Author: Brooke

Personal – Poem by Me

BrookeLeave a comment 
how personal is too personal for us?
i pour my heart, soul, and the entire
fiber of my being into you
and i'm not sure if i should regret it

you can't trust anyone but yourself
an old mantra of mine
the only person you can count on is yourself
another old mantra of mine

when i met you, these mantras were
forgotten

am i wrong to trust you?
am i wrong to count on you?

the answers are personal, and
yet to be determined

As always, I hope you enjoyed this piece. The idea of certain things and topics being “personal” was something I wanted to make one of my “deep questions” opinion-type posts, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet. And what’s more personal than sharing my poem about getting personal with someone new? 🙂 Please let me know if you have any feedback on this piece or writing challenges for me to try out in the future.

Brooke

Working On My Novel – Q&A

BrookeLeave a comment

Hello everyone!

If you read my post not too long ago about my latest writing projects, you might remember that I’ve started working on writing a novel during this quarantine. I thought this would make an interesting topic for a post and I could answer some questions that my friends and other people have been asking me about the process so far and what I’m planning to do with it in the future. If you’re interested in learning more about the book I’m working on, keep on reading!

Q: Why did you start writing this novel/what made you take on such a large project?

A: Honestly, a few reasons came together to convince me that this was the time to sit down and give my best attempt at writing a book. I’ve had a few book ideas, but the one that I ended up using had been sticking out to me for a while. I’d written the prologue and brainstormed some of the plot and characters, and I was waiting a time for when I’d actually sit down and write it. Additionally, quarantine’s given me a lot more free time to work on writing and projects like this, so I actually had the time to dive into it and get myself started. I’ve only been working on it for a couple weeks now, but I know that I wouldn’t have gotten this far if it wasn’t for quarantine. The thing that really sparked me sitting down and writing the first few pages was getting an email from NaNoWriMo that because of quarantine, they were making April another novel-writing month challenge. I started towards the end of April and definitely didn’t finish, but I still took that as a sign of sorts.

Q: What is your book about, and how did you get the idea?

A: Honestly, my book is about a lot of things. The main character, Lauren, is trying to find herself. At the beginning of the book, she doesn’t even know that she’s trying to find herself, but she is. In that way, it’s a very typical coming-of-age type book about teenagers growing up, but there’s a lot more than that going on in the plot. Lauren has been selected by the government to live on this island with 499 other people in her age range for a year, and it’s very mysterious as to what the actual purpose of this little social experiment is. I know it sounds kind of sci-fi, but it’s really not. I got the idea because as a high schooler who will be going off to college in a few years, I’m surrounded by people trying to figure out their lives and who they want to be. Some people determine this by just figuring it out in college, some people go into the workforce, some people take gap years- I wanted to explore this idea but with something else going on in the mix. I’m also a big fan of typical YA dystopias, so the island isolation thing was something I’d wanted to play with.

Q: How far are you in the writing process?

A: Not far at all. At the time of writing this post, I’m at about 20,000 words. I got the ball rolling with around 7,000 words in a weekend, but my daily word count goal is only 1,000, and I’ve been doing that pretty consistently for the last couple of weeks. I’ve gone back and edited a few things like mini plot holes, but other than that I haven’t even started editing what I’ve written so far.

Q: What do you plan to do when you finish it? Are you just going to keep it to yourself?

A: I haven’t decided yet. It’s always been a goal of mine to publish a book, but I wouldn’t want to put something out there that I’m not really proud of. I know it would be very difficult to go down the traditional publishing route and that’s a whole other world I don’t know a lot about- I’ll probably do some research to see how feasible it would be. If I finish the project and edit it to the point where I think it needs to be seen by the world, I would probably end up self-publishing it, since that’s a more realistic goal.

Q: What is your main character like?

A: I’ve based my main character largely off of myself, kind of accidentally. Lauren is an over-thinker who’s trying so hard not to be. She’s a fiercely loyal friend who will protect the people she loves at all costs, but she has trouble standing up for herself and putting herself out there. One of the main reasons she agreed to come to the island was to get out of her comfort zone, and she struggles with actually doing this once she’s there. I think that choice proves she’s more daring than she/other people think, but it takes a bit of pressure for her to demonstrate her true potential in a lot of ways.

I could go on with more, but I don’t want to give too much away, and like I said, I am still pretty early on in the writing process. This has been such an exciting project for me to work on, and I hope to write more posts about it and share more about the book in the future! Let me know if you have any specific questions, as I would be happy to answer them in the comments. 🙂

Brooke

War on Bugs – Poem by Me

BrookeLeave a comment 
my room became a little habitat
first the little spiders scuttling
from wall to wall, using my comforter 
as a launch pad

then the speedy silverfish my
brother tried to kill with his shoe;
he missed and it scuttled behind 
the dresser, not to be seen again

an unidentified bug paid his 
respects the next day, but
my mom successfully stamped
out his existence

bugs, i plead, please don't come 
and visit this room, my habitat
you have the great outdoors
and i have this room

I hope you enjoyed this poem! I actually have found a lot of bugs in my room lately, which is pretty disturbing for me (I am extremely afraid of bugs/spiders), but it makes sense since the California sun is finally shining, and it is hot! Please let me know if you have any feedback on this piece you’d like to share, or writing challenges for me to use in the future 🙂

Brooke

School Is Taking Over My Mind

BrookeLeave a comment

Welcome back everyone!

Right now, my mind is consumed with everything school related. If you saw my last post about my study plans for AP tests, you’d already know how stressed I am about AP testing coming up. Beyond the couple weeks of studying still ahead of me, school is consuming a large portion of my thoughts in general. This might seem odd considering we’re all in quarantine, school is online, and it’s almost the end of the academic year, but those are precisely the reasons why my mind is scattered in a million places, most of them somewhat related to school.

Since the end of the school year is nearing, that means I will officially be done with sophomore year and be going into junior year. My joking aspirations about college and talking about plans for the future with my parents and counselor a few times a year will turn into actually touring schools I’m interested in, building a college list, and determining where I actually want to apply come senior year. All the “you have time”s and “you don’t have to think about this yet”s turn into “you should be getting started” and “you should be thinking about this.” I’ll have to start studying for the ACT/SAT (and decide which one I want to take, or if I want to try both) and do all that standardized testing junk. I’ll be taking my hardest course load in school so far, and continuing with my activities.

I’ve always been someone that’s looked forward to going to college and leaving home, but it’s still scary to have to start this process and make big decisions. Not to mention in order to hopefully get into whatever schools I apply to, I have to continue working hard and keeping up everything inside and outside of school that I’m already doing. There’s so many things that go into this process at the end of high school, and it’s crazy to think I’ll be getting started in mere months. I don’t know what colleges I’ll be able to visit and which ones I’ll like, and I don’t know if I’ll be able to discern if I genuinely like a school or not. As you can tell by the nature of these worries, I am an over-thinker and someone who plans ahead, so I have done some preliminary research and list-making, but it’s still based off of very limited knowledge in the grand scheme of things.

Another reason school is occupying so much space in my mind is because I miss it. I miss my teachers, and I had such wonderful teachers this year that I’m disappointed I wasn’t able to actually finish out the year with them and I won’t really get to say an in-person thank you and goodbye. I miss clubs and the business of a school week, and I miss being productive in that school hustle way. It’s weird to think how much time will pass before I’ll return to school, and daunting since when I do, it will be junior year and things will be so different/crazy in that way.

Since it’s nearing the end of the year, that also means finals are coming up! Honestly, my teachers haven’t said anything about finals, so I’m assuming we’re not actually having them. My school district switched our grading system so that our work is graded but our grades can only go up, and can’t drop from what they were pre-quarantine and online school. My grades were in a really good place before all this happened, so that was a pleasant surprise for me- I don’t have to stress about maintaining grades and studying for finals. That being said, things still always tend to get busy before the end of the year, especially with AP testing, so I’m still anticipating a bunch of work coming my way.

And, as I mentioned at the beginning, AP testing is stressful. With the new format of the tests and the fact that it’s up to me to study at home by myself, reviewing a year’s worth of material became so much more daunting. I put off studying for a little bit because of how uncertain everything was with testing, but in the past couple weeks I sprung into study mode, and I’m really hoping it pays off. Big tests always stress me out, and it’s consuming my mind right now since I’m at home and technically can be studying all the time; this makes me feel like I should be studying all the time to put myself in the best position possible before test day. I definitely want to be in the best position and headspace possible on test day, but I also don’t want to stress myself out too much.

Preparing for AP testing is also making me more conscious of all the testing I’ll be doing next year. Last year I took one AP test, and at the beginning of this year I took the PSAT, but other than that and my two APs coming up right now, I haven’t had to deal with standardized testing much. Next year, I will have five APs, taking the PSAT again, taking the SAT/ACT, and possibly taking SAT II Subject Tests at the end of the year if I end up planning to take those at that time. I guess so far I’ve done decently well in my standardized testing endeavors, but they do tend to stress me out and consume my mind while they’re looming- I have to get that stress under control before next year since I’ll have way more tests, and I don’t want my brain to constantly be focused on that.

With finishing up my sophomore year and realizing that I’m halfway done with high school, there’s a lot of reasons for school to be on the brain. Especially with being home in quarantine, I’ve had plenty of time to marinate my thoughts on these topics. That being said, I’m trying my best to reduce stress and stick it out, since summer is just around the corner and will hopefully be a lot more stress-free! Good luck to you all on finishing up your school year and taking AP tests 🙂

Brooke

How I’m Studying for the AP Euro and AP Psych Tests

BrookeLeave a comment

Hello everyone!

It’s AP season, and with the new test format I feel like everyone is more frantic than ever. I’ve just gotten into my crazy study mode and studying is going to be taking over a lot of my time for the next few weeks, so I figured I would share what I’m doing. I made a post like this not too long ago, but my plans have been modified due to the new test format, identifying my strengths and weaknesses, and the fact that I’m a little late to the game for studying AP Psych since I took the course online months ago and need more review. If you’re interested in learning about my study plan, keep on reading!

AP European History

  • My teacher has been posting review videos each week hitting on some main points and questions that people have been emailing him, so I’m watching all of them and taking organized notes on a Google Doc. I’ve also been reading my notes weekly to see if I have any questions to email my teacher for him to address in these videos.
  • I’m using my review book I bought at the beginning of the school year (The Princeton Review Cracking the AP European History Test), only the review chapters though. I’ve been doing the chapter drills and the multiple choice sections of practice tests as a way to judge my comprehension, but I haven’t done any of the writing practice from the book since there’s no point- even the DBQs are a different format.
  • My teacher modified old AP test DBQ prompts to only have five documents and made up a couple of his own, so I’ve done two of those practices so far and plan to try and do a practice for each of the prompts he’s posted.
  • I’ve watched every College Board YouTube review and taken notes on each one. I haven’t done the guided practice except for the full DBQs, since that’s the only thing actually being tested.

What I’m not doing:

  • AP Classroom assignments. I did a couple at first, but my teacher doesn’t assign them/suggest we do them and none of them are the same as what the format of the test will be (even the DBQs are 7+ documents!) so I don’t think it’s an effective use of my time.
  • Reading my textbook. Although I would do this for each unit test in the class, my notes are already a more effective summary for review at this point.

AP Psychology

  • I’m reading through my review book I got at the beginning of the year (The Princeton Review Cracking the AP Psychology Test) and doing the chapter drills as well as all practice test material! The FRQs are the same format as what will be on the test, and the multiple choice is good to gauge my comprehension since I’m very rusty.
  • I’m watching all the College Board YouTube reviews and taking dedicated notes on each. I’m actually doing most, if not all, of the guided practice for these since I think I could use any review I could get.
  • I’m studying my Barrons AP Psychology flash cards I got at the beginning of the year. I’m also using the “Key Terms” list at the end of each chapter in the Princeton Review book and making my own Quizlets to really hammer in the terms.
  • I’m going through the bank of old FRQs on the College Board’s website and practicing as many as I can.
  • Making a content outline for test day with main concepts/people/vocab, etc. since I don’t have solid notes from the course to use on the exam.

What I’m not doing:

  • I don’t have access to AP Classroom for Psych since I took the course online and I’m signed up under “test-only” through my actual school, so I’m not using it for this class either!
  • Using a textbook- I never had one for the class since I took it online, and at this point my review book is much more helpful anyways.
  • Using most/all of the resources from when I actually took the course. This is what’s making studying for this test so stressful for me- when I took the course online, we focused a lot more on multiple choice and simple vocabulary/concept mastery, so I don’t really have anything to go off of for FRQs.

I hope this helps anyone out studying for AP tests, especially if you’re in these specific AP classes. I wish you all the best in your studying, so good luck and get grinding! We’re all in this together, and hopefully testing goes smoothly even with all the changes.

Brooke

Checkpoint – Poem by Me

BrookeLeave a comment 
we've made it to our checkpoint
who thought that things would end up like this?

a few months and the world's turned 
topsy-turvy absolutely upside down

a few months with you and my world's
been completely spun around

it seems wrong that this isn't more of an 
accomplishment to have made it this far

maybe it wasn't the right time for us
is the world trying to give us a sign?

or maybe we should've set our expectations lower
and not decided to designate a checkpoint

I hope you enjoyed this poem! It’s a bit more open-ended and all over the place, but I think it’s still clear/easy to interpret the meaning. Everyone’s lives really have been turned upside down at the moment, and it affects everyone differently. Hope you all are staying healthy and safe.

Brooke

How Is Quarantine Going? – Prose

Brooke2 Comments

“How is quarantine going for you?” My friends ask me through texts, Snapchats, and pretty much any other form of social media.

Oh, it’s going, I think to myself, not bothering to give an actual reply. I respond with messages that change the subject before setting my phone down and searching for a book to read. I need an escape, and a good story will do just the trick. No one wants to sit and think about how long life will continue on like this.

The hours tick by quickly; pages are turned, meals and many snacks are eaten, and I might even venture outside when the sun comes out for a few hours, bringing warmth to the pavement. Before I know it, it’s dark and I’m shutting my blinds, showering, and getting ready for bed.

I’ve never had such a monotonous schedule. I’m used to never having enough time and somehow that’s carried on into these days that fly by, but never has time felt so pointless. I’m trying to take advantage of the laziness I can now allow myself to have, but it feels strangely wrong.

I’m about to get under the covers, watch a random soapy TV show on Netflix, and go to sleep. But… the loneliness has kicked in. Have I even had a real conversation with anyone all day? I turn back to my phone, and fire off a few quick messages:

“How was your day?” “How’s quarantine going for you?” “I miss you, what’s new?”

Although I had the urge to send them, I don’t wait around for people to answer. I guess that’s kind of silly, since it means a conversation won’t actually start, but oh well. There’s plenty of time, right? I’ll respond in the morning and catch up with everyone.

I resume my bed lounging and late-night TV watching. Eventually, I turn over to lay on my stomach and drift off until I’m asleep for the night.

The next morning, after I make my bed and get ready for the day, I check my phone. I have quite a few notifications from last night, mostly Snapchats and texts.

“It was okay, what about you?” “It’s boring, how’s it going for you?” “I miss you too! Nothing much, what about you?”

Strangely enough, I don’t feel like getting into it. I send off quick, generic messages to each, wishing my friends well and telling them I’m bored and okay too. I leave behind my phone to go make breakfast and read a book while I eat.

And so it repeats.

I hope you enjoyed this little piece! It’s almost just a personal update, but I figured it made more sense to categorize it as prose/creative writing because of the format and how it was almost like a mini-narrative. Let me know if you have any feedback on this piece or writing challenges for me to try in the future 🙂

Brooke

Tears On The Page – Poem by Me

BrookeLeave a comment 
it's refreshing to catch up with an old friend
particularly if the friend in question

is a book, eagerly waiting for the pages to be 
turned and crinkled, just as they have

so many times before. if only i could let go 
of these pages as easily as i could let go of people

the words are already ingrained in my mind
but it doesn't matter- every time my eyes

have combed through everything there is to see
between the binding, and i've drawn myself

into a fantasy world yet again, it's time to return
to reality. i can't help but shed a tear

for what i've lost by not being born into a book
and living between the pages forever

I hope you all enjoyed this poem. The subject rings so true for me so I’m glad I was finally able to put it into words; as I’ve been rereading my old favorite books lately (especially the Harry Potter series) I’ve been devastated when I finish them and have to put them away. I’m forever stuck in my childhood, when it seemed possible to stay lost in fantasyland 🙂 Let me know if you have any feedback on this piece or writing challenges for me to try in the future!

Brooke

What Is My Blog About?

Brooke2 Comments

Hello all!

If you’re new to my blog, welcome! This is a good place to start and learn about the various topics I write about on here. If you’ve been reading for a while, welcome back. I’ve made a couple of these posts before introducing my blog and the different directions I’ve taken it in, but I’m hoping to clarify what kinds of content you can count on me to be posting and gain some feedback as to what you guys may have started reading my blog for/what type of content is your favorite.

I started this blog last summer, so it’s not exactly new. However, every time I start to produce new types of content or expand my horizons, it kind of feels as if my blog is reborn. I started it with a very short-term intent of covering my summer travels in France and Italy, but once I came home from my trip, I continued to write about all the other things I was doing in summer. Eventually the school year rolled around, and I made a lot of content regarding school advice and high school stuff- hence my blog name “Adventures of a Typical High School Student.” I continued to write about any little trips I happened to go on, but this blog was definitely not a travel-centered blog.

Here’s a list of all the main types of content I have produced or am currently producing:

  • Travel, as I already stated (this includes my school trips/extracurricular related travel and camps)
  • School advice for high school and middle school, study tips, etc.
  • Sharing my school experiences- how I was a cheerleader, being in yearbook, etc.
  • Posts about the journey of college admissions and starting it in high school- APs, standardized tests, college tours, activities
  • Random musings of questions/my opinions about life, psychology, and success
  • Reviews (TV, books, movies)
  • Lists- I’m a huge list person, so I’ve made lots of lists- lists of trends, my favorite things, etc.
  • Cleaning and organization tips
  • The occasional political post (I’m in Youth and Government and pretty interested in politics)
  • Positivity and motivation related posts- I’ve talked about the Law of Attraction
  • Creative writing tips/advice and other content related to my love of reading and writing
  • Sharing my poems/prose and other writing

Clearly, my mind’s in a million places and there’s tons of topics I’m interested in writing about. If you’ve become a reader of my blog more recently, you’d probably notice that most of my posts lately have been sharing my writing or other content related to reading and writing, fitting under the last two bullet points on the list above. This blog has led me to rediscover my love of all types of reading and writing, and those two things take up a huge portion of my time (especially right now during quarantine) so naturally I’ve been writing about them more. I’ve also had the most/best feedback on my writing related posts, so I figured I should focus on that.

I still don’t feel ready to turn this blog into a writing-only focused blog, or a blog where I’m just sharing my own work. I’m not even sure if the latter would still be considered a blog; it would almost be like a personal website or portfolio. If you’re here mainly for my writing content, please stick around- you won’t be disappointed, as I plan to focus mainly on that. However, the title of this blog reflects a lot more than just writing content, and it’s meant to be a place for me to share all my random thoughts, so if you’re here for any of the other stuff, please stick around as well. I want this to be a place where anyone can find something they resonate with, because as Cristian Mihai from The Art of Blogging states, blogging should be a conversation.

If you’re still reading this, thank you. It’s been awesome to work on this blog and publicize random ideas from the utmost corners of my mind and see that people are actually reading my ramblings and maybe even enjoying them??? It would be much appreciated if you could comment what post drew you into my blog, and what type of content out of the variety of categories I write is your favorite/what you come back to read. This will help me know how to diversify what I’m posting in a way where you guys are gaining something from my posts. That being said, I will continue to be myself on here, and there will definitely always be a few random surprises 🙂

Brooke

Soft-Bellied – Poem by Me

Brooke2 Comments 
i dig my nails into my stomach
they leave little red marks

adding to the collection; matching
perfectly with the indents

from the waistband of my sweatpants
i watch my stomach rise and fall

as i take deep breaths; my pale flesh
expanding and contracting is a sight

both fascinating and repulsive
this little extra pouch of fat

of skin without bones, just an extra
pound (or two, or three) of me

is my weakness, so maybe i'm
too soft

I hope you enjoyed this poem. I’ve wanted to write something about my stomach (my biggest insecurity) for a while, and the words spilled out onto the page pretty easily. We all have our own insecurities, so let this be a reminder you’re not alone. Let me know if you have any feedback, suggestions, or challenges for me to use in my writing in the near future 🙂

Brooke