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001
New Beginnings


Note: This prompt ended up taking me in the creative non-fiction direction, as opposed to a piece of true fiction, but I think that that should be okay, right? Anyway, here it is.


I’m at the point of my life where things change so rapidly that you can’t even blink, lest you miss something. The early twenties are an exciting and wonderful time, but they can also be terrifying and nerve-wracking. I’ve had countless “new beginnings” in the past several years.

The biggest one would have to be three years ago, when I left home to go to college. I was the last in the line of the four children in my family, so we’d been through the drill before, but it was still a huge change for me. I had a choice before me, and I chose to thrive in my new surroundings. I took every chance given to me in those first few weeks of freshman year, even though I was terrified at times. Singing karaoke in the campus center? Check. Tutoring the cute junior who sat behind me and was struggling in German class? Check.

At the end of my freshman year came two major, major new beginnings in my life. During finals week, I began a relationship with a senior who I had befriended early in the fall. However, two days into our relationship, I flew out of the United States with complete strangers to spend a month nannying in Germany.

Germany was a dream come true for me, although it wasn’t all fun and games—I spent much of my time watching the children, rocking them to sleep, changing diapers, and taking the toddler to the playground. I spent most of my time in a very small town, although I made day trips to a few other cities, and spent five days on the northern coast of the Baltic Sea, near Kiel. The whole trip was so different from everything I had known before, and I learned a great deal from it.

The relationship that I mentioned was also a wonderful new beginning. Prior to the start of this relationship, any relationships I had been in had been short-lived, or manipulative, or otherwise just not ideal. With Chris, things were completely, completely different. For the first time in my life, I experienced true romantic love. All my life, I had known the love of family and friends, but this love was so, so different from that. Like all things, this chapter in my life did come to an end, but I value it all the same for all that it taught me.

I’ve had several smaller new beginnings since then, but none so large as the one that I’m currently on the threshold of. This summer, I will be heading to upstate New York, to pursue an internship in a field that I love at Cornell University. I’m excited for all of the opportunities I will have, all of the people I will meet, and just all of the experience I will gain from this internship. However, I am also very apprehensive and have a thousand questions and doubts in my mind about what could possibly happen during this summer. No matter what, I will make this a good experience, but there’s no denying that this summer marks yet another new beginning in my life.

I'm a fan of non-fiction. << I quite enjoyed this piece heh.

I suppose I like it because it does offer a comparison to my own. It's not a distant fantasy world, it's a life of someone who could be just like me, someone with different opportunities and obstacles. Anyway, heh, m'rambling.

I look forward to your input and views in this challenge. Good luck!

002
Cause and Effect

This one's a pretty quick one, due to the fact that I have a huge organic chemistry exam in the morning. You can definitely see some of my scientific background coming out in this piece. Warning that there is very light swearing, if that bothers you.


Sarah pressed her forehead to the cool plastic bar at the top of the digital imaging microscope, giving her neck a brief rest as she once again stared at the tiny orbs on the slide. She fiddled with the knobs a bit more in order to get the cells in perfect focus, then turned to the computer to snap the picture of the cells at just the right moment.

She double-checked the image and grinned when she realized that she had gotten the focus perfect, so the one cell that she was particularly interested in was the focal point of the image. The cell itself was at the stage of mitosis just before actual cell division, and demonstrated perfectly what she wanted to show her class.

She quickly saved the image and shut down the imaging station, then leaned back in her chair, gently rubbing the knuckles of her right hand with her left. Damn, I thought I wasn’t going to have another flare-up for a while, she thought. But I guess all this time bent over the computers and ‘scopes had to come back and bite me.

Sarah stood slowly, wincing as she felt the painful stiffness in her hips as well. Why is it that my cells had to do this? The onion root-tip under the scope works as it should; the cells divide when they’re supposed to, caused by a simple chemical signal, telling them that it’s time for each step in the process. Instead of that, some of my cells just had to go deciding that they should start attacking my joints.

Biological processes all have a direct cause and effect behind them, and we know that. We know why the body signals different things to happen, and yet we still can’t figure out how to stop damn autoimmune diseases where the body attacks itself. Damn, damn, damn.

With these thoughts swirling around her mind, Sarah limped out of the digital imaging lab and down the hallway to her office.

@ Desi - Thanks! This one came to me pretty quickly after reading today's prompt. I blame the fact that one of my friends is doing her senior research in autoimmune diseases, so they were on my mind. The character of Sarah, a professor struggling with R.A. just kind of appeared in my head, so I flew with it, and I'm pretty happy with the result.

Thanks PMS! Because I'm a science major, it really does come out in my writing sometimes.

Anyway, on to today's piece. I'm really enjoying the challenge so far. It's not difficult, but it just is making me remember to make time to write. Yay! Today's piece does have a bit of a back-story to it, although you can just skip ahead to the actual poem if you'd like.

Back in December, one of my college friends was murdered, and it's been a difficult time for a lot of us here at school in the months since then. When I read today's prompt, I decided to write up what I thought he would say to me and his other friends if he had the chance to.

I was surprised after writing this, to find that it had a very distinct meter. I knew it was rhythmic and had a fluid cadence, but it ended up having an alternating pattern of syllables, going 8-6-8-8 in one stanza and 8-7-8-6 in the next. It wasn't intentional, but I think it adds to the poem.

003
Peace of Mind

I watch you going day by day
And try to let you know
I never really left you here
Though it often seems that way

I know it seems I left too soon,
That my life was cut too short
But believe me when I tell you
I’m not so far from you

I see your eyes still cloud with tears
And feel your heavy heart
I wish that I could somehow give
Peace of mind back to you

For a moment I knew great pain
For a moment I felt fear,
But then I saw another place
Where they were left behind.

Pure happiness awaits me here,
But I don’t want to leave.
I know you miss me—I do too,
But this is how it has to be.

I will see you again someday,
But until that day arrives,
When you think of me, do not cry,
But smile and know I’m near.

005
Speed

Driving down the highway
wind whipping through your hair

Running down the sidewalk
Shoes thudding on the ground

Exhilarating intensity
too fast to see the landscape
you're passing by

Can we not take a moment
to just slow down and look around?

007
Gilding a Lily

Kind of a random one, but here you go! Also: ONE WEEK DOWN!! 51 to go!

I see this behavior fairly often when I attend Sunday church. There are the people who go to the services for a religious reason, and it is between themselves and God. Then there are others who are there maybe for a religious reason, but by their actions, it seems more for the sake of displaying piety for others.

If you're a regular at Catholic mass, you know these people as well. They're (usually--I admit this is a huge generalization) the ones who genuflect when they arrive at the altar for communion, instead of bowing in reverence like the rest of the congregation. They're the ones who take communion on the tongue, rather than on the hand, as though by not touching it with their hands, they can make the transsubstanciated host more holy.

It's already holy. You're taking it into yourself via ingestion; there's no reason to not just touch it. You're not making it any more holy by not touching it. You're just making the priest stick his fingers into your mouth to give you communion, which is kind of icky. I wouldn't want someone's fingers that close to my tongue anyway.

They're the ones doing other things too. Often, they are seen shouting their piety and reverence at everyone else, and making sure that everyone knows just how religious they are. They can't bear to just live their faith, they must scream it to the masses.