Monster

So I've been teaching this new class at Eton Institute in Torrance. It's a writing class for which my boss asked me to create the curriculum. I'm not sure whether she wanted me to teach it just to give me something new to break the monotony of my regular SAT classes, or whether there was actual demand, so she needed me to make up something. In any event, it has been fun. Recently the students worked on personal essays.

Here's the introductory paragraph from an interesting entry entitled "Monster," by Michael Ahn.

It has existed ever since my introduction into this world. A grotesque monster dwelling nearby that I can't seem to avoid. This monster is unlike anything I have ever seen or heard before in myth or legend. It is cunning and clever beyond any other, while mischievous beyond compare. I hypothesize that it is comprised of twenty tons of pure evil, and a teaspoon of kindness. In its boiling cauldron of life, there is a minuscule, microscopic piece of charcoal it calls a heart. No matter how hard I try, greater forces keep me from kicking it of my home or attacking it. In everyone else's eyes, it seems like a perfect being, but I can see right through its clever disguise, this monster, my sister.

I guess I like it because: a) I was genuinely surprised by the ending and assumed the monster was a dog or awful household pet [here I confess that I'm projecting my own feelings about my sister's beloved dogs]; and b) I actually know Michael's sister. She was a student of mine, and not at all the way the essay portrays her.

The rest of his piece isn't worth reproducing, but the beginning amused me enough to post.