Name: Christine

Sex: Girl! (Duh.)

Location: Lake City, Tennessee

Age: Old enough to know better. (Still too young to care.)

Grade: College Freshman

Favorite Ships: Oliver/Katie, Charlie/Katie, Hermione/Most Male Weasleys, Harry/Ginny, Sirius/Remus.

I am absolutely enamored with Katie Bell, Charlie Weasley, and Oliver Wood. (Not together, silly!) I love to read and write about each of them. Katie is usually my main character, but I sometimes dip my quill into the inkwells that are Charlie and Oliver.

I recently finished International Delight, a story that outlined Katie’s multiple problems in the arena of romance. While writing this story, I accidentally developed a liking for Charlie/Katie as a pairing. Because of this, my latest endeavor is a piece entitled The Last of the Ryu, which is a Charlie/Katie centered piece. It will be slow in production (college is horrible), but I will be working on it solely.

Have you ever wondered about the type of person your author really is?
Well, look no further…

One truly is never too old to continue learning. I, in fact, learned this last night.

It was Saturday, July 28, 2007, and I had been stricken, quite unfortunately, by a rather uneventful day. The day was so placid, in fact, that I was simply itching for action. My mind fogged early in the day, however, and I am afraid that I was running on autopilot. In such mode, I spent my day going through the motions: reading, writing, texting, giggling with Marvyl, Sonic tripping, insulting Dale…

My body tingled from the lack of excitement, and I felt like I imagined Indiana Jones might if he were stuck in solitary confinement with no hope of escaping just in time to save the beautiful blond from the bloody-thirsty Nazi. Night began to encompass my world, and an inexplicable excitement began to build within me. I could not explain it, but I knew that something was going to happen. I felt like Professor Moody was standing on my shoulder and screaming, "CONSTANT VIGILANCE!"

The hours passed on, however, ticking and tocking into non-existence, and I began to feel slightly lethargic. How could I be constantly vigilant if there was nothing posing any type of proximate, or ultimate, threat? It is because of my lethargy and lack of vigilance that I was caught completely unaware of the adventure that lay before me when I roved through the house at two in the A.M.

As I entered the bathroom to brush my teeth, I felt more like a vagabond than a Lara Croft-esque special agent. With an inextricable façade of nonchalance tightly in place, and with my breath smelling of a fresh sprig of mint on a delightfully sticky summer's night, I turned to depart from the bathroom.

It was to my surprise, as one may surmise, that I found myself face to face with a Wolf-Spider the size of a bird. (Perhaps, if you are disbelieving to the size of said arachnid, it was directly proportionate to the size of a hummingbird… well, perhaps a newborn hummingbird.) Dread permeated quickly throughout my being, and I was not surprised to find myself without any of my usual and useful weapons (i.e. samurai sword, whip, wooden staff, flyswatter, wand….) I had, after all, not been at my highest peak of awareness at the time.

I knew immediately that the camouflaged arachnid had two things that I didn't: agility and speed. My mind raced, my palms sweated, and I felt that my jelly-like legs might give out at any moment. I'm not sure if it was instinct, or something wayward drifting through my brain, that caused me to reach out behind me, but I did.

My hand connected with something hard and plastic. My heart palpitated heavily in my chest, and I was in wonder. What had I found that would lead me in my mission of defeating the darker side of nature? Perhaps it was the hilt of the light saber Luke Skywalker left when he unexpectedly dropped in last month, perhaps it was the neon orange flyswatter that I had lost the week before…

When my hand entered my line of vision once again, I was perturbed by what I saw. I held neither a light saber nor my orange flyswatter. I held a disgustingly normal mauve cup. A cup. I was perplexed, to say the least. How would a cup help me defeat my current, eight-legged nemesis? It hit me, in the likeness of an Avada Kedavra to Harry Potter's forehead. The cup could easily be used for smashing!

An evil grin flitted across my lips, and I sniggered as I approached the waiting arachnid. "All right, old girl," I thought to myself as I poised the cup over the spider, "just one quick crunch and that little guy will haunt you no longer." The cheshire smile that plastered over my face remained as I struck out against the spider.

The smile died on my lips seconds later. The lupine arachnid had scuttled away, and his demise had not been met. I struck out again, hoping that this time my aim would be true and the spider would crumble lifeless to the black and white checkerboard floor. Once again, I was disturbingly unsuccessful.

Panic began to permeate through my humanoid, opposable thumb equipped, body, and I began to feel inferior. I began to feel drunk with choler, and my cerulean eyes began to search greedily through the room. There had to be an item present that would help me to defeat my dark enemy.

My eyes soared past the bathtub and over the sink before I saw it. My secret weapon sat on the towel rack as innocently as the day it had been placed there. I quickly began to search my pockets. "Damn," I thought as I fumbled clumsily, "No lighter." I would not be deterred of my wrath upon the eight-legged horror, and I knew that the can of hair spray would be helpful if I could only figure out a way to use it.

I sat there, perched precariously on the side of the bathtub, and I stared into the mirror across the room from me. In my hands, I saw the mauve cup and the can of TRESemmé, and an evil scheme, a scheme of necessity, began to hatch within my brain. How could a can of aerosol hair spray that was dangerous to the O-Zone not be dangerous to the spider?

What I needed to do struck me painfully, and I slowly began to creep from the bathtub toward my one ticket to freedom. There was no way the spider could outsmart me this time. I did, after all, have opposable thumbs.

I smiled.

I pointed.

I sprayed.

I smashed.

It was to my immense pleasure that I pealed the spider from the bathroom floor and tossed him (I had declared through deductive reasoning that the spider was male because it was being a jerk) into the toilet. As he passed into a watery afterlife, a ghost of a smile flitted across my face. "Syonora," I whispered in my subconscious as he was pulled from my vision through a whirlpool, "you were a worthy adversary."

Lesson of fable: Never cease to look around you for options out of any situation. You may be surprised at what you find to help you through your darkest hours.

Basic Summary

I live in Tennessee, and I'm regularly referred to as a Damn Yank. It is quite okay, however, because I love to hear it tossed my way in that southern twang. I have met what I would call a modern day Southern Belle, and I'm quite fond of her. I live close to the first TVA dam, and it's beautiful. (FDR had it right when he started his alphabet soup scheme. He was a fantastic cook, you know.)

I love art. It doesn't matter if it's literature, painting, music, sketching, photography... I'm into all of it. I'm a writer, I paint atrocious birthday cards, I played four horns for my high school band, I love to sketch random things (even if I'm not very good), and I love to take pictures. I was also the Editor-In-Chief of my school's yearbook and the First Lady (and/or Co-Vice President) of our school's drama club.

I am currently attending school at the University of Tennessee. My plan in life is history. I believe that there is something great to be extracted from our past, and I think it is something that far too many people take for granted. Writing isn’t my life anymore, but I definitely find myself coming back to it when I’m fed up with school. (Or not writing twenty-two page papers for Political Science.)

I’m fairly easy to get along with, and I tend to take criticism well. I am eternally grateful for all of my readers and reviewers.