Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Post #30 and 2nd Anniversary + 10 honest things

Yes, I know I already wrote a ton today, but I realized that today is my second anniversary of being a blogger as well as this making my 30th post on My First Blog... ever! I suppose I didn't write so much in my book, but I don't care so much about that anymore. I've got to come up with a better solution then the 7 thing. Also, with my blog, you could say that whole post might count for something in my Writing Day. And now I'm going to do a lot more writing. So sit tight now.

I thought I'd do something very special in this post. Recently my twin sister, Annette, the Funny One of Welcome to my World, wrote a post called "Honest Scrap", in which she listed 10 honest things about herself. That's because she got tagged by another blogger. I know that there are these blogging games that fly through the virtual world, like you play along and then you send it to your friends by "tagging" them. Usually I don't approve of them, mostly because I never had very close friends to forward the things to. But this one I really like. Here are the rules of the Honest Scrap:

1:I have to list 10 honest things about myself. No hiding anything. Just have to get it off my chest. I've been meaning to write that kind of post for a while.
2:I think of between 5 or 7 bloggers that I "can't live without," (hey, that's what they say), tag them, and that means they have to do the honest scrap too. OR ELSE.
3:I list my "can't live without" friends in link form, so that other people can check their blogs out to make sure they write their scrap. See guys? You're being watched!

So here it is, the 10 things you've always wanted to know about Bettina Levy. I personally think you should take this one in baby steps.
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1: I'm a master at the game Hide-and-Seek. I know it's mostly a kid's game, but if conditions are right, like in a huge house or a big backyard with infinite possibilities for hiding places and with lots of participants (or just Annette and Adam) I love it. It's my favorite game. But what does that mean, exactly, when I say I'm a master at the game? Well, if I'm one of the people hiding, it means that I am very light on my feet and can run very silently in search of a good place. I stay very quiet and very still, and I seem to have an almost feline sense of hearing, so I can sense where the seeker is and if they're close to finding me. And then, when they leave the room, I sneakily dash off to another place and they don't have a clue!

I'm usually the last person to be found, and I love boasting about all the places I hid and no one suspecting anything! And then when I finally get to be a Seeker, I am still a master because I then use my special ears to seek out the hiders and I get them pretty quickly. They are just that much too loud for me. They can run, but they can't hide. Unfortunately, I don't get that much of an opportunity to play Hide-and-Seek anymore, because our house isn't that big. But whenever I get the chance, it's so much fun... for me!

2: I am the biggest fan of stories you've ever seen. I simply love stories. Reading them, writing them, telling them, hearing them, watching them happen before my eyes. This is why I have such a love for books, movies and stories told by actual people. I have a lot of respect for those famous story creators: the authors, the actors, and all the fantastic individuals I am privileged to know who are willing and generous enough to share their amazing life and/or their imagination with others.^,^ I am basically a story buff.

With books, I can remember all of my favorite authors' individual works and all the characters and the plots and how much I loved the plots. With movies, my brain is a network of plots and which famous actors played in them. I love it when I recognize someone in the middle of a film and say "Ooh, I know that guy! He played so and so in that other awesome movie!"

I love animated movies, especially well done ones, because there's an added effect of me recognising the voices alone. That requires some skill. No trouble with my kitty ears! Anyway, my love of stories is the reason I am so attracted to a life of writing. I cannot imagine a better life. I want to write my own books and have other people read about them. I want to offer up my stories to the world.

3: Since I love stories so much, I have a great love for adventures. It's fun seeing other characters go on thrilling adventures, where there's a very serious purpose to the journey, and it's sometimes fun when life and death is involved. That kind of semi-dangerous stuff is fun. I wish very much that I could go on those kind of adventures myself. I want to travel to somewhere I've never been before, or do things I never thought I would do. I can imagine myself thriving in the wilderness, in a forest, or up a mountain, or on rapids.

I fantasize all the time about going on the adventure of my life, wondering where on earth it will take me. But for now, it seems I will just have to continue my training. Scaling those fun rock-climbing walls in theme parks whenever I can instead of actual mountains. Ride the scariest roller-coasters I can find. Work hard at driving lessons, so I can go on all the road trips I want when I'm older. And keep dreaming of going to a fun summer camp with a lake and hikes early every morning, where you spend a long time away from home in a tent or in a cabin, sitting around a camp fire, telling ghost stories late into the night. I have never had this experience, and maybe my image is a little too idyllic, but I still fantasize about it. I dream about other adventures I could be having, but I'll keep that to myself.

4: Like I might've mentioned before, I have an incredibly soft spot for animals. Pretty much all animals in general. I hardly discriminate between any species, though I guess I'm more attached to mammals than say, reptiles and fish. I love all the animals that are popularly known as pets; dogs (my favorite breeds are yorkies, beagles and labradors), cats (I love all manner of kittens, but I like orange ones best, I think), birds (I own two cockatiels, in case you didn't know by now, Sasha and Sammy), and rodents (hamsters are the greatest and simplest pets in the world).

I also like wild animals too. I think they're fascinating. I wish I went to a zoo more often. And you know, I'm not the kind of girl who's scared of crawling things (unless I have good reason to be, like if someone tells me they're poisonous!). In fact, on a number of occasions, when my parents have a frog or a cockroach or some icky thing that's snuck into their room, they call my sister and me. Of course, those animals are hard to love, but I tolerate them.

5: Okay, here's something I bet you want to know. Like, you've seen my profile pic, right? So you're probably wondering, how does that girl stay so thin? Well, beats me, because I sure like to eat. It's probably because I'm a die-hard vegetarian. I've never felt like I had to make a difficult change in my eating habits, because I've always eaten the right way. I mean, how can I live with myself, eating meat, if I love animals? Yeah, so I'm a girl who is content with broccoli, right?

Wrong. My favorite meal in the whole world is spaghetti and marinara sauce. Hold the meatballs, please, just pasta and sauce for me. I could eat it all day. I could eat Italian food in general all day, come to think of it. I wish I could go to Italy. My favorite restaurant ever is the one pictured here. Sweet Tomatoes, home of the best salad bar in the world (that's my tag line). You know, the ironic thing is that when I was little, I used to hate eating tomatoes. Now, I guess you can say I tolerate them.

6: As well as writing, one of my great hobbies is taking pictures. (That is actually me behind the camera. Can you tell?) I have a great instinct for Kodak moments. Especially when it comes to nature and still subjects, or animals. Taking shots of people are fun too, but you know, you need to have everyone's position right, they all have to be smiling to make it work... I love smiling for a camera. I don't see why anyone would make a big deal about it, not wanting to get their picture took. Why wouldn't you? We're making memories!

A picture tells a thousand words. I've taken loads of pictures on a couple trips we've made, like when we went for a 10-week excursion to Israel, or the 2-week trip to Boston, Mass. I like, whip out the camera like a gun and snap shots. It's hard to stop me, especially when there are so many opportunities for pics. I don't take a lot of photos at home though, when everything's normal. That's why I need to travel, see something new, and take memories and stories home with me. I wish I had a better camera, or a Camcorder that takes movies!

7: Even if I spend a scary amount of time on the computer, my family does not own any video games. We don't have any PS, or PS3 or whatever version is out now. No SuperMarioBrothers or whatnot. No Game Cube, no Wii, and especially no confusing wires and controllers littered around the play area. I don't really get kids and their video games. Spending hours inside trying to get to the next level when they have no idea that they're totally missing out on the outside world.

Of course, I have certainly done my time with games when going to friends houses, but I'm still pretty clueless how they keep track of everything. I very much hate all those battle games, where you're controlling a guy with a gun and blowing tanks and people up and it looks so real. Why are you pretending to kill people? What kind of sick game is that? Still, there are some games I enjoy and wish I owned, like a Karaoke or Dance Dance Revolution, or Guitar Hero, or the Harry Potter video games! I'd love to have those things. But on the whole, my family isn't into the whole buyout scheme. Free online computer games take up enough of my brother's time as it is!

8: This is a little silly, but I have to be honest. The first time I saw the animated movie Happy Feet, I absolutely loved it. All the voice actors and the music and all those cute baby penguins. The movie was great, but for a while afterwards, I found the strangest urge to tap-dance, just like Mumble did. I start moving my body and hear the tapping of my feet and it felt good. Of course, I have no idea how one taps professionally, but I still had fun with it. I guess I don't do it so much anymore, but I remember a couple times in the supermarket when I was just tapping my sneakers and I paid little attention to my surroundings and I think I bumped slightly into a few people. That made me pretty embarrassed, but I still tapped my feet.

9: Now, I hope you don't think of me as
an incredibly girly girl now (since I love pink and everything) but you've
got to know that I have a few slight crushes on certain cute boy actors. I know all the girls will sympathize with me on this one. Forgive my gushing, but all the guys I have pictured here, I think, are so hot! I love guys with cute, boyish faces.

Daniel Radcliffe I love (duh, Harry Potter!) because he's got this incredible smile that makes you think he's about to laugh. Nick Jonas is my favorite Jo Bro because he's the youngest (therefore, closer to my age) and he seems the most sensitive. And he has great curly hair. When I saw Titanic, I fell in love with Leo DiCaprio's portrayal of Jack Dawson. He's so sweet and has the most soulful eyes. Another actor I like from when he was younger is Johnny Depp. If you've ever seen Cry Baby, you'd know what I mean. I don't know about when he's playing a swash-buckling drunk pirate captain, but when you can see his cheeks and he's not trying to play too morbid a character, then I think he passes for cute.

Also, since I wanted to round my celebrity crush count to five, I thought I'd add that when I read the Pendragon books and Bobby started growing older and more mature, I started really liking him. I know, that's silly. Having a crush on the idea of a book character. But he is a celebrity in his own right, and his portrayal in the graphic novel isn't half bad. I just know that if Bobby Pendragon were a real person, I'd love hanging out with him.

10: Finally, you've made it to number 10! Kudos to all of you who've made it this far! The last thing I have to say about myself is that I'm a big fan of word games. Boggle, Scrabble, crossword puzzles, anagrams, codes. I love thinking about words in that way, as well as putting them in the right order, as in actual writing.

Boggle is one of my favorites, especially when my mom or my favorite aunt Lisa plays with me. Racing against time to fill out as many words as you can see. I have some cool tricks under my sleeve for getting lots of words, for example, whenever you see eat, there's most likely ate and tea in it too. Same with rat, art, and tar. Replace r with p and you have pat, apt and tap. And all those triple combos still have an a and a t in them! Also, wherever you can, stick an s at the end of nouns. Longer words, higher score. Oaky, ttha's lal mi ginog ot asy no het sjbceut. I aslo rlelay lvoe dinog tihs, tpynig ni a lgaungae I clal Jumbalayan! Nca aynnoe raed tihs?
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Okay, take a deeeep breath, guys! You all look tired. Don't worry, I will never write that long a post again. I hope you've enjoyed my little Bettina lesson, so if you ever meet me in physical person, you'll know a lot more about me. And now you know what kind of person I am. Unless you just scrolled all the way to the bottom to see who I'm giving this huge assignment to. Well, after you see if you're name's posted here, I'd appreciate if you'd comment and tell me if you accept. You don't have to include pictures symbolizing your honest facts if you don't want to, that's just something I did. I thought it would make the long, dry post a little colorful. And you don't need to write very looooong paragraphs about each thing. Don't make my mistake. But you should express everything as honest and as thorough as you can without boring someone to tears.
Tag, you're It!
I expect only one person will really take this seriously. I guess I don't have as many friends as I thought I did. That, or my sister took all the good ones! Hmph. If you haven't checked it out yet, you should see her honest scrap. (I think she's in need of a few comments! Don't worry, I don't think hers is as long as mine.) Okay, from now on, I promise to write really short posts, and not keep rambling all the time. I hope you all stick with me. Yes, I am a little insecure when it comes to online friends. I hope these long blog posts haven't turned you off to me!

5 comments:

J.N. Future Author said...

^.^ I'll take it seriously!

honestly, it was very surprising to read what you wrote! we share so many likes! I love pictures! ^.^,

you say you wanted a great adventure. why not make up your own? thats what writting is about ^.^

honestly, I took up writting because it was safer...me and my friend andrew had a plan back in 9th grade where we were going to run away, just for the shear adventure of it. oh course we didn't...but it was only because I would feel bad if my parents had to worry. We had everything planned to go. June 25 2005. that was going to be the begining of a grand adventure.

I love rock climbing! its so fun! that and tree climbing. and scary rollercosters, its fun to go on even if I'm terrified!
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It was a nice insight in your life ^.~

Brian said...

Great to learn more about you're life! It was interesting to read. And yes, the crush part was a little girly.

Q said...

We share a bloggingversary?? That is so cool!

Now I have to do the meme.

Magenta said...

Yeah Q, actually I suppose I mean I've only been blogging for two months. That's what I call an anniversary. My second month-iversary, if you will. But if we share an anniversary date, I think that's fantastic! I love it when I have something in common with strangers, like when Kaza Kingsley said she shares my birthday on September 7th.

Q said...

Oh--I've been blogging for a year. Pretty close. ;)