Getting booed by a class of thirteen-year-old girls only required four words from me: “I didn’t like Twilight.” The clamor subsided once I launched into some logical reasons behind the choice: Bella is a poor role model for young girls, too weak, cliché, and simple-minded to be inspiring or interesting. Likewise, the other characters’ motivations and development are as ridiculous as a polar bear on roller skates. In fact, I
And still, it moves. The great man knew. He couldn’t let go of the naked truth of its scope, its beauty, but worship science? The powers will not have it; the solution: cognitive dissonance. Galileo. Like him, I know. He knew the center: Solitary and unworshipped by nature- roughed out of bonds by obvious revolutions; no soul, no sin, no hell: conflict unmasked. The Middle Way. Active, boundless, released from
For those unfamiliar with the show, to better read this article, this is the way The Voice works: A singer comes out onto a stage, and the four Voice coaches have their chair backs to the singer. The singer has 90 seconds to give the coaches a reason to turn their chairs. Once one coach turns his or her chair, the singer is no longer an auditioner, and becomes
Juliana believed in monsters. She believed in the one under her bed, the one in the closet, and the one under the stairs. Happily, she also had a mother who could knew how to handle monsters. “Juliana,” she said. “Give all of the monsters names, and then they can’t hurt you.” Juliana named the monster under the bed Mr. Scaredy-cat, the one in the closet Mr. Snagglepuss, and her sister,
Caves, shadows, and rings. In his 1955 article for his high school newspaper, The Spectrum, Hunter S. Thompson wrote that “Security” was “another word for rut.” From what I have seen in my 10 years of higher education and 3+ years of teaching anywhere from 11 year-olds to 65 year-olds, I have found the most common “rut” is not in the secure job, nor the secure, boring middle class life, but
Welcome to Emily’s Corner. This is a corner of the world you have not seen before because it only exists in my head: a place my inner Mom sends me when my thoughts are too much to handle and I need a time-out. While it’s not a hard corner you’d be afraid to bump into every time you come into the living room, and it’s not a corner you turn where something
