In Their Words--PartII

     I felt like I needed a break from posting to this blog (or more accurately, felt too lazy to follow-through by writing something worthwhile, which takes tons of effort—like father like son, I guess given my last post about Braden...  Anyway this week they're at home on vacation for Fall break, whereas I'm at work with No break, so “Put them to work” seemed appropriate as misery loves company—Joke! I love my job and they love writing—at least as much as they love cleaning clogged toilets), so here for the second time in almost a year are all my kids' writings. (No joke—they really did write the following of which I didn't change a thing.) The only ground rules were word counts of a 100-130 for Jaren, 400-450 for Penelope, and 500-550 for Braden. And they had to be works they'd feel proud of and wouldn't later regret for bad spelling, grammar, or punctuation. 

(Jaren's essay)

Star Wars

     Have you seen the Star wars movies 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6? Apparently the movies 4, 5 and 6 were made first an 1, 2 and 3 were made after 4, 5 and 6. The episode 7 “The force awakens” is coming out December 2015! Also, episode 3 explains amolst every thing for episodes 4, 5, and 6. Did you see the trailer for episode 7? (If you didn't, this is going to spoil the trailer.) Did you see the guy with the three bladed lightsaber? (In case you didn't know, a lightsaber is the weapon used by Jedi and Sith made of pure energy.) Truthfully, I like the regular single bladed lightsabers. Last, I would like to trash talk the produscers that I don't know if Obi-wan, Yoda and Anakin can die since they are king of invisible.

(Penelope's essay)

 

Broken Computer

     I have a computer in my room. In my former room, really. Anyway, before you attempt to track me down in an attempt to steal it, let me save your time with a few simple words. Any guesses? Don't waste your time.
     There's nothing special about that particular computer. Well, nothing special that will make you want to take it. Unless you're an antiques collector, considering how old the computer is. But I don't think that it's that priceless. The entire computer (let's call it Fred) is heavy, clunky and must be plugged in for it to turn on. Then with an added bonus of it working less than 50% of the time, I could possibly attempt to sell it on eBay and see how many buyers I get. Maybe I'll get more for it since I named it.
     Fred has been with my family for quite some time. A really long time. Maybe since I was five. Fred is an old computer and sometimes I feel as if it's trying to tell us to just retire him. Let it live out it's final days in quiet retirement. 
     A description of Fred. Fred is composed of two major parts: a monitor and a big other part containing all of the hardware or whatever you call it. The screen looks almost exactly like our TV, a large boxy shape that narrows down on the back and is set upon a platform that's about the size of the screen. That part is very heavy in itself. The other part of Fred resembles a cereal box enlarged a little, with buttons and wires and all sorts of things that you need for your computer to be useful. Fred also has a black and white printer, nothing fancy. At least the printer can be used and works 100% of the time that you attempt to use it.
     Now let's say that today's your day and you manage to make Fred cooperate with you. Remember how I said that Fred resembles out TV? It does, except that my family doesn't have Internet, so we can't watch TV on it. (Not that we could watch TV on our TV set anyway). In our house, Fred has two major uses: schoolwork that needs to be typed out and work that my parents need to do. An extremely useful computer. *cough, cough*
     The programming of Fred thankfully works perfectly fine (except for Word processing), so my main problem with Fred is that it doesn't always work for me.
     I have a suspicion that Fred favors my dad or has a grudge against everyone except for him, since Fred usually works fine for dad but not us. Or maybe it's just me.

(Braden's essay)

Broken Computer

     We need to get a new computer. The one that is in my room is a Windows XP computer that was used by the cavemen. You know that this is true because like all old computers it has two parts. The first part is a monitor. You can compare it to a those box shaped old televisions with out those pointy things sticking out from the top. Also, unlike a regular television you can not watch Comedy Central on it. All in all the monitor is pretty much like a TV but all you can do with it is use it as a computer screen. The other part of the computer is shaped like a giant cereal box (unfortunately it does not have any cereal in it). This part has all the hardware and stuff that makes the computer work. As you can imagine the combined weight of the monitor and the computer weighs a lot. P.S. To keep things simple I will call the computer and the monitor combined Mr. Computer to keep things simple to prevent confusion.
      Recently the power strip that Mr. Computer is plugged into broke so whenever you want to use him you have to move him to the nearest outlet. Now Mr. Computer weighs a TON. Trying to move him is like trying to push an overweight elephant around. It takes a lot of work if it is even possible. Unfortunately unlike an overweight elephant Mr. Computer can not go on a diet or get exercise, so he can not loose weight. Moving him is not going to get any easier.

     Oh, did I mention that Mr. Computer is broken as well? I guess doing all that work for people since the cavemen days shorted put his brains (or whatever computers use to think). Whenever someone would power him up he would scream at you. Pressing his power button results in a annoying high pitched scream as his internal parts try to get moving. To get a good idea of how he sounds when you turn him on think of the sounds that a broken disk would make when playing a recording of R2-D2. 
     After hearing about our wonderful Mr. Computer you would think that we would be shopping for a new computer by now. After all most people would probably drive down to whatever computer store the usually buy from, and buy a new computer. For the better of for the worse my dad is not like most people. He says that once you can power it on it would work fine, you just have to keep trying to power it on. Well I would say that there is about a trillion to one chance of successfully powering on Mr. Computer. I probably will win the lottery before I can successfully turn on Mr. Computer. If there are any lottery winners out there then will you mind coming by and trying to turn on my computer because the odds are in your favor.
     We really need a new computer. One that works and does not scream at you. A computer that is not from the cavemen days. Oh and a computer that does not weigh as much as an elephant does.

     It's I again. 
     Here are my impressions of my kids' foregoing writing. First of all, note to self: Next year consider forgoing this exercise—mainly for the readers' or reader's (if any exists) benefit. My kids' above writings, though not good—in fact, they still repulse me same as last time, though perhaps a little less—are fair and indicative samples of their psyches at their ages. 
     My inside observations: All three went about the assignment with so-so enthusiasm at best this time, perhaps Jaren showing more than the others.
     Jaren and Pene wrote age-appropriately. What can I expect from a twelve and seven year old?
     I enjoyed Braden's a lot. Showed tons of improvement, humor, and unintentional humor with still too numerous spelling and grammatical errors that I think add to the humor (it's funny when the person criticizing you says unintentionally humorous things like ungrammatical sentences, misused words, etc. There's a higher-up where I work that loves to say “irregardless” in all seriousness. It's hard to take him serious when he says stuff like that. No one tells him of his error, because, well, I do not care to speculate.)
     By the way, Braden and Pene claim they did not discuss their essays at all, they just coincidentally turned out with identical titles, themes, and techniques—naming the computer and referring to it as “he” and a “cereal box.” I believe them. It's scary to think that they think so much alike though, they're as different to me as two people could be, but perhaps that's just my impression. Makes me wonder, though... seems so strange.