Category: Junior Literary

I used to know a little girl. She spent the entirety of her days swinging back and forth on the worn down swing set her mother worked so hard to get for her birthday one year. She collected caterpillars wondering why they always ended up dead by morning. She was oblivious to the world around her, and yet she was happy.

She had bigger dreams than her little hands could hold. She wanted to be a singer “like Taylor Swift.” She even wanted to be an astronaut at one point. Her mother described her as free, a little wild even. And that she was.

This girl knows the best parts of me. She praises them when no one else notices them. This girl knows the worst parts of me as well, yet she smiles at them even. She excepts them both, and comforts me when no one else will. She sends little messages to me that help me to keep my head up.

I’ve grown up from this girl, but I miss being young like her. How everyday was a new adventure. I miss the simplicity of it all. She was the voice in my head that told me I was beautiful when the rest of the desperate voices begged to differ. She got me through the walls I never thought I could break through. She helped me to grow into the person I am today.

I had forgotten about this girl for a while, but she never forgot about me. When I believed I was alone, crying on my own, she was the only one that saw. She was there. I now realize that she has always been there for me, telling me that I’m okay. I’ll always be okay.

I guess this is a little appreciation blog for the girl that shaped me into me. Her drive and imagination has taken me to places I never knew I could go. She not only took me places, but she taught me how to love the one person that’s the hardest to love: myself.

You’re such a forgetful youth,

Going and dropping off your childish ways in a nearby landfill,

trying to grow up too fast.

But I guess maybe it may be time to cut ties.

Break your bond with that past self you enjoyed so much,

When words didn’t mean too much and there was always happiness after tears. 

Smiling was never questionable, then.

Only vibrant, rosy cheeks, and laughter.

You seem to be forgetting already?

Why?

Why are you so ready to give that up?

It’s not as bad as you think.

Do you not remember when you allowed words to spill out of your mouth without a care in the world?

Can’t you recall the weightless feeling that flowed through your body as you ran through open fields,

Rolling peacefully in the grass and flowers that’d eventually make your allergies bad,

But still not caring at all.

Are you really that forgetful?

All the times mother was there to kiss your bruises and brush away your tears –

You won’t even allow her to see the streams now.

You’ve been wrapping your own wounds,

Attempting to help yourself.

You’re trying, though –

Choosing your words carefully, 

Building barriers taller than buildings around yourself.

You’re right.

You’re pretty dang stuck, so grow up and be a forgetful youth. 

I know I write quite a bit about youth and childhood and blah blah blah but I feel like a legitimate forgetful youth right about now. I’ve been really reminiscent and I just kind of wish I could go back to the days when smiling was a lot easier and the school work was a little simpler and the kids didn’t judge you so much. I don’t really remember the happier feelings from back then. When I was younger, I constantly talked about how I couldn’t wait to turn 18 and that I was going to immediately leave home without any care in the world because I wanted to be an adult. I wish I could punch that Imani in the mouth lol. I mean, I am excited for that independence but the fear of it is way stronger than my excitement. I mean, come on. Who wants to worry about finances and work or having to pay the bills or rent on time? Literally no one. It just blows. 

Lately, life has really been hitting me in the face. Every time it does, I think to myself, “Hey! Two years and you’ll have to be on your own! You know how you stress now? Multiply that by a few thousands and boom! That’s adulthood. You’re gonna do so bad. <3 ” And that, my friend, is my exact thought process when anyone asks me what college I’m going to go to or what I want to major in or even where I’m going to be in the next 10 years. Heck, I want you to tell me where I’m gonna be in the next 10 years, Auntie. Because, I sure as heck don’t know. All these future responsibilities drive me mad and I’m not even a senior yet. I can only imagine how they feel. I keep saying that I’m going to ‘live in the moment’ or ‘live for right now’ but in reality I stress out over so many things that I won’t even encounter in the next 3 years. Crazy, right?

I just hate the fact that I tried to grow up so fast at one point that I wasn’t able to fully enjoy my youth. I was so ready to be like the other kids and I was ready to throw away my childish ways for their acceptance but what even is a group of snot-nosed rug rats’ attention compared to that sweet child-like happiness that you feel. In the end, those people didn’t even matter. It was just the happiness that I felt. However, I wasn’t grateful to that and I wanted to leave behind that sweet happiness and become a forgetful youth but I’m so tired of being a forgetful youth. So, screw it. I’m just gonna have to get my memory together and remember better. 

I listen to music for relatability. I listen to music because of the way certain songs make me feel or the emotional connection that I acquire from them. There are some songs that hit me a little harder than others or give me such a nostalgic feeling. With that being said, the one currently stuck on repeat for those exact reasons is the Korean R&B artist, Dean’s, single “Instagram”.

“Instagram” is a very thought filled song and personally, I feel quite a connection to it whenever it plays. It was the calming feel of it that captured me at first but I suddenly felt the need to actually read the lyrics for myself. In the song, Dean expresses what many people feel while scrolling through Instagram and the toll that it takes on our lives. In today’s society, social media has taken over so many people’s lives and it can even heavily influence someone’s mental health or just how they view things overall. He touched on the loneliness one would feel while seeing people living everyone’s dream life on Instagram.

In all honesty, I believe that every single line in this song has meaning and depth behind it. However, there were a couple that stood out a bit more. For example, his lyrics in the chorus: “It’s a problem in the whole world./It’s the same love song but it doesn’t touch me./In my night, there are too many thoughts.” You go to Instagram and you see many people living their lives problem free and happily. Fun, right? He’s getting at how isolated people begin to feel because of them feeling that their lives aren’t going the correct way due to societal values and what’s being portrayed on media. The constant dwelling on what someone doesn’t have makes them feel down, depressed, or, as Dean says in his song, lonely. He goes on a few verses and says, “As time goes by, it gets harder./Am I the only one?” Throughout the song, he slides these questions in to show the constant doubt that goes through people’s minds while on social media. It’s the doubt of acceptance. He adds in how he doesn’t want to do things anymore or go out and how he spends majority of his nights on Instagram, dwelling. Hiding behind a mask because everyone only sees what he allows them to see and not how hurt and isolated he really feels. 

In a Spot Interview, Dean talked about the composition of “Instagram”. He told the interviewers that he wanted to make something that sounded like him and that a lot of people in the 20 – 30 year age range feel like him. He said, “So if I speak truthfully about myself, other people could empathize with me. So I’ve started to observe myself as objectively as possible.” He elaborated on how after he finished work, he’d habitually get on Instagram and when he did, he often felt depressed. Just like most, Dean went on to say how he compared himself to the people he followed and felt very small because they were very “cool” people and were able to go to so many cool places while he was tired from working in his studio. One thing that hit me was when he said, “It felt like I was a lonely island placed away from all those people.” He didn’t know if he was the only one who felt this way and in that moment, I thought about all the times I felt exactly the same watching people’s beautiful moments in life and not being able to create my own. 

Relative deprivation is a word he used for the process of writing this song and I totally agree. I relate so much to the lyrics and message of “Instagram” and it makes me feel oddly comforted to know that I am not the only person feeling the same thing. It’s my comfort song and one that I will continuously go to for a long time. 

 

At my old school, we used to have a broadcast journalism class. If you don’t know what that is, it’s basically news. We did podcasts and stuff, and last year had started writing daily articles about what’s been going on in the world. In a way, I guess I should be used to blogging, but what I wrote were half-researched news articles. They weren’t the best, but it kept the class busy for a bit so I can’t blame our director for that. And if you guys don’t know me fully yet, I’m bad at speaking. So being in that class was hell sometimes. I hated doing interviews because I’d be nervous about having to talk to basically a stranger (even though they were usually fellow peers) and they’d be nervous about being on camera. It sucked a lot. I joined the class in my freshman year by accident, thanks to my mom and the sneaky teacher, but I still love them both. 

It wasn’t so bad in my first year because I was the only freshman in the class for a while until another girl joined, and we became the best of friends. But the class were mostly seniors, which sucks because I got incredibly close to them and then they left in May. But that was my best year in high school so far, I’m sure it’ll change though the longer I’m here. But anywayyyy… I’m bad at speaking. But I think I volunteered to be our podmaster for my sophomore year because I wanted to try it out. That was a mistake. The teacher and director had already planned for me to become the director for the class in my junior year, and I was freaked. I already had the script editor position in my first year because my English was “amazing”. But it was strange how it happened. One of the three juniors talked to our teacher one day about my grammar skills and such, and they decided that I needed some position in the class as the editor. I wasn’t around for that discussion. Then he and I were interviewing someone where he mentioned it, and I was hella confused. When we got back to the classroom, the teach was like “Oh yeah, Morgan, how would you feel being script editor? Because you’re our script editor now.” 

That was my legitimate reaction. It was too early in my high school career to give me positions, no matter my capabilities. But I guess it didn’t really matter because I didn’t really have to do much. It was just the thought was daunting at the time. Now, I’m okay with taking on positions, but I have to really want it.  

I’m mediocre. I wear mediocre clothes. My face is mediocre. I make mediocre grades. I don’t really do anything that makes me rise above the crowd. I’m just mediocre.

For a long time, I had high standards for myself. I wanted to be one of the best. I wanted to dress nice. I wanted to look the best. I wanted to make the best grades. I wanted to be one of the best.

As I got older, I found myself not wanting to be the best. I found that it didn’t matter as much to me as I had always thought it would be. I felt myself getting more and more satisfied with my mediocrity.

I don’t know if it was because I simply started to get lazy, or if I was getting more and more of a sense of apathy. But I think that, in the long run, being complacent with my mediocrity helped me through some hard times. I didn’t push myself to try to be the best when I was too tired. I didn’t try to push myself ahead when others were ahead of me. I didn’t want to be the best.

Being the best comes with it’s expectations. When you become the best, you’re expected to always be the best, no matter what. And do you know how hard of an expectation that is to live up to? I know it caused me a lot of negative thoughts when I was younger. As I grew up, I realized that maybe I just wasn’t meant to be the best. I was just meant to be mediocre.

As a society, I feel like we celebrate greatness too often. There’s so many people we see as “the best” at whatever they do. Those people are always expected to do their best, no matter what. I would never be able to live with that sort of pressure.

Why don’t we celebrate mediocrity? We don’t all have to be the best. I’m not saying to not try to do your best, but if your personal best is mediocre for the world, be proud of what you’ve done. You did your best, and even if everyone doesn’t think it’s the best they’ve ever seen, you can be happy in knowing that you tried the hardest that you could, and you should celebrate that.

So I guess what I’m trying to say is, I feel like we put too much focus on trying to rise above everyone else. The world can be more than just a “dog eat dog” world. It can be more than everyone pushing themselves to always do more than that next person. I think it can, at least. And I wish more people had this feeling about the world.

Let’s celebrate mediocrity, for all the people who always feel like they’re inferior because their best isn’t perfect. But that’s okay, because there’s hundreds of people like you out there. And I am one of them. So maybe we can all celebrate our mediocrity together, and though this, we can show the world that there can be more than perfection.

Hey!

So I am totally about to self advertise so here we go: OLE BROOK FEST!!!

I’m playing a few songs there with my band, The Upside. I’m super excited so you guys come on and watch. There are some other great people playing too but ya know.

Ole Brook is going to be so fun, I’m just hoping it isn’t hot. I mean, it will be October, but hey, this is Mississippi.

Also, there is a thing in Monticello called Atwood and I am playing there literally the day after Ole Brook and it doesn’t start until nine, but I am playing for a whole hour and I am super nervous.

I really need to get some outfits together for the events. I have like zero cute outfits though so that makes a great excuse for my mom to take me shopping.

That’s all! Bye!

 

Animation has evolved a lot over time. Studios now have the chance to hand draw frame by frame, or digitally animate. Animation softwares are easily accessible to anyone who wants to give it a try.

A young animator created the series “Nyan Neko Sugar Girls,” which was released in 2010. It was posted to YouTube, and became known as an American anime, despite the fact that a studio never published it, and that it was animated in Microsoft paint.

The story follows the adventures of Raku, who is a teen cat girl, or neko. It is a slice of life show with a magical girl twist. There is nothing that stands out story-wise, as it follows the generic anime episode list. Beach episode, holiday special, ect… the characters are also quite simplistic.

The thing that really sets this anime apart from the rest, is its art style.

The style in which it is drawn is one of its most recognizable characteristics. while the animation can be genuinely good at times, the art style is, in my opinion, absolutely horrible.

While I will try to keep this as unbiased as possible, here’s a judging and review for Nyan Neko Sugar Girls.

Characters

Raku- fan service. Shes the main character, and there’s way too much fan service. her voice is high pitched, and there’s parts of the show where she screams for a minute straight. always getting hurt. not very well rounded.

Koneko- Koneko is the basic supporting character. she keeps a soft voice, and doesn’t really get much character development. While she is kind and helpful by taking care of her friends, i cant help but question her actions. if my friend were dying, i would not bring them on a roller coaster. but hey, you do you, Konek0.

Hitoshi-  This character had a genuine plot twist. maybe the only plot twist in the show. though he was shown as Raku’s love interest, he ends up getting with the kidnapper. that’s not very sugoi, nya.

Kidnapper- I don’t even know what to say about this one. nearly every time he’s shown, backstreet boys music is playing.

Nurse- While the nurse is not shown for long, she is a consistent and reoccurring character. She is initially shown as fan service, but eventually becomes a real, interesting character. Her later shown outfits are the most well designed and complex in the series. However, her overwhelming voice can become difficult to listen to at times. it is extremely bass boosted, but with intention. when she talks without being bass-boosted, a fellow character would say “sorry, what did you say?” making her go back to talking in her original bass boosted voice.

Story:

The story is generic, yet somehow original. It’s one of those things that is so bad that it’s good. There’s somewhat of a plot, a subplot, and all kinds of things. However, it can get hard to keep up with by the last few episodes. every possible archetype that a show can have, this show has.

I have a vague idea of what the intentional plot was, though I cannot say I am 100% accurate. A super cute cat girl goes through a series of events trying to get the guy she likes to notice her. He doesn’t like her back and things go downhill.

Animation:

Little to no effort was put into the animation. The frames are wonky, and the art style can exaggerate things. The only animation where true effort was put in can be found in the very last episode when Raku has another dramatic death.

Voice Acting:

The voice actors themselves are, all things considered, decent. The voices are noticeably fake, as they struggle to keep a consistent voice for their character. The quality of the microphones is less than average. Koneko’s microphone is extremely quiet, but the Nurse’s microphone could be heard from your neighbors house even with the lowest volume setting on your watching device. This can cause issues when the two are in a scene together. However, I still think all the characters have the right voice, and I can’t see anyone else voicing them.

 

Overall:

While I would rate this a 3 out of 10, I think its something everyone should watch at some point. Personally, I would watch it again. Not because its good, but rather because i’m in pure shock that it even exists.  Every meme loving teen would enjoy it. 

So many things are happening at once, and it is all leaving me with a whirlwind of emotions. I’m stressed, terrified, nervous, a little down, and very happy. It’s horribly extraordinary. It feels like I’m scrolling through Facebook, seeing a young man with down-syndrome graduate and then a young woman is missing. I see a child being bullied and then a dog with paralysis learn to walk. My heart is on a rollercoaster, and I’m not sure if I want to get off.

One part of my life is being drowned in chaos. I need to do this, and then I need to do that. This is coming up, but I need to prepare for that. School and home are beginning to bleed into each other and make this really ugly color. I have expectations to meet, deadline creeping up on me, and people depending on me. Do I get to breathe anytime soon?

Then comes that part of my life that wants to run and hide. I am a junior now. I go to a school where everyone is talented. I am intimidated. Next year is right around the corner. I need to start researching scholarships and reassuring myself on colleges and majors. My ACT score needs to shoot up ten points. I am wholeheartedly scared. Everyone keeps telling me not to worry about it right now, but I can’t help it. I’m too paranoid I’m going to wait too long and not be ready. I stress enough as it is, what if I get to college and have a heart attack? The whole idea is giving me anxiety.

Things are getting crazy back at home. Friends are turning against each other; my old school had a bomb threat. It’s unbelievable. Those who graduated last year are tearing themselves apart with pressure. My friends are hurting. It breaks my heart.

Don’t worry though, there is light in my little dungeon. My boyfriend is going back to school, trying to get a car and a license. He is getting a new job that will treat him better and benefit him wildly. He is a little freaked out, but I am so proud of him. He woke up one day and decided to get his life on track. It inspires me to see people who have reached their lowest point, stand up and try again.

I’m trying to not let everything get to me. I know that life isn’t easy, especially not here. I may cry from time to time; I may even get angry, but there is light. Somewhere on this page-of-life, you will find a story of a girl not giving up, and despite all the hardship you are facing, I want you to be inspired to keep going too.

Hello, welcome to another blog post from me. I wrote this fiction short story. Honest opinions, please….

Bryson dreamed of becoming a singer. He dreamt of one day starting a career that would branch into having the opportunity to perform in front of thousands of people. One day this dream miraculously came true.

Bryson was in his cousin’s recording studio singing Gravity by John Mayer, when the astounding Jermain Dupree walked in. The expression on Jermain’s face was a clear sign of amazement. He stopped Bryson and asked, “What’s your name and where you from?” “My name is Bryson and I am from Mississippi,” he answered. They began to converse about what it takes to make it in the game meaning performing music. The next morning, Bryson woke up in an exhilarating mood. He went straight to his cousin’s studio where he received a message from Jermain. The message read: “Wassup, it’s Jermain. After the conversation we had yesterday, I thought it would be good if you came to sing at my Christmas party. It’s going to be December 23rd at 7:00.” As soon as Bryson read the message, he responded: “I would love to. Thank you so much for this opportunity.”

At that moment, Bryson knew this was the opportunity he had been dreaming about. He took into consideration who would be there, what he was would be doing, and where it would be done. Bryson started planning the performance by choosing what he would sing. He felt he needed to pick a song that would showcase what his voice was capable of. So, he decided to sing “Silent Night”. Then, he had to find something to wear. He thought it was necessary to look his best, but also be comfortable. He decided to wear a black pant suit with a sparkling red necklace and handpiece. With the most important aspects of the show figured out, he practiced the song repeatedly until he had it down packed.

The morning of the performance, Bryson woke up determined to take care of his voice so that he could deliver to the best of his ability that evening. He fixed himself some hot chocolate to keep his vocal chords soothed. Then, the time came for him to prepare for the performance. He got dressed, warmed up, and was ready to take the stage. As Jermain introduced him, he started to become nervous. But, when he put the microphone to his mouth, and started to sing, all his nervousness went away. As Bryson finished the song, he felt great about what he had just done, and the audience incited his feeling about his performance. Bryson began exiting the stage, only to be met by Timberland at the end of the stairway. Timberland asked Bryson if he would be interested in signing for Mosley Music Group, Inc. There was no way Bryson could not turn down the opportunity, so he gladly accepted. In that moment, he realized that his dream was more than just a dream.