my first love.

There are days (let's call today one of those days) where I will go on a language splurge.

I'll inhale any piece of good journalism I can get my hands on, treat my eardrums to a smorgasbord of beautiful lyrics, and read essays that make me feel like I've had a cool glass of sophistication.

As a child I was a bit of a PBS junkie.

My mornings would start with a walk down the stairs from the apartment my family lived in, to my grandparent's home (which was conveniently right next door), and straight to the big screen TV. I'm not talking plasma screen televisions; no these were the monsters of the early 90s where the hull of the television was big enough to stuff two people inside...comfortably.

I could have probably given TV guide a run for its money with how well I had the channel schedule down. Even now a piece of the memory space in my brain remembers that day began with Sesame Street and ended with Ghostwriter.
I inhaled all of it.

I think my love affair with beautiful phrases began with Reading Rainbow.
I hardly remember the content of the episodes ( I think I remember one involving a hat shop that transported you to different places). My absolute favorite portion of the show took place during the last five minutes. Every episode there were mini segments of children who would give a review on a book they had read.

Those five-year-olds had a way with words.

I loved the library.
I resolved to read every book in the Compton library.

I still own my original green and yellow, County of Los Angeles Public library card. I couldn't sign my own name at the time, so my mother's neat handwriting spells out, "Lauren Marie Flores" under the contract-like language, "I agree to be responsible for all library materials issued on this card."

After every library trip, I would go home read the books I had selected as quickly as I could and then lock myself in my room and roleplay (I wish I was making this up!) what I would say if I was selected to give a book review on Reading Rainbow. Let it be noted that I had 5 years as an only child.

I've always had a desire to communicate well, have perfect pronunciation, and articulate my thoughts into a way all can digest.

One of the proudest moments of my grade school years was when my sixth grade English teacher Ms. Isenberg had me read a passage of the Secret Garden out loud and praised me in front of my classmates for being able to read at the level of a 12th grader. This was a lot coming from a teacher who was known for being callously harsh. It was after this sign of approval that she became my favorite teacher for the year.

I sometimes forget how much I love writing.
How much I love telling stories.
Being a JD/MPA will do that to you sometimes.

Sometimes it takes a day like today when I find myself laughing to myself on campus not because of the halloween costumes around me, but because of the NPR podcast that I'm listening to.
It takes a few minutes of indulging in the New Yorker online.
It takes a TED talks spree. to get me here. to this point. where I resolve to write more.

If nothing else, I want this blog to be the online memoir of a little girl from Compton.