How to write an Screenplay

Dear Reader, If you are reading this from the future, then somehow you ended in this blog, I was probably a great movie director that filmed a sitcom named Social Studies, but If I didn’t and instead I turned out to be a great lawyer, or unemployed, drafted by the US Army, kidnapped by Aliens, lost in the sea, traveled in time to France in July 14th, 1789, or just a boring person with a white collar job in an office in some big city with a wife, children, and debts, then I obviously didn’t turned out to be a movie director, but whatever is the case I leave this knowledge to you so you can use it and write your own amazing blockbuster. Who knows? Maybe you turn out to be the next Alfred Hitchcock, Steven Spielberg, Quentin Tarantino, Stanley Kubrick or (in the worst of the cases) the next Michael Bay. Maybe you will film the next Pulp Fiction, 2001: Odyssey in the Space, The Avengers, The Wizard of OZ, Psycho, or (in the worst of the cases) the remake of Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies, or Transformers. If you are someone who is grading this scrapbook as an English IV assignment, then the information will be useful. In this entry you will learn the structure of a Screenplay. As example I will use one of my favorite movies (not Beowulf): Captain America: The First Avenger (How many references to Captain America I have made in this blog?).

WARNING: IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST  AVENGER YET, THIS ENTRY MIGHT BE A SPOILER ABOUT THE PLOT, SUCH CAPTAIN AMERICA’S FRIEND (BUCKY BARNES) DIES BUT RETURNS IN THE WINTER SOLDIER WITH HIS BRAIN BRAINWASHED BY HYDRA WITH ORDERS TO KILL CAPTAIN AMERICA, RED SKULL  GETS THE TESSERACT, AN ITEM FROM ASGARD (THOR’S WORLD) IMPORTANT IN AVENGERS AND IN MARVEL’S CINEMATIC UNIVERSE MOVIES, ROGER’S LOVE (PEGGY CARTER) GETS HER HEART BROKEN WHEN STEVE ROGERS GETS LOST IN THE SEA AND IS NOT FOUND UNTIL THE END OF THE MOVIE (WHICH IS LIKE 60 YEARS AFTER WORLD WAR II), AND CAPTAIN AMERICA GETS INTO THE AVENGERS TEAM BY NICK FURY (SAMUEL L. JACKSON). THAT BEING SAID, YOU MAY CONTINUE.

First, a screenplay is divided in three acts: ACT I, ACT II,  and ACT III. ACT I lasts about ¼ of the duration of the film, for example, a 120- minute movie’s ACT I lasts 30 minutes. In the ACT I, it is introduced the Ordiary World, which is the hero and the characters’ normal place. In Captain America, it is shown Johann Schimidt (Aka. Red Skull) hunting the Tesseract in Norway, which he gets, being the war the Ordinary World of Johann Schmidt. Then it is shown Steve Roger’s Ordinary World trying to get into the army, and getting beaten up in the alleys and always saved by Bucky Barnes. Then there is a Call to Adventure, in which the hero is called to enter to the Special World to solve a problem; in Captain America, the call to Adventure is when Steve Rogers goes to the fair with Bucky Barnes and some girls , and Steve Rogers separates from the group to go to an Army’s draft booth in the fair. Then there is usually a Refusal to the Call by the hero, in movies such The Patriot, Mel Gibson does not want to get involved into the war initially, however Steve Rogers is a willing hero that seeks to go to the Special World, but there is still a Refusal to the Call not by Rogers, but by Bucky Barnes that finds him and tries to discourage him to go to war, telling him that he will only find death in the battlefield. When there is a Willing hero in a movie, there will always be someone who tries to discourage the hero ( check out Dance with Wolves, it is the same thing as in Captain America).

Then the hero has an Encounter with the Mentor, who sometimes is a Merlyn-like figure that encourages the hero to go into the Special World. In Captain America, Rogers meets Dr. Abraham Erskine, who finds him, talks to him, and encourages him (more) to join the Army, telling to Rogers “We already have many big guys, maybe we will need a little one”, so Dr. Erskine takes Roger’s file and approves him to join to the army, Crossing the First Threshold to the Special World. The Cross of the First Threshold is the final event of ACT I, solving the hero’s decision to enter to the Special World.

ACT II deals with the hero’s actions in the Special World, and it starts with the meeting of Tests, Allies, and Enemies. Here, the hero is tested to prove his (or her) worth, also he meets Allies, and Enemies, which would be the boot camp, where Steve Rogers faces several tests such taking down the flag to earn a rest from the training, and the bravery tests made by Col. Phillips, that throws a fake grenade to prove that Rogers is a coward wimp, but Rogers proofs his bravery by jumping to the grenade to protect his peers and the Agent Carter (his crush), also Dr. Erskine talks to Rogers about his Enemy, Johann Schmidt, who was administered the same serum as Rogers, but it had side effects in Schmidt. Dr. Erskine tells Rogers this to tell to Rogers why he was chosen, because despite his is asthmatic and wimpy, he has a good heart and is not rotten as Schmidt, then Peggy Carter, takes roger into the secret lab where the serum is going to take place, the serum is administered, and Rogers now has abs. But a HYDRA spy kills Dr. Erskine, and steals a bottle of the formula, Rogers hunts him down and asks him “Who are you?!”, and the spy responds “The first of many. Cut off one head, two more shall take its place. Hail HYDRA!”, and the spy commits suicide by eating a pill of cyanide. Then Steve Rogers learns that HYDRA was responsible, and he wants to fight it, but he is dressed with bars and stars and give shows in order to sell War Bonds. Moreover, the hero Approaches to the Inmost Cave, which is the most dangerous place in the Special World. Rogers goes to the frontline to entertain the soldiers, but then he learn that Bucky was captured by HYDRA, and he goes into HYDRA’s factory to rescue Bucky, he figures out the locations of the other factories, takes Schmidt's mask off, becoming now Red Skull. Then there is an Ordeal, a battle in which it is unknown what is going to happen

with the hero. Captain America rides HYDRA’s train, but he finds someone who is actually trying to kill him,

then an accident happens, and somehow Captain America finds Bucky hanging from the train and is facing death by falling from the mountain in which the train is traveling.  Unfortunately, Bucky falls (but doesn’t die, he returns as the Winter Soldier in the sequel). Captain America continues with the battle and gets the Reward, which is Dr. Arnim Zola, one of HYDRA’s top officers. The Reward is the consequence of the ordeal, sometimes is an object (such in the poem Beowulf, which is Grendel’s head), a person (Such in Captain America), the enemy’s plans (such in Star Wars IV), however, the Reward is the consequence, therefore sometimes it can be a negative consequence, such a delusion, for example (I know it’s a horrible example, but it’s the only one I came out) in Mean Girls, Lindsay Lohan loses both her friendship with the “plastic girls” and her friendship with her real friends, showing that popularity went to Lindsay Lohan’s head (I don’t remember the name of the characters). With the reward, ends the ACT II, and starts the ACT III. ACT II lasts 2/4 of the duration of the film, which is more or less around 60 minutes in a 120-minute film.

ACT III last the remaining ¼ of the movie, or the last 30 minutes, and deals about the consequences of the deeds done by the hero in ACT II and here is where the climax of the whole film is. The first thing that happens in ACT III is The Road back, which are the consequences of obtaining the reward and the forces disrupted by such action. Sometimes is a chase scene (Such in Star Wars IV), other is the exile of hero from the Special World after making a mistake (such in The Lone Ranger,  or Django), but in Captain America’s case, it is a setback from the hero’s good fortune; Captain America feels guilty about losing Bucky in the Train attack, but Peggy Carter comforts him, and encourages him to go after HYDRA for Bucky by telling him “You will not be alone” (I so love the quotes of this movie!). Then the Climax comes, or in other words the Resurrection. The Resurrection is the final attempt to make a change in the Special World, when the hero is exiled, he (or she) returns reloaded, such in Scott Pilgrim vs  The World, that Scott pilgrim comes back with to face a last ordeal with Ramona’s 7th ex-boyfriend (Ms. Hudler, you MUST watch this movie, it is so epic), in A Million Ways to die in the West, the coward cowboy returns with a bullet dipped in poison to kill the antagonist; In Captain America, Steve Rogers decides to bring down HYDRA for once, and enters in Red Skull’s headquarters to capture him, but Red Skull captures Captain America, and when Red Skull is about to kill Cap, the army breaks into Red Skull’s Headquarters to bring down HYDRA. Red Skull runs away, but Cap goes after him ,and sneaks into the plane that Red Skull gets into (after receiving a kiss from Peggy Carter. Well done, Cap!). Red Skull fights Cap in the plane, Red Skull touches the Tesseract but gets burned (or tele transported by a portal to space. Some people speculate that we will see again Red Skull in one of the movies following Captain America). The Tesseract falls into the ocean, and Captain America has to sacrifice himself by putting the plane into the ocean to save America from a catastrophe (the plane carried weapons to

destroy the major American cities). Cap and Peggy Carter have this talk in which both agree to meet again for a date (by using the radio of the plane), although both know how it is going to end, and show us implicitly that Captain America and Peggy Carter love each other, and Captain America gets lost in the frozen sea. After the resurrection, it is followed the Return with the Elixir, in mythology was the item that the heroes were looking for, for example in Norse Mythology (which is going to be my freebie in the next issue) Thor retrieves his hammer, after having fighting with the Giants of the Jotunheimr that stole his hammer Mjolnir. But the elixir is not always an object, sometimes is a lesson learned by the characters after the experience of the Special World, for example,  in the poem Beowulf, Wiglaf learns that Beowulf was a great hero that fought for the good of his people, and he (Wiglaf) gives to Beowulf a honorable monument after he has died and he decides to follow Beowulf steps. But in Captain America, the world realizes what Captain America had to do to save the free world, Peggy Carter misses Cap, and Captain America is found 60 years after World War II by SHIELD, and he finds out that most of his friends are dead (Almost. Peggy Carter returns in The Winter Soldier as an old lady with Alzheimer). But Captain America’s elixir is the honor of the people that give to Captain America, and the knowing that his deeds to save the free world were not in vain because the Nazi party falls, and HYDRA also(Apparently. In The Winter Soldier, HYDRA somehow filtrates in SHIELD, but still, Captain America defeated HYDRA in World War II). And finally ends with the credits, which are the images of World War II propaganda posters (I loved the credits).

This structure is not only found in movies, but also in mythology, epic poems, books, The bible, etc. Although this structure is a clear way to build an story, you can always defy the archetypes by being iconoclast and doing something different. That’s why Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, is a classic of Cinema, it changed a little this structure by building a frame story which events do not happen in chronological order, but the events somehow fitted in the structure and still made sense.

FADE OUT. (FADE OUT is something that is typed in a screenplay to indicate that the movie is over, and so this entry).

Fandom theatrical poster of Captain America: The First Avenger. Vintage edition of 1940’s for Hipsters (Although Marvel is probably too mainstream).

Nick Fury as Jules Winnfield in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp fiction. After being a gangster, he decided to do the right thing and decided to put the Avengers together.

The Writer’s Journey. A Bible for every writer. It doesn’t only teaches about how to write, but also teaches about life.

Aztec Mythology

So I started a new project, this new project is going to be a 120-minute long movie about Aztec gods (Cool, isn't it?). So in order to write my script coherently, I had to do my homework of researching  about Aztec Mythology. Unfortunately, the Spanish burned many codexes for considering from the devil, losing many pieces of information about the Aztec Empire and leaving plot-holes in the mythology, therefore I felt free to fill these gaps with my own imagination. Now dear reader, I am going to introduce you: The Aztec Pantheon! (just the major gods, because there are around 200 gods).

Quetzalcoatl

His name translated in Nahuatl (Aztec language) literally means “Feathered Serpent”. He was represented by a feathered serpent. Quetzalcoatl was the god of wisdom, life and wind (but in his wind form he is called Ehecatl). He created the world (for the fifth time, because like always happens, the gods realize that they did an awful job of creating the world and they reboot it. Examples are when Zeus flooded the world, Odin destroys Midgard and build it again, and Noah’s ark), by descending to the Underworld and tricking the god of death to give him the bones from the humans of the past, the god of death gives them to him and Quetzalcoatl creates everything again by making himself bleed over the bones from blood from his hands, arms, and penis (he didn’t cut it off, he just made a little scar from where the blood flow, but he is now fine, like you will see in the next myth). Also Quetzalcoatl is the god of life, so he didn’t die (although Aztec gods are not immortal).

Another myth says that Quetzalcoatl descended to the mythical city of Tollan in earth, became the king and taught the humans astrology, how to crop corn, medicine, and other goodies, And he saw that this was good, but Tezcatlipoca was jealous of him, so he tricked Quetzalcoatl by drunken him with pulque (alcoholic beverage made out of agave), and Quetzalcoatl fornicated drunk with his prioress,Quetzalpetlatl (See? His part did just fine despite what he had to do to create the world). Quetzalcoatl felt shame and left Tollan to travel east, but he promised the humans to return to make everybody gods.

Quetzalcoatl was white, so Montezuma believed that Hernán Cortés was Quetzalcoatl who had returned to them, and this so-called “Quetzalcoatl” also brought something to the Aztecs: not knowledge, but smallpox, malaria, yellow fever, measles, chicken pox, typhus, influenza, and the Inquisition(note: the mayans have their own version of Quetzalcoatl, Kukulcan, and when people think that Kukulcan and Quetzalcoatl are the same thing and that the Aztecs and the Mayans are the same people, this is the item #166 of the Rant List). Some historians believe that Quetzalcoatl is Odin from Norse mythology brought by the vikings because Odin is also the god of wisdom and poetry.

Tezcatlipoca

This god was considered bad to the Aztecs for being the god of night, sorcery, and discord, but they still worshipped him. He is Quetzalcoatl’s brother and used to hang out like super-friends (they even created the world together for the first time, and killed together Cipatli, a cocrodile that had a mouth in every joint) but something happened between them, and Tezcatlipoca became rival of Quetzalcoatl. Some historians say that in mythology, Tezcatlipoca was worshipped as the major deity in Tollan, and he asked for human sacrifices, but Quetzalcoatl came with his peace-and-love philosophy, and stopped the human sacrifices (Quetzalcoatl did not asked for human sacrifices in Aztec practices in real life), so he withdrew Tezcatlipoca from the temples. Tezcatlipoca became angry and to regain Tollan, he gave to Quetzalcoatl some booze. While Quetzalcoatl was represented by a feathered serpent, Tezcatlipoca was  represented by a Jaguar.

Huitzilopochtli

Other brother of Quetzalcoatl and major god of Tenochtitlan. He was born after his mother (Coatlicue) was walking around and found an strange sphere, Coatlicue put the ball in her womb, and became pregnant (by the way, Coatlicue was a virgin). Her sister and brothers got mad and tried to kill Coatlicue, but Huitzilopochtli, god of war, was born fully grown and ready to battle, and killed his aunt, beheaded her and kick her body to the sky to become the moon. Huitzilopochtli killed several of his uncles, and went behind the rest of them, the uncles ran away to the sky and become the stars, and were named Centzon Huitznahua. After kicking out the Centzon Huitznahua, Huitzilopochtli was worshipped as god of war. One day, he found some people in the Aztlan Valley and told them to walk west and found a city where an eagle eats a snake while standing over a cactus in the middle of a lake, the people of Aztlan went and founded Mexico City (and because the city is on a lake, it is slowly sinking, for real). Although this god was as bloodthirsty as Tezcatlipoca in his ceremonies, he is one of Quetzalcoatl’s best friends.

Tlaloc

Best friend of Quetzalcoatl, and god of water, hail, lightning, thunder, and water-related things. Had googly eyes and jaguar teeth. Priests used to eat babies to make rain, however, it was considered good among the Aztecs. If someone died by drowning or struck by a lightning, the person would go to the Tlalocan, Tlaloc’s Kingdom in the Upperworld that was a water paradise, and where Tlaloc makes rain, hail, snow, and all of that. One day, the mexican government found an statue of Tlaloc somewhere in Mexico, so they transported it to Mexico City, and started to rain a lot during the trip (and not those drizzles that people from the Rio Grande Valley call “rain". I mean thunders, and lightnings and stuff).

Xolotl

Quetzalcoatl’s ugly bother. Had human body and dog head. Because of his deformity, he lived in the Underworld helping the dead to find their way. God of deformities, but also could control lighting and fire. Was represented by a hairless dog (whose breed is the Xoloitzcuintle). Despite of his ugliness, Aztec worshipers liked him, but the gods sent him to work with Mictlantecuhtli in the Underworld. He only had one friend, Huehuecoyotl (Mictlantecuhtli was more like a boss).

Huehuecoyotl

His name literally means “very old coyote”. Only friend of Xolotl, and was the trickster god of mischief, music and partying (although he was the god of mischief, he is not evil, he is more like Dionysius). He has another very funny friend, named Xochipilli (huehuecoyotl did not had a coyote head, but had a coyote mask).

Xochipilli

Brother of the goddess of love. Like his sister he was the god of beauty, art, dance, flowers, male prostitution and homosexuality. He had several female and male lovers, according to some myths (although  homosexuals were protected by this god, the aztec law was very harsh with them. If the authorities would caught an homosexual, they would do horrible stuff to them, but the Mayans-who are NOT the aztecs-were cool to homosexuality). Also, he had a pointy stick and likes to poke it around, but if the tip touched your heart, you would fall in love.

Xochiquetzal

(A goddess!) Goddess of love, fertility, and female sexual power. Twin sister of Xochipilli. She would get married to several gods. Once she married Tlaloc, and they lived happily, but t̶h̶e̶ ̶p̶a̶r̶t̶y̶ ̶p̶o̶o̶p̶e̶r̶ Tezcatlipoca came and kidnapped Xochiquetzal and forced her to marry him (but then, she managed to divorce him).

Mictlantecuhtli

Uglier than Xolotl. He was represented by an skeleton because he was the god of death and Lord of the Underworld (aka. Mictlan). He was considered kind of evil because the Underworld was filled with traps, such mountains that moved, oceans of fire, etc. Like I said, he guarded the bones of the humans when Quetzalcoatl decided to reboot the world for the fifth time, but he was playing “finders-keepers” and he tried to trick Quetzalcoatl, but Quetzalcoatl tricked him back and he gave to Quetzalcoatl the bones, so he could spill his blood on them and remake the humans.

Coatlicue

Mother of most of the gods and goddesses. She was the “mother earth” goddess. Because she has fought many times, he lost her head and was replaced by two snakes. She was nice, but Coyolxauhqui, her sister, did not liked her, but Huitzilopochtli took care of her.

Itztlacoliuhqui

Punisher god of Justice and the morning star. He used to be cool, and warm, but one day Tonatiuh (the sun god) was asking for bloody and ridiculous sacrifices, so he decided to teach him a lesson on compassion and humility by throwing him an arrow to kill Tonatiuh, but missed and Tonatiuh grabbed it and threw it back, making Itztlacoliuhqui a god with a cold heart. He was considered the evilest god of all the pantheon that he didn’t even had a temple.

Tonatiuh

The sun god guardian of the fifth sun. He was a god that the divinity went to his head and Itztlacoliuhqui wanted him to put him in his place but turned to be the other way around. One of the Spanish Conquistadors, Pedro de Alvarado, was called Tonatiuh because some say that he was a redhead (And also turned out to be a barbaric soldier, who murdered various Aztec captains and soldiers unarmed in a religious celebration, known as The Massacre of the Toxalt, turning point in the Conquest of Mexico).

Centzon-Totochtin

Were divine bunnies that were FOUR HUNDRED DRUNKEN RABBITS (also called Spring Breakers), who were born from Mayahuel, goddess of Agave and alcohol, who also had FOUR HUNDRED breasts, so she could nurture the rabbits, and alcoholized milk would come out from her breasts. The rabbits travel around, but sometimes they meet together to party, and when that happens all of the rabbits get (more) drunk. These rabbits were the gods of drunkenness (duh!), and each rabbit represented  a different way in which a person can get drunk.

Popocatepetl

Not a god. He was a legendary mortal who was a warrior who was in love with the emperor’s daughter (Iztaccihuatl) who loved him back, but the emperor (aka. Huey Tlatoani) made a deal with Popocatepetl that if he wanted to marry Iztaccihuatl, he had to go to battle and return victorious. So Popocatepetl went to battle and promised to her to return, but a rival warrior who had a crush on Iztaccihuatl, came back before Popocatepetl and told her that Popocatepetl was killed in battle, and instead of marrying him (like he planned), she dies of broken heart. When Popocatepetl returns, he finds her dead and takes her to the mountains where he cries for her and makes her a honorable burial. Popocatepetl, while he was crying for her, he also dies of broken heart. This touched the hearts of the gods and turned the couple into volcanoes, so they could finally be together. The volcanoes are real and surround Mexico city, the volcano Iztaccihuatl is extinct, but Popocatepetl is still active and very frequently exhales smoke and (or) ash, sometimes the exhalations can be very dangerous to the communities around. Lately, Popocatepetl has been upset, and he throws ash, smoke, and other stuff, sometimes threatens to throw lava and giant rocks, and some people (spiritists) speculate that is because The Mighty Popocatepetl, guardian of Mexico, is pissed off at what are the presidents doing with Mexico, and with all the corruption, drug trafficking, etc (You know, what has been on the news).

Note: When Mexico’s roads were safe, I came to these volcanoes to visit them with my family. We walked around the park, but then we decided to hitchhike the Iztaccíhuatl (Popocatépetl was kind of unsafe, because that day I think some smoke was coming out, and there was wind, and you know, those radioactive gases (Radon-222 and its friends) that come from volcanoes do not give you superpowers, but kill you). We climbed half of the Iztaccihuatl before finding our way back to our car due to the cold weather it was getting as we went up.

Valentine's day.

When I read the prompt of this entry, I thought at first to write about how Capitalism uses Valentine’s Day in the same way they use Christmas, or  Halloween, how much  corporations earn in one day of Valentine’s day, what happens with Valentine’s decorations on February 15th, and how mainstream it is now, providing an economic and social analysis to Valentine’s Day. But writing about this probably will make me look like a cynical snob, so instead I choose to write my first original sonnet about a girl that I have a crush on, and that rides my bus, and one day, she dressed so fancy that she looked more beautiful than ever before. As the person in my entry A Letter, this girl is a real person, but I don’t have photos of her because I don’t know her and I would look like a creep asking her for a photo just to put it in my scrapbook, and she makes me feel a little shy, so I just look at her at the distance discretely (but not creepily). Like I said, this is my very first sonnet that I write in my own, so it might be a little corny, but by no way it’s cliché (I believe).

Sonnet to the girl on the bus.

Today, a girl has sat next to my seat.

She wears a shirt, a suit, and a black skirt.

Her pearl necklace is as white as her teeth.

Her elegance makes me feel inexpert.

She attracts my fearful eyes when she looks away

But when she turns to me, I look down and play fool.

Does she feel me while she looks the highway?

I ask this curious question to my soul.

Make her mine? I don't think that's possible.

I'm sure that she has someone on her mind.

Or she want her heart not to be a gamble

Because I can't talk to her, I have pinned.

I hope that one day I will have the courage

To talk to her at least about the journal.

Macbeth

In March of 2015, my English class was assigned to read Shakespeare’s Macbeth. This play is about an Schottish knight that is told by three witches (aka. The Weird sisters) that he is going to become king of Scotland, so he (Macbeth) kills the king in order to crown himself and also kills many other people in order to keep himself in the throne (It is Shakespeare’s bloodiest play. You just open the book, and blood will come out like in the scene of the blood elevator scene of The Shining). I found a repeating pattern (aka. motif) about blood . According to an English teacher in Med High, the word “blood” is repeated more than 100 times thruought the play. So I dipped in this ocean of blood and gore to find quotes about this motif to see what it means (I need to test myself for AIDS).

In Act III, scene IV, lines 122 to 126, Macbeth says “I will have blood, they say; blood will have blood. Stones have been known to move, and trees to speak; Augurs and understood relations have by maggot pies and choughs and rooks brought forth the secret’ st man of blood.” To understand this quote we need to have in mind what happened in the play. After killing the king, Macbeth orders to some murderers to kill  Banquo, Macbeth’s closest firend, and his son, Fleance, because he fears that Banquo will kill him first in order to put Fleance in the throne. The murderers kill Banquo, but Fleance  escapes, and the murderers inform Macbeth that Fleance has escaped. In the quote of above, Macbeth fears that Banquo’s death will be revenged by some kind of karma in which Macbeth will be murdered, and when that happens, all the nasty, bloody, and despicable deeds that Macbeth has done in order to get where he is now will be exposed. In this phrase, mainly, the word “blood” is used to mean death by violent means (such murder).

Another example is in the same act, and in the same scene, but in lines 135 to 140. Macbeth says “For mine own good, all causes shall give way. I am in blood stepped in so far that, should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o’er. Strange things I have in head , that will to hand, which must be acted ere they may be scanned.” In this quote,  besides that Macbeth is saying explicitly that he has issues (“Strange things I have in head…”), Macbeth realizes that he has already done so many nasty things, but he can’t stop, because if he does, he will lose everything. Therefore he has to continue and he must protect himself by doing whatever he has to do in order to remain in the power. Like in the  first phrase, “blood” is used to refer to violent deaths.

In conclusion, the motif of blood is used to refer of the murders that happened, are happening, and are going to happen; all of them caused by Macbeth’s ambition for the throne. This motif indicates us that Macbeth is about murderes, treason, and bad stuff, but also it makes to ask to the audience “How far is a person willing to go because of ambition?”.

This is how the stage ends by the end of Macbeth.

Current Issue

Note: This entry was wrote around January,2015. So it might not be as new.

In the International Context, Islamic extremist have broken into the headquarters of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, killed around 12 people including the Chief editor, two cartoonists, and a French Police Officer. After the attack, France raised the alert level to its highest point: terror alert, and deployed troops in Ile-de-France, and Picardy. Days after the attack, the French police persecuted the suspects around Paris, who then went to a signage company, and took hostages, finally the suspects were killed by the police when they exited the building. After these events, political leader from around the world, and Eric Holder (Obama was not able to attend due to security issues), Chief of the Department of Justice of the US, met in Paris for a rally of national unity. In the social networks, people used “#JesuisCharlie” to express their solidarity to the French people.

I looked for some cartoons of Charlie Hebdo, to know what kind of humor they used in their cartoons, and many of them were so disgusting (Oh my Gosh) that I was not impressed on why terrorists attacked them. But while I don’t agree the way in which Charlie Hebdo makes its points, I advocate for the freedom of speech that every country should have, and paraphrasing a philosopher (I think Voltaire) “I might not agree with what you say, but I will fight for your right to say it”. So yeah, Je suis Charlie.

Third cultural event

I was assigned to write once again about a cultural event, and initially I was going to write it about a math competition, but I had to drop the team in which I was going to the competition because I had things to do on the day of the competition, so I decided to write about my experience in a museum. Now I know that I already wrote about a museum in the first entry about the cultural event, but this entry is different because in order to get to this museum I had to get off of the school bus in Hidalgo on Friday February 27th, then I had to walk 1.4 miles (around 30 minutes walking ) to the southwest, and cross a river in order to get to foreign lands. Yes, the museum is in the far away lands of Mexico. I was sure that the city of Reynosa is more than drug dealers, soldiers in the streets carrying their loaded guns on the top of trucks, and cheap healthcare.

So after crossing the border, I went to the house of my parents to spend the weekend in order to go to the museum on Saturday. Saturday came, and my dad and me went  to the museum which is almost outside the city. Like always happens when I go to a cultural event, it was cloudy, rainy and during a cold front.

The name of the museum that I went was Casa de la tierra (which means Earth’s house). It was completed last January, and is funded by the state government. The mission of Casa de la Tierra is to educate the people about global warming, climate change, and pollution. I entered to the building and a girl (not a lady, she was like 20) greeted us and informed us that the next tour was going to start at midday, but we could interact with two computers that were in there. The museum was smaller than the one in mcallen, and although I already knew most of the information on it, it still amazed me the information that I didn’t knew. The computers that we went sent to interact with were two spheric screens in which the earth was projected, and by a touch screen panel, you could project the image that you wanted to see. For example, you could see the Earth at night, forest fires around the globe, changes of Ice around the world, frequency of lightings, etc. There was also an option in which you could project Mars, the Moon, Jupiter, Saturn, Europa (one of Jupiter’s moons), the sun, solar radiation as seen by the satellite SOHO, and the planets compared with the solar surface. At twelve, the guide tooks us for a tour around the museum, which consisted in an spiral stars what went up. As we walked throughout the stars, at the wall in my right there was a time line about the creation of the universe which started with a thought that said in Spanish: “In the stelar ovens were created most of the atoms of the chemical elements that gave origin to all the matter we know, including the living beings. The calcium of our bones, the iron of our blood, the carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen of our cells of our body, they are product of the nuclear reactions of the stars. Like the famous astronomer Carl Sagan said ‘We are all Stardust’”.

After this thought, our journey thru the history of the universe started with the Big Bang, an explosion that lasted around three minutes and created all the elements, and the different forces, such the gravity force, and the nuclear force. Moreover, We learned about the years light unit (the unit to measure distances in the universe that mean the time that light would take to go over a distance. 1 year light means that light takes a year to go over a distance). We also learned about the Relativity theory, and the theories of what is going to happen with the universe. The first one is The Big Crush, which says that the universe will get to its greatest expansion, and then it is going to shrink to a small point; then there is The Big Rip, that says that the universe will continue to expand and all the particles will eventually disintegrate as a result of the expansion,and finally, the theory that says that nothing will happen, but the universe will continue to expand forever. After this timeline, it was followed a timeline of the earth, that started with the earth as a big red ball at its very beginnings, then the species were created in a flood starting by the cyanobacteria, those bacterias were becoming more complex, until they became dinosaurs, who then were killed by an asteroid, and then mammals survived, then some monkey appeared in earth and evolved until they became humans, who then founded cities that started to pollute the world. After we finished the timeline, the college girl guide took us to a dome in the very top of the building which was some sort of cinema, but this cinema had the screen shaped in a sphere, actually it was the same thing as the one that I saw in the museum in Mcallen. She went away and another guide came in to put us projection in the globe, and to talk as the images appeared. I remember that he asked “How many penguins can a polar bear eat?” my father said two, but I knew to what the guide was going to. So I said “Well, if you give them to the bear it sure is two, but a polar bear cannot eat any penguins since they both live in the opposite poles of the earth” and then my dad said “Well, but it might happen in a congressman’s zoo” making reference to a note on the news on friday that said that a private zoo was confiscated from a Mexican congressman in the Federal government, so we all laugh from this satire. Then the guide put us a video about what would the earth say to us if she had a voice, how we (humans) are destroying her. After this video finished, the tour did. I went home with several mementos to put in here.

Now, reflecting about what happened in the museum, I wonder what if that museum was built in the US. I can imagine conservatives going not to learn, but t̶o̶ ̶b̶u̶r̶n̶ ̶i̶t̶ to protest. I really like that museum, because among all the science museums that I have visited, I have never been in one that explained so well the global warming issue. Projects like this make the people to become educated about their surroundings, and create conscience. Also it touches the evolution and the continental drift theory, which are the best proved explanations on how the world works, and although in Mexico there are not as much people that believe in Creationism (the only mexican creationists that I can think of are SOME priests, church officers, catholic schools, and politicians from the PAN (Mexican f̶a̶s̶c̶i̶s̶t̶ conservative political party (the Mexican GOP, although the Mexican GOP are the PRI and PAN together))). It still opens the minds of those who are not educated in the sciences. And like one of the best Popes that the Church has had, Pope Francis, I also support the Evolution because it doesn’t prove that God doesn’t exist, but it proves that God exists because God is not a wizard who made everything like if it was witchcraft, but took its time making everything better (the Pope said something that looked like this).

 The Earth. Version 2.0.