Sonny's Area: Thou Art Translated!

"Thou art translated!" My friend Jillian said to me one day in band class, before warming up. She was just quoting shakespeare that we were performing in English class, but it actually made me think. In this context, "Thou art translated" means "You have changed."

I have changed. What an understatement that is. I'll show you change.

7th Grade:

I remember being shy, at least when I wasn't around my small group of friends. I appreciated drama, because I could imagine how much work it took to put together a show, but I never really got into it. For instance, I would see shows at the high school, but I wouldn't see them more than once, or flip through the program to see who played what part.

I also had long, brown hair back then. I rarely let my hair down. When I say rarely, I mean rarely. Perhaps rarely is the wrong word to use... more like barely. I absolutely hated having my hair down, and I only recall having it down for only one day of the entire school year. That was the day when we presented our English projects infront of the class.

I didn't draw anime-style like I do now, and I didn't watch any animes. I don't think I knew what an anime even was back in the day. Also, in terms of clothing choice, those were the days when I thought I had to dress up like everybody else for people to like me. That meant, back then, mostly things from Aeropostale and other name brands like that. I wanted to blend in. I wouldn't dare wear neon skinny jeans, or god forbid fingerless gloves.

I focused a lot on my schoolwork, which isn't a bad thing, now that I look back, but I regret not spending my time doing other things. Other exciting, wonderful things.

I was, however, still in love with writing, but not as much as I am now. I did write short stories, that were three typed pages long at the very most. I was a proud member of the creative writing club, like I am now.

Last but not least, the school band was a chore for me. I dreaded the band classes, and I kept my eyes glued to the clock, waiting for 1:14 PM to come rolling around the corner.

See? An Aeropostale sweatshirt, and my hair is way too neatly combed back with a headband, and tied into a ponytail. Talk about basic.

This was one of the only pictures I could find of myself during seventh grade with my hair down. The only reason it looks decent is because I just got out of the shower. Wondering what those blond streaks are? Highlights. Let the record show that my natural hair color is, in fact, dark brown.

For those of you who know me, and maybe haven't seen me in a few years, you may be thinking that the pictures above are accurate to this date. You, my friend, are wrong. I have "translated" into something much different. How have I translated? Besides physical appearances? I will show you.

8th Grade:

The first major change is, of course, my hair. The summer between 7th and 8th grade, I got a pixie cut. To clarify, it was boy short. I wanted any excuse to dye my hair red. I think red, or auburn, is a beautiful hair color. So, in october, when I dressed up like Pebble Flintstone, I played with the dark red hair dye in the bathroom. That lasted until the new year. Although I loved the change, it just wasn't bold enough. So I went to the brightest and still natural-looking shade there was in CVS. Take a look for yourself.

I loved to stand out.

I told you red was gorgeous, and I don't care if it looks natural or not.

Remember back in seventh grade, how I wanted to fit in, just like any other girl? Not anymore. I love to stand out. With hair, and with my clothing choices, too. I wear what I please, not because one of the popular girls in my school is wearing it too. I have a pear of yellow skinny jeans, bright yellow shorts, and all kinds of different things. I even have a white dress with limes and oranges and lemons all over it! It's not all about bright colors, necessarily, but the point is, I'm not afraid to wear what I want now.

I'm also not afraid to go swimming in my clothes. This was taken at my birthday party this year.

We were sprawled out on a big rock by the pool afterwards. Let me tell you that if you've never swam in your clothes before, you haven't lived yet. It's incredibly fun.

And the sun was in my eyes.

Now. Onto the rest of how I have changed.

Drama. I'm obsessed now. I'm proud to call myself a thespian, one who loves musicals, theatre, drama, everything about performing arts, basically. I played a blue monster in the one act plays, and I'm taking intro to Tech Theatre for one of my electives in High School next year. What's Tech Theatre? Everything behind the scenes. Lighting, sound, set design, costume design, make up, all kinds of things. The list never ends. I know make up isn't tech, but it's part of the crew. What I'm saying is that there are so many ways to get involved, and taking intro to Tech Theatre is one of the ways.

For English class, we were performing scenes from William Shakespeare's A Mid-Summer Night's Dream. When our class went into the junior high auditorium, also known as the Dragonfly theatre, my friend Colin and I immediately ran for seat 107 in the front row. We both knew that in Guys and Dolls, the musical for this year at the Junior High, they all pointed at seat 107 at one part of the musical. It was the very center, and it was the best seat in the entire house. After fighting over the seat, we ran on stage and began acting like horses. Why? Because we could. Then we started re-enacting scenes from Into The Woods, which we were watching in drama class. Burnadette Peters, you're an idol to me now.

On the last day of school, we had a big assembly in the high school auditorium. So, after the assembly was over, my thespian friends and I raced to the Proscenium Circus office to get scripts. We already had the fall play scripts, which unfortunately, I won't be able to audition for. You should've seen us running out of the office to catch our busses waiting outside. We had a huge script for Legally Blonde, the musical, and a small script for the Mystery Plays, for the festival. I quote my friend Sarah, "Festival is all your Halloweens, Christmases, birthdays, Gaga's birthdays, Jewish holidays you don't celebrate, all squished into one event!!" Anyway, we were running, clutching a huge stack of paper to our chests. On our way out, we grabbed as many PC mints as we could. They are really just mint lifesavers, but we call them PC mints. I only got two, but that didn't matter.

I draw anime-style now. Thanks to my good friends Ally and Julia for teaching me continuously! There really isn't much to say about it, so I'll let a few of my "masterpieces" do the talking.

Remember April Heels? I consider her a character of mine. Here she is! I envy everything she does/have. She's my dream self. In this drawing, she's carrying bags of Copic markers, which are markers that do not smudge or leave streaks.

B@man! Watch Holy Musical B@man on youtube, and you'll probably appreciate this drawing even more. Yes, it is spelled with an @ sign.

Saki Morimi, from Eden of the East, my favorite anime. You'll see a photo of her below.

To my good friend Colin. ;) Thanks for reading and supporting me so much in my writing. You're a genius, and I can't wait to see you in intro to Tech Theatre next year in high school!!

You may have noticed that these are signed "YC" or "YellowChello." Why? There is a wonderful website called DeviantArt.com, where artists can publish their work for other friends and millions of other artists to see. It's a wonderful world on that website. There are painters, photographers, drawers, digital artists, all kinds of art belongs on this website. My username is YellowChello. Yellow is my favorite color, and Chello just rhymes. Yes, I've already figured out that I misspelled Chello, but it doesn't matter.

Ally also introduced me to watching anime. Anime is a type of TV show, and I don't really know exactly what categorizes as anime and what doesn't. I will say, however, that my three favorite animes are Eden of the East, Hetalia, and D. Gray-Man. All of them can be found on Netflix if you're curious.

I loved it so much that for about two weeks, I kept writing Eden of the East in Japanese on my arm, with golden metallic sharpies.

One day, at Ally's home, I got the chance to try on her black wig. I loved it, because I was that much closer to looking like Akira Takizawa, my favorite anime character. He's from Eden of the East.

How'd I do? I know, I'm an awful cos-player. (A cos-player is one who dresses up like a character, such as Akira Takizawa.)

Saturday morning, 10:30, and I'm wearing a wig. No big deal.

Akira Takizawa and Saki Morimi.

I said that I focused a lot on my schoolwork in seventh grade. My grades, however, have been worse than eighth grade, and not just because it's harder than seventh grade, but because in April, I started to write a story. At first, I didn't know how long this story was going, or even how it was going to end. I just started and "wrote by ear" from there. I'm calling it a book, now, because as of today, I've written forty-four typed pages of this story. I've entitled it Sly Serendipity, but that might change as I continue to write.

My good friend Colin, who I drew above, has been more than supportive of my story writing. I did name a character after him, but even in the chapters that he isn't in, he's been a big fan the entire time. To clarify, there is no "main" character in this story, even though his character does play a pretty big role in the story. He gets first "dibs" for the e-mail list, whenever I finish a chapter. He gives me small but great ideas, and half the time he doesn't even know it.

I'll often text him to keep him in the loop with what I'm writing next, or new ideas that I have. I'll show you guys a few of the texts, just to give you an idea of how supportive he was, and why he deserves such a great shout out like this. ;)

When I say "U give great W.O.W." I'm referring to his character in the story.

When I say a number, like 16, I'm referring to Chapter 16. Just to clarify.

The reason he said "GLORY GLORY BUD UP BA!" is because it's from a Pippin song called Glory, and we both love it, and we both wake up to it every morning. As an added bonus, we sing Pippin songs while pathetically "running" around the track during gym.

Yep... that's my secret shelf. Shh!!

For the record, when I'm at my dads house, I balance that same stuffed bear on my head for concentration. Yes, it helps.

To finish this long post up, I'm a proud band geek. Band isn't a chore for me, in fact, quite the opposite! I love band! I couldn't be more excited about the high school marching band, and the tall floofy hats, and the uniforms, and the field show for football games, and it's going to be AMAZING.

There's even a page on Facebook called "Memes for Obsessed Band Kids" and guess who likes that page? ME. Here are a couple.