Schooled, Over

       I just finished "Schooled" by Gordon Korman. The main character, Cap went to school for the first time ever knowing only his grandmother, Rain and he came out knowing 1,100 new people and names. He became 8th grade president (they always choose the stupidest kid in the school so they can make fun of him) he became the best 8th grade president they ever had, he wasn't stupid, he actually knew a lot. Cap taught everybody in the school so much so when he had to leave school because Rain was out of the hospital everybody in the school held a memorial service (they thought he as dead because he left without saying goodbye). Cap went to the memorial service because it was supposed to be a dance, he wanted to see what a dance was like.
       This book taught  me that you have to give everything a try, don't judge a book by it's cover. Cap didn't want to try a new real school, he said he was going to hate it before he even spent a day there. After he learned some stuff he realized school isn't that bad. After about a month he loved school. He got to know a ton of new people, even though he thought it would be horrible to know more than just his grandmother and a few other people at Garland Farm.

Memoir

Santa- Real or Not?

Presents, millions of them under the tree, some as big as I was. We had all gotten up early that day. Christmas time is my favorite holiday of the year, sometimes my favorite day too.

           

            “Mom, should I open the biggest or smallest present first?” I asked excitedly.

            

            “I don’t care, which ever one you want.”

            “This one!” I said, literally flying across the room to it. I took out the longest and heaviest one from the tree and dragged it out to the center of the room. I then looked on the label to see if it was for my little brother, Lucas or me.

It never occurred to me but those letters on the card were written in black capitol letters, the same as my parents’ handwriting. I thought about it for a while, and then I realized my facial expression was showing how out-of-holiday-spirit I was. I quickly covered it up, “Awww, I wish it was for only me.”

            “Well, not everything can be for only you,” my dad tried to cheer me up.

Nobody could ever cheer me up, I didn’t want to tell them the real reason I was sad. My brother and I zoomed through all the presents; I tried to act happy, getting all those presents, but you just can’t actually be happy when you just figured out, your favorite holiday character is not real.

*                                                         *                                                       *

Later that day, I had just gotten out of the shower when I caught mom walking down the long, green, hallway “Mom! I need to ask you a question.”

“Ok, what is it?” she said walking towards me. I slowly started to walk towards her.

“Ummm, I can’t let Lucas hear it,” we were standing right in front of his room.

“Ok, let’s go to your room.” We walked down the hallway for what seemed like forever into my room and sat on my bed. My hands started to sweat.

“Ummm, is Santa real?” I felt weird asking my mom that, it wasn’t the best way to start a conversation with your parents

“Ummm,” she was kind of awkward with it to.

“I realized it was your handwriting on the tags from the presents,” I said trying to urge her on. As I waited for her to talk, my bright yellow room seemed to get smaller and darker.

“No,” She dropped her head feeling ashamed; she thought it was to early in my life to know that, “Me and your father are Santa.”

A Hippie, A Buffoon, or A Memory

       Now I am reading "Schooled" by Gordon Korman. This is a young adult novel about a hippie character named Capricorn (or Cap) who is 13 years old. He lives in an old area that no one knows about, with no phone, no parents, and only wooden houses. Cap gets home schooled by his grandmother, Rain. He does not know about any modern things like the Phone, cement houses or policemen. Rain is picking plums off a tree when she falls off and Cap has to drive her to the hospital, she is badly hurt and Cap has to live with someone else. He has to go to a normal middle school and his social habits aren't looking very good, the only person he really knows and socializes with is Rain.
       The writing is very interesting. Each chapter does not have a chapter name, all it says is whose point of view it is from. The title of the first chapter is, name: Capricorn Anderson because it is from Cap's point of view on the accident. The second chapters title is, name: Mrs. Donnelly because that is from her point of view and how it starts out with her taking care of Cap. I like this way of writing, but sometimes it can be a little confusing. Each chapter is a different point of view of the action and who Cap really is, you don't realize how strange he actually is compared to the other kids until you get the chapter with someone from his new grade's thoughts about him. When you get his thoughts, you don't realize how he looks; and when you get Mrs. Donnelly's thoughts you always see how she used to be part of his community, and how she remembers everything about Rain and the community.

The End of Meg's Travels

       Now I have finished "A Wrinkle In Time" by Madeline L'Engle. For my prediction, I had guessed that Meg would come home (with Charles Wallace, Calvin, Ms. Who, Ms. Which, Ms. Whatsit , and Meg's father) and have no time passed at all. I think they had been in the other lands for around three days. They all came back into the broccoli patch 5 minutes before they left, so Meg and Charles Wallace's mom was happy to see them especially Meg's father, and they came just in time for dinner.
       I think there was a certain lesson that Madeline L'Engle was trying to teach us: "don't judge a book by its cover". That lesson tells you that you should learn more about something before you jump to conclusions. At the beginning of the book, Meg finds a person (Ms. Whatsit) and thinks she is a bad person because she was wearing lots of very heavy clothing and she "stole" some blankets to stay warm at night. After Meg got to know Ms. Whatsit, Meg ended up finding out that she is a really nice person. Ms. Whatsit even ends up helping Meg save her father.

This I Believe...

I am abstract. I am different from others. I am myself. You have to believe in yourself to accomplish things in your life. Being abstract is one way to do this. Being abstract means being different. In art being abstract is drawing (or painting or sculpting) something not from nature. So if I draw swirls with square fireworks coming out of it, that would be abstract, you wouldn’t see it in real life (except for maybe a sculpture or my picture).

I have come to believe in this by coming into the art world. Each artist has different strengths. Each artist uses different media (pencil, pen, paint, charcoal…). I have found my strength, in abstract art. In classes I doodle my abstract art in notebooks, in art class I draw my big versions. My work has shown me that I am not only different with my art, but with my life. I am also good at making new friends. I can make new friends because I am friendly, but also because they can come to me. They can come to look at my abstract art and maybe figure out what I am trying to say in it; this is where my friendliness comes in, and I become friendly to the people who find me.

I feel at home in art class. I’ve felt like this since the beginning, in sixth grade. This is when I found my talent in abstract art. Back then, I sat at a little table with three other people, some of who were very annoying. My teacher, Mr. Hornberger, was talking to us about what we were going to do throughout the year (which included making masks, drawing little things, and making miniature paintings), after he gave us our notebooks. I was doodling in mine (obviously). I was trying to draw a flower at first (I think, or it might have been some mountains with a river through it). It turned out like some amazing thing that you would never see in nature. Even though it wasn’t what I was trying to draw, it was still really cool. I found out that because I am different than others in my art class it means I am different than others period.

Some people might try to copy others because they like their style, but I think you should be happy with who you are and not try to be like anyone else. Your friends like you for who you are, not for who you’re not. Being different is a privilege, not a punishment. I believe in being different from others, and you should too.

"New" Book and Prediction

       Now I am reading "A Wrinkle in Time" by Madeline L'Engle. I have been reading this book for about two weeks, but I haven't been able to do a blog post on it yet. The main character, Meg, has left her land with her brother Charles Wallace, and their friend Calvin. They are going to another land to save Meg's father. To get to this other land they "wrinkle" or transport with three creatures (that can change form) named Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which.
      My Prediction is I think that Meg, Charles Wallace, Calvin, Mrs. Who, Mrs. Which, and Mrs. Whatsit will get back to Meg's land and there would have been no time passed since they left. Only these seven people would know that they left, what they did, and how. This would be similar to other fantasy books like "The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe" by C. S. Lewis. In this book the kids leave for Narnia and come back as with no time passed. While they are in Narnia it feels like they are in  there for a long time, over a day.

REVOLT OF THE EVIL FAIRIES ESSAY

In “The Revolt of The Evil Fairies” by Ted Poston the protagonist only wants to be Prince Charming in a school play, but sadly he can’t. Not because he has bad grades or doesn’t say his lines correctly, but because he’s black. He goes through his years at Booker T. Washington and every year he tries out for Prince Charming, even though he knows he won’t get the part.

In the story it says, “This was very important, because the good fairies wore white costumes and the evil fairies black. And strangely enough most good fairies usually turned out to be extremely light in complexion, with straight hair and white folks features.” This shows that they separate darks from yaller in their section of blacks.

Another example from the book is, “There was never any doubt about Prince Charming and the Sleeping Beauty. They were always light skinned.” Even if the darker skinned kids wanted to they could never get the good parts, they were ALWAYS evil fairies and they could do nothing about it. Their parents were all used to this and would nothing to help their children get these parts.

My last example is, “And therein lay my personal tragedy. I made the best grades in my class, I was the leading debater, and the scion of a respected family in the community. But I could never be Prince Charming, because I was black.” This quote shows that the kids realize that they are being discriminated from other students in an unfair way. But they learn to deal with it, just like their parents had to do and did. They feel sad and want to fight for their freedom of rights but they know they can’t they are only kids.

If someone does something mean to you, you might want to do it to someone else. It is the way we are especially with separation, one group gets something better than the other group. Not only do we separate but we separate unfairly too, we don’t separate based on grades or money, we separate on things that aren’t fair, that we can’t help, skin color. Blacks from whites, darks from yaller, what sort of separation will come next?

A Finished Book!

       I finished "The Phantom Tollbooth" by Norton Juster. This book was very interesting, it had many confusing things involved that nobody would understand unless you are reading it, or have read it. My prediction was correct, Milo was able to get to the castle in the sky after getting past many weird animals. He got Rhyme and Reason and brought them back to safety. Then everyone including Milo and everyone he met  partied for three days, then Milo drove in his mini car past the tollbooth, deposited his coin and went home.
       Milo got home safely and changed his mind, there is too much to do in his world, it is not too boring like he thought when he left through the tollbooth.