True Love? This book's never heard of it.

A number of the readers have already heard me rant about this before, so if you have feel free to skip ahead to somebody else’s blog. But today, I am reserving this post for the worst book I have read all school year.

Like Water For Chocolate, by Laura Esquivel, is a fictional book about a Mexican family living in the time of the Mexican Revolution. Tita, the main character, is madly in love with her boyfriend Pedro, but she can never marry him because her family tradition says that she must care for her mother until she dies because Tita is the youngest daughter in the family. Tita is heart broken but her mother does not care, and neither does her sister Rosaura as she marries Pedro herself.

One big problem with the book is that almost every character has some terribly obnoxious trait that makes you want to jump into the story and uppercut them for their lack of common sense. Tita and Pedro both have no backbone as they never get together until nobody is around in the story anymore to tell them that their relationship is wrong. Mama Elena (Tita’s mother) is infinitely cold and insists on keeping Tita’s right to marry away for her own selfish reasons under this flawed family tradition.

Another problem I have with this book is the use of magic realism. Magic realism is basically an element that stories sometimes have where the book is set in a realistic environment, but sometimes bizarre and unexplainable things can happen at any time.

Why do I hate this “magic realism”? Because it merely gives the author an excuse to write any dumb plot twist she feels like slapping down on paper. For example, there is a scene where the reader is not allowed to feel relieved when Mama Elena passes away (spoiler) because Mama Elena just comes back as a ghost anyway to annoy Tita some more. You might be wondering “oh my god, she’s dead, so why can’t see just die already!”

I’ll tell you why. Magic realism, that’s why. And that’s the only reason the author needs.

In another scene, Tita cooks food for dinner when she is feeling passionate for Pedro, and as a direct result everyone who ate her food felt the same passion to get it on with someone. How could someone possibly feel true love for another just because they ate something? Do they feel no need for a true connection with other people as long as they have a human body?

Magic realism. Don’t question anything else that seems weird either, because you can predict at this point what the explanation will be. In essence, the “magic realism” technique in this story literally becomes like the staples “easy button” that we see all the time on television now. The author doesn’t have to worry herself with foolish “well thought out cause and effect explanations”, she just has to write down whatever ridiculous thing comes to mind first.

Lastly, the story has moments in the book where it will randomly talk the reader through a recipe for a meal that usually cannot be made successfully in real life anyway. These instructions are given to the reader in the middle of the chapter too. I found myself often skipping over a paragraph just to get on with the story when I started to see instructions. Maybe I’m missing something about this writing technique, but if you were reading about what happened in the last red sox game and all of a sudden it gave you a recipe for macaroni and cheese while describing the seventh inning, wouldn’t you think it’s weird too? To me it’s the same thing.

I’m just thankful I don’t live in a magic realistic world like this one, otherwise I might have to look at pop tart labels a little harder before eating them unless I want to risk getting in a special mood.

Doubles

It's my favorite way to play tennis; it forces you to adapt to not only the opponent's style of play, but also to someone who is on your side. Today was a reminder of the reward in earnestly observing to understand the style and adapting to that.

Stubbornly, I constantly attempted to lob the ball over their heads at the start of the match. Everytime it went just over the line; I was messing up the match for Prout and going nowhere fast. Kyle B, my doubles partner, was keeping us in the game by communicating with me during the match.

Communication is very important in doubles tennis. If you're playing at net, you can't see what yor partner is doing behind you, and your partner in the back has to hit back everything you can't get. Without communication, neither player really knows what the other will do, and you run a great risk of leaning your court wide open.

So I let Kyle do the talking before I started to speak up. I wasn't feeling particularly talkitive today, but once I was reminded of the importance of letting him know my intentions on the court, the reward was immediate.

"Back up!" "Get up front!" "I got it!"

I stopped lobbing, started playing aggressively, and moved with the constant flow of strategy and situational decisions. Our newly found understanding of each other brought us game, set, and match.

Tommorow, I shall work to make two victories in a row with the same mindset.

Post

I have about a thousand words a minute going through my head right now and yet I'd rather not write down a single one of them. I am this close *pinches fingers* to turning this blog into livejournal. But that just isn't me. I just have too much to prepare myself for tommorow to sit at this monitor for long.

Tommorow I need to know where a corpus collosum, cerebrum, neo cortex, subcortex, hypothalamus, cerebellum, and thalamus all are and what they do.

Tommorow I need to succesfully perform a variety show audition as I have had no time to prepare one.

Tommorow I need to have read english text, italian text, and completed math homework.

....but


Tommorow I will write an actual post.

Today's discussion seemed rather depressing to me. I have never wanted to look at groups of friends as having more or less valued members.

Why? Because it made me immediately think about my group of friends in this context, and the instant you start to consider which of those friends are considered more important than others, those friendships can suffer.

I will be the first to admit that I am pretty suggestible with my friends. If they wanted me to do something like play a game I didn't feel like playing or go to a movie when I felt like staying home, all they would have to do is say "Oh come on, Dave" and I'd go.

But, my suggestibility stops if and when a friend's request comes into conflict with my code of morals and values. If any of my friends came up to me and said "Have some of this pot" or "Come on, take this beer", I would tell them where they can shove it. I have yet to meet any of these "leaders" that could get me to go against my morals like that.

If there is a leader in my group of friends, it's never the same person all the time. Our focus as a group on any one person changes constantly, whether it's on who's currently feeling sad, or who just made a funny joke, or even who wrote a great blog entry.

Bottom line, my friends mean the world to me, and they deserve better than for me to look down on them or put them on too high a pedestal. They will always be my equals.

I've dedicated this post to someone.

The year is 2045. Society has made great technological advances since our time, like cd packaging that can be opened easily and cell phones that actually work as telephones. Life seemed great for the world of the future. However, our society was missing something that suddenly appeared one day: a unicorn and a pony.

Rosaura the Pony and Gertrudis the Unicorn came to this time by using a time machine from the past. Their trainers Faris and Expression had made the time machine because they thought that saddles would be cheaper to buy in the future, and that it would be a good financial move to buy horse supplies in this way. Unfortunately for them, Rosaura and Gertrudis dissapeared into the machine and they had no idea where they had gone off to.

Rosaura and Gertrudis found the land to be fascinating, even scary. After observing their surroundings, the noticed a light bulb lying on the ground.

The light bulb was small, but noticable. It looked like it had not been used for a long time. Observing the bulb, the elegant curves of it seemed to tell a story of its former owner, Kwarf. Kwarf lived in a village not unlike a vast and impressive looking forest. The forest was dark, almost secretive, and often left villagers feeling confused of why they looked into real estate there. Because the forest was so dark, light bulbs such as this one were a great help for villagers. Kwarf particularly liked the bulb that he had; for him it seemed to be brighter than any other bulb he had ever seen. Its light symbolized hope and life for him, and now as Rosaura and Gertrudis stared at the bulb it seemed empty without its light. Then a battle happened.

The orcs and flying martians all came at Rosaura and Gertrudis at once. They tried to run around the enemies to make them dizzy, but it didn't work because of their flawless balance. Seeing how many orcs and martians there were in this potential forty-five minute battle, they had only once choice. Their only hope was to run away as fast as they can in a gracious manner. Gertrudis' horn seemed to turn red as they galloped, perhaps as a light of courage and hidden pony power to guide their way to safety. They ran and ran without looking back and not caring where they went, so long as they could find somewhere to rest out of danger's way.

Will our heroes find somewhere safe to frolic aimlessly? Find out next time on Horses of the Future!

George is getting upset!

One morning, Kyle suggested to Dave that he should install another online game on his computer because he wanted to play it with Dave. Dave wasn't sure if he wanted to, as he had two online games on his computer already, but he figured he would give it a shot.

A couple of nights later he attempts to install the game. However, there was one big problem: the game is japanese and doesn't want to be installed. But that wouldn't stop Dave.

8:45- Dave began the process. He figured it's just one program, he can have it installed in ten minutes so he can call his friend before nine. Man, was he stupid. He was not even close to realizing how long this task would take.

8:55- Dave is talking to Kyle on AOL intanst messenger "KYLE HELP".
"Just open it, double click on it". "No, it won't, becau-". "Windows doesn't like it just try it anyway". "It keeps saying 'Language not compatible'". "Ohh.....you have to right click and then click "explore". "Oh ok".

9:30- The install wizard stalls at 64%. Windows says it needs another disk, and the install wizard says something else that was similar. Dave lost contact with Kyle because his modemness did not want him to remain on the internet for long periods of time. On his own, Dave clicked the windows button and hoped for the best.

Later, as Dave gets a hold of Kyle again:
"Ok, I clicked the thing to take the other disc, but it's frozen".
"...Please don't tell me you did what I thought you did...".

But Dave did do exactly that. He had to restart his computer and reinstall absolutely everything. At this point, Kyle could no longer stand for the boundaries of instant messenger and called Dave's house. After working through more obstacles and challenges, it was quarter of eleven before they even knew it.

10:45- Dave finally got it installed. The victory was bittersweet, because Dave was happy to have finally installed this program he thought he would never have, but he felt defeated as he knew he had yet to post something for his creative writing class and he had not even started yet.

11:10- He just finished telling you his story in the third person, and now he's going to bed.

Forced writing ahoy!

I don’t know what to type. I just sat here for 15 minutes drawing blanks on what to type just for the sake of having something typed for tomorrow’s class. The only thing I can grab onto as a prompt for writing is merely this frustration itself. Today, like many other days, I am confronted with a paradox: I don’t want to type every night because I know I’ll write even more badly than I apparently do anyway in comparison to others, but I want to post every night because that in itself is putting my greatest effort into the class.

What is it that I can do to make my posts worthy “of note” during class? I have almost no knowledge about writing good poetry, so I don’t even touch it. And if something during the day doesn’t strike me as something worth writing about, I feel defeated before I even start. If I create a little more internet traffic each day, will the posts look more appealing? Or am I not making enough personal essays to make progress in my writing?

Come to think of it, I do struggle with that a lot. A number of people have happily poured out parts of their life stories onto these blogs. I admire that they feel so open toward the class, I really do, but that’s something that I’m uncomfortable with sharing most of the time and I don’t know how they can do it. I have very few memories that I keep secret from people, but they stay with me. In other words, I have difficulty pouring out my heart to someone on the basis that he or she is my classmate.

Anyway, if I came off as disrespectful to anyone, let me say that I’m sorry and that that was not my intention at all. I’m just feeling frustrated at my current inabilities.

Satisfaction at last

Until today, I had been less than thrilled with my past experiences in karate tournaments. Most of them left me feeling like I was just mediocre. No matter how hard I worked, it was unknown if the hard work would be paid off. My chances of victory all depended on the opinion of three judges, regardless of if they actually knew what they were talking about or not.

That comment may seem bitter or unsportsmanlike, but I can't help but look at it that way. Everyone would tell me "Well, as long as you did your best, that's all that matters". I know this. But do I have to shell out 20 to 50 bucks per tournament to go and get beat in order to be sportsmanlike? I do my best every day in karate class itself. One of the biggest reasons I started karate was because I saw it as an oppurtunity to grow stronger and embark on my own journey of self-improvement. Finding yet another area in life where you have to try to be better than someone else wasn't on my agenda.

The whole purpose of the tournaments is to practice healthy competition, so with that in mind I would try to make the best of the situation. Whenever I lost to someone in competition who clearly did a better job than I did, I was the first to acknowledge it. But when someone who has a careless and indifferent attitude toward the martial arts scores higher than me, I get mad.

Her name is Hilary. Numerous times in past tournaments she would be in the same division as I was in kata or weapons forms. I would always try my hardest in kata and weapons demonstrations, being loud and precise in my battle with an imaginary opponent that we all perform back at the karate studio to practice our form and knowledge of the art.

Hilary, on the other hand, seemed to do the bare minimum every time. Her stances in each move were almost non-existent, she went through the moves too quickly, and she put almost no strength in her punches and kicks. Her basic presentation of herself implied that she didn't care how hard her competition was, because she was just going to have the trophy regardless of her work ethic and that the whole competition was one big joke.

The result?

"First place: Hilary Davis!"

"....You've got to be s---ing me" I would think to myself.

After a few tournaments I decided that I just wasn't going to do them anymore. I gave tournaments a chance, but I'd rather keep my money and use it on something else. That's what I thought, anyway.

I, along with several other boys my age, got called in after class to speak with Renshi, our teacher, after class. He told us that he was inviting us to participate in the sparring team challenge at the end of the tournament, and if we decided to go, we would have to pay the full fifty dollars to compete in all divisions.

When he asked who was interested, all the other boys immediately said "I'm interested sir!". This meant that I was going too, because I couldn't be the only one in the room saying no to the offer. This teacher is a guy who made a woman continue to spar during black belt testing after she cracked her sternum unless she wished to fail the test and he had the ability to make any of my classes a living hell. I wasn't about to flat out refuse him, especially not alone.

So I went to the tournament today. Eventually, it was time for us to perform our kata for the judges. There were six of us, including Hilary. I went up and performed passai sho, the latest kata that I have learned by heart. I did my best, and I got a decent score. Soon after, Hilary went up and performed the same kata.

Or that was her idea anyway.

Halfway through her kata she stopped. "Um.....um.....ugh.....may I start over?" She didn't remember the kata. The judges allowed her to start again, as every student has an oppurtunity to try once more in tournaments.

Punch, outside block, twist outside block, turn inside block, twist outside block..................................."umm...uh...ehhh! Can I start over?"

For some reason, they allow it, even though it's unprecedented as far as I know to let someone start over twice. But I didn't care, I was too happy to see this day: she sunk to a new level of bad technique when she couldn't even recall what the technique was. She owned herself so badly that not even the judges could pretend she was doing a good job anymore.

In the end of this division, I received third place and Hilary got dead last and a little ribbon that said "sixth".

As for myself, I'm happy that I got as far as I did. Placement wise I didn't do that well, but I noticed personal improvements that I made since my last few tournaments. That alone made me happy because it relates back to my original purpose of self-improvement. Having said that, I'm starting to think that these tournaments aren't as unrelated to my goal as I originally thought.

Here comes the list

"I'd like you to be able to look back at your time in this class and think that it wasn't a waste of time"- Dr. Tim Hillman, PhD and master of digression.

Or the quote was something like that, anyway. I do feel that this class is not a waste of time. However, thinking about this made me wonder: what classes were a waste of time? After thinking about this, I came to the conclusion that the only class I find to be technically a waste of time is gym. That's not to say that I don't like gym, I love it. But objectively I have to say that I dont think my brain grew much from running around like a maniac and completing the occasional "Drugs = not good" posters that we are forced to make for the "health" portion of the class.

I do think that there are many classes that students dismiss as useless without giving much thought to the statement. I decided to make a list of some of these classes and explain why I think these classes can be useful as long as the student tries to make the most of it.

English- "English? Who needs that? I'm never going to England" - Homer Jay Simpson.
Whether or not the teacher does a good job teaching the class, english class does give an oppurtunity to learn worthwhile skills. I have found through writing research papers that even though they're not fun to write, I gained an ability to develop my own opinions from writing them. Also, learning vocabulary words is only truly useless if the learner has no intention of remembering or using them after the test. I am guilty of forgeting most of these words myself, but I'm just saying it's not a bad thing to find new ways to express yourself. Ever hear a rap song where the artist just throws in fifty swears into one song because it sells and there's no challenge in expressing things that way? Maybe artists like that could use a vocab test or two.

History- I've heard others complain about this one too, because when will we use this in our lives? Learning about past mistakes is the best way to not repeat them ourselves. Sometimes the only way to learn is the hard way, but if we look at events that took place before our time, we can take what worked and do the same and try to avoid doing things that caused great pain and suffering. For example, history shows us that all great empires that were once in power eventually crumbled as it tried to gain more and more power over others. If the majority of the nation paid attention to things like this, it might have been less likely that we would get someone in office who says to the whole world "You're either with us or against us" without caring what the consequences are.

Math- "Why do we have to learn this? We'll never use this in real life" - Just about every kid in any given school that I know of.
I always have a few arguments toward this point. For one, at least math teachers use this in real life, because they have to teach it to other kids. Secondly, it's not the math teachers job to know exactly which math skills you will need in your entire life. He/she just can't do that, and neither can you. Most importantly, math is used one way or another every day. Every video game and computer program that we take for granted had to have some math behind it. People have to make measurements when they create buildings. And heaven forbid if the cash register broke at stop and shop, the clerk might have to subtract $1.46 from five bucks to get the correct change without the help of a machine!

The bottom line is that if something we are taught is not immediately practical in every day life, we regard the content we're learning as useless. It is a sad truth that the concept of learning for the sake of learning is becoming more and more foreign to us as society changes.

I know. But I had to write something. Let's leave it at that.

"AHHHH!"

Donovan sat helplessly as his long time friend KDoledi was blasted away by enemy fire. Donovan couldn't believe his eyes, a little cartoon tank with eyes had just incinerated his old friend, who he had met twenty minutes ago, with lightning. Not that that was surprising; all tanks were like that at the time.

KDoledi said to Donovan as he flew up into the heavens: "T.T". This very deep expression of emotion enraged Donovan; he would have his revenge. Even if it meant taking down the rest of the enemy team with him.

Luckily, the enemy army consisted of just two people. They were also weak enough that if one of them were shot down, the other would retreat. But Donovan was face to face with one that had more stamina than him and the other soldier was in the most awkward position for a target ever. To make matters worse, they could only shoot when it was their turn. It was really inconvieniant.

"LOL WE'RE OWNING THESE NOOBS!" was the current war cry of the enemy directly in front of Donovan as the enemy blasted him at point blank range. Donovan had no way to take down this beast: he had to make the impossible shot. He couldn't even see where he was shooting; he only knew that his target was somewhere behind and below the glaring tank in front of him.

At 57 degrees, 3/8 of the tank's ability to make a bullet travel, and using all his remaining strength, Donovan took the chance.

BAM BAM BAM!!!

The miracle had happened; the enemy collapsed and Donovan avenged his ally! Gold randomly appeared in front of him for accomplishing the task, and he then took off. As Donovan left the scene of the battle, he heard a familiar voice.

"Donovan! That was totally sweet!"

"You...you're not dead?"

"Naw, I just used a little escape pod to fly away, why?"

"Um..no reason...."

And so the battle that took place for no reason was over, until Donovan and KDoledi would once again pick a fight with another group of people they've never met before.

Reflection

When trying to think of something to throw on here, it occured to me that I could look at the blog I wrote for computer science during freshman year and think about how I've improved my writing since then.

In this blog that I wrote three years ago, I wrote mainly on the topic of video games. One of the main characteristics of my blog is that I was painfully biased toward nintendo and against most everything else in that industry. I think I still am, but at least today I can recognize it. Freshman year I had no awareness of my own ignorance; I spit out stuff without knowing both sides of a story and I didn't care. Today's article that we heard in Creative Writing reminded me of this a lot, because this author sounded about as opinionated as I was. So, I decided to tear apart a paragraph I wrote back then much like we tore apart the other article in class.

"Heeeeyyy...I'm back. Miss me? Didn't think so. Anyway what to say now.........the games. People love Halo for Xbox and Grand Theft Auto for playstation. I can't make a fair opinion about Halo because I haven't played. Though the fact that it helped inspire the Maryland sniper doesn't make me approve of it. It's because of this that I can safely assume that Halo is just another game with tons of unrequired violence that get popularity from immature gamers."
-Me, freshman moron of '06

"Heeeeyyy...I'm back. Miss me? Didn't think so." - ........OMG SO FUNNY!!11oneone!!11!! If that opening line was any more creative, my head would have burst open!

"People love Halo for Xbox and Grand Theft Auto for playstation." - Here I am under the impression that I can somehow speak for thousands of X Box and Playstation fans across the nation, many of which I have never met before.

"I can't make a fair opinion about Halo because I haven't played. Though the fact that it helped inspire the Maryland sniper doesn't make me approve of it." - The maryland sniper comment wasn't a made up statement, I saw it on a news cast, but nevertheless the people who committed those crimes were messed up to begin with and Halo can't be blamed for that. Unfortunately, that thought had not occured to me at the time; I pulled a Jack Thompson and took an oppurtunity to blame a tradgedy I knew little about on a video game I knew nothing about. Also, in general I wasn't being as effective as I had hoped to be by simply saying an objective-sounding sentence to excuse an extremely one-sided statement in the next sentence.

"It's because of this that I can safely assume that Halo is just another game with tons of unrequired violence that get popularity from immature gamers" - translation? "I only said one thing that isn't even solid fact against this game; This gives me a right to act like I know more than anyone who disagrees with me. And I am totally mature and correct. I promise."

Having looked over how I used to think things through, or not think at all (depends how you look at it), I would like to take this oppurtunity to say that I am truly grateful for having been taught to support arguments with thought in these four years of high school. If it wasn't for my education, I fear I would be reduced to this for the rest of my life.

What is wrong with me?

I must have problems, I just don't know why exactly. Tonight I sat down while eating dinner and watched a show called "Deal or No Deal" on NBC. For those who don't know, this show is a game show where people go on and open up cases of money (if you do know how the game works, you can skip the rest of this paragraph). The cases can hold amounts of money from 1 cent to 1 million dollars. They start the game owning one of the cases, and the player picks out cases women are holding to see how much money they have in their cases. Then, a banker offers the player money settlements depending on these discoveries for his or her case to keep the player from winning too much money. This is when the player has to decide whether to except the "deal", or refuse it and risk getting a smaller settlement later as he or she eliminates cases.

Long story short, network television has found a way to make a game show that asks even less of players' abilities. All they have to do is pick numbers randomly and say "deal" or "no deal".

I find it difficult to understand the contestants on this show. Multiple times I have seen them get many large settlement offers that they could easily walk home with, but they take more risks anyway because of their family and friends on the side screaming at them to take another stupid risk. For example, this one woman was given a large number that I can't remember, something with 5 digits like $50,000.

"NO DEAL!! NO WAY, KEEP GOING!!!!" said her family and friends. They didn't even want to consider how much they could do with the money that was already available to them at that moment. So, she kept going and going through the cases. Toward the end, it was discovered that her case was worth either 5 bucks or 1 dollar. She accepted the banker's offer of 3 dollars; apparently she didn't find any thrill in blowing off the banker's offer now that the decision has no importance.

I can't stop asking. Why must they be so stubborn and shoot down the large settlements that were once available to them? It's a stupid show to begin with, but if you're going to play, why not attempt to make intelligent decisions with it?

However, there is a more important question here that I should be much more concerned with. Why am I watching these people blow their money away? Why do I care even a little bit whether they go home with a good amount of cash or not? It's probably safe to say that the only thing dumber than deciding to blow off a ton of money on a game show is to be in front of the TV getting mad at the people on the game show as if their money is your problem.

I don't know why I got sucked into the show. What I do know is that whatever the reason is, it is likely the same reason I have bothered to witness an episode of Judge Judy or Dr. Phil. There's just something depressingly appealing about judging decisions and actions of other people, and I'm a prime example of it.

I am so sick of seeing these things

What do people often do when they have nothing better to do in their supposedly busy lives? They post or repost chain messages that are completely worthless other than giving you something to look at when you don't have a wall nearby with paint drying to stare at. I am guilty of spending a fair amount of time on livejournal in the past, and I currently have a myspace. Using these sites, I have conducted research to discover the secrets behind the art of creating chain messages, or as I like to call them, needless internet traffic.

Secret# 1) Obvious prediction posts are GOLD.

Always consider typing out predictions that a five year old child could create from his or her own experiences alone. It is frowned upon if you type something that is an original thought of your own, so don't bother. I will do my best to emulate such a post:

5 signs that you like a girl!

1) You find the girl attractive.

2) When the girl says hi to you, you don't tell her to go starve and die in a ditch.

3) You like the girl.

4) When someone asks you who you like, you think of that girl, because you like her.

5) <3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3

Secret# 2) Do not dare ending the post without adding an empty and superstitious threat.

Because without this, you run the risk of the reader thinking that he or she would like the last 30 seconds of his or her life back that she spent reading your product. This last message lets the reader know that it's good that he/she read, or else bad things would have happened to them. Also, this addition is vital to spreading your "work" across countless computer screens. Here is a light one that one could use:

If you don't repost this to 15 other people, you will lose 30 years of your life. In addition, you will:
- have 13 years of bad luck
- the girl that you like (because you like her, remember? ^-^) will hate you and never want to see you again!
- your myspace friends will have one less useless link.
- in fact, all of your myspace friends will UN-ADD you! Even Tom will never want to have any of your userpics infect page 156 of his friends pages ever again!
- Your car will have 7 years of bad luck.
- You will only have 4 toes tommorow morning. I'm not telling which ones lol.

I have only just begun to scratch the surface of this subject, but if there are any requests from the readers, I will keep you posted.