Thursday, June 28, 2007

ABC On Adults

A Brief Comment (A.B.C):
"On Adults"

I find that it is too often I find myself the target of an unwanted lecture, dismally listening to adults drone on about water conversation. Or conservation, the latter of which is significantly more important to me. Many subjects like this pass through one ear and out the other, or through one mouth and out the--never mind about that.

Finding that other children may be afflicted with the same dismal plight, I suggest execution of Plan A. Plan A is an excellent way to prove parents' hypocrisy that I would wholeheartedly prescript. When entering the bathroom to find that your mother has, alas, left the water faucet running full-blast, AGAIN, merely say,

"Well, you always talk to me about water conservation, but you're probably wasting a gallon."

And Plan B? To deal with the following explosion, the readying of the watercannon, the introduction of water warfare, and the sickening thud of a fallen comrade drenched in tap water upon a marble ground? To deal with the imperious tone of a parental unit commanding you to fast for a day?

Let's hope your parents don't have watercannon.

I don't have a Plan B.

Thursday, June 21, 2007

A Random Daydream

My boots were of finest russet color, and my wedding dress icy blue. The satin dress had a bell skirt that billowed about me, the organza hem tickling against my legs; it was a cold and desolate day, and the wedding pavilion deserted. I was the only one there, the chairs, ancient, yet fresh, left as though the audience had been there only moments ago.

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

An Informal Profile

Name: Adora Svitak, a.k.a Pumpkinglasses, Dory, and Chubby Puffy (alas!)

About Me: I am short and squat and I resemble a teapot, although I'm not washed nearly so often. I enjoy throwing stuff at my sister, lying on one of our numerous wrinkled couches in a fit of lethargy, digging (anywhere), and teasing my sister.

Interests: Teasing my sister, digging, sleeping, drawing, reading, cursing my laptop, writing, cooking.

Things I Don't Like: Water breaks, lugging my computer up the stairs, romantic novels (not that I've ever actually read one--I just don't like the idea), and a certain two people.

Places I've Lived: Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Narnia, and Renton.

Occupation(s): Scholar, Senior Teaser of Older Sisters, and Writer.

School: A Word I Derived From Greek Mythology

Areal: warlike. "Areal" is derived from "Ares", the Greek god of war, bloodshed, and carnage. Unlike Athene, protectress of citadels, creator of olive trees, goddess of battle, and wise, Ares tends to be more reckless and bloodthirsty.

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Relates to School Lecture on Post-Civil War Industrialism

I was only another girl in the room at the dress factory. I was the only girl who had kept my hair long; ever since Nellie had gotten her hair caught in the machine, it was not a wise idea. Still, I enjoyed tossing my hair over my shoulder and rolling my eyes when the superintendent and the superintendent's toadies bellowed out my name with disapproval. The room we worked in was stifling. The dust coated the floors and the machines, and the window-sills, and the boxes. I straightened my goggles, thick, bulky things, dark and covered in several films of dust. We stitched and hemmed with our eyes glazed over. It was boring work, the whir-whir of the machines boring into our skulls. Every so often the superintendent's toady, a thin-faced, aquiline-nosed woman named Miss Prim, would swoop down upon the unfortunate Irish or Scandinavian or Finnish girl and upbraid her for chatting. The only chat was in the latrine, and the latrine was no pleasure. Each stall was divided only by splintery wood, and the cramped room stank of sweat and mold and waste. Miss Brownish stood guard in the latrine, in any case, with a long, tall cane in her hand that resembled a spear, and she'd jab at our legs underneath the stall if she heard us talking.

A Description of My Opposite

He was very lazy. He lay upon the red plush reading cushions, dressed in a tight Little Lord Fauntleroy tunic of black velvet, and stared out the bay-window with an air of boredom. He could see very far--twenty twenty vision, the optometrist said. He did not think to imagine a story as he stared out onto the rolling estate, pine trees clustered together in circles, surrounding the chartreuse manor. He did not imagine anything of the sort, but instead cautiously lifted himself off the reading couch. He did not touch the dresser. It would be disobeying; nor did he jump upon the serenely smoothed canopy bed or grope for the TV's remote control. He did not come near the newspaper. It was his parents' rugged terrain, and after all, what bad could really be happening in the world? Instead, the boy made his way towards the dining room and sat, very calmly, cross-legged upon an obscure, shadowed chair to the left, and patiently waited for his parents to arrive.

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Class Writing Assignment--No Figurative Language Allowed

The cake stood moored upon a platter of the house's best silver, a film of sugar liquid cascading down its round sides; the cake was soft, and a delight to eat, light in one's mouth, and light in one's stomach, for it left one for the desire for more; even the sourest fruits lay presented with precision. The cake was not difficult to slice; it was the sweetness of its appearance that brought the cruel cutter guilt, for ruining its beauty. Yet still, the taste would betray all beauty, that mouthful of subtle sweetness; so here I applaud the scrumptiousness of Cake.

Friday, June 08, 2007

Indeed, we frequent the hilly terrain about these uncivilized woods. Truly, after my catastrophic fall from my rebellious bike, our mother has forbid such escapades. Mostly the paths we follow now are plain asphalt along the Sammammish River, winding along into the wails of babies in a gigantic playground, although my dad would like otherwise. Perhaps a good Father's Day present for him would be to allow him to go on a hike or at least bike on the gravelly and bear-ridden (kidding--I should hope-- about the latter) paths he prefers. Not to mention we've bought him some books at the library. They have a little nook tucked into the corner showcasing a number of somewhat tattered, quite interesting, used books. We're hiding the books we got for him in the right side of my dim, grim, dusty, and musty closet. And how have we had the time to conceal our purchases at the library, one might wonder? We walk down to the library with our teacher to do math at the library's Study Zone, and our teacher catches the bus. The library is a large place, with two formidable black crows guarding, somewhat more benignly than they appear, the entrance to the library. There is a concrete bench that embraces the left wall of the library, directly outside the doors and extending along until it is about half a foot away from the window beside the door, of dusty gray; a sign upon the wall bearing the somewhat scratched out, much scorned sign "No Skateboarding Allowed" (I say 'somewhat' because it was only the "No" some person of renegade demureness scratched out). Another sad sign doomed to ignorance rests upon the door. The door has polished metal handles, and has a frame which allows for two large windows. There are two doors, identically the same. Inside the library is an endless and winding path of advertisements and bulletins (a perfect image of what I imagine whenever I'm listening to a particularly boring piece of music), which is adorned with two statues roughly hewn of wood, seeming out of place in the spacious and well-lit library in their darkness and coarseness. The library itself is very neatly filed and modern in appearances. Oh, and back to the bikes--I shall inherit--I say "inherit" because it sounds grander than a word like "passed down"--Adrianna's greatest heirloom, an imperious two-wheeled vehicle, her bicycle, of an imperial purple color, bedecked in sequins of the imagination, with wheels that have gone over the excrement of an emperor's dog.

If you were wondering, I know that my description of this mud-plagued bike sounds ridiculous, but so what? Ridicule was what this country was built upon--us thinking that the British taxing us without representation and ruling us was ridiculous. That sounds ridiculous, but who knows? Well, not only ridiculous, but unfair, and a lot of other words we'll no doubt have to learn in class, or one could find in the Declaration of Independence. That is, if we hadn't already (thankfully) moved on to the Civil War.

Wednesday, June 06, 2007

School Assignment-essay on Robinson Jeffers

For a link to Robinson Jeffers' poem "Shine, Perishing Republic", go to http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/Robinson-Jeffers/3011

In Robinson Jeffers’ poem “Shine, Perishing Republic”, readers view Jeffers’ grim verdict upon America and its humanity—a molten mass of corruption, with its way of society, directions and tendencies twisted from the original “flower” to become the hideously monstrous “insufferable master”.

The theme of Robinson Jeffers’ poem remains true today. Though the “monster” threatening today’s American humanity may be less grimly expressed and not nearly so much heralds of doom, there is still a monster, and one that has not yet been defeated. Today this monster is America’s wastefulness and arrogance.

In the beginning we were the explorers rather than the destroyers. Now we are consuming enormous amounts of processed food mass-made for frequently overweight American citizens. The image of the farmer’s homemade, wholesome breakfast of perpetually growing heaps of pancakes is replaced by a Coke or a coffee.

We process food until the wholesomeness is replaced by a wrapper, and sell the food to clamoring crowds of America’s grown-up children, who have been corrupted by the ages. We do not bother to throw the wrapper into the plastic garbage bag crafted by another country, but we leave it on the ground for another to pick up.

Not only do we squander resources in our stubborn profligacy, we have squandered lives; the Iraq War was the spawn of—at least somewhat—our dependence on Middle Eastern oil. In many cases, we misuse the powers in technology we have discovered; cars have come to represent our needless destruction of the environment.

Our arrogance has also led us to our downfall. We refuse to negotiate with countries that do not bend to our will or ally with us; America is generally considered the most spoilt of nations. We persist in arguing for causes merely conjecture; we must sulk in the corner or whine on the stage if our desires are not fulfilled.

Though Jeffers’ view is stark, it is one that has lived on through the ages before us, and will no doubt live on to plague the generations after us on and on and on.

Monday, June 04, 2007

School Assignment

Today we were learning about words with origins from other countries. Each one of these paragraphs uses words originating from France, India, and Spain/Mexico.

FRENCH: She was, they said, too gaudy for her own good, the prodigal daughter, who flaunted her faux fur with a smile upon lipstick-ravaged lips, and strode about the Eiffel Tower as if it were her own. The cafés welcomed her with encores aplenty, eyeing her false leather purse so well-stocked with hopes for coins. Paris fitted her, they said, with sparkling lights and romantic nights and the cries of "Bon Appetit" heralding banquets of snails. And still her dreams and hopes were lost in the depths of ennui, gone like a puff of smoke from the notoriously ever-present French cigarette.

HINDI: Ganesh's pajamas were finely made. They were made of gold silk from China embroidered in red with pictures of Shiva the Destroyer. He preferred the more benign apperance of his old sleepwear, plain cotton embroidered with an image of the slightly overweight elephant deity Ganesh. Though his home, a bungalow of mud brick and grass, was small, every gap in the barely-chinked wall was an entrance for nightmares.

Spanish: Jove was the envy of all the boys in San Diego. A macho figure, he claimed the muscles jutting sharply from his arms were the results of one of the many grisly murders he had committed over the years. He also bragged about defeating a vicious armadillo, wrestling the large and intimidating anonymous figure who lurked in the school courtyard, and knocking down a more innocent plum tree. All of these, he thought, were quite machismo acts. Lifted by this feeling, he swaggered through his favorite alcove, tucked in the garden of the "Forbidden Pub," and did not notice two police cars approaching.