Hey, everybody!!

--Big news, everybody!

So, I realized I kind-of just jumped off the face of the planet & left you all hangin'. I swear, that was not my intention whatsoever! I got so wrapped up in my college courses & forensics that I ended up dropping everything else like a hot potato. I ended up going to nationals in persuasion, informative, & communication analysis; so my hard work ended up paying off, but you guys suffered for it. I will be picking up where I left off. I've planned the ending of Torn in Two for a long time; there is no way I'm leaving it unfinished! I'll post something soon, but just as a warning, if the story is not finished this summer, I may have to wait until summer starts again to pick it back up. Everyone has been so wonderful & I appreciate the support.

Just so you know I'm serious, my due date for the next chapter is: May 26th

Instead of a basic question & answer bio, I thought it might be fun to post a short memoir that I wrote for an assignment in my first (& probably last) English class in college. We were supposed to write about a certain time in our lives, so I chose when my family moved. It's called "Life Part Two: A Happy Ending." Corny? Yes, but I really didn't give the title much thought at all.

By the way, I'll be posting my "Torn in Two" story a little slower now that I'm back in college. I am in forensics (which is competitive speech), so I have to spend a lot of time researching & writing speeches. Throw that on top of being a double major in Communication and Politics and Government, a First Year Seminar Mentor, and a Collaborative Learning Center Mentor, and I'm a busy girl! That's not going to stop me from finishing my story, though! I'll try to post something about every week. The chapters just might be shorter than others. As far as the Koga story goes, I might consider picking it up again after "Torn in Two" is finished.

No one seemed to care when I told my classmates I was moving. Then again, I'm so socially ignorant that my classmates could have been crying in the corners of their rooms in Foley while I just stood there in Sauk Rapids in a dead, brown yard smaller than our last living room. Before our new lot became our yard, the grass was vibrant with small flowers and a white picket fence. By the time we moved in, everything was dead and the fence was uprooted and missing. Even inside the house, floorboards and furnishings had been unscrewed and whisked away as if the previous owners had told the Chinese a vital US secret and ran away covering their tracks. I stood there looking at the sad clump of dirt that was supposed to be our yard while Mom, my sister, and her boyfriend moved our stuff into the house. It was a couple months before school started and I was just entering fifth grade. We had moved from a town with a population of about 200 people with yards and farms so big you could scream and no one would hear you. Now I was in a town of about 13,000 people and 189,000 more in a city just across the Mississippi River with lots so small it was a wonder to me how kids didn't get run over by a car every week when they played outside, which is probably why they didn't. I lived only a couple blocks away from the schools yet not a single person was outside besides my own family dragging things into the house. It all seemed so pointless to me. Why live somewhere you can't even run outside? What else is there to do? Play video games? I figured life here was going to be as dead and boring as the lawn.

To say I was surprised was an understatement. By the time school had started, Mom had already revived the grass and was getting it ready for the next growing season. School had been going surprisingly well. I had already made better friends my first day of school than anyone I had known in Foley for years. At my old school, new kids never fitted in well; I guess people were so used to knowing everyone that the idea of there being even more people out there with a whole new set of ideas was daunting. In contrast, it was surprising to me how different everybody was. Don't get me wrong; we were all as white as peeled potatoes, but my new classmates had a wider range of interests. Instead of the focus always being on football and wrestling, sports I never fully got into, kids were also interested in clogging and string instruments like the cello. I had never listened to a classical song before, let alone known what a cello was. My entire family, which I later learned was considered an extended family, had all been born and raised in Foley; sports and farming were all we knew. So when some organization came to our classroom with basses, cellos, violins, and violas I was confused. I sat in the back by the door, so I saw them right away coming through the door and setting up their instruments behind me, but our teacher just kept on talking about basic math concepts like nothing was going on. Whatever she was saying, I wasn't listening. I just kept watching the group mumble to each other while they were lining up the instruments. Eventually, our teacher acknowledged the group's presence.

"Now, class, these people here are going to show you some instruments. Pay attention."

Great explanation, I couldn't help but roll my eyes and sigh. Nonetheless, I turned towards the group and stared at the instruments in fascination. I had seen pictures of instruments with dark, glossy wood before but it seemed strange to me to see them in person. Yet at the same time, I had never seen anything quite as beautiful.

A woman with blond hair tied in a braided ponytail took a step towards us and said, "We just want to introduce you to a program we're doing this year." She looked at her group, and then quickly glanced at the instruments before continuing, "I guess the easiest way to go about this is to have some volunteers first."

It wasn't long before I had signed up for free year-long cello lessons. It had to be one of the most memorable aspects of the beginning of a happier life. It quickly became my life. The only part I regret is not being able to afford lessons after that year. I still have the same cello with each ribbon tied onto the tuning pegs that we got for learning a song. I have to pull the spike out all the way in order to still play it, and even then it's still a little short on me; after all, it was made for small children.

The streets of my new home in Sauk Rapids were still empty of people, but I noticed that the streets, nonetheless, had vitality in other ways. There was one particular woodpecker, either a downy or a hairy--I could never effectively distinguish between the two--which would always peck on our telephone pole every morning or afternoon, depending on his whimsy. We had a baby crabapple tree the previous owners had been kind enough to not try and take with them. The tree was so young that I could almost touch its branches standing up, despite my shortness, yet it always had an abundance of berries. It was that tree that finally convinced me that I had truly entered a better time in my life. One day when I was walking home from school, I heard an unusual amount of bird chirping. When I approached my house, I saw it; robins and a species of bird I had never seen before were feeding off of the crabapple tree. There had to be at least fifty in the tree at once with an even number of each, but that wasn't the amazing part. The amazing part was that after a few minutes, that group flew into a nearby adult tree while another came swooping down. They're taking turns. They're sharing, with each other. Two entirely different species are sharing and taking turns. I walked straight up to the tree and stood underneath them. They didn't even flinch. I was only about an arm's length away from what I later learned was a cedar waxwing. It was mesmerizing; its colors seemed to mold right into the next one. The tip of its tail was bright yellow and had a raccoon mask over its face. This particular one was still young, seeing as it had barely any fat to it. I had seen tons of animals like snakes and beavers in Foley, but nothing like this. I was so used to animals always being afraid and on their own it seemed strange to be this close. I stood there for five minutes before realizing I was in a good spot to be a bird toilet and splattered with dropped berries, so I moved over to the steps by my door and watched for another hour. It was during this time I reflected on everything that had happened that year. Everything was just better. Is there any other way to describe it? I had finally been exposed to a completely different world that just seemed so much more pleasant, despite the small yards.