By Faith
As a sixth grader, I strive to get great grades. I work hard to succeed in academics, and I concentrate on learning how to sing, play piano, and play violin. However, we all need a break once in a while. Many middle school kids entertain themselves by playing on a smartphone or surfing the Internet. But how am I to entertain myself if I don’t have anything to entertain myself with in the first
place? If I had an iPhone, it would help to entertain myself, to find advice for things, and learn how to do things. I also play many musical instruments, and it helps a lot to listen to how others play a hard song. I have an extremely old iPod touch (specifically, the 2nd generation) and it can hardly do anything. I own a cell phone, but all it can do is call and take terrible pictures or record shot video clips. I frequently lose track of these ancient devices, and I can’t ever find them. I only lose them due to the fact that they can’t even do anything, so I don’t use them. iPhones have a tracking device so that when you lose one, you can get it to sound loudly.
Recent studies have shown that teenagers between 13 and 17 years old have demonstrated a sudden increase in smartphone adoption. In fact, 58% of the American teenagers own a smartphone, compared to the 36% of the teens saying they owned a smartphone just last year. If so many others own a smartphone, then why can’t I? Furthermore, 20 percent of the third graders have a cell phone while 83 percent of the middle schoolers own a smartphone. Perhaps younger children are attracted to smartphones like magnets. (Dad's comment: Source?)
In middle school, you have many projects and homework that require research. In Spanish last semester, I was required to make a presentation about Nicaragua. Most people can’t just remember what they know about Nicaragua. I was one of those people, so in order to make a presentation, I had to do research. If you are trying to find some extra information while on the go and you don’t have a laptop handy, that might be a problem. However, if you have a smartphone, then poof! There goes your
problem! You see, many smartphones can go on the Internet without having wireless connection. iPods
like mine can’t do that. They just can’t. It’s like training an old dog to roll down a slide, run 90 meters,
then cannon-ball into a freezing pool. It’s impossible. So, I need a newer version. Many times when I try to download an app, it often says that it is not compatible with this iPod or that it requires iOS 3 and up or something. I always have to borrow my parents’ devices, and at this point, it’s sort of embarrassing. I mean, I’m in middle school already, and I depend on my parents for the use of a good electronic device. I can’t exactly mow lawns for the money to buy an iPhone because I’m just not that type of person, and selling things will take forever.
I play so many musical instruments, and though I am a sort of violin miracle among my fellow
sixth graders because I have been playing for so long, I have quite a bit of room to improve. When my
private teacher asks me to learn a new section, there is a 70% chance that I will have no idea how it’s
supposed to sound. My only solution is to search up the song on Youtube and see how others play it. I
have a great computer at home, and it is very trustworthy, but I can’t exactly stuff a 2 ½ foot long non-
portable computer in my pocket. If I have an iPhone, I will have lots of memory for me to fill with
downloaded songs that I am playing and other things.
iPhones are a combination of a cell phone and an iPod touch or another similar electronic device. If I have an iPhone, I don’t have to take care of two different devices if I can combine them into one, awesome device. I mean, being a sixth grader and all, keeping track of two different devices is a
huge responsibility, and it is exhausting. It is quite a job, and if I were to get hired to do it, I would be
fired in an instant. I wouldn’t be surprised if when they were seeing what sort of person I was, among all the achievements, there would be a huge article about the “notorious electronic wrecker” and the
“terrible girl who seems to have memory loss every five seconds and can’t remember where she put
things”.
Now, you might argue that I don’t have the responsibility to take care of one, and I will lose it or
drop it, but I won’t. You see I have had my trusty old iPod for about two years, and the colorful, partly
useless gel case keeps my iPod together. I have lost my iPod several times, but it’s like I said earlier, the
main reason is because that I hardly ever use it. It can’t do much, so what is the use of it? The only
reason I keep it is to listen to music, draw, and to repeatedly tell my mind that it’s going to be okay, and
at least I own an electronic device.
Though iPhones are quite a bit of money, it will be worth it. I will put that future Faith Jr. to use
from the instant I touched it. iPods that are so old can’t do anything should be replaced and put in an
old electronics retirement center and spend the rest of their seemingly endless lives watching each
other. Now, you stubborn parents out there should open your ears and listen to your child’s reasoning,
even though half the time they may just be screaming themselves hoarse. Maybe you should consider it.
And for you children, spare your poor parents their hearing and politely and calmly reason with them. If
you make them deaf, they won’t be able to hear your reasoning.
So, maybe you could be a reasonable parent and not go type-warring me to type me silly and
counter argue why you don’t want me to have an iPhone and hear me out, Dad. Sure, I’d play an extra
hour of piano or violin for a week, or I would type a good 5 paragraph essay every day for a month.
Come on, I’m desperate! I’ll get straight 95% or up for the rest of the school year. But please consider
getting me an iPhone. I mean, any reasonable parent would get their child an iPhone straight away for
making it to Algebra 1 instead of giving their child a feast at a really good restaurant along with an entire red-snapper. So don’t stick to your strict Asian parent ways, and give a nice but reasonable American parent style teaching a chance.
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Friday, March 22, 2013
Second Korean War
The night before last, I went to Northpark to watch Les Misérables, and there I encountered an old man, who claimed to have invented a time machine which is basically ready to use by the public, pending approval from -- he fumbled for the word and then decided on "authorities". Others may ask this technology-enhanced sage about the stock market in the near future. Not me. As the Far East Correspondent for the Onion, America's finest source of news, I am more concerned about world affairs.
I thought of North Korea which is facing tougher sanctions and threatening to start a nuclear war. I asked what is actually going to happen if the time machine works. The man said he had already gone to 2063 and come back. By 2063, he said, CIA's files have been declassified, revealing events that are unfolding right now and in the near future.
It turned out that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez indeed died of cancer spread from the United States. CIA sent Sean Penn to visit Chavez in Venezuela. During handshake, Sean Penn passed on some virus to Chavez, causing the latter to have cancer. Chavez had always been saying that the US caused him cancer, but he did not seem to have a good enough international reputation for his words to register much attention in the rest of the world prior to his death. Penn went on to cause Fidel Castro to fall ill.
In 2013, upon North Korea's third nuclear test, the United States became very impatient with Kim Jong-un, and was ready to deliver another covert strike to handle what they call the "troll" once for all. However, the actors' union in Hollywood protested that their actors are put under too much risk without proper acknowledgement, until perhaps 50 years later. Hollywood actors and actresses won't mind sacrificing their personal time, health or even their marriages, but the lack of acknowledgement is too brutal for any normal actor or actress to deal with.
CIA turned its attention to sport stars this time. Dennis Rodman with all his tattoos and body piercing, was identified to be a perfect candidate. Nobody would notice anything if something poked him as Rodman has so many sharp objects in his body anyway. Therefore Rodman went and hugged with Kim Jong-un and spread the virus to him with a gentle poke. Rodman accomplished the mission and came back calling Kim an "awesome kid", which is a coded reference for "mission successful". However, he is often jeered by nighttime talk show hosts and netizens, in spite of the fact that he was a big unsung hero, at least for the next 50 years.
Kim got this strange disease which caused his body to itch like crazy. America's plan is for him to have a constant urge to scratch himself, which would prevent him from appearing in public to make claims and threats or any other weird and nutty acts. Kim realized what the US has done to him and swore that he would settle accounts with the American imperialists. He tore up the Armistice Agreement, and threatened to use nuclear weapons against the United States and its puppet government in the South. What he originally had are just dirty bombs capable of great amount of mess, but his missiles are not powerful enough to carry them all the way to the United States. Kim starts to improvise ways to bring it to the US.North Korean agents begin to smuggle parts into Hong Kong and Macau using Chinese shipping services, who then shipp them by sea to the US continent. North Korea even hire Chinese actor/singer Gao Xiaosong, who had extensively researched about ancient practices of Kung Fu escort services, to form an armed escort team to prevent pirates from stealing such important merchandise while traveling across the big pond. The contact person on shore is Ms. Fu Ping, a lady who had managed to make herself convincing to the American authorities no matter what she says, including her "eye witness" account of a teacher being torn to death by four horses. With her help, the shipment encounters no difficulty whatsoever when going through the customs and border services. However, some small parts are destroyed during the shipping process, so Fu uses 3D printing to produce them.
After years of secret assembly, several powerful bombs are manufactured. In the mean time, words start to come out that North Korea is planning some major attacks in America. The US government deploys strong defense on air and on the ground for key places like the White House, the Pentagon and major routes of transportation. North Korea detonates dirty bombs in the data centers for Google and Skype. Alas, who would have thought!
Countless driverless Google cars were roaming the streets of California at that time, and when the bombs explode, all cars lose contact with the data centers. Multiple collision ensued. Some fly from overpasses into nearby buildings, causing multiple fires. The transportation of much of the West Coast becomes paralyzed. It's a mess.
Prior to this catastrophe, Google has upgraded its Google glasses in a way that they can hear people talk and immediately translate it to a different language with great accuracy. With this technology, transnational marriage becomes commonplace. Couples talk through their Google glasses or watches. With the attack, these glasses and other similar devices display nothing except "translation server error". Non-communicating couples become overjoyed, because they do not have to suffer any more from what they call bad translation, which in fact is a convenient excuse for reluctance to communicate in spite of languages.
Most companies have developed the habit of storing their data using Google's cloud services. With the attack, all important data are lost. There is no such thing as business as usual any more. Companies put people on furlough. In their free time, people find tons of fun stuff to do, such as going fishing, carving ducks in garages, or planting bamboos in their yards. People suddenly realize that 8-to-5 work schedules of a worker does not have to be the only way to lead a meaningful life.
At that time, I am retired. As a quiet Asian, I am suspected by neighbors and authorities to be a North Korean agent. My Internet connection is mysteriously lost and never brought back to service. As I have spent much of my adult life having blogging as my only hobby, I have to hand write my articles, manually copy them and deliver them door to door hoping someone will read any of them. I ask them to draw a line in front of my door if they have read it. I have to have some way to count my page views. A neighbor's kid digs out an old typewriter from his grandmother's attic. Then I find a duplicator from a garage sale that I can use to make copies. These are godsends which make my life so much easier.
The attack happens during the tax filing season. All of a sudden, people lose all their tax data and the government is unable to collect taxes. Stressed already with a shoestring budget, the government finds it now impossible to continue its normal operation, and has to reinstate the sequestration policy once implemented back in 2013. Even airport security personnel are sent home on unpaid leave. It becomes rather risky to fly with an airplaine. All planes are eventually grounded. The only ones to profit from this catastrophe are companies that operate passenger ships by sea. Ships from San Franscico to Shanghai resumes its operation, and that's the service my son uses to go to China. Nobody has gone one long trips with a ship for decades. So I ask him to keep journals about the long journey, so that someday he can write a novel about it. He turns to me and asks: "What is a novel?"
At this time, children of corrupted Chinese officials wait in long longs before the Embassy of Venezuela in America to emigrate to Venezuela.
People stuck on the road cannot reach their homes by phone. Skype has acquired most major communications companies. People' contacts have become photographic images or sounds. Phone numbers have ceased to be in existence for a number years. If you want to call your mother, just say "mom" and her image will show on your phone or refrigerator. After the North Korean attack, sons are calling moms and moms calling sons, without any meaningful display on anyone's screens. There is much moaning, weeping and the beating on the chest everywhere.
After the Google and Skype attack, North Korea attacked Facebook servers, causing Facebook to display nothing except server error messages. For three total hours, nobody is able to go on Facebook. People starts to wonder aloud about the meaning of life. Numerous people take to the streets to protest singing "song of angry men." Some even burn themselves in depression and disillusion. As a solution, a man called Zuck Markberger suggest that cities build massive walls around the cities and give free post-it notes so that people can post on these walls. This turns out to have let out quite a bit of steam. For this Zuck Markberger wins the Nobel Prize for Peace that year.
At this critical moment, the international community extends hands of help. Chinese Twitter-like service Weibo offers to accept applications from Americans. All applications are immediately processed and verified. With so many international customers added to its services, servers of Chinese Internet companies become extremely hot. These companies went to Iceland and Siberia to buy large plots of land to build sever farms.
North Korea's inhuman attack infuriate most nations in the world. The United Nations convened to pass a resolution that will legalize military intervention in North Korea. By this time, China has realized that it is a grave danger to have a neighbor with nukes in its possession, therefore, Chinese representative to the UN votes in favor of intervention. Distraught and disillusioned, North Korean threatens to bomb Northeast China. Out of panic people evacuate with their families away from Northeast China into the south to places like the Hainan Island. Sure enough, bombs are launched to China, this time not the dirty bombs used in America, but real nukes that the North Korea has been able to develop after years of pacification. However, the missiles are still not powerful enough. All nukes explode mid-air above North Korea before they reach Chinese soil. Strong impact from the explosion pushes away the smog that has been hovering above Beijing for years. Many teenagers in Northern China see the blue sky for the first time in their lives. However, such pleasant change does not last long. Though North Korea only bomb itself into non-existence, huge amount of nuclear waste near China makes much of northern China too dangerous for humans to live in . Almost everyone flees to the south.
Decades later, calm settles on Beijing. Weeds have overgrown Forbidden City. Hordes of giraffes stroll on the Three-Ring high way. Ducks swarm into five-star hotels and take over the swimming pools where lotus flowers now grow. Descendants of pigs organically grown specifically for top leaders have taken over office buildings. They developed a hobby of climbing up and down the staircases. They mate and multiply with a vengeance. They drag remains of dead people into northern rivers where skeletons float in tangles with water lilies. At sunset, flocks of birds fly towards the Bird Nest, which had served as the 2008 Beijing Olympics Main Stadium. Against the yellowish sky, gigantic plants loom above the waste birds have deposited in this and other stadiums. All water pipes have bursted. Schools of fish swim in the subway, from Jishuitan Station to Jianguomen, and then to Muxidi and the Gongzhufen. The Tiananmen Square has become a small prairie where lions chase antelopes. The Xidan Shopping Mall becomes a tigers' den.
An old guerrilla sits in the weeds outside of a dilapidated resident building, looking at a billboard which starts to peel off, though with words still legible: "Only 50000 per Square Meters! Hurry, before your mother-in-law starts to nag." The guerrilla tries hard to remember something, when someone pats him on the shoulder from the back...
I thought of North Korea which is facing tougher sanctions and threatening to start a nuclear war. I asked what is actually going to happen if the time machine works. The man said he had already gone to 2063 and come back. By 2063, he said, CIA's files have been declassified, revealing events that are unfolding right now and in the near future.
It turned out that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez indeed died of cancer spread from the United States. CIA sent Sean Penn to visit Chavez in Venezuela. During handshake, Sean Penn passed on some virus to Chavez, causing the latter to have cancer. Chavez had always been saying that the US caused him cancer, but he did not seem to have a good enough international reputation for his words to register much attention in the rest of the world prior to his death. Penn went on to cause Fidel Castro to fall ill.
In 2013, upon North Korea's third nuclear test, the United States became very impatient with Kim Jong-un, and was ready to deliver another covert strike to handle what they call the "troll" once for all. However, the actors' union in Hollywood protested that their actors are put under too much risk without proper acknowledgement, until perhaps 50 years later. Hollywood actors and actresses won't mind sacrificing their personal time, health or even their marriages, but the lack of acknowledgement is too brutal for any normal actor or actress to deal with.
CIA turned its attention to sport stars this time. Dennis Rodman with all his tattoos and body piercing, was identified to be a perfect candidate. Nobody would notice anything if something poked him as Rodman has so many sharp objects in his body anyway. Therefore Rodman went and hugged with Kim Jong-un and spread the virus to him with a gentle poke. Rodman accomplished the mission and came back calling Kim an "awesome kid", which is a coded reference for "mission successful". However, he is often jeered by nighttime talk show hosts and netizens, in spite of the fact that he was a big unsung hero, at least for the next 50 years.
Kim got this strange disease which caused his body to itch like crazy. America's plan is for him to have a constant urge to scratch himself, which would prevent him from appearing in public to make claims and threats or any other weird and nutty acts. Kim realized what the US has done to him and swore that he would settle accounts with the American imperialists. He tore up the Armistice Agreement, and threatened to use nuclear weapons against the United States and its puppet government in the South. What he originally had are just dirty bombs capable of great amount of mess, but his missiles are not powerful enough to carry them all the way to the United States. Kim starts to improvise ways to bring it to the US.North Korean agents begin to smuggle parts into Hong Kong and Macau using Chinese shipping services, who then shipp them by sea to the US continent. North Korea even hire Chinese actor/singer Gao Xiaosong, who had extensively researched about ancient practices of Kung Fu escort services, to form an armed escort team to prevent pirates from stealing such important merchandise while traveling across the big pond. The contact person on shore is Ms. Fu Ping, a lady who had managed to make herself convincing to the American authorities no matter what she says, including her "eye witness" account of a teacher being torn to death by four horses. With her help, the shipment encounters no difficulty whatsoever when going through the customs and border services. However, some small parts are destroyed during the shipping process, so Fu uses 3D printing to produce them.
After years of secret assembly, several powerful bombs are manufactured. In the mean time, words start to come out that North Korea is planning some major attacks in America. The US government deploys strong defense on air and on the ground for key places like the White House, the Pentagon and major routes of transportation. North Korea detonates dirty bombs in the data centers for Google and Skype. Alas, who would have thought!
Countless driverless Google cars were roaming the streets of California at that time, and when the bombs explode, all cars lose contact with the data centers. Multiple collision ensued. Some fly from overpasses into nearby buildings, causing multiple fires. The transportation of much of the West Coast becomes paralyzed. It's a mess.
Prior to this catastrophe, Google has upgraded its Google glasses in a way that they can hear people talk and immediately translate it to a different language with great accuracy. With this technology, transnational marriage becomes commonplace. Couples talk through their Google glasses or watches. With the attack, these glasses and other similar devices display nothing except "translation server error". Non-communicating couples become overjoyed, because they do not have to suffer any more from what they call bad translation, which in fact is a convenient excuse for reluctance to communicate in spite of languages.
Most companies have developed the habit of storing their data using Google's cloud services. With the attack, all important data are lost. There is no such thing as business as usual any more. Companies put people on furlough. In their free time, people find tons of fun stuff to do, such as going fishing, carving ducks in garages, or planting bamboos in their yards. People suddenly realize that 8-to-5 work schedules of a worker does not have to be the only way to lead a meaningful life.
At that time, I am retired. As a quiet Asian, I am suspected by neighbors and authorities to be a North Korean agent. My Internet connection is mysteriously lost and never brought back to service. As I have spent much of my adult life having blogging as my only hobby, I have to hand write my articles, manually copy them and deliver them door to door hoping someone will read any of them. I ask them to draw a line in front of my door if they have read it. I have to have some way to count my page views. A neighbor's kid digs out an old typewriter from his grandmother's attic. Then I find a duplicator from a garage sale that I can use to make copies. These are godsends which make my life so much easier.
The attack happens during the tax filing season. All of a sudden, people lose all their tax data and the government is unable to collect taxes. Stressed already with a shoestring budget, the government finds it now impossible to continue its normal operation, and has to reinstate the sequestration policy once implemented back in 2013. Even airport security personnel are sent home on unpaid leave. It becomes rather risky to fly with an airplaine. All planes are eventually grounded. The only ones to profit from this catastrophe are companies that operate passenger ships by sea. Ships from San Franscico to Shanghai resumes its operation, and that's the service my son uses to go to China. Nobody has gone one long trips with a ship for decades. So I ask him to keep journals about the long journey, so that someday he can write a novel about it. He turns to me and asks: "What is a novel?"
At this time, children of corrupted Chinese officials wait in long longs before the Embassy of Venezuela in America to emigrate to Venezuela.
People stuck on the road cannot reach their homes by phone. Skype has acquired most major communications companies. People' contacts have become photographic images or sounds. Phone numbers have ceased to be in existence for a number years. If you want to call your mother, just say "mom" and her image will show on your phone or refrigerator. After the North Korean attack, sons are calling moms and moms calling sons, without any meaningful display on anyone's screens. There is much moaning, weeping and the beating on the chest everywhere.
After the Google and Skype attack, North Korea attacked Facebook servers, causing Facebook to display nothing except server error messages. For three total hours, nobody is able to go on Facebook. People starts to wonder aloud about the meaning of life. Numerous people take to the streets to protest singing "song of angry men." Some even burn themselves in depression and disillusion. As a solution, a man called Zuck Markberger suggest that cities build massive walls around the cities and give free post-it notes so that people can post on these walls. This turns out to have let out quite a bit of steam. For this Zuck Markberger wins the Nobel Prize for Peace that year.
At this critical moment, the international community extends hands of help. Chinese Twitter-like service Weibo offers to accept applications from Americans. All applications are immediately processed and verified. With so many international customers added to its services, servers of Chinese Internet companies become extremely hot. These companies went to Iceland and Siberia to buy large plots of land to build sever farms.
North Korea's inhuman attack infuriate most nations in the world. The United Nations convened to pass a resolution that will legalize military intervention in North Korea. By this time, China has realized that it is a grave danger to have a neighbor with nukes in its possession, therefore, Chinese representative to the UN votes in favor of intervention. Distraught and disillusioned, North Korean threatens to bomb Northeast China. Out of panic people evacuate with their families away from Northeast China into the south to places like the Hainan Island. Sure enough, bombs are launched to China, this time not the dirty bombs used in America, but real nukes that the North Korea has been able to develop after years of pacification. However, the missiles are still not powerful enough. All nukes explode mid-air above North Korea before they reach Chinese soil. Strong impact from the explosion pushes away the smog that has been hovering above Beijing for years. Many teenagers in Northern China see the blue sky for the first time in their lives. However, such pleasant change does not last long. Though North Korea only bomb itself into non-existence, huge amount of nuclear waste near China makes much of northern China too dangerous for humans to live in . Almost everyone flees to the south.
Decades later, calm settles on Beijing. Weeds have overgrown Forbidden City. Hordes of giraffes stroll on the Three-Ring high way. Ducks swarm into five-star hotels and take over the swimming pools where lotus flowers now grow. Descendants of pigs organically grown specifically for top leaders have taken over office buildings. They developed a hobby of climbing up and down the staircases. They mate and multiply with a vengeance. They drag remains of dead people into northern rivers where skeletons float in tangles with water lilies. At sunset, flocks of birds fly towards the Bird Nest, which had served as the 2008 Beijing Olympics Main Stadium. Against the yellowish sky, gigantic plants loom above the waste birds have deposited in this and other stadiums. All water pipes have bursted. Schools of fish swim in the subway, from Jishuitan Station to Jianguomen, and then to Muxidi and the Gongzhufen. The Tiananmen Square has become a small prairie where lions chase antelopes. The Xidan Shopping Mall becomes a tigers' den.
An old guerrilla sits in the weeds outside of a dilapidated resident building, looking at a billboard which starts to peel off, though with words still legible: "Only 50000 per Square Meters! Hurry, before your mother-in-law starts to nag." The guerrilla tries hard to remember something, when someone pats him on the shoulder from the back...
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