There was a girl sitting in front of me on the train today. She had longish blonde hair tied in a ponytail and talked constantly on the phone – not one long conversation either, but many smaller ones. I think she smelled of smoke, but it could have been someone else. I don’t think she was feeling well either. She would rest her head against the window as she talked, I believe it was to her mom, and when we passed over the bridge she got a bit freaked and jumped back. She mentioned the bridge on the phone. I’m not sure if it just startled her or whether she has some fear of bridges or water or heights or all of the above.

For some reason I noticed all this through reading Watchmen. Maybe because they were mostly non-visual. I also remember someone eating something very strong-smelling. Not in a bad way, but noticeable. There was a guy across the aisle eating ramen, but I don’t think it was him.

For some reason I wanted to write about this. It’s just odd the multitude of little things you notice throughout the day.

I’ve found professors/TAs/readers are increasingly wanting me to add more detail to my thesis or intro paragraph. I don’t understand this because I actually write decent intro paragraphs and thesis statements. Heck, the fact that I actually know what a thesis statement is and where it’s supposed to go is sadly more than some of the other English majors I’ve come across.

Wanting more detail in the intro paragraph isn’t so bad because I can always add more detail without proving anything. How do you add more detail to a thesis statement without having it become horribly long and complicated though? I don’t know how papers are supposed to be structured these days, but I learned to state my argument in general terms and then go into detail. It’s even more ridiculous when they ask you to start proving things in your intro paragraph. What do they want us to do? Write out the paper before the paper?

So evidently some people (I don’t want to draw conclusions on how many, but I have heard this from multiple sources) were taught in school that a proper concluding paragraph needs to include a broad statement about how the paper’s argument relates to the world at large and/or current events of today.

This confuses me since 95% of the time such a statement will have nothing to do with the rest of your paper.

I have decided that dark chocolate M&Ms are vastly superior to milk chocolate M&Ms. This is because they make the dark chocolate just sweet enough that, when combined with the candy coating, they are neither too dark nor so sweet that they make you get sick of them quickly (as I feel milk chocolate M&Ms have a tendency to do).

This is, of course, my own opinion and not meant to be a statement of fact. I just like making very definitive statements and then ruining it all by writing these wishy washy little notes at the bottom.

Here’s to posting more this year!

….  it’s 6:45 AM, and I’m awake. This is not because I had to get up to use the restroom or had something rudely awaken me. No no, it’s because this has technically become sleeping in for me.

Weird.

In order to understand what I’m about to tell you, you have to realize that when I came home today and innocently went to wash my hands, I witness a positively HUGE spider crawling across the counter and into a nearby tupperware. And I don’t mean I just thought it was big. This thing had, legs included, about my thumb-length in diameter. For an inner-home setting, this was so unexpectedly huge that I actually jumped back and swore quite loudly (something I’m not prone to doing under normal circumstances). I alerted my mother to the situation and she came over. We suspected it was a baby wolf spider (it isn’t the first time one’s gotten into our house; though the last was more the size of my palm) and expressed our bewilderment at how it got into our home. Then, after looking at it for a while, we wondered… now what?

Seeing as it was already in a tupperware, I suggested getting a lid.

Mom couldn’t understand my need to not kill this creature with far too many eyes and legs. Honestly, I can’t blame her, as I’m not too keen on spiders myself. It looked big and out of place though (and unlikely to find its way back in despite the fact that it’d obviously managed it somehow the first time), and I disliked killing the last one despite it being a major violation to our living space and peace of mind. So I found a tupperware lid and, after securing that the spider could not escape, took it outside. It was actually pretty calm and slow-moving until I accidentally tapped the lid. Then it shot across the tupperware faster than I could blink. I managed to release it in a nearby planter though, even if it did require leaving the tupperware behind.

My mom didn’t like that I had released it so close to the house. She was sure it would get back in somehow and find her. Spiders always found her. My excuse that it was “too big” had a glaring hole that I was very aware of, and she swore that it would be back.

She was bringing a heavy basket of dishware into the kitchen when I heard her scream.

The situation played out as follows:

Mom: EEEEYYYAAAAAHHHH!
There is a huge crashing sound as everything she’s carrying is dropped.
Me, freaked out: What?! WHAT?!
Mom, beginning to laugh, sounding slightly relieved: Oh… oh, I thought it was a spider!
Me, still kinda freaked: What was it?!
Mom is still laughing.
Me: WHAT WAS IT?!
Mom is laughing too hard to answer, and when I look she’s leaning over with everything on the floor in front of her.
Me: You dropped everything for this, so what WAS it?
Mom, through her laughter: It was a zip-pull.
Me: … What?
Mom: It was a zipper pull!
Me, beginning to chuckle: Those aren’t even that big!
Mom, laughing harder: I thought it was a leg!

…That’s all I got.

You know, I think the way that old age – or at least the realization that we’re older than we expected to be – creeps up on us is because we just don’t accept the fact that we’ve grown up.

Maybe it’s just me. Consciously I realize I’m an adult and have been for over a year, but inside I think I’ll forever be at that 15-17 age bracket. I find people on Deviantart and go “Wow! That kid’s my age!” and then it’ll hit me. No, they’re two years younger than I am. I can see it happening in the future too. I see pictures of people I consider young adults and realize they’re probably not that much older than me and, in fact, will probably be younger than me when I’m still thinking they’re older than me.

Honestly, I don’t think I mind that much.

… As long as I can keep watching my cartoons.

Today as I was buying my water at the DC, I overheard one of the employees saying that Aquafina was owned by the Pepsi company. My immediate thought was, “Hm. Maybe I should drink more Pepsi.” I do not know if Aquafina is actually owned by Pepsi. It’s kind of irrelevant. My point is that I would want to support a company that sells water without anything added to it. That probably seems silly until you realize that Dasani, the Coke brand of water, had salt added to it “for flavor.” I think that’s BS. I think they add salt so you’ll get thirsty and buy more water from them.

This sort of thing initially led me to avoid Fiji because they don’t use the standard nutrition label and all I could find on the bottle was that it had extra minerals in it. That sounded suspicious. Forget for a moment that there’s this stuff called mineral water, because I do all the time. Anyway, after more bottle-reading I found out it’s all stuff that naturally filters into the water and that it’s all pretty good for you. I also doubt any of it’s salt since the PH is slightly basic (yay chem knowledge). There’s also the fact that it actually tastes good. I don’t mean I think it tastes good because I like the label, I mean it actually tastes more like nothing than any other water I’ve ever tasted.

This whole thing probably sounds like a commercial, but that’s not the point. The point is that you should be aware of what’s in your water. Especially tap-water. My mom’s a tap-water drinker, and even she is afraid of what’s in the water these days. I’m not saying you need to buy bottled water – just get a filter or something. Knowing is half the battle and all that….

I’ve noticed lately that adults, or young adults at least, seem to have this desire to pretend their teenage years never happened. My creative writing teacher, a graduate student, put it into words when she said that, as an adult, she found it embarrassing to be reminded of how life was like as a teenager because she could no longer relate to the feeling of being one.

I can understand not wanting to dwell on the less glamorous parts of one’s life. Teenagers do stupid things. That’s what being a teenager is about. But all adults were teenagers at some point, and it’s not exactly fair to, once you cross the 18 or 20 or however many years barrier, claim that none of it was real. Just because you’re past it doesn’t mean those struggles and triumphs and emotions weren’t real. They were. They meant something.

And if you forget that, then it’s your loss.

I just realized that the palms of my hands glitter ever so slightly in the light.

I don’t know if they’re supposed to do that, but it’s cool none the less.