A fairytale by my roommate.

Once upon a time, in a very mystical land, there lived a platypus by the name of Emily. Emily had a best friend. Her problem was that she couldn't see her best friend because she was very invisible. Emily could only hear her best friend. Emily met her best friend one day when she was stuck in a quicksand pit along with a very upset giraffe. When all of a sudden, Emily heard someone telling her to grab onto a stick that was hovering over her head. So Emily grabbed on and kicked the cussing giraffe in the teeth. The giraffe passed out, so Emily hoisted herself up by pulling on the stick and stepping alongside the giraffe's neck. Once Emily was out, she looked around to thank her hero, but she saw no one. Yet a voice rang out and said "Hey! I'm Webby!"
So once Emily stopped screaming and running around in circles uncontrollably, she realized that Webby was invisible. From that day on, they were best friends.
Not long after the two met, Webby began to tell Emily her life story. It goes something like this:
"I was born in this weird atmosphere where there was much 'anti-aging' creme. It looked like a recalled batch, but I was very hungry so from the tim eI was born until I was about 18 years old, that's what I ate. So it actually didn't 'anti-age' me, it made me disappear. So I figured out the creme was mislabeled because it was actually vanishing creme. So now I've spent the last year looking for a way to be visible again. So then one day I heard a great ruckus going on, I stumbled upon you, and decided to save your life."
Emily was so burdened for Webby that she told her she knew of a magic old hag who could help her. The only way they could find her was to find a hole in a tree and fill it up with water. Then they had to find a flower with no petals and eat it. After they did that, they had to stand on their heads for three minutes. Then, all out of nowhere, a vicious and terrible odor reeked through the air, scattering all of the forest wildlife. Then appeared the magic old hag. Her name was Corine. The two friends were so disturbed by the smell that they passed out.
When they awoke, they were in a swampy wasteland filled with rotting fish, namely anchovies. Corine was looming over them with a look of disgust on her face. The two were frightened. The hag looked at Emily and said, "Do you really want to be able to see your friend's actual appearance?"
Emily replied, "Well it's better than looking at you!"
Webby grew nervous and told Emily something that she hadn't told her before. The truth was that Webby was actually a bacteria that had grown to a million times its actual size. She was covered in gooey plasma and surrounded by sticky flagella. So then Emily began to cry to the hag to turn her friend into a beautiful thing instead of what she was. Corine felt sorry for them and turned Webby into a beautiful blonde 5'2" tall human girl. She was truly beautiful. Then Webby looked at Emily, who was a stumpy platypus, and asked the hag to turn Emily into something beautiful also. So the hag granted her request and turned Emily into a gorgeous sandy-blonde 5'6" tall girl. She was a sight to behold. The hag took a look at the two girls and decided they were too different for their land. She sent them away to a land where they would be appreciated. The two girls were thrusted into a giant wormhole and found themselves then standing in a circle of tribal people. The tribal people then seized them, made them their queens, and killed them because the girls couldn't understand their language of tongue-clicking,

The End.

Fin.

Editor's note: I didn't write this at all, so any mistakes and/or roadkill-esque sentences are entirely on the behalf of the author. Also, I'm the one who is referred to as "Webby", so have fun with that.

The cussing giraffe in this piece is a reference to this video ---> here. it's well worth the watch.

a series of small but important updates.

i just finished my first year of college.

Avengers comes out today.

i'm in desperate need of some tanning. not too much, just enough that i don't blind people.

i haven't drawn anything in a long time, and i need some inspiration.

i already miss my friends.

i have a lot of stories to put up here and not enough time to write them. maybe one day soon.

May the fourth be with you,

Tiffany

this is a picture of me cramming for finals in the dorm. i went to a film festival beforehand, and this was the feeling i had about 1 in the morning.

Song of the Day: "The Way it Seems to Go" by Rachael Yamagata (listen ---> here!!)

at long last.

awhile back, like allllllllllllllll the way back in july, i went to inner-city memphis, tennessee on a mission trip that basically flipped my life upside down. it really did wonders to open my eyes and my heart to the world. it's taken me a long time to really pen down my thoughts and feelings about it, simply because the whole week was so full of stories and lessons.


the program we worked through is called StreetReach, which was originally intended for the so-called "street kids." when you hear this, most people get a mental image of a mom letting her kids out in the back yard to play, and not calling them back until dinner. at least that was the way it worked in my suburban childhood some days. it doesn't really work that way in memphis, though. i met kids who left their (probably empty) house in the morning and didn't go home except to sleep. their parents work multiple jobs, and most of the time they involve illegal activities like selling drugs or prostitution. the kids might not eat some days, and if they do they might have to obtain the food themselves. most of these kids have never experienced anything close to a healthy relationship, family or not. there are a few who have decent families, but they are definitely the minority. even though i only got to spend a week with them, they had my heart the first day.


first kid i met was jakalen. he was a trip, let me tell you. he wouldn't talk at first, but i started juggling these hula hoop things for him and we were friends after that. he did not stop talking the entire time i was there. he told me about his brother, and his friend who liked to play basketball, and about his new haircut (he had a spiderweb shaved into his very short hair. it sounds kind of funny, but it looked really cool.) and all sorts of things. he called me "big sister" the whole week, and he stuck to my side like glue.

this was before his amazing haircut. also, as a note on my t-shirt, we were the "storms" team and i made the design with fabric spray paint, a marker, and a piece of cardboard. i dearly treasure the memories made with that shirt.

and here's him putting on a necklace he made me. i didn't take it off until we were headed home, and that was only because the string was fraying. later in the week, a ton of kids gave me macaroni necklaces. 


also, check out the awesome haircut of the spider web! for real, i thought it was so cool.


the rest of the first day with the kids was spent carrying them on my back and presenting our bible story. not at the same time (although i'm sure they would've liked that).


first, the kids never ask if they can have a piggy-back ride, or whatever you'd like to call it. they say this: "can i git up on yo' neck?" they usually mean that they want to sit on top of your shoulders and become instant deadweight. and then they smile this really big smile, because they know you won't tell them no. trust me, you become a lot stronger than you'd think when they ask that.


there was one girl who asked to "git on my neck" who must have been 13 years old at least. she towered over my 5'1" stature, and looked to be about 30 pounds heavier, but i went ahead and carried her for a short period of time. like i said, you become a lot stronger than you'd think. my friend Forrest saved me by insisting to her that she needed to "share" me with another little girl, who was two. i was grateful for the switch, but my 13 year old compadre was not. at first, she refused to get off of me. it took quite a bit of coercing to convince her to not collapse me.


after that ordeal, it was time to present the story of baby Moses to the kids. for the younger ones, who were anywhere from 2 to 4, it was a lost cause. their thought process seemed to be something like this: dirt ground ooh an ant look at the sky and then i'll push the kid next to me and look at the sky again and now i'm back to the ant. 
but we did the best we could. 
the older kids, who went up to 12 years old, were very attentive, but that might've been because my partner alex was playing Moses's mother. he was therefore in a dress, which the kids loved.


after that, it was on to songs and carrying kids. my favorite song was "little red wagon." ask me about it sometime. i mean it, just ask me about it. i'll teach it to you. :)

prime example of what i did the whole trip.


by the end of every day, each one of us was literally dripping with sweat from the 100+ degree heat, but we were so happy.


the rest of the week stays in my mind not as linear events, but as a string of memories in no particular order. i remember personalities best of all, but a few key events still stick out in my mind.


in the whole bible camp of 60 kids, we had maybe 5 or 6 hispanic children. one of them was a 7 year old named Pablo. let me just say this now, Pablo was one cool kid. he could peel oranges like nobody's business, too. when we gave the kids lunch, it was very likely that there would be an orange that came with it. it was also very likely that the kids would have us peel them. i struggled with one orange for at least 4 or 5 minutes before Pablo walks over calmly, takes the orange, peels the whole thing in one big curly peel, and hands it back. he then says, with a thick accent, "you don't do this very much, do you?" i wish i could accurately describe his face. it was genuinely priceless.


after the first day, it was my job to run the crafts table, which ultimately was nicknamed the disaster table. every day, there would be art supplies everywhere. one day, the kids got bored scattering the beads we had, and they decided to make me into a living canvas.

this was before they literally covered my entire leg, but you can see my arm being held so it can be colored blue. that ended up in a sleeve of blue, green, and pink. i also had the entire alphabet down my shin. as well as my name written in several different colors.


there was also one little girl on our site named Mama, and Mama stole everyone's heart. she was four years old, and upon meeting (most) all of the girls we had staffing, she would ask to be picked up, hug you, kiss your cheek and declare you her sister. she would also assign you a new age. i believe i was six years old, according to her. everyone was her sister except Katie. poor Katie was assigned the age of one, and by Mama's logic she couldn't be her sister until she was two.

isn't she precious? :D


i came to memphis with two wrists full of silly bands. honestly, i had no use for them, since they had already passed their popularity here. i started giving them away the first day, and by wednesday i was entirely out. a lot of kids tried to give them back to me, as if they had only borrowed them. when i told them they could keep them, a lot of them were incredulous. they couldn't really grasp the concept of a stranger giving them something and expecting nothing in return.


the kids were pretty rowdy most of the time, and it was really hard to teach bible stories to them sometimes. it got pretty difficult for my friend sarah, because as soon as we got there she lost her voice for no apparent reason. when it was time for her to present her bible story, she, in her incredibly quiet and whispery voice, asked a group of 8 through 11 year olds to please help her out and be cooperative. the kids did not only take her literally and quieted the louder ones in the group, but they began to take the props from her and acted out the story for each other while she talked the best she could.


i learned so much over that trip. there was so much that i just don't even know how to put into words. God was really working  me as much as he was working through me. it meant so much to me to feel like i had a clear purpose, and it gave me a lot of insight as to what i want to do with the rest of my life.


God bless, friends.


Song of the Day: "No Sweeter Name" by David Walker, ft. Kim Walker (Listen -----> here)

Honey.

remember how i'm on a team called L'aMet? we performed at a facility for alzheimers and dementia patients recently. i love old people, so i was really excited to perform and talk with them.

the first day we got there was a shakedown on my nerves. i have a sincere heart for people with alzheimer's and/or dementia, mainly because my grandfather has it. i thought i'd be totally okay, and for about 15 minutes i was. it was heartbreaking, though, and i ended up breaking down afterwards. i can't even explain the strange cocktail of emotions i had. it was despairing, but with a sort of nostalgia and personal hurt mixed in. the second day, i was determined to be better, stronger, kinder. i had to be. i couldn't handle a second day like that.

once again, i performed, and once again i attempted to be loving and kind to the people there. it proved to be incredibly easier the second day. there was this wonderful, softspoken old man who was so much like my grandfather. after a brief period of small talk he told me, with near-perfect clarity, about his life as a stock-broker on wall street and how he used to travel the world. i also met his wife, who had married him only 13 years ago. *insert cheesy quote about love being timeless* she had one killer wedding ring, too. the diamond was the size of my thumb nail, i kid you not. he leaned over to me and whispered that he took out a loan for it and smiled. it was precious.

i also met this woman whose name was Honey, and let me tell you, the name suited her. she was as sweet as she could be, and (in my opinion) didn't have that bad of parkinson's or dementia. i was privileged enough to hear her life's story. she met her husband in WWII while they were both in the air force. they got married and stayed in the armed forces until vietnam, when they got caught up in an attack. her husband died, and she was captured as a prisoner of war for 3 years. she showed me her left hand, which was still bent and scarred from it.

she told me about how the grace of God got her through that time in her life, and how she was sure that He had big plans for her, even to this day. she cried a little bit as she recalled memory after memory. she told me she was sometimes still afraid, but that she had faith. she had a firm grasp on the grace of God and his plan for bringing her through all of that. i agreed with her wholeheartedly, and I still pray for that darling old woman.

Honey helped me immensely. God must have known how much i needed someone to speak truth to me that day. she encouraged me to persevere in the worst of times, because God is still good and He has a bigger plan. i remember her fondly, and i hope she's still there when we go back.

Song of the Day: "Beyond the Blue" by Josh Garrels (listen ----> here!)

updates! news! monsters!

i promise i've been working on the memphis post. it's almost done. in the meantime, though, i've decided to start blogging all those little stories that i don't feel are quite long enough for full posts. every time i come up with something, i decide it's too short or doesn't make any sense. i'm just going to post them all anyway. so for the next couple of blogs, they are going to be very short, and they're going to be about the strange people i've met in my life, unusual stories, and perfect random happenstance. it's going to be entertaining you guys, and i'll be posting on a more frequent basis. i think it's going to work out nicely, because i'm working on a weird schedule right now that only allows me to work in short bursts. i'll finish the memphis blog soon, and now when i do, you're going to be like AWAWOWOWOWOWAHHHHHWOW. it's that grand.


in other news, i've been thinking a lot about when i was a kid, and how i was the most optimistic, rose-glasses-wearing, bright-side-looking geek you've ever met in your whole life. i'm still a geek, for sure. but i'm re-teaching myself optimism all the time. it's not easy, but i think i'm starting to get the hang of it.


let's do something together. you know, the whole blogger-reader bonding...thing. humor me.


we can all agree that life is messy. there's too much to do. i mean just too darn much. we try to schedule in more than we can possibly accomplish in the time we've allotted, and we form enormous, jam-packed schedules. it doesn't go as planned, and just when you think you've got it down, things get all weird again. basically life can start looking like this.

that's Harrison the Unhappy Monster. nobody wants to be him right now. he's having a bad hair day because he forgot his umbrella as he dashed off to work with his cup of coffee and briefcase. on his way to work, he spilt his coffee on his tie, and therefore had to go without one today. he stopped at Starbucks briefly to get another coffee, much to the chagrin of his nearly-empty wallet. upon going back outside, he discovers his briefcase has been locked inside his car, along with his keys. he is, at present, waiting for a locksmith to come and get his briefcase and keys from his car. in other words, it's been a rough day for Harrison.


however, what Harrison does not know, is that at this very moment, there is a transfer truck hurdling down the highway at unsafe speeds. the driver of this truck, who is employed to move large amounts of mattresses, has been driving from boston to florida with very few breaks and absolutely no sleep. as he barrels down the rainy highway, he suddenly has a flashback of Dwight Schrute from The Office saying

"Before I do anything, I ask myself, 'Would an idiot do that thing'? And if the answer is yes, then I do not do that thing."

Suddenly, the mattress transfer truck driver, in his sleep-deprived delirium, determines that only an idiot would be a mattress transfer truck driver. he should not do this thing. he only wanted to grow beets. an idiot does not grow beets, and therefore he should do that thing. he decides to return to his ranch house near boston by making an immediate u-turn on the highway, causing a flurry of feathers to fly in all directions. fortunately, he landed upon a few of the spilled mattresses, and was completely unharmed.


remember our dear friend Harrison? you know, the one with the bad hair? if he had been on time to work, he would have gotten into a scuffle with a certain mattress transfer truck. his bad circumstances were entirely purposed to keep him out of even worse circumstances.


moral: look on the bright side. you never know what you might be missing. :)

Song of the Day: "Dog Problems" by The Format (listen ---> here!)

ohhhhhh, this has gotta be the good life.

no one will ever understand the gravity of this statement: i love college.


honestly, things have been absolutely glorious since i've started going here. people are actually nice. 
no, really, i'm serious. people go out of their way to do nice things for each other, and it happens ALL the time.


because people are so nice, i've made some really great friends. they're pretty interesting people.
one of my favorite people on campus (next to my best friend Jessica) has been marie. she rewards me with juiceboxes and nutella sandwiches for finishing papers. she also enjoys melting crayons and singing disney songs. follow her on twitter, you won't regret it. link ----> here.


she's my suitemate, and makes life entirely more bearable. we like to leave each other notes with obscure movie quotes on them. she also shares my love for intensely strange music.


i've also met a lot of people through a team i'm on called L'aMet. for those of you wondering, that's a hebrew word meaning "to show the truth." basically, it's a drama group with a lot of athletics. the technical term is human video, but essentially there are no props in our presentation. we are the set, as well as the people in the stories. last year's routine involved the walls of Jericho coming down. therefore, to make walls, there are people standing on top of other people's shoulders, each with their arms out, to represent walls. 
we're working on a routine about the life of Jesus right now, and let me go ahead and say it's going to be awesome. for those of you who are friends with me on facebook, i have the schedule posted there.


oh, and update: marie just walked into my room to give me a juicebox. i didn't even have have to do anything for this one. :)


so anyway, life is great. friends are fantastic, and i love college. i'm still working on this enormous blog for my summer adventures, including my mission trip and beach trips. it's gonna be pretty lengthy, so it's taking awhile to narrow down my thoughts into something that makes any sense. my summer flew by so fast.


i know i didn't say a whole lot of stuff here, so i'll make up for it. here's a picture i just drew. it's a raccoon that represents how i felt this morning. it was cold, and you could not have pried that cup of hot tea from my chilled morning hands. no sir.

Song of the Day: "Feel It In My Bones" by Tiësto feat. Tegan & Sara (listen --> here!!)

Pre-menstrual, Post-Potter.

well, by now we've all had the chance to see that the last Harry Potter movie is out.


i don't know about you, but i cried through almost the whole thing. it was absolutely astounding.


bear in mind that i'm not a movie crier. it takes a certain savoir faire to make me shed tears over a movie. Harry did it, though. mayyyybe it was the fact that i was pms'ing like no one's business, but i really found the whole movie to be deeply moving and emotional.


firstly, i didn't go to see it opening night. i wasn't brave enough to wait 3 hours in a line with fanatics who might attempt a spell or throw their Bott's beans at me. i also found it slightly ridiculous, the things people said about it. let me share some of my favorites:

"Comparing Twilight to Harry Potter is like comparing Rebecca Black to the Beatles."

"Butterbeer and a big pancake breakfast doesn't mix lol " 

"My childhood ends in a few hours. Just leave my body in the theaters please."

"Harry Potter is about confronting fears, finding inner strength and doing what is right in the face of adversity. Twilight is about how important it is to have a boyfriend." 

"So just got back from Deathly Hallows Part 2 and it was epic they changed sooooo much stuff but still good and nothing was really left out so all good :) (like Ron and Hermione's kiss better in the book though it was good in the movie I'm just sayin lol" 

breathe. 


there were also a surmountable amount of spoilers posted. anyway, point is that i blew all of them off as rubbish. nonsense. all in all, i didn't think i would come close to the experience that everyone else had. boy, was i wrong. 


from the opening scene i felt like i was going to cry. i finally gave in three quarters of the way.


really, it's not because the movie was sad. don't think that. the reason i cried was because i felt like a piece of my generation, a part which helped define so many people, ended right before my eyes. there's not going to be a "next movie." it's quite possibly one of the strangest feelings i've ever gotten, but it was overwhelming.


i remember when the first book came out. i was in the second grade. my mom forbade me to read them, which made me so curious i couldn't stand it. my best friend at the time had a copy, and she lent it to me during the school day so i could keep it a secret from my mom. we acted like it was the most confidential piece of government documents, only passing it from one person to another when we were sure no one could see us. in my second grade mind, my mother was magical and possessed the ability to peer into my life at any moment and know when i did something bad. (usually she just found out because i'm a terrible liar, but still.) 


there was something about Harry that i instinctively liked. i'm pretty sure it was because he was always headed into some new adventure, with friends that would never leave his side. i was the introverted, bookish type who didn't have a ton of friends, and in the second grade, i definitely didn't have many adventures outside of the ones i made up. Hogwarts became, for me, something i could latch my imagination onto and live vicariously through Harry for a bit. i didn't get to read any more of the series for several years, and even then i couldn't read past book five. (that's another story altogether.) but the point is that i, like so many people, remember Harry Potter as a distinctively vivid bright spot in their childhood. my generation grew up with this kid. we laughed when he laughed, cried when he cried, and felt every victory or defeat he ever had. even if you didn't follow him avidly, you couldn't help but hear about him.


i remember when i was eleven i waited for my owl with an acceptance letter to come. i was really, truly shocked when it didn't.


when i watched that last movie, i felt like i was watching a piece of my childhood fall away into the past somewhere. in that moment, being "grown up" sucked. big time. for the first time, i was acutely aware of the past versus the present, and now i understand where all those statuses came from. 


except maybe the one about the butterbeer and pancakes.


for what it's worth, i salute you, Potter. this fist pump is for you.

Song of the Day: "Magic (University A Cappella Version)" by Ben Folds

P.S. i didn't like the fact that they showed Harry's kids after Harry was all grown up. BOO.

P.P.S my mom just re-reminded me that when i wasn't allowed to read Harry Potter, my grandmother had gotten me a first-edition copy of the whole series. yeah, go ahead and cry with me.

P.P.P.S. i still don't own any of the books. that's almost as sad. if you want to donate a book or two, i won't object. :)