my writing process: a battle with technology

because technology hates me:
here is the link to my video on youtube
-Allyson Cashman

Favorite Game

So my favorite game would definitely have to be a computer classic: Minesweeper. No matter where I am, or what computer I'm on, I can always count on minesweeper to be there and ready to spare me from the boredom of class or homework. For some reason a lot of people find minesweeper difficult, but I'm kind of totally awesome at it. My intermediate score is an average of 72 seconds, but I've hit as low as 49. Which is nerd-ness of epic proportions. Minesweeper is pretty simple. You have a grid of little squares, and hidden within each square is either a number or a mine. Your job is to correctly decide which squares contain mines, and which contain safe numbers. You do this (generally) by left clicking boxes you think have numbers, and right clicking the ones you think have mines. The fun part of the game (and the part that makes me a nerd) is the fact that to figure out which squares are mines requires some actual thinking, and sometimes even some small algorithms. Each number represents how many bombs are touching. A '3' is touching three bombs, a '5' touching five, and so on. So you gradually cover the grid with numbers and mines until you've filled up the grid with all correct identifications. Sometimes it gets down to a point where there are several possible bomb configurations, and that's when it gets tricky. you have to run each scenario in your head until you find how it doesn't work until you're left with one plausible option. You're racing against the clock, and I love trying to beat my fastest times.

Reality

Reality is a composite of all the tangible and verifiable things in the world. If you can see it, touch it, hear it, and maybe taste or smell it, then it exists in the real world. Reality is not, however, the same for every person. Each person's reality is different. For a homeless person, reality is soup kitchens and cardboard boxes. Those are the tangible representations of their life. But for people like Paris Hilton, reality is an impossibly small dog in a pink purse worth more than my house. For the homeless person, that outlandishly expensive purse, or even just a warm bed, is a complete dream. Meanwhile, for people Snookie, 'reality' is a television show that pays her to get wasted, so she can afford her spray tans.

Best First English Assignment ever

So this is kinda the best and somewhat hardest first English assignment ever. It's great because it's really easy to just ramble about myself, but it's kind of hard too because I have no idea what the parameters of this assignment are; am I literally just supposed to ramble (with purpose) about myself? How long is it supposed to be? And is it okay that I type verbatim what I'm thinking? But anyway, that's what I'm gonna do. I am a recent graduate from Peters Township High School located near scenic Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (currently known as Gotham City) and I have started my studies as a freshman at Clemson University in South Carolina. I'm majoring in general engineering, hopefully to specialize in bioengineering, Engineering is _________ because I'm terrible with computers. My friends actually call me the anti-christ of technology because I can without fail break any computer. I can even blow them up with my mind! That really has happened before: I was just typing a paper and my computer started burning and smoking. I feel like that's a special skill I should advertise; I could have a future in the CIA! But I'm gonna tough it out because I really want to go into tissue engineering. Growing bladders, and esophagi, and skin, all from pig or cow tissue. I think that's the coolest thing ever! So that's what I want to do with my life: grow organs from pig livers. But I'm not just a total nerd that want to sit in a lab all day, I do a ton of other stuff. I'm actually pretty hyper and can't stay still for long stretches of time. I play(ed) a lot of sports. My main one for the longest time was soccer. I love soccer so much, best sport ever as far as I'm concerned. I played for about 10 years, rec', travel, cup, I was pretty darn good. Even made captain, and voted MVP at the last tournament (that was another fun thing about playing, we traveled all over the northeast for tournaments). But I was forced to give up soccer when I broke both feet, one right after the other.... That was really a heart-breaker for me, especially when I was refereeing younger kids knowing it was over for me. So instead I picked up tennis, which in some ways I loved even better than tennis. It was just me and my opponent, and every match would come down to a single point. And don't be fooled by the short court, tennis takes a lot of endurance and stamina. Sometimes a single play could go on for 10 minutes; back and forth, and back and forth, over and over again. And when you're playing that point, sprinting those short distances trying to make a winning shot, that 10 minutes seems like an hour. I owed every single one of those long points to my soccer training. I was by far the best runner on the team because of it. But the summer before my senior year, I was biking to get in shape for the season when a car ran me off the road. Catapulted from my bike and launched across pavement, I had bruises all over my leg and hip, cuts all over my knees, hands and elbows, and my knee cap was sprained, and injury benching me for the season. Thus ended my days as a tennis player. I never found the car that did that to me. the car that ruined my ability to play tennis, made me terrified to ride a bike, and cost me thousands of dollars in physical therapy sessions. Eventually I was able to at least overcome my bike-traumitization, and now I do about 20 miles as often as I can. So biking and running, that's what i do to stay in shape these days. On a different note (pun intended) I'm also a really good musician. I can play piano, bells, and sing pretty well, but my principle instrument is violin. I was concertmaster in 2 of my high schools 3 orchestras. For those of you that don't know, concertmaster is first chair, kinda like the captain of a sports team, or the CEO of a company. My favorite ensemble was Pit Orchestra, the one that played the live music for the Spring musicals. I got to play music from West Side Story, and Beauty and the Beast. I even got to play that solo that the coat rack plays in the Beauty and the Beast title song, which was a BLAST! My true love, however, is fiddle. I am a die-hard country girl, and I love fooling around with country and Irish ditties. Like, for those of you who know it, the crazy fiddle song in The Devil Went Down to Georgie, I can play that. I do sports because it's fun and I enjoy it, but I play violin because it's what I love. So in a nutshell that's me. And I'll leave you with a final fun riddle: what's black when you buy it, red when you use it, and grey when you throw it away?
-Allyson Cashman