Silence and Laughter

This morning, I had the pleasure of viewing a conversation held entirely in silence. I know, it kind of seems like a contradiction in terms, but I'm telling you, the only words spoken from the time it began to the time it ended, the only words that were spoken were "Bless you" when somebody sneezed, and the sneezer was not one of the two conversationalists. For the purposes of this blog, they will be called E.G. and R.J. They know who they are, but all you guys will be left guessing. Ha-ha.

Today, in 5th period, which is Environmental Science, we had a test. (And believe me, that's a blessing all it's own. Have you ever had those moments where you just want to "kill" people? Like not literally kill but you just want to make them go away? That's basically 5th period for me. I love the class, but I can't stand my classmates. So there's a knife murderer that comes out. She basically looks like the guy from "Assassin's Creed". But, anyway, a test day is the day where no one talks. Which means, no one I have to silence with my soul-stealing blade, made of dragon tooth and igneous rock. Man, it's gorgeous.) On test days, one of the-I get the feeling they're not exactly special-ed, but that's really the best name right now-teachers takes several students (some of the ones that are most often subject to my Blade) to another room to take their test. This makes the room even quieter. I often get my test done, if not first, then second or third. So then I get about an hour to do whatever I want to, so long as it's quiet. Usually I choose to write. After all, it's a perfect time. Today, however, the teacher had a project she wanted us to get started on. So I grabbed everything I needed and got to work. Unfortunately, the person sitting across from me was making the only sounds in the room. He has a voice that you can easily pick out of a jumble of voices, so naturally when it's the only voice it's pretty distracting. So I had to stop working.

I don't know why, but after I stopped I spent some time just looking at the ceiling not doing anything. I guess I was just relaxing. But when I started paying attention to the room around me, the first thing I noticed was in my peripheral vision. I don't know what it was, but it was enough to catch my attention.  R.J. What on earth was he doing? So I followed his motion as he threw something across the room. E.G. caught it. I had just stumbled across a cross-room duel, which included spear throwing, upside-down gun shooting, and grenade throwing. 

Now, usually, interactions like this are accompanied by sound, and are just plain annoying. But when it's just the motions, all exaggerated and silent, it's ruddy hilarious. And I had to stifle all of my laughter because people were still taking their tests. 

Then, and this was the highlight, E.G. got ahold of a meter stick. R.J. had been moved across the room so as to discourage cheating (there were only 2 people per table), but had left his bag beside E.G. So he got ahold of it with the meter stick and tried to pick it up. Apparently it was really heavy, and it fell right to the floor. That was funny on it's own, but the teacher didn't even notice, which made it even funnier. Then he managed to bring the bag close and started digging through it. He would pull things out, glare hilariously across the room at R.J. and then place the object on the table. Except-He took R.J.'s asthma inhaler-at least I think that's what it was, I wasn't exactly nearby-and put it into the pocket of his hoodie. Then he pulled out a PopTart. Supreme glare. He shoved it into his hoodie, like you do when you're trying to hide something, you know? You hide it under your jacket? So he stuffed this PopTart into his hoodie. Then he pulled out a large black notebook, and he glared even bigger. Then, I don't know how, but he managed to stuff this notebook into his hoodie. Now perhaps I should say here, that he wasn't shoving this stuff into the bottom of the hoodie. He was shoving stuff into the head hole. And when your head's in the way, there's not exactly enough space for a notebook that big. Then he proceeded to make sure the bag was completely empty and then put it on his head. Later, when he held R.J.'s "heart" up to the sky, he looked like a priest worshipping some sun god. Blimey, it was hilarious! And I couldn't make a sound.

Also-and personally, I think this is the best part-they knew I was watching the whole time. So every time I laughed, they laughed. And every time one of them would look at me, especially E.G., I couldn't help but laugh.

Okay, maybe this was a "you had to be there" situation, but I just thought it was a gift to be able to watch a totally silent conversation take place, not to mention an absolutely amazing comedic opportunity.

What's the point of the ACT?

So now that I'm a junior, I get to take the ACT. Whoopee.

Though the last word was meant as sarcasm, I honestly love taking tests. Freshman year, the morning of my Honors Biology Final, Mr. Allchurch said to me, "I bet you just love taking tests." And though I hadn't realized it until that point (and no, I didn't realize it just because of the fact that when a British man says something, you want to listen), I do. I really do. I told him, yeah, and "It's the only time when everyone shuts up!" Excessive talking at the wrong times irritates me, if you haven't figured that out yet. In addition to that, it seems to me like a break from normal work. On a normal day in Honors Bio, for example, I would take a good 2-3 pages of notes per day, perhaps more. I didn't date my Bio notes then, and now I wish I had. You do far less writing on a test than you do learning the information. And as another addition, I usually finish fairly quickly (although math tests take a little longer from time to time), and then I have a good hour or so to do "Katie things". This includes writing, drawing little one-line doodles that look like something off a Rorschach inkblot test, playing music in my head, or telling myself stories. With the exception of writing, as it is forbidden, I do these things when I finish with a particular section of the ACT test.

Today we took a practice test. Personally, I would have rather been in my classes. We were given the choice not to take it, but we were promised a movie in the theater afterwards and exemption from the remaining classes of the day if we took the test. I planned to use this time to finish up my AP Language homework and work on my novel some more. This never happened. (My school just seems to have problems following through on their claims, and they are so bad at scheduling I once suggested that they should schedule something 30 minutes before they wanted it to happen so that it would actually happen when they wanted it to.) So, yeah, I missed AP Music Theory and had to jump right to Spanish. Why hast thou forsaken me, O ye Pharisee of Probability? (Would you believe I just thought of that now?)

Testing is important. I get that. Each job has certain skills that are essential if that job is to be carried out. As an engineer, you need to know how to do math. As a statistician or a scientist or an accountant, you need to know how to read graphs. If you're going to write anything in your life, you need to know how to write it with the proper spelling and grammar. The person reading that report is going to need to know how to pick out the important bits and remember those. And the ACT does test those skills to an extent. But I don't think the test really works.

Last year, in the second semester of AP Biology, Mr. Allchurch put some articles on to my data stick (everyone else's, too, but they're not the ones writing this blog post, are they?), one of which was one about being a good science teacher, or something like that. I enjoyed reading it. It said that school is the only time in your life that you can't look something up if you don't know it. If you're a professional chemist, you don't need to memorize the atomic masses of every single element, or really even the order they come in on the periodic table. You're probably going to have one right there next to you. A biologist probably doesn't need the knowledge about what photosystem does what in his everyday work, and if he needs it, he can look it up. Just the other day, my science teacher didn't know the name of the Marianas Trench, the deepest trench in the ocean, off the top of her head. She looked it up. Everything is somewhere, and school is the only place where you can't go find it. Sure, it's great if you memorize the information, but people aren't textbooks. That's why we have textbooks. There are many more important things to keep in our heads, like what not to combine if you don't want something to explode.

And that's not even the big part of my objection. I understand that some students would just look up all the information even if there are some things they should know, like in Biology you need to know the structure of the cell, or the formula for photosynthesis/respiration. So I get why they wouldn't make all tests open-book. I don't think the test should be timed.

I hate the math portion of the ACT. I also hate the science portion, but I hate the math portion even more. It's 60 questions in 60 minutes. Anyone who does math for a living has way more than one minute to solve a problem, be it one as simple as a math teacher would have, as long as an accountant would have, or as complex as an engineer would have. You have as much time as you need in the real world of math. Timed tests should not exist. Some people can't work or think under that kind of pressure. That's the same reason why I seldom play timed games. When that ticking clock isn't there, I can come up with a solution to the game in a matter of seconds. But with that clock, the same solution will take me so much more time to come up with. It's the same thing with the math portion. I'm in trigonometry now and I find myself enjoying solving triangles. Today I saw a problem on the math portion that looked like it wanted me to solve the triangle. So I quickly got to work. I saw my angles-I was given two of them- and I subtracted their sum for 180, like I always do. Only then did I read the question and find that I did all that work for nothing. Attention spans are getting shorter and shorter now. This isn't just me. I'm not the only one with the potential to do that.

And the thing is, the test is barely even testing mathematical knowledge. It wants to know that you know the proper formula, sure, but I think what it's really testing is reaction to stress under pressure. I was under the impression that humans were against human experimentation. I'm cool with it, personally, just tell me that's what you're doing and I'll submit like a little bunny rabbit. So long as it's not "oh, we're testing this to see if it's lethal", but rather psychological testing. Fire away with that, because I love it. Also, some people already have bad reactions to math. I read an essay about it once, I think, a professional essay, that said that fear of numbers was a legitimate thing. (I don't think you can have mathematical dyslexia, as I once had someone at school tell me they had, but certainly all the numbers can get you discombobulated.) Some people just aren't math people. And that's cool. I'm not a dancer. My friend "A" is not a singer. My friend "K" struggles with academia. Everyone's good at something and bad at something else. And you can teach people who are bad at math the formulas and all the everything they'll need (and you did read that right), but you can't teach them to be good at math. It's not going to happen. So certainly if we're going to have a test that tests everything, it should have math on it, but it shouldn't be timed. That just makes things worse. And I understand that we can't have people taking the test for the whole day. But that doesn't mean we can't have them stop for meal breaks or come back in the morning, and they can be restricted from answering any questions they answered before the break to prevent cheating.

And here's why I hate the science portion. It bears little relevance to science itself, and that upsets me. I get that it's all about reading graphs. But I keep getting this question about the threshold of hearing versus the threshold of pain. I keep looking at this graph, and I keep reading the explanation of the study they mention at the beginning, but I can't answer the questions. Maybe I want to understand this graph more. I know I do, and I'm incapable of it when I've only got 5 minutes and I'm left to my own devices. My desire for understanding could be preventing me from focusing on actually answering the question. But the first question is usually about finches. This question is the last one. The finch question is an easy one. I've answered it a dozen times in Biology class alone. I look at this graph about hearing and pain and the first thing I think is airplanes. And then I'm kind of stuck on that. I barely even tried answering those questions this time.

Clearly the ACT is in need of some serious reform. As far as tests go, I don't think it's been structured very well. I want to understand why they made it this way. Because I don't see the point of it. I don't see any purpose beyond college and the fact that schools make you take it for taking this test, for spending over 3 hours of my day doing something that I will barely remember later on. I'll remember the rest of high school. I'll hardly remember any of this.

Let's just wing it, okay?

Today I was reading my sister's blog. Mom brought one post to Dad's attention, and I figured reading her blog was better than watching the news. Frankly, I got bored after the first news story I ever watched...ever. But anywho, in reading, I said to myself, "You know, I've got this thing here, and I haven't written anything in some time. I'm going to write a blog post today!"

But then the question came to myself, what on Earth am I going to write about? Whether other people agree or not, from time to time I can be an interesting person, and as such have many things to say. So I made a very wise decision, considering the fact that at this time of day I'm in my goofy state. I made the decision that rather than strain your eyes reading who-knows-how-many individual posts, I'm going to summarize what I was going to put in those posts into a few sentences and put it all here. Bear with me, all right?

When school started 2 weeks ago (school for us in the city started at the regularly scheduled date, which I'm sure some people were disappointed by), I was prepared to have last year's English teacher again. I was surprised to see her room almost entirely cleaned out at Orientation (aka, Paperwork Day) (awesomely enough, the seat I sat at was directly across from the door). I was naturally surprised to learn that she got a new job, but was nonetheless pleased. Though she was not my favorite English teacher, and like a nerd I do have them in a list, I certainly hope she is happy in her new position. Additionally, not only has Ms. Russell left the building, but so has half the staff, including the vice-principal, the science teacher I hated, the Spanish teacher, Mr. Spangler (Mrs. Crockett's replacement), and I think Mr. Allchurch's replacement. I haven't seen her around.

On the topic of Mr. Allchurch, he left. Obviously. In mourning, I took the "Doctor Who" logo out of the front of my AP Biology notebook and have not yet put it in another one. Mr. Allchurch was my favorite science teacher, is on my Top 5 list of favorite people of all time (taking spot number 2, second only to my Mom. Hi, Mom!), and is the only teacher that I still have all the work from. I nearly idolized the man and as such have been in defense of him at least twice. Last year, the AP Biology teacher criticized his teaching style. I'm okay with criticism of anyone. We all need it, but as a Word Weaver, proficient in knowing which words to use and when, I could tell that she absolutely detested the man. This bothered me. You don't think his style of lectures and board notes works? Excuse me, this is a teacher who seldom gives out A's and tells his students this at the beginning of the year, and guess what I got on every report card and nearly every assignment? Would you like documentation? The second time occurred just yesterday. It wasn't so much an affront to Mr. Allchurch as it was to science (and human intelligence), but in my mind, the two are irreversibly linked. The person sitting next to me in my Ecology class said that he "liked Biology more than science. Biology is like the animal body and stuff. Science is all mixing chemicals and stuff." Irked at being interrupted from my book by such a comment, I turned to him and said, "Biology is science." He was unaware of this. I continued, "It comes from the Greek 'bios', meaning 'life', and the Greek 'logos', meaning 'science'!" (Well, technically it means "study of", but my underlying point was valid.)

I know how to make homemade ice cream! In saying this statement to myself, I also discovered that I know how to punch a canary, laughed, and then proceeded to list the steps to myself, because why not? Step 1: Find a canary. Step 2: Ball hand into fist. Step 3: Draw fist back behind head. Step 4: Lunge fist forward into canary. Step 5: Run.

I love our new vocal teacher. She is like Mrs. Crockett, Kantor Rosebrock, and Mrs. Kantor combined, and I love it! If not for needing a schedule change, I would have gladly remained in the position of having her every day. But I did need the schedule change.

Here's a story: I didn't have Government on my schedule. In order to graduate, I need three Social Studies classes. I can get these 3 classes by having an AP History course, but history is not my cup of tea. I would not enjoy the class. So that left Government or I think Law. I've only heard about the Law class. I was in the room once, but not while class was in session. It seems to me as more of a legend than an actual thing. I only know one person who's in the class (the same person I mentioned earlier who didn't think Biology was science), and it seems like the kind of thing Greek legends are about: Wrapped in mystery and so difficult to conquer that only a few people seem to go after it and come out of it alive. But anyway, I needed to add Government to my schedule. No problem. I'll wait till schedule change forms come around. I don't like dealing with my counselor (neither does anyone else who has her. I personally refer to her as the dream killer, because she does not offer encouragement to people when their career choices are relatively unattainable), but I need this change. It's a few days in. I have to assume that she just hasn't gotten down to my name yet. It's an "S". I've gotten accustomed to it. But at lunch just yesterday I was talking to my friend Kelly (Sykes, same counselor) who also requested a schedule change. She told me that the counselors weren't even looking at the forms placed on their desks because there were so many, and the only way she managed to get a schedule change was because she put her form directly into the counselor's mailbox. I said, in stark disbelief, "Are you telling me that I'm not getting my schedule change because of bureaucracy?" She nodded solemnly. "The same bureaucracy I'm trying to get into Government class to learn about?" She nodded again, laughing at the irony of it. (I got my schedule change today, exactly how I wanted it, too. I was surprised.)

I finally have Mr. Drennen as a teacher! Barely 2 weeks in and I love it!

I've only known my new Spanish teacher for a day, and she's okay. A good okay, but I really don't know how she works just yet.

I seriously hope my new Ecology teacher is in tomorrow. She was supposed to come in yesterday, but didn't. All her paperwork is done. She's set up the classroom and even assigned work. What? Is she deathly ill? Can she not be bothered to come in to the room? I don't know the story. But I hope she makes better use of Ms. Pillay's room than Ms. Pillay did.

On the topic of Ecology, the invisible teacher apparently likes to assign group work. I don't mind group work so long as it's in the true definition of group work, that is to say, the whole group works and not just me, but unfortunately, my only experience with ideal group work was in 1st grade, and I squandered it because the assignment was so much fun I wanted to do it all myself. My group genuinely wanted to help. They asked me, "Katie, can we help?" "No!" I said stubbornly, and proceeded to work. In this more recent case, my "group", the table I'm assigned to because I picked the number 6 out of a bag, includes the kid who didn't know Biology was science (henceforth "the guy"), and two girls who were in my Honors Biology class. They know how to do their work and get relatively good grades. Unfortunately for me, the guy jabbers on for the whole class period, whether there's work to be done or not, and keeps the other two girls laughing and not working efficiently. And when we all say, "Do some work, man. We've been done for 15 minutes waiting for you," he does this work without any thought (and it's Ecology. The decisions you make can potentially impact the entire biosphere. You want to think about it.) and then goes right back to jabbering. Yesterday we had to write a paragraph about why we decided to donate hypothetical money to hypothetical charities doing hypothetical work for the environment. I decided to give the whole amount (because that was what they asked for) to a group working on researching renewable resources. In the long run, that's going to be the best thing for everyone. But the guy picked an organization dedicated to feeding people in Africa (which I have no problem with, but we have UNICEF. Let them do their job.) and another dedicated to providing free birth control for Africa (which again I have no problem with, but what does this have to do with the living ecosystem? Someone please explain.) and said that this was what "the group" had decided. I made my own decisions and documented my logic on my paper in clear English, and this logic clearly said that I was against this decision entirely. And then-get this-the guy decided that it was my job to write the paragraph, a paragraph about a decision that I had no say in. By this point, I had turned in my individual paper, because I got the feeling that if I didn't turn it in then and there, it wasn't going to get turned in. I return to the table and the guy keeps going on about "what about the paragraph? we can't turn it in without the paragraph. you have to write the paragraph." At this point, I wasn't even aware that a paragraph was part of the assignment. A paragraph of what? This was explained to me. We had to write a paragraph about why we picked what we picked. I can understand the reason for writing such a paragraph. But I had no say in picking what he said the group picked. And I worked hard the whole time, so why should it be my responsibility to write this paragraph. So as he went on and on about this paragraph, I said, "If you want this done so badly, why don't you do it?" He complained that his hand hurt. That's not my fault. And my hand has hurt many times before. I still work diligently, unless there's something else going on with me causing an extra stressor to come into play. I was trying to tell him, gently, why I thought he should write the paragraph, and what does he do? Goes about talking with his friend as if I wasn't saying anything in the first place.
       Okay, now I already wasn't this guy's biggest fan. He speaks rather incoherently and keeps asking me to tell him a joke. I'm not generally considered a funny person. I just memorize jokes. First day in the class, I told a couple of my drunk people jokes because they helped me to feel comfortable. The crown jewel of my drunk jokes is one about a drunk Superman, which features in it a series of numbers as Superman and a poor dead idiot jump out of the window. I speak these numbers rhythmically when I tell the joke, but it's only because that makes sense to me. To the guy, this seems to become a trademark of the joke. Monday, I ended up passing by him in the cafeteria as I went to go get an audition form for the musical. He stopped me and said, "Tell me a joke." I said I can't; I'm busy. "Tell the one about the 20, 40, 60, 20, 40, 60..." I kept trying to tell him I was busy. I didn't have the time. But then he starts rapping the numbers, pounding on the table to give himself a beat. I see this frequently and try to get away from this as fast as possible, for a number of reasons. I was busy and wanted to get away from him, so I stopped trying to explain, and just left, hoping that he wouldn't notice me when I came back into the cafeteria. The next day, he said, "Tell me a joke. I didn't get to hear one from you yesterday. You were busy." One, I have to be in the right jovial mood to tell my jokes well. Otherwise, it's just me talking, and I can do that anytime. Two, I only have a limited number of jokes that I tell with any frequency and with any quality. The others I just memorized because they're short, but I don't tell them quite well. Three, he doesn't get even the simplest of my jokes. Here's one:

An old woman who's never flown before is going to get on a plane. She says to the pilot, "Pilot, I've never flown before. I'm really scared. Can you promise me you'll bring me down?" The Pilot says to the woman, "Well, ma'am, I've been flying for 10 years, and I've never left anyone up there yet!"

The guy thought that the point was that the pilot was saying the flying was safe. Tell me if you don't get the joke, please. Maybe I don't tell it right. Maybe it's a bad joke. Maybe it's funnier to read. I don't know. But he barely even got my joke about the two drunks walking into a bar:

Two drunks walk into a bar. The third one ducks.

And fourth, it's not my job to entertain him. I'm out of good jokes now. I can't tell him one ever again. But with that rudeness, I'd had it. That was the last straw. So I moved tables. I said to the guy at the table beside mine, "Excuse me, I want to kill him. Can I sit here?" He was very understanding and allowed me to sit at that table for the remainder of the period. When the guy asked me why I moved, and he asked this incessantly as well, I was tired. I had had enough. I had already gotten sick that morning and felt like crud, so when he finally asked for what I made sure was the final time, I said, stressing every syllable, "I don't like you!" And that was the end of that.

On a more positive note, I was writing a song yesterday, and found it rather pleasing to yell at people who weren't there.

So, I've been writing a novel...

I've been writing since second grade, but I didn't start writing anything good until 6th grade. 7th grade wasn't that good. 8th grade was full of teeny projects that never went anywhere. 9th grade I did work on a story that I loved, but I got the strong feeling that it wouldn't go anywhere past my head. But during spring break of my freshman year, I decided to try something with descriptions. So I opened up Word and started to type a murder mystery. Here's what I wrote (it did change from a murder mystery to science-fiction, because I got bored of my murderer):

"The man turned his head right, then left, then right again. His brown overcoat moved with the breeze, revealing his socks to the people standing next to him: one red, one green. His white running shoes, which had been colored on with permanent marker, were torn from overuse. His fedora covered his face; no one could see what he looked like.

Which was good.

Very good.

The light changed, allowing him and the people around him to cross the street. The buildings towered over them and all the sounds of the city bounced off of them, as well as the little bit of heat that the sun released. However, that was of little interest to him. All that concerned him was keeping his coat closed, keeping his eyes down, keeping himself secret. The people that saw him quickly forgot him. He was nothing special: Just a man who kept to himself, and they were a dime a dozen."

That is the beginning of Chapter 1 of a story I wrote in March, 2013. 

There's this program called "NaNoWriMo" (National Novel Writing Month) that I was introduced to in 7th grade. Every November, people from all over the world try to write a novel (50,000 words, officially) in a month. It's not something I've been able to do, so I cheat, starting my novel months ahead of time, and even then I fail to complete it on time. For this year's NaNo (November, 2013), I entered in my novel "The Man That Time Forgot". I had 25,301 words already, and I managed to type up a total of 37,793 words (so I typed 12,492 words in two days-I wrote way more than that in my handwritten copy). That got me to about Chapter 13, maybe 14. By the end of the month, I was in the middle of Chapter 18 (handwritten). I lost in November.

But as it's a 3-day weekend, I started up writing again. I was now typing Chapter 17 (handwritten, I'm in Chapter 23). I had about 46,000 words typed. 

Guess what?

I just started typing Chapter 18, and I'm at 50,095 words. I won NaNoWriMo (even though I'm six months late)!!

ALSO guess what?

My novel is due to have 25 chapters. I have 3 left to write. Oh, yeah! I should be done this summer, and then I can start my junior year with the sequel!

Oh, my, will I have time to do this in college?

Where are you, "are"?: Grammar neglect

You want to know one of the most prominent things I notice when I'm at school?

Consistently bad grammar.

Now, I can understand the occasional mistake. I make grammar mistakes. I make spelling errors, despite my great efforts to the contrary. I can even understand making the same mistake twice, or two mistakes in the same sentence. My brain moves extremely quickly. That's why I stutter, because I'm trying to get out a lot at once while making sure it's grammatically correct. And when I really need to get it out, I'm going to make an error in grammar.

But I really can't stand the consistent lack of one critical word that people who speak slowly leave out. All the time. It's gone. In a deeply insane part of my brain, I want to put up "missing" signs.

Yes, I want to know what happened to the word "are". Where did it go? I know people know how to use it because they can easily read materials that have the word "are" and have no trouble until they encounter a word they don't know (I can understand that, too, until it's a fantastically simple word-once someone didn't know the word "tortoise", as in couldn't read it). But for some reason, they never use it in their verbal speech. Or in their written speech.

One time in class, my teacher handed out these papers with hands on them. These hands were passed around the room and on them we were supposed to write complements to the person who owned the hand. The comments I received, as far as morale goes, were wonderful. But I kept noticing one thing, no matter what the comment was: "you a good singer"; "you hella smart"; "you cool, girl". No, it's not the lack of capitals. When it's not an assignment to be turned into a teacher like an essay or something, that doesn't bother me as much. But, you probably guessed it, I noticed the lack of the word "are".

(One comment I really liked said "you are cute". I figured out who wrote it, too, and with a real runaround, I managed to figure out that he likes me. I like him, too. On his paper I wrote "You're cute and not ghetto." AND HE USES PROPER GRAMMAR! That's a real win point with Katie! But I digress.)

Here's another story. In my vocal class one day, the teacher was talking about what other performances we'd be involved in, "we" meaning "the intermediate class". He said, "None of you will be involved in Senior Showcase." (Senior Showcase, by the way, is sort of like a talent contest for seniors. Whoever the judges decide is best gets I think $500 to use at the college of their choice. I don't remember exactly, but it's big.) I said, "Right, except for [the sole senior in the room]." Then this one kid looked up at the senior and said, "Oh, that's right. You is a senior!" With much effort I quelled my immense distaste as to the wording of this exclamation. "I'm sorry," I wanted to say, "'You is'? Are you sure you said that right? Don't you mean 'you are'?" When I get nitpicky about grammar, I don't stop, and I can get mad.

I don't understand why people are suddenly leaving out the word "are". Is it rebellion? Why do we have to leave out words, then? Isn't the near-constant swearing enough verbal rebellion for this generation? The near-constant slang usage? Is the word "are" too good for them? That's a bit arrogant. Is it their upbringing? Why do their parents neglect the word "are"? Is it societal?

And don't even get me started on the phrase I hate most in this decade. I haven't heard it recently, thank God, but that doesn't make me hate it less. "Ain't nobody got time for that."

Let's disassemble, shall we? "Ain't" is a Webster's-accepted contraction for "am not". To say "I ain't" is actually grammatically acceptable. Now, that doesn't mean I like it, but on a grammatical level I can't protest. However, I can protest all I want to "Ain't you...?", "Ain't it...?", "It ain't...", "I ain't got..." etc. Why? Translated, those phrases are "Am not you...?", "Am not it...?", "It am not...", "I am not got...": Do you see? Do those make sense? Nope!

So now we're at "Am not nobody got time for that." Do you notice that double negative there? Double negatives are always wrong. Here's another thing: "Got" is not the word you would use in this situation. What I would use in this form of the phrase is "have", like "Am not nobody have time for that." As bad as it is, it sounds a little better. I don't mind the meaning of the phrase, it's saying that something's ridiculous, useless, a complete and total waste of time. However, the proper way to have it phrased would be to say, "Nobody has time for that." Or, if you're for the classics, like I am, you could say, "That's ridiculous!" or "That's stupid."

So, if you feel like making Katie happy, evaluate your speech. If you find yourself not using the word "are" as much as you should (or saying "Ain't nobody got time for that"), remember my words. The word "are" is not a curse, and using it will make you sound smarter than your fellows. Going for a job interview? I'd recommend quickly splicing "are" back into your vocabulary, and doing your best to splice out swears. It will make a world of difference.

I need a rant

Feel free to just skip over this; it's not going to be at all similar to the other posts, but I just really need to get this out.

I am an above-average student in pretty much everything. Yes, I do get things wrong, but I make up for it. My best subject for as long as I can remember has always been English. I've never been bad at it. I've been bad at science one year, I've been bad at math one year, I was bad at social studies once. But I've never been bad at English, Reading, Spelling, Literature, all the big ones. However, in all my sixteen years of living, there has been one topic that has been repeatedly covered and I have repeatedly failed to master. That topic is theme and symbolism.

As with pretty much everything covered that I've ever been taught, I learned the definition the first time around. It's a pretty simple definition: Theme-the underlying meaning of a text; Symbolism-a repeated object that represents an ideal or a quality. It's been taught and gone over since second grade when I was first taught to write a story. It was gone over at the same time as plot, character, setting, dialogue, all those literary elements. I understand all the other ones, but not theme and symbolism. So, simple solution, when I write stories, I don't use them.

But then I encounter the problem in the classroom setting. When we learn theme and symbolism over (which we do every year which bewilders me to no end), the class is asked to identify the theme in a particular work of fiction. Everyone else can do it. Whether they've been taught it repeatedly like me or it's just a nertle thing, they get it right off the bat. Guess who doesn't. Yep, that's right-Me.

It's not like I don't try, but I just don't get it. I've figured out why, too. I have a literal brain that perceives the direct meaning of things. I see the little details and compile them into the story. I have a great mind for fiction. I can understand what a character does, why they do it, and what they'll do in reaction to whatever happens. I can make a pretty accurate guess at what they're feeling based on the dialogue and what kind of character they are. I know the plot, I know the setting, and I am very good at it. I'm a brilliant writer, but I don't get theme.

I've said this to my teachers when theme and symbolism came up, and I attempted to answer the questions relating to them to the best of my ability, but the basic point is I don't get it and I'm not going to pretend I do, because what would be the point of that? However, nobody quite seems to get it, especially not my current English teacher. If someone tells me what the theme is, I can find all the evidence to support it. That's the easy part. But you can't expect me to find it on my own, because we'll probably both be a couple years older at least before I do. I love "1984". It's one of my favorite books, and apparently it has a very powerful theme. But it was news to me when I was told that. I saw it for the story, and the character's reactions. They were brilliant and logical and they made you think. But theme? What theme? I love "Fahrenheit 451", too, but theme? Wait, it has one? I didn't even notice. It doesn't occur to me.

When I read a story, I think about what the characters could be, what roles they could have, the story's possible historical context ("1984" was an easy one for this), I analyze the dialogue and interpret the character's emotions, I analyze the plot, I figure in all of the details and construct the setting in my head, I examine relationships and potential relationships and say to the characters, "She likes you! Isn't it obvious? If I could pick it out, you can." The first time I read a story, my brain's a little busy. The second time, I read it for pure enjoyment and look for things I may have missed. It never occurs to me to look for theme. I don't emotional react to the characters-I only did once in "Bridge to Terabithia", the movie, and it's one of my favorites-, I don't see symbols, and I can't find theme.

My English teacher doesn't quite seem to get this. I've told her why I don't get theme and symbolism. I've written it, and I think it's very obvious that I don't emotionally react with people at all. Horror stories don't scare me. Love stories don't choke me up. Humorous stories don't always make me laugh, it depends on the level of the jokes. I like science fiction, but I still don't feel with the characters. I sympathize-I know how they're feeling-, but I don't empathize-I don't feel for them. I was 9 or 10 years old before I told my mother that I loved her. In my early life my mom characterized me as a head with eyes, since I really didn't smile. Emotions are not my strong suit. I'm a thinker, not a feeler.

I've tried to get theme. This morning at about 8 AM, I looked up how to find theme in a story. On the third page I clicked on, I thought I'd finally found a teacher who understood, but then when I looked at a powerpoint he assembled, I discovered that I was wrong. He understood, but not how to teach me. Plus, he said that students who couldn't identify theme didn't have the ability for higher order thinking. I don't know about that. I think at a pretty high level. I just think very literally.

In 9th grade we read To Kill a Mockingbird. The symbolism in it was pretty obviously stated, when Miss Maudie started talking about why it was a sin to kill a mockingbird. They didn't eat up gardens or do anything wrong. They just sang sweet music for people. I don't remember any theme, or whether or not we discussed it, but I remember doing really great on the first semester final. I know that theme and symbolism aren't always stated outright, but do teachers know that? Just because I got all the questions on theme and symbolism right on one test doesn't mean that I get it. Test results are not always dependable. It depends on the type of question, the question itself, the student, the teacher, the content, all sorts of things, and any detective or anyone that works with what humans do, knows that you can't just trust one thing. You have to draw evidence from many sources before making a conclusion. I'm a science student. I know that. Teachers should know that if students do. Teachers should know more than the student. Sometimes they don't, but as a general rule they should know more than the student in at least one thing.

I don't have anything more to say right now, but I'm feeling better.

Zombies: Why I don't like World War Z

A friend of mine keeps saying, "Happy Zombie Appreciation Month, everybody." I don't get what the big deal is now about zombies. They are neither living nor dead. You know that question, "If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" One I've been toying with that's just as perplexing: "If there were zombies on the moon, would it be life on the moon?"

I don't care for zombies, either as a writer or as one of Hollywood's target audiences. I saw "World War Z" on July 4th this year. My friends (who love zombies) thought it was a fantastic movie. As a writer, I thought it was bad. Here's why:

1. The quality of the zombies (and I'll discuss that later)
2. The ending was a deus ex machina that basically ripped off "War of the Worlds", and when you rip off H.G. Wells, one of the awesomest sci-fi writers of all time, you're desperate.
3. I went through the whole movie not knowing the main character's name. I'm sure they said it at some point, because Cinema Sins knows what it is (Gerry, apparently), but as far as I was concerned, he was either "Brad Pitt", "Thor lookalike", or "Dad".
4. You could not feel for any of the main characters. "Oh, Gerry lost his family. Oh how sad." Yeah, why do I care? Granted, when I saw "The Hunger Games", I didn't cry when Ro (Ru? What was her name? The little black girl who could sound like a mocking jay.) died, but the rest of the theatre did. I don't have an emotional reaction when something bad happens to a character at all. No one had an emotional reaction when Gerry's family was sent off that boat. I felt more for the Mexican boy who lost his parents, and I don't know his name either.
5. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. I haven't read the book, and I intend to despite how much I hate the movie. I can follow the story. That's one thing I'm good at. But there's a lot of things that just don't make sense to me. "The zombies climbed over the wall in Israel, but who cares? We're going to make a wall to prevent the zombie on the plane getting to us!" There are times when I disagree with Cinema Sins, but when they did this movie, I agreed wholeheartedly.

The movie had some redeeming qualities, as it took the time to explain some things to the audience and leave just enough ambiguity to keep us from leaving the theatre, but that doesn't save it from my fiery inferno. Now, I said I would discuss what I meant by "the quality of the zombies", and so I shall.

Zombies have changed a lot over the years, as all mythological creatures must. I don't know much about zombies, as I feel they're overused, but as I understand it, zombies started out slow. "World War Z" made them fast, which I appreciate. With a slow zombie, it's like a sarcastic, "Ah. A zombie is chasing me. Help." With a fast zombie, it makes it really life-or-death. I don't know exactly what the "Thriller" video did for zombies, but I've observed that a lot of zombies nowadays resemble in some way the "Thriller" zombies. Also, as with a lot of mythological creatures, we're very unsure as to where zombies fall: Are they alive, or are they dead? Let's take a count:

Werewolves: Alive
Ghosts: Dead
Bigfoot: Alive
Michael Meyers: Alive (and I count him because he is supposed to scare people)
Witches: Alive (but possibly somehow genetically altered)
Frankenstein's Monster: Alive
Skeletons: Dead, yet reanimated
Everything in "Corpsebride": Dead, except for our hero, his boring family, and everyone in the village
Loch Ness Monster: Alive
Dragons: Alive
Mermaids: Alive
Spirits (ghosts with a clear outline): Dead
I know, I know, I probably left some out. I had a hard time coming up with anything after Bigfoot.

Okay, not a lot of things that are undefined, but I digress. Vampires and zombies fit into the category we call "undead", which leaves a lot open to explore. But one difference out of many between vampires and zombies is that we're not quite sure how a zombie becomes a zombie, at least I'm not. Which is another problem I have with "World War Z". It has been well-established that zombies want your brain. Now, why exactly, I'm not sure. But in "World War Z", the goal of those zombies is to turn you into a zombie. I'm sorry, that is not a zombie. That is a vampire with decomposing skin. Another thing: zombies are mindless corpses that somehow retain the will to move. They do not care about the status of your health. They just want your brain. They have no stomach, so whatever is in your brain will not harm them in any way.

The way I look at it is biological, despite the fact that zombies aren't exactly alive, and I have this explanation because you never know what someone is going to ask you. Zombies are decomposing entities. In order to decompose, you must be around a decomposer, like bacteria or fungus or worms, or any number of detrivores (decomposers). Admittedly, zombies would look totally RIDICULOUS with mushrooms sprouting all over them. However, of the fungi, we also have the option of moss, yeast (Zombie bread!), mold, or many other species of fungi. I quite like what "Corpsebride" did when they had a worm living inside the head of our heroine. His character was for comic relief, but as an animal, his purpose was probably to decompose her. Frankly, though, I find it a lot easier to believe that the ones primarily responsible for decomposing zombies, at least on the inside, is bacteria. These bacteria don't care all that much what they're decomposing, so long as they get from it the required energy to do respiration. We can assume that, provided zombies were once humans, zombies have animal cells. The bacteria then get all the glucose they need from the cells of the zombies' organs. So therefore, as most of the bacteria is in the gastric area, we can assume that zombies have no stomach, intestines, liver, kidney, or otherwise. Where does the brain go? The bacteria go through it at a lightning pace and work symbiotically with the zombie to provide the energy to move. (Realistically, this wouldn't quite work. There are more bacterial cells in the human body than animal cells, but they're not that fast. But who cares? It's fiction. These bacteria can do whatever they want.) But, those bacteria, ever insatiable, eat their hosts, too. However, the hosts aren't entirely gone, as the zombies theoretically ingest enough brains to mostly satisfy the needs of their bacteria.

"World War Z" does not work like that. Certainly, these zombies are partially decomposed by the bacteria inside of them and the fungus outside of them, but they are more determined on turning you into a zombie. Anyone who took at least the first semester of Biology knows about environmental competition. These zombies, while increasing their population, are significantly lowering the available food sources exponentially. 1 zombie touches 1 human=2 zombies. Each of those touches one human=4 zombies. Each of these touches one human=8 zombies. This will continue to grow until the number of zombies is about equal to the number of humans. Biologically, it should stop there. The environment has reached an equilibrium. But "World War Z" does not care about sense and logic and environmental equilibrium. The number of zombies continues to grow until there are no more humans. All the zombies are now walking around going "Mehnamahanama" (Translation: "What exactly are we supposed to do now?") Sue me, but I like the movies I watch to either a.) make logical sense, whether there's truth or not, b.) coincide with facts, or both.

I can't be too hard on the production staff, because as a writer, I know that zombies are hard to do right, er, well. "Plants vs. Zombies" did it well comedically. From what my friends tell me, "The Walking Dead" did it well realistically. I've never seen it, so I can't tell you. "Thriller" did it well musically and choreographically. (I know I keep bringing up Thriller, but it's relevant.) "World War Z" did try to do it well. They tried so hard. But by not drawing some elements from well-established facts, they fell short of the ultimate goal. They invented, and while it is a good writer's job to invent, once something is as well established as zombies are, there's only so much you can change or invent, and their method of reproduction is not one of them. You can change their appearance, their speed, their "talkativity", their range of motion, their ferocity, their hunger, but not their method of reproduction or what they eat. Zombies eat brains. Who knows how they reproduce?

The acting in the movie was fine. You could tell that each of the characters, minor or major, was terrified of the decomposing vampires-I mean, zombies. You could tell that Gerry loved his family. You could tell that this was going to change their lives forever. But I'm not entitled to be a judge of acting. I'm a writer and a singer. If someone sang in that movie, you can bet there would be a paragraph about it.

I'm also not too taken with the ending. "Let's infect the world with lethal diseases! The zombies will leave us alone!" Yeah, but you'll die. The zombies won't. They are neither living nor dead! They will be just fine. However, all of humanity will be dead! You basically killed everybody as the ending to your movie. A horrible ending to a horrible movie. If Max Brooks does the same in the book and the book is as bad as the movie, you'll all be in the same badness club with Ghost Rider 2, Twilight (to be discussed in a later post), and Prince Caspian's accent in the third Narnia movie (His accent was one from Spain in the second movie, and in what must three years Narnian time his accent changed to one from England? How on earth do you explain that, for Aslan's sake?). But if Max Brooks does the same and the book is good, well, then, you, movie, will be in so much trouble.