Day 2 - 3 fears

April challenge
Day 2 - Describe 3 legitimate fears you have and explain how they became fears.

Alright, Day 2. This is where it gets hard. Now I actually have to write down my thoughts. Yesterday while Jonathan was looking over the list of writing prompts for the month he mentioned today's and wondered aloud what was meant by a legitimate fear. Most fears that people talk about are irrational fears, not legitimate. (Ex: Standing in the middle of a very busy highway and being scared you might get hit is a legitimate fear. Being afraid of all birds is a irrational fear.) So, since I think the creator of this challenge really meant irrational fears, I'm going to go with that. Plus, I can't think of any legitimate fears I have at the moment (since I'm not currently standing in the middle of a very busy highway).

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So, here are my three most major fears.

Fear #1: Blood tests
You might have picked up on this yesterday after reading Random Fact #2. I have a probably irrational fear of blood tests. The weird thing is, it's not a fear of needles, it's a fear specific to blood tests. You know, those times when nurses poke needles right into your veins? Yep, that's the real issue. Something going into my veins. I have absolutely no problem with shots, but blood tests are a whole different story. And here's the story behind the fear.

Starting when I was about four years old, I had to get a lot of blood tests because some doctors thought I might be anemic or have diabetes. All those blood tests happened just after the dawn of things-I-can-remember. The first blood test I remember (which may be the very first one I had as a child) happened while we were in Hope, BC at Campmeeting one year. I don't know much about the circumstances, but I think my parents took me to the small camp clinic and the people there sent us to the small Hope hospital. At the hospital I was a little worried about what was about to transpire, but still blissfully unaware of the blood test procedures. My parents told me that if I was a good girl they would buy me a Bible at the ABC (Adventist Book Center) once we got back to the campground. I desperately wanted my first very-own Bible and was good as gold, even after the needle slid into my arm. Later that day I walked out of the ABC with a light blue Precious Moments Bible. I still have it. One particularly terrorizing blood test that's emblazoned in my memory happened probably when I was around six. For some reason the nurse or phlebotomist doing the blood test decided to do it in my thumb instead of the inside of my elbow. She pushed a blue square-shaped plastic thing into the fleshy part of my thumb and blood came out. I was horrified, shocked, and furious. It did not feel good. And I never let that happen to me again. The tiny fake-gold ring with the fake-blue jewel I was offered after the procedure did nothing to mollify me. (For a while there I had quite a collection of cheap jewelry sitting in a small keepsakes box on my dresser. I didn't care to wear any of them, but I thought they looked pretty and would peer into the box every now and then to see the spoils I had won with my bright red blood.) So now you know the background of my vein/blood test phobia.

Fear #2: Snakes
I was blessed with a cousin, Jeremy, just a couple years younger than me who loved animals even more than I did. (Actually, I still am blessed with this cousin!) His family lived in Saskatchewan and mine lived in British Columbia, so we didn't get to see each other all that often. But we were still best buds and always had a great time together when our families visited each other or we had family reunions. Our best bud status got even better when both our families moved to Lacombe, Alberta during the summer of 1993. We lived in neighbouring subdivisions and it was only a short bike ride or a little-longer walk to each other's houses. Jere was always interested in one animal or another. And because he was, I was, too. In fact, he's the reason I got into dinosaurs (and learned about my own personal dinosaur, the Allosaurus) during grades three to five. And he was the one who taught me how to correctly hold garter snakes and other non-poisonous breeds that slithered the countryside and how to get the garter snake stink off of your hands after you held them. I remember one specific time when our families had driven up to some oil excavating area around Edmonton for a Sabbath afternoon hike. Jere found a garter snake and we took turns holding it and passing it to our younger siblings. For some reason, this time the snake kind of icked me. But I tried to shove the ick-thoughts away and enjoy the moment. It worked and we enjoyed our "pet" snake until our parents told us it was time to let it go.

Sometime later, when I was in grade four, our class took a field trip to Drumheller (dinosaur central of Alberta's badlands). Before going to the Royal Tyrell Museum of Paleontology (appropriately located on N. Dinosaur Trail) we stopped in at Reptile World. We sat on folding chairs in a room and learned about the reptiles located there. I distinctly remember the man doing the talk saying that there was only one animal in the world he was afraid of. He had us guess what it was. And guess we did. We came up with every scary animal known to man, but the guy just kept shaking his head. Finally he gave us a clue and said that it was on one girl's shirt. We scanned each other's t-shirts and eventually someone guessed the right answer: a cow. I thought it was pretty amusing that he was scared of a cow. I reasoned to myself that I'd be much more scared of a snake than I would a cow. After the talk, the man got one of the baby pythons, named Brittany, out of her cage and wore her around his neck like a scarf. Then he let us touch her and some of the kids even put her around their necks. When it was my turn, I petted her and the man asked if I wanted it around my neck. I said sure and she was placed there. Then I looked down and realized I was in a potentially fatal situation. It was a strange feeling. Then Brittany the Python was removed and placed around someone else's neck, and I toured the Reptile World with my classmates. I remember feeling no fear when looking at the crocodiles, alligators, turtles and other reptiles. But I had the ticklings of fear whenever I observed a snake. That, I think, was the place my fear of snakes was born. But I really have no idea why. I believe that was the last time I ever willingly touched a snake and it was for sure the last time I ever had one hanging off of my neck.

The first snake-related nightmare I can remember happened at a dubious motel in Oregon. My mum and grandma were taking my siblings and me to a Suzuki Music Institute in Santa Rosa, California and we stayed the night in this not-so-great motel (there was broken glass on the bathroom floor). In the middle of the night I woke up terrified from some snake dream and stood up on the bed shrieking to anyone who could hear that there was a snake at the end of the bed. Both my mum and grandma woke up and both showed me the rolled up lump of comforter lying at the end of the bed. But it took a whole lot of work to convince me that it wasn't a boa constrictor or a python creeping up the bed to squeeze me to death. Since then there have been a lot of snake dreams. And I still have them sometimes. Poor Jonathan. He's a light sleeper so he definitely wakes up when I have snake nightmares. I usually ask him to check with his foot to see if there's a snake lurking at the bottom of our bed. There never is. I actually had a snake dream last week. I woke up babbling about puff adders and somewhere in my stream of words I said, "Who even named them puff adders anyway? That's such a dumb name for a snake." before stumbling off to the bathroom. (Note: I'm just realizing right now that these snake dreams and even my entire fear of snakes might have stemmed from one of my mum's camping stories where some of the people she was camping with put a plastic snake in the bottom of either her or another girl's sleeping bag. I must have never gotten over that story. Wow, this is so interesting! Something I might never have connected with my snake fear if not for this writing challenge.) Anyway, so that's probably way more than you ever wanted to know about my fear of snakes, but I'm not going to go back and edit out any of it, because I think it's kind of interesting, especially now that I might have figured out where it all came from. Maybe it will even help to cure it a bit.

Fear #3: Everything
Yes, I did just say everything. Now, mind you, this is not really a current fear, but it was when I was a kid. And since I can't really think of another current mind-numbing fear that I have, I'm going to use this one. So, I was the most fraidy-cat kid I've ever known. I was scared of everything. Strangers, being kidnapped, people breaking into my house, staying in the car by myself (or with siblings) when my mum ran into the store, the dark (those five might all be connected), going to new lessons (swimming, skating, T-ball, gymnastics, music). Yep, I was scared of it all. I have no idea where this might have come from. I guess the part about being scared to go to new lessons might have been because I never knew what they were going to be like beforehand. Usually after the first couple times of the lessons, I was OK going to them. The first few things, though, probably stemmed from my grade one and two teacher. She used to tell us about kidnappers, kids that had been kidnapped, and if there was a kidnapper on the prowl in our city. Looking back, I'm sure there were only a few mentions in the two years I was in her class, but to me then it seemed like she was telling us these things every week. It got so bad that one day I refused to walk to school (and our front window looked out to the school grounds, so we were very close) for fear that I'd be kidnapped on my way. Even though I was frantic and stubborn, I ended up walking to school, only to find that it was a Pro-D (Professional Development - teacher learning) Day and there was no school. I was quite furious, but I'm sure it was a good lesson for me. I also organized groups of classmates at school to practice the getting-away-from-strangers techniques we had learned from our teacher and the many good wholesome movies, like "Winnie the Pooh Strangers," we had watched. This group was split into two during recesses. Half were the kids and half were the kidnappers. The kidnappers tried to kidnap the kids. The kids tried to get away. The top of the monkey bars was the best place to escape from the kidnappers. Anyway, little by little I got less scared of kidnappers. And all the other things. Phew, am I ever glad. Imagine if I was still scared of everything?!

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There you have it. Three of my fears. Sorry if it was long, but I had a lot of fun writing it. See you tomorrow!

*Here's Olivia's fears. And hey, one of hers matches one of mine!

Day 1 - 20 random facts

OK, here it goes for Day 1 of the 30-day writing challenge.

April challenge
Day 1 - List 20 random facts about yourself.

1. I have never broken a bone.
2. I've come dangerously close to fainting once or twice while getting blood tests. Thank goodness for juice boxes and fruit leather!
3. I've only really fainted once when a friend accidentally shot my finger with a BB gun. It was a surreal experience, but not one I care to try again. (The best part of the whole ordeal was coming to with my head in my just-started-dating-a-couple-days-before boyfriend's lap [who now happens to be my husband! :P]. For the whole shooting story, click here.)
4. As long as I can remember, I've always wanted to be able to speak a second (or third or fourth) language fluently. So far that dream hasn't become a reality for me. But, along with my fluency in English, I can say a smattering of words in French, Spanish, Swahili and Korean. (OK, honestly I can say all of maybe three or four words in Korean... At this point, while having forgot probably at least half of my Swahili, I can still speak it much better than I can Korean.) And, while both of my maternal grandparents attended German elementary schools in the Canadian prairies and spoke mostly German at home, I can say maybe less than 10 words in German and sing about three songs in the language of my heritage (and even those I probably can't remember all the words to).
5. I really dislike the feeling of free fall, but I love rides like roller coasters (that's totally a different feeling than free fall).
6. People often guess I'm younger than I am. It amuses me rather than bothers me. I just hope it continues to happen later in life.
7. My head has always been incredibly small in size (as in even now as an adult I usually have to wear kids hats and helmets), but while most people don't really notice, strangely enough here in Korea I get compliments about my small head. And when I'm in a picture with Korean women they often cover their cheeks so their faces won't look so much wider than mine. I always tell them not to and that they have beautiful faces and heads, but they still do it.
8. I want to live somewhere where I can see the aurora borealis more frequently than I have in the past (which is every 10 years or so).
9. I have five awesome siblings. (Some of you might know this, others might not, but it's the truth.)
10. I currently have at least one close friend living in: Canada, the U.S.A., Mexico, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Tanzania, South Korea. (There might be others, too, that I can't think of right now.)
11. I got married 8 months ago today! (And have yet to put any wedding pictures on Facebook...)
12. I got my first cavity when I was 23. And that still didn't beat my older sister's record. I don't know if she even has one yet. She's amazing!
13. I went through a stage, maybe during grades five to six, of wishing I had a Scottish background instead of a German one. I just love those Scottish accents.
14. Someday I want to foster a puppy that will become a future seeing-eye dog.
15. I have one handsome nephew and one beautiful niece and I'm itching for some more!
16. A list of careers I wanted to have, from childhood through university, includes (as in order as I can remember): nurse (back when I thought the only two things a woman could be were nurses or teachers), mother, author, marine biologist (so I could have a job at SeaWorld and my own pet dolphin), dog breeder (so I could always have puppies around), paramedic, pilot, helicopter paramedic, translator, architect (before I knew how much math and science are needed in that job), librarian, respiratory tech, speech pathologist, journalist, magazine writer/editor, air traffic controller, children's author, copy editor. Apparently most of my career choices throughout the years were in the fields of medicine and writing.
17. I made it through all three of my years at Southern Adventist University without owning an umbrella (and for most of that time I didn't have a waterproof jacket, either).
18. I've always wanted to have a room or an office in an attic.
19. Someday I want to have a gummy picnic using gummy candies in the shapes of foods like pizzas, hamburgers, fries, etc.
20. I've heard about the SDA Language Institute for a good chunk of my life (starting when my grade six teacher was a recent SDALI returnee) and never once considered going to South Korea to teach English until around this time last year. And here I am. God's always got a plan.

And there you have it. Twenty things you may or may not have known about me. I didn't even remember all of those things until I started making the list. That was fun! OK, well hope you drop by again tomorrow. :)

30-day writing challenge

Last month someone I know from Southern whose blog I follow did a 30-day writing challenge. A few months ago Jonathan and my mum did 30-day photo challenges. Since I'm not all that into photography I didn't join in with them. But when I saw Olivia's writing challenge I figured, being a communication major, that a writing challenge is something I can get involved in. I thought I'd use the list she used last month, but she just posted that she's doing another challenge this month and posted a new list of writing ideas. So I figured I might as well use that one, too. So here it goes. I'm in for the long haul.

Here's the list:
1. List 20 random facts about yourself.
2. Describe 3 legitimate fears you have and explain how they became fears.
3. Describe your relationship with your parents.
4. List 10 things you would tell your 16-year-old self, if you could.
5. What are the 5 things that make you most happy right now?
6. What is the hardest thing you have ever experienced?
7. What is your dream job, and why?
8. What are 5 passions you have?
9. List 10 people who have influenced you and describe how.
10. Describe your most embarrasing moment.
11. Describe 10 pet peeves you have.
12. Describe a typical day in your current life.
13. Describe 5 weaknesses you have.
14. Describe 5 strengths you have.
15. If you were an animal, what would you be and why?
16. What are your 5 greatest accomplishments?
17. What is the thing you most wish you were great at?
18. What has been the most difficult thing you have had to forgive?
19. If you could live anywhere, where would it be and why?
20. Describe 3 significant memories from your childhood.
21. If you could have one superpower, what would it be and what would you do with it first?
22. Where do you see yourself in 5 years? 10 years? 15 years?
23. List your top 5 hobbies and why you love them.
24. Describe your family dynamic of your childhood vs. your family dynamic now.
25. If you could have dinner with anyone in history, who would it be and what would you eat?
26. What popular notion do you think the world has most wrong?
27. What is your favorite part of your body and why?
28. What is your love language?
29. What do you think people misunderstand most about you?
30. List 10 things you would hope to be remembered for.

Lumby

*First posted on Dec. 19, 2009 on my WordPress blog

I was three years old and I wanted a cat. I had wanted one for months. I begged my parents to buy me a kitten. “If you got a cat what would you name it?” my mum once asked me. I thought for a minute. “Lumby,” I finally answered. While everyone thought I was adorable for coming up with that name, nobody was quite sure where I had heard the name of a small town an hour north of my hometown. They finally concluded that I must have heard my dad, the owner of a kitchen cabinet company, talk about delivering cabinets to Lumby. When my fourth birthday finally came, my parents took me to ChowTown, a local pet store, to pick out my new kitten. I stood in front of the glass window separating me from the cats inside the pen and watched the lively kittens skitter around the room. One kitten with unusual markings stood out to me among all the other kittens. I knew that cream and tan kitten was Lumby. When I pointed her out, the man helping us went around to the back door and scooped her up. I was overjoyed. Finally I had my own cat! As my parents paid for Lumby and all the extra kitten supplies, my dad asked the man if the cat was male or female. I was surprised. Didn’t my dad know that? Even I knew that cats were girls and dogs were boys. But before I could reveal my knowledge to my father, the man grasped Lumby around the middle and tipped her upside-down. “Male,” he said. A boy?! I couldn’t believe my ears. I tried to wrap my brain around the idea that cats could be both girls and boys during the ride home while Lumby meowed loudly from his small cardboard box on the floor of the car. I wanted to pull open the flaps and stroke his head or maybe even hold him on my lap, but my parents wouldn’t allow it. “He’ll be better off in the box until we get home,” my mum said. So I waited until my dad parked in the driveway and helped me carry the box into our living room. Finally I let Lumby free to explore his new home. My parents got to work setting up his living area in the garage. Then I cuddled Lumby to my chest as they taught me how to give him food and water and showed me where his litter box was. I’m sure I was the happiest four year old alive!

Lumby, four-year-old-me and my older sister Becky playing in the snow

Lumby was my friend and most loyal confidant for seven years until he was suddenly injured. We had moved to Alberta two years before and the weather wasn’t too terribly cold for that time of year, but the morning we found out Lumby was hurt, he was curled up right outside our back door, visibly shivering despite his thick coat of fur. My dad took time off work to take Lumby to the vet on Dec. 19, 1995 (14 years ago today) while I had to sit through my Gr. 5 morning classes while worrying about my cat. Just before noon my dad appeared at the doors of the school gym as I was practicing a Christmas musical with my class. He talked to my music teacher and she called me away from my fellow shepherds gathered on the stage. Dad led me just outside the gym doors and bent down to look me in the eyes. “Ali.” His voice was somber, his eyes flecked with sorrow and pain. “I took Lumby to the vet.” “How is he?” I asked in a small voice, hoping for good news, but slowly realizing I might not be granted a Christmas miracle. “He’s pretty sick. The vet . . .” he broke off and paused, then licked his lips and continued. “The vet doesn’t think he’ll be strong enough to get better. She says the kindest thing for us to do would be to let her put Lumby to sleep.” A lump the size of the rocks surrounding our fake shepherd fire lodged in my throat. I swallowed hard, but it stayed put. An eternity of waiting, of trying to claw myself awake from the nightmare I was having, of grasping for any hope of saving my best and closest friend. Then I said it, past the rock nearly blocking my throat. “I don’t want him to hurt. If he’s too sick to get well, I guess we should let him go.” I couldn’t believe the words were coming from my mouth. Dad pulled me into a strong hug. My hands stayed tight to my side, but I let him rock me gently back and forth. Then he let me go and stood up. “Do you want to say good-bye?” I nodded. He went back into the gym to let my teacher know where I would be and then he stopped at the front office to inform the secretary, too, while I went to the shoe shelves in the entryway, yanked off my indoor shoes, threw them onto the shelf and shoved my feet into my Sorel boots.

We left the school and I slid my cold hand into my dad’s strong warm one as we walked to our car. The landscape passed my window in a blur of white and all too soon we drove up a hill and parked in front of a white building. My dad led the way inside and, after talking softly to the receptionist, took me to an examination room. Lumby lay on a thick wool blanket on the table. He was still shivering. A vet stood behind him, petting his head. She explained the process of putting cats to sleep to me, but I only caught some words. Circulatory. Can’t pump enough blood. Suffering. I kept up a slow steady rhythm as I petted my cat from the top of his brown-streaked head to the end of his ringed tail. I tried to talk to Lumby. You can’t die. You can’t leave me alone. But I couldn’t say the words. Finally one question chased all the other words from my mind. Why did this happen? Dad touched my shoulder. “Are you ready, Ali?” I scratched Lumby’s head slowly and then nodded, but my heart screamed, No! The vet had already prepared the needle. Now she gently pinched the fur on the back of Lumby’s neck and slid the needled through his skin. “Do you want to stay in the room while he dies?” she asked Dad, but looked at me. I kept scratching his head, not sure if I wanted to watch him die, but not wanting to leave. Dad looked down at my head bent over Lumby’s body and then said, “I think we should probably leave.” When he said it I knew that I didn’t want to be there when Lumby stopped breathing. I nodded and then ran my hand down Lumby’s body one last time before backing away from the table. I wanted to say something to him. I wanted to say good-bye. But I couldn’t form the words. I turned away from my cat and followed Dad from the room. As I walked through the door I looked back at my cat for the last time. He wasn’t shivering any more, just taking long, deep breaths, relaxing into the wool blanket. I tried once more to speak, but failed again. Good-bye my dearest pet. I’ll miss you. I thought, then turned and walked into the waiting room.

Minutes later the vet appeared and handed me Lumby’s collar across the front desk. She asked us if we wanted the body for a home burial. Dad looked at me, but I couldn’t imagine the idea of driving home with my dead cat in the car. I definitely didn’t want to see my favourite pet’s lifeless body. I shook my head slightly and Dad handed me the keys to the car. I walked outside while he arranged for the clinic to cremate Lumby. I didn’t want to hear about that. Dad joined me in the car and drove me back to school. My face felt like a mask. It had ever since Dad had first told me the bad news. We entered the school and Dad told the secretary I was back while I put my indoor shoes back on. Dad walked me down the hallway to my classroom and gave me one more hug and told me that he would tell my younger siblings, Bryna and Tyler. Then he opened the door and I moved to my desk at the back of the room. My classmates were eating lunch. The smells mixing in the air made my stomach turn. My teacher, Mr. Cheranpeski, came over to my desk, told me he was sorry about my loss and asked if I wanted to eat my lunch. I didn’t. He left me alone. The students around me glanced my way, then continued their happy conversations with their friends. I buried my head in my arms, smelling the pencil-lead-and-wood of my desktop. I didn’t cry. I couldn’t cry. The rock-lump wouldn’t let me. When school was over, I found my siblings and took them to the office. I called my mum and asked if she could drive us home. I didn’t want to spend an hour on the school bus with noisy kids yelling up and down the aisle. My mum came and picked me, my siblings and my cousins up and drove us home. By then my cousins knew about Lumby, too. My mum stopped at my Auntie Sandy’s house first to let off my older cousin Nathan and just then my sister asked, “Ali, aren’t you sad about Lumby?” The lump dislodged. My eyes burned with unshed tears and suddenly they cascaded down my cheeks. Sobs burst from my lips and I finally cried for Lumby. “Whoa,” my cousin Jeremy said. He and his brother Andrew and my siblings watched silently. Nathan froze in the sliding doorway of our van. My mum spoke quietly to the rest of the van while I cried and then Nathan got out and shut the door. We drove to my Auntie Judy’s house and let Jere and Andy off and then went home. By that time my sobs had nearly subsided. I ran to my room and stayed there until Mum called me for supper. Before I went downstairs I stood at my window looking out over the back yard that Lumby would never play in again. “Good-bye Lumby,” I whispered to the orange sun sinking toward the horizon.

Childhood memories

For a long time I’ve been wanting to write down memories of my life so that I don’t forget them. I’m not exactly worried that I will forget, at least not at the moment, since I’ve remembered them so far, but I’d like to leave a written account of my earlier life for the generations of family members that could come after me. So I’ve decided. This blog is where I’ll chronicle my childhood and teen years. I hope you enjoy!

I wrote that way back on Dec. 18, 2009 after starting a WordPress blog during a quest to help my mum find the best blog to use for her photography. I wanted to try WordPress out and see if I thought it would be easier for her to use than Blogger or Tumblr (which I'd also just signed up for). I thought I would use the WordPress blog to post memories from my childhood and the Tumblr ones to record all my random writing ideas. Of course, I'm a Blogger girl at heart and both WordPress and Tumblr soon fell by the wayside. Awhile ago I moved all my writing ideas posts from Tumblr to a Google Document (which I now use much more frequently and there is the added benefit that no one else will steal my ideas). And now I've decided the time has come for me to move my childhood memories from WordPress over to this blog. They are, after all, little snippets of creativity in a memory form. So in the next few days I'll be posting some short childhood stories on here. I hope you enjoy them in their more accessible form! :)

Background stories

One of my friends posted this link on Facebook this morning. It's incredible! Shea Hembrey, a contemporary artist from Arkansas unsatisfied with the quality of art work at biennial art shows, decided to host his own show. But after having trouble finding suitable artists to include in his show, Hembrey decided to make all the art pieces himself. He invented 100 artists, complete with individual personas and art projects, and created nearly 400 artworks in two years! His collection premiered at the TED 2011 conference and if you've got time to watch the whole 16-minute video, I'd recommend it. It's quite amusing, especially near the end when he goes through his alter-egos at rapid-pace.

Those of you who were in Creative Writing and Advanced Creative Writing classes with me will remember Mr. Lale often telling us that spending time doing background writing, thinking and researching about the characters and settings in our stories, was a valuable asset to our actual drafts. After reading this article and watching the TED video, I can see why. I shall endeavour to do more of this type of background writing in the future. I only wish I had one-tenth of Hembrey's creativity...

Spelling test

Matt's forehead crinkled into rows as uneven as the ones in his small garden spot behind the house. His eyes wandered from the lined notebook page on the table in front of him to the red barn-shaped bird feeder beyond the kitchen window. "Warble," his mother said, glancing at the teacher's book as she clinked clean silverware into the drawer. Outside a flash of colour swooped down to the perch in front of the miniature white painted doors. The black and red bird opened his tiny mouth, releasing a repeating melody into the warm morning breeze. "Warble," his mother intoned again. "And don't forget to write a sentence using the wo--" Her sentence broke off as she turned to the table. "Matt, please pay attention. I want to finish your spelling test before we have to go do errands in town. Please. Warble. It's your second last word." Matt sighed and looked back at his paper, his previous eight spelling words carved in heavy pencil lines after the numbers 1-9. "OK, OK," Matt groaned. Bending over the page, his tongue poked out in concentration as he wrote.
warbul    The black and red bird warbuled loudly.

*Once again inspired by captcha :)

Bedrooms show who we are

A few days ago one of my friends posted this link on Facebook. I absolutely LOVE the idea! James Mollison, a documentary photographer born in Kenya who grew up in England, wanted to represent needy children around the world in a new, unique way for a children's charity project. "When he visualized his own childhood, he realized that his bedroom said a lot about what sort of life he led. So he set out to find others." What better way to learn about children and how they are growing up than to find out about their homes and, specifically, their bedrooms? Mollison "posed his young subjects -- more than 200 of them -- against blank white backgrounds for their portraits, leaving their bedrooms to do the talking." I have to admit, I'm kind of jealous that someone else had this idea first... Now what other creative and interesting photojournalism projects are out there for me to undertake?? Guess I'll just have to keep my brain turned on and my thinking cap fastened, eh? Oh and, Mollison's new book, "Where Children Sleep," that stemmed from the project, is totally going on my Amazon Wish List!