It'd be more accurate to say cats, since there's many of them. Two of them I've never seen in person; I only know them from the "Lost Cat" signs that have been going up in my neighborhood.

I've seen other cats too recently, and one of the sightings was during PE class. I know that there's a cat who lives near my high school and the middle school that I went to, and I saw it from a distance when I was jogging alongside the fence. (Unfortunately, a few students were dashing towards the cat and scared it off.) The others were ones I saw while walking, in a car, or just standing outside my house - though of course all of them were scared off by cars or by my presence.

I've always wondered if I smell like dogs or something, because cats are almost always hostile toward me. The only time a cat ever kind of liked me was when I was petting one on my lap at Humane Society, and even then, in the beginning, it was trying to stick its claws into me until it finally relaxed and started to purr faintly. Actually, I can't remember whether I'd had an allergic reaction that time. Maybe I wasn't allergic to cats just yet. Or maybe there are certain kinds I'm not allergic to. I did read in an issue of Cat Fancy magazine that Siberian cats are hypoallergenic; let me know if you know other species of cats that people aren't allergic to.

The most recent cat sighting, anyhow, was at a place near where I live. I'm a member of the Photo Club at my school, and when they offered a short "field trip" to a local park (well, it's just a big amount of open land, has hiking trails and a farm and tennis courts, and people like to fly their remote-controlled helicopters), I figured I'd come along. I thought it was quite a nice outing, as I got to explore a part of the neighborhood that I haven't seen for many years (last time I saw the farm was back when I had a field trip in elementary school). Most interestingly, I saw wild birds, like California quails...and even turkeys.

The farm itself had various animals, like ducks, chickens, pigs (they were huge!), and allegedly horses (I didn't see them, but I heard something about horses being there). And there's a cat. I think she/he (still can't tell apart animal genders, haha) was a more popular attraction than the other animals, seeing as kids kept coming over to try and pet her/him. (The cat wasn't overly fond of socializing, though, and sometimes she/he got intimidated and ran into the barn, if that's what you call it) One of my friends, who was with me, wondered why the cat seemed relatively clean despite living on the farm with no apparent owner. I guess cats in the wild learn to take care of themselves pretty well. I do wonder what would happen if we did the same with children. Us humans are funny since we raise children for almost two decades; I've never heard of other animals sticking with their children for so long. Maybe we'd actually fare better if we had to grow up and learn to survive at an earlier age.

Labels: allergies, animals, birds, cat, cat fancy, cats, farm, neighborhood, people, survival, turkey

I am not saying that the magazines themselves are really lacking or something, but it is just...Well... A lot of magazines and newspapers and other sources of information seem to be filled with bad news. The only magazine I have that is decidedly optimistic is Ode, which we subscribed to with our mileage. (If you fly a lot with an airline, say for example, United, then you might be able to rack up "mileage", a kind of points, and if you get enough you can use it for things, like getting a free flight somewhere) We had to use the mileage or else it would disappear, so my mom wanted me to pick magazines to subscribe to, since magazines don't use much mileage. Back to Ode, though; apparently they call themselves a magazine for "intelligent optimists".

Currently I am subscribing to the magazines Newsweek, Reader's Digest, National Geographic, and Nintendo Power. I don't mean to offend the folks working for Newsweek, but I am not too fond of it. It seems to have a lot of news about politics. The only things I find interesting are the comics (which are politically-themed), the Indignity Index (which features some rather not-so-good things public figures have done), and the occasional article, like this article I read about how Microsoft is losing out to other companies ever since Bill Gates stepped down from CEO or whatever.

My mom and I would prefer to have Time magazine, but my dad wanted Newsweek, so we got it. I have discovered that although my dad means well, he doesn't have the greatest judgment. When I was younger, we were looking for a Game Boy to buy and my dad said we should get the Game Boy Advance. That turned out to be a bad move because the Game Boy Advance doesn't have good lighting, unlike the Game Boy Advance SP (and DS, which hadn't come out yet at that time), so it was always hard for me to see what was on the screen. (By the way, the Game Boy is not well-named since it is kind of suggesting that boys are the only gamers, which is not true)

The reason why I mention Time here is because I just checked out an issue of Time from the library. I was looking for an article for Current Events (where we present an article we found in the news in front of our class - all science-related because we do it in science class) and I noticed an issue of Time magazine, the November 30, 2009 issue. There was an article about how parents are overprotective of their kids and how maybe it's time we loosened up a bit, so kids can learn to do things themselves. So I checked out the issue. I really like that article. It has some funny parts, like when it mentioned how suddenly strollers needed the label REMOVE CHILD BEFORE FOLDING (that's because parents got really paranoid).

There was also another article in Time (same issue) that I liked, and that was an article about Zynga. Zynga is a company, started in 2007, which makes games for social-networking sites. Some of the games include Mafia Wars, Cafe World, Zynga Poker, YoVille!, and Fishville. What amused me was the mention of Farmville, which was apparently similar to a popular Chinese farming game called Happy Farm. Hmm...My dad plays an online game where he waters his plants, steals other people's plants (gasp!) and keeps all sorts of fauna like squirrels and peacocks. I can't help but think it's really funny that my dad plays Happy Farm.

I also checked out the December copy of Cat Fancy magazine, since I don't have a subscription to it. Even this magazine has some gruesome aspects. There was a section about holiday safety for cats, and in it said, "When I diagnose cats with kidney failure from lilies, people tell me they've never heard that before." Lilies? You know, the flowers? Well, apparently they are dangerous to cats. And chocolate is also bad for them. So are nuts, splintery bones, and onions and garlic...Apparently, onions and garlic are bad for the red blood cells of a cat. The article may be helpful, but it seems to frighten you into keeping your cat safe. I mean, your cat being electrocuted by chewing on the Christmas tree lights doesn't sound too nice.

Well, the real disappointment in the magazine wasn't the fault of the magazine. It was all because I got it from the library. I wanted to rip out the poster of a kind of cat called a ragdoll. It has blue eyes, which I really like, and also, it kind of resembles my dad's friend's cat. Then I realized that it was a library copy so I couldn't rip it out. I was really crestfallen. (P.S.: Today's icon is NOT a ragdoll.)

Labels: 2009, cat fancy, christmas lights, game boy advance, garlic, happy farm, indignity index, lilies, newsweek, november 30, ode, onions, overprotective, parents, poster, ragdoll, safety, time, zynga

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