Callisto; a modern retelling.

This was an assignment for school, and I highly suggest you read the original Callisto before reading my retelling. Without further ado;

Callisto; A modern retelling.

By S. G. Chapman.

Once upon a time, in the town of arcadia, there lived a gorgeous girl named Callisto, and her best friends name was Diana. She was super popular at school, because she was so beautiful. So popular, in fact, that The King of high school, Jupiter, admired her.  Well, Jupiter's girlfriend, Juno, didn't much care for that. So, Juno decided to make Callisto her rival, and made it her life's goal to make Callisto suffer, (She was a bit of a drama queen.)  She then spread awful rumors about her in school, including one that she lived with bears! And since Juno was so persuasive, they all believed her. Soon, Callisto was an outcast, everyone hated and was scared of her, even her so called best friend Diana.  She roamed the halls aimlessly, resigned to her fate to be an outcast forever, when she saw her brother, Arcas. Oh joy! Surely he still likes me! She thought, but when Arcas saw her he ran away, terrified to be seen with her. The worst thing about it was she still had her former disposition,  but no one bothered to look closer than what they thought they saw. She tried to reach out to people in supplication, but everyone ignored her. Juno was quite pleased with herself.

Callisto was now an outcast in the very halls she had resided as royalty. Now, let it be said that Callisto learned a very important lesson on looking deeper than people's looks, so this whole rumor thing wasn't all bad, but she was still too sad to see that yet.

Then one day, as Callisto was walking about aimlessly, a cruel person espied her and came up to her and was about to ridicule her some more, but just then who but our very own Jupiter came to her defense like the stand up guy he is! Then the truth came out about the rumors and how Juno had started them, and how they were all falsehoods.  And Jupiter dumped Juno for being so mean, and then started going out with Callisto, so she was like royalty once more. Juno was furious that her rival was more popular than her, so she went to the principle, and vice principle, Tethys and Oceanus, and convinced them, (Because she was so persuasive, remember?) That Callisto should be banned from her favorite sport, Swim team. The Principle and vice Principle assented and Callisto was forbidden to join her favorite sport. But Juno's plan totally backfired, because since Callisto was so humble and nice now, she got over it and the people loved even more.

Fin

Fear.

I started reading Divergent.

I know, I know, "That's every girl ever!" But it's really good. In fact, it's caused me to think about one of its themes, fear, which is what a good book's supposed to do, right? I am terrified of spiders, and heights, and getting in a car crash, and roller coasters, and, and, and....
You get the picture, right?
Anyway, the whole concept of one of the 'factions' in the book (Dauntless) is getting over your fear. And to do this, they send you into a simulation, where you are pushed into all your worst fears, and to get out of the simulation, you have to "Defeat" the fear, by registering a calm heartbeat and relaxing. The fewer fears you have, the better you are, which makes me think that I wouldn't do do well in dauntless. But I've tried applying this technique on my own fears and so far, not so much progress, but it's the little things that count! I'll try and keep you posted.
What are you afraid of? What do you do to calm yourself?

Farewell, my internet friends.
-Gorge.

How to forgive?

A simple question.

Without getting in to the details, I'm stubborn when it comes to forgiveness. I know, I know, it's a problem. And I'm trying to fix it, truly, I am.

But how in the world do you do it!?

Again, without getting in to the details, a family member of mine might die, and this particular family member is not the nicest person ever. This person has never made any effort to apologize, or even make contact until last year, which, I totally get, I understand that. But what I can't get over, is that this person just expects everything to be okay, and it's not. I want to forgive them, I want to, but I can't. I've been talking to Samson on this for awhile, but nothing has worked. I know it's a heart issue, and I have to work it out myself. But it's really, really hard to forgive someone who hasn't apologized.

Sorry, but no uplifting message on this one, guys. In fact, it's a bit of a downer.

I honestly don't know what I expected from writing this, but I think I might start writing a lot more, because it helps me think. 

Farewell, and all godspeed.

- George 

The sponsor kid.

"The sponsor kid."

I remember the weirdest stuff from when I was small. Since before I was born we've "Sponsored' kids. Kids, who, didn't have enough to eat, didn't have a place to sleep, didn't have an education, didn't have a family to take care of them. I know we all see those commercials, you know, the ones with the little kids dressed in rags, living in run-down houses, begging you to be their sponsor, to save a life. Then you feel guilty. But do those kids REALLY need you?

Yup. 

It's the simple truth. Without you, life is gonna be hard, really hard. And for what? 30 bucks a month?

Since before I can remember we've sponsored. Our current sponsor child is named Uwimbabazi Divine.

(Pretty Awesome name, right?) She's in 3rd grade, and we've been sponsoring her for about three years now. She's really cute, and sweet, and she constantly is saying "Thank you for letting me become a part of your family!" In her letters. She tells us how she's doing, she tells about her neighborhood, her family, she asks us to pray for things. But she never complains. I love getting her letters, and I love writing back to her. She asks us questions, like, What is your favorite color? Or how old are you? How many children do you have? (To my parents) She's curious and cute. And it didn't take me long to absolutely adore her. 

Another story is when I was about 8-10 My older brother and I had a chicken egg business. We had about thirty chickens. We charged 2 dollars a dozen and business was booming when my mom sat us down and said,

"How do you feel about sponsoring another kid with some of your egg money?"

We both readily agreed and soon we started getting letters from a girl named Mercy. Mom wrote to her and I told her things to say from us. This went on for awhile until we were told that Mercy didn't need us anymore. I was sad, because, even though she lived halfway around the world in the name of a country I couldn't pronounce in a town with a strange name in a teeny village with an even weirder name, I loved her. She was my friend. And even though she was scowling in her picture I imagined she smiled when she got our letters. I never knew what happened to Mercy. 

So what right? I don't know. You can take this as a nice little story, or as something more.

All I know, is that when I get married, I'm adopting someone like Uwimbabazi, or Mercy. 

Writers block

Writers block.

My Mom told me about it some time ago, (she's a writer too.) In fact here's a link to her blog:
http://surprisingordinary.wordpress.com/
Is it against the rules to link to wordpress on blogspot?
Eh, I guess we'll find out.

I've never had writers block before. There's just too much swirling around in my head for me to ever run out of ideas. I have four in progress books on my Ipod. but sometimes, or so I've been told, you just can't think of anything to write, or when you do it sucks. I could think of a hundred different things to say to you. "Keep going, inspiration will hit you soon," things like that. But sometimes it just doesn't. Sometimes life, and you're writing sucks, sometimes you just think it never going to get better and it would be easier to just give up.

Yeah, it would.

But do you want to be known as a quitter? No one ever said chasing your dreams would be easy, and if they did, they lied. but are you ready to give up on your dream? Are you ready to face everything quitting entails? If you are, then go ahead, quit. But just know that you have to live with that decision for the rest of your life.
There are no "do over" buttons, no undo functions. Once you make that choice its made.

So yeah, you may have a bit of writers block, or maybe something else going on. And you think it would be easier just to quit.

Well, the reality is, its not. And don't let yourself or anyone else let you think that you need to quit.

Because,

You don't.

-George.

12 people can make a difference.

12 people.

12 people saw my blog since I uploaded "the beginning."
12 people actually made the time to see what I wrote.
You may think I'm freaking out about this, and I am. But when I first posted, it was a leap of faith. I didn't think anyone would care about what I had to say. And maybe they don't. But all I know, is that those 12 people, where ever you are, have inspired me. So thank you 12 people. Thank you, for taking the time to read my thoughts, and opinions, and even if you're the only 12 people who do, its enough for me.

You may not know what you do when you say something to someone, or send them an encouraging email, or even take the time to read a silly blog, but know this:
The things you say and do around other people have an effect, even if you think nothing you do has value, it does, you do. And don't ever forget that.

Thank you 12, thank you.

-George.

The beginning.

George and Samson.

you may be thinking, what the heck kind of name is that?
 Well I'll explain it to you. My best friends name is... Well, we'll just call her H. H and I were extremely tired one day at a function and had spent the last 3 days together with nothing to do. This was around the time that we had found the cabinet of pixie stix. I mean who leaves a unattended cabinet of Pixie Stix with a bunch of kids? So we found the pixie stix, ate about 20 each, and were more than a little loopy when we came up with our nicknames. I went first saying, "We need, like, cool names or something... Yours, yours could be Samson!!!" H replied with "Yeah!! And, and you should be...George!!"

And it stuck.

whenever I see pixie stix I laugh uncontrollably and whoever is around thinks I'm crazy.

"So... What kind of Blog is this anyway?" You may be thinking.
I don't really know yet. But I wanna be a writer, and this is a good way to get started. By the way, there is more to the story, but I'll write about it later. I'm thinking this could be an outlet of sorts. A way for me to be creative, and get my ideas out to the world. Maybe I'm over anticipating this just a tad. I tend to do that.

But what can I say? I'm a competitive over achiever.

Till net time,

George.