Discover Top Posts Tagged with #7of8

Emily (again)

We are once again brought back to my sister, Emily. This time however, we are both no longer children, but young adults. Long story short, Emily went on a trip all around Europe and brought me back a gift. She gave me a beautiful leather-bound journal. At this point, any creative writing I did was on my laptop because it was much faster than hand writing, so when she gave it to me I wasn’t exactly sure if I would use it or just end up keeping it as a pretty decoration on my bookshelf.

I think an important fact to know about me is that I often come up with random thoughts and ideas about everything under the sun. Examples of these ideas would be a plot idea, invention ideas, a concept for a store I would like to open, the best way to rule a country, etc. I often wouldn’t have anywhere solid to put these ideas, so I would write them down on sticky notes or random notebooks, and they would more than likely get lost or thrown away. One day I was just looking at the journal, and I got the idea to make it an idea journal.

After I officially decided that, I made up just one simple rule for myself. I had to think it was a really good thought or idea for it to be put down in the journal because I didn’t want it filled up with nonsense. But, me being me, thought every thought and idea was a good one. I quickly filled that first journal up, and now I have multiple ones full of my random thoughts and ideas. I often refer back to these journals if I need inspiration for a creative writing project I’m working on, or if I just want to see what I was thinking at the time. I continue this tradition of writing down the worthy thoughts of my mind, and soon I will have filled up my 4th journal.

#fyw03 #7of8

Social Media in Middle/High School

In my previous post I talked about how in eighth grade I began to really enjoy reading and how it was fun for me. After that year, reading never felt fun again. Let's go back to when I first started middle school in sixth grade. At this time, social media was just beginning to become a thing. Most people in my grade had a Facebook and most people were obsessed with it, like me. I remember in sixth grade coming home from school and going straight on my iPod and scrolling through Facebook. I’m pretty sure I got my first iPod in sixth grade so I was obsessed. I loved going through Facebook, downloading a bunch of games and playing those, and also listening to music. I would usually do all of this before I would even start my homework. This was where reading in my free time would be lower and lower up until my eighth grade year. I was very obsessed with all the new technology and social media and would rather go on that than read a book. All of that changed when I was in eighth grade and loved reading again but once I got to high school, the love of reading I developed went away.

High school was a big adjustment for me. I was super nervous and had no idea what to expect. I began to be very busy and did not have a lot of free time. In high school, I was a three sport athlete, was apart of student council, and also participated in band. My schedule consisted of going to school, going to practice, coming home and doing homework, and then going to bed. After all that, I never wanted to read a book, I just wanted to go on my phone. In high school, I was forced to read a lot of books I was not interested in and after all that I did not find the fun in reading more. After practice and doing all my homework, I just wanted to sit and watch YouTube or listen to music. As I got older, reading began to be homework and after reading for school I did not want to read anymore. Social media consumed most of my life in high school and still does today. Now that I’m in college, reading in my free time is definitely something I don’t wanna do. Most of college is about reading and after reading what I need to for school, I just wanna relax and go on phone. This is a big deal in my generation and generations younger than me, technology and social media is taking over our lives and causing us to read less and less.