"No two people see events the same way.
Everybody's truth is different. This is my truth.

If only there was a world
     with no pain...only love.
If only there was no fear.
If only..."

That is how the book begins and I've always loved that part. Every diary I've had I've always wrote that on the inside. If Only is by Geri Halliwell, but most people probably know her better as Ginger Spice. I read If Only when I was, maybe 13, and around age 12 is when a lot of problems started with my parents. By the time I was 13 I was depressed most of the time and this book really helped me a lot. People can think what they want of Geri Halliwell, but the only thing that matters to me is what I think of her; she's a great person and inspiring. I really had no idea to what her life was like until I read this book. Geri did things she wasn't proud of and she's not perfect and I think this book really can show you that stars are people just like us.

When I read If Only and finished it for the first time, I felt good and determined. No matter what I went through I wasn't going to let it beat me. This book definitely was inspiring. It inspired me to go after my dreams and live my life.

This is only one of the books I find inspiring, it would probably take me a long time to write all the others, but I will name a few: Catch A Fire by Melanie B aka Scary Spice. Catch A Fire was truly a great book and I love it, it's a book I can read over and over again and learn something new every time. Another I can think of is the Autobiography of Malcolm X. I know a lot of people think Malcolm X promoted violence and such, but I have so much respect for him and that book really opened my eyes to a lot. He showed that everyone can get along, no matter what color they are.
   

I just answered this Featured Question; you can answer it too!

I'm sure everyone has been bullied at some point in their life, but no matter what I think it's wrong. I was bullied when I was a kid. I was bullied by my older brothers and when I went to school for a year I was bullied too. I only went to kindergarten and before kindergarten I went to this thing called Jump Start. It wasn't really a school, it just kind of prepared you for school and I remember enjoying it. The people there were so nice and even at home my mom was teaching me things to prepare me even more for school. I don't remember, but my mom said I was excited to go to school and make friends. When I did go to kindergarten I did really good. I did all the tests that were given to me and I was actually doing better then the other kids.

Before long my excitement was gone. I had a bully. A girl bully who wore dresses and glasses. I still remember her name. It was Rebecca Bomber. She didn't like me and I don't know why; I was never mean to her. I know for one thing she was upset about, the clothes I wore. She always wore dresses and I came to school wearing Disney t-shirts. I had Aladdin, Little Mermind and some other days. The one day I came to school wearing a Lion King t-shirt and she saw it. She came up to me and said "If I ever see you wearing that shirt again I'll kill you."

And besides having Rebecca as a bully, my teacher picked on me too. So did the guidance counselor and the principle. The guidance counselor called me in his office almost everyday, usually for nothing and I would go to the principle's office a lot too and again, it was for nothing. When Rebecca said she would kill me I told my teacher about it and my teacher said "Stop being a little tattletale." So my teacher was no help and was mean to me. The  principle and the guidance counselor were no help either. I remember all of them telling me I was overweight too.

Rebecca kept bullying me and nothing was done about it. My mom went to the school many times to complain and eventually they told her she wasn't allowed in the school. My mom said my confidence was gone because of being picked on and bullied. The only teacher I can remember being nice to me was my music teacher and she really was great. She felt bad because I was getting picked on and I wish I remembered her name so I could find her today and thank her for being so nice. After I finished my year in kindergarten my mom started to homeschool me.

I think I'm fine, I don't really have anger problems and have never tried to hurt anyone, but I know being bullied can affect people in that way. The only thing I can't stand is seeing people being picked on or being bullied and nowadays there is so many news stories about kids getting in school getting bullied and killing themselves or killing someone else and in those cases the school didn't help and sometimes even the parents ignored it too. Something should really be done about bullying because it can affect people really bad and it's just wrong. I don't see the point of  picking on someone just to build yourself up. No one should have to go through bullying.

Have you ever been bullied? How did it affect you?

The other day I put up this post: Delivering Phone Books about the day went when I delivered phone books. We actually delivered phone books for 3 days and yesterday was the last day, we finally finished them. The last post was kind of a rant, there were places we couldn't find, places that took forever to find and there was my dad's non stop complaining. I would have really rather it just of been me, my mom and my boyfriend, Marc, deliver the phone books. My dad didn't do anything, but sit there anyway.

When we were delivering the last phone books, I was just really looking around. We were delivering in Mount Joy, which is right next to my town. Mount Joy and my town don't really have much in them, not many shops or places to eat, really. Well, I realized that as hard and annoying as delivering those phone books were, I really got to see a lot more of Mount Joy.

Mount Joy, like my town, isn't to big and we don't have much. A few places to eat and shop. We usually have to drive 30 minutes away to go to Walmart or pretty much anywhere else we want to go. I've always said that my town and Mount Joy are boring and it mostly is true, but that doesn't mean they aren't nice places. From delivering phone books I saw many different and nice houses, especially right in the town of Mount Joy and I can tell you I would live in one of those houses if I could because I think they are that nice. Plus we went into many back roads and alleys. It's really funny how many businesses are in alleys, back roads and you never know about them unless you go back into the alleys or drive on the back roads. And there is many.....different people to see as well. On the one back road on the first day of delivering we were delivering to all the businesses first and on one of the back roads was a business we had to deliver too. When we were delivering to businesses we were supposed to try and get a signature for some reason, I don't know why. Well, the business on that road was closed and next to the business was a couple of houses. Marc got out of the car and went to the house to ask about the business next door and see if maybe this person was the owner of the business. Well, the guy wasn't the owner, but we asked him if he could give the owner his phone book. He took the phone book and said he'd give it to the owner of the business. Marc said the guy was drooling when he opened the door and the guy just kind of stood there and seemed like he didn't totally understand what we were asking. Yesterday we had to go back to that road and deliver to the houses and one of the houses we had to deliver to was that guy's place. Marc delivered the phone book to his house and the guy, for some reason, had his door open already and we asked if he had given the phone book to the owner of that business.........He didn't even remember us or us asking him to give the owner his book and he was acting fine yesterday so we think that maybe he was high or drunk or who knows what really.

All I can say is that delivering phone books is not exactly fun. It is hard work and they make you work for that little bit of money they give and I'm really doubting it was worth it now. But, it was nice to see the town and now I know the names of a lot of roads in Mount Joy. So, instead of looking at it all in a negative way, I'm going to be positive and say it was kind of fun and even a bit of an adventure.