Y'know, Andrew Jackson's name is very similar to the name of my favorite teacher...

Andrew Jackson was the 7th President of the United States.
A war hero, from the Battle of New Orleans and an invasion of Florida.
A husband and father, married to a woman named Rachel (very complicated situation regarding that, but never mind it for now).
The installer of the spoils system and Jacksonian democracy.
A person who tried to kill the National Bank.
(...If you're confused about this, look it up. Personally I recommend Wikipedia. XD)

And this is my retelling of his story. It is mostly made up, so do not take it seriously. It's just for fun, seeing as we haven't gotten to write fiction all year in school.

Once upon a time, in a faraway land, there was a boy. He was born to two people who were quite vocal about their opinions. Even at the age of five, he was already a mischievous, energetic boy who threw terrible tantrums when he didn't get his way. His family moved to a new town, which unfortunately did not welcome them. The town was a small one, set in its ways, fearing the changes that the outspoken, troublemaking family might bring, tried to drive them out. When the family stubbornly refused, a few particularly fearful townspeople encouraged others to help them burn down their house. Although the family managed to escape the fire alive, their home and farmland had been burned to the ground, the animals had disappeared, and they were all injured from the fire. Andrew's parents had been burned and were coughing heavily from the smoke that had entered their lungs, and they lived for a while, all of them in the wilderness, before they died.

Only Andrew was alive, and he was very weak and confused. This wasn't his first time facing death - truth be told, he actually spent time burning ants with a magnifying glass in his backyard (Oh! The horror!) - but he hadn't thought his parents would die on him. He didn't believe it at first. He poked them and tried to peel their eyes open and even screamed as loud as he could in their ears. But soon he was worn out and frustrated from his lack of success, and very hungry. He couldn't find anything to eat, besides mushrooms, which looked rather poisonous. Frustrated, he curled up in a ball on the ground, and fell into an uneasy sleep, accompanied only by his growling stomach.

While he was dozing, a few wolves came along, cautiously sniffing their way through the forest. Farmers often tried to shoot the wolves whenever they saw them, thinking the wolves would eat their livestock. The wolves smelled death, and followed it, but the meat did not look too appetizing. The two dead humans that the wolves discovered had all sorts of weird things on them, something that looked like a band with metal on it, and something on their feet that was hard and brown. The wolves smelled something living, too, and that was Andrew Jackson.

The wolves were faced with the decision of what to do with him.
1. Eat him (Not good...He didn't have much meat on him)
2. Leave him there (Not good either...He might scare away the other wildlife if he was left to his own devices)
3. Bring him with them (Not really that great either, but the wolves decided on that. They were curious to see what he would do.)

And so he was dragged along by the collar of his shirt to the wolves' den. The feeling of being pulled along on rocks and dirt woke him up, but he was still too tired to realize what was going on, and once he had been laid down on the ground, he went right back to sleeping.

He woke up later, feeling something poking him (it was a wolf prodding him with a paw), and sat up with a jolt. The wolves leaped backwards, startled. Andrew rubbed his eyes and studied his surroundings. He was lying in the shade of a tree, and there was a rocky outcropping nearby, under which the wolves lived, presumably. The wolves looked at him warily, wondering what the human boy would do now that he had been revived. Andrew realized his parents were nowhere to be seen, but then his stomach grumbled in protest, and he forgot about it.

Andrew noticed a dead deer, which had been killed by the wolves. He wasn't sure he'd be able to eat raw meat, so he tore at the deer until he had a hefty piece in his hand, and then left the area, looking for a fire or some other thing he could cook it with. One of the wolves almost chased after him, unhappy at the loss of food, but was stopped by his brethren. They decided that the human was probably leaving and would not be their problem anymore.

But that was not to be. Andrew Jackson soon trotted back, holding a stick on which the deer meat was skewered, and he was eating it with relish. He had poached some flint and managed to make a fire, and then roasted his meat campfire style. Jackson was already on the way to being a gourmet chef (but unfortunately, there was no TV at the time, and so he couldn't host his own cooking show).

Andrew's mind was much clearer now that food had quelled his hunger, and so he watched the wolves curiously. They, as well, stared back at him in interest. Andrew figured that if he seemed like one of them, he'd be able to interact with the wolves. He tried a howl, but it sounded terrible, because Andrew had never been a good singer. The wolves found this hilarious and began to bark in laughter.

Andrew began taking on the ways of the wolves, trying to become one of them. He would run with them, but he couldn't keep up, nor did he have the ability to hunt the way they did. He had to make do with traps he had devised, which could catch small prey. He slept with the wolves in their den now, and it was a cozy and pleasant time. Each day seemed fresh and new and exciting, and Andrew felt glad to be alive, for he enjoyed being in the outdoors, with so much freedom.

These days, however, were not to last. Years had passed, and by now Andrew was about ten years old. The wolves were relaxing after having eaten and Andrew was experimenting with his new idea for a food (he thought that perhaps he could create a sweet treat, a kind of fluffy white candy that could be cooked over a campfire, which he later called a "marshmallow") when they heard the sound of voices and feet stepping on brush. The wolves perked up, baring their teeth, and seeing their discomfort, Andrew put aside his primitive cooking utensils and hid himself as best he could.

The noise turned out to be from people, rugged men on horses with loaded guns and who chewed and spat and peered around with squinted eyes. The wolves were immediately alarmed. These men had probably come to exterminate them, as wolves were considered pests. The wolves had dealt with human guns in the past and knew just how deadly they could be. There was nothing to be done but to leave and run away until the men gave up chasing them.

Andrew couldn't keep up with the wolves, unfortunately, and the wolves were in too much of a rush to wait for him. Though he was a wiry and strong boy, he tripped over a tree root. Frustrated, he let out a yell and tried to break off the limb of a tree, but it only swung back and thwacked into his face. He could hear footsteps again; the hunters had heard him and realized that there was a person in the wilderness.

The wolf hunters came over to him, and one of them, a man with bushy eyebrows and a mustache that he could wiggle, said to him, "What's yourr name, son?"
Andrew could still understand English, but not very well. His brow furrowed in thought. But no matter how long he thought, he couldn't think of it. "Not know," he said to the man.
The man gave him a puzzled frown and conversed with his fellows before saying, "Well, where is your family, son?"
Andrew thought of saying the wolves were his family, but he figured the hunters would not take too well to it. In fact, they'd probably think he was lying and burst into hearty peals of laughter. Later they would probably talk about the funny boy they'd met when drinking in a pub.
"Not know. Maybe dead."
The men talked amongst themselves once more, and then the man got off his horse and lifted Andrew onto it. "We'll go to town, then. There's a family that might take ya." And off they went to the town just outside the woods, with Andrew looking back wistfully, having left behind the kitchen tools he'd just made.

Andrew Jackson had to get used to civilization again, and it was an uphill battle. He had never been formally schooled in his life and was illiterate. At first the other children made fun of him, but they soon learned that he had a short temper and settled all disputes with violence. Many a child had to stay home and recuperate from black eyes, broken noses, and all other sorts of scrapes and bruises. Andrew was sent to church over and over again to repent, but he would just slump over in a pew, stubborn and sullen as usual. The reverend took this to mean that Andrew was not willing to atone for his sins and apologize to God, and so Andrew Jackson earned the reputation of being "unchristian and unfit for civil life".

Jackson continued to be misunderstood by his peers, even as he grew to be an adult. He wasn't really such a mean person, but he had become bitter from all the things people had said and done to him, and so the boy he actually wanted to be, a quiet, happy boy living a peaceful life, had disappeared, covered by the self he showed to others, so frustrated and lonesome he had felt. One of the first people to sympathize with him was a woman named Rachel, who could understand that feeling of other people being so hard to deal with and how sometimes you just felt like running away from life.

Having lived away from people, Jackson needed a bit of help melting back into human culture, and Rachel suggested marriage. It was a human tradition to get married, after all. Jackson learned about Rachel's unhappy marriage and how her husband was saying he wanted to get a divorce, so they got married, since Rachel was the most reasonable choice for Andrew.

Jackson also learned that politics was the human thing to do. So he got into it, as well as war, though war was a dreadful thing. But he was still impulsive and made decisions like taking over Florida (wanted to try the orange juice, and he was forbidden by Spain to take any).

Then he was shocked by the death of Rachel. This was the first death he could really remember. At least his parents had died long, long ago, and he couldn't remember too much of it. But now, here was his best friend of more than thirty years dying on him. Andrew forgot about all that he'd been working on and let his inner anger take over. That boy who had been wild, partying and playing games when he was supposed to be studying to be a lawyer, came back, after he'd spent so much time crushing it down. And after he avenged Rachel, by kicking out everyone he thought was to blame for her death, he still felt empty inside. And he went on to get rid of the Native Americans and the National Bank.

But it was never enough. And it never would be.

(Ugh...This story didn't turn out the way I wanted it to. I got too confused because I would stop and starting writing it once in a while. Oh yeah, and I'll be gone from March 7th-12th, so don't expect to hear anything from me in the meantime)

Labels: andrew jackson, anger management, church, death, education, family, fiction, florida, horse, hunters, marshmallow, meat, politics, rachel, revenge, story, violent, war, wilderness, wolves

For homework, I was reading the Declaration of Independence (well, I have no idea if the whole thing is in there, considering how the textbook skips various events in history). There was a phrase in the Declaration, saying that the colonies of the America were separating from Britain and so they would now have the same relationship with Britain as they did with the rest of the world - "Enemies in war, in peace friends". The grammar does sound a little odd. But then again, back then the writing was a lot different. D: I wonder, though, when you fight with someone, would be you be enemies with them automatically, and then be friends again as soon as you stopped fighting? (But I guess the relationship between two larger bodies, like countries, might be different than the relationship between two people)

I learned something curious about my history teacher just the other day. I usually arrive a bit early for class, and since it's cold outside, I go inside and sit down and start getting ready, or I read a book. My teacher was sitting, staring at the screen of his laptop. I thought all was as normal, but suddenly he started talking. "Crossyourfingerscrossyourfingers... Awww!" he said, among other things. One of the students, who was just walking in, was freaked out and backed away. A person already in the room told my teacher, "Uh, you scared ____ away." (I use underscores to keep the person's name private) The teacher seemed unperturbed, saying, "That happens." So then the other student told the one who had gotten intimidated, "It's okay, _____, he wasn't talking to you, he was talking to his computer."

The teacher explained what he was talking about. See, apparently he likes to play fantasy football (basically like fantasy golf, which is like gambling, sort of, it's not a video game or anything). He had the choice of either a very good player who was facing a good defender, or a not-so-good player who was facing a bad defender. He went with the not-so-good player, which was a mistake, since the very good player scored 4 points and threw the ball quite far but the not-so-good player didn't throw so far, had a fumble (not that I really understand football terminology, but oh well) and only scored 1 point. My teacher sighed and said, "There go my perfect rankings this week." (Wow, I guess even people of different generations - my dad, and my teacher, who is quite a bit younger than my dad - can have similar interests)

I've taken to using a whiteboard that I bought some time ago. I've had the whiteboard for a year or two already, but I didn't use it much before, besides occasionally copying Chinese characters whenever I saw them onto the board. Now I've started writing things that I need to do at the bottom of the whiteboard. This way things actually get done, and though I still procrastinate, I don't put things off as much as before. I'm glad to be able to put my whiteboard to use. (The only problem is that the markers smell kind of nasty when you use them a lot)

We've moved on from lacrosse in PE. I really liked lacrosse, so I'm sad that we're not doing it anymore. I'm scared of "missiles" flying toward me, and so I have trouble in ultimate frisbee and volleyball, which are sports where you have to react quickly to catch or hit dangerous objects. At least in lacrosse you are armed with a net/stick/whatever you call it and so it gives me a feeling of some sort of security. I keep thinking of the lacrosse net as a bug-catching net, though, so when I saw a butterfly I tried to catch it. I actually snagged it by covering it on the ground, but then it flew out of a hole in the net. Grr. Oh well. Butterflies don't live that long anyhow and it would have a miserable life if I actually caught it and took it home, unless I were to release in my backyard.

Labels: britain, bugs, butterfly, colonies, declaration of independence, enemies, england, fantasy football, fantasy golf, fear, friends, lacrosse, PE class, peace, sports, to do list, war, whiteboard

It seems as if everything is hardy and won't die easily. Back when I went to Alaska on vacation quite a few years ago, I got some free rings which will turn color in the sunlight because of the ultra violet rays. It's kind of like solar energy but used as decoration and not electricity. It was from a store called Del Sol, which can be found in Hawaii as well, not just Alaska. And I think there might have been one in Las Vegas or some other place. You can get t-shirts, bags, and other things which will become colorful under the sun's rays. Anyhow, those rings still work even all those years later. I thought this was surprising. Batteries decay over time but apparently these are still top notch.

I've been reading a book called The People of Sparks. I picked it out for an activity we're going to do in language arts, actually, but that doesn't mean it's not a good book. It's the sequel to a book called The City of Ember. Though some writers have a more sophisticated style than Jeanne DuPrau, that doesn't mean her books aren't meaningful. I'm not sure which book of the series I prefer. (There are actually four books in the series but I haven't read the other two yet.)

In the books, there is something called the Disaster that happened to mankind. People kept fighting over things like religion, food, and land, and there were billions of people and dangerous weapons like bombs and guns and tanks. It got out of control and a lot of people died. Then three epidemics of diseases came and decimated the population further. Only a few were left and some of them went underground to make a city called Ember, which was powered by electric lights. Other people tried to scratch a living on the Earth's surface. One of the settlements was called Sparks. The reason why Ember was started was to make sure there would always be people on Earth. They were given instructions on how to reach the surface, but it got lost over the years until the main characters of the City of Ember found it.

The Ember people and Sparks people joined together since the Ember people had no idea what things were on the surface. (Seriously! They thought "sun" was a word for a floodlight since they'd never seen it before.) They were all weak and pale-skinned and small because they'd lived underground so long. The people of Ember and the people of Sparks didn't get along since the people of Sparks were angry about having to share their food (it's hard to feed your own population, let alone double) and the people of Ember were angry because they weren't getting enough food. Eventually other problems arose, but of course, like most books, it was resolved.

What made me think was how the humans destroyed themselves in the end. I wonder if this could happen to us. Right now we have all these amazing things - air planes, computers, cars, air conditioning, machines to do our work in factories instead of people (well, in China it's mostly people, but that's because of the necessity of providing jobs for so many human beings). But we can't forget what was here before we came while we invent new technology. As said in The People of Sparks, "People find it easier to be bad than to be good. One bad thing leads to another, and worse things happen until a Disaster arises." (Not the exact words, but that's the gist of it.) I wonder if life would go on without us if humans were exterminated, or perhaps it would make a new start again, just like it always does. But what if it didn't? Dinosaurs never showed up after they all died of cancer from the huge meteor that hit Mexico. I guess it's all yet to be determined.

I know this was an awfully long and rambling post about one basic subject. Sorry if this bored you.

Labels: alaska, choice, del sol, future, humans, sunlight, survival, the city of ember, the people of sparks, war

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