"The Real World is getting old. There's only six more years until they get a castmember who wasn't even born yet when the show first aired. It's a staggering thought. For twelve seasons the show has been sinking deeper and deeper into the pit of idiocy and fucked-up logic that we've all come to know and hate. And yet, more people than ever before seem to be dropping to their knees and desperately reaching to unbuckle a casting director's belt just to get a chance to be on the show. And why? What real advantage do you have in life if you've been on the Real World? The very most you can hope for is that MTV will let you come to one of their dumbass beach shows, or host a casting special for the next season. There's a better chance you might be invited to come back on the Challenge, where you can compete with the worst of the worst for prizes, and fade into obscurity maybe an hour slower than your friends. You're not going to be a TV star, you're not going to be a movie star. No one will like you, and no one will hire you. It's why intelligent people don't go on shows like this. Everyone is an asshole when filmed 24 hours a day, but most assholes are smart enough not to let a camera follow them around." -Spornan at Realworldblows.com or Planet Socks…not sure, I don't know the difference.

I hate agreeing with people who don't want me to agree with them. This is sort of the situation where one would say I was just agreeing so that I don't feel beaten down, but a member of the party who beats. I don't actually agree with Spornan completely, but I can't argue why he believes this to be true. In fact, a year and a half ago, I was bitching about the same thing. There are indeed a lot of Real Worlders who run off to LA after their show because they've gotten a taste of "fame," (a word I'm not comfortable using), and they want more. They claim they want to "continue with the entertainment business" as if we were entertaining when we were sitting on our asses acting like morons with a camera in our face. It is true that many of these people never wanted or cared to act. Thing is, they really do have a hard time being hired anywhere. They are bothered a lot, they can cause a disturbance. I know quite a few who had been fired from their jobs because of their "popularity." Steve from RR 10 was substitute teaching, and that was thrown out the window once the casting special aired. Sadly, we do look forward to Challenges. We do hope to host some sort of special. Many of us do try to cling to what we hoped would be a stepping stone for our future, and many of us do hide from the reality that the show may have been what stopped us from achieving our dreams, not led us to them. We're not all like this. People like Janet from Seattle has virtually disappeared and has developed a life of her own away from MTV and BMP. She had an experience, learned from it, and continued being herself, which is the most admirable thing in the world to me. Then there are people like Puck and Dan who make careers out of being reality personalities. They work their own hours, they make a decent living, they are happy and carefree, whether or not the rest of the world loves or hates them. They enjoy being icons of pop culture, and the more loved, hated, or annoyed the world is, the more they are eager to see them, and thus pay them to appear in front of them. They're doing just fine, and they are proud of themselves. Good for them. Then there are others like me who walked into this knowing that life would be different and hoping it would be better. I had aspirations to be successful when it was over. I thought the world would absolutely love me and life would be smooth sailing. I didn't prepare for the worst, which was very unlike me, and I became a victim of my own mistakes. I annoyed people. I became the butt of many jokes. My insecurities were magnified to a degree I didn't think possible, and I was heartbroken. I don't know if it was bitterness, even though most people think that I am, but more disappointment. I thought I was special, and I started to doubt that because I became the next season's Real Worlder who actually believed I'd become a singer and seemingly failed, even though I'm not dead yet and we really don't know what may happen in the future.

You think that after a few months, you get over this thing. It becomes a part of your past and your future is ahead of you as a fresh pallet with perfect circles of paint yet untouched. It doesn't. I think we were all a bit scarred and a bit disappointed. We had to fight with others and mostly with ourselves to prove that we were not assholes, but good people who made a decision that was meant to be fun, but ended up being too saturated in our every thoughts and actions. We allowed ourselves to become mockeries and we have no response when someone reminds us that we "asked for it."

My mom says that if you sit around and think about yourself, you will go absolutely crazy. Well, a RR or RW spends a little over a year hired to be ourselves, then talk about how we feel about being ourselves, then rehashing how we felt and what we did when we were being ourselves, and then searching for ways for someone to pay us to continue being ourselves, all the while arguing and explaining that what the world saw wasn't completely ourselves. This provides a lifetime of insanity, and though I thought I would be over it all by now, though I thought I had nothing more to say on the matter, here I am, still trying to figure things out, trying to understand why I feel the way I feel, still explaining myself even though I'm trying terribly to stop giving answers to people I don't know, people who do not deserve acknowledgement, much less an explanation.

I have gone through many stages with this thing. I was angry when they showed my singing horribly. I was offended when they only showed Coral's bad side for months. I was saddened when my friendship with her was never highlighted. I was aggravated that our "story" was inaccurate. Then when it was over and my relationships with Chicago cast members developed, I was devastated all over again by the criticism and the hardships as if it were my first time. It was like living in a giant kindergarten class of several million children who all pointed and chanted "clever" insults that rhymed with our names. I thought I was coming to terms with it, and I've made some amazing progress, but this is not over for me and I can't say when it will be.

Going on the Challenge opened my eyes to how scarring this experience can be. Here we were, 36 of America's assholes together, many of whom swore never to lower ourselves to this BMP shit again. Why were we there? So many reasons. We were going to paradise to meet up with a community of people, the ONLY people, who understood this dark and painful whirlwind of a life we had somehow chosen for ourselves that included minor perks like tickets to VMAs, a few free gifts like digital cameras, and real famous people actually knowing your name. It was a therapy group whether we knew it or not. There was so much discussion on our shows, on our behind the scenes, on our setting the records straight, on our anger about editing, on our lack of trust of Mary-Ellis, on our fears, our anxieties, our regrets. We rehashed over and over, not because we had nothing else to talk about, and not because we had never talked about it before, but because we were sitting together with people to whom we did not have to explain why we were so tired, how we had become so paranoid, why we were at all the way we were. We understood each other, maybe only to certain degrees, but to degrees higher than anyone else in the world, including friends, families, and lovers.

One night we were out at some restaurant in Montego Bay, I can't even remember the name. I looked around at Colin, Mark, Jamie, Melissa, Ellen, Ruthie, Emily, Antoine and a few others and watched them dance. They were laughing and having a great time, and something really hit me, something I knew but never quite felt before that moment. They were all just people. No one was a character, no one was playing the role of bitch, instigator, moderator, talent, or athlete. This was a group of good people who were just having fun, being themselves, forgetting about how hard it gets when you're one of America's assholes.

Do we take back the experience? No. I met some amazing people, and have deep routed love for them. I learned some lessons that are still stuck in my throat and indeed a bit difficult to swallow, but they have made me all the wiser, and I cannot regret that.

I am embarrassed that I ever asked for pity of for sympathy. I should never have bothered because that will never be the point.

Will we all be prancing down the red carpet with diamonds on our necks and Oscars and Grammy's in our hands? No, but we never know. We're normal people, and it takes some reminding on our parts and it takes a bit of each other to help. We don't all hang out because we think it's cool. We keep in touch because there is a comfort in knowing we are not alone.

Am I at peace with this whole thing? No. I don't know when I will be. I still find it very upsetting when I come across a comment on the internet that is nasty about me or someone I love. It's hard not to be upset, particularly when the comment was intended to upset me. I don't think it is the actual insult that is so distressing, but it is the phenomenon of doing so in a forum of negativity. I wonder why it happens, and I wonder why kids are so eager to find communities of people who make a hobby of offensiveness. I would like to talk to just one of them and ask them, but I could never find them because they would only ever smile and shake my hand in person. People of the internet are cloaked in irony and hypocrisy, and I don't know if they'd ever see it. They bitch about people being fake on these shows, but they are the same kids who pride themselves on sightings, who ask for autographs, who stand in line at speaking engagements just to get a peek, who applaud when they walk on stage, who line up at the mall for a glance, who swear they love them. They giddily run home and tell their friends they saw who they saw, and then scramble to their computers to post on mtv.com or televisionwithoutpity.com about how lame they were or how "fake." We look at their faces and think, "So what did you really say to your TV screen when you saw me because 'I love you' wasn't it, was it?" I never considered myself a religious person, but that whole let-he-who-has-not-sinned-cast-the-first-stone bit Jesus said during that Mary Magdeline scandal, well, that was some smart shit. Funny thing is if He had said that today, people would look at Him, roll their eyes and start pegging the shit out of her anyway because no one seems to mind that they're hypocrites, it's just too much fun casting stones.

I can only hope that in a matter of time, we will find something else that will help us forget a little more, allow us to move on a little more quickly, but I don't imagine that we'll ever let go completely, and I don't think we should. We were Real Worlders and Road Rulers and it shaped who we are. Maybe we'll reappear doing stupid little shows, jump around to different parts of the world trying to get a free computer or maybe a new car if we're lucky. And there will always be the same people who spend everyday keeping an eye out, spending their time recapping and writing about it just to remind us that we are not special, not intelligent, and will never become anyone important. Sounds like we're all losers then, those who are on reality tv, those who watch it, those who write about it, and those who do any one of the three and pretend they don't actually care. Sounds to me like no one is better than the next. It's just a shame that so many people don't know that much.

As far as Spornan's point that none of us can ever succeed any farther outside of our bubble, I think he is wrong. First off, Jacinda Barrett from the London cast has been doing quite well. She has an impressive resume, and will be in a movie coming out 2003 with Anthony Hopkins, Nicole Kidman, Ed Harris, and Gary Sinise. Yeah, I don't know how big her role is, but she is succeeding, and Real World is her past, not her present by any stretch of the imagination. Others will follow. Ruthie is a poet that rivals Ani DiFranco, and Genesis knows computers better than any technician or web designer I've ever known. Cara from Chicago has recently landed an appearance on the Drew Carrey show. Baby steps, sure, but that's how anyone else starts. We don't all have Kelly Clarkson's life. Me? Well, who knows. I'm not sure what I want in life, and Rent may very well look at me and say thanks but no thanks. I may become an accountant who sings in smoky lounges on Friday nights. I don't know, but this idea that we are doomed to fail, it only makes me question what one means by the word fail. Why does being a Real Worlder mean you have to become best friends with Tom Hanks and P. Diddy to be a success? The irony simply amazes me. We play no other role than to be ourselves, but if we continue to be nothing but ourselves, if we continue on with our lives as they were before the show because being as we are is all we were selected to do, then we are considered to be unsuccessful. We have then done "nothing" with ourselves.

Are there different standards set for us? What does it mean to be successful after the show. Kevin from my cast loves sports and is a sports newscaster. Has he failed simply because he didn't become a movie star? Rachel wanted to move to NYC because she found herself there, and now she's going to school there. She's finishing school. Is she a failure? I went back to BC and completed my last semester with straight A's. Did I fail?

I think our goals are the same as everyone else's in the world, and that's to be happy. We're young and confused like everyone else, and we don't all know what we want to be when we grow up. That's hard enough on its own, and it's much scarier when we got a few million people asking us what we are doing with our lives when we can't figure it out any faster than anyone else. People ask me all the time what happened with my singing career. Funny, I never knew I had one to begin with that would lead me to answer how it is going. I was never more than a girl who liked to sing. That's all I can tell people, and I don't always understand why that should make me feel like a failure. I'm trying to figure it out myself. I'm trying to decide what it is I really want in life. I'm trying to do everything I can and always keep in mind that I am young, that I can be frivolous, but that I need to start taking responsibility. I'm trying to live life and enjoy it. I'm trying to learn how to stop paying attention to people who give me attention that I don't need, whether or not they think I "asked for it." I'm trying to be a good person, and I'm trying to make the people I love happy like they make me. I have a healthy family, wonderful friends, I laugh everyday, and I'm in love. I'm 23 and growing. I think I'm doing pretty well. I have my whole future ahead of me, and it seems like every corner holds a surprise. No, I'm not complete and done because there are things I want to accomplish in life career-wise that I haven't yet. Just because Britney did it all by 16 doesn't mean the rest of the world works that way. It sounds like I'm making excuses for myself and sometimes I feel like I am. Of course I would love to have everything in life set and lined up for me, but it doesn't always work that way…it usually doesn't. I am young, and I have a future. I haven't failed anything, I'm just living. And though I complain here and there, though I make self-deprecating jokes, I'm a pretty happy girl. A very happy girl. I'm not sure what better way to define success other than that.