International Coffee Day: Celebrating the Best Beverage Ever

September 29 is International Coffee Day! I was pleasantly surprised when I found out that there is an entire day dedicated to this wonderful beverage called coffee that I cannot live without. There is no possible way I would have graduated college without my daily – and during finals week, three – cups of coffee.

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In the U.S. and other countries, many businesses like Dunkin' Donuts and Starbucks offer discounted or even free (yes, really!) coffee on this day. Taiwan is relatively new to the game, first celebrating International Coffee Day in 2009.

To commemorate the existence of the best beverage ever (except for maybe tea, but I still can't make up my mind), here are some cool facts about coffee!

Coffee was discovered by goats. Wait, what? Apparently Ethiopian shepherds in the 9th Century discovered coffee when they noticed how their goats would dance crazily after eating coffee berries from coffee trees. Speaking of trees, coffee grows on trees! The trees can grow to be about 30 feet tall. Coffee beans are actually the seed inside a bright red coffee berry, which makes them a fruit!

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All the coffee in the world grows in the "Bean Belt," which is the area between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn.

The first webcam was invented because of coffee. Computer scientists at the University of Cambridge in England created the webcam to help people know whether there was coffee in the coffee pot or not. Because people working in other parts of the building didn't want to make pointless trips out of their offices only to find an empty coffee pot, the genius computer scientists invented a webcam to provide a live view of the coffee pot for people to check the status of the coffee before they left their offices.

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Even though many people say coffee is unhealthy, there haven't been many scientific experiments that have shown that coffee is truly bad for you (except when you drink a lot of it in one day, and I mean A LOT). Scientific studies have shown that the effects of coffee are generally benign and a little bit beneficial! In fact, one study that I like to tell people about shows that drinking coffee is related to lower risk of death. So for now, it is safe to say drinking coffee daily may actually help you live longer!

Even though my favourite type of coffee is the white chocolate mocha, which Taiwanese Starbucks only have at Christmas, I love everything about coffee. I love the smell of coffee in the morning. I love drinking coffee in the afternoon. I love cafés. I love reading in cafés. I love how coffee makes me feel. I even kind of love it when my dad makes me drink black coffee with no milk and sugar (okay, only sometimes).

What about you? Do you drink coffee? If so, what is your favourite type of coffee?

Happy Birthday Old Possum!

Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.

– T.S. Eliot

Continuing the theme of famous author birthdays (It's just never ending this week...), September 26 is the birthday of American/British poet T. S. Eliot, who would have turned 125!

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Even though Tom Eliot is often hailed as "one of the twentieth century's major poets," he did not have to write a lot of poems to achieve this status. He believed that the only thing that mattered is that his poems were "perfect in their kind, so that each should be an event."

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The poem that made him famous is called The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. After that, he wrote his most famous work The Waste Land. The famous quotes "April is the cruellest month" and "I will show you fear in a handful of dust" come from this poem. He is also the poet behind The Hollow Men, Ash Wednesday and Four Quartets.


Later on in his life, he wrote the book Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats for his godchildren (Eliot did not have any children of his own). In this book, he used the name "Old Possum" because it was the nickname that his good friend, editor and fellow poet Ezra Pound gave him. Although you may not have heard of this book of cat poems, chances are you have heard of the musical in which people jump around the stage in cat costumes. Yep, the Broadway musical Cats was inspired by this book!

To conclude this post, here are some lovely quotes from Old Possum himself:

The very existence of libraries affords the best evidence that we may yet have hope for the future of man.

What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.

Happy Birthday William Faulkner & Shel Silverstein!

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There's no shortage of famous author birthdays this week. Besides F. Scott Fitzgerald, who was born on September 23, September 25 is the birthday of American authors William Faulkner and Shel Silverstein.

Faulkner, who was born in 1897, won a Nobel Prize in Literature in 1949 for his "powerful and artistically unique contribution to the modern American novel" and is most famous for the books The Sound and the Fury and As I Lay Dying. 

Like Fitzgerald, Faulkner also had a lot to say about writing. Here are some of the best quotes about how to be a writer from an article published in the Huffington Post for his birthday. 

The best writers are insatiable 

Ninety-nine percent talent... ninety-nine percent discipline... ninety-nine percent work. He must never be satisfied with what he does. It never is as good as it can be done. Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do. Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.

A writer must be a reader 

Read, read, read. Read everything – trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it. Then write. If it's good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out of the window. 

Shel Silverstein, who you may also know as Uncle Shelby, was also born on September 25, but in 1930. To celebrate Shel Silverstein's birthday, here is a video of him narrating his most famous book, The Giving Tree, in 1973.

F. Scott Fitzgerald on Great Writing

Just last week we celebrated our beloved Roald Dahl's birthday. This week, it's American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald's birthday. Born on September 24, 1896, F. Scott Fitzgerald is often considered one of the greatest American writers in the 20th Century. He is the known for Tender is the Night, The Beautiful and the Damned, the short story The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and his most famous work, The Great Gatsby, which was recently made into a film.

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He wrote most of his greatest work during the 1920s, a period he coined as "The Jazz Age". As depicted in the film Midnight in Paris, during the twenties, he frequently visited Paris with his wife Zelda and became good friends with fellow American author Ernest Hemingway. 

To celebrate F. Scott Fitzgerald's birthday, blogger Maria Popova dug up some letters written by F. Scott Fitzgerald to a family friend and his daughter, Scottie, that offer some advice about what makes great writing.

Here are some excerpts from his letters, for all my aspiring student writers:

"You've got to sell your heart, your strongest reactions, not the little minor things that only touch you lightly, the little experiences that you might tell at dinner. This is especially true when you begin to write, when you have not yet developed the tricks of interesting people on paper, when you have none of the techniques which it takes time to learn. When, in short, you have only your emotions to sell . . . [Literature] is one of those professions that wants the 'works.' You wouldn't be interested in a soldier who was only a little brave."

– Letter to Frances, November 9, 1938

"Nobody ever became a writer just by wanting to be one. If you have anything to say, anything you feel nobody has ever said before, you have got to feel it so desperately that you will find some way to say it that nobody has ever found before, so that the thing you have to say and the way of saying it blend as one matter – as indissolubly as if they were conceived together."

– Letter to Scottie, October 20, 1936

For My Students

This was something I wrote in July after speaking at a mentor/mentee event. I am posting it here because I want you to read this. This is for you. I am incredibly honoured and grateful to call myself your teacher, and I know you are all going to make me and your parents proud. Sometimes all we need is a little encouragement. So here it is. I hope this inspires you. 

Illustration by my ever-so-talented sister Lian

A few weeks ago, I was asked along with talk show host and former CNN anchor May Lee to speak at a Women in Journalism event to empower high school girls.

On Tuesday, I went to the Warner Bros. lot for the first time for the mentor/mentee event, which was held by the Studio City Youth Chamber of Commerce.

Over lunch, the girls, May and I chatted about college, journalism, the future, and of course, high school drama and Gossip Girl. May told us stories about anchoring for major news outlets and hosting her own talk show, sprinkling them with wise advice. May's main message she wanted us to take away was that it's not physically possible for anyone to do it all and that is quite all right. Know that you have options, she said.

Although I do not claim to have sorted through this complicated thing called life, I am grateful for the chance to provide my own advice of sorts. As someone who decided to graduate a year early on a whim, there are things I only learnt in the past year that I wish I had known earlier. Being able to pass these lessons onto younger generations to come is important to me.

As a journalist, I am used to chronicling the stories of others. Sharing my own story and imparting "wisdom" is at once exciting and frightening. Everything seems infinitely interesting as a recent college graduate, and I am probably as unsure about life as I ever was.

But I see younger versions of myself when I look at my students and mentees – shy, unsure but ever so ready to go out and change the world. I wouldn't trade this optimism for the world. Or the look on their faces when we both know they've struck on something great.

It's true that no one knows what the future holds, but it's also true that I know my generation and those of my students' will play a huge part in shaping what it becomes. There is now so much information at our fingertips. With technology, the potential is limitless. So as with all my mentees, I encourage you to be passionately curious and to dabble around with a bit of everything.

To my students and mentees reading this – to Lian (yes, you included), to Adrienne, to Selina, to Vivian, to Sandy, to Alice, to Coco, to Oscar, to Stella, to William, to Peggy, to Curtis, to Brian and to Ethan – my hope for you is that you continue to dream and to follow these dreams. Aspire for greatness. Find your passion and pursue it with all your might. Create, learn and listen to your hearts. Most of all, believe in yourself. The future holds great things for you, so go out and explore. I can't wait to see the wondrous things you'll do.

And I can't think of anything more fitting than to paraphrase Pa Kent from Warner Bros.' Man of Steel, "You're going to change the world."

Roald Dahl's Birthday & Life Lessons From His Novels

Last Friday (September 13) was the birthday of one of my and I know many of your all time favourite authors – Roald Dahl. He would have turned 97!

The Huffington Post published a piece wishing him a happy birthday with a list of eleven things that we can learn from his novels. Here are some highlights, all courtesy of the Huffington Post.

It's okay to be different

Many of Roald Dahl's protagonists are very different from the people around them. But characters like Matilda, Willy Wonka and James from James and the Giant Peach show us that our differences are what make us human – and quite extraordinary! Be true to yourself. Do what you love, love what you do, and you will find true happiness and success!

Reading is fundamentally important, and it can change your life

Matilda loves books because they transported her to all sorts of exciting new places and introduced her to all sorts of weird and wonderful people. Books are incredibly powerful, and they will change your life. To quote Dr. Seuss, "Oh, the place you'll go!"

It's important to be independent

While our families are probably all a lot nicer than Matilda's, it is important to know that there will be times when people will not be there to support us. Sometimes, people will let you down. While this can be heartbreaking, it teaches us that we need have the ability to be okay with doing things (and having fun!) alone.

Appearances can be deceiving

The BFG is a big and friendly giant, while the witches are "demons in human form." These novels warn us against judging a book by its cover, teaching us to look at other's characters rather than their appearances.

You can accomplish anything if you put your mind to it 

Look at the marvellous things that Roald Dahl's characters achieve in his novels! Roald Dahl would have wanted us to know that with determination, anything is possible. Just like my favourite actress Audrey Hepburn said, "Nothing is impossible, the word itself says I'm possible!"

Sometimes, dreams do come true

Charlie never thought in a million years he would have a chance to win a golden ticket and Matilda never thought she would get away from her horrid family. Luckily – spoiler alert – their dreams come true! Don't stop believing!

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What's your favourite Roald Dahl book? 

The Treasure of Kassy C.

On Tuesday, Selina and I read Walter Dean Myers' short story called The Treasure of Lemon Brown. Selina then wrote a wonderful blog post about what she learnt from the story, going onto discuss her own treasures – her books – and how special they are to her.

Just like Lemon Brown says, "Every man got a treasure." But not every man is a pirate with an old wooden treasure chest overbrimming with all the stolen riches in the world. Our treasures are not things that have monetary value but sentimental value. Indeed, even William Shakespeare, the greatest writer in the English language, believed so; one of the most famous quotes from his play The Merchant of Venice is "All that glitters is not gold."

Like Selina, my treasure also has to do with books. However, it is a very specific book – my well-worn copy of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, which is my all-time favourite novel. My mum bought my copy for me from Whitcoulls, a bookstore in New Zealand. This book has travelled with me everywhere – from New Zealand to Taiwan to Los Angeles.

Others may think that my copy of Pride and Prejudice is outdated and insignificant, and indeed, there are many much nicer hardcover versions out there. But little do they know that the creases on the spine correspond directly with my favourite pages in the book, meaning if you were to pick up my book, it will almost always open to the part I love best. To me, these bends and cracks are not the signs of deterioration; they are the marks of love.

I once thought I lost the book when we moved from one city to another. I scoured the house and ransacked through dozens of boxes in search of the book, but all to no avail. I was so upset that my parents conceded and bought me a new and much nicer copy. It just didn't feel the same though. This wasn't the copy that I had held in my hands the first time I read it and fell in love with Mr. Darcy, and it certainly wasn't the copy I proudly carried everywhere as I declared I wanted to be just like its heroine, Lizzie Bennett.

Luckily, I did end up finding my old copy, and now I have two copies of Pride and Prejudice. Even though the stories are exactly the same, you can guess which copy I love more.

What is your treasure and why is it valuable to you?

Posting Quality Comments

Commenting is a crucial part of blogging. Good comments encourage the blogger to keep writing, lets them know they have an audience and helps people to think more deeply about an issue.

Remember, blogs are places to engage in thoughtful conversations. Be positive and encouraging! You do not necessarily have to agree with the person's point of view, but you should be considerate. This means no swearing, being rude or attacking the other person.

Some guidelines to help clarify the commenting process:

• Comments should be at least 2 to 5 sentences, not less.
• Write comments that add to the conversation. Ask a question. Provide a link that might clarify a point. Copy and paste a passage that interests you then write your comments and questions.
• Read the article. Read all the comments. Be part of the full discussion.
• Use comments to show what you think is important, interesting, controversial, thoughtful.
• Constructive criticism only. Critique the idea, not the person. Respect other people and their opinions and ideas. 
• Use good grammar and spelling.
• Treat people the way you want to be treated.

Some examples of comment starters that you can use include:

• This made me think about...
• I wonder why...
• Your post made me form an opinion about...
• This post is relevant because...
• Your post made me think that we should... 
• I wish I understood why...
• This is important because...
• Another thing to consider is...
• I can relate to this because...
• This makes me think of...
• I discovered...
• I don't understand...
• I was reminded that...
• I found myself wondering... 

Adapted from Help Kids Code and Excellence and Imagination.

Current Events: Week of 9/2

Hey kiddies! Congratulations on finishing our first week! You may have noticed there are a few new additions to the list of student blogs on the left sidebar as well as two new sections titled "News Sites" and "Resources". These are some resources that I've gathered for you that you can use for school and other classes. Also feel free to check out what your friends have been doing on their blogs (and comment)!

For your homework over the weekend, please go to the Teen Tribune page and pick out an article from this week that interests you. The article should at least five paragraphs long. Read the article then write up a short blog post.

In your blog post, briefly summarize what the article was about. This should be one paragraph and include the 5Ws of Who, What, When, Where, Why and How. Then write down your reactions to or thoughts about the article, making sure you answer the Critical thinking challenge question at the bottom of the article. This part should be longer than the summary (1-2 paragraphs)!

Please don't pick an article that someone else has written on. If someone else has already claimed the article, you must write on something else. First come, first serve!

Your post will be due by midnight on Monday 9/9. I will be checking your blogs and commenting on the posts!

Have fun this weekend!

Blogging 101: How to Use Blogger

Hello children! And welcome to the big and wonderful world of the Internet which you might start having trouble with leaving soon! Oops, I don't think that's what your parents want to hear, so let's just keep your imminent Internet addiction between us (and the blogosphere) for now.

Anyway, seeing as many of you are new to blogs, Blogger and even emails, I thought I'd do an introductory post about the basics of using Blogger.

First of all, there are two ways to access your blog. The first is through a link (the long string of words that usually ends in .com found in the top bar on your Internet browser). The link to your blog will end with .blogspot.com. The link to Kassy's blog (this blog) is aforappleee.blogspot.com. If you want to read your blog or share it with other people, you will give them the link.

The second way to access your blog is only for you. For example, if you want to write a new post, add a photo or change the layout or colours of your blog, you will go to www.blogger.com, which looks like this:

Enter your email and password and Sign In.

After you sign in, you will see your Blogger Home screen. The top half of the page shows the different blogs you own (you can have different blogs for different things), and the bottom half of your page is a reading list of Blogger blogs you follow.

Now, click on the name of your blog to go to the Overview page, where you will see a left sidebar with many options. To make a new post, click the orange button in the top left corner that says "New Post".

When you make a new post, you can either "Publish", "Save" or "Preview" it by clicking on one of the buttons on the top right corner. If you are working on a piece but want to save it for later, you can click Save. Your work will be saved, just like in Word or Pages. You can come back and find the post under "Posts" in the left sidebar on the Overview page.

If you are working on a post and want to see how it will look on your blog, you can click Preview. Remember, clicking Preview does NOT post your entry to your blog, meaning if someone else goes to your blog, they will not be able to see your post. You have to click Publish to properly post your entry onto your blog so that other people can see and read it.

The other options in the sidebar you need to know are "Posts" and "Template". Clicking on "Posts" will allow you to see and edit all of your blog entries quickly. You can also see your saved drafts here. If you click on "Template", you can customize how your blog looks.

Comment with questions!

New Year, New Beginnings

I started teaching yesterday and along with that came the bothersome logistics of scheduling, transport, planning yadda yadda. Sometimes what's necessary isn't always fun. Cough, homework, cough. In other words, I feel you, kids.

But now that's out of the way, we can finally get into the fun stuff. This week is all about new beginnings.

To celebrate our first (or second) week back, we are going to make a time capsule. A time capsule is anything that encapsulates time. Filled with goods and information from a certain era or location, time capsules are often stored for long periods of time to communicate with future people, civilizations or aliens (yes, really).

Your time capsule is going to be for a future person (unless you magically turn into an alien in one year). This future person is YOU, in 2014.

For this, you will need to write future-you a letter. Tell future-you about where you are now as a person, tell him/her about your goals and expectations. Draw him/her a picture.

Once you have finished your letter, I will take a polaroid photo of you and give you an envelope. Securely seal your letter, polaroid and whatever else you want to leave for your future self inside and address it to your future self.

Give the envelope to mum or dad for safekeeping. You must resist the urge to open this envelope until this day in 2014!

Now for the blogging part of the exercise, please write down 10 resolutions (things you want to achieve) for this year. Whether it is making new friends, getting good grades or meeting an alien, list them out and post it on your blog. 

Don't hide your resolutions away though. Print yourself a copy (or 20), stick them on your wall above your desk, set it as your computer desktop, recite them every morning, write a song or screenplay or novel about them. Whatever you do, don't forget them! Do them! These are your resolutions, and nothing feels better than crossing them out at the beginning of the next school year. 

Here's to a wonderful new year!