Smeyer & MYP

You probably know by now that I am not, to say the least, a huge Twilight fan. Quite the opposite, in fact: I have so many issues with the characters and (lack of) plot in the books, and I don't think they consist of quality writing, either. However, I absolutely hate when people start attacking Stephenie Meyer.

Any person who puts their work - whether it's books, music, acting - into the public eye has to be able to handle criticism. Even JK Rowling, author of what is arguably the most popular book series in the world, hasn't captured the hearts of every person on the planet. But there is a huge difference between being critical and being downright mean. I know that a few months ago (maybe longer) Stephen King basically said that Meyer can't write. Whether you agree or not, it's not the nicest way of putting it, especially considering that he's so famous. Just because you're famous doesn't mean you have to lie about everything, but you could at least phrase it differently to make it sound less harsh. True, there are some issues that you don't want to sound nicer about, but if it's just a matter of giving your opinion on someone else's book, it won't kill you to say something more along the lines of, "Well, it's not my favorite book." Meyer is still a person with feelings. Make fun of her books all you want, but I think it's really unfair to start attacking her. Unless she actually does something horrible, like murder a litter of kittens or something, lay off.

In other book news (segway segway!), I just finished "The Picture of Dorian Gray," which was my chosen summer reading book. Thankfully, we only had to read one book this year and fill out an absurdly easy sheet on it (which I still haven't done, hehe). I say "thankfully" not because I hate reading (I don't) but because I have a ridiculous amount of Math and French that I have yet to do, as well as the first half of my MYP project*, which is supposed to be mostly completed during the summer. So yeah, these last 3 weeks should be fun. What can I say? I procrastinate.

What's the weirdest thing you've ever eaten?
I remember this one time at my best friend's birthday part in seventh grade when we spent close to half an hour blowing up Peeps in the microwave (not to the point of explosiveness, but close) and then kind of fondue-d (chocolate) it with grapes and pretzel sticks. I can't imagine it was very tasty. That much sugar in one place is somewhat nauseating, and I like food.

Imagining that you'd be successful and make at least enough money to live, what would be your dream career?

* I'm in this program called MYP (Middle Years Program) that runs from grades 6 to 10 (it works because my middle school and high school are, of course, in the same cluster... you can join the program in 9th grade, but I don't know why you'd want to. The only reason I joined is because my school more or less forced everyone who was doing at least reasonably well in above-grade-level classes to continue on our magical quest through MYP-land, or something). MYP is basically the same thing as all-honors classes except with a lot more pointless crap (and I do mean pointless crap... academically, the only real difference between Honors and MYP is that there's more algebraeic equations in Geometry and the books we read for English are deemed a bit more difficult. The rest of the extra stuff is complete BS). It's part of the IB (International Baccelaureate) program, which you have to apply to get into and is for smart kids who won't die trying to do ridiculous amounts of work. Here, I will make a handy pyramid type thing for you that will explain how challenging each program is supposed to be in the minds of their creators (starting with the "smartest" on top):

IB

MYP

Honors

On-level

Yeah. I could go (ohh, trust me, I could go on) but I'll spare you. It's annoying, let's leave it at that. :)