ADblondie13

[adblondie13]

March PopSugar & BirchBox

I'm not good at writing reviews so I don't do them but these boxes are honestly two of the most exciting things that happen to me so I just want to share my love for them.

[adblondie13]

1.5 Medieval Era

When I think of the Dark Ages, I think of the eighth grade, To summarize it, looking moderately asian in a public school in Arkansas is a tough way to exist. To summarize it again, being too nice makes people weary of you and so they hate you for seemingly no reason and then they say awful things about you. The worst part is that the only advice I have from it all is when Kennedi Mock tries to humiliate you in front of twenty-some of your classmates, you should punch her in her rat face because that's exactly what I wish I had done. She thought it was funny to make other people miserable and set an example for others to do the same. ---- I can't remember a single good thing about the half year I spent Maumelle Middle except meeting Sarah Eubanks. Sarah (unknowingly) carried me through it all. Where "all" refers to my first experience with people trying to physically harm each other over locker situations and my first time being called a "chink" even though I have absolutely no asian blood in my veins (just small eyes due to my Native American relatives). Middle school made me hate myself so much that my perception of who I was was terribly warped for the next two years. I guess in short my middle school was most people's high school and as a result I've blocked so much of it from my memory, I can't even write about it in decent length. 

[adblondie13]

1.6 Modern Era

So where I sit now, nearly a year after graduating high school, is in my mom's house in front of a laptop. My state of mind is consistently anxious to hear if any college will offer me scholarships after seeing the semester of withdrawals on my transcript. ---- I made it two months before I dropped out. I only chose UCA to be with my boyfriend who, by the time I started classes, I wasn't with anymore. To make it worse, my classes were not challenging in the slightest. I felt like I was wasting my time. Also, my roommate was a nightmare -- actually she was a big scary Dracula, a name I use because she always sat in the dark and may have the most isolated person I've ever met (to her own doing, it seemed). ---- So I work nearly thirty hours a week and volunteer twice a week and spend my free time rock climbing or hanging out with friends. I've decided to attend the University of Colorado - Boulder in the fall and I couldn't be more excited. I think it's a true testament to boredom when someone is counting down the days until college classes begin (178 since the day I wrote this). More than anything I want to be productive again, not twiddling my thumbs and idly watching Netflix until two in the morning and sleep at odd hours of the day. Although I guess that's a pretty silly thing to complain about.

[adblondie13]

1.4 Roman Era

For now we're going to skip over the eighth grade and instead talk about high school. Particularly how In didn't hate it and how it wasn't the most miserable time of my life (that prize undoubtedly goes to the eighth grade). ----- After I moved back to Arkansas, I spent a brief time in the Pulaski county public school system before starting ninth grade at Central Arkansas Christian. The secondary campus where I was at held grades seventh through twelfth and a lot of kids had been in attendance their whole lives while others had just been there seen seventh grade. I had a familial connection to a girl who went there named Melanie and she helped a lot with meeting people and thanks to her I didn't die upon walking through the doors. Despite Melanie's fantastic hosting, I didn't make any real friends just a lot of acquaintances. Hope and Miranda were the first to make me feel really genuinely welcomed and would later become two of my closest friends. Peyton Robinson kept humored me throughout Physical Science and Melanie's friends kept me company at lunch. I joined the tennis team and the volleyball team and later track and field to feel like I was involved. Volleyball got me in touch with Jessica McCauley whom I'd spend the following summer with and most of AP World History next to. Hayley Nichols and Alexis Weber were best friends most of high school who may have been the only ones friendly to me all four of my years at CAC. Which was nice because sophomore year was brutal. For one, I took AP World History with the best and hardest teacher I've had. Also, a lot of people left to go to the newly erected Maumelle High School; Melanie included. I still didn't have any good friends and I often felt like one girl in particular was trying to make everything difficult for me. While Mir and Hope were becoming closer to me, there she was causing tension; and as I got closer to Jessi she showed up again and we were always icy towards each other in the most passive aggressive way. But in November she reached out kindly and we actually became really good friends, at least through junior year. When, in the fall, I got my first serious boyfriend she took some huge steps back and we grew distant. After she dumped her guy in January, she preoccupied herself with people who'd carry her up the social ladder (which at CAC was more like a cinder block). This brought Hope and Miranda closer to me and made cheerleading my only sanctuary aside from my boyfriend. Being ditched by her hit me pretty hard but seeing how she turned out, it may have been for the best. ---- By senior year, I was heavily invested in my romantic relationship because it and cheer were the things that made me happiest. Not that I was unhappy elsewhere, I enjoyed my high school career but looking back on it. I was often alienated - held at arms length from real friends - especially my last semester. A lot of that added to my poor post high school decisions which as of now are still being worked out. Maybe it's wrong of me to say those weren't awful years when on the surface that's exactly how they seem; but the coolest thing about high school is that after you cross the stage and hold your diploma, none of it matters anymore.

[adblondie13]

1.3 Iron Age

Halfway through the third grade my mom got promoted to branch manager at the elevator she worked for. As a result, we moved to Cumberland, Rhode Island. Her position was actually in Connecticut but the drive wasn't too bad for her. The apartment was basically all could afford until my stepfather found a job. Once he did in the summer before fourth grade, we moved to East Greenwich and cut my mom's commute in half. I started fourth grade at Hanaford Upper Elementary because upper and lower elementary is a thing in New England. I soon met Mia Bucco who would be my best friend for the next five years. She's another girl who can not be explained in just a few sentences but she kept me real and sane in the midst of grade school drama and I'm fortunate to still have her number today. With Mia came a squad, the fiercest one I was yet to be a part of: Ivan Burgess, my on-again-off-again elementary boyfriend; Sam Wardell, a sweet kid whose hair made him look like a little Dutch boy; and Kristen Szrom who was as lovable as she was odd. In the fifth grade came Arden Kramer who quite frankly may have been poison to my mental health, but whom I'm glad to have been friends with. ---- After the sixth grade, we moved to Archie R Cole Middle School. It was an odd time for me since my parents were talking about moving again (which we would do halfway through eighth grade) and their was a much bigger pooling of kids. Archie R Cole was the merging ground for both the upper elementary schools in Greenwich. With the merger came Rory Cowman who managed a type of rebellion none of us quite understood, Phoebe Burton, a Brit girl who was a bit overbearing; and Melinda (Lyndi) Warburton who fostered my interest in both goth rock and show-tunes. Like I said, an odd time for me. But whose middle school years weren't awkward? Are you allowed to go to high school without first donning a full VS sweatsuit and teal eyeshadow? ---- Despite my awkwardness, I managed to grow up a little. I slow danced for the first time with Brandon Eckles (who was hot then and is hot now). I had my first kiss and my first experience being on the other side of bullying but both were petty in hindsight. I learned the difference between real friends and fake friends and how moving across the country in the middle of the eighth grade can be the best and worst thing that ever happens to you. 

[adblondie13]

[adblondie13]

1.2 Bronze Age

Post divorce, I spent my early childhood at the Little Rock Montessori School before moving to Texas. At Montessori, from pre-k 3 to kindergarten, my best friends were Skyanne and Mallory and a blonde girl whose name eludes me. But Skyanne was number one in my book, we coordinated our outfits to the fullest extent of our uniform (jumper v. skirt and navy polo v. white polo). We hung out all the time; completely inseparable. Ashamedly, we were also the bullies on the playground. With our posse, we showed no mercy in the preschool art of pantsing and teasing and cheating in four square. Back then, Queen B ruled with an iron fist and the principal was familiar with her name. One incident in particular got me in such big trouble with my mom that the backlash caused a major shift in my demeanor as I graduated from Montessori and moved to public school. ---- My one year at Pine Forest Elementary is encapsulated entirely by the face of my first grade teacher Mrs. Brown who coined my longtime nickname "Becca Love". I can't tell you a thing about first grade except the memory of the twin towers aflame and collapsing on the television screen while the class sat on the ABC reading carpet. ---- Right after that year, my mom got a promotion that moved us to Flint, Texas (literally three streets and a gas station). Here I took a 45 minute bus ride to Owen Elementary which i don't remember at all. What I do remember of living in Flint is the street we lived on and the baptists who lived next door on our left. Their oldest son was the object of my first crush. I even went so far as to attend service with them to get closer to him. The next door neighbor on our left was Suzi Stein, a 30- or 40-some year old woman with a fluffy white car who became my mom's best friend and was heavily offended when, at 7 years old, I told her Santa Claus wasn't real. Next door to her was the only black family in the neighborhood. They had a very dramatic daughter and a very chilled out son. I took to hanging out with the latter even when he said he was too old to play toilet tag with the rest of us. Across from us was a young couple with babies for kids whom I only remember because the Mrs. made the best corn bake I've ever had. To their left lived Brianna, a girl with a trampoline in her backyard and lots of Chef Boyardee in her pantry; we were very good friends, naturally. Next to her was Connor Coonfare. Connor and I went to the YMCA together and we bonded over Pokemon cards and Harry Potter books and Power Rangers episodes. He was probably one of the coolest friends I've ever had. And if there's anyone I'd want to get in touch with from those ancient times, it'd certainly be him. ---- There was also a girl named Monet who requires a novel to describe but that was basically life until Rhode Island.

[adblondie13]

1.1 Stone Age

When I was born in 1996, Clinton's Whitewater buddies had just been convicted of fraud while OJ was discussing his "not guilty" verdict on talk shows; the Trappist Martyrs of Atlas were executed, "mad cow" disease was terrorizing the UK, Resolution 986 and the Chechnya Peace Treaty were both signed; no one was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame but Red Sox pitcher Roger Clemens got his 200th win after beating the Yankees; Space Shuttle STS 77 had just landed from its orbit, the FBI was investigating the Unabomber, also Alicia Machado of Venezuela was crowned the 45th Miss Universe; Steelers had lost the Super Bowl, Guatemala was beginning to recover from 35 years of civil war, and 'Twister' was showing in the theaters. But to Yvonne and Joseph Parker all that mattered was the birth of their daughter, Rebecca. ---- I was brought into the world on June 1st and taken home the next day to a small house in Rochester, Minnesota. My father was a marine in med school and my mother was more or less a social worker with a psych degree. Like a lot of doctors, my dad didn't manage money very well which was the source of just some of the problems my parents had in their marriage (to their credit though they held it together until I was two). As a baby, I accompanied them on their makeshift honeymoon to Australia and on the move from Minnesota to Arkansas after my dad graduated from the Mayo Medical School. Once in Little Rock, their marriage disintegrated pretty quickly. I was too young to recall it but my older sister was unfortunate enough to be in high school at the time and has since hinted that it was not a good era for her. ---- My dad wasn't around much after the divorce but it wasn't to his fault so I try not to hold it against him. My mom became a saleswoman with an elevator company that would later screw her over and stepped back into the dating scene (all while caring for infant me and her teenage stepdaughter). ---- She met Arkansas native Jim Phillips and he soon became a father figure to me... with a few bumps in the road here and there. The big bump came in the form of my little brother. Jim and my mom got married and have spent the last near fourteen years together happy as husband and wife. And that bump has become my best friend. I don't hate him like most siblings and have no reserve to tell him anything. My older siblings are a bit more distant but I love them and both have been a positive influence on my life: my brother's always seemed so responsible and my sister so strong. I've admired them all my life but despite having three siblings, I've been raised basically as an only child and I'd say I've been raised pretty well. Maybe, I shouldn't be the judge of that though.