currently.

8/26/13

currently:
++ researching colleges ++
++ editing photos from a trip to San Fran ++
++ writing an entry to my senior logbook ++
++ doing algebra ++
++ having a pounding headache ++
++ applying for jobs ++
++ wishing for coffee ++
++ listening to country music ++

ps: if you have coffee, and bring me some, consider yourself my new best friend. xx

magnets: a poem

8/18/13

[via]

you're like the wind
untouchable
unseen, and always changing

i'm like the trees and plants
quiet, and tied down
whipped to and fro by your force

together we're like the sun and moon
opposites
pushing + pulling like magnets

but they say that opposites attract
and i think you know
that that's all i ever wanted.

[currently: eating: toasted pecans // drinking: diet pepsi // reading: the book thief by markus zusak // wishing: that school didn't start so soon // listening to: i almost do - taylor swift // feeling: a tad lonely]

getting to know me. [30 things you should know]

8/14/13


  1. My middle name is Noel. Mostly because I was born four days before Christmas. Also because my mother is obsessed with all things French.
  2. I can eat more pizza than my nearly twenty year old brother. Um.
  3. I prefer the British spelling of words. Favourite, recognise, colour, organise, etc.
  4. I have been informed on several different occasions that I look like I'm twelve, not seventeen-going-on-eighteen.
  5. I can sing along to every single Silly Song with Larry that was ever made. Achoo moo moo, achoo moo moo, achoo moo moo, achoo moo moo moo moo moo moo moo moo moo.
  6. I never cry in movies. Seriously. I don't cry when watching Les Mis, and really only teared up while watching War Horse. I'm called the heartless one in my family.
  7. My dad calls me his hippy love child. It stemmed from the fact that I had pants with sequins and an embroidered butterfly on them. Don't judge, I was eleven.
  8. My form of photography used to only be point and press the button. My iPhoneography technique has not changed.
  9. When I'm tired my sense of humor becomes very snarky. As exemplified by the bus ride home from Mexico when I jokingly (of course jokingly, and not because they were being very loud in the seats behind me) told people that if they had a golden ticket, they got to walk the rest of the way home. We had just crossed the border.
  10. I play fantasy football. 
  11. People don't believe me when I say that I actually have a very short temper. I get it from my dad's side of the family.
  12. Once, in Mexico, I tried a churro and it was as close to heaven as you can get on this earth. Three words that make it heavenly: cinnamon. sugar. fried. Mmmm. So good.
  13. Thirteen is my favourite number, and my lucky one. Also, seven and three. Because good things come in threes, and seven is the most powerfully magical number in the world.
  14. I have a horrible knack for saying stupid things and then digging a deeper hole for myself. Did you mean: everyday of my entire existence?
  15. At age sixteen, I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes and spent three days in the intensive care unit of my local hospital. I spent my entire time watching superhero movies because that's what you do when you've just been diagnosed with a chronic illness.
  16. I don't intend to have children. I will become a doctor and deal with other people's snotty nosed kids instead. #logic
  17. When I have crushes on cute boys, I facebook stalk them and then hate myself for liking someone. Again, don't judge.
  18. My first phone was my dad's old iPhone 3GS. I killed it within six months of receiving it. We don't talk about that.
  19. I read all seven Harry Potter books in three days and then went to see 7.2 in theatres for the midnight premiere. My family still doesn't believe that I was able to read them that quickly. I haven't told that that I didn't sleep and barely ate during those three days yet.
  20. I've never traveled farther east than Texas. And even then I was only in Texas for a grand total of four hours. And besides. Does El Paso even count as Texas?
  21. My favorite colour is blue. I love it so much that I painted my room the exact shade that I love. My sister, whom I share a room with, does not love it as much as I do.
  22. I'm a bit of a grammar freak. I correct signs as we're driving. It drives my mother crazy.
  23. I love running and playing ultimate frisbee. I love it so much that I got stress fractures in my right leg. Boo.
  24. I overuse commas. Wait. Does this mean I lose my grammar police badge?
  25. I collect notebooks. My shelves are filled with journals and notebooks and papers. My dad hates it.
  26. I am a huge hockey fan. If you look through the texts sent between my dad and I, you'll find over three hundred about the Stanley Cup Final and the NHL draft. 
  27. I have a four month old beagle puppy named Gus. The cuteness kills me.
  28. When I was six my parents told me that Christmas lights were not put up for Christmas, they were put up for my birthday. I believed them. And didn't know the truth until I was nearly eleven.
  29. I used to figure skate. And then I realised that one must be rather flexible to do triple axels and lutzes. I can't even touch my toes.
  30. My name is commonly used for dogs. Just last weekend I was at the mall and there was a man with his guide dog named Bailey. My mother apologizes for naming me such a common dog name.
  31. I never follow the rules. They're more like guidelines anyway.

never to go on trips with anyone you do not love.

8/11/13



























Road trips are my absolute fave. You load up the car with snacks and your favorite people and set off on an adventure into the Great Unknown. In this case, the Great Unknown was little town stacked full to the brim with thrift shops, old churches, and health clinics: Paradise, CA.

There were fourteen of us senior interns who loaded up in a church bus at eight-oh-six yesterday morning and took off down the road. We stopped for icees at nine, because when you're road tripping, icees are an absolute must have. We sang awkwardly in the back seat as our youth leaders drove and laughed along. We toured Paradise, seeing all of the places that my youth pastor, Jeremy, grew up going to and hanging out at.

And then we got to the real reason for our trip: hiking.

It was an easy hike down to the waterhole and dam. We talked and laughed and began to work as a team. We helped each other over the rocky places, raced over the flat areas, and whooped when we saw our end goal. We stripped down to our bathing suits, and stood looking out over the river from the top of the dam.

The water was deep and clear and our feet slapped against the cement of the dam as we got into position. "Nobody jump yet," Jeremy said. "It's all about trust. We have to jump together and each trust that no one will land on top of you."

I chickened out. "No way. I thought I could do this, but no. No. Absolutely not." (Imagine Russell Crowe as Javert jumping to his death in Les Mis and you have a pretty accurate what I was convinced was going to happen to me.)

Jeremy and the boys tried to get me to jump, but I stood there, not looking down, and refusing. The gave up, and the rest of the team jumped.

Part of me wanted to jump to. Part of me was screaming that someday I would regret it. Someday I would look back on that particular moment in time and wish so hard that I had been brave and jumped off of a twelve foot high dam into twenty+ foot deep water. I stood up, and walked to the edge. My girl friends joined me, and the boys watched from the bank. "Are you going to do it this time?" they yelled at me. "Let her be," said Jeremy.

I remember my paralyzing fear and again not wanting to do it. I remember counting to three. I remember my feet inching towards the edge of the dam, and curling my toes over it to keep  my balance. I remember falling for a few seconds, and then hitting the freezing water and going under. I remember my eyes popping open in shock, and taking in a lungful of river water. I remember coming up, and laughing over my fear. I remember the cheers of my teammates as they grinned from around me and at the river bank.

I do not remember jumping.

I did it again. I jumped again, this time with the entire team. It was just as cold and terrifying and horribly addicting as the first time.

I remember asking to go again, but it was time to say goodbye to our little waterhole and head back into town.

We went out for Mexican afterwards, and as I sat at the table with all of my friends and youth pastor, eating my super nacho, they began to dole out nicknames. When they got to me, there was a bit of silence, and then John said, "Merida. Your nickname is Merida, because you're both brave. And it's one of the only Disney princess movies you've ever seen."

There was laughter after that, and lots of smiling faces, and the nickname remains. Merida.

xx, Bailey

in the [very] beginning

8/7/13

I've always found that the first entry in a new journal is the hardest⎯ it sets to tone for the little book that will home your fears and hopes and far flung dreams. Blogs are equally as hard. 

These are the first words written on a blank slate. It's the beginning, and beginnings terrify me.

My story doesn't begin here, and it won't end here. It begins in a little house and continues on to a slightly larger house with a big backyard and a bedroom with blue walls. It started with a little girl, and now that girl is almost grown up. It follows her journey through life and and joy and love and friendship. There's a dash of pain and hurt mixed in with the joy, but pain is like salt: it makes the joyful times all the sweeter. Her story has been documented and influenced by so many different people, and now she's turning the page into a new chapter.

Stories never really end, I don't think. There's always an unspoken ending, something that the reader knows will happen regardless of how the author ends it. The story takes flight on our imaginations, and a million different scenarios play out. Do they fall in love? Do they grow old together, or separately? Does her pain ever go away? The end goes on, and so the story continues to live in the reader's heart.

My story is not unlike the rest. It had an ending, and now it continues on.

My name is Bailey, and I like to think that I'm a storyteller. Welcome to So She Says.