I decided that I might have been studying the wrong major, ok, maybe not wrong but just not the right one. However, education is never a bad thing. Knowledge is dangerous but education, in its purest definition, is always a positive delight. I appreciate the education I receive, even when my heart yearns for something else. It’s nobody’s fault that I didn’t know what I want to do in the beginning. Instead of lamenting over past mistakes, I’m telling myself it is smarter to work around the problem. Am I being hypocrite? Am I deluding myself? Am I being mature? Probably a little of everything. No matter what, I’ll make up my mind from now on. It almost felt like an epiphany, reading Austin Kleon’s “How to steal Like an Artist.” Unlike his experience, I did get told many times, I just didn’t put enough thought into that. And now seeing those advices summed up in one post, it’s like reality has just slapped me in the face and said, “Listen real good. This is what you should do.” Not what I has to do but what I should do. And I’d better take action ASAP.
Ben Imura never thinks Tom, his half-brother, is cool. Cool is like Charlies Pink-eye and the Hammer, the most feared and well-known zombie hunters in the town. Unlike Tom, they talk and act like real men. Meaning they tell others what they actually see out there in Rot & Ruin, the land of the undead, without flinching or mincing the words. In Ben’s point of view, those two are the real heroes. It’s hard to think of those who are able to kill thousand zoms and even combat one-on-one with them otherwise. On the other hand, Tom is anything but brave. He never talks about his job, always seems to go out of his way to steer clear of the subject. And, most importantly, Ben remembers the First Night, when humanity’s nightmares all begun, when the zombie plague started to spread out, when Tom took him and ran away, leaving their mother behind to her death. The last moments of their mother seared into his brain even when Ben was only 18 months old at the time. So obviously, he scoffs at the idea that Tom is possibly the most admirable bounty hunter around. The last thing Ben would like to do is becoming Tom’s apperantice. However, the list of jobs is running low and Ben couldn’t afford to be unemployed. Grudingly, he accepts to follow Tom into the family business. However, when Tom takes Ben out to the Rot & Ruin, he starts to see the world, his brother and even the zombies in a different light. This revelation makes Ben question: What makes a human human? And where the real mosnters live? The truth is never harder to digest. But hard it is, it’s the truth Ben has been seeking for.
The Hardscrabbles, as the name has suggested, is an unusual trio of siblings. There is Otto, the eldest brother, also the oddest. He doesn’t speak and is never seen without his scarf. Then there is Lucia, who is very candid sometimes people wish otherwise. And the last is Max, the youngest, who most people would deem as I-know-it-all type of kid. He is, in fact, very smart, too smart for his own sake sometimes. They all have one thing in common: a big heart for adventures. The Hardscrabble kids stick with each other since the ominously mysterious disappearance of their mother. This incident created much commotion at the time it happened, leaving uncomfortable rumors and doubts for years afterwards. As a free-lance painter, their father is often away for commissions; occasionally, he comes home with fascinating souvenirs and sketches of royals, albeit they’re all exiled or misfits. Except for the aformentioned incident, the children have been living an awfully boring life in the town called Little Tunks. Until a little incident happens and, all of sudden, the Hardscrabbles found themselves stranded in a fabulously unfamiliar and remote town by the sea. In the heart of the commotion, the path to a mystery, or mysteries, suddenly opens. And there is one that will change everything for them. Or maybe not, but it is, all things considered, still a memorable summer vacation.
