White Feathers

Do you know how hard it is to type with stiff, numb fingers? Cause I do. Mother Nature can't seem to make up her mind about Utah- Last week, it was sunny and nice and things were growing and it was above sixty. Now, however, she decided to drop a torrent of huge, fluffy snowflakes on us- feather like, really. They filled the air and swiftly transformed our regular nighttime world to some sort of wonderland. It was amazing. I can honestly say I have never encountered such plainly beautiful weather since I lived in Wisconsin. These snowflakes were HUGE, seriously the size of feathers. Oh my word, I wish you could've been here. You know who you are ;)

I ardently hope that this isn't the last time something this amazing occurs to me.

GOOOOO Wisconsin teachers!!

Come on, it's human rights! The schools are going down the drain anyway. Here's wishing the Wisconsin teachers the best at their protests, and wishing that that stupid law is shot down.

Love Wisconsin!

The City of Ember Review Part II

This is the last little bit of the book review I was doing...unfortunately, the internet shut off before I could finish my post. I'm lucky that the last post, however incomplete, even got posted.

*Ahem...* Somehow Jeanne DuPrau manages to make every supporting, every background, every one-time character have a very distinct, very unique personality. Somehow, every single supporting character feels like the main character, too. And it makes it a very fun read when

***SPOILERS***

#1 Everyone from Ember arrives on the surface as Lina and Doon watch

and

#2 When Lina, Doon, Clary, Mrs. Murdo, Miss Thorn, the Hoover sisters, and everyone else runs to put out the fire.

Spoilers are all gone now :)

and it makes the entire book feel very real and three dimensional. There is never a boring part, and everything feels unified and sensational. That is all. Go read it. Now.

The City of Ember Review

I have been reading the City of Ember lately, and I really like it. A lot. It is definitely my most favorite post-Apocalyptic book ever, and I've read my fair share. And plus, Jeanne DePrau did a fantastic job naming the characters- such a fantastic job at naming each supporting character that I scan the books just to read about Mrs. Murdo, or Miss Thorn, or Nammy Proggs, or Clary... Haha. I bet 99% of you won't know what I'm talking about.

So far, The City of Ember and its sequel, The People of Sparks, have been very nice to me. They are certainly worth the read. Right now, they are my favorite books. I vaguely remember The Prophet of Yonwood, a prequel to the entire series following a girl living in a world terrified of war and who's father is one of the Builders (one of the people who built Ember in the first place). I'd suggest either reading the Prophet of Yonwood before or after you read the rest of the books; when I read it, I was reading the entire series in order, and I couldn't wait until The Prophet of Yonwood was over so I could get to The Diamond of Darkhold. But read The Prophet is Yonwood; it's as good as the rest, but it just gets in the way of the story.

Unlike my rather cruel review of The Lost Hero, I give this book 100%. Must I list my reasons?

It's kind of like Curious George - hear me out - you watch helplessly as this stupid monkey wanders, blissfully oblivious, into painfully obvious and easy to avoid situations. Like if George is asked to, say, carry a million dollar vase. Obviously he's going to drop it. You come back ten minutes later and he's sweeping up little shards, making these hideous "AGGHGHHHH" noises, and selling The Man in the Yellow Hat into slavery to pay off his debt. The difference is, the Curious George show runs on stupid blunders like this; the blunders are the plot. In the City of Ember, they further the plot. I mean, the idiotic Builders wrote priceless instructions on PAPER and threw them in a BOX. If I were one of the builders, I'd turn the box into a sealed safe on the wall and print the instructions onto metal. But because they were on fragile paper and sealed in an easily lost box, it created an excellent story.

What School Really Is...Through the Eyes of a Middle-School Student

Schools supposed to be about learning. Right? You learn at school. School = Education. Heh, well, guess what? I'm not getting educated. Millions of kids across the nation are not getting educated. What are they doing, you ask? Why, they are doing nothing but the most ridiculous of jumping through hoops. Hoops? Yes, hoops. Homework. Assignments. Projects. Presentations. Hoops. Do you learn from them? Heck no. Do you have to do them? Absolutely. Jump through them well and you get good grades. Jump through them poorly or not at all... and you fail.

School grades don't reflect what you actually know. They reflect how well you jump through hoops. Yer gonna see that analogy here A LOT...jumping through hoops. But you know what else? We're in a cage. We can't escape if we want to. We can't live life or experience the things we learn in school. If it were up to me, school would end after 6th grade, after you've learned addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. You've pretty much covered everything you're actually going to use in life. The basic sciences, histories, maths, spellings and grammars. THE BASICS.

And then after that, you choose your classes, the direction you think you want to take in life. You like music? Great. Take five music classes. Don't feel stressed to take one music/art class, two science, one math, one history. You could pursue a farming career, or acting, or plumbing, or something else that doesn't require an extensive knowledge of history or math or science. But if you're interested in marine biology, or computer technology, or writing, you could continue to go to school to learn things that are not the basics of everyday life. Advanced sciences, algebra and trigonometry, lots of history, or advanced English. And graduation wouldn't be dependent on the number of hoops you jump through- er, excuse me. Credits you earn- but rather be based on whether or not you feel you are done, or if you have reached the level you wish to achieve.

This would solve many problems, but most of all, it would solve the problem that most people don't even see- cranking us out all the same. We're supposed to be individual, and apparently that's our choice, but how can we be individual if we are all supposed to do the same things as everyone else? Some of our talents go undeveloped. Like arts. But if we aren't gifted in math, we fail in life. What...?

ART CUTS ARE JACKED UP. DO NOT CUT THE ARTS IN PUBLIC SCHOOL. YEAH, YOU OBAMA!! Art is fun. Some people are exceptionally gifted at art, or would genuinely like to become a professional artist. But yet the arts are being cut. So we're even more the same. Obama wants us to be up there with the Asian countries. HA, I say. HAHA! How are we supposed to do that without art? It's actually much more important than many people care to acknowledge.

Without art, school is a rainshower with no umbrella. Seriously. Art class is fun. Drawing is fun. Getting clay all over your hands and making pottery is fun. If you don't have fun at school, then why would anyone care about it? At all? Arts make school fun. You got art class? Good. School's funner for you, then. (As a side note...spellcheck recognizes "funner" as a real word! Yes! We won!) Not even to mention the millions and millions of dollars that schools spend on sports and sports equipment every year? Hey, here's a newsflash. Those kids who aren't really athletic? Like, 50%? They're probably artsy. Art. Artsy smartsy fartsy. And chances are, some of them feel bad about themselves for not being athletic. But if they shine in art? They can draw? Sculpt? Sing? Play violin? They belong. They feel better about themselves. Which leads to less stress, less depression, less suicide. I wish someone up on the top would get wise to this kind of thing.
  

In conclusion, schools are state-funded prison camps.

With loads of hoop-jumping.