So Things Change

Hi, all.

So if you've been paying attention, you'll know that I haven't posted in about two months.  Sorry about that.  And if you're here, you'll also know that about a month ago, I changed this blog's URL.  Sorry about that, too.  And if you've ever been in high school, you'll know that things change.

Let's talk about that.

On November 1, just after some of my friends had a heart-to-heart on Halloween night, they decided that it was necessary that we shut down the Role Play.  It had been causing some social, academic, and creative issues that I don't want to elaborate on on here, and in order to make things better, we thought it best to cut off all collaboration.  No more book.

So that sucks.  Obviously.  But you'll notice that this blog is still named Rousseaux, and its URL is still Anthony's birthday.  One of the conditions was that our individual characters are still ours, and we are free to do what we want with them.

So, since I'm not actively working on his development anymore, let's go ahead and post Anthony's character form here, for future reference.

So, I realize you have never been properly introduced: kids, meet Anthony; Anthony, meet the kids.

Anthony James Rousseaux

Gender:

Male

Born:

September 9th, 1992 (currently age 23, in the beginning of the story only 21)

Literary Status (Protagonist/Antagonist):

Uncertain

Shadow Ranking:

Was once Tier Nine Recruiter, now Tier Seven

Height:

6'4"

Appearance:

Tall and skinny, with narrow shoulders and a slightly lilting stride.  Really not incredibly strong.  (He has a knife, but in battle relies mostly on his cards.)  He has pale-gray hair trimmed just out of his eyes, which are a light brown.  He has a rather effeminate jawline and a thin nose. Anthony actually has lots of scars and a Shadow Mark on his left wrist, but he hides them with a Three of Clubs.

Sexuality:

Straight demisexual (needs to form emotional bonds before he can be interested in any-thing

sexual, kissing or otherwise)

Personality:  

Very quiet and very observant.  Not particularly light-hearted, but easygoing in most situations. He 's very private, and has to be pushed (or at times, negotiated with) in order to express his feelings because he's not sure they're critical to many situations, or his past because he's mostly ashamed of it.  

Flaws and Weaknesses:

Just because Anthony does not often acknowledge or act upon his emotions doesn't mean they don't trouble him regularly.  He spends a sizable amount of his time regretting things, and swallows every emotion he doesn't want to feel.  This is obviously unhealthy, and he has paid the price for it in many ways, on many occasions.

Skills:

Anthony is a card dealer; he has a magic deck of cards with a specific power each, categorized by suit ("Spade to Fight, Heart to Live, Club to Build, Diamond to Steal" - fighting, healing, illusion-casting and misc. cards, respectively).  He's also fast in a fight, if not particularly strong, and has good endurance.  He always has a diamond-made dagger on him for when he can't or won't fight with his cards.

Story/Backstory:

He had an English mother and an American father.  His father was a state representative for northern California, where Anthony lived on the family estate until he was old enough to go to school.  At that point, his parents began sending him away to a British boarding school every year, where he spent the holidays with his English grandparents, only coming home to California for the summers.  By the time he was ten, he really didn't have much of a relationship with his parents past maintaining social pretense.  

When Anthony's cousin Nathan's parents died, Nathan came to stay with them and became a fast family favorite, causing tensions to rise dramatically.  One day near the end of the summer, Anthony and Nathan had a fight that involved the Black Joker or Master Thief card tearing between them.  This killed Nathan, and Anthony received a jumble of all his interesting thoughts and memories which, as you can imagine, took a while to sort out.  Anthony's parents flipped and all social pretenses dropped, causing a huge fight.  

This was when Anthony ran away and was intercepted by the Shadows.

The Shadows recognized the potential in Anthony's card dealing power and made him a priority trainee, eventually turning him into a skilled Recruiter.

One of Anthony's first recruits was Dakota Black, when Anthony was thirteen and they both still believed in the Shadows.  They became fast friends, and Dakota's house became like Anthony's second (and at times, first) home.  

When Anthony was fourteen, he fell in love with a girl named Cassie Reed and couldn't bring himself to recruit her.  Dakota helped the couple to run away from the Shadows, and they tried to go into hiding, but did not succeed; thus, Anthony was forced to recruit Cassie.  She was immediately shipped off to another base, and he never saw her again.  A year later, another Shadow ratted out Dakota for helping them, and as punishment for their treason, Anthony had to kill him.  (At this time, Anthony was 15, Dakota was 14, and Raven - Dakota's little sister - was 11.)

Anthony shouldn't have killed Dakota because that's a really shitty thing to do to your best friend, but also because for the years to come, it gave the Shadows a hold on Anthony they hadn't had before.  They convinced him of how cowardly and unforgivable that was, among other things he'd done (recruiting Cassie, killing other people, etc.), and essentially used these things as blackmail to make him do even more shitty stuff.  (It was very important to them that he felt like he would never have an out.)

In order to deal with everything, Anthony made himself pretty much completely numb, and it worked until he was about nineteen (when he peaked and stopped climbing the Shadow ranks).  Then Raven ran away from home, and the Shadows assumed that it was because she'd found out about them or about Anthony killing her brother.  They immediately sent Anthony to either recruit her (despite her apparent lack of powers), or kill her.  He knew he could never recruit her, and at the thought of killing his friend's little sister, Anthony finally snapped.  He had a small mental breakdown because he couldn't manage to numb himself anymore, and he finally allowed his allegiances to drift from the Shadows.  For the next two years or so, he followed after Raven without actually catching her, and got demoted several times.

When our story starts, Anthony is on his way to recruit Raven to the Shadows, but sent on a detour to befriend and recruit the other characters.

Kill Count:

Unknown

I made this with an anime maker game;
I couldn't change the proportions so he
kinda looks like a twelve-year-old, but
it's supposed to be him after he leaves
the Shadows and joins the Army.

Same anime maker; this is him before
he peaked in the Shadow ranks, so probably
when he was eighteen or nineteen.  (He drank
very lightly then, but now doesn't drink at all;
it freaks him out.)

Sara made this Anthony dragon with
her mad drawing skillz.  (No, Anthony
cannot actually turn into a dragon.)

Bailey made this with an online
chibi-maker thing.

Again, chibi-maker thing.

This was made on Polyvore.

Siri made this for I think my
Christmas present last year.

This is the original inspiration picture of Anthony,
which I may or may not have posted here before.

I'm not sure I own any more than two of those pictures.  Moving on.

Because the roleplay is over, and I am without a project, I'm pretty freaking bored.  Right now, I'm floating around doing stuff like rereading Harry Potter (third time), rereading Hunger Games (second time), starting Divergent, watching lots and lots and lots of movies, basically looking for inspiration wherever I hope I can get it.  It's not working very well, but I'm not really sure what else to do.

Any ideas?

In Creative Writing, we've been doing lots of short projects, which are interesting and fun, but they really need revision.  (Once revised, I'll post them here.)  Mr. Parker (yes, last year's English teacher is this year's Creative Writing teacher) says that next year he'll be offering Creative Writing II, in which we'll work on just one project all year: a big project, like a screenplay or a novel or whatever it is we high schoolers each decide we've wanted to do for the past sixteen-to-eighteen years.  So I'll be working on a novel, then.  Yaaaaaay!  I really need a project now, though.  Something to work on consistently, and something that I can feel is meaningful and well-executed once I've finished.  And maybe next year I can fix it, or try a new one.  Either way, there's really no reason to wait around.

I need to finish something.  Mr. Parker told me I'm good, but I "lack discipline."  Sad, but true.

Get it together, Allie.

Do you guys ever get like this?  Project-less and under-stimulated, I mean.  And if so, what do you do?

Until next time (whenever that may be),

-Allie H-S

P.S: I do have one thing I've been poking at, a short story about a girl whose mother uproots her and her little sister to leave her father.  It's called Missoula because that's where they go, off to see her aunt.  So we'll see if that turns into anything.  Wish me luck.

Other Miscellaneous Updates: I never finished 1984; I hate Debate; you should read a webcomic called Namesake; I joined Pottermore as WombatRiver12772 and it put me in Slytherin; and HAPPY THANKSGIVING unless you're not American in which case HAPPY DAY YOU SHOULD HAVE SOMETHING NICE FOR DINNER!  That is all.

Let's Just Go Ahead and Update You on Everything

Hi, all!

I've been kinda busy lately, what with school (school sucks, but less so than the last two years), the roleplay (we've been redeveloping everything), and debate (I also joined the debate team, just by the way).  So sorry for not posting very often.  I was going to compare The Maze Runner (book) with The Maze Runner (movie), but I get kinda rambly when I review.  So maybe later.  (Long story short: the movie was better.  I know, I didn't believe it either.)

But yeah, this blog is a bit behind.  I think it's time for an update post.  So now, in no particular order...

Update 1: Yeah, seriously, I joined the debate team.  I kind of regret it though, 'cause my most enthusiastic debate team friend (AKA: 70% of my motivation) has had to take a lengthy leave of absence.  But I already paid club fees, hotel fees, and an extra sweatshirt fee, so yeah, there's no going back.  Our first tournament is on the 11th, which is soon, so maybe I'll post about it after.

Update 2: School started a couple months ago, and my classes this year suck significantly less than they did last year.  Unfortunately, I allowed myself to get discouraged around registration time and did not sign myself up for Drawing, but hey man, I took Photography instead.  It quickly became my favorite class, so I call that a success.  But more on that later.  I'm also taking Creative Writing and Honors English, both of which should give me posting material (in the fullness of time).  P.E. is dumb and Honors Math is dumb, but that's just two of eight classes.  I got more than half-lucky this year!  Yessssssss.

Update 3: Right but so photography.  Photography is hard, so we're taking it slow(ly?), meaning we don't develop our first round of actual film until Monday.  But earlier, we made pinhole cameras (mine was unsuccessful), and photograms (mine were very successful).  So yeah, let's talk about those.

First thing's first: I have to explain how photo paper works.  Basically, a bunch of goddamn magicians came together and created a type of white paper that turns dark when exposed to light.  Well, okay, it doesn't turn dark until you put it in the developer chemicals, but the important thing is this: the parts that had light on them will be dark.  Shine light on one corner?  Dark.  A different corner?  Dark.  A tiny spot in the middle?  Dark.  Just how dark it really gets depends on how much light hits the paper and for how long.  If you shine a really dim light for a fraction of a second, it'll turn kinda grey.  A glaring bright light for a minute or so should turn it completely black.

So, a photogram is what you get when you cover up certain parts of the paper to prevent the light from reaching them.  In class, we stood in the dark room and laid a bunch of objects on our photo paper, put it under a light, and shined it on for a couple seconds, then put it in the developer chemicals.  (side note: do not get developer chemicals on your hands.  They won't hurt you, but you'll smell like old rubber and vinegar for the next two days, which makes you really sick really fast.  It's gross.)  My best four came out like this:

This one's fancy 'cause I mounted it.  (sorry the photo's not
the greatest.  I had to turn it in, so I took this one in class.)

Admire the doll arm.  (And wonder why the hell it has those
shadow objects reflected on it.  How does light work again?)

I am so sorry about the dust.  I tried to get it off,
but in my house, it's pretty much unavoidable.

b r o k e n   l o c k e t
(broken hearts)

Maybe I needed the change of medium from drawing to art.  I like this.  I really do.

Update 4: Like I said, we've all been working on the roleplay, and I'm really excited about this.  We've been doing this without actually roleplaying it though, which just means lots and lots of redevelopment with hardly any writing.  Which I love, actually!  It's satisfying and refreshing.  And remember Raven?  (I mentioned her briefly here.)  I kind of killed her off and deserted her, but now I'm fixing her!  I've been meaning to do this for months.  It only came off the ground now because Mr. Parker (yeah so last year's English teacher is this year's Creative Writing teacher - cool beans, right?) assigned a short narrative written about a Facebook status.  I don't have a Facebook, so I made a status up and ended up writing about Raven running away from home.  It was almost kind of enlightening, actually.  I always try and map out my character and storyline before I start writing, but this time I just kind of just let it go, and I learned things.  Like that Raven is gay, or at least bi.  Despite having a girlfriend myself (damn cutie she is), I am not usually prone to writing LGBT characters, so that was kinda surprising.

The real challenge here is going to be handling two developed characters in my head without getting more excited about one than the other.  And if I succeed to love them both, the next challenge will be to kill Raven off anyway.

Yay!

Update 5: Okay, I think this is the last thing.  Here, we have...webcomics!  God, do I love webcomics.

CUCUMBER QUEST is really fuckin' cute, guys!  These four hero people (er, *bunnies) have to travel all through these crazy kingdoms to collect some silly stuff and fight some ridiculous villains, and I won't lie to you, the whole quest thing is really just kind of inane (even to them).  The heroes are all really adorable though, and like - I mean, can I be your friend, Cucumber?  Pleeeaaase?? - and the villains are all really compelling, actually, with really interesting dynamics.  (Like Nightmare Knight and Rosemaster.  I really want to know what's going on there.)  I mean, their quest is kind of frustrating, and a million times harder than it needs to be just because some of the characters are just stubborn, but the webcomic itself is so cute.  Read it.  You must.

BLINDSPRINGS is...ahh...I'm not sure how to explain Blindsprings.  It's kind of involved, or at least, the whole story hasn't been revealed to us yet.  As I understand it, a kingdom was ruled by a group of people known as Orphics, who were born with magical abilities that came from the spirits.  But the Orphics were too oppressive of their people and the Academists (scholars who managed to invent their own, artificial magic) revolted, quickly taking over the kingdom.  The Academists developed a way to seal Orphic powers, and quickly became distrustful and oppressive of all community members who were of the Orphic line.  Now (about a hundred years later?), Orphic community members are beginning to revolt again.  I think.  Despite it being kind of complicated, the story is told with such incredible charm (and such a different and lovely range of characters) that it immediately keeps you reading.  It's not very long, and updates relatively often, so if you're looking for something elegant and new, I recommend this one-hundred percent.

BFF COMIC is something I was only introduced to a couple days ago, but it is damn freaking adorable!  I'm not far enough in to write my own description of it, so here's the author's: "Best Friends Forever is a (b)romantic dramedy about a dirt-poor quarterback and the nerd-chic president of the student council trying to hold their unlikely friendship together - despite the suspicions & meddling of their frustrating classmates."  Honestly, I'm still early enough in the comic (chapter seven) that I technically shouldn't be reviewing yet, but it is so cute.  Teddy (the nerdy kid) is adorable, and Vincent (the quarterback) is beautiful, and they're just...aw.  You should read it.  Please.
(UPDATE: okay so I caught up on it and it starts out adorable, but then it gets really angsty really fast.  I'm not saying you shouldn't read it, but ahh, be warned.  That's all.)

Oh Yeah and Also Update 6: I'm about 20 pages into 1984 right now.  You know, that old dystopian classic by George Orwell?  Yeah.  It's scaring me.

Alright, so that's the last of my updates.  I hope you guys are all doing wonderfully, and I myself have been doing pretty okay.  I'll talk to you later!

-Allie H-S

Happy Birthday, Anthony! Brief Roleplay History?

Hi, all.

I know I haven't posted in a while.  School started and I've been pretty busy ever since.  I've been trying to find something to post about, and today is a special occasion.  On this day, Anthony James Rousseaux (the namesake of this blog) turns twenty-three.  He was born on September 9th, 1992.  (Hence my username.)  He is by far the best and most developed character I've ever created, and I just...I mean...he's cool.  He's pretty cool.

look at these cool cards, guys.  I own these.  yeah.

In honor of his birthday, I thought this would be a good opportunity to tell you all more about the roleplay.

Some of this will be recap.  Here I'm not rereading and adding on to my old posts about it, but instead, starting fresh.

The roleplay (sometimes known as "Divided") is a project my friends and I started in late fall, 2012.  It was meant to be a silly writing project, just for fun.  We each created our own characters, initially just one for each writer, but since then, things have grown.  This may not be perfect, seeing how at the moment people keep changing their ideas, but as far as I know, the author-character chart looks like this.

Author Siri Reilly:
 - Lizzie Tyler
 - Hank Jacobs
 - Meg Richards

Author Sara Williams:
 - Shade Grey
 - Darel Jones
 - Nate Jones

Author Bailey Giauque:
 - Bea Holmes
 - Jade Young
 - Lea Vindico
 - Oliver Vindico?

Author Alix Kintner:
 - Shizuka Maki
 - Demon?

Author Madison DeCamp:
 - Tyler Noel
 - Cassie Reed
 - Skyler Mills
 - Scarlett Mills-Noel

Author Allie Hedderly-Smith (me):
 - Anthony Rousseaux
 - Raven Black

(We occasionally write one-shots including other characters, but overall, the rights to each belong to their respective authors.)

I typically have trouble staying interested in more than two characters.  If we ever start writing again, I may try my hand in the supporting cast.  (We don't have a lot of that.)

But anyways, we started it in 2012 (eighth grade) just for fun.  One person would write a paragraph or so from their character's point of view (a post), and another would write a response paragraph from their character's point of view (another post).  The responses were, for the most part, quick and interesting, and our story soon progressed into a gallop.  At times, it got in the way of our school and homework habits; cranking out posts like we were born for it.  As is the case with all great amounts of output, the new and sudden experience caused our writing styles to change dramatically.  (Zen Pencils, anyone?)  And I'm not kidding when I say "great amounts;" we ended up with three different Google docs because each doc only allows a around three-hundred and fifty pages.  That's about one-thousand pages of writing.  Sure, most of it was fluff that didn't progress the story, but still.

We all tried a few other roleplays (zombie apocalypse-themed, dystopian society-themed), but none of them lasted long.  I think the reason this one was so successful was the appeal of the fantasy and freedom of our characters, but also mostly just that it was the first one, the one we all really got to know each other through.  If the roleplay hadn't started, I likely wouldn't have the friends I have now.

But so, after three docs, summer vacation finally came and we got distracted.  We've tried to start it again a couple of times, but haven't quite succeeded.  And we've been toying with the idea of turning it into a book for a while - like a year.  I think my co-authors would rather nobody posts any direct excerpts right now, but if we make any real progress, I'll let you know.

But so anyways, school has started, and September 9th has come.  Happy birthday, Anthony!  Someday I'll start writing about you seriously again, and you'll be back where you came from.

Talk to you all later.
- Allie H-S

P.S: Salt Lake Comic Con was exhausting; I didn't realize the Salt Palace was so big.  (The vendor's room from last year was used this year for just the entrance.)  I got ten cool little pins from some place called Akumu Ink, a fancy fascinator hat, and a black parasol umbrella.  Now I'm completely broke.  And that's really all there is to say on the matter.

P.P.S: I always feel like I need to leave a second signature to conclude my post-scripts.  But I don't.  So that's a little frustrating.

Artifact Reflection 5

Hi, all.

Watch The Dream is Now.  It's a documentary.  It's on Netflix.  It's only thirty minutes long.  It's very important.

It's also very frustrating.

The Dream is Now follows a group of youthful immigrants as they try and fail to achieve citizenship and their respective dreams.  And after watching it, I have a request - a completely genuine request, believe me.  Could someone please explain to me why we don't want to grant people citizenship?  I ask this question constantly, but no one's ever been able to give me a straight answer.  If these people were citizens, they would pay taxes.  They would go to college.  They would become successful, would be doctors and lawyers and psychologists and teachers and social workers and politicians and they'd join the armed forces and they'd do important, valuable things.  Yes, they'd take up jobs, but they'd do amazing things with those jobs, just as well as - and sometimes even better than - a natural-born citizen ever could, because these people have the drive to achieve their dreams.

And don't tell me our population would rise, because it's already risen.  They're already here.  I just want to know why the kids who know perfect English and take all the hard classes and graduate high school on high honor roll and want to be damn rocket scientists can't just go ahead and do that because no one would give the a social security number.

I hadn't realized it was this bad.

This really bothers me, if you couldn't already tell.  In The Distance Between Us, Reyna doesn't have this problem because she gets a Green Card.  But these people can't; they're as good a proof as any that we need a better system.

Anyway, that's my fifth and final artifact reflection.  I hope you enjoyed it.  Grumble grumble grumble....

-Allie H-S

P.S: School starts tomorrow and the nerves are breaking me apart.  I have never been this anxious before, but apparently all my friends are feeling it, too.  I don't even have a specific thing I'm stressing over.  It's not because I'm going to a new school, like everyone suggests; I've moved up in schools twice before, and I was totally fine.  I think it's just because the last two years of school sucked, honestly.  Treasure Mountain causes lots of social issues - the administration seems to think this is because of bullying, but I've never directly encountered that.  I've only encountered angst and depression and exhaustion.  I mostly blame the building.

Artifact Reflection 4

Hi, all.

It's missing a couple parts.  I apologize.

My fourth artifact is a small LEGO helicopter.  It's orange with black propellers, maybe six inches long. It has lights to shine down (with your imagination, that is) and a grappling hook that can come down from one side.  I chose this as my fourth artifact because I wanted to talk about the scene in The Distance Between Us where Reyna and her family are attempting to cross the border for the third time, their last chance.  Their first two attempts failed because of Reyna, and if they don't make it this time, she and her siblings will be sent back to their paternal grandmother's house in Iguala, a home where they will never find the love Reyna's been looking for so desperately throughout the story.

This scene was important not only for the purposes of plot, but for those of understanding.  Before reading this book, I'd never realized how drastically divided - and ultimately, broken - families can become in the process of immigration.  I'd never really thought about the possibility of them not being able to take their entire family across the border.  In America, there are so many horrible jokes about how many illegals can fit into a car, so I'd always just assumed that they all came over at once.  In fact, when Reyna's mother left in the beginning of the story, I was a bit confused; why didn't her father just send for all of them?  Were it not for the border crossing scene, I still wouldn't fully understand.

Illegally migrating is damn hard.

Like I said, this is their third try.  The first time, Reyna got a tooth ache and couldn't walk on her own, so her father had to carry her.  They couldn't move quickly enough that way, and border control caught them.  The second time, they stopped to rest and Reyna wandered off, stumbling on the body of a man lying in the bushes.  She screamed loudly, and again, border patrol found them quickly.

The third time, they traveled across the border by night.  About halfway through their trip, a helicopter flew low overhead, searching.  They ran for shelter.  Reyna's brother, Carlos, tripped and they nearly left him behind.  When the searchlight came down, it caught Reyna's shoe, and she yanked it under the brush.  It was a miracle that they hadn't been seen.

So in short, the reason Reyna's father hadn't sent for all of them the first time was because three children, ages four to eight, couldn't have made it.  I think this is also applicable to our current migratory situations (as mentioned in the last three posts and the next one, too) because it sucks that, while people try so desperately hard to get into the United States, and have close to nothing to go back to, when we find them, we just deport them anyway.

We need to fix this somehow.

-Allie H-S

Artifact Reflection 3

Hi, all.

Thank you for reading my slightly preachy artifacts even though you totally don't have to.  (Unless you're my new English teacher, in which case you absolutely have to because you assigned it.  This is your doing.)  My third artifact is another article (to be found here).

This is an article posted by USA Today about how deporting everybody won't stop people from coming over.  No matter how many children they catch mid-trip and send back to their country, it won't stop those children from trying again and again and again, because no matter how much money they have to pay cartels to help them across, it will never be worse than going back to their home in Central America, where they can't go to school for fear of being recruited by gangs and they can't eat dinner because there is never food on the table.  The last line of the article is a quote from a fourteen-year-old boy from Hoduras named Brian.  "'We've suffered a lot to try to make our lives better,' he says. 'If they knew what we've been through, they'd let us in.'"

I've never been particularly well-versed in political intricacies, even and especially those relating to border patrol, but I've always sort of viewed the deportation of illegal immigrants as treating the symptom.  Maybe this is because I live in Park City, Utah and have never experienced the full and direct flow of these immigrant children I keep hearing about, but I struggle to believe that deportation can fix all of our problems for us.  I figure, if you truly want to stop this unending flow of people from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, maybe you should make some sort of plan to help Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.  I know that won't be easy - there is no magic button - but there are also many, many people who, given the means, would love to help.  I also know it'll take a while - most important things take a while - but in the end, it'll be well worth it.

At the very least, I think they should work to move all these kids out of California and Texas.  Just, you know, diffuse them into the midwest, where we can better handle them.

Maybe I'm just some stupid rich white girl, but...it makes sense to me.

-Allie H-S

P.S: I just realized, this is my fiftieth post!  Yaaaaaay milestone!  Woooooo!

Artifact Reflection 2

Hi, all.

I'm running a bit low on time, so let's cut to the chase for these next few posts.  This post says I have my second artifact.

Behold, a sneaker in all of its glory.

This artifact is a pair of beat up kid's sneakers.  I actually bought these sneakers at a thrift store in Salt Lake about a year ago just 'cause I thought they were cute and I wanted to draw them.  They're a pair of child's size-seven Converse knock-offs (a brand called "Eastside").  The fabric that was once bright red is faded and dirtied.  The laces have no aglets and are loopy and frayed, at parts only hanging by threads through the nicked silver eyelets.  The soles have been worn thin, and the once-white toecaps are the color of long-neglected paperbacks due to an uncertain combination of dirt and age.  Though they're obviously too small for me to wear, I wanted them from the moment I saw them because they look loved; they look well-worn; they look like the epitome of an American eight-year-old's childhood well-spent.

They're my second artifact because while they could have been a part of my lovely American childhood, they never could have entered that of a young Mexican Reyna's.  Throughout the first part of the book, and even into the beginning of the second, Reyna points out constantly how she and her siblings and every other child in Iguala are almost always barefoot, except for on rare occasions like her cousin Elida's quinceanera and one time when their parents in the United States send her shoes that don't even fit.

I realize this is a very small and simple thing, but it really didn't occur to me that they wouldn't have shoes.  I mean, I've paid enough attention to know that not everybody has shoes - Africa doesn't have shoes.  I doubt China has shoes.  God knows if North Korea has shoes.  But Mexico borders us; they probably make half of our shoes.  I know things suck in Mexico, but the fact that it's such a popular tourist destination always helps to mask the fact that things suck that much.

I should retake AP World Geography at some point.  That was quite a valuable class.

Anyways, I guess this artifact is really "children's shoes or lack thereof."  It makes me wonder why we focus all our charity efforts on Africa and the United States, when really, people also need help in nearly every country on nearly every continent.  I mean, it's true that nowhere is perfect and nowhere can be (there are no utopias), but we still have to try to make the world as good as we can possibly make it, and we still need to help everyone we can help.

Let's help people.

That's all for now.
-Allie H-S

A Short Post About an Important Book

Hello, all.

I just read a The Little Prince (or Le Petit Prince) by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.  I realize that this is a children's book, and typically a semi-formal review post like this should probably be about some three-hundred page YA fiction or something, or maybe something even more legitimate - like maybe I should be reviewing Pride and Prejudice for you - but there'll be time for that later, and maybe that's even the point.  Just because this isn't some hefty novel doesn't mean the book isn't important.

This book is very important.

I actually didn't know The Little Prince existed until fairly recently, and I only read it now because rumour has it that I'll be reading it this year in French IV.  (We half-assedly read the first chapter or so in the last few weeks of French III, and I was very lost, so I think having read the English translation first will help.)  But now I know it exists.  And now you know, too.

(courtesy of: classicalcybelle.wordpress.com)

The Little Prince is about adults, and everything you lose when you outgrow your childhood.  It's about numbers and jobs and how we always rush about, and how everything we think has value - a big house, a career, doing everything quickly and efficiently, spending all our time finding new ways just to save some - muddles up everything that's really important, things like love and friendship and true satisfaction.  It's written in a formal, solemn tone, and the narrator says that he doesn't want his book to be taken lightly, which sounds pretentious - and hey, maybe it is a bit pretentious - but the way it's written is beautiful and poetic, if a bit abstract (remember, it's a children's book; it's full of space travel and talking flowers).

Earlier this summer, during that silly Creative Writing class I took, I read Tuesdays With Morrie, which was similar to this, if a bit more straightforward in expressing its themes.  It was also similar because they're both sad.

I've said this before, but I think most good books are sad.  But this was also very sweet.

I think it would be nice to do an audio reading of this, so I'll look into that.  In the meantime, it's 83 pages long, with large text and lots of pictures.  You can easily read it in a day, so if you can get your hands on a copy, I urge you to do so.  I think you'll enjoy it.

That's all.
-Allie H-S

Artifact Reflection 1 - And Also Happy Esther Day!

Happy Esther Day, everybody!  

This post has a very specific purpose, so I'll try and keep it short, but for those of you who don't know, Esther Earl was a really amazing person who died of cancer when she was sixteen.  Partly because I never actually knew Esther and partly because this post is meant to be for school, I don't think I can explain Esther Day well enough and in few enough words to keep it from dominating the post, and I certainly can't do it as well as this vlogbrothers video and the rest of the playlist it's been added to.  Hank doesn't explain Esther Day until about two minutes in, but I think the entire video is very important, so I urge you to watch all of it.  (It's three minutes and thirty-eight seconds long; I think you can handle it.)  In short, Esther Day - August third - is a day to tell your friends and family and everybody who's important to you that you love them, and not just assume that they know.  Last year, my friends and I held a party, but this year, circumstances wouldn't allow it.  So I'm spreading the word this way, because the internet it powerful, and maybe somebody will read this who doesn't already know about it.  Let's hope, I guess.

Right, so, to the school part of this post.  I stumbled upon my first artifact for The Distance Between Us this morning!  It's a newspaper article.  (I am so original.)  I found it in my actual physical newspaper, but that's a little harder to link to, so I have it online here.  In it, Roxana Orellana talks about her recent trip to Honduras, the country she grew up in, but no longer recognizes.  Like Reyna Grande, Orellana's mother moved to the United States and promised to come back for her children once she got settled.  Five years later, her mother returned for her.  Honduras was poor then, but not life-threatening.  After Orellana moved to the United States, crime in Honduras increased dramatically, crimes such as murder happening regularly in broad daylight.  "It’s different now, a place that forces kids to make adult decisions and trek in terrifying conditions hoping for better. The violence of drug traffickers and gangs has poisoned the culture, leaving wreckage that sometimes seems beyond repair."

In The Distance Between Us, Reyna returns to her hometown of Iguala, Mexico during her senior year of high school.  The government has privatized the railroad since she left, and trains no longer come there.  As a result, Iguala has plummeted even deeper into poverty.  Like Roxana Orellana, Reyna goes to stay with her maternal grandmother, and she finds it hard to ignore the poverty that surrounds her, while as a child, it was all she knew.  (At this same point in the book, I find it hard to ignore what a shallow, two-faced monster her older sister has become, while it's all that Reyna ever knew, but I figure that's a post for another day.)

In my last post, I ranted about how horrible and depressing The Distance Between Us was.  I actually finished it yesterday though, and it had the happy ending it so desperately needed.  And it occurs to me that those first three hundred pages of unbelievable misfortune made the last twelve pages of hope so much better.  Because honestly, we would never care that Reyna graduated from college if we hadn't seen everything that had stood in her way, and we wouldn't care that she'd put her family back together if we hadn't seen everything that had torn it apart.  To likely misquote Batman Begins (because that's just my style), "it takes dramatic examples to pull these people out of their apathy."  As a fifteen-year-old white girl in a middle-class family, living full time in Park City, Utah, a resort town and one of the nicest cities in America, I find it is really fucking easy to spend all my time on the internet and connected with the world, and yet remain blind to all that goes on in it.

That said, I think I'm gonna read the newspaper more often.  Ignorance is bliss if there's a spider in your bedroom, but when I look at the world at large, I think I'd like to know the true state of it.  Maybe then I'll know how to do something of value and help it.

-Allie H-S