A Quilling Extravaganza

Nobody's life can be completely boring, can it? Because one of my more interesting hobbies is quilling. The art itself was developed during the Renaissance, when French and Italian nuns and monks used quilling to decorate book covers and religious items. I have been quilling since fourth grade, and I have created various masterpieces. Most of them I've put on cards. I've also made a jungle scene which now hangs outside my room. Below are pictures of the pieces I don't really have uses for yet as well as the jungle scene, a Mother's Day card I made, and a project I will attempt. 

A hummingbird

A project from clare-buswell.blogspot.com that I will attempt

Mother's Day card

Jungle scene

Flower-related pieces

Animals and a mermaid

Sapna — Chapter 1

Well...Two posts in a day! What a record! :-) Anyway, I have taken a long break from my other story about Jazz and the dragons, and I decided to write another story that is a little more realistic. Here's a bit of the first chapter. Let me know how you liked it!

Chapter 1

“Good morning, bitiya. Did you sleep well?” Sapna opened her eyes and rubbed them groggily. Her mother was sitting by the foot of her bed, smiling down at her. She had pulled the curtains open, and the sun was pouring in through the windows. Sapna’s mother liked to call her bitiya, an endearing Hindi word for daughter. “Yes Amma, I will come downstairs soon. What’s for breakfast?” Sapna asked excitedly. Her stomach was growling. Amma, her mother, smiled. “Your favorite!” And she hurried downstairs.

Sapna leapt out of bed and ran to the bathroom. She hurriedly showered and dressed, then flew down the stairs as the enticing aroma of breakfast wafted up to meet her. “Pancakes!” Amma exclaimed as soon as Sapna entered the kitchen. “With syrup?” Sapna inquired. “With syrup,” Amma replied, and Sapna enveloped her slender mother in a warm hug.

The feast was all laid out on the table when a knock sounded on the door. Sapna ran to open it and found herself being lifted into the air and spun around. “Papa!” she screamed with ecstasy. Amma stood by the window, smiling, as the sun slanting in turned her hair a beautiful shade of gold. Putting Sapna down and coming over to Amma, Papa embraced her, and she laughed. “Come now, you must be tired. You are just in time for breakfast!”

The family dug in. After they had all satisfied their ferocious appetites, Sapna asked Papa, “So how was your day at work?” Papa often worked overnight for little pay. “Well, one of our clients found a bug with the software we provided them and I spent the night fixing it.” Amma sighed. “Sapna, why don’t you go upstairs and work on your painting? Papa and I have to talk about something.” Hanging her head, Sapna obediently went upstairs.

“A touch of blue there, and now her hair. Hmm...let’s see...blonde! Yes, blonde.” And with a few smooth, quick brushstrokes, the painting was finished. Sapna stepped back to admire her work. A pretty blonde girl with startlingly blue eyes the color of the sky stared back at her. Sapna always dreamed of going to America. She knew it was the land of promises, where no one worked overnight for just a few rupees. Where children ate pancakes and candy every day, where they frolicked to school on clean buses that drove on clean streets in clean cities. Where students at high schools put textbooks in lockers and went from class to class, learning from teachers. Where they didn’t have to go to the library to check out a huge stack of forty books to learn what Sapna wanted to learn. Adults and children lived in harmony. They swarmed crowded cities with loud music and beautiful beaches, clean beaches. Snap out of it, thought Sapna. You’re never going there. “Hi! What’s up? Howdy, partner!” she said, in a Southern American accent, giggling to herself.

“Sapna? Beta, come down please,” Amma’s voice floated up to Sapna’s room. She went down and took a seat at the dining table. Amma took a deep breath. “We have made a decision, Sapna.” Sapna stared at Amma inquisitively. “We have decided to send you to a high school in America.”

Sapna immediately jumped up from the table. “What? America? I can’t believe it! Sachchi? For real?” She pranced around the table once, then hugged her parents tightly. Amma smiled, but her eyes were filled with sadness. “But you will have to leave your grandparents, friends, and pets behind.” Sapna stopped and frowned. “But Arya is my sweet, sweet goat! She won’t do anything wrong. I promise she’ll be good,” she pleaded. “No,” said Amma, turning away from the table and busying herself with a greasy pot. And that was the end of the discussion. Sapna’s unconditional love for Amma told her to keep her mouth shut, so she quietly stepped out of the house.

Which One Are You? — Quiz

1. Let's pretend you are walking to class and you see someone drop their books everywhere and awkwardly bend over to pick them up. The group of popular girls is snickering a few feet away. What do you do?

   A) Laugh along with the other girls and hope they will like you better

   B) Look away and pretend nothing happened

   C) Help the person with their books

   D) Tell your friend and ask them to go help the person

2. You are browsing your social networking sites when you come across an embarrassing picture of this boy you don't like. It's been posted by your best friend. What do you do?

   A) Hit "Like"

   B) Scroll past it

   C) Tell an adult

   D) Delete it from your feed

3. You are browsing the Internet and you come across this random blog. You notice that it has a page where you can submit information that goes straight to the blog author. What do you do?

   A) Type in an alias and write some insulting things about their blog

   B) Go back to browsing 

   C) Leave a kind message for the author

   D) Submit your honest opinion, even if it isn't necessarily a good opinion

Results:

Be honest with yourself!

If you chose mostly A's :

You should probably rethink your response to the irresponsibility and indifference certain people show towards others. Even if they are your friends or family members, they will thank you in the long run when they become better people. Being a good friend is also about helping the other person be and feel their best.

If you chose mostly B's :

You tend to ignore things. You may or may not know that they are wrong, but you decide that it's not your problem. Next time think about how you might feel if you were in an embarrassing or tough situation and someone ignored you. 

If you chose mostly C's :

You know what to do when you see someone in trouble. You are compassionate, and you realize that nothing good comes out of malice, anger, and hate. Keep up the good work!

If you chose mostly D's : 

You have a pretty good idea of what the right thing to do is, but you just don't do it exactly the right way. Maybe you feel that helping someone is a waste of time, but you still want to help them. So to avoid feeling guilt, you ask someone else to do it, or you delete the photo, etc. Or Maybe you're just not sure how to help out and don't want to embarrass yourself.

Remember, these don't necessarily describe you, but you should have a pretty good idea of the level of kindness you are showing others. Nobody is perfect, but there's definitely room for improvement.

Why You Should Watch the Blue Angels Perform

Have you ever seen planes flying eighteen inches apart? Well, that's just what I saw yesterday* during Fleet Week at San Francisco.

The famous Boeing F/A-18 Hornets of the US Navy perform maneuvers at speeds from four hundred to a thousand miles an hour, flying so dangerously close together that even a slight movement of the controls could be deadly.

The Blue Angels F/A-18 Hornets fly in their trademark tight
diamond formation, maintaining 18-inch wing tip to canopy separation.

Here are a few reasons why you should go watch the Blue Angels perform.

1. The maneuvers they perform are not just for show—they are actually used in the Navy.

2. You can meet the pilots, have pictures taken with them, and ask them for autographs after the show as well as buy souvenirs.

3. Even the carrier, the C-130 affectionately known as "Fat Albert" performs a few tricks.

4. This team is one-of-a-kind, and you won't be able to see them again until next year!

*I wrote this yesterday, but I forgot to publish it, so it's a day late. Sorry! :-)

A few moments my dad captured: