Post by Deleted on Apr 22, 2012 1:31:29 GMT -5
Hey guys! I am doing an essay for my Writing 121 class, so I was wondering if you guys can help me. Just tell me what you think of it and what I can do to improve. Such notes to take into consideration include: if the structure is nice and perfect, if the dialogue sounds natural like it is spoken language (not written language), if the characters are developed enough, and if I use enough vivid details. Also, I would like to know if the narrative voice is there and if it is in possession of the emotion of fear.
It is due at 11pm on April 22, so quick feedback is greatly appreciated. Well, here it is, so please tell me what you guys think:
It is due at 11pm on April 22, so quick feedback is greatly appreciated. Well, here it is, so please tell me what you guys think:
An Apocalyptic Day to Remember
I remember being a child that had a lot of fears, such as drowning, bees, large groups of people, but none as prevalent as that of bearing witness to the End of Days. While I cannot recall the exact origin of this personal fear, my best guess would be coming across a scientific program that discussed potential threats to planet Earth, particularly that of asteroid collisions which likely killed off the dinosaurs. This differs greatly from children who become eschatophobic by what they are taught through a religious upbringing (in other words, they are told that God will begin his destruction of Earth come Judgment Day). For as long as I can remember, I have always been afraid of the so-called “apocalypse”, and it was after 9/11 that I became more apocalyptically concern. Fortunately, there were still no real indicators of a global catastrophe taking place. However, there came a day when it seemed like environmental chaos was going to break lose.
This all took place on January 8th 2007, the day in which I was supposed to attend my first class on Substance Abuse at Hawaii Community College in Hilo. Winter break had just ended and I was looking forward to what this new semester would bring. So to start off my day, I did what I would normally do and I browsed the Internet for my favorite websites (a message board by the name of Kuroikappa’s Den, MySpace, and of course what news that was being reported on the Internet). In the news, there were reports of a strange gas leak in New York City, particularly Manhattan, which caused that whole part of the city to smell like brimstone. In addition to this, I saw another news article, this one being about dozens of dead birds mysterious appearing in Austin, Texas. I will admit that both of these news stories were very unusual, but I could not see any possible connection between the two situations. Not only that, I was safe and sound in my house in Hawaiian Paradise Park, and these were happening in the mainland. So it seemed like there was no way these things could possibly affect me, but I decided to tell my mom about these stories anyway.
“Mom, have you heard anything about gas leaks or dead birds?” I asked as I came up the stairs. There, I found my mother glued to her chair, reading about the Manhattan gas leak in a news thread on Godlike Productions (GLP), a conspiracy message board that she would frequently browse. “I’m reading about them right now”, she replied without looking away from the desktop computer. She then went back to the GLP homepage and to our surprise there were a couple of new threads about gas leaks elsewhere, one in Nashville, Tennessee, and another at an Australian mall.
I honestly cannot remember what either of us said at that moment, but I did note that it was rather strange coincidence for those new stories to pop up on GLP. I was beginning to feel uneasy about this turn in events, but I did not want to jump to conclusions. The only thing I can remember saying at that moment was, “I’ll be heading back downstairs”, and so I went back down and started viewing this stuff for myself.
Once downstairs, I moved my laptop into my sister’s room, since she was away at school at the time, and I began to read about these threads. As I read these latest threads on GLP, my jaw just dropped upon the news that I was reading: there gas leaks occurring all over the world (one in Pakistan that killed two brothers, one in a London subway tunnel, on in southern California, and one in Italy). In addition to this, I read two threads about two more bird die-offs, one in Colorado and the other in Australia, and I just thought to myself, “This is all too weird to be a coincidence.” So I took a deep breath and shouted “Mom! You’re not gonna believe this!”
So she came down and read everything that I had just read, but had I knew how she was going to react, I would have just preferred keeping to myself. “Oh my God! What the hell’s going on?!?” She exclaimed, “This is too much like The Core!” Having never seen The Core, a disaster film about ecological havoc, I asked, “What do you mean it’s like The Core?”
She replied, “In the beginning there were dead birds falling from the sky, then gas leaks started happening, and pretty soon the whole world went to hell.” It was this brief description of the film alone that gave me a huge boost of fear, which felt like I was being given a lethal injection. From the very few clips I had seen of the film, the disaster involved earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and the whole world basically falling apart. I had dreaded the thought of an apocalyptic film becoming a reality, and this was far more than I could possibly bear.
There I just stood, shivering with terror, not exactly sure what was happening in the world, why it was being underreported by the news media, or how this was going to impact my family and me here in Hawaii. All I could think about was the premise of that cursed film, accompanied by other such thoughts as “Is the Earth’s core going crazy or something? Are these signs that Yellowstone in the mainland was going to erupt? Were there going to be huge earthquakes? What does this all really mean?!?” With these feelings of terror and helpless, I actually began to hyperventilate and felt like I was going to pass out with fright. I had never fainted before in my entire life, but I just felt too overwhelmed to continue dealing with the situation.
Seeing this, my mother exclaimed, “Oh my God! Peter! Calm down! Just calm down!” It was upon hearing these words that I attempted to control my breath, but I could still feel the cold sweat of fear on my body. I sat myself down on my sister’s bed, getting better control of my breath, but still feeling almost petrified with terror. “Just sit right there and I’ll be right back.” Said my mother, who then returned with a paper bag, and I immediately knew what to do.
While I was already doing my best to control both my breath and my nerves, I took the bag and used it to help get my breath under control. I must admit that breathing in and out of the bag felt like grabbing on to a lifesaver after nearly drowning. After for a couple of minutes with the bag, I had regain control over my nerves and said, “So…what’d we do? Can we stay home?” My mom then replied, “Things are just too crazy to go out. I mean, I’ve never seen anything like this.” So all we did for the remainder of that day was keep posted on the world news, putting off my Substance Abuse class for Thursday.
The hours went by, and to my relief, there were no more reports on gas leaks or bird die-offs anywhere in the world. By that evening, the widely-reported gas leak in New York was resolved and the unusual odor had dissipated. Yet the exact cause of the gas leak remained unknown, but now I was certain that The Core was no longer becoming a reality. Still, I found myself pondering “What could have triggered this gas leak? Could it have been sabotage, some sort of geological activity, or just purely an accident?” I had no clue, but I was just relieved that the whole scare was over.
When I look back, I wonder just how many of GLP’s “reported” gas leaks and bird die-offs were actually legitimate or not. It is safe to assume that at least some of them were legitimate, but I suspect that a few may have been hoaxed as a means to scare people. GLP is notorious for having liars post misinformation as a means to stir up trouble. Therefore, I now try to remind myself to do a critical verification on news reports and not believe everything you read or hear. In fact, there is an acronym that describes such a situation, known as “false evidence appearing real” or F.E.A.R.
So while I have mostly put that memory behind me, I still recall it as being one of the most frightening moments of my life. That is saying a lot, being that I have held witness to 9/11, the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, and even the 2011 Japanese earthquake, and none of those have scared me as much as the gas leak scare that took place on January 8th of 2007. Since then, I have become much more skeptical about any disaster-related news that I come across on the Internet, by which I do much more research to see if the so-called “news” is legitimate or false. Not only that, but I also remember that apocalyptic films like The Core are just works of fiction and often apply very little, if any, real science for their plots. Even so, I remain vigilant of any real threats that could come my way and have taken disaster precautions (stockpiling bottled water, having first-aid kit in hand, and having a flashlight with a bunch of backup batteries available). Such precautions are basic disaster preparedness that everyone should do regardless how they feel about the future, but I am in no way a doomsday prepper whatsoever. Preparing for disaster is a necessity, especially since the Pacific Northwest is overdue for a major earthquake, but preparing for the apocalypse is just over the top and a waste of time. It is quite doubtful a global disaster could take place in the near-future, and even if it should come about, it would prove almost certainly unsurvivable.
So while it is useless to worry about things that are beyond our control, such as our own personal mortality, I do fear there might come a day in my lifetime in which there will be legitimate signs of a major catastrophe. Whether that catastrophe is nuclear war, an impending asteroid collision, an eruption of Yellowstone, a global pandemic, or even just another terrorist attack like that of 9/11, I do fear the worst may still come. Thankfully, because there is absolutely no guarantee that such an event will happen anytime in the near-future, I just go about my everyday life and try to make each day count.
I remember being a child that had a lot of fears, such as drowning, bees, large groups of people, but none as prevalent as that of bearing witness to the End of Days. While I cannot recall the exact origin of this personal fear, my best guess would be coming across a scientific program that discussed potential threats to planet Earth, particularly that of asteroid collisions which likely killed off the dinosaurs. This differs greatly from children who become eschatophobic by what they are taught through a religious upbringing (in other words, they are told that God will begin his destruction of Earth come Judgment Day). For as long as I can remember, I have always been afraid of the so-called “apocalypse”, and it was after 9/11 that I became more apocalyptically concern. Fortunately, there were still no real indicators of a global catastrophe taking place. However, there came a day when it seemed like environmental chaos was going to break lose.
This all took place on January 8th 2007, the day in which I was supposed to attend my first class on Substance Abuse at Hawaii Community College in Hilo. Winter break had just ended and I was looking forward to what this new semester would bring. So to start off my day, I did what I would normally do and I browsed the Internet for my favorite websites (a message board by the name of Kuroikappa’s Den, MySpace, and of course what news that was being reported on the Internet). In the news, there were reports of a strange gas leak in New York City, particularly Manhattan, which caused that whole part of the city to smell like brimstone. In addition to this, I saw another news article, this one being about dozens of dead birds mysterious appearing in Austin, Texas. I will admit that both of these news stories were very unusual, but I could not see any possible connection between the two situations. Not only that, I was safe and sound in my house in Hawaiian Paradise Park, and these were happening in the mainland. So it seemed like there was no way these things could possibly affect me, but I decided to tell my mom about these stories anyway.
“Mom, have you heard anything about gas leaks or dead birds?” I asked as I came up the stairs. There, I found my mother glued to her chair, reading about the Manhattan gas leak in a news thread on Godlike Productions (GLP), a conspiracy message board that she would frequently browse. “I’m reading about them right now”, she replied without looking away from the desktop computer. She then went back to the GLP homepage and to our surprise there were a couple of new threads about gas leaks elsewhere, one in Nashville, Tennessee, and another at an Australian mall.
I honestly cannot remember what either of us said at that moment, but I did note that it was rather strange coincidence for those new stories to pop up on GLP. I was beginning to feel uneasy about this turn in events, but I did not want to jump to conclusions. The only thing I can remember saying at that moment was, “I’ll be heading back downstairs”, and so I went back down and started viewing this stuff for myself.
Once downstairs, I moved my laptop into my sister’s room, since she was away at school at the time, and I began to read about these threads. As I read these latest threads on GLP, my jaw just dropped upon the news that I was reading: there gas leaks occurring all over the world (one in Pakistan that killed two brothers, one in a London subway tunnel, on in southern California, and one in Italy). In addition to this, I read two threads about two more bird die-offs, one in Colorado and the other in Australia, and I just thought to myself, “This is all too weird to be a coincidence.” So I took a deep breath and shouted “Mom! You’re not gonna believe this!”
So she came down and read everything that I had just read, but had I knew how she was going to react, I would have just preferred keeping to myself. “Oh my God! What the hell’s going on?!?” She exclaimed, “This is too much like The Core!” Having never seen The Core, a disaster film about ecological havoc, I asked, “What do you mean it’s like The Core?”
She replied, “In the beginning there were dead birds falling from the sky, then gas leaks started happening, and pretty soon the whole world went to hell.” It was this brief description of the film alone that gave me a huge boost of fear, which felt like I was being given a lethal injection. From the very few clips I had seen of the film, the disaster involved earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and the whole world basically falling apart. I had dreaded the thought of an apocalyptic film becoming a reality, and this was far more than I could possibly bear.
There I just stood, shivering with terror, not exactly sure what was happening in the world, why it was being underreported by the news media, or how this was going to impact my family and me here in Hawaii. All I could think about was the premise of that cursed film, accompanied by other such thoughts as “Is the Earth’s core going crazy or something? Are these signs that Yellowstone in the mainland was going to erupt? Were there going to be huge earthquakes? What does this all really mean?!?” With these feelings of terror and helpless, I actually began to hyperventilate and felt like I was going to pass out with fright. I had never fainted before in my entire life, but I just felt too overwhelmed to continue dealing with the situation.
Seeing this, my mother exclaimed, “Oh my God! Peter! Calm down! Just calm down!” It was upon hearing these words that I attempted to control my breath, but I could still feel the cold sweat of fear on my body. I sat myself down on my sister’s bed, getting better control of my breath, but still feeling almost petrified with terror. “Just sit right there and I’ll be right back.” Said my mother, who then returned with a paper bag, and I immediately knew what to do.
While I was already doing my best to control both my breath and my nerves, I took the bag and used it to help get my breath under control. I must admit that breathing in and out of the bag felt like grabbing on to a lifesaver after nearly drowning. After for a couple of minutes with the bag, I had regain control over my nerves and said, “So…what’d we do? Can we stay home?” My mom then replied, “Things are just too crazy to go out. I mean, I’ve never seen anything like this.” So all we did for the remainder of that day was keep posted on the world news, putting off my Substance Abuse class for Thursday.
The hours went by, and to my relief, there were no more reports on gas leaks or bird die-offs anywhere in the world. By that evening, the widely-reported gas leak in New York was resolved and the unusual odor had dissipated. Yet the exact cause of the gas leak remained unknown, but now I was certain that The Core was no longer becoming a reality. Still, I found myself pondering “What could have triggered this gas leak? Could it have been sabotage, some sort of geological activity, or just purely an accident?” I had no clue, but I was just relieved that the whole scare was over.
When I look back, I wonder just how many of GLP’s “reported” gas leaks and bird die-offs were actually legitimate or not. It is safe to assume that at least some of them were legitimate, but I suspect that a few may have been hoaxed as a means to scare people. GLP is notorious for having liars post misinformation as a means to stir up trouble. Therefore, I now try to remind myself to do a critical verification on news reports and not believe everything you read or hear. In fact, there is an acronym that describes such a situation, known as “false evidence appearing real” or F.E.A.R.
So while I have mostly put that memory behind me, I still recall it as being one of the most frightening moments of my life. That is saying a lot, being that I have held witness to 9/11, the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, and even the 2011 Japanese earthquake, and none of those have scared me as much as the gas leak scare that took place on January 8th of 2007. Since then, I have become much more skeptical about any disaster-related news that I come across on the Internet, by which I do much more research to see if the so-called “news” is legitimate or false. Not only that, but I also remember that apocalyptic films like The Core are just works of fiction and often apply very little, if any, real science for their plots. Even so, I remain vigilant of any real threats that could come my way and have taken disaster precautions (stockpiling bottled water, having first-aid kit in hand, and having a flashlight with a bunch of backup batteries available). Such precautions are basic disaster preparedness that everyone should do regardless how they feel about the future, but I am in no way a doomsday prepper whatsoever. Preparing for disaster is a necessity, especially since the Pacific Northwest is overdue for a major earthquake, but preparing for the apocalypse is just over the top and a waste of time. It is quite doubtful a global disaster could take place in the near-future, and even if it should come about, it would prove almost certainly unsurvivable.
So while it is useless to worry about things that are beyond our control, such as our own personal mortality, I do fear there might come a day in my lifetime in which there will be legitimate signs of a major catastrophe. Whether that catastrophe is nuclear war, an impending asteroid collision, an eruption of Yellowstone, a global pandemic, or even just another terrorist attack like that of 9/11, I do fear the worst may still come. Thankfully, because there is absolutely no guarantee that such an event will happen anytime in the near-future, I just go about my everyday life and try to make each day count.