Funny. A perfect example of genre conventions and a perfect example of what I loathe about banal, bland, cliched student writing. I might have to use this on the first day of comp class. Via The Onion: http://www.theonion.com/articles/since-the-beginning-of-time-mankind-has-discussed,18081/
Since The Beginning Of Time, Mankind Has Discussed What It Did On Summer Vacation
By Jeremy Ryan
September 15, 2010For as far back as historians can go, summer vacations have been celebrated by people everywhere as a time for rest and relaxation. Many advancements have been made in summer breaks since these early times, but it is also true that many different traditions have lived on and continue to remain with us today. This is why, since the beginning of time, mankind has discussed what it did on its summer vacation.
This is what I intend to prove within the course of this essay.
The dictionary defines summer as “the season between spring and autumn” and a vacation as “a break or intermission.” These definitions were very true in the ancient past, as well, when summer was the time for hanging out while the crops grew. They sang bountiful songs of harvest and carved wooden games and puzzles to play with that are in many ways similar to the Xboxes and PlayStations of today but not as good. This is how summer vacation started.
As people know, the discussing of the summer vacation is a tradition as old as summer vacation itself is. In the early days before the invention of writing, stories of summer fun were told in caves. Each kid had to memorize their essay in their head because there was no way to record it. The invention of paper by the Chinese of course gave us the ability to not only write down what happened on our summer vacations but also hand them into our teacher for grades. Later on, Egyptian children would gather on the first day of their Egyptian school and they would all stand up in front of the class and talk about how they spent their summer at sleep-away camp building pyramids and making mummies.
Since then, the major libraries of history have contained many chronicles of bygone summer days. How were these days spent? For instance, the Romans were famous for spending nearly every day at the pool. Native American children would often be allowed to sleep in until almost noon and then spend the rest of the day watching the fire. And the Mayans created famous stone carvings that showed how little brothers followed them around all day and wanted to play basketball even though they sucked and didn’t understand the rules of the game.
These and other examples prove my original point that summer vacation has been very important in history.
Also, my friend Justin’s dad said there used to be a big farmer’s field where the mall is now, so this proves my point from before that it used to be all about farming.
It is also true that early man faced many hardships on his summer vacation, including many trials and tribulations such as saber-toothed tigers, and the Civil War much later. Luckily, we have invented many things that make summer vacations even easier and better today than they were before. It was with the invention of the automobile that summer vacation really came into what it is today, such as the example of making one’s mom take you to the water park, which is something that has been with us since the dawn of man. The car allows her to do so without having to spend her whole day transporting you back and forth on horseback or possibly even camelback. Thus going to the water park can be a weekly or interweekly occurrence rather than simply once a season.
But what will the future hold for the summer vacation and the essays we write about it? I believe that it will continue to evolve as mankind does. However, many things will remain constant, such as weeklong trips to Aunt Ginny’s house in Dubuque, fun fair festivals that sound better than they really are, and of course your friend Justin breaking his leg the first week of vacation so he cannot do anything fun. But things may also change. Perhaps trips to the air museum could be directly uploaded into your mind so instead of taking all day it could only take one minute, or maybe there will be teleporting so you could go anywhere for vacation.
In conclusion, summer vacations will probably always be cool.