Shakespeare past and present

When I was first forced to read a book by Shakespeare, I despised it. I’m pretty sure that it was A Midsummer Night's Dream. The main thing I remembered was that the book wasn’t written in English. There were a few words I knew like “enter” and “exit” but I needed my teacher to translate the conversations. Looking back on that moment in life I can’t believe how dumb I was.

            After reading Shakespeare’s Macbeth as a senior in my honors English class, I have started to notice how smart Shakespeare really was. Macbeth is a great book about a man who ruins his almost perfect life by trying to get more power. Macbeth (the character) is introduced into the play as an honest, wealthy, loyal, and completely sane person. As the story progresses, witches tempt him into getting more power. The play ends with Macbeth, now a king, dieing after killing the previous king and anyone who stood in his way. The play is depressing but there is a powerful lesson to be learned as long as you pay attention. I noticed that Shakespeare’s Macbeth is sort of like the Christian Bible.

            First, I need to introduce you to the bible. The Christian Bible consists of stories from long ago. In these stories, the Lord gives his people rules. As his people mature and become more responsible, the Lord may change his rules. For example, in the Old Testament, the people obey variations of the laws of Moses. There were many rituals and sacrifices, of sheep not people, during this time. In the New Testament the laws change. Now sacrifices are not needed. The people stepped into a higher state of conciseness and noticed that the sacrifice of sheep was not needed.

            Shakespeare’s Macbeth also has something similar. Witches were added to make it seem like they were making Macbeth (the character) insane. People now believe that the Witches were added to keep those people back then satisfied. Those people would not believe Shakespeare if he said that anyone can turn evil. The witches and many other parts of Macbeth can be translated in many different ways, and as we gain a higher understanding of the world we live in, more parts of Shakespeare make sense in different ways. Maybe that’s why our teachers have been forcing us to read Shakespeare.

When Plans go Wrong

Santa Claus was frustrated; it had been many years since he moved from the toy business to education, and children were still trying to find ways to shut down his Teaching Units, T.U.s for short. He remembered when he upgraded his robotic elves so that they could teach children instead of make toys, the difficulty of introducing himself and his robots to a world that had stopped believing in him. His robots were first tested at a small elementary school where they soon became known as TURKEs or, Teaching Unit Really Knows Everything. Santa never charged anything for his robots, so after a few years the TURKEs spread to other elementary schools to increase the pay for the High School teachers. Now Santa was having problems with his TURKEs at a school. Some were acting strange, stumbling around acting like the zombies that so many kids knew about from watching T.V.. When he had tried to reprogram them, the picture of a goblin dancing around would pop up on his computer screen. Some children were being naughty, and he intended to find out who they were.

            At the Haunted House, the Goblins were planning their next attack. This group of hackers, now in sixth grade, had formed in first grade when one of them convinced a TURKE to teach them more about computers. Many children were sick of school, so they had created a virus they called the Z-virus. The Z-virus destroyed a TURKEs memory, and replaced it with a simple walk command. The ones that hated the TURKEs loved it. They had no teachers now, and could do whatever they wanted to. There were a few Goblins though, that wanted to learn more. These club members started creating an anti-virus that they hoped would soon be able to counter the effects of the Z-virus, for if it didn’t, the new Z-virus would harm many lives.

            The new Z-virus was ready. The Goblins had made this new virus more vicious. Besides the walk command, this new virus spread on contact. Now other TURKEs that had not been tampered with by the group would also be under the influence of their virus. It was time for the test to begin. Each Goblin held up a remote, and as they started wiggling the joysticks the infected TURKEs started moving with a purpose. After a few minutes the school was theirs. “We did it” said one. “What do we do now?” asked another. The group decided that nothing more needed to be done. They had rendered all the teachers useless, and could now ditch class without getting into trouble, and that is all they wanted.

            By this time Santa Claus had located the trouble makers. He had planned to act swiftly but his communications with the school had been cut off when a TURKE affected with the virus had touched the schools main computer. The virus had started to spread across the internet to TURKEs at other schools before it shut down the internet. “Those children have caused more trouble than I thought possible,” muttered Santa under his breath as he wondered what people would be doing with the internet down. “I’d better get down there fast,” thought Santa remembering the good old days riding his sled to deliver toys to the increasing population of the world. “I hope it still works,” he huffed as he sped through dusty corridors.

            The Goblin's plan had gone horribly wrong. Their virus had affected more than the TURKEs. Any computer touched by a TURKE lost all of its memory and refused to start up. Instead, a picture of a walking goblin would appear on the screen. It seemed that they had even managed to shut down the internet. Their holiday was ruined. Fortunately the anti-virus program was working, and Good Goblins (as they had named themselves shortly after the improved virus was made) were doing every thing they could to spread it: but the internet was down and they didn’t have the tools to spread it physically. It was then that they decided to steal the tools necessary from the Goblins. The Haunted House was a mess. The Goblins had tried to get just one computer working, but the TURKE that they had experimented on had gotten loose and touched every electronic device in their club house. “If only we could get a computer working, then we could get rid of this virus,” said one of the Goblins. Another Goblin had sat down in the corner of the club and started to cry. Every thing was ruined.

Movie Review "Beowulf and Grendel"

There are many movies out there based on books. Some are really good, others are terrible. These movies either follow a book’s story line almost word for word, or the movie director is able to portray the main idea (names, places, events, etc.) and add their own ideas. Beowulf and Grendel was the second option, and I felt that it was a terrible movie. Over the weeks before watching this movie, I was able to read this epic poem in my English class. I thought that Beowulf was a great poem. Beowulf was a great hero, different from how we portray heroes today.

                Beowulf has a lot of religious symbolism. The director of Beowulf and Grendel decided to expand on that. He added a Celtic Witch, a Christian Monk, and a lot of big buff men that believed in Norse Mythology. These three beliefs create an interesting conflict with in the movie. Most of these conflicts included long boring speeches, but the victor seemed to be Christianity due to many of the buff men being baptized throughout the movie. To me the religious conflict in this movie was pointless, and boring. The Celtic Witch seeing when people would die, and the Believers of Norse Mythology giving into Christianity.

                I thought that the plot of Beowulf was ruined in the movie Beowulf and Grendel. Instead of being a prideful man that fought for fame, Beowulf was an ordinary man with feelings, and could believe that not all monsters are evil. This was not the Beowulf I had hoped to see. The director even added a love story into the mess he created. But I feel that the worst change made was Grendel. Instead of being a monster people see in nightmares, Grendel was a troll, or, a very hairy human. He turned Grendel from a monster to a semi human with good intentions. This changed the plot, and, for me, ruined the movie.

                I did not like the movie Beowulf and Grendel. I felt that all of the changes made the movie horrible. I might have been able to enjoy this movie if I had never read the poem, but over all I felt that this movie was a waste of time. I feel that if the director stuck to the original plot, the movie would have been much better.  

Dreams of War (A Sonnet)

I watch them come I see them fall they die
A bomb goes off and I am left alone
The gas sinks in the trench and in my eye
With battle won we rise, the wounded moan

Wisked away to fight another battle
My older brother on the other side
A fight in a field that once held cattle
It's times like these I want to run and hide

I go again a battle of my choice
They had us beat outnumbered four to one
Thanks to our bows we silenced every voice
And in the end they realized we had won

The school bell rang I exited my dream
Walked out of class and ran into a beam

Another post against time travel

As you can tell from my title, and my posts, I do not like time travel. But one thing that I've noticed that I strongly dislike, is the fact that thinking about time travel affects how people react towards life. Time travel can become an excuse for why you are failing here and now. I know that I've had moments where I thought, "I'll be better in the future," or, "When I grow up I will be a billionaire." I might say these things, but I will not start taking the steps to reach those goals. I believed that I would reach my goal with no effort.

Time also became my excuse. I thought that as the days passed by, I would become a better person. I knew deep down that doing nothing was not the way to learn how to become better, but I still did nothing. The idea of time travel makes doing nothing easier to rationalize. People most likely won't be thinking, "when scientists learn how to time travel, I'll be first in line to change my life," instead it will make people think that time doesn't matter. This is a big problem for me. My life used to consist of fun and games with stressful nights to get the homework done that was due the next day. I didn't even study for tests. I had large amounts of time but I never used it wisely. I felt that time didn't matter, and this belief influenced me to delay any work that I had to do. 

Time Travel not needed

 I started this blog with a post describing time travel so I had decided to name my blog after it. I wanted something catchy, something that others would notice. As I described in my title, I feel time travel is not needed, it is usually too confusing. After my first post, I was required by my teacher to put other posts on this blog. Now I am trying to make all my posts relevant to time travel, which is really hard to do with real world situations. But it is a fun challenge.

Artemis Fowl The Time Paradox By: Eoin Colfer

Ever since I started reading the Artemis Fowl series, by Eoin Colfer, I was hooked. I loved stories that combined fantasy and technology. What made it even better was the characters. Each character had a great personality and contributed to the whole story in his or her own way.  When The Time Paradox , another Artemis Fowl book, came out, I thought it would be just as enjoyable to read.

The Time Paradox started out as another exciting story. But things started to go downhill when I got to the part where Artemis Fowl goes back in time to save his sick mother. All throughout the time traveling affair I was thinking he's going to ruin his future. Thinking about this ruined the adventure that was happening in Artemis Fowl's past.

As it turned out, the book has the same idea as presented in J.K. Rowling's third book of Harry Potter. This form of time travel makes a little more sense than customary time traveling, but it still has problems. What made Eoin Colfer's form of time travel even more confusing is when Artemis Fowl is locked in the trunk of his car in the past. Artemis Fowl just thinks for a bit, and help comes. As Mulch says a little later in the book, "You sent back a note so that I would come and rescue you here and now."(117). How did Artemis do that? Does he have control on his past selves when he is in the past? There are too many questions for this one answer, and these questions are what ruined a lot of the book for me.

Overall this book was okay, but the time travel  aspect ruined it for me. I know that many teenage fantasy lovers will enjoy this book. It has great characters and a good story. I recommend that you don't spend too much time thinking about time travel. I hope you enjoy The Time Paradox more than I did.

In the Government's Hands

My dad is a college professor. One of the biggest problems he faces is dealing with his students after they take his final test. When he posts the scores, many students will come and complain saying if they fail this class they will be kicked out of college and have to return home. It is up to my dad to either increase their score, and save them from their fate, or tell the students that they got what they deserved.

In the article titled Deportation would force 19-year-old and mom to leave 'everything I know', including dad and siblings, we can compare Nadia (the 19-year-old) to the student and the American government to the teacher. It is the government's choice to decide if Nadia and her mother should be deported or not. I feel sorry for Nadia, but, as they say, "the teacher is always right".  If that teacher decides to deport Nadia, then Nadia should be deported. 

One problem with the government's decision to deport Nadia is their lack of understanding of Nadia as a person. Good teachers learn about their students as they teach them. They start to understand why they act the way they do. They find out which student is trying his hardest. By the time the finals come around, the teacher understands why each student got the grade they got, and when a student asks him/her to increase their grade, the teacher knows if that student deserves a grade increase. The government cannot do that. Their decisions are based on facts. They know that Nadia and her mother are not an American citizens. They do not understand her as a person. Thankfully others understand Nadia, and are trying to make the government see that Nadia should not be deported. This article shows that their voices have been heard.

What is it with time travel?

I really enjoy reading, but there is something that never fails to get on my nerves when reading a book.  Time travel, it doesn’t matter how much I like the series; time travel will usually ruin it for me. It seems that the harder you think about time travel, the more confused you get. J. K. Rowling’s idea of time travel makes sense until you think how other people would use it. Shouldn’t there be strange things happening to Harry from those that want to stop him at all costs? There are only few choice moments where that type of time travel works. All books with time travel have something that can be questioned. Artemis Fowl is even worse. It switches between forms of time travel. First (with the demons) Artemis changes the past and creates a new sculpture. While in the next book is sort of like what happens in Harry’s world.  There are other forms of time travel that are even worse. The ones where you go back in time to change your ancestors’ past, is just crazy. Half of those people shouldn’t even exist when change the event. I feel that they should just remove time travel from books. Looking into the past is fine, but interacting with the past or future is just crazy. This brings me to my next point. Going to the future is just as bad as going to the past. If you travel to the future, you have left the present. It is like you died, but no one knows how or where your body is. You shouldn’t be able to see your inventions you created because you weren’t there to invent them. All of your changes in the future will have no meaning because you will create a new past that has you in it. It also says that everything can be predicted with some equation and the future you go to is set in stone. I feel that that is a negative thought. If science was able to figure out everything thing that we’ve done, are doing, and will do, what’s the point in living? It might have even predicted every word I was going to write in this paper. Isaac Asimov had the right idea in “Foundation” when he makes it clear that it might be possible to make a formula that can predict the total outcome in general, but if we could travel into the future, there would need to be a formula for every single one of us. The moral of this blog is time travel is so confusing that it shouldn’t even exist in books.