Utopia(the end)

This is going to be my final rant about utopias. I have been going on and on about how I don’t think a utopia can exist because everyone defines perfection in a different way. As I was thinking about this with respect to The Giver I realized that Lowry, the author of The Giver, realizes this also. I believe he is writing the book with the realization that a utopia is impossible to create because no two utopia would be the same, so he writes the book almost criticizing utopias. I was not giving Lowry enough credit when I began my rant about utopias. Of course he realizes that a utopia to suffice the entire world would never exist, so he creates one mocking what people might think would be a utopia. I still stand by my beginning argument from 3 weeks ago that utopias do not exist, but I now also think that Lowry understand this along with me.

Blogs and Fantasy

Writing blogs is kind of like reading fantasy. It is something I have to do to make a good grade, but I do not enjoy it. I am not creative, I don’t enjoy trying to be creative and I don’t like thinking outside the box to make up or understand creative things.

Fantasy is abstract
When I read it, it gets me off my normal thinking track

Blogs are boring to write
When I write them I do it with spite

Fantasy makes my brain go crazy
As I read it everything around me becomes a little hazy

Blogs are meant to make you think in a creative way
Thinking creatively is not something that I enjoy doing from day to day

People who write fantasy must be a little insane
Why would someone write books like that if they had a well functioning brain?

Blogs are meant to be relaxing and fun
I am just glad that this entry is done

Why I Hate Fantasy

So as everyone in class knows (mostly because I was 1 of 5 out of about 250 students) I hate fantasy books. They are hard to follow, the things that happen have no purpose, the concepts are hard for me to grasp, and I am not a creative thinker. I am very much a math and science person, which makes me an analytical thinker, so I like things to have order and make a point. When something happens I always ask why or how or for what reason, and in fantasy these questions are nearly impossible to answer. I am also very much a realist, and fantasy is definitely not real. The places created in the novels are abstract and make no sense. I do not like to be taken out of my comfort zone, and that is exactly what fantasy does to me. I would much rather read about something that could happen in real life, or that I can relate to events that have happened to me or occurred in my lifetime. I just do not understand how someone could think so outside the box to create a fantasy novel. I guess that’s why I don’t enjoy them, because I do not think outside the box very often

Fairytale

"Fairytale"

Cinderella's on her bedroom floor
She's got a
Crush on the guy at the liquor store
Cause Mr. Charming don't come home anymore
And she forgets why she came here
Sleeping Beauty's in a foul mood
For shame she says
None for you dear prince, I'm tired today
I'd rather sleep my whole life away than have you keep me from dreaming

[Chorus:]
'cause I don't care for your fairytales
You're so worried about the maiden though you know
She's only waiting on the next best thing

Snow White is doing dishes again cause
What else can you do
With seven itty-bitty men?
Sends them to bed and calls up a friend
Says will you meet me at midnight?
The tall blonde lets out a cry of despair says
Would have cut it myself if I knew men could climb hair
I'll have to find another tower somewhere and keep away from the windows

[Chorus]

Once upon a time in a faraway kingdom
Man made up a story said that I should believe him
Go and tell your white knight that he's handsome in hindsight
But I don't want the next best thing
So I sing and hold my head down and I break these walls round me
Can't take no more of your fairytale love

[Chorus]

I don't care
I don't care
Worry bout the maiden though you know
She's only waiting spent the whole life being graded on the sanctity of patience and a dumb
Appreciation
But the story needs some mending and a better happy ending
Cause I don't want the next best thing
No no I don't want the next best thing

I found this song on a website I was looking at and I thought it was a cool song because it talks about cinderella, snow white, sleeping beauty, repunzel and little red riding hood, which are all tales we have discussed in class. Below is a link to the music video on ou tube. It is really cool because it acts out all of the different fairy tales!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cGQoPmefyA

Utopia(continued)

In The Giver, a utopia is a place where everyone is treated exactly the same, and given the exact same privileges. People are not allowed to speak of unpleasant things, learn about unpleasant things or have knowledge of anything unpleasant. If anything unpleasant happens, someone is punished for it and the society goes on as if nothing happened. To me this sounds like a horrible world to live in. a world where you are sheltered from anything that is not perfect. Although the world I live in today is becoming more and more violent and corrupt, as the media would state it, I would prefer it to the “utopian society” spoken of in The Giver. Experiencing bad things, and learning about tragedies helps people grow and mature, and it is part of living and growing up. What would the world be like without unpleasant things? Would is be better? Would it be “perfect”? (to be continued)

My favorite series of children’s books growing up was The Berenstain Bears. Each book teaches a lesson about growing up or talks about different obstacles that children will have to overcome as they grow up. The first book that I ever read was The Berenstain Bears go to the Dentist. Sister Bear had reached the age where she had to go to the dentist, but she was very afraid because she had heard scary things about the dentist. Throughout the entire book she worries about going to the dentist and thinks of the most horrible things that could happen to her, but in the end she goes to the dentist and realizes that it is not scary at all. Want to learn more about the Bear Family? Click on the link below to go to their main webpage:

http://www.berenstainbears.com

Valentines Day Cliche

Cinderella found her Prince Charming
When she realized she loved him, it wasn’t at all alarming

Snow White and Sleeping Beauty
They both found themselves a cutie

As for me, I found a guy too
For him, there is nothing I wouldn’t do

I never thought I could feel this way
He always knows just what to say

He gives me butterflies every time he walks in a room
He tells me I’m beautiful, even when I wake up and look like the creature from the Black Lagoon

To me he is perfect in every way
I love him more and more each day

Love is a wonderful thing
I never knew what joy it could bring

I can’t believe I have never felt this way before
I knew he was the one for me the first time I saw him, when my heart hit the floor

My Experiment

Ella Enchanted is a book about a girl who was cursed when she was born. The curse was that she had to do whatever she was commanded to do. I found this very frustrating as I read the book because I am a very stubborn person, and I only like to do what I want to do. I was curious what it would be like to have to do everything you are told to do, so I conducted an experiment. I gave my boyfriend permission, for one day only, to have complete control over me. Anything that he ordered me to do, not asked, but ordered me to do, I had to do. At first it was not that bad. It was things like “hold my jacket”, “get me something to drink”, and “make me a bowl of cereal”. It took a turn for the worse when my boyfriend realized that I really would do anything he ordered me to do. He began to do things to embarrass me, such as throw something on the floor far away from me and order me to go pick it up, make me take off his jacket while my friends were watching me take orders and to massage his feet(and I can’t stand feet). I got extremely frustrated when I had to do things that I didn’t want to do, but I am sure that my emotions were nowhere near comparable to Ella’s. It is physically impossible for Ella not to take orders, while mine was just mental because I was trying out an experiment. After this experiment I could not imagine a life of having to take orders all the time, and not being able to control your own life. It might possibly be one of the worst things I can imagine.

Utopia

Over Christmas break I wanted a book to read and since I had already bought all of the books for my English360 class I decided to read one of them. The book I chose to read was The Giver. I loved this book and read it in one day because I could not put it down. At first I could not wrap my mind around several of the concepts in the book. For example, at each birthday the children were granted a new privilege such as a bike, a new hair style, a coat with buttons, and so on. Until the child reached the appropriate age to receive the gift, for example a bike at the age of 9, they could not ride a bike. The society in the book was supposed to be a utopian society where there was no unpleasantness and everyone, for the most part, was treated the same. I thought this was crazy because the way they described their life in the book did not sound like a utopia to me. This got me thinking, how do u define a utopia?.....(to be continued)

Ella the Slave

Clean the dishes wash the floor
Go to your room, prince Char is at the door
Bloody knuckles, bruised up knees
Ella, give me your necklace, please
I’m a fairy friend? Oh my word
I learned all my languages from a talking bird
Agony, grief, horror, despair
Glass slippers you say, yes I own a pair
Hattie is wicked, Olive is dumb
Prince Char had an apple and gave me some
I live like a slave
My dad says I’m brave
Mandy cares for me
Lucinda gives horrid gifts, with pleasure and glee
Special mushrooms made me temporarily fall in love
My curse made me look clumsy and caused me to give the house made a shove
My one true love is Prince Char
This curse I’m under forced me to adore him from afar
Lucinda refused to remove her spell
When I was told this I wanted to send her to hell
Mandy told me I could remove the curse myself
I asked her to give me some help
My need to save my town and love for the Prince
Caused me to break the spell and refuse commands without a wince
Char and I lived happily ever after
As for my stepmother and sisters, now I am their master

Haiku

F- fun to read no matter what age you are.
A- always have a moral to the story.
I- interesting to analyze and see other peoples points of view
R- reach out to young children and adults in different ways
Y- young children read them for fun, while adults read them to find the deeper meanings

T- twist reality into fantasy
A- allude to perverse ideas, no matter what the story is
L- ladies are unintelligent, powerless and naive
E- enjoyable to have class discussions based around them
S- simple on the surface and complex in the core

The Bet...

One of my favorite books growing up was How to Eat Fried Worms. The book was based around a group of kids who had a bet that one of the kids could not eat 15 worms in 15 days. I think it’s funny that as you get older the things that matter change.

When people are young they bet one another to do things to see who the coolest kid is…
I bet you won’t touch that bug
I bet you won’t climb that tree
I bet you can’t beat me in a race
I bet you can’t swing higher than me

When you are a young adult you dare one another to do things to test courage…
I dare you to kiss her
I dare you to sleep outside by yourself
I dare you to hit me
I dare you to ask her out

When you are older and mature you test yourself to see how far you can push yourself…
My goal is to graduate high school with honors
My goal is to get into a prestigious college
My goal is to graduate with a 4.0
My goal is to meet the love of my life
My goal is to have a family
My goal is to find my dream job
My goal is to be a good wife, mother, sister, friend, and daughter

Love is NOT like a Fairy Tale

I am sick of reading all of these fairy tales about girls who are powerless, naive and don't control their own destiny's. Take Cinderella for example, she lets her stepmother boss her around and treat her horribly and she never stands up for herself. I know you are supposed to respect your elders, but there is a line that should not be crossed. When Cinderella finally defies her stepmother and goes to the ball she meets a prince, who is obviously into her. Instead of just telling him who she is when she has to leave at midnight, she runs away and by chance her shoe falls off. Cinderella leaves her one shot at true love, and the chance to get away from her stepmother and wicked stepsisters, for fate to decide. I know that in the real world some people believe in fate, but you cannot depend on luck and fate to get you the things you really want in life. Cinderella’s life would have been way easier if she had just been straight forward with the prince instead of sitting around her castle waiting for him to find her. Love is an emotional, complicated thing. Fairy tales take the complexities away from love and make it as simple as possible. Doing this could be misleading to children. It could make children grow up to think that love is easy and that one day your prince charming will just come along and sweep you off your feet. While this could happen (I suppose) it would be much easier to learn at a young age that love is an emotional roller coaster that take lots of work and patience, but in the end it is an amazing thing.