National Novel Writing Month

November has arrived. For students, this means Thanksgiving, holiday debates, growing guts, falling leaves, and exams. For many, November also signifies writing--or, more specifically, writing 50k in a month.

Don't freak out. It's just National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo. This "is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved." NaNoWriMo opens its literary doors to anyone with an internet connection, ideas, and a pulse. It's free, though donations are welcomed, and it houses a great community of people all over the world who just want to write.

I won NaNoWriMo in '08 at the expense of both a plot and a point. I made it past the 50k line, verbs and adjectives and flowery prose in my wake. What scares most people is the number. 50,000 seems huge--er, is huge. How can you write that in a month? First, shut up your inner-critic and let loose all the words you can. Don't edit, don't revise, don't toss that chapter out because it's irrelevant and made of suck. When it comes to your NaNo writing, it's about quantity, not quality. NaNoWriMo isn't about churning out great works in thirty days, it's about letting yourself take risks in writing, to construct raw worlds of literature without an inner-critic nitpicking every three seconds. Wait until December for that.

So, anyway, I'm just curious to see if anyone else is trying NaNo this year. You might only make it to 15,000, more fiction than most ever write, or you might win and spend the following six months editing, editing, editing. If you like your novel, you can get a free copy in book form of your choosing. Do your writing a favor and check NaNoWriMo out.

War Stories and Rambling

(I've got to warn you of two things. One, I read ahead, so read at risk of spoilers. Two, I'm basically rambling, but it is rambling concerning AP Comp, so here we go. Enjoy if you can, haha.)

I'm really not sure on my thoughts, so let's make one thing clear, shall we? I hate war stories. I hate blood and bone breaking through skin; I hate bombs going off forty years after the battle; I hate seeing broken families pray for dead brothers; I hate boy soldiers shooting other boys soldiers in the jungles of Vietnam, the snows of Stalingrad, the hills of a divided America. Watching old men cry over bullet holes and Dear John letters breaks my heart. Rage and terror and pure, unbridled sadness rap at my ribcage just acknowledging what war is.

But what and why and how are war and the stories it leaves behind? It was chapter seven of The Things They Carried that took my string of reasons and pulled it apart. Wars stories are so many things, hate included, and O'Brien's prose pulled me along, breathing the words in and out and breaking down and building up what war stories are. Throughout the reading I realized, in the words of Rat Kiley, that I was a dumb cooze. I abhorred war from the get go, sometimes ignoring the very human, very real side of it, thinking it nearly pretty when printed on paper. I may not appreciate people killing each other for reasons they don't understand in a war that's so tangled up in hidden agendas that it's nearly a blessing that the media is doling out news and not the truth, but I can't just turn my nose up at it either.

"A true war story is never about war." I'm figuring that out as I devour O'Brien's words. I've never watched my best friend die or had a leech latch onto my tongue, I've never been drafted, ordered to fire, charge, bomb, kill, rinse and repeat. I hope I never do. I hate the pain that war presents us, but, for the first time, I'm starting to see that there's more there than negativity. I haven't figured it out yet, and I doubt I ever will, but maybe The Things They Carried will leave me less of a cooze than I was during chapter one.

Student Protesters and Change

This article certainly got me thinking. I was amazed by the Madison protests that we watched in class, but this article saddened me. Before 2008 I felt any number of emotions towards our government, our way of living, our country's stand in the world--but velleity was at the forefront. When I felt the spark of change I dosed it myself, believing I had no right to try and change the world when I couldn’t even ace a math test. It was the campaigns and my personal connection to them, for all their ridiculousness, that chucked that way of thinking out of my mind.

In a time when messages can appear in our hands instantly, I was confused by the writer's stance on technology. In a recent Time magazine, there was an article on how people rallied in D.C. for gay rights. They used Facebook to get the word out. The difference, I think, between Smith's students and these gay rights advocates was only that the latter actually cared. You can fill a person's head with whatever war info you want. You can shove newspapers under their nose, keep the TV on the news, or whatever. They still won't care in most cases. A personal connection can inspire far more concern than death tolls and war stories that don’t relate to the average teenager.

I was somewhat irked when “Lampert Smith: Times have changed for students protesters” pointed out that people preferred to gaze longingly at a screen than address the giant gorillas in the room. I can understand, I can empathize, but I can’t defend that kind of apathy. But as Buhle mentioned, times have changed—society, humanity, feelings—and it’s evident everywhere. A simple change in the American mindset could do wonders. Don't expect people to do things for you. If you want something, don't just sit on your butt and pray; don't complain about a president who's not working fast enough, hard enough. Get up and do something. Turn your thought into words into action into change. Thinking can be tough, doing something can be painful, but when you change the world for the better you'll be glad you miss that Grey's Anatomy episode.

Animal Cruelty

(For those of you not in 3rd block AP Comp, we read a very one-sided article on animal testing and how it’s wrong, cruel, etc. This is a rather delayed response to the conversation held in class.)

First off, I’ll admit that I may be biased, that my mind is often swayed by both personal experiences and a trait where my logos fall to my pathos and ethos. However, my opinion is just as valuable as any. I wouldn’t be alive today if it weren’t for animal testing. I’m diabetic. When I was seven, my family rushed me to the hospital where I, phobia of needles and all, could only survive if I was injected with insulin. I won’t go into the details of diabetes, but insulin was made available to people through animal testing (pigs, if I recall correctly). So, yeah, I get the point for animal testing—it saved my life.

Needless cruelty is, however, needless. While this article was not the most eloquent that I have ever read and lacked in citations, it struck a cord. There are people today that do NOT give animals the compassion they deserve. Waffle with me if you like, call me a slave to PETA, tell me to go hug a tree, or what have you, but I’ve been exposed to enough injustices. We as a race often see ourselves as the creation almighty, ruler of the earth, and Darwin’s grand contender. Maybe we are, maybe we aren’t, but we don’t need to disregard other living beings just because we wrote ourselves some books, constructed concrete cities, wasted earth's natural resources, and use a whole 2% of our brains.

We set the standard for what is or isn't worth something, what does or doesn't qualify as knowledgeable. Throughout history, certain human beings were treated as—to put it nicely—utter crap. We've had discussions on the holocaust (which, mind you, incited anger when disregarded, but eyes rolled at animal cruelty) and the mistreatment of blacks in America and the general disregard for women. In the Holocaust, humans were experimented on by ‘Doctor’ Mengele. It wasn’t for beauty products, sure, but it was painful all the same. But, then again, it was done in the name of science—therefore it must be okay. The experiments were done on lesser beings, therefore it's fine. Those Jews and Roma were people though, with feelings and the ability to feel pain. I'm not trying to personify animals like Gopnik's daughter, but if you slap your dog upside the head, you cannot deny they'll feel it.

Anyway, that's my two cents. I'm not saying we should cease all animal experimentation, just that humanity could cut back on the needless cruelty. It'll be hard, considering our species, but not impossible.

Of the genus Sciurus, of the family Sciuridae

They’re chattering above me, high-pitched and frantic. Quick dashes from one limb of their tree to the next, bouncing in and out of a gap embedded in the scraggly oak, tiny eyes on me. I stop my intake of oxygen, eyes stuck to my reading, heart beating madly. Tails swish. A squabble over an acorn erupts. I peek upward at the entanglement of branches and spot the tuffs of auburn fur and teeth. There are squirrels above me. There are squirrels. Above me.

Squirrels, people have told me, are bundles of furry, fuzzy joy, content to gather and store, to sleep and eat and all that jazz. I’ll agree that they’re cute. I’ll even agree that they aren’t all that bad. However, you couldn't get me to admit that eight years ago. One summer evening at the park, I left my bike and jogged off to play. Less than an hour later, I toddled back, realizing that I might not get my bike back. Two squirrels, one on the handle bars the other on my seat, peered at me. Doing what any other dehydrated, irrational eight-year-old would do, I screamed. This eventually resulted in a pelting of acorns and various objects from the tiny monsters.

Over the years, I’ve pretty much gotten over my fear of this beady-eyed, rather malevolent rodent. No longer do I watch in fear from my bedroom window, eyeing a particularly pudgy squirrel perched on a branch. (With just inches of wall between me and them, I wasn’t exactly keen on watching their incisors strike again and again into inauspicious acorns.) I generally love animals, rodents and reptiles and all, and have housed more than one hamster, begged for ferrets, and ogled at rats much to my mother’s displeasure. Squirrels, however, are a different story. I still catapult from under oak trees thanks to them.

How I Write

The spark often starts with the words of others. There are writers I admire to the point of attempted emulation. Sometimes, their way with words draws me from my writing recluse into a new setting, situation, or style. I’m inspired. I’m excited. My pencil burns into the paper; my words perch haphazardly on little blue lines like fat birds on telephone wires. I love this feeling. I can almost feel my heartbeats blending with the page as I am fed into my work. Sometimes though, this feeling gets me into trouble.

My inner-critic will take this enthusiasm to a whole new level, channeling my admiration into a flood of uncertainty. There’s no way your writing will have the same affect, my inner-critic whispers, your words are clunky in this line, and you’re too wordy here, too sparse there. And I stop. I sit and stare at my page in horrid fascination. I want to write, just like wanting to breathe at the bottom of a lake, but I’m not drowning in water—I’m drowning in doubt.

Cliché as that last line sounds, it’s true. Sometimes little bubbles of inspiration make it through; sometimes I progress through the words, but not with them. I don’t feel the spark then. I can’t. Feeling them would give rise to my inner-critic’s usual snarl. So what if you can feel the words? No one else will. And maybe so, but more and more I find myself writing anyway. I know that I’m weak in areas (if wordiness was a sin, I’d have a one-way ticket to hell) but I also realize that I’ll get better. When I grab a pencil and prop a pad of paper in my lap, I’m at ease. Some music, a few books nearby, and little distraction can help so much. It took a long time to stand up to my inner-critic, and sometimes I still falter under her retorts, but I’m learning.

AP Comp has already inspired me. We’re not jumping through the hoops. We’re taking them and breaking them, tossing aside memorization for contemplation. My inner-critic is having a wonderfully pitiful time standing up against that. The keyboard under my fingers isn’t an instrument of grief anymore either, but a helper. My writing is neither the greatest nor the worst, but it’s me. It’s a learning process. That is how I write.

The Mother Tongue

English, from the Creole tongues to the British Isle, is a gluttonous language. It gulps down foreign words, gains weight, lumbers around the planet, and often forgets to listen to reason. It’s also a flexible, rather affable language that loves nothing more than playing pranks on foreigners and native speakers alike. It’s been around for centuries and will probably be here for quite a while longer.

Bill Bryson, author of my summer book The Mother Tongue: English And How It Got That Way, was not shy when it came to language. In fact, he was delighted with it to a degree that rivaled Ms. Erdrich’s skunk obsession. And it showed. Every page brought me a laugh, whether Bryson was delving into the Anglo-Saxon mind or the so-called ‘grammar’ of English (most of which, as you’ve probably guessed, are mere suggestions, thus rendering English classes bunk. Sorry, Mr. Kunkle!) Whether you’re looking into the linguistic field or just wondering where swearing came from, I highly recommend this book. Spelling is addressed (or maybe ‘addrest’, depending on what century you’re from), foreign languages and their contribution to English, where wordplay came from, and even the merry-go-round of word meanings.

Racism and the oppression of free speech were also examined. Yes, English is highly expressive. Yes, we use words in ways that other languages cannot. And, yeah, it’s everywhere. However, except with that last affirmation, every language could view itself that way. While it may be cumbersome, there’s no reason for there to be any animosity just because Johnny says ‘cat’ and Pedro says, ‘gatto’. It’s one thing to be proud of your native tongue, another completely to open a firing squad because people feel the same way about their own.

Right now, I’m leaning toward lingustics where college is concerned. This book helped greatly. If I were to only remember one thing from this book, it would be this: Language is about expressing oneself, not suppressing. It’s for communicating and bringing people together. Let’s not freak out about it, shall we?

A Response to The Prevailing Opinion of a Sexual Character Discussed

I was excited to realize that The Prevailing Opinion of a Sexual Character Discussed was Mary Wollstonecraft’s work; I look up to her greatly, though that did not always make it easier to read. My dictionary and I bonded through several attempts to traverse this article. My note cards were nearly expunged by all the new words, but it was worth it.

Her language was beautiful! I admit it was immensely difficult to comprehend her all the time, but eventually (especially near the end) I got lost in Wollstonecraft’s prose. It was funny though. Wollstonecraft was rallying for equality, claiming that women weren’t getting the education they needed, and she used words like, “punctilious”, “effusions”, and “criterion”. Wonderful. I admire her for her extensive vocabulary.

She also knew how to make a point. Wollstonecraft must have had several hand cramps by the time she finished, but all her words were there with reason. She was also never rude when she stuck up for her beliefs. She just backed them up with English any teacher would be proud of. I’d like to see what the response was to her Vindication of the Rights of Woman.

When she spoke of women and armies, I was struck by the similarities (not to mention her writing). “The consequence is natural; satisfied with common nature, they become prey to prejudices, and taking all their opinions on credit, they blindly submit to authority.” Living with your own reasons and views was something I wholeheartedly agreed on with Wollstonecraft. It’s fine to consult with one another, but experience will be far more beneficial than losing oneself to didactic sermons. After all, if people become educated and gain their own values then “there will be an end to blind obedience” and a drop in dotards. Hopefully.

Wollstonecraft continuously came back to the battle of the sexes. Men would rant on and on how women were inferior, silly little things not fit for education that “should never… feel [themselves] independent”. (Well, of course women of the time appeared “inferior”. How can someone exercise superiority or equality when they’re locked away from a fair education and treated as children?) Dr. Gregory’s idea that a girl should act like a doll, docile and pretty to look at, but without her own movement or thought, was irritating. It was like these men were afraid. If women are forever inferior, why not let them in a classroom?

However, Wollstonecraft was woman enough to point something else out. Some women take advantage of this lack of independence. With beauty and faux-frailty, women sometimes attempt to “reign over” the opposite sex. Neither side is completely fault free.

While I respect and even look up to Wollstonecraft, there was one issue I disagree with in this article—love. It felt like she held it in soft disdain. (Maybe I misunderstood?) Her explaining that lonely mothers make better mothers saddened me. I believe that a happy marriage where husband and wife work together and love each other is more efficient than Wollstonecraft’s idea. Friendship is essential to a long, happy marriage, but that doesn’t mean that love has to be equated out of the mix.

Mary Wollstonecraft is a hero of mine. In history class last year, I read about her in our French Revolution unit. Her Vindication of the Rights of Woman left me wanting to shout and jump up and down. Someone got it. Her egalitarian views and her knowledge that anyone, regardless of gender, can be strong and brilliant and passionate were inspiring. I am growing up in a patriarchal society where I may not earn as much money as some dude doing the same job as I and where some girls may never read or speak for themselves simply for being female. But times are changing. I think Wollstonecraft would smile at all the women working, supporting husbands and children and contributing to the world.

Response to "Skunk Dreams"

I did not expect a story about a skunk to encompass metaphysical and controversial subjects. So when Erdrich posed her many questions with few answers, I was more than surprised. By the end of the article, I was just short of sure that Erdrich had an unhealthy obsession with a certain black and white mammal and that my brain was incapable of processing all of my questions. Regardless if Skunk Dreams is based entirely on Erdrich’s life, or if she fictionalized it, it was still a powerful read.

There were many striking lines in Skunk Dreams. The first that made me stop and think (beyond, “why is she sleeping in a football field?”) was, “We don’t know about the dreams of any other biota, and even much about our own.” I love topics like this that give readers a quick taste of thought. There’s much we don’t know, and Erdrich seemed determined to drill that into our heads. What are dreams? Is dreaming merely a human thing, or do other beings dream too? And of what? Should dreams give us hope for life after death?

I must agree with both Erdrich and Lund in their pursuit to answer that last question. I want something of myself to survive even after I’m six feet under, left for the worms—surviving in ways other than fertilizer, of course. I’m human. I’m selfish that way. In the words of Erdrich, “I want more”.

One very human thing is to beat and brood, to complain over what isn’t worth complaining about, and to sit oneself in the center of the universe. Everyday things like denting your parents’ car can seem devastating, but are just “minor, mere wisps, compared to skunk.” In the grand scheme of things, many “devastating” events are trivial. Even if everything appears horrible enough for you to sleep in a football field, many things won’t matter ten years from now, let alone ten days! At least, that’s what I got out of Erdrich’s description of a skunk’s perfume.

But some things will matter. There are obstacles in life we must overcome. Her inclusion of Adam Phillip's philosophy was awesome! I was happy to have it loop back to the dreaming and the obstacles Erdrich still had to face. "I was filled with poacher's lust, except I wanted only to smell the air." I love that line. Erdrich's walks through the captured wilderness were very peaceful and respectful--which I find refreshing. "Shooting animals inside fences, no matter how big the area they have to hide in, seems abominable and silly. And yet, I was glad for that wilderness." I agree. One thing I truly loved about this article was Erdrich's view on animals. Erdrich, to me, seems very caring towards animals and the environment, and I was happy to see her crawl through that fence.

Overall, it was a solid article. The vagueness and sudden jumps through time and thought could be irritating, but Erdrich's strong prose and views kept it all together. The final paragraphs sealed Skunk Dreams with, of course, skunks. Fitting. While at first startling, I can't find any reason to mock Erdrich's choice of skunk. That animal toddles through life without worry, so sure of itself, causing little detriment to others, and without fear of death. We could learn to do the same.

Is Google Making Us Stupid?

After reading this article, I was unnerved, if not hesitant to click on Firefox again. However, I obviously have. The thoughts this article dumped on me are a little muddled, but I’ll try to explain them as best I can.

I remember reading the title for the first time. I rolled my eyes, smirked a bit, and already had my answer. “Of course. Of course, Google was making us stupid! How stupid do you think I am to think otherwise?” Actually, don’t answer. I wasn’t really expecting one then and I definitely do not want one now. I’m embarrassed to say my thought processing gets a little clogged when I’m cynical. The rest of my mind, at those times, doesn’t always keep focused on anything other than being a nitwit.

In any case, when I finally drew my eyes away from the title to the first paragraph, I became amused. 2001: A Space Odyssey was something I’d merely heard about and only seen replicated. I’ve read a handful of artificial intelligence vs. humanity books, and figured I knew enough. I expected some kind of silly ranting with little backup after that, but Nicholas Carr had other ideas.

I was sucked in. My nitwit command center redirected the majority of its power to my eyes so that I could read faster. It was as if Carr was talking about my reading abilities and their, uh, latent demise. His lines concerning the media left me nodding. I also feel that I’m on a jet ski all too often, but the rest of the article pulled me in deep enough to taste the ocean again.

I have a confession. Once upon a time in eighth grade, I read Jane Eyre, by brilliant Jane Austin, and loved it to bits. For the winter holidays, my dad bought me both Dracula and Pride and Prejudice. I was ecstatic, started on Dracula right away (mostly to get the taste of Twilight out of my head), and later tried Pride and Prejudice. I haven’t finished either. It’ll be December again in no time and those books will probably be sitting on my shelves, getting acquainted with ever more dust. It’s not that I didn’t like the books. Really, Dracula went as far as to give me nightmares, making me read even more, but the way it was written deterred my interest. I was distracted left and right by computer, TV, and the not-so-random irritation that I couldn’t understand my own language every other paragraph. I have a small collection of book from around the First World War that I cannot concentrate on either. When I get too into texting, my English rots from “Hey friend, how goes it?” to “wats up?” I write differently depending on whether or not I’m holding a pencil or if I’m slumped in front of a computer. Here, I’ll stop the rant, and simply say that by page three of Carr’s article, I was remembering all this. I was remembering and desperate to know if he had answers.

Instead of a cure, he gave me more questions.

I think I almost imploded when Wolf made the point about our brains and our language. I’ve been wondering about how minds function differently between languages for a long time. I look at Japanese and I see beautiful squiggles where I wished for words; I see Spanish and I think of each word’s meaning, each sentence’s structure. I can’t help but instantly respond that way. Apparently, it really is how I’m hardwired.

But hardwire, as James Olds pointed out, can change, especially with our brains. Machines make us malleable. Here, I wondered how cuneiform captured the Sumerians, how paintbrushes pocketed the Chinese, how typewriters trapped the Americans and so on. Technology is rapidly growing, and while we may adapt with it, will we always be able to match it? With computers smarter than us, doing all our thinking, where will we be? We just might find ourselves as outdated as a 2002 cell phone, lost in Taylor’s “system”, and, if you’re keen on a techno-takeover, disposed of. (After all, who knows what your microwave is thinking…!)

And then there was Google. Oh yes, the title taker of this entire article, here at last. Around this point, I was considering panic. Finally, the opening that had amused me took an 180 degree turn just to slap me in the face. Google was fiddling with thoughts, reaping information, and generally sowing some good old fashion unease in my throat. Figuring that bashing my computer over its hard drive with a sturdy dictionary wasn’t the answer, I read on. There was no drive now for distraction.

Of course, Carr distracted me via a surge of reassurance. He made several points of “this has happened before, see? Writing, typewriters, thumbs, and books were big no-no’s once upon an era. Be skeptical of my worry.” However, I rolled my eyes at this warning and worried anyway. I know the Internet has helped. Information is open for the world like never before. I even have inklings that one day; people will look back and shake their heads at us. They will laugh at our dismay and distrust with computers thinking for us. They will smirk, claim superiority, and thusly freak out at whatever their new “typewriter” is. I know, because it’s exactly what has been happening ever since some prehistoric dude rounded some rocks and plopped a cart on top.

So in all, I loved Carr’s “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” I spoke with my mom on the topic, and her input and this article have changed my nitwit answer into an almost-question, because, I don’t know, maybe we’ve always been this way. Maybe it’s more of our reaction and later reliance on these technological crutches than anything. We can ask for help when we need it, but we can walk on our own too.

This has happened before—this revolution of thinking—and for better or for worse, we’re still here. Are we overacting? Is the evil super duper Google-god of doom looming over us, snatching our minds up as we search for pics of Sponge Bob, and skim through five paragraph articles? Was the tyrant-typewriter our first step into a demise of originality? Do I need to quit with the questions? Your answer, expect for the last inquiry, is as good a guess as any. After reading this, setting it aside and hungrily borrowing half the library, I’m still not sure how I feel. My use of Bing and Google has dropped, and I’m inside the words of books now more than I have been since eighth grade. It’s nice. Maybe all we need is a bit of balance in a diet of words. Less fast food, more homemade meals.

Unless, of course, that’s what Google wants us to think.

What are your thoughts?

Response to "Talk of the Town"

To be frank, this essay horrified me with college only two years away. The pernicious purpose of one hurt, mentally unstable youth with a gun left the world in horror. The murders that took place at Virginia Tech could have been stopped by acting on the signs that were there. The essay by Adam Gopnik startled me many times, but one point he made hit especially hard:

It is wrong to ask why when things go badly.

This was like an axiom among many people in the aftermath. They simply walled off why. Boxed up like that though, they were unable to seek the answers, let alone resolve the problem. It really surprised me to know the incidents were talked about, but “much of the conversation was devoted” to subjects that danced around the true question.

The faux-logic that rules America is detrimental. Saying all will be fine if swept under the rug is not true. We know it isn’t. Ignoring the problem is not an end to the problem. It angered me throughout Adam Gopnick’s article. The United States is stuck on rerun of shooting after shooting. The worst part is that we do have the power to keep such tragedies from recurring so frequently and violently.

I was also irritated with the ease of obtaining a gun—one made for killing people no less—and how everyone played blind. Not only that, but trying to understand why it happened, what caused him to carve bullet holes into a community, made me stop and think, “Maybe this is the reason people were told not to ask why. It could drive you crazy.”

However, not everyone played blind, and certainly didn’t sit there asking why. When similar incidents sparked throughout other countries, laws tightened. I admire how different countries tore down the ease of gun access. Laws were upheld and people were safer. While this did not stop every attempt, the same level of harm has not been met again—unless, that is, you happen to be the U. S. of A.

The next part by Susan Sontag brought back memories from 9/11. I found it strange then, even at my age, how TV commercials and the news were talking. It was like America was trying to convince itself that everything was fine and dandy, and to just ignore the heaping pile of fire and fear and rubble.

One line I really loved by Sontag was this: “Let’s by all means grieve together. But let’s not be stupid together.” For much of my life after 9/11, I knew next to nothing about the war. My school and church supported it, supported the killing and trouble without telling us any history between America and the Middle East or why we were fighting. Sontag’s proposal of searching for truth was impressive. It’s hard to find people who are willing to do just that. Not only that, but she’s right. America is strong, but is that all there all there is to our nation?

Someday, though, I can see America arriving at a solution. It’ll take time, several more unanswered phone calls perhaps, but we’ll get there nonetheless. It is unnecessary to propose total denial of any weapon to citizens. Selling a rifle to a hunter is one thing, yet another matter entirely when someone suicidal asks for the same deal.

A little sensibility can go a long way.

An Introduction of Self

This blog should probably be opened with something witty or wise, but, alas, you will just have to put up with my rambling. Aren't you lucky?

In any case, welcome to my blog. I’m looking forward to a great AP Comp class. In the future, murky as it is now, I’d like to pursue some kind of career with language. I have this feeling that being understood in the written word would help quite a bit there.

Speaking of which, language is my absolute favorite thing since, well, my last favorite thing. That's some heavy competition there. If you happen to speak to me in foreign tongues or are exceptional in English, I may just freak out. In school, I'm securing myself in Spanish and Latin, both of which have helped me so much already. I'd love to be fluent in several languages someday. Sadly, I am barely fluent in English, so I suppose it may take a while.


I’ve always loved to draw and, while not the next Leonardo Da Vinci, I can’t go a day without doodling something. I have an affinity for watercolors, chalk, and, of course, pens and pencils. I’m trying to delve into a more realistic style than my current mange/cartoon one. The macabre yet hilarious, manga, and startling photography catch my eye more often than not, and leave me wandering around art sites more than I should.

I have a semi-steady job of entertaining a ten-year-old. I recently achieved the status of a brand-spanking-new driver with a not-so-brand-spanking-new car, leaving me with the opportunity to carry around said child. I do love kids, but nothing has ever made me appreciate parents more than trying to copy one. Wish me luck. I’ll need it.


My familial circle includes a mom, a dad, and an assortment of adorable cats. My parents, though divorced, are united in their support in whatever I do, as long as it's legal, and it has helped so much. Sentimentalism aside, both parents live in apartments, my mom and I in McFarland, and my dad and I in Columbus, Wisconsin. So far, no squirrels have broken in.


Finally, thank you for reading, and have a nice day,


Stefanie