Memoir Topic #3....Bid Day!

Coming to college should be the most exciting day in a young womans life, but i would have to disagree with that general assumption. I believe that bid day or joining a sorority, is absolutely the most exciting/amazing day in a young woman's life! Waiting with 200 other girls waiting to find out which sorority they have been accepted too, very nerve racking, but very worth it. You hold that bid card in your hand which feels like an eternity to everyone, it felt like it was burning a hole in my hand because i was so anxious to see which sorority i would get to be a part of. I was antsy to see which 70 new sisters were going to be mine. Whenever they told us that we could open our bid cards, i couldn't hardly wait! I tore into mine without hesitation and i glanced at the name that i thought had been a mistake. I doubled checked, and then plastered a big, fake smile on my face to let noone in that auditorium see the disappointment in my face. I had gotten my "back-up sorority", the one that i had chosen just in case i didn't get the one that i really wanted. I held the tears back as i called my mom telling her that i got Kappa Delta, and her reassuring voice on the other end of the phone mixed with a little bit of comfort was the one thing that started the tears to swell up in my eyes. She said that there must have been a mistake but there was also i reason that i got this one, and to just make the best of the situation like i had always been taught my whole life. I listened to her advice and told her that i would call her later and that i was just going to act excited and see where it led me. Bid day is always slightly awkward because you don't really know that many people and you are meeting 70 girls at once, plus the 30 that you just ran out the doors with into the arms of your new loving sisters. I spend bid day as the shy girl, which is never what i had been considered so there was obviously something wrong. I decided that my mom was right, that there was some reason that i had been put in this sorority and i was going to stick it out and love my new sisters with all my heart. Looking back now i know why i was put in this sorority. To form a family away from mine that is going to look over and protect me while i'm away at college. To give me not only life long friends, but lifelong sisters that are going to love me and not judge me no matter what. And to find my best friends, not the ones that i'm going to spend endless nights crying with, or the ones that i'm going to laugh and have fun with, but the ones that i'm going to share my deepest secrets with, the ones that i know are going to be in my wedding someday and i cannot wait for the future with all of these ladies. I have enjoyed every minute that i have put into this sorority and i continue to grow as a person the more that i am around all of my sisters. This was the best decision of my life!

Memoir Topic #2....State Tournament!

We went to state for volleyball my sophomore year of high school. I was one of 3 sophomores on the varsity team that consisted only of graduating seniors. I knew that it was going to be a good year whenever we made it through the districts in first place, and were headed to regionals for the first time in 4 years. We completed substate where i played the whole time, and when we won and realized that we were going to go to state, i think my demeanor was the only one that stood out, because i was in complete shock. State was held in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and it was to be held all week with pool play, and then tournament play. We did pretty well in pool play, and we were 2nd in our pool, and 4th in the tournament standings. We headed into the tournament to play Ooltewah which was going to be tough because they were also the 2nd in their pool. We played a hard fought battle against them but in the end it just wasn't enough to beat them. After we lost to Ooltewah, it seemed like the end of the world because we were graduating seven seniors from the team, and one of the sophomores was moving back to Brazil, which left us with two members on our varsity team. We watched the final game of the tournament against five time state champion Brentwood and Collierville High School. We had beat Collierville before in pool play so we were pulling for them to win because if they did, even though we lost, we could say that we have beat the state champion team before! They ended up losing and Brentwood became a six time state champion team just to give them more bragging rights. To boost the team spirits, our coach took us to olive garden and payed for the teams dinner and then took us to the haunted prison thirty miles out of the way from murfreesboro,which would make us seven hours off schedule to be home since we were supposed to go home right after we lost. We ended up getting back to Kingsport at three in the morning and we all stayed at our coaches house that night and carpooled to school the next morning, unshowered and very tired from a hard nights sleep on the floor. Ending the week with the perfect team in our eyes, and loving all the last weeks we got to spend with those seven beloved seniors that were graduating.

Memoir Topic #1...Summer Day!

One summer in my hometown of Marietta, Georgia, my brother, his friend, and I built a pyramid of furniture underneath the basketball goal of our home. We stacked it so high that when we lowered the goal that we could all touch the rim and look like we were the ultimate basketball stars! I had never gotten to hang out with my brother or his friends before and after all 9 years of begging he finally let me join them this one night. I loved to play basketball because i was a tomboy and i was also a daddy's girl, and anything that my dad liked to do, i enjoyed it as well.
This was the last summer that i would spend in Marietta come to find out and that had been my home for so long and i realized that i was leaving all of my friends and the people that i thought of as my family behind. So many memories that i had grown up with. The black on the driveway from where our air conditioner man's van blew up in our driveway. The basketball goal that i had helped my dad put up just off the side of our driveway and underneath it the footprints that were imprinted in the cement just for a sensational memory. Or the woods where i had built a fort at the age of 5, where i would go when i would tell my mom i was running away for the day, when she would faithfully find me sitting there on my blue stool with a smile on my face and convince me to come back home.
This summer had to be epic since it was going to be my last summer at home, so when my brother asked me if i wanted to be apart of the furniture building and goofy picture taking, i wasn't hesitant to say yes. I infact knew that this would be one for the books and quickly joined them. We took pictures like we were Shaq and everytime that i still look back on those pictures, i remember that night forever as the night that i spent with the boys.

Mick Jagger Wants Me...

After reading the memoir about the girl who has a teenage fantasy about Mick Jagger, it takes me back to when I was a little girl, and I thought that I was actually going to marry a Backstreet Boy! The girl in the story changes her everyday life just in hopes of meeting someone from the Rolling Stones. She is not longer an innocent girl and she stays out and parties all the time for just a glance at someone entering or exiting the recording studio. Her fantasies keep her hopes and dreams alive and for so many teenage girls reading that story, it brings back feeling of their fantasies as a child. It is a very real experience.
She snaps back to reality after seeing Keith Richards, and she realizes that all of her fantasies are not real in some sense and that what she has dreamed of, such as Mick Jagger meeting her at a dinner party and him falling in love with her was probably never going to happen. I think that she was throwing her life away partying and waiting every weekend that she could oustide of the tiny studio in hopes of a glance. It goes to show that not all of your hopes and dreams can come true.
After reading this story, I love the feeling that I got thinking of all of my childhood fantasies. Thinking about the day that I would get to be a cast member on Saved by the Bell, and to this day I still watch that show and think about what my character would be like if I were on there. I think that having a fantasy or some dream is something to look forward to, but I also think that she was a little too obsessed and kind of turned her life upside down.

Us and Them

I liked the story "Us and Them", because I feel like people get judged by one thing and then are never given a second chance to redeem themselves. The saying is true, your first impression is the only impression of you that sticks in a persons mind. The story to me made this young boy realize what he was taking for granted in his life and what others were missing out on. It was also in his point of view and some opinions of others and he thought his views were correct. By the Tomkeys not owning a television they didn't have to keep up with the Jones' and try and live up to the social standard. They were content with the simple things that they had and the time that they got to spend with each other.
I think that people in America are too dependent on television, and what celebrities are doing with their lives, and are trying to compete and always be number one or have the best of everything. If we got rid of the social standard, I think that America might not be in so much debt. If we just lived by our needs and not always having to "have" our wants then we wouldn't waste so much money on material things.
In my life I know that I depend on material things. My wants list trumps my needs list indefinitely. I would like to think that my parents raised me to not want everything that I see in a store, but the way that society is, I know that I do infact want more than just my needs. I want the newest cell phone, or a flat screen television, or a new car because mine isn't as good as my friends. I think that more people should live like the Tomkeys, and read, write, or only spend family time to pass the time, instead of watching television, or getting on the computer and shutting yourself from the world around you.