3 minute Story

It was getting late and I needed to get going to catch the bus. The cafe I worked in on evenings was slowing down, with less and less customers straggling in. I looked at the clock, anxious and waiting for it to finally become 10 o’clock. My shift would finally be over then and I would need to run to catch the bus around the corner. It would be the last bus of the evening and I needed to get back to my dorm. Why the hell did I agree to do this late shift tonight? I thought to myself. I had a short story for my Lit 101 class due the next day that I hadn’t been able to start yet.

“It’s pretty dead in here, Morgan. Why don’t you head home and I’ll close up for the night?” said Mike, one of the older guys busing tables. “I know you’ve got that paper that you’ve been griping about. I don’t know how you can manage full time college and working this job at night…”

“Listen Mike, I’d love to chat about how bullshit college tuition is, but I’ve really got to run. Thanks for closing!” I hurried to the back room and grabbed my purse. I ran out the door and down the block. As I turned the corner, I saw the bus pulling away.

“God damn it!” I said loudly. I sighed and slowed down and walked over to the bus stop and sat down on the bench. I searched through my purse for my phone. I pulled it out and leaned back, laying out on the bench. No signal. Just my luck I thought. I sighed, wondering who would even be available and willing to come and pick me up this late. I groaned and started looking through my purse again, to try and find something to write with and something to write on. Maybe I could find some inspiration to write about for my assignment.

“Hey, you look pretty down. What’s up?” I looked around to find out where the voice was coming from. “I’m up above you,” a vaguely familiar voice said. I looked up and saw a girl that I vaguely recognized from my Lit class.

“Uh, don’t I know you from my Lit class? With Ms. Mayer?” I asked. The girl smiled at me. Whoa she’s really cute when she smiles… I thought to myself. Gah! She’s saying something! What is she saying? Focus, Morgan!

“... and so yeah I saw you out here and was like ‘Whoa I sorta know her and she looks kinda sad and like she could use someone to talk to’ so here I am, doing that. Talking to you. Yeah…” She looked a little sheepish.

“Sorry, what was your name again?” I asked.

“It’s Kayley,” she said. “And your name is Morgan, yeah?” I nodded. “So what are you doing out here, Morgan?” she asked.

“I missed the bus and it’s the last one tonight. And my damn phone has no signal so I can’t get someone to pick me up!” I said, exasperated. I was tired and as much as I enjoyed talking with a cute girl, I really just wanted to get home and finish my homework.

“Umm I could give you a ride if you want? My roommate has a car and it’d be no problem if I borrowed it,” she offered. I smiled at her.

“Yeah, thanks! That’d be great!” I replied. She told me to wait and after a couple minutes came around front in a blue VW Beetle. I hopped in, gave her directions to my dorm, and we chatted the whole way home. Upon arriving, I got out and she handed me a piece of paper and said I forgot it. I took it from her, thanked her, and she drove away. I looked at the paper in my hands. It said ‘Call Me!” and had her phone number. I smiled and walked into my dorm.

Rime of the Ancient Mariner

So in the Rime of the Ancient Mariner, there's a lot going on. Here's a pine for it:
P: They're (The Mariner and the Wedding Guest) at a wedding being told a story, but the people in the story are on a ship in the sea
I: Talking about how the things you do hang over you and follow you and affect you, the people around you, and the world around you. Also appreciate everything
N: The Mariner
E: The Mariner is guilty and looks back on his story with shame
So in this epic poem, the narrator, The Mariner, is at a wedding with the wedding guest and tells him a story about

Thankful

What am I thankful for in English class? Well there's actually a lot. Fist off, I'm thankful that I don't get yelled at for eating in class. Because that class is my designated breakfast time and it's when I'm hungry, so being able to just pull out something and snack a little bit is fabulous. I'm also really thankful that when we're in a lab, we're usually in the downstairs one. That one's the greatest because when I go down the stairs and am like "dang we're in a lab" I don't need to climb more stairs. I'm also thankful for my classmates. I'm thankful for being able to relate what we're talking about back to Disney movies and ten spending the next five minutes talking about Disney with people from across the classroom. I love that there are actually interesting and intelligent conversations between classmates. I love that we're able to sit by our friends. I love noticing little funny things happening across the classroom (and trust me, some crazy weird things happen from where I'm sitting). Im thankful for people who actually do the readings when I haven't ben able to read for whatever reason. I'm thankful for being able to laugh about the amazingly lame movies. Most of all, I'm thankful for being in a class where people are able to joke around and have a lot of fun, while still getting a bit of work done. Because that's fantastic.

Macbeth-ish Acts (Idk what the actual title of this is???)

So, if I were in a position where I was pretty well off but was told I could have even more if I only killed a couple people, including my best friend, and manipulated some people, I would not agree to do it. Like yeah, moving up in the world's awesome and stuff and I am an ambitious person, but I just wouldn't be able to do it. I wouldn't be able to live with myself, knowing what I had done to get to where I was. And what's the point of it all if you only end up despising yourself? I'd pick happy and not being as well off over wealth and self-loathing. Doing what Macbeth did goes against my moral code and I'd probably have a breakdown like he did. In the process of trying to get higher up in life, he lost everything: his best friend, his wife, his position of power, and he even lost himself. Honestly, I think it's sort of stupid that he didn't think he'd be caught. Like come on, if you murder people and do a bunch of really bad things, it's always going to catch up to you and bite you in the butt. So basically the moral of this entry is: don't do Macbeth-ish things, have good karma (what goes around comes around), and don't go around killing people because it's rude.

From The Crown To The Toe, Top Full Of Direst Cruelty

Sooooo let's talk about Lady Macbeth. First of all she says some of my favorite lines from this play (you know, in her whole sleep walking and mental breakdown escapade). But she's also supposed to be a very strong character. She has the guts to do what Macbeth wasn't totally 100% about doing. This makes her 'manly', her taking charge and actively doing something to change her life for the better. This is actually a theme that is still relevant today (ie: the movie Brave, where Merida is like yooooo I don't need no man and then proceeds to make sure something isn't forced onto her). And although I'm all for power to the ladies, I don't quite like this representation. I think it may have been trying to take a stab at gender roles at the time, but it just sort of shows that certain attributes are for men and others are for women. It also shows, with Lady Macbeth making fun of Macbeth for acting 'like a woman', that things typically associated with women are inferior to things associated with men. Which totally isn't true. Which brings me to the topic of GENDER! So, this blog entry is being turned into a feminist thing backed up by the weird puzzle that is Gender. First off, let's go into gender. It's most easily explained as what someone identifies as. It can be male, female, anything in between, and things outside of the binary. Seems simple enough, right? But then you have to factor in things like gender assignment (what you're said to be at birth), gender role (what society says you should be), and gender identity (what you say and know you are). With all that thrown in, gender can get pretty mind boggling, especially if you identify as something other than what's assigned to you. That can create gender dysphoria, which is something to be gotten to and explained another time (if interested, totally ask me about it because I'll talk for says about gender studies). How does any of this relate to Lady Macbeth? Well, she figured out that to move her and her man up in life, she had to get down and dirty. But she's got the mind set of that time, where anything that requires braincells and doing things is what men do; women just sit, and are gentle and kind and happy with what they have. Which is totally not true! Women are people and capable of being their own person. Nowadays, women's gender affiliations need not be questioned based on how they act. As shown with the earlier example I gave of Merida being in a somewhat similar (ish) situation. But she is considered cool and independent and there's no question about 'oh she's doing stuff whaaaaaaat no not okay she's a chick that's men's duty go get married hippy'. Nope she's totally herself (and in the process is RAD AS HECK). So what am I getting at? Good question. Basically people (anyone either in or out of the binary) are all people and should be treated that way. There should be no need to give genders to traits or actions or feelings. And so yeah. *Feminist/ gender studies rant over*

No New Tale To Tell

            In the Canterbury Tales, specifically the Wife of Bath’s tale, there’s no new tale to tell. In the story, a knight rapes a woman and has to find out what women TRULY want. But this is really not okay. It starts of by describing the setting, a fairyland where it’s commonplace for men to rape women and says that it’s okay because they only dishonor the women. EXCUSE ME I WOULD BEG TO DIFFER! Women who are raped can be impacted in many more ways than just being un-pure. It’s a traumatic experience, even if it’s the norm in their society. So, back to this despicable knight. The woman he raped was along in the corn when he spotted her. So he went and ignored her protests and objections and raped her. So King Arthur understood that this was way wrong and said he should die. And I agree with the King. He was absolutely right. This violation of the woman could have scarred her mentally, and she would have to live with that pain and humiliation that was forced on her for the rest of her life. So then later on, when the old woman tells him he has to marry her, he’s totally shocked and against the idea, but it’s forced on him. Hmmmm sound familiar? So there are a variety of messages in here but the one that I think is incredibly important is that rape is incredibly bad and should not be a thing that women have to deal with, but we do. When women out and about, they have to constantly worry about being raped. If there’s a man walking behind you just too close on the sidewalk, you start to get nervous and walk a little faster, trying to still your heart and hoping that you’re over reacting and that nothing will happen. And women have to deal with this, knowing that if they are raped, the can be blamed based on what they wear (some people will say that they were ‘asking for it’) or it could go so far as the women not being believed when they try to report it. And these are things that happen regularly. They’re not anything that women have not had to deal with before and it’s no new tale to tell.

Truth

What is the truth in Grendel? Is there truth in The Shaper’s stories and poems? Or is truth what The Dragon says? Or maybe, is truth what Grendel sees? The Shaper paints pictures of happiness, with good triumphing over bad and with everything being right and just. He praises his master, Hrothgar and tells of his glory. But if everything he says is true, then is what he says about Grendel true? Maybe he’s a monster and just never knew it. But he acts like humans. But The Dragon also says that Grendel is evil. He says that things are predetermined and that everyone has a role and Grendel’s role is to be an unstoppable monster to the people in Hrothgar’s kingdom. But Grendel is new to the outside world. He is still innocent, still figuring things out. But is he evil? Maybe the two sources of knowledge are disagree with each other in most ways, but they both agree that Grendel is bad and that there’s nothing he can do about it because it is ‘fate’. Grendel is new and has just started interacting with humans. He kills animals, but that’s for food, not for territory or for fun, like he’s seen humans do. And he doesn’t kill his own kind. Meanwhile, he sees the human having wars, slaughtering each other, destroying villages. He is the one that is attacked by the humans gets caught up in a war thrust upon him. Does that make him the bad one? Are The Shaper and The Dragon correct?