Determining the Truth

                   Hey there, determination. Long time no talk, huh? We used to go hand in hand everywhere we went, we did everything together. And together we embarked on some fun mini adventures! Like remember the 8th grade Student Council president campaign we won together? We took that running and planned 2 dances, and a boat load of spirit days! Or freshman year, The Sound of Music auditions? We practiced for hours on end to get every detail right for that part, and we got exactly where we wanted to be; Right ON that hill full of the sound of music! And who could forget sophomore year??  2 AP classes, 2 enriched classes, parts in two separate musicals, class board president, on the homecoming committee, and to top it all off we got a real job together! And never once did we let anything slip or get in our way of success.
                    We had a bond like no other, you were the “cherri” to my “o’s” and the midnight snack to my studying. And then I found someone new. In our world of GO-GO-GO, my new friend showed me to relax and take life one step at a time.
                   A "hakuna matata", “bear necessities”, “Yeah watch a Disney movie! That test isn’t ‘till like, second block!” kinda friend who just taught me how to relax. Procrastination and I have gotten pretty close over these past few months. I read facebook like an actual book and am twittering like a bird! I haven’t organized my chemistry binder since you helped me with the fall play, and I didn’t even have an APUSH binder until after we did the musical and the Disney trip!
           I'm not one to tap dance, now don’t take this personally, because you have done so much for me these past 17 years, but maybe it’s time you  started hanging out with some other people too. I know my friend Alex could certainly use a friend like you, Determination. Thanks for everything!
Love and hugs,
Elizabeth
P.S. Procrastination helped me find these videos to help you understand what I’m feeling. They are from our favorite genre. :)
This is me and you!
 Look at that goal oriented-ness!
We had the same mind set as Tiana, "Dig a little deeper, work a little harder"

Then here is me and Procrastination
Why work harder, work smarter ;)
It means no worries :D

A Taste of Their Own Medicine; A Blog About Revenge

Revenge: to avenge (as oneself) usually by retaliating in kind or degree.

That Merriam-Webster Definition is the cookie cutter way many people think of revenge. In the “eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth” mentality that if someone does something to you, it’s ok if you inflict it right back at them; “A taste of their own medicine” in a sense. However when you look into it, revenge is way more than a simple retaliation. It can be a meaningful, passion driven outlet for a traumatic event that was caused by a specific individual. The need for revenge can become even more passionate when the need for revenge is sparked by the murder of a loved one. In popular literature and media today, plots for revenge can often be sparked by the murder of the protagonist’s parent. This is apparent not only in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, but also in Charles Portis’s Novel True Grit. Which was later adapted for the silver screen in 1969 and again in 2010. (I’m going off of the movies, as I have seen both, yet have not read the book) Stories with plots centered on revenge open up a wide variety of problems, circumstances, and even time periods. Classical Europe and the Wild West, that’s quite a time difference!

Hamlet’s need for revenge stemmed from his father’s murder at the hands of his Uncle Claudius. The murder was done for power, and the method through which Hamlet’s father was murdered, left no trace to connect him to the murder. Similarly in True Grit, Mattie Ross is out for revenge on Tom Chaney, the man who murdered her father then robbed him, before running into Indian Territory. Both Mattie and Hamlet take matters into their own hands when the law can't help them. Early on in their revenge planning (both of which includes killing the murderer)

Hamlet and Mattie realize they need help with carrying out their plan.
Hamlet enlists the help of a travelling acting group to stage a play with similar circumstances to his father’s murder. Hamlet then plans to expose his uncle’s guilt by how he behaves in response to the play. Mattie’s plan is a bit more, gritty. She plans to hunt Tom Chaney down in Indian Territory with the help of Rooster Cogburn, a U.S. Marshal with "grit", (I guess grit means toughness, and... this? ) and kill him with her father’s own gun.  Both revenge plots seem initially well thought out. But when do plans ever go…as planned?

Originally, Rooster had no intention of bringing Mattie along to apprehend Tom Chaney. He even teamed up with Texas Ranger LaBoeuf, who was also after Chaney for a different murder. However headstrong Mattie comes along anyways and gets in and out of dangerous situations on the journey. Unknown to Hamlet, while plotting his Uncle’s death, Claudius is forming a murder plot against Hamlet! Now I don’t want to spoil any endings, so my plot parallels will stop there. All in all Revenge plots can span many scenarios, time periods, and create exciting and often sad plots that continue to intrigue and ignite something in those who read (or I guess in my case watch) their story to the end.

Satire of Disney...what?!

                           Who would dare poke fun at the power of Disney? Dreamworks, that's who. Dreamworks 2001 satirical analysis of Disney fairy tales yielded the movie Shrek. The movie follows the adventure of Shrek, an ornery ogre whose land has been overrun with banished fairy tale creatures, and Donkey, the talking donkey who tags along with Shrek and decides Shrek is his friend whether he likes it or not. This “unlikely hero-sidekick” pair is one of the stereotypical Disney traits Dreamworks decided to poke fun at. By having the Hero be a character that would normally be the villain, and his sidekick’s main attribute being his obnoxious constant conversation, it’s a direct contrast to the highly skilled and attractive heroes of Classic Disney films.  The plot and satire pick up as the duo journey to Duloc to visit Lord Farquaad. Lord Farquaad is wanna be king who banished the fairy tale creatures to Shrek’s land. After Shrek unknowingly wins Farquaad’s tournament, he is assigned the quest to rescue Princess Fiona. She is a beautiful princess locked in the highest room of the tallest tower, in a faraway castle, guarded by a dragon and surrounded by lava. This is an obvious dramatization of the damsel in distress, a common trait of Disney princess movies. Another common fairy tale thing used by Disney was the idea of princesses singing to animals. Dreamworks applies satire generously to this concept in this scene, where Princess Fiona is frolicking in the woods and sings to a bird, which explodes in response. Another satirical part of the movie Shrek, is when Shrek and Donkey arrive in Duloc and discover a singing information booth. This scene of the movie with the awkward picture following the welcome song is making fun of the cheer-y “It’s a small world” amusement park ride at Disney theme parks.
                            Similar satire is used in Huck Finn, but unlike the Dreamworks vs. Disney, Mark Twain’s satire was against moral and cultural issues of the south. Twain uses satire in his plot line including The Duke and Dauphin to amplify the gullibility of some southern religious revivals. For example, when the Duke and Dauphin attend a religious revival camp, they claim to be reformed pirates, on course for reform work on the sea. The participants of the camp willingly play in to their scam and give them their money to fund the “work.”  Another of Twain’s satirical expression including the Duke and the Dauphin is how Huck, being only a white kid, and Jim, being a runaway slave, are completely at  the mercy of the Duke and Dauphin’s judgment because they are white adult males. This social aspect of the south was repeatedly noted by Twain. He shows this in how the Duke and Dauphin tie Jim up when they land to “keep up the charade.” Huck’s inner conflict over Miss Watson being a “good Christian lady” is also an example of satire in the novel. Huck has conflict because he doesn’t understand how a person labeled as a good Christian can still be called that if she takes ownership over another person. The satire is in that Mark Twain believed that slavery was wrong.