Storytellers
November 2013
Prologue This is a platform for every writer who wants to publish his or her works but cannot find a single publisher who is willing to do. Storytellers is the place where you can publish any kind of work no matter what the content is. We will choose the top six stories from our dear creative distributer to publish every month. Behold! The greatest Renaissance on the earth is going to take place.
Credits Editors: Katie Chiu& Lisa Yo Layouts: Angel Pao & Cindy Tseng Photographers: Ellen Yeh & Laurensia Audrey Writers Angel Pao, Ellen Yeh, Laurensia Audrey, Katie Chiu, Lisa Yo, and Cindy Tseng
November 2013
Contents
November 2013
No.1 For you
By Ellen Yeh
No.2 An Ideal Educational Approach No.3 A Funeral No.4 Sun Is Important
No.5 Every Day Joe
by Lisa Yo
By Cindy Tseng By Katie Chiu
By Angel Pao
No.6 Don’t be Lost in A New Era By Laurensia Audrey
“Why are you here?” It was the first question they asked me when I stood at the back of the guests in the funeral. Then it reminded me of a song and a vivid memory… “All I saw was smoke and fire; I didn't feel a thing, but suddenly I was rising higher...” Tom was bleeding and screaming, he got a hole in his abdomen. It hurt; I mean it REALLY hurts. The time didn’t stop by him, the war was continuing. I was trying my best to stop the bleeding but it seemed useless. Tom’s eyes was dim; his body became cold. I looked at my hands that I just shake with him last Monday, but it is covered with blood this time.
All I could feel was the bullet flying passed me, the smell of burning grass, and the roaring of our army and the enemies. Nothing else. “And I felt like I'd just made the biggest mistake when I thought about my unborn child; when I thought about my wife.” “Is it worth to do that?” They still asked me other question when I saw Steven and Shane. However, this question caught me more attention. “They didn’t understand,” I thought. I didn’t change the answer until now. “Yes.” I replied.
Steven and Shane were sitting beside me. We were all the rookies of the army. We were shocked about Tom and other brothers’ death. After praying for them, we took out the photograph and had a long, deep talk with each other. It was the irony that recalled us Tom was excited to show off the photo about his girlfriend and he would ask her to marry him after the war. Would I be the next one? There was no answer. “And it's weighing on my mind... I'm not trying to be the hero. I don't want to die. But right now, in this moment, you don't think twice.”
The war was still going on. Each day, we got up early and went to bed tired. Sometimes, I heard Steven crying when it was almost 3 a.m. We just pretend nothing happened the next day. Life went on. It was until one raining day, the LAST day of my war. Steven, Shane and I were trying to fight against four guys. As we finally got the victory, one of the enemies shot at Steven before he was dead. I didn’t think anything, I just blocked in front of him. “You don't think about right. You don't think about wrong. You just do what you gotta do... to defend your own. And I do this thing... for you, yes I would... yes I would.”
“And I wondered, would I give my life? Could I make that sacrifice? If it came down to it, could I take the bullet... I would. Yes I would, For You.” The ground was cold and wet. The color of the sky made me think the house built in cement. I could see Steven and Shane’s were speaking. However, I could not hear anything. The only thing I felt was some red and warm liquid were out of my body and the cold rain hit on my face, it also washed away my tears. It’s quite good to see two of them were safe. I felt too tired so I closed my eyes and fell into sleep.
“And the answer rang out CLEAR from somewhere up above. No greater gift has man, then to lay down his life for Love.” “Are you ready to go?” The angels interrupted me. “Yes.” I replied in smile and followed them. Then I took the last glance of the funeral, it’s my coffin covered by the National flag.
Reference : Song from Keith Urban, For you. (The Italic sentences in the article are the lyrics.)
By Ellen Yeh
How can we define the word “homeschool”?
Many times we use our biases to regard homeschool as a negative term. Yet, these thoughts are misconceptions. When we explain homeschool literally, it means school at home. Homeschooling is different from going to a public, private, or boarding school. Furthermore, in terms of what students learn, how they learn, and where they learn, homeschooling is as important as others’ need in public school. Homeschooling is usually taught at the speed and times that fit the student and their family.
Based on the article How Families Homeschool Their Teens written by Cafi Cohen, types of homeschooling can be divided into three, traditional, unschooling and eclectic included. Homeschooling is a good way for those children who have special educational needs indeed, especially the eclectic one. Nevertheless, you should find the best one that suits your requirements, and then you will learn more than school days. This composition suggests that traditional homeschoolers usually adopt a complete curriculum which includes textbooks, teacher’s guides, tests, schedules, and other necessary materials.
Traditional homeschoolers choose their own lessons and devise their timetables to determine the moderate pace which they can handle. Besides, the students have a concrete record of what they are taught, and it may be easier to pass the national tests if they are required. Therefore, they are permitted to get a better education or job in the future. However, there is a main drawback. In this essay, critics say that there is no obligation for traditional homeschoolers to follow, so they are probably unable to self-discipline without reminders of their educators.
According to the article that unschoolers which means those children who let their interests direct them to pursue knowledge. In other words, they learn by following their own interests, no matter what those interests may be. For unschoolers, learning can take place anywhere, and they don’t have typical schedules or any specific stuff. They decide what they learn, where they learn, and.in what ways. Unschooling is rather flexible, but there is no standard to classify the grade-level of unschoolers.
The child could possibly miss opportunities for higher education because they aren’t qualified to pass state tests. Moreover, the paper mentions that opponents suggest an unschooler may lose passion to learn extra things except for their interests. Eclectic homeschoolers pick from various methods and curriculums to find materials that meet their needs. They don’t go too extreme, neither all structured schedules nor all uncontrolled courses.
That is, this form of education is in the middle. They not only don’t have to worry about not covering everything they were supposed to know for school years, but also can keep exploring interests while learning something new. On one hand, their grades are counted because they have academic performance. On the other hand, their interests inspire their enthusiasm, so eclectic homeschoolers may be dedicated on learning. These reasons are helpful for the children to gain a job which they are fond of.
After analyzing three types of homeschooling, you are able to infer that eclectic homeschooling is a quite fair choice if we want to be homeschooled. Nowadays, homeschooling is still causing a disputation. We won’t know which one is a proper way for homeschooling until we participate in this program in person. In conclusion, no matter you choose schooling or homeschooling, the best one is the fittest one for yourself.
By Lisa Yo
I
still remember the day of my grandfather’s funeral. I will never forget how I felt towards the death of my grandfather. Every time I close my eyes, I can still remember the painful thoughts about losing a family member. This experience allowed me to realize I should cherish the people I love.
I was 10 years old when my grandfather died. It was not a surprise at all to hear this bad news, which we all knew that, because of his disease, he could not last longer. I was a kid at that time, so I can not remember what kinds of disease or cancer he was suffering from. All I knew was that every time we saw him, he just sat on his wheelchair and looked so miserable and helpless.
His weary face told me that he was very tired, although he spent most of his time doing nothing and all he did was lay in his bed. I guessed when he was sober he did not want us to see him like that, because he did not want us to worry about him or he did not want us see him so morbid. Sometimes he seemed so happy when we came to visit him; he would force a smile on his painful face and used his shaking hand to touch us just like a kin grandfather.
Other times he just ignored everyone and looked at everything but us, who cared about him. I did not understand the reason, but my mom told me that the medicine caused pain. If I behaved he would get better. That was the reason I always listened to what my parents said when we were in my grandfather’s house.
When we were leaving, my mom bent down her knees and asked my grandfather to take care of himself and stop thinking too much. I saw my grandfather stay silent but slowly nodded. That was the last thing I wanted seeing because I knew my mom cried every time after she spoke to my grandfather. It was midnight when my uncle called. My mom did not tell us what had happened but we all knew it was about my grandfather.
I could not tell whether my mom was relieved or depress. All I knew was that she locked herself in her bedroom, packed her stuff and left in hurry. One month later the funeral started. At that time I did not understand why it had to be held twice. And later I figured out that it was two different rituals, and the common part of these two rituals is that every adult cried very loudly.
One of the rituals shocked me very much and that ritual was about carrying the coffin to the cemetery. I do not want to say that the scene was too magnificent because it seems like I am not serious about this funeral. For me, it was the first time I saw so many family members at the same time, and it shocked me because about 100 people walked on the road. It was a long line, and every one cried for my grandfather’s death.
In the front of the crowd, there were cars which led us where we should go. I think we walked and cried non-stop for two hours and went back to my grandfather’s house. The staff from the funeral company moved the coffin to my grandfather’s house. Suddenly everyone’s face changed, and I still do not understand why at that time my mom wiped her tears and told me that my grandfather came back to home.
Maybe because I was too young to understand the feelings of losing someone I loved so much. I did cry during the funeral but it’s only because other adults’ emotions influenced me. I finally understand the feelings for my family member when my mom got sick two years ago. You feel painful, useless, upset, and helpless, by watching someone you love suffering and you can not do anything to rescue her.
At that time, my mom’s weak face reminds me of my grandfather’s funeral. The hardest thing for me was that I could do anything but ask her to take care about herself, and it just like the same thing my mom asked my grandfather so many years ago.
Today, my mom exercises every day and has become more healthy than two years ago. My heart still aching when I think about those experiences. Right now I cherish every moment and I enjoy the company of my family.
By Cindy Tseng
Sun Is Important
I
n a small town, there’s a girl who had
been sick and bedridden. Many doctors were unable to cure her, her father was very sad. One month ago, a cook known this thing, he wanted to help the man and his daughter. He went to the girl’s room with his father, he opened the window. The sunshine cast into the room, from this day, the girl’s sick was recovery. The bakery master told the man: “sun is the power to give us energy, so it is very important, we can’t live without it. “ Since then, the girl lived a healthy and happy day.
Every Day Joe O
nce upon a time, in a small
village, Uomo, lived a little boy, Joe Norman. Every day, Joe went to school like his peers. Every day, Joe went home as his pals did. Every day, Joe consumed breakfast, lunch, snacks, supper, dinner like members of his family. Every day, Joe acted regularly as villagers. This regularity continued until Joe's 16th birthday, January first. It is very normal to everyone that a teenager will start to rebel against his parents or it is a time when a juvenile begins their not-yet dream. After the birthday party, Joe's father, John, asked," What you want to do in the future?
"I want to be a knight or hero to save the damsel in distress and travel around the world to fight monsters.", Joe replied. Upon hearing this, John stared at Joe with his mouth agape. In front of Joe stood a red-faced, middle-aged man whose head seems so hot that you can crack an egg and make a perfect overeasy egg, sunny side one, of course. Stormhowling, lightening-striking, rain-dropping, which were like the end of the world, submerged Joe from top to bottom. He did not know how long this supernatural phenomenon would be end. The last sentence he could remember was "Go to your room and think about your future!"
It was ten o'clock, the moon had hung up on the sky with little cloud covered her silver beam. Creeping into the transparent window, the moonlight crawled and climbed upon Joe's bed where Joe was sitting sobbing. He tried to figure out what was wrong with him and his dream. Suddenly, he heard three knocks on his window. As soon as he looked outside, a man with black cloak floated in the middle of the air. "My name is Luke," he said "I heard your wish." Joe stiffed. Luke continued," Come with me if you want to be." and he stretched his hand with opened wrinkled palm, which passed the window without any noise and glass shattering. "If my father is not the one who agrees with me, this guy may be the one who can help me to fulfill my dream." Joe thought.
Tentatively, Joe reached his hand toward this stranger, thinking his life will not be normal, again. Between their hand, which is about one centimeter, a ping-pong ball sized globe, suddenly, appeared, dimming, shining. Following it was an immediate big bang. Everything went white. Joe covered his head and eyes with his arms folding, squinting from time to time.
When he can open his eyes, he was in a forest with Luke on the side. "Here is an Instruction", Luke claimed "If you follow all of them, you can be a knight. Your mission is to save a princess from an evil vampire." Exciting by this event and desiring to begin his journey, Joe accepted this challenge with no doubt. Luke tossed a map, a poniard, and a parchment to Joe before he disappeared.
Joe read the Instruction on the parchment. Instruction: "It seems very easy", Joe thought I. In order to fight the vampire, you have to say, while unfolding the map. The map shows that "bla bla bla......" while dancing with arms not far from where he stood, there is an stretching up and shaking right to left, left to abandoned castle. With no delaying, Joe set off. right, which will call for a cute siren. It seems that there is no civilization in the II. In order to give power to your poniard, you forest and there are so many trees, plants, have to find several eggs to break them with vegetations, which Joe cannot recognize. Little your weapon. by little, the sunlight also disappeared with the III. In order to protect yourself, you have to exchange for the creepy sounds from some find a squared pond and jump into it while unknown creatures. shout, "Fly, fly, fly......", at least one hundred Joe almost gave up his journey if he times. had not spotted a dirt-covered, seeminglycracked, gray stone wall. Just at this moment, Joe felt his whole body trembling without knowing he is excited or feared. Touching the fragile brick, Joe then followed the wall and his intuition until he was under a giant
iron-framed portal, which in a rusted-out condition. His intuition immediately notified him that the princess must be trapped somewhere in this ancient building. The question is how to get into this creepy world, which made Joe's hair standing, without his noticing.
Back in school, Joe is the most professional tree climber, but he is not sure if the twenty-five-foot pole is an easy-climbed. He grabbed the second railing from right-hand side and the fifth one. He stepped his right foot with Nike sneaker and strained his abdomen, tentatively. To his surprise, it is easier for him to go up than the India Laurel Fig in Libilio Academy. Very soon, Joe was on the other side of the portal. Under his feet is an oval-paved path, which is almost fat from the eroding and stepping of what? His left side and right side were full weeds. The leaves were everywhere on the ground and even those stayed with trees are covering the over-growing branches. There is little sunlight managed to cross the green dome when Joe spotted the faรงade of the castle with his mouth agape, for the gate had gone.
From where he stood, he could get a glimpse of the faded-red carpet with dusted gold embroidered strip on each side, leading to a silver male bust with pointing-ears-slant eyeshooked-nose-long-fangs appearance, whose sides have the marble stairs going up to the unknown. Joe hold out his poniard tightly, taking a deep breath, started running to the right stair. He did not know where he will end up. He climbs the stair until he arrived at a chamber which took him fifteen minutes to reach without a rest.
As he turned the brass doorknob, he was shocked the wooden door was not locked. A cherry fragrance and a seemingly sobbing oriole-liquid note mesmerized him all of a sudden. He saw a figure with golden hair in a blue-silk gown with hems on the sleeves using hands to cover face and crying in a low pitch. He wanted to go closer; however, someone pushed him and Joe fell down on the ground. Looking up, he saw a man same as the silver bust were smirking and his tongue is like snakes you can see on the discovery channel.
Joe is freaking out. Nevertheless, the Instruction struck into his mind right away. He looked around and he saw a wooden box on which wrote EGG and a big window with ragged curtain covered. This man who must be the vampire rushed to Joe with his mouth opened revealing his long fangs. Joe jumped onto the bed standing beside the crying lass who might be the princess and began to do Instruction I. From the window a siren screamed, flew into the room and started to attack the monster with its claws. At the same time, Joe quickly trotted toward the wooden box. After opening the box, he used the blades hit all of the eggs inside. He stepped to the back of the vampire who was still defending the siren who is actually a cute male siren with a big smile on its face. With all his might, Joe stabbed the vampire. It fell down with no move anymore. The cute siren flied out of the window, still smiling.
Sighing and feeling relaxed, Joe started to move toward the bed. "I am a hero", Joe said" Hey, lady! Are you OK?" When she put down her hands, Joe's face turned pale. She turned out to be a he. A swelling face, a big floating nose, a thick lip with only four black teeth left, and saliva dripping showed up in front of him. The worst part was he wanted to hug Joe with his masculine arms. Joe galloped to the side of the window while he spotted a square pond outside. No matter how shallow it is, he followed the Instruction III, he jumped out without thinking in order to escaped the choking hug.
It seemed that the falling will never end. The air pressed each side of Joe's cheek, hands, fingers, eyes, nose, nostrils, ...etc that faced downside while Joe spun in the air without control. A second is like forever. Upon he plunged into the pond, he felt he would die. Still he found that he actually fell under his bed when he opened his eyes. He looked around and felt disappointed that he is in his bedroom. He stood up and picked up the alarm clock on his desk as usual. He was shocked that it was 7:30 a.m. He quickly dressed up in his uniform, ran downstairs, took out a bottle of Dr. Milker and a piece of waffle from the fridge and headed to school.
Lucky for him, he was right up on time before the class started. While he is chatting with his friends, Eric, Steve, Mike, as well as Scott, he restated his dream last night with mouth full of waffle. None of them made fun of him without laugh to death. Joe got furious but he had no evidence to prove his dream. To his surprise, when he jumbled his backpack to find his textbook, he found the poniard and a dozen of eggs in a box. Nevertheless, it was the time for the class to start. The Math teacher, George Snick, stood in front of the black board. He raised the chalk when he smelled an odor of the eggs and heard the cracking sound. He turned back and shouted, "Joe! What are you doing?" "The poniard now has superpower and can kill everything!" Joe shouted back.
"Are you crazy?" the teacher shouted, "Sit down right now!" This comment made Joe far more angry. He jumped onto his desk and shouted," I can call for a cute siren who can smile." He started to do the Instruction I while his teacher was pushing the buttons of his cell phone. Joe continued. After a while, the wailing of sirens are heard and everyone could see an ambulance and some police cars with red light. Joe was totally shocked and ran out of the class in order to escape. He ran for a while until he saw the swimming pool. The policemen and medical crew are still after him. Instruction III came across his mind and he jumped to the swimming pool and cried out, " Fly, fly, fly......"
Everything went white.
"Nine five twenty-seven! Here is your lunch.", a man named Malcolm wearing an uniform of The Happy Castle, scooped a great amount of chow mein onto Joe's plastic plate. He took a sit randomly. When the leader of his "group" announced that it was time to eat, there is a guy called "One nine seventy-five" or Tommy asked, "Joey, Knight Joey, tell me more about your adventure." Joe smiled and did what Tommy asked for, just like he did every day. After the event, every day, Joe tells the same story. By Angel Pao
Don’t be Lost in A New Era T
he development of technology is
really fast and horrific nowadays. You can see people just bring their iPad or smart phone and ta da! They will have their own world. For me, it is so unbelievable that technology turns out very fast for about 1 decade. I still remember the time when I was 10 years old, many people used their classical phone that has no color, a simple monophonic ringtone and it would be so modern if you had the color screen one. Besides that, we had to use computer to surf the internet.
Then, time flies extremely fast. Now you can see many people, at least have their own smart phone or iPad which offers you the multifunctional and the convenience of their professional features. However, these kinds of technologies have both of good and the bad side.
The good side from this technology is you can do something necessary easily and practically, such as using dictionary on your smart phone instead of bring the real dictionary book to school. When you are on the trip, you will be more convenient to see the map or check the bus schedule using your smart phone. Moreover, you can go online using your phone, so you don’t need to spend many time to do something because the answer just in your smart phone. In contrast, smart phone sometime give you bad effects for your life. I am not saying that you cannot use your smart phone, you can use it, but you must be smart to using it. The young generations always tend to follow the new fashion on technology, and it is okay too if you choose to be in an ordinary way.
I mean that you do not have to follow every new technology which appear and be famous for some period of time, because if you always want to fulfill what you want, it will create the generation which really addictive and consumptive of technologies. I can suggest you to choose only the best option for what you need, not for what you want. So if there is a new smart phone with the new feature that actually you don’t necessarily to use it, do not buy it. Be wisely to choose your gadget, because it can affect your life too. In the end, the decision is all in yours, the technologies would not be so addictive to you if you can think it smartly.
By Laurensia Audrey
Thank you for reading our fist published magazine. Hope these diligent writers have inspired you to write your work and have encouraged you to chase your dream. If you have any idea or well-done work, remember Storytellers is the place for you.
We Need You
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