Straight ahead I see a house

dark and cold

seemingly vaccant, no one emerging.

Dogs playing in the yard to my left

Barking in excitment towards their owner

running down the sidewalk past the window.

Today everything is gone

A bush grown up from being neglected and unkept

blinds me from the outside world. 

The lights are always off in the house across the street.

She finally emerges from the empty house,

she lives in alone, to place a lonely Christmas wreath on her door 

before hiding away until the season is over.

To my right a new neighbor is moving in, 

maybe he will add a little light

or maybe he will take a little more away

Artist Profile: William Blake

William Blake was born on November 28th, 1757 in Soho, London. He was the son of James Blake and Catherine Blake. His father was a hosier while his mom was a stay at home mom. He had 7 siblings, although 2 of them died in infancy. 

In his early life William went to school until the age of 10, and then decided to stay at home and have his mom teach him the rest of his schooling. He later on took drawing classes. 

William Blake dabbled in poetry, visual arts, and engraving. His main medium was watercolors. He was in the romanticism era during the prime of his career. Some of his most famous work was The Angels Hovering Over the Body of Christ in the Sepulcher, The Ancient of Days, Adam Naming the Beasts. My favorite are the Pity which is of an angel on a Pegasus holding a baby looking over a lady. My second favorite is The Four and Twenty Elders Casting their Crowns before the Divine Throne which is of a rainbow and ghosts with god. 

Throughout his career he faced many challenges one of which was that he though he saw gods head in the window, he had trouble dealing with authority, and he was cheated out of a deal with Stothard. In the world The Revolutionary War in the US was going on, Britain and the Netherlands signed a peace treaty, London Regent's canal opened, Antarctica was sighted, and NY stock exchange was founded. 

In the News [Papers]

Positive Experiences 

Everyone does what they can to make sure that people have positive experiences when they are around them. Whether its simply by showing someone a smile, or buying someones groceries because they don't have the money to do so, it's always important to spread positive experiences.

Whenever I travel and see people sleeping underground by the subway, or sleeping in a park, I will take my leftover food from the restaurant I was eating at and give it to them to help make their day a little better.  

My dad one time on Christmas Eve was leaving the grocery store when a blind elderly man was trying to leave at the same time. He was walking out and in the chaos of the parking lot when he almost got hit. That was when my dad rushed over to get him to safety and he ended up taking him home, because he was going to take a taxi 

Positive experiences are what make up the world. The simplest thing can make such and important impact in someones life. 

Memorable Passage

“She doesn't have a ring on each finger, or a big diamond on each ring. 
She doesn't wear a gold watch that costs as much as a fancy car. 
In fact, she doesn't own a fancy car. 
She doesn't carry an enormous designer bag. 
But she might have a newspaper under her arm. 
She might mention Sartre or Foucault in a conversation. 
It's her personality that sparkles and nothing else: the signs of intellectual wealth.” 
-How to be Parisian Wherever You are

I love this passage and it always sticks in my head, because it talks about how material items are not important. It's about what's on the inside. I know the theme of this passage is kinda cliche but the way it is said makes it so elegant. talking about how she doesn't have all of these fancy things, she doesn't have the nicest car, or the most money, but she has a shining personality and that is all that matters. She is wealthy in knowledge and happiness. She doesn't need to have all the material things. 

To me personality is very important. You can have all of those things mentioned in the passage but if you don't have a good personality then it's not worth it. Personalities are what make a person. They shape you and those who are around you. Surround yourself with people who also have good personalities because they will help transform your personality for the better. This passage has always stuck with me because it relates to my morals. I believe that before material things, personality should always come through.

Writers as Readers

1) When I read I like to be warm, my hands and nose specifically. I like to be e

either sitting on my couch or up against my headboard. I can't be laying down because my arms will start to fall asleep. I like to be sitting up but comfortable enough that I can put my legs out in front of me. I like to surround myself with lots of pillows and blankets so that I feel cut off from the outside world, while I enter a new on with my book.

5) When I was reading forged by fire, I couldn't put it down. I would stay up until the wee hours of the night reading the next chapter. always saying "just on last one" I would get in trouble in class because I was reading the book instead of focusing on the task at hand. From the very beginning there was always an exciting ending to the chapter that left you with wanting to know what happened next.

10) I do think people can partake in actions they were not interested in before reading a novel. People like to have role models, and someone to look up to. For some those people happen to be book characters. This could mean that they want to try and live the lives of the character they look up to or they want to do the things that happen in the book. If that is what makes them happy then I am all for it. I do not think that a book should be boycotted just because someone wants to adapt the lifestyle of the book. 

12) I do think that we write like we read. We write with the same sentence structure, vocabulary, and themes as the books we like to read. its what we enjoy reading so its what we are going to enjoy writing.  

4) My favorite memory connected to reading, is in 6th grade. During lunch everyday I would come into my 6th grade English teachers room and discuss the different books we were reading and what books we should read next. She is my all time favorite reader. 

6 Word Memoirs

• Installing my future please wait patiently 
• Car rides with the radio blaring
• Leaving my past behind me
• In the end I have myself

Keeping it real (like Dan)

11. I had the best hiding spot for hide and seek growing up. No one could find me, and I would sometimes just end up falling asleep. We have a storage room under our stairs, and in the back of the room, there were about 100 stuffed animals in the very back. I would crawl under them, and surround my self with stuffed animals and no one would think to search under the animals, or to even go back that far.

12. Illicit love has a sort of attractiveness about it that seem to be something people go after. Like people who are currently in a relationship, or the girls always like to go after bad guys because they think they will be the girl to change them. I have only had one incident where it was an illicit love kinda thing. He was in a relationship and I started to develop a crush on him because we spent so much time together. We ended up snap chatting and talking for a couple of weeks until his girlfriend found out, and then it started to get a little complicated. It ended shortly after that.

13. I personally do think that people who are well traveled can be more interesting. At least to talk to. They have experienced so many different cultures, witnessed so many different things and see so many different places. The stories that they could tell could probably go on for hours, never getting boring. I would love to just sit down and talk to someone who has traveled all of the world.   

17. My perfect day would start with a hike up to the Hollywood sign. After that I would go grab a recovery juice at the Nekter juice bar. After that I would then go grab my bathing suit and my friends and go hit the beach. A couple of hours later I would go home and go get ready for that night where my friends and I would be going out. We would go get some food and then go find some place to hangout and just have fun. Then I would go home and get lots of sleep.

 
24. A nickname that I was called growing up was Fat Albert. I was always a little bit chubbier than the other kids in my class. One day this guy who used to bully everyone else started calling me Fat Albert and he got all his other friends to call me it too. I have always been self conscious about my body ever since then, but I try to accept and love myself.

25. I definitely don't think love is an ability, because if that was true then you'd be able to get over someone very quickly. If you can be able to love someone then you can be able to stop loving someone too, and I truly don't think that that is possible sometimes. Love is something that makes you vulnerable, afraid, and happy all at the same time. It takes you over and you can't control it. It is a feeling. 

28. I used to live next door to a guy who became my best friend. A year later he moved to South Carolina, and eventually California. We still stayed in touch, and everyone thought he would be the one that I ended up marrying. I never believed them because I was so young I was a junior in high school, I have my whole life ahead of me. Well we started to go past the friendship zone, and start admitting that we had feelings for each other. Over Easter weekend he came to visit me and when I went to pick him up from his hotel he sexually assaulted me. I have never run so fast in my life, but I sprinted out of that hotel, like my life depended on it, because I thought it did. He is married now and seeing him on social media still shakes me to my core. It was really hard to get over, especially because I trusted him. 

29. I would like to have a vacation home in Italy. I would want it to be on a wine vineyard with lots of land, kinda isolated. There would be a beautiful pool in the background with a patio/entertaining area with a fire pit, so we could sit outside and night for hours.