My Opinion on Snail Mail

I'm not sure about you, but I always like to receive personal letters. There's something intriguing about a letter--maybe it's the idea that it came from so far away (as most of my letters originate from), or that it takes more time to write and respond to a letter. When I check the mail I'm always happy about three things:

1.) Letters
2.) Netflix (we just received our new movie!) 
3.) Coupons (I think that using scissors to cut them out holds a certain appeal here, besides saving money)

I get a certain excitement from writing, and receiving, a letter that I don't get with email. It could be the stationery--I do have, after all, a lovely pinkish flowered print paper, and another one that's designed to look like a scroll. (My mom gave them both to me for my birthday, or maybe Christmas.) It's very fun to write longhand when you have interesting paper to write on. [Author's Note: I also have a fairly wide collection of pens that range from your typical ballpoint, to ones I've stolen from hotels, and a cherished few I received as gifts. The latter are the most fancy and the least-used, for the purpose of saving ink.] 

Another thing is that there's more anticipation with letters--you have to actually wait for about a week, sometimes more, sometimes less, for the person to receive the letter, read it and comprehend it, and then send a reply. With emails, you send it one minute, get a reply the next. It's instant gratification, and I don't know if that's always good. If anything, snail mail teaches us a set of very important virtues which are sometimes lost in this 21st Century world of typing emails on cell phones and getting instant responses. Writing and receiving snail mail teaches us patience, composition skills, and the very important skill of how to lick an envelope.

Confessions of a Couch Potato Part 1

I feel very guilty about my habits. This afternoon, I watched thirty minutes of ABC World News with Charles Gibson while lounging on the couch and doing apathetic leg movements in a penitent effort to exercise. The fact that I'm watching news programming doesn't excuse the fact that I am not exercising as much as I should.

Here are the facts:

• I do not usually walk around the neighborhood more than twice a week.
• I dread the idea of walking up the steep hill on which I live, which leads to the above fact.
• I like eating foods that are probably fatty, like cheese and yogurt.

I am making some half-hearted attempts at exercise. For instance, I tried to do splits. Because this is an impossible feat which even my older sister (who is, compared to the rest of our family, a workout guru) has not accomplished.

But I must now depart to go on a walk around the neighborhood. It's my first this week.

Response to Comment

I recently received this comment (on a different website):

There is very little evidence in her [my] writing that she understands how
the world works. In other words, her writing lacks verisimilitude, a quality of
entertaining, engaging writing (even in fantasy novels).My conclusion is hard to
prove because it requires negative evidence. But every good story reflects
something about our shared reality--our existence, the choices we must make, the
difficulties of being human (even in stories about non-humans), the moral
ambiguity, etc. There is little of this in her writing.

I can understand why the commenter may have felt this way. Many of the stories I post on this blog are fantastical in nature, often with seemingly little connection to real-life situations. I wanted to note that I write many of these stories with third-grade audiences. As a result, I talk about things that are interesting and fun to a third grade audience--which will probably not be the same thing that feels realistic to the (presumably adult) commenter who wrote this.

So, just as a disclaimer, any stories I post here where I say "written with" an audience, or with elementary schoolchildren, will bear a reflection of that fact. Which is not to say, of course, that I don't enjoy writing them. :)

Story Written with Lincoln Elementary Third Graders

It was a cool but sunny September day in Indianapolis when Dan Kuso decided to take his daughter, Abigail, and their pet, Superdog, for a walk.
Superdog was no average dog. For one thing, he was a lot smaller than an average dog. Many people thought that Dan Kuso was walking a cat on a leash. He had to explain that Superdog was a special breed of dog.
Superdog also had the incredible ability to talk. However, he didn’t do it much in public, in case he scared people.
Abigail also had some special powers. She was able to turn invisible, but only for five minutes at most. You see, Abigail really liked to wear bright colors, and it’s harder to stay invisible that way.
Dan Kuso knew that he had an incredible daughter and an incredible dog, but he never imagined that one would be kidnapped.
Which is exactly what happened.
Eight minutes into the walk, Dan let Superdog off his leash to run around the park. It had been fifteen minutes when he started getting worried.
“I wonder where he got off to,” he said anxiously to Abigail. “He usually comes back within ten minutes at most.”
“Hmmm, this sounds fishy,” Abigail said. “Maybe he’s investigating something. Superdog! Superdog!” she shouted, ignoring the funny looks some people gave her. There was no response.
They walked all around until they came to Superdog’s favorite resting rock, a huge boulder which the locals called “The Dog,” because it looked kind of like a dog. He was nowhere to be seen. But there was a note on the rock, stuck with gum, that read,

“I HAVE SUPERDOG.
PAY ME 500 DOLLARS OR ELSE.
MAIL IT TO PO BOX 1234.
-MR. WEEVIL EVIL.”

“500 dollars!” Abigail exclaimed. “This is crazy. Are you sure that this…Mr. Evil Weevil person has Superdog?”
“Why else the note?” Dan Kuso asked grimly.
“We’ve got to find out where Superdog and this evil Mr. Evil are hiding,” Abigail said determinedly, clenching her fist. “Or else.”

First Dan and Abigail went to the post office, where they asked about PO Box 1234. They confirmed that the owner’s name was Mr. Weevil Evil, and they were able to get a phone number. It was 123-456-7890. Dan immediately called it on his cell phone.
“Hello,” someone hissed in a very unfriendly tone at the other line. “Whaddya want?”
“I want Superdog back,” Dan said firmly.
“Sure thing,” Mr. Weevil Evil said. “With five hundred bucks in the PO Box.”
“Not happening,” Dan said.
“Mwahahahahahaha!” Mr. Weevil Evil cackled, and then the phone line went dead.

After searching Mr. Weevil Evil’s phone number and name in People Finder on his computer, Dan Kuso was able to find that he had dropped out of Lincoln Elementary in second grade and had inherited a fortune from his great-great-grandparents.
“Why he’d need ransom money I don’t know,” Dan said to his daughter. “If he has this great fortune…?”
“Maybe he wasted it all,” Abigail shrugged. “Anyway, does it give us an address?”
“No, but if we go to this Lincoln Elementary, we may be able to ask the principal.”

So they hopped into the car and headed to Lincoln Elementary to see the principal. Mrs. Wilkowski saw them in her office, looking a bit puzzled.
“You said that you wanted to find a lost dog?” she said quizzically. “I don’t think you should start here; the pound might be a better option.”
“Um--er, this is a special dog,” Dan said, having no other better way to explain it. “We know where he is, but it’s an issue of accessibility.” This was the nicest way he could put “one of your former students stole our dog.” As soon as he brought up Mr. Weevil Evil’s name, Mrs. Wilkowski nodded sadly.
“He was always making trouble, tripping people on the playground, screaming so loudly during class that nobody could hear a thing, and, when he was sick, he tried to sneeze all over the other children.”
“Wow,” Abigail said. “That’s pretty intense.”
“Yes, and we tried our best to keep him here; we sent him to counseling, we tried to hold conferences with his parents, but no luck. He insisted on dropping out--which sounds ridiculous, in second grade.”
“Yes. And now he has our dog,” Dan Kuso said. “Is there any chance that you might have an address where we could reach him in your paperwork?”
“It’s possible…I would have to ask the secretary.”

Dan and Abigail left Lincoln with an address--1234 Numbers Street. When they drove here, they saw what looked like an abandoned, decrepit shack. The wood was rotting, and they could see mice scattering around inside.
“It looks like this is where he used to live,” Abigail said. “We might as well do some investigating, though.”
They peeked inside, holding their noses, because it smelled like petrified bat poop, and, luckily for them, saw a little note.
“Forwarding Address/New Address--4321 Alphabet Street.”
They immediately jumped in the car and arrived at a humongous mansion.
“We can’t just get up and go to the front door! What if he’s armed and dangerous?” Abigail asked. “I’ll go invisible, sneak around the back, and find Superdog!”
Which is exactly what she did.
Little did Mr. Weevil Evil know that Dan Kuso had a daughter who could go invisible. He only knew about the dog. So he was utterly unprepared--he was shaving, in fact--when Abigail Kuso burst in, invisible, grabbed Superdog, and, just for fun, threw a vase across the room, which made Mr. Weevil Evil jump eighteen feet into the air (he had superpowers too) and fall with a sickening crunch onto the floor, shouting, “My dog!”

And happily ever after.

Story Written with Video Conferencing Third Graders

It was a sunny September morning, and Jasmine, Diannela, and Dante were heading to the pool with all kinds of flotation devices.
Diannela was the first to jump in the water.
“It’s nice and cool!” she said happily.
Dante was more cautious, and tiptoed into the water anxiously.
“I’m not sure how well I can swim right now,” he said nervously.
“Oh, come on. You’re the best swimmer,” Jasmine said, smiling.
They were having fun swimming, doing underwater cartwheels, and back-floating when Angel came in. Although he was able to fool most people with the name, he was actually very bad-tempered.
When he saw Jasmine back-floating peacefully, he jumped right into the water next to her, sending water splashing everywhere--and up Jasmine’s nose. Coughing, she had to get out of the water.
“Hahahaha,” Angel snorted. “Can’t even back-float! I did that when I was two.” Diannela edged away from Angel, but he started splashing water all over, making it impossible to swim without holding your nose.
“Can you please stop that, Angel?” Dante asked politely.
“Oh, come on! You’re just being a scaredy-cat like usual,” Angel scoffed. “Can’t you take a little water?” he said, and with that, he sent a great wave right into Dante’s face.
Fed up with Angel’s annoying habits, they got out of the pool and went to speak with the Pool Manager. He listened and nodded.
“That Angel kid has been a problem around here, always splashing around and annoying other people,” he said. “Go back to the pool, I’ll solve your problem.”
Wondering what the solution was, Dante, Diannela, and Jasmine headed back to the pool to start swimming. Angel laughed and just sent more waves toward them. But, to their great astonishment, they saw the water quickly draining, until they were standing up with water up to their ankles.
“What’s happening?” Angel demanded, stomping his feet.
“Until you start playing nice, the pool is staying dry,” the manager said. Angel frowned, but said,
“Okay, I’m sorry.”
The water slowly began to rise, and the four swam without any further incident.

THE END.

Education Articles

Dear Readers,

If you would like to read my blog posts about education and my kid's eye view of the classroom, go to www.educatorsroyaltreatment.com . The Educator's Royal Treatment is a blog I write for. You can go to the Adora Svitak page to find all my articles. This blog is a wonderful resource for educators. Have fun reading!

-Adora

Story Written with Audience at Milton-Freewater Public Library, OR

Sorry for the delay in publishing this! This is a story I collaborated on with an audience at the Milton-Freewater Public Library. I put an ending on it, but be sure to come up with alternatives:



Ridanna Taksvi is an average height for Tinytown Village; she is one inch tall, like most of her friends. Although she may be short in stature to us humans, Ridanna’s bravery was no less for it. In fact, little Miss Taksvi had a positively scandalous amount of courage.


“She’s always running off to some place or another,” her mother, the village dress-mender-and-maker, who was two inches tall, groaned. “The other day she walked two feet out of the village. Can you imagine that? TWO FEET!” Her underlings, who helped her find thread, all oohed and aaahed.


“That is quite terrible,” her secretary, Katisha, agreed.


“And as though that’s not enough, the other day she walked to the swamp all by herself! A girl of her age isn’t supposed to go to the swamp! It’s dangerous, all kinds of dragonflies about—and they say that even that huge beast, the guinea pig, has been sighted!”


“A guinea pig! My goodness!” Katisha said.


“I heard reports of a bullfrog,” the chief thread-finder, Miss Jenny, said importantly.




Little did the women know that as they spoke, Ridanna was creeping through Muddy Frogwater swamp on her hands and knees. She hacked away at vines with her trusty sword (it was an ancient needle that had apparently been dropped by giants) and ignored the cuts on her arms from nettles.


“I wonder when I’ll see that giant building they all talk about,” she said, flying over quicksand with her iridescent bluish pinkish wings. She flew for two feet before becoming utterly exhausted—it was the longest distance she had ever flown—before she heard a strange sound. It sounded like the screech of a wailing cicada.


What could the noise be? she thought. As she flew closer, the noise became louder. If it was a cicada, it would have to be nearby.


But barely a minute had passed before suddenly Ridanna saw an odd surface—it was red—and crashed into it with a sickening thunk.





Meanwhile, Ridanna’s mother was closing up the dress shop.


“I wonder where Ridanna’s got off to now,” she wondered out loud. She heard a great commotion outside and peeked out the window.


“Mrs. Taksvi! Mrs. Taksvi! Your daughter is missing—this time for an hour!” the local newsboy shouted.


“What?” Mrs. Taksvi shouted. “She’s never been gone that long—surely you’ve gotten it wrong—news media, you never can trust them…”


“No, ma’am,” the newsboy said subserviently, taking off his cap. “She’s missing. Some say for good. She was last seen in the swamp—”


“The SWAMP! I’ll fry her ears, that presumptuous guinea pig of daughter—”


“They say she was headed toward a Giant Building—”


“Oh mother-of-needles-and-thread…” Mrs. Taksvi said before fainting onto the floor.





Ridanna awoke and found herself lying next to a red brick wall. It was the tallest, widest brick wall she had ever seen in her life. She rolled over, her eyes hurting from all the red, and found herself looking at an even brighter building, a huge house--it was purple.

"Giants do use giant colors," she muttered, thinking it a very clever little phrase. The next moment she found herself lifted into the air on a very smelly--could it be a foot? There were ten huge toes and ten slightly filthy toe nails poking out from a sandal. A giant's foot! she thought, and hung on tightly.

Ridanna felt dizzy, her nails digging into the giant's foot, as the ground sped by before her eyes. That would have to be two feet--and then three--and then four--! To think she had come this far--it was too much.

"Some fly on my foot," she heard a booming female voice say, and felt herself being waved through the air. Luckily, Ridanna stayed on. She felt a sudden change in temperature, and looked up in wonder. She was inside the Giant Building.



"I think I'm going to faint," was the first thing Mrs. Taksvi said when she awoke.

"Don't worry, dear, I'm sure she'll turn up," Mr. Taksvi said reasurringly. He strongly doubted this, but he was a Magic Bullfrog-Beast Elixir salesman and used to making false claims reassuringly.

"Dad, is she really lost this time?" Pifreyinn, Ridanna's little brother, inquired skeptically.

"Is it another false alarm, maybe? I mean, have you checked the grain cellars and everything?" Pileyinn, commonly known as Piley, demanded.

"She has to be somewhere," Ridanna's older sister, Beatrishee, offered hopefully.

"Somewhere--could be anywhere!" Mrs. Taksvi moaned. "I knew I shouldn't have entrusted her to you! You and your babysitting--babylosing, more like--"

"Who's talking?" Beatrishee responded angrily with a flip of her sunstrand-highlighted hair. "Like you ever paid that much attention to Danna!"

"You and your repulsive rebellious ways! I've had enough of you--"

"That's enough!" Mr. Taksvi bellowed. As a salesman, he was also accustomed to using his loud voice to intimidating effect. The Taksvis cowered before him. "What we need is a search party. I've had enough of standing around and no action. We'll get Aunt Alefraeda--"

"Aunt Alefraeda?" the Taksvi siblings groaned in synchrony.

"Yes, your Great-Aunt Alefraeda, and her Great Big Dogs, the fierce Chihuahuas. Come on. We're Taksvis! We'll find Ridanna--somewhere!"



Ridanna found herself in a gargantuan room, her ears hurting from the noise and the transportation. Luckily for the little creature, her human host had taken a seat and Ridanna was able to hop off, sneak underneath some super-sized chairs, and fly unnoticed to what looked like a table. And there it was--that noise--even louder, so loud it made her ears cry out and wiggle of their own accord. (This was unheard of.) It was, she heard, and Ridanna savored this word--a violin.

But it was soon--too soon, Ridanna thought--that she heard another noise, and far less pleasant. For, coming from the outskirts of Muddy Frogwater Swamp, was the noise of a team of yipping, angry chihuahuas.



"Stupid girl," Great-Aunt Alefraeda said enthusiastically, munching animatedly on a shapeless, tasteless stick of hardened porridge. "Always knew she'd get off there somehow. Had to come sooner or later. She isn't getting any inheritance money from me. Nosiree."

The entire Taksvi family was riding in a cornhusk carriage, pulled by Great-Aunt Alefraeda's vicious chihuahua. Great-Aunt Alefraeda was herself rather vicious, and the tallest woman in all of Tinytown Village. She was so tall that her height could not be measured on a standard school ruler. Such height was required to deal with a chihuahua; indeed, such height was required to deal with the nettles and branches of Muddy Frogwater Swamp. The rest of the Taksvi family did not look so well. Beatrishee was an unhealthy shade of green, and Mrs. Taksvi was holding back vomit. Mr. Taksvi was trying to look brave and failing utterly. Pifreyinn and Pileyinn were enjoying themselves heartily, however.

"There's the Giant Building," Great-Aunt Alefraeda said grimly. "I 'spect our little Miss Taksvi is inside."

"Mother of needles-and-thread!" Mrs. Taksvi said, and for the second time that day, went into a full faint.


Ridanna, her heart heavy, flew out of the room--which, she saw with amazement, was with giant letters titled the Albee Room. She had had a wonderful adventure, but she knew her family was waiting outside. Or maybe not, as she felt a tug at her arm.

"Pifreyinn?" she knew without turning her head. She felt another tug, on her other arm.

"Pileyinn?" she smiled. "C'mon, I want to show you something." And, her two little brothers hanging eagerly on either arm, she flew back into the Albee Room.

THE END.

Where are you from?

Where are you from? To some of you, this answer might be simple. But I like to ask questions about simple things--How detailed should one get when answering the question? Should you say the name of the city and the state, or just the country or the planet? Should you mention your neighborhood? And then what does "from" mean anyway? Does it mean where you're living currently? Or where you were born? Or a place you used to live? Or the place you most identify with? Or the place where your parents were from?

The reason I ask is because, when I'm delivering classes through video conferencing, kids always ask me "Where are you from?" Here are a few different versions, for your information; see if you can sort them out.

1. I'm "from" Springfield, Oregon, the United States.
2. I'm "from" Redmond, Washington, the United States.
3. I'm "from" Renton, Washington State.
4. I'm "from" the US.
5. I'm an Earthling.

---

Answers:
1. Where I was born
2. Where I live
3. Where I used to live
4. The country I live in
5. What I am (to be used probably only when speaking to extraterrestrials)

---

So, where are you from?

Milton-Freewater Public Library Presentation

Dear Oregonians (or any out-of-stater reasonably near the town of Milton-Freewater, Oregon),

I will be presenting at the Milton-Freewater Public Library on August 6th, this Thursday, on reading and writing. I will be reading from my poetry book, Dancing Fingers. My sister and co-author, Adrianna Svitak (www.adriannasvitak.com), will be playing the violin. There will be an interactive descriptive writing activity.

Hope that you can make it!

-Adora

House Cleaning

The one good thing about having bad eyesight is that one can blame the grime on the floor on eyesight or lack thereof instead of on one’s own laziness. Which is not to imply that I was lazy, or deliberately missed the piece of grime in question…

To give you some perspective, we are doing house cleaning, and all throughout the house is heard the noisy sound of a vacuum cleaner sucking in symphony with the swiffing (I know that’s not a word) noise of the Swiffer Sweeper. One can hear the sounds of toilets being flushed, bubbling with cleaner, and of mirrors being scrubbed with disinfecting rubbing alcohol—an oddity that I indulge.

However much I despise house cleaning, it is pleasurable to look upon a spotless, shining room and contrast that with the filthy image before. Of course, that is soon spoiled by somebody pointing out a stray hair missed there or a smashed piece of gum kicked there. And so the cleaning begins again…

My Great American Road Trip

NBC has recently launched a new reality TV show called "Great American Road Trip." I had a concern about the show--who knows what "reality" is any more on TV? Even if you film every single passing hour, you will probably still edit it down to the most "exciting" bits--which will perhaps not present an accurate view of the subject. For instance, if I filmed the entirety of my recent road trip and shared it with you, you would see much film of my sister and I sleeping; staring at each other meaninglessly; sitting silently; eating cookies at rest stops; and my dad talking about basalt formations and ancient geologic stuff (which would probably be interesting to some people but probably not to all of my audience). Thus what we see on TV is not all there is to see.

Instead of criticizing a road trip on television, however, I should probably talk about my own, which was recently concluded. After my mom and I returned from DC, we packed our bags--actually, we just reviewed the bags we had already packed--and set off. My sister Adrianna was attending piano camp in Eastern Washington, so we drove there to see her concert. From there we drove on, on a steep and winding byway filled with occasionally invisible swarming bugs, to Missoula, Montana. A note on the bugs: we still have (available for viewing, as soon as I take a picture) at least a hundred smashed bugs on our car hood. We thought that it was rain, but we then figured out that, in the words of our dad, we had been "comitting mass insecticide." All I can say is that it was not purposeful, and that the bugs shouldn't have been on a desolate road late in the afternoon anyway. We occasionally saw roadkill, and my sister, who, in my opinion, is rather too squeamish about dead animals, gave a high-pitched yip every time she saw any dead animal--including those on our front window.

We stayed at the La Quinta Inn in Missoula (which I would recommend, as it has a nice pool and a continental (or, as I like to claim, "confidential") breakfast. Adrianna and I went swimming. She lounged around in the hot tub, and I shouted that she was too lazy and then proceeded to splash cold water on her, to which she responded by throwing hot water at me. This went on, until we finally decided to explore a novel form of fun in the water--bringing chairs into the shallow end! Actually, the chairs were fine--we had conveniently chosen the ones made of plastic. And then we set off for Bozeman, where we would be staying. The goal of our trip was to see Yellowstone National Park (which we, miraculously, accomplished).

At this point I would like to talk about a few highlights of the trip:

-The Bozeman Hot Springs

The Bozeman Hot Springs were intensely relaxing. I say intense because I was constantly going from the main pool to the steam room to the sauna to the ice-cold pool to the hot tub back to the cold pool and then to the main pool to do rapid swimming and then hopping out again to complete the cycle. That sentence, by the way, is probably a run-on, and was meant to be read rapidly in order to display the hurriedness of my actions. The entire complex has 19 pools--18 of them indoors, and one outside. Inside, it did smell slightly of sulfur, but otherwise it was a very enjoyable experience indeed. And I would have to get used to sulfur for my next trip--

-Yellowstone National Park

We saw quite a wide variety of things at Yellowstone. We started, of course, with Old Faithful. We were quite lucky and we saw it just a few minutes after we had started watching. Then, we saw a geyser called Giantess erupt. Giantess apparently had not erupted since much earlier in the year, and so it was rather special that we were able to see it. We saw it erupt from the boardwalk, another interesting feature--the raised wooden pathway to keep people from stepping on thermally active and dangerous ground. There was a geyser that was quite active--I am not sure if it was Giantess or something else--and many people on the boardwalk were actually splashed by the water coming down. My sister insisted on "joining the fun." To fully enjoy a large erupting geyser, I think that one must have a generous tolerance of sulfur--which, I am afraid, I lack--and so I felt more than a little sick as a giant sulfurous steam cloud passed over us. Both my sister and I got wet, but surprisingly, the geyser's water was cold, apparently because it had gone through the air. We also saw the Artist's Paint Pots, some mud pots, fumaroles, the Mammoth Hot Springs, an infant geyser, bison and buffalo, and too many other things to remember.

-Museum of the Rockies

I was very glad to be able to visit a museum during this trip--vacations feel more proper to me when I've seen a museum. Museum of the Rockies was a very interesting museum; it contained lots of interesting things regarding dinosaurs, and also the history of the Earth. But my favorite was the living farm. It had chickens and a wide variety of vegetables, and a two-story historically furnished house. One is able to go throughout the house and touch most things (luckily for me!) Also, you can try on clothes in a certain room, and write on slates, play with rag dolls, etc.

-Gingko Petrified Forest

We were driving back home and noticed a state park sign for "Gingko Petrified Forest State Park." My dad figured that we would probably not come that way again, and so we entered the park. Not only did it offer beautiful, scenic views, it also had an interesting interpretive center about the history of the gingko petrified forest, and an explanatory video called "Trees of Stone" about how the trees were petrifid.

-Eating in General

Some of the culinary highlights of my vacation were: eating ice cream at Yellowstone (I particularly enjoyed the raspberry flavor); eating ice cream at the Big Dipper ice cream parlor in Missoula; eating delicious pizza and "pesto lodgepoles" in Bozeman; and finally, eating at The Noodle Boat Thai restaurant in Issaquah before we finally drove back home.

I hope that you have enjoyed reading this epic description. I hope that, with all the dividing, uniting, low points and high points of any extended trip in a car, I have painted an accurate picture of my Great American Road Trip.