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As a society, we love sports. Sports make billions of dollars every year, so they’re certainly not going anywhere. What’s less discussed about sports than say a game winning homerun, or who’s going to be performing at the superbowl, are the long term health detriments to players. Mixed Martial Arts is not an exception to sports in that it can cause long term head trauma to those who participate. Football players, Ice Hockey players, Boxers, and even Baseball players have all had concussions, and especially in the case of football, this is accepted as mostly normal. More recently people have started to take notice of the long term effects of this head trauma, looking at football players who are now suffering from it and occasionally fighters from different combat sports. Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy is degenerative brain disease that affects the memory, speech, and emotions of those who have it. Symptoms include memory loss, slurred speech, explosive behavior and depression.

This also says something about us as a society that we are aware of this in sports and still a good portion of us love to watch sunday night football and gamble in fantasy leagues. People are literally being paid millions of dollars to give themselves brain damage and sell tickets, merchandise, and advertise. That’s not to say we all think that this is ok, but even if we don’t think it’s ok are we going to stop watching football, or boxing, or UFC events? Most people don’t, and I don’t think there is anything wrong with that.

People that fight in the UFC signed a contract to fight in the UFC and be televised, that was 100% their choice. Almost all fighters don’t regret this either, they were doing what they loved for a living and that made it worth it to them. So should we feel guilty for watching it on live TV? Maybe, but I’m not going to let that get in the way of my love for MMA or Muay Thai, or any other sport for that matter. I’m not forcing people to fight in the UFC, so I’m not going to act responsible for the consequences.

Cusimano, Michael D. Hutchinson, Michael D. Lawrence, David W. Schweizer, Tom A. Mar 21, 2014. Head Trauma in Mixed Martial Arts. Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education, University of Toronto. Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Hutchinson, Michael. Jan 10, 2016 Opinion: The Harsh Reality of knockouts, concussions, and fighter health. Bloody Elbow.

McKee, A C. July, 2009 What is CTE? Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine. Boston Massachusetts.

Before the time that is the last day of secondary 3’s life has come, I have a feeling that I will go back to Philadelphia where I born,I will leave my close friends in Hong Kong, I will leave my family in Hong Kong, I will miss my classmates in Hong Kong. Then, the day come, the day I saw my classmates one last time, the day I don’t want to have, but suddenly, this happen.

At the end of my last day of school, Jeff, one of my classmate, say to come to room 104(my classroom), when I heard that, I was shocked, I didn’t have any activities after school, then I follow him. When I go into the classroom, I see there are decorations all over the classroom, and there had a lot of food on the desk, even had a cake too. All my classmates were singing ‘See You Again’, along with the computer. Then, Jeff said, ‘This is the last day of your school day, we want to celebrate you, like a fell well party,’ After I heard that, my tears nearly came out of my eyes. After that, they start talked about me past 3 years, and they even gave a lot of presents to me. Before the time that was the last day of secondary 3’s life has come, I had a feeling that I will go back to Philadelphia where I was born, I will leave my close friends in Hong Kong, I will leave my family in Hong Kong, I will miss my classmates in Hong Kong. Then, the day had come, the day I saw my classmates one last time, the day I didn’t want to have, but suddenly, this happened.

I was very happy that they said goodbye like this, then we started to eat, there washed fried chicken, rice-I don’t know why they bought rice to a party-, cake, chocolate, etc. It was great that has a lot of food in a party, some of my classmates even played with the cake, I really didn’t mind. We even played some music while we were eating, it was like we are going to ‘destroy’ the classroom.

After we finished the eating, we went back to our own houses, while I was in the middle of the road to my house, I cried secretly, I didn’t want my classmates see me cry, I will miss my classmates and teacher at school, and this was the best day before I go back to Philadelphia, I will miss my ‘big’ family in Hong Kong.

Two weeks after the crazy party, it was the time to go back to where I born, Philadelphia, before the day we went to airport, we had already packed all our stuff into the luggage,  We even took my bicycle too, but most of it were my clothes, and some of my favourite anime and Pokemon things. Then, we went to the airport, ready to leave Hong Kong and , my aunt and my grandma were in the airport too! They came here to give a farewell to us, and they cried when we left the gate. After that, we went into a plane, and stayed in the plane for about 12 hours. My legs almost broke because I had to sit for about 12 hours without moving my legs, it was a nightmare.
After 12 hours, the plane had landed in Chicago, ready to change plane from Chicago to Philadelphia, but we were late and we missed the plane. The lastest plane would be the next day, so after 5 hours, we finally found a hotel that we could stay in Chicago, so we stayed one night in the Chicago.
The next day, we woke up about eleven o’clock and went back to the airport to wait the lastest plane that go to Philadelphia. And we finally made it, we took the lastest plane, but it was already evening, so when we arrived at the Philadelphia airport, it was 11 pm, and then we went to our hotel that we booked before, finally we could rest now. 

Mekhi Granby

Description of artwork My portrait of choice is a piece of artwork done by me. The picture contains 6 houses. The houses are colored in a dark grey. Each house has two windows and a door. Each house has a pointy roof in the shape of a triangle. The houses are square. Not all the houses are the same though. Out of six houses one of them is white. To me this house stands out the most because of the simple fact that is doesn’t look like the others. The background is different for each house. The first house has a blue background, second has a red background, third has a green background, fourth has a orange background, fifth has a different shade of blue background, and the sixth one has a purple background. The background is colored in the same direction of the houses. All though most of the houses look alike in shape they are not all in the same direction. This portrait can be perceived in multiple aspects. To me this picture shows symbolism, there are houses because home is where the heart is, one house is not dark grey because it’s not like the others it’s unique. There is a message that I get from this portrait. The picture is not 3-dimensional at all, the whole thing is flat or in other words 2-dimensional. Overall it is a very simple piece of art. The doors and windows have no color. The picture is sectioned off into six squares and each square contains a house.

Advanced Essay #1 rough draft It was 9th Grade, my first year of high school. It’s towards the end of the school year so I’m fairly adjusted to the school. 2nd period is art class and the students loudly enter the class. I take my seat, the classroom is full of portraits, sculptures, and murals. The teacher stands in front of the room and starts to announce the assignment. The task was to create an image of pop art. The teacher then showed some example images. From there I began to draw and the portrait was born.

This reminds me of my freshman year. When I first started 9th grade I hated it. I didn’t like anything about that school, things eventually changed. After a while I began to adapt, things weren’t as foreign to me as they once were. I then made friends and tried to make the best out of a not so good situation. My favorite time was lunch time, this became the home of where my friends and I laughed, made jokes, and talked about each other.

Advanced Essay #2

It is now my first day at my new school as a junior. I wake up early with a huge kool-aid smile, full of excitement as I can only imagine the day ahead of me. I head downstairs to enjoy the most important meal of the day. After that’s done I quickly bolt back upstairs to my room to discover my outfit of choice for this important day. I open my closet door to see a collection of shirts, pants, and everything in-between. I begin to sort through the clothes, searching for something nice to wear. I stopped searching for a second and started thinking of possible outfits. That’s it! I thought of a great combination and grabbed i instantly. I walk into the bathroom and set up the iron board up and plug the iron in. I start to brush my teeth while waiting for the iron to heat up. I finish brushing teeth and begin to iron my clothes. After I finish with that I’m basically ready to go, I pack everything I’d need for this amazing day and head out the door.

A piece of me

Within these experiences I’ve grown and learned how to deal with situations better. The experiences I’ve had with adapting to new environments and new people made me better with these situations. My 9th grade experience taught me that things get better over time, once I adapted things weren’t as bad as they once were. It taught me to make the best of any situation no matter the circumstance. These lessons have influenced and encouraged me to make better decisions, I may not always be in a comfortable or perfect setting; one has to leave their comfort zone in order to experience new things and my ability to adapt has made that task less challenging.

Feedback from Mr. TB:

Mekhi, you are off to a good start in English 3 this year. I like how this essay use your two different experiences of being new to school in order to analyze the larger idea of being resilient and adapting to life. Your descriptive scenes are well done, but I think your transitions between scenes and analysis could be more smooth—maybe you can take out the section headings? I like the personal tone, and I also wonder if you could be a bit more varied with your vocabulary and sentence structure (less sentences beginning with “I __”). Also, I was unable to find your introduction to the essay—did you have this in another doc? Overall, this is a good start to your writing career here at SLA.

Descriptive, Engaging Writing Descriptive scenes are short and carefully constructed in order for readers to connect with and understand the author’s experiences. 19 Analysis & Larger Idea Author makes insightful observations about issue and develops a larger idea. 17 Writing Flow Essay smoothly moves between scenes, analysis, and development of larger idea or insights. Extraneous writing is removed. 14 Mechanics Writing is polished and follows rules of Standard English. 18 Process Peer edit is completed in a quality fashion, there is evidence of revision, and paper is submitted on time. 20

Grade: 88

I stepped back a bit to let the bus slide in front of me. The doors opened and stepped up, sliding my trans pass through the scanner. I turned on my heel, glancing around the bus for a seat. I noticed an old lady staring at me, face contorted in disgust; I shrugged her off. I couldn’t find a seat, so I instead started to walk towards the back door to lean against the wall. I was stopped by the little old lady sitting in the front.

Without warning, she screamed, “Shave it off, whore!”

I looked at her, frozen in slight shock. The rest of the people on the bus turned their heads at the shout, eyes blown wide. Once I got over the slight shock, I looked at her in the eyes, stomach slightly shaking and eyes watering. My head bowed, slight hiccuping noises escaping my taught mouth; I couldn’t hold it in any longer.

I threw my head back and let out a hearty laugh, extremely amused by the outburst. Her face got angrier and angrier the more I laughed. I laughed right in her face and turned away, going to stand in the back of the bus. I shook my head in amusement, giggling quietly to myself.

The concept of a society is a funny thing, isn’t it? This thing that we call ‘Society’ practically rules our lives and determines our place in the world. The real definition of society, “..the aggregate of people living together in a more or less ordered community,” does not seem to match the definition us as a society created and live by. What we know as ‘Society’ has become its own entity, becoming more of a sort of rule book rather than a group of people. Society tells you how to exist has a human in a society, with rules on: what to watch on T.V., what to eat, who to worship, what celebrities to have a crush, but the biggest ones have to be what to wear and what to look like.

Me? Yeah, I definitely don’t fit into those standards. I have my head shaved in a masculine way, my hair is dyed an unnatural color, I have piercings in places that aren’t my ears, I either wear clothing that is too masculine or too revealing, I am not lady-like in any sense, I swear like a sailor, I’m not heterosexual, and I voice my opinions and stand my ground. All of what makes up me goes against mainstream standards for teenage females. I get comments all the time about how pretty I would be if dressed like a girl, or how I am a sinner for going against God’s ideal for how a woman should look, but, personally, I don’t really care. As I grew up, I grew a thick skin and sense of self-love, so I learned not to care about what people think. I never follow society’s rules, because frankly, they’re stupid. I am a leader, not a follower, and I believe that everyone should be one too. Be your own leader, make your own decisions, screw society. Be your own person, and love yourself.

I drew a character from The Muppets.

Ryan’s reading happy place is either in his room or dining room, since that’s the only place he sits alone in silence. Although, he hates reading, it allows him to stay focused on his reading. Which is okay, because many other people don’t really like to read either. The current book that he is reading which the picture shows is “Ender’s Game” by “Orson Scott Card.

Ryan mentioned to me that if the current book was a person it would be “like a weirdo or someone who loves star wars.” I believe that he mentioned that because the book seems to be about outer space adventure from looking at the cover and reading the introduction in the back of the book.

The kind of reader Ryan would like to be is for “someone who can interpret things a lot better” after reading a book. “Distractions are holding me back”, he says. Unfortunately, he would read this book “zero times” because he strongly dislike it.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1f6PGIjol58mMcmEoHE0_rXQIZnwe-dI95Yw3hxdKRIg/edit

Back in the day, when I was a teenager before I had status, and before I had a pager… Nah, just kidding. I’m not that old! But when I was younger and had my super cool afro I usually get asks questions about it. “How long have you’ve been growing it out for?” or “How do you wash your hair?” I also answer six months for the first questions and for the second one I usually say “Well I put my hair under the water and wash it”. Every day I would get asked about my hair I kind of felt like a celebrity. The attention wasn’t always positive, though. I would get easily picked out super easily like small children called me out frequently and usually said “Mommy look at his hair” at the top of their lungs. This was always super embarrassing because It would draw a whole lot of attention to me. This was life for me usually, one of 3 things would happen first, an old person would lecture me on my hair and what it meant and it was usually really cool but when you’re in a rush you don’t wanna be mean so I kind of just sat there and took it. Second, there would be the people who think they’re out of earshot of me and either complain about my hair and how it’s “inappropriate” or say it looks like a microphone. I have been called Q-tip so many times I’ve lost count. One time I remember closely is when I was at the franklin institute doing my thing when another run of the mill runt shouts “Your hair looks like cotton candy!” her mom is laughing trying to cover her mouth and I just take it as another encounter of people that I’ll probably never see again. Then she said something really peculiar “Mommy why are you laughing, I love cotton candy!” Then things got weird. I was trying to escape this situation with a well placed “Welp!” but the little girl kept talking about how she wanted to eat my hair and the mom telling her why she couldn’t. At this point, I was really tired and not that angry. Then the little girl and the mom came to an agreement “At least can I touch it?” The mom looked at me and I nodded and sighed in defeat as I squatted down. The little girl reached her hand out and started touching my hair, then touching turned into rubbing, then rubbing turned into a sharp bite and pulling on my head. A handful of my hair was in her mouth and in the confusion I was stunned. The mother quickly pulled her daughter away “I’m so sorry!” she was rambling and whining until I stopped her and laughed really hard “Don’t worry about it, I’m super flattered.” The little girl didn’t seem phased about what just happened, in fact, it looked like she was confused on why I didn’t taste like she thought I would. She then started to cry, really loud which made everyone uncomfortable. When the mom asked her what was wrong the little girl kept repeating the same answer “He lied!, His hair is a liar!” At this point, I was holding in my laughter so much that I actually started to cry. The ignorance of a child is really funny to me what can I say, but what could I say or even yet what could I do to make this little girl stop crying. It’s not like I could pull cotton candy out of my pocket (as cool as that would be) so I started thinking. This was one of the reasons I cut my hair it was giving me a little too much attention then I would have liked and also it was the middle of summer and my head gets extremely hot. Don’t get me wrong it’s kind of my trademark style but I wanted to try something new. Then it hit me there was a cart outside of the museum that sells cotton candy. So I tell the mom and the little girl and she stop crying and her eyes light up. When I was outside of the Franklin institute I saw the girl and her mom buying her cotton candy. I guess when people point me out I should feel somewhat flattered because I get to experience situations like this.

https://docs.google.com/a/scienceleadership.org/document/d/1n8ZQh2rvytGRdGQZT0faFXyaTk3iB25D9Qxicd8gspA/edit?usp=sharing

One day during the 7 grade, I was in class with one of my friends, who was sitting next to me. We were getting bored, we were finished all of our class work about a half an hour earlier than everyone else. He pulled up a new article so that we can stay in touch with current event and so I wanted to look smarter than him so I went and looked up new article. After we started to read some story he read into a story to make him laugh and he showed it to me. Epic Apple Pie Revenge. I gave his a look of disbelief from just reading the title told me to wait until i read the rest of the attic. As I continued reading the article it talked about how a guy who was waiting in line in a burger king was getting annoyed by a m=woman and her child because the kid was loud. As the article goes on he said that he went and bought all of the apple pie in the store because of the fact that the woman-child expressed wanting apple pies and when the woman found out she start to go to him angrily before being stopped from the loud line. When I finish reading I looked at him in a shocked and surprised fact saying “how could anyone do that or offered that.”, He looked at me laughing like I have my face painted by a toddler. As he laughed he said that the mother and kid got what they decided for making to much noise. I looked at him trying to hold in my laughter saying “did you forget that this takes place in a burger king and not the a restaurant they were trying to get fast food and the articlel is only one sided.” as he looked over at me we could see that the both of us really don’t care anymore and so we drop the subject. A week and a half later my school gave us the a new bully policy this year they add on two knew things about respecting each other believes and also to try not to cause anger that could lead to yelling and violence. My friend looked at confusedly saying “Why would they add in the last part about do not do thing that could lead to yelling and violence, not like the article that we read a while ago about the guy buying all of the apple pies in burger king was pulling the mother and child.” “Why would you say that, based on the new paper it would be concluded it bullying because at the at the end of the article it said the woman was going after the man before being stopped because of the long line so you could say that she was going to yell or hit him.” I said looking at his confusedly because of his confusion. “Well we don’t know because the story ended and so we don’t know what is going to happen.” as he was talking he was pulling the definition of bullying on webster. I looked at the definition when he pulled up the definition and I looked at him saying. “Well the is only taking in account because of the fact the it only apply to the stereotypical type of bullying and not taking in account the internet and modern bullies.” as I spoke I could see the confusion on his face. “Well there is no modern bully bullying being mean to people” “No bullying is more than just being mean to people and I know that now in days people are using it more loosely but you can say bullying has not changed just look at the article that we read he is clear that he is being mean to a mother that we can only assume that is a working mother and was taking her kid to get fast food,” I said. “Well you are just assuming a lot it and not looking at what the story said” he said boldly. “You have to assume because for the fact that this store is one sided but you have to admit that bullying has changed for kid beating up other kids for lunch money to People people being jerks for other people for a laugh or being mean to other people because of they lifestyle.”

I’d always heard of people getting poisoned in movies and books. In scenarios where an evil senior advisor wants the power all to themselves & poisons the king to gain it. Taking a life only for the sake of fame seems unrealistic. I had never really heard of people being poisoned in my life. That was until, my mom got an unexpected text message.

I was lounging on the couch in my sweatpants and my favorite old t-shirt. It was yet another bright, sunny Saturday and I was bored out of my mind. There were no homework or projects to do. So, the choices were to either go work on my unfinished poem for club, read a new book, or go watch my brother play video games. Watching Tony play video games won because he was so obnoxiously loud I couldn’t possibly do the other two.

“Hey Ana, come upstairs real quick,” my mom called. I hopped up the steps two at a time and turned right, then jogged to her room before flopping on the bed.

“What’s up?,” I asked with my speech muffled in the blanket. I looked up just as I saw her place her phone down on the pillow.

“I just checked on Brian the other day because we haven’t talked to him in a bit,” my mom stated. It was a habit of ours to see how he was doing because he didn’t live in the same state as us anymore.

“He got poisoned,” she sighed with disappointment coloring her voice. Although Brian is 28, and not related by blood to either of us, we kind of adopted him into the family. So this knowledge was a big blow shock. The fact that we no money, nor time to go and visit him

“What?! How?”, I shouted, my tone full of disbelief. I dove to snatch her phone and went to messages, so I could see his words with my own eyes.“This can’t be happening,” I thought. “Things like this didn’t happen to good people like him who had already been through so much in life.”

Ever since he had lived in Philly, then moved Alaska, I’d had questions regarding his departure. Sure Philadelphia wasn’t the nicest town, but I never found out what his line of work was there.

“His drink was served to him with cleaner in it while he was out at a restaurant…and you know because of his lupus he was put in the hospital. There’s no way cleaner could’ve gotten all the way from a maintenance closet or something like that and into his drink. That means there was most likely malicious intent. What is wrong with people?” my mother declared.

The exact same things were running through my mind. It just didn’t add up unless someone had done it on purpose.He had expressed before that he lived in a town where there was a lot of discrimination towards the African American race. This caused us to presume because he had spoken of altercations between him and Caucasians. However, neither of us thought it would go that anyone would have taken it to such lengths.

I couldn’t come to terms with the fact that one of my family members was almost killed. Neither us nor Brian ever found out who possibly put the cleaner in his drink or how this (what could only be explained as an accident from the restaurant) took place if there wasn’t someone involved.

Eventually, Brian was discharged from the hospital and decided to move back to Philadelphia after much deliberation. I was glad to hear the news, and personally, I wouldn’t blame him for wanting to move back. All people have a choice at some point in their life to something right or wrong.

A few weeks after the incident I looked back and shook my head in shame because this is the society we live in today. I just hope our generation is the one to change it for the better.

I’m a programmer at heart. I love making games and code for people to enjoy. Whenever I have free time, I’m usually on my laptop coding on Scratch. In case you’re wondering, Scratch is a free online coding tool for games and animations. I’ve made four games so far, and my friends enjoy them!

I first started coding in fifth grade. It was like any other day. I walked into computer class and sat at my desk, staring at the empty screen before me. That’s when my teacher asked us to log on to codecademy.com. We were doing something new today. He then instructed us to make an account and start the HTML course on the site. ‘What is HTML’ I thought. I remember it saying, “Write anything between the brackets and click Submit.” I reluctantly did what it said. When I clicked ‘Submit,’ my words appeared on the screen. I was blown away. TECHNOLOGY!!!! This was completely unheard of in my life! I was so excited that I went on to finish the entire course. Now, I’m coding in advanced languages like Javascript and Python. I later found Scratch when I was 13.

One of my games is called ‘Boulder Dash.’ It’s where you have a little character collecting coins while avoiding falling boulders. Each coin equals 100 points and the boulders will drop faster for every 5 coins you get. Sounds simple, right? Good. I like keeping things simple. ‘Boulder Dash’ has an easy concept that can become so difficult. In fact, no one has been able to get past 1700, the high score. I have reset it a few times, but only if I’m testing it for bugs or something. I want my games to be the best they can be.

An older game I made was called ‘Ship Brawl’ (I should give it a better name.) It’s a space-themed two-player game. Basically, there are two spaceships; a player controls each. The goal is to shoot your opponent’s ship five times. I put a lot of work into this game. It’s coolest feature is the speed mechanism, which allows players to have their ships travel in speeds ranging from -10 to 10. You have the power to go super fast and chase your opponent, or show off your skills by flying in reverse! However, I’m not writing to explain my accomplishments as a programmer. A few weeks ago, I went on Scratch, eager to create a new game. I got right to work, but something was wrong. I wasn’t feeling inspired about anything. I was drawing a blank. I tried to think of the things I liked, but nothing came up. My mind was deadlocked and it’s like I was in show hole or something.

For days, I was pacing around my room, desperately searching for an idea. A few came to mind, but I later decided that they’d be too hard or too bland. Among these bad ideas were a pizza-making game and Pong. There was so many things I wanted in a game- multiplayer modes, secret levels, power-ups, you name it. The thing was, I didn’t know what I could do to combine them all. I didn’t show it, but besides my school work, this was a serious situation.

Eventually, I decided to take a little break for game making and focus more on other things. I gave myself a few days to think, and of course, nothing came of it. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I don’t get it, I thought, why can’t I think of an idea? If I have no inspiration, my brain begins to hurt, and when my brain begins to hurt, I can’t focus on anything! To this day, I’m still waiting to be inspired, but I do keep myself alive by actually playing games. Hopefully it’ll help.

P.S. If you want to play my games, look up “UptownAxe” on Scratch. That’s where they are.

Eli Zimmerman Miss. Pahomov English 2 29, September 2016

Just to set the record straight: I love my grandparents, as well as my aunt and uncle. However, every three months or so my parents and I travel down to Virginia to see my family, every time I go I’m terrified. It’s just what they think to be normal is completely different from my variation of normal. Both my fathers grandparents come from a Catholic and Republican family. I am Atheist and have what I believe to be left wing points of view. My Aunt Val and Uncle Bryce do not care about politics at all, because they believe each side has a major flaw that deters them from either party. Nonetheless, they still have a very country suburban lifestyle which at time can be intimidating.

My first time going to Virginia I was 10 and out of all the trips we have made down there, this one was by far the worst. I remember getting in the car, ready to drive down to see my uncle for the first time in a couple years. I had no idea what to expect, I was nervous, anxious and excited. So my family made the three hour drive down to Purcellville, Virginia, a suburb of Washington D.C. My uncle lives in an old country style log cabin that is 4 stories with old windows. To get to the house, you have to drive down a gravel road. At this time my grandfather and grandmother had retired, so Bryce had offered up his guest house to them as a permanent residence. I remember pulling up to the house and being astonished by how nice his property was. In total there are two houses, a 4 car garage, a loft above the garage, and a swimming pool. All of this is on nearly 8 acres of land.

As we arrived in our Volvo station wagon I noticed Bryce, Val and my grandparents were all out in the driveway waiting for us. My Uncle Bryce is 6’3 stocky man with a grey goatee that matches his somewhat long hair. My aunt Val is short, about 5’5 and has blonde short hair. I remember getting out of the car and giving my uncle a handshake, I was astonished by the sheer size of his hands in proportion to mine. Bryce can be a very intimidating man when you first meet him because he’s a technical thinker, this means he does not always take into mind the feelings of the person to whom he is conversing with. So he began asking me questions I did not know the answer to, which embarrassed me infront of the whole family.

After his bombardment of questions I went over to hug my grandparents, they lived in Florida prior to the move to Purcellville so I rarely ever saw them. My grandma and grandpa both have an old fashioned parenting style so I had to go out of my way to be super precatious around them, especially when it came to my vulgar sense of vocabulary. I remember after all the hugs and hellos we all went into the house to eat an early 4 o’clock dinner. Once we all sat down my grandfather asked me to say grace and I quickly became terrified, I had never said grace before. After a couple moments of silence my grandfather breaking the quiet by beginning his prayer. After we began serving my grandma scolded my granddad for asking me to say that. I felt so bad at the time, I felt as if I was letting my family down by not knowing how to say christian prayer at the dinner table which scares me now to think about today. How could I have been expected to know how to say grace when I had never been exposed to christianity. Bryce told me later on in the stay my grandfather had done the same exact thing to his kids and it was no big deal. It felt as if my grandad was expecting all kids in our family to know about christianity and a god. By the end of the trip I felt as if I didn’t belong to my family solely based on the fact I didn’t know how to say grace. I will never forget this event because it reminded me how different I am from my family but in reality I am proud of my independence because that’s what makes who I am.

“You may delay, but time will not.”-Benjamin Franklin. I have never been good with time, partly because i procrastinate and partly because I lose track of it. The more i grew up the more I understood how time works but I still don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Being focused on time caused me to be forgetful of other things, but being not focused on time made me late and uncaring.

“Jimmy wake up you’re late for school!”

Oh boy. Here we go again. As soon as I hear those words, I already know that I’m going to get slapped and get water thrown on my face because I’m a heavy sleeper. My Dad takes waking up very seriously for some reason even though we’re usually late so it really doesn’t matter

“Ok ok I get it I’m up!” I exclaim. During my 8th grade year, I was late every day so it wasn’t a surprise when I got woken up like this.

“Were gonna be late get up! If your mom finds out about this, you’re not the only the that will be in trouble,” The worst part about being late wasn’t getting beat up by my Dad or being talked to by the principal or the teacher, but it was my Mom.

“Jimmy this is your 4th lateness in a row. You need to pick it up this is your 47th lateness. You need to realize that being on time is important. It interrupts your learning and everybody else’s, I also need to tell your parents,” My advisor explains. Unfortunately, this information went in one ear and out the other, the only word i heard was parents.

When I got home, I was preparing for the inevitable. I heard the door opening a little earlier than usual and I was not ready.

“‘Beep Beep Beep…’ Jimmy wake up it’s time for practice,” I hear my alarm and my mother at the same time, which means it’s time to wake up for practice again. Fortunately, I did all my homework except for one. Usually, when I do my homework, I do all of it except for one and I have no idea why. What this means is that I do it in the car on my way to practice or at school. This usually works out fine for the most part.

“Jimmy, are you doing your homework in the car again? It looks like you’re not done and we’ve arrived,” my Dad says. Sometimes when you plan things out, it doesn’t work out in the end, and this is a perfect example of that. When I said saving my homework for later usually works, I lied. It never works but almost always I can finish it at school.

“Rockets on three family on six!” It was the end of practice and we did the usual chant. We, unfortunately ended a little late, but what I had was faith. Taking the bus to school is the fastest but I Already knew it was probably going to make me late. I also knew that taking the trolley was going to get me there and was consistent, so I decided to take that.

“Of course I get here at 8:10,” I say with a sigh.

Turns out it didn’t work out. Sometimes when you think things out, time just doesn’t go your way. If only time didn’t flow then you wouldn’t have to worry about being late or early, you could have time for anything you wanted to do, but I don’t know if it would be a good thing or a bad thing.