Day 3: About Your Friends

My friends are slightly strange people...

Scratch that.

They're complete freaks who are anything beyond normal. They are various and unique from each other as well as the rest of society. I have a friend who's a literal genius, but she hallucinates sometimes when she's really tired. And another one who's the boldest and craziest future bunny I know. One of my friends wears a purple trench coat almost every time he can. I have a friend who's obsessed with Led Zeppelin, and if I have to trust my life with any druggie, it'd be her, even though she's not really a druggie.

Another one of my friends has the same birthday as me. A friend of mine has been one my best friends since kindergarten, and she's in love with Owl City. I have a friehd who's obsessed with sports, even though he doesn't play them very much. A friend who literally collects people as a hobby. A friend who claims I'm weird with pride. A friend who has pink hair, goes to another school, and is simply awesome. A friend with a new favorite color every day. A friend who helped me become friends with most of my current friends.

A friend who me and her call each other scum of the earth out of love. A friend who loves the Matrix and Avatar. And many, many others. I think it would take an entire notebook alone to describe all of them, briefly. Heck, it would take an entire notebook to describe all of them.

Day 2: The Meaning Behind My Name

My name is Alexandra Leigh Bess, my penname is Alex Marie Bess. And I have two names that I will gladly describe.

Alexandra- My parents decided when they got married that their first child would be named Alex, and the Alex would be a shortened version of a more formal name. It's an Ancient Greek name, meaning "defender of men." When they found out I was going to be a baby girl, they were a little stumped. They weren't instantly stricken with the fact that a girl could also be named Alex. But they eventually figured it out, and decided my full, formal first name would be Alexandra.

Leigh- The name is a famly name from the Irish part of my other's family line. Each woman in the family had a variation of "Leigh" somewhere in their name. For example, my mom's name is Leigh Ann, and my aunt's name is Christine Leigh. There's also a middle-name tradition in my father's side of the family. The first son of each family's middle name is the same as his grandfather's first name. If I were a boy, my name would have been Alexander James Bess. If my sister had turned out to be a boy, her name would have been Zachary James Bess.

Bess- It's my family name. Originally, when that side of the family came to America, they were German, and their last name was Bosch. They wanted to naturalize as quickly as possible (and hide their German heritage), so they changed their name to Bess. We don't know how long ago they came, but we know that they changed their name when they did so they would sound American. My mother's side of the family did pretty much the same thing when they came to America from Germany, back in the 1940's or 50's. Their name was Stahr, but to sound more American and less German, they changed the spelling to Starr. I guess my family ancestors wanted to naturalize as soon as possible.

And now to my penname. I'm very sorry about the long post, and how boring it may be. But don't give up on reading! Not just yet!

Alex- This is the name everybody calls me, and it's my favorite possible name. I also chose it for it's uniquness to a girl. There aren't many girls named Alex. And, it's for my parents. I'm their first chlid, so my name will always be Alex.

Marie- I like this name, simply the reason why I chose it. It means "bitter," which is the opposite of myself, but that's what makes it interesting and sometime funny.

Bess- I owe a lot to my family. They're the entire reaosn I'm here and I have what I have. If it wasn't for them, I wouldn't be here writing this beautiful post for you all!

That's the entire explanation to my name, and my penname. Have a nice day, everyone.

Day 1: Five Interesting Facts About Myself

Well, I'm an interesting person, I must say. I have many more interesting things than five but I'll limit myself. For now. 1) I have a strangely various taste in music. I have a little bit of everything on my iPod, from Rent to Glee to Eminem to Boys Like Girls to Repo to Journey to Queen to a violin duo. I don't really have any favorites, and the only prefered songs I have are the ones that speak to me the most. 2) I only like peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches. Not any other type of sandwich, just that one kind. Besides a pizza sub, but that doesn't technically count as a sandwich, right? 3) I like to window-shop notebooks and sketchpads and any other type of blank booklet that one could write in. I also buy them pretty often and leave them mostly blank, because I'm convinced that whatever I think of isn't good enough for that notebook, and I should write it down somewhere else. The only reason I started on my newest notebook instantly, despite it's beauty, was because I promised I wouldn't skip a line or rip out a page, or be in any way prejudice towards this notebook. I will only leave a line out to break a paragraph or to keep from interjecting a doodle. 4) I'm a closeted gothic. I don't look like a goth by the way I dress or how I act, but I do greatly appreciate the culture. All the black and white clothing, skulls, straight hair, and popular topics such as Harry Potter and Spiderman. But the only thing I wish I could change is the modern-day gothic culture's acceptance of Twilight. But that's turned into a preppy thing by now at my highschool. 5) I LOVE riding bicycles. Love them, love them, love them! Every year I ride on the bike ride in Iowa for a week across the state. Each day could span from 40 miles to 100 miles, in the late July heat or freezing rain, on flat ground or mountainous hills. I will ride simply for my love of bicycles. The 12,000 or so people who ride on the same ride each year may agree with me. They live through each day of their lives just so they could get a little bit closer to the next time RAGBRAI starts once again.