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