Happy Hanukkah

It's Christmas! *party popper emoji* *party popper emoji*


(Clarification Note: I scheduled this; hopefully I'm asleep when this posts)


(I don't really know why I put Happy Hanukkah either)

Grammar + Christmas Feeling/Meaning/Whatever

Clarification: I say I'm good at English, and I believe that I am, but I don't really care about a lot of the grammar on this blog. You will find a lot of mistakes and whatever; deal with it. In graded papers or whatever, I use better grammar, but here I break rules for the sake of making it feel better/sound better/be more awesome/work out better/whatever. 

Perfect example is this quote from my previous blog post: "But-- random excerpt here that isn't really an excerpt because it's still totally related to the main topic but I don't know that's basically what an excerpt is in the first place so I don't really know what I'm talking about here so I'm just going to continue with the rest of this sentence-- like, all I've ever known as a career option is teaching."

Notice how the entirety of the 'take away' or whatever you want to call it (the part that is in between the dashes) is completely void of commas and such, even though there should be many and it's probably a even with those commas included. I just made it that way that way it would feel like I'm talking super swiftly and rambily. Like how I would actually say it in real life, idk. 

And I don't care that I used sporadically incorrectly. Seemed like the right use to me, so that's what I did. Turns out that sporadically means more like "randomly at irregular intervals" Which would mean that by now I would have many-a-Switches.
The word I was looking for was spontaneously. But I don't really care and I'm not going to switch (no pun intended) it.

Mostly because I'm far too lazy to actually change something like that (so instead I'm writing several paragraphs about how I don't feel like changing it/why I'm not changing it 'cause that makes sense (Well, it actually does make some amount of sense because it serves more that just that purpose. This way I get to talk about not caring about grammar and then bring up the specific example of the use of 'sporadically'))

Anyway, that was suppose to be just a random side note that I would talk about, but it turned into a large portion of the blog post. That seems to happen a lot. I just have a random thing to talk about in the beginning and then it turns into something that probably could have made its own post, but whatever.

I'm suppose to talk about what Christmas means to me? That's what I remember, at least. I feel like there was some other portion to this blog post topic, but I forgot. Lo siento. 

I guess the first thing I think of is family. Christmas brings forth this way more than Thanksgiving does. There are several reasons for that. 1. Christmas Break is significantly long, first of all. 2. We get games to play on Christmas day, which, obviously, means lots and lots of game playing. Thanksgiving has a lot of sitting and eating around, but Christmas isn't revolved around a meal. We can play a lot more games. And because of this there are so many memories associated with the season. 

One prevalent one that was made recently was SeaFall. Seriously, that was such a good time. Staying up hours into the morning play two or three games in a row. Waking up early the next morning to play another one. It was wonderful. I wish I could do it all over again. But Legacy Games be Legacy Games.

Traditions. Our family has a lot of traditions we do over this season. The most prevalent one is Pickles, but we have so many others. Specific meal on Christmas Eve. Lighting a candle on I forget which day. Hanukkah candles. Which we didn't light this year :( Giving each other stocking stuffers. Wearing the Santa Hat while opening gifts. Putting up the star on Christmas Eve. Making Gingerbread houses. I'm probably forgetting a couple others. I love them all.

There's Times New Roman, guys! Apparently. I changed the font of this post to Times New Roman because I like it. I have no idea if I'll continue to do that, but this post, at least, is in the font. I'll see how it looks.I feel like there is some other portion to the topic that I could talk about, but I can't think of what it is/would be, so idk.

And apparently it's just Times and not Times New Roman and that makes me sad.

Blogger is messing with everything, so have fun looking at its craziness. I have no idea what's going on, so.

The Future

The Future. The Unknown. The Subject That I'm Going to Talk About Today.
I don't know why I felt the need to capitalize the entirety of that. But, yeah, I'm just going to talk about it and see what comes out. I'm not really sure what will. Just going to ramble, but different because I'm half filtering myself and stuff. AKA, I'm not writing everything that pops into my head, but it will all be random stuff, idk.

What do I not want to do/do I want to do with my life? Specifically talking about career choices and such.
(The answer is, obviously: I don't know)

I don't want to do anything with Video Production. I don't know why, but it just doesn't seem appealing to me. Cool. I figured one thing out.

I (probably) don't want to major in English, but may want to do something that deals with English? (I'll talk a little more about that later ((referring to the editor/writer section that happens in a sec)))

Do I want to not major in math? Math just seems so clearly the obvious choice. What else would I do? It just feels already laid out for me. But is it what I want to do?
(The answer is, obviously: I don't know)

I want to edit? Write? I love correcting and going over stuff. Seriously. Just send me all your papers. All of you. Just send them to me. I'll look over them. Correct grammar. Try to fix stuff. Both content wise and otherwise. (Assuming I have time; I can't promise everything)

Like, Eric, if you ever do take off as a writer (which I think you totally have the potential to be, but you should also make sure to get some form of a steady otherwise job with your current major, and then see if you can become a writer from there. Find a job and then build up your writing career after that. Just my two cents; it's your life), then I will go through all the things. I would go through your current work faster, but I'm really limited on time right now. It'll open back up after Christmas, hopefully. (I say it's limited as I write a totally optional blog post ('cause that makes sense))

I had a reputation in English class last year for just being brutal in my correcting. I loved it when people would come up to me being like, "My paper is terrible. I really need a good grade, though. I heard you're brutal. Please help." And I'm good at it. (Even though I did terrible on the English part of the ACT (terrible for me), which made no sense. I did fine on the Reading part, though. But, man, I better get a better score on that part when I retake it. I don't know why I wouldn't. I'm actually kind of convinced that it was a fluke and that next time it will increase by a large amount of points. Idk.)

I also love writing essays. Sitting down and just researching and writing a good paper is appealing to me. Most of the essays (I say most because I feel like there was one I didn't like? But I don't really remember, so, could've been all) I wrote last year in AP English were really enjoyable. Research Paper on Super String Theory. That was fun. Persuasive Paper on why we shouldn't legalize marijuana. That was fun.
Ah, I remember now; it was the Personal Narrative paper that I didn't enjoy. Yeah, I don't like those. Which sucks because we have one coming up in my Honors English III class.
But with the ones I did enjoy, they involved learning about something. I got to research stuff that I wanted to, and it was great. Randomly researching Pineapples and Piccolos was a similar concept, and that was fun. I got to learn about something that I had a desire to learn about.
Book report papers can be really enjoyable as well. Digging into a book that I love and writing about it has been fulfilling these past couple of days.
Creating something that I'm proud of and feels well written is rewarding. It's one of the reasons making blog posts is so great. When I just feel good about what I'm putting out there. It's amazing.

Could I ever make that into a job? Maybe some form of side job? What would that even require?

One of my obvious options is just become a math professor/teacher. Teachers, obviously, do not make the most amount of money, but it can be enough to have a nice lifestyle. Proven by, like, a majority of the families I know. Including my own, of course.
It seems like a decent option. Of course, in this post I won't come anywhere close to a conclusion on anything, but it's nice to lay things out there.

But-- random excerpt here that isn't really an excerpt because it's still totally related to the main topic but I don't know that's basically what an excerpt is in the first place so I don't really know what I'm talking about here so I'm just going to continue with the rest of this sentence-- like, all I've ever known as a career option is teaching. There are jobs other than teaching, farming, and (I don't know, what's the third most common career that's in my life?) ¿lawyers? (I know a few, so I guess that makes it the third most common? Idk.) Apparently. Still not sure what they are though.
(Or. Or. A businessman. Which is something that's always appealed to me for no apparent reason. But. Idk.)

This isn't even talking about colleges, which I'm completely going to skip. Talking about colleges increases my heart rate and I start freaking out, so this is the only mention you're getting of them.


Section on what I want to do with my life that is completely unrelated to schooling and career? I don't know, that question kind of makes it feel like a goals section, which isn't really what I was going for; I just wanted to mention a couple things.

Travel? I've never had the desire to travel at all until I met people who have and do (both want to travel and do travel). But now I do? One thing I know I would want to do if I ever traveled anywhere in the world is visit as many temples as possible. My sister went to Utah a little while ago and visited many temples and I was a little jealous. That sounds soooo cool.
Just. Like. Go to all of them. As many as possible. It'd be the best.

Ok, that's really the only lifestylic thing that I was thinking of, so I guess the following are more like goals or whatever, but it's not a list of all the goals or whatever, just a couple things that I was thinking of:

Live close to family. Hopefully.

Meet famous people that I'm fans of (or at least meet them in greeting). Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun. Brandon Sanderson. John Green. Hank Green. A couple of my favorite youtubers. (How is youtubers not a word yet? Weird. (btw, referring to other people when saying 'a couple of my favorite youtubers' not re-referencing John and Hank))

I don't know why those were the two random things that popped into my head to mention, but I don't feel like referencing any others, so.

I guess that's my post about The Future? There are several sub-topics in there that I'm sure I could talk about in other blog posts if I feel like it, but I did not here. I feel like I could talk about so much more, but I feel good about the post, so I'm leaving you with this quite lengthy installment of my blog.

Anthem

Ok, so tomato with an e at the end looks super weird now. I don't know what I was talking about last blog post. Tomato is totally fine, if not better.

So, I'm lazy right now and don't want to actually get started on my book report paper that's due on Friday. Well, at least not get any thing constructed down. As in, I'm just going to talk about the random things that will eventually need to be in the paper. It won't be super comprehensive/necessarily super useful for my paper, but I will come back to it when writing my paper.

Ok, first I'm actually going to talk about the book itself. It's super good. I already know it's going up on my remade favorite list. I've read it multiple times and have annotated the entire thing for English last year. Read it. It's super short, only 100 pages, so it won't even take that long at all. I won't really spoiler anything specific in this post, but talk about more broad things. You should be fine reading this if you haven't read the book. Although, you probably won't be very excited about any of it. You might not be excited about any of it anyway.

That's all still confusing, I think. Simple Idea: I'm brainstorming while at the same time just talking about a book that I love.
Ok, I have to analyze the triangle of rhetoricalness.
Genre: Sci-Fi, I suppose. But Sci-Fi typically has future stuff in it, so Idk. Is Medieval a genre? That feels like a dumb question, since I'm 90% sure the answer is obviously yes, but for some reason I'm doubting myself.
So I guess the genre is Medieval? (EDIT 12/5/17: I know this genre is wrong now)
Purpose: To Inform
Specifically about what Communism can do to everything.
Audience: Young Adults and Adults.
Basically anyone with enough knowledge that will allow the purpose of this book to come across.

Now I'm suppose to expand upon the triangle. Lame. I won't bother to do that here.

Did the book move me/what was the emotional response?
Idk. It gets me excited about Communism. Even though that makes no sense. Ok, excited isn't the correct word because it has a positive connotation to it. It gets me energized about Communism. And life in general. In neither a good or a bad way.
I feel like questioning my emotional responses is not the best of ideas. I feel as though they are not typical.
It makes me value my individuality? But also makes me value non-individuality? I have no idea.
One thing it definitely makes me value, though, is love. They took away love in the world. That is flippin' crazy.
It also makes me value the word 'I'. Like, not even what it stands for necessarily (aka, finally knowing the word that separates you from everyone else. Being your own person), but more the use of the word itself. How am I suppose to know if you're talking about just you or you and other people if you keep using we? I can't. And it's annoying. Especially while reading. I just had to guess in many scenarios on whether Equality 7-2521 was talking about just himself, or him and other peoples.

Did I rethink/change actions?
These questions come from two of my friend's notes since I was gone for tennis while Ms. Fairbanks was explaining them, so I'll have to clarify what this means exactly.
Has this book changed my actions in life? Is that what it's asking?
In which case, idk. Not really any fundamental changes in my outlook or anything. The only thing I can really think of is the fact that in my head while thinking stuff, I use a quotation from the book. "And yet... And yet..." I say that in my head quite a bit. And that came from this book. So, I guess that it has changed my life? In that small part at least. I remember reading that and being like, "I should totally use that" And then one day discovered that I actually did start using it. It was pretty cool.

Did I relate to the book or to any characters?
Idk, probably. Nothing really super specific that I can think of. I'll probably just bluff my way through this part of the paper and talk about how "I too know how it fells to be out of control and feel lack of individuality and that all my choices have been made for me" or something something. Which is not necessarily false, but I'll probably make it seem like more than what it was. And then, of course, I connect it back to the book and Equality's struggles etc.

Explain the Author/Talk about them
There's a whole section in the front of the book where the author talks about her self, and her inspiration etc. So I'll just use that to talk about her. I'll probably look some stuff up too.

Would I recommend it? Why or why not?
Yes. Because it's awesome.

That was terribly sloppy and not well written whatsoever and probably pretty boring. But I don't feel like changing it/looking over it again, so I apologize, you'll have to deal with what it is. I apologize again for this terribleness. It might not even be that bad, Idk. Or maybe the content is good but the way I laid it out wasn't? Idk, I'm just going to stop thinking about it all and just post it.

Pineapples and Piccolos

Three day weekend this week *party confetti emoji* (looked it up, is called the "party popper emoji")

So. Pineapples and Piccolos. They're pretty cool. I'm going to talk about them, I guess.
First off, Pineapples are, like, one of the best looking fruits. It's so awesome. I'm pretty sure it's the best looking fruit. Other than maybe some random ones I've never heard of.
Just look at it:

(First picture in forever *party popper emoji*)

Pineapples got their name due to their resemblance to pine cones. Which totally makes sense. And then the people who named them were probably like, "Ay, we can't just name them pine cones, obviously. So let's add something to the end. Like... apples. They're both sweet, I guess." And thus the pineapple was born (was given an official name, at least). But it's still kind of weird because if that basically purely what it was based off of, they could have become pinebananas or a pineoranges or a pinemangoes or a pinepeaches or a pineplums or a pinepears. So many options.

They taste good, so that's another cool thing about them.
Don't put them on pizza unless your taste buds enjoy that type of thing, though (mine don't).

But Thomas's POV on the topic doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Because at one point he decided he just didn't like warm fruits because he's not a fan of pies or cobblers (he's crazy, I know). But then he likes pineapple on pizza?? That doesn't make much sense.

Still on the topic of pineapple on pizza: It's fine if your taste buds are different than mine, of course. In fact, I don't think they're that bad (just pretty bad); I would just much prefer the pizza if they weren't on there. But the idea behind them still wigs me out. Fruit on pizza? (Counter point to that one argument that may or may not be in your head: Yes, tomatoes are considered a fruit (so therefore, the tomatoe (am I the only one that puts an 'e' after tomatoe? Because it says it's spelt incorrectly (along with 'spelt'. Come on United Statesians (and others who spell things different than I (which could just be Americans (Americans here is not referring to just the United Statesians), idk)), get with the program (except now that I look at the spelling of tomatoe again, it looks a little weird with the e, so idk))) would be the fruit on the pizza), but they are used as vegetables in cooking, so that doesn't apply.) (I have a feeling that my parenthesis system gets really confusing sometimes, since I often get confused while making a complex one, but I think figuring them out is part of the fun, so.) Wouldn't it seem weird to put peaches or plums or pears on a pizza? I'm not saying they would taste bad, I'm just saying that the idea behind it is a little weird.

Anyway. Piccolos.

Piccolos are chill. They're apparently half sized flutes (most info comes from Wikipedia, btw (the best source for getting good sources, but not for actually getting information (but I got info from it anyway))).

The name itself is awesome. Comes from the latter half of an Italian phrase/words/thingies that means "small flute".

Debunking myths is one of my favorite things to do (ex. believe it or not your blood is not blue inside your veins, and you can not see the super duper skinny Wall of China from the moon, and the sky is not blue because of the ocean nor the other way around), so, "It is a myth that one of the earliest pieces to use the piccolo was Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, premiered in December 1808. Although neither Joseph Haydn nor Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart used it in their symphonies, some of their contemporaries did, including Franz Anton Hoffmeister, Franz Xaver Süssmayr and Michael Haydn. Also, Mozart used the piccolo in his opera Idomeneo. Opera orchestras in Paris sometimes included small transverse flutes at the octave as early as 1735 as existing scores by Jean-Philippe Rameau show." (from Wikipedia, of course)

What about both together:

Idk.

Typed in "Pineapples and Piccolos" into google, and this was one of the images:

But other than that clear correspondence between both Pineapples and Piccolos, and its magically made beautiful relationship between the two, nothing really came up. (That was sarcasm. (Never really sure how well my sarcasm comes out in writing, so sometimes I feel the need to clarify.))

That was fun to write about *party popper emoji* (three in one blog post, that's pretty good)

(Oh! And happy B-Day to my sister and Tyler Joseph! They share a birthday, which is super awesome)