How to Survive Dinner with Your Lover’s Parents

Okay, so you’ve decided to take things a little further in the relationship and meet up with your partner’s parents. If you’re a little nervous, it’s understandable. You might be worried about whether or not they will like you, scared you’ll say the wrong thing, or do something that otherwise gives your partner’s parents a bad impression of you. Don’t worry, I’ve pulled together some of the best tips to keep in mind during that prolonged and painful night.

1. Arrive on time. 
2. Wear nice clothing. You don’t need to go out and rent a tux, but it’s imperative that you look clean-cut. What you end up wearing depends on your personality. I suggest dressing in something nicer than a t-shirt and jeans, shine your shoes, clip your nails, trim the nose hair, comb your hair with gel, and whatever else it takes to look snazzy.
3. Whatever you do, do not mention politics The first way to go wrong on the first dinner night with your partner’s parents is to bring up controversial subjects. It’s generally a good idea to abstain from mentioning politics in your average conversation, nevermind a conversation with elders who are judging your every action.
4. Observe the family for tradition cues. If both parents are folding their napkin and putting it in their laps, it’s probably a good idea that you do the same. Mimicking polite behavior is an easy way to gain their acceptance.
5. Compliment the meal. Moms (and dads) love it when you say something kind about the food that they just put in a lot of time to prepare. But don’t force it, or the compliments will sound like false praise. If you like something about the food, mention it. Simple as that.
6. Chew with your mouth closed. If you haven’t already learned how to do this, now’s a good time to start practicing. If it’s a particularly hard concept for you to grasp, spend time chewing in a mirror.
7. Ask questions. Remember, if you aren’t asking the questions, the parents are going to. And there’s not a lot of things more awkward than your partner’s dad drilling you about your future plans. Relax and have a good time. Keep in mind that these people are just looking out for their kid. If you know you’re a good person for your partner, you have nothing to worry about.
8. Prepare yourself for the most difficult questions. While at dinner, the parents are likely going to ask after your job, your hobbies, plans for marriage, religion, education, and other various topics. If it helps, quickly review some of the biggest
9. Ask your partner how their parents have reacted to past dates. You’ll have a better idea of what to expect, and if you’re lucky, you might learn what worked and didn’t from past dates’ experiences.
10. And remember, be yourself. That’s the most important advice I can give you. If you aren’t yourself, your date’s parents are going to pick up on the incongruities fairly quickly. Love yourself for who you are, because you only have one life and it’s not worth wasting it being someone else.

The Four Ways You Destroy Your Blog

You’ve probably heard some of the countless tips to becoming a better blogger. And those tips, whether the writers intend to or not, will ruin your writing career. Here are some of the more painfully abstaining tips I have unearthed from the internet.

Blogging Cliche. First things first, you must write a blog post titled “How to Be A Successful Blogger” even if the blogger is a beginner who doesn’t know squat about blogging.

Write for Your Audience. This advice is excruciatingly confusing. This tip is infuriatingly confusing. Suddenly the mere prospect of writing a blog is freighting because it has to be “perfect” in every person’s eyes. . Most days I feel as volatile as the average person does. So, what I’m trying to say is write for yourself. Not only will you get rid of those butterflies, writing without a care (or a nagging critic) will karate chop that writing block.

Be Unique. Okay, so most teenagers are utterly unstable and lack a sense of who they are. Are some bloggers suggesting I only write on the days where l am thinking coherently? I’m a teenager. If I were to write on those few days where l’m emotionally stable, there‘d only be about four posts a year. Honestly, I am not excited to conceal my immature stance (as a teenager) and replace it with a faux adult persona.

Use a Wide Vocabulary. This advice should NOT apply to teenagers or anyone for that matter. Try listening to a paper written by someone who blatantly cracked open a thesaurus. Let me tell you, the author sounds far from photosynthesis. *wince* Don’t get me wrong, I always look to expand my vernacular but faking a vocabulary should just be writing sin number one.

There’s a lot of information on the web (a.k.a blogs) trying to put creative bloggers in a box. If we  all tried to conform to our audience, we’d lose the individuality that makes us interesting in the first place. Every writer has their own way of spinning their tale; Hence, you can take heed of these tips or you can develop your very own. Either way I’m glad to meet you, and welcome to my blog.

An Old Woman’s Elephant

You would be surprised to hear that my four year old sister concocted this magnificent story. Just imagine the story possibilities with an imaginative kid running around!

An Old Woman’s Elephant

By Abigail Doubleday

4 years old

Mary is shoveling. She’s a tiny woman who can only make little piles of snow with her short shovel. Her chair inside her house is the same size and she sits in it every day. She only has one chair at her dining room table and has small bits of food to eat. Sometimes she doesn’t have any food. She always has a pout on her face and crunched eyebrows. Today is sad for the woman because she has no one to play with and nothing to do.

Mary is alone because no one lives around her. No one wants to either. She used to wear dresses to parties with other people, but no one liked them because no one liked her. Her dresses aren’t like the other girls dresses because Mary’s dresses are a mix between black and white, but not quite gray. The dresses Mary wore were mostly dirty dresses with holes in them.

            Today Mary is extra sad. So Mary puts down her shovel and finds her helicopter that she built all by herself. She builds a lot of things, and this helicopter is one of the best things she made. She knows how to build everything, but she doesn’t know how to make friends with other people.

            Mary climbs into her helicopter and flies up into the sky. From up in the sky Mary can see all the land like a big map. Her house is hidden behind lots of trees. The closest house is another state over. Mary realizes how alone her house is.

            Mary sees a pink spot from the sky and soars down to see what it is. When she stops the helicopter Mary notices a stuffy elephant. He’s a special elephant who is striped pink with blue polka dots. He reminds Mary of a rainbow, like the one she used to watch when she was little.  Mary hugs and snuggles with the teeny tiny elephant. They go into the helicopter and fly to Mary’s home.

            Mary doesn’t have to be alone anymore. She smiles at the elephant and he snuggles with her again.

After my sister Abby spinned this story off to me, she simply nodded her head and said, “It’s a sad story.” And then ran off to play. Who knew such a young girl could hold such bursting talent as a storyteller? I’d even go as far to say that anyone can be a successful writer if they try. Anyone who plays with their story like a child, playing the “what if” game and letting their imagination run wild can become a writer.

In Reality, You are Not Stuck at Home

So, if you’re in the same situation as me, you’re likely condemned to the confines of your house by blistering cold weather. If not, kudos to you and your California realm of sunshine and rainbows. Today is a Monday and a school-off-day, and nearly every teenager in my school is not relishing the extra day at home. For all the adults in the universe, I’m sorry, but I have to kick you off my blog. You have serious work to do. Speaking of jobs, as a teen blogger it’s my job to instill new knowledge into your brains and open up your eyelids to a stranger world. Therefore, pick up a pencil. Don’t ask me why, just do it. Approximately how much do you think this pencil weighs? Please stop typing it into Google, that’s just a lazy way out. But, it’s fairly light, right? Now, if we tried to hold a pencil-sized chunk of the sun, none of us would be able to lift the piece of sun off the ground. Well, that’s to say our hands didn’t disintegrate by then. The sun weighs a whopping mass of about 1,990,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 kg!! Mind blown yet? If not, gaze at the galaxy here. I know what my next computer background is going to be.

Childhood Pleasures

The New York Tragedy

Good morning New York! I wish. Last night I walked onto the stage, taking deep breaths as the stage lights lit my face. Millions of heads hushed each other as I began the play by introducing myself as “Atticus Finch.” A blast of smoke sifted across the stage and unseen shouts of “Witch” and “Demon” came from behind the curtains. Just as I’m about to say my next line, I’m awakened by the shrill, inevitable sound of kids screaming.
“Where’s the bunny? We lost the bunny!” my sister shouts. I wipe her spit off my face and groggily sit up. What a wonderful start to my day. Well, It’s unfortunate I can’t lucid dream, because then I would choose to become a star of my play again. Who says sleep lovers were procrastinators?

Once upon a time my writing mimicked clichés. Now, if I could go back in time, I would smirk at the petite girl proudly writing a whole book (with giant drawings on each page). I remember yelling to my mom as I shook my crayon smudged paper like a student receiving a college acceptance letter. I’m not a procrastinator either, I read the twilight series as a fourth grader. Reading has improved my vocabulary and helped me realize there’s a world outside my own. My brothers and I live in the middle of the woods and spend all our time together. Normally, a person would relate someone who stayed at home to a hermit. Even though I am somewhat of a recluse, having nine family members prevents me from having peaceful solitude. I’m beginning to think my four brothers drove me to becoming an introvert! Does anyone else want to sit down in a quiet atmosphere and write?

Merry Midterm Christmas

For all of you teens celebrating the Christmas break from school, kudos to you.  So today I’ll ruin the holiday cheer by reminding everyone of the elephant in the room-MIDTERMS. Yes, the one thing (studying) that we hate now is ironically the same thing we’ll be glad we did twenty years from now. Teenagers, like you and I (and the parents who are young at heart),  realize at one point or another that studying is irrevocable. And enjoying school isn’t THAT bad.

Speaking of the holidays, what magnificent things did you receive for Christmas? Did you get everything on your Christmas list? Feel free to comment below. Oddly enough, I felt guilt-ridden as the presents started accumulating to an unreasonable amount. If someone gives me a present, I want to be able to reason out why he/she gave me the present. Was I doing well in school lately and the person wanted to congratulate me on my drive? Have I been uber considerate lately? Whatever the reason may be, I’ll feel 100X better accepting the present. Perhaps I feel guilty accepting presents because I have a unabated fear of becoming a “selfish little brat”. I hear this phrase too many times for it to hurt, but when my mom snaps that I don’t care for anyone but myself I still feel a pang of hurt. Being a teenager is confusing, but add that to six siblings and you’ll find me yanking my hair.

As a holiday gift for the studious students, I’ll attach my vocab list on Quizlet for midterm studying.

P.s. the vocab will be on your SAT test. Good Luck!