Posted on 09/24/2002 7:55:52 PM PDT by moneyrunner
THE COLLEGE THEME PAPER: HE VS. SHE
Remember the book "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus"? Well, here's a prime example offered by an English professor at an American University.
"Today we will experiment with a new form called the tandem story. The process is simple. Each person will pair off with the person sitting to his or her immediate right. One of you will then write the first paragraph of a short story. The partner will read the first paragraph and then add another paragraph to the story. The first person will then add a third paragraph, and so on back and forth. Remember to reread what has been written each time in order to keep the story coherent. There is to be absolutely NO talking and anything you wish to say must be written on the paper. The story is over when both agree a conclusion has been reached."
The following was actually turned in by two of my English students: Rebecca -last name deleted, and Jim - last name deleted.
STORY:
(first paragraph by Rebecca) At first, Laurie couldn't decide which kind of tea she wanted. The chamomile, which used to be her favorite for lazy evenings at home, now reminded her too much of Carl, who once said, in happier times, that he liked chamomile. But she felt she must now, at all costs, keep her mind off Carl. His possessiveness was suffocating, and if she thought about him too much her asthma started acting up again. So chamomile was out of the question. ------------------------------------------------------
(second paragraph by Jim) Meanwhile, Advance Sergeant Carl Harris, leader of the attack squadron now in orbit over Skylon 4, had more important things to think about than the neuroses of an air-headed asthmatic bimbo named Laurie with whom he had spent one sweaty night over a year ago. "A.S. Harris to Geostation 17", he said into his transgalactic communicator. "Polar orbit established. No sign of resistance so far..." But before he could sign off, a bluish particle beam flashed out of nowhere and blasted a hole through his ship's cargo bay. The jolt from the direct hit sent him flying out of his seat and across the cockpit. ----------------------------------------------------------
(Rebecca) He bumped his head and died almost immediately but not before he felt one last pang of regret for psychically brutalizing the one woman who had ever had feelings for him. Soon afterwards, Earth stopped its pointless hostilities towards the peaceful farmers of Skylon 4. "Congress Passes Law Permanently Abolishing War and Space Travel," Laurie read in her newspaper one morning. The news simultaneously excited her and bored her. She stared out the window, dreaming of her youth, when the days had passed hurriedly and carefree, with no newspapers to read, no television to distract her from her sense of innocent wonder at all the beautiful things around her."Why must one lose one's innocence to become a woman?" she pondered wistfully. ---------------------------------------------------------
(Jim) Little did she know, but she had less than 10 seconds to live. Thousands of miles above the city, the Anu'udrian mother ship launched the first of its lithium fusion missiles. The dim-witted wimpy peaceniks who pushed the Unilateral Aerospace Disarmament Treaty through the congress had left Earth a defenseless target for the hostile alien empires who were determined to destroy the human race. Within two hours after the passage of the treaty the Anu'udrian ships were on course for Earth, carrying enough firepower to pulverize the entire planet. With no one to stop them, they swiftly initiated their diabolical plan. The lithium fusion missile entered the atmosphere unimpeded. The President, in his top-secret Mobile submarine headquarters on the ocean floor off the coast of Guam, felt the inconceivably massive explosion, which vaporized poor, stupid, Laurie and 85 million other Americans. The President slammed his fist on the conference table. "We can't allow this! I'm going to veto that treaty! Let's blow 'em out of the sky!" ----------------------------------------------------------
(Rebecca) This is absurd. I refuse to continue this mockery of literature. My writing partner is a violent, chauvinistic semi-literate adolescent. ----------------------------------------------------------
(Jim) Yeah? Well, you're a self-centered tedious neurotic whose attempts at writing are the literary equivalent of Valium. "Oh shall I have camomile tea? Or shall I have some other sort of F*CKING TEA??? Oh no, I'm such an air headed bimbo who reads too many Danielle Steele novels." ----------------------------------------------------------
(Rebecca) Ass hole. ----------------------------------------------------------
(Jim) Bitch. ----------------------------------------------------------
(Rebecca) Wanker. ----------------------------------------------------------
(Jim) slut. ---------------------------------------------------------
(Rebecca) Get f*cked. ----------------------------------------------------------
(Jim) Eat shit. --------------------------------------------------------
(Rebecca) F*CK YOU - YOU NEANDERTHAL!!! ----------------------------------------------------------
(Jim) Go drink some tea - whore. *********************************************
(Teacher) A+ - I really liked this one
Lousy story. We never did find out what happened to the Anu'udrian mother ship...
Poorly armed Americans, foaming at the mouth to avenge their slaughtered fellow citizens (even the stupid ones), managed to repulse the Anu'udrians while taking enormous casualties.
10 years later, a 138 mile diameter nickel-iron asteroid finished a braking manuver, falling into the gravity well of the Anu'udrian binary system with 38 Vengence class star carriers, 70 Punishment class star battleships and innumerable support vessels.
Over a period of 8 years the force conducted a moon hopping campaign which isolated the outer worlds and ended with the Siege of the Anu'udrian homeworld.
After fierce resistance, with Anu'udrian lower caste sacrifice warriors even resisting with centuries old kinetic energy weapons, the Anu'udrian prime egg bearer submitted the race when the 3rd moon, Bithrip, was destroyed with its 3.5 billion inhabitants by the newly developed quantum interference bomb.
After an occupation of 15 years, along with a massive rebuilding campaign, the Anu'udrian race is a staunch ally of ours against the machine beings of the Tatheel 5 system.
One of the byproducts of the rebuilding was that Anu'udrian businesses have, for the most part, lower costs and higher productivity due to the more modern nature of their nanofabricators, and THAT, children, is why we're flooded with all these cheap Anu'udrian Ba'a'nith players...
You people are sick, he said as he slowly picked himself up floor.
OTFLMAO.
I generally agree with the "no profanity" policy, and yes, I recognize that it's not my machines and FR can do whatever it wants.
But in this case, I think the policy is misapplied. The purpose of having this policy, it's always been my impression (and correct me if I'm wrong) is to keep the discussion here civil and away from personal attacks.
In this case, the profanity in question (which was *ster*sk*ed out in the other thread) is a part of the story, and really doesn't take an any more of an offensive tone, I think, than the story itself. Considering that the two threads combined had about 80 replies between them, and no one seemed to be complaining, this ruling doesn't seem to have served us well. Personally, I think this is one of the funniest posts I've ever seen here.
Again, it's not my servers, so the moderators can do what they want. But I'm one of the people a bit concerned with the frequency of thread-pulling lately (I've seen some other ones that I thought were quite questionable), so I wanted to make the case here for one that was but I don't think should have been.
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