Public Entry: Read if you're bored.
Chelsea Cristene
(looking silly in pictures is what I do best!)
I've lived in Hagerstown (or as I prefer to call it, Hagerspatch) Maryland for all of my life. My street is Brentwood Terrace, and I've always loved that it's a "terrace" because it makes me sound fancy. I am only child and like it that way and also think that I'm a pretty good daughter. I have a close relationship with my mother and tolerate my father and his nit-picking/harping on me about school-related things reasonably well. I have two dogs (both female Cairn Terriers) named Cookie and Muffin.
The last time I measured my height, I was 5'4'', though it's very possible that I've made it up to 5'5'' since then. Regardless, I'm usually three inches taller than I actually am because, most of the time, I wear boots or shoes with a tall heel. I weigh 110 pounds/49 kilos. I have light brown hair that's naturally frizzy and a bitch to straighten in the morning, but when it is, it comes down a bit past my shoulders. I have dark brown eyes. My skin is very pale, and I'm proud of this. Never will you see me in a tanning bed, frying it until it looks like leather.
I am a very philosophical person and for me, thinking is a hobby. I consider intelligence to be the most attractive quality in anyone and everyone. My motto (I guess you could say) in life is to never stop learning or questioning. Listen. Look. Feel. Experience as much as you can. Because I live my life by these rules (and strongly suggest that others do the same), I think that I am a very open-minded person. What is controversial to the average person is usually not controversial to me. I always look at something from all perspectives and viewpoints. Nothing is ever black and white; I live in the grey area.
I am not a very religious person. I've come to a point in my life where I would consider myself agnostic and am comfortable this way. I am baptized Christian and attended church from the time I was very little, but as time passed I became more and more interested in thinking outside of the Bible-box. I have a deep understanding of why the concepts of religion and worship exist. In truth, Eastern religion (especially Taoism) appeals to be more than Western because there is a greater emphasis on the self and principles one should follow to become a better person. I live my life trying to be the best person that I can be with the acknowledgment that there may or may not be a supreme force watching me.
I have a good number of friends whom I love very much. There are some whom I have remained close with since elementary school and some whom I have just met within recent years, and among these are a few whom I can talk to about absolutely anything/trust with my life. Perhaps my funniest and most vivid memory is of standing stark naked in a river with four of my friends in West Virginia as my bathing suit floated downstream and laughing harder than I've ever laughed before. Though I view myself as a friendly and understanding person, I love to be alone. I don't always answer the phone when it rings if I'm doing something else or am feeling particularly antisocial. I enjoy quiet activities, curling up with a good book or browsing the internet.
There are three main things that I am passionate about in my life: writing, movies, and music. We'll start with writing. I learned to read at the age of two while sitting in my crib (true story!) and I'm convinced that it's partially because my mother read to me every night from the time I was a few weeks old. I was writing short stories (re-wording fairy tales was popular with me) at age four and continued this all through my school years. My elementary school teachers still have copies of stories that I wrote for them on my own free time. Along with that, I was constantly reading. I've written a decent amount of short stories in the past year or so and have saved on my computer an abandoned 20,000 word beginning of a novel that I wrote when I was fifteen. It's a historical fiction and I doubt that it's salvageable, at least not right now. My current project is a novel that's budding at 5k, but something that I'm extremely excited about and vow to complete. My favourite writers are Virginia Woolf, George Orwell, and William Shakespeare. My favourite books include The Hours, Jane Eyre, 1984, Animal Farm, Between the Acts, White Oleander, and Postcards from the Edge.
I'm also a cinemawhore. I am very selective about the kind of movies I watch and tend to be hypercritical about things like summer blockbusters and macho man action thrillers and fantasy sensations. On the other hand, I am the person who will go to see a really bad movie if a really good actor is in it (i.e. Kevin Kline in Wild Wild West). My favourite movie of all time is Out of Africa. Other favourites include The Deer Hunter, On Golden Pond, The Lion in Winter, The Hours, Schindler's List, Swing Kids, Sophie's Choice, Lawrence of Arabia, Titanic, Vanilla Sky, A Beautiful Mind, Fight Club, and West Side Story. There are many actors whom I admire, and they include Peter O'Toole, Tom Hanks, Kevin Kline, Michael Douglas, Tom Cruise, Joaquin Phoenix, Jeremy Irons, Edward Norton, Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman, Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Julianne Moore, Glenn Close, Kate Winslet, Emma Thompson, and Goldie Hawn.
Now onto the music segment. I've played the clarinet for seven years now and particularly love performing in concerts, festivals, and solo competitions. In middle school, I was active in marching band and was drum major in my 8th grade year. I've been a member of the All-County high school band for the past two years and have participated in the MBDA Solo and Ensemble Festival ever since the 7th grade. My clarinet is a wooden Evette and I call her Clarissa quite often. Right now in my Songwriting class, I'm learning a bit of keyboard/piano. Aside from my interest in instrumental music, I've always loved listening to popular music. My favourite genres would have to be classic rock and folk. Most of the CDs, tapes, and records that make up my music collection are from artists such as The Beatles, Fleetwood Mac, Elton John, The Lovin' Spoonful, The Guess Who, Led Zeppelin, Queen, The Four Tops, The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Crosby Stills Nash and Young, Simon and Garfunkel, the Mamas and the Papas. I also love Tears For Fears, Alanis Morissette, Matchbox 20, The Goo Goo Dolls, Hootie and the Blowfish, Keane, The Killers, Jem, and Joss Stone.
I am currently a senior in high school. Although I value the security and friendships that I have right now, I'm eager to move on to bigger and better things afterward. Next year, I will be attending the community college for two years and then transferring to, ideally, either Villa Julie College or Hood College. I plan to major in English and minor in Film Studies. It has taken awhile to arrive at that point, as over the years I have also juggled Theology, Sociology, and even Interior Design as possibilities. I've never wanted to be anything else but a writer. I want to write all kinds of things: novels, stories, essays, screenplays, maybe even a song or two. Right now, I'm working for $7.20 an hour as a supermarket cashier, but I'm looking for this to change very soon. As far as I'm concerned, my life would be a waste if I were to spend it working forty hour weeks in retail. If I can't spend my life writing, creating, and learning, then I'd rather not live.
I'm a hippie [without the drugs] at heart, I don't hold my pencil the right way, I can't snap my fingers, I adore caesar salads and pasta, and I speak Spanish fairly well.
I feel that I have a strong sense of identity and am very certain of who I am and what I am going to become. It's such a comfort to have this at the age of seventeen.