Wow this so hard! I'm trying to be silent for 25 hours to raise awareness for Invisible Children. Have you ever heard of Invisible Children? Well, it's the truth about the sad world we live in! In some countries in Africa, the army is kidnapping little kids and raising the fight in the war. They are brainwashing them as using them as human shields! I'm being silent for 25 hours. That means I can't physically talk. So how am I supposed to raise awareness? By doing this! Telling every one I know that there are bad things happening that we stop! We can help those poor little kids! We can save lives by telling people and getting support for those invisible children! I thought I knew what it felt like not to be heard! I don't know anything about living in silence! Help the invisible children! Please?
~Elise
P.S. I keep messing up! My little brother isn't being understanding, he keeps trying to trick me into talking! It has worked a couple of times, but only for a few words. Then I shut up and give him my best death glare. Which, by the way, is pretty good! When I "mess up" and talk, I remember that they never mess up and if they did, no one would hear them anyway! >X( http://www2.invisiblechildren.com/25
The reason I say, “Why WE love it” is because my friend Monica doesn’t, but someone she idolizes does. In fact, Monica is mad at Portal because someone she idolizes loves it. That person is, Jhonen Vasquez, her favorite comic book artist, the creator of the ingenious Invader Zim, after whom her cat is named. Phew! That was a mouthful! Well… anyway, Jhonen V. was going to do some comicing this week and he didn’t because Portal 2 was released! I love Portal!!!!! And so does Jhonen V.! These are a small taste of how hilariously awesome Portal really is!
"If wishes, were fishes, could you walk on the sea?" ~Unknown
Now stop and think about it. Could you? How many times do you make wishes every day? I probably make anywhere between 10 and 30 wishes EVERY DAY. Everything from, “Man I wish I looked tuffer.” To “I wish I had a kitten.” To “I wish I could meet The Jonas Brothers.” And, the wish I’m sure you all have made this one, “I wish my chores would do themselves.” Well, with all those wishes being made by billions of people every day, if wishes were fishes could you walk on the sea? I think so! Nobody ever seems completely satisfied with what they have! I know I’m not! I don’t mean to sound bratty but... well, I’d like to say that all I need are my family and friends around me and I’ll be happy forever! But that’s a lie! My family annoys me... a lot! And I LOVE my friends, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want an ipad2! I’ve wished for that one a couple of times. All I’m trying to say is, I believe that if wishes were fishes you could walk on the sea! Who’s with me? It makes sense right? Right? I thought so!
I love my parents. Of course I do! But sometimes… sometimes… Well sometimes they make me really- I don’t know, angry and sad and, and, well everything, all at once!
This morning I was going to get help from my mom a project I was having trouble with. It was a problem with my English assignment, so it was exceptionally frustrating. My mom had to take my little brother to an appointment I had forgotten about so she asked my dad to help me. He told me to read it to him and I said I didn’t want to. So he, to my utter embarrassment, decided to read it out loud. He read every mistake and gives me this look like Really? This is the best you could do? When he finished he didn’t say anything. I started to try to defend myself saying, “It’s a really rough draft! It hasn’t even been proof read!” so he looked at me and said, “Why didn’t you proof read it?” He sounded really disapproving, like what he wanted to say was, What are you stupid? I don’t proof read my own stuff cause I never catch anything!
I explain that the project is really hard because we already wrote to different papers about the same character and there isn’t much more to say about her. Well that sends him into this big story about how a teacher asked his students to make as many observations as they could about this one passage in the Bible. “At first they only had about ten.” He said. “Then their teacher told them that wasn’t good enough, so they went back and looked for more. Do you know how many they had in the end?” he asked.
“No.” I said.
“One hundred.” He said triumphantly.
“So…?” I guess I looked kind of confused because he launched into another explanation.
“Did you read the book?” he asked.
“Yeah.” I said.
“Then why don’t you tell us more about Kathy? You can say why her mom sent her to Canada. Tell how she met Mike.”
“But dad,” I complained, “this isn’t a summary! We already did a summary! This an essay on ‘how Kathy grew, matured throughout the course or the book’.” I said, annoyed.
“You didn’t really read the book!”
“Yes I did!”
“You may have read it, but that doesn’t matter! You haven’t made any observations! You didn’t get anything out of it.”
I wanted to say, D-U-H! It was a stupid Canadian love story!!!! But instead I said, “It was REALLY boring. I didn’t pay all that much attention.” I was not about to tell him I did some Major skimming.
I nodded, that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Anger turned to turmoil. Not even good?! I thought. How can he say that?! He wouldn’t know good writing if pooped in his hair!!! Not even good? Tearssprung to my eyes. Not even good?
“You need to re-write it!”
“I have tons of other homework! Science, math...” My lips quivered and I just sat there.
“Fine then. You have one hour! That will leave time for the other subjects.”
I got up and ran up the stairs behind him. Flopping on my bed I started to cry. Not even good!
And that wasn’t even all he did today! I think I’d rather not give everyone to bad an impression of my dad, but he does that by himself on a daily basis.
Stumbling blindly through the woods they burst into a clearing and found themselves surrounded by a thicket. Dense brush and undergrowth surrounded the friends, as they realized that they would be getting nowhere in a hurry. One thought that kept flashing through Liz’s mind: HIDE. Like a bolt of lightning, it would illuminate everything for a split second, then plunge her mind into the pitch-blackness of fear. Fear. Fear. Of all the things swirling through the two very different teens’ minds fear was primary. Jess grabbed Liz’s hand and dragged her behind a moss covered tree, just as the security guard burst into the clearing exactly where they had been standing moments ago. “Come out here now or I’ll start shooting up these bushes and you’ll be in even worse shape than you already are!”
~Elise Oziel
P.S. The following two paragraphs are coming soon!
