this is going to be an exercise to help me write better in the run. Typing is not my strong suit. Since I have started writing I have always typed while looking at the key board. This slows me down, but it is what I am used to doing and I have not ever tried to write/type while not looking at the key board. This will probably take me awhile to get used to since I have had years of bad typing and now I need to learn how to do it properly if I want to increase my writing spreed because right now my typing speed is only 30 words. And I really want to increase that speed. From now, I will work on typing with proper technique. I will also take time to study spelling because I have found that I am lacking the necessary skills to properly spell. Just writing this out is painfully slow as I am trying to write without looking at the board, but I want to write faster.

What are some good typing courses that you guys are aware of?

What are your WPM scores?

Not going to be 500 words for while. I need to go back to the basics,

Exhausted, Peter sat down and leaned back on the very comfy couch. He was on his field time, school just got out and he had time off work. The exams were done, all three were due on midnight this last sunday. Peter finished them all before the weekend and just relaxed. Once he heard from his teacher that he had gotten passing grades on all three of his graduate classes, he left town. He flew by airplane and visited his brother's family in another state. He thought it would be fun dealing with all the kids, four in total, all under the age of five. No. Maybe. It was certainly exhausting.

They had just gotten back from the zoo, he went with his sister-in-law and the four kids. They had spent most of the day their while his younger brother was at dental school in washington. They only just got back about an hour ago and needed to nap. He needed to nap.

His brother finished up from school, he had a test that he did well on, and was back home early. So everyone, but Peter went to go to a park. Peter stayed to study his french. He had started to study French in college because it was something nice that the girls liked, it made dating easier. However, now he wished that he had done a more useful language like Spanish. Hardly anyone in the states used French. Spanish would have been the language to do. But, he was to far in, the cost would be too great, so he kept on trying to learn French. In total, he only got about three girls to date him because of the French. Three out of five was not that bad.

The others left at about 3:00 pm, he slapped on the couch at about 2:58 pm. "Goodbye, the kids yelled at him. He yelled bye back in reply. Then he got his phone out and started to learn French. It was an older phone, and cheaper, he did not like paying for overpriced stuff so Apple products were a no-no on his list. He found the app and got it up, the yellow loading screen lasting a bit longer than it normally did. He did not like waiting. So, while it was loading, he tossed it on the couch beside him and closed his eyes.

"We're back, yelled the kids as they jumped on him." Peter only had time to open his eyes before the largest of the kids landed on his stomach while his brother, and sister-in-law laughed. The landing hurt, it also hurt when he looked at the clock and saw that it was now 5:00 pm, he had slept two hours. He had slept away his free time. Now he had to be the fun uncle again. The very thought caused him to feel exhausted again.

He did not get a rest until about 7:00 pm, due to dinner time, very messy even though it did not seem like any of the kids ate anything. The floor had more food on it then he ate.

He slept like a rock that night. Four kids was a lot of work. Unpaid work.

Milton and Mary were just finishing second lunch on mother's day when Joseph got home. Milton and Mary, twins, were eating at Milton's apartment. "Hey, how was church?" Milton asked Todd.

"Fine, pretty boring." was the reply. He said this as he was putting his shoes into the closet. He left his black coat on as he grabbed a bowl of cereal.

"I didn't know that you went to a church," Mary said as she ate the last piece of her toast. She had saved the best part of the toast for last and this one was a middle piece with a lot of cream cheese and raspberry jam.

Joseph looked at her as he started to inhale a large bowl of fruit flavored cereal. "I don't,"he said. He got a bit of milk and cereal on his face, so he then turned his eyes towards the bowl as he continued eating.

"Wait, then why did you go today," Mary said.

Joseph looked back up from his bowl of cereal. "My mom was an avid church member. I go for her." .

"Oh,"how sweet. Did your mom enjoy going to church with you today?"

"oh, no. she has been dead for a few years. I went today because it is mother's day." He finished the bowl of cereal and placed in the sink after leaning the bowl back so that he could drink all the milk leftover in the bowl.

"Sorry," Mary said, flustered. "I didn't know."

"No problem. I go to church four times a year for her. Christmas, Easter, and Mother's day, and the nearest sunday to her birthday. I feel like it is the best way for me to remember her by. "

"Oh, nice,"Mary said. That was really nice, and it probably meant a lot to his mom, if an afterlife was possible afterall.

"Is it though?" Milton asked. "I mean, it is not like her truly believes it. He kind of does it just for show. Kind of like the pharisees in the old book. Does it mean much?" Milton was a philosophy student, but that was rude. Mary gave him a somewhat playful hit on the shoulder.

"Rude."

"I am just saying. Anyway, any interesting talks today? Did the missionaries got you?"

"No, I did avoid them again. I sit in the back and leave once the closing prayer is over. We had a new pair today. The last ones must have been transfered. They are sisters now to."

"Hot?

"It is not apporpriate to think like that." Joseph replied.

"Yeah, go to horny jail." Mary said, giving him another hit on the back shoulder. They all started to clean up the kitchen. Joseph started working on the few dishes that were in the sink, while the others wiped things down and used the broom.

"One of them was hot, but I did not get a could look. I was serveral rows behind them and I left pretty quick."

"Still," Milton said, "is it right to go to a church, or faith, just because it was the one your parents went to when you do not believe?"

"That is a question on a lot of people's minds," Joseph said. "It is on my mind all the time."

Pudgy. That was the word that Harry would use to describe himself. The word came to him as he looked into the mirror in his bedroom. His shirt and pants were laying on the floor besides the bed, mixed with other laundry that he probably should clean up. In his boxer shorts, he was looking at his reflection.

Pudgy, that was the word the his father used to describe him last week. His dad had just gotten home from the bar, the place he usually went right after work. He was drunk, again, when he knocked on the home door. "Hello, Pudgy," was how Harry's dad greeted him when Harry had opened the door for him. "I am surprised that your knees have not gone out." That line was new, pudgy had been used before, a couple of times.

What was that? Harry looked into the mirror. uh, oh. Yep. That was a new zit, right in the middle of his chest. He probably had like thirty in the stomach area alone. His mom said that when he was younger, he used to name her zits. She still had them zits even when she was 30, and he, unlucky he, got the zit genetics. He was growing a red garden by the time he was eleven, and now, two years later, the roses were in full blossom. He also got her voice. Though Harry did not think so, his sibblings and father always said that they sounded the exact same. He even got teased at school for it.

After making weird faces in the mirror to express his feelings, he pulled his pants on and the shirt. It was a saturday, so he was in no particular hurry, but nobody would like it if he went down to have breakfast in his underwear. He was not a hot actor.

The shirt was a red polo shirt, with a small white logo on the corner while the pants were gray sweatpants. Both were hand downs from his older brother, who skipped town as soon as he turned eighteen, but the polo was in very good condition since it was hardly every won. This was only because Harry was running out of clothes that did not smell and the polo had been in the very back of the bottom drawer.

When the shirt was on over his head, he got a text. The phone, currently seating on the bed, lite up and did a "hey listen" fariy vocie. Sam had texted him.

The text was short. "Did you do it?" Harry looked at it in confusion. Then his head turned to the night stand where the candle and matches were. He had completely forgotten about the challenge. Last night, he had gotten the matches and candle out for a little experiment, but had fallen asleep before he was able to do the chant.

Similar to bloody mary, according to some friends of Sam, if you turned the light out, and then lite a candle in front of the mirror and chant you first name, with the bloody adjective in front of it, and do this three times in the candle light, then your reflection should move on its own. One of Sam's friends said his even talked to him. Harry dropped the phone back onto the bed. Stupid. He had promised to tell what happened, and he never even did it. He quickly grabbed the matches and lite the lemon scented candle. He turned off the bedroom light before he walked up to the mirror.

"Bloody, Harry! Bloody Harry! Bloody Harry!" The mirror cracked. The loudness of the sound made Harry drop the candle. He quickly bent down to stop anything bad happening. It was as Harry got up that he realized that while he bent down, the reflection did not. Instead, it was staring at him, smiling. Now, its eyes were glowing red. And it spoke. "Hey, Prudgy. Those most be some strong knees carrying all that extra weight." The voice was not his, but he knew it. He heard it all the time. His bloody harry reflection had his dad's voice.

That was the cry that rang out over the ship. Stora was just about to fall asleep when the call went out. Almost immdiately, everyone sleeping in the lower levels of the ship were shaken awake. The first mate, and the captain were doing it shaking. Captain Jon's face was pale despite his tan. His arm was shaking as he held the lantern abouve his white bearded face, the white glow of the flame making him seem like a ghost.

"Everyone up!" He yelled out, using his other hand to hit the wooden floor of the deck with his sword. "Some of the watch as seen something in the water. Everyone get up."

"So, people see odd stuff all the time. Just last week Old Mieck said he saw a naked women swimming in the water."One of the younger crew members complained. It was true, people said that they saw strange things in the ocean waters all the time. So why did this sighting require everyone to get up? Another two or three soldiers muttered their agreement.

"Well, boy," Captain Jon said, "the pretty naked mermaid did not kill second mate Malcolm. This one did." This got everyone into a panic. There was yelling everyway. By the time that Stora had gotten his boots on, most of the crew were up above deck scanning the waters. Only two others were behind Stora has he got onto the deck, the cold night air making him shiver.

It was a full moon, and the night light cast mystical rays of moonlight across the ocean floor. It was strangely calm with hardly any waves. The Blue raven was a regular cargo ship on the atlantic. It was currently carrying spices and sugar back to England from Cuba. However, it had been stranded on the ocean for the last few days because the wind had stopped. Some of the crew were saying it was badluck, and that most likely everyone was going to die onboard. The midnight waking would certainly not help everyone's mood.

Stora held his rifle and aimed it at the water, the gun was huge for Stora's small size, and it was old. Stora had won it in a card game, when they were last at shore in Cuba. The rifle was longer than Stora was tall and the size made it hard to hold.

Stora continued to scan the calm waters, everyone else was too. There was no movement.

Stora continued to scan for movement, but again, nothing. It was than that Stora realized that he had never loaded the gun, he actually had never even shot it. He didn't even know if it worked.

He pulled the rifle away from the pointless scanning. Pointing it up, he leaned it against the side of the ship as he got the gunpowder and bullet ready for the gun. He was just about to grab his rifle again when he stopped, he breath catching in his mouth. There was a small greenish tentacle that was wrapping itself around the rifle.

For second he only watched as more and more of the tentcacle came over the side of the ship and circled itself around the rifle. Finally, finding his voice, he screamed a wordless call for help. In that instant, the tentcacle pulled away from him. It pulled the rifle over the side without, the wooden handle of the gun hitting Stora in the head. This hit had enough force to push him back causing his feet to slip on the wet deck and him to hit the back of his head on the wooden deck. The hit made him see spots.

After a moment, he turned his head and saw Mieck looking at him with a fearful look. Moments later, the rifle came back. The tentacle holding the rifle rammed it into the side of Mieck's head while another tentacle, nearly three times the size of the orginal one, grabbed him and pulled him over the side. As Stora screamed in terror, the whole ship tilted to the side as more tentacles came over the side.

The Kiln is interesting little creature, that is really small for the large affect it has had on modern human life. This little creature, the largest of its kind not getting large then the size of a regular house cat, has been the cause of several wars on earth, one of which lead to one of the first nuclear missle launches to ever actually occur.

This is because of one thing. Actually that is wrong. It is the source of conflict because of two things. First, it is the first alien lifeform ever encountered by the human race. The alien species was located on a moon of Saturan in the year 2067, and is very similar to the modern salmon. The second reason, the main reason it has caused so much trouble, is that it tastes amazing.

The Kiln was the first life that humans discovered outside the planet earth, and most of us have decided to eat it. Not only that, but we also brought it back to earth and placed into factory farms that grow more Kiln fish than probably ever existed on the little moon that it was discovered on.

There is a timeline to consider. The Kiln fish, named for the doctoral student that discovered it, was found by swimming probe SE 276A, one of 333 that were sent out, that had been swimming around the watery moon Enceladus for nearly 30 days before Kiln Mcknut encountered the animal/alien. After this discovery, another 41 swimming probes were sent into the planet where thousands more fish were discovered. Enceladus became the next planet that a spacebase was planned and ten years after the Kiln fish was discovered, it had its first human contact. It would have been five years later, but there was difficulty with many space operations being bombed by some more extreme members of the public. A few space agencies also lost their governmental funding after the Kiln fish was discovered.

2077 was the year that a human made first physical contact with another alien race. However, things quickly went to hell after this.

Shortly after first physical contact, full DNA sequences were sent back home, this occured several times so that soon scientists with all kinds of backgrounds had the needed information to clone and create their own Kiln fish. Then, in 2086, tragedy struck the Enceladus 213B base. The supply ship that was headed their way was hit by an unanticipated space object. All of the supplies needed for the base were lost. To this day, nobody knows what caused the crash since no crew members survived. Those at Enceladus 213B base were without food and other important supplies for nearly two years. The world's space agencies immediately sent more supplies, but there still was the distance to account for.

Of the 27 member team, 7 had survived. They had resorted to eating the Kiln fish to survive. There had also been a fight with some members willing to die to prevent the Kiln fish from being eaten. They died. Eating Kiln fish became an eating option here on earth after team member Milton Ander Smith was recording as saying: "The fish taste just like chicken, but better. It is not as dry."

That was the thought that was Ander's mind as he mindlessly played online chess. He had just got off the phone with his younger brother, only about two years younger. Alex had just turned 25 years old and during the 30 minute phone call, Alex had asked that question. Like Ander, Alex was unmarried, and in a job that he did not like. Nobody dreamed about working at a grocery store. Their parents had already been married four years by the time that their dad, Malcolm, had turned 25, and they had already had four kids, one set of twins and one kid that was born six months after the wedding. Their parents, who were currently on a three year religious mission somewhere in Aisa were still happily married to each other, but, of the six kids they had, only one was married and had kids. Another kid, the second oldest, Aaron, was married for a bit, but there was a divorce only four years into the marriage. Aaron was a drunk now, though that probably started happening during the marriage, Ander was pretty sure that was the cause of the divorce.

Ander was the one that called Alex to wish him a happy birthday, but he did not expect the call to go the where that it did. Alex was in tears, apparently Aaron had called him about an hour before and, while Aaron was drunk, told Alex about how life was down hill from there. Alex had also realized that he was not excepted into a new job that he was hoping to get into.

Ander, who was a school teacher, had been asked the meaning of life a couple of times by his students, their seemed to think that he might have the answer that they needed. He always told them the same thing. "I don't know, people have been trying to answer that for all time, and so far we have not been able to find answer."

Checkmate.

"Shot," Ander muttered, he had not been paying attention and lost again. At least he was playing under a guest account. It would not deduct the ten points he lost from his total. He x'd out of the tab, which was loading up a commercial, and loaded up a new game. This time he was playing white, so he went first.

It could be worse, he thought to himself, I could be a pawn in a king's army just going to lose my life so that the king could kill the other king. Life was better now, for some people at least. Life in the last hundred years had gotten way better and easier than ever before. But it still did not have purpose. He had mentioned this to Alex. He then asked what Alex wanted to do with his life. Alex wanted to learn how to play an instrument. "So play, find a teacher in your city for an instrument that you want to learn and learn. You can probably learn a bit from youtube videos." The call quickly ended after that. Alex was going to learn how to play the violin. The most common instrument in the orchestra.

Checkmate.

"Shoot, I should probably take some chess lessons if I don't want to keep losing."

He was strictly told to call it the woods or the woodland. "Forest, just does not seem the right word to describe it," Elynn said when they discussed it that morning. Now, he understood. Now that he was here, he could hear the music. "Can you hear it," she asked as looked back at him. He nodded, assuming that she was looking at him, he had his eyes shut so that he could focus on the music.

"This is it, this is place that Willaim described in his poems. This sound, its like magic, can't explain it."

"I know Ovhelio, it is like the woods have a heart beat. A heart beating like a harp string. It reminds me of the harp that my father played when we were younger." Ovelio listened again, he did recognize it. They kept walking up the path. Ovelio, not used to working another, but the regular clerical work that he did nearly all day everyday, was sweating a river, but he wanted to see wanted else Elynn was excited about. The path that they were walking up was clearly marked, and it was paved a like a road with small gray pebble stones. His shoes causing the path to ring out, but that ringing became part of the rythm of the woods. That was part of the beauty of the music, it had regular rhthm that played against his own heartbeat, but the sounds all around him seemed to only add to the mussic.

The cries of the birds, and the creaking of the tree branches, and the rush of the stream next to the hill that they were ascending all added their own music. Ovhelio sometimes seemed to hear someone playing pipes, but, no matter how he turned his head, he could not find the players. Elynn was humming the forest tune as well. "Elynn?" He said. "when did you discover this parts of the woods. I have been out to these woods a few times, but I have never found this place."

Elynn stopped walking and sat on a rock by the trail before answer. Ovelio, pleased for the break, also quickly sat down to catch his breath. "I know!" she said, "I have been wondering about that myself, but I feel like this is an older woodland. Those other trees that your brothers hunt around while you have faithfully doing your work probably grew aounrd this one, like a shield." She pointed to the closest tree. "I mean look, does that seem like the kind of tree that was on the outskirts of the woods." The tree she was pointing to was an elm, he knew this from his studies, but she was right. There were no elms of on the outer edge of the forest. There were plenty of other trees, but, Ovelio looked around to be sure, elms were everyway.

"You're right. These trees are elms, and they seem to be mostly here while the outer parts of the woods are lacking them. It is strange."

"Strange indeed," she said as she stood up and walked over to the closest tree, but these trees are even stranger. Come here." She waved him over to the tree that she leaned into to put her ear against the bark of the tree. "Listen," she whispered.

Ovelio walked over to the tree and put his ear to the tree as well. There was music coming from the tree, like it was humming.

Harry's feet felt like ice, it was only the end of fall, not winter for a few more days, but the two pairs of socks that he was wearing did nothing to get rid of the chill. Maybe he was sick. Maybe, he had some form of cancer that made it almost impossible for his feet to get warm. The rest of his body was warm enough, under the covers, but not his feet, even though they should be feeling very warm right now.

Harry sat the old book he was reading down and looked out the window. The snow was falling, and mountains of snow was covering the parking lot. Earlier that morning, a neighbor in one of the apartments nearby had crashed their car that morning as they were trying to leave for work, but it did not do much, besides blocking the exit. That was what allowed Harry to stay home from work that day. It was 1:32 and normally he would be sitting in a meeting talking about the banks accounts, but instead he was on zoom call for the meeting. His audio and video was off and that allowed him to wear pajamas and lay in bed under the covers. He just watched as his coworkers talked, only partly listening. There were a total of sixteen people on the call, including his boss, and most of them were talking about how well their individual banks were doing.

He could hear his kids yelling their heads off downstairs, school had a snow day, and there a couple times he thought that he heard someone hit their heads on the low kitchen counter. However, nobody came screaming up the stairs. The cartoons, which he could also hear, were keeping them occupied. It was some spanish cartoon that sometimes acted like it was asking them questions. They were really into it.

His wife, a coder, was working in her study, door shut so that the kids yelling did not interfer with her work; Harry got the bedroom to himself for now. He looked at the pink book again. What would his boss think if he knew that Harry was busy reading a fantasy novel with witches and wizards and a flying bus instead of paying attention to how Mr Max's branch was doing handling the current housing loans.

It probably annoyed him, but it would not be as bad as the symbol that his younger daughter had carved into the wooden bedframe. Harry had not noticed till his boss asked about it after another similar video meeting a few weeks ago. Alice had craved, in the exact middle of the wooden headboard, a swastika. Apparently, though Harry had not noticed it, it was perfectly visible when Harry had been doing his piece about his branch's home loan accounts. He had his video and audio on at the point and everybody could see that swastika. Now, after Harry had done what he could to crave it away, the nazi symbol was mostly gone, but he still was mostly known as the accidently nazi, or harry swastika amoung his coworkers.

Though Belem never measured it, the bedroom was twelve meters across and five meters wide with one door leading to the rest of the house and another door leading to closet. The nearest bathroom was across the hall that the bedroom door opened into, and whenever Belem had to use the rest room at night he would have to walk pasts his siblings two bedrooms and the stairs going down to the main floor. If you walked past the bathroom, you pass another bedroom opposite the bathroom before entering the study with the master bedroom, on the right.

All the rooms and the stairs were covered by a white carpet that had started to go gray with age. There carpet right infront of the bathroom had a spot that was very white compared to the surrounding carpet. This was because of the repeated bleaching that took place there whenever someone had an incident waiting for another sibling to get out of the bathroom.

Currently, only Belem's bedroom door was open and he, laying on his bed, could see that all the other doors on the hall were closed. It was quite time. Dad was pretending to work in the study, while Mom was reading in the master bedroom. She was currently reading a sci-fi novel that originally had been published in China, but was now translated to english because of how popular it was. Aliens invading kind of novel.

All of Belem's siblings were also in their rooms, except one. Belem did not know who, but one of the siblings was in the bathroom. He could see the light coming out from the strip under the door and hear the bathroom fan on. Everyone used the bathroom fan, it kepth others from hearing your bathroom noises.

Belem on the bed, was staring at the white bathroom door, whomever was in there had been in there for at least twenty minutes. Too much cheese in their diet probably.

Belem's book was on the bed next to him, on the left. It was a school book that he had to read for class, and it was boring. It was written by some old dead white guy that liked wordy sentences. They just went on and on, and sometimes there did not seem to be a point to them.

What to do with his life, he, as the oldest needed to set an example for his siblings. This was what his Dad told him all the time, but he did not know what to do. He and all his siblings were homeschooled, and he was almost eighteen, he never even had kissed a girl. Now, he was going to be kicked out of the house, and told to get a job when he never had worked a day in his life. He also did not even have a checking account, and had no friends. There was also no goal.

While the book at his side was boring, the old man that acted as the main character did have one thing that Belem did not, a goal, a plot. The old man was hunting a white whale, that was how he was using his life, that was his purpose. What was his purpose? How would he matter?