Writing Prompt #11

If a classmate decided to write a book about you, how do you think he or she would characterize you? 

If anyone wrote a book about me they would characterize me as I am; the good and the bad. I believe that a biography or a story should describe the person as they are. We are unique beings. No one is the same as another. Our flaws are what make us extraordinary. I think that is what makes our lives interesting. I often sit and people watch and think about what their life might be like, what they might be going through, and what they are doing that day.

Let’s use me as an example. You can observe me sitting at a Starbucks right this moment. I am sitting at a sort of bar with booth seating facing the room and the coffee machines and baristas, with a glass wall behind me. I am wearing headphones over my head and typing away on a laptop. You can say that I look like a college student because of all the papers and a binder at my side. You over heard me talking to the cashier. I was at traffic court today and I have a headache. I must be pretty stressed out. I occasionally pause to think about what I am writing. My head sways to the music that I am listening to. Then you can branch out to the possibilities. This is where your imagination can go wild. Characterization is subjective. If three people observed me for 20 minutes they might come up with completely different characterizations.

 To answer this question, I do not know what someone would say about me.

-Melody

The Power of Words: Positive Mental Attitude

I have always believed in the power of words. What you speak out loud you tend to start to believe; the truth and the lies, the good and the bad. I strongly believe in positive self talk and general positive words and attitude. On the other side of things, the negative is very powerful and should not be taken lightly. Negativity is so strong that it stays with you longer than positivity. There is a tight bond that has to be broken for positivity to take root.

I don’t believe in superstitions but my culture is full of them. There are a few I grew up with. For example,
I could not hand my dad my car keys through a doorway. I had to step across the threshold for him to take
them. It is considered bad luck to hand something over a threshold. I still do that to this day. Another one
involves putting safety pins in your clothing to ward off jinxed and bad luck. I plan to find a silver one to
put on my necklace so I always have it with me. The funny thing is that my grandfather used to put them
in all of my clothes. Now I know why.

I guess you live and you learn.

May you all develop a positive mental attitude.

-Melody

Writing Prompt #10

What would you like to change about your town? How could you do it?

I live in a small historic town. As an adult, I would say that the price of living can be changed for people to live here more comfortably. Real Estate is really expensive the closer you get to all of the restaurants and bars. I guess it makes sense to a degree but what if I want a nice apartment or condo closer to all the fun? Even a one bedroom apartment is $1,040 a month depending on where you look. I pay half that staying at home. Either way one of my goals is to have a condo of my own one day.

How could I change this? This change can only happen on a government level. Basically the government would have to do what they do in Europe. A monthly allowance that pays rent and whatever is left for food. You can still work but at least most of your living arrangement is take care of. Either way, I do not work in the government so I do not know what would work and what would not.

-Melody

Promise Ring: What does it mean to me?

Okay, so what is a promise ring and what does it mean? What is the promise?

Basically, a promise ring, also known as a purity ring is a symbol of a promise to remain abstinent until marriage. It is normally tied to the Christian faith but I have met people that decided this was the path they wanted, regardless of religion.

Let me start from my beginning. All through high school and college I attended a Messianic Synagogue. I was in the youth group too. There was a lot of talk about modesty. This came naturally to me but there was a time we talked about abstinence until marriage. I do not remember the exact time I learned about abstinence until marriage but it was shortly after that, I started wearing a ring. My ring was stolen in gym class and later that year my dad replaced it for me for graduation.

Anyways it was not until college that I started to really take thing seriously. I was never the type to sleep around either. I have been through my fair share of relationships and sexual temptations that followed but I never slept with anyone. Just to step back a little I was touched inappropriately when I was 15. I will not get into the details of it but he was a junior at my high school and it happened on school property. I was very aware of physical temptations after that. Then I nearly slept with my first serious boyfriend in college when I was 22.  I told him that I could not go through with it. It did not feel right and I am so glad I didn’t.

Shortly after graduation I remember going to a thrift store. In the glass case, I saw a sterling silver ring with a heart on it.

My promise ring today.

I immediately knew I wanted to replace my gold ring with this one because I don’t like yellow gold. Also I got my gold ring re-sized and a few years later I gained weight and could not wear it anymore. So the image above is the ring I currently wear. I even had to cut out a piece of the band to make sure it can expand with my finger. My hands have a bad habit of swelling up sometimes. For a few years, I didn’t wear it because of that.

Recently I made a huge decision to delete my dating profile and put my ring back on. This came about shortly after I watched Camp Rock and Camp Rock 2 and remembered the Jonas Brothers. So I Googled them and remembered the whole thing about their promise rings and the fact that they did not understand what it was about but were forced to wear the rings anyways. Well I do understand and I will keep my word.

The promise is more about self-respect and self-control.

I promise to remain pure until marriage. This is supposed to be a purity of body and mind but since we are all human beings and our bodies were made to feel things and our minds think things; this promise is more about self-control. As human beings we will make mistakes. I mean I messed around a little in college but the basis of my personal promise is to respect myself and not sleep around with every guy I date. That promise still stands.

All in good timing I will meet a guy that understand this and respects my decision. Until then, the world sees me as undatable because sex is not part of my relationships. I don’t care what the world says. 

My promise will stand for a long time.

-Melody

P.S. If anyone wants to reach out to me for further private discussion on this topic then please email me from my profile page.

Writing Prompt #9

If you could eliminate either crime or pollution which would you choose and why?

Well pollution can be made a crime so; I would eliminate crime and tackle both at the same time.

This is a rather complicated question. Crime harms everyone and Pollution harms everyone. The logical one would be pollution but crime is still a problem. I will examine both sides.

Eliminate Crime and you have a safer environment to live in. Crime can be defined in a number of ways: harm to another person, harm to an animal, harm to a business or harm to the environment. Those are basic definitions but there are so many more. I just simplified it. Pollution can be classified as harm to the environment. Crime in general is breaking the law. There are always consequences for those choices.

Eliminate Pollution and you have a cleaner environment to live in. This is beneficial to all people and creatures on earth. There are several types but air and water are at the top of the list. Cleaner vehicles eliminate air pollution and water filtration systems and ocean cleaning endeavors tackle water pollution.

So my answer is eliminate crime.

-Melody