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     Who exactly is that girl with the black hair?  Her unseeing eye stares at me as I try to convince myself that she cannot see me. Of course she can't see me. I should know, I created her. Her eerily familiar  dress is tattered from wear, but it somehow retains a pure white color. Her face is cracked like glass. Beneath what remains of her pale blue visage are the rotors of a machine, orbiting around some sort of golden orb. She misses half of her arm, and most of her back. I take a quick glance at her legs. Her robotic skeleton is showing from the cracks there as well. That one blind eye stares at me, unrelenting. I look away. The grotesque, mangled hand of hers is reaching toward mine. I flinch. I wonder who summoned her here. The fingers are bent at awkward angles. Some sort of awful membrane droops off of her robotic fingers like a spider web.
     Why does she act like she knows me? What remains of her mouth is moving, like she is trying to tell me something important. That strange, red web has taken over the corner of her mouth too. I know that it will shock me if I touch her metallic skeleton. I have no choice. I reach to grab her hand, and her skin is so cold that it burns me. I jump at the sharp pain that I feel in my palm. She dissolves on contact, and the pieces that were once her body flow into me. The only evidence that she was ever there is the burn mark on my hand. Who exactly is that girl with the black hair?

Prompt: What changes have you experienced in your reading/writing this year?

     I have noticed that I can read books with more difficult language and complex writing style than before. I also have had a great increase in my understanding of profound themes and symbolism. I used to be able to notice that a symbol existed, but I would have no idea as to how I could interpret it. I trust myself more and allow myself to interpret things however they seem to be. More often than usual, I am with the general consensus. My vocabulary has increased significantly. I can also break apart unfamiliar words and figure out their definitions that way. Even though I still binge-read, I have become slightly better at slowing down and reading things in bits and pieces, rather than all at once. I think that this strategy also helps me with my reading comprehension.
    My writing has been stagnant. My style hasn't changed much, but I have noticed some things about my writing. I tend to zone out when I'm writing something. I don't pay much attention to what I'm doing half the time, and somehow I manage to avoid making too many mistakes. My brain glazes over, and I can find myself writing pages of thoughts without ever remembering what I've just typed. On a more personal note, I want to mention that I am nearing my first anniversary of journaling. I started last year in December in an old notebook that I found (how cliché), and I haven't stopped. The entries are sometimes long, sometimes short, and I tend to write about how I'm feeling or whatever is bothering me at the time. I will admit that I'm more inclined to journal when I'm unhappy, but c'est la vie.

Reading Times:
Sun: LOTF
45 mins

Tues: LOTF
45 mins

Thurs:
Burned, Ellen Hopkins
20 mins

Sat: Short Story
20 mins

Free Post

I'm running out of interesting things to write about. I am simply existing at the moment. I don't have anything worth writing about in my life. My stress has leveled out, my family is messed up as ever, and I don't have any real friend drama to speak of. I'm going to spend the rest of the post writing about nothing. I don't think that I'm particularly happy nor sad. I'm zen. If I were of any less interest, I would just drop dead from the monotony.

Instead of rambling on about the boring-ness of my life, you can enjoy my list of things that I'm NOT doing.

1. I'm not going to stress about my future.
2. I'm not going to think negative thoughts.
3. I'm not going to do anything stupid enough to ruin my reputation.
4. I'm not going to do exactly what other people tell me to do.
5. I'm not going to regret my decisions.
6. I'm not going to pretend that something didn't happen.
7. I'm not going to try to change myself.
8. I'm not going to get mad at myself for being human.
9. I'm not going to bite my nails anymore.
10. I'm not going to continue writing this list.

Deserted Island

I don't think that we would have survived for a week on a deserted island. We would spend so much time talking, arguing, and despairing that we would never get anything done. In real life, most of us would panic and stop functioning. The few of us that would actually be in any shape to save ourselves would be a number too small to sustain us all, and we would all die.

None of us are survival experts, and unless we are well versed in the ecology of the island, it would be very difficult to know which plants are safe to eat. If we somehow manage to get past the food situation and find a water source, we probably would die of exposure- none of us have ever lived in the wilderness for any long period of time. If we still managed to survive, we would have to find a way to make decisions in a timely manner. We would also need some sort of shelter and blankets to stay warm. Honestly, our class would die of starvation, poisoning, dehydration, or exposure in a few days.

Mon:
Burned, Ellen Hopkins
30 mins

Wed:
Lit analysis
30 mins

Thurs:
LOTF
45 mins

Sun:
Burned, Ellen Hopkins
30 mins

Literary Analysis

     I want to get my head together about my literary analysis. Of course I have reached my obligatory writer's block. This time, I know what I want to write about, but I am not sure how to get it into words. I am stuck at the thought-to-word barrier. Things like this make me want to be able to project my ideas into a recording device without having to find words for it.
     It will be pretty easy once I find the words, but I have been having a lot of trouble with getting my thoughts down on paper. I have some sort of huge roadblock in my brain that blocks the transition. I imagine it to be like the annoying line of ducks that resides in my neighborhood. They always try to cross the road at the most inconvenient times. Likewise, I don't seem to have any problem with my writing when there's no due date creeping around, but as soon as I have something due, I might as well speak Chinese. I don't know why this happens to me, but if you don't mind, I'll spend the next hour or so trying to figure out how to write a coherent sentence.

Reading Log

Wed: Peermark

30 mins

Thurs:

Lit Anaylsis

30 mins 

Sun:

Life of Pi, Yann Martel

45 mins