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This is one of my favorites. It was assigned as a satire, and I decided to go all out with it. Instead of poking fun at one topic in particular, I tried to encompass as many corners of human life as I could. I remember the day we had to turn it in, and our teacher told us to summarize our essay and tell the summary to the rest of the class. I began to excitedly ramble about how I had written that women didn't need to work as hard in gym because they didn't need brains. I remember each and every girl in that clas s giving me the evil eye for that. Well, Its a good read, though a tiny fraction of it is class specific, but it should be entertaining nonetheless.

A Journey

Man: God�s Crowning Achievement   A Satire (I guess, but if you really wanted to, you could call it an essay) Presented to Mr. McKay of the English Department (of course, the project was for this class!) Vernon Township High School (I don�t go anywhere else) ----------- In Partial Fulfillment (If it was in full fulfillment, this wouldn�t be for McKay!) Of The Requirements For English 10 C.P. (Well, if translated, it could be for Spanish, or Latin, or German) -------- By Christopher Wallace (the author) 03-20-2000 AD (present day, for those who were wondering) Man: God�s Crowning Achievement I couldn�t stand it anymore. The writer�s block was killing me, so I decided to go outside and take a break. Oh, for those who don�t know me yet, my name is Conan McClay, aspiring writer, and English fanatic. But you should have known that already, this is the information age isn�t it? I thought that everyone was supposed to know everything once we all got computers, but I�ll tell you what, it didn�t work for me. That darn computer doesn�t make me any smarter, it only tells me that my verbs are confused. It has been said that the computer has brought people closer together, but I know the truth. The reason that people are closer together is because there are more people on the planet! They all try to live in the same spot, so they are always coming closer together because there is less and less room in that spot. It has also been said that the world is getting smaller. I don�t think so, because postal rates are going higher. I asked someone one day why everyone comes to the cities to live. He said because the industry was there, and that that is where all of the important jobs and companies are there. I said that there were jobs out where there is open space too, in more rural areas in the plains an so forth, and that people could very well set up out there and have a good successful job there. He told me that the people weren�t there to man the jobs, and I said that that was good, because things wouldn�t be so crowded anymore. He told me that I don�t understand about the real world, and that letters and words were my only friends. I didn�t like that, besides, big words don�t make me feel lonely anymore. Well, I think that I DO understand life, and I think that I understand it better than a lot of people. Take for instance, the schools. Ah, I remember back to my days at high school. I did really well, and needless to say, my vocabulary was strong. I always won the spelling bees. My friend, Tom Watenith, was the complete opposite of me. He knew pi up to 200 digits, and e to 95 digits. He could do math like you wouldn�t believe. We usually talked after school about issues of deep thought, and we considered ourselves good at thinking like that, because I knew words, and Tom knew numbers, and since those are the fundamentals of education, as our teachers have told us countless times, we could figure anything out. One question that we couldn�t answer, though, was why, if academic excellence was first and foremost, math and science are not required in all years of high school, but physical education is. That�s when we realized why. The school board knows that all of us are so smart, that we don�t need to take those classes anymore, but to get smarter we need to exercise, so that protein production increases, which in turn feeds the brain, which in turn handles electrolytes more effectively, which in turn allows for more powerful synapse action, which allows for learning to increase. Ah, they are smart ones, those board members. I would have never thought of that. I guess I need to exercise more. Still, Tom and I didn�t like to go to physical education too much, and even when we worked hard, it took a while to even begin to feel smarter. And a lot of the jocks who play sports seemed pretty dumb to me, but I guess that�s why they work so hard at sports. One thing, though, I don�t think that the board wants the women to get smart, like the men, because their physical work requirements are much less than ours. I pondered this for a while, and decided to say something about it. So, one day I told one of the more feministic students of my school that the school board was trying to keep women down, and that all of the women should have to do as much work as the men in gym, so that they can become smart. She got mad at me, and said something about liking to not have to work as hard as the men. I told her that women could have as many claims to fame as the men did, if the women were allowed to do as much work in physical education as the men do. She walked off in a hurry, all the while looking at me like I was weird. I told several other women about my idea, but none of them could understand what message I was trying to convey. Poor souls, it must be due to the lack of exercise. I soon came to accept this form of living, as fact. A sort of thing that one may never change. And so, life moved on. A more memorable incident in my life came at this point. I was coming home from school one day, when I say a large mob that was protesting the use of genetically engineered foods. Well, when I asked someone why they were protesting, he told me that it was not right to eat "changed food". I asked what the difference was between a regular tomato, and a changed one, and he told me that the changed food could be a poison, and we didn�t know it, that it could harm us. I told him that a lot of the genetically engineered foods have extra vitamins in them, so they would be better. He told me that that wasn�t the point, and that sooner or later we would be eating genetically engineered humans for food. I told him that the genetically engineered foods would help produce more crops, and food would be more abundant. He said that the genetically engineered tomato wasn�t a tomato anymore. I said that if it wasn�t a tomato, at least it�s edible, and good for you too. We might as well call it something different then. Well, if that didn�t make the protester mad, I don�t know what did, but the mob started chasing me, saying that I was getting into things over my head. Soon the mob left, but I heard that they were planning to go to war with the tomatoes, which they said were part of a conspiracy to overthrow man, or something. I told Tom, and he said that all of the conspiracy theory of genetics was hooey, and that there were stories of all sorts of "vegetable attacks man" stories on the Internet. He said that the most popular story was that dolly was the ringleader of them all. Tom disbelieved that, because he had scrutinized every bit of dolly�s DNA, and found her to be just another sheep. He began to explain to me the process that they had used to clone her, but I fell asleep. Later, when I woke up, my food was gone. No one I know will take cafeteria food, so I guess all of that genetic engineering enabled it to produce a form of locomotion, and you could say that it "got up and walked away". When I got home from school that day, I was all rested from the nap that I had during lunch (and math, and history, and Spanish and so on), so I decided to undertake the strenuous activity of choosing something to watch on TV. Lots of people say that you can get hundreds of channels, and so forth, but I only get 68 or so. Still, that�s better than antenna TV any day I suppose. I wish my house got hundreds of channels, then I could watch the Literature Channel all day, and learn about all of my favorite authors. It�s a much better alternative to what some people call, wrestling. I myself have never watched such a show, but I have heard form some people that it is worth watching, and I have also heard that the sport was a barbaric form of physical brutality in which its players would simply try to induce pain on another contender for no real reason at all. I recall back to the days of Medieval and Ancient times, in which the reason for hand to hand combat was a form of settling disputes, or proving the superiority of one of the fighters. I decided to ask one of the local experts on modern wrestling, Mike McDerslot, as to the nature of modern wrestling. My first question was: what is it all about? It took him some time to think about that one, and I figured that he was pondering the deep issues of the sport, and finally came his reply. "Because people like to watch it", he said. I was a bit startled by the seeming simplicity of his answer. I wondered that if indeed it actually as simple as that, if I could get people to like something that I did. Then I could get money and be rich. I asked another question to Mike. "Why do people like to watch it?" "Because it has action, a lot of it too." Yet another simple answer, but I knew that if I tried, I could make something that people would watch AND have action in it too. My idea was this. To have a show called "Hemingway�s Greatest Hits", which would enact all of the action packed sections of Hemingway�s literature. It was fantastic, a sure fire hit. Hemingway was my favorite author, so I knew a lot about his work. When I suggested the idea to several people, I was quickly shot down. It seemed as if there was only enough room for one action show around, however, I have been told that there are several different flavors of wrestling, but if you ask me, I think that they all taste like keesh. (EEEEWWWW!!!!!!). The day is nearing its end, and I have been watching the movie: 2001: A Space Odyssey. It kinda makes you wonder what other intelligent life may exist in our universe. If other life existed, I�m certain that they�d want to come and visit us. I mean, look how advanced our civilization has become. We have organized government that keeps order and decency in our countries, we have technology that efficiently uses our planet�s fossil fuels, so the fuels won�t pollute the ground that it�s in. We have come so far in the last few thousand years, that it seems that there is no stopping us. Humankind will continue to expand, and with that comes invention, and discovery, the very things that drive our world. We as a civilization have discovered systems that never fail us, and help contribute to society. Take for instance: automobiles. They can move us around so cheaply and quickly that we usually need TWO so we can go twice as fast. Each year, as computers get faster at an unbelievable pace, so do cars. Soon, we will be moving so fast that we will be at our destination before we even start going there! (actually, Tom told me that you can�t physically go back in time, all one can do is run ahead of the light that bounced off our planet however many years ago, turn around, and look at the light, which may be, the Heindinburg, or the Titanic, or the Tower of Babel. You get the picture). Anyhow, car manufacturers say that their cars are safer than ever before, because they put in hands free cellular phone holders. That way, people won�t have to use their feet to change radio stations all the time! But we as humans have much more to brag about than our roads, I mean, we have technology, but we also have a religion for anyone. Think about all of the people who just don�t fit in to the larger religions, they used to be left out. Not anymore. We have come so far that now we have something for everyone, so that no one gets left out. Want a serious atmosphere? Roman Catholicism. One where you�re always accepted? Christianity. Wish your old uncle was still around? Hinduism (though he may be a dog, but hey! Dogs are man�s best friend!). Do you just like to be nice? Confucianism! Want to be a team player? Communism! Want to have it all? Capitalism! Whoops, those aren�t religions. Hmmmmm, actually, I guess they are, for some people, so its like I said, we have something for everyone. Me? Existentialism, I�m a Hemingway worshiper, remember? Oh well, It�s getting late, and I don�t blame you. In fact, I�m so tired that, that that that that�.yawn. Huh? Oh, I�d better get back to my apartment, my writer�s block is gone. Sorry if I bored you with my life story, but now I have some ideas at least. My idea is to write about a time when all of the world is controlled by an omnipotent government power, and this one guy tries to defy the system, and he gets locked up, and� Wait, that�s 1984, whoops. Or, wait a minute�that seems like what school was, or� Oh nevermind, I�ll just write about how the world is in disrepair an d that someone should fix it. You know a lot of books like that sell these days. I have a couple of those, but I wish the person that those books talk about would show up soon, we could really use him. Really.

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