Dear Chemistry,
These past few months you have turned into something I never thought you'd be from the moment we met, and I have to say, I am not a very big fan of it. When we first met, you seemed so interesting and cool, and I really started to like you a lot...however, the more time has gone by, the more you have left me terribly confused.
I understand that this is not just on your part, it's on me too. I'll admit, there were a few dates I missed that I probably could have easily shown up to, but back then I had other things on my mind and it didn't really occur to me that if I would have actually gone and paid more attention to you, I might have had the chance to get to know you and like you a lot better before I grew bored. Unfortunately, I cannot change the past, which is why things have turned out to be how they are now.
Don't get me wrong, I truly do wish we could work this out, but after seven months I honestly don't see that happening at this point. Although it would be nice to understand you once in a while, my mind and my heart have moved onto bigger and better things and to be honest you're really just not a part of that anymore. It's almost as if I've outgrown you, and I feel that I continue to outgrow you more and more every day seeing as my mind drifts away from you more each day.
Even though I'm sure you can probably see that it's already started to happen, I thought I should just come right out and say it-I think it's time we part our separate ways. There's just not the same spark there was in the beginning anymore and I highly doubt things will ever go back to the way they used to be. I would really like it if we could continue to be friends though, I mean I guess I could put a little more effort into getting to know you and understand you, but I honestly do not think I could ever fully put my heart into it.
Please know that I'm very sorry, and don't feel offended if I forget you one day-that's the same path I've taken with nearly every science subject the past few years.
Love,
Claire Bear
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Monday, January 14, 2013
Where Would We Be Without Revenge?
So about a couple of weeks ago, my english class started reading another one of Shakespeare's classics, Hamlet. For a while now, Shakespeare has actually been one of my favorite writers and I have grown to love every single one of his works that I've read. (Hamlet actually happened to be one of his plays that I've wanted to read for a while)
These past couple years I have found that a majority of people my age and in my grade groan and roll their eyes when they find that they have to begin reading Shakespeare, however, if more students were able to not just interpret his writing better, but also understand the reason for why we read his plays, I've always felt that they would enjoy it way more. Take Hamlet for example, although this play has turned out to be another one of Shakespeare's tragedies, the main idea it seems to focus on is revenge.
We may not see or notice it, but revenge is every where around us-in books, in plays, in tv shows, in movies, in poems, and even in our daily lives. (this also includes inside ourselves, which is something I'm sure most of us can look back to at one point in our lives and relate to) However, the first thing that comes to mind when I think of the word "revenge" is the movie Carrie.
Carrie is a movie that was released in 1976, telling the story of a young girl in high school who is viewed as an outcast among her classmates. At home, her mother makes the two of them soley focus their lives around the religion of Christianity and sometimes abuses Carrie in the process. (not to mention the fact she is being harassed by almost all of the girls in her school) During this rough journey, Carrie finds that she has telekinesis and eventually uses this to her ability to get revenge on her classmates by killing all of them at prom after they poor pig's blood on her in an attempt to embarrass her. Towards the end of the movie, with the craze of revenge still in her system, Carrie also uses her telekinesis to kill her mother, and then eventually herself because of all the guilt she held.
If you would like to read more about this movie, read here.
Or you could get a visual description of the movie by watching this trailer:
These past couple years I have found that a majority of people my age and in my grade groan and roll their eyes when they find that they have to begin reading Shakespeare, however, if more students were able to not just interpret his writing better, but also understand the reason for why we read his plays, I've always felt that they would enjoy it way more. Take Hamlet for example, although this play has turned out to be another one of Shakespeare's tragedies, the main idea it seems to focus on is revenge.
We may not see or notice it, but revenge is every where around us-in books, in plays, in tv shows, in movies, in poems, and even in our daily lives. (this also includes inside ourselves, which is something I'm sure most of us can look back to at one point in our lives and relate to) However, the first thing that comes to mind when I think of the word "revenge" is the movie Carrie.
Carrie is a movie that was released in 1976, telling the story of a young girl in high school who is viewed as an outcast among her classmates. At home, her mother makes the two of them soley focus their lives around the religion of Christianity and sometimes abuses Carrie in the process. (not to mention the fact she is being harassed by almost all of the girls in her school) During this rough journey, Carrie finds that she has telekinesis and eventually uses this to her ability to get revenge on her classmates by killing all of them at prom after they poor pig's blood on her in an attempt to embarrass her. Towards the end of the movie, with the craze of revenge still in her system, Carrie also uses her telekinesis to kill her mother, and then eventually herself because of all the guilt she held.
If you would like to read more about this movie, read here.
Or you could get a visual description of the movie by watching this trailer:
In my opinion, I think Carrie is a two in one package when it comes to revenge and terror. Anyways, the point to this story is that when you think of what revenge is, you think payback on whoever or whatever has caused you any sort of negative feelings or energy-something I think is safe to admit runs through our minds every now and then. However, the part of revenge which most of us forget about is what it can actually do to the mind and soul itself, one can become so crazy with revenge, they might actually forget who they are or maybe even their reason for getting revenge in the first place, which is why it seems that usually most plans for revenge turn out bad.
This is a lesson to be learned while reading the play of Hamlet, which tells the story of a prince, Hamlet, trying to get revenge on his uncle for his father's death. You can look here for a better summary of the play if you would like to know. Although I have not finished the play yet, I have found that already it seems as if Hamlet's character has almost reached the point of insanity because he is so obssessed with avenging his father's death, it doesn't even seem to bother him yet that he has hurt so many people around him, which is another example of what revenge can do to a person's mind.
It's important to know that although revenge is something that many people might desire during at least one point of their lives, (I know I have) it can really hurt a person's thought process, and it can also hurt the others around them due to the insanity it brings along with it. I guess that's really what my definition of revenge is, payback on the person or thing that might hurt you, but becoming crazy during the process of it.
Sources:
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
The Wonders of Satire
So, I've found that I haven't had the easiest time trying to figure out exactly what the meaning of "satire" is. I mean I've done my research and everything, but it still feels as if I don't get the full meaning of it...even though I'm pretty sure I actually do. I decided to let my writing show me if that's true or not.
As I was looking up examples of satire, I found all types of things, such as Saturday Night Live, Scary Movie, Austin Powers, etc..all of these made me notice how each of them purposely did a parody of something original, this was also something I learned in class. I didn't notice that these kinds of things were examples of satire until I took a moment to think about what exactly they were making fun of. (yes, I did have to actually think about that) Anyway, as all of this was running through my mind, it brought me back to my english class last year and the books we read in there. Everytime we read a book as a class, my English teacher would always have the movie version of the book if there was one, and we'd follow along with the movie as to where we were in the book. Come to think of it, it was actually a good way of learning, because you could never get the full essence of a story by watching the movie instead of reading the book, but the movie at least made it easy to remember key points in the story.
Specifically, one of the books I remembered that reminded me a bit about satire was The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare. As they did in my English class the year before, everyone dreaded reading Shakespeare, however, I can say that it is still one of my favorite books that I've ever read to this day. Like usual, as we were reading this book in class, my teacher would put the movie on and we finished the book and the movie around the same time of course. Once the book was finished, and we took our test on it and everything, my teacher decided to show us the movie Ten Things I Hate About You, which was what brought me to thinking about satire.
For those of you that have not heard of The Taming of the Shrew or have not read it, it is the story of two sisters, the youngest being the pretty, graceful, nice one that all the men wanted to marry and the oldest being the loud, rude, mean one that basically scared all of the men away-the "shrew". (However, in reality I'm sure we all know everyone has some sort of shrew to them..) The father of the two girls wouldn't allow the youngest to marry until the oldest did first, which no one thought was going to happen that is until a greedy, gross, rude man version of a "shrew" came along and at first decided to marry the oldest sister for her father's money, but eventually the two learned to love each other and made the story turn out to be less of the tragedy that we know Shakespeare to write. If you're considering reading it and want to find out a little bit more, which I advise you should, look here.
Anyway, like I was saying before, the best example of satire that popped into my head after thinking about this play (or at least what I think is an example of satire) is the movie Ten Things I Hate About You which was a more modern version of The Taming of the Shrew, telling the story of high school boy drama between two teenage sisters, (which I'm sure many can relate to) creating a parody out of the whole story. For example, instead of the youngest sister not being able to get married without the oldest getting married first, the movie made it so that the youngest sister couldn't go out on dates unless the oldest sister started dating too.
In my opinion, the movie was very funny and definitely did a perfect job of explaining the story of The Taming of the Shrew and if one saw the movie of the original story and the movie of the parody, well, I sure hope they would agree.
I guess trailers will just have to do..
The Taming of the Shrew (1967):
10 Things I Hate About You (1999):
This movie still told the story of The Taming of the Shrew, but in a way that kind of mocked it and the funny story it is, which is exactly what satire does. It exaggerates points made in stories, articles, songs, speeches, poems-you name it, by mocking how much they're made out to be more than what they are. Twain does this throughout his story, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by showing the reader what the idea of slavery did to people and their personalities back in the time the story takes place. There were mixed feelings about it all over the place, even Twain had mixed feelings about slavery at one point during the time period where it had not been banned yet, some of these he shows through the character of Huck. Throughout the whole course of the story, the reader is able to see many different perspectives and reactions to the issue, although many of them never really seemed to make sense. Like the way Miss Watson was almost this saint- religious, praying all the time, going to church, but if you're so loyal to God, then why do you own a person due to their skin color? I think this is a point that Twain tries to make very often during his book, not just through Miss Watson, but other characters too, making the whole story relate to satire.
Wow, I guess writing this blog actually did help me get an understanding of what satire was...well good, that's what I hoped for!
Sources:
The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare
www.yourdictionary.com
www.youtube.com
As I was looking up examples of satire, I found all types of things, such as Saturday Night Live, Scary Movie, Austin Powers, etc..all of these made me notice how each of them purposely did a parody of something original, this was also something I learned in class. I didn't notice that these kinds of things were examples of satire until I took a moment to think about what exactly they were making fun of. (yes, I did have to actually think about that) Anyway, as all of this was running through my mind, it brought me back to my english class last year and the books we read in there. Everytime we read a book as a class, my English teacher would always have the movie version of the book if there was one, and we'd follow along with the movie as to where we were in the book. Come to think of it, it was actually a good way of learning, because you could never get the full essence of a story by watching the movie instead of reading the book, but the movie at least made it easy to remember key points in the story.
Specifically, one of the books I remembered that reminded me a bit about satire was The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare. As they did in my English class the year before, everyone dreaded reading Shakespeare, however, I can say that it is still one of my favorite books that I've ever read to this day. Like usual, as we were reading this book in class, my teacher would put the movie on and we finished the book and the movie around the same time of course. Once the book was finished, and we took our test on it and everything, my teacher decided to show us the movie Ten Things I Hate About You, which was what brought me to thinking about satire.
For those of you that have not heard of The Taming of the Shrew or have not read it, it is the story of two sisters, the youngest being the pretty, graceful, nice one that all the men wanted to marry and the oldest being the loud, rude, mean one that basically scared all of the men away-the "shrew". (However, in reality I'm sure we all know everyone has some sort of shrew to them..) The father of the two girls wouldn't allow the youngest to marry until the oldest did first, which no one thought was going to happen that is until a greedy, gross, rude man version of a "shrew" came along and at first decided to marry the oldest sister for her father's money, but eventually the two learned to love each other and made the story turn out to be less of the tragedy that we know Shakespeare to write. If you're considering reading it and want to find out a little bit more, which I advise you should, look here.
Anyway, like I was saying before, the best example of satire that popped into my head after thinking about this play (or at least what I think is an example of satire) is the movie Ten Things I Hate About You which was a more modern version of The Taming of the Shrew, telling the story of high school boy drama between two teenage sisters, (which I'm sure many can relate to) creating a parody out of the whole story. For example, instead of the youngest sister not being able to get married without the oldest getting married first, the movie made it so that the youngest sister couldn't go out on dates unless the oldest sister started dating too.
In my opinion, the movie was very funny and definitely did a perfect job of explaining the story of The Taming of the Shrew and if one saw the movie of the original story and the movie of the parody, well, I sure hope they would agree.
I guess trailers will just have to do..
The Taming of the Shrew (1967):
This movie still told the story of The Taming of the Shrew, but in a way that kind of mocked it and the funny story it is, which is exactly what satire does. It exaggerates points made in stories, articles, songs, speeches, poems-you name it, by mocking how much they're made out to be more than what they are. Twain does this throughout his story, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by showing the reader what the idea of slavery did to people and their personalities back in the time the story takes place. There were mixed feelings about it all over the place, even Twain had mixed feelings about slavery at one point during the time period where it had not been banned yet, some of these he shows through the character of Huck. Throughout the whole course of the story, the reader is able to see many different perspectives and reactions to the issue, although many of them never really seemed to make sense. Like the way Miss Watson was almost this saint- religious, praying all the time, going to church, but if you're so loyal to God, then why do you own a person due to their skin color? I think this is a point that Twain tries to make very often during his book, not just through Miss Watson, but other characters too, making the whole story relate to satire.
Wow, I guess writing this blog actually did help me get an understanding of what satire was...well good, that's what I hoped for!
Sources:
The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare
www.yourdictionary.com
www.youtube.com
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