Top 5: Sweet Reads

1. Night by Elie Wiesel

2. The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch

3. The Hot Zone by Richard Preston

4. The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks

5. Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science by Atul Gawande

I Live with Celebrities

TEXAS and BURKE

☜ This is Texas.

This is Burke. ☞

One time, I swear I heard Texas say, "Yes!"

Burke can eat more than you can.

The Dialect of Idealism

"Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary." -- Cecil Beaton

Daring, different, impractical; these adjectives comprise an entire vernacular, a dialect describing the ideal. Words like unique, innovative, driven. I want to be daring. I want to different. I want to be impractical. I want to be a girl with thoughts of her own, unfazed by what others think, say, or do. I want to be one to provoke change, to attack insouciance -- one who is real, despite the shallow nature of modern times. I want to achieve the ideal.

Not the girl who 'dares' to wear a tutu to school. Not the boy who's 'different,' and doesn't wear knee pads while roller-blading.

I'm calling out the student in the back of the room who only raises his hand when he has something substantial, something valuable, to contribute to the discussion. I'm getting at the kid who doesn't pick or choose who to talk to this week and the next, but instead laughs at everyone's jokes, answers everyone's questions, and helps everyone out. I'm looking at the girl with a 4.5 GPA and a full ride to a Top 10 school ... who becomes a ballerina because she does what she wants, and she's good at it.

I want to be daring, different, and impractical.

I want so badly to color outside of the lines.

A Foray into Modernism

"Silk Sheets & $1CK B34TZ" -- a title that I hope will suffice as I venture into cyberspace from a new, contemporary perspective, hopefully one just a bit less stale than that of a Facebook-er.

I'm a blogger!

My name is Allison Chou, and I am fifteen years old. I can only describe myself as hungry. Ravenous, even. Craving knowledge, seeking skill, aching for Chipotle -- be it what it may, I am esurient for more.