Poetry4kids.com

I have fallen in love with cute little kid poems. I love the happy little rhymes that are so simple to understand. That's my biggest pet-peeve with other poetry. Why does it have to be so complicated? They all seem as if they are trying to be something they aren't. Grr poetry to me is just way to deep and fake! 

Favorite poems so far:

(All by Kenn Nesbitt from poetry4kids.com)

Broccoli for Breakfast

Broccoli for breakfast. Broccoli for lunch. Broccoli that's tender. Broccoli with crunch. Broccoli for dinner. Broccoli for snacks. Broccoli in boxes and baskets and sacks. Broccoli for weeks and for months and for years. It's up to my eyeballs. It's up to my ears! I used to like broccoli but now, I'm afraid, its beauty, at best, is beginning to fade. It's lacking in luster. It's lost all its charm. But that's how it goes on a broccoli farm. An Ordinary Day There's a dolphin on my doorstep. It's an ordinary day. He's delivering the paper in his ordinary way. There's a bison in my bathtub singing ordinary songs, and some hippos having ordinary hippo sing-alongs. In the pantry there's a penguin painting ordinary scenes of opposums in their ordinary orange submarines. There's an ordinary rhino racing up and down the stairs, chasing ordinary chimpanzees and ordinary bears. In the living room are llamas dancing ordinary jigs, like a dozen rather ordinary llama whirigigs. It's an ordinary day for me; I promise you it's true. And I hope your day is simply extra ordinary too. Well have a nice day everyone :) -Madalynne "Nothing, of course, begins at the time you think it did" -Lillian Hellman

I'll Get There. It Better Be Worth The Trip.

Some of my favorite books are the ones I find when I'm bored during my free hour and walk around the library. So on Wednesday I was staring off into space and I saw this book and the cover resembled notebook paper with the title written repeatedly on it. So I opened up the flaps and started to read about the book.

This boy named Davy Ross lives with his Grandma and his dachshund Fred but when his Grandma dies he is sent to live with his alcoholic mother. The blurb went on and it hinted to strange events with another boy and decisions that will change his life. I handed the book to Stephanie and we both knew that it was about a gay guy :)

I finished the book and it wasn't all about Davy "queering around" and those parts weren't to graphic or anything (this book was from the late 1960's). It was actually a really touching story about how Davy adjusts to living in New York with his crazy mother and his friendships with Douglas Altschuler and his adorable dog Fred. It had a sad ending that I wasn't expecting but I am really glad I read it.

-Madalynne

"Cats reagrad people as warmblooded furniture."

-Jacquelyn Mitchard

Final Thoughts

 I very much enjoyed reading Romeo and Juliet. To be honest I knew very little about it before it was assigned. As far as my favorite scenes it would have to be most of Mercutio's or the nurse's parts because they had a great sense of humor. I did notice that there was a tone of scene changes. How in the world did Shakespeare put this on as a play. He was definitely a genius. If I were to rewrite this for teens... I would just hand them Twilight. If you changed it into a modern english it would all seem so cliche, in my opinion. A boy and a girl fall in "love" and die for each other. It would just seem so predictable. But with the play being in old english there's a sense of knowing that it must be original and that all other stories are trying to top it.

Wow I really need to work on making my blog posts flow better :/

-Madalynne

"Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement."

-Barry LePatner

"It's amazing that the amount of news that happens in the world every day always just exactly fits the newspaper."

-Jerry Seinfeld

THEY'RE ALL DEAD!!

Before I talk about R+J I have a little story about the last two hours of my life. I was eating dinner and finishing R+J. I knew what I wanted to post on my blog so I came upstairs to type. I had left my copy on the kitchen table so I went back downstairs and my mom was watching design shows so I stopped and watched that for a while then came back upstairs. I had forgotten R+J so I went back to get it but then the Academy Awards were on so I watched that, came upstairs, forgot my copy, went downstairs, watched people walk on the red carpet, came upstairs, forgot my copy, went downstairs, watched more people on the red carpet, came upstairs, forgot my copy, went downstairs, Justin Timberlake, and then I finally made it back up stairs with R+J and am now blogging.

Alright time for what I thought about Romeo and Juliet:

-So everyone's dead now? That's how you end a story :D

-Why is everyone calling everyone else ho's all the time? How rude :P

-Everyone seems to come at the wrong time (Friar John, Romeo, Friar Laurence)

-The ending reminds me of a movie that ran out of money. Just so sudden.

Quotes:

"Peace, ho, for shame!" (Friar Lawrence Act 4, Scene 5)

"Holy Franciscan friar, brother, ho!" (Friar John Act 5, Scene 2)

"Oh, I am slain!" Dies (Paris Act 5, Scene 3)


-Madalynne

"I don't necessarily agree with everything I say"

<Marshal McLuhan>

Romeo and Juliet Act 3

I still am really liking Romeo and Juliet and am glad I haven't lost interest. It's too bad Mercutio(Steph) and Tybalt(Anna) are dead. Mrs. Wierenga are you trying to send them a message? I was trying to watch the movie today on Netflix and I found this other version. It was a cartoon but instead of people they were seals. It said it was a kids movie but they still had a lot of old english in it. It was really bad and quite disturbing, not something I would suggest watching. Well I guess that's all I have to say for today. Hope everyone is having a good snow day :)

-Madalynne

"I always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific."

-Jane Wagner

The Night I Disappered

I just realized that the title of this blog might be confusing but don't worry it's just a book I haven't actually disappeared.

Anyway moving on. I found this book in the school library on Wednesday (I think). I haven't read any non-school related reading in a while so it was surprisingly nice to just pick up a book. It's called The Night I disappeared by Julie Reece Deaver. It's about a girl named Jamie and her mom who is a famous attorney. Jamie is forced to live in Chicago with her mom for the summer because of a case her mom is working on.  Jamie has to leave her only friend, Webb, and they haven't been apart since she was nine. When she arrives in Chicago she starts having strange daydreams that she can't control. So we follow Jamie as she gets sucked farther into her inner world which reveals long-forgotten horrifying secrets from her past. I

I'm mostly done with the book so I'm going to leave you now so I can go finish it. :)

-Madalynne

"Gravity. It keeps you rooted to the ground. In space, there's no gravity. You just kind of leave your feet and go floating around. Is that what being in love is like?"

-Josh Brand and John Falsey

Romeo and Juliet Act 2

Well I finished my reading in record time this week. I spent Wednesday night babysitting so once the kids went to bed I had an hour to read. At first it was really quiet and creepy but then their fat cats came out of nowhere and kept me company. I liked the second act but it wasn't anything overly spectacular. I did love that Friar Lawrence was in this act though! My favorite part was when Romeo was telling the friar about Juliet and the friar said "Holly Saint Francis!" I think that the story might have felt a little bland this week because I read over it a lot. I started to stop noticing the little details and really tried to concentrate on the overall story so that I wouldn't get strung up on little words. It wasn't so great when I would read an entire page and not understand what was going on because of all the crazy words. Hopefully next week I can find a happy median between the two.

-Madalynne

"Action is eloquence."

-William Shakespeare 

Romeo and Juliet Act 1

This play was easier to understand then I thought it was going to be. I really like the story line and-- wait what's going on.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

"Let's attack that guy"

"Alright!"

More random people enter from nowhere and start a battle.

:)

This is how I felt the beginning of the play started because we were just listening to Sampson and Gregory (cool name) talk then suddenly everyone was fighting. It made me confused at first but then I was just smiling. 

I had three favorite lines from this act,

Gregory: I will frown as I pass by, and let them take it as they list. (Pg. 10)

Servant (to Romeo after Romeo read for him): Now I'll tell you without asking. My master is the great rich Capulet; and if you be not of the house of Montagues, I pray, come and crush a cup of wine. Rest you merry! (Pg. 21)

Nurse (to Juliet): Go, girl, seek happy nights to happy days. (Pg. 25)

At one point Juliet had asked who had called her and the nurse replied "Your mother" but I read it as"Your mom" and it reminded me of when we read that Final play. 

When Romeo was talking to Benvolio they kept calling each other coz instead of cousin and I thought it was really weird. 

Before they entered the Capulet party Mercutio was explaining a dream to Romeo and none of it made any sense to me. Then when they were inside Capulet was greeting everyone into the party and he said "Welcome, gentlemen! Ladies that have their toes." and I just stopped and looked at it for while.

One of my biggest confusions was when Romeo kissed Juliet after talking to her for less than a minute. It  was really weird! I laughed when he realized she was a Capulet because I could see him thinking "Oh shoot! That did not just happen!"


I found that it being in play form made up for the fact that it was in old english. Because unlike when we were reading the Odyssey they didn't have to describe the set, they just had to talk. That had one downside because I wasn't ever able to picture a real set. Did anyone else feel this way?

-Madalynne

P.S. Sorry that I just wrote a bunch of sentences and didn't really tie them together.

"There is only one thing a philosopher can be relied upon to do, and that is to contradict other philosophers."

-William James

Christofer Drew (NeverShoutNever)

Well we didn't have a specific topic to blog about this week so I'm just going to talk about the most amazing hipster ever. I was really happy yesterday 'cause I finally figured out all of the tattoos that Chris has and My favorite is on his knuckles and it says Live Free. For a while I only knew that it said Free so my amazing friend Tara said that it probably said Free Willy! I love Tara (hope you're reading this). I'm at the library right now and I'm having a pretty dandy time listening to Christofer. I bought some new songs by him

Losing It

Happy

She's Got Style

Your Biggest Fan

I did read a little but this week too, I picked up some manga comic books. They only lasted me about and hour :P

Well I guess I'll see you guys Tuesday :)

-Madalynne

"The trouble with weather forecasting is that it's right too often for us to ignore it and wrong too often for us to rely on it."

-Patrick Young

Three Topics That Can't Be Described By One Title

I am really excited for my play! I don't know if you all saw my 5 sentence plot thing on the talk page but my play is about this guy Mathias sitting on a park bench and this business man comes up and he's yelling at Mathias trying to correct his posture and delinquent-ish personality. It isn't until the end of the play that Mathias realizes the man was on a bluetooth. I haven't typed/written anything down yet because everything is still brewing in my head and starting to write now would just confuse me. Does anyone else have that problem?

It feels weird to just completely switch my train of thought without telling you so... yea I'm going to move onto 'Thoreau' now. I don't really see much connection to huckleberries and the story. The one thing that sticks out to me is when Edward spills the huckleberries and Henry tells him that he is just helping plant other huckleberry bushes. But this still doesn't help me understand any connection.

Okay I'm going to switch gears again and talk about music. I just made a big change in my playlist of... ten songs. I switched from mostly Christofer Drew (NeverShoutNever) to a crazy combination. 

Seaside- The Kooks

Racist Coffee- Julian Smith

More- Usher

The Wind Forest from "My Neighbor Totoro"- Mari Fujiwara

Rocketeer (feat. DeStorm)- Dave Days

What Does It Take- Dave Days

You've Got a Friend In Me- Randy Newman

CheaterCheaterBestFriendEater- NeverShoutNever

On the Brightside- NeverShoutNever

First Dance- NeverShoutNever

Well that probably didn't matter to you but oh well!

I hope PATH isn't cancelled again this week 'cause I miss all you guys :)

-Madalynne

"Never knock on Death's door: ring the bell and run away! Death really hates that!"

-Matt Frewer

Let's Put It All Together Now Y'all

This morning I started reading Act. 2 of "The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail" while I was eating Multigrain Cheerios then I finished it sitting on the couch a little while later. Even though I had woken up only an hour ago I still took a little nap and then woke up thinking about how much I loved this play.

One thing that really stood out to me compared to TEOGROMITMM was the detail in stage directions. I felt there was more to the set and I could easily see what was supposed to be happening and sometimes I forgot I was reading a play because everything would start to turn into real life scenes and I would forget to put the characters back on stage. Also the emotions were really strong in the story, especially at the end. I found myself getting angry along with Henry at Emerson. I really liked Emerson's son Edward and when Edward and Henry went huckleberrying. When they came back from huckleberrying and Edward was saying that he wished Henry was his father I couldn't help but agree. I was confused though about if Henry had feelings for Lydian or not. It was really cute when Edward came back in with the hen that had gloves on her feet.

I just realized I'm just making a list of thoughts and things I liked so I'll just finish this blog as a list

- "If I were God,  Bailey--instead of just a speck of Him--I wouldn't let you die away in the dark."
- I couldn't believe that Emerson killed Henry Williams! I thought Emerson was a good guy but turns out he's just pathetic and doesn't live like he tells everyone else to live.
-The nightmare that Henry had was creepy
- I thought it was really funny when Henry found out his aunt had paid his taxes and then yelled "Aunt Louisa, why couldn't you leave your nose and your false teeth out of my life! I hereby EXCOMMUNICATE YOU FROM THE MILKY WAY!"

Well I think I'm done saying what I wanted to say so see y'all later

-Madalynne

"Wasting money puts you in a real party mood." 

-Andy Warhol 

The Night Thoreau Spent In Jail Act. 1

Wait what?

The beginning got me completely lost but after I realized it was all a bit of a flashback it made more sense. There was a part I really liked but I can't remember what it was. There's more thoughts in my head right now but I just can't focus to write them down. I'll probably say more of my thoughts tomorrow anyway so I'll just go now.

-Madalynne

Not Really About PATH But Still Awesome

I know that I'm not supposed to post stuff that isn't really about PATH but these past couple days were really awesome so I had to talk about it.

So Thursday at lunch was a great time! My friend Tara had taken the peel off of an orange (completely intact) and we pretended it was a Pokemon ball! Our Pokemon of choice was a banana, I don't know where the banana came from. Then my fork accidentally landed in my ketchup so after laughing about it I leaned over to Tara and said "The fork is in the ketchup" as I pretended to hand her a gun under the table. The next crazy thing that happened was that Hailey shot Maggie's headband at me so I grabbed it and was going to shoot it at her but she moved. When I finally got a shot at her it flew really fast over her head and into the group of stoners.

"Day 'n' nite

The lonely stoner seems to free his mind at nite

He's all alone, some things will never change

The Lonely loner seems to free his mind at nite

A-a-at nite"

I love that song, my friend Chris(tina) calls it the "stoner song". Anyway moving to the next bit of awesomeness.

Art is always a good time but sadly I can't remember what was extra awesome about Thursday. Yesterday though Me and my friend Lexie found out we can glue pieces of magazine's to our hand and they will stay for a while. Some time she's going to come over and were going to make mosaics on our arms.

Algebra is one of my favorite classes and Mrs. Alpher makes it a lot more fun. She was explaining an answer, let's say the question of 2+6.

"Two plus sex. I mean six! *chuckles to self and smiles* Haha sex." Then Cameron says to his step sister Brittney

"Brittney we don't have sex!" and continued to repeat this all through class.

Finally last night I had planned to be productive but ended up reading MLIA for a couple hours. MLIA is my new addiction. Also my mom and I watched the movie "About A Boy". I was really cute/sad/awesome, and it was British movie so they had cool accents and slang words. What could be better!?!

Hope you enjoy reading about my life as much as I enjoy living it!

-Madalynne

This blog post was written whilst drinking Pina Colada juice

TEOGROMITMM As A Whole

I liked this play and it was a nice little read. I thought the story line was nice. Ruth was pretty strange with her epilepsy (or whatever she had). I was definitely able to pick up more the second time I read it. Especially since I read it in one sitting. I'm a little worn out right now so I can't think of real specific things to talk about. I found out that it was made into a movie though so tonight I was going to see if I could watch it online.

Hope your break was good!
-Madalynne