A Whole New Term

Oh gosh. It's been so long since I last updated. I am ashamed.

Anyway, lots of stuff has happened these last months (I know, you're shocked). Let's review, shall we?

Okay....let me see....

I have Computer Art first block. Oh. My Gosh. I love it so much. I love art in general. And then I get to do it in class? Awesome.

Math is....math. My teacher is really nice and super helpful. I mentioned in a previous post that she was insane or crazy or something, but I was just joking (evidently it didn't come across like that?)

I love science too. My teacher is awesome! He tells so many great stories, usually while we're supposed to  be taking notes or something....but that is A-OK with me. Just as a by-the-way, Fluorine is the tyrannosaurus-rex of the periodic table. Rawr. (yes, It's an inside joke)

And then, you know, I have band every-other day, with psych filling in those other every-other days for my last class (we only have four classes a day, for those who don't know). Obviously the classes are awesome. The names alone should strike jealousy into the hearts of people who can't take those classes.

So yeah. We've also had Spring Break since my last post. I went to this absolutely amazing place called the dark crevices of my room. That's right. Cleaning. It was completely terrifying, yet really satisfying seeing as I actually got it clean. Which it hasn't been in at least a year. So yeah. I also worked, making somewhere around $250. No applause needed.

Meanwhile, my friends Twiggy and Fufu (no, those aren't their real names) went to actual amazing places.

Twiggy went to some giantastical ski resort in Canada. She showed me a map. It was huge! She brought me back a little rock carved into the shape of a bear. Here's a picture (sorry, it was hard to get a non-blurry one):

Fufu went to Florida. To Disney World. I was totally jealous. She brought me back the most random thing she could find: a solid chocolate alligator with gummy 'gators on the side. Here's a picture:

Now it's your turn to be jealous.

She sent me a text while she was down there asking if I wanted anything in particular. I asked her to bring me a Tigger Pillowpet (I had seen it when I was down there in the fall, but didn't have enough money to buy it at the time). She did. And I was oh so very happy.

Finally, I have yet another new thing that I'm obsessed over: an online comic called Homestuck. I really was bored in the beginning, but it got just so intense and amazing I couldn't help but fall in love. I don't really know how to explain it.....It started out with these four kids called John, Rose, Dave, and Jade. They were preparing to play a new game called SBurB. It turns out, however, that the game kind of causes the end of the earth, but not before our four heroes are transported to a different world. And then, you know, some adventures of amazing-ness follow. In the middle of the the story, there are twelve new characters introduced. They are trolls. And they are super-duper lovable. Once they're introduced, the series takes a whole new direction. That's when it becomes super intense. And I think that's really all I can say on the matter without spoiling a whole lot of stuff.

But here are some cool fan-made pictures:

The Humans:

 The Trolls:

Oh, and in some more super-recent endeavors (super-recent meaning yesterday), we had a solo-ensemble festival for band. I played in a trio with my friends 'Kaylee and Ser and we got a score of 38/40! I also did a duet with my friend Mira and solo. I don't know what I scored on those yet, but here's what my solo sounded like, it's so pretty! (it's the first part of the video, by the way, because I only played the prelude)

Click here to hear it!

Except for I was only accompanied by a piano

So yeah. I think that's about it. Oh! One last thing...

Random Quote of the Day

- my brother playing wii: " I gotta practice failing like a boss...... I won! I lost! YES!" (evidently he was supposed to lose the game to win the game)  

Newest Fandom

So anyone who knows me knows that I am a bookworm. I love reading. My favorite genres are fantasy and sci-fi (yes I am one of those people who carries around super-thick geeky fantasy books and reads them at every possible moment, what of it?).

That being said, lots of my friends have the same tastes in books as I do.

Which lead me to my newest series obsession.

My friend Mira is really into this thing called steampunk. It's kinda hard to explain but basically it's like steam-powered victorian era. It's a combination of fantasy and sci-fi and there are a surprisingly large amount of books that can be classified as steampunk.

This book series is one of them.

It's called Leviathan (that's the title of the first book and the title of the series) and OH MY GOSH IT'S SO AMAZING! Here are the book covers

So first off, the plot is awesome. Basically it's the start of World War One. One of the main characters, Alek, is the son of that archduke who's murder was the catalyst for the war (there are some historical facts in the books). The other main character, Deryn, is a girl disguised as a guy so she can join the air force. Both Alek and Deryn find themselves aboard the airship Leviathan, and they have a bunch of adventures and stuff while traveling.

Wow...that sounded cheesy, but I don't know how else to put it...

Second, there are pictures in the book! Basically, in the past, lots of books had pictures - illustrations, really (there is a difference) - and some of the illustrators were even more famous than the authors themselves. Scott Westerfeld, the author of this series, decided to include illustrations in the Leviathan books too (for whatever reason). And they are so pretty! Here are some

 The two above didn't actually appear in any of the books, but they're by the same illustrator. Alek is on the left, with Deryn on the right.

That's a picture that appears in Behemoth, the second book in the series.

So yeah, I'm completely obsessed. Anyone who knows me understands that I'm not super girly. I become girly when reading this book. I actually squealed from delight the entire way through. That's how obsessed I am, that's how happy it makes me. If any of you have time and like a great read, you should try this series. It is fantastic (much better than Hunger Games). I love it so much.

A Depressing Outlook on a New Semester

The beginning of the second week of second term started today. Aside from the fact that the school is disgustingly decorated in massive amounts of pink, red, and white hearts, which, sadly, I helped with, I decided that I should compare last term to this one.

I miss Mrs. Cardona. So much.

I replaced Comp, one of the most awesome classes in the entire school, with math. Math. Talk about a downer. And not only do I no longer have Mrs. Cardona, but my math teacher is actually slightly insane. I mean, from what I can tell, she's nice and a good teacher, but I mean, she's afraid that animals will murder her in her sleep. She told us that on the first day. Like I said, insane.

I also have science now, instead of French. I loved french class too. I loved just instantly switching from speaking English to speaking French the moment I passed through the door. I miss being in class with Meridith and Annie and Lauren and Natasha. I miss M. Tuura. Again, my new teacher is great, but it's not the same....

So yeah, there's my totally depressing outlook for the rest of the school year. I know I'm going into it with a bad mind frame, but I mean I loved every single class last semester, and I loved all of the subjects. Now I have my two least favorite subjects (I don't mind them, but they're not my favorite) and I don't get to see my favorite teachers any more. Wouldn't you be a little down too? Don't say know because I know that that's a lie.

Now, back to pretending like I'm enjoying doing my homework (ha, right).

A Bunch of Happy Stuff

So I follow this one artist on tumblr, and she will often post pictures that have motivational/happy things on them. They sound kind of cheesy, but they make me happy. Here are a bunch of my favs.

I know a lot of them are about art, but they're still cool (in my opinion)

Finally, I think this final one applies to all of us students as we wait for the results of our tests

Just A List

And it's not even alphabetical

Orwell, Bitzer, Didion, Argument, Logical fallacy, Visual, Humor, Diction, Syntax, Tone, Purpose, Logos, Pathos, Ethos, Rhetorical Analysis, Claim, Warrant, Blog, Media, Essay, 50 Essays, Everything's an Argument, Voice, Finals, Comic Sans, Open Letter, Freewrite, Irony, The Oatmeal, Passive Aggressive Notes, Cramming, Power Writing, CRJ, BLA, Vocab, Rhetorical Modes, Emoticons, Smartboard Use (or lack thereof), Animoto, Freewriting, "That's Nice/Good Job", Blog Posts, Sleep (doesn't exist)

That's all I can think of right now... I'll probably come up with more while I'm cleaning movie theatres at work. To friends who may look at this post, feel free to use any of the ideas I come up with!

Oh, and be prepared for some random page numbering on my actual poem.

Superfreakonomics: The Review

First, you should read the first one first (seeing as this is not the first). Well, you don't have to. I mean, I didn't and I understood everything well enough. I just really wanted to include that sentence.

So anyway, my BLA group read Superfreakonomics.

There. A nice, big cover with an exploding apple orange, what could be better than that?

In all seriousness, though, this was a really good book, I would absolutely recommend it. What's it about? Ummmmm.....  a whole bunch of stuff, really. It's about economics, obviously. It talks about the motivations behind what people do, a whole lot of problems, and solutions to those problems.

But these guys, Levitt and Dubner, write in a way that's easy to understand. They're talking about stuff that a lot of people don't get, but they explain it so that we can understand. And when they use terms that we're not familiar with, they thoroughly explain what it means. But if you really can't stand reading about stuff that involves a lot of statistics, I wouldn't really recommend this book, because they use a lot of numbers in this book.

Not only is it easy to read, but it's really relevant. They talk about problems that are happening now, like global warming. I think that using modern issues keeps the book interesting because people want to understand things around them. But maybe that's just my opinion.

Anyway, I absolutely recommend this book. I really liked it (and I usually don't like non-fiction books) and I think that it's well worth your time.

Hello Future Self

How goes it? What's new? I wonder what you're up to. What year is it? Right now it's the beginning of 2012. Do you remember 2012? I do wonder.

Anyway, I'm chilling with James right now. Watching Aristo Cats. Because it's awesome. You gotta love Disney. If you don't, well, give yourself a proper smack upside the head, because not loving Disney is wrong.

Oh gosh I don't know what I should be writing about. I guess I'll remind you of what your life was like at the age of 16.

Let's see... Winter holiday just ended. I got a bunch of Tinkerbell stuff. I love Tinkerbell so much! We went up to see Nana and Grandad for Christmas.

It's almost the end of second term. Surprisingly enough, I don't have a lot of homework. For now. But you know, I'm a really bad procrastinator. It so horrible.

I'm also dreadfully messy. My room is a mess of clothes, books, stuffed animals, and knick-knacks. As mom puts it, it's a "pig stye" (but she can't really yell at me, now can she? 'Cause her room's just as bad) For some reason, I doubt that either of rooms have really changed.

What else? NHS is getting pretty busy with Heart week coming up so quickly and all. And the dance. Ugh. They say that everyone in NHS has to go to the dance, but I really don't want to. I'd much rather just be anti-social with Kaitlin and Marissa. Or maybe I can drag them down with me. And then we can leave early. Yeah that'll be fun.

So anyway, I hope you remember being 16, it's pretty amusing.

Lots of Love,
-Your younger self

Works Cited

I feel horrible that I haven't posted this yet, but here it is

The links are in order of appearance in my video

http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e5/Skorp88/WordToYour/WTYAmerican.jpg (this one was cropped)

http://lukepraterswordsalad.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/im-lovin-it-fat-ronald-cartoon.jpg

http://img-cache.cdn.gaiaonline.com/32a9d2bf42bf7d9bbc8e40900bf299c3/http://i428.photobucket.com/albums/qq9/_HashiMada_/APH/6013508.jpg

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH_Mj4p1Jn8TkzbcJ6qq6HbYXQI46HYUX597bOJ1Z8dh5NyEe6IApJRhbF5KRBaHVQjXYoRc5nt7bdiIxd3tBnm5KZKBbJnKDDK4tVAYwG29NuOMXOuRs5_JX4CBnXtrpZPGP7sjPKZQjM/s1600/cagle.jpg

http://humon.deviantart.com/gallery/11134763?offset=72#/d2ecp0r

http://www.clippingdale.com/images/youwe.jpg

http://www.wowfailblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/reality_check_ahead.jpg

http://www.reagan.com/news/cache/images/anti-war-protest-reagan-report.jpg

http://hesseltime.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/girl-on-a-scale.jpg

http://www.anorexicmodel.com/images/anorexic-model-gallery/anorexic-model-1.jpg

Just as a side note, I got all of these from Google (except one, which was from deviantart)

American Stereotype Visual Argument

So basically I was trying tell "young" people from other countries (especially those in Europe, who don’t necessarily look on America kindly) that (what I think are) the two biggest American stereotypes, that we’re all obese people who eat nothing but hamburgers and war-loving, is not necessarily true. To do this, naturally, I chose pictures that reflect those ideas. All of my pictures that reflect obesity have hamburgers (one’s even a really fat Ronald McDonald). I then moved onto the war-loving aspect of the stereotype. In the first one, “America” (the guy who is wearing the American flag) runs into war with Iraq yelling “Leroy Jenkins” as a shocked Europe looks on. Leroy Jenkins refers to a character who just charges into things without thinking. Of course, by using this picture, I assume that the people who see it know who Leroy Jenkins is. But I feel that if they do, it’s a nice contributor to the argument. The next picture basically says that we’ll drop bombs on anyone who opposes us.

But I was trying to argue that the stereotypes are not true, so I switched what the images are arguing by using the “reality check ahead” sign. I then worked in reverse order, starting with the war-loving aspect and then moving onto the obesity problem. To combat the argument that Americans love war, I used a picture of people who are protesting the war by holding a “stop war, peace” sign. With my last two pictures, I tried to disprove the hamburger and obesity stereotype. The first image is of a girl on a weight scale, crying. I feel like this is saying that there are a lot of people who are upset about how much they weigh. Then, to further drive home that idea, I show a picture of an anorexic girl. Not only does this show that there are those who actually refuse to eat anything, let alone hamburgers, because they’re so upset over their weight, but I think that, because she’s a model, it represents the image that the media presents to us by saying “you have to be skinny to be pretty”. I don’t think that most people outside of America would expect this to be our public image, and I hope that that is shocking and helps my argument.

The colors in the first images (the ones that define the stereotypes) are pretty bright, which creates an eye-popping effect. Bright colors also tend to be seen as more joyful. It lends a hand to portraying “America”, because even though we have this kind of stereotype, many people still seem to think that America is a good place to live. Then, as a contrast, the ending images are more monochromatic. They aren’t full of color, and in fact are actually kind of dreary, especially the final one with the anorexic girl. It also kind of represents that what’s in these images are the “dark secrets” of America. We pretend otherwise, but we aren’t the land of sunshine, rainbows, and happiness. We have problems too.

Another thing that adds to the argument is that some of the images are cartoony and some are more like pictures. All of the ones that are saying “this is what others think” are the cartoon ones. The ones that say “this is reality” are, well, more realistic. I think it lends something by saying the stereotypes exist in more of a cartoon, fantasy-like world (not that there isn’t some merit to the stereotypes, but they aren’t 100% true). Then the images that are disproving the stereotypes are pictures, which reflect more of a reality.  So by comparing fantasy to reality through the images, it helps my argument develop further.

I really like my music selection. It’s American Idiot by Green Day. Basically the entire song talks about the stereotypical America. I thought that it fit rather well, considering that that is basically what the argument is about. Actually, from the start, after I found out that I was arguing a stereotype, I planned on using that song. I thought that it was perfect for what I needed. I never really considered another song. I think that it’s more of a modern song, which reflects the “youth” of America, and therefore holds greater meaning to them. And it might appeal more to the younger people in other countries, who were more of my target audience. If I had gone with another song, it probably would have been an older song (because I’m not really familiar with the more modern songs), and that would have isolated my audience, who might not be familiar with it.

Additionally, because the song is modern, it represents that this is more of a modern stereotype. This is the American stereotype now and these are the realities now. If I had chosen an older song, not only would I have isolated the target audience, but I also would have suggested that the stereotype I presented was more of an older stereotype, and the reality was an older reality. So the fact that the song itself is relatively new also helps further my argument.