This year has been amazing. This class was fun. There were some dull times, times that I didn’t enjoy, and this was not my favorite class of the year. But this was the best class I could ask for. The people in here were great, I now have close bonds with many of them. I loved the assignments, from Princess Bride to the blogs. I never would have had a blog if it weren’t for this class, now I have 3.

It’s hard to think that this is the end of my freshman year, the end of my first year of high school. I’m a sophomore now. Wow. Only 2 years before I turn in my college applications, only 3 years till I’m off to college, only a year before honors society’s start accepting. God, this is such a big difference, I don’t know how to see this. It’s good because, like I’m older, closer to a new beginning, but I’m never gonna be able to go back, not that I’d ever want to.

Thanks to this class, I joined Creative Writing Club, now I’m president. Thanks to this class I met Tristan, one of the greatest people and friends I could ever ask for.

Dear Tristan,

I never looked forward to fourth period at the beginning of the year, cause I had no one to talk to. And especially no one to talk to about murder. Now I can’t wait for fourth period, our stupid debates, the rants, the murder discussions, the blog posts, the secrets. I love it. It’s cheesy but I love it, and I love you. Thank you for making this year so special. I hope it won’t be the end of our friendship, and I hope we don’t grow distant. 

See you at Creative Writing Club next year, peasant.

Dear Mrs. Henderson

Thank you, for making this year amazing, making things run smoothly. Sure there were a few bumps in the road and a few moments I wasn’t the happiest with you, but that’s part of being a teacher. I walked into creative writing feeling anxious about my skill and the fact that I do not wish to become a write, sure I might want to publish a book or two, but I have no interest in writing full time. But after the first day all the anxiety melted away, because there was no judgement, it was put forth your effort and you will be rewarded. Thank you for creating a mid-day safe haven for me. I loved this class, and am sad to leave it. Good luck, and good bye, to a great year.

Podcasts are my favorite pass time. I listen to one in particular SERIAL KILLERS. It is amazing. Each Monday they dive into the depths of famous and unknown serial killers. Just this morning while I was getting ready for school I was listening to the one titled “Bone Collector,” studying the West Mesa Serial killer who killed as little as 11 sex workers between 2003-2005, the case remains to this day unsolved and the task force has funneled down from 40 detectives to 1. No details were released on the actual crime to happen to the person and their deaths were ruled homicide no additional details reaching the public. The two narrators leave the story chilling and factual. This podcast is from Parcast and can be listened to on Spotify and other apps.

https://www.parcast.com/serial

Another fun thing I love to do is use an app, Murder Minute, every day a professional will tell you the story of a heinous crime. The stories can go from known serial killers, like Dahmer, to small attempted murders, like that of Mary Vincent. They ask questions such as “Do want facts or a story?” and you can answer and it will tell you what to do. The stories are interesting and quite fun to read. You can upgrade to premium to get all the stories you want, or receive one a day, and everytime you share the app you get three free stories. Have fun reading my friends.

I don’t know,

how to show this,

with one sound,

per word.

Why are there so — words,

with more than one sound?

This is a hard task,

5 year olds know words,

with more than one sound

My high sum of words in my brain,

has turned this in to a,

hard poem to write.

So I guess,

all I can say,

is

YEET

Horror

of course you can literally do anything and turn it into horror. So how do we write in such a broad category?

Step 1

Decide on a subgenre.

You wanna write shark? (be careful with shark) Write shark

You wanna write about a spaghetti monster? perfect! That’s 100% possible in this genre

Step 2

Get a character

Character’s are broad. Especially in horror. Cause depending on your antagonist, you would create your protagonist.

If your enemy is a large bulky man with an axe and a deformed face (couch hatchet) you could go the empathetic route with a small female lead who is virtually helpless or you could go the hero route with a male who is pretty large and only wants to protect his family.  Both ways would create attachment. You could also write about a stuck up person, one that you create to make the readers hate, either kill her brutally so the audience cheers, or don’t kill her, make the audience angry, set up for a sequel of revenge. horror just goes, how do you want the audience to feel?

Step 3

Decide: are we doing external or internal conflict, or both?

This sort of goes with subgenre. But even in shark movies they focus a lot on internal conflict, over external, cool there’s a shark, he bit her leg, ouch, we’re done. No they focus on her fear, the heavy breathing, the anxiety, they lead you on a roller coaster. I personally hate shark movies, but at least they make a solid attempt at it. In slasher stuff, a lot of the time the writer will let the victim get away, well believe they got away, and take it from them. That creates internal conflict. In Scream the MTV Series, (SPOILER ALERT S2), Noah thought he could save Zoe, he tried so desperately, and the video was still playing, he knew he could get to her, but she was dead long before they got there. And immediately after, he gave up his one love, horror. (SPOILER OVER). This creates internal conflict, the reader/watcher feels bad.

Step 4

End it.

This either means set it up for a sequel, show the killer has an accomplice, the monster never died, the house still remains, anything.

or

End with a bang. Kill the killer, have a happy ending, kill everyone, I don’t care, make it memorable

or

I don’t see this one much, but I like to write these, I’ll have to post some later. I call this the unfulfilled ending. Kill off your narrator. Leave no way for the readers to know what happened to the killer/monster/disaster, and leave it. Let the reader’ minds wander. These are my favorite endings. I’ll make sure to post some later on.

Again peeps,

it’s testing time so I’ll have trouble with time and access. Peace!

So, ya boy is now 6th in county and 1st in school for the 2019 Math Competition in the Geometry subject. I would have tied for second if I had managed to transfer my answer. but whatever.

I’ve never learned geometry in class before so 82 is an amazing score. And I’m 1st in school! Also I was 6th out of like 50!

Me and my two friends on the team were sitting together at the beginning of awards and A said “I’m not making top ten” and me and B agreed. (B is my like only competition in academics. We always go back and forth in top scores, IN EVERYTHING). So they were announcing and it was like “Three way tie for 10th with (3 kids from the magnet school), 9th is A from (my school), 8th (Magnet school kid), 7th (magnet school kid), 6th ME, 5th (magnet school kid), 4th, 3rd, 2nd, 1st (Magnet school kid).” And like I was in shock. Oh my god. I placed. Not only did I place but I beat 15 of the magnet school competitors and beat 44 overall! OH My! I could not stop smiling.

And as soon as I got back to school at the end of the day I was officially announced as the Creative Writing Club Co-president, with one of the greatest people alive. And AHH! I’m so excited!

Now I must go, next year’s math competition is only 365 days away. Lol.

So right now, life is fun. Tuesday I have Math Team competitions, a two hour geometry exam. I’m super stressed, I know nothing about geometry. But I’ll deal. And then Thursday I have my Personal Finance MidWay Exam so I have that to study for. In gym we have a dance project, and my group has not only elected me leader but also choreographer so I have to do that. EOC’s are coming up, so Saturday is a study group. And I’ve been tutoring almost triple what I would on a normal day because of it. I will update about the math competitions when we get results.

Math Competitions

On Tuesday the 9th, I will have to miss school (Making me miss not only a test but also a practice day for our Dance Project, meaning I have to record a video of how to do the dance for my group members, and then make up any lost time the following day.) I will be at the university in our town, and have to take a two hour math test over geometry which is fun. Seeing as I’m in integrated two so that makes no sense, but I digress. Then after I will have around a two hour lunch and relax with my teammates. Then after lunch it is awards time. Which I will provide updates on. Then after I will come back to school, go to Creative Writing Club, then collapse into a 10 year coma when I return home.

Midway Exam

Before next Friday, I have to take my Midway Exam for my online class, and I’m having trouble finding a proctor, cause they are either requiring me to stay after school (not gonna happen) or full. So I’ll probably have to cancel a tutoring session.

EOC’s

In Bio, Math, and English we have our upcoming EOCs in approximately a week. So instead of my normal, two hours of math tutoring a week, I’m up to 3 hours of math, 2 hours of Bio, and an hour of English tutoring a week, on top of my own work and studying, which is difficult.

Dance Project

We have to choreograph a dance, but our teacher is very picky.

ExtraCurricular Hours

I’m in an honors society, we are required 20 extra curricular hours a year, and I was not notified until today that we were supposed to input each individual activity. And since I had 91 hours in first semester alone I’m trying to find out how to do so without having to put in 200 activities.

Okay, this bill was passed April 11, 2018. It is the “Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act” and “Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act”

This bill in itself seems like a positive. Yeah! Let’s stop sex trafficking! That’s a good thing! And it is. Stopping sex trafficking is a HUGE thing, and it should happen. But looking farther into the bill it can cause extreme problems.

PROBLEM ONE!

Section 230, what might be considered the most important legislative in internet history, states “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” Basically, this means sites like Twitter, Craigslist, etc are not responsible for what their users post. This bill makes those sites responsible. This has prompted Craigslist to take down all personal ads. This law does not do anything to directly prevent sex trafficking, instead it threatens to increase violence. This does not deter sex trafficking, it attacks our right to free speech.

PROBLEM TWO!

Most sex traffickers are caught through the online footprint made by their online sex trafficking. Preventing them from using online as a platform for sex trafficking is gonna do more harm than good. If the FBI and Police can not use such things like Craigslist personal ads and Backpage to track sex traffic rings, it will be significantly harder to catch those who are still running them. A sex trafficker is not gonna wake up one morning, see that the site is closed, and decide to let the victims go home, no they are still gonna sell the victims, sure it might make the income less, but it won’t do much to end the problem.

PROBLEM THREE!

This makes consensual sex workers jobs harder. I get some people don’t agree with sex workers, but it’s none of your business what they do to make money with their own body. Thanks to sites such as Backpage (which has now been closed since 2016) sex workers have begun to return to the unsafe conditions of street work. Sites allowed them to move indoors and independent, which created a safe way for them to define the boundaries of a service, and vet potential clients. This bill prevents all of that.

PROBLEM FOUR!

A huge problem with this bill is what politicians are saying about it. Wagner said in a video “We have shut down nearly 90 percent of the online sex-trafficking business and ads.” Now, let’s bring up the fact that most sex trafficking statistics used in politics are false, either extremely exaggerated or never peer-reviewed, study’s on sex trafficking are rare, and those that happen are rarely accurate. Sex trafficking ads have dropped about 87%, but the most significant drop came with the shutdown of Backpage, which was shut down in 2016, 2 years before the bill was signed. The other significant drops occurred in March with the shut down of other sites. The bill has only blocked any other sites from entering the space. It is much too soon to determine whether or not FOSTA/SESTA has actually done anything to curb online sex trafficking. But it is far enough along to tell the other problems with the bill.

SOURCES:

https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/4/13/17172762/fosta-sesta-backpage-230-internet-freedom

https://stopsesta.org/

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/qvxeyq/trump-signed-fosta-sesta-into-law-sex-work

https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/grants/challenging-fosta-sesta-advance-sex-workers-health-and-rights-united-states-20181217

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/08/20/has-sex-trafficking-law-eliminated-percent-sex-trafficking-ads/?utm_term=.dbb4257816da