I believe that supernatural vampires are a possibility, and there is actually a subculture of people who are like vampires. I think that people should be nice to vampires because not all of them are bad. The real-life members of that subculture often drink only from willing donors and can even be nice...
I never said 'mad'. I'll put it this way, do you really believe the walking dead cannot be seen in mirrors, suck blood and are repelled by silver? If yes then, I think you are wrong, and also don't base your vision of the world on skepticism. If no you do and we are of like-minds. If you expect me to take the delusional fantasy world of some high-school goth seriously, well - think again. That's all I can say.
Quit being intolerant. If a person deep down believes he/she is a vampire, than that person is a vampire.
Idea #1. I allow for the possibility of actual supernatural vampires. Idea #2. Some humans like to play being vampires. Idea #3. Here's where it get's interesting. You take Idea #1 and Idea #2 and make a single ball of dough out of the two things that are paradigmatically unrelated. #1 = Supernatural, #2 = Subcultural. And here you provide anecdotal evidence as to why we should be nice to vampires by using the behavior of a subculture of humans as example. This is like telling me that hippos love to jump around because goats love to jump around, and they are basically similar in shape.
Oh man now I have to start thinking of you as a real adult! Up to this point I had happily imagined you as some form of student... (I think you're studying an MA though am I right? or a PhD?) But y'know, when people say student, I'm really thinking of silly freshers But now you not only have a job, but you've had more than one job and everything! What's the world come to!!??
Haha, yeah, I'm studying for an MA right now, thinking maybe I should hold off doing a PhD for a few years because honestly - I'm getting tired of the constant work and writing and testing. It's grueling. And I know! :O Who on earth gave me a job! I'm now a private teacher to help fund my MA, and I frankly feel sorry for my students.
Yeah PhDs are notoriously gruelling so if you're tired now, definitely take a break first! Lol I feel sorry for my students too, so that makes two of us except in your case, you actually know what you're talking about. I'm an English teacher who can't explain English grammar, and still I get jobs! Ah, the magic of simply calling yourself "a native speaker"
Haha, oh I know! It's wonderful isn't it? English grammar is something I don't often have a problem teaching, I've worked those into creative writing lessons, but I've found myself struggling with spelling lessons recently. I think it's because I'm maybe too honest for my own good. I often see I've lost a student slightly when I tell them 'there are no tricks to it, i before e is rubbish, you just have to learn and read a lot - get used to seeing words on a page'. Doesn't help that I'm one of those people that needs to write a word down to reassure myself I have it right. I was never a fantastic speller myself I must admit. But yeah, I'm wanting a break after this MA, and do some actual work - be that writing or teaching I don't mind. I think the moment came when I was reading an essay on Walt Whitman and race and it said something like 'Here we see that Whitman has moved beyond Social Constructivism, and became instead a Superstructuralist in his biological theory of race' and my first response was 'Lemex, time out, just time out dude'.
Not all goths are high-schoolers. Some are adults, believe it or not. I don't know that the whole "walking dead" thing is true, but it could be true on another planet. Drinking blood I think definitely is real and the whole "repelled by silver" may or may not be true for real, supernatural vampires. However, just because I say this, please, please, please do not go and hurt or kill any vampires (or any other being, for that matter) needlessly. Thank you.
Physically, maybe, mentally I don't believe it. Maybe I'm cynical because I was 13 when the whole nu-metal thing was going on, and every one of my friends had posters of the hot goth girl from the film Underworld over their beds. I did too. And I've only ever seen it as a phase. Bowling for Soup had that song 'Highschool Never Ends' and it's the only way I can see goths. The only thing about vampirism that is real is some people really do drink blood, and they are not 'vampires' they are 'idiots'. That's impossible.
It's a good thing you put that warning in there. Otherwise, your post could have spawned a whole new generation of amoral vampire hunters. Phew. Close one!
I went to a public library, they had a book on "vampire philosophy". Perhaps if you read that you may get there. (Don't thank me, it's alright, I understand the difficulty in the biological change, not to mention that awkward dinner table discussion with your family).
Yeah! Those people who endorse a culture you dislike are all still developmentally teenagers! I don't know why I didn't see it before!
Who said I dislike it? Come on, do you really think someone who calls themselves Lady Vampire Ravenblack II is doing anything more than looking for attention, and not saying 'Look at me! I'm different!'?
Getting used to seeing words on a page isn't so bad. Imagine, technically my mother tongue was Chinese, so I'm used to all that English spelling in comparison really isn't so bad. Guess it's all down to what you're used to, though. For Czechs, English spelling is a complete nightmare because Czech spelling is extremely literal, and they have literally 2 letters that sound very similar to each other (that's the I and Y for them) and Czechs find that to be one of the "hardest" thing about their language (which, from a foreigner's perspective, is absolutely ridiculous. Their 7 cases for every noun, verb and adjective in each gender are much worse). But in the past I've actually found myself struggling to spell Czech words when it involves either the I or Y, because I've become so reliant on simply sounding it out that I never paid attention to the way it looked. I've never had such a problem with Chinese or English. It could be just the way a language makes you think. I've never struggled with English spelling actually. That could well be because I didn't start out with phonics - learnt that only in the UK much later. In HK you simply memorised how every word is spelt, like, you memorise the exact letters in the order they come in. I think I was probably using this method for a long time. However, there're certainly words I still have to write out to make sure I'm right I'm still never sure about the word "ski" either. Skiing and skied? She skis? Looks so odd! In any case, English phonics aren't all that great. Half the time it doesn't even apply lol. You probably know that famous poem about English pronunciation. Can you read the whole thing out loud without struggling? I can't. There're about a handful of words in it I honestly don't know how to pronounce lol. So do you have a favourite age group you like to teach? That Walt Whitman thing went right over my head btw. I've never been one for philosophy. Philosophy encompassed in fiction and expressed through a relateable story - excellent, love it. Pure philosophy like that? Noooooo... Those unnecessary 20 pages of philosophy in 1984 killed the book for me
That would make sense. I've found students spell phonetically, and I do too, and it's wrong because of the quirks in English spelling - phonetics can only go so far! If I could change one thing about the education system, it would be weening people off phonetic spelling ASAP. And if I was being picky I'd change the way teachers pitch literature - the initial pitch is the most important thing in introducing something like Shakespeare and most teachers don't seem to know what to do! They don't seem to know how teenagers think, and so aren't able to get them enthusiastic. I know! Some words just don't look right do they? For me it's 'queue'. What is that word doing? Haha, don't worry, I get this all the time. Sometimes it's odd pronunciations of very familiar words that can throw you. I studied Classics at GCSE - I was told I must pronounce Caesar 'Kai-zar', not 'Sea-sar' like most other English people. The one exception I make is with the Shakespeare play, because that's obviously how it was intended to be pronounced. However, whenever I say Kai-zar, I get odd looks from people who may be thinking I'm a bit pretentious. Definitely A-level students and young adults on higher education, 16-20 say. They almost always want to be there, are often very bright, and often have the manners enough to laugh at my terrible jokes. You? See, I found that bit of Nineteen Eighty-Four to be pretty interesting. And I was able to pick up on the joke - how it seems so retrospective instead of some anarchist polemic. I can put up with a lot in literature. But I can't put up with that, what the hell is 'superstructure' in terms of literary theory? I don't know, and I don't think I care. It seems so overtly pedantic and even too precise. I made the joke in class once, that I think most literary theorists are only theorists because they are dreadful writers. Now I'm beginning to think that's actually the case.
How do you think English spelling should be taught? It's true that in the past when I've taught phonics to a kid, and then they come to a word like "bread" and end up misreading it. I'm not sure I know how teachers usually pitch literature lol - I've always loved Eng Lit, as I guess a lot of us on this forum did/does - so I'm not sure it affected me much either way. I was always way more into creative writing than anything else though. My teacher who taught Shakespeare and Chaucer thought the best way to teach it was get the class to read it out loud together... I still like neither to this day. Haha this comment made me chuckle It's true the word 'queue' looks a little ridiculous - non-Brits generally get very confused by the word too, never having heard it before. 'Queue' looks a little like it's spawning hehehe. It apparently the only word in English that's still pronounced the same after you've removed the last 4 letters I never knew that about Ceasar, although somehow Kai-zar doesn't sound too foreign to me either. I must've heard it before somewhere I guess? My ex would adore you for pronouncing it Kai-zar btw, because it's 'proper' lol. So what's it Kai-zar anyway? Truth is, I just love the social interaction and not so much the teaching lol. My favourite is always when I get to know the kids personally and we can play games and joke and laugh. (for this, from age 6 and up is fine - it's basically specific to the kid, if we get on lol) While I would love for them to learn, too, I'm really not that into teaching. In general, I like older kids rather than younger kids. Anyone between say 9-18 is fine lol. I prefer it when I can actually communicate with the children, which makes ESL rather frustrating sometimes cus you can't get that far with the smaller ones. I'm honestly not sure what job I'd actually be suitable for, to be honest. I don't think I want to teach English language. If only my Cantonese was better, I'd be happy to teach that. Deep down, I think I'd be perfect for holiday clubs and after school clubs, that sorta thing. Youth clubs. When you're there for the relationship and to give emotional support, where you can get really personal and really silly too. But I'm not sure such a job exists lol - considering, esp, that I don't want to work evenings lol. I don't know what superstructure is full stop, let alone it being in terms of anything lol. I'm pretty picky and impatient, so I suppose the 1984 philosophical part didn't help. I completed missed the joke though - what joke? There was a joke!?
But I believe that all beings are connected, and that while there may well be good reason for necessary killing/cruelty, unnecessary killing/cruelty isn't really right. If you would not be needlessly horrible to your mother, why be needlessly horrible to any other being (including vampires/vampyres)? If you do not believe in vampires, then that is okay, I guess. In fact, it can even be a good thing as it means that you probably won't hurt them. Just please don't go around unnecessarily picking on those of us who do believe.
I'm not picking on anyone. I am detailing the fallacy of your argument. It makes no sense. And again here is another false parallel that co-opts the attributes of one thing (a kindly mother) and fallaciously applies them to a completely unrelated other thing (vampires who kill humans for their blood to survive) in order to borrow the sentimentality of the former. Fallacious.
Ever since my history teacher said that Caesar was pronounced as "Kai-zar" (hence the similarities with the German word for emperor, kaiser) I've thought "Kai-zar" when ever I read Caesar's name, but I've never said it that way. I guess I'm too scared of getting weird looks from all around...
It is true, though, about the pronunciation. Even in Spanish today (daughter of Latin) C before A, O or U is always a "hard C" and C before E or I is a "soft C".
