Something personal.

I'm very good at being negative. Seriously, I'm terribly good at it. I'm also good at not lying to myself. There are so many people who are in denial about their negative qualities, but I have no qualms about admitting to myself that I'm selfish, arrogant, proud, vain, materialistic, and a sniveling liar. Yes, I am all those terrible things, and I know it, and I'm not saying it just to make myself sound pitiful (poor little disillusioned Stephanie, keeps claiming she's a monster, poor thing, must be wanting the attention). I am all these things, maybe not overly so, but I am, And I'm not going to lie and say that I'm not.

That awkward moment when you forget you have a LiveJournal. --//--

A pet who is loved.

Well, this one's easy: Burrito.

That's right. I named my favourite pet after a food.



Granted, the colours are crappy, but I was 13 at the time, and a terribly photographer. Also, I was half-terrified that she would fly away if I took her out of her box...thing...box-thing.

She doesn't look like a Burrito here, but I assure you, she did when she was in her chrysalis (which is that near-transparent, brown blob clutched in her legs. Nah, who am I kidding, I was just looking for a name and decided upon Burrito after I mentioned that she was "all wrapped up, like a burrito."

I found Burrito on my mother's Chinese celery mid-August, already in her final instar; therefore, she was one fat, repulsively bright caterpillar [link]. Fearing for her safety (there are a lot of greedy swallows that visit the garden), I took her inside and placed her in a large, transparent box. I fed her on my mother's precious plants for about four days, doing research in between, and found out that she was a black swallowtail butterfly. She was my first butterfly larvae (the other five I'd found were tomato hornworm moths) and the only one to reach adulthood (COD in others: parasitic wasps that laid their eggs in the live caterpillars, which hatched and ate their way out). Burrito then pupated on a disposable wooden chopstick (it was a spur-of-the-moment decision on both our parts) and her bright green chrysalis grew steadily darker over the course of several weeks. After about three weeks, her chrysalis was black, and I was half-sure that she was dead.

On the first day of eighth grade, I went to school with Burrito still safely tucked away in her box, and when I came home, I glanced in just out of habit. I was startled to find that, instead of a black chrysalis, I was face-to-face with a beautiful black, orange, and blue butterfly (wingspan about 3 inches). Previously, I'd addressed her as a male, but the paler markings on her wings showed that she was clearly a female [link]. I let her go that day, as soon as her wings had hardened, because I didn't think she would have liked to stay in captivity. She had, after all, grown up. I took her outside, released the top, and gently guided her out with my hand. She rested on my fingers for a few moments, and then truly spread her wings for the first time, circling my house several times before fluttering off into the grey sky.

The date was September 9, 2009.

I haven't seen another black swallowtail since. And even though I know that Burrito is long dead, as butterflies live only one season, I still cherish her memory. Yes, she was an insect (and as my sister likes to point out, a gross caterpillar), she turned out to be a beautiful butterfly. When I set her free, that was the one moment when I felt like my heart could break. I'd only had Burrito for a little while, but she brought out the most motherly, tender emotions in me. Letting her go was like a mother letting her daughter go.

Family.

Family!

Of all things, family! Not that that's a bad thing, per se.

I don't have an actual picture of my family, I just realised. So here's my brother, my mother, and me, on a cruise ship, with the fanciest glass elevators I've ever seen. Just because.



And look, you've caught me in a skirt, which is quite rare indeed.

I always feel like I have to explain: absences, random notes, anything. I always feel like I need an excuse. Well, here it is: I've been lazy, and sleeping rather a lot, and as I've suddenly decided to go vegetarian for 30 days, I've been focusing on other things.

Something historic.

We all know about it. It's been in the news for over a decade, and every mention of it brings solemnity and a quiet sense of tragedy and a national pain.



Yes. September 11, 2001. I remember.

I believe I was in kindergarten or first grade - I'm a wee bit too lazy at the moment to do the simple backwards calculation. Anyway, I was in school when it happened, minding my own business, unaware of the most devastating moment of our young nation's history had just passed. It was on the news. I didn't understand it, but I was fascinated and rather unimpressed.

As a young five-year-old, with a newborn baby brother of a few months living at home, I was inflated with a sense of my own superiority. I didn't realise how truly horrifying the event was; I instead gave a flawed account of what I heard on television. It was only years after that the true meaning of the date registered.

After since I learned the true details of the event, I have held this day close to my heart - not because it is happy, but because it is so drastically not.

Today, it's been more than ten years. Every year, on the anniversary of that terrible day, we stand in school with a moment of silence to commemorate all those innocent lives that were lost by chance, or lost in saving other lives.

It's a fateful sort of day, a day of quiet reminiscing, of painful memories that we dare not cast away, because though it hurts to remember, it will hurt more to forget.

It's the sort of day no one forgets.

Wow. I just realised, right now, after years of writing poetry, that I actually write in a certain meter.

I've always known iambic pentameter. I've always loved what Shakespeare's done with it, with his clever plays and sonnets. I've grasped meanings and played with words and learned to write my own poems, though they aren't always as good as they sound in my head. No, scratch that, they're never as good.

But still, though I've never studied poetry, I taught myself how to make it sound right. So many people think it's just throwing lines together, making stuff rhyme, but I've learned to instinctively write verses so that they flow when I read it. Who knew that poetry's supposed to do that?

I've been writing in iambic tetrameter for years, and I didn't even know it. Man, I am good.

This is mind-blowing.

What follows is the last quatrain verse from my World War I poem "Nineteen Fourteen." I wrote it a little more than a year ago, when I was 14. It remains one of my best poems, though I never understood why I liked it so much. I always knew that the last verse sounded good (maybe because it has a note of morbid finality to it) but I never attributed it to the iamb rhythm.

While we, at home, do worry numb
To wait for news that never comes.
We sit at home, we hope to learn
Of children who will not return.

I believe that I have a great like for poetry and depressing themes. They go well together.

A pair of eyeglasses.

Arghhh but I hate glasses! At least, on me. I've been Four Eyes since first grade, and it's really annoying how I'm so dependent on them. Without them, I am blind. Not literally, but very, very close.

Though I have to say, some people look good with glasses.

Like Ten.



Um. I really didn't know what else to say. I mean...well...yay David Tennant? (My favourite Doctor, yay!)



These work too. (Only Ten can use 3D glasses to pick up 'void stuff' and to figure out a way to defeat hundreds of Daleks and Cybermen. At the same time. With a pair of glasses!) =D

Your favourite food.

Wh...What? You're making me choose a favourite food? But I love food! I'm a teenager who guzzles food like there's no tomorrow, because there is nothing that keeps one better company than a load of junk food and a happily chewing mouth.

Okay, fine then.



No seriously, look at that heaven. I can see hear the holy choir singing. A crisp biscuit with a layer of soft caramel all coated with a healthy dose of milk chocolate. Just the right mixture of crunch and chewiness, and delicious sweetness. *sighs happily*

Actually, no, don't take my word for it. I just have an insane craving right now, and it's messing with my head.

A couple.



Yeah...I don't know what to say. And whatever I'm going to say, it's probably going to be perverted and highly inappropriate. But I just finished reading a Merlin/Arthur fic, and I realised today while watching Merlin that I really can't stand the way the directors are trying to shove Arthur/Gwen down our throats. (The constant kissing is kind of obvious and I like Gwen, I really do, but I don't see why they have to keep snogging.) I don't see the chemistry there that I see between Arthur and Merlin. Sorry, BBC and Merlin people who want to make the show seem more hetero...but no.

I mean, about 90% of the Merlin fandom ships Merthur because of their superior chemistry. What can you say to that?

So I'm just going to slink away right now and hide.

And here's some Brolin. Not that I ship them as hard as I ship Merthur (I don't). But they're still cute, and I like to imagine that they help their characters have that perfect chemistry.

I'm not done with my letter challenge yet. *guilty grin* But I couldn't resist this, and I'm still struggling over that one letter to my dreams.

Something you love.



This is the honest, honest, honest truth. I've been reading since I was very small. I've led what some call the cliched poor-little-girl life. Books were my first friends. During my childhood, my parents worked full-time so I didn't have their attention. I couldn't go out to play, I couldn't go visit people my age. So I curled up with a book and fell between the pages. It's true that words are the most powerful weapons of humankind. I started with small books: Jack and Annie, Junie B. Jones, and Animal Ark. Soon, I moved onto longer, more intricate, less innocent tales.

I entered the grounds of Hogwarts for the first time when I was an eight-year-old second-grader, or perhaps third-grader, following Harry as he formed the Order of the Phoenix and faced down Voldemort. Since then, I've stalked Medusa with Perseus, hidden from the Adderhead with Dustfinger and Meggie and Mo, ridden on quests with Arthur and Gawain and Percival. I've wandered into Camp Half-blood with Percy, thrown down Dr. Cable with Tally and the Specials, schemed with Artemis and Holly, spied for MI6 with Alex, walked the breadth of Middle-Earth with the hobbits, sailed into exile on Beleriand with the sons of Fëanor.

I have to say that I lost my innocence through books. I gained my knowledge of the world, of human motivation and cruelty, of how hard it is being an adult. At a time when all my classmates couldn't wait to grow up, I wished I could suspend myself in careless childhood forever. I knew about pride and honor and glory and vanity before my classmates even knew their times tables. I understood psychology and how people can be cruel just for the sake of cruelty. No, I never did have much of a disillusioned childhood; I never had those simple, childish beliefs that many remember wistfully. But for all that I lost, I gained so much more.

My interests may switch; one week, I'll be in love with Artemis Fowl and the next with Alex Rider. One day may find me reading Harry Potter for the tenth time, the next may find me with a completely new series. My obsessions change quickly. But no matter my interest, I will never stop loving books.

Bradley: Are you doing that, Colin?
Colin: Yeah.
Bradley: Yeah, I thought it must've been.

You two adorable people. OF COURSE COLIN'S DOING IT. COLIN DOES EVERYTHING. COLIN IS A GOD.

Bradley: Mate, you're pretty...I like the way you've dedicated yourself to this role.

#that'ssohetero

Bradley, do you want to perhaps finish that first sentence? So the Brolin fans don't have heart attacks in the fact that you've, oh I dunno, called your co-star 'pretty'? (Not that he's not...I mean, Colin is the DEFINITION OF PRETTY.)

Bradley: So, Colin...where are we?
Colin: We are in um, Camelot.
Bradley: Your cheekbones are kicking right off in this shot, mate.
Colin: Are they?
Bradley: Oh yeah.
Colin: You likin' them?
Bradley: Hellooo ladies...It's Mister Colin Morgan.

stopflirtingyoutwo.

Actually, no. Don't stop. Your love is too beautiful for words.

AND YES, COLIN, I AM LIKING THEM. VERY MUCH, IN FACT. I WOULD LIKE TO DO UNSPEAKABLE THING TO YOUR LOVELY CHEEKBONES AND BRADLEY WILL ONLY AGREE.

Bradley: In a world that's medieval and full of...medium sized evil, one boy has the power to...be powerful. That boy is...Merlin.
Colin: Watch me.
Bradley: Merlin has to...has to do stuff, in order to save him.
Colin: Hey, it's the evil witch.
Bradley: It's the evil witch!

Why are you two so cute? Seriously? "Watch me." Oh Colin, trust me, we're watching you. A lot.

And more.