17yo  WRITINGS

painstakingly sifting through refuse in this empty mind,

ill form collections and sort things which amuse simple hands, simple friends,

the crunch of broken letters which break soundlessly under bare feet,

these balls of unfurled, strangled words which skate in ink upon pulps water,

ill create this mirage, this sanity loitering in the information-static mind,

kicking empty bottles with no labels, sorting the words of peoples random actions,

i choose taste over perfections, i tend to hover over what is a defect,

the refuse of a brainblown child, whos mind turns in sloppy circles

both in nature and online. it is not my job to question, it is just a habit,

fulfilling needs and desires, always with bags overfilled with unknowns,

i am weighted down with collections of affections,

and for too long im saving ideas for future redemption, and today,

now with 17 candles on the cake, my present has not the strength to rejoin my past.

natural to me, the purpose and logic to rotate around numbers,

the systematic pathways with no random circuits, i do not like him,

who makes me shake at my own desk, i close my eyes, praying for a nature, a purpose,

anything but the concentric molds which afflict me at home and school,

focusing always on the weakest points in my pattern.

i spend all nights to work it out with a pen, in the morning the paper laughs,

reminding me i could easily forget this habit of breathing, i ball up to the side of bed,

hoping for a size small enough to slip through the hourglass without sound,

i crawl up, hoping to creep beneath leaves and sleep this season through,

until i awaken aware enough to recall my notions without the numbers,

and the judgements which stake my fences.

tired from the night which didnt sleep, and it grew to life,

treadmills, the career paths pouring out with a silent beat,

footfalls hurriedly plotting the footfall to deadline,

glassgleam aisles which issue forth lifelines, tired, before the night knocked,

tired, from the hole where night creeps through,

first multiplying then dividing, divine evolution,

let them return flying in by night, making reservations to sleep, standing barely,

this, the hypnotized peak of life, the transfer, the connection,

the change of tides from push to shove, so exhausted this time, i find my aisle,

i stake my seat, and at all once the song begins, this burdened creature groaning with fuel.

the partys not over until the cops stride past the kegs and scoot us away,

the beers been tapped, the egos stumbling drunk, foaming out abandoned secrets,

drowning in sinks on ships already sunk, a 1000 voices all frenetic, glazed ceramics,

a 1000 watts of music in chains, the prime of our lives here unfolding, mushrooming,

so that in future times we regret more then we forget,

i dont think we will ever live as we did this single year, like a whole fire within a match,

this partys not over, until we stumble back into our open graves, each predug by decisions,

and our time is poured back to being bottled as the past; no more carbonation of spirit,

and nothing else to spill out.

the cold line which divides my warm heart, the bite of reality which tastes no doubt,

the pivot when what you see before you is not what there is in truth,

but you are slammed with the revelation that what you see is only what you perceive,

only one leaf in the tree, only one pane in the glass house,

so small of a perception i can explain, my world is only mine alone.

with the first step out from graduation, i saw more than just my vision,

i had my back against that single partition of the i in myself,

an unnamed figure thrown into the lions den of the working world,

the raw meat good for only nameless production.

i graduated only two nights ago, a class of eight, a bare whisper of a school,

a loose collection of about 60 misfits peppering this private school in palm beach.

so my senior year was spent there for about 5 months in total, i tried two schools last year,

berean christian private school and palm beach lakes public school, both short lived,

and before that i went to kings academy private christian school from 4th grade to 10th grade,

its too bad i started so late in doing a journal,

ill fail to pinpoint exact places and people,

but i was too busy to fill my mind with facts without grades, i was living life,

and at seventeen im young enough to be called a boy but about to be mistaken as a man. ugh.

the year is 1988 and the last summer i will ever categorize has begun,

life is a blind route from here, i live in the extreme western suburbs of west palm beach,

in a place called the 'acreage' or 'the boondocks', out on a dirt road without cable tv,

without garbage pickup, without paved roads, without friends, with a car.

im in a city which is quickly overcrowded, yet has no central downtown, just sprawl,

i have spent the past few days staring at the wall, staring at the stars,

staring at the face in the mirror, trying to find an inner voice to answer my questions,

what i have just earned thus far in life is a piece of reinforced framed paper

which will sit in my parents attic for decades.

on monday i saw a movie called 'big' with tom hanks, it was not funny, i thought it would be,

then i returned home to this dark morgue and sat on the floor of my bedroom in darkness

as it rained outside for over a glorious hour, then i got a phone call about a job,

it was starting the next day from 1pm to 6pm, i dont have a car so i asked my parents what i should do,

my mom said she would drop me off at work when she leaves at 830am,

and my dad said if i really wanted a job i would wait there for 4-5 hours until the job started.

tonight ill lay in bed trying to coax a future out of my mind, this is not life,

last night my friend kris came over and spent the night,

we shared a random assortment of dreams for a prosperous future,

we talked up a yogurt store, starting a progressive band,

talked about the video rental business. we enjoy turning options in our minds,

though they might not deliver cash they are still fun to explore and talk out.

kris is a quiet but hyper person who shares a house with his brother and mother,

i have known him for 4 years, since 83, from kings academy.

now its the next day, its 11am and i called my mom and asked her

what am i supposed to do about getting a job while living miles deep in the woods with no car.

she says i need to deal with my own problems now and hangs up, i hate when she does that,

nine times of ten she will hang up testily without saying goodbye or some warning,

she only goes on nonstop without me getting a word or idea edged in, then click.

this is a very cold line in life, where i don't know where im supposed to turn,

and who can help me get there.

1987 DIARY, WINN-DIXIE JOB, 16yo

two summers ago, when i was 14, i worked at winn-dixie making $3.20 an hour, well 2.65 an hour after taxes. i was a shelf-stocker and bagboy for about 10 hours a day, days when i wasnt in school, and it was a 4.5 miles bike ride to and from there, which sucked because it was pretty hot so by the time i got to work, i was already sweaty and exhausted. anyways, a new vice-manager was there, named mr k., i never knew what the k stood for, but i knew him by his squat posture and thick overlapping moustache, his thick-framed glasses, and those turtleneck sweaters. one busy sunday there was all eleven aisles open at once and over 6 customers per lane, and i was switching between bagging and going out collecting carts, since they were constantly being depleted and i could overhear people complaining about having to carry things in their arms. after 10 trips for carts in 3 hours i came back inside to bag groceries next to my friend eduardo. ed was a puerto-rican giant teddy bear sized boy, his brow was furrowed and he was burning in the eyes, he was pissed and whispered over to me that mr k had walked by him and said out loud so others could hear 'hey eddie wheres your faggot boyfriend' which was his way of asking where i was in his redneck way. he never liked us working around each other, and this was his way of expressing it in a public way. well that comment broke my worn out back, for he had been making snide demeaning comments all week in front of others, but never privately expressing just what his problem was with me, and this was one step too far. i felt a ball of angry string unwinding inside my guts. gears turned within and gained speed until glowing with friction, and turned me into living 'the moment', which causes much of the actual event to be forgotten.

i remember immediately finishing my bagging task of the moment, then going over to the main overlook 'roost' where the managers were, and i stood down below him and just silently glared from 6 feet below, i glared as my brains were gurgling out from eye sockets, and finally he noticed my attention and stared upon me from his nest of a turtleneck, it took a few seconds for him to realize i was not really doing anything except concentrating on him, so he says 'gary, you need to get back to work now' with a wagging finger back to the checkouts. i didnt move or blink, only felt my skin turn colors because i was breathing so thinly. 'gary get your ass back to work' he said in a louder tone, and i shakingly said up to him 'what did you tell eddie' and it came out so loud, but anyone beyond myself and him were just part of the grey blur of anger to me, so the exact strength of my voice i couldnt gauge.

'shut up and get back to work' his eyes narrowed behind his bottle glasses. 'what the hell did you say to eddie' i spoke again in the trance of a rotating energy. 'i asked him where you were, now back to work' he calmly issued, aware of the audience we had gained. 'you called me a faggot' i asked. 'no and if you want your job youll get back to work now' he said. 'fuck you' i said strongly and with a humming calmness, and that quieted a good portion of the store down, a measure in the dozens of people. 'im sick of your shit, who the hell are you to call me a faggot here, if youve something to call me say it in person' i continued, it was all the weeks of him demeaning me to others but never to me, and calling me so many names. his nostrils flared and glasses sunk, he leaned down over me, close enough that i could smell his stale cigarette smoke baked into that winn-dixie vest, 'you little shit' he mouthed to me so as none could hear, and then he began moving out of his bunker, he spoke out loud 'youd better shut up-'and i cut him off redfaced and told him to fuck himself again, and as he was now on the same level ground as me, he told me about how i didnt want him to come over to me, of which i invited him to.

he then out loud found himself saying he was going to kick my ass, and his eyes were now as wild crazy brown saucers, his red face prickly and veiny, he looked away from me for a few seconds, breaking the building tension, to see all cashiers had stopped their checkouts and the whole store was now an audience watching this duel. he noted this and headed to the time clock saying with confidence 'your ass is out of here you little piece of shit, youre fired' and as he was looking through the timecards to find mine, i came over and from behind him grabbed mine, warning him not to touch my card as per state law, and i slammed my card into the clock, and calmly placed it onto the counter meeting him eye for eye, and then i began out the front door which was clear of people, as everyone had either left or frozen in time to watch. i left the interior, all while hearing a number of claps or laughs or yells or gasps, and only faded when the electric door then shut life to my first job.

i went to the payphone and called my parents to pick me up, as i was too rattled and scared to take my bike. in the end, it was nasty. my parents and i went and met with regional management and some legal go betweens came to represent winn-dixie. we all agreed that i would return to my job, and that mr k would be transferred to another store. so there i was back to bag groceries a month later, but returning to my old job, it turned out that the replacement was a good friend of mr k, so he immediately began with a whole new set of harrassments without even talking to me or trying to know me. indeed, on the fourth night under his reign, he told me to mop the entire store, all by myself, which i did for 40 minutes. then he told me to do it again, and so i did for another 40 minutes. usually its a job done by 2-3 people once in a night.

then he told me to do it again, while the rest of the workers stood around grinning, knowing exactly what was going on. i just simply said no, i thought it was clean enough after two moppings, and he very dryly and calmly said 'ok youre fired, get out'. i said i was not going to leave, that for 8 months i had cleaned these floors nightly, always once and always with others, and never 3 times by myself. he then said get the fuck out or hed 'kick my ass' out. i told him he could try that, but i guess he had already spoken to some of the older redneck stockmen, because now here comes some guys 10-30 years older then me, they came up and told me if i didnt walk out theyd personally beat the shit out of me. well, then i left, and walked to the same payphone i had called my parents on a month earlier. while waiting for my parents, they all crowded around me, exciting themselves by having things like brooms and metal objects and things in their hands, circling me and really freaking me out. i mean, i was 14 and heres these beefy rednecks threatening a kid who they certainly knew was being messed with. they only spread out when 15 minutes later my parents showed up. they had the logic that if it happened twice, well it must be me, and not 'the other side', and anything i said was an excuse, not a reason. my first on the clock job was the worst, and only bought me one buger-king hamburger an hour.

1988 DIARY, OFFICE JOB, 17yo

its a rainy late tuesday night, at the last minute today i got a ride to work with a friend, and we drove to the 9 story building on palm beach lakes building called the jb haneour building, in fact im using a logo'd pen of theirs right now as we read. we worked on the 7th floor, one big room with perfect rows and columns of wood desks and metal desks interspaced, paperwork shuffling and flying with the sound of perpetual white noise, people running and people pacing, a sealed 4-walled envelope of high pressure. i sat at a temporarily empty desk with my stapled list of numbers and a old-world telephone. my job was instructed within 10 minutes by an anonymous guy; to call these companies on the list, to lie and do what it took to get the presidents name and hopefully phone number or contact information on him. my mentor told me it was easiest to say i was calling from some financial magazine, and i wanted to chat loosely about a possible article with a qoute from him. within two hours i realized it did have an art to it. any time i got a name and number i just jotted it on the paper in a neatly-arranged grid, one sheet would fit 20 names and numbers, and at the end of the day i hand it over to this curly-haired jewish guy in stripes who called us all 'cowboys' and did the whole 'are you excited' routine, at $6 an hour he can call me anything.

every hour we get a 5 minute break, just long enough to dash over to under the stairs where the vending machines were, winding my way through the torsos and chairs of number-crunchers all pecking away at dirty yellowed keyboards and granola bars. the machines offer chocolate, chocolate-covered, colored-chocolate, and dark-chocolate, and theres a broken coffee machine and dirty fridge next to them. i had no change so i ate nothing, which gave me a headache after 3 hours of these phone calls and all the background chatter. after the job, at 5, he explained we'd be getting $6 an hour under the table, and we would be paid every thursday. by 6pm i was dropped off home by my friend, and i fell right to sleep with dreams riddled with anxieties. when i awaken i find FOX29 tv on with an old star trek rerun, a show i dont care for but the goofiness keeps my attention sometimes. on the show, they never get any direct concrete information on their enemies with all that technology hidden behind tungsten colored party bulbs, its always some obscure geiger reading that only indicates they are dangerous somehow, not exactly how they are a danger. then they must land upon a cratered ball of paper mache with suns of colored pool lights. whoever the name-brand-people beam down with are always the ones who will be dying on the expedition, and the aliens sound like a broken santa klaus held underwater. i watch to see if once they should happen to land peacefully on a utopian green landscape with no enemies, only friendly characters. it has yet to occur.

usually late at night, after midnight, i write poems to stave off the boredom, but monotony has even crept into that lately, leaving me with an empty pen and dry mind. when i look over the hundreds of poems ive written in the past year, i get depressed that i have so much time on my hands to even have written them. direct evidence of a life unlived i say. but they are a good release from pressures within and things which itch under the skin. star trek is over, the nemesis ended up being a cross-section of a flea which seemed to freefloat through space, so i pumped myself full of nose spray so that i could breathe enough to drift off, and then i began a random prayer to help my mind unwind the past and account for the future. the next day i awake to the phone ringing, its the guy who found me the job, he asks if ill be going in today, i say yes, and my mom, on her way to work, drops me off at his house where we wait for kris to pick us up in his toyota. naturally he was late, naturally. the 3 of us got to our job all fresh in long pants and collared shirts, it was depressing, i felt empty and old.

blablablabla i spent 4 hours trying to fit bullshit through the phone and did pretty well. kris left early from the job after 2 hours, he promises to return at 5 to pick us up, but it wasnt until 545 as we sat sweating in the vast hot parking lot that we saw kris, on the other side of the road with his neck craning wildly, searching out the building in confusion. a squirrel runs out to the side of the road to take account of things, i watch as his paws patter across six lanes, i was amazed at creatures who know how to time things right, but by the 5th lane splat, a front tire spins him round and the rear tire flattens him. his bushy tail still retained some 3rd dimensions and was whipping back and forth before finally freezing crooked up as a broken surrender flag of static fuzz. i felt bad for him, i wished i hadnt seen him but i had to keep an eye on the everlost kris in case he gave up.

eventually i made it home and tried to sleep right away, but after 10 minutes of drifting the phone rings with a girls call. a dark figure whos life story i dont understand because it constantly morphs as she sees fit. we had met 9 months before this day at some party, she had went with two friends of mine and i caught up with them there with my friend, we all arrived early right before the party would actually explode into an 'event', where the host was rambling around her kitchen with cokeshot eyes offering us ingestions of mouth and nose. we said no and chose to wander around her yard until more people arrived. the next to arrive at the party was kris, so i disappeared with him to her garage where we listened to u2 and i tried to drink a beer. after 4-5 songs you could hear people had arrived because it sounded like they were funneling beer in the kitchen, people were cheering and counting, and the sound of quarters hitting the side of a shotglass were heard in the dining room. thats where i first met the girl whos calling me now, i got to go see what shes got to say...

14yo WRITINGS

HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT ON DOING HOMEWORK, 14yo

homework is that cumbersome task of bringing home books in order to do schoolwork because you just can never get enough of what it pounded into your brain five days a week and many hours every day. breathe. homework is sometimes also required by teachers because they feel you need more and more pounding. well not really, they just want you to learn self-reliance and self-study. unfortunately some of us cant study because if you dont start early you never end up doing it. i can never do it. for me, it is a frame of mind in which in school, im 'in school' and when im out of school, im out. plus i cannot get into doing it, no matter how hard i try, i can do nothing but stare lazily onto the sheet of paper.

many times i just dont have the time, but usually its plain laziness. putting things off to the last minute is a bad habit, but i suppose not even doing it at all is worse. habits that are 'set in' are hard to break, and homework is a habit, studying is a habit, and not doing either is a habit. i have no interest in homework, i would just fail then do a couple math problems at home, because i just dont care for it. 

this is in no way an essay, but i hate limits, i hate conformity, staying within boundaries, for things like that make people robots. its doesnt allow them to express themselves, instead it just teaches them how to be disciplined. oh well, whatever. what am i even rambling on about, the bell is about to ring, so ill finish this up now because i know ill never finish this tonight. homework. yuk . . .

HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT ON PEER PRESSURE, 14yo

peer pressure is a major thing affecting teenagers today. those two words denote something to which every highschooler can relate with, whether it is the best sportsplayer or a rejected computer whiz; peer pressure effects them all. most of it comes from school, but it also range to other things such as home life, music, tv, and the like which society offers us today. school peer pressues are the hardest to safeguard yourself against because you must handle them every day. school pressure includes friends and enemies. friends may either build you up constructively or bog you down destructively. that choice is up to you. your friends are your own decisions, and before you consign yourself to bring a true friend with someone you must realize their influence will change you for better, or for worse.

enemies can really ruin your morals if you pay attention to them. drugs, which don't help matters in the least, as well as sex and violence, even though these might prove your 'machoism' to friends, they mentally affect you and don't get you anything in the end besides trouble. another school pressure is homework, this best attitude for homework is to think it through before establishing it on paper, set up a goal as well as setup some time off to study it in the evening. you can take homework forgranted and sloppily finish it just to get it done, but remember that tests prove how much time you put into your work.

it seems to teens, that often their homelife has parents which are unreasonable and uncaring, and they just don't discern things happening with their teen. you get the impression that they came into existence at 21yo and never encountered pressure of teens themselves. maybe it is them, it is probable that during these times they are the ones who need love given to them since you are now growing up and becoming independant of them. it always helps to converse with close friends to always encourage you. music, tv, movies, these all have a subconcious effect on you. numerous rockbands provide the younger generation with violence, rebellion, harsh love, and sexual fantasies. these songs are enjoyed by someone, and they dont think of the lyrics, but their subconcious does, it deciphers the meanings and, unaware to the listener directly, the subconcious tries to put those lyrics into action.

other products now instigate explicit premarital sex, along with rebellion against authority, especially in movies now. so why then does authority wonder why each generation gets worse, when authority can see these things, and without even showing teens the outcomes of these wrongdoings they see and hear? something that is becoming more and more hazardous to americans every year is witchcraft. todays younger generation is introduced to a sort of satanic religion by things that involve them. saturday morning cartoons no longer becomes a time to laugh at bad cats or fast rats, but to get kids involved in magic and spell casting. todays singers attract the generation by their demonic signs and claims of satanic powers. games of monopoly and scrabble have faded away, bringing in the new challenge of dungeons and dragons.

HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT, SHORT STORY, 14yo

the wind was cold up here. no, not cold, very cold. the wind whipped past his face deafening him from noises which rose up from the streets below, nothing was to be heard but a steady shrill whistling wind. ray wrapped his arms tighter against his chest. it must be at least 0 degrees on this hazy night of mid december. how long had he been up here, 5, 10, or maybe even 30? it didnt really matter, his parents would not be looking for him for at least two or three hours from now.

he looked down 23 stories below, everyone else down there seemed to be hurriedly rushing to their apartments before it reached 9pm in downtown new york. 'what kind of crazy person stands on a ledge at night waiting for the cars to clear before they punge to their deaths' he thought. 'one who has wasted their life and no comes to the final challenge' a quiet yet convincing voice said within his drugged brain. drugs, sex, vandalism, all within the past year they were as common to him as being just like his friends in their senior year. sex was the first thing he encountered when he went to ridgemore high in 9th grade. man, he couldve had any girl he wanted for a night before that year was over, well, not that any of them lasted for over two weeks for him, but it was fun while they lasted.

in his sophmore year having some drugs before and after sex became enjoyable, and hey, these uppers and downers really helped when he was in a tight spot at school or home. his sophmore year was a real blast. before ray had bgun his junior year, his parents noticed a difference in him, he always seemed to be moody and didnt engage with anything but 'going out with some friends'. $2000, that was about how much he had stolen. why not, it was for a good cause, he would fall apart if he couldnt shoot up every weekend or at least sniff some of that white rich cocaine. lets face it, drugs are not cheap, but money is no problem when you do some purse snatching and break ins.

senior year this year was when things began to go downhill, he saw in himself what drugs had done to him, his failing grades also reflected on his afterschool activities. he didnt seem to have enough energy to do anything and last summer he was in jail twice on counts of vandalism. after that, drugs were harder to come by, he was burnt out, for life didnt seem to be clear of meaning anymore. thats why this last step will solve everything and leave his problems behind. he would never realize how his parents tried so hard to understand him, he would never meet his future wife. the world would never be the same not that this would-be political figure did not think ahead back in 9th grade.

ray jolted as he realized he was beginning to daydream. he took a shaky deep breath and looked down, there were only 3 sets of lights down there now, he closed his eyes and winced as he made the small step over. he seemed to be falling forever, he opened his eyes to make sure he was falling, lights from apartments flashed by, no thoughts were in his mind. he looked down and saw a couple walking along the sidewalk. a young man and his fiancee saw nothing of the bone shattering thud that was heard behind them. the couple would never forget that scene for the rest of their lives, neither would they ever know why the boy would do such a thing. such intentions lie in the hearts of teens who thought they could do it all, until thee was nothing left to do except take final small step. it is not some disease, but the story of a person who takes their own life too early and those around who who dont bother to prevent it or dont want to get involved.

1985 SHORT STORY, 14yo

a tight click, very small metal unpainted door, darkness in total, silence, the only tempo of time is my own heart, a single burlap for a sheet on a well weathered hay mattress, i roll onto my feet, no points to focus, indian-leg seated on the always moist stone floor with the numb bite of ice cold, rotate my neck to hear the it crack with escaped nitrogen, less then a minute awake and im already swollen, i rise to my knees.

hands stretched out to feel for the wall and then the corner, and there relieved myself, making sure to hit the spot where most would roll off and under the stones, i turn around and fell back to all fours, feeling back across where the mattress is stacked, the mouldering humid hay scent drowns the weeks of urine in the corner, i dig my fingers deep into a loose section of hay and feel deeply to where sounds could be heard.

on one finger the movement, then pushing and pinching in that direction with intent, tugging at war with a thumb sized beetle, blind as myself, it loses its grasp, i get it out after some seconds and clasp it with one hand, my other hand poking at its underbelly so as to tell the type of flavored insect this could be, its swollen underbelly felt well-fed, oversized, and soft, watering my mouth, i get my hopes up that this one was pregnant and full of larvae, that would not only be a less bitter taste, but would be the peak of its nutrition.

this alone could make my day worth remembering in unwritten days to come, i pulled its four main legs off without much of a battle, still the antennae prod at my lips, i slip its pudge in my deep mouth, i clamp down with a slight crunch and squirt, and chew away hastily to mix all its juices and textures together, so that the sweeter parts would overpower the bitter, a minute later i break back into the rhythm of my circular thoughts.

i feel back up the side of my mattress, still with the taste and numbness, around the inner rim of my lower jaw from my tiny dinner, i thought with my luck already the chance to catch a mole cricket could too exist, for last night i had heard one chirping, bringing some cadence to my life other than my inner cycles, but though the taste was one of the better ones over the past possibly two years, their music i had to preserve as it was a slight salvation, for my last cell, one with a bare ray of light creeping in, giving me form and functions, that one had brave rats, ones standing on two feet ready to stare me down.

in there, i would take minutes creeping so very very slowly while keeping its attention trained on one hand i would twirl n twist, slowly moving it away from my body, then i would come down with a grunt upon his tail with the other hand, trapping him, crushing his life with a bare heel, but soft enough as to not pulverize his body, only to stun and crack the skull, then i would flip him over while the grey body still beat, and take his lower jaw in my fingers, pulling down and unhinging its joint, then tugging, so that the median of his body was exposed, revealing a puzzle of glistening pink twists and purple turns and yellow sacks.

with a watchmakers precision i would remove the better parts first, saving the darker meats for a bad night, and tossing the tail and legs and skin in the corner, where other varying shares of decomposition lay, but my nose was so numb to the cachophony of rot, looking back on those days of white light and grey rats, i wish i hadnt complained so loudly, for now in this vigilant blindness my life is the scratch of a beetle, the beat of my heart, not knowing whether i am counting time up, or counting it down. my life, as such, is an animal force without human vision.

HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT ON 'EXPLAIN YOUR HOBBY', 13yo

if one were to look at a regular basic home computer, one would see a computeree typing on what looks like a portable typewriter. he stares at a color television while he types, and next to this computer is a printing machine and a cassette recorder. once in awhile the typist will punch a button on the cassette recorder, and almost as often, the printer turns on and produces some printing on paper. a closer look also shows that some joysticks are plugged into the back of the computer, along with some cables by which the cassette recorder and the printer are connected to the computer. thats the initial first look of a typical home computer.

the home computer uses the standards of television exactly like tv stations do. the only difference is that the computer has a different thing to display onscreen. a tv station makes a composite tv signal from a certain show, and then sends the signal over the air with waves. a computer also produces the same signal, but modulates it from 'digital logic' signals, and then sends it into the tv for the display. the computer is both the tv reciever and the tv transmitter. the computer case has the tv signal producer, and the transmitter as well.

the keyboard also makes a 'digital logic' signal, and the kysticks are like extra keyboard keys that also generate logic signals. the cassette recorder is a storage device in which if the computeree wishes to save a logic signal, he may do so by typing something which will then output the logic signals onto tape. only logic signals are sent to the tape, not like the signals sent to the tv. the tape can save the logic by means of audio frequencies. the tv signals are video frequencies so that cannot be saved onto a regular cassette tape. once logic is saved onto tape, the tape plus the cassette can also become an input device just like the keyboard is. you can think of the cassette as a input and output device, whereas the keyboard and the joysticks are only input devices.

the tv display may be a monitor or a common black and white or color tv. a common tv can provide viewing tv when not used for the computer, while in some systems it is a separate monitor only. a monitor has no tuning circuitry so it cannot be used for home tv viewing. the resolution of monitors is far better than an ordinary tv. whether a tv or a monitor is used, it is solely an input-only device.

the regular eye view of a computer shows five types of equipment that makes it up. the tv, the cassette, the printer, and the joysticks are all called peripherals. the keyboard and case is not a peripheral, they are the main system itself. when you take a peek inside a computer, you see a large board with lined integrated circuits running through it. a block diagram can resolve everything to five main types.

the 'heart' of it all is called the central processing unit, otherwise known as the cpu. it is there to do the hard work, and it is attached to all the other parts of the system, the cpu needs a 'heartbeat' to stay up, and this is a clock which is a crystal controlled oscillator that is joined with the cpu.

the 'brain' of the computer consists of two different parts. the main part is called ram, ram is short of random access memory. it is actually the read-write memory for a computer, the ram has lines and lines of memory banks in them, and when you fill them with 'digital logic' you are 'writing to the computers memory'. programs you type in are held in ram, the only limit is the amount of ram in a computer and the home computer ranges from 4k all the way up to 128k. once something is stored in ram is can be read back out again like a notebook. that is why its called read-write memory.

the other side of the computers brain is called rom, which is read only memory. rom can only be read from. it is more like a book and not notebook. the rom chips in a computer have a control program in them to help run the computer overall. roms are also in game cartridges you can buy. when you turn a computer on it first reads from rom, which is permanently filled with doing specific jobs on the computer. ram does the same thing like rom, but it holds it in blank pages filled up, and both types are need in a home computer. roms are rugged and dont break down too often, but ram can fail from a slightest amount of static electricity.

an important function of a computer is called I/O. this stands for input/output. io circuits and chips which can be as complex as the cpu, connect the computer to the peripherals. a common io chip is called the pia, it stands for peripheral interface adapter. another one is the acia, and thats the asynchronous communications interface adapter.

lets see how the internal things in a computer all combine to work together, for instance, you would like to write an electronic letter. to do this you would need a printer and a store-bought letter-writing program which comes on a rom chip in a cartridge. the first thing you do a plug in the rom catridge and turn on the equipment. the cpu immediately connects the rom as soon as it powers on, so the rom is now in charge, and the cpu is awaiting a task, and the ram is waiting with open empty memory, meanwhile the printer and the tv are connected to the computers output ports.

now you hit a key to begin the letter, the keyboard send a binary code representing that letter to the cpu. the cpu holds that character and asks the rom what to do with that letter. the rom replys by telling the cpu to save the letter in the ram and also display it on the tv screen. so the cpu stores it in ram making a record to remember where that character is stored exactly since every ram row has its own addresses, and displays it onscreen. now another letter is pressed and goes to the cpu, which has practically no brains, and again asks the rom what to do, and the rom does the same routine over and over as each letter is typed. each letter is stored in a row of memory and kept in the cpus record of character addresses.

finally,the letter is complete, and you type 'print'. the cpu then says to the rom 'what do i do with 'print?', and the rom instructs the cpu to read off the characters from ram and send them to the printer. so the cpu send each letter over to the printer, and the printers has a small amount of ram itself, usually enough to hold a line of characters, so that when that line is printed, the next line is send to the printers ram.

other chips of importance not yet mentioned are the vdg and the sam, which are known as the video display generator and the synchronous address multiplexer.

lets take a second look over a computers main chips. <this section of writing is just quotes from some computer book, not my writing.> <now back to my writing>

all in all, this chips along with many other smaller chips and circuits combine together to provide an instrument which is only limited to ones knowledge. since computers have been constantly expanding in the past decade, who knows what will happen within the next decade?<end>

FIRST PAGE OF A 'choose your own adventure' BOOK I WAS DOING, 13yo

'dont worry mom ill be back before supper!", mark snatched his wallet with him as he opened the screen door. 'alright honey, and remember you still have debts to pay', reminded mrs gregory. 'he'll just blow his money again on those dumb videogames' retorted his little sister, who, at 6 years of ago, was nothing more than a nuisance to him.

mark descended the stairs and hopped on his new, shiny trimax 10 speed, looking forward to a car next year. mark was an average all-around american 'man' at 15yo, and there was nothing different about him than most of this other friends. as a sophomore he enjoyed highschool activities such as school sports and flirting with some of the best looking girls. not only were they attracted to his sandy blonde hair with such blue eyes some only dream about, but his personality proved to be one of the best. he always had a kind word for them with a short chuckle. other times he could be mean as a lion if someone rubbed him the wrong way.

as he pedaled his way through the busy sidewalks and noisy intersections toward the 'manhatten corner arcade', he thought of how james was coming along with his own game. james was the owner of the arcade, and him and mark were writing their own program that could load into it, any of the other video games in the game room so that they could play them together in the privacy of the managers backroom.

they first had to devise a cable that would go from each game to the private room, and then, when they selected a certain videogame from the keyboard, the cable would transfer the memory of that game program and put it into the 'video mainframe', which was the appointed name for it. tonight would be the night to check for any final errors, and then they would try it out . . . <end>