'Bout to Get my Journalism On!

So this summer I'm working as a reporter for Three Sixty Journalism
I started last summer as an intermediate camp member and then continued to sharpen my journalism skills by continuing to write for them over the year.

This summer I'm working on a piece about paying for college and college tuition and scholarships and if college degree's are really worth it.
I'd like to hear anybody's opinions on the matter since I'm working on this for the next seven weeks (During which, I hope to also get more diligent about blogging real blog entires instead of random poetry I happen to have up.)

XOXO
Riah

We don't stop!

I just came home from a freaking BEAST camping trip with my friends!


It was friggin amazing being with them all!

I'm deff gunna miss them when we graduate! class of 2010!

This is amazing! My friends are amazing!

Number Three: Get Arrested

So my mother got arrested.
It was a petty misdemeanor and whatever, it's really lame but still, I wanna know what it's like to get arrested. It sounded hilarious.

I dunno. I'm not going to do anything bad for it really. Just get caught with the wrong people at the wrong time.


This weekend I'm going camping with a bunch of my friends from school-
Lot's of unchapernoned teenagers in the woods alone? That's a Friday the 13th movie just WAITING to happen!

((Be mindful, the virgin always survives so I should be safe.))

I'm really excited! Finally Spring Break! Just tomorrow in school and then I'm going to a picnic with my youth group, then Pa Chee and I are riding up to the camp site on Saturday after she gets off work! :D

I'm so sorry I haven't read any of your blogs lately! I'll try to soon!

XOXO
Riah

I'm not myself lately! But I like this better.....

I've been acting odder than usual,
As in buying things I wouldn't usually buy,
talking to people I wouldn't usually talk to,
wanting things I wouldn't usually want,
saying things I wouldn't usually say.

That is soooo strange.
My priorities are all over the place,
I'm forgetting what I want,
what I'm working for,

and in the process...
I'm learning how to LIVE!

I wanna

like I'm dying tomorrow,

like I'm losing my voice

like my legs are breaking

like I'm about to destroy

like I'm about to forget

like I'm about to work
and

like tomorrow my heart will break.






This is what I want with my life now,
This is how I want to live
How to feel
How to be.
I am...
Happy.

XOXO
Riah

The Party Don't Start till I Walk In!

Wow I have been gone a very long time!

This week was pretty awesome,
I got voted SnoDaze Queen at my school!
I used to be the lonely girl that had lunch alone and had no friends,
and now I'm the popular girl.

It's weird though....
I'm considered the "goth" girl at my school
Goth kids hate the popular kids...
Good thing I'm not goth or I'd have to hate myself!
lol.

This crosses win a stupid popularity contest off my list! XD

Here are some pictures from that day!

It really was pretty awesome!
I had a really good night!
XOXO
~Riah

Baby you will never hear my heart beating

I remember when I first met you, I knew exactly how I felt right away.

I knew you were intelligent, kind, funny, friendly, and in search of truth and living like God. I know all of this within the first 30 seconds of when we first spoke. When I first looked at you.

I knew at that moment I loved you, But I didn't want to say anything to you. I knew better than to allow myself to fall in love with you and make attempts to make you mine. That's what I did when I was younger. But I knew that I wanted more with you than a random boyfriend that I'd lose within a few weeks.

I wanted to be closer to you. So instead of flirting with you, I talked to you, instead of asking you out, I hung out with you, Instead of trying to make you my boyfriend, I focused on us being friends. That's the relationship I wanted. I figured that I'd rather have you as a friend forever than a boyfriend for a week.

As time continued to pass, I learned how to talk to you. How to communicate and have a conversation. I wanted so badly nothing more than to know you and understand you. I wanted to be the person you'd learn to confide in, and I'd be able to confide in you.

I loved being next to you as you played your guitar, our conversations scented by the tobacco in your pipe ((That's right readers. 20 years old and smokes a pipe XD)), teasing you about random inside jokes, hanging out with our friends by the lake at your place at midnight, sitting next to you and our friends at church.....

I've treasured every memory.

After a while, our separate lives came between us, our interactions becoming more and more rare. I decided that perhaps it was the tome for my feelings for you to come to pass, and now just isn't the time.

I prayed to God to redirect my mind and heart into a new focus, Although my thoughts redirected to more productive ways to use my emotional and mental energies, my feelings remained....

God tells me to maintain my patience, the time is coming and when it happens, the timing will be perfect. He won't tell me for certain that you are the one just yet, He says me not knowing is all a part of the process of patience I'm supposed to practice.

But if it all turns out that you are the one, I want this to be the only secret I ever keep from you, for the sake of our current friendship. If it turns our that you are not the one, I want this, again, to be the only secret I ever keep from you. for the sake of our current friendship and future friendship, that I pray will only grow.

the rule of Se7en

 Ha So.... I'm sorta feelin like my blog is unloved. I have very very very few followers.... It really is quite sad XD

I got tagged so now I gotta say se7en things about me sooo.....

1. I'm freaking obsessed with purple. It's my favorite color and I wear it literally every day no lie.

2. I really really really like a guy right now that is never going to ever know because I'm afraid to tell him ((Do not try to convince me to get over my fear and tell him because it's not going to change my mind about him)) and if if refer to him it will be by Kain. But he will never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever know that I feel this way about him.


3. My favorite candy is Skittles. I will abandon ALL SANITY for a pack of Skittles.

4. I can't stand High School kids. Even though I'm in high school I want nothing more than to graduate be done and go to college where I can be around people that aren't so immature and trivial and I can have an intellectual conversation.

5. I HATE  Twilight. OMG seriously everyone thinks that just because I dress a little darker than the other kids at my school I must love Twilight. But no. Seriously I read "I am deeply and utterly in love with Edward Cullen." It wasn't even halfway through the book. I threw that thing across the room. Like, really? No. Just.... No....... No.......However. I think Taylor Lautner the best thing to happen to Twilight and I only like New Moon because he gets to be shirtless.....Nuff said...


6. My favorite bands consist of Flyleaf, Cloud Cult, The Antlers, Annuals, Clinker, The Kills and Gossip. My favorite station is called The Current. It's the best. I like underground music for the most part but most of these bands have started rising to fame...  ((Flyleaf is totally in the mainstream now actually. I knew them when they were Passerby))

7. I try really hard not to eat meat. Not a simple task at home but everywhere else I do pretty well outside of the home. I'll post my reasoning on that in the future.


Here are Se7en People I'm tagging to now you all gotta say 7 things about yourselves

http://sup3rgirlinlove.blogspot.com/
http://cupcakesniper.blogspot.com/
http://indigoteacup.blogspot.com/
http://joeyishellagood.blogspot.com/
http://colormenana.blogspot.com/
http://violetbellasworld.blogspot.com/
http://honeybeeinthecity.blogspot.com/

Both ends of the World

Alright so Thursday for CIS ((College In Schools)) Writing and Literature
We went to the University of Minnesota to meet up with all the other students in the state taking this class.
Everyone had read the book "The Late Homecomer" written by Kao Kalia Yang. It's the story of a Hmong woman's life as her family adjusted to our American culture here in Minnesota and how she has found out who she is as a Hmong American woman



If you've never heard her speak before you have missed out for sure. Kao Kalia is one of the most inspirational writers and speakers I'd ever heard. Her words are amazingly poetic.

At one point during this event, we were separated into groups of about 10 students, all from different schools.
My group was all filled with white kids, I was the only person of color in my group.

If you haven't caught it yet, I'm not white. I'm also not Hispanic. Actually, I'm black.
Okay well, I'm white, but I'm mixed. My dad's black and my mother is white and I grew up most of my life in white suburban neighborhoods and schools up until I started High school and moved to a more urban city and transferred into an inner-city school.

Problem is, I know that when people look at me, they don't see the black. When my friends look at me, they see everything I'm not. I mean, admit it, how many of you when you saw my senior photos thought I was black? I'm sure none of you huh?

When I was in that group of people, I knew that none of them even suspected that I was black. They looked right at me and thought either white or Hispanic, and I wished so badly that I was a better representation of my race and culture.

I was so envious of Kao Kalia and how she was able to speak to the world about her culture of Hmong ((Highly underrepresented Asian ethnicity)) but I don't have anything to represent fully. I'm shortcoming at least one of my races no matter what I do.

I got an article assignment about these types of topics for the 2010 Census because this is going to be the first time that people will be able to check more than one box when they say what race they are and with mixed races becoming more and more common so quickly, in 40 years will race even matter anymore with this melting pot in our society?

I'll make sure to post my information about the articles I write throughout the next month or two.

Post again soon
XOXO
~*Riah

two years from a 2nd chance.....

 *WARNING
Story can be a little intense or sad.



My memory of that day is very foggy....I was 15 years old....
everything was spinning out of control....
I couldn't breathe.....
I went into my room and like I had done a thousand times before I removed a sharp blade from my pink make-up pouch....
took it over my arm...

I think you can gather what happened next can't you?

I went out into the living room and my mom saw my arm... I wouldn't stop bleeding.
She said that she'd had enough of this and to go pack some clothes 'cuz I'm going into a psych ward....

That day changed my life.

Most cutters spend about 5-7 days in their inpatient unit at the hospital...

I spend 2 weeks....
then 3 weeks in outpatient treatment....


Wanna know something though?
I'm still addicted to cutting. and I always will be. But that does not mean I give in to it anymore.

I no longer cut myself....

I know a lot of teenagers do it, and they think it makes them feel better,
but when you need it like a drug, you can't function without it, you'll even do it for no reason without a trigger.... to the point where you don't care who you hurt in the process....

Until you've been there. You don't know.


I Love that I don't cut anymore.
I love that I can smile and it can be real.
I love that I cry instead.

I went in there exactly TWO years ago today....

and I died that day.
I killed myself,
I killed the way I used to be.

Since I came out of that cage of depression
I've become a whole new person.
I started going to church more (hence my very religious mindset)
and I made lot's of amazing friends since the experience....

I hit rock bottom....

and now the only way to go is up.



There is a huge difference between 15 and 17
Two years gave me a second chance.

"Never to suffer would be never to had been blessed."- Edgar Allan Poe 

 and how I've been blessed......
I have some amazing friends...
amazing support....
and life has become just one blessing after another

All I can say:

To everyone that has ever been depressed
To everyone that has ever hurt themselves
To everyone that has ever attempted suicide:

There is HOPE

the tears can never last forever


I Love you all
XOXO
Riah

Joanna Gail Photography- Senior Photos

She is quite an amazing and talented photographer. <3

my little sista and me. She's 14 ha.

http://joannagail.blogspot.com/