Category Archives: Prompts

These are some thought-provokers for you to comment on. This category is made entirely for comments.

iPad Frantic Search

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The following is a true story that only happened a week before the author decided to post it on her blog. Note to reader: This story is ridiculous and funny and may include some jokes of  Westridge Middle School class of  2013. Please read carefully and refrain to eating or drinking any substances that may explode out of the mouth, nose, or ears while laughing out loud that the owner of the electronic device the reader is reading would not like splattered all over it. The reader may also take a moment after each paragraph or each particularly hysterical moment to contain him or her self and calm down. Please enjoy this truly told story and consider replying your own truthful response in a well-written comment below.

Thankyou  for reading,

Ariana

 

It was a slow and painful Friday; the kind that showed yawning students and snappy teachers and threw up several pounds of homework before finally letting you go. The kind that lured you to sleep during class before brewing up an embarrassing moment of waking up to 31 pairs of snickering eyes staring at you. The kind that made you want to either curl up into a ball, fall asleep, and never wake up, vanish into a hole and stop existing, or both. It was a Friday that was so horrible, the only thing that keeps you from dying of homework and waiting forever for school to end was the savoring, forever-sleeping weekend. It was a torturing Friday, the one that would only stop making your life miserable if you had slept early the night before.

I had slept at three in the morning.

I drifted through the first few periods as usual and said good bye to my friends. They would go to Varsity choir, the best of the best, and I would go to Gaming and Animations, a programming class for computer geeks, socializing 8th graders, annoying boys that are too lazy to do anything else for Electives and me. We parted our ways, my two friends humming their Varsity-level songs and me, slouched over a bunch of school junk and stumbling over to my first fun class of the day.

If you are a reader from another country, you may have a computer lab or two and maybe a laptop. Or maybe you have a school laptop like my friend Karen does from Dallas. Or maybe you don’t have a computer at all. Whatever it may be, we had a couple of regular PC rooms and a Mac room. I went to the Mac room. This is filled with white Apple-made computers. I sat in the second seat next to the door next to my 8th grade friend, Claire. Claire is a fun friend. She likes turtles and is very good at programming. We like to listen to music on her phone, each having an ear bud to ourselves, as we worked.

The first thing I did was Codeacademy, a programming website that teaches Java. Java is computer language. It is very hard to learn. You have to memorize lots of stuff. It helps, however, if you want to be an electrical engineer or computer graphics person. If you are interested in codeacademy and learning Java, then click on the blue link to go to their home page. Anyway, we did some Java work then we learned Pivot. Pivot is a program that allows you to animate people, creatures, numbers, and letters into other things. We were required to write our name then turn the name into people who do stuff. It was very fun.

After class, three minutes before the bell rang to go to next period, I decided to play a prank on Claire’s friend’s friend, whom she claimed to sit in my seat. Apple computers have two places where the mouse can be plugged in and the keyboard wire is connected to the back of the computer. I switched the wires of the computer mouse of my computer with Claire’s and took out the keyboard wiring of my computer. Immediately a bunch of warning screens came up. I giggled. Of course Claire’s friend knew we were only playing with her (she was next period in this class). We wouldn’t do anything to bully her. But it was still funny.

After lunch, I went to Texas History. Some people would call it Social Studies, but I like the uniqueness of Texas History (no offense to anyone not from Texas). Texas History is my favorite period, not because of the name but because of the teacher. Ms. Campbell is by far one of my favorite teachers. She has a reasonable amount of homework, she is never angry, she makes history class fun (I didn’t even know it was possible until I met her) and her tests are always not too hard, not too easy. She also has a beginning of year test that you can get no less than a hundred and ten on. It is a major grade, like any other test, and acts sort of like a barrier that protects against any bad grades that may pop up. So far it has saved me from many 70-75 percent daily grade class works and other horrible grades from dropping my big average. I went into her class with a positive attitude like I always do and took my seat.

“Take out your iPads students,” she said and I smiled nervously at myself. I hadn’t studied the night before for my test that day. Woops. But I was a good test taker, especially with tests taken online. That was another good thing about Texas History. We took tests online on our iPads. I wouldn’t cheat of course, but I like how almost all the questions on an online test are multiple-choice or sometimes true-and-false. I always had a chance to get a better score on those than on written tests. I reached under my desk for my iPad. It was not there. WHAT?!?!? I quickly asked Ms. Campbell if I could go get it and hurried away back to my last period, Lunch. Where was it? I sighed. Then I went to the front office to ask.

I asked the front desk first. “Ask a counselor,” she said. So I went to the counselor. “Sorry. Check in your classroom again sweetheart. Maybe it’s there.” I went back down to the classroom glumly and told Ms. Campbell the news. Why did Bad Luck have to ruin my day again? I had to take the test on paper.

 

When I came home, however, it seemed that the weekend had already started and my luck had began to flip over. I found my iPad in my backpack and, confused and relieved at the same time, I checked my grade. I got 88% and, amazed, let out a sigh of relief.

Wow.

 

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Prompt: Broken Toys, New Toys, and Noise Toys

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Imagine you were at a young age and had just earned a  toy action figure. You just got it for your birthday and you love it already. You play with it a lot, knowing that it would be a miracle to earn another toy so fast after you just got this one. You bring it everywhere with you and it gets dirty but you don’t care. You love it anyways.

Now imagine that the action figure’s right leg broke. It was your absolute favorite toy, and you know that it can’t be fixed and you aren’t going to get another toy in a long time. It is your choice to either throw the toy away or do something else with it but that was the only toy you had and you don’t have any other form of entertainment each day.

Would you throw away your toy? Would you mourn over it and bury it or would you clean it and put it in your room? Would you wait for a new toy or would you keep playing with your favorite, dirty, broken one? Would you toss it in the garbage or burn it and have a ceremony for it?

 

Second scenario:

You get the same toy only this time you miraculously get a new, better, and cleaner toy. You love them both, but your mom wants to throw away the old one. She says you already have the new one and it’s time to move on. You love your old toy. You have had a couple of good memories with it, already. You brought it t show-and-tell. You brought it to a picnic. You brought it on a vacation. You brought it to the school playground to play with. You love this toy. It is your only toy and it has gone with you to many different places.

But your new toy is shinier and brighter and a better version and just…newer. You like the new toy, too. It is a better version than the old one. It isn’t coated in dust and full of stains. It doesn’t look battered so much you can’t tell what it represents. It is shiny and new and your mom bought it because she thought it was time you threw away the old one.

Would you throw away the old one? Will your love transfer to the newer toy? Or will you refuse the offer and stick with your life-long companion and never trade your old toy with a new and better version? Will you want both, if you had the choice? Do you like new toys or do you like toys that you have loved as far back as you remember? The answer varies from person to person. Some people think that if their parents buy a new toy for them, they would throw away the old one immediately and eagerly start a new adventure with the new one. Others would shake their heads firmly at the offer, stating fondly that their first toy would remain their only companion. Still others would beg to keep both and soon, if they are successful, have a whole collection of toys in their room, each with their own special memories, and love every one of their toys, refusing to throw away any. Personally, I think throwing away a toy you really love and have had since you were little is like throwing away a big chunk of your childhood.

Commented already? Don’t stop there! Make your own prompts. The point of this is not to simply answer the question, but to reply and ask questions of your own that I can and most likely will reply to and others will, too. Make up another prompt or ask one based on this one.  Then me and other bloggers that have visited my  blog will comment, too, and give some prompts of their own. Then we can start a discussion! Just a reminder: This is not a boring English book discussion. This is for fun and fun only. If I ever have a prompt because of a book, it will be a book I have read in my own free time, a book that I would have thought you would have read because it is a good book. It would not be a class-required book.