Today's homework was to write a poem about ourselves. The poem started and ended with "I am -namegoeshere-." In the poem there are eight other lines. Four of those lines are true things about ourselves and the other four are lies. I thought it was interesting that my teacher wanted us to write lies about ourselves. Was it for fun, so we could pick out which parts were right and which parts were false?

I've never been much of a poet myself, I'm afraid. When I was young I tried my hand at writing a poem. I think I still have it tucked away in a notebook. Now that I look back at it, the poem seems rather meaningless and rough. I guess that things always look different when time passes, though. Drawings that seemed good to me when I was younger just look funny when I get older. And seeing pictures of myself a few years ago, I think, "Wow, I looked really different then." (But after a while I always looked similar in the pictures. I suppose it means I'm getting old.)

Sometimes I wonder if it's better to always tell the truth or if it's okay to lie sometimes. Most of the time telling the truth is the better thing to do - it shows you have integrity, and people who lie tend to get found out anyways (unless they're good at lying. I mean, I heard all the best thieves are never caught).

But telling the truth can be a harsh thing. Sometimes this happens to me, or I see it with other people... A person asks their friends, "Do you like my ____?" or says, "My drawing is so terrible!" And their friends would just say they liked it or that their drawing was bad right away. I wonder if they really mean it or if they're like me...Sometimes, even if I don't really think as highly of something as the person asking me does, I just say "It's nice" or something like that anyways. I figure they'd be offended if I say "I'm not really that fond of it." I don't want to hurt their feelings, so I just pick the safe choice and pretend.

But how much longer can this go on? How much longer until it all unravels? I can't always live my life like this, can I? And yet speaking my mind could be costly too. I don't know what I would rather do.

There's also a different situation, one I haven't come across yet, but still a possible one. Say there is a person who actually has some health problems. In fact, they have a terminal illness, but they don't know it - but some people close to them know. The person would become depressed and listless if they found out about it, but as long as they think they're not going to die soon they are able to live their life happily and blithely. Do you think they should know because they deserve to know their own fate? Or should the truth be hidden from the person so they can enjoy what life they have left?

Anyways, on to a different topic... Today in PE class, my PE teacher spoke to us about a girl who has one of the school records for triple jump. She is still in the school (in fact, she is in my grade). The teacher said, "I've heard a few people suggesting she's been using steroids. That's not true at all. She trains really hard every day with a professional coach, and worked to make her legs and body strong. Don't say that she's been cheating and taking the easy way out by using steroids. She has really good work ethic. I think people who are saying that she uses steroids are just jealous. And yeah, it makes sense to be jealous, but you can just say, 'Wow, she's good.' You don't need to mention steroids."

There are some athletes out there, such as a few baseball players, who use steroids. Some folks think that athletes who have used steroids should be taken out of the Hall of Fame or whatever records they got into. My PE teacher had an idea for it...He said he should leave both the records of people who used steroids and those who didn't in the records, but that the people who used steroids would get a * next to their name. I think that's a pretty good idea. That way everyone will get credit, but people who decided to use steroids would have some shame. I think it's only fair. If you do something dishonorable, you have to pay the consequences. (I believe in poetic justice. But it's not always dealt like that in life.)

Labels: athlete, baseball, death, fate, friends, happiness, innocence, justice, lie, life, opinion, PE class, picture, poem, pretend, record, steroids, thief, time, truth

...would be the newspaper delivery man. Or woman. I couldn't tell since I wasn't looking at the car window. But whoever it is, was trying to hit me today. I was just minding my own business and walking home from school. Right now the newspaper guy was making his rounds in his mysterious white van (unlike the mailman's truck, it doesn't have anything written on it). I was pretty shocked when a newspaper flew across the path, only a few feet from hitting me. It's a lucky thing I walk a lot slower than the van goes, because every time it passes a house, another newspaper is hurled out of the car window. Doesn't anyone realize it's safety hazard at this time of day? What if it hit some poor little kindergarten kid in the head and she started to cry? (But I guess that's really unlikely anyhow...)

For some reason, my only skill in drawing is copying. If I am given a picture and told to make a replica of it, I might do pretty well, but as for making things up from scratch, without anything to go by, I usually mess up pretty bad. I guess I'll probably be arrested for copyright infringement if I take advantage of any copying abilities, though, so I guess I can only draw pictures and keep them secret.

If you've ever wanted to be a sports pro, I think you ought to get a Wii (it comes with the game Wii Sports). The sports are so much easier on the Wii. For instance, in Tennis, Baseball, and Golf, you won't miss the ball, as long as you time your swing right. (Not to say that you might hit the ball somewhere you don't want to, like off the field/court, or into the rough) And you could easily become a master at bowling, since the ball only weighs as much as the Wii Remote (which is not much at all).

Today one of my friends insisted on tying my hair into a bun. She was bored and figured she'd use my hair, like I was a doll or something. (I don't mind, though. For some reason I like it when people fuss with my hair.) So she tied it in a bun. It's kind of odd not to have my usual ponytail, but not bad either. At least I don't end up eating my hair at lunchtime.

After school some suspicious men went over to the trash dump (on the other side of my house's fence) and put down some wooden things (they looked like the backs of picture frames, or perhaps a painting easel, but who knows what they were). Then they unlocked the "gates" to the trash dump and opened it. Maybe that's what they do for a living or something.

It reminded me of something long forgotten from my childhood, though. Years ago, my grandma was staying at our house to watch over me, and she found a discarded rug on top of the trash dump. We brought it home, washed it, and then put it on the wood chips of my playground (I have a small playground in my backyard. Unfortunately I'm a bit big to use it nowadays). Whenever I use the swings my shoes tend to fall off, so now at least if I want to get off the swing I can step onto the rug and not get my socks poked by wood chips.

Labels: athlete, dump, enemy, hairstyle, newspaper, plagiarize, playground, replicate, rug, wii

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