My Subject Chose Me- Chelsea Southworth

Fears: Failing, not doing anything important
Annoyances: Stupid people, people who ask about/judge my opinions and don't let me explain them, people who walk slow
Accomplishments: Grades, test scores, leadership, NaNoWriMo, surviving junior year (so far)
Confusions: Why people are so prejudiced and judgmental
Sorrows: All the people I want to meet are British and/or fictional, the wanton animal cruelty that occurs every day
Dreams: Meeting said British/fictional people, living in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and studying bonobos for a living
Idiosyncrasies: Fangirling and all the flailing, squealing, and gushing that comes with it (seriously, watch out when fangirl mode activates)
Risks: Does joining a new fandom count? Doing NaNoWriMo is fairly risky as well
Beloved Possessions, Now and Then: Now: My TIP termbook and lanyards, my flashdrive Then: I love my stuffed golden lab (his name was Heartley. It came with him)
Problems: TIPression (ie the sinking, eternal pit of depression (no joke) that follows leaving the most amazing summer camp/family ever (TIP) and knowing you can never go back)

NaNoWriMo came up twice (so did TIP, but that’s way too emotional to even think about writing about), so I guess we’ll go with that. This year, I’m undertaking something I’ve never tried before: worldbuilding. I’m creating an entire new world, with not one but three separate nations that will be included. What follows is a brief description of one of the great trading cities in my favorite land, which is tentatively called Allahalea (uh-lah-huh-lay-uh).

Even squinting through the sheersilk veil K’hallama had given her, with the sands whipping around her face, the city was not hard to miss. The wall was massive, and the great spiraling towers and domed palaces rose even above that, yet it was not the sheer size that drew her eyes; it was the color. The wall itself was nothing special, made of the red-brown rock that she’d seen so much on her way there, but the tops of the buildings within were like nothing she’d ever seen, glittering with the colors of more gemstones and metals than she could name. It was clear even from afar that this was no blocky, grey-stoned city of her homeland; this was a city that gleamed with wealth, and was not afraid to let the world see its prosperity.