Another Place, Another Time

 

            The sail scooped wind out of the sky and propelled the wooden train-boat onwards. The four adventurers were in the middle of their journey to find out exactly what goes on beyond the fog. The fog had protected their sea-locked town for over two decades from the vast unknown. It is said phantasmal figures lurk within the impenetrable, permanent mist: spectral anomalies, eerie shades, ghastly wraiths, and other apparitions.

These four children had an insatiable curiosity for such phantoms. They set out on the fourth hour of this very day, climbing out of their windows, creeping out of their homes like they had stolen the largest diamond known to man. They had been planning this endeavor for some time now, and had sketched, developed, and designed a suitable vessel for this grand adventure.

            “How about we build our own train? It would be a steely monster, and go really fast,” exclaimed Billy.
            “Because, ya dingus, we can’t build a train,” replied John.
            “How’s that, John?”
            “Because, ya dolt, we don’t know how.”
            “Oh... yeah.”

John sighed in exasperation as he planted his hand on his face. Matt and Nick mimicked John, resulting in a chorus of moans of disappointment and irritation.

“I know! How about we build a boat, and go by sea?” questioned Matt.

“The wood we have is too heavy to float, Matt, and we don’t have enough of the special, lightweight wood to make an entire boat, can’t go by sea,” replied John.

“Wait, I’ve got it. What about a boat that’s a train and a boat. We could call it the train-boat!” proclaimed Nick. 

“Is your head screwed on right? You can’t just throw a train and a boat together, Nick,” John countered.

“Wait, John, I think he’s onto something. What if we had a small wooden cart, like made of the lightweight wood that would fit on the train tracks? Then, we could put a sail on it, and the wind could carry the lightweight wood, and we would have enough of it to build the small cart!” Matt shouted with excitement.

“You know, Matt, that just might work,” responded John.

So they began to build their train-boat. Within two weeks, the contrivance had been completed, and the four buccaneers and their glorious pirate locomotive were ready to ride. 

So they snuck and they sneaked, from their homes they lurked. They heaved the most innovative invention since electricity onto the railroad. Then, they opened the sail and hopped in the cart, venturing into the unknown.

If there was an answer, they'd find it there.  

Famous First and Last Lines

 

First line: "The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there."

 This is the opening line to the novel The Go-Between published in 1953 by L.P. Hartley, who was born on December 30th, 1895. The novel is about an elderly man named Leo. Leo finds an old diary of his and begins to remember his past, and spends the majority of the novel reminiscing. He remembers several instances of him being a middle man or messenger, and this is the basis of the plot.

I think I would read this book. It's first line is one of my favorite lines in a book. The book seems to be very classic-like. It's interesting how the novel itself acts as a bridge between the two worlds of Leo.

 

Last line: "Columbus too thought he was a flop, probably, when they sent him back in chains. Which didn't prove there was no America."

This line starts the novel The Adventures of Augie March, published in 1953 (the same year as my first line), by Saul Bellow, who was born on June 10th, 1915, and died on April 5th, 2005. The novel follows Augie March and his transition from childhood to adulthood. He switches situations frequently, whether it be jobs, his lifestyle, his education, etc. He takes several turns, and the book is simply him trying to discover himself and mature through life. I don't think I would read this book. It seems reading it would have the same effect as reading Catcher in the Rye. It sounds extremely similar, and while it doesn't share the same stream of consciousness as Catcher in the Rye, I believe reading Augie March's tale wouldn't be much different from Holden Caulfield's.

A Foreign Country & It's Executioner

        The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. Extremely differently, in fact. In the past, things were kosher, calm. Now, they are calamitous, ruinous. Conspicuously to me, this entire thing was my fault. Some nights I try to reason that I had no control, how was anyone, no matter how trained or how qualified, expected to succeed? The incredible amount of audacity to hinge the world onto one person, and the colossal amount of pressure on that operative. Why would one even take such a risk, let alone an entire organization? Evidently, none of that matters anymore.
        I first began my work as an undercover agent in Russia in the year 2017. My mission was to scout Russia as an emissary under the United Kingdom Special Forces (UKSF), particularly their plans regarding nuclear weapons, alliances, and their relationship with China. I achieved successful infiltration on the day of December 3^rd, 2018.
        I reported my findings back to the UKSF weekly, keeping notes, data, and recording various conversations. Work was going well. Then, on November 16^th, 2019, I received a phone call from the head commander of the UKSF. He informs me he had an extremely special, high priority operation that I had to carry out. It meant the difference between Russia being angry with nuclear weapons, and Russia being angry without nuclear weapons. I was to hack into the Russian nuclear weapons mainframe located hundreds of miles from nowhere in Siberia, and re-encrypt their launching code to make it inaccessible to the Russians, at least for enough time for the UKSF to launch an immediate surprise attack and take them out quickly and effectively. This meant war with Russia and their allies. I understood my previous mission completely now. This plan had been in the works for years upon years, a collaboration between the UKSF and dozens of other countries who see Russia as a major nuclear threat, having defeated the United States in the Nuclear Race of 2016. Russia became the country with the most nuclear warheads, and the gap has only been widening between them and the U.S. for a decade. Knowing the difficulty and weight of this task, I began to felt the pressure immediately after the phone call ended.
        The plan seemed risky. The only variable in the plan was me. I just had to not screw up hacking into one of the most secure, sophisticated security systems, disarming a colossal amount of nuclear warheads, and making it out in one piece. Easy, right?
        Unfortunately, not so easy, as it turned out. While I was encrypting the code, I was caught by a guard. He did not follow the patrol patterns that the CIA had given me. For one reason or another, he didn’t shoot me immediately. Instead, he opted to fight me in hand-to-hand combat. The struggle became loud, and just as I was about to finish him off, other guards came in and detained me. I was imprisoned, interrogated, and tortured for days upon days. I didn’t give up a thing. However, my code did. The computer scientists that had been analyzing my code had finally figured out its purpose. Russia’s government was informed. Panic ensued as the rest of the world was scared for their lives. Russia fired the first warhead at the United Kingdom.

Boom.

London explodes, fire rains upon the city, and everything is utterly annihilated. The response from the British government is panicked and unreasonable, they send what’s left of their nuclear arsenal straight towards Russia. Russia replies, and so does the rest of the world. Global thermonuclear war had broken out. It ended exactly how you’d think it would; every country wholly decimated, nearly government exterminated, almost every citizen wiped out. It turns out I was a flop, a failure, a fanatical debacle. One world power remained on the planet: China. They took full advantage of the situation, and soon they controlled virtually the entire world. Orwellian society and all that. As I lived out my days in the Russian lab, I began to plot an uprising. I would not fail again. I will retake this planet that I have destroyed. I may have started it, but I'm sure as hell going to end it.

Columbus too thought he was a flop, probably, when they sent him back in chains. Which didn't prove there was no America.

Quotes

“Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”- C.S. Lewis

 

 

"Life would be tragic if it weren't funny." - Stephen Hawking

 

"Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why." - Kurt Vonnegut

Memorable Passage

    “Blood trickled from the corner of her (Annabeth) mouth. She croaked, "Family, Luke. You promised."
Luke stared at the knife in Annabeth's hand, the blood on her face. "Promise." Then he gasped like he couldn't get air. "Annabeth . . ." But it wasn't the Titan's voice. It was Luke's. He stumbled forward like he couldn't control his own body. "You're bleeding. . . ." He gasped again."He's changing. Help. He's . . . he's almost ready. He won't need my body anymore. Please—"
"The knife, Percy," Annabeth muttered. Her breath was shallow. "Hero . . . cursed blade . . ."
Luke turned and collapsed, clutching his ruined hands."Please, Percy . . ."
Luke seemed to know what I was thinking. He moistened his lips. "You can't . . . can't do it yourself. He'll break my control. He'll defend himself. Only my hand. I know where. I can . . . can keep him controlled."
I raised the knife to strike. Then I looked at Annabeth, at Grover. And I finally understood what she'd been trying to tell me. You are not the hero, Rachel had said. It will affect what you do. The line from the great prophecy echoed in my head: A hero's soul, cursed blade shall reap. My whole world tipped upside down,and I gave the knife to Luke. I watched as Luke grasped the hilt and stabbed himself.”
- Rick Riordan, The Last Olympian

    The reason that this passage is memorable to me is that it is the point in the book where the great prophecy actually begins to be realized. Prophecy's are common in Rick Riordan books, and I always remember trying to foretell how the prophecy will eventually be realized, or if it won't. Honestly, the only reason it is memorable is that it is from the most memorable book I've read so far, and prophecy's have been present throughout the entire series.   

Writers as Readers

1.) When I read, I don't necessarily have a specific environment that I need. I just need a place that's not busy, silent, and has comfortable furniture (I still read at school though). At home, I like to light a candle and play some low-key music.

2.) The genres that I am most interested have to be fantasy and science fiction. I love fantasy because
it requires so much creativity to create an entirely different world from scratch and convey it into a digestible reading. I'm always impressed when I read a good fantasy book, they're difficult to write. My love for science fiction books, I think, stems from my early love of video games. A lot of video games have a science fiction/fantasy feel to them, and I guess I was drawn to the same type of books.

3.) Sometimes I feel like I write like Nathaniel Hawthorne, especially when I try to describe something. It often turns into a much bigger description than I was hoping for. I really try to not write like that, at least in terms of the length. I feel like it just begins to drag on and on, and becomes a pain to read such tedious sentences.

4.) One of my best memories is when I finished the Percy Jackson & The Olympians series. I remember feeling extremely satisfied.
The Lightning Thief was the first book I ever finished completely. Finishing an entire series of 5 books for me was quite the accomplishment. It might be insignificant to people who pump out 1-2 books a day, but for me, I thought it was pretty cool. Also, I loved that series so much, that I started reading other books, and I feel like this series was the spark that started the fire.

5.) Every single book of the Percy Jackson & The Olympians series, I couldn't put the book down. I was just so engrossed and immersed in this great world and this character that I could somewhat relate to. After The Lightning Thief, I felt invested in the characters, and I was so happy when I learned that there were going to be more than 3 books, a point when many series end. I almost started to read too fast through some of the dialogue because I wanted to read the action scenes and the climax of the books so badly.

9.) When I finished reading The Last Olympian, I was sad and happy because I had just finished this amazing series and the fantastic story, but I had also just read the last of this exceptional array of books, which made me sad.

11.) I certainly envision the reader when writing. The reader affects nearly all of my writing, except for ideas that other people don't have an influence on. For example, I might change sentence flow or dialogue to make it easier to read, but I will almost never change a plot event unless it just doesn't make sense. When I write for myself, I never think of plot order, sensibility, or word choice. When I write for myself, I just love creating the story. Sometimes I just write paragraphs that describe a completely different world. 

Dream Threads

Captain's Log: Kanguary 7th, 2145
A Recollection

        Earth has become completely inhabitable, and humanity has relocated to Mars after a large portion of the population has died.
        It all started on the morning of Kangust (formerly August) 15th, 2144. The dreadful day that everyone... dreaded.
        The day when kangaroos discovered immortality. You see, humanity has always been on the cusp of immortality, however it seems kangaroos have found the last piece of the puzzle that humanity has been struggling to find for the last 50 years. So how did it happen? Most of our immortality research was conducted in the outback of Australia. Joey, a scoutaroo, found a deserted medical lab in the outback. He found our first successful (unbeknownst to us, we thought it was a failure), truly immortal specimen; a stray mouse. Joey brought it undergound, into the massive kangaroo kangization, Kangstraya, to the best sciencoroos this nation could offer. Remarkably, they were able to genetically reverse engineer the mouse, and apply it to kangaroos.

Kangaroo standard weaponry in 2057.

        After their opportunistic success, the kangaroos began demanding land and resources from humanity. Humanity thought that even if the kangaroos were immortal, they would not be able to harm humanity. However, humanity had never seen the kangaroos since the Great Upkanging of 2057, where the kangaroos had simple automatic rifles and explosives (I have attached an image of an infantroo during this time). They thought that they had greater technology than the barbaric kangaroos. And so, the humans declined their demands. With that, the First Interspecious War began on the dawn of Kangcember 2nd, 2144.
        Extraordinarily, the kangaroos' technology had advanced an uncanny amount in a mere 89 years. In fact, they had nearly surpassed the humans. Near this time, war was fought with pulse rifles, Gauss cannons, rail guns, photonically engineered body armor, and nuclear grenades. This arsenal was infantry, however some special units are given stealth technology. Naval and aerial technology has also progressed, but I digress. In a nutshell, kangaroos now possess immortality and lasers.
        As such, humanity began to falter drastically. In a desperate attempt at survival, the central leaders of the human race decided to sacrifice Australia for the greater good by launching several nuclear warheads at Australia. Massive damage was inflicted. While the kangaroos are immortal, their buildings are not. However, much of the kangaroo army was already deployed amongst the world, and the key militaristic and political leaders of Kangstraya still had their governmental buildings intact. This allowed them to continue commanding their army from Kangstraya, and was ultimately what pushed humanity out of Earth.
        We began to plan our relocation to Mars on Kangcember 20th. Most of humanity had been mercilessly killed by the kangaroos. A small population of maybe 50 million remained. Eventually, our spacecraft landed onto Mars and we began to start anew, rebuilding our now destroyed civilization. As I reflect, it is quite embarrassing to have lost a war to an animal in which you had a 2000 year head start on. Honestly though, how kangaroos gained intelligence and thousands of years of human research in a 90 year time span is completely unrealistic. It sounds fictional, like some kind of badly written story.
        I remember the days when the world wasn't ruled by kangaroos. Those were the days. When I was younger, I had a globe that I kept in my room, and I had this recurring dream where my globe was being stolen by a kangaroo. I told my parents and they thought it was just child dreams and that my imagination was running wild. Well, I guess my dreams hopped into reality (I'm sorry this is so stupid I don't even).
     
--
Captain Thatcher, Colonel of the 1st Mars Relocation Regime 
    

Maya Angelou & Dreaming

Maya Angelou

1.) Angelou says the reason the caged bird sings is to be free. It wants to fly in the open air and be free. Figuratively, this means that you should not let yourself be caged, and let yourself be free without any bother or worry.

2.) I believe I have the power to triumph over adversity. I've used it plenty, and I've seen it used plenty. My mother and I somewhat used it together once my grandparents passed, walking through everyday life, with a weight of sadness strapped to our ankles.

4.) I think dreams don't necessarily reveal things that we don't realize or that others don't see. More or less, I believe dreams give your subconscious the ability to communicate with your conscious self. This is where I think people often get that dreams tell us things we don't know or realize, when it is really ourselves telling ourselves that.

5.) I'm not sure I could live for 5 years without speaking. It would be very hard to recover into normal day life. I don't talk much, but I do talk. I think personal growth does come from social contact, and while I get social contact, I'm not sure if I'm getting enough of it. In terms of personal growth that could be gained, I think my social skills could be improved.

6.) Language is something that I still have interest in. I'm comfortable with French, but I think I could improve on it, considering I've never been in France. I would love to be fluent in more languages, Italian and German are some of the ones I have most interest in. I think Italian is a very pretty language when spoken correctly, and at least from what I've already learned, it's fun to speak as well. I want to visit Germany someday, and also I think German is a fun language, it's words are extremely articulate and pronounced. Also, I do think that English is good enough in America. English is not going to fade away, especially in America, and if you really need it there's always Google translate, right?

8.) "There's a world of difference between truth and fact" means that truth is that fact is fact, and nothing will ever change what is fact. Truth on the other hand, is kind of like aluminum foil. Similar to "bending the truth," truths can be changed based on the reasoning given for a certain truth. For example, it is true that the Earth is round because of this fact and that fact. However, if someone comes along with a counterargument and provides just as strong, or stronger reasoning that the Earth is actually a triangle, then the new truth is that Earth is now a triangle. The truth bends for facts. It is malleable and flexible to fit around whatever shape the facts give it, like aluminum foil. I agree with Angelou's quote, at least in my interpretation of it.

9.) To occupy my small mind, I usually go to noisli.com and pick ambient sounds to listen to while I work. These sounds include running rivers, crackling fires, roaring winds, rustling trees, bustling coffee shops, white noise, and others. You can even play them all at the same time if you want. Anyways, this is usually enough to occupy me. Distractions are extremely prevalent. My biggest distraction is my friends when I'm trying to get something done. Since I use my computer for most of my work, my friends can constantly message me and it gets pretty distracting. I like to think I deal with it well. Like to.

11.) Age definitely impacts the difficulty and challenge in learning new things. However, I don't think that it is that big of a hurdle to overcome. While it does make it harder, it is not by much. I would argue that it only marginally affects the way you learn. It may even be true that being older would make it easier. Maybe older people have new learning strategies that they never had in their youth, or less distractions.

Tinges of Green

Heading into Lochlan's Meadow,

An April Shower dawns,

Spring is here, Young Seedlings sprung about,

Surrounded by Hedges of Green,

The Deep Forest Moss coats the trees and rocks,

Like the paint of a house, creating Green Glass.


A small pond comes into view,

transparent and pure,

fish swimming, insects buzzing,

full of life.


In the center lies an Apple Orchard,

the branches with red life amassed,

as an apple falls, a gale blows through the trees,

apples fall like rain, pounding the wet ground,

making a percussive chorus,

the wind answers back,

and another apple falls.

Country Clouds & Peach Fizz

Upon a cloud,
Sits a peach tree,
Lit by the Sun,

A peach drops,
And lays on the cloud,
Feeling content, calm

Earthy Gray

  Enter the clouds, heavy and dark,
  A storm brewing,
  Rain falling,
  Thunder clapping,
  Home.
  Yes, home, the place where I take solace in this weather.


  Gray skies and
  Rain slapping against the ground
"Amazing weather," I say, others disagree;
"Yellow sunshine is my preference, gray is just ugly."