What's a C Turtlez Oddz n Endz

A good question... let me stop and think how to explain what C Turtlez Oddz n Endz is...

A while ago there was a little girl who attend a public school. She had a teacher who was very fascinated by the oceans and who assigned each student in her class a report to do. The little girl was given a choice between two ocean creatures... A sea horse and a sea turtle. She struggled with a decision as to which one to pick. The time for a decision finally came and since she was still undecided... her teacher chose for her the sea horse.

Now this teacher had quite a heart for her students. She wanted to make school work as fun as possible. So, she had simple goals for her students in this writing project. She wanted them to learn about an animal that they might have little knowledge about and she wanted them to put their thoughts and information down on paper. Rules such as grammar and spelling where optional.

Now the little girl wasn't sure about where to begin with her report. She just wasn't sure if she wanted to learn about sea horses after all. It's not like you could ride them or pet them. Nor where there any locally. But she really knew she didn't want to get in trouble with her teacher or her parents so she went to search for information on them. Now because of some of the inventive spelling and sounding out words she had been exposed to in her public school classes, she wasn't really sure how to find sea horses in the library. She had been told that words sometimes sounded one way and looked another. She knew that horses where mammals and lived on land. So how they could be in the ocean puzzled her. After all how would they breath as mammals couldn't breath underwater. So she looked in the O's and she looked in the H's. And she couldn't find anything at all about sea horses there.

She looked around to see what the other students where doing. Some where looking in the letters that their creatures started with. Some where looking in the letters that they thought their creatures started with. Like the student who got the sea turtle. He was clearly looking in the C's. So she went back to look in the O's. Because she appeared to be struggling the librarian's aide came to her to see if she needed assistance.

The little girl quite embarrassed asked her for help. So the librarian's aide told her a few facts about sea horses. How the lived deep in the ocean and came in all sorts of sizes and colors. And she suggested that the girl look in the S's. Now that may seem like a logical suggestion to you but to this little girl it seemed a devious trick. After all they were studying oceans not seas, sea horses clearly couldn't start with an S as it had to begin with the letter C just as it sounded. After all the child with the sea turtle was looking in the C's for his creature. So she gave up and went home extremely confused and upset.

She asked her parents for help and was crushed by their lack of understanding. After all they seemed to be part of the trick the librarian aide was playing, since they were convinced she should look in the S's, too. After several melt downs and blow ups. It became quite clear that this girl was struggling with a case of hooked on phonics that didn't aide in the spelling words like sea. So the parents sat down with her and worked with showing her how the word was spelled and how it looked and why everyone suggested that she start in the S's.

As she went through her report she ran across some information regarding sea turtles... She even tried to share the information with her classmate. But all that did was start a huge fight and make her even more confused when her teacher intervened and said that it was ok to put a C down for the spelling of sea. After all the teacher's goal was to get the child writing, not to teach spelling at that time. So the little girl ripped up her report and started over. She painstakingly rewrote her report with all the sea's as C's instead. She felt good because she would fit in with her classmates for once. Just this once she hoped she wouldn't be singled out as different. Just this once she'd be equal with the child doing the sea turtle report. Her teacher thanked her for her report and said she had done a beautiful job on it. She had gotten stickers from a school supply store that resembled the various creatures that the students where reporting on. This made the little girl anxious as she really really wanted to get a beautiful sea horse for her report. After all sea horses really are beautiful.

When it came time for her to get her paper back there wasn't a sea horse on the cover. Instead she got a sea turtle. Her teacher tried to explain that they didn't have any sea horse stickers so some of the class received sea turtles while the others got whales, dolphins, and some got fish. And if that wasn't enough of an insult her beautiful paper was covered in red circles... Why? The teacher had had another teacher help out by grading her student's work. And that teacher followed the rules and circled all the spelling errors on the paper, along with all the grammatical errors, too.

In tears and on the verge of a huge temper tantrum the girl confronted the teacher who had corrected her paper. She had one major melt down that was so severe her mother was called to the school. The teacher who corrected the papers felt that she was just in marking the student's papers with red ink so they could see the error of their ways. She clearly felt that inventive spelling and not following the rules of grammar was a horrible thing to allow to be taught. She took great pride and care in marking this classes papers. The teacher who gave the assignment felt that she was just in allowing the students to use inventive spelling and not following the rules as she just wanted the students to get their thoughts down on paper. After all her goal was to make writing less stressful to her young students. She didn't want them staring at a blank sheet of paper for long periods of time afraid to put anything on it. The mother was confused as to what exactly was going on in the classroom these days because of the two conflicting ideas of teaching. The little girl was confused and crushed because she got a stinking sea turtle and detention for her out burst.

For the longest time the little girl insisted on following her teacher's inventive spelling ways. And to this day, she will occasionally spell sea turtle and sea horse with a capital C and insist that it's right. Just as she insists on adding a z for the end of some words that are plural and end with s or es. Ex foxes as foxz.

After some time had passed to ease the hurt and indignation from that situation, the little girl came to like sea turtles. She admired them for their quiet spirit of determination, how they live for a really long time, and over come obstacles that get in their way. How the scars they carry show how they never gave up and how graceful they are in the water and how awkward they are on land. She felt that she could identify with them when she reflected back on her little life so far.

So that is why we call our site C Turtlez. It's what the little girl thinks we should have for a role model and mascot. A Sea turtle, since she's never gotten over her experience and has struggled with spelling ever since. So it's spelled C Turtlez as a reminder to hang in there and keep moving forward, and to remind us, that just because you do things a bit differently, does not mean you can not succeed.

The sea turtle is an amazing mascot because it is a creature that lives for a very long time, and we are determined to be around for at least that long. It also doesn't seem to give up when things are rough and to remind us that sometimes what one person perceives as a mistake another sees as a learning experience.

Why the oddz n endz? It's simple, we strive to provide a wide variety and selection of products; so, that there is something for everyone. Giving you the opportunity to complete your shopping list in one convenient place. Easy Breezy Shopping from A to Z...