love, read, write

Soo... I completely forgot about this.
And it's February.
And I'm already neglecting the resolution.

It's really a disappointment.

Well, I'll start now.
That's gotta count for something.

Here's smwriting.
(Hehe say that aloud.)

"You had to sit next to strangers?" She exclaims in disgust, her face twisted from the repulsive thought.
"I did," I say. I smile, looking into her deep blue eyes, eyes crinkled from confusion.
"Wait..." She scratches her head, her red pigtails bouncing up and down. She's bouncing on her feet lightly, tilting her head, contemplating over the idea of this. "What if you had a cold?"
"I would either stay home, or I would have to go to school on the bus anyway."
"Does that mean if you stay home, you don't have to do your school work or do your Lessons or your Works?"
"Yes, it means that I just stay home and feel better."
"I wish I could do that!" She does her little skip as her pigtails spin in a full circle, dipping down and swishing up as she jumps excitedly. "Stupid Emerald!"
I smile. "But the next day, we had to make up the work we missed. Sometimes, if we missed a test, we'd have to take the test after school."
She stops bouncing. "After school? Do you mean after you did all of your Works?"
"Yes. We had something called periods, where the school day was split into little sections so that during one hour we would do our Math Works and another hour we would do the Spelling Works."
"Oh! Then did you stay after all of the periods ended?"
"Yes, exactly."
"How did you hand in all of your due Works that you missed?"
"I would go to school and get the worksheets and bring them home."
She looked up, sitting cross legged on the floor, tugging at her jumpsuit hanging loosely on her--she had just turned seven, and had a small complexion for her age. She had yet to grow into the uniform.
"Worksheets?" she said, her head bent down in concentration as she tried to fold up her sleeves with one hand.
"Yes, we used to do our Works on paper, and we would have them in piles. They were called notebooks, or packets, or binders. We collected all the Works for Math in one notebook and all the Works for Language in another notebook."
She looked up in horror. "Paper!?"
I frowned. "What is it?"
"My friend Beth told me that Paper was a very very very bad program! It killed lots of trees! Granny! Why did you do that?"
I laughed, a sweet laugh I hadn't felt in quite a while. "Oh, Annie! Paper wasn't a program!" I paused, to breathe more easily.
She frowned in confusion and worry. "Was it a robot? Or a virus?"
"No, Annie, it wasn't technology."
"It was an animal!?" She exclaimed.
I laughed again, and heartily at that. In between my sputtering laugh, I managed, "No, Little Annie, why on Earth would it be an animal? It's wood!"
She paused--I could see it in her face. Her rapid thinking and worriment suddenly stopped, and she looked up with a confused, empty face.
"On wood?"
She sat down.
"On wood?" She repeated, clearly trying to visualize this.
"How did you insert information?" She asked, finally.
"We used pencils. They are like styluses, but instead of being virtual, they actually make a mark on the surface."
"Whoa! How does that work?"
"It was a stick made of a special material called graphite. When you scratched it on a surface, it would make a mark. We sharpened the graphite pencils so that we could make thin lines, like the stylus does."
"A mark? Could you make the mark anywhere?"
"I could."
"Even on your hand?"
"Yes, anywhere."
She looked at her hands. "Whoa.."
Suddenly, her face changed expression. She looked at me slyly. "Even on the walls?"
I laughed again. "You could, but you'd get in trouble for that!"
"But it's so cool!"
"Your uncle used to do that when he was little."
"He did? I wish I could do that!" She beamed, her twinkling little eyes wandering up at the ceiling, thinking of the endless possibilities with a pencil.