My Ideal World

In Language Arts, we made books that illustrated our stories of our ideal worlds with artist Peg Gignoux. This is my book (above) and story:

My Ideal World (Duoluan)

For the first time in a long while, I saw trees—no, only one—or something that resembled it, at least. They were a contrast to the sparkly-clean gray and white corridors I have grown so accustomed to. I reminded myself that I wouldn’t be seeing that again in quite a while…

I kind of can’t since my ship crashed into an asteroid. It’ll be a while till I can get it up and running, if at all. I think I am in a sort of desert, but instead of sand, the ground is made up of gray translucent crystal. Maybe it could help fix the ship…

The tree is right in front of me, so I inspect it closely. The tree is unlike any other tree I have seen before – it is bathed in color, but the surrounding crystal is transparent. I look down, but it gets dark down there. I think I saw some sort of stone. From my view on the ship, all I saw was this desert. It will be hard to survive here. I suddenly have a feeling of shrinking as I realize I am a good two inches shorter. Maybe higher gravity did this?

I look down and realize that my feet are stuck in quicksand. It is made of tiny bits of the once-solid crystal, which is apparently incredibly weak. Traversing this terrain may be harder than I expected. I turn around to see that the ship has sunk halfway into the sand, too, but it seems stable now. I collect a sample to send back to my friends in Sakaron. I  call over T89YT and give him the package. Hopefully, they’ll get it before the Mekan do. I didn’t expect to crash into an asteroid, but Zal did say I was a lousy driver. I wish I had listened to him. Annoyed, I throw my phone onto the ground and stomp away.

Almost immediately, I feel a rumbling under my feet and rush into the ship, though it won’t provide me with much protection, now that it has a gaping hole in the port side. I turn just in time to catch what looks like a ginormous, fiery worm surface 50 feet away. It leaps out of a smoking hole in the ground like a dolphin, and a second too late, I realize where it is headed.

This creepy worm ate my phone!!!! THE ONLY WAY I HAVE TO CONTACT THE OUTSIDE WORLD IS GONE!!!! “What was that worm, anyway?” I wonder. I decided to call it a florm. Flame + Worm. I debate following the florm down its hole. It is a terrible idea for many reasons, one of which is that I don’t know how deep that hole is. I also don’t have a choice. I grab a flashlight from the ship; It’ll probably be dark.

I look down the hole. With the flashlight, I can now see the bottom of the hole. Luckily, it is only about 10 feet down. I slide down easily as I pursue the florm. The hole is still smoking, but I bring a mask with me, assured it will keep the smoke out of my face for now. As I race after the florm, I wonder what I am doing here after all, why should I follow the florm, and what wealth will it bring me? I don’t know the answers to either of those questions, but I hope I will soon…

I walk for what feels like an hour, with no sign of an end. With the Pathwalkers on, I walk four times as fast as I would normally, but apparently, that still isn’t enough to get me to wherever I’m going quickly enough. I don’t have enough food to last more than three days, and that’s pushing it. At the end of the first day, I take a break to sleep, though I don’t know what time it is. I just ate and feel tired, so I figure somewhere in the evening—if this planet even has “evening.”

After a restful slumber, I wake up and start moving. I tell myself that it’s good exercise and it’s fun! My body agrees with me about the former. I keep running for a while. My legs hurt, but I tell myself that I am almost there, not that I believe it myself. Then, I trip over something solid. Solid, not strange crystal sand. SOLID! I look up and realize that the ceiling is a stone that is familiar to me. I have never been so happy to see a site. I look down to see what I tripped over, and it’s a root!! There must be water around here somewhere…

After thirty minutes, I finally see flashing lights. As I crawl out of the tunnel, I am greeted by an unreal landscape compared to the desert I was in earlier. The sun shines overhead, but it differs from the star I saw in the desert. Did I somehow jump planets? Nothing is the same! The trees’ leaves are pink and fluffy, like cotton candy, and the trunk seems to be flowing. Some trees are more like 10 feet, but the majority tower above the clouds. I look at my Gravimeter, and realize this planet has low gravity! 5.98 m/s/s. That must be why I didn’t feel tired after running all that way. This planet must be HUGE!

The climate here is perfect for life. So why isn’t there any large life? I look up at the massive trees as I suddenly understand. The trees are houses! If I look carefully, I can see bridges connecting the trees to one another in the lavender sky. If only we could learn from these people. They built their houses in trees so they could have trees and houses. Smart…

I have to contact them.

They might be able to fix my ship. I climb the tree, getting maybe one-seventeenth of the way to the top before I slip. Luckily, the lower gravity prevents a hard landing. I land at the base of the tree, staring at a blatantly obvious door—it couldn’t be more obvious if there were a sign on it saying “door.” I open the door and step into a wonderland.

The first thing I notice is the aroma. It oddly smells like fresh flowers, chocolate, and other things I like. The lower gravity and humidity. It is humid and tropical and there are vines everywhere. I could spend hours upon hours exploring every aspect of this place, but I need to repair my ship. I think about how my ship looked after crashing into an asteroid. Scratch that; I need a new ship! I put my translator on since I don’t know what language everyone here speaks. As I make my way up a narrow stairwell, I encounter an alien. Or, I guess, a native. I suppose I’m the alien here and I’ve watched enough alien movies to know that they are presumed the bad guy. I need to try and keep my distance or else I might not be getting off this planet.

The translator works as advertised, and I learned that they are called the builders. They are tall and look strong. They have thick bark-like skin and purple eyes. They are a pacifist species left to thrive in this world. A few Koron are also with them. The Koron make up their entire military force. Apparently, they had spotted me miles away. I ask to speak with their leader and am led to an empty chamber—the alien who introduced himself to me as Ingurr walks into the room. “I am the leader,” he says. I ask him for a favor.

I departed with my borrowed spaceship 18 hours later, fully rested and fed. Looking down on this side of the planet, it looks like the paradise that it is. I assure myself that I will return as I fly through the bright yellow clouds and ascend to the red dwarf sun. As I fly out, I realize the blue sun I saw in the desert wasn’t a trick of the light. There are, in fact, two suns. One is blue, and the other is a red giant. Strangely, there are also only two planets in the system. One gas giant, close to the sun, and the other is Duoluan (that’s what the builders call their planet), the paradise for all.

I will come again.

Wisdom Tales Comic

I have never thought of myself as a good artist. At least, not if we aren’t drawing Minecraft grass blocks or the Chick-Fil-A logo (my ERB drawings were the best I’d ever made). Naturally I wasn’t exactly thrilled when we were told we were making a comic. You know, it was actually pretty fun! The story doesn’t start there, though. It goes way back to September, 2024. 

If you were there, you would think the two things were completely different, but just wait. We started when this whole thing was just disguised as ‘The History of Stories’. Like I said, what in the world does the history of stories have to do with a comic, other than language arts. Just you wait! 

Then we start getting into types of stories. Okay. Still not related as long as a comic isn’t considered a type of story. Spoiler Alert: It isn’t. Then we started reading stories (fables, parables, legends, etc…  turns out, they’re called wisdom tales because they have morals. Who knew?) and wrote down the morals and the summaries. Yes, I know, it’s sort of a long story, but stay with me here. This is when we were told we were making a comic, early December. We listened to a presentation on comics (Though I wasn’t able to be there). We chose a story to base it off of and got to work. 

So yeah. That’s how we got into making comics. Well, one page.

I chose The Smuggler, which is about a border inspector who meets a person (he is a smuggler) crossing the border with a donkey and a cart full of hay and is instantly suspicious. The man crosses the border every day and the inspector is sure he is smuggling something, but doesn’t have any evidence. He thinks about the man, even after retiring, until one day he sees the man at the market. He asks what the man was smuggling and the man says “donkeys”.

The moral of the story is that, sometimes, the hardest thing to see is the one that is right in front of you.

I chose this story because I found it hilarious, and completely agree with the moral. My grandfather knows this, so he always wins at Hide-and-Seek. One time in Mexico, he climbed up an umbrella. Many times, he has put a lampshade on his head and completely won. 

The art was pretty easy, actually. I used Sketchbook for the majority of my comic, but I put it all together in Comic Life 3. Sketchbook is my personal favorite of the drawing apps, but I have to warn you, Sketchbook colors are bright! Like, melt your eyes bright. I like bright colors, so I’m used to the eye melting by now. However, if you prefer to have your drawings look even semi-realistic, I do not suggest Sketchbook. However, there is a 60% chance that I am simply using Sketchbook wrong (wouldn’t be the first time), in which case, you should not be reading this. 

This was my first time using Comic Life 3 because, as I said, I don’t draw comics. Or, I didn’t. Anyway, Comic Life 3 is a great app! I have no regrets. The text bubbles and boxes make it easy to customize, and the backgrounds are awesome. 

As I have clearly stated, I prefer Sketchbook much more than Comic Life 3.

If you happen to know of any apps that are less eye-melty, please let me know in the comments below (not that I don’t like it when my eyes melt). Also, if you’ve never made a comic before, you should try it. You might enjoy it. I know I certainly did. Thank you for reading my blog!

Until next time!…

Habits

Daily habits can make a difference in everyday life. I should know, I’ve done one before. My challenge was a plank challenge: 30 seconds of plank. That was easy. The next week: 45 seconds of plank. That was easy. Two weeks pass, now we are doing 1 minute 15 seconds. That was easy actually kind of hard. The differences were clear, though. Two mins 30 secs at the end felt like 1 min 15 secs did at the start. See, big difference. It wasn’t hard to stay with the habit, when you were constantly being reminded, but I only did one plank over Thanksgiving break! I would say the planks were a big success!


Sometimes when the weather was dull and drab outside and everyone was tired, a plank was something no one wanted to do. At least we could all agree! Having a habit really helped me in many ways, so I am going to have another one. I am going to try to get at least 30 minutes of exercise every day!


Oh, yes (scratches head) I guess I should mention THE PLANK CHALLENGE. It was your basic “whoever lasts longer” competition. Near the beginning, it was all pretty easy, and no one dropped out before 2 minutes 30 seconds. Then it started to get really hard once we were past what we had done before, and I dropped out 6th at 3 minutes 55 seconds; right before my friend, victor dropped (after celebrating when I dropped out). After a few minutes, it was down to the final four. Then, around the 6 minute mark, 4th place dropped out, and then there were three. We were at 9 minutes 30 seconds when I got to help. One of the contestants was going to drop out at 10 minutes and wanted me to tell them when that happened. Of course, I wasn’t going to let them just quit at ten. When there were 10 seconds left, I announced that there were 20 and when it had been ten minutes, I had him stay up till 10 mins 15 secs. Luckily, he wasn’t mad.


The Plank Challenge was down to the wire and there were only 2 contestants left, but they were still going strong at the 15 minute mark. One was jamming to music. I needed to know what that playlist was. They lasted so long, the period had ended and we still didn’t have a winner, so our teacher decided a tie was best (there had been 1 other call for a tie at 20 mins but it was rejected by the contestants). However, we had all survived past the 2 mins 30 secs mark, so you can see it had a big impact. Do you have any habits that you either practice currently or just ideas for one.

Books

I like to read. Like, a lot (not an alot, those are cute though, have you seen them?!). I have 600 books: 300 for free on my Kindle, 200 on my bookshelf, and 100 not for free off my Kindle. I consider myself a good reader because I can read a lot of things (these alots look like a bunch of things, all together) and keep reading. I would read all day if you let me! 

As long as it is a good book…           

I will take and make book suggestions from and to all of my friends, but don’t entirely trust, for instance, summer reading lists. Honestly, does anyone completely trust the recommendations of summer reading lists? Oh, my dad too. He mostly suggests audiobooks, but he has helped me find some of my favorite books. Like, seriously, here are my three favorite book series (yes, series. All of my favorite books I cannot choose because the whole series is great):

  • #3: Wings of Fire (suggested by one of my friends)
  • #2: The Inheritance Cycle (suggested by a tutor)                       

And that brings us to number one:

  • Arcane Ascension (suggested by my dad)

See what I mean?

Although, currently, I’m reading a book that may soon become one of my favorites. It’s called Expeditionary Force, Book 1: Columbus Day. Well, not that book. Probably the series as a whole. There are 18 books in the series! The first book starts off kinda slow, but gets really good and funny. That’s why I read books. Funny and fun. Mwah!

That book is 1 of the, probably 89 books I have read since the beginning of last summer and the 204 from this year (89 included) but definitely the best. I recommend all of these books.

I always read at least 63% more at home than at school and I think it’s because it isn’t quiet. I can be picky with reading, just not books. I will barely read if the environment around me is too loud, which is one of the reasons I love Language Arts class. However, I get sucked into books very easily and it is hard to get out. Sometimes my mom has to literally take the book away from me to get me out of my little fantasy world.

As you can see, I always seem to gravitate towards fantasy, which is true. I like all genres that are some kind of fiction and I feel like most people feel the same. Mystery is always great and I love a good sci-fi book. If you have any books that you think would be good for me, that would be very useful. Just plop it in the comments below.

Thank you, and happy reading!

 

Percy Jackson and the Olympians ~ Window or Mirror?

I just finished reading House of Hades, Book 4 in the Heroes of Olympus series. It is by Rick Riordan (as are most good books) and takes place after the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. It is a fantasy book about Greek mythology. 

For me, this book was a window.

“What is a window?”,you may ask. Allow me to explain.

A mirror is a book where you can relate to one of the characters. A window takes you into their world, where you don’t have anything in common with anyone. Many books are both a window and a mirror.

As I said before, House of Hades is a window for me, and let me explain why! If you have read the book, you know what I’m talking about, but I’ve never been to Tartarus (how odd…) . Most of the people are older than me and I’m 99.9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999% sure that I am not a demigod. However, there is always that 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% chance that I may be a demigod…

Weird

Life, I mean. Not you.

I’m fairly sure that you are a perfectly weird person, just like me!!!! I wouldn’t be writing this sentence if I wasn’t at least 50% weird, in fact.

Before I go off on an infinitely long tangent, let’s get back on track.

I chose this book because I liked Percy Jackson and the Olympians. I hope you enjoy this book.

Read Maybe Daily News!

HONK!!! – famous quote from Gooseman, Harbinger of Honks.
Listen up!(oh wait, you can’t; Gooseman shattered your eardrums)
Let me rephrase that: look up!
Wait, that sounds like you are looking away from your screen.
HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM (me using my obviously superior brain power)

Okay, moving on:

What is Gooseman?, you may be thinking (yes, I did just read your mind). If this is what you are thinking, YOU ARE SINCERELY MISINFORMED!!!!!
I’m sorry, but whatever newspaper or online news you read is making stuff up!
Read Maybe Daily News if you want to get caught up with the news and read the latest on Albert Spinkles, Gooseman, Cheezmaster CornDiggityDog and much more! Go to Maybedailynews.com to read all about these…

…real people
Yeah, let’s go with that.

Camp Kirkwood

Once upon a time, there was a spider named Larry. He lived on his little web in the corner of the giant’s castle with a wood roof above him. It was the only home he had ever known, and he liked it a lot. Especially the food. There were sooo many flies. Plus, the giants never noticed him. He was up in a corner. Often, he would crawl up onto the roof and look around. All he ever saw the clearing he lived in, and all of the four buildings in it. And trees. So many trees. He was sure he was in a forest full of them, and as far as he could tell, that was what the world was made of. He’d heard enough stories to know what the woods were like. They were terrifying. Monsters everywhere, hunting you, swarming you. He would never go there as long as he lived! 

There was one thing that puzzled him, however. There was a gray line more than twenty five spiders wide in the ground. It curved out of view and into the forest. The weirdest part was the monsters. They roared down the path, destroying anything in their way. He simply could not understand why the giants would want those… monstosities anywhere near them. Why, the monsters could eat them whole! And then that led him to thinking, “Could the path be a prison of the monsters?” Of course, that just led back to his first thought.

But… it couldn’t be, for the giants walked calmly into the monster’s jaws. Why would they do such things? Alas, these were the questions that kept him up at night.

One day, after many nights of bad sleep, Larry had enough! He would sneak into the monster’s maw and find out the secrets hidden within. He would be a hero!

Only if he made it out alive.

That thought chilled him to the bone. 

He tried to postpone it as much as he could, but he knew he had to do it. He had procrastinated enough. It was long past time.

So, early on a Wednesday morning, he woke up with a purpose. 

He didn’t know when they arrived. They had simply appeared out of thin air, it seemed. Whatever; he had made a promise; and he was going to keep it. That only left him with one major problem: how to get into the monster. 

He could not just hop into the jaws, as he could only jump so far and high. Plus, the giants would see him. He knew they hated his kind. He had to be stealthy. Maybe he could climb up from its legs onto the monster’s underbelly. Larry didn’t know what was there, though; and he was more curious about the inside. 

Then he saw the bags.

When his mother had made him bags, they where maybe…a leg long. No no no no no, that was not what these were like. They were ginormous! (Although he supposed that they were the size of the giants’ legs). The perfect place to hide. He crawled up onto an especially large bag while the giants were not looking and found exactly what he was looking for. A hole. A tiny hole, but it was big enough for him. He squeezed through the hole

Inside the bag it was dark. He didn’t care. He could still see. He looked around, barely fitting in the spaces between giant boulders. He found a small cave, settled down, and fell asleep.

He woke up to the jostling of the bag he was in. He was safe, but his heart pounded. He felt like he had the best sleep ever and he was ready for adventure. 

Ten minutes later, he was bored. He had forgotten to bring anything for entertainment. He had thought he would be entertained by just the prospect of being in one of those monsters, but there was nothing to do!

That was where he was wrong. He thought about it and realized: he had never actually seen the inside of whatever he was in! He crawled back to the top and squeezed out of the hole and looked around.

It was not what he expected.

He was not in a monster, he realized, he was in a transportation device. With windows. He didn’t feel any wind, so he assumed he was not moving. He could see the bright, blue sky from his vantage point on the ground, but not anything else. If he wanted to see where he was, he would have to be sneaky about it. He crawled up the back of the seat in the back onto the top and went to the window. 

He was moving. He could feel it now. The trees breezed by as he stared in amazement. He must have been there for hours. He decided to name it the MTD; Moving Transportation Device. He wondered what the giants called it, as the MTD slowed down and came to a stop. He frantically scrambled back to his bag and dove in. He was just in time, too, because he wasn’t even at the cave when he was jostled again and (he assumed) put on the ground. He crawled out and onto the bag. He was about to get off of the bag when the ground seemed to be just out of reach. It was then that he realized he wasn’t on the ground, as he had previously thought. He was, in fact, being carried. By a giant. He almost screamed! He ran back into the bag and hid until he was sure that the giants hadn’t seen him. Even when he was set down, he crept cautiously to look out of the bag. It was a good thing too, because as soon as he got out, he was picked up once again. 

Once he was put down, and had heard the giants rush away, he crawled out of his bag and started to explore. 

He was in a room, apparently. He had never been inside one before. He had always thought that it was too dangerous. Then again, he had thought that the MTDs were monsters. Well, he was there, so whatever. 

After he had thoroughly explored the inside, he decided to go outside. Only, he was blocked! He could see through it, but there was some metallic thread preventing his escape. After trying for a while to push past it, he sat down and yelled in frustration.

He wasn’t expecting an answer. 

“Are you new?”

A voice. Calling to him. Wait, was it…

He decided to respond anyway, “Yes.” The response, “To get out, crawl to the top. There’s a hole.” He followed the instructions. He was out! “Thank you phantom voice,” he responded. “Look up,” the voice instructed. He looked up.

He saw the BIGGEST spider he had ever seen (though he hadn’t seen many)! He jumped back! “Don’t worry. I will not harm you,”. 

“Wherearewewhoareyouwhatishappening!!!!!”, he asked. “Ok, slow down. My name is Zoe, and you are at Camp Kirkwood and you are going to be my eternal slave!!! MWA HA HAAAA!!!”. “AHHHHHHHHH”, Larry ran. “Wait, I’m just kidding,”.

He stopped. “I can show you around.” Larry went back slowly, “As long as I don’t have to be your eternal slave,” he agreed.

“Deal.”

And so Zoe showed him the camp. “This is where the giants play,” she explained and these are my friends and this is a pool.”

He watched the giants play in the pool, on the V-Swing (which was like a giant swing/zip line), on the zip line, and on the giant blob that no one knew the name of. All of them looked so fun. She even showed him the food that the giants ate (Spoiler: it was not flies or mosquitoes). It still looked yummy though.

They sat in a boat that was rowed by giants across a lake.

Life was beautiful. 

When the MTD went back he did not come.

He was already at home.