Author: Georgia Bailey

Once upon a time I was in tenth grade walking to lunch with my friend Madison when we saw this table set up with some flyers, pamphlets, and pens. The first thing that came out of my mouth was not, “I wonder what that’s about” but instead, “Oh my god Madison I want a pen I really want a pen.” My friend Madison replied to me by saying, “Georgia if you really want a pen that badly then you should go get a pen!” Of course I couldn’t just walk up to this lady’s stand, ask for a pen and walk away. That would be rude. I had to at least seem mildly interested in what the topic was. It was at that point in time when I finally decided to read the banner hanging by the table. It read, Mississippi School of the Arts. I had no idea Mississippi had a college specializing in Arts.

As my obsession for pens had grown over the years, I had stopped by multiple stands pretending to be interested in them just to get a pen. Whether they be a college or a business, I was determined to obtain a pen. 

Madison and I got our lunch trays and sat down at our usual table which just so happened to be right across from the lady who was at the stand with the Mississippi School of the Arts. The entire time while we were eating lunch I kept talking to Madison about how I could approach the situation, seeming like I was interested in the school even though I wasn’t. In the end Madison finally yelled at me because she was sick of me plotting about a pen and told me to just go up to the stand and ask about the school and then ask for a pen. I ended up doing just that. I walked up to the stand and said something along the lines of, “So what’s this about?” The lady who was working the stand had really long hair. She told me that it was a residential high school for grades 11 and 12 to specialize in one of six disciplines, Dance, Vocal, Theater, Literature, Visual, and Media. This immediately caught my attention as I had been interested in literature and dance for years. As she told me more about the school I began to ask more questions and as I was more interested in the school. When I was done asking questions, she had me fill out a sheet of paper with one of the very pens I had been trying to achieve from the start. The paper was just so they could contact me to give me more information about the school so of course I filled it out as I was very interested (I also kept the pen).

When I went back to the lunch table where Madison was she asked me what took so long and I told her about the school and that I wanted to apply and she said to me something like “God dammit Georgia! You were supposed to get a pen, not go to a new school!”

After school I called my mom to tell her about the school and she fully supported me. I then called my friend Dannica and told her about the school and she got really interested and wanted to apply to the school. Fast forward to the present day while I’m writing this blog, both Dannica and I go to school at the Mississippi School of the Arts and love it here.

As a note to those of you who are reading this, if you want the pen from the business or college stand, go get it. You may end up going to the school of your dreams.

I remember it just like it was yesterday. October 19, 2019, the day I got my puppy. I was in seventh grade at an all girls Roman Catholic Christian Private School called Our Lady Academy, located in Bay St. Louis. My mom had to pick me up late so I walked down the street to the Mockingbird Cafe for some coffee and to work on my homework. I often ended up walking to the Mockingbird cafe because my mom is a realtor and had to show houses after work a lot and I didn’t want to come with her. These houses tended to be vacant meaning the power and water would be turned off so there was no air conditioning in the houses making it really hot and you couldn’t go to the bathroom. She would also show houses for a couple of hours straight so it was very boring. While you may be thinking, “Georgia, why didn’t you use your phone?” My dad paid my phone bill and only gave me two gigs of data a month. Earlier that school year I had unlimited but he made some excuse which I’m not going to share unless we’re close so I definitely won’t be sharing it online. All you need to know is that I was swapped from unlimited data to like one or two gigs a month. Anyway, while waiting at the Mockingbird, I was beginning to grow impatient because school ended at 3:30 and it was now around 5:15. I had texted my mom and she said she was on her way to come get me. Around 15 minutes later she walked through the doors and came to where I was sitting in another room. After she came in, my older brother, Thomas, walked in with a little brown puppy who had a white chin. My immediate reaction was “What’s that?” My mom replied by saying, “It’s Clarence! He shrunk!” (We had another dog, different breed, different gender, different shade of brown, named Clarence.) and I said to her again, “What’s that?” and she said, “Our neighbor, Ms. GeorgiaAnn found a puppy on the streets and took her in for  three days and couldn’t keep her anymore and asked if we wanted her because you’ve wanted a puppy since you were little.” I immediately started smiling and grabbed her and said, “She’s mine now” and my brother was like “What? No! I want her! You already have a dog. I had to get rid of my last dog!” and I replied to him by saying, “Thomas you had to get rid of your last dog because you didn’t take care of him properly and didn’t train him. Besides, you’ve already had two dogs, I’ve only had one dog. She’s mine!” It’s safe to say I won that argument and I got to keep her.

As I’m writing this I’m texting my mom trying to convince her that Canada is a fake place made up by the government and she isn’t actually from Canada, she’s from New Zealand and her family survived off of canned peanuts. No wonder she was so enthusiastic to send me to boarding school. Also, For those of you who are reading this, if you’ve made it passed canned peanuts (hopefully) you should know to always be patient and wait for your mothers to be done with their work even if you don’t want to and to not make a stink about it because who knows, you might be rewarded with a puppy. But when it comes to waiting for your dad, do whatever, idk man.

When I was younger I used to be completely obsessed with everything Garfield. I remember the TV we had up until I was about five years old was one of those big box TV’s with the built- in VHS tape player. I don’t remember what happened to it but I do remember getting a big flat screen TV at Sam’s Club before starting Kindergarten. When we got the new TV, we also got Netflix. I remember the first time I went on Netflix my dad helped me set up a kids account and together we scrolled through the shows. The first show I saw that caught my attention was this picture of an orange tabby cat with black stripes eating lasagna and a yellow-tan dog with long brown ears and a brown spot on his side. As soon as I saw that picture I knew I wanted to watch the show. I told my dad to press play on The Garfield Show so he did. I immediately loved the show. The first episode was called “Pasta Wars” and it showed Garfield’s birthday. Instead of Garfield having a cake, he had lasagna. As Garfield had finished scarfing down his lasagna, he noticed that he was missing one. He had one square of lasagna for each year of his age. He called over John, his owner, and signaled that one of the squares was missing. John immediately started freaking out and ran to the kitchen to make another square of lasagna but he didn’t have enough ingredients so he had to run to the store. Garfield decided to take a nap while John was gone and sometime during that nap Garfield woke up to a plate of lasagna. He was overly joyed and went to eat the lasagna but the lasagna begged him not to eat it. Garfield was so confused and probably a little bit scared too. The lasagna used this to its advantage and jumped out of the way and ran off. Garfield, of course, thought he was hallucinating so he went to his bed to hide under the covers. While Garfield was hiding, Odie went outside to investigate. He looked into a bush and saw the Space Lasagna talking into something. Odie immediately rushed inside to where Garfield was to let him know he wasn’t crazy and the Space Lasagna was real. When Garfield gets up to go check, he sees that there’s more Space Lasagna and freaks out and hides in their garage leaving Odie to fend for himself. The Space Lasagna crawl into the house using the doggie door and tie Odie up and leave him as they search the house for the fat orange cat, their enemy. While the Space Lasagna are looking for Garfield upstairs, Garfield gathers up the courage to exit the garage and untie Odie. After untying Odie, Garfield goes upstairs to where the Space Lasagna are and confronts them. The Space Lasagna are already terrified because they stumbled across John’s computer playing an edited six hour video of Garfield eating lasagna nonstop. When Garfield sees the Space Lasagna, he confronts them and they scream and run away to their spaceship leaving Garfield and Odie very confused. As Garfield and Odie follow the Space Lasagna outside, they find that they were too late as they watch the Space Lasagna fleeing Earth in fear of the fat orange beast.

It’s been over a decade since I’ve seen this episode so I’m sure I’ve gotten a few details wrong but I’ve remembered most of it. As I finish writing this blog in my room, I look up and see a sign that I got when I was in 6th grade, back when I was still obsessed with Garfield. It has a picture of Garfield on it and it says, “Keep your attitude I have my own!”

Don’t get me wrong, I love my brother but as I already stated, he’s my brother. My brother is older than me by about three years. I distinctly remember when I was about five making him around eight, my family was redoing our driveway. While our dad was working on digging out a path for the new driveway in the front yard, my brother had the great idea to dig a hole on the opposite side of the front yard. 

After a while of digging we were finally finished digging the hole and our dad had moved to the backyard to do something. My brother, Thomas, thought it would be funny to stick me in the hole and see if I could get out on my own. I couldn’t. After a few minutes of him laughing at me and me laughing with him, he went back inside and left me in the hole. There I was, a measly five year old stuck in a hole with no savior. I did the only thing I could think of. I started screaming for help. I don’t think anyone came to help me for a couple of reasons. 1. Who leaves a five year old unattended? 2. I wasn’t yelling that loudly. 3. I didn’t really sound like I was being serious.

When I decided yelling for help wasn’t working I tried reaching for the shovel to use it as something I could climb out of the hole with. It took a lot of struggling but after a while (a few seconds) I finally got it. I grabbed the shovel, put it in the hole with me, and tried climbing the shovel out of the hole. It wasn’t working. Sometime while I was attempting to climb out of the hole my dad came back in the front yard and found me, stuck in a hole, struggling to climb a shovel to get out. He gave me a funny look, sighed, bent down, and lifted me out. At last I was finally free. (For those of you who are thinking “Who leaves a five year old unattended for that long?” this all happened within about five minutes).

After being freed from my chamber from hell, I was the one in trouble. Not my brother, but me. The reason was something about staying in the front yard when there was no one to watch me.

This is an important memory for me because I get to reflect on mine and my older brother’s childhood and relive it. Memories are important because they teach you life lessons that you need in order to thrive.