Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Who Is Vince?
"Oh, my new story? It's called InVincible and is about a guy named Vince who is a... well... someone who used to be in training to eventually work for a bad guy, but broke out and is being chased by them (they're trying to get him back)."
Doesn't sound too great, does it? I think it'd sound a bit better if I had an actual title for him though.
Anyone have any ideas?
(P.S. Here's the excerpt I promised.. sorry it's not much, but I can't type a lot with chocolately fingers :P I'll have more tomorrow.)
Invincible
“You know who they are?” She said, pointing over to the tight circle of boys she’d been trying to get into earlier.
“Nope.”
“They call themselves the Midnight Mass, or Masters.” Wings told me. She had this earnest look in her eyes that almost never went away - like every time she spoke, it was from the inner depth of her heart. “Apparently, they’re some sort of escaped convicts or mobsters.”
I almost laughed, imagining how bad these guys were compared to me - and Wings was afraid of them? She had much more of a reason to be terrified of me. But people seemed to like me - I hadn’t caught anyone giving me funny or scared looks since the scene in the shopping alley. It was part of my training, I guess, to be friendly… and deadly.
I watched the group - Midnight Mass. What a random name… couldn’t they have thought of something better? Like… Nightblade or The Dark Devils or something? I wasn’t good at names, but I was better than them!
One of them turned around and I caught a glimpse of his face.
Total recall.
My eyes became glued to the face, the young man’s eyes searching the crowd, and landing on me. I fought the urge to hide, not liking the extra attention any more than I’d been brought up to like it.
I couldn’t move. It just wasn’t possible as the man said something to the rest of the group and slowly, they all turned to look at me. I knew each and every one of them. If you want, I could list there names, but they would mean nothing to you.
Instead, I’ll say everything about them - in school, before the fighting, we had been forced to meet all these different random people and figure out their innermost personality in about an hour. All of these people where my roommates. I’d spent almost 8 hours every day of the year for 5 years with these people. I think I knew them.
First, there was Paul. Tall, blond-haired with a sharp, angular face, he’d always been the calmer one of our group. Of course, Paul wasn’t his real name, he’d just picked it because he loved Paul McCartney from the Beatles. He thought the Beatles where the greatest rock group ever. Once, Paul had said he was going to get out and play the drums for the real Paul - even though his passion was the hand-made piano made of paper he’d drawn. Paul wasn’t one for fighting, but if he had to, he could beat just about anyone. If he wanted to, Paul could kill everyone.
Paul started to walk over, closer to me.
“Look,” Wings whispered beside me. Oblivious, she was, to everything that had happened in the last few moments.
Another member of the group, Peter Wright, as he supposedly remembered his name being, stepped in front of him and Paul fell behind. I almost laughed. It was just like before, Peter could never let anyone lead anything, everything had to be him, him, him. But that worked. We all worked well with Peters organization and knowledge of everyone’s different skills.
With Peter in lead, Paul and the twins, Leddie and Zeddie followed. Obviously, their names were the creation of their younger selves, and had stuck like the glue they use to put heads back together when stitches wont work.
The rest followed in behind, all eight of them, as it had been before they’d moved on and I’d stayed behind. If I hadn’t stayed behind, I would’ve been with them now. But we both got out, right?
“Vince.” Peter said, his bright, light blue eyes shining in stark contrast against his dark olive skin and chestnut brown hair. Born only a few degrees away from blind, Peter had undergone years of constant surgeries before he could see enough for the Bishop to let him pass through the training. He was already old when he started, and was the oldest of all of us - and the toughest. I guess the constant surgeries had changed him; never knowing whether he’d emerge healed, or totally blind.
“Peter.” As if to prove I still knew them, I looked around at each face, pairing it with a name. “Leddie, Zeddie, George, Paul, Frank, Josh.” Some half-hidden smiles shone through their tough demeanor, but where quickly gone.
“Where’s Herve?” I asked, trying to bury my creeping emotions.
“Dead. He died the night we escaped.”
Good? Bad? Did something not make sense? I can't give you the whole story, so I understand how it might be confusing (hey, the whole story althogether may still be confusing!) and if it is, ask me.
Oh, and any name for what type of person Vince is?
- S a r a h
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Here I Stand
Standing ovation anyone? :P
But anyways, I'm still really sorry I haven't done any writing... I promise I'm going to open the file now and write a little bit. I'll post an excerpt from InVincible tomorrow (or, if you want me to work on something else just tell me... I'm in the mood to write, no specifications of what).
Hey, how about I post you the ending bit of my 3R (Retell, Relate, Reflect) for the article "Profs Blast Lazy First-Year Students"? It's kinda current and interesting... and it's an excerpt, I guess (although I won't label it as one).
Here you go:
......An editorial in the Barrie Examiner backs that all up. Ouropinion, as the authors call themselves, says "four years isn't long enough." And that already, even before the change in the high schools, ""Many teenagers weren't mature enough for the high school grade they're in, whatever it might be. And the reason is they're teenagers. They're still growing up. They are not mature, and it's both unrealistic and unfair to expect them [to behave like adults]."
It’s also unfair for the professors to have to teach from “an underresourced secondary school system.” Because of the high schools recent focus in “stemming high-school dropouts, punctuality and discipline are no longer reinforced.” That’s not good for the universities, who are afraid to fail students as they “are funded by a per-student basis”.
An obvious fix, as Danish Zakir says, is for there to be “an initiation program in high school to prepare them for university”. But even still, the plan to cut the 13th grade and save money for Canada is actually costing more, as the provincial government announces their new funding plans, including $780 million for infrastructure and an immediate $150 million for universities and colleges.
But regardless of which side you choose to take, whether blaming the students, the universities, high schools or just simply the generation, Kristen has been sure to show us all sides of the argument. She even added in a bit on the last page about colleges having the same difficulties. “Colleges, too, report troubles with unprepared students, especially in math, and have each developed their own way to deal with it.” No side has gone unspoken for, even though the actual speaking wasn’t the greatest. It seems that adults may be going through some of the problems the students are - Wikipedia is open to all, text messaging from cell phones blackberries is just as common in high school as in an office - the effects of that, you can see even in this article. The title only begins with a capitol, and transitions between on subject and side to another is choppy, and the ending… if it wasn’t for the “with files from Henry Stancu” at the bottom, people might not even know that the article ended and wasn’t just miss-copied.
Coming from part of the Wikipedia generation and knowing how badly other students are handling it makes me want to try harder to overcome the difficulties myself - but that’s not the same for everyone. As Jessica Whitehead says in the article “First Year Students Getting Lazier, Profs Say”, by Brent Davis of The Record, “I think we’re fairly spoon-fed through high school.” I think the same goes for all grades, even in kindergarten. There will always be those kids in your class whose parents help them in everything. Their parents tell them what to do and help them with every step of the way. My parents don’t, simply because they thing I’m mature enough to handle stuff on my own. But I’m not saying I’m perfect and will be one of those aces through everything - I struggle in a lot of stuff and know I will struggle more in years to come. The difference between my grades and the grades and lives of those who have extra help when they don’t need it is that they will struggle more - or, as it seems some or the time, will never struggle because they will always have help.
I think someone, in university, college, high school or something in between, needs to stop this before it’s too late. Before long, no one will know how to work themselves and education will never be the same after that. People always want the easier way, but now with that way being just a click on your computer or a knock on a door away, it’s easier and easier to just take marks you don’t have.
The students in universities are discovering this, and the only way to break the chain is to start now, get some people to help teach children to actually do work, and discourage parents from doing it for them. With little kids doing so much work by themselves, older people may see a way for them to get the sometimes impossible amount of work done. Then when the children grow up and hit universities, they will be ready.
But in order for that to happen, there needs to be some sort of stepping-stone. Right now, high schools are concentrating on stemming high school dropouts - the ones who are staying in aren’t getting the congratulations they need while their peers get extra time and output less effort, all for the same results.
It may seem harder on everyone, but eventually things will get under control and this “Wikipedia generation” may still be hooked on Wiki, but their kids wont.
link to original article: http://www.thestar.com/News/Ontario/article/614219#Comments
P.S. New iCarly episode today! I don't get the channel it's on though so I'm crossing my fingers it's gunna be online ASAP. :) toodeloo
Friday, April 10, 2009
Easter Tidings

Sarah
P.S. Oh, and a bit of good news: I have a bike!!! (Well, I'm picking it up tomorrow... but still.) It's a Diamond Back Response Comp... the picture is the one off the website below. I can't wait!

P.P.S. Devon... can't comment so I'll say it here: I LOVE your poem!! It's dark, but awesome and truthful. You sure have a lot of talent!
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Freaky Picture.. Freakier Story
Any thoughts? (The picture below is the one I included with the summary below - the pic inspired me.. somehow. Sorry for the slightly scary, scarring effect it has)
Angela Westminster is not normal. In her head, she hears the voices of all seven ancient war heroes - worshiped today as either demons or gods. They tell her what to do, control her as if she was one of them; powerful and almost immortal. But Angela isn’t immortal - she’s a normal, natured teenage mage with a limited amount of magic. If she wasn’t able to control herself at least half of the time, she’d be already dead.
But ever since she boasted of hearing voices when she was younger, her family has been waiting. Now, one cold night, they’ve kicked her out. On the run, thirteen, and alone Angela isn’t sure she’ll make it - and she wouldn’t have, if the voices in her head hadn’t decided to help her out. Suddenly, she’s overcome and can’t control herself against there power.
Weeks later, she wakes up in the biggest house she has ever seen, a meter away from none other than the Third Mage and his Mage-In-Training.
Apparently Angela had been wandering in the Wasteland for ages, a specific area nowhere near where she had been. The Wasteland has been slowly spreading outwards, towards civilization, and has been since the day the Seven Mages (or the voices in Angela’s head) died. Angela has spent a week, wondering the Wasteland, that she can’t even remember. And no one else knows how she got there - or why.
But the Third Mage, Forrester, and his son, William are determined to figure out why - and solve the mystery about her aura, a light blue-pink that has not ever been recorded.
