What We Would Do if Laura was Temporarily Indisposed

So Laura's going to be gone for a week or two.
I don't know how much she'll want me to say at this point, but suffice it to say that, at least for a while, it's just me and you.
Meheheheh.
Suffice it to say that she's doing alright, and is unfortunately in a place where the Internet is rather crappy.
So this post is just to give you that little update, and to give me yet another break.
Love you all,

-Mark

What I Would Do if I was Published

So I'm going to be a published writer in a month or two.
Awhile back, I made a post about me submitting a story to a Canadian writing competition, called "Polar Expressions." This particular competition suited me perfectly, because I was right at the top of the age group, they accept an usually large number of submissions (something like at least 25%), and most importantly it was free to enter. The odds were stacked in my favour.
So I sent the story off early last summer, and just today I heard back from them. They've accepted the story for publication in their annual collection of short stories by young authors, so in just a few months I should have a book with my name in it. There's a chance I might even win a prize,
It's the weirdest thing though; upon hearing the news, I was genuinely excited. Just ten minutes later, though, that excitement seemed to fade, I'm not nearly as thrilled about being published as I thought I was going to be.
Maybe I feel that it doesn't really count, considering the amount of work they accept. Heck, only the top 3 and 10 honourable mentions even get the book for free- everyone else has to pay, which I suppose is how they manage to make money while keeping submission free.
When it boils down to it, I'm glad to be able to say "I'm published," and yet at the same time I can't help but hope that I move on to bigger and better things in the future. Until then, thanks for reading.

-Mark

What I Would Do if I Had Less Free Time

Damn it, summer's over! That brief period of time in which I had absolutely no responsibilities already seems a distant concept. Oh, those days when I could sleep in, when I could read, when I could write long blog posts... They've passed like rain on the mountains, as our good friend Théoden would say.
High school has started, and I'm starting to feel the pressure. Now, I find myself doing more and more things which eat up my free time. It's a bit of a slap in the face, if I'm being honest with you.
Just this week, I had more stuff going on then I could actually do. This past Wednesday, I had three dentist appointments and voice to worry about. This coming Monday will see me not going to running club because I'll be at the school play callback. All of this is being done in an atmosphere ever thickening with homework.
All of this has got me worrying about the year ahead, what with all of the clubs I've dined up for. In the next few months, this is an example of what could very possibly happen on any given week...

The school play- three times a week
Improv Club- at least once a week
Soccer- at least twice a week
Voice- once per week
Archery- Once per week
Cappies, which is a school play review sort of thing- once in this doomsday week
Citadel club, where you see plays as a group- once in this doomsday week
Running for my upcoming half marathon- hopefully three times a week

Yeah. 11 events almost guaranteed, with the possibility of two more being tacked on. Not even including homework. Oh yeah, I'm excited!
What I'm trying to say is, I'll be doing significantly more things this year then I was doing last year. That means that I might struggle to post as much content as I did last year, but I'll do my very best.
Now, I'm literally fighting to keep my eyes open. They're clouding over. That's how I know it's time to catch up on some much-needed sleep.
Thank you so much for reading. Goodnight, and I'll see you later.

-Mark

What I Would do if I Discussed One Pathetically Incorrect Life Philosophy

I had trouble titling this one. There are many pathetically incorrect life philosophies, such as believing yourself better than someone else due to race, sexual orientation, amount of possessions, etc. or perhaps believing that one can survive solely on sunlight like a plant (yes, this philosophy exists - newsflash: people are incapable of photosynthesis). Perhaps I can discuss these another time.

For now, the philosophy on the chopping block is...

That you can "choose" to be happy. 

Don't get me wrong; attitude is important. However, as someone who struggles with severe depression, this idea on so many self-help articles makes my blood boil. Because, frankly, happiness isn't a choice. If it was, do you think I'd be stuffing pills down my throat to keep myself from offing myself? I don't choose depression. No one chooses depression. 

Saying that you can choose to be happy or unhappy is yet another idea that fuels this stigma against mental health. It promotes the idea that depressed people are lazy, attention-seeking, or inherently flawed. 

When I open my mind, I can see what they're trying to say: "Fake it 'til you make it". Positivity will improve situations! And sure, I agree with that, but phrase it a different way. Say to stay open to new experiences and avoid self-fulfilling prophecies. However, frankly, saying you need to "choose to be happy" is pretty insulting. I don't know if it works that way for those of you who don't have depression, but I can think happy thoughts until the cows come home and it's not going to fix my problems. I can say "I'm going to be happy today!", and it will do squat.

Imagine that you're in this trapped in a dark cave. We'll call this cave "depression". Now, let's choose an object for happy thoughts: bubbles! Bubbles are happy! So, every time you think a happy thought, or "decide" to be happy, it sends off a bubble. Does it destroy the stone cave? Hell, no. It just makes you discouraged. That's a pretty obvious metaphor, so I'm hoping even people who have never experienced depression can understand this. And please, don't say that they're different situations. I'm giving you the information of an insider. Blowing bubbles to burst open a rock cave is as pointless as "choosing" to be happy when you have depression.

No, I can't choose to be happy. Stop telling me that I can! It makes me - and I'm sure other depressed people - feel as though I'm even more deficient in some way. However, do try to be positive if you can.

-Laura

What I Would Do if I Slept

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What I Would Do if There was a Swirling Vortex of Fatigue and Work Surrounding me

High school has officially started.
Presently, I'm in the transitional phase between school and vacation. Just now am I starting to realize that now, I'm expected to work again. To do homework. To not have boundless free time.
Let me give you a quick example, which I swear, once again, will be better fleshed out in a coming post. Tomorrow, I have a project in animation due, as well as a math test. The day after, I have no less then three dentist appointments in one day as well as a drama audition. The day after, voice. Only Friday might be free. Factor in all the homework, voice practice, running club, and various other things and you find me pretty busy.
The main change I've noticed so far in high school is that your given a lot more independence. For example, there aren't any announcements at school; you have to figure out when all these meetings are yourself. And it's great in a way, but it's also stressful.
Long story short, I'm worried and exhausted. More then that, I know that Laura's probably doing a lot worse then I am while she's still getting kick-ass posts out. The one tomorrow looks great, as well. Yeah, you heard me. She's actually writing these posts in advance, which blows my mind.
So... yup. I'll do my best to get something worth reading to you Wednesday!

Thanks for struggling through this with me,

-Mark

What I Would Do if I Shamelessly Advertised

Perhaps it's a good thing that I don't plug my own content much, as I'm sure it's incredibly annoying to you just passing by. That said, I might have advertised my other blog once before on What I Would Do, and I feel that if you like my work you should know how to find more of it.
Marks Book Blog is a frankly titled book review site that's incidentally my first and longest-running work. Started in January 2014, I post there exceedingly rarely nowadays. When I do, however, I usually spend at least a few days of unproductive work on a post before sending it out, which hopefully makes it better quality then the majority of items here.
My most recent review is of The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, by Douglas Adams. I'm rather proud of that post, and I'd love to hear what you think of it.
Thanks!

-Mark

What I Would do if my Computer Made me a Raging Monster

Disclaimer: I love my computer.

It's my baby. In a fire, I would save my computer after my family and my cat. So, yeah, this thing is way up the list of loved things in my life, which makes me feel a bit guilty. It's wrong to love an object, right? But it means a lot to me. It was my graduation present in grade twelve. I completed my first full-length novel on it. We have pulled many an all-nighter together working on school work. It has all my photos, my thoughts, my musings, my writing; losing my computer would be like losing an entire record of my life, not to mention hours and hours of work.

However, like all children, my computer can get sick. I think it possibly has computer cancer (I am eternally grateful that my computer is sick rather than my friends or family, though... no disrespect against people with cancer because clearly that sucks 9 999 999 999 999 999 999% more than a sick computer). Anyway, about every ten minutes, my computer crashes. This means that getting work done has been tough.

I already took it to one hospital - I mean, repair shop. They failed to properly diagnose it. I don't understand how, when it crashes every ten minutes, but they tried their best. The point is, my poor baby now needs to go see another specialist, and I'm crossing my fingers. Replacing this baby would be a very sad thing. I'm hoping she can be saved, but it seems likely that it's the RAM drive. In other words, for a computer, terminal cancer. Here's hoping I can figure out how to back this baby up.

In short, I'm extremely frustrated, and I hope this is resolved soon. In the meantime, at least Mark is a superhero (see my last post for details). ;)

Cheers,

-Laura

What I Would Do if I Was Happy to be a Superhero

Laura, that was very kind of you to hold off my punishments. I'm sure that when you're next feeling ticked at me you'll release the river of punishment, but until then I want to thank you.
Now, I must admit that this is a rather lazy post. Today was my first day in that terrifying abyss known as high school, and because of that I'm now feeling rather worn out. It doesn't help that I got only 2/3rds of my usual sleep last night, and that I now find myself with a nasty cold.
Long story short, I've got a lot of things on my mind. I tried to write a post all about my first day, but my mind kept wandering off. Besides, I'm not even sure how much I should share with you guys. Sorry, Russian Robots.
Perhaps I just need time to think. There was one rather exciting part in my day, though, which I want to share with you now.
I think you ought to know one thing; I'm now in a creative writing/publishing class! With any luck at all, that'll help me bring you people better content in the near future. I'm sure it will.
Walking into that room, it was like I'd found a precursor to paradise. Dozens of book posters adorned the walls, all sorts of quotes from various books. It was wonderful.
The people in the room were all diverse and interesting. To give yo an example of the quirkiness, in a class of about twenty people five or six are already distinct in my mind. There's someone who kept pretentiously talking about Shakespeare, another who had rock-bottom self confidence, one person who I think was a guy but may have been trans or at least gay, someone else who claimed that they could read five pages a minute... it was fascinating.
Then, there was the teacher. Not only did he have an epic name, but he was engaging and funny and seemed to know what he was talking about. After stalking him on the internet, I found out that he edits two writing magazines and has taught at Concordia university. This guy knows what he's talking about.
I do believe that'll be a good class.
I'm sorry, people. I'm super tired at the moment, not quite myself. I'm just going to cut this off here and call it a night.

Thanks for reading,

-Mark

What I Would do if Mark were a Superhero

Do you see this guy? 

Yeah, the adorable one with the ice cream. 

What a champ.

Unfortunately, I have had major troubles with my laptop lately, which means that I haven't been able to post. It has spent over a week in the repair shop and is going back to a different one tomorrow, which means that poor Mark has been working overtime covering for me. 

On the plus side, he's probably becoming mega-great at bullshitting - cough, cough - I mean, writing. 

So, if Mark were a superhero, I would:

1. Write a post in his honour.

2. Eliminate his remaining punishments (for now). 

3. Owe him a big hot chocolate and cookie. 

Way to go, Mark! Three cheers.

-Laura

Laura, you get to punish me.

Well, congratulations Laura- you can now have some revenge for all those punishments lined up for you. There've been a few times over the last week or two where I haven't posted, and now I suppose it's time to feel your wrath.
Now, seeing as you'll have read the posts I made while you were gone I won't go into too much detail about the missed ones. I used a part of one post to defend myself, and I'll let that post do the talking for now.
As for the other times, let me just say this; twice this week I was at energy-draining sleepovers. Another time I could've posted, but I wanted to make my post the best it could be before sending it out. Yesterday, I figured that you'd have your computer back- and indeed, if not yesterday you could've posted today.
What I'm saying, Laura, is this.
I've had a lot of posts to make and a few valid excuses as to why I couldn't.
Also, have mercy on me.

-Mark

What I Would Do if I Was a Zombie

Old school What I Would Do post, where I actually speculate about some scenario instead of recounting events that've already happened to me! I'm so proud of myself.
We've done a few Zombie Apocalypse-themed posts here at What I Would Do - you can read them here and here  - but those explored the much wrung-out idea of how we'd survive the apocalypse. Today, I'm afraid that we're assuming my brilliant plan has failed. I started cycling north, my tire popped, I was out of ammo, and in a heroic battle I took out approximately zero zombies before being bitten. Thus, I find myself wandering the streets of some abandoned town searching for human flesh.
As a zombie, the first thing I'd have to accept would be that I was gonna be pretty gross looking and smelling from then on. I'd be covered in blood, my clothes would be in shreds, and I'd start to rot excruciatingly slowly over months and years. Don't you know that zombies can take years to rot? Read The Zombie Survival Guide, jeez. Newbs.
Can you imagine the phycological effects of that, though? Seeing yourself slowly waste away would surely traumatize any zombie. They have to come to accept, I imagine, that there lives are a sand timer perpetually draining away. I have a tough enough time grappling with how fleeting our existence is as a fifteen year old- as a zombie, it would be mental torture.
That said, I'd have other things occupying my thoughts. My continual search for human meat would be a nearly impenetrable obstacle in my search for zombie happiness. I imagine that the zombies' search for humans is like an overpowering drug; I could perhaps restrain myself for a short time if I had immense willpower, but every so often I'd cave and binge-eat people. Afterwards, whatever scrap of morality I had remaining would protest and perhaps even restrain me for a short time. My zombie instincts would almost certainly triumph in the end, though, and I'd sink into self-loathing and misery.
Realistically, I feel that I wouldn't last too long as a zombie. As humans were whittled down to only those who knew how to fight, my addiction to their flesh may well prove deadly. Thus, my tragic zombie life would end miserably, putting an end to my struggle to find my place in the universe as a member of the walking dead. You could say I'd have a rotten life.
...
Okay, now that I've ruined the whole post with that pun, thanks for reading!

-Mark

Post script; Good news! Laura should be back in a day or two!

Outtakes

I originally spelled "outtakes" "outakes." Sigh.

The 7-word segment "Read The Zombie Survival Guide, jeez. Newbs." Took much longer then it should have for me to write. It required no less then two trips to Urban Dictionary. First, I wasn't sure how one properly spells "jeez." I started with "jes" before moving onto "jezz"  until I eventually googled "jes expression." Finally, Urban Dictionary saved the day. Then, it again saved me when I looked up "noobs," curious as to what the definition would be. I was greeted with a really extremely well written guide on how to define, spot, and avoid noobs with 23 599 (23 600 now) up-votes. There I learned that there is in fact a difference between "noob" and "newb," being that both are novice players but that the latter has a willingness to learn while the former is a lazy person who expects others to do the work for them. I gave you the benefit of the doubt and called you "newbs." See how much I care about you guys?

What I Would Do if I Played Airsoft

Note; I wrote this exhausted and with a pounding headache. I tried to make it somewhat readable, but do forgive a drop in quality. Thanks,

-Mark

Airsoft: a sport where you're shot with plastic pellets travelling at 350 feet per second, which hit with enough power to draw blood. Sounds like fun, eh?

I have a friend which we'll call Randy. Now, I've always thought Randy to be a fairly timid guy when it comes to pain and injuries. Nothing against him, but if he falls heavily on his leg he'll get up, walk himself over to a bench, poke and prod his leg, and anxiously ask if it's broken. Sure, it's good to take precautions, but he's always been very rigidly set in playing it safe.

Bearing that in mind, I was surprised when he called me up two days ago to play a round of Airsoft with him. It's a simple enough game- you grab yourself an extremely realistic looking gun, load it up, divide into teams, and blast the hell out of your opponents. If you're hit anywhere, even your pinkie, you yell "hit!" and are proclaimed dead.

Neither of us had ever played previously. I played paintball, once, but that was years ago. So we were both excited and perhaps a little bit anxious driving to the place.

We went to a place called Capital Airsoft here in Edmonton, which boasts 24000 square feet of rooms filled with walls, fences and crannies which you can hide yourself behind. Upon arrival we were quickly suited up with a gun and helmet, told we were the only ones there at that time, and sent off to shoot each other.

We started off slow, setting down the rules, picking our starting points, and then eventually going out into the labyrinth without any clear idea as to where the other was. I think he found me first. Bang! Bang! A horde of pellets came at me, all missing. I fired back. He continued. For probably ten minutes, we crept around corners, shooting crack shots off every once in awhile.

Eventually, we found ourselves at opposite ends of a large room. I started creeping forward, shooting random shots to keep his head down as I did so. Then, once I was maybe ten meters away, I jumped from behind cover, gun blazing, running towards him! I slid right beside him, shooting as I went. He yelled "hit!" right as one of his bullets pinged off my helmet. Because I hit him first, my point.

At that point we took a break, to see that he'd already developed a small, purple welt on his arm. For a minute, we just stared at it in amazement. Then, of course, we laughed and headed in.

For the next five hours this continued. He got me the next round when I barrelled around a corner into the barrel of his gun. His shot also hit my arm, this time drawing a bit of blood.

The actual hits were, though, extremely few and far between. In five and a half hours, at least three of which we were actively trying to kill each other as opposed to shooting targets or cooling down, I shot him four times and he shot me three. Five and a half hours of shooting this things at each other, and not once did anyone else come to the facility. We had it all to ourselves.

The description above barely scratches the surface of what our experience was like, however. Therefore I'll try again here, and maybe I can give you a better picture.

You know how when your extremely focused on an activity, your said to be in "The Zone?" With Airsoft, I felt myself becoming laser-focused as soon as I stepped into the arena. You become aware of your footsteps, of your breathing. Your heart pounds. Your eyes constantly scan for any breath of movement. Your hand rests on the trigger as sweat pools on your neck.

Playing Airsoft, I started to feel almost like an actual soldier. I can almost hear my sisters laughing at that, thinking their little brother stupid for thinking a little game is all cool and heroic, but truly I did. Of course, this was on a much lesser scale, but... the paranoia of someone being able to take you out at any time, the stress, even the fear... it was intense.I couldn't help but wonder if actual soldiers had similar feelings.

Assuming that they do, I have even more respect for them now then I did before. Me and Randy were able to stop whenever we wanted. If we couldn't take those breaks, and had to live with those feelings for days or weeks at a time, then I would have been driven half mad. That's with it being a game, too. Actual life-or-death would have those feelings multiplied by 100.

There was one point when, sitting crouched in my corner, I thought to myself how terrifying it would be an Airsoft grenade rolled into the room. Those things shoot pellets every which way, and would be next to impossible to escape. Then the thought of an actual grenade rolling in came into my head. This of course muddled it completely and so I quickly stopped thinking about it, but... man. Would a soldier panic? Would they have an automative response to do something about it, being so focused that he or she wouldn't have these normal feelings? Or would there just be a feeling of hopelessness, of resignation to your fate? It's impossible to say.

Overall, Airsoft was a fun, intense, and surprisingly thought-provoking experience. I'd definitely go again- if I can get the money, that is!

Now, though, I'm mentally and physically drained. I want to nurse my throbbing headache and go to bed. So... g'night!

Thanks for reading,

-Mark

What I Would Do If I Deeply Analyzed Green Day's "She"

There was no post Wednesday!

Really, that’s my fault. Laura’s laptop is currently being serviced, and won’t be back for another week or two. Let’s all pray that all her data isn’t erased during servicing, as that would be… Jesus, that would be terrible.
Because of that inconvenience it’s really my job to post everyday until she gets it back, which I didn’t Wednesday. I’d like to pass it off as Laura missing her post and me kindly not punishing her, but that’s your call, Laura. Punish me if you will. Perhaps you’d feel better about your punishments if I was doing one too.
Just before we begin, I'd also like to quickly make some alterations to my Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy punishment. It's come to my attention that Laura hates most Sci-Fi, and so if she reads the first five chapters and really hates it then I'll change the punishment.

But let's be honest; punishments aren't all that fun to discuss. Instead, let's talk about something that is... Green Day!
Most members of my family seem to think that Green Day is just a lot of noise, with no real message behind their songs. Today, I prove them wrong. I've selected the Green Day song "She" to be analyzed, so that the world will know just how meaningful Green Day's songs can be.
To start us off, why don't you give the song a listen while reading the lyrics down below;

She

She… she screams in silence
A sully riot penetrating through her mind
Wait… wait for a sign to smash the silence with the brick of self control

(Chorus)
Are you locked up in a world that’s been planned out for you?
Are you feeling like a social tool without a use?
Scream at me until my ears bleed
I’m taking heed just for you

She… she’s figured out
That all her doubts were someone else’s point of view
Waking up this time
To smash the silence with the brick of self control

Chorus x2

What the lyrics lack in length they make up for in meaning.
Although my interpretation may be far from the truth, me not having looked up anyones opinions directly prior to writing this post, I think that I've got a fairly clear picture of the song's message. I believe that She is about someone who’s strongly influenced by those around her, by those who would tell her how to run her life. She vents these frustrations to the narrator, who seems to be the only one willing to listen. Over the course of the song, however, she comes to realize her problem and decides to take control of her life.
Let’s break it down verse by verse, shall we?

She… she screams in silence
A sully riot penetrating through her mind
Wait… wait for a sign
To smash the silence with the brick of self control

The first two lines get right to the point, telling he listener of the frustration of the girl. She screams in agony internally, but lets no one see her pain. Her mind is in turmoil, she can’t think straight- there’s a riot in her brain. The next two lines are a little more cryptic, although I think I can manage them. They tell us that she wants to take control of her life, but she’s not letting herself- she’s waiting for the right moment, a "sign" which may never come. She feels that once she's in control of her thoughts and feelings, then she can protest against those who would do her wrong.

Are you locked up in a world that’s been planned out for you?
Are you feeling like a social tool without a use?
Scream at me until my ears bleed
I’m taking heed just for you

Here we find the root of her problem; she feels that other people are running her life. Perhaps she has demanding or ambitious parents, perhaps she feels peer pressure to do things she doesn’t want to do. Whatever the case she finds herself in a scenario she doesn’t want to be in, but doesn’t think she can get out of it.
The last two lines of this verse are also interesting. Another character is introduced, the narrator. The girl is confiding in him, and he tries to help her. She's leaning on him for support, but she's putting too much responsibility on his shoulders and he's beginning to crack and strain under the pressure. Perhaps at this point she realizes that she'll have to face her problems, and so we go to the next verse...

She… She’s figured out
That all her doubts were someone else’s point of view
Waking up this time
To smash the silence with the brick of self control

Here we have the last non-chorus lyrics, which give us a glimmer of hope.
She’s "figured out that all her doubts were someone else’s point of view-" perhaps she was bullied, people didn’t believe in her. Now, though, she’s learned to get past this and choose for herself if she’s good enough, screw what other’s think.

This is communicated in the third line. Instead of waiting for the perfect moment to break free from these people like she was in the first verse, she’s decided to just go ahead and do so. She’s waking up with the intention of telling those who would hold her down and direct her life that she is her own person who cannot and will not be told what do.

Take that, haters who think Green Day isn't deep!
Almost all of Green Day’s songs have a deeper message then you'd think. Most people don't see it, thrown off by the banging and the unclear words- but if you persist and really listen, you'll see it every time.
I’ve enjoyed that little analysis- I hope you did too, because it’d be a good bet that there’ll be more song analysis’s (that grammar is for sure off) in the future!

Thanks for reading,

-Mark

What I Would Do if I Flew Back to Edmonton

I'd be really, super-duper tired.

Thanks for understanding,

-Mark

What I Would Do if I Thought of Another Punishment

You've got a lot of work to do, Laura.
Before you get around to this punishment, I know that you have three more. Just remember, this blog is a partnership, and I've been holding up my end pretty well while you've slacked a bit. You agreed to do this, and I for one would be majorly ticked if you didn't complete your punishments.
Now on to your new one!
Your task; read the first Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. It's off the wall, quirky, but also pretty damn funny. Now go forth and read! A book report will be due by December 1'st, which gives you plenty of time to do your other punishments.

Thanks for reading,

-Mark

What I Would do if I Watched "Sad, Sad Larry" by Cyanide & Happiness

Warning: if anyone besides a robot is watching this, you may find it triggering (if you dislike violence, references to suicide, sexual references, etc.)

Well, this one is a bit of a surprise, to be frank.

I started watching this video and started to feel very sad. Poor, Larry. As someone who has struggled and continues to struggle with depression, I could very much empathize with Larry and his situation. I could even empathize with his smile as he fell to his death...

...until he didn't.

And that's when I started laughing.

Really, this sums up depression perfectly. Maybe not with suicide attempts, but sometimes it seems like your life is like this or will be like this if you get out of bed.

But I personally loved how it went from slightly triggering to just hilariously misfortunate. This should really be called "poor, poor Larry"; the guy just couldn't catch a break. The irony had me snickering through most of it.

Perhaps I'm odd to be amused by it when depression and suicide isn't funny at all, but sometimes I just find that you need to find the humour in the worst situations just to make them better. It's better than crying, right? I could just be a special case, though. Still, I guess the fact that it wasn't making mockery of depression helped to make it more likeable for me.

So, thanks, Cyanide & Happiness for the laugh!

-Laura

What I Would Do if Laura Owed Me Another Punishment

Oh, Laura. Laura Laura Laura Laura Laura. I know see why you hired me as a co-author.
You owe me a lot of punishments, sis. I thought, just for the sake of keeping track of all of them, I'd list them all here for you to have in one place. We wouldn't want you forgetting about any of them, now would we?

1. Finish Paper Towns by September 1'st, or I'm not doing the vegetarianism punishment, which I believe is the only one I still owe you. This one's been out there for months, so it's high time you did your bit.
2. Listen to a bunch more Green Day tunes, as outlined here
3. Watch Vlogbrothers videos, as listed here
4. Yet to be decided
5. Yet to be decided

I've faithfully done my punishment. Shitty opera? Check. Read The Thief Lord? Check. Sing for you? Debatable, but you heard me at my recital and when I practiced, so I'll call it check. Vegetarianism for a month? You gave me until I turned 20, which gives me plenty of time to complete the punishment.
In other words... Catch up, sis!
Oh, and happy flying tonight! I await our reunion tomorrow.

Thanks for reading,

-Mark

What I Would Do if Laura Missed Two Posts

When Laura sees this, she might be relieved. I've just got a text from her saying that she's not up for posting tonight, which leaves myself the only other person ready to do so. I told her that I was too tired to cover, but of course I cracked and here I am again.
On the other hand, Laura will probably be filled with dread when she sees the title of this post. You see, she owes me two punishments (plus that Green Day punishment I assigned awhile back), and today she'll have to face the music.
Laura, you've heard me talk about John Green incessantly. You will have read my posts where I gush about him (If not, those are three posts right there). Somewhere through all of this, you will have heard me talk about the Vlogbrothers.
For those uneducated brutes among you who don't know, one of the best YYoutube channels out there is called the Vlogbrothers. The two brothers in question, John and Hank Green, are professional awesome people. I should know. I probably watch two hours of YouTube a day, and the Vlogbrothers are still my favourite channel.
Out of all the successful channels on YouTube, the Vlogbros are probably the most active in the real world. They started Vidcon, helped create educational videos which are being shown in schools, and created the Project for Awesome which has donated over a million to charity. Most importantly, though, their videos encourage kindest and compassion in everyone. The Vlogbrothers are made of awesome.
Indeed, a large part of the reason I wanted to work on this blog with you was because it reminded me in some way of the Vlogbrothers. Heck, I even stole the "punishments" idea from them.
So, this isn't even a real punishment. Think of it as me giving you the gift of the Vlogbrothers. Now go forth, and watch...

How To Be a Nerdfighter (A good introductory video)
Nerdfighter Marriage Proposal (Question Tuesday introduction, and a cool video)
Book Eight (Hank Green on the scene with a song. Don't you dare diss his singing, even though I'm sure his technique sucks. This performance of the song was when he was at Carnegie hall, so...)
Perspective (More philosophical video)
Who I Was in High School (Similar)
North Korea Explained (They also explain shit)
Giving Away over $700 000
51 Jokes (in Four Minutes) (To end off on a funny note)

There, I think that'll be sufficient for now. If you haven't fallen in love with the Vlogbrothers yet, then... you have no soul. They're just such wonderful people.
I'll leave you in suspense as to what your next punishment will be!

Thanks for reading,

-Mark

Finished at 1:35 AM. I told you I was tired before, but I lied. Now I know what it's really like to be tired. Freaking links...

A Change of View on Storytelling

Looking back on my earliest attempts at writing, I notice two things.
The first, painfully obvious truth is that the writing is shit. Shut up, you! It has improved. Otherwise I wouldn't realize how terrible it was.
The second thing which I've realized much more recently is this; I've always written my stories for the sake of telling a story.
Sure, there's nothing wrong with that. Entertaining people is a noble enough cause- but after reading Will Grayson Will Grayson and reflecting on some of my favourite stories, I've made some observations.
All of my favourite stories are those that, through fiction, shed some light on the real world and it's issues. Paper Towns teaches the importance of imagining others complexly, as opposed to seeing them at surface level. Most of John Green's books show the importance of taking risks and living life to the fullest. The Little Prince teaches dozens of lessons about what's important in life. The Thief Lord shows the value of friendship.
Considering all of this, I've been thinking that the number one thing that I could do to improve my stories right now would be focusing more on theme rather then on story. Instead of focusing on the story first and maybe a half-baked message thrown in once in awhile as I've done before, I'll try to focus on the theme and have the story build around that.
I want to explore themes and try to find some deeper meaning in the world around me. To talk about mis-imagining others, to talk about the importance of meaningful relationships. The problem is, I have no idea how to weave a story around that.
Thus, I'll be let stranded for a little while longer in the storytelling world. I'll work on it, don't worry.
Until that day when a brilliant idea that will solve all my problems and make the world become covered in rainbows and puppies and kittens and marshmallows just happens to wander into my head, I'll be here.

Thanks for reading,

-Mark

What I Would Do if Laura Was Here

Note; click to read a post with a similar theme, What I Would Do if my Sisters were Here Now

I'm lonely, damn it! My friends are in Edmonton, my sisters are in Edmonton, and now my dad is too. I'm left stranded here in New Brunswick.
The one ray of sunshine in my life in that respect is the knowledge that in just a few days, Laura will join me in this hellhole of angst and isolation and may be able to drag me out of my chasm of misery. This is what we're going to do the minute she walks in;

1. Swim, swim, swim. Swim swim. Swim.
2. I'm going to teach her some of the basics of archery, now that I actually know them.
3. We'll canoe, sail, and do all sorts of water-related activities.
4. We'll rappel down some rocks and quite possibly die.
5. We'll have dozens of writing parties. Maybe if I actually spend some time at writing blog posts, they'll be good.
6. Most nights will be spent talking about deep matters and sharing our angst. Almost every deep conversation I've had with my sisters has taken place late at night when we're too tired to have a filter.

Once she comes, I cling to the hope that the world will be bright and rosy once more.

Thanks for reading,

-Mark

PS: That's our 250'th post! Yay!

What I Would Do if I Met John Green

My love of reading has been, after that insane rambley post last time, rekindled.

It's John Green to the rescue once again.

My love for John Green is insatiable, so much so that I mention him in every other post on this blog. I love his YouTube channel with his brother, I love his books, and I love the charity work he does.

Now that I've read Will Grayson Will Grayson, I have one more reason to love him (and David Levithan, for that matter).

There's a simple reason people love John's novels; he treats all his characters as complex, three dimensional characters. You get to see every side of every character he writes. With Will Grayson, Will Grayson, he topped everything I've seen him do before. 

I love every single character in this book. I see myself in Tiny, and Will Grayson #1. I see a small part of myself in Jane, and even the other Will Grayson. All of these characters are supremely relatable.

I had to stop reading this book a few times just to think about how much these characters seemed to connect to me, and what lessons I could take from the lessons they learned. This book made me think about my own life, which is what I think ultimately all books should strive for. 5/5 stars, go pick it up at Chapters. Jesus, I love this book.

It's easy to see my boundless admiration for John Green. I'd totally marry this guy if he proposed. To hell with being straight. So what would I do if I ever got a chance to meet him?

1. Of course I'd need a picture. I'd snap so many damn pictures I'd be a one man paparazzi.
2. I'd promptly start blabbering my praises so that it became extremely awkward and the poor man would be embarrassed beyond measure.
3. A few minutes later, I'm sure someone would drag me away before I could finally bring myself to propose.

... Yeah, it wouldn't be good.

Thanks for reading,

-Mark

What I Would do if I Missed a Submission Deadline

This post is more an apology to Mark. Both of us planned to submit a piece of flash fiction to a competition that I believe closed a couple of days ago. While I wrote a piece and edited it to my satisfaction, the unfortunate fact is this:

Over the past week, I have been crazily busy adulting. I have been working, cleaning, grocery shopping, driving, getting coffee with friends and doing some unfortunately social things, scanning documents for applications, etc.

In short, I was so busy with life, that this chance totally slipped my mind (which is why I always use daytimers and sticky notes when my life is neat enough for me to organize).

I'm sorry, Mark! If I find another competition, I'll submit it there. I bet yours will do great!

-Laura

What I Would Do if I was Swimming in Books

Warning; this post was hastily written, created with neither purpose nor enthusiasm, and not edited at all. I'm sorry; it starts to disintegrate towards the end. I might edit it, though,,, someday. :)

When I was younger, I read a lot of books. A lot of books. 

I have a bookcase full of em' back at home, and every time I look at it I'm surprised at how many I've read.  Series, standalones, classics, bestsellers... there's quite a list there.

Then. in recent years, that number started to slow considerably. I try to blame YouTube and Minecraft, but in the end I know that it's up to me to read.

I don't really know why my reading productivity has slowed- I still really enjoy reading, and I now feel more motivated to read then ever due to the knowledge that reading helps writing. Perhaps it's the cost to it all, or that it's quicker to start a game then to settle into a book, easier to pause a game then be jolted out of a world. It could be anything, really. I just wish I knew what. 

That said, this past week or two I've been finding myself reading more and more. Perhaps it's because of The Thief Lord, which I really enjoyed reading. Maybe I'm just bored. No matter the reason, a sudden urge to read led me to buy two new books at the bookstore. The problem is, now I'm swimming in them.

Before this trip, I already had Horatio Hornblower and The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy #2-4 already purchased. I'd just finished reading the first Guide, and so was set to continue on when I popped into the bookstore with too much money and couldn't help myself. 

The novel that I've really been wanting to get for the last little while is Will Grayson Will Grayson, by David Leviathan and John Green. You may recall that John Green is my one and only man-crush, so naturally I had to buy his novel. Once that one's read, I'll have finished every John Green novel available- unless you count the collaboration short-story collection Let it Snow or that one he wrote for NaNoWriMo, ZombieCorns. Which I do, because John Green for life.

So far, Will Grayson Will Grayson has been really good- I'm only 100 pages in, and I really don't want to be writing at the moment. I want to be reading Will Grayson, damn it! 

The other book I purchased was Writing Tools. Man, I hate to say that. Now you're going to be scrutinizing this post. I can hear you sneering "must be a shitty book, then!" My only defence is that I'm writing this at 11:46, and I just want to sleep, damn it. Writing tool #38; when you can't think of anything good to say, just insert a few swears to take your reader's mind off the shitty quality of your work, damn it!

So now, I find myself with four books to read and I really want to read them but to do that I need to rest so I need to sleep so I need to finish the post damn it damn itfuckfuckshittyassfuck-me-in-my-shitty-ass-oh-god-hope-mum-doesn't-find-thisshitdamnnuierwnsiuvebnvijnerwuisvnuewisbvuiesnbvjksenjkvn eriusfhieoruwfnerhqafiouHGUYBuBuyBuyBuykbjBfCersfYIgIBH gCtuBJHbGHvgfYUgibJvgcFGChVGHVGHBOBhkuVTUVUIVbUHBkBHJVGHJVGUBYHGYUBUSKEGBNIUHEGRS            BFYC ORFIQU4ES BHJDKVE

Thanks for reading, 

-Mark

What I Would do if I Guessed what Casablanca was About from the Trailer

Well, I have to say, as far as trailers go, this was one of the least informative ones I've yet seen. I decided to challenge myself by only allowing myself to watch it once. This is what I got from that viewing:

1. There is a love triangle.
2. There is some political conflict.
3. People want to escape to the United States.
4. There is a lot of shooting, chasing, and armed conflict.
5. There is some sort of obsessive romance.
6. There are some important letters to the female protagonist that she will kill to get back.

Here is what I don't know:
1. When this takes place (although I do know that it was released in 1942).
2. What the actual plot is.

So, here is my best guess.

This lady is trying to escape to the United States because of the second world war. She sounds pretty American, to me, but who knows? Maybe she's German and Jewish. I'm really just guessing that from the actress's last name, though, which really doesn't inform the character. This is literally because I have nothing to go on.

Anyway, she wants to escape, but is having a bit of difficulty because, you know, Vichy France is currently controlling Morocco. Fortunately, she finds this hot guy with a similar goal, and they work at attempting to escape together. Meanwhile, some Vichy France military official has also fallen in love with her. This leads to some issues. Perhaps it would be safer for her to love this officer, because perhaps he can guarantee her safety. Nevertheless, she chooses hot fellow escapee, because true love wins over common sense. Evil officer suspects that she has a lover and steals her letters, only to find that they're not only to her lover; they're also escape plans! Gasp! He confronts her lover, which ends in a shoot-out that both survive, but it initially appears hot escapee dies in. So, anyway, she shoots evil officer to get the letters back, she and lover-boy shoot their way out of Morocco, and sail away to the USA to live happily ever after.

For my next post, I'll see how I did! My guess is not well, but, hey, that trailer gives me very little to go on.

-Laura

What I Would do if I was Travelling with Lewis & Clark

Yo sis, you missed your post. I'll hold back on a punishment for now, although I will whip this punishment out when I least expect it.

Today, me and my dad went on a canoeing trip.

It was nothing too strenuous- paddling down some New Brunswickan... Brunswickian... Brunswicked... 

It was nothing too strenuous- just a leisurely paddle down some river straddling New Brunswick and the USA. The river was fairly calm except for some mild rapids, and the weather was fine. That didn't stop us from having a difficult time. On a forgiving river such as that, we still managed to smack into a solid 50 rocks and beat up the poor canoe we'd rented.

I remember one particularly rough section. As a braced myself for yet another crunching blow against some partially-submerged boulder, I couldn't help but wonder how I'd do paddling alongside the famous explorers, Lewis and Clark...

1. It should be noted right off that bat that in my current condition I'd never be allowed on the trip in the first place. I keep fit, but I'm very confident that nowadays "fit" would be their equivalent of "bale-of-hay potato." They didn't have couches back then, did they?

2. I'm sure that my boat would be the one with all the massive holes in it, judging from my experience today. Luckily, the boats we had were made of strong stuff and probably wouldn't break even if we tried to destroy them. I'm not so sure about the wooden boats of the past.

3. I'd quickly develop a reputation among my fellow paddlers as the weakling. Not only would my fitness be lacklustre, I'd probably refuse to eat most of what the rest of them ate and thus starve.

4. Surely, within a few weeks one of a few things would happen...

A. I'd fall out of my boat and drown.

B. I'd starve.

C. Some bear or snake would catch me.

D. My weak immune system, usually dependent upon medicines to help it recover from disease, would quickly succumb to a lovely ailment. Dysentery or scurvy sounds nice. Maybe some malaria on the side.

E. No one would ever remember my name. People would say in future documentaries about the trip "five of the party quickly succumbed to the elements within the first three weeks of the voyage," and that would be the end of my story.

Thanks for reading,

-Mark

What I Would Do if My Productivity Was Being Sapped by the Very Air around Me and I Wanted to Not Not be Productive Anymore

I'm in New Brunswick. It's summer. My productivity is down the drain.
Do you ever find that, when you go to a place that you're familiar with, a certain feeling descends upon you? For example, when I'm in Canmore I feel like doing things. I write, I read, I enjoy hiking and skiing.
And then there's New Brunswick. Here, it's like as soon as the plane lands I'm drained of all energy.
It's like the very air is a potent energy-draining drug. I'm often bored. I sleep in much too late every day. Most profoundly, I lose interest in things that I usually find fun. I don't write, even if (like this year with the short story I've written) there's a good reason too. I don't enjoy things like archery, canoeing, and swimming as much as I do at other times. I feel more awkward talking to people. I feel sad. With all of these things weighing down on me, I don't feel as confident.
Maybe it's because I don't really have any friends in New Brunswick, or, in recent years, sisters. There's no one within thirty years of my age around, and I feel lonely. That gets me down, so I'm unproductive, and that gets me down, so I'm unproductive...
I feel fulfilled only if I feel that I'm improving myself, and it's as if the opposite happens in New Brunswick.
To counteract this, I thought I'd make a little plan to motivate myself until my sisters come along to cheer me up. I now present to you my

SUPER AMAZING PLAN FOR GETTING SHIT DONE

1. From now on, I want to try to write 1000 words a day. I don't care what about, I just want to get them written.
2. Said many, many authors, "The best guide to writing is reading." Half an hour of reading, every day.
3. For tackling my sleeping habit, I'll force myself to wake up by 8:30 at the latest tomorrow. I'll then winch that number down for five minutes a day, every day, until I'm waking up with the sun.
4. I'll start running again, to keep my body in ship-shape.
5. To save up for a laptop of my own, an item I've been desperately wanting for years now, I'll try to put 20 dollars per week into the bank.
6. Every day, I'll make a plan for productivity the next day.

This leads me onto the...

SUPER AMAZING PLAN FOR GETTING SHIT DONE (tomorrow)
8:30 Wake up, shower, and get dressed.
8:50 Eat a real breakfast
9:00 Jump on the trampoline
9:30 Edit that damn short story one last time. Then send that motherfucker in.
11:00 Write 1000 words.
12:30-9:30 Run with dad, go to town, and chillax. Perhaps read if I can fit the time in.
9:30 Get ready for bed. Completely ready.
10:00 Chillax, play games
10:30 Read
11:00 Sleep

Hah! So there. I'm gonna take you by storm, world.

Thanks for reading,

-Mark

What I Would do if I Invented a New Driving Term

Ah, highway driving. What an adventure you are.

On the positive side, you have alone time in the car for hours, going at a fast pace without stoplights. In other words, you feel like you're going somewhere. You feel invincible, which is ironic considering how many people die in collisions on highways.

You have the speeding truck drivers, who have the "I'm bigger so I'm better" attitude. Both they and the fancy sports-cars will tailgate you, expecting you to go out of your way for them, before passing angrily.

Hence, my new expression: the passing bitch face.

Yes, I've done a lot of highway driving this summer, and I've become well-acquainted with this phenomenon. Someone decides that you're not fast enough. They pass, and as they do, they shoot you a glare, stare you down, once in a while flip you off, or shower you with disdain.

I tried to find a picture as an example, but all I can find show far too friendly people in cars. No, I'm talking about a brief glare, a look that says "I'm going five kilometres faster which makes you the dirt on my shoe".

With any luck, this new term will be a common thing. Make it happen, Russian robots.

-Laura

The Thief Lord: Book Review

Well, you were right, Laura. The Thief Lord is a pretty damn good book. I'm sorry it took me so many years to read it.
Speaking of book punishments, I told you to read Paper Towns months ago. You failed to do so. Therefore, my response is this; you have to read Paper Towns by the end of August, or I'll simply not do one of your punishments. Say... the vegetarianism punishment. And you wouldn't want that, would you? >:)
Anyways. Onto the book.

The Thief Lord hits most of the "good book" stereotypes. The story was reasonably intriguing, the writing was of good quality and, most predominantly in this book, the  characters were likeable. All of these things combined kept me up reading until 2:00AM the night I flew into New Brunswick from Edmonton.
I'll tackle all of the above points in order, although perhaps leaving out the "good quality writing" segment. I can't explain that. Only actually reading the book will do that, and I'll let you do that on your own. The plot, though, I can do.
The Thief Lord follows two young brothers, Prosper and Bo, and their struggles to keep together. Having run away from their aunt, they managed to hike their way into Venice, Italy, where they hope their worries will disappear.
Soon, they're picked up by a gang of other young kids. Living in an abandoned theatre and supplied for by the mysterious Thief Lord, everything seems good and well. Their aunt, though, is out to spoil there fun. Having tracked the boys to Venice, she hires a private detective to find the boys. Throw in a shady thieving job and a magical merry-go-round, and things might not be as jolly for the gang as they'd thought...
There. Gotta end it with the dot dot dot.
The best thing about The Thief Lord, hands down, is the characters presented. We have, in order of my liking for them;

• Victor Getz, the detective. He's just the nicest guy! It doesn't take long for the reader to figure out that he's not the bad guy in this story. From his efforts to aid the kids to his love for his tortoises, you fall in love with Victor very early on.
• Prosper, the older of the two brothers. Prosper is probably the most sensible and cool headed kid in the bunch, with the exception of maybe Hornet. You have to love him for how protective he is of his brother Bo.
• Hornet, the one female in the group of kids. She's basically a female version of Prosper. Sensible and cool-headed like him, she's also one of the more caring members of the group.
• Scipio, or The Thief Lord. The leader of the kids, with a secret.
• Bo, the annoying little brother of Prosper. The polar opposite of his brother, Bo is stupid and annoying. Sorry. I suppose that he is six years old in this story.
• Riccio and Mosca, the other two kids in the gang. I list these guys last 'cause nobody really cares about them. I don't even know who's who. One of them's black. The other has spiky hair. One of them likes to fish. That's all I can tell you.

There are maybe three other important people in this story, but I don't remember their names and/or I don't really care about them. So there.

Combining the above two elements made for a great story, but I felt that the ending dampened my liking for the book some. Leave know if you haven't read the book.

Okay. They're gone.

Now, about that crummy ending. I suppose the place to start my complaints would be the magical merry-go-round.

Here's my problem; we go through the entire book and there's not a single fantasy element. Then, right at the end, this one slaps us in the face.

I like fantasy well enough. The thing is, I want to know that there are fantastical elements to the story early on. In this book, we're sort of given a glimpse of it halfway through the book. Already halfway done. Then, that isn't really developed until the last quarter of the book. By then it seemed out of place, you know?

Then, the kid's antics with the merry-go-round threw me off. Why would Scipio decide to ride on that thing? I know that he wants to be older, to be taken seriously, blah blah blah. It still seems like a stupid thing to do.

Then, they become cruel and turn their enemy into a five year old. That seems like a bit of a bad-guy move to me. Which leads me to my final merry-go-round complaint, which is that they totally could have glued the wing back on once Barbarossa kicked it off. They did it to the other wing, didn't they?

So that spoiled the last bit of the book for me.

Then, I felt as though the ending was a bit unsatisfactory. The gang split up, and they'll never again have the same kind of bond that they did when they were living together in the movie theatre. That's sad to me.

Then- and this is what I'm really angry about- there was no romance at all! I mean, I know that these kids are twelve or whatever, but I was totally expecting something at the end. I was shipping Prosper and Hornet sooooo hard at the end there, and the author didn't even give their relationship a mention. I'm so pissed about that.

And on top of that! I may or may not have looked this up online to find that everyone ships Scipio and Hornet, which wouldn't work at all! GAAAAAH!

...

You know, really, I usually don't get into these ships much. But god I wanted that one!

Still, The Thief Lord was a solid story until things got disappointing at the end. 7.5/10 stars.

Thanks for reading,

-Mark

PS: Now I want to go onto Fanfiction.net or something and write Prosper and Hornet up a scene. No hardcore sex, don't worry. I just want them to have a moment, you know???

What I Would Do if I Created an Innovative Camping Tool

Laura's left to go camping this weekend, which of course means that I was enlisted to help her pack up.

As she was short on time, I helped her get ready for her trip. Chopping onions for her dinner, gathering flashlights and other necessary items, and notifying her friends via text of her immanent absence were just a few things I did to help out. Nothing too hard.

One thing which I did struggle to help her with, though, was stuffing her tent into a bag half the size that I feel it should have been.

Anyone who's been camping (and I mean REAL camping, not lame-ass "camping" in a trailer) will know that it's always a struggle to fit all your supplies in your bag. One thing you have to do to achieve this is roll your sleeping bag, tent, and other similar items into tiny shapes before stuffing them into compact bags. These bags save room in your pack, but their nearly impossible to get your stuff into.

When stuffing Laura's tent into one such bag today, it was a grim scene. For ten minutes or so I struggled. First I gingerly stuffed the edge of the cloth down deep into the bag. More and more of the tenting followed, filling the bag up to the very top. The problem? Only half of the cloth had actually gone in, meaning that I then had to try to jam the rest into an already full back.

My heart rate elevated as I tried all sorts of athletic positions to stabilize the bag as I shoved. I kicked, I pushed, I yanked. For far too long I struggled to push the damn thing into a fairly small opening at one end of the bag.

That's when I thought to myself there must be a better way to do this. 

And then it hit me.

The problem with stuffing something into a long, slim bag is that the part of the bag near the opening will inevitably become much more compact then that on the opposite end. There's always some spare room in the opposite end of the bag. The problem is, that's inaccessible.  But why does it have to be?

The way I figure it, tent-bag designers could fix all of our problems if they made the bags zip-up. If they were, you could unzip the bag so that both ends were accessible to you. You could then scrunch the tent up, lay it along the bag so that there's an equal amount of cloth on either end, and then just force the zipper up. Done.

I tell you, if you can make this happen then please do. If you don't then someday I will.

Thanks for reading this (unedited due to extreme tiredness) post.

-Mark

Paper Towns: Movie Review

Anyone who's really talked with me will know that I fangirl over John Green far too often. There are so many things that he does, and it seems that he does all of those things brilliantly.
Most obviously, there's writing. The man's written five full-length novels, all five of which made the top 35 in this list of the 100 best books for teens. That's some consistent success right there.
Less mentioned but just as important is John's work with his brother Hank on the YouTube channel vlogbrothers, which just so happens to be my favourite channel. Not only do they encourage people to better themselves, they've raised thousands for charity and started vidcon.
All of which is to say that I adore John Green, and I really hoped on his behalf that the movie adaptation of his novel Paper Towns would be great. Let me tell you now; it was.
Upon seeing the trailer, I was worried. The humour looked forced, the character of Ben wasn't how I'd imagined him at all, and Q soundessed the book up. I was wrong.
Paper Towns follows the adventures of Quentin, a senior year high school student, and his neighbour Margo. Q long admired Margo, but never had much to do with her. Until one day, when she shows up at his window in the middle of the night.
Margo takes Quentin out for a wild night of adventure, before mysteriously disappearing the next day. This leaves Q longing for answers, and so he sets off on a chase to find Margo. In doing so, however, he finds much more then he could have bargained for.
Upon seeing the trailer, I was worried. The humour looked forced, the character of Ben wasn't how I'd imagined him at all, and Q sounded frankly bored. Going into it, I was apprehensive that the filmmakers had messed up my favourite John Green novel. There was no need to be.
In The Fault in Our Stars, the audience was left crying. In stark contrast, Paper Towns shined as a feel-good coming of age flick. There was a disappointing six people in the theatre I was in, and yet even that number had the place ringing with laughter.
My favourite thing about the movie would have to be the chemistry between the characters. Remember how earlier I said that I never imagined the character of Ben as he looked in the movie? By the end of the film, I felt like he meshed perfectly with the other two friends. I instantly bought the friendship of the three boys, which is testament to how well they seemed to click.
You may also remember how in the trailer I found the humour rather lacklustre; not so in the full film. The jokes which seemed awkward in the trailer were pulled off effortlessly in the film, earning a few good chuckled from the audience. The atmosphere that the actors really were just a bunch of good friends going on an adventure rubbed off on the audience, and had them laughing as if they were part of the friend group themselves.
I only have one complaint on this movie, which is the ending. Skip the next two paragraphs if you haven't read the book.
The theme of the novel was that we must "imagine people complexly," seeing them as humans just like us even if they seem more then that. Nobody's perfect, and everyone has some of the same feelings.
As well, in the book Margo totally stops Q in his tracks when he does eventually find her. She enforces the above theme of the book by more or less rejecting him, showing the reader that the idealized person Q created in his head wasn't really Margo but a figment of his imagination. Then we have the movie, where we just had to have the hollywood ending where they share a passionate smooch.
As disappointing as that was, the rest of the movie made up for it. Unexpectedly funny, well cast, and overall well-made, this movie will have you smiling for a good ling while. 8.5/10

Thanks for reading,

-Mark

What I Would Do if I Had Five Minutes to Post

Shit! RUN!

Thanks for reading,

-Mark

What I Would do if I Could Invent a New Medical Tool

There's nothing like having a cold that you just can't kick to motivate you to think about improving medicine.

Personally, since I'm slightly asthmatic, any cold I have always ends with my lungs full of phlegm. What does that mean? Well, it means that my lungs feel about a quarter full, I always have to cough (and nothing much helps that), and I usually cough up lots and lots of gunk.

The solution?

A lung vacuum!

Please! I would love a tiny, tiny tube that I could stick somewhere that would not damage my vocal folds (I guess that's probably the tricky part) and get all of this uncomfortable gunk out. Any of you in a medical engineering profession, take note.

-Laura

What I Would Do if I Was Sick in Bed

I have a love-hate relationship with being sick.

The hate is obvious. I mean, come on. Do I really have to explain that part? 

But for anyone my age, being sick also means that you have the chance to miss school. As luck would have it, summer school still has two days fight left in it. Make that one day for me.

I've got a bad cold, with the usual fever, runny nose, slight cough and fatigue. It's not too bad, really- in fact I might have gone to school if I'd felt any motivation. That, however, has been lacking. I mean my teacher already gave my class their final marks! Where's the logic in that?!

Anyhow, what it boils down to is me typing away on my ipad in bed, struggling to keep my eyes open. I don't even know if it's my post today. I don't frankly care.

When I'm sick, my day usually goes a little something like it did today...

7:30

I woke up at seven to the sound of Green Day as my alarm. I rolled over, shut it up, and fell back asleep.

10:00

I woke up two and a half hours later, realized that I couldn't go to school even if I wanted to, and smiled a little smile.

It was at this point I realized that my dad took his laptop to work, and cursed because the story I wanted to work on is on there.

10:15

I got Laura to call the school to say I wouldn't be there. Why they need to know these things, i don't know.

10:30

I started to text with the girl I'm dating. As it turns out, all they're doing at school is watching movies.

10:45

Continued reading "The Thief Lord." Page 100!

11:30

YouTube. Why don't my subscriptions post videos more often? Thankyou, Vinny, for being the only one to do so.

12:15 

Clash of Clans. I'm starting to get bored.

12:30

Blogging time! I've got nothing better to do.

12:50

Sigh. I'm getting near the end of my post.

I'd wanted to use today to work on the short story of mine I was telling you about a few posts back. Alas, my dad stole his laptop away, and so I'm left doing... well, nothing really. On that cheery note, see you later!

-Mark

What I Would Do if I Had Deep-Fried Oreos

If Edmonton is the festival city, then I'm a disgrace.

I hardly ever attend the events in and around Edmonton. I'm away for so much of the summer, my family isn't interested in going, and you only seem to hear about these things when they're already over. Therefore, today was the first year I went to K-Days, a huge fair which I'd been hearing great things about for years. The bottom line?

They had deep-fried oreas, and I'm tired.

-Mark

I promise I'll expand on this tomorrow.

(A few days later)

I didn't... I'm sorry.

What I Would Do if I Submitted a Short Story to a Competition

I write lots of material asides from blogs. Who knew, right?

A few weeks ago I found myself searching for writing inspiration, in the form of writing competitions. Over time I've looked at many, many such competitions, but have never entered any of them. Usually there's something to dissuade me, such as
1. The contest being USA only.
2. There being an entrance fee which I'm not willing to pay.
3. The competition only accepting a genre which I don't have any experience in.
4. There being an age limit, or
5. Age is open, which means that I'd be competing with much more experienced writers then myself.
 So when I look for writing competitions and I find "The Erotic Fiction Writer's of America's Annual Poetry Contest" which has an age requirement of 18+ and a 50 dollar entrance fee, I know it would be stupid to enter. Unfortunately, contests such as that are abundant.

In fact, I'd never seen a contest that didn't have one of those problems. Until a few weeks ago.

The competition I found is everything I could have hoped for. First of all, it's a Canadian contest with no genre or entrance fee required. Just as important, my age group is accepted. In fact, the age is 15 or under, which means that I'd be right at the top of the group. Finally, the category is a short work of fiction, which I can do. I've tried short stories a few times and quite like the feel of them.

So now, finally, I've found a writing contest that I can and will enter.

I've already had my story written for awhile now- what with the word limit being 750 words or under, the actual writing process took a remarkably short amount of time. Now, it's just the editing and revision to be done. Already that's taken tenfold the time it took to write the actual piece.

With that said, I have some editing to do!

Thanks for reading,

-Mark

What I Would Do if I Created a Blogger Book Club

My punishment is long overdue.

Way back in May, when the punishment rule was still in it's infancy, I missed a post and Laura assigned me The Thief Lord to read. Thus far, I've completely failed in doing so.

I do have a half excuse, which is that I haven't yet found my families copy, and so reading it has been a bit of a challenge. Still, it's high time I gave the book a read, and so for some extra incentive I've decided to create this little book club.

Every Tuesday that I post, I'll make sure to have read at least fifty pages of the book, rounded up to the end of the next chapter. Each Tuesday I'll briefly discuss it on the blog. That way we'll be able to slowly work our way through the novel over the course of the next few weeks. 

Now, I'll be honest when I say that we don't appear to have any regular readers at all here at What I Would Do, which is truly quite tragic. That said, if you are reading this then feel free to join in my reading quest! We'll discuss the novel together in two weeks time.

Thanks for reading,

-Mark

What I Would do if I Took Weekends Off

I'm going to use this post to announce a change to our blog. 

Mark and I both feel that our creativity is being drained by writing this every other day, and the quality of the posts is dropping exponentially. As a result, we've decided to take weekends off so that we can try to plan over weekends rather than writing a post an hour before midnight each night. We'll give this a try to see if we can get back into the blogging groove. 

-Laura

What I Would Do if I Entered a Short Story into a Competition

Find out... tomorrow!
(Laura can't post, and I'm waaaay too tired. She'll forgive me, if she ever finds out.)

What I Would Do if I Took CALM in Summer School

I'm in summer school. That sucks.
It's now been nearly three weeks since summer was snatched away from me, which means that I only have to endure another week and a half before I'm free to frolic in the summer sun. In the meantime, though, I must endure.
To be fair, summer school really isn't too bad. Each and every day I'm making new friends, getting to know people, and getting used to the idea that summer is, for me, shortened. I get to do gym all day, and when I'm home I can work on a short story I'm planning to send to a competition. Life is good.
Well, except for CALM.
Oh, career and life management. Thy name is CALM, and thy belief is in torture. Nobody likes you.
For those of you who don't know, CALM is basically health class with some actually useful shit thrown in- namely resumes and managing your finances.
Now, I have conflicting feelings on CALM. On one hand, it's pretty damn boring. We've already heard a lot of the material, and the new stuff gets old quite quickly. On top of that, some of their classes send mixed message, and I'm starting to think that my school wants me to do drugs.
A few days ago, a guest speaker came in and gave the usual spiel on drugs and avoiding them. That's fine, I suppose. Drugs do seem like a pretty bad idea. Soon enough, though, the dude left and we were sent back to our classrooms. There, we were given a worksheet on drugs. We were to choose four drugs, and then answer some questions about them. Most were usual questions like "what does the drug do?," but others were a lot like this;

1. What are the street names of          ? Okay, I suppose I can see how that might be useful.
2. How is             made? Umm... okay. Why do we need to know how drugs are made? Do you expect us to be making them? What are you getting at here?
3. Describe how            is taken (Smoked, injected, snorted...?). Wait, what? Why do we need to know how to take drugs? What are you trying to teach us?

So the first thing CALM taught me was how to roll marijuana into a cigar and smoke it. Great job your doing there, school.
On the other hand, CALM does seem like one of the few potentially useful classes that I'm taking. Resumes and budgeting might be important in the future, I suppose.
Unfortunately, my teacher doesn't seem to think so. A true gym teacher at heart who was forced into teaching CALM, he basically said "CALM's boring, so here's what we're going to do. First, we're going to skip most of the curriculum and just do the basics. That way we'll do it in half of the time everyone else is doing it in. We can use that extra time to go to gym class. Also, you guys should feel free to copy off each other. That way you can learn to work together."
So basically, fitness is more important then getting a job and my teacher is encouraging us to cheat. Something seems weird there.
Still, I don't mind too much. It will be nice to get it done with. In the meantime, though, we're supposed to finish CALM tomorrow, so... gotta run to my homework!

Thanks for reading,

-Mark

What I Would do if a Banana Snuck into my Room...

The credit for this one goes to my wonderfully imaginative charges for the summer. Only young kids would ask me a question that - weirdly - worked for a blog post:

"What would you do if a giant banana snuck into your room at night and woke you up and covered you in bananas."

To backtrack and explain, the kids discovered a few days ago that I loathe bananas. I hate the scent. I hate the texture. I hate the taste. It's so gross. It's like mucus in a peel.

Anyway, here is my answer to the question:

1. I would scream.

2. I would run to the bathroom and shower for at least an hour, until the banana scent was totally gone. I'd need to feel clean before I could proceed.

3. Move to the arctic, to a remote area where bananas are not imported, and live a blissful, banana-free life.

-Laura

What I Would Do if I (Gleefully) Punished Laura

Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha...
Teeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheehee...
Hohohohohohohohohohohohohohoho...
Yuckyuckyuckyuckyuckyuckyuckyuck...

Laura, your last punishment was brutal. Vegetarianism for a month? That's a tall order, even if you did give me five years to complete the task.
Luckily, I get to have my revenge early. You missed your post yesterday, and today I'll be having no mercy.
You remember What I Would Do if I Listed my Top 15 Green Day Songs? I worked for days, yes days, on that post. Thousands of words, dozens of links, and even a few pictures thrown in make that post by far the most thorough I've yet made. True, that isn't saying much considering many of my posts, but still.
With all this in mind, most would think that you would have read your brother's work, Laura. But no. You told me that it was just "too long," and until today I've had no way to force you into reading it. Now, all of that is going to change.
The following is your punishment; You must read the aforementioned post. Now, just reading the descriptions of the songs would be boring, and I don't want that. Therefore, I've devised a way to make it more immersive. As well as reading the post, you must listen to- in full- every song on that list through the links provided. That's the top fifteen, the honourable mentions, and the extra song at the end,
But wait! There's more!
Since writing that post, I've discovered many more catchy Green Day songs which I'd like to share with you. Don't worry, you don't have to listen to all of the new songs- even I'm not that cruel. You just have to listen to the best of them. Those are Amy, Going to Pasalacqua, Stay the Night, and When I Come Around. Just four more.
Now, you may think that my punishment is harsh. And it is. Again, though, it's nothing compared to what you're subjecting me to.
One last thing before I go, though. I am behind on your punishments, and so this punishment of mine does not need to be completed until I finish reading The Thief Lord.

Happy listening!

-Mark

What I Would Do if I were a Dung Beetle

Ah, I'm behind in the blogger world. I forgot to post two days ago, and the post before that isn't even fully edited. To be fair, I only didn't post because I had summer school followed by a party that lasted from 3:00 to 12:30, but punishments must be given. Oh, well. I've got some punishment catching up to do now.
But onto the question at hand!
If I was a dung beetle, I'd have a shitty life. :)

Thanks for reading,

-Mark

What I Would do if I (Gleefully) Punished Mark

Oh-ho! Someone has missed his post again! I offered a fair trade: a free post for him in exchange for a future free post for me. Unfortunately, he did not accept my deal. Therefore, I must think of a particularly gruesome punishment.

Here are my ideas:

1. You must go vegetarian for a month. (I started with eternity, then a year, and finally narrowed it down to a month. I am so nice.)

Yeah, I spent some time trying to think of a second idea to give you a choice between them, but I actually couldn't. So, vegetarian for a month it is! The plus side is that it can be thirty days of your choosing between now and your twentieth birthday.

-Laura

What I Would do if I Defended Dandelions

In my childhood home, I would always know the second spring had actually arrived. How, you may ask? Well, because of my father's anguished cry:

"They're back!!!"

Yes, he was referring to the beautiful, bright yellow weeds that had popped up all over our lawn, bestowing a bit of cheeriness to the sneeze-fest that grass brings. I am allergic to grass, which makes me slightly biased, but that's not the point.

The point is, what's not to love?

I would not suggest trying to drink nectar out of the bottom. My older sister told me it was milk when I was a child. Drinking it was not a wise decision.

However, that's really the one downside.

I mean, it's really a happy plant that livens up the dullest of lawns (assuming it doesn't kill all of the grass).

The cheery yellow colour can stain your skin if you rub the dandelion heads against your arm: free, natural dye!

I also hear that dandelions can be pretty good in tea and salad, but I'm a bit reluctant to try that after my last attempt at ingesting them. I'd much rather admire them and the beauty they bring to a lawn.

Of course, though, the best part is when they die and turn into balls of fairy dust. I think everyone has tried to recreate this iconic moment:

If you haven't, you're lying, you had a terrible childhood, or you're boring (sorry).

You spread the seeds and make a wish. Nothing is more satisfying than watching the dandelion seeds fly away on the wind or your breath.

So, I'm sorry, dandelions, that you get so little love. I think you're pretty great.

-Laura

What I Would Do if I Reviewed "A Long Way Gone"

Today, it's time for some shameless self-advertisment. 

A very few of you will know that What I Would Do is far from my first attempt at blogging. In fact, over my illustrious blogging adventure I've worked on six or seven sites. Most of these were dismal failures, true, but a few run to this day. One of those, and the first blog I ever independently worked on, is the imaginatively titled Mark's Book Blog. You see, I write about books. On a blog. My name's Mark. Pretty self explanatory, really.

I was writing a post for Mark's Book Blog awhile back, when I had the bright idea to squeeze some extra use out of it. What I Would Do always needs new posts, I thought. Thus, we have the original post over at Mark's Book Blog, and this little piece here to give you a taste of my other work. 

Now, let's dive right in.

................................................................................................................................................

 With some nonfiction novels, the subject matter seems so extraordinary that one feels the author must have made something up. I knew from the start the A Long Way Gone was supposed to be true, 
but this didn't hit home until I started reading. The action was nonstop, near-death experiences began to compound and through it all I was left shaking my head and wondering how the story could possibly be factual. 


A Long Way Gone follows the struggles of a twelve-year-old boy throughout the Sierra Leonean civil war. In Ishmael Beah’s bestselling memoir, we are given a first-hand account of the unstoppably destructive nature of war, and it’s affect on youth. Although the book is full of oppression and suffering, that is not it's main focus. A Long Way Gone is a triumphant celebration of the indomitable spirit of young people through oppression.

I've never before read a memoir as fast-paced as this before. True, that's because I haven't read any memoirs asides from A Long Way Gone, but still. Starting off at a jog, the novel transitions into a run just a few pages in and breaks into a full sprint as it approaches the climax. During the rare occasions when the momentum losses steam, you have only to wait a few pages for the slack to be picked up once again. 

On the one hand you might want to complement the author for his storytelling ability, and Beah is legitimately skillful in his craft. That said, it would be hard to mess this story up, as it's chock full of interesting material which (as previously mentioned) never lets off steam.
The number of horrors Beah went through is astounding. Starting off in his home village, he is chased for months through the African bush while rebel and government forces savage the land. Separated from his family, Beah had only himself and a handful of old friends to count on for support. Multiple times he finds himself at gunpoint, with the luckiest things saving his neck.
Finally, it seems like Beah's days are numbered when he finds the village he’d sought shelter in surrounded by rebel troops, with only a small government force to defend him. That defending force offers him and the townspeople a single choice; join the government forces or take their chances with the rebels. Suddenly, Beah finds himself a child soldier, and his life will never be the same.

Now, with all of this in mind you start to wonder what the author's feelings on the matter were and are. The interesting thing is, the authors voice is passive throughout. Perhaps once in the entire novel does Beah interject and share his current thoughts on the horrors he experienced; asides from that, we’re kept in the dark on his current thoughts. He shows no self pity or self loathing. He tells the story how it was, with little bias on any matter. This to me is incredible, considering what Beah went through. First his home and family were lost, then his childhood altogether. Beah spent two years of his life in a drugged, warlike state with no other thoughts besides getting another drug dose and getting revenge on his family. Yet still, he shows no anger at what had been done to him. 
It was interesting to read this story as a counter to fictional war stories I’ve read. In those stories, there was always a keen sense of remorse throughout the entire journey, and the hero is portrayed as the hero unconditionally. There are clear lines between good and evil throughout. Beah on the other hand didn’t seem to have too many thoughts of right and wrong after the first conflict. Completely brainwashed, he only acted on a kill-or-be-killed mentality. There was no hero, no good or evil. Only the living and dead.
Though like any book, there were still faults to be found. The most nagging question in my mind would have to be my doubts on the credibility of this book.
As I said earlier, the plot of this book could have come out of a movie. I might have accepted one or two seemingly miraculous circumstances in this book, but when they started to compound I began to have some doubts. For example, at one point Beah says he found himself lined up with a group of friends, about to be shot through the head. Right at that moment a hail of gunfire distracts the gunmen, allowing Beah to escape. Later on in the novel, Beah learns that his parents are alive and taking refuge in a nearby village. He and his party set out to that village, but literally minutes before entering it’s attacked and Beah is forced to run once more. Two incredible stories, but ones which I find hard to believe.
Another thing that could distort the facts would be the drugs that Beah took while serving as a soldier. These may have caused some details of his service to be obscured or embellished. Perhaps he even confused dream with reality, in such a fragile mental state as it seems he was.
I did look the book up to see if anyone had similar thoughts to be, and it turns out that one Australian newspaper called the book out for being inaccurate. Among other things, the village he lived in was supposedly attacked two years later then what he said in the book, which would have made the storyline much more condensed then he said. Perhaps he served in the army for months rather then years. Still, the Australian newspaper seems to be alone in it’s claims, and so for the moment I’ll suspend disbelief and imagine the story as true. 
Asides from that potentially crippling hiccup in the A Long Way Gone saga, I have few complaints with the book. However, I would warn a potential reader that it ends quite abruptly, and I think that an additional 50 or 100 pages could easily be tacked onto the back of the book. As well, the novel zips along so quickly that at times you do feel that more explanation is needed, and sometimes you also want more comment from the modern Beah on his previous self. He tells the story; he doesn’t go into deep thoughts and feelings.
All in all, this book is well worth a read. Although I have unsettled feelings about it now that a seed of doubt regarding it’s credibility has been planted in my head, it does make a fascinating account of war from a fresh perspective. On top of that, I inadvertently gave it my seal of approval when I stayed up till 1:00AM reading the thing, and if that doesn’t say something about the book, I don’t know what does.

Thanks for reading,

-Mark





PS: That was not the original text. The original post was entitled "What I Would Do if I Endured Another Punishment," with that post being located below. However, I took advantage of Laura not having seen that post yet and wrote this new one in a bid to evade my punishment. Let's see if Laura will read this far!

What I Would Do if I Endured Another Punishment

I know that I still have to read that book as a punishment, but I'm afraid you might have to give me another one, sis. Do your worst!

-Mark