Condom Hairbands

http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/hairband.asp

Grandma sent me this, it is pretty much one of the weirdest articles I've seen.

Entertainment Budget

So, having taken personal finance (twice, ha! big surprise I failed it the first time) (but I got an A the second time, whoo hoo!) I know that I should have a budget and that part of that budget can be for entertainment. I haven't completely settled my budget yet because my hours and pay are not consistent each month, but lately I've been wanting to spend all this money on entertainment. Like magazines, Netflix, DVR, DVDs, concerts, theme parks... I've never noticed me doing that before til now. I have a subscription to two magazines, Harper's Bazaar and Teen Vogue and I will often buy Cosmopolitan. Harper's Bazaar is my favorite magazine (the best fashion magazine there is!) and I typically hate Cosmo and Teen Vogue. To be honest, I only got the Teen Vogue subscription for a free poster of the Harry Potter cast that came with it, that is now framed in my room! So when that subscription runs out I will not be renewing it. Cosmo, I don't respect as a magazine at ALL, but I do get dragged into reading it anyway, so I feel like I should subscribe to it because it is usually about %75 cheaper to subscribe to a magazine than to buy it off the shelves. Then, as I was looking into getting a subscription for Cosmo (for only $15, that is the price of 3 magazines, and your getting 12 I was offered to subscribe to Marie Clare and Harper's Bazaar for only $5 each! So, the deal is that I get the first issue of each of those 3 magazines for free, and if i don't want to continue the subscription, I cancel it with no harm done. Or, I pay the $25 in all and now have 3 magazine subscriptions, which can also serve as research and educational material considering I would like work for such magazines someday!
Then, there is the movie/ DVR/ Netflix situation. I used to but DVDs all the time, none more than $15 (unless they were new release must-haves!) but I've stopped doing that because it got expensive and I have Netflix, which I pay $9.95 a month to use. I get one DVD shipped to me at a time and have no late fees. I can trade for another movie as many times as I want to. I have almost 200 movies in my queue and there are quite a few benefits to it. I don't have late fees, they ship back and forth usually next day, they have literally every movie ever, movies you'd never see in stores, and some movies you can watch online instantly from your computer. Now, I have my cable and Internet to pay for too through Brighthouse Cable, and it's actually not too expensive, because my apartment complex pays for basic cable, so I pay the little difference for digital cable, with the guide and on demand movies (they don't have on demand TV shows like Comcast though) so now I would like to watch all these TV shows that are playing; House, The Office, Project Runway, Ellen, Conan... shows I normally am not home to see and when I am home there is nothing on! It's only a $10 upgrade to get the DVR added, but don't know if that's pushing it, when I already have Netflix, and magazine subscriptions, and randomly buy new movies and books.
On top of all that, VERY rarely I will pay to see a concert or go into Disney for they're parties (like Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party) which can be pricey but I don't do very often. And I've really cut back on going to the movies.
Maybe I should just win the lottery and be able to have everything!

Short Story

This is the short story I turned in today in my creative writing class. I've never written fiction before and I really appreciate all of your advice! It was very helpful and i certainly went with something I know. This is still a rough draft, our professor will grade them and next week we will get them back with his notes and we will have the rest of the semester to finalize the story. Here it is:

Note:

The names I used were of people that I know or have known but they are not necessarily based on those people!

Innocence
By Megan VanWaus

As Alyssa swept the last bit of pink powder over her ivory complexion, she glanced down quickly at the digital clock on the screen of her cell phone and let out a sigh of relief. This would be her last meet and greet of the day.
Alyssa continued to apply her lipstick in the small, humid greenroom where she also got changed into the top half of her costume, and had her half hour breaks each hour. It was located between the back of the Grotto and a restaurant for guests, which she could never remember the name of, something to do with Pinocchio. There was a blue couch which desperately needed cleaning, a small round table pushed up against the only window in the room, an average sized television that only picked up eight channels with a VCR hooked up to it and a small refrigerator packed with the various people’s lunches, who also used that break room. The entire space was also covered in pictures of the girls on set, coloring book pages taped to the wall with crayon-written messages from children given to their favorite princess, and various stickers and posters of the character that reigned over that particular greenroom.
She had been told by her attendant earlier that this last set was a “special” meet and greet, but that was all she knew. Usually that meant that it was a Give Kids the World child, a tour group or the attendant had pissed someone off and the manager compensated with a “special” meet and greet. Either way, she had done a hundred of each type and was just ready for it to be over.
With her bejeweled purple shell-bra securely fastened and her short brown hair tightly hidden under a long red wig with a starfish clipped to the side, Alyssa headed out to the Grotto.
She first knocked and alerted the attendant that she was stepping out.
“You’re fine sweetie, she’s all clear,” replied her attendant, Albert. Alyssa was fond of Albert in the way she was fond of her uncle Ted, she knew him to be a bit creep but well intentioned all the same.
She continued out onto the set and sat down on the fake purple rock that was meant to look like a coral reef at the bottom of the sea. The walls were a mossy blue, and the room was the size of a typical living room, but scarce of any furniture, aside from her under-the-sea inspired chair. The ground was a mixture purple and green and made of the rubber material that playgrounds are sometimes floored with, making the floor feel squishy and bouncy under your feet. The set was meant to seem as if you were in the ocean, and Alyssa supposed this was as good as it was going to get without making guests jump into a swimming pool.
After she pulled her long, shiny green fin over her short, slender legs, she fidgeted with her wig and made sure her stomach wasn’t sticking out too much.
The Grotto was fairly new, but she had always thought that had this place been here when she was a little girl she would have been in heaven. Her favorite place in the whole world had always been Disney, and she loved the princesses most of all. They seemed like real-life royalty to her. She would dress up everyday in her mother’s longest dresses and scarves she had bought Alyssa at consignment stores and pretend to be a princess in distress, waiting for her prince to come.
Now that she worked at the place where dreams came true, much of the magic had been lost, the illusion unveiled. She knew now that behind Mickey Mouse’s familiar and loving face was often a very short girl getting paid practically minimum wage to sweat her ass off in a mouse costume. She knew that the castle, which seemed like the biggest, most amazing thing in the entire world to her as a child, held not one brick, but consisted of steel covered with fiberglass, secured to a concrete foundation, and designed specifically to appear much taller than it actually was (a typical staging trick). She also knew that the next child to come visit her would think she was Ariel, the little mermaid, a real live princess, when in fact she was just one of many Ariels, none of which looked alike.
“They should be arriving any minute now,” said Albert, checking his watch. He pulled out a piece of paper and seemed to be going over its contents, as if to remind him where he was and why he was there.
“Good, I’m ready to get this over with and go home! Is that whose coming?” Alyssa asked, pointing to the piece of paper Albert was reviewing. When there were details to be known about a “special” meet and greet, it usually meant the guest was a big deal. “Is it a celebrity?” Alyssa added hopefully.
“Not today. Make-a-wish kid,” Albert replied and proceeded to read the information to her the way one would read a grocery list.
“Melanie. 9 years old. She’s had Leukemia for 3 years and has stopped responding to treatment. The family’s here because her last wish was to come to Disney World and Ariel is her favorite. Doctors told her she’s got about two more weeks left.”
This shocked Alyssa. She had seen tons of sick kids at work before, but she never really knew their history or how long they had left to live. Usually a family with a very ill child would get a pass to cut the line for rides and to see characters, but the process of the meet and greet was still the same; you ask their name, say something like “your hair is so lovely! I did mine with a dingle-hopper today” or “say bubbles,” sign their autograph books, pose for the picture and tell them you hope to see them under the sea again soon! The subject of their lifespan was not something that was ever discussed.
Alyssa suddenly felt very uncomfortable about meeting the family. She wondered what would happen if her family brought it up in front of her, or worse, Melanie herself mentioned it. What would she say back to her? What if Melanie got sick or fainted right in front of her? Alyssa was sure she couldn’t handle that, and had no idea what she’d do if such an awful event occurred right in front of her.
“Roberts family? Welcome to Ariel’s Grotto!” Albert’s greeting to the family snapped Alyssa out of her fear. She quickly concluded that she was an actress, a professional, and she would just have to act and react the way Ariel would in whatever situation confronted her. She was, after all, the little mermaid to this little girl.
“Hi,” said the little girl with the biggest smile she’d ever seen and a collection of teeth that was typical of a second grader with larger jagged projections forcing themselves into the company of tiny baby teeth. She may have been nine years old but she looked to be the size of a six year old and a ninety-six year old at the same time. She was pale, thin and fragile sitting in a wheelchair that could fit a two hundred pound man. Her shoes, jeans and shirt all looked too big for her, as if she were wearing her own hand-me-downs from a time when she rightfully fit into young girl’s clothes.
“Hello, Melanie! I’m so happy to meet you! Scuttle has told me so much about you,” replied Ariel, in her upbeat, songlike tone, which is similar to the way most people talk to dogs or babies, but without the shortening and simplifying of words.
As she spoke to Melanie, she noticed most of all two distinct aspects of the little girl’s appearance; her perfect blue eyes set in dark and tired lids, like the shrinking patch of clear sky as a storm rolls in. The other was her hat. She recognized that hat. She remembered that hat. That was the very same hat that a girl she went to middle school had worn every single day; an awful, pumpkin-orange bucket hat, practically identical to hers. The girl’s name was Eleanor Carrigan and she sat right in front of Alyssa in almost every class. Eleanor was not part of the “cool” group, as Alyssa was. In fact, she wasn’t really part of any group, and as Alyssa reflected on her memory of Eleanor, she realized that she never noticed Eleanor ever having a friend around. She was always by herself; ate lunch by herself, walked through the halls by herself, did her work by herself, but that wasn’t why she remembered Eleanor so well after several years. She remembered Eleanor Carrigan because of her hat.
Alyssa and her friends would make fun of Eleanor and her hat. It was not in style and made Eleanor seem even weirder than they had already perceived her. Eleanor did not fit in, they had decided, and her hat made her stand out even more. She was a sitting duck in the social war that was the seventh grade, and Alyssa held the gun.
Once, to impress her friends, Alyssa taped a piece of paper that read, “If found please return this ugly hat to good will” to the back of Eleanor’s orange hat. Her teacher noticed her reaching towards Eleanor, mid-act, and asked her what she was doing. Eleanor never turned around so Alyssa just excused herself for dropping her pencil on the floor. While she got away with the prank, she knew Eleanor would later find the piece of paper stuck to her cherished hat and know it had been Alyssa who had put it there to embarrass her. She wondered if Eleanor would tell her teacher what she had done, but Alyssa never got in trouble for it, and everyone caught on to the prank, calling her names like “Elea-poor” and “suck-it bucket.”
As Alyssa stared at this weak, ill-fated little girl with her orange bucket hat covering her now hairless scalp, she thought of how incredibly stupid and malicious kids are, and how cruel she had been to Eleanor. She had never done anything to Alyssa, if she even ever spoke to her at all, and certainly didn’t deserve the abuse Alyssa had put her through, much like this fragile little girl sitting in front of her did not deserve the pain and suffering she was going through.
She continued to stare into Melanie’s eyes and realized she had seen those eyes before as well. Eleanor’s eyes always had that same look, like she knew she was there, existing and living, but she wasn’t sure why or how.
“It’s nice to meet you, too,” said Melanie, timidly.
Alyssa noticed that she was a bit shy by the way she fidgeted with her hands and kept tucked into the corner of her wheelchair, but her serrated yet gleaming smile allowed Alyssa to continue her conversation.
“Have you had a good day so far?” asked Ariel.
“Yeah, it’s been good,” replied Melanie.
“Well, I would love for you to come sit by me if you’d like and tell me all about it!”
“Mom, can I?” whispered Melanie to her mother who was standing right by her the entire time. “I’ll be careful, I promise.”
“Sure sweetie, but let me help you and you let us know if you’re not feeling well or you can’t make it, okay,” said her mother. She then, with the assistance of a tall, middle-aged man Alyssa assumed to be her husband, helped her nine year old daughter stand up, step away from her wheelchair, and gradually walk to the “coral” chair where Ariel waited to be joined by her guest. When she reached the seat, her father lifted her with the care of a father holding his newborn daughter for the very first time, fearful he might break something but knowing he’d protect her from anything that would hurt her.
As Alyssa noticed the concern Melanie’s parents had for their daughter, she become conscious to the fact that they treasured these few moments with Ariel just as much as Melanie did, but for reasons very different from Melanie’s.
“There, now you can tell me all about your day!” said Ariel, once Melanie was situated beside her. “Did you go on any rides?”
“Yeah, we got to ride a lot of them,” said Melanie.
“Oh, that’s so exciting, which one was your favorite?”
“I really liked Peter Pans Flight, only I was afraid I might drop my hat when we flew over the crocodile!”
“Oh no! Well I’m certainly glad tick-tock didn’t get it, it’s a very nice hat!”
“Would you sign it?”
“Oh of course!”
Melanie then removed her hat that had served as more than just an unfortunate fashion choice. It was as revealing as Alyssa removing her wig to expose a hidden truth. Melanie had lost all of her hair and used that hat to protect herself. Alyssa knew she was protecting herself from the stares of people, the comments, the whispering. She was protecting herself from the fact that she was not like most other nine year olds and she would give anything to be treated like every other healthy, average nine year old. Melanie was treated special, and while she appreciated it, all she wanted was to fit in.
Alyssa took Melanie’s hat and the marker and signed “Ariel,” complete with the usual curvy font and bubbles surrounding the name.
“I wish I had hair like yours,” said Melanie. “I used to have long blonde hair, all the way down to here.” She laid her flat hand, perpendicular to her body, just below her collarbone.
“Wow that’s really long!”
“Yeah, it was.”
“I think your beautiful, and I’m so happy we’re friends now,” said Ariel decidedly. Alyssa had chosen her words very carefully and delivered them with pure honesty.
A flash of light erupted as Alyssa held Melanie’s delicate hands and the two looked at each other, a moment filled with polarized emotions, captured forever.
…
Two months later, Alyssa is sweeping the last bit of pink powder over her ivory complexion, she glancing down at a new picture taped to the mirror that she used to transform herself each day into a little mermaid. It was a photo of her and a little girl in an orange hat becoming friends. It was filled with grief, love, sympathy, guilt and honesty. On the back of the picture was a message in magic marker with a little girl’s handwriting, thanking Ariel for her visit and wishing her well. Underneath Melanie’s crooked signature was another message, this time in black pen and perfect penmanship:
“Dear Ariel,
Thank you so very much for meeting with my daughter just a few months ago. Ariel has always been her favorite princess and it was truly a dream come true for her. She really believed she had made a friend with the little mermaid that day, and I know it brought her immense joy in her last days. Melanie lost her battle with leukemia just nine days after that meeting with you, and I just needed to let you know how much you touched our daughter, and how much it meant to her father and me to see Melanie with a smile and a friend.
Thank you and god bless,
The Roberts”
Ever since that day, the castle seemed to be grand and mysterious again, Mickey was more alive than ever, and Ariel was a real mermaid. The magic existed once again.

UCF

OK I have to write a ten page short story for my creative writing class by the end of September and I have NO IDEA what or how to write it.

Any ideas?

Short stories always seem almost boring, until you realize it has some underlying message, I feel. I've never written like this before, I've always written news, or at least "nonfiction."

I also have to take the Grammar Proficiency Test on Tuesday. It's a test you have to take (and pass) as part of the requirements to get into the Journalism program at UCF. Right now I'm just Journalism Pending with an English Writing minor. So, I bought an English Grammar Workbook for Dummies to prepare for it and make sure I pass it, because if I don't get at least at 75% I have to take some remedial grammar class for an entire semester, which would also postpone my acceptance into the school.

School is going great though! I love UCF! I love my classes! I'm taking Journalism Ethics, Communications Law and Creative Writing for English Majors and Minors (part of the reason I declared my minor so soon). When you're a Journalism major you actually have to declare a minor that is outside of the School of Communication. I thought about Political Science or Computer Science but both were a bit more complicated than I intended when I looked into them more, and English Writing is general and related to what I want to do.
So, I will be applying for the Journalism program by October 1st in order to begin in the Spring. If I don't get in, I can reapply but I would only have my minor classes to take, because I'm already taking all of the journalism classes that a journalism pending student can take.

I am also going to go to a Central Florida Future meeting on Monday.
http://www.centralfloridafuture.com/home/generalinformation/
The Central Florida Future is the UCF newspaper, but it isn't produced on campus, it's actually run by an outside company. If I submit enough stories as a contributor, they will add me on as staff and then I'd get paid for my stories! I also joined a group called the Society of Professional Journalists. It's a national, or maybe international, organization and I think this is just a student chapter type of thing. They didn't say much at the first meeting, but there are a few workshops you can go to when you're a member and most of all there's a big internship/job fair just for students in the organization of tons of magazines and newspapers and other publications around Orlando and Florida that are there to hire us!

:-)

A Happy Delivery!

When I stepped outside tonight to walk Abbey, there was a square package under my rug, which was weird because the package could have fit a pair of shoes in it. I hadn't ordered anything and wasn't expecting a delivery, so I was a bit curious.

I opened it up after our walk and it is by far the best delivery I've ever gotten!

It reads:

Megan,

It is hard for me to believe

that in just a little while

Danny and I will be

walking down the aisle.

And nothing would give

me more joy and pride

than to have you

right there by my side.

Will you be my Bridesmaid?

I started to tear up when I read it! I love Megan and Danny so much (Megan is my best friend Carly's older sister. She is why Carly and I are friends, and she's like the big sister I never had! Danny has been her boyfriend for years. They went to high school together and then to Florida State University, where they started dating. They have both graduated now and are living in Washington D.C. and just got engaged on August 8, 2008), I'm so happy for them and so excited to see them get married, and I don't think they realize how much it means to me to be a bridesmaid for Megan. I've never been a bridesmaid before, but I have always wanted to, and since I don't have any siblings, I've always known the chances to be one were slim. I can't wait to be there for her, to see her gown, and what dresses we will wear, and to find out when the date will be and where it will be at. I'm so happy for them!!!

Where Danny proposed to Megan!

PARADES by Megan VanWaus

Here's the link to my newest article for the Walt Disney World with Disabilities book and website.

http://www.diz-abled.com/Disney-Resources/Articles/Disney-PARADES.htm