Farewell.

In other words, good bye, peace, see ya later alligator in awhile crocodile don’t forget to write.

But in all seriousness I loved this year and most of all I loved the blogs. I only wish we could’ve started sooner, I wish that I could’ve had more time with the blogs, I had an almost Twilight Zone style idea here, but that’s not what this account ended up being. It became something different but still lovely, it became more philosophical, rather than narrative. I still plan on doing things like this in the future, but I doubt I’ll ever blog again like this. I thank this class and most of all Mrs Henderson, thank you.

In all I’ve shared a lot of my internal dialogue this year, things I likely never would have shared if i thought only Mrs Henderson and I would see. So I thank you all for giving me a platform, even if you don’t really care much about what I have to say. Its just the idea of an audience that keeps me writing I think. I have a lot more about myself to discover I suppose, but I’m so happy to have taken this first step.

See ya later alligator, in awhile crocodile. Don’t forget to write.

Love you all – Jack, of The Lone Windmill

 

Non-Spoiler Book Series Review

The Dark Tower by Stephen King

 

I don’t exactly make it a secret that Stephen King is my favorite author of novels and short stories, but out of all of his work, my favorite would have to be his series of novels, The Dark Tower.  It is a common misconception that King only makes horror novels, or only makes horror novels well. But a common correlation is that The Dark Tower Series is a lot like Lord of the Rings, or Harry Potter, its his maxim opus. The characters are lovable as hell and very dynamic and well rounded, the plot is interesting and is such a good catch for the reader, the amount of speculation and unknowns make the series full of fan theories, and it ties together all other Stephen King books in one expanded universe. If you plan on reading any King I’d seriously suggest reading this serious first, It’d make the rest so much more enjoyable. It also (being a King book) doesn’t hold back, it gets crazy and wild and dark and sad and hilarious and honestly is a ride no one should miss out one.

 

A vague outline of the plot of the first book we get introduced to our main character, Roland. The first book runs rather slow but is entirely focused on three characters and character development in a masterful way. The second book has a bit more action and introduces more characters and starts the love in our hearts for them. The third is when our protagonists are pitted both against lots of action and lots of inter-personal character development probably the best book, lets just say if this book series was a TV show it’d have a massive fandom of people, the characters are just written so well. Fourth book is incredible and done so well, the entire book follows the backstory of Roland and is the most heart wrenching. Fifth slows things down thankfully but still has lots of action. The sixth is a breakneck speed of action and suspense and loss and carries over into the seventh. The seventh and final book wraps it all up in a very intuitive way and actually didn’t leave me wanting more, it left me wanting to reread the whole series, so I did.

I’m using a writing prompt generator for this student choice post and I felt like I should link it   http://writingexercises.co.uk/subjectgenerator.php

My generated prompt was “Write about a time when you found it difficult to forgive someone.” so sit down cause this might take awhile.

 

Incommunicado.

Adjective,

(especially of a prisoner) deprived of any communication with others.

 

So there was this girl. Yeah I know, this doesn’t sound like its going down a very healthy route does it, well its not going to be. Anyways, so there was this girl, my best friend. It was the end of seventh grade I met her and we immediately became friends and I became friends with all her friends and had a nice circle of friends. And it was wonderful, it really was, and I wouldn’t trade the good times I had with them for the world, but things got worse. You know how things become with teenagers, people get sick of each other quick. So we began to kinda drift and while I had learned to love all of the friends in our small circle, I had preferred her. If we were splitting I wanted to keep her as a friend. As time wore on and we did split I found that her and I were splitting too. We used to talk for at least an hour every night, and now we barely talked at all. Then after me going through a very bad time mostly unrelated to her, I heard from a friends that her instagram was broke (that was the main platform we used to communicate) So after awhile I texted her number, no response. And I would occasionally check in and invite her to things or try to say hi but, it wasn’t even left on read. She just never even saw any of it, and my other friends were still talking with her and communicating and hanging out, it was just me who wasn’t. So after an absurd amount of time in which i didn’t get the hint, I realized she didn’t want to talk to me anymore, and that hurt. Now that I’ve gone through all my stuff I honestly don’t blame her for much but I do still hurt when I think of her, I never had a friend I clicked more with ever since, nor someone who changed who I was as a person more, but still I’d never force anyone to be my friend. My mom always says that someone is in your life for a month, a life, or a lesson. This meaning someone is either your friend for just awhile, for a long while, or to teach you a lesson. I’d say this girl was the lesson, I learned too much to list here from her and if I could speak to her again I’d thank her for how she sent me down a path of good deeds, even though she handled things poorly in the end. I just wish I got a chance to say goodbye. And something else i discovered from her is that feeling I had for about two months, that feeling of incommunicado.

Preface: I know I do a lot of prefaces and forewords and what not but this one is important for you to understand. In a fictional story I love (The Adventure Zone by The McElroy Brothers) there is a character who’s name is Taako. He is wonderfully hilarious, quite narcissistic, positive in a way I can only dream to be, and fabulously insightful (and just fabulous.) In a story he joked a lot about how he wrote a book of very inspirational quotes that were almost all plagiarized from other famous people. But a fan of the show made a website where when you click a button it randomizes a random quote from someone that makes sense for Taako, (I will try to find the original speaker of the quote and cite them). These are often hilarious and ridiculous and I wish to put ten of the best ones i could find in here today. (Also stick around until the end for a quote that Taako plagiarized and one he made up all on his own, both I’ve built almost my entire life around)

 

1. The easier you make it for people to go, the more likely they are to stay

-Unknown (maybe actually Taako)

 

2. Where do new ideas come from? The answer is simple: differences. Creativity comes from unlikely juxtapositions.

— Nicholas Negroponte

 

3.  After finishing a design you take a step back and a little voice pops in your head and says, “Wow. You should really just quit while you’re ahead.” Don’t ever listen to that voice. Ever.

— Brittany Grabowski 

 

4. Creativity often consists of merely turning up what is already there. Did you know that right and left shoes were thought up only a little more than a century ago?

-Unknown

 

5. If you do what you always did, you will get what you always got.

-Claimed by many people including but not limited to Albert Einstein, Henry Ford, and Mark Twain, Take your pick.

 

6. Be a first rate version of yourself, not a second rate version of someone else.

-Judy Garland

 

7.  Create your own visual style… let it be unique for yourself and yet identifiable for others.

-Orson Welles

 

8. Life is 10% what happens to you, and 90% how you react to it.

-Charles R. Swindoll

 

9. Train your mind to see the good in everything. Positivity is a choice. The happiness of your life is dictated by your thoughts.

-An Unknown someone I’d like to be my friend

 

10.  Did you know that there are some seeds that cannot sprout unless they are first burned? A friend once told me that. And I think it is interesting that there are some living things that need to pass through fire before they flourish.

I ramble. You have the heart of a gardener, and because of this you think of consequence, and your current path pains you. I am not wise, and I do not give advice, but I have come to know a few things. Sometimes breaking is making. Even iron can start again, and there are many things that move through fire and find themselves much better for it afterward.

-Patrick Rothfuss

 

Bonus Quotes:

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don‘t matter and those who matter don‘t mind.

-Dr Seuss

 

Sometimes there aren’t right decisions. Just decisions.

-Taako (Justin McElroy)

 

For some context on #10 the whole letter can be found in link below, its definitely worth the read.

[Spoilers E69] Transcript of a Letter from criticalrole

 

A loose adaptation of “Dead Man’s Party” by Oingo Boingo

Dead Man’s Ball

I’m all dressed up,

where do I go?

Walk right with the dead men,

see where they lead.

 

Small bronze coins stuck to both their eyes.

Bat masks and Cat masks and Shrouds all around

All of us will be there,

 put your mask on at the door.

Okay so this is not a sure fire way to be happy, it is just my personal methods of achieving my special forms of happiness. Using methods like these you can’t just make yourself content with the world and everything going on, but they help your mood and things like that.

1. First the hardest of them all, the one that most roll their eyes at.

Optimistic Outlook.

I know its not always easy, in fact its hard its so difficult. But it gets easier, it becomes nature to try and see the bright side of things. I never used to be an optimist, and the first thought that comes to my mind is always a negative one,  I just create a second thought that is positive and I think about that one instead.

 

2. Something that can be utilized by a lot less people the last

Logical Assessment 

Look, everything seems dire when you look at it from a realistic perspective. When I handle things like this I only focus on logic when it’ll help, if it doesn’t then I don’t use that method. I have an acute control of my brain, I didn’t always have this, I learned to.

HEALTHY COPING MECHANISMS BAYBEE

Okay, so if you didn’t know I am Jack Rogers, take a second if you’re in 4th period Creative Writing to look up from your computer and look at me…

Beautiful right?

I’m probably either writing, talking to my friends, or most likely bumping it to some good music with my headphones on. But look at my outfit, my nails, maybe even my eyelashes, I’m pretty oblivious you could probably come up and pluck one of my hairs and I wouldn’t notice…maybe don’t do that please.

My nails? Painted.

My outfit? Very likely pink or purple or some other light color.

I might even be wearing a scarf, IN SPRING!

These are seen by our culture as feminine, I personally love the way I am, and I’m proud of myself. What I figure is everyone is a mix of femininity and masculinity, I am probably more feminine than masculine (I consider my eyebrows masculine) but its always valid unless it hurts people.

 

I’m feeling very sad today, I’ve had too much time to think (and overthink) about things over this last weekend and there hasn’t been enough to keep me busy today to keep my mind off of things. So here are some insights on life, or the human condition that I find to be important, I hope to get a conversation about this in the comments, that’d be nice.

Preface: Because of my current mood these insights might be rather negative, if you aren’t in a wonderful mood, come back and read later, for now go read or do something positive. I don’t want you to feel…

1.Trapped 

Right now I feel trapped, what I want to do more than anything right now is go sit down in nature and put on some light music, the kinda lofi stuff and meditate. Now look, to say I rarely meditate is an understatement, I think I’ve only done it once or twice in my life. But why would this make me feel trapped? Well because I can’t. I can’t enjoy nature and nice music right now, the fact that I can’t control what is happening to me makes me upset, we all know what its like to be bored and not want to be here, but this feels like so much more, I feel uncomfortable, I feel unsafe here, and I cant do one little thing about it.

My normal mentality about things such as this is “You can’t control it so don’t worry, when its all over you’ll just forget about this and you’ll no longer feel that way, so try to stay posi baby” I feel so contradictory, because when I’m happy that thought always works and I love my thoughts because they always make me so happy. But it isn’t working. I’ll try to be more optimistic tomorrow.

 

2. Lovely Lilac 

I really like colors, it doesn’t even really make sense how a color or a spectrum of colors can make you feel different ways. It is proven, that certain colors make you feel different emotions, red makes people feel angry and blue makes them feel calm. But for some reason I’ve become so entranced by light pastel colors that I don’t want anything i own to not be these colors. My clothes, my walls, my everything. I have pastel pens that I color my drawings with. I have canvases that I plan to paint with pastel colors. Hi my name is Jack Rogers and welcome to my strange addictions. On a more serious note I’m feeling much better today, I have a flower in my hair too, I look very pretty, that always makes me happy too. Anyways, today is better, I hope your days good too.

Foreword: Me and my friends (some are in this class) have been planning a “dungeons and dragons” session for about three months now and just a few days ago we finally got to play. This post is a brief, safe for work version of what happened to our characters in fantasy city of Waterdeep.

 

We all had woken up and migrated from our upstairs rooms of the inn we were staying in and we met downstairs in the bar portion in the morning. It wasn’t long before a small bar scuffle broke our between a bald man with eye tattoos on his head and the half-orc mercenary who was chilling with one of the characters (a gold scaled dragon-born dude)

WIP