Daniel Medlock

Eleventh Grade
2020-2021 English Portfolio

Perhaps you’ve created a portfolio before. You might ask yourself what sets a portfolio apart
from just a series of links to your work. I know, I know! It’s that layer of reflection about your
work, not only about the final product, but what the work process looked like, as you identify
what things you did to be successful and what sorts of things got in your way.

We will be updating this document throughout the year. Be aware that there are moments to
submit this document where you will submit it as a .pdf.
 Part one: Eleventh Grade

These are the pieces of writing we are scheduled to do this year. As we finish each project,
you’ll link to your project within this document.

Quarter one:
Lives Essay

Humans

CW5:

What made this work is that it is funny. Funny things work because they make people happy.
Happy people think that things work. It is all an illusion.

HW7:

What makes this work is that it is just a simple assessment of a story. That is hard to mess up
so it works pretty easily.

Quarter two:
Voices Essay.

Letter To My Descendants

Three short pieces on The Great Gatsby and written exam

Short Essay #1

Short Essay #2

Short Essay #3

Copy of ICW February 16th, 2022

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Quarter three:
Copy of Template: Video Portfolio

Quarter four:
Feature Article
Monologue
Nonologue

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 Part Two: Previous Years at SLA

Tenth Grade Teacher Mr. Kay

For this section, identify two or three of your favorite pieces from last year. Make sure you
include a link to the piece. For each of them, describe what made the piece powerful. Then
spend a sentence or two describing what was successful or problematic about your work
process.

Untitled Play, Daniel Medlock

This is the play I wrote for Young Playwrights in 10th grade. I wasn’t really sure what to do when
I was writing it and ended up adding a totally unnecessary and borderline idiotic twist. Honestly
though, I still consider this one of my finer pieces of writing and I actually LIKE the twist, even if
it doesn’t necessarily make complete sense.

Experiment Log
This is my dystopian “short” story I wrote in 10th grade English. The main problem with it is that
it’s way over the word count and even so it feels rushed as a story. I went a bit too large scale
with it but when I’m told to write a novel I’m going to write a gosh-danged novel. Even with its
flaws, I still like this piece and hold it in good faith. I reworked the entire story twice before
landing on this version, because I strive to never submit something I’m not proud of, even if it
means rewriting everything the night before it’s due.

How to cook good

This is the best thing I have ever written. That’s all the explanation really necessary, and if you
want to know more, you have to read it.

Overall experience in tenth grade English:

Overall in tenth grade English, I had a decent time. There were things I enjoyed writing
and others that I did not. The online school wasn’t very good, but not really anything
anybody could have done about it. Even so, I think I wrote some very good pieces in 10th
grade and am still very proud of them. I think they show some different sides of me and
some ways I like to write. English class at higher levels seems to simply become read
something, write something, repeat, and that’s exactly what tenth grade English was. Not
much else to say about it.

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Ninth Grade
For this section, identify two of your favorite pieces from ninth grade. Make sure you include a
link to the piece. For each of them, describe what made the piece powerful. Then spend a
sentence or two describing what was successful or problematic about your work process.

SSR Project Q3 - Daniel Medlock

The above is an SSR project I wrote in 10th grade. It is actually a continuation of my previous
SSR project but I like this one better. It definitely isn’t my best piece of work writing wise but I
still really like the story and feel like it is decently powerful emotionally. This was definitely a rush
job but I think it worked out and overall I am still happy with it.

Brainstorming for Improv Sketch Comedy - Daniel Medlock, Finn Sewell, and Christopher …
This is a sketch comedy piece written by myself, Freya, and Chris Straface in one of our 9th
grade mini-courses. I hope collaborative pieces count for this. I chose this piece because it is
very funny and I like it. I honestly forgot about it until I was looking for pieces from 9th grade. It
is 100% error free and perfect in every single imaginable way.

Overall experience in ninth grade English:

It was fine I guess. I don’t remember a ton about it because it was like 2 years ago but I
guess it wasn’t too bad.

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 Part Three: K-8

I unfortunately don’t have access to any of my writing from K-8th grade because my school
account was dissabled after I left my middle school, but I do remember stuff about it. I definitely
improved in writing an awful lot in middle school, and I owe that to more than just school.
Around the sixth grade I started to write my own stories as it was popular with my friends. I did a
lot of writing, most of it pretty bad. But as I wrote more and more my writing gradually improved.
I also did a ton of reading back in middle school and especially in elementary school. This really
helped my writing and I’m at a point today where I feel extremely confident in my writing ability.
It’s really the only thing I will kind of brag about because it’s something I know I’m good at. My
main problem with writing is that I can’t stay focussed on a project for a long period of time. I
started writing this at the beginning of 8th grade and still amn’t halfway through. I even got Mr.
Kay’s help at one point (for editing and reviewing, not really writing). I still really want to finish
that piece but motivation is so hard to come by. I’m pretty sure you can actually see a shift in my
writing style and prowess throughout the course of that because of how long in between writing
sits I took.

Other things to say about K-8: As mentioned earlier, I read a whole lot in my earlier years of
schooling. I don’t read as often anymore but my main problem isn’t struggling to read, or not
finding it enjoyable. My main problem is finding a book I like. See when I find a book that I really
enjoy, I power through it. Finish it in a day or two. I’ve re-read my favorites countless times
because I can’t find books I really like often or fast enough. My parents want me to read more
for enrichment or something and I’d be fine with that if I had new books I actually liked. Good
books are hard to come by, though. It was easier when I was younger because there were more
books I hadn’t read and more to learn from them. Nowadays I’m lucky to find something once a
year.

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 Part Four: Summary

Looking back over the years, what are some writing skills you possess?

What are three things you need to work on most?

What specific things do you need from me as your English teacher this year?

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First quarter summary
Some writing skills I possess are variation, flow, and most importantly dialogue. I personally
think dialogue is my biggest strength when it comes to writing. Three things I need to work on
are using descriptive language more effectively, writing in different perspectives, and writing
non-fiction. I don’t really need anything from Mr. Clapper because this is all busy work anyways
so I’m just trying to get this over with with a good grade. I appreciate any charisma, though.

I didn't summarize any other quarters

AHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA -_-

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Final Reflection - Letter

Fight!

Hello Future Teachers,

My name is Daniel Medlock and I can promise that you will either love me or hate me. There are
no neutral opinions on me, I am a divisive political figure in the classroom landscape. A little bit
about myself, I am a living human person. But enough about me, let’s talk English. Not to sound
like a dick but my reputation may precede me. Yes I did just use a swear, get over it. Wow, I
sound really damn arrogant. Whatever. Anyways you might be aware that I got second place in
my sophomore year play in Young Playwrights. I don’t know if you did, but like, yeah, I did. Fun
fact: I also got second place on a Young Playwrights play in 8th grade. Wow, what a fun fact. I
sure had fun. This letter is a roller coaster of emotion and voice. So yeah check out my play
Untitled Play. If you want. It’s kinda weird. Ok… need a second good piece… What to
choose…? How to cook good is really funny, Voices Essay is surprisingly deep but truly
maddening, Nonologue is literally a D&D character backstory but I love it. Any one of those
really. Those are my other top 3 I guess. Now something bad. Sorry “improvable”. I really, really,
love Experiment Log, but it’s a complete rush job that is already way bigger than it's supposed
to be yet not big enough to tell its story. So yeah that could be better. I’m considering rewriting it
at some point without the original constraints to do it justice. Now I need to talk about how I’ve
grown. I haven’t. I don’t think English class is English class after a certain point. It’s actually
literature and writing class. We don’t learn English. We just read and write. I haven’t changed in
that way in years.
Anyways good luck, you probably won’t need it,
Daniel Archer Alexander Medlock
Professional Devil’s Advocate and All Around Terrible Person

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The Collection
9th Grade

Race to The Amethyst Star Part 2

D’s Note: Haha you don’t get part 1. Have fun with no context hahahahahaha. Oh yeah, this was
an SSR project.

Daniel Medlock
Book (series): The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel
Project: Short story inspired by reading

Race to the Amethyst Star - Part 2

Bastet grumbled to herself as she left the meeting of Dark Elders. Were
they really going to outsource the job to some mortal humani mercenary? It
seemed that the Dark Elders had so many agents, so why were they choosing
someone who they didn’t even have control over? Asteria had assured them
all that she had a way to control the young mercenary but didn’t reveal it,
probably because of her pride, and because she didn’t want anybody stealing
her thunder. While Bastet did trust her mother, she wasn’t so sure about the
mercenary. It seemed unsafe to trust someone they couldn’t easily punish
and only Asteria had ever met her. At the meeting, they had also discussed
the possibility of someone attempting to claim the artifact first but put the
matter aside as they were certain they were the only ones who knew about
its location, and of its existence. Bastet also wasn’t convinced about that. It
seemed unlikely that not even Abraham the Mage would have written about it
in his silly little book. As Bastet finally arrived at her manor in the San
Francisco suburbs, she told herself to relax, that everything would be fine, and
that soon, the Dark Elders would have everything they needed to return to the
Earth and reclaim it as their own.

◆◆◆

Climbing was exhausting work. Ellysong stared down at the gaping

chasm below her, now unable to see the corridor she had been walking
through less than 10 minutes ago. She had been able to find a part of the

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giant chasm big enough to sit on and was resting her arms and legs while
checking her messages. Surprisingly enough, she had service down here and
was able to catch up on what was happening in the outside world. She
scrolled past a couple of old messages from family she hadn’t spoken to in
over a decade wishing her a happy birthday but one thing caught her eye. It
was the same message as all the others but this was from an unknown
number. She tapped it and as soon as she did she got a message. Is it
secured? read the text. It seemed her employers were getting antsy. Not yet,
typed Elly in replied, there was more here than I thought would be. Should
have it soon. Will keep you posted. For a second she didn’t get a response but
then a message popped up. Ok. Any problems? Elly considered not telling her
employers about Marethyu but then decided against it. Better to be careful of
powerful forces. Yeah, met some hook-handed guy down here. Ellipses
popped up and eventually, she got the reply: Ok. Be careful of him. Don’t lose
the artifact. After that message, she saw her number got blocked. Elly put
away her phone and was about to start climbing again when she noticed
something about where she was sitting. The formation of the ledge was too
curvy to be natural. If she looked carefully it looked almost as if the ledge was
a small door frame. Tentatively, Elly reached her hand out and pushed
against the stone. For a moment, nothing happened then the stone gave way
and opened into a dark room. Elly willed her globe of light into the room but it
seemed as though the shadows coalesced around the globe and nothing was
illuminated. Cautiously, Elly stepped into the room. Suddenly the door
slammed behind her and the room was filled with light. The room was huge,
filled with piles of gold, precious gems and other riches. Elly started walking
towards the center of the room and noticed things that were more personal.
She saw a tray of fresh-baked empanadas, a table scattered with dice and
role-playing supplements, a cozy hearth next to a Christmas tree with
presents all around it. Even closer to the center were pictures. Pictures of
things that had happened, moments of her life when she felt truly happy. Elly
saw a picture of her tenth birthday party, an arm around her best friend, both
of them laughing with the type of joy it seems only children can have in their
blissful ignorance. She saw a picture of herself and her Abuela baking cookies
for her family. But then she saw pictures of things that had never happened.
Herself seemingly narrating something to a group of people gathered at a
table, their faces shocked and her face in a sadistic grin. Elly and her family at

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a family reunion, mid-laugh while squirting each other with water guns.
Herself with what she guessed was her best friend at ten now, both with large
smiles in white dresses as they brandished what could only be wedding rings.
How this was possible, Elly didn’t know. She had never told anyone about her
crush on her best friend, she hadn’t spoken to her family in years, and nobody
would have taken pictures of her Abuela and her baking cookies. As she
approached the center of the room she finally saw the centerpiece, a large
shiny mirror. As she approached it, it reflected her, but different. First of all,
she was smiling, something she rarely did anymore. Second, rather than
wearing her practical dark t-shirt, jeans, and jacket, she was wearing a light
green blouse and a darker green skirt. On top of her blouse, she had a
chocolate brown bolero and Elly noticed in her reflection there was a flower in
her hair. At her side was the person from the wedding photograph of the
wedding that never happened and behind her were her family members that
she abandoned to train in the elemental magics. That’s when the whispers
began. You could have all this. The money, the family, the happiness, it can all
be yours. The pictures tell of a future you want, and it can all be real. Touch
the mirror and all this will come true, all this yours. Just touch the mirror. Elly
reached out her hand. Touch it. Just as she was about to touch her fingertips
to the smooth glass, she felt something twinge in the back of her mind. They
wouldn’t want you back. You left them. Your best friend was into guys. There is
no way you could get all this gold out of here, Elly thought to herself. The
whispers from the mirror fought back. That can change. This mirror can make
all your dreams come true. You can have your family, you can have your love.
You don’t need to take the gold up there into the sunlight. You can be queen
down here. Queen of the catacombs, monarch of all who wander into the
place of the dead. But Elly was beyond the whispers. She could only think of
how she had left in the middle of the night. She could only imagine the look on
her mother and her brother’s faces. And more importantly, her deer sweet
Abuela, who had always taken care of her, taught her how to cook and live
independently of others. Elly had failed them. She had failed them all. When
she looked back in the mirror, she saw only herself, tears running down her
face, dressed as she was in reality. When she finally turned around, the room
was barren, all her hopes and desires gone. Elly turned back to the mirror,
wondering what dark forces lie inside of it, creating these visions of
happiness, and what would’ve happened to her if she had touched it. She then

11
noticed that behind the mirror a little hole leading down sat, a rusty ladder on
its wall. Elly sighed, looking one last time at the room. She noticed there were
2 things still there. A shiny, perfect ruby, and the fake wedding picture. Elly
took the ruby.

◆◆◆

When the corridor opened into a big room almost identical to the one
Elly had fought the stone animals in, Marethyu knew he was in trouble. If Elly
had gone through the challenge of “Stealth and Intelligence”, he must have
gone through the “Bravery and Strength” one. Though Marethyu knew he
couldn’t die, he didn’t fancy getting beat up, and regenerating lost body parts
took a long time. Marethyu took in his surroundings. This room had no exits,
other than the doorway he was standing in, and he didn’t see any immediate
threats. The big differences between this room and the previous room were
that there were no stone animals here, and around the room was a deep
trench, connected only to the doorway through a small bridge. He assumed
as soon as he walked into the room the real challenge would begin. Marethyu
looked back at the corridor one last time, then stepped into the room.
Immediately the doorway shut behind him, and at the same time, glowing
text appeared in front of him: Greeting, adventurer. When you are ready to
begin, please step into the center of the room. Marethyu stepped into the
center and felt it go down a bit like a pressure plate. Suddenly from the walls,
lava started gushing out into the trench. The text changed to read: While you
are not in the center, enemies won’t come, but lava will flow faster. Good luck.
The text disappeared and a stone bear materialized from the floor. It came
running at him and Marethyu sliced through it easily. Next, two bears
attacked, then three, then four. After the wave with four bears, two stone
eagles swooped in from above. After that were four eagles, then six. Tigers
and wolves were introduced in the same fashion, and then they started
attacking together. Marethyu quickly identified the attack pattern of each
animal. Bears would charge straight at him, wolves would try to work together
to flank him, eagles would swoop in from above while he was distracted, and
tigers would try to sneak up behind him. Marethyu fought wave after wave of
enemies, barely getting scratched in the onslaught, all the while keeping an

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eye on the trench that was slowly filling with lava. Eventually, the animals
stopped coming and there was only one wolf left. It growled eyeing him, then
bowed it’s head and walked slowly towards Marethyu. When it reached him, it
looked up at him and for the first time, he saw the life inside the eyes of these
animals. He cautiously scratched the wolf behind the ear and it gave a yip of
happiness. Then it dropped something from its mouth into Maretyu’s hand. It
was a wolf tooth, not made of stone, but of real bone. Marethyu looked at the
wolf curiously, but it was already melting back into the ground like the
remains of the rest of the animals. It looked at him fondly, then closed its eyes
peacefully, and let itself become one with the stone again. The door opened,
and lava stopped flowing from the walls. Marethyu looked at where his stone
friend had melted into the ground, and gripped the tooth tight, vowing to
never forget this moment.

End of part 2…

Author’s note: This story is a continuation of my SSR project from last quarter.
A lot of the representation stayed the same, like the character Ellysong being
based on my D&D character, D&D dungeon basis, ties to my Latinx roots.
Something I added this time was Marethyu’s battle against the stone animal is
based on wave-based fighting video games. I feel this part of the story really
delved deeper into the characters and who they are on the inside. We see
that especially with Elly in the room of temptations. Before, we only knew Elly
as a mercenary who liked to live her life freely and would do any job for
money, but now we see she carries a much heavier burden. She left everyone
she loved without warning to learn magic and made herself into someone she
didn’t completely want to be. She hid the fact she was lesbian and had a
crush on her best friend her whole life. In the end, only her own inner sadness
is able to save her from the temptations of the mirror. I think that scene is
really powerful because having such a great burden and sadness is generally
seen as a bad thing, but I think sometimes it can help you in life as it did in this
story (obviously not exactly like this, but you know what I mean). The other
powerful, important scene in this part is the part where Marethyu befriends
the wolf instead of killing it. I think this part is powerful because it shows that
everything living is living, not just some faceless blob. It also shows that even

13
among enemies you can always find friends, and always try to be on the
friendly side of life.

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Brainstorming for Improv Sketch Comedy - Daniel Medlock, Finn Sewell, and Christopher
Straface 9th grade mini course sketch featuring Daniel Medlock, Finn Sewell and
Christopher Straface with special guest star the ozone layer. Thanks for watching I'm
your host Daniel Medlock and this is Survivor. Ooga Chaka Ooga Ooga Ooga Chaka I
can't stop this feeling...written and preformed by thicc boi filanthropists and Knuckles DX
featuring Dante from the Super Duper Smash Bash Franchise of Doom special Directors
Cut with added commentary about life. Buy now only $420.69.

D’s Note: What a long title! A sketch comedy piece written for a mini course. I’m leaving in it its
full, unedited glory, including a whole lot of swears and possibly inappropriate jokes. It is worth
mentioning that Finn is now known as Freya, another student currently in the 11th grade.
Topics
AA
Play that goes wrong
Boiga Joint

WWIII
WWI
Moonbase
Survivor Parody

No: the performance

Survivor:
Chris: Contestants #1-7
Finn: Camera
Daniel: Host

Fin
A bit to the left… Perfect!

Daniel
Hello everyone wel-

Finn
NO, TOO FAR go back to the right. You are terrible at this… just get in front of
the camera. OK great ughh good enough

Daniel (annoyed)
As I was saying, Hello everyone and welcome to the 69th season of
Survivor. This is Survivor - Tribal Edition.

Chris (VERY sexily)

Ooga Chaka Ooga Ooga Ooga Chaka Ooga Ooga Ooga Chaka Ooga Ooga Ooga
Chaka Ooga Ooga Ooga Chaka Ooga Ooga Ooga Chaka…

Daniel: I can’t stop this feeling… Deep inside of me… Crack you just don’t
realize what you do to me…

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 Finn
Shut up. You fucking embarrassment.

Daniel
(Daniel stops singing)
*keeps Ooga Chaka-ing*

Daniel
Shut up.

Chris
Oh.

Daniel
Now let’s meet our contestants.

(Chris pulls off the first wig)

Chris[tina] (in a deep voice)

Hi I’m Christina, but call me Big Momma. I’m ready to win this so I can feed my 17
adopted kids.

(Chris pulls off the second wig)

Chris[y] (high pitched on knees)

Hi I’m Chrisy and I want to win to get my parents back together and buy a Nintendo
witch.

Chris[-dawg]
Yo I’m C-dawg I want to win so I can buy more weed.

Chris[t]
Amen, Amen I say to you, I am Christ. I want to win so I can spread my message of
peace and- HEY don’t touch my frankincense! I got that from a king you know.

Daniel
And that’s our first four contestants, let’s move on to the next 4.

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 Chris[toff]
Hallo, jeg er Kristoff og vil vinne for å mate mine favoritt reinsdyr.

Chris[ P. Bacon] (southern)

Hey, I’m Chris P. Bacon but you can call me Pig. I want to win so I can expand my farm.

Chris
Hey. I’m Chris. I want to win because I want to see my family again. They are being held
hostage and the producers said if I won I could see them again. If you are watching live,
please-

Daniel
Security! Ahem never mind that. Unfortunately, I just heard our 8 th contestant could not
make it. The man fell into a river in LEGO city. Local police tried to start the rescue
helicopter but-

Finn
Hey! Get back to the script.

Daniel
BUT IT WASN’T BUILT AND THEY COULDN’T LOWER THE STRETCHER. How
sad. Whatever.

Finn
I swear to god I will quit right now.

Daniel
No you won’t, this is the only job you can get. Also, we wrecked your car. Sorry. Now
let’s get back to Survivor.

Chris
*Starts doing Eye of the Tiger intro*.

Daniel
Rising up, back on the streets. Took my time, took my chances. Went the distance now
I’m back on my feet just a man and his will to survive. It’s the eye of the tiger it’s the
thrill of the fight rising up to the power of our rivals, as the, last known survivor stalks his
prey in the night and he’s watching us all through the eye… of the tiger.

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 Finn
You’re all fucking embarrassments.

Daniel
And now to start our first challenge… our contestants will be wrestling 13 drunk Siberian
bears.

Chris
What no that’s ridiculous I can’t do that I-

Daniel
You want to see your family again, don’t you? They probably miss you, I know you miss
them.

Chris
Ok ok, I’ll do it just please don’t hurt my family.

Finn
(pushes Chris in the ring)
Get back on script

Chris
(Screaming and bear sounds.)

(laugh track)

Finn
Idiot

(Finn and Daniel walk off stage)

Daniel
Well, the other contestants suddenly disappeared so… thanks for watching this season of
Survivor! Drop the family in the lava!

Chris
(Crawls back to center stage. Gets up onto his knees)
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

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 Daniel
You’ll… meet again… don’t know where, don’t know when… but I know you’ll meet
your family some sunny day…

Finn:
(walks back on stage)
You unprofessional little shit.
(pushes Chris into the bear pit)
Enjoy your meal Yosef

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10th grade

Untitled Play

D’s Note: What I consider to be my more serious Magnum Opus. This is my best (complete)
piece of writing in my opinion. And yes, the stupid twist is necessary. It’s a bit fast, but I am
addicted to speed.

Characters
Bethany Glass, an average teenager. She is smart but
unconfident.
Thoughts, a reflection of Bethany’s inner thoughts and self
doubt, and possibly something more.
Teacher, a teacher at Bethany’s school
Students, some students in the school
Some other side characters.

Act 1

(The stage is dark. No lights are on and nobody is moving.)

THOUGHTS
Remember, the test is in two weeks. Don’t mess it up.

(The lights turn on. The set is a small classroom. Desks are
scattered about and on the left is a large desk for the
teacher, with a blackboard beside it. STUDENTS populate the
desks, including BETHANY and TEACHER is writing some
equations on the black board.)

TEACHER
So for the next 2 weeks, we’ll be preparing to take the AAT.
Does anybody remember why we take the AAT?

STUDENT
For college admissions.

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 TEACHER
That’s right. The AAT is a standardized test to find out how
well a student will do in college or when faced with
problems.

(At this BETHANY begins to nervously tap her desk. The

lights dim and a spotlight shines on her. The tapping is
magnified.)

THOUGHTS
You already messed this up once. Don’t do it again.

TEACHER
(The lights suddenly brighten back to normal)
Bethany, would you stop the tapping?

BETHANY
Oh, um, of course.

TEACHER
Good. Now everybody take out your textbooks and turn to page
84.

(All the students take out books from their bags and turn to
a page.)

TEACHER
Now let’s review something basic.
(TEACHER looks down at the textbook and begins to read.)
Let us first look at the situation for natural numbers. If
one is rigorous one defines addition recursively, where s
denotes the successor function. For n∈N:n+0=n and
n+s(m)=s(n+m). From this one can derive the "usual"
properties of addition, like commutativity etc.

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 (TEACHER’s voice begins to get quieter as the lights go
dimmer and the spotlight once again shines on BETHANY.
TEACHER continues to speak as the following happens.)

Then one can proceed to construct the integers from the

natural numbers, usually as equivalence classes of pairs of
naturals, and one extends the definition of the addition to
these equivalence classes of pairs (in this case just doing
coordinate wise addition), showing that it is well-defined
and again verifying it has the properties one wants…

BETHANY
Oh god, what does any of this mean. How am I supposed to
remember a whole test's worth of this stuff?

THOUGHTS
You aren’t.

BETHANY
But then how am I supposed to do well?

THOUGHTS
You won’t.

BETHANY
But-

TEACHER
And that’s what addition is.

BETHANY
Wait, that was just what addition is?

TEACHER
Yes.

22
 BETHANY
Why do we need to know such a long definition for something
so simple? That doesn’t seem very fair of the test makers to
make us learn this.

TEACHER
Well this is very important information that will be vital
later in life. Colleges know that students who know this
information are high achievers and will want to accept them.

BETHANY
But isn’t it a little devious to overcomplicate things more
than they have to be?
TEACHER
Let’s talk about this after class Ms. Glass. We need to
review for the rest of class.
(The lights go dark. When they come back on, all the
STUDENTS except BETHANY are gone. TEACHER approaches
BETHANY.)

TEACHER
So it seems like you had some questions about the AAT. Are
you worried about it?

BETHANY
I-i guess. I didn’t do so well on the practice tests.

TEACHER
Don’t worry, you can retake the AAT as many times as you
like.

BETHANY
I guess, but why are the questions so weird. Why is there a
time limit?

23
 TEACHER
It’s all part of the process of measuring a student's
intellect. You’re a smart person, I’m sure you’ll do fine.
Now go home and get some studying in.

BETHANY
Ok…

(The lights dim except for a spotlight around BETHANY. She

stands up and moves away from the desk such that she is
alone in the dark.)

THOUGHTS
It’s almost time. Time to get measured. Time to face your
fears. Time to root them. Idiot.

BETHANY
Why are you saying this? Why do I, why do we need to be
measured? And why measure using the same test?

THOUGHTS
Good luck…

(The lights go out once again. They turn back on to the

classroom full once again. Students have their textbooks out
and TEACHER is reviewing some material.)

TEACHER
So remember that unless otherwise specified, all measurements
must be in meters, distance, capacity, amounts, energy. All
meters.

BETHANY
(muttering)
That doesn’t make sense…?

24
 TEACHER
Well, the test is tomorrow so make sure that you study
tonight but also get a good night's sleep. See you all
tomorrow.

(The lights dim around BETHANY)

BETHANY
Tomorrow‽ It’s already been that long?

(The lights go back on)

TEACHER
Times up, everyone hand in your tests!

BETHANY
What‽ But I didn’t..?

(The lights start to flash. STUDENTS leave the classroom and

rearrange the set to only contain the teacher’s desk with a
chair either side.)

TEACHER
Ms. Glass, please take a seat.

(BETHANY sits down)

BETHANY
Is this about the AAT?

TEACHER
Yes.

BETHANY
Listen, I-

25
 TEACHER
You got a perfect score.

BETHANY
What?

TEACHER
Yes. Incredible job! You have some very amazing prospects
ahead of you.

(The lights go out. The desk is moved out of the way.)

BETHANY
I don’t understand, I didn’t, I-

(The lights go back on. BETHANY is in a line with some other

students with trenchers on holding rolled up pieces of
paper.)

SHARPLY DRESSED LAD

Congratulations on graduating college!

BETHANY
Wha-

(The lights go out again. When they come back on, BETHANY no
longer has the trencher or paper, but is wearing glasses.
She is sitting at the big desk.)

BETHANY
What is happening‽

(CO-WORKER walks in)

CO-WORKER

26
 Hey Beth, can I borrow a-

(CO-WORKER stops moving.)

BETHANY
A what? Who are you? What are you…?

(BETHANY gets up and moves towards CO-WORKER. She waves a

hand in front of his face then pokes him. No response. She
looks confused. The lights go out. When they come back on,
BETHANY is lying on the big desk, which is now in the center
of the room. She is no longer wearing glasses. She sits up,
rubs her eyes, and gets off the desk.)

BETHANY
Where am I?

THOUGHTS
(Steps out from the dark. They are dressed in a lab coat and
hold a clipboard.)
My apologies. We had to take you out of stasis early, some
bugs caused the system to glitch out and the simulation to go
extremely quickly.

BETHANY
Simulation? Wait, I recognize your voice. I kept hearing you
in my head.

THOUGHTS
Apologies, again. All part of procedure.

27
 BETHANY
What procedure?

THOUGHTS
Designing the new AAT, of course.

BETHANY
What‽

THOUGHTS
We put students in simulations to see how they respond to
different situations and questions, then base the test off of
that. So far this situation was very successful until the
bugs kicked in.

BETHANY
What gives you the right to get in my head, trick me, then
use the results to stress people out?

THOUGHTS
You agree to this when you sign up for the AAT.

BETHANY
But why would you do that?
THOUGHTS
The more students get stressed, the more likely they are to
fail. The worse they do, the more likely they are to take the
exam again. And the more they do that, the more money we
make.

BETHANY
That’s evil. I thought you were a nonprofit anyways.

THOUGHTS
There is no such thing as a true non-profit. Now to the more
pressing matter. We can’t have you blabbing to anyone about

28
what we’re doing here. So you have a choice. You either work
for us-

BETHANY
And why would I do that? You and this company are all
terrible people.

THOUGHTS
Or you go back into the simulation, but this time not as a
student, but as a prisoner in an endless void. Forever. Take
your pick.

(The lights cut to black. They come back on to see the

classroom in its original state. BETHANY stands next to the
blackboard. She wears glasses. A new student sits in her old
seat and TEACHER is not there.)

BETHANY
Welcome back students. Remember, in two weeks you will be
taking the AAT, so our next few classes will be preparing for
that. Does anybody remember why we take the AAT?

END

29
Experiment Log

D’s Note: It frustrates me so to see such a great idea not get a true chance to shine. You will
have your day, prose. It does reveal a bit of an obsession of mine, writing dystopias, but
especially ones containing the involuntary control of others. Just a fascinating subject to me, I
suppose. Without further ado, my dystopian “short” story.

Experiment Log #0001

Subject: Charlene Sharleton

Results: Pending

Supplemental Interview:

Interviewer: State your name and age, for the record.

Interviewee: Charlene Sharleton, 22.

Interviewer: Ok, can you describe the events that led up to the experiment, as far as you can

remember.

------

Charlie walked down the desolate street, scrunching her jacket up around her in a failed

attempt to mitigate wetness. She shivered and began to walk faster towards the abandoned

building at the end of the road. It was at times like this when she didn’t feel any more special

than anyone else. She knew she was, though, in ways both good and bad. At a young age she had

30
run away from home to try and help the poor people living on the streets, with little success.

Today reminded Charlie of the day she had run, dreary and gray. When she finally reached the

door, she knocked once, paused, then knocked twice more. The door swung open and she hurried

inside.

“What took ya so long?” asked a lean, older woman, the person who had opened the door.

“Sorry River,” Charlie replied, “feds woke up a little less lazy today.”

“Alright then, be careful out there Charlene.”

“I told you I don’t like when you call me that,” Charlie said, glaring at River.

“That’s the name I’ve known you by since you were born, and I don’t see a good reason

to stop using it.”

“Here’s a good one,” Charlie remarked, “I’ll stop selling you stuff for dirt cheap.”

“Fine,” River responded, clearly exasperated. Charlie knew that River wouldn’t stop

though, and they would have the same conversation next week, just like they always did.

“Whad’ya got this time, Charlie?” River asked, emphasizing the name. At this, Charlie gave a

wicked grin before pulling out what seemed to be an impossible amount of stuff from her coat.

The items ranged from microchips to motors to random pieces of scrap.

“That’s the basics,” Charlie said, somehow still pulling stuff out of her various pockets,

“but here’s the kicker.” Charlie pulled what looked like an earpiece out of a hidden pocket. It was

stark white and had a small, unlit light on the side.

“What is it?” River inquired

“I’m not sure,” Charlie said, giving the device a curious look, “but it was under super

tight security. I was actually hoping you would know what it is.”

31
 “No idea, but uh, I could try to find out if you like”

“Yeah that’d be great, thanks River.”

“It’s really no trouble, ‘specially with all this stuff you brought me.” River eyed all the

stuff Charlie had brought before taking out her wallet, carefulling counting a few bills, and

handing them over to Charlie. Charlie put the bills in her inner jacket pocket, not bothering to

count as she knew River was one of the few people who wouldn’t try to scam her. She began to

leave before River called out, “I’ll get in contact with you when I know what it is!”

“I know you will,” Charlie replied, shooting River an over-the-shoulder finger gun before

shutting the door behind her. She lifted her hood on top of her head, then began the long trek

home.

------

Evie hurriedly walked over to the group of police who were talking to a sharply dressed

man, listening carefully to every word said.

“And you simply stopped chasing her?” Evie’s father Elias asked, obviously a bit miffed.

“Well sir, it seemed like she just vanished,” replied the police officer, already pulling out

his cell phone and beginning to walk away.

“People don’t vanish unless I want them to...” Elias said, coldly. The officer recoiled and

pocketed his phone.

“We’ll uh, we’ll put our best people on it,” The officer scrambled away, gathering his

people.

32
 “You better,” Elias shouted, “and I want her brought to me before anybody else!”

“Yes sir,” the officer responded. The police took the little evidence there was, got in their

cars, and drove away.

“How goes the search?” Evie asked, though she already knew the answer.

“You can cut the pleasantries, Evelyn. As you can see, it is not going well. Your sister is

being quite elusive and she needs to be disciplined.” Elias answered.

“I don’t understand what you plan to do when we find her Father,” Evie asked, “What

disciplining can you do?”

“We’re going to punish her so that she behaves.”

“Father, Charlie and I are no longer children, you can not possibly expect that to work.”

“Charlene,” Elias corrected, “is just like any other human. She can be tortured, and if that

doesn’t work, she can be bought. I will not have my company spoiled by one of my own. ” Evie

gave him a skeptical look but dared not question him.

“If you get any news of her, please let me talk to her before you do anything. I’m certain

that this can all be resolved if I can just speak to her. I feel as though this is all my fault, and I’m

certain I can resolve it.”

“Well...” Elias gave a thoughtful look, then nodded, “alright. You may attempt once to

resolve this… peacefully. If not, I will do what I must. Now, you have work to do and so do I.

Off you go.”

“Yes father,” Evie bowed her head slightly, then walked back into the building. She

walked past rows of desks, up the stairs, and into her private office. She sat down and gave a

sigh. Evie didn’t really have a job at the company, or at least, not a real one. Her parents didn’t

33
see her fit to start running the company any time soon, and didn’t even bother trying to teach her

how to be fit. The occasional work she got was easy, and could be done in minutes. She still

received a hearty paycheck, though she hardly needed it. She had been living with her parents

ever since she finished college, and they had enough for 100 people to live 100 comfortable

lives.

Evie had wanted to go live on her own and make her own way for a while, but her parents

told her not to, so she didn’t. She didn’t want to end up like her sister. Criminal, hunted,

misunderstood. Thinking about this, Evie realized she didn’t actually know what she would say

when she saw Charlie again. Usually, Evie always knew exactly what to say to get what she

wanted. She usually didn’t say it, but she still knew it. Charlie was like a mystery, however. Evie

didn’t really understand her. Why was she stealing from their parents company? Why had she

run off, sure she had committed a crime, but the law didn’t seem to apply as much to people with

money. At least, that’s what their parents had said.

As Evie pondered all this, she aimlessly clicked through her computer, until she saw

something that caught her attention. The SnoTech database contained every news article that had

any mention of their company or employees. This was an old article, but one Evie had never seen

before. It was titled “River Spiel Leaves SnoTech After Falling out with Founder”. Evie knew

that Charlie had looked up to River when they were younger. She was probably the only person

who knew that, as her parents never paid much attention to their children, especially when they

were younger. Could this possibly be a hint to where Charlie was, or at least why she ran away?

Either way, she needed to find out, and to do that she would have to do something she had never

done before. Leave the limits of the inner city.

34
Experiment Log #0002

Subject: Evelyn Sharleton

Results: Pending

Supplemental Interview:

Interviewer: State your name and age, for the record.

Interviewee: Evelyn Sharleton, 22.

Interviewer: How do you feel at current?

Interviewee: I’m… I’m not sure. My head hurts a bit. Sorry, I wish I could be of more

assistance.

Interviewer: That is quite alright. Could you please tell me what you remember?

------

Charlie unlocked the door to her dingy room and closed it behind her. The place was

terribly lit, and almost nothing worked. There was no warm water, and Charlie could hear every

35
word said from each of her neighbors. Still, this was the best you could hope for in the slums,

even if it was extremely overpriced. Occasionally, Charlie sat in the place she called home and

wondered what her life would have been like if she had never run from home. Still, she never

regretted her choice. She knew that she had done the right thing and was willing to suffer any

consequences that came with it. The people here were living sad, terrible lives, while the people

in the inner city got all the pampering they wanted, turning a blind eye to all the suffering that

was happening down here. Sometimes Charlie understood why. Helping this many people

seemed an impossible task, especially when they were so unwilling to share with each other.

Charlie pulled out her extremely rare cell phone and turned on the news. She lived just

close enough to the inner city to get reception, and thanks to River, she was able to recharge her

phone once a week. Currently the news was about a heist that had happened to SnoTech

Innovations just this morning. Charlie gave a wicked grin and turned the volume up a bit.

“In total,” the newscaster said, “the thief has stolen over 3 million dollars worth of

technology from various companies, but mainly from the richest of them all, SnoTech

Innovations. Nobody seems to be sure who the mysterious thief is, but rumor has it that it is none

other than Charlene Sharleton, the missing daughter of the very founders of the company. So far,

they say that they agree with this theory, and are keen on finding their daughter. If you have any

information..” The broadcast rambled on, and Charlie found herself surprised that they hadn’t

mentioned the earpiece. Maybe it wasn’t that important after all, a decoy perhaps. Charlie put her

phone down and was about to turn the broadcast off until she heard a voice come from the

speaker.

36
 “Charlie,” it said. Charlie quickly flipped the phone backover. Her sister was in front of

the camera. “I’m unsure if you are watching this, but if you are, please stop and come home. We

can fix this, together. I’m sorry for what happened all those years ago.” Evie gave a sigh then

continued, “I know you are likely not watching this, and even if you are, you probably will not.

come back, but I just wanted to say that I am going to find you, and I’m going to make

everything right again.” Charlie turned off the phone and nervously began to look around the

room, suddenly paranoid. She hadn’t seen her sister in years, and now she might show up at any

moment to drag her back to the inner city. Charlie was plenty confident that police would never

find her, but Evie was a different story. Evie was just as cunning as Charlie, if not more. Charlie

weighed her options, and ultimately decided that staying put until the danger died down was the

best course of action. There were too many risks attached with travel and moving, and even then

Evie would probably find her. Part of Charlie was glad that the constant paranoia and fear would

finally end. Part of her was proud that she had gone so long without getting caught. But mostly,

she was sad that she hadn’t been able to help more. Of course, there was a chance that Evie

wouldn’t actually find her, however unlikely that was. And there was always the slightest chance

that Evie wouldn’t immediately turn Charlie in to the authorities. There was only one thing

Charlie was certain of. If she was going down, she was going down fighting.

------

Evie walked off the news set towards the inner city’s limits. Beyond that were the slums,

and beyond that, the factories and farms. Somewhere out there, her sister was in a room with

37
millions of dollars worth of stolen tech. Evie had looked up River’s address and found that

surprisingly River lived in the warehouse district, not one of high class neighborhoods of the

inner city. Evie was hoping that River might know of Charlie’s whereabouts, or at least know

anything new about Charlie. Evie was fairly confident that River would tell her if she knew

anything, as River had always been fond of both girls when they were growing up, and almost

acted like an aunt to them.

As Evie approached the wall separating her world from everything outside of it, she

suddenly felt a bit nervous. Was this how Charlie had felt when she ran away? Finally, she got to

one of the several security checkpoints dotted around the wall. A guard nodded at her, gave her a

slip of paper, and let her through. As Evie walked through the gate, she immediately noticed how

different this world was than hers. The sights, the sounds, the smells, everything just seemed…

dirtier. It was like a version of the inner city without any of the life. The few people near the wall

could have been dead or alive, they weren’t moving at all. Trash frequently flew across the

deserted roads, and faint screams could be heard. Evie hurriedly walked past all of this towards

the warehouse district. She kept a hand next to her emergency stun gun at all times, just in case.

When she got far enough away from the wall, her phone lost reception, but she already saw the

massive warehouses.

As she kept walking towards them, she surprisingly got reception again, likely from a

tower specifically for River. Then, Evie finally reached the address that she had noted down. She

knocked on the door and waited. Eventually, an older woman, River, answered the door. She

frowned, then her face changed to shock.

38
 “Evelyn? What are ya doin’ here? Come in, come in.” River opened the door wider and

ushered Evie in. “So, what brings you to this part of town.”

“I was actually hoping to talk to you,” Evie answered, “about Charlie.” At this, Evie saw

River’s expression turn slightly worried. “You know something, don’t you? About where she is?

Or possibly why she ran away?”

“I’m afraid I can’t help you.” River replied.

“You do know something...why won’t you tell me?” At this Evie began to look around,

“Is she here? Was she here? Please River, I’m begging you, I’ll get you anything you want. I

need to find her. I need to make things right.”

“Aw, why do I love the two of you so damn much… If I tell you where she is, you gotta

promise you won’t hurt her, or do anything bad to her.”

“I swear it.”

“Alright, but can I ask you something first?”

“I don’t see why not.”

“Why now? Why after 6 years?”

“Before I wasn’t sure where to start looking,” Evie said. River gave a thoughtful nod,

then wrote down an address on a piece of paper.

“No feds, no danger, alright?” River asked, holding the paper close to her chest.

“Of course,” Evie replied, and reached out for the paper.

“Oh and by the way,” River said, handing the paper over. “Your sister is doin’ something

good. You should hear her out before doin’ anything drastic. Maybe take a look outside before

39
deciding what you think is right and wrong.” Evie thought about what River had said for a

moment, then gave a slight nod.

“Ok.”

“One last thing before ya go,” River said, handing a small sealed black bag. “Bring this to

your sister. She’ll know what to do with it. And don’t open it, got it?”

“Got it.” Evie walked over to the door, gave River a slight bow of the head, and made her

way towards the address, and towards something she had been waiting 6 years to do.

------

“She’s coming.” River said.

“Why did you tell her where I was?” Charlie asked, her voice steely.

“I don’t think you have to worry about it,” River replied, “besides, you know that I can’t

say no to either of you. ‘Sides I got her to promise not to put you in danger.”

“She could have lied.”

“Do you honestly think she would lie?”

“...no.”

“Alright, well I think you should hear her out at least. Also, I sent her with a package you

might be interested in. I might have figured out what that is, and you aren’t going to like it.”

“Tell me now?”

“Too dangerous. You’ll see the note, and we can talk more next Monday.”

40
 “Fine.” Charlie said. Just then she heard a knock at her door. “Sounds like she’s already

here. See you Monday.”

“See ya Charlie.” River said before Charlie hung up the phone. She took a deep breath,

walked up to the door, and opened it. Evie was standing there clutching a black bag.

“Charlie… may I...?” Evie gestured towards the couch.

“Sure,” Charlie replied. Evie sat down awkwardly. Charlie closed the door, then sat down

next to Evie. “How are you?”

“I’m… good. I feel like I always know what to say but now I...”

“Yeah.” Charlie agreed. “Can I take that?”

“Can I ask you some questions first?”

“Ok.”

“Why did you leave?”

“They were gonna arrest me. I didn’t believe in what the people around me believe in.”

“And what’s that?”

“Money.” Charlie snarled, “Being selfish. Leaving thousands to die.” Charlie looked at

Evie. Evie looked a bit shocked and a bit pensive, as if she were still taking in the harsh realities

of her world. “You’ve seen what it’s like out there, and you can’t disagree.”

“I… I guess not. Mother and Father never let me see outside. Is that why?”

“Probably. All they seem to care about is money, and image. When they realized I wasn’t

going to be a perfect daughter, they tried to get rid of me.”

“Yeah… Is that why you steal from them? Where does the stuff go?”

41
 “Pretty much. It goes to whoever I can sell it to. Then I try to give the money to the

people. It’s not easy though. You’d think that people so poor would be able and willing to share

so that everyone could live a little better. You’d think that they would have some empathy for

those around them, but really, they’re just as bad as the people in the inner city. They just aren’t

as lucky.”

“Wow. I-I’m glad I came to find you.”

“I’m glad you came too.”

“Do you want to open this?” Evie said, handing the bag to Charlie.

“Sure.” Charlie unzipped the bag. Inside was the earpiece from before, in addition to a

piece of paper with some scribbled notes.

“What is it?” Evie asked.

“You don’t know?” Charlie said, surprised. “I took it from SnoTech. It was under really

tight security.”

“Really? I’ve never seen it before, and Father’s never mentioned it. Do you know what it

is, though?”

“Let’s find out.” Charlie began to read the note. “Dear Charlie. I figured out what this

thing is and well, let’s just say it’s bad news. You know how SnoTech needs more workers to

make stuff, but don’t want to pay more? This is their solution. It alters brain waves, basically,

you can make people do stuff, think stuff, that you want them to. For SnoTech, that means free

labor. For the people down here, well, it means no more free will.”

“What?!” Evie exclaimed.

42
 “You’re lucky you got that when you did,” Charlie continued reading, “it doesn’t seem

active just yet. Maybe they hadn’t tested it? We need to destroy this thing ASAP, and you need to

get the blueprints and destroy them too.” Just then the door burst open. A dozen police officers

with rifles marched in, followed by Elias Sharleton. “Evie,” Charlie said, “What did you do?”

“I-I, this wasn’t me!” Evie replied, her voice tremorous.

“No, it was not” Elias said, “I noticed that Evelyn’s phone left the inner city. I wondered

where she was going and tapped in to get a live audio feed. After her conversation with RIver, I

knew she was coming to see you and had done the work of the police for me. And even better, I

now learn that you have my valuable stolen technology. This is a good day. You’ve been a very

good girl Evelyn, expect a reward when we get home.”

“I am not going anywhere with you,” Evie said, “I heard what you’re planning on doing,

and shudder to imagine what you’ve already done. You hid so much from me, why would I ever

listen to you?”

“Hmph, that’s a shame,” Elias said, “but it can never hurt to have two test subjects.”

“What do you mean by test subjects…?” Charlie asked.

“Why my dear Charlene, I’m going to fix you and your sister. Finally, this family will be

complete again, and this time I will have absolute loyalty from each of you.” Elias gave a wicked

laugh.

“The people will know what you’ve done.” Charlie said.

“No they will not.” Elias said, “You are going to tell them that you were kidnapped by an

evil man, who also began to steal from us. Finally, your sister found you and got the police to

rescue you.”

43
 “I’ll break your technology.” Charlie said.

“The story can always be that we found you dead...” Elias said, “Now hand it over before

somebody gets hurt.” Reluctantly, Charlie gave the device to Elias. “That’s a good girl. See, the

bonding process has already begun. Guards, let’s have my girls taken home. It will be so nice for

my family to be whole again...”

44
Experiment Log Conclusion

Subjects: Charlene and Evelyn Sharleton

Results: Success

Supplemental Interview:

Interviewer: So, how are the two of you feeling, now that the treatment has had the full effect?

E. Sharleton: I must say, I feel quite wonderful.

C. Sharleton: I feel the same way. We must away now, though. We have a news interview soon.

Interviewer: Of course. We can continue this later.

------

“It was horrible. I was trapped there for 6 long years. Every day he would come down

and mock me, showing off things he had stolen from my parent’s company. He told me that

everybody thought I was behind it all. He laughed at my pain. I was afraid I would be there

forever, but luckily my sister was able to find me. I feel blessed to finally be free, and that the

horrible man who did this is locked away forever.” Charlene said.

45
 “There you have it folks,” said the newscaster, “a surprising story, with a happy ending...”

He continued to talk as Charlene walked towards her family. Her father smiled, and Charlene

gave a wicked grin back.

“Good girl Charlene. I believe that you and Evelyn will soon be fit to start running the

company.”

“I believe I’m ready, father,” Evelyn said, “I feel as though I was being held back before,

my morals were getting in my way. But after your treatment, I am ready to do whatever it takes

to grow our company.” Evelyn was wearing scantier clothing, and just that day people had

already been at her feet, willing to do whatever for her.

“I’m glad I was able to help you reach your full potential,” Elias said, “now, shall we? I

believe you two have to start learning how to run this place.”

“Yes father,” Charlene and Evelyn said in unison.

46
How to cook good

D’s Note: Yes, the title is correct. No, other words should not be capitalized. This is the true
Magnum Opus. The writing to end all writing. The best piece of writing I (or possibly anyone)
has ever made. Every typo, every error, every word, meticulously placed for maximum funny.
Enjoy, and try not to cry too many tears of laughter and joy.

How to Cook Good Part 1

By Daniel Medlock

3/19/2021

47
Chapter 1: Cooking

So you want to cook huh? Well let me tell you buddy, it’s not that easy. There is a long and
difficult trial ahead of you so be prepared to give it your all. What is cooking? Cooking is when
you get some stuff and mix it up and then you have food. There are also some optional steps.
This in depth guide will show you how to make the perfect meal.

48
Chapter 2: What is food?

Food is what you eat.

49
Chapter 3: Ingredients

To cook some good food first you need to get ingredients. Ingredients are what make up food so
they are pretty important. Selecting ingredients is very important if you want to make something
tasty. You should always try to get healthy ingredients unless you want something to taste good
in which case you want to get lots of sugar and maybe a deep fryer idk.

Chapter 4: Putting it all together

In other recipes, there is a specific order to putting ingredients together, but I don’t believe in
that so just put it all in a bowl and stir it or something. After that you can move on to the optional
steps.

Chapter 5: Heat

A lot of food needs heat to be good. Heat can be used to purge the damned out of your food
and also sometimes make it taste better. Oh yeah also there’s like bacteria or something, I read
about it online that’s usually a good reason to heat your food.

50
Chapter 6: Toppings

Real fancy food has some stupid stuff on top that makes it look “good” but I think toppings can
have a more practical use. For example, if you like pasta but also want meat, you can use meat
sauce and that’s a topping. What else is a topping? Anything that isn’t the food you made!
Tomatoes, sure! Lime juice, yeah! Rocks, sure why not? The entire population of Kazakhstan?
Now you’re talkin’! Effectively use toppings to make people say wow at food that is just okay.
Here is a handy chart for what toppings to use.

Food Topping

Mushy Rocks

Liquid Lime juice

Chewy Sauce (varied)

Crunchy Ew why are you eating crunchy food

Savory Tomatoes

Hard The entire population of Kazakhstan

Soft The entire population of Kazakhstan

In between The entire population of Kazakhstan

Spicy The entire population of Kazakhstan except

for Steve, he’s not very yummy

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Chapter 7: Serving to friends

You have no friends lol

52
Chapter 8: Serving yourself

Since you have no friends, you might as well make your food presentable for yourself.
Some tips:
● Don’t use a spoon because that’s what lonely people use.
● Use the microwave after taking a bite to make sure the next one is warm
● Eat at the table so you at least feel dignified, you failure
● Go to a woodshop class and make friends out of wood
● Maybe if you wish hard enough they will come to life
● Why

Chapter 9: Getting the trash you just consumed out of your body

You just ate something that may kill you in the next 10-15 minutes, so expelling these
substances is of the essence. Some fun ways to do this are…
● Ordering mexican food

53
Chapter 10: On the subject of ordering food

So, you have horribly failed at cooking? What do you do now? Order a pizza and eat it.

Chapter 11: Guests

Sometimes your parents make you have guests over because they see how sad and lonely you
are. This means sometimes you have to prepare a meal for others. But oh no! Your food is
burning! But what if… you got fast food and passed it on as your own cooking?

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Chapter 12: Example

If you have done all steps correctly, here is how baking a cake would look.

Step 1: Decide you want to cook a cake.

Step 2: Identify that cake is a food, and can therefore be eaten.

Step 3: Get some ingredients, such as eggs, milk, flour, sugar, sugar, sugar, etc.

Step 4: Mix it in a bowl. Remember to keep in the shells for a crunchy kick!

Step 5: Put it in the oven at a medium heat until it looks edible.

Step 6: Apply toppings. I suggest the entire population of Almaty (a city in Kazakhstan).

Step 7: See Chapter 7

Step 8: Use a fork and eat some cake

Step 9: Order Mexican and expel the cake from your body

Step 10: Order a pizza cake.

Step 11: Pretend you made the cake and serve.

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Chapter 13: Conclusion:

If you followed this guide to the letter, you should have not succeeded and regretted ever
looking at this. But, in part 2, we will explain how to make food that does not need to be
immediately expelled.

Bone Apple Tea

--------------------------------------------------------------
Supplementary Explanatory Paragraph:

For SSR this quarter I read a lot of things, but one thing that really stood out to me was wheat. I
read the wikipedia article (in part) and I wrote a really funny SSR so I decided for my project I
would write a funny cooking joke. Since recipes and cooking are a system I decided that was a
good idea that connected to the theme. I quite enjoyed writing this and have learned that I
should apply to culinary school

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11th Grade

Lives Essay

D’s Note: Oh boy, 11th grade. Now I have to put ALL the pieces. Anyways here’s the Lives
Essay. Watch me rant about all the problems in the world then forget about them so I don’t
completely alienate and depress the viewer. My outlook on life has changed since then due to a
variety of factors, not least of which being actually finding something to be happy about.

This is the moment. It’s just like any other moment really. It’s unremarkable in every way.
Soon enough, it will be forgotten. It’s not special. What makes a moment special? Does a
moment need to be special to be important? Does anyone even care about this, or is it all for
busy work, for grading, for learning that doesn’t happen?
What’s the point in any of this? What’s the difference between dropping out of school
now, taking up a low end job and living the rest of my life terribly versus doing the same thing
but wasting even more time and money? I know it’s depressing but I don’t feel like skirting
around the truth at this point, I’m fed up with the lies, the wasted time, the promise of a future
that continually gets ruined by those who pretend to want us to have it.
Whatever, honestly, might as well go the rounds. Thinking about moments in our lives,
big or small, thinking about important moments and unimportant ones really makes us think
about the world and how fucked up it is. I don’t care about profanity at this point, I’m being
honest. Think about your own mortality as a human, the cursed knowledge that only we as a
species truly possess. That one day we’ll be gone. One day everyone we love will be gone.
Much like a moment, as soon as we’re gone, we start to be forgotten. If we weren’t deemed
important we only fade sooner. And what do we do with this fleeting life? This cursed gift? We
fight, and argue, and waste away so that others don’t have to do that. We don’t do it out of
kindness, we do it out of necessity. The need to live. To provide others with money, or stability,
or just spare them the sadness of us being gone.
We seem to be content here, we say, “hey, it’s good enough”. But why are we settling for
good enough? Why do we let ourselves get put down? We only get one chance and society
expects us to waste it learning, then working, then dying. We’re just cogs in a machine, and
every now and again we need to get replaced. Luckily we’re making new cogs too, so I guess
that isn’t a problem.
Is there a point in writing about this moment, a moment of clarity about the severity of
our fragile existences? I’ll probably forget it by tomorrow, if not that, next week, if not that, next

57
month, and if not that, a year. Do you, reading this, even care? Does it matter? I know I’m
handing this in late, so just give me my “late grade,” think “wow that was harsh” and move on.
Live your life. Be happy. Don’t let me weigh you down. What’s the point of being a cog if you
don’t even work? And I swear to whatever cruel god resides above or below that if this prompts
something stupid like therapy, or a meeting, or even activism, I will shit myself laughing at how
people still think there is hope in this dark meaningless void we call our lives. We can’t change
anything. The only logical thing to do is roll over, curl up, and die. If not a machine, life is a game
where an unknown dealer wants to drain us until we’re forced to quit. A game where all the odds
are stacked against us, the other players all cheat, and it’s impossible to win.

And I’m fine with that. Maybe instead of whining like a bitch about how unfair everything
is, people should just play. Cause when life deals you a shitty hand, you don’t quit playing. You
give it your best shot, and when you inevitably lose, you just laugh because you don’t care you
lost. You had fun. That’s what matters most when you play a game, even one as sick and
demented as the one we all live in. Don’t give life the satisfaction of seeing you get mad.
If there’s no point to anything, why get mad? Why be sad? Assign value as you wish to
whatever you want. An upset means nothing, a good meal means everything. Appreciate what
you get and forget about what you don’t. Maybe there’s a sort of sick beauty in the lack of
meaning. Maybe the world being horrible just means that good things are only better?

So yeah, everything sucks.

But maybe that’s ok.

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Humans

D’s Note: To be honest… I don’t remember this one much. I genuinely forgot this existed until 15
seconds ago when I went to see what was next. This was written in response to 3 short stories
is all I know. Enjoy I guess?

Humans. You know ‘em. You love ‘em. You are one (probably). But what does it mean to
be human, and how is that reflected in our literature? Today I will be looking at 3 short stories
and analyzing their takes on humans and human nature, in addition to how different situations
can make humans do seemingly crazy things.
The 3 stories I will be writing about are A Temporary Matter, Where Are You Going
Where Have You Been, and Hills Like White Elephants. All of these stories tackle the human
condition in a different way, and even though they tell themselves from different perspectives,
they effectively show in a way what it means to be human. The key takeaways from all 3 stories
is that extreme emotions and difficult situations can make people act in crazy ways, but that
doesn’t mean that they are no longer people. I think the story that really exemplifies this is A
Temporary Matter. In it, an estranged husband and wife begin to reconnect when their power is
cut every night for 5 days. On an initial read through, it may seem that the narrator Shukumar is
a deadbeat and a bad husband, and many people believed that and expressed that in our class
discussion. I, however, saw it a different way. Though Shukumar hasn’t done the best job, by
really paying attention to the story you can see that he is trying and that he isn’t just a useless
person as so many people claimed he was. He cooks dinner, he tries to get rid of reminders of
the dead child, and he holds out hope that the relationship can be fixed. This is a prime example
of people seeming one way, but actually only acting that way because of their situation and
emotions. Both Shukumar and his partner Shoba were changed by the sudden grief of their
baby dying during childbirth and this shakes them and their relationship. It is important, though,
to see the broader perspective to truly appreciate the humanity these characters show, and see
that they don’t just fit an archetype. The only other emotion that changes people that much is
fear.
Fear is a powerful emotion, if not the most powerful emotion. It can drive people to do
crazy actions, and sometimes that can make people seem unreasonable. But fear does not
define someone. What matters is how they overcome it. Where Are You Going Where Have You
Been does an incredible job of showing how it is to truly fear something, and what that fear can
lead to. Many people isolated from a situation may make large claims or not fear at all, however

59
in the moment, fear can easily overtake someone and this story really shows that. Connie as a
character is a great conduit for the fear that is shown in the story because she is so realistic.
She doesn’t act like an idiot, but she also doesn’t act stupidly brave. In a way she is frozen by
fear, and that is the most accurate depiction of the emotion that a story can show. Not knowing
what to do. In the end of the story, Connie does something completely crazy, not because she
herself is crazy, but because she is driven by fear and afraid of power. Arnold Friend is the
personification of power and it’s abuse, and shows the counterpart to Connie. Something
immensely inhuman. He comes under one guise, but is shown to be something completely
different. Something creepy and strange that you can’t quite place your finger on. The only
emotion he ever kind of shows is anger, and barely. His inhuman qualities really help to show
how well written Connie is as a character because she is his polar opposite.
This is all shadowed by a societal power dynamic that has been here for a very long
time. But when this power dynamic is offset, it can show some really interesting things. Hills Like
White Elephants was published nearly 100 years ago, in a time when the power dynamic
between men and women was as strong as ever, however while this story can show that, it
doesn’t. The man can force the woman to get the surgery if he would like her to, but he doesn’t.
This is what I think makes the character a lot more real. Because even in a time when he had a
lot of power, he cares more about the other person than his own desires, and in the end will
allow them to choose what they want.
All of these short stories tell something important about being human, and really
demonstrate their respectives author’s writing prowess in being able to make convincing and
realistic characters. The important thing to remember is that people are complicated, and no
matter what happens, you should always treat them as such. It’s too easy to say somebody is
good, or somebody is smart, or somebody is angry. Nobody can be described by one word, or
even many. Never forget that, and always go out of your way to spite people when they think too
little of you. Check the word count ;).

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Voices Essay

D’s Note: Ok I did something to spite Clapper in that last one. I don’t remember the word count
though so who knows what. Anyways, Voices Essay. I HATE WALT WHITMAN. HE’S AN
ARROGANT ASSHOLE AND I WANT TO DESECRATE HIS GRAVE. Coates is fine. This essay
is my slow descent to madness. I never fully recovered.

How to Sound Like an Asshole: A Voices Essay

Voice: It’s how you sound. What many people don’t realize is it’s impact on
people’s perception of you. One misplaced word, one missing comma, one wrong
synonym, and the meaning of your entire piece changes. With writing having
such a delicate process, you would think that the people considered the greatest
writers would take care to make clear what they mean, how they want to sound,
and everyone would agree on who the author was as a person. But this is the
opposite of what happens. Some people are so blinded by their teachings and
perceptions, that they fail to look at the piece itself, and instead look at what they
believe is it’s essence. Today, I will write about Walt Whitman’s piece Song of
Myself and it’s failings, in addition to Ta-Nehisi Coates’s book Between The
World And Me and how it uses voice effectively. Not only will I do that, but this
entire essay will switch between me writing with my essay voice and my normal
voice, to show the differences and how it affects your views of the arguments as
a whole.
Poetry is a form of writing often attributed with being artful, beautiful, and
special. I personally have my reservations about this, but I do see the benefits of
such a form of prose. Song of Myself is not poetry. It’s hot garbage. It sucks ass.
Oh no, are you insulted, are you mad? I don’t give a shit. It’s not good. So why
isn’t it poetry, and how am I wrong? I see Song of Myself as the random
scrawlings of a madman, interspersed with ego boosting, narcissistic writings.
Allow me to explain. Whitman ineffectively uses wording in ways that are
confusing, nonsensical, and unnecessary. An example of this is “I dote on myself,
there is a lot of me and all so luscious”. The voice and tone of the sentence
change midway through, then change back. Why? What’s the point of that?
Simply replacing “a lot” with “much” would be a substantial improvement, even if
not a perfect one. And that’s without mentioning the narcissistic portion of this all.
Self love is fine but jeez this is intense. “I dote on myself”? Seriously? This is
literally just a fancy way of saying “I’m great, my body is great, and I love to

61
compliment myself.” This isn’t the only time stuff like this comes up, though. “I
crowd your sleekest and best by simply looking towards you” is just… mean. It’s
not artful poetry, it’s no innocent self-love. It is very clearly saying “I’m better than
you. I can look at you and even your best isn’t that great.” That’s just… Come on.
You can’t just say that. What baffles me is that people think I’m wrong, that
Whitman isn’t an arrogant narcissist. But in a way they’re right.
Song of Myself is poetry, in the trust sense of the word. Poetry can be
anything. It can mean anything. It’s art. And Song of Myself is art. It’s elegant and
insightful, and somehow isn’t pretentious (mostly, we’ll get to that). It beautifully
communicates the facets of human life, of being human. And yes, it does disgust
me to see myself write that. But it’s undeniable that Whitman’s writing fills a niche
of an everyman talking of simply being. Now I’m tired and just have to write an
essay so excuse the laziness with the rest of this. I’m just going to talk. Whitman
annoys me. But I get it. I get why people are gushing about how it’s beautiful art. I
really do. I personally don’t think that it is beautiful art, and think it points to a
larger problem with the elevation of art, but if you want to like something, I get it.
And really, I’m just tired. Tired of working. Tired of school. Tired of resting. Tired
of being tired. Maybe I actually mean exhausted. Whatever. So you know what?
Ignore the first part of my essay. This is a voices essay, right? Consider this
entire 689 word piece of writing my introduction, consider it a joke. Here’s my
plain thoughts.
Coates writes like a dad. Whitman writes like a cult leader. Why? I don’t
know. I don’t think anyone really knows. I think everyone who says they
understand voice, everyone who acts like they know what’s up is actually an idiot.
Because inherently, these things aren’t meant to be understood. Because I
almost guarantee that if you spent enough time with an mute, illiterate person,
you could still learn their voice. Voice isn’t how you write, or how you talk. Voice
doesn’t exist. It’s a title we put on a fragment of a human, a sliver of a person.
Every action we take, every word we say, every piece we write isn’t our voice, it’s
a piece of ourselves, something we put out into the world that is, in a plain sense,
us. Every time I criticize an assignment, every time you assign one, we put a
piece of ourselves into the world. It’s scary. What if people don’t understand what
we’re trying to say? That’s something we all fear, isn’t it? People not getting us.
Being alone. We invented language because of that fear. Can you imagine living
without language? Trying to work with people, but nobody can properly
communicate? Trying to survive?

62
 This essay wants us to think about voice. How is it established? What is its
nature? Voice is who we are, and how we try to mask that. We live in a society
that values being able to hide who we are in our lives. We call it “being
professional”, but it’s just being anyone but yourself. We get a good grade for
writing in a certain way, we get paid for wearing certain clothes, we live and die
trying to satisfy the needs of the people we care about, not realizing that we’re
sacrificing ourselves for them and them for us.
What is voice? Voice is the way I walk, the font size I choose on a paper.
Voice is the way I breath, the clothes I wear. Voice is me. Can we be other
people? If I say Whitman is a poet and is great am I you? Can our voices ever
truly not be ours? You demand English but I hand you philosophy. Read this
sentence. Read it again. Why did you do that? You don’t gain anything for
reading that sentence again. And until I tell you what’s special about it, you don’t
know. The point is you’re thinking. At least, I hope you are. I hope you aren’t
reading a couple sentences, saying “Yeah that’s nice” then moving on. Show me
you care. Not about me, but about the learning. About the voice. Show me that
you’re thinking. You don’t have to read this, I don’t have to write this. By now I
sound as mad as an aforementioned writer. Does that matter? I can write
however I want but you still know it’s me who wrote this. I’m just being tangential
now.
Discussing what voice is, what voice means, is as pointless as arguing
whether or not Walt Whitman is an artist or a piece of shit. We don’t know, we’re
not going to convince the other of anything substantial, and it’s a waste of limited
time. Now if you excuse me, I’m going to submit this poor but effective excuse of
an essay and do better things with my time. Or maybe I’ll just do more
homework. Who knows?

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Letter to My Descendants

D’s Note: My main piece of advice is don’t follow my advice. “Do I contradict myself? Very well
then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)” - Walt Shitman

“I am not the poet of goodness only, I do not decline to be the poet of wickedness also”

Dear Descendant(s),
Who are you? How did you get this? No, really, how did you get ahold of a stupid paper I
wrote for high school English? I currently don’t think I want kids, so who are you who can truly
claim to be my descendant? Or are you simply an observer, somebody unrelated attempting to
glean a piece of history? Perhaps you are a bald-headed English teacher reading this to give
me a grade? If so, that would be pretty dumb. A letter is supposed to be personal, especially
one to a descendant. I can’t be as sincere if I know someone else will be reading. Welp, here
goes.
Advice is a funny thing, we get it all the time without even realizing it. Sometimes it’s
nice, a lot of the time it isn’t. But almost anything anyone says to us can be advice. From a
simple “You look great,” to a “You should do this next time,” most things have hidden advice in
them. My advice is not hidden. I want to make it very clear. My advice is “Don’t listen to other
people’s advice.” No, really. I even mean my own in a way. Because here’s something that I
think is important to realize as soon as possible. Nobody in the world has any damn clue what
they’re doing. Nobody is better than you, and nobody is worse. We’re all just people trying to live
life, not really even knowing how to do that. I say that because so many people, especially
adults, will say they know what they’re doing, might seem like they know, but there is no magic
moment at your 18th or 21st birthday where you realize what’s going on, or how to be a person.
Adults are just as ignorant as children, they’re just older. That’s why I say don’t listen to advice.
Most likely, other people have no idea what’s good for you. Only you know that. Hell, don’t even
listen to my advice, sometimes other people do know better.
The point I’m trying to make is that the only person who can tell you what to do is you.
Nobody else can truly control you, even if it seems like they can. When you feel truly lost, look
inside yourself and maybe you’ll know what to do. Maybe you won’t. That’s okay too. Nobody
knows all the answers and that’s kind of the point. I personally don’t believe there are answers
to find, I think the universe is random and we’re lucky just to exist, but maybe you think
otherwise. I don’t think any question has a true answer, I think what matters is what you do with
the questions. Eh this sounds stupid, like the ramblings of an old man, but that doesn’t much
matter, it’s just a school assignment after all.
See, here’s the problem, how am I supposed to give life advice when I also have no idea
what I’m talking about? After all, I too suffer the vices of man. I am not exempt from my believed
lack of knowledge. Maybe I should just take my own advice and try to figure out what to write
here.

“Enough! Enough! Enough!

Somehow, I have been stunn’d. Stand back!

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 Give me a little time beyond my cuff’d head, slumbers, dreams, gaping…”

Alright, here’s my second piece of advice, that I guess could tie into the first piece. Do
what you love, and don’t let other people stop you. I would not recommend doing something you
love if it harms others, but I’m just a high schooler, go ahead do what you want. But in all
seriousness, do things you like to do. I don’t believe there is a greater purpose to life, I don’t
think there is an afterlife, and I don’t believe that doing certain deeds makes you great. You get
one shot at life, so don’t make it something you hate, make it something you like. Nothing you
do is a “waste of time,” because a waste is subjective. In fact, so many things are subjective that
society says aren’t. Morality, fairness, fun. So what’s the point of this? Do what you want.
Nothing is objectively right or wrong, and life is about whatever you think it should be about.
So here’s the combination of these two pieces of advice, an ultimate piece of advice, if
you will. There are no answers, so do whatever you want. So I gave this essay to my friends to
peer edit (classic English teacher stuff), and they said my advice was “paradoxical” and it
needed to be “cleared up”. And to that I say “deal with it”. Think my advice is paradoxical?
Good, it is. I don’t care. I’ll be as vague and stupid as I goddamn please because I’m being
honest, and I’m enjoying myself. “Woah, this whole essay was an example of following it’s
advice?” Yeah it is. So everyone who says it doesn’t make sense or is bad can go fuck
themselves it’s MY letter to MY descendant so I’ll do whatever I want. Alright that was a little
harsh, but my point stands, I’ll do what I want in my letter.
Here it seems we approach the end. I’d love to say it’s been nice, but I’m probably dead
so it’s been nothing. Let me just reiterate my advice in case you got lost in my masterful prose
(Ok I’m not that arrogant, but I think I did a good job). There are no answers, and nobody knows
anything. Only you know what to do, so don’t listen to advice. Not even mine. Also, do whatever
the hell you want, because life isn’t worth wasting on doing something you hate. Anyways, have
fun or whatever your life isn’t really my problem beyond finishing the assignment.

Adios Satipo,
Your Antecedent

P.S. Cookies and Cream Ice Cream

65
Gatsby Short Essays & ICW

D’s Note: I don’t care a ton about these but I have some post read notes for the last one. 1)
Remember the P.S. it is surprisingly relevant later. 2) The Whitman quote used at the beginning
has been labeled the “Perfect quote for me”, awesome! 3) What I wrote may no longer be
accurate due to a change in my relationship status and desire to make my SO happy. Oh
actually I have one thing to say about these! They have been described as “incomplete” and
“needing improvement”! Amazing!

In The Great Gatsby, there are several characters that display different levels of

authenticity throughout the book. While each of these characters are authentic and inauthentic

in their own significant ways, Jay Gastby is the most interesting character to look at in terms of

authenticity due to how he shows it throughout the novel.

There has been lots of debate over how authentic, if at all, Gatsby is based on his

actions. Many say that he seems inauthentic and untrustworthy, but I argue that Mr. Gatsby is

actually the most authentic character presented, other than perhaps Nick himself. While other

characters present themselves as better or more knowing than others, an air of deceit

surrounds them. Nick identifies this in people such as Jordan, but when he first meets Gatsby,

he says this about his smile: “It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal

reassurance in it… and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your

best, you hoped to convey”1. Gatsby is a sincere person who sees the best in people. Though

his methods to meet Daisy may not be the best, this is likely due to embarrassment (as seen in

later chapters). These lines and the text between them present Gatsby as someone who isn’t

the persona of a rich beaurocrat, but a sincere person. The only other character we know much

about, Jordan, is quickly revealed to be a liar and Gatsby is quite different from her.

1
F. Scott Fitzgerald. The Great Gatsby (New York: Scribner, 2004), 48.

66
 In The Great Gatsby, several characters display different levels of self-knowledge.

However the characters who seem to have some of the most self-knowledge mostly consider it

a bad thing. This short essay will discuss the curse that is self-knowledge, and the truth in the

phrase “ignorance is bliss”, at least as it pertains to the world of Gatsby.

While catching up with Nick, Daisy says “Sophisticated, God I’m sophisticated2”. She

then proceeds to talk about how she wishes if she has a daughter, that her daughter is a

“beautiful fool”. This speaks to how Daisy is very aware about the problems in her life, mainly

Tom’s mistress, and possibly not being with Gatsby. Daisy’s knowledge of her situation makes

her feel upset, and she wishes that if she has a daughter, her daughter does not have to have

so much awareness of the world, so that she can be happier. In a much later scene, Daisy starts

crying at seeing Gatby’s shirts. This could be interpreted as regret catching up with her, and

knowing about how her life could have been compared to the life she is currently leading. In the

end, Daisy is upset about being sophisticated and well learned, because it has ultimately led her

only to more sadness than joy.

2
F. Scott Fitzgerald. The Great Gatsby (New York: Scribner, 2004), 17

67
 In The Great Gatsby, the character Jay Gatsby is a representation of hope. While

characters around him comply with their societal position, Gatsby works for and dreams of

something greater, something better. Gatsby’s hope is infectious, changing the lives of everyone

around him, and eventually ends without truly being silenced.

There are several quotes in the novel that show Gatsby and hope. Early in the novel it’s

mentioned, and even when things seem to be the worst they can be, Gatsby still believes and

hopes in a future with Daisy. One of the last lines of the book is “Gatsby believed in the green

light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us.3” This line emphasizes Gatsby’s

hope by mentioning the green light, the symbol for Daisy. It emphasizes the promise that the

future could hold, despite it looming ever closer. When Gatsby dies, he still hasn’t lost hope,

though it seems some other characters do. Wilson kills himself, Tom and Daisy move away, and

Nick and Jordan become distant. Gatsby’s death shows a real death of hope within the book.

But Gatsby didn’t die before imparting just a little hope within someone else. The owl-eyed man

came to Gatsby’s funeral when nobody else did, showing that hope still left its mark on the

world. From then on out, Nick continues on as the small flame of hope within the world, still

believing in Gatsby even when it seems no one else does.

3
F. Scott Fitzgerald. The Great Gatsby (New York: Scribner, 2004), 180

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ICW February 16th, 2022

Part one: Should we read Gatsby in 2022?

Using your notes, your book, and your own ideas, develop an argument for why students should
read The Great Gatsby in 2022. I will ask that you focus primarily on one or two themes that
emerge in this text that you feel this book is uniquely situated to help students learn. You may
use one of our class themes, but you do not have to.

You should also feel free to mount the opposing argument, to say that Gatsby isn’t worth
reading for a reason of your own choosing.

English classes are wild. After your first few years, many of them stop actually
being about English and start being about culture, particularly as it pertains to books. So in
a class seemingly as ill-defined as English, what is worth teaching and learning about? We
read Gatsby not for its writing, but for its themes. One could argue that these two are
intertwined, but at the end of the day it was more about the themes than the writing. So is
Gatsby worth reading in this day and age in an English class. I argue that yeah, sure, why
not.
The phrasing of that is important. I’m not saying that it should definitely be taught in
an English class, I’m saying that it can be taught well in an English class. Gatsby doesn’t bring
up anything necessary for the learning of English, but it is a well written book that brings
up lots of interesting questions for discussion and writing. From the themes we learned
about, to the ones like time, symbolism, and morality, that we didn’t, Gatsby presents good
questions about all of them that are still just as pertinent today as they were in the 1920s.
Gatsby isn’t the only option for teaching any of these themes. It’s just a pretty good one.
So, should we read Gatsby in 2022? If you want to, yeah, it’s a pretty good book
with some interesting themes. If you don’t want to, no, don’t. There are other options for
teaching things in Gatsby. At the end of the day, it’s all about personal preference. Yeah,
end of essay.

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Part two: What did we miss?

Using your notes, your book, and your own ideas, develop an argument for a theme that should
replace one of our three themes from 2022 (self-knowledge, privilege, and authenticity). What
theme might make for better discussions and essays? Present at least two quotes to support
your argument.

I’ve written about symbolism in my essays before and I’ve spoken about it in class
before. If it isn’t already abundantly clear, I believe that symbolism is an important
theme/concept in Gatsby that is very much worth discussing and learning about. This book
is riddled with symbolism, be it from obscure details like color or obvious signs like the
green light. Talking about symbolism would definitely be worth the time and would be great
for next year’s students to learn about.
Some of the first and last lines in the book have clearly laid out symbolism. On just
the second page, Nick writes, “Gatsby, who represented everything for which I have an
unaffected scorn” and on the last page, he writes “Gatsby believed in the green light, the
orgastic future which year by year recedes before us”. In both of these quotes,
symbolism is used in a clear way. But even the finer subtleties of the book mean
something deeper. As mentioned earlier, color also makes its mark on the book as a vessel
for symbolism. As an example, Myrtle’s death scene is exempt from color descriptions, and
Gatsby’s suits often have their color noted, alluding to more meaning than just attire.
The point I’m trying to make is that there is a lot of symbolism in this book. While I
think that the themes we spoke about are important, I think some of them are less
present than symbolism and could be replaced. Please take this into consideration for next
year. Thank you and good night.

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Video Mini-Portfolio

D’s Note: I was led to believe by colleagues that Shakespeare sucked. It would be funny if right
now I said they were right but truth be told I quite enjoyed reading a work by The Bard of Avon.
I’ll probably read some more in my own time. Little Fires Everywhere was alright I guess, the
plot was eh, but the writing was good. So here’s videos about these two. You might have to
double click a video to get to a place where you can watch it.

There are six short video parts to this portfolio. You should write the script first and then
record. The final product will be a google doc with the videos embedded.

Overview:

One, a recorded performance of a monologue from King Lear.

Two, a poem composed of lines from Lear composed into a poem around a single
theme.

Three, a short video of you discussing a key question this play asks. You will use lines
from the play as well as your understanding of the drama to make your case about why
this question matters and why this play helps.

Four, a short video of you discussing a key question this book asks. You will use lines
from the book as well as your understanding of the text to make your case about why
this question matters and why this play helps.

Five, a short video of you reading and then describing one key quote from the book. You
should think about a quote that opens up the book, that explains it, that helps us
understand a major theme from the book.

Six, a short video with your recommendation as to why someone should read this book
and what it meant to you to read this book alongside King Lear.

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Part one: Monologue from King Lear

Text of monologue: you can use this .pdf if you’d like; paste it here.

Nuncle, give me an egg, and I’ll give thee two crowns.

What two crowns shall they be?
Why, after I have cut the egg i’ th’ middle and eat up the meat, the two crowns of the egg. When
thou clovest thy crown i’ th’ middle and gav’st away both parts, thou bor’st thine ass on thy back
o’er the dirt. Thou hadst little wit in thy bald crown when thou gav’st thy golden one away. If I
speak like myself in this, let him be whipped that first finds it so
Sings.
Fools had ne’er less grace in a year,
For wise men are grown foppish
And know not how their wits to wear,
Their manners are so apish.

Short paragraph: Why this monologue? What work does it do in the play?

I like it. Funi fool. Also it tells about how Lear was unwise to give his kingdom to his daughters.

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Part two: Poem from play

Using the text of the play — you may only use lines from the play, although, if you must, you can
pinch a word here or there from other parts of the play — to build out a poem. The poem must
be at least eight lines, although you can make it as long as you’d like.

1 “I am worse than e’er I was”

2 “The lowest and most dejected thing of Fortune”
3 “Worse than any name”
4 “Worse than brutish”
5 “Worse than murder”
6 “[But] worse I may be yet, the worst is not so long as we can say ‘this is the worst’”
7 “Others are more wicked. Not being the worst, stands in some rank of praise”
8 “Let not my worser spirit tempt me”
9 “These [weeds] are memories of those worser hours”
10 “[I am] not the first who with best meaning incurred the worst”
11 “[Yet] the worst returns to laughter”

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Part three: Key inquiry from the play

Text:
Three, a short video of you discussing a key question this play asks. You will use lines
from the play as well as your understanding of the drama to make your case about why
this question matters and why this play helps.

An important question that Lear asks is “What do you for family?” Every character
seems to answer this question differently, with Edmund, Regan, and Goneril being more
selfish and uncaring of their families, and Cordelia and Edgar forgiving and going back
for their fathers. This even seems to apply to a sort of found family, with Kent and the
Fool going with and helping Lear despite his madness. Kent even says “Royal Lear,
Whom I have ever honored as my king, Loved as my father, as my master followed”
Despite family being such a prominent theme, the word itself is never used in the book.
Pretty interesting stuff I guess.

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Part four (based upon the novel you read)
Your novel:

\
Sideways for some reason

Four, a short video of you discussing a key question this book asks. You will use lines
from the book as well as your understanding of the text to make your case about why
this question matters and why this book helped you to explore it.

I think a question Little Fires Everywhere asks is “What does it mean to live in a
society?” Does it mean following the rules all the time, or does it mean breaking them to
make things better? This is basically what propels the main conflicts of the book, like
with Mrs. Richardson, a strict rule follower, opposed to Mia, an artistic rule breaker, or at
least, a status quo breaker. But even Mrs. Richardson deigns to break the rules to find
out more about Mia. Caught in the middle of this is Mrs. Richardson’s daughter, Izzy,
who because of her sheltered life, has grown up to be a certain rule breaker. She looks
up to Mia, but at the end takes things, in my opinion, too far. All of this makes you really
think about what is right to do in a community.

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Part five:

Five, a short video of you reading and then describing one key quote from the book. You
should think about a quote that opens up the book, that explains it, that helps us
understand a major theme from the book.

Your text:

A good quote from this text is “Later people would say that the signs had been there all
along; that Izzy was a little lunatic, that there had always been something off about the
Richardson family… By then, of course, Izzy would be long gone, leaving no one to
defend her, and people could -and did- say anything they liked.” I think this is a good
quote for showing a major theme of the book being elitism. After something bad
happens with a family, people start talking badly about it, saying they knew all along and
that the people were weird. This theme is more developed later in the book, with people
in Shaker Heights acting elitist and outcasting anyone who doesn’t meet their image of
perfection. A place this is exemplified is when abortion is discussed later on. Anyways
yeah that’s a good quote for showing some of the elitism, and it happens on just the first
page. Definitely a strong theme worth thinking about in the book.

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Part six:

Six, a short video with your recommendation as to why someone should read this book
and what it meant to you to read this book alongside King Lear.
(60 seconds)

Text:

Should you read Little Fires Everywhere? I don’t know, up to you. I think it’s kind of
weird but overall good. I think it’s a good read if you like realistic books with like maybe
a little bit of fantasticality on top, because while it is certainly realistic fiction, it does go a
little over the top on how realistically believable it is. I did enjoy reading Little Fires
Everywhere, though, it was quite well written and the story was strong, despite an
unsatisfying ending.

Read alongside King Lear, I honestly don’t think much was gained. They have a
common theme of family but even that doesn’t connect the two much. I enjoyed both but
I personally didn’t find them to be relatable to each other very much.

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Feature Article

D’s Note: Oh boy! What an uncontroversial subject! Christianity! Try to have an open mind for
this one, eh?

Labyrinth with No Exit

On my birthday this year, I got a letter that I wasn’t
expecting. I didn’t know who it was from, I didn’t recognize the
sender’s name, and the writing was smudged so I couldn’t quite
tell where it was from either. I opened it and immediately
recognized what it was— my sister had gotten a letter just like
this one only a few months before. The church that I was
attending had sent me a birthday card. “Daniel, Wishing you a
happy Birthday filled with God’s Blessings! The priests, people,
and staff of St. John’s”. I should point out that I’m an
atheist, or at the very least agnostic. The only reason I go to
a church at all is because my mom goes, and she makes me go too.
Included with the letter was a little mass schedule, telling me
when daily services were being held. Information that was
completely useless to me, because I didn’t and still don’t care.
What was really surprising is that I got a letter at all.
Recently my family had switched churches, so I had never gotten
mail from a church, let alone something so specified as a
birthday card. All of this made me think about how they even
knew I was attending, and how they knew my birthday. I mean you
have to consider that it is pretty creepy to get a birthday card
from someone you don’t know. So I dug a little and found out
that (I assume it is during a sacrament like baptism or first
communion) you get registered to the church. I don’t know much
about the process, but it’s simple enough to guess that your

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information gets put into a database belonging to the larger
Catholic church. I assume my mother recently changed which
church I was registered to, and that caused me to receive the
letter on my birthday. But beyond that I wondered if there was
an out. I looked up excommunication and was honestly a little
disgusted by what I found out. There is no out. Once you are
baptized there is no getting out of the church. Even
excommunication isn’t true removal from the church, just
temporary banishment, from which someone can return after
repenting. To me, it’s disturbing that I got locked into this
when I was born, I got no choice in the matter, people decided
for me to essentially birth me in the name of a deity I don’t
believe in.
I want to make it clear that I don’t think that anything I
say in this essay reflects every single person of any faith. I
just try and work with what I’ve seen and what I believe is the
opinions or practices of the majority. I also want to say that I
am not an expert in anything discussed here, I just have a lot
of experience with the church, and therefore feel qualified to
discuss it. Finally, I specifically know the most about
Catholicism, so what I say may only apply to that branch of
Christianity, however I will say that many religions in general
face the problems that I point out here. Oh yeah, also I don’t
hate any religion, in fact I’ve been a bit of a staunch defender
of Christianity in the past and still am sometimes. But every
good has its bads and vise versa.
Alright so what’s the big deal? Sure it’s annoying to go to
service of a religion you don’t believe in, and yeah it’s kind
of weird to get a card, but all in all it’s just a minor

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annoyance. The problem is less in what’s happening and more in
what it’s indicative of. A larger problem with not just
Christianity but many other religions as well. Fearmongering.
That’s what a former Chirstian friend of mine said and I’d have
to agree, though I think dogma is likely a better summary word.
Going to church, getting the letter, even just being around
Christians for me invokes a defense mechanism of sorts because I
know that there’s going to be some message about faith. I don’t
have a problem with other people having faith, my problem is
when other people try to force faith onto me. Trying to convince
people to convert to a religion is bad. I understand that these
“recruiters” believe they are helping by saving souls but it’s
really just insulting. By trying to convert someone to another
religion, you are essentially telling them that their perception
of reality is flawed, that they are wrong, and that they should
do what you tell them to do.
As someone who has and still does experience this, it’s
more than annoying, it’s hurtful. Despite my insistence that I
don’t want something, people around me keep telling me to do it,
that I don’t know what I’m talking about, that I’m wrong. It’s
infuriating to not have the option to just say “no”, because no
matter how many times you say it, people will never stop
ignoring you. In Christianity, Jesus is regarded as the good
shepherd and the disciples as his flock. But I don’t want to be
a sheep, and I don’t see why anyone else would want that either.
Being a sheep is bad, it means you are a mindless follower.
Independence is discouraged, and that’s treated like a good
thing.

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 Maybe this has something to do with being a teenager, but
the limiting of independence, the expectation to fall into line
without question, it just really pisses me off. The worst part
is that this isn’t person specific, it’s part of the
institution. That’s just how Christianity and so many other
religions work, they want to “save souls”, but that involves
fear mongering and keeping people in line. The worst part is
that this is going to keep happening. What we call religions are
sometimes no better than cults, indoctrinating children into
them to continue the cycle all over again. Because for every
person like me who sees an out, no matter how small, there are
dozens more who don’t see that out, or don’t get the option to
take it. For as much as I complain about no leaving, at least I
can separate myself from the church, at least I can say I’m an
atheist without getting screamed at.
Despite that, I still have to go to church. I’ve tried to
be adamant about not going. It doesn’t end well. I don’t want to
make my mom sad or upset, I understand she has a lot going on in
life, and I understand that this is a family thing for her, but
it seems no matter what I say she’ll never understand what my
problems are. She goes on the defensive too quickly, and I can’t
blame her because I do the same. But it truly sucks that I can’t
live my own life and fully separate myself from the religion.
Because as much as my mom says she isn’t pushing me to rejoin, I
know that’s what she wants. I know her too well. Like I said
earlier, there is no out. Not in my house, not anywhere in the
world. And I don’t think there ever will be.

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Monologue College Essay

D’s Note: Actually considering using this one for my college essay. It’s about Ice Cream, but
also, it’s not. Told you the P.S. from earlier would be important. I honestly have a hard time
telling whether or not this is good, but I also kinda don’t care.

Ice Cream. This is the question that has guided the evolution of humankind for
thousands of years. You may be thinking “That isn’t a question, that’s a statement, and hardly
one at that.” But I’m here to tell you that you’re wrong and dumb, and that anything is possible
with the power of Ice Cream. I’m also going to tell you that this essay started as a joke. A stupid
joke about Ice Cream. Now it’s something I’ve come to fear.
Ice Cream is a quintessential food. It brings joy to the masses, we have songs for it,
trucks for it, and an uncountable amount of flavors. But what meaning does Ice Cream have,
especially one flavor? When does a food stop being a food? Maybe it doesn’t, because maybe a
truly good essay isn’t about the question or prompt, or even really about the final answer. Maybe
it’s about how the question is answered. If someone asks me “What’s your favorite flavor of Ice
Cream?,” I could say Half-Baked and be done. Or I could document my journey of self-discovery
simply pondering the question and answer.
When you start thinking about a question a lot, you reach a point where you start
questioning the question. At some point you aren’t trying to answer the question anymore,
you’re just questioning the question. For example, maybe this monologue isn’t actually about Ice
Cream at all. Maybe it’s about how I have an assignment that I need to write. Maybe it’s about
making a point. Maybe it’s about being so far into something that there is a sick need to finish it.
And when I got to this point I realized that, I think that the assignment part is most
accurate, but that doesn’t feel like the full story. Every time I think about this assignment, all I
can think about is how I feel like I have no reason to do it. I stopped caring much about my
grades when I realized that I was still getting good ones with minimal effort, and we’re going to
write a second essay anyways that I’ll be much more likely to use or care about. I can’t think of
a genuine reason to care about this one. So I can do stuff like write about Ice Cream or just go
off on a tangent about why I don’t care.
But why should I care? What does caring actually mean, what does it add? If nobody
can tell whether I care or not does it really matter at all? Caring about things isn’t something you
choose, it’s some weird part of being human, and you can’t just change what you do and don’t
care about. I don’t care about this, and I don’t think I ever really will. And to me, not caring, even
if it doesn’t subtract from my work, matters to me. It means what I write will be something I don’t
care about. And I want to care about what I write.
I originally ended this with a stupid joke about how I was actually writing about my least
favorite flavor of ice cream, as my original pitch was writing about my favorite ice cream flavor.
As much as I wish I could still do that, it doesn’t really work now. You can’t always do what you
want to do. And sometimes you have to do things, regardless of whether you want to do them or
not. And as much as I dislike that, it’s a part of life. A part of life that I’m going to keep fighting.
My least favorite flavor of ice cream is strawberry.

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Nonologue College Essay

D’s Note: See it’s funny because it's a Non-Monologue, Nonologue. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. See
at this point mine field of fucks became barren, and I had no more to give. So instead of writing
an essay I wrote something I had already planned on writing around the same time. A backstory
for my latest Dungeons and Dragons character Dana. Now that’s writing!

Dana Hilspun is a succubus originating from the 2nd circle of Hell, Lust. While she
resided in the circle her job was that of many other fiends, corruption and torture of mortals.
Once a mortal was corrupt enough, their soul could be harvested for the abyss and what
remained could become a new fiend. For some mortals, the process was quick, as their soul
was already very corrupt (they were in Hell after all). For other mortals, though they were just in
life, they had committed some deed, or had some flaw that prevented them from going to
Heaven or a neutral afterlife plane. Dana’s very first assigned mortal was one of the latter, a
cleric who had been good in life, but due to her rigid views, especially concerning
homosexuality, was unable to enter heaven. Despite her obviously terrible situation, the Cleric, a
human named Josie, retained faith in her God, and saw this as a test and an opportunity to find
where she had gone wrong and better herself. Due to the nature of Josie’s entrance into Hell,
Dana was tasked with simply spending time with and acting attracted to Josie, a punishment,
and a possibility of corruption via making Josie break her own moral code.
Upon meeting Josie, Dana was fascinated at how strong Josie’s resolve was, and how
ardently she refused to fall for demonic tricks, even if there were none at play. Mostly due to
intrigue, Dana decided to begin the punishment slowly, as to learn more about Josie before
possibly breaking the cleric's will and harvesting her soul. After a few days of no clear tricks or
torture, Josie felt comfortable enough to tell the seemingly friendly demon about her life in
exchange for information about Hell and the nature of Josie being sent there. Josie had been
born into a family serving a dark eldritch God, and was raised her whole life to be prepared to
serve what was essentially a cult. At a certain point, Josie had had the overwhelming feeling
that what was being done was wrong, so she ran away from the cult. Eventually, Josie found a
settlement, but was shunned by those around her due to bearing a mark of the cult. Despite all
this, Josie felt the urge to help the people who shunned her, and became a cleric in service of
the Sun God at the local church. Eventually, she built enough reputation and trust in the town
that they no longer shunned her. One day long after she had arrived, she went with a group of
adventurers to kill the cult where she originated. It was there that she was killed.
To Dana, the story was fascinating, she saw it as someone rejecting the destiny they
were born for, and she felt a strong connection to that idea. Dana had never felt right hearing
about the torture being commited in Hell, despite all the other fiends seeming to enjoy it. Feeling
a strange kinship with Josie, Dana decided to delay the torture further, unbeknowst to the other
fiends. She spent more and more time with Josie under the guise of torture, but really they just
talked, and Dana found herself falling in love with the cleric. To her surprise, Josie had also
found herself falling in love with the kind demon she had met. After admitting their feelings to
each other and sharing a (non-soul stealing) kiss, Josie suddenly found herself being raised to

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Heaven, free of her former sinfulness. Her devotion had been based, and her faith had been
rewarded.
Seeing this as the ultimate form of changing destiny, Dana fled from Hell into the mortal
plane, desiring to become a good creature, and to be seen for more than her original evil
purpose. She acts as a paladin, hoping to one day see her beloved again. But her nature isn’t
so easy to escape…

D’s Final Note: And that’s all she wrote (all pronouns are acceptable)! Well not all but like all in
here. Read it! Or don’t! Doesn’t matter to me! Also like see if you can spot the overarching funny
in these notes. D out!

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