vampires besting the beats

In a world that is constantly changing, the literary society has changed drastically. In the article, Vampires Are Besting the Beats, he author tries to prove that point. The author implies that our literary world has transformed. In the past, humanity read books of significant literary merit. Books that contained profound knowledge. Now, however, people are beginning to read "immature books." Adults are starting to read, Twilight, which was originally made for teenagers. However, "last year Meyer (the author of Twilight) sold more books than any other author-22 million copies, and those werent all bought by middle schoolers." Furthermore, the author says that this switch in the literacy world was inevitable because of our conservative natures.

I agree with the author that the literary society has indeed changed drastically. However, I dont think that there is any way to stop this change. As technology advances, society advances and there no ways to reverse it. Progress can be hindered, but it can never be stopped. So whats the point of complaining?

Fun/Frustrating Experience

My brother and I always got into crazy mischief as children. Growing up on several air force bases, being forced to constantly make new friends, we didn't have much choice than to hang out with each other. We were always doing so much together that one day, neither of our young minds could think of anything to get into. We were sitting on the backyard porch one day when I caught a glance of my brother's face. He had a look in his eyes as if a light bulb had just went off above his head. Without saying a word, he darted to the side of the house. I didn't quite know what he was up to, but I began to feel my body getting excited.

He soon returned with the most beautiful, red vehicle and I was jumping with joy inside. But, to my surprise, what I thought was going to happen, was not what he had in mind. I thought he was going he pull me around in this wagon from the gods, but somehow he flipped the script and convinced me to pull him around the block numerous times. My young, three year old mind had once again fallen for his mind tricks.

We had decided to collect large rocks in the wagon and we did so for quite a long time. The weight of the wagon began to increase as we added more and more rocks. We had agreed that it was now the time to get rid of the rocks. "What do I do with them?" I asked my brother. He had told me to just throw them in the street. This was a decision that he was going to regret for the next few weeks.

I picked up the largest rock in the wagon and prepared myself to throw it. I felt a sense of power run through my body as I held the rock in my small hands. I pulled the rock back, looked at the street, and flung it towards the street. I looked up only to realize that the rock had never even made it to the street. My brothers large head had intercepted my pass to the street. My jaw dropped as I watched blood drip down my brothers forehead.

We rushed home and I continuously apologized but told him that he practically asked for that. My mom looked at his head, said he'd be okay, and told him that he shouldn't have made me pull him around all afternoon. To this day, I still have no aim, nor can I throw any sort of object for my life.

Happy Halloween! (Happy Moment)

     The sun was quickly setting beyond the horizon. Surprizingly there was no sound to be heard. Everything was silent. We began walking to the house next door to the left, looked at each other, and finally after a minute rang the doorbell.
     Kady and I planned to go trick-or-treating with each other since last Friday. The problem with this Halloween was that it was on a Sunday. That meant we had less time to get candy, but more time to get ready for school tomorrow and be forced to go to bed early by our parents. I was excited though because I had not dressed up in a Halloween costume in two years. I was ready to go.
     The first house we visited had all the lights on, so we decided to get their candy. Right when the cleaning lady opened the door, we knew this house was a bad start. We saw no furniture anywhere, but a cart of cleaning supplies being pushed around.
     "Sorry," the woman began. "but no one lives here. I am only here to clean the place." Kady and I quickly glanced at each other and laughed in embarrassment. We apoligized quickly and ran across the street.
     "Maybe we came out too early." I whispered nervously. "No one else is out here." We both looked around the street, and finally noticed some little kids in a Batman, princess, and Iron Man costume walking up toward a house.
     "We are not the only ones who began early. Come on!" Kady led the way down the sidewalk to a spooky lit house on another street.
     "Trick-or-treat!" We shouted with some little kids already at the door. Instead of bags, we had brought pillow cases. We believed this was best because pillow cases can hold a lot of candy.
     An elderly woman who looked to be about sixty years old brought out a bowl of goodies. The smell of chocolate reces', snickers, and twix somehow went through the wrapper and into our nostrils. We quickly opened our pillowcases and waited patiently. She quickly grabbed a handful of candy for each of us, kindly smiled, and closed the door. Each small child looked at each other in absolute amazement and gazed at their newly-handed treasures. They stood that way for many seconds until their loving parents softly called them back to their side to continue the search for more treats.
     I smiled as I watched the little ones frollic away, laughing to each other and telling scary stories. I began to travel down memory lane to when I was that young age. My smile began to fade as quickly as it had come.
     "Kady, do you ever miss being younger? Do you ever miss the days when we had no worries, could imagine anything, and believe in holiday magic?" Kady slowly stopped and turned to face me. She began to wear a puzzling look, and looked up at the stars just now visible. As she released a sigh, her expression quickly changed from her thinking look to realization.
     "Well... Whoever said we had to stop believing and imagining?" She slowly looked from the sky to me. "Sure we have more worries. We are growing up and have more responsibilities, but that does not mean we have to give up on having fun. We should never lose the innocence and child within us no matter how old we are. If we did, just imagine how simple, plain, and boring our lives would be. We would lose the part of ourselves that makes each and every one of us unique." She smiled and walked toward another house with moving gravestones and giant fuzzy spiders on the walls.
     I slowly looked up at the sky and saw all the the stars in their wonder. I realized how time will change everything on the outside, but only we can change who or what we are on the inside.
     "Hey, are you coming?" Her voice shook me out of my daydream in the clouds and back to "Halloween mode". I smiled to myself as I quickly walked to where my friend was standing, looked at the door, and rang the doorbell.



Miss Ing Link

How could anyone not love the one day of the year were you get to dress up and receive free candy? Halloween is my favorite holiday, and every year I look forward to making an awesome costume. Last year I was an 80's jazzercise instructor, and the year before that I was a crazy Earthquakes fan (the futbol team). This year, I wanted to be the zombie version of the Progressive lady (that annoying ___ from the commercials), but my mom had another idea and really wanted to be in charge of my costume, so I let her.

She had this idea to combine Miss America with the missing link. She went to Michael's and bought a plethora of artificial autumn colored leaves that she wanted to make into a dress. So she hot glued them to this little dress she used as a base, but I was wearing the base dress, so she basically hot glued them one by one to me in the dress which took forever. She was determined to make it look rad. She also made a crown with little skeletons and a sash that read "Miss Ing Link". I've got to give her props because an insane amount of creativity went into making it.

I went trick or treating with my friends, and a lot of people didn't really understand my costume. The most reoccurring statements were, "What are you supposed to be?" and " Aren't you a little too old?" Too old?? Never. I love Halloween, and making costumes just adds to the fun.

Fun Moment

One of funniest moments of my life was Halloween last night. My baby cousins had come over like every other year and I had to take them trick-or-treating. Every year, there is a family that puts up a "haunted house" where they basically let strangers roam around their house looking for candy. My baby cousin was pulling on my arm and was telling me to go with her inside the haunted house. Looking at all the lights flashing and hearing the screams of children, I looked towards my little brother and told him that since he was also trick or treating, that he should go with them and get some candy. My cousins couldn't wait so they ran inside and since my brother was taking a long time, I deccided to go in with them. My brother stood outside debating on whether he should go in or not. I laughed at him as he stood there trembling and so I went up to him and told him not to be a whimp. I went in with my cousins and came out with my pockets full of candy. I looked over and my brother was still there now embarressed that little kids went in and he was to scared to go in. Finally, he went in the haunted house and I followed just to mess with him. Throughout our journey in the haunted house, I snuck up behind him and gave him a scare. When we came out, I teased him and watched his fearful eyes now fill with pride. As we continued trick or treating, there was an Indian house and apparently it was there first Halloween. Every member of the family stood outside watching people pass by asking for candy. When we reached their house, they handed us some apples and said "Happy Kwanza". I looked at them like they were some weirdos and moved on to the next house. Soon we reached this partly decorated house and rang the doorbell. A man came out with a snake wrapped arond his arm. I looked at it and asked if it was fake. He smiled and said no, then let me touch it. I touched it...it was real and then I left. We soon finished out odd but fun Halloween trip.:)

? Experience :]

The cold air met my bare skin. I pushed my sleeves down, it was the only way to get warmer. The cold San Franciscan air was around me, also were the people who walked on the streets. This was unfamiliar territory, buildings touched the sky, and people of every type were found in the walkways. It was a clear day, not a chance of rain, although the sun could not be seen from the shelter of the buildings.
Unrecognizable faces, stares, tongues, and clothes were too much to take in, the only choice was to focus on a smaller range of objects. Vehicles. Taxis, bikes, vans, limousines, trucks, buses, trolleys, motorcycles, and a strange yellow vehicle. The strange yellow vehicle had three tires, they were put at each corner of the vehicle, making the vehicle a strange triangle shape. The strange yellow vehicle seemed to be no surprise to anyone except me, so I tried my best to act as if I didn't have curiosity. As the three strange yellow vehicles turned around the corner, I realized where I was; San Francisco, the city which creates stereotypes for the state of California. This small portion of California was it's own country. San Francisco holds much more than graffiti and hobos. When I came to realize what this city could supply for it's diverse citizens, I realized how San Francisco is much more than a city with weird people.
I got up from the cement seat I had been sitting for three minutes, and decided to walk back into the mall which had too many stories to count. As I entered the mall I looked for familiar stores, but instead I found myself in a new world, a world that had more shops in eyesight, than how many shops filled my hometown mall. After fighting my way through a crowd of people, I managed to reach a store that had seemed to be somewhere I would like to shop. I walked in and found myself in the women area, which would not seem strange to San Franciscans, although being in the woman's section was not my objective. I finally found the men's section and decided to search for a jacket, since it was cold outside. I found a nice jacket, one that looked reasonably priced for my 80 dollars, just so I would still have money for food and other things. When I took the jacket off the rack, I looked for the tag, and found it cost $189.99, which was more than double of what I brought.
I decided to leave the overly expensive store, because I was not going to buy something that I could easily get for $120 cheaper in my home city. It didn't take long for me to realize I was not prepared for San Francisco, and that it may hold big opportunities for it's diverse citizens, but it does not hold the opportunity of buying clothes efficiently.

wendy not gur

In this article On Campus, Vampires are Besting the Beats the author makes a fair point. There seems to be no rebellion in the college kids of today, and the only things they feel compelled to read are fantasies about vampires or the hilarious stories of Tucker Max’s bar trolls.

But what this author doesn’t realize is that history is repeating itself in the stories of today. People do stay the same after all. The only difference is that the works that are published today are written in plain English and all points are bluntly written.

Chaucer’s poetry, for example, is written in barely comprehensible Germish that takes even the most enthusiastic student plenty of time to slough through. Shakespeare’s 254 famous sonnets of love, “Shall I compare thee to a Summer’s Day”, “Let me not to the marriage of true minds”, and “Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion’s paws” among others were written to a young man known only as Mr. W.H. with women (or perhaps woman for he might have been writing of one girl in particular) seeming dark and faithless, unless he is using her to make a point ”My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;”

Another hindrance against the ‘wheat’ of old is what you must know to comprehend a poem at all. Take John Donne’s The Flea, just as one example. For the average student, reading it dry will only tell them that a flea has sucked her blood and his, then something incomprehensible about marriage and grudging parents and churches and purple. The student understandably thinks “What the heck? This is incomprehensible! Where’s I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell?” Student goes to class the next day and asks the English teacher what on earth the poem is about. English teacher tells him the speaker is trying to get his beloved to sleep with him outside of marriage.

Student says WHAT and turns the poem upside down and holds it up to the light. “Where does it say THAT?”

English teacher tells him that to understand this poem he must know that back in Donne's time they thought the mixing of blood between a man and a woman caused pregnancy. Therefore inside a flea, they have consummated a sort of marriage with the flea as their church and bed. The purple is the king Herod who killed all the Jewish babies after learning that a king had been born among them. Thus when she rebuffs his advance by killing the flea the speaker’s girl has actually committed three sins. She has killed herself in the flea, him, and what could have been.

Student shakes his head in frustration and says, “At least Tucker Max just says plain out that he’s going to get drunk and sleep with too many woman. Why couldn’t John Donne just SAY that? Why did I have to dig thought ten layers for THAT?”

Kid has a point.