What I Would Do if the Genie in the Lamp gave me 3 Wishes

Everyone who had a decent childhood has seen disney's Aladdin. There are so many loveable moments in that movie- from the carpet with a personality to Abu to the music. Although perhaps not the best moment in the movie, one that certainly stands out- and has been the root of the most conversations, I'm sure- is the scene where the genie first comes out of the lamp and gives Aladdin three wishes. Who hasn't wondered what they'd do in that scenario? Before I dive into what I personally would do, let me set some quick rules.
1. No wishing for more wishes. No, not even using all of those loopholes that you can come up with. No asking to be able to grant yourself wishes, no asking to be a genie without all of the shackles and chains that come along with being one, no asking him if he could pretty please give you a few more because you're really a super nice guy. We'll assume that the genie is smart enough to realize that this is cheating.
2. Also, no curing diseases or stopping all of the worlds problems in one fell swoop. I suppose we can accept donating to charity or giving money to family members, however.
3. This isn't a rule, just an observation, but why didn't Aladdin cure the world of all pain and suffering with one of his wishes? He only helped himself to get a girl and the girl to get away from her father. Aladdin was greedy!
Oh, and one other thing… he totally didn't need all of that prince stuff. If I remember correctly, she fell in love with him before he even found the lamp, correct? Anyways, on with the show.

1. I'm going to have to use the loophole that I set into rule two. If I can't cure the entire world of pain and suffering in one go (which I'm not even sure I'd want to do, for some reason. It not only seems like cheating, but how are people going to enjoy the happy things if they've never known everything else? You need to eat your vegetables to appreciate dessert. Actually that's a lie, but you get my point), then I still want to do something useful wish my wish.
And so I'd donate a bazillion dollars to everyone I knew who I thought would actually use the money for good. They can help improve the world, if I can't directly.
2. You know how in the Sims games you have those little skill bars floating over your sims' heads to track their skill levels in certain areas? I'd love to be able to know exactly how good I was in something, although preferably I wouldn't be notified by a glowing bar above my head. Imagine it, with 0 just starting the skill and 10 being a world renowned master. Somebody tell me that that wouldn't be cool. I would also be tempted to ask the genie to stop my skills from ever going downhill, so that I was constantly improving. However, then I'd feel like I was cheating. That probably counts as two wishes, besides.
3. And, although this is terribly cliché, I would still want to set the genie free. I mean, he's helped me out quite a bit. He deserves something in return! Besides, if I was super nice to him, then he'd probably feel he was indebted to me, which means… more wishes! We could help each other in that way. I seem to remember that they made an Aladdin TV show, and that the genie was always helping Aladdin out in that, even though he was free. So why not save the genie?

Aladdin has to have been one of my favourite disney movies (although Hercules probably tops Aladdin, partly because I really hate the "I can show you the world" song). In the end, the genie has to be the best character, and one of the reasons that I remember the movie so fondly. Just a quick note before I go, however. A few years ago, I read the actual Aladdin story, and I still remember it being a wonderful book. Just throwing that out there. Unfortunately, that's the best way I can think of to round this one off, and so...
Thanks so much for reading,

-Mark

What I Would do with $1 000 000 II

As requested, this is my version of what I would do with one million dollars. I'm going to use Mark's parameters for this. As a reminder, they are:

1. No charitable acts. Everyone always gives half there money away to charity when asked this question. I would to [sic], but I find that this question limits the creativity you can have with this one. So charities are out.
2. No buying houses. To[sic] expensive. In fact, I'm outlawing anything costing over $250 000.
3. No putting it away in savings accounts or into the bank.

 Yeah, Mark, you took my main ideas. However, as a student, I'm going to add more cheating parameters because my thoughts immediately jumped to this:

1. No putting aside money for tuition.

2. No putting aside money for rent. 

3. No putting aside money for groceries or medication.

So, now that I've established that, this is what I would do:

1. Buy a duckling. Ducklings are adorable. They snore. They ran after you with their little webbed feet pitter-pattering on the ground. They think you're their mom and follow you everywhere. In fact, I want two ducklings. The first is going to be named Doodlesac, and the other will be Pipes.

2. Stock up on items (necessary little expenses) that add up. These includes things like deodorant, dental floss, soap, toothpaste, shampoo, heat protectant for hair, etc.

3. Get a massage. Lord knows I could use some stress relief.

4. Buy homeless people coffee and dinner. New people every day! (Does that count as a charitable act? It's not technically a charity. I'd also want to give away money to my family members... does that count? Or maybe I can just buy them really expensive gifts or gift cards.)

5. Bring Ollie (my adorable, perfect cat) to Halifax with me. He isn't allowed near Doodlesac and Pipes, but I still need him. Oh God. I don't think I'm near $1 000 000 yet. This is hard.

6. Travel around the world. I'd take a year off and just float from city to city and write in cafés and people-watch every day. That would be incredible. 

7. I really hate to say this, but maybe go shopping. I hate the act of shopping. But I do enjoy new clothes and shoes as well as the next person. That would be very fun.

8. Put aside a gas and coffee fund. Kinda cheating, but deal with it. 

9. Maybe buy myself a car. It feels like a big thing to get, but it would be cool to get a very nice compact one with a heated steering wheel and good music. 

10. Go to the theatre all the time! I want to see musicals and operas and anything worth seeing!

11. Fly home all the time! Weekend trips to Edmonton! Yay!

12. Buy books and notebooks (yes, cater to my disturbing journal addiction). I'd especially want to buy music books! 

13. Install shelves in my room. I love shelves. Think of all the books I can fit on them!

14. Buy fuzzy socks and blankets. 

15. Hire an assassin to take out my sister's boyfriend. (Okay, this one's a joke)

16. Buy some really pretty furniture and dishes and things to make my apartment very homey. 

17. Pay for my friend's rent. She's such a good person. I'd love to make her life a little easier. 

18. Buy lots of music on iTunes (especially now that I'm learning about medieval music, which I never thought I would like). 

19. Go out for dinner once a week so that I don't have to cook. 

20. Hire someone to do my dishes. 

21. Create a custom robot of myself to stand in for me when I feel like being a hermit. 

Okay, I'm still not sure I'm at a million or even close. But surely the robot would be expensive? Maybe I should save on money and just hire a bodyguard to karate chop anyone who tried to invade my space while I was having alone time.

Good enough? If I get complaints from you, Mark, I may struggle to think of more things. But these are the ones that popped into my mind. 

-Laura

What I Would Do if I was a Soldier

As much as some people think that they're crazy, I really respect soldiers.
These people put they're lives on the line in order to attempt to save other people. I'm friends with one person in my grade who wants to become a soldier, because he feels that you can either sit around all day doing nothing or actually try to make a difference in the world. And I get that.
I personally don't have any plans to join the armed forces, because I think that my family would kill me a lot more surely then an enemy sniper would. As well, everyone knows that one day I'm destined to be rich and famous, and a military career may set me back a few years to achieving that. However, today I'm going to explore what might happen if I actually did decide to become a soldier...

1. When it came to training, I'm sure I'd have a tough time. Sure, I'm relatively fit, but the consensus seems to be that military training is brutal for anyone. As well, I've noticed something about myself, when it comes to things like school fitness tests; I'm fit, and I can usually get up to the 80'th percentile in my class or around there, but sometimes I feel like I'm still not really trying. there I am, at level 9-1 on the beep test, and I know that I could keep going, probably all the way to ten if I really went for it. The problem is, I don't have the will to keep going. I settle for 9-1, because I don't want to go through the pain of running any longer.
And I'm ashamed of this, because how am I ever going to achieve anything if I don't push myself to my limits? I think this would be a problem in the military, because I don't think anybody would let me quit. I'd just have to suck it up and keep running. As well, I've never fired a gun in my life, so I'd also be behind in that regard.
2. If I managed, somehow, to make it through training, I suppose I might have to actually fight someone. And that's where the pressure would come flowing in.
And I mean, I'm stressed enough before a soccer game! What would it be like if I knew I might lose my life?
To me, it seems like the pressure would just be multiplied when you factored in your fellow soldiers. Not only are you yourself at risk of being shot, any mistake you made could lead to the death of a comrade. It would ruin my life, trying to live that down.
3. And you know what? When it actually got to the fighting I do believe that I might turn tail and run. Because I'm not brave. I'm just an ordinary kid.

Let me put this all together for you, folks. I am just your average Joe, really. And then on the other hand of the spectrum, you've got people like soldiers, who willingly risk their lives to help others. You here these amazing stories about soldiers leaping on top of grenades to stop the shrapnel from killing everyone around it, or medics going alone under crippling enemy fire to drag back an injured comrade. And you have to ask yourself, could I do that?
Soldiers seem like superheroes to me. I suppose that we have to realize, however, that as incredible as they seem, they are just human as well, with human problems and feelings. Sometimes it's tough to wrap your head around that.
And so, soldiers, thank you for all that you do. You keep my country safe, and for that I am eternally grateful.

Thanks for reading,

-Mark

What I Would do if I Were a Pigeon

Pigeons are hugely misunderstood animals. Maybe that's why I like them so much.

If I were I pigeon, I would work very hard to change my image. I would:

1. Bathe regularly. People seem to believe pigeons are filthy and covered in diseases. Jerks.

2. I would be friendly towards people. They sure don't seem to appreciate it, but can you blame a bird for trying?

3. I would attempt to get vocal lessons from a more musical bird. Sure, my cooing is cute and adorable, but it would be cool to learn to sing as well.

4. Flaunt my beautiful feathers. Pigeons are so beautiful. There are the white ones with tan spots. There are the typical ones with ridiculously shiny almost purple neck feathers. There are one with dark spots of all shapes and sizes. If only people looked at pigeons more carefully.

5. I would fly around all the time. Flying is something that I would want to take advantage of.

6. I would avoid all scary things, such as glass buildings for me to stupidly crash into, poison, spikes... sheesh, people are very unfriendly towards pigeons.

7. Avoid pooing on people. Maybe they would like me more if I were more careful with my aim.

Be kind to pigeons, my friends. They're really very nice, understood birds.

-Laura

What I Would Do if I Could Fly

Like most of the posts on this blog, this is something that almost everyone has thought about at some point in their lives. In fact, this is such a common thought that I think that we might have already talked about it on this blog. I'm not sure (I didn't want to check in case we had already done it and I had to think up a new prompt), but we might have. Just throwing that out there.

I've always thought that flying was a bit overrated, but perhaps there is something to be said for it...

1. If I could fly, the main thing I'd do would be fly. Loops, dives, twirls, the whole lot. I'd race birds, skim lakes with my toe as I flew over them, shoot a thousand feet up and then dive back down. It would be pretty cool.

2. One thing that I would be happy to do would just be to cruise along the ground with my mouth open, like a dog hanging his head out of the window. Imagine the wind whipping your hair! The only problem would be bugs flying into my face.

3. Unfortunately, I would also be constantly worried. Remember the Wendy-bird from Peter Pan? What if some hunter thought that he'd found some large crow? It would be the end of me.

4. Also, I'd be freaked out about planes. In the Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets video game, Harry and Ron nearly have their car torn to bits by a passing airplane. An innocent flying human would be at risk as well. 

5. And biggest problem of all would be the media. I mean, you make one wrong move, somebody gets a picture of you, and the next thing you know the CIA is trying to capture and research you. It would be terrible.

And so, in short, I still think flying is overrated. Yup, it's another happy post from Mark!

Thanks for reading,

-Mark

By the way, Laura... I challenge you to the million dollar prompt, with the same restrictions. I'm curious to see what you'd do.

What I Would do if I Were Locked in a Shark Tank with a Shark

To anyone who knows me well, this comes as no surprise; I absolutely HATE the ocean. I hate the salt. I hate how deep the water can become. I hate the fact that there are millions of creepy things just floating around. I hate the fact that everything in the ocean is terrifying and dangerous (I used to have sea cucumbers as the exception to that rule until I found out that they shoot poisoned stuff out of their butts). The ocean is huge and terrifying. I like it from the shore, but actually being in it? Not really my thing.

Now, I know that sharks are supposedly not so scary. I am perfectly fine with the existence of sharks. However, in saying that, I really, really would not want to be anywhere near one.

As a result, I have several solutions to the above scenario:

1. Inhale water until I drown. That's better than being eaten alive, right?

2. Close my eyes, sing to myself, and slowly swim in circles. In other words, totally take myself somewhere else and just hope that the shark will leave me alone. Hopefully being calm will make me less interesting to said shark.

3. Scream for help and hope someone saves me before I become dinner.

Yup, those are pretty much my only options.

Here's hoping that I never end up in a situation like this!! (This is probably why I prefer living somewhere landlocked... there are no sharks on prairies or mountains)

-Laura

What I Would Do if I had $1 000 000

Cliché to the max, I realize. Still, it's a question that many of us consider. What would we do if we were up among the wealthy and glamorous? Would we be charitable, or miserly? Well today, I'm going to screw up the whole system, and set out some guidelines for myself. They are as follows;

1. No charitable acts. Everyone always gives half there money away to charity when asked this question. I would too, but I find that this question limits the creativity you can have with this one. So charities are out.
2. No buying houses. Too expensive. In fact, I'm outlawing anything costing over $250 000.
3. No putting it away in savings accounts or into the bank.

Okay, that's it. Now onto the list.

1. I'd buy a zero-g plane ride. Thought you had to be an astronaut to go to space? Think again! For only $4, 950, you can book a trip on a plane that makes repeated dives to simulate zero gravity. I'm in.
2. For about $150 000, I could buy a home bowling alley. I only bowl about five times a year, but still... who can say they have a home bowling alley?
3. Speaking of sports, I wouldn't mind a ping-pong table. Good ol' Walmart has one for just $150.
4. Still speaking of sports, you can buy a 14-day lift pass at Lake Louise for about $800.
5. Did you now that you can buy a legit soccer field for about 100 000 dollars? my house is going to be a sports centre, I'm telling you. I could start a business.
6. Of course, to play soccer, I'll need a soccer ball. That'll be about $25 000 dollars for a nice, Fifa approved soccer ball. Oh, wait... thats $25 dollars. But wait! I'll need more then that! I'll take 100.
7. I know that Laura likes to write, and I know that Julia likes her pens. And so for next christmas, I'd get them each a nice pen. How about the "forbidden city fountain pen?" Those clock in at about $42 500 dollars.

You know, I'm not sure I'd want to have that much cash. It would be terrible trying to figure out what to do with it. Let's say that you had $100 000 000 dollars or something like that. You'd want to donate a whole whack load of it to charity, of course... but which one?
I feel like if I was in that situation, I'd feel guilty no matter what I did. That money could save thousands upon thousands of lives, if it was spent correctly. but what if you backed the wrong charity, and they weren't as effective at life-saving as another charity? Your mistake might mean someone lost their live without need to. And then if you still had a bunch of money, you'd feel guilty that you hadn't used what you had left to help other people. It would be terrible.
Well, I sure made that take a turn for the worse. Sorry about that. Until next time, thanks for reading.

-Mark

What I Would do if I Could Change Public Dancing

We've all been there.

That awkward school dance. That bar or club. That "fun" dancing event.

You enter a room and are suddenly surrounded by crowds of people (who may or may not be drunk). You stand there for a moment, overwhelmed in shock. Am I supposed to do that too, you wonder? What is this awkward bobbing motion with waving arms? Why is everyone just... jumping? Oh, wait, there's that one awkward couple there just sort of swaying together. Oh, and a couple of friends holding hands. Oh, and that guy... air grinding someone. Maybe I can just awkwardly bob my head in this corner...

Yeah, you've probably realized by now that dancing is not really my thing, but can you blame me? The dancing we now do is... well, boring.

Tonight, I had an epiphany when I went square dancing in a church.

Yes, you may think this sounds lame, but hear me out. In the past, dancing was always such a social thing. The music wasn't so loud that you couldn't hear the person next to you. My grandparents met at a dance, in fact. Or else, think of Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth in (the good version of) Pride and Prejudice! Dancing was a huge part of life because it was so different back then. Dancing was a chance to meet people and to have fun!

Group dancing is wonderful. Live music makes everything feel so much more special. You meet new people and bond quickly as you struggle through the steps that the caller is trying to get you to do. You get new partners and dance with dozens of people, all with smiles on their faces. It's exercise, it requires a little bit of thought, and the best part is that no one is judging you because everyone is just there to have fun.

Why don't we dance like that anymore? Why is dancing so individualistic or just plain sexual now? Why has dancing moved from something that is just fun and social into something that is unvaried and lonely?

I wish that group dancing was still something that we all did. I would love to change our whole society's view on dancing and get us back into that sort of a lifestyle. I've always hated dancing, and even I enjoy this dancing.

So, I encourage all of you... give it a try!

-Laura

What I Would Do if I was a Fly

Remember Fly Guy?

To those of you who never had the good fortune to read about Fly Guy, Fly Guy was a fly who flew around in a cape and had a human friend. That's all I remember, except that he had pretty awesome books written about him.

Besides that one fly, I've never really cared much for flies. They make an annoying buzzing sound. They land on stuff. Worst of all, they're extremely difficult to kill. Laura made a post awhile back on what she'd do if she were a turkey on thanksgiving, and now I'm going to copy that. However, I'm going to downgrade my creature, to something very small, very gross, and very troublesome...

1. I feel like, as a fly, I'd enjoy taunting the petty humans by landing on a surface, seeming like an easy target, and then buzzing away the second before they're newspaper came crashing down. For hours, I could circle around some pour soul's head, buzzing away but never allowing myself to be brought down. I'd be the scourge of the picnic.

2. I'd also want to make some waves in the larger human population; I could get myself on camera, jumping up and down on keyboard keys to type out a message. I'd become the first world-famous fly.

3. As a fly, I'd like to make use of my beautiful wings. I'd zip around my area, bouncing off windows, climbing to great heights, and then divebombing to the ground. I could start a fly circus, and we could travel the world. Everyone would know about Mark Jones's flying fly circus, with the flies flying in formation and acting out great airplane battles.

However, I'm afraid that that is all I'd be able to accomplish in my short fly life. They only live for a few weeks, right? However, I think I could rest easy, knowing that I would forever be remembered as THE fly, and the great scourge of the human race.

Thanks for reading this rather weird post,

-Mark

What I Would do if I Could Switch my Gender

Imagine, for a second, that you were offered a choice; not to go through surgery to become the opposite gender, but to have been born that way in the first place. It would be painless, and it would be a complete change in every possible way. Would you want to do it?

For me, the answer is simple: absolutely not.

This is why:

1. It would be so weird to have something dangling between my legs. No thank you. I don't even understand how that thing logistically fits sometimes. Also, it must be annoying to have it randomly pop up at inopportune moments. No, I think I like my physical structure much better.

2. While I may consider switching genders just so that I could potentially be a baritone or a bass (or actually have good audition monologues or engaging roles to play in theatre productions), I figure that I need to push that dream aside. Besides, I imagine that it wouldn't sound nearly as beautiful in my head as it would listening to it from afar. Therefore, I may be better off just finding a flock of baritones to speak to me. 

3. What is the point of being a part of the "privileged" gender in our beloved patriarchy? It takes away all of the challenge and the fun of being more intelligent than a man. Alright, I'm joking on this one (at least mostly). I don't want to get all aggressive-feminist on you (I love feminism so long as it fights for equality, just to make this clear). No, my point in this is that while men may currently have certain privileges over women, I have hope that this will change in my lifetime. At any rate, I have a chance to continue to work towards this, and maybe I wouldn't be as interested in the issue if I were not directly affected by it. The undeniable truth is that there still is sexism in our society, and while I'm lucky enough to live in a country that is quite kind to women in comparison to others, I can still see how things could improve. Not being wolf-whistled at just for walking on the sidewalk would be nice, for example. My point is that I enjoy being a woman because I get to prove that sexist people are wrong about me. 

4. I enjoy being "feminine". I enjoy feeling like a badass too, of course, but I like to think that I can be both badass and a woman. However, my point is that I like things like dresses and high heels and earrings. I love nice-smelling soaps and flowers. I like that I can wear high heels and floral patterns one day and a bomber jacket and combat boots the next. I get a lot of variety in my life, friends. I also enjoy the parts of me that are often (unfortunately) considered to be girly traits. It's unfortunate that some traits are compartmentalized that way, but there you are. For example, I'm a very emotional person. That can be irritating, sometimes, but other times I feel very blessed. If that is, in fact, something that comes with being a woman, then I am okay with that. As for you emotional men, God bless you. I am so happy that you exist, and I would love to meet more of you.

5. I like the way I think. There are lots of studies that like to go on about the differences between the male and female brain. I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on the subject, but I like the way my own mind works. 

6. I like that I have the ability to have children. Men get to be fathers, but being a mother is something else. You get to have your child growing inside of you for nine months. Sure, you may have aches and pains and need to vomit and finally have to painfully shove out a baby from a hole that is really too small to take such abuse, but it sounds like it's worth it, to me. I am so excited for when I will hopefully one day get to be a mother. I can't wait to feel my child moving inside of me, or get to talk and sing to "myself" for a valid reason.  

7. Women generally live longer. This reason may seem ironic considering that I struggle with depression, but, assuming that I am not miserable my whole life, I wouldn't mind a few extra years. 

There you are: seven reasons! Of course, I'm biased because I am a woman. I'm sure it's wonderful to be a man as well, but, having not experienced it, I am perfectly content with being born in the gender I am. 

-Laura

What I Would Do if I Recounted my Acting History (and Why Joining a Play is the Best Thing You'll Ever Do)

My school has just started rehearasals for the school play, and am I ever exited.

There are three big reasons why I can't wait for the next rehearsal:

1. The school play this year is Sherlock Holmes, which I found out literally days after watching the final episode of the brilliant TV series Sherlock

2. I landed the role of the great detective himself

3. And for the past two years I have been in, and loved being in, the school play.

My friends, being in the school play these past three years has honestly been... well, I hesitate to say life-changing, but definately the highlights of all three of my school years. I'll go over why in a few minutes, but first I thought I'd breifly sum up my illustrious acting career. 

It all started in about grade 2. My elementary school was putting on a school-wide production in which every single person of the school participated in. I'm sure it looked terrible, because the way they did it was they split up all the parts between about twenty people, some of which came on in groups of five. Oh, well.

The play was, I believe, A midsummer nights dream, and me and four or so other kids were assigned the role of the elf king. Orion? Oberon? I think the second one, although I'm not sure. I don't think that we were playing a constellation.

As old O_____, we had only one line to all say at the same time. It was something along the lines of "But look! Joe Blow comes hither!," and when we said this we were all supposed to point at Joe Blow. The problem was, nobody ever told me which way Joe was coming from. And so the way it ended up was, Joe would enter to the right as everyone pointed at him, while meanwhile little Mark pointed left. Yup, my acting career was bright from the start.

After that, I didn't really have the chance to act until junior high rolled around. Then in grade seven, I decided to follow in my sisters footsteps and join the school play. I was extremely exited when I got one of the three male leads... and then I realized that only three guys auditioned. Hmm.

Grade eight, I managed the lead again, partly because nobody male in grade nine auditioned. I still beat my best friend, though, who then became the villain. The grade eight play was a lot of fiun, even if I did have to pretend to kiss a girl who had a boyfriend while wearing bright blue tights.

And then grade nine rolled around, and I managed the lead once more while my aformentioned friend made the villain once more. Acting wise, life is good.

However, I'm sure that some of you reading this are wondering why I would ever audition for the play in the first place. That's easy; Laura had been in a few plays by then and they all looked like smashing good fun. Of course, I wouldn't have auditioned grade eight and nine if I hadn't enjoyed the previous years. So what made me stay? Five reasons.

1. Everyone in the play is super nice. I don't know why, but the ratio of nice people to mean people seems much better in the play then out of the play.

2. Perhaps because of the above, the actors in the play beome an extremely tight-knit group. 

3. It's fun to pretend to be something your not! Who else can come home and say, "Hey mum! Today I stopped a super-villain from destroying the world!" And also, I swear that some of the character your playing rubs off on you. I play some super-confident, awesome dude, and I honestly beleive that I become more confident and awesome.

4. They bring in cookies to rehearsals. Mmmmm, cookies...

5. You create so many stories and experiences for yourself. For example, in the grade eight play I had just learned that the cruelty (a magical object we were trying to find) was hidden in shreikwood forest (It was a lame play, alright?). Unfortunately, on performance night I had my lines completely down, and I wasn't even thinking about them. Unfortunately, that meant that once or twice I slipped up on a word, and that night I really failed. Instead of saying "The cruelty lies in shriekwood forest!" I said "The cruelty lies in cruelty forest!" Oh, man. I still crack up thinking about that one.

In other words, it's a blast.

I have the time of my life in the school play. Rehearsals don't feel like work- they feel like paradise. I'm just now entering the bliss period of the school year. This last weekend I was feeling kind of down, feeling like I wasn't doing anythiong, and like nearly everything I was doing was a waste of time. I wanted to do something useful, and yet everything useful seemed boring. But now... life is good. Everything's coming up roses, and I wouldn't want it any other way. So I implore you... join your school play. Join the play today. It's lots of fun, eh? I'll stop now. Okay?

Thanks for reading,

-Mark

Some Quick Notes

Pssst! It's me. I'm trying to be really quiet. It's not my posting day today, and I don't want Laura to hear me sneaking this extra post in. I don't think she'll notice, do you?

I just wanted to say one or two things really quickly concerning the blog. First of all, you may notice that occasionally one of my posts is chalk-full of typos, even more so then my average post. I swear, there is a reason for this besides my bad education. 

For christmas this year I received an iPad mini (yay!), and I was super exited about this because I could attach a keyboard to it and write on it. I could even download the blogger app and post from there. The one problem with all this? The blogger app doesn't seem to pick up typos, which is especially painful because it's fairly difficult to type on the smaller, iPad keyboard. Also, if I'm typing on the iPad it usually means that I don't have access to my dad's laptop, which usually means that it's quite late at night and I'm sneakily typing, which usually means that I don't have the energy to do a decent read-through or the alertness to pick up typing errors. So I'm sorry about that.

Also, I feel that I should circulate out there that I'm making an archives page, which will be organized in a different manner then the archives bar and will hopefully make it easier to navigate to the post you want. If it's not up within the next few weeks, kick me.

And... that's it! See you next time.

-Mark

Oh! There's one thing I forgot to mention last time. If you're observant, you will have noticed that some posts say that the person who posted was Alan Jones. Well, if that's the case then it means I wrote the post on my dad's laptop, where I'm signed in as him. Hope that clears things up. See you!

What I Would do if I Could Eliminate One Human Emotion

That's right, folks. Today I am tackling a difficult question: if I could eliminate one human emotion, which would it be?

Well, let's think about this. I'm assuming I'd want to get rid of a negative emotion, so let's discuss.

1. Sadness: as someone who is well-acquainted with depression, you'd think that this might be the first emotion I'd want to toss out the window. Sadness is draining, whether you experience it for a reason or consistently for no reason (yes, that's depression, among other things). However, shockingly enough, this is not an emotion I'd want to get rid of. The main reason why is because I believe that sadness is a key factor in allowing us to be empathetic beings. If we didn't feel sadness and all of the other negative things that go with it, I think it would be much harder for us to be prompted to help others. For example, if I see a homeless man on the street, if his situation didn't make me sad, would I be prompted to buy him lunch? That's a bit of an exaggerated example, but you get the idea. If empathy isn't a good enough reason to experience sadness, then I suppose we can always resort to the old, irritating reasoning that we appreciate the ups of life more after experiencing the downs. If we didn't feel sadness, would we ever experience a sense of catharsis? Would we appreciate art? No, sadness definitely makes the cut in my books.

2. Guilt: again, this is an emotion that I think can actually - in some ways - be a good thing. If we feel guilt over a certain immoral action, we'll probably avoid making that mistake again. Guilt prompts us to reflect on our actions and work on making ourselves better people. I won't deny that guilt can be a bad thing if you feel it irrationally, or if it makes you squirm in self-loathing, but I think that the positive results of guilt may be worth the negative ones. Guilt is a valuable learning tool.

3. Anger: anger, irritation, and frustration are all very annoying. They eat away at you a bit, or can make you do or say things that you may regret. However, I think anger may be healthy in a way as well. Anger can motivate us to right a wrong. Anger can motivate us to succeed. Anger isn't always positive, but sometimes accepting negative situations and using anger as a release can be positive. Anger is not as high up on my list of negative emotions to spare because I hate feeling angry (and I hate how it can lead me to hold eternal grudges), but I can still somewhat admit that it has its positive points.

4. Envy: now we're getting closer to the bottom. Envy is one of those totally non-constructive emotions that can lead a person to act in not-so-great ways. It's a waste of energy, as well. However, the one positive thing that can come from envy is the motivation of self-betterment. I'm not a fan of this emotion, but it still makes the cut for that reason.

5. Doubt: this one is one of my least favourites. When I say doubt, I really mean self-doubt. Self-doubt can ruin things big time and make life unpleasant overall. The one positive thing I can say about doubt is that it keeps people from becoming egomaniacs, though, and that may actually be worse in my books.

And so, without further ado, the winner of the worst and most useless emotion is... embarrassment!

I cannot even express how much I hate this emotion. I think this is the leading cause of self-doubt, and a significant cause of other negative emotions like sadness and anger. I am embarrassed very easily, myself, and what's the point? Embarrassment comes, you hate yourself, you want to run away and hide in a hole.... how on earth is this a helpful emotion? It is absolutely useless! I have yet to see any good come from it. Take it away!

Anyway, if anyone besides Mark or the Russian robots reads this, I would love to hear opinions on what the worst emotion is!

-Laura

What I Would Do if I had 1 Year to Live

(Note; although I'm making light of the situation in this article, I understand that for some people this horrible situation is a reality. This post is not meant to gloss over that fact in any way, and my thoughts go out to those of you who do have to go through this.)

I'm still a young, healthy guy. At fourteen years old, I'm going to cross my fingers and hope that I'll still be around 90 years from now. This seems rather far-fetched, I realize, but given advancing medical technology and a history of long lifespans in my family, it seems more and more likely that I'll make it past 100. In fact, I plan to go further, and live to 108; my great-grandmother fell shy of that mark by a month, and I'm detemined to beat her. 

But what if that future was taken away from me, and I learned that I wouldn't get to see my 16'th birthday? Naturally, my world would be shattered. But I wouldn't let it go to waste.

The first thing I'd do would be ditch my family and friends, lock myself in a room, and wrote a book about my experiences. I'm publishing a book if it's the last thing I do, damn it. With any luck, this would instantly become a bestseller, which would allow me to fund my tour.

Tour? What tour, you ask? Well, I'm going on a nation-wide tour, spreading my tragic story to youth such as myself. I'm going to die, and what an amazing person the world would be losing in me ;). What can I do to the world to make up for the loss of me? I can drill into every kids head that if I won't get a chance to change the world, then they sure as heck better do it for me. I'll make them feel really guilty if they don't do something awesome for the world, so that if they're ever lying on their death beds with a bazillion regrets in life, they can look back and think "that dying kid told me to do something with my life. I sort of messed up on that one, didn't I?"

I'd be a motivational speaker who made everyone feel guilty. I'd try to do some good in my final moments.

Finally, I'd call NASA up, and tell them that my last request was to go to space. I'd guilt them into flying me up. And then I'd wave a final goodbye to my family, and soar up into the stars...

Then a few weeks later, I'd say my final words in space. I've always wanted my final words to be worth remembering, something that future generations can look back on and instantly tell from them that they'd have liked the guy or gal who said them. The best thing? I'd know the exact date I'd kick the bucket, so I could prepare some great last words that actually would make it to the history books. My famous last words of "I don't know what to say!" would go down in history as the best last words of all time. Except for maybe "They couldn't shoot an elephant from he-!" (said some general just before he was fatally shot).

Thanks for reading, 

-Mark.

What I Would Do if I Could Write a Letter to Peter Jackson Concerning the Latest Hobbit Movie

(Note: this of course contains spoilers, so watch out. It also won't make much sense unless you have a pretty decent memory for what went on in the movie, because I tend to talk about some fairly specific moments. Anyways, enjoy!)

Pete,

It's me again. I promised I'd send a followup letter to my last one, and here it is. The bad news? I'm afraid that I'm going to have to be just as critical in this letter about your movies as I was in the last one. I hope you can understand.
You'd done a lot of setup for this movie- the dragon ending last time, the conflict between the orc and Thorin. You'd put us through two movies of preparation- I'd hoped that maybe the third movie might begin to make up for the first two, terrible movies. Of course, I was disappointed.
Let's imagine the very beginning of the movie, shall we? We've got the dragon, bursting forth from the mountain, ready to rain death and destruction down on the people of lake town. It takes the audience a minute to remember all that had went on with the dragon in the last movie- after all, it's been a year since you built up to this climax. The tension had rather diffused.
Still, we're at the climax now. The audience is just remembering all that hinges on whether or not this dragon can be destroyed; and then, just like that, the dragon is dead. Oh. All that buildup for nothing, I guess. Pity the dragon couldn't have taken discount Grima Wormtongue with him.
Now that the dragons dead, at least we can move on with the plot. We're taken to Thorin's new palace, to find a triumphant, happy Thorin.  But no! Inexplicably, Thorin has gone mad. That sure escalated quickly. He was fine last movie. Oh, well. Because here come the people of lake town asking for aid, and an army of elves asking for something or other. And yet Thorin decides to be an idiot and deny all of there requests. Seriously, though, I don't know why the elves didn't just take they're thousand soldiers and kill Thorin right then.
Soon, however, it's too late. About three more armies come marching in... And only then does the movie truly go to shit. Excuse me if I have to rush through why. There are just so many fails.
Where to start, where to start? I suppose the place to be would be when the dwarf army and orc armies first meet each other in battle. The elves seemed to be being stubborn and idiotic, but then they decide to join the fight at the last minute and literally leap over the dwarves heads. Overly dramatic, much? Don't these people realize that over-the-top effects, drama and hollywood-ness aren't appreciated?
That particular instance isn't so bad. Naturally, though, you can't learn from your mistakes, can you Pete? Next thing you know you have giant freaking worms popping out of the ground, writhing around for a minute, and then leaving. What? What's with the giant worms, Pete?
Your entire battle just has multiple, small instances that undermine it's quality. This might seem pretty knit-picky, but you have the shot of all of those trolls smacking the ground at the same time. Overly dramatic, unrealistic stuff, again. And then we have that random dwarf dude defeating enemies by head-butting them. We've talked about this, Pete. Cut the random attempts at humour.
I might have been able to forgive these things if you'd stopped there, and didn't do any more lame humour or over-the-top action. Instead, you made it worse.
As soon as the lead dwarves arrive on the scene, it goes insane. Lets start with the deaths of the hot dwarves. They're running up a mountain for some reason or another. Suddenly, one of them gets wind that about 100 goblin scouts are coming the dwarves way. Two dwarves say "We'll take care of them!," and guess what? The next scene all of the goblins are magically dead. The case of the invincible heroes strikes again.
And then the two hot dwarves decide to run into some building by themselves, and then to split up. Next thing you know, one has a sword through him, with the other soon following. They don't really get proper deaths, as I recall. Just "Take that! Your dead!" And you know what? I don't really care. Because there were so many dwarves, I'm almost happy some of them are gone. Less names to remember, at least. I don't even remember the hot one's names. Now I just need to remember who's Buffer and Biffer and Bamber and Bambie, and who's Snoopy and Gloopy and Sneezy and Wheezy...
Anyways, they're dead, and thats fine. Now we get to see two more epic fights, each with there own moments to make you groan while cradling your head in your hands.
Let's start with Bolg and Legolas.
I don't really remember too much of this fight. I remember that Bolg was rather hard to kill, though. Why is it that two dwarves can kill 100 bad guys between them, and that doesn't get a second of screen time, where as bring one "boss level" bad guy into play and he's invincible? It doesn't make sense. At least in The Lord of the Rings, the numbers of bad guys seemed somewhat manageable, and people actually got hurt fighting them. If they had guys that were harder to kill (and there were only a few of those) there was a reason behind it. The cave troll was a troll, but it took the entire fellowship to take him out. The Balrog was a crazy demon dude, and they barely defeated him. Only at the expense of a characters life did they manage to do so. Lurtz (I think that's the Urak-hai's name) and Aragorn had a fairly long fight, but it still only took a minute of decent action. No CGI, either. Borimir was taken out, and, incredibly, it wasn't one single boss dude that killed him. Sure, Lurtz fired the arrow that killed him, but that could have been anyone.
In the Hobbit, however, only boss level orcs kill people. Normal bad guys are easy, and then two are nearly invincible.
So Legolas and Bolg have a good long fight, and then, for some reason, they start fighting on a bridge. This bridge somehow survives falling over a chasm, and yet Legolas trips and falls on it, and it starts crumbling. Again, what? It survives falling over, and then touch it once and it starts crumbling? It doesn't make any sense!
And then- oh me, oh my- possibly the most stupid movie moment of all time comes to light. The part of the bridge that Legolas is on starts crumbling- so what does he do? He runs up falling bricks, of course. Because, physics!
But wait! This movie has even more to offer! Now comes Thorin into the picture fighting Azog, and it's almost as bad as the Legolas fight. Thorin kills- I swear, completely kills- Azog, and he falls under the ice. He floats underneath the ice for about fifteen seconds, dead. And then he somehow finds a good foothold in liquid water, pushes himself up through five inch thick ice, ignores his wounds, and then kills Thorin. Just let that sink in.
Bot of those fights were terrible. Long, drawn out, and unnecessary. It's like if you showed the entire Gandalf VS Balrog fight. It wouldn't make any filming sense. Although, in truth, I would like to known how Gandalf got from fighting the Balrog in some cave underneath Moria to the top of a mountain, still fighting the Balrog.
Pete, I'm surprised that nobody in your cast and crew told you what a mess you'd made. It was just... pathetic, really, and I'm sorry I have to say that. It's just the way it is.
Do something, though, for me. Could you please tell the movie making people that I'd still be open to more Lord of the Rings movies? You've really messed up the Hobbit. Maybe somebody else could do a better job.
Thank you, though, for reading this letter. I hope I didn't make you feel too bad, and I half hope you'll keep making movies.
Regards,

-Mark

What I Would do if I Could Write a Letter to Peter Jackson Concerning the Hobbit Movies (Part One)

Dear Pete,

I love your work. I really do. Anyone could tell you how wonderful the Lord of the Rings movies are- and indeed, they're the best movies that I have ever watched. The sweeping landscape, the depth of Tolkiens universe, and the acting all combined to make your film a masterpeice. However, in your latest endevours, you've fallen rather short of my expectations.

When I heard that you were going to be making movies based on the Hobbit, I was definately exited. I could relive the magic of the Lord of the Rings!... Right? But no. No, instead of releiving the magic, I was left sitting deflated in my seats for all three movies, and that's putting it lightly.

Lets start at the first movie.I havn't watched this movie since I saw it in theatres- I didn't really want to. Now, however, I've refreshed my mind with a quick trip to CinemaSins on Youtube. It stirs up some bad memories,

The first thing; the random attempts at being fu7nny. I mean, what are you trying to do, man? You kill somebody and they have time for an amusing final line? Dwarves are breathing flies in and out? Whats with these random jokes thrown in? I'll tell you one thing; I don't like them. This is a Lord of the Rings story, an epic adventure about a small hobbit beating all odds and becoming a huge hero. And you've put in random dwarves breathing flies in and out. Why? Also, when they fall into goblin town, they fall about 100 feet. And they're fine. Why is that?

Speaking of goblin town, the goblin king is practically identical to the leader of Laketown. I swear, you used the exact same character model for two people. Cheating!

One other thing that hurts you throughout this entire trilogy? The fight scenes. You try to make those funny, too, what with dwarves knocking people out by headbutting them and smacking dozens of people of bridges with ladders. It's not funny, man. It's stupid.

As for the second movie, you actually do all right for the first couple of minutes. And then they go into the that escape from the elf town and... well, it goes downhill from there.

I ask you this: who's idea wa it to have them escaoe in barrels? Tolkiens? Well, that might have been okay had it not been for the orc attack. When the dwarves are throwing swords to pin orcs in mid-air, and none of them are getting injured except for the one hot one, the watcher tends to lose interest. And then... I don't even want to talk about that one part. You know, the part where the dwarf-in-a-barrel somehow gets onto land and then skips, hops, and completely denies the laws of physics to knock over about fifty orcs? I mean, what? The action sequences just fail. And your still trying to make cheap jokes. I think that this is summed up best in the words of the cinema sins guy; "Movie wants to have a sense of danger in some moments, but in othe moments do this sh*t." Couldn't have said it better myself.

And then, you have a few minuted of half decent movie before we get to the dragon bit. Because, just say'in, the dragon scenes are mostly garbage. Lets run around and maybe somehow the dragon will miss every shot! Let's cover the dragon in molten gold, and them have him shed it off like water! I may have said it before, but... WHAT?

Pete, I'm to riled to finish this letter today. Besides, the third movie is bad enough to desrve a letter of it's own, and so I'll stop here. In th meanwhile, I'm sorry to be so harsh. 

Thanks for reading this letter,

Your sort of fan,

-Mark

What I Would do if I Fired Mark from this Blog

Hello Mark, myself, and friendly Russian robots,

I thought that I would write a response to Mark's post from yesterday, because I saw the title and expected the worst and was pleasantly surprised (i.e. "Laura, I quit! Your blog is stupid and I'm sick of thinking of random, boring hypothetical situations. I'd so much rather spend my time doing whatever the heck else fourteen year old boys do."). Anyway, I hope Mark sees this title and thinks "Oh GOD, I've been fired" and then is also pleasantly surprised.

This is what I would do if I fired Mark from this blog:

1) Probably stop posting. Mark keeps me accountable. You might hear from me once a month, at most.

2) My posts would probably become worse and worse. My brother is five years younger than me (well, four years and about eleven months minus two days if you want to get specific) and - besides some spelling/grammar things - is probably far better at writing than I am. In other words, I can't let myself slip when he's co-writing because then it will make me look truly pathetic.

3) Probably call him five minutes after firing him and beg him to come back. I would grovel, sniffle, probably wave my bouts of depression and current ailment of the stomach flu in his face to play on his sympathies, etc.

4) Cry and drown myself in hot chocolate.

So, no, Mark, I am not firing you.

-Laura

What I Would do if I was Fired From this Blog

I've had a stressful last two days. You remember that first post I did where I broke the conventions of this blog and wrote about how awesome Alberta was? Well, in the post after that, Laura said (albeit jokingly) that if I did it again, I'd be "fired" from this blog. And two days ago, I broke the pattern again. And so... I might be in trouble.

But Laura, I'm here to tell you today that you really shoudn't fire me from this blog. It means so much to me. If I was fired from this blog, I don'y know what I'd do. Well, um, maybe I do...

1. I'd constantly be kicking myself for not writing enough. I want to get good a writing. I want to develop a voice, I want to learn writing discipline, I want to write good stories. I want to get ahead of the game while I'm still a young'n. And it would seem that there's only one way to do that; do lots of reading, and writing as well. I heard somewhere that the six sacred rules of writing were read read read and write write write. And without this blog or NaNoWriMo, I don't always have the motivation to regularly write. This blog keeps me on track.

2. Besides, if I was kicked of this blog, 45% of our blog's veiws would disappear. After all, the only people veiwing the blog are me, you, and our friendly spam robots from Russia. The spam robots like me, to. You couldn't find any other writer to replace me who's writing was as inconsistant, childish and badly written as mine.

3. If you fired me, our friendship would be over. Finished. Only to be repaired if you bought me drinks at second cup a couple more times.

4. As well, I'd be bored if you fired me. Besides youtube videos, reading, video games, sports and the occasional other knick-knack, I don't do much. I need this blog to feel like I'm doing something productive.

In short, your world, my world, and our friendly Russian robot's world would come crashing down if I was fired from this blog. Please! Spare me!

(Of course, I could just demote you to a contributor to this blog if I really wanted to... ;-)

Thanks for reading,

-Mark

What I Would do if I Lived in Ancient Greece (from a Musical Perspective)

The period of Ancient Greece is a bit of a long time period to cover, and it's full of many interesting things. How awesome would it be to travel back in time and chill out with Socrates or another great thinker (although not Plato... based on my readings for my music history class, he sounds like a bit of jerk)? I would just love to pick their brains, and maybe disprove some common stereotypes about women of the time period. 

Anyway, the focus of this post is going to be music! Exciting, right? I was inspired by my music history class for this one. I'm going to tell you this now... ancient Greek music is weird. The lute is pretty, the aulos not so much, and their notes are especially strange. I guess that they wrote their music based on weird scalar patterns (I can't remember the exact term, but they each had a name like "proslambenomenos") including quarter tones (which just sound horribly off-key to the modern ear). I wince every time. Then, the music apparently either consisted of just a single melodic line (doubled by voice and lute) or else a melodic line over a single repeated pitch in the instrumentals. In short, pretty weird compared to what we're used to hearing. Here are a couple of examples, if you're interested:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RjBePQV4xE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gn7jvHI2kU4

Weird, huh? Cool, but weird. You're lucky I didn't post anything with quarter tones!

The point of this little education session is so that you can now understand exactly what I would do if I could go back to ancient Greece:

1. Wow them all by showing them polyphony. For those of you who don't really know music terminology, this means music with more than one voice/melody line. So, in other words, I might steal their lutes and play a harmony line along with something I was singing. Also, their music doesn't seem particularly tonal (in other words, there's no pitch that you feel an ache to return to; there's no pitch centre!). I wonder what they would think of tonal music? Of course, they might just find more modern (by modern, I kind of mean classical, sorry) music just as strange as I find their music.

2. Come up with mathematical equations for pitches before Pythagoras, just to feel extra smart. 

3. Show them modern opera technique. Of course, I'm still learning, so I'm not really a great example.  However, I have a feeling that sound production was far different back then. I'd be interested to see what they would think of a larger, more balanced sound! 

4. Prove the capability of a woman to perform. Again, I don't think it would be fair to say that I'm really a good example of this since I'm just learning and not all that great yet. However, the slightly feminist side of me is itching to show them that a woman can accomplish just as much of a man. 

5. Teach them a modern notation system. The Greeks apparently had a rough sort of notation system, but very little of their music was actually recorded because it was apparently regarded as something meant only for the specific moment of the performance. However, how lovely would it be to give them a way to write down exactly what they're doing and give them a reason for doing it? Then we wouldn't really have to guess about their performance practices and musical styles to the same degree, because it would already by a part of history!

Anyway, sorry if this got too music-nerdy for you. I just find the subject pretty interesting myself (which is why I'm studying it, I suppose!). The point is, Greek music was interesting, and I would love a chance to see what a musical performance was really like then. I'd also love to exchange musical knowledge. Ancient Greece is a pretty cool place, to be honest. If only there were a time machine!

-Laura

Ramblings of a Tired Boy

Whoops! I'm breaking the formula again. I'm sorry, world. My brain is having trouble forming coherent thoughts at the moment.

If you've read my previous post, then you'll know I spent the last day on a school trip to some log cabins in some God-forsaken woods. To sun up the entire trip in one word; exhausting. It was one long road-race to the finoish line of total mental destruction.

The trip started fairly promisingly. We all loaded into our buses and travelled to the camp. My group was put into a little cabin with a couple bunkbeds. Asides from smears of blood on the wall, it was quite nice. Unfortunately, my group and I were stuck with a pack of 8 grade 8s in our room. That wasn't plesent, especially considering that two of them I strongly dislike.

As soon as we were settled in, we were sent off to do some activities. Archery. Snowshoeing. Horseback riding. All of which were fun, of course. The trip was still looking up at this point, 

And then it was time for lunch, which I suppose I could call a success. My group grilled us up some grilled cheese sandwiches- but we had some difficulties. Why? A demon cat, my friends.

As soon as we dug out the food, the cat appeared. Fat and jet black, Sam (that's my name for him. His real name was Hudson or something along those lines) snuck around the fireplace- and attacked. 

Seriously, you turned yor back for one second, and there was the cat eating your food. Honest to God, Sam jumped on top of our bread, of all things, bit through the plastic, and tried to eat it. Since when do cats eat bread? He terrorized our camp for the entire trip.

Once we'd managed to avoid the cat, however, it was back to activities. This was great and all, but soon the light began to grow dimmer, and still we were being forced to run around and do stuff. And I began to wonder... When do we get a break? 

Supper came and went, with the cat still hovering around our table. And then, guess what? We're forced to do more activities! Sleigh rides, random walks through the dark. These might have been fun, but not only was I now practically dragging my feet from exhaustion, one of my friends decided that he wanted to basically wrestle the entire night walk that we did. 

After the walk, it was about 8 PM. I thought for sure that we'd be sent back to our cabins now to wind down for the night, but no. Instead, it was more games and activities. It was still fun, but seriously, all I wanted was a break!

They sent us back to our cabins at about 10:30, where we were given about thirty minutes to get ready for bed before they made us turn out the lights. I was happy we were getting to bed, but I also had sort of wanted some down time. 

Of course, the grade 8's talk for a few hours, but finally I can get to sleep. The next moning rolls around, and everyone is super sore. Of course, we don't get anytime to rest in the morning- we don't even have time to shower. We're kicked out into the cold to  make some eggs, but of course the eggs cook terribly. To top it all off, everything we cook becomes ice cold the second we take it off the fire. 

After breakfast, do you think we get anytime to rest? Nope! We're forced to rn around and play tag. And I mean, I like tag. I really do. But I don't want to be forced to play it. I just want half an hour to read, or something like thaty. Is that to much to ask?

When the buses finally came, it was a releif. When I finally did get back home earlier to day, I was a bit out of it. I was, and still am, exhausted beyond beleif. Still, I couldn't rest- I had to practice voice, and memorize and rehearse a monologue to audition for the school play, and do homework. The latter two I'd meant to do on the trip, but of course I didn't have time. 

Finally, I was done all those things, but I still had one final thing to do. And that is why I'm writing this now.

But honestly, guys, you have no idea how tired I am right now. I've got to audition tomorrow, and go to voice practice on top of that. Plus, my voice is shot from shouting at the ranch...

And so, I'm cutting you off now. I'm not even going to read this over tonight. Instead, I'm going to finally, FINALLY rest.

Goodnight, 

-Mark

What I Would do if I Could Write School Rules

As a current university student (who has finished my public schooling), I have plenty to say on the topic of the school system. For this post, I'm going to focus on elementary through to high school just for practicality, but I think that many of these ideas could apply to university as well.

These are the rules I would make:

1. No homework. Now, I know what you're going to say. Homework is necessary for learning and blah blah blah. However, I would argue that making school a little bit longer (for even an hour) and allowing students time to complete their work would do the trick. The issue I have with homework is, first of all, that a lot of it is pointless (I could point to countless "fun" projects that took hours and hours of my time when an essay would have demonstrated my learning to an equal extent). Personally, I would rather just stick to what is absolutely necessary. Not everyone learns in the same ways, and I think providing homework options to allow for different learning types would be helpful. Anyway, here is another issue I have with homework: it is hugely time-consuming to the point where it takes over your life. I pulled more almost all-nighters in high school than I have in university so far simply because of the sheer workload I had. Work can be okay, but I believe that it's incredibly important for people - particularly at a young age - to have time to figure out what they enjoy doing. Kids and teenagers need time to just live and figure out who they are. Personally, I would like to imagine that I was something more than just a student up at four in the morning frantically typing at a desk. People need time to explore their hobbies and their passions. I personally see that as something that is far more valuable than doing extra math questions. I would love to place a limit on homework hours if I couldn't get rid of it entirely! Teachers so often underestimate the amount of time doing something will take.

2. Teachers must accommodate different learning styles. I find it so tragic that people are continually labelled as not-as-intelligent just because the way their brains work in ways that are not compatible with the school evaluation system. I understand that this may be difficult, but it's a dream of mine to find a system that is more acceptant of multiple ways of thinking and learning.

3. Teachers must treat students with respect to expect respect in return. I have been in so many situations in which teachers treat their students with blatant rudeness and disrespect. Personally, I feel like respect is a two-way street. It makes me angry to think that just because teachers are in a position of "power", they believe that they have a right to treat students badly. Of course, it's important for students to respect their teachers as well and demonstrate that through their actions. I think that's much easier, though, when a teacher treats his or her students as equals. This is in no way meant to attack teachers. I have massive respect for teachers and what they do. However, not every teacher is good at his or her job. This rant is directed at the bad teachers I've had, with no disrespect meant to the many fabulous teachers I've been lucky enough to meet.

4. Place more of a value on creativity. How many times have I written something because I know that it's what I'm supposed to write (or something that will please my teacher) rather than something I am truly passionate about? I am extremely grateful - in spite of everything - for IB. My IB classes were the only classes that actually gave me some freedom to explore my actual opinions. However, even so, there are some limits. I just find it so sad that schoolwork has to be so formulaic! I don't want to just follow a certain writing pattern or study pattern because I'm told to do so. I want to do what I think will get my point across most effectively.

5. Teachers must be regularly evaluated, allowing jobs to be based on skill rather than seniority. I am honestly shocked beyond belief that some of my old teachers manage to keep their jobs. As I've said, many have been amazing, but there have been some horrendous ones. I could write stories about them all day, but, for example, I've had teachers who regularly insulted the classes, insulted their colleagues, were totally ineffective at teaching the material, or else who just did things that no teacher with a brain would do (some real examples: hitting children who are late with a rubber chicken, calling students horrible names including swears, making racist comments and/or allowing blatant racism and bullying in class, or drinking cough syrup from a jug behind his/her desk). I could go on, but these are a few that stand out. I am shocked that so many amazing teachers are let go due to "seniority". Why is it that teachers are hired based on age rather than skill? Regardless, I think it's important for teachers to be regularly monitored (perhaps secretly once a year - could we make this legal?!).

This turned out to be a little bit long, but this is a subject that can make my blood boil. I think that our school system is overall very good, and I am so thankful for the education that I received. Nevertheless, there are some inherent issues that I would fix in an ideal world. If only it were that easy!

-Laura

What I Would Do if I had to Survive in the Wilderness

Tomorrow, I am leaving you all, to instead enjoy the company of bears and squirrels.
Well, that's not quite true. I'll actually be on an outdoor-education field trip with quite a few humans to keep me company. It'll be an over-night field trip, where I'll be making my own fires and cooking my own food, as well as riding horses, shooting stuff with a bow, and possibly zip lining. Yep, it should be a lot of fun.
It still feels like I'm going to be heading off into the wilderness, though. And that's got me thinking... What would I do if I actually did have to survive on my own, in the winter? The short answer of course, is that I'd die. This next bit is the long answer.

1. Okay, I'm alone in the wilderness, ten billion miles away from any inhabited territory. I have my warn winter jacket and snow pants, some goldfish, and a pack of chocolate-covered pretzels. Now... I survive.
2. The first thing I'd want to do, obviously, is build a shelter. In outdoor ed we were taught exactly two shelters, overall; one of which seems useless and one that might actually be useful. The latter of the two is the snow shelter, as I'll call it in light of its proper name. This one's pretty simple; pile a heap of snow and dig into it. Voila, a shelter.

3. Once my shelter was complete, it'd be time to get some food. Luckily, I'm in outdoor ed, which should aid me in my food gathering. Oh, wait... it didn't. What they've taught me so far is to bring your own food from home and cook it over a fire created using supplied flint and steel. Hmm. We did research animal traps; however, I doubt that the beaver trap I researched could catch a cold, much less a beaver. Plus, I sorta need a fire for meat. Oh, well. Who eats beaver anyway?

4. I suppose that I'd have to scavenge for food, then. Lets see. You avoid the red berries, right? Oh, wait.. it's winter. No plants either, I guess.

5. And so I'm back to hunting. I still don't have a fire, but... I've just had a crazy thought... you cook meat to remove disease, right? Well, if you froze the meat in -30 conditions, wouldn't that kill the bacteria? Of course, then I'd never be able to thaw the meat.

6. Well, I'm just being confounded at every turn. I suppose I'll go crawl into my shelter and eat chocolate-covered pretzals.

7. It seems to me that this is all going in a very bad direction. Well, good thing that it turns out my survival experiance was all a dream! There. The ultimate cheapskate in storytelling.

8. No, I wouldn't actually do that to you. Because, as it turns out, I'm actually miraculously rescued by a helicopter! Happy endings FTW!

Unfortunately, I think that my analysis of how I'd do in a survival situation was prety accurate there. No fire, no food, no nothing. I can only hope that one of the last two points turns out to be accurate, as well.

With any luck at all, this outdoor ed trip I'm going on won't be quiite like that. If I don't post on Tuesday... know that I love you all.

Thanks for reading,

-Mark

What Items I Would Steal from the Harry Potter Books

Like most kids of my generation, I grew up with Harry Potter. It consumed a huge part of my imagination as a child, and it still holds a special place in my heart.

Besides the characters, plot, and sheer wonder of the wizarding world, I've always admired certain magical objects in the books. Some of them may be a bit useless to me (like a magic wand if I have no magical ability) or dangerous (no horcruxes for me, please), but then there are some that I think would be wonderful to own. Here are just a few of my favourites:

1. The Pensieve - How nice would it be to just throw upsetting thoughts away? Or to visit memories and relive a part of your life that you wanted to see again? This is, by far, the most ingenious invention of the books. Can I please have one?

2. The invisibility cloak - I don't want to be here anymore. Oops! Too bad for you, I just disappeared. Or maybe you're talking about something that I really want to hear! Ha! Or maybe now I can sneak into places or buy myself a few hours of solitude.

3. A broomstick - Let's face it, most people like the idea of flying (unless they're scared of heights). Fortunately, I love heights. Bring on the broom! Preferably with a cushion, but I will deal with an uncomfortable stick if it means that I can fly. Think of how much money you'd save on travel: no gasoline required and no airfare.

4. The philosopher's stone - I hate to be this self-serving, but wouldn't it be lovely to have the option to buy yourself a few more years of life?

5. Hogwarts School Books - Yes, this may be a bit nerdy of me, but I would probably kill (or not... more like collapse into a pathetic begging puddle) to read about the magic world. I would particularly like to read the textbooks that they would use in History of Magic.

I think these are definitely my top five items (yes, I am cheating by considering spell books to be a single item). It's amazing... even after all of this time, thinking about the wizarding world still fills me with longing. Still hoping that my Hogwarts acceptance letter got lost in the mail...

-Laura

What I Would do if I Could Travel in Time

Honestly, I like the twenty-first century.
Compared to all of the other time periods throughout history, I believe that right now is one of the best to live in. We've got devices that can improve our ives, and even extend them. We can connect with and travel to anyone in the world. Perhaps best of all, I truly feel like I have the opportunity to do anything that I want to do with my life.
That being said, humans have had thousands of years to surely make certain time periods worth visiting. If I somehow got ahold of the DeLorean, the Tardis or some other time machine, I'd certainly put it to use.

The Past
I'd be very, very nervous travelling back into the past. As has been widely discussed in countless books and movies, the smallest little thing that I did could change the world. You've got to admit, it's interesting to think about. Consider yourself breathing at this moment. Imagine you take a deep breath, instead of a shallower one. Maybe, because of me instructing you to take that breath, you decide that this post is stupid, and you quit reading right now. Let's imagine that because you stopped reading this post, you get to bed a few minutes earlier. The next day, when you wake up for work, you might feel well rested. Because of this you get to work early. Your boss, seeing this, is happy with you, and the next day, he or she decides to reward you by buying you coffee. Unfortunately, on the extra trip to Tim Hortons your boss makes, he or she gets in a car crash. And maybe the person who hit your bosses car is shaken for the rest of the day. When they go to take a job interview later that day, they feel less confident and don't get the job. And so...
Anyways, you get my point. Any little thing could set off a chain reaction of slightly different events, leading to huge changes soon afterwards. Heck, if someone had said "bless you" to JK Rowling after she sneezed, she might have thought about that on a train ride and not thought about Harry Potter, who she said simply wandered into her head one day.
But imagining that I felt safe going into the past, there are several times I'd like to visit.
One of the first things I'd like to do is go back two thousand years or so and see all of the seven wonders of the ancient world. It's a bit of a tragedy that only one has survived to this day; now nobody will ever see what the other six were like. They would be incredible to see.
Another thing that would be interesting to see would be my parents when they were younger. And my grandparents. And my great-grandparents, and their parents, and their parents. What was my family like when they were in high school? Were they very similar to their present selves, or would I have trouble recognizing them on the street? It'd be interesting to find out.
Of course, I wouldn't want to simply observe all the time. There are a few things I'd like to change, providing they didn't have any unforeseen repercussions. There are two instances that jump most quickly to my mind. One, I'd like to go back... oh, I dunno, probably five or six years ago now, and tell my dad not to go driving at a certain time on a certain night. My dad, my sisters and I were driving someplace to do something or other (very descriptive, I know) when the car in front of us seemingly randomly slammed on the brakes. We stopped in time. The car behind us did not. Our car was rather messed up- as was Laura's back.
And although this is probably a little underhanded, I wouldn't mind going back in time with a gun and knocking out certain tyrants in the past. The one problem I can see with knocking off certain baddies is this; if they hadn't risen to power and done atrocious things, how would the rest of the world learn not to repeat their mistakes?

Future
Naturally, the true appeal in time travel is the ability to go into the future. I'd have less reservations about going into the future then the past; going into the past is like resetting everything. Going into the future is just continuing the game.
Unfortunately, it's drearily obvious what I'd want to do if I could travel in time to the future. First and foremost; how are me and my family fairing twenty-five years into the future? Have I achieved world domination yet? How's the health of my parents and grandparents? Do my siblings have good lives? How are my friends and the rest of my family doing? The best thing about all this is that if me, my friends, or anyone in my family is doing poorly, I can go back to present day and give them a sharp kick to the rear to get them on the right track.
Of course, you can't go to the future without marvelling at the new technology. I don't know what we'll invent next, but I do know that it'll be incredible. I can't help thinking, however, that maybe I'd rather have this revealed to me over the course of time? It might take all the fun out of it if I already knew what was coming next.

Yep, a time machine would be a pretty cool thing to have, even with all the risks involved. To me, time travel still seems to be in the realm of science fiction. But hey, Albert Einstein thought that we could, and who'd argue with Mr. E, right?

Thanks for reading, and I'll see you tomorrow.

-Mark

What I Would do if I Could go to Space

Going to space is, I think, the dream of millions of people. Some, like my mother, don't see the appeal- not least because of the dangers involves. For others, however, going to space would be a dream come true. This is what I would do if I could live out that dream.

1. As soon as I found out that I might actually get to travel to space, I would freak out. we're talking running around the house shouting at th top of my lungs, people. Thios is no joke.

2. As soon as possible I'd sprint down to NASA or whatever the Canadian equivalent is. If, that is, NASA is only the US's space agency. Anyways, I'd run down to my local space station and demand some training. I don't know anything about life in space!

3. In the weeks and days before my departure, I'd visit all of my family and friends. Because as much as I hate to admit it, my mother's right when she says that I potentially won't make it back.

4. When the big day arrived, I'd travel as quickly as I could to the rocket. Then I'd jump in the rocket ship, whip out my phone, and snap a selfie. Now THAT would be a keeper on snapchat. 

5. And then, finally... I'd be in space. The dream would have come true, and there'd be nothing more for me to do besides revel in the glory of it all. Screw whatever work I'm supposed to be doing.

6.My first day in space, I'd go completely wild. I'd bounce around the walls. I'd challenge my peers to a round of zero-g dodgeball. I'd squirt bubbles of water into the air and watch them form little bubbles. I'd whip out a nerf-gun and shoot a dart 100 yards across the station. I'd throw a ball, then jump off a wall and try to catch up to it, floating through the air. I would wreck zero-g havoc. 

7. My second day, I'd work on my next goal; internet fame. Remember Chris Hadfield? That dude made a half dozen videos, and suddenly he the hero of all Canadians. Seriously, I had people running around in my school saying "Chris Hadfield for Prime Minister!" If I'm being perfectly honest with you, then you should know I was one of them.

8. In the next few weeks, I would achieve world domination. Then I could look out of the ISS down on earth, and think "that's mine now." I would take over the world without even stepping foot on it's soil.

9. When it was time to go back down, I would do so bitterly. But...

10. WIth the money I'd receive as a celebrity, I'd buy myself another ticket to space, and become a space tourist. The entire cycle would repeat itself. 

11. And finally, I would write a best-selling book about my experiences in space, thus completing two dreams in one shot.

One day, when space travel somehow becomes affordable, I'm going to buy myself my own space station, and I'll live in space. And then, when the time is right, I'll colonize pluto and claim it for my own. Yes, my friends, I have dreams for world domination. Better get on my good side now.

Thanks for reading,

-Mark

(A note- I'm writing this on my Ipad's keyboard, on the blogger app, and one of those two things isn't picking up spelling errors. I apologize if this post is riddled with them, but I promise I'll clean them up as soon as I get my hands on a better writing device).

What I Would do if I Owned an Art Gallery

I think I should start this post with a warning:

Mark, break the rules again, and you're fired!

(Okay, that was a joke. I probably won't fire you. Did I scare you for a second?)

No, my real warning is this; I am not a fan of a lot of modern art. This post is obviously subject to my tastes and opinions, which may differ from yours. If you like a different style of art than me, feel free to laugh at this post and write your own. I promise that I don't mean to offend anyone!

If I owned an art gallery, this is what I would do:

1. Feature local artists. There are so many wonderful artists around us that are just waiting for a big break. Why not give them a chance? 

2. I would not have any horrible modern art. By "horrible modern", I mean something like a painting of "white". You are welcome to obsess over the "different shades of white" as much as you'd like, but it stills looks like a blank canvas to me. I don't understand why you would display something like that, when you could display something that frankly, in my opinion, requires a far greater degree of skill and imagination, not to mention time. 

3. I would include art from a variety of cultural backgrounds. I wish that art galleries could be a bit more eclectic; I would love to see paintings and sculpture from all over the world and read about them. It could be a history lesson and a chance to appreciate beautiful art all in one!

4. I would not insist on putting the art in some disgusting new attempt at "modern" architecture that looks like a piece of machinery that fell apart. 

5. I would want to have a few hours of each day in which there would be a musical performance (preferably classical). Not everyone would enjoy listening to music as they looked at art (which is why the time of the performance would be limited), but, personally, I can't imagine much more inspiring than wandering through a gallery of beautiful paintings and listening to a nice song. I think that music is really meant to go with images; this way, if you're too lazy to think of them yourself, you automatically have inspiration. These two art forms would go very well together. 

6. I would try to include a variety of selections by well-known artists as well. Getting them would be very difficult and perhaps unlikely, so I'm not sure I could promise this one (unless I took over the Louvre or something). 

Just thinking about this makes me so happy. I really need to go to an art gallery. I wonder if there's one in Halifax...

-Laura

A Province-otic Rant

"Whoa!" I hear you say, calling all of your friends and family to gather around the computer screen. "You know that world-famous blog, 'What I Would Do?' One of their writers has changed their format!"

Well yes, yes I have. Don't worry, it's just for today. Deal with it. (Unless it's you, Laura, who's reading this and objecting. After all, you are my employer, and I tremble before your wrath. You don't mind, though... right?)

I just finished reading Laura's post on Halifax, and when reading about the awesome landscape of Alberta, I got a warm, fuzzy feeling inside. Because I love Alberta. I love Canada in general. And so today, I think I'm going to rant about it.

Now, Alberta tends to come under fire for the oil sands, it's dry climate, and it's frigid temperatures. But in it's defence;

• The oil sands are one little part of Alberta. We don't support destruction of the environment,
• When's a dry climate ever hurt anybody?
• And it can get cold, but it can also get pretty darn hot when the summer rolls around. And besides, according to a Coors light or Bud light or Molsen Canadian commercial (probably the latter), true Canadians don't say "let's wait for a warmer day." We can handle the hold.

And now that that's out of the way, lets focus on Alberta's positives, shall we?

First and foremost, Alberta can be beautiful. From fields of golden wheat glittering in the sun to rugged mountain peaks, it's a good place to snap a few photos. And don't forget the wildlife, either! You're bound to see something if you go for a drive around the mountains.

There are also a bunch of activities you have access to in Alberta; skiing, hiking, shopping. Because oh, right, Edmonton has the largest mall in north america. Take that, USA! #EdmontonPride

And frankly, Alberta is awesome because it's home. No matter where I travel, I always end up missing Edmonton. Sure, other places may have a nicer climate, nicer architecture, nicer whatever. And yet in my mind, Edmonton tops them all. It's grey. it's cold. It's not what I would call a tourist town, and for good reason. But I wouldn't want to live anywhere else. (Except maybe Canmore, Alberta. But I'm not going to say that, 'cause I don't want to ruin the sentimental moment).

Thanks for reading,

-Mark.

What I Would do to Halifax

Mark is busy tonight, so I'm filling in! Before I begin this post, I'll just start with a disclaimer: this is all imaginative and fun; I promise that I have no intention of doing anything to Halifax. I love my little apartment, after all. :)

As Mark and I have mentioned in previous posts, I am currently a student in Halifax. Halifax isn't all bad, but it's also not home. It is so humid here (Edmonton is very dry). The first thing I notice when I step off of a plane into Halifax is the feeling of moisture between my fingertips. People who live here don't understand why I find that gross, but I do! There are no mountains here, but there is a freaky ocean filled with sharks and lord knows what else nearby. School is here, which obviously makes me dislike it a little more. Worst of all, though, is that Halifax seems to be a little bit confused about the concept of winter. Yesterday in Edmonton, it was around -27 degrees without the windchill when I left. I arrived in Halifax and it was at least +5 and pouring with rain! I felt like I'd just stepped off of the plane into the tropics.

Point being, this is what I would like to do to Halifax:

1. Send Halifax a firm letter to remind it that January is in the Winter. That means that there should be snow (preferably blizzards that cause snow days) and definitely NO RAIN. It should also not be so wet in general, in my humble opinion, but we can take baby steps.

2. Hit Halifax with a wrecking ball and move.

3. Scratch the one above. I like the restaurants here too much, and the history is also super interesting. Going to Citadel Hill is a lot of fun. The houses are also so different from each other and tend to be very old!

4. Develop and shuttle that runs from my university to the airport. There used to be one last year. It was cheap and quick and beautiful. However, it has been cancelled except for tourist season. In other words, I don't get to use it! I'm still miffed about that one.

5. Create a teleportation pad to take me home every night. (Yes, I'm a little bit homesick. I did just get back yesterday.)

6. Alter the accent. To be fair, it's mostly because I'm not very used to it. However, hearing people say "about" as "aboat", "you guys" as "yez" (in what language does that mean anything?!), and a distorted "a" vowel (it almost sounds shorter and more nasal) drives me crazy! I think people always find other accents a bit strange, though, to be fair!

7. Build an opera house. There are some opera mini-performances or recitals here, but there's no actual opera. I think there needs to be one in every city (yes, I am biased)!

8. Outlaw rain-boots. Let me explain something. Edmonton is semi-arid, therefore no one wears rain-boots (and wearing them usually means you'll get multiple people giggling at you). In Halifax, they're a necessity and day-to-day normal fashion item. I just can't wrap my head around it!!

In fairness, Halifax isn't soooo bad. I do dream of destroying it sometimes (kiddingly), but it's only because I'm dreadfully homesick or depressed. Halifax isn't the problem, though! Every city has its ups and downs (including Edmonton). It's just not home; I miss the prairies that stretch for miles (you should see the sky over them!), the mountains, the piles of snow, and, most of all, my house and family.

If you started school today, I hope you had a good day, and I hope the brief thought of whacking your university with a wrecking ball brightened your day slightly.

-Laura

What I Would Design for Emotional People

If you are not an emotional person, you have no idea how frustrating it is to feel yourself start to cry. The tears start to well up, and then you know it's over. There's nothing you can do. You are essentially  just doomed to cry in front of everyone (not that it really matters anymore, since you've done it so many times). 

In short, it's not fun. Someone tells me about how their dog was put down, and I start to cry. I see someone in pain - even in a movie or tv show - and I start to cry. I connect to something someone says and I start to cry. I say goodbye to someone and I cry. For me, someone says something remotely offensive while I'm depressed and I start to explosively cry. My point is, it's really not difficult to turn me into a wreck. 

The world is not really created for emotional people. Empathy is something that is becoming less and less valued in favour of individualism and self-benefit. Crying is often viewed as a weakness, or something to be embarrassed about. 

Since I can't design an empathy machine to make emotions more acceptable, I would have to find another way to help. This is my idea:

I would build private semi-soundproof rooms in every public building specially delegated for emotional privacy. I would also have little crying huts on public streets. You could just excuse yourself, find a little crying room, and let it out. Wouldn't it be lovely if those were as numerous as washrooms? You're going to cry? No problem. Just go in there and do what you have to do.

Personally, I would love those. There would be no shame and no unwanted attention (as there is in a washroom, which is the current best public retreat for tears). You could just get away and give yourself time to feel better. 

If you don't have issues with feeling too much, you may not find this post very useful. However, I hope you can now rejoice in your luck at not having issues with feeling too much (or at least having the ability to control your emotional reactions). 

Have a good day (that hopefully does not involve a crying room)!

-Laura

Oh, and just a quick note: I completely forgot that since there are 31 days in December, I was now supposed to post on odd number days. That's the reason why we don't have a post yesterday... sorry about that!

What I Would do if I was a Professional Sports Player

At one point or another, I think that all of us have dreamed of being a famous athlete.

Million-dollar paychecks, fame, and a sculpted figure all seem pretty appealing. For me, I - very briefly - wanted to be a professional football (soccer) player several years back. That fell through pretty quickly, but what if it hadn't? If I somehow still grew up to be a professional sports player, this is what I would do.

1. I would work hard in practice, but would secretly hope that I'd be benched for most games at the start of my career. Why would I want to sit on the bench? Pressure. More than anything, I think that pressure would be the worst part of playing a professional sport. What if you made a clumsy slide tackle that earned you a red card and the other team a penalty? What if it was the final match in some big tournament, and it was you that flubbed the big chance for your team to take home the cup? I'm not sure I could live with myself.

2. As soon as I amassed some fame, I'd try to get into commercials. Gatorade, Nutella, whatever, as long as I then got a lifetime supply. How cool would it be to go shopping, and pick up a pack of something with your face plastered on it?

3. Assuming I made 10 million or so dollars a year, I'd try to actually do something useful with it. A lot of really rich people give their money away, but I never really hear of sports stars do so. Of course, maybe I'm just disconnected. If it was me, though, I'd stash away a few million for the next ten generations in my family, and donate the rest to a good cause.

4. I'd read every piece of fan mail that was sent to me, but only respond to the people that sounded like decent, intelligent human beings.

5. To increase my connectivity with my fans, I'd start a youtube channel. I don't really care what it would be about. It would be cool, though, if some sports star made a guide to their sport on youtube. "Hey, I'm Messi, and today I'm going to be telling you the basics of the offside rule..."
Really, why doesn't some pro dude make that? I'd watch it.

For me, I think that I've crossed professional sports player off of my list, and have moved onto other dreams of glory and riches. Until that day when I'm making 10 million dollars a year, thanks for reading. Oh, and maybe if you read this blog now, in my early career, then I can reward you later with a share of my salary... :)

Thanks for reading,
-Mark