BOOM! Studios and Polygon Pictures, Inc. have announced the cast for the Mech Cadets 3D animated series.
Mech Cadets will star the voice talents of Brandon Soo Hoo (Stanford Yu), Daniel Dae Kim (General Aiden Park), Ming-Na Wen (Dolly Yu), Debra Wilson (Chief Max), Aparna Brielle (Ava Patel), Victoria Grace (Olivia Park), Josh Sundquist (Frank Olivetti), Anairis Quinones (Maya Sanchez), and James Yaegashi (Captain Tanaka). Aaron Lam serves a head writer and an executive producer. Tohru Patrick Awa is the supervising director on the series.
Mech Cadets, adapted from Greg Pak and Takeshi Miyazawa’s comic series, is set 50 years into the future after an alien species attacked Earth. The series follows Stanford Yu, a teenager working as a janitor at Sky Corps Military Academy. Stanford dreams of piloting a Robo Mech, “giant robots from outer-space who came to our aid. When he finally gets his shot, Stanford and his classmates must put aside all personal differences and work together as a team in order to defend humanity against a new alien invasion.” (BOOM! Studios)
i just finished reading "We Should Hang Out Sometime" by josh sundquist, and overall amazing book. i highly recommend for middle schoolers and akward people all over
I don’t know about you, but I can’t get enough of Jenny Han’s To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before series. First the perfect books, then the incredible Netflix adaptation??? My heart basically belongs to Laura Jean. Anyway, as much as I’d love to, one can’t only read the love story of PK & LJ on repeat... so here are some read alikes! (plus, if your library has a TAtBILB waitlist these will tide you over!)
I Believe in a Thing Called Love by Maurene Goo
Field Notes on Love by Jennifer E. Smith
Love & Gelato by Jenna Evans Welch
What If It’s Us by Becky Albertalli & Adam Silvera
Words in Deep Blue by Cath Crawley
Always Never Yours by Emily Wibberly & Austin Siegemund-Broka
What’s up pudding cups, here’s one of those rare occasions where I’m going to actually post some writing! This is an essay about my “Favorite Athlete” (essay title) that I wrote for gym class because they were playing flag football in the grass and I couldn’t participate so she made me write an essay instead Hope you enjoy!
“What happened?” “I woke up this morning, I had yogurt for breakfast… North Korea happened, World War II happened… A lot of things have happened!” Josh Sundquist is a comedian, a motivational speaker, a best-selling author, and an American paralympian. He’s popular on Youtube, and subsequently, social media, where he posts videos of his stand ups and motivational speeches about his life, especially regarding disability and also overcoming adversity. His memoir, which has become a national bestseller, Just Don’t Fall, is described by Sundquist to be about “Childhood, Cancer, Amputation, Romantic Yearning, Truth, and Olympic Greatness” and “How I Grew Up, Conquered Illness, and Made it Down the Mountain.” In this essay, Josh Sundquist’s journey, paralympic achievements, and why he’s my favorite athlete will be discussed.
Josh Sundquist had, and beat, Ewing Sarcoma when he was 9 years old, which is how he lost his left leg. His aforementioned book, Just Don’t Fall, talks about his experience with cancer, becoming and being disabled, and joining the paralympics, among other things. Sundquist was the kind of kid that used to use an entire container of hair gel in his hair, which he remarks on in a Youtube video where he shows how he currently does his hair, and on a separate occasion on a podcast interview with Grace Helbig. He tells of how upsetting it was to lose his hair, especially considering how much it meant to him. It wasn’t all bleak, as his friends came over at some point during this time as a child, and they all shaved their heads for him in support. Reasonable time after that, his parents bought him a trampoline to learn how to balance with one leg. This seemed to work really well, along with whatever else he did throughout his life to adapt and improve on his disability. He started ski racing at age 15, and motivational speaking at 16. In 2001, he wrote for the Daily Guideposts and Guideposts Magazine. Sundquist had Just Don’t Fall published in 2010. He has also been published in The Washington Post and in what was Newsweek's college magazine, Current. Starting in July 2018, he has performed a comedy show named after one of his books, We Should Hang Out Sometime. The show is performed at Santa Monica Playhouse & Group Theatre.
Josh Sunquist mentions in a Youtube video that he wasn’t very good at ski racing when he first started. But that is rather to be expected for someone just starting out at anything. He moved to Colorado at 17 to pursue it full-time. In 2006, after training and competing for six years, he joined the United States Paralympic Ski Team and raced in the IX Paralympic Games in Turan, Italy. He competed in both slalom and giant slalom, which were alpine skiing events. Sundquist talks about his motto that especially helped him through times of frustration during skiing, “1MT 1MT”, which stands for “One More Thing, One More Time.” This meant that when he felt like he didn’t want to go on, he would try one more thing (one more time). He elaborated on this phrase and the sentiment behind it before, explaining that sometimes he wasn’t always so sure if he could go through the rest of his life. But during those times, he would ask himself if he could maybe just get through this moment.
I’m not big on athletes, or sports, or even gym class. I don’t like to watch sports, and I really don’t like to write essays about them. I was reading the list of topics I could choose from, and sighed as they all had inevitably boring topics. The first topic on the list being that I could choose to write about a favorite athlete. “I don’t watch sports,” I thought, as I scrolled past it, very sure that if I were to choose any topic it definitely wouldn’t be that one. “I don’t have a favorite athlete,” I dismissed, decidedly. Much later, a lightbulb went off. I had completely forgotten! “Josh Sundquist is, among other things, an athlete! I can write about him!” I said, but not really, for I was at the dinner table, in the middle of eating dinner. Josh Sundquist is a guy that my sister tried to show me videos of, over a year ago, maybe longer. He’s disabled and uses forearm crutches, and makes jokes about his disability and how people act about it. Aside from one video where he humorously explains how he could fly to Mexico (was it?), get a hip replacement, run with the bulls, get trampled by the bulls, get another hip replacement, and fly back to the US, all for less money than to just get his hip replaced here, this was basically my first real impression. And I was absolutely delighted. He joked about how weird people act sometimes around him, including the funny questions they ask. These questions were often similar if not the same questions people ask me. “What happened?” said some random guy on the street to him. Not hello, not even a rude-but-more-specific “Why are you disabled?”, no. Just two words. “What happened?” The same thing happened to me within the last week. I walked into a convenient store, and the lady at the cash register looked at me, and immediately went “What happened?” When it’s looked past how potentially awful that is, it is actually pretty hilarious. So was Josh Sundquists response to the audience. “I got up in the morning, I had yogurt for breakfast, North Korea happened, World War II happened. A lot of things have happened!” He ended up saying to the guy “What do you mean what happened?” Which the guy and him went back and forth on. When the lady asked me, I just blurted “Nothing. I’m disabled!” then quickly walked into an aisle before she could ask any further questions. On top of that, Josh Sundquist is incredibly fit, he can run really fast, he can even do handstands with his crutches. He has videos where he shows how to run, how to do stairs, and how to carry things with crutches. He also has videos where he reviews different types of crutches. There’s one video where he shows how you can, as a crutch-spert (a crutch expert), ice skate on crutches. Even though I use a wheelchair as well, I don’t identify extremely with it. Not to say I don’t at all, but significantly less than I do with my crutches. I never see anyone with forearm crutches. Just injured people with their underarm crutches. Seeing a disabled person with forearm crutches be so amazing, I can’t describe it. All I can say, is that representation is extremely important.
All in all, Josh Sundquist is an accomplished writer, motivational speaker, comedian, and an American paralympian. What his existence as a known disabled person, who I consider very accomplished, means to me, is indescribable.
