A Beast, a Monster, and a Human_Entry 2_Week 14

Frankenstein has created a being- something that lives, breathes, walks, blinks. A monster formed by the stiches of a needle and thread, and the various parts of bodies scattered near and far across a vast array of graveyards.

Can it think? It can think enough to tell itself to move its feet in order to walk, and to blink its eyelids when necessary.

Can it comprehend? It is unable to speak, but its eyes tell a thousand tales of understanding.

How can one deal with oneself, when one knows that it created a creature. Can it be called human when it did not derive from a human origin, but rather parts of said origin? No one can tell because it has never been done before until now.

Frankenstein knows full well that what he “created”, put together, gave life to- is no ordinary man. But is it man? Or is it a beast? Or can it be both, making it a monster with a mind and heart similar to that of a human?

Whatever it is, Frankenstein suspects that it killed a child. Strangled his brother to death, in order to retrieve a picture of his late mother. Murder… that can turn any human being into a monster. But what would society consider a monster that murdered a human? Perhaps a beast that wants no discourse of reason for what it did. But what if that beast can’t even understand what it did?

Can a beast, a monster, and a human be one and the same?

Dreams: 300 Word Scholarship Essay_Entry 1_Week 14

My parents told me that when I first came into the world, all I did was smile. I did not cry and I did not try to fight the world. I took it all in- the doctors, the bright lights, the room, and my parents. And to this day, I still take it all in- but I also commit myself to doing something rather than sitting on the sidelines. My education and community service volunteer hours are what help me to fulfill my dreams: to improve my community for the better.

At my high school, AACT, they encourage us to pursue community service opportunities to help improve the lives of others. I was inspired to join an organization that aids in caring for cats and dogs whose owners may have died or were abusive. My job is to spend time with the animals so they can feel comfortable around humans as well as to prepare them for adoption into a good home. Another community service opportunity presented to me was one offered at my Church. Every holiday we put on family- oriented events for the community, and one of many activities that we include is face painting to keep the children entertained. I hope to continue my service to the community after high school as well, except I plan on creating an organization that helps adolescents who suffer from depression and eating disorders.

Engaging with one’s community is a great way to meet new people and to make connections, and taking on a leadership role can help train a young person on how to work in a team as well as prepare them for the business world. Becoming involved for the greater good can help change the world for the better. I, for one, refuse to sit on the sidelines. 

The Day of the Doctor_Entry 2_Week 13

Daleks. Weeping Angels. Cyber-men. The Silence. Time Beetle. Family of Blood. The Ood. The Master.

And that is a list of only a few of many more monsters that exist throughout both space and time.

Time Lords. Old as time itself… perhaps even older. Their kind was destroyed, ruined, consumed by a terrible war of hatred and fire. Trapped in a bubble of time. The worst kind of prison. One that is inescapable and one that lasts until the end of time itself.

Then there is the Time Lord… supposedly the last of his kind, the Doctor himself, who can control time itself even if there is a fixed point in time that cannot be changed. He always finds a way to change the course of events- the history of the world, the history of people’s lives… always for the better.

Many have met him. Many have seen him. Many have heard of him. Few know his story. And only one knows his true identity, his name, his loneliness.

The one question that is on everyone’s minds; that the universe itself seeks to find the answer to- Doctor… who?

Frankenstein_Entry 1_Week 13

When someone mentions the name “Frankenstein”, people usual picture a green giant dressed in a rather unflattering purple dress suit with bolts protruding from between the sides of his neck. His forehead sticks out like a massive tumor, and he is considered to be a monster as old as time itself- or, at least, that’s what we would like to think. We see his image often around the time of Halloween… he is like a ghost that comes and goes. We see him in Scooby- Doo cartoons, in seventy- eight different movie versions depicting his story, posters and decorations, and more.

He is the monster we were told to be afraid of.

But Frankenstein is not the monster.

Frankenstein is merely the creator of said monster- whose name is NOT Frankenstein, unlike what everyone else has told me for the past seventeen years of my life.

Frankenstein is not the monster but rather the mad scientist who brought another man, a dead man, back to life. A man who was thought to be a monster, but was only a man who’s after- life was used for a wondrous experiment.  

Never Trust a Boy Who Calls You His Angle_Entry 2_Week 12

My great aunt once told me to never trust a boy who wrote you a love letter and called you his angle rather than his angel. Not only is something seriously wrong with his obvious lack of education, but the fact that he practically told you that you only can bend a certain way.

Remember to dye your hair an obnoxious red at least once in your life so people can mistake you for a stop sign and will be given the extra unnecessary amount of time to admire you.

Always remember to dance, even if it’s raining. Just tell yourself that the lightning is flashes of hope and that the thunder is the voice of triumphant.

Talking to yourself may make you appear to not be in the right state of mind, but at least you know part of you still exists.

Never give bits of your heart to a boy who is only willing to display it in his trophy case.

Cannot Wait To Graduate_Entry 1_Week 12

When you think life can’t get any worse, it does.

High school is literally a vortex of emotions and tears and tests and midterms and planning and competitions. People overreact and underreact. One person says one thing, and another person says what they said in a completely different way- twisting around their words like little shards of ripped up paper. People overthink everything but don’t actually look at what’s happening in front of them.

You have no idea how tired I am of people telling me what to do. Don’t get me wrong- I’m not against my parents doing their parental job, or my teachers instructing me on what homework needs to be completed and such. No. It’s not that. I am tired of people, specifically my age, telling me how to live. Who to care for. Who to apologize to. Who I owe what. Who I should love.

Then they go about claiming that people don’t have the right to judge.

Really now?

Ever thought of practicing what you preach?

Apparently not…

Cannot wait to graduate.

Act 5, Scene 2 (Revised): “Unbated and Envenom’d”_Entry 2_Week 11

            “…Thou art slain. No medicine in the world can do thee good… The treacherous instrument is in thy hand, unbated and envenom’d,” Laertes exclaims as he lies dying, having been wounded by the poisonous sword of which Hamlet unknowingly holds in his own hand. The sword had been dipped in poison of which no medicine could cure, and was meant to take Hamlet’s life by the hands of Laertes. The roles, however, have been switched as revenge is performed in the same intentional manner but by a completely different person.

            “The foul practice hath turn’d itself on me,” Laertes realizes after being struck down. For every action there is a reaction, for every exploit there will be a consequence, and for every meticulously thought- out scheme something will not go exactly according to plan. The King had hoped for a fool- proof plan in his endeavor to murder Hamlet, but he too realizes that “… it is too late”.  The Queen had drunk the poisoned concoction intended for Hamlet, and Laertes had been struck by the venomous tip of the sword that he himself had constructed.

Poison cannot only physically kill a person’s very existence, but it also has the power to destroy everything that the person had once stood for and had loved. The King’s ambition had blinded him as well as had convinced him that he could slay his own brother and remain without sin or fault. Hamlet’s hatred for the King had caused people to think he was a mad man and a fool in love. Ophelia’s confusion and sorrow had been the cause of her own death. And the Queen’s denial of committing incest as well as her refusal to continue to mourn her late husband’s death had led to a broken relationship with her son.

Fate cannot be changed, and destiny cannot be determined no matter how fool- proof a plan may seem. The King and Laertes had regarded every aspect and had discussed every diminutive detail, but in the end something went wrong. One factor may have been accidentally forgotten, or an element may have been misplaced. Whatever happened behind the scenes, no will know. But one thing is known to be true- everything comes back to haunt a person’s soul.

It is as Laertes said: “He is justly served. It is a poisoned temper’d by himself.” The kingdom of Denmark had made their decision to seek out revenge and to harbor hatred, and now they had to pay the price they were willing to bargain with. A price that every man must compensate for in the end.

Hamlet (Memorization Speech): Act 1, Scene 2_Entry 1_Week 11

We were required to memorize a speech that we considered to be the most important and the most relevant to what was happening within the play of Hamlet . I chose to memorize a speech where the main character, Hamlet, is contemplating suicide and is mourning the loss of his father as well as the loss of the innocent love of his mother.

1. O, that this too too sullied flesh would melt,
2. Thaw and resolve itself into a dew,
3. Or that the Everlasting had not fix’s
4. His cannon ‘gainst self- slaughter! O God! God!
5. How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable
6. Seem to me all the uses of this world!
7. Fie on’t! ah fie! ‘Tis an unweeded garden
8. That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
9. Possess it merely. That it should come to this!
10. But two months dead- nay, not so much, not two-
11. So excellent a king, that was to this
12. Hyperion to a satyr, so loving to my mother
13. That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
14. Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth,
15. Must I remember? Why, she would hang on him
16. As if increase of appetite had grown
17. By what it fed on; and yet, within a month-
18. Let me not think on’t- Frailty, thy name is woman-
19. A little month, or ere those shoes were old
20. With which she follow’d my poor father’s body,
21. Like Niobe,  all tears- why she, even she-
22. God! A beast that wants discourse of reason
23. Would have mourn’d longer- married with my uncle,
24. My father’s brother, but no more like my father
25. Than I to Hercules. Within a month,
26. Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
27. Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,
28. She married. O, most wicked speed, to post
29. With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!
30. It is not, nor it cannot come to good.
31. But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.

She Is The Story_Entry 2_Week 10

She is the story of internal civil war

She is the good and the bad, the pretty and the ugly, and the reward and the consequence

She is like the contrast found in the colors black and white

She has alabaster skin that is a canvas for some form of distorted art

She hates reality so hides within a wonderland of her own

She enjoys complexity but appreciates simplicity

She hates romantics but sings songs about love

She would rather skip dinner and eat dessert

She loved one too many lost boys

But has yet to learn what it’s like to fall in love

She prefers to photograph the magic that can be found in the secret places of the world

She loves to read but can only sit at a desk for so long until her mind begins to wander

She is like Alice because she fell down the hole into a world where she doesn’t belong

She has just begun her lifelong adventure

Of discovering…. Her 

The Undiscovered Country: Hamlet_Entry 1_Week 10

                     “To be, or not to be, that is the question,” Hamlet thinks to himself as he tries to decide if it is better to continue on with life or to end it all together. He struggles between the good and the bad, the pretty and the ugly, and the reward and the consequence of committing suicide. He wonders if “to die” is only “to sleep, but if he happens “to sleep” he will only “dream”.

            “For who would bear the whips and scorns of time… But that the dread of something after death, the undiscovered country… And makes us rather bear those ills we have, than to fly to others that we know not of.” “To be, or not to be…” Life seems to only offer mankind a “sea of troubles”, “hearth- ache”, a “thousand natural shocks”, and a mind that only suffers. The thoughts in Hamlet’s mind goes back and forth between what could happen and what will happen if he chooses to live, or if he chooses to die.

            Death, however, is just as appealing as life itself. Hamlet wonders what happens after “we have shuffled off this mortal coil”. The land of the dead is “the undiscovered country, from whose bourn no traveler returns”. That, for Hamlet, is more terrifying than having to live “a weary life”.

            The unknown is a thing man- kind does not wish to discover, and often the question “to be, or not to be” can only offer a simple answer- “To be”- to know.