happened but I know we were playing and somehow the oldest boy tripped over the log and fell backwards. Well, me being a young kid thought that it was hilarious that he fell over a log. So I'm laughing, but no one else is. So I finally look up and see that the boy is crying and in pain. Only then did I notice that the log had a thick branch coming out of it, and the branch was coming out of the boy's knee! I felt horrible for laugh because he was in pain the whole time and I just thought that he was being stupid and staying on the ground. His parents came down to the clearing and took him to the hospital. I can't remember exactly how it happened, or whose fault it was, because I was so young. All I remember was that the boy couldn't play actual sports for a long time because he had messed up his knee so bad. :(

10 things to do/say around someone you like

This is for all the people who freeze up in the presence of someone they like. Hope it works!

1. Hi or hey
2. How are you doing?
3. Compliment them on something, either physical or not
4. Make eye contact majority of the time
5. Ask them what they like to do
6. Laugh at things they say (this is mainly advice for girls) but don't be obnxious and laugh at everything, because that's just annoying
7. Smile
8. Talk causaully, like you would to your friends, and don't freeze up or act nervous
9. If the person is someone you've known for a long time, relate a story you remember about you and them from the past. If the person someone you don't know well, ask them what they plan to do in the future. (ex: Whats your major? Oh, ok! That's very interesting? How did you get into that major?)
10. If you get adventurous, ask them what they are doing this weekend and then ask if they would like to hang out

New Job

I know lately alot of my blogs have been complaining about how my life sucks and how tired and stressed I am. But suddenly, my life has seemed to make its way upward, just a tad. I have recently been hired at a new job that I had been hoping to get. Now that I can quit my hellish job I have now, things seem to be clearing up! I've gotten a job at Marco's Pizza, which sells pizza and subs. Well, considering I've worked at a papa johns and a subway (pizza and subs), I thought that I would be a perfect hire! But I hadn't heard from the owners in like two days, the time limit they said they would call me in, and I began to worry. I didn't want to stay at the job I have currently, but lack of money prohibited any efforts to quit. Now, I am hopefully going to have a great job, that I love doing. I don't know why, but I just love making pizzas. I loved working at papa johns, but I also loved it because I loved the people. Hopefully, the people I work with at Marco's are going to be just as great! :D

Best Advice Ever

The best advice I have ever gotten was from my mom. She has always been the one to give me good advice and to support me whenever I've needed it. She told me one time, "Suck it up! Life's not fair!" and boy was she right. Life isn't fair and if you constantly expect things to go your way every time, you are going to constantly be let down. I still here this piece of advice today. I get stressed and start complaining about how tired I am and how everything seems to be going downhill, and I hear my mom in the background somewhere say, "suck it up ashleigh". It may sound harsh for a mother to say this but she is only teaching me that if i wear my feelings on my sleeves that I am only going to get hurt worse when I get out into the actual real world. I definately know that I will be telling this to my kids one day, but I might be a little more sympathetic, but then again I might not. lol. I do however tell myself to "suck it up" every now and then, just to remind myself that I need to be more resilient to an ever changing world. People aren't always going to play fair or be fair, and I know life isn't going to just hand me a great life. I just have to "suck it up" and stick it out!

Me

While I'm naturally suspicious,
I'm not all vicious.
Just can't trust so easy,
After the guys I've dated turned out sleazy.
I guess its my fault for being so nice,
I guess I just get the bad luck roll of the dice.
But its up to me to change it,
instead of staying in this black pit.
Its my time to shine,
and tell myself that everything will turn out fine.
I just have to believe,
and I can achieve.
I am who I am and if that's not good enough,
I really don't care, you should move along with your stuff.
I am honest to the bone,
never have you known,
anyone like me,
I hope you'll finally see,
that I am quite unique,
and it is one man I seek,
to turn my heart to gold,
and to him I will be sold.
He will be honest and true,
and love me through and through.
And only then can I be free,
from this pain and misery.

Oh Elementary School, How I Do Miss Thee...

There are some things I remember from elementary school that still make me look back and smile. I went to JP Ryon elementary in Waldorf, MD and I loved it. The teachers were all great and I loved going to school, which makes me the nerd I am today. I remember one teacher, Mrs. Proctor, who was my kindergarden teacher. She was so much fun but for some reason I had the scariest dream about her. I dreamed that she was the big bad wolf from the three little pigs story and that she was trying to kill me. In real life, she was just as nice as could be. But I also remember my favorite teacher from elementary school, Mrs. Talley. She was my third grade teacher and she was such an amazing teacher, that I didn't really want to leave her class. But she had this method of teacher us our times tables. She would give a quiz every week on each set of the times table (one week would be the 1's table, then the 2's table and so on) and if we got them all right, we would get a star on the times table chart, saying we had accomplished it. If we had accomplished all the times tables up to 12, she would buy us a candy bar. That was just the coolest thing for a teacher to do at my age then. She was actually going to buy us candy for doing something we were supposed to learn anyways!!! She was the coolest, though I' m sure some people didn't like her because she did have her mean moments. I also remember the play ground. It was wooden for the first few years of elementary school, and by the fourth grade (our school only went up to the 5th grade for elementary) we had gotten a whole new playground! It was metal and colorful and so much fun. We had this awesome fire truck playset, a giant plastic tire swing, and swings galore. Needless to say, I had an awesome elementary experiance.

Dear Lord, Why Me?

Ok so i had a good day today til my phone decided to jump into the fish pond at Auburn University. Me and my cousin Mitchell went to the fish pond to feed the fish some bread. Well we got there and started to throw the bread into the pond. We watched the fish "go at it" when we threw the tiny balls 0f bread into the pond. Well, when we were about to leave, he picked up the bread bag and we heard a huge "PLOP" in the water and we looked at each other like "what was that?!" Then I start to wonder where my phone is...and then it dawns on me that it could have been my phone. So we rush back to the tailgating area and check for my phone, which wasn't there. So we went back to the pond. Let me describe the pond for you, so that you can get a mental image of why i was so hesitant to go searching for my phone in it. The pond has no filteration except evaporation. The water has a turbidity of about a few inches and then the rest of the way down you can only see green. There is alge all over the stone stuff in the pond and there are coy fish in it. Ok, so i decided instead of putting my hand in that i would put my foot in and feel around for it. I finally found and pulled it out and it still kinda worked. I opened it up and the screen was all messed up and the buttons didnt work on it...so it was dead for now.

Great! First my computer crashes and now my phone has died for good. What next, my car?

Go to bed or stay up longer? That is the Question.

Ok, so I'm sitting here on the couch amidst the dark and I can't decide whether to go to bed or not. It shouldn't be that hard to decide, if you really get down to the basics of it. If I'm tired, I should go to bed. But something always compels me to stay on facebook, like it has brainwashed me to keep checking to see if anything exciting is going to happen. Maybe someone is going to comment on a picture of mine or send me a message or write something on my wall. Or maybe someone will pop up a chat with me and keep me entertained for a while. This may not be everyones idea of excitement, but when you really have no social due to work and school and facebook is the only way to stay connected, anything menial becomes exciting. However, my id is screaming for me to go to bed, but my super ego is telling me to stay up and keep checking facebook every 6 seconds. Now if you were completely lost with what I just said, its a psychology thing. Hard to explain and I don't really feel like explaining it now, considering its 2:10 AM. Does anyone one else experiance this feeling too? I'm pretty sure they do but either (1) don't want to admit it or (2) don't read my blogs. lol I fear its number 2, but oh well! The world is not going to end. However I think I might think about going to bed for another five minutes and then make my way to my room. Goodnight to all you lovely people, and don't let facebook brainwash you like it has me. :D

25 Things I Will Never Do

1) Smoke cigarrettes
2) Start Drama
3) Take candy from a stranger ;)
4) Drive over 85 mph (well, at least I don't now)
5) Jump off a cliff without a bungee cord
6) Harm myself intentionally
7) Eat pizza with anchoives
8) Leave the number of gallons/dollars of gas I pump into my car on an odd number (idk i'm OCD like that)
9) Rap...because I can't
10) Marry someone I don't love
11) Climb a Mount Everest
12) This list ever again
13) Drugs (why it took me so long to think of this, idk)
14) Try to drop my future kids off a balcony...like michael jackson tried to
15) Leave my future kids with someone I don't trust
16) Spit on anyone
17) Go on a reality show
18) Look frumpy
19) Tell my boss outright that I hate her
20) Fight in a war
21) Skydive
22) Fly a plane
23) Swim the english channel
24) Visit eastern europe
25) Eat anything raw