Svitak, Adora

[I wrote this from the point of view of the 'girl who would not talk' from Maxine Hong Kingston's story The Girl Who Would Not Talk.]

For lunch, my mother always packed me some dried fish with whole wheat bread and maybe a small apple. Everyone else’s mothers packed them juices and white bread and turkey and cheese. I did not want to look silly eating smelly dried fish in front of everybody else, so I ate at my own table with my sister. The table was blue and square, on a side of the cafeteria. The cafeteria was small and our school was large, so we were lucky to have our own table. No one bothered to sit down with me except for my sister. Everyone else went to the center of the cafeteria, where the conversation was.
It was good to have my own table with my sister, except for two things. My table was too far away for me to be able to look out the windows and too close to the other children, so I could smell their wonderful food and hear what they said about me.
“I think that she should go to the deaf-dumb school.”
“We have a deaf-dumb school?”
“Yeah. It’s called the municipal something-or-the-other deaf-dumb school. Do you think she can hear us?”
“Naw. She’s sitting too far away.” There were some nods of agreement and they munched on their soft white bread in synchrony.
“She isn’t dumb, though. She reads when she’s supposed to. I can’t hear her too well, though.” I did not like their words, but words were only words, and their words bounced off my ears. My sister grinded her teeth and looked as though she would have liked to pummel them. I smiled a secret smile. No one else, even my sister, would understand why I smiled. My father would probably brush the situation off; my sister would get angry; my mother would worry. I would smile. It was fun to hear the kids speculate on whether I was dumb. They had nothing better to do, I supposed, except talk about me and munch on their white bread. I peeled red paint off the wall and chewed on dried fish as I listened to them talk. The way they spoke made time pass more slowly, made it drip out like honey, only laced with bitter vinegar.

Vocabulary Dialogue

Posted by Adri

These are the words the characters are representing: decorum, tirade, vex, torpor.

Four characters are seated at The Peripheral Olive, an expensive candlelit restaurant. Their prim Aunt Esther is footing the bill, so she chose the restaurant. The dad, Steven Winoma, is dressed in a ratty tweed jacket and a pair of corduroy pants that have seen better days. Melody, a moody teenager who typically gets only three hours of sleep, is looking drowsy. Febronia, the baby of the family, is a petted, snotty ten-year-old brat. She is in a mini black dress that only enhances her snotty features.

After five minutes of waiting at the table in uncomfortable silence, a waiter in a white tailcoat comes to the table.

"And have you made your ordering decisions?" he asked smoothly. "Allow me to recommend the Creme du Swordfish."

"Excuse me, young man, but can you tell me where you source your vegetables from? I'll not eat anything that is grown outside of a ten mile radius," Steven said proudly.

"Yo man, why you look so dorky, like? You know, gangsta is the style right now, not 18th century," Febronia demanded. "Now listen, I made a special order for my OJ two minutes ago from that geek over there. Where's my frickin' OJ, huh?"

"Febronia! Do please speak in a less vulgar manner!" Aunt Esther said, much appalled.

"Oh, poo poo you," Febronia said dismissively.

Twenty minutes after Aunt Esther had finally managed to place all their orders, the food arrived. Any normal family would have loved the wonderful steaming smell of fresh vegetables, calzones, and soup, but no one looked particularly appreciative.

Melody slumped forward into her vegetable dish with a loud snore. Aunt Esther looked horribly mortified. Febronia dumped her orange juice onto Melody's head, then mooned the waiter as he came back with a drink for Aunt Esther.

"This behavior is unacceptable," the manager said sternly, coming up behind the waiter, who looked aghast. "Please exit the restaurant."

"Capitalist dogs!" Steven shouted. "Once again we are taking the brunt end of an inhumane police state! Our first amendment rights give us freedom of assembly! I'm taking this to the higher courts, you bleached minions of darkness! Mark my words, the Supreme Court will be in touch!"

"Oh Steven, could you hush! The children are watching," Aunt Esther said reprovingly. "Melody, are you awake?"

Melody's only answer was a loud snore.

History Assignment

History Assignment

Svitak, Adora

I know that the words "history assignment" are rather drab at least. For homework, I have been commanded by the most grand exalted Beastie to write about something I've learned about in history recently.

As a matter of fact, I'm going to write about not "something" but rather "someone." Any guesses? I particularly admire the Greek Herodotus ("The Father of History"), so that's who I will be writing about.

Herodotus was born in about 484 B.C. in Helicarnassus, a Greek colony. He traveled to many different places, like the Asia Minor and Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Babylon. At about 447 B.C. he moved to Athens. He interviewed people to learn about their way of living and their history, and compiled all his findings in his book Histories.

Not all of Histories was exactly pure history, however. Herodotus made up stories to keep his readers' attention. Who knows? Maybe the "Father of History" could more accurately be called the "Father of Tabloids, Yellow Journalism, and Exaggeration and Embellishment." I'm pretty sure that if Herodotus were a historian today, he'd get fired immediately for making stories up. Personally, I sort of like Herodotus for the tales he created. He probably made them to keep people interested, after all. Pretty good publicity skills, huh?

Herodotus wrote a nine-part history that covered the Persian, or Greco-Persian, Wars, which were a series of struggles between Persia and Greece. Recently I did a presentation on "10 Events that shaped Ancient Greece" and most of those events were battles. Honestly, I had a difficult time finding events that weren't--when the Greeks weren't squabbling among themselves, it seems like they always got into wars with superpowers around them.

Herodotus also bothered to cover daily life. Daily life might be boring to us, but the way we live our life will probably be drastically different from the way humans from two centuries into the future will live their lives. I don't know if Herodotus had our interests in mind when he covered people's daily life in his studies, but we should definitely record the way we live our lives for the benefit of future intelligent organisms.

Writing from the point of view of a tooth

"Writing from the point of view of a tooth"
Svitak, Adora

For class, we had an activity to write from the point of view of a tooth. Here's my piece:

I wiggled back and forth.

"Is that a wiggly tooth, Louise?" I heard someone's shrill, echoing voice from outside my dark wet cavernous home.

"Yeah, mom. Dentist said it should come out in a coupla weeks." Now the voice echoed inside my home. I was bounced up and down as the walls opened and closed.

My position in my home was not the best compared to my fellow teeth. When the walls opened, they were always the ones who could see out. But me? I had the sad fate of being located near the wizards (highly respected teeth) but not quite a wizard myself, so when I was pulled, or fell out, no one would mourn me.

10 Events that Shaped the Greek City-States

10 Events that Shaped the Greek City-states

Svitak, Adora

Yesterday afternoon I gave a presentation on 10 Events that Shaped the Greek City-States. I am a wretched procrastinator and I had been working on the PowerPoint just that morning. The whole project was an assignment from Beastie.

I came down to class after my daily nap and remembered another part of my assignment--the "creative element." I had decided that my "creative element" would be edible, some food that the ancient Greeks might have eaten. So I hurried upstairs, opened a can of olives, threw some bread onto a plate, and made a second trip to bring down cups of yogurt. As far as I know, the rest of the class enjoyed the "creative element." Considering that they left no olives behind for me, I'm pretty sure of it.

So that the rest of the class would be able to see the presentation, I hooked up my computer to a projector and projected it onto the whiteboard. Katie was only too eager to help erase the board. I believe she may have thought it would have increased her chances of getting food.We tugged one of the tables out for the projector. At the moment, our classroom looks like a disaster scene because of that move, with the three tables all "lined" up in a weird zigzag and not much room for moving around, either. At the time, the idea of moving the tables struck me as an innovative idea, and the table would be a good place to put the projector.

I started my presentation by introducing Ancient Greece. Unfortunately, I got a little sidetracked when it came to the Ancient Greek gods. Greek mythology is one of my favorite subjects, but when I noted that Hera (Zeus's wife) was also his sister, the class asked me some questions that made it necessary to relate the whole Olympian family tree. I was not distracted for long, however, and we soon got back on topic--10 Events that shaped the Greek city-states.

My presentation described each event and showed how the event affected the Ancient Greek city-states. It also included a brief introduction to Ancient Greece. I enjoyed introducing Ancient Greece to everybody but I wasn't too crazy about the events that I talked about. During the presentation, I slightly regretted opening the whole can of olives--they were depleting rapidly, and I wasn't entirely sure if everybody was paying attention with all the food in front of them.

In general, I considered the presentation a success. There were no technological problems, I had actually managed to find all ten events (a feat I wasn't always sure I would accomplish), and I didn't use too much organic "Greek Gods" yogurt for the creative element. However, I did notice that I forgot to list my sources.