This week, I finished A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare. This play follows the plot of lovers, royals, and fairies, who each begin with separate challenges, especially with their love lives, and who come together in the woods. This was my first time reading Shakespeare and at first I found it challenging. Much of Shakespeare’s wording was tough to understand and a lot of the vocabulary was unfamiliar to me. At the same time, I think Shakespeare, were he still alive, would have a tough time understanding the way I write. Shakespeare was used to writing in Elizabethan English, using parchment paper and a quill, while modern English exists on screens with text messages. Take for example, Puck’s final monologue. What would it look like if written today? Let’s compare! Shakespeare’s words: “If we shadows have offended, Think but this, and all is mended, That you have but slumber’d here While these visions did appear. And this weak and idle theme, No more yielding but a dream, Gentles, do not reprehend: if you pardon, we will mend: And, as I am an honest Puck, If we have unearned luck Now to ‘scape the serpent’s tongue, We will make amends ere long; Else the Puck a liar call; So, good night unto you all. Give me your hands, if we be friends, And Robin shall restore amends.” How it would be written today: “If we actors have shook u, think about it this way, & everything will be: u just here & we lived rent-free in ur head for the night. This silly plot is done as soon as ur . Ladies & gentlemen pls don’t be a hater. If u forgive us, we will make everything. & since I’m Puck, am honest, I’ll pRoMiSe to make everything ✨better✨ if we can escape ur . Otherwise u can go full Karen on Facebook. So to y’all. If we’re besties, pls give us a round of applause & we can be BFFs again. A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare. Simon & Schuster, 2004. Buy the play here and help support Stone Soup in the process!
Fast Thinking on the Moon
A rocket ship called the IM-1 lander (AKA Odysseus, or Odie) had unexpected problems hours before landing on the moon in February 2024, causing it to fall on its side. The ship is phone booth sized and traveled 1 million kilometers before arriving in the moon’s orbit. The craft, which carried no people and was used to collect scientific data, was destined to land on Malapert A, a crater near the moon’s South Pole that is very flat. The reason for landing there is that the South Pole of the moon stores water in the form of ice, which could be used for drinking water or rocket fuel for future missions. The ship landed at 6:23 pm on Thursday, February 23rd and has since been repositioned to be upright. Odie was the first craft to land on the moon after the Apollo mission over 50 years ago, but the landing was challenging. NASA became aware that there were problems with Odie’s navigation system. To land on the moon, the ship converted to its backup navigation system which was experimental and NASA did not intend for it to be used on this mission. Once Odie communicated with NASA about the shift to the back-up system, NASA quickly made a plan to upgrade the system to ensure that the spacecraft would still land. The odds of success were very small, but the ship landed! Odie operated for seven days on the moon and there was a camera in the ship, so videos and photos could be put onto the Internet for others to see. NASA wants people to be on a spaceship like that one by 2026. Thinking about the flexibility of NASA workers, I realized I also have to show flexibility in my daily life. For example, I recently competed in a robotics competition and for our first face off, our robot lost a wheel and began to drive strangely. Our team had to pause during the race and fix it. Even though we didn’t get the time that we wanted, our team was ultimately still in the running. I learned that if you don’t succeed the first time, you should adapt and try again. This lesson also connects to my recent science project. I was experimenting with training fish to respond to food, but our fish sadly kept dying even though we cared for them quite well. We had to move away from this project and quickly design a new experiment so that we could enter the class science competition. This all ties into Odie because, just like me, they had to formulate a new plan quickly and act on that plan. They used fast thinking to get the ship back up, just like I used fast thinking to fix my robot and find a new science project.
A Conversation About Those Little Hearts
All around the world, on February 14, people celebrate Valentine’s Day. Whether it’s giving your partner flowers, or just receiving candy from your parents and friends, it’s a very enjoyable festivity that happens every year. But, the real fact is that, although chocolate is very popular, conversation hearts are actually the most commonly given candy on February 14th! But what is their origin story, and why are these small hearts now so popular? Believe it or not, the production of conversation hearts actually came from a pharmacy! In 1847, Oliver Chase created a machine that could cut medicine into smaller pieces to create a more efficient business. When these ingredients were swapped out for sugar and flavoring, the US got the first candy-making machine. Conversation hearts are made when sugar is crushed into a fine powder, combined with flavoring, then shaped, stamped with words, and enjoyed! In fact, candy heart messages didn’t start out so short. It started with phrases like, “Married in white, you have chosen right.” Later these phrases would be abandoned for shorter, more loving thoughts like “Be Mine,” or “XOXO.” Of course, today’s factories are much bigger, with the Necco company—which was based in my hometown of Boston until it closed in 2018—making about 8 billion of these treats per year! Now other companies like Spangler started making conversation hearts in their place. In 2020, when the factories had more business than any other year, shipping issues resulted in a year of blank (wordless) conversation hearts. No conversations in 2020, I guess! But the future is looking bright for conversation hearts in my mind, now that there’s a digital app that can be used to send virtual hearts and messages to loved ones. The conversation heart powerhouse started by Necco was revolutionary, and they are still very popular to this day.
