5.12.2004
Yay...!
Oh yes! Fuse Magazine is now free! *dances around the room* Go sign up, everyone! I just did. Now I'm reading a review for Eragon. w00t...!
4:37 PM|| 5.11.2004
"Cabbages Is Beautiful!"
*evil, evil laughter*
Okay. Yesterday in English we read a story in our US lit. books. It was called--no duh--"Cabbages is Beautiful!" and was actually an excerpt from a book (So Big by someone I don't remember). It was in the Modern Fiction section, which generally meant the stories had unresolved endings; our teacher said this one did too (well, it's an excerpt, so that's kind of obvious), and our assignment for today was to write an ending. A story ending, yes, as if we were the author. I didn't think I would like doing that, because it'd be difficult--and after all, if the author herself took an entire book to resolve things, how could we in just a page or so?--but actually it was fun... If you haven't guessed by now, I'm going to post what I wrote, but first I'd better summarize the story. Basically it's about a naive (not to mention idealistic) young woman from a city coming to a Dutch farming town to teach. She met a guy named Pervus Dejong, and at the end of the excerpt agreed to teach him to read and write. In the little author blurb at the beginning of the story, it implied that they do marry and he dies (something about the "widowed Selina Dejong," when her original name was Selina Peake, will give you that idea), but that didn't really matter. Here's how my part went:
Two months after the social, Selina glared at a paper Pervus had left behind and crumpled it in her fist. Apparently she wasn’t meant to be a teacher. Yes, that must be it, for surely this wasn’t entirely her fault.
She flattened the paper out and studied it, as if it could offer some sort of clue. But no: there were only the few words he had scrawled across the paper. Write out the alphabet and then a simple sentence, she had told him—after two months of instruction she’d thought it wouldn’t be so difficult.
Well, the alphabet was there, certainly—huge, shaky letters that wandered across the paper with no regard for the lines, but they were there. Half a page below was Pervus’ excuse for a sentence: I cart cat. Three words she’d taught him a month ago, but she’d hoped he’d learned something since. After that, it seemed, he had given up, because the next line contained his name. Twice.
Selina crumpled the paper again and flung it into the corner. Pervus wasn’t learning a thing—wasn’t even giving her a hint of hope that he could learn—and her younger pupils at the school weren’t doing much better. They all understood just enough English to inform Selina that they didn’t know what she was trying to tell them, and she’d gathered just enough Dutch to know when they insulted each other. Two students had managed to read through the first page of the first primer, and three others had figured out that two and two did indeed equal four, but the rest of her students had merely perfected the art of staring blankly at their teacher.
“I wasn’t meant to be a teacher,” Selina declared to her empty room. “Wasn’t meant, I tell you.”
***
Two days later, High Prairie’s city-girl teacher disappeared. From several respectable sources came news of family tragedies, strange illnesses, and sundry other emergencies that might have called Miss Peake away. Eventually that particular topic of gossip wore out its interest, and Selina faded from the town’s collective memory. The more worldly-minded of the people, however, heard odd things on their infrequent trips to the city—a young woman had returned from a long sojourn in the country, and no one seemed to know who she was. She had either withdrawn into seclusion or been committed to an asylum—the stories were a bit unclear on that point—shortly after her arrival. All the tales agreed on one thing, however: the woman wouldn’t talk to anyone, but now and then she would mutter, “Wasn’t meant to be a teacher…wasn’t meant, I tell you…”
Death to idealism. Great fun. 'Course, I don't know yet what my teacher will think...
Okay. Yesterday in English we read a story in our US lit. books. It was called--no duh--"Cabbages is Beautiful!" and was actually an excerpt from a book (So Big by someone I don't remember). It was in the Modern Fiction section, which generally meant the stories had unresolved endings; our teacher said this one did too (well, it's an excerpt, so that's kind of obvious), and our assignment for today was to write an ending. A story ending, yes, as if we were the author. I didn't think I would like doing that, because it'd be difficult--and after all, if the author herself took an entire book to resolve things, how could we in just a page or so?--but actually it was fun... If you haven't guessed by now, I'm going to post what I wrote, but first I'd better summarize the story. Basically it's about a naive (not to mention idealistic) young woman from a city coming to a Dutch farming town to teach. She met a guy named Pervus Dejong, and at the end of the excerpt agreed to teach him to read and write. In the little author blurb at the beginning of the story, it implied that they do marry and he dies (something about the "widowed Selina Dejong," when her original name was Selina Peake, will give you that idea), but that didn't really matter. Here's how my part went:
Two months after the social, Selina glared at a paper Pervus had left behind and crumpled it in her fist. Apparently she wasn’t meant to be a teacher. Yes, that must be it, for surely this wasn’t entirely her fault.
She flattened the paper out and studied it, as if it could offer some sort of clue. But no: there were only the few words he had scrawled across the paper. Write out the alphabet and then a simple sentence, she had told him—after two months of instruction she’d thought it wouldn’t be so difficult.
Well, the alphabet was there, certainly—huge, shaky letters that wandered across the paper with no regard for the lines, but they were there. Half a page below was Pervus’ excuse for a sentence: I cart cat. Three words she’d taught him a month ago, but she’d hoped he’d learned something since. After that, it seemed, he had given up, because the next line contained his name. Twice.
Selina crumpled the paper again and flung it into the corner. Pervus wasn’t learning a thing—wasn’t even giving her a hint of hope that he could learn—and her younger pupils at the school weren’t doing much better. They all understood just enough English to inform Selina that they didn’t know what she was trying to tell them, and she’d gathered just enough Dutch to know when they insulted each other. Two students had managed to read through the first page of the first primer, and three others had figured out that two and two did indeed equal four, but the rest of her students had merely perfected the art of staring blankly at their teacher.
“I wasn’t meant to be a teacher,” Selina declared to her empty room. “Wasn’t meant, I tell you.”
Two days later, High Prairie’s city-girl teacher disappeared. From several respectable sources came news of family tragedies, strange illnesses, and sundry other emergencies that might have called Miss Peake away. Eventually that particular topic of gossip wore out its interest, and Selina faded from the town’s collective memory. The more worldly-minded of the people, however, heard odd things on their infrequent trips to the city—a young woman had returned from a long sojourn in the country, and no one seemed to know who she was. She had either withdrawn into seclusion or been committed to an asylum—the stories were a bit unclear on that point—shortly after her arrival. All the tales agreed on one thing, however: the woman wouldn’t talk to anyone, but now and then she would mutter, “Wasn’t meant to be a teacher…wasn’t meant, I tell you…”
Death to idealism. Great fun. 'Course, I don't know yet what my teacher will think...
5.10.2004
New quote
I added a new quote to the Dreamweavers section...because I felt like it...and that is all...
