For language arts class, I needed to pick a classic to read, so I went to the library in search of a book that could be considered a classic. It is too bad that I read Little Men last trimester, since that would count as a classic. Unfortunately, the library's teen section's books had been moved elsewhere. I was easily able to locate the fiction books, but I couldn't find the classics at first. Finally, after some wandering, I found the classics section and started browsing.

I eventually decided upon The Story of My Life, written by Helen Keller. I really didn't know much about Helen Keller before now, besides that she went blind and deaf from an illness and that she was taught by a woman named Anne Sullivan. Apparently the "breakthrough" for teaching Helen words was when she felt running water on her hand and Anne Sullivan spelled out water into her hand.

One of the things that I found interesting was that Helen Keller once got into trouble for plagiarism. She had written a story which she called "The Frost King". Her friend, Mr. Anagnos, liked the story very much. Apparently someone saw the story Helen had written and remarked that it was very similar to another story called "The Frost Fairies". Helen did not remember having read that story, but apparently she had, to have written something similar. Helen said that Mr. Anagnos then believed that Helen and Ms. Sullivan had deceived him and tried to earn his favor with "The Frost King", and so in the book Helen said she was saddened to have lost his friendship.

Being creative is a pretty difficult challenge in this world. Sometimes people become famous because they were simply lucky enough to be the first to come up with an idea that becomes popular. Skill is of course still a factor in being successful (but not necessarily the biggest part; I am sorry if you are a fan of the Twilight series, but I found it rather bland for the most part) but you may still be able to get readers even if your writing is not the most sophisticated.

Sometimes people will get the same idea as you, and you have to fight to be the first to get it out there. If you are second, you'll be accused of copying them, even if you hadn't meant to. And sometimes you might accidentally write something that has actually already been put out there. Or it could be like with Helen Keller, forgetting that you had actually seen something before, and confused it with your own imagination.

I heard something mentioned on the radio as well. You also have to be careful if you're a musician. Someone on the radio said, "It either has to be completely original, or really, really good." If you have a song with similarities to other songs, you'll get attacked by people. It's pretty challenging to be creative. Keep that in mind if you think, "Oh, this is so overused," or "There's just no creativity anymore." I fear that perhaps all the good ideas are getting used up, like our Earth's resources...That would be a real shame, so I hope it is not so. But who knows?

Labels: accident, books, classic, creativity, first, forget, helen keller, ideas, inspiration, language arts, library, little men, music, originality, plagiarize, race, song, the story of my life, writing

On the school announcements on Friday, one of the announcers said that it was To Write Love on Her Arms Day. During that day, you could write the word love on the arms of your friends. I have heard of To Write Love on Her Arms, because I saw it on a banner someone made once, but I had no idea what it really was, I actually thought it was a song... -_-;; It isn't a song at all. In fact, it's an organization. One of my classmates said that the organization was started because there was a girl who was depressed, she probably had wanted to commit suicide or hurt herself, and to help her, people would try to show that she was loved and wanted in the world, and now it's really major.

Unfortunately, someone commented that a lot of people just thought it was fun to write on each others' arms and didn't understand the meaning of this. It's bad to write on people's arms in the first place. I was once told that every time pen ink touches your skin, you lose a very tiny part of your life (not even a full second). That could be an exaggeration, but it's probably still not good to have ink on your skin, it might seep inside you, and some chemicals could make you sick if you had too much ink, or whatever. But the idea of To Write Love on Her Arms is admirable, nevertheless.

Currently I am reading the book Little Men by Louse May Allcott. I remember having written a post about Little Women in the past. It was a lot of fun writing the blog post in a more fancy way of speaking. I wonder if I should attempt that again sometime, maybe with a different style of writing. (I won't write in caps lock or in different colors, or with chatspeak, or with overuse of punctuation, because that kind of thing just blinds people)

My mom and I are still struggling to make a decision about whether to have braces still. Well, we're probably going to be going to the orthodontist I visited for a consultation (the one who isn't my usual dentist - my usual dentist, however, is also trained in orthodontics) because there were folks who recommended him, except for my mom's friend, who said, "Oh, THAT old man?" when my mom mentioned his name (interesting reaction, is it not?). The main decision now is whether I should get these things called "expanders". The orthodontist suggested that I should have them in order to apparently make me look better, and also because he plans to have my teeth moved so that they will be leaning outward a bit - it might help the gaps in my teeth disappear, or give me an overbite, which apparently is considered good-looking. I like my teeth just the way they are, though. I feel like I won't be myself anymore if I have braces and expanders and change the shape of my jaws. I've never been particularly religious but I do think it was karma and things like that which caused us to have the kind of brains and personalities and bodies that we have, and you shouldn't mess with the larger powers at work! D:

Just the other day, I finally got Ouran High School Host Club Volume 13 from the library. I hadn't read the manga for a while because it takes time for the English translations to come to the USA, and even more time for the library to buy them. It's really annoying, as I don't like to read manga on the computer. You have to click to flip the page and plus you don't get to read the author's comments and stuff (sometimes manga-kas write something, like some personal info or questions from readers, on the side of the page or on the bottom of the page) since it's still in Japanese, the people who translate manga for online readers don't always translate the author's comments...

I'm mentioning this because I noticed something. It said near the back of the manga, where there's a drawing by the author and some notes thanking people who helped or family and things like that, it said it was signed September 2008. Do you see that?! The English version didn't come out for sale until November 2009! It took more than a year! Us folks in North America are getting everything late. ;_;

Labels: author's comments, expanders, ink, late, little men, love, orthodontist, ouran high school host club, skin, song, to write love on her arms, writing style

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