Interpret the meaning of that however you want. I love having titles with multiple layers of meaning. I guess my Writing for Publication class really is seeping into the rest of my life.

Well, one of my friends, thefalse-tto, seems to enjoy being written about, so I suppose I'll inflate her ego a bit more (no offense intended, if she is reading this). She was telling me about how before she'd made a "persona" on the Internet, which means that she basically made a whole identity for herself.

She managed to convince people that she was a 17-year-old boy living in Korea, and she explained that she knew English because you have to learn in there (which is true) and that she knew Chinese because you had to learn another language besides English and Korean (apparently also true; first time I've heard it, but it doesn't surprise me). I think it'd be pretty fun to try doing that myself. All I've done so far is stop showing my gender one or two of my accounts...but then again, I bet they already saw that I was female before I hid it. Or they can tell from the way I speak and the kind of pictures I have on my profiles/blogs/etc.

But then again, maybe not. It might not take much to convince people I'm the opposite gender or that I'm a different age or anything I feel like. I've done it before by accident; when I was in 7th grade, people on a forum I used to visit said they thought I was in high school or college because I apparently sounded mature (well, most people speak with tons of smilies and chatspeak, so I guess I seem really old in comparison. I don't know about you, but I estimate people's ages based on what they type). And there was a really funny incident many years ago on Club Penguin: Some girl thought I was a guy, so she kept having her penguin make those emoticons that look like a heart is breaking. Concerned, I asked her what was wrong, and then somehow or other we ended up going to my penguin's igloo. Well, eventually I said I was a girl and she said "You lied" and left. I was really flabbergasted at the time, and even angry, because I never said that I was male. But now I just find it hilarious. Isn't it funny how people are trying to flirt using a kids site where everyone is a bird?

Anyways, I don't really like to lie about my information, because I try to live by what I believe in, and also because I've seen lots of people on the Internet say they hate fakers and liars. I am overly concerned about whether people dislike me because I believe that they attack me with switchblades in some dark, obscure alley, or take pictures of me while I'm changing clothes and put it all over the Internet, and other things like that. (Not that it's ever happened, but hey, you never know.) Still, I am very curious about what people would think I'm like if I didn't have much information up. So maybe from now on I'll reveal as little as possible and see what happens.

This is a pretty big change of topic, but it's still got to do with this post's title. Very literally. Because there's a series of video games called Persona, and another friend of mine started telling me about the plot of Persona 4 yesterday. I've certainly seen Persona around before; one time I was on the air plane, and I noticed that the guy in the seat in front of me was playing a video game. Being the creepy, eavesdropping, people-watching sort of person that I am, I stared at it through the gap in the seats to see what game it was. I saw a character that looked very familiar, and then after a while I was certain that it had to be Minato Arisato, the protagonist of Persona 3. (And I was right; I later confirmed it by looking at pictures of Minato on the Internet. Couldn't find out from watching the guy play because his game was in Japanese, I think. I really have to learn Japanese this summer.) My friend says that she convinced her mom to get her Persona 4, which she says was pretty awkward, because Persona 4 is rated Teen in Japan but is rated Mature in America. (Tells you something about Japanese standards for what's age appropriate, game-wise at least, doesn't it?)

What I'm really in the mood for playing, though, is Pokemon. Sure, I have the older games, and I could go back to those, but there's nothing to do except slaughter wild Pokemon (which is like animal abuse, seeing as I don't even need to attack them except to make my own Pokemon level up), since I've already beat the main storyline. I'd like to try playing Pokemon Black or Pokemon White. But I haven't decided which one I want yet...I like Reshiram, the legendary Pokemon of Pokemon Black, but I think it'd be more useful to have Zekrom, and possibly Thundurus, if I ever get that far in the game. It seems, from what I've Googled, that it's easier to level up your Pokemon in Black...? (Correct me if I'm wrong.) I guess Black might be more useful to me because I don't really need those Pokemon that you can get in White but not in Black. (I mean, I checked the Pokemon that are in the White Forest, which is only in Pokemon White, and I have those Pokemon on my older Pokemon games.) If you have either game, please do tell me which you think is better.

Labels: club penguin, first impression, friends, honesty, identity, internet, japan, minato, paranoia, persona, pokemon, pokemon black, pokemon white, pretend, video games

"French Laugh

A laugh that comes deep within and sounds like "ah hoh hoh hoh." Contrary to Santa's laugh, this is more to make fun of others with.
From the Simpsons
Lisa: Oh no, I'm at the wrong school! (at a french school)
Students: hahhaha
Teacher: En Francais!
Students: A hoh hoh hoh hoh! (French Laugh)"

This is what was on Urban Dictionary. People tend to think of a "Aw haw haw" or "Oh hoh hoh" kind of laugh when it comes to French people. (Whether they actually laugh like that, I am not sure, though nasal sounds are common in French, I think)

I thought of the French laugh because of what a student brought up during a meeting. Some of us French students have been meeting up once in a while at lunchtime to discuss ideas and organize the French Week we have planned for later in October. One of the students said we should all go up to people and laugh "Oh hoh hoh!" at them. The teacher shrugged and said, "Well, I guess this is what we do in eighth grade, we go up to sixth graders and laugh, and they'll think, 'Who is this person?' " It would be really funny if we did go up to people and laugh at them, though.

Oh yes, and I noticed something about the Urban Dictionary definition for a French laugh. The definition that I included in the post mentioned Santa Claus style laughing. I used to be renowned as Santa Claus in disguise. In fact, when I did my evil laughter during basketball practice earlier this year, someone said it sounded like an evil Santa Claus. And so I thought I'd mention what my DeviantArt signature is right now...

"There are three stages of man: he believes in Santa Claus; he does not believe in Santa Claus; he is Santa Claus.
- Bob Phillips"

However, my role has changed recently. I am no longer Santa Claus, but instead I am the Queen. Apparently, the Queen of Pwnage. D: In my language arts class, people take turns deciding which students do what roles (jobs could be taking out and putting away our journals, or keeping the table quiet, or getting the textbooks). Today my job was to be Queen and "pwn everyone". At lunchtime I stood up and announced that I was the Queen of Pwnage. The reaction was blank stares and the "..." kind of silence, before the people in my vicinity returned to eating and talking and doing homework and such. (Y'know, I never use the words "own" or "pwn" in that way, so pretty soon I might forget about this, and I'll go back to being regular old me, I suppose)

Labels: claus, deviantart, eighth grade, français, french, french week, identity, laugh, laughter, nasal, pwn, queen, queen of pwnage, random, role, santa, santa claus, simpsons, sounds, stages of man

There is a book that goes by that title, and the author is Margaret Peterson Haddix, but I'm not talking about that. I mean that there is always someone similar to yourself. Sometimes people say they know someone who looks like me. And in an anime (Sister Princess if you wanted to know), one of the people often sayings things like, "You know there is such-and-such-number of people in the world who look exactly like you." I was reminded of it when my mom talked about how she was in line at a store once and the person in front of her looked like me, but taller and older. The person was wearing a UCSF Medical School Class of 2010 sweater or shirt or something like that. I was a bit disturbed since I don't want to be a doctor. (No offense if you do. I think it is a fine career. Just not one I have particular interest in.) So I hope it's just a coincidence if someone looks like me. After all, a lot of times I might be walking somewhere and see someone who looked familiar from the back but when they turn around I realize it's not the same person.

Nowadays I've been writing something for history class. Our assignment is to write a letter and pretend we are in Florence touring the places. You can write to your mother or your pet goldfish or whatever. (But don't put your real address! I don't know about you, but the town where I live was only founded in the 1900's, so it couldn't have existed centuries ago) We have to explain what the Renaissance is, what humanism/individualism/realism is, how the Greeks and Romans influenced it, and so on. Then you have to describe the five senses (olfactory, visual, audio, tactile, and taste). Just make up a bunch of stuff, for example, you bit into a watermelon and thought it was juicy and sweet. (Note that I don't like watermelons. Especially the seeds. And I remember when I was young my class went to the nearby park, and we had a watermelon, and one of the teachers pretended it was a dinosaur egg)

As I keep on rambling I am reminded of the book I was reading just the other day. It's called Pillage and the author is Obert Skye. (According to the book cover, he is the author of Leven Thumps, some fantasy series or something of that sort. I saw a poster of it at the school library.) It's not really one of my favorites, but it's okay as books go. Kind of an adventure/fantasy/sarcastic book. Later on in the book you'll hear something about dragon eggs. So, not that far off from dinosaur eggs.

My dad is continuously watching the Masters Cup in golf. (The Cup stands for the weird glass goblet you get for winning golf tournaments.) A lot of males wearing polo shirts and either visors or caps are walking around, swinging golf clubs. I think golf is too slow-paced and boring because sometimes the game is so lacking that the cameramen film ducks flying overhead instead of the golfers. I saw Tiger Woods so apparently he's back to playing golf. He had an unhappy expression. My dad says it's because he's not playing well.

I think my science teacher is getting married sometime around now. He is going to marry one of the school counselors, apparently. My mom doesn't know how old his wife-to-be is, so she thinks my teacher is way older (I doubt that, he just has prematurely grey hair and a rather "weathered" look, like a sea captain, I think his fiancée isn't a spring chicken herself. No offense intended). One of my classmates was offended that we weren't invited to the wedding (after all, sometimes you do get to go to your teachers' weddings, one of my friends did just a year or two ago). The classmate insisted that we were more important than his nieces and deserved to go. (That's too hard, I think. There is at least a hundred kids in our "village", and besides that it would be unfair to the teacher's previous classes since they wouldn't get to go just because they were born in the wrong year.)

Labels: age, books, egg, florence, golf, identity, invitation, italy, letter, marriage, masters cup, people, pillage, renaissance, teacher

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