LJ Idol Season 11 Second Chance Week 5: Moonshot
The year: 2003. Creative Writing Class 101. The topic for the final essay: create an invention that is needed in the world today.
Sara stared out the window, chewing on her pencil as the students around her wrote frantically. What the hell was she supposed to create? She was not technically inclined whatsoever to even begin thinking about inventing something. This is why she was an English major and not a engineering or math major! She sucked at building things with Legos. Don't ask her to make anything out of Playdough that didn't look like a lump. She couldn't even do percentages and fractions in her head...let alone calculus! Writing stories, yes, she could do...inventing things, no.
Hmm. Her mind wandered as she thought about her mom who always yelled at her for her poor math ability.
"You know, you won't just be able to carry a calculator with you wherever you go! You need to learn how to do this!"
Hmmm. What if she could carry a calculator around with her wherever she went? Sara stared at her red Nokia phone with a Snoopy sticker on it. What if phones had calculators on it? she pondered to herself. Oooh! She sat up straight in her chair, excited to write. What if phones could take pictures too and she could take pictures whenever she wanted? She couldn't imagine how that would work...the technology needed for that would make her head explode. But it sounded amazingly fantastical and if it could happen, it would make her life and other people's lives so much easier! Sara could make an arguement for how it's needed.
With her head bent, she started writing, sketching a photo of the phone that she could see her in mind to accompany her writing. It would be a phone that could take pictures (eliminate the need for carrying around a camera!), solve calculation problems for her whenever she needed it (and figure what's 15% tip!), call whoever she wanted in the world without worrying about long distance (she could call her friends and family abroad, she reasoned), play games besides Snake (not that she didn't like snake but it would be great if she didn't need her Game Boy), and have the ability to be able read books on it (it would save space not to carry so many romance novels in her backpack!). With a smile, she put the final period at the end of the sentence and sat back, dropping her pencil as the professor announced that it was the end of class. She turned in her essay, sure to get an A.
A week later, she frowned as she stared at the red C on her paper. Great idea but will never happen. Your ideas are a little too out there and not sure the need for this. You need to think more realistically. She crumpled up her work and tossed it into her backpack, never to think about it again.
The year: 2020. Decluttering her apartment.
She rummaged through the box, going through old papers that she had saved when she came across a crumpled ball of notebook paper. Unraveling the ball, she found her old essay and skimmed through it before throwing the paper across the room.
"Fuck, I essentially created an iPhone and didn't know it?! Ugh, I could have been rich!"
Note: This is a fictitious story based on the time in my college Freshman English class in which I essentially created a smartphone in response to the prompt (I don't even remember what the exact prompt was) and my professor thought my essay was too out there and the idea was awful! Little did she know!
Sara stared out the window, chewing on her pencil as the students around her wrote frantically. What the hell was she supposed to create? She was not technically inclined whatsoever to even begin thinking about inventing something. This is why she was an English major and not a engineering or math major! She sucked at building things with Legos. Don't ask her to make anything out of Playdough that didn't look like a lump. She couldn't even do percentages and fractions in her head...let alone calculus! Writing stories, yes, she could do...inventing things, no.
Hmm. Her mind wandered as she thought about her mom who always yelled at her for her poor math ability.
"You know, you won't just be able to carry a calculator with you wherever you go! You need to learn how to do this!"
Hmmm. What if she could carry a calculator around with her wherever she went? Sara stared at her red Nokia phone with a Snoopy sticker on it. What if phones had calculators on it? she pondered to herself. Oooh! She sat up straight in her chair, excited to write. What if phones could take pictures too and she could take pictures whenever she wanted? She couldn't imagine how that would work...the technology needed for that would make her head explode. But it sounded amazingly fantastical and if it could happen, it would make her life and other people's lives so much easier! Sara could make an arguement for how it's needed.
With her head bent, she started writing, sketching a photo of the phone that she could see her in mind to accompany her writing. It would be a phone that could take pictures (eliminate the need for carrying around a camera!), solve calculation problems for her whenever she needed it (and figure what's 15% tip!), call whoever she wanted in the world without worrying about long distance (she could call her friends and family abroad, she reasoned), play games besides Snake (not that she didn't like snake but it would be great if she didn't need her Game Boy), and have the ability to be able read books on it (it would save space not to carry so many romance novels in her backpack!). With a smile, she put the final period at the end of the sentence and sat back, dropping her pencil as the professor announced that it was the end of class. She turned in her essay, sure to get an A.
A week later, she frowned as she stared at the red C on her paper. Great idea but will never happen. Your ideas are a little too out there and not sure the need for this. You need to think more realistically. She crumpled up her work and tossed it into her backpack, never to think about it again.
The year: 2020. Decluttering her apartment.
She rummaged through the box, going through old papers that she had saved when she came across a crumpled ball of notebook paper. Unraveling the ball, she found her old essay and skimmed through it before throwing the paper across the room.
"Fuck, I essentially created an iPhone and didn't know it?! Ugh, I could have been rich!"
Note: This is a fictitious story based on the time in my college Freshman English class in which I essentially created a smartphone in response to the prompt (I don't even remember what the exact prompt was) and my professor thought my essay was too out there and the idea was awful! Little did she know!