Okay so I was looking over the short stories and I think the one that left me with the most questions was "Ligeia" by Edgar Allen Poe. For one, I was wondering what that verse she read before she died actually means. I'm sure it has some sort of foreshadowing for how she was brought back to life or at least that it was going to happen, but I did not really understand it. Also, I was wondering why he married Rowena if he hated her so much. Maybe it's just me but if you don't like someone, how about you don't marry them? That was just one of those less pressing questions. One of the bigger questions I had was what the red fluid in the wine was. I feel like it's connected to how Ligeia came back or maybe he was just hallucinating since he was so high on opium.  The part that really tripped me up was how Rowena kept dying and then coming back to life. Why not just die and have Ligeia come back? It was just sort of confusing. I also wanted to talk about how unreliable the narrator is. He's on opium! Even he says "I was wild with the excitement of an immoderate dose of opium." I mean what if he imagined the whole thing and then he comes down from his high and neither Ligeia and Rowene were real and he's just an old cat-lady? or cat-man I guess. Regardless, this story was the one that confused me the most, but it was still just as interesting as the rest perhaps because it was so confusing.

Best Short Story EVER! (that I've read in the last week)

Out of the six short stories we had to read this last week, I think I liked The Werewolf the best. As I was reading it I felt like it was just a strange twist on the little red riding hood story, but much more intense. The whole idea about a young female trying to walk to her grandmothers house is similar to the other story. Also, the fact that she was approached by a wolf while she is on a trail is a common trait between the two stories. One way that this story differs from The Little Red Riding Hood is that the young woman fought back against the wolf and in all honesty, she kicked butt. The whole grandma aspect also resembled The Little Red Riding Hood, but in this case the woman gets stoned to death. It's sort of upsetting at the end how they say that the girl prospers living in her grandmothers house. Regardless of being a werewolf, it's still kind of frustrating that she's happy living in the house of her grandmother whose death she basically caused. Another difference that I can think of between this girl and red riding hood is their preparedness to what happens. In red riding hoods case, she doesn't really know what's going on so she doesn't really have a way to fight back with the werewolf. In this story however, she is prepared by all the superstitions she grew up listening to so she knows that dangerous creatures reside in that forest. In the end I think I liked this story better than Red Riding Hood. Hooray for creepy stories about old people's limbs being cut off!

Buffy: The Vampire Slayer


This is the topic that me and my group had to do our final girl presentations on. When I started this I had no idea how interested I would become. I am now a Buffy fanatic to say the least. I wanted to talk about her as a final girl although we are presenting on this just to voice my own opinions. For one, she completely breaks the final girl stereotype. Final girls are supposed to be braver than their male companions. This is one aspect in which she fits the stereotype. Xander is her male friend who, let's not kid ourselves, is kind of a dweeb in the first couple episodes. She is definitely braver than him and he senses it which makes him nervous in a couple episodes because while she's off fighting crime, he's just sort of sitting there..being Xander.

Another aspect of the final girl is that they are supposed to not be sexually active. She breaks this boundary because in one of the episodes she has sex with Angel (a dreamy vampire who was given his soul back because of a curse some gypsies gave him). Although this is so, she is a sort of exception because in the first couple episodes, although she is lonely she rejects male attention. One example of this is Xander and how he is in completely love with her but she blows him off. Also this is seen by how Owen (a random human) wants to keep dating her for a life of adventure, she blows him off too. She knows that she can't be in a relationship while also being a dedicated slayer (of course this all goes out the window when she meets angel).

Another trait of a final girl is their boyish or unisex name. (Sam..I think I'd make a great final girl, no?) Buffy on the other hand is practically the girliest name out there..other than like Madeline or something. Not only this, but she's a cheerleader. I get the feeling that final girls are supposed to be tom-boyish but she's not. In fact she's quite the opposite. In the early episodes she's really just an average teenager(apart from having burned down a school gym full of vampires) who wants to date(even though she knows she shouldn't , worries about her appearance, and deals with things like "do these pants make me look fat?".

One other way that she does fit the stereotype is that she utilizes the gaze. Not only does she herself look for vampires, but she looks at them as she kills them. She is the one that reduces them to nothing.

Passing. This is a big thing in this series because it happens so often. Buffy looks like an ordinary girl which means that vampires have no idea that shes the chosen one. One vampire who is fighting her even says that he expected her to be bigger. It always works to the vampires advantage because they can have a normal face but when their vampire side emerges, their faces contort to show who they are. This works for them because they can walk around looking like normal humans while really they are looking for prey. This is shown by when a vampire leads willow away towards a graveyard and only when his face changes does she realize she's in danger. In one specific episode this is shown by way of the anointed. The anointed is supposed to be someone who will help Master escape from underground and will defeat the slayer. Instead of being a big, buff guy, the anointed ends up being an innocent looking little boy. No one will ever suspect him of being the one to help bring about the end of the world.

Colonialism is also portrayed in this series but not on Buffy's side. Master, a vampire who is trapped underground, wants to escape so he can basically take over the world.

And that, my friends, is the awesomeness of Buffy.

I've been meaning to talk about that game we played during the last class. "I'm Not a Vampire!". Just like when we played the zombie game, I really enjoyed that class. This is so not only because of the fact that we missed actual work to play the game, but also because the game somewhat resembled what would happen in real life were we in Dracula's time and maybe even now. What we saw throughout the game was that you really can't trust anyone, but yourself because in time of desperation people turn on each other. This was evident by how sometimes the most innocent looking people were vampires and by how we had no idea who the vampire could be but we still lynched one person per day on a whim. Sometimes the person to be lynched was decided because of reasons as simple as "she's too quiet".Although we really had no idea who it was, we accused each other without trying to reason out who it could or could not be. As the game progressed though, we started to pick up on clues such as that the two people who did not accuse each other were probably the vampires. Also, we saw that the person to speak up first was named a vampire because if not, they would be more weary to accuse others. This seems to me like it would actually happen in real life because it would be strange for someone to call someone out without any evidence. On the other hand, people may be too scared to speak up for loss of status or losing their reputation. In the end, the game was genuinely entertaining while also teaching us about society's response to vampire attacks.

Dracula

So, I'm not completely done with this book yet but from what I have read, it's pretty interesting. I don't know why but I actually expected him to walk around in the book wearing a cape. What I liked about this book was that it went straight into the action. Most of the other books that we read like Frankenstein have a really slow introduction which makes it less appealing to the readers because they don't bother getting past it. Dracula on the other hand immediately begins with how Harker is kept captive by Dracula and how he starts to discover how evil the vampire really is. I thought it was interesting how they focused so much on women's sexuality. For example, Lucy is the more sexual one who is praised for her out of the ordinary beauty. Coincidentally, she is also the one to be turned into a vampire and die at the hands of her closest male companions. This is so because of men's fear of losing control. Women are supposed to be the ones who behave and listen to what their husbands tell them to do; however, in the case of a female vampire it is the women who control the men. When men feel this lack of control, they feel the need to destroy. Not only is this so, but also Lucy's sexuality leads to her demise. By being sexually open and seductive, she is violating the code of conduct from that time period where women were supposed to be innocent and pure. On the opposite side of the spectrum is Mina. Not only is she innocent and pure, but she is also very obedient and submissive. She does everything she can to support her husband and not do anything to make him angry. This seems to correlate to the fact that she was the woman who did not die.

Creepy Zombie Game

Honestly, today was one of the best classes we've had so far. Although we started off sort of awkwardly and without really knowing what to do, I think it transitioned into not only a fun game, but also one that shows that things like The Zombie Survival Guide aren't completely made up. By this I mean that what the book said actually applied to a "real life scenario". For example, the idea of inversion completely applied. The places you would want to be at and the people that you would generally trust, like the government, are inverted and are the ones that you should avoid. For example, although in zombie apocalypses people hope for the government to come and save them, in our case it was the government who reinforced our death. This is true not only for the ones who tried to run down the approach and got shot at, but also for me and Jonathan and the others who trusted the CDC and ended up being kidnapped and having to live in labs. Another thing that we saw which was predicted in our reading is that we should avoid public places because mobs are formed. When we were in Carnegie and we were all in the hall, the fights started and Kyle got left behind because he was trapped in the back of the group. Another big thing that I found interesting about the game was that some people are capable are adapting quickly while others are not. We had to learn to adapt not only in the game, but also adapt to the type of exercise. Today I learned adaptability is crucial for survival during a zombie apocalypse and also for a good participation grade in Lit.

The Zombie Survival Guide was one of the most interesting works of literature I’ve read so far in this class. I actually found myself wondering whether the virus that they said caused the zombie outbreak was real, but then I realized I was being stupid. Regardless, I thought it was fun to read because it transported me to a world where a zombie outbreak had actually occurred. This made me think about the questions we had been talking about in class and I came to the conclusion that when a zombie apocalypse happens, people are not the only ones who change. Society as well as class changes as well. For one, I was thinking about how poor people now had the upper hand because like it said in the excerpt from the book, poor people in poor neighborhoods were already used to danger so they had already taken precautions to make sure their houses and buildings were safe. Also, they already had to fend for themselves in more ways than one so they were much more prepared than the rich. Another big thing from the book that interested me was how they quoted the words “less fortunate”. This made me see that although we consider others in other countries less fortunate, we may really be the ones who are at a hindrance. For example, they know how to fend for themselves and generally eat healthier foods than us. Although we pride on our wealthy nation and all the material objects we have, they are the ones who are really winning because they know how to survive without appliances unlike Americans. Something from our discussion that I found interesting was differentiating between practicality and false practicality. For example, like Jonathan said, a surgeon would be useful in the general sense because they are skilled doctors, but in a zombie apocalypse they would not be useful if they don’t have any of their tools. Overall, I really enjoyed this book. I found myself thinking about what I would really do during a zombie apocalypse and that’s how I knew The Zombie Survival Guide must be a really good book.