LITR 4632 Literature of the Future

Sample Student final exams 2009

Preface: So I am looking to spit up after being hit in the back repeatedly with popular literature known as science fiction. So I can feel my cheeks getting weak and my stomach turning to push up all of the literature junk food that was shoved down my throat periodically through my last month of my life. Still waiting…wait…oh, ugh…  :O:::: There it is all out on the circular table of literature discussion to be picked apart accordingly. Now to organizing this literature vomit into something you can chew on. I also have the task of leaving a lasting taste for you to remember and even want more of. Hmm. This is going to be a nasty job. Wish me luck.

Tamatha Beasley

2009

Dying

            Ice cream, fluffy bunnies, and white smiles are the perfect world for most, but for me… the day I died was the start to my utopia. No white lights or out of body experiences for me only blood dirt and weapons. A martyr of sorts I was, who lived a mundane and monotonous life until June 8, 2009. The day I began my life and the day I started my literature of the future class. Over the top? Nah, I only began to live meaningfully when I meet Dr. White and started to read of the future.

            I bet you would like to live too. Well I am new to this world and awareness but I will try to explain what has brought me into a new me. In stories like “cyber fiddle” I was able to begin my journey into maturity because I was introduced to themes like appreciation of trees and live music. Never before had I had such real experience when I hear live music, use paper and water my plants until I was introduced to a dystopia of a lack there of.  In “Cyber fiddle” the main character wants to make a violin but has to go to great lengths in order to find the long forsaken resources in order to make real music. Now new to this appreciation I can truly experience live music, trees, and human contact.

            In my old dead existence, much like many others, I would blankly stare at colorful screens for work and entertainment. I was lost in “reality” of the TV and computer, where anything was possible but nothing actually ever happened. I might as well been in a vegetative state as far as getting anything done or making any kind of productive change. So I was extremely enlightened by the story “the onion” where people live almost entirely in this cyber world. But in discussion of this story I was dead to reality because I thought it was only a possible future of humans. The truth was that I was already living in this cyber world just like the family in “onion.” I spent my schooling, work, and fun time all within this world of colorful interactive screens. My story does not end with me trying harder in the cyber world like the family in “onion”; instead I awoke to real nature, companionship, exercise, and life.

            Of course to be reborn in any religion requires some kind of appearance change to show your new life. I used to be stuck in the death of matching colors and bland fabrics that adequately served their purpose. I bet you are wondering how I changed. Well I did not, who cares what I wear. I got you. You should see me now; I break every fashion rule possible. Matching socks? I do not think so.  I learned to appreciate my beauty in expression through my clothes from “Drapes.” The poor old lady was forced into practical outfits. But she lived by rebelling and hiding her precious, different, exotic clothes. Lucky to have the freedom to wear what I want I have taken to her example and truly rebelled conventions of fashion and practicality within my wardrobe.   

            I am currently not so much an old lady, nineteen to be exact. I know that if you are like most you are wondering what I am doing in a senior level college course and not out drinking, partying, and sexing it up. Well I told I am living now not trying to die. I surely will not fall into the stereotype of my age that barely dresses and goes out on the town to find a mating partner and drink until I cannot remember any of it the next day. I guess I am not in any way a part of “The Belonging Kind.” Another story that opened up my eyes by showing me the destructive (insect-like) activities of going to bars all the time is not what I should be doing to truly live. I will not be like Correti and give up my work and companions to roost with fellow party animals that seem to belong. I will stand out if that is what it takes to stay alive.

            Do you want to live? Are you feeling lucky? I dare you to take a dive into literature of the future and truly let it affect you. Living does not involve blinding following orders and complacency. Living is taking the information that is rightfully yours and using to do as much as possible with it in the real world. Giving your hard earned money and precious time to a world that will pass away into a forgotten history like in “Chocco” is the way to die eternally. The only way to live forever is make a difference to change something in humans everywhere so that you are never forgotten. I will ask you finally. Are you truly living or dying? I dare you die.