I got my shit together!!! (no in all aspects of my life... but in this one!)

So, I was sitting in front of my computer one night when I got an email and thought to myself, "Well, hell... I can do this!"and sent an immediate reply to the email.  A few minutes later I received a response and had a mini party/panic attack at my desk.  I had successfully picked up my first pitch!!!  If you are reading this and don't know exactly what a pitch is in this context, it's a proposal for a story, in this case for MOVE Magazine, a weekly student publication at Mizzou.  Since this first pitch, I have picked up and written two more.  The third will come out this Friday!  Here are links to the first two!

-The print title of this article was "A Phantom Birthday" but it was changed to fit the online requirements. 

http://move.themaneater.com/stories/2012/10/25/phantom-opera-play-missouri-theatre/

http://www.themaneater.com/stories/2012/10/30/first-functional-mri-comes-university-hospital/

Hope you enjoy!! 

My life is currently insane

Dear world,

I will post again when I have time to breath- aka- Wednesday.... maybe.   Sorry!

~LeslieJay

To Be Continued (Maybe)

          You see yourself moving through a field of nothingness.  The gray expanse feels delicate and warm, as if the air is being perfectly circulated around you.  As you float along, distant, formerly amorphous, shapes begin to appear more geometric.  You can make out buildings.  Not historic, stucco or brick buildings, but large cement blocks.  An illusion of light is created by small bits of mirrors cemented into the sides of the buildings that reflect the shards of light which cannot be masked by the artificial cloud cover that not only fills the sky, but fills the spaces between the geometric, evenly spaced structures. 

            As you continue to move closer to the cluster of buildings, you can feel the eerily warm air comb through your short hair and make your light, silky clothing ripple against your dry skin.  Your hands are loosely holding a warm metal railing, not for the sake of balance or protection, but the necessity to have something solid to hold onto. 

            The light, dry, gray fog around you begins to thin, as the cluster of structures grows closer.  The field of nothingness slowly splits itself into three parts.  The first being the thinning fog mixed with the warming air, the second the approaching “city,” and the third being the still, channel of liquid you are cutting through.  The color of the watery substance is difficult to identify.  It is a tertiary, powdery green that is tainted with the same gray undertone as the rest of your surroundings. The liquid in front of you appears almost as still and cement at the buildings you are approaching until your industrial wooden raft cuts through it. 

            The raft’s deck is made of smooth wooden planks that feel cold under your feet, clashing with the warm air surrounding, sending a feverish sweat through your poorly insulated body.  You are standing at the bow of the 800 foot raft which is shaped liked a thin oval with a pointed bow and stern.  The actual source of the raft’s forward motion and direction is unknown, as is the width and length of the channel you are traveling on, due to the thick, puffy cloud cover that is only absent over the raft’s path but stands like the walls of a tunnel ten feet from each side of the raft and a ceiling about twenty feet overhead. 

            Through your journey there was rarely a break in the clouds and they created the constant illusion of a solid wall in front of you.  But as you approached the city, you suddenly broke through the eternal wall of clouds.  The clouds turned from a dark gray to light gray and began to appear thinner and wispier, but show no sign of disappearing.  The cloud ceiling appears to raise at an ever increasing slope, and the shards of light that reflect off the buildings increase, causing you to squint your eyes.  You cannot remember the last time you saw light, real light.  The raft has four ten foot tall fluorescent lights that create a bright square in the center of the raft.  You prefer to stay outside of this artificial light because it reflects off your bright white tunic, with a blinding effect and causes your head to hurt. 

            Your name is #248677895883 but you go by “Key,” after the trade of your distant locksmith ancestors.  What a locksmith or a “Key” actually is, you don’t know but you’ve been told they go together. 

            You feel a hand press against your back.  Simple human contact is relied upon for sanity during long, raft journeys through the gray abyss.  Any concept of time slips away as you pass through the never-ending foggy tunnel.  It is only when you approach the occasional cluster of buildings that you can tell you’ve actually covered any distance. 

            On the rafts, people find things to entertain themselves with.  They count the wooden planks.  Then count them again.  The children create games, tapping each other’s fingers and pulling their clothing in different directions to create costumes.  Most people slip into a state of restless sleep or, for the lucky ones, meditation.  Other people just sit close to one another or hold hands just to exchange a feeling of life.  There is no speaking permitted on the rafts.  

I wrote this on a plane a few months ago.  Not really sure what it is or exactly what it means but it's something I might want to work on in the future.  Hope you enjoyed it! 

LET'S GO GIANTS!!!!

Sorry to my Missouri friends, but I have to root for my home team this time.  Play hard tonight San Francisco!  Wish I could be there.  

And Sandoval hits a home run!!!!!!!!!!!!  

Okay, I'm going to watch the rest of the game now.  

Bye. 

Oops... Sorry, I'm Human...

Well, third day of my blog and I'm already screwing up.  Usually, I'm pretty good at sticking to my word (or so I would like to think...), but when a big assignment calls, I'm unfortunately at its mercy.  That being said, I very obviously didn't get a chance to post yesterday.  Hopefully, I will be able to give you a better excuse as to why in a few days.  All excuses aside, I now have to make up for the fact that I missed yesterday.  So, today I will post twice.  This post will be shorter, because I have class soon and my actual Wednesday post will come later tonight.

Tuesday Post: 

As it sit in my dorm room wearing workout shorts and a t-shirt, I have one thing on my mind.  MIDWESTERN WEATHER...WTF?????  A few weeks ago I packed up my shorts and stowed them in the Russian Nesting Doll-esque set of suitcases I keep beneath my bed, under the assumption that the weather would continue its trend of gradually easing us into nice fall then scary winter weather.  Despite my fear of inevitably freezing my ass off, I had accepted that the weather was going through a natural process and was maintaining hope that I would adjust to the foreign cool temperatures.  But then there was an unexpected turn of events!  The the rain, the warmth (there is a high of 84 today), and my personal favorite, the humidity (please note my extreme level of sarcasm) decided to come and barreling in and royally confuse me.  And to exasperate my confusion even more... there is a high of 50 on Saturday!  Soooooooo excited....... ugh.....

New Blog Week Post #1- A Few Random Photos

I was sitting awake last night and decided that in honor of my new blog, I should post something new every day this week, just to get things going.  After this week, I will be posting approximately once a week.  However, today is a very busy Monday for me.  So, I decided it would be a good day to post a few pictures.
Last week I decided that it was time to start carrying my camera around with me again.  I love Instragram (which you can also follow me, "LeslieJay" on (can't believe I just wrote a plug for my other social networking account...)), but sometimes nothing beats a real camera. I use a little SONY Cyber-Shot digital camera.  It's light, fits in my purse, and was a gift from my lovely grandparents.  Eventually, I would love to take an actual photography class, but for now, I just play with my camera settings and some very very basic computer editing techniques and just see what happens.

Here are a few really random pictures I have taken over the past year.  Hope you enjoy!

I took this last February on a trip to Hawaii and tried to make it look like an advertisement.  

From the same Hawaii trip- found these little guys while I was on a walk.  

I was mesmerized by the caterpillars' eyes.  They didn't even seem real.  I used the background blur setting on my camera to take this and didn't have to do any editing on it.

From a beach trip my friend sand I took last May- This is a picture of my friend, Wesley, that I took with the background blur setting on my camera.  

Just took this yesterday.  A couple of my friends walking through the Missouri School of Journalism arch.

Check back in tomorrow for another new post! 

WARNINGS

Warnings about reading my blog:
1. Do not take this post seriously
2. I can be profane and sarcastic or peppy and sweet (or a mix between the two)
3. I like details
4. I HATE PUNCTUATION (especially commas)
5. I'm really really really sarcastic
6. My sense of humor is self-deprecating sometimes (a.k.a. I'm trying to be funny.  I'm not (usually) fishing for compliments (but will accept them gladly))
7. Many of my jokes fall flat
8. I will LOVE you if you read my blog (this is the one item on this list that can be taken completely seriously)

Read Me!

For lack of a better hook: Keep reading!  I've been saying since August that I was going to start a new blog, so now that I'm actually doing it people better read it (in other words... pretty pretty please read it)  My old blog, ironically titled "Something New" was fun, but now I have actually started on something new.  In fact, there are quite a few new things going on.  First off, I'M IN COLLEGE!!! Secondly, I'M LIVING IN MISSOURI!!! (yeah, I know... wtf???) and finally, I ACTUALLY HAVE TIME TO BLOG!!! (at the moment that is...).

I'm going to try and post here every week with a random assortment of stuff.  Recently, I have realized that I follow too many rules and need to learn to break them once and a while.  So, my blog has no set theme.  You'll never know what you're going to get when you check back.  One day I might feel like writing a gripping post about the deep incredible meaning of life (if I can figure out what exactly that would be comprised of), another day I might be having a bitch fest (prepare yourselves for profanity on those days), other days I might post pictures I take (when I finally start carrying my camera around again), when I am feeling professional (and get my act together) I will post copies of or links to journalistic articles I start writing for school, and, in addition to many other things, you will probably get getting samples of my my fiction writing as well.  Yes, I know that posting fiction on a blog can be kind of a "no-no," but I'll probably do it anyway (yeah, I know, I'm soooo rebellious). 

More to come soon!  Hope you enjoy my blog!  Keep clicking back!!