Imogene Somerset • District 06

Name: Imogene Somerset [im-oh-gin • sah-mer-set]
Age: 16
Gender: Female
District/Area: District 6
Sexuality: Heterosexual

Why anyone would even need to know what I look like scares me. I mean, I’m not a supermodel from the capitol magazines that my father brings back from the peacekeeper central. I wouldn’t call myself ugly though, because that would be pushing it a little too far. I’m fairly normal for a sixteen year old, but I know that doesn’t give many specifics. To start off with, I’m a little over five foot nine, and weigh at least one hundred and twenty pounds. While my father disagrees with my mother when she says I’m too thin, I just chuckle and continue my daily routine. The fact that I’m thin doesn’t come from any eating disorders or lack of nutrition, it comes from my over exercising and healthy food choices. Living in district six, I live right in the center between the rich and the poor districts. I’m pretty aware of the careers in the upper districts and the strong miners in the lower districts, so I know I would have to be in shape in case I was ever reaped. I don’t spend my days as a career, though, so don’t think I am a bodybuilding type of person, because I rather enjoy the family business. But aside from the point, I’m thin. See? Plain and simple.

My bone structure around my facial area is rather straight and smooth at the same time. My jawline is perfectly angled forward, giving my head a triangular-oval shape, and I sometimes think my face is symmetrical, due to the lack of freckles or any other blemishes covering it. The only thing that sticks out on the right side of my face is a small, light brown scar above my eyebrow that I received from a chemical mix-up when I was only three years old. Other than that little blemish, my complexion is rather light and dry, so spending days by the small watering ponds and lakes is important to me to keep my skin fresh and moist. On some occasions, I can even swipe a bottle of moisturizer from my dad’s office that he’s manufactured to be sent to the capitol. Another thing that bothers me a bit about my facial reconstruction is my high forehead and my thick eyebrows. I mean, they’re not too thick, but the way that they’re positioned on my face makes them look larger than they really are.

Another main point of my appearance is my hair. I can safely say that I can’t tell whether my hair is a light brown or a dark blonde, but I just describe it as “honey blonde.” It flows down in either a frizzy style in the humid mornings or straight in the cooler days down to right below my breast bone. It can get really dry sometimes, and dryness leads to frizziness. I’ve woken up some mornings to find my hair in an afro style, puffed up into a big ball on the top of my head. Sometimes, flyaway pieces of hair end up going in different directions or even end up in a whole different texture as the rest of my head of hair. Moving along, my favorite physical feature about myself is my eyes. They match the color of the storm clouds with a night blue with steel grey swirls in the iris leading towards the pupil. Their shape is more of an almond form, with naturally thin and short eyelashes that make them appear bigger than they actually are. My nose, on the other hand, annoys me to the extreme. My rounded rose has a slight bump in the bridge, which often causes it to look slightly crooked, rather than straight. When staring forward, though, it doesn't look as bad as the side view. My nostrils are fairly small, and I always make sure they're clear of any gross snot or other hairs.

It's hard to actually speak about my greatest flaw, because of the story behind it. When my father and mother brought me to witness a breakthrough discovery in chemistry at the age of ten, the chemicals splattered everywhere in a small, giving me second degree burns on my left hand. I lost my hand soon after when I lost all the feeling, and the district six hospital had to amputate it. Luckily, I was able to afford it because my father worked there as a medicine provider.

So, my definition of beauty may be different than yours, but mine isn’t about the outside. I have my share of beauty marks and flaws, so I can’t consider myself gorgeous. Now before you think of calling a “pretty” girl “beautiful”, think of the way she is on the inside, rather than the outside.

If someone asked you how you would describe yourself, what would you answer? Some can answer faster than others, knowing exactly their personality traits. Of course, they don’t know all of their traits because some personality traits are hard to admit and notice. I have some that would be hard to figure out, but generally, I could probably name a few.

I’m a generally nice person, who wants to help out as much as possible when it comes to academic struggling or sorting with one’s emotions. Of course, I have the natural human instinct to think about myself before others, but I try my hardest to overcome it. I often push myself too hard to do my best to help others, and I sometimes end up subtracting from time that I use to eat, sleep and clean. It’s one of my many flaws, but it’s a manageable one. I tend to have ongoing night terrors, and while it may be random during the conversation, it ties in to the energy I’ve spent during the days. The next point in my many personality traits is a little out there and paranormal. I tend to have out-of-body experiences, where I end up watching myself sleep. It doesn’t happen every night, but it happens at least once a month or so. I often get questioned about my feelings towards romance. I’m not sure what to say, because I’ve never been in a relationship. I’m almost one hundred percent sure I could have one if I wanted, but my time has been occupied by other things recently. I really want to put my traits down plain and simple, so how about I talk about them in order, eh? Okay, so I’ll admit I’m a bit anxious and timid most of the time, and I avoid talking to others when in an uncomfortable setting.

It’s not something that changes my way of living, but it can be very annoying when trying to decide if I want to introduce myself to others. I can often let myself too deep into the thought process, and I end up freaking out about things that I never meant to even think about. Say I wondered how chemicals made. I would lead from the chemicals, to the smoke, to the ozone, to the world ending and then to a cataclysm of the world. See what I mean? I’m a living worry bot. I try my hardest to stop worrying, but it’s harder than you think.

Everyone has their ups and downs, things they love about themselves and things they would rather change. But after the day ends, we have to learn that we’re all beautiful -- we're perfectly imperfect.

Flashbacks are clouded or vivid visions from the past, whether being years ago or in a whole other lifetime. Only some people are fortunate enough to have them -- I am not.

Unlike the many stories others may say about their “dreadful” or “perfect” past , my story is fairly neutral. Of course I’ve had my ups and downs in life, but nothing too serious has really ever occurred. My parents met when my father moved to district six. Previously stationed in district two as a peacekeeper, the government sent him to the unusually high use of toxins and chemicals in the district my mother lived in. Now one day, while visiting the chemical lab not too far from her small cottage in district six, my mother met my father while he was chatting up a man about his studies. Interrupting them, she asked where one of the central lab areas was, and my father escorted her there. The two began to grow closer over a few days of meeting up at the same place, and they would soon call each other “friends.” Of course, the story isn’t over yet. My mother, one day, spilt a glass of highly poisonous toxins on her hands, touched her eyes, and caused her skin to burn on her left hand, and her eyes to go blind. My father offered to help her during the recovery process, and often stayed by her at the home she lived in. The two somehow fell in love -- I don’t really remember the rest of the story. But the next thing I knew, I was in the world.

Growing up in district six, the high technology in the area has caused my curiosity and intelligence to grow. I’m not a super genius, but I’m in a higher grade level when it comes to reading and mathematics at school. As a young child, I would spend my days at the lab with my mother, where she tried -- tried being the key word, to teach me basic chemistry and science. I wouldn’t understand what she was saying until I was older, though. As a preteen, I attended public school with a few of the girls from the area I lived in. I didn’t really live in the richer areas of district six -- if that’s what you want to call it. Around the time of the reaping during my twelfth birthday, my mother and father brought me to the chemical lab to show me a new discovery their team had found. With the overdose of acid mixed with the base, a small explosion occurred, which resulted in the loss of my hand. After bringing me to the home of a medicine man, he was able to stitch up the skin around my arm, which ended up leaving a prominent nub. I never really saw it as a challenge -- I wasn’t going to whine and cry about something I couldn’t change. It may have been a physical challenge to me, with learning how to function with one hand, but the mental challenges were less severe. Nowadays, life is alright. I’m sixteen and in the past four years, my family has welcomed my baby brother, Latimer. Growing up with a little brother may have been the most challenge of my life so far, but I love him anyways. Besides, family is family, right?

The past is something we may want to change to fit our standards, or even to change the direction we've lived in. But the past shapes us into what we are today, and we made the choices that brought us here. Live you're life to the fullest. Regret is not an exceptionable option in this case. Recognize the past, live in the present and plan for your future. Who knows? Maybe the impact you make on the world will be a positive one.