Upcoming Events

I'll be presenting at these upcoming events:

WHO Convention (Washington Homeschoolers Organization)
Puyallup, Washington State

NECC (National Educational Computing Conference)
San Antonio, Texas

Tikatok Company Launch (www.tikatok.com)
Boston Public Library, Boston, Massachusetts

For more information regarding these events, or to request a presentation, feel free to contact us.

Dialogue between presidents in the White House of the "underworld"

For class I was studying some early presidents, because I was supposed to write a dialogue between them. I asked my teacher whether I could have some presidents talk with presidents who would have been dead in their time. She said sure. I got the idea to make them ghosts in the underworld.

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The White House was never the quietest place in the underworld, but tonight the noise was absolutely alarming. It made sense--all the dead presidents' ghosts, ghosts of staff, and ghosts of family crammed into a single building were bound to make noise. In the kitchen, where at least some of the cooks knew him, Andrew Jackson tried to get to sleep.

"Poll wants to fly! Poll wants to leave!" Jackson's parrot, Poll, squawked.

"Shut it, you scumfaced, traitorous, most--oh, thought you were...eh, someone, Poll," Jackson mumbled sleepily, groping for his pillow. "Who stole my pillow?"

"Poll wants to leave!" was Poll's only answer.

"Fine, sirrah! Get away with you, and say no more about my wife!" Jackson bellowed, apparently in the middle of a dream. Poll took this as permission to leave, and, squawking, flew off into the night.




"Well, my dear Abigail, to tell you truly, that Jackson character is getting on my nerves," John Adams sighed. Abigail Adams looked at him sympathetically. They had chosen to stay in the Oval Office for the night.

"Has he gotten into another duel?" Abigail asked. She was friends with Edith Roosevelt and Harriet Lane, who told her all about such matters.

"Yes, my darling. He infuriates me--through truly I'd never say this in public--with his wife. You know what they say--she never properly divorced from that fellow of hers she had before, and Jackson has no thought of honor."

"Yes, I know, John. Helen Taft told me--" Abigail began.

"Helen Taft? That jelly-bellied elephant of a man, Taft, is her husband. He--Taft, that is--got stuck in a bathtub when Cerberus was lurking around."

A squawk came from the windowsill.

"Och! What's that?" Adams asked, and pulled the curtains aside. But there was nothing there but one half of a parrot feather.




"Poll hear Adams," Poll squawked. "Poll hear Adams," she repeated, and nudged Jackson awake.

"God, by the battle of New Orelans I swear there never were--was--is--are--darn durn it, a nastier parrot!" Jackson shouted. "Now, whatcha got? You said Adams? What did he say, huh?"

Poll told Jackson exactly what she had heard Adams say, word for word.

"The scoundrel gossiped about Rachel, huh?" Jackson snarled, waving his pistol about. "And Taft too, hmm. Well, I don't want to break another rib in a duel. Let's see if we can drum up any support."




At dawn Taft turned on his underworld-controlled T.V. and put the channel on Onion News Network. He had only watched for two minutes when William Seward came bursting in, shouting "Murder!" and dragging Jackson along by the ear.

"What in the..." Taft muttered, hefting his huge and heavy body off of his rocking chair, which immediately collapsed.

"I didn't mean to draw my pistol, Seward! Why don't you just go off to your icebox where you belong!" Jackson roared. Seward slunk off.

"I apologize," Jackson said curtly. "I thought that Adams would be in the Executive Suite tonight."

"Nope, he switched to the Oval Office tonight," Taft said, chewing on a petrified stick of butter. All things in the underworld were petrified. "I'm Taft, by the way. I don't think we've met."

"Oh! Taft indeed, very good to meet you!" Jackson said, shaking Taft's hand vigorously.

Eight minutes later, Jackson had filled Taft in on all the infuriating things that Adams had said about Taft and Jackson's wife.

"He called me a WHAT!" and "I'd smash that hypocritical liar's face in!" were all phrases Taft used upon hearing Jackson's (much-exaggerated) tale of what Adams had said.

"Indeed, indeed," Jackson said, trying his best to sound like a gentleman.

"Well, then, Jackson, there's no way around it. We must rally our staff and confront the scoundrel Adams," Taft said, once he had cooled down.

"That sounds quite fine," Jackson said, smiling. Hist staff were fairly good at fighting.




In three hours twenty-five minutes, Jackson had rallied his kitchen staff, his wife, and Martin van Buren around him. There they joined with some sympathetic presidents and First Ladies, as well as with Taft's staff, and marched off to confront Adams in the Oval Office.




"I think that the Aeneid is not quite as good as Common Sense myself," Abigail Adams remarked over her husband's shoulder.

"Not quite as good? Now, Abby, one must be careful with the word "good," for--" John Adams said patronizingly, only to be interrupted by a loud pounding on the door.

"OPEN UP, ADAMS!" came a booming of joined voices. There were some whispers from behind the door.

"It's only me, Helen Taft," said Helen Taft, giggling to the assembled crowd behind her. "Please open up, Abigail, for your dear friend." Abigail, upon hearing this familiar voice, opened up without hesitation, then froze with fear. Jackson, Taft, and their assembled cudgel, lamp, and rope-wielding staff, burst into the Oval Office.

"GET ADAMS!" Jackson roared. Without hesitation, they surged toward Adams and grabbed him by the arms.

"Throw him in the Potomac!" one of Jackson's chefs jeered. "He likes to go skinny-dipping there."

"No I don't, you ungentlemanly monster!" Adams protested, trying to fight his captors. "That's my son, John Quincy--" But Adams got no further, for they had already trooped out of the White House and he determined it best to keep his mouth shut.

Sure enough, when they reached the shores of the Potomac, John Quincy Adams was already in the water without his clothes. He stopped, pale, when he saw the approaching crowd, and grew even paler when he saw that they were holding his father. But he had no time to do anything but watch hopelessly as the crowd shoved an indignant John Adams into the water. John Adams shouted at them as he grew wetter and wetter, until everyone tired of honor and revenge and began to race back to the White House.

Trip to British Columbia, Canada (In Detail)

Surrey

The city of Surrey is very close to the border--in fact, if you drive into Canada a little ways there should be big white letters that say "Welcome to Surrey." I believe that you have to take King George Hwy. to get into Surrey but I'm not sure. It might be just another name that got mixed in there.

Surrey's school district, the Surrey School District, organized the leadership conference...which brings me to my next topic--

leadership conference

The leadership conference was actually called Ideas 36, and lasted for two days. Schools from all around the Surrey School District sent their student leaders to attend the conference. Not all of the attendees were neccessarily student leaders, however--one boy I interviewed for a blog post said this: "I wasn't really expecting much...my athletic director guided me here...said there would be free food." I am lured to a lot of events by free food, and I'm glad that it worked with that boy at least.

"Creating Leadership"

"Creating Leadership" was the name of the PowerPoint I showed at the Panorama Ridge Secondary School. I talked about different qualities of past and present leaders, asked kids about various different American and Canadian leaders, and then we did an interactive crative writing activity together about an ideal future leader. We ended up creating a tall, generous girl named Sarah who volunteered at the Food Bank and the Humane Society, had the tactical smarts of Napoleon, and inspired others.

"Technology and Leadership"

"Technology and Leadership" was the name of the second presentation I showed at the Bell Theater. It focused on the role of technology in enhancing leadership. During the presentation, I interviewed kids to get quotes for a blog post and rewrote Little Red Riding Hood to give Little Red Riding Hood 21st century technology. Here's my rewritten version of the story:

[Once upon a time, there lived a little girl named Little Red Riding Hood who always wore a red cloak. One day, her mother asked her to bring a pot of Brussels sprout soup to her grandmother.
“Remember the Rule of the Woods,” her mother said, and didn’t say anything else. With that, Little Red Riding Hood’s mother was out the door to find some potatoes for dinner.
“I have no idea what this Rule of the Woods is,” Little Red Riding Hood said to herself. “And I’m not very good with directions either,” she grumbled. “Why didn’t Mom just take the Brussels sprout soup herself?”
After thirty minutes of sulking, Little Red Riding Hood picked herself up and went to her mother’s computer, which she conveniently knew how to use, and went onto the Internet to research her route.
“Oh! Hurray!” Little Red Riding Hood said. “There’s a SkyTrain station right there. I’ll just hop on there and get off somewhere later on the route.”
So that was exactly what Little Red Riding Hood did—but not before researching the “Rule of the Woods,” which was not to talk to wolves.
“That’s easy enough,” said Little Red Riding Hood. She had a picture of a wolf on her cell phone, so she knew how to identify them.
She walked to the nearest SkyTrain station, bought some tickets, and rode it almost all the way to Grandma’s house.
When Little Red Riding Hood got off, she could see a strange animal lying beside a tree. It wasn’t a “strange animal” for long, though—Little Red Riding Hood immediately saw that it was a wolf. She hid behind another tree and dialed her uncle’s cell phone number for help. Her uncle was a woodcutter and would probably know how to get rid of a wolf.
Little Red Riding Hood got impatient waiting for her uncle, so she snuck out in front of the wolf, hoping to walk all the way to Grandma’s.
“Rarrr!” the wolf said, leaping up. Thankfully, Little Red Riding Hood had watched some martial arts moves on YouTube, so she was able to knock the wolf out in a matter of seconds, flat. Her cell phone started beeping. Her uncle was calling her back to check if she was okay.
“Yo man, I’m doin’ fine!” Little Red Riding Hood said, trying to sound as tough as possible. Her uncle came striding up to where she was standing in front of the stunned wolf.
“Your cell phone has a GPS on it, right?” he asked her.
“Yep, man,” Little Red Riding Hood said, still trying to sound tough. Without any explanation, her uncle snipped at the wolf’s belly, took the cell phone from Little Red Riding Hood, and turned its volume full up. Then he tossed it right into the wolf’s stomach.
“We’ll be able to track the wolf with the cell phone’s GPS,” her uncle said, and sewed the wolf’s stomach back up.

THE END.]

food

There was an abundance of food on both days. On the first day, there were healthy cookies that were covered in seeds, watermelon, honeydew melons, mini-bagels with three different kinds of cream cheese (raspberry, banana, and normal) plus two different kinds of cheese (cheddar and swiss or maybe it was cheddar jack), bottled water...on the second day, there were boxes and boxes of pizza (veggie, cheese, and I think there was pepperoni as well, although I'm not sure), granola bars, juiceboxes, chilled water, and lots more that I didn't see with my own eyes. When we were at the Holiday Inn Express in Surrey, we had a complimentary breakfast (yum!) including my favorite, cereal. When we were at the Holiday Inn Downtown in Vancouver, we paid ten dollars for both my mom and I to have breakfast. They let you make your own waffles with pre-measured cups of batter, and they had a can full of whipped cream that I sprayed on indulgently with no self-restraint. They also had homemade strawberry jam (which was basically mashed up strawberries with liquid sugar--delicious!), so I put some jam on with my whipped cream and had one of the best Belgian waffles in my life. I also had muesli with yogurt, and lots and lots of fruit. The night before we had breakfast, we ate at the hotel restaurant as well, and I had a great vegetarian Mediterranean pizza, some of which we saved for later. At the restaurant, kids got both a free drink and ice cream, so I had a wonderful fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice and some gigantic scoops of peppermint chocolate ice cream. At the Sheraton Guildford Hotel in Surrey, I had a wonderful Eggs Benedict. Unfortunately, the eggs were pretty runny, so I got some bright yellow stains all over my good white pants.

Sheraton Guildford Hotel

We originally stayed at the Sheraton Guildford Hotel, but there was a lot of construction going on at the time we were staying there (and also some personal reasons I don't feel at liberty to disclose for the sake of the reputation of my grandparernts' nasal passages--anyway, no more on that), so we later switched to the Holiday Inn Express.

Holiday Inn Express

I really liked the Holiday Inn Express in Surrey for three reasons:

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1) free internet

2) free local calls

3) complimentary continental breakfast

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It was also a lot less noisy without construction and grandparents to worry about. A very nice hotel.

Holiday Inn Downtown

The Holiday Inn Downtown was where we stayed in Vancouver. After our good experience with the Holiday Inn in Surrey, I sort of wanted to go there again. We had a handy map with us, so we walked all the way from the SkyTrain station (which was a loooong way) and managed to find it. We felt pretty proud of ourselves for our triumph with the map. My mom admits herself that she doesn't have a very good sense of direction and I'm just a "pathetic little child," after all--shouldn't we feel proud of ourselves?

The first thing I noticed about the Holiday Inn Downtown, strangely enough, was that its logo was slightly more modernized than our first Holiday Inn; it was italicized and the background was a shiny green. I liked both logos. Once inside, we got another map--a fancy 3D pedestrians' map, that is--from the receptionist, and checked in. Our room was very nice, and (to my pleasure) we even had a balcony. At the Holiday Inn Downtown there was a restaurant called "Medley's Bistro." It was raining/hailing outside, so we decided to eat inside. A waiter there, Jason, was in very good spirits and made a lot of jokes. We couldn't tell whether he was joking or not when he said that he had a garden under a bridge near a daycare, but I searched online and I'm pretty sure it's true. For some reason I remember at dinner the boy sitting in front of us, when asked what he wanted to drink, shouted "Chocolate milk!" I just remember the particular way he said it.

Burnaby Village Museum

The Burnaby Village Museum was a village of small original or replica houses, shops, and other buildings (like an outhouse) modeled after life in the early 1900s. Unfortunately, it was closed until May 1st, but we managed to get in just to peer through the windows into the houses and go for a nice walk. We took some great pictures, too!

Vancouver Art Gallery

The Vancouver Art Gallery was not too far from our hotel at all, a short walk. Their feature exhibition on the first floor was "TruthBeauty," which centered on the influences of the Pictorialist movement and the Pictorialists themselves. We saw lots of photos, paintings, and even videos (for an exhibition on the third floor) in the Art Gallery.

Telus World of Science (or Science World)

After the Art Gallery, we walked to the SkyTrain station (which was a hassle, believe me! We turned around in a circle and had to ask for quite a few directions) to catch the SkyTrain to Science World. From the outside, Science World is a gigantic ball mounted on a normal, short building. From the inside (on Saturdays at least), Science World is a crowded inferno of the worst of rowdy young demon children banging, splashing, kicking, hitting--for the most part, doing anything but reading about--various hands-on exhibits. The unfortunate part about coming to Science World on a Saturday was that--long lines of children waiting to get a chance to play with even the most mundane of machines. Certainly there were some immensely fun things at Science World--a chair, attached to a pulley (or at least I think it was a pulley) that took on a fraction of your weight so that you could pull yourself up into the air without much trouble; an "aging" machine that took a picture of you, gave you wrinkles and changed your hairline to give you a picture of what you might look like at seventy years of age...but it was rather a mistake to come on Saturday. At least Science World was right across from the train station.

Simon Fraser University

We were able to go on a tour of the Simon Fraser University which was very interesting. The architecture of the main part of the building is designed to make the building look like the inside of a boat or ship from inside. Another interesting thing about the university was that there was a giant shopping mall downstairs. And yet another interesting thing--we know a Simon Frazer who told us about this university and told u that Simon Fraser was one of his ancestors.

SkyTrain

The SkyTrain was a highly efficient system of public transportation that puts many other transportation systems to shame. It was very fast (probably because there isn't traffic to slow a SkyTrain down when it's much higher, or at certain points, lower, than the city streets) and very nice to ride on. I would recommend it highly.

Amtrak train

We took the Amtrak train back to Seattle. We had actually planned to leave on Friday, but it was our unlucky day--all of the tickets were sold out. I had really been looking forward to the train, while my grandparents wanted to get back, so they took the Greyhound bus to Seattle while we bought tickets for the next day's train. The next day when we arrived at the train station in Vancouver, we learned that there had been a power outage at the station since 2:30. That meant that the U.S. customs computers weren't working--which meant that they weren't sure about letting us go--which meant inching along in a long queue that barely went anywhere--which meant boredom. Finally, they had mercy on us and let us get on the train about an hour late, I would say. The train was very nice; there were quite a few seats that had no occupants--and it was a double-decker train, which was a first for me. The seats were upstairs. We stopped at various places; first at New Westminister, Canada to get some "neccessary paperwork," then in Bellingham, Mount Vernon, Everett, Edmonds, and finally Seattle. At all these stops my mother was worried that perhaps our suitcase (which carried both our professional camera and my laptop) would get taken by mistake, so, before she went to sleep, she would have me go down and make sure no one took it. No one did.

tuna fish sandwich

Does this truly need explanation? Well, I suppose there is a little bit more to the tuna fish sandwich. My dad came to pick us up in Seattle. On the train, my mom had called him to tell him that I was hungry (which I was) and asked him to make a tuna fish sandwich for me, which he did. He also got me some grapefruit juice. When one is hungry and thirsty, even tuna fish on stale bread with nothing else but canned grapefruit juice can taste very good. And it was actually a very good sandwich. We drove up to the house; I tapped on my sister's window. She was still reading, to my surprise, probably staying up all night waiting for us. Our journey was finished satisfactorily.

Overview of my trip to British Columbia, Canada

[Note about areas in bold: This is an overview of the trip so I'll be giving more details about bolded areas in a second blog post.]

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We (my mother, my grandparents, and I) headed to BC for a leadership conference in Surrey, a large (and quickly growing) city that would have reminded me of Redmond were it not a few times bigger. At the leadership conference, I gave two separate presentations: "Creating Leadership" at the theater of the Panorama Ridge Secondary School, and "Technology and Leadership" at the Bell Theater. After "Technology and Leadership" I answered questions and finished a blog post we had started. There was an abundance of food at both conferences.

We stayed at three different hotels for different parts of our visit: the Sheraton Guildford Hotel, the Holiday Inn Express, and the Holiday Inn Downtown.

We visited three different museums while we were in BC: the Burnaby Village Museum, the Vancouver Art Gallery, and the Telus World of Science (more often called "Science World). We also visited the Surrey campus of the Simon Fraser University.

We used various kinds of transportation during our journey. To get to Surrey, we caught a ride with a driver we found on Craigslist. Two of the most memorable were the SkyTrain and the Amtrak train to Seattle. We took the SkyTrain quite a bit to get between Surrey, Burnaby, Vancouver, and all the places in between.

Finally we arrived at the train station in Seattle. But the journey was not yet over--after all, we still had a drive to Redmond in front of us--and, for me, a tuna fish sandwich.

Poem written with students of the Evergreen School, Shoreline

My cat piddled on my binder

She’s run away, I must find her

My homework is all yellow

I want to turn her into jell-o

I regret my cat’s lifted hinder.

If you're interested in getting your work published, here is a great way to do that:

Call for Submissions
Become a Published Young Author or Illustrator!
Launch Pad: Where Young Authors and Illustrators Take Off! is a new onlinemagazine devoted to publishing fiction, nonfiction, poetry, book reviews,and artwork by children ages 6-12. The editor is pleased to announce thepublication of the first online issue (January/February 2008) openlyaccessible from the Launch Pad web site. We still have space in all of ourupcoming 2008 issues, and invite young authors and artists to submitmaterial about the following themes:
The OceanSummer VacationSportsMysteries
Please visit http://www.launchpadmag.com to read the magazine and review oursubmission guidelines! We do not charge parents or children any publicationor submission fees.
Printable handouts:http://www.launchpadmag.com/submitbw.pdfhttp://www.launchpadmag.com/submitcolor.pdf
Email submissions and queries to: editor@launchpadmag.com

If you're interested in getting your work published, here is a great way to do that:

 

Call for Submissions

Become a Published Young Author or Illustrator!

Launch Pad: Where Young Authors and Illustrators Take Off! is a new online
magazine devoted to publishing fiction, nonfiction, poetry, book reviews,
and artwork by children ages 6-12. The editor is pleased to announce the
publication of the first online issue (January/February 2008) openly
accessible from the Launch Pad web site. We still have space in all of our
upcoming 2008 issues, and invite young authors and artists to submit
material about the following themes:

The Ocean
Summer Vacation
Sports
Mysteries

Please visit http://www.launchpadmag.com to read the magazine and review our
submission guidelines! We do not charge parents or children any publication
or submission fees.

Printable handouts:
http://www.launchpadmag.com/submitbw.pdf
http://www.launchpadmag.com/submitcolor.pdf

Email submissions and queries to: editor@launchpadmag.com

Camp Goddard

On Tuesday, March 25th, I wrote a blog with students of Furneaux School about a science learning camp called Camp Goddard that they went to. Here's the blog:

Camp Goddard is located right outside of Davis, Oklahoma. There were 82 students and 17 adults. The students stayed four days and three nights in cabins. One of these cabins had an encounter with a really big coyote. It still had its winter coat. It was fat. The students were walking toward the cabin when they saw the coyote. They stood still. The principal, Mr. Cunningham, ran the coyote off. Some of the students were still scared, though, and worried that the coyote might come back.

Some of the activities the students participated in included archery and canoeing. One student tried to fall out, but nobody really did, fortunately. They also went fishing, hiking, and walking on trails. Miss Carlson took the students on an off-trail trip to see a cavern. There was also a fossil dig for limestone. The digging area used to be a shallow sea.

To Furneaux School: I really enjoyed writing this with you, but unfortunately, we don't have too much time left, so you can copy this post and continue it in your own time.

Two Points of View

This is a school assignment I did yesterday. I wrote from two perspectives--one from that of an untouchable (the lowest class in the old Indian caste system) another from the point of view of a girl kshatriya, or noble. The first is that of the untouchable, the second of the kshatriya.

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A bonfire flickered in the distance. I could see it clearly against the starry night sky. I ran ahead to inspect it further. Perhaps there would be some food to beg, for it was Holi and I knew that everybody, even the poorest, would probably be in a good mood today.

As I came closer, I could see people singing loudly and dancing around the bonfire in a semicircle. Most of them appeared to be vaishyas, or farmers. I felt like a worm, creeping toward them in their fine clothes. Nobody noticed me at first.

Soon, though, I wished that it had stayed that way. As soon as they noticed me, I wished that they hadn't; the disgust etched on their faces as they backed away made me feel only more an outcast.

A little girl stared at me in fascination, as though I were some strange animal, until her mother pulled her by her sari back into the crowd. I ran away. It did not matter how silly I looked, for no one would bother to tell me.

Later I came back, more discreetly, to watch the festivities. Some kshatriyas' servants had come to dance. I envied them. Servants though they were, they would not be kicked aside like rags when the came to join in.

Some of the young women began to dance. I watched them. Their yellow saris twirled around them and sparkled. The others soon followed suit.

"To Vishnu!" a young man cried.

"To Krishna!" said another.

The crowd laughed together with one voice. How I wished that I could join in with them. But there was no way that a lowly street-sweeping child like myself would be able to do that. It would get me in trouble with my mother. And then everybody would know that I was there, contaminating the air with my unholy breath.

----------

Inside the cool courtyard of my family's house, my father paced back and forth, surveying the shudras hard at work watering plants and pulling up weeds. He hem-hemmed under his breath, snapped his fingers, and walked briskly to me.

"Have the cooks made naan for the festival?" he asked curtly.

"Yes, Father," I said obediently, and nearly groaned out loud. My sari, which was yellow and beautiful to look at, was not so comfortable to wear. It wrapped tightly around my legs and made walking hard. I made my way outside slowly, worried that my sari would trip me and make me look like a loon. My cousins had already gathered outside on the grass.

"Indira, your sari is too tight," my older cousin Kali said, her own sari's hem flecked with dew. She helped me tuck in a loose fold. The boys sniggered and said that we talked only about girlish things.

"Oh--do we have to do rites today?" Sita asked with a catch in her breath.

"I don't think so. Why?" I asked.

"I saw a brahman," Sita said.

"Oh--the bonfire's starting!" I shouted as I noticed flames in the distance. Everyone ran forth to the smell of warm curry and naan. It was heaped upon golden platters, ready to be eaten.

"There goes the daughter of Harsha Varyana," I heard the vaishyas whisper. They were sitting on the ground in orderly rows. This was one of the few times they saw me, and I saw them. Behind the vaishyas were some dirty untouchables, still busy sweeping pathways. The dirty rags they wore as clothes teemed with vermin. I looked at them with disgust and glared into their eyes. Stupid beggars, I thought. Ruining Holi with their dirty clothes and contaminated shadows. I smiled at my cousins and walked demurely to a tasseled carpet that had been placed on the grass for us. Some shudras came forth to serve me and my cousins. My father looked proudly at me . This sari perhaps is not too bad, I thought, and glanced haughtily at the vaishyas and the untouchables who still lingered sadly there.

I'd like to take this chance to reply to an editor in China who left a comment asking some questions. (In the future, I would recommend anybody seeking a direct reply should leave their email addresses so that I can get back to them as soon as possible.) Here are my answers to the questions:

1. How old are you and when were you born?

I am ten years old and I was born in 1997 in Springfield, Oregon.

2. How many words can you type in a minutes now?

I can type around seventy words a minute on average, but I have gotten up to 110 words per minute.

3. How many words have you read until now? And how many words have you written?

It is impossible to calculate how many words I have read until now. I can tell you that I have read about 2000 books and I have written at least 800,000 words.

School Assignment

Today I was supposed to write a narrative from the point of view of a person going insane and let the reader know that the person was going insane, without actually saying that, of course. Here it is:

Everybody liked the party. The party was bright and happy. However, it was really nothing proper for someone like me, as I was used to a simple life. That was how I had been raised.
I probably would have liked the party, except for the fact that all the ladies and gentlemen in bustle dresses and tailcoats made me feel little and unimportant.
When we were supposed to dance I did not dance. I sat down at the side of the room and watched the people dance. Watching the people dance made me feel dizzy and I sighed. I wanted to dance but I found myself too busy looking out the window. When I looked out the window I saw more rain than grass. It was strange, I thought. Too much water made me feel like I was drowning. It had been that way since I had drank too much water at the beginning of the party and I choked. Nobody liked comics here. That was why I did not dance. There was nobody like me. Even the people who did like comics did not have ways of doing things like me. I did things well, I thought. I could run a car better than Hernsley Jones.
I liked the way the women’s dresses trailed on the floors. I wanted a dress like the one I had seen. It was pink and orange and too many things all at once. I liked too many things all at once. Some people maybe thought that a dress like that was too cramped, too many things all at once. I didn’t think so. I liked cramped and too many things and coziness.
My friends said to be neat and behave properly at the party. I didn’t know what they meant by behave properly but I thought that I was doing it. My opinion was pretty good and what I thought usually held. I liked having my thoughts held. All my friends said it was a good thing, and when we got together to talk about things they always listened to me. That made me think of times when nobody did really listen to me. I was just little then. That was what the party made me think. I didn’t hear anything because it—something—stopped me, made everything a little blurry like a bad daguerreotype.
If they went out I was supposed to, too. I didn’t know how to go out. There was a door that was big and shiny like a polished seashell I have. I like collecting seashells. I put them to my ear and hear the ocean. But I didn’t think that big heavy doorknob was made for turning. I saw more rain than grass outside. The door would just upset that. The natural order of things.
I did things well, I thought. My opinions were held. My friends told me so. The noise was so bad that I thought I would fall to the floor with all the dancing people and those nice women’s dresses that trailed on the floor. But I didn’t. Or at least I don’t think so. I can’t tell what happens. It’s not my responsibility, after all. I sat a little and waited and thought there was something wrong with the natural order of things.