Lub

My name is Janesse Brianne Wood, though I've always gone by my middle name, and my last name is soon to change. I'm 21 years old and I love cats. I can't decide what hair color to stick with, and I am perpetually cleaning my apartment. I grew up in Heppner, OR, but currently I'm living in Beaverton. I am majoring in Environmental Studies with electives in writing and a Minor in Public Administration, but I have yet to hone in on what I'll actually use my degree for. I don't have any hobbies, really. I enjoy writing on occasion but for me, writing is more of my coping mechanism for all those things that hold too much emotion for me to display without looking like I've lost my mind.

I wish I could describe who I am, but the truth is that I'm not entirely sure. I know I'm not who I was yesterday, and I'm sure I'll be different tomorrow. But I feel like my life didn't truly start until last spring. If you would have asked me before then to describe myself, you would have gotten a short, shallow answer that barely scratched the surface of who I really am. I would have told you about my "great" job, about my "amazing" house, about my "happy" relationship. Truthfully, I spent so much time worried about making other people happy and doing the things they wanted me to do whether it was hurting me or not, that I'd lost sight of what it is that I wanted for myself. I was sucked into a toxic life that I never bothered to fight against, because felt trapped. I refused to change until that change was thrust upon me, and . I may not have been prepared for it but I was liberated. It's just like John Lennon said; "Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans". I dread the thought of who I could have been if change never came, but I know it wouldn't be even close to what I'd wanted for myself. I've worked hard every day since then to change my life, for fear of falling back into destructive patterns again and losing the bright future I have now.

I've been reading since the age of four. My very first book of choice was anything involving the Berenstain Bears. They were simple, fun, and entertaining stories, and I didn't really feel to need to try much else. I also remember reading the Ramona Quimby stories with my Grandma Sue whenever I would stay the night with her. I loved Ramona because I could relate to her. I also gushed over both The Boxcar Children and the Wally McDoogle series. I used to wish I could live in a boxcar too, and have wild adventures just like Wally.

While I've always loved to read, it wasn't until just recently that I was interested in recreational reading and actually took the time to explore my literary options, so to speak. Before I discovered my true love for books, I immersed myself in the world of music. I have music for every mood and every season. For example, I can't listen to Jack Johnson or Sublime without thinking of summer. Bands like Lovedrug or Lydia are my winter bands, and comfort me in times of hardship. Relient K is my happy band, forever, until the day I die. A Fine Frenzy is who I turn to during relationship drama. Music helps me cry, helps me smile, helps me focus, and helps me put my emotions in perspective, but it also slows my computer down. I desperately need an Ipod.

Reading has turned out to be an escape from my troubles, and a way to occupy my mind with someone else's. I don't limit myself to one certain genre. I recently finished up a delightfully depressing book called "The Virgin Suicides", unaware that the title was more revealing of the storyline than I'd originally thought. Currently, I'm jumping between This Side Of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald, A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, and the ever popular Twilight saga (because I can't successfully nitpick the content of the movies if I haven't read the books). It's a pretty broad variety of stories, enough to keep me interested in all three. I am a Harry Potter fan, and when I say that, I mean that I'm obsessed. My favorite book of all time, though, will always be Wuthering Heights. I'm not sure exactly what appeals to me so much about this story of Heathcliff & Catherine's intense love/hate for each other and persistant sabotage of each others lives. Maybe it's the tragedy of it all, I find it beautiful.

My friend, Ashley Black, and I have been good friends for several years. She is someone I've always admired, and is as beautiful as she is smart. Ashely likes to read books with a lot of romance. "It's weird and cheesy but true. The combination of romance and adventure is what I'm into". She finished all four Twilight books in a couple weeks, because she "couldn't put them down", something I can certainly relate to. She thinks books that you can relate to a certain part of your life are the best books in the world. She also enjoy books about people in either hard/peculiar situatuions. "Absolutly loved Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas, the original Alice In Wonderland, and Through The Looking Glass." She's read a few biographies that she's really enjoyed about people she's interested in, such as Marilyn Manson and Marilyn Monroe. "I'm also really into psychology and philosophy books at the moment, helps me understand the bigger picture, and whats really going on."

Another good (and stunningly gorgeous) friend of mine, Katie Lenahan, is somebody who I've always turned to for advice, and who's opinion I've always valued. Her view on reading is very similar to mine. Her favorite thing to read is fiction, "because I like to be taken to a place where I can escape everything that overwhelms me during my day to day life. The farther I can get away from the reality; the normal and the mundane, the better". Growing up, she says she was consumed with fairy tales and stories like "my father's dragon" and "ella enchanted" because she felt they took her to a far away land like nothing she had ever known. She fell deeply for the Harry Potter series because it allowed her an escape into a whole different world. Lately she's been reading a lot of Chuck Palaniuk's works because "he does a wonderful job of mixing reality with the insane, the regular people with the irregular situations and pushing reality so far that is becomes something else entirely". His books allow her to get lost in them and while still allowing herself to relate them to her own every day life and what's going on with people in her world. "I use books as my escape, my portal to another time or place or person while not losing myself, and that is why I have a day to day, ongoing love affair with books."

My younger sister, Kellee Jones, is the smarter, prettier sister. She's always loved to read, ever since she was little kid. She says "I think I'm most happy when I have a good book to read." She likes to read a variety of books. Her taste has definitely changed over the years. In elementary school she was really into historical fiction, which at times came in really handy when I needed help with my American History homework. Then, in junior high she went through a Jane Austen phase. "I swear the only books I would read would be by her." In high school she expanded her reading list quite a bit. She read the Twilight series (I give her all the credit for sparking my interest in the series), Harry Potter, The Uglies series, and many others. Some of her favorite authors right now are Stephenie Meyer, Scott Westerfeld, Francine River, Ellen Hopkins, and Sarah Dessen. "The reason that I love these authors is that the way they write, it makes it easy to relate what thier characters are going through. They keep their stories interesting, and once I start reading one of their books, it's so hard for me to put it down."