500 Pages of Twilight

As I mentioned a few posts ago, I caved and read Twilight. Yes, the book about teenage vampires. Before I go any further, I want to give you a big SPOILER ALERT!!!!
Not only for Twilight, but also Anne of Green Gables, Pride and Prejudice (though I have no idea how anyone could not know how that one ends), and Crown Duel.

First, I want to cover the good points about the novel (besides the comment about environmentalism I made earlier). Basic premise: girl and vampire fall in love. Vampire has a problem. Edward has given up human blood, but Bella's blood "calls" to him in a way that he has trouble resisting. Also, vampires possess, among other convenient and inconvenient superpowers, amazing strength. Both these facts make it dangerous for Edward to "lose control" when he's with Bella. he flat out tells her that they will never be able to have sex and draws strict physical lines. So the idea of self-control runs strong through the story. In general, the vampires-who-don't-eat-people plotline emphasizes the power of the will over instincts.

Also, at one point in the story, Edward tells Bella about when he reverted to humans for food. He explains that he only hunted the guilty. This move keeps Edward's character pure enough for readers to continue to like him, but it also provides an interesting moral lesson: he gave up hunting humans, because even taking the lives of the guilty took its toll.

There's the good. Here's the rest:

It took me a chapter or two to figure out why the book was hard for me to read. If I took a red pen to Meyer's pages, I could cut down on about 200 of the 500 pages by slashing out unnecessary adjectives and adverbs, along with repetitive descriptions. After being told the temperature of Edward's skin the first 10 times he touches Bella, I've it figured out. I don't need it again. And it didn't take 10 times for me to be sick of his "crooked smile" and "smoldering eyes." I realize things can smolder for a long time, but I'm fairly certain that after 500 pages, any other fire would either have burst into full flame or died. An author can use glances and smiles very effectively: take Jane Austen in Pride and Prejudice, for example. Elizabeth and Darcy have discourses via smiles and looks. But Austen employs them subtly and judiciously.

In fact, I find the comparison between P&P and Twilight insulting to Austen. I would draw a closer parallel with Anne of Green Gables, at least for the Anne-Gilbert storyline. Anne is a ridiculous, over-dramatic girl who can't escape the fact that she and Gilbert are meant for each other. But, unlike Meyer, L.M. Montgomery does this fantastic literary trick through which she gives the hero personality. I didn't expect much from Twilight, but I did expect to fall a little in love with Edward Cullen. Alas, the 11-18 year-old female population has fallen for a man with no personality.

Don't worry though; Meyer has equal problems with her female lead. My apartment-mate last year came home from a creative writing class with a rule: never write from the perspective of the victim. Meyer broke this rule with Bella. Bella has zero agency. She doesn't do anything. In the entire novel she makes 2 decisions, one at the beginning (to move to Forks where she meets Edward) and one at the end (to go to the ballet studio where she nearly dies). Other than that, Edward sweeps her off her feet everywhere and controls everything. Besides the anti-feminist vibes and the dangerous lessons about boundaries, this just isn't interesting to read.

In the "you got it right" category, I hold up Crown Duel, by Sherwood Smith. While not a literary masterpiece, it provides a fun read, because everything that happens directly results from the actions of the teenage heroine. Despite being held prisoner for the majority of the book, she runs the action. In the case of Twilight, Edward calls the shots and has the intriguing internal conflict. A vampire who can't feed on people? A young man who can barely kiss a girl without killing her? A person who thinks he will be the cause of his true love's death? I want to go inside his head! Why are we kept out? That's where the real story resides.

Maybe because I'm not in anyone valuable's head, I have one final critique: I just don't care. Bella values love between her and Edward as the Supreme Good, and frankly I'm not convinced. Call me a cynic (I am) but True Love just doesn't motive me that much. And Meyer never convinced me that Edward + Bella = more than a high school romance. As a result, the whole story comes off as a high school romance thrown out of proportion and Bella as reckless and selfish.

I could have a lot more to say, but I tried to keep this commentary literarily focused; anything else to add would be rant. If you desire cultural literacy, consider Twilight. If not, that's 500 pages of your life you can never get back.

We Hold These Truths...

"...to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Easy, right? The Declaration of Independence (not the first sentence, which begins, "When in the course of human events..."), Thomas Jefferson, the Enlightenment, all that good stuff. They were passionate on these things called "rights" at that point in time.

We still care about them. It only makes sense. But in my final year at William and Mary, I began to ask myself the simple question: from where do rights originate and for whom do they exist?

The Declaration of Independence states quite clearly that the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness come from a higher authority and exist for everyone. Okay. Most people would agree on the first count: you have the right to life unless you do something awful enough to forfeit it. Now people will define "life" differently and have different ideas on what might cause forfeiture, but there's general consensus to an extend. For example, most people do not consider shoplifting as forfeiting right to life. Same thing goes for liberty, with more nuanced ideas about what causes forfeiture. Pursuit of happiness... I don't have a 100% firm grasp on what good ol' TJ meant by this, so I'm going to leave it for a moment.

We recognize rights outside those three. Freedom of speech, assembly, religion; the right to a speedy trial; freedom from torture; racial, gender, etc non-discrimination. Here, it's less clear where they originate. God? The government? The UN? Common consensus?

I started asking these questions in relation to my immigration courses, because of the related question: Who holds these rights? Citizens? Human beings? Resident aliens? Native-born citizens? Adults? People?

I found myself asking the same questions about social rights in a different contexts. Unlike the political and human rights listed above, social rights are more disputed in US society. Do we have a right to health care? It's a hot debate. What about an education? I would argue that we more or less recognize the right to an education. Hence, all these public schools.

Working at a school filled with children from low-income homes, the question of who holds the right to an education becomes crucial. Enrollment in the school depends on payments; payments depend on Mama and Daddy. Success in school depends on regular attendance. Transportation to and from school depends on Mama and Daddy. In getting ready for the school year, I kept thinking about a hypothetical child who wants this education very badly, but whose parents don't put in the same effort.

Who has the right to an education? The parent, or the child? Especially when it comes to scholarship money -- who should be awarded the scholarship and given the responsibilities necessary to maintain it? Does this change public versus private? (We're a "Catholic" school.)

(On a slight side note, this pertains to the question of immigration a little too -- should we care about a child's parents to enroll the child in school? Should there even be a question of "do the children of undocumented workers get to attend public school?)

Miss Z

That's what the kids call me. I told some of them my last name, they made a face -- you expect us to say what?! -- and that was that. I became Ms. Z from day one.

I haven't really had a "typical day" yet, because various parts of school just haven't started yet. Monday's schedule was all turned around; Tuesday was still slightly confused. Now we're more into the swing of things, but none of "ancillary" classes (what we called "specials" when I was in school) have started yet, so we have an awkward hour each day.

But, hypothetically, should a typical day happen, here's what it would look like:

• Get to school around 7:30. Settle my things, talk to other teachers, maybe watch the students play outside.
• Help everyone get to their classroom without killing/injuring their classmates.
• Collect papers to be copied/attendance from teacher. Make copies for the next hour/chat with whomever is in the office.
• Poke into whichever classroom needs me. Or, sit and observe the English teacher.
• Lunch/free time/awkward hour. My break generally comes in here.
• Practice math test. Look stern, hand out papers, and say, "If there is any talking in this room, I will take your paper and you will receive a zero." Stalk through the room, glaring at the slightest sound. I have never seen more whispering and blatant answer sharing than on the first day, so I am mean.
  
• Break.
• "Extended day" = extra time for school. It's part of the "Nativity Model."
• Lead a reading group, with the help of Ana. I try to make this time as interactive as I can while still having some sort of consistency with the other reading groups. Sometimes we have sit-down-and-work-silently time, however, because they won't listen.
• Lead MUN or supervise tutors from local high schools for the second "elective" block of the extended day.
• Send them all home, find Ana, and bolt.
  

First Day

Today, school started. I arrived to work at the unholy hour of 7:30am and remembered why I was always tired at school. The first day, at least, I had enough adrenaline from nerves to keep me awake the entire day. I might give my self a headache and a stomachache, but I would not fall asleep!

I ended up spending most of today in one of three places: the 8th grade room, observing; the office, making copies; and the basement, signing students up for electives. I did take a brief excursion to the kindergarten room to return some students to their class when a slight scuffle broke out among them. The child had some violent tendencies and some violent words, and the worst of it is that his sort of behavior doesn't come from a vacuum. For a kindergartner to say and do what this child said and did, he must have learned it somewhere. It breaks my heart.

Other than that, I am still processing today. I came to know again that middle school students are old enough to think, but young enough for my age to lend some semblance of authority. Boys are show-offs, girls have some 'tude. I have no idea how this year will go, but I at least know what my students look like.

Also, I realized again how much I love reading, writing, grammar, and all the fun language arts bits and pieces. I'm excited for these students to learn English! Whether they want to or not.

Once again, thank you xkcd.com. And please read the mouse-over, especially if you are related to me.

Panda Jokes

I just finished reading Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation (Lynne Truss). I can't believe it took me this far into life to read it. It is a must-add to my library.

Aside from offering me my favorite quote about punctuation ("There are people who embrace the Oxford comma and people who don't, and I'll just say this: never get between these people when drink has been taken."), Truss presented punctuation in a manner that made me proud to be what she called a "stickler." I have to admit, so many of the jokes hit home with me that I didn't understand how it became a best-seller. If there are so many people who enjoy this book, how can so many grammatical mistakes exist? Truss's voice and her humor probably draw in more readers than her subject matter of different approaches to commas and apostrophes on poles.

Although I am decently acquainted with the rules of punctuation that Truss discussed, I did not find the book reiterative; its purpose was to describe punctuation, rather than dictate its usage. If some of that description comes in the form of where quotation marks out to be placed, so be it. I have fun learning that colons used to be set apart with extra spaces (like this : see?) or that Henry Denham (a 16th century printer) wanted to use the mirror image of a question mark to indicate a rhetorical question. And while Truss has a thing for apostrophes, I am conducting a no-longer-so-secret love affair with the semicolon. She bemoans its falling from style; I rejoice whenever I can use one, while trying very very hard not to overuse them.

Truss ends her book crying doom for punctuation and blaming it on the Internet/texting. I generally get fed up with Doomsday predictions, but in this case, she tempered it with enough appreciation for descriptivism that I could stomach it. I am more than ready to join her army of Sharpie-armed punctuation vigilantes and might have to write a grammatical-based sequel to train my followers.