Life in Terms of Desserts

In spite of any sort of positivity that I generally try to emit daily, I believe that the world is not an array of only wonderful things with dancing woodland creatures and a sun shining brightly down on everything. No. This is not the way the world works, and there are certainly several ideas that can be put into action that will make this world a better place in which to live.

One thing that this world is desperately in need of is a little bit more positivity in general. In so many areas of our lives, we are reminded how worthless we are, how so-and-so is better at this and that, and our minds automatically form the assumption that even if we gave it our all, there would still be a severe lack of talent. And thus, my first point is made in the hopes that everyone on this earth will understand, acknowledge, and believe in their own capabilities. Sure, we may not be great at a lot of things. Heck, we may suck at ninety percent of what we do, but there’s always that ten percent left of talent, of pure you-ness. That little ten percent of what we are good at is different for every person, and realizing that we are each full of potential is, I believe, the number one way to bettering the world and oneself.
Another idea I have is to eliminate all poverty. Obviously, that's a pretty big goal for someone who lives in one of the tiniest towns in the area (or so it seems, anyway). However, I feel that getting rid of all need in the world will help everyone feel as if they belong within this world. For example, imagine that you know a family that isn't doing extremely well financially right now. It sometimes feels like they are almost shunned from the world because of this.They cannot go out to the movies very often, or go to sit-in restaurants every month or two. Their entertainment wants are limited completely due to their lack of money. Now picture a family that is extremely well-off. They can do as they please without really thinking about their next meal or the quality of their clothes. They are not as cut out from society, and can afford any sort of entertainment they desire. It sometimes seems, as well, that those with money are also those with power. Putting these two families on equal ground would ensure that everyone has an equal chance at obtaining the future they want. No one has to worry about the quality of their education because they would be able to afford the same education. With everyone on an equal financial playing field, peoples' dislike of others would be based on their character and not on the fullness of their wallets (Note: I am not promoting that everyone should be paid the same amount regardless of what their job is or how often they arrive to do their duties at work. That idea works well in theory, but after seeing it in practice in other countries, I'm not exactly impressed {no offense to countries with this sort of economic policy}).

Here’s another idea: get rid of all tension between people, mainly tensions that exist based on ethnicity, family background, sexuality, race, or gender. So basically, eliminate any sort of racism. A lot of today’s problems are based on peoples’ inability to work with each other; they focus too much on their physical and cultural differences and see them as obstacles. What our society really needs to learn how to do is celebrate these differences and understand that they aren’t obstacles at all. Our differences keep us from being completely the same (obviously), and that’s what keeps life interesting. Think of it in terms of desserts. Imagine if, for your entire life, all that you’ve ever eaten for dessert is a piece of white cake with almond frosting. You wouldn’t look over at your neighbor and scoff at his frozen strawberry yogurt with half a teaspoon of whipped cream on top just because his dessert was different from yours. In that same idea, then, I do not understand fully why people openly hate other people based on matters so trivial and stupid. So what if you celebrate Christmas and your neighbor celebrates Kwanza? Who cares if you came from Russia or Morocco? In kindergarten terms, that’s like hating your friend because he has chocolate chip cookies and you have chocolate pie.

On Banned Books

Flipping pages, back and forth,
Smelling them
Worn from the multitude of years
Sitting high up on that shelf,
Almost forgotten.

Of course, there was no way that
You could ever be
Forgotten.
Who could forget being torn through,
The pages violently flipped
As if you were somehow
Hiding something important in there –
Which is not meant to suggest that the ideas presented
Within you
Are not important.
On the contrary;
Your ideas mean more to me than gold did to Midas,
Are more precious than any of the prized jewels held out of sight
Behind the counter at the jeweler’s kiosk.
No, your ideas are surely the bread and butter to this world,
Holding within you secrets of life,
Of love,
Of happiness, fame, and fortune.
That is, without a doubt, why they must have decided to
Seal you away.
Forever.

They must have had other reasons.
Even the sun must be hidden away,
Turning away from the blades of grass at the edge of the horizon with a gentle kiss of last light.
But the sun is always allowed to come back.
You, poor, beloved bundle of knowledge,
Were cast away by those who resented you,
Thought you too strongly-worded,
Too harmful to those who would otherwise
Lovingly pick you up by your then-crisp binding,
The color still bright and red, with light
Reflecting from the fluorescent bulbs hanging above our heads.
They would have tenderly brushed your cheek with their hand,
The familiar pattern soft and smooth, as they held you out at arm’s length
And spend hour after hour discovering all that you had to offer.

But you did not have that chance.
Your wisdom was silenced,
Your pages clinched tightly together, bound in a
Heavy lead chain and
Secured with not one but two padlocks,
One for each condemning result.

Now, as I lay you down gently in my arms
With the other capsules of knowledge in this great hall of learning,
I can see that you are old,
Your binding cracked,
Your pages yellowed from the exposure to the air which,
Apparently,
We have come to need much more than you.

People Who Love People Who Love Blogging

                There are different types of people in this world. Okay, so I can really only think of two categories, but still, the categories are different. There are the people whose value lie in sports, fame, money, and/or physical displays of affection. Then there are the people who value intelligence, random tidbits of useless knowledge, science, and nerdiness in general. If you are part of the first group, I apologize. There is no hope for you.

                For the rest of you who are part of the latter group, congratulations. You’re made of awesome. And do you know what people who are made of awesome are called? Nerdfighters.

                Nerdfighting isn’t what it sounds like. We don’t fight nerds. We fight FOR nerds, against those whose interests involve only the most trivial of things: personal appearance, personal gain, fame, fortune, etc. (these people are referred to as decepticons [not to be confused with the giant metallic things that are apparently a part of the Transformers thing by the same name]).

                You may be saying to yourself, “Okay, so I’m a Nerdfighter. What do Nerdfighters do, anyway?” The goal of Nerdfighteria (the community consisting solely of Nerdfighters) is to decrease World Suck, which, contrary to the ideal of Nerdfighting itself, is exactly what it sounds like: the amount of Suck in the World. The amount of World Suck is determined by world events as well as personal events, so it can be affected by both a massive hurricane that sweeps through the Caribbean and by a death in the family.

                You may also be asking, “Exactly how did this begin? I don’t really want to join something if all I know is that I enjoy nerdy things and that I belong to a group that at least sounds a little bit cult-ish.” The origins of Nerdfighting began in 2007, when two brothers (ecologist Hank Green and award-winning author John Green) decided that for the entire year of 2007, no text-based communication would be either sent or received. Instead, they would video blog every weekday that wasn’t a major holiday. Failure to post a blog, posting a video that was over four minutes long, or sending a text-based communication (texts, Instant Messages, e-mails, etc.) would be received with a punishment. This year-long project was dubbed Brotherhood 2.0, and was given the subtitle: A Whole New Kind of Brotherhood. All of the Nerdfighting videos can be watched, from the beginning, on the youtube channel “Vlogbrothers”. They also have a website at http://nerdfighters.ning.com/.

There are a few ways to tell if you are a Nerdfighter. Of course, there is the general lack of physical strength which is made up for in the strength of our brains. Also, if the ideas below entertain you (or if you have seen a Vlogbrothers video and therefore recognize the following phrases featured throughout the Nerdfighting experience), you should definitely consider watching the vlogs.

•   Bubbles the Nerdfighting puppy
• Puppy-sized elephants
• Peeps
• Discussing the Political Situation in Nepal While Eating Five Sheets of Toilet Paper
• Discussing the Georgia-Russia War While Painting Your Face in Peanut Butter 
• “Accio Deathly Hallows”
• Song Wednesday
• Question Tuesdays
• Blurbing Book Club
• Put Stuff on Your Head
• People Who Love Giraffes Who Love Giraffes
• “The Man Who Throws the Tetris Piece”
• Top Secret Projects
• Scavenger Hunts (In Which Actual Items are Hidden in Actual Places That Actual People                                                                               Actually Find)

• The Evil Baby Orphanage 

                       *Queen Ranavalona the First

• … In Your Pants
• (Insert Number Here) – Part Videos
• Happy Dances

BEST WISHES!

On Proper Grammar

It is annoying enough,

Trying to read something that you could not possibly care less about

In your English class.

It is far more vexing, I propose,

To be forced to read the same

Uninspiring,

Dull,

Monotonous garbage when it looks as though the author tried

Blindly experimenting with what used to be

Conventional English grammar.

It seems unimportant to you that

The pronoun used when speaking about yourself,

Dear writer,

Should be capitalized at any given point.

Commas should be used, in the middle, of sentences

Without care, for where they should,

Actually reside.

And God Himself forbid that you should

Give even an

Inkling of comprehension when it comes to the distinction between

Commas,

Periods.

And semicolons;

Because every person’s greatest joy,

In this world and in any other world,

Is to try to decipher your

Poor, deplorable penmanship –

If you can even call it anything more than lines

Haphazardly crossing over each other as if they were blind and knew not their direction themselves –

And determine exactly, when you intend to use

Each part of grammar properly,

Apostrophes are a thing of the past,

Why use them at all?

Surely no one need’s to remember that apostrophes are used

To signify a possession;

An idea such as that is completely absurd and unheard of to your poor,

Pathetic little mind’s.

According to your own book of grammar, sentences do not need any sort of

Verb to classify themselves as sentence’s at all.

“Why can toast” sounds like a

Perfect sentence to you;

Sentences that read as if you just answered a question –

“because we thought good idea” –

Are scattered throughout your essay like a homogeneous mixture;

As if you had no care for the rest of us innocent souls

Trying so hard to decode your

Unsavory gibberish.

Refresh!

                So there’s a nice little story that goes with this blog entry. All of it is true.

                It’s no secret that I purposefully sat next to my good friend Abby on the first day of Online Publishing. It’s also no secret that since then, we’ve made ourselves a few inside jokes. For example, nearly every single time we say something loud enough for our teacher, Mr. Currin, to hear it, he never does. It’s those moments when we’re retorting back and forth sassily that he actually hears something and comments on it, which we happen to find rather hilarious. There's also the time that Abby and I wrote back and forth to each other through wikispace messages in binary for a week, even though we knew that Mr. Currin has the power to view every message we send.

                Let’s focus on just one other inside joke, though (one with a lengthy backstory so I can fulfill the word requirement). This one has been going on since the second blog group posts were assigned. Every two weeks, blog groups (those can be identified by the letter and number at the beginning of the title of every blog) and articles for the school newspaper are due. Weekly, comments about current events (Item(s) of Interest) are due. Mr. Currin has no problems putting up Items of Interest, and we come up with the article ideas and more or less manage them ourselves. It’s the blog groups that Mr. Currin has some difficulty posting.

                It’s not that they never get set up on the wiki. It’s that he gets distracted in side conversations and managing other things like article ideas that need to be approved (which I understand, actually does take forever since some people manage to put off the task of thinking of an idea until deadline day). However, it is in the period of time between the completion of the Item of Interest and the publication of the blogs on the wiki that give me a hard time.

                I get bored easily. Very easily. Usually, after I've completed the Item of Interest for the week and my idea for the paper is submitted, I just sit on the Blog Group page of the class wiki pressing the refresh (F5) button over and over again until something shows up. Finally, after having to go through this five separate times, Abby told me, "Steph, stop caressing your F5 button." And thus, an inside joke was born.
                There are just two other things that I want to tell you, dear viewers (but mostly, to you, Mr. Currin). After every article in the newspaper, the journalists receive a grade and an additional comment. Both Abby and I usually do exceptionally well in the grade, but lately Abby has been... Less than satisfied with the comments she received, which are valued around our little corner based on the number of syllables in the comments. It almost makes me feel bad that she only gets two or three syllables of commentary ("Outstanding", or "Good Work") while I get things like, "An Exceptionally Good Piece This Week" or "I'm So Proud To Have You As A Member Of The Bulldog". Also, Mr. Currin, she feels as though you use her seat as "the punishment seat". The last couple of times that seating was an issue, you moved a student over right next to her in our corner.
                 So... That last paragraph was a bit awkward for those of you who are not Mr. Currin... (For the record, I did have permission from Abby to type this; I'm not typing behind her back. I'm typing it right next to her).
                Author's Note: Abby and I really don't have anything against Mr. Currin. He's actually one of our favorite teachers. We're just complainers. We complain a lot.