Oodles of Laughter
It's ironic, really, how many blogs I've started before this one, convinced each time that my oh so eloquent writing is sure to attract thousands of followers overnight, absolutely sure that the world has been waiting for the creation of this new blog, because who doesn't want to read a sixth grader's choppy writing about getting her braces on or how much she misses summer vacation. I also started each blog with a determination in mind to post daily.
Needless to say, not one of those things happened.
And here I am, a little more grown up than that eighth grade girl who started a blog about her fascination with horses, hopefully a little bit better a writer than my awkward fourteen year old self who made a writing tips blog, yet had writing skills comparable to a fifteenth century orphan. Of course ideas of becoming a famous author still dance across my imagination - how could they not? But I write not for fame or praise, but because writing is a magical outlet that allows me to spill my jumbled mess of thoughts onto a page. And what a wonderful feeling that is.
Oodles of Sunshine. I'm not going to say how many times I had to brainstorm to come up with a likable name that both followed the purpose of this blog and wasn't already taken, but in the end I think that the current title is my favorite of all the ones I tried. Oodles because it's an informal word with a simple, happy tone. Sunshine because the target goal of this blog is to notice the happy moments (sunshine moments) in daily life. Therefore, Oodles of Sunshine references the fact that there is much to be grateful for, and this is my attempt to recognize those small tender experiences.
Some days are just hard. In an unexplainable way, life can seem so easy and cheerful one day, only to turn around completely the next, for no particular reason. Today's sunshine moment came because of a hard day. High school is... well, high school. Classes are often boring. Social interactions tend to be rough. Walking to school is typically cold. Waking up in the morning... don't get me started on that one. When the bell finally rang at the end of last period, I walked out of class with a few friends, but my brain was dead after nearly seven hours of listening to droning teachers and trying to keep my focus level above zero, and I failed to be a very interesting conversationalist. We reached the end of the hall where I split off to go outside and walk home while my friends headed for the parking lot.
The coolest person I know is probably my friend Grace. She wore Chacos years before it was cool, collects Funko Pop! characters, and rides a scooter to school, as of the fact that it saves her five minutes of walking (and therefore sleeping) time. Grace happened to be leaving school today at the same time as me, and she lives only a short distance from my house, so we started walking home together.
Conversations with Grace are never boring. We first became good friends when we rode the same bus to junior high and would often sit next to each other, where we would giggle and talk about all the random things junior high students can think of to talk about. It became a tradition to exchange a favorite word of the day with one another, ranging from "serendipity" to "osteoporosis," both of which I still thoroughly enjoy saying.
Today, our conversation started with microwaves. She began telling me about some people she knew who believed eating microwaved food to be a major obstacle to living a long life and refused to own one because of this suspicion, but (Grace reasoned) in the end, both sides balance out! Either you eat quickly-heated food and die early (as supposed by these people anyways), or you live a slightly longer life, but spend more time heating your food in an oven or over the stove.
So we had a funny conversation about microwaves. (I went on to tell Grace about the amusing microwave gadget my dad recently bought.) How was this a sunshine moment? Because I laughed. I laughed the kind of laugh that comes only when it is either three in the morning and the night has been giggled away from watching Napoleon Dynamite, or when it is three in the afternoon and one's mind is numb from hours of concentrating at school, running on less than six hours of sleep. As Grace and I started to cross a field, I grabbed her scooter and declared that I would ride it the entire way across the grass, which I did in an extraordinarily clumsy manner that set us both off into belly-deep laughter. We couldn't contain ourselves over things that were barely funny, and what a relief that was! It was like stretching after being forced to sit in the same position for hours on end, medicine for the soul! Laughter is a blessing, most certainly an oodle of sunshine.
Needless to say, not one of those things happened.
And here I am, a little more grown up than that eighth grade girl who started a blog about her fascination with horses, hopefully a little bit better a writer than my awkward fourteen year old self who made a writing tips blog, yet had writing skills comparable to a fifteenth century orphan. Of course ideas of becoming a famous author still dance across my imagination - how could they not? But I write not for fame or praise, but because writing is a magical outlet that allows me to spill my jumbled mess of thoughts onto a page. And what a wonderful feeling that is.
Oodles of Sunshine. I'm not going to say how many times I had to brainstorm to come up with a likable name that both followed the purpose of this blog and wasn't already taken, but in the end I think that the current title is my favorite of all the ones I tried. Oodles because it's an informal word with a simple, happy tone. Sunshine because the target goal of this blog is to notice the happy moments (sunshine moments) in daily life. Therefore, Oodles of Sunshine references the fact that there is much to be grateful for, and this is my attempt to recognize those small tender experiences.
Some days are just hard. In an unexplainable way, life can seem so easy and cheerful one day, only to turn around completely the next, for no particular reason. Today's sunshine moment came because of a hard day. High school is... well, high school. Classes are often boring. Social interactions tend to be rough. Walking to school is typically cold. Waking up in the morning... don't get me started on that one. When the bell finally rang at the end of last period, I walked out of class with a few friends, but my brain was dead after nearly seven hours of listening to droning teachers and trying to keep my focus level above zero, and I failed to be a very interesting conversationalist. We reached the end of the hall where I split off to go outside and walk home while my friends headed for the parking lot.
The coolest person I know is probably my friend Grace. She wore Chacos years before it was cool, collects Funko Pop! characters, and rides a scooter to school, as of the fact that it saves her five minutes of walking (and therefore sleeping) time. Grace happened to be leaving school today at the same time as me, and she lives only a short distance from my house, so we started walking home together.
Conversations with Grace are never boring. We first became good friends when we rode the same bus to junior high and would often sit next to each other, where we would giggle and talk about all the random things junior high students can think of to talk about. It became a tradition to exchange a favorite word of the day with one another, ranging from "serendipity" to "osteoporosis," both of which I still thoroughly enjoy saying.
Today, our conversation started with microwaves. She began telling me about some people she knew who believed eating microwaved food to be a major obstacle to living a long life and refused to own one because of this suspicion, but (Grace reasoned) in the end, both sides balance out! Either you eat quickly-heated food and die early (as supposed by these people anyways), or you live a slightly longer life, but spend more time heating your food in an oven or over the stove.
So we had a funny conversation about microwaves. (I went on to tell Grace about the amusing microwave gadget my dad recently bought.) How was this a sunshine moment? Because I laughed. I laughed the kind of laugh that comes only when it is either three in the morning and the night has been giggled away from watching Napoleon Dynamite, or when it is three in the afternoon and one's mind is numb from hours of concentrating at school, running on less than six hours of sleep. As Grace and I started to cross a field, I grabbed her scooter and declared that I would ride it the entire way across the grass, which I did in an extraordinarily clumsy manner that set us both off into belly-deep laughter. We couldn't contain ourselves over things that were barely funny, and what a relief that was! It was like stretching after being forced to sit in the same position for hours on end, medicine for the soul! Laughter is a blessing, most certainly an oodle of sunshine.
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