Advance Essay #1: Family Values

​Introduction: The most important thing in this essay is valuing the loved ones we still have. Family matters so much to me and I felt proud to write this. It really is a blessing to have family join together. I would like to improve my use of metaphors in this essay next time. When reading this, I want the audience to understand that people leave our lives everyday, we should cherish every moment.

It seems likes family gatherings are so rare lately. We used to come together and party about everything. Whoever was in the kitchen would bless our plates with so much food. So much fried chicken, potato salad, ribs, hot dogs, barbecue and all. We knew better not to eat before the children. I was lucky to be young. These days were golden like my corn on the cob. It was all about the favorite cousin coming over, that’s when the real party started. 
“Y’all wanna walk to the corner store real quick?” my cousin yelled.
That’s all I needed to hear. Water ice for everyone, I licked the water ice that began to melt and the sweet food coloring stained into my lips. No matter what street we ran up, it was always a race. My family is full of track stars, so athletic. Summer heat never stopped us from playing games on the patio.
“Take out the playing cards, who wants war in speed?”  my mom yelled. 
We all know my mom was best at card games  but my cousin stood tall and took the challenge. Steady eyes watched the intense game of speed. The game seemed to move so quickly, in fact I never even caught on. Cards slapped against the table and sly comments slipped into the wind. Finally the silence broke, the game was easily won by my mother. We all cheered and made jokes about my cousin. The defeat was in the air, we could all smell. It was times like these, where I would take a small step back and observe my family. Some of us all look alike, so many generations all in one area. It had been so long since we all gathered at one home. My family has been so close yet so far away from each other, it was not everyday that so many of us could join the fun. From sunrise to sunset, I had to wake up really early, my mom pulls me out of the bed and to the kitchen. So many different smells of sweets, spicy, and mild hit my nose. I love food but not when I have to cook for my relatives. It is the fun and conversation that I had, it made my day go by so much faster. My family brought baby pictures and colored t-shirts to the party. Love floated through the air like a lost balloon.  We knew the routine, the street lights coming on and the sun going down didn’t stop the party. The smell of grilled chicken and fried chicken still filled the air. Endless games of tag, manhunt, and double-dutch was the ultimate entertainment.  My family grew together as a competitive bunch. There was no loss allowed or you had the walk of shame back into the house. I always won in Monopoly games. Being around my favorite cousins always gives me confidence, we danced together. The cookout anthems played, and our hips swayed. I always felt comfortable. There was no wrong way to  two-step, just my mother had no co-ordernation. The grown folks had there ‘grown folk’ talk, I wasn’t allowed to know. I envied my second and third cousins who got in on the gossip. I know they felt special, all deep into the family business. I never worried too much about what I was missing out on, my cool aunt came over to tell me all the gossip. It’s always nice to have that one cool aunt.
“Do not tell a soul, it’s our secret. Grown folks business is not much of anything, a few inappropriate jokes here and there. Do not rush to grow up, Tyah. Cherish everything you have, cherish your family. We are all we got out here in the crazy world.” my aunt whispered in my ear.
In the moment, I did not understand why she whispered that to me, I was only thirteen. I sat down on the patio and wondered about what my future family would be like. Immediately I ignored those thoughts, I told myself to think about my life in that moment. I appreciated the priveleges I have as a pre-teen. I was grateful.   I busied myself with preparing my bed for a sleepover, my cousins never went home on family nights, It was best we spent the most time with each other. My mother always concluded these nights with a little saying, it always stuck with me.
“Say goodnight to everybody, hug them too. You never know the last time you’ll see any 
of them.” and like that she closed the bedroom door and we slept. My last thought before falling asleep, I asked myself if we would all be able to keep coming together like this.

Advanced essay #1: My unraveling web

Introduction:

My goal in this essay was to make the reader feel as connected to my family memories that took place in my house as I was. I realized it was mot possible because no one´s memories ever feel exactly the same. The spider analogy came to me when I would leave the house to go to school early in the morning. One  morning there was a big spider web that the sun hit perfectly and the sky had these beautiful soft rose gold tones the weather was neutral and for a moment I felt at peace, I tried to take a picture but when I looked on my phone it did not look the same, when I came back home the web was not there. I stood for a few seconds looking for the web wondering if spiders care when their web is gone or if at this point it is just routine for them. I´ve never been apart of the moving process, it has happened to people around me but never people I live with. Everything felt like it would never be the same.


What happens on an emotional level when a spiders web is ruined? When their homes are destroyed by visitors. Are they irritated that they have to start over or do they adapt well? We don´t take notice to their creations crafted built for them, never taking time to admire each silk strand catered overtime to their comfort. In actuality they just aren't us, so they don´t matter as much. Spiders, the ultimate nomads of the ecosystem, moving to various locations when time has proven the moment has come for them to continue on.

The only thing separating humans and spiders is the simple fact that they are individuals, not members of a pack or flock. They invested time into building their forts lacking sentimental value. Relocating is a necessity for survival, but I get attached too easily.

I had overheard them talking about it for a while but always thought it was talk.

¨Sanaa take these empty boxes to your room¨ my aunt called to me from the garage.

¨Coming!¨

I usually act before my mind is ready to process everything. My hands stacked souvenirs of my time here and piled them into boxes. When one box was full it was closed off and pushed to the side.  I sat on the bed in that room and looked around. Stared at the brown boxes against the white wall, without all my things, it was a blank canvas.

I had spent countless hours writing, eating, and laughing in this house, my safe place. I sat on the bottom step, to my left the living room and memories of the holiday shows my cousins and I would host when we were 5, but abandoned when everyone got ¨too cool¨ for talent.  To my right was the Kitchen and Dining room, I remember the thanksgiving I migrated to the adult table, it was only a few inches but it meant something. Half of what I knew about my family was uncovered in this house. My aunts competitive side during scrabble, countless stories of lives before my cousins and I came along. The stories would stay the same but the background they were told in would change.

The oldest tradition for my cousins rolled around with the holidays. Our staged performances as toddlers and adolescents can probably still be found with a few hundred camera roll scrolls, even though they faded away throughout the years as we all advanced into individuals, the shows were our bond. Our black history shows where I played Rosa Parks every year up till 2010, our easter shows where we once rapped about jesus but shed the idea of organized religion like dead skin in 2014 while still using it as a cloak to hide our real selves from our parents. Our Thanksgiving talents shows deceased after we all realized none of us would be the next American Idol, Gabby Douglas or Misty Copeland. Then our Christmas shows where I once played rudolph but lost interest in the ruby face paint and glowing antlers. The New years parties we threw reduced to a quick

¨happy new years <3¨

since we seemingly grew out of eachother.

All of these memories I dug up will feel gone when we relocate. My web is unraveling around me. ´Maybe they'll ask for a refund´ I always think begging my mind for reassurance. I pause reminding myself that´s an unrealistic scenario I created to keep myself here.

I´ve always been the type of person to hold onto memories, I've saved previous text messages from tainted friendships to read and look through on my emotional rainy days. Maybe I´m not holding on to the house as much as I am holding onto everything familiar. Everything is changing. My english teacher, my schedule. I'm a junior this year, next year i'll stress about colleges, then the year after that i´ll be gone.


Was I ready to leave? It didn't matter in a few days trucks would come to help us move on.


Advanced Essay #1: Decisions and Journeys

Introduction

Throughout the process of crafting this essay, I learned the value of concise and descriptive writing. Prior to this paper, I firmly believed that strong descriptive writing was the key to a successful essay, and that it was necessary to sacrifice all other criteria (such as the word count) in favor of it. My perspective on revising my writing has changed, as I now see that the removal of excess description is not done solely in the interest of meeting the word count. It also serves to increase the overall quality of the final product. Even if the words paint a beautiful image, the essay might still be so abstract that it only holds meaning to the painter. This is the goal of my personal essay: to communicate a concept, experience, or lesson to the readers, and to push myself to improve my writing skills instead of masking an average paper with excessive decorations.


Decisions and Journeys

Taking action, making a decision and acting upon it, can feel impossible at times. I remember a time when indecision and not taking action took me far from home.

It started as I stood at the platform in 30th Street Station, the crowd bustling about. The loudspeakers burst to life, bellowing out the name of the train I was eagerly awaiting. A train pulled up to the platform, and I followed the boisterous crowd aboard, plopping down on a half-occupied two-seater. I sat with a man who stood up two stops later, announced he no longer needed his all-day pass, and abandoned it on the train.

When the following stop was announced, I felt the first inkling of uncertainty. The station names were unfamiliar, and I did not recognize the somewhat familiar faces I usually saw on my way home. With each passing stop, I argued with myself: should I ask what train I was on? Or could I be on the right one? I made up reasons why scenery I passed was so different: “It’s incredible,” I marveled, “I must pass these trees and houses daily, yet only now am I truly seeing them!”

I spent a few more stops debating whether or not I should ask which train I was on, getting further and further from home, trapped in indecision. Before I could ask anyone the name of the train line, it came to a halt at its final destination: Trenton.

My heart pounded with the speed of the roadrunner and the force of a hydraulic press, but then my panic was disrupted as I recalled the discarded all-day pass. Saved! I used the pass to travel back to 30th Street Station, and then home.

Would I find taking action easier in the future? I soon had an opportunity to put that to the test. I had the chance to have my nose pierced. Should I do it? Would it hurt? Would I regret it? This time, perhaps strengthened by previous experiences of acting or not acting, I was ready to take action.

My journey began on South Street, inside the back room of Infinite Piercing. I hopped up onto a table exactly like one that you might find in a doctor’s office… a sturdy wooden frame topped with an oblong, pine green, pleather cushion. It took up most of the room, and was set dead-center, as if it were a stage. My mom sat down in the chair on the right side of the door. The person who was to do my piercing closed the door behind us. The person wiped down my nose with a cool cloth and it felt as if my nose felt like it was trapped inside a closed tupperware container full of hand sanitizer. Then came the piercing. Suddenly, a peculiar sensation started at a single point on my nose. The feeling was like a tiny sparkler. It was pain.

“Yep. There is a needle in my nose. A needle is going through my nose,” my brain stated matter-of-factly. The rest of my face melted away. It was as if my consciousness was a duck, and my awareness of everything except my face was water flowing off of the duck’s back.

And in that moment, I was witness to a bizarre phenomenon; a rare exception to what would generally be considered a faux pas. There was a stranger’s finger in my nose.

Then it was done.

I looked in the mirror, and for the first time in a while, I liked my face. Taking action had brought me closer to home, to feeling like myself.

Ultimately, decisions result in action. Whether positive or negative, actions have consequences and result in experience. I am beginning to trust my ability to make decisions based on a gut instinct. On the train, I froze and ignored my own misgivings, my inaction taking me away from my destination, my home. On the green table at Infinite Piercing, I trusted my ability to make a decision, and my action took my toward my destination, self-confidence. Whether it’s a train to get home or a nose piercing to feel more at home in myself, I am learning to navigate my existence on many levels.


Advanced Essay #1: Work Vs. Cat

                                                                                        Work Vs. Cat

Snow came hurling down as the winds howled in Philly. Everyone have been lured to sleep by the nighttime. I sit in my room, eyes flying over paper by paper, making sure the project is right. It’s so hard for it to be right when everything seems to be blurry. My eyes are half-open and red, sleep deprived. So much so that I hear scratching at the door. It was only until 10 minutes later that I knew it wasn’t just me. I smiled. I got up, went to my door, and opened it. Sprinted in my grey and white tabby cat, Tony. By the time I closed the door, Tony was rolling all over my papers, my pencil gone. “Ok Tony, let’s get to bed.” I look outside. The snow is deep. “I have tomorrow.” I put my stuff in my bookbag and turn off the lights. I climb into bed. I can hear the jingles of Tony’s collar as he settles in. I relax. The moon shines over us both as we, too, were lured to sleep.

Before, I would have never cared staying up late. I would have continued working into the morning. Just to make my work perfect. I didn’t have friends and I was distant from my family. I was just a machine running its program every day.

When people hear of my neighborhood, looks of pity becomes common. I was sick of it. So I worked to prove them that I’m not another stereotype. Along the way, this goal became my life. That life ended when Tony was born. We had his mother, Oobie, for several years. Each year a new litter was born to give away. Nothing new. Except when we gave all the kittens, but Tony, away. Mom and Zoe decided to keep him. As long he stays out my way, I thought.

Two years later, it’s 2 am. Everyone is asleep. A project is all that’s on my mind. I’m hunched over my work, eyes half-open and red, but can’t focus. One hour has passed since the scratching and the meowing started, each minute getting louder. I sighed. I knew then I wouldn’t be able to focus with him there all night. I stood up and made sure I was steady before I move towards the door. He shot in as soon as I opened it. By the time I closed the door and turned around, he was already laying on my papers.

Not again, I thought. For the past two years of middle school, I’ve been harassed by a cat. Not a single night goes by without him. I look towards him only to see my pencil case on the floor. I stormed over to pick Tony up from my work and put him to the ground. He attacks five minutes later. He always does. Tony is like a computer virus within to my program, putting things out of order. I sat down in my bed, tears of anger and stress forming. I put my palms to my eyes. I start to cry. Never thought my cat would be my breaking point. I felt a weight on my lap. I move my hands and open my eyes to see him purring.

“Tony,” I whispered tiredly, “it’s always you.” I need to get this done soon, I thought. Before I knew it, I spilled out all of my problems to him. I went on until I couldn’t, sitting there, petting Tony. At that moment, my focus wasn’t on work. It was on Tony. I closed my eyes as I listen to him purr. I was content. I was at peace. I was happy. That night, I was ok that I didn’t finish work.

Life isn’t always working. People rush to get things done so much that they forget to look at the important things. Life. Family. And themselves. Society always sees time as an enemy. Time to work on this. Time to do that. You have no time for this. Why make an enemy that will last forever? Death is already one enemy. Time is just time. There’s no point getting to your destination as soon as you can. I will get there at my own pace. So that is what I did. Fewer nights were taken up by my work. I started to make friends. The distance between my family and I disappeared. I became a fan of many fandoms and books. Tony became my best cat friend. Every night, he would scratch on my door, ready to turn in for the night. Some nights I needed to stay up, but never late. I was content. I was happy. I felt balanced. It’s strange to see my life change for the better just because a certain cat wouldn’t give up.

In The End You'll Always have yourself to Count on

A few years ago my sister, Celita, and I always took late night walks. We would walk Hunting park to Juniata even to the boulevard.  Where we would just talk about our future, past, and present.

“Do you ever think she’ll change soon? She responds,

“I don’t know Orlando, she's missing out on you and how much your growing which pisses me off. “

“Just hope she is able to be a parent and help me when I enter high school next year. Because a boy graduates next week.”  I say.

My sister replies “Hopefully she can go. I know you want her to go deep down to see if she's willing to change.

  The night before graduation. I try on khaki pants with my lemonade dress shirt, yellow, white and navy blue striped bow tie, and navy blue suspenders. to calm my nerves. While doing so I practice my cum laude speech a few times. Once I finished I went to my mom’s room, a beige door to ask

“Mom, you have to be up by 7 tomorrow I'll call and check if you're up okay? I get no answer which leaves me curious if she heard me.

“See you tomorrow I can't wait!”

Graduation morning, I woke up at 6:30.  Brushed my teeth and got dressed in the downstairs bathroom. I make a left to head up to check if Angely is ready. Once I see her I say

“Damn Somebody looks really simple and beautiful” she smiles because I look really sharp and a bit mature.

“Did you call your mom to see if she's up?” She asks

So I call her and she doesn't answer so I call twice, three times, the fourth time she answers. “HEY momma you up? On your way?” I ask and she replies with an

“I can't go I have to work I told you.

Once I heard “I can't” I become so heartbroken and beyond furious.

Graduation time and I have nobody to witness me say my lovely speech to the students and receive 4 awards. I'm so happy but broken. A wound that will never heal because it’s an event that will never happen again. An event I did so well in and she missed it for a fucking job. I was so upset she didn't go because wanted to learn and understand that her addiction was something she is struggling with. I just wanted to see that she was trying, that Michelle my mom actually wanted to be a part of my life which she hasn't since.

To be able to feel like a kid I will just stay at my best friend's house. Where I was able to breathe and put the adult pants to the side. I would go every weekend even on holidays.  My mom noticed which made her jealous. New years eve was amazing everybody danced including my mom. Believe it or not, the first time I ever felt connected and seen some me and her. The beautiful Festive day turned into a nightmare. It began when my mom started to call me names to make me irritated, in order to avoid I moved away. 2 am she is still up and everybody wants to go sleep so they hide the extension.  My mom asks me to bring down the extension in her room but I told her

“no she's drunk”.  

After I said that she went upstairs and started a fight, it became physical and she choked me for a good minute then my sister pulled her off. She then  tells me

“Get the fuck out now. Go to Felix house since you love them more.”  I say confused

“I will don't worry. They treat me more like a son than you ever have. Don't worry I won't be here for long.

During the night I cried, just reflecting on how the Alcohol is taking over her life. She is more aggressive and inhuman towards her own kids; this shifted what my view on my mother was. It also made me feel life threatened.

The feeling of being unsafe continued. So one night she came home drunk started a fight with my sister over her graduation. The fight got worse and my mom left for the bar. This made me feel so uncomfortable in my own house so I had to text Lehmann.

“Hey I'm sorry it's late, but I don't feel safe in my house. My mom is drunk. She got into a fight with my sister and I feel unsafe. I say. He responds

“Orlando it's not a problem, I have to pick you up if you don't feel safe. Can you send me your address.”

15 mins later Lehmann came with cops and got me out safe. The next day I had a talk with Martin and Lehmann about her behavior and that I didn't want to go back. I started to live with my best friend Felix.

Weeks later Court approached. Waiting for a courtroom is the most terrible feeling. I felt so many emotions from rejected to enraged. But there was always a piece in me was always wanting to see if she’ll change. That piece wanted her to come and at least fight for me. 3 hours passed and no sign of her. This made me realize that no matter what I'll be the only one there to help and support myself.

The most important people in your life are usually your parents, they show you the right from wrong in this cruel world. They guide you and set a model for you to follow. In this case that is not for me. I had no type of relationship with Michelle my mother. Due to the fact she’s a drug addict. Being a drug addict/parent can ruin a relationship in a matter of months. So you have to fend on your own in order to succeed and live a healthy life.


Advanced Essay #1: It’s Not Me, It’s You

​Introduction
My goals for this essay was to express my emotions and memories for the readers to feel and see. The story I wanted to share was about my own insecurities and how my environment has helped shape me as me. I also wanted to share the idea of how opportunities can affect someone's life. Something that I am proud of because of this piece is being confident enough to share a part of myself to the world because this is something that is very personal. One thing that I want to improve on is being more concise while being descriptive. Lastly, I want to improve on writing better conclusions.

It’s Not Me, It’s You

The most insecure that I felt with my body was when I was 11 years old. As my body was changing into a young woman, my mind and feelings remain innocent. I didn’t know how to protect my confidence from bullies or unfavorable opinions because I never had to until I was 11. The other 6th grade girls didn’t wear training bras anymore and had a fuller bum, but that didn’t matter to me. I was jealous of their pretty hairless arms.

My father is covered in thick-curly-dark hair from his chest, to stomach, to arms, hands, legs, back, toes, and even his ears. I’ve always been mad at him for giving me his hairy genetics but my mother has been telling me, since I was five, that having hair on your arms means you will have a easy life. I have always believed her until I entered middle school.

My middle school didn’t have central air condition so it was usually humid during the warmer months. Because of that, I would always wear short sleeve shirts. This boy, who we will call Keith, came up to me for the first time during recess near the playground. “Why do you have so much hair on your arms? You have more than me and I’m a boy. Look,” he said as he puts his right arm and my left arm side by side. I shrugged my shoulders to tell him that I didn’t know why I do. Then another boy, who we will call Anthony, chimed in and teasingly said, “Yeah, you have hairy arms. You’re more of a man than me,” which made the other childish boys and girls giggle. Their echoing laughter shattered my heart and self-esteem. I felt the tears in my eyes begin to creep up so I flusteredly hid away. This was the first time that I was embarrassed of my own body.  

That day scarred me for months. It was the only thing that the boys would point out about me in 6th grade. I became so self-conscious that I wore long sleeve sweaters for the rest of the year, even during the hottest school days. As June came around, another traumatic incident happened again. I sat at a desk with my best friend. A table away sat Keith and Anthony. It was my last class in the most sweltering room of the building. The air was grilling us as we sat in the classroom. All the boys and girls had short sleeves shirts on but me. “Can you take your fricken jacket off, you’re making me even hotter just by looking at you,” Anthony mocked towards me. Everyone turned their heads like an owl spotting a baby mouse. My best friend followed, “Yeah, it’s too hot to be wearing that.”

I didn’t know what to say and I didn’t know what to do but my body decided to take off the sweater. Then Keith chuckled, “She wanted to hide her hairy arms,” which made some kids laugh as usual. I looked at my arms with hatred eyes and buried them under the desk. I leaned in, pushing them further under so nobody, including myself, can see the disgraceful hair.

For years, hurtful names have been ruminating subconsciously whenever I run my hands along my arms. Hairy, hairy girl, little boy, monkey, ape, and Chewbacca. I didn’t even know who or what a Chewbacca was until someone called me it. That one stung the most. After a while, it became an old joke and people left me alone. Once in a blue moon, someone would intrusively comment, “You have hairy arms,” and I would bluntly reply, “You think I didn’t know that already? I get it from my dad,” and walk away. I slowly stopped caring even though my self-esteem was shattered like an iPhone screen.

Entering high school was a door made and held opened by a butler for me. No one knows you and you know no one else, except your best friend of course. As a freshman, I expected everyone to be more mature and not make insulting comments about my body. And thankfully, I was right. Instead of remarks on my hairy arms, I’ve been receiving compliments just about me. People have been telling me left and right that I’m pretty, gorgeous, perfect, cute, etc. High school was the strongest glue that fixed my broken pieces.

My arms isn’t going to kill me or others, and it rather became an idea of luck in my mind. I learned to be grateful for my working body and that it is just hair. It also made me realize that not everyone gets the opportunity to change their perspectives about themselves. Sometimes the insecurities continue to haunt you for many years of your life. In some cases, insecurities don’t develop until you’re older because that’s when you start to care. What people fail to realize is that you are not the problem, it’s the people around you. At sixteen, I can say that I love myself in every way, shape, or form and nobody can tell me otherwise anymore.


Advanced Essay #1: I Didn't Jump I Was Pushed

I Didn’t Jump I Was Pushed

We turned the corner to the sounds of screaming. Just what we had been looking for. As we walked out of the forest into the light the sounds intensified and relief filled my body. The green trees were a beautiful background as sticks stopped crunching beneath our feet and gave way to smooth stone. Before us was a beautiful blue lake the deepest type of blue. We saw a boy jump as we got closer, the water rushing up to meet him. Splash. Yup I was back in Maine alright. Bar Harbor to be exact. It had been the location of our summer home for a long as I had been aware. I hadn’t been to my home state in six months and whenever I go back I always think about how much life had changed.


My middle school was in Auburn, Maine. A solid eight-hour drive from Philadelphia. I didn’t really fit in there. I had my friends but they weren’t truly my friends, they weren’t the type of people that I could trust the way I wanted to. I didn’t have much confidence at all, I let people walk all over me. I wondered how to change all the time. How to be cool, how to look like nothing bothered me like the coolest kids did. At that time we didn’t have much money. My dad, my brother and I all squeezed into a one-bedroom apartment for a year with no air-conditioning. Kids would say they loved my shoes. Mocking. I wore new balances, oblivious, and when the teasing started I didn’t have other shoes. I tried to change, tried to figure out what made me such an easy target. I told myself late at night that I would stop doing certain things and people would leave me alone. I had almost achieved my goal when my dad told me we were moving.


There was a lower jump and mom said we should take that first so we walked down the small path. I could feel my sandals losing their novelty as I slid-walked down the dirt path. My first experience with jumping off ledges into bodies of water had been off a bridge. That time it had taken me 40 minutes to jump. Off this little jump I drilled myself that I was going to jump in right away and that’s what I did. Straight up, then down, sinking, cold, and air again.     

“Oh wow Micah,” my mom. She jumped in after, the water jumping away from her straight up into the air. I was anxious as I got out of the water. It was time for the big jump.


I remember being so nervous my first day of school at SLA. I wasn’t wearing new balances but I was acutely aware of anything someone might find wrong with me in this alien place. But I was hopeful, I could be whoever I wanted in this new place.

My first friend at SLA was Mamadou Samassa one of my closest friend now. Basketball started and I made friend after friend and I was different but not really. I copied the way they talked but I also laughed more, we went out everyday. School was fun, interesting I liked my classmates and I could just chill be me.


As I climbed back up the path I remembered that the trick is to not think. I got on the back of the cliff got a running start and jumped… up then down, down straight into the water fast way too fast. Crash. I let myself sink for moments, my heart still racing then pushed myself back up where the air was.

“How was it,” my grandmother.

“Scary,” I said. “Very scary.”


I jumped into Philly in the same manner. Thrust into a completely new situation yet I didn’t jump I was pushed. Cliff jumping had nothing had on that day. I changed a little but not as much as I thought. I had friends we called each other brothers and I tried to be kind to everybody to be someone my middle school me would like. I think a lot of people think there’s something wrong with them when they’re in a situation that’s not working out. That for some reason they’re missing something everybody else, that they’ll be stuck as a caterpillar forever, but I don’t think that’s the case.  Maybe some of us just need a little bit more time in our cocoon.


Advanced Essay #1 - Mold

The goal for my essay was to show growth through experience and time. I wanted the reader to understand that I've gotten to where I was because of the things people have with shared me and said to me. Change is okay. You be who you want to be and sometimes we get wrapped up into what so many other people say and they try and shape us into who they want us to be. Yeah, sometimes that cool, everyone wants to fit in. But we should be comfortable with ourselves. Peace. 



Horace Ryans III

08/06/18

Earth


MOLD

I one day hope that in the future, when I reflect in my days in high school, I can say that these were the moments where I truly began to discover myself.

A million thoughts raced through my mind, colliding with each other, one overlapping another, screaming, “pick me, pick me!” a thousand times over. Most of them lost because I’m overwhelmed. Some of them cut in half exploding into white dust and abandoned letters in my head because I can’t grasp on to them quick enough. I miss those thoughts, my best work fragmented into little pieces and tucked away into my mind. And that’s when I first woke up. The only thought that stood out but seemed to be the question that I could focus on, “what am I wearing today?”

“Joggers and a tee shirt sounds about right. I can’t go wrong with that.” I said in my head as I considered and imagined all the correlating colors and outfits I could wear that day. I put on the pants that hugged my ankles so tight they’d leave marks and throw on a solid t-shirt that had been washed one-too many times so you could see the color fading. That’s what I thought was cool and enticing my freshmen year. I was more interested in anything about what people said about my clothes. I more interested in to what they said about the outfit I spent a half hour planning. If the people thought I looked good, then I looked good. I was okay with that. I even had a beanie that I would wear occasionally all to fit the image of who I wanted to be. I broke away from my regularly scheduled haircut on tuesdays because I wanted a part of it to hang out. All to become someone else.

The adoption of this new character was how I spent my freshmen year. High school was a way to remold “Whore-race” into “Horace”. That didn’t stick though, more on that later. It’s no surprise to me now. In elementary school I was surrounded by students that had the same skin color as me, this is how it was; or actually...that’s is how it felt. I gravitated towards the White kids. I don’t know why, but it  was easier for me to just talk with them. I would ease my way into their friend groups, everybody wanted a black friend. But, with that came its’ own consequences. To this day, I can still hear my classmates laughing at me, and me thinking they were all laughing with me. Their taunts went a little like, “Horace...haha Whore-race” “Horace you’re a horse” “Horace, you’re basically white.” They said that one so much, it was engraved into my conscious. I  believed it.

As a lighter skinned Black kid, I knew that if I said, “Oh, my great-grandfather was white.” They’d believe. They already thought it, so why not just tell them. But I didn’t.No matter how bad I wanted to feed into their assumptions about who I was, I never could build up the courage to lie about my family like that. Claiming to be someone I’m not. Instead I would say, “Yeah, I know.” And  I kept it moving no objections and no questions. Up to eighth grade I was the whitest-black guy I knew. I claimed that title with pride even. To me, it was so ridiculous that it was a joke. But that’s who I thought I was.

High School was a fresh start. I could be, whoever I wanted to be. I imagined a Horace who was confident, kind, thoughtful, opinionated, eager, attentive. And I got what I wanted. Except I did all those things, but surrounded by white people. I sat with them at lunch, I hung out with them after school. Anywhere my white friends went, I was there. I began to talk and behave like them. My skin color and my history as a Black slowly erased itself from my mind as I became one of them. Of course it never escaped me that I was Black, I just never cared, I was having fun being someone I wasn’t. I gravitated to them naturally. It was subconscious at that point. I didn't realize I was the only Black friend. I didn’t realize I was the token, the token black friend that is.

If you didn’t already know what that is...it’s when a group of white people have one black friend that is “white on the inside, and black on the outside.” That’s who I was and I was okay with that.  I really was. I started to realize though that that’s not who I wanted to be. After a year of listening and observing their conversation, one thing stood out to me: they will never understand what it means to be black. We talked about gentrification, poverty, mass incarceration. Whenever these topic were brought up, it was never a question of “who this affects?” but “why should I care it doesn’t affects me.” I would sit there fuming because they didn’t see it from my point of view, they could never see it from a black man's viewpoint. They were stuck looking through rose colored glass looking in.

I distanced myself from them. At first slowly, but then as their words angered me more and more, I began to sever ties that were being held down by a frayed knot. I don’t regret it. I became the me I am today through understanding why they can’t understand. And I am so okay with that.


Still Nothing- Jack Eagen

I sit in my chair, spinning, and spinning thinking that something will change. I have been sitting here for hours and still nothing has come to me, nothing has changed. I still stare at the same blue wall, trying to come up with something to write. I am a person with not very much concentration, anything besides work always seems like a better option to me. I look around my room and see the most random thing, maybe it’s a shoe, or a picture, but whatever it is, it interests me more than my work. The smell of all this is something that I could never put into words, not in a bad way, it’s just indescribable. But as I sit their, I recognize it like an old friend. I touch the wood on my desk and feel how flat it is. Still trying to concentrate on my writing but thinking about how all of this is surrounding me as I try and fill a blank page. The essay is due tomorrow, and my ideas still aren’t clear. My mom walks in and asks “Are you working?” I say “Of course”, knowing full and well it isn’t true.
It’s not that I haven’t wanted to work, it’s just my brain. Plain and simple my brain finds any possible way to excuse getting out of work. This is a quality I very much dislike about myself, but it is apart of me nonetheless. I have tried to fix it by getting as far away from distractions as possible, but then my brain just latches on to random things. It might not even be in the room, but I will start to think about it. For example if I am working on something, going jet skiing might randomly pop into my head. I have never even been on a jet ski but it will occupy my boredom for at least ten minutes. And by the time I am able to refocus, I have already lost my train of thought. 
Obviously as humans we will need to do work at some point, so this mentality is not really helpful. In all honesty, I think most people who do this have absolutely no idea how to fix this. Yet again the problem might be that we haven’t tried hard enough. That is what I am hoping the answer is because if it’s not there might be an even worse problem. I don’t believe that it is though, I think that it is just an unwillingness to work. 
 A lot of people close to me have said that when it is something I am passionate about, something that I want to do, I will put one hundred and ten percent of my effort into it. But sadly a lot of life doesn’t work like that. I’ll just have to suck things up and get through it. That’s just a fact of life that everyone at some point in their lives has to deal with. I think that at sixteen years old, it is ok to not have dealt with that reality yet. To be able to, for at least a bit longer, live in my little bubble. But a lot of people are starting to try and wake me up to that reality. At SLA we clearly have people who already have that drive, already are ready and willing to do what needs to be done. For almost my entire life I have wanted to be one of those people. The one that stays up until four in the morning to finish a project. Not because they want to, but because they have to if they want to succeed. And I desperately want to succeed in life, I am a very materialistic person and I openly admit that. If you do not succeed in life, you do not have the option of material things. That is why I know that for me to succeed, I will need to get out of this way of thinking. 
  For me to be able to do something with my life, I need to do what is necessary. It won’t, for the most part, be what I want to do. But it will be what I need to do. It is definitely important that I acknowledge that now. Because as long as I live in my little bubble, I will never be what I want to be.

Advanced Essay #1 [Where Home Is]

Introduction

     What I am proud of in this essay is that I was able to portray how I was feeling in more than a just a few sentences. I was able to connect how I was feeling before and how I feel now, to create a paper that shows my emotions overall. Another thing that I am quite proud of is my use of descriptive sentences. Before, I have never really been able to embrace descriptive language as much since I was quite afraid, however I realized that it was not that bad.

When I came back to Philadelphia after living in California to finish the last year of middle school, it felt like there was nothing there for me anymore.  I got used to the sun's reflection on my skin, and the cool breeze along with the night sky that was blank like an empty canvas. Eventually the feeling of the humid days in Philadelphia made me long for the suns kiss, but I know it would not come as soon as I wish it would. This is where I lived for half of my childhood, and yet I did not have the feeling of home.

          The first moving experience I had was when I moved to America from the Philippines. My home in the Philippines was abundant in free space, so I was shocked when I saw that our new home was not. It was placed in the city of Los Angeles, and although the towering buildings glistened with a kind of mystical beauty, I longed for space to grow and be free. I was convinced that the space would not help me mature, until of course I was convinced otherwise by my sisters. But even though the apartment did not welcome me and my family with the same space that we once had, what it welcomed was possibilities.

“America has many possibilities so work hard” my mom always said.

“We sure will, after the long process to get here” my eldest sister always replied.

After a while, I felt more free than I was in the Philippines and For two years I thought that I finally met my people and I was home, until of course it was not my home.

     “Come to Philadelphia, there is more work here than there in California…” my aunt said on the phone. “Yeah, but I can’t just leave everything here behind” my mom replied.

     “ Do not worry I will help you, I really just want you to come here already. Im so lonely”

      “Okay”

         In that short five minute conversation,a decision was made. I moved to Philadelphia in the third grade. Now the days were not as idle as they were in LA, where there was only the sun's warmth to comfort you, with the cool wind only introducing itself in the early mornings, and nights. The seasons changed in Philadelphia, and so did I. My second sister moved back to LA, and my Eldest sister went to travel around Europe. I felt alone. That is when I came to the conclusion that home is not just comprised of a place, but the people that make up the place. The “place” was more of an environment, while as the people was what made that environment adaptable.

        As I continued to converse and attach myself to people who I considered as friends, I progressively changed as I got used to Philadelphia. After four years of playing hopscotch on the concrete pavements cluttered with chalk, I considered Philadelphia home. At the time there was no longer the feeling of wanting the sun's rays when looking at the white blanket made by the snow which could warm me just as much. But as you can expect this feeling did not last.

      When the the fall leaves began to dance towards the grass of our home, my mom deemed it right that we go back to California, where my sister stayed, and come live with her, and so we did.  I was without siblings in Philadelphia, so when I arrived in California the amount of company I had received for my nephews was overwhelming, yet lovely. I got to once more bond my friends, and silently watched as I saw how their behavior changed...how I changed. The hazy fog that childhood set to ensure our innocence was gone, we no longer knew nothing, but we also did not know everything. The months passed and seasons changed, but we still remained the same somehow in the inside. As childhood friends, we still shared the same influence we had gotten from each other as children. Because of that, I know that if I left, we would always be connected, since the influence that I had received from them would always be with me.

   The plane ride back to Philadelphia, after eighth grade was an emotional one. I realized at that moment that home is home when there are people you bond with, since the company from others is what makes a place worthwhile to stay.. That to me is the rough definition of a home. Since I moved so much, home was never a place, it was always the people, and the experiences. Because of this my home became my whole being. Whenever I get lonely, I can just remember, that I have been affected by every person that I appreciated, so even if I recall those that have left earth that they are always there with me.




Advanced Essay #1: Acceptance

Taking one step at a time

My goal was to show people how I felt throughout the process of accepting my height. I talk about ways that helped me accept being short and the disadvantages and advantages that helped me overcome everything.  I also go a little into how it is okay to be different and not everyone is capable of everything. Lastly, the writing skills I would like to improve on is always making sure everything flows and being very descriptive so the reader won't be confused. 

Acceptance

The word acceptance means “the action of consenting to receive or undertake something offered.” Now everyone has to learn about acceptance in their life, but me, I had to learn very early. I didn’t get to learn the easy way and being short is something that wasn’t offered to me, it is something that I am now stuck with for the rest of my life.

I sat there on my bed, staring up into the ceiling. I looked at my little legs and said to myself, “Why am I so short?” I tried to think of all the reasons, such as not eating the right foods or maybe it was my family genetics. I couldn’t stop pondering because I needed some closure. Everyone around me would not stop talking about the fact that I was so short. They made it seem like it wasn’t normal being short, and I didn’t want to be the girl that wasn’t normal or be the short girl at all. My height took so many things away from me, like standing in a big crowd waiting for the next celebrity to take the stage.

“Hey Briannie, you good?” my friend asks me while we are in a big crowd where everyone is literally on top of one another. “I guess,” I say knowing that I am not good. Concerts can be a pain sometimes, especially when you are only 5 feet tall in the middle of the crowd where there is no air to breath. In my head, I was thinking, “Is Nicki Minaj really worth passing out in the middle of all these people?” It was like there was no air down around me. Since I was so small and there were all these giants surrounding me, there was so much body heat on me. At that point, I gave up and left the crowd.

Being short interferes with these life activities and that is when it becomes a struggle. I can’t fully experience things like this because there is no way to fix it. I feel like the outcast, and I feel like I’m missing out. When there are disadvantages I can’t solve, it would be used against me and that was the hardest part to accept. Whether it was a joke or not, being teased would hurt. I always wondered what it would feel  like to be tall and to be able to actually see. The best way I did learn to accept it was short people aren’t the only ones who get teased about their height. There are things I can do that others wouldn’t be able to do because of their height as well. Although, there are some disadvantages that I could solve unlike this one.

“Briannie!” I rushed downstairs to the loud sound of my name. “Yes?” I asked very calmly. “Can you grab the two bowls on the top shelf?” my mom asked as she pointed to the shelf where the bowls were placed. “No problem, I got you.” As I walked over to the cabinet, I picked up a chair from the dining room table and placed it right against the cabinet. I hopped onto the chair and grabbed the bowls. I handed them to my mom, got down from the chair and put the chair back at the dining room table. “You’re a lifesaver,” my mom said with a little grin on her face.

I had to be very open to all options when trying to solve most of my disadvantages as a short person. Not being able to reach things that are high up can be frustrating. When I would finally solve some of my disadvantages, I didn’t feel like the outcast or the girl that wasn’t normal. It helped me come over the insecurities of being short. It opened my mind up that there are always solutions to most things and when there isn’t, it’s okay. Not everyone is perfect and there are always gonna be people who have higher advantages than others.

Experience after experience, my height has defined who I am. There are always gonna be disadvantages that I won’t be able to solve and have learned to accept that. I feel if I wasn’t short, I wouldn’t be the same person. Watching all of the tall people, and seeing how the struggles I went through were so easy for them made me feel a certain type of way. It made me wonder and hate the fact I was short. All of my life, everyone has used my height as a joke towards me or teased me or even use it as a description. I am not sad anymore when someone jokes about my height or teases me, I just laugh with them. Whenever someone does use my height to describe me, it gives me a feeling that I am different from most people and it is okay to be different. My height is something I love about myself and no one can take that away from me.


Advanced Essay #1 - Thorns


Intro
The goal for this essay was to show that valuable experiences are not always enjoyable, and that personal growth does not always come easy, or feel comfortable. I want the reader to come out of this paper with a new appreciation for bad experiences. I think that sometimes it can be significant to put yourself in situations without expecting things to go swimmingly, and that there is still something to be learned from that. In the future, I would like to become a more descriptive writer that is able to give description concisely.

Thorns
The feeling started off small. In the beginning, it was just as bothersome as the log I was sitting on cutting into the back of my thigh, or the wood chips in my boot that were just out of reach. As time passed, the sky dimmed. The sun began to hide and I grew jealous. I tried to hold it in; I’d handled sleep away camp decently thus far. Up until that night I was able to get by with short sentences and hunched shoulders trying to hide in my chest, but my nerves started to tangle themselves in knots I could no longer untie. With a desperate glance towards my camp counselor and a silent wimper I asked permission to go back to my cabin. She responded with a tender nod, and I pulled myself away.
I made my way through the forest anxiously, but not carefully. I was so surrounded by emptiness it was suffocating. It felt like the forest was trying to coil around my waist and pull me in, Maybe it wanted to hang me in the trees as a warning. My own veins started to give out; it felt like my blood dried up and retreated to my knees. My skin was evaporating rapidly; I could feel it sizzling away, and almost felt whole pieces of me escape into the frightening forest. At that moment, anything was less chaotic than my body. I felt weak; my stomach felt stitched together. Yet I pressed on through the night, and walked faster still. The twigs clawing up my clothes and my skin felt like fireworks ripping holes in my head. When anxiety gets you that vulnerable, even the sound of a clock clicking can eat you alive. In that moment, the sound of snapping leaves felt like firecrackers.
When I made it to the other side of the wooded hell, the branches that had tortured me melted off of my arms and cowered away from the dim light hanging in the gravelled road. But the feeling still did not leave me. I still felt my heart ramming against my ribcage. I still had to endure my stomach twisting into tight, painful knots. I stumbled stupidly forward. Not even the sweet sound of boots crunching gravel brought me comfort. Instead pebbles scraping against each other made noise that gave my bones a dull ache; I thought of how it might catch the attention of a cruel creature of the night. I stunk of fear.
By the time I got to my cabin I expected some sort of relief, but my anxiety whispered that not even screen doors and shuttered windows could keep me safe from her. I scrambled up to the safety of my top bunk. The dirty sleeping bag was cold and crisp against my hot, dry hands. I crawled into my chilly vinyl sleeping bag, and it sucked the heat from my weary skin. I started to sob quietly. Surely the mental state I’m in could only end in death. I tried to search for warmth in the doom filled darkness, but I found sleep sooner. A panic attack was quite enough for me. That night I vowed never to come back to sleep away camp again. I was the one who went to camp, and I was the one who walked through the woods knowing their would be sharp sticks and intrusive thoughts I would trip on. There would be no reason for the scars the thorns left, only extra work when my skin would have to sew itself back together. I dragged myself through mud with no reason to show for it, and I still would have no explanation if I dove back in. 
One night I found myself filling out another camp application.
That night I knew deep down the sort of danger I would put myself in signing up for camp. The application process alone was enough of a hassle, not even including the stupid amount of emotional strife it caused me. And yet my fingers did not stop typing my name, no matter how much my anxiety tried to pull them back. I still added pictures to my portfolio. I still trekked through signatures and phone numbers and emergency contact information. I must admit, in those moments I was made of second guessing. The sound of clicking keys were dragging me as close to my doom as the sound of tugging branches had. Yet I still submitted the application, accepted the call back and soon enough I was in a car, on a highway, lugging my life long possessions to a place I’d never been before. My mother would leave me there and not come back for a while yet.
Why was I doing this to myself?
On the way up to the third camp I’d went to, the road was made of this question. The gray sky ahead peeled back to expose those words swirling in the clouds. Why does anyone do anything to bring back their pain, when it is so comfortably buried deep?
But that is exactly it. Anxiety has found a home in my head. She has furnished it and made it her own. She has shuttered the windows and stuffed cluttered secrets under her bed. When I am home, so is she. She is asleep, but still there, waiting to come out and bite when I least expect it. It is hard to kill a beast in hiding. I realized that in the years at camp before, I had come back stronger. I learned that people can only solve their problems when they can see them before their eyes. Now I know that therapy sessions are not to make me feel better, they are to make me better. I work through my troubles to solve them, not to stomp them deeper. People who take breaks from their comfort zones only leave because comfort zones leave no room to grow. Now I know that people trek through thorns so their calloused fingers can’t be cut up next time.

Advanced Essay #1: Smiling Through The Pain

​Introduction:
My essay is about my anxiety and how it plays a role in my life. Learning how to overcome all the obstacles life gives you.  Everyone goes through struggles and we will always make it through to the other side. I am proud that I am able to make this relatable for everyone to understand. In my future, I hope to have better descriptive writing that you are able to visualize everything. 

Smiling Through The Pain 

My heart aches, my hands shakes and sweats. Looking around regarding all the musicians immeasurable compared to me.

“Why am I doing this to myself?” I questioned.

Inhale and exhale, focused on my lungs expanding and filling up with air, then releasing.

“Don’t worry I’m gonna do great, I will do my best!” I lied to myself.

A room filled with violinist and one black grand piano sits in the middle of the stage, and chairs surrounding it, adding tension to the room. I sit in the front row with other violinists. My violin sitting against the right side of my body, all four strings creating a mark on my arm, the bow shaking in my right hand, on my left hand I feel the smooth cool paper becoming warm. I sit prepared with my music but feeling unsatisfied and not good enough. I sit with anxiety next to me only focusing on my doubts. I can feel it looking down at me like I am less.

“I can ignore it for now.” Lying to myself again.

I watch the fingers of each musician dance from one string to another and the bow cutting through the air. The anticipation is creeping over my shoulders, it’s almost my turn. I urge not to play in front of many pairs of eyes, and yet again I wait my turn. My music school principal arises to announce the next musician.

“Please don’t let it be me, please…” I said to myself desperately.

“Next up, Nasya Ie.”

My heart skipped a beat as soon as I heard my name. I stood up, my legs shaking and my heart speeding up.

“There’s no turning back now.”

I walked up to the stage with fear by my side, I inhaled and exhaled, leaving fear behind. Now it’s just me and music. I placed my music sheet on the stand, put myself in the courageous potion. I looked at the pianist, took a deep breath, and nod, indicating that I am ready. I read my music sheet, I’m not thinking, I’m doing, I let my fingers free and let them take control. Thinking will mess me up, so I just go. I see and feel my fingers dancing, and my bow cutting through the air. My frustration goes through my violin creating music that I made. I am one with my violin. Time was so heavy, working myself through time to get over this performance. All my hard work and dedication placed in front of everyone. A moment of peace, and there was a sigh of relief. The burden has lifted from my shoulders. I did it, and I will prepare myself for another coming.

That’s what controls me, anxiety and fear. It takes over my body leaving me stranded. I feel useless and never good enough. I have an expectation that I must reach, but that’s too much pressure, I know that this cannot be an excuse. I push myself to reach and reach, my anxiety pushing me to reach. Accepting that this is good, for my anxiety turns its back on me. More and more doubts from my anxiety telling me that I am wrong. Is it worth fighting for this goal, you might be doing something wrong, but if you don’t do it you’re just careless.

I ingest what it says to me, there’s nothing I can do, but to keep going. I’m attached with anxiety, it speaks into my ear giving me doubts, until I fall. It sits on me like a crown, a crown that keeps my head down and telling me I can’t and won’t get back up. This is life and all I can do is keep going. I will fight to reach my goal and try to leave my anxiety and fears behind me. But I know they will catch up to me and beat me down, every single time I get stronger. Anxiety will always be a part of me even though I don’t want it to. I can’t live without anxiety and anxiety can’t live without me. These are obstacles we have to go through to build ourselves to shape who we are today. It shows our strengths and weaknesses. Pushing yourself and fighting through the pain, proves it’s all worth it.


Wet Clouds

My essay is about how losing track of time and getting lost in your own world is a problem that a lot of people don't know how to balance. It starts off with a dream of me in a sky experiencing different emotions. Then, I am magically being devoured by a wet cloud that burns and feels weird. I suddenly wake up from the dream and fall back asleep only to realize I've overslept. I abruptly try to catch up with the time that I've lost but am stuck in a trance of reliving and thinking about how it all went wrong. I want you all to notice my word choices and descriptive scenes. I rarely write long, descriptive paragraphs, and with this, I feel like I've accomplished a goal. In the future, I want my writing to have less basic words and more descriptive ones. 


Wet Clouds

Blue skies were all that appeared to me. The bright, vibrant blue fills me with emotion. I’m happy. I’m sad. I’m excited. I’m mad.


“Hop away,” I tell myself.


With all of my might, I take a big jump onto something that has a polished limestone grey vibe. My feet are slowly being devoured by this thing.


“Help!”


The more I wiggle the fewer chances of me getting free. My whole body is in this thing. This awfully dull thing. I feel a slight sense of heat at the tip of my big toe. Where is this coming from? Faster and faster it heats up. First, it’s like I’m standing in an unairconditioned room. I feel my sweat glands opening up like how flowers open their leaves for sunlight. Then it’s like I’m standing in a 120-degree sauna. Slowly, I feel my skin starting to bake. I can feel it cracking open, resembling roots from a tree; a rigid, thick line. Lastly, it’s like I’m standing directly in front of the sun. My skin is starting to melt. I hear a noise loud in my ear. Oh god, what is that? I see that white light that people always talk about on tv shows. It’s getting brighter and brighter. Closer and closer. The noise is getting louder and louder.


“What am I going to-”


Beep, beep beep, beep. My eyes open and I see my pale, white ceiling with a couple of baby blue paint marks on it. Ugh, it’s Monday.


“Get up and move,” I tell myself.


But my limbs just won’t move. I turn to look at my pink and black alarm clock, which is placed on my window sill directly to the left of my bed. I place my hand on the large, silver ‘Snooze’ button and let it sit there. Beep, beep beep, beep.


“Why won’t you turn off?!” I pick my hand up and slam it down on the button.


“There we go. Peace and quiet.” The time says 6:47 AM. I can feel my eyelids slowly falling down.


No! This isn’t the time. You have to get up! Get up!”


BOOM!


“Huh, what’s that?”


I abruptly sit up and look around. Everything seems to be in place. My bed is somewhat made, with half of the black with white polka dots sheets on the mattress, my turquoise owl comforter is on the floor, and my clothes are symmetrically thrown on the floor. I hear my sister, Anasia, scrambling through her drawers, looking for something to wear. She’s disregarding my cat, Saturday, who’s impatiently waiting to be pet. Yup, that’s normal. I turn to look at my alarm clock again which is still placed on my window sill directly to the left of my bed. The time says 7:15?


“No, that can’t be right. I only closed my eyes for like 10 minutes.” I rub both of my eyes--first the left and then the right--with my right hand and look back at the alarm clock. 7:15 it says!


“How could this happen? How could you do this, AGAIN?”


I jump up and out of bed, not realizing my comforter is wrapped around my foot, causing me to trip and fall. Bang! This steamy, sizzling feeling is at the peak of my elbow.


“Great, now I have a rug burn.”


I get up, run to the bathroom, and turn on the shower. Everything seems normal. My black and white polka dotted shower curtain is still intact, my turquoise toothbrush container is where I left it, and my clothes are symmetrically thrown on the floor. I rush into the shower and look at the water trickling down. For every ounce of water coming down is another second I can’t get back. Time only goes forward, not backward. Fighting your inner self is a battle that many people don’t know how to fight. I look down at the tub’s floor and see the water going around in a circle--slowly trying not to meet its fate--and see all this time I’ve wasted since I’ve gotten out of bed. It's hard knowing how to separate your inner self from your outside duties. You get lost in yourself, which results in lost time.


Advanced Essay #1: Losing Control

Introduction:


My goal for this essay is to explain how my anger issues have controlled me. Throughout the essay I talk about how I am striving to gain better control on my temper. I mainly describe what I do when I’m angry and what has happened because of my anger. I want to improve on condensing my writing in my future considering there was a lot more I wanted to talk about and get to, but couldn’t considering the word count. I also want to improve on my use of figurative language like metaphors and also include more thoughtful dialogue.


Losing Control


I have always struggled to control my anger. My anger sparks at small things and builds up. I get angry and frustrated by looking at social media post, trying to solve problems I don’t understand, playing games, and just when things don’t go my way. I know I shouldn’t act the way I do, but sometimes I just can’t control myself. The first time I started noticing these anger issues was in middle school.


My friends and I always played wall ball at recess.  We played everyday but I was the worst out of all of us. Frequently fumbling the ball out of my hands. I always tried harder knowing this and got upset everytime I loss. One time I attempted to catch the ball and it slipped out of my hands towards my friend. I ran full sprint, not even bracing myself to stop before impact. I touched the wall and heard the thud at the same time, but I wasn’t sure whether I was first. Everyone told me I was out and I refused to accept it. I chucked the ball and throwing it away from the wall, I felt my index finger scrape across the wall as I threw, burning badly. I was already upset, Only taking a few seconds for me to start crying. I held my finger as people came to look. I was bleeding, not bad, but for a 5th grader it was a decent amount of blood. We examined it as I sniffled, tears pouring down my face. Something white was inside the cut, my friend Liam said “You gotta go to the nurse, I think that’s your bone.” I was terrified, I had never had a bad injury, I thought I was gonna lose my finger or permanently damage it. Without knowing it I had cause damaged to myself.

My experiences with gaming  also helped me realize how angry I get. I yell at my friends for the way they play, I blame other people for my mistakes and freakout. I often slam my fist onto my arm chair or desk.  The desk has suffered lots of damage. Underneath my mousepad lies two holes and dents from my fist slamming against the top layer. The desk being tired of my abuse retaliated everytime I hit it, if I slammed it hard enough it would turn off my computer by pulling wires, causing me to get disconnected. These periods were times to cool down and think. My keyboard is missing the S key because it popped out too many times from me slamming my desk. Once I moved to my dad’s I got a little better with my anger. More yelling as opposed to physically hitting my desk, mostly due to my desk at my father’s being a stronger material that leaves my hand sore for a few days after hitting it. When I get angry I can lose all control, the only thing I can think is “Where could I slam my fist down that it wouldn’t break anything.” However, as time goes on I improve on controlling these outburst. After every incident, I look back on how much I was overreacting only taking a few seconds to truly understand. I know these are only games, but my friends don’t understand that I can’t stop myself from reacting. I don’t enjoy getting angry and yelling at them, but sometimes it’s just the way I am.


My anger is a part of me, having been a factor in my life that has shown no signs of stopping. I’ve gotten better in controlling my anger towards most things other than games. I’ve learned that I can’t change the way I am, but I’d rather get furious about games than anything else. My anger issues are most likely from my father, throughout my life I have memories of hearing him throwing something across the room. Usually occurring if the team he was rooting for lost or messed up, and he’d throw the TV remote. To me I see that as his version of gaming. My anger is something that has gotten the best of me at times, ruining experiences for me. By understanding more, it has been easier to try and take back parts of my life.


Advanced Essay #1: No shortcuts

Introduction

The goals of this paper is to just tell people that they if they want to achieve their goals they should practice so you can be capable of achieveing your goals. I want people to just understand that if you taake time to imporve your skills it'll pay off in the end. I really proud of what I wrote because it gave me an oppurtunity to reflect and see how much I really grown from this experience.

No Shortcuts

I started to slow down and then... I started to walk...

“Don’t stop running keep going! I DIDN'T SAY STOP YET!!!!” said my coach ferociously.

You could hear the screams of agony fill the room. Everyone was feeling the ache and pains in the hamstrings and I saw the sweat dripping off of everyone. Everyone was putting in the work they needed to succeed in the upcoming track meet, and it was made apparent when we was done running up and down the steps because the smell spoke for itself. All I could think about during practice was pushing myself to go even further beyond, thinking that I could finally reach the gold. Then we started to get acquainted with push-up and all I saw was the dirty, the dusty, and somewhere in between, white floor as I continue to elevate myself to new heights. I started to close my eyes because of the dust but, also of the pain my arms had to endure. All I saw was the blackish red of my eyelids thinking to myself is this enough to get me to my goal.

The following day...

The day of the track meet, I remember it well. It was in the middle of March with a few clouds in the sky but, with the comforting sky blue and shining yellow sun that I know all so well.  It was almost my turn to run the 100 meter dash I heard a guy with confidence saying,

”I’m about to cook yall!”

I started to second guess my abilities...My heart started to race and started beating faster than my legs even move. I could feel an uneasy feeling in my stomach and a nervous drop of sweat starting to drip off of my already hot face. I could hear the the forbidden words from the guy who uses the pistol to start us off saying,

“Next runners take your spots!”

At that moment my heart dropped and I felt my body slowly inching forward to lane 5.

“Runners on your mark!” the man with the pistol exclaimed.

I got into the running position that I practice constantly during practice.  The runners beside me did there own forms and had determined expressions on their faces.  

“GET SET!!!” I slightly lifted my body up and my mind started to go blank like a white piece of paper not yet filled with the colors that makes it was it is.

“POP”  the gun wailed.

I launched myself forward and I can see runners beside me but, most importantly the end in front of me. I could feel the wind hitting my face and how much force applied to each step, quickly getting me to my destination with each second that goes pass. I could even feel my breathing trying to regulate itself to compensate for the speed I was going. Each second that went by I started to not physically see the other runners but, I could still hear the sounds off their feet hitting the ground. Even though my mind only had one goal as I was running, which was to get to the end, I still saw the red color track and the green turf in my peripheral. My arms were moving vigorously, matching the pace of my already tired legs. I was approaching the finish line and my brain started to fill itself with color instead of black and white. I started to remember what the guy said about cooking us in this race and I had a huge smile on my face. I crossed the white line which put a relief in my brain and my heart even though my heart was still racing. I then saw the guy who was talking trash come up right after me with a disappointed look in his face. He didn’t say anything. I started to come back to my senses and I could hear a lot of cheering. I was back in reality. I had a smile on my face but, I could still feel the impacts my feet had sustained from running. Nevertheless, I was happy because I realized that the shining yellow sun was shining on me because that was the first time I heard the golden words.

“You…...Came…...in……..first” my teammates told me.

I was ecstatic. I could not stop smiling my golden smile as my teammates kept trying to congratulate my victory.    

To sum it all up, there is no shortcut to greatness.  If you don’t practice how will you expect to succeed? The answer is you shouldn’t expect it because practicing allows you to improve one’s self and get more skilled at what you do. You need to practice to achieve your goals and watch in the end how all the work you put in it finally pays off. If you try to finesse your way to your dreams you only cheating yourself because when there’s a situation that demands your skill and you have none what then? Where do you go after that? This is why practice pays off because if you practice even the tiniest bit each day you’ll at least start to generate the skill to accomplish your goals.


Pneumonia...


Introduction: 
My goals for this essay to be able to express my feelings about when I had pneumonia. I never talked to people about this dreadful time I had. I felt like having this assignment helped me express it. This is something I won't forget. One thing I would like to strength is my vocabulary. Lastly, I would like to improve being descriptive.   

Shivering in the inside but extremely warm on the outside. For the past three days, my mother has been checking my temperature and there is no change.  My fever keeps on increasing. Each day goes by and I start breathing faster and faster. It was like I just ran a marathon. During the cold nights, my bed was wet because of sweat. My mom would bring me my favorite Indian food biryani and I wouldn’t eat it. That’s when I realized I lost my appetite. My face would get red my eyes would water like I was crying. Everything got worse.
I was rushed to my hospital. My mom was there to comfort me. As I lay down on my mom's lap in the emergency room all I see are kids coughing, sneezing, runny nose basically they were sick. 
I started to ask myself, “What if they are sick like me?”
As the doctor calls my name “Samera Baksh,” I stood up and my head started feeling dizzy it was like some type of pressure was on my head. I slowly walk up with my mom holding my hand. I walked up to the doctor wearing light blue scrubs. I tell the doctor all the symptoms and she ran all the tests. 
After getting the results of the tests she tells me what’s the problem. I don’t know why but I had a bad feeling about it. 
“Samera you have pneumonia. You are going to be hospitalized until it's gone,” the doctor explained. My look on my mom’s face was horrifying, she turned pale. Everything around me turned dark.  
A nurse wearing pink scrubs came into and took my mother and me to a different room. As I walked in I saw kids my age breathing in the ventilator. 
The nurse gives me the mask and commanded, ¨I need you to breathe into this mask.” My mom puts the mask over the head and adjusts comfortably for me all though it was extremely uncomfortable. 
I took a deep breath slowly in my head I said to myself, “Inhale, exhale.” Tears started to drip from my eyes down to my chin. I didn’t want to do it. 
The doctor with the light blue scrubs came in with this shot, I didn’t know exactly what it was. The nurse put the needle in my hand. I started to scream, it was very painful. That needle stayed in my hand for a week. 
I changed out of my blue shirt and my black jeans into a yellow hospital gown. I put a white mask on my face so I don’t get anyone else sick. A nurse with a hello kitty scrub pushed me to my room while I was sitting on the wheelchair. When I get into the room all the way at the end of the hallway isolated from everyone else. The room walls were green. On the right wall, there was a kid playing soccer painted on. A very small box tv was on the upper right-hand corner of the room. As I slowly got up on the bed, I said to myself, “I wish this was a nightmare.” 
A couple of days goes by and I get sick of the hospital. My family came to visit me many times at the hospital and they brought me my favorite dish biryani. Every time I opened the container of food my face would light up because of the joy of having biryani. When my grandma, dad, and my aunts are here I would look around the room and one person was missing. That person is my sister. She was not allowed to visit. When she wasn’t here it always felt empty, boring, and quiet. 
  “Good progress, Samera is getting better,” the doctor said. 
    “Can I go home now?” I demanded.
  “Not yet sweet, but very soon,” the doctor said.
I tried to be very patient which was the hardest thing for me to do. The only thing that was keeping me going was my Nintendo DSI also the show “Wheel of Fortune.” My mom and I really enjoyed watching that show. It would help us forget the fact that I have pneumonia.
Two mornings later, the nurse came in more tests so I can be released. My test came back good I was perfect to go home. 
“You are good to go! At 5 o'clock pm today you can check out. The doctor will come to check one last time,” said the nurse excitedly. 
After I heard that my heart started to beat very fast because of the excitement of going home. My mom started calling my whole family.  We were so excited. As I started packing some of my stuff I said to myself, “This has been the longest and dreadful week. I will forget about this.” 






Advanced Essay #1: The Roller Coaster Ride

Introduction: 
    My goal for this essay is to let people realize that if you try out the new experience and help you overcome your fears. I'm really proud of myself because I actually get out of my barrier and experience new things. Finally, I really want to improve on my flowing skills, like how to make my essay sound better.

The Roller Coaster Ride:
    There are multiple types of fears, and the unknown fears are the worst compared to others. Each of us had been trying to overcome our fears, we all process things differently to overcome it. So everything begins with my trip to an amusement park with my friend. It was a special Sunday that I would never forget, and I was very excited the night before to the point where I could not sleep.

    At 7 o’clock, the alarm on my phone woke me up, I felt nervous and ecstatic. I wore a pink hoodie, black shorts, and brand new slip-on platform Vans. It was humid outside; I could feel the foggy breeze brush through my skin along with my hair until my hair was tangled into a mess. It reminded me that summer was ending, and it was already transitioning to autumn.

    Our squad was four strong girls who I considered my best friends, Christine, Meng, Rena, and me. We had all been thinking about this trip so much that we began to feel so enthusiastic. I turned on the radio, and the first song that popped up was “That’s what I like,” by Bruno Mars. Suddenly, everybody began to sing in unison. As that happened the wheels of the car began to roll, our journey had begun. It was a two-hour ride, so we decided to pick out our favorite music and rotate the list around as it goes.

    From afar, Six Flags emitted an aura of total tranquility. The noise of screams and laughter could be heard as I got closer to the entrance. I was looking around while we were going through the ticket checking gates. I said, "Lucky for us that the park wasn't crowded so we don't have to wait for the line.”

    “I know right! Usually, the park gets crowded in the summer, especially on the weekend,” Christine replied.

     In my mind, I was so frustrated about everything in the park. My friends pushed me to get on the top #1 scariest thrill ride in Six Flags called “Kingda Ka”, it only has one drop, but that drop height is 456 feet in 3.6 seconds, going up to 128 miles per hour, not only was it the tallest roller coaster but it was also the fastest.

     I felt butterflies in my stomach when we were waiting for our turn. As the time went on I felt like my blood stopped pumping around my body, my hands were cold, my body was shaking. I was scared, but I did not want to be the girl that would refuse to try out any new experiences just because of her fears. That unknown fear that would limit her to try.

      “Hey, have you ever tried this before?” I asked with my rambling voice. 

      “Yes and the best part about it is the drop,” Rena added in.

      “You will be fine, the drop will only take up a few seconds,” Meng replied.

      I tried to ask questions so I could let my fears disappear, but they’ve made me even more worried about the ride. Then it’s our turn, I was on the verge of tears when the ride started. I closed my eyes and whispered to myself, “Just get it over with, you will be fine.” The roller coaster slowly marched toward the top of the slope and I was watching myself going higher and higher. Everything was small and insignificant compared to what I was about to experience. I suddenly hated myself for agreeing to participate in this madness. Though it was already too late to regret anything. The ride stopped for a second when it hit the peak of the structure, and true terror flowed in. The roller coaster violently tore its way down the track. The wind was pushing against my body and it made me feel as if my seatbelts were loosening up. I felt at any moment I could have been yanked out of my seat due to the massive speed and pressure of the ride. People around me were screaming. I could clearly distinguish how the screams vary. Some were filled with happiness and excitement. Some exactly depicted my internal cry. 

      The ride only took up a few minutes, but I was so proud of myself for overcoming my fear which is not easy to accomplish. Each of us has a limitation for ourselves, and we all have at least some sort of fear, for me, it was the unknowns. But at least I gave it a try. I stepped down from the staircase with a smile on my face, I looked at Christine, “It was not that bad! We should try out a different ride.” From that point on, I just fell in love with roller coasters. Every piece of art that is from the roller coasters combine will create a beautiful picture, and it will help me de-stress all of the problems that I have in my life.

Advanced Essay #1: No Need for Regret

Introduction:
In this essay my bigger idea is that acceptance is not always needed. In the essay I explore memories from my past about my looks and memories from more current times about my experiences. I am proud that I was able to dig back into my mind and bring back older experiences. In the future I hope to become more descriptive with my writing. 

No Need for Regret:

Do I really like this one? I mean, it's soft and comfortable. Do I even wear this color? What is everyone else going to say? These questions and statements race through my mind at rocket speed as I sit there, contemplating over this pink crop top.

“Will you even wear that?,” my mom asked.

Will I? But everyone else does? They look good in it so why wouldn't I?

As I walk to the cashier, with my pink top in hand, I see where they all lay. Where each one of my classmates got theirs. They check for their size and go. Why is it so hard for me to decide? My hand moved closer to the pink mountain. I should put it back, shouldn't I? Why is this so hard?

I continue to walk to the register with the shirt in one hand and peer pressure in the other. As I walk out of the store I think to myself, “That was $12.90 not well spent.”

Do I regret that purchase? Yes.

Do I wear it? No.

Does it sit in the back of my closet with the tag still on it? Yes

Why? Because maybe one day, I’ll have the guts to wear something so not me but so everyone else. I bought that shirt to please others, not to please myself. The image of others smiling faces as I walk down the hall and all the “oh that’s so cute!”’s are burned into my brain. If I please them, I feel at ease. It doesn’t matter how I feel. Their comments make me feel like maybe the $12.90 was worth it.

Maybe I’d wear that pink piece of cloth today. Why? It’s uncomfortable and totally not my color. Why force myself into something that is not me for someone else’s pleasure. It makes no sense. I should do me. I cared about everyone’s opinions on me physically then. Now I care what people think about me. How they think I am as a person. Summer camp is a great example of this.

“Oh my gosh! I can’t tell anyone! Why did I just do that? I’m such a shitty person,” I exclaimed one of the many nights on the parade field. Alone. Just him and I laying in a large bed of grass under the stars.

“Hey, hey, hey calm down,” he says as he leads me back to the bench with his hands on mine.

I can’t tell anyone I thought. Who won’t judge me? Everyone will. I have to keep it to myself. Let it eat away at me. I don’t regret what I did. I did it again and again. His lips on mine in the moment didn’t seem wrong. When I left, I didn’t regret it. But the moment I thought about someone else’s opinion of me changing, I lost it.

I arrive back at my cabin. They were waiting for me. My friends who I’ve known for years or had just met a couple weeks before. They ask what we did. I told them we talked. They believed it I guess. I sure hope they did.

I care way too much about what they think of me. What anyone thinks about me but especially at camp. We are all so close. Almost no secrets are secrets. Everyone knows eventually. Whether it’s years later or the moment it happens. But I can’t tell anyone what happened between him and I. In the eyes of everyone else, my lips were never on his. We were just talking. My brain started to think about others opinions of me. I felt like they all knew even though they didn’t. I don’t know if hiding what I did made me feel worse or the thoughts. Everyone questioned why I was sad but it was easy to make an excuse that people wouldn’t judge me for.

  1. My friend is leaving the U.S.

  2. I’m sad that camp is almost over.

  3. I’m just tired.

I might not care too much physically what people think about me. I can brush that off. When they are able to see through my lies, into my mess of a head, that’s when I’m scared. That’s when I care. But why should I? If I feel comfortable and don’t regret it, what is the problem? The opinions of others should not change my being. I should not have to hide my experiences or my emotions to make others see me as me. I don’t have to wear something that isn’t me just to impress others and get a reaction that I truly don’t care about. I care too much about what others have to say about me. But I shouldn’t. I am flawed and I mess up but I shouldn’t feel the need to hide that.


Advanced Essay #1 Bittersweet Memories


Intro paragraph:

My goal for this paper was to paint an image of uncomfortable comfortability, and tie that to the general fear of being uncomfortable. I wanted to connect with the reader and show that its okay to be uncomfortable. I want my readers to notice the connections I made in my analysis and in my descriptive scene, I want them to see the repetition of similar language. After writing this essay I realized I need to work on more shocking language, this essay feels very passive to me and I would rather be writing with more purpose. Some skills I need to work on are being concise and creating better transitions.

Essay:

I didn’t know you. You didn’t know me. We had just met, we weren’t destined to be friends forever or even remember each others names. We were strung together by the same desire to make others happy, at this point you only wanted to make one girl happy, and I was making sure you were good enough for her.

It’s midnight in Wildwood, the ocean breeze whirls and curls outside our window. The three room condo is illuminated by the moon shining in from the cracks in the blinds. You were in one bedroom, my mom in the other, and me and her in the third. Everyone else was asleep but you needed someone. You got up and creeped over to me, careful not to make a sound, and asked,

“Do you want to go for a walk?”

I peeled my eyes open and nodded. Together we tip toed out of the condo. The air was brisk outside, but not too cold to make me want to leave. I forgot my shoes, and so did you. We stood on the white concrete floor, little bits of left over sand and sweat seeping into our cold skin. We stood there for a moment, not entirely sure what to say or do. Eventually I took a step down to the stairs, and whispered to you,

“Come on.”

We grasped the railing as we walked down the three flights of gaping stairs. In between each step we could see the pool water below us. Swishing, and swirling, softly with the wind. It glistened under the stars.

We walked to the beach in silence, looking up at the beautiful sky. Trudging along to where the ocean met the land. Where sand got stuck under our toenails, and the salty wind swept our hair. There was no one around, it felt like the beach was ours. We climbed onto the lifeguard stand and looked out to the sea. We breathed in the stiff air, tasting the entire ocean floor. No words were spoken. I was safe in our silence. The sounds of the beach becoming our conversation. Every once in awhile the waves we crash along the shore and spit suds at our feet, but I didn’t care, I was too busy sharing this little moment with someone I would never see again.

And I never did see him again. Only in passing, or through a friend of a friend. But that was okay. We changed as people and went on to lead different lives. Some might feel sad about moving on and forgetting people from their past, but the past doesn’t have to be bittersweet. Growing up is a given, you’re friends and interests will cycle and change again and again, but change can be good. When I reflect on my past memories, I don’t feel sad knowing my life's different now, I’m happy that it happened. Many people struggle with this concept of living in the past. And I used to do it too, I would daydream about what could have been, but it got me nowhere. I became addicted to wishing to change the past that I didn’t live in the present. When I first started high school, I absolutely hated it. I shut myself off and I rejected everything new. I didn’t want to accept that this was my new reality. I would sit in class, my hands on the tan, tables, my feet tapping the dirty tiles and my mind stuck in my old life. I was trapped, I would only hang out with my old friends and brush off opportunities to make new ones. And in this time in my life, I was unhappy. High School is supposed to be a chance to start over, but I was clinging to a life I no longer had.

But how is clinging to the past different from being afraid of the future? We reminisce in old friends and memories from our childhood because we think it makes us remember a happier time. But does this make us happy?, or do we just want to recede back to a time when we had no worries. When our only responsibility was to be a kid. To a time where everything was done for us and the future was only in make believe. We don’t connect back to the past for fun - but for comfort. When we experience change our immediate response is to reject it and fall back to when we were comfortable. Whether that comfort comes from family or from a toxic environment, we crave familiarity no matter how harmful it is to us. And I was just like this too. I covered myself up, and pretended to be someone I wasn’t, as I simmered in the fear of my new environment.

We are all scared. Scared for the future, scared for the present, scared of ourselves. We hide away from change when we should embrace the unknown. You don’t know how long you’re going to be afraid, so if instead of pushing it away, you enjoyed the moment and enjoyed the chance to try something new - maybe we could all feel safe in the silence.


Advanced Essay 1: It's Not One and Done

Introduction:
This essay is about my experience with bullying, mental disorders, and healing. When reading this essay, I hope that people realize that healing isn't always about being happy or perfect, but about being better. I am proud of my ability to be so vulnerable and to still write well. Hopefully I can continue to do this throughout the year and my life.

It Isn't One and Done

“Watch the fat girl run!”

   The words would sting almost as much as the rocks they threw. Growing up, I was bullied badly. One of the worst things that the kids in my school would do was to steal my things; they would take my notebooks and writing utensils, and I would have to chase them for it. Sometimes they’d even throw things away if didn’t catch them. All the while, students that I wasn’t chasing were throwing rocks at me-- as if I wasn’t already slow enough.

To this day, I wonder why they wanted to hurt me so and why it takes so long to heal from their injuries. Each day when I would walk to the yellow school bus for the ride home, I heard a chorus of “Miss Piggy” being yelled at me, all at once in varying voices out the bus windows. The 45-minute ride home was torture full of inappropriate jokes, name-calling, and hair-pulling. I can remember multiple occasions on which I was slapped across the face while people recorded it. I was here for their entertainment and ridicule, and to provide homework answers, nothing more.

    The teachers did nothing. Though I repeatedly told my homeroom teachers and saw the principal about these matters, it didn’t seem to matter to them. I was still going to Mass, my grades were good, and my parents were still paying the outrageous tuition. What was there for them to care about?

    Enduring all of these things had large consequences on my life, and it's taken a long time to get even remotely better. By the time I was in seventh grade, every meal I ate would come back up. I was like clockwork, shoving my index and middle fingers down my throat less than half an hour after each meal. Tears streamed down my patchy face as I gagged, staring into the toilet just waiting for for the food and my perception of self-acceptance to come up. All that came was stomach acid and disappointment. My knee-high socks covered the marks that the tile floor left on my knees, and no one thought anything was wrong because I’m not skinny.

Over the years, I have learned to hate myself for not being skinny or fit enough, for being too nerdy, and for every other negative thing my peers had told me. It reflected in every aspect of my life and is shown in my esophageal tears and scarred thighs. When I was thirteen, I almost killed myself.

It is only now in my life that I am learning that it doesn’t matter how others see me. To this day, I struggle and still deny that I’m not okay but I’ve come to a point where my friends build me up rather than tear me down. While I deny that things are wrong, some people know without me having to say a word. Because of this, I am now in therapy, though I had to be dragged there.

The goal is self-acceptance. I hear this often; people tell you to love yourself but I truly don’t. I am trying but I don’t know how to put that into motion, to make myself truly feel this way. How can you love someone that you hate?

Healing means getting better, little by little. For me, it can even be eating three meals a day, something many wouldn’t assume I struggle with. I have to try to be me, without caring what others think, to keep myself physically and mentally healthy. These are things that I struggle with on a daily basis, but I’ve learned to push through.

Honestly, I don't know if, how, or when I'll get better. I just sort of hope that I do. I have to believe that at one point in my life, things will be okay, even though they're terrifying right now. My day goes by, packed full of activities and things to keep my mind from getting ahead of itself, and I try to eat enough to keep myself healthy. To get better, I really must take it one step at a time, and maybe it'll be okay. For now, I'll have to put up with myself and be okay with not being okay.

Advanced Essay #1- Queerness Counteracting Culture

Introduction

The goal of my essay is to educate people on how they are contributing to discriminatory culture without even knowing it, and to show them that their complacency can be violent. I want my reader to notice how nothing stopped a young me from buying completely into the normalization of heterosexuality, even when I wasn't part of that majority. I am proud of how my paper flows nicely from my descriptive scenes to my analysis. I am also proud of how I engaged the senses in my first scene as well. In the future, I would like incorporate more dialogue into my descriptive scenes and stop using passive language in them. I also want to become more concise in my writing without losing any of my description.


Advanced Essay- Queerness Counteracting Culture

When I was 5 years old, I wanted to marry my best friend Lola. Now I know what you’re thinking- no, I didn’t know I was gay. I just thought gay people were really really good friends who happened to live together. No one had told me otherwise. The years passed and I eventually rectified that ridiculous childhood story, but something always kept me from ever thinking queerness could ever fit into my life. One day in the fourth grade, my classmates and I were playing 4 square in the recess yard. The giant oak trees that towered over us were full of dark, shiny green leaves. Through the gate, we could hear cars whooshing past, and the air smelled like the steaming asphalt beneath our feet. I let my mind wander as I stood in line for the game. I stared at my friend, her long black ponytail shining in the sun. I watched it swing, hypnotized, as she ran to get the ball when it went out of bounds. Then, I thought a thought. “

I really don’t like when she talks to other girls. Does that make me a lesbian?”

I had never even considered this before. My heart started pounding in my ears until it was even louder than the sound of the 4 square ball bouncing against the blacktop. I brushed the thought off. People just around me just weren’t gay. So I wasn’t. Settled. In a world where the only story ever told to me was a straight one, being gay wasn’t an option. Even though I didn’t recognize this yet, my young mind craved some sort of validation- to know that who I was was right and real. Perhaps for the first time, I was experiencing not being the default.

By the time I was in middle school, I had come up with a list of excuses. I’ve had crushes on boys before. I don’t want to cut my hair. I don’t like any of my girl friends. I would sit in bed, staring at my dark ceiling, running my list over in my head until I fell asleep. And even when I finally gave into the fact that I was queer, I couldn’t fathom telling my parents. One night, after hours of stewing in my bed, I wrote my parents a letter in green pen. Hands shaking, I folded it over and wrote their names on the front. I pulled back my blankets and walked cautiously down the hall to my parent’s room. I opened the door slowly and placed the little paper in between their sleeping bodies, my heart skipping beats. The next morning, I was a ball of nervous energy, but my parents didn’t even mention the note. I went into their room and found it unopened on the side of their bed; they never saw it. I lost my courage and tore it up.

My parents never told me they hated gay people, but they didn’t need to. They didn’t say anything, and that was enough for me to hate myself for who I was. The culture around me that only normalized heterosexuality had left deep grooves in my psyche that couldn’t just be flattened out by me finding out I was queer. You can’t put a bandaid on a wound that’s more than skin deep, and it wasn’t enough for the people around me to not be homophobic. My parents never sat me down when I was a kid and told me that if I was gay, it was alright with them. Maybe if they did, it would’ve made my wounds easier to heal.

In this period in time, it is very easy for people to trot out all the reasons why they are ‘not bigoted’. They constantly bring up the fact that they view all humans as equals. But phrases that mirror this mentality such as “I don’t see race” are actually perpetuating bigotry in a unique way. By saying that we are all equal, they are implying that we are all treated equally; that since women now have to right the vote, or since that gay marriage has been legalized, or since slavery is ‘over’, these groups don’t experience deep systemic discrimination, and damaging mindsets stemming from that oppression that are hard to shake. So people don’t do anything. They sit, comfortable with the fact that in their eyes, they’re not bigots. But in this culture, it isn’t enough just to not hate. You have to take action; you have to educate children about identities they might have not even allowed themselves to try on. You have to actively work against the ideas that have been put in people’s heads from when they were children.  So that little girls know it’s ok to want to marry their best friends, in a ‘gay way’.


Advanced Essay #1- Relationship with parents

Goals of my essay
​My goals for this essay were simple. I wanted to express the importance of a relationship with anyone. Also how hard it is for that relationship to change. I am very proud of my essay. My memories connected well together. My bigger idea/ reflection is the best part. I love the way I ended the essay. It related to a lot of people . Also they liked it which made me happy. Lastly I would like to strengthen my writing with better vocabulary.

                                             Importance of a Relationship

Spending time with my family was always most important. Especially having my father by my side, but that would be like  a dream. Sometimes relationships can grow distant between a child and a parent. Particularly if the child and mother or father are miles apart. It’s hard  being really close with someone then suddenly drifting apart. I’ll always love my dad but I know my relationship with him won’t be the same. Family matters so much to me and having my dad and mom together was awesome.

One of my favorite memories of my dad was on my sweet 16. I walked into flashing lights. It was the most amazing night ever. Everyone smiling and cheering as I entered the room. I had been waiting for this night for many months. It was finally here and I couldn’t be happier. My father stands by my side. I  was full of joy and happiness. All of my friends and family gathered to celebrate the night.

Most importantly my father there with me. The birthday girl was dressed in a purple and gold dress. I was smiling at every moment for every picture.  My cousin sung happy birthday to me while I silently cry. My tears were happy tears, tears of joy. Everything was perfect until the end of the party. I enjoyed everything and let loose for one whole night. Then I realized it was time to go back to reality.

The night was ending and it was time for him to go. My father had to leave to catch his flight in the morning. Goodbye was always bittersweet with him. I knew he had to go but why now? Knowing I wouldn’t see him for a long time brought me to tears. It was hard to have him here with me one moment, then gone the next. This type of pain is understandable for anyone whose separated from a parent, family member, etc.

It’s always difficult when a child and a parent are separated. When my dad left, I was disappointed and hurt. I knew our relationship would never be the same. However, seeing him in person always makes me happy. The first time I saw him after he moved away was when I was 10. It was a while before I ever saw my dad again.

In the month of June I was going to see my dad for the first time since he left my sweet 16. I had a mixture of emotions. Some of those emotions were nervous, happy, upset, and anxious. Part of me was happy to see him. Another part kept wondering, ¨Why did he leave me?”  That question played repeatedly in my head.


Everyone was anxious and nervous to board the plane. I was excited to see my dad and scared to ride an airplane. We admired the view above the clouds. The plane took off “Whoosh,” I said while gripping the handle seats. I held onto those seats for dear life. We were all so eager to our dad .

Lots of cars honking as they jump out the car. They run up to him with their arms wide open open wide. “ Dad! “ they screamed with excitement. He was smiling from ear to ear. It was the happiest day ever. We were seeing our dad after such a long time. He lives in San Antonio and we were finally visiting.


My stepmom waited for us at the airport. When we saw her she says, “Hey,” while smiling very hard. I gasped when I saw her stomach. I leaned over to my dad and asked, “Is that baby weight?“ He burst out laughing saying, “No, she’s pregnant again.” In that moment I was shocked. I told her, “Congratulations,” and she said, “Thank you.” On the other hand, I was upset because my dad didn’t tell me himself, especially after the many conversations we had and he never said anything.

My relationship with my dad changed the moment he left. Nowadays, I barely hear from him. There are moments I wish things could go back to the way they were. My number one guy left. I started to notice my dad becoming a different person. People change and sometimes it can be good or bad.  

Relationships between anyone can always change. What’s important is if that relationship can be put back together. It is never easy to drift away from someone you love. There is a constant pain that comes and goes in the relationship. Sometimes it’s easy to repair a relationship. Other times it may not be worth it to fix.



Advanced essay #1(Mama's house,kool-aid, and a gun.

Mama's house, Kool-aid, and a Gun

Intoduction: This essay paints a picture and tells a story about my family. My family is all about loyalty and if you're not loyal to us they will shut you out. This story shows an example of my cousin being shut out because of lack of loyalty. The moral of this story is caring for your own family.


This was my great grandmas house in Allentown. We always had visitors pop up either it was for family or friends we always had visitors at mamas. We always had our guard up and read people to see bad intentions in people. Allentown is where I was born, the streets were kinda rough. I remember when my cousins found a dead body behind my great grandmas shack. Allentown home of Dorney Park. Allentown known for there crazy up and down rides and sometimes those rides are outside Dorney. The streets can be up and down, my cousin  was incarcerated for having weed in his car. My great grandmas’ house was a safe place and that's where my Grandma and Mom grew up eating arroz y frijoles then I came along eating fried plantains and rice watching cartoons.  “ Seyahh comer, comer banaka”  Screamed mama. The chairs in the kitchen looks like an antique wooden chair that has a maple brown. The stove is white and has pots and a tub of butter which is most likely not butter but leftovers. The cupboards are brown and attached to it is a paper towel rack, beside the cupboards is a big light over the stove. On top of the stove are little dolls for decoration. The size of the room is a small tight spaced kitchen packed with Kitchen utensils. The refrigerator contains leftover spanish food my great grandma made the day before, sugary Kool-Aid , butter, milk, cheese, and various dressings.My mom grew up in the same kitchen and walls. They used to say My mom had a bright smile that can light up a dark room. Me I came later as a toddler bad attitude and a hairline worse than the Mcdonalds sign,“Your head is enormous, Wsp Big head?, Your head is crazy big” and I heard that all my life, I would get tore up about my head because it was too big. My Uncle was a strong believer in God and went to church every sunday. Every sunday he would bring us to church, my uncle always had a smile on his face with his shiny bald head and faded mustache.  This day will forever be in my head, I go to the kitchen to get me some nice sugary kool aid from the refrigerator, I poured my tall glass I turned the corner and I see a big figure and my uncle in the door frame. “ No don’t do this, Angel please” the tall figure has a long silver weapon pointed at my uncle's head ready to go off. I look closer and its begins to be clearer now it was a gun. I run upstairs thinking I’m going to hear a gunshot sound off, It’s silent then I hear a loud slam of the door, heavy breathing and praying. I wake up next morning my uncles eyes lifeless like he seen a ghost. We brush our teeth, put on our socks and shoes, and we prayed before we went downstairs. The kitchen. The same kitchen I went downstairs to get my sugary red kool-aid. The same kitchen my mom, uncles, aunts, cousins grew up in. I have a new memory now of the kool aid that made me think of the tall figure. Made me think of the gun, made me think of my Uncle. 
“Wash your hands, pray over breakfast, clean the dishes”
I hear whispers between my great grandma and my uncle. 
“ Comer, Comer” my grandma yelled 
We got up from watching Spongebob and went to eat. The plate was rice and beans with some fried chicken and a glass of some nice sugary kool-aid with some ice at the bottom. 
“ You can’t have him come back ever again, the safety of the children is in your hands now”  my grandma whispered angrily 
“ I know, I know mama”
This experience was to always protect anyone your care about because as a man his job is to protect his family. The king lion protects his wife and his cubs from predators same as humans supposed to protect their wife and kids. My uncle was a lion and he stood tall in front of his son pulled out a gun on him, my uncle was protecting us. If my uncle stood in front of a gun that shows he will protect us from anything. My uncle would always be a hero for that and now he's teaching us cubs to protect like him.