Editor: Caitlin O'Driscoll
Article List for October 5, 2002:
Worry Monster Defeated
By Jenny Rose Bridgens
What do you worry about? There must be something, or is it everything you worry about?
"I am the Worry Monster…and I'm here to destroy your day…your month…your year…YOUR LIFE!!!!! You'll worry about the silly little things…you'll worry about food, clothes, whether or not you'll be popular. You'll worry about homework and tests…you'll worry about your parents worrying about worrying about everything you're worrying about…and all because of little 'ole me…The Worry Monster…Just watch…"
The Jeffersonville Presbyterian Church Youth Group performed this skit, The Worry Monster, for the Sunday School Rally Day in September. Homeschoolers Jenny Rose Bridgens and Nathaniel Moise, and former homeschooler, Rachael Bridgens performed in this cast of eight to an audience of about 75 adults and children.
The Worry Monster, an original skit by Wess Meixell, drama instructor, focused on the Worry Monster, who represents all the worry we constantly carry around. The Worry Monster, played by Rachael Bridgens, moved about the stage, eavesdropping on people's lives, influencing them to worry, worry, worry.
"I worry about everything. Okay? I mean I have to go to a good college, so I have to get good grades. I'm in band, so I better not mess up the routine. You know, I worry I might drop my flute. And…and…I worry that I won't find someone to marry me. And…I JUST WORRY!" Worried one girl, played by Jenny Rose Bridgens, who ended her dialogue with a scream.
The Worry Monster relished her power to "spread worry like you spread peanut butter on a PB&J sandwich". Nathaniel Moise played a teenage boy who worried that, "the next time I eat a slice of pizza, I will be constipated for three and a half weeks."
So what to do about all this worry? Mr. TIGS to the rescue! "Your days
are numbered, you little worry wart. You better mind your neck, and run like
heck."
How does Mr. TIGS defeat the Worry Monster? "Hey, it's not really me,
sweetheart. It 's the Big Guy hanging up there. He told us a long time ago that
worrying is out, trusting in Him is in."
So if you find yourself worrying, just think of Mr. TIGS (Trust In God, Stupid --- or if you want the politically correct way, Trust In God, Silly.)
Now wasn't I right about that skit? Makes you want to call them over to perform it doesn't it?
The JPC Youth Group performed The Worry Monster at the Jesus Fest at Church of the Nazarene on Sunday evening, September 29th, 2002. By all accounts, it was really well received!
Then next article is from Jenny Rose's sister Nicole Bridgens about our trip to The Franklin Institute. She figured anyone who hadn't gone would like to know what they missed, and let me tell you, you missed a lot. The only problem is she could only fit one of the many great things we all did. So go ahead and read this great article about our sleepover at The Franklin Institute.
Fun at the Franklin Institute
By Nicole Bridgens
The Franklin Institute Camp-in was an awesome experience! The first thing we did at the Franklin Institute was to store our gear in the sleeping quarters - the Aviation center. Then we explored our sleeping area. It had a big plane hanging from the ceiling, and a ball floating in the air. Parts of airplanes were all over the room. We could look at and touch these airplane parts. One part was a big thing that looked like a video game with lots of controls and circles. When you played with it, it seemed like you were flying the plane.
We saw three different shows during our camp-in. The first show was a thunder and lightening show. We learned how hot air rises by watching a balloon fill with hot air and then rise to the ceiling. In the thunder and lightening show, Kerry, our guide, made a big cloud out of hot water and some kind of powder. The cloud overflowed the big pan and crawled into the audience. To make lightening, Kerry used a big metal ball and had my mom come and hold a big wooden stick with a small iron ball at the top. If you held the stick close enough, it would make little pieces of lightening jump from ball to ball. The next thing we made in the storm was the thunder. Kerry had a girl from the audience shake this piece of metal to make a thunder sound. But, it wasn't very loud, so Kerry had a balloon and gave the girl a stick with a candle on it. Kerry lit the candle and the girl popped the balloon with the fire. It turned into a big fireball with a huge bang when it exploded. To make hail, Kerry picked a little boy and Micah Gharavi. A big machine blew air up in a stream and yellow pieces of ribbons fluttered in the stream. Kerry gave Micah and the little boy each two balloons with tape wrapped around them. They were supposed to keep the balloons in the air without the balloons falling out. It was very funny to watch them chase the balloons!
The last thing Kerry did was tell a story about a pencil that got caught up in a tornado. She told us how fast the pencil would go, and then put the pencil in a machine and triggered the pencil. The pencil went flying down the chute and went right into a piece of wood! It was stuck in the wood!
This was only one part of the Franklin Institute camp-in. All the rest of it was just as good!
The thunderstorm show was great! There was also a movie about dolphins in the big Imax Theatre. Then there was a 3-D show. It was too bad some people had to miss it but I think Nicole pretty much covered how great it really was.
The next article is by Caitlin O'Driscoll about the Greek gods and myths, which is what she is studying in history.
Greek Gods and Goddesses
By Caitlin O'Driscoll
I have been studying the Greek gods and goddesses. I have studied most of them by now. The twelve most important gods and goddesses sat on thrones on Mt. Olympus. Here is the order in which they sat along with their attributes. (An attribute is something the gods hold or have that let you know who it is you're looking at) Zeus the most powerful of the gods is in the middle. In his right hand he holds lightning bolts with a bucket of them to his side. To his right was Hera, his youngest sister and also the wife he chose for his queen. Hera is also the goddess of marriage, her attribute is a long stick called a scepter. Next to Hera was her son Ares. Ares is god of war his attribute is his sword and shield. Next to Ares was Aphrodite goddess of love. Her attribute is the rose she holds in her hand. Beside Aphrodite was Hephaestus god of smiths and fire. His attribute is his hammer. Then there is Hermes the herald of the gods. It is easy to spot Hermes because of his attributes, his golden winged cap, winged sandals, and his cape under which he can hide magic tricks. The last person on Zeus's right side is his sister Demeter, goddess of the harvest, with her daughter Persephone on her lap. On Zeus's left is his brother Posiedon the lord of the sea, you may recognize him from The Little Mermaid, and in his hand is his trident. Next are the four children of Zeus, Athena goddess of wisdom with her owl on her shoulder, Apollo god of light and music with his lyre, a musical instrument, Artemis goddess of the hunt with her bow and arrows, and Dionysus, the youngest of the gods, god of wine with his grapes. Hestia, the eldest sister of Zeus, goddess of the hearth does not have a throne because she gave it up to Dionysus, she sits in the middle tending the sacred fire in the hall where all the thrones sit, and every hearth on earth was her altar. Hades, Zeus's oldest brother, is the lord of the dead. He rules and lives in the underworld where all dead, the Greeks believed, would go.
There are also minor gods. Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos they were the most powerful of the minor gods. Clotho would, when a mortal was born, spin the thread of life for them, Lachesis would measure a certain length, and Atropos would cut it ending that person's life at a certain time. Nemesis, there sister, would see to it that all good and all evil on earth were repaid and everyone on earth feared her.
Prometheus was the creator of man. Zeus gave he and his brother, Epimetheus, the job of repopulating earth after all living creatures had perished in the earlier battles of the gods. Epimetheus quickly made animals while smart Prometheus skillfully and carefully molded men. Epimetheus showered the animals with all the gifts before Prometheus had any chance to use any of them. This is why animals can run faster, climb better, swim better, and have warm fur coats. Man had none of this and was made out of mere river clay so he was weak, cold, and hungry. Prometheus wanted to help mankind so he asked Zeus if he could have some of the sacred hearth for earth. But Zeus said no because the fire belonged to only the gods. Prometheus just couldn't see his people suffer so he stole some of the fire and brought it to earth.
Something odd happened though, as the humans watched the smoke from the fire go up there thoughts went up with it. They began to wonder about things and think. They were no longer as the book I'm reading about it says, "Earth-bound clods" The people built temples to honor the gods and there they burnt meat as a sacrifice to the gods. Zeus was mad at first but he found himself forgiving Prometheus when he smelled the wonderful meat, but Prometheus didn't like this because the people were wasting there good meat so he taught them how to cheat the gods. He made two piles of meat. The first pile he made he put the scraps of meat on the bottom and put a little of the good meat on the top. The second pile he made he put a little bit of scraps with good meat on the bottom and had Zeus come down and choose one. Of course he chose the one with the good meat on the top thinking it was the whole pile was made of good meat, but he had been cheated. Zeus was very angry with this and had to punish both man and Prometheus. He took Prometheus and cast him in unbreakable irons on the top of the Caucasus Mountains. Every day an eagle would swoop down and eat his liver and at night, since Prometheus was immortal, he'd grow another one. He would have to suffer everyday because of the eagle. Zeus found a more subtle way to punish the humans and he sent to earth a beautiful but silly and curious woman. Her name was Pandora. He sent with Pandora a box and told her not to open it. Of course a little while later since she was so full of curiosity she had to open the box and peek to see what was inside. As soon as she opened the lid a swarm of miseries flew out: Greed, Vanity, Slander, Envy, and all the evils that, until then, had not even been known by man, but Pandora snapped the lid shut just in time to keep hope, which was at the bottom of the box, from flying out. For you see if she had let hope out all the other evils would have killed it.
These are the famous stories of Prometheus and Pandora's box. You can still today hear people refer to not opening Pandora's box.
Well that was interesting I'm sure we all learned some new and interesting things that we didn't know before.
The next article, by Karl Utz, is a comparison of the 1930's Frankenstien movie and the book by Mary Shelly.
Frankenstein
By Karl Utz
Frankenstein, the book and the movie, are similar. They both have a man create a monster. It leaves and becomes crazed. But they are very different. One portrays the monster as a dumb beast the other as a person capable of learning. Each one has a different point to get across. The movie to frighten people. The movie to explain how a creature given life would be.
The book is a novel. It portrays the creature's emotions. It shows the development of the creature. After Victor Frankenstein created the creature it goes free. People reject the creature and shut him out of normal life. He tries to learn about human life. He hides out by a cottage owned by some nice people from France. He learns speech and history and life. He tries to grasp the meaning of his life. He reads the book Paradise Lost and wonders where he came from. He becomes miserable when the family leaves the cottage. He feels as if no one, even these seemingly very nice people, will accept him. He decides to take revenge and kills Victor's brother and blames it on a friend. The creature has not necessarily gone mad but he doesn't understand. He decides the only thing to do is kill since he doesn't know anything else to do. He hides away in the Alps. There he meets Victor. He wants to run away from people. He believes that confronting the problem will not make it go away so he tries to escape. He demands that Victor make another creature for him or else he will make Victor's life miserable. He argues that since God made Eve for Adam why shouldn't Victor make a partner for him. Victor unwillingly agrees. The creature shadows Victor as he prepares to make another creature. Then the creature prompts Victor to destroy his work. That is the last straw. The creature swears to be there on Victor's wedding night. The creature kills Henry Clerval, Victor's best friend. On the wedding night the creature upholds his promise. Victor is out in the hall thinking the creature will try to kill him. The creature gets revenge and murders Victor's new wife Elizabeth. Victor now vows to kill the creature with his own hands or die trying. This is exactly what the creature wanted. By eluding Victor and using his inhuman powers the creature puts Victor in agony. He is getting revenge for being antagonized by other people. The story ends with Victor, after chasing the creature all over the globe, dead on an Arctic exploration boat. Frankenstein escapes but stays in the arctic tundra. The book is trying to get across what would happen if a creature was created and how it would react.
The movie had a totally different objective. Its objective was to show a freaky monster to scare people. The movie had a mad scientist (named Henry Frankenstein) in an abandoned castle for a laboratory with an assistant. He is crazy, not simply obsessed, about creating life. This portrays something foreboding and scary. It has Frankenstein's fiancée, his friend Victor, and a professor witness putting life into the monster. After Victor and Elizabeth leave Frankenstein and the professor keeps the monster locked up. Frankenstein's assistant, Fritz, teases the monster and eventually gets killed by him. Frankenstein agrees to kill the monster and the professor injects a tranquilizer. They treat him as a beast, an animal to be locked up. Frankenstein goes home to marry. The monster murders the professor. This gives the audience a sense of fear of the monster. Then they try to show how the monster tries to grasp human understanding. He meets a little girl playing with flowers. She shows the monster how to make flowers float. The monster understands and throws the girl into to the water. She sinks and drowns. The monster then runs knowing something is not right. They do show how he is trying to learn and that he knows some right from wrong. The fault is that the monster never becomes more than just an animal. On her wedding day, the monster frightens Elizabeth as the monster comes in her room. The monster leaves without doing damage when Frankenstein comes in. The father of the girl walks solemnly into town with the dead girl in his arms. He marches through the wedding celebration and by the time he reaches Frankenstein's house the whole town is with. For an unexplained reason they know it's the monster. They split up to find the monster just as they would a wolf killing their sheep. The monster finds Frankenstein and takes him up into an abandoned mill. The townspeople surround the mill and when Frankenstein jumps out they burn the place with monster in it. It ends with monster scared of the fire. This act does show that the monster has emotions. The movie was to scare people.
As it has been described here you can see there are many differences between the movie and the book. The movie has a lab and an assistant both of which are not in the book. In the book, Victor created the creature in his apartment home with out any one knowing about it. In the movie people know about the creature. The names are reversed in the movie. Victor is the scientist and Henry is the friend. The movie and the book have the same plot: a creator injects life into a lifeless human being. But they are different. Each has their own objective.
Well that was a wonderful report it makes me want to read the book and watch the movie. I hope you liked it too!
Oh, all you Harry Potter fans, like me, don't forget that Harry Potter 2, The Chamber Of Secrets comes out November 15th . I know I won't miss it. I'm going twice on opening day!
Well that's about it for this issue of the Fine Arts section. I hope you all enjoyed those four wonderful stories. I know I did.