Two Seconds Too Soon

*Have you ever wondered if everything in life happens for a reason? I used to wonder it all the time, now I know that it does*

Elementary school, young, free, invincible. Nothing in the world could ever harm me or my friends. Life's great, no worries, no troubles. Every day my friends and I speak about the future; cars, boys, families. As we grew older many of us grow apart and began to speak less and less. Friends changed but we all still stayed civil to eachother.
Junior High, getting older, still invincible. My best friend growing up, Jasmine and I began to hang out again. Things hadn't changed between us and we had as much fun as we used to when we were kids. Laughing, playing, gossiping about boys. I finally feel like I have my best friend back again. As life goes on, however, things change.
Now I am in highschool, still getting older, still feeling invincible. I'v lost touch once again with Jasmine and were now just aquaintances. (My advice to everyone is to never lose touch with any friends that you have, no matter how different your lives may be.) Four years of highschool pass.. we barely speak to eachother. I transfer to another highschool closer to my home and it gets hard for us to keep in touch, especially now barely seeing eachother. Graduation comes, parties follow still barely any contact with Jasmine. We chat a bit over the computer and make plans to hang out and catch up. The year passed by.. so much homework, new boyfriend, new friends. I regret not calling her, I really do.. I am just so busy.. and I am sure she is too..
It's December, I am driving home, the radio spoke, “18 year old girl killed in motor vehicle accident living in the Murillo area”. They didn’t give the name.. I hoped..I prayed that it wasn’t my friend Jasmine. We had been friends since we were two years old. We did everything together and I had and always will wish that we had stayed best friends and still hung out like we used to. I am just coming up to the Tim Hortons by Lakehead and I get a phone call. I pull over on the side of the road. My friend Amanda called I heard no words, just tears. My stomach drops, my heart begins to beat faster ..pound pound pound.. Tear drops roll down my face like a never ending water-fall. I feel absolutely sick to my stomach. The feeling in my stomach is so intense, the knot it is in is so thick, unbearable, and tight. I phone my mom to come and pick me up because I can't drive home.. I just can't. She is in absolute shock as well. My friend, just a girl.. not invinsible..no one is..

**Jasmine Veneruzzo died in December 2008 from a car crash which could have been prevented. The driver of the opposing car was going 40-50 km’s above the speed limit for not apparent reason. In September Jasmine was to be enrolled in the nursing program at Lakehead. She was an amazing girl and always will have an impact on my life and how I appreciate each day I am alive. I always think about how if she would have left her house two minutes later she would still be here today. Or what if we were still good friends and instead of her leaving her house I was going over to visit her that very day. It could have been me, it could have been anyone. That is why I now believe that everything in life happens for a reason. I know that Jasmine will be watching over me and all of our friends for the rest of our lives but I still wish that I would have made a better effort to see her. Jasmine may have not been invinsible, but she is irreplaceable. You never know when the last time you will see someone will be so never take life for granted**

Sometimes Losing Yourself is Finding Yourself

I am and always will be a tom boy at heart. Never the type of girl who would sport the "apple bottom jeans, and boots with the fur" or those cute little rain boots all of the Molson girls would wear when it was wet outside, with booty shorts of course. For me it was skater shoes all the way! A typical tom-boy who would wear my hair in a slick pony tail and play football with the guys at recess instead of gossiping about how cute they all were. I had a lot of friends, mostly boys, because I didn't gossip and we all know that gossiping starts fights and in return you lose friends. I was comfortable in my own skin and didn't care what people thought of me because I knew I was a good person and plus I got to hang out with all the cute boys at recess when all the other girls were gossiping about how they wish they could talk to them and yata yata.. All was great until I hit grade 9.

In high school as many of you know, the viciousness of many people surfaces. It is as though I attended school in a jungle with beasts all around you who, if you look at them the wrong way or say the wrong thing, will forever hate you and get their "pack of wolves to come after you". There are the wolves, a.k.a the popular gang, the snakes, otherwise known as the gossip click, the snails, which were the shy nerdy kids. These among others created my jungle experience, a.k.a HIGHSCHOOL! For about a week I kept my tom boy composure and stayed true to myself until one day a girl, now one of my best friends came up to me and said, "hey, we need a strong girl as a back for cheerleading, I know you’re not into that kind of stuff but would you come out to a few practices to help us out". Now that I had given in to the world of cheerleading, I felt that I was finally popular amongst all the pretty girls and instead of the boys wanting to "tackle me" and play catch with me, they would maybe, just maybe want to see a movie with me or god forbid go on a date.

I dreaded practice that entire month every day knowing that when I got there I would have to sport a 'perma-grin' and wear either spandex shorts or a skimpy cheerleading skirt(no offence to any cheerleaders out there). I would go to practice for two hours then wait with all my new friends outside the boy’s locker room to chat with the football players, otherwise known as the “muscle-heads”. By talking to them I felt as though the “act” I was putting on was well worth it.

Eventually I turned into a plastic. If you have ever seen Mean Girls you will know what I am talking about. Complete with a push-up bra, backcombed hair, a Chanel purse and the glossiest lip-gloss you’ve ever seen, I was the total opposite of what I’d ever wanted to become. Wake up, have a long shower, two shampoo jobs and 2 conditioner so my hair looks perfect, put on that back then A cup bra on the tightest setting so my girls looked bigger then they were, backcomb, spray, backcomb, spray, then finally a layer of moisturizing lip oil then shimmery gloss on top. My day consisted of 2 hours of getting ready, going to class, gossiping between class (and during!) going home, chatting with my cute new boy-friends on MSN and of course hitting up the mall at least twice weekly.

Gym class. Hot August day, sun beating down. We were forced to play baseball in this immense heat while the boys played football. My friends and I sat gossiping on the sideline .. "wow look at his arms, there soooo muscular!", "oh my gosh how lucky is Brandie to be dating Josh!" .. "totally lucky, like crazy lucky" .. sigghhh* when my own version of “Mc Dreamy” threw a ball our way , “Brid! Bet you can’t throw the ball to me”. Of course these boys didn’t know me before as the tomboy I once was, and figured since I was a girly-girl that I wouldn’t be able to throw the ball. "Hmm should I throw the ball and possibly lose my new popular girl status? Will the guys think I'm just one of them and never want to date me.. what should I do!!" I bent down to get the ball and the second I touched that football I knew that I had to give up the act. Why would anyone ever want to be someone there not? So what if I throw this ball and all the girls think I am a tomboy and all these boys think I am too manly to date. I throw that ball with a perfect spiral over “McDreamy’s” head. A week later my phone rings, "Brid I can't believe that you've never told me that you could throw a football like that, I am so impressed. Do you want to come over and watch the Packers beat the Vikes?" I agreed and after that one date we were boyfriend and girlfriend.

In life you can never pretend. The old you will always be there underneath it all to remind you who you once were. Until this day I still wear the glossiest lip gloss, and yah the odd push-up bra(every girl’s gotta have one!), but I will never again forget who I am and I will never be afraid to put on my skater shoes, sweatpants and tie my hair back. I am happy with what I have learnt and how it has changed me in many ways. I enjoy being a tom boy and I also enjoy dressing up! Its okay to be two different people on the outside as long as you know who the real you is on the inside.

American Idol Vs. Creative Non Fiction

I decided to put the first piece of work I did for this class in my blog. I thought it was a good analogy and since I am interested in reality television shows I knew I would have a lot to say about this topic. The topic is, my truth about stories, so here it goes. To be honest I don't really know where to start because there is so much that I could say about stories. I guess for me, stories fit into one of three essential categories. I like to refer to these categories as follows, the Simon Cowell, the Randy Jackson and finally the Paula Abdul. The Simon category, also known as the "Debbie Downer" category, represents stories that for me, just plain stink(as Simon would say)! This is the typical, 'this happens, that happens, they fall in love and happily ever after' or 'there's a man dressed in black, the woman is home alone in the shower, the lights turn off and bang! she's dead'. For me, this is material that is just not worth my time. As we move on to our next category we enter the realm of Randy Jackson. This is also known as the realm of mediocrity. This is the place where the stories that were, "alright dawg, just alright" as Randy would say, fit into. These stories weren't a total waste of time to read, but weren't life changing. Finally, we move into the Paula Abdul category. Every story in this category gets a standing ovation. The stories are unique as well as interesting and exciting. The stories told can accomplish many things such as, change your views of life, make you appreciate what you have, create such an intense fear that you, (even being an adult) have to sleep with a nightlight on or even make you want to fall in love. As silly as this all sounds, there is a deeper meaning. Stories are really what you make of them and for different people they mean different things. But everyone subconciously places stories into categories of interest levels.