Nicole be Thinking...

Last week, my coworker and I appeared on WFSK's "Common Cents: The Money Show." They focus on.... money. And we went on to talk about financial aid for college because Oasis College Connection focuses on... college. My dad hosts the show Tuesday evenings from 6 to 7. Give our episode a listen. And come see us if you're local and you need help. =]

Last Monday I was told Ms. Scott was in the hospital and it didn't  look good. It fucked up my entire week. Ms. Scott is larger than life,  the best English teacher I ever had. From the time I first walked into  Pearl-Cohn Comprehensive/Business Magnet High School two things were  absolutely certain: I had to get back to California as soon as I  graduated and I had to survive Mama Scott's class to make that happen.  My strategy was to be silent and excel, but Ms. Scott wasn't having  that. She came for me, told me when I was a 10th grader that she was  waiting for me. When I finally got to her class she called me out  regularly. She threw me off the cliff that was my comfort zone, and  then caught me at the bottom. She forced me to shine when I was trying  to down play my abilities. She taught me not to hide my talents, but  not to rest on them either. I'll always be grateful for her. She  taught all of us how to  be ...

I know 2011 was a decent year but as I sat down to make this list, I couldn't think of anything. Like... At all . I drew a blank. I had to call upon my agent, Michelle, and I think we have good little list here. These were some of the better things that happened this year. I don't think I can rank them like last year. Everything here gives me warm and fuzzies. 1. College Connection So... a little backstory... I was a little irritated with my brothers this summer. DZ had failed a class and wasn't being realistic about his future. In a huff, I decided I would take him and "let the white people tell him" about life. I remembered that Bob Obrohta, who ran Imagine College at Pearl Cohn when I was there, had embarked on something called called Nashville College Connection a few years ago. Bob told me lots of great things when I was in high school whether I listened or not, so I figured he'd be perfect to tell DZ, too. What I got from dragging my brothers to the...

When I was a freshman at San Francisco State, my English composition professor had us all write satire based on the practice of trying minors as adults. We also researched and wrote actual papers on the subject, but we did the satire first. I don't think I'm funny and she used The Onion  as the model so I was really intimidated by the assignment, but I turned it in and put it behind me. I don't remember what grade I got. Right now I'm compiling a portfolio for my senior seminar and I came across it. It's a little rough, but it made me chuckle a little. I decided to share. Enjoy. =]

19 years ago today, my first brother was born. He is my father's son and he looks just like Bigmama. I don't remember my reaction when I found out about him. My first memory of him is one of his first birthday parties. I remember when my mom took me to see his mom in the little apartment over by the lake. And I remember the first time they left. I was young that first time. In my mind there was just me anyway. I wasn't too affected when this new baby was suddenly gone. But it was totally different when they came back. They lived with my dad so I got to see him more often. We played together, ate together, stayed up late together. I remember walking with his mom to pick him up from Anna Yates Elementary. We bonded. He called me "Sister" like it was my name. In his way, he taught me about sibling pride. I had a brother. Then they were gone again. That was rough. There have been numerous times over the 14 or so years since I last saw him that my thoughts have tur...

11 years ago today, my last brother was born. He is my father's son. He looked a lot like Tonda as a baby, but he looks more and more like his mom as he gets older. Fourteen is an interesting age, especially for girls. Teenage drama was elevated when I found out my dad's too-young girlfriend was having a baby. I was not happy. At all. But whatever ill feelings I have for his mom melted away when I met Monte. He is the coolest kid. He does his own thing. All he requires is a McChicken and Judge Joe Brown reruns. He'll play with you, but he doesn't want you in his stuff. And when he's done playing, he bounces. Don't get it twisted, though. He's sweet and affectionate. When I had chicken pox, he laid with me everyday. His hugs (and all of Quentin Tarantino's movies) helped me more than the meds. He came early -- too early -- and he will need someone for the rest of his life. Our father is 100% committed to him and that's a great thing to see. One day...

My big little brother took the test for his learner's permit. Yes, Daryl wants to drive. It's freaking me out. I remember when he was born. He consumed my life for a while. He slept in my room, I fed him, I changed his diapers. For a while, I was the only one who could make him laugh. He was my little homie. I'm terribly protective of all my brothers. They're all super special, but I have to say that Daryl is a different kind of special. He used to be attached to me. Now he's old. He's a 15-year-old, 6-foot-tall, girl-loving mini-man. Every time my mom tells me something new, I get really nostalgic like he's my kid or something. But the older Daryl gets, the further I get from one of the most pivotal times in my life (which I guess means I'm getting old). But seriously… About 15 years ago, the world changed completely. And since I'm a little bit of a nerd… In constructing my " memory palace ," I tend to refer to this period in my life as ...

I don't really have a Nate Dogg story. He was just embedded in my childhood, one of those people who isn't supposed to die before me. I'm still in denial. =[ Following are a few of my favorite Nate Dogg features... I probably won't admit that he's gone after this...

First of all... I've blamed every natural weather disaster since 2005 on Al Gore. He brought us that inconvenient movie and the globe has been fucked ever since. But maybe it's me. Great flood in Nashville right before my bday in 2010. Haven't been home since 2008 but while I'm here, the coast is on tsunami warning bc of the earthquake in Japan. Mother Nature must be mad at me… (I'll start recycling...) Now... That's ridiculous, I know. Natural disasters are... well… natural. I guess they just prove that we're not on earth to decide or decipher. Maybe we're only here to deal, do what we're going to do to make the most of everything. I'm ok with that. Also… It's amazing that something that happened like… 6,000 miles away has an effect on us here. From the plane, the waves are small, though larger than usual. I can see the ripples coming. It makes me feel really small. Not in a bad way. A really humbling, deep way. So… back to Nashville I go. I...

Aiight... I figured out how I'm going to use Nicole be Thinking's twitter account so it's safe to follow it now: @nicolebethinkn. It's a little bare over there right now, but these posts feed to that account now and I'll use it more and more as I write more... It's whatever though. I'm in my experimental phase. We'll see how it goes. =] OH! While I'm here... I AM editing right now so there WILL be posts this week. Work with me people...

We all know that movies don’t change that much. There are no real genres anymore since most movies these days have elements from many genres. In any event, the stories are all pretty much the same. That said , I saw Takers with my younger brother. Without giving too much away, the plot of Takers is basically the same as any other heist movie. There are some differences, mostly just elements of style, but major themes, character arcs, and outcomes are, of course, very familiar... So… clearly half of the major players die in the end. I know this from being an avid movie watcher since my first (that I can remember) trip to the movies to see Boys N the Hood . I also know that there won't (shouldn’t) be a sequel. However, this concept is foreign to my brother. At the end he looked confused "Everybody dies? Naw, somebody lives and there could be a part two!" Uuuum… what? I can only take this as a sign of the times. My brother's generation did not grow up watching the...

We all have our own little place in society. Our niche, our lane, our job. Confusion, frustration, stress, fights, all that shit would be reduced dramatically if people did what they were hired to do and let other people do what they were hired to do… There's a server at my job who is always complaining. Every time I look up, he's at the door greeting patrons, getting menus, telling me what table to take them to, warning me about other servers being inattentive or slow. He's not management. He's not a hostess. Just a server. Granted… Restaurants run best when it's a team effort, when everyone works together. So some degree of "looking out for one another" is necessary. But people need to worry most about doing their own job. My job is most stressful when too many people are telling me what to do and I don't have the proper tools because those people aren't doing their jobs. It works the same way in every job I have had. There's always...

About two weeks or so ago (when Metro Public Schools ended classes for the summer) I had a conversation with my 14-year old brother, who had just finished his first year of high school. "So how did you do on your exams?" I asked. "Fine. I got all Bs. Well, I got a 63 on one exam, but I got an 83 in the class, so it's ok." He replied. "So… You failed?" "Naw. I passed." "Hmmm… What are you going to do all summer?" "Nothing. I'm just gonna hang out with my friends. Go to the movies. Relax." ( Images of LaTarrian Milton bombarded my brain. ) "Nothing? All summer?" "Yeah. I've been working hard for 9 months. I deserve to do nothing." And there I was. Staring at myself. All my rationalized laziness, unusually-poor work ethic, and bad grades from the Spring 2010 semester were in my brother and flipping me off. I decided I would do something to help him so that I could help myse...

It's been a while since I've posted and it hasn't been fun... It's been a little difficult to find the energy to write. I have opinions about everything, of course, but I'm not getting any "write-about-it" vibes. I have been listening to music a lot. It keeps me in a calm place. In honor of my 24th birthday (which was Monday, May 3. Thanks for your well wishes, prompt and belated...) I'm gonna share the 24 songs I must listen to almost everyday. Of course I love more than 24 songs but.... 24 years, 24 songs. Just sounds right. Enjoy. Vibe with me. =] The Right One - Chancellor Warhol (feat. Boss of Nova) Hate - Jay-Z (feat. Kanye West) McFearless - Kings of Leon Partie Traumatic - Black Kids Okay - Usher Right as Rain - Adele U Don't Know - Jay-Z On Call - Kings of Leon Hot N' Fun - N*E*R*D Revelry - Kings of Leon Barry Bonds - Kanye West (feat. Lil Wayne) Kinda Like a Big Deal - Clipse (feat. Kanye West) Past My Shades - B.O.B. (feat. Lupe Fia...

… if you're looking for my great insight into some social issue/current event. Got plenty of others for that. Try here , here , and here . Just need to vent and I enjoy the noise my nails make on the keyboard. It's… therapeutic. Anyway. Fifth Third Bank, the bastards. Three years ago I had an account with them into which I deposited my weekly pay checks. Somehow the account was overdrawn by some small amount… Like a dollar and some change… I saw it but I didn't trip because it was just a dollar and I deposited my check every Thursday. So… I looked at my account one day and it was overdrawn by that dollar. The next day I looked it was -$300. WTF? I called and a representative told me that ten transactions were responsible for the overdraft and a fee of $33 was assessed on each one. I tried to reason with her. How could ten transactions add up to a dollar? I had my statements and everything. She wasn’t budging, so I said whatever and kept it moving. I looked at my account...

Twitter is addictive. In the beginning, I signed up, followed Red Rhoner (@deltalady), and when on about my business. Something told me to go back and I've been stuck on it ever since. A lot has changed. The vibe is a little different. More people are addicted. The rules have evolved. But I still love it. I'm still ALWAYS on it. Recently (about 17 minutes ago) I hit 10,000 tweets. That means that in the 14 or so months (428 days according to mytweetsixteen.com) I've been a member I have sent 10,000 (mostly) meaningless messages to everyone and no one. It's been a blast. I wanted to go back to my very first tweet, but Twitter doesn't go back that far. It went back to September 3 ("RT @sashaalexandria: #hemightbecrazy if he gets mad cause you didn't answer the phone [it's happened to ME]"). Anywho... Here are some of the favorites I saw while taking my stroll down twemory lane... P-Bizzle and I are always debating about music. I'm usually t...

I GOT MY GRADES LAST NIGHT! And I'm thrilled. They're not all perfect… (I did get a C, but I'm going to say "Thank you" because it could have been worse…) …but I'm pretty happy with them. For a while I thought that I was losing my touch. I went through this really weird phase when I thought that maybe I'm not as smart as everyone thinks I am. Seriously. Belmont was an intellectual vacuum for me. While I was there I couldn't write like me. I couldn't think like me. I was unhappy. No offense to people who graduated from there and love it, but it didn't work for me. I was the wrong student, the wrong person for that environment. AND too much was on my non-academic plate. SO… having been a stranger to Dean's List for SO long (the longest period of time ever) I thought I was losing my touch. My goal for this semester was to get it back. I think I did. I pushed all the envelopes I could. I sufficiently stressed myself out. I know exactly what nee...

Officially, I'm hibernating right now. I don't really want to connect on Facebook or Twitter right now. However… from time to time, I'm bored and reading that stuff is still mildly amusing… A couple things I noticed while tip toeing around Facebook: A lot of these "friendships" are super manufactured past the point of being fake. They simply don't exist. There are people I'm friends with on Facebook that I don’t want to be bothered with in life. Am I afraid to delete them? Perhaps… Well… I deleted a bunch of them just a moment ago. (Part of my hibernation is purging…) But… why even bother to begin with? Having said that… I discovered that I'm NOT friends with some people I should be. I'm missing out on some connections. A while ago, I deleted EVERYONE while in an angry "fuck friendship" mood. I'm STILL re-adding and re-discovering people from that episode… If it makes you feel...

I really don't know where to begin. When I read that Brittany Murphy passed away I honestly started to tremble. I was an only child for a long time and I lost myself in movies. Clueless is one of my all-time favorite movies. I thought high school would be exactly like that and I felt like Cher, Dionne, and Tai were my friends, and of course, Alicia Silverstone, Stacey Dash, and Brittany Murphy are too. This feeling sucks. And it wasn't just Clueless . I remember her in the episode of Sister, Sister . And nobody remembers Don't Say a Word because of Michael Douglas. I loved her in Riding in Cars with Boys . I would have never even watched Uptown Girls or Little Black Book if she wasn't in them and I love them both because she was. She was good in Sin City . And did I mention she was in 8 Mile ? I loved her talent. I loved her energy. I think I might cry. I know… of course I didn't actually know her. But this hits so close to home. It's not supposed t...

I love being black. Its one of my favorite things about myself. I've been in Critical Approaches all semester learning about different theories and methods for critiquing and analyzing literature. So noooow… we're talking about American Multiculturalism and African American Literature. This section is starting to bother me. First… This quote: "Eventually [Phyllis Wheatley] became the best-known American poet in England. Writing in the neoclassical style of Alexander Pope, she composed verses that reflected her privileged status, not a slave mentality" (Dobie 218). What exactly is a "slave mentality?" Ok… she wasn't illiterate like she was supposed to be. She wasn't a mammy. She probably wasn’t working in the fields. So perhaps in writing her poetry she wrote what she was feeling, what she saw. She was a slave so whatever mentality she had was a slave mentality. There's no universal mindset for any group of people and the suggestion that Wheatley ...