When I first arrived at the school, back in August, I expected the seventh grade to be difficult. But not this difficult.

I soon realized, however, that seventh grade’s only purpose was to remind kids that the world is a painful and unforgiving place. By October, I had no life. In sixth grade, you receive quite a bit of homework, however it is nothing compared to the overpowering, staggering, immense, colossal, mammoth, monumental, gargantuan, elephantine, jumbo, astronomical, king- sized buttload of busywork designed to ruin your life.

There’s a lot of homework.

The four most important things I learned in seventh grade are:
a) No matter how hard you try, something will go wrong. Your job is to just keep that to a minimum.
b) The stairs by the sixth grade wing are out to break your ankles. Avoid them at all costs.
c) Trust no one.
d) Teachers are not humans.

As the year comes to a close, I rejoice. My advice to next year’s seventh graders? Everything is evil. Trust no one. Make sure to leave enough (all) of your time to do homework.

Have fun!

Fire-breathing death griffins from hell are annoying. Whose idea was it to set those things free? As much as I love animals, I don’t love them enough to become a griffin’s meal. Especially not a fire- breathing death griffin from hell. I hate them. Regular griffins are bad enough.

Anyway, there I was, running for my life, shouting, praying, what you would expect in that scenario. Have you ever stopped to consider how much property damage there is in a griffin attack? I didn’t, but you can’t blame me. I was preoccupied.

Right. Sorry. Off topic.

Griffins.

Running away.

I began to think. Running was great, but it only bought me time. I might as well use that time. I needed something that could hurt the griffins. Something that a fire- breathing death griffin from hell would want to avoid. How about water? Only one problem: how to bring the griffins in contact with the water.

I would love to tell you that I cleverly found a way to trick the griffins to come near me, then quickly and expertly doused them with gallons and gallons of water. It’s not true though. The truth is, a sudden gust of wind blew them off course and they got tangled in a tree. All of them. Over a lake. All I had to do was find an axe and chop the tree down. Easiest monster fight ever. Hardly even deserves a story.

Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray The Lord my soul to keep,
And if I die before I wake,
I pray The Lord my toys to break.
So none of the other kids can use ’em…
Amen.

-Shel Silverstein

The reason I chose this poem to post on my blog is that it reminds me of my childhood. I always said a prayer similar to this(not identical, mind you) before I went to bed every night. Also, we were very selfish with our toys. If a toy was yours, it was Yours. Not his, not hers, yours.
We weren’t big on sharing, unless it was your best friend: a lofty title indeed.
Furthermore, Shel Silverstein meant a lot to me too. I have several of his books full of poems, and they are all almost falling apart due to years and years of use. Shel Silverstein is every kid’s dream. He sees things from a child’s perspective, he makes things rhyme, and his poems are always a little silly. What’s not to love?

When I was little, my world was centered on transformers. Hour after hour, the sound of plastic hitting plastic filled the house. Yes, the same transformers from those movies. When I first saw the movie, I became transfixed. Everyone in my life plunged into this world along with me.

My best friend Jack came over sometimes. Transformers.

My parents went out to eat and I had a babysitter. Transformers.

Nothing special was going on at all. Transformers.

Every trip to the store was an opportunity to convince my mom into buying me one more of those shape-shifting toys (Mom remembers this too). What was it about these robots that so held my attention? Was it the mechanics? The roleplay? The power? I think it was the power. As a child, I had no power. Children have no power, so to be able to control these transforming, shape-shifting, beasts… it was amazing. It was empowering.

Despite the fact that I never play with them anymore, I still have my transformers. To throw them away would be throwing away two or three years of my childhood. I could never do that.

Photo Credit: Me

1. Giant Boulder of Death:—: Wouldn’t you love to become a huge chunk of rock and roll through a never ending alpine village? Of course you would. With this thought in mind, the creators of the game whipped up an application for doing just that. But beware! Avoid the deadly spikes or else!

2. Desmos:—: Anything you have the math skills to conceive, Desmos can make. This graphing calculator takes your equations, your functions, whatever, and makes the graph. You can have many graphs on top of each other, so if you make each graph in the right shape, eventually you’ll make a picture. Also, you can just use it as a graphing calculator.

3. DudePerfect:—: The basic premise behind this game is to make the ball go into the basket whichever way you like. Wanna go for a straight shot? Fine. Wanna bounce it off seven different walls before arcing high in the air, the plummeting down straight to the basket? Cool. The more indirect and unlikely your shot, the more points you get:

4. Merriam Webster:—: If the word exists, it’s in there. The purpose of the Merriam Webster dictionary is pretty straightforward: it’s a dictionary. It’s still very useful though. If I’m in a hurry, and I need the definition of a word, I just grab my iPad. A couple of taps later, I know the word, and I can be at peace.

5. MetroTimer:—: As a musician, I know the importance of keeping time. Unfortunately, I can’t always trust myself to keep a steady tempo. That’s where MetroTimer comes in. It clicks steadily at whatever speed the piece is supposed to be at. You can change the type of click to whatever you prefer. One of the options is a person counting over and over. “One. Two. Three. Four. One. Two. Three. Four.”

Those are my favorite apps, how about you?