Lauren's Blog

one step closer!

laurenagray — Sun, 23 May 2010 16:03:04 +0000

Overall, I would say that this year was pretty good, can’t complain. To highlight, I think the best thing that happened was either getting in the right state of mind or meeting the people I’ve met or the good times I’ve had and not getting into that much trouble. On the downside, the worst thing that happened was definitely when I got involved into the wrong people/things and the unecessary drama. I’ve learned a lot this year, but the most important thing I learned was I can really achieve my goals once I get in the right state of mind, which I learned from this experience: when i set the goal for myself to stop slacking and start caring about my grades, and i really did step up. I learned to not dwell on the past and don’t complain. For instance, I never got any sleep and i was always cranky and it used to make me so mad when people woke me up. But now I’ve gotten used to it and whenever I think about it I just think ” I’ll rest when I die.” and believe it or not it helps. Besides that as it comes to the end of the year I think i have senior-itis already and I’m just really overdid, I don’t even know what day it is anymore. I just really can’t wait until that bell rings on wednesday. So moving on, next school year I hope they don’t put my classes in a box like they did this year and I hope I really achieve the goals I already set for myself. Last but not least, I just want to say it was a good run while it lasted and we’re just one step closer to 2012

“jimmy!”

laurenagray — Thu, 06 May 2010 21:11:05 +0000

On April 24, an airman fell 300 feet off a cliff into Bruneau Canyon and survived. People were searching for him all night and they found him and he is just getting out the hospital. Him and his friend were sight seeing and a loose rock made him fall over the edge. His friend ran ten miles to get help while he was sliding 300 feet. But in the end he was rescued by a helicopter because he waved his cell phone so they could see him. On Easter, I had to wake up at aboout 5 something in the morning because my mom had discovered this thing on Stone Mountain where you go and have church on top of the mountain and watch the sun rise. So we went, but of course we were late so we didn’t get the full effect. But it was still pretty. So my mom, stepdad, and baby sister stayed on the bottom of the mountain and me, my sister, my cousin, and her daughter went to the top. We were up there for a couple of minutes and all of a sudden there’s this little boy leaning on the gate shaking it and all. His family and no one else were paying any attention to him. Me and my cousin were the only one’s who saw him so I’m sitting there all scared and I didn’t want to run up to him and save his life because you know, he might’ve got scared and slipped and fell. So my cousin started yelling “jimmy!’ because he looked liked a Jimmy. I was all frantic and scared that he was going to fall off the mountain to his death and here I am about to go save a life, my cousin yelling at him, when his family fiunally saw him and they were yelling and running ”William! Get off the gate!” Boy oh boy I’m glad little William didn’t fall to his death right in front of my eyes.

bucket list!

laurenagray — Tue, 04 May 2010 18:06:07 +0000

There are a lot of things i want to do before i die, or turn 35. Well i want to do something outrageous like some rare type of sky diving or snorkling. i want to swim with dolphins and go to a clear ocean where i can see the fish at the bottom. I want to go on a cruise out of the country somewhere. I want to visit California and go to Disney World. I want to go to an art museum and look at some real artwork. I want to get my license and get a car like a Yugo or a Chevy Cabrolet that’s some bright color just to be different. I want to get a good job. By the time i hit 35 i hope i have done something successful with my life. I hope I’d went to college and found something to major in. I hope that me and my cousin had fulfilled our childhood dreams and went to college with each other and moved in together and lived it up like the way we planned it. i hope we’d got out of Georgia and moved somewhere else. She and the rest of my family is something that I’ve already said bye-bye to. When my mom moved us from Detroit to Georgia it was a true tragedy. I don’t think anyone has ever gotten over it. The other day on Spring Break when it was raining and I was stuck in the house me and all my cousins had like a 2 hour conference on the phone and every other minute it was “when ya’ll moving back?” or “remember when you used to live around the corner?” But I know it was for the best that we moved to Georgia.

this is difficult!

laurenagray — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 23:17:44 +0000

How to. . . take a good picture. Anbody can take a good picture on any type of cheap camera but if you want it to be special and really mind- blowing it takes a careful person. In my photography class i learned 10 tips on how to take a good picture.

1. Get down on their level

2. Use a plain background

3. use flash outdoors

4. move in close

5. take some vertical pictures

6. lock the focus

7. move it from the middle

8. know your flash’s range

9. Watch the light

10. be a picture director (if there are a bunch of people you’re taking a picture of)

I also learned to use the principles of art, like gradation, emphasis, balance, etc.. and the elements of art like line, form, shape, etc.. It’s more than the technical stuff of the matter too. If you really want to take a good picture you have to go outside the box, get creative. You have to look at something in a way people wouldn’t normally see it. For example, someone could just be walking just like anybody else, to make it good, get the shot from the floor or something. Then, once you find your subject matter, then you get technical.

-gee, a teacher of mine sure did miss out on some gooood pictures.

quite embarrassing.

laurenagray — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 22:25:28 +0000

summer 08, i learned how to shoplift. Me and my friends used to go “shopping”, i had never did it before but they used to but I don’t want to blame it on peer pressure because I did it because I wanted to. so I used to go to stores and steal stuff like it was no big deal. when school started a week before my birthday in august, we stayed after school for a student council meeting. we were going to go ”shopping” at Kmart after the meeting was over. kmart of all places, that’s why this is so embarrassing. So we got there and we couldn’t stuff the things in our bags in the dressing rooms because there was an associate there and we didn’t know we were being watched in the aisles but we’re not stupid we knew to take the tags off but when we went to walk out the door some man made the buzzard go off voluntarily. i knew we were caught, my heart kinda sank a little bit. a man waiting for us told us all to go to the back room and we followed him. he asked us to empty our bags and a lot of stuff came pouring out. he said something that stuck with me though even though he was rude he said that it was better that we got caught now because what would we have been doing by the time we were 21 and he was right. then i had to call my mom and the whole shabang, and she was dissapointed but she didn’t really speak on it too much, my dad did. in the end, we thought we were just getting off with a slap on the wrist and just being banned from kmart, but a couple of weeks later we all got a letter in the mail saying we had to pay a $150 fine. that didn’t go over well at all. so the moral of the story is that it wasn’t worth it and i had to learn that the hard way. and i got nothing for my birthday that year.

hmmm. .

laurenagray — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 22:23:03 +0000

What am I good at? I don’t know. I think I’m good at cooking, well a little bit, i’m too lazy for it. I think I’m good at figuring things out and putting them together, like a TV or stereo or something. I think I’m good at taking care of people like my baby sister or my grandmother. I might be good at a lot of things. But, what I know about is taking pictures. I love photography, I just love it. I can’t and don’t want to see myself doing anything else in life. I’m not the best at it I hope to be, very soon. I’m still learning. I remember when i got my first camera back when i was 12. I was ecstatic. My granny gave me this really old camera, those are the best ones. But it didn’t work right so she sent me some money so i could buy a new digital camera. When i got that camera I was like a kid in the candy store. I don’t know what it is that drives me to photography. It’s like I have a diiferent set of eyes to the world. That’s why I like to draw too. I always look at the smallest detail of things and think i wonder if people ever notice that i wanna take a picture of it. But, I am also lazy and that’s something I need to work on because my new camera is kinda huge and I don’t like carrying it around so I never get to take pictures of those small details.

those friends

laurenagray — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 18:04:42 +0000

Friendship to me is very important. Where would you be without friends in life? A lonely old lady with 17 cats that’s where. In my life, I ‘ve had a lot of different friends because I’ve moved around many times. In fact, this is the longest I’ve ever stayed in one place. I remember all my best friends from my first one, her name was Jessica, to my current ones. From all my experiences with these many types of friends I know that everyone isn’t always your friend. Some people can be fake towards you and some people aren’t just worth your time. But for the most part they were just friends not BEST friends. Well except one, when I moved to the suburbs in Michigan in the third grade I met this group of kids and we all became close. The one I was closest to was just so fake, I got into my first fight with that girl. I remember that day like it was yesterday. So the qualities that I look for in friends are some that are real, loyal, and that don’t start petty arguements over stupid things. That happens to me a lot too, even with my current best friends. But I have flaws too, I really don’t talk to my friends about my business like friends are supposed to. I don’t even talk to my sister about that stuff. I don’t like being judged so i won’t let my guard down right from the jump. I mean, I won’t judge anyone most likely NEVER so why judge me.

the comment

laurenagray — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 18:02:15 +0000

i commented on Erika’s blog about the thing that affected her.

beware,

laurenagray — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 00:41:46 +0000

Well, I can’t think of nothing so beware of the randomness. I’ve just recently discoverd that I’m getting old and that I’ve been in Georgia too long. You see, my bestfriend’s birthday just passed, I can’t even call her my besfriend we’re more like family. I met her when I first moved to Georgia in the middle of 5th grade when we were just around 10 or 11 and now she’s turning 16. On her birthday, I was reminiscing about all the time we’ve had together and I realized that we have had a lot of memories together and I’ve only missed one birthday since we’ve known each other. If I ever move away I just might miss her the most.

My auntie, uncle, cousin, and her daughter just moved down here from Detroit this week. I’m really happy that they moved down here. Not just because they’re closer to me now but Detroit isn’t good for them anymore. Last year in October my cousin, they’re son/brother was killed and they’ve been going through a lot since then. So this move will help them get away from all that. They moved to my Dad’s neighborhood and I loove that neighborhood because it has 2 pools and free computers and a gym and a hockey court. I’m going to have fun over there this summer.

I went running today and I just realized that I’m really out of shape. I had planned on going to the track and being so good and I was destined to be on the softball team but that didn’t happen at all. I could’nt even run a whole lap without stopping. I need some work.

Texas, NO!

laurenagray — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 16:50:24 +0000

When I first moved to Georgia we moved to Bridle Point and since then we have had 3 houses in this neighborhood. My stepdad just recently told me that we’re moving again when our lease is up in May but we’re not going for the 4th house in here. He said that him and my mom wanted to move to Texas. When he told me that I went bizerk. I can’t move to Texas! I was yelling about getting emancipated and everything. When I imagine Texas I just see the sun blazing all day, mosquitoes buzzing around at night and everyone sitting under a fan all day everyday. I see everyone walking around with they’re deep country accents eating okra and country like food all the time. I’ve never been to Texas so I don’t know what it’s really like this is just how I portray it in my head. Me personally, I don’t like the south. I already think Georgia is too hot. Alabama is even worse so for me to go someplace hotter and countrier, I’m just going to go insane. I don’t really like country food either, I like stuff like chili dogs and fries and white castle, if I could choose where we got to move to, I would get out the south. We don’t even have to move back to Detroit (which was my first choice) just as long as we got out the south. So that’s why I suggested California. When I picture California, I see perfect weather all year-round. All types of different people and food, and everyone happy all the time. My mom was all for it but she just has to convince my stepdad because he’s a country man.