Fall does not equal Winter.

~ A slightly edited poem about my favorite month of them all.

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October is the month of falling leaves of bright red, yellow, and orange.
It's the time of month for chills to be in the air.

There are sweaters, boots, pants, and anything warm to be worn showing up here or there.
Camping and hunting are fun to do.

As well as playing games of football or cheering is fine too

Basketball season is just coming up.

And writers are busy trying to prepare for the anticipated NaNoWriMo season of 2012.

While eager kids-at-heart people are busy preparing their costumes.

Because Halloween is just around the corner

Meaning candy is being bought everywhere.

Warm tea and hot coco is being heated up in nearly every home.

Many birthdays are being celebrated.

And a lot of screams can be heard in the air.

As people walk through haunted mazes or even houses.

Trying to not be afraid of the monsters that haunt every nook and corner of your child hood past

This is the month of October.

My favorite month of them all

However, it makes me sad

To see snow falling on the ground

October is a month of jackets

Not a month for puffy coats

It is a month for devils to give kiddies candy

Only if the magic words Trick or Treat is said

It's not a month for Christmas

In fact, any hint of Christmas shouldn't be seen at all.

Santa isn't happy with October

Because of all the monsters
And people running around
Making anonymity impossible
In the leaves falling, chilly, too much candy being bought, month of October.

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A fun yesterday

Thanks to all the people who said happy birthday to me yesterday. Even if you're not reading this, it still means a lot to me, that you've bothered remembering.

And thanks to my family for making mine and my twin's 16th birthday an awesome day filled with good food and fun.

It was nice to go to the fun center to rock climb, play laser tag, get wet, etc. It was also weird to see the infamous Frog Hopper that John Green was talking about. However, I did not go on it simply because no one was commanding the controls and it would have been a little silly to be the only sixteen year old on it.

The Corn festival was also fun and a bit scary. Fun because we  got to roast marshmallows, do silly stuff, listen to cheesy songs, and do one too many mazes. Scary because of the haunted corn maze. It was filled with zombies, skulls, guys with chainsaws, murderers, a sense of vertigo, and any other scary stuff that left my siblings and I clinging to each other's jackets by the end. Plus another scary (but funny) thing was the dark hay maze, where random people would hide in corners and say boo to any passersby. 

It also nice to go to a buffet filled with good food and fortunes that seem more like true facts than something that will come true in your life. The cheesecake that is impersonating a birthday cake and ice cream and everything else that went along with it was... amazing. 

Maybe that's why I like birthdays so much. It's a day just for you (and anyone else that shares your birthday aka your twin, triplet, quadruplet, etc.) A day where you can do whatever you want no matter if you're 16, 42, or 549 yrs old. And no one would care because it's a day designed for you. The only exception to that rule is if you just did something illegal. 

So I got to say happy birthday to everyone, even if it's not your birthday today. And do something that you enjoy. Because you only do live once (not unless you believe in reincarnation or regenerating.) However, do something meaningful not something stupid that can possibly kill you. You don't want to die too soon and have everyone that loves you become sad all because of the stupid (in my opinion) saying YOLO.

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An early morning song.

If that isn't working, you can check the song by clicking here.

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Banned Book Week

You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.

 Ray Bradbury

I've been learning a lot about banned books this week, and found a number of reasons why books are banned. In my opinion, the reason why most books banned is because of vulgar language. It doesn't matter if the books are really amazing that it deserves the highest medal award. If there are a ton of swear words than certain people freak out and demand it to be banned. Another reason, I found why books are banned is because of the topic it talks about, such as homosexuality, magic, racism, kids killing kids, teen pregnancy, kids trying to learn how to be accepted but doesn't attend school that much, etc. 

And it makes me angry that all of these books are banned. No, homosexuality isn't a disease and people won't become gay if they read Heather Has Two Mommies or any other book that talk about homosexuality. Kids won't have low morals if they read The Catcher in the Rye, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, or anything else. And no kids won't become violent if they read The Hunger Games trilogy.

It also makes me angry when some people ban books even though they haven’t read it at all. What’s the point of banning something if you don’t even know what the book is really about? Have they even tried to find what the theme (moral lesson) of the book really is? Have they thought really hard what it meant to other people or did they just ask themselves, this sucks because it has                      etc, let’ s not read it anymore and let’s have other people not read it or else they’re not a good person or whatever.

That is by law, a violation of free speech. If something is banned at the library, than that’s taking one less idea that is replaced by yay we banned this book now let’s burn them or something like that. That’s one less story for a person to get into, to escape his/her own life at the moment. It’s one less dream, one more sadness for the author, but it’s a lot more anger for the people who enjoyed that story.

We have the right to read whatever we want, and it’s our choice to endure the consequences that come out of it. If someone doesn’t like it than that’s fine, but it’s stupid of him/her to take that book away from a reader that enjoyed that book, or a reader that wants to read that book.

It’s like a person who hates the stars and tells the other people to not go to the stars, if that makes sense.

So I dare you this week and any other week to read a banned book. Whether it’s a book that has been banned from this year or any other year, read it. And if you don’t like it then that is fine, but don’t let it get taken away from the library because that is one less great literature out of the world. A work of literature that can possibly help us in the future if things go wrong. Literature that can make people small with one small character, a funny sentence/paragraph, or something else. Literature that can inspire.

Lists:

2011/2012 list of Banned Books

Banned classics

Books that were banned in 2005

Books banned by government (includes governments outside of the United States)

A very large amount of Banned Books on Goodreads

And more if you google: banned books list, or something of that sort. 

Now a video from authors who stand for free speech. 

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