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Thursday, December 18, 2014

Remnant

Hey, guys! I'm officially on Christmas break! *insert explosions of joy* Currently, I am at a friend's house in Memphis; Josh and Butch are driving down to meet me and we're gonna do fun things around town.

I wanted to share a short story I wrote with you all. (Notice the distinction, here. You. All). I wrote it three nights ago and I really liked the way it turned out. I would love your comments after you read it, or your own interpretations.

I'm excited about this one. It was so easy to write and very fun. I've been having some trouble writing lately, so this story was a blessing.

Remnant

The demon Stvia floated lazily through the trees, a truly disinterested expression on his wolfish face. As he twisted and wove through the canopy of the forest, leaving his thick, yellow remnant in his wake, he couldn’t help but sigh aloud, quite exasperatedly.
Stvia, the Destroyer of Worlds, was bored.
Just as he was contemplating this fact, quite bitterly, Stvia heard a small, hushed intake of breath from somewhere beneath him. Twisting his head down toward the earth, Stvia beheld what appeared to be a girl. Truly, he had never seen one with his own four eyes, but he had heard many stories about them during his own travels; but, then again, his travels were quite exhausting and never allowed much time for socialization.
After all, destroying a whole world was incredibly taxing on oneself.
Now, upon seeing what he was almost positive was a girl, he could see what all his kinsmen had been going on about. The thing was relatively remarkable, really, with its small, pale body and movement limited to touching the ground. Stvia regarded this body quite interestedly; what a strange idea to have a solid form all the time. It must be so very constricting.
His black eyes regarded the girl as he floated above, considering. “May I help you?” he asked the creature, almost positive that humans had the ability to speak. At least, he hoped so; that would provide some sort of distraction until the world was completely covered by his yellow, ribbon-like remnant.
The girl stared at him, with strange eyes that were not one solid color like Stvia’s, but seemed to be split by three colors. It seemed excessive to the demon, but he wasn’t one to pry. The girl opened her small, ruby colored lips, the furry lines above her eyes crinkling together. “What are you doing?”
Stvia sighed sordidly at the reminder of his current activity. “Obliterating.”
The girl frowned slightly, considering the unbroken strand stemming behind him that grew with every turn and motion the demon made. “Are you a snake?”
“No,” Stvia answered, “but that sounds delightful. What is it?”
Before his entertainment could provide an answer to his inquiry, there was a rustle from the foliage behind the girl and, as both turned to look, another girl slid out of the greenery. This one was not nearly as miniscule as the other, almost triple in height to his current companion and had a much longer brown mane. Stvia managed to hide his surprise quite well. What were the chances that there would be another girl on the same world? He wondered what the reaction of the first one would be, but was quite interested to see it almost light up upon seeing another of its kind.
His interest was officially piqued.
The taller girl froze upon seeing him coiling through the early afternoon air, shock and horror appearing on her delicate features. “I found a flying snake, Kita, and it knows how to talk!” the little girl crowed, quite proudly.
“Kita,” Stvia repeated, almost tasting the girl’s name with his forked tongue, “how curious. Do all girls have names?” he wondered to his smaller companion, whose lips parted to reveal white stones in her mouth of all similar size and shape. Curiosity continued!
“I’m Aa,” she told the demon, oblivious to her sister’s fear.
“That’s nice,” Stvia said offhandedly.
Kita suddenly regained her ability to use words. “No,” she murmured, staring up at the Destroyer of Worlds in sheer disbelief, “you can’t do this.”
Stvia looked perplexed. “Why not?”
The girl blinked, slightly baffled by his question. The little human, Aa, her sister, Stvia would learn later, was pleasantly immune to the fear and terror her older sister was currently experiencing, and was being quite entertained by watching Stvia’s remnant wrap around and over and under itself as he drifted along. It was almost like he was weaving a blanket with his tail!
“You’re going to destroy our world,” Kita said softly to him, in a voice that reminded him of a sunrise, which was one of his favorite moments of destroying. “You’re going to kill us all,” the girl’s pink lips parted, her forehead crinkling.
Stvia considered this for a moment, almost surprised at her statement. “Why, yes,” he said thoughtfully, “I am.”
Aa looked between Kita and the demon, a confused look on her small face. “Why?” Kita joined her sister in waiting for the demon’s response, looking quite paler than her natural hue, he noticed. It almost caused a glare from the suns’ light.
The demon looked down at the human girls, realizing this was the first time in his existence that anyone had asked that question. Slowly he twirled downward from the high canopy of trees, leaving the gentle waves of yellow up above. Kita’s blue eyes followed the demon’s movements carefully.
Stvia finally reached roughly eye-level with the tall, thin girl, and, for the first time in an eon, stopped moving. He merely levitated beside the human girl, black eyes unblinking. Up close, Kita observed, he looked less like a wolf but more like a fox with narrow, clever features, graceful yet fierce, with a sharp intelligence in his iris-less eyes.
Stvia spoke suddenly, making the girl jump slightly. “Do you know why I do what I do?”
Kita paused for a long moment, regarding her reflection in the bottomless black eyes. “I suppose it’s because you are told to,” she surmised, brows knitting together thoughtfully. She knew from stories that demons did not work on their own accord. She wasn’t quite sure to whom they answered, but she did know that each one had a clear purpose.
“I am, but why am I told to?”
Kita opened her pink mouth only to close it and frown. What reason would there be to destroy a world? Stvia seemed to hear her thoughts, because he continued deliberately, “I don’t know why either, girl. No one tells me anything. I only appear,” he twirled once, smoothly, as if gesturing to the world around him, “and cover it until I consume it. I move, always, leaving my remnant in my wake, because I do as I am told. I don’t always know why; I never do, but I do it.”
“But how can you justify it?” Kita whispered, looking at her world, which mostly consisted of a small human girl currently inspecting a clump of bright green grass for insects or flowers, perhaps. “How can you live with yourself?”
Stvia’s nose twitched. “I cannot die,” he admitted, something he had never said aloud, and something he would never say again.
Kita straightened suddenly, sharpness in her eyes. “But we can. Aa and I will die. There are thousands of humans on this world, and you will kill them,” she spoke fiercely, passionate for such a small creature.
“You would die without me, eventually,” the demon stated.
“Not the whole word, not all at once,” Kita argued.
“No, probably not,” Stvia mused, straight-faced. He thought of the countless worlds he had destroyed throughout time. There was not a number for them all; it was pointless to keep track. It had never mattered before, and it wouldn’t matter. Stvia would destroy many worlds in the future, but this one, right here, was the first where he had found something worth saving.
Kita’s fingers trailed over a thin, quivering tree trunk, her voice soft, “But you do it anyway.”
The demon was seized with an urge to explain himself. “Kita, do you believe that there is a Plan?” he asked her intently, staring into her eyes.
He could practically see her mind working. Her shoulders came together and she nodded, once. “Yes,” she said, “I do.”
“Then how can you question it?” he countered. “How can you know better?”
“I don’t know better,” the girl admitted, biting her lip, staring past Stvia at her sister, whose small, sweet voice was singing a lullaby for no one’s sake but her own. “I do believe everything happens for a reason. But the Plan does not always end in death. I have a place in it. I am here for a reason.” Kita looked the demon squarely in the eye, “And maybe this is it.”
“And maybe you will just die like all the others,” Stvia said quietly, tongue tasting the air. It was cool and lovely, and he almost wished he hadn’t done it.
“Maybe,” Kita shrugged, “but that doesn’t mean I didn’t matter.”
“But all you did was exist,” Stvia stated, frowning at the girl’s logic, “you will cease. All will. You will be forgotten; you were nothing great.”
Kita smiled suddenly, a beautiful, simple thing. “For a moment I was. For a moment, I was alive. I breathed and I loved. For even one moment, I had a beating heart that existed. I was a part of the universe. In a small way, yes,” she acknowledged, eyes traveling to Aa, but shining with pride, “but small doesn’t mean it wasn’t there; it just wasn’t big.”
“What’s one beating heart among a sea of stars?”
Kita spread her palm against the trunk of the tree, thinking. “I didn’t make the Plan; I was just in it. But I was put in it, so it’s my duty to try to live it.” She looked at Stvia, leveling him with those blue and white and black eyes. “And maybe, together, we can save it.”
“Kita,” the demon began gravely, already starting to rise, to put distance between him and the girl. He could not do what she was asking. He had a job; there were rules.
“I’m going to fight. You cannot destroy life. It is valuable. No matter how small,” Kita spoke quickly, stepping closer to Stvia as he tried to rise. She was merely inches from the demon, but she was not afraid. She was not afraid. Something inside Stvia, in that moment, was moved.
“I have to take, Kita. I can’t just erase what I’ve done. I’ve already started to destroy this world. It needs an exchange or else it will break by itself if I try to move on,” Stvia explained carefully, black eyes intent on the girl.
“But you don’t have to take all of it. The whole world,” she clarified carefully.
“I was supposed to,” the demon said quietly, but he did not look away from the girl, “but something came up.”
Kita looked up at him through her eyelashes, chest rising and falling. “Maybe that was the Plan all along.”
“It’s impossible to know,” the demon murmured, slowly revolving in a circle. He felt his remnant behind him; he was conscious of its existence, of its sureness. He could only draw it along; he could not tuck it away. Stvia felt its sturdiness, it’s reality.  
Kita spoke again, a note of suppression in her melodious voice. “If I take this world’s place, could you go away?”
Normally, Stvia could only leave a world after he had encompassed every inch of its sky. Only when his body was a blanket drowning it, snuffing it out, could he move on. But, just as Kita said this, his remnant softened slightly. It wasn’t strong enough yet; he hadn’t even gone one full time around the world. It would break for something like this.
It would dissolve for a girl like Kita.
“Yes,” the demon answered honestly.
“Okay,” the girl nodded, as if that solved everything. She looked at him, determined, waiting. Stvia frowned to himself. How could she bravely accept her own demise?
“You’ll just do it?” he asked, mystified, slightly concerned with her sanity. “Say goodbye to life?”
“It’s not just doing, but it must be done,” she told him, shrugging her slim shoulders. “This life I have had, however short, was a beautiful thing.” Kita pursed her lips; looking around the world she had been a part of. “Even though, at times, it didn’t seem that way. At times, I wished I wasn’t a part of it anymore. But sometimes I just had to wait for the darkness to pass. And it did, when the time was right. I wasn’t always happy, or pure, or content, but I do know that it was all worth it for the light. Regardless,” Kita smiled at the Destroyer of Worlds, “life has always been beautiful. I’m only sorry sometimes I closed my eyes to it.”
Stvia nodded at Aa sitting out of earshot, whose eyes were the color of the sky above them. “It will destroy her world, you know,” he remarked wretchedly.
Kita looked at her little sister who was enjoying the lovely day and going to enjoy many more. “No,” Kita shook her head knowingly, “it will just affect it. Sometimes pain is worth it.”
“Worlds grow,” Stvia agreed, almost to himself. He sat for a minute in the air, observing the little glen below him. A soft, warm breeze slid across his remnant, unconcerned with its existence, ruffling the dark hair of Kita and Aa, the breath of the world. Sunshine from the duel suns in the sky shone golden through the trees. Far off, he heard something he had never wanted to listen to before, but had always been.
Out there, in this world, there were countless hearts beating. Some, yes, were breaking, but they still beat on, a cadence of life and living and hope.
This world would beat on, thanks to a girl who was brave enough to fight for it.
“Are you ready, my dear?” Stvia asked his human girl, wondering if this was what his entire existence so far had been for. To do more than destroy. To learn, to see what was worth fighting for. To see what his choices were and that they existed.
To choose to live; and to live truly.
To choose meaning, regardless of an eventual outcome.
Kita the Small Human Girl smiled softly, a lone tear sliding down her pale skin. “As I will ever be,” she whispered brokenly and with one careful hand reached out and offered it to Stvia the Destroyer of Worlds who took it the only way he could: in his mouth.
One moment later, Aa would look up, just as both disappeared into thin air. In that moment, she would feel a lot of things, especially for a child so young and fresh and lovely in the world.

Amongst all these things, she would later reflect, the biggest one she would feel was that of hope.

Sunday, December 14, 2014

"Ravage duck"

 I have many cousins. Three of them happen to be some of the most hilarious children I have ever encountered, especially in writing. It must be genetic, because these three children send me the single most hilarious hand-drawn cards I have ever had the pleasure of receiving.

I though I'd share the most recent set of these cards with you, because they make me so happy.

The first one is from Anya, who is circa 3rd grade.



Adorable, yes? I think so. The mustache and the beard were a great touch. The inside of the card, however, really got me. 



I'll elaborate a little bit on this one. Anya drew me the characters from one of our favorite TV shows on Cartoon Network "The Amazing World of Gumball." It's about a mixed species family composed of a rabbit dad (Richard), a cat mom, and their three children: one of whom is a cat named Gumball, one is a rabbit named Anais, and one is a fish named Darwin. 

I've included a picture of the cartoon family below for comparison.  


Honestly, Anya did a pretty accurate job. She was thourough, too, and even added their names for my benefit. 
What really gets me though, is the fact that she added the words: 

"look"

just to be sure
and

"as real animals"

just so we're clear.



The next card is from my ginger cousin Jonny (circa kindergarden) who loves me so unbelievably much for reasons I still don't understand, but I am honored. 

I'm not quite sure what's going on here, but it seems to include Link from the Zelda games, a man cross dressing with a hammer, an antelope, and some sort of dog monkey. 




And, lastly, Haylee's card. 
She's in seventh grade.

She wrote the single most promising piece of poetry from a middle schooler I have ever read. 


"Roses are red, violets are blue
world domination has no effect on you
Ravage duck"

I couldn't breathe after reading it because I was laughing to hard.  

The inside of the card:



Ending with a killer representation of our favorite Youtube Video Llamas with Hats. 



I love these three children so, so much. 

They are hilarious and loving and seeing their drawings on my walls never fails to make my day brighter. 

 They are the future of our world and for that I am so thankful. 


Ravage duck

Sunday, November 30, 2014

Car Conversations with Bamber

It’s amazing how little we know about our parents growing up. I mean they are raising us. It’s (hopefully) not like they are those distant aunts or uncles that live in, like, Delaware and randomly send you stamps or something. (Why would they send stamps? Who knows? That’s why you keep your distance).

I’ve known my mother, Bamber, for my entire life, but not really as a person. For most of my life, she has only been defined as my mother – i.e. the Giver of Life, Food Provider, Bank System, Home. She hasn’t really been a person. She hasn’t been herself. An individual. A person who had a life before me or besides me and my siblings. She was always just My Mom. However, she is so much more than that. She has a life besides mothering the three of us and wifering Joshua or doing chemistry for the government (thanks, Obama). She had a life before me that kept on going; I just only saw the part literally right in front of me.

My mother has a story, and it’s a great one. She has hopes and dreams that go beyond raising me (gasp) and, here’s a curve ball, she’s still learning. Today, she drove me two hours to the train station. We talked about all sorts of things: God, friends, life, sin, traffic safety, etc. The older I get, it’s like the more she shares with me, which makes sense. It’s also a blessing, a huge mega super one.

My mother is an amazing woman; my mommy is pretty spectacular.

There’s so many reasons as to why this is true, and I would love to brag about how she raised me and worked so hard and sacrificed and believed and learned, but that’s for another time. Instead, I just wanted to share a little tiny bit of our conversation via van. Two parts, actually, because I think they are both really cool/helpful/hopeful. They have to do with God, like most of my blog posts seem to have been lately (thanks, Christian Private School. Just kidding. God’s just doing stuff - doing His thang and whatnot - which is always nice . . . and always a thang).

So you know how you can know something but not really believe it? Like I can know what the derivative is but not really believe in its existence until I can properly find it using triangle symbols and sheer dumb luck. That was an awful example, just like Calculus.

But, do you know what I’m saying? I can turn eighteen and know that I’m a legal adult but not really believe it until months of living on my own/paying my own bills/voting/getting married/winning the lottery/going to big people jail. Or, in the case of our conversation, I can grow up knowing that I am loved by God, but not really believing it for eighteen years.

You’d think I would know. The first song I ever learned was probably “Jesus Loves Me.” I even learned it in Sign Language. The idea that God loves me was hammered into my brain at Sunday school and at church, but I didn’t truly believe it until my freshman year of college, three years after becoming a Christian, eighteen years of being alive.  

God chose to reveal His love for me at a time when I really needed it and in a way that it just changed my life.

At church we grow up learning and being taught about God’s character, but it is only when He reveals it to us in little bits and pieces that we can truly know it and have it mean something bigger than just something handed to us. He gives it to us so we can make it our own and fall into a deeper love with Him and make it our own.

Idk, I just thought that was pretty dang cool. So did Bamber.

The other thing Bamber and I talked about that I wanted/needed to write down had to do with our “Thing.” We started talking about how, as we grow older, we can start to see just where our weak area is: our really deep sin struggle. (I’m totally making up these terms on the fly, so bear with me). I mean, we all sin TONS every single day and we break every single commandment probably every day, too. However, I think God does give us each our own unique struggle in a specific area. I also believe it is for a reason.

Really quick examples. One is a man who seems like one of those stereotypical Great Christians (you know whom I’m talking about. You also know, truly, that there are no such things. We are all hopeless sinners, made beautiful by a King humbled to die on a cross). He is a leader and super nice and, like, the perfect grandpa, but he struggles loving people. What? How can he struggle loving people; he’s supposed to be perfect? Or it’s a dad who gives up everything for his family but struggles with anger. It’s the mother who raises her kids to love Jesus but questions if she’s saved or not.

We all have something. Mine is definitely control. I have to be in control. Of myself, of my body, of my time, of my life. It’s a sin. It’s been the struggle of my heart for so very long.

As we grow older, we can see them in others and in ourselves more and more so.

Bamber also pointed out that these things are not something that we just chose to have or get. God puts circumstances in our lives or plans our stories in a way that makes these challenges develop. Like the dad whose dad was always angry and that’s all he ever knew so he grew up like that, too. Or the grandpa hurt by the people he loved and has trouble loving anyone else deeply and genuinely ever again.

It’s not like we are given these struggles as a punishment or are randomly overcome by them; they were developed by our worlds, over years of living and being human and living in a sinful world.

They are part of a Plan.

A glorious, glorious Plan that we are a part of. And that gives so much hope, I think. God knew what they would be; He knows every circumstance. He also gives us the power to overcome. He gives us bits and pieces of His character to guide us, even when we might not be seeking after Him. He gives us Himself in little spoonfulls at a pace we can’t control. He gives us it at the right time to make it matter.

He gives us moms, like Bamber, who, after years of living, are still learning who He is and, loving fiercely, blindly hoping, and willing to admit they struggle.

I just think it’s all really cool.

Lord, You are good. So, so very good.

And, Bamber, I’m so thankful God gave me you.  








                                                           

Monday, November 17, 2014

Leviticus

For the past three years, I have been going through the Old Testament. It has taught me so much - lessons that have changed the way I view myself, God, and this world. It's been one of the most beautiful experiences in my life.

I'm down to four books: Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, and Joshua. To be honest, I was really putting off Leviticus and Numbers, just because I thought they would be drudgery. Not gonna lie, for the past few days that I've been reading Leviticus, I've felt like it's been drudgery at times. However, this drudgery is God's word and I need God's word super mega much, plus, it's taught me stuff. Important stuff. 

Basically, the book of Leviticus is a holiness code for the people of Israel. It's name "Leviticus" is derived from the tribe of Levi, one of the twelve sons of Israel AKA Jacob. Aaron, Moses' awesome brother who spoke for him and stuff, and his sons were Levites; God chose them to be His holy priests for all of Israel.

Consequently, most of Leviticus is rules for the priests about how to do sacrifices in order to atone for the people's uncleanliness. Their sins. The priests had to do these things so that the people could be reconciled before a thrice-Holy God (Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty - Isaiah 6:3). God's character is that of holiness; ours is that of sin. But, because He loved Israel, God gave them a strict set of laws in order that they could be made clean.

Here is just a bit of what I've learned in the first 20 chapters.

God demanded that all sacrifices be without blemish - the best of the best. God not only deserves the best animal, He deserves our best. He also demands purity and His standards of that cannot be met by people. Only Aaron and his sons could perform the sacrifices for all of Israel so that they could be clean.

How freaking scary is that? Just think of being a non-Levite at that time. I could not do anything to save myself; I had to trust these priests to make me clean before God. If they didn't, I would be "cut off." Totally alone in a world where it was impossible to survive without the support of others. Someone else was responsible for making me pure before and saving me from hell.

Also, my (still pretending to be an Israelite here) relationship with God was not one of closeness. I wasn't allowed in His temple. It wasn't personal; it was strict laws and rituals and the blood of animals being sprinkled seven times on the altar and the killing of goats.  It was a relationship of love and grace and mercy, but in a totally different way than that which Jesus gave us when he died on the cross and atoned for all our sins and totally destroyed the need for the ritual sacrifices described in Leviticus.

We don't have to do what the Israelites did: sacrificing goats and worrying about unclean animals (there's an extensive list of what they could and couldn't eat which blew my mind) or worrying about another sinful human to make us pure. It's totally out of human hands now. Jesus is in control.

One other thing I want to mention: blood is talked about a really lot throughout Leviticus in really graphic terms. However in chapter 17, verse 11, it states: "for the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life" and verse 14 "for the life of every creature is its blood: its blood is its life..."

Jesus' blood made us clean. Even before we had His covenant blood was still making us clean. We have always needed life in exchange for our sins. Our sins condemn us to death. We chose sin. God allowed us to make that choice and, because of our desire to be like God, our world has sin and death and pain and we can't save ourselves.

However, I also learned today, in fact, that God isn't the one who performs the evil. My bible teacher today explained it like this, kinda: if a baby is born blind, God didn't make it that way. I don't serve a God that blinds infants and twists bodies. I serve a loving God who allowed me to chose sin and because I chose sin babies are born blind. It opened the door for all these evil things to happen, but God did not want that baby to be blind.

I guess I always thought the really bad stuff in my life that's happened (this sentence isn't grammatically correct at all) was God doing it, but for a good reason. When I thought about the evil done toward me, I just assumed He was going to use it for His glory, which He does, awesomely. But God is a God of love. It breaks His heart to see evil in this world and my pain. He would never hurt me; He can't do evil.

He is the holy of holies. He can't perform anything not holy. It was our choice that allowed sin into the world.

This is a lot, I know, and I'm not ever going to be able to understand or explain it fully, but I do know that I am so thankful God gave me the choice to chose sin if I wanted. Because now I believe we will be able to appreciate His love and grace and mercy so much more than being perfect robots who worship Him and have no idea what sin or pain or choice is.

So, in closing, read Leviticus.


Tuesday, October 28, 2014

2 years of this

Hey, guys. 

My blog is officially two years old. 

The Terrible Twos.

Thank goodness blogs are not like small humans (hopefully). 

But I just wanted to say thank you to those of you who have taken the time to read my work and been a part of my life, whether online or off, whether for two years of if this is your first time reading. I love you and am so thankful for you. 

I just wanted to do a quick look back over the past two years. To when - 

I didn't have a brother yet and I was convinced his name was going to be Ptoelmy. 


Thank goodness you didn't listen to me, Bamber. Owen is a much safer choice. 

To when  we survived the end of the world together. 



To my most favorite blog post ever.



 To the one you guys liked the most and I still can't understand why.


To when you guys voted on the cover for my first novel.


To when I officially made Riley Girl for sale and I was terrified but so excited I couldn't breathe.



To when I (arguably) made the worst mistake of my life an uploaded a video about Tofu to youtube. 


 To when I started writing short stories. I couldn't/wouldn't have posted them without your support.


 To my senior year of high school and it's beautiful, bittersweet chaos.


To my first days of college in a brand new state over 400 miles away from my home. 


To now, this moment, where I can look back and be so utterly thankful for all of you and this beautiful life I have been given. 


To conclude, I thought I'd throw in a throwback Tuesday worthy selfie of me two years ago and now for your viewing pleasure. 

I was such a dork. 
Good thing that hasn't changed. 






in translation

I've officially lived in the South for two months now. 

I feel like I need one of those guys from Animal Planet or the Travel Channel who go to Africa or into the wild or something.

"It's day 67 since I made my transition into this harsh environment. Food is low. Water is scarce. It's been a month away from all I've ever known and my body is starting to feel it. More and more I've found myself taking to tree frogs and fighting the urge to swim with the crocodiles. I don't know how much longer I can survive . . . I'm starting to forget what it means to be human." 

I didn't do those shows any justice. 

Sorry, Bear Grylls. 

But, in all seriousness, the South isn't killing me or making me become a savage. If anything it's making me realize my own savageness from growing up as a Northerner. Just know (Mom) that I really do love living in the South. The weather is beautiful, the people are kind, and my worldview has exploded. 

After being here for the past few months, I've started to pick up on quite a few local phrases that are unique  to this part of the country. I'll have a whole other post dedicated to those, coming shortly. I've also gotten quite good at translating the Southern accent, so to speak. I find it quite endearing. 

I wanted to share some of my favorite pronunciation differences I've noticed since coming down here. There are truly very many so I just stuck with a few. I hope you enjoy them and that I, phonetically, did them some sort of justice.

On the right is the English Northern Pronunciation of the word. 
The left is pretty self-explanatory. 

             Northern vs Southern



"Ya'll wouldn't believe how many wells I saw on my cruise last summer."

Uh, how nice. 

#intranslation