Hello Bloganuary 2024! This is my third year participating in this challenge—feel free to check out my posts for 2022 and 2023. According to a WordPress.com blog post, lots of other people participated as well. I tried to spread the word by posting the daily prompts every week on social media. I hope someone out there saw them and decided to join in the fun.
This year, I was short on time, so I only chose five of the prompts from the bunch (one from each week) to write about. Here are my responses.
Week 1, Day 4: “What is the greatest gift someone could give you?”
Right now, I would really appreciate having my student loan debt forgiven or even just reduced a little. I don’t mind paying the money back, nor do I regret borrowing it. Thanks to the loans and my scholarship, I finished college and obtained my degree, something that not many people in my family were able to do.
It’s just that $15,000 is a daunting amount! Just thinking about it makes me freak out sometimes. I feel like I’m going to be paying it off for the rest of my life. Getting that weight off my back would be a huge relief.
Week 2, Day 10: “Describe an item you were incredibly attached to as a youth. What became of it?”
Besides anime pins, I used to “make” my own keychains for my backpack. I couldn’t afford official anime merchandise, so the keychains were a cheap way for me to express my love for my favorite characters. I have so many fond memories connected to those keychains. They followed me through several backpack changes during high school and college.
I somehow came into possession of three butterfly-shaped keychains, two red and one pink. There’s glitter inside them, as well as yellow, green, and silver stars painted on their front corners. They each have a square-shaped hole in the center for a small picture, so I cut pictures of my favorite anime guys down to size and glued them in there.
I still have those keychains. I found them tucked into the pocket of my last backpack. Two of them no longer have keychain hooks, and the pictures in them are a little dusty and faded, but they’re still in decent shape. Maybe I’ll fix them up, put in pics of my favorite K-Pop guys, and attach them to my purse or something.
Week 3, Day 21: “Write about your name: its meaning, significance, etymology, etc.”
I touched on this topic a little on my main site’s Bio page but…My first name is Brittany. That’s three syllables: Brit-ta-ny. According to my mom, the name comes from a Black policewoman on an old show, though she can’t remember which show and I’ve never found the answer on Google. She had never seen a Black female cop character on TV before and she liked the unique pronunciation.
Originally, my mom and my aunt (her twin sister) had agreed to name their first daughters matching names to continue the twin naming scheme, so to speak. But my dad didn’t like the name they had created for me. My mom tried different feminine variations of my dad’s name. Nope! Then she tried combinations of my grandmothers’ names. That was a no-go too. This was about the point when she saw that faithful show.
Overall, I like my name. It’s neither too ordinary nor too unusual. I don’t worry about name discrimination. The only time I have a problem is when I have to say it out loud. Most people want to pronounce it with two syllables like “Brit-ney” (as in, “Britney Spears”) because that’s the most common way it’s said. That extra syllable is apparently too much work for some people, however, so they shorten my name to “Britt,” a nickname that is reserved for close friends and family. Instead of constantly correcting people, I just let “Brit-ney” stand.
Week 4, Day 26: “Write about a few of your favorite family traditions.”
Since my parents and I all have birthdays in December, most of our family traditions revolve around Christmas.
Our biggest tradition is that everyone gets to eat whatever they want (within reason). We’re normally on a tight budget, so we don’t often get to indulge in certain types expensive foods until Thanksgiving and Christmas. We eat cheap leading up to the holidays so we can splurge. Sometimes we get the traditional foods like ham, turkey, and an assortment of sides and veggies, but lately we’ve gone for things like pork chops, BBQ ribs, and homemade tacos. And of course, we have to have our favorite cakes and pies. It’s fantastic.
Another tradition involves the Christmas tree. My mom handles all of the decorations around the house because my dad isn’t a Christmas-y person in general and my perfectionist mother doesn’t actually mean it when she says I can hang things wherever I want. She has made peace with our lack of participation. Her only request is that we hang at least one ornament on the tree. That is literally the least we can do.
Lastly, there’s my dad’s annual war with the Christmas tree lights. He has to put the lights on the tree because my mom isn’t tall enough to reach the higher tiers. Well, this seemingly simple task always turns into a freaking nightmare! Every. Single. Year. The allegedly brand new lights either refuse to blink or stop working altogether. We spend a lot of time hunting down or buying extra blinkers or replacement bulbs. At some point, my dad will reach the limit of his patience. The lights will go into the trash and we will buy a new string or two. Wash, rinse, repeat.
Week 5, Day 30: “What do you complain about the most?”
These days I complain a lot about the excessive noise in my neighborhood. I swear, it’s never quiet around here! My upstairs neighbor blasts his stereo first thing in the morning and immediately after he comes home from work in the evening. And that’s when he’s not stomping around like Godzilla attacking the city. Elsewhere, there are screaming kids, barking dogs, buzzing saws, and banging hammers.
My nerves can’t take it. I catch myself yelling, “WHAT ARE THESE PEOPLE DOING?!” a million times a day to anyone who will listen. I can’t hear myself think or take a nap without noise in the background. I must be getting old.