Once Upon A Time

When I think of a children's story, I think of a plot in which everything is perfect or ends happily. From the moment you read the words "once upon a time" you just know that the story will end "happily ever after". In this story, the author played with these two phrases common to many children's stories. It was mentioned repeatedly that "the husband and wife and little boy and cat and dog lived happily ever after". However, to say this is rather ironic. While the little boy and his pets may be carefree, the husband and wife appear paranoid and far from happy, resorting to extreme precautions to keep their family safe and their minds at ease. In fact, they are so obsessed with being safe in the growing disorder of the society they live in that it comes back to haunt them. They have "DRAGON'S TEETH" installed, convinced that it will keep any and all intruders from coming on to their property, therefore keeping their family and belongings safe. However, ironically, their son, who was too young to know better, still ended up being harmed by the sharp blades that surrounded their home. Determined to play the role of the prince "who braves the terrible thicket of thorns to enter the palace and kiss the Sleeping Beauty back to life", he attempts to crawl through the jagged edges of the protective fencing, only to endure a large quantity of pain originally designated for an intruder.

One thing that I observed in the story was that the husband and wife kept installing new protective devices to their home, even though nothing actually happened to their family personally. No criminal sawed through the iron bars on their windows, nor did they attempt to climb over the seven-foot wall that surrounded their home. However, they just couldn't resist adding more and more to increase their comfort, but it is apparent in this story that more isn't always the better option. Deep down, I also sense that all these "safety precautions" reflected the racism that existed during the period the short story was written in. It was implied early on in the story that "people of another color" were "not allowed into the suburb", and that it was not safe to associate with another race of people, unless they were deemed "reliable". Perhaps, all of the equipment installed was there for a reason more than simply to protect from criminals. Perhaps it was also there to shelter the family from encounters with these "people of another color".

First posts, whee!

This is the blog I'll be using for English 12 online. I'm taking English online this year because I find it is better for me to learn this way. Also, I took English 11 online last year, and liked how it worked, so I figured I would do English 12 the same way. I'm also taking another online course, Introductory Korean 11, and I'll be starting that next week. :)

As for describing myself... that's hard. I'm a pretty energetic, happy, optimistic, and hard working person. Some of my hobbies are reading (Twilight series!), going online, writing fanfiction, and immersing myself in Chinese/Japanese/Korean culture as much as possible. ;) I'm pretty obsessed with everything Asian, so I hope to major in Asian Studies in university next year! ^^