Coursework Piece Two & Bibliography - A Parody of a Playscript

Angelica King, The Card Game Never Ends

(2013)

Scene Two

The bell for the start of next lesson has faded. The corridors have finally emptied, apart from one or two students making a late commute to their next lesson. EUNICE is waiting impatiently at the top of a quiet staircase, nowhere near any classrooms. STEVE walks along the corridor and past the stairs EUNICE is on and stands behind her whilst she unknowingly continues to ignore his presence by looking at the nails on hand, whilst her chin laid in the palm of the other.

Steve: [He leans his left shoulder on the wall behind her, faces her back and clears his throat.] I'm here now... did you miss me? [Smirking.]

Eunice: [Drops her hand but doesn't turn to him. Speech starts of normal in tone, volume and speed but gradually gets slower and quieter.] I missed you during our free period, but now, not so much. I called... nothing. I texted... nothing. I looked for you in the usual places and surprise, surprise. Nothing.

Steve: Did you want to meet up with me, or tell the whole universe that we're together and spending every moment in just that way?

Eunice:[She cocks her head towards where is his and then completely turns towards him slowly. She moves to face the opposing banister she is leaning against, bends her legs at the knees and folds her arms underneath. First, her chin rests on her knees and then she turns her head towards him and moves her head.] It wouldn't seem like that if you would just spent some time with me.

Steve: What about Stella and that crazy sister of her’s, can't you stay and hang with them?

Eunice: You're missing the point. I didn't want to spend time with them two - I wanted to be with you. Anyway, those two went off to some fancy place for lunch, after all Stella hasn't seen Blanche in ages.

[PABLO and MITCH see STEVE in the hallway. About to interrupt their friend and EUNICE, they see the conservation and wait, listening in on the happy couple. They creep closer to the couple, PABLO attached himself to MITCH's back.]

Eunice:[Moves her head towards PABLO and MITCH and thinks they have been there the whole time.] What are you pigs doing here, haven't you got some silly card game to get to with Stanley?

[PABLO and MITCH look at each other, still as stone, only their eyes moving. They then sharply look at STEVE and then back each other, avoiding contact with EUNICE.]

Eunice: [Getting irritated with all the boys.] Well…

Mitch: We’re not playing right now Eunice, well we were meant to... but, Steve didn't show. It as actually meant to be right now. Anyway. we were just scouting the corridors and then we found you two. We weren't listening to you two talking if that's what you think. Honest we weren't we just got here. Honest.

Pablo: [Interrupts.] Yeah… that and Mitch got a Facebook message from that blonde that was talking to Steve today in Maths... [MITCH slapped PABLO across the back of his head and STEVE suddenly froze in front of his girlfriend whilst she stared at him as she slowly stood up and moved towards him.)

Eunice: BLONDE!?!

Steve: [Moves away from EUNICE and towards his friends.] That's not what Pablo meant... he's just messing with you, messing with me.

Eunice: This better not be the same blonde who tried to make eyes at you when we first hooked up, is it?

Steve: There was no blonde before, you're just paranoid and nervous because we just started dating.

Eunice: I suggest you guys leave about now, before I start yelling and we disrupt the lessons going on around here.

Mitch: [whispering to PABLO.] And I thought Stanley was bad.

Pablo: But Stanley's not the cheating type, really. He can be... rough around the edges, especially with Stella, but they're new. But talk spreads fast around here and if he heard what we was saying he'll have us, so I suggest you zip it and quick.

[MITCH nodded in agreement and the two head off down the corridor towards a different building.]

Steve: [Yelling after his friends.] Thanks you guys. [Turning back to EUNICE.] I know you won't make a scene, you'll just walk off. But if you're feeling bad you can just give me a kiss... [He pouts and leans towards EUNICE who presses the palm of her hand into his lips.]

Eunice: I know better than to leave you alone, you'll just go off, find the others and play that stupid card game, over and over and over...

Bibliography:
Parodying "A Streetcar Named Desire"

Coursework Piece One & Bibliography - Magazine Article on Science

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A Breakthrough in Cryogenic Technology. Futurama may not just be a TV Sitcom after all.

By Angelica King / October 25, 2013 9:00 pm

http://www.tvfanatic.com/quotes/shows/futurama/episodes/space-pilot-3000/

Get ready to have your socks blown off. Researchers today are getting closer to reversing the effects of cryopreservation of human and animal life - put simply, unfreezing dead humans so they can live forever in the future without their frozen cells bursting in the thawing phase. However, this is not a new idea, as it was first introduced in the 1960’s but it was not until recently that scientists have tried to reverse the process. How could anybody come up with such an idea? “I accidentally ran over my neighbour’s cat. Oh no, what to do, what to do? I know, I’ll stuff him into my freezer and wait until somebody comes up with a way to unfreeze him, bring him back to life and give him back to my neighbour. But for now, goodbye Mr. Whiskers, you will be missed. Now if you could do that with humans too so we could live forever that would be awesome. What’s that smell?” Wait a minute - no way… that means scientists have been freezing over 200 people since the 60’s without a known reversible process and enough evidence to show this theory could be falsified!

This may seem like quite a simplistic idea, but the way the web has documented the information, you and I can now look forward to our own customized cryogenic tubes that will keep us frozen until the day in which we live on a planet completely submerged in water. However, most can argue that we’re no closer to this futuristic fallacy. Surprisingly, the media seems to have thrived off of quote from scientists such as Sir Arthur C. Clark (who invented the communications satellite) who said that “Although no one can quantify the probability of cryonics working, I estimate it is at least 90% - and certainly nobody can say it is zero.” The media should have taken Groening’s word that Futurama will exist in the near future. Can we really blame people for their skepticism on the controversial topic? After all Back to the Future predicted that we’d have flying cars by now, but instead we have rubber bands shaped like different kind of animals.

What Clark thought, along with many other scientists, was that we shouldn't be so pessimistic about the research. Usually, the procedure requires clients to be deceased for only for a few minutes as it requires a fresh corpse so that there is a lower risk of ice formation taking place on the body. It is actually the brain which needs to be crucially protected as it is stores every useful and useless piece of information and controls the rest of the body. That explains why there are so many talking heads in jars of liquid on every episode of Futurama.  

To freeze someone, without causing too much damage through chemical and enzymatic activity, scientists have to coat them with special, specific protectants but research has shown that some of these protectants can have toxins in them that can effect the bodies, so scientists are looking for other ways to do the freezing, which is less damaging to the body, along with coming up with a reversible technique.   

Bibliography:

“Futurama” - Matt Groening’s TV Sitcom

Image - http://www.tvfanatic.com/quotes/shows/futurama/episodes/space-pilot-3000/

Cryonics and related information and facts etc - Wikipedia

Cryogenic Tubes - Futurama Wiki

Sir Arthur C. Clark Quote - http://www.alcor.org/notablequotes.html

Back to the Future - Film Franchise
For Future Use in Article - http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/genetic/cryonics.htm
The Magazine's Logo & Links to other Articles - Discover Magazine

Twitter Article

Twitter: Just 140 characters of Facebook

With whispers circulating about Twitter getting good, I thought I might investigate

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By Angelica King

Monday 14th October, 2013

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Twitter turns everyone into a bird brain begging to be followed. Photograph: www.sweetbenannasam.com

Why bother tweeting? That was my response to the so called growing social network. Lets face facts, twitter is just facebook stripped of everything but the status and applied a strict word count, allowing the world to unlearn how to spell and use non standard grammar that would make any english teacher want to tear their hair out (unless they’re already bald).

And I know that I’m not the only person who would agree with me, Steven Johnson said that the social site has made a “terrible first impression”. Twitter is the reason why the people around me consider “sry” an apology, think that all their “followers” are interested to know about what they are doing every minute of every single day in 140 characters and that #yolo is the perfect excuse as to why we should do stupid things continuously.

That leads me on to my next point, I don’t think I could ever forgive twitter for introducing #hashtags. They are unnecessary, unnatural, unsophisticated from the perspective of the english language. They’re also incredibly tacky.

I think we should just stick to facebook before all social networks become one. I think I’m about to use up my characters #cyalateralligator

Travel Writing

Almost in a blink of an eye I was there... in Cebu. Is there any soul on this Earth who believes there is a more packed yet picturesque city deep within the heart of a cluster of Islands that make up the country of the Philippines? Cebu is not technically the heart of this country as it is not the capital city, that's Manila, but to me it is the heart of the country because it was where my mother previously resided. Having to cope with the immediate change from experiencing streets filled transport to the tranquil houses that are tucked away from the noise by giant coconut trees, at first was challenging, is now refreshing to be part of all these different ways of life within a colourful city. The religious aspects make up the soul of Cebu - churches, pilgrimages, statues - although the beaches have nothing to do with religion they are particularly divine. I guess there are many cities that never sleep and Cebu is definitely one of those cities, but when the people get home they enjoy a meal together, extended family and all - which is typically chicken - indulge in fresh mango and coconuts for dessert, and when as the sun goes down finish a long day with prayers and get ready to start all over again.

A School’s Seating Arrangement: Why we keep our place and not wander across the educational battlefield

A School’s Seating Arrangement: Why we keep our place and not wander across the educational battlefield

I’m perplexed as to why we sit the way we do throughout a typical school day with different seats at different occasions – it’s like your personal demon and angel on your shoulder has been replaced by the cool kid and the nerd

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Angelica King

The Guardian, Monday 7 October 2013

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High School Musical, teaching kids to break away from their inner nerd and sit with the popular kids. Photograph: http://www.hsmespanol.com/Translations.htm

I’m guessing my reader, (just the one reader, never plural) will be wondering why I’m writing such a pointless article on the unwritten, stereotypical code of eating and seating in very typical schools. Well, I’ll tell you this. Nothing is ever pointless unless it is an unsharpened pencil.

As an aside, I am aware that this article has been done time and time again, making no effort to please the audience of one so feel free to make like a fish and swim away. So I’m giving you the opportunity not to take the bait and move on to the next hooking column you come across.

Anyway, It’s not that I have an issue with seating arrangements in school. Coincidentally, I find it very convenient as it stops some little guys just making a fool of themselves by getting wounded by a soldier from a different side and getting sent back to camp to recuperate. My general wonderment comes from the idea that these set places are done subliminally through ourselves. We don’t get told to sit at the back of the classroom, learn nothing, get detention a record number of times a week. Of course not. We subconsciously choose to sit at the front of the class, make small talk with the teacher and remind everyone there was work due in that lesson. Guess where I used to fit into this brutal hierarchy?

If on your first day you fall into the trap of constantly putting your hand up and being the quietest in the class, you may have just marked yourself for the whole of your secondary school life. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think for a second being part of the popular crowd gets you anywhere in life other than wishing you paid attention in school and not planned on getting smashed on the Sunday, perfect for the next day, like Monday’s weren't bad enough. There’s stigma attached to all these different stereotypical cliches and I guess it depends on whether you want to be loved by everyone in that moment or be thankful in the future. These conflicts occur in all of us, everyday we could remember where social groupings led the world. Everyday students make the choice to waft between the sides and be labelled a traitor by which ever side you originally chose. Is it really worth it to get 50 likes on your profile picture, 10 new messages, 15 new friend requests and God only knows how many re-tweets. Soon enough it just becomes a feud between the nerds and the cool people, the smarties and the cool guys; soon enough the battlefield is drawn and on one side are the goodie two shoes lot and the never any good gang. I feel like I should be waving a white flag in surrender as I feel the feud split the whole of Earth into two separate hemispheres.

Perhaps it’s not a good idea for me to bring about these unresolved issues from my unconscious to brew in my reality and allow my one reader to go through the same thing as they judge me. In the spirit of school life, “break time”!

Nowadays, I don’t feel that it’s quite as big of an issue as I may make out it to be as the next generation seem to have one major thing in common… technology. Every single soul glued to a laptop, mobile, any if not all of those Apple products. Remember when that just used to be fruit and not a brand.

But in TV Shows and films I never fully understood their grasp on the grouping system. I mean Goths, Punks, Cheerleaders, Football Players. There’s just too many groups and too many of them. The list just continues on for ever, similar in the way that this article seems to not want to come to an effortless closing. I fail to see the point of these groups. Sure, everybody has their own rules and they all end up with similar interests but I believe humans are much more complicated than just one label, what I’m trying to say is that child who sleeps at the back of the class, there’s more to them than just sleepy, the dwarf that ran away from home.

I think that’s all on the subject. Now go swim back to your school before they leave without you.

Unreliably Narrated Monologues

Style Model
I can’t believe that cop! Arresting my baby just like that in front of his own home! Doesn't he know that that boy is my son? My son! And the stuff they've accused him of… well, it’s just ridiculous. How could they say that he stole that man’s car and then led the police on a chase down Lake Shore Drive? My baby’s only 14.  He doesn't know how to drive! And he’s the most angelic boy, not like my sister’s child who talks back with a mouth worse than a sailor. No, sir, my boy, he’s respectful. Why, just last week when he was leaving the house after dinner, I reminded him that he needed to take out the garbage (because he’s always forgetting things like that). And he did it, no grumbling, no eye rolling, he just did it like the sweet boy he is. And he’s always been like that, like looking after me when my feet were acting up and I could barely walk. He was always ready to fetch me some water from the kitchen when he was around and not out with his friends. So sweet, telling me that he loves me, that he couldn't have any better momma in the world. My baby’s no criminal!

My Piece
How dare you! The nerve of you! How could you let her gallivant off to Oxford for University! Do you have no clue at how stupid that girl is? I don't care if she's your daughter by "blood". She's rightfully mine, do you hear me? How is she creative? All she ever does is doodles in her books, scribbles of chick scratch in her notepads, graffiti-ed her bedroom wall. Who would call her an "artist"? If she was good at anything I'm guessing it's sport, at least some form of physical activity because she showed me she can fit through the gaps in the fence. And another thing, if she was so bright she would remember to buy food to fill up the fridge, I may be her mother but she needs to grow up and learn to do it herself, especially if I'm not around. She won't survive in that place is she can never clean the house, get the food, find her way home if I forget to tell her I'm not going to be able to do it. All of her friends tell me she has an eating disorder but I told them she looks fine but I would never tell them that I honestly think she looks a little chubby. We may have a difficult relationship and argue all the time and she may call me a terrible mother and sometimes I don't see her for days but believe me when I say this... she loves me, not you. I know her, genetics don't mean a thing.