Be like Albus Dumbledore

For those who have the privilege of not experiencing 'Going Insane Lianna', I will inform you that this semester has been particularly hellish for me.
   I have been working full time and going to school full time, taking four intense, hair ripping, extremely stressful project-extensive classes. I had to pull 5 all-nighters to get it all done!
    To make you fully grasp my experience, I have taken the liberty of copying an excerpt from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince- where Harry forces Dumbledore to drink poisonous potion to reveal a horcrux. All I did was replace "Dumbledore" with "Lianna", and "Harry" with "The Degree" (with a few minor tweaks to make it all relevant ;-)

Any student can insert their name and completely relate!!  To follow along, open the Half-Blood Prince to page 571. Enjoy!

"You...you can't stop, Lianna," said The Degree. "You've got to keep studying, remember? You told me you had to keep studying. Here..."

   The Degree forced the project back toward Lianna's workload and tipped it on the desk, so that Lianna would complete the remainder of the homework.

  "No..." she groaned, as The Degree assigned another project and gave a lecture. "I don't want to... I don't want to....Let me go..."

  "It's all right, Lianna," said The Degree. "It's all right, I'm here-"

   "Make it stop, make it stop," moaned Lianna.

   "Yes...yes, this'll make it stop," lied The Degree. It dumped the instructions of another project into Lianna's open backpack.

  Lianna screamed; the noise echoed all around the vast classroom, across the dead black parking lot.
   "No, no, no no, I can't, I can't, don't make me, I don't want to..."

   "It's all right, Lianna, it's all right!" said The Degree loudly. The semester was now half over. "Nothing's happening to you, you're safe, it isn't real, I swear it isn't real- take these midterms, now, take these..."

   And obediently, Lianna took the midterms, as though it was an antidote The Degree offered her, but upon testing, she sank to her knees, shaking uncontrollably.

   "It's all my fault, all my fault," she sobbed. "Please make it stop, I know I did wrong, oh please make it stop and I'll never, never again..."

   "This will make it stop, Lianna," The Degree said, its voice cracking as it assigned the seventh project into Lianna’s workload.

  Lianna began to cower as though invisible torturers surrounded her; her flailing hands almost knocked the project from The Degree 's hands as she moaned, "Don't hurt them, don't hurt them, please, please, it's my fault, hurt me instead..."

   "Here, take this, take this, you'll be all right," said The Degree, and once again Lianna obeyed, working on her assignments even as she kept her eyes tight shut and shook from head to foot.

   And now she fell forward, screaming again, hammering her fists upon the ground, while The Degree assigned the ninth project.

   "Please, please, please, no...not that, not that, I'll do anything..."

   "Just work, Lianna, just work..."

  Lianna worked as though her life depended on it, but when she had finished, she yelled again as though her hands were on fire. "No more, please, no more..."

  The Degree dished out a tenth assignment and saw the semester nearly drawing to a close. "We're nearly there, Lianna. Work, work on it..."

  The Degree supported Lianna's shoulders and again, Lianna completed the project; then The Degree was on its feet once more, dishing out more as Lianna began to scream in more anguish than ever, "I want to die! I want to die! Make it stop, make it stop, I want to die!"

   "Present this, Lianna. Present this..."

 Lianna presented, and no sooner had she finished than she yelled, "KILL ME!"

   "This-this one will!" gasped The Degree. "Just take these finals... It'll be over... all over!"

 Lianna took the finals, answered every last question, and then, with a great, rattling gasp, rolled over onto her face.

1984 Epilogue

I was going through all my stuff and found this! I wrote this back when I was in High school as an assignment for when we were going through the book 1984 by George Orwell. Enjoy!

Part 4 Chapter 1 (Epilogue) 

Footsteps coule be heard from all the way down the hall; the stomping sounds resounding against the white walls of the Ministry of Love. A large man was wiping a sort of crimson substance on his black overalls, and putting the safety lock on his laser. He was soon joined by another man, smaller, younger, and quite out of breath when he finally caught up.
"Why this one, O'Brien?" He asked between gasps.
O'brien, now polishing his weapon, glanced back at a limp body wearing blue overalls being escorted from the room he once occupied a few moments earlier.
"Comrade Nelson, you will soon come to realize that you enjoy finishing the work you started." O'Brien stated in a menacing tone.
"Will i also be 'interrogating' political prisoners?" Nelson questioned.
"Not at first. There are supreme differences between Inner Party and Outer Party, Comrade. The Party placed you under my tutelage to explore that statement. You will be instructing traitors to Big Brother in no time, but it takes a while to have the privilege of un-existing them." He stroked his gun almost lovingly, and continued. "Your first act is to send a memo to the Fiction Department to erase prisoner 55029, should there be any historical record of him." Then he added a second though; "Comrade Julia, I should think. She would enjoy this job especially. Oh, and get rid of this."
O'brien handed a book to Nelson.
"Did this belong to 55029?" He asked.
"Yes. It's his diary."
                                                          *     *     *

As Nelson walked home that night, he couldn't place what was bothering him. It could be that his recent promotion to the Inner Party hadn't granted him freedom from the Party as he had expected, or it could be what was concealed in the brief case thumping against his leg while he walked.
He didn't mean to steal the diary, but he was casually flipping through it on his way to the memory hole earlier when a phrase caught his eye:

"If there is hope, it lies in the proles."

It gnawed at him all day. He had not personally known the author, now Unperson 55029, and if he showed general interest toward any unpersons, who knows what could happen? Yet, why was this unperson talking about hope in the first place? As far as Nelson was concerned, hope had gotten this character an appointment with O'Brien's laser, all the while blubbering about how much he loved Big Brother. "Everyone ends their life in this way." O'Brien had stated, cocking his gun. "I had a personal hand in the rebirth of this particular one though, 5 years ago."
Nelson reached his new home, and was greeted by his manservant. He handed over his jacket, but withheld the brief case.
"Uh ha, I'm just going to finish up some work before going to bed. You are free to uh...do what you normally do, Edgar." Nelson still needed time to get used to living with another person.
"Yes sir. I will retire for the night." Edgar went into the other room.
Nelson went over and clicked the telescreen, almost showing personal pleasure at the ability to turn it off. He gained composure though, and went over to his brief case, pulling out the diary.
In the course of one evening, he read the diary front to back, with utter fascination and hatred springing up inside of him at the same time. What affected him the most was the amount of people who die as a true martyr, although unknown to anyone, including themselves. But what could he do? He certainly wasn't a prole, and unperson 55029 didn't succeed in his quest in taking down Big Brother. Nelson then realized the sacrifice he needed to make, making a mental appointment for something else to be Un-existed. And that was Big Brother

Several weeks had passed. A smaller, younger looking man walked down several alleys towards the prole section of town. He was wearing a jacket that concealed what looked to be black overalls. Pushing out any Anti-Party thoughts, he made his way through a crowd of proles looking for a face, any face that showed a sign of intelligence. Finally spotting one right in the middle of the crowd, he made his way over to a large woman surrounded by children.
They stood staring each other for 5 minutes. He then smiled, enjoying the stretch and feeling his eyes crinkle. He presented the journal to her with his right hand. In his left was a concealed pistol, in which he gave a salute, raised to his smiling mouth and pulled the trigger.

There was a massive riot in the square after the gunshot; only the woman and her children realized WHY policemen were roughing up the crowd. Being treated badly (for no reason) didn't go over too well with the proles. It was a brutal massacre, most Outer Party members pitched in against the police, as well as a few Inner Party.
Making her way to safety, the woman looked at the diary, reading "Knowledge is strength, which leads to freedom, ultimately resulting in peace. Down with Big Brother!!!' engraved on the front. In the years to come, Winston's diary would become the new 'Book', in a world where there was no darkness, and people would live freely at last.

Tornado Season

He was dozing in and out of consciousness in his backyard hammock one afternoon, drinking some iced tea and breathing in the hot thick air. He lazily swatted at a fly buzzing around his face, the slight annoyance making him feel jittery for some reason... He couldn't quite put his finger on it. He kicked off his flip flops, one of them knocking over a yard flamingo and attempted to doze off again.
That's when She appeared out of nowhere. She stormed in through the front door with the key she knew was under the mat waiting for her, and propped the door open. To add insult to injury, she pleasurably let a chilly wind blow in behind her.
      The commotion caused Him to get tangled in the hammock, scrambling to get back to the house. He came rushing in from the back door yelling, "Oy! What gives??" and slowly paled when he saw who it was. "Ooooh no. Not this time doll! You saw what happened last March when I took over the joint. Do you really want to relive that little humiliation of yours all over again?"
     Her cheeks grew a scarlet red and her eyes flashed. He observed several leaves falling outside through his living room window. She began to stalk towards him. "You've gotten pudgy!" She exclaimed, nursing her injured pride by dishing some back. "What happened to that Romanesque figure? It's been a hard life with all that lazing around, yes?? Eating all that ice cream? Napping by poolside? You'll need a rest from all that rest! " With each exclamation segments of the bushes outside were stripped of their green and replaced with the identical color of her heated cheeks against her very pale face.
     He rubbed his bare, chubby arms. "What's it to you? You never stick around when 'Big Daddy' comes back! Can't handle the heat, eh?. Where do you go and hide, princess? Just who do you think you are?? You know the kids like me more than you anyway, you cold-hearted witch! You can't just come in here uninvited!" He was gibbering by now, nervously trying to humiliate without provocation and clutching at any hope in which She might be too ashamed to do what she came to do. He wasn't doing a very good job of it, because with each insult the temperature dropped several degrees.
   She straightened to Her full height, which was reasonably tall especially with her austere bun piled high on top of Her head. She replied with a snap as she straightened her jacket. "It doesn't matter who they like. I'm taking them anyway! They need to be at school getting their education, not playing outside all day!" She shuddered, more at the thought than at the decreasing temperature.
    He was thinking fast, and desperately. He glanced at her, and noticed She was looking more and more at home with each leaf that fell and each flower that died. Then the window caught the corner of his eye. He shoved Her aside and stomped to His wide open front door. "What the hell are you doing to my yard?!?"
    A gale of wind forcefully knocked Him on his back. Furiously, He tripped her and pretty soon they were scrambling about the room, kicking and shoving, throwing punches and scratching. The wind surged against the house, rattling the windows threateningly. They fought on and on, more and more dangerously, too enraged to hear the mournful siren from somewhere in town; too absorbed in the great fight to pay attention to the booming thunder that literally shook the entire house. Trees were being uprooted here and there, one particularly large one happened to fall smartly on His car causing the alarm to go off. The sound competed to be heard through the deadly storm.
    He fought courageously, but He was no match. He had gotten out of shape during the last 6 months and 'fighting' Her was almost humorous. She was there to kill. Desperately, He hit her on the head with a poker he grabbed from the now roaring fire, causing Her to stumble back and bolted out the door.
    The ground was blanketed in snow, and the trees were mournfully bare. Not a single lovely bird was singing, not a single annoying insect rushed to get inside. He heard some jingling and searched hopefully for the ice cream truck, but was disappointed to see it was a sleigh with bells coming down the neighboring hill. He limped down the pathway without making foot prints. He knew He had been defeated.
To be continued...

I wanna win! :-)

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