...and it's still a highlight of my life.
Mine as well start this off with a bang, right? I'm Alex and new the site. I was around in the cult back when Chuck first posted his essays for free and can say with honor that I have been the recepient to one of his crazy packages.
Anyway, in college I studied Anthropology and studied abroad in Australia for a year because of it. It was an interesting time in my life but I realized after graduating that my professors were a sort of snake oil salesman who had offered me thousands of opportunities that didn't actually exist or ones they had no connections to.
Cut to now, five years later after finishing school. I'm still working at Starbucks, which was my part-time job in college. It's a good company and I like what I do, but it isn't puting me where I want to be. So for now in order to keep from boredom I've decided to fool around with some sort of writing to entertain myself with and I find the writers workshop to be way more helpful than the type of work we did in my intro to creative writing class.
I like pushing myself and I like creating. I tend to think visually and I once agreed with OK Cupid when it told me that I was "highly untraditional" after answering around 1000 personality questions. I try to be funny at my job and I can go as dark, twisted and absurd as anyone I know.
Gramattically I have always been awful. In 5th grade they took my IQ and said it was really high, above 140 (my dad should have never showed me the results). This was surprising, especially since I was a straight C student at that point. I was so goddamn lazy in school that I just always went with what "sounded right" or 'looked right" and could usually be right 75-80 percent of the time. Because of that my comma usage is usually awful and I tend to write a crooked sentence now and again. I want to get better at this and I have a feeling that this website will help me.
Oh yeah. One other thing. I also have Leukemia. But that's a different story.
1000 personality questions.
I never want to know that much about myself.
Great intro though, I don't see that many detailed ones. Or maybe I don't usually read them. Hmmm..
I hope you get healthy soon :(
Welcome to the insanity that is Litreactor.
What is your favorite book?
So I suppose the first thing I should get out of the way is the Leukemia bit. Around two years ago I was diagnosed with Chronic Myeloid Leukemia. Before 2001 It was a deathwish of a cancer. Now there is a medication for it, Gleevec, that I'm on that blocks the cancer causing protein from being created in my body. I have pretty mild side effects when you compare it to other Chemotherapies . I just need to make sure that I take the pill once a day and I'm fine. But it's was a Fucking Rollercoaster from when the doctors told me that I was going to die from Leukemia to me being perfectly okay. One day I hope to feel comfortable enough to write about it.
On a lighter note; Howie, It was an accident. I was at an awful club that my friends in HS were playing in an open mic. Finding a empty bottle of chocolate soy milk, I pissed in an empty corner because the bathrooms were overcrowded. After the show I heard someone say "Hey can I try your soy milk?" and then followed by, "Ugghhh that stuff tastes like shit!". Laughing hysterically, I let them know what just happened. The kid had smoked a ton of pot at the show so while his taste buds were tragically heightened for tasting my pee, he didn't have the motivation enough to fight me about it. Best of all, almost a year later I am hanging out with my friend in his suburban neighborhood when a couple of sloppy drunks come up to us in the middle of the day and one of them says to me "Hey man, I know you, I drank your piss!"
Oh yeah, Jacks_username, I'd say my favorite book is One Flew Over the Cuckoos nest. I tend to be a big fan of anti-heroes
One day, at a place I used to work, where practical jokes were rampant, a supervisor sat down for lunch in the break room. Many other employees were there, as well. He set out his Nalgene style water bottle on the table where he intended to sit, put his food in the microwave, then made the most common of mistakes in that work environment; he walked out of the room for a minute.
An employee, we'll call Marcus, sprang to action. He snatched the water bottle, emptied its contents and ran the faucet. Marcus found some orange juice in the fridge and added just enough to cover the bottom of the bottle. The rest, he filled with warm water from the running faucet. Some vigorous shaking perfected the concoction and it was placed back on the table with the rest of the supervisor's wares.
The supervisor returned and retreived his food from the microwave, and sat down to eat. More attention on the TV than what was before him, he eventually went for his water bottle. As his fingers wrapped around he must have realized it didn't feel the way he expected it to...it was...warm.
Looking down at the warm bottle he could see a clear liquid with a distinct tinge. The supervisor wore a red patch indicating that status, his face flushed to match.
"AWWW, YOU MOTHERFUCKERS!"
"What kind of sick fuck...?"
He threw his water bottle at the wall. Swept his food into the trash. Knocked over a chair.
"Why would anyone do that!" He got up, picked his bottle from the floor.
"My bottle is ruined!"
"Relax, Patches," an unnamed employee piped up, addressing the Sup with a very maligned and derogatory nickname for the supervisor, earned in another of his outbursts. He drank from the bottle while Patches looked on incredulously.
Gotcha!
