Geschöpf

Hideous, Chimerical

Helping, Sympathizing, Destroying

Outcast by society

Brute

Victor

Ardent, Sedulous

Creating, Fearing, Ruining

Lifelong quest for knowledge

God

The now solemn arbiter stood at the gates of hell awaiting his entry. While waiting genial thoughts of his past life gilded his mind. He was overcome with indelible images of the carnage he has seen in his time. The murderous villians he has sent to their beirs and his eventual fall from grace. All of the thoughts of happiness quitted his face and were replaced with an irrevocable look of pain. Suddenly he opened his eyes, to his right was a cherub, bruised and beaten almost beyond recognition. The disconsolate man moved closer to this apparent apparition. Nearing the angel he looked upon his face, and was filled with hatred. He recognized this face, it was the face that has haunted his nights, the reason why he was now in this dreaded place. The broken wings of this angel finally proved to him he deepest fear. It confirmed the innocence of the man he found guilty and knowing sent to his death. The gates suddenly opened and the man quickly walked through them, never looking back at the lonely spectre.

If I could be any literary character it would have to be Arthur Dent from the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I tried to stay away from the obvious, which would have been any narrator from any Chuck Palahnuik book, and then I realized that Arthur and I are quite similar. We are both awkward socially, as seen when he tries to talk to Trisha (Trillian) and both submissive and quiet, as seen in any conversation with Zaphod. Why would I want to practically be myself, if I could be anyone else ever made up? I mainly chose Arthur because of the amazing journey that he experiences, and I wouldn’t want to be anyone other than Arthur during that journey. He goes along with everything, and has a sense of adventure even though he seems cowardly. He has just the right amount of cynicism, although definently not as much as Marvin. He gets to do unimaginable things, like listen to poetry from Vogons or actually read the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which I asked my parents for on Christmas and all I got was a crappy copy of the one I already had, not the electronic one that speaks to you. >_<

To most people Arthur seems to be a crappy character, always second guessing the group. He isn’t like his friend Ford and definently not like Zaphod. I believe he has the potential to be brave though. I’ve only read the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and have only seen the movie, so I have about 4 more stories to go through during which I can find out if my hope for Arthur turns out to be true. I’ve gotten past a few of my dreams and beliefs like Santa Claus and the Easter bunny, but I never could shake the wish to live in a world like the one created by Douglas Adams. I envy Arthur for being able to experience things I never will be able to.

I do think that people are born with the capacity of being mean and cruel. Not everything can be blamed on the environment and the parenting. Sure if someone lives in a violent household with abusive parents they will be more likely to mirror that behavior as they grow older. But that has to be only one part of the problem. Many serial killers have had some event in their lives that have sparked evil. One example is the Boston Stangler, Albert DeSalvo, who was the son of a drunk and watched his father knock out his mothers teeth and bend her fingers back until they snapped as a child. His father also sold both he and his sisters for nine dollars, and buy prostitutes so he could have his children watch them. My reasoning for this example is that his sisters grew up to be fine, they probably definently had some mental problems because of this but they did not grow up to strangle 13 women. You can take siblings in abusive households, some grow up to be mean and cruel and others can be saints. I believe that you have to be born with a capacity of cruelty and then something must trigger it, so there is a little bit of nature and nurture. I can take myself as an example, not with meanness or cruelty but with being unemotional. For as long as I remember I just couldn’t make myself care about certain things, which has put some pressure on my relationships with my parents and friends. I mostly keep these things to myself, because as i’ve found out people don’t take it too well when you tell them that you just really don’t care about them and they see that you truely are serious. I was born with it, which is one reason why I believe that people can be born mean.

There are many ironic twists about me, one main one is the me that everyone else sees compared to how I really am. There has only been one person who has ever always been able to call bs and tell what im faking and whats real, and that person is Kristin. I’ve only known her two to three years at the most but she can easily tell things about me. I come up with different mental illnesses that I probably have, most of which I do not but I’m willing to bet theres a few things I do. I’m a masochist, which is one of the reasons why I throw myself into my work and sometimes at school. I decided to do what I did this year because I know that it will overwhelm me and at some point I’m going to have to snap and something is going to happen, and I’m excited to see what happens. I’m also most likly a liar but I’ve wrapped myself in so many lies about myself that I can’t really understand whats real or not anymore, so I just go with things. Unlike Young Goodman Brown I don’t believe I am too hypocritical, but I do wish sometimes I were ignorant. Like Young Goodman Brown, ignorance is bliss, if he had just stayed home with Faith instead of going to his meeting he wouldn’t have seen that most of the members of his town, including some of the religious people have turned to evil.

I also don’t let anyone see the “real” me. No one ever has and I doubt no one ever will. I have way too many trust problems and for the most part of my life have seen relationships and friendships with people as games to do whatever I see fit with. Luckily I have started to turn away from that and can now actually see everything I’ve done, and to tell the truth it’s like a devasted landscape.

I think that nuclear energy is the way to go. Wind energy would not generate enough power, so it would take too large of a space to house all of the turbines to power the United States. The only problem with Nuclear power is where to place all of the waste that is generated. We should build more nuclear reactors and research ways to cut down on the waste and ways to build safer reactors.

Ultimately I believe that cold fusion power is the best power source, which seems to be a limitless source of energy, you know, if the origional experiment done by two scientists over 10 years ago could be replicated. But it hasnt been able to and has lost all of the funding and has been debunked by many scientists.

If someone offered me a million dollars to spend two years in isolation I would take them up on it without a moment’s hesitation. I’ve already almost isolated myself from other people in my mind, I can’t bring myself to care about most people and I lack most emotions. I have been in isolation most of my life, I keep to myself in my house, I’m not like any members of my family. Most of my time at home is spent in my room, with the door locked, completely alone. I enjoy this isolation, which is why I’ve spent a lot of energy to keep myself isolated. I moved to a different school where I would be absolutely new just to feel alone. I came back because I was beginning to make friends and I wanted another change. I work 40 hours a week after school just so I can be alone and not have to worry about lying to friends when they ask if I want to do something. Now the first thought they think is that I’m probably working and they would be wasting time calling or texting me. I do not need other people to care about me or spend time with me. I’m perfectly okay and happier when I’m alone.

The money would not be an issue for me, it would be a minor incentive for me to accept the deal. I’d hope I would respond to the isolation well and not go insane but I don’t think that would be too much of a problem.

There is a lot of collaboration on different assignments, like working together to finish a certain math or physics assignment, but I don’t think that is necessarily cheating, one person isn’t directly copying another person’s answers, both are participating to find the right answer which I believe is a process that promotes learning. I don’t see that much cheating on actual tests, unless they are take home tests, and in my life I have never been tempted to cheat on an essay by copying and pasting something from the Internet into word and printing/emailing that. I think motivation for cheating is definitely based on grades, especially in weighted classes or classes that would effect one’s GPA and class rank. Copying someone else’s homework is an easy way to get out of getting an incomplete or a zero. I am not and have not in my life been directly affected by cheating, although I cannot say I haven’t cheated I have been called out on it a few times when I haven’t. An example of this is my 6th grade teacher asked Ralph and I if we cheated on a test or something even though we sat on opposite sides of the room. I’m not sure if the honor code or promoting honestly will completely work all of the time, although it might make someone think a little more before they cheat. I believe if someone is going to cheat they are going to try to anyway they can and there’s really no stopping them. Eventually they will hit a brick wall and realize that cheating can’t help them in a certain situation and that they actually never learned anything except complex ways to cheat. I also think that a way to avoid cheating is to ask more opinion based questions, which would make cheating blatantly obvious.

The “If Only” Train

This Editorial is about missing a train and thinking about how your day could have went if you made that train. You could be in a different life, have made different acquaintances and friends, different contacts, maybe an event that ultimately leads to a promotion or a new boyfriend/girlfriend. The writer calls these “If Only” trains and wrote that they missed many of these trains, but made quite a few of them as well.

I also believe in chance, like the writer, and think that you only have a certain amount of time or chances to make something happen for you. I do not believe in fate, that no matter what you do to try to stop something or how unlikely something may be if its meant to happen it will. There have been a few things in my life that I have passed up and missed my chance on and looking back it’s kind of disappointing. It’s bad knowing afterward what you could have done to make sure you didn’t miss your chance, one of these things in my life is how I keep pondering whether it was the right choice to move away for a year, and that brings up another question of if it was the right choice to move back. I can’t help but think how different my life would be in both of these situations. It reminds me of the movie “The Butterfly Effect”, and how if I could go back and change just one thing, I would be able to see how different my life would be.

My contemporary hero does not have a name, he goes by Anonymous, or “Anon” for short. He fights the government every chance he gets, he steers clear of becoming a mindless sheep, speaks his mind against the merciless Shepard’s, he tries to go against every stereotype that the rest of the world has of a modern American. He goes out and actively protests against what he believes to be morally and ethically wrong, so the the Europeans can’t call him a fat cat. He steers clear of any and every argument about religion, so the people in in Arabic nations cannot call him ignorant or an “infidel”. He does not try to just throw money at any charity that rears it’s ugly head, he joins the peace corps and does the Charity work himself, so he can make sure that his time is well spent bettering the world. This is the hero I wish I could be, and I’d hope everyone wished they could be, completely Anonymous, known by nobody. He does this because if he doesn’t pride will get the better of him and his ego will take over, this is his way of staying humble. He is just another face in the crowd, yet he is changing the world for the better everyday. He is Ralph’s Reverse Pickpocketer, yet he is as silent as a ninja. He has no nemesis because nobody knows what he does except for himself, and that is the way he likes it.