Dia Manoj

Recently, I’ve been working on my experience and knowledge surrounding the use of artificial intelligence, and more specifically, artificial intelligence models. There are two types of artificial intelligence models that I learned about : discriminative and generative. Discriminative models focus on differentiating, predicting, and labeling data. By learning boundaries, they divide (differentiate) the data space into classes. For example, if you ask a discriminative AI model if an email is considered spam, the model would be able to tell you if it is based on the relationship between the input’s variables and the target variable.

Generative AI models are different in that they can actually generate new data samples based on the data it’s trained on. While a discriminative model can only label an email as spam, you could ask a generative AI model to recreate an example of a spam email. The model can do this because it understands how one data point relates to other data they are trained on. You can visualize this in a sort of spiderweb shape, where there are million vectors interconnecting each other. At the end of each vector, there is a single data point, word, or idea. One idea can be connected to many others. This is how generative AI models work, by using this data network to create (generate) new sets of data for you.

One thing I’ve learned about when exploring generative AI models is prompt engineering basics. With the release of Chat-GPT and many other generative AI models, people have been able to accomplish and create great things with simple prompts. I used a prompt engineering guide I found to teach me the best ways to create prompts for AI models, where they can understand it easily and give me exactly what I am asking for. I’ve learned a lot of different techniques for it that I didn’t know existed, and it’s helped me a lot. You can find the Prompt Engineering Guide here:

https://www.promptingguide.ai/

The second thing that I have discovered is Partyrock, which is an Amazon Web Services website, where you can create your own artificial intelligence models really easily. You don’t need any deep-level knowledge of data science or anything, you can just enter in a prompt of what kind of AI application you’d like to create, and the website will do it all for you. Then, you can edit your AI model and play around with it before publishing it. I created a fun Vacation Planner, where you enter a location, time frame, and budget, and then the AI model will give you a full budgeted and scheduled itinerary for your vacation. I also added a chatbot to ask questions about your vacation, a list of fun facts about the destinations, and a section that generates images of the destination. You can find my Vacation Planner here:

https://partyrock.aws/u/dia2120/dFnxfz–d/Vacation-Planner

I’ve been journaling for about 3 years now, and it’s probably one of the best things I’ve decided to do in my life. Journaling is pretty much very cheap therapy. It’s a place to sort out your emotions and dump your thoughts. Plus, you can pretty much do whatever the hell you want to do in it- you can draw, you can curse out people- there aren’t really any laws in journal territory. You can even rip up your journal if you want, although that might be a waste of your money if you haven’t used it. Idea: if you get scared of doing whatever you want in there (due to nosy people), after you use it- burn it. Seriously, it’s about the process, not the result, although the result is really nice to look back on memories, so I suggest you don’t actually burn it after use. Just find good hiding spots if you have a nosy family or roommates.

   Like I said, there’s literally no rules to using a journal, it’s a lawless land- it’s the purge but in a book And with this purge book, you can very easily get scared of actually doing what you want to do. Or even worse, you don’t even know what you want to do. Well, you’re really lucky, cause that’s why I’m writing this OPTIONAL essay thing (well more like an article, but yeah). I’ll give you some tips with each problem you might face with journaling.

Now, before we get started, repeat after me:

Avoiding cringe is pointless.

   Ok, now you say it:

(Avoiding cringe is pointless)

   Ok, good. There is no point in trying to write or do stuff in a way that will hide things that could possibly be seen as cringey in the future. The cringiness is a part of reading back old stuff that everyone has to go through- you’re not special. Old versions of you will always in some way be cringey, it’s the same with everyone. So, instead of trying to seem cool in your journal, write the real, actual awkward things you think of and feel. It’s not like anyone is going to read this journal except for you (unless you’re a bad hider/destroyer), so you might as well just try to be the most real you can with it. Ok, now that we’ve got that idea straight, I’ll give you some tips and helpful stuff.

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1. Pencil Smudges and Floral Notebooks

   Let me tell you one thing- as fun as this actual journaling process is, it’s really the supplies that get most people excited. It’s ok, it’s not nerdy to be excited about using a cute notebook (it is a little, but it’s ok, lots of people feel the same way). For me, I get very, very excited over starting a new journal- actually starting a new journal almost gives me motivation to finish the one I’m using. Finish this journal, and you get to use that cool Bob Dylan notebook you got from Target !!

   So, definitely have fun with choosing what you want to journal with, especially because choosing something that you like will probably make you want to use it more. I don’t have many tips for choosing materials, because everyone has their own tastes and opinions, but I can give a few suggestions:

• Pen or Pencil: I really suggest using a pen if you’re not planning to destroy your journal in a fire after use. Pencil can fade over the years, so using a pen could be helpful (Also if you want a pen suggestion: try a Pilot G2 0.5/0.38). If you make mistakes, you can use white out, but I think it’s nice to keep the mistakes in to look back at. For drawings or other situations where you need to, you can use a pencil, but try using a mechanical, rather than a wood one.
• Online: Some people can’t do the whole pencil-paper thing, and that’s totally ok too. Journaling digitally has its conveniences and its setbacks. It’s easy to take anywhere you go, but it limits what you’re really able to do. If you need some apps or websites to use for online journaling I really recommend Evernote, or Day 1.
• High Prices: Of course, most people can’t and won’t buy very expensive journals and materials, which I think makes sense, especially if you’re just starting. More expensive notebooks are nice, but lower priced ones work literally just the same. It’s just some binded paper my dude. If you’re just starting journaling, try getting a less expensive one, and when you need to buy your next one, if you want, you can buy a more expensive one.
• Pages: MAKE SURE YOU GET THE RIGHT AMOUNT OF PAGES THAT FITS WHAT YOU NEED OH MY LORD. Literally the biggest tip I could give someone. When people buy notebooks with 600 pages, they can get stressed out over how they could ever fill it all up. With small, 50 paged ones, people try to save the pages for when they can write or do ‘interesting’ things in it. Find a balance between it, get something that you can handle and afford. I think for most people 200-300 pages is a good average, but some people might need more or less. Also, make sure you get a good sized notebook too (8 by 11 is most common)- do a size that can let you take it everywhere.

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2. First Page Drama

   Writers and artists and journalers and poets and literally ANYONE who uses notebooks knows the struggle of the first page. For some reason, everyone has the idea that the first page in your notebook or sketchbook needs to be perfect, or impressive. Remember, this whole notebook is going to be one cringey, great mess, so it doesn’t matter if the messiness starts on page 1. One thing you can do though is writing an intro on the first page, if you don’t know what to write or do immediately. Introduce yourself, spit out some fun facts, just let the inanimate object you’re writing in get to know you. Another thing you can do that I learned from my dad- just skip the first page. Just start on the second page, and one day, when you’re feeling really brave after watching Bob Ross paint trees, you can try acing that first page. Of course, I don’t have this silly, peasant ‘1 page’ problem, because everything I write is absolutely perfect.

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3. Good Content 24/7

One problem that people can have with journaling is that they have no idea how to actually journal. What makes it worse for these poor people is the fact that there is no correct way to journal, so all of their googling just confuses them more. As I said, there’s no correct way to journal, and you really just have to figure out what works for you. If you have no creativity and are 100% stumped, here’s a few ideas:

• Write whatever’s happening in your life!! This can be daily, weekly, or whenever something interesting happens (*more on how many times you should write later*)
• Art Journaling- or drawing whatever is happening in your day. Got a cup of coffee, draw your Starbucks cup with your little metal straw. Draw all the turtles you saved too.
• Dream Journaling – This works the best if you journal RIGHT after you wake up. You’ll get some really funky stuff out.
• Journaling for Health – If you’re on some kind of diet/exercise thing/whatever whatever, you can keep track of that that in a journal.
• Have a whole gossip book (especially good for bad secret-keepers; jus stick ’em in the book)
• Make a mood board book; use pictures from pinterest, washi tape, the whole deal. Plus, it looks pretty aesthetic at the end.

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4. Good Content 24/7: The Itty Bitty Fun Stuff

In part 1 of this section, I gave more broad, whole-book, kind of ideas. Now, I’m going to give you some fun prompts you can do in between your normal routine; just to spice it up a little.

• Write what you’re grateful for
• Make a bucket list
• Write the current songs/movies/shows/other things you’re indulging; I think the stuff you enjoy really reflects how you feel and it’s look back on
• Throwback and write about a random memory you remember
• Write a letter to someone- kinda like a whole To All The Boys situation; but you don’t actually have to accidentally send it.

   If you go on the internet, there’s probably even more journaling ideas and prompts that you can use to add a little flavor every once in a while in your journal, especially on Pinterest (if you haven’t noticed Pinterest is a god-send for journaling).

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5. Your Very Busy Schedule or Your Very Lazy Butt

   Not everyone has a lot of time to journal, with busy schedules full of work, school and other mishaps. And some people may have all the time in the world, but they’re just too lazy to do it. That’s okay. Journaling routines vary depending on how much time you have and how much you want to even do it. Here are some common routines I’ve heard of:

• Morning and Night Pages – stream of consciousness/journal for 30 minutes every morning and night. (maybe you can even record your dreams this way too)
• Daily Journaling (The Basic One) – Writing down what you’ve done every single day for 30 min – 1 hr.
• Throughout the Day – As soon as you think of something or do something cool, you take the time to write it down in a minute or two.
• Monthly Recaps – This’ll take forever and it’s my least favorite because it can’t get too specific I feel like because you forget stuff, but again, up to you.
• No Schedule At All Just Whenever Something Interesting Happens Or When You’re Emotional – This is what I do, because I’m not lazy and I like journaling and I don’t have a boring life!

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Journaling is genuinely such a beneficial thing to your focus, your creativity, your mental well-being, etc. etc. so I’m always so excited to talk about it and recommend it to people. It’s just a fun thing to do that’s proven to have positive results for a lot of people. It’s nice to have a written history of your entire life, you can really go back and see how much you’ve grown/changed throughout the years.

Anyway, that’s pretty much all the tips I have in me right now. Maybe I’ll do a part 2 if I think of more things.

Worries sing bright in your neurons,

your fear clouds your conscious

You do not see reason nor time

I used to visit your dreams

When I was your one place, your home

Brought your indiscretions to my heart,

where I kept them safe

Who will take it from you now?

What took you years to build with me

has now faded among banished relics

and legends

You always knew to be close with you was a crime

But you allowed me to be pulled anyway

and now you let me drift

There is always a way to heal

but I still have yet to find it

Even when love is sung to the wind

I can not seem to take this

, or you off my mind

She sits in tranquil beauty,

smiling softly at the river,

with a void all around Her

Children no longer play

In wild fields and clovers

Ladies do not sit and sigh,

bathing in soft sunshine

Now all that remains are

swaying branches and

light, whistling breezes,

a blaring horn from a truck passing by

She once had a story,

a purpose, a song

But long gone are the careful artists

who carved Her stone pot

(now resting meaningless on Her lap)

Gone are the priests who knew Her name,

and told the tale,

now a deep, forgotten maim in history

Gone are the humans that brought Her to life

that marveled and adored in idolatry

For what is a deity without Her story?

In early June, I went to the Young Writer’s Workshop at East Tennessee State University in Johnson City again. I really enjoy attending the workshop, I think it fosters creativity in a really positive way, and it’s a great way to meet new people as well. The workshop has definitely helped me work on different styles of writing. For instance, I’ve been writing a lot more poetry recently, even though I usually tend to lean toward prose and realistic fiction/short stories. Here are two poems that I wrote while I was at the workshop:

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To Crying

When the fountain of youth

and a gentle heart

had just started to rise,

There was nothing to be done,

but watch you do your work

With the smell of fresh rain,

but the taste of murdered dreams

Sometimes I feel that

the sweet times are worth the bad

You feel, and you feel so much

like a bird’s wings that were struck

but is this better than not feeling at all?

They kick a small puppy and it starts to whine,

but I think far worse is if it just sat,

without a noise

The hurt will bring rain, 

The joy will bring rain

Crying at least, you are consistent

and for that, you are a saint

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Dear Jumpy

No other creature, real or not

compares to the soft fur on your paws,

the delicate stitching of your ears

Since September, I have yet to find

a place with less judgement than here

In your imagine conscious of unconditional empathy

You love in a way I dream to love,

You care in a way I can only wish to care

But Jumpy, sometimes I wonder if you secretly despise this life,

and under your smiling eyes there is a deep sadness,

and a wish to escape the confined space

of the bottom bunk of my bed

Is it fair of me to expect a beautiful perfect inside you,

when you can not expect the same from me?

I give you shelter, and a name,

but in the end, Jumpy

your being is never mine to claim, or create

Since the beginning of this year, I have been teaching Creative Writing classes at the Brentwood Library for children ages 8-12! I’ve loved writing since I was 8 years old, and I’ve picked up a lot in the past 8 years. So I wanted to organize these classes to share what I’ve learned to young writers, or even spark an interest in writing in others. We have classes once a month, from 1 to 2 pm, with around 15-20 kids coming in each time. The sign ups for the classes are usually posted on the Brentwood Library’s calendar (here: https://brentwood-tn.libcal.com/)! If you have any questions about these classes you can contact me at diamanoj2120@gmail.com . I also wanted to put up what I’ve gone over in these classes on my website, so that all that content is available. Here’s a general overview of a few of the classes we’ve had so far, and some worksheets that might help you:

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CLASS 1: VIVID IMAGERY + THE FIVE SENSES

For the first class, I wanted to go over something simple but very essential- descriptive imagery. We’re usually taught to analyze this in other stories, but it can be difficult to write up vivid details on our own. As an activity, the class thought up of their favorite place to be at- like the beach, or the mall, or something like that. Then we used our 5 senses to try and describe this place without ever saying what the place was. For example, if you chose to write about the beach; you could talk about how you can hear the waves crash on the shore, how you can feel the sand in between your toes, etc. Then, we read aloud our descriptions to the rest of the class and tried to see if they could guess what place we were describing. Descriptive imagery in your writing can be important to grab your reader’s attention, and really make it easier for them to be able to picture your setting.

CLASS 2: WORLD BUILDING (WITH WORKSHEET)

For class number 2, I wanted to go over one of my favorite parts of planning a story- world building! World building can be more essential for some genres than others- especially Fantasy. Many popular Fantasy books are popular for their deeply thought out, magical worlds. To be able to more easily write a story in a made up place, you have to really know that place, and by that I mean you need to know everything about it. You also have to make your world believable to your reader. And how can you make a place believable if you don’t even know enough about it? Many books have maps of their worlds on the first few pages (one example is Cruel Prince by Holly Black). To help the students make their own, I brought giant posters and some markers, and split the class up into groups of 3-4. Each group came up with their own world name, and then drew a giant map of their world on the poster. They added mountains, and cities, and forests. At the end, they had a beautiful, detailed map of the world they just created together. Then, to plan even more specific things about their world, I gave them this worksheet (that I made myself, actually!):

https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1mq47FAlQHVLUUX9Qro4gFSVqq48tuIQio8i5xJhgMuU/edit?ths=true

Of course, this is a very simple worksheet, because it is for younger writers, and we only had about an hour of classtime. But I encourage you to look up some more detailed world builders online. At the end of the class, we wrote stories from the perspective of someone important in their world.

CLASS 3: GRAPHIC NOVELS AND COMICS

At the end of the previous class, I asked the kids what they wanted to go over in the next class, and a large majority voted for comics and graphic novels. The reason why comics are probably so popular, especially with children, is the artistic freedom that comes with it. Writing in large amounts with long descriptions might not be for everyone, and graphic novels give you the option of instead drawing out the details. For the class, we folded up our own comic books with some printer paper, and grabbed inspiration from story prompts we found online. We learned a lot about the process of making comics- how the comic panels/ boxes don’t always have to be rigid squares. And how dialogue can pop out of the boxes. There really is a lot of freedom in the style. We ended up with many superhero comics- and most notably “Sumo Baby”.

CLASS 4: CHARACTER BUILDING (WITH WORKSHEET)

Similar to class number 2, in class 4, we went over building- but this time we built characters. The reason why some of our most beloved characters are our favorites is because they make us care about them. To care about a character, you have to be able to truly understand them and their situation. Bland characters with no moral dilemmas and no dreams will make your reader give up on your story immediately. External conflict is definitely important, but internal conflict can be argued to be much more important, because it can also bring some relatability from your character for your reader. If not relatability, at least empathy or a will to root for your character. For the activity in class, I let them come up with their own characters or use a character they previously created. Then I let them plan out all the details about their character on this Character Builder!

HERE is the child-friendly version that I edited for my class (with 60 questions):

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VnUcR8ywp6Go8ARQcjtnbvSrb5lOZvsQJOUhdaEAD34/edit

and THIS is the incredibly helpful website where I found the questions (with 100 questions):

https://www.miniworld.com/adnd/100ThingsAboutUrPCBackGround.html

At the end of the class, we wrote diary entries from the perspective of their characters. Not their actual stories with any drama or major plot, but a simple diary entry of a day in the life of their character! I find this to be very helpful in getting to know your character, and it can be pretty fun to do.

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I hope this was helpful or interesting in any form. Thank you!

Hi, I’ve done a lot this month so I thought I should do an update on that. From June 5 to June 11 I went to the Humanities Tennessee Creative Writing Camp. I went to the camp virtually in 2020 as well, but this time it was in person, which was fun. We stayed at East Tennessee University for a week, and learned about different writing styles and techniques. I learned how to do Spoken Word poetry with Taria (an instructor there) and Flash Fiction with Bradley (also an instructor)! At first, I was kind of skeptical about spoken word poetry and poetry in general, I didn’t think it was for me. I also thought Flash Fiction was too short for there to be really any substance. But once I really started working with it, I began to appreciate the styles. Especially flash fiction- Bradley showed us how to make fun twists at the end of the stories and revise them so we don’t have a bunch of unnecessary details. Here’s the Flash Fiction story that I wrote at camp. It’s called “Ghost Hunters”:

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“Ghost Hunters” by Sanjana/Dia Manoj (436 words)

Two boys, no older than 12, sat on the pavement and licked their cherry popsicles, completely synchronized. They choreographed each taste. This was all a conceited effort in trying to seem like twins to passerbys. They had always thought that the idea of identical twins was eery. And being eery seemed to be their ultimate goal in life. They often stayed up at deadly hours of the night, hunting ghosts and watching horror films.
Suddenly, while they were trying to figure out how to blink at the same time, they heard a loud CLANG! from far away. They paused, and continued talking, before they were interrupted again by a BANG! They decided to investigate, walking down the street. Their parents had never let them go that far from home before alone, but they were much too intrigued to notice or care. Finally, in front of them stood a little house. It was gray, with moss climbing up the walls. The broken windows were shut off, with some glass shards scattered on the ground. The roof caved in, and the long chips in the paint looked as if someone scratched it off. It seemed isolated, yet they could still hear ominous sounds coming from within. The door was slightly open, which lured them in even more.
They stepped up to the front door, but before they could step inside, one of them said
“Don’t worry, I’ll go in first to check if the coast is clear.”
The other frowned, “No, it’s okay, I got this.”
“C’mon let me do this, I know you get scared sometimes with this stuff.” he chuckled.
“Hey! What do you mean by that?” the other retorted.
“I mean that you’re a big chicken.”
Soon, the two boys were bickering over who would go inside first and who was the bigger wuss.
“You couldn’t even watch The Conjuring!” one boy laughed cruelly.
“Yeah, well you’re scared of damn clowns! What are you, 5?” the other screamed.
“How dare you bring that up, you know their noses freak me out!”
Their fight escalated until finally one of the boys had a fit, and pushed the other into the door,
“Fine, go first then idiot!” he yelled as the other fell backward into the house. Inside, an elder man kneeled in front of an air conditioner, banging on it with some sort of tool. The boys looked at each other in confusion.
“Are you a ghost?” the boy tilted his head.
The man rolled his eyes, and turned back to the air conditioner,
“This house is up for renovation. It’s a closed off space, boys.”

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And that’s the story. I wanted to find a way to do a plot twist like the flash fiction he read to us at camp. I don’t know if I did the twist well, but I do like how the story came out. Also, before you tell me that I needed to give more background info on the characters (like their names)- no I don’t. It’s flash fiction you don’t need to do that, I think. Or at least that’s what Bradley said. Okay, that’s it for now, bye.

Three days ago, I took a trip up to Georgia- in Atlanta. I didn’t do much that was very memorable except for one very harrowing experience. And that was the Panther Creek Hiking Trail. We were trekking from 10 AM to 6 PM! And let’s also note that the pathway was definitely not made by sensible or patient people. We had to crawl over a log, jump over rocks, and take off our shoes to cross streams. Also, so many people left their dogs unleashed (and I have a huge fear of dogs)! Why even bring your dogs here at all, people?! At some points, I felt my entire body pull me down. All of me hurt so much, and every minute I was praying that the trail would be over. But also, I will say that there was an aspect of the trail that was wildly interesting, and that was the adventurous feel of it. I knew I was only maybe a few miles away from the nearest freeway, but it felt like I was an explorer in the middle of nowhere, in incessant danger. It’s almost thrilling if you think about it that way. But mostly, it was just exhuasting. The waterfall at the end was pretty though. Was it worth hiking for like the entirety of my day? No, but it was pretty. Anyway, here is the first part of a story I started on today. I’ll post the second part tomorrow, because otherwise this post would be like a million scrolls long. It’s called ‘The Wilting Witch’ (honestly, a working title) and it is about a witch and her relationship with her daughter being severely jeopardized. Or really was it already jeopardized to begin with…? Oooo. Enjoy. (1320 words)

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Delicate, honed little brambles were placed just perfectly so that each one stung her legs in a different place. Each prick she felt at her soul, and yet she sat, picking buds. That day, it was roses, for the love serums. Love serums for the desperate boys and girls who longed for each other’s devotion. Edith did not sit there in coercion, or in torment; there was no room for bitterness in a life resolved to solicitude. Because what was a wilting witch, with so much light in her heart and power at her fingertips to do, other than devote herself to others? And that’s not to say her history was completely faultless. Once, she had so much hatred in her- an acidity that came from a place of youthful pride, a will for destruction. But, when she had her Mireya, all of her resentment for the world tumbled out of her. Mireya was her miracle, her life, the needle of her compass. Mireya was such an important part of Edith’s own self, that she often failed to recognize her as her own being. And as oblivious to this fact she acted, she knew that one day Mireya would want to grow up, leaving her to regress back to the broken mess she used to be. Each day she felt her beloved daughter slipping away from her, and she did everything in her power to stop it- or even just to slow it down, to let her hand grasp at the water for it to eventually slip through her fingers. What a sorrowful life it is, to await your coming decrepicy. 

Soon, she had gathered enough roses, and her feet were covered with a deal of pricks, so she walked back down the mossy cobblestone to the cottage. Once she got inside, the blazing fire’s warmth rushed at her face, and she sat down on her rocking chair. She swung back and forth, pushing off her toes lightly, each movement releasing a cry from the old wood. She flipped through the pages of her book, as she waited for Mireya to arrive home. She waited and waited. The words started getting blurry, it was so late, but she kept on waiting. Finally, she was about to doze off when the door flung open with a slam. She heard inconsistent footsteps and unkept giggles. She lifted her head to see her daughter staggering in, flinging herself on the couch. It was 3 am, and there was a flush to her cheeks to the likes of which she’s never seen before. Her eyes were bright with excitement and something else entirely. Edith wondered what had her so shaken. 

“I’m in love, Mama!” Mireya breathed out. Her voice tinkled and chimed with bells of pure, young affection. Edith smiled at her daughter,

“That’s lovely, dear.”

No part of her felt that it was lovely, but what else could she have said?

Nonetheless, it was still very late, and so Mireya’s eyes were slowly dropping. She almost automatically got up, resisting the urge to scold her for getting home so late, and covered her with a woven blanket. “What am I going to do with this girl?” she sighed.

She sat back down in her chair, stopped swinging, and rested her eyes. Her jeopardized love and grief clouded her dreams. The next morning, she would talk to Mireya about staying out so late. But the soft chirping of birds awoke her the next morning, and Mireya was nowhere to be found. All the disparaging ladies in her town wondered why she lets her get away with everything, why she doesn’t just forbid her to be so reckless- she is a witch for goodness sake. But what they do not understand is that as much as Edith wanted to keep Mireya safe and well, she also did not want her to hate her mother. That would only drive her further away. 

So, with not much else to do, she began making her love serums. She counted 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 bottles on her countertop. Each bottle filled with soft pink, glowing liquid. She went back out to her garden to pick more herbs for her next batch of potions. She spent the whole day outside, till she came back in at 10 pm. She looked at her countertop and counted the love serums once more. 1,2,3,4,5,6. 

Mireya. Almost as soon as she thought it, Mireya ran inside the door, and into her room, crying. She slammed the door shut, and Edith could merely guess what had occured. She thought about going in her room as well, to comfort her distressed daughter, but she decided that the need of some alone time was likely implied. Worrying about her precious Mireya all the way, she began to walk to their village’s market. She turned the corner to the little stand of fruit, and placed a few glossy plums in a basket. Surely, a little treat would help cheer Mireya up from whatever was causing her all this anguish. As she brought the plums to the front of the stand to pay, she heard the troubling whispers and mumbles of the town ladies. She sighed in an act of exasperation, but her ears betrayed her to listen in.

“Dear, I don’t know what would even move her to do such a horrid thing!” one woman tutted.

“What a disgrace…” another remarked, “and to think- all the rest of our lovely girls! Their utter patience and obedience.. just for that spoiled daughter of magic to wreck havoc!”

Edith felt her body freeze up as she realized who exactly they were muttering around about. 

“Well, I’ll say one thing. The girl will get her comeuppance, that’s for certain.” the stand keeper chuckled, “You don’t go around casting faulty love spells and murdering a Castelle boy. His family’s all in a riot now, from what I hear.. There’s no recognized crime without a consequent punishment here, ladies.”

“And just what kind of comeuppance do the Castelle folk think my daughter deserves?” Edith’s nervous voice seemed to awaken them, and bring out some fruitless apologies. 

“Death, I reckon..” the store keeper mumbled, and one of the ladies jutted her elbow at him.

Edith didn’t want to believe the stand keeper, or any of those ladies. She wanted to convince herself that it was simply a part of the silly gossip that got passed around daily. But a small pit planted itself in her stomach, and she had no will to stay in the market, or away from home for any longer. She rushed back up to her cabin, so quickly her feet stumbled over the stone pathway. Just as her anxious feeling had foreshadowed, there was the Castelle boy’s father, Richard Castelle, right on their doorstep. His firm fist banged against their door in a manic sort of way, with no pause. He didn’t even seem to notice her arrival. Edith shuddered, but she knew she had no right to be afraid. What she was thinking when she made those love serums, she did not know. Cautiously, she approached him, and as soon as he heard her, he turned around. He looked enraged, and a chill ran up her spine. She had never felt more remorse and regret in her life. He insisted that action must be taken against her daughter. She will pay for her crimes, he roared. And deep down, she too knew that it was only just and fair that she have consequences to her actions. But her mind’s gears ticked, and spun. She then realized how it really wasn’t her precious Mireya’s fault at all! It was Edith who made the faulty love serums in the first place. So who was this man to threaten her innocent daughter? She couldn’t bear to lose her compass, her rope that holds her to sanity. And so, finally, Edith knew what she must do, and smiled.

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Well, that’s it for now. Don’t take this story in at the surface level please. Or, well, maybe I don’t have to tell you that. Maybe it’s obvious. It should be- I hope it is. I hope you can tell what I’m trying to do in this story. Or what I’m trying to mimick, at least. Hint, hint: Edith is not the gracious hero of this story, people! Ah, I’ll go more in depth about this tommorrow, I guess.

💛 Dia

In the summer of 2021, I started to do a Python and Java workshop at Scholetech, which was led by my dad, Manoj Rajan. Near the end of the workshop, we started on a new project, where we created a cipher program. In the program, we created a secret code, and made an option to cipher and decipher messages that the user inputs. 

Before programming the project, we talked about how to use dictionaries in Python. Dictionaries are sets of data that have keys and definitions, and it functions almost like a real dictionary. You could even create your own real dictionary with this, by adding words into the keys and following with their definitions. A dictionary is similar to a set or a list, which are both other ways to store data in Python. The three requirements for a dictionary are: keys, terms, and a dictionary name. With all three requirements and the right formatting, anyone can create a dictionary. 

One thing that you can use dictionaries for is to create a cipher, like I mentioned before. A cipher is ‘a secret or disguised way of writing; a code’. You see ciphers being used almost everywhere- including in encrypted messaging online, so hackers will not be able to find out what you are texting your friends! There are also many different types of ciphers. For example, a Caesar Cipher. A Caesar Cipher is a type of cipher where each letter or character is replaced with another letter or character. Let’s say that anytime we type an ‘h’, it will be encrypted into ‘c’. And everytime we type an ‘i’, it will be encrypted into an ‘a’. That means, when a user tries to encrypt the message ‘hi!’- the output would be ‘ca!’. This is a very simple and basic type of cipher, and it is the type that we programmed in the workshop.

To program this cipher tool, I had to go about different ways of coding it. It took hours of coding, debugging, and plain thinking to reach my final result. I was confused on how to even go about starting it. And in the middle of it all, I bugged my entire code by missing a single colon. But in the end, I successfully completed the program by using one solution. My solution was to create two libraries- one for encrypting and one for decrypting. For the actual secret code, I used different characters like ‘!’ for ‘a’, and ‘@’ for b. And I put this code into one dictionary named “encrypting”. This way, when a user enters a normal message like: ‘hi dia!’, it would result in something that looked like ‘?& #%!”. Then, in a second dictionary, I added the same secret code- but this time, instead of putting the regular letters as the terms, I put them into the definition column. Because of this, I could simply create another while loop and let the program accept coded information, and output decoded information. 

While this was a good way about solving the problem, I definitely believe I could have found a better way to code it. Later in the workshop, we learned how to code our own commands, which I find would be helpful in coding a much more efficient Caesar Cipher. It would allow me to use simply one dictionary, and shorten my code immensely. But in all, the workshop was very helpful, and as a beginner I learned a lot about both Python and Java that will for certain help me in the future.

This is a story that I wrote sort of as an audition for a writing workshop. The prompt was to write a romantic comedy about a telemarketer. This is the first FULL short story I’m posting so this is a lot longer than usual (It’s around 2000 words). Okay, hope you enjoy the story:

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People tend to not like hearing a 24-year-old wimp trying to sell them a new water filter when they pick up a call- at least that’s what Leo discovered when he was hired at Clean Water Filter Inc. People usually expect his call to be from their husband, their friends, or their girlfriend(s). Once they hear that “Hello, do you need a new water filter?”, you can feel their disappointment through the phone- and you can hear it too. They really don’t try to hide their sorrow, or they’re just really bad at hiding it. He wasn’t mad though- he understood that he wasn’t a very pleasant call to receive.

Leo didn’t like his job at Clean Water Filter Inc. It was a dumb job, and a dumb name for a company. What he really wanted to do was be a singer; it’s what he’s wanted to do since he knew what the word ‘sing’ even meant. And he was really good- at least that’s what he’s been told by his parents (which are never reliable sources for measuring their child’s talent). But he never went after the dream, mostly because of how unreasonable it seemed. And so, he downgraded to the slightly more reasonable dream of having a salary. Which, he somewhat achieved. 17k a year wasn’t great.

“It’s 12 o clock, you should’ve started by now,” his boss frowned at him as he walked past Leo’s desk. He grumbled and picked up the list of numbers he had to call. The paper was all crumbled up from him playing basketball with his coworkers’ trashcans (they, of course, greatly appreciated this). He decided to check the clock again, even though he knew it was 12, and that he really did not have any more time to spend slacking off. His big coworker, Margot, was blocking his view.

“Can you move?” he groaned and glanced at the clock.

It really was 12 o clock. He sighed and swirled his chair back around to face his desk.

“Thanks, Margot.”

He picked up the list and started to call the numbers. Most of them hung up as soon as he said ‘hello’, and some didn’t pick up at all. Which was a relief for him, as it only made his job easier. Soon he reached the 12^th number, which had a weird number of 5’s in it. He picked up his phone and pressed down on the sticky keys. Eating waffles at one’s desk isn’t a wise decision. He pulled the phone up to his ear as it rang, getting ready to put it down as soon as the person on the other end hangs up on him.

“Howdy?”

Unfortunately, this time he had to do his job. He thought it was a little weird to answer the phone with a ‘Howdy’, but he pushed that away and recited the line,

“Hello, do you need a new water filter?”

There was a long period of silence on the other end.

“What’s a water filter?”

He groaned, leaning back in the chair. How did he not know what a water filter was?

“It’s this thing that you put water through to make it clean,”

“Was it not clean before?”

“No, it wasn’t,”

“Why wasn’t it clean before?” Oh god, he thought.

“I don’t know man, it just wasn’t. Now do you want a water filter or not?”

“You don’t really seem like you’re having a good time selling me this,”

            Leo didn’t know what to say to this, since it wasn’t in any script he was given, so he decided to tell the truth.

“You’re right, I’m not having a good time selling you this,”

“Why?”

What is up with this dude? He sighed and sat up in his chair.

“Because this job sucks”

“What would you rather be doing?”

“Wh- why do you wanna know?”

“I don’t know, I’m just curious.”

“Well, I’d rather be a doctor,”

“No, you wouldn’t,” the man told off his lie almost immediately, which shocked him.

“How did you know that?”

“I’m a pretty good lie detector,”

Leo laughed a little.

“What do you really wanna be?”

“A singer”

“Wow, you can sing?” he gasped

“Yep,”

“Can you sing something for me?”

Leo looked around. It was around lunchtime, so all of his coworkers were eating in another room. He didn’t know why he wanted to sing for this guy, but he did. He sang a little bit of a song- a country song, because of the guy’s ‘Howdy’ in the beginning. As soon as he finished, he heard the phone drop on the other end and some rapid clapping. He laughed, and heard the phone being picked back up from the floor.

“What’s your name man?” the guy asked.

“Leo,”

“Woah, I like your name, Leo! I’m Mikey!”

Leo liked Mikey’s name as well.

An average telemarketing call length is about 1.5 minutes. It’s fair to say that Leo and Mikey were an outlier, with about 1 hour down. Leo liked Mikey a fair bit; he went along with pretty much anything he said, and he had an interesting view on things, although he was missing more than a couple of brain cells. Plus, they both agreed that PB and B sandwiches were better than PB and J.

“You don’t have a girlfriend?” Mikey sounded as if he couldn’t believe it, which Leo appreciated.

“Well, it’s not like you have one either,”

“I do have a girlfriend, actually”

Leo laughed. He didn’t mind that Mikey was lying, but he thought he could have done a better job at it.

“You know, I could totally set you up with someone dude”

Leo believed that Mikey just happened to know a bunch of single girls just as much as he believed that he had a girlfriend. But he decided to see how far he would go.

“Sure okay, let’s do it”

“Okay, so this is her number…”

Mikey repeated the number twice and Leo wrote it down hesitantly. He had thought that Mikey was lying, but he knew right then that he probably wasn’t. He was kind of counting on the idea that he was lying.

Leo didn’t know how to socialize with girls. He had never understood girls, which was perfectly reasonable. Girls are a complicated subject, especially ones in their 20’s. A man in his 20’s was one thing, but a girl was a whole other, and he had no clue on how to approach them.

“What are you gonna say to her?”

“I’ll be fine; I’ll wing it.” He tried, but the lie detector was fool proof.

“No, you probably won’t,”

“Fine, what do I do then?”

“You should try singing to her”

“Don’t you think that’s a little weird to get a call from a singing stranger?”

“Nah, girls love it, trust me”

Leo did not trust him, but he had no other ideas, so he decided to go along with the singing.

“Okay, fine. I’ll call you back after and tell you how it goes,”

“Okay, warm up your vocal cords before!”

“Bye, Mikey,”

“Howdy Leo!” He obviously didn’t know what ‘Howdy’ meant. Leo hung up the phone and dialed the number that Mikey gave him.

            Leo pulled up the phone to his ears and listened. As it rang in his hears, his head played a movie-like montage of a possible future. He and this girl fall in love, they get married (maybe he’ll invite Mikey to the wedding). He writes love songs about her which become instant hits, and boom- he’s the world’s most famous singer. And loaded.

Before he could get to his second world tour, the girl picked up the phone.

“Hello? Who is this?”

He frowned. Her voice sounded raspy, and weird, which would not sound good with the wedding vows. But he decided he could look past that. He cleared his throat, and although it felt so awkward and weird to start a call that way, he began to sing a love song- one from Bruno Mars. He wasn’t quite sure when to stop singing, which led to him singing all 4 minutes of the song, with complete silence on the other end the whole time. He soon finished singing the last verse, and his throat was so dry, he thought he would talk raspy like the girl.

“Uh, that was very nice honey, but who is this?”  Panic rushed in.

“The love of your life?” That would have sounded nice if he hadn’t said it so awkwardly.

“Haha, oh wow, well, that’s nice. But I’ve been married for over 30 years honey,”

30 years? That was more years than he’d been alive. It was then that it hit him that Mikey, the man he met over a sales call, set him up with an old woman.  He didn’t even know if it was a prank or just Mikey’s own stupidity. It was most likely the latter. He silently cursed Mikey and erased his famous-singer montage. He sighed,

“I’m so sorry, ma’am. Someone gave me the wrong number. So sorry for bothering you-”

“Wait, did you mean to call my granddaughter?” Huh, he thought and answered,

“I- yeah, I did.”

“Oh my, I’m so sorry, let me hand this over to her- STACY!” He heard someone climb down some stairs on the other end.

“There’s this boy- he wants to sing a song to you.” He silently cringed.

“Hello?”

This voice wasn’t raspy at all.

“Hi,” he tried to quickly think about what to say.

“Well, are you gonna sing for me?”

“I- Well, do you want to hear it?”

“Sure”

He cleared his throat again. His voice hurt and was incredibly sore from singing the whole song to the girl’s grandma, but he tried to sing it once more.

It was a train wreck.

His voice went up and down without any heads up and he messed up the lyrics as if he had never heard the song before. He stopped after the first chorus and gulped- a loud silence filling the other end.

“That was terrible”

“I swear I’m usually much better it’s just that-”

“No, it’s okay. I mean it was terrible, but hey, at least you tried,”

“Yeah, haha”

“That was Bruno Mars, right?”

“Yeah, one of my favorites, actually,”

“Oh, really, mine would have to be ‘Runaway Baby’”

“A classic,” they laughed.

“So, singer-boy, how did you get my number anyway?”

“Oh, well- it’s kind of complicated. Basically, I’m a telemarketer and I met this dude named Mikey on a sales call, who is a pretty weird guy, and…” Leo rambled on through the whole story nervously. After he finally finished, Lucy laughed a little.

“Ohh, I know Mikey, haha, he really is quite the character. What were you selling him?”
“A new water filter, from Clean Water Filter Inc.”

“Wow, that’s a really dumb name for a company,” she laughed.

“Oh, I know,” he laughed back.

“So, should I assume your name is just as dumb, or…?”

“It’s Leo”

“Hmm, not that bad. I like your name Leo. I’m Lucy,”

“I- thank you, haha, I guess my mother did too. I like your name!” he said a little too enthusiastically, which made him immediately cringe after.

“Well, thank you, Leo. So, did you want to just sing me a song?”

“No, well- would you maybe want to get lunch with me sometime. As a date, I mean, unless you don’t want to, I mean, that’s totally fine I-”

“-I’d love to go out with you Leo,” she laughed.

And so, Leo- for the first time in his 24-year-old life- had a date. They both planned to meet on Saturday, and as soon as she hung up, he dialed Mikey’s number.

“I can’t believe you got a date, man!”

Leo couldn’t believe it either, but he didn’t appreciate Mikey pointing it out.

“Well, I guess I did. We’re meeting on Saturday too, I can’t wait.”

“Can I help you pick out what you’re gonna wear?”

“No, Mikey. We’re not teenage girls.”

“But what if you wear something stupid?”
“Trust me, if I let you help me, I would probably end up wearing something even more stupid. Also, how do you know I have a bad fashion sense? You can’t see me; we’re only calling.”

“True. I guess I gotta see you in real life to decide if you do. Hmm… Oh! We should have a sleepover!”

“Again. Not teenage girls.”
“You don’t have to be a teenage girl to do fun things, Leo! I’m coming over to your place tomorrow, whether you want me to or not.”

 “You know I’m not going to give you my address, right?”

“That’s alright, I’m sure I can figure it out. I’ll just knock on every door near Clean Water Filter Inc. till I get to your house.”
“Oh my god, Mikey. Okay, fine. I’ll give you my address, jeez. Just don’t go knocking on everyone’s door.”

“Okay! I promise I won’t!”

            Leo’s coworkers started to pour out of the lunchroom. His boss stood right in front of his desk, frowning down at him. He picked up the paper with the numbers Leo was supposed to call from his desk and looked at it, shaking his dead disappointedly.

“Okay, I gotta go now. Bye, Mikey.”

“Howdy, Leo!”

Leo laughed. His boss, who was standing in front of him, did not appreciate this. But he couldn’t have cared less.

A telemarketer makes around 45 sales calls a day. That day, Leo had only made 13, with only 2 that he cared about- Mikey, the infamous lie detector and perhaps a new friend, and Lucy- his very first date on Saturday. Maybe his job at Water Filter Inc. wasn’t so bad after all. Although, it really was a dumb name for a company.

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I think I honestly could have written this better than I did. I tend to rush endings when I get bored with a story. But the story was good enough to get me into the workshop (yay), so I don’t think it was that bad. It was definitely fun to write. I tried to make it funny, so I hope you laughed a bit. Or at least exhaled out of your nose a few times. Okay, that’s it for now, see ya~

💛 Dia