Newsletter #00064

Josh
September 30-2009

Well, I've been busy with schoolwork, so I don't have the time to write a newsletter. Maybe sometime soon I'll be putting my own out. But for now, here is a guest writer, a devoted Newsletter follower, Andrew White.

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Everything I say here is solely my opinions, my theories.

I have been thinking too much lately (lately was lately around the time of the sidewalk sale). I've been thinking about how and why a lot. For example, why do people's emotions keep going up and down? Why is life a roller coaster, or a negative sine wave? I believe it's because god wants us to be happy, courageous souls for, possibly, a purpose higher than our current existence (Remember, we will always feel a high after a low. This proves life is good). We are put on this planet to affect other people in negative and positive ways, with negative ways making way for positive ones. We even affect ourselves. And when people affect others negatively, it’s only so we can feel good later, and more courageous. Downs always lead to ups, like a cycle. Like a roller coaster, a roller coaster that lasts throughout your entire state of consciousness. But when the cycle starts with a down, you can only change the next wave starting with a down. The opposite is also true. What I mean by state of consciousness is that when you’re unconscious, the rollercoaster isn’t moving. It doesn’t start back up until you’re conscious. I also believe God has a plan, and we are here to fulfill that plan. What is that plan? I don’t know. I'm only human.

Something Josh said really helped me with some stuff I think about often, too. Like, everybody needs a little pain. It's an essential life tool. It keeps us going on. If we were comfortable our entire lives, we would get bored, and weak, and our life would be so incredibly boring and unfulfilling. Like I said before, God wants us to be strong, happy, courageous and fulfilled. The bad always leads to the good by way of good karma. Life is a vicious circle. You're down, you're up, you're down, and you’re up. The circle starts out small, and gets bigger and bigger as you grow. I believe that one can live forever if one doesn’t get too low, or too high. How strong is that low/high? Again, I’m only human.

Effort is never wasted. One may think it is, because it is not immediately rewarded. But in fact, one will be rewarded for the effort in the near future. One just needs to associate the effort with a future event by telling their self that they will be rewarded. You have to have faith. Faith is a very powerful thing. If you have enough faith in an event, it will happen.

Pretenses and prejudices only exist so we can laugh at them, at the right moment. Although, if one can’t laugh at them, it’s not a big deal. One just needs to accept them for what I said they are. Once that happens, one will enjoy life a lot more. Life was meant to be enjoyed. The price is hefty, but it’s well worth it. This works with many other things that people label negatively. Disease, poverty, hatred, they all exist so we can laugh at them. Also, where would happiness be without sadness? It would be in the same place sadness is. They are two sides of the same coin. You can’t have happiness without sadness. What would you compare it to? Thank you very much, Pandora! =D

These quotes further my theory from the beginning of the newsletter.

"Fear is an essential tool in life" - Josh Caron

"Take chances, make mistakes. That's how you grow. Pain nourishes your courage. You have to fail in order to practice being brave." - Mary Tyler Moore

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Newsletter #00063

Kasey
September 27-2009

Wow its been awhile since any of us have done one of these! Although, to our defense (myself, Josh and Brad), we have been absolutely swamped with AP homework and band. Pretty much I don't even sleep anymore and things are only going to get worse in October. Please try and bear with us if you can. I promise these newsletters aren't dead!

Anyways, what I wanted to talk about today, was actually a site called the84.org. Some of you might have heard of it, either if you are a part of S.A.D.D. or if you payed attention to the things the group did last year at our school. Basically the site is supposed to discourage tobacco use, and in fact, the number 84 comes from the 84% of Massachusetts teens who are supposedly tobacco free. People on the site also discourage things like underage drinking or drug use.

Recently the84.org put out an application looking for people to be paid bloggers for the site. I applied and got one of the positions. What that means is that every week for about the next year I will be putting out a 300-500 or so word blog on the website and getting paid to do it! My blogs will probably focus primarily on life and some will have some sort of anti-drug/tobacco/alcohol message in them, although not all of them will be. They (IMO) won't be as fun to write as one of these newsletters, since I'm never going to talk about say fanfiction or steampunk or Burning Man in one of them, but at the same time, they are still a lot of fun to do.

On the site there are 6 other bloggers, guys and girls, most of whom are juniors and seniors at high schools across the state. I've been reading thier blogs as they are posted too and they are definitely interesting to read. As it seems to be going so far, one blog is posted each day (give or take) and from what it seems, mine are posted on or around Thursdays. I highly recommend you check them out, especially since I can't guarantee too many more Newsletters from myself in the coming month. Right now the comment feature is broken for the blogs. You can comment but no one, the writers included, can read them yet. But once its fixed it would be nice to see at least a few of you reading and possibly commenting on some of the blogs on the site.

Anyways, here's some links for you:

1) http://www.the84.org/ (general website)
2) http://www.the84.org/taxonomy/term/7%2011%2014%2015%2016%2017%2018%2013%209%2010%208 (the blog page. Everyone's blogs are posted here. I have two up so far and my username is kkamll)
3) http://www.the84.org/users/kkamll (my user page for the website)

There's the links for you. Feel free to check it out. And sorry that this newsletter is mostly just me promoting another of my blogging things. Slightly uncool of me since I haven't written a newsletter in a month, but w/e.

Oh and before I forget, if anyone is interesting in doing a guest newsletter for me sometime in October let me know through a message or something. I don't want these newsletters to die but I won't really have time to write this next month. I can't guarantee I'll let you just because you ask, but I probably won't turn anyone down if they have something interesting to say. I will however still edit whatever you like (basically just proofread it and stuff). So yeah, if anyone's interested let me know!

Newsletter #00062

Kasey
August 29-2009

Ok, so for this newsletter I’m going to talk about a subject I’ve wanted to write about for a while—fanfiction. Some of you I’m sure know about fanfiction and what it is, perhaps even having read it or wrote it, while I’m sure others of you are pretty much clueless about it. Since it happens to be one of my favorite things just about ever I decided I would tell all of you a little more about it and why it is so great. (Also, this is ridiculously long so feel free to skip around. I’d recommend reading the reasons to read fanfiction in the beginning. I also put a dictionary of fanfiction terms that you might or might not want to read and finally I put the different ships I read and which fandoms they are from. And yes, I will define ship and fandom for you in a moment.)

First things first. What is fanfiction?

Fanfiction is a work of writing using characters from an original novel, TV show, movie, video game, etc. Every book, TV show, movie or whatever it may be and their fans are referred to as a fandom. For example, according to Wikipedia “The Harry Potter fandom is a large international and informal community drawn together by J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. The fandom works through the use of many different forms of media, including web sites, fan fiction, podcasts, fan art and songvids.”

Ok, so you’re probably thinking, sounds great and all, but why would I want to read fanfiction?

Fanfiction is great for a number of reasons. First of all, if you are a fan of a certain book, for example Harry Potter, fanfiction lets you continue reading about characters you already know and love in a variety of different settings. Fanfiction writing generally encompasses all sorts of genres, despite the original genre the author intended.

A big part of fanfiction is shipping. I will get to some other fanfiction terms later, but this is such an important one that I decided to mention it now. Shipping is presumably a term derived from the word relationship and involves the reader or writer pairing two characters together romantically. With such a large portion of fanfiction involving romance in their stories, most readers want to know before they read a story what ship is involved in the story. Ships that occur within an author’s original universe are known as canon ships.

Shipping is a large reason that I enjoy fanfiction. One of the fandoms I am a part of is the Harry Potter fandom. If you’ve ever read Harry Potter you know that canon (or real) relationships from the books would be Harry/Ginny, Ron/Hermione, James/Lily etc. Although I like James and Lily as a pairing I am not such a Harry/Ginny or Ron/Hermione fan. When I read fanfiction I usually read Draco/Hermione, Ginny/Draco or Albus Severus/Scorpius fanfiction. (Albus Severus is Harry’s son and Scorpius is Draco’s son). Even though J.K. Rowling never wrote these relationships in her books, fanfiction allows me to read stories with these pairings in them.

Another great thing about fanfiction is the length of stories. Most times when you buy a novel it is at least 50,000 and sometimes upward of 100,000 or more words. In the fanfiction world stories can be any length the author chooses. Drabbles (according to Wikipedia) are stories exactly 100 words in length, although myself, and many others, refer to stories fewer than 1,000 words as drabbles. From there, I’ve read stories in varying lengths. Sometimes a few thousand words are all that is needed to tell a short story. I’ve also read stories ranging in the 30,000s and 40,000s (too short in real life to be considered a novel) and stories that seriously are longer than the longest books, upwards of 200,000 and 300,000 words. Just last night in fact I read an Albus Severus/Scorpius fic that was 95 chapters and over 140,000 words. That’s basically a really long book if it were a published book.

Another great thing about fanfiction is that it allows you to read multiple stories with the same characters, and even better, once you find a favorite fanfiction author or multiple authors, most tend to write more than one story with the same characters. I know I have certain authors whose writing I love and who have written many stories with the same characters.

You’re probably thinking that fanfiction writing can’t be all that great. After all, a true writer would just use their own characters and go get published or something right?

Wrong.

Although there are a lot of really bad fanfiction stories out there, there are a ton of great ones too. Most fanfiction writers do write original fiction as well and I have heard of a good deal of published authors who either wrote fanfiction in the past or still do it for fun on the side. In fact, I’ve read a ton of novel-length fanfiction with writing as good as, or better than in some published novels I’ve read.

The best part of fanfiction though is probably that it is free and can be read online. While fanfiction can be found in a variety of places, the website fanfiction.net is a big site for almost any genre. Of course, stories on this website aren’t screened before they are posted so there are a lot of bad quality fics on the site. Livejournal communities are another big place to find fanfiction stories and are usually devoted to one specific fandom or ship. Other independent websites also host large communities of fanfiction writers. One important thing to note about fanfiction.net though is that they don’t allow RPF (real person fiction) or fics with explicit content.

Now that you know a bit more about fanfiction you might be thinking about trying it out and seeing if you like it. But you probably don’t know where to start, or all the terms associated with it, which can make your first foray into fanfiction a little difficult. (Wow, lots of alliteration there). Anyways, to help you out I’m going to compile a list of fanfiction terms and their definitions. (If you happen to read or write fanfiction and want to contribute to this list or argue one of my definitions feel free to post in the comments)

Canon- Information that either comes directly from a specific work, or has been stated by the author to be factual. Ex. That Harry has a son named James is a canon statement.
Fanon- Generally the opposite of something known to be canon. A fact that is fanon is something that does not come from the author’s original universe or has been stated by the author to be false. Ex. Dramione, otherwise known as the ship involving Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger is a fanon ship since it doesn’t happen in the Harry Potter novels.
Ship, Shipping, Shippers- A ship is a relationship between two characters, usually shown by putting a slash between two characters names (Draco/Ginny) or by combining their names in a way that is specific to that ship. (Kris Allen/Adam Lambert is collectively referred to as Kradam) Shipping is the act of pairing characters together in a relationship and a shipper is a person who ships two characters.
Slash and Femslash- stories involving gay couples. Generally slash refers to male/male stories but can be female as well. Femslash (or femmeslash) is the term sometimes used for female/female stories. (I know other terms are used in Manga/anime but I don’t read those so I can’t really tell you what they are)
Het- stories with heterosexual couples.
IC and OOC- stands for in character and out of character. Usually refers to how a specific character or characters are acting in relation to how they are normally perceived as being.
AU- alternate universe. AU stories are stories with major changes to canon facts, such as setting or time changes, bringing back characters that are dead in the canon world or making good characters evil.
Gen- a genre of fanfiction that is short for general. Usually denotes stories with minor emphasis on romance or stories that can’t fit into one specific genre.
Parody or Badfic- stories that are usually written on purpose by an author. They are meant to be funny and usually incorporate cliché plot points.
Angst- stories where one or more characters suffer torment of some kind, usually emotional angst.
Beta reader, Beta read- a beta reader is like an editor. They read an author’s stories and help correct grammar, spelling, etc. They might also help an author with plot points and characterizations.
Crossover- fiction that involves characters from multiple universes combined in one story.
Fluff- stories with very little substance or plot.
PWP- Porn Without Plot or Plot? What Plot? Seems pretty self-explanatory to me.
Future-fic- again, rather self-explanatory. Takes characters and writes about them far into the future.
Mary Sue- an original character introduced into a fanfiction by an author that is basically the “perfect” character. They tend to be disliked by readers because they tend to be flawless and un-realistic characters. Not all original characters are considered Mary Sues however.
MPREG- a type of story involving male pregnancy. Obviously this can’t happen in real life but I guess some people enjoy reading MPREG stories. I however, am not among them.
OTP- One True Pairing. Usually a reader/writers favorite ship within a fandom.
RPF- Real Person Fic. Stories involving real people, usually actors or other celebrities. Because certain websites refuse to post these types of stories (fanfiction.net for example) they are usually found in livejournal communities, among other places.
One-shot- a story that is told in one go as opposed to a multi-chaptered fic, with obviously, multiple chapters to it.
Smut- like PWP, these stories usually involve just sex w/out a plot.
Squick and Kink- Squick- something in a story that could potentially be uncomfortable/offensive to a readers. Stories with potential squicks should always have warnings. Kink- something in a story that may appeal to/turn on a specific reader. Squicks and Kinks are generally related b/c one person’s squick may be a kink to another reader.
WIP- work in progress. Refers to a story that is not yet completed by an author.
Non-Con- non-consensual sex (rape) w/in a story. Should always be posted as a warning to readers.
A/N- author’s note. Sometimes placed before or after a story and is a personal note from an author to their readers.
Songfic- stories that are written with a specific song as inspiration. May contain the lyrics to the song within the story.

Ratings: Fanfiction stories are usually given ratings. The system of ratings varies between sites. Livejournal communities tend to use the MPAA movie rating system (G, PG, PG-13, R and NC-17) to rate stories. Other places like fanfiction.net use a system that is basically the same except that it goes K, K+, T, M and then on some other sites X or some other equivalent for NC-17.

Anyways, I’ve basically written all I can think of right now for fanfiction. If you actually read this entire thing I’ll be surprised, but I wrote it mostly to encourage people to try fanfiction and as a reference tool of sorts for if you do.

Before I finish this off I thought I’d share the pairings I read in fanfiction. I know some of you probably read fanfiction so you might be interested in this. Or you know, I might be the only one interested in which case I still really don’t care b/c I’m going to tell you anyways, lol.

The main fandoms I read are Harry Potter, Avatar and American Idol (which obviously involves real person fiction which I realize isn’t for everyone). I also want to start reading fics in the Torchwood universe but I haven’t gotten around to it yet. (Torchwood is an AMAZING British sci-fi show. Watch it!!!!!)

Ships I read:

Harry Potter:
1) Draco/Hermione- One of my OTPs for this fandom
2) Draco/Ginny (less often than Draco/Hermione)
3) Albus Severus/Scorpius (next-gen fic)- another of my OTPs
4) Lily/ James

I also am going to try and get into the pairings Harry/Draco and Remus/Severus. My new favorite type of fanfiction is slash, so I have been reading a lot more of it lately.

Avatar:
1) Zuko/Katara- OTP. This is about the only main pairing I will read for this universe but I also don’t mind Aang/Toph when it comes up in stories.

American Idol:
1) Kris Allen/Adam Lambert

Torchwood:
1) Jack/Ianto- OTP. Just about the only canon ship that I ship. And its slash! Just another reason I love this show so much.
2) I probably wouldn’t read it as fanfiction but I also like Tosh/Owen, Gwen/Owen and Gwen/Rhys (other reasons I love this show. All of these pairings have at one point or another been canon.) Also I can't forget Jack/Jack and Jack/Captain John

Yeah, so that’s basically it for me. I do ship a variety of other ships in different fandoms, but I haven’t really read any fanfiction for them (yet). If you have any questions about anything feel free to comment!

And thanks for reading! (If you didn’t read this entire thing I don’t blame you) Also, if you do read/write fanfiction please let me know! I like talking to other fanfic readers.

Newsletter #00061

Kasey
August 22, 2009

It's been a while since my last newsletter I realize. My apologies on that. I've been really busy with band camp and other things. And, to be honest, I wasn't actually going to do a newsletter today but there was something I really wanted to write about so here's an impromptu one for you all.

What I wanted to talk about today is a condition that I, and many others in the world have (approximately 1 in every 23 people, or so scientists think). It is called Synesthesia and there are many different forms of it. According to Wikipedia, Synesthesia is a neurologically based phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway.

Basically what this means in layman's terms is that seeing or thinking or hearing a certain thing can lead to another, involuntary reaction involving a different sensory reaction. For example, one type of synesthesia that occurs in some people is the type where letters, numbers, months of the year, days of the week, etc. are associated with a specific color. For synesthetes with this type of synesthesia, these color associations are involuntary and consistent.

There are many different types of synesthesia, such as people who have reported seeing color when they hear certain sounds, or tasting a specific taste when they hear a certain word.

As far as I can tell from my research into synesthesia I have two types- Ordinal Linguistic Personification and Spatial Sequence (or Number Form) Synesthesia.

Ordinal Linguistic Personification is a type of synethesia where the synesthete associates letters, numbers and other things like months of the year and days of the week with a specific gender and usually personality. I have been doing this ever since I was a little kid, and until I read about this type of synesthesia online I didn't even realize that other people didn't always do this. For example, this is what I think of gender wise when I think of the alphabet or the numbers 0-9
Girls-
0,2,3,5,6,8
A,B,E,M,O,Q,W,Y
Guys-
1,4,7,9
C,D,F,G,H,I,J,K,L,N,P,R,S,T,U,V,X,Z

Also most numbers and letters have certain personality traits. For example, Three is kind of a tomboy and sometimes in my head appears more as a guy than a girl. Five and Six are close friends. One is a rather studious, boring type of guy while Four is more fun loving and is kind of a jock. Seven is pretty much a jock too. Seven is also a teenage guy who is really smart. Eight is quiet and nice and pretty much a mothering type.

Those are just a few of the things that I have always associated with my numbers and letters in my head. It must sound crazy to someone without this type of synesthesia but to me its perfectly normal and I've been doing it all my life.

The other type of synesthesia I have that until recently didn't even know had an actual name is Spatial Sequence or Number Form Synesthesia. Basically, people with this see numbers in a specific mental map sort of thing. It can also happen with dates, months of the year and days of the week.

Its sort of hard to explain but for me I see years in a specific timeline. It always seems to hover in front of me and extends at a diagonal facing slightly towards me in either direction to my left and right. When I am thinking about a specific year I find myself mentally placing my body at that position on my timeline and looking forward or backwards into the other years. Now that I try and write out what it looks like it sounds really ridiculous and I realize I haven't done a good job describing it, but basically I always seem my months of the year, days of the week, years, and even letters and numbers in a certain physical position when I think of them and I have always automatically thought of them that way. And all of those things have different mental images if you will.

Its all a little confusing to try and describe to someone, especially if that person doesn't actually have that specific type of synesthesia. It makes me wish I had the type where I associated colors with my letters, if only because it is an easier type of synesthesia I think to describe to a person than Number Form Synesthesia.

Another interesting thing about synesthesia is that it's believed to be genetic and linked to the X-chromosome due to the fact that scientists have seen synesthesia passed from Mother to Daughter, Father to Daughter and Mother to Son but never from a Father to a Son.

Anyways, I thought this was a topic that would be interesting to share and to see if anybody who reads my newsletters has a form of synesthesia. (For more information on the different types of Synesthesia or on Synesthesia in general I'd suggest going to this page here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia)

If anyone else has any form of this condition tell me in the comments because I'd be interested to know. Especially if any of you have the types I have and can relate to what I said above. I know that Tim Gamache has the color one and sees colors associated with letters and numbers but does anyone else?

Newsletter #00060

Brad
August 11, 2009

So, it's been awhile again, but from now on i have something that will prevent this problem. my main reason i haven't been writing is i can never think of what to write about, but it isn't like i don't come up with ideas, i always do, it's just that i always forget when i sit down at the computer to write. so from now on i'm going to carry around what i am calling my "newsletter handbook" which is a small composition notebook that i will write down all my ideas in and discuss them in my newsletters with you readers. so hopefully this recurring problem is finished now.

my first topic is spurred on by my friend nick, who if you are reading this on facebook is tagged over there> and also guest wrote on kasey's day in a newsletter. we were having a pointless argument over words rhyming with themselves. the points of view were as follows:

1. that a word can rhyme with itself because you can have more than one of the same word, and one word is obviously going to sound the same as itself, therefore rhyming.
2.that a word cannot rhyme with itsef because every word sounds like itself, but a rhyme is with two different words.

so, to see which is actually correct, i will give you a definition of rhyme courtesy of dictionary.com

rhyme (in the context we need it)-a word agreeing with another in terminal sound: Find is a rhyme for mind and womankind.

so i know my opinion, but i will let you choose, what is your thought?

so, recently, i had a very stimulating conversation with a very close friend of mine, and we were talking about.......hmm...i'm not even sure how to categorize it. if you all could relate i would call it a "lower brass life talk" but not all of you would get that. so i'll just move on and explain. we came to the conclusion that messages in simple text over either the internet and email or instant messaging services and text messages on your phone can be....i don't want to say bad, but used to conceal i suppose. think about it this way, when you im or text message a person, there is no real-time conversation, you can wait to respond and plan out your next statement, your next move so to speak, as if you were trying to stay one step ahead of the other person in a game of chess. but this is not the only reason. have you ever been with someone and had a conversation, thought about it, and then sent the person a message making sure you know that you may have meant something other than what you said? well this is why it could be bad too, it provides too much of a "crutch" as it was referred to to things like this. making it possible for people to lie outright or be misunderstood, or so many other things.

okay, now for the main point of the argument. these things would not be bad if e could keep faithful to ourselves and our friends at the very beginning of things, first time, not in a repercussion. this is how life and interaction should be. the problem is that it isn't so easily done as it is said. the thing you must do first is figure out who you are and what your truth is before you can pretend to tell friends things honestly. and this is my largest problem in fact. but then, the next step is to learn to be open around others, to stick to truth as a policy and not an option......well, i'm not sure that went as i planned or if it sounded as i wanted it to, but hopefully it did and you get what i was trying to say.

now to a lighter note. last saturday i had some friends over, and we were sitting around the fire when we noticed a strange strip of clouds or smoke or something, that was moving across the sky as a cloud, but was way to thin to stay it's shape and not get distorted. it was strange, we had conversatoins about it. this is how we spend our time, haha, looking into the clouds, telling each other they are going to kill us and something is wrong =P

alright, the end of summer is very close now, and so if you remember a certain newsletter of mine at the beginning of the summer i say the same, you should treat it as a new beginning and try to take advantage of whatever oppurtunities come your way. i will not be putting a newlsetter out next week, my life will be taken over by band camp. so hopefully i will get one out the week after.

questions:
-did you have/are you haven a good summer?
-do you know where swamps come from?
-can you define the color red?

quote:
All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Newsletter #00059

So it’s been what, like 3 weeks since I last did a newsletter?? (Not including that one where Nick guest-wrote). Sorry about that. I’ve been really busy. Actually I should be doing my AP history homework right now, but that’s totally not happening FYI. Although I did get through like 13 pages or so, which is the most I’ve done in one day ever. Anyways /rant. Moving on.

So a week or two ago I was talking to Lauren Pi online and we came up with an idea of something we wanted to try, just for fun. I’ve had writer’s block for months now and she has had artist’s block, which, obviously is a bit of a problem. Anyways, we decided that we would choose a word or a theme and I would draw a picture involving it and she would write a story. The word she chose was magic.

Anyways, here I am thinking Shit, I have very limited artistic abilities. This will not end up good. The idea of what I wanted to draw came to me very quickly, and I figured it would be something that hopefully wouldn’t be too hard to do.

The plan was to show two teens, a boy and a girl, in a field in front of woods at night. There would be stars in the sky spelling out the word MAGIC (Yes, its cheesy. No, in my head it was less cheesy—at the time anyways). The boy and girl would be facing each other with their hands at about face level and their fingertips would be touching. And the boy and girl were both supposed to have this light sort of thing emitting from their hands/fingertips. The boy was going to have red light around his hands and the girl blue so that where their fingertips met it would be purple. (Red + Blue = Purple. Thank you elementary school art for that lesson).

Basically this was the plan. I was going for the whole “love is magic” thing and the fact that both the boy and the girl had that rather magical light thing coming from their hands. In my rather tired mind, it was a genius idea.

Long story short: There were a few *ahem* difficulties with my original plan once I tried putting it to paper. Not to mention the fact that this was wayyyy more time-consuming than it should’ve been. Anyways, I eventually did get the picture done, albeit with a few small changes.

Change 1: The boy and the girl became two guys. I like it so if you have a problem with gays deal with it. (Not to mention you probably shouldn’t be reading my newsletters). The actual reason it became two guys though is because I thought it would be easier to draw. NEWSFLASH! It wasn’t. Seriously. The guy on the right (you’ll see the pic in a minute) took me FOREVER.

Change 2: No forest. It was too hard to draw.

Change 3: The guys are side to side rather than facing each other. Any of my original delusions regarding how much talent I actually possess are long gone. I couldn’t figure out how to draw them facing each other so you get a front view instead.

Ok, so you’re probably thinking “So what does this picture that Kasey has spent like an hour describing actually look like?”

Good question. Here’s a few pictures of it for you all. It turned out slightly better than I thought it would, but I think I will stick to writing in the future.

The word MAGIC written in the stars is just as cheesy as you all probably thought it would be, w/e.

Here’s another one closer up.

And one more. You can see the colors around the boys’ hands, which was a way cooler idea before I put it on paper, BTW.

Next was Lauren’s role in this grand scheme of things. Unlike me however, she didn’t hop right to the opportunity of writing about magic. Instead she waited until we hung out and she saw my picture so that she could write based off of what I’d drawn. We both came up w/ most of the ideas for the initial storyline, which involves my two characters at a magic school. We decided to name them Rhian and Seph. Rhian is the one on the left and Seph is the one on the right.

So far we only have about a page written up of our story. Who knows if it will ever go anywhere, but it was definitely fun doing what we did for this project. Here’s what we got written in case you wanted to read it. (FYI Lauren wrote most of this. I think the last paragraph or two was mine. We both came up w/ the ideas for the story though)

Rhian and Seph’s Story:

The creation of magic is a phenomenon that is highly debated amongst the greatest sages of the day. Where it originated we do not know. The wisest of magic entities can, however, tell you, if you are gracious enough to listen, the substance upon which magic is fueled. It is something even a mere wizi-child can comprehend. From the smallest of pixies to the largest of giants, this force binds us all. This bond is love.
At large, however, this fact is mostly ignored as the magic community herds its youth into large towers to study tome upon ancient tome of nonsensical spells and brews. And it is here that we find ourselves in the company of a young man who, if you ask, politely, will tell you his name is—
“Rhian!”
“What?” spoke a disgruntled voice.
“You are going to be late. It makes a dismal first impression on the Sages. Tut, tut, what would your mother think?” came an irritating high-pitched response.
“Probably nothing, seeing as we haven’t spoken since she sent me to this spirit-forsaken, pitiful excuse for a learning institution.”
At this point, Rhian’s companion decided to present his rather small person by stepping down the spiral staircase from which his voice had previously been drifting.
Roland Humphrey Ignatius Carleton III came from a long line of legendary figures that had done everything from free small nations to coming remarkably close to curing the common cold. Roland distinctly not following in his family’s incredibly large footsteps, and not just because he was a man of such small proportions, proceeded to do absolutely nothing with his life.
Or at least, this is how Rhian would describe the chosen career path of the bane of his existence. In reality, the white-haired, pointy-eared man was the doting assistant of Rhian’s mother. To the great disdain of both Rhian and Roland, his most recent assignment tethered the two together for the indefinite amount of time during which Rhian would be forcibly studying magic at Carleton’s Ridge.
“This spirit-forsaken, pitiful excuse for a learning institution happens to be the finest establishment the likes of you should ever hope to be admitted to. It is on the sole grace of your mother’s name that my great-great uncle’s university has lowered its standards so drastically,” huffed Roland.
*I believe I take over after this point*
“Listen here elf—”
“I’m not an elf!” squeaked Roland indignantly.
Rhian blatantly ignored Roland’s protests, not unlike he had been doing for the greater part of his life.
He got to his feet and shrugged on one of the woolen cloaks thrown haphazardly across the chair beside his bed.
“I’m leaving.”
“Dressed just as scruffy as ever I see.”
Roland’s criticism fell on deaf ears as Rhian was already well on his way. Where to, he wasn’t sure, although he was certain of one thing. Rocks and Their Uses in the Wizarding World, the first of many undoubtedly pointless classes filling Rhian’s schedule, would not be his final destination.


So I’ll bet you’re wondering. What exactly have I taken from this whole experience??
Well, for one thing. Lauren is wayyyy better at writing than I am at drawing. Which, I think is totally unfair. But hey, that’s life! Also, drawing does nothing to cure writer’s block. Nope, nada. But it was still a lot of fun!

As a bonus, I hung out w/ Lauren for about 5 days in a row after she got back from Ocean City and that is when this whole story/picture experiment came about. The day after we wrote this up I slept over her house and brought these little stone things w/ me that I had taken from the centerpiece at my cousin’s wedding. We planned to each do a painting and then hot-glue some of the stones on, only Lauren ended up throwing away her canvas out of anger (Another note: apparently writing does little to cure artist’s block as well).

Myself on the other hand, managed to do a really cool painting, which I’m going to show to you now. (For future reference, paint the background color, which in this case was black, before the swirls. It makes life a whole lot easier—trust me on that)

Here’s one of the entire thing. You can see the stones on the top left and bottom right corners. The gold paint is pretty shiny too but I’m not sure if you can see it in the picture.

Here’s one of the bottom right corner.

Here’s one of the top left corner.

Ok guys, well that’s all for today. I was hoping to touch on other topics but this newsletter is already really long so I guess that will just have to wait until another time.

August 7-2009
-By Kasey

Newsletter #00058

"Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light."
"Dark times lie ahead of us and there will be a time when we must choose what is easy and what is right."
"The truth is a beautiful and terrible thing, and therefore should be treated with great caution."
- Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore


"...the only thing we have to fear is fear itself..."
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt


Fear is something that troubles every human being: big and small, young and old; we are all affected by it. These fears can be rational, irrational, minor or troubling. Whatever the case, we all experience some type of fear. Some people can overcome their fears, while others struggle with them throughout their life. Fear is an essential tool in life, and really, without it we wouldn't be able to survive. Fear is a part of us, and we need to come to accept it. I'm not judging whether a fear is rational or irrational - to every person, their fear is rational to themselves, and that's what matters.

Something that should be known: Don't judge unless you want to be judged yourself. If you don't have something nice to say, don't say it at all. Those are some sayings you may have heard, and they are true. If you go and ridicule someone of their fear, be prepared for them to do it back to you. And just try and be a nice person. There is no reason to insult a person. Even if they are jerks to you, you loathe them, and you can't stand them, don't insult them. There are those people in the world who, no matter what, will get on your nerves. Just ignore them. It's hard, but it's worth it. Even if the person deserves it, just ignore them. Now, I realize I'm no perfect person, and I've been a hypocrite to what I've just wrote, but it's something I try to do.

For some reason, I have a really high code of honor, or whatever, I'm not sure exactly what to call it. I can never stop helping a person. I'm the president of Leo Club, an Officer in SADD, I want to do more community service, I just feel a need to help the world as best I can, and make a difference. I want to do so much, but at times it feels like I'm not going to be good enough. I set way too high expectations of myself, but I want to reach them so badly. Yet it seems like I never do enough. I've been thinking too much lately, so I've been agitated, but I just feel like I should be doing something productive. Thankfully, I consider writing productive, in that it makes the mind work and be creative, without being destructive, which is why I like it so much. Math is the organized structure of my life, though I recently acquired a book that is telling me otherwise, which will be the entire base of my next newsletter. I need to read it through another time or two, it's a lot of confusing physics and stuff....

I felt compelled the other day to inform the readers of our newsletters about the various designs of teeth, and to educate you all about the various kinds, and what they do. You may know some of the information, but it is somewhat interesting nonetheless, and you can use your newly acquired knowledge to entertain people with random facts, or the next time you see a person eating, inform of exactly what they are doing.

First, there are the incisors. They are made biting, and for cutting.
Next, there are the cuspids. They are for shaped for tearing at food.
Bicuspids are used for crushing food.
Molars are there for grinding foot.

An example of the human mouth.

Well, that's it for my newsletter. I already gave some quotes, so those will suffice for this newsletter.

Now, instead of asking questions to YOU, I want you to ask ME questions. Since we're always asking you things, now you can ask us. They can be whatever you want. Try and make them geared towards the three halves of us, Me, Kasey, and Brad, though you can direct individual questions. I haven't talked to either them about this, so if they don't answer questions you ask them, sorry. Just to try something new. I'll answer some in my next newsletter, and if Kasey and Brad want, they can answer some too. So, what questions do you have?

August 5-2009
-By Josh

Newsletter #00057

I'm about to head off to Maine for awhile, and I realize I missed my day for the past two days, sorry Kasey, I'm going to use yours, though you can still put out a newsletter today if you want.


Brad and I awhile ago came up with plans to build a model school, the way we would want a school to be built. It's 3 floors high, not a circle, and actually has a pretty decent design. First it was all on paper, then we worked on making it out of Pop Tart boxes, and now Brad started working on making it out of posicle sticks. It should look cool, eventually we want to build a scale model out of wood or something, and put in desks and whatnot. Make it look real. It'll take awhile to get it all done, but it'll look really cool. And if anyone has a couple million dollars just sitting around, care to make a donation so we can make a plan a reality? Lol =P

Recently I've been listening to a lot more music, and I've really gotten into it. I've listened to music before, but now I've really been listening to a lot. I've never really listened to music throughout middle school and most of high school, up until now. So my playlist is rather small, but it's building. If you have any suggestions, could you post them as comments? I'll put a list of some of the artists I listen to at the end.

I need to get ready to leave for Maine, so this is where I have to end.

Questions:
1. Favorite vacation memory?
2. Prefered weather (any day)?
3. Dream vacaton?

Quotes:
I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.
- Bill Cosby

I want freedom for the full expression of my personality.
- Mahatma Gandhi

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.
- Mahatma Gandhi



Artists:
3 Days Grace
Nickleback
Streetlight Manifesto*
Skillet
3 Doors Down
The Fray*
Staind*
Aiden
AFI
Thousand Foot Krutch*
Creed
Simple Plan*
Blink 182
Breaking Benjamin
John Mayer
Matchbox 20*
Metallica
Red Jumpsuit Apparatus
Jumpsuit

* = Favorite

July 31-2009
-By Josh

Newsletter #00056

well, so here i sit. utterly embarassed about how long it's been since my last newsletter...
so let me begin by apologizing for that. i'm sorry. i will try harder in the future.

the first thing i want to talk about is how idiotic the court system in massachusetts is, because it has really been bugging me. Yeah, most of us know that the court system works like this:
-you go to the first branch and go before a judge for a decision
-if you feel the decision was unjust or unconstitutional you can appeal it
-appelate court is above and more powerful than the previous court and the decision is final (unless you see it as unjust still where you can keep appealing all the way up to the united states supreme court, if you have that much money lying around)

and this part i have no problem with. that is good, well thought out, effective. the part i have a problem with is the judges themselves. there is nothing anywhere saying that they have to read over anything or even so much as listen to testimony to make a final decision and sign off on it. so it could simply be a choice on a whim. for all the rules care, the judge could be looking between the two papers saying eeny-mini-miny-moe.(haha) but really, they don't have to make an educated and well thought out decision. they may as well pull jurisdictions out of a hat.

well, now that i've got that out i guess i'll tell you a bit about my summer. i don't know if you're interested, but i will. well, i have gone to a few concerts, three at tanglewood. Now, Tanglewood is an amazing place for someone like me. it is the summer home of the boston symphony orchestra and an amazing place to listen to music. the last concert i saw there was the boston pops for film night. absolutely amazing. another concert i attended this summer was a Reel Big Fish concert courtesy of curtis. this really introduced me to the ska genre of music. i highly recommend you try to listen to some, and the band i see running the top of the line for this type of music is streetlight manifesto, i highly recommend you check them out. other than that i've not been doing much, home alone and reading and the sort. i began working on a new form of josh and my school, it's coming along, i may post pictures as to the progress of it here on facebook, it will be a really neat thing when it's done

well, it's all i've got for now, so here are some questions. more than one to make up for my lack of newsletters. i would appreciate answers if you have the time
1.how have your summers been?
2.what is your favorite TV show?
3. if you were stuck somewhere, and all necessities were provided, and you were given two.....wishes let's say. what would they be?

quote:
Every individual has a place to fill in the world, and is important, in some respect, whether he chooses to be so or not

July 29-2009
-By Brad

Newsletter #00055

Ok everyone, another guest writer for you today! I was gonna also contribute but what I think I'm gonna write about in my next newsletter doesn't go along w/ what is gonna be in here today so I'm just gonna save it for next Friday I think.

Anyways, the guest writer today is Nick Mag! His topic is actually really interesting. So here it is!

Seeing as other people have managed to sneak guest appearances in these newsletters, I figured, “Hey why can’t I?” Well, yes, there are plenty of reasons, but without further ado, let’s jump right into the topic I want to breach.

The World.

No, not the gaseous ball of atmosphere where hate, love, and confusion come from (not to mention ourselves), but a project off of the coast of Dubai. Yes Dubai, the place where a giant palm tree island was built. A rich developer, who, if I recall correctly was Middle Eastern, had a spark of an idea, which grew into the most exclusive real estate project on the planet Earth.

The dream was this; construct a set of islands, which are clustered together in the shape of the world. Don’t thinks its possible? Just check it out—

The goal of this project, which was completed January 10, 2008, was to create a piece of land, which is bare aside form the sand, and can be sold as real estate. However, buying islands is always tricky business, due to their exclusivity and difficulty to manage. What The World offers is an island free of these things. The Islands can be bought, then shaped into any desired form, and they are all set up on a central waterway, which makes transportation a breeze. There, manmade islands were created similar to how you might imagine, with lots and lots of dirt and sand being thrown into the ocean.

Their location is also close enough to land, and they boast year-round sunshine. Seems like a pretty enticing deal, does it not? Well, the organization that made The World chooses 50 buyers every year and then shows them around. To be selected, I imagine that your bank account needs to be in a gold-sealed vault. Still, 94% of the islands are already sold! They are split up into sections including residential and commercial, so that only so many private or company buyers can be involved.

Ok, so after all this I pose a question that has been in the back of my mind ever since I saw this project unfold years ago: “Where is this taking us, and is it too far?” I mean, the project is exciting, and I will not pretend that it didn’t peak my curiosity, but still. We are creating land, which is the opposite of a canal I suppose, and making more for us. Fundamentally, we are changing our planet more, as if unsatisfied with the beauty it has presented naturally. Does this mean we will start creating continents, or removing them? Are we going to go too far, and like global warming, only stop when it’s really too late?

Well anyways, I want to thank Kasey for giving me some space in this newsletter. It was a lot of fun!

Thanks to Nick too for the cool topic. I looked it up on Wikipedia and it had some more info on this so anyone who is curious should go look it up. Also, this being mostly for Nick's information, I had to retype this entire thing because your new link didn't do anything different. That's also why this took me so long to post, since I had to retype the entire thing and find that stupid last picture cuz I couldn't copy and paste it.

Anyways, that's enough of my rambling. Comment and show Nick some love!